Guernica

A mess of limbs and errant lines

A woman with warped hands and disproportionate arms

Claws against the walls

Crying, screaming

Calling out to a savior

A messiah, a king of kings

That she knows will not arrive

Like a hand clutching to a broken dagger

A horse and a bull

Startled, roused by the noise

People

Those who we consider higher than animals

Reduced to their most basic level

In a mad, feverish race

To escape their rapidly encroaching death

This impulse, long buried beneath morality, sanity, and societal standards

Naked for all to see

Ugly, repulsive truth

We’ll ignore it

For as long as we possibly can

But it’ll always be there

Staring

With a gaze that has seen everything

A gaze that can be broken my no measure of decency, sympathy, or humanity

Humanity

Oh, the irony

Such plainly hyperbolic agony only a human is capable of inflicting

And yet we use humanity to try and shield ourselves

From that steely glare

To act as if a human is more\

More than his bindings to the cruel ways of nature

Jagged, sharp, piercing lines

Emanate from the overhead lamp

A light cast upon the people and their suffering

The harsh, wounding truth

Of cruelty,

Of pain,

Of mankind’s true nature

Shining through our delusions

Shining through our hubris

Displayed to all the world

In raw, biting clarity