Work Text:
A worshipper alone in a temple
a shattered child looking for something to eat
for a reason to piece himself back.
Still burning with the memory of a gentle touch
the first one that didn’t feel like a blow to the heart,
that didn’t lay a row of bruises on
the harsh row of ribs sticking out of your skin,
even your own bones looking for a way
out of yourself.
You now wield a blade carved out of blame,
a tale of silver and red –
demons out for blood. Hunting a beating heart
Haunting a half-mad man.
(Memories of a
heart pinned to the ground –
black jade pinning the world to a stone. Unable to look up, it
freezes you in place
the blood running down the stone taints your new-born skin.
After tearing yourself apart in flames, the burns are thirsty for something to drink:
it seeps through you. You kneel and drown in it
the sea of red a mirror of your own incompetence.)
Back to the mountain where you belong
you rose as the monster amongst the monsters.
There is no place for good anymore:
only blood; only god.
You lied yourself through, covered in blood and silvery lies,
wings that flutter and flicker in the
darkness of a cave where you built a
temple to a sun that will
never see the light,
to a god that won’t even
recognize your face.
You say
there is nothing holy to be found in me.
but the
blood in your heart
and the hole in your chest
are both bleeding with
endless devotion –
a love too holy to be
put into words.
Your heart is a
worshipping thing and your hands are
aching for a god
to receive the prayers you send.
For eight hundred years, you have
lived in the shadow of a stone in the shape of your god,
a makeshift presence
standing on a blood-dyed altar you crave to repaint with love.
A worshipper alone in a temple without a god
spilling unholy blood on the floor and it
is a poor excuse of apologies,
a useless atonement for your own
incompetence.