The arms of eternity open,
like a sentimental bolero played
at some in-between place,
they open lazily
and incandescently,
encircling the comically and silently raging,

Poetically, and gently,
the phantom draws her wings towards forgetfulness -
at the eye of the temple -
distant,
full of guidance
and potential.
The profound silence of bitter lives.

Every bit and every key
Everything that makes me "me"

Validation via screen
Validation via stream

A proxy heart
And virtual veins
Code information
To my brain

Burn down the walls
Or let me climb
Type truth to form
And shape my mind

As cord's to board
So is root to tree
This light is so bright
That I can't see

Glitching bits and corrupted keys
Validate me or I'll scream

Constitute my myocene
Validation via screen

Sculpted faces,
aging drama queens,

all the world's stages, this
is after those, these depths
of despair, where no pieces fit,

Kintsugi, fractured flash bulb scene,

an instamatic moment, a Kodak memory.

Blood in the blue,
a direct proclamation of fate,
guided like an arrow,
an actor, or oneself-
a mere impulse-desire in the velvet ruins of eternity.

Temporally displaced,
The hidden moment of a lifetime’s innocent
desire to become
nothing more
than this, that is here,
a dream working on the edge of town,
an elephants delight,
a signal flare on a dark sea nesting quietly underneath an endless, black sky.

Mother Mary with her tilted head
suggests,
with her Posture,
the light that illuminates her shawl.

Like a leaf tilted by the weight
of water,
the sky demands Enough and speaks,
easy words.

For a time, when the world is silent,
not even
a mystic experience could perfume
the inventory of delight.

Even the light is hollow bubbles.

I step inside. The weight of past encounters shrinks the corridor. I brain-search for a safety behaviour to assuage the impending sense of doom. As if on a plane (‘count the seats between you, and your nearest exit’), I count the doorways between the entrance and my office as I walk forward.

Door one. Used all my leave days. Gone four weeks. Feels like much longer. Door two. Window ledges look unfamiliar. Doorhandles are strange. Door three. Was the carpet always this colour? Door four. The tight-wound wool ball in my chest clenches, the stretching yarn groaning like sailboat ropes in a north-westerly. Door five. I say chest, but to be specific, it’s the top of my sternum, bordering the jugular notch. Door six. The squeeze-groans are petulant reminders of why I went on leave. My omniscient manubrium warning call. Door seven. For the love of all that lives on God’s green earth, why are we back here?    

Why indeed. Door seven. Home base.

I sit at the desk and my mind crouches and crawls along the lonely, dark path. Back to the last time I was here. The last time I was hunted. Sludgy mud memories thickly bubble, burst, and liquefy before my eyes. So very thick and so very brown. Each pop a muted wet slap.

Then, another sound. From my computer. Just in front of me. I have an email.

My inner mud-bubble memory show responds. Now it scrolls through a parade of minor monsters. Possible email senders. My space and mind invaded by their correspondence. So very desperate and so very flawed in their attempts at functional adult interaction.

So very tantrum-primed, slander-keen, and gaslight-geared.

Mean-spilling, rage-channelling, drama-divers.
Breakdown one-uppers.
Accountability dodgers.
Monopolising guilt-trippers.

Lesser daemons.
Energy vampires.
Always thirsty.

This is where they hunt me. Door seven. My office. In emails, texts, calls, voicemails, and physical presence. High quality rendered. Dream reproduction ready. Technicolor.

To be fair, I’m top-grade prey. All squishy and caring. Softest-of-soft targets. The quintessential good listener. Ears for days. Psych-trained, chair-arranging, body language monitoring, tone-of-voice sensitive, feelings generator. Generous-portioned, silver-service dining. Tastes like sweet intentions, candied optimism, and bitter disappointment. Fear garnish for colour and crunch.

Now, I sit behind door seven. Waiting. Vibrating emotion...
I can feel them closing in…  

Please send instructions for establishing clear boundaries, guidelines for maintaining a mental distance, and chocolate.

Happy Halloween.

I draw on cigarettes,
Doodle with resin-
Blisters on my fingers,
They all think I'm playin'.
The colors brown & red
Are escaped when I shut my eyes,
And when I turn my face inside
I'm fine with what I see.
It's not dark, pretty light-
It's all clear skies,
Even with a chance of showers
There's always a sunrise.