Self-Afflicted Mortal Under the Dying Stars

Destruction, human calamity,

burned our world to the ground

faster than our tears could extinguish it.

Careless wisps traveled silently for miles,

betrayed only by its ferocity and the splintering

screams of the fallen floundering in its wake.

Barren land mocked those of us that lived,

it could suffer no more than the soft touch of time.

We remained fruitless; the rain would bless us no more.

The flight of the cursed was marred by empty expiration

and cavernous prayers. We’d heard of the land of prosperity

in the valley at the foot of snow-capped mountains.

It was a lie. The lush greenery lies brown, roots exposed,

suffocated by the venomous bite of the echoing wind

swirling down from the precipice.

When we cried to a god, cotton-linen faces laughed

and the man on the moon looked on somberly as

the lights of the speckled sky started to fade.