Blackfall - Covenant of the Black Star, pt I

No harvest… Just carcass and spoil… No light… Just a silence that coils… We prayed… But nothing fucking answered… So, we turned… To something older… Famine fanatic, the soil inorganic and cold, Faith getting fractured, the pastors all passive and old. Prayers hit the granite, just fragments that vanish untold, We screamed at the sky, but the sky never answered our souls. Malnourished and hollow, the color dissolving to gray, Time stretching thin like a tether that’s fraying away. Bread into sediment, skeleton hands start to pray, Faith in a freefall, the sermons just rot into decay. Elders said, “Never descend where the devil will dwell”, “Some answers assemble, then sever the mental as well”. But hunger’s a pressure that levels the clever to hell, When reason is gone, every demon is drawn to the bell... If it hears every tear, will it mirror the pain? If it sees what we need, will it heal us the same? We were gasping for breath with our backs to the wall, So, we bartered the dark just to bargain it all... We called the dark just to carve us a spark in the night, Starving for signs, we were bargaining lives for the light. Blood on the altar, we altered the offer and rite, Wanted revival but titled the spiral we write. We let it in, like a blessing beneath all the skin, Thought it was heaven, but hell had been setting within. We wanted more so we tore open doors we were in, Now every prayer is a snare, and the answer is sin. Sigils in ash, every boundary drawn in a ring, Words not our own, but we spoke like we summoned a king. Blood in the soil, every hand interlocked in the string, Fire was burning, but cold like it carried no thing. Air getting still like a will that was bent into place, Silence collapsing the space like a weight on the face. Shadows were cast, but detached from the bodies they trace, Time hit a fracture, then shattered and looped in a maze. Sky turned to nothing, no stars, no reflection of blue, Not from above, it was under, then pushing right through. Felt like perception was prey to a presence that knew, Not just observing, but learning the shape of you... It heard every word, now it knows every name, It saw every scar, now we’re part of the frame. We fed it the flame, now it’s wearing our face, We wanted a god, now the god's in our place. We called the dark just to carve us a spark in the night, Starving for signs, we were bargaining lives for the light. Blood on the altar, we altered the author of rite, But something responded and swallowed the right. We let it in, now it’s living beneath all the skin, Thought it was heaven, but hell had been nesting within. We wanted life, but invited a mind that won’t end, Now every thought isn’t ours; it’s a signal within... Don’t say it... It hears us... Stop... Stop! I felt it press in the vessels beneath all my veins, Not a direction, but tension compressing the brain. No form, but it knew every thought I contain, Every intention got bent into something insane. Not even audible; still it was deep in the speech, Breaking the syllables, slipping inside of the reach. Tongue in paralysis, mind in a violent release, Something was peeking like I wasn’t me. It didn’t descend from a heaven or hell, Didn’t demand any name I could tell. It just… fucking answered. …and I was still there… As it fell... Bodies collapsed in a pattern of ritual death, Names disappear like they never had drawn any breath. Eyes into glass, every gasp just a mask of the flesh, Something had left; but it left something else. I stood as the variable left in the code, Conscious but doubled, the self now corroded and cloned. Voice still my own, but the tone wasn’t mine in the mode, Every reflection dissecting the sense I had known. Steps in the ground felt misaligned from the start, Echoes would move; but no sound would depart. Tried to escape, but the shape held me part, Like I was led by a thread through the dark... We called the dark just to carve us a spark in the night, Starving for signs, we were bargaining lives for the light. Blood on the altar, we altered the author of rite, Now something eternal is learning to walk in our sight. We let it in and it settled beneath all the bone, Thought it was God, but the god that we got was its own. We wanted life; so, we gave it a form it could own, Now it is walking the world through the bodies we’ve grown... Fields stayed black… the fracture intact… Past never passed… We buried the names; but the shame always lasts… We thought it was gone… …but it answered the call… Blackfall.