Her fingers dance deftly across the white ivories. Music spills into the space between us. Chords bounce up and down. The waves of sound crash across time and space. They vibrate at a different frequency.
I touch the air swirling it around my fingers as if it were cotton candy. I can taste reality. It is sweet for now. Later it will burn like jalapenos, later still there will be a sea saltiness. For now the music continues, and it smells like tangerines.
Her light skin radiates with love. Hazel eyes reflect the pureness of the song. Tears fall and I find the saltiness of life a little sooner than I thought. The sound surges, creating barely perceptible mists of green and blue. Electric currents fire releasing the memory of another piano.
Wrinkled fingers connected to wrinkled hands connected to a wrinkled body vibrate. However, they vibrate at a different frequency. Sound escapes me. It is the thud of my heart beat.
The music continues, but now I can hear two distinct songs playing. The tunes mingle perfectly, becoming a new symphony. The mists converge creating a purple vapor which spirals and separates into the original colors. The colors converge then separate again and again. Repeating the pattern, they spiral like the ladder of dna.
***** blonde hair weaves in time with the dancing fingers. Curls cross each strand and become entangled in a beautiful mess. Above the stars spew out their own music. It is a strange static mess. I know that to someone it to is a beautiful song. A frequency spanning infinity and eternity traveling slower than light years; Swinging and singing in its own frequency.
The music stops, as does my breath, and my heartbeats. The colorful mist dissipates. More tears swell and fall softly moistening my cheek. The loss of beauty breaks my heart.
The young pianist turns, slides off the bench, and walks out. Cold shivers vibrate through my being. The taste of jalapeños burns in my brain. Light shatters and dissolves splitting into sparkling fragments, then split even more. I smell burnt cookies. A harsh light explodes through this strange white cascade and burns my retina.  New sounds force me back. In the distance a mangled voice says something.
The blur and slur of reality works its way into normalcy. I smile as my sense of touch returns. Cold cuffs comfortably restrain my hands and legs.

“How was it?” the voice asks.

“Amazing” I say. “Best trip ever. Now let’s change the frequency and see what else happens.”

“There is a bitter sting to reality, an unfairness to it all.” These words echo in the young boys ears. Holding what is left of his sanity, he traces the damage; rubbing the now forming bump on his forehead. Fingers circle the discolored flesh then press hard against it till he winces in a jagged remembrance.

He still feels the full force of her bible belt beating down upon him. Open hands smacking him with the made up words of her own book of revelations.

“And the dead shall rise. To feast upon the unclean. “She ranted.

Now, the yellow superhero tee comes off slowly enough. She has stretched the neck of his favorite shirt. Of course he is partly to blame. He never should have had a favorite shirt. He tries to swallow, but his nerves force him to take two swallows for one. The first one descends halfway down his throat.  Catching his anxious breath the second swallow finally goes all the way, followed by a trickle of blood.

“It is what it is.” He thinks.

With soft poet hands he pulls a different shirt from the closet. His brown hair slides messily from the neck hole as the red wool rolls gently over is sore skin providing a small degree of comfort. Then he put his long goofy looking brown and darker brown jacket on.

“I’m done” he mumbles to himself, as he stuffs his journal, sketchpad, the book he is currently reading, and an extra set of cloths in his black back pack.

The white window pane vibrates with October winds. He slides it open, shimmying over and out into the frigid autumn night. A shiver crosses his skin. Then he closes the window as quietly as possible to avoid any more drama. His sad eyes scan the night trying to decide which direction is the right way for him to run away in. With no indication of which way will work best for him he turns left and starts walking.

A mile down the road he stumbles upon the remains of a partly chewed up possum. Empty eyes point deeply into the pine forest. The moist matted fur almost matches the road’s color perfectly.  Dark dry stains mark the grey road. Chunks of slimy viscera lay displayed from the flayed features of the decomposing creature.

In the distance he hears the howls of teenage boys.
“A bunch of screaming fools ******* around,’ he thinks. “I don’t need this ****.”

So, he turns off the road and heads into the trees. Brown pine needles break under his feet. The soft forest bed gives slightly beneath his treads leaving little footprints. As he scans the ground he notices that the earth is swimming with strange footprints.

With a little daylight left he finds the perfect spot to stop. A tree plays backboard to his tense and tired frame as he sits down to rest.

His mind turns to dreams of love. A female figure fills his thoughts. She is dark and lights. Pale skin, leather jacket, with raven black hair that shimmers in the night sparkling with the energy of infinity. She moves with all the destructive grace of Kali. She is a frozen skin scythe less death; Hopes and wonders mixed in with nightmare prophecies. Doom pervades his soul. He feels perfectly alone with no hope.

Which means it is the perfect time to write a poem. One line flits past then the next till almost the whole page is filled. Then he rewrites copying and improving. Till two pages later he is finally fixing the finished draft.

With the last bits of daylight he completes the poem’s final lines. Shivering and exhausted he decides it is time to find a place to sleep. He packs his backpack with all the finesse of a ninety year ******* boy and heads out into the night.

