A starry night.
Beacons bright are covered;
Clouds of smog-choked light.

This beauty, lost in foreign haze,
still paints the truth of better days.

A shadow creeps
in slick dark streets;
The city, the city that never sleeps.

A spectral shade,
doomed ne'er to fade,
Now lifts its terrible death-cold blade.

A dreamer lost
in ages tossed
With grief, madness, loves once lost:

Now lifts her head,
heart filled with dread,
To face the spectre, long not-dead.

Familiar sights,
Familiar frights,
All tossed together in starless nights.

The shade grows near,
and in her fear delights,
for in her it beholds:

A timeless taint,
that blood did paint,
all those many years ago.

A silent dream,
A silent scream
Repeats the God-forsaken theme:

Her fears, out, placed,
for her to face
Alone, without a human trace.

Is she aware
that in spectral stare
lies personhood, worries without a care?

A roiling mass
of choices past,
Ever-changing, yet stone-cast?

A query, lost in modern age,
A question, lost to familiar haze.

Buried under lies on lies,
Disguised by fear of answer, wise.

Afraid to dare, scared to try:
For question and answer ever repeat:
"why, Why, WHY?"