Echoes

The whispers begin, a nightmare reprise,

Slithering in from the shadows once more -

Echoes unspooling in haunting demise,

Rattling the chains I can’t seem to abhor.

“You’ll never be worthy, you pitiful ghost…”

The old mantras taunt, a torturous refrain.

Self-lacerating diatribes I’ve heard from birth’s coast,

Reverberating in anguish’s chambered terrain.

A thundering pulse drums the cycle anew -

Anxiety’s ceaseless pounding warning of doom.

My breath strangles tight as those echoes ensue,

Panic’s dread talons ensnaring, consuming.

“It’s happening again,” the record torments,

“Sinking, asphyxiating, in depths none can see…”

And there in its wake, the achingly familiar vents

Of melancholy’s sibilant symphony:

“All for naught, every effort corroded,

A husk of what might have flourished sublime.

Better to smother all dreaming imploded -

Nothing bears fruit in wellsprings of slime.”

Round and around the carousels spiral,

Echoes of fear and despair droning through.

Each revolutions conveys the raw viral