I fear what is lost

I fear what is lost

What has gone

Never to return

The cost of suffering

The emptiness of grief

Laying waste to a world

Of hope and glory

I fear what is left

The shadow of loss

The withdrawal

Into isolation

So many imprisoned

In purgatory

Acting in conscience

Their own turnkey

Locked from the inside

Custodians of guilt

When none was truly theirs

The lack of self-forgiveness

The betrayal of self-recrimination

Swallowed as sorrow

Drowned in unspilled tears

As hearts are wrung

Hung out to dry

Beaten blindly

Steam-ironed flat

Squeezed into submission

The sound of sad silence

Deafening, endless.

As the years slip by

In grey monotones

As repetitious as day

Follows night

Until the end

I fear an end without subtlety

No break for understanding

What was lost

What was found