The flickering environs of my
Perfumed sanctuary melt away to toxic sludge.
Rusted bulkheads and twisted valves pierce through my flesh.
Corroded eyes weep with lead.
Floating scents of old are now as sulphur and vomit.
The face is now gaunt and furrowed.
My pleas are insincere, yet if they were to be heard,
It is all too apparent that this foul metamorphosis cannot be halted.
The floor of this perfumed hall - my own perfumed hall -
Collapses from beneath me,
And through torn skies my vestige plummets.
Marble and diamond erode to silt before me.
And here I find myself.
Untethered and adrift in this endless space.
I stand before myself.
Your taste is bitter, your face pained.
I watch you die.
I hear you rot.
Deafening.
From the corpse spring maggots, each resplendent in their own livery.
Like mirrors they reflect me,
But instead of a single form,
I am instantiated in multiple permutations.
Each permutation mangled through an alien conceptual lens.
This is where those who came before spoke of.
Those men who, during my intoxicate stupor,
Were written off as mere prototypes and forerunners.
Those whose thoughts we had long
Superseded with the cold hammers of objective truth.
Those who built the great fire pits,
Only to have their flames untended and extinguished in obsolescence.
This is the place they sought to traverse.
To plot a path across this endless chasm.
I still hear their echoing howls demented and frantic.
Is this an awakening?
Or is this the rumination of a mind in decay?
The answer does not come to me, and I drift between worlds.