Hollow Gift
Fabiano Negri
Everything vanished in the great fire
The ruins bleeding grey upon the pyre
No stone left on stone, nothing left to fix
Lost in the ashes of sixteen sixty-six
Few souls wandered through the debris
A dazed man digging where his home used to be
Beneath a charred beam, a metal box intact
The secret he buried, the fire left unpacked
No gold inside, no riches to hold
Just a restless past, a story untold
A lock of hair, a letter unsent
A year since the plague, a life that was spent
Monsters lie coiled in the depths of a snare
Lives are swept off to a road of despair
Bricks are laid back to mend the defeat
He clutches the box, his heart in a fray
His love never left, but she died anyway
The Sun went dark, never to mend
A broken man waiting for the end
That lock of hair, that letter's truth
Prayers to the heavens won't alter the pace
As smoke from the ruins reveals the grim place
Nothing is as it seems in this world
Life is hard, but faith is worse
The proof of how he stole her youth
A girl's terror, a silent victim
Held in the hands of the monster she meets