Deadliest monster
Truly believes that it is
A creature of light

Dread is what I feel when I force conversation to escape my lips

Dread is what I hear when I hear your voice, or any memory you narrate in my head

Dread is what I taste when I taste sugarless coffee, bitter and desolate, always how you liked it.

Dread is what I see, when my minds eye looks back into the nights I held you near. It's what I see, when I see your half dead eyes faking joy.

Dread is what I smell when I get into my car and smell a cigarette or a perfume that resembles yours.

My life is nothing but dread. Every night is a funeral and every morning a death.

But there's still Breathe, so most would say I'm alive. It's as if they forgot our nature and what it is to strive.

My senses shackle me to this cross, which faces a movie screen of terrors. I watch and cry, continually suffering with widows and beggars.

Shut it off, I wish I could, you see, but another fear that holds life dear, Will not set me free.

It's as if my brain holds my chain and dangles above the key. It won't let me out, with the painful doubt that I will cease to be.

But it doesn't add up, this is what I want?  An expensive life, a beautiful wife, something I can flaunt.

The hypocrisy, is like this democracy which binds us to despair.

You used to stand by and cover my eyes, give me a rest from the pain, but my wounded flesh and my horror cries left you with disdain.

So then you left, what did I expect? The world shackled you not, so I'll just remain up here, shackled with fear, watching this eternal plot.

It takes a lot of love to stop a jump, a fall, a fright.  
It takes too much love to straighten my tie. And tighten it round the door handle.
You can’t imagine how I hate this.
I climbed up the ladder. The top step was too narrow to sit.
I stood till I couldn't
then I jumped.

This is the theatre of bubblegum dread
A daily dose of drama for your head
Mythic proportions, gloomy with steam
It made the top ten in your dreams
Avant-garde and ancient still
Calm but violent is his will
Here’s a dose for your blood and spine
Subtract those who ain’t alive
Apocalyptic, judging sneer
Fields of green by yellow smeared
Pure expressions of existence and joy
But school is out, no more films or ploys
Surrender to the unwaking moments
Soul of a clown, basked in loneliness
Psychological heart trip-up
Be careful or you might get stuck
Storms roll by when you’re with your cosmic mate
A chess game for the ******, a wave to fate
Drowned the lizard in a make-believe Rhine
It only cost you about three dimes

Nature's indifference demands acceptance from conscious minds.
Have you ever seen a snake eat a mouse in a cage?
Somebody has to die for something else to live.
Somebody has to take in order for somebody to give.
Emotions contradict this.
We could deny it all and hide in our remote corners of the world.
Until death knocks on our door as we take our time to open it.
one step closer... I should have held my lover closer
2 steps away... What didn't I say?
3 steps near... and we search last minute for something that will soothe our ears.
"Believe in God so that you may go to heaven and have eternal life."
4 steps go by and we close our eyes.
Our hearts and minds shut off and we die.
Nature takes our bodies and replenishes them into the Earth.
Our opinions long since evaporated from the final tone of Nature's moan.
This is what we dread, but this what we know.

the day ends, dusk approaches
i sit across from a glaring monitor.
eyes glazed over, mind aflutter.
information streams into my brain in waves
(only some of it managing to stick).
i try my hardest to soak it up, and to let it wash over me,
wash my troubles away.
in a way, instead of bottling my trouble,
i wrap my shaking hands around it forcefully
plunging its head under the murky water
to muffle the yet inescapable drone that follows me
(but it won't give up the ghost
and my arms get tired sooner than stress will set me
alight from my cage).

see, i've had this
unshakeable
feeling lately.
between the hi's, hello's, and how do you do's
this sense of incredible, indelible
dread
looms over me like a weight.
beneath the paper mache mask of humor,
avoidance of heavy topics,
and general gleam that is the man everyone knows of me,
there's a boy
and he's confused, having feelings he's never had before
wondering things and asking questions,
experiencing things that he never read of in health textbooks,
attachments, bias, beliefs, respect, and fear of failure,
learning things the hard way that he never would have expected
(having read only about mockingbirds and shakespeare).
he bottles these thoughts and doesn't know where to put them,
scrambling to pick up the pieces in a flush of embarrassment,
hoping no one will call him out as the
******.
("what? no! i got 100% on this test because i bs'd it so hard. i'd never actually try.
what am i? a
loser?")
he's alone and he's
stressing, calculating, hoping, dreaming, loving, hating, lusting, wailing, and
teetering on the edge of the precipice of the
abyss that
whispers
softly, soothing, sultry.

but the tricky part isn't the looming weight,
nor the calling and the teetering;
i could almost bear its press on my shoulders almost to the point of breaking
or the tremble accompanied by a height that i couldn't possibly comprehend.
but some nights
it,
(and i mean this
dread)
it,
twists above me and wraps around my neck.
and what scares me most of all is that sometimes it feels
comfortable
like a breath of air escaping from the very furthest corner of my lungs.
or a promise,
a secret panic door
with the key to a lock that i know i'd never open.
it coils around me like a noose attached to nothingness.