In the dark of night When you're out of sight But never out of mind There is a silence The kind of quiet that Causes the fissures In my mind To swell and widen Just enough for sanity To disappear into the abyss Into the labyrinth Of a cracked and shattered psyche In the silence of nothing Where the world could have ended As I lay here oblivious To the truth, the reality Of the outside world This place, in the deepest recesses Of my twisted mind This is where the waiting Breeds nightmares Steeped in the real possibilities That cause my heart to break In real time In the midst of unknowing Somehow I know I know something is amiss The world, my world is off kilter Just enough to barely notice To wonder if it is my reality or my shadows Traversing the cracks in my facade of sanity Trying to find a way back to peace Leaves me drained of the desire to breathe As every breath breaks my ribs The panting, painful, dry, and useless As there is no living in this place That ***** the life out of my eyes And the stagnant air of what-if out of my lungs Gasping in vain to **** it in Because what-if is all there is In the dark of night When you're out of sight But never out of mind