hideaway

demons … the beasts love feasts upon tended like sheep by character and good intention their devious vigor comes in their knowledge of the souls they badger and vex for that blood is of one coursing one … metallic taste there’s a dim corner, you see a place of dark mysteries we dare not visit, but it’s always there - a place of error, ill judgement and thoughts unbidden … we each create monsters there, quite our own - we mold their icy marrow and bind their blackened bones we drape a ragged flesh dressed in the skin of our alter-ego wounded, naked … and raw we pretend that they’re not there scratching our sensibility yet they water our eyes with every regret and dip our chin with falsehoods human frailty, like manna … but their true power - their hideous strength comes in their perpetuity for despite our best contrary efforts they command the shadows and gloom with the realization of their frustrating, haunting … dire … immortality. Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, March 23, 2024