5-16-06
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Trapped in a body with a beast inside Was a mind amnestic and broken. Lost and forlorn was the discarded boy, Without one memory for token. Forsaken, just as a stone tossed aside, The boy grew into a man. A man as forlorn as an orphan before, Who saw his whole life as a sham. He became a soldier, to fight for a cause, Even if that cause were not his. To attach some meaning to his pitiful life, The only way was this. But the war was lost, his purpose stolen, And then they took his very life. For any with a shred of pity for him, They knew that this wasn’t right. Still he existed, more worthless than before, For a while in a lab like a rat; But the scientists drew out the beast inside, Then the beast escaped just like that. The beast showed through him, black wings on his back, A terror to all within sight. Men ran away, calling him spawn of hell, And his bloodlust proved them all right. The beast had taken over, it controlled him, With a rising lust for blood. Then when he’d awaken, he’d remember naught, As he lay face down in the mud. His memory proved unreliable, His temperament equally so, And so once again, he was cast aside, To freeze in the bitter cold. How had it started, so many years ago? Why was this accident born? But why would he care? The dream ended soon. And still he was just as forlorn. As he sat there, shivering in the cold, He knew soon his story would end. With hard bitterness he reminded himself It was nothing but tearstained prose. Whatever he did, to make worth for himself, It always ended in failure. In the end, he was just as he’d always been, A mistake cast aside forever. The monster inside him, whatever it was, With him would it draw its last; And so, he would die, the monster as well, And then the dream would be past. He smiled to himself, what small consolation, That soon it would all be finished. The nightmare he’d lived in for twenty-two years He’d never again witness. How peaceful he looked, when he drew his last, Though no one was there to see. Through tearful eyes, the world faded away, And the boy at last was free. |
Oddly enough in my eyes this constitutes one of those poems that, as far as my poems go, has a slightly hopeful note at the end. Sometimes, death is a solace. The character this originally was supposed to be about is Vincent Magnar, the main character from Somewhere to Belong, a story I am writing. [3-28-08 Note: His name changed to Alexander Magnar and the story became Anathema Story. It's finished now.] But it's a bit inaccurate for him. He technically didn't have amnesia until the scientists fiddled with him after the war, and he did still have a family, well one member of his family, who found him, and so he didn't just die like that. But this is more dramatic and it's not like I'm going to convert the whole story to a poem.