Games played at train stations
As we all just slide by
Our weathered eyes
Begin to crack.
We’ve dried up.
Become husks
As we drown in lassitude
“To the End!” we cried!

It’s so dumb and not really the point.
I wish, I wish, I wish,
I could force you to choke on it.
With every verbal message you spew,
The more the realization that the sparkle and shine,
Was just a shackle of the basest iron.
One that you released me from yourself.
I wish, I wish, I wish,
I could force you to choke on it.
It’s so dumb and not really the point.

Silky, red-ribboned Fate.
You shine bright,
Wrapped tight around,
This silent stack of letters.
They now smell of sunlight.
Instead of the damp and dark.

This broken teacup of mine,
Lays on the floor.
Pieces scattered and crushed into the carpet.
A mosaic of pain.
This broken teacup of mine,
Stabs and slices,
As I pick up the shattered porcelain.
White stained red.
This broken teacup of mine,
I can’t put back together.
I remember it fondly from when it was whole
And admire its new beauty
As I wait, patiently.

I refuse to let your eyes look back.
The Past is nothing.
A lesson learned and forgotten.
Let it softly fade
And the stars shine bright.
Don’t ever look back.

You’re silent and still.
Chocolate bunny eyes
The only thing in motion.
Will they start with the ears?
Or go straight for the heart?

Not myself,
Not with those wide staring eyes.
Staring through this wall of water,
Leaking from my attic spaces.
My brain leaks fears, like a rusty tin tap.
No, not myself.
Not with these thoughts or falling tears.

I wanted to tell you stories.
Whispered to you in dreams.
Written love letters.
Pressed into your skin.
I fear though that I’m not a great storyteller.
Your kisses seemed to forgive.

Five is the witching hour.
Filled with thick fog, or
Perhaps vivid hallucinations.
Desperate with the need to dream,
Or desperate to wake and stand in the light,
Just creeping up into the inky blue of the sky.

If I breathe
In and out
If I trust
Completely
If I’m strong
In mind
In heart
Can I hold you?
Forever?

Ravens dance upon highwires.
Flashing pinwheels spinning in their beaks.
The merry-go-round grinds,
Its rusted gears, squealing into the wind.
Book pages whirl and fly off into the sky.
The fox’s cry to the butterfly
Went unheard in this whitewashed night.

The cicada revealed itself to me.
Gray to the touch,
Streamlining itself into oval curves,
To cooperate with the summer storms.
I listened to the tangy air.
Watched as they organized their flight
And as they disappeared
With their flowery baggage
All while lightning struck the air.

A hand scribbles violently.
The pen carving through the lined paper.
Black Ink spilling out of the deep cuts,
Soaking into the pristine page.
Words blocking out the light,
By illuminating knowledge.
Strong, scared, and weary hands fight.

Ride through my veins, driven by your cruelty and anger
Leave me nothing, but those shadows and dark places,
You were afraid to touch, afraid to enter,
As my broken hands clenched red fabric,
Twisted it ‘round as whispered screams echoed.
The cracks though my being, held together by silken webs.
A rough touch enough to break me and scatter,
My mirrored reflection towards the stars.

As she fell down the wishing well,
A stray thought wormed right in,
“Who am I?
Am I’m Alice? The one with travelled the Looking Glass?
The one who fought the Jabberwocky?
Or perhaps the one who lost her head?
My own head feels a bit lost,
So I must be her, falling down to reality.”

I’m a cannibal.
We’ll let that sink in.
It takes moment to digest that thought.
Sorry I have terrible humor, I know.
Why and who?
Mostly myself, I cannibalize me,
To rearrange my understanding of self.
It doesn’t survive upon contact you see.  
So I slice and dice, chop and whip.
Until nothing irritates and the rot sets in.
Then I have to cut out the bad parts
And try to put myself back together again.
So you see it’s really not easy,
Being a cannibal.
But **** I bet the final product will be delicious.

I’m burning as I’m freezing.
My whole split.
Healing as I’m burning fierce.
Drowning as I’m being baptized
I’ll fly off into the known
Even as I become mired in the unfamiliar.
But may the Gods help you withstand my wrath.

Modesty diminishing.
Difficulty at the beginning.
Independence, confining
Taking apart stagnation.

There’s a square,

The silence kills me.

In which the okay things go.

Unasked questions,

But I stray sometimes.

I want the answer to.

I don’t mean to hurt you.

