Severed strings. I dangle free.
Master only to psychopathy.

Take it all. Every crutch.
Can’t manipulate,
What you cannot touch.

To be tethered to a lover is a dangerous game.
A cord of boundless strength winds deep,
Between the flesh and blood of the heart.

When stress rises in you, so too in I.
When depression grows within one, it becomes two.

And yet happiness too, does bloom.
Though not today, nor anytime soon.

We live on the fringe of happiness, my skinny love.

We live on the promise of maybes or never.

I’d sever the cord, if you could be free.
Though we both know that could never be.

This story has been written.
Now we play the parts.
We suffer in the moment.
We live for tomorrow’s maybe.
Time will liberate us.
So it shall be, so it shall be.

Reality begins to break, I shatter
Reality begins to break, I remain

Reality remains, I shatter
Reality remains, I remain

All of this, all at once.
Every moment, every time.

There is no constant other than the unknowing.

That was no ordinary lightning,
I knew that much for sure.
The walls shook with violent vibrations,
Echoes of the beastly ritual below.

Through flashes and thunder,
Archaic broods of badlanders rose.
Each strike tore open the seems of
Conceivable imagination.

This is not the first time.
This storm is without end.
Some will know it for the darkening it is.
Others will hold it secretly within nightmares.

His spectral stride was not the worst of him.
His stoic face was a flawless slab of stone.
His rending claws slipped idly within his pockets.

As if extensions of his sheathed talons, on either side of the ghoul was a hound of hell.

The beasts could not look more different, save for their crimson eyes which sang of the gallows.

The worst had indeed arrived.
Each patient step glided after the other.
With no word, with no tempo, with no sign.
The dance of grimaced howls and fangs began.

Where is everyone off to in a hurry..?
Why am I still waiting..?

Finally..I wake from the dreamless wakefulness,
supposing that now, this is all real.

And how is such a harsh reality met?

By staring down Death’s corridor.
I don’t take the first step, I imagine that
is still quite some time away.
Though this time, it is much more than a glance.

And for the record, I remained tethered
to the living.

But to go on, that must be the work of Mask.
For how could I?

Yes, I resolve this ordeal to Mask.
Absolve myself of responsibility,
for was he not always in control?

Steady now, it is a burden for us both to bare.