What could have been

He was only 22,

The man thrown through the pain of glass,

To land metres in front of the merciless machine,

It did not stop before it crushed his skull,

He lay there motionless,

Images raced through my head,

Another life stolen, but even more lives left empty.

 

The priest read out the last words,

To the box in the ground.

The shrill sound of cries,

The terrible ringing round the graveyard,

I told my friend as he wept,

You would have stopped it if you could have,

It wasn't his fault he swapped places with him.