robin’s-egg blue walls
contain two empty shells—
one lamp on, one lamp off
four eyes open
both minds closed

They saw world through closed eyes

In explanation
Had grown up too fast

Eyes traumatized
Sights not meant for such young
Supple bodies

But never opening to realize I am not her

The rain that drenched her as a young lady barely grazed me

Maybe I have closed eyes to thank for that

Don't we all have our own little black books in here in which we attempt to write the pain away?
When I saw the new girl sitting in the garden all exhausted with hers in front of her, I ran upstairs.
I have no energy to meet another who writes her pain and plan down in a little black book.
No, I'll leave you alone.
Alone with your black book.
And I'll be in here writing too.
Upstairs or in the basement where I found out where they keep the clean white coats.
Nobody will see the stories.
Nobody can explain the journey.
I just hope you'll get some mercy.
Cause I've never seen any mercy.
Even while dreaming.
But the dreams do keep me going.
I have to still keep going.
Don't we all have to still keep going?
Don't we all need a little black book?
Do you also feel frozen and stuck deep inside your body?
Constantly?
Doesn't it get too heavy?
Like for me every day.
I won't ask you today.
I don't want to know the answer.
I have no breath left to respond.
And maybe you don't either really.
So I run upstairs.
And close the curtains to the garden and lay my head down on the chair.
The chair I wish I had when my bag of helium filled itself with oxygen when I wasn't sitting up straight enough so I didn't die.
And now in here I can't get helium.
And I wasn't approved for euthanasia either.
I lost my place to live because of trying, three times because of the situation.
Homeless.
Can you see what's wrong with this system?
Fighting for euthanasia, having dates planned already.
But the doctor to do the final check did not approve.
The second one didn't either.
But then one did after trying a few more treatments but they thought he was too willing.
Then the next one didn't either and so the case was closed.
The Netherlands, euthanasia, it's not working at all.

Mare Clausum
by Michael R. Burch

These are the narrows of my soul—
dark waters pierced by eerie, haunting screams.
And these uncharted islands bleakly home
wild nightmares and deep, strange, forbidding dreams.

Please don’t think to find pearls’ pale, unearthly glow
within its shoals, nor corals in its reefs.
For, though you seek to salvage Love, I know
that vessel lists, and night brings no relief.

Pause here, and look, and know that all is lost;
then turn, and go; let salt consume, and rust.
This sea is not for sailors, but the ******
who lingered long past morning, till they learned

why it is named:
Mare Clausum.

Originally published by Penny Dreadful. Keywords/Tags: mare, clausum, closed, sea, narrows, shoals, reefs, uncharted, islands, wreckage, shipwreck, damage, dark, tides, waters, surf, stranded, Robinson Crusoe