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Time to return, reverse and go back
Face my demons once again
With oblivion shall come clarity if I allow it
The key is in my brain

Broken ground burns away (it's never mine anyway)
Crawling, fragile and shaking like an Autumn leaf in flight
But without the freedom; so singular
The beauty of the void

Ever decreasing, spiralling to nowhere
Ever consigned to square one

I think I'm paranoid but don't tell anyone

Time to return...
Perpectives of a grey sky
bleak, promising nothing
to restless exuberance

One man's Taj Mahal
could crumble in an instant

Would it leave him with nothing
or release him from shackles
allowing him to stand tall?

You say I'm unrealistic like it's an
excuse for inaction, but your apathy is
the burden we must share. You claim to
support me with nothing more than words
but your pat on the back achieves nothing
You are a participant in this race
SO GET A MOVE ON
It's too soon to live in memories
I try to convince myself
Years don't change everything
I try to convince myself
This is no prison I'm living in
I have the keys, the locks are not broken
I try to convince myself I have a reason
For not using them

Grab a pen and some paper
Some of these are important
I just know they are
These are the things that made me what I am
Aren't they?
The sum total of all my experiences, right?
I need to chronicle and catalog
Separate the wheat from the chaff
This will set me straight
Or maybe not...could be a waste of time

Time takes them away, one by one
Teases, bringing some back
Then snatching them away again
Despite my best efforts
To hoard them
Years don't change everything
The cruel workings of time
Are eternal

Of this I am convinced

I've sacrificed freedom
To live in a cage
To settle for memories
For fear that hurt would break in
And make itself comfortable
Quick to remind me of the memories
It helped make

I'm convinced I have no reason
To break these chains
An empty house, alone
Is better than such bad company
© 2010 by James Arthur Casey
He had been robbed of all character and individuality.
Once eyes had shone outwards, now white dwarf orbs shimmering from porcelain remained.

There was no excess whatsoever, nothing frivolous; his sinewy frame carried not an
ounce of surplus fat, nor did his attire serve any social function other than to cover his hijacked carcass.

He walked the streets anonymously, blending in like an instinctive chameleon, single mindedly rehearsing
the acts of the play that cycled through him.

Score. Cook. Nod. Kick. Relapse.

That was when I promised myself I'd never chase again.
I wrote this poem a very long time ago. Until today I thought I'd lost it forever.
She paused for some time at the gate,
failing light passing through her skin.
She felt the plum of her living heart
strain veils of viscera to the unhinged
cup of clavicle, bellied ribs
undone by the wings of a dove:
the breathless little bird whose winds fluttered,
heavier than a feather.

He suckled from her scalp.
She fit his fists in her mouth.
They had not yet untangled
whose body was whose.

The door stood open for several weeks
impossibly
while the web spun between them in the womb
became the slow unraveling of a cocoon.
for my mirror image son and daughter,
*there are other worlds than these*
The sheet in front of me is white and pristine,
And like the year’s first snow,
I anticipate its defilement with glee.
Deriving an instinctive pleasure from it,
The hand in front of me can barely keep up,
Each scribble builds on the next,
Climbing ever higher to something unattainable,
It takes me to a private place,
A nameless person saunters in catching me,
My heart lurches, spurting the ashamed blood into my cheeks,
Suddenly my enjoyment seems perverse,
The ink is so blue against the bridal white,
Its permanence rings throughout my vibrating body,
This stain is not the beauty I wanted.

— The End —