Left to Die

A Terza Rima based on the novel Lord of the Flies, taken from the perspective of Jack's hunters, generally seen as “savages”. Everyone has another side to them, and a reason for doing what they do.

You call us savages, but we are just young;

Hiding behind the term “hunters,” we kill

Brutally, automatically, destroying.

 

What do you expect from kids left to die?

We survive as we can, don’t blame us for that.

We kill but for meat, we chant but for fun.

 

Simple words we chant, ne’er meant to cause harm.

We thought he was the Beast when he stumbled in,

Crawling, bawling- and oh, the adrenaline!

 

“Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” and then

Drawn by the excitement, the Beast, he came.

“Kill the Beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!? We yell’d.

 

We cut, we bit, we lashed out, though he cried,

Releasing the anger of boys left to die.

Destroying we taught ourselves how to survive.

 

Our bodies we paint to mask the deep hurt,

The sorrow, the anger, the fear you’ll never know

Of us boys, just young children, left here to die.

 

Howling into the night we beg for our homes,

The rules and strictness we hated before

We’d give anything just to have again.

 

So don’t blame us; you really can’t, you see;

It’s not our fault the island made us the Beasts

Mistakes we have made, but YOU left us to die.

Author's Note

If you look hard enough, there is a lot of psychology behind the hunters' wild anger. I was hoping to portray this.

Productive criticism encouraged, please. :)

Reviews

[Distant horizons]

Perfectly portrayed. The phrase "any society is only three missed meals from anarchy" sprang to mind reading this.