'Tell me I'm not in a dream. Or one of my trances.' She uttered the two sentences between gasps and seem-to-be quickening pulses. In midair, the tension between them kept growing intensely, trying desperately to meet its peak every second, before finally disappearing into the sightless distance above it. 'You're not,' the man said, his voice distant even when his face was only a few inches from hers, and cupped his free hands around her chin to calm her pale face. Her cheeks were warm in his palms, as if being burnt by hundreds of heaps of dying, yet ravenous flames. She closed her eyes, recording the touch of his perfect skin that seemed able to charm her endlessly since the first time she had fixed her gaze on his shimmering features. The angelic voice which accompanied it woke her a few seconds later. 'And even if you are,' he traced his soothing fingers along the reddening skin of her cheeks, 'I'll bring you back to life. Which is here.' He emphasised the last two words with a smile, a heartbreaking, infuriating smile - because of its astounding beauty, before tenderly touching his cherrylike lips to hers, making her start to tremble uncontrollably in deep confusion. She was, again, in the middle of these steep rocks without any aid to support her unstable weight, meanwhile the air over their heads began to twirl in circles, the weather around them getting pink and turning red in five seconds' time. She was lost. In someone else's magical world, with a rendition of one of The Beatles' hit singles from the 1900s or 1950s - she could not exactly recall which period of years it came from - playing smoothly in the CD player in the languid atmosphere of the living room behind them.
After a moment of enjoyment the kiss brought them he pulled back, before slamming his left hand into the tiny depth of his shirt pocket and taking a silver locket out of it. He threw a confident smile at her, and in one blink of his eye, the room fell dark. Petrified yet washed out by the sudden darkness among them, the girl let out a heart-rending shriek, which was followed by her heaving her body onto him, making his head hit the floorboards and the long necklace break in half. In seconds, blood-red light began to shuffle out of the center of the torn necklace, mingling with the air outside its shell and sending the woman into gradually-coming unconsciousness. She could now only see shadows, muttering and brimming all over the weather around her, and had not the strength to stand up apart from lying helplessly on the feathered carpet beneath. Before her, she saw how he started to rise and reveal his claws, and fangs, and bright red eyes above her. He laughed mercilessly. Instantly, she covered her sweating face with her hands - which now felt too shaky and she hated it, she loathed it very much - and brought out a despondent, lamented sound of cry. Her evil lover, at the same time, continued to soak up as much energy as possible from the change of circumstance.
'Again, I successfully, harmlessly tricked you,' he whispered this to her right ear. Around them, the horrendous wind potter faster and faster meanwhile their invincibly powered circles got bigger. 'You should thank me for that.'
'Th... Thank you for what?' She abruptly gathered her courage to confront him. If this meant that the end of my life was approaching, I would be ready, she thought silently.
'For letting me bound my ways into your life again, Em,' his angelic voice replied, and before she realised what was coming next, she wailed with all of her might when she laid her eyes on his real monstrous, vampiric face before her.
'I am indeed sorry to say that you - a clever and sanguine girl like you - was granted the chance to relish your life only momentarily,' he cleared his throat. 'You have always known that you could not outrun us at the end..., and so have your family.'
'No,' she mumbled, and drifted her gaze to his face - his now burning face. 'NO!'
'No,' he mockingly repeated her words, 'or YES, my dear?'
'Don't call me using that 'D' word, beast,' she put her best effort to yell at the top of her lungs, ''cos I am not your dear, and prefer death to becoming one of you!'
With those last few words, she scrambled to her feet, and stood up in just two swift movements. In her both hands, which he did not know were protected by the two stashes of garlic and one wooden cross in her dress pockets, were two shiny swords with special blades carved onto their two edges which were designated to **** vampires. Get rid of them. And their malicious world of beasts.
She stepped forward, and new powers began to regenerate inside her - despite the cries she felt start to roll into her heart, upon knowing that her beloved Joe had died. Joe had been deceased now. He was lifeless, and no longer able to help her here. She should never have ditched him. It dawned on her now, when everything was already too late to fix up. But she knew that she should never give up. Javier and his vampire family might have tasted every single drop of her other family members - and the rest of Ludirus town's residents - including her Joe, before she idiotically kicked him out for this pathetic, heartless beast who wore a disguise to displace him. She stretch the first sword - the one in her right hand - out to him. He took a step back, his eyes remained focused on her.
'You won't hurt me,' he pretended to be in pain, and in one and a half seconds, he transformed into the figure of the innocuous, blue-eyed prince once more.
'I won't be deceived by your looks, pig,' spat her, meanwhile her brain rummaged through a thousand ways to stick the two swords into his chest. That was, in fact, the only way to **** him. To drain his evil life out of him.
'You were, once,' he laughed, the sound of his devious laughter echoed in the very room, and later left it in such dread and wariness.
