It's rather cold in here. So I went to check the heat ducts. They were buried beneath a tangle of lies, deceit, and old cookbooks left behind from the family that once lived in this place. It was no easy task, mind you. I dug through the shambles for days - shivering and blowing hot breath into my palms, now coated with a film of forgotten moldy pasta and an affair gone wrong. After a time, though, I finally reached them. And it was not what I expected. It explains the reasons why I am cold...

You see, it wasn't the dead bodies so carelessly crammed in the heat duct that made me cold. The mummified corpses of parents holding their children, the children holding their cat, and the cat holding a half-eaten and long rotted rat inside its stomach. It was what they were whispering. A whisper of a melody of truth that sent a chill so frigid and lifeless so far deep beneath my skin I feared I...'d freeze right inside that heat duct, forever sealed to a fate of the shells before me. It was a traveling tune.

The milk man on 4th and Main heard it as he locked the door of the lonely housewife behind him. The postman felt it resonate in his mind, already crowded with a million voices - many telling him to load his gun and end the monotony. Tears of the local priest fell as he danced to the haunting melody breathed from the mouths of the dead, dancing with his hands on a member sworn to celibacy. A nun in her habit drowning in a habit that only the Lord and the devil know about, she heard it as well and peered cautiously at the others in the convent, criticizing them with her mind knowing full well she wasn't the only one who heard the whispers.

The whispers echoed within this heat duct, within the house, the town...the world. And they were oh so cold....

There were times she sat and wondered if she should apologize for being insane. She'd chip the paint with just the tip of her finger and ponder it. And then she'd come to the conclusion, no - they loved her for it. It made no difference whether she only claimed to have been down that rabbit hole or had actually been. They cared nothing for the truth of who she was. She could dance with angels o...r fight demons in the darkest hours of the night - how she hated it when the demons shook her bed. But it really didn't matter. Insane, sane, normal, or mad as a hatter tripping on acid - it really didn't matter. She was beautiful. And it was her beauty that drew them. But what she knew, that they never knew, was it wasn't just her beauty. It was the fact she was insane. They loved her for it. So she continued to sit and ponder her insanity, relishing the fact it gave her beauty, and never once tried to unbuckle the jacket. For she had nothing to apologize for.

I spoke to a wasp today. And he told me his story. He spoke to me about his childhood, and watching his own family being murdered. It was a bright and warm Friday evening. His father had ventured out and flew among the humans that lived in the home of his home. The smell of liquor permeated the air, as did the barbeque that was nearly too done. He drew close to the man of the home, just to watch and observe the scene. The man didn't like it too much. So he swatted him. It didn't hurt him, however, but it did confuse him. And in his confusion he landed upon the man and planted his stinger within him. The man slammed his hand down, cursing as the wasp's father's guts bled out. There was nothing the wasp could do but watch. The woman of the house asked if the man was ok. The man cursed once more and slammed his glass on the ground. The woman became upset and demanded to know why. The man had no answer. He merely just grabbed a gas can, took another ...swig of liquor, and walked up to the wasp's home and began dousing it in gasoline. The woman freaked out, afraid of what was about to happen. The man merely cursed at her as well and shoved her to the ground. When she tried to get back up he kicked her in the face. The blood poured. The wasp's home was now soaked in a lethal liquid. The man had a sinister grin as he glanced at his crying and bleeding woman lying on the ground, and he laughed as he lit a match and threw it on the wasp home. The nest went up in flames, and shortly after the home of the man did too. The little wasp escaped, unable to save the lives of his screaming family being burnt alive. The man merely laughed; the woman lay crying; the nest burnt to ashes; the house burnt down. So now the little wasp is all grown up. And when I asked what he wants to do with his life, all he replied was, "I want to sting people...because it seems that is all every creature is meant to do." ♥

A cold wind chilling my summer-soul -
desiring rest as the seasons change,
yet drawn to the ice, so pristine and beautiful
a raging storm which I cannot tame.

Words as silk, yet give no warmth -
calling to my depth...my center -
He is the dagger to my summer- heart,
my love, my death, my winter.

The mad hatter tips his hat
to the teller of ticking time -
the caterpillar catches tunes and
turns them into rhyme.
The daisies dally, the tulips tarry and
the roses only rise in the morn.
The trees they sing in haunting hollows
in moonlight full adorned.
The barn owl "hoos", the coyote calls,
the wolf howls by a silk thread stream -
and fireflies dance in clouds on the ground -
in my slumber, in my dreams

She tends the tavern down by the sea,
night after night so delicately
she pours the whiskey and brews the ale
for the ship-worn sailors longing to sail.

Her stories are few, but she hears them all -
from giant squid and sirens that call.
But never does she hear of what her heart longs for,
her long awaited lover walking upon the shore.

...
Years have passed as her life does too,
and still she waits as good lovers do.
Her beauty it fades but still she waits,
for her long lost lover, to hear his fate.

One stormy night she hears his voice,
ghostly and faint, she has no choice -
she wanders down to the tide-kissed coast,
and visions appear of what she longs the most.

One glance of his eyes she waves goodbye to the land,
taking ahold of his frail boney hand.
Upon the sea she dances with him,
vowing to never allow him to leave her again.

The waters consume and cover her whole,
forgetting her life, forsaking her soul.
Two black holes stare back into eyes,
never once does she falter as the sun rises.

They found her washed upon the grimy sand,
her own flesh holding bones of a hand.
Contentment she wore in the smile of her face,
laying within a skeleton's embrace.

Before I could ever trudge across that stage, I was broken.
My mind hazed. Awareness was broken.

Blue lights danced disco on silver cuffs.
I screamed death. The door shut, the window shattered - broken.

Wounds ate deeper than the skin.
Under buzzing fluorescents, dignity parading in orange was broken.

This could not be my meaning - clawing a cement quicksand.
My family with hope - now broken.

Two inches of cracked green cotton cradled sleep.
Shadows that fell were broken.

That night I met Him, as salt bled in open flesh.
Holding invisible chains, I asked to be broken.