Apostles of the void

We are the apostles of the void,
and Thy Excellency is our order.

Our eyes do not seek the road,
but the horizon.
Our feet do not tread the path,
but Orion.

We pass among the crowds untouched,
and from them we always emerge unbroken.

Our gaze is honed like a blade,
cleaving through venomous masks.
We cast aside the counterfeit Eye,
and even our lies are forged in honesty.

The surface constricts the lungs—
a deliberate obstacle,
a wall of breathlessness.
And the longer we endure its ugliness,
the more violently we ache to flee.

The longer we behold it,
the more the rabble returns to memory,
its noise clinging like old dust to the fresh soul.

So we retreat into our hollow
and raise our eyes above.
We withdraw into silence
and imagine what lies beyond.

The clouds receive us.
The stars burn for us.

And before us stands
the edge of the unknown,
terrible in its perfect knowing.

We belong to the heavens,
yet rule without even ascending
the celestial throne.

We search what cannot be reached.
We pursue what cannot be obtained.
We feel what cannot be spoken.

And still we do not stop; our greatest worry is to be consoled.

No hand ever taught us our way—
only sin,
our oldest scripture.

Yet each of us knows the mission,
whole within its fractures,
and to its summons
we answer with questions.

It is ours to dig
what cannot be unearthed,
though our hands split and bleed.

It is ours to carry our gloom
into every place,
even where the air is soft as silk.

We are here only for the meantime,
and in time, we shall depart without erasure.

We are the apostles of the holy void,
and our shrouds catch every earthly wind.

― Atrona Grizel