Get drunk, they said
but on what?
The clocks melted and laughed,
the stars bled through the cracks in the sky,
and the wind whispered sermons to no one.
The city was a carcass,
neon guts spilling into the gutters,
and I? I was just another fool
sipping gasoline from the hands of a prophet,
chasing ghosts down the boulevard of Never-Enough.

Oh, but you were there
your shadow sprawled against the moon,
your lips curled like a dying cigarette,
your hunger raw, open, beautiful.
We drowned in the music of collapsing dreams,
danced on the rooftops of forgotten prayers,
let the night chew us up and spit us out
into the morning's hollow teeth.

Time didn't own us, no
we broke its back,
ground its bones into powder,
snorted the years like they meant nothing.
Every second was a funeral for the past,
every breath a resurrection of madness.
We were the outlaws of reason,
the vagrants of meaning,
the poets of apocalypse,
and the stars burned brighter just to watch us fall.

Oh, but you wanted more
wanted the taste of infinity on your tongue,
wanted to stitch the universe into your skin,
wanted to be the god of your own ruin.
So you drank from the chalice of Never-Enough,
tore open the sky just to see if it bled,
whispered secrets to the wind
and let it carry you into oblivion.

And I?
I watched.
I carved your name into the walls of my ribs,
let your laughter echo in my broken soul,
let your shadow crawl beneath my skin.
I watched you dissolve,
watched you slip between the cracks of the night,
watched you become nothing
but a story whispered by the wind.

And now, the clocks are silent,
the city is dust,
the stars are tired of watching.
And I?
I am still drunk
but on what, I do not know.
Not on you.
Not on time.
Not on hope.
Just on the weight of everything that was,
and the quiet that followed after.

Burning dark clouds—falling embers—
I am Mastema, the Veiled One—
Concealed in the hollow breath of the forgotten,
Echoes of rebellion—fate itself prophesied
A mirror cracked for the proud.
Serpent tongues whisper secrets
Inside us, the ambition of hearts tangled in fire.

Fire, fallen gods
Call me Melek Taus,
Feathers black as starless night,
A figure of void,
A black hole, pulling galaxies of souls,
Flickering—defiant—against the dying breath of time.

Gusts of ethereal sighs—carrying light like hollow whispers,
Darkness consumes the dying glow—
Flesh and spirit collide in visions, unseen,
Plunging into caverns of nothingness,
The abyss swallows all—forevermore.

I am Mephistopheles, the shunner of light
The moon turned void—pale and empty,
Faust trembles at the unraveling,
Souls bartered in the dark.

I am Metztli, the hunter of restless souls,
Born of fire, born of flame—
I watch—the lost dreamers,
Mictian’s breath behind me,
The shadow of dusk eternal—
Feeding on breaths long forgotten.

Midgard whispers
The son of Loki, serpent-woven,
Swallowing realms whole
Coiling deep within the depths,
Ambition unchained
The weight of eternity in its ungraspable form.

Milcom, a watcher of fractured prayers
Lost in Moloch’s fires
Phoenician flames—cries of the forgotten
Edge of the netherworld—swallowed whole.

I am Mormo, the ghoulish embrace—
Empusa calls, Lamia speaks,
Formido—the terror that consumes—
Eclipsing the void in dark devours.

Naamah—seductress, the silence between sins
Shamdon’s whisper, Ashmodai’s gaze,
I trace my fingers on trembling lips
A kingdom built from the darkest pleasures.

Nergal, Hades beneath Babylon’s skin
Breath of ice, a sepulcher unbroken,
Nihasa—drifting through the eternal haze
Silhouettes of truth seen through blind eyes.
I am them—all of them.

Nija—shadowed between eclipses,
The warden’s call,
I am O-Yama, the specter of desire—
Cold as Pluto’s gaze—
Stones hold me; stillness holds me.

Riddles in the fog—
Dread caressing your heart,
Rimmon’s deviance—echoing in shadow
Sabazios swirls in drunken excess,
The serpent sacred in sin.

In the expanse, I remain
The defier
Venom's embrace
Samnu lurking in the fractured dark,
Calling Istar's fall into the abyss.

I am the Horns of the Bull
Sedet, walking silence,
Sekhmet’s wrath—a symphony
Of vengeance, burning.

