We are born, with nowhere to go but into death's arms.
Milestones lay ahead to meet us as we get older.
Sweet sixteen, the key to the door, getting blind drunk,
and ending up on the floor.
Marriage, divorce, a kid or three, slowly you fill up the ancestry tree.
Not understanding that as we get older, we begin to get colder.
Colder and closer to the grave.
The grave awaits, if lucky to live a span of time.
But spare a thought for those that are caught
by the reaper early.
The murdered, the suicides, the accidents, the ill,
all have been called to return to him.
All have been, Born to die.

You can philosophise all day long,
this world contains more than we know.
More than we see, and in some cases
some things we've already seen.
That strong sensation of having been somewhere,
of knowing what a place had once been.
Never getting lost in new places, of remembering old faces.

This precognition scares science, they label it
'Schizophrenic', 'anxiety' and my personal favourite;
the 'dissociative identity disorder'.
Here's a straight jacket for you!
I prefer déjà vu,
such an elegant French description,
even better, they don't hand out a prescription to 'cure' it!

Déjà entendu, "already heard",
the experience of feeling sure that one has already heard something,
ever thought your name was being called?
That you heard whispers in the night,
Only to be told it's the 'house settling'?
How many of us have shook our heads,
and said 'I'm getting old, I'm hearing things!'

These phenomena don't come and go
they stay, they are older than time,
they've always been, just never seen.
Platitudes placate your puzzled mind,
but what if these things are just rips in time?
A leak from the past, occasionally a glimpse of the future?
Or maybe it's all just history's forgotten soft sighs*.

I float on gin soaked nightmares
Yoked to the liquor like a babe to a bottle
Coaxed to sleep slowly, dosed on 70% proof
and with it the night's terror starts.

Gin addled, lying in sweat soaked sheets
Memories raise their heads above the parapet
These memories coaxed from their corners
Coerced by addiction.

My addiction I saw as a benediction
A positive to all the negative.
But my submission was not conviction,
it was hell and condemnation.

Now, my nightmares torment me,
like purgatory, no rest for the wicked,
the fallen, the flotsam and detritus of life.
Stricken I can only question....

What's it like to drift off quietly?
Not to wake with a scream trapped in your throat?
To count sheep instead of the faces of the long dead?
To slumber in peace, cloaked in love?

If you can answer these questions,
please let me know.
Pop a note in bottle and give it a throw.
If it washes up I'll let you know.

I was shocked when I heard the key lock.
My heart dropped,
I was left to rot.
Forgot, mocked, and blocked from outside.
No where to run, no one to turn to.
The key had turned, my fate was sealed.
Robbed of life yet still alive,
pleading silently, "please let me out"
Would they treat my plea with dignity?
I couldn't shout, would they hear me?
Not above the hiss of the respirator, of that I have no doubt.

We are broken, were broke,
barely whole when we started.
We, became one, thought as one,
we were whole for the first time.
We gave and received love,
we gave and received our bodies,
we made a religious act from our one-ness.

I should have been aware that into all happiness,
a snake entwines around a heart.
Envy, caused it.
Into our sanctum it slid, and never left.
All by myself in what was once our haven,
I made plans. Cut the head off the snake and it dies.
But my heart still bleeds, you cannot un break a heart.

I cloistered away feelings, allowed you your freedom,
martyred my sanity in the name of our withered love.
Anchored my memories to our sanctum,
took refuge in the knowledge that I strongly held
the belief that we were still one.
And, we are my darling, still in our inner sanctum together.
I in the many rooms, you in the basement.

Fitting I thought, since 'base' desires took you.
Took you away from our sanctum.
But now your back.
The snake is now headless, actually she's more quartered,
and placed on four parts of the compass.
You see darling we are stronger as one, we are whole,
even if you are in the hole in the basement*.