A tightrope dance,
Along the spiders web
A gasp
A moan
To set the ethics quivering.
Perhaps the Fall
Into that raging morass
Shouldn’t depend on that last little swing.

Selfish needy human that I am.

My false courage and determination.

Standing among the wreck;

The mess I seemingly created.

Confusion robs my judgment

And I stand lost and alone,

Until the pieces begin to fit.

But I will stand strong and steadfast

As this world tears apart.

Frayed to the touch
Your little electric shocks,
Wind me up
And spin me round.
Dizzy on nothing
I stumble to the floor
Falling deeper down.
This emotional twister
Sweeps me off
And dumps me right-side up.
Without a brain, and
My fancies out of control,
Well, my darling,
I’m afraid I’ve lost and
I’m fraying right before your eyes

Half remembered clichés dance along the pier.
The divide between,
Sweet salty land and unending depths.
My talking dolphins sing a tune,
Unsettling and threatening.
Feed scraps from the dinner table
by my curly haired gambler.
I only see him at that old dollhouse,
Cracked and weathered by the Sea.
It insists on knocking on our red door
and staying for supper.
So it can beat us at throwing pennies in a cup
Plunk...plunk...plunk

She supposed it was more than just rain.
It was a touch, light and rough upon the skin.
A harsh tap tap that seemed to echo through the world.
Eventually, it took over as she knew it would.
It felt cool, running down her soul
Not that she wanted the cracks cleaned out.
But the rain was insistent, formidable, and crushing.
It was, after all, more than just rain.

She worked upon their minds,
Using sharply hooked fears
And soft feathered wings,
To whisper insidious desires
Into their hearts and minds.
With the bait laid, rotting in the sun,
They came in droves to feast.
The butcher licked her crimson lips and smiled.

Shoot down those stars!
Their time of ending has come.
No bitter words,
Or tears shall fall,
From the bright windows of heaven.
For their time of ending has come.
On swift arrow’s wings.

How sick and foolish—
Just a drop—
And I now taste despair.
Feel it crawling inside:
Dark and poisonous
Like your humanity.
But oh! How I shall fight!
To be freed of your mess
And shackles.
Until I can laugh at your face
For all the pain,
You forced me to swallow

I’ve chosen fight today,
I’ve been choosing fight every single night and day.
I bear the scars now of victories
And the still dripping wounds of defeats.
I’m a fighter now
I fought for me and you.
If I could I’d lay down this spear.
Just to rest for a day or year,
But battles need to be fought.
So I’ll just keep choosing fight instead of flight
Until it’s no longer needed.

I’m floating,
Just adrift in feeling,
Not fully one thing or another.
Except when I’m with you.
I get filled up with brightness,
So much, it overflows.
Spills out of me,
And  tries to fill the room.

At the age of twenty-five
I sat myself down for a long, long talk
About how I wasn’t really all that grown up.
“I can’t say no to you,
And perhaps I really should.
There was supposed to be marriages and babies,
All by this point.” I sighed
“But there’s been laughter and love
And millions of perfect moments,
So you have free reign.
Be whichever age you need to be.”

Heartbreak forced through the cracks,
Dripping heavy ichor, drip drops interminable.
Muscles and veins shredded,
Caught on rough stone edges.
Pulled by strings attached to your sharpened claws.
I scream soundless,
Beg for the end with my thoughts.
Beg for these dreams to vanish into the day.

This wreak of a world can barely sustain me.
And I’m not one to live in fear.

Synapses roll off the tongue,
Stutter and glitch
Stut-t-t-ter and glitch
Repeat....Re...p-p-peat
Misfired.
You a broken doll
With your bright brilliance.

There’s a marred reflection staring back at me.
I wish I could tell you what was wrong with it.
Its blank gaze and happy expression say everything’s alright.
The pressure builds and sweat beings to seep
The mask begins to slip, but I dare not show the underneath.
I need this face to present to others
For I need their acceptance to feel some worth.
But it’s only what they considered worthy in their eyes
So I’m beholden to their stares as I shift to conform.

I left Marcus Aurelius on the coffee table,
Stumbled and caught myself in the mirror.
Only to tumble on down through the fridge.
I was seated on air as a guest of honor.
Feed my wisdom, drank my creativity.
Finally breathed in your soul,
As I crawled up the bed to tuck myself next to you.
I sighed and began to dream again.

