A halo floats along cloudy sidelines,
held up by a shallow figure of speech with his hands in golden pockets.
And I can beat my wrists and scream at the demon of my dreams,
some illusion of all-loving omnipotent speech
or, as the book says, the anti-evils of human breath.
For this enemy stands still with a tear in his eye
and a crooked beard shielding perfect teeth:
this smiling bastard haunts my spirit of sleep.
And I think of the girl in her hospital bed,
breathing at will through a monster's machine,
her solid brown eyes grown weary with disbelief,
her pending coffin in a wall they built
to shelter the cold of December's sick truth—
forever preserving the innocent youth,
a child surrendering to passionless sleep.
And I think of the man behind the wall,
the merchant that barters death for wealth
on the other side of grief and lifeless intent:
a lawyer that martyrs the people we love
and leaves us alone to remember the debts, r
egrets, forget what we left behind
'cause the mausoleum closes its' door at five
and the man on the side goes home to rest.
And I still remain standing, remembering her every spoken word
and the promise she gave—that she will return.