The brilliance of this poem lies in the desire at its center. After every offer of power, revenge, pleasure, wealth, and escape, the speaker asks for something far more difficult: the return of empathy. The bargain becomes deeply unsettling because compassion itself is treated as something that may cost the soul to recover. “In stopping my wounds from bleeding / I chose to flay my fingers” is especially powerful—the poem understands how self-protection can slowly become another form of damage.
This poem feels like stepping into a room lit only by the glow of a sleepless mind, where every fear and every longing takes on a shape of its own. The encounter with Mephisto reads less like a supernatural ritual and more like a moment of brutal honesty, the kind that only happens when you’re exhausted enough to stop lying to yourself. The imagery is vivid and unsettling — shadows that breathe, a voice that knows exactly where the hurt is buried. What struck me most was the confession at the end: not a desire for power or revenge, but a plea for empathy, for the ability to feel again after too much emotional survival. It’s rare to see a “deal with the devil” framed around the loss of one’s own humanity rather than ambition. The final admission of hollowness is quietly devastating. The poem lingers because it feels true: sometimes the darkest bargain we make is simply learning to live without feeling, and wanting that feeling back.
I really enjoyed this. I’m fascinated by the idea that sometimes we believe we desire power, when what we actually desire is only its impressive, almost superficial appearance. Yet these bargains for power always seem to reveal something deeper: our insecurities, our wounds, and the places where we are most vulnerable. That is what makes them so intriguing to me. It almost feels like a dance with the devil, only to discover that the greatest revelation is about ourselves. Amazing poem.
Thank you Jeanne. I agree, society tends to outsource aid, and blame. We're taught that evil comes from an external source, as does salvation. I think we've become inured to the notion that appearance equals substance; our screens are filled daily with all-too-human examples of frailty from every species of public figure. I appreciate you reading!
Mike, this is haunting, not because Mephisto offers gold, power, immortality, or revenge, but because every temptation he offers is something human beings have quietly begged for at one time or another.
And then you turn the bargain inside out.
The speaker doesn’t want wealth. Not power. Not even freedom from suffering.
He wants his empathy back.
That, to me, is the wound at the centre of this poem. Survival has done its job so well that it has survived the person. The armour that once kept the blood inside has become the skin through which nothing can be felt.
“I chose me, for greed. / For the crudest of needs. / The emptiness, inside of me.”
That is devastating.
Perhaps the most dangerous bargain is the one we make without ever meeting Mephisto: trading away pieces of ourselves for the illusion of safety, only to discover that we can no longer feel the person we were trying so desperately to save.
Beautifully dark, Mike. This isn’t really a poem about temptation. It is about the quiet cost of surviving long enough to become a stranger to your own soul.
Thank you Dipti. I confess I wrestle with the concept of empathy without scars, of not somehow not sharing a fragment of pain in witnessing it, and that partly informs the core concept here: feeling and witness pain causing grievous injury, but still pursuing it nevertheless.
I think that is precisely what makes the poem so unsettling, Mike. Perhaps empathy is never entirely without scars, not because we must own another’s pain, but because truly witnessing it changes the shape of us, however quietly. There is a strange courage in continuing to look, knowing that what we see may leave a wound.
Gothic in form but Miltonic in scope, this poem verily lisps with a forked tongue. It settles on a moral dilemma that readers will ignore at their peril. A fantastic read, Martin!
The brilliance of this poem lies in the desire at its center. After every offer of power, revenge, pleasure, wealth, and escape, the speaker asks for something far more difficult: the return of empathy. The bargain becomes deeply unsettling because compassion itself is treated as something that may cost the soul to recover. “In stopping my wounds from bleeding / I chose to flay my fingers” is especially powerful—the poem understands how self-protection can slowly become another form of damage.
Thank you Antonio!
Brilliant. Such emotional depth.
Thank you John!
Thank you for sharing my friend.
I’m greedy too. Not trading my soul for world peace. Cheesecake, maybe.
