The Valley

“The Valley”
By: Joseph Michael Webb
October 30, 2009

The sun forever scorches this desert valley in the summer,
where few will venture from their homes, afraid of the cruel heat.
A temperature that could easily let death take them from here
if left without the precious water that sustains all mankind.

The sun’s glare from the setting sun tackles my eyes as I drive west
toward the monstrous mountains that lay beyond this revolting valley.
A place that I infernally called my damned home for twenty-one years.
If only I could drive forever toward this dropping sun and forget time itself…

Death, decay, ruin, and tragedy were all that remained behind me there;
everyone I truly cared for lay beneath the baking sands of the valley.
Everyone else merely abandoned me when I was still a budding child,
when I actually needed someone, anyone the most in this petulant life.

My feelings become far less restless as I ascend the mountain escarpment.
Going further away from the cursed valley than I have ever been before.
Though somewhat uneasy about leaving my ‘home’, I realize this is right.
I can’t move forward if my head is eternally stuck in the hot sands of the valley.

My past now lies in the sizzling sands of the wretched valley.
It can haunt me no longer for I have discarded it far behind me.