My footsteps this day make no sound
As I walk these halls unhallowed.
Like a shade passing through corporeal bounds,
Hollow, holding happiness shallow.
Day after day I'm fading away
As my masquerade is breaking.
Frustration and fury, foreboding, that for me
Forever humanity's faking.

I stand amongst the normal and living
Their faces so hopeless, so broken.
Some may be friends, others have enemies
But for me no single one has spoken.
This place has turned strange, it's greying,
Decaying, my bane begets this Perdition.
The stench of a tomb from the rot that consumes
The doomed place ****** to a fission.

It has been my misfortune in which I delight
I'm accursed to blacken the sun,
To bring the ruin of all by devouring the light.
Now again has this cycle begun;
Darkness, disaster to dastardly droves
Debauched by a daemoniac foe
Who dissembles man to hide diabolic designs,
For what man dares brave the unknown?

I walk into the abyssal gloom
Of foetid and harrowing decadence.
The webwork of veins that trace every room
Betray the presence of an Asmodeus essence.
Is it me? Could it be that I've become so vile
That merely my presence defiles?
The pariah, it seems, is all I can be
In so sweetly tormentous a style.

It happens that here in my darkest hour
When I feel the facade is fractured
I see the bright purest light that breaks through the dour
Dark leading me to my attractor.
An angel I wonder, or maybe someone sent for
Me to cause me to blunder?
Perhaps today her angelic array
Was displayed for her spell I'd go under.

My hunger subsides in those crystalline eyes,
In their glow my bloodlust turns calm.
A warmth I feel, emotions belike,
Yes, foreign to me, I have qualm.
She is purity, surely there's a pulling toward me
Enduring my stubborn eschewal.
No tragedy to speak of, her majesty must be of
A flawless aethereal jewel.

How did I come into this sudden infatuation?
Enticed by the taunt of her lure,
Her perfection, it stalls me, indescribable exaltation,
Yet somehow this morbid mind's torn.
It's confounding, she's sounding profoundly arousing
And drowning my sense in her charm.
I love it, I hate it, that this consecrated
Divinity isn't met without harm.

How damnably refreshing my ambrosial dream
Whose glow can subvert the most heinous!
Her light can reveal worlds beyond what is seen
And the shadow I cast will sustain us.
A Devil, an Angel, together disdainful
In the eyes of the fools that surround me.
But I glimpse in that shadow a horror I now know
To mean that my Angel has bound me.

The light that shines forth casts a most vivid shade
Of this man-shaped form that I am.
But to my limbs were attached something of linear shape,
Like strings on a marionette.
What could this mean? Could it possibly be
Something I've been too smitten to see?
I've been such a fool to be blind to the truth:
My Angel is a Demon like me!

At this revelation I turn to the shrewd Enchantress
Who has been manipulating me from the start.
No shame, no fear, only with the most chilling deftness
Does she command the strings of this heart.
Of all the rotted, defiled, insidious, hideous
Things that dwell in my darkness,
Nothing more evil than this tentacled being
Can be conceived of in the depths of Tartarus!

Sensual, seductive, psuedo-seraphic shrew!
I'm enslaved by the lust she engenders.
Repeatedly beguiled by the lies that she used,
Still to those eyes I surrender.
The sinister spirit that taints all that's near it
Is an evil the both of us share.
She chose a prey who cannot be slain.
The challenge is an alluring snare.

As my Angel now dawns a horrific appearance
My obsession burns ever indomitably.
Apocalyptic, unquenchable, bloodbathed coherence,
Nefarious and haunting so ominously.
Darkness is ours! Eldritch bloodthirsty fiends:
Angel of Death and Devil.

The masks are peeled away, we're free
To cleave and bleed the world and revel!

I met her one night in a dream: a divine being of singular beauty with long, dark hair and a heavenly radiance, with eyes of the bluest aether. She was the paradigm of unparalleled perfection, uncontested and enchanting.

Upon waking I expected to find she was a mere creation of my imagination. However, I was surprised to see in my hand the note she had written me. So small a keepsake, yet enormously treasured.

I walked outside and began a search to find the angelic being of my dreams. Where is one to look for angels but in the sky? I knew then that to the highest peak of the tallest mountain I must go if there was any hope of finding her.

Leaving behind my home and eveything I own, I journeyed to the mountain. A peak so high it pierced the belly of the heavens, but I climbed it with unwavering zeal. I felt such a strong desire to see her pulling me inexorably toward the top despite any tiredness...or any logical expectation that it wasn't all for nothing.

