At the End of the Line

Originally titled "Will I Follow?": A poem about creation, enlightenment, and the ultimate result of ignorance.

Destiny willed that humanity would find nothing but dust and thorns amidst the squall.

From the tree’s hollow we crawled;

The truth of our origins we’re forced to haul.

Finding comfort among the mass,

Together, we choked on reality’s toxic gas.

Stripped of all identity,

We melded into one entity

And united, we breathed in serenity.

I once realized that I, too, was part of the flies

Only to be drowned out by the deafening roar of their cries:

Hymns praising our "divine" defendant,

Portrayed resplendent and transcendent,

Ringing from the mouth of my descendant.

But the truth

Is never pure in the eye of the sleuth.

I was made to doubt;

Made to tread the unholy route;

Made to survive amidst knowledge’s drought.

Humanity has established a great empire of false hope,

Supplementing truth for naive idealism to help them cope.

The despair of creation I now know

And with enlightenment I glow.

The error of our ways, I want to show.

I contemplated how to pierce their warped illusion

And in the knife's mirror edge, I saw the conclusion.

As I messily burrowed into my own brother’s skin,

I asked “What have I become?” with a mad grin;

Praying that humanity would finally wake up to our sins.

For the reason we all breed, plead and bleed

Is because we choke out reality with self-deceit's weeds.

My family looked at what I had done,

The weight of my actions bearing down on them like the sun.

The tears my brother had shed

Were in their stead;

And upon similar sacrifices, we were lead.

Saints, martyrs and innocents alike give their bodies for society to tread:

My family was just the next string to be woven into death’s grand thread.

Reemerging from deep night, I watched as they succumbed to phobias and fears;

Overcome by angst, impossibility courses through their veins and their flesh sears.

“My sins are too great to bear,” they said through sneers.

The last of them forsook me as the tears I swallow;

My brethren retreated back to the hollow.

To be ripped away from acceptance's warmth by a mighty bird?

I only wanted my voice to be heard,

And now the truth has been irrevocably blurred.

Sour thoughts spilled in my mind;

And to all reason, I am blind.

In a lonely cabin, the rope was strung;

"Do it; just do it," the voices in my head rung,

Until their commands spilled from my necrotic tongue.

At the bell’s final toll,

I realized my true role.

Revelation after revelation had shown

That I was truly alone;

The solution finally arrived as I sat on my throne.

My brethren retreated back to the hollow:

"Will I follow?"