overwhelming sense of dread

my face is a cage

and the doves inside are suffocating

in a pile of their own shit

my arms are broken wings

and their featherless forms are useless

in the mud,

in the dirt,

in the silt,

in the pores of the earth,

with the worms,

the moles,

the bugs,

what is the meaning of it all, anywho?

is it part of some grand scheme, some astral plot

to make us whole again

some day far from now?

perhaps, on the contrary, there is nothing;

are we born simply to exist?