After the Fire, Road Home

He once walked roads ablaze with ideal,

a faded banner in his hazy eyes,

Bob — wanderer of places lost,

whose teeth were grit and hope alike,

whose hands once shook the world apart

and stitched it back with rag‑tag dreams.

They told him peace was sanctuary,

but peace — it lay unkept like tombstones

in the desert’s breath, where ghosts

of revolution still whispered

in every dry wind’s stuttered cry.

Then Willa slipped like dawn’s first flame

through grips of night, a spark undone

by faces clad in anthem’s scarlet lies,

where power donned a crooked smile

and war forgot its own name.

He ran — heart a hammer against ribbed walls,

through miles where time bled slow and loud,

past echoes of what once was right,

where every clash was another chance

to hold tomorrow in trembling hands.

The nemesis in steel‑clad pride,

Lockjaw’s grin a fractured flag,

met him in the heat of dust and fear,

and stories snapped like splintered wood

beneath the weight of unbowed wills.

And when at last night’s black veil fell,

And morning bled its golden truth

across a world still raw with fight —

Bob and his daughter stood still,

breathing hope into the open sky.

A road remembered, step by step,

worn but unbeaten,

leading all who wander back

to places wounded yet alive,

where one battle after another

hollows out the courage of return.