Love Story

Every year on September 11, I write a poem. Here's the one for this year:

***

You stood before me shining in my glory
Faces all aglow with joy and sincerity
Full of happiness and love
You were wholly mine, and I was wholly yours

But you all walked away
You forsook me, your father, the Giver of Life
I loved you and gave you my heart
What more could you want?

You sought wealth and power
And five minute highs
Excuses to satisfy the lust you had never had before
You broke my heart
Like a hammer shattering stone
When you walked away, disappearing into darkness

I cried out to you many times
Sometimes you looked back
But you walked further away
You abandoned me and I cry alone
I weep rivers of tears for you

I watched your hearts become diseased and vile
As you stained them with blackest sin
I tore my hair in grief
As you killed millions in my name

I mourned you many times
As your longing and love were sacrificed for Beelzebub
And I carried your casket alone
To be buried in an unmarked grave

I loved each and every one of you dearly
Though you scoffed and threw my words over your shoulder
When you were hurt, I was in great agony
When you suffered, I suffered a thousand times more
When your cities were destroyed, a piece of my heart crumbled away
When your cities grew, and with them your evil, I sprinkled ashes on my head

Every day I saw you stumble further away from me
I reached out to you
But you were deaf
You could not hear me calling to you
You could not hear me crying my heart out

You pretended you still loved me
And brought me false promises and gifts
Moved for a day
Before returning to evil ways
You claimed you were my truest servants
While your knives slit the throats of your brothers and sisters

Eventually, even your lies of being mine stopped
And you scorned my very existence
When I cried out to you
You said it was not real, it was not real
And I wept the more

My son in Arabia grew, and in time
He loved me through a false paradigm
And swore he would kill the infidel for me
Like so many others before him
At his words I wept and tore my hair
For all lies carry within the seed of bitter truth

Now all my children, all of you
Lived mired in false promises
Spoken from the lips of false prophets
And lies spoken from the lips of Shaitan
You blinded yourself to the brilliant light of my truth

And turned to me again however briefly
When with two towers, your confidence fell and shattered
And you lived in fear—o how afraid were you
And I could not look—it hurt too much
To see my children, my sons and daughters, suffering in agony

I loved you wholly
You forsook me
And, inexplicably, I still pour my heart out to you
For you are mine, and I am thine