Shadow Eater

New blood joins this earth
And quickly he's subdued
through constant pained disgrace
The young boy learns their rules

With time the child draws in
This whipping boy done wrong
Deprived of all his thoughts
The young man struggles on and on

He's known, a vow unto his own
That never from this day, his will they'll take away

* * * * *

Lay beside me, tell me what they've done
Speak the words I want to hear, to make my demons run
The door is locked now, but it's open if you're true
If you can understand the me, than I can understand the you.

Lay beside me, under wicked sky
Through black of day, dark of night, we share this pair of lives
The door cracks open, but there's no sun shining through
Black heart scarring darker still, but there's no sun shining through
No, there's no sun shining through
No, there's no sun shining

What I've felt, what I've known
Turn the pages, turn the stone
Behind the door, should I open it for you?

What I've felt, what I've known
Sick and tired, I stand alone
Could you be there?, 'cause I'm the one who waits for you

Or are you unforgiven too?

* * * * *

How could he know this new dawn's light
Would change his life forever?
Set sail to sea but pulled off course
By the light of golden treasure

Was he the one causing pain
With his careless dreaming?
Been afraid
Always afraid
Of the things he's feeling
He could just be gone

He would just sail on
He would just sail on

How can I be lost?
If I've got nowhere to go?
Searched the seas of gold
How come it's got so cold?
How can I be lost
In remembrance I relive
How can I blame you
When it's me I can't forgive?

These days drift on inside a fog
It's thick and suffocating
This seeking life outside its hell
Inside intoxicating
He's run aground
Like his life
Water's much too shallow
Slipping fast
Down with the ship
Fading in the shadows now
A castaway ...

Was he the one causing pain
With his careless dreaming?
Been afraid
Always afraid
Of the things he's feeling...

How can I be lost?
If I've got nowhere to go?
Searched the seas of gold
How come it's got so cold?
How can I be lost
In remembrance I relive
How can I blame you

When it's me I can't forgive?

*Metallica Lyrics




Scratch

Spark

Ignite

Flame

Light

Achievement

The boy crouched beneath the wagon and willed the small circlet of light to expand .. huddled within the embrace of gold leaving the gnash of milk white fangs beyond in the shadows.
But the lamp was stolen from a garbage pit before the sod was thrown over it. Only enough oil to tempt the hope of a small three year old and not enough to save him.

Sputter

Smoke

A forever moment

Darkness

A quick inhale caught in small lungs before the shadows leapt and the fangs found purchase.

Survival .. it was what he knew best. He learned who to rely on and who to trust to teach him how to live ... but there was not one who was kind to the boy. He learned through abuse. Outcaste .. pariah .. bad omen... there were many labels and most of them he heard long before he understood what they meant.

He learned to divorce himself from emotion because they did him no good .. earned him nothing and cost him everything. He was much better off without them. Logistics became his company in the darkness.

In the moments before the shadows came for him each night he counted coup for the day. Kept track of the names of those he could not forgive and how he had bested them in his own way.

These ways were not always obvious .. with the ability of a child these victories loomed large with importance ... importance endeared only to the child's heart.

Soon a code was written on his soul. Rules. Rules that made sense only to him .. but rules he lived by and judged those around him with. And to break a rule meant to be forever damned. There was no gray area for the boy. There was only black and white. Logic unencumbered by emotion.


As a boy no one cared whether they broke the rules or not. It had little to no effect on their lives. The only place it could be found was the boy's soul. Later on though .. as people began to care about the young man .. the enigma became a mystery to solve .. how does one stay in focus?

The answer is easy.

Do Not Break the Rules.

Physical wounds heal. The scars left by the broken arrow he was beaten with for getting tangled in a woman's clean laundry turned to small white pock like marks on his lower back and hips. The bruises and fractured arm earned from a broken piece of tem for stealing a piece of meat out of the supply wagon disappeared after a time. The heartbreak when the bosk he befriended was slaughtered and eaten because it was a distraction to the boy who was not allowed to own anything simply taught life is not fair.

Life had rules ... and there were consequences for breaking the rules even if you never heard of the rules before you got punished for them.

Sometimes he only figured it out after much pain and melancholy distracted inspection
and sometimes he never did.

This was only enforced by the Black Mask training.

Never ... Break the Rules

Whether you know about them .. or not.

It was all very ... logical.
It started to make sense in its way.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction...
make sure it counts.

When you get hurt do not cry about it ...
get even.

Hold people accountable...
where it hurts the most.

And under no circumstances .. never .. ever ...

Break the Rules.

Yet even as harsh as this all was the boy never lost that look of pride and arrogance he was born with. Never once was his spirit broken. He adapted ... learned... and returned each favor in his own way securing for himself his place upon the plains.

And if there were times when the milk white fangs gnashed again ... they did so from within the black gaze ..

For that night ... when the light went out

And the shadows leapt

The boy turned

and swallowed them whole.

*From Méditation II ... originally posted on June 25, 2007.