The inevitable silence fills every thought.
Anguish oozes from each pore in my body.
Torment lays thick and heavy on every breath.
Death is making his way through the mortal realm to place his icy grip on my life.
To **** a part of me, but leave enough so that he may strike again.
Tedious pain courses through my body, gnashing it's teeth on already frayed nerves.
Hell is here and now, cleverly disguised as just another step in the process of life.
I have seen the demons behind the masks.
Their hateful eyes burn like the hell fires that now replace my once loving heart.

The sands of time remain in constant motion.
Slipping away like a thief in the night,
with the moments I swore would last forever.
The wheel of fortune spins faster and out of control.
The tighter I cling to it, the more rapidly it drains away.
Surrender is the only option.
I will slip and swirl with the monstrous current of change
like a rag doll in a hurricane.

Visions rend me from my slumber in their bone-chilling talons,
freezing every drop of blood coursing through my veins.
The breath torn away from my lungs form a tortured scream that hangs thickly, mingling with the hazy moments between sleeping and awake.
Gasping for air, I fumble in the darkness for reality.
The murky panic passes and once again, I am alone in the dark.
Retreating back into the comfort of my bed I longingly seek the peace that enveloped me while you were here.  Again tonight, my search is in vain.
As it will always be.

The past played out again in such painstaking detail.
Uniformed officer marching somberly to the door with the chaplain.
Bearing a neatly folded flag, dog tags shining brightly upon it.
And the letter.
The most dreaded letter.
I know what it says without reading a word.
I strain to hear their voices in the distance.

Regret to inform you...
Killed in action...
Our deepest sympathies.

Unable to gouge out the sight in my minds eye,
I feel the last shred of fortitude drain from my body
The images take root in every dismal corner of my mind.
Replaying over and over until I am numb.
A cigarette to calm my nerves.  A sigh of momentary relief.
I think I will just stay awake tomorrow night.

The warm summer rains fall from a tumultuous sky flecked with sickly shades of green.
Thunder rips through the heavens, shaking the stars.
Lightning illuminates the land and my heart cries out to you.
Droplets of water fill my eyes concealing the tears that fall freely to the ground, yielding a salty crop of memories.
I clinch my eyes shut against the storm and the tidal wave of yesterdays, yet I cannot escape the visions of you and I.
Each drop reanimates a moment we shared until I am lost in that world of blissful remembrance.
I lift my voice to the skies and curse the powers that be.
Screaming defiantly into the night, my body gives way to the pain.
I exist now, only as you remember me.

At least there is consistency in emotional recidivism.
Criminality you can depend on.
Vacant words.
Hollow ***.
Empty eyes.
At the very least there is stability in the pattern.
You can sense the hand of dismissal as it cuts through the tension to lay its mark upon your cheek.
Delivering the degradation of being hit with the indifferent truth.
Nothing more than a pillowed and silken chaise that cleans cooks and allows you to lay your every waking trouble upon her breast, upholstered in thin sinewy tatters, longing for mutual fortification.

As the relentless shifting of time begins it's quickening,
my spirit grows increasingly nostalgic and ceaselessly restless.
The familiar and familial bonds forged long ago begin to grow taut
and full of palpable tension between all that has been,
and all that will be.
My mind is pierced by a dagger of remembrance.
The shadow box memories begin to liquefy and flow
sweeping along in it's wake both the sweetest and most bitter
until I am saturated by the past.
Facing what will be once more, I cling as ever to all that has been.
Moments and memories once fluid begin to converge and solidify.
forming the critical cornerstones upon which all that will be finds
it's firmest footing.
Strength, renewed it becomes easier to cast off the tension and turn a bright, sharp eye towards all that will be with the security of knowing that it would never come to pass without all that has been.

You are the dream of my sleepless nights.
Insanity beckons me forth into its arms.
Silent and motionless
Eyes wide and painful
Staring longingly into the abyss.
Searching endlessly for rest…just a moments rest.
I found no comfort in my bed last night.
No peaceful rejuvenation in slumber.
Only maddening laughter echoing in my mind.
…Just a moments rest.
Focus on the pain.
Let the laughter overtake you.
Release your grip on reality
Slip silently into the tortured realms of the insomniac.
Sweetest of dreams to you, my friend.
Pray you never wake up

The words hang thickly above my hand ?oscillating feverishly with limitless possibility. ?As the words begin to whip around in a cyclone ?of pure creation?. My hand begins to tremble as it staggers to ?keep pace with their dizzying entrance into this reality. ?The powerful words.?The phrases of iron ?and sentences of stone ?free fall into my hand to be ?released in the heavy darkness of each droplet of ink. ?The frivolous words.?The phrases of fancy ?and the plastic paragraphs ?fall away from the pen to rejoin the primordial well of imagination to await the right pen and hand to call them forth to their true purpose.