This man.

He sits on my shoulder.
He whispers in my ear.
He tells me things.

Mad things.
Crazy things.
Insane things.

Things indeed!

Now I turn my head to listen.
Now I cross that silent line.

It is here that I cradle insanity,
like a treasure.

Here that the hate can flow freely.

Now I feel it...

The break in the brain,
that can never be mended.

Like Athena from Zeus,
this Little Mad Man
sprang from my head.

He was born from the mind,
and the death of a heart.

To me,
you are Athena.
Beautiful and strong and smart.
In every way.
And every way in between.

To me,
you are irreplaceable.

One of a kind.
A force to be reckoned with.

You hold a place in my heart,
that no one else can even remotely possibly imagine to fill.

You are my anchor in a wildly restless world.

In the best of times,
we make the worst team.

Yet in the worst of times,
we are the best of any.

Don't let this world weigh you down.

Remember that I am forever at your side,
whether you need me or not.

Through every dark hour.
And even the whitest lights.

Remember that I am here.
Right here.
For you.
Always and forever.

To infinity and beyond.

You are my sister.
Remember that I love you.

Here I am,
under pale blue skies,
talking to you again
up here in my head.

What seems to be
worlds apart.

Wanting nothing less
than Universes.

Yet I'm utterly aware
that the distance is merely miles.

Cursing every moment,
every pretended word,
every fleeting image.

Only because
I love it so.

Yesterday,
I was.

Today,
I am.

Tomorrow,
I will be.

Stay away!

You have hurt me.

More than I thought possible.
More than words can describe.

The wounds you inflict
are not the kind that leave scars.

Worse...

They leave memories.

Knock only once upon her door my child.
She takes not so kindly to a copy of one.

Unless if a twin you travel with,
in both body and hand.

Only then will she be so inclined to accept.

And when she does,
you must enter her humble abode.
Through a door of wooden gold.

Find what once was fog,
now a neon symphony.

Watch as she molds new creation.

Destined to meet old damnation.

So is the way of life,
in a cycle yet unbroken.

I loved you for as long as I did.
I loved you for as long as I could.

Yet it mattered not in the least.

It never did.
It never could.

I am standing on the edge of a cliff,
with arms outstretched to the wind.

Beneath me, crash the waves of the unknown.

Within me, clash the waves of uncertainty.

My heart urges me to jump,
because it is blind to the signs of risk.

Yet my mind longs for me to stay,
because it is deaf to the shouts of reward.

So I do what any sensible man would do...

I flip a coin
and chase it over the edge of the world
to find the answer.

I keep no clock,
or any such presence,
within mine own.

For I wish not
nor hold desire
to know when you must go.

Look upon him with ice
their thoughts must say.

Speak to him with fire
their thoughts must say.

Run from him with lightning,
their thoughts must say.

Yet the simple boy does not go.
Because he knows
who puts words to their heads.

Who puts ice to their stares.

Who puts fire to their lips.

Who puts lightning to their stride.

Because he knows,
one day they will be gone.

And so will he.

I've seen what is behind your mask.

You may not know it,
but you let it fall away
when we are alone.

I've seen your sorrow,
that grows ever steadily towards tomorrow.

I've seen the strife,
of how much you hate your life.

Yet...
I've also seen your heart,
and all the love it can impart.

There once was a man
who often ran
from all his life,
for it was filled with strife.

One day,
with mind astray,
he stumbled and broke a leg
on an uneven protruding peg.

Down and down he fell,
upon a bed of eggshell.

Bleeding out his heart,
hoping that it would turn to art.

Instead,
it turned to lead.

So he did
what he had done as a kid.

Squeezing his brain,
causing himself to go insane.
And in a last resort,
maybe possibly to abort,
he bent his knees
and begged his pleas
to the entirety of his soul,
Asking only for a loophole.

Up and out of this hell.

I remember when
we used to play pretend.

Running around the house
was our time.
For us, and no one else.

Often we would play "War,"
with guns,
and tanks,
and planes.

One of us would pretend to die,
one of us would pretend to win.

The victor would stand over the body of the other.
Arms would be raised in triumph.

But on this day,
I stand over your body once again.

Not in triumph,
But in turmoil and misery.

I am not the winner of a pretend game...

