What Forms Us

[dukealien]

1. The ash settled on the road which only seemed to be made of more ash,
   
2. and your thick worn boots created clouds as you tread
   
3. Moving the world just as you had moved hers
   
   
4. Head straight,
   
5. eyes focused,
   
6. locked onto something you weren't even sure was there
   
7. You continued counting your steps, forgetting where you left off,
   
8. for it felt as though you had stopped counting years ago
   
   
9. And the clouds you created settled again,
   
10. unnoticed and ephemeral
    
11. Only to be made anew with each advance
    
    
12. The soles of your feet stamping the ground,
    
13. branding a mark that would eventually fade
    
14. That would go unseen by travelers to come
    
15. (if they ever did come)
    
16. but had still once been there all the same
    
    
17. Your shoulders slumped with fatigue
    
18. A mix of ash and sweat glistened on your face
    
19. The blue of your fierce eyes muddled by the oppressive grey  how would this look with both "the" removed?
    
20. Your clouds marked your progress as you made your way to a destination unknown,
    
21. in a world unknown and newly destroyed
    
    
22. And your hand felt heavy as you pressed it to your cheek,
    
23. remembering the touch that was once your everything
    
24. And you whispered the name that had subconsciously become your creed
    
    
25. You swore and punched the ground, releasing a scream that might as well have never parted your lips
    
26. one that remained unheard, unanswered, and had forced you to stop,
    
27. something you nearly ever did, fearing the relief of a demanded rest  nearly never did?
    
    
28. You resumed counting your steps
    
29. the only act that had kept you sane,
    
30. but this time you swore they were infinite and had lost your place
    
31. A routine forever etched into your soul,  could this do without "A"?
    
32. a mindless procedure that took all your strength,
    
33. lost just like everything else that was consumed by the flames  strong line - could words be fewer?
    
    
34. You never looked back
    
35. physically demanding what you mentally could not
    
36. Because even as hard as you tried, her eyes were forever your favorite sight
    
37. and your dreams demanded to see them
    
38. Demanded to recreate your heaven, leaving you to only wake in hell
    
    
39. But you kept moving,
    
40. your thick, worn boots dragging on the ground,
    
41. parting the ash as Moses had parted the Red Sea
    
42. The blue of your pining eyes glazed with the seen of unshed tears  the sheen of?
    
43. And you finally confessed what you had suppressed all that time
    
44. That just because you never locked back, doesn't mean you've never lost   looked back?
    

Very moody, graphic, and challenging - none of which are bad things!

For example, some will find a repetitiveness here, but this amounts to showing rather than telling a monotonous experience; it works, IMHO, like describing the repetitive grind of life in a war zone: necessary to frame the terrifying parts.

The challenge was to find the story reference.  To me, it's Lot trudging away from destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, mourning his wife who'd been metamorphsed to death for looking back on them (though I also considered, for a moment, astronauts on the moon wondering if any more would ever come).

On that reading, there are problems with the final stanza (LL39-44).  Boots are OK - picture some form of Biblical buskins.  But I believe Moses and the Red Sea were after Lot's time (could be wrong about that); if so, it's all one story and, as you say in the title, that which forms (Lot and his descendants).  The other problems with the stanza are (I believe) typos:  in L42 shouldn't it be "sheen of unshed tears" (nice alliteration, then), and in the last line, L44, "you never looked back?"  Unfortunate place for a typo, but easy to fix.

In general, though the halting feel works with the mood, IMHO it could be a bit less wordy.  I made a few suggestions above; for example (please forgive the rewrite), L33 could read something like, "lost like all else that was consumed by flames."  Aggressively question each "the" and "a."

This is free verse, so punctuation is as you like.  But I'd like to see periods at the ends of lines where the next line's first word is capitalized (and at the end of the last line), but that's a personal preference; it would make the reading a bit easier, IMHO.

Finally, and here I'm really reaching, I wondered as I read, it's so graphic and descriptive - what did the dust smell like?  Think burnt timber and burnt pork chops, perhaps.  Burnt bone, if you've visited a crematorium.

Good read!  Liked it very much.