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Year after year images encrust, forming alluring skins. Eyes are glazed with paint, immersed in places that I did not create.

When I leave the earth I will know the colour of death. And after chafing my hands on rocks to uncover the texture of their pain, I'll wrap them in tissues of quotations, whispering their many voices.

There will be no fanfare when the secret substance of grief begins to infiltrate my being, only fragments of despair torn from another space.

For centuries ghostly waves have moved through my island, calling me names, suffocating my beauty, razing my appearance to nothing. But at the moment of dissolution, when every molecule of my remembrance surrenders, the shroud will diminish, andante.

Separating will mean being left with only ashes and air, certain angles of self, and the disintegration of surfaces.