Don’t walk, don’t run, don’t breathe,
I can feel him creeping up behind me,
A corpse in the tub, ten in the closet,
With a stench of decay, piss and shit.
Tape my eyes shut, forget the scene,
Seeing mothers and daughters bleed.
I feel like I’ve swallowed grenades,
As I begin to sweat, begin to shake.
Two more in the bedroom strangled,
And another in the garage dangles.
The screams of torture and rape,
Echo to me like an oncoming train.
Fingers slide down my back gently,
And nobody else is in the vicinity.
A subconscious feeling of insects,
Crawling down the back of my neck.
I itch constantly and it won’t stop,
My hair moves as the window drops.
A name whispers along with the wind,
Weeping, insisting that I let them in.
In where? My room, my soul, my hell?
I am confused so I beg him to tell.
Another corpse on the kitchen floor,
Drowned in a bottle of malt liquor.
Five dead fingers drain in the sink,
Turning the dish water a light pink.
The rest of the arm on the stovetop,
Days like this I ask if I smoked pot.
Is it an illusion, or did this happen?
And other questions I keep asking.
Satan is laughing his ass off again,
Sitting in a black recliner in the den.
He is not helping, just barely smiling,
Just staring, his thoughts compiling.
He is the supervisor today at best,
Cruelty of humans gave him a rest.
A man with a halo lights a cigarette,
And throws it on a child in his bed.
The crib ignites as his flesh melts,
A holy cross on top of his silhouette.
Toilet paper is drenched in blood,
As a clogged toilet begins to flood.
Two babies stuck in the sewer pipes,
Aborted months after coming to life.
Cooked human ribs wrapped in foil,
In the freezer so they will not spoil.
“Welcome to my world” says a man,
Holding a wood cane in his left hand.
He says a Hail Mary and points at me,
“Bang, bang” with one finger pointing.
I feel my body, no holes I can find,
“Killing someone correctly takes time.”
“Calm down son, have yourself a seat,”
“Besides, a bullet will taint the meat.”
I sit, and he recites passages to me,
“Doing God’s work makes me holy.”
My tongue falls back into my throat,
When he calls himself the Holy Ghost.
My arms and legs bound to the chair,
By nothing but weakness and the air.
A slow death feels barely different,
Then another day of just barely living.
“Who are you?” I managed to gasp,
“I am your savior, how dare you ask?”
I looked at him blankly in disbelief,
Until he recited intimate details of me.
I fell to the floor and closed my eyes,
The grenades started erupting inside.
He is telling the truth, I can’t believe,
This is real, I’ve always been so naive.
Nobody is stopping him? What the hell?
If he isn’t almighty, nor is anybody else.
“Can you believe they all pray to me?”
He reminds me of poverty and disease.
“Remember when I died for your sins?”
“Yeah, that was all complete bullshit.”
“I know you are having your doubts,”
“I’ve noticed that for a long time now.”
“Remember falling bridges and planes?”
“That was me, things haven’t changed.”
“You know the truth damned well son,”
“I feed off of power, I have become…”
“A manmade creation entirely of sin,”
“No blood, no heart, no soul, no skin.”
With those words he touched my head,
I felt no fingers but only fear instead.
The wind blew again and I could stand,
This was a miracle, this was not a man.
I opened my eyes, looked to the floor,
The blood all gone, the bodies no more.
I hoped that it was only a bad dream,
But an old man’s eyes still consumed me.
On the counter sat tomorrow’s paper,
The obituary page held under a stapler.
It all made sense when I began to read,
And realized the countless suffering.
Evil had defeated good, it always will,
It is harder to love than it is to kill.
I wasn’t dreaming, I was finding faith,
Though I only learned it was a waste.
Everything was real, and God exists,
But to human nature he’s still powerless.