I will interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with my soul.

-Aleister Crowley: Eight Lectures on Yoga

No flight so wakeful
as that starlit locust flight
to the heart of fear

I only dare to leave the house in the tiniest hours, when no one is about, when no one would dare to steal the last breath from an already fading existence. To walk the night is to journey aimless, guided by omens, or guided by nothing. They both amount to the same thing, sometimes.

It was there, perched upon the shaded wood of a tree, waiting for me. Discarded, it was, having outlived its usefulness. A bit like me, I took it home. Took it as an auspice, some glimmer of hope I transformed it and filled its emptiness with obscure meanings spoken in the thick-tongued hours of morning, the language of fading stars.

I would die to kill the fear; the mad dog at my heels, its lunatic rages shadow me through the moments of the day. A woeful accompaniment to the passage of time, I am hounded to exhaustion, half-dreading and half-hoping for the moment I fall and feel the ravening teeth of oblivion rending the consciousness and leaving me as hollow as the shell upon the shaded tree, an omen for some midnight wanderer.

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This post was cross-posted from the Shattered Prayer