On the night before November, as the sun burned blood-red embers,
Over the quaint and curious houses perched beyond my only door,
As I pondered newfound faces, gnarled heads of pumpkin races,
With a burning flame in places where a heart should be before -
Then they came, in cruel disguises, as I’d never seen before -
Knocking at my chamber door.
I gaze through my peeping window, but it shows me naught but shadow,
Trust I not their black eyes hollow, moat it is of my rancor.
Question I forbidding aims, through a door closed to their games,
and to my sceptic disdain, “Trick or treat!” they do implore -
For the nameless and the masked, I myself to them implore
“Leave this place forever more.”
My tormentors claim donation, demand they a staple ration
They desire sweets and candy to appease the ghastly corps.
Trust I not demanding strangers, know I of the certain dangers,
Of mobs of hungered covered rangers pounding on my chamber door -
Teeth and claw and wing and beak luring prey to open door -
Fear I night-time mischief war.
Say they are the neighbor’s children, see I dozen faces hidden,
Hidden under grim facade of nameless shaken darkened gore.
“No,” I shriek, “Leave my home, go ye back to where ye roam!
Haunt the ancient dusty tomes, make not doorsteps worn and sore!”
Their reply, all as one... “Stranger, we are not yet sore...
lest you keep unopened door.”
Fear I then the threat of ire, trust I have they will retire,
Grab I morsels for the devils - I throw open chamber door-
See I not the neighbor’s children, see I monsters, creatures, demon,
See I nameless wicked heathen of vindictive lost folklore,
Plead I, “Take what you desire, demons of eons’ folklore!”
To those guests beyond my door.
Answer they with toothy smile that revealed a sickly guile
And their sullen eyes glowed as I’d never seen before...
And by the light those orbs had cast, revealed to me was horror vast
For I could now see at last, it was not masks they wore!
No costumes, garbs, or tricks were these - it was their gruesome skin they wore,
Beyond my opened door!
Reached they in with gnarled claws, took I not a moment’s pause,
Lunged I then, in a moment, grabbed in vain to close the door,
But once willing, I could not undo the welcome I begot
All my effort, all for naught, all of them upon me tore!
Screamed, I writhed, I thrashed, I flailed, struggled with them till I tore.
For their disease I had no cure.
Then on that day oft forgotten, my very form from me was taken
In their greed those fiends had stolen what I could replace no more.
Coward’s fear was not able to prevent my grisly fable
My shape, my species, and my label - forever changed those days of yore.
Now my flight is towards fear, I do not flee that hallow yore -
For I the messenger of more.
Now I pay for trust misplaced, now I haunt the weak disgraced,
Curse I am, to never leave, to always and forever soar
In the minds of those who suffer, loneliness and lost of other,
Though my words act as a buffer, to my crooked beaked rapport!
From the now until forever, I shall croak my one-word lore!
Quoth I to the, "Nevermore."
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