Under the effect of impending desperation, I ticked off a weekend,
and committed a weekend to a foreign service.
I seemed to have been travelling in circles on the way,
for hours, to feeble remains of places as they were half a decade ago.
I kept my eyes open throughout the way, more so than ever—
but it wasn't really for listening to the same old records again.
Out the window, across the divide, ran an oddly-familiar road;
and fields on fields of a crop I never cared to learn the name of.
Further up north were sombering remains of a divided state:
cut-through by religion and foreign greed.
The atrocities were now long forgotten,
but some calluses remained, a fair skin was to strive for;
some scars never went away.
The motherland in disregard, rummages through trash like a stray dog.
This is a disease, parasite that runs through this land,
in rivers and settled waters alike: a hallucinogen that never seems to wear off,
no matter the extent to which this dying tradition cries,
finding itself next in-line to already dead cultural pride.
The land is already orphaned in that regard,
some lean towards a more elusive religious-right:
the last resort, before everything comes crumbling,
and the veiling clouds rise.
And for the rest, and the inhumane kind,
there was little aid, and little childhood to speak of.
The veil put on them was worn out and short.
It came off as they started to grow, and started to walk.
To witness the change as it weighed the child up on his legs:
an orphan made by the self,
was plenty to purge even the finest trodden veils,
kept in place to not taint the sight.
These are also the people that never saw a full dime coming from their hard work,
let alone from a book or a song.
They had nothing to keep,
no wealth to pass on.
There's little to be expected
from people who spend their lives in indifference
from the masses, and in disregard.
They in turn do the most harm to this land,
and are called out as such;
But that does little aside from
stray them further away.
On the way back, I contributed to a collecting pile of trash on the roadside:
with that came off my resolve, and any surviving hope of change.
The service-time was spent more in the recluse, than on-site.
There is no good will for the people of this land, and no escape to speak of.
No questions are raised when everything functions, or well enough to make that claim.