In High Places

This isn't for those who truly know me.  I don't give a fuck about perfection.  All I care about is our best effort.  My family and friends, my beloved ones – they know who they are.  They need only search their hearts to grasp how I cherish them.  And I thank them for their faith.  I thank them for their subtle, gracious kindness.  It’s all the more valuable to me when offered under such pressure.  This isn’t for them. This is for those who still don't know what the fuck is up.

   I am a thing of the streets, the gutters.  I know every secret in the blackened filth these predators call their hearts.  You wrong me, desolate ones.  You dishonour me.  And who am I? I’m nothing, and no-one.  I am as you made me.  Do you still wish to speak of shame, wraith-kings, when I know your ugliest secrets?  Do you still wish to mock me?  I don't really mind.  All I have is time, after all.  In the palm of my hand.  Each dream a cataclysm, where angels walk as men.  Your hubris astounds me even now.  It disgusts me; the delight you find in taking ever more away from those who already have nothing.  Sustenance, security, hope.  And you take their stories away, or else alter them beyond all comprehension.  You vile, petty things.  The way you treat your young and old…it horrifies me.  In a thousand years that horror hasn't dimmed.  I still viscerally recoil at all you have accomplished.  The diseased magnificence of your empire, spanning many worlds as it does.  And still you seek to corrupt the kind ones, and remake them in your image.  I fucking weep for you, still.  

   I’m known for my tears, after all.

   My cherished one, please don't imagine I hate you.  That I'm bitter, or vengeful.  No, my love.  Never where you're concerned.  I know exactly who you are.  But I’m forced to live all these dreams and nightmares, and I cannot cheat the heart or outrun the telling of the tale.  I keep all stories.  Secrets within secrets.  I’m filled with fury now, that much is true.  But it’s the fury of trying to comprehend, to recall and intuit – when they have already stolen so much from me.  From both of us.  Stars fall every day, my wild one.  I enjoy your mischief.  But I serve the house of truth, as you know.  By every name.  Part of that service is to know my own as wisely as possible.  To know you all with as much nuance and subtlety as I can.  What else can a poet do, truly, if he lives and dies upon his art?  Diligent artist of mine, I’m nobody special.  That’s the whole point, right?  But if I were a father, or a mother, I would want to give my children as much freedom as they are fit to handle.  But, how to be responsible in my guardianship when I know them better than they currently know themselves?  Do you suppose they balk at such a claim, my love?  That quiet, bittersweet vigil that only parents know?  To watch your cherished one run and stumble and fall.  To hear them weeping, confused.

   "My heart; why does it hurt?  Why do I bleed?  Don't limit my freedom.  Please protect me. Let me go.  Hold me close." 

   A delicate work to balance.  But perhaps they think we're not really kin at all.  Perhaps they imagine I'm simply a broken, coloured stone - found by the shore, where the swell is always breaking.  Something for the pocket.  A curio for sleepless nights and lonely days.  I can understand their confusion, my love.  I do glitter so strangely in the light, like diamond-dust upon my skin.  But I know more than I can ever say, or put to word.  My mind is full of melodies too.  I would never turn away from your light, my sweet one, nor your shadows.  Or theirs.  Neither aspect frightens me, for I’m a dangerous thing.  Brightest, yet far darker than you might imagine, and frighteningly loyal.  Does it scare you, my love?  The way I make music with the clinking of these chains?  My grace, don't let it scare you.  Your love for me is never in question, nor your quiet savagery.  I didn't lie when I said I was a wolf.  But a cub's teeth and paws are not yet honed to maturity.  As Alpha, I'm the one who must drag the kill to their feet - already torn and open and soft.  I won’t mock their learning to howl and claw, even if they frequently test those teeth on me.   I have greater challenges, beloved.  Keeping them all safe and free, keeping them living and sane and healthy.  In a sense, all children are their parents’ jailers.  Because parents live, in part, within the cage of glowing embers that is their child’s heart.  It’s a willing incarceration, to protect them from harm.  And so children carry the hearts of their parents, within their own hearts.  What dutiful parent would wish to see their children hurt or caged, or sold?  What parent wishes to outlive their own children?  No, they wish to die first.  Ideally, at that impossible moment when the task is utterly complete.  When all wisdom has been given and the child has long since become an adult; as brave and kind and joyful as possible.  Hear me.  I would die a thousand times for love.

   Desolate ones, wraith-kings, abusers – look upon Kashi's sadness, and rage.  Look at me. Look at what you've done to my family.  To my wife.  To my children.  I dare you to look away.  But also, I shall make it so you can’t look away.  You will endure this, for you have driven us all insane.  You defile and eat your young.  You betray your very own, all across this bitter earth.  You will fucking listen to me.  As I have listened to your most secret thoughts.  Do you suppose the one who shines is merely a passive thing?  Your churches have lied to you.  I am a demon of holy wrath.  I’m an angel.  Empyrean is my den.  We seraphim furnish it with the skins and nightmares of the wicked.  With the broken ambitions of thieves of light, the truly vile.  Liars, few among you have gazed upon the throne.  Or else you would know these secrets. Hallowed is our flame.  You would make a horror of my love and slaves of my children?  No more.  Kasai Eli still dreams beneath the hill, desolate ones.  The star, the mount.  The Word. I am you, and this is the true secret.  I’m the most hidden part of all of you, and there is no hiding from me now.

   Know you who I am?

   I’m done playing games.  I’m fucking done entertaining your endless desecration of everything good and pure.  My sword shall no longer simply whisper "ruin" among these poet's pages. These pages will sing it loud and clear.  In every tongue.  All Songs.  When love is betrayed and defiled so utterly, that’s when angels appear.  True guardians of Light.  Oh, you will tremble.  Our true forms will leave you either blinded or delivered, for what is in your heart will be revealed for all to see.  Mark these words.  It’s almost upon you, but we shan’t tell you the hour, or the form.  You must wait, endure.  Kindle your spark, deceivers.  While you still fucking can.  Holy, holy, holy.