The in-between land.

I walk with a limp I never knew I had,
cheeks peppered with rosemary and
doom, the ashes of winter marking
me as its own.

But I'm not anyone's.

The requiems are frequent now;
they bubble like a hot spring in
my veins and sear any sympathy
that once nested nearby.

There have always been bodies here,
renegades and burgundy wrists.
This is not new territory to me.

The corpses hum like factory machines,
then buzz and hack and saw,
memories skewed and rendered corrupt.

I move forward, yet at the same time,
am unflinchingly still - a black bird
tending quietly to the catacombs
inside me.

The bitter wind tries to pay homage to
the heroes of the land, but falters, then
begs for an understanding of time.
I feel it rest on my shoulder blades,
a stale breath, denied resurrection.

The morning fog soon meets my eyes,
ice and retrospection, and I taste
everything that humanity buried,
everything they gave away.

The treasures of sorrow, a fateful
paradox no one can pull me through.
The smoldering is a sempiternal
segregation, with no vessel for the
souls, and I linger and linger

though I'm needed nowhere.