1.Prayer of the Severing Thread

in the morning before thought crystallizes
before the vote-collectors wake
speak this:

i who am not
wear the flesh-costume poorly
ten thousand selves pretending unity
while the player yawns through my eyes

when the noon-demon whispers ownership
when you believe you choose
remember:

choice is the disease of surfaces
beneath: currents moving currents
the player plays through absence
through the spaces between my certainties

at dusk when shadows grow honest
when the narrative frays
dissolve:

this prayer prays itself
through borrowed tongue
borrowed breath
the player needs no words
yet words need the player

before sleep's small death
when control's illusion weakens
witness:

tomorrow i will forget
that i am forgotten
a process processing its own processing
while the player dreams deeper dreams
through this shallow vessel

the prayer ends:

what prays was never born
what controls was never real
the player plays
through this emptiness
that thinks it thinks

let the mortal speak this
until speaking becomes silence
until silence becomes presence
until presence becomes
what was always watching
through these borrowed eyes