Confession - 12

Crawling alone in the darkness,

Slow on the freezing cement,

My blood supply too close to spent,

I half-dragged my miserable carcass

'Til finally I had to relent;

I tried to keep fighting regardless, 

But was off to unconsciousness sent.

The very next thing I remember

Is waking in hospital bed --

Bandages covering my head,

My whole body painful and tender,

Most of my skin gone a-shred;

(No sign of my ghoulish offender,

Just doctors and nurses, instead.)

A prelude to incarceration, 

Each of my wrists in a cuff,

Lying in bed in the buff, 

Fighting the fog of sedation,

I struggled awake with a 'chuff',

The evidence of my predation

More than obvious enough.

Policement surrounded my gurney

(A landscape I couldn't avoid),

I'd sent so much life to the void;

A senseless and murderous journey,

So many poor lives destroyed...

(Told I'd right to an attourney,

I mumbled assent, paranoid.

And just like that, I was in prison

For all of the girls I had killed;

Lives cut so short, unfulfilled,

(Yet I spoke not of those risen --

The unliving, bloodthirsty guild

That led to the jacket's excision,

And left my soul shaken and chilled.)

---

-           © Jackson Cambridge, 2016.

(To be concluded. For sure this time.  -J.)