The instant of a moment, a single glance, a single touch
a single choice mistaken. A ripple of a stone cast into the
ocean of lines, the sea of secret flesh and hidden guilt.
And yet drawn with such scrutiny, the map of my destiny,
The cartography of my palm.

N'er once did I believe it's mystery, my obscured history
locked inside my genetic code. Nor did I heed the words
of the frenetic sage, spouting rivers of vision and whispers
of wisdom, morose revelations, whenced he came knocking
at my door.

Perhaps it was the imbibed bravado, the merriment at hand,
to make me dare fate's grasp, to free myself of the malignant
twine, that the grand design had woven just for me.

I bade him enter, to rest his aged frame, to dry his windworn
and threadbare cloak. For a devil tempest had arisen, as
the clouds announced, with lightning bathed mouths, that
the dukes of hell had awoke. The whirlwinds danced
within the maelstrom, their voices a high pitched scream,
like the wail of the banshees lost in some half-forgotten,
chaotic dream.

Had I known what I know now. I would have killed him
where he stood, ripped his heart still beating from his chest,
and set fire to the wood, erect a stone wall ten feet high,
a placard at the gate. Upon it writ this simple verse
"A pox to the one to break this seal
the land beyond is cursed, if you value hearth and home
turn back and not return. Forget the wayward path
that brought you to this door, lest your soul will burn."
Had I but known what I know now.

His eyes spoke of high treasons, those horrid pools of muddied
blue. With a voice that chimed like a clockwork from a nursery
crime, a misplaced melody, that I forgot I ever knew.
All the while his hands forever shook, only calmed as he scratched
away, into an ancient book. A stolen tome, filled with forbidden
lore, taken from a burned down library, just outside hell's door.
Too soon would I learn of it's heft and brimstone scent, the whisper
of it's pages, the dusty winds of it's ages, speaking words of
futures bought and spent.

My eyes watched with odd wonderment, the strange letters dancing
from his quill. Swoops and arcs and crescents, staggering heights
and jagged descents, spirals and circles, a tapestry of expression,
spilling from a crow feather pen, he never once did fill.

Indeed I was entranced, nay enthralled, I did not once let my thoughts
drift to the feasting and good cheer just within my dining hall. Not
once did I refrain my ear from his lilting, muttering rant, or stray
from my musings, o'er his dark confusions, his grim delusions,
the symptomology of his madness rant.

Had I but spared a single second, whilst wrapped up tight in his
spell, I have might have smelled her jasmine and sage miasma
or heard the rustle of her tresses, the song of her dress, or her
softest foot fells.

When I felt her hand light on my shoulder, for the first time I saw
the old lunatic smile. Filling me with such a dread, my mouth
awashed with bile, stomach churning and gooseflesh rising, a cold
sweat spilling down my spine. As I turned to face, in the space
behind, the love that was mine.

How I still remember, that vision in white, the solace of my night,
my sweet Marie. The melody of her voice, how it would dance
in my ears, a never-ending twirl of sound, chasing away, whilst
bringing light of day, to all my darkest fears.

Oft tho was her angelic visage, marred with lines of melancholy,
daymare plagued by a specter from a watery grave, a father
wrapped and lost in the bosom of the sea. Trapped in that
moment of malaise, sometimes lost for countless days, locked
twixt the real and unreal. I would watch with sorrow filling
up my soul, she, my perfect divinity, broken and unwhole. All
too often would it cleave me apart.
Had I but one chance to glimpse the chart, a compass point to
the salve that might mend her broken heart. Yet forced to sit in
veiled torment, to watch her soul become forfeit, a bauble, a plaything,
an ethereal daydream, to the winds of sadness, that blow so ever cold.
Perhaps it was this alone, that made me so bold...