cup of poison rage
pint of verdant, bleeding tears
and pinch of fever

Beside a dusty fan droops languid veins
whose movement barely churns up tarnished grime,
as lazy sun exudes through poisoned panes
injected with the film of listless time.

A gentle sigh is exhaled without will
for emptiness of long forgotten mind.
Eyes shudder closed to desolation's shrill
of conscious much too free and so, confined.

Revolting spittle dribbles down a chin
with absolutely nothing left to do.
To entertain and keep from going thin
you spy on friends who in turn spy on you.

Alas! For boredom is the finite trait
of great mankind's insufferable fate.

What truly is the definition of righteousness?
Is it determined by act or by mind?

They say a good man fights for justice, peace, and prosperity.
But then, can a man of such moral truly remain so
if he turns to violence as an answer?
Does his intent to create marvels render him of moral status
though his methods may empower death and promote war?
Oh, this man is peaceful himself,
taking letters instead of bullets to battle
but his lyrics dislodge society in a manner not all approve
and so begins combat.
Can this soul carry such holy title,
if the repercussions of his strung together words are strung up necks?

Or is the good man the one who turns away from the world's fight
to be his own embodiment of ethical beauty?
For the one who remains silent causes no direct pain;
he himself is passive and tranquil
and moves to inspire such conduct in others without commanding it.
But his silence encourages fierce vehemency and wildness.
Does this fact not taint his name?

The first man had pure intent,
but with his tongue he spit sparks
which others used to ignite a fire and burn the world.
The second did not fight himself
but his chosen hush could never end the blood rain,
and so his lack of sharp verbosity allowed knives to flash and blood to spill.

So I will ask again,
what determines morality?
Though this time with a grounding response;
morals define morality.

Each man's mind renders his own flawless ideal individually,
and so one's perfection will always be another's monstrosity.
In truth? There are no good men,
or at least not one to all.

They say in this world that everyone starts with nothing, that everyone has the opportunity to climb to the top with a cup of effort and just a sprinkle of integrity, that everyone is born equal, and that everyone succeeds.
They are lying, if not to you, then to themselves.

Fact is that inheritance will always be present in this world; parents will always die and pass on their wealth to their children.
Whether we are aware of this or chose to acknowledge its existence is independent and non-influential to this fact.

A lying billionaire may have one daughter and she may never have to genuinely work a day in her life, while an honest but unlucky displaced man may have one son and be unable to give him but a pair of shoes to place over his soft feet.

We are unable to alter this occurrence, for it is natural to wish for one’s own legacy to continue not only in genes, but in wealth, fame, and power, but it is crucial to acknowledge the differences of the lives into which we are born.

She embodies a
yellow-backed salamander,
only violet.

Her eyes shine like undisturbed dew drops
hovering at the gentle fingertips of young moss
on the northern bark of a white cedar tree
under a lazy morning sun.

Spear points of obsidian pierce the disc:
banished from the core of a volcano
scorched by a molten heart
and choking on onyx soot.

The dawn warmth filters through,
carried by a serene and wafting breeze.
It illuminates the pleasant, tickling greenery,
bringing to light the depth of her irises.

Fire belches from the mountain's stomach,
and the flame ignites a gleam.
Her gemstone eyes shine
as though the embers have been captured within.

At the base, there is the earth:
firm and dark and cool.
Interlocking underbrush layers fawn with chestnut
overtaken but not undermined by powerful streaking tree trunks.

The rim is built of force and rumbles with strength.
A cast of bronze is seething and glowing.
Her intensity blazes as sun spots
deep within ancient amber.

She is as her eyes are
an indigo inferno:
seldom
and
elegantly alive.

Every brush is a first as a spark to a fire;
though the ashes still fall from limb and leaf,
each blaze sizzles an original melody:
forever unique and soulfully sole.

A delicate comfort envelopes me,
wreathing my pieces with a gentle autumn breeze,
mending me whole when I was never broken.

Her ambiance dances as rays of shattered moonlight,
slipping beneath a sky of the arctic dawn.
She gathers my fragments,
even when they had never been chipped away.

I lay unprotected, yet entirely safe.

She bends until the space separating us is airless with tender yearning.
I taste a thin sea-foam of maple sugar.
Dyspnoea remains fluid in our slumberous desire.

