The Sinking Mass

As I wandered through the brush, the woods did I explore, I found a fetid marsh, lay stagnant, bleeding through the floor, The dock or pier which oversaw it, rotting to the core, And falling in the water's touch, a solid sludgy shore.

I stare into the swampland, sitting, barely any life is litting, Scarcely any crickets chirping, neither any frogs are flitting. Such a silence overcame me, never had I heard before, In this swampy marsh in forest, by the solid sludgy shore.

But I didn't waver too long, i did not wish to stay, I stepped around the putrid lake, and started on my way. -- A voice behind me, in the marsh, so awful, it did say, "Please help me, help me..." ...nothing else, then silence by the bay.

I glare into the water, surely nothing could living, purely? Any sorry suspect slipping in the marsh would drown, or die? Any victim of the putrid, fetid waters, so polluted, Surely any voice I heard could not be such a sorry cry.

I turn around into the forest, as a chill goes down my spine. Walking, quickly, into darkness, far from swamps that leer behind. But even as I walk, I wonder, thoughts and worries fill my mind, Of the gasping voice that tumbled from the muddy dirt filled brine.

I stop my pace, and freeze, in terror, as I somehow, unaware, have stepped back backward to the swamp lands I abandoned out of fear. Could it be another marsh or somehow have I traveled farther-- Have I truly walked, not farther, rather back to swamp lands here?

There's the moss that coats the dock. There's the land I scuffed before. Every detail holds to scrutiny, even as I was so sure. I find it harder to believe with every second, any more By the solid, sludgy shore.

I turn around again and run, with logic that I find undone, As I flee with panic that I'm barely sure I've ever known, Only praying with a fervor that my legs well take me further, Take me somehow silent where I'll safely know that I'm alone.

But I run with fury seething back into the swamp, retreating Further leads in circles somehow even as I try and try, Back into the swamp, I fire at the gods, "Please do retire This cruel game of mock or ire, leave me to my mind, or die! Everything that I've regretted is compounded by the fetid Stench that that moves like corpses piled smiling through their broken bones!"

But I do not find an answer from or gods, or trees, or plants, or Any omen showing me how truthfully, I am alone.

With a gurgle just beneath me, then, a new emotion greets me, Hands, so many hands and fingers rising slowly from the drudge! With a twisted lack of movement hands and fingers crush and groove, then latch onto my leg, and slowly pull me deeper into sludge.