Destruction
by Charles Baudelaire
Ceaselessly beside me the Demon writhes;
He swarms around me like impalpable air;
I swallow him and feel him burning my lungs
And filling them with an everlasting guilty desire.
At times he takes, knowing my great love for Art,
The form of the most seductive women,
And, under specious pretexts of depression,
Accustoms my lips to infamous love charms.
Thus, far from the sight of God, he leads me,
Panting and crushed by fatigue, into the midst
Of the plains of Bordeom, extensive and deserted,
And throws before my eyes full of confusion
Soiled clothing, opened wounds,
And the bloody apparatus of Destruction.