Dragging sheets over head during the dark of night
Slipping away, crawling into the mind's cave
Sequentially tumbling into the dark chasm
Million-mile, feathery fall through a grey abandon

Upon landing scenes start with a glowing sky
Swirled in blue, red, purple, yellow and black
Somehow familiar, I'm sad but never scared nor cry
A house sits empty, tall and alone
Upon a hill where an empty tree decays
Tended, yet desecrated and dry
Don't go inside... Don't go inside.... No, not alone
Deep wells awash with ghosts and faceless ghouls
Shells of scenes you never want to see
My nightmares and wanton dreams

The wind slides thick across the terrain with an audible scream
Down the hill is a black frothing stream
Surrounded by naked women and wild men,
****** and killing, each other over and over again
Familiar faces start to stare as I pass the heathen fire and fare
Glowing insects lounge like lanterns, witnessing their share
Sudden cold hand grabs me, trying to force me to participate
But closed eyes make no contact; I thrash with teeth bared,
Clinging with dried torn hands and lost hair
The black stream saves me by dragging me under
Until I slowly disappear

A cave with a pool reveals the next stanza
Wooden dry dock and blue water give a purple glow
A girl sits there with a boy, his shadow on the wall is a crow
Cawing, he has a voice that I understand and know
She, a snake body that sheds and rapidly grows
The couple melts and I suddenly slow down, down, down...
Deeper this continues to go

I wake up in a bed, but it's not my room
White lights above and dark faces ahead encircle me
Trying to inject me with my doom
I beg and scream
"This isn't my intent, this wasn't my desire!"
But it's all my fault the past was doomed
Thrown punches and scrambling for a door
I find the walls fall and the lights glimmer no more
The floor sympathizes and surrenders
Sees the pain and turns to a warm pool
Dazed, I float on to the morning's shore

Endless nights of fantasy and hedonist to the core
I'll be thrown from the night into fantasy once more
Don't envy me or the source of my quill's tone
I hide all the monsters under my pillow

It's quite a feeling to wake up each day a little less numb. Honestly, it's terrifying to feel... anything. When somebody has carried on for so long without allowing oneself to feel love, accept love, or take risks to find love, they start to find that they are only half a human and only half living.

This chord may resonate like the sad sound of a violin because maybe the last time you fully loved someone, it gave you the ultimate pain, sadness, loss and suffering to the point where your favorite places, foods, music, shows, hobbies became a hole in your heart and breath. Where the sanctuary of sleep meant nothing to the rising haunted and longing memories within. Where the only solution you can think of is not waking up again and again.

That hole never goes away, and it's something that you just try to get used to. Some people don't, and they take their lives, or die of a broken heart, while others become lifeless. These last hold no light within their eyes, walking amongst us like hollow puppets on strings led onward by everyone else but themselves, never recovering from the shock of the loss of what they loved more than their self.

One remarkable feeling that often remains in loss is hate. To find blame and ask why a million times about a million things and run in a circle screaming at the top of your lungs every time the radio plays their favorite song and you blame the DJ for reminding you is insanity, but you're just looking for somewhere safe...

But you can never have it another way and you make lemonade as best as you can, unsweetened and sour. Knowing we all expire like the lemons under the tree, we make that **** lemonade and bring our recipe to market. With a second wind, the slightest breezes somehow keeps blowing down your lemonade stand.

Others may laugh and abuse you for what they see as a ****-poor performance at making lemonade, but they don't know how hard it was for this person to crawl on ****** hands and broken knees while their salty tears fell into the lemonade they call their own life then shakily offer you a half full Dixie cup of everything they had left.

I applaud those who have had to make lemonade with less than lemons and I applaud those who are willing to try these ad hoc recipes the most broken of us scribble frantic and blindly. Society tells us it is universal that we all want love, but the things that love entail like sadness, grief and loss are unwanted and many believe they can avoid the minefield by being picky, guarded, flighty or selfish... That's not love.

Love is work, love is painful. Love can take a lifetime out of you. It requires that we dedicate precious time here on Earth which we never get back to someone other than ourselves, and that is a risk that must be taken if it is to be found. You will get hurt, you will be broken, you will survive or succeed on your own terms. As humans, we look at the world and wonder why about everything; why am I alone? why does love hurt?

Only the universe knows. O' to say we should never ask if it was worth it and laugh. It always is. Even if you end up at 88 or 28 placing flowers on their grave, love is worth the risk.

As I stumble down a paved road
I fumble with my cell phone
Trying to read the screen info and
the daily paper's digital memos...

I wonder which superhero will save the box office this year
or if we'll hear the guns of home, the guns that we let go.

I wonder if a fidget spinner tournament will bring home dinner
or if we'll hear the chains of Guantanamo, the chains that we ignore.

I wonder if Mattel's new fat barbie will sell real well
or if we'll hear the guns of Aleppo, of US-made shells

I wonder if Christmas will win the holiday war,
or if we'll hear the chains on your grandchildren, profiting the CEO

Don't care to see if Trump is tweeting
Fight and hope that war stops trending
Gut feelin' goverment has dropped the big one on us
Uncaring, and never-ending.

Rainy days warrant wet poetry
A large pond formed in the parking lot
Flash flood warning on my iPhone went off
...I leave work in fifteen minutes.
**** this traffic, thank god for the liquor store.

While the rain washes away the street,
The wine washes away my mind.
Just get me home.

If only an angel or supernatural could pluck up this mortal fate and twist the coil that can spring life forth once again.

Like a jack-in-the-box torn out of his nuzzled crate, I don't know where I am or if I can walk.

My novelty was taken away by some phantom, a stranger which had no care or thought.

I used to have a painted smile on my face.
To surprise and laugh was my only plot.

Now I'm tossed among the piled heap: Forgiven, but also forgotten.