Chapter V: Aphotic Poets

08/10/2026

Chapter V: Aphotic Poets

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08/09/2026

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08/09/2026

Still I Rise From Not Being Buried

I.
They dug the hole before I'd stopped my breathing,
they measured me for boxes made of pine,
and still my heart, uneven, kept on beating
a rhythm that refused to toe their line.

II.
The vultures came before the frost had settled,
they circled low and counted out my days,
their shadows on the earth grew sharp and metaled,
their patience thin as smoke through winter haze.

III.
I heard them whisper *she is out of hours*,
I heard the dirt begin to test its hold,
but something in my chest, beneath the flowers,
kept beating warmer than the ground was cold.

IV.
They drove the final nail with practiced fingers,
they nailed it certain, sure I'd stay laid down,
but nails don't hold what refuses to linger
beneath a weight it never learned to crown.

V.
I felt the terror first, before the fury,
a cold that climbed up every rung of spine,
the kind of fear that makes the dark a jury,
the kind that whispers *this grave, too, is thine*.

VI.
But roots don't ask the soil for permission,
they push through stone the way a scream breaks glass,
and mine went deeper than their cold suspicion,
too deep to reach, too old, too slow to pass.

VII.
The crows above rehearsed their old refrain,
a hymn for something they were sure was ending,
but every note that dropped into the rain
found me still breathing, terrified, unbending.

VIII.
I called out once into the dark for angels,
I did not know if anything would hear,
but something answered from the strange, tangled
silence — not a voice, but something near.

IX.
It didn't promise safety from the burying,
it only said the ground was not the end,
that fear and rising were not contrary,
that terror, too, could walk beside a friend.

X.
The stone above me shifted, cracked, uncertain,
the dirt let loose a breath it didn't mean,
and through the black, the thinnest fray of curtain
let through a light too pale to call it clean.

XI.
I clawed my way through terror, not despite it,
my hands still shaking, knuckles raw and pale,
I did not have to conquer it to fight it—
I only had to move despite the wail.

XII.
The vultures shrieked to see the ground start heaving,
they hadn't planned on hunger meeting bone
that still had fight left in it, still believing
the grave was not the only throne I'd own.

XIII.
I rose up bone by bone, a slow rebuilding,
each vertebra a small, defiant vow,
the architecture of myself, ungilded,
climbing upward through the here and now.

XIV.
They said the final nail had sealed my story,
they said the dirt had settled, closed, and done,
but stories don't obey the territory
of those who never watched me learn to run.

XV.
I wore my fear the way a queen wears mourning,
not hidden, but a color I could hold,
and every shaking step became a warning
that terror doesn't have to leave you cold.

XVI.
The graveyard gates groaned open at my walking,
the iron rusted, protest in its hinge,
and every headstone near me started talking
in whispers thin as candle-flame's last fringe.

XVII.
*She isn't meant to rise*, the old stones muttered,
*the ground was made to hold what's meant to stay*,
but something in my chest, still scared, still stuttered
back a single word, and that word was *stay* — no. *Rise.*

XVIII.
I climbed past headstones bearing names I'd carried,
past versions of myself I'd left below,
each one a self that fear had nearly buried,
each one a ghost that taught me how to grow.

XIX.
The vultures circled lower, hungrier, closer,
their whispers turned to shrieking in the wind,
but every wingbeat only proved they'd chosen
a fight with someone who would not rescind.

XX.
I did not rise unbroken, let me say it,
the cracks still show in every step I take,
but broken things can still refuse to lay flat
beneath the weight the darkness meant to make.

XXI.
The fire found my feet the way they warned me,
it licked the hem of everything I wore,
but I had learned that fire doesn't own me
just for the marks it's left on what I bore.

XXII.
I stood atop the mound they'd built to bury
the girl they thought would never learn to stand,
and though my hands still shook, still cold, still wary,
I raised them open toward the dark, unmanned.

XXIII.
The crows fell silent, one by one, unsteady,
the vultures scattered from the rising sun,
and something ancient, watching, called me ready—
not fearless, only fierce, and still, and one.

