An Awakening

A sliver of life is all it was.
Someone was crying,
caught me there within the moment,
made me wish profoundly
that it were not I
who needed to be strong.

It was those tears that overpowered me,
wrested me away from all the safety
of my observation post,
and in their weakness, gifted me
with some strange love--
a gift I could not stand.

It was another's pain
that offered a release
for my compassion; there was I
confirming it was not enough--
this looking out between the towers
of my little parapet, as lord;
I needed to become that agony

My fortess stood upon the moors
as on an alien sea, and I the alien,
the prisoner bereft of suffering
had nothing that I could return.
Disarmed and disingenuous
I knew and understood the certainty
of absolute despair.
~