Consume

So hungry

Ravenous

Constant

Insatiable

Gods save me

It’s never enough

Daily I take

My pound of flesh

Pounds

And pounds

Piles

Heaping tables full

Nubile

Decrepit

All are welcome

At my table

All shall be served

With a side salad

And rosemary for garnish

Oh just thinking of

Imagining the feasts

I salivate

Mouth hung agape

And dripping

I tear into the flank

Of some young thing

The red stains all

But most of all

My soul

What need have I of that

I know where I am headed

When I shuffle of

This sack of flesh

And I will continue

Burning all the while

I will consume

And consume

Hair

Stuck to roof of mouth

Damnable string of hair

I dig in with digits

Finding it quickly

And pull it out with great vigor

Only

It doesn’t come out

Instead I feel it pull taught

Dragging down my throat

Caught somewhere deep

I gag hard

Clenching fist

I wrap it round my finger and pull again

Harder this time

Again something within me tugs

A loathsome smell eminates

Filling my nostrils

I fight back bile

And pull again

This string cannot be hair

How strong

Strong as Tungsten

Iron

Steel

Cutting a wedge in my finger

I pull again

I must dislodge it

My mind reels as I sense

That thing

Deep within

Stir

Pulling back against the string

I scream around the string

Eyes flooding with tears

I hold on with both hands

And pull

It gives

The thing shifts

Thick as a fist and forcing up my throat

Blocking air

I grip the counter

It is moving

Dragging up my throat

I look in the mirror

And see it pulsing in my neck

Darkness closes in

Head hot as I choke

I collapse

Numb

I gasp

Leap up as I come to

I panic slide across the slickened tiles

gripping quick the porcelain sink

I look about and see nothing

Nothing wrong

Except

A small trail

Of something wet

Leading out the bathroom door

Cut

Breath held

I held still

Stillness consumed

consuming fear

Fear sharp

Sharpened wires entangled

a tangle crossing room

Room glimmered

Glimmering as they hung

Hung as gossamer web

Webbing of some unseen spider

Spider was his name

Naming it made all the worse

Worst of all my heavy eyes

Eyes lolling to and fro

Forgetting my fear

Falling back

I scream

As the web ensares

Enmeshing with flesh

I bleed quickly

But not quick enough

Rope

Above the door

Chiseled roughly

A few words

“To appease Them what live below”

Coils wound round gears of wood

Pulling and groaning in protest

What was its purpose precisely?

I followed the hemp cordage

But always it moved farther

Deeper within the mill

Below the basement

Before reappearing

Now slick with something oily

And fatty in smell and feel

This mystifying contraption

This horrible machine

Ground away at something unseen

And just behind this noise

I was just cognizant of

A distant and harried cry

From those untouched depths

The sobs of a woman

The squeals of a pig

Melded and twisted

All I could think

Was the farmer’s words

“My wife’s the one

Who works the mill

I’ve not seen her

For a few nights now”

What had she wrought?

What had she aimed to mollify?

What in God’s name lay below us now?

Thumbnail Source: https://www.deviantart.com/4ddesigner/art/Old-mill-252991403

Crooked

It was built wrong

Not poorly constructed

Its angles were minatory

Malevolent

Something cruel

In the crossing of those lines

If a home has a soul

This one weighs heavy with sin

But this is a house

No one lives here

Could exist here

In this unheimlich domum

And yet

I call this my heart

The place I return to each day

And I patrol its halls alone

I would not inflict

Not force upon another human

This awful sight

This odd angled room

This crooked house

Mirrors

My head is swimming

Swirling fever high

Eyes lolling tilting

Shifting with the floor

Staggered steps lead out

Slippered not slipping

Into the bathroom

I grip counter

And shake my head

My body shakes

Slowly I look up

Meeting my bloodshot gaze

I smile despite myself

Toothy and glib

What do I have to smile about

I’m not smiling at all

The fever dream feel of it

Subsumes my senses

I begin to talk

“Let it take you

Let the fever consume you

A fire within

Burning away your mind

The doctor’s far too expensive

And really what could he do?”

