Fraught With Pearl

The road to hell is fraught with pearl.
Why shouldn't I be traumatized?

The road to hell is fraught with pearl.
Shiny people going down.

The road to hell is fraught with pearl.
Stars from under
neath the earth,
burning in their beds.

The road to hell is fraught with pearl.
Headless burdens,
wasting light.

The road to hell is fraught with pearl.
Drowning now,
dragged out to sea
by a soft,
luxurious undertow.

The road to hell is fraught with pearl.
Jewels embedded in foam.

The road to hell is fraught with pearl.
Bags of rodents
beating in our
chests,
furiously screeching.

The road to hell is fraught with pearl.
We have filled our hearts
with screaming
mice
and thrown them out to sea.

The road to hell is fraught with pearl.
An overwhelming sense of lava.

The road to hell is fraught with pearl.
The neverending drain.

©Nathan Payne
September 2022