Lies slip off your forked tongue like butter,

which of course wouldn’t melt in that mouth.

Simpering sweetly, you charm and hoax

and hide a heart with rotten flesh,

a fruit whose decay runs to the core

but whose skin pretends otherwise.

Ever the deflector, you shove your shame

onto passers-by with innocent gaze.

Now that I have found you out,

you snake in the grass,

you wretched, blind, diseased Edenic apple,

mine will be a Sword of Truth,

cutting through the atrophied layers to expose the blight.

If you choose,

my blow could bring your gangrene fresh air;

the inner putrescence, if allowed to contact Reality,

can become nutritious and satisfying

(after the pain of exposure fades).

But I fear that you will cover your rot with

another cloak of magical skin

and hide your maggots from Truth’s reach.

Your loss…