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a shimmering lightness
of white rolls playfully
across the tips of
slender bladed greenery
the delicate dancing of
that yet-to-be-mown grass
grown long beyond
what building aesthetics
          should permit
a gentle play of
low-lying sun
glanced upon frosted
and thawed alike
the cold breath of wind
ruminating between
a delicate breeze or
          those chilling gusts
harsh yet homely
while blanketed in
the warmth of
this merino wool
even the bitterest of
winter mornings will
feel nothing but
picturesque
An evening all aglow with summer light
And autumn colour—fairest of the year.

The wheat-fields, crowned with shocks of tawny gold,
All interspersed with rough sowthistle roots,
And interlaced with white convolvulus,
Lay, flecked with purple shadows, in the sun.
The shouts of little children, gleaning there
The scattered ears and wild blue-bottle flowers—
Mixed with the corn-crake's crying, and the song
Of lone wood birds whose mother-cares were o'er,
And with the whispering rustle of red leaves—
Scarce stirred the stillness. And the gossamer sheen
Was spread on upland meadows, silver bright
In low red sunshine and soft kissing wind—
Showing where angels in the night had trailed
Their garments on the turf. Tall arrow-heads,
With flag and rush and fringing grasses, dropped
Their seeds and blossoms in the sleepy pool.
The water-lily lay on her green leaf,
White, fair, and stately; while an amorous branch
Of silver willow, drooping in the stream,
Sent soft, low-babbling ripples towards her:
And oh, the woods!—erst haunted with the song
Of nightingales and tender coo of doves—
They stood all flushed and kindling 'neath the touch
Of death—kind death!—fair, fond, reluctant death!—
A dappled mass of glory!
Harvest-time;
With russet wood-fruit thick upon the ground,
'Mid crumpled ferns and delicate blue harebells.
The orchard-apples rolled in seedy grass—
Apples of gold, and violet-velvet plums;
And all the tangled hedgerows bore a crop
Of scarlet hips, blue sloes, and blackberries,
And orange clusters of the mountain ash.
The crimson fungus and soft mosses clung
To old decaying trunks; the summer bine
Drooped, shivering, in the glossy ivy's grasp.
By day the blue air bore upon its wings
Wide-wandering seeds, pale drifts of thistle-down;
By night the fog crept low upon the earth,
All white and cool, and calmed its feverishness,
And veiled it over with a veil of tears.

The curlew and the plover were come back
To still, bleak shores; the little summer birds
Were gone—to Persian gardens, and the groves
Of Greece and Italy, and the palmy lands.

A Norman tower, with moss and lichen clothed,
Wherein old bells, on old worm-eaten frames
And rusty wheels, had swung for centuries,
Chiming the same soft chime—the lullaby
Of cradled rooks and blinking bats and owls;
Setting the same sweet tune, from year to year,
For generations of true hearts to sing.
A wide churchyard, with grassy slopes and nooks,
And shady corners and meandering paths;
With glimpses of dim windows and grey walls
Just caught at here and there amongst the green
Of flowering shrubs and sweet lime-avenues.
An old house standing near—a parsonage-house—
With broad thatched roof and overhanging eaves,
O'errun with banksia roses,—a low house,
With ivied windows and a latticed porch,
Shut in a tiny Paradise, all sweet
With hum of bees and scent of mignonette.

We lay our lazy length upon the grass
In that same Paradise, my friend and I.
And, as we lay, we talked of college days—
Wild, racing, hunting, steeple-chasing days;
Of river reaches, fishing-grounds, and weirs,
Bats, gloves, debates, and in-humanities:
And then of boon-companions of those days,
How lost and scattered, married, changed, and dead;
Until he flung his arm across his face,
And feigned to slumber.
He was changed, my friend;
Not like the man—the leader of his set—
The favourite of the college—that I knew.
And more than time had changed him. He had been
“A little wild,” the Lady Alice said;
“A little gay, as all young men will be
At first, before they settle down to life—
While they have money, health, and no restraint,
Nor any work to do,” Ah, yes! But this
Was mystery unexplained—that he was sad
And still and thoughtful, like an aged man;
And scarcely thirty. With a winsome flash,
The old bright heart would shine out here and there;
But aye to be o'ershadowed and hushed down,

As he had hushed it now.
His dog lay near,
With long, sharp muzzle resting on his paws,
And wistful eyes, half shut,—but watching him;
A deerhound of illustrious race, all grey
And grizzled, with soft, wrinkled, velvet ears;
A gaunt, gigantic, wolfish-looking brute,
And worth his weight in gold.
“There, there,” said he,
And raised him on his elbow, “you have looked
Enough at me; now look at some one else.”

“You could not see him, surely, with your arm
Across your face?”
“No, but I felt his eyes;
They are such sharp, wise eyes—persistent eyes—
Perpetually reproachful. Look at them;
Had ever dog such eyes?”
“Oh yes,” I thought;
But, wondering, turned my talk upon his breed.
And was he of the famed Glengarry stock?
And in what season was he entered? Where,
Pray, did he pick him up?
He moved himself
At that last question, with a little writhe
Of sudden pain or restlessness; and sighed.
And then he slowly rose, pushed back the hair
From his broad brows; and, whistling softly, said,
“Come here, old dog, and we will tell him. Come.”

“On such a day, and such a time, as this,
Old Tom and I were stalking on the hills,
Near seven years ago. Bad luck was ours;
For we had searched up corrie, glen, and burn,
From earliest daybreak—wading to the waist
Peat-rift and purple heather—all in vain!
We struck a track nigh every hour, to lose
A noble quarry by ignoble chance—
The crowing of a grouse-****, or the flight
Of startled mallards from a reedy pool,
Or subtle, hair's breadth veering of the wind.
And now 'twas waning sunset—rosy soft

On far grey peaks, and the green valley spread
Beneath us. We had climbed a ridge, and lay
Debating in low whispers of our plans
For night and morning. Golden eagles sailed
Above our heads; the wild ducks swam about

Amid the reeds and rushes of the pools;
A lonely heron stood on one long leg
In shallow water, watching for a meal;
And there, to windward, couching in the grass
That fringed the blue edge of a sleeping loch—
Waiting for dusk to feed and drink—there lay
A herd of deer.
“And as we looked and planned,
A mountain storm of sweeping mist and rain
Came down upon us. It passed by, and left
The burnies swollen that we had to cross;
And left us barely light enough to see
The broad, black, branching antlers, clustering still
Amid the long grass in the valley.

“‘Sir,’
Said Tom, ‘there is a shealing down below,
To leeward. We might bivouac there to-night,
And come again at dawn.’
“And so we crept
Adown the glen, and stumbled in the dark
Against the doorway of the keeper's home,
And over two big deerhounds—ancestors
Of this our old companion. There was light
And warmth, a welcome and a heather bed,
At Colin's cottage; with a meal of eggs
And fresh trout, broiled by dainty little hands,
And sweetest milk and oatcake. There were songs
And Gaelic legends, and long talk of deer—
Mixt with a sweet, low laughter, and the whir
Of spinning-wheel.
“The dogs lay at her feet—
The feet of Colin's daughter—with their soft
Dark velvet ears pricked up for every sound
And movement that she made. Right royal brutes,
Whereon I gazed with envy.
“ ‘What,’ I asked,
‘Would Colin take for these?’
“ ‘Eh, sir,’ said he,
And shook his head, ‘I cannot sell the dogs.
They're priceless, they, and—Jeanie's favourites.
But there's a litter in the shed—five pups,
As like as peas to this one. You may choose
Amongst them, sir—take any that you like.
Get us the lantern, Jeanie. You shall show
The gentleman.’
“Ah, she was fair, that girl!

Not like the other lassies—cottage folk;
For there was subtle trace of gentle blood
Through all her beauty and in all her ways.
(The mother's race was ‘poor and proud,’ they said).
Ay, she was fair, my darling! with her shy,
Brown, innocent face and delicate-shapen limbs.
She had the tenderest mouth you ever saw,
And grey, dark eyes, and broad, straight-pencill'd brows;
Dark hair, sun-dappled with a sheeny gold;
Dark chestnut braids that knotted up the light,
As soft as satin. You could scarcely hear
Her step, or hear the rustling of her gown,
Or the soft hovering motion of her hands
At household work. She seemed to bring a spell
Of tender calm and silence where she came.
You felt her presence—and not by its stir,
But by its restfulness. She was a sight
To be remembered—standing in the straw;
A sleepy pup soft-cradled in her arms
Like any Christian baby; standing still,
The while I handled his ungainly limbs.
And Colin blustered of the sport—of hounds,
Roe, ptarmigan, and trout, and ducal deer—
Ne'er lifting up that sweet, unconscious face,
To see why I was silent. Oh, I would
You could have seen her then. She was so fair,
And oh, so young!—scarce seventeen at most—
So ignorant and so young!
“Tell them, my friend—
Your flock—the restless-hearted—they who scorn
The ordered fashion fitted to our race,
And scoff at laws they may not understand—
Tell them that they are fools. They cannot mate
With other than their kind, but woe will come
In some shape—mostly shame, but always grief
And disappointment. Ah, my love! my love!
But she was different from the common sort;
A peasant, ignorant, simple, undefiled;
The child of rugged peasant-parents, taught
In all their thoughts and ways; yet with that touch
Of tender grace about her, softening all
The rougher evidence of her lowly state—
That undefined, unconscious dignity—
That delicate instinct for the reading right
The riddles of less simple minds than hers—
That sharper, finer, subtler sense of life—
That something which does not possess a name,

Which made her beauty beautiful to me—
The long-lost legacy of forgotten knights.

“I chose amongst the five fat creeping things
This rare old dog. And Jeanie promised kind
And gentle nurture for its infant days;
And promised she would keep it till I came
Another year. And so we went to rest.
And in the morning, ere the sun was up,
We left our rifles, and went out to run
The browsing red-deer with old Colin's hounds.
Through glen and bog, through brawling mountain streams,
Grey, lichened boulders, furze, and juniper,
And purple wilderness of moor, we toiled,
Ere yet the distant snow-peak was alight.
We chased a hart to water; saw him stand
At bay, with sweeping antlers, in the burn.
His large, wild, wistful eyes despairingly
Turned to the deeper eddies; and we saw
The choking struggle and the bitter end,
And cut his gallant throat upon the grass,
And left him. Then we followed a fresh track—
A dozen tracks—and hunted till the noon;
Shot cormorants and wild cats in the cliffs,
And snipe and blackcock on the ferny hills;
And set our floating night-lines at the loch;—
And then came back to Jeanie.
“Well, you know
What follows such commencement:—how I found
The woods and corries round about her home
Fruitful of roe and red-deer; how I found
The grouse lay thickest on adjacent moors;
Discovered ptarmigan on rocky peaks,
And rare small game on birch-besprinkled hills,
O'ershadowing that rude shealing; how the pools
Were full of wild-fowl, and the loch of trout;
How vermin harboured in the underwood,
And rocks, and reedy marshes; how I found
The sport aye best in this charmed neighbourhood.
And then I e'en must wander to the door,
To leave a bird for Colin, or to ask
A lodging for some stormy night, or see
How fared my infant deerhound.
“And I saw
The creeping dawn unfolding; saw the doubt,
And faith, and longing swaying her sweet heart;
And every flow just distancing the ebb.

I saw her try to bar the golden gates
Whence love demanded egress,—calm her eyes,
And still the tender, sensitive, tell-tale lips,
And steal away to corners; saw her face
Grow graver and more wistful, day by day;
And felt the gradual strengthening of my hold.
I did not stay to think of it—to ask
What I was doing!
“In the early time,
She used to slip away to household work
When I was there, and would not talk to me;
But when I came not, she would climb the glen
In secret, and look out, with shaded brow,
Across the valley. Ay, I caught her once—
Like some young helpless doe, amongst the fern—
I caught her, and I kissed her mouth and eyes;
And with those kisses signed and sealed our fate
For evermore. Then came our happy days—
The bright, brief, shining days without a cloud!
In ferny hollows and deep, rustling woods,
That shut us in and shut out all the world—
The far, forgotten world—we met, and kissed,
And parted, silent, in the balmy dusk.
We haunted still roe-coverts, hand in hand,
And murmured, under our breath, of love and faith,
And swore great oaths for one of us to keep.
We sat for hours, with sealèd lips, and heard
The crossbill chattering in the larches—heard
The sweet wind whispering as it passed us by—
And heard our own hearts' music in the hush.
Ah, blessed days! ah, happy, innocent days!—
I would I had them back.
“Then came the Duke,
And Lady Alice, with her worldly grace
And artificial beauty—with the gleam
Of jewels, and the dainty shine of silk,
And perfumed softness of white lace and lawn;
With all the glamour of her courtly ways,
Her talk of art and fashion, and the world
We both belonged to. Ah, she hardened me!
I lost the sweetness of the heathery moors
And hills and quiet woodlands, in that scent
Of London clubs and royal drawing-rooms;
I lost the tender chivalry of my love,
The keen sense of its sacredness, the clear
Perception of mine honour, by degrees,
Brought face to face with customs of my kind.

I was no more a “man;” nor she, my love,
A delicate lily of womanhood—ah, no!
I was the heir of an illustrious house,
And she a simple, homespun cottage-girl.

“And now I stole at rarer intervals
To those dim trysting woods; and when I came
I brought my cunning worldly wisdom—talked
Of empty forms and marriages in heaven—
To stain that simple soul, God pardon me!
And she would shiver in the stillness, scared
And shocked, with her pathetic eyes—aye proof
Against the fatal, false philosophy.
But my will was the strongest, and my love
The weakest; and she knew it.
“Well, well, well,
I need not talk of that. There came the day
Of our last parting in the ferny glen—
A bitter parting, parting from my life,
Its light and peace for ever! And I turned
To ***** and billiards, politics and wine;
Was wooed by Lady Alice, and half won;
And passed a feverous winter in the world.
Ah, do not frown! You do not understand.
You never knew that hopeless thirst for peace—
That gnawing hunger, gnawing at your life;
The passion, born too late! I tell you, friend,
The ruth, and love, and longing for my child,
It broke my heart at last.
“In the hot days
Of August, I went back; I went alone.
And on old garrulous Margery—relict she
Of some departed seneschal—I rained
My eager questions. ‘Had the poaching been
As ruinous and as audacious as of old?
Were the dogs well? and had she felt the heat?
And—I supposed the keeper, Colin, still
Was somewhere on the place?’
“ ‘Nay, sir,’; said she,
‘But he has left the neighbourhood. He ne'er
Has held his head up since he lost his child,
Poor soul, a month ago.’
“I heard—I heard!
His child—he had but one—my little one,
Whom I had meant to marry in a week!

“ ‘Ah, sir, she turned out badly after all,
The girl we thought a pattern for all girls.
We know not how it happened, for she named
No names. And, sir, it preyed upon her mind,
And weakened it; and she forgot us all,
And seemed as one aye walking in her sleep
She noticed no one—no one but the dog,
A young deerhound that followed her about;
Though him she hugged and kissed in a strange way
When none was by. And Colin, he was hard
Upon the girl; and when she sat so still,
And pale and passive, while he raved and stormed,
Looking beyond him, as it were, he grew
The harder and more harsh. He did not know
That she was not herself. Men are so blind!
But when he saw her floating in the loch,
The moonlight on her face, and her long hair
All tangled in the rushes; saw the hound
Whining and crying, tugging at her plaid—
Ah, sir, it was a death-stroke!’
“This was all.
This was the end of her sweet life—the end
Of all worth having of mine own! At night
I crept across the moors to find her grave,
And kiss the wet earth covering it—and found
The deerhound lying there asleep. Ay me!
It was the bitterest darkness,—nevermore
To break out into dawn and day again!

“And Lady Alice shakes her dainty head,
Lifts her arch eyebrows, smiles, and whispers, “Once
He was a little wild!’ ”
With that he laughed;
Then suddenly flung his face upon the grass,
Crying, “Leave me for a little—let me be!”
And in the dusky stillness hugged his woe,
And wept away his pas
Eve
"While I sit at the door
Sick to gaze within
Mine eye weepeth sore
For sorrow and sin:
As a tree my sin stands
To darken all lands;
Death is the fruit it bore.

"How have Eden bowers grown
Without Adam to bend them!
How have Eden flowers blown
Squandering their sweet breath
Without me to tend them!
The Tree of Life was ours,
Tree twelvefold-fruited,
Most lofty tree that flowers,
Most deeply rooted:
I chose the tree of death.

"Hadst thou but said me nay,
Adam, my brother,
I might have pined away;
I, but none other:
God might have let thee stay
Safe in our garden,
By putting me away
Beyond all pardon.

"I, Eve, sad mother
Of all who must live,
I, not another,
Plucked bitterest fruit to give
My friend, husband, lover;--
O wanton eyes, run over;
Who but I should grieve?--
Cain hath slain his brother:
Of all who must die mother,
Miserable Eve!"

Thus she sat weeping,
Thus Eve our mother,
Where one lay sleeping
Slain by his brother.
Greatest and least
Each piteous beast
To hear her voice
Forgot his joys
And set aside his feast.

The mouse paused in his walk
And dropped his wheaten stalk;
Grave cattle wagged their heads
In rumination;
The eagle gave a cry
From his cloud station;
Larks on thyme beds
Forbore to mount or sing;
Bees drooped upon the wing;
The raven perched on high
Forgot his ration;
The conies in their rock,
A feeble nation,
Quaked sympathetical;
The mocking-bird left off to mock;
Huge camels knelt as if
In deprecation;

The kind hart's tears were falling;
Chattered the wistful stork;
Dove-voices with a dying fall
Cooed desolation
Answering grief by grief.

Only the serpent in the dust
Wriggling and crawling,
Grinned an evil grin and ******
His tongue out with its fork.
I

My love, this is the bitterest, that thou
Who art all truth and who dost love me now
As thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say—
Shouldst love so truly and couldst love me still
A whole long life through, had but love its will,
Would death that leads me from thee brook delay!

II

I have but to be by thee, and thy hand
Would never let mine go, thy heart withstand
The beating of my heart to reach its place.
When should I look for thee and feel thee gone?
When cry for the old comfort and find none?
Never, I know! Thy soul is in thy face.

III

Oh, I should fade—’tis willed so! might I save,
Galdly I would, whatever beauty gave
Joy to thy sense, for that was precious too.
It is not to be granted. But the soul
Whence the love comes, all ravage leaves that whole;
Vainly the flesh fades—soul makes all things new.

IV

And ’twould not be because my eye grew dim
Thou couldst not find the love there, thanks to Him
Who never is dishonoured in the spark
He gave us from his fire of fires, and bade
Remember whence it sprang nor be afraid
While that burns on, though all the rest grow dark.

V

So, how thou wouldst be perfect, white and clean
Outside as inside, soul and soul’s demesne
Alike, this body given to show it by!
Oh, three-parts through the worst of life’s abyss,
What plaudits from the next world after this,
Couldst thou repeat a stroke and gain the sky!

VI

And is it not the bitterer to think
That, disengage our hands and thou wilt sink
Although thy love was love in very deed?
I know that nature! Pass a festive day
Thou dost not throw its relic-flower away
Nor bid its music’s loitering echo speed.

VII

Thou let’st the stranger’s glove lie where it fell;
If old things remain old things all is well,
For thou art grateful as becomes man best:
And hadst thou only heard me play one tune,
Or viewed me from a window, not so soon
With thee would such things fade as with the rest.

VIII

I seem to see! we meet and part: ’tis brief:
The book I opened keeps a folded leaf,
The very chair I sat on, breaks the rank;
That is a portrait of me on the wall—
Three lines, my face comes at so slight a call;
And for all this, one little hour’s to thank.

IX

But now, because the hour through years was fixed,
Because our inmost beings met amd mixed,
Because thou once hast loved me—wilt thou dare
Say to thy soul and Who may list beside,
“Therefore she is immortally my bride,
Chance cannot change that love, nor time impair.

X

“So, what if in the dusk of life that’s left,
I, a tired traveller, of my sun bereft,
Look from my path when, mimicking the same,
The fire-fly glimpses past me, come and gone?
- Where was it till the sunset? where anon
It will be at the sunrise! what’s to blame?”

XI

Is it so helpful to thee? canst thou take
The mimic up, nor, for the true thing’s sake,
Put gently by such efforts at at beam?
Is the remainder of the way so long
Thou need’st the little solace, thou the strong?
Watch out thy watch, let weak ones doze and dream!

XII

“—Ah, but the fresher faces! Is it true,”
Thou’lt ask, “some eyes are beautiful and new?
Some hair,—how can one choose but grasp such wealth?
And if a man would press his lips to lips
Fresh as the wilding hedge-rose-cup there slips
The dew-drop out of, must it be by stealth?

XIII

“It cannot change the love kept still for Her,
Much more than, such a picture to prefer
Passing a day with, to a room’s bare side.
The painted form takes nothing she possessed,
Yet while the Titian’s Venus lies at rest
A man looks. Once more, what is there to chide?”

