Nightmare

The world is sleeping The world is dreaming But beneath the dream Something is awake The sky has forgotten its name The earth has forgotten its shape And humanity Has forgotten how to die The final morning Arrives without a sun The clouds become ashes The rivers become red Fire walks across the cities Searching for nothing Blood fills the streets Where footsteps once remained No warning No judgment Only consequence The world does not end With a voice from heaven It ends quietly Inside the human mind We built our future Upon the bones of yesterday We called destruction Progress We called hunger Ambition We called the burning forest A necessary sacrifice And when the final tree fell There was no sound Only wind Only ash Only blood Nightmare The world is dying in its sleep Nightmare The dead are dreaming underneath Fire above Blood below And from the ruins Something begins to grow What is an ending? A door? A grave? A silence? Or merely The destruction Of everything That prevented Something new From breathing? Perhaps the world Must become a corpse Before it can become A cradle The oceans rise The mountains break The heavens burn The children wake They open their eyes Inside a world of embers They do not remember The cities They do not remember Our names They inherit only The fire And perhaps this is mercy Not salvation Not forgiveness But absence The complete erasure Of what we were Nightmare The world is dying in its sleep Nightmare The dead are calling from beneath Fire above Blood below And from the ruins Something begins to grow We were here We were alive We were afraid We were becoming And then We were gone From the blood Comes the beginning From the ashes Comes the breath From the silence Comes a language No human mouth has spoken The old world collapses The new world opens its eyes No angels descend No gods return Only life Refusing to remain dead Perhaps existence Was never meant to be gentle Perhaps creation Requires destruction Perhaps every beginning Is secretly mourning What had to disappear And perhaps The nightmare Was never the end It was the womb Nightmare The final fire has burned Nightmare The old world is gone Nightmare Blood becomes soil Ash becomes rain And beneath the ruins Life begins again The fire is gone The blood is cold The cities are silent The old gods are forgotten And somewhere Beneath the blackened earth A heartbeat Again Again Wake Wake Wake The nightmare ends The dream begins