Nobody's Hero Poem by Jacqueline Marcel Hawthorn

I took a sword from the righteous and watched how they wept,
I took a knife to the homeless, diseased and bereft for
what king, what farmhand, what girl, what mother
doesn’t love a man with blood on his sleeve?
And that sinister lurch, the brooding, arm-folding, un-chivalrous perch,
leant back against the stone, unmoving, unyielding,
and am I unfeeling,
or am I unfelt;
not held, not trusted, not requited in
lust, if I am a monster than what was my mother;
her milk was not penitence mercy or love
I grew strong on chilled winds soaked rains granite stones
the sun in its heat undoes my composure and am I
alone in selfish ambition, desire and corruption. What leech
doesn’t cling when the fruit is still sweet what
dog doesn’t bound at the feet of a master, hereafter in control of
a life, what use is a soul if there’s not one to sell it to,
what use is a heart if there’s no-one to give it to?
A villain is the hero of his own tale, if he can
follow half-longings and follow the failed.