The Stranger

I find myself looking at the sky at night
The firepit ablaze
I lay awake for hours despite
The coming of working days

The fire is low and darkness silent
My feet are sore from stones
The pain on my hands is sharp and violent
With feelings of broken bones

The snap of a twig sent my mind to wake
My eyes looked to and fro
The sight of a figure, a makeshift snake
His skin a pure white glow

“Who’s there?” I yelled, my voice a squeak 
“Show yourself to me!” 
I heard a shuffle, suttle and weak
His body down on one knee

Within the glow of the flaming ember
Came a man in black
His attire fit for a cold September
Holding a brown twine sack

“Be not afraid,” he said to me
His eyes as black as night
“I have brought some food with me
Would you like a bite?” 

He held out a biscuit within his hand
I stared and took it in haste
The cookie taste of rot and sand
The middle an uncooked paste

He smiled at me, licking his lips
And sat across from me
He took some beef cut into strips
And handed it to me

“Might I ask your name?” He asked
Mouth now full of doe
I stayed silent until at last
“My name… that I don’t know”

“Where I’m from and who I was.
To me it’s a mystery
My memory seems to be on pause
I don’t know my history”

"My father, mother, sister, and brother
Do they even exist?
I know, for now, that one way or another
My path’s a melodic twist”

“I’m happy here, but stranger, sir
I know this isn’t home.
The moments here seem to blur
I’m in a massive dome.”

The man listened and smiled
“Right you are young man,
You are smart for a child
Unlike you, most ran”

You see my child, most just cry
When there's time to spare
They don’t know why they had to die
In the time that death was there