The Evil You Are Pursuing Poem by Darlene Walsh

Here in silence, sitting alone
Wondering about all that's unknown
I hear a scratch, like a moving stone
And from a distance I hear a moan

Through my window, through the bars
I see a face covered with scars
What's in the street, I hear some cars
At my window eyes glow like cigars

Raising his arms like a magician
An ethereal glow rings the apparition
The glow glides forward, on a mission
The bars are no hindrance to admission

He's in my room, he's in my bed
He's pulling the pillows under his head
I think he's ill, what is that red
He looks like he soon will be dead

He curls up beside me looking so thin
I can see the pillow through his skin
He looks so wasted with a quivering chin
A wheezing voice says 'Penalty for my sin.'

Beneath him I see sheets stained with blood
In the dark it looks like spreading mud
It flows out from him like a small flood
The shock wore off and I fled from his crud

I screamed 'Who are you and what are you doing? '
'I am here to stop the evil you are pursuing.
If you continue your ways, it will be your undoing.'
He sat up grabbing his foot and started chewing.

I ran to my door to escape the apparition
But the door held fast in its closed position
'You can not leave until I've completed my mission.'
Sitting up he looked like he had escaped a mortician

'I once was a villain in my previous life
Anyone I thought different I caused great strife
Until one day I was stabbed by a knife'
Escaping his lips came a mournful sound like a fife

'Now I must wander the night as you see
My whole body wounded like I was crushed by a tree
Again and again I must chew like a huge flea
Chewing fingers and toes and even my knee

I'm painfully bleeding from wounds I inflict
For eternity I must suffer, an eternal convict
As punishment for those I robbed, cheated and tricked
And those I cursed, bullied and kicked'

He moaned and groaned as he chewed on his wrist
He raised his head and pointed with his fist
Behind him in the mirror my face filled his mist
'Is this how for eternity you wish to exist?

You better change your ways and it must be fast'
As he faded away his bloody mouth departed last
'Or will you join my way? ' his echoing voice asked
Then I recalled in my mind my deeds that I've amassed

I've bullied and tortured others making many sad
I've taken what's not mine, anything others had
I've lied, cheated, stolen; I've been so bad
Only my gain and other's losses made me glad

Why should I've listen to a faded bloody apparition
I thought I was in a very profitable position
Taking from others has always been my mission
Forget the figment that escaped from a mortician

So time passed as I continued in my evil ways
Robbing, cheating and mocking all my days
Until one day I expired in a fiery blaze
And now I wander through eternity in a bloody craze