People Like Us Are Under Attack
People like us are under attack—
not by sun nor midnights moon ,
but by whispers in the marrow upon the shore where even silence is heard.
There are footsteps in my sinews,
there is thunder in my bone,
and the body I once trusted
is a path in the forest now overgrown.
I am under attack—
by the clock that will not sleep,
by the sutures of remembrance
stitched too shallow, stitched too deep.
Every scar becomes a window
where the storming memories pass,
and the present, pale and shivering,
wears the mask of their past.
I hear the raven in the rafters
and the crow in my ribs—Endure, endure,
while the pulse beats out red words
no physician can stay.
I have named the ache a monster of men,
given grief it's cracked immortal face,
it multiplies like rats in the stain of darkness,
breeding echoes of sin with out end.
O" my mind, besieged and burning hot,
keeping watch on the rampart though hope is thin;
for the night is loud with Interlopers, knocking, knocking
that even now forces me to let them all in.
Still I stand within the outward ruin,
I answer locked doors when they knock—
for to breathe is an objection, not over looked
and to live in this shame I can barely endure.
Let the shadows crowd round my naked threshold,
let them hiss ancient words in long forgotten lore;
I am under attack—yes—under attack
but I am not by you, evermore.
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