vanity is makeup-like, an airtight mask
eroding, alas, the skin underneath

Falling with the rain
crashing on the pavement
I’m coming down
From high… the highest clouds
Taking the long free fall

I cannot stop falling
for You...

love is evolution window shopping for eyes

I felt it crumbling
I felt it falling with the rain
The invisible
I felt it falling
Bits and pieces
Shreds and ribbons
The clothing of my wings
As God unpacked the wraps with haste
Like a restless child
Tearing down the gift
Together with the wrapping

I felt it falling
Scorching on the skin
Of frail reveries
Soaking wet I felt the taste
Of gasoline
And drowned the rain
Into my eyelids

in the realm of man, beauty is a weapon that maims everyone within its reach… and ends up killing the one who wields it…

don’t let all those flowers deceive you
clouding judgment with flower dust
and the charm of colorful aroma
they have agendas of their own
and you are but a step in their ladder

Do the blind dream of blind horses
And of long monochrome, dark on dark, black glows in the unequivocal hell.
Do the blind dream of blind horses
Steep hills, winds and skies,
And nightmares unnamed.
Do the blind dream of blind horses
And longings unseen,
And blind arms like snakes,
And the sorrowful dark scream of the flesh.
Do the blind dream of sighted horses.

*

Author: Pavel Vesselinov
Translation: Gabriel Burns

And when I turn to stone someday
You will become Medusa
The very moment that you lay your gaze
On my skin of cold-hard gray

And some might say
I've lost my way
But who are they
To judge
When numbers rule
Our nights and days
A life of Midas' touch

And all of those
Who quantify
All the good and woe
Will be too vain to realize
They are their own foe

And some might say
I've lost my way
A sentence I'd forgive
But it's the dreamer, not society
Who, the way forward, shall cleave

She handpicked the hearts as fruit
And  never said whom she would choose
But  torn they were from their vines
Oblivious to their use
In making finest timeless wine

And only history would know
This taste that would endure the flow
Of time, of memory, and mortal minds,
One destiny, herself, designed

You might wanna keep tabs on this one...

Everything is so slow when I have no bridge to you… everything is the pace and longevity of the kiss I dream your lips in… but time is a reverse-caress…

I’ll hang myself from your earlobe; an example to all consciences
That are the high hanging fruit in the wind
Unknowingly melting icebergs worth of salt in the eyes of a fox

Ask Margo why the Salt is always hungry
Why Lime is everthisty
Envious of big bro Lemon
Who, on his part, admires Orange
'midst the Cubes of Ice complaining

I hadn’t spoken for so long
a tiny spider had moved in
at the corner of my mouth
eating my words

my tongue laying limp like a
slain dragon at the bottom of the cave
like a king who passed away right there
on his throne having given the last order

my arms almost as still as uncontested borders
only palms carry out maneuvers
and fingers patrol the manifestation of expressions
commanded by thought fibers
like puppet soldiers

and the lines in the sand are words
born of themselves
telltale heartstrings stalking now the realm
just outside the eye orbit

Beneath the facade
The opposite awaits
So few though, I let in
Because my friend,
This heart of mine,
It may not be a temple
But make no grave mistake
For it’s neither a brothel

Deep…
I’m sinking in the dark
The world is upside down
Just the way it should be
I’m taken in by warm skies
And the clouds are tangible

The steep curves of slopes
I climbed crawling
Your breath, the gust
That turned my world over

To reach the rain
I danced on skin
Trenching spells
Caressed soft soil
To split for me a sea of thighs
So I could go the distance
Where We end up as God

The salt envies my lips,
jealous of your tongue
when it wants more
longing for yours
craving slow soft moist caress

It melts in the sharedness,
sparkles in our breath,
a crystalline melt of desire
stretching the flavor in timelessness
fusing in sweet a figure of eight
of our tongues’ thirst

It speaks our secret language
teaching new grammar;
it weaves our thoughts in scarves
spilling cool ambrosia,
warm in our veins

