I walked down the hillside in the soft morning sun
To a playing ground bereft of souls
Light so bright, I was the only one
To occupy that nothingness, and gone
Were the consolations for agonies old
Sat on the swings, I gazed at a washed
Out world, brittle kindling for my fire
The voices I needed intensely hushed
Hoping my unseemly frenzy would tire
Or better, that I was merely a liar
That my young adventure equally rushed
In and out meant nothing, to I as to they
I must learn to sink my trouble away
Sink into what? My grey, scratched, mean
Plot where in time a hateful forest would gleam
And starve from oxygen any hope of days
That were not twisted round the poisonous beam.
The bomb that flashed that morning left
My shadow on the swings, half my life before
I can't remember, gently forced to ignore,
The other half I can't stop remembering, deaf
As the world talked to itself, and sure
That I had marked my high point of death
Realising that moment of inhabiting the park
Was the last time I would ever form part
Of the world, those last sights and sounds
When I disappeared, with a snap and a spark
That drew my brief attempt back into the ground
Because I could not, and since still can't, break that fear
That I was alone, in a world bursting at the seams
The fear grows despite, year after year
Fighting with flabbier strength in my dreams
To wake out of the death-sleeping streams
And justify living yet another sad day here. @nepion_boreas17
