II

Beneath the burning sky, dust choked air Horizon to horizon, in a river of stumbling footsteps We are walking We are a trail of blood and tears A single suffering entity, that stretches from sky to sky That slithers with languid motion, shedding dead skin. Somewhere Back there beyond the horizon when this exodus began We grimly bore the weight of precious anchors. Bleeding feet and aching bones Mouths parched from days of wasted tears We no longer feel the sound of weeping children We no longer feel We are walking - alive, numb, and blind. Treasure and trinket, memento and remnant Now our shoulders are round from the burden of the dying Our heads are stooped with the burden of the discarded dead. The long march from a long forgotten past We remember only a hundred thousand footsteps. The past has bled us here We are distant from her ruined womb Reborn as infants in a storm of smoke and fire Screaming, blind, on hands and knees we emerged From our crushed chrysalis, bleeding and broken Crawling creatures without wings. From this unending horror, we heal into twisted shapes Swathed in keloidal scars Misshapen forms seeking for shelter For nourishment in endless desolation Like the final trickle of a distant flood We are putrid remnants, stained by the endless miles.

Submitted by Nargaroth — Jun 19, 2026

Civilization deconstructed piece by piece Thrones melted into axe and plough Babes swaddles in shreds of gowns Fortress walls splintered into sticks and tinder Embers of burning books rise with their meagre warmth. Darkness within the empty places The smouldering shells of modest castles Dusty shards cling in battered window frames Gutted carcasses of a close, forgotten past. We walk through remnants of shattered panes Blades of glass ground to dust By the dragging of a million aching feet And their tattered soles. Wind shakes the skeletal remains of walls And gaping, twisted architraves Cupboards are bare, shattered shelves collapsing There is nothing here but haunted silence. And in the daylight, we fear the empty places The smouldering shells of modest castles Where dusty shards cling in battered window frames The gutted carcasses of our close, forgotten past In the fearful night, we seek shelter Beneath the rotting beams like crumbling bones Walls like tattered skin And with the rats and mice, we claw through debris Like worms we infest and consume The remains of our crushed cocoon, mutilated womb.

Submitted by Nargaroth — Jun 19, 2026

I hoped that you would die, in the night In the cradle of sleep, in the forgiving darkness Your eyes closed, resigned to your terrible fate. But in the grey dawn Before the sun looks upon us With her cruel and ceaseless rage I see gentle light touch your eyes You look to me for comfort, but I ache And we tangle together our withering bones In a painful palliative embrace So many times you have carried me I clung to your strength, your patience Stealing the warmth from your blood And the breath from your lips. You look to me for strength, but I am weak If I had tears to cry I would let them fall to your parched lips. Something compels me To stumble on and die alone Primal delusion of hope Drags me away, pushes me on, eviscerated And trailing my spirit behind me. I hoped that you would die In the night I kiss your eyelids, to close your tired eyes Do not see me leave you to your fate.

Submitted by Nargaroth — Jun 19, 2026

In the dark, where weary faces glow Heavy shoulders draw down to the warmth of dying embers There is comfort and there is time, to remember... A city seething, the masses screaming A chorus of urgent voices, noises, colour and light All drowned in an instant By the almighty roar of some sudden silence Horrible lack of motion, aghast pause Something monstrous kicked the city Like the dusty castle of a termite nest, it burst apart Deaf, dumb, and blind, we scattered. The earth shook, we felt it in our bones It shook with our voices, our terror and motion And the earth spoke, great steel towers groaned Like the maggots in a rotting carcass It burst apart And we spilled out A writhing, flailing mass In a million directions we scattered Between the smouldering piles, the spitting pipes And drains, that bled red We saw people, faces in the dust and smoke And we passed them by. We turn our backs to the warmth Do not stoke the fire for the luxury of reflections In shattered glass, our bloody past Turn into the cold and dark, feel the hollow of our stomachs Let open wounds consume these wounds we will not feel Expose us Make us fear And see how we all fall apart Stunned like birds in a cage We leapt and fell Thrashing our wings - we plummet still.

Submitted by Nargaroth — Jun 19, 2026

I taste the dust But I don’t remember falling The earth is like a cradle As passing footsteps murmur a lullaby I am staring blind into the flickering sun As merciful shadows pass My fingers crawl across the dirt Reaching out for those dark shapes A hand takes my hand and they carry me My bleeding throat tastes of rust I don’t remember falling My broken lips are weeping I press on my aching knees Ribbons of ragged skin and flesh Trail from beneath the tattered soles Of my feet, when my legs kick Weakly and fearful of the pain Searching for purchase in the burning dust. I am breathing the dust And I am falling Sinking into the dust The heat of the sun tempered As the light becomes distant A hand reaches for my hand But I drag my gnarled bones to my chest And let them leave me to my fate Atrophied, I am drifting away from pain To be reclaimed by dust.

Submitted by Nargaroth — Jun 19, 2026