When I was born
they handed me a prescription
Words scribbled, ash on parchment
I took to be law
and I lived by this
like sacred text
although the words would skew
and letters change
as unexpected breezes shot through windows
and the wind changed direction
And when I died
I learned to breathe
exhaled and sent my script
into the universe
pieces of black to land
on someone else’s parchment
Another story
for another’s day
Now revived
I smooth clean paper
empty with possibility
I collect particles
loose ash of lives unloved
I move their words to where
they want to be
until my own are formed
forever etched in stone.