XIV

So must I see, from where I sit and watch,
My own self sell myself, my hand attach
Its warrant to the very thefts from me—
Thy singleness of soul that made me proud,
Thy purity of heart I loved aloud,
Thy man’s truth I was bold to bid God see!

XV

Love so, then, if thou wilt! Give all thou canst
Away to the new faces—disentranced—
(Say it and think it) obdurate no more,
Re-issue looks and words from the old mint—
Pass them afresh, no matter whose the print
Image and superscription once they bore!

XVI

Re-coin thyself and give it them to spend,—
It all comes to the same thing at the end,
Since mine thou wast, mine art, and mine shalt be,
Faithful or faithless, sealing up the sum
Or lavish of my treasure, thou must come
Back to the heart’s place here I keep for thee!

XVII

Only, why should it be with stain at all?
Why must I, ‘twixt the leaves of coronal,
Put any kiss of pardon on thy brow?
Why need the other women know so much
And talk together, “Such the look and such
The smile he used to love with, then as now!”

XVIII

Might I die last and shew thee! Should I find
Such hardship in the few years left behind,
If free to take and light my lamp, and go
Into thy tomb, and shut the door and sit
Seeing thy face on those four sides of it
The better that they are so blank, I know!

XIX

Why, time was what I wanted, to turn o’er
Within my mind each look, get more and more
By heart each word, too much to learn at first,
And join thee all the fitter for the pause
’Neath the low door-way’s lintel. That were cause
For lingering, though thou called’st, If I durst!

**

And yet thou art the nobler of us two.
What dare I dream of, that thou canst not do,
Outstripping my ten small steps with one stride?
I’ll say then, here’s a trial and a task—
Is it to bear?—if easy, I’ll not ask—
Though love fail, I can trust on in thy pride.

XXI

Pride?—when those eyes forestall the life behind
The death I have to go through!—when I find,
Now that I want thy help most, all of thee!
What did I fear? Thy love shall hold me fast
Until the little minute’s sleep is past
And I wake saved.—And yet, it will not be!
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2016
ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S FAMOUS CIVIL WAR CONDOLENCE LETTER TO YOUNG ***** MCCULLOUGH ABOUT DEATH, LOSS AND MEMORY**

Executive Mansion,
Washington, December 23, 1862.

Dear *****

It is with deep grief that I learn of the death of your kind and brave Father; and, especially, that it is affecting your young heart beyond what is common in such cases. In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once. The memory of your dear Father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer, and holier sort than you have known before.

Please present my kind regards to your afflicted mother.

Your sincere friend

A. LINCOLN.
A Common Bond of Grief

By
Harold Holzer

Feb. 12, 2016 4:24 p.m. ET
“We can not escape history,” Abraham Lincoln warned in his annual message to Congress on Dec. 1, 1862. Just four days later, as if to prove Lincoln’s point, an obscure Union cavalry commander lost his life battling a nighttime ambush deep behind Confederate lines at Coffeeville, Miss. The remote dust-up at which Lt. Col. William McCullough died heroically earned scant notice in Washington—except from the president himself.

Years before, as a circuit-riding lawyer, Lincoln had come to know McCullough and his family when the Bloomington, Ill., resident served as sheriff, and then as clerk of the county court. The two men had much in common. Both had served in their state militia during the Black Hawk War. Each married a woman named Mary. Both became Republicans. And each lost young children to disease.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Lincoln had allowed his old friend to volunteer, though, at 50, the white-haired McCullough was ancient by military standards, lacked vision in one eye, and had lost his right arm to a thresher. Now Lincoln learned that, outnumbered at Coffeeville, McCullough had clenched the reins of his horse between his teeth and galloped along his lines, saber raised in his remaining hand, rallying his men to fight.

No doubt already remorseful, Lincoln became especially concerned when mutual friends reported that the hero’s 22-year-old daughter Mary Frances—known as “*****”—was grieving with alarming intensity. The “afflicted” young woman had shut herself off in her room, refusing to eat, “pacing the floor in violent grief, or sitting in lethargic silence.” Her family feared “for her consequences.”

Lincoln was no stranger to the fragile tipping point between grief and insanity. The loss of his beloved 11-year-old son Willie earlier in 1862 still haunted his dreams. His wife’s hysterical mourning had triggered a breakdown. Earlier in his life, Lincoln had grown so despondent over the death of his New Salem, Ill., sweetheart Ann Rutledge that neighbors ordered him “locked up” to “prevent derangement or suicide.”

Informed in mid-December of ***** McCullough’s “broken hearted” state, Lincoln intervened with one of the mere handful of personal condolence letters he wrote to honor war heroes and assuage their survivors. That he penned it just days after a morale-crushing Union defeat at Fredericksburg, and only days before he had to decide, amid intense pressure, whether to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, makes Lincoln’s achingly tender composition especially remarkable. The “McCullough Letter” deserves its reputation as one of the greatest condolence letters ever written, even if it remains little-known—a tour de force in a genre that arguably required more literary dexterity and delicate persuasiveness than even a great orator’s most demanding public speech.

“In this sad world of ours,” Lincoln counseled, “sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it.” Here, with rare candor, Lincoln was reopening a painful old wound of his own: the loss of his beloved mother, who had suffered a horrible death before his eyes when Abe was only 9. Promising “some alleviation of your present distress,” Lincoln knowingly walks ***** through a multistep recovery program, from overwhelming sorrow to the “perfect relief” that would come only with time. “You are sure to be happy again,” he promised her. “The memory of your dear Father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer, and holier sort than you have known before.”

The original one-page, 166-word letter took a long journey to full public disclosure. In the 1950s, the reprinted text appeared in “The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln,” but the original remained in McCullough family hands. Music executive Carl Haverlin acquired it in the ’60s for a then-record $60,000. Fortunately, it was ultimately acquired in 1997 (for $400,000) by public-spirited manuscript collector Benjamin Shapell. While the treasure now resides in the private Shapell Manuscript Foundation archive, its owner has generously made it available for public exhibition (most recently at the Library of Congress and the Morgan Library). Best of all, the scanned manuscript also lives online (www.shapell.org), where it can be rewardingly inspected in vivid close-up. Neatly penned in Lincoln’s legible hand on blue-lined Executive Mansion letterhead, still creased where it was folded twice to fit into a White House envelope, it appears nearly as crisp today as the moment ***** McCullough first opened it.

Lincoln signed his condolence message to *****, “your sincere friend,” and to many of the loyal thousands who lost fathers, brothers and sons fighting for the Union, the consoler-in-chief must have seemed so. But where ***** McCullough was concerned, one senses a closer, more unique connection: the bond between two soul mates who mourned inconsolably, suffered deeply, and needed desperately to recover in order to live—and, in Lincoln’s case, to lead.

In time, the once-irreconcilable ***** re-entered the world as well. Surely inspired by Lincoln, she recovered enough to overcome yet another staggering loss: A young soldier she fancied died in action, too. Eventually she married his brother and long endured. ***** kept the president’s condolence letter in her possession until the day she died, at the age of four score years.
Madeline Jul 2012
for you, we bundle into the car,
the littlest
(half my brother and twice my nuisance)
and the middlest
(14 going on favorite)
the bitterest
(only girl and pen-in-hand)
and the biggestest
(20 years
of bombastic nonsense)

30 minutes and four cornfields later
he'll start.
"i have to ***."
"there's a bottle up there, dad."
"dad, i have to ***."
"dad."
"dad."
"dad."
and he's going to *** in that ******* bottle
which will inevitably stay in the car for the remaining 8 and a half hours,
sloshing and yellow
too dangerously close to the color of something
you would actually drink.

the two youngest
will get into some sort of argument
some sort of argument that i will intervene in.
"shut up!" he'll say.
"chill out!" i'll shout.
"you chill out!"
and my father and my stepmother
will eye from the front seat
until one of them turns around
("relax, madeline!" sharply).

and then the oldest
like clockwork
will act like he knows more than he does about something
(my father will just chuckle, but i'll begin, "bullsh-" i'll begin, but my stepmother will hiss,
"madeline!" as if i've killed somebody
even though the 8-year-old curses even worse than i do).
he'll make a face at me
and i'll make a face at him.
the littlest will
inevitably
stomp on my seatbelt about 30 times a second
which i will not be able to stand,
and we'll get into an argument which will turn into me
versus
the whole car
(afterwards, much stewing,
and resentfully cranking my ipod up as loud as it will go).

9 hours and 12 thousand cliff-faces later

we'll get there.
we'll make it.
we'll only be
a little worse for the wear.
we will be swept up by our twelve billion aunts
our nine billion uncles
and our three billion cousins,
like we always are.

someday something will be missing.

first it was your back,
and the postponement,
and eventual cancellation of our trip.
then it was your surgeries
(why weren't they working?)
and then it was a series of words i don't understand

stage

                                                               ­                                           inoperable
           ­                                 3                               ­             

                                                               ­          cancerous                                                      ma­ss
lung
                            malignant
                                                                ­                                              radiation
                                    
            therapy        ­                                                                 ­                                                 chemo

you may crumple in
on that blackness inside you,
that's eating you alive
one lung at a time,
pushing,
on your back,
until you can't even stand.
the fabric of our family
is plucked by this
disease.
this is my poem, my plea
for you
and for us,
that you not pull into the blackness,
and that you fight the tumors and the tests
and that you win.
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2017
~


and, to the young,
it comes with bitterest agony,
because it takes them unawares.
The older have learned to ever expect it.”


Abraham Lincoln

~~~

time is the seasoning spice,
rubbed into the unwanted go to hell gifted
cracks and crevices,
of aging,
ever deepening tracks of rusted orange paprika tears that are undepletable

experience, that cursed pretend friend,
has been-weathered worn upon our faces

you young think you have it all,
you cannot have my sorrows

though they come to  
me well awares
undisguised in shiny silver sunlight and
full moon bright,
whipped, collected and freight-weighed by the poundage

the tears of surprise are no wetter than mine
and surely but half as bitter as mine
than have accumulated and aged and bred permanence cursed down upon my
grayed hairs

you weep grievously
throw your body twisted to the floor
then you realize mine
is already there -
a cushion for you
and hardwood
my pillow

you have hope of repair -

making surprises treatable, tenable
and tentative

perhaps your gasp
of shock
louder than my grasp
of yet another cut's meaning

but learning to expect it
neither lessens it or
ameliorates

you want proof?

look upon me, come look upon me or better yet
look upon the portraiture
of Abraham Lincoln
February 16th, 2016

see

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1555158/abraham-lincolns-famous-civil-war-condolence-letter-to-young-*****-mccullough-about-death-loss-and-memory/

~~~
O Captain! My Captain!

BY WALT WHITMAN
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
                         But O heart! heart! heart!
                            O the bleeding drops of red,
                               Where on the deck my Captain lies,
                                  Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
                         Here Captain! dear father!
                            This arm beneath your head!
                               It is some dream that on the deck,
                                 You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
                         Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
                   But I with mournful tread,
                               Walk the deck my Captain lies,
                                  Fallen cold and dead.
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2016
and would i ever get embroil myself in a morning of: coffee,
croissant and a newspaper? i find it strange how newspapers
are printed for workers - sold in the morning,
and read in the hazy hours before the mind
catches up with the body at noon
lead to nothing but village sentimentalism -
and dupe sensationalism -
they really know when to baptise them:
a few weeks into their lives (most never
object to confirmation, i, for one, started inquiring
about the Gnostic cults, and said: nah, you'll
alright without me) -
baptism is a bit like newspapers:
i really didn't ask for it... sorry, i was in diapers,
i knew that i'd be wearing diapers
if i went to my confirmation by the Bishop
of Chelmsford - imagine what a cardinal
could do to me... but that's what newspapers
are, they are written in reasonable comfort,
i don't mean the sort of journalism
akin to all the president's men -
that's valiant... i mean the opinions sections,
i read a newspaper and think of only one thing:
****! i threw away something i actually
need in the recycling pile of garbage...
so you go back to the bag and sift through it...
which is what it's all about:
newspapers pulverise the half-awake readers
on the tube... making newspapers free is also
a tactic... i read newspapers, about this time,
nearing midnight... i've spent the entire day
occupying myself with colours, squares and clouds,
i leave my desire to see phonetic encoding a - z
till last, when i can relax, and actually recycle
all the opinions of the day...
shamefully, others pick up a newspaper,
early in the morning, and just nod, agree, nod, agree,
pigeon on parade... makes it easier to earn
a few more disciples when half of them (if not all)
are still trying to remember a dream at 7 a.m.,
all the opinions sections are fabulous!
mental health matters... like **** it does:
you're saying a box inside that storage room that's
your brain aches like broken arm...
you go to a doctor, and he replies: it's all in your head...
well, d'uh, metaphysical health was always clumsy
with what became spaghetti entanglement
for philosophers - the one never translates into
another as honing in on, and synonymous -
but that's life... but the two were never supposed to
be at odd, or, quiet simply: parallel -
after all, thinking, if a limb or an *****,
is more than what the automation of the brain is:
receptor to nervous stimuli - if there's an *****
such as a mind, and it's verb optimum is sick...
it's like seeing the desperation of someone doing
cartwheels on a tightrope, while deciding a next
chess move playing someone down below,
and smoking a pipe - thought, in the end,
is a dilemma where to many verbs are associated with it:
it's so spatial in that it tries to encompass a near
exponential number of ? / hmm hiccups -
                              as it does encompassing a near exponential
number of ! / eureka hiccups -
the German Chancellor and the fourth cottage -
and the opinion: nacktarschuzdeckenwunsch
(the desire to cover their own naked backsides) -
ah, newspapers and the morning,
whoever reads a newspaper in the morning is a sheep...
who doesn't even thinks that comics didn't slowly evolve
to be comics? they are pristine Geminis -
i wouldn't read a newspaper in the morning,
because i know most of these articles are written in
the afternoon, notably the opinion sections,
by people donning kimonos, drinking wine
and smoking Magritte's phrasing of: not a pipe.
i can't treat them as trash either... i call them
midnight literature... after i've spent the day not
looking at phonetic encoding symbols,
i finally zoom in, revise my eyes and ease into a crescendo
of appreciating newspapers, for whatever they're worth,
which, according to the Thursday's edition of the times:
£1.40 - but reading newspapers in the morning
is horrid - too much world, too much care,
too much moral acting - too much conversation...
the world is too big, and i'm too small...
so i do what the writers of these articles read:
although i have a stronger solvent to read their preaching
parody of Mt. Sinai - but what i found, apart from that,
well... couldn't poetry steal something from
the journalistic medium? in the way art is appreciated
without critics? shouldn't poetry be the only medium
of art where other art mediums are appreciated?
for example, i find that when i'm hearing the clicking
of the keyboard, and there's a record in the background
i have a full meal in front of me,
i forgot how good tubeway army's album replicas
is... as a second course meal... nothing of the top 30
canape charts of nibbles of artistic output...
poetry can congratulate over mediums of art,
it can steal from what journalism encompasses -
namely the critical pieces of the journalistic anatomy -
art, doesn't necessarily have to be a matthew arnold
moment of as soon as i returned home, i pulled off
my coat, flung myself on the sofa, and wept the
bitterest, sweetest tears
: after coming back from
a Liszt concert... really?
i think that ballet is supreme sadism and Bach
had wax in his ears... fame and the adoration of women?
too lazy... like drinking too much, and listening
to what i like: without adverts selling me car insurance
and German shampoo.
yes, i am bothered, i'm seeing something in England
that's worrying, something akin to a Marx & Engels'
study of Victorian England - only this time it's
existentially tinged - not economically -
and yes, reading a newspaper at any "sensible" hour
of the day is rather pointless...
you can get very impressionable in the morning,
at around midnight, with a whiskey and a cigarette...
while everyone is already nodding off in Luna's
embrace - never understood reading newspapers
in the morning... or in the early afternoon -
it's better to digest the **** of the individual by the world
while everyone is asleep... less democratic constipation
of everyone having a go... or as Auden said:
all the ****** of the world write at night...
well, during the night: everything is apparently black
& white... the vacuum of the space, and the punctuation
of Zodiac are what this sort of writing best describes,
given that, we are the mediators of two opposing
chasms... to be honest... poets hate colour,
the whole spectrum of colour, from
red (λ nanometres 760 etc. and Herr Hertz, whatever)
to violet (λ nanometres 424 - 380) -
    so tiny, this puncture... equatable with
the size of the universe and that spec that's called earth -
to me? all of this is a massive accident -
as the gambling king said (god): oops... dunno.
but from what i can see... poets have colour -
hence the white page where all colours are entombed,
and better than scattering the white into the visible
spectrum, beginning as Newton with a needle hole
and a prism... no... we're probing it with something else,
intent on it being given to us in total,
a sum of all parts... or as they say: shying away from
the people in grey suits... virtually taking risks on meeting
the people in white coats - and how to slur and
window-lick our way into confined spaces
perfecting our skills in Paper Mâchés and Matisse-like
cut-outs.
Ground smolders and smokes

Luminescent men, humps at the front

**** and poke

The air acrid, the smell of burning stone

On a wall three boys

Gaze, eyes wide, mouths

Marleyesque, dropping

Bewitched as the florescent men

Smooth and calm the steaming earth

Spraying water from a can

To quench its thirst

The seething, black

And exhausted ground

Murmurs in sick response

To its own fragmented curse

A yellow dragon near by

Belches black blood

Oozing from its innards

Through Gothic gargoyle mouth

The lime coloured men shovel

This toxic *****, smear it

Across the gasping earth

That lies, ripped like a jagged

Wound on a dying man

The lime colored men

Mount the yellow dragon

Speed off, leaving

The scorched ground

Burning and hissing,

With sulphurous smoke

A million sizzling angry snakes

The three boys run away in freight

Dropping playthings as they fumble

And tumble in their horrified flight

The black earth cries, bubbles

And consumes their toys

Passes sentence

Makes them L'Enfant Commune

The lost boys

Then there is a quiver

A tedious tremble, a treble;

That played like stretched

Elastic flicked with

Forefinger and thumb

Making the heart numb

Extracting false confessions

A stench of putrid untruth

*** charades of delicate

Ravaged faced youth

A drole de ménage

Slave to the hunger

Of the unknown demand

The French grooming

Of horses, that may charm

The curious but leaves curiosity

Still smouldering in the

Hidden depths of the

Universal mind

Sanumbolists in the

Fullness of a dream of

Ineffable torture consume need

The boys cry out, for the

Earth has stolen a liars tongue

Branded them abominable

With decaying enormities

Detestable, enamelled eyes

Lurk and peer from

Behind gauzed curtains

A corpse of understanding

That inspects the invisible

Images of imbeciles

Parchments dripping in powdered

Crystalline drops smear the pavements

The boys wave their arms

But no-one sees them

There is the rise and fall of cryptic waves

That ebb and flow scorching

A shore of silent sorrows

Lapping feverously at the

Arc of a whirlpool

Whose decreasing concentric

Circles **** the boys down

Into an eternity of hot tears

Leaves them without parents

Gives their brothers and sisters

Into a slavery of barbarous belief

A ferocious language

Banning the boys from all beaches

Provides tyrannical pilgrimages

To black robbed priests

Possessors' of serpents' hearts

The yellow dragon returns

Lemon coloured men spill

From its foaming mouth

The boys hide behind

Dead rose bushes

Ah, but their tenebrous

Trembles creak in the

Blotched and bloodied

Butchers sawdust

A fabulous elegance cradles them

Making the smoking dragon angry

It spews molten bile taken

From the bloated stomachs

Of white beasts

The luminosity of the

Lemon coloured men

Increases to blindness

They wave tattered antediluvian

Bark and scream from

Their dark, deceitful, anchored armchairs

From railed and spiked alters

Spitting bitterest gall

The lemon coloured men

Butcher the fabulous elegance

Leaving the boys naked

Prey to the perfections of

Puerile generosities

That vows to extinguish

Their human desire

Vacant eyes with

Nauseating sight strut

A cruel distortion

Terrifying voices offer

Demonic destruction

The boys weep, but

no-one hears them

A violent paradise

Of popular poses tries,

But fails to caress them

The dragon burns the boys

But no-one smells them

Their terror turns to molten flesh

The lemon coloured men

Spread it over the earth

The beast' heart beats

Joyfully in its bulbous belly

Sacred men smile while

Pitiless priests provide

A comedy

The boys become a hallow

Antique night their left

Legs held up for all

To see

Delirium devours the minds

Of a subjugated people

The deadly hissing of the earth

Like a silken spectre rises

Making scintillating shudders

Through the spiked splinters

Of time

Intelligence is reduced

To the rubble of religious

Intolerance

Lime, yellow, lemon drips

Heated plastic from false eyes

There are cries, sights and sounds

But no-one hears, sees or speaks

No real people are left

Similar boys watch from a wall

Huddle together and weep
Left Foot Poet May 2017
for Karlotti

~
And a flower on the borders of winter.
an unseasoned sign that the singular erupting bud
will lend the lens to see, give the courage to accept
the greatest joy of man will ever be
anticipation

there will be seasons that the singular erupting bud,
be the bitterest truth nail gunned into your temple,
the perversity of a mockery, an uncrossable boundary
a flowering sign of skull & bones meant to teach acceptance
the greatest curse of man will be
the changing seasons

La mayor maldición del hombre,
Las estaciones cambiantes
(The Portuguese Nun—1640-1723)

The sparrows wake beneath the convent eaves;
I think I have not slept the whole night through.
But I am old; the aged scarcely know
The times they wake and sleep, for life burns down;
They breathe the calm of death before they die.
The long night ends, the day comes creeping in,
Showing the sorrows that the darkness hid,
The bended head of Christ, the blood, the thorns,
The wall’s gray stains of damp, the pallet bed
Where little Sister Marta dreams of saints,
Waking with arms outstretched imploringly
That seek to stay a vision’s vanishing.
I never had a vision, yet for me
Our Lady smiled while all the convent slept
One winter midnight hushed around with snow—
I thought she might be kinder than the rest,
And so I came to kneel before her feet,
Sick with love’s sorrow and love’s bitterness.
But when I would have made the blessed sign,
I found the water frozen in the font,
And touched but ice within the carved stone.
The saints had hid themselves away from me,
Leaving the windows black against the night;
And when I sank upon the altar steps,
Before the ****** Mother and her Child,
The last, pale, low-burnt taper flickered out,
But in the darkness, smooth and fathomless,
Still twinkled like a star the holy lamp
That cast a dusky glow upon her face.
Then through the numbing cold peace fell on me,
Submission and the gracious gift of tears,
For when I looked, Oh! blessed miracle,
Her lips had parted and Our Lady smiled!
And then I knew that Love is worth its pain
And that my heart was richer for his sake,
Since lack of love is bitterest of all.

