Facilis Descensus Averno

I wished for a woven sky
to sink into the ground
and choke me with its stitches.

Cherry teeth stained my fingers
when pitch black was grey
and knuckles were mesh.

I looked into the void
and the Void stole my eyes
even Nothing
refuses to acknowledge my presence.

Ashes of the past swim
with senseless future
filling a bowl chipped at the edges
It was time for dinner.

A song wailed across the
walls of the Universe
its screams filled my ears like water.

“Are you death?” I asked
To…to…

“Not death, but what follows,” said…said…

“What? Who?”

“You.”
“You.”
“You.”

Me.

I am before the tanks that grind my skull
after the flowers that choke my lungs
within the sun that scorches my open wounds.

Safe, saving, saviour?
L I E S
I’m the lacuna, whom the child
in me dreaded.

I fill the abyss
with my torn skin
and splintered bones.
Yes, I dreamt a dream so vile.

I am the knife that slayed me
The Judas who sold me
I burnt the curse that thrived in my cracked skull
I am the vulture who feasted on my intestines.

Was the wine that quenched my thirst merely a
vessel of my despair?

It was I, the toxic reaper, who cut through
a numb me.

How do I save myself,
if the poison…

…is me?

 

***

~Manushrie Verma