Tapestry

I am still ahead of the competition
Hell
I am the competition
I am the self-depleting energy source
The distraction
The bait

I look back
Now
It was perfect
I already had all the holes in my head
All you had to do was weave the hook in
Some certain length of line
I didn't even think I'd been reigned in
Up here in first place
But you had a lap
Under your belt
Before I even put mine on
You were already practicing your victory speech
Before I picked up my pen

By the time I could even begin to rise from the ash
You'd already immortalized that too
Ash as a beautiful tapestry
Too festively unassuming to
Operate as anything but a blanket
Imagine that
Being lulled to sleep by something
That stands for a thousand words
On the only sleep that no one wants to fall into
Seeing more clearly by virtue of smoke
I was pondering that maybe it was a--
but then I awoke
And I guess I could have just let this die
If it was just my soul
That was vaporized
But I think the initial count
Was somewhere around three thousand