The Hollow Crown

A shroud of silence wraps the world.    
Bones broken beneath the skin,    
each crack, a song of endings.    
The air, thick with decay,    
whispers secrets only the dead understand.    
   
Time, it bleeds into itself,    
dripping like tar onto the brittle earth.    
Every breath tastes of rot,    
every heartbeat stumbles,    
clawing toward an inevitable abyss.    
   
Eyes become empty doors,    
opening onto blackened fields    
where shadows linger,    
silent and watching,    
as if the void were their home.    
   
What is flesh but a cage,    
and the soul but a fleeting ember?    
Even light fears the grave,    
Its rays swallowed whole    
by the gaping jaws of nothingness.    
   
There is no reprieve,    
no salvation,    
only the cold certainty    
that all things end.    
And in that end,    
we are crowned with silence.