Letters from the Forgotten

Knock, knock,
There's a stranger at my door.
At once my mind raced
To catch a familiar face
In the infinite database called memory
And in a moment I clicked,
Search Complete.

In front of me was a man once known
And what beastly colors he had shown...
Always a head above the rest
At the top of every physical test
Sturdy shoulders
Sturdy breast
This man was a machine,
Our very best.
We built him until he could build himself,
Ripping our supplies off of the shelves
He could not be controlled
He cried for oil
He cried for gold
He was deaf to whatever wise words he was told.
But then one fateful day,
The axles in his ankles,
The hydraulics in his hips,
And the bolts in his brain
All of a sudden stopped working the same.
And it wasn't too long
Until he was gone.

And now, here he stood:
A person renewed.
This wasn't the man
I thought I once knew.
He asked about others
He asked what they thought
He asked if they maybe forgave and forgot,
And he told me he's worried
From the systems check sounds
He told me that he really just has to slow down.

And I stood there in shock with nothing to say
And in that moment's time, he had walked away.
I expected a favor with a meaningless "please,"
But instead I was shown the heart of a beast.