“In the Beginning”

In the darkest of times,

It was the devil who guided me into the light;

It was the devil who lifted me from the treacherous paths of ugly injustice;

It was the devil who made me whole again.

In the beginning,

It was not as it is now;

In the beginning,

I still had hope.

I don’t remember when it was

That the light first began to drain from me;

I don’t remember when the veil was first lifted from my vision;

Or when the darkness came pouring in.

But I will never forget

That when the darkness did descend,

It was my faith in the Angels

That was the first to shatter.

In the lightest of times,

I gazed deep into the crystalline fathoms of the sky,

And imagined palaces of cloud

Bravely guarded by angels of light.

In the beginning,

I believed Heaven to be more than a myth;

In the beginning,

I believed my impenetrable faith

Would one day lead me into the Angel’s open arms.

In the beginning,

I was a fool.

It escapes me now

The exact moment when the Angels began to turn on me;

When their satin wings began to crumble and wilt;

When their fautless words began to claw and tear.

But I recall with absolute clarity

That when I was finally shoved into their bottomless abyss,

It was the lilting songs of the devil,

Casting white shadows among the red haze,

That lifted me from their pits of eternal suffocation.

In the darkest of times,

It was the devil who gazed upon me with kindness;

It was the devil who spilled the cadent words of truth in my ears;

It was the devil who compared the Bible to fiction.

By Grace Downing – 9th Grade.

December 26, 2015.