Beneath the burning sky, dust choked air
Horizon to horizon, in a river of stumbling footsteps
We are walking
We are a trail of blood and tears
A single suffering entity, that stretches from sky to sky
That slithers with languid motion, shedding dead skin.
Somewhere
Back there beyond the horizon when this exodus began
We grimly bore the weight of precious anchors.
Bleeding feet and aching bones
Mouths parched from days of wasted tears
We no longer feel the sound of weeping children
We no longer feel
We are walking - alive, numb, and blind.
Treasure and trinket, memento and remnant
Now our shoulders are round from the burden of the dying
Our heads are stooped with the burden of the discarded dead.
The long march from a long forgotten past
We remember only a hundred thousand footsteps.
The past has bled us here
We are distant from her ruined womb
Reborn as infants in a storm of smoke and fire
Screaming, blind, on hands and knees we emerged
From our crushed chrysalis, bleeding and broken
Crawling creatures without wings.
From this unending horror, we heal into twisted shapes
Swathed in keloidal scars
Misshapen forms seeking for shelter
For nourishment in endless desolation
Like the final trickle of a distant flood
We are putrid remnants, stained by the endless miles.
