Back from Broken

The cathedral across the way

strikes its funeral bells

and a muffled silence ring

over snow-covered roofs

as I decide I will not die today

I was resting in the shadows

mournful and afraid

summoned to the stake

forced by my own hand

by shame and guilt and pain

Now I’m picking up the pieces

of someone that used to be

careless and self-confident

a stranger to me now yet

a man I still wish to meet

I’m not quite back from broken

still wish I’m swallowed by the dirt

but I am whole enough

to see where I am going, and

I know these bells are not for me

- Afton Light, 2021