The Unmaker

By Cliff Lake

 

The Unmaker

 

It had come from the Outside.

Created from the never-dead hate

That gnaws on itself.

 

Life and Light were the enemy,

They were the everything it could never achieve,

A Thing of failure and the absence of promise,

A rage that had no focus,

But only was.


It would deny itself if it could.

 

The blue jewel beaconed,

Fired with spirits of hope and help,

Life was there.

It ravened at the thought.

It lusted for destruction, death, depression, doubt.


It hurried.

 

At first it assaulted with fires and calamities,

Earthquakes that changed continents,

Diseases carried by the smallest among them.

Still, they rebounded,

Rebuilt,

Resumed.

 

They drove it back knowing it not,

A confidence in their own aggression.

And therein lay the key…

 

Weapons it gave them,

Knowledge of their construction,

Faulted understanding of their world,

Of the physical place they inhabited,

Toys for dangerous children.

 

Then it gave them ideas.

 

It had wanted to set the world on fire.

It now knew that given enough time,

Given the right words,

They would do it themselves.

 

Cliff Lake 10/31/2022

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2022

 

Location: Dalton, MA, USA

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