feverish shivers
crawl through his spine
like maggots
etching putrid trails of horror
onto his soul

regret lingers in that sense-
a quiet parasite,
fixed to him
like barnacles
to a sunken hull,
a perturbation
to the fabric
of a cosmos
that named him
an orphan to the void.

his ashen hands
had reached past the veil,
stumbling upon prophecies
etched in hell-burnt cadavers
of those who sought before him,
their warnings
scattered amidst hallways
stretching beyond the confines of time
he paid no heed

𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗶𝘁 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗱𝘀 𝗮𝗴𝗼𝗻𝘆
in hearts of the well-intentioned.
we’re all progenies of
some nefarious past.

I learned to please people

before I ever learned to please the poet in me-

Somewhere along the way,

I forgot who I was writing for.

You were forged in stardust:
it's in the electric rivers flowing in your body
cutting through the dark like a torrent of lightning,
creating waves of limerence so passionate
it would bring
every pragmatist in the world
down to his knees,
begging for the strength
to bear even a quarter
of the weight of its existence.
It's in the marrow encaged within your bones
creating blood sweeter than ambrosia, everything,
everything in this godforsaken planet
reminds me
that you're the chef-d'œuvre of the constellations'
most reckless, dazzling inventions.

And when our heads rest beneath the sky
and comet dust drifts down,
settling gently on our tresses
I think
Somehow,
by a design only the cosmos could conceive,
the things that created us
find their way back to us again,
and in their wake,
I'll find my way back to you.