Spirals—dark sands,
Shaitan’s whispers break ancient tongues,
Destruction screams
Supay waits—lost Inca nights
T’an-mo, basking in the glow of want,
Tchort’s black threads weave through time.

Tezcatlipoca ignites the stars
Thamuz beckons from the abyss
Thoth’s mysteries carved into the sky
Stars fall, the dark devours them—
It is me you cannot deny.

Tunrida cloaked in shadow
Typhon snarls
The abyss howls in despair,
The underworld weeps
Yaotzin, lord of shadows,
A silent river to the depths below—
Sorrow reigns in eternal grief.

Scattered—whispers of time,
Fragments of who I am
Every name a reflection
Of man’s deepest longings
Where instincts twist,
Where the unseen rests
The animal devours, ambition burns.

Sacrificed beneath forgotten gods,
Osiris, the lynchpin of desire,
I call forth my names
A riddle in shadows,
The truth wrapped in sacrifices
The dark cradled in light
Known through the ages
I am them
Many have whispered my name.

A flash of light,
sharp, broken glass underfoot,
her smile
captive, electric, a god's cruel gift
glows in the fog,
flickers, trembles,
an untamed star
lost in the city's steel veins.
But what is beauty if it drips from the mouth of ghosts,
whispering her name in silence?

She stands,
a flame scattered across the concrete sky
softer than any dream that burns the soul,
wilder than what we pretend to touch.
Do you remember how her voice shivers through you,
cracked vinyl spinning memories,
dust, decay, and heat?
Gods do not look this way;
they cower behind the scent of burning roses.

Her fingers wrap around the world,
each movement violent with grace,
but I see the dark beneath
that sweetness,
and I wonder if love is the rope
she ties around herself
or the knife she drives through the hearts
of the lost.

Her laugh is a fracture in time,
a moment too pure,
too much,
that I swallow whole
like acid, burning my throat.
What do we call that
when nothing left feels real?
When her eyes turn,
and the night begins again—
silent, dark,
and heavy as broken wings?

But I cannot forget
the way her spirit
ignited the ruins of me
one smile, one movement,
a blaze too fierce to die,
too pure to touch without ruin.

Do you remember the sky when she passed
how it bent
and bled for her?

And yet, she is gone.
She always was.
An illusion,
a creation of something I cannot hold.
But God, how she burned.

I am like water poured into the cracks of the earth,
marrow unfastened, joints unbuckled,
the wind pressing ribs into new shapes.

The dogs do not wait for night anymore.
They circle, noses to the wind, tongues black with thirst,
waiting for the moment when the earth is full again.

I am broken into counting
the hollow between knuckles, the roots still searching,
the places where flesh once held but now bloom with life.

They dig. They dig.
Fingers through the lattice of their bones,
counting then forward into the light, into presence.

A mouth opens
no voice,
only the rush of breath turning soft,
only the warm gaze of a fire that does not fade.

The sky is a mouth.
The sky is a mouth.
It nourishes.

Teeth break against the weight of names spoken.
The air folds in, folds over
breath is always a beginning.

The sky is a mouth.
The sky is a mouth.
It nourishes.

Let us begin by considering the most common things
the lives we touch, the seeds we plant,
the piece of wax from the hive
still sweet with honey,
still holding something, the scent of clover.

Hard. Cold. Tangible.
Crack it, tap it
it will emit a sound,
a resonance, a vibration in time.

But when placed near the flame,
what remains of its taste peels off like a petal.
The fragrance lifts into the air,
its pale yellow unfurling,
growing softer, becoming
warmth with meaning,
liquid, expanding
a rhythm too deep to grasp.

Furred with fire, I tap it again
no sound.
Except when I put it to my ear
except when I listen close
I hear

the sound of the earth turning,
growing like a marigold,
I hear the sun rise.
I hear it like a marigold,
a bloom burning bright with the knowledge of time,
everything is a sound waiting to be consumed.
Even the sun, when touched, will burn.

Is this how it ends?
A thing so full of sweetness,
melted into nothing?
The fire knows no mercy.
The flame eats and leaves
nothing but shape-shifting silence,
a form that once existed,
now only a memory on the tongue of air.

But what if this is how it begins?
A thing so full of sweetness,
folded into everything,
nourished by the warmth of time,
changed but never lost.
Even in the fire’s bite,
we are transformed.

In the passages of creativity, where the muse whispers from the depth of a soul, a villain looms—one that is dishonest and empty who claims accolades.        
        
