By Manya Talwar
"First comes the grub then the morals"
And I was informed of this on my last night
When everything I ever had was taken forcefully,
Robbed of something I didn’t know existed.
Even the phantoms I once feared decided to hide,
For they knew they could never compete
With the demons now growing in my mind.
The night that fell after the last of mine
Was the first one for demons of some kind.
The other day’s journal read that they have been fed.
So yes, my soul lays decayed,
Asked for more than my morality could offer.
They starve yet again, and this time I am afraid.
Even my subconscious now stands blurred.
More of me, instead, I still serve—still laid.
It all started on a starry yet hopeful night.
I was the person who used to manifest delight.
Yet I could never decipher what went wrong,
Something that was written all along.
The interruption of Satan
Was something I couldn’t prolong.
The other person who gave into his starve
Took me for the bait
And injected the poison that now runs in my veins,
Planted the darkness himself in me to incubate.
He whispered in my ears that grubs should decide your fate.
Something in me blindly followed.
Still, I search for the victim of mine.
To change that, I bent my spine.
The darkness in me would never reflect in anyone else.
For this retaliation, I paid with everything I had
And I would do it again.
I will end this curse.
I will turn the narrative.
My mother’s morals in me
Will overshadow the starve.
With all that said, years passed.
"First the grubs then the morals," sure—
And I was what the devil fed upon.
Perhaps I was just a bug all along.