Every Word Means Vampire in the Language of the Words

What or who is that shy part of you
That craves life in shadows and ruins?
Why would such a want exist in you,

Exist in anyone, and is it
Truly a desire at all? Fancy
Can be tricky that way, delicious

Only as imagination’s sauce
Slathering the blander leftovers
Of chopped and reheated memory.

If you woke up in the shadowy
Ruins of an actual city
Tomorrow, even one provided

With unexpired goods, if apocalypse
Was yesterday, or well surrounded
By abundant meadows and forests,

If the end descended long ago,
Would you feel delighted very long?
Probably not by the first nightfall.

And yet there’s a furtive soul in you,
An incomplete personality,
A half-formed wraith or malformed notion

That fancies yourself a wanderer,
Romantic, almost, a cloaked figure
In the shadows of a ruined wall.

It’s not really life that person craves.
That person is only phrases, words,
Ruins themselves, not persons at all.