Demons Poem by Patrick Schiefen

He blamed his outsized temperament on the gods,
as if his ill-informed decisions were not his own,
crying out at 4 AM in my doorway
that it was simply how he was made -
how we were all made.

I saw the past in him
in the way you see your spectral self staring back
when you look into a cloudy mirror
after washing yourself clean

but I could only ever catch glimpses of his intentions
like the car lights moving across the bedroom wall at night,
the ghost of a better man, of a better time
before he anchored his demons to his heart
and became content with drowning.

He didn't want to be saved.
He never asked that of me,
he never asked that of the gods
and he never asked that of himself

so I never asked, either,

hoping for rebirth
but not caring enough anymore to open the door.