XXIV.
This is no accident, no trick of shadow,
no mercy that the ground decided to lend,
I climbed because the terror in the marrow
never once convinced me it should win.

XXV.
So let them dig, let every nail be hammered,
let every vulture circle, wait, and stare—
I rise up shaking, terrified, and stammered,
but I still rise, and still, I will be there.

©2026 Chapter V: Aphotic Poets R. Cain Vesper X. Triston Cravencroft C.L. Andistein AC VILL R.A. Venn Triston Vespertine Mason AJ Monsignore

08/09/2026

VENTING OUT THE DEMON!

I.
There is a name carved on a stone somewhere
that matches mine in every curling letter,
and no one living seems to know or care
that I have never felt like its own debtor.

II.
I woke one night and did not know my hands,
they moved like someone else's borrowed glove,
and something ancient, patient, understands
a truth I never asked to hear enough.

III.
The photographs upon the wall have shifted,
the eyes in each one watching something new,
as if the frame itself has softly drifted
toward a version of myself I never knew.

IV.
I hear my footsteps echo half a second
too late behind the ones I think I've made,
as if another version, quiet, beckoned,
is walking through the life that I have laid.

V.
The graveyard down the lane has grown a marker
with dates that end before I learned to speak,
and though the letters blur beneath the dark, the
name upon it makes my knees go weak.

VI.
I do not recognize the girl in mirrors,
her eyes are mine, but older, colder, thinned,
she moves a half-beat slow, as if the years
between us were a door I never pinned.

VII.
The house remembers rooms I've never entered,
it hums with footsteps down a hall I've missed,
and every wall, uneven and off-centered,
holds shadows of a self that might exist.

VIII.
I feel a second heartbeat under mine,
a slower one, patient, keeping time,
as if my chest was built to house a shrine
for someone buried long before their prime.

IX.
The voice that answers when I speak my name
comes half a breath before my mouth can move,
as if some older version, dressed in flame,
has learned my language better than I could prove.

X.
I've found initials carved in ancient wood
that match my own, though I have never carved,
and something in my chest says that I should
remember why the letters look so starved.

XI.
The dreams I have are full of rooms I've wandered,
though waking life has never let me in,
and every hallway, dust-thick and unlaundered,
feels like a place I've lived before my skin.

XII.
I catch my shadow moving wrong at twilight,
it turns before my body starts to lean,
as if it knows a self I've lost the right
to claim, a self still haunting in between.

XIII.
The church bells ring a hymn I've never wanted,
yet every note sits familiar on my tongue,
as if some older self, long dead and haunted,
had learned this song before my life was young.

XIV.
I find my handwriting has slowly altered,
the letters lean a way I never taught,
as if another hand, one that has faltered,
is bleeding through the paper that I've bought.

XV.
There is a portrait in the attic, dust-worn,
its eyes have followed me since I was small,
and though the artist's name has long been lost-born,
the face upon it wears my own, and all.

XVI.
I've heard my name called out from empty gardens
in voices pitched too old to be my own,
as if some earlier self, denied its pardons,
still wanders where its second life has grown.

XVII.
The clock upstairs keeps losing hours nightly,
it stutters back to years I've never lived,
and every tick, uneven and unsightly,
counts down a debt some other self must give.

XVIII.
I feel a coldness settle where I'm standing,
as if a grave were dug beneath my feet,
and something old, patient, understanding,
is waiting there for both of us to meet.

XIX.
The letters that I write dissolve to strangers,
they carry thoughts I don't recall composing,
as if my hand was borrowed by the changers
of names, the quiet architects of losing.

XX.
I've started counting scars I don't remember,
each one a story someone else has lived,
as if my body kept a whole December
of winters that I never quite forgave.

XXI.
The dead down in the churchyard seem to murmur
a name that sounds too close to be denied,
and every headstone, crooked, growing firmer,
seems to be waiting with the ground beside.

