mold

The walls have always had it

The mold, the heaving dark mass

Silently, insidiously poisoning the air and rotting the wood

Of the room I live in, the one I never leave

It leaks into the carpet

Staining the walls from the inside out like spilled black ink

Breathing leaves a bitter taste

And makes the inside of my throat feel coated with illness and spores

It whispers as it creeps closer to me

Where I lay in the centre of the room

The world outside these walls is poisoned, coated in a thick black fog of decay and suffering

The inside is just as filthy

But mushrooms grow in my throat and I lay still

It murmurs soft sentiment

The walls are encased in the writhing darkness

A disease that has crawled its way up

From a place deep in the earth

The mold reaches my body on the floor

Creeps into my ears

Nestles into my eyes

My vision is dancing black spots

And in my ears I hear it talking

I know where this ends

I know I have to stand up

My heart still beats, my muscles work

But in my lungs are growing splotches of black fungus

And my mind is a hive, a clamour of voices

There’s a quiet voice telling me to get up, get up, run away

But I don’t

I don’t move

I don’t move

And the softly singing shadow that slithered its way into my mind has risen to a scream

The eternal hum of the universe has twisted into a choir of cruel and Godly voices, shouting, shouting

I take up hardly any space at all, and yet I have failed to justify my place

Who I am is not enough to carry the weight of my consciousness

And so this mold decomposes me and I am thankful for it

Once I’m dirt maybe I’ll be worth something

Once I’m dirt maybe I can rest

Who could refuse such an offer?