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Reaching for flesh that atrophies in total failure

Snowblind in the permafrost

From the unbidden whispers in every witching hour

The spirit runs cold

Sinking below the floor

Where nothing reaches us

The numb solace of the wilful self-interred

The voice whispered...

"Lead us to glorious times; lead us to the end"

Like fault lines spiderwebbed

Like the collapse of cities

Like the collapse of a lung

The curtain rent asunder

Leaving all that's left

suspended in the leathered clutch of an opioid grip

So cling to me like wreckage as you convalesce again

And like before deep in my arms you'll find emptiness

The touch that led my heart to ruin

In fraying strands thrown to the curfew's sterile dark

Cling to me for desperation

Reading the epilogues in one another's breath

Below thought and memory of sensation

Underneath everything that is made of or used to matter

The spectre of our future

Beckons grinning as a friend

Lead us to our glorious times

Lead us to our dispirited end

Save us; heal us all

Show us what dreams come in place of life!

Lead us to glorious times!

Lead us to the end!