Memories erased, smashed upon this desert floor
How much did you do? How far did it go? You
Never said. But now is too late, for you have ended
Like so many others before you. A chill tickles gently
As the winds hasten. The sand brought with it dries your tears
Crusts your cheeks, and hides the blood
An irrevocable deed done, pure evil resonates, carries
On the breeze, to distant lands never known by you
Or I
A hidden place, somewhere between here and there
We are unable to see them, but they can see us. Judge us
It’s not Heaven or Hell, or that little place in between. They, I’m afraid are fake
Like the smile I wear in this troubled time
“Remove it, the burden is too much” I hear your weak voice cry
Hidden in the wind. You don’t listen to yourself.
I fear that far off place, where we are evaluated. What things the creatures
Can do to me, to you, to us
Chills to the core, paralyzes every fibre knitted within
Too late for regrets, now, the red sand tells us
You must continue on, live with the doubt you should not have
I must continue on, live with the joy I should have
But I don’t feel. Why? Those beasts are watching, from in that torn fabric
They will get me when I am asleep, they will blame
They will say I should’ve stopped what has been done
Yet I wanted it as much as you. More than you, perhaps.
That icy blanket that we cannot see surrounds us. Night
Has come to this wasteland
We must move on
Separately, go unseen veiled by the deft cloak of night
“Unseen even by those things, you so fear?”
I’m afraid not, they will strike where no one else can see.
“It’s cruel out here,”
Then we must go.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A heat so great the sand is turned to glass
The end of all we know
The start of something new
Something better
No, something different.
I saw it in the distance. The mind-splitting white flash
The vomit-inducing heat.
A great cloud rose,
A fist reaching for the sky.
The start of something new
Something better
Something different.
Broken toys, shattered homes
Seared flesh and melted bone
There was nothing great to return to. No welcome
No company. We had gone alone
And alone we stood. Alone I stood
The journey had been long, and little rest taken
Trying to keep away from that place in between, where the monsters lurk.
My travelling, which I thought would end here,
Has only just begun.
The streets stood silent
The homes crumbled, empty.
The people, nothing more than piles of ash of ooze
I had probably breathed in a lung-full of pre-inhabitants
In this post-land. Scorched earth complained under tread
The place where once green grass stood regimented, now blackened
And all I knew, gone.
My only friend had disappeared North, as I had gone South.
Not even the winds spoke back, as I called for help. That smile, long since fallen
From my face, left a lingering cold
More potent than the chill of the desert at night
The work of those beasts, my beasts, had begun.
I pondered for a moment on my friend, who I exiled from myself
And thought if they too were yet suffering
In the same way
Then the rest of the world seeped into my mind, and I
Thought, where else had this happened?
I crunched over shards of glass, fragments of where I use to live
Trying to find a friend, in this
The Burning Wasteland.
