Words are destroyed
in the Shadow City
one by one and
in batches at a time.

Words vanish into
cracks and crevices
darker than our lives,
their definitions
expunged forever.

Books become
unreadable as the
parallel black bars
of the inspector’s
stamp eradicate
entire passages.

Songs are unsingable
when their lyrics
are slashed and
there is no longer
any sense or rhyme.

As the shadows
quicken in layer
upon layer, erasing
the shades of our
language, striping
away all subtlety
from our minds,
our thoughts slow
and thicken in kind.

Soon all that will
remain for us to
speak, to perceive,
to express, will be
a single word bound
by a singular intent
that comprises the
bereft vocabulary
or our lives.