Suddenly he senses something moving behind him. A shadow crosses his path. Panic seizes him. Shady black tendrils run across the ground followed by the sounds of strangers moaning. He runs. The moonlight flickers fast behind the fading pines as he quickens his pace.
He stumbles into a clearing where the ground is punctuated by broken stones and white marble dust. Small monuments stand marking the past. Somewhere slightly off to the side a Sepulcher sits as a testament to a hundred years of death.

“How perfectly macabre, I’m in a cemetery at night in the bitter cold.” He thinks

The earth shifts and swirls beneath his feet like quicksand. Losing his footing he falls backwards. The contents of his backpack scatter haphazardly across the disturbed dirt.

A thin hand pierces the brown ground. Then an arm makes its way writhing from the soil searching for something. Boney fingers feel around until they fall upon a pen and paper. The pen scratches furiously on the pad.

The young man stutters trying to make out the horrible handwriting.

“g-g-get of-f-f m-m-y head.”

The earth tremors beneath his feet, causing him to jump back in fear. Then a skull ascends. Empty sockets stare menacingly at him. More of its body rises, until the full corpse form is free. The wind whistles through the rotten frame. The monstrosity turns his head and heads away. Shambling off into the night to frighten someone else.

A sigh of relief escapes the young man’s lips. His heart slows to a normal rhythm. The blank October sky fills his eyes. He laughs in gratitude, deciding to find a better spot to settle for the night.

Then a jaw chomps down on his skull. Rotten teeth shatter but the bony mouth still pierces his noggin. Red droplets drip soaking the journal pages. The poet screams. His voice fades slowly away, as he struggles. Dying in agony he becomes a feast for the undead horde. The red splattered page reads---




The Graveyard Poet
He walks without sleep
Restless and awake burning inside
With all of the secrets he keeps
His pen and his paper
Lay softly on broken ground
The dead are his keepers
Their stones stand scattered all around
So he put his pen to paper
Ink is turned to flesh
The words bleed into
Each other and start to mesh
Thus the graveyard poet is born
He writes with passion
His mind becomes a storm
His body begins to feel numb
But his heart is so warm
On and on from dusk till dawn
Words erupt from the poets pen
Still the cold bites bitterly
He stops only to turn the page and write again
Hours come and go in a blur
Until he can’t move his arm
Even he is unsure
Of what is wrong
His eyelids grow heavy
And soon he is asleep
Rest peacefully young poet
Now your secrets are mine to keep

There is fire in the dance. The head of a candle burning and flickering in time to the dancer’s movement. The flame sways to and fro, responding to the dancer’s energy. Then the candle disappears.  

Blisters begin to bubble up upon the dancer’s skin; then fully formed explode with liquid fire. Screams of agony reverberate across her tortured flesh. Her cries go silent as the pain slowly fades.  The dancer becomes a living flame.

So, she dances.  Each step scorching the soft ground, leaving little fires in their wake. Her legs ascend at an angle and descend in a spin. Hands clasped and rising upwards as her feet return to the earth. The fire trailing her movements like living echoes.  Enflamed arms opening and closing with billows of smoke expanding around them. The ground burns beneath her feet as she leans her head back slowly.

Her face consumed by the flames fury; she attempts to howl. Instead of sound, rivers of crimson liquid explode from her lips. Jets of blood red water congeal into shiny flesh. First, impressions of a face form in the flat flowing puddle of scarlet goo. Then, a neck, next something akin to limbs takes shape.
The red rawness is evident but not painful, as she spews the last bits of the red liquid. Drips of crimson drops from the newly formed figure fall on the flaming dancer. The droplets sounding a soft beat and sizzle in rhythmic fashion like a drum snare; T sss T sss T sss T sss. The flaming dancer shudders in pleasure. The flames, encouraged by the dark moisture, recede then rise, as rouge vapors smoke off its’ figure. The fluid form expands further forming sinuous strands of cerise liquid hair.

Pirouetting in a whirlwind fashion the dancer continues her ballet. Her leg rises again as she leans back. Her head, inches from the ground, drops liquid fire. Then she straightens her tiny flaming frame. Behind her the red watery body slides its hands across the ground, calming the flames, and leaving only scorched and sticky earth in its wake.

So it goes with each movement the dancer lights the earth afire, and behind her the flames are doused. Each minute passing the fire weakens and shrinks as does the scarlet body. Until at last they embrace. The dancer’s arms rest upon her sides as the crimson liquid figure envelopes her.
One more red stroke across the canvass and the figures blend perfectly. One color fading and bleeding into the next in perfect abstraction. The month long dance finally finished. The brush is rinsed then ceremoniously placed in its spot. The artist sighs, there is a slight sense of relief, for this dance is finished, but an echo of sorrow remains for this dance is finished.

Soft yellow petals paint the earth, falling like tiny feathers back and forth in a cradling fashion and settling quietly into the dirt. A small figure howls his lamentations. He leans over the earth pounding his fists against the open ground. A vacant face with almost ape like features seems to be silently sleeping. Grunts of sorrow fill the mournful morning sky.

