Across Our Backs: A Long Poem

Across Our Backs

Dark drifting into a trance. My mind speaks volumes muted by the apparent roar of fatigue. Two souls consumed by the slow erosion of life. While two are consumed by pain and selfish desire. Not able to let go, chained by words spoken in love. Now tied around our necks bound and choking. Screaming with obligations once appreciated then excepted.

I pull at the chain as guilty as ever. Physically beaten by a wipe I carry. Shaking from exhaustion and thirst, I drawn into myself. A cocoon that reflects no light, no growth, or redemption. Towing that chain.

Grace covers a multitude of sins. But what torments me is a selfless burden. An inadequacy seemingly taught from birth. That to be good enough you must give away your soul. A price I find too much to give. So I labor under the melodramatics of an unanswerable god. That beats me with a plow strap of guilt. 

​FD Thornton