The night splits open, raw and red,

a wound that drips where angels bled.

From marrowed dark the figures crawl,

their bodies broken, faceless, tall.

Their jaws unhinge with dripping cries,

a nest of worms for teeth and eyes.

Their tongues are ropes, their breath is rot,

they gnaw the air, they drink what’s not.

The earth itself recoils in pain,

as footprints seep like oil stains.

They drag the silence through the mud,

and crown the dusk with living blood.

A hand, too thin, now grips my wrist,

its nails like needles, cold, and kissed

with fevered black, with mold, with bile—

it pulls me closer all the while.

I try to scream, but sound won’t stay.

My throat is carved, my voice decayed.

The shadows split my soul apart,

and wear the ruin for their art.

They feed, they feast, they leave no bone,

and still I walk, but not my own.

For in the dark, what lurks unseen,

makes monsters of what once was clean.