The day is broad awake—the first long beam
Of level sun finds Sister Marta’s face,
And trembling there it lights a timid smile
Upon the lips that say so many prayers,
And have no words for hate and none for love.
But when she passes where her prayers have gone,
Will God not smile a little sadly then,
And send her back with gentle words to earth
That she may hold a child against her breast
And feel its little hands upon her hair?
We weep before the Blessed Mother’s shrine,
To think upon her sorrows, but her joys
What nun could ever know a tithing of?
The precious hours she watched above His sleep
Were worth the fearful anguish of the end.
Yea, lack of love is bitterest of all;
Yet I have felt what thing it is to know
One thought forever, sleeping or awake;
To say one name whose sweetness grows so strange
That it might work a spell on those who weep;
To feel the weight of love upon my heart
So heavy that the blood can scarcely flow.
Love comes to some unlooked-for, quietly,
As when at twilight, with a soft surprise,
We see the new-born crescent in the blue;
And unto others love is planet-like,
A cold and placid gleam that wavers not,
And there are those who wait the call of love
Expectant of his coming, as we watch
To see the east grow pallid ere the moon
Lifts up her flower-like head against the night.
Love came to me as comes a cruel sun,
That on some rain-drenched morning, when the leaves
Are bowed beneath their clinging weight of drops,
Tears through the mist, and burns with fervent heat
The tender grasses and the meadow flowers;
Then suddenly the heavy clouds close in
And through the dark the thunder’s muttering
Is drowned amid the dashing of the rain.

But I have seen my day grow calm again.
The sun sets slowly on a peaceful world,
And sheds a quiet light across the fields.
Dreamer May 2014
Hot cocoa,
so saccharine,
so sweet,
Warm me through the bitterest winter,
the iciest claw of the wind

Hot cocoa,
melting on tasteless tongues
warming my tiny, gelid hands
You trickle and run down numb throats
leaving milky, brown streaks
on colorless lips

Hot cocoa,
rolling and tumbling in nippy stomaches
as my belly rumbles and thunders for more
Written in 4th grade! :)
Andrew T Hannah Jul 2013
You crucified me, with your fanatical insanity,
Using religion as an excuse to persecute cruelly.
Words can cut deep, like knives flaying skin…
Now it is your turn to suffer, so we shall begin!

You anger me, evil human so filled with hate,
Believing yourself so entitled to judge my kind!
Saying I am going to hell because I love deep,
One who shares my gender as well as my heart!
For you, evil human, it is already far too late…
Your soul is forfeit, your spirit I shall now bind.
With darkest sorcery, devils your soul shall keep!
By the power unseen, you will be broken apart.
How dare you mock me, and so provoke wrath,
Until I long to see your head mounted on a pike…
Whilst wolves nibble at your entrails in red bath!
It is not I you need fear, nor I who shall strike.

Demons will haunt your sleep, of your making.
Torments, shall punish you, leaving you mad…
Until: your flayed limbs lie trembling and quaking,
For you have angered me, angered me so bad!
You say I am going to Hell? I am Hell incarnate.
Behold your vile death knell! Let is swell, fiend,
For though I be a devil in your eyes, my true fate,
Is a brighter thing, than any you could ever glean!

You tie yourself with your own veins torn free…
Thinking yourself better than my generation was.
We did not start world wars that killed innocents,
My only sin was that I said the words ‘blessed be’.
Yet you despise all I am, without thought’s pause,
But it is you, who shall sing the bitterest laments…
Evil human, evil bigot, evil mortal whom I despise!
I am your better; I am superior beyond your hope.
You are beneath my contempt; I am the Queen…
And such sweet suffering Hell shall for you devise!
Whilst around your neck is tied the mighty rope…
You will be lowered into darkness, to so scream.

In the end, you will bow to me in heated chains…
Until your shrieks rise like music, to amuse gods.
Whilst I sit in judgment over your countless pains,
As your inner demons poke you with hot prods….
In the tender places, so that you know my agony,
The hell that comes from being treated much less:
Less than human, though I am more can’t you see!
Your demons will drink your blood in gory mess.

Upon a cross, shaped like an X, you will suffer…
No sleep will be permitted you, no sweet dreams.
You will be broken as you broke me, foul thing…
And no reprieve is mine to, your vileness, so offer.
I am the Queen; you will know the truth of Her…
Your every fear will flow from you in vast streams,
And for every time I cried, you will feel that sting,
Your weeping will so harden into a jeweled coffer.
Nothing of you will be left intact, no sanity whole,
And in Hell there is no death, only eternal horror!
Your torture was never my wish, never my goal…
But you wanted this, and so let demons so confer,

The totality of your misery back unto you: creature.
Your evil makes you reek, and it makes me sick!
I am your better, for I am not childish but mature,
Never stooping as low as you, to ignite the wick…
The flame of war to provoke, as you dared wake!
You woke the Dragon, and now you must so pay.
I will lay not a finger upon you; the evils you make,
You will know in Hell, for you must die, one day.

And thence: be bound eternally by your inner ills!
You judged me, hated me, abused me, and spat.
But one day you will kneel before my dark throne,
Fettered by the weight of your unrepentant evils:
And behold my true face, where your fears sat…
Whilst your fears flay you: to your weakest bone.
You saw me as less than human, you sick beast!
Mocked me, for being bisexual and transgender.
You called yourself, a believer in a loving God?
But I am your better; on you, crows shall feast…
Whilst my love, and I, shall always be together!
Keep hating me: keep calling me freakishly odd.

You mock the Queen of Hell, the bright Angel…
But, I was a child, when you first hurt my spirit!
What gave you the right to tell me I was wicked?
You never had the power to judge me so harsh.
But all things change, things ebb and then swell,
Like a primordial ocean, and how you will fear it!
It is not I who condemns you; you made this bed.

You crucified me, with your fanatical insanity,
Using religion as an excuse to persecute cruelly.
Words can cut deep, like knives flaying skin…
Now it is your turn to suffer, so we shall begin!
Dr Peter Lim Nov 12
Bitterest winter
   all cottage windows are shut
   faint violin strains
kivel Oct 2018
Oh joy and happiness!
How you fill my world with wonders.
Oh, how I fly with freedom under me.
Oh, how this world seems to support every move i make.

