Beneath the Skin

There’s something writhing in the walls,

It slithers when the night turns black,

A scrape, a drag, a wet exhale,

And then it’s crawling back.

-

It knows the filth you bury deep,

It whispers every sin,

It drinks your dread in shallow gulps,

And digs beneath your skin.

-

Its hands are splintered, cracked with rot,

Its nails bite through your bone,

It waits beneath your sagging bed,

And hums a broken tone.

-

You think it’s gone—your breath goes still—

Until you hear it weep,

Its voice like shattered glass and oil,

That pulls you from your sleep.

-

It drags itself through hollow cracks,

Its limbs all wrong and thin,

It wears a rotting mask of you,

And grins an empty grin.

-

That voice inside your fragile skull?

It never once was yours.

It slithered in the night you dreamt,

And claimed you through the doors.

-

You try to run, but flesh won’t move—

The terror roots too tight—

Its hands erupt beneath your ribs,

And pull you into night.

-

The mirror’s glass warps what you see:

Your skin sloughs off in streams,

The thing that stares back isn’t you—

You’re locked inside its seams.

-

It pulses in your marrow now,

It twists beneath your veins,

It wears your body like a cloak,

And feeds on what remains.

-

You scream, but silence wraps your throat,

Your lips no longer yours—

And in the dark, it grins again,

As your soul rots in its pores.