Nightmare Parallax

I walk the halls where shadows cling
where nothing living stirs
The walls are wet with blackened veins
that pulse with broken words

Each step I take, the ground recoils
or is it I who shift?  
This place, alive with writhing thoughts
twists like a cosmic rift

A door appears, its frame a mouth
its teeth like jagged stone
It yawns, a breathless, deathless void
I enter, not alone

A figure stands, but lacks a face
its limbs a tangle, bare
It lifts its hand, but there’s no hand
just fingers made of air

It whispers truths I cannot hear
but still, I feel them creep  
along the edge of sanity
where reason comes to sleep

I turn, and find the walls are eyes
they blink with wet, black lids
Each gaze consumes the space between  
what is and what forbids  

The corridor goes deeper still
a spiral that unwinds
I see the bones of gods long dead
their names erased from minds

A pool of ichor floods the floor
it swallows every light
It reaches up, it calls my name
as though to claim my sight

The ichor speaks in burbling tones
I cannot understand
Its language pierces through my thoughts  
like fingers through the sand

Beyond the pool, a throne of flesh
where something vast has grown
It shifts and trembles, swollen, thick
its breath a tortured groan

Its eyes are stars, but blackened out
each blink a falling sky
I feel its hunger in my bones
it wants what I deny

I flee, but deeper still I fall  
into the palace’ grip
Each horror leaves a mark inside
a scar I cannot rip

The halls grow tighter, walls too close
they crush with every breath
The ichor spills, it fills my lungs
it tastes like endless death

I reach a door, or is it flesh?  
It shudders as I near
I touch its skin—it opens wide
and swallows all my fear

I’m through, but still, the halls go on
each step a darker curse
The horrors, endless in this place
are not the worst
  
The palace stands, the ichor flows
but nothing’s left to find
For all the horrors witnessed here
were only in my mind