And when the rats shuffle from the woodwork brandishing shears like torches and hearts like pitch, we'll know whose ears are deaf to cause. And when the wolves shrouded in unstable devil grins pursue the scent of guilty blood, we'll know whose ulna is ripe for dissipation. Their eyes bled a murderous pheromone and we could smell tomorrow burning on Doomsday hillsides. We welcome the absolute with trembling stretched palms and unfurl the carpet of decline.
II (GOLDEN FEAR)
Perfect still lifes could never capture the horror of imminent demise, of exsanguination. A stump for a tongue resonates yet: "Love, I'm drowning. Drowning like promises in the proximity of deflated stars. And the sight of dawn is as insufferable as a corpse's awakening. I'd paint you a sunset of red and yellow stripes, but it's the life-force draining through my fingertips that burns like forgotten dreams. It's the memory of love dying in fits that stings like python bites. I am the heavy ghost of emptiness, drinking mud as wine; sculpting life as gaps. We compose symphonies in funeral attire and imbibe words with ebony finishes. We flail snow angels in the summer grass, intestines wrapped like halos above our head. Tears will wash away the ache.
III (BLACK STAIRWELL)
We depart, sliding against the strength of planets, a weightless staircase dragging. I am the forever black, the cold infinity of sleep. I am the nothingness of cold. The eternal descent, the assimilation with the holy. My heart, the Iscariot incarnated, becomes dirt. My soul, the slaughtered residue, inflates everlastingly. Breathe the dead landscapes, for we are the tumor within. Sing the regal hymns, for we are gravestone royalty."
IV (CRYSTALLINE)
The strident only detect immolation when they can see their hands shrivel in the forge like ten pariahs. Thus, (we are):
...the rue to molest your dreams.
...the flames to incinerate your homes.
...the discontent to unseat your indomitable.
...the perdition to thaw yours heavens.
"We are the disease, smothering your neonate, bastard and loved alike. We are the hindrance, drowning your joy in oceans of anguish. We are the depravity, sodomizing the innocence of inexperience. We are the decadence, digesting youth into sinful beasts. We are the designers, to tatter your virgin worlds hymen. We are the seers, warning: