Half Life

Soft as the downy skin
that covers the fruits,
fat and fallen,
of summer and spring,
as delicate a sheathe
does cover my own
make-up of pliant skin,
blood and bones,
but unlike the fruits
of the tree,
who take their food
so easily,
I am made barren,
emaciated and at loss
in taking the nutrients
to make the self ripe
and plump,
for I feed so rarely
these days
and the skin gets weak
and breaks in many ways,
ripped, or pinched, or sliced
or gripped, or torn
as easily as a new born
babes- a fine cut like
hair across a razor blade
will leave my hands stripped
of their primordial clay
and adorned with all
the evidences
(pock marks and scabs
and body malformed)
that's indicative of strife
or battering, bludgeoning, force
that causes aches and spooling
pools of claret to emerge,
and by the bite of
teeth, or some other
course, the liquid is
made to pour forth,
and of all the extensions
which from me reach,
it is, particularly,
the hands I need:
these hands create the
language I read and leave
behind the signs that
indicate that I once were,
which is "to be",
and yet, for my indelible
pains,
it befalls that I rarely
eat,
and consequentially,
as I write,
I am cut,
and brought to decrease
while before me, I create
an inexhaustible totem,
and all the while behind
me, I bleed.