Up the stairs
she would climb
Into the attic
at night-time.
Her little legs
crawled up each stair
and soon she discovered
what was up there.
Antiques from all kinds
of things she had never seen.
The attic was quite dusty
as if it had never been cleaned.
She scattered through every box
and discovered a trunk.
She searched for a key
and found one under some junk.
She opened it to find a photo
of someone with her.
She looked closely.
The person was unfamiliar.

.

page one
it starts with the wave of a hand
a simple introduction
'hi, what's your name?'
it starts with looking and seeing nothing but what is there
skin and bones and blemishes and human
it starts with feeling no cliche butterflies in your stomach
and no additional voice in your head
amongst the others
and no rapid pulse in your still-beating heart

page two
somewhere along the way the waves turn into inside jokes and small smiles
crinkles by the corners of eyes
and light chuckles
and glancing just a millisecond too long

page three
and, well, glancing just a million times too often

page four
and you write poems in attempts to make yourself believe
to drown yourself in denial
to avoid confronting the - nonexistent - blooming bud growing
sprouting from all angled corners
and cracking curves
and jagged edges of you

page five
spoiler: it doesn't work

page six
and it's strange because apart from seeing what is there you see more
or really you don't see what is there
you see what you want to be there

page seven
you see skin and bones and beauty and freckles and stars and constellations in eyes and ethereal -

page eight
perfection

page nine
except perfection doesn't exist
and what you see doesn't exist
it's just your unrealistic expectations piled up from miles and smiles of movies and books and manga and everything

page nine
and you know this

page nine
but it goes into one ear and out the other

page nine
and it doesn't stop you from claiming

page nine
you're in love

page ten
if love is just infatuation with a physical manifestation of your ideals without their consent
then i guess you're right

page eleven
there are butterflies bending, banging on you, begging to be released

you wonder when your definition of beauty became a name and a face
and you wonder when love became synonymous to pain

page twelve
the butterflies turn into birds and then bears and then freaking buildings
except these building are moving and apparently earthquake proof because you can't seem to break them down
instead the buildings are breaking you down

but the truth is no, no they aren't
don't you see?
you're breaking yourself down

how do you heal if you are both the poison and the antidote?

page thirteen
if only you could rewrite the story
but how could you?
how do you rip the pages
how do you erase the sickeningly sweet
slow stabs slicing through your spine every time a smile is sent your way
how do you mute the thudding in your brain telling you that this could never be
how do you ignore the extra echoes in your head yelling at you to get yourself together

how do you get yourself together?

page fourteen
you've been asking so many questions lately
but you know the answer to all of them

page fifteen
there's a small voice
a minuscule, malevolent voice whispering maybe
whispering maybe and perhaps and potentially
maybe you're not the only one who wants to hold on just a little longer

page sixteen
but see
it's funny how the story starts with two people and now it's just one person with an overactive imagination
illustrating a person as something more
something better

page seventeen
but you're not creative enough to keep your illusion for too long
and soon you start to see less of what you want to be there and more of what is there
skin and bones and blemishes
and human

human

page eighteen
human is ugly and human is cruel and human is wretched
but human is somewhat
beautiful
in its ugliness
and human is raw in all its dishonestly
and human is real
even if you made it out not to be

page nineteen
you will never truly now human
you will never truly know anyone or anything that isn't a figment of your imagination
but it's enough

page twenty
it starts with seeing nothing but what is there
skin and bones and blemishes
and human
and then it ends
the story ends somewhere
anywhere really
but it ends

From a farm town they grew.
Daddy was a gambler, Drinker,
Cheater
Momma was mentally ill.
She smoked on the porch and counted the clouds.
Wishing to get away.
Daddy would stumble home mad after losing all his money.
The children would scatter,
Faster than their attacker.
One of them would grow up to be an almost track star.
The only tracks he does now are running up his arms.
Born into poverty self abuse is the only way to be.
Some may get out of it like his sister.
Who found a light at the bottom of a bottle.
But little Ricky didn't make it past twenty.
He always had good aim, who knew he would use it towards his head in blow away his thoughts?
Down in the ground he rots.
His mother soon to be.
Poor baby she wailes, down into the grave she dives.
What a tragedy this is.
Maybe the family down the street will have a better story to end with.

Fifty seasons past, in times overgrown and abandoned,
Lived Hinterlands vast and wild, twice as unknown as fate,
Holding many mysteries both bewildering and unknown,
Lands wild, confusion and treachery all they would ever create.

