80 Proof Ocean

Darkness falls upon this bleak, enveloped estate;

I stare into its blackened antiquity and wait.

Silence is stifling the howling wind at my back;

With emptiness, it echoes upon the ivory black.

Again,

...distress interrupts the whispered still of the night

From beyond the unhinged door, to offer its invite.

“Oh, save me!” sounds a plea, a child calls from the debris

As I rush to find and set him free, whatever is his plight.

Tearing through the wreckage, exploring every nook,

His cry resounding louder, upon no visage do I look.

With dead and smiling faces underneath the cracked floorboards,

There’s no quarter here for children, nor their restless souls.

In sudden, am I felled by the flooding rapids of death,

Torrentially engulfed, I cherish my last breath.

“Oh, save me!” I sound a plea as but a child in a toxic sea:

“Someone please set me free”, in swifter currents am I arrest.

Light shines deep beneath me, a faint glimmer at first.

Then it glows blindingly, for its warmth I begin to thirst.

I swim the chilling shadow, leave that wretched place behind,

For miles washed asunder, unbeknownst of what I’d find.

Again in anxious beckoning, for the last time he implores.

The lonesome deathly child beseeches me all the more.

“Oh, save me,” I hear his plea, and answer it belatedly:

“Lay your head and rest in peace”, and drew breath like I hadn’t afore.