The small man-beast cries. Behind him tiny fingers clutch his light brown matted hair, muffled sobs slipping from their tiny mouths. He turns, cradling the younglings in his arms; then tightens his embrace, smothering their pain with his till there is a small sense of comfort left.

     A flaming arrow soars above a shimmering pool of water, whistling at its own reflection as it seeks its target. He floats gently in the pond a stark contrast from his own life. Once warrior now rotting corpse. Sword ceremoniously placed upon his chest; arms crossed. The flaming arrow falls. The body is consumed. In the distance a tribe stands stoically holding in tears of sorrow mixed with a tense sense of pride.

     Somewhere in the stone city a poets sings his sad rhymes, echoing the love of a stranger, the wrinkled form now fallen. The people pass in a small procession. He lets their soft sobs fill him up. A young man hands him a coin in gratitude for the melody and the honorable words then walks away his shoulders heavy with grief. His body sags as if the gravity has been multiplied by ten. A little girl sniffs the dry dusty air taking in the oils and perfumes, waiting to see if Hades shows up. The poets passes the newly earned coin to a starving stranger sitting quietly nearby.

Deep south a disfigured body dances in the breeze, swaying in time with the leaves of the tree. A mother wails; she is restrained. Her body, hardened by years of labor, crumbles for a moment. Her brown skin moistened by tears glimmers in the days harsh rays. Shaking with anguish, she struggles against the strength of those she loves. A male voice warns her against the dangers of trying to recover the body. Even so, it takes two grown men to hold her back.

A robed figure stifles his sorrow beneath the strong veil of faith. The restraint takes much of his mental strength leaving him emotionally fatigued. There is a small body laying limply in his arms. Blood paints his loose flowing robes red. His beard is sticky with sweat, sand, and snot. The face of the child is ruptured. That which once enraptured and inspired fatherly love now terrifies. The reality is a massive wound paralleled by the sickening hole in his child’s face. Brittle bone broken and bent sinking inwards as what should be there disappears. All that is left is a mess of flesh and pain. Barely a foot away one brother softly whispers his prayers to Allah on behalf of his nephew.

I close the eyes of my grandfather, or at least I imagine that I close his eyes. I do not have the strength to touch him. I do not know why. I want to pay him some grand respect out of love and gratitude. The guns sound a salute as strangers honor him more than I am able to. A folded flag finds its way into my arms. I am merely holding it for another. I look at my shirt, a weird black button up thing with short sleeves and flames, wishing I had worn something better. I wish I had a poem, or petals, or even a flaming arrow but all I have is this stupidly stunned face numbly staring out at the world.

Suddenly, I feel the softness of tiny furry fingers interlace with mine. Then the music of a foreign language plays in my ears. To the left, a strong brown calloused hand squeezes my shoulder in a statement of compassion. Behind me I feel the pat a powerful palms slapping against my back in pride. In front of me a thin skinned black bearded figure sits on his knees. He lowers his head, hands gently pressing against the ground. He prays, and I hear a beautiful accent in a tongue I cannot comprehend, but I understand the intent. Then the bearded stranger raises his head again, repeating the process a few more time. I nod my head in solemn gratitude.

I hated him, that slimy, stupid, putrid drunk. His ***** brown hair was crusted with the stink of old hairspray. Half-closed eyes ran red. His body flabby, with frequent bouts of flatulence. I watched him drink himself dumb, slobbering in his stupidity, succoring on his self-entitled rage. Anger and depression made him into a slurring mongrel. Contempt turned him into a raving lunatic. Many nights he held court with the mirror, glaring fiercely as if his reflection was an opponent to be destroyed.

That said, He did have some good qualities. Little lights that glowed in certain special moments. I saw them more times than I could count. Many times he would give his last dollar to a stranger in need.  There were quite a few times he picked up strangers and gave them a ride. When winter came he would shovel the driveways and sidewalks of the elderly for free.

Still, this list was not enough to satiate my rage. Perhaps part of my disdain came from the ill words of others. Meanness wearing the guise of kind criticism stirred my fury further. The resentment I bore him was too great. Thus, after another night of his drunken behavior, after another bout of self-indulgent whining and threats of suicide. I slit his throat.

Blood bubbled from his neck as he struggled to remain standing. Red liquid rained down enveloping his throat then partially covering his chest. Then a thin string of red lights exploded from the wound. Each line jerking the neck in a different direction as it sought its connection. The thud of these lines hitting the walls and sticking solidly echoed in the living room.

He screamed with a rage. The kind that I had never heard before. The bubbling blood choked him into silence as it began to thicken.  More crimson liquid oozed out and down the writhing figure. He was struggling so hard, which I found so amusing. Flakes of coagulated blood chipped off and settled on the puke colored carpet. The sharp strands of red vibrated and tightened as if they were trying to cease his agitated struggles.

After an hour of this strange horror show the blood stopped flowing, he stopped moving, and all that seemed to be left was a massive black, brown, and dark red cocoon. In the distance music played, songs of love, community, and social justice reverberated through the dingy house.

