Burn

The world burns away
With each passing moment
Friends leave,  trudging into the darkness
Never to return
Each blade of grass,  every petal
Withers as I watch,  unblinking

This is age,  I think
When memories must be laid to rest
Given their graves
Their private ceremonies
Their periods of mourning
This is age 

Among the carcasses of my past
I tread, forlorn
Digging deeper graves
Laying loss to rest

The world burns away, but
Burdened with the scars
I remain
Still as the night that burns me.

Scarred

The blade cuts the wielder

The apprentice
Slashes and cuts

The razors edge
Marks his time
To mastery
In cicatrices

For some of us
Life is our blade

My heart is a cicatrix
My mind the blade discarded

_____, sweat, and _____

And this
Is my world
Built with the sinews and sweat
Of my body
Blood and tears intermingled
But not mine.
Oh no,  not mine.

I must be proud
Of my world
Edifices that reach the sky
Nature transformed to civilisation
By my own dirt-stained hands.
With the sweat of my efforts
I'm building mansions over my fears
On the rubble of their blood and tears.