The Vestige of Thorns

Remove this mortal coil
 The nucleus of life, a vestige flame
 Where memories are adrift in a capitulum hollow
 Remove the heart and marrow
 The perpetual rhythm in a pallid cage
 Replace it with thorns, dried with age
 Scar me, bleed me
 Remove the ghost of being
 The spiritual fiber which makes a man
 Lost inside, haunting this fragile cavity
 Like smoke that abandons the flame
 A shadow's impression which never fades
 Replace it with thorns, dried with age
 Pierce me, release me
 Fill what is left with a coil of thorns
 Fill what is left with rusty nails
 Fill what is left with obsidian shards
 Shatter me, destroy me...
 Make me whole again
 Leave a briar of thorns where once stood a man
 There are fragments of wisdom in decline