The memories come unbidden.
Knocking at the gate while I sleep.
I ignore them, hoping they’ll go away and leave me in peace for awhile.
But, once ignored,
they come back with a battering ram and invade my walled city with terror and pain and bloodshed.
They come back to destroy what their ancestors already destroyed
— to take away any remnant of hope and peace that yet remains.
Then they disappear.
Leaving in their wake their own essence to haunt the smallest refuges that they may have missed in their rampage.
A desolate city,
indwelt only by the ghosts of recurring devastation
© Melanie CSM 1993
