“A nail in the coffin, such a significant mark.”
Said the dead man walking,
with a hole in his heart.

But the nail was his weapon,
his sword, his pen.
Sheathed within his own body,
his life, his friend.

So day after day, as stress grew,
as life came.
He welled up all the words,
which sang.

All of this, blood, sweat and tears.
Until the fool realized all his lost years.

He yearned to draw the blade once more,
and so did it pour,
all the words and shame
he had to his name.

So the ink flowed, his life blood,
his prose.
Always to write again, his blooming
red rose.

I set upon the Grotto,
where the hanged men dangled, dear.
Those desecrated corpses,
no longer held their fear.

I fashioned up an axe,
To **** the living, certainly not the dead.
See I’m taking out the demons,
and nightmares inside my head.

Through dusk and dawn again,
I hack away with glee.
Happy little madness,
please end this ****** tree.

Fingertips reach out against the forgotten wood.
An old wicked tree, gnarled with memories.
It seemed only moments ago, each groove
and every ridge was known.

A palm outstretched delicately, hoping to feel,
pressed against the rot of fading time.
The wounds of the mind run deep.

The hand pulls back, steadies it’s rage,
erupts into useless follies.

And still stands no closer to remembering.

The Clock strikes three days until Madness.
An itch of a Tick and every Toc.

The Question of old simmers in the Mind.
A Deviant is only half the Answer.

The Cursed Weapon is drawn at the Ready.
Words offer no Reason or Resolve.

The Golden Feather succumbs to the Crimson.
Yielding all Truth to die as Fiction.

We shared stories as the hours passed by.
Each secret detail, leading to more intimate detail.
Hearing each others mistakes, failures, blunders..
It is an open invitation to share in the humility of the human condition.
We live within the tales of another, carefully refitting the pieces of each other.
So far from the picture we once held, but ever better, imperfect even.
The refined inadequacy is all the truth we ever needed.
For who would we be without them.

The finish line is a delusion.
We run the race at our own pace.
Some walk. Some run.
Some crawl. Some quit.
Everyone dies, no one wins.

Suppose there is no other side.
Suppose you just keep going,
Until you don’t.

Is it an uphill battle?
Is it all downhill from here?

A little of both, a lot of neither.
Going, going, gone.

I reach out and pound on the glass.
I scream to the world, fist bleeding,
Voice scratching into hoarse whispers.

Everyone. They all move...on.

The roads diverged. And I’m on every path.
But more importantly I’m on none.