I betrayed her
Because I let myself,
Because I hated her in red,
Because I was at the end
numb
done
In the mountains that are sharp and strangle you.
But in their company I grew,
Fully fleshed,
Purposed,
Shoulder to shoulder,
foreign and domestic,
And we hugged and promised over bread and goat
In the mountains that are sharp and strangle you.
Until they betrayed me,
no color
no strength
no hope
drowning in their vengeance,
suffocating in their silence
a clamp at my throat
a choke on my heart
In the mountains that are sharp and strangle you.
I did escape
the reckless malign,
the arbitrary hatred,
the stupid
and
the tomb.
But I had felt the giant
— his power and blindness —
That changed green to gray and muscle to yellow.
I was free I reminded myself.
I was safe I reminded myself.
I was home I reminded myself.
Far from the mountains that are sharp and strangle you.
But now I know why it lingered —
the painful aftertaste,
the cloud in my eye,
the jitter in my mind.
Now my brothers betray my brothers
And their brothers betray their brothers.
Now I sit in a dream and try to redeem
Myself, my brothers, my brothers, all of us
Amidst the mountains that are sharp and strangle you.
Follow Isaac Mars here.