Mostly I sneak about under cover of night,
Fulfilling my awful aims away from broader sight,
For no one must suspect
The beast that dwells within their midst.
I am a master of concealment.
Smart and somber fabrics shield my skin
From the painful sear of daylight,
And my complexion, I keep like porcelain—
For no clean and delicate doll
Was ever suspected of reveling
In baths of hellfire
And drinking them up as greedily
As the desert soil drinks up a monsoon.
This façade I employ lest the people discover,
And ****** before me their holy images,
Burning me as if with a branding iron,
And driving me far from their dwelling
Into solitary desolation.
For in truth, I am an agent
Of offense and pollution
To all that is wholesome and good.
I entice man to share my fate.
He invites me in and I infect him –
The Imago Dei – with Death.
Driven by this curse, this unholy hunger,
I live only to eat –
That is, if one could even say I live.
There is no glory, no beauty in this state.
My eyes are as gleaming stars
And my skin is as a moonbeam,
But the flesh beneath is always freezing,
Always cold and always screaming
In agonized starvation
For more of what makes it sick,
The only warmth it knows being gleaned
From the bodies of its meals.
A quietly blaring reminder to me
That I am the Dead walking.
This night begins as many before it.
My clothes blotted crimson with fresh sin:
The stain of another’s flesh.
The latest meal to leave me ill,
And yet more hungry still.
I tread the gray and lifeless streets,
My dead frame mustering no defense
Against the chill of night.
All is dark and still, as no sound, no soul,
And scarce a light the night gives
To interrupt the feast within –
The Hunger consuming all thought,
And the Cold consuming all feeling.
My spirit sends out a silent plea
For, if not some kinder release,
A second death.
My wandering stops before the chapel,
The only structure affording light or color
To Nyx’s bleak realm.
The candles and lamps still all alight
Send cascades of rainbows
Surfing down upon beams of gold
Through the glass mosaics
To the ground outside.
Something in this ethereal beauty
Grasped something in my soul.
I wished to crumble, to sob,
As I felt so alien from whatever it was
That infused this light to make it good.
Yet I wished to float, to hope,
As here it was, pouring down before me—
Onto me.
Looking in then from afar
Through the colored glass,
I saw behind the altar raised high
On his execution tree,
The image of the Lamb
With sorrow carved into His face
And wounds painted onto His side.
My eyes stayed fixed to that solemn sight
Till they ran with salt.
“They say You came
To make clean the Unclean,
To wash away every vile stain
That corrupts Your Image,”
Said I.
“They say You were sent
To ransom the Dead;
To free the captives
Of Hades’ rotten grip.
To bring bread and water
That ceases all thirst and hunger,
And gives Man second life.
Were You not?”
As the question left my lips,
I heard from around the corner
A creaking in reply.
Curiosity spurred,
I crept around to find
The doors an inch ajar,
With a widening sliver of golden light
Pouring forth from within.
Such a peculiar glow it was,
So pleasant yet so frightfully strange.
It did not burn,
But was rather as a balm,
Or a mild, warm rain.
There I stood for many moments,
Rendered motionless
By a blend off sedative calm
And paralytic fear,
Until, carried on the streams of light
Came a gentle whisper to my ear
That spoke the sweetest, simple words:
“Dear wayward child, enter in.”
Apr '25
