The Serpent's Echo

Yet as I trudge through ash and shattered day,
A new murmur unfurls - a hissing refrain.
Not merely ghosts, but darker shapes that sway,
A serpent's echo in the mirror's pain.

It coils among the silvery shards of yore,
A whisper turning memory to venomous art;
Ghosts of my past, already broken and sore,
Now twist into fables that tear me apart.

Its tongue, a strand of liquid deceit, caresses
The jagged edges of every once-trusted ghost;
Each spectral echo, reworded, now compresses
The fragments of self into a lie I cannot toast.

In the trembling reflection, it speaks in sighs,
"Embrace the falsehood that binds you in gloom,
For in every ghost there quietly lies
A truth transformed into a venomous doom."

But even as its murmurs tug at my core,
A glimmer inside stirs - a candle's defiant light;
I sense that behind each serpent winding lore,
Floats the genuine whisper of what is right.

I strain to see past the echo's cruel art,
To reclaim those ghosts in their unaltered form,
Knowing that each distorted lie can't quell the heart
That beats with memories both raw and warm.

So, I lift my gaze to the fractured glass,
Defying the echo with a steady, fierce command,
"Your slippery tales, that let illusions pass,
Are mere shadows; I reclaim what is unmanned."

In this silent clash of spectral curse and flame,
I press forward on the dark and trembling way,
For though the serpent's echo seeks to frame
A web of lies; the truth will not decay!