We stain time, as time stains us.
We are covered with a crust like a plaster statue.
What we discard we have rejected within ourselves
And we take with us what we hurt ourselves with.

We have to digest what we undergo in life.
We formulate an incantation against loss.
There is something within us that we use to defend ourselves
Against life. The test of time is more like a molar

With which we chew on death. We petrify
And fall apart into shards. Who bleeds connects
His wounds and he staggers further on bare legs.

You never know where you will find your destination
Like the fate from which your origins have disappeared.
In the silence you hear the resonance of a child.

Alex de Vries, 2017, Amsterdam