As I approached the summit I saw city walls made of some sort of ivory-coloured marbled stone, bejeweled with great jade and sapphire. As I approached the gates they opened for me, and I felt a rush of cold air carrying a very pleasant and familiar scent. It was her! Her sweet, ambrosial aroma took rapturous hold of my bones and pulled me through the gates.

Despite the majesty of this city of wonderous stonework, I quickly realized it was devoid of life. Strange, but a mystery of insignificant proportions compared to my current goal. If she was there, I would find her. I made my way through the barren streets guided by some immaterial leash of sentiment, obsession, and something else. I dared not question anything, and only surrendered to the force. It was as if she was calling me to her by way of all my senses and all I had to do was listen.

The empty streets themselves whispered stories of their own. What was once a vibrant, vivacious realm is now resting on a foundation of the dead. No evidence of war or struggle marred the place. Headstones lined each street, and the roads themselves were paved with stone coffins. On every structure where headstones couldn't be set, plaques were placed instead in honour of each fallen citizen. However, no single one had a date written on it...only names. I wondered if the cause of such thorough devastation to this place was a disease of some sort. After all, the city was completely isolated.

While some minor portion of my mind was analyzing this enigmatic environment, my driving focus remained steadfast. I knew little about her, but I knew that no one in a dream nor in the waking world had I ever wanted more. I could see that she wanted me too, as it had become clear that she was drawing me in. So, I continued to submit.

I was brought to the bell tower of a grand cathedral. There was a large outlook off the side of the tower. It offered an unobstructed view of the starry sky and swaying aurora. As I stared at the entrancing scene, my meditation was interrupted by a touch on my shoulder. I had found her!

With an embrace and a kiss we began a partnership the likes of which no world had ever known. Many conversations we shared, and much more. I learned of this forsaken city that she calls home, its secrets, and its history. I learned of her strengths and weaknesses, and learned that even an angel of such splendour can have insecurities. She told me of the people that once lived here and how they took to worshipping her. Dodengel, they called her. But her true name is for me alone.

She pointed to the stars and the black abyss between. The pale blue aurora performing before the black backdrop was something I had always wanted to see, and I had a front row seat. Never had I been so close to the outer reaches. As fascinating as the cosmic show was, nothing had ever been more captivating than the radiant creature beside me. She moved her body in the most seductive manner demanding my full attention. In the starlit dark of night she now had what appeared to be wings of golden light, and her eyes...those eyes! So bright and blue, glowing hypnotically and rendering me helplessly under her control. Never had I experienced such a total loss of faculties.

Taking me by the hand she swept us into the black expanse where no mortal being can survive. Beyond the realm of men, outside the shadows from which I was conjured. Into Oblivion she took me, her secret place. I remained willingly under her spell. Those eyes are shackles, binding the will of one who dares to get close. That one was me. A fantasy that was conceived in dreams was born into reality. I had found her. She was here in front of me as real as I myself am real. Her obsessive love for me as real as mine for her. Her beauty as real as the pain in my stomach...as real as the metallic taste of thick blood filling my mouth. I had given myself to her, and as long as she kept me bound I was powerless to stop her. She was carving into me, eviscerating me and tearing me apart all while sustaining a smile. A pain so harrowing made worse by feeling my own warm intestines unraveling down my legs. With a hand like a razor-sharpened blade she opened me up from pelvis to neck, leaving all the organs exposed and bones separated. I couldn't stop her from mutilating me. Even as I stayed locked into her gaze she wouldn't grant me as much mercy as fainting from the pain. It was agony. But no matter the anguish, I was unable to break the spell she had over me.

When she finished and my body was in tatters she took me back to the world we'd left. With what intact parts of me I had left I could feel myself writhing. So much pain yet so much ecstasy! Back to my home she flew me and laid my broken body on my bed. With one last kiss she said goodbye, and at that I finally lost consciousness.

As I write in recovery from surgeons' work putting me back together I can't get her off my mind. The scars I'll bear will forever remind me of of something extraordinary. And I will be with her again. No forces in this world nor any world beyond can quell this addiction.

You see, she was an angel, true. But "Dodengel" is a word in a long lost language meaning roughly "Angel of Death". How can I say that this was in any way a declaration of love, you ask? The Angel of Death is a harvester of lives. It is her nature to **** any marked for death. No entities are more marked by the gods than the Draa'ma, or Daemons, of which I, in part, am one. Her nature is to ****, yet she only maimed. No effort was made to properly **** me, as destruction of the body doesn't mean true death for one of my kind. She showed me her true self. She showed an unlovable monster unequivocal love: for what is more loving that denying one's intrinsic nature in favour of another?

