We walked out from the places we were born,

and spit on our hands

to hoist the iron,

to move the earth,

to hew the wood,

to crush the rock,

and build this place

from a wasteland

into a paradise.

 

We had left our homes,

the places where we were raised,

by fist,

and blood,

and booze,

and fucking abuse,

to carve out this kingdom

a thousand miles away

from our birthplaces.

 

We created it

in the image of our ambitions.

We sowed the fields

with the seeds of our inspiration

and we drew water

from the river of time

to slake our thirst

as if it would never run dry.

 

We were wrong.

We were so wrong.

The things we ran away from,

clung to us like leeches,

and dug into our minds and skin,

and were fattened by the bounty

that we had raised.

 

Out lofty ambitions,

crept into our minds,

and soon corrupted us

in skin,

and bone,

and flesh,

until we had become worse

than the monsters we had fled.

 

Those of us that live still,

remember watching the palaces burn.

We hear the screaming of our people

and see the wasteland

that we made

in our own image.

 

We thought we were gods;

we were barely men.

we were,

in fact,

the architects

of our own holocaust.

 

-HG