more

The winds rise and my eyes are filled with sand and grit,
every bit cutting into me and blinding me, binding me
to pain and a sense of isolation and vulnerability.

"More!" I roar.

The heat comes and the sun burns my skin and parches lips
too long held in abeyance from the share of all there is,
wagered on all that could be, should be, in the light of delight.

"More!" I roar.

The winds intensify and I am but a frail frond of flesh, buffeted,
the stinging sands demanding sacrifice as the thermonuclear sky
rains a spectrum of offense against me, a beating heat.

"More!" I roar.

The skies blacken and the winds do not slacken as the rains come,
drumming against my chafed and chapped and blistered form,
the storm rises to the winds and the winds give it fury.

"More!" I roar.

The thunder comes as herald of light I cannot see for the pain,
electrons ionizing the air about me as I am struck by Zeus himself,
his fists of fire and electricity crashing down like memory.

"More!" I roar.

And then. And then. And then, the silence. The respite where pain
remains, but only as a marker to the milestone I have walked to on feet
raw with the pilgrimage to a question of an answer. The silence comes.

"More!" I roar.

And defiance has become its own drink. Fury I cannot bury in light
or shade, made and unmade by hands banded by shallow sentiments, bent
by the evils we do in the name of survival. Waiting worms' arrival.

"No more," I implore.


William F. Devault. all rights reserved.