I fell in head over heels in love on two occasions and never again after. The wiser me part of me probably wouldn't call it love. He probably call a fickle and fleeting naive infatuation. The other part of me, the one that hasn't been completely drowned in sorrow and spite, stays ever the romantic. I remember the first time. The memory of it leaves a bitter taste in mouth, like a mouthful of copper pennies. It's almost not worth mentioning except that she shattered my innocent heart. The pain of love is a funny thing. It is like intentionally putting your hand over a scorching flame and then retreating back in shock because such an action actually hurt like somehow we, as kids, thought it wouldn't. Upon the heartbreak what anyone feels immediately is the sense of betrayal. It's ironic how that goes hand in hand with love. Romantic tragedy. To trust a love so passionately, so deeply, then to look down at your chest a find a point of a stiletto driven through it by someone you never thought could have the courage to do so. That small little sinister muse. I guess I should thank her really because without her I wouldn't have began to write as I do now. A lot of previous readers of my works will realize there's quite a few recurring themes: death, despair, betrayal, things we lock in the deepest corners of ourselves and throw away the key. Now the second time is truly the most grand, the most vulnerable, the most upsetting. See, I met this raven haired girl. God was she truly beautiful. Mesmerizing as it were.  She is often the subject in some of my poems. Sometimes as aptly refer to her as the raven hair girl and other times she's the sole woman in my works. She was truly a muse for me. It was as if I was staring a mirror image of me. Our common interests lined up like constellations. We were attracted to the darker things in life. Enjoying black humor, tv shows, you name. We even shared the same favorite work: Edgar Allan Poe's Dream-Land. That's where I drew her in and she me. I never wrote anything before to anyone until her. I gifted her a poem you see, she has it framed and on her night stand. I do not know if it is still there but I imagine it is. Nothing can move a person more than words and I guess I'm a bit more old fashion than most. The conversations we had went from dusk til dawn and so did the video chats. It was one of those occasions where you lost track of time, where your eyes start failing but you fear going to sleep because you don't know if it's all some fantasy you conjured up but then one day it just stopped. It was abrupt. No reason or rhyme. I say that but I'm sure there was a reason. I'm a simple man not an idiot. The day it happened I woke happier than most because it was finally a time where I thought she'd be the one. I was so sure of it. Oh how foolish I was. She disappeared, distanced herself, vanish like a ghost. Like a magic trick. An illusion. One moment I was in heaven, the next I'm falling from the sky like the Devil himself except there was nothing to stop me from falling. I ask myself what I could've done different and replay ever conversation over and over again in my head like some lunatic. I was always thinking there had to had to have been something wrong with me. The pain I felt, it stayed and is still here. Itching underneath my skin. It wasn't a physical pain you see but my body surely felt it. Draining and persistent. Almost like a parasite or leech even. She still haunts me but it is not a ghost I would soon part with because you see while im becoming madder by the hour it also inspires my madness. It is both damning and bliss. You see I am trapped in sort of a perpetual limbo, a limbo of...madness but I suppose we are all a bit mad here.

I hear it as clearly as my madness will let me
That antiquated rumble that seems infinite
Tormenting as if pleading for an answer
I have listened for what seems like a lifetime
My curiosity always fearing
To go further than my helpless ears
But my feet are not my own anymore
I feel most possessed
As if my body is being beckoned
My feet move with a courage that is not my own
I have come to understand
With every step I grow more religious
Wondering if a healthy prayer
Would give me the mental fortitude
To confront what was at the end of this dreadful journey
My feet have trudged for what feels like an eternity
Always hugging this gruesome cliff side
I have repented enough for two lifetimes
But it is not enough to break these shackles
The call becomes more deafening the closer I go
Ever more appealing and atrocious
And the more I listen
The more I can feel an eldritch presence
Ethereal and hauntingly decadent
Whatever this abomination is it has cast its line on me
It's fetid hooks sinking deep
And I feel as naked as a prior without his crucifix
As the hill angles ever so slowly downward
I feel my trepidation grow tenfold
There is a place is stories told
Handed down generations
About an accursed grotto
Before there was a church
There was a church of another kind
Worshipping older gods than the ones I know
They say it was a fanatical cult
Made up of local townsfolk
Ever so zealous and faithful
Who sacrificed and mutitlated their kin
To appease their gods
Other always thought it a wives tale
Meant to terrify pesky children
But I knew better
Ever since hearing that faint invasive call
Old gods or no I make peace with my end drawing near
I steel myself and walk vigilant to my death
Down these carved out stone steps
But though I thought myself a warrior
Nothing could prepare me for what lied ahead
Into the decrepit grotto I go ever blind
With the only illumination my faint fading soul
And with that fading it all goes black
And I step further into this abyss
My fickle soul left me
As if it was already reaped
And what I hear next is the true Calling of the Deep

