L’Appel Du Vide
there’s nothing more powerful than a whisper.
a fragment of a sound
swept from the deep on an updraft that
sends dead leaves scattering with the same hollow rasp of
decaying wood, rusted gates, old bones,
reverberations akin to the cemetery,
reminding you that initiation into
that interminate slumber is imminent.
and wouldn’t it be so easy to succumb,
become the next name on carved granite,
the next mahogany box to be enveloped by earth’s embrace,
the next memory behind teardrops mingling among
morning dew on the trodden-down grass and wilting flowers?
wouldn’t it be so easy to listen to that whisper,
now creeping in tendrils, unfurling
velvety caresses of shadows that settle under
your eyes and drape over your body
in a permanent veil to cast the world in darkness,
a mock shield that sends its own venom seeping into your skin
little by little until it takes root in your flesh,
until your veins become a highway and your heart a home
for the poison that erodes the essence of your being,
and crumbles your resistance into sand.
that whisper, tantalizing whisper,
swells into storm surges that pummel your defiant cliffs
until they are crushed beneath an onslaught of criticism,
spewing words that swarm your mind in a
chaotic buzz of screaming static,
pounding through your bones,
rattling your teeth, your brain within your skull,
and prying apart your willpower splinter by splinter
to wrench your feet ever closer to the precipice,
a ruthless puppeteer jerking at your strings,
pulling only harder as they begin to snap one by one
and the fight in your limbs collapse
into flimsy, inoperative exhaustion.
there’s nothing more powerful than a whisper,
nothing more tempting, more enticing, more compelling
than the clawed hands with a honey-sweet voice one minute
and a vicious shriek the next
beckoning you to the edge.
and there’s nothing more tragic
than when your soul caves in,
and you take that step
to answer the call,
and fall.
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The title refers to a french phrase meaning "call of the void", aka that moment when you stand somewhere high and your brain tells you jumping off would be pretty fun