[EGO OSO] I come to the water, a visitor invited—drawn by thirst And the quiet dripping of survival’s slow and brutal maths. The bucket waits— cold and empty metal— a vessel for whatever and the weight of its belief. I come to the water, I move like smoke through pines— thin but restless every spring, curling around boulders and bark. Pine resin keeps cold hollow dens. Now I am named and called, shaped into song and fear, an echo lodged in the throat of a lie that tightens like a noose, Because I came to the water. I trace the old trails, where the earth folds the pages of a book written in sediments— the pilgrimmage of moss to stone. Their words stalk me— Vultures skreeling above my carcass their cries splitting the veil of stillness— ripping tendons from the history of raw bones, tearing sinew from the scarred crown scraping the dead branches —that slow unmaking of brittle stories broken down like kindling. I have worn their names like stones in my fur— each one a weight and a wound, —not enough force to break the bone. They cast me in bronze and blood—a statue melting under a sun I'll never see, their fables burning to ash before the dawn of my breathing. They want more paper rags— I give them my still shadow racing on the riverstones below. Let them write in their fear and flames —the shape they invented like they know; I am the river’s teeth on the moon’s throat. I am the river’s teeth on the moon’s throat. I am the river’s teeth on the moon’s throat. How the water comes to swallow their tongues. I come to the water.
