you
were following the leader
trusting him,
hardy figure of man
in a colorless world
with trees dead to the eye
thanatos thickets thick with quiet
that thrashed and slashed you
along the way
but you followed, sometimes
in sacramental silence,
other times crying out in penitent pain
did he not hear you
as he juggernauted through
those gnarled dead wooded webs
like he was steel?
and man of steel
is what you called him
when you grew to know him
was he too not flesh and bones
could he not hear your cries?
even deaf, could he not see
your man-child skin being bloodied
in this land of thorns?
how long could he keep marching
expecting you to keep up
like some soldier on an unholy quest
rather than his lost child
who could find no path
through this wretched plain of pain?
you could see only his back
as you ran to keep up
you could not have known,
though you are his legacy,
he has no face to bear scars
and when will you,
the innocent, discover
steel has no soul?