XXII.
I do not know which version wakes tomorrow,
the one who's spoken, or the one who's still,
and in the space between, a quiet sorrow
waits patient at the bottom of the hill.

XXIII.
Perhaps I am the ghost and don't yet know it,
perhaps the girl in mirrors is the true,
and every day I live, I merely loan it
from someone buried closer than I knew.

XXIV.
So when the wind says softly through the hollow
a name half-mine, half-someone else's plea,
I do not know which one of us will follow
the one who's haunted, or the haunting, into me.

©2026 AC VILL R. Cain Vesper Triston Vespertine R.A. Venn Chapter V: Aphotic Poets

08/09/2026

Dark Therapy Tactics to Me

I.
There is a voice that plays the doctor's part,
it wears a coat of shadow, stitched with lies,
it takes its seat inside the empty chart
and reads my faults back dressed as good advice.

II.
"Sit still," it says, "and let me diagnose
the rot that no one living wants to see,"
and every word it speaks, it softly grows
another room inside the house of me.

III.
It keeps a couch of thorns beneath the ribs,
it bids me lie there, open, unrehearsed,
it strips away the comfort language cribs
and calls the wound a lesson, calls it first.

IV.
It holds a lantern up to every scar,
not to heal them, only to admire,
it says "come closer, you're not gone that far,"
while quietly it's fanning at the fire.

V.
Its questions never come to bring me peace,
they come like scalpels, curious and slow,
"why do you flinch," "why won't the aching cease,"
as if the asking wasn't meant to grow.

VI.
It calls itself my oldest, closest friend,
it knows my history better than I do,
it promises this session has no end,
it never lets the appointment through.

VII.
I've sat here since I learned to understand
the weight of quiet rooms and closer walls,
it takes my pulse with a familiar hand
and notes each time my quiet voice recalls.

VIII.
"You are the patient and you are the cure,"
it tells me, splitting me in two again,
"you are the wound that no one can secure,
and you're the only doctor who's still in."

IX.
It hands me mirrors labeled *evidence*,
each one reflecting only what it wants,
it calls my grief a kind of common sense
and calls my hope the symptom that it haunts.

X.
It never raises voice, it never shouts,
it whispers low, the way a hymn is sung,
it plants its slow, deliberate seeds of doubt
in every quiet hour, every rung.

XI.
It keeps a file thick with old confessions,
it reads them back when I begin to heal,
it interrupts my hard-won small progressions
with reasons why the wound should still feel real.

XII.
"Relapse," it calls the moments I forgive
myself for simply being tired, unwell,
it frames each rest as something I don't live
up to, another quiet way to dwell.

XIII.
It offers exercises made of mirrors,
it has me count each flaw out one by one,
it dresses shame in kindly worded tears
and calls the counting something to be done.

XIV.
I've learned its office better than my own,
the flicker of its single, dying bulb,
the way its silence settles in my bone
like something patient, waiting to engulf.

XV.
It never diagnoses me as well,
it never lets the session reach an end,
it keeps the door propped open just to tell
me it's the only room I can attend.

XVI.
But somewhere in the corner of this place,
behind the couch of thorns, the mirrored wall,
there is a window it forgot to face,
still showing weather far beyond it all.

XVII.
I've started noticing the cracks in ceiling,
the way the plaster lets a little through,
a thread of something bright and unconcealing
that isn't part of what the shadow drew.

XVIII.
It doesn't like when I begin to question
the framework of the room it built for me,
it stutters when I voice a new suggestion—
that maybe I don't owe it my degree.

XIX.
"You need me," it insists, a little louder,
"who else will hold the weight of what you've done,"
but even shadows fray when light comes prouder,
and even ancient rooms can lose their sun.

XX.
I've started keeping notes of my own choosing,
small proof against the case it likes to build,
each one a door that isn't built for losing,
each one a room the dark has never filled.

XXI.
It tells me kindness is a kind of weakness,
that softness never earned a single cure,
but I have learned the difference in the bleakness
between what's true and what it wants me sure.

XXII.
Some nights it's louder, some nights it retreats,
it does not leave for good, I won't pretend,
but I have learned to sit through its deceits
and wait it out until the session ends.

