Charnel

Plucking the nettles from my dreaming veins,
a garland for a king never crowned.
Drifting embers of forsaken prayers,
Mantle forged of smoke and sorrow.

No serpent needs to whisper. 

Burning born.

Cinders in my throat and seething beneath my skin.
The vaulted heavens flinch.
Craving neither sorrow nor absolution.

I am the maker of my own abyss,
a city raised on the wreckage of will.
Singing, the songs come unraveled.
In my hands altars wither.

I am the prayer unanswered,
the candle consumed by its own light.
I am the hymn that remembers the bleeding,
the creator, the abyss, and the collapse.

I need not your consent to fall.
I stumbled the moment I learned to stand.
The devil may echo my song,
but it is I who lead him into the flames.