Our world is dying
Its aches are the wars
its groans are the screams

Blame
like a thorned crown
needles my mind
sowing doubt
and guilt.

Yet, I accept my purpose...
I heed the signs
I slay the serpents
I caw the call
salvation is worth this.

I gather the worthy:
the wheat from
chaff;
those humans, now demons,
in abandonment,
laugh...
but the worthy, chins high
heads aglow
walk the path;
I tread
through endless snow.

Yet when the passage
has been met
"Was I wrong?
Am I false prophet?
Crazed all along?"

For the gate is not barred
it spits us out.
It cleanses its treasure
from our ilk
like holy drought.

Left to scour the wasteland
gnawing us with frost
We wander its wasting reaches
We're not frightened
we're lost.

They dragged me
screaming
down the highway
to their sacred hell.
My torture was a whisper
to their grinning
over fires
that fester.

Nothing in nature
can rewind:
naught but the hand
of God.

Upon retaking my first
steps
anew
I mounted the struggle.
Peace my birthright.
Truth my shield.
Bold conviction
became shaking steps
ascending
the stairway
to heaven.

With my folly transparent,
I witnessed
the cackles and claws
of the demons
to be mine own whip.

I set down the weapon.
I let the ashes of despair consume it.
I do not look back,
for the stairway is its own guide.

Bittersweet is the rasp of envy,
and gratitude: the beckoning of peace.