I lay, of my own volition, in a space meant for her:
a confined and achromatic scene.
My hands, malodorous, muddy and splintered,
leisurely rest on my chest, free from labor machines.

Here I rest, hackneyed and discouraged
in a pitifully human attempt to simulate death
I curse my virtue; it chastises back as it
mourns the curious exploitation of my health.

It was meant to last only a minute,
as sorrow chains my putrid despair in place.
Yet I, to this day, cannot begin to explain
how the darkness manifested itself a face.

I attempted to strike a movement but remained still
as the daemon began to smile.
The plan was to endure without oxygen for seconds,
yet the creature stayed my conscience for a while.

In a surprising and trepid consternation,
I find myself in service to mendicancy.
The creature, a devil with venetian red oculi,
salivates at its newest and prized delicacy.

I cry at the fleeting mastery of my faculty,
yet the tears remain inattentive and departed.
Time blesses the creature with a dominant sentence
as reality registers a dialog that I had started.

“Where is my daughter? I demand to know.”
The creature’s smile grows ever wider.
He then takes the form of the stuffed turtle toy
that used to sleep right beside her.

The creature, in a droning and unmelodious voice,
utters a perplexing, yet commanding noise:

“ATIV ARETLA NI MAN ES ED OLEF”

Frightened yet discouraged, I aim to find the sense
in the puzzling command the creature produced.
“She’s been missing for days! I need to know where she is!”
The beast speaks again, letting its anger loose:

“FELO DE SE NAM IN ALTERA VITA!!”

Suddenly, albeit boundlessly, the stillness was lifted,
and my structure was free from this tenebrous stead.
I raise myself and clasp at the summit’s precipice
after having danced with a beast in this wooden bed.

The vacant coffin remained pristine,
fitted with natural calico cotton lining.
The devil you fear the most is the one you create
and mine emerged with impeccable timing.

The creature’s malevolent ballad persistently tattles
as The Lapse rebroadcasts the “truth” it wanted to utter.
It had told me, “Become a felon of oneself,
and thine own life shall be traded for another.”

I refuse to concur with the creature’s decisiveness
as my unyielding faith will ensure my daughter’s return.
Her weighty and boundless absence must cease
and lead to the terminus of my inexhaustible concern.