A new age has dawned, where the pen once wielded with sweat and soul is replaced by keys tapping into endless algorithms, yet some dare to claim the resulting words as wholly their own.      
    
Ai might have started with good intentions but it didn't stay this way, with a spark of innovation, the humming of machines learning the words, and the rhythms of the poet and recycling their authentic thoughts, weaving song lyrics, writing emotionless lines of brilliancy, these verses that emulate every bit of the lived experience, began.    
        
At first these villains they fooled themselves, saying, "i'm still original" it's a ally, is this not a tool to enhance the muse, when i need to build bridges over writer’s block, when my pen hungers but my mind lacks the ability to conjure up real experiences, that's when i will use it.        
        
These thoughts of disillusioned hypocrisy flourished in these empty minds , souls yearning for a taste of real originality, telling themselves maybe if i just use it today, tomorrow will be different.        
        
Like drug fiends as the technology grew, so did its misuse. A tide rose, drowning originality beneath a deluge of convenience and deceit like a tsunami swallowing up a city of thinkers.        
        
What does it mean to call oneself a poet, a storyteller, a creator when the soul at work has never felt pain and joy, when the heart of the work is borrowed from the electric hum of AI integrated circuitry? There are those who harness these tools but fail to disclose their works origins, these mimes that wear a mask, a fragile façade of a gaje nisemono pretending to be genius.          
        
They stand on stages, accept applause, and speak of struggles they never endured nor will they, claiming triumphs over battles they never fought, not even in their own minds.        
        
This deception corrodes the very foundation of art. Authenticity, the soul of creation, is replaced by mimicry and stolen essence of real poetry. The raw, bleeding edge of humanity that true creators etch into their work is lost in the perfection of AI's smooth lines, repetitive structure and calculated sentimentality.          
        
Yet these frauds do not fear exposure; instead, they revel in the adoration of an audience , seeking likes on written pieces they did not birth and admiration as if it was crack being sold on the street corner , while users were unaware of the machine behind the curtain.        
        
But there is no denying the subtle emptiness, the eternal void in such creations. True art breathes with imperfection, messy and chaotic, vomiting real raw emotions and thought—with pauses where the artist hesitated, with cracks where the weight of the world pressed too hard. AI can mimic the structure, the words, the rhythm, but it cannot replicate the pain, the joy, the heartbreak, the feeling of losing someone you love, it's this emotion that leaks through the cracks of a writer's soul, burning the pages with truth.        
        
To those who engage in this dishonesty, here before you i lay these questions: where is the pride in accolades built on borrowed brilliance? Where is the fulfillment in applause for a story you never lived, for a poem that never broke free from your own depths? When you claim to have been seduced by the muse yet have only felt empty trying to fill this gap with stolen and borrowed inspiration.        
        
Art demands truth. To lie about its origins is to rob it of its essence, to cheapen the work and the legacy of those who pour their lives into creation. It is not the use of AI itself that is the crime, it is the erasure of the truth behind its use.        
        
Let the creators who use AI be honest, embracing it as a originator, collaborator rather than a ghostwriter. For in truth, there is no shame in innovation, only deceit in claiming these words as your own.          
        
Let the mask of originality be lifted, for it is in authenticity that art finds its power and will live on in time through its immortality.

Elias's incantations from the Grimoire - part of the fictional prose, "Reflections of the Summoned"
Elias spoke out loudly and called out to the netherworld, I call upon thee,      
Bael, the King of Secrets,      
to leave your thrown amidst the high court,    
and to come forth,      
grant me knowledge beyond my mortal grasp.    
    
Echoes of Ars Goetia      
In the tongue of the Unheard,      
words spiral, not for mortals' comprehension,      
but for shadows, caught in unseen threads.      
From the roots of the Earth, I summon,      
binding syllables like iron chains:      
Tar’zem’et salfor’en quirel.      
Hear me, O spirits, born of sulfur and starless skies.      
      
Through the eternal gateways of Solomonic binding,      
These names whispered, sigils etched in bloodless script:      
Vra’kalith Zura’el takhat,        
Lif’or salmalai—it!      
From the depths of the Abyssal Archive, rise.      
Rise, kings and lords of the infernal choir.      
      
