Cavernous Deep

Whatever is this place
with stalagmites rising from the ground
and stalactites hanging from the ceiling
like a tremendous set of teeth consuming me.
Darkness, sweetheart, it’s not you
I swear that it is me,
so, when I say that I want to leave
please do not weep for me.
Stockholm syndrome for my captor,
Darkness, who keeps me in Cavernous Deep.
There is a stale smell in the air
that I trust has been forgotten
by the dwellers of much fairer lands.
I close my eyes and reopen them
in the hopes that the backs of my eyelids
might be a little bit brighter
than the grueling depths of Cavernous Deep.
The scars on the walls tell a sorrowful story
to my wandering hands that feel them
for the surety of anything.
I have been down here for a fortnight
or a moment of perpetual time
with that somber melody on repeat
in the back of my mind,
of the temple of light,
where I lived and where I prayed
only a few months before my capture.
It is the most comforting darkness
it is the most peaceful of prisons
it is the most isolating cavern
and it is where now I belong.
Darkness, I am bound to you
so, tether my legs and drag me
outside from the temple of light
into the crypt of my mind here in Cavernous Deep
where with fear, in the dark, I might wake
but at peace, in the dark, I might sleep.