Caged

Caged
By Brandon Stoltz


There is a cage in a place known by many
but reached by few.
In that cage there is a creature.
A beast, an abomination, a thing unsurpassed in evil and darkness.
It's eyes burn blood-red with unfathomable hate.
Rage is its guide and master.
It looks human but only so in shape.
I has the feet of a man,
a man's legs, arms, head, hands, and face.
It is what portrudes from its human shape that make it awful.
Horns, spikes, spines, tentacles, blades, and tentacles with blades
all portrude from this thing completely at random.
No symmetry or sequence to them at all.
Some of these come from its head, some from the chest or back,
and some from the arms as well.
Claws it has as well on its hands and feet.
All metalic, all absurdly sharp,
but there is no consistency or pattern
in each claw's length.
Its teeth are the same way,
sharp, jagged, metallic, all at random lengths.
There is an outside layer of teeth
on the outside of its mouth.
Then there are many more layers of them
on the inside.
It's skin,
blacker than coal or pitch,
in some areas stay tightly
while in others seem loose enough that it
peels right off.
About this the beast cares not.
All of its tendens and muscles
are constantly writhing,
constantly squirming and slithering
like snakes
or as maggots
when they find a new corpse.
In some places on this beast's body
there are holes,
where wasps, bees, gnats, and spiders
all make their home.
They do not harm their host,
they only hide and live inside it.
Physically the beast is an abomination.
On its inside it is nothing but blackness and scars.
From its cage it sees the outside world
as filthy and hellish as it is.
It sees the corruption,
it sees the fools, the plagues,
the arguments, the injustice,
the wastefulness, the adultery,
the cons, and the arrogant.
It sees all the things
so greatly wrong with our world.
Watching it all and seeing it all
go unpunished
enrages the beast.
It wants to kill the fools,
slaughter the liars,
butcher the adulterers and thieves,
gut the wasteful like animals,
it wants to rip to shreds all these things
in addition to all those that block it
from its rightful
happiness and peace,
but it cannot.
Its cage holds fast,
unimtimidated, unmoving, and uncaring.
This angers the beast further.
Day after day it shakes the bars,
slashes at them with its claws,
tries to bend or break them with all its might
but the cage remains unaltered, seemingly invincible.
Its anger multiplys to an immeasurable degree.
It knows not how to release it all.
Madness is a frequent visitor,
always knocking at its door.
Fate also often passes by the cage.
Whenever fate visits it taunts the beast,
showing it exactly what it wants,
no,
what it NEEDS to be happy.
Then like a cruel spoiled child,
pulls it away just as the beast is about to grasp it.
This beast's life is a tragedy.
The real tragedy though is that it was not always this way.
The world and cruel cruel fate
made it what it is today.
Bitter, angry, depressed, near suicidal even.
While trapped in its prison
passers by mock and ridicule it,
only ading to its misery and hate.
It wants all to fear it,
be aware that one day it WILL be free,
that one day they will all know
the torments of Hell by its hand.
When and if the day of its freedom ever comes,
the world will burn until there is nothing left
but screaming ashes.
Will God one day have mercy on it and give it happiness?
No one knows for sure.
All that is known
is that when it finally does get out of its cage,
it will either be a day of great tearful joy,
or a day
that will be drowned in fire and blood.