“There is a bitter sting to reality, an unfairness to it all.” These words echo in the young boys ears. Holding what is left of his sanity, he traces the damage; rubbing the now forming bump on his forehead. Fingers circle the discolored flesh then press hard against it till he winces in a jagged remembrance.

He still feels the full force of her bible belt beating down upon him. Open hands smacking him with the made up words of her own book of revelations.

“And the dead shall rise. To feast upon the unclean. “She ranted.

Now, the yellow superhero tee comes off slowly enough. She has stretched the neck of his favorite shirt. Of course he is partly to blame. He never should have had a favorite shirt. He tries to swallow, but his nerves force him to take two swallows for one. The first one descends halfway down his throat.  Catching his anxious breath the second swallow finally goes all the way, followed by a trickle of blood.

“It is what it is.” He thinks.

With soft poet hands he pulls a different shirt from the closet. His brown hair slides messily from the neck hole as the red wool rolls gently over is sore skin providing a small degree of comfort. Then he put his long goofy looking brown and darker brown jacket on.

“I’m done” he mumbles to himself, as he stuffs his journal, sketchpad, the book he is currently reading, and an extra set of cloths in his black back pack.

The white window pane vibrates with October winds. He slides it open, shimmying over and out into the frigid autumn night. A shiver crosses his skin. Then he closes the window as quietly as possible to avoid any more drama. His sad eyes scan the night trying to decide which direction is the right way for him to run away in. With no indication of which way will work best for him he turns left and starts walking.

A mile down the road he stumbles upon the remains of a partly chewed up possum. Empty eyes point deeply into the pine forest. The moist matted fur almost matches the road’s color perfectly.  Dark dry stains mark the grey road. Chunks of slimy viscera lay displayed from the flayed features of the decomposing creature.

In the distance he hears the howls of teenage boys.
“A bunch of screaming fools ******* around,’ he thinks. “I don’t need this ****.”

So, he turns off the road and heads into the trees. Brown pine needles break under his feet. The soft forest bed gives slightly beneath his treads leaving little footprints. As he scans the ground he notices that the earth is swimming with strange footprints.

With a little daylight left he finds the perfect spot to stop. A tree plays backboard to his tense and tired frame as he sits down to rest.

His mind turns to dreams of love. A female figure fills his thoughts. She is dark and lights. Pale skin, leather jacket, with raven black hair that shimmers in the night sparkling with the energy of infinity. She moves with all the destructive grace of Kali. She is a frozen skin scythe less death; Hopes and wonders mixed in with nightmare prophecies. Doom pervades his soul. He feels perfectly alone with no hope.

Which means it is the perfect time to write a poem. One line flits past then the next till almost the whole page is filled. Then he rewrites copying and improving. Till two pages later he is finally fixing the finished draft.

With the last bits of daylight he completes the poem’s final lines. Shivering and exhausted he decides it is time to find a place to sleep. He packs his backpack with all the finesse of a ninety year ******* boy and heads out into the night.

Suddenly he senses something moving behind him. A shadow crosses his path. Panic seizes him. Shady black tendrils run across the ground followed by the sounds of strangers moaning. He runs. The moonlight flickers fast behind the fading pines as he quickens his pace.
He stumbles into a clearing where the ground is punctuated by broken stones and white marble dust. Small monuments stand marking the past. Somewhere slightly off to the side a Sepulcher sits as a testament to a hundred years of death.

“How perfectly macabre, I’m in a cemetery at night in the bitter cold.” He thinks

The earth shifts and swirls beneath his feet like quicksand. Losing his footing he falls backwards. The contents of his backpack scatter haphazardly across the disturbed dirt.

A thin hand pierces the brown ground. Then an arm makes its way writhing from the soil searching for something. Boney fingers feel around until they fall upon a pen and paper. The pen scratches furiously on the pad.

The young man stutters trying to make out the horrible handwriting.

“g-g-get of-f-f m-m-y head.”

The earth tremors beneath his feet, causing him to jump back in fear. Then a skull ascends. Empty sockets stare menacingly at him. More of its body rises, until the full corpse form is free. The wind whistles through the rotten frame. The monstrosity turns his head and heads away. Shambling off into the night to frighten someone else.

A sigh of relief escapes the young man’s lips. His heart slows to a normal rhythm. The blank October sky fills his eyes. He laughs in gratitude, deciding to find a better spot to settle for the night.

