walls

These walls will write you novels

if you ask them what they've seen;

this fading paint will wither away

to bleed stories unforeseen.

The silent wails of a beaten woman,

The stifled youth of a callous child,

The burning pile of a boy's dreams,

The heavy chest of a man who wanted to fly.

They took your scorn,

your malice, your pain.

This clay took an oath

to hide your stains.

And they held you up

when your fall was fated.

These walls were friends

when it was the world you hated.

Never did they come down tumbling-

in the wake of broken bones.

Turned blood from shivering fists

into unyielding ruby stones.

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artwork by Arnold Böcklin