'Not anymore,' she bravely took a step forward and, without any further doubt, without caring about her being imprisoned for the rest of her life before getting her blood dried by the fangs of Javier's two older brothers, she stabbed the swords into his chest with all the energy she had left. And the effects sprayed out by the action were beyond any of her expectations. Thousands of blood droplets poured out of his body and onto the floor beneath her, flooding the entire living room and finally the streets outside the building until no litter, little scraps of food, and wheels of vehicles were seen anywhere in sight. Surprisingly, these endless streams of blood did not cause any floods, and rapidly soaked through every single layer of soil the earth had on its surface. The blood that had been consumed out of the poor people of Ludirus, the rural village in South Ireland, famous for its cruel killing rampage for several thousand years, where a group of aristocratic vampire ruled the lives of humans and their own species. But now, there would be no more of them. No more of their horrible treatments. No more of their sneaking-up-on-humans tricks they secretly did at night - to savour human blood, which was lawfully removed from the protecting-human law renewed every year. It was all a lie. Yeah, a lie. A lie that allowed Javier's family to approach Lucinda's family members to be victims in their lifelong killing spree. But now, there would be no more vampires, thought Lucinda as she kissed her holy cross and sets of garlic affectionately. There would be no more blood sacrificed to fend for those beasts' hunger, even though it meant for her to live alone. Live on her own, as she no longer had anyone around her to turn to. To soak up her tears when she was scared away by the bunch of vampire kids on the way home from school. To calm her with her melodious chords at the piano. Mother. To serve her the best spaghetti in the world as a reward for her outstanding grades at school. Sister Sheila. To rub her back and put her to bed at night - at the age of sixteen! Father. Luce's tears just would not stop while she kept counting her memories, as every single shadows of her deceased beloved came back to her. And finally, the sight of her Joe lying his tired head on her lap, and reading out loud to her his newest poem he composed at the office for her. All were gone. Dissolved into the ravenous sea of blood in the guts of those psychotic, simpering, abusive monsters.
But she was satisfied. She felt, somehow, proud of her heroic, or at least, brave actions. She had taken control of her fear, and that was one of the most important characteristics a woman should have to succeed in this cruel world, her father had once said. Now she could prove to them all that she was a newly reborn person, and was no longer the old Lucinda. Lucinda Hale who had always been the 'tail' of her sister while they were six and four, and the little, spoilt daughter of Jim and Aileen Hale who could not hold a plate properly in every banquet their family was invited to. Luce knew that she was now completely a stranger to her family. She squinted her eyes shut, trying to imagine how nice it would be to show off her new self to her late family if only they were all alive with healthy pink cheeks now. In her own peace and this momentary solitude, she found herself sinking onto the floating warmth of blood, but strangely, she did not fall. She did not plunge into the limitless red colour underneath, and remained flowing above it while her tears started to crawl out of her eyes. She did not know, and did not want to know how long this remained until she eventually felt the rough surface of the bearskin carpet again. She woke up with a dizzy head and quickly threw a hasty look around her living room. The prince, beastly Javier had vanished. Oh, there are his remnants, she thought and unconsciously, chuckled quietly to herself when she came to take hold of several white, lifeless bones laid in front of her. Then suddenly she understood what had just happened. The legend in that book she had borrowed from the library transported the knowledge back into her mind. All the members of Javier's family had been crushed now. They were dead. Her sacred tears, which came to mix with the blood flood, became the cure for all the people who had been ****** by the vicious vampires in town. They were now freed, and reawarded, although still mortal, but yet a very rare, elusive, privileged chance to be alive once again and start their lives all over again. They must not be far from her now, thought her. Without any further wait, she raced out of the room, and wormed her way onto the street.
And here they were. The streets of Ludirus were no longer deserted. Traditional markets with a thousand-metre long series of antiques roamed them, occupying every single tiny space provided to place racks containing jewels, valuables, and gold pots. There were also shelves of books about cookery, traditional healing potions, sports, literature, and anything else someone ever wanted to buy. And then she spotted a book with a bright yellow cover, entitled 'Love Poems: From 1900 to the Present, by Joe Grogan.' Her breath seemed to stop at that time and suddenly, before she even got the opportunity to touch the cover of the copy in front of her, two warm arms wrapped her waists and turned her body around to face the owner. Once again, she was at a terrible loss for words. 'Joe,' she mumbled.
'I am,' the writer nodded solemnly. And just like the evil Prince Javier had done before, he pulled out a beautiful silver box and opened it. Inside, two rings shined beautifully before their eyes, radiating a smile as bright as the one seen on others' faces among them. A smile that celebrated the comeback of their long-lost independence. Before she knew it, Joe knelt before her, and presented the ring upwards onto her.
'What would you like to do first, Madam? Marry me, or buy my book?' He grinned and held both her hands. Before she could answer him, he inserted her left ring finger into the perfectly made ring, and helped her right hand fasten his own ring onto his finger. She lifted him up and wrapped her hands around his neck.
'Do you have time for both, Sir?' She rubbed his smooth cheeks and kiss them before looking deeply into his hazel eyes.
'Absolutely,' he answered firmly, and scooped her whole weight into his arms and spinned her around. Luce could no longer say anything when a sudden wave of happiness washed all over her, and became even at a more unfathomable loss of words when she caught the sight of her beloved father, mother, and her sister, all alive, start approaching to deliver their congratulations. Here we are, she thought with a satisfied feeling. We were, are, and will always be meant to be together.