After several days the cocoon started to shiver and glow. Flecks of the clotted blood crumbled and fell to the floor, this time at an alarming rate. After another day the cocoon cracked and began disintegrating even faster.

It took another three or four hours till a figure emerged. Then he was back. The object of my disgust returned. However, he had changed. His eyes were no long weary or drunk red. His hair was smooth and silky, though still brown, it lacked that old stinky quality. His body had shrunk and hardened. I think I saw a small cotton tail, But the most striking change was the calmness.

When he spoke, poetry flowed from his lips. His new demeanor sang more of compassion then anger. Something had changed. Something was new. Old bitterness had almost completely faded. The anguish had been replaced with a hopeful grin.

As I stared into the mirror I knew I would never see that dark fool again. There was no more self-loathing only honest introspection.

First came electric therapy, designed by men to **** her memory. The currents coursed through her veins. They tried to burn her true love from her brain. Synapses flared and flamed singeing away nearly everything she dared to feel almost nothing was left but a name, an impression. Session after session sparks cut through her skull and tore through her mind.

All she had to do to escape was to lie, and say she no longer felt that way. However, in her slurred and slow mental state all that she could do was whisper her lovers name. Iris sweet Iris the flower of her love, whose touch sent shivers swimming through her body. Iris the unforgettable, desirable, and unregrettable; even in the hours of her darkest pain she would never wish to forget that wonderful name. A name attached to such pleasurable memories. Iris whose lips tasted like strawberries and mouth would moan musically with her satisfaction. Touching each other under the starlit sky, bare breast against bare breast, licking each other from back to thigh until their passions exploded and they came together in exhaustion. No matter how much their love cost them, the jobs it lost them, the family they had to leave behind, it was all worth it. The love they had was special. Men would glance and stare; Sick with desire and envy, but they didn’t care.  
The Doctors tried to destroy their love but failed, because buried deep within the burnt flesh, on some deep genetic level the feelings still remained. Night after night she quietly sobbed Iris’s name. Her vision and memories were faded and degraded by the shocks administered. Sometimes after the doctors left and she was by herself, she would search her mind trying to find her own name. Corner to corner each crevice and crack, each hidden corridor in her mind was faded, and the only name she could find was Iris’s. Other evenings when no one was watching the orderlies would sneak into her room to tease and taunt her. They would scar her body with their fevered kisses, violating her womanhood with their vile flesh protruding and extending into her. Her eyes would close. Her body would tense, and her mind would vacate her skull, while holding on to only one thing, Iris.

When the merciless administering of electrical current to her brain failed to achieve any notable degree of success, the butcher came. They called him Doctor Slade, A specialist. They brought her to his table in a white room that was sterile and scentless. Her body was strapped to a cold metal table and she was sedated. Slade sliced through the skin on her skull, cracked the bone and opened her up, exposing her mind to the all those in attendance. Then when he was finished, he walked away a proud master mutilator. The nurse, whose white uniform was now splattered and sprayed with blood and bits of brain matter, hauled her back to her room.  

In her room she sat dripping drool from her swollen lips. Her vacant eyes stared out at the blank wall registering nothing at all. The bandages on her skull concealed small patches of blonde hair matted with clots of blood. Her drawers reeked of ***** matter because she had soiled herself. Nothing remained except a shell.

Somewhere far away Iris screamed the forgotten name. In her dreams she cradled her lover’s fragile frame, but never saw or touched her lovers face. Iris scribed their love in journal after journal, sketching out in deep determined details their five years together. She wrote of each high and low from the first time they met in the College courtyard till they day they were separated permanently.

Years passed. Iris’s body weakened from despair and began to waste away. Her flesh sagged from her bones bunching into wrinkles with brown speckles and spots parading all over her skin. Memories got lost in the fog of her mind until one day she could no longer recall her lover’s name. Shortly thereafter Iris faded away as well. Her body remained unsoiled by shame, for their love had been a thing of poetry, epic, and beyond belief, a guard against the unjustified onslaught of social madness, a sweet relief no matter how brief.

It starts with a needling sensation. Pink ****** poking around the back of your mind. Consciousness receding in retreat as something else overtakes your brain. Placing time at its’ own weird intervals. Fuzzy projections like tiny porcupine quills sting and stain your flesh as you try to recall. It is one sensory input after another linked by some unknown band with its’ own elasticity. Memory is not immutable, but a soft and fleshy permeable thing, changing with the rearranging of your current identity.

       Identity is a sea of broken lines, experiences forming disintegrating and reforming again. Changing ever so slightly or ever so drastically. There is sadness in the losing of solid beliefs, in coming to terms with the transient nature of your memory. Even when soft connections are made, when emotions seam to tie you to old memories there is still sorrow. There is still an aching, longing for something better, or a baleful pain gnawing at your gut like an angry cougar. Memories attempting to devour you in its’ strangely reconstructed past.

