GROOMED הֵילֵל

I think I’ve just awakened from night’s sleep, so why  
can’t I remember lying down? I don’t feel rested at all.    
From what ordeal hath this wrought of me?    
    
     
The old church, with peeling, loosened clapboards,    
cracked stained glass, leaning spire with winged figure    
bowed atop as if in mourning, was a sorrowing place    
with pall of tears, warped in the constant screech & clicks    
of cicada, surrounded by swamp and marshland hidden    
in willow and twisted gnarled oak overgrown.    
     
She was a girl of no distinction, given the lexicon of her    
short life up until then that droned on in a maze of black    
arts that consumed the sanctity & sanctuary of what    
once was the pierced heart of Christ; cohabitants meant    
to exist in the atmosphere of Venus, the body and light    
of Lucifer before the casting out.    
     
Inside the groaning structure, a time long ago, hallowed    
by sharecropper families from the county, for celebrations    
of their faith. Of weddings, baptisms, and their farewells    
to both beloved & scoundrels, a slight & singular girl    
was a ward of the exalted archangel, once second only    
to God's own son. The chosen had chosen.    
     
Within a narrow cupboard beneath a stairway was her    
only place, a haven. While each night, when the dead    
would make their way up toward a distant light, she    
couldn't see, and no one let her - & heard the saddest    
mournful moans sustained as if in wordless prayer.    
     
The outcast host of heaven's angels, relegated to grovel    
under the feet of Vulgate, were pathetic & envious, and    
mocked the girl clad in ritual garb that never covered    
her modesty. They'd make her pack their bags, & wash    
their feet before the dead could ascend, wrapped in    
torn strips of white raiment.    
     
But where would they go? They never returned. So what    
good was it to cling to Hope?  As helpless as she felt    
of her chances to be free. The plight she thought    
had befallen the sallow, sunken & bowed walking dead,    
and more passing through, had no Hope left for them.    
     
She'd tuck her slight body in her slight room in despair    
and try to dream. Out of the mists, Hope would always    
appear, to take her hand and ease her heart and soul.    
Hope came to her as a gentle-faced man as Lucifer    
once was.  He was erect and imposing, with beautiful    
wings that unfurled & reflected when he’d approach.    
     
The Shadows of her prison would taunt whenever    
Hope came. Pulling her long sable hair, to drag her    
out the cupboard. Howling their foul breath, filling    
the room. Telling her she would meet her doom.    
‘Doom’ was what she knew she’d been sentenced to.    
     
On this night as the girl was cleansing the dead and    
wrapping their bodies for the journey she yearned    
to know, it came to her to disguise as one of them;    
to blend in and join the many going up the staircase.    
     
She feared the ritual the guardians pressed her into    
when the satanic mood set in like a fog of faint blood    
glowing, seeping from rafters, the doors & floors.    
Making every timber and plank creak & shiver, with    
a deep moan of death's angelic choir to accompany    
the orgy of her grooming for Lucifer's sadistic pleasure.    
     
Anything the Shadows did was a picnic compared    
to what laid in wait once she would be given over to    
Queen Lilith, who would present the girl to her Lord.    
     
She saw the chance to set her plan in action while    
there was a moment's break, and quickly pulled off    
her ritual garb, stood shivering in a shallow pan and    
poured a pitcher of cold water on her nakedness,    
then sat in the pan with a rag and washed her feet.    
     
Once she finished the ablutions, she stood to step    
out and rubbed herself dry; her heart pounding in    
her throat, her rasping breath from her open mouth.    
     
Her time was short. The dead she had prepared now    
in a listless line about to leave. She quaked while    
wrapping wads of torn strips of white cloth around    
herself, making certain her face was covered, with    
slits left open to see out from.    
     
The line of dead had begun to make their way up the    
stairs that sagged & groaned, as the girl held onto    
the railing to steady herself, so anxious was she.    
She kept between two of the walking dead, so pitiful    
and wan, to keep the Shadows from spying her.    
     
She saw the darkness starting to grow less so, and    
peered through the bandages up the stairs between    
the shuffling bodies. It was eventide, with half a    
waxing moon at its apex in the night cycle. The air's    
subtle chill was bracing & crisp & smelled fresh,    
reminding her how putrid & close it was down below.    
     
It was all she could do not to suddenly bolt with only    
a few more steps to go.  The ones ahead were out on    
the roof, and each began to rise up until they were all    
spread out in lines of pale moonlight ascending slowly    
into the starry night, high and low in all directions.    
     
The girl was mesmerized while standing at the base    
of the old bent spire, watching the rest emerge from    
the top of the staircase, out onto the roof, to float    
silently away.  It was beautiful, they were now all free.    
     
The girl quickly put her hands to her bandaged face.    
She couldn't follow she wasn't dead she'd be found out!    
     
What to do, where to go?, her thoughts leaped out    
of her ears as she spun round and round in place.    
She looked at the ground below - it was too far to    
jump. She turned & looked up above at the mournful    
bowing angel with wings outspread. She kept her    
eyes wide on the angel and tried to climb the spire.    
     
"There's my Hope!" she cried out, "My only Hope!",    
digging her fingers in, her bare feet scrambling.    
     
She was at the spire's bend & could go no further!    
All she could do was look up at the statue's placid    
face and pray:      
     
"Dear Lord, I am your unworthy lamb gone astray!    
Please, save me and I will serve you all of my life..."    
     
But before she could finish & say "Amen", the angel's    
eyes lit up bright red, tilted its head in a sickening    
crunch, bared its shark-toothed maw at her & jeered,    
     
"Oh I'll save you, all right, the best for last! You'll    
serve me well till I say DIE!!"    
     
And the choir could be heard in eerie devotations:    
     
the orchids of her sallow flesh    
so soft and pliable,    
from fallow rot of bitch's crèche,    
death is a harlot's friend...    
     
death is a harlot's friend...    
     
     
Could it be the life I thought I knew    
Was only but the dream,    
With this conclusion that I drew    
That this is now... the end of me?    
     
     
     
( prose poetry - word count: 1,157 )