By Joseph Armstead
Forgive us our trespasses…
There is a room inside
Our minds, inside the
Swirling maelstrom of
Sensation, fear, sex
And ego that makes us each
Unique, where we joyfully
Visit the deepest pit
Within the Circus Infernal.
No one likes to admit it.
No one likes to
Acknowledge they know
Where this place is in
Their minds, this tunneling
Spiraling hole through
Their soul, but when
Emotions are at a fever pitch,
When despair takes hold,
When the reptilian brain
Awakens, we stride growling
through the door, willingly,
and we dance amongst the
sulfurous magma and the
leaping flames with the
lunatic abandon of
broken children at play
in the fields of the brutish.
Our lust for the wicked
brings us to tears, falling
like wet crystal razors.
It frightens us, how much we belong.
It is our darkling home away from home.
Forgive us our trespasses,
Because we can be ever so
Much more inventive than that.
We need to sin big or
Not bother sinning at all.
It is our nature to be cruel.
It is our desperate aspiration
To be children of the Divine.
There is beauty in The Pit,
There are stories of courage
And of devotion, tales of
Raging angels and crying devils,
Of sins against nature and
Sins against the purest of Love.
The flames on the pyre of
Malevolence leap, burning
white-hot, close as an embrace.
We love that dark doorway
To Hell every bit as much
As we despise hosting it
Inside our hearts and minds.
Our duality is a curse.
It is also our strength.
Battling the beast enobles us.
At least, that is what we
tell ourselves when we are
alone staring into the
mirror at a face that seems
more animal than Man,
insanely impassioned, yet
more angelic than mortal,
perfectly flawed compassion.
Forgive us our trespasses…
Opening the doorway down,
We do not look back.
It frightens us, how much we belong.
Our hunger for all things
Wicked brings us to tears,
falling
like wet
crystal
razors.
