Implied persuasion,

By three knowing souls

Left a vision of what could have been.

A momentary relapse,

Like Lady Macbeth, blinded

Misguided, bitter raged

Baby beaten on her breast.

Innocent youth taken

Shaken by protector.

No milk of human kindness,

To be sweetened, swallowed

Just a poisoned evil that is given at first breath.

An undone death.

The suffocating, intoxicating clouds

That surround our eyes, grip our first steps.

So we stumble through on hesitant legs

That make marks on earth where we care to tread.

Where souls are buried beneath the ground.

Loneliness reaps the mortal sound

Of fingers scratching to be free

Upon a wooden box of expectations,

Life’s obligations.

We all comply,

To be uniformed soldiers, held up martyrs.

Fighting to leave a trace.