What Waits

Not as young as I look,

not as old as I feel.

My mind’s circuits cinders

My soul’s wounds won’t heal.

Heartache cuts bone deep

Hindsight hinders sleep

I sold my soul

to The Devil for keeps.

Those who’ve wronged me

have been wronged in kind.

An eye for an eye

hath left me half blind.

Cautionary tales

parables that time proved true

sages’ psalms, and

pundits’ proverbs

I made deaf my ears

and made hard my heart to.

Too many sides

to every story.

To moral victors

Sparse goes the glory.

We all owe a death

We’re all born with that debt;

Yet, none know what waits,

Heaven's gates? Styx’s straits?

All hope abdicated,

The sands of time vitiated.

A deafening silence

nevermore sated;

A fate worse-than-death,

divinely fated.