Decsend

The hatch has no handle from above
Once you descend, the air forgets your name
I bit the ember and the ember bit back
The staircase sighed and folded into black

Each step is a tendon snapping into place
Each breath is a debt the darkness pays
The walls are not stone — they are waiting
With the patience of something that knows my shape
A gate made of rib-like silence
Swings inward without a sound

Descend, descend
Where gravity becomes a prayer
A spiral carved in the marrow of air
This is the threshold of no one
I am the swallowed son
I am the swallowed son
(Falling with no floor)

The third depth has no ceiling and no crime
Only the weight of everything I didn't become
A procession of versions of myself — unborn
Each one staring with the mercy gone

Something older than guilt coils in the veins
It hums a vibration older than pain
My spine becomes a scripture written in rust
And I keep descending because stillness is dust
(The walls now breathe with my lungs)

Descend, descend
Where gravity becomes a prayer
A spiral carved in the marrow of air
This is the threshold of no one
I am the swallowed son
I am the swallowed son
(Falling with no floor)

No more circles — only the centre…
The centre is a mouth…
I step into the mouth…
And the mouth pronounces nothing…
Nothing…