I stood watching

As decency took its last breath

I barely recognized it anymore

It had been mangled and beaten

Left to wither in the sun, the last

Trickles of compassion disappeared

Into the dry cracks, soaked unseeing

Within the forgotten layers

See how this ground has grown hard

Unhallowed, when left to its own devices

But there is new growth somewhere

Unnoticed as it struggles to break through

The compressed expanse beneath our feet

Watered, with the fleeting sentiments of love

I felt myself care for a moment, in recognition

And then shuddered at the possibility

Before spitting on the corpse of decency

And with it, erasing yet another path

Between the wreckage and the ruin