The Pariah's Jeremiad

We should've died that day
When the trumpets sounded,
And the skies rained gas and bullets.
When thunder was the audience,
That clapped our skulls together
Like a steel hammer to a bell,
Ringing our soft souls to hell.

Nothing pierced me deeper,
Than the black water scratching down your face.
Not the burning in my eyes,
Not the inevitability of a crosshair's embrace.

We did die that day,
When the coroner dropped your casket,
And we flinched at the sudden stop
That ran away with you into the ground.

Now silence follows the abstract images of a screaming crowd,
Swallowed by an intangible past that exists quietly in the mind,
Replaying its cryptic playlist, relaying its long warning,
Like buzzards on an old power-line singing death in early morning.