Once the dust has settled,
you climb the tallest hill on the horizon,
and once you are atop it,
you take in the destruction and sigh.

There is nothing left.
There is nothing left for you.
Some demon within you whispers
that you never had possession.

The demon then calls for revenge
stunned or killed with a poisoned syringe,
in the form of blood it weeps
praying for you to wake from your sleep.
“They have harmed you. And your people
in methods inherently lethal,
they are the evil, deceitful, gleeful madmen
and you the white knight of light without sin.
So would you stand at their bodies
and pray? And sacrifice? Be gaudy
at the piers and graves,
’cause for this violence, a part of you craves.”

You find ways
to pass the days.
In front of you, there she lays:
a terrifying shell you watch with your gaze,
judging and forlorn,
at dawn and dusk you adjourn.
At night and day you weep and yearn
for the nation you don’t have anymore.
For what you’re missing,
a resisting or a thinking or a blessing.
In your eyes hard and unforgiving
you blink. you turn. and you are no longer living.

“Marionettes on strings,“
your complement sings,
“spring with your wings and fly as a king;
your crown is gold as are your rings—
you are already too close to becoming what you hate.
What you suppose is a position with much too weight
for you to carry and haul and run at a steady rate,
so your innate weakness I must dictate.“

Once the dust has settled,
observes the demon’s vessel,
you climb the tallest hill on the horizon,
movements choppy with hyphens-
and once you are atop it,
the voice commands you to sit,
you take in the destruction and sigh,
a noise typically low but now so high.