Oh joy and happiness!
How my c̶̤̊̀̈́̈̈́͑̌̓̀̿̔̓͠up fills with yoṵ̴̧̻͔̪̳̮̼̹̲̆̾͂͆̇̇̾̾̈̌͘r juice,
but just under all the liquid-
o̷͈͚̲̯͖̱̜͇̫͎̻̤̍̊̊͗̇̎̏̄̎͜͝h joy and happiness
how your colorful thickness ḣ̶̦̳͓̮͔̕i̶̢̨̬̰͉͙̗̫̩̼̩̗̬̍̽̆̃̏d̴̞̍͐̀̇͜͝͝es
multiple r̸͉͆͘ò̸̥̤̞̣͜t̴̜̞̹̖͚̰̥̑́̎̎ͅt̷̟͙̹͋́̔͋̒͆̒̐̃́̕e̴̲͇̱̲̲̳͖͉̓͌̃̈̑͂̄̑͒̾͜͝n­̶͇͂̈́̄͒ *****
P̴̢̨̰̥͈͕̱̪̰͊̈́̉͗͐͊̆̂͐̄̈́̈͘͝ǫ̸̢͉̘̰̯͉̘̮͈̝̙̅͒̓̀͑̃ḯ̴̧͓̥̱̰͔̖͚̜͈͎­̦̇͋̑̈̊̑͂̇͗͗̕͘͜͠ͅs̷̛͔͉̤͕͖͙͇̟̭͈͛̓̓̊͑̎̆͐̌ͅọ̵̡̨̻͕͚̖͎̦̼̝͎̲̤̘͛͝ņ̸͍̺̤͓̙̙­̘̫͈̄ͅe̵̢̧͍̖̜̮̘̖̮̖͖̼̼̦̔̅͗̓͊d̴̨̨̡̛̛̜͇̦̱͇͔̘̫̭͉̳̯̿̔̒̾̇̇̓̀̀̒̋ ̴̢͇̺̘͍͚͉̦̣͖̻̦͔̲͊̈́̆́̓̈́ḇ̶̭̟̣̠͕͍̝̆̊̌̓͛́̆̈́̊̈́̋̅̕͜͝ͅǫ̶̧̬̼͉̗̘̞̗̺͚̦͇͙­͌͛́̐͊̃̀̊̂͊̓́͝͝͠ͅb̸͍͕͚̥̺̰̦͒͜ͅă̸̬͚̗̩̯̩̻̫͙̬̦͚̼̲͆͗̀̈̀͌̉̎̽̄̎͘͝
poisone­d boba
poisoned bob
poisoned bo
poisoned b
poisoned
poisone
poison
poiso
pois
poi
po
p
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b̷̡̢̺̥͚̲͍͚̏̄́­̈́́͆̈́̽̊͛̚ͅo̸̞̠̞̊͛̒̔͒̚ḅ̶̣̘̹̊̌͛͝a̴̡̛̼̥͔̼̠̓͌̓̎̎̕͠ ̵̛̩̮̺̫̜̟͓̫̗͈̰͇͒͌̌̑̋͠͠ͅţ̷͎̟͕̰̲͍̥̤̲̖̮̊͋͗͗̋̾̓̔̆͑̉̓ę̷̦̦̹͍̐͂̅̉̉́̈̃͛̓͌̿­a̴͇̹̭̯̮͙̱͋̿̏͜ ̷̨̢͙͚̜͖̻̬̲̹̤̳̻̔͊͂̈̀̐͌͒̒́͝k̶̻̳̀͌̓̓̈́͒͆̅̏͝͝͝i̷̯̜͒l̴̪̯̳͊͌̌̉̄͗́̈́̌̌̅̃­̓l̵̢̼̱̠͖̞̪̺̣̞̥̜͑̍̽̌͝͝ͅs̶͈̼̫̤̝̤̥͍͇̻̣͖̮̫̲͒̾͆̓́̀̈́̇̅̚͝͝ ̸̥̖̘̱̺͙̫͔̪̑̄̀͋͜ͅw̸͇̩̑̈́͐͒̈̐̈̈́̆̏̕ị̸̢̛̗̫̣͙̅̈̾̃̒̉̕t̵̡̪̪̪̱̦̭̩̬̮͑̉̈́̌­͒̔͛͊̒́͘ḩ̵̡̛͈͖̫̈́̈̐͗̓̊̐̔̿ ̸̢̨̗̫̪͙̖̩̠͎̝̘̂͋̌p̶̡̛̫̰̖̺̞̱̥̬̰͗̊̿̍̽̇̓o̴̡͖̫̘͕̲̳͔̗̫̔͌̑̾̿̀̏͗̈̑͐̕ȉ̷̖͉̮­̱̮̭͂̾̐̌̂̀̀͜s̵̛͍͔̍̃̾o̷̧̻̤̬̣̣̗͖̬̒̀͌̏͆͒́͗̋͘͜͝͝n̴͙̖͉̻͖̮͉̝͔̐̇͋͌̆͒͒̍̀͗͒­͐̚s̵̢̨̛̠̹̖̣̱̻̭̄̀̍͒̉͗̒̋͑̚̚ͅ ̴͈͎̰̖̗͌̔̄̃́͐̎s̴̨̳̲̣͉̳̥̱̙̀̂̌̋̅͑͂̏̄͑͘ͅt̸͉͊̀͌́͑͐̿͆͝r̵͉͒̃̓̚̕͘͠e̸̛̠̗̗̞­͇͎̫̙̻̮̩̦̞̯̓̄͋́̋̓̎͝å̴̟͚͎͙͊̀̆̊͝k̴̦̘̥̪̟̭̤͍̙̋͗̆ͅs̴̜͉̯͂͒ ̴̫͋̽̋́̓̈́̅̔͛̅̓̎ơ̷̲̐̅̓̀͆͐͂͋̊̓̓̽f̷̨̫͉̹̞̈͌̉̉̈́͛̎̍͛̒͝ ̷̢̦͚̯͍͇͙̩͎̻̖̳͖͑͛̽̆͂̀̉̇̉̅̑̍̚͝b̵̡͚̺̥̭̙̬͎̜̳̱̤̭̩̏̿̐̿͛̏͂̚͘͘l̴̠̹͓̻̪̼͎̪̱­̼̓͒̈͛͐̀͆̀̃ͅͅo̸̡̡̥̣̥̖̻͇̘͕͒́͌̒̊̚ó̴̩͚͈̮̺̌̒̈͌̉̀̄͆́̓̀͠d̴̛̩̖͕͗̍̉̓ ̴̨̲͖͖̩͉͔̠̖̲̥͍̀̈́̓͌̃́͛̿̏͝t̴̨̪͉͖̣͖͓͖̦̞̳̊͆̇̀̏h̷̛̖͇̞̰͚̜͙̘͈̄̀̀̓͐͊̍̏͗̓a­̵̼̝̣͊̓̑͘t̷͕̟̑̅̌̔͋̈̆͒͊́͆͋͘͝ ̷̨̨̛̬͖̩͓͚͔̬̥̯̰̯̤̭͒̔̏̇̇̓͊̐b̷̨̨͖̳͚̼̑̋̂͜͠ȓ̵͖̺̮̘͕̜̈́̾̈̽͑̿̂̅̈́͌͒̅͛͠ǐ̷͇­͇͕̬̟͉͔̺̫͔̅͊̌̈́͗̉̾̀͆̇̄͊͘ͅͅn̷̝̾̑͗̆͜g̸̛͈̖̖̺͖͈̙̘̋̀̓͒̈́͗̄͂͘͝͠ ̷̨̧̡͖͖̺̬͇̙͓̠̋̏́̅̾̆̓̈́̇̕͘͠o̵͈̙̼͑ņ̷̘̈́͝͝l̵̮̐͑̈̾͝y̷͎͇̞̥̓̓̆̎̏͂̆͛̒̒̎ ̶̼̖͕̘̱̭̣̙̄d̷̢̢͙͇̋͐̍e̴̮̘̼͔͋́͛̂̔͆̓̄̐̾͆̆̈́͝a̷̛͓͕̼̬̤̺̖̓̈͌̎͐̍́͑̑̍t̷̡͔̳­̯͙̯͇̭̖̯̭͆̐̀̑͛̑̀͐̓̚͝h̵̛̰̭͕̖̭̼͕̝̭̔̐̕ͅ ̸͕͚̫͗t̷̛̯̝̲̙̥̠̘̮̄̈͑̀͆̉̔̄͂̈́͘͜ǒ̷̡̡̺̤̼̖͙̻̮̖́̔̅͂͊͋ ̷̛̮̣͓͍̦̱̤̗̬̹͍̯̘͉̓̅͗̂̊͛̌̄͑̐̄͒̈͐t̴̛̼͇̟̟͓̲̯̬̲͚͇̹̤̾̏̍̈͆̓̈́̐̎͜͜͝ḩ̴̡̻͚͎­̤̘̟̣̝̰̣̜̽̂̾̏̽̃͐̎͋̀̀̕͝o̶̢̰̺̠̟̱̬͚̺̍̅͌͌̿͒͆̆͘ś̸̡̥̲̬͖̥̬̤̕ē̶̺̙͈̘͇͇̳̱̻͓̹­͜ ̸̛̮̣̦̜̙͔͉͇͈͕̦̝̻̒̉̒̃̈́̓́̀w̷̡̬͍͇̜̭͉͇̱̮̬͔̽͒̇͌̇̀̄͗̇̎͘͠͝h̴͚̮͚̱̜̪͉̿̅̍̈́­͆̀̽̌̚͝͝o̵̧̲͙̍̇ ̴͈̻̪͓̪̫̝͠ͅc̵̫̾o̶̞͎͈̼͇̠͕̩̤̰͕̠̫͐͂̅̇̈̇̓̈́̌̀̍̍n̷̗͇̟͙̖̅͝s̵̨̨̧͉͇̈́̔͂̆͜u­̷̹͚̩̫͛̈́͌̌͗͠m̷̢̢̺͙̫̖̱͕͖͕̟̤͉̒́̀͂̈̕ȩ̷̭͉̤̋̆̍͠,̸̰͊̆́̆̊̏̍̍̒̆̄̓̕͠ ̸̢̡̜̪͔̭͓͖͓̏͑͂̀͂̌́̒̍a̸̛̼̮̫͉̻͓̦͓̘͛̈́̓̏̊͐͊̌̈̒̊͝͝l̸͉͇̼͉̫̜̘̞̦̟͈̰̱̙̾̊̔̐­̑̑̈́̅̇͐͘͜͝l̴̛̲̙͙̱͚̠̫̞̯͇̼̥̱̭̔̈́̌́͂̽ ̶̬̘̰͇̲͈̪͍̙͑̈́̒̃͗̂̊͑̈́̒̚͠t̴̡̛̤̺͕͓͚h̶̢̛̜͖͖͙̺̤̤̹̝̦͓͇͈̎̑̅̊͑̄̾͒͝ȩ̵̛̤͈̣­̮̥͙̖̜̹̙̤̈́͗̊͑̆̌̀̌̾͛̑ ̵͔̻̫̲̩̯̺̉͗́̆̈̿̾̏ļ̷̢̜̦͙̙̀̎̂͋͐̚̕͝i̴̛̱̽͐̒͊̆̆̍̈́̑̐q̵̧͖͍̥̟͍͓̠̜̻̗̞͆́́̈́­͝͝ͅū̴̩̦̼̦͉͍̺͎͐̈́̇͘͜i̶̛̻̱̭̼̥͑̓̂̍̿̋̕d̵͔͔̤͍̳͓̖̟̦͔̝̻͝ͅ ̵̛̻͈̖̺̠̋́̈́͑̍̀̆͝i̷̫͎̲̬̦̘̠͙̰̘̙͒̃ͅͅș̵̛͎͍͍̼̲͚̅͑̽̉͌̑́́̒̀ ̷̨̱̟̩͈̣̦̹̗̘͙̫̬͈́́̓͊̆́͐͒͘͜͝f̸̧̢̢̯̦͈̺͍̪̩̬̏̒̈́ͅo̴̦͕̓̀̀̔r̴̛͚̬͓̮̭̈́̊̔͆­̓̾̄̚ ̵̢̼͍͎̪̦̘̐̓͆͑͒̿͌͂̃̑̒̋̆̅h̸̢̧̛͈̘̟͇̣̪̰̫̙̬̑̓̃̿̏͊̽́͊̾͒͘͝i̶̛̹̪̬̾̽̑̀̇̑́͘d­̶̡̟̙͚̮̳͉͚̲͕́̊́̚͝͝i̸̡͕͍̪͆̈́ͅn̷̛͙͛̉͌̈̈́̂͂͘͠ġ̶̩͇̜̺̮͔̗̼̰̱͓̘̪̐̉͐̔͗̎̿͘͝­ͅͅ ̶̧̡̩̭̮̭͚͌̋͂̑̄͝t̶̻̞͉͖̟̦̙͙̳̝͓̳͇͈̖͆͌̊̎̿̾̈̕h̷̡̧̲̗̳͔̞̠̯̤̝̞͖̲̄̃̐͊́̇̂̍̐̑­̏͊e̸̢̲̖͔̲͙̭̖̬͈̼͇̼͆̒ͅ ̷̗͋͂̐ẗ̸̲̝̗̻͕͔̹͙̻́͌͋͌͆̈́̏̾̑̌̾̚r̵̡̧̫̟̼̥͔̮̳̪͔̙̫͍̂̑̍́̃̒̓͝͠u̴̜͓͙̮̪̰̠͖̘­̤̗͊̈́͝ͅṱ̷͎̞͖̠͉̟̖̳̣͚̭̩̚h̷̨̩͎̠̣̞͇̜̰̳͈͚̩̤͋͒̈̈͊̽͋̉̊̕͘͜͠͝͝͠ ̵̬͚͇̉́͂̾͌̎͒̽̐͜t̶̨̤̝̥̘̲̖͉͇̦͕̽̅́̒̀̈́͘͝h̴̭͎̙͇̆a̸̧̺͎̰͈͉͓̝͍̰̖͕̜̩̤͆̀͊̉́­͊̍̀̐̇̿̃͘t̷̡̛͉͎͖͈̠̉̒̍̆͂̋͑̿̓̒͘͝ ̶͙̠͉̠̺̯͚̪͎͈̯̫̙̀̈͋͂͗͛̐̇̀͘ͅi̵̢̹͖͈̓̎̈̈̾̽̓͐̀̑̄͛̈́́͘ ̵̘͔͖̰͉͈̺̒h̷̖̤̪̳̖̥̫̤͍̟̗̼͌͒͜ͅͅa̸̧̧̞͕͙̰̮͓͙̗͓̹̺̝͐́́͜v̵̞͚̰̣͐̌͘̚ͅè̸̛̫̩̹­̖͒̈́̃͑ ̸̡̡̢̞̱͈͚͎̯̏͑̔̍̍͐̿͊̿͌͒͝͝ͅp̵̨̛̜̮̱̠̻̩̪̮͚̹̣̞̠̼͂̆͑̔̀͑̍̀̑̀́͂́͘ò̶͇̬̂i̸̗̋­̆͒́̃̔̆̒̿̉͝s̵̟̹̀̈́̑͒̃̐̀͋̌̾͑̚ͅo̶̡̗̰̼̙͇͌͐͗̊̂̀͑̋̒͌̃̔̀̋̚͜n̵̡͔͑̇̀̓̾͒̽̈́­̽̐͝ͅẻ̷̟͈̣͙͔̬̹̄̀̑̓̇̾͝d̷̟̼̹̞̣͚͌̊̇͆̈́̏́͋̓̔̽̎̈́̕͠ ̴̨͍̱̺͍͙̤͈̼̐͜ͅt̴̙̲͕̓̉̀̆̿́̎̄̚͝h̵̡̡͇͈̭͖̤͈̙̣̳̼͎͈̎̂̔̓͆͗̀̆̋̿͒̕͠ě̷͉̤̗̗͇̫­̮̹̝͔̱̰̝̙̒ ̶̨̠̬͓̠̪̖̦́̏̽͑d̵̮̱̾̃̽̍̽̌r̵̗̈ǐ̶̛͈̭̗̥́̂̓͗̔͐̑͛͘͝ͅņ̵̢̳̭̖̈́̌̈͗͂͛́̑͜k̵̘̘­̈́̽̇̅̓̏̾͛̓͒͝ ̶͔̗̈́̿̀͗̀w̶̙͍͚͓̤̭̝̞͍̮̝͍͙͛̔͒̆̓̈̈̓̍̀͘͘̚͝͝ͅa̴̢̛̛͗͑̈̾̿̽͗̆̔̿̚î̸̡̛̓̆̿͋͒­̏̾t̸̡͔̭̦̘̅͂͌̽́̓̿̍̉̇̅̃͘̕ȋ̸̙͂̐̋́̎̌͊͐͌͊͝n̵̛͖͖̍̍͂̑̃́͊͘͠g̶̝̹̻̠̝͉̘̩͉̮̙̗­͆͜ ̸̡̨̡̨̮̞̦̞̳̗̖͈͎͎̍͌̈́͋͆͂͒ͅf̸̡̛̟͎̞͎͙̮̰̓̅͆͗̊̾̂̓̈́͒̐̂͛͝o̸̧̥̘̜̪̪̯̅̌r̴̨͔­̝̠͇̖̘̪͍̲͔̙̈́͊̔ͅ ̷̢͔̬̺̭̌̐͒͑ͅt̸̨̢̺͉̟̖̪̮̺̂ͅḩ̴̧̢̗̲̻̺̭͍̭͊̈́́̍̊̿̃͌͋o̴̝̭̗̔̎͌̑̈́̀͆̐̕͝ş̵̧̪­͚̮̟̩̟̔͆̓̑̈́͐͐̕e̸̢̮̤͍̮̙͍̹̘̹̽͐̓́̂̓͆̃̈͗͊̂͝͝ͅ ̸̢̝̻̖͇͕͈̜͓̌̓̎̍̂̄̏̄͝͠f̷̢̧̞͉̬̩̯͔̦̥̱̥͇͊͐̍̄͂̾̒̈́̒̔̋̿̈̽͛o̷̺͑̈̄̂̆̊̉̄̓̄̋­̃͘͠o̷̧̧̹̩̲͚͙̼̜̜̿͠l̶̘͈͎̯̫̋̌̏̄̏̇̽̅̒̃̈́͜ͅi̵̡͎̺̹͇͗̽̂͊͜ş̵̮̩̩͙͚̣͈͇̤̞͔͓͐­͑̂̌̄͐̓͌͌̊̓̂̚͘͜ȟ̷̯̗͈̅̆̎͑̌̒͌͑̇̉͘̚ ̷̧͕̠̣̮̠͇̮̯͋̉̐͐̈́̈́͘ḙ̷̭̙̒̈́̂̐̚ṉ̷̩̣̾̀͂͗̊̓̑́͛̌̚̚͠ỏ̴̘͎̫͚͊̀̎̒͆̌̚̚͝u̸̧̞­͉̹̯͎̻̬͐͋̎̚͝͝ͅͅg̴̢̛͇̭̮̺̖͉̖͎̭͌̎̐̊͗͒͆̾̍͂̈ḩ̴̡͓̭̯̲̯̝̭͇͈͔̮̖̄͐̅̇̀̽͂͜͠͝ ̸̨̨͍͉̥͇̝̮̦͔̮̭͖̩̒̃̀̍̉̏̀̚͘̕͝t̵̬͇̰͆̀̈́͊̽͝͠o̸͓͈̬̭̫͑̅̔̌̈́̉̔̈́͛̈͝ ̸̡̮̱͈̤̮͈̬̰̟̹̺͋̉ͅṯ̸̨̨̨̭̩̠͙̳́̀̈́́̋̓̌̚͜͠ͅa̴̧̗̠̲̰͙̦̞͈̪̟͆͗̂̌̌̍̋̔̃̕͘͠k̷­̡̨̙̜͖̲͙͈̝̘̯̅͌͂͗̍̋͌͋̿̋͐̐̓̿̆ę̴͕͌̃̇ ̷̨̢̧͔̪̩̹̘̩̈́̔̋̏͐̐͛͐̇̈̈́̚̚a̵̰̿̈́̍͂̿̏̀̑̌̂̚̕ ̷̻͓̟̱̟͙͓͈̱͈̞̌̎̂͛ͅş̵̛̩̠̜͈̻̭̰̲̾̀͗͋̑͐̑̔̒̈͐͊͘ǐ̶̭͉̜̿͐p̷̲̰̳̀̃͗̋̓̓̍̀̿̕̕͝­,̴̢̡̻͚̩̥̣̋͆͋͂͂͗̆͘͜͝ ̵̢͈͙̰̜̣̼̾̊͒̓̈́̾̄͆͆͝l̸̨̠̝̯̱̼͉̠̩͇͓̱̖͈̇̃͌́͜ĕ̶̲̦̦̖͗̈̽̄͛͊͐͘͝t̶̠̱̳͈̳̱̰͇­̱͙͔̤͔̫͒̀̈́͊̈́̽̋̚ͅ ̶̭̃͂̈̓͊͘͜ẗ̴̯̮̼̟̫́̈́̅̉͜h̸̪̫͓̥̳̞̫̜̊̃͒̍͜ͅë̵̘̗̔̄̂̀̽̅̽̓̈́͘͝͠͝m̶̨̡̛͚͔̩̼­̱̆͌͐͛̿͒̑̊̿̾͋ͅ ̸̢̫͔͊͗̒̔̊͛̉͗̋͒͝͝d̵̹͍͓͎̟̥̽́̔̿̒̆͝i̷̥̣͕̘̱͑ẻ̶̢̛̻̼̣̹̙̤͚̩̝͛͌͆́̑́̆͗̈́͜ͅl­̸̨̠̝̯̱̼͉̠̩͇͓̱̖͈̇̃͌́͜ĕ̶̲̦̦̖͗̈̽̄͛͊͐͘͝t̶̠̱̳͈̳̱̰͇̱͙͔̤͔̫͒̀̈́͊̈́̽̋̚ͅ ̶̭̃͂̈̓͊͘͜ẗ̴̯̮̼̟̫́̈́̅̉͜h̸̪̫͓̥̳̞̫̜̊̃͒̍͜ͅë̵̘̗̔̄̂̀̽̅̽̓̈́͘͝͠͝m̶̨̡̛͚͔̩̼­̱̆͌͐͛̿͒̑̊̿̾͋ͅ ̸̢̫͔͊͗̒̔̊͛̉͗̋͒͝͝d̵̹͍͓͎̟̥̽́̔̿̒̆͝i̷̥̣͕̘̱͑ẻ̶̢̛̻̼̣̹̙̤͚̩̝͛͌͆́̑́̆͗̈́͜ͅl­̸̨̠̝̯̱̼͉̠̩͇͓̱̖͈̇̃͌́͜ĕ̶̲̦̦̖͗̈̽̄͛͊͐͘͝t̶̠̱̳͈̳̱̰͇̱͙͔̤͔̫͒̀̈́͊̈́̽̋̚ͅ ̶̭̃͂̈̓͊͘͜ẗ̴̯̮̼̟̫́̈́̅̉͜h̸̪̫͓̥̳̞̫̜̊̃͒̍͜ͅë̵̘̗̔̄̂̀̽̅̽̓̈́͘͝͠͝m̶̨̡̛͚͔̩̼­̱̆͌͐͛̿͒̑̊̿̾͋ͅ ̸̢̫͔͊͗̒̔̊͛̉͗̋͒͝͝d̵̹͍͓͎̟̥̽́̔̿̒̆͝i̷̥̣͕̘̱͑ẻ̶̢̛̻̼̣̹̙̤͚̩̝͛͌͆́̑́̆͗̈́͜ͅl­̸̨̠̝̯̱̼͉̠̩͇͓̱̖͈̇̃͌́͜ĕ̶̲̦̦̖͗̈̽̄͛͊͐͘͝t̶̠̱̳͈̳̱̰͇̱͙͔̤͔̫͒̀̈́͊̈́̽̋̚ͅ ̶̭̃͂̈̓͊͘͜ẗ̴̯̮̼̟̫́̈́̅̉͜h̸̪̫͓̥̳̞̫̜̊̃͒̍͜ͅë̵̘̗̔̄̂̀̽̅̽̓̈́͘͝͠͝m̶̨̡̛͚͔̩̼­̱̆͌͐͛̿͒̑̊̿̾͋ͅ ̸̢̫͔͊͗̒̔̊͛̉͗̋͒͝͝d̵̹͍͓͎̟̥̽́̔̿̒̆͝i̷̥̣͕̘̱͑ẻ̶̢̛̻̼̣̹̙̤͚̩̝͛͌͆́̑́̆͗̈́͜ͅl­̸̨̠̝̯̱̼͉̠̩͇͓̱̖͈̇̃͌́͜ĕ̶̲̦̦̖͗̈̽̄͛͊͐͘͝t̶̠̱̳͈̳̱̰͇̱͙͔̤͔̫͒̀̈́͊̈́̽̋̚ͅ ̶̭̃͂̈̓͊͘͜ẗ̴̯̮̼̟̫́̈́̅̉͜h̸̪̫͓̥̳̞̫̜̊̃͒̍͜ͅë̵̘̗̔̄̂̀̽̅̽̓̈́͘͝͠͝m̶̨̡̛͚͔̩̼­̱̆͌͐͛̿͒̑̊̿̾͋ͅ ̸̢̫͔͊͗̒̔̊͛̉͗̋͒͝͝d̵̹͍͓͎̟̥̽́̔̿̒̆͝i̷̥̣͕̘̱͑ẻ̶̢̛̻̼̣̹̙̤͚̩̝͛͌͆́̑́̆͗̈́͜ͅl­̸̨̠̝̯̱̼͉̠̩͇͓̱̖͈̇̃͌́͜ĕ̶̲̦̦̖͗̈̽̄͛͊͐͘͝t̶̠̱̳͈̳̱̰͇̱͙͔̤͔̫͒̀̈́͊̈́̽̋̚ͅ ̶̭̃͂̈̓͊͘͜ẗ̴̯̮̼̟̫́̈́̅̉͜h̸̪̫͓̥̳̞̫̜̊̃͒̍͜ͅë̵̘̗̔̄̂̀̽̅̽̓̈́͘͝͠͝m̶̨̡̛͚͔̩̼­̱̆͌͐͛̿͒̑̊̿̾͋ͅ ̸̢̫͔͊͗̒̔̊͛̉͗̋͒͝͝d̵̹͍͓͎̟̥̽́̔̿̒̆͝i̷̥̣͕̘̱͑ẻ̶̢̛̻̼̣̹̙̤͚̩̝͛͌͆́̑́̆͗̈́͜ͅl­̸̨̠̝̯̱̼͉̠̩͇͓̱̖͈̇̃͌́͜ĕ̶̲̦̦̖͗̈̽̄͛͊͐͘͝t̶̠̱̳͈̳̱̰͇̱͙͔̤͔̫͒̀̈́͊̈́̽̋̚ͅ ̶̭̃͂̈̓͊͘͜ẗ̴̯̮̼̟̫́̈́̅̉͜h̸̪̫͓̥̳̞̫̜̊̃͒̍͜ͅë̵̘̗̔̄̂̀̽̅̽̓̈́͘͝͠͝m̶̨̡̛͚͔̩̼­̱̆͌͐͛̿͒̑̊̿̾͋ͅ ̸̢̫͔͊͗̒̔̊͛̉͗̋͒͝͝d̵̹͍͓͎̟̥̽́̔̿̒̆͝i̷̥̣͕̘̱͑ẻ̶̢̛̻̼̣̹̙̤͚̩̝͛͌͆́̑́̆͗̈́͜ͅl­̸̨̠̝̯̱̼͉̠̩͇͓̱̖͈̇̃͌́͜ĕ̶̲̦̦̖͗̈̽̄͛͊͐͘͝t̶̠̱̳͈̳̱̰͇̱͙͔̤͔̫͒̀̈́͊̈́̽̋̚ͅ ̶̭̃͂̈̓͊͘͜ẗ̴̯̮̼̟̫́̈́̅̉͜h̸̪̫͓̥̳̞̫̜̊̃͒̍͜ͅë̵̘̗̔̄̂̀̽̅̽̓̈́͘͝͠͝m̶̨̡̛͚͔̩̼­̱̆͌͐͛̿͒̑̊̿̾͋ͅ ̸̢̫͔͊͗̒̔̊͛̉͗̋͒͝͝d̵̹͍͓͎̟̥̽́̔̿̒̆͝i̷̥̣͕̘̱͑ẻ̶̢̛̻̼̣̹̙̤͚̩̝͛͌͆́̑́̆͗̈́͜ͅl­̸̨̠̝̯̱̼͉̠̩͇͓̱̖͈̇̃͌́͜ĕ̶̲̦̦̖͗̈̽̄͛͊͐͘͝t̶̠̱̳͈̳̱̰͇̱͙͔̤͔̫͒̀̈́͊̈́̽̋̚ͅ ̶̭̃͂̈̓͊͘͜ẗ̴̯̮̼̟̫́̈́̅̉͜h̸̪̫͓̥̳̞̫̜̊̃͒̍͜ͅë̵̘̗̔̄̂̀̽̅̽̓̈́͘͝͠͝m̶̨̡̛͚͔̩̼­̱̆͌͐͛̿͒̑̊̿̾͋ͅ ̸̢̫͔͊͗̒̔̊͛̉͗̋͒͝͝d̵̹͍͓͎̟̥̽́̔̿̒̆͝i̷̥̣͕̘̱͑ẻ̶̢̛̻̼̣̹̙̤͚̩̝͛͌͆́̑́̆͗̈́͜ͅ
­
I poisoned the best part of the drink
the boba that's supposed to be the prize
for after all this happiness and joy
comes death in the bitterest of ways.

I keep this boba a secret
from those around me
but if my cup were to spill
shall the toxins spread through air
eliminating all.

