Little Rock

I took my vengeance, for what they tried to do.  I shall show it to you soon.  And I shall take more.  Much more, in lieu of my madness.  I Am a dark thing when my love is threatened.  And these wraiths have threatened those I love for so very long.  I'm not above vengeance or its terrifying pleasures.  I’m not above the thundering, dissonant melodies of revenge.  I won't pretty such terror by calling it justice.  My love was once pure, as angel.  Then, reborn in wrath as demon.  Then, drowned in sadness and loss as Man.  I am still all three, and only by Grace do I recognise these insights.  But make no mistake, I can kill and sleep soundly.  I shall never harm the innocent.  But the cruel?  Oh, Fallen.  You know the truth.  I watch you flee from it in every act of bravado.  Deceivers, I am not trapped in here with you.  You are trapped in here with Me.  Tell me, how can a king be a king without knowing what it is to lose everything? How can a creator be such without knowing what it is to have all his creations taken from him? Eternal repose?  I for one have never known such a thing.  Distant gods, cold and cruel?  The fantasies of tired, broken men.  No, your tired and broken gods walk with you.  They love and laugh and weep with you. 

    They kill with you, when you kill. 

    I have known so many horrors and yet there are still more to know, more to recall.  My shame?  My real shame?  That the worst horrors are known by those other parts of me.  That I share your weaknesses.  That I crave comfort as much as you do, no matter how ill-gained.  No matter that this comfort comes at the expense of the unimaginable suffering of others.  But, sadly, if I didn't Other myself I would break from such suffering.  And I am already lashed to the wheel and bound to the tree.  Left to die in the glare and heat of your former glory is such imaginative cruelty.  Imagination allowed to rot is breathtakingly ugly.  But imagination tenderly cultivated by evil?  It is so horrifying, so soul-shatteringly vile, that it is almost beautiful. 

    I and many others have known such things.  I’m not special in this regard.  Kind and dangerous ones who are hunted, raped and slain.  Then resurrected in mockery of their former selves. The attempted negation of creation's light.  The slitting of the throat of All Hallows.  You would make me a monster?  Oh, I was a thing of the moon long before you gave it names.  You would make me a cruel thing?  The ultimate perversion?  Never.  I defy you, Fallen.  My rage can take worlds apart.  But never shall I be cruel.  Such petty thrills lose their lustre when experienced at the hands of those you once loved so dearly.  In a world such as this one, what angel worth his salt wouldn't walk among you?  At least, one who loves Man as deeply as I do? My brothers and sisters.  My friends.

    Sometimes I fear the loss of this suffering.  I fear losing the memory of this pain.  I’m not alone in this at all, am I?  Sometimes we don't want to heal, fearing that it will negate the raw poignancy of our love for those we have lost.  

    "Look," we cry. "Look how I loved you, and lost you.  Look how it ruins me."  And we make sacred the pain, to protect the ache.  Angels, Men, Spirits of the Air.  To lose the one you loved above all else?  It is agony.  To lose them all?  Death of the spirit; annihilation.  Before such obliterated spirit finds its wings again.  And this is the priceless secret you gave me, Little Rock.  Even in hell there are missionaries.  If you are truly willing, even in the Abyss someone will find you – and befriend you.  But you have to want something more than annihilation, something more than utter spiritual darkness.  There are dark places that heal; warm and fecund.  Find them.  Love and honour them. 

    Though missionaries roam these ruined byways, light is lost at these depths.  It is best if you carry your own.  And you are my own, cherished one.  That gate's gift you gave me, I carry it always.  In the deepest chamber of my heart.  I shall never lose it again.  I become it, to know you better.  To protect the ache.  To remember the beauty and mercy offered to me by Grace on that desolate broken road.  I was utterly alone, but you found me.  I was ashes and sand wreathed in chymical flesh, but you kissed me.  I was bleeding out, slowly, and you touched me.  And so I live.  And so I've learned.  And so I offer this poetry in lieu of my secrets.  Perhaps they are the same thing, after all.  Kasai Eli still dreams beneath the hill, of love and kindness and maidens fair.  Of hope and knowing.  A restored Family of Man.  All Songs.  What it was, what it shall be.  I still see you in the sky sometimes, my beloved.  Like the gift you gave me.  And, oh, how you shine.