death is callous strange and sudden a pious indignant drooling glutton whose hands are soft warm inviting whose desperate advances seem useless fighting whose ragged tooth should rip through flesh which marinates in rancid breath how quick one turns to a violent death when cowardice remains where courage left and there s no guiding light to lead the way just rot declining to decay the would be hangman hangs its head to find its victim not quite dead but rising now from beneath the gallows a driving force cuts through the shadows strike from the heart cut to the quick with no remorse its politic with crippling blows to the body and head drip by drip until its finally bled out one moment defines a lifetime no one recalls the crawl or the climb or the trembling legs that take the first two steps or the moment the lungs decide to take breath the darkness comes to life underneath its cloak beat the blood red eyes who s haunting stare leaves one paralyzed this is the nightmare from which one never awakes laughing at the feeble whose whole body shakes who pounce upon the weakness and the past mistakes whose hands grip the heart and cause the heartbreak so strike from the heart cut to core leave only the sinew washed up on the shore sever the head of the beast with the crown never back down never back down and as the light breaks through the darkest night it finds the victor dressed in white rising now from beneath the gallows a driving force cuts through the shadows