Archived: The Desert Bluffs’ Corruption by Adison Linder

Light
Like a thousand suns, never flickering, relentless beam of a beacon.
It spreads everywhere, a tangle of vines suffocating out the dark. Nothing is safe from its interrogations.
Everyone looks toward it, eyes bleeding, they cry out its name joyously.
They praise it, adore it, worship it, that awful blinding light,
But you close your eyes and turn away.
In its rays, they see happiness and forgiveness.
When you dare to look, dare to squint
At the omnipresent light,
All you see is hate.
A deep, merciless hatred, that spares no one its derogatory lies.
"Fear the shadows," it whispers to its acolytes.
"Fear the darkness and everything it brings,
Fear those who do not fear it."
Then it sends them to arms, and they heed its call.
They search for those, like you, who dare look away,
Because their five-trillion kilowatt sun ordered them.
They hunt everything, anything, that isn't like them.
They hunt those who see a different light,
Who instead of a spear to the irises
See a gentle beam of grace and hope,
Or a plethora of stars shining above
Letting their illumination light softly blanket the world.
The followers of the acrid beacon show no mercy,
And after awhile, they begin to resemble their sun
Eyes burned to a crisp, smiles carved in deep canyons on their faces, luminous.
They ask why you don't look into their light.
After all, you've seen, you prefer the dark.

Bio: Ever since I can remember, I’ve been driven to create, whether it be art, poems, or stories. To me, creating 
something is a way to get people to think about the world differently, whether it be through a particularly good
 painting or a thought-provoking novel. It lets us put the stories and images we all carry inside our heads down on 
paper where everyone can see. A few artists that have helped inspire my work with their own stories and images 
are Neil Gaiman, Maggie Stiefvater, and Jonathan Sims.