At Home, the gas lamp flickers;
bodies huddled 'round its quivering light.
It smells like death and oil,
but after so long of worshipping it
as Safety and Love-
You learn quick to mistake
Hurt for Home.
Let me put it this way, Little One:
You,
of flower petal lungs
softened and wilted
with soot and smog-
breathe in air darkened with Death.
Simply not meant for this world;
for this life.
This world,
this life, however,
is all you've ever known.
(You are a creature of habit, after all)
So:
When each breath is a wheezing, rasping gasp-
When each bone is brittle and aching beneath the skin-
When each second stitches itself into your being-
You will still curl 'round the dancing flame of the Gas Lamp.
For its warmth is familiar,
the quivering candlelight cradles your face
with the tender hesitance of a lover-
And oh,
isn't it lovely?
To be killed so slowly
in the arms of a Gentle Death,
my Love?
To let your mind be cradled,
carried by hands that are far older than yours,
my Dear?
To be led by a God's guiding hand
to a sacrificial altar,
my Lamb?