When I close my eyes, submitting to the quiet rush,
I am welcomed by an island universe.
Stardust spirals as the cosmos beams above our heads.

A sylvan petrichor swirls about the fall
as I am consumed with pure euphoria.

There is a difference between knowing and understanding.
You know how I feel because I have told you;
I explain my emotions
and you chose to listen.
I understand how you feel because I live it.
You do not tell me,
but I understand
exactly
the emotions
that course through your
body and mind and soul.

I never chose this.
And I never wanted it.

When I tell people I am an empathic
they mostly roll their eyes.
They have no idea what I am talking about,
until I touch their skin
and relay
every emotion
of their
whole
lives.

Then they call me freak.

But I cannot help it.
Anything that feels pain I feel pain for.

When your teeth sparkle in laughter's sunlight
mine twinkle under the changing moon.
When your skin turns searing red with rage
mine glows white hot as a smith's hammer.
When your lungs burn from submerged depression
mine are right there
waiting
to release their final breathe.

There are those
who turn and marvel
like I am some otherworldly being
meant to be shoved in a glass cage
and goggled at in a zoo.
They tell me it is a gift to understand.
To that I say:
this world is no utopia.
How would you like to see every flaw?
How would you like to drown in the ocean of tears?
How would you like to experience your skin raw from all the fury?
How would you like feel the ragged edges of scars
raised as far as they were cut
with every curious brush of your fingertips?
You wouldn't.
This is no gift
unless from Hell.

In my lifetime
I have tried to make it
so the world doesn't hurt
so that I don't hurt.
Now I know;
I can't.

I can't whip the tears from each child's soft chin.
I can't massage the ice from each man's shriveled heart.
I can't dowse the flames from each woman's fiery tongue.
I can't.

The only thing I can do
is change my position within this world
in an attempt
to heal my scars.

And I am not sure which soothes my pain more:
surrounding myself
with those from whom I receive the most
sorrow and anger and dread
because they
understand me;
they can help,
or
engulfing myself
within the entourage of those who always smile:
to drown out all the pain
and push the world aside.

And now at last you draw the ropes
behind my drooping head.
You even have the
courtesy to tie
the knot
in my
stead
.

When the normal is expected and consumed with boredom,
and the highs pass along unnoticed because they are so humanly desired,
and the lows are too painful to survive through, let alone move on from,
who has the right to ask me to continue trying to live?

Who on this Earth possesses any righteous ability
to command me to survive?
No one.
And yet, I am powerless to stop them.

He was the doctor that would destroy anything to claim he had healed it.

It isn't sadness;
that is the biggest misconception.
People treat it like an emotion infecting a blue day,
labeling slightly soaked cheeks as this ailment of the mind.
The term is cracked like a whip in stinging insult:
weak, powerless, loser, outcast.

It is feeling a lack of feeling,
where one exists in a mental state of wanting to be anything but lethargic
yet finding nothing worthwhile inside
with which to take action:
no talent, no skill, no interest.

It is not only not believing one has any energy
but seeing nothing to which to give it,
in yourself, in others, in the world.

It is severe despondency and dejection,
consuming worlds like oozing, viscose magma
dribbling uncontrollably as burning ***** from the mountain's fiery mouth
burping filthily as is sludges onward.

It isn't sorrow, or misery, or despair.

It is inadequacy,
an ebb of interest in life,
with a sliver of interest to take it.

Distrust is key to
survival
in every aspect
of life
except within.

And that is why
I trust myself
to see myself
as myself.

Beyond that
everyone
is a liar
and
everything
a lie.

For what reason do I bare these arms
if their flick does not fluster
and their embrace does not ease

For what reason do I glance with these eyes
if their concern does not comfort
and their ghost does not give

For what reason do I speak from these lips
if their sweetness does not soften
and their cool does not calm

If my touch leaves no fingerprints
when I press skin to the world
then what is the purpose of my effort?

