the world ended in february; it is getting difficult to remember
a time before humanity, ephemeral in the end,
slipped into the gaps between evolution’s gnashing teeth;
i saw the first ghost outside my window
stumbling in the distance from the chapel garden,
walking about the streets with curling fingers,
reaching out to touch warm skin, and i,
behind thick locks and boarded windows,
dared not leave my house for days; in march i sat trembling
as i counted empty jars in my cenotaph pantry;
after eating cat food and the cat i
carried nothing on my back when i fled my home
in search of a safer haven; in april, i stood
on the tops of hollow buildings and looked down at the street
to see faces shining red, ravenous and without mercy in the ash,
i watched a man open up another’s ribcage
like the doors of a hostel, unsealed at the edges
as if just another canned good from a looted grocery store; in may
i caught glimpses of children catatonic in their skin,
orphaned by pestilence and rotting after
their first death and their second, i witnessed
my mother’s apostasy, saw her gnawing on the bones of the vicar
with a king james tattered at her feet; in june i saw my sister
huddled in the corner and clutching a revolver,
white-knuckled, one bullet,
staring down the barrel as wounds bled and hands shook,
and the seed of acedia—germinating in her chest
beside that vile malady—kept her finger twitching just beyond the trigger; i
lamented the absence of the swallowed sun, forgot what apples tasted like,
stopped telling the difference between samaritans and corpses and
observed that which was once called love turn into a hungry fire
as old and primal as leaning stones, carnal and hard and ugly
and spoiled like all else; in july
i noticed my hands had begun to shake every time i heard my name, and i
trudged through another fallen city, broken eyes watching me as i passed
with a shopping cart of tinned pears, the weight of all their hunger tied around my ankles,
marching towards the end beneath a black and starless sky
i felt it, coming closer as i ran,
and crawled, and prayed, and walked. and walked. and walked. and walked. and
in january,
(before i began to fear the human silhouette
and you started holding my hand to keep you sane,)
we drove nowhere on the highway at dusk,
headlights illuminating the obsidian road, moon trailing your truck,
a sacred ghost, omnipresent, neon signs blinking their greetings
for diners and motels and gas station stops, dissonant music laced with static
pouring out your dashboard radio, the two of us
in contented coexistence, wordless,
the world alive and well.
and in february,
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the terminus began,
the planet shook for a final time and brought to pass
that which is written—o death,
where is thy sting? o grave,
where is thy victory? the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, and us?
we shall be changed

I dress like a school boy. Plaid collars clashed with sweaters and stiff jeans that are skin tight. I paint stars on my cheeks because i am one with the sky, one with the world above me, a part of this universe. I wear crooked eyeliner to match the fierceness in my eyes.  But nothing i do seems to mix. I am the human truth, that part of reality the world does not want you to see. I am not plain or irregular, i am blank. My hair is blue but it does not stand out against the greys and the black. My bedroom sheets are red stained with white and the walls are sticky like rain. They close in around the empty spaces, threatening the oxygen filling the room. Its not always this hard to breathe, but when it is I feel alone. I feel every breath escape my body and form clouds in the sky that turn into snow. The snow falls into piles around the ground, where people shiver and catch colds. It is made into snowmen, and dressed better than the people dress themselves.
Then they melt. They melt like the fire in your eyes on a stormy night. They melt like the lives who were never meant to be lived and they melt like the tears trickling down your chin. They melt like the silence left after you're dead and gone, and when there's nothing left to say. Then the water runs in your veins and pools in your heart. It stains my hands and knees, and all the places I pray at night, hoping someone out there will hear me. And as I stand up and dust off my skin tight jeans and salty skin, I push off my scratchy sweater that i have hated to wear and look at myself in the mirror. I ask "What am i? Who am I? And why the hell am I here?" And the answer is never to be found, like the stars in your eyes,  like the stars in the snow.

The train is a mechanical snake,
its hiss occasionally scrawled
above the grating of its own

movement as it cuts through
the smear of graffiti and concrete
and waste and dry bracken.

A single voice, “she was the
third fastest girl at the gala,
yeah she was really pleased”,

the voice enveloped by the
drone once again. The train
entering the tunnel.

The Financial Times lies on
the plastic table, the pages loose
from bored ******* bears the

headline: sacrifices required for ambitious goal.
Eyes trace the same paragraph over

and over, drawing nothing from
the coldness of the type script.
I think about conversation but my

tongue lulls in my mouth, dry,
and my mind wanders between
small talk and meagre pleasantries.

I stare at the man across from me for
what seems like minutes, knowing that
he knows I watch him, analyse him,

but there is no fight or pretence, only the
tired apathy and reluctance I know.
his arms cross. His eyes close with half sleep.

Television glows
blue upon my skin.

My head lies on
the static of radio

and the electric
of the streetlights

blaring through my
window keeps me awake.

The red digits of
my alarm clock

grow less vibrant as
the grey sun stirs

to the accompaniment
of the jubilant birds

with their repetitive
song which hangs

like these vacant walls,
holding me.

The blinding moon pellucid says,
                       shining loud yet never heard;

"I follow you where you may go."

In a child's wondrous nights,
                    cast away shadow's monster delights,

"I follow you where you may go."