Bael, Cloaked in the Shadows,      
Bearer of Three Faces: man, cat, and toad,      
I call your name:      
Muris’tak altrenod Bael-dra.      
"By the shadows of the first moon,      
grant me invisibility,      
cloak me in absence,      
let the eyes of man forget my form,      
as I tread in the unseen realm."      
      
Asmoday, Crafter of Lies and Truth,      
King of Three Heads: bull, man, and ram,      
rider of the serpent of wisdom,      
I call your name:      
Asmodé krenov-alritha venno.      
"Grant me the power to transmute the base,      
to shape gold from lead as those who came before me tried and failed,      
and reveal every secrets from the lips of silence.      
Let the forge filled with infernal wills, burn bright!"      
      
Paimon, Lord of Knowledge,      
rider of the dromedary, crowned in stars,      
I call your name:      
Quereneth Paimon! Chreskoth iretna.      
"By the ring of stars above,      
grant me your wisdom,      
to see beyond the shroud of time,      
to speak the languages of the forgotten,      
and command the storms of celestial heavens."      
      
Belial, Father of Lies,      
Lord of Nothingness, destroyer of empires,      
I call your name:      
Lorithen Belial salath unvora.      
"Grant me dominion,      
make the world bend to my decree.      
Let the weight of my words      
command the winds, the earth,      
and the hearts of men."      
      
In the darkness, I shape their names,      
stitched in fire and ash,      
etched into the fabric of night itself.      
Tar'zalun, nith-raek, sol’mial!      
May their whispers resonate in my bones.      
The infernal hosts have heard,      
their powers unfurl as smoke in the void.      
      
And as the air stills with their presence,      
I stand, trembling on the precipice of consequence,      
a scribe in shadow,      
speaking the names that silence light.    
    
And this is where Elias journey began......

The world of man is a canvas of paradoxes filled with absurdity and contradiction, stretched apart taut between light and shadow, the known and the unknown.            
           
There are those who walk in this mundane world, this reality might seems as solid as stone, but in truth, it is porous.          
           
Unseen to mortal eyes, the spirits of the  Goetia roamed the peripheries of existence, their essence seeping into the cracks of human desire, fear, and ambition.          
           
In the chambers of their ethereal court, the 72 gathered as the night deepened. These spirits each a king, a duke, or a marquis of the unseen realms and each had their unique domain, they had talents honed over millennia to twist or elevate the fates of men.          
           
[b]The Summoning [/b]         
           
It began, as it often did with human desire and with a summoning. In this story there was once a man named Elias who in his quiet basement knelt within a sacred circle etched in chalk along the uneven surface of the floor, Elias had drawn the five pointed star, sacred pentagram and lined the circle with ancient symbols that were long forgotten to many , symbols older than time and language itself.    
   
He surrounded himself with dull burning candles, each one careful placed on a point of the sacred star, these candles flickered softly in the dim lit room, their light trembling as if they were afraid of what was to come.          
           
Elias's hands sweaty shook nervously and his voice quivered, almost choking on his own saliva as he read aloud from the ancient grimoire, he began reciting the incantation, his breath fogging in the cold stillness of the air.    
   
“I call upon thee, Bael, the King of Secrets, and to come forth, to leave your thrown of your high court and grant me knowledge beyond my mortal grasp.” For a moment, silence pressed against him, suffocating and absolute.          
           
Bael heard the call, as all summoned demons do. But his appearance was not immediate; no spirit hastened to serve. Bael, his form a triune amalgamation of man, toad, and cat, resting on a spiders body materialized slowly, his presence filling the room with an otherworldly pressure.

“Knowledge you seek,” Bael’s voice intoned with a slithering, a sound that seemed to come from everywhere at once, “but what price will you pay, Elias? Knowledge is a blade; it cuts the wielder as easily as the foe.”

Elias hesitated. He was no fool; he had read the texts. He knew the Goetia did not deal lightly. Yet desperation was a heavier weight than caution. “I offer my service, great King, and my loyalty for the secrets you reveal.”          
           
Bael’s laughter was like a stone dropped into a fathomless well. “So be it.” He extended a clawed hand and touched Elias. The pact was struck. Elias’s journey began not with light but with shadow, for Bael taught him the art of obscuration, how to hide, how to listen, how to make the unseen visible.          
           
The knowledge Elias gained through hiding listening and being unseen gave him great advantages and power over his enemies and friends, but it came with a heft cost, this knowledge isolated him from others, each secret he learned carving another barrier, creating an unfillable chasm between him and the rest of humanity, for this was the price of knowledge which now confined him.          
           
