I hope your crucifix burns
When you grab it in your prayers
May a mark be left seared upon you
A symbol of the unseen scars left in your wake
You wear the symbol of a god but the things you do are unholy

I hope your friendship soured
With the grinning imp at your side
Who spews niceties as sweet as poisoned fruit
The one who made first contact with your adoring follower
Spreading her venom through lips and tongues to corrupt and condemn

I hope you remember
The bitter taste of your sins
The tense embrace as you took your turn
The trust you soiled, the bond you broke, the boy you defiled
The forever felt impact of your soft destruction of your own flesh and blood

I hope your son is safe
I pray he never suffers my fate
May he always just refer to you as Mother
Whereas once that I called you Hero, Goddess, Cousin
Now my mind has opened and I can hardly speak your name, Betrayer

I hope I can hate you
Your cruelty caused compassion
I forget your deeds but not the after effects
I loved twice as hard for each shred of shame you left
Placed on the brink of darkness, I fought to keep others from falling over

I hope I forget again
Not out of fear or pain but peace
I pray that your touch fades from thought
I wish that your taste washes clean from my mouth
I want to not just forget what you have done but that you exist

60 seconds to go
My heart is pumping a marathon
Each beat a new threat to explode
Hitting me like a dozen syringes
Call the coroner
Cause of Death:
Adrenaline Overdose

45 seconds
I practice every coming moment
In my mind
Every mistake hits me at once
The imagination humiliation
Acts just like a garrote
My every breath is strained
Lungs burning, full of embers
White out the death certificate
New cause of death:
Suffocation

30 seconds
My flight or fight goes haywire
Yet I can do neither
The walls start moving
This room threatens to be my tomb
It is too late to fight
This demise is of my own accord
I want to fly
Yet my wings are clipped
Retract the obit
I fell to my doom

15 more
I hear my doom approaching
It calls to me
Every syllable shocks my system
A jolt to remind me that I'm going to fail
I shudder with every word
I close my eyes, pray
Count the seconds until doomsday
Cause of death:
Fear

10 seconds
I take a breath
9
It stays
8
I stand up to face the onslaught
7
I walk toward doom
6
My breath fights its way out
Only 5
Climbing fear turns to steady panic
4 more
Another heart attack hits
3
Another breath
2
Out
1
I step forward

The lights hit
The fear vanishes
I am no longer dead
Alive
The crowd before me resuscitates me
Every line I dropped in my head
Landed with precise expertise
Each cue struck
Every scene played to perfection
Cancel the death notice
On this stage
I am revived

Leather seats and fluorescent lighting
Dressed up insight deigned as wisdom when it's
Nothing more than cheap talk
White noise that fills the time with a shallow stare
Sitting with no real new ideas
No experience to relate to
Yet you dare to call this therapy

For years I endure this
I'm told that it will help
He can deduce the cause of my idiosyncrasies
As if being different is a disease
Failing to find a way to truly help
Letting this anger and frustration boil
like a bitter stew
This is not  my therapy

My therapy lies in a sea of strangers
Dead center of the crowd, a clearing appears
It is there I find my release
Leaping in, I make eyes with a stranger
Without words, a deal is made
A pact that is honored for the sole reason
That we understand each other
We are each other's therapists

Charging forward, we collide
The pain numbed by soundwaves and adrenaline
Like a bullet off of Superman, we ricochet
Our bodies meet that of another
They shove us away but it is welcome
Time disappears
Lost in these moments
The most physical of therapies

Our bodies become busted and broken
The pain is welcome
With each collision, each shove, we find release
Anger dissipates with each bruise
Each crack of flesh on flesh, bone against bone
Lets loose a wave of pent-up hostility
It a balloon popping with a smile
This sought out violence is not aggression
This is compassion of the highest caliber

Complete strangers
Locking eyes and saying, I am here
Release your fury upon upon me
Without judgement, I can assist you
You place your life in this figure's hands
Because they are willing to do the same
You know that they will makes sure you survive
And the wall of people behind you
A group of people will make sure you do not fall
And ask for nothing in return

And once the night ends
You relish the aches
Every bruise is a battle scar
From a war that you know is not yet over
But for now, you march away
Until your next session
Of Mosh Therapy

I

I have a good imagination
Nay I say I have a great one
Hell, I'd be willing to say it is splendiforous
Not a word?
I don't really give a **** because
With great imagination comes brand new words

