How has it come to this?
Dazed, I cannot say
what has become
of the girl I was,
the woman I had
become. Blinded
by bullets that pierce
me, lightning-fast, I die
and am consumed whole
by Prince of Darkness,
unable to free myself
from sin.

I choke on green mushroom clouds, eyes burning,
heart pounding out an S.O.S., as people pass
by. In the one breath, I envy
them. In next, much darker,
moment, I would blow
my dragon smoke and
smite them for
their smiles.

Faith, like the proverbial “plastics,” promised
panacea, future hope, misshapen, burnt by fire.
Only the stench of what
might have been fills
what’s left of life,
burning heap of
discontent,
fossil fuel
of fury.

Where love has been stripped and I made to feel
a poison to the world, hissing snakes rise
unbidden and will not
relinquish their hold
on me. No matter
that I scream
for Prince
of Peace
to come.

The Evil One spawns bitterness, fumes his lies
on my smoldering pain, cackling at the game.
He takes my crooked faith
to form a weapon,
pointed against
my will toward
anyone who
dares to try
to help me.

But the battle rages even so, and I am not alone, nor forsaken.
Love survives this hell and forges a haven of hope, solid rock
of precious stone, heart that spirals upward to free me from the grip of Satan’s sleeping sickness and reveal Truth
and tomorrow’s task: to awake, to rise, to shine, purified, restored to more.