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Nov 2020
Face down on the concrete
Twin roaches scurry fast, awake at last
Where are you, what is this, who are you?
The door ahead opens the wounds to your past

The gap in the door is a separate reality
TWO ZERO FOUR EIGHT SIX THREE
The only me is me…

Is this my life?
I walk before myself, following someone,
Am I me or someone else?
I can feel the burden of his crimes take their toll
As midnight is pressed into my flesh
Piercing and retracting, always in; one eye always watching through the hole
This voice accuses me of the apparency, that I killed my family

The father shot his pregnant wife in the belly
And his ten-year-old son in the chest when he came to see,
Two Zero Four Eight Six Three
Then luring his six-year-old daughter out of the bathroom, he shot her Two  
Who was the only one with sense to hide, by telling her it was just a game
And hung himself in the garage with a garden hose, with an umbilical cord,
A similar crime occurred, unrelated, but the same,
The children are screaming, a murdered pregnancy, Zero years of life
He finished his family off with a butcher’s knife,
A family of Four

I saw me walking in front of myself,
But it wasn’t really me,
Neighbors had heard him chanting the numbers, as if a spell
Two zero four eight six three
Days before the incident, they call to me from hell

Gouging the eye out of her photograph, it matches what I see
Everywhere I turn the wailing, crying, screaming, sobbing, haunting, guilty memory
Running through the endless corridors of gore and horrors, breathlessly
When she appears, shuddering in her filthy dress and decay, out of tune with this dimension
Am I a guest in this nightmare, I remember the suffering vaguely, who am I, who is she?

Don’t touch that dial, we’re just getting started
For all you listeners out there in radioland,
Give the baby a hand,
A contorted fetus deposited in the sink
Distressed cries, laughing after midnight
Raspy unnatural breaths, grip tight to a flashlight
Green, blue, red, yellow, and normal light
I am lost in variations of the same night
Look behind you
I said, look behind you

Face down on the concrete
Awake at last, scurry to your feet fast
Where are you, what is this, who are you?
The bag behind you tries to warn you, you may not be trapped in your past
What you see, certainly, all of it may be true
The only me is me, are you sure the only you is you?

It’s a minute to midnight, the knife is retracted just a hair from the artery
Give it a minute and you know exactly where it will be
Wander forever, she always catches up to you, to us, to me
Bones break and sever, leaving no trace or mystery
By the window, the stairs going down, in the open hallway or on the balcony
You embody the man who killed me, you slaughtered your family
The screaming in the fridge is not the voice of the unborn baby
Infanticide and mariticide ending with your suicide
Ending with unending purgatory, a gory story of your punishment
Lisa, please forgive me, there is a monster inside
Of you, I will expunge it with homicide
You listened to them, calling you to violence
And everything you were, you wore a falsehood that you rose out of, we know you lied
You have been chosen to wander, witness and wonder at fresh hell in silence
Welcome to the hillside

My voice, can you hear it!
TWO ZERO FOUR EIGHT SIX THREE
This sign, can you read it?
Two Zero Four Eight Six Three
I’ll wait forever if you’ll just come to me.
Two Zero Four Eight Six Three
I’ve been behind you always
And you’ll never escape these hallways
The two fathers, two crimes, two times, with no chance of escape, forever, eight victims, six fragments complete my image, they will never know the end, it’s just us three, you and you and me.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields
Written by
Tom Shields  28/M/Texas
(28/M/Texas)   
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