The day you died I went into the dirt,
Into the lightless hibernaculum
Where bees, striped black and gold, sleep out the blizzard
Like hieratic stones, and the ground is hard.
It was good for twenty years, that wintering --
As if you never existed, as if I came
God-fathered into the world from my mother's belly:
Her wide bed wore the stain of divinity.
I had nothing to do with guilt or anything
When I wormed back under my mother's heart.

Small as a doll in my dress of innocence
I lay dreaming your epic, image by image.
Nobody died or withered on that stage.
Everything took place in a durable whiteness.
The day I woke, I woke on Churchyard Hill.
I found your name, I found your bones and all
Enlisted in a cramped necropolis
your speckled stone skewed by an iron fence.

In this charity ward, this poorhouse, where the dead
Crowd foot to foot, head to head, no flower
Breaks the soil. This is Azalea path.
A field of burdock opens to the south.
Six feet of yellow gravel cover you.
The artificial red sage does not stir
In the basket of plastic evergreens they put
At the headstone next to yours, nor does it rot,
Although the rains dissolve a ****** dye:
The ersatz petals drip, and they drip red.

Another kind of redness bothers me:
The day your slack sail drank my sister's breath
The flat sea purpled like that evil cloth
My mother unrolled at your last homecoming.
I borrow the silts of an old tragedy.
The truth is, one late October, at my birth-cry
A scorpion stung its head, an ill-starred thing;
My mother dreamed you face down in the sea.

The stony actors poise and pause for breath.
I brought my love to bear, and then you died.
It was the gangrene ate you to the bone
My mother said: you died like any man.
How shall I age into that state of mind?
I am the ghost of an infamous suicide,
My own blue razor rusting at my throat.
O pardon the one who knocks for pardon at
Your gate, father -- your hound-*****, daughter, friend.
It was my love that did us both to death.

For all the time I've know you
You've worn a mask upon your face
It appeared beautiful, perfect, and friendly
But now I realize that wasn't the case

For hiding underneath that mask
Was a soldier bent on destruction
Posing as a comrade fighting for good
But following the other side's instruction

You wormed your way into our ranks
And we accepted you as one of our own
But all of us were unaware
Your true intentions had not yet been shown

When an opportunity presented itself
You struck without any hesitation
Our troops started dropping left and right
Without any sign of infiltration

You knew you only had so long though
Before your actions got you caught
So you moved to abolish your final target
A tougher task than you had thought

That night, when you attacked me
You allowed your mask to fall
And as you fled, I caught a glance
Of the real person beneath it all

Well, "What doesn't **** you makes you stronger"
And you make me tougher every day
Which is why no matter what you do
I refuse to let you stand in my way

I learned some valuable lessons
About how you fight this war
And now those same old boring tactics
Won't work here any more

So thank you for the knife
That you embedded in my back
For you just gave me the tool I need
To defend against any future attack.

I. You were thunder and I was lightning. For some reason a part of me always knew this, but never voiced it out. Your arm was around my shoulders and you were warm, radiating heat like the sun. And in some ways, you were my sun. It seemed that somehow I always managed to trip and stumble my way into your orbit, losing count of the number of times I fell into your warmth, into you. When you asked if I was frightened after you huddled close to me I lied and said yes, only to keep you by my side for just a bit longer, just a bit closer. That night we looked into each other's eyes and laughed through our tears, and in that moment I knew as long as I was with you, it was more than enough.

II. My fingers interlocked with yours. It was pitch black and I was terrified, the wind in my face and the moonlight dimly streaming through the trees. We had danced among the leaves and whispered secrets, but you had gone off first; darted in blind excitement towards the crowd in the main square. I screamed for you, an anxious, desperate and impulsive thing, goaded on by the looming shadows and still silence that echoed around the area. If I had blinked I would have missed it, your sudden appearance at my side with my hand in yours. You smiled, and somehow the night didn't seem so dark anymore.

III. It had been a year since, and none of us mentioned that day, the day that left us in ruins. You had smashed my heart against my rib cage the way poets slam poetry, and the tidal waves had washed us over with tears that the ocean couldn't hold. But you came for me, and in that moment I had forgotten; your face a vague image in my memory. Still, you came for me, relentless like the typhoons in august and the storms in december. You pushed and pulled and wormed your way back into my heart, your song a lullaby to my ears and your gaze, a blanket to my fears. I let you in again, I pushed you out again. You tried, You stopped, You tried again. We were quiet about it, but what we left unsaid spoke volumes.

IV. We are here now. It was beginning to fade before this, to become a passing memory. But I should have known better, and as always you knew before me. You had nothing more than a tired smile, but I saw myself in your eyes again, saw us again. The thunder and the lightning, the grass under our feet, the rain in our hair and our laughter that mingled and became one sound. Your warmth and my heart. In that moment I knew you could not and had not forgotten; it was a loud relic and an even louder memory. It was you. It was me. It was us, screaming from the bottom of our lungs into the air and fields like we did years ago, except now it was in our hearts and in our eyes; I love you. I love you. I love you.

(A.H.Z)

he picked apart the movements
of girls' hips
like he forgot what his momma looked like
like he never knew how to believe a female tongue
he never thinks too hard
about the sentences she can make
only what she'd look like if he
forced himself inside of her

he ate his words like
a picky child who only ate cigarettes
and ******
he bathed in the brute fury
of how they never payed much attention to him
until they were screaming stop
and he was going anyways
he hated them for being beautiful
he hated beautiful things in general

but he liked the feeling of cornering his prey
in a dark stairwell
he liked playing the devil
and walking to meet sin with a backwards heart
a heedless skull
a set of fingernails that always chipped
as he picked away at them with his teeth

he liked to think he could have anything his way
if he made it so
he liked to know that if he made himself
the faceless shadow in a dark corridor
he could become the boogyman
he could wrap around bodies like silicon
and swallow them like tremors cracking the earth

every girl he'd ever hated for her body
would have nightmares about him
and he liked them better as dead bodies
because it's the only time they'll shut up and **** him
he boasts tire tracks running along main bloodlines
a broken brain like a land mine
a chance of luck that he could **** some time
following the scent of something feminine
the idea that his presence alone
could shake her down to her knees

he wants to take every thing
that has never been given to him
he takes joy in the distorted
the sick satisfaction
of tasting the caviar that no one ever served him
the princess, trapped, in a black dress
pinned down in the dust
behind the restaurant dumpster after dusk
what an interesting view from above
he thought as he perforated the flesh
and though he never cared for the victim's clothing choice
he liked her best in red