Death, that lonely tarot card.
A silent grim specter
No one wishes to see.
It impinges upon the norm.
Egyptian curses scarier, more real.
Lacelike spider webs, the coldest steel.
Leafless trees, silhouetted against the storm.
Efficiently bringing portentous change.

It’s a word on the tip of the precipice
Teetering and tottering
While I slide backwards away
Muttering sullenly and with bravado
“You can’t make me fall.”

The first footsteps were quiet, love
Like the whispered touch of snow upon the ground.
The day was gray, but the colors true.
It’s a shame that the violets never bloomed.

White as the ticking clock face
You struck me. Violent.
Like running seconds dripping away.
Red fell from your lips
and ate my heart.
The numbers framed your face.
All dark ebony,
Dark and sharp enough to cut.

The waters run
Murky deep.
Muddy chocolate
For my eyes.

Dreams

Distorted

Jointed

Cruel

Pleasurable

In the

Extreme

There’s a coil in me.
It likes to wind itself up.
The only thing that eases
This…
Tension…
Is these words dribbling,
Down and out of my mouth.
Babble…
Nonsense…
Not the words I’m trying to use,
Nor the meaning
I’m trying to convey.
I’m…
I’m sorry I’m this way.

Perhaps I shouldn't mock your previous sentiments,
But Lord Bitterness has requested it be so,
And I am but a jester on strings for my Lords & Ladies.

If I cut them with vorpal shears I might be free.
More likely I'll just collapsed, a pile of cut parts.
Better I sing and dance while tugging here and there.

I'll eventually pull them all deep inside me.

I see you world...
Through my mirrored eye,
Those nuanced shapes of yours.
Animal forms in all.

I race against my heart’s beat.
There’s a wild call hanging in the still air,
A call of longing slips, escapes from my throat.
An answer to a thwarted hunt.
The Dreamer a delusion.
The Trickster a fool.
The Philosopher a liar.
The Musician a bane.
And yet I hope – struggle.
The hunt will be successful

The shadows grab at my frayed heart
Reaching forth their cold hands
To pull me towards the coldness
Towards despair
Towards the darkness
Desperately I cling  
Cling to the edge
Cling to the small gleam of hope just beyond the horizon
Beyond my reach
I look back down at the darkness, at the cold dark abyss
And felt a part of me call out to the shadows
And heard them call back.
I almost let go, but I saw you in all your beautiful glory
Smiling at me from beyond the ages and beyond time
So I clung harder to the edge and to the hope still beyond the horizon
I looked at my pale, white hands and felt the sharp edges of rock cut into them
Cut into me
And I saw and felt the warm, red blood flow thickly from them
My life’s blood falling into the nothingness below
I looked above the edge one more time looking, reaching, for the strength to pull myself from this nightmare, this hell
Instead the moon’s pale silver light appeared above me
I smiled and looking up at the moon I let go of the edge
Let go of the pain,
Of the sadness,
Of the hate and anger,
Of the hurt,
I let go.
Down I fell not towards the darkness,
But towards the light
Upon a golden beam of light stood an angel.
Clothed in a flowing black robe and black feathers,
of softness and fragility .
There he was waiting for me, within his dark light.
The Angel of death
Of life
Of mercy
The angel of hope and love.
I landed gently next to him upon the golden light,
And looked with wonderment
Upon his graceful black wings
With a small smile he stretched out a hand towards me.
I took it and was immediately wrapped within his warm embrace
As he rose into the air with me in his arms, a feather of pure black fell and brushed my cheek and a true smile illuminated my face.
Now at long last my torn and frayed heart could mend.

I found myself wanting to pray.
To lift up my words and let them float away.
Instead I put ink down on paper.
Hammering and shaping them to display,
This sense of wrongness and decay.
I’ve been reintroduced to the light,
Only to see that I’ve been made from clay.

We bared our teeth.
Tight, mocking grins.
Your expectations ours to devour.

We hunt and haunt
These distorted roads.
We wait, timeless, to consume or free you.

Oh, Darling.
You can’t fix yourself by breaking someone else.
No, perhaps I can’t Love,
But when the heat rises up in me.
Making my skin glow,
Lining the holes in me with molten gold,
Perhaps I can burn them down.
Raze their structured beliefs
Until there’s nothing but choking thick ash.
If something survives it is beautiful.
If something new grows in that new fertile ground
Then it is precious.

To dance?
The oncoming storm,
All breezy bluster and
Quicksilver lightening.
You dance in my mind
All silken whispers
And subtle grace
You dance.