there is a light inside
but not one i’d wish upon
humankind’s most hideous enemy
for it lives already inside of him

but he is not me
i am but a simple seed inside
a grown man’s body, my heart is a
dry husk, hollowed out by one who should have sacrificed

himself but instead betrayed,
with a soul diseased, rotten, calloused
yet hurting; afraid of who he might be to
the one whose light he held in his hand and breathed upon it and

left unable to love
with his brittle heart
susceptible to flame
and spark