Shrapnel

The lights dim fractionally, still blistering with heat

as they cast shadows on the damp, trampled floor.

The battlefield of passion lays out before me

I can still hear the screams of feedback, the rolling whispers that tremble beneath my feet.

The clash of the heroic symbols, the screech of a bent steel string, the crowd of a thousand hurtling horses.

I can feel the night before me even though it’s behind me

I can feel the humid mouthes that bellowed out with arms that beckoned and called.

I can feel the air move through me like it never has before

and I know

that the stage always wants more.

Just like this world

that will never be

without war.