DARKNESS SWALLOWS

The marble cracks beneath the aging collection of moss, you are and always will be a forgotten name amidst a silent, drifting loss. Tragic, besot.

Something always rubs the skin on the bone, even once we are gone. Even our shadow recognizes another home and leaves us all alone.

Watching us fall into deeper, darker reeds, sitting beside us as we claim our endless sleep. The reaper cold in deaths design, steeping silently across our makers lines. We flee...

Until wilted leaves dot our graves, overgrown and callous stone. Follow no one, nowhere when footsteps tread. Leave not where your grave claims us dead.

For you are a place where no light can reach, a low frequency hum

a lower than low doldrum. The static station that never existed

Not even a shadow can stretch across your rejected prison

Your face still haunts mine, a memory my dreams can only conjure

when the world falls silent and the mind hits rewind

and you peer through my window, my blinds, my forgotten time

your key scrapes my bolt

your hands itching to touch me

your heart racing to find me

from somewhere far behind

the cold weight of panic uncoiling behind your neck

a claw hovering in dead air

winding down your very spine

as my mouth breaths my last breath

my lungs fail to halt

my heart skips and stutters

the darkness waits just around the corner

go back, go back

it wants you to manifest

it wants you to turn around

feeding on the hitch of your voice

it prays for you to hesitate

it waits, the strong prickle of fear extends towards your chest

waiting there, waiting without rest

for you to come back for the shadow that can never check