Down by the weeping willow
Where in eves of twilight
Forlorn souls wander
Searching and seeking
Their material surrogates
Even calling out to lovers
Dancing around the tree
Like a carousel of desperation
Ghastly apparitions chasing echoes
In their pearl gowns
From afar it almost looks like a festival
In the sloping dewy grass
You can even see
Where curiosity treads and love falters
Almost as if hesitant
Intimidated by phantom temptation
Yet new blades of folded grass apparent
Creeping ever further
Slowly, steadily, in trepidation
Mesmerized by the eerie blue fireflies
She said to come join her
Beckoning me in my dream
To join her and the company she keeps
Begging me to come hemp in hand
And enjoy the carousel
Down by the weeping willow

Dear Stranger,

I remember the day I first saw you. An ordinary autumn day spent doing menial tasks and then I saw you. It felt like time stood still in that moment. Through my eyes you moved in slow motion. You were probably doing menial tasks too but you look so beautiful doing it. In the moment it took you to walk 10 yards I already imagined what life would be like with you. I wondered what you look like smiling. I wondered what you sounded like laughing. I wondered what it might be like to hear you say,"I love you," or what kind of things I would have to do to hear you say it and then you looked straight ahead and our eyes met for a split second, it felt like an eternity. I never looked anyone straight in their eyes before and held their gaze. I remember everything. How could I forget your raven black hair? The way it fluttered in the breeze almost as if to torment my obsidian soul. The blush on your cheeks, the way they glimmered. The way your high cheeks complimented your nose. The way your cheeks curve into your jawline and the way it shot devilishly to your slender chin and those lips, God those lips. I remembered every curve, every inch of you as if you were place here in front of me to torture my wayward soul. It was like I was gazing at a baroque sculpture perfectly preserved and in exquisite detail. Something to marvel at from a far and never in close proximity for the fear that even my breathing should erode the beauty I see but yet I wondered what your touch was like. Would it be one of Midas or the state of the Gorgon Medusa? Even just the mention of your touch should have its own story, to be written down and read as a work of modern literature. You even walked towards me with such purpose. Shoulders back and held head high, like a warrior, a shield maiden. And for a moment, a moment no longer than what it took the wind to blow a leaf, I shook the petrified kid in me and worked the courage to smile. A small smile, no more than what would seem like a grin to others. I still held your gaze but when I say it was like being mesmerized by a shewolf it wouldn't do it justice, it was almost a tame ferocity but still feral in its nature. I smiled at you, god did I smile and god was I ever ****** for it. It was like sailing straight into a maelstrom and I braced. I braced myself the hardest I could in that single second. And that was when I broke. Oh did I break ever so beautifully. You smiled back and it ended this war of attrition I was having with myself. That smile was the crescendo of the day, so silent but so visceral and so deafening. By all accounts it was probably just a normal day for you but for me that was a moment I'll relive over and over. How serene and peaceful I became after. I became solemn, I became happy, and I was driven mad. I wish I could explain it. Star struck, yes that is the word. I was star struck.

My Dearest Black Dahlia
Stumbling in these neon streets
Waiting to be torn in two
Be my carrion pin up model
Adorned in imprinted diamonds
With porcelain skin icy stale
Murderous glamor
Gleaming and serene
Posing like a minx
Half here and half there
A hauntingly mesmerizing woman
Should I be fearful
Or should I be in love
I suppose this is maddening
But I am smiling all the while
Bright and all Irish
Welcome to Hollywood
My Dearest Black Dahlia

Another asphalt kiss
A black tarp love affair
Creatures of the night
Roaming this neon dream
Filthy but gilded in glamor
An air of desperation
Hangs like two forlorn lovers
Will it be a night of romance
Or do their pleas pass you by?
A rose to be forsaken
For its thorns are many
Or will you succumb to temptation
No matter how fraught with peril?
Is not love but a wondrous con artist
Casting your gaze elsewhere
To cast its hand into your pocket?
Choose wisely wanderer
These decrepit streets take no prisoners