The reflection in the mirror
returns me a sad and forced smile,
the dried-up hair barely catching the light,
and those brown eyes sinking like holes in the ground.

Who could love that face?
With its rough features,
its coarse skin and bent nose.
A pyrrhic beard and that weak chin.

And what about those arms, huh?
Long and thin like church candles,
but with no flare.

Not much of a chest either,
there are gravestones with more bulk,
and people are far happier to see them too.

But above all it’s the barrenness that scares me,
the sinkholes run deep and the candles cold,
and the gravestones go down to the foundations of the world.

The reflection in the mirror returns me.
Nothing

I love her like watching peach-colored clouds against a baby-blue sky.

I love her like going back to sleep after waking up at night.

I love her, because she gets me, even if I can’t.

She’s the reason my wrists are clean, my neck is sound and that I don’t have an extra hole peeping through my skull.

She’s taught me to try things I may not like, and to like things that make her sigh.

If Cain had had a sister, the world would be all right.

With an act of love
only he could muster,
with a strike so swift
that all pain denied...

Ablaze with sin,
Eden burns still,
with flames so bright
that the stars look dim.

With his crime still fresh,
I came to in this flesh
in resemblance to God,
and cursed to withstand His stream of thoughts.

Thoughts which now pour
through an open wound
agape at my nape.

That most precious of nectars
pooling over the soil
of the beautiful garden
I once called home.

May it mix with the dew,
and bring forth life anew,
May it nurture the roots,
when my body lies moot.

...was his gift in the end,
to shorten my days,
to bar my ears
and shut my eyes
to the impending doom
and coming cries.

This mint-colored room with its high ceiling and its low expectations, with barely enough to fit me and my void, a one-sided bed and those books I've never read.

So quiet, so somber.

Half childhood memory, half prison cell. Full time mausoleum.
Its greenish walls lined with cobwebs and ants, and a thick layer of dust and mold, the kind to clog up the lungs. The silent decay of a vacant space inhabited by the recently dead.

Only, I yet live.

Half breathing through my bent nose, in my comfy bed with my ugly thoughts, while the spiders and ants watch me with intent, like birds of prey dancing through the air.

Quietly knowing something I don´t.

The mask doesn’t care for feeling, the mask doesn’t need intimacy, It doesn’t crave affection, It is content with just being.

I could only watch as It took over, slowly but steadily, a concrete layer hardening over my lead coffin.

Washing away the poison and hiding the cancer that grew up inside. What a fate to have.

Was it better to let the rot take over, was it better to let it show, in all its horror for the world to know?

It doesn’t matter now, the pain is gone, the horror is no more, and the mourners have left the scene, only It remains.

Give them to the knives, hungry as they are.
Give them to the noose, hang them out to dry.
Give them to the cross, ***** them for the mass.
Give them to the streets, stifling their hearts.
Give them to the soil, welcoming them back.

Give us to the knives, dull them with our hides.
Give us to the noose, loosening it's grasp.
Give us to the cross, tear the altar down.
Give us to the streets, outing all their grime.
Give us to the soil, taking back our lives.

They took me to a hill, bound me to a rock
and spilled my innards on the floor.
The woman cried a bitter stream of tears.
The man clutched the knife into his fist.

There was no stop to be had, no pause,
there were no angels to come.
The outcome written on the stone below,
marked by the scars of countless blades before.

A stream-like crack gleamed with red,
its banks welcoming the flow like an old friend.
Someplace else a child is born.
Future offering to desperate gods.