I just sit and watch the grotesque patterns play out
like shadows on a wall…
shadows of marionettes,
their strings dangling like severed entrails
Images of war and human on human hatred.
I can no longer make out where one limb ends and another begins
the shapelessness of the bodies twist and contort before me
my mind unable to make sense of the sight.
I insert blood and water and mud in an attempt to reduce it
to reduce the image to earth.
Earth, my mind understands
But this carnage is more than my understanding can bear.
Why the terror
The sheer terror takes hold of me like a beast
Hungry after days without food
With young ones whining in the den.
She must rend and tear my spine from my back
She must be sure
There can be no failure here
Lest the blood of her children pour from her fur.
I am not a victim.
I should be proud.
I am a savior.
The next sustaining meal to a family
neither poor nor rich.
Only elemental, living on the Earth.
Earth, my mind understands and yet the voice screams
“this is unfair, unjust….not ready to be kil-”
Not ready? or not willing?
My mind can’t make itself up.
So I cut away the strings, the extrails parading as vital organs.
I cut them away and willingly give my life to the mother beast.
But she does not take it.
I don’t look like prey any longer.
Were the sky’s still blue you would see her eyes glint
And would ascertain her meaning.
But the grey saturates and I am left standing
With only a guess and a breath that tastes like that of a newborn’s.
Cold and unsettling
But with the full force of life.
