Needlebones

Every inch of him—
To stitchers, worth a needle.
Stitched his rotting flesh.
Pierced his mind.
Forged a patchwork
of their fouling dreams.

His new house of burning pain
kept him warm—and alone.
But not alive.
Centuries passed
until the sun forgot to rise.
He shed his last tears.
Needles grew their rust.

When the stitchers
vanished into leather,
their broken faces
ruled his dreams.

He turned to mortals:
God of desert winds.
Made by nameless makers.
Forged from remains and rust.
Carved into curse.

A forgotten relic now.
Unburied ruler.
Not a king—
A nest of metal and bone.

Echoes haunt the woods.
Who screams his name,
so the world won't forget?

In the stitcher's ruins
He sits on a ruined throne.
Rats stare at what won't die.
He glares back—
and feeds on a screaming spider.
His metal mouth grants no mercy.
The candles blow themselves out.
Even rot recoils
from old Needlebones.

When he comes:
Ravens lose their voice.
Frogs’ throats seal.
Birds unlearned his name
aeons ago.

When the Earth falls mute,
rivers poison,
even stones turn to sand.

Listen—
—
—

The thunder is the bell
and the lights cut the sky.
He aches,
rising from his crumbling throne.

A spine of rusty clockworks
clatters.
Eyes—endless holes. Unblinking.
They see too far.
They stare up high.

The stars flee in terror.
Night breaks—
bleeding dark,
burning bright.

He takes the
human skin
that serves as coat
and kneels
on thorny plates of steel.

He is only one—

Every needle a soul.
Every bone a life—
that should have lived.

—He is many.

Wake, you clockworks:
Wake and grind!
TICK—TOCK—TICK—TOCK—
Scream, Iron!
Clang.
Rust slain to dust.
A choir of pain,
with every turn.
Time must face him now.
When the hour comes.

My wait was eternal
But their death is forever
Unbirth the fog.
No ash. Tyrants! Fall!
Bloodsoaked earth—
womb of the unborn.

Laughter grows in bellow-lungs,
leather-forged,
stitched in pain.
No voice of men.

Cats go blind, singing terror.
Horses fall, their hooves bleeding.
The sign has come.

Star blood is black.
Life vomited him.
None will remain
but dirt.