Withering World

by A. Zingler, myself.

The world is clothed in black robes,
the light diffused into a smudge of burnt umber,
up into the starlight I look, but the sky is crowded
with fog and haze of a world sickened and poisoned.
Our future splinters into strands of twisted streams,
each sagging with despair and anger —
what hope is there for our people?

Our feet sink into the dirt, each imprint
a reminder of our journey across the scales
of the forgotten past and the dormant future.
Our breaths labored and stricken, each gulp
of desperation, our tongues dried up husks,
the water shimmering with toxic rainbows–
torn up roots and broken rocks, quakes
and howling storms, each a reminder
that this world is not our own.

Greed slithers down our throats,
strangles our breaths, and beats us
into the earth, buried alive in the warm,
sick graves of eternity.

Howls and wails of the mourning, beg
for mercy in the conflagration,
but the hope of life withers and dies —
forgotten under the weight of the dead.