I’m genuinely open-palmed to rain… and that skin of yours falling unto... my whole topography… gently sifting… summer showers from… salacious cumulus seduction… I wonder why there’s no escaping bliss… that indescribably sweet torture of… how good it feels to pull apart those ribs… and rip the last remaining strands of victimization... under the influence of sentient ambrosia… and the rivers break out galloping… splashing pirouettes on river banks… caressing, kissing, caressing, kissing… tenderness and passion… drowning hands tightly clenched, screaming madly… “I want you”…

Sadists, aren’t we all… abusing that for which we fall…
The way that I’m obsessed… with the fabric of your dress
Although it doesn’t feel as good… as tender skin beneath it would
So it deserves the claws… and lacerated ribbons’ flow…
Of all the fingers, it’s the thumb… that sees the broadest, like the sun
Runs in circles on those knees… the sweet of you I love to read
Yet passion thrives on sacrifice… with aftermaths of melting ice
To treat the paintings on your skin… which lust, in trance, would blindly leave
Like every coin, there are two sides… and truth is tasting both in life…
The things that we adore… our hunger paints in gore
And now you’re in the palms… their lips brush off the calm…
The sinking of the teeth… the flavor underneath...

An angel fell because… (skip gender-”biased pronouns” here or anonymize with asterisk lunacy) wings were in conflict… the left one anxiously ***** equality, not knowing that would mean a lack of lift and loss of aerodynamic quality… the right one, weaponized, stiffly resolved, glides over the notion that all feathers should be attached talons, even though it doesn’t make sense to fight gravity with sharpness…
And so the angel split with Grace and tumbled… eventually lost the race to inertia… another force to add up to internal struggle and its intensifying pressures...

My look perched on its medicine,
Twin hazel pills approaching slowly
Going down even slower,
My look took the dose that I tried to convince the doctor, is insufficient
I was told I couldn’t get another prescription
I’d have to adjust and make do, and cope, and adapt…
My doctor says it’s for my own good
And in time I’d feel more appreciative, less trapped
But I don’t really have time… it’s the other way around
And time has Me instead… And I refuse to be a resource to be had
I just want those caramel pills
I just want to feel the sun spill into my heart…
With an unending kiss that bears your name...

Carrion wings hang limp
On the backs of broken yesterdays
I don’t want them in any proximity
I cannot bear the stench
But vultures come along like doubts
At the speed of darkness
To save the undying from burial
And bring them back to me,
The predator feathers of prey wings
I man the guns myself and
Call all hands to battle stations
And it starts raining
Exhumed evidence
That the buried hatchet often is
A boomerang seeking fulfillment
With the new found vengeance
Of primeval sapience
Burning mad with
Insatiable curiosity

scars of lessons past
crawl like cracks
on tomorrow’s skin
you stitch and patch
but
it’s a race you cannot win

You’re a spark and I’m a flame
And our son
Is Arson

clutching the handle of a
long long long knife
unwavering hands
pull away
I’m in daze
not sure of the direction of the blade

Stretching out, my palms
Are swaying in the wind
Like leaves of palms like
Leaves of trees
That are my palms
And off they go like kites
Like leaving calm
And making way for grinning madness
And its widening smile

the stones are thrown
the flock transforms
from sheep to wolves
to eat their own

...I’m falling
You’re open
   {I) Dive in
Openness
   Like a stone
Like a river
   Ripples and sinking
Banks and flowing
   Like a stone in the river
Falling into you
   I dive deeper
To caress the bottom
   With every move
Of the current
   Forever…

I feel the call of Arachne
The pull of fine threads
And in the rifts between
The web of thoughts
The interlinked highways
Of my inner circle,
A hunger wakes
The lids of eyes are jaws
And I promise you rebirth
If my love consumes you
If I loved you now to death

Seems there’s nothing there
Is it see-through
Is it like dark matter and dark energy
The forces of invisible entities that bind us

They invade our thoughts covertly
And we never know our feelings’ feelings
For theirs is a different world
Beyond our own

Forces bind energy and matter
To interact with the senses;
And through this process
The ghosts of thoughts take mold

