When I let my mind wander it often dreams timelessly
Creating vast wastelands of impossible concepts and places that never existed
A junkyard of delirium and broken hearts

Lately it's been dreaming of the realistic and dark
Fantasies and a gravitation towards the fate of the spiteful

It always starts with tears, and screaming
I punch at the walls setting fire to my domain with each strike
Ripping chunks of aortic valves from my sleeves with the fury of a rabid wolf

Then once all has settled and I sit in my piles of ash
I sob
It isn't like the first time
There aren't any screams
Or the thudding of my bloodied and stained hands against drywall and wood
Or the thundering echoes of each heartbeat ripping apart my eardrums

There is only a soft
Drifting and muffled sobbing containing more pain than the mass graves of my ancestors

Then it stops

A grunt
A crash
A choke
A gasping and struggling sound escapes my throat
Despite the belt wrapped around it trying to pin each cry and plea to my neck

I float
Like an angel watching silently over the world encased in my tomb
And as the sun rises and sets
and rises and sets
and rises and sets
and rises and sets

Only the moon will know what atrocity I have committed
In defiling my soul and beliefs
And turn my back on hope once and for all

Mom called.
She said something happened at your friends.
She said, the result of whatever cataclysm took place there, left you asleep.
You still haven't woken up.

Not fully.

You've moved your hand a couple of times, and your eyes but
They say you're still fighting your way out of it.

I know your mom died.
You're probably dreaming dreams of being with her now, dancing in your living room
On a warm summer night, without a care in the world.
I need you to know that it's okay to be tired.
I'm tired, too.
My eyes all yearn to shut and stay shut till my soul can rest.
Sleep as much as you'd like,
And rest.
But please, do wake up soon.
I don't want you to become enchanted by the world you're staying in
And end up becoming a permanent resident of the Dreamland destined for Lost souls.

I love you.
No, loved.
It gets confusing, separating my old thoughts from my current ones
Especially when on the same conceptual topic such as love.
Or you.

I love you the same way one loves an abusive parent they've long separated from
I love you with a flinch at your touch
And an obedient and calm agreement at your word

I love you like I love the sharp side of the blade you carved me with
A painful, dulling sensation of my flesh exposing to air
And all the comforts of home ingrained gracefully into the handle you hold


I love you because of the things you've shown me I can do
I love you because I thought you left me with these cursed gifts of knowledge
But last night you returned
And reminded me of how things were

You entered my room, and set my nest ablaze to give yourself warmth
You screamed my name in the same tone and voice you had dozens of times before
You forced yourself into existence by forcing me to acknowledge you and your presence
Last night you returned and reminded me of how things were

Last night you reminded me
Waving your blade in the flames as though giving it a sip of love for good luck.

Last night you returned
You blessed my cursed name by speaking it into the smoking sacrifice you stole from me

Last night you returned
And I finally remembered the bitter taste of fear and love rolled into one
Just as one remembers the instinctual response to a near death experience
Or the lullaby of a sobbing mother frantically trying to get her young to sleep

Last night you returned
And I cried with tears of breathless silence because I did not want to stir your presence away nor keep it close
I cried with frozen tears of fear and terror
As you whispered your sweet nothings and filled my mind with hollow promises
Of a fantasy world
All the while dragging the blade across the top of my spine

I love you.
No, I did love you.
And now you've returned
And I fear our next meeting as one fears the loving fist of their abusive lover
And I as your claimed soul will have no choice
But to listen to you carefully
As you sing your song of my defiance as a mocking song aimed at my pride
And slice my skin to give yourself another jacket to protect from the cold

In this garden,
This beautiful creation I've blessed with my wisdom and experience,
I see in dimensions no one else can.
My third eye gleams in the sunlight, glowing and glistening like a perfectly cut jade.

In the distance, I see my goal.
It breeches the soil and reaches for the sun's warm embrace,
Escaping the mortal coil without ever leaving its vessel.

I approach.
Through the travel, the soil beneath me turns to salt and cracks.
The bees turn to wisps of a time once forgotten,
The butterflies, ghosts of a forgotten era.
The sun and Moon become a single entity forever fused in a dance older than time itself.
The sky turns dark and bleeds attempting to warn me of the horrors protecting my ambitions.
My claim to my destiny becomes shaken.

I power forward, blinded only in the physical world.
And as I approach the apple hanging gracefully from the tree
The snake will whisper its temptations,
And God will scream and tear the heavens asunder, seeking my cursed flesh and blood.
And as I pluck my ambitions and wisdom, digesting it and the truth whole,
The corners of my stone eyes will crack,
My third eye will screech,
And I will watch as both God and the serpent battle over my intentions.

I am The Prophet.
My destiny is written by me and me alone,
And all those who take claim to my soul will be cut down by my power.

I am The Prophet.
Where my gifts and talents, ambitions and goals, and curses and vices originate
Is unknown
But these are answers that do not matter.

I will tame the serpentine prince.
I will take claim to the power your God once stole from me.
I will refuse the sun its moment to set, plunging myself in eternal sunset.
I will embrace the moon as my lover,
And I will not allow you, nor anyone, nor anything power.

I am The Prophet.
I will scan the horizon with my peripheral vision
And blind myself with the sun's direct effects
To strengthen the sight of my soul.

The first time my third eye opened, the world was horrifying to view.
I could see my entire life, each mistake glaring at me and pounding against my psyche.
Every good moment collided with the bad,
The future turned inside out and bathed me in a gory downpour of the viscera of moments to come.

Now, each time the sparks and fires start in my brain, it reopens
And with this golden eye of the blind gods, I'll stare into everyone's souls.
I'll watch all of you and judge you by the contents of your very essence.

I'll see you in the way you refuse to see yourself.
Because if people see what they want to see,
I've made it my duty to see the truth in all of it's slithering glory
As it encircles the apple, and beckons me forward.

I believe happiness lives in Blood.
Whether our own, or that of others is the question.
I remember when I first realized it;
You were the reason I was unhappy.
The shattered vase recognizing the hammer that destroyed it.
The broken heart spotting the surgeon who haphazardly carved it from its home.

I remember realizing that my happiness was stolen and by none other than you,
And that if I wanted to be happy once again, I had to free my happiness from your blood.
But what's the fun in ******, when it's so easily accomplished?

I decided to destroy you.
To make you regret being born just as I had;
To make you taste the saltiness of your own sweat and tears
As you sat in a pile of ash you once called your beloved and cherished sanctuary
Was my idea of "salvation".

I dismantled you, and your family's life.
I disrupted the dismal peace you all so boringly accepted as your lives
And by stirring the waters, I brought out the worst in all.
The pestilence grew within your home
And quickly leaped from your family
Onto mine.

Suddenly, the plan backfired.
You steered into the chasm of life that I spent years mapping,
And all I had to do was whisper in your ear and sew doubt into your skull.

And yet,
This backfire;
This single moment of social dissonance,
Reshaped the earth we both stood on.
The dark corners I once knew became twisted and corrupt copies.
My mind became a new place to explore and learn about.

I just wish the last image to bless my genesis
Had been of you
Swinging gracefully, and peacefully
From your neck.

Stirring the city streets is always relaxing.
Whether I'm on foot, or in a car, I move swift and watch.
I watch the spiders pull their strings and tighten and intertwine their intricate webs
Less so focused on any prey,
And more focused on not letting their webs plummet into a tangled mess below.
I walk and watch.
I drive and watch.
The street names become background noise
As I walk with scissors
Looking for the right spiders
To cut free.