With my own hands shall i ****

ķ̸̢͕̬̼͉̝̺̫̺̔̎̿̉̍͂͑͐͆̿̈́̅͌̕í̶̦̺̟̲̆̚̕l̷͖̟̘̭̜̪͚̆͗͆̌͠ļ̴̫̫̱̹̎̄̎̐­͑̃ ̵̢̧̢͙͔̘̠̘͔͚̭̌̓̍͑͑͋̇̌̋̕ǩ̴͕̹̯̰̀͗́͗̆͛̾̍̕i̵͍̣̪͌́͒̍͋̄̽̾͠l̵̩̮̫̳̞͇̜̰͕̥͇̥­͇̝̅̀̄̏͊̀̀̈́̆͝ͅl̵̟̥̫̗̰͎̜̳̯̜̪̊̅͋̈́̈́̈́͜ͅ ̷̛̜͓̥̹̖̮̝̳̹̹̩̰̋̆̆̍͂̆́̓ͅk̸̢̨̛̥̝̗̥̭͇̟̠̏̉̿͘i̸̢͍̙͇͝l̸͇̂̾̑̊̓̚͝l̷̢̛̛̯̞̫­̼͕̙̺͖̣̱͈̐͊̊̔͊̈́̈͒͛͐̈́ ̶̨̲̼̙̟̪̻͎͚͓͎̹̯͆͗k̴̨̨̡͈̦̗̞̺͚͇̮͍̄̎̀̋̑͆̅̍́̚͝͠killi̶̢̢͎̠̠̘̲̱͇̅̏̋̊͝ͅl̵­̖̬̜͒͛̅ͅl̵̡̡̝̙̹̳͓͙͇̯̗̔̍̀̆̐͌̈́̓̕͜͠͝ ̵̧͛̂͊k̷̛̞͗̈́̅̒̑͘͘i̵̛̲̗̦͔̠͌̿̄̀̇͐̐̏͋̓̏̎l̷͔͎̤̝̭͍̬̠̀̃͆̑̈́͋̃̍͛͘͝͝ḷ̴̡̥̼­̪͒̐̂̎͛̎̋͂̅̈͠ ̸̧̡̢͙͚̟͔̄͂͛̏k̶͈͛̆̑̐́͂̈́̈́̚͘i̷̢͖̜͂̍͆̀͛̈́̓̿̊͒́͘̕͝͝ͅḻ̸̨̖̼̫̝́͗̄̿ĺ̵̛̹̭­̪͕͍͈̭̞̇̃͒͑͝ ̵̗̖͇̅̔͊͋́̈́͝ḵ̴̀͋̒̾̂̑̈́̅̎̐͋̕̚**** them allǐ̸̢̛͗ͅl̶̛̺͚̪̣̇̄̂͛͐͛̅͌̿̉͊̚͝l̵͕͖̫͈͙͉̟̣̇̽͂̓̆̍̈́͜ ̸̛̛͉̜͙͍̂̿̓͑̈́̒̀̀̈͆̆͆͝ǩ̷̩͈̰͉͔̈́̐̀͛̈́̑̓̒i̴̛̮̤̤̼̤͔̼̟͛̏l̴̛̪̜̬̭͈̐͂͒̇̊̌­̅͌̚͠l̴͇͓̱̻͓͔͇͗̆̃̄̀̋̋̾̂̔̃͠ ̶̨̙̖̾́͛̏̃́͗͂̈́͛k̶̦̲͖͉͉̠̟̞̼͕͇͋͌͛̐͜í̵̯̙͇̥̰̱͇̃̓́͗͂̋̆ļ̷̛̹̟̦̫̠̝͈̱̆̇͗̑̃­̕͘l̵͚̯̜̱̥͑͑̍͒̎̀̏͗͛̕̕͜ ̷̨̧̠̠̮̜͙̖̙̭̣̻͎̚k̵̳͙̩͓̞̮͔̪̜͗̄̿ͅḭ̷̜̜̲͍̬̪̟͔̱̹̅̾͗ͅl̴̹͍̩̲̓͑̽͘͝l̸̰̫̞̹͉͉­͍͇̲̠͈͉̾̈ ̴͓̻͚̜̯͙̖͈̔̀̈̕͘k̷̤̫̩̼͎̙̻̣̳̹͌̀̓̉͌́͒̈́̒̏͋͊̒̌́͜í̴̢̙̫̮͓̞̣̽̎̆̊̓̽̾̃̀͊͋l̵­̠̮͖̬͐͛̏̾̔̒͛̃̄̉̇͘͘̚͜l̶̛͓̖͚̟̉̇̂̀̐̐̈́̚͘ ̵̰̜͈̱̦͍͆͊̈́̐͑̎̽̈́̃̎̎̄̿͒͠ḱ̵̨̛̰͚̦̦̟̗̮̻͓̲̩̫̽̓̾̀̈́́̽͛͒̓͛͘͝į̵̰̭̣̮̮̟̘̻̦­̲̺̯̻̾̐͆̀͊̿͘͜l̷̨̨̖̣̜̟̯̳̽ļ̵̢̡̡̳̣̮̙͙͖̩̙̲̖̥̌͑̏̕ ̴̢̡̼̩̜͕̠̠̯͍͇͖̥̳͇̓͊̅̓͋̉̇k̷̛̫͇̰̜̈́͛̃̊̀͗͑į̴̧̢̪͚̩̙͎͓̗̓͆͠l̵̨͚̜̩̜̎̄͂̃̊̄­̉͘̚͝͠l̸̦̽͌̈͌̽̊̈́̑͂̈́̋̒̉̚͝ ̷̙̊̑̚͝k̷̢̧̭̤͍̜̘̣̙̙̬̤̰̉̈́́̀̿̌̊̊̿̂͒̽͘̕i̷͙̰͕̹̦̼̟͕̙̘̯̮̹͂͒ͅl̶̨̨̪̪͈̟̻̣̪­̗̿̌͋̂̀͗̽͝ļ̴̨̘̗̖̱͕̀͒̔̀͆͠ ̴̡̹̻̝͕̪̬͉̬͐͌̋͊͌̇͊̈̈͋̈̈́ķ̴̡̛̦̣̮̗̠͔̪̦̠͉̺̄̿̔̓̊̂̏͆͒̀̚i̷̧̧̙͈̬̰̟̘̯̫̩͉͈͉­̯̿̎l̴̤̳̳͔̻̤̱̀̄̒̍̒͌̃̒͒͜͝l̷̢̹̜͈̹̦̬̝̭͔̙̙̖̯̾̎̐̋̔̄͋͌͠ͅ ̸̗̫͆͆̎̅̀̚k̶̨̰̝͓̺̹͙̙̮̰̘̈̄͊̀̇̊̔̓̎̂̚͝͝͝i̴͇̮̘̒̒͛̑̐̓̍̉̚͝͝them all **** them alll̸̙̺̪͔͒̿̌ļ̶̰̥͍͎̬̞̱͎̳̥̖͔͂̐ͅ ̸̡̢̯̖̞͓̮͕̝͛̉̀̑̑̏̚͝k̴̻̰̗͍͚͙̭̙͙̭͕̇̆͆̔̐͒͒i̶̧̱͖͙̼̤̞̳͈̟͖̞̖̪͗̓̋̅̿̽͌́̍ḻ̷­̡̟̹̦̪̤̘̭͂͝ļ̷̨̙̟̠̩̟̤͛͝ ̸̜͖͖͍̫̤̟̝͈̬̣͛͂̑̐͂͋̾͊͐̋̚͠͠k̴̤̮͇͔̀͂͊̐͗́̓̕͝i̷̡̛̯̰͉̥̘̘̝͉̬͈̥͒̀̌͆͛̿͆͘̚ĺ­̴̠̲̤̯̱̼̝̒͋͛̆̍͗͊̓̋͘̕̕͝l̴̝̲̯͆̈́ ̶̺̾̈́k̴̛̫͈̗̞̺̰͓̙͇̩̤͖̃̓͑̓̆̎̕͠͠i̵̳̮̋͆̚l̷̪̄́͂̋͗̃̑̉̓̀͊͘͝͝l̴͖͚͐̒̽̓̈̕͘͝­ ̷̡͉̦͓͇̪͕͙͒͜͝k̵̢͍̯̗͕̼̗̝̤͕̪̭͙̼̤̈́͑́̈́͝į̴̗̲̰̺͎̠͔̝̹͗͒̇̐͐́́̔̓̃̏l̶̞̜̖͖̙­̪̩͐̽͌̿l̶̼̤̆̀͌̂̽̇̌̃̌̔̽͑̕̚͜͝ ̸̢̧̨̱͔̫̩̙̠͚̙͋̑k̷̡̼̠̪͍̤̱͉̥̩̊̾͘i̵̧͉̙͖̪̤͍͚̲̩̘̘̮͑̑́͗ͅl̴̲̭̮̘̝͇̓͛́̉̑̆̀́­͌̐̌̔͝͠l̵͉͕͇̘̺̫̍̐ ̸̧̼̥͙̯͚͓̠̼͔̞̅k̶̨͚͎̺͉̤̱͎͇̗̠͚͇̔͑͋̈́͂̈́̀̓̿͛̄͘͜i̷̭̝͍͈̠̖̰̘͕̎l̴̞̳̍̑̃͑̔͌­̏͝ļ̷̮̳͙̩̲̭̓̇̄̈́̆́̓͊͝͠ ̷̺̪͌̔̃͗͜k̸̡̧͚̤̔̿͊i̴̧̧̧͇̮̺̜̹̩̱̮̰̍͂͌̈̾͂̉͌͝ͅl̷͕͈̼̭͓̰̑̀̋̓͛͂̓̎̅͠ͅl̴̹̠̭­͕̮̩̠̰͇̠͐̊̐̂̈́̍̆́̚̚̚ͅ ̷̡̛͖͇̗̂̋͂͛̈́k̴̨̢̥̙̭̼̿͒̒̀̒̇͌͛̓̂͜͝͝ͅͅͅi̸̢̨̲̬̲̬̭̗͖̺̒̒̃̊̅̈͆̍̒̓̆̒̋͜l̵̠­̫̟̮̙̤̤̯̈́̎͂̎͌́͂̊̎̈́̊̚ͅl̶̡͕̹̩̍̿̈́̏͜ ̵͖̇́̈́͋̆̄̏̊͐͒̚͝k̷̻̙̙̱̤̮͓̝̯͇̺̐̾ĩ̸̢̧̛͕͈̖̥̬̬̖͎̯̓͊̈́͐͌̾̓̽͒̍̐͜͝l̶̺͐̌̓̍­̑ḻ̸̭̭͈̖͓̋̏̉̓̓ ̶̢̡̬̥̙̞͍̲̯̲̣͖͚̃̑͝**** them all k̷̗͔̪̰̥͍͎̣̫̫̘̀͂̂͛̀͝i̸̳̼͇͕̙̞̝̟̒͛̊l̵̨̖͍̘̣͍͉͈̙̫̩͕̠̄l̴̢͕͓̘̻͈̹̝̹̩̂̎͋̓͒­̓̕ ̶̢̫̥̹̮͖̳͕̼̹̻̜̔̅̕k̴̡̧̝̬̪͉̩̙͖̜͈̭̮̃̆͑̃͆̄͜ͅi̵̧͔̘̝̫̤͈͐̔͑̐̍̇̏̐͛̈́̂̿̑̇̄l­̴̢̛̠̰̟̺͖̒̔̎͗̍͌̀̓̿̑̽̑̍͂͜l̸͚̺̯͎̞͓̙̏͂͊̉̈̇̄̅̏̀̾͛̎̿ ̷̛̛̲̺̻͙̻͖̃͒͊́̿̀̽̀̐̚̕͠͠k̶̢̫͍̭̙̩͚͇̲͓̗͓͔̏̑̔̾̇̌͒̀͒̏̚̚͜͜͠i̴͎̭͉̝̮͇͙̓̉̌͗­͜Kkkkill them alll̸̜̭̭͕͊̔̊̃ļ̷̧͍̰̣͎̼͓̲̬̭̠͉̽͆̂̾̑̾̌̌͂̀̐̕͝͠ ̸̻̬̓̔͂͌̆͛́̏̐̐̾͝k̸̨̰̪̼̮̠̤̝̥̯̄͋͂̀̌́̚i̷̧̨̧̖̠̣̬̽͛̄̽̆͘͠l̵̢̬̰͙͇̱͔̤̙͕̩͙̄­̒̈́̐̒̽ͅͅļ̵̛̼̮͕̩̬̰̲̦̙͎̙͎͔̟͂̽̔͊̈́̿̈́̈́͒́ ̷̡̃͂̐̂͒̔͋͂̄͌k̸͔͕̠̗̪͕͚̃̄͂͆̒͋̈́̏́͒̂̈́̕̕͝**** them alli̴̖͈̳̼͉̞̭̫͉̫͓͓͓̻̒̈́̃̌͘͝ͅl̵̬̖̓̿̀͑̂̌̇̔͘͝͝͠ľ̴̞̱̱͕̲̞̱͉̞ ̶͇͗̃̀̏̈̀͆̒̔̂̅͜͝k̴̡͉̰̗̥͙͎̏͑͛̅̄͛̅̇͜į̷͙̤͕͖͇͎̖͐̃̏̅́̈͝l̷̠̞̲̉͊̈́͆͒l̷̢͉̪­̻͚̪̭̙̩͖̩̲̐̂̑ ̶̗̬̹͕͓͉͚̘̤͙̠͐̅̋̌̄͆̆͘͝k̷̨̡̮̪̟̫̺͙̭̥̊̎͑̐͛͘î̸͉̜̂̒l̵̢͕͎̱̺̟̪̍̓̑̍͊̎̊̂͆̓̊­̒̕͜͝ĺ̵̡̼̼̯̦͕̪̖̦́̌̿̎̾͋͜͠͝ ̵̡̮̳͚͕͕͈̳͓͗̃͌̔̄̓́́̑̾̍͝k̴̨̝̫̦̺̣͍̮͈̲̞̾̃̈́̽́̕̕i̸̲̫̥͔̜̗̋̌́̿̓̅̉̓̂̐͛͋̽͘­͘l̷͎̘̠͖̯̹͓͛̅͂̊͛̉̌̓̈̀̀̋̚̕͠ĺ̶̯̈̏̉̎̊͗̿͐̂̉͛͂ ̶̜͑̓̃̑k̴̢̛̛͉͈̼͖̰̺̘͉̼̤͖̳̖͐̌̓͊͒̐͗͊͆͑̊̚ͅį̸̛͖͉͙̺̘͖͚̺̻̟͚̬̎̒̈́͘͜**** them alll̸̼̆̆̀͌̕l̷͎̹͚̖̯̲̭̳̗͂̓̽́̉̈́̔̿̅͑͠͝ ̸̧̡̰̪̙͉͈̺̭͍̓̎̈́͘͘͝ǩ̷̲̩͙͑̀i̵̪̗͈͉̖̝̬̥̬̻̫͌̈́͋̽̇̔͒͐̈́͒̀͐̓͝ͅl̶͉̠̼̣̙̯̲͚­̦̤̼̣͉̿̐̌̀͂̑̑̇̚̕͝ľ̴̢̦̤̺̪̝̰̯̠̙͋̓̊̒̓̈͘͝ͅ ̸̢̛̛͇͎̠͋͆̋̊̃̇̈́̉͘͠ķ̴̠̲͇̳̘̞̟̪̋͛̋̆̇̆̃ȋ̶̻̼̟̤̭̈̉̄̀͒̎̕ͅͅl̵͔̣̼͈̫͗̑̄̾ĺ̷͖­̫͇̖̐̎̌̉͑̈́̚̕̕ͅ ̷̨̲̲̳̫̦̙̪̥̱͈̾͊́̅͋̽͊̎̐̀̈́̍̚͜͝ͅk̷̳̺̲͚̥͇͍̿̚ȋ̷̡̙̦̞̜̜̼̰͙̝̲́̽͆̀͋̍͝l̸̢͚̜­̫̼͕̝͍̒l̵̢̢̗̬̯̩̯̭̗̣̰̽͂͆͑́̏͠ ̵̻̲̟̰͉̰̯͈̿͌̏͛͌͋̾͒͐̓̚͘͝k̶̡̜̭̰̝̩̭̩̜̿́ï̸̖͉͇͕̳̞̹͖̻̣̰͕̗̀͐͒̋̊̅̈́͋̂̐͐l̴̥­͉̯͔̺̺̲̥͕͈̣̱̳̓̐̈́̽̿l̵͓̺̯̫̗͇͒̾͛̄̈́͗͛͒̄̑̍͜ ̸̱̳͔̱̿̾͋̈́̂͊̊́̆̕k̵̢̛̩̳̙̭̹̫͉͚͚̖͙͊̎̽̇̆̅̊̉̚i̸̬̝̩͑̑̑͆̉͌̀͗͑͝l̵̢̢̼͉̘̿̄̃­̋̌̎͂͐̒̒̈́̚͝͝l̵̢̙̟̤͔̺̤͙̙̞͓̇͛͐͛̉̋͋̚͠͠͠ ̷̠̺̫̰̱͎̺͍̦͉̿̎̄̐͐̈́̌̈́̓͝ͅk̴̙̱̔́̏͒̓̅̈́̕̚͠͝i̴̡̺̬̜̞͎̬̘̒̍̅̈̓̂̈́̒͐͒͆̚͠l­̸̮̝̝͑̀͒̎̌̉͝l̷͓̦̳̼̏͑͋͊̃͠ ̴̰̮̐̓̑́̃̍̉̾̀̑͘k̵͙̓͌̓̊͛̑͒̄͘i̷̧̥̖̲̒̋̂̀͘ļ̴̲̙̫̟̟̳͖͓̈́͛̅̒͒͑͒̂͜l̸̳̦̺̲͎̝­̗̖͌̋̈́͊͜ ̶̫̱̪̣̋̉̃k̵̢̢̛̛̞̲̜̦̮͕͉͆̆͆̅̍͂̊͗̾̇̀i̸͎͍̲͇͕̞̝͑͋̏̍͑͗̏̒̅̈̎͑͝͝ļ̷͙̹͖̠͍̬̝̯­̞͔̞̊̇͗̔͊̆́̽͋͛̏́̈͝͠l̴̘͋̋̌̌̆͊̍̈́͛͗̈̐̀ ̶̤͕̔͌͂̽̇̔̅̃̎̌̀́̑̀͝k̷̡̛̪͉̪̗̞̦̤̼̐͆̈́̋̔̈́̈̀̍͛̊̽̕ì̷̢̞̓͑̑͘l̶̯͇̟̮̥̥̱̯̂̍­͂͂̓̇̂̋̈́ͅl̷̢̖̖͔̠̫̗̗̺̯͙͚̑ ̸̧̞̤̹̐͆̿͆̽̎̋̈́͐̃̈̀͘ͅk̷̨͖̺̋̋͘͝ḯ̶̗̗͔̈́̀̎̚͠͠ͅḻ̷̢̻̽̀̽͆̃̂͐͝ļ̶̨̤̝̖̫̼̅́̂­͑̎̍ ̴̡̫̪̘͖̙̯̲̗͎͙̙͙̟̲̋̏̃̽̔k̶̡͇͍̪͚̤̜̯͌͛̑̐̈̒̅͆͑͊͐͐̚͝ī̵͓̖͚̗̞̹̳̝͕̔̒͛̈́͆͑͂̔­̀̋̚̚͘l̵̢͓̟̭̩̦̥̩̰̘͓̯̱̑͠l̸̙͉̘̙̘̜͖̈ ̴̛͉͚̠̪̿k̸͔͚̠̼̰̐͌͌͒̊̌͊̂̋̿̊̇̕̚i̶̡͍̥̫͕͇̥͖͕̬̽̀̓̓̀̈́̐̂̈́̌̆͆͘ͅl̸̢̨̠̘͍͔̭­͖̠̝̞̈́͛̓͒̈́͌̾̈́́̏̆͒̅l̵̢̗̰̆̀̇̓́̇̀̉ ̶̨͍͇̥̳̜̮͍̻̥̟̜̣͇̀̂̈́̈́̂͛̓͝ǩ̶̡͕̠̤̆̿̈́̇í̵̡̭̪̘̝̞̓͂l̷̤̞̠̦̹̜̦̈́l̸̡̛̦͔͙͈­̞̪̝̐̍̔͌̅̕͠ ̵̹̱̜̰̝͚͖͎̞̲̮̣͛͝ͅk̴̭͕̰̏̄̌i̷͇̟͙̤̠̽̔̀̏̀̐́̚͝͠ļ̵͕̩̩̲͚̫͎̣̹͚̤̺̻̂̌̈́̔̔ḽ̷͙­̫̫͚͎͍̫̈̋̓͛̓̈͐͌̅͆̔̕̕͝ ̴̨̭͉̭͕͓͇̥̟͔̲͍̜̘̣̔̇̆k̶̡̨̤̱̯̮͍̲͓̥̣̩̄̏͊̍̂̈́̇͆͒͊͜͝i̶͖̗͔̞͔͓͐̽̍̏̿̏̀l̸̡̗­̯̺̟̫͈͕̤̮͉̠͎̤̚l̵̨̨̖͇̣͙̪͈͔̖̍̅̄̅̌̏̌́͐̋̑͜ͅ ̸̟̯̮̰̹̯͚̞̦̪̖͎̗̘͙͊k̷̢̢͔̘̠̤̬̐̆͆̄̊̃͂̓̀́̾̈́̑i̴̛̞̤̭͓͎̪̬͓͇̣̝̊͐̋̕͜l̴̨̛̝̘­̪̟̣̰̣̞̼̖̮̗͂̌́́͑͊̃͝ĺ̷̟̞͚̯͇̱̺͖̟͍̹̇̿͆̌̎̄̃͘ ̴̺͎̪̫̼̳̝̘̱͌̀͐̈́͂́͋͜k̸̛̹͖̤͈͍͌͗̑̍̀̌̓́̚͠͝i̷̛̛͕̘̝̪͈̖͖̔͆̆̿̃̂̀̓̈̔̎̕l̵̛̠­̳͔̼̪̾̔̿͐͂͛̌͘̚͠l̷̨̙͍̯̹͉̱̫͐̈́̇͒̉͊͆͂͑ͅ ̶̛͚͎̯̖͑̒̃͒́̚͠k̶̛̛̙̰̦̋͒̃̿̆̿̕i̵̡̢̛͙̯̩̬͐̉̆́̈́͑͌̈͋̔̋l̷̡̢͖͔̳̗̠͍̭͕̼͙̥͚̍­̓́̀̑͊͋̈́̅̇̕͠l̶̨̆̐ ̵̠̥͔̙̣͇̖̪̻̝̇͌̿̃̊̊͠ͅthem all ****

