If you, yourself, had been forced to watch,
aghast and in horror, a beautiful, slender,
long-haired, barefoot boy seized by haters and
beaten so severely and repeatedly that the
bones benath his delicate face collapsed, as the
last of light seeped from his tearful eyes, and the
last of his life escaped from his shattered limbs:
if you, yourself, had been compelled to witness this, the
last of sanity would have abandoned your mind, so that the
demons---invisible counterparts to the haters---could
take up residence in the void that your soul has become.
No chains could bind my suddenly acquired strength that
I did not possess on that night they assaulted my Beloved; and
I went to live in mountains where ancient, empty tombs are---and a
shadowed crevice into which they had flung his body,
where feral animals foraged and fed upon his flesh.
Calling themselves Legion, the voices constantly reminded me
with the gibberish of their deliberate mockery---so
I cried, and screamed, and cut my nakedness with sharp-edged
stones, but nothing could distract me from the Legion's howling.
But when I---and they---saw Jesus afar, the clamoring paused.
I ran to worship Him, and the demons abjured Him to
leave them alone. He commanded them out of me---
they fled to a herd of pigs and drove them into the sea.
I followed Him back the ship which had conveyed Him;
I asked that I might be allowed to accompany Him.
But He declined and told me to proclaim that, through Him,
God had shown me His compassion, and did great things for me.
Call me not by my mundane name, but by Baza---
because I am a reproach to the prejudiced haters.
But I shall publish in Decapolis my
testimony to declare, before all, my Lord and Redeemer.
Starward