Blood dripped from my eyes like tears.
Maybe they were just tears.
It dripped from my mouth and I dug my nails into my palms, wishing it would stop.
Blood began to drip from my palms too.
Something stung my side.
I put my hand to it and pulled it away, now completely covered in red.
Although it was not exactly red.
It was dark, making the red more of a black maroon.
I was drowning in black maroon.
You'd think being covered in blood would be enough to wake me up completely.
But sadly it wasn't.
Laying in half-consciousness, my blanket slowly soaking in black maroon.
Tangling around my legs and around one of my arms, I couldn't get it off.
Suffocating in a wet blanket, crying with closed eyes, wanting to die.
I heard music.
A piano.
I didn't know who was playing, or why, or where.
I stopped struggling long enough to listen, it was happy and loud.
'What is there to be happy about?'
I wondered, no one is coming to save me.
I heard a little girl laughing.
"Play my favourite, James!"
She had an accent I couldn't identify, but her request changed the song.
The music stopped for a moment, then when it started again, it was soft and sweet.
But also sad.
I could feel the music creating cracks in my heart.
Someone was walking towards my room.
I turn so I'm laying on my other side, now facing the door.
A pool of black maroon was spreading on the floor.
My breath stopped as I froze.
No one could ever bleed that much.
The door began to open and she walked in.
She couldn't have been much older than I, tall and so thin I thought she would snap, she walked in with a grace and balance so fine it couldn't have been human.
Then I saw her hands.
Her palms were metal, shining in the light from the hall.
Her fingers each a long thin blade.
I felt my heart stop completely.
I looked up and wish I hadn't.
Her face was so sunken in you could see every bone, her eyes hollow shadows.
She was beautiful.
Until she lunged for me and I heard my own screaming echoing inside me as I sat up in bed.
I was shaken but standing.
But broke when I saw the right side of my face covered in dried black maroon, and the matching stain that covered half of my pillow.

Take this lifetime from me now
For I no longer can allow
Yesterday to be my plight,
My farewell into the night.

The chanting seas, the morning breeze,
The gentle touch of careless ease
The beauty of eternity
How could you be so cruel to me?

I see undying skies afloat
Embrace the sweet November note
We left out there to die in vain
As I now try to stand again.

I gaze upon the mystery
Of what it was you meant to me
Of tears I now shed quietly
Regretting what will never be.

You never said, beloved friend
That I would suffer in the end!
That I would have to face alone
This universe of dark unknown
This solemn fate of agony
This everlasting misery
This bitter cry for harmony
That slowly eats away at me.

Announce my parting, I will bow
Take this lifetime from me now.

I.
Well you know that I sip on my sadness, my dear,
filthy palms, filled to the brim.
And I know that you watch trains
passing by, dizzy eyed, still drunk with sin.
Your teeth reek of reality lately,
You smile facts, figures and cracked calcium.
Now, once more with cupped hands
leaking, shaking delirium up to your chin.

Well I know that I’ve missed the point, honey
I should get it tattooed on my wrists,
but you know you talk like firecrackers
so flinching gets awful hard to resist.
I make believe that I’m right like craters
make moons believe.
So I’ll comment on comets and ignore
truths popping between parentheses.

My delusion has your lips liquored up,
but I notice your tongue...

II.
You say,
“It’s fiction we live in. You play in pastels
and fake hollywood rhythms and I’m tired,
staring up at your screen.

You're addicted to this diction. My voice is lost,
screaming these words you keep stealing
and twist for yourself what they mean."

III.
Your lips liquored up,
but I notice your tongue's not numb.
Drink deep, darling. Let's inoculate.

IV.
And you say,
“It’s fiction we live in. It’s intended for men
like you, bottled, up-ended,
but I've watched you drain out in my palm."

It's this clothing, from bedpost to box-spring,
It's all wax-coats and smoke screens,
live lit-candle lasting
When did skin begin to fit wrong?

V.
So they say, one day
Or, one day, they say,
we’ll find ghosts sewed to the seams
of Fringe Wolf bones picked clean
who waltz wicked and crooked a foxtrot to show
that sometimes loss is beautiful.
And when I ask for your hand you’ll look tragic
like this dance was only ever for me
and my feet always fall off beat
Like I beat off any discreet romancing
To pretend that this dancing was
Anything more than masturbatory.
I guess I do dance the way I drink:
Heavy handed and troglodytic
And a little listless, but I always fight it.
So while you walk away, I’m drowning drunk in cinderblock boots; Toe-tapping a slurred S.O.S. like some song you kept whispering.
You keep whispers like keepsakes.
You speak so soft but
Baby, your voice sticks with me
like sickness.

VI.
And you say,
“It’s fiction we live in. It’s intended for men
like you, bottled, up-ended,
but I've watched you drain out in my palm."

Alright, it's fiction that we live in
It's intended for men like me, bottled, up-ended,
but at best I just seeped through your teeth.

VII.
I stitched script to my chest like a scarlet letter vest that attests there's no Soul here worth Saving but ******* come save me anyway.
Your voice sticks
to my ghost-sewn, sea-floor bound foot steps like sickness.
Tread lightly, my love. Let's inoculate.

VIII.
So when they ask for me at the after party
With neon eyes and harlot tongues,
You can tell them I traded this stale air in
For forest fires and tornado lungs.
Because I’ve been reading up in matchbooks
how to dance with disastrous fate,
and I'm finding my rhythm so wake silent
or sleep long, my love. Let's inoculate.

Now you're in love, or so you think.
On the brink of infatuation, an obsession,
clinging on to whatever you can get.
But don't fret! It'll only end in regret.
These "feelings" are formed from your imagination,
An affectation of what you think you know.
But in the end you'll show, what you soon will begin to

deplore.
Paining yourself, is it worth it?
You'll be burnt out, striving for mirth,
but only ending in hurt.

Clouds of smoke, drifting endlessly
Black as coal, all is left behind
The wind, it blows, forever in icy sheets
Swept for gold, none left to find

They shed their tears on their lover
The lovers look up with joy
Ignorance replaces salt in the water
And their blinded eyes rejoice

All they need is a light that shines
On hearts, dark with vapors of hate
To illuminate their exquisite lines
But no sun is bright for the broken fates

The malicious breeze won't stop for a second
even as hearts get tied
People and plots don't mourn for their losses;
as it goes, those hearts get tired

They shed their skins, for something new
Some place better than where they float
All they needed was the light
From the rays of the sun
All they got was the thunder,
Waiting on every turn

So, they shed their tears on their lovers
The lovers look up with joy
Ignorance replaces salt in the rain drops
And their blinded hearts rejoice.