Penance

Peering out of darkness that hurts my eyes.
Walking out to see a land lay to waste.
Where is the city and all the people?
Seeking vestiges of life; there is no trace.

Where did all the buildings go?
Rubble and snapped cables are everywhere.
Smoke drifting by from all around
Isolated fires burning hot in the acrid air.

Carefully moving through the rubble,
Stumbling and falling along the way,
Toxic smoke burning my lungs and nostrils
And skeletal walls shield out the day.

Climbing up a mountain of rubble,
To see over everything from above.
Waste and debris lay to the horizon
And a graying sky that holds no love.

Pillars of smoke from scattered fires
Like spirits that rise up to the skies,
Silence that is so loud it hurts the ears
The mortification of faded desperate cries.

Did I cause all of this, from my own fear?
To have caused, so much death and pain?
Was it the only solution at hand?
I am left alone, where is the gain?

Pestilence that makes your skin crawl
And radiation that soon makes you ill.
Was it intolerance that brought you here?
Or, a primitive need for you to kill?

A moment in mankind's shining glory
From his final decline, since birth.
Pray you never are to cause the legacy,
Or you stand alone, the last one left on earth.