XXIII.
It calls itself my therapist, my keeper,
it says it knows the depths I can't survive,
but I am not the patient of this reaper—
I am the one still choosing to arrive.

XXIV.
I've started answering its every question
with softer truths it didn't teach me first,
"I'm tired" instead of shame, instead of lesson,
"I'm trying" answered plainly, unrehearsed.

XXV.
It doesn't like the way I've started speaking
in sentences it didn't get to write,
it feels its old foundation slowly leaking
each time I choose the window for the night.

XXVI.
I light a second lamp beside its lantern,
not to fight the dark it likes to keep,
but just to see the room a little pattern-
ed different than the one it wants to reap.

XXVII.
It's not gone. I won't tell you it is over.
Some rooms don't clear out in a single verse.
But I have learned to be my own discoverer
of what in me deserves and what is worse.

XXVIII.
So when it takes its seat and starts its session,
I let it speak, but I don't sign the form,
I've learned that naming is not a confession—
it's just the shape I give the passing storm.

XXIX.
The couch of thorns still sits here, still remaining,
the mirrors still reflect what they were told,
but I've begun the long, uneven training
of choosing warmth on days when I feel cold.

###.
So this is not a cure, and not a mending,
just a page to hold what circles in my chest—
a shadow-therapist whose hold is bending
each time I write it down instead of guessed.

©2026 R.A. Venn R. Cain Vesper AC VILL C.L. Andistein

08/09/2026

No Sympathy for the Devil

I.
He comes dressed soft, in velvet made of ruin,
a gentleman with cinders for a smile,
he speaks in tones designed for my undoing
and waits for me to falter for a while.

II.
He knocks the way the wind knocks, patient, endless,
he tries the hinges of the oldest door,
but I have made this house a thing defenseless
no more to those who've broken it before.

III.
He offers gifts wrapped tight in golden paper,
each one a debt disguised as something free,
but I have learned to read the fine, black taper
of ink that spells out what he takes from me.

IV.
His eyes are coals that never learned to flicker,
they watch me steady, waiting for a crack,
but I have built my walls a little thicker
than any flame he's ever hurled at back.

V.
He calls my name in voices I remember,
he borrows those I loved to make it hurt,
but grief is not a door, and no ember
can wear a face and call itself the dirt.

VI.
He tells me I was carved for his possession,
that every vein was drawn to be his own,
but I was never his to make confession—
I am the only ruler of this throne.

VII.
He slithers into corners I forget to close,
he tests each window, presses every seam,
but every crack he finds, I've learned, he knows
will never be the door into my dream.

VIII.
His hunger has no bottom, no horizon,
it eats the light and calls the eating fair,
but I have kept a flame he hasn't risen
above, however long he's lingered there.

IX.
He wears my sorrow like a coat of feathers,
he preens it, struts it, calls it beautiful,
but I have learned my grief in colder weathers—
it's mine to carry, mine, not dutiful.

X.
He promises the quiet no one gives me,
he says surrender is the softest bed,
but I have felt the quiet that forgives me
in mornings he has never claimed or bled.

XI.
His shadow stretches long across my ceiling,
it tries to fold itself around my spine,
but I have felt the difference in the feeling
of what is borrowed and of what is mine.

XII.
He hums a hymn of things he'll never give me,
a lullaby of chains dressed up as rest,
but I have found a song that doesn't grieve me
and sing it louder than his interest.

XIII.
He says the dark and I were always kindred,
that I was carved to wear his old design,
but I have counted every year I've weathered
and none of them belong to him, or shrine.

XIV.
He reaches out with fingers made of embers,
he tests the air an inch above my skin,
but I remember what the light remembers—
I do not have to let the dark come in.

XV.
His voice can shake the rafters when it's angry,
it rattles every window, every pane,
but I have stood through storms far more contrary
than any tantrum thrown from his domain.

XVI.
He tells me every soul he's met has faltered,
that I am no exception to his rule,
but I have watched his story go unaltered
too many times to think that I'm his fool.

