Not all was lost
to the beast,
nor to the silence
that sheltered it.
For deeper still,
beneath the rubble
of unspoken years,
the child remained.
Bruised, yes..
but not extinguished.
Hidden;
but not erased.
A breath still moved,
a spark unclaimed
by the darkness.
The beast does not feed only
on the wound itself,
but on the hollow it leaves behind.
Gaslighting, scapegoating, silence..
all these are its masons;
carving out a chamber in the soul
where the beast makes its abode.
There, in the aloneness of the child,
it feeds from within,
claiming the silence as its fortress;
the emptiness as its throne.
And the door creaks again..
not always the first door,
but another..
a new figure cashing in
on the void they sense.
Their entry feels like company,
even love,
yet it is only continuance...
a repetition of the first harm.
Worse still when the creak
is painted with a smile,
when exploitation wears
the mask of care--
The abode deepens,
and the beast settles further
into the soul.
Yet the fortress cannot hold forever.
The silence cannot smother forever.
Even the grave-dirt of denial
cannot bury it whole.
For the child endures
where walls collapse,
and the smallest cry
outlives the loudest lie.
The beast devoured much,
but not all.
And in what survives,
the future breathes;
a testimony,
a beginning,
a voice
that will not be hushed.
The beast wears many faces. Sometimes it is grotesque and obvious.. leering in the open,
like Tull’s Aqualung.
Other times it arrives clothed in warmth, with a smile painted on as if it were love. Yet both are the same door creaking open, the same continuance of harm.
Be wary, child.
Not only of the door,
but of the smile.
Every silence, every false welcome,
lays another stone.
This is how the abode is carved.
This is how the beast digs deeper..
"Aqualung"
(Excavator of the Unholy Abode)
Sitting on a park bench
Eying little girls with bad intent
Snots running down his nose
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes,
hey, Aqualung
Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly ******* run,
hey, Aqualung
Feeling like a dead duck
Spitting out pieces of his broken lung,
oh, Aqualung
Feeling alone, the army's up the road
Salvation a la mode and a cup of tea
Aqualung, my friend,
don't you start away uneasy
You poor old sod,
you see it's only me
Do you still remember
December's foggy freeze
When the ice that clings
on to your beard
It was screaming agony?
Hey and you ****** your rattling last breaths
With deep-sea diver sounds
And the flowers bloom like
Madness in the spring?
Sitting on a park bench
eying up little girls with bad intent
Snot is running down his nose
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes,
hey Aqualung
Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly ******* run,
hey Aqualung
Feeling like a dead duck
Spitting out pieces of his broken luck,
hey Aqualung
Oh Aqualung
https://youtu.be/ZHO3vBn_cfo?si=IGwlRY7xoVuOlx6V
The child remains..
Scarred but unclaimed,
enduring as the witness
the beast can never consume.
The child endures
The cry is not silenced
Even scarred, it remains the truest witness.
Even on a lowly poetry site, some of those most popular could be the greatest excavators of the abode.
Be wary, beautiful child
xoxo
