Revisionist Poetry – “Tenant of the Dark” – Growing, v.4

In dreams, I am overrun.

Not by force at first,
but by manners.

It arrives with its pale hats
and whispering hems,
tipping itself politely
through the corridors of my skull.

“Only a little room,” it seems to say.
“Only a little damp.
Only a corner of your thinking.”

And because it speaks so softly,
I let it in.

It gathers in the brain,
a white hush with clever fingers,
a fog that knows my name
and wears it like a ribbon.

Then it begins to lean,
to confer with my bones,
to tap at the doors of my joints
as though asking permission
to become a resident.

It is not hungry in the crude way.
It is courteous.
It is patient.
It spreads its hands of thread
and reasons with me.

“Look,” it murmurs,
“you are already softening.
You are already making space.
Let us assist.”

So it goes downward
through the candle-fat halls of flesh,
into the warm cellar of the belly,
into the marrow where the oldest stories sleep.

And all the while it speaks,
always speaking,
its voice a velvet rustle,
its breath a bloom of spores.

It tells me of its intentions.
It tells me I am becoming useful.
It tells me decay is only another word
for hospitality.

I do not resist.

Not because I cannot,
though I cannot,
but because it has taught me
to listen.

The body loosens.
The mind grows thin and bright at the edges.
Its little kingdom rises everywhere,
filigreed, fungal, adoring ruin
as if ruin were a marriage bed.

And in the end
I am not consumed so much as revised—
a house with a second mouth,
a host with a tenant
that has learned
to speak in my voice
and call it growth.