Then a jaw chomps down on his skull. Rotten teeth shatter but the bony mouth still pierces his noggin. Red droplets drip soaking the journal pages. The poet screams. His voice fades slowly away, as he struggles. Dying in agony he becomes a feast for the undead horde. The red splattered page reads---




The Graveyard Poet
He walks without sleep
Restless and awake burning inside
With all of the secrets he keeps
His pen and his paper
Lay softly on broken ground
The dead are his keepers
Their stones stand scattered all around
So he put his pen to paper
Ink is turned to flesh
The words bleed into
Each other and start to mesh
Thus the graveyard poet is born
He writes with passion
His mind becomes a storm
His body begins to feel numb
But his heart is so warm
On and on from dusk till dawn
Words erupt from the poets pen
Still the cold bites bitterly
He stops only to turn the page and write again
Hours come and go in a blur
Until he can’t move his arm
Even he is unsure
Of what is wrong
His eyelids grow heavy
And soon he is asleep
Rest peacefully young poet
Now your secrets are mine to keep

I dressed as me
for the party.
What do you do for a living?
I am a poet twinkled
calloused eyes
between disbelief
and comic relief of
fake heroes marveling,
spitting out punch
cause it tasted like grease,
their business cards burning
in speechless canopies.
Those grieving batmen
pleasuring the guilty,
wasting precious time,
Oculus Rifts on their eyes.

But..
You should be going to more events like these and...
Didn't I see you at the Belvéderé party? and...
You should be getting drinks with people twice a week...
It's the only way. (I think)

What is this table?
Is this free wine?

Oh and...
I wasn't asking what I should do with my precious time.
I am asking what you don't do...
and why?
You say you hate to trick,
but that it's the only way to get treats.
You probably were the kid that
filled your pillowcase with
doorstep pumpkins of candy,
abandoning the suckers like me.

But life isn't Halloween all the time,
just one night.
And lies are not costumes
we can sell on ebay
when we are done tricking people.
They eat us alive.
Trick n' die.

Hello
It's my cry that echoes
No other words come to mind
At this point, it is all I can say
The city is a distopia
Filled with destruction and smelling of rot
Just passing through, there is nothing
Only the flesh devouring corpses
The physical evil that roams this place
A moan here
And a groan there
That is the twisted chorus I hear
The soundtrack to this infected world

There's nothing to see but abandon
Humans had nests everywhere, still away they flew
There's no civilization except evolved bloodlust organisms
Apocalypsing that which we once knew
With nothing on creatures except ruined skin and spores
Plant-infested creatures and beings - the outbreak was too quick and too new
There's no chance of survival except one-in-a-million
Too many victims from when everything overgrew
There's no way to shelter but running
From the terrible undead truth
There's no way to defend but attack
It's what everyone now has to do
There's no way to cope with the knowledge
When you finally figure out the clue
There's no way to fight once you finally know
What exactly you're fighting through
There's no way to stay in order
All survivors desiring 'He overthrew'
There's no warning when they make their strike
Distracted by your infighting, they bit with the venom of yew
There's no hope when the infection spreads further
Into the ranks of your few
There's no more love from a friendship of years
When from her mouth, poison and blood start to spew
There's nowhere to escape when they come again
The most intelligent of them have come for you
There's no way to survive but sacrifice
Let them throw your bones in their stew
There's no way to live but die
This way, you will be born anew

Caught in a flow I don't want to be in
Trying to clear my thoughts
Maybe I could be free then
But I'm not the best at knots
They ruin everything
I ask for help but everyone acts like robots
Lost in a world they think is right
Following the rules like good boys and girls
When in the bigger picture they're losing the fight
Sometimes I wish I could be a zombie too
Walking like everybody else is hard
When your nothing like they are
but your expected to be

they came like a                     hurricane
wave after wave of         unceasing rain
each drop a smeared               false    reflection of
faces of friends          of family      we once did love

and as the torrential rain         spilled
more         of our people were killed
and the world we knew              quickly eroded
the iron in our bones broke     brittle    and corroded

drenched in this forsaken        diseased   sea
we become more of what     we feared  to be
as cold and      dead       as the death around us
losing all sense of        what was     right    and just

yet still   we fight endlessly         to survive
yet    still our hope    is still     stubbornly    alive

A continuity of effortless mannerisms,
       a cusp connected to the plague.
       Zombies developing in the desolate plains,
       roaming through streets,
       implementing a quietus to civil beasts.

              Fragile eyes fall upon cries,
              the beggars fighting through darkness,
              waiting for refuge, waiting to be rescued.
              A cataclysmic rupture awakes,
              provoking the urge to participate,
              consumed by chaos, left behind to imitate.

      Invoking subtle voices,
      calling from a distance, caressing layers,
      penetrating deeper through the shell.
      A seed of knowledge planted, exfoliating the mind
      an epoch of change, a doorway opened, a passage granted,
      a new reign.

              Sprouting directly through me,
              a nuance shatters geriatric existences,
              forcing drastic redirection,
              conspiring an out burst, breaking the cocoon,
              learning to levitate, traveling the universe,
              vanishing from the ocean of lies