I Am The War

It’s not my problem, I scream,
not my sad planet to save anymore.

Let others do the work of salvation;
I’m not going to be here long enough

to bask in any light
from a saved world, and in truth

I don’t believe in its salvation:
at best that’s a dim light 

everyone’s scrambling toward.
Again: this isn’t my job — 

I’m over halfway
to my own last days.

I’m mostly racing the darkness
to see which of us falls first; still,

the bedraggled world
keeps coming 

and begging for me
to ease its suffering,

even if just a little.
Did I stutter, I wonder,

when I asked the world
to let me off its hook?

Maybe that was not a stutter.
Maybe that was my voice

pushed through a shiver; perhaps
I have to consider other possibilities — 

cold as the wind is,
perhaps I am colder;

if I am not the peace,
perhaps I am the war.