Endless Winter

A trauma lives in the heart of every survivor,
Under the skin lies a poison growing darker,
Piercing the flesh like a black metal splinter,
The earth feels trapped beneath an endless winter.

The broken exist using the little strength they’ve found,
Fearing the new world, every click, every sound,
When mechanical noises once meant instant death,
When every 3am could mean your last breath.

Do they still search the world by night as we sleep,
Or in daylight, concealed where the shadows run deep?
Do they watch from the ruins, hidden and still,
Waiting patiently for the moment to kill?

The weight of breathing, the cost of each day,
Every step feels one closer to a shallow grave,
A ghost lives in the bone, a darkness has grown,
Every road I walk leads deeper into alone.

The world keeps turning, but something has changed,
The familiar is foreign, the safe rearranged,
Every sudden movement, every unexpected sound,
Reminds us that monsters once hunted us down.

We survived the machines,
But the machines left their mark,
Their shadows still follow us
Long after dark.

The world is asking for strength I’ve never known,
And I carry its weight like a heart made of stone.
I would drown in sorrow, if sorrow would even try,
But I’m too empty now…

Even to cry.

This is an Infinite Black: A Grey New World poem, visit that link to learn more.