he was not a mommy's boy
and it showed
he took care to take in a way
that he knew left limbs hollow
in it's wake
slit wounds in a human
that were harsh
in places where white legs flashed beacons
a wraithlike shape that closes in
on women wreathed in dark streets
and poetry that hasn't been written yet

she had a sonnet to spout and a poison
of malignant parasites she couldn't shake out
that latched onto her veins
as she arranges them over her arms
and lower around her knees
and he never showed much promise
and he's angry that he has never been able to please
the world
so he waits for her
and he takes from her

and now he traipses out
with the blood
and leaves her to lie there kissing an ink spill
from her pen to the tar
have a billion conversations with the pavement
until the wounds dry up
she'll stumble into the arms of gravity
and leave her dead body behind
live with the infestation of his invasion
fused into her spine

making her squirm and shiver
years after she wormed herself out of your grip
she will always feel sick
of all the ways you almost got away with it
even when you've also died and gone
she knows
you've never been a mama's boy
and you'll never be a ladies' man
you'll only ever be the amens she made
after praying you would die
at point blank range

Parasitic queen dressed in gold and black,
we made love among hyacinth
tracts and the morning dew
then parted.

I’d thought it through but
venom proved stronger than
my ire as
memories of you wormed about;
your racing touch and
erasing much to finally burst
my head.

The larval feelings spun
themselves up in
little white silk
lies
And what wiggles out,
though formed and fed
off my mind and husk,
Resembles you, winged
and rue
hungry for a meal anew.

all my life i've been skeptical
that "the one" exists for every one
'cause in my life i've watched "the one"
turn too many hearts skeletal
but they all scoff at my fear
they say, "holly, you'll know when you fall"
well, once upon a time, i fell
all that resulted in was tears
and enough self-esteem issues to last me for years
but then they have the absolute gall
to say, "when in doubt, just try try again"
try again? try again?
how many times do i have to lose a friend?
how many times do i have to pretend?

god this is awful
how can we as a society consider it lawful?
it's enough to make me pray for an end
to the madness, the search, the chase
to bow out with just a little bit of grace
after all, cats are cute
puppies are loyal
and i've got my friends
so pick up the phone and call me
when this **** ends

enter you
i didn't know what to do
my glimmer of hope didn't spark
you weren't my flashlight in the dark
but soon i saw less gloom
i saw flowers bloom
my heart opened up like a rosebud
while my mind still remains closed up
because mom and dad live at separate addresses
because colorful words paint a picture
because i doubt my ability to break the chain
so love is the thing that my heart suppresses

you wormed your way in
got right under my skin
slowly at first, then all at once
for the first time my heart didn't yell, "there's been a break in!"
it only extended a friendly hand and said, "welcome home."
so for now you have my heart on loan
and yeah, i still don't believe in "the one"
but my love, my darling, i believe in us
and for me, that is enough

I have this magnificent puzzle hanging on my wall that I made years ago.

I can’t remember exactly but I think it’s 797 pieces

Yes that’s right

797

Because there’s pieces missing.

All sky pieces, one sky piece toward the top and over to the left and two over to the right.

They stick out like sore thumbs and everyone comments on them. Like I hadn’t seen it before.

“Do you know you’re missing a few pieces of your puzzle there?” they ask.

Some even look at the floor to see if somehow they had miracoulsly wormed their way out from between the glass and card backing and fell to the ground. Because obviously it must have happened since last time I vacuumed.

So I just shrug and tell them that I know. And I tell them that they’ve always been missing, even when I framed it, they weren’t there.

This at least stops them looking at the floor.

Quite often they’ll tell me that I should have taken it back and got my money back or got a different puzzle. One with 800 pieces instead of 797.

But I tell them no. I like my 797 piece puzzle.

I like it because it reminds me of life.

Just because life is missing a piece or two you don’t put it back in the box and return it for a refund or a different one or throw it away.

Just because you put a lot of work into life and find out that there’s pieces missing you don’t just scrap it.

You should adapt to life with missing pieces.

You should be making the best of it and be proud of its uniqueness.

It especially reminds me of my life

My life is incomplete, my life is missing a few things, but the views pretty good.

And every now and then you’ll catch me looking around for those missing pieces, it’s a habit I guess.

You sit there
In the corner of my too neat room
Arms crossed behind your head

While I shoot daggers at you
The memories of what we used to be sear the inside of my eyeballs
And I remember how when we would touch nothing else mattered
When we were together we were unstoppable


And I wonder how you ended up in my bed room
After 8 months of having you out of my life you’ve somehow wormed your way back in
After 8 months of living oceans away from you you’ve somehow convinced me we should be friends
After 8 months of recovering from the tornado called you that wreaked havoc on my life you’re back
And you’re sitting there like you own the place
You’re sitting there and your confidence and sense of self fill the room
….it’s overbearing

You look up from your iphone
I’m practically huddled in the corner of my queen-sized bed afraid of what you may do and you ask
‘So there’s no chance of us having *** tonight?’

