Standing at the door, hesitant.
Wondering what I'll see.
The other side is haunting,
The other side's a mystery.

It could be the hell
I've always learned to fear
With dark emerging creatures
And an exit no where near

Drowning in your sorrow
Replaying every trauma
Screaming out to no one
It's more than highschool drama

Demons crawling under your skin
Breaking every bone
Scratching and tearing to get them out
You've never been so alone

Screaming in the night
Gasping your last breath
Ripping your own heart out
But never rewarded death

These images they haunt me,
But I've come to far to leave.
I must know what's in there
And what my future will be..

So here I go..
I open the door...

Oh my god..there it is....
This is what I've been waiting for..

The last words I plan to write
before the darkness, of endless night,
will be just these, short and few,
I'm sorry for what, I did to you.

He said that I'd never have to breathe again.
Breathing wasn't necessary.
He said wounds would never be made.
I'd never feel the sting.
He said I wouldn't drown.
Stay above the water.

His love makes me immortal.

I'm gasping for oxygen.
It is so necessary.
The blood now drains from my skin.
The pain is excruciating.
And I find myself going deeper.
Unable to breathe underwater.

Because his love had made me immortal.

The kind of woman that  has you fumbling for words at 3:30 in the morning.
But words can't describe such elegance and grace.
Nor the regret of avoiding her embrace under the moonlight,
For *** and cheap thrills.
Or the way her beauty haunts me.

Have you ever felt it's too dark to see?
Not in a visual sense, but mentally?
Well one day nature spoke to me.
As I gazed upon a burning tree.

In an ashy forest, black and bleak.
Near the Grand Teton mountain peaks.
I heard the voice of our mother speak.
Ash is the blood that trees leak

I strolled and whistled through the smoky air
And saw the destruction nature shared
Yet There were spots of green that the fire spared

It left yellow trees and fields of grass
Could it be that nature is not quite crass?
Balance says she must complete these tasks.
So in the small patches of color I'll bask

Cause you see destruction comes and then it goes
So that the old can die and the young  can grow
Green pastures become smothered in snow
So we can value the warmth, didn't you know?

Flames turn colorful forests black
But the color seems to always come back
So if happiness is something you lack
If loneliness and sorrow attack
Remember that anguish can help you learn
And the best lessons are the ones that burn

What stuck out to me in the ashy woods
Were the colorful trees that still stood
I can survive the flames if they could
So I let a chuckle, put up my hood.
And headed out of the blackness

Three teens sit in a lightless room.
The **** smoke mixes with the incense,
And births a pungent smell.
The television flashes in the dark.
They stare blankly into its screen, afraid to think.
No exchange of words, after all what would they say?
"Hey buddy! How many times have you wanted to end it this week?!"
Or maybe, "Hi Pal! Could you spare a Xanax?"
These are the suicide kids; life means nothing to them.
They wander emotionlessly through school hallways
And work minimum wage jobs with displeasure.
They don't smoke for fun, they smoke to numb.
The prospect of death is comforting to them.
Maybe then they could be alone without demons running rampant.
So they sit amongst each other in lifeless rooms.
With lifeless people, in lifeless towns.
To them, Suicide is like a passing wind.
Not even a seconds thought for their rotting peers,
They understand. They know this life is heavy.,
And sometimes one just can't take the weight. So they make it end.
With pills and bullets. With Ropes and razors. They make it end.
Soon they'll have to pick a career and start a "life."
They chuckle sorrowfully at this prospect,
What life will find them here in this shattered country?
The heat is rising and they KNOW it.
The water is drying and they KNOW it.
The trees are dying and they KNOW it.
They're slaves. And they KNOW it.
It is this knowing that brings them their pain
And brings along thoughts of nooses and slashed wrists.

One of them turns to the other and says "Yo pass me the ****, man."
He slides the glass across the table in front of them.
Careful not to make eye contact,
That might spark conversation.
The incense smoke twirls in the air.
The TV flickers, and day turns to night.
The youngest of the three teens says farewell and walks home glumly,
A noose awaits him.

I walk hand in hand with corpses,
And the streets we walk are morbid.
Roads lined with scorching torches,
And riddled with their organs.
Streets oh so solemn and sordid.

Skeletons stroll freely among me,
Blissfulness, they've taken from me.
They say "Hey, I'm sorry sonny,  
But life ain't always sunny."
So we walk together glumly.

The sky's are gray where we wander
And  the landscape is somber.
Nothing but endless time to ponder,
The endless days we have to squander

I have moved to a different drum
With odd and peculiar rhythms
Dancing awkwardly through life
On my two flat clumsy feet
It is not the way I chose
To step on innocent toes
But the wildness of my dance
Has had no easy flow
The blame lies entirely with me
It's a genetic thing, you see
I am no more than this
The son of the gypsy's kiss

                                By Phil Roberts

When I was a young man
A heedless headlong consumer of life, was I
Above and beyond the norm or necessity
I wore paths deep and wide
To the pleasure centres of my brain
And I rode my soul like an easy *****
Oh happy daze of hedonism
How sweet life tasted then

If there was drink to drink
We drank it
If there were songs to sing
We sang them
If there were fights to fight
We fought them
We had fast feet and faster wits
If there was hell to raise
We raised it
Excess and adventure in equal parts
How fast, how high we flew back then

And then the magic playground
Became a bleak and dangerous place
Peopled by predators and prey
In an ever changing food chain
And I was only one step away
From the totally oblivious
One brain cell ahead of
The permanent reality challenged
Then friends began casually dying
Barely noticed in the rush to join them
Now the race is on
And I have grown old and slow

                                              By Phil Roberts

What does happen in the night?,
where restless youths beg for a fight,
where women with all dignity lost, will sell you their services at a cost,

where men will pay for their hunger to sate and tell their wives they're coming home late, where knowing wives are sat at home, waiting by the telephone, hoping he has done what's right, but that's not what happens in the night.

The children cower in their beds, the fear of the night sat in their heads, imagining monsters, causing fright, but that's not what happens in the night.

The children do not know, why mothers eyes are red, why father is not home, tucking them into bed, but father is still searching for that which will excite, for this is what happens, in the absence of light.