Hell is a lake of ice that makes His home in the pit of my stomach. His icy air grips the caverns of my chest crawling its way out of my throat, freezing every muscle, every finger, every breath in His path until I am numb until a corpse makes its home within my ribcage.

He is there when I close my eyes. I know His presence when I feel him on my skin—cold, unmoving, rigid as His tenacity that holds me close, a stale embrace, indifferent of friend or foe. But I was born for the summer rain, for heat waves. I was born to ignite, to melt, to sear even in the most immotile voids.

There is a barbaric light within me yet
that screams from rooftops and tumbles downstairs.
The God of fickle life hums a sweet melody into my ear, and it resonates—
      as though in an orotund cave—
      and it echoes—
      like the calls of a wildebeest—
and it erupts out of every crevice within myself until it comes tumbling out, ripping through lilac canvases, etching its obtuse fingerprints onto dead bones, ordering them to arise.

And there is a light within me yet. There is a blinding light within me yet. There is a blinding, smoldering light within me yet. There is a blinding, smoldering, perversely roaring light within me yet, which no amount of harsh winter cold or quiet abyss could conceive to obscure, ringing a cry that reverberates within even the driest of bones.

And there is a light within me yet, begging, desperate, pleading, yearning to be dripped onto my skin and smeared over whatever I may touch
Like a crimson lacquer leaving ivory marks on surfaces—and even on surfaces that touch those—smearing its obscene scream from the Atlas of the world:

I exist.

Like a prayer, And I savor it on my tongue.

I EXIST. I EXIST.