Maiden in the ashes
Robed in silk
Robbed of milk
No mark on your tender skin
No sign of turmoil within
The coal does not yet scorch your soul
...
You walk your delicate path
Bearing the sightly, brightly beaten cut bloom of spring
Luscious petals not yet knowing
They will drop from the stem
No seeds to plant, and not her fault
the only water here tainted with salt
And the ground is hard, turned up in its roots
Do you know the path you tread does not want you?
Do you not yet feel the cut of stone or burn on coal?
Or does this black earth need your bloodstained steps as much as you need to bleed them
Is it possible for one woman's blood to nourish this dead soil back to life?
And one woman's love to seed them

I was raised in my father’s ill-timed
           old ways: as a man saying how he feels,
           was like ash in his ashtray. And I had
           smoked up a few reasons of not finding
           certainty; but instead finding answers in
           all addictions as a troubled youth.

I remember looking for a quick fix,
          like a constant broken clock—
         without a lot of time.
         As it felt better not to admit to why I
         was crying secretly at night, and instead
         going around faking all of my smiles.


As I never once felt like I could fit an
        ounce of myself in my family, and
        sometimes the thought of being a
        mistake would be a thought I’d accept
        so gladly.
“I’ve been a fool, I’ve been a ******,
           I’ve been an idiot, I’ve been a coward,
           and I’ve been less than a good friend,
           Feeling less of myself most times, in
           saying I don’t amount to anything”—
           were all of the things plaguing my head.

I’ve been so sick of love,
          pretending to have known it as much
          And to my luck, I’ve been unlucky enough
          to know the way I lived felt like a vortex,
         cos it always ******.

Sprung out on how I forced my appearance,
        sitting on bottled emotions, ignoring
        how I’m really feeling— all thought
        to show a man in their great zealous.
        Such a lie it was; and a door to the
        knowledge of depression, that I tried to
        hide so well, with years of experience.

Cause I was taught,
          “real men don’t show their feelings”
           Still what are these feelings, I’m feeling?

Feeling sad, depressed, a mess,
          who can’t confess that sometimes
          he's a mess and not always at his best.
          Still, self-perfection isn’t what the
          whole world expects. And unless this
          boy chooses not to digress from tackling
          the feelings that have him compressed; that
          boy will only be a boy who still sits in their
          mother’s nest.

Cos no bird will truly soar where it rests—
          so would I; never be a man in this crazy
          world, by just covering up all of my sores
          in my heart with a bulletproof vest. I
          already swallowed up those bullets; choking
          up on all of the words of, not saying
          what’s beating at my chest.

Today, today marks the day,
          I threw out that **** ashtray.
         Cos the ash in that tray, made me feel
         like, the *** of the day. And I refuse to
        do the donkey-work, of pretending that
         I’m always okay.

        No, I'm not okay, because I’ve spent
        my life being burnt by the scorching
        ash, in that old ashtray.

                          It’s time for healing.

Summer fell in pale midnight
With ice crystals answering the nomads plight
When silence fell on deafened ears
A heart was impaled by ruby spears

A kingdom of dust with castles of bone
Risen amidst ruins of blackened stone
Demons falling from heavens high
Weeping at their brother's sight

Then golden blood streamed and flowed
In rivers where kings fearfully bowed
A giant struck by lightning's blaze
Glimmering in his flaming haze

Burning, burning, he slowly dances away
And a knight in the armour of dragons to slay
Hunted by wolves with greenish gaze
Is desperately searching for a safe place

Fairies of burns float through the air
Surrounding the phoenix's heir
Golden diamonds grow out the trees
And scatter in the ashy black breeze.

A king atop his throne of wood
Laughing madly about his brotherhood
Oblivious of the strange smoke
Rising from his burning choke

His nose burns away, he no longer smells
So he doesn't know about his hollow shell.
War after war ravages his beautiful lands
Waged by his corpse's stiff, dead hands

A bird flies in the mountain's halls
Trapped by it's stony walls
A cage, a cage, his voice bides
A cage safe from the demonic tides

The serpent's fang bitten in a hero's knee
Who lost his valour and tried to flee
Justice is carried out only by death
And in this world, there's no longer breath

Amidst it all, a young man stands
Looking at his icy flames
A smile stealing upon his face
Behold!, This is the madman's grace

Silvery torn
From ancient dark seeds
A flame to avenge
The blood-sullen deeds

Dripping down
From the pages of a book
The lines of ink
For blood they mistook

Panic spread as they ran
Destruction of their own design
Blades clashing and clashing again
Patterns as if the stars aligned

A spark escaped
And landed in straw
The blaze soon spread
Slashing with fiery claws

Soon the world burned
And left nothing but ash
The spears were broken
And all the swords crashed

Silvery torn
From ages old
The black dust
Turned into gold

What scares me through this dark forest?

It is not the dark,
Nor the wet socks,
Nor the treacherous rocks in the way
Nor the rustling of grass unpaved
Nor the occasional shriek of an owl
Nor the cold, nor the starvation
Nor the bats and insects and crawling creatures
Nor the unknown beyond horrid imagination
Nor the screams of sorrow's victims
Nor the silence, or the sheer loneliness

The only fear is existing
Painfully drifting
Having nowhere to go
No journey to bleed for,
Having to watch the forest burn
As hollers of delight emerge from monstrous look-alikes,
Siblings turned beasts of false pretenses and heavy machinery

And the more it burns, the more colorful it gets,
The more join in, the louder it grows, they're having a blast!
Till the smoke touches every molecule in the air,
Till we all suffocate in a carbon monoxide high
Forever frozen in a grin of painful ecstasy,
And the forest turns to ashes, awaiting a kinder generation,
A kinder species, perhaps.

The plateaux and caverns which map
my cognitive landscape correspond
by virtue of something; something
determines the salience of beliefs
and their ability to traverse this

Sometimes she blows
Cigarette smoke
In your face and
You call that love
Not because it is
But because
You want it to be

You're so ******* lonely
So ******* unable
To handle the
Ocean roar in your
Ears when you're alone

You tell yourself
That the ash in
Your lungs is
As good as
A kiss good night.