Secondary level of production
Involves post-processing and
The rise of libraries of metadata
And if we are cautious
We could gain access to new layers

New horizons within the body of our thoughts
Lingering dormant
Waiting to be discovered
It's all there
Catalyzing inspiration
Seemingly out of thin air

are you embracing mountains within me, each swallowed three suns upon sunset
a flock of longing birds up high, leaves a grain of spring to eyes
seeing again, that white painting, our hands in tenderness, sketch out a swan
and in the shadow of the beak, a broken off scream of solitude, lies hidden

* *

It is with great honor and excitement that I introduce to you, this gem of an author from Bulgaria, my native country… Without further ado, I present you * tearfly * and her wonderful work, translated to you with care reserved for my highest standards...

You love green
And evergreen sheds cloth only to Fire...

* *

Colors only make sense
Beneath the touch of your hands

*

Desert sands are clothes
******* an oasis
Warmth divine in your colors

*

You are not my glue… you are not my stitches… you are the wholeness that my wishes dared reach for… the one for which I’m healing...

* *

Your salt is flowing into the dark seas of my eyes… and behind the horizon of my lips, a smile is waiting to rise for you...

My real gender is
Lavender in november
Real love ender
Never the pretender
Role playing ember
Too hot, too cold
Never too average
Even the dreams
Of my ashes are savage

I am the pain of my sins
burning
behind the sunniest smiles

I’ve seen shooting stars,
Their, bodies, burning undesired
Thrown away
Like banished tears
From the dark pupil of the sky
I’ve been holding the hand of
A decade worth of dreams undone forever
So they could achieve dreams of their own
Before my gaze
I’ve held their ghosts in my arms
I’ve been standing at a full “I mustn’t” worth of distance
From their lips
I’ve been filling in vain, the bottomless glasses
Of the most beautiful words,
That spring from the electric spark
Beneath the ribs
I’ve been leading the guerilla squads
Of my beliefs
Against the empire of Impossibility,
And its most decorated generals: Doubt,
Insufficiency, Wrong…
I’ve lied face-down, hands tied behind my back
For that traitor, Restraint…
But now… I forgive him now…
And now, Empires fall on their own
Now those dreams unachieved,
Meticulously paint their eyes
Wrinkled from the salty trickles,
That realization has drawn towards me
For I’ve always known that…
Loving is now or never
You cannot wrap it in tinfoil
And freeze it for later
Yet, they, those morally unattained, chastely righteous dreams,
They do arrive at Knowledge station
Aboard the Intuit train,
Atop the tracks of true common sense,
Alas, too late.
My loving is given now
To Fulfillment,
For it chose now to never
And caressed my scars of restraint
With warm fingertips
And kissed my see-through “I mustn’t” from the other side of the wall
To melt away the distance to my bloodless lips

Dipped for years in sensory deprivation, my heartstrings had atrophied to the point of numbness. Self-harm was my only tool of getting feelings into my system… My voice was screams confined in vacuum. My smile came up only as burns and blisters blissfully stretching on each side of my surface.
Where am I now? I'm out. Prison break successful. My thoughts were the bars; my self-loathing, my walls; my heart was the lock… Did I carve out the key out of my guts? Was it a re-purposed rib? I can't recall. But I'm out now. And I'm real. I gave myself shape and soul. A second chance.
I have two wings; one black, one white… And I… forgave the past. And my veins carry freedom towards my brain, feeding every synapse. Thank you everyone, who loved me when I was the least deserving. May You be blessed!

