The Devil Came Wearing Your Face

I longed for you in drifting dreams,
Where dusk lay heavy, starless, pale;
I called your name through velvet dark
And kissed your palm, already frail.

You did not come to soothe the ache
That bloomed like rot beneath my skin;
You left me housed with whispered sins,
Among the damned you’d drawn me in.

You knew not what your absence carved,
Nor marked the wounds your games impressed;
Cruel jests that masqueraded mercy,
Tortures clothed as tenderness.

You lost yourself to shadowed rooms,
To spirits poured like holy draughts;
Your soul went wandering, unmoored,
While mine paid debt for all your drafts.

The clocks stood still when you returned,
Their hands like bones against the wall;
Your laughter rang like cracked church bells,
A hymn that promised, then would stall.

I learned to kneel where hope once stood,
To pray in rooms that answered none;
Each vow you broke became a scar,
Each silence weighed more than a blow.

My youth lay buried in your moods,
A ghost you never cared to see;
I grew accustomed to the dark,
Mistaking grief for loyalty.

I was so young, untaught in grief,
Unwarned how love could be withheld;
It felt as though the devil came,
And through your eyes, his gospel swelled.

Now ivy climbs the ruin still,
The house remembers what you won;
But I have learned to leave the dead
And walk toward the rising sun.

I speak your name without a prayer,
No curse, no longing left to bleed;
The child you left in candle smoke
Has grown beyond your reach, your need.