The Son
They carved a cross into the cheek of the heathen child.
As he grew it formed a jagged X,
a focal point for the sadist’s treasure map that was his face.
His first mewling was thought to be a fox,
In the midst of copulation,
And it was luck that lead the trappers to his leafy bed.
They kept the crimson thing and it rid them of their milk.
A furious appetite beyond sating.
They soon passed him on without a word of warning.
He was first spoken to with hard fist and boot
he found soft speech lacking,
so discarded it in favour of a blank, brute force.
When of age he found company in the arms of whores.
Those brave enough to ride with him
joked quietly that he was trying to crawl back inside his mother.
It could have been fine if it was just him
and the weak cusses that followed in his wake.
But more dead-eyed screaming bastards lay about the land.
No hand that found them was kind enough to kill them,
nor smart enough to cut and mark their cheeks.
Now they swarm and bite and boil amongst us, feasting on the weak.
The Son, written by Luke Searle, is taken from 'Various Sorrows & Joys', a collection of short stories by Luke Searle and Graham Thomas from TheNeverPress