Demon Pulpit

Light-activated love

Artwork By: Shain Parwiz

Fair weather friends?
More like fair-weathered fiends.
Sunshine saints, storm-day shadows.
They swore they’d stay,
scattered at the first scent of sulfur.

Air sharp with metal.
I taste ozone, jaw clenched so tight
I can hear my teeth grind.

I used to think,
when the dark rolled in,
the true ones lit candles.

Room heavy with wax and smoke.
Turns out they just ran for cover.
Left only the smell of burnt wicks.
Blamed the blackout
on me.

I answered every call
like scripture.
Talked the grieving into breathing.
My voice worn ragged.
My throat raw.

Stitched seams in breakups, break-ins, breakdowns.
Hands sticky with others’ sorrow.
Played priest to pain I didn’t cause.

Not because I thought I was holy.
Hell no.

I’m no angel,
wings shredded, feathers torn, gravel pressed into skin.
Each step stings.
I shiver in cold city wind.

Not a devil either.
Just scars. Accusation-shaped.

I used to think
showing up meant you were good.
That empathy was its own reward.

I was a lighthouse built for other storms.
My nights blinked and flickered,
salt grinding into rust.
Didn’t ask if I’d drown in the flood.
Guiding others
while my own feet cracked in the tide.

---

Parable:
A man sees smoke in the distance.
He runs toward the fire.
Barefoot. Bleeding on broken bottles.
Carrying buckets with holes.
He saves no one.
Burns everything he loves.

And when the ash settles,
the crowd calls him arsonist.

I hear their accusations
in the siren’s wail.
Feel soot scratch my lungs.
That’s me.

The would-be lighthouse,
washed black by smoke.

When my tables splintered to ash,
the feast turned famine.
I smelled old bread, bitter in the air.
Hands once clapping, vanished from the wreckage.

Ash etches lines in my palms.
Splinters press against my lifeline.

It went from “I love you always”
to…
Silence so loud my ears ring.

Ribs cracking.
I gasp; alone.

I became a voiceless graveyard.
Echoes trapped in plastic.
Gray message icons
never turning blue.

Their words dissolve.
Taste of static.

They loved me,
until I needed love back.

On the playground, I shake.
Splinters digging in.
Mercy dressed as exits.

I learned:
The crowd is gone
when the clown collapses.
The healer,
left bleeding in the pew.

The phones?
Dead.
Grief contagious.
Silence the only cure.

---

Another parable:
At the edge of the village,
they say a demon bakes bread for the hungry.
Crusts warm. Blackened.
He shelters the haunted.

Crops fail?
They blame his shadow.
Children throw stones at his door.
Burn his name.

I feel the heat at my back.
Smoke winding through my hair.

I wasn’t a demon when I started.
But they kept carving the word into my skin
until it bled truth.

My reflection shimmers
in soot-stained glass.

Now I scan rooms.
Soldier turned scapegoat.
Eyes find the exits before faces.
Palms sweat.
Fingers tight on keys.

Affection tied in knots.

I wear my human suit on borrowed time.
The stitching itches.
Pinches my shoulders.

Some days I run diagnostics on my soul.
Static in my ears.
Reception weak.

But the pulpit remembers.
And so do I.

---

Let me speak.
Let me snarl scripture
from the throat they tried to slit.
Let me rewrite psalms—in spite.
Let me sing sermons in scarlet.

Ash falls from my tongue.
Sparks the air.

What did I learn from the Boogeyman?
He’s not a monster,
only the story they needed.
Bad news with a heartbeat.

Kendrick said it plain:
Ain’t nobody prayin’ for me.

To the ones who fled:
Your halos are hollow.
Love? Light-activated.
Bright only in your spotlight.

May your masks melt
in the fire of your own hypocrisy.
May your hearts beat louder
when you hear my name.

Not with guilt,
but with the echo of what you lost.

Try to forget:
The clown in the ashes.
The healer’s blood on the pew.
The coffin of missed calls.

I’m still here.
Not risen.
Not whole.
Aware.

And this demon?
Doesn’t need love to be real.
Doesn’t need heaven’s gate
to keep walking.

Let me rot in purgatory
truth intact.

Before I ever beg
one more goddamned fair-weathered fiend
to stay.

Let me preach
in the storm you ran from.
Let me howl
behind smashed stained glass
in the sanctuary you abandoned.

Let me burn,
but this time,
on my own altar.

---

Author’s Note:

They loved me when I was the lighthouse. The healer. The one who answered every call.
When I needed them? Silence. Gray messages that never turned blue.
So they called me demon,easier than admitting they failed me.
Fine. Let me preach from that pulpit.
At least the fire is mine.
- Shain

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