Lurk's Compendium of Dark Poetry (LCDP)

"Quiet Reaper"

I am the darkness woven into air,
The breath that stings when there is nothing there.
I bleed into the cracks you cannot see,
A shadow born from what you'll never be.

I am the rustle in the bones of trees,
The weight that drags your thoughts onto their knees.
The endless echo of a nameless dread,
The scent of death still hovering, unfed.

I carve my name into your waking pulse,
A seeping wound, unspoken and repulsed.
Your spine curls tight against my velvet hand,
I slip through cracks you do not understand.

Do you not know me? Yet I kiss your brow
With every breath you fail to master now.
In every hallway, empty yet alive,
I am the reason you are not surprised.

I am the pulse of shadows thick with sin,
The door you dread to open, yet step in.
My fingers drag across your unmarked skin,
I am the voice that whispers "let me in."

Each silent footstep calls my name, but hush-
No sound escapes the hollow of my clutch.
I drink the light you cling to, drop by drop,
Your heartbeat fast, yet somehow it won't stop.

Do you remember when you first felt cold?
When sleep became a place I dared to hold?
When walls grew eyes that never turned away?
When darkened corners swallowed up the day?

I do not howl, though wolves will call me king.
I do not bleed, though blood is what I bring.
I do not speak, yet words coil round your throat-
Each breath you take is only by my vote.

Oh, how you flinch at silence breaking wide,
For deep within, you know I am inside.
I rise beneath your skin, a blistered flame,
A nameless thing you dare not give a name.

I wrap my hands around your brittle bones,
I leave you still, yet never quite alone.
In empty rooms where no one else can tread,
I slip between the living and the dead.

You dream of light, but never dare to chase,
For in your heart, you know my hidden face.
I am the flicker at the edge of sight,
The frozen gasp that severs sleep from night.

I am the scream you never quite release,
A knife that promises you'll never cease.
I carve my art into the core of man,
In every fear is where my craft began.

I burrow deep where even gods don't pry,
And turn their heavens into muted sky.
I do not strike with violence or with noise-
I am the stillness that erases choice.

Your mind will twist, will break, will slowly bend,
I linger, knowing you are near the end.
I drink despair, I feast on doubt and pain,
Your panic is the lock, and I, the chain.

I do not need to chase; I never move.
Your trembling heart will beat in time, in groove.
You follow me because I let you live,
And in my silent grasp, you dare to give.

You feed me-yes, each glance, each whispered cry,
You stoke my fire with every flinch and sigh.
Your tears fall sweet like rain upon my tongue,
In every drop, I taste the life you've clung.

You cannot run-there is no place to hide.
I wait in corners, haunt you from inside.
I am the hand that traces down your spine,
The fleeting thought you pray will not align.

But I am patient, always at the door,
I thrive in things you can't ignore.
In endless dark, in whispers not your own,
I remind you, you are mine alone.

And when the night swells thick with shapeless dread,
And breath turns cold in places you once fled,
Know that I stand, the keeper of your mind,
For every fear you've ever feared is mine.