My Country Suffers
A nation of ghosts once ruled this land
With long since forgotten ideals and hopes.
They lie in her borders. Masked deep in her beating heart.
Hidden amidst aged photographs of fake smiles
And soft whispers saying, “Everything will be okay.”
She follows those words, those smiles, and that hope they gave.
Those ideas, bring light inside her
That everything is just fine. It will be okay.
This reassurance is the drug of her soul.
She must remember that she is beautiful.
Her father, with the outline of an idea,
Would sew her together with the bloodied bodies
Of his kin. He would cement himself
Deep in her fertile soil. Creating an incestuous union
To which he would wed his perfect corpse bride.
Yet, he would see in her stitches
The faces of the dead. An eternal torment to which
He would take flight. Leaving her there to suffer.
Everything will be just fine.
There is pain deep within her eyes.
She holds her breath as the pendulum swings
Lower and lower to its end.
Was it she who had caused this agony?
The pain she must have felt when with extended arms
She opened the box in curiosity, and released to this
World a plague of hate and greed. Cursed creatures soiling her body
And uprooting her limbs. Tearing apart
Each strain of flesh and filling in it's place
A cement bandage. They drink down her black blood
In clinking wine glasses as they celebrate their success.
Leaving our Pandora lost in thought, wondering:
Just what have I done?
Her rivers run dry and her leaves fall and fade,
Her branches, once outreached, close and tighten
As she prepares herself for an infinite winter.
Using her bones as a bonfire to escape the cold,
These ghoulish figures tell stories of ghosts.
All the while popping down pills
To numb the memory of her destruction.
While a knife slips stealthily under their throat
Like pigs at slaughter. Each sacrificed through
the greed of another. All to piece her back together.
To perhaps bring back to life what she might have been.
Preaching to her the word “Hope”
When she is so far gone from it all.
Everything will be just fine.
