Pandora

Instinctively looking through pages of dust

For the key to the lock,

The lock to the cage

That should never remain empty.

Closed but not secured,

The threat of a beginning

Tearing the sanity of the guards

And triggering their fears.

They seat on the cage to keep its cover down;

“’Tis the box of Pandora” says one;

“Shut up and think” says the other.

They can feel them moving,

Shaking, breaking, shrieking, teasing,

The Monsters of Perdition

Seeking freedom, seeking war,

The cage must not be opened.

The guards can’t hold on

Not forever, anyway,

They need the key to the lock,

The lock to the cage

That keeps disease and infection at bay.

“What if hell breaks loose,” says one,

“What if there’s no answer.”

The other remains silent,

Her forehead bright with sweat,

Her knuckles white with anger.

“What if you can’t stay.”

The cage is made of air,

The bars are made of nothing,

Nothing stands

Between the guards

And the Monsters,

Only an illusion.

And when the dream is broken…

There’ll be nothing left to save.

The King and the Wanderer guard Pandora,

She cries and he helps

And both are terrified

And keep looking in their minds

For the key to the lock,

The lock to the cage

That holds hell an inch beneath them.

There’s no solid ground

Nowhere to hold on to

And make the cage bars real.

As soon as the Monsters realize

They’re kept by mere willpower

They’ll overpower their captors

And roam free through the Earth

With guard blood still between their fingers.

Let someone else find the corpses

And grieve over the impossible

Rather than stand in the way

And try to stop them.