Cold, so cold
Cold as the gaze of the eyes of the owls that rest in the trees,
Giving only silence in return to the pleas hidden in our dead eyes.
Hands frozen
We wish to be as unfeeling as the water
As the creeping frost descends over the crystal surface
Still, unmoving, the emotionlessness we crave.
Boots crunch through the snow, and that is all we hear besides the click of a gun
A barrel resting against a temple.
It was just a lie we once believed: help comes to those who are worthy
Soaring forth on golden wings to pluck us from the pit of despair, but alas, it cannot be.
No help comes to the ones tricked by lies and promises
Made by the kings that hide in shadow, the master puppeteers.
No help comes to the ones who need it most.
We see his hands shake as he feels the cold chill of the gun against his head, and he looks to us as if he was begging us
Begging us to stop him
But our hearts are trapped by wicked black vines that whisper into our minds the most horrible things
And none of us move.
We only watch as he lets go of the trigger and falls
Falling
Falling
An angel has fallen and we have done nothing
The trees do not cry for him, no, they stand, indifferent
Watching as the blood stains the snow
Like a single red rose in a field of white ones.
But who are we to curse the trees?
We, men, are no better than them, no better than the placid lake that glimmers, with the reflections of the dead eyes of men who have drowned in its depths.
Because we watched him die,
And we did nothing.
Darkness
The sky is covered with clouds but the moonlight still lights the fallen form
Crumpled in the snow,
Like something from a twisted nightmare, but this, this is no nightmare.
Arms aching, all we can do is stare at the body of the boy we knew so well
Legs locked in place, we stare
We stare
We stare
How a gunshot would be a merciful way to die, but we know that what killed him was not a bullet from the battlefield or a breath of lethal gas.
It was his country that took his life.
The people we trusted, we were blinded by the flashes of the gold medals on the chests of the men who arrived at the gates, the trojan horse that stood before us
The ribbons, the red jackets, the tall hats, that was all we saw
But we should have seen the hollow eyes, the sunken cheeks
We should have seen the pain
And now it is too late.
Too late for him
Too late for us.
An eagle soars overhead, but then we blink, and it is just a crow,
Calling, laughing,
With that horrible voice that makes us nauseous
And more of them, more of them come out of the trees,
And they circle above us.
The noise is deafening, and we sink to the ground, hands over ears
No gunshot, no explosion was ever as loud as this.
And the wind laughs along with their song
The leaves dance to the piercing melody
The haunting song that makes the snow whirl about our feet, screaming into the wind
Something has opened Pandora’s box
And evils unlike any seen before roar into our minds and our hearts
Plaguing us
Thick black ink pours over the snow
We saw the Garden of Eden before us
Blind to the snakes that slither out in the night and eat your heart.
And we know now and will never forget
Our hearts black with grief, we pray for forgiveness
But the crows still call.
By THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED; THE REVOLUTION IS IN YOUR MIND (pseudonym)