By OBSCURIA
Her name is old, a living thing, a thing with teeth and breath
With blood as cold and lethal as an ancient curse of death
She walks the streets, the concrete bones of this forsaken place
Forgotten by the stars
Like all of us, the souls trapped here in bleak eternal night
The city cries with grim torment, its howls spreading fright
And fear in the minds of those, ill-starred enough to face
Her blood-streaked, heavy scars
She writes doomed names, cruel prophecies, engraved in living flesh
Her art enfolds degraded souls in death’s corrupted mesh
Each letter burns; her signature stands witness to our sins
Each symbol drawn – a frame
I met her once, a figure veiled in mist of stale decay
Her gaze: a grave, a void that steals the faintest light away
She raised her hand, clawed fingers poised to carve into my skin
The next predicted name
The city’s structures loomed above, grey urban labyrinths
The wind brought echoes, broken trails of distant fractured screams
She scribed tattoos of borrowed time across my shaking arm
Then left me there, alone
I should have felt relief. Instead, a new weight crashed on me
As I stood frozen, staring at the blood-inked fate-to-be
A name burned crimson on my skin, blood dripping down my palm
A name not yet my own