When its emerald eye glimmers in the shadow of the dusty shelf above
I pause,
I sense a presense.

It is not unlike me to attribute human characteristics to inanimate objects.
Give them names and nicknames and quirky character traits based on how their forms bend.

In the flickering lights of a broke wicken sanctuary though, I do not do it out of habit.

I feel it and stare it back down and see my own reflection in the cracked gems that once were a soul.

A gaudy skull.

The kind you see in home video Indiana Jones tributes,
with hats stolen from someone’s parents,
and jackets stolen from someone else’s elder siblings,
and ketchup for blood.

The kind your quirky local manic pixie dream girl uses to hold incense.

The kind I’m about to waste my money on because I’m an adult now and I can use my millennial minimum wage however I want.

I do not become aware of the possessed nature of my new buddy until I take it back home and hear it snicker in the middle of the night.

I know it is the skull, for my roommate is not one to snicker.

(He chuckles when he’s hiding an opinion and has a villainous laugh when it’s coming from a place of sincerity, but that’s beside the point)

I know it’s laughing at me.
I know this for a fact.

It takes me three more nights to call it out on it because I’ve never been confronted with the issue of standing up to a haunted antique I took home from a secondhand shop, possibly owned by satan’s offspring.
But I’m twenty-one years old and still experiencing some firsts, I suppose.

The gaudy skull is exceptionally snarky.
In a way none of my named plants ever were.
Not even Gerard.

He comes for me for the garbage on the floor and the dust on the windowsill on which he’s propped up, and then later for my poor taste in chore-doing music.

I never ask for its name because I know for a fact he’ll make a game out of it
and I am not in the mood for entertaining ghosts.

I come to realise it all on my own a couple of weeks later.
Once the snark starts to wear off,
and domesticity settles in,
and shared quiet becomes comforting,
despite the circumstances.

It is Judas.

I know this for a fact.

You do not understand the extent to which I am certain that it is Judas.
I have never been so aware of someone’s origins in my entire life.
I bought this creepy item and it is now in my room and I’m developing a weird attachment to it and maybe occasionally use it as a paper-weight and it is Judas.

I feel it in my heart and know it inside of my skull that might be standing on someone else’s touchscreen windowsill
two thousand years in the future,
jade stones for eyes even though I specifically requested amber,
but you get ****** over by bureaucracy even after death.

How do I know it is Judas?

Because I feel him stare at me like he wants to kiss me late at night and sense him plotting my betrayal early morning.

I know it is that, for a fact, because I’ve felt this exact sensation before.

My **** edgy room decor is Judas.

I try to get him to admit it himself by talking of past lovers and reading aloud the surprising number of Jesus metaphor poems I have in my room.
I hate Jesus metaphors, but I do it for that sweet sensation of seeing someone trying to dodge the inevitable once it’s coming at them like a mule through Rome piloted by the son of god.

I know he’ll cave eventually and tell me
and I know it’ll be the same caliber of glorious news as Jesus coming out of his own cave of burial,
resurrected and preaching winning.
I know I’ll win.

And I think to myself that maybe I am in the mood to entertain and just haven’t found the right outlet yet.
Maybe history’s most infamous apostle is It.
The original sinner and the original rebel.

(I’m aware it’s technically Cain, the jealousy-ridden son of Adam and Eve, but I only ever count the gays)

Judas and I have bonded.

And I can tell he’s on the verge of telling me his dark and twisted backstory. Again, I have felt this sensation before.

And when it happens, we can talk
about what it’s like being demonised by the one you love
and being the odd one out in your devotee friend group, even though you eat bread and drink wine and worship metaphor just like them.
And how patriarchal institutions distort history to pedal the same tired spiel of everything having a place and everything being there for a reason.

But we both know that isn’t true
because neither of us feel like part of god’s plan or created in anyone’s image.

And we can listen to sad music about wanting to kiss the wrong people together.

And that’s all I ever wanted from a friendship.

Please let me preface
I dont like people
crouds make me cringe
and while i value my friends
i highly value my solitude
------------------------------------------
I cant picture a face
when i close my eyes
when my mind trys to grant
that one final human wish
before slumber encompases my body
and reality and dreams interlace
For i have no soul to match with mine
nor a soul to follow
in deepest secret with the fleeting hope
that maybe our souls shall intertwine
But i wish not for two to meld
for hearts to pledge an undying vow
for lust and ****** greed
for billowing convorsations

But silence

An individual respect for ourselves
two beings gracious for company
bodies laid side by side
your fingers tracing circles
on blank canvasses of skin
Where there is but an understanding
that breath so silent can be pleasently shared
and electic touch soulfull
igniting warmth surrounding my heart
of which embers burn soft and hot