Oh how great this red liquid feels, parting as my hand intercepts it's p̶̧͍͎͓̙̥̻̘͔̗̉́͛̈͌̓̽̐̅̈́͌̌̓͋̄̓̍́̈́̎̎̚͝͝a̸̰͙̣͓̼̪̼̜̳̅t̴̡̡̥͓̩̘̳̣̹̬͉̝̗­̮͚̬̘͔̫͙̩͉̐̀̾͜ͅͅh̵̘͌̀͌̊̑̈͘͝ towards the floor
My fingers swimming in your intestines
gutting you
how your screams of p̸̗̟̯͉̘͚̝̳͓͉̱̮͎͎͓̩̜̦̄́̊̒̽̔͒̀̈́̿͂̓̀̎̎̏̆͆̕a̵͇̱͔̲̭̲̮͓̲̼͓͌̆̆̓̈́̈ì̸̡̢̨­̳̭̝̠̺̟͎͇̪̘͖͕̫͔̼͍̝̀̆̄̌̾̍͊̒͐̔̋͋̐̂̚͜͠n̵͔͓̺̰̤͙̹̓̒̒́̍́̎̍̀̀̊̌̕͝ fill my ear, bringing a smile of unfathomable pleasure to my face,
how this putrid smell fills my lungs as my knife cuts different parts of your body, letting me savor the moments as i switch paces between slow and fast while you lose the energy to scream, letting your pain and emotion out with little grunts and moans
as i rip off your nails one by one, your hidden flesh comes exposed to light for the first time, your pupils shrinking as you realize that your death wont come anytime soon. I grab your hair as my knife rests in the other hand,
i slowly draw it near your eye, and insert. blood splats on the floor as torture creeps through my brain, filling every thought, like spiders multiplying in a corner, spreading to every inch of the walls. Your helpless cries escape the gag which was designed to limit your voice, your helpless attempts of struggling each time i rip away another part of your body, exposing more and more and more, your bones cracking as i increase my pressure to a point where your bones give in and snap, releasing everything built in and letting it go off onto the flesh the suffocates it, twisting and bending your body in ways that make you unrecognizable, ripping off your nose with the kitchen knife i use almost every single day, your vision darkening with each and every swing from my hammer to your stomach, the red liquid staining my eyes, burning its image into my retina, death is so beautiful. Oh death, the way you ****, how death teases by being so close to touch  yet pulls back once you reach for it, how it makes you wait an et̶̨̧͈̄̈́͗̉́͌̿̍͋͗̀̈́́͒̾̈́̆͆͌͐́̾̀͌̚ę̸̡̘̫̰͔̻̗̘͔̩̗̐͌̄͂̈́͋̊͐͛̊͒͆̅̑̄̀͒­͜͠r̵̢͍͓̙̖͓̥̝͙̝̹̺͕͓̬̻͕̾́nity to achieve its grace. I hate you. I will never forgive you. My eyes are filled with those of a killer. I want to bathe in your guts. They shine so brightly as my knife grazes them. You still move and i question why, are you fighting to live after all this time? Are you trying to make me love you? These feelings, so complicated, oh silly you, moving about like a fly caught in his trap. Stab. Let your pain, blood, and torture fill my recipe. Succumb to me. Let the your beautiful pain fill the mouths of others eager for your lovely boba, let the joy of m̷̡͓͚͕̩̪͎̳̪̟͕̝̖̯͖̥̗͎̈́̂̐͂͊͛́͆̀͒͠͠ͅͅͅmȗ̵̧̩̗̬͈̣̭̮̗̠̦̬̫̟̽͒̌͐̐̓͌ṛ̸̢̲̮­͉̫̝̟̜̏̌̉̉͊̐̇͆́̀̎̐͆̎̔̕͠͝ͅd̴̛̛͇̲͈͗͆͛̉̉̋̎̑͋͝e̴̮̝͖͓͕̪̻̩̦̥͔̪͇̖͋̋̏̇͑̈́̂­ŗ̵̨̢̢̢͈̩̻͖͓̣̗͈̪̖͙̜͔̥̥̳͈͇̖͂ͅ ******, the risk and it's adrenaline flow through my veins as I stab and I stab and stab and stab a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌­̅͆́͆̕͜d ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘ and stab and stab a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌­̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘ a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌­̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅand stab and stabņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜and stab and stabḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅand stab and ststab stab stab stabab ņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜stab stab stab stab b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇­͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗­͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘and stab and stab
a̵̡̨̡̜͇͉̘̭͓̤̙̼̬̠͓̝̙͋̒̏̏̉̇̓̏̋̇͛̍̆͗̃̕͘͘͘͜͜͠͝͠ͅņ̷̬͈̲̠̫̘̱͇̰̭͍̾̓̔­̄͒̄́̌̅͆́͆̕͜ḑ̶̡̧̺̥̹̦͍̝͉̗̤̦̪͉̬͚̰̘̘̭͗͆̅̽͗̂͑ͅ ̶̢̧̦̙̖͙͔̻̭̳̰̙͍̫̫̲͈̟͚̀̍͑̎͊̈́̏̃͐̉͐́̕͘̚͝s̴̡̢̡̢̢͚̻̭̩͉͔̪̜͎̪̣̹̹̱̿̅̈́̀̓͑­̊͗͛̐̒̑̂͜͜͝͝t̴̟̻̣̲̠̳̭̮́͒̏̋ã̷̦̻̳̗͖̫̝̖̞̰̠̺͓̺͐͜b̷̛͕͎͚̣̭͉̞̯̭̝̖̱̖͈̘̖̑̿̉­̓͆́̇̑̍͒͗̿͑̌͗̂̈̂͜͝͝ ̸̡̛̛̙̱̲͍̳͚̲̫̭̹͙̓̑́͌͒̔̔̈́͂̀͌͐̀͐͊͋̍͒̚͘




dont mess with my life
i smile when i can, but dont push me
i try to be nice, but the murderer running through my head still exists
and the only time you will gaze upon him
is when your death arrives
My hand, a little raised, might press a star--
Where I may look, the frosted peaks are spun,
So shaped before Olympus was begun,
Spanned each to each, now, by a silver bar.
Thus to face Beauty have I traveled far,
But now, as if around my heart were run
Hard, lacing fingers, so I stand undone.
Of all my tears, the bitterest these are.

Who humbly followed Beauty all her ways,
Begging the brambles that her robe had passed,
Crying her name in corridors of stone,
That day shall know his weariedest of days--
When Beauty, still and suppliant at last,
Does not suffice him, once they are alone.
nate k Jul 2014
head sways
from left to right
arms swinging
back and forth
walking traipsing
treading
the careful
surface of your
teacup filled with
the bitterest coffee
no sugar
no cream
no teaspoon
to save you from
falling
do
     w
         n
(c) nate k.  2014
Mercurychyld Aug 2014
Among the silent,
thunderous
halls of the mind,
there are pathways
one should seldom
roam, for, often,
the bitterest of
fruit grows between
the walls of an
intricate cognitive
labyrinth.

Still...
I walk the very
walkways that will
either lead me to
complete
self-destruction or
to enlightenment
and divinity.

I walk quietly,
tiptoeing around
certain memories,
so as not to awaken
them from their
slumber, and
incur their wrath.

I walk on glass
footsteps, as the
shards make their
way in through
broken arches,
in search of a place
to call home,
among the ruins of
a broken spirit
and a bludgeoned,
weeping heart.

Such is love and life
and the ever present
shadow of remembrance,
and still I walk,
leaving scarlet
footprints along
the way...

to remember
where I've been.





-by Mercurychyld
Copyrights
Ken Pepiton Aug 2022
The work words have to do, I do as well
leaving being as having been begun
ghabh-
also *ghebh-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning
"to give or receive."
The basic sense of the root probably is "to hold,"

Able comes from this, thus
ability  

8 billions, say
- the ob-servant says,
half are breathing in, as half
were breathing out,

certainly a few were out of sync,
so some of us sneezed, one would think
to effect the fectuality, unawares,

stutter steps, bridge march, aware
smell the honey suckle smell, no,
discern a subtle dif-fer tle,lit-tle
bit
literal not sames, similar sense, smell
seeming
how more aware have we all become,
we who lost taste and smell, while
experiencing a pandemic in our time.
Eventually endemic.
How rare are we in history? First wave.
Mindful, some how, now
my taste and smell
systems are back,
on.

Off, again, try to remember the smell,
of linden trees in Helena,
and wonder, set a mind on wish to know
will wonder, the worth of which we know

but fail to consider until… un til, tilling soil,
un
I think, et I'm y conjoined, to reconsider you.

At my bitterest root,
my jealousy and rage,
- alleluia, you know the drill
my will to act like some ancient god.
Cursing all I ever was.
-disconfabulating my own legend… uses
time, in points made.

May I guess we know each word,
writ and read, in this medium sprouted from
science with held from those
limited access faith confirmations, holy secret
ways out of paying for all the idle words,
never taken for the sense intended,
foremost
sense
posited, as a point in time,
we agree, I can, we did

--plea, please explain, make it seem
as real as any dream, we can't handle the truth.
-pointless-
- why carry the weight of knowing
think of nothing
in a word,
yet
not in time/
-- a spirit from the mortals fearing death
lives in this lie, cultural *******, fear of measure,
spit an image, imagine a nation, from dragon's teeth
spat, shat, splat, all the same, fat rain sound.
-- crack of the gavel, give us rapt attention---
order, order in the court, when, in fact,
judgement begins where Jesus says God is,
in his forever state, in me, of we, who
took him at his word, be true, live.
the way
courtesy commands, as judgment begins
in the spirit
of the man,

The right hand ignores the left hand clapping
-present the feeble fable

Discord sown among brothers-
hate the owning fact of life, only one breath,

- listen to the retold old word tale
- endemic demes enforced knowledge
- from **** to last told tale… we are this
- this is epic in each occurrence… we realize
smoked ribbon winds around in
form,
the long winter mind, all hearing ears, feel
from our gut, we obey. We join image-e- nations.

We dare ante-cipitate the motion in the dance.
All public opinion re
arrives at one point. We have no reasons for war,
we are not the users of others, we give, and
have been given unto, in some inexplicable way,

peace in time to rest in it, dabbling in old lies, left
binding cultural ties, as all reason for stiffness wilts

We listen to the Wendigo,
who wound the ******* greedy winding wake,
when the forest was aflame, and the wind had no cloud
that did not poison rain.
- meandering progress, not steam ship progress
sense posed reason aitia, to the t/
spirit and image in the idiom/
sublime

Now, the teller, looks to me, reminds me
of light perceived as punctual, flashing,
aha, waves in passing
understood.
Effectually.
- we stand as one.
- In the ready written mind.

All but he who takes a knee, ala George Washington,
under the leafless tree, in the olden vale.

The point of any thing, is made for, f-word for or fore
before, forsaking, one must make for some sake,
no relationship to four, for some reason, get
as a service, do what you do. Right.
Why would one enabled to do good,
do otherwise?

Ignor the answers you ask for.
Pretend poetry never makes
sense in terms of poetic good, exhaled, relieved,

passing coolness in the air.
- as gentle spirits some say do
Orderly arrangement, left mind, right or most versatile hand,
point at any thing,
bend that finger,
as on a trigger,
we can, we
know not how, we know, we have, we hold certain
positioning words as one mind may, I know,

I just got my smell back.
Like that, but after using your James Webb visualizing augments.
The wheel galaxy, just as imagined… we see

In effect, this is science, this is history,
this is art and language, holding sway,
we all know earth produces on a cycle, right,
greed breeds and brings forth famine,
famine finds us eating our corporations…
Jubilee, reset
-ship, shape, worth-shape, sense make,
peace where war was, one point
at a time.

Hold that thought, this is intended for

an audience, as the Terminal List,
was made to entertain military minds,
mental peace enforcer traits, keepers
of the secret, duty to the concept,..
live free, or die- for no reason,
save the Platonic essential lie.

Peacemakers were not intended,
we want valient warriors, at the core,
not the passive resistors increasing
capacity
to have the whole world sneeze.
And blink,
To sell words redeemed, mercurial recovery,

as from first people stories, branching away,

chaparral, between the salty sea,
and high reaching pine

fishing in a sea of social forgotten schemes/

Self govern, but in these days, not the future,
self govern now, participate in the present,

NPC over sight, non intervention-invention,
installed when you agreed, you watch,
do not rewrite the ending/

So, story being told.
Story being made up to conserve,

serve a certain truth we know, winter comes
some times for too long,

so we consider the ant, and remember Wendigo.

greedy gut, cheater, long time ago, we know,
we all can be the hungered beast.

Wait, and see, some day, we see the peace pass
for understanding, and we wonder into a we,
state of awe, as a we aware, we think

whole worlds and only words, at once.
Making peace from confused principle things.

We can, others have, agree; we are the best/

--------
Welfare, fare thee well, we said

we are as rich as ever was,
but we live a quiet life.

Pressure from some outside source,
begins be gins beginning to squeeze,

and pull and stretch, who needs the show
shown every where,
there, those other people, who own
no means to make a living form we are
reality personality types, all observants
become familiar with,
predicting winners, if it happens

I coulda been a contender, the audience
always know,
just how it feels, to be on your own,
a compleated unknown enfolding old Dylan licks,

Wendigo, there he go,
lickin' his chops, BG words are all I have
to take his breath away,

soft, and gentle/ sub-tility, wait, as sufficient

seed becomes something, never just a seed again,
and then just a seed a million times, in the wind.

-------------
3:55
I've driven myself to reflection
point,
observation con services ob
scene, objects mis directed, rect-
ify, io I mean, finger mover, on demander
I, free, willing, hunting wendigo from fantacy
conforming to hate manifested, abhor evil,
-never rests, never
rest in stranger's peace of mind,
find plain old apples in the tree, free, no fines,
no charge, non sense, an-tic

click onoma-tope -- under all of history, we know,

scribes, alone, found time to write, after reasoning
in the agora all day… ancient minds, WWSD?

--- listen, I am ashamed to beg, so, what does
your tab say, listen, I'm thinking

that's too much, here, take your ledger, wipe the debt.

Clean, no remnant from which revenant wrongs make claim,

first story told was told as lies, intended to deceive.

Knowledge is truth's gift, we live and learn
and pass it on. One point, inevitably crossing now.
And leaving a ripple, no marks

Yet, behind all that, this peace in mind, as a state, mindstate
timespace space time

taken, for granted bequilement does not disconnect,
knowing from known, and proof from pudding,
true rest,
reason for peace taken, in knowing, some body
had to believe, if it feels good, suddenly,
you know, every thing we eat
turns to ****, unless we learn…

that is good. Deal with it.
Homework, listen again to Braiding Sweetgrass.
WE have cried in our despair
That men desert,
For some trivial affair
Or noisy, insolent sport,
Beauty that we have won
From bitterest hours;
Yet we, had we walked within
Those ******* towers
Where Helen waked with her boy,
Had given but as the rest
Of the men and women of Troy,
A word and a jest.
She’ll wander back to you again,
but drawn by the string
of ineffable instinct—kissing the sand
of your beaches still damp
by the routine of her departure.
Yet as she recedes,
you already ache her homecoming
as though longing for an estranged relative.

You count the years
by the bitterest point
of every winter, and
value your harvests
against the cruelty of the drought—
and even when she rearranges herself
nightly, by increments you’ve already calculated
by meticulous observation,
somehow good fortune owes you eternity,
even as it crumbles under the weight
of its own impermanence.

You’ve never dealt well with entropy;
all that came before you, which also happens
to survive you—an honorary god.
Stranded on earth,
you monitor your greying scalp as grimly
as you decry a darkening sky above you succumbing
to the certainty of winter, but
even she is ebbing, too.
You curse her departure like an abandoned child,
but she had never sinned against you—
that was your idea.

You mourn the day she repossesses
with mortal anguish,
yet you still find a way to forgive her
when she sends Dawn
to shine his light between the trees.
http://arborscape.tumblr.com/post/127099654326/via-28-beautiful-words-the-english-language
Hal Loyd Denton Feb 2013
Re-posted for Easter

Walk within close out the outward world the still the awe magnificence all in all you as a living part make
Up the essential missing part all is null and void you give it a living heart the voice that stirs before
Lifeless sterile all so sharp the cold gleaming not in one corner was life streaming books without singing
The word without confirming just a foreign space out of place knowledge without a receptor a scepter
With no one to bless the makings of the truest ideas that fall as waste in this disregarded place hold
Forth blessings the infilling the attester a divine origin with capabilities that reach beyond the criminal
Behavior of a fallen tribe who seeks only wantonness who spill blood of innocents then devise means that
Are continuously unholy all the while out in a world that is a breeding ground for injustice hold ever
More tightly pursue death your chosen desire life within these walls pastoral scenes show intimacy
Peaceful calm gentle streaming water does it not reflect the horrors of conflict the abuse suffered
By the weak and helpless when they went their own disastrous way yes but headstrong is the only
Real way otherwise you are nothing but the stupor vexed underprivileged so it is the child with the
Greatest father protective unlimited love patience that allows the widest growth process with built in
Guides that steer you ever deeper into the dream you were conceived in the full quality of life you
Are assured its truth over shadows the smallness of a cathedral what is that when you are a temple
Of the holy spirit designed to hold all that is supremely holy your very countenance brims surges to its
Fullest capacity it passes to others at a distance a special realness not tainted with deceit they know and
Feel peace emanating from your life when troubled they seek you out the cheap thrill of this world is no
Longer desirable they want substance a tranquil isle that offers tried and true help marriage trouble
Children in dangerous circumstance the world only offers it glittering false shine the tease of temptation
That hides the chains within its sullen folds of death and destruction at this bitterest and most
Delusional point is where your greatest opportunity exists to find help the devil thought he was leading
You to death that being true but where else would the wisest father place an intersection for life a
New beginning complete fulfillment and happiness it’s only a prayer away you will be held by the
Strongest hands and arms tucked away safely and find delirious love and affection your world View will be forever altered to one of tears for those still trapped there
Courtney Gaura Mar 2016
A curious confection
Of mystery and death
Of hated perfection
And reasonable breath
Of nightmarish lines and finds
Of aching bones
And too many land mines
A horridous groan
Of every reasonable thought
That is slipped from your grasp
A life that ought to be wrought
And ends with short gasp
Taking care to not ruffle the feathers
Of the divine
Or trouble the lives of your betters
Oh world would you ever be mine
It's hard to define whatever I could say
That are constructed with truths and lies
If only I could live 'till may
But oh how my time flies
A sweet sorrowful fairwell
To my past to ever last
And to the future pray tell
I hope I go fast
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2016
****...
        had an appointment,
a triage appointment from 8 a.m. onward,
that went high flying  with Icarus and Lucifer -
dazed and confused woke up at approx. 9 a.m.,
the life of a kingmaker; but never the king -
                                     energy! energy! energy!
downed a whiskey and eased... dialled the number
to the local surgery,
Dr. So-and-So was told he had a nice
voice... started doing the auto-cue...
nice muzak - classical, Bach
symphony no. don't know -
6th in line...
                      first dial the conversation
sounded like:
hello?
              can you hear me?
are you there?
             hello?
                                i could hear the
business of clerks and office
banter in the background, got hung up.
dialled again...
                   n'eh n'oh n'eh n'oh (more like
knee-no, knee-no, knee-no and
bright blue fluorescent blinking lights)
            waited with more Bach muzak...
  the same woman answered as she did
yesterday...
                       yeah, he called,
sorry, i'm an insomniac, fell asleep at
the last hurdle, missed the call,
can i book another appointment?
                 past the slight slur and
disorientation (**** me, mornings are
rough, not as rough as i remember them,
but rough enough these days):
and ever you hear the glorification of
work and never mention the Chinese thieves:
beckoning the dynamic toward Auschwitz.
   so i was playing Adele for a while...
- hello?
- hello?
                      - yes, hello...
- hello?
                    - me Tarzan, me book appointment...
- hello?
                          **** on me,
never do whiskey in the morning,
have some barley and milk...
               yes, me, book, appointment,
England pays me £120 a week for poems
but doesn't know it...
     i pretend to be sick but i'm competing
with Stephen Hawking for the disability...
turns out my brain isn't made of concrete
but of a variety of sponges that soaked up
salmon sweat...
                            so i get booked...
apparently nurse Lizzy (Elizabeth?
yes, Liz, she want's to check my blood pressure
and my cholesterol levels...
                                                   )
dandy, and Andy too (cockney hack for
lazed handy and the oops joke) -
                     **** on me, it's mandible,
jaw or play-dough,
            softer... softer... softly...
smooth operator... smooth operator...
             and she says bye like 20 times before
i hang up...
                             it all seems like lovers
talking by the end of it...
                               so after 2 p.m.?
   thank you...
                                the way women say
bye bye bye...
                                into that famous hush...
            i end up petting the cat
and watching the godforsaken drizzle of
                             jesting rain that feels like
a complete remark of wetting a square metre...
                  then it's onto an article
about Paxman's dad...
                                       i wasn't perfect, once
upon a Grimm's tale...
                                       i used to binge
once a week, never smoked,
                                      studied...
            all that hushed bye bye bye
over the phone and a Yob's redemption aren't
on the horizon... don't sacrifice yourself for
things inherent if you can't redeem...
                                  i'm just like the rest of them:
       broken,
                       broken,
                                        and left to scramble
testicles for the bitterest of jokes:
                             i don't pity the kids with
cancer...
                  they're too brave to be pitied,
they have no competence of life,
                                        and they're the lucky ones.
i pity the nervous wrecks that surround them,
staging excess ethical conduct of Hippocrates
            happy little ******* engaged with
so much affection... never human cruelty and
the human definition of thought-in-transit: boredom...
        happy little *******...
                                         angelic choir ensemble -
    and with a snap of the fingers: without a moan
or a groan... gone...
                                        gone gone gone...
a **** evaporating into roses and flamboyant
chequers of shameful cheeks
                              in Bermuda:
                         pirouettes in high-heels.
still...
          2 p.m. and another appointment...
fun playing that Adele game over the phone with
               a sexed up voice of longing.
Kassiani Aug 2018
It seemed like a story
For Schrödinger
Time and distance ensured that
They were
All things and
Nothing
At once
And, in this way, they stayed in perpetual orbit
She wondered if
In another life
     In another place
          Time
               Universe
Their lives would have intersected
Instead of diverging
     Unrequited
To haunt her with all that could have been

It was the bitterest irony
When at last their paths swerved together
That both hearts had already been spoken for
Somewhere
     The Fates were surely cackling
          As the air hung heavy
               With all the possibilities
                    That died on the vine
Because time was never on their side

How could one even cry for something they’d never had?
She found herself heaving uncontrolled sobs
Shaking with unfettered grief
In mourning
     For all the things
          She had wanted to live
All the bright dreams of their teenage years
That had seemed so perfect
Shattered by the bitterness of
Growing up
And that old ******* Father Time

If she were honest with herself
She’d admit it was not him
She actually loved all these years
But all the things he might have been
—or rather—
All the things she might have been with him
What a different life she might have had if
     One day
          She had followed her
               Wild teenage love
Instead of living in this cosmic joke

She’ll never know
But she’ll heave sobs
For all the parallel lives she is not living
And the orbit she will return to
Knowing she’ll never be satisfied
     She’ll always wonder
          Always be gazing off
               Trying to glimpse a galaxy
Where things turned out better
7/30/18
Marshal Gebbie Mar 2020
Jottings from David Bagerow's "Quickie"

Shame on she, the selfless *****
Who caused your temperature to fire,
caressed your sandy, sweated brow
To rivers of desire,
Tho she fled at poignant time
To leave you in the lurch.
Best you weave your magic touch
And promise her, the church.
Then woo her and caress her
In your happy, carefree way
Then at that moment of exultance,
Laugh and run away.