I remember when I was a young thing, barely even a couple million years old. You were so young too. It seemed that just yesterday you had crawled out of the muck stinking of sulfur and brimstone. My father used to laugh at you and call you “his little funny ooze.” This day, for no reason at all, my father gave me a gift. It was such a tiny thing, barely a flickering light. Up to now there was almost no light. Oh, but what a beautiful thing it was. Had I known how much I would enjoy this I would have asked for it sooner.

He handed me this glimmering sparkle that was barely a speck of dust in my hand. What power the speck had, it struggled and raged against the darkness and began to grow, so much so that I had to turn my head for a moment. My body started to tremble. I think I was afraid, even though fear had not been created yet.

Until now darkness had enveloped all of existence. There was only an occasional flare of cosmic energy. Sometimes this red orange and white light would appear, engulf us in its fury and majesty. Then it would fade away, but that usually only lasted a year or so. The warmth would stay with us a little longer. Many times it was such a relief to feel anything at all, except for the cold numbness of darkness and uncertainty. I never knew where father was going with this experiment, but he took such joy in it so I followed along curiously.

My body trembled in fear anxiety, joy, pain, agony, and passion. There where so many new thoughts and feelings. I could not contain them. The little light had grown incredibly. At first it had been circling me slowly but now its speed had increased exponentially. Faster and faster it rounded my body, humming quietly at first but increasing in volume as well as its’ velocity. I could feel all of these new emotions jerking and tugging, pushing and pulling to get out and the more powerful my emotions became the stronger and faster the light pulsed and hummed.

Suddenly, I recalled when my brother had moved on. We were outside of time watching as specks of cosmic dust began to explode from the center. At that point it was just the center there was no name or description that I could give that would accurately describe something so new and different. My father whispered to my brother, so quietly that I could barely even hear it myself. Had it not been for the stillness and silence of the void I would not have heard him at all.

“ Chronos it is time.”

“Time for what” my brother replied.

And in the softest and sweetest voice I have ever heard my father said “ it is time for you to join your sister Rhea.”

        Then with no warning or explanation he tossed my brother in to the void. By now your small blue orb was just blackened bits of liquid fire and cosmic dust. Yet it seamed my brother knew what he was supposed to do. As he entered the void his body expanded until he was nothing but a gaseous vapor. Subsequently he settled in and hugged your sphere. Which until now I had not noticed, but suddenly I realized that it was my older sister Rhea. He wept in joy as he engulfed her in his vaporous form, she who had until now been raging with cosmic fire spewing and ******* in various forms of cosmic mass, calmly embraced him.  There was such peace and joy that I was almost jealous.

            The light was on the verge of exploding within me and outside of me. Then my father pulled me aside and took me back a billion years. He embraced me softly and whispered that it was my turn. Helios you will burn the brightest out of all of your siblings. You will shine in the past the present and the future. Then with a force I had not known since the beginning of creation he shoved me into the void with his gift. I surveyed the darkness and could not see my siblings. Where were they.

        Finally my insides erupted. I exploded and from my body fire rained in to the void. The darkness was illuminated, shapes took form. Space had meaning. A million years or so later my sister came crashing down. So I shined my light as brightly as I could so she would know that she was not alone. To my surprise she was naked and embarrassed so she gathered bits and shapes from the now lighted space around her and covered herself with fire. Angrily she lashed out at anything that passed ******* it in or spewing it out with great fury. Another million or so years later my brother Chronos appeared and calmed her.
We never spoke we simply existed.

The latest issues of Tales of Horror, is perfectly positioned in my bible. My eyes gleam with satisfaction as I read how a werewolf ekes out just deserts to a mass ******. A small chuckle slips through my lips. Barely perceptible but in church my mom has eagle ears. With swiftness that would leave the wolfman in awe the comic is swiped from my bible, and I take a smack to the back of my head.


My eyes get heavy. I lose the will to stay awake. Elbow safely secured on the pew, I lean forward as if I am enraptured by what the preacher has to say. Then let go, so close to sleep, a way to get away from the doldrums. The old man drones on in a monotone. Suddenly, he raises his voice. My arms collapses causing my forehead cracks against the pews. A red mark starts to form inching its way across my face like a mutant birthmark. Now I am awake. Eyes glaring forward.

     The brown baptismal curtain reminds me of nutty buddies. My mouth waters with the fantasy of devouring the whole curtain, like some giant trucker. A swelling stomach riding over my cliché buckle, until my fat explodes into some sort of creepy communion wafers and wine. It splatters my fellow church goers in some sick form of salvation. The pale parishioners panic then succumb to some unknown hunger feasting upon the remnant of me like a bunch zombies.  Freed from the need to be rational they rage on. Dead men and women begin to leave the church ready to infect the world with their form of living death.

A hand smacks the back of my head. Mother glowers, the intensity of her gaze is meant to put the fear of god into me, ironically.  The preacher carries on. Some **** about the armor of gods and the denizens of hell oozes out of his dry voice.


