This my entry for the Day 17 Prompt of Bradley Ramsey’s The Halls of Pandemonium. I’ve been meaning to join in on this challenge for a while now and today’s body horror prompt about trauma manifesting physically was too hard to pass up. I’ve also made this entry extra special by adding my own voice over with music accompaniment. I would love to hear your thoughts.
A sharp edge against the inside of my throat, a knife begging to open me whole—to shred me apart from the inside, to covet my skin as their own. The bitterness of blood seeps into every corner of my mouth. Rolling over the tip of my tongue, it stains my white teeth.
Dark with crimson and so wet.
A growling appetite, whetted by its own threat.
Another cut, another gash.
Another.
And yet another.
Another still.
Forever, still.
Until it is nothing but ash.
A violent need to purge emerges. I must retch my own wretchedness, subdue what is brewing deep inside my veins, my viscera. But…my voice…
It cannot speak.
It is nothing but a whine, a pathetic rasp.
A sad grasp to heal what has already turned to gore.
Thorny vines undulate from within, crawling to curl around my lips, cutting daggers into the supple, the soft, the pink and the delicate. My flesh is now plagued with slashes.
I cannot breathe. Petals spew forth, causing me to choke on its soft, velvety touch. Vomiting velvet flowers, I stare down at all that has been lost. A withered mess, with nothing left.
Bruised Purple.
Flesh Pink.
Pearl White.
Blood Red.
All I see is The Blood Red.
Until I am sure I must be dead.
And yet, this corpse refuses to die. It marches on like a floral revenant that has grown to be quite comfortable among the dread. So that, even when the decayed flowers bloom from in between my thighs, the slices it leaves behind no longer elicit my cries.
Why bother?
When all was for naught?
When it feels doomed to be fraught?
My arm hovers like a lifeless thing being pulled by a string and I watch outside myself as vines worm and crawl underneath my skin.
I don’t bother ripping my flesh open to tear them out. Though I know that they are coiling my very innards as we speak, embracing me with their disgusting heat.
I don’t bother, because I no longer belong to myself.
At long last, that sad little desire to resist subsides. Rotting earth wraps its arms around my waist, pulling me back down into the ground. Looking up at the indigo sky, stars twinkle above to mock me with their distance. To be among them, to be floating, to be free, to bask in their radiant existence, is but a far-off dream not meant for me.
Vermin make my body their own. Maggots make a home out of the small crevice of my ears, flies buzz around my head forming a chorus of laughter.
Only a single tear manages to break free, to float towards that never-ending night sky, and as I lie and I lie and I lie, that drop of dew upon my rosy cheeks, shall act as my final form of speech.
For hereafter, my only worth belongs to the earth.
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If you enjoyed this gothic poem, check out some of my other ones:
oh this was such a beautiful read
The narration is amazing!! The words become even more beautiful, vivid, and touching.