I

Our ****** dreams, all seedless in the light,
Of light and love the tempers of the heart,
Whack their boys' limbs,
And, winding-footed in their shawl and sheet,
Groom the dark brides, the widows of the night
Fold in their arms.

The shades of girls, all flavoured from their shrouds,
When sunlight goes are sundered from the worm,
The bones of men, the broken in their beds,
By midnight pulleys that unhouse the tomb.

II

In this our age the gunman and his moll
Two one-dimensional ghosts, love on a reel,
Strange to our solid eye,
And speak their midnight nothings as they swell;
When cameras shut they hurry to their hole
down in the yard of day.

They dance between their arclamps and our skull,
Impose their shots, showing the nights away;
We watch the show of shadows kiss or ****
Flavoured of celluloid give love the lie.

III

Which is the world? Of our two sleepings, which
Shall fall awake when cures and their itch
Raise up this red-eyed earth?
Pack off the shapes of daylight and their starch,
The sunny gentlemen, the Welshing rich,
Or drive the night-geared forth.

The photograph is married to the eye,
Grafts on its bride one-sided skins of truth;
The dream has ****** the sleeper of his faith
That shrouded men might marrow as they fly.

IV

This is the world; the lying likeness of
Our strips of stuff that tatter as we move
Loving and being loth;
The dream that kicks the buried from their sack
And lets their trash be honoured as the quick.
This is the world. Have faith.

For we shall be a shouter like the ****,
Blowing the old dead back; our shots shall smack
The image from the plates;
And we shall be fit fellows for a life,
And who remains shall flower as they love,
Praise to our faring hearts.

It is an inconvenience
It is an added stress
It is one more thing I am forced to deal with
It is something that baffles understanding and cannot be explained
It is my deepest darkest secret

I can feel it deep, down inside of me
It burns and aches and forces me to notice it
It is hidden from everyone else
I am the only one who knows of its existence

Almost nineteen years old,
Finding myself forced to make certain lifestyle changes
Things most people don't consider until much older
Things some people won't ever consider
I am too young to be dealing with something of this nature,
Of this magnitude

But it does not define me
It is part of who I am
And ultimately, I accept it
That doesn't make dealing with it any less difficult, however
The anger and frustration still surface
Along with the despair and
The loneliness

It can seem unbearable at times
And there are times when I want for nothing more
Than to blurt it out
But I never do
Because it is mine,
And only mine

I try to love it,
Look at it as a gift
And when it comes down to it,
I wouldn't have it any other way
It is both a curse and a blessing,
Depending on how you look at it

For the most part,
Others see it as a curse
Which makes me want to prove to them
How much of a blessing it really is

My deepest darkest secret is a piece of me,
It lives inside of me
And that is what makes it so beautiful

Oh, my love
If you were at the level of my madness,
You would cast away your jewelry,
Sell all your bracelets,
And sleep in my eyes.

Stuff of the moon
Runs on the lapping sand
Out to the longest shadows.
Under the curving willows,
And round the creep of the wave line,
Fluxions of yellow and dusk on the waters
Make a wide dreaming ***** of an old pond in the night.

Like water through the pores
        of the land
I run through you

Like a worker on and endless
        line
I am constant

Like blood pulsing through the veins
        of your body
I am life

Dear Life,

Get out of my life. I don't like you; I’m scared of you. I'm not scared of death; I’m scared of life.  I can't look at myself in the mirror without getting goose bumps; I can’t water a plant without screaming. I don't know why I'm afraid of life, I just am.

But maybe it has something to do with my mother; she hated death, so I decided to revolt against her by hating life.

Another thing I should mention is that I don't like school, because most learning has something to do with living. In case you're wondering, I don't like writing, and I’m terrible at it. So don't expect any Shakespeare, coming from me.  “Why are you writing this?” you ask.  Well, I'll tell you.

It was about a year ago, that I started going to talk to this weird    psychiatrist that my mother wanted me to see. So we talked and we talked, and I was not having fun because I hated talking.  The psychiatrist said that I should write about my phobia, to get all my anger out. I thought,” what a bunch of nonsense,” but I did it. Here I am now writing to you. I ‘m afraid you’re never going to write back and that’s fine with me. But if you do, I’m afraid of what you’ll tell me, anyway.  I’m scared that you’ll call me a coward for being afraid of something   that I’ve lived with all these years.



Signed,

       Collin.



  Dear Collin,

I received your letter a while ago and I have been contemplating your phobia for 2 years. For what you wrote was powerful.



You’re not a coward and I won’t scold you. I have a phobia of death. Everyone has a phobia of something or other. Your phobia is not unusual but just so few people these days care to express themselves.  You’re one of the first people to have written to me.  You’re not a coward; you’re talking to your fear, something that takes lots of courage.



There is no reason to be afraid of me. Why are you afraid of me? I don’t think your mother is the real reason. I think you’re just too scared to go out in the real world and breathe the living air. You’re not afraid of life, you’re afraid of what is in life. You’re not afraid of me, you’re afraid of the lives I create and what is inside of them.

Your mother cares about you. She wants you to conquer your fear. You can do it, simply enjoy what’s around you, and don’t be afraid. Because, beneath your fear is hatred and you have no choice but to love.

You can do it , Collin, I know you can.



Signed,

Life

See! I give myself to you, Beloved!
My words are little jars
For you to take and put upon a shelf.
Their shapes are quaint and beautiful,
And they have many pleasant colours and lustres
To recommend them.
Also the scent from them fills the room
With sweetness of flowers and crushed grasses.

When I shall have given you the last one,
You will have the whole of me,
But I shall be dead