this world has known trauma
with far greater intimacy
than any world should.
…
it was once beautiful.
great expanses of untamed wilds
communities content with quiet lives
grand empires with grander works
a Song, sung with the pride of being.
all gone now.
The wilds burned to fetid ash
the villages reduced to charred viscera
the empires made to slaughter & defile
the Song fading, choked with blood.
dead. murdered.
by you.
you, fleet of destruction, bringer of violence
whose visage bestows eager mania
whose wrath falls like boot upon ant.
whose master is forever conquest.
…
i wonder sometimes.
if your form did not coax madness
if all you did was drop the bombs
would you still be our end?
…
i would imagine so.
the rulers i knew
were ruthless, cutthroat
they would use you until their end.
it is an idle thought.
…
still, there is no denial
that you have killed this world
and what was shall not be again.
…
but i am still here.
for when you came here
you did not expect a miracle
with power to surpass your own.
but i have that power.
it was not meant for me at first
but soon i came to realize
i was the only one able to do it.
the only one willing to do it.
to rage against the end.
and so i took what was left
from the one who could take no more
and now only i remain in your sight.
and i have grown.
one becomes two
becomes four, then eight
growing and growing
scraping at the bowels of the earth.
growing, growing
crossing the world in waves
devouring anything reachable
by a thousand thousand hands.
and now i reach for you.
building towers to the heavens
towers of suffering & pain
climbing up with rotting arms
up, and up further still.
up towards the skies that you stalk
until i can grasp your forms with ease
for i know you will not go
until all life is gone from here.
…
i will not go.
you cannot bomb me
for there is too much to bomb
and you cannot turn me
for my sight was taken long before.
by the pain of the Song
i will drag you down from the heavens
hold you against the ground that is me.
and i will feast.
i shall tear into your infernal hide
ripped away in chunks
by a thousand million teeth.
the frame within bent & broken
and consumed as well
like ants upon corpse.
you will wish for a mouth to scream.
…
and i will warn of you.
for i know we were not the first
that you are conquerors of beyond
and others have likely fallen before.
i will show them everything.
through the power of this miracle
i will send all of the parts of me
that hold the record of what you have done.
they will find it.
they will learn, and they will know.
and when you arrive, to conquer again
they will fight, and you will die.
this i shall promise.
…
it hurts so much.
every broken bone.
every pang of hunger.
every missing finger.
every last choking breath
as life itself is forced out
by the mounting pressure.
and the bombs hurt too.
…
but i will not yield.
i cannot yield
for to yield would mean death
for everything that is and could be.
…
i do not fear death.
it will be reprieve from suffering
a relieving of the duty
that has burdened me for so long.
but that duty has to be fulfilled.
and so i will fight, as long as i must
to ensure that this world is the last
to suffer this fate.
to make you reckon with your actions
to protect all others that may be
to spare them of this pain.
of this trauma.
…
better us than them.