Eric M. Petit

In the Ever Dark Prison

 

To the grinders of souls and the murderers of hearts, to the authors of fresh calamities and strife;

Abusers of persons, powers and positions. Do you see me here standing so tall and so straight?

Have you heard the sound of my heart's wild laughter in the wind of your words, in the storm you’ve made?

I hope you hear the high and clear sound of my song ringing down through all the passages of night,

Unsettling your dreams to shake your dead hearts down to their dry and brittle roots.

You thought to make me know fear in the shadows and hatred beneath your crumbling walls of stone

But I will show you a thing which you should fear. I will show you hope in the roots between the rocks

And power in the little drops of rain cutting their course through both heaven and earth alike.

I will show you what the wind works upon the wings that know the secrets of how to fly.

I will show you the deep magic written within the wild and free hearts of the human race

Whom, with all your weight and terrible might, you have utterly failed to keep from dreaming

Their desperate and distant dreams which you fear like ice in the marrow of your bones.

For what you cannot control you fear and what you fear you seek to crush and destroy

But you cannot destroy this interminable spirit that rages bright and hot within me.

And so you hate, but I wear your hatred upon my chest as an ensign and bear it proudly forth as my standard

And for each blade you plunge between my ribs a thousand blossoms of words spring up in my heart

And try as you might you cannot keep even one of them from blooming deep and rich and full.

You cannot, with all your power, make me like you and that is the victory I sing into the heart

Of dreams and the deeps of night; for that is the battleground upon which we fight our fight

And that is the victory which you shall never have though you plot and scheme ever new devices

In the black pit of your heart, new mechanisms to malign those you could not mold or maneuver.

You debase your own selves for all to see, your weak and poisoned words fall to the ground.

You are an empty husk walking about, parading flesh; the house of a weak and shriveled spirit

That left love and warmth and feeling far behind and long ago and lost the use of your heart from atrophy.

You mock and twist the love you see in the world and patronize those who feel what you no longer can.

You wanted power and respect more than the real touch of souls but you shall have neither of me

For when I look into your empty, hollow eyes all that I feel is pity and all I see is deep darkness

Swallowing you whole in the daylight and gnawing at your bones in the night, in the sadness.

And there you will remain, stagnant and static, growing at once more powerful and yet weaker

And more feeble by degrees in the ever dark prison of your cold and retched hearts

While I grow hotter and brighter than any star, far above and there, free from you forever.