Ramming Speed

I have lived these lives,
spoken these words,
brought these empty
worlds to ruin with
my madness, and
yet I still recall
what it is to be
a child, to have
mind and body
and spirit whole
and unruined,
to retain some
greater aspiration
than to gain, to
win and win
at any cost, to
crush them all
and leave none
who can ever grow
up to be fighting
men in my wake.

I have spent out these
shells, burned this time
away with rack and ruin,
shock and awe of my
arrival only half so tragic
as the echoing stillness and
woe of aftermath when
I move along to the next
awful adventure, but
within there is something,
some hope that there have
been purposes to all of
these massacres, reasons
for these slaughters,
miracles behind these
sins, for if all is just
as it seems, then I
am left, in my old age,
with only meanness
and a staggering lack of
compassion, and this
like so many other
things, I don’t choose
to accept, so I make
reality where I
find it lacking,
mold thought so that
it suits my purpose,
and, as always,
destroy what I
cannot subvert.