Black Tongue
Crippled Before the Dwelling Place of God
I lay, torn and aghast, at the gates of the dwelling place of God

My body is broken
Every bone shattered against its rails
Every vein spilled across its towers
My blood flows in rivers with the grain

If I could cry still, I would
But all tears are spent
My mouth shudders the words I screamed
As I pounded on those unmoving doors
My silent lament

There is no greater Hell than isolation

And so as you were in life
You shall be in death
Alone within, alone without

In the eons, that echo twists and throbs
And coalesces beside the palest form of quivering
Outside the dwelling place of God
A crystal hand caresses his face
Closing the eyes of his unseeing frown

I felt that final kiss with lightning's crack
The echo reaches through time and space in the black
From that old room with the rope
As my vertebrae snaps