I stopped time
on the brink of your lips

{and mine kissed eternity)

* *

Everything is digital printed on glass by silicon
All analog feelings, a thing of the past
Like a million years ago
And emotions are coal
Buried deep beneath stone
And steel and concrete
Like our bones are
Beneath our plastic skin

come won't you stay awhile
come won't you brush denial
off of my lids

come won't you stay awhile
come so I brush denial
off of your lips

come won't you stay,
your hands in mine,
come won't you rest your palms
so we can peel
impossibility
and build the bridge within
and heartstrings hold the roads
and hands interlocked will close
the distance
in handfuls of deliverance

they say there is no other life
but here inside this body
here within this skull
measured by the goodbyes
of countless nows
but to me there is
yes, outside this box
on the blank sheet
seemingly flat
endlessly deep
in infinite dimensions

The Catcher In the Rye reboot trilogy; sequels comprise Pitcher In the Rye and part 3: Batter In the Rye. The love story of a ball and a glove, whom a bat tried to separate. Stay tuned for the spicy novel 50 Shades of Homerun, where the characters go through all the bases, all the way to the home...

Eyes, like coal, leave ashen trails
Unaware of what they stain
Your whites are pushed
Into the frames
I'm soaking into you
So deep
Into another plane
A journey through the layers
Of your fabric
To never wash away

cities with their
glass skin
iron bones
gray flesh
of concrete
and a soul of
light bulbs
silhouettes,
the skylines…
the giants that
swallow us whole
because
we didn't know
how to stop
the magic of
the beanstalk
and now
that we have raised
our titans to unite us
we gave them will
we gave them back
the gift of fire
and it returns
to **** the life in
to burn the bridges
throughout and within…
our Atlases...
are they home
the shelter, still,
or are they now
the labyrinth
and the Minotaur

Entwined,
heavy with fruit,
she is suspended in time
Caught in a move
endlessly smooth,
her body winds up,
hugging the cold
pillars and walls,
stretching about,
reaching around
and out to the sky.

She can curve it
in every way
on a whim,
however she pleases
... and droplets will shine
on her body like lotion,
or jewelry, playfully teasing,
although frozen, the motion,
warm is her dance
in the hands of the sun
and the tickling breeze

you left me cold
like a long burned-out
chunk of coal
I stopped glittering
because I knew
that I was not of gold

She was playing with the rim of her glass. Running a finger. She wasn’t fully aware, it wasn’t really on purpose. As if the glass was playing with her, not the other way around. Her fingertips went down on the glass, caressing its stem. There was so much happening in the back of her head that she wasn’t completely present. She dipped her finger and got a taste. Just the tip, she thought. Just a drop. Why? There was no “why”. Something was going down. She wanted to break the ice and make him forget about protocols and small talk and all the boring stuff. Her clock was already ahead. Her lips weren’t kissing the glass. They were elsewhere. Kissing the tip. She wanted that dip. She wanted his lips on the rim of her glass. Sipping from her. Something had spilled somewhere. But not the cool of the wine. It was warm. Who knows where it had started to trickle. Somewhere behind her eyes, would be a good guess. But it was inevitable where it would end up. It would part lips. It would not be contained. Here thighs were clenched shut like a vise. Her tongue craved new flavor. She wanted to excuse herself but she felt a bizarre excitement in walking on a razor-thin edge of a boiling sensation. The tease. The pleasant torture. He had stopped talking. He was focused on her lips. How long has it gone like that? Her casual gestures couldn’t mask anything now. She was all color seeping from behind the makeup. She suddenly caught his stare just like she would his hand. But she would not deflect it. She would guide him. And this realization exploded in her head… and everywhere simultaneously. She closed her eyes briefly and exhaled. She climaxed.
“Are you okay?”

My amputee heart
Recognized its long lost
Severed limb
A recurring phantom
Of a feeling
Naturally grown
Excised at its ripe
That you were the root
And the blossom
The marrow of the joint

How come... so well preserved...
Frozen? For so long.
Perhaps it still demands
To serve a purpose
One that hasn’t coped
With moving on

So much color and
So little light
The trees are jewels
Veiled by the sky

I never thought you'd drive a wedge
into my ribs
and touch the heart within

I never thought I'd lie awake
and
dream up something real

I never thought I'd keep away
from harm
for too long

I never thought I'd witness walls
fall apart and
crumble in my feet

I never thought I'd believe
in myself again
take up these fragile wings

I don't believe in an enemy
replacing something dear
so I stray away from every

smile that ends up near
to keep what's left of sanity
as thoughts weep silently