I left them sat atop a bookshelf
A set of tapes freshly wound
Stories convoluted
And too long to simply write about

No clear order to be found
None more worthy of a crown

As I set the final in its place
I felt my heart rip out my chest
Through the shelves and into the spines
Of the text below where it were to rest

In the walls that surround
Restless fists begin attempts
To claw through into the prism
Illuminating dust that covers them

With hollow eyes and empty throats
They call out for my pulsing hands
Opening a half worked pad of notes
I scribble their names with a dying pen

And as the shutters begin to sway and flutter
I grow dizzy and succumb to heat
Left to watch their once able bodies
Cremate from solids into ink