self-servient & absorbed like mercury
in your own skin must feel exhausting.
trapped under your eagle-like gaze
like a bird - caged & provoked, becoming
familiar with the poking and prodding as
if i am a science experiment, and you want
to test out multiple hypothesizes on me
must be exhausting to others also.

i became a wounded animal, where these
wounds become an after thought. the
memory of you is a disturbing humming
in my head now, distributing parts to trauma
that you contributed towards. at the end of it, i
wondered if you were the coward, unable to
reform and recognize the damage you created.

a myriad of gears perpetually in movement
feeding the wolf with lust-filled eyes
of the ****** desire he yearns for. i recognize
that i am not the only rabbit he has trapped
between his jaws, and fall into the repetitive
cycle again. this time, the wolf does not
recognize that - as a cog in the machine -
i can crank in reverse. the disconnect
has the features of his face faded into
something unrecognizable, yet i feed
the wolf, satiating his hunger for another
day to pause the disonnance of my brain.

you can't break my ******* heart if i
choose the option to not open it at all.

- k.a.

when did the green shrubs
clustered haphazardly in the earth
the flora and fauna
patched in the dirt
the gray croncrete slabs
right beneath my feet
cumulate into violent crimson
tints right before my eyes. when
did i start seeing the bloodshed?
when did the violence of earth
familiarize itself with me?

- k.a.

when immobile, the butterfly looks like a fall leaf
like an incoming winter killing the trees,
laying to rest the foliage,
however
when in flight, everyone can distinguish it's
vibrant colors that makes it beautiful.
whenever you're stagnant, you only see
the ugly side of yourself. when in flight,
you see what makes you worthwhile.

suppressing our misgivings,
we grabbed the plump scarlet
fruit out of the hands of the tree
it was a rule: do not fall victim
to the tree in the garden of eve.
however, the snake was a charmer
playing the flute and coaxing me
out into the world of temptation
the apple, the craving
me, the instrument
the snake, the peer with many ways
to pressure. inhaling the enticing
scent, my stomach purred in
anticipation. mouth meets red skin
and yellow tinted flesh, mouth meets
a three headed serpent hiding within
the apple, who told me, "this is your
fate." he took me as his dinner, and
i came out in pocket-sized pieces.

- kra

he said, "tell me about your history"
because he knew i loved history
and how the chronological events
turned into a collection of memories.
what i wish i was told was that
some parts of history was blacked
out; redacted; forgotten; thrown
aside; history doesn't always tell
you the truth, so who are we to
believe in false prophets?

when i told him about my history, he
believed i would succumb to the past
just like everyone before him.

the past is not the present
the present is not the past
i tried to make him remember
but i forgot my past trying to
make him recall the present and
that's the thing about history.

you can't undo history, which
could be the beauty and curse
of living. history is the ghost
of my past, visiting me before
sleep, showing me how much
more beautiful the world would
be if i joined the nonexistant entity.

i believe in the propaganda of the
ghosts telling me i'm better off
becoming a part of history.

my job was to purify the zones, full of spectres and creatures
grotesque in appearance. it was my goal to stabilize the rocky
ambience and translate the cuneiform inscriptions scratched
into the walls to maybe understand how to get this situation
into a chokehold. once walls full of color, i came back to a black
and white slate. loving someone - i realized - shouldn't have
been a purification process. but as the first of four elements,
it's an important element. because without love, people could
lose their will to exist and self-terminate.

once, i told you i was scared of the dark,
and you promised me, for now on,
there would be no more darkness.

it all went wrong. i must forget about it and dream sweet dreams.
it was what you would have wanted for me. you wanted me to
see the world in color, but all i could see was the bloodshed.
hence nothing remains except for my regrets.