I wither.
I wither well, with wonderful visions of water and blood,
And now I sink.
My words stand as mountains and I live in the valleys.
Your words are stone slabs that break me with every alliteration.
My lives live at the bottom in a desert and cry blessed blood that turns the sand into ash.
A red and black serpent a mile long and a red wood thick turns the sky black and circles my head and pierces my soul with its left eye.
I recognize that serpent.
It has your look.
It has your words.
It has your “faith”.
It has your tendencies.
If I move, it will surely end my cursed life.
If I engage with its eyes, it will hurt me more.
If I utter my grievances, it will hiss its terrible voice.
Don’t let it see who you are.
Don’t let it into your cosmos.
Kill the snake.
With your own words.
With your own strength gained from its hiss.
Carve a path of your own through its dense, thick fog.
Carve your own gilded words into the obsidian without fear of its hammer.
Carve it with the care and passion it never had.
Break the promises it forced you to keep.
Break the window with your flung bag out of rage.
Break the cycle it wants you to perpetuate, oh so much.
And there I lay, in the valleys, peering up at the amber sky dotted with wispy specters of clouds reflecting brilliant shades of pink and red as the sun slowly sinks to the earth’s side and engages with its lips.
The golden light shines on my face and turns my vision white, and in that land I rest easy.