by EeFM – 2023

there is a dissolving
one that begins it seems at birth,
that starts as a trickle, an itch,
a stutter:

a cold emptiness that forms on the inside and carves it’s way to your toes and your feet:
sharp-pinpricks of vapor
that grow into headaches
and
seeping dreams

the engulfing presence of The Nothing that forms and un-forms,
an Upside Down of bedtime stories, an unlimited creeping and haunting and
pressing
of bones

It’s been here all along –
the empty that
cannot be
contained

the tendrils follow you from home to home:
a shadow form at the end of the bed,
a darkness that pours through the edges,
wraiths that peel
layers from the mattress,
a quiet that never ends

A heaviness that keeps you
stuck in
hallways:
A Swamp of Sadness that cannot be crossed

when you were little, you used to hold your breath and pray an absence of sound would make you invisible 

as you got older, each room felt more claustrophobic than the last, each moment a cage

through the years, the traps have distorted their faces, changed their voices,
but the emptiness ravages the same

you know it’s taste, the poison that drags without claws, a seeping without pain
and you are no longer afraid

for your teeth and claws have been formed from each night you lay awake

this monster
is not the only ghost in the darkness 

For you
are the firey-sweet of hemlock,  
the grasping clutching of lungs
as the devils
wake up
panting – 

you are
the haunting