Axiom of Dust

I woke with the world still warm in my handsbefore the shape of loss had found mebefore the mind became a roomwith something locked outside

every creature turned toward languageand I gave each silence a nameas if naming was communionas if knowing was the same

there was no distance thennot even the thought of distanceonly breath inside the dustand the dust learning to rise

I did not know I was nakeduntil I saw myself apartone voice listening for Your footstepsone voice counting every tree

and the garden did not vanishthe leaves still opened in the lightthe rivers carried their silver namesthrough a world I could no longer enter

something in me stepped awaybefore my feet were driven east

I thought knowledge would make me largerbut it gave me edgesit drew a line through the center of my chestand called the wound myself

I thought my eyes were openingbut the light became unbearableand every branch above melooked like a question I had broken

this was the first equationbreath divided by dustlife becoming consciousof the ground beneath it

so I covered myself in dying greenand called the covering wisdomI gathered leaves against the terrorof being known completely

but mercy came with animal weightwith warmth I could not explainand the first law written over shamewas written into skin

something innocent had openedsomething wordless had been tornand I wore the cost of staying alivebefore I understood death

was this the beginning of timeor the moment time became a woundwas I alive before the ending entered meor only innocent of its name

east of the morningeast of the breatheast of the place where nearnesshad not fractured into left and right

I became the first distanceI became the first dividean axiom of dustwith eternity inside

the ground received me differentlynot as sonnot as songbut as something it would one day take back

and I heard the thorns before I saw themsmall crowns waiting in the soillike the earth had learned my outlineand answered me with resistance

I pressed my hands into the fieldand felt the garden underneathnot gonenot nearnot silent

only barred from being simple

I walked out carrying Edennot as homebut as hunger

every field became a memory of treesevery river bent away from my mouthevery child of my bodyopened their eyes into exile

and stillthe Voice behind the flamedid not sound like hatred

stillthe breath remainedinside the sentence of my body

so let the sword burn brightlet the east wind know my namelet the dust keep what it was promisedI have no innocence to defend

I am not what I wasI am not only what I ruinedI am breath beneath a sentenceI am earth remembering light

and if the first truth is dustthen let the dust confessit was touched onceit was raised onceit was given the shape of a man

east of the morningeast of the breatheast of the gardenI carry what is left

I became the first distanceI became the first dividean axiom of dustwith eternity inside

not homenot wholenot lost enoughto stop hearing

not cleannot blindnot dead enoughto stop breathing

I was once a gardenbefore I was a man

I was once a gardenbefore I was a man