A colony of spirits inhabiting the oak trees,
They would move in purpose and silence,
To and fro, the colony traveled as they pleased,
Killing under the moon, hands upraised in defiance.

The great wolf left loose,
He prowled through the land once again,
His mark found on every tree and every spruce,
Until a traveler sought the beast, and it was gracefully slain.

The sleeping foe was as tall as the night sky,
With every breath he would poison the air around him,
Thick stone-flesh covering his single ruby eye,
His foresight was still strong and true, tidings proved grim.

Hinterlands Folklore heard clearly and truthfully,
Untarnished by the seasons change, year after year,
Histories left both bizarre and beautifully,
Eloquently left in text, yet in history painfully austere.

It was all faintly lit gloom
where her silhouette wouldn't betray
if she was sleeping or awake
amid the thick smell of disinfectant
the world debarred from the room.

I trust not one of you, she would say,
moving germs, a tribe of dirt,
that's what all of you are.

Countless times she would dress and undress
drenching herself with dettol
changed linen time and again
and her only pursuit of happiness
was denying even the closest an access
to evade disease only she knew.

Others would find in her
a diseased mind.

When she died
men were hired to burn her
and the celsius ensured
she had a germ free passage
to the next world.

Her black hair's flying in the breeze,
As she accelerates her killer Ferrari,
This memory's just right to freeze,
Stops the car at Armani,

Awaits the manager, with fat a parcel,
Those she meets, she'll bespell,
Pocket your prized possession,
A hobby, now an obsession.

High heeled & lethal is she,
She parks right by the bat mobile,
The Dark Knight in darkness awaits,
Her lovely pearls, their past will retrace.

Many she's fooled but not him,
Her innocently malicious eyes, never dim,
Over Gotham city, they secretly rule,
Other evil minds, they ridicule!!

Phantoms, gone in the blink of an eye,
Their memory, we'll forever keep,
Ask not where, what, how or why,
For their crazy insanity is far, far too deep!!!

Her hair is dyed, red and blue,
Her looks give not a clue,
Of her part in Joker's dark
paradise,
She rid her old self a lively
demise,

A dangerous mind she does
possess,
She's worse than Joker, they
confess,
With your cool bat & ornated
revolver,
You're the best problem
solver,

She's made of mischief, & she ain't
hidin',
She's a darlin' with her dear
puddin',
Her life's not an open DC book,
But more, care to take a look?

Locked & chained, was her heart,
Until, one day, came Joker's dart,
& so he's her one & only,
Now she nor Gotham will ever be lonely,

The queen of Arkham is a feat,
Her suave style, none can beat,
Harleen Quinzel, well played,
I don't mind comin' to your aid!!!  
                                             THE END

She sits in a castle made of glass,
and waits for the guard bellow to pass.
Then slowly, she lets down her hair
and climbs down gently with some care.

Finally, her feet can touch the cold stone.
So she walks and walks till she hears a groan:
It was a wrinkled man; helpless and old;
beaten and poor but heart made of gold.

She bent down and sat there on one knee,
then played with her hair to earn some money.
Slowly but surely the money came pouring in
and, for a long time since, the old man was no longer thin.

It was a graveyard and overcast sky
and I sat with book and accordian in hand,
hearing the world with its screams
swallow up around me.
The people whom I had loved and lost,
Papa with his silver eyes
Mama her sharp tongue and tough love
Rudy whose hair the colour of lemons
and questioned why, the living and dead,
worlds apart, yet both did not have a choice.
I stood and screamed so that everything shook
the burning rubble and ash and dust
willing my words to bring it all back
but it did not come, and my breath rose in gasps.
Death had looked me in the eye and said,
“It’s not time yet.”
I would shut my eyes to the world
only decades later.
I will understand that there was hate and pain
there was sadness
but even more so, there was love and joy.
I will know that the people I loved had reason
to kiss goodbye
whether it was their own hurt
or saw it as a necessity,
but they were never truly gone from me
always somewhere nearby,
in the thick and thin
frail and worn
of times.
I would learn
to forgive Death that day.
I will understand that
and I will be hurt,
but I will be okay.

~

Not all deaths are sad.
Some, meant to ease their own pain,
Are called freedom.
While some,
Meant to ease the pain of others,
Are called love.

© BT