Echoes from the Void

I stand at the edge of nothingness,
A yawning chasm of infinite black.
My toes curl over oblivion’s precipice,
Heart thundering in the deafening silence.

I gather courage like a fistful of stars,
And hurl my voice into the abyss:
“Hello!” I cry, “Is anyone there?”
The void swallows my words whole.

Seconds stretch like eons,
The darkness pressing against my skin.
Then, from the depths, a sound returns,
A voice that is mine, yet not my own.

“Oll-eh,” it rasps, backwards and distorted,
A funhouse mirror reflection of my call.
The syllables twist like smoke in the air,
Familiar cadence turned alien and cold.

“Who are you?” I demand of the darkness,
My question echoing into eternity.
“Uoy era ohw,” comes the mocking reply,
My own inflection warped by cosmic winds.

Each phrase I utter returns perverted,
A grotesque parody of self-expression.
Is this my true voice, stripped of pretense?
The raw essence of my being laid bare?

Or perhaps the void, in its infinite wisdom,
Simply holds a mirror to my soul,
Reflecting back the parts of myself
I’ve buried deep, refused to know.

Fear coils in my belly, cold as space,
As I realize the truth of this exchange:
There is no ‘other’ in this endless night,
Just the echoes of my own complexity.

I am the voice, and I am the void.
The questioner and the answer both.
In this cosmic game of call and response,
I confront the stranger that is me.

So I stand at the edge of understanding,
My words returning changed yet unchanged.
And in this dialogue with the abyss,
I learn to embrace my own enigma.