It’s when the blood comes out that the wisdom gets in,
pooling on the bruise in purple splotches,
the evidence of hard-earned lessons 
written on your face
like a bouquet of cursive stitches;

it’s when the experience piles up on your bones
that you start to feel them cracking and popping
in ways they never did before,
it’s when your skin starts to tug and tear against its frame
that you begin to get the idea.

You’re falling apart, you’re being ground down
by a millstone you’ve been wearing since you were born,
and whether by circumstance or design
or through no fault of your own
the lore is getting into you:

you’re disintegrating, piece by piece,
your cells made into sand in the hourglass,
and what’s left behind is nothing but a ghost,
a contrail of the pain you’ve suffered,
a cloud-shape blowing away in the wind
the sum total of your knowledge
no heavier than a fleck of dust,
and a bloodstain the same size
as the wisdom you took with you.