My ears ***** up. The sound of mighty warriors ring through the church. Savage blows bounce off the shields of saints. Angels scream, as demons pluck their feathers, plunging them into the furnace that is hell. Smoke fills the pews with the noxious fumes of burning flesh. The **** moan for mercy. Fingers try to rise from perdition only to be chopped off by the razor sharp wings of the Archangels.

“Back to hell you vermin.” The Angels scream.

The recently and expensively redone floors now wear a masses of ****** bodies, some corpses are demons, some are angels. However, all bodies bleed the same color.

Satan’s sinister grin fills the stain glass windows. A fury of wind shatters each pane, causing shards of glass to rain down upon the parishioners. My fellow church goers scream and run away. Their flesh is marred by bleeding scratches. Beneath their feet other parishioners are trampled. Moans of agony rise from the ground, followed by the rising white ash. Puffs of dark smoke swirl around and….

and my mother smacks me in the back of the head again.
“Pay attention.” She growls.

Looking at the clock, I smile devilishly.  It is time for the last prayer. The preacher passes it on to one of the deacons. A small stout figure brushes back his black thinning and greasy hair, and begins to pray.  

“What a relief.” I think.

Fifteen minutes later the deacon is still praying. He has cycled back to the same **** over and over. I swear sometimes the deacons think it’s a contest. They are trying to see who can pray the best.

A hand slams down from the heavens smashing through the ceiling and crushing the Deacon. His obese frame is flattened causing it to explode like a popped pimple. Red juices and slippery viscera paint the aisles.  

A heavenly voice scolds, “knock it off. People have things to do.”
A laugh pierces the pew.

I get another smack to the back of my head. My mother scowls.
“That is it you’re grounded.”
“Awe ****.” I moan and take another smack to the back of my head.

It never ends, fragments of visions collapsing upon themselves painfully. Her swollen eyes opening, and bursting with orange fire. Then closing just as fast. In between those agonizing seconds she sees everything. Thousands of years cycling over and over. Visions of visions within visions.


Cassandra saw her city razed to the ground. The wall which once stood firm against the onslaught of enemies crumbling with the ravages of time. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again she saw her own grief. Her cousin had fallen in battle. She closed her eyes again, and scratched at her itchy eyelids.



Ten weeks passed without a blink, not even a fraction of an opening. She was disciplined, but the longer she fought the more her eyelids would burn. One blink to ease the agony and she was forced to see her father’s skin. A purple mass of dead flesh bubbling swelling, exploding, and rotting, with maggots squirming in out and around till flies formed and flew away. Another corpse left out in a burning city. One among many denied a peaceful death. Buildings crumbled to dust, the bodies became one with the earth. Cassandra cried without opening her eyes. Her father stroked her long soft curls, whispering reassurances. “It’s all right my child.”


Another three or four weeks passed. She had become blinder than Tiresias the blind prophet. Unable to recall if that was a story she had heard, or would hear in the future.  She sobbed spilling each and every sorrow she could. Every tragedy yet to come. Her father smiled gently placing a warm cloth upon her brow. “Shush my child these nightmares will fade soon enough.”


The young girl opened her eyes again. This time a years’ worth of history unfolded. She saw soldiers gathering arms. Battlements born of the Bronze Age burning with righteous rage. Steel blades clanging against bronze shields in preparation for war. Boats fully loaded departed.


She closed her eyes once more. It would be another two months before she opened them. In the meantime she pleaded with her father to leave the city. Day in and day out begging, sobbing, and screaming until she was sent away.


It was becoming harder and harder to keep her eyes closed. There was a burning force aching to escape. She managed five more weeks until she could bare the pain no longer. As her new sisters bathed her pale dry skin with the sweetest scented oils the young girl recited all that she saw and felt.


The first footfalls of the first soldier’s feet to touch the beach. The feel of the sand as it swirled in, out and around the soldier’s sandals. The general howling commands. The green eyes hungry for battle. The faces contorted in controlled rage. All that intensity burning under the once civilized façade. She closed her eyes again.


Cassandra sat silently in exhaustion, as the sisters slowly brushed the knots out of her long brown hair. They brought her a blindfold, which allowed only a small comfort. This time she only managed to resist for two weeks. The vision came upon her with such force that she cried out and collapsed.


Now the city was burning. Citizen screamed as they ran in terror. Brave men rushed forwards to be impaled on the spears of other brave men. Arrows swallowed the moonlight picking at the earth and scavenging for some bare flesh to devour. Blood ran like red rainwater. Streets streamed thin crimson pools diluted by warm summer showers. The stench oh, the stench, it made Cassandra ***** up chunks of soggy bread and half-digested beef mixed with red wine and stomach acid, while she tried to force her eyes to close.


Finally, she closed her eyes again. The sisters tried to sooth her sorrows, to no avail. Within a years’ time the young girl lost the ability to close her eyes. Cassandra eyeballs slowly burnt out until there was nothing left but charcoaled eye sockets. By the next year she could no longer speak. Cassandra became paralyzed by the futility of her existence.


