i found my circle of chairs around a freshly churned-up grave. we explained who we were; we took each others names.

i looked up at the bell tower as the bell crashed to the ground; buried my head in my shoulder, pinched on my rising nerves. the tombstones crumbled, the dead rose permeating fresh blades of grass and flowers.

we expanded our circle and reclaimed the nature of all life. we are hopeless eternal.

we stomp on your sorrows forevermore.

the sky is moving like a slow death. red spreads over the horizon as the bleeding sun fades in its waning glory. thick, hazy clouds sprawl in the foreground. smoke coming from chimneys and the smokestacks of factories

chokes the onlookers. and we die with the falling sun.

the clouds get darker and darker, and the streets rest. empty with abandoned cars, doors ajar, and echoes of babies screaming.

there has been a massacre here, but there is nothing and no one left to tell the tale.