Dan Williams

Like a Hangman

Have you found that the edge is almost always not the end,

believe the color blind still dream in black and white, as they should?

If rearranging time itself could have succeeded?

These woods are full of darkness and the world is full of woods;

can keep you from the healing sunshine you so needed.

Left behind you became slowly emptied; left to unwind you became gaunt,

less a prisoner than escapee into the wasteland of alone.

This biggest part of your defeat was easily predicted;

you should have looked, you should have seen, you should have known.

Now no life will rise up out of the ashes amid the ruins you now haunt.

The true cause of your notoriety will be much harder to detect,

defiance of the normal multiplies your aggravation.

Your sins against yourself go mostly unforgiven, wondering

why yours is the only blackened damaged soul that Satan

has sworn to find the time to come personally to collect?

You are weakened by your errors, and easily turned to fright,

cannot explain just what it is you are so afraid of, still,

fear can grip your thirsty throat just like a hangman.

Leave you wondering what raw materials your life is made of,

left unsure of what plans are wrong, what moves are right.

But can you blame the demons for the damage that self-pity has inflicted

when theory says they cannot actually lay hands on you?

Why do others pick up remnants, scatter ash, and continue on;

are demands on them not the same as demands on you?

Or is it that you turn things till they match what you predicted?

Finding your heartbeat at its best is an uncertain feeble thud,

right from the start you poorly judged how good your dances were.

Misinterpreting that Miss Destiny had insisted on one more waltz,

you should have known all along how cursed your chances were

of being cruelly swept away by the cold waterless flood.