Really?
Wait, really?
That's all you have to say?
After the tears
After the fights
After everything
That’s what your interested in
I shake my head no
And I hope that will be enough to make you leave

This is my safe haven
This is my home
This is the place I don’t have to hide, usually
I hope you’ll go home
Just stand up and walk away
But no
Tonight you want to talk
You ask me why
WHY?
Are you serious?!
Did you seriously just ask that?
Here’s why
You drank me up like you were dehydrated and I was the only fresh spring in miles
I opened up to you
I gave you my soul
I shared with you my emotions (the bits and pieces I don’t generally give away)
And you drank them up
You gave me nothing in return
I was empty
All that was left was useless mud

The way I feel about you is not the way you feel about me
So why should I do this to myself
What’s between you and me, it isn’t healthy for me
So, no, we aren’t going to have ***
Finally you get up saying it’s time you should leave
I’m silently thanking God

And as I’m walking you out from the corner of the basement where my room is you grab me
We’re on the dark steps and you hug me
You hold me so close
And for every bit of that closeness that you're holding me next to your body I’m holding my happy dolphin pillow pet
And you hug me
And I touch its soft fur
And you breathe into me
And I remember just how blue my dolphin is in the light
And you’re breathing in my ear and I’m thinking BLUE BLUE BLUE
And you say in my ear that I was wrong
You feel the same way
When we’re together we can move mountains
We can do anything
And you whisper it
Even though no one’s around
And I’m focusing on my breathing and just how blue my blue dolphin is
And you kiss me
And you kiss me again
Then you kiss me once more and I…
I kiss you back

Don't tell me that I'm overreacting,
you who, without a care,
do send me into the past.
You wouldn't know, you were not there.

Fine, in presence you were plenty,
but in comforting voice, you sure were rare,
you were present in my past
but that was when you chose to stare
away from your sins

Which you'd cast down upon my head,
through the way you'd made your bed.

With him
Surely he was your greatest sin

Why did you need to cast your lot,
with that ham ******, emotionally unstable
clot of a man.
Did you choose him "because I can."
or because you really were such a fool,
as not to listen to your offspring, who
could already sense his chill.

"You'll regret this, mum."

But you didn't,
so we did instead.
This blame of yours fell upon
our heads.

You kept him for me,
my brother
and every other whom you
could muster up.
But, in reality: yourself.
You just couldn't bear to be left
on the shelf.

You allowed a viper into eden,
a snake into the nest.
You took all words of positivity,
and you ignored the rest.

I suppose a part of you wanted to test
my limits.

It turned out: none.

You watched, unseeing, as he
wormed his way in.
You watched as my affection
he won.
You watched him glow brighter
than the sun, in my eyes.
You watched him scheme, and hurt, and prise
away my shell of protection.
You watched as he turned me into
a projection, of his tainted reflection.

You watched as love, turned to rejection.

You watched as he lost control.
You watched as I shattered, and was
pushed by him to fall.
You watched him cruel.

You watched, yet somehow recall
me as forever being glad.
Never recalling all the bad,
and the sad, which
you forced me see and hear.

No wonder I don't remember you,
as ever being near.

The striking times I heard your
voice
you were crying or in deep pain,
at times and places
where I had no choice
but to hear you.

Unlike with him, I could never fear you.

Sad, lonely figure.
Desperate for a love
which no ******* from
above
ever chose to give you.

I hope that you know
that I forgive you.

Oh Mother, I will always love you.
Even if it somehow has to be in spite,
of you being one of the causes of my
eternal fight.

I'll always somehow need you
Whether or not you're wrong or right.

meddle meddle meddle worm
had crawled beneath the skin
of a big red juicy apple
to see if it was sick.
that reckless worm dug some more
it warmed itself and wormed itself
into the apples core
and there it saw the rotten seeds
and all the dying spores
and turned and thought
"oh, what a big mess!'
but as it squirmed towards the sky
it opened up its eyes,
and the meddle meddle meddle worm
saw her rotten trail,
and to her big surprise,
she finally realized
that she had been the cause
of that apples slow demise.

I'm getting this nagging feeling.
I don't know whether it's because in the pit of my stomach, I know you don't approve.
Or if it's the fact that you're not responding, and I'm worrying my fears will be confirmed if I call you.
Or if it's this niggling little thought that wormed its way into my brain, the same one I desperately hate.

You would think I'd learned that this time of year, when I (possibly) gain someone/happiness,
I'm destined (doomed) to lose someone/happiness.
It's happened a little late this year,
Or maybe it just happened a little early last year.
I just want you to talk to me.
I just want to know you're okay.
Normally when you're not, you tell me.
But once again, something's changing, and I can't help but feel happy despite my growing shame.

I wormed my way into your arms
Your head, your pants
Because I thought you'd feel the love
I missed your touch, your strenght
When I look back- think back then play it back in my head
I just want to tear out every strand of long dark curly hair
How could I be so stupid?
Physicality is not equated to love.
     just because you had traced my curves with your fingertips
     just because you had kissed me in the soft breeze of summer
     just because you had whispered sweet nothings in my ear, but nothing is ever sweet
How could I have thought you'd love me again?
How could I have thought you would again care?
I'm sorry but I've had enough of this *relationship relapse

I know what it’s like to be loved, I guess I’m truly blessed
I have been put upon a pedestal, far above all the rest
Even when I’m down and out, my friend is always there
Ugly, but cute, and slobbering, this friend is my dog Bear

It’s stirs wonderful feelings to have such a loyal mate
He doesn’t even wander if I forget to close the gate
Always quick to forgive ME when HE does something wrong
Like when I find holes in the back yard, or shoes where they don’t belong

And when I have to go out, a few minutes, or half a day
His welcome home is near ballistic, almost manic in a way
I never realised at first what a treasure I had found
When I first rescued that little puppy from death row at the local pound

His muzzle turning gray now, nose still as black as soot
Those big brown eyes stare at me as he dribbles on my foot
He’s wormed his way into my heart, become part of my life
Always pleasant company, and cheaper than a wife

I know he’ll always love me, I knew that from the start
The hand that rules the food bowl rules the heart.

you’re the pink-dripped prints in the snow
of a wounded buck;
i’m the bullet in your back

you’re the little stories i was told
of prints on the shore;
i’ve forgotten the feel of sand in my toes

you’re the between of me and the moon
far too much to cross;
i’m burning so slow for you

you’re asking me to light your cigarettes
wires wormed below your skin;
i lean over the sheets towards you, and

you’re gripping your fingers tight in my hair
bones against a hospital bed;
i’m coming down, right down to the end.

