I am legendary

There he sat

In the shimmering distance

Gorging himself upon a rat

As he perched the peak of a blackened fence

Around me floated ashes

Like poetry forever lost

I heard the moans of a billion screams

Of lost feelings of hatred

As he swallowed once colorful dreams

From the hopeless he fed

I cried crystal drops in watching the rivers of soot

Trailing my children’s faces as they reached for my help

He gave me nothing

He had nothing to give

Within I felt something

Draining my will to live

I remain trapped forever in September

Never knowing when I will see October

I saw tendrils of smoke

Trying to reach me. Reach me.

I felt the kiss of blistering, fiery flames

As I choked on the smoke. Burning my lungs.

I felt his gray crushing my heart

I felt no love

I saw only dark

As pillars crumbled around me. Of what was.

I felt weary from fear. Consumed.

As pain overcame me

My knees fell beneath me

…and there he sat

In the shimmering distance

Growing fat from a rat

With my flesh, he sat upon the fence

I held my hands up high to the sky

Wishing it would rain down on me

He threw me

It was me he did not need

He simply made my eyes see

As my flesh could only bleed

I remain lost in the smoke

Even as I know whom he is

Even as I live another day.

To sweat, hurt, and toil

For how long I say…I say…

Until the day I am laid to soil

Because I knew whom he was

He told me. Told me.

I still hear the flickering of his laughter

Burning in my ears. Singing my hair.

I still see the glow of his grin

In the reflection of my tears

I still feel the cesspool

As his pain overcame me. In flowing smoked rivers.

And my knees fell beneath me. I had fallen.

“I am,” he said

“I am legendary!”

His flame still burns.