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 your redemption
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