Through The Glass - To The Other Side Of The Soul Poem by Scarlett Treat

He awakened in darkness,
Darkness so deep,
And so blank and black
That he knew his soul was lost.

Sweat had congealed on his skin -
A sweat so thick, with a texture
Like drops of blood,
And his waking nightmare begins again.

As long as they had lived -
His wife, his child -
His sunshine, his joy,
His soul had been safe.

She had been as delicate
As a blossom in springtime,
With apple pink cheeks,
Wearing the smell of flowers,

And he, that shining boy,
As fragile as a rose,
But with arms straight and true,
A vision of the man yet to be.

But the drunken man,
With his reckless concern,
His careless driving,
Had taken them from him.

He had had them
For such a short time.....
His bride for a year,
His son, his pride, a month.

And now, in an instant
Of agony from hell,
The drunk took his wife
And his infant son as well.

'Why do I live? ' he wondered.
'Why must I still be here? '
Each day, his soul a battleground
Between revenge and death.

Would he live to kill
The drunk who took his family,
Or die by his own hand
From a broken heart?

Each day he awoke in darkness,
The blank, black darkness of his soul.
He never knew, when he opened his eyes,
Which way his life would go.

Each day he stands
On the lip of the cliff of death,
Clinging with such delicate balance
To what little of his life that is left.

Scarlett Treat
June 16,2008