You wormed your way into my room through tendrils
Of smoke curling through my hair
You sat on my bed as if you belonged there, and
Who was I to tell you any different?
This is not a hate poem; this is a coming-to-terms with my own emotions.
We kept the lights off, a deliberate foreshadowing.
I could feel you sinking lower into my sheets,
The conversation didn’t bother itself to become memorable.
You said you were six feet tall, I’m still not sure if that’s true.
I made you stand up to compare, but didn’t garner much,
Other than what it feels like to have your breath gently flow towards
My perked face, to have your hands withering at your sides before
Stretching out, over my torso. We sat back down. Conversational squares
Emerged. You kissed me, like I knew you would, without hesitancy or
Any questions at all. I had a few, but your lips stemmed them, and I figured
Your body was answer enough. It was. At least the first time.
It felt good. You were good. Especially to me.
You wound your way throughout my body and stroked my worries
Into oblivion. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted it. We both did.
But looking back, I wish there had been questions.
I wish you hadn’t known that I would give myself to you.
Just like all the other girls before, just like all the ones after and during.
Nothing that happened was wrong. I came away from the night with
A new sort of tingling and a spreading smile and endorphins that
Seemed to bounce from side to side within me.
But I still wish I had been special. – Not what happened, but me.
This is my greatest downfall.

her olive eyes swam with desire
as she gazed at this boy
this simple boy
whom she never expected she'd fall for
but who'd worked his way into parts of her
so concealed, so guarded
not even she knew they were there

love was a foreign concept to her
her past conquests were only that:
conquests
simple boys who flitted in and out of her life
and proven themselves to be just as they appeared:
simple

she was told that when you kiss someone
you feel sparks
the earth moves beneath your feet
and you feel as if you can fly

but she had never felt this power
she was told a simple kiss could hold,
dismissed these stories as fairy tales,
and went about kissing for the fun of it
and out of her desperation to become whole



he saw the desire swimming through her olive eyes
and gently stroked her cheek
he felt so drawn to this
enigma of a girl
and oh how tirelessly he strove to solve
the puzzles she created with her glances

"Kiss me"

she loved him
and she hated that she did
for giving into desire is not as simple as it appears
in the romantic comedies
from which she'd learned everything she knew about love

giving into desire means quieting your logical mind
and logic was the only thing she knew

"Kiss me"

he looked at her with tender curiosity
observed the conflict raging in her olive eyes
and wondered why she was so hesitant to let herself go
wondered why she seemed so full of desire
yet was unable to allow it to consume her

she leaned closer to him
the simple boy who had wormed his way into her heart
and he looked at her intently
tried to solve the puzzles she laid before him

she saw her own desire echoed in the green foam of his ocean eyes

"Kiss me"


she felt sparks
the earth moved beneath her
she flew
all those fairy tales proved themselves to be true

and oh, how certain she was she loved him

Just an usual lazy-mode play,
as I sat before this
site of wondrous, happy-to-write,
chuckled long and deep,
wormed through acclaims' poets;
I find you from nowhere
as I did truly forgot
how I got you on my screen,
in my likes, in my mind,
sane side of it all,
for all you wrote
was sour ***,
bitter *** and your happy ones,
with clever words that mostly swore.
If I were a moody Sylvia head,
you are, sure, a shady Ted.
I fess I must leave sooner
or else I will pucker too much
and drop my tongue
down your throat
but I had my chastity,
I remember having it last night, honey;
so I shall prep for a hot water bath
and wear it all over again
but you may have to sleep
with all but one less lover girl.

He made it over the red brick wall, and I swear it was high, I thought it was high enough.
He wormed his way in, through the gates, through the bars.
He brought a hammer, smashed the glass.
Brought fire, bended the frames of the windows, got inside.
He brought gasoline, doused the house, doused every inch and every crevice of that home.
He dug a trench, dug it deep and wide around that house.

He had brought a bomb, lied and said it was his heart.
He left with a wire, trailing after and I thought I was safe, I trusted him.
He had brought a bomb, left it in my house, promised the smell of gasoline was a leak, and it would be fixed.
He said the damp covers and crevices were rain, since the windows were smashed.
He said the windows were destroyed because of a burglar, and he was trying to keep me safe.

He detonated the bomb, left me to burn, left me to rot with this obliterated home.

This house wasn't a home.

This house was my heart.

The most dangerous place
in the world
is alone with my thoughts.
Inside every person
is a completely unique
universe, of which they
are the sole ruler,
                       dictator,
                                 GOD.
Are you a benevolent leader?

                Me, I am a tortuous murderer,
                                     laying waste to all
                           good thoughts that dare
                                        try to enter here.
                          You cannot run from the
                                  voices in your head,
                          can't escape the monster
                         once it's wormed its way
                              inside your very flesh.

