There is a creek that runs through my neighborhood
It is *****
It is shallow
In the spring it overflows
Thrashing Spilling
Filling each clean corners’ crack and crevices
Stagnation stains the air
Wafting into each household

I like to think of when I was a child

I stood in the water
In all of its inconsequentiality
And looked longingly at the sun
As it swept me away from the sounds of mechanical inefficiencies grinding against the asphalt  
As I felt the soles of my shoes soak in filth
Seeping in-between the spaces dividing my toes

I fooled myself into believing this is what other children saw

Something pastoral

Where their rolling hills weren’t so different than my own

Where the stars bled through the skyline’s purple hue

But
I had the sun
The rushing salivation of water surrounding my ankles
The feeling of something gained and lost
A sanctuary
An appreciation amongst
All of that something
All of that nothing

There is a Creek that runs through my neighborhood
It is *****
It is Shallow
It is Mine

Brick.
It was always a brick,
Nothing more, nothing less.

Although he always wanted it to be more, often he fantasized
About feeling reeds between his fingers or the mud between his toes.
However, there were only bricks.
        Bricks on top of bricks,
              Vertical and horizontal,
                   Wide and thick,
                         For miles and miles.

He indulged casually,
As his fingertips would seldom graze the slick condensation of the outside,
Bleeding through the cracks in the mortar.
         Those moments let him drift,


From time to time, as if he existed outside this cage.


The room was always the same,
When the door closed it was dark and sterile,
devoid of light and sound pollution just like they wanted it.
Everything around him remained shrouded in darkness,
Save
   For one
          Solitary sliver of light
Under the door that hinted a feint existence of the outside world.

A world often forgotten about.

His fingers once again found themselves caressing the face of the four walls.
Desperately searching for some kind of recourse.
There would be those moments, there always were.
When he would find himself lost in deep thought.
As a brick slowly shift under his touch and into the curves of her body,
Cold to the touch
Yet still beautiful as the day he met her.  
Idle in his thoughts he would soon realize that’s why he was here in solidarity.
He had made her just frigid to the bone,

                         And so there he will lie,
                         In darkness,
                         Cramped in confinement.

                         Enclosed in Brick.

As I turned to a familiar canine eared mark,
a sense of warmth stifled my breathing.

The skin on my thumbs became raw
Pulsated with the beat of my heart,
While rubbing against the worn paper.

The raised ink of each letter
Smoothed out softly
Underneath the pressure of my fingers.

The smell of old rain clinging to the dying foliage:

Intoxication.

The sounding of thunder drew my senses to attention.

Hairs and synapses standing, saluting at the ready all in neat formation

Memories and narrative flooded my mind with delusions of love, anger, and sorrow;

As only it could.

A crimson kiss left stained softly upon her lips,
as her palms cold, clasped tightly around bone.
In dire heat within the moment,
talons entrenched deep within tattered flesh,
belonging to a facade of a man now fodder for the feeding.

A sacrifice necessary to appease,
The period of bloodlust.

I prostrated in front of her
Kissing gently
The rises and fissures
Upon the back of her hand

There I rose
Late into the night,
By her bedside
I stared into her eyes

As she inched backward gingerly
I did not blink while whispering
Etching a promise into her bones
“I will not relent in my pursuit”

As I inched backwards into the sooty sordid mist of her mind
Lost forever into the dusk of time.

Carry on, Carry on,
He died, nothing more to say.

His body stiff and white as petrified bone,
His bones sullen with sad experience.
Strife filled his day
As many sorrows as his hairs are grey
His late thoughts mired with remembrance
He did not talk as much as whisper and bemoan

“Carry on, Carry on,
Another Christian soul without a way.”

Think to other things, save death for tomorrow,
The player of the stage, or so I have read.
This man, a beggar for more, or for less
To worry of his life is meaningless.
The days will follow the night and he will remain dead,
And the earth continues to turn and there will be another tomorrow.

Carry on, Carry on,
I will continue my day.
Carrion, Carrion,
Tear this wretch away.

I rise to face the fanfare

forged from the instruments of those who watched conquest warfare and famine ride Dictating the rites of god flaunting the colors of their father’s land in scarlet night and burning white crushed in the talons of an eagle I from those who stood in the face of conquest for one moment the beauty of constellations and the strength of iron stood in unity

I stand apart the mountain of those who conceded in the presence of the silken pale rider and his entreating caress

My father watched as his own draped lifelessly suspended like a cruel marionette

I who stood at his feet as he was ushered into the fire home now he keeps a widow company within a ceramic cylinder

I listened intently to the failings of the present the fallen are dwarfed by the towers of man eyes of sullen milk yearning for the fire and brimstone of the yester year to course through cracked and long soured veins

I rise to face the fanfare

here I will stand unwavering in the midst of the roads lit aflame with the bodies of the crucified the persecuted the banished the punished the misfortunate the proud the many the weak the blind the meek the legends the infamous the ill-fated the youth the experiences the living and the undead

here in the palms of giants I will face the accuser as he gnashes upon the bodies of the traitorous there in the center of the unholy realm of ice and tundra he will demand of me to fall upon my knees

there I will resound:

No