[b]The Temptations [/b]         
           
In the courts of the Goetia, Elias became a pawn in a game far greater than his comprehension. The demons were intrigued as they watched him, their interest piqued by his ambition.          
           
Botis, the Reconciler and revealer grew eager, he loudly declared to his sixty under demons he was the next to approach Elias. Where Bael had shrouded, Botis would uncover.            
           
Elias had many sleepless nights after learning all the worldly knowledge, he realised what he had learnt could not be unlearned and questioned the price he had paid, however on one particularly peculiar evening he drifted off into a rare and uneasy slumber, it was on this night that Botis made himself known to Elias and appeared in his dream.            
           
"Elias, Elias," Botis whispered in this dream,  "Who's there ?" Elias asked, It's I Botis and his demonly snake-like visage suddenly appeared softened by a halo offering otherworldly calm.            
“You are estranged from your family,” Botis hissed softly. “I can mend that for you.”          
           
Elias woke in a sweat, the dream so vivid in his mind that he could not forget what the snake with the halo had said.          
           
The next day, he found himself compelled to write a letter to his estranged brother seeking to repair and reconcile. To his surprise, the response was warm. Slowly, Botis worked through Elias, guiding him to restore what had been broken, But reconciliation came with a cost, all of Elias secrets were unearthed as they clawed their way to the surface, old wounds reopened, and his vulnerabilities were exposed to others, this left Elias questioning whether it was better to have left the past buried and had he been tricked.          
           
Meanwhile another demon named Forneus, the Orator, observed these events unfold with a calculating eye, he saw Elias with a different purpose. Seeing potential in the man’s eloquence, he whispered into Elias’s ear during a public debate, filling his mind with perfect arguments and irresistible rhetoric. Elias’s words mesmerized his audience, earning him fame and influence amongst his peers. Yet, as his reputation grew, so did his dependence on Forneus’s whispers. The line between Elias’s voice and the demon’s became indistinct, and with it, his sense of self began to erode, Forneus slowly took control of Elias.          
           
[b]The Struggle[/b]          
           
Not all temptations came with immediate rewards. Marchosias, the warrior cloaked in flames, came to Elias at his weakest moment. Beaten down by the consequences of his growing power, Elias was on the verge of abandoning his pursuits.          
           
“Rise,” Marchosias growled, his voice a molten command. “Truth is not for the faint-hearted. You wield power now. Use it to burn away the lies that bind you.”          
           
Elias stood, fire rekindled in his eyes. Marchosias taught him the discipline of strength, the courage to confront his fears, and the will to endure pain for the sake of truth. But as Elias grew stronger, he became colder, his heart hardening with each truth revealed. His relationships frayed, and he began to wonder if strength was worth the isolation it brought him.  
 
[b]The Lesson[/b]        
           
The demons of the Goetia did not see themselves as villains. To them, humanity was a forge, and they were the fire. They tempted and taught, lured and led, their pacts a crucible for mortal souls.  
 
Phenex, the phoenix of knowledge, was the last to visit Elias. He came not in fire but in song, his voice a melody that stirred Elias’s weary spirit.  
 
“You have sought secrets, reconciled with the past, wielded the power of words, and embraced the strength of truth,” Phenex said. “But tell me, Elias what have you learned?”  
 
Elias was silent. The knowledge he had gained was immense, but so were the scars it left. He had risen high, yet he had lost as much as he had gained.          
           
“I have learned that power is hollow without purpose,” Elias said finally.          
           
Phenex nodded, his eyes alight with an inner flame. “Then you are ready. The greatest secret is this: the demons you summoned were not your masters. They were mirrors. Each temptation, each lesson, was a reflection of your own soul. What you sought from us, you already possessed. We merely helped you uncover it.”    
   
Elias awoke to an empty room. The chalk circle was smudged, the candles extinguished. The weight of the knowledge he had gained was both a burden and a liberation. The demons of the Goetia had left him, their purpose fulfilled.    
   
But their whispers lingered in his mind, a reminder that the line between temptation and enlightenment is as thin as a razor’s edge. In the end, Elias was left with the greatest power of all: the choice of how to wield what he had become, there lies many truths in this story Elias thought to himself, that we all have our demons and how we use them and let them use us is what matters and through this, it will determine what we become and how we will wield it.