This poem is borne from the idea of a creature that would be able to travel into our minds. What would it think about our deepest thoughts?
But this is also just me practicing structured(ish) poetry by limiting myself to eleven syllables for each line. But it’s a loose rule since the structure breaks apart a few times. I tried my best to develop the poem’s fantasy elements so that it’s at the very least least fairy tale-adjacent.
~
In the cesspool of my dreams a shadow prowls
leafing through my memories, it hums in thought,
pausing at each page turned, it raises a brow,
weighing each scene’s absurdity— all for naught.
“A dreadful, sinful person,” it must presume.
Alas, this is the shadow prowler’s sole role,
deterge, depurate those degenerate tombs—
tombes of our memories, that twin to our souls.
But back to me and my character. It’s foul—
or at least so the prowler presumes. It’s right.
Fruit pluckers like I shall be the fall of all.
Best to scourge my rot, all my blights extradite.
So the prowler gouges that meat of my mind,
and carefully bleeds it— drip by drip go by.
Back into me it pours nectar so sublime.
Golden, untainted virtue to gratify
those parents that left me dry
when I told them that one time
of lost dignity and pride
when I sold love for mere dimes
they said they’d rather I died
than have some foul sinner child . . .
At this page, the shadow prowler lays in wait.
Perhaps, its heart twinges with sweet sympathy.
Perhaps, I would be ever so fortunate.
But it’s too late. The nectar swallows fully.
Thus, I’m drowning in its makeshift chastity.
Birthing my new entity and sealing it
where Vice pricked continuous punctures in me.
The shadow prowler retreats when my mind is cleansed and pure like a baby’s.
