Le Guerre Du L'Inconnu Poem by Joshua Swanson

I am the unknown.
You, to me, are a stranger.

I am the unknown.
You, to everyone, are a solitary figure.

I am the unknown.
You, to us, are a nameless passerby.

Ravens seem like signs of death.
You're a stranger to me, like all the rest.

Can you not hear the drums?
Beating louder and louder...

Or is that your heart?
Empty. Strangled with no desire.

Is it your breathing?
You seem as if you can't mutter a word.

Or is it your memories?
Shut out with blackness galore.

It may be all three...
But, since I can't tell, you show me.

Why are you laying down?
Right there! In front of I?

People are starting to look!
Get up now! Please. Vai! VAI!

Here. Let me turn you around,
So that I may see you face.

Instead of it facing the ground
In this greatly familiar place.

But, wait! What is that,
Which is not there!

Something of major importance is missing,
Just below your dark hair.

I shall not be blamed for this,
Even though it is my own fault.

You should have gave help to me,
For this is why you now can't see.

I have your eyes in my bag,
Well. Shall I give them back?

Or can I keep them for myself
Oh, I'm not mad!

This is why people do not help me.
They think I'd be better off in the street.

This alley has been my home
For the final years of my life.

The only thing I've been given is this:
A glass knife.

Why so fragile?
Why so sharp?

For this is what has been keeping my life together.
For this is what has helped me more than anyone!

For the final years of my life,
I've had to do something to keep me busy.

For living on the streets is not something someone longs for.
I could not think of anything else to do but this.

I've found strangers.
Solitary figures.
Nameless passer-bys.
Anyone who would not help me.

In the end, I would have a small token,
Taken from your body.

Waste not. I keep everthing I've taken from corpses.
I've been building a child.
A person.
Me.

I have been building myself for a long time.
Not how you build yourself, with memories, and friends.

That takes way too long.
So I build myself with other people's memories.
Other people's eyes,
Other people's hands.

Anything, so I would not go through life how it was.
I could not find happiness.

So I found it elsewhere...