I remember the dawn stillness: warmth of fire on the hearth, soft whispers in the darkness, and the first pale light of morning. Long indeed must be your arm, to take this all away from us.

May every child be stunted and scorned. May all their lives be short and forlorn, and your sorrow be bitter and long before you can die from the pain of it.

The sun before us seemed to balance on the edge of a knife, and we watched from below as the world outside went dark, and filled with enemies. I remember a long silence, bodies left where they fell, a river running dry, forest made of ash. Black smoke rose like a mountain overhead. Scars and pits on the land where children should have walked, and grown to be strong. The song is dead in their throats, blown away on the wind.

Men; you're only mortal men, but you never could be appeased, no matter how we bled, no matter that we fed your bodies with our own. Smoke should cover the sky, but instead the air is clear. The same earth that once bore our rape now bears fruit again. All our lives are patterns drawn in sand, every hope and fear described therein lost to the flood and washed away.

May you labor for every breath. May your dreams be only of death. May your life be thick with disease, not a moment's relief from it. Every shackle you bound to our flesh, every mark from every lash, may you suffer the heart of it.