Sharethread March 04, 2020

~~ The Tank ~~

I flip the switch upwards, Harvesting the oceanic light From the generators downward. It channels through the great glass pillar, The self-proclaimed agony distiller. A briny tint flows outwards in waves, Unveiling the depraved From cloaking shadows Into thalassic windows.

The floors seem to be breathing with machinery. Wires shifting and sliding In and out of cracks. Rubber sheathed skin Slithers through mold. The snakes split heads And dual ropes side-wind. Serpentine bottom feeders Stay blind As their bodies are interwoven into concrete.

Metallic tendrils and blinking lights Begin forming this makeshift reef. Yellow buttons and dials As fluorescent life. Copper wiring Forming the capillaries That provide the electric life force That courses Through this subterranean environment.

Rodent carrion Carry on Their life-living spectacles. Broken bones With flesh picked away By decay Forming an array Of biological architecture. Bony structures Forming the coral That’s speckled across the sea-floor.

The ebb and flow of watery light Flows across the ground. The shifting fluid within the tank Gleams bright, As slivers of white Glide across the floor Onto my feet.

I view upon the silhouette suspended In the center of the glass cylinder. Stripped of cloth and movement, With a serpent protruding from the ceiling Extending into his maw. Its jaw unhinged to attach to skin, His cheeks are singed To prevent infection.

Serpent breath keeps him alive. Oxygen, a resource deprived. One I do provide, But that of a foul and damning price. His bones have become one with steel. Metallurgic forestry erupting from skin And iron splintering through pores. Silvery spindles acting as trees, With roots extending into muscle Siphoning pools of fluid excess.

Cramps become serrated with knives. Lactic cesspools go to war. Blood deadset to ferment And turns thick like cement. Histamine floods ripe Underneath the swelling Fiery-red rind Of this fruit of ache.

Technology punishes each breath. The more air he feeds Gains a fee worse than death. Lungs striving in pain, Cursed to remain as inflamed. His body remade anaerobic. A breath every 25 minutes, Met with the call of minuscule villains.

His lactic acid excreted through pipes, Fastened with proteins And the essence of life. Globs grow fins As they swim upstream. A sight akin to a field of factories Puffing gelatinous smoke From his reddened skin.

They head to the head To punish his sins. This pained aquarium Has now become the Flooded Tower of Babel Descending to hell, A caldarium with heat Fuelled with regret.

He stares at me With bloodshot eyes: Sullen and sunken. A blur of the face That looks exactly like him. A final smile, Until the creatures Are imbued into skin, Penetrating pores and into the brain. Eyes roll back, Pupils turn blank-white plain. Mind relapses within itself, As it falls into the world that they made.

Expanding ocean Of blank-blue hue. He falls into brine, Experiencing deja vú. He crawls up water at an incline. He takes a deep breath As he emerges. Falling to urges To breathe in sweet air.

He seems to have forgotten, What he had feared. He scans his surroundings, Seeing nothing but sea. The sky is a canvas Of milky blue, With clouds like paint, Splattered by a child with glee.

His eyes meet with flotsam And rusted debris. Waterlogged and floating, Like the carcass of an iron whale. Choked with algae and kelp, The plant life turned stale And into the wound they impale. He swims to the ship, And enters the breach.

Pushing away weeds, Draping over the gape. The ribs of this beast Darken the floor As it breathes, With light passing in As monolithic beams. He views a man Cloaked in shadows.

He faces the wall, With hints of a story around him. Stacked bottles of surrealist reality Forming a makeshift iridescent canopy, Sprawling across the rotting ceiling Blocking out the warmth of feeling Of the stellar Titan, gold and gleaming. The muscles within can only tighten, Refusing the chance of healing.

He turns his face, A taunting reflection of his. A penance stare, A crooked glare. Without speaking in words, He’s said his message. In an instant, A passing life flashes before his eyes. All the people he’s hurt, And passing chances gone by.

A life of corpse, Strangled with fear. Possible successes wither away, Happiness wanders like a stray. Life served on an ivory platter, And thrown into the gutters. Life lived as metaphysical sanguivore, Draining the broodmother’s strength and wealth.

In an instant he snaps back to the tank, Remembering the pain But none of the shame. He fears the next breath But doesn’t know why. I stare at myself, Laughing in glee. Now I’ve learned my lesson, Not to waste my life away, Like a corpse in a grave.

/r/OCPoetry Thread