Unbroken (Poetry)

Always hungry, I’m the sleepless horse
cropping winter’s ever-frozen moor
the black ice numbing teeth and gums
my breath puffed pale — thought run aground
my heart an aching one-note drum
that none are close enough to hear.

I chose this place — this empty land
to do my suffering alone
away from prying eyes and tongues
that tear the flesh I have become —
my private coat that knows the snow
will chill it through close-buttoned bone.

They name me wild — unbroken — dumb
the moon my saddle silver-swirled
and reined by wind — the stars are spurs
tonight’s black rider carried, weather-blown
a phantom soothing while he whispers quiet
his charm of darkness peeling from the world.

Each dawn I see them distant — still as stone
the old stallion and his stubborn shadow-mare
age-ragged they infest the edge of day —
blood calls to blood despite how decades thin
dull anger’s cloying potion lingers there
I’ll run until I’m out of range and starved —

                                sweating every haunted mile away.