The Withering Eden

No map nor star dared guide his feet, yet fever drove him on,
For legends spoke of petaled gates where sorrows turned to dew,
Where time unspooled its brittle thread, and dreams breathed life anew—
A realm where mortal hearts might sip the nectar of the dawn.

At last, beneath a granite arch, its keystone cracked with years,
He glimpsed the sprawl of Eden’s ghost—a garden steeped in sighs.
Vines, like serpents, crowned the walls where fireflies blinked their eyes,
And roses, black as midnight’s core, wept blood instead of tears.

“Enter,” murmured the twilight, “but heed the thorns that cling—
They hunger not for flesh alone, but memories you bear.”
Yet forward pressed the traveler, his soul laid raw and bare,
To walk the paths of splendor where the damned and blessed sing.

A figure emerged—a specter clad in lilac and decay,
Her hair a storm of silver moss, her voice a hollow chime.
“What seek you here, unquiet one, in this, the end of time?
The garden grants no wishes—it devours what you pay.”

“I seek,” he rasped, “a single hour unshackled from despair,
To walk in light unbroken, to feel the world anew.”
Her laughter curled like smoke. “Then pluck the bloom of deepest hue—
But know its roots drink deep of hopes too fragile to repair.”

He reached, and as his fingers brushed the flower’s blighted core,
The garden pulsed—a heartbeat throbbed through root and stone and stream.
The air grew thick with jasmine’s breath, the earth a fevered dream,
And all his yesteryears dissolved like ash upon the shore.

Days? Years? He could not reckon, for the sun stood ever still,
A molten coin nailed to the sky, while shadows danced their rites.
He banqueted on phantom fruits, their sweetness laced with blight,
And drank from pools where faces swirled—old lovers, ghosts of will.

The specter watched, her eyes twin voids, as thorns began to climb
His wrists, their tendrils stitching vows into his fevered skin.
“You’ve traded breath for beauty,” she intoned, “now all within
Shall feed the garden’s appetite, as rot consumes the lime.”

Too late, he felt the petals wilt beneath his trembling palm,
Too late, he saw the truth beneath the glamour’s gilded lie—
Each blossom was a stolen sigh, each tree a crucified cry,
And he, the latest offering to soothe the garden’s qualm.

The walls collapsed like parchment scorched, the sky shed its disguise,
Revealing wastes where nothing grew but dust and bones and wind.
The specter’s form unraveled, her farewell thin and thinned—
“All gardens must return to thirst when dreamers drain their skies.”

Alone, he stood where Eden rotted, clutching withered stems,
His skin now bark, his blood now sap, his eyes two shards of glass.
The moon resumed its journey, cold and pitiless as brass,
And somewhere, a new traveler paused at granite arch’s hem.