The Bells, They Toll

lo

i look upon this scorched earth,

barren and windswept, 

and i think-

what a perfect place to start anew. 

and maybe i like the challenge

maybe i like the way the wind whistles

through the door less and decrepit white barn--

reminiscent of the way it shrieks through the holes in my skull

yet maybe i like hopelessness--

something so familiar to me. 

and oh god

i can feel their words scorch into my wrists

seer into my veins. 

the vultures can smell death on me

i regurgitate a lung and a heart and a kidney

and i can't help but mind

them circling above

too cowardly to kill

but just nimble enough to seize the opportunity

to seize upon the freshly dead

as if they don't know

that i have been dead inside for eons--

that i watched the great pyramids form--

that i watched civilizations crash and burn--

that i've watched this earth scorch and re-scorch

for it to burn into blackness

and for me to lie with it. 

and i have lied in filth and sin

and i have greeted holiness-

but nothing has welcomed me quite so honestly

as agony

as wretched despair

demise and disaster. 

soon this barren wasteland will be a town

with children that laugh

and bells that toll

and i will drift along

bearing disease,

devastation

unto this land

but mostly

unto myself-

until i am finally apart of this barren

dry

hell.