Mephisto

A poem

At last, you’re here
Where there was only silence
And a screen—reflecting me

In anxious hours that sneer at sleep
The ebon stain of the sky
Matches the mood
And bitter terms conclude

Dubious bargains are spoken
Whispered, where the lacuna
Betwixt thought and deed thins in the mist
That shrouds the moon

I drew a crude circle of sodium
Around this spot
And sat these watchful hours
Nigh on three nights
Eager for your arrival
Fretting what it portended

The shadows shifted, a baleful grin painted
In a slouching stripe, bright
Across an opaque face; smoke in a blender
Or a swim in a swamp at night
Like lambent sewage in a river of ink
Given human shape
And graceful limbs

An elegant umbra
The delicate scent of incense
And a soft chime, each time
It closed the distance with me

Tell me what your heart desires

Will you summit the sky
Or call the fury of the volcano
To your fingers?

A shade, by shape an arm
Coiled ‘round my waist possessively
A voice like royal velvet
Sipped at the air in my ear

What darkness crouches in your heart
Waiting to hurl calumny
Upon your enemies?

There’s a wound in you

No bitter tyranny, to enact?
No stomping fit, to inflict?

A finger traced a path along my collar
Sinuous as a snake, dark as treachery
And I knew
The shape of the bargain
The price, for my prize

A laugh like frozen leaves shattering
Scratched the air
Hissed like an ill tiding
An omen on the wind

Will you like Odin
Trade for the power of gods?
Bargain yourself immortality
Trade your soul for a mind
That can flit between universes?

I can teach the shape of luxuries undreamt
Of flesh, of gold
All the trinkets that jingle
Every scrap of rock that sparkles
Rubies like ripe plums.
I can pluck the tawdry dreams of finery
From your mind

A smile played across those lips
A coin appeared, twirled deftly between fingers

Every coin, ever tossed in a font
Every earnest wish, clutched tight in your chest
All the dreams you cast to the night sky
Or echoed alone in your head

Each is a candle blown out
A fervent hope held close, under the breath
Every penny, or glint of silver
Used to purchase a parcel of hope
A counterfeit life you swaddled
That evaporated
A page unread, as meaningless as yesterday.

Your life now, crowded close
With swarming need, and suffocating fear
The ceaseless weight of worry
Of failure, of rejection
Perpetually shoved to the fore
A dire certainty, pressed with urgency

Soothing tendrils circled my neck
Temptation cooed in my ears

Something more arcane, perhaps?
Fecund drops of nectar
Dripped from the fingers of the divine?
Pure pleasure, freely given
An image of indulgence
While you lounge in the luxury of indolence?
Would you not trade your miseries for ease?

I can grant you true freedom, the kind that never asks leave or let
And takes what it desires

I can give you the satisfaction that only comes
From watching your enemies fail
And crumble

My head shook, slow and certain

“I would barter my soul for
An end to human frailty, or to all suffering.
But I chose me, for greed.
For the crudest of needs.
The emptiness, inside of me.
Please give me back my empathy,
I’ve lost it along the way.
I am hollow, spent, a castoff skin.
Cold and crisp and lifeless
Surrounded by misery I’m numb to.
Survival meant kind words
Empty of real emotion
A well run dry
In the heat of the season.

In stopping my wounds from bleeding
I chose to flay my fingers
And touch the world with scabrous hands.”

A smile, that slipped those eyes
Slithered across that visage
Knowing and satisfied

Done, the bargain is struck.

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