it is always nights like this, where everything is so quiet you can hear beneath the absolute threshold, when i begin to wonder if i am going mad. technically, if one were truly losing their mind, they wouldn’t take much notice to the clarification that their reality is nothing but intricate lies spun by their brain.

pushing onwards within the dark, i can feel it. a whisper of a dance in memory slices gracefully across my cheek. the hungry caress of a lost lover. it is a random number between three and four, counting the days of sleepless solitude; as my lover is playing tricks on me.

it is just before dawn. the house breathes and groans like a wretched soul trapped in a bottomless pit long before midnight. in the gray morning light, delicate wrists stained with ink serve as maps through a desolate labyrinth. “lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate.”

from the corner of my eye i see shadows of uncharted men that feed upon the protective covering, encasing us; separating our world from theirs. the barrier is a shield at best, yet doorway at worst.

try to detach your eyes from their persistent, wandering gaze; and you might just catch a glimpse of a shadow gliding out of sight.

don’t second guess yourself sweetheart, you know exactly what you saw.

shadowy figures slightly out of reach, but still quite visible – gliding silently amidst, whispering quietly to those surrounding. looking directly at the figures, a gauzy lace veil delicately masks and covers each shadow.

unseen claws shred the thin barrier before it is tattered and torn. one by one, little by little, each figure sharpens into perfect visual acuity, wholly in sigh(t). as you slowly inch back, eyes unblinking with disbelief, their voices are no longer whispers.

the gaping pits of opened mouths drown you in hollow prattles, screeching rasps; the cruel high pitched icy sneers of laughter.

petrified with terror and shock at the shadow’s newfound ability to speak, you acutely notice that the house is creaking and wheezing. you can hear footsteps on the opposite side of the house, and with your eyes averted, they are gone.

with this, you must take into consideration that i have spent far too long with eyes wide shut, drowning in utter fear fueled by morbid curiosity for this world: things seen and heard. each is a cancerous tumor mutilating my mind beyond repair.

to me, the shadow figures’ tattered veil appears to be a doorway, a portal to another universe. this sheer possibility spawns the magnitude of infinite and parallel universes.
much like the shifting hallways concealed in an e(in)ternal labyrinth.

amidst this never ending maze, man is forced to wander blindly from birth to death; where he then circles back around to his exact place of previous conception, only to be born anew. condemned to blindly roam and repeat his unbroken cycle for all eternity.

in this labyrinth we are all gods, we are all monsters. each creation story is universal, yet individual to each new life.

the sinner and the saint are both born into divinity.