if you were to halt me in a street and ask
what defines a mystery? i'd have no trouble
in dropping equivalents, metonyms:
a puzzle, conundrum, crux, enigma,
a commodity beyond human understanding.

but truthfully, impartially, justly
when i muse over the question alone
the webs of instinctual response can be brushed aside
replaced with an inherent yearning.

i seek to know why perfection spawned
so intangible in an age where, like the
illegible scrawl of a faceless war leader,
each detail is immortalised
in a pixel, a photon, a sound wave.

you and i, we're not acquainted in the flesh
but the mystery continues, of how a translation
of your features on a screen can captivate me,
can steal into my heart and run away with my breath.

i would swear of your existence on the stars,
take a cosmic oath.
but how am i to know, with you there and me here?
prove yourself to me, please
to be more than an empyrean deception

the anger pulses thick,
hot, eager yet sluggish
in my jagged veins which
touch the air at erratic intervals,
spitting crimson beads that
conglomerate then fall
like tears of a sacrifice.
my eyes focus, unfocus
unable to fixate through the red haze
snaking across my vision,
and the barbed thoughts,
picking inside my brain then
bleeding out through trembling lips;
venom and hatred
ripped from my tongue
to form an acrimonious cloud
of vituperation that i assure will
lacerate your vile fragility.
i despise you.

When I was young I stood
Cautiously at the edge
Clutching my mother's hand, squealing
As the waves lapped at my ankles
And pulled away
When I tried to touch them.

As I aged, I grew brave
Wading into the waves, knee-deep
Chasing them up the shore, kicking
Because they posed no threat
Existing simply
For my entertainment.

Then adolescence;
No longer was the water
Warm and pleasant to touch, instead
It swirled coldly about my waist
Tugging me one way
Then changing its mind.

Deeper I was submerged
Until my eyes were masked.
I could not reckon with direction, but rather
The struggle with the hands
Clutching me tight
And pulling me under
To join the drowned.