Where the tides of Magnus swell
And his thundering roars beat lightning to hell.

We've been living in a maze.
We've been digging up our graves.
We've been throwing up our brains,
Yet these quakes will still go on.

Sickles and hammers
And tall corporate buildings, portly businessmen.
The windows and towers they will smash because of the beast inside their heads.

Black and white
Good and evil
Are there two sides? Four, eight? Or are there billions of coloured pixels;
Each twinkling their own ideologies.
But once they blend, like watercolours,
The wars commence and their crimes they won't repent.

Our conditioned brains
Entertained by an electronic screen, or perhaps a print of lies on paper.
And we will curse, wail or put other opinions on bail.

Will we live a life of sepia, of black and white?
Or will we respect all sides of that rubix cube which becomes ever more difficult to solve.

The algorithms twist, intertwine, sever
But there is not one single lever- we can pull

to save our bleeding earth.

The quakes will go on
We will not have a break from them.
We are veterans of psychological corruption;
And our armour and weapons are destroyed.

On my bed,
The sheet climbing off the sides,
My cover a pile at my feet,
And a transparent stretch on my face
That blocks the light from within
But not without.
Tiny dots across the window
Glows like fireflies in the cone,
A dark, dark room.
(Rough edges.)

The world outside
A buzz of flies
Waiting to die,
You could use a gun
To shoot at them,
And they would thank you
For all the destruction,
The blood so little from them
You won't even have to wash them off.
(Is it even red?)

There is no glory
There is no pain
In the killing of lives
Tinier than our egos.
The buzz flows
Like the wind,
Or the air in the conch
The blood in your vessels.
If you don't put your ear next to it,
You won't even listen.
(Silence.)

I was twelve
Probably ten,
My brother held his breath
While he explained the Schrodinger's cat.
I listened the same,
I cannot and will not say
I understood it
Because you can never tell
At which age
Things became what they are now.
How can you tell, its your mind that grew
And not the thing itself?
(Questions.)

On the way to Hell, I met a man
who sold counterfeit tickets to Heaven.
He was ***-bellied, bald and hunchbacked,
mothballs in his mouth and flames in his eyes.
He mumbled through consonants,
slipped over vowels and destroyed syntax,
pointing at the tickets frustratingly
at the comprehension of my confused expression.
I shook my head and moved on
as he coated the air with broken expletives.

By a bridge over a magma river,
a bird-headed demigod held a set of scales,
but he waved me through,
seeing by the weight in my eyes
that my soul’s mass had already been determined.
He whistled a tune vaguely familiar,
a desert swansong of a dying missionary.

The road rose slightly, and at the apex
I saw the city in a foul-smelling valley.
Blanketed by smog, I couldn’t discern much,
a factory chimney billowing smoke and ash,
screams forcing their way through the cloud.
A giant man with skin like fresh, glistening blood
greeted me as I began my descent.
He informed me he was a demon
and he would be giving me a tour.
Asking him how long it would take
he said it was entirely up to me,
all the time in the world was waiting for us.

I asked him why he had no horns
and he laughed with a noise of horse death,
one he had baptised himself with an aeon ago.
He dutifully informed me that this particular misconception
came about due to a similarity between invading warriors
and their certain bloodthirstiness and vitriol
held in much akin to the view of demons at the time.
He assured me that demons weren’t that bad,
friendly enough but with a temper fitting
a location as unearthly foreboding as this place.

As we walked through the ***** streets,
I couldn’t help but notice they were busy with people
rushing about and selling things and generally
much like people did on the mortal plain.
The demon said Hell was much like Earth,
just with greater punishments if you didn’t pull your weight.
An abominably long and disjointed finger
pointed in the direction of the chimney I saw earlier.
That was where the worst of the worst end up,
the rapists and abusers of child and woman,
all the filth humanity had to offer,
always churning, he said, always smoking away.

We stood by the door for some time,
an awkward silence descending between us,
rattling the synapses in my brain
as I tried to comprehend my past life
and the fate that awaited me.

After an insurmountable time, the demon knocked on the door.
I heard scraping on the door, a set of keys fall to the floor,
a curse put upon those keys then the clinking of a lock.
The door opened and a massive fire raged within,
conveyor belts from several directions leading towards it,
naked people, statues to the Heavens, falling off the end
and making the fire grow and glow like no fire I had ever seen.
The demon in charge of this awful place looked me up and down,
asking me what I had done to ever deserve to end up like this.
I attempted an excuse but couldn’t muster the right words,
so I just told him the truth without hint of any repentance.
He shook his head and genuinely looked shocked at what he had learned
and grabbed my shoulders and hauled me towards my piteous soul-death.
I was stripped naked as I became more aware of the intense heat,
flames of scarlets and oranges reached out to my broken body,
all skin and bones and nerves vibrating to an otherworldly chill.
I floated up to a conveyor belt which felt unduly cold beneath my feet,
and as I looked back on the life I lived and the one I dreamed when I was young,
I realised that this was a fitting ending to a life lived fully sans regret.
I opened my arms wide like a Messiah and began to pray eternal thanks.

I do not fit
between straight lines
and words that twinge
metallic and cold
as they strike notes
upon my open mind
and upturned palms.

I do not fit between
cities that shriek,
burning inexplicably
and wide open spaces
that stretch repetitively
on past your periphery.

I do not fit between
envelope folds
and crisp little notes,
crying at all the indecisiveness
of my worn edges.

I do not fit between
blue skies that mean nothing,
and a white hot sun
burning holes in it,
overexposing this bleached
and silent landscape.

I do not fit between
tightly packed cubicles
and hungry eyes.

My body moves about
with marionette precision
as the mind screams
with contempt
cool and sharp as glass,
white hot and fleeting,
lustfully arcing
into a shadow of identity.

One is the bluebird
whose wings carried my burdens
heavier than mountains

One is the bluebird
who flew across starry skies
and silvery snow

One is the bluebird
whose eyes sincere and solemn
lovingly gazed into mine

Alas, it never cut my guilt
for letting it go to start anew

So, one day maybe
I, again, will hear its voice that chirps and comforts,
and to push me onward... To where I belong ...

Rest my sweetheart,
Yours truly will hold no grudge
Nor hold your mistakes against you.
Rest now in the night.
I who will dream of you,
Not dreaming with you,
Will keep on loving,
Having no regrets.

I feel no shame
Can't control my soul,
Forever blessed
For knowing you.
Never will I forget those eyes.
Nor a single tear I shed,
But keeping my smile
For the love I never had,
And dying was worth the living.

It will be on you,
The weight will land on,
Later will come regret,
Darling I assure you,
For knowing me
Might've been the world.

Dreams were molded
Only to fade
Burning to ashes
Returning to the world
Forever and always,
Love and laughter
On the eternal circle
Never dying,
Becoming something else.