Inward Beam

Maimed heart,
your light shines the other way.
To others
you look dark.

Sore soul,
your torn fire aches
and waits alone
for what it has lost.

The child cries
as demons eat the world.
Tears water the earth
but only hollowness

grows
and grows
into this expanse
where the bruises dwell

and pray to rot.
Ripped and tender
edges sting,
afraid to heal,

refusing closure
in frantic hope.
Listening.
Listening hard.

The distance
feeds a fungus
where the child
needs to speak.

Cloaked in leprosy,
the perpetual roar swells,
incinerating the real
and glazing the right

(the only thing that matters)
that catches your
inward beam.
And I see it.