Babalon

She does not arrive quietly.
She arrives like a door kicked open by fire,
like silk dragged through blood,
like a hymn sung in a language
only the forbidden remember.

She sits where the brave and the ruined meet,
where men become ghosts
and women become legends.
Around her, the world burns politely,
as if destruction itself were a ceremony.

They will call her many things:
Scarlet woman.
Whore.
Goddess.
Monster.
They will spit the words
like nails from their mouths,
trying to build a cage out of language.

But she is not in the cage.
She is the hand that built it.
She is the key hidden in the throat of the lion.
She is the cup that never empties,
though empires drink from it until they disappear.

She is not love that is soft.
She is love with teeth.
Love that unmakes you.
Love that says:
“Give me everything that is not real,
and I will leave you with everything that is.”

And those who cannot survive her
will write stories about how dangerous she was.
And those who do survive her
will never again call themselves small.

Because once you have stood before Babalon,
once you have seen what she holds in her cup,
once you have watched her smile
while the old world collapses behind her,

you understand:

She was never the destruction.
She was the mirror.