Or perhaps I do leave marks
a stinging slap
a gouging gaze
a ravenous rip

Then my resolve is of hellish terms
and I am consumed by demons

-why d'you love me; I'm a freak?
-well, I prefer the term unique

you are too young
to hear such things
yet they spew from my mouth
as i spit poisoned blood
snatched from my lungs and ripped from others' throats

i reek of acid
it breaks me to know it tears through you
slicing deeper than the silver blade i use
to carve myself to a shape i think might be better
though you would never admit the pain
at least, not to me

i say you should abandon me
you say i have no right to claim order or jade
and i'm not
i just know the truthful why
are you blind or do you refuse to see?

i am the nightmare
the fear that flares in the back of minds
the shadow haunting every eye
when it retreats to safety from the misery and torture of the world

i am
the pain that blinds
the blood that chokes
and
the breath that was never exhaled

i need you to understand
to see the horror i embody
so you know to run
so i can't hurt you
so i can't hurt me

clawing at shards of shattered knives
i desperately try to force your sight

yet i cannot keep pushing all this at you
all of me as myself
this ******* monster
i know i am

worth less than worthless

a sylvan safety
doomed to die
so
left alone
it wonders why

corrupted carcass
melts to mush
as
choking chains
burn the brush

fearsome flames
lick at lies
and
rotten roots
fend off flies

blackened bark
torn in two
by
scent of smoke
of beastly brew

sinful scandal
heinous hate
cause
worlds to wander
and face their fate

I once thought big words
held more depth
than small ones.
Now I know they just cause
macro-cosmic misinterpretations.

To die of fire and born of ashes
how strange it must be
to be destroyed
by that which creates you

of course a woman is rendered as herself
by the ideas within her head
and decimated
by her own thoughts

and a man is rendered as himself
by the beating of his heart
and dismantled
by his heated blood

though neither man nor woman return from their destruction

I wonder if the death of the fire bird
is painful
does it know it will be reborn?
would this lessen the pain?

I would envy a man who was reborn again and again
but not a man who thought he died every time

I step gently onto the ground as I glide across the shore, padding with a light caution to protect the un-callused skin coating the bottom of my slightly burnt feet, the covering not yet thick and worn from a full summer of bare use. The sand underfoot is a speckled grey, thoroughly beaten to a fine, almost silky carpet, dark with captured ocean and fresh with salty spray. As the seconds pass, the darkness below fades, and my feet somewhat sink, though they are not engulfed, only hugged around the edges so that if I stepped away, a slight shadow of myself would remain behind. I do not, however, move, and instead, allow the earth to slowly bend for my being. I feel miniscule grains of shell aged several millennia rush between my toes as the sea easily escapes the weak attempt to cage it. The next wave tears in, and I see it frothing and foaming, rabid and furious toward the shore, but as it reaches me, it is little more than a carbonated, salty trickle. As the water laps at my ankles, I turn toward the dunes, away from the infinite horizon and know that the slight depression I have left is already being brushed into oblivion, my only mark flicked aside. As I pad softly away, the ground transforms from bland silk to stained glass. The speckled grey sand brightens to a yellow tan, then fireworks to an endless prism of shells, appearing like millions of hooks, swirls, and bowls, across the now slightly undulating ground. Like stars in the Milky Way floating throughout an endless sea of blackness, the shells are scattered in hued bands across the beach, twinkling with reflected starlight. Above me, doming the serene landscape is an azure sky free from all but a few cotton ***** which have been stretched by the sea fairing breeze to be all but transparent. The smell of salt reaches my nose as a bucolic waft emanates from the expanse to my back. I close my eyes, shading my vision and trusting the peace of my surroundings to hold. The faded calls of gulls echo along the shore and the popping of sea foam bubbles sharpens as my mind turns to rely on the sense of sound. Opening my eyes again, I see nothing of the landscape’s composure has altered. But for all its calm tranquility, isn't it strange, that I am walking through a graveyard.

To put it quite simply; it hurts.

I know I always do it;
I shove people away.
I bury myself alone to protect them
because I do not want them to hurt
by revealing my own pain.

It has come to the point
where I am so concerned, so fearful,
at the prospect of being a burden
that I am blind to a crucial fact;

the most painful thing
I have ever endured
was my best friend
pushing me aside
and
shoving me away,

because she thought
she weighed me down.

And now I am realizing
solitary silence and defensive deceit
cause more agony to a friend
than any volcanic mountain range
of searing, fiery truths
could ever reap.

