The Wall

There is a child

a small, pale child

that retreats to a cave

carved into a mountain

every day at sunset.

There,

this child removes

a chisel

and a hammer

from his pockets.

And as he

turns his grey eyes

toward the cave wall

he counts the smiling faces

he has carved there.

Some are carved large,

spreading over the long wall

like the wings of a phoenix

rising through

the atmosphere.

Others are small,

small enough to almost

go unnoticed,

yet carved so deep into the wall

fingers can't reach the back.

Some of these smiles pool

blood left from the bleeding hands

that carved them.

Each smile

carved into that wall

is simple in its uniqueness

and blind in the darkness

of the cave.

And every day

that pale, small child

will carve a new smile

into the wall.

At first he lined them up,

sorted them one by one

into pillars of

depth and scope.

But now he's running out of room.

Now he'll fill in cracks

left in his cheery mosaic,

find a small place to

carve a small face.

And every day he counts

one by one

the heads he has left there

and every day

he loses one.

Carving a smile seems to

subtract one from the wall.

It hadn't always been

this way,

at one time he had

carved so frequently

and so violently

that he had lost track

of all the faces

notched on the wall

a violent fervor

spreading throughout his bones

and into

the lines he carved.

But as the years progressed

and the fire within him died

Visits to the wall became

less frequent.

Shorter.

Most nights he hadn't

carved a face at all.

He would look at the wall,

sigh,

and walk away.

But now

he counted

he tallied

he carved.

He didn't understand

why this place was now so

meaningful to him

or even what the

smiles meant.

He didn't know what changed in him.

All he knew is he

needed to record them.

To observe them.

To save them.

To make sure these people

never died

and the dark cave wall

never blanked.

So for now

he carves

he counts

and he cares

digging a makeshift mural

leaving lines and

leaving blood

etched into the rock

of the cave wall.

And maybe someday

he'll stop.

He doesn't know

what will happen

if he does.

Probably nothing.

But until that day comes

he'll chisel at

the rock

and count every moment

fixed there,

as if observing these smiles

gives them life.

As if

counts and lines

can breathe life

onto that grey

cave wall.