HORROR Poem: Striga, by Daniel Deschenes

The only time I see you now,
Is at night behind heavy eyelids
I would sell my wasted soul
For one last look at your face

I can still remember our last night
Tangled skin and spirits under moonlight
A pale sunrise chases the dream away
Now alone in this half-empty bed

The grief threatens to smother me.
A life without you isn’t acceptable
I plead with the gods for relief
I find it in the woods

I visited a woman with a bent nose
A laughable caricature
One of her eyes is milky white
Like the moon under cloud cover

My mind is telling me to go home
But with you gone, I don’t know where that is
The very meaning of the word is now in question
Everything feels gray and faded

So, for nine days, I ate the woman’s black, unleavened bread
And drank the sour muscadine’s blood
And threw out all my salt
My clothes reek of decay and rot

Midnight sky is angry on the ninth night
Like it knew what I had done
The thunder renders judgments
On my unholy and blasphemous rite

I see you silhouetted in the lightning
Making your way down the hall
Past the pictures that we hung
To the bed we used to share

I feel the knife before I see it
It sinks deep into my chest
Creeping death comes over me
I have damned myself

It is then that I finally see you
As my eyelids grow heavy
I sold my very soul
For one last look at your face