Places in the dark

Come with me, my deteriorating child,
We will be trekking far into the wild;
The curtains rustle in the nighttime breeze,
As we step off the sill and glide over the trees.

I am the Soul Collector, with the skeleton grin,
Our journey into desolation is about to begin;
Wrapped in my dark and tattered shroud,
We soar beyond the clouds.

The Earth is left to her own devices,
Now the Shadow World entices;
The gloom here is beyond damnation,
This is the point that the day and the night have a separation.

Despair reigns here, for there is nothing else,
These places in the dark that leave cuts, bruises, and welts;
You think it is Hell, but my friend, that is false,
Because you yet have a pulse!

Only the most distraught find me and my places in the dark,
People with suicidal thoughts and murderers with a conscience; they do embark;
When you awake in your bed, drowning in perspiration,
Only then do you begin to realize the degree of your desperation.