I felt your light thinning through the cage of my rotten heart,
slipping past joints that refused to remember how to hold themselves.
The black rot crawled, uncoiling in my veins,
braiding fingers through my ribs, stitching hollow lungs to useless lungs.
Your torch flickered against me,
its warmth trembling over the skin I had already eaten from within,
and I knew I am not changing,
only learning the art of failing you,
a curriculum of bones and blackened sinew.
Thus once more began the night.