Expiry is a versatile notion

It is beneath the sod you march,

soil raking off your outsole

and tumbling forth onto

the stained wood floors

of an entity constructed within a core

It is laced through the tome

in the curious hands of youth,

gripping the riches of

plundered lumber, an inked declaration;

a tale as ancient as I am,

soul reaped beside a reform

It is manufactured within the stripling itself

birthing from Death a babe

and perishing into renaissance

Pure as the creek it will frolic along,

golden rays soaking the locks and 

childish grin, bearing its luck-drawn fangs

merely a gamble of fate 

that it is the one to knock 

upon the misfortunate

And in time, 

It will be the adverse

Albeit the flickering face of existence,

eternally altering,

forever sealing answers

that there will never be a key to,

Is betrothed the title of Life Itself

It is as natural as I am

as confounding as I am,

uniformly terrifying 

yet dearestly welcome - 

with open arms or shut eyes

clutching a regrouping of cells 

or sobbing through the withdrawal of

rebuilding existence

We are not a contrast;

Not one black or white

Nor echo or answer

Nor left or right

Nor noose or seed

Nor day or night

We are the permanent oxymoron

an oath of existence

etched between fraction and molecule

and a platitude taught

within the walls of consciousness;

a science conceived with

matter equal to matter

And now, I beckon out to you

I have crooned my melody,

as saccharine as the birdsong

repeating behind limpid glass

where neither Death nor Life

can hold out

I pledge a reset -

To begin again

You have existed,

assuredly passive,

wholeheartedly content

In a life never claimed as yours;

a voice spoken by hundreds,

A name muttered by thousands,

temptation, a second-hand soul 

dressed to tailor requisite

Recycled through generations,

reused and abused,

beaten and graved,

defied and revived, 

a million lives completed

yet a million more to be altered

However every bit yours to remain

And in time,

fate will reach you

And in time,

without assurance or limit,

you will expire

And in time,

when the seedling 

frond bursts past the sod

you will begin