(a poem I wrote Saturday)

forsakened

we join with others here
to usher in a message
sanctioned in these trenches
by a theater of anonymity

we sit and lie in wait
as the story unfolds before us
like a crime scene with a weapon
and a victim in a crowd

the shock and awe shuts our eyes
to rail against this injustice
that flogs our waning character
to rise to the occasion

faint hope ends after all the rage
and some just weep for applause
because they are nothing without love,
an enduring vulnerability

the quiet only invites us out