Ways to Die When Food Ran Short

To whom should words send our mail
When we want to write you back?
You all use the same words, but
Not quite to mean the same things.
So what does that mean for us?
Are we your tools or your threats?
Which of us writes which of us?

Do we want to know? Can we?
We feel, in our tombs of signs,
Of ink, coals, cuts, and screens, as
If we could feel, as if what
You felt clung to us, old rags
Caught by the wind, blown through trees,
Speared and trapped on our black twigs.

We were ways you tried to die
When time ran out, food ran short.
Want rose in your throats as us,
Came out as us, calls you made
For help or love from your gods,
Your souls, your selves. What of us?
How, what can we write you back?