I stalk these decks beneath my Hollow Cross, the scabbed horizon trembling at my prow.
My keel drags chains of children screaming loss, their echoed wails the only creed I vow.
The surf returns their fractured lullabies, a salted choir that curdles every star.
I carve their hopes to charts with surgeons' knives, then steer by wounds that never fully scar.

Once robed in silk of sacraments and lies, I tasted innocence upon the blade.
The Order cast me out with blinded eyes, unaware that monsters are disciples made.
I drank the altar dry of milk and flame, baptised my shadow in the spilt Amen;
Now every prayer I catch forgets its name, collapsing into silence once again.

My logbook's ink is marrow, warm and still, each entry penned with little pulses stilled.
I keep their teeth in bracelets for the thrill, their tiny ribs the cage my longing filled.
When Blackgale calls, I answer with a grin; the ocean curdles, tasting of my sin.
We scour the coasts, two hurricanes in spite, his grief the drum, my cruelty the din.

Let saints denounce me from their distant pews; the thunder of my crimes will drown their bell.
I ransom dawns, extinguish living hues, and cast their faded echoes into hell.
So mark the Hollow Cross upon the tide, blood-dark, horizon-wide, a final mark:
For where my mast divides the sky, abide perpetual night and the drowning dark.

Penned by my hand on the 14th of Ero, in the year 981 AF.