the ghost is gone

This is the price of pale, painted walls. Of rooms that are always empty, despite those that pass through them. The barest electric light shining, beckoning the works of moth and spider. This wan art of possession, this pale craft of inhabitance fading even as the blood flows warm, and the press of fingers claim each detail. Eye flat reflections, even seeing becoming mimicry.

So shone the temples beneath the bright moonlight, so shone the alter sticky with burnt flesh and offered blood. So go the unmarked graves of war and blank aggression, the odd missions made of human sacrifice, the death welcomed to preserve or to free. The sickness that arises from the abundant replicated errors, the roots of compassion all begot from these ancient pains and small measures. Love the bullet as we love the blade. The knowledge that all sustenance costs some life smudged with the greasy grit of funeral ash, to feast is to one day become food. Life devours, and so it shines.

Throughout this night our lucky star still burns, and we spin and spin. Gone are the paths I followed, gone are the words that served to sustain me. Lost hallways echo with the tricks of worship, the dose of death portrayed as mercy, the blank cannibalism made blessed through magic and priestcraft. Worse than the lack of heaven, worse than the friendless shadows, is the lack of enmity. The hours given over to the living dead, the dwindling of meaning once all the old games have ended. The flesh perseveres, long after the ghost is gone.