Stumbling in the dark

So many years,
and still I'm stumbling in the dark,
charcoal grating on a classroom blackboard,
obsidian,
indistinguishable.

You ask me what I know,
what expertise is mine alone,
what light I bring into the world,
and hopeful stars blink briefly,
flutter into consciousness,
then spread their silent wings and drift away.
The promise that I might have been unique,
the flicker of possibility stutters,
dies unborn in the arms of memory.

O fecund night, whose blossoms dream and die,
what is there left to say that's not been said,
how can these fingers dance across the page,
these lips breathe words that fall, fail,
ashes to a carpet,
burning another hole in the threadbare fabric.

I squat and stir the flames of others' brilliance,
craving illumination.