The Tragedy of Love

It was something we despised,
To show the world of glancing eyes,
How much it meant, when all we saw
Was the opening of a maw.
The gaping jaws and drowning gullet
Filled our vision, then a bullet
Whipped past hair and skinned a cheek,
Rushed to find the opening bleak,
And crash! The waves assailed our ears,
For we looked on all we feared:
The world that would to swallow whole
Our lives, our feelings, all our souls
Lay shattered on the broken waste;
The single shot had flown with grace
And all that we thought fair and true
Was laid to ruin, we never knew
What really lay behind the throat,
Past the teeth and shining coat
Of glamour scraped to paper-thin,
Beat and harried by the wind.

We only wept for what we'd lost,
It tore our eyes to think we'd cost
The world to lose it's wonders great,
We wailed to see it's crumbling state
For what had once filled all our hearts
Was gone; it tore itself apart
And we fell trembling in the dark,
Souls awash with black tear-marks,
All was emptied to our cores,
The love that filled us was no more
And we cried an endless scream
For death had taken all our dreams.
And what pain could now be worse?
Love had failed, so it we cursed
That which left us, that which fled,
That which stabbed us 'til we bled...

But then something rose to wounded eyes,
Something passed through tears and blinds,
Something pierced the darkness grim
And stabbed our bleeding hearts again!
We cried out, the pain was real,
More than anything we could feel
The roar rose up on stricken wings,
It was the end of everything.
But underneath the pain it spread,
A peace that vanished all the dead,
A hope that washed the darkness out,
A knowledge that erased the doubt.
From the bullet it rose high:
A light that spread and filled the sky,
A dream that filled our hearts anew,
And suddenly the grief was through!

Hearts splintered, ashes spread,
Dagger split through death's dark head,
Love rushed in like doomsday fire
Holding us on the shrieking pyre,
And through the haze of ash and pain,
A voice called out our single names,
And as our flesh burned fully off
We stood in awe of all we'd lost.
The anguish we were let to bear
Was all to mend the frightening tear,
That rent that caused our hearts to ache,
To bend and fold and finally break.
But anguish higher brought us down,
For without pain, no love is found,
And without love, all is a waste,
A dead land burning without grace.

And so the bullet killed the world,
Agony around us curled,
Love's first kiss was grief untold
A blaze that seared hearts' bitter cold.
We lay there in a quivering heap,
Stunned where those two rivers meet,
But from our sorrow we slowly rose,
And He who raised us surely knows,
Just why we had to lose it all
To hear the endless wailing call
That beckons us through fire and rain,
Storms that only end in pain,
To find the only honest One,
Who knows all pain and still has won.
When He smiles, His smile is sad,
For He too has lost all that He had,
And we will smile, for we have found
That in it lies a strength that's bound
In all the shards of shattered hearts,
In every splintered blood-tipped dart.
One day soon we shall be free,
Pain will vanish on glassy sea,
Until then we will scream long
And rejoice for the singing of Love's song.