The quiet whispers taunt me.
In the night beneath the umbral waves
The humble haze still haunts me.
Through daunting ways these gauntly wraiths
Yet flaunt the ways they wont me
To nightly pangs of hunger,
Reins, and tormenting unending.
Belike the blaze of spectral flames
Will burn my soul as kindling
Til naught remains but rotted frames;
To this my will is dwindling.

The ghastly echoes call me.
From my slumber come the rumbling of
A hunger that befalls me.
Amidst the stomach grumbling come the
Numbing screams, appalling
Dreams, they seem to plead with me,
Indeed, beseech me, drawling
In tongues unknown to me. Their bleat
Is strangely so familiar.
But one would tone above the rest
That said: "Behold! A killer!"

Aloud phantasms sing
Their eerie verses full of curses.
Terse, yet maddening.
Severe at first, yes, but the worst,
Perverse, the last conceived
Verse that's heard as they rehearse
Coerce a lasting bleed
From eyes and ears and nose. Behold
Those bursts of plasm brings
The fiends that thirst as they traverse
Headfirst through fathomed greed.

My bonds begin to break.
As all these raunchy melodies
Beset me, here I shake.
Conniptions, fits, and predilection
Of sadistic traits.
No longer can they be restrained,
The bloodlust must be slaked.
Among the graves of wanton slaves
Where staunch stench radiates
I wake to see nightmarish scenes
So garishly ornate.

Hailed by an astral choir.
Their incantations of damnation
Hasten my desire
To sever, ****, obliterate,
And purge through blood and fire
The filth, the waste, that permeates
This place that earns my ire.
A desecrated wretch, her fated
Death be made entire.
Raze her face with razor blades,
Exsaguinate the liar.

The blood moon's macabre glow
Bids me to forbidden deeds
And beckons me below.
A severed head and crimson red
Flora form a show
With shredded flesh. Lecherousness
This foetid mess invokes.
I taste the blood...Oh, what a rush!
By lust I feel possessed!
The litanies have conjured me
To binge on blood and death.

This vessel filled with sanguine nectar
Placed before my tortured face.
"Drink, drink", growls the Collector,
"So the ritual is not debased."
With a quiet sigh I raise my eyes
To find there's no one in sight.
But the shrill cries still to my spine bring chills
From the vague memories of the night.

"Who speaks to me in this empty place?
And what causes me these conniptions?
What are these echoes, these screams that resonate
And what source has borne this addiction?"
There's no soul here to hear my words,
Yet imposing shadows loom in the light
Of strategically placed candles set about the oubliette,
Ready to begin a dark rite.

"The one who speaks is the one who hears,
Indistinguishable except by delusion.
You writhe for the memory as the fogginess clears
And reveals the true cause of pollution:
We, Dante! We are the ones who
Fill this cup to the brim!
You are the lure and I am the hunter
And blood is what cleanses their sin."

As the snarling, disembodied voice speaks
I become filled with lecherous dread.
"You're a monster, a devil, a hideous fiend!"
I scream to the voice in my head.
I regain my composure but suddenly looking over
A room full of familiar corpses,
Torn open, bled, all eyeless sockets,
Materialized by unspeakable forces.

The flickering light from the tiny dancing flames
Eerily animate the dead,
But the bodiless shadows that tower remain
Motionless as the voice again said:
"The one who speaks is the one who hears.
By indulgence you gain from their tears,
Their terror, their anguish, they strengthen you, tame this
Devilish gnawing you fear."

Five leering shadows, eighteen festering carcasses
Surround me in grim trepidation.
Why, why do I choose to take part in this
Unholiness in this dark wretched station?
I try to refuse but my failure amuses
The entity goading me on.
I embrace the chalice of blood and of malice
And drink to fulfill the liaison.

As the ambrosia from the chalice is swallowed
A drunkenness begins to befall me.
As I stand, the five shadows, my servants, they follow
But as if they aren't walking, but crawling.
Altogether the flames grow brighter and stronger
Until the room like a kiln now burns.
The desiccated bodies prostrate and offer
Themselves so the fire upturns.

In my blood-drunken haze my eyes are opened
To the creation of my own obsession.
The Collector, the Harvester, the Reaper, the Chosen
And the Hunter, they are all but reflections.
"The others are voiceless", said the one voice I hear,
"Only I can speak as you can.
And you, Dante, are a bloodfiend, a ghoul.
In only man's realm you feign human.

"We are all you, all one in the same,
And as one we are death and disaster.
These victims before you bathing in flame
Were brought before the ritual master
That the remaining token be brought forth, bespoken
By the aspect of you that's most potent:
No, not the Chosen, though he holds the notion
Of calling that one the Unbroken."