Mene mind of Thoth complete,
                     for child's attention doth compete;

"I follow you where you may go."

my soul is fragile. it slips into impending doom at the mere though you may be awake thinking about another. while i am stuck here like a cancer that cannot escape remission, your name plays through my head, it feels as though my eyes have become the lens that took this precious photo of you.

some may think this photo is nothing but a #selfie, unbeknownst to them, my fragile graceful hands pushed a button, which sent a message to you. the message you heard was the snap of a shutter, the message i tried to send through it was; no matter what you are doing, you are ******* beautiful.

in all the art i create, i try to procure the observers attention, i want them to take in, breathe and feel all the beauty around them. whether it is a girl in her early twenties who doesn’t know she’s beautiful, to a boy who feels as though he cannot be beautiful. i hate that line. if you re-read that line, it just doesn’t feel appropriate even as the writer of that line, because society has conditioned us into a mold.

well, wake up because nature isn’t taught that, just go look at the unique patterns of melting icicles during the afternoon of a mid-winter storm.

he tells him he's missed him,
even though that makes no sense at all.
a smile lights up his features as he looks upon him,
hands gripping in just the right places,
firm squeezes that say: i've missed this, touching you

it only reaches his eyes because he's such a good liar
(but he does miss touching him, all the time.
loves him even when he hates him.
loves him even though he never misses him.
loves him even though he could replace him
without a second thought.)

honest where it matters, of course,
enough to convince them all
he's the epitome of truth
then later, lying through his back teeth, easily,
like chewing his favourite sweets,
no difference in expression:
insincerity masked by a perfect illusion of sincerity

"what reason would i have to lie to you?" he asks
"i don't need to lie to you; i don't care about you"
because everyone knows
the best lies are saved for loved ones
as we manipulate ourselves into believing
"this is for the best"

he tells him he's missed him,
even though that makes no sense at all.
clothes shed, a trail to the bedroom,
a private place where both can be themselves:
here, he's genuinely honest
stripped bare in more ways than one.

he tells him he loves him,
and it makes perfect sense
even though his love is tainted, empty;
better to say he cares,
but that's love for him―
as close as he'll ever be.

he smiles when he hears it,
"i love you too",
and this time it reaches his eyes,
even though his heart
doesn't race
like a lover's would.

The boy, shaking with excitement, nervously bangled the key into the tiny obscuration, just as he sank it deep in the purse and twisted it began to give as if to break and he stopped. The wretched key would not turn no matter which way he fumbled it into the opening trying. He, puzzled, sat back on his haunches and squeezing his countenance…carefully, slowly, measured in his way, he slid it in without a waver and sank it into place. A foul wind blowed and forced his cough but with it came the flutes…and just then, as if by magic, a voice so resolute;

“Heaven’s treasure cannot be seen or known except in heart’s desires,”

“And certainly never be known by a farmer-boy or filth-trodden squires!”

“For ancient sealing of box so great withheld Pandora’s fires!”

“…but listen closely for a truth is hidden in conundrum,”

The little boy gleamed with excitement as he dropped on his hands placing his ear to the keyhole whence the fluting and cherubic voice extruded…though nothing came forth? Try as he might, the key again and again, there was nothing more to the magic of the box. Though he was sure that in this box a treasure was to be found, in all his days, the many numbered, never did resound, never did the voice again give instruction to propound, never did it give again to magic thus profound and never did he figure out, the mystery which did confound!

  To wit the newest little boy said;

“But grandpa how does the story end then?”

  Without haste he replied to the child;

“Never want-for, nor ask, nor seek out, all the paths of heaven’s fortunes,”

“Never covet sacred knowledge or doubt the god’s contortions,”

“Forever all will be as well as good as you can be, if you can be a richer man when giving other's portions…”

  With that said the old farmer died. His daughter and the child’s mother, tears streaming down her flustered cheeks, grabbed him up and began to say a prayer for her dead father while unbeknownst to the family; a troupe in their employ had been employed by someone else and that someone was waiting for a signal. At the moment of the man’s passing the horse-hand ran from the sprawling estate to a well at the fork in the dirt road leading to the local town. There sat a traditional well and bucket with a large copper bell at the top and he rang it with a fervent vigor. The black horses in the thickets past the field bellicosely retorted as they were whipped into an action. Then along came the banker’s chariot, filled with three men in black, riding quickly to the manor’s door;

-judge, pastor, banker.

  Storming into the home the pastor ran to comfort them and strutting-forth, so the banker and his judge in stride comportment too. Slight his pause and nary couth the banker announced his judge and from his handbag produced a document, an unwieldy scroll of parchment…

“Alas my dear and sorrowful child be happy for this great farm! Your inheritance is more than most and do not be alarmed! For we have come upon the courts with documented trust, read this here then sign away to keep the farm you must! For all you see and gathered to you, bought upon agreement, that on thick trunk with gleaming content be exchanged to me for deed it seem-med!”

  Shocked, the woman protested;

“Never nay, what’s this you say? The box his greatest treasure…he would not have done, no this cannot be, sold it without inform me and in measure, for he hath had this since a boy of youth collecting wood in winter’s cold displeasure?”

  The judge stepped forth to conclude the matter and gave her some, though curt, respite;

“Now, now dear we feel your loss but see these lines and see these costs? Chickens, horses, sheep, a wagon, seeds and stock and land, a home, -the lumber, nails, the roof of stone? O’er the years buying more and more, whilst only for once to settle this score, upon release here is your deed, give us the box for which you have no need, this is not a matter of one man’s greed for it says in payment here and here, collateral, that box was dear!”

  In came the horse-hand with axe and fury, chopping apart the bedroom floor, -and in such a hurry, the four they cooed and sighed aloud, as a gleaming treasure chest appeared before the crowd, dropping all the four to knee as banker cried his rapacious glee;

“All these long years did I thus wait and now will find the heaven’s gate! Load it men, the treasure ours, the moon and sun, the awesome stars, the untold secrets of millennia past, we are rich as all the ancient Kings at last!”

Before they left he turned to her and proudly presented his palm extended;

“The key there deary…”

She begrudgingly removed the necklace about her neck and handed it over…after the men had left her little boy said;

“Don’t cry mom and don’t worried, boy have I got to tell you a story!”

The End of the Golden Key