Where aching muscles
tense from harsh realities
are smoothed away with solid hands
a mutual relationship where the
solidarity in thought is aknowlegded
yet the pleaure derived from presense
a caring being holding steadfast
unwilling to let me go
gentle and kind
Where the silence of
spiritual understanding guides
the instictual need for
companionship

It is still warm, the place where you had laid,
Still filled with the lingering blush of life and gifted with your smell,
Something that is so completely yours that sometimes if I close my eyes I can pretend you had never left,
I can pretend that for another moment you were mine.
That I didnt have to return you to the world where others also loved you,
Where there are other pieces that fit your puzzle of life,
Different kinds of love, not subtracted from your character but rather a part of who you are,
Family.
Sometimes in these moments with your scent still in the air and the room full of your presense, I become selfish for your love alone,
Almost envious of those whom get to experience you an all your greatness,
All the myrid of things that make you the beautiful person that you are.
But then when all of the envy, and selfish thoughts have run their course like all thoughts do,
I remember all the things we do,
What brought your scent to linger in a cooling bed,
What allowed your presense to fill my space,
And I no longer feel the loss of you so strong,
Because not long before, you where in my arms,
As you sure are to be again when the chill of my loneliness begins again.

I remember you,
I think of you.
You cared about  me and every thought I ever had,
You helped me make sense of what I was dealing with,
even though neither of us could at that time.
There wont ever be anyone like you in my life I rest assure
I stand tall and reminis on our time together
and feel the haunting of your presense everytime I write.

Falling to earth with such a crash,
antenna waves and legs do thrash
as panic fills this quiet place,
invading visitor is fast to race.

It chirps so loud, out into the night
perhaps to explain its weary plight.
In hope that someone may attend
and come to rescue a dear friend.

Alas the latter does not show
but I think that it doesn't know,
as off it stalks with knowledge none,
his fate is not an healthy one.

I sit in such a peaceful state.
Contented just to sit and wait
until this morsel feels secure.
As legs thrash through silky lure.

Until that time with such a gasp,
the critter steps into my grasp.
To struggle now is not of worth
as my fangs intrude throughout its girth.

With a body now so soft and limp,
interior now a lovely drink.
Its frenzied kicks to get away
for this cricket will never pay.

Venoms course, its presense felt,
a life that dwindles with the melt.
All that's left are bones to crunch
As this Tarantula enjoys her lunch

Seconds become hours with her,
Moments treasured in the safety of memory,
Her presense seeds a sense of security,
And her very touch entwines a bond of emotion,

Like soft autumn, her hair falls like willow branches,
Which lay in the pending snowy blanket of her skin,
A lunar cycle may pass,
But a viewer would have only taken in a small amount of her beauty,

Unlike myself, who sees her for who she really is:
Past the eternal and ageless beauty,
Is a hollow cavern of emptiness,
Carved out by the chizzels of heart-breakers and love-leavers,

What she does not realise though,
Is that her brokeness can be mended,
And her hollow heart filled with nourishing love,
By my tender and patient presense,

For what is a plant without soil for stability?
Let her root her pain in my skin,
So she may blossom for the coming spring,
And walk with me into the following summer

SPACE has many different definitions
Tonight I ponder only a few.

In OUTER space, the sun keeps the Earth happy and alive because it allows Earth to orbit her most spectacular fire
In OUR space, you were my sun, moon, and stars, the brightest of lights that could warm up my chilliest hours
We thrive on space,
Not only the space we make with others,
but the space we dont even recognize holding us afloat in our daily lives

None of us all knowing how important it is for space to exist
How vital it is to our being.
and the sad part is, we take it for f-ing granted
Its never enough.
We **** on and pollute the space not only mother nature gave us,
But the people who turn our ordinary days into extraordinary ones

And then it sinks in
That space,
all of that ******* motherfing space
Is everywhere.

What does it take for one to come to this conclusion?
It takes finding something(or one) that makes our own personal universes' balanced.
Our own personal sunshine wakeup call
Our blanket of stars to tuck us in each night
For what seems like such a short, pathetic amount of time until
The Black Hole ***** us back up

We become milky way bodies
Constellations grasping, clawing for each other as we
Spin
Dance and
spin
Parts of us burn out
Glowing as big and miraculous as ever and then
BOOM
Nothing.
Firecracker, flash,

Fade.

Its empty, vast, and lonely now.
Corroded, spent, ashamed

A lost child without its favorite blanket
A forever sleep in your dark
Constantly running,
Running from the space
Thats too big to fill
because of a presense
Far exceeding the capacity

One wouldn't willingly admit

Half a year of blinding heat
Memories etched eternally in my mind
Every day a struggle
To make the space between us
Bigger and bigger
Until you do not exist here anymore.

