The Architect of Nightmares

The walls still hold the echoes of a nine-year-old’s despair,
When shadows grew like poison in the heavy family air.
The monster didn't crouch beneath the mattress or the bed,
He sat across the dinner table, filling us with dread.
At eleven, the phone cord coiled, a collar made of lead,
The world turned grey and silent as the stolen oxygen fled.
You held my life within your grip, a trophy for your pride,
Behind the bolted doors where all our broken spirits hide.
The click of metal hitting wood, the flicker of the flame,
A god of gasoline who thought our lives were just a game.
I ran until my lungs were raw to find a shred of grace,
But you were there to drag me back, a blade against my face.
A cold and silver pressure as we walked the street alone,
The sharpest edge of cruelty that I have ever known.
You taunted every teardrop, you relished every scream,
The architect of nightmares in a never-ending dream.
But seasons turned to winter and the hunter lost his pace,
At thirty-nine, the rot has come to etch your hollow face.
The hands that once were weapons now are trembling and thin,
A failing, broken vessel for a lifetime’s worth of sin.
This isn’t age that breaks you, nor a twist of simple fate,
But the weight of every blow you dealt, returned in heavy freight.
For the mother that you battered and the siblings you betrayed,
The debt is being called in now; the price must be repaid.
I stand beside your bedside now, the "bigger person" here,
The one who offers water while you grapple with your fear.
I’ll take the road that’s paved with light, the one you never knew,
But don’t mistake my mercy for a ghost of love for you.
I’m the witness to your wasting, to the curse you brought to life,
May your conscience be the fire, and your memory be the knife.
You’ll beg for my forgiveness as the final shadows bend,
But I’ll withhold the "Amen" and I’ll leave you at the end.
I’ll walk away in silence as your strength begins to flee,
Leaving you with nothing but the God you made of me.