Black Onyx Descending

She stared down at her hands.
Black onyx stone,
simple silver band.
She wasn’t one for reflections
bursting from faceted prisms.
Black onyx suited her.

Black onyx imprisoned the light;
drew it down within its depths.
A shark’s eye mounted on silver.
Nothing escaped its relentless pull.
Everything just fell and fell,
plummeting forevermore.

She sometimes leaned forward
peering over the edge of black onyx.
She’d feel its ebony fingers grasping,
seeking her shoulders to pull her down
into its descending narrowing spiral.

At times she fought – at times she surrendered.

She’d free-fall into black onyx.
Voices grew muffled and finally muted;
nothing anyone said mattered anymore.
Light twisted and bent with misshapen meaning
as the world shrunk from her perspective.
The sensation of acceleration nauseated and nourished her.
Memories masquerading as monsters trampled hopes,
pulling them up by the roots.
Her emotions ran through their cycles
of highs and lows.
As she clutched one,
another would scream for attention
by throwing a tantrum until embraced.

Black onyx held her.

Its drainpipe walls were smooth as glass,
marred only by the fingernail scratches
of countless other attempts to stop the fall.
The bottom!  Must not reach the bottom!
There the ink blots would make sense…
There the colors would all be outside the lines…
There the emotions would quickly flatline.

Her hands swam back into view.
Black onyx winked slyly.
Black onyx suited her.