Routes of Ascent Never Charted

These frailties, piled upon
the husks of our rice paper
shell, this unsteady barrier
between,

and we gaze up at our own
personal mountains,

unchallenged, unscarred by pitons,
routes of ascent never charted,
ledges never yielding to the
tracery of bright rope,

for we have walked empty,
flat, darkened lands under
moonlight, insides withered
and dead, without the courage
to assail fate’s flat and remorseless
eye,

we, the slumped, despoiled remnant
of our own foiled intention,

we, the misshapen hulk that makes
mockery of all our younger aspirations,

we, the carrier of scars meant purely
to maim, but to leave alive and
suffering those legion who have
failed to dare.