A brand new vocabulary is merely one pro
Just a single benefit that
A great imagination can bestow
There are more but the first has got to be the words
With these brand new syllables and letters yet to be invented
One can weave a new language
A secret code in which to communicate
With the six foot, broadsword wielding fire-breathing ape
That you can call your imaginary friend

But with a great imagination, he is not imaginary
He is indeed real
He sits beside you in the dark
As the nightmare still clings to your brow
And he speaks
Just when you can no longer stand the silence
He will dance in front of your little eyes
Just so the dark no longer seems evil

And when you stand alone in a crowded yard
Because your name is linked to a fictitious disease
Thought up by lesser imaginations
You can still have a friend that tells you you matter
Yet with this scenario comes our first con
People with no understanding of a great imagination
People who do not love it as they should
They tell you that because your friend is not technically real
That you must surrender him
You must lose him and take new friends
Friends that must be better because they are flesh and blood
Even though, they rejected you for nothing more
Than the jealousy that lesser imaginations feel

And so you do
Because you are imaginative, not stupid
You know that to argue would mean yet another label
This time the disease you earn is all too real
You don't fight losing your coping mechanism
You will survive
I will
Because I have a great imagination

II

I have a great imagination
One might even call it amazing
I would call it unstoppable
Because even when it takes heavy blow
It still goes on

It takes the loss of that imaginary friend
And it redirects
Barreling forward like a wayward locomotive
It promises you that you will still be ok
And you believe your imagination because the lies it tells
Are the kind you are willing to believe in the name of sanity

You get older
Keep the most fanciful of your imagination hidden
Because you've grown tired of the couch
That piece of hardened leather
Worn fabric situated under fluorescent lights
Lights, your imagination says, are there to push it away
The way the suited people speak
You know its right

But you need to let this imagination loose
You must have the release that it craves for you
This is the second pro
It can give you direction
You focus it
Control it
Weave it into magnificent fictions where the oddball can win
Or destroy the world, whichever your imagination prefers
You feel you have your true calling
This is the sign you need that you are destined
For more than ridicule
In the world of pages and ink, your imagination is free

The big con is
It is free and unbothered
As long as you keep it out of sight
The wolves who have been waiting to tear you assunder
Those false docs waiting to proclaim you mad
The enemies of imagination
They will look at the spoils of your toiling and tear into it
Every piece of fiction conceived that does not sit right is wrong
They say it is the result of the imagination's slow sister, The Subconscious

That very real disease that once threatened you returns
Its teeth barred
You stare into its thrashing jaws
The fear you feel is unlike anything you have before
But you tell yourself you will survive
You must
I must
Because I have a great imagination

III

I have a great imagination
It is wonderful
And it is maddening
Not mad at the angry screaming
But more of the psychotic laughing used to cover up the crying

The final con this imagination has is fear
As you move on from the lesser imaginations
And ignore those searching for hidden meanings in your scribbles
You start to rely more on your imagination
It hasn't led you astray and its lies are always beneficial
So you listen to it

Yet it stews in your skull
You don't engage it and it grows bored
So it comes up with new ways to terrify you
Just so it can amuse itself
It gives you pictures of the end and the blackness beyond
You see the faces of your mourners
You try to imagine life without you
And life in lifelessness

You hear about a superbug that masquerades
The deadly wolf in the ill sheep's clothes
The images of your imagination kick in and every cough
Every sniffle
Every slight wrong feeling in your gut and you crave Hazmat gear

You realize that you are not the protagonist of your own story
You are not the hero
You are not the plucky princess or the charming rogue
You are able to die at a moment's notice and are unsure of what awaits you
Heaven, Valhalla, blackness or lingering
You don't know and you aren't ready to find out

But in this con comes the final pro
Hope
When you are down , your imagination comes in to console you
Just like the ape from your childhood
It switches the visions
It stows the ones that terrify you for the moment
You now can picture yourself as a success

Your imagination paying off
Your dreams coming true
You picture that moment when you naysay the naysayers
They will come and beg forgiveness
Apologize
Everything looks bright

I can feel the wind in my face
And I have the courage to finally jump
I spread my arms like wings
And I soar
Closing my eyes to the wind
I don't care if I'm falling

Because I know
In the deepest pit of my heart
That I am actually flying
Because I have a great imagination