All Mad Here
The walls are too close, breathing down my neck with a heat that tastes like metal,
each step echoes in this twisted maze, where the floor shifts beneath my feet like it’s got something to say,
but I can’t hear it over the blood rushing in my ears, pounding out a rhythm I can’t follow,
because nothing makes sense here, not the walls, not the ceiling that sweats shadows,
not the doors that lead to nowhere, and the ones that don’t are worse,
opening into rooms that smell like old screams and broken promises,
where the mirrors don’t show your reflection, just the things you tried to forget.
I’ve been here before, or maybe I haven’t,
because time isn’t a straight line in this place,
it curls in on itself like a snake swallowing its own tail,
and I’m stuck in its gut, waiting to be digested into something unrecognizable,
something that doesn’t remember how it got here,
only that the walls keep breathing and the floor keeps moving,
and every turn feels like deja vu wearing a different mask.
We’re all mad here.
The lights flicker like they’re laughing at me,
casting shadows that stretch too long,
twisting into shapes that look like hands reaching for my throat,
but when I turn around, there’s nothing there,
just the sound of my own thoughts scraping against the inside of my skull,
whispering that maybe I belong here,
maybe I’ve always belonged here,
in this maze that feeds on fear and spits out madness.
I claw at the walls,
but they bleed when I touch them,
thick, black ichor oozing from cracks that weren’t there a second ago,
seeping into my skin like it’s trying to pull me inside out,
turn me into one of the shadows that slither just out of sight,
laughing without mouths,
watching without eyes.
The floor tilts,
throwing me into a pit that wasn’t there before,
but I don’t scream,
because the echoes here don’t come back the same way they left,
they twist into something else,
something with teeth,
and I’m tired of hearing my own fear thrown back at me
with a grin that’s too wide, too knowing.
I keep moving because stopping feels worse,
because standing still makes the walls close in tighter,
whispering things in a language I almost understand,
and I don’t want to know what they’re saying,
because if I do, I’ll never leave,
I’ll sink into the floor,
become another fucked-up part of this place,
just another shadow in the labyrinth,
another voice in the chorus of lunacy
that keeps this place breathing.
But maybe that’s the point.
Maybe there’s no exit,
no way out of this twisting, bleeding maze,
because the labyrinth isn’t the walls or the floor or the ceiling that drips sweat like it’s alive—
the labyrinth is me,
and I’ve been lost in my own fucking head this whole time,
running from the shadows I put there,
building walls I don’t know how to tear down,
and every turn just brings me back to the same goddamn place,
where the walls are too close,
and the floor won’t stop moving,
and the only thing waiting at the end is me,
grinning in the dark.