Into the Wild Black Yonder

Swimming through the tenebrous sea of space,
I’m seized by a riptide of cosmic proportions.
To struggle against this current is futile;
not even light can escape the maelstrom.

Once a bright star, full of vitality,
it ended its life with a violent blast.
In a state of undeath, it now haunts the Universe,
devouring all that invades its domain.

Within the veiled leviathan’s bowels,
I see the Universe much as before,
but from outside the jet black sphere,
my departing image is frozen in time.

The view is the same but the gravity’s not,
and as I’m hurtling into the depths,
my head’s not approaching as fast as my feet,
stretching my form like a band of live rubber.

I pray that I’ll receive some mercy,
but my wretched pleas go unacknowledged.
My body is s p a g h e t t i f i e d,
elongated beyond perception.

It feels as though some unseen ropes
are tied around my every surface,
being pulled in four dimensions
by the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Torn by a celestial rack,
crushed by an ethereal vise,
the only thought that comforts me
is knowing I’ll be dead in seconds.

In space-time, no one can hear me scream
as every fiber of my being is unwound
and returned to the cosmos from whence it came.
Atoms to atoms, stardust to stardust.