The Devil Is An Artist

What do you do when you have to take absolute responsibility for every word you say, write, create? That's akin to having a nation in your hands. Every letter of the word, a citizen whose life or death you determine.

I was born from a mouthful of words on a quiet Monday night,
The silent air rent with sharp cries of piercing anguish,
Anguish the colour grey,
Grey the colour pain,
Pain the colour of death.
The nurses surrounded me like thorns,
They sang like bees,
They dressed like gargoyles-
And how they flew around my head,
Spitting their happy shrieks into my newly born ears-

I was born from a mouthful of words,
And my first lesson was to cry

I cried not with words, but with thoughts.
I thought not with words, but with pictures.
I pictured not with words, but with
fractured memories-
Memories the colour white-

White,
Blank,
Empty,
Voids,
Space-

Vacuums in absolute wonder,
Void-upon-voids,
Emptiness sucked in on itself,
Like the hospital I was born in,
Like the disinfected safety net beneath my fall-
And it was a great fall, lofty in its effect;
As a pebble in a pond,
As a boulder in a bubble,
Raging voices crying deafening gurgles

I found words in the middle of nowhere,
Where skies joined with sands,
And the waters formed themselves
With tears and spitting venom-
With sighs and painful portents,
I found words in the middle of nowhere,
Where whispers betrayed secrets,
And hugs became neon signs of
Threats hidden like gloved daggers-
I found words in the middle of nowhere,
Where I stood with arms wide open,
As embracing skies,
Thick clouds of wonders-

I found words in the middle of nowhere,
For I found words in the middle of me

So let my words come alive to me,
Fill my lips with wisdom unspoken,
Knowledge undug,
Visions unforgotten,
Let my fingers twirl with the brilliance of carved letters,
As a master potter at wheel,
Or grand weaver at a loom,
Let my eyes sparkle with the brightness of eternal forges,
Like the greeting of a dying star,
Homage of endless ages,

Let my voice resound with reverberant power,
As of the first moment,
Glories of the first words:
Let
There
Be

For waiting outside my words is the lurking darkness,
And the shadows ever reaching through cracks in the walls,
Other words forming,
Other thoughts becoming,
Other worlds being,
As the first opposing intent-
I
Will
Be,
As the first deceiving words,
You
Will
Not,
As carefully woven threads of insidious design,
Intents I must carefully ward against-

This I know,
For the devil is an artist.