A Coward Behind A Killer’s Mask

Pandemonium plays his harp

Plucking away at crystalline strings

Spinning them together, braiding disorder

Making the lion look like the lamb.

He is beautiful

Graceful,

Perfection’s face

But a liar, a conniver,

A killer hiding

Behind a coward’s mask.

I know as I lie here,

Curled up on the floor

Rocking back and forth

He lies beside me in this stone cell,

Singing in my ear

His lips touch mine,

Swallowing my screams.

His arms lock around me

Holding me to his silent heart,

My pulse through his skull

Throbbing.

I know only these ludicrous thoughts

Bleeding through this mask of twisted mind and matter

But he separates madness and sanity

Life from death

Darkness and light

Black and white

Leaving me to wander in too much gray.

I try and dream of happier times—there are none left

Lost in a breath that soon becomes a mad,

Terrified scream

Soothed by his words

Poison through my mind

Cutting through pain.

I wake again, barely conscious

Of the shattered picture

The broken reflection

Of me

Lying next to him

Curled in his cold embrace

Pandemonium plays his harp

Plucking away at crystalline strings

He is beautiful

Graceful,

Perfection’s face

The truth, a savoir,

A coward hiding

Behind a killer’s mask.