*This poem is brought to you by La Bella Collaborative: Spooktober Submissions!
**The featured poet chose the following prompt: Use the phrase, “the sickly sweet smell of the living”.

“What Waits Beyond”

Beyond and beyond and beyond
Something waits
In the black vacuum
In the nothingness far beyond the stars

Restless, mad, and aeons-old
And hungry
Reaching out

It speaks
In the dreams of gibbering madmen
In the cursed rites of forbidden cults
In long-dead languages, scrawled
Across the pages of worm-eaten tomes

And I tremble at the thought
That when the stars are right
It will turn is dread gaze upon the earth

Because it is hungry
So very hungry
And I fear it’s caught the scent
Of the sickly sweet smell of the living

– Chris W. McGuinness

Chris W. McGuinness is a former journalist now writing horror fiction. His work has been published in Lovecraftiana Magazine, Schlock! Webzine, and Dark Dossier. You can check out more of Chris’s work at the links below:
Website: chriswmcguinness.wordpress.com
Threads: @chrismcguinness

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