XVII.
He circles like a wolf too proud to hunger,
he waits for weakness dressed as a decline,
but I've grown roots, and roots don't break much younger
than storms that only think themselves divine.

XVIII.
He offers power carved from my surrender,
he calls it strength to kneel before his name,
but I have found my strength does not need splendor
borrowed from a throne that feeds on flame.

XIX.
He says that I'll come crawling back by morning,
that no one stands this long against his pull,
but I have felt the dawn's slow, quiet warning
that I am something he can't ever cull.

XX.
His laughter cracks like thunder through the hollow,
he means for it to hollow out my chest,
but I have learned the sound of things I follow,
and his is not the voice I've come to trust.

XXI.
He reaches for the door one final hour,
he presses hard against the oldest lock,
but I have built this house from something ours—
not fear, not flame, but something he can't mock.

XXII.
So let him circle, let him rage and wander,
let every shadow bend beneath his weight,
I will not burn the way he wants, nor squander
the only soul I've fought this long to keep.

XXIII.
No sympathy, no door, no room to enter,
no throne for him inside this beating chest,
he is a storm that circles at the center
of a house that stands, unbroken, and possessed
by no one but the one who chose to stay.

©2026 C.L. Andistein AC VILL Mason AJ Monsignore R. Cain Vesper

08/08/2026

In Me Is the Devil

I.
There is a hunger coiled beneath my ribs,
a red and patient thing that never sleeps,
it waits inside the cage my body cribs
and licks its teeth at everything it keeps.

II.
I did not invite it, yet it came,
it slid in soft as smoke through half-closed doors,
and now it answers when they call my name,
a voice that isn't mine, and yet it's mine, and roars.

III.
It knows my mother's face, my father's hands,
it wears my history like borrowed skin,
it walks through every room where I once stand
and leaves its fingerprints on everything within.

IV.
My blood runs warmer than it used to run,
it simmers low, a coal beneath the frost,
and something ancient, laughing, has begun
to count the pieces of me it has cost.

V.
I've felt its horns push soft against my temple,
a pressure building underneath the bone,
and in the mirror, watching me is simple—
it wears my eyes but sits upon my throne.

VI.
It speaks in whispers laced with honeyed venom,
it tells me truths I never asked to know,
it opens up the door to my own denim
soul and shows me everywhere I go.

VII.
There is a garden rotting in my chest,
its roots wrapped tight around my beating heart,
and every bloom, black-petaled, does its best
to choke the little light I kept apart.

VIII.
I feel its claws when anger starts to gather,
they curl around my voice and pull it low,
and every word I speak becomes a lather
of something darker than I meant to show.

IX.
It knows my shame the way a priest knows sinning,
it catalogs each one with careful glee,
it keeps a ledger of my every beginning
and marks the debts that I can never see.

X.
At night it presses close against my spine,
a second spine, a shadow-self entwined,
and in the dark I cannot draw the line
between the one who's cruel and one who's kind.

XI.
It wears my smile when I greet the living,
it borrows warmth to make its coldness pass,
and no one sees the debt that I am giving
each time it looks at them through borrowed glass.

XII.
My hands have learned to shake when it grows hungry,
my jaw has learned to clench around its name,
and every joint feels stretched and strange and jungle-
thick with something wild I cannot tame.

XIII.
It tells me I was always meant to hold it,
that we were forged together, bone and fire,
and every doubt I've ever had, it's told it
back to me disguised as my desire.

XIV.
I've seen its shadow stretch across the ceiling,
long-limbed and patient, waiting for the dark,
and in that shape I've felt the strange, appealing
pull of something closer than a spark.

XV.
It laughs behind my laughter, low and knowing,
it weeps behind my weeping, cruel and thin,
and every current of my blood keeps flowing
straight into the chambers it lives in.

XVI.
There is a war fought nightly in my marrow,
no army, just the two of us, alone,
and every morning leaves the field more narrow,
more of it standing, less of me my own.

