Split Sides

Your Hand

I was inspired to write this piece after listening to Winter Solstice by Phoenix and being amazed at how it deeply resonated with me. It was inspired by the lead vocalist Thomas Mars staying in a town in Northern California during the 2019 wildfire season, where his town was so engulfed by the fires and the smoke that the sun didn't shine for two days. It's that sense of fear and strife and loss, coupled with my personal experiences of pain and uncertainty, that led me to write this. Phoenix, thanks for the inspiration. I love you guys.

"My Lord, why have you forsaken me?"
Don't know if it's true
That Jesus said them on the cross
But these words leave my parched mouth
As I lay on a pool of my own blood.
My energy, the vigor of life
Rushes out of my body
And I shiver, my hands and toes numbing,
Causing me to feel my soul
Being pulled away to the eternal darkness.
I sense a pair from my back
Digging into me and torturing me from within.
I attempt to move but I feel a searing hurt
Where those two things hit me.
I lie on my back and use my shallow breaths
Destroying my mind by thinking,
"Oh, why did you do this to me?
I never expected it, never believed it,

That I could be brought down
By the last person I thought of.
How could the very person I loved and cherished,
The person I entrusted with every piece of me,
My torrid past and elusive dreams,
My vulnerable heart and my lonely soul,
Be the person to obliterate me?"
I use what remaining strength I have left
To turn my face and weep my last tears,
My heart being broken again,
Perhaps for the last time
As I look at you, look deeply into your eyes
To find not a trace of emotion
On them, much less your face.
Your hand lies limp,
Gripping the smoking gun
That you hold like a lifeline
And in that moment I belatedly realize
That you no longer see me
As your hero, your beacon of light
In this corrupted world
But as your villain, the unspeakable monster
That you hated and detested
And should've ended a long time ago.
You turn away and leave me
To my impending death.
And I whisper to myself,
Feebly hoping you'll somehow hear me,
"Good lord, how could you do it?
What drove you to kill me?
How could you, the love of my life
End up as my murderer?"