“We possess nothing in this world […] except the power to say ‘I’.
That is what we have to give to God – in other words, to destroy.
There is absolutely no free act which it is given us to accomplish
– only the destruction of the ‘I’.” – Simone Weil

Our concrete existence
must suffer; though it gives pleasure
the flesh decays,
the mind feels pain
           & must endure
thoughts that crawl like worms through the dirt
        of the mind,

to where the “I” resides
rejecting transience,
    insisting
on a permanence
that could only become
an affliction without hope
    of redemption.
       
Everything of value,
    without exception,
doesn’t derive from the “I” but arrives
outside,
    as a gift
            in the form of
                        pure & perfect attention.

The “I” knows it cannot live alone, but
it relents
to temptation & attempts
to see you suffer,

which is really only a hand trying to cover
a mouth that wants to ask:

        “Why don’t you forsake me?”

So
to destroy the “I” we must release it;
allowing
        the evanescence
            of instinct
to detach itself & so accept death
        as a gentle friend,
wanting only to welcome us
at the end that comes to catch us
        as we fall.

We should destroy the “I”
so that we can leave behind deception,
& search for something different
despite the desperation.