I was never
Afraid of
Anything before
You showed up
All of a sudden
I loved you
And that
Was terrifying

🅿romises bled from the mouth of the moon,
🅾aths carved in fog on a bone-white dune.
🅸 drank from a chalice that mirrored my face,
🆂in made of velvet, stitched into lace.
🅾racles wept in the orchard of skin,
🅽ailed to the silence that echoes within.

🅳eath wore a crown made of whispers and glass,
🆁eality cracked like a serpentine mass.
🅴very mirror refused to reflect,
🅰s shadows grew teeth and began to infect.
🅼y soul is a house where the doors won’t align..
Where dreams drink the dreamer, in slow serpent time.

I stumbled upon it—
this ruin, veiled in ivy,
its ribs of stone strangled
by nature’s lace.

A withered door hangs
on one iron thread—
the last breath of smiths
dressed in oxide.

Fractured silence beckons
childish will to explore.
Danger wrapped in lichen,
blight decays the frame.

Dense fog dulls the raven’s
black wings—set the tone.
Moss-laden windows,
sinew stripped from bone.

To be continued....

By Darren Wall

The screen flickers on, a hum in the dark,
A smiling face,
too wide,
too stark....
A voice like syrup,
thick and slow,
Says things no one should ever know.

“Tune in now, don't look away,”
The tape still runs,
Though it’s a lightless day.
Eyes in shadow, stretch and leer...
Their shapes grow clearer the longer you peer.

The timestamp’s wrong.
It's 4:03.
But you swore just now it said...
3:33?
Your door creaks softly, but no one's there
Just static breathing, thick as air.

The face returns.
It knows your name.
It says it loud.
It plays a game.
“If you're alone, please raise your hand.”
Your body moves,
But not by plan.

Each frame skips forward, past your eyes,
Your living room,
Then the forest,
the skies.
A glimpse of you upon the screen...
A frozen grin...
A silent scream.

The screen goes black...
A final tone.
But now you’re sure…
You’re not alone.

In ages past, we lived in dark,
awaiting light to split the night,
for wisdom’s voice to pierce the gloom
and birth a world anew.

But these days may be the darkest yet,
as crowds embrace old fear and hate,
reviving chains long thought undone—
the past returned in present fate.

In days of old, the brave took arms
against a tyrant’s deadly charms,
who hunted those beyond his creed—
and now his age returns with speed.

Now comes a time of poisoned speech,
as lords above the poor still preach,
driving all to ruin and wrack
from castles drifting high and black.

Where are the heroes to lead us back—
to days when wisdom lit the track,
where all walked safely, hand in hand,
in freedom’s light across the land?

Where is the safety?
The freedom of the land?