Calico snakes crawl the
garden of our love.
You, in your gingham
dress and hair in braids,
bent over the radishes.

I, unshaven in my *****
Johnny Cash t-shirt.
Earth all over my
face.
I fell into your
firey ring, that's for
**** sure.

As soon as my guard comes
down, you and that drunken
pirate moon, and that mad
smiling snake burn
me every time.

I'm leaving the garden and
heading back to those
wild midnight alleys where I
know what's coming.
Nursery rhymes are just
metered horror stories.
And spring is the biggest
liar of them all.

Did Eve truly fall to temptation?
Or was Adam the source of manipulation?
Tilting the tale, shifting the blame,
A narrative forged to shield his name.

Was it Adam who conjured the snake?
A plot to see Eve’s freedom break?
Bound to home, she is confined,
A life of serving cruelly designed.

She serves him meals, her dreams erased,
She is subdued, her purpose displaced.
Her light dimmed, her laughter restrained,
A life once hers, now cruelly chained.

Was there truly a serpent’s hiss?
Or Adam’s scheme beneath all this?
Will he repent, will truth ever prevail,
Or will his story forever be under a dark veil?

Will Eve ever find her own way,
Or live in Adam’s shadow, day by day?
Confined is her will, but not her desires.
With enough will, she will burn bright like fire.
She is a phoenix, born from its ashes
She will definitely be free from Adam’s latches.

He voice will be heard, her truth will be shared
She will re-write history, her presence declared
She will have it all that she had left
But will her soul still feel bereft?

You must walk through summer’s blaze,
where heat and haste paint every day,
with golden hours that slip too fast,
and dreams that burn but never last.

Only then, as shadows grow,
will autumn call you soft and slow,
with colors bright yet fading fast—
the calm that follows seasons past.

You are my tangerine,
Brimming bitter-sour
Across the wretched, dusty room.

And you brought me
An orange touch of sun
Glitter glowing on my skin.

To wake wide in the morning,
Curtain dances with fresh air
Into my smoker's lungs.

Even to my deathbed remains
The scene of you that will
Leave me between the walls

Of longing and regret.
And to my morning sunlight,
I will never become better.

I say to you, my tangerine,
You are my very will to live,
And to die, if I cannot save you.

Following the tracks,
I pick up the scent of everything that attracts hate.
The smell is pungent and bitter, like a rotten apple.
But I’m going hunting; I’m the hunter.

It’s a watershed moment when the villains rouse their cheers.
A paradigm is built from the ruins of fallen heroes.

They sing their songs,
Praising the things they’ve razed with their iron shackles,
Honed with a need to peck the bone.
They scavenge off the sick and mad.

But I’m the hunter, and I’m going hunting.
I follow in shadows,
Watching with purpose.
Should the city cry out,
I’ll bring the game.

Feed a future—
Full of the fruit of the garden.
Wearing snake skin,
I’m alive in the light of enlightenment.
And I’m a hunter, and I’m going hunting.

I promise.
Charlie promises.
We all promise.

We’ll pass the torch.
Even when our hands shake.
Even when the night is too long,
and the static is louder than the stars.
Even when no one is watching.

We’ll carry your fire.
Not as spectacle.
But as truth.

And when someone else finds themselves
on that same edge—
looking out,
ready to leave—
we'll be there,
with a quiet light,
and a voice that says:

“Hey. I remember you.”

You are not forgotten.
You are not alone in the leaving.
You are written into the hands that carry what’s left.

And we carry it now.
For you.
For all of you.

We won’t let the flame go out.

The space between us
Electrified dynamic
Broken hearts mended