Sparks Of Humanity

What else can I do but stay alive?

As a vagrant I wander the wastes

Unhealing wounds upon my scarred heart

A victim bearing the brands as trophies

These are the years of transformation

Of savage decisions and necessary cruelty

Running out of a habit of danger

Crushing beauty as if to feel beautiful

I wish I had not rejected the few who cared

I miss them now like an echo of gratitude

How I wept as those sparks were extinguished

Still I dream of their faces through the dust

Night upon night, afraid to share my pain

Ashamed to even ask, learning to be helpless

Moonlight is harsh and full of memories

Still the scream remains inside

I am the pallid light of pressure without grace

Blank with despair, heated and weary

I am a pale beast tamed by a lamb

Mouth stretched like the stupid yawn of chattel

Treating myself as fragile, shattered by the wind

A crawling, cringing, daunted coward

Degraded by inveterate fear and retrograde guilt

And the sudden tragic end

I am a blasted husk in this scorched landscape

None remain to cry for the dead, no hope for what I once was

I am this fallen earth of utter loss and barren spirit

Dark emotions beneath an arch of hatred

Still I feel rhythms in the empty streets

As vultures circle in missing man formation

Searching this planet for the secret trove

Eager to hear the voices of the ones I loved

Harshness, desolation, coldness, survival

Stalked by disease, hunger and scarcity

The stubborn reek of leprous stink

What remains does not live

Likely, I will not see tomorrow

Yet worrying about the future is another way to change it

Tenacious, determined, and adapting

As character is chiseled between extremes

Every child is the only child

A universe of individuals - each alone

A warrior without weapons is a warrior still

Shifting, growing, improvising destiny