The Subtle Taste of Midnight

Word Weaver

I am not the Devil - as you humans like to call me.

And I certainly have no use for human souls. Those things only take up time, space, and energy, none of which I have to spare.

What I am, however, is someone wretchedly more wicked than some rebellious drunkard with horns, a tail, and a predilection for falling out of the sky. I'm someone that you hate, someone that you yearn to cast aside and spit on before you throw me into the depths of some make-believe fire ordained by some invisible, yet all-powerful force in the sky. You cannot quite kill me or stomp me into submission with angry fists of censorship because I am the drug that seeps deep into mortal bones.

I am the world behind this one, the Veil behind the Veil. The place where life is more than just an unfathomable mystery filling up the space around.

I am Time.

                              ...Breathing... 

                                                                   ...Living...

                                                                                                 ...Evolving...

                                                                                                                        ...into something so much more.

Shadows becoming planets and people with limbs and lives and such. You hear the beat of my heart as your own, the whistle of my voice, the music of my words streaming through from the Other Side. There's power in my voice. A dark, seeping kind of power that crawls into your bones and stays there. Like a thought lodged inside your head...

                                                                                                                                               ...fighting...

                                                                                                      ...screaming...

                                                              ...begging...

                     ...to be let out...

A world within a world.

A dream within a dream.

You're hooked on me (as addicts should be), injecting my thoughts straight into your veins, cooking my words like hardened lumps of crack over cackling flames before inhaling me deep into recesses of your intellect. You hang on every syllable that dribbles from my lips. You're wrapped around my finger, tethered to me like a gangly puppet on a threadbare string, your clockwork opinions and feebly formed expressions of individuality merely extensions of my nimble fingers. You love me with fiery passion in one breath and in the next, you curse me with the vilest of emotions as you try to kick me out of your mind and out of your dreams.

But I know that you will always come crawling back to me. Whether it'll be on this night or the next, you'll always come back, on bruised knees and busted knuckles, with eyes filled with tears and lips that sing promises of virginal surrender. Because I have the only thing that you need, the only thing that you crave...

Inspiration. So, I'll stay here by the foot of your bed...

                                                                                                            ...watching...

                                                         ...waiting...

...until Hypnos' Dreams come to take you to the Shores Beyond Oceanus.

And when you finally dare to fall asleep...