“Nothing concentrates the mind so much as –”

our demise: the only inevitability we’ll never experience as an actuality;

but to hold one’s mortality in one’s hands,

to draw it in through one’s mouth, suck the life out of it,

to pull death out of dead leaves dealt by a dead company

brings more clarity

than the sands

of salivation

for some entertainment or mist;

give me the death’s head to grasp,

peel away the pustuled scalp of frivolity,

and grant me

a smooth hour of ivory stillness.

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