Lasciatemi Morire

The gate upon the hill.

Nothing like it exists. Rot and ash construct the winding pillars, and the stench is akin to no powder that subsists in the realm of man. The appendages of smoke encircle the deteriorating pillars, crawling up in ragged breaths. Minutes upon minutes those fingers cling to the sides, itching away at the flesh of the beast. 

The drawbridge collapses, the water having evaporated lifetimes ago. Corpses have come and gone by the time this pathetic moat had even a taste of corporeal rainfall, nothing but scant promises of the sensation that is ‘’drenched’. Buried in that entrance is a light, shining and reflective armor that pierces the darkened sky like no other. It is myself. Standing upon the other side of the drawbridge that has fallen and worsened, sliding off of the deep end to a glorious gone until the splinters have become bridges themself, and then upon that movement that flickers I am standing with Theology on the other end. There was not a moment’s pause before I am two steps back again, replaced and dis-positioned in a world unfriendly and unfamiliar. The darkness, undeniable and golden purples that ashen the sky with profuse deafness, vomit that stains the rugs of stone and seeps within the boards of polylithic blocks, tearing and rending of the most horrific retching, gagging and repulsive until the hands finish their cycle once more. Having conscious. These horrific thoughts worsen the closer I get to that decrepit hall of Beasts, that comfort that is not mine but someone else’s thought implanted in my head, something transported from a stream into my own reservoir as an adject annexation, as an invasion of my synapses as Not Mine. 

“Stay on your feet.”
Theology interjects of the smoke, grabbing onto my armored shoulder and steering me, producing enough energy to procure that axiom, that deep motive beneath my skin as Move! Keep moving, head up, continue to move my legs. These thoughts are not mine, this maxim not mine to bear, this sentence harsh to breathe and harsher to keep my eyelids from defending; Disturbance calling to me as guard, a purpose standing by that sorrowed hanging edge, entirely made form- form process as assertively profusal smoke. 

They lean their head, toppling bones that echt this stage we call living- a memoir to this stage as notable, as an ending so grand when it is conducing that I am held alongside an edge of shapes that I have never been given the vision for. It is a horrific sight. 

“The King will see you now.”

The gate behind me closes and disappears as a glorious gone.

And the creaking wood before me opens in an awning of stone for the bothersome dripping stalactites.

The calling of a people. The lines that surround a reddened carpet soaking my clanging boots chant a Dies Irae to the crimson chandelier overhead, shining obsidian that weighs heavy on the forlorn roof of blackened stone. Ascending we climb the carpet before that receptacle of Godlessness. Within that chamber, the lines wear golden venetian masks fit for a masquerade. Vile repulsion. A grand mounted throne of rubies and black sapphires lies a sootened ball gown of harsh lethality, worn by the ruthless occupant of that throne which sits a grand dress adorned with daggers, striking black knives that scrape the stone at her clothed raised heels. The shadow tilts her head as violins crescendo, the resounding high strings that cut in patterns through the asphyxiating air that dance upon this terrace of ash, the brazen requiem weaves through the meshing of a deaf people and overwhelm the guards who were our accomplices in this ascent. Our accompaniment discards us, turning with flowing tears down their empty eye sockets in the midst of a vile hatred that streams from the grand archway in suffocating pressure, wisping black hair that sways over her shoulders in flowing twintails. Cold dead hands that reach out to us, extending in supposed fire, grand chorales as the Dies Irae begins to fade, only beginning a grander orchestra of organic matter, of a precipice that extends rocky terrain between myself and the Reaper. A funeral march begins as Theology shudders at the heart that extends a lacen finger of white and black to the court, and so we kneel before the God of Misery as we call King. 

Bowed down, before a grand evil.
Bowed down, before all of time and all of God.

Anastasia Trieste, Grade 12

Vocal Arts Major