As the train stopped, we saw flames rising from a tall chimney into a black sky.
We stared at the flames in the darkness, and left behind our illusions.
Human being were being burned, children thrown into the flames.
The smell of burning flesh was in the air.
The child I was had been consumed by the flames.
They consumed my faith forever.
They turned my dreams to ashes.
Thick smoke had poisoned my soul.
It had been invaded—and devoured—by a black flame.
The desire to live had transformed into smoke,
And it disappeared over the horizon forever.
Were this fire to be extinguished one day, nothing would be left but the dead.
Anguish on their faces, and hate in their eyes for all eternity.
To this infernal hell for all eternity we were condemned.
Hate lit the fire that was the beginning of the end.

I could let myself go.
I would be shot.
But it would be over.
Since I had lost my faith in god
I did not know where I would go
But I know I would not be in heaven
Good lord I know.
I cursed his name,
When I cried out in pain.
And even when faced with death
I tell myself that my god was to blame.
I could just stop running.
And a bullet would end my march.
My run. My trek.  
My endless march.
This snowy march.
Frostbitten feet.
I knew they were blue.
But of pain I couldn’t speak.
I did not speak,
Because I could not feel.
I was numb to all that was real.
Or maybe it was just the cold.
A medical reason that i could not feel.
Or had my mind been made so numb,
So that I could continue on this fate I’ve won.
This fate of earned by following faith.
Faith in a god who alone is the very reason I am in this place.
The fact that I could no longer exist,
It fascinated me.
I could just stop running.
I would cease to be.
This thought enveloped me.
Shocked me.
Stuck to me like glue.
The idea of dying, itself, was nothing new.
It’s just never something,
I thought I would wish upon myself so soon.
I could just give up.
And end my pain.
But that would be so very vain.
Because, my father, he could not press on,
If he knew I would soon be gone.
And so for him,
I drag me feet,
Across this snow,
Through wind and sleet.
I’m almost completely numb,
But my father’s heart still beats.
He is the reason I stay alive.

As I lay in my bed
I feel you curled in the arch of my knees
Sighing softly
Waiting for me to awake
Once I make the slightest move you’re up and ready
Ready to start the day

I still hear the click clicking of paws on the kitchen tiles
Running to make sure you didn’t miss anything
I still feel the dewy kisses you used to leave on my face

I imagine and remember your fur intertwining my fingers,
The weight of you in my arms

It’s hard to get the others to sing without your whining to start the chain

I can’t look at the stone with your name on it without picturing you becoming the earth
I miss you to the coming of my voice
“Cookies” and “let’s go bye bye”
It’s not the same without you here
“Go get him, Elie” I hope you are watching down on me

Something terrible has taken god,
I can’t seem to find him anymore.
I lost my joy.
I’ve lost all hope.
And all my love is gone.
Where is his mercy,
Where are his arms,
Why should I sing to a god,
Who can’t keep his chosen people out of harm.
My eyes are cold.
My heart is stone.
This is how I’ve condemned myself to be.
My feet are numb.
My mother’s gone.
And smoke is all I see.
I used to sit up on a hill
And talk to god about the sky.
I’d tell him how my day went,
And thank him for my life.
But now I curse his very name
The sky is scowling with gray clouds of smoke.
How can a god to loves his child,
Do this to whom’s very existence he spoke.
His turned us into vessels,
We are just an empty carcass with a heart,
We have a brain, we our stomaches
But our souls chose to depart.
I looked up at my father,
Whom i’ve looked up to all my life,
I searched for a smile in his sorrow
But all I saw was tears in his eyes.
Surely there must be a god,
Though I see he’s not with me.
How can a got who loves his children,
Be content with what he sees?
And surely he must be content,
For if he disagreed
I know that he could send someone
Who could certainty set us free.
I guess this means he does not love
As much as I once thought.
Or maybe I was simply blind,
To if there is a god or not.

"From the depths
of the mirror,
a corpse gazed back at me.
The look in his eyes, as they stared
into mine, has never left me."

Closing the book I looked at the cover,
Night by Elie Wiesel. Averting my eyes
from the book to my teacher, she stares

at the class in profound silence, then she says,
"There's something very similar happening in America
today." I was shocked, I couldn't believe it took me until

middle school to hear about this. My ears perked up in morbid
curiosity as the other students nodded making me feel like a *******,
"Abortion." the teacher stated with lofty arrogance as I breathed a sigh of relief

encouraged by the banality of right wing indoctrination replacing revelation
of more senseless slaughter. I didn't watch Fox News, I didn't know I was
supposed to hate abortion and Dr. Tiller; that's where Elie Wiesel and

teacher come in. Elie Wiesel wrote a book that makes people want
to change the world, my teacher narrowed it down to the target
in her crosshairs. Tiller died a few years later, Wiesel died

several years after that. My old middle school teacher
is still alive using books of the dead to demonize the
living for demanding demonetizing democracy

until malleable minds are mangled
shifting their forming mentality
into one as narrow as hers.