mortal coil wraps itself around my paper throat

can't speak
can't breathe

trembling fingers mumble words
that I so long to scream

I shiver in the heat
of ever distant summer days

voices in my head dance
and sing their songs of woe
trauma's weeping eyes
are crumbling in the dark

It is like a door.
With hundreds of thousands of people,
knocking and hammering on it all at once.
They kick and abuse the door until it is run down and beaten,
damaged and unreparable.
Yet still no one answers the door.
And likewise,
I am unresponsive.
And until someone answers that door,
they carry on knocking.
And again,
Until I speak for myself,
those thoughts wont be put at ease,
they will continue nagging,
until I get the help I need,
that would make those thoughts disappear for good.

I once knew a man
with a natural gift for death.
He would sing in a choir of reapers
and dance with the demons at night.
Then when the day was over
he'd sleep in the house of angels.

How he, oh great wielder of life,
knew how to change the time on a clock.
He'd turn the minute, then the hour
but never let a second pass

He was not of death
but he was not of life
or at least no life I knew.
He came to me one night and said,
in nothing more than a whisper,
the secrets we all long to uncover.
I cannot speak them,
I cannot say.
My mouth is sealed from now
till the last of my days.
My mind is closed, and my eyes are open.
I know of death, and death knows of me.
I call him friend
I call him brother

He wanted to take me once,
into a life after life
and I stood my ground
with my head held high
and denied him.
He unsheathed his sword and stared me down
the tip sparkled in the sun.
"Fight me then, and we shall see
who will walk with the souls
and who will walk with the living."
Again, I said no.
I would not fight this man.

"Strike me!" He screamed, veins popping from his neck.
He was pale and thin, almost fragile.
these things I had never noted before.
"I will not." I spoke, calmly.
"Then I shall fight myself!" He sang, and drew his sword to his neck.
The man cut off his own head.
I let out a breath I was holding,
and looked down gravely at the man.
"You walked the Earth like a ***,
but you were more mortal than I."
and I spit upon the dirt of arrogance without a second thought.

I have so many thoughts that I can’t fathom,
So many feelings that I can’t put into words,
Bottled emotions that I can’t squeeze onto a page of poetry.

Yet here we are spewing out syllables,
Vomiting words that we don’t even mean,
Mumbling phrases that we don’t even understand,
Just to fill the void that has grown between us,
The space between a pair of parentheses.

Afraid of running out of things to say,
We make up truths and create stories,
And hold them within our brackets of babel.

When young always
travelled around by
National Express
Coaches

Always remember
stopping at Bristol
coach station after
a very long journey
tired

Ready to board the
Coach home there
female German bus
station attendant

She was  hearding  every
body like prisoners of
war awaiting entering
a prisoner of war
camp

Wasn't a happy bunny
that day, so I let get have
It, with both barrels these
are paying customers
treat them with respect I
told her

She tried to ban me from
the bus, but was overruled
by applause from everyone
on the
bus
Including the driver who
said, about time somebody
told her, that made me proud
I'd done my good deed of
the day

“I have a question.”
“Why is it that the more connected we are, the less connection we have for each other?”
“I...don’t really know.”
“Maybe....because they value phones and social media more than people?”
“I don’t know”
“Or....maybe they place their identity on them too.”
“I Guess.”
“I don’t really know.”
“What If.....the people in this world don’t actually know the ‘friends’ they are sitting beside in during recess or while hanging out.”
“Maybe....i mean, isn’t hanging out supposed to be about spending time with each other, directly, and not i guess, with their phones, or through their phones...is it?”
“I fear about the future.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, what if my children, or other people’s children...”
“Basically the next generation,”
“Ye, the next generation wont actually know what actual friends are, like being trapped in mechanical boxes with those weird things on...what is it called? Oh right, VR headsets. And then they live in those boxes.”
“I don’t know....”
“I just want people to talk to each other, WITHOUT their heads down on the phone and eyes glued to the screen....like the kampong days...”
“Maybe...”

Maybe......

An alcohol-driven confession
left on silent for years
until it started screaming
A deafening admission
A little liquor
And your finally talking
A medicine for muteness

By Arcassin Burnham

Soul Demented , loyal replenish,
In a sea of sharks,
Dogs and cats and bats will get in the way of my heart,
And that is to see all that has been made crash and burn,
I am destined for this purpose, calling to my worth,

Do you wanna see the world burn like I do?
Make families perish into ash like I do?
Put smiles on everyone's face like I do?
Or get revenge on the man who abandons you,
Smiles , smiles , smiles makes the planet die off.
Smiles , smiles , smiles makes the planet die off.

Jason , Jason , don't you think the old man would have noticed
that his second bird is about to his get his wings cut off?
Jason , Jason , your mom went to great lengths just to get you
to me , just let the trust thing rub off,
Like the bones off your flesh when I wail on you with this crowbar
making a ****** mess on the floor, the one that I just mopped,
He'll never find his bird locked in cage , my old distant frienemy,
I wish I could do this to all my enemies.