XVII.
It wears no chains, for chains were never fitted,
it came in unrestrained and unrefused,
and every door I thought I'd firmly bitted
was opened by the part of me it used.

XVIII.
I've begged it once to leave and let me settle,
it answered with a silence loud as flame,
for it was never made of common metal—
it's woven through the fabric of my name.

XIX.
It knows the words that make my hands go colder,
it knows the ghosts that live behind my teeth,
and every year it presses on my shoulder
a little heavier, a little underneath.

XX.
Yet still I rise each morning, still I'm breathing,
still something in me argues with the dark,
a small, defiant ember, still believing
that I am more than just its borrowed spark.

XXI.
For if the devil lives inside my chapters,
he is not the only tenant in this hall—
there's still the part of me that never scatters,
that holds the door and will not let it fall.

XXII.
So let it curl and claim its throne of ember,
let it whisper every hour it can find,
I will not hand it all that I remember—
some rooms in me it's never going to bind.

XXIII.
In me is the devil, this is true,
but in me too, unyielding, still there stands
a quieter thing the darkness never knew—
the part of me still reaching toward the light with open hands.

©2026 Chapter V: Aphotic Poets Triston Vespertine X. Triston Cravencroft

08/08/2026

Barely Above Hell

I.
There is a floor so thin it hums with fire,
a membrane stretched between the world and pit,
where every step sinks closer to the pyre
and every breath tastes faintly of the lit.

II.
The air down here is thick as boiled marrow,
it clings to skin and settles in the lungs,
and through the smoke, a red and narrow harrow
drags furrows deep with unforgiving tongues.

III.
The walls are ribs of something vast and rotted,
they pulse in time with drums no ear can place,
and every surface, cracked and ember-spotted,
was once, perhaps, a saint's forgotten face.

IV.
Below the floor the river runs in embers,
it carries bones like driftwood, charred and bare,
and in its glow, a thousand black Decembers
are boiling slow within its molten glare.

V.
The ceiling drips a rain that isn't water,
it hisses where it lands and eats the stone,
and something in the dark, some ancient slaughter,
still turns its wheel and grinds the dark alone.

VI.
I've heard the doors down here have learned to swallow
the names of those who dare to knock too long,
and in the halls, a chorus thin and hollow
still hums the shape of some forgotten song.

VII.
The gates ahead are forged from broken praying,
each bar a vow that someone failed to keep,
and past them, shapes with too much time for staying
crawl through the ash in circles, slow and deep.

VIII.
The throne room burns but never turns to ashes,
it feeds itself on every lie it's told,
and from its cracks a hundred crimson lashes
reach up to claim the warmth of things grown cold.

IX.
The mirrors here reflect what isn't standing,
they show the shapes of sins still dressed in skin,
and every glass, cracked, patient, understanding,
waits for the ones who'll finally walk in.

X.
The gardens bloom in colors made of screaming,
each petal soft with someone's final breath,
and nothing there was ever meant for dreaming—
just roots that drink the marrow-wine of death.

XI.
The staircase down has counted every falling,
a thousand steps that never reach the floor,
and far below, a voice keeps softly calling
a name that no one answers anymore.

XII.
The forge below is stoked with hollow chances,
it hammers out the shapes of old regret,
and every spark that leaps and briefly dances
is one more debt that no one's paid off yet.

XIII.
The chandeliers are hung with something breathing,
they sway on chains of tendon, thin and taut,
and in their light, the shadows keep on weaving
the names of every soul the dark has caught.

XIV.
The banquet hall is set for guests unending,
the plates are carved from bone still faintly warm,
and every chair, in silence, keeps pretending
it hasn't held a thousand years of storm.

XV.
The choir sings in registers of burning,
their throats are lined with coal and broken glass,
and every hymn's a wheel forever turning
the ones who dared to look too long, too fast.

XVI.
The library holds books that write themselves in,
each page a sin confessing to the flame,
and every spine, cracked open, starts to delve in
the weight of every unforgiven name.