I nod slowly

And my reflection nods with me

A Nicholson like grin

Stretching cheeks and skin

I lower my head in the sink

And turn on the water

I’ll feel fine

Tomorrow

Dolls

A standing layer of dust

Covered every inch

Of every surface

And as I perused slowly

The smell curled and soured

The scent of abandonment

I ran a finger over glass

Cabinets laden with antiques

The dust piling under my touch

Something stirred within

I stopped

And leaned in close

Porcelain placid face

Stared out at me

Hand held up

And beckoning

Then her mouth

Twisted slowly

Into smile

Teeth shimmering in the dark

Human teeth

Children’s teeth…

I should have ran

But I stood

Frozen by fear

As the doll stood up

Pressing forehead to glass

A crack appeared

Down its head

Slowly spreading

Then opening

The jagged edges

Lined with yet more teeth

And within

Something fleshy

And quick

Pressed into the glass

Sucking

Needy

Hungry

I awoke screaming

On the floor

Of that self same shop

And readied myself

For yet one more pass

The fear repeating over again

Just as acute

Just as sharp

Silent

The books were lined perfectly along their shelves

Battlements of knowledge

An army of thoughts

I eased my way between the stacks

Careful with each footfall

Paying heed the warnings given

“Oh sure plenty of value to be found there

In thought or coin the library’s a trove

Though…

You must be quiet…”

I slid past adult fiction

Approaching the archive and rare books

I held my backpack before me

Hands gripping the tools within tight

No jingle or rattle would I allow escape

The cabinet stood before me

Cracked leather spines

Cloth worn down to wood

Each one worth enough to feed me for months

Gently I set the backpack down

Undoing the strap which held it closed

I lifted from within my lock pick set

With nimble fingers I tested the size of the lock and tumblers within

When satisfied I began gently lifting and testing each one

Finding the order in which to move them

And the height at which they caught

A smile broke over my face

As I managed the final tumbler

Slowly

Carefully

I turned the lock

Then

click

It turned and opened for me

I had a sack within my backpack

Which I then pulled out

And with greatest care

Lowered the tomes within

A bible

Illuminated and gilded

A Tree of Codes

Barely held together

On the Origin of Species

Signed too infact

creeeeak

Behind me

I didn’t look

I simply grabbed my bag

And ran

Ran with all my might

Behind me something hissed

Serpentine

But footfalls crashed as it followed

Barreling ever closer

I felt the breath

Its labored heat

The doors but feet away

The moment I passed the threshold

The sound stopped

Replaced instead

By churring crickets

And a gentle breeze

Which were quick drowned out

By my own panting

Keeled over

And clutching my books

Months of food

Waiting to be traded

Thumbnail Source: https://andriishafetov.artstation.com/projects/Pe6bZ

Water

He was a sailor

Debonair and beguiling

All crisp lines and square jaw

All ladies fell for him

I fell alike

He would never shoot me

Even the side longest of glances

I found myself lost in the crowd

His pure apathy

No rejection

Mere refusal of existence

Drove me to it

To that most desperate of actions

Cliffs bare

Waves wide

I fell

He never knew

Away he went atop the ocean

That bore my body

And one night a storm struck

With all the fury my despair might muster

The waves washed over him

Pulling him overboard

And I

I was waiting

Far below

Dirt

I stretched my toes

Feeling the soil spread beneath them

Slowly I closed my eyes

Easing a breath from my lungs

Was I truly ready for what I’d find?

For what it would show me?

But no one could truly be prepared

I knelt and with a black bladed knife

Carved an eye into the dirt

Then pressed the point of the dagger into my thumb

dripping a few drops of scarlet blood upon the mound

The frimament began to shift

Quaking in excitement as a low rumbling took up

Then the eye I had drawn

Blinked

As it opened the loam fell away

Down into the earth

I lowered my face to this hole

And stared back into the eye

Black nothing greeting me

Then a distant light

Sparkling

Shimmering in the dim

It was magnificent

Horrible

Awful

Terrible

Everything which had died

Or will die

The churning mass of souls

Which comprised the earth

The lives we walked upon daily

Without thought

They looked up at me

And screamed their truth

“The final life

The ultimate form

Of all that is

Or shall be

Is simply the dirt

And that which lives within”