I don’t much know what she looks like.
I couldn’t tell you the color of her hair
Or the shape of her eyes
And if you put me in a crowd next to her I could spend years searching for her face
And never realize she was standing right next to me.
Because I don’t know who she was,
And her name is blank in my memory but
I know she had one because
What else would my father call her on those late nights my mom spent calling him,
Only for the 30 second condolences left by the voicemail recording,
No.
I don’t much know what she looks like,
But that doesn’t stop her from walking into my memory,
My mother’s memory,
All wide smiles and dark shadows and long fingers interlocked in his,
Interlocked in my childhood because
The other woman,
She doesn’t need a face to haunt me.
All she needed was four months and suddenly
She was lurking behind my closet door,
Under my bed,
The places in my head where the dark things hid,
She made a home behind my eyelids,
So that not even nightlights could protect me.
The other woman was a parasite,
And I watched as she wormed her way between them
Spreading sickness Redbull ***** could never seem to cure,
******* the love and then the life and then leaving them for dead.
Sometimes I hope that when she closes her eyes and lays down her head,
She can still taste it on her tongue,
The bitterness she created when she decided to become
The other woman.
She had hands like hammers and I never knew a home could be as fragile as china,
But watched as shards of porcelain fell at my feet,
Glowing red and blue.
Watched as my mother tried to pick up the pieces,
Her shaking hands always carrying more than she could hold.
Watched as my father, the artist,
Handed the paintbrush to the other woman,
Her masterpiece,
Our destruction.
Watched as the other woman became the only woman
Who could rip my heart out of my chest and still remain unknown.
Recently I met a girl in love.
Even with his wife and kids.
And I recognized the other woman in her smile, her laugh,
In her eyes which glowed happy.
Happiness I could never achieve because
I was the kid whose father stopped tucking her in
When he found a better pair of lips to kiss goodnight.
The tightness in my chest wouldn’t go away because
She told me I should try it.
But broken homes aren’t ice cream flavors.
Empty beds aren’t party drugs.
You don’t take a ruined life for a test drive and
I know now that other women exist,
But I could never hold a match to a family just to start a fire in my heart.
I don’t much know what she looks like,
But I know she’ll never look like me.

"Let me make one thing clear, hombre," The Suited Man spoke in a low, purposeful voice as he rolled a cigarette, wetting the corners with a serpentine tongue a moment before passing it over his upper lip, "I have watched--with great joy, I might add--the nature of death." Then, pursing the cylinder between his teeth and offering a wicked grin, he punctuated his upcoming point with an audible flick of his lighter. Exhaling a pungent cloud in my face, he rapped his left ring finger across the length. "Everything is aware of its mortality; everything. The rich, the poor, the holy and the sinners; the birds, the ***** bees, all those saved whales and every single one of the hugged trees. Every squirming, writhing, wiggling, wicked little creeper and crawler that has ever existed and may ever hope to exist... all of them. Even the ******* atoms in the air! All things know that they're doomed--it's why even the single-celled beings have all those defense mechanisms; all those..." he smirked, flicking an ash, "adaptations, yes?--and yet, from the massive to the miniscule, none of them face their mortality with near the greed nor the total lack of grace as your kind. You've known since you were a wee lad that you'd die, hombre, so why resent it now; why fight for more time? Another hour; another day--hell, I could hand you a written guarantee that you'd have another decade to do whatever you wanted..." he shook his head and pulled the cigarette from his mouth to flick the growing ash and admire the ghostly trail that ascended to the mist-swirling ceiling fan. As the contemplative moment passed, he returned the cigarette to his mouth and leaned closer to me, bringing his cold, black eyes so close to my own that my vision knew nothing more. "What would that decade mean to you? For me it is nothing--those like me do not worry much about trivial human fictions such as time and... well, all of this"--he waved about the room with his index finger--"So I hope you'll forgive my skepticism; understand that it's just my ignorance to your pervasively infantile beliefs." He rattled three of his bony fingers on his jutted chin, "Tell me why I should sympathize with your plight over all others who have pleaded with me before you. Explain, if you'd be so bold, why I should adopt your urgency as my own."

It took me some time to find my voice. Between the smell of his herb--something that, in all my years of debauchery and romances, I'd never encountered--and the fierceness of his presence, there was a sort of little death that had wormed its way into my thoughts. I fought to sit up, but did not have the strength. I struggled to clear my throat, but could not command my lungs to work as I wanted. I worked to wet my own lips, cursing the dryness of my dated mouth. Finally, I gave up; succumbing to the reality that my body was useless for the soul occupying it. There was nothing left of me but my wits, and it was my wits that I needed now more than anything.

I shut my eyes against his overwhelming stare.

I held my breath against his foreboding aroma.

And I let the soul say what it needed to say:

"Let me make one thing perfectly clear, good sir," the voice I heard barely sounded like my own, "I have watched--with utter disdain, I'll admit--the passing of life. I believe you when you say that everything knows it will die, and I also believe that almost everything deserves to die. Not because almost everything is wicked or evil, nor because I feel some contempt or hatred towards almost everything. As I lay here I'm certain there are many eager to see me go, and I not only respect their right to feel that way," my lungs abandoned my speech's momentum and I paused to take a rasped inhale, "but I agree that I deserve the mortality that's haunting me."

"Do you understand you've already wasted more of my time than I typically allow?" The Suited Man asked, aiming his pointer and middle fingers--and the smoking cigarette pinched between them--in my direction.

I nodded, finding strength enough to hold up my hand; silently begging for a moment longer. "Please, I won't be much longer... and once I'm finished, I'll accept whatever fate you decide with dignity."

The Suited Man chortled at that, "And silence, I hope."

"Yes," I sighed, "and that." With my company motioning for me to continue, I succumbed to the voice of the soul: "You deal in death, so you must have seen enough to know that, while those like you care little for time, it is what defines all those who perish. What, if not those minutes, those hours, those days, years, and decades, are we to value? You deal in death, so I can't ask you to understand why we fight to live. To you, a book is not worth reading because it has an end, and that end represents a lack of substance; but that book, like each and every soul, has a story to tell. And the only thing greater than the limited time each and every soul has is the stories we leave behind."

The Suited Main rolled his black eyes and flicked another looming tendril of ash, "You bore me with your rant, hombre, and my smoke, like you, is running out of life. Get to the point or accept mine." He took in a rattled breath to fuel a dark and hollow voice, "Why should I let you live?"

