Reflections On Dorian Gray, Pt VIII: Reality's Seams
by Michael Doyle

There on that snow fallen black of night
In an alley filled with guilt's blight
Dorian fears the tell of tongue wagged tale
That pursues him to the gates of Hell

There are dreadful things that he has done
In the corruption lived since this has begun
In the end there will the that final price
One that should not be paid by the innocently nice

The creeper creeps like a dead rat caught
In the traps of something he never sought
A cage of darkness has become his only friend
As he finds his decrepit truth in the end

To a priest, he implores his confession of sin
Knowing that his mortal sin cannot be cleansed again
The stretch of a soul caught in its putrification
There is nothing to help in death's intoxication

Chased into the tunnel of a dimly lighted subway
Saved by the train's tracks in their final say
An innocent man curses Dorian on the edge of death
Even as his penny eyes takes his last, final breath

Fleeing to goodness and light in ungentle intrusion
Dorian whispers his fears in a passing of delusion
To be not alone but with her beside the warm fire
It's as if evil itself did quietly act to conspire

A distraught man who has become himself a father
Looks on forlorn in concern about his beloved daughter
Noticing in Dorian something ghastly and strange
The truth of deceptively never having to ever change

The gusty winds flow their chill of ancient danger
As the father demands that Dorian stay a stranger
Wanting only to find his way toward beginning again
Far away from London where he is chained to his sin

In closeness to her innocence, he hopes for purity
As he flees from past choices and his tarnished history
A kiss away moment grasped lustily by the burning fire
Dorian finds she's the found the secret key to his desire

Locked away behind and old and dusty closed attic door
She finds what she cannot ever hope to see no more
As he wakes to find it was only some hellish sort of dream
Yet somehow, it was more real than reality's seams

(c) October 29, 2021  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved