I hear Your voice, cracking wildfire

leaping from tree to brush to stem.

Laughing in darkness, You come,

green-eyed terror, Laufey’s son

driven wild and raving, deadly

as a forest of spears, sharp as a river

strewn with stone knife-blades,

stark as the silence before a tornado

stretches toward the yielding earth.

 

O Breaker of Worlds, chaos and

destruction bound and unbound again,

staining the fabric of wyrd like

blood-crusted wounds re-opening,

like bruises blossoming under skin,

this day, with my eyes wide open,

without hope for a reprieve, I will

truss and wind and throw myself

into Your storm, spinning in a halo

of Your fury, and let You devour me

as particles of living meat and gristle.

 

Though I know You will rend me

crush me, splay me open, shining

guts and beating heart and all,

though I know You will dash me

against the stone gates of Helheim

all Your damaging words flailing

steel-tipped whips to lash the soul,

talons and fangs tearing out everything

that makes me feel safe from myself,

I give myself to You, wholly, with

the aching understanding that I cannot

ever hope to fill You, fulfill Your

ravaging hunger for pain and chaos.

 

For You will swallow me only

once Your madness has infected all

the known world, the world I live in,

and the death of my sanity will be

only a last little bit of suffering after.

 

Artwork by Jan Bintakies.