In her mind the war had come and gone. The sieges were no longer an issue. She no longer felt the urge to cry for the dead. What was, will be, and what will be cannot be undone. What cannot be undone has already happened. Apollo had cursed her. Her beauty had enraptured him, her wit had charmed him, but her will had enraged him.


She was only thirteen with brown eyes and long hair of rare quality, soul so powerful that almost anyone who met her could feel its energy. She shamed the gods with her purity, and unwillingly ensnared their affection.


At first Apollo came with strong arms and tender words. Wooing to the point of painful pleasure. Her eyes could not handle such radiance. His skin burned as his chariot burned. Hair golden flames, skin solar yellow, eye orange as the sun. Each kiss burnt like the worse fever, taking her against her will, savaging her sanity. As if, as if being a god gave him the right to take such liberties.


Apollo viewed her early rejections with whimsy, believing them to be some cute token of her modesty. A god can afford to wait, after all eternity was on his side. After the first hundred no’s his affection gave way to anger. Until his desire could not bear rejection any longer.


At last he cried out to Cassandra. “I will have you or else.”


With a firm but fiery hand he swept her up.  Forcing his mouth against hers. Parting her pursed lip with his powerful tongue.  He shoved his tongue into her mouth, until tears streamed down her cheeks. She could not resist with words, because her mouth was occupied, so she took the only action she knew available to her.


She bit down as hard she could. Lava spewed from Apollo’s lips, roughly singing the inside of her mouth. Without realizing what was happening she swallowed. Her skin began to glow, tiny childlike limbs lengthened and tightened. From her eyes radiated the most powerful light ever seen by man or god. For a moment Apollo cowered beneath the awe of her power, stumbling backwards to the ground dumbfounded.


Regaining his composure he slapped her aside. Scowling in rage “How dare you. You. You worthless *****.”


Her lips parted now of her own volition. Her voice raged with a deep and powerful resonance. “How dare you, you whimpering fool.” The power still flowing inwards filled her with confidence. “I see you for what you are. A tool, a man made invention.” The radiance of her skin was slowly fading. “I see too much now.” She cried out in an ******* fury. A smile crossed her lips. “I see what will become of you and your ilk.”


With strength previously unimagined the young girl thrusted her small hands out throttling Apollo’s throat. He trembled in fear. “You cannot hope to contain the power of me. I am generations incarnated. Passing power from one age to the next. I will not be enslaved.” Her skin began to blink, her voice loss much of its force. “I am Cassandra, and you a merely a passing phase. I will tell the world of all I have seen.”


The last bit of godly energy faded from her skin. Cassandra collapsed. “I still see it all, and you will never touch me again.”


Apollo brushed bits of earth off his person. “See all you want, I care not.” He lunged for her. A flash of thin white light flung him back.

Confused, Apollo rose. Glaring he screamed “You may see all now. It is a gift my blood has given you, but soon it will become a curse. For no mortal wishes to believe that the fates have already written their story. They will ignore you, and in doing so you will find that this power you have gained will be for naught. Thus will be your curse to see all, with no power to stop it.”


Cassandra’s eyes opened wide, seconds split into eternity. She felt the passing of all those around her. She felts time’s stench and rot all around her. Her skin would wrinkle to a certain degree but she would be eternal. She saw cities rise and fall. Some to rise again others to be forgotten. She saw herself seeing each of these visions again and again. She lived her immortal life over and over, events unchanged be anything she said.


The only real comfort was that she saw Apollo wither away. As the old gods fell to ruins weakened by the rationality of new gods, then the rationality of structured reason. Then came the rise of something new and better. Reason with abstraction, abstraction with order, a cycle of energy which emboldened and empowered man. She chuckled.
“Go away little godling.”
And like the little thing he was, Apollo ran.
Her father shushed her, wiping the tears from her face.
The sisters bathed her; singing songs of love and adoration.
Troy fell under the onslaught.
Apollo came and went again.


Cassandra’s eyes opened wide closed and open wide once more, seconds split into eternity. She felt the passing of all those around her. She felts time’s stench and rot all around her. Her skin would wrinkle to a certain degree but she would be eternal. She saw cities rise and fall. Some to rise again others to be forgotten. She saw herself seeing each of these visions again and again. She lived her immortal life over and over, events unchanged be anything she said.


The only one real comfort was that she saw Apollo wither away. As the old gods fell to ruins weakened by the rationality of new gods, then the rationality of structured reason. Then came the rise of something new and better. Reason with abstraction, abstraction with order, a cycle of energy which emboldened and empowered man. She chuckled.
“Go away little godling.”
And like the little thing he was, Apollo ran.
Her father shushed her, wiping the tears from her face.
The sisters bathed her; singing songs of love and adoration.
Troy fell under the onslaught.
Apollo came and went again.

I raise my arms, and they become wings. White, black, and brown feathers flutter in the breeze. My eyes lose their white and brown color to become coal black. Hands up; the bullets fire. I will never fly.

I play war, fighting off imaginary enemies. The airsoft gun threatens no one. It is only and extension of my imagination. Childhood, safe until I feel the bullets pierce my skin without a single warning.

