Have you finished painting my image with snarled fangs and grinning visage Did you include the reds within my eyes and did you tell them how well I disguised?

Would you speak of me like a demon born erupting skies with lightning storms and tell of how I tricked your mind wrapping you up in sinister twine

Maybe you’re right

Maybe I have frozen fires under my feet turning every step into soot and sleet A burning frost decorates the plains and children scream when they hear my name

Maybe I devour the light surely you won’t find any inside a darkened cave swallowing the night maybe, just maybe, you’re right

But could I be an angel?

There is this music that sings behind acrid fires and horrid things underneath the screams of fiends there is this music that sings

Humming beneath the bottomless pit humming above the burning clouds a whisper sheathed but not so quiet the song sings so thundering loud

Step up to the pristine gates of Matinsha and look not towards the paved roads inside, decorated with weeds and new life, but rather at that which you have left behind

No matter what you were before- heedless of your accomplishments and ignorant of your failures- you will be in good company, among those of us that have entered the immaculate gates of Matinsha

Forgiveness is a medicine that most reject and remembrance pursues in spite of our greatest efforts to hide away If you just step into the perfected gates of Matinsha you will find no want of cures and never seek to secret yourself again

The blood is dripping right under my skin Something new, an offering it should have been Coagulating between the rivers and the stones sinking beneath my sinew and bringing trauma to the bones

Ripping and gnashing, slipping the flesh that wraps me Convulsions in the presence of nature dressed in deity Whispers screaming and all they say to me-

Come hither, walk into my taste Bring yourself within my jaws- the first to find your place

Your pain has grown deep, the roots of a weed seeping far into the Earth Drops of poison mixing into a well of pure water, swirling and coalescing at the very bottom; hidden and unassuming but deadly when reached

So much do I long for the strength to grasp those weeds and pull until they rip from the soil; leaving scars upon the Earth, waiting for the rain to wash them away

Dare I step into the well, slowly and carefully as to not disturb the purity of the water? Do I have the courage to swim to the bottom of all that is you; to the innermost depths, covered by all the happy laughter and sweet smiles? Even if I am frightened that I may dirty the purity that resides within this water, I will swim underneath your smiles and your laughter and your joking and I will reach that poison so carefully hidden; this regret, those memories best forgotten I will drink from it, I will take it in, and swim quickly to the surface

You may be slightly less clean when I leave you but I will still smile as poison courses through me

What would you do

if you were asked

to sculpt

your life?

Perhaps a marble statue,

chiseled away with recklessness;

made jagged

and split

No longer that

pristine porcelain

of youth

but everyone can see

there is beauty there,

behind all the

rough edges

Maybe you might

start with an

old oak

Break each branch,

crush each twig

beneath your boots

Strip it bare

of its leaves

and saw away with

anger in your eyes;

whittling and

whittling

until only the tiniest

remembrance

remains

Or are you the

lucky one,

with your sculpture

born of

perfect clear ice

Transparent,

fully visible,

and proud

for all that wish to

see inside

the wonder of you

A marvel that

the ice doesn’t melt,

even after all your time spent

shaping this immaculate

Death-kissed lips stained in black; thigh-high socks and dripping candlewax

She giggles with dread and thinks pretty the dead with pink stuffed animals decorating her bed

Vampires, monsters, and any bad things- all sweet wishes and the happiest dreams

Easily broken with band-aids across her chest Did you really think you’d love her better than the rest?