I feel Hollow.
Barren.
Empty.

That hollowness erodes my body,
leaving a trail of decay.
Cracks crawl through my brittle bones,
shattering my skull,
fragmenting my thoughts.

A carmine-colored river floods into my caving lungs,
before dragging itself up my throat.
The metallic taste slowly overwhelms my mouth,
and seeps through my gapped teeth.
My glass smile falls and shatters.

Terror grips what was once my voice,
holding sound captive-
my call for help erased by despair.
Only strangled sobs exist.
I'm left choking on my own life force.

Each sob collects upon my face;
a veil of tears cover my broken visage.
Shrouding me from prying eyes that encompass judgemental gazes.

Without even seeing,
their stares spear my soul and blacken my heart.
The forgotten, grayed ash
smothers out all that remains.

My rotted husk: a void, a dismal skeleton.
A vast emptiness that nothing can fill.

Broken.
Decayed.
Hollow.

It's what I am.

I see in your eyes,
Two shallow pools of white with coffee mixed in,
I tremble before them,
You judge me too hard.
I hear it in your words,
The desperation reeks,
Its care you say,
I don’t feel it anyway.
I see the way you are,
Insincere and shapeshifting,
You’ll love conditionally
‘Don’t worry’ you reach your hand out
Each time we touch I die a little more
Its scary out there,
Look in the mirror to feel safe
My mind puts up a fight
So I need you all again
The pity holds me well
Well enough to try again

Praise to fright,
Out of sight,
I hold my light.

I hold it darkness;
Others see it as bliss,
I see something’s amiss.

Praise I hate.
Bliss, leave it to fate,
And none the better to crate.

I practice low,
To hold my light amongst flow,
To gather more to not show,
For what needs to sow.

I hold my light.
I know.
I hide the blight.
They won’t know.
I hide their sight,
For fear they woe.

Difference is the fear,
The normalcy that is clear.
For the light they hate,
The darkness full they ate.
I know their bait.

For my lights timid,
And For that I hid.

I feel like I am shattered glass                                                            ­                            
                                    ­                                                                 ­   
Splintered, broken, still intact                                                           ­           
                                                                ­                                                                 ­                                                                 ­                                                                 ­                                                               
Held together with resilience                                                       ­           
                                                     ­                                                                 ­     Straight forward no nonsense                                                         ­           
                                                                ­                                                      
You tell me I am too serious                                                          ­            
                                                    ­                                                                 ­ 
you don't understand any of this                                                             ­                                 
                               ­                                                                 ­                      
If you walked a mile in my shoes                                                            ­                  
                                                                ­                                                
then you would be somebody who                                              
               ­                                                                 ­                            
trusted in people & was hurt in return                                                        
  ­                                                                 ­                                               
was fed to the fire, charred & burned                                                           ­ 
                                                               ­                                                    
 who put their faith into backstabbing *******                                                    
                                                                ­                                                
held together with a thousand stitches                                                         ­   
                                                             ­                                             
walking wounded casualties of war                                                              ­        
                                                        ­                                                        
what are you judging me for?                                                             ­     
                                                           ­                                                           
I am a survivor despite my pain                                                             ­       
                                                                ­                                                        
  who's learned to never trust again                                                            ­                            
                                    ­                                                                 ­         
  Don't look at me as injured & flawed                                        
                                                                ­                                            
  despite the odds, I have stood tall

And so we're all familiar with those;
Autocracy, atrocity, fascism.
Whatever forms those take
And whatever names given contemporarily.
However masked in any moment.
Yet, here they still happen!
Yet, they still now occur!
It's almost as though
This species really doesn't learn!

Strike, strike, the judges’ night!
Strike, strike, the eternal fight!
Man’s dust claims the starry light.

Seven sins, but hollow shells,
Humanity falters, yet still it dwells.
Wrath’s no sin, though hearts it swells.

Anger of man, a tide of woe,
Must rise, must break, its truth to show.

What is just? God’s searing blight.
What is true? The hammer’s might!

Strike, strike, the heavens’ spike!
Death’s grim laugh, a burdened hike.
Wrath’s deep truth defies the sin,
A forbidden spark, the soul’s own inn.

God spares fools who claim their right,
No judgment falls on fleeting dust.
Eternity’s court sustains the fight
Wrath for choice, for righteous ******!
Wrath’s the forge where hammers sing,
Strike Apollyon’s cursed wing!

Shatter hope that dares to fade,
Let nightmares bleed, let dawn invade.
A seed of grace, the holy blade
Wrath’s fierce will, the heart’s own quill,
Writes redemption’s fire until
The unending night is judged, is still.

Be good for the all-knowing overhead light, the nascent
Hole in the sky – the aperture of a camera with a stuttering flash
For any cheek turned the wrong way. Must

Be good to be impervious to the shake of our big hands,
Like snakes caught in their own tail; to be
Impersonal as a hairpiece on the skull, flapping against the amygdala
With unimaginable force, like a door-knocker.

Answer in a ridiculous costume to insult the salesmen of sobriety,
Scuttling like roaches, whispering jokes to break one’s heart.
They sting like thumbtacks from below the knee.

Stuck, enclosed in a glass jar.
Child-like, naked, incapable;
Round and round in circles, longing to move forward.
Freedom the babe craves, dreaming to be the One who opens the lid.
Observable to the judging onlookers,
Such power was relinquished.

Peace comes with surrender or destruction
Peace comes with restraint by greater powers
Powers ordained from on high for peace

But cowardly harlots wooing kings for profits
That such powers now impotent and abused
The heavenly decree profaned and corrupted

Peace is at an end, peace no more on earth
So too goodwill and favour abrogated
And judgements come, the book of life closed