I went in search of peace

  in the cast down temples

  of old religions, finding in their

  quiescent

  cobweb-corridor-deaths,

  echoes of

  my own stillness.

  I nodded to the wind’s words

  and the tale told

  of promises forgotten in

  half-light dawns,

  kneeling down to drink

  from blood-troughs

  filled by wars fought in the name

  of ideals.

  I went in search of meaning,

  finding slivers of myself

  between the ash-worms, creeping

  in and out of bony shells,

  the wreck of a world

  forsaken by faith.

  They dragged me out of the ruins,

  holding up a broken idol -

  covered in filth and blood-

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  and told me that I blasphemed,

  and they beat me to the ground.

  I turned from their stones and

  fled to the horizon, seeking a place

  where a rogue might find his place.

  And I saw reflected in mirrors

  and raindrops,

  shards of something I could not know.

  I went in search of truth

  and found it, bleeding words

  of hatred from a wish for love.

  I found truth unsheathed,

  loosed from a scabbard

  of sorrow and regret,

  wishing for death,

  theirs and mine.

  And the steel of their madness

  drove into me

  again and again

  the agony

  of an abandoned world

  gouged out my eyes

  tore off my ears

  and ripped out my tongue

  Until I shattered,

  wandering into the abyss

  blind, deaf and dumb,

  set free from

  the world of hatred,

  to fade into

  a hollow nothing.