how could they explain what had happened
to them? the boys, the
men
they became, the ones with
the permanent wound
where they'd hurt her
had they heard her bones crack
the breathe leave her
body
when she hit the earth,
had they seen her eyes dim in pain
and had they still stepped over her
fallen
on their way to
nowhere
to some imagined better thing in an impossible future?
they thought they were
gods
didn't they and now they sighed in offices fluorescent lit
dying and punched there in their chest
where she used to lay her soft hair
they find her photo and gaze then preen
in their small dirty mirrors wondering
how
they could steal back the life they had somehow left behind
with her crushed heart. they take dim pictures
of themselves with sunken cheeks, grey hair, dead eyes
what was it she had asked of them they wonder
how could what she had once
whispered
suggested (had she demanded?)
been so ridiculed, obviously refused by their arrogant youth
and now this slow regret, this decay
and what was it about the way she'd looked at their
last goodbye that made them know they'd do this again
forever
until in some life they'd learn to catch her
hold her
warm her
humor her
love her
feed her
free her
adore
it was eternity they saw, a shimmer glimpsed as echo within her
endless human heart
© Maria Alva Roff July 2011 ::: image courtesy of www.nestaman.deviantart.com/