Pure decadence! Thank you Crystal 😅
Another victim claimed. I could definitely feel the darkness throughout. I may need to take a shower. Haha. Excellent poem.
You write with such Depth, always amazing to read your work 👏
Thank you Lawrence!
This poem feels like stepping into a room lit only by the glow of a sleepless mind, where every fear and every longing takes on a shape of its own. The encounter with Mephisto reads less like a supernatural ritual and more like a moment of brutal honesty, the kind that only happens when you’re exhausted enough to stop lying to yourself. The imagery is vivid and unsettling — shadows that breathe, a voice that knows exactly where the hurt is buried. What struck me most was the confession at the end: not a desire for power or revenge, but a plea for empathy, for the ability to feel again after too much emotional survival. It’s rare to see a “deal with the devil” framed around the loss of one’s own humanity rather than ambition. The final admission of hollowness is quietly devastating. The poem lingers because it feels true: sometimes the darkest bargain we make is simply learning to live without feeling, and wanting that feeling back.
Thank you APC
You truly have a marvelous talent for writing poetry! Thank you for you insights!
Thank you!
I absolutely loved this! Thank you Mike. “I chose to flay my fingers and touch the world with scabrous hands.”
I know those hands.
I’ve lived inside them. Still do, some days.
The numbness that keeps you standing, and the cost of it.
Thank you for writing the part most people leave out, Utter Brilliance!
Thank you Elle
Beautiful! So powerful. The desire for empathy above all else ... that is a costly request.
Thank you Laura! I believe so as well
Excellent
Thank you Hina!
Wow. This was incredible.
Thank you imi!
I really enjoyed this. I’m fascinated by the idea that sometimes we believe we desire power, when what we actually desire is only its impressive, almost superficial appearance. Yet these bargains for power always seem to reveal something deeper: our insecurities, our wounds, and the places where we are most vulnerable. That is what makes them so intriguing to me. It almost feels like a dance with the devil, only to discover that the greatest revelation is about ourselves. Amazing poem.
Thank you Jeanne. I agree, society tends to outsource aid, and blame. We're taught that evil comes from an external source, as does salvation. I think we've become inured to the notion that appearance equals substance; our screens are filled daily with all-too-human examples of frailty from every species of public figure. I appreciate you reading!
Love it. I was on the journey beside you from start to finish. 💚🪶
Thank you Dani!
Your empathy is still present
waiting to be felt
in the silence
behind a wall of exhausted words.
Thank you Douglas!
Mike, this is haunting, not because Mephisto offers gold, power, immortality, or revenge, but because every temptation he offers is something human beings have quietly begged for at one time or another.
And then you turn the bargain inside out.
The speaker doesn’t want wealth. Not power. Not even freedom from suffering.
He wants his empathy back.
That, to me, is the wound at the centre of this poem. Survival has done its job so well that it has survived the person. The armour that once kept the blood inside has become the skin through which nothing can be felt.
“I chose me, for greed. / For the crudest of needs. / The emptiness, inside of me.”
That is devastating.
Perhaps the most dangerous bargain is the one we make without ever meeting Mephisto: trading away pieces of ourselves for the illusion of safety, only to discover that we can no longer feel the person we were trying so desperately to save.
Beautifully dark, Mike. This isn’t really a poem about temptation. It is about the quiet cost of surviving long enough to become a stranger to your own soul.
Thank you Dipti. I confess I wrestle with the concept of empathy without scars, of not somehow not sharing a fragment of pain in witnessing it, and that partly informs the core concept here: feeling and witness pain causing grievous injury, but still pursuing it nevertheless.
I think that is precisely what makes the poem so unsettling, Mike. Perhaps empathy is never entirely without scars, not because we must own another’s pain, but because truly witnessing it changes the shape of us, however quietly. There is a strange courage in continuing to look, knowing that what we see may leave a wound.
Gothic in form but Miltonic in scope, this poem verily lisps with a forked tongue. It settles on a moral dilemma that readers will ignore at their peril. A fantastic read, Martin!
Thank you Joe!