Work Text:
I’ll be unforgivable in your wake -
The monster at the end of the book
The nameless thing that everyone fears.
Speak the devil and I appear.
I’ll be cruel and merciless -
Dousing all my meals in blood still warm,
straight from the artery
straight from the heart.
I’ll live in smoke and shadow
and easily disappear into
night and fog and rolling mist
leaving no sound or footprint behind.
You’ll only know I was here
by the limp bodies curled on the floor,
the weeping and wailing
and the gnashing of teeth.
I will live on the edges of reality -
Enough true stories to strike fear
enough unconfirmed details to cast doubt.
My legend will be whispered in the public houses,
over campfires and anytime a ship loses sight of land.
Sailors will guard up their hearts and their vessels
to keep me at bay.
I’ll lay in the spaces between days -
the hazy twilights, the slow dawns
the fog dunked sea and the lingering crisp of autumn air.
You’ll never trace my steps, never find me back at home.
You are the reason for all this suffering -
the beast gave you its heart
and you gave it back.
When they see the mast and that black scrap -
They’ll know the end is here.
No turning back.
I’ll be the creature of myth
drowning ships down in the deep.
All hands on deck. No survivors to speak.
I’ll take my pound of flesh from everyone’s back-
and they’ll know your name like they know my name.
They’ll know better than to speak it out loud.
You’ll be like Lilith, like Eve, like Pandora -
unleashed all this misery
with no way to put it back.