You’ll do best to go back where you came from,

You don’t want to be much around me—

For I’m lost, and I’m weak,

And I’ve heard that I reek

Of the workers of hell and their fiends.

 

I lost my soul to a man in a matchbox,

Gave my body to surgeons unclean—

But when judgment day came,

Through my begging and screams

They walked on.

No one came back for me.

 

I have wandered these roads hence untraveled,

I have planted my roots in the sand, in the sea—

But for all of my knowledge,

For all of my pain,

I still hate what the mirror tells me.

 

I have emptied the chalice of malice,

I have swallowed the pill of despair—

Yet, despite all my sins on this terrible fringe,

Still I wander what good might live there.

 

But I ramble too much for good hearing,

Pray go back to the place whence you came—

For if you linger with evil,

Good things start to change:

It becomes who you are, just the same.

 

You’re more stubborn than first I expected,

It’s no wonder you’re nobody’s wife—

See my patience grow thin,

Hear my warnings and cringe—

Have you now disregarded your life?

 

I will tell you one thing, if you’ll hear it,

I will tell you a rumor I’ve known—

Through the smog and the smoke,

There’s a legendary hope,

That this curse might be still overthrown.

 

I will give you my heart, though it’s broken,

And a chance to be mended, if granted by Time—

But if all that I feel must be spoken,

Then, my dear, we may this way expire,

Your fingers in mine.

 

I will hold your dead hand if you’ll bear it,

I will answer your questions as best I can—

For my sins were so bold,

And my heart was so cold,

But you gave an old shadow a chance.

 

You’ve resurrected this wretched old man.