To Cross the Crooked Step.

Sacrifices to my cruel addiction...
And sheets bloodstained from where they slept.
This house of darkness, my only destination...
But to separation in a crooked step.

I feel my spirit's bleak oppression...
Churning deep within me, wispy and wet.
Here come the creatures to swiftly surround me...
With gritty tongues upon my neck.

They met in the house of broken mirrors,
Where a devil's reflection bathed in the fog...
Now the demons outside converse and whisper,
Their voices' stench clung to the smog.

My screams convulse to bloodily gurgles.
In living purgatory yore...
Some crimson mosaic shatters to pieces...
And the remains of my heart now paint the floor.

The dream-catcher rattles against the window,
Collapses...
Withers...
Crumbled into ash.
Laying the piece of oak wood grain,
Where the crooked step was marred and smashed.

Thus gargoyles begin to screech my name...
Banshees wail, the serpents hiss,
Lupine fangs bare against the moon...
For the quenching of blood, the taste of bliss.

Then...

A scent of mahogany pervades the air.
Footsteps echo from within the walls.
Foundation crumbles beneath my barren body...
Then sounds distinct, and faintly small.

I hear the murmurs...
The cackles.
The bellows.
The laughs musty and raspy against their breaths,
My veins are blue, frozen with dark dread...

Voracious pores drained out with sweat.

The gate swings open to my addiction...
An archaic road laid out with remnants of death.
I am left, encompassed, pushed by the darkness...

To finally cross the crooked step.