Decree Nisi

Decree Nisi

I've never heard pain
before today.
Her piercing cries,
a chorus of stuttering sobs
with a shaky vibrato
that can never be
quite in tune.
I've never seen sorrow
before today.
A snapped smile
and a halo of tears
wrapped tightly around it,
trying to hold back
the emotions
that come pouring out,
a torrential flood
that flows freely
without any dams
strong enough to cease it.

A spiderweb of cracks
has crawled across
that glass heart of hers
and every day
it threatens to shatter;
it's clear in my eyes
that this sadness
shall not be silenced
until the damned dullards
who dared to take up
their hammer and chisel
to carve their wrongs
into her beating crystal
only to find that
the material
wasn't strong enough,
giving way to
the forceful follies
that formed her future
as the days moved on
yet she could not.

How does one patch
a gut-wrenching rip
in such a silken bauble
when blinded by
the blackness of
these boondocks,
a petrifying place
I would never think
to stroll through
on an eve such as this?
Yet, I hold out
my hand anyhow,
hoping beyond belief
that the needle I clench
tightly in my frightened fingers
might somehow catch
on her fragile fabric
and begin to stitch
a new road for her to follow.