The Abyssal Maw

From darkness it rises,

All enveloping

Twin crescent pools of pitiless silver

That rest

Above an Abyssal Maw;

Needles and knives shift along

Chitin and bone,

Set deep back into a skull

Like so many men past

After years of six-deep rest.

The moons judge

Quivering yet unwavering

Seeking an answer to a question

Not yet asked.

The skull drifts closer, slinking along the warm current

A curtain of shimmering hair hovering silently in it’s wake.

The Abyssal Maw widens,

Teeth pulling back as the jaw creaks

A silent scream echoes through the water

The question now asked,

I try and find the words to reply.

The Abyssal Maw drifts ever closer,

A sinuous body of dreadful scale

And hardened bone that

Lazily

Push it ever closer to me.

Closer to an answer I do not have.

This flower of the macabre is now close enough

For the moons to be mirrors

Showing me what I truly am

And for what I can be.

I have my answer, as does it.

If by the way the head rears back

Into a cloud of beauty can show me.

Like an arrow fired

Into a starless

Sky

The Abyssal Maw darts away into

The

Void

A rush of warmth

And shame

Washing over me

As I watch it swim away

The Abyssal Maw

A creature as old as it

Is young

Has judged me

And I have

Failed.