The Rot Between the Trees
A poem
A poem
Darkness drips
like tar from the twisted branches,
polished obsidian claws
scratching at the shroud of night.
The forest unhinges its jaws,
unspooling a beckoning path
into the snarl of its maw,
each step further from light’s grace.
Sickly sweet humus
mingles with the damp breath
of rotting trunks,
a perfume luring the lost and weary.
From the undergrowth, unblinking eyes
pebbled with rheumy cataract-clouds,
myriads of accusers
drinking in your shuddering exhale.
Shadows shift against the inky backdrop
as something ancient peers around the curvature of moonlight,
something hungering
for the soft, trembling pulse at your throat.
Sanity frays like cobwebs
in the creeping miasma,
where madness taints the loam,
and the whisperers sway amid the bracken.