XVII.
The windows show a world still bright and living,
just close enough to touch, too far to hold,
and every pane, unbreakable, unforgiving,
keeps warm what's lost and burns what once was cold.

XVIII.
The floor grows thinner nearer to the ceiling,
the line between the two a trembling thread,
and something down below, patient, unreeling,
waits soft and certain for the overhead.

XIX.
I stand upon the last unbroken rafter,
the heat climbs up in slow, deliberate waves,
and far beneath, a low and ancient laughter
counts every step still standing from the graves.

XX.
So this is where the living lean the closest,
barely above the reaching, hungry deep—
one board, one breath, one thread still holds the ghost as
the fire waits below, patient, to keep.

©2026 Chapter V: Aphotic Poets

08/08/2026

Preparing The Day I Go (Away)

I.
I fold my shirts the way the dead are folded,
arms crossed tight upon a silent chest,
and in the drawer where secrets have been molded,
I lay myself to rest before the rest.

II.
The clock upstairs has learned to count in whispers,
each tick a nail driven soft and slow,
and something in the walls has turned to vespers,
chanting hymns that only shadows know.

III.
I polish shoes I'll never wear tomorrow,
I comb a coat that hangs like grief on wire,
I pack a case of unaddressed sorrow
and set it by a door that won't catch fire.

IV.
The mirror cracks a little more each morning,
a spiderweb of silver in the glass,
and in its shards I catch the faint, cold warning
of someone waving as I start to pass.

V.
I write my name in dust upon the table,
I watch it hover, then begin to fade,
and something underneath the floor, unstable,
knocks twice for every promise I have made.

VI.
The candles gutter though there is no drafting,
the wax runs down like tears no eye has cried,
and in the smoke I see a shape it's crafting—
a face I wore before I learned to hide.

VII.
I count the stairs the way the damned count sinning,
thirteen down to where the cellar waits,
and something in the dark has just stopped grinning
long enough to hold the rusted gates.

VIII.
The letters that I've written stay unposted,
they curl like leaves against the frozen pane,
and every word I meant to leave, engrossed, did
nothing but invite the coming rain.

IX.
I hear my breath grow thinner than a rumor,
I hear the house exhale the air I lose,
and something with a cold, amused good humor
is trying on my shadow like new shoes.

X.
I set my watch to hours no one's counted,
I let the hands spin backward, wild, unbound,
and far below, a door that once was mounted
creaks open on a room with no floor found.

XI.
The portraits in the hall have turned their faces,
they will not watch the last walk that I take,
and in between their gilded, empty spaces
something breathes for every step I make.

XII.
I leave a single key upon the pillow,
in case the ones who find me need a way,
though what waits underneath this house, this willow,
was never meant to let in light of day.

XIII.
I hear the floorboards learning how to swallow,
they pull my footsteps deeper than they've been,
and in the walls a voice, both thin and hollow,
begins to hum a hymn I've never seen.

XIV.
I pack no food, for hunger's not the trouble,
I pack no water, thirst has lost its claim,
I only pack the pieces of the rubble
that used to hold together something's name.

XV.
The wind outside is learning how to argue
with branches scratching messages in code,
and something patient, ancient, come to harbor,
is waiting warm beneath the frozen road.

XVI.
I do not scream, though something wants the screaming,
it wants the sound to travel through the vents,
but I have learned that silence stops the dreaming
of things that live on fear and its descents.

XVII.
The final page I write, I write in shadow,
the ink runs black as rivers underground,
and somewhere close, a garden, cold and fallow,
is opening its mouth without a sound.

XVIII.
I feel the house begin to hold me tighter,
the way a coffin holds what it must keep,
and something old, something far brighter,
is singing me the lullaby of sleep.

XIX.
I do not know which door will be the ending,
I only know that all of them lead down,
and something in the dark, so unrelenting,
has been preparing long before the gown.

XX.
So here I stand, prepared, though never ready,
the house exhales, the candles bow their heads—
and somewhere far below, both cold and steady,
a hand reaches up from all the waiting dead.

©2026 Chapter V: Aphotic Poets