Damned

The steps you tread take you further
Deeper underground
Daren't keep going but there's no turning back
The stairs cascade, spiralling down
Down, down, down into the gloom
The air burns and tears at your throat
The stench is fetid
So toxic but it cannot harm you
You pass beneath a gate of blackened steel
Upon it stands a guard of stone
Watched by still eyes
Unmoving yet restless
You know that you are seen
You are alone
Forced into solitude for your last crossing
Deceived by others' forked tongues
You have sunk into the wraithlike host
The embodiment of all that is wretched
The chains try to reach for you as you pass
You trudge through the soiled streets
The fumes washing over you
Caressing you
No more light
Only perpetual darkness
Devoid of the living, just the restless
Those that have lead you so far
Lie in wait, clinging to false courage
Failed by intellect and cunning
You approach the innermost citadel
A stronghold washed in crimson paint
And adorned in borrowed blood
Etchings of a lost history of myth and truth
Scraped onto the decay
It is here, amongst the disfigured statues
Within the biting cold that you spy the lost ones
Those that have wandered too far
Playing a melancholic melody to the prison
It is a dull score
Their voices meld with sorrow
The notes so grudgingly given
With demons screeching their hopeless cries
With foul oaths and obscenities
Beyond there lies a pool of wasted tears
For so many cry in face of such desperate desolation
Only to be met with sneers
And to be hunted by men with severe faces
You will try to evade their clutches
The whole damnation is a long cold night
Filled with an all-consuming corruption
That chills the soul
A disappointment that stings your face
As though it were but a harsh wind
Yet it will overcome you before the end
Your blood is but poison
Searing through your veins
Boiling with hellish fury
You are cast out
For infinity, for eternity
Turned over to devils for retribution
To repent your crimes
You reach for the consciousness that the waking world represents
But you cannot make it
You have surrendered and been sacrificed
You are to appease the hunger
The laughter shall scratch your heart
It shall mock you
You are condemned to a fate you cannot comprehend
You cannot understand
You are damned, dead; you are burning nerves
There is no end
It shall not change