A Prayer to Saint Stachybotrys for Mercy

I intercede with thee, cloaked in

onyx and emerald, appearing most

humbly and divinely in the corners

of my room.

Saint Stachybotrys Chartarum, patron

of bleeding sinusitis, tonsil stones and

boulders, post-nasal drip. Of illness

and acne moist mysterious; of cavern

lungs and soot mucous; of nocturnal

asphyxiation and phlegmatic compositions.

We beseech thee, O potent paragon of guests:

have mercy on our souls, our lungs, our pores,

our crumbling homes, where you’ve made

your ubiquitous mycelial presence known

in our time of great housing crisis.

In supplication and suffocation, we kneel

and weep at the altarpiece of your presence:

walls, skirting boards, cupboards, dressers.

Here, we offer our diurnal sacrifice of sugared

waters, sodium hypochlorite, acetic acids.

Cleanse us.

Blessed are we, your most tuberculous

flock, pious and powerless in the enormity

of your stead and spread. Hear our cries

as we gaze upon your fervour, your tenacity.

Grant us relief.

In the wake of your silence and omnipresence,

we pray. Look upon us with pity and spare us

another dawn of your might and mildew.

For unto us, a spore is borne.

Landlord have mercy.

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