Retrieve the Ghost

One day while scraping demons off my steps,
Loathsome vestiges from the past, and even some vile new conceptions,
I became fevered and intoxicated by their poisonous blood
And hurled myself at the nearest shore,
Blinded by the roar of the ocean
And hoping for black ships on the horizon to take me away.

Losing myself in this strange moment,
Lost to this vile world in a nebulous torrent between future and past,
I wandered with no purpose, a drunk seafarer with no ship,
Like a mad fisherman casting his net at crags,
Expecting no reward for his struggles,
And hoping for the worst out of spite.

Entreated by darkness, cosigned to oblivion,
I wandered the coast and eventually met a mad King with a corpse wife.
Though he had a generous harem of lovely ladies,
Seductive w****s more than willing to degrade themselves,
This king refused them all with a laugh,
Preferring instead the company of his headless mistress, locked away in a dank prison cell.

Now here I thought: This is how I will end up!
And I laughed with him in his madness and mirth.
He is my mirror, the twisted reflection of my morbidity and decaying flesh,
She the perfect symbol of his lost innocence,
His idealism and childlike wonder at the world
Turned grotesque by the plague of time, chance, and disillusionment.

As I watched him ravish her, again and again,
A kind of mesmerizing sickness welled up inside of me.
Verwandlung. A bridge to the other side!
I tore myself away and dove from the tower down into the wine dark sea.
Nourishing myself on salt water and unsalted truths,
I swam until my bones ached, following the Siren's song.

Soon I blacked out, and I should have died.
How often I should have died and how often
I've prayed to the uncaring gods for death.
Instead I am sustained with my questionable morals and decaying flesh,
Fished out of every abyss by some jester bidding me on,
Urging me to continue despite my sorrow and the better part of me long gone.