I run in fear for my life. Breath ragged, time’s jagged line red with life’s energy. My blood becomes street art.

In frustration I raise my voice. Tired of getting singled out. Tired of being black while walking with my hands in my pocket. The air will not come, this time I did not, could not run. Please, I can’t breathe. Day becomes night but that is nothing new to me and mine.

I look back in time. See the strange fruit with bitter juices dripping down the tree. The wind is not strong enough to move me. My family is not allowed to take me down just yet. Weird white sheets laugh and dance protected by their anonymity. The police don’t bother seeking justice for me.

With the modern age, you’d think we could be better. Cellphones, and judges robes, internet tv shows, twenty four hours new coverage that shades and paints A hundred different stories daily. Another dead man defamed in the court of public opinion. Another victim blamed. Another crime left unnamed. Another murderer not blamed. ******* ****, things really haven’t changed.

I walk home from the library, light skinned, these are not my sins. However, I can see the sorrow and the tragedy. I feel tears falling for all those families. Not my kin but then again when I search within they are my brothers and sisters.  A dark anguish clouds my senses. Seeing other human beings in pain causes me pain and it is worsened by the lack of compassion of my peers. I hear lies like he was a ****, or dodges like he had a criminal record. But he was human flesh like my flesh and now his death is a black hole of grief and rage.

Silence is a prison of reflection, iron bars of sorrow built upon more sorrow. I cannot speak clearly enough. I question what right I have to say these things. However, they are spoken from love, hope, and a desire to see us aspire to be better. I guess that is all the permission I need to say that any injustice bleeds us all of our dignity and humanity.

Dear Journal

       I sat still as could be waiting in mourning, wasting away at the window till the early morning, sobbing and sighing loud exclamations of my grief; without any words of comfort to bring me sweet relief. I was alone and my beloved would never come again. She could not greet me nor rise to meet me for being racked with what appeared to be the rigid rigamortis of death. I coughed.

       There she lay in a silken soft shimmering negligee that covered next to nothing. I was flushed with shame and sadness, so I covered the bare portions of her flesh. Stricken with a sick desire I rushed to her side, pulled the sheet from her cold body, laid my head against her chest, covered myself with the sheets and listened. I know not what I expected, maybe in my madness I hoped her heart would start again. Clutching tightly and listening as closely as humanly possible I waited, hours passed and I waited.

       My cheeks were red with my grief. My collar soaked with salty tears and sweat. My breaths were ragged with congestion so I tried to dislodge the flem that had building in my chest with a fierce cough. I felt weak and flushed with fever but in my fervent behavior, I continued with little concern.

       I waited and listened. When her chest refused to yield the sounds I desired, I cautiously pressed my lips to her mouth, parted her cold closed lips with my tongue, and began to breath. Her ******* rose and fell in line with the rhythm of my own breathing. Up and down, up and down, up and down I repeated again and again. I was transfixed upon the hypnotically hopeful motion of breathing, so much so that I lost another hour in what was almost a meditative trance.

       When my senses were restored and the madness had passed, I untangled myself from the intricate mess that I had become. In the midst of sharing breath I had forgotten my pain, but once I stopped the tears returned with a terrible vengeance. My sobs transformed into a violent fit of coughing and it took a couple of minutes to regain some sense of composure.

      I studied the motionless shell of my beloved. Her pallor had become even lighter. Her face was untainted by any imperfection. She appeared to be only a shade or two away from marble white, possibly porcelain. If only I could play Pygmalion and restore the flush of life to my beloved. Instead I sat in the shadowy corner of our closet crying.
Then I was struck with strangeness. My dear beloved could not be seen in such a manner. No male eyes but mine should know the exquisiteness of her nearly naked body. This was my sight and mine alone. For years we had owned each other, promising our flesh and spirit to one another. I shuffled through her things to find the perfect piece of clothing. Then I dressed her with an almost religious fervor. Slowly and carefully I buttoned each buttoned, pulled her dress up and straighten her cloths to perfection; till there were no wrinkles to be found. I wondered, had I taken this much care for her while she still lived, would she have survived. I cough lightly and felt a slight speck of flem fly from my mouth.  

      I studied her again and found myself shocked. Somehow I had missed a speck of blood. I carefully stripped her down and proceeded to wash her skin gently with a warm cloth until I was certain she perfectly clean. Then I dressed her again. I touch her hand and strangely it felt warm. A shiver of hope coursed through my body and I entertained the idea that she might rise once more.

      I would gladly trade places with her. In my wretched state of sorrow I almost missed the twitch of her tiny pinky. I had also failed to realized how affected by this ordeal I had been. I sat down to scribe this experience in my journal in hopes that writing would help my frayed nerves.

       She stirs as I write this, but I have become acutely aware of a painful exhaustion in my being. With every stroke the quill becomes heavier and heavier, each line is harder to write then the one before. I will not rush her recovery. I need to rest my head on the desk.  I will leave her a note in my journal.

My dear you frightened me I thought you were dead. However you seem to be waking from whatever happened. I am very weary; let me rest a bit and when I awake…..