A summer dress, perhaps
deserves a summerish redress.

In the witching hour, solitude's domain,
there is naught but
I, and the white-hot eclipse for my eye.

I have one hand beneath your neck,
and another behind your knees.
In these gloves, I will drown and resurrect
my fair dress, one-and-only Sunday Best,
sodium hypochlorite cocktail mess.
My alternative hydrotherapy
is a remedy from my enemy.

You traffic through this well of hell in ease.
A fire drunken on the Lethe.
Deliquesce in clinical scents.

Your skin thrives on the purge,
but mine cannot survive.

Sacrosanct sacrifices  
collide in a mirrored image.
There’s a dual grace in the anguish
as the High Priestess tears
a beating heart out —

It lures a half-crazed
Apollonian hymn from you,
harmonized to the devil’s interval,
for my repertoire of Dionysian dance,
attuned to ballet’s feral ceremonies.  
On the lunar stage of ecstasy,
we sedate and ******.

But how far do you dare to rival the muses?
“As far as it takes, and then some more.”
You say to me, in consummate hunger.
Or are we just fools drunk on nectar
in a tug of never-ending war?

Today I leave nothing to the imagination
In a historically accurate setting.
I, your narrator to navigate through
Corridors of a physical mindscape
(no escape)
Decorated with impressions and caricatures.
Follow my voice,
I invite and incite all Memories:
A curation of characters and sentimentalities.
Taxidermy preserved to its last breath.
Exhibitionist curiosity.
I must be an architect
to reconstruct a desolated house.  
"Welcome home," to my
Recollection residence.
Archaeological labor too, to unearth
Buried civilities and forgotten feuds.

To stand in the ashes of
A prison of twelve winters
On summits is a struggle
To surmount shades and shadows.
Pouncing, pulse,
I suture each slash with sleep.
But here you are,
pilgrim of an echo,
breathing life,
you have struck a chord
—And a dissonance that
thrusts me into the future—
that rings through my forlorn past.
This time, in that foreign country,
a new page slowly, slowly turns.

.
to Emilia,
you are the method to my madness

I will cry my heart out now
for every hypothetical tragedy.
I’ll break my heart now
so I don’t have to— in another life,
or a life yet to come,
drown myself in some apocalyptic loss.
Unceremonious

departures. Haunt me for life.
Mourn you for all the ways you’d die.
Prepare myself for inconsolable grief
in a simulation of a graveyard.
Tombstone upon tombstone:
Dug, prodded, buried, sunk.

My dear,
to my dismay, you are but a mortal,
implicated in the immortality of love.
In the book of all conclusions,
written in an indecipherable tongue,
your name engraved in feeble marble,
an expiration date in bright, blinding red.

How can we cheat Oblivion?
How do we defy Death?

You shrug with a confident nonchalance.

What is Death to Love Imperishable?  
What is Eternity of a moment to Oblivion?

We are in the dress rehearsal
for the season’s première and the grand finale.
The Universe has been on our side all along,
it’s poured every blood, toil and tear into
years of conspiration and orchestration,
for our one delicate point convergence.
One chance against all odds.
One intersection against all parallels.
So come what may—
Take my hand and break a leg.

“ Master Blacksmith, I would like to commission a weapon most formidable. The mere mention of its legendary name shall strike fear in my foes. “

{ In Hephaestus’ name, I craft you this }

So I will hone your heart,
Set fire to your lungs,
And conquer all your unanswered prayers
Into a battle roar.

I will boil these tears.  
A stinging, blinding pool at the bay of your eyes,
Use them for crystal clarity,
To sharpen the mind like a whetstone.

I will forge a sword from your fury,
And the hate of your enemies.
Temper it with thunder,
Cut a path out of illusions.

But not before this:
I crush your spirit a thousand times,
Force you to your knees.  
I will show no mercy on your soul —
Not even if you beg for it —
Bleed it, wring the daylight out of it.
To your despair, growth is the cruelest devil,
And I its most loyal advocate.

But in time you will learn Strength,
And to heal;  
Through the growing pains and screams
Mend all broken bones,
Stitch up all the open wounds.
Dripping, drilling, stilling.
You will, you will, at your will,
Lace together the miracle, the magum opus: Your undefeated self.

No comfort or ease lies in death.  
But all phoenix bathe in flame and ash.
Selves and egos, they died for you to live
— So live!
Dance on its grave with manic abandon.
Honor it with your new life.
Transcend it, over and over again.

The endurance

Locked away in millennial slumber

We dreamed again of the glorious days

In golden halls of apotheosis.

The conqueror shall return the old ways,

And they shall kneel and sing the songs of praise.



All hail the first emperor

Of the great empire that would never fall!

Exalted among men, long may he reign.

We who on wintry mountains once stood tall,

‘Neath the earth now, humbly await his call.



The intruder

For centuries, we stood still in silence.

Curtains of darkness were the only light,

Behind the shut gates of the mausoleum.

Sealed in the abyss, not a soul in sight-

One strange voice rides on lonesome winds at night.



Silhouette of a stranger on the wall

Brings forth a light that would perish all.

Eyes on the throne of our supreme lord,

He sees not of the shadows of his steps.

Come forward, stranger who shall meet our swords.



Lied forgotten, but we will not forget.

We are the guardians of the emperor,

On war chariots, in both life and death.

Tread lightly, trespasser, to where you enter,

For this journey you should not have ventured.  



Hark now, careless wanderer, eyes greed-blinded,

Who seeks to steal the treasures of our prime,

And slither away from our anger,

Thief, you have awaken the dragon’s sleep,

You have reached the point of no turning back.



You have brought corruption to the holy place.

Our master stirs, and commands us in rage.

We shall stop at nothing to cast his vengeance

Upon foul men and free him from his cage.

Witness the destruction and dawn of the new age.



The ascension

The intruder lies quietly on the ground.

From the ancient times, foes who crossed his path,

We promised to leave none of them unscathed.

He who commits this unforgiving crime,

Is bound to taste the dragon’s wrath.



Do not look into the abyss,

Or may the abyss look back at you.

We once rose as a great empire of might,

Now we rest under the light.

We shall rest no more, and linger no more.



Rise, Legion of the afterlife!

Rise.



We have waited.

We have weathered.

We have endured.

We have slept.

We have dreamt.

We have awaken.

I lie in bed sick
but it is not disease that
is crawling under my skin.

A million mouths speaking
in monotone -

(how funny it is their lips are
a thin line.)

sleep
sleep
sleep -
(it rhymes with sheep!)

One more hour
One more night
One more howl into the abyss
(does it howl back?)

The dead silence of the night
it knows my mind - too well -
too much -
like a hammer knows  

Where to land
to strike a nail
like a surgeon knows
not to slash an artery
with a tremor of the hand.

I pull down the darkness
and pray for it to take me,
swallow me whole,
"Take me anywhere,
anywhere but here."

A million mouths hissing
in unison:

(how strange it is they have snakes for tongues)

sleep!
sleep!
sleep!
(it rhymes with weep!)

One more hour
One more night
One more scream into the void
(does it scream back?)

I lie in bed sick
but tonight I shall dream
of voices ripping me apart.