When we were young and beautiful,
We would so gallantly bathe in glorious sunlight.
So that when dawn would break, the black ravans would flutter and float into the dying of the dark like swollen embers from a marmalade campfire.
I can not recall such bliss and happiness.
Seconds go by.
Happiness.
Minutes taken away.
A gratitude for life.
Hours gone by.
Its time to go in.
Days go by.
The moment of bliss slips through our fingers like dusty sand.
Weeks whizzing by.
Taxman coming down on us.
Years torn up like wasted paper.
You are dangling by your neck.
Decades crumbling down like collapsing buildings.
I my elderly self rests in my shallow presense enjoying the antique memories of what a happy life looks like.

lost in my train of thought
music is guidin me
no signs of slowin down
snap me back to reality
cuz baby i'm cruzing
where i'll end only i will kno
unless we stay connected
follow me
intertwined with my mind, telepathy
see what i see
life movin fast
billboards displayin moments in the past
bluring out negativity
regret's a strong *******
its been holding on too long to me
a tear streaks down her face and it tears down another side of me
a shadow encases her whole and suddenly i can no longer see
i can her whisper the words
"please just stay away from me"
until she fades
moving on...
a young man approaches me
I shake his hand
finally ready to face the world he decides to turn his back on me
stunned i look on
until i realize he's no longer within my reach
another door closes...
another one opens and i'm blessed with a childs laughter
the silhouette struggles to stand trying to find balance
if only he could comprehend the lessons being taught to him
he falls and regardless he tries again to accomplish what he sees others have acheieved
determination...
I turn to find a wall
texture is rough but presense is familiar
strong and unbreakable
and yet i chip away at its will as the years fade
cold, no longer as strong as before
easily breakable
no longer can you defend us
stand behind me
let's see what i'm made of,
please let me try
I can't stand to see you fall and i know i never say it but
Mama you mean too much to me...
Found but still lost
a mirror in front of me
confused to discover
exactly whats become of me.

They ran so far, ran so much that the soles of her feet were stained with blood. His hand never lost its grip while hers was bathed in oil, her cheeks blushing with shock and excitement. To think they had pulled it off! She never felt so crazy in her whole, bland, little life!

The couple ran across streets. They ran across fields. The night smelled like a child's perfume. The flowers mixed their aroma with the grass to tempt any lover to imagine what their worth was. Only a sliver moon revealed itself, so they were blind to nearly everything, just as they were so blindly in love. It was an eerie night, but a captivating one.

They whisked past trees as if the tree boughs and twigs would swoop down  like a skeleton's arms and fingers, trapping them into a thorny grip. They dodged cars like they were alien outlaws from another realm. They ran like there was no tomorrow, and the whole world would explode in a moment.

She did not care what anyone would have thought of her. To have hung herself would have made more sense to her parents than to be so impulsive and take off with this man, this stranger. They would have insisted she was out of my mind--and she was--but she never felt so sure sure of herself.

She never knew who she was, but maybe she was about to know and it would be wonderful. The cares of her world seemed to melt, at least they did in the cool of the night as she gathered the courage to run free.

All was going well, as the wind kissed her cheeks and her mind felt eased of her burdens. Yet, for one brief moment, the desire to rip her hand away from his overtook her, a failed moment of self-doubt.

It did not seem like it was really her pulling her hand away. As she yanked free from his firm grip, she froze in her tracks, panting from sheer exhaustion. All the courage had sudenly drained out of her just as mysteriously as it had consumed her.

In the failing moonlight, the shadows played upon his face in ghoulish distortion. The chiseled, calm features seemed to transform. Suddenly, fear rose up in her and she wanted to deny what seemed so obviously grotesque. She rubbed her eyes. Were they playing tricks on her? She gasped.

Inbetween the shadows, his face looked demonic, like death. What was happening? For a second or two, she could not distinguish a man from a monster, who it was she was really following after.  It had to be an illusion!

His lips were formed out of putty and burnt rubber, seriously twisted out of shape. His teeth appeared busted and broken into jagged pieces of rotten glass. His eyes seemed to glow and slowly narrowed at her in frustration, his skin rough and embedded into hardened cheekbones.   She continued to rub her eyes and blinked hard a few times to erase that ugly, horrific  image.

A swirl of clouds veiled the moon, but they soon moved on to give her eyes some clarity again. Her perplexed lover was staring at her, his face fair again, well-proportioned and handsome.  So why couldn't she budge? She convinced herself that her eyes must have been playing tricks on her. She knew he was waiting for her to make a move, but she couldn't find the strength to respond to his wishes .

