If you were really

what they say you are,
you would be responsible
for all of it, and either
you wouldn't,
or you couldn't,
or you had a deal with yourself
not to interfere,
no matter what.
I have to believe that you are still
becoming,
because if I thought that you were
already
both here
and beyond here,
then I could never
understand how that nine year old girl,
wandering in shock down the streets
of hellscaped Nanking
with blood running down her legs,
glorified you.
And I would hate you, in my
antlike ignorance, for that,
or else have to think that you really were
just a rumor, after all, because
I'd have too much respect for you
to believe in you.
So I have to believe that you couldn't,
but that someday you'll be able to,
and that you will make it up to her,
and to every other innocent in every other
universe,
and that everything will make sense
at the end of time,
because, that's the only way I can come in from
the desert,
and I'm
more tired than even you could know,
of wandering sightless
within its desolate expanses.