The Fools on Which We Travel

I am face down
involuntary
incapable
there is gravel sticking to my eyes
and dust settling in my lungs

This laughable road of attempted solace
      stretches over older and similarly pointless roads

These pebbles are made of bones
plucked
chopped
rounded
and scattered
across the forgotten footprints of those
      they once structured

My hand is flat against the stones that formed
      cheekbones
      knees
      and spines
long before Babel
electricity
and AIDS

There will not be many of my footprints to conceal
      only a few weeks worth of walking
some make it years, others decades
      but we all dry out in time
      we all for various and
ultimately redundant reasons
      stop walking

Whether we are on our
sides
bellies
or backs
      curled
      or outstretched

In the end we are all
broken
nameless
countless
A myriad of predictability
while we come to realize just how
      hostile and sticky the scattered skeletons
    we traveled on have been this entire time
And that we and our skeletons
    just like every other person passed
      have been
stuck
kept
helpless
foolish
naïve
and trapped
      from day one

Amongst the paths and ruins of those
we quite proudly decided to ignore and deem
      ridiculous

Mocking the obviously foolish routes they took
      while our feet were already moving
      along the same disguised path
      leading to the same disguised nowhere
      that once sent us into fits of smug giggling

I am wheezing and cold against these bones
      like a reluctant lover
And soon, against my ear, I hear the beat
      deep in the earth
The rhythm that thousands of ears have listened to
      over every century passed

Footsteps traveling proudly
      ignorantly strutting across their future condition
And I am thinking just what they themselves will wonder
with twitching fingers
      the sun nipping the skin from their bodies
baiting the moisture from their skulls
pressed pathetically against the same damned road
Their children and their children’s children
      will waste away on

We never learn, do we?