Things worse than death.
The beast is simple in the dark:
A sudden throat, a final spark.
It wants the blood, it wants the meat,
A brief transition, raw and fleet.
It does not keep your teeth as charms,
Or hold you shivering in its arms
To watch the panic wax and wane—
It has no luxury for pain.
But man? Man has the time to spend.
Man never lets the ending end.
They touch to see the skin turn gray,
Peeling the sanity away.
A soft stroke here, a pressure there,
Until you’re breathing leaden air,
Alive, but emptied of your name,
A breathing piece inside their game.
They build a cage out of a smile,
And keep you pacing, mile by mile,
Not dead enough to find release,
Not whole enough to be at peace.
I’d rather feel the wolf’s teeth sink
And blacken out before I think,
Than sit within the quiet room
Where human hands construct my doom.
The dark corner.
When the world grows heavy and the room turns cold,
And you are carrying weights that cannot be told,
Walk away from the noise, step out of the glare,
And look for the place where the shadows stare.
Always come here when the emptiness grows.
Always come here where the dark water flows.
Search for the corner where the sunlight dies,
Where the night hides away from the prying eyes.
You will find me waiting, unmoving and still,
Like a stone at the bottom of a winter hill.
I do not fade when the lanterns go out.
I do not leave when you are drowning in doubt.
No matter how far or how lost you may feel,
The dark is a promise that stays absolute and real.
So slip through the cracks where the crowded streets end,
And follow the quiet where the black shadows bend.
I will always be here, tucked away out of sight,
The permanent anchor in the center of night.
Darker…
