The Sands of Oblivion


 * I bashed my head on the kitchen sink,

my mind is broken I cannot think.

I cry inside as I run and hide because

the one I loved has lived and died.

I have no one in to confide and now

I wait in darkness.*

I see nothing. I hear only my breath pressing in and out

of my chest in slow repetition as I wander mindlessly

throughout this dark abysmal hall of echoes. I try to scream

but my voice is gone, I don't know how I still live and breath

for I have not eaten nor drank for what can only be seen as

eternity. I walk for what seems to be forever, my feet once

ached but now feel cold and wet, I touch my fingers to them and

it is true, I touch my finger to my withered lips and taste copper.

It is my own blood.

I have been walking so long I bleed with each step, but I do not care,

instead I bite at my foot and taste the sweet delicious blood that once flowed

forth through my veins now sliding across my tounge in a mixture of

ecstasy and pain, ecstasy for the bliss of no longer being parched,

and the pain in my foot, I have not felt anything in so long. I think I like it.

I bury my teeth deeper into my foot and I begin to chew, I rip the flesh

from the bone and let out a groan of pure delight, albeit quiet.

I continue, I work my way up my calf but I stop. I still need to walk, if I feast on myself

I may never make it out of here. I get up and walk, I must make it out.

* I scream for things beyond my dreams,

for I have lived beyond my means. I pray

for solace I pray for peace, I hate existence

I need release. Save me from my sorrow

here, for now I sit in darkness.*

I think I was a writer, I lick my fingers of the blood I have devoured

and I taste something different, ashen, but still metallic, not blood,

but ink. I am elated I remember something from my past but I stop.

I take another finger and I brush it against the sand in front of me.

It tastes like ink too. I feel a shift beneath my feet as the sand starts

to liquefy, I take deep gasps of air but instead swallow gallons of this

horrid ink. I gag and cough but it still seeps in and I drown.

I think I blacked out, in an existence where I cannot see and where time

melds together, I blacked out, I laugh at this fact. My voice is hoarse

and ashen, like a man who has smoked all his life, bitter and cracking.

I hear a shuffle to my left, I call out but there is no answer. The sound

comes closer to me, I feel in front of me and to my sides and as I do

I brush upon something. No, someone.

* In a place where all hope dies,

I met a man who lives and thrives.

I beat his head in with a rock,

now I have some food in stock.

Yes, now I thrive in darkness.*

I felt smooth skin, and long hair, I heard with quivering tone,

“P-please, don't hurt me.” I was taken aback by the fact that

this was a woman I took her in embrace then realized we were

naked. I jerked away and muttered an apology, as I did so

she cried. She told me how she could not remember her name,

or why she was here, or even where this was. I told her that I was

just as confused and scared as she was, and that neither her nor I

knew where we were.

We laughed and talked, a warm change to a cold existence,

and before I knew it I fell in love, I brushed her hair and leaned

in to kiss her but as I did so she turned to ash. I heard laughing

all around me, not kind laughter, mocking, cold and hateful laughter.

I cried and pleaded for her to come back, I heard her hiss

that I had brought it upon myself and that I was but a pathetic

fool to end up here. I curled myself into a ball and began to cry.

I felt warm blood seep down my skull and I began to drift away...

* Betrayers come and then they go,

like warring tides they toss and flow.

You'll never see them until too late,

and then they kill you and seal your

fate, they cling to darkness.*

I woke up in screaming agony as I felt the flesh rip from my stomach,

it was the woman. I slapped her away but she pulled the ashes and

sand to pin me down as she ate. I struggled but then I remembered

the ink, I clenched my eyes shut and thought of the taste of the ink,

I pictured waves of the black liquid flooding in like a tsunami onto

my attacker. I felt the sticky liquid slap onto us with the weight of

an elephant. I was undeterred while the woman was crushed instantly.

The waves subsided and she let out a weak groan, I cried.

I pleaded why she would attack me, she was the only one

I had known there and still she would try to hurt me. I

kissed her forehead and took a handful of sand to

sprinkle over her. I continued to walk. I was alone

again.

* Light does shine and light does show,

but only those who see don't know.

For in that sparkling light divine,

lives an evil beyond all time.

You will miss the darkness.*

A glorious golden light shown down from the sky and the sands

were illuminated, I saw a being with golden wings fly down from

the heavens and land in front of me. He said he was an angel, and

I was to be his general. I asked him why I was given this duty, and

he replied that I had courage enough to face foes and be undeterred.

I looked at him for a moment, shocked at his idea, then I spoke,

“Courage? No, I killed someone who has been so corrupted by this

place as to try to cannibalize another human being as to satiate

a hunger derived by just the same place!” I started to hyperventilate,

“And this was all a ploy, wasn't it, demon of light?” I waved my hand

through him and stopped to see that it was truly him standing in front

of me.

He grinned for a moment, then he spoke, “This... All you see before

you here is my creation, all the cascading sands you see before you

are my creation.” He looked down back to me, “And you, you are dead,

the woman you have killed was your wife, and now you are alone.”

With that he shot away and took his light with him, and I saw nothing once

more. I screamed and broke through the depths of the abyss, cascading past

dunes and testing the boundaries of that malignant place with my voice.

I pray that someone heard me, and that I am not alone, but I still sit in silence.

* But here in sparse the depths below,

lives a man who did not know.

But if he did, he did not show,

that he was dead,

for on his shoulder sat a crow.

His name was Edgar,

Edgar Allen Poe.*