WHEN CERBERUS GUARDS HELL'S CHASM
- Feb 13
- 1 min read
By Elliot Chester
Terror. This is me waking to the sight of an
incubus masturbating at the base of my bed.
The nodding Jesus on the windowsill shakes its
head left and right as my sheet with smiling
angels and cherubs convened in heaven is
yanked down. It matters not that I’m male.
Visiting women is just a myth. Paralysis takes
hold as moths, now attracted to blackness,
emerge from his mouth; heavy headed, light
winged, clinging to screams that retreat like
slug’s tentacles. He invited Cerberus to stand
guard, each head snarls at the moon, that
queen shy of prudence, offering no sanctuary,
ladder, or lament. I lie in a state of delirium as
he finishes. He wipes his mess on Byzantium
purple wings and he taps me on the shoulder,
which I take as a satirical thank you. He shakes
my halo like a silent tambourine, covering me
in golden dust the moths left. He licks the rim;
sullying with his slithery, weeping tongue, then
plonks it on my head and it levitates no more.
He stands, knock kneed, hunchbacked, his tail
sparks as it scrapes the roof and I feel like I’m
Icarus free-falling from the sun, yet stationary.
He’s ready to disembark, to descend through
gates wearing my dreamless sheet as a cape
where angels and cherubs are now grimaced in
a cloudless void of Venetian red, bodies mutilated,
wings disfigured, surrounded by bats, instead of doves.