David Lessar's "To an Unread Poet"

Dave, You are right ,of course, once committed you raise an expectation and once that expectation is released to the world you are obliged to maintain face...but that damnable thing called "Life" intervenes and totally stuffs up the programme. Take the current interlude of coronavirus...the whole world has been taken by the scruff of the neck and jammed, inconveniently and complaining, into seclusion, all systems ground to a halt, production lines vacated, malls and city centres deserted, blown newspaper cascading across the deserted pavement...a testament to mans ultimate frailty when his house of cards collapses, without a whimper.
So you see, as life intervenes...we are excused from maintaining face.
But fear not, like McArthur, we shall return.
Cheers mate M.

Fawn's "Happy Trails"

Were it not the touch profound
That doth caress my feathered ear
Would thou wish a thousandfold
That I should shed a tear?

A glistened tear suspended there
in iridescent light,
While you, my love, with parted lips
Await, the ruby night.

Victoria's "Wherefore Art Thou"

Strides, he does, through corridors of lust bound lessers,
through forests of small penised dwarfs, through canyons of would be's who could be.....just to countenance the promise within your words....Dear Vix!

Terry O'Leary's "Sweet Butterfly"

You enter the portals of entomology where bugs, flies,butterflies and moths are the true rulers of the planet.
A world vastly magnified by compound eyes, of lightening lifetimes and vivid, saturated colour. A world where life and death are synonomous with the culmination of a single ****** union and the reproduction of a batch of precious pearly eggs. Yea Brother thee hath entered the portal...rejoice!
M.

Fun with Terry O'Leary

"Buried in the Sand" by Terry O’Leary

A beggar clump adorns a dump, his pencil box in hand -
With sightless eyes upon the skies he’s lying there unmanned.

He’s fallen down in Shantytown, his knees too weak to stand,
With no relief and bitter grief too dark to understand.

The Bowery blight is hid from sight, it’s covered up and bland,
And Robin Hood and Brother Hood lie buried in the sand.

"A Rebuttal" by Marshalg

So Hood lied low, despite the show ensueing without help,
One would have thought a British sort would spring forth with a yelp!

Would spring ***** to help deflect contusions which occurred
When beggar Clump adorned the dump confusing all deferred.

Whilst sister Ant, attired in scant, ran forth on spindly legs
And brother Frog with shaggy dog said "****" and drank the dregs.

It all became too much, as such, a meelee did ensue,
So all called HALT and as one did BOLT...to the local for a brew!

Phew...that was FUN & hard work!
M.

Singing the Devil's Song*

There is no Makers formula
This life depends on chance,
The way you play your given cards
Depicts your daily dance.

Oh dogma flows in utterance
From pulpits far and wide
From those who claim to understand
Eternity's vast hide.
From those who hold damnation
As a weapon from on high,
From those who claim a judgement
As their finger points to sky.
The good, the bad are absolute,
The right bedevils wrong,
Redeemed shall live eternally
The bad shall singe for long.

Old men stand in pulpits
Across this Sunday's land
To threaten with damnation
If you should cross God's hand.
"Belief" is now their catchword
Abomination's wrong
Is to seek to proffer proof of claim
....to Sing the Devil's Song.

So gather all ye faithfull
Go listen to your man,
Sing the Gospel loud and long
And pay your tithe, as planned.
...But should you find you're dying
From cancer's frozen claw
And the the Godly fail to sweep you
To eternity's gold door?
Remember my clear message
Your life depends on chance,
You live within your own good sphere
....There is no Maker's Dance.

Marshalg
After an overdose of Pulpit hogwash.
10 March 2013

Singing the Song of Angels:
A Response to Marshal Gebbie's "Singing the Devil's Song"
By Luca Anselm
There’s a church in the city with pillars of stone
And windows like sea-glass, still and alone,
A fountain, and cloisters of ivy, away
From the noise of the street, and the hum of the day.
There my father would tell me of Christ, how he died
Surrounded by soldiers and thieves, crucified,
How he wept for the women, and fell in the sands,
And loved those who hammered the nails in his hands.  

Marshal, dear poet, you have heard the priests tell
Of a god who left heaven to walk into hell?
Of a god who wept softly for men he had known?
Of a god who dripped blood in a garden alone?
Of a god who sent men with book and with sword
With eyes bright as fire for love of their Lord,
With limbs dressed in black, on altars of stone
By windows of sea-glass, still and alone?

So they give up their lives for a lie, as we say,
And toiled for centuries, long as each day--
And our money built palaces, lofty and tall
With frescoes and candlesticks, gold on the wall--
They preach with words awful and deadly and free,
Of gorgons and hell-fire, worms and the sea,
Of the last day of judgment, and mankind amassed
By the wailing of angels and bright trumpet blasts…

But Marshal, they preach something sweeter and kind--
Of a mother’s soft love, of a father resigned,
Of a still, soft voice, that comes with a light,
And gives hope to the hopeless, and conquers the night.
Of charity, piety, sweetness and love
Like fiery ***-cakes, but soft as a dove,
Spicy as Christmas, solemn and grand--
(Like throne-rooms or magic or the roar of the strand)
Then you wake, and the house smells of peppermint-pine,
And a child is laid in the crèche, now a shrine.  

And all that I long for, dear Marshal, you see,
Are the gold-blooming gardens that soar by the sea,
The mountains and dragons, the prophets and kings
And Icarus falling with fire-fraught wings,
The grey-shifting sea-lanes, the flutter of sails,
Temples on mountaintops, graves in the vales,
And Dido who bleeds from her breast as she cries
For her Love, and stares helplessly into the skies.
But more than the shadows of worlds that might be
Of fairies or phantoms or rocks by the sea,
Dear Marshal, I long for who made me a man.
And would love and give glory as best as I can.

But these days oh! sad days, the loss and the shame
In which all of my loveliness falls into flame--
Where gardens have withered, and sails have been furled,
And kings plodded off in the dust of the world.
Our cities rise higher, and burn through the night
And rear into heaven with noise and with light,
The palisades echo with horns and sound
And the churches with voices and quarrels resound.
But the statues sit silent, and some say they cry
For the shame of the sins against children. Oh! My God, Why?

And those old men—well—they taught me the loveliest things
Of my gardens of gold, and the sunsets of things,
They told me of kindness, and honor, a way
That winds to the West, where the end of the day
Breaks bright like fresh bread, and crimson like wine,
And the sun sets to purple and green in the brine.

And still I remember their words and their songs
And the churches which taught me so well and so long--
Though I’ve turned my head, to the lands where the sun
Will rise again brighter when starlight is spun,
Somewhere fresher and pale, where the cold and the air
Spreads the dew like a lawn paved of crystal, and there,
In the meadows of silver, with light in my eyes,
I will honor my god in the dome of the skies.

Marshal Gebbie's poem "Singing the Devil's Song" inspired this. It's in anapestic tetrameter, for you metric buffs. If you haven't, you should absolutely check out Marshal's stuff--it's awesome and poetry-inspiring--seriously amazing. Thanks again, Marshal!

Sepia Sown

Sepia sown as best it can
Where you and I, as one, once ran
Across, beyond a savored sea
Where lust became reality.
Where spiraled lust, entwined, entrenched
Left you gasping, pale, en benched...
a figment of a thought, now lost
Forever..at what cost, what cost?
M.

Addenum to "obituary" by V

So no one notices, at all
When golden greys of aged fall?
Except perhaps, for those who stay
To blend with every ordinary day

Plus you and I as time flies by
And too, those starlings flocking high.
That old man loitering in street,
Who eyes the million passing feet.
And she too at corner store,
Toothless face and wrinkled maw,
Exchanging cigarettes for coin
(With surreptitious scratch of groin).
Mailman, fat, long, loop mustache
Complaining long and rather harsh,
That they, gone, without a word,
Should vanish into air...absurd!

Someone in their every day
Feels the absence in the way
Details don't fall into place
And warmth is absent from the face.
M.

The Kraken Arises

From blue tranquillity where turquoise waters wash white golden sand, where brilliant fish school in myriad colour and shape, where magnificent squadrons of sleek tarpon and barracuda dash in perfect formation, grazing schools of silver mackeral through diamond flecked deep green shallows, to plunge vertically down to the depths of the black abyss and security.

Calm tropical waters which shimmer like aqua blue glass in the mid day heat and turn to simmering,red fire at the setting of the enormous, ovate, orange sun.

Sea birds flock above wind blown waves, their sharp cries a symphony of the sea, to suddenly wheel and dive en mass, to dine amidst teeming schools of flashing, shiny minnows.

The idyllic picture of a calm blue infinity of ocean framed, in brilliant sunshine, by white sands and gracefully bowed coconut palms.....and suddenly, at the horizon, a thin black line appears, It approaches with steadily, mounting speed, the coastline surf recedes dramatically seaward leaving exposed coral, mountains of seaweed and frantic flapping, beached fish everywhere. A sudden, oppressive silence becomes a distant roar. The sea birds, as one, take panicked flight... and a massive wall of water rears up and rises like a giant beast, to rush headlong, raging, at the coastline.

What once was blue and serene is now a huge cascade of violent black death and destruction, gigantically it destroys the coast, snapping huge trees like twigs, surging ashore, a tsunami of unimaginable violence it obliterates, housing, streets, bridges, vehicles, shipping, aircraft and people, thousands of panicked, helpless, struggling people, killed in a titanic, black, swirling maelstrom of inexorable violence. The wave is followed by another...and another, extending right along the coastline and beyond. Each wave larger and more violent than the last...surging inland for miles  until defeated by the accident of gravity in rising land.

Those who have survived, on high land, on tall buildings, in treetops....cling to each other and look on in horror and utter helplessness. They can only wait, in fear, for the monster to retreat before venturing down to the devastation below to render help where ever they possibly can.

Twice in the space of the last forty thousand years the Kraken has awaken and risen from the depths of the Tasman Sea to the west of New Zealand. It has risen to gigantic proportions and driven right across the Auckland isthmus to the Pacific Ocean. It has twice flattened gigantic primeval Kauri forests laying them waste, all lying in one direction, each time beneath twenty feet of debris and black mud.

Born in innocence from a natural tectonic adjustment of the earth plates, the Kraken doth arise at any time, in any place to wreak it's dreadful work upon we, who reside in our comfortable, seemingly secure and beautiful coastal idylls.

Marshalg
Dedicated to all the coastal population exposed to the threat of inevitable tectonic induced tsunami.
JAPAN. WEST COAST, USA. WEST COAST, SOUTH AMERICA. ALL PACIFIC ISLANDS. NEW ZEALAND. INDONESIA. AUSTRALIA. SOUTH AFRICA. EAST COAST, CHINA. MALAYSIA.
KOREA. THAILAND. PAPUA NEW GUINEA, VIETNAM. PHILIPPINES. TAIWAN. BURMA.

Part of My Job (A love Poem) by Nat Lipstadt

A little embarrassed by all the attention but great to hear from you Sweetheart...all fine and dandy, here...except for being forbidden to go to the beach and the park..and anywhere else except in cases of dire need..(And on punishment of prison time if caught out!)...but hey, I'm not really complaining...All for he common good, aint that right?
M.

Bridges Burnt....

Bridges burnt in Winter rain
Holds a saddened felt refrain,
Holds a touch of muted horn
Blown in passion unadorned.
Blown away in errant winds
Where no truthlessness rescinds,
Where a lie begat the night
Interceding lost love's plight.

Bridges burnt in Winter rain
Sacraments of loss remain,
Sacraments fragmented drift
Redemption clad in bloodied shift,
Redemption worn as wrong slays right
Till wrongfulness blots out the night,
Till no return this path can be
Until they torch eternity.

M.
SE Reimer's words float before me in his impassioned poem "Bridges"
allowing me to wallow in this, my own dark tangential refrain.
M.

Perchance, in a Bus Shelter

Here I sit amidst the ruin of a white winters' day
Convulsive rain and harsh wind outside, contribute tumult.
And in here, in this small shelter, there is a tension in the air.

We two sit apart, uncommunicative, remote and quite detached.
Not for any reason other than the fact that we are strangers,
We have never met, nor are we ever likely to.
She has an elegance and a stylish angularity whilst I am bald, bearded, unfashionable and somewhat overweight.
She is singularly indifferent to my presence, whilst I am uncomfortable with the circumstance that placed us in this small proximity.
We would, in truth, rather both be elsewhere.

I break the ice in throwing her a small smile and complain about the weather,
Her eyes flick across my face and immediately resume their distant focus on the rain,
She adjusts her seating to face,ever so slightly, askance.
Her choice of course, to assume an air of indifference or superiority...or adopt a measure of defense..or perhaps a combination of a bit all three.  
Regardless... I wipe my backside in exactly the same manner as does she, I  am definitely no less a person for my dumpy demeanor and friendly overture
And I really feel that I don't have to share my space with coldness and impertinence,
Better, I think, to be wet and content with my own company
..So, donning my cap and jacket, I stride out into the deluge to leave the remote and uncommunicative young woman alone and dry with her thoughts.

And then....
Howling rain and shards of wind
Pelt me as I walk
Along the foreshore wild and white
As hovered seagulls squark.
When all at once she's by my side
Walking pace for pace,
Her linen suit a sodden mess
Hair plastered to her face.

"Thought I ought to make it right"
She told me with a smile
I threw my coat upon her back
And walked another mile.
We called into a coffee shop
And sat down by the fire
And sipped a steaming latte
As she told her story dire,

"The cancer's all but killed me
My husband's left the home,
The baby's gone to mother
And I'm facing death alone."
We quietly spoke for ages
I held her hand in mine
Then suddenly she stood to leave
And thanked me for my time.

I sat there in a stupor
Recalling how it played
And felt the guilt impact on me
For judgements I had made.
Those callow, shallow judgements
Made in ignorance, my friend,
Will haunt me as she girds herself
To boldly meet her end.

Marshalg
On a bleak and blustery cold winters day.
Titirangi
5th September 2010

The Old Café by Steve Yocum

It's my go to place,
has been for years,
The Wildwood Café,
an eclectic tiny place
with a mix of old dinette
tables and mismatched chairs.
the cutlery also unmatched
and well used, old photos
and signs adorn the walls
and there is usually a line
of people waiting patiently
on benches outside.

Best of all there is this pleasant
girl, always wearing a welcoming
smile, who seems to know us all.
She knows my order by heart,
Ham and eggs over medium,
a half ration of potatoes, home baked
slice of bread, well toasted, well buttered,
home made salsa on the side, a cup of
"hot" Black English Tea. Tall water no ice.

If I arrive between the busy times, she may
sit down at my table and we talk a while,
It's not a big thing, just chitchat, I'm old
enough to be her grandfather, it's the
dessert before my meal served with genuine
friendliness and unforced civility, not often
encountered in these strange days and times, it's a slice of small town America at it's purest best, she and folks like her help sustain my belief that basic human decency is far from dead.

The food is always good, but it's the comforting embrace of familiarity and
simple warm kindness that assures my frequent return.
It's the little things in life that make living
wonderful, small moments in time felt and
recorded, this is but one of those.
written by Steve Yocum

It's the little things in life that make living
wonderful, small moments in time felt and
recorded, this is but one of those

Marshal Gebbie
  That old world touch suits you Stevo,
When I come visit your beautiful state of Oregon, We shall partake this delightful repast in the company of your fair maid.... and we shall tip her well!
M.

Scoot the Streak
One must believe in something be he misanthrope or gambler
In tomorrows omniscience or the future proof of God
The penance in a drunk's decay sets self destruct's imposer
Wether speaker phone's on disconnect or cellphone's in the bog.

Conveyance of a threat to adherents of St Selfwise
Show atheist's are proof here, in belief of disbelief,
Haunted by the images painting painful retribution
Picture sympathetic **** star's allocated hand relief.

A moments allocation of a syllogist abstraction
Shows perspective of the caliber we now reserve for Saints
A paradox regarded as autistic fascination
In a one act play of living disregarding all restraints.

Deliberately indicative of fraternal heat's expression
Notebook at the ready and deep frowning at the brow,
Question definition's collage of confusion's contribution
Do we sit it out pretending or just catch the late bus now?

Marshalg
13 February 2014
© 2014 Marshal Gebbie
Marshal Gebbie
Written by

victoria  Intriguing work...so I search the comments for help... Ah
0
Feb 2014
Terry O'Leary  Marshal, I kinda like this (I read it several times since yesterday)... but I'm still not sure what it says... maybe I'll down a shot tonight and try again... ;-)) Terry
0

3 replies

Feb 2014
Marshal Gebbie
Marshal Gebbie   A confession Terrance.. I was half cut when I wrote it!
I have no idea what it means.
Feb 2014
Terry O'Leary   :-)) Great... I'll be back in a bit... T
Feb 2014
Terry O'Leary   Well, in the meantime I've had a few shots... now I think I know what it means... hic°°.... hope I remember in the morning... ;-)) Terry
Feb 2014

Pradip Chattopadhyay
Residues
By the night one long dark road
the houses are deep in slumber.

Lucky I'm alive and awake,
can see the stars
in their vast magnitude of silence
gentle and not drunk
have love to count upon
filled with a will to live
feeling I'm almost done.

Having a life is a great reward
and with the residues
gets more valuable.

I won't cry over the lost years
would rather think
have been blessed with enough.

The stars grow blurry dots
as I slip into dreams.

I had a once upon place
and I'm grateful.

With dewy eyes
I hurry to the warmest space
beside her.

You slip into your years well, Pradip.
Your woman must relish your peace, your contentment.
Cheers mate
M.


Tony Grannell
Autumn's Sonneteer
Behold, upon yon ivy bunch, my darling blackbird sings;
I know not why nor shall I try to understand such things.
For born this morning on a song, pray hark, her sweet refrain;
to chance a sigh, oh, dare not I, for this is God's domain.

Out of the night the art of song in tuning in the day;
unknowed afore or evermore such music on display.
'Tis love begad, a lover's song, a diva, I declare,
in soaring o'er both vale and moor, this morning's love affair.

In wonder's charm, this precious bird in song to comfort me.
Alone I stroll, no proffered soul to share my company.
Yet rare this morn, in splendours all, true love like none afore;
let passions roll, in song extol, in verse the morn's rapport.

Be succour in such music found for autumn ails me so,
when summer's run, the harvest done, to rest my scythe and ***.
Of idle lands and nowt ado, to wait without employ.
Yet, hail the sun, my kingdom won, when sings that bird of joy.

Behold her charm and charmed, I am while autumn leaves still fall.
'Tis life anew, a sweeter brew when hear the songstress call.
Though winter’s nigh, with strength and will, we’ll bear our pain and fear;
'tis all to do, good hearts and true, sings autumn's sonneteer.

Written by
Tony Grannell  62/M/Spain

Marshal Gebbie  I stood out at the rock wall and gazed at the splendour of Autumn in Taranaki, as I read, aloud, your sonnet.
...and my heart sang.
M.

Dr Peter Lim
When?
When is the when
of when?  
rampant still is the ravage
which will not relent-

the claustrophobic shut-in
hearts toward gloomy moods they bend
no happy voices of kids heard outdoors
the green fields do not comfort lend-

the downcast look, the sinking feeling
are the joys and delights of yesterday years all spent?
the spectre of pain brings bitterest tears
in the faces of every continent-

oh, when is the when
of when?
such a wash-down
we could never comprehend.

Marshal Gebbie:  But isn't that the way, Dr Pete? Mankind builds his castles in the air, thrusts out his chest and proclaims himself, King of all!
...to be decimated, in an instant, by a microbe of infinitesimal stature. Oh! the fragility of it all.
Life cometh, life goeth....but somewhere, down the track, life shall come again.
M.


Al Drood
The Merman of Orford Ness

So long ago in King Hal’s time, our nets we cast upon the wave;
and drawing in did stand a-feared at what we’d caught in Orford Bay.

Entangled ‘midst our dripping catch, with eyes that stared all hellish green,
enscaléd like some creature deep, a Merman writhed as one obscene.

All webbéd were his hands and feet, his body dripped with ocean bile;
upon his head the ****-wrack grew, green-bearded was this demon vile.

Fast to the shore with awful haste we sped before the wind and tide;
Lord Glanville for to summon forth, the Merman’s fate all to decide.

Upon the quay his Lordship stood with men at arms and shriven priest,
and all did cross themselves in fear before this strange unholy beast.

