I am more than that name chiseled on the wall.

Those are just letters, they can not replace

a single face or that resounding fall. 

They can not tell of the hidden fractures

and afflictions beneath its cold stone skin.

If you reach out and touch

your palm to that dead surface,

maybe lean in to hear the cries

of a million empty voices,

you see me and know me as you.

As we all face forward, shots shake

the stone behind sending up grit

that sticks in teeth and hair.  We fall as one body.

I lay very still as I hear the officers' call,

their hate sweeping out of them in waves

that wash over us.  In the ash and dirt,

not a sound from the shattered lungs of breathing,

red blankets pouring out of hearts that once beat

in that deep dark night.  Like thunder,

rattles the prison gates, enclosed in this

vile venom that seeps into bones and muscle.

I do not dare.  Hope.  Cry out.  Seal my fate.

A world gone black and I wait, I only wait,

until the earth is silent and cold

and I am buried away into that fear.

Until I am only one more name on a wall,

one more lost soul in history's never-ending war.