Barrow-wight

Some days I stand empty,
silenced save for the ghosts wandering my halls
running chill fingers through the dust layering heart and spleen and the edges of my eyelids.
Some days it is hard not to linger,
listening to the spidery whispers of all my wrongs
recited like a litany of healing
though the wounds never seem to close.
Some days everything I am is spilled upon the Earth,
covered in the fanning wings of a butterfly seeking salt
and the hard shining carapaces of beetles feeding.
My hands touch my cheek
and come away crumbling
at the strange friction of gentleness.
All that is falls away,
floats as ash,
stinging eyes and coating larynx,
a strangely joyful conflagration twining up from within,
washing hands and head and heart
in the molten sorrows of my regret.