This feeling, it’s not just a cloud hanging over me, it’s a whole **** storm, and I brought it on myself. My chest aches, yeah, but it’s not just anxiety anymore; it’s guilt, sharp and cold. And my stomach… God, it’s not just churning from dread, it’s from the memory of how I made their stomach churn, how I tied their insides in knots. I can almost taste the bile now, from the sheer regret of it all.
I keep trying to tell myself, "It's just a phase, you'll get over it." Like the pain I caused will just evaporate. But it doesn't. Every single day, that heavy, gray cloud is still there, darker now, because it's stained with what I did. When I look in the mirror, I don't just see a tired person; I see the **** who broke their heart, the one who took their trust and stomped on it. That vibrant person I used to be? They’re gone, replaced by this hollowed-out shell that’s constantly on the verge of throwing up from the shame.
Is this it? Is this just how I am now? The person who wrecked something beautiful, who caused so much pain? The thought just makes my stomach clench tighter. I wish it was just a temporary sadness, a bad mood I could shake off. But this feels deeper, more entrenched. It’s not just me anymore; it’s the ghost of what I did, haunting every single moment. And I can’t help but wonder if the good in me, the person who wasn't capable of such damage, has just withered away for good, leaving only this wreckage behind.

I’ve only ever seen two outcomes
in terms of meeting people:
you’re either betrayed
or forgotten about.

and sometimes I’d rather take
the malicious stabbing of bad faith
over the slow waltz with the long knife.


that’s all.

I continued to shake in fear as we moved deeper into the bleak jungle of Vorboon, the canopy above suffocating us like body-clung latex. The torturous heat produced from me crystalline salt of the sweat gland, cascading in hallucinogenic fragments. Mirrors, reflecting refracted light, curved around us and confused the spectrum of amalgamated forms.

"Outside-Inwards Jenkins, please, I cannot take this any longer! We must leave this writhing jungle!" I wept and fell to my knees in lamentation.

"Do not weep-weep, earth-being, for we have arrived upon the temple's entrance."

The temple soared above us as if in the dream of some secluded architect creating cataclysmic structures within his slumber. Its beauty was truly beheld, by us, fading into mist-forged fog, reminiscent of the Marabou stork or the Shoebill.

Upon the temple's steps stood the long-necked man, Scatard Acrosdaune. His countenance was elongated with sinister elation; unquestionably bizarre in every way I had ever conceived. Everything about his appearence was long and disconcerting, as if he were the echo of an echo of a man.

"Please, thou welcome most unto the existential temple of the Abstract Scroll. Scatard Acrosdaune, I, shall be your guide within the depths." Now he pauses with ominous intent.

"Where is thine scroll? Where is thine scroll? Where is thine scroll?"

Within the temple, corporate blocks of incestuous dual notation, rippling within a multitudinous alignment of masonry, partook in the abuse of subterfuge in order to forget the Sea Horns. We would head deeper still, deep into oblique chambers of solitary apparition, conjuring that which had plagued our collected mental cognition.

With cascading light faltering, lurid transcendence of encumbered paralysis began. Physical forms traversing innumerable catacombs of dread— between concrete moulded into the shape of modernity and totem poles transpiring against the import of collected consciousness, inspiring gelatinous brain matter— had overcame us.

Sliding through abyssal-black tar of stroking, crawling, writhing primal sludge, subsequently escaping through pores of sweat coagulation. We allowed silk-woven experience to be spun within a lair of manifestation, coinciding with visions of mutilation!

it’s sad to say
that nowadays
a smile
is more often
used
to hide depression
rather than
express
happiness.

Today I woke into a nightmare.
I rushed out the door, already late for work.
Behind the stream of cars the sun greeted me
with refractive beauty only seen in the greatest masterpieces.
I remarked that my eyes hurt.
the streams slow flow,
Increased my despair.
A twisted metal monolith,
caused the trucks to come in tow.
I drove past a chaotic scene.
I was annoyed at my lack of discipline.
A wayward bubble trapped in a slow stream.
Never wondering how I was supposed to know.
As a well rested wonderer I sat in my chair,
Ended the day with good time spared.
My birthday had proceeded without a hitch.
Neither laid out on a road or sickly in my bed.
The indifferent world greeted me,
with every boon it had to spare

It was impaired:
The thread between thought and mouth.
Is it nature or nurture?
  A crucified vulture
    Hung like a basketball

I watched it happen:
  Not loud, not sudden,
  But like sand slipping through clenched fingers.

This still fascinates me:
One’s ability to lose speech.

I watch her apply creams and lotions to her face through the steamed glass of the shower door before lathering, rinsing off and stepping out.

she greets me at the bathmat with a towel,
then towels me off and flashes me the most
beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. I smile back,
feeling more understood and less misconstrued as she pats and wipes the beads of water away.

it’s moments like these that can make a man
crumble into submission, capturing the quick
glimpses of the joy and the gentle peace from
another beautiful soul when there’s so much
terror, fame & corruption reigning down in
this misbegotten world.

we stand there facing one another

we don’t have to be anybody
we don’t have to be anyplace
we don’t have to worry about anything
we can just simply enjoy each other’s company

looking deep into the eyes
she caresses my beard
she understands me
she takes care of me

& it’s nice to be taken of
especially after a lifetime
of taking care of yourself

I stand there feeling the good times pass
as she dries my ***** with this
lucratively warm towel.