He is an
erroneous man
with a soul splotched
in every color
whose death
displays
his ultimate
moral
perfection.

I am a child of truth
one not blinded by belief or whim
my vision is luminous with veracity
I am a daughter of science
the proven

there is pride in this
the authenticity of my perception
I see the world in all colors
not the black and white of sin and virtue

I judge the world on the confirmed and validated
my value is in the clarity of possibilities
and the assessment of the affirmed

but for however meritorious I may grant this view to be
is such sight of pure moral?

it burdens to recognize I am the only control in my world
there are none in my eyes with ultimate or immortal reign
the only fate I view is individual and collective ends

I wish I could have faith
perhaps the pain would ease
at the thought of another with power in control
knowing my actions are not my work
but the results of a larger set of hands

but how hideous is it of me to say such filth
to long to believe
but be supposedly unable to feel gods
I consider it disrespectful to those who do

so I keep to my facts
my deafening, blinding, muting visual certainties

but what if I am wrong?
after all, there are more colors in the universe
than those of which we see

now look at what you've done
such a monster I've become

I move forward to ignore the past
I learned from history in my mind
I did not want to express yesterdays

I ask you
I plead with you
don’t taint this ground
I know the past is colored scarlet
and you will drench the floor in your blood

I am fragile, but you break like time

I climb, but now look to this pit
I am the pit of a pit on the ground, and you wander

I step once
then step again
but it is you who should watch your feet
because I am an orchard
an orchard of mines

Surrounded by obscurity without gloom:
the depths of calignosity suffocate every speck in ebony ink.
Yet, every molecule breathes with ease.

It is the crushing, bewitching hour of eternity in nightfall.
A sigh exhaled is impassively terminated by the midnight dusk;
sound is silent here.

Emptiness gapes as the leviathan's gob
thick with gelatinous mucus,
vast, however jailing:
closed and unknown to the living universe.

The saliva sparks in a moment, as a release of static charge,
even though no solid is sensed, never-mind two touching
loaded with electric friction.

And then again, as a sparkler of summer's independence
now holding for just more than a whim.
An explosion.

Flecks of bright stains scattered within the physical aura breeze past;
they ripple like wave crests under a kaleidoscope moon.
Colors arc in the resistant free current: endless lightning.

The vacuum is an overpopulated city
of which the blind could never take census
and the ignorant believe to be mute.

Visual speech fills the void of sound.
It is the starlight of a body.

I perch distantly
not as a stalking panther shrouded in night
but in exile
society is welcoming as I chose my solitude
internally enforced diaspora

I claimed it was to marvel the awful expanse
a view of unabridged artistry
authentic beauty
however here
truth's firm grasp scrambles for a grip
but fingers could only ever scrape a void

I gazed across a projection
my utopia
a wish upon a whim

I walk the world with starlight in my eyes
to blind myself from the otherwise unavoidable darkness

I stride not at the center of galaxies
but in the emptiness of space forgotten
knowing resolution is inevitable
and I will either become a part of it
or its mirror

I will be whipped from the universe
an absent thought
lost in tumbling amnesia

cardinal
the omnipresence of a forest
a melody

blush
the laughter of a child
a spirit

flame
the rage of a star
a supernova

wine
the ground of a glass
a mainstay

glow
the warmth of a firefly
a comfort

crimson
the gore of a war
a fighter

coral
the haven of a lionfish
a protector

rose
the circlet of a nymph
a friend

grey
the wish of a girl
a mask

to hide
the truth of an eye
a magnificence

Crying does not mean you are weak;
it means you have remained so strong
for far too long.

It means you have sacrificed your life
to ensure others live their's,
and it means you have put yourself forward
to protect their Earth rather than conserve your world.

It means you have kept your promised silence
that hush a friend dared to ask,
and it means you welcomed the weight
when your shoulders were soaked with drenching salt.

It means you have been sympathetic,
firmly standing your ground to defend friends,
and it means you forced yourself into exile
when your effect seemed more demonic than caring.

It means you threw your entertainment aside
to keep a little brother company as he chases fireflies,
and it means you disregarded candle wishes
as an older sister licked frosting numbering a younger year.

It means you chose to be the person everyone wanted to have
but no one wanted to be.