REWRITE: Sandcastles

I built this castle on the rock of my isolation

on the rasp of stone on stone.

Only this forges my conviction;

in this I steel my cold faith.

I laid fortifications on solitude,

lonely citadels in seclusion:

my great battlements of exile.

Here alone I bear this adamantine chain;

Here alone reigns the rule of this certainty.

You came from the desert,

locusts and wild honey.

You told me you had seen mountains erode,

cities turn to salt—

and cracks form in the veils of those who would not see.

You told me that the firmest rocks become shifting sands;

that the days would come

where I would find uncertainty in my certainty;

and discover myself nervous and afraid

in the simplest acts of not being alone.

So you have told me—

but always I am the unbeliever.

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