I deal in diction, in dried ink

words finely chopped into

a stew of sentence structure and

a plot, should you find yourself

needing a little reprieve.

Though what I convey is

concrete and moist with life

your eager eyes enlighten it

to a heavenly post of the most

innocent belief.

You make me feel like dancing.

Child, do not worry about

the thorns at the corner of every page,

slitting the red berry juice from your

trembling appendages.

Just don’t let your blood

obscure my precious words.

My dry limbs are instructions to living,

a monologue deprived of stage directions.

You, however, can melt my words

into that salty gray fluid which makes

your tongue curl and your fingers twitch.

I have been dead a long time.  But you

dutifully uphold the illusion, propping me

into the wet, churning world.  Your only advantage lies

in which body part you were born from.

Even while being slowly eaten on the shelf,

I remain stained to you, another victim

of the virus.

“Mine” is a possessive pronoun.