"Stories are the most important thing for anything that fears death, good sir," I fought my growing aches to move my hand to the stack of papers at my left; the stack perched blissfully beside my old, dusty typewriter. Patting the pages--taking a certain satisfaction in the nostalgic feel of the stock I'd long since grown loyal with--I cocked by quaking skull towards the desk and its contents. "And while I await the day you'll finally escort me from my desk, there's a story that I've yet to finish."

The Suited Man narrowed his black gaze at me--the two orbs shimmering like obsidian beneath his timeless lids--before the glow of his pupils shifted to the desk for a long, tortured moment. Without looking away from the stack I still rested my hand upon, he returned the dwindling cigarette to his lips and inhaled before letting out a long stream of smoke.

Though I didn't see him stand, he was on his feet then. I took in his height with the same terrified awe that I'd received the rest of him--his sudden appearance in my late husband's chair across the room; his impeccable awareness, or my unwavering understanding of his purposes; everything that made him who and what he was--and allowed him to continue his long, tortured moment in gazing at the desk that had, just as much as the hours and days and years, come to define my life.

Then he was gone; him, his smoke, and the terror he radiated.

Letting out a labored breath, I struggled to turn towards my desk, trying to recall where I'd left off in my manuscript. As I settled in, I caught sight of a clean page secured in the feed of the typewriter with the only evidence that I hadn't been alone:

"YOU HAVE YOUR DECADE, HOMBRE. SPEND IT WELL, AND SAVE ME A COPY OF YOUR STORY."

Yehudit sat with her chin
on her knees and her hands
wrapped about her bare legs,
staring at the water of the pond.

Flies hovered over the water's
skin, ducks swam, birds flew
or sang. Baruch sat beside her,
hands on the grass either side
of him, watching the scene,
smelling her scent, liberated
(Yehudit claimed from her
mother's room), dabbed on
liberally. Marilyn Monroe's
dead, he said. Suicide I heard,
she replied. Or other, he said,
someone wanted her dead.

Papers say suicide, she said,
least ways she out of it. I liked
her, he said, many a guy dreams
of her I suppose. Are you one
of those? she asked. Is a guy
responsible for his dreams? he
said, turning his head, taking
in her profile, goddess like, he
thought, nose, chin, lips and all.

Who would you like to wake up
to me or Monroe? she asked,
giving him the steady stare.

You now, of course, he replied,
now she's died. Yehudit slapped
his arm, seriously even if she
hadn't popped her clogs? He
saw a rook fly across the pond,
noise attending, flap of wings.

You of course, he said, even if
she lived; you'd be my first choice,
he added in whispered voice.

She closed her, leaned her damp
forehead on her knees, hands
holding her legs tight. There
was no wind, just afternoon
warm sunlight. I dream of you
often, she said, here by the
pond, in the classroom, in my
single bed. He smiled at this,
wanting to give her lips a kiss.

He viewed her thigh out of the
corner of his eye. Her green
skirt had lowered down, thus
revealing such. He loved the
way she was: her hair, her eyes
open or closed, her lips in motion
or still, her hands at rest or play.

They'd not made it to her bedroom,
her mother was always around,
upstairs or down; they'd not made
his bedroom either (he shared with
his brother) and of course, he didn't
want to shock his mother. In dear
Yehudit's dreams of him they'd made
it it seemed, although he didn't share
because he wasn't there, which he
thought unfair. On the sports field
at school, I heard, you see another,
she said, her voice hesitant, her
words hanging in the air. Oh that's
nothing, he said, just a girl with
a crush, no big deal. So Yehudit
looked away. Sunlight danced on
the water's skin, warming flies
and ducks and fish beneath within.

He wondered how he lied. Words
came out of their own accord.
That other on the sports field,
who'd wormed into his mind
and heart, filled his night and
dreams (more than Monroe had
or did), but because he didn't
want to injure dear Yehudit's
mind or heart, he kept it hid.

Out of the blue, she blurted out,
"Peculiar stuff, I want to assert"
I had no guess what was her find.
(More like many a times one sees onself
in turns of life, unexpected, I presumed)
"Oh! is it? tell me all about it " I enthused,
And woke up at the very same moment
in to a dream, of different kind, half progressed,
There was no trace of a 'her' in this dream I wormed in!

Hey lady with the marker up front
stocking our brains with useless tid bits
of information
*******!
Im not paying attention to you.
I guess you can say Im wasting my education
'Im gonna do something big, bigger then YOU'
Im gonna be a big movie star
with all my useless materialistic things
my over priced clothes. or my 6 million dollar car
making tabloids and headlines everytime
I find a girl thats better than just a ****
Ill have a big house, and leave a ton of rooms empty.
Ill try and seem sophisticated enough to try and write a lame half true autobiography
And Ill have a drug stint and people will know my problem
Six months will pass
December
Janurary
Feburary
March
April
May
'say what ever happened to him?'
Ill be clean then, and Ill look like Im enjoying myself
I did a good job of staying out of trouble
and when the trouble stopped so will the help
Soon Ill find myself alone in
my mansion with nothing to do
Ill give a hefty donation
But thats just because I feel useless
so old and just caged in
And when Im sitting in my chair
wormed by a fire, sipping on my aged wine
Ill be thinking how finishing college
getting a job and starting a family woulda been just fine

As she fell down the wishing well,
A stray thought wormed right in,
“Who am I?
Am I’m Alice? The one with travelled the Looking Glass?
The one who fought the Jabberwocky?
Or perhaps the one who lost her head?
My own head feels a bit lost,
So I must be her, falling down to reality.”