“Enchain it,” cried Lord Glanville loud, “then to God’s Kirk with all good speed!”
The shriven priest prayed long and hard as to the church we did proceed.

With Holy Water, cross of gold, with candle and with testament,
the priest then exorcised the beast, who knew not what was done nor meant.

To all’s dismay he would not bow before the Host on bended knee;
and so to dungeon was he dragged to dwell upon his blasphemy!

The silent Merman beaten was, and hung in chains in for seven weeks,
and fed was he on fish and shells, yet never did he sleep nor speak.

And so at length his Lordship said, “Across the harbour tie a net,
and we shall see how he shall swim, but by his ankles chainéd, yet!”

The net a-fixed, the village folk came down to see the Merman’s plight;
into the sea they threw him then, with foam and wavelet flashing white.

He vanished ‘neath the waters like some seabird in pursuit of prey,
then surfaced laughing, chain in hand, and to his Lordship he did say;

“You thought to make me such as you, who walk in blindness o’er the land!
You’d punish me for difference!  You thought to treat me like a Man!”

So long ago in King Hal’s time our nets we cast upon the wave;
and drawing in did stand a-feared at what we’d caught in Orford Bay.
Al Drood
Written by
Al Drood  M/North Yorkshire

Marshal Gebbie:  Tones here of the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.
An original work in time honoured rhyme and metre.
I devoured every syllable..Bravo!
M.

G Alan Johnson
Kafka's Bug

When I shed the last skin
last year
there was left a hardened shell
protecting a patched up heart
and a petrified husk
of a soul.

You can throw your bombs
if you wish
and they will hurt inside
but I will just eat them
and **** them out
flushed and forgotten.

Sometimes my antennae
come out in a social setting
and people look at me
with an odd expression
or look off into space
a kind of awkward acceptance,
(the ones that know me).

My mandibles will at times
spit out a divine stupidity
a slacker kind of opinion
and no amount of saliva
can dissolve it
so it sits in the heavy air
stinking like a butterfly corpse.

It was an attempt
at transformation
that failed
(I'm too weak with ego),
and I'm glad that I tried
otherwise I would always wonder.

Vincent Price in a cheap suit
and a lost puppy daydream
a world full of flies, wasps and failed caterpillars
patient spiders and polished leeches...
and all I can do is write.
Written by
G Alan Johnson  65/M/USA

Response by Marshal Gebbie

Pelting rain adheres to soil
As spiders sprint and earthworms roil,
World in turmoil stinkbugs, stink
And Satan beetles disgorge ink
But thee, my budding, sodden flea,
Hath entertained quiescent....me.
M.

Nat Lipstadt
Pandemic Poems: Unclaimed bodies, There’s ain’t no anonymity in heaven.

There are more poems inside me, but I intuit it is longer fair to impose on you by sharing more.  The deep seeded infection of my spirit waxes and wanes, and there is no antidote, and unlike the virus itself, there never will be, a future cure, an inexpensive replacement cost for the spirit spent, the time and futures spirited away.

Perhaps you recall I was one mile away from Ground Zero on September 11th.  Rarely do I walk there.

The coronavirus poetry inserts itself unaided, never asking permission, a like minded, but a contra-cousin to the coronavirus.

I live in New York City, the epicenter where now, close to 800 die daily.

Normally, about 25 bodies a week are interred on Hart island, mostly for people whose families can't afford a funeral, or who go unclaimed by relatives.  In recent days, though, burial operations have increased from one day a week to five days a week, with around 24 burials each day.^^

Each dies with no last words, no Kaddish recited, Last Rites, too late, no Ṣalāt al-Janāzah or Om Namo Narayanaya.  Each one, a numbered pine coffin, and each one will have at the very least, a poem of their own, so help me god.

Buried side by side in large trench, room plenty for new arrivals,
I hear the banging, protesting, resisting, this is not the way, I was promised, my ears left pounding!  Hillel, the great scholar in this dream, reminds that “the time is short, and the work is great.”          

He paraphrases, though, “the bodies many, the poems too few.”

There ain’t no anonymity in heaven, but I’ll reconfirm that with you later.

Written by
Nat Lipstadt

Marshal Gebbie
God! It's harrowing to feel the raw spirit in a New York City man's soul.

You speak for the dead, the ailing and the fearful.

You speak for beggar in the street, the broker, quaking in his plenty, imprisoned on the 14th floor.

You speak for the cop, in face mask, on 24th and Vine, doing, as always what he must, with authority.

And you speak for the White Clad Angels who carry the dead to Hart Island and who forgive you, your fear and safer seclusion.

You speak also for we, who watch and sorrow from afar your agony, in our own fear and seclusion.
M.

Nat Lipstadt
raw is the word, oft need to lie down midday to escape the the viral infection of every outlet we use to pass these days. don’t know when i’ll go outside again, because the virus kills and wounds in horrible ways... thank u MG for the kind appreciation natty

Sally A Bayan
Conduits
In distance and in proximity...in despair
and joy...in existing and in dying...in the
bliss of love reciprocated, and in the pain
of love unrequitted...verses dance and call,
awaiting......

poetry has its own pulse, its own heartbeat,
it calls, taps the shoulders any moment,
awake, or adrift, it just can't be ignored...
even in a tangled, or weird circumstance,
it sparks like a bulb or a comet, curving
in a rainbow...riotous some days, teasing, fleeing,
then, turning up at unexpected times and places.

in every bit and breath of life, in every seed,
in every drop of dew, in every ember burning,
there is poetry birthing, growing...

deep within us flows green, purple, red,
glum gray, darkened inspirations...fleeting,
but, when time is ripe, they linger long,
giving us time to capture them all
.............................................
we sense them...we give space
we speak them, or we write them,
:::::::we are conduits:::::::


Sally

©Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
February 11, 2020

Marshal Gebbie

  A touch, so light,
So sensitively slight
As to be caress,
In dead of night


Don Bouchard
And then
We become old men
And old women, and

We look back wistfully, and
We look forward hopefully, and

We wonder....


Written by
Don Bouchard  60/M/Minnesota

Marshal Gebbie
  Slipped betwixt the then and now
Methinks, with finger on the brow,
Thee needs a shot of earthy ***
And a wanton ****, to rub your tum.
Thee needs a cheery pick me up,
Some hairy mates to help you sup
Elixir from the joy of life
To salve tomorrows' threat of strife.
Cheers mate M.
0
Tommy Randell
From a young man's parlance, tripping from an old man's tongue; Right On, brother, Right On!
Lucy Tonic Nov 2011
Bleeding world content with wounding still
Dying casualty
Catalyst of the apocalypse
Clammy hands
Static pins & needles
Ethereal, acid skin
Shivering sweats
Ever-corporeal mind
Expanding skull
Temple pressure
Tightening screws
Mechanical Frankenstein
Peripheral vision loss
Drunken babble sober talk
Mouse voice
Flat tongue
Mini seizure coming on
Clock winds and winds
Pain still resides
Cigarette blood
The gift that keeps giving
And I'm burnt out
Machine breaking down
Little by little
Another ***** dies
Mental disease
Physical need-
All the same
No sense left
Life with no taste
Words can't express
This is the only place where
Sadness can be heard in its most bitterest pitch
Heart palpitates
On another spoken word
What's the message?
How can I string them together?
Twisted Mandela on the ceiling
Don't let it be the last thing I see
Miss the days of bended knee
Believing words transcribed to holy holy
Brain graffiti, mind confetti
Panic, panic
Delirium
Attack, attack
Merry go round & round
Hal Loyd Denton Dec 2011
Cathedral

Walk within close out the outward world the still the awe magnificence all in all you as a living part make
Up the essential missing part all is null and void you give it a living heart the voice that stirs before
Lifeless sterile all so sharp the cold gleaming not in one corner was life streaming books without singing

The word without confirming just a foreign space out of place knowledge without a receptor a scepter
With no one to bless the makings of the truest ideas that fall as waste in this disregarded place hold

Forth blessings the infilling the attester a divine origin with capabilities that reach beyond the criminal
Behavior of a fallen tribe who seeks only wantonness who spill blood of innocents then devise means that

Are continuously unholy all the while out in a world that is a breeding ground for injustice hold ever
More tightly pursue death your chosen desire life within these walls pastoral scenes show intimacy

Peaceful calm gentle streaming water does it not reflect the horrors of conflict the abuse suffered
By the weak and helpless when they went their own disastrous way yes but headstrong is the only Real

way otherwise you are nothing but the stupor vexed underprivileged so it is the child with the

Greatest father protective unlimited love patience that allows the widest growth process with built in
Guides that steer you ever deeper into the dream you were conceived in the full quality of life you

Are assured its truth over shadows the smallness of a cathedral what is that when you are a temple
Of the holy spirit designed to hold all that is supremely holy your very countenance brims surges to its

Fullest capacity it passes to others at a distance a special realness not tainted with deceit they know and
Feel peace emanating from your life when troubled they seek you out the cheap thrill of this world is no

Longer desirable they want substance a tranquil isle that offers tried and true help marriage trouble
Children in dangerous circumstance the world only offers it glittering false shine the tease of temptation

That hides the chains within its sullen folds of death and destruction at this bitterest and most
Delusional point is where your greatest opportunity exists to find help the devil thought he was leading

You to death that being true but where else would the wisest father place an intersection for life a
New beginning complete fulfillment and happiness it’s only a prayer away you will be held by the

Strongest hands and arms tucked away safely and find delirious love and affection your world view
Will be forever altered to one of tears for those still trapped there
Sky Jan 2016
Do you know how much I love you?
I’m going to tell you:
You are my everything.
You are the breath in my lungs, and you are my heartbeat.
You are my sun, my moon, my stars.
You are my sky, my galaxy, my entire universe.
You are my North star, my guiding star,
the light that I seek to guide me through my darkest nights.
I would give my last breath for you,
I would give my heartbeat for you.
I would take a bullet to the heart
or a knife in the back
for you.
I would move mountains,
part oceans,
I would move the heavens and the Earth for you.
I would walk through the bitterest blizzard
or the cruelest flames
for you.

In ancient India, there were Sati wives.
A Sati wife loved her husband
completely and unconditionally,
and if her husband was killed
in battle or in hunting, in work or in illness,
then she would grieve with all her heart for him.
And when the day of his funeral came,
and the funeral pyre was lit,
the Sati wife would throw her body onto the flames
in a final act of love and devotion,
because she would rather die than live without him.
If we lived in ancient India,
I would be your Sati wife.
If you were to die,
I would throw my body into the flames
of your funeral pyre,
because I could not bear to live without you.

I love you
completely,
unconditionally,
purely,
thoroughly,
with all of my heart
and with every single cell, fiber and molecule
of my being.
Every new cell that forms
to replace a dying cell
loves you more than the last,
and as a result,
I love you more every single day.

You are
everything
to me,
and I will never stop loving you,
never stop caring for you,
never leave your side.
Even when I’m far away,
I will still be with you
always.

I
love
you.

I love you
so, so, so, so very, very much.

Jessica Saunders Aug 2013
don’t take me to a
garden
i like my flowers
dead
for, the most
beautiful things
have
the most bitterest
end
Alan McClure Mar 2014
You're ******* in time ticking choices away
white light fills the night till its brighter than day
cacophonous voices can say what they say
from the dusk till the meaningless dawn
Then secured by a seatbelt to leather and foam
the speedo's at zero six yards from your home
a million neighbours, completely alone
you're a shell, you're a shade, you're a pawn
But glance through the windscreen and look at the sky
a seagull, suspended, is catching your eye
you sense a connection but cannot say why
as it tilts on the wind and is gone
Then the trees you drive under are sharpened and clear
they're humming and pulsing beneath the veneer
you're dazed and confused as you shift up a gear
dumbly wondering what's going on
You turn on the satnav for guidance and sound
but its whisper can't silence this thing you have found
from the shimmering clouds to the roots of the ground
Is a force that is ancient and new
You try to pretend like a terrified child
that the world can be binary indexed and filed
and the sparkling eye of the jackdawish wild
isn't focused intently on you
But there is no denying this fluttering clutch
that is moss-furred and feathered, a hurricane touch
that you knew long ago and you've missed it so much
with a longing that's howling and black
But she's patiently stationed there just out of sight
as you've built your resistance from pixel and byte
Rebellious teenager, pitiful plight
she is waiting to welcome you back
Yes Nature is waiting to welcome you back
She's beneath every slab and behind every crack
at the nethermost end of the bitterest track
she is waiting to welcome you back
Forever forgiving, unloosed unconfined
she is mad she is chaos she's love and she's blind
volcanic voluptuous core of mankind
she is waiting to welcome you back.
Amanda Kay Burke Dec 2018
I wonder if I will ever understand
You destroyed everything good
You sit there and blame the world
Claiming you are "misunderstood"

You whine that no one gets you
Yet don't bother to explain
You won't let anybody in
You have zero right to complain

Do not say nobody has tried
To open doors to your mind
I personally wasted years knocking
Genuine thoughts I have yet to find

It is hard to accept what someone won't give
Even harder to listen to words they do not share
I tried but it is difficult to love
A person who's presence isn't actually there

You act like I am the one in the wrong
As if I would have jumped ship if you told the truth
My loyalty has proved to be enduring
Been dealing with the same ******* since our youth

It's unfair to make me feel guilty
For taking the course I thought was best
Know I'm sorry for hurting you
But I will not apologize for all the rest

You excel at playing victim
Done it so much you really believe
The universe is conspiring to get you
In denial of the fact you deceive  

My biggest frustration with your fake facade
Is the time you spend fooling yourself
I'm powerless to flip your tired ways
Expose flaws you forced to hide up on some shelf

Fairytale you began fearing is finished
The easiest failure to flee
Freedom pushes frantic fingers further from you
Life to you is but a fading foolish fantasy

Satisfied spinning us round and round
Still I followed your dizzy path
Sedated souls stumbling over obstacles
Sickening secrets revealed without a polygraph

Our twisted relationship takes the most room in my heart
The bitterest sweetest disappointment was you
Though fleeting, this beautiful love was rare
I just wish I knew reasons behind the pain you put me through
I guess I'll never really get it
Hal Loyd Denton Sep 2012
Cathedral

Walk within close out the outward world the still the awe magnificence all in all you as a living part make
Up the essential missing part all is null and void you give it a living heart the voice that stirs before
Lifeless sterile all so sharp the cold gleaming not in one corner was life streaming books without singing
The word without confirming just a foreign space out of place knowledge without a receptor a scepter
With no one to bless the makings of the truest ideas that fall as waste in this disregarded place hold
Forth blessings the infilling the attester a divine origin with capabilities that reach beyond the criminal
Behavior of a fallen tribe who seeks only wantonness who spill blood of innocents then devise means that
Are continuously unholy all the while out in a world that is a breeding ground for injustice hold ever
More tightly pursue death your chosen desire life within these walls pastoral scenes show intimacy
Peaceful calm gentle streaming water does it not reflect the horrors of conflict the abuse suffered
By the weak and helpless when they went their own disastrous way yes but headstrong is the only
Real way otherwise you are nothing but the stupor vexed underprivileged so it is the child with the
Greatest father protective unlimited love patience that allows the widest growth process with built in
Guides that steer you ever deeper into the dream you were conceived in the full quality of life you
Are assured its truth over shadows the smallness of a cathedral what is that when you are a temple
Of the holy spirit designed to hold all that is supremely holy your very countenance brims surges to its
Fullest capacity it passes to others at a distance a special realness not tainted with deceit they know and
Feel peace emanating from your life when troubled they seek you out the cheap thrill of this world is no
Longer desirable they want substance a tranquil isle that offers tried and true help marriage trouble
Children in dangerous circumstance the world only offers it glittering false shine the tease of temptation
That hides the chains within its sullen folds of death and destruction at this bitterest and most
Delusional point is where your greatest opportunity exists to find help the devil thought he was leading
You to death that being true but where else would the wisest father place an intersection for life a
New beginning complete fulfillment and happiness it’s only a prayer away you will be held by the
Strongest hands and arms tucked away safely and find delirious love and affection your world View will be forever altered to one of tears for those still trapped there
Kristie Aragon Apr 2016
When I was a little girl,
I've always wondered what love would be like for me.
If it would be like fireworks
That suddenly bursts into vibrant colors
But disappears the next second;
If it would be like a sunflower
Just contentedly gazing at the sun from afar;
Or if it would be like a fire
That keeps on burning as long as the wood keeps it alive.
But the more I grew up
And the more I saw the world,
The sooner I realized
That love wasn't something easily defined
By metaphors and poetry
Love was a ray of sunlight
Covered by clouds of mystery.
Love was the shadow
You never realized was following you
And sometimes when you turn,
The light has already shifted and the shadow is gone
And has moved to another direction.
Love was not merely fireworks, or sunflowers, or burning fires.
Love was a mixture of everything.
Love is your favorite pillow stained with the bitterest tears.
Love is the beam of sunlight on the cloudiest morning.
Love is the drizzle of rain on a hot summer day.
Love is one thing while at the same time being another.
But if there was one thing I knew,
It was that love can sometimes mess you up,
Love can sometimes break you
Love can sometimes make you cry
But love can also heal
Love can also build
And love is what makes the tears all worth it.
pushthepulldoor Oct 2015
If you still care
Don't ever let me know.
If you forgive me
For breaking your heart
And for leaving you behind
In that ****** town
Of addicts and death
Don't ever let me know.
I'm coming to visit
During the bitterest month
And if you see me
Don't say hello.
I'll never forgive myself.
I'll never let you know.
I'll always love you.
I'll never let you know.
I'll never let you know.
I'll never let you know.
Hal Loyd Denton Aug 2012
Cathedral

Walk within close out the outward world the still the awe magnificence all in all you as a living part make
Up the essential missing part all is null and void you give it a living heart the voice that stirs before
Lifeless sterile all so sharp the cold gleaming not in one corner was life streaming books without singing
The word without confirming just a foreign space out of place knowledge without a receptor a scepter
With no one to bless the makings of the truest ideas that fall as waste in this disregarded place hold
Forth blessings the infilling the attester a divine origin with capabilities that reach beyond the criminal
Behavior of a fallen tribe who seeks only wantonness who spill blood of innocents then devise means that
Are continuously unholy all the while out in a world that is a breeding ground for injustice hold ever
More tightly pursue death your chosen desire life within these walls pastoral scenes show intimacy
Peaceful calm gentle streaming water does it not reflect the horrors of conflict the abuse suffered
By the weak and helpless when they went their own disastrous way yes but headstrong is the only
Real way otherwise you are nothing but the stupor vexed underprivileged so it is the child with the
Greatest father protective unlimited love patience that allows the widest growth process with built in
Guides that steer you ever deeper into the dream you were conceived in the full quality of life you
Are assured its truth over shadows the smallness of a cathedral what is that when you are a temple
Of the holy spirit designed to hold all that is supremely holy your very countenance brims surges to its
Fullest capacity it passes to others at a distance a special realness not tainted with deceit they know and
Feel peace emanating from your life when troubled they seek you out the cheap thrill of this world is no
Longer desirable they want substance a tranquil isle that offers tried and true help marriage trouble
Children in dangerous circumstance the world only offers it glittering false shine the tease of temptation
That hides the chains within its sullen folds of death and destruction at this bitterest and most
Delusional point is where your greatest opportunity exists to find help the devil thought he was leading
You to death that being true but where else would the wisest father place an intersection for life a
New beginning complete fulfillment and happiness it’s only a prayer away you will be held by the
Strongest hands and arms tucked away safely and find delirious love and affection your world View will be forever altered to one of tears for those still trapped there
Jamal Abboud Aug 2018
He grew up lonely with his soundless shadow,
Like a star, in the middle of a far vast meadow,
A low light twinkled from his shack’s window
To tell about his sullen solemn presence,
All night, he slept, but the light remained a reference,
A deliberate language to declare his presence,
A spirit of a person in a far-off existence.
Wreathed not with the joy of a guest’s sight
Enduring his motionless future fairly light.

A roving girl saw him once, once no more,
Yet still imagined his scene every morn and night
Tempted by affection and pacified by her right,
Unexpectedly, she knocked at his ancient door,
Then left leaving a red rose on the blackened floor,
While he was in bed before the rise of an earthly sound,
‘Thank you, lover,’ cried he for the rose he found,
Then ate the petals sitting on the cold ground,
He was forever amused by their slight bitterness,
To wilt in a vase, to him, was of bitterest sadness,

Full of life, every morning, he ate an acrid flower,
On the door, he fixed a note welcoming the stranger,
whispering to himself,’ The note is much better.’
Watching all night was a desire, even more than love,
spending most of the night outdoors in cold weather,
Until the day he didn’t find his passion’s motive,
He yielded to his old life, yet so eager to live
excusing her every morning for her realistic decision after all,
He never knew what people in town did say,
About the death of a girl in pursuit of a rose,
In a wild land, she fell and fell and never rose,
For him, he regretted eating the roses, petals and soul.

— The End —