Skinwalker

And at once I realize that the hand I hold is black with corruption, that the gilded rhetoric is a sibilant mantra meant to stifle guilt, that the staunch discipline of tradition is merely the coward's path, and that this descent into compromise is the death of friendship. I've witnessed you slit the throat of the young idealist and impale empathy to the hilt of your sword. You wear a stranger's face. Your eyes hold no recognition. Conceal the vastness of self-betrayal beneath the scientist's cloak, beneath the scholar's mantle, beneath the hedon's frock. Drink the blood of this perverse deception. Escape in inebriation. Bonds consecrated in our most private moments. Loyalty sacrificed in the blaze of denial. My emptiness has built your altar. And I worshipped myself in you forever.