Echoes of History

A pale hand

on a bloody gown,

a crimson handprint left

before they fled the town.

The icicles melt

and reveal what we buried,

the books still burn

but the memories remain.

The skin is broken,

and the plasma solidifies

but the body remembers,

the body remembers.

Some stains just don’t wash away,

Lady Macbeth scrubbing through

her burning skin,

again,

the ghosts present and apprehensively

vengeful,

a blaspheming unknown, an untold horror.

The dark room you occupy

holds thousands of years within its walls,

history thinly veiled

far less than six feet under.

You can feel it if you try enough,

you can lean into the horror

you can see through their eyes

the atrocities that brought you here.

You can watch the ice form and then melt,

the blood spread and then disintegrate,

the fires ravage buildings and bodies

just to weaken, fizzle out.

You can watch the smiles grow,

hear the curdling screams,

witness the violence

you can witness the violence.

You can watch the ice melt,

and reform,

and then melt.

You can watch the cycle birth itself,

you can watch the world burn,

you can watch the cycle birth itself

you can watch the world burn,

you can watch the ice melt

and reform

just to melt again,

just to melt again,

you can wash those bleeding hands again

until the soap burns

but it won’t fix a thing,

just to melt again,

it won’t fix a thing,

you’re alive in the perfect nightmare

and it has become so vivid now

that no arm-pinching will save you

no arm-pinching will save you

the echoes of history

don’t slump away and fade

just to melt again, they reform just to melt again

they grow ever-closer and louder,

the screams of a woman,

deafening, bleeding through

time and space, your eardrums throbbing,

protesting, her terror still present

even now

in the darkness

of your silent room,

where you think you sit alone,

where you couldn’t be more wrong.