I have kept you to long
in this prison made of words
and hidden requests.

You were meant to be free,
not bound by empty promises
and broken conditions.

Take your freedom and fly,
don’t turn back.
Let this all fade into
a black pit, never to see light again.

It is better this way,
you will see, in a day or a week.
This is the way the sticks were meant to fall.

So use your new found wings,
and fly.

It's with the aftermath
that we are clothed.
Burnt flesh and chared hands
raised as skinny antennas
to the sky.
An earthly protest against
a heavenly curse.

For they crumble,
these ancient walls.
Created by bloody hands,
only to drowned in their
own creation.

Familiarity is passing
with each morning's breath.

Winter presperation settles
against this forsaken landscape,
deep within earth's pores.
Soil once rich with life,
as frozen within it's own bowels.

Unspoken words
cling to the roof
of their mouths.

Ashes clenched between
each tooth.

For the red embers
still burn.
Smoldering in their
slow death.

All has changed now.
Nothing has changed yet.

It is all raw now.
Torn skin exposed
to a midnight's breath.
Fresh wounds to bare metal.

Winter has striped
the life from these muscles,
saping the warmth
in it's icy hands.

Only the bones remain now;
brittle, empty.

Nine brave soldiers
died here tonight,
at ten and twenty hours,
Against freshly melting snow.

Gravel to mouth
and raw flesh
to blistered bone.

She died this morning,
breath dissipating
in the wind of your wake.
Her face ashen
against this morning’s blanket.

She passed
with only one wish;
a glass of champagne
toasted to a sky
filled with light.
That was all.

And even in her death
you spite her.
No tears fall;
no mourning of her passing.