Pretentious Peril

 

In a time of pretentious peril, people are packed, piled away in a peculiar prison.

Their ruler says: “It is a way to keep you safe” but it’s really a way to make them slaves.

Circular, pitch black, cold, and underground,

there is enough fear to go around.

They aren’t allowed to come out, to see light until they lose their will to fight.

As the weeks pass by, Blood gushes, blood splashes.

Hunger and insanity is slowly making everyone become back-stabbers.

Death is spreading doom, dread, leading the damned into the devilish darkness.

Women weep, children screech,

for hope is getting more and more difficult to see. 

Saints become demons,

committing deeds so horrific.

Vegetarians become vampric,

lusting after murder;  

their souls being in complete torture.

A mother scolds her teenage daughter, telling her not to cry,

for crying is a sign of weakness, senselessness;

but the daughter cries in a corner anyway.

Emotion means her compassion hasn’t been taken away.

She refuses to be an empty shell;

She wants to be feeling everything in this hell. 

Only when people are on the verge of being zombies, their ruler will set them free.

The people will fall onto knees and obey.

The dead will then pray for living,

giving them back the drive to survive again.

(c)Lena Holdman, all rights reserved 2012


On my online poetry class, we were studying alliteration (repeating first syllables) and assonance (repeating vowel sounds). I wrote this for my assignment.