“A Momentary Flicker by Stewart Stafford Keeper of pristine candlelight, In corrupted hourglass time, Chest-pumped at your "yield"— So why asset-strip mine? You claim we shed virginity together, A lecherous faux-naif purloins truth, My age will be the years you get— That collar shall be your noose. Your crimes are beyond absolution, Your extant sextant for baleful stars, Fevered pleas and penitent sighs, To a confessional's hidden bars. So why scalpel-slit a seeping scar? Karma totals defrocked degradation, A besmeared, hacked-up oil painting— Damnation's inferno predation. Your words, woven with deception, Vanish like smoke from a flame. From shaded rebirth, I set forth. I reclaim my dawn, my light, my name. © 2026, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” TraumaSurvivorSexual AbuseDark PoetryFeminist PoetryConfessional PoetryClergy AbuseInstitutional FailureEpstein FilesJustice Poetry Author:Stewart Stafford