Alcohol ink markers on paper. Reference art by Eva Gamayun, “The Ghostmaker”

Scorching heat glazed his tongue, leaving the taste of ashes on his breath. “They make us into hungry dogs down here,” he pointed down the line of cages, all the creatures pacing their tombs. “They bleed us and starve us and pick at our instincts until we are wound so tight we snap at everything. But they forget,” he seethed, his voice saturated in some foreign entity shaking with power, “theyforget that a hungry dog is never loyal.”

–Thief of Sins and Secrets

Boxes

I pack it all up in boxes

I lug it from place to to place

It weighs down on my spine,

The toll this life will take.

Our lives are packed in kindling,

The world will take its tithe,

We wait in silence together

For the match to strike the grease

I can’t remember sunshine

My hurts cast too long a shade

What’s it like to drop my defenses,

Leave my hurts, erase my hate?

I want to know the feeling,

But I’m scared of what I’ll find

Will this really feel like freedom,

Or just another shackle bind?