I slipped beyond sleep’s fragile veil,
Where forgotten phantoms and nightbirds wail.
The mattress split, the floor beneath me yawned,
A dark void opened where nightmares are spawned.

The stars bled ash, a storm of searing flame,
Each tree bent low and hissed my name.
A moon hung low, its visage cracked,
Its grin froze time—no turning back.

Shaped from shadows of forsaken things,
A demon unfurled its tattered wings.
Eyes like embers, seething, burning slow,
Concealing secrets no mortal dares know.

The demon turned with dreadful calm intent,
Its gaze a nightmarish, mournful lament.
A rasp escaped, a rift of broken tone,
My blood ran cold, to marrow and bone.

It spoke: “Why seek the rot where silence feeds?
Where sorrow coils through venomed reeds?
The knowledge hungers—gnaws, decays—
It drags the soul through endless maze.”

I asked the demon, “What price is hope?
In endless night, how does one cope?
When darkness swallows our final breath,
What solace lingers past the edge of death?”

It laughed—the echo of splintering glass:
“Hope is a void, a ruinous trespass.
It shines no light, it burns no path—
It only mocks with hollow wrath.”

You flee from truth as senses start to slip:
Condemned to dwell in denial’s vice-like grip.
No savior comes, no dawn ascends—
Only darkness that never ends.

So now I walk the dreamer’s grave,
A soul once free, now death’s own slave.
The secret held, the truth hard won—
Is that the nightmare’s never done.

Each night I spread these ragged wings,
And guard the dark where silence sings.
For I have become the haunting part—
A demon born within my heart.