...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hIGkWe8m6Y&ab_channel=ColdWarKids-Topic

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He had no love left to give: bottomed out,

The ladle scraped against the ceramic bedrock

Of the ashen and sedimentary basin.

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I

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He looked into their eyes, and saw his father’s eyes.

He saw the welling look of human desperation - 

The silent plea: “that’s my son, in there.”

“My son is that trauma number.”

“My son is being sounded over the loudspeaker.”

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He looked into their eyes, and saw the utmost in sadness - 

The eyes that lose hope, that seek forgiveness,

That regret, and accumulate, that

Trickle, pool and finally

Well over.

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He saw the eyes that asked for human kindness, to be treated

As more than just a number,

A statistic, more than a piece of paper,

A numerical digit shining in little-red-neon-lines

Above the cold granite of a check in counter.

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II

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He saw their eyes. And he recognized them.

And he understood the gravity of what they were asking.

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But he could do nothing - he could pay them

Only in

Disingenuous, hollow sympathies,

Contrived regards before contrition.

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He could scowl back when he became the object of their anger,

Their blame, the symbolic representation of a dying faith - 

Be it for humanity, or for the god responsible for its caretaking.

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He could do nothing - no tears to be shed, no weakness,

No grief on their behalf. And he looked into their eyes

And saw his father’s welling exhaustion

Staring back at him.

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But he did nothing

For there was nothing he could do.

And he had no love left in him

To give away so haphazardly -

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None, that he could so readily spare

Beyond that which he had left

And needed most - desperately, 

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Despairingly - for himself.

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