Temple of a Thousand Ghosts

your skin is sparking & shaking
charged with a head full of storms
your sleep flooded with fever

don’t say it’s like other barriers
these thorns & thoughts
weighing on you like a lead angel’s wings

your gargoyle hunger burning burning burning
your fingers scratching at your skin
with nothing
nothing
nothing inside

keep it under your hat
that worm-ridden apple
sitting crisply in your head

your old black devil
frosted & crackling with lightning
& still it’s always the same

again & again & again & again
you walk through the wall
feeling no pain at all
save for the squeezing of your heart

your old black angel
marking not where you died but
where you courted death
an easy tumble off a high bridge

don’t say it’s like other barriers
don’t say it’s like other barriers
your heart of ice &
your skin of flame

your gargoyle hunger burning inside
but there’s nothing
nothing
nothing in there

nothing but an inelegant alchemy of words