Instead,
I am the loser of this reality.

A pawn to this sick existence.

I realize now,
that this is for real.

I cannot bring you back with tickles and laughs.

Not this time.

You are gone,
and I would give anything
to have you at my side
one more time.

I need an ally
to help me fight this war.

This war that I face alone.

I walk on a razors edge.
Every step cutting new lines of red upon my feet.

Paying no mind to the taste of metal in my eyes.
Doing all that I can to pick myself up.

Knowing that if my toes do not callous soon,
I will become two halves of a whole.

And this chance I so desperately chase,
may as well be lost for good.

You stick to my thoughts like an adhesive.
Ever wandering the canvas of my mind.

You travel at the speed of light,
through the nonexistent confines of oblivion.

Foreverness...
Without time, space or action.

The deeper I go,
to hide,
to get lost,
to be alone.

To think a thunking thought!

The closer you seem to be.
The tighter you cling to my chest.
Warming my heart and crushing my lungs.

You squeeze the words from my mouth,
without ever touching me.

The sun looses all essence of light and life when compared to you.

Like an ember among the black atoms of nothingness.

And if you were stripped of all that you are...
I could,
and would,
love you for this alone.

Yet oh how I hate you for it.

While you have me,
you have all of me.

When you no longer do,
you must let me go.

I continue to write.

To spill.

To bleed.

In hopes that you will read,
and absorb,
and comprehend,
what I desperately try
to tell you.

To cry out to you.

To shout to you.

What I want you to see...

What I hope that you will see...

What I need you to see!

But deep down,
deep within,
I know that my voice is silent.
I know that it is futile.

Just as is
my time on this planet.

Just as is
My love for you.

Just as is
This breath in my lungs.

Just as is
the need to speak these words
that I wish to tell you.

If time permits,
or if you so choose,
you may sit with me
here at the end of the world
on a cliff made of stone
overlooking the sky and the sea.

It would not bother me
if you chose to pass me by.

Many have...

But only because
they were traveling too fast
to see the beauty in slowing down.

If time permits,
or if you so choose,
We could talk the sun away,
chase it over the horizon
and into a new day.

All directions of wind
carry the howls of moon
across earth and sea.

Waking foul of air,
and beast of tree.

Love...

It isn't what you think.
It's much more than that.

And that too.

I keep myself awake at night...
Because if I fall asleep
there is no doubt
that I will dream of you.

I am utterly afraid
to fall for you.

Yet what my mind and body do not understand,
but my soul alone comprehends,
is that I have already done so.

Today,
for this day,
let me bear
the weight of the world.

Let the sky weep on my shoulders.

Let the earth crack with insanity under my feet.

Let the sea rush to drown me with it's sorrow.

Let today be the day that I bleed,
so that gardens may grow tomorrow.

This night,
again unchanged,
I am alone.

With mind and brain
speeding,
speeding,
light-speeding.

My eyes probe the night sky.

Listening ever so intently,
for all the truthful lies they whisper.

All those tiny dots.

All those forgotten wishes of old.

One by one,
they fall back to earth.

To be shattered by the mountains.

Or to be drowned by the oceans.

What was once bright,
is now dead and broken.

Beneath the sun and moon
twice have I fallen into love.

Many years past
under an oath of breath
I was bound to the first.

And on a promise of shadow,
later came the second
to steal my heart
with a rising crest.

And so you may name the loves of me.

Wife and Mistress.
Sky and Sea.

Would that I could love you again.
Comparable to the moment we traded glances.

Ever knowledgeable to know,
that wishing cannot save me now.
Just like it never had.

Harder still,
to bear the weight of letting go.

Wanting all I can with both hands.
Like grasping smoke to a similar consequence.

The rest will be of ash and dust;
I will breathe nothing so lovely again.

He stands amongst a forest of terrors.

Protection written on his face,
ready to ****.

For a girl made of glass.

My words are gone.
You've torn them from my lips.

Every one.

Save for a single, suffocating "Goodbye."

And after the last syllable has been spoken,
infinite silence is what you left.

When you did just that.

She,
the beauty
gazed upon
He,
the beast.

To an avail
in that moment
of their youth,
of their lust,
of their passion.

They,
who in that moment,
shared not love,

but something more...

Something even the Universe cannot define.