At last all those nebulous memories
Are elucidated in this nightmarescape.
The Unbroken the voice just spoke of is me,
An amalgam of these shadows of hate,
Of murderous, methodical diabolism.
It all has finally become clear:
This black, ****** rite has brought me transcendence
As something all the more terrible draws near...

Through the glass those autumn nights
The starlight glistens in your eyes.
I see it:
You push your hair behind your ear
While fighting back a lonely tear.
You're forced to face a world of fear
A smile cannot hide.
Between the arms of someone lies
The comfort you so seek to find,
Believe it.
The bleeding heart that you hold near
Grows calloused more each passing year.
With glass half-full you offer cheers
To sorrows you imbibe.
How I long to hold you tight,
To fix the wrong and set things right.
You need this,
One to cherish you so dear,
To make your anguish disappear.
In front of you I'm always here,
So close but out of sight.
You pine for him, your treasured knight.
You gaze with unfulfilled delight.
Between us
One who bred the atmosphere
Of persecution so severe,
And one for whom your heart does sear
But never will requite.
I long have held my head up high
And forced myself my tongue to bite.
I bleed this
Sentiment, my soul sincere,
Though you don't see me shed these tears.
You dream of someone else. It's clear
You never will be mine.
I drink to numb my ailing mind.
I cut away the scars and hide
Beneath them.
Paint my walls a color sheer,
Wishing you would only hear
The clamour of my soul when we're
Standing eye to eye.
The truth is I am not alright.
The smile that I wear, a lie.
I drink this
Bottle full of Everclear
And put the barrel to my ear.
I hope you finally find love here
In this note I write.

Lean in and kiss me,
Tell me how much you love me,
Shower me with gifts,
And put nothing else above me.

Sacrifice for your paramour
And risk both life and limb.
Tell me I'm the only one
And love me til the end.

I pick you up when you fall down
And protect you when in danger.
I've risked my life for you
And you just leave me for a stranger?

There's no mercy for betrayal.
You'll suffer for what you've done.
I trusted you with everything,
Now you will pay in blood.

Tell me that you're sorry,
Tell me that you're scared,
Tell me it meant nothing
In hopes from consequence you're spared.

But there is no force in heaven
Nor in the pit of hell
That can hinder what is coming
When the Death Bell ominously knells.

Come to me, my love,
And I'll embrace you one last time
To feel the synchronicity
Of our heartbeats and that chime.

The Death Bell's ring grows louder
The closer I pull you in.
Before I pull you under
I must confess to my last sin:

I love you despite the evil
I could see beneath your skin,
Gave into the torrid obsession
That will burn forever within.

Now bound by bitter hatred
I bind you, too, in fetters
In a prison of your making
And leave you with a letter.

A letter and a lover
Is all that I will grant you.
Before the latch is sealed
For eternity, he and you

Will be dragged into the underworld
Buried alive inside this hole.
To rot together, you wretched lovers,
As the Death Bell loudly tolls.

What's behind these widened eyes
That terrifies the kindred spies
Of blighted men? Where heroes lie
On truths and lie to try to hide
That truth sometimes only belies
The reality that paralyzes.

This insight of slighted mind,
When one finds writhing inside my eyes,
Captivates and stirs up fright:
The twilight of eternal night.
The light will fade and time will slide
Into its end til all expires.

Necrotic ruin blooms to life
Consuming and dooming the world to die.
The living will cease to feel the fire
Of life inside to drive them higher,
But instead feel cold and putrid and mired
As the end of all becomes entire.

But the revelation is not so dire,
For the night makes way for the morning sky.
When the age of these "heroes" has passed by
Then so too will their tired lies.
Oblivion welcomes all inside
Its blissful dark to draw us nigh.

Together we'll wait, our time to bide.
The fears of men are hope revived,
As the farce is deadened. No more contrived
Lies of men we once thought wise.
Their wizened souls get left behind
In the nothingness to eternal reside.

It was once a treasure to behold.
So bright, so pure, so bold.
On display atop the shelf
Sits a red, red rose.
A ray of sunlight gleams upon it.
It never grows, nor does it die,
But emits a mysterious light:
The red, red rose.

As the sun begins to set
And night begins its show,
Something strange has happened
To the red, red rose.
The color starts to dissipate
Somehow, in the steady moonlight.
The petals are deposed
From the red, red rose.

Like a sinister corruption,
A dark, shadowy plague,
The once crimson masterpiece
Is now a black, black rose.
The red, it seems, has died,
Its beauty of a different kind.
An aura of pain and sorrow
From the black, black rose.

Like a phantom of the past,
Honored, in a way,
Haunting to the soul
The black, black rose.
A monument, a memorial,
A symbol of a loss.
"Death" is now thy name,
O black, black rose