"Come on", he called out to her. Once again, he reached out his hand to beckon her to place her hand in his.

She now was not so sure of what she was doing. She stood there, dumbfounded, and so ashamed of herself. The leaves rustled in the wind as if they had lost their patience with her, too. Just a few moments ago, she had such courage. Now all the excitement and madness had abandoned her all at once, and she felt so small and powerless to the night, as if it was engulfing her in its darkness.

"Come on!", he repeated. The tone in his voice was angry now, and it sounded unnatural, gutteral. She dared not to look at him for fear the scary image of him would return. The minutes felt like they were ticking away in sludge, and the desire to run was creeping back into her, but not to run with him.

Soon, her lungs were stinging from the chill air of the night. "No", she feebly replied, "I can't do it".  Those few words took the last bit of energy she had.

He started trying to convince her to go on, but quickly the firm calmness in his voice had disappeared as his voice grew threatening. Before long it reached a crescendo of profanity and perversity, again sounding unnatural and more otherworldly than ever.

She began to cry in her helplessness. He mocked her. He shamed her. His words were punitive and cruel. She was nothing.  She was better off dead. She disgusted him and her presense degraded him. There was nothing good about her, nothing at all.  She was ugly, ignorant and usless. Fearful that he may hit her, she took it all in,  frozen with fear. But he did not touch her, yet it would have probably have hurt much less if he had. She shut her eyes to try to erase his image, and she covered her ears to drown out his cruel words and his harsh voice.

It may have been just a few minutes of him taunting her, but it seemed like eternity. She let him rage on instead of fighting back to defend herself. Fighting back seemed so futile, as she felt so cowardly and small next to him.  She could not find her voice even if she wanted to, but soon he had slipped off into the shadows, his footsteps sounding away from her upon the pavement on dirt road they had been running down together.

She was trembling now, more from cold than from fright. She now believed the threat was over. That was it. It was finished. As surely as it started, it was over. He was gone.

No, she was not going to run away that night. No prince or knight in shining armor was not going to rescue her to whisk her away to safety.  Nor was anyone going to take her away to a happier place that she often dreamed about.

So she slowly turned around to head back to her old existence. The hurt she felt was now turning into numbness, but that was nothing new in her life. She was used to it. She knew I did not have the life she had wanted, but she began to realize that it could have been much worse. Maybe she was nothing, like he had told her, but she was walking away and she was free. Yes, she was free from that nightmare that could have been the end of her.

She did not feel alive anymore, not like she did earlier, but she was able to put one foot in front the other take herself away from what had now become "nowhere".  She was confused at first to which way was which, but she  eventually found her way back to her familiar surroundings and headed home.

being poetic sometimes just comes to you naturally. the words flow through you onto the paper in a beautiful rythmic way and they paint an emotional landscape of thoughts and feelings but then someone sees it finds all the flaws all the things that made you feel it was yours that made you feel unique ruined. you feel exposed, hurt, scared. you hide from yourself you won't let your muse out for fear of having your art distroyed altered and corrupted. so you change you pick up a brush you dip it in the paint and you let the flow begin again. your strokes are thrown at the canvas where you feel the anger, your strokes become detailed and gentle when you feel happiness or calm emotions. but then someone sees it they see only the flaws they tear it apart and you along with it. where the lines are jagged from your anger and disappointment they only see uneveness and imperfection. where the shading is uneven from the sadness and the pain they only see imperfection they can't see what precious beauty lay deep inside the painting and the use there words to hurt you to make you feel like you were wrong like your not doing good enough. so you swear never to touch a brush again you will never let yourself flow with emotions like that ever again you tell yourself. but then you change you learn to play the piano you learn to make your fingers glide across the keys in the same was a figure skater glides across the ice. and with each key stroke you heart beats a note that flows out through the piano like blood through your vains. it feels natual it feels good it makes you feel alive you let go. everything comes out everything you feel and think flows through your fingers the notes of your heart beat expressed through the notes of the piano. the feel of the ivory on your finger tips becomes unnoticable you beome one with the flow of the music your heart beats in time with the rhythm of you soul of your music. and then someone hears it they come in and they take a seat and for a while they listen then they stand up and without a word they leave the room and you continue to play you let your flow continue you pay no mind to the person who just left the room. they return they have brought people with them and they sit quitely and say nothing. you stop playing you stand nod to each aknowlegeing their presense and then leave because the music wasn't for them it wasn't for them to judge even though as you leave you hear the people talk about how amazing they felt you were you no longer care they approval or disapproval means nothing its no longer about your art being good or being acceptable its about being...