An unconscious self sabotage
The reprimanding echo
A bed of invisible nails

Without the smallest clue
What was this discomfort of?

Exhaustion, a cage without doors.
Menial tasks turned impossible
Stumbling around all dazed

Dressed to the ninth in neglect
I keep forgetting to live.

Feelings are funny things
I used think feelings were the sweet feelings you felt when you were very young
When you were little
(Before the emptiness came)
These were what feelings were... to me.

So it used to baffle me when I got older
After I'd gone through some traumas of my own in life
And suddenly I found much to my dismay
That I no longer felt anything inside myself anymore
Only an emptiness, a numbness, a nothingness... a void
Those lovely early feelings had now all gone
I knew...I knew there was something wrong

But then I'd hear some people say
"Oh, I feel this way or I feel that way... I feel happy, I feel sad, I feel...
And I'd think to myself What! you still feel something inside yourself
Y'know Me! I don't feel anything anymore
All my old feelings that made me who I was they've  all gone
And I have no idea how to get them back again.

But then I'd think
Y'know when you say you feel...say you feel lonely or depressed or calm and confident
Overwhelmed or in control... whatever!
all these different emotions/ so called feelings
But these aren't.... these aren't the real feelings are they
Not like the feelings you had when you were a little child
Their just... aren't they just words describing mental states where/how you find yourself during the day
You feel sad probably because you're thinking sad thoughts
Or you feel happy because you're thinking happy thoughts
But sure I could do that
Yea! I could say well I feel... I feel hungry
Or I feel a bit apprehensive about something that's coming up
Or maybe I feel excited because I'm going out to a show somewhere
But these... these aren't the real feelings are they though
Not the lovely sweet feelings you had as a little child
No! Their not the same.

Y'know when a child comes into the world they start as a clean slate
They have no words at all to begin with
Yet even then they have these incredible sweet feelings inside that make them feel so happy and so special
It makes them feel like they own the whole world
Maybe... maybe their a symptom of the Divine. I...I don't know.

And I'd say this to someone sometimes and it's like they'd look at me kind of strangely
As if to say "What do you mean... when you say... the real feelings!

here we go again
the feeling of not feeling
the music without melody
the poem without metre

it all swims in my head devoid of emotion
these stanzas, those paragraphs, those conversations, that knowledge
they swirl and they shimmer but where has the tone gone
those non-verbal shades just evaporate like water

dickens, tolkien, tolstoy, plath
mozart, sheeran, queen, presley
van gogh, hirst, dalí, ito
nothing but noise when your heart isn't in it

now down some pills
write it down
go to sleep
and repeat this tomorrow.

I wonder when it happened.
When was the breakthrough.
When I started to feel nothing.

From what I can remember
I could feel happiness.
But I don’t remember how it felt.
Last months I don’t remember much.
I forget so easily, everything.

I believe it can appear again.
Somehow, one day.
The emptiness will start feeling less empty.
Less invisible.

When I was younger I barely had any bad thoughts.
If you don’t know things the reality can’t hit you.
But once you get to know them
They will haunt you.
Forever.

Like air going through your lungs.
You think you need it.
But in reality it’s just dust stopping you from breathing.
It doesn’t matter where you are.
Even where the air the clearest.
You will breath the dust.

she is lost but she does not crave to be found.
her world went quiet but she accepted it cause in some sick and destructive way it brought her peace and she felt safe in her own madness.
And although her days are full of tears and anguish... she cant picture herself ever getting out of this labyrinth of suffering she trapped herself in.
this is her silent punishment.

   The killer
came crashing down
smashing,  thrashing through.

What is tender's  tender
       so  for itself,   to do?

        --As it runs
        right over the top of her..

       This taker.
       This killer.

In the black,  
now in between;
so lightless and thick..

        blotting out  all screams.
There is an annihilation  here.
A void.

A terror.
To stay, means certain death

      but to leave  
      also means certain death
      So the  d is m e m b e r men t   begins
      as she is ripped, completely into half

And those halves,  into half..

.. into half

--into half..
        into half.

     And still it tears.. rips..  shreds--
Until all,  in between
is nothing  but black.

A black it can now  pretend to fill
with all of its empty promises..

and all of its counterfeit, everything.

..And then--  just up and leaves
once it is fully satiated.
     And for a while..
     the black had something.


Clinging to the rocky crags
on either side of the unlit valley
are now  the pieces of her--
war-torn and shuddering.

Terrified

Of the black, black   empty.


Of what is now  fully
     and  completely   dark.

      ~       ~      ~       ~


Timmy  ain't real tall
but look at his stature,
as his majestic strings   dialogue
the introduction.

And Warren's gotten so fat
See him now, looking so dearly,  back
at his half-pint of Chunky Monkey--
picking it back up,  for the fourth time..
scraping... scraping.. scraping..

But watch his eyes  light up
as Timmy looks up--
  over the top
of those wild-man RayBans

And with a gentle nod,  it all begins..


-- as our Warren  now digs  deep
into his Gibson's beautifully-wanton  ways..

    identifying.


    clarifying.


­    Rectifying.


Clarence, the Magician..
Stephan--  Humble, Unparalleled
And Dave's  so chill
he's part Creole.. I just know it.

So great a cloud of witness:
surrounding you, my beautiful..

coaxing  you.

    Identifying it all for you.

Where to begin?
All beginnings must meet their end.  
I’m falling in.
Too late to stop this momentum.

Fleeing the ghosts of history.
Silhouettes cloaked in black.
Can’t shake the words that raised me
from life to death and back.

Why speak at all?
Things unspoken can’t be undone.
I’m chasing this.
Who honest claims they never run?

A chance to fight the finish.
This dance may be your last.
No future can convey that
shaped only by the past.

What’s hope but fraud?
Faith in willingness to be won.
I’m looking up.
Praying for breath that’s never drawn.

I came here seeking answers,
But what I sought was gone.
No meaning found in victories,
but in the moving on.

What does it mean?
Nature, nurture, or divine force.
I’m bowing out.  
Seeking an end to this discourse.  

The loudest form of quiet,
that e’er resounds in me
is in the sound of nothing
where something used to be.

Silent morrow seethes with reverie
Disdain knows conscious plight
Such sweet tones, bereft of fate
A calling to behold the Black Rose

Awoken, seeing truth and trust
Beseeched by wistful grandeur
The spark which lights the fire, lit
Blanketed upon darkened doubt
Unrivaled in parity
Unknown paths collide in curiosity

Each day atoned by dauntless breath
Exhaled, in part, in effortless fashion
Connected by embraced truths
Such beatific composure sought
In empty eyes, the void refilled
Intrigue, compassion, the rose blooms

Sightless endeavor retains composure
Meandering thought
Heartstrings grasping at lovely ghosts
Amid a flightless trek of intrigue
Reprieve, connections awaiting home

To seek the embrace of their shadows
Faith breeds time to bear her visage
Both lovely petals, and poised thorns
Chance, beckoning to see it all through
My Black Rose echoes fate, untold
In whispers of silent fairytales withheld..