Ornaments

Art by Lisa Steinberg

You’ve been carried off, a distance unrecognizable,

Smells putrid, as it enters, your fragile senses,

A damp, almost transparent cloth, snuggly fastened

Around you, rendering you blind, to the horror

Before you, so you strain sight, constructing the scene,

But all that appears, are blurry shapes, dancing

Like apparitions, and the more you stare, more appear,

With an even larger object, in the center, wooden

Compared to the floating blurs, yet it’s presence

Slithers down your spine, icy tremors, from within

Intensely pounds upon your chest, as darkness takesover,

You abruptly awake, with the sudden burst, of your heartbeat,

The blindfold, gone, and you slowly fix focus,

Upon the center subject, who, from stolen gasping moments,

Is slowly constructing ornaments, the same ones, dangling

In your crowded view, its clear, except for the intent,

Of the individual, with a pale sack hiding it’s identity,

You feel cold inside, as sight has choked your speech,

It completes the ornament in its possession, and suspends

It above both of you, gently flicks it as it swings,

Lifeless, only gaining momentum from your own scream,

How do you suppress the howling terrors that emanate

From your trembling cage, locked in by your own doubt,

Starring at you as you shiver, the black hollow outlets

Are consuming you, taking away your stability

As you slip further, past the gates of inescapable sanity,

The more you stare, the more you see, the center subject

Is actually you, slowly deconstructing your fortified self.