Knock, knock, knock: This is judgment, I appear at your door, turning the knob, and begging you so. Come take me, release me, contour your edges into me; through your threshold bring me forward, that I may dance in your own silhouette and teach you of your great imperfection.

Oh, dear judgment, I see you, I recognize you, and I embrace you; come hither and dance in my bedsheets of imperfection. Penetrate me with your disillusioned skill, for I see your shape, pure disguise, a mask of humiliation set to place on my presentation. I know you well, the way you drive like screw into the bare parchment of my soul. Come here, closer, and delve into me and you shall find pureness and love and rapture. I am nothing of this calamity you claim, nothing of this disapproval or blasphemy. Smear my very name across your bedskirts, wind me round the posts, trumpet my calling of failure across the curtains billowed, out into the open free air. For I have dived into my deepest soul and found what lies there, a truth beyond this illusion you carry, in the creases of your darkening cloak. You cannot scour me with your lies or misgivings, as I banish them out with the same plate as fear. Feed you to the masses of angels readily waiting with appetite fierce to turn miserly offerings into blessings abundant. I hear you, I feel you, I take you fully, your bride-mistress, and here I sink my teeth into and divide you into smitherings; nothing but vanishing truths slithering away to the aforementioned hole in which you slithered from. I am higher than the serpent tongue with God’s grace at my glorious side, and your ways no longer tempt me; even as you breathe heavily into my ear, whispering of your knowing. For I know the truth of me, the light, the realism of fortitude, the castle rendering me angel in the heart. So go, my love, if I may call you so, leaving the residue of your scattered goodness, the crumbly truffles of reprieve and reflection in the trail of your lost dignity. Here I shall meander and nibble, eating of the limbs of you, the humility of resurrection. Treat me not to your judgment, oh unraveled one, for there is nothing in my ability that cannot devour you rightly so, and leave you shaking, the helpless shadow you be.

Knock, knock, knock: This is pride, I nibble at your doorstep, anchoring your goodness in my arms, rocking you like babe to chest, my precious adored one. How special you be, how singled out, how entirely worthy of my praise and gratitude. You are like kindle to my black-heart’s fire, though dead I be, you liven me with your coming.

Oh, dear pride, tisk, tisk, tisk, my precious one. How merrily you wait upon my stepping stones, waiting for the appearance of my smile. Do you not know that upon entering, I shall, like the visitors before and after, devour you in my sweetness? Your poisonous ways cannot beseech me. I see through you as the clear night sky to the endless stars. I see you in the ebony of my master’s eyes. His way, His gaze, His blessing set upon me through His gentle watching. You cannot abode me in your phantom glory, for you are no lesser or greater than the trespasser dressed in borrowed belongings, garbed in riches and dreams that do not beget me and fit me less than the horns upon the ram righteous and strong. I cannot lean into you, no less, less you jam into me first, and inject me with your venom pure, forge me onward for the coming of His name. For I know not how to go round you, evade you, or leave your plentiful sight without first taking you fully into me, and letting you bend in my very blood, your harboring devilish ways. Eat at me from the inside out and I shall ache and wane in the misery, knowing that when you rise again, less fed than drowned in my goodness, that I shall be the one victorious, claiming your opportunity vanquished and wiped out with the faith of my Lord. For you are but nothing, this glamorous foe, fooled by your own malice making. So come, come now, sweet cavernous pride, and ride me as the black rides the night, and I shall set my shining soul upon your stale skin and reach into the very heart of yours, pull out the tentacles and claim you naught. For you, above all, are illusion set out to cast the demon from my very mind, and spark him life. And for this I give you recourse, for this I give you your own filthy ways, a tar pit of mercy, for you to sink and harbor thusly in.

Knock, knock, knock: This is fame, sleeping at your staircase, my eyes set on the glory of your coming, my head set at your feet, bowing down in recognition of your name. Climb down the spiraling heights of you, and play with me, in your magnificence, so I may kiss this beauty known as you.

Oh, dear fame, I am coming. I hear you calling, but I rise up from the depths of you, neither ascending nor descending, but appearing as your equal. I carry nothing of the glory and gifts you speak or imagine, and nothing of me remains in the sight of you. For to see myself as lowly creature risen, I must see you as risen creature lowered. And still, as little and feeble as you be, I am no less worthy than the weakest that treads. And so I sit here at your own feet, imprisoned less in the light you display as good deeds, and more in the agony you set in my heart by calling me forward so. For how can I dance in a light that is mine when I cannot dance in the light that is you? How can I begin to proclaim my light worthy of the dance at all, and beg you to uphold the illusion you create me to be? Oh, grand fame, can you not see I am not made to be this phantom hero dressed in honors and badges of mighty? I am born to be given as the sacrifice, spread out and slayed, so that in my ruins the light from above may find me and shine down. So the very light of our world may seek refuge in my scarcity and inadequacy, and shine that much brighter. How can I shine for one, when the One I shine for is brighter than the heaven’s gates that beckon? No, my wavering fame; you are much less real than dream. Something I once touched long ago, and ran swiftly from, as one seized by the lion’s mouth does; for as I was almost bitten in your demise, I would rather remain caged in the glory of recognition from above, than in the praises of the phantom ghosts that chew away at my bones. Bid me not your partner rich, but sit upon my very lap, so I may adjust my view, and peer into the depths of you. And here I will remain until the story unfolds and the end remains unturned, your catered promises brought out in the open of day and laid out for all to peer upon. Here I can laugh, and with each chuckle disperse you into the air from which you came, lesser than dust, and greater than the deepest darkness. Here you can live, in the wind, as the wind is invisible yet pushes, and turns what was ripe and growing into dead droppings spoiled.