looking from below,
                               my eyes fix,
on your pleasure contorted face,
in the acute urgency,
of a lush, leafy tree,
                             undulating sinuously,
in the hands of
                           the winds of sensuality,
**at the very moment of
                                    efflorescence.

The glitter of strobe
gratuitous gaiety
platitudes
and sanctimonious guile

******* cocktails
on the menu
an ingratiating mask
a gratified grin

Contorted vocal chords
lots of laughter
no time for irony
look at me.

Crystal lived alone in the cabin Ray had built for her. Ray had left long ago but she thought of him often and sometimes went to see him in the city. She was an artist and a dabbler in many fields. Her house was a kaleidoscope of stained glass windows and half finished art projects. It was built almost entirely of wood with a beautiful stairway to a loft bedroom replete with a skylight window on the stars. Set in the mouth of a valley next to a clear stream the cabin looked almost as if it had grown there.

Crystal spent most of her time on her art projects, in fact she made her living that way. She was well known for the macabre nature of her works and they sold well at the local art fairs. Most of the scenes she painted could not possibly have existed on earth. Take for example the orange sky and purple mountains of Mariners Delight or the river of blood in Cosmic Conception.

Often Crystal would meet Ray at the art shows and they would discuss his books or her latest works. It was just such an occasion that preceded the first of her dreams.

Although Crystal had often dreamt of playing in a large meadow surrounded by reflections of her art work this dream had been different. She awoke from a scene in the woods where she had been the object of a grotesque conclave of creatures almost beyond description. There had been a huge goat like creature leading a chant, "Rada nema nestos Yreba, Rada nema nestos Yreba", for a group of creatures that resembled animals. There was a black toad sitting on a rock of seemingly impossible crystalline form, while an agile spider danced on the spokes of its luminous web above her. The smell of blood, the heat of the fire, and the constant and oppressive chant, "Rada nema nestos Yreba, Rada nema nestos Yreba" with all eyes directed at her. She woke with a start, it was early morning, her bed was a tangled mess, and she was covered with sweat. She felt she could almost smell wood smoke, and somewhere in her mind she could still hear the echos of the horrible chant.

It wasn't until almost a year later that the dream repeated itself. She had just completed what she considered her greatest work, a large mural like painting called Id Conclusion. It was a matrix of human forms in contorted and deformed conditions against a backdrop of misty images of human holocaust, war machines, and atomic clouds. She had gone to bed in a storm of thoughts on human depravation and greed. The scene was the same, the spider, the goat, the half human animals, all seemed the same, except for the chant, it was different. "Rada nema nestos Yreba, Raga mantra nestos reale, Yreba Yreba Shiva kommt da." Lightening cracked and a creature appeared. He seemed a man but was built more like a large monkey. Light seemed to follow him like an aura. He was the obvious master of the conclave and all stood back at his approach.

Crystal was lying on the stone altar in the center of the glade and although not bound she was incapable of motion while held in Yreba's gaze. That this creature was Yreba was obvious since all had bowed down now and the chant had changed, "Yreba Yreba teach us to grow." Crystals eyes were glazed and her naked body shown in Yreba's light. All her past works were floating across her mind like a collage. Lost in ecstasy she responded to his aggression like a wanton beast, screaming and writhing in the flow of his energy.

She woke to find her cabin in shambles and she was lying in the center of the living room on the floor, she panicked and ran to her car, slammed it into gear, and sped off down the road.

Ray was sitting in his office at the University that morning when Crystal burst into the room. "Ray, Ray, I've had a dream, a horrible dream, it was, I was!" "Slow down Crystal! You've had a what?" said Ray. Crystal sat down in a ball of frenzy and continued.

About an hour later Crystal had finished her story. Ray spoke, "So you say this is only the second time you've had this dream. Tell me more about Yreba. Does he resemble any of your art works?" "No", she said, "He seemed a lot more like that creature you told me about that day we were discussing witchcraft. The one who was supposed to be the personification of ****** desire evoked for the *** ****** of the ancient Persians."

Ray walked to his bookshelves (he was a professor of ancient mythology and religions) and pulled out a book called Necromancer by Abdule Azerod. "As I recall" he said "that creature was also a god of fertility." He thumbed slowly through the book, "yes, here it is. What did you say this creatures name was? Yreba? Very strange that's almost exactly this Persian deities name, Youruba. It seems he was evoked every year on the vernal equinox to assure ****** reproductivity and if you think thats frightening, feature this, last night was the vernal equinox." Crystal was stunned. "Do you think there's a connection" she stammered? "Don't be silly girl, this was seven thousand years ago. Why don't we drive out to your cabin and see if we can find some clues."

Twenty minutes later they were standing in Crystal's cabin. What had seemed so disorderly to Crystal in the morning was now clearly a purposeful state of order. All of her sculptures were arranged neatly on the stairs to the loft, and her pictures were arranged so as to face the spot on the floor where she had awakened. On the floor where she had lain was a large five pointed star. "What does it mean Ray?" "I think it's a pentagram" he stated. "Is anything missing?" "Not that I can see" she said. "I don't think we had better stay" he said, "Find what you need and we'll go back to my house. You can stay there until we figure it out."

Crystal never returned to the cabin. Ray sold it for her and bought her a new house in the city.

Crystal got sick a few weeks later. She was sitting in the doctors office now awaiting his return. "I have good news" he said. "Good news" Crystal groaned. "Yes" he said, "Your pregnant."

It never ends, fragments of visions collapsing upon themselves painfully. Her swollen eyes opening, and bursting with orange fire. Then closing just as fast. In between those agonizing seconds she sees everything. Thousands of years cycling over and over. Visions of visions within visions.


Cassandra saw her city razed to the ground. The wall which once stood firm against the onslaught of enemies crumbling with the ravages of time. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again she saw her own grief. Her cousin had fallen in battle. She closed her eyes again, and scratched at her itchy eyelids.



Ten weeks passed without a blink, not even a fraction of an opening. She was disciplined, but the longer she fought the more her eyelids would burn. One blink to ease the agony and she was forced to see her father’s skin. A purple mass of dead flesh bubbling swelling, exploding, and rotting, with maggots squirming in out and around till flies formed and flew away. Another corpse left out in a burning city. One among many denied a peaceful death. Buildings crumbled to dust, the bodies became one with the earth. Cassandra cried without opening her eyes. Her father stroked her long soft curls, whispering reassurances. “It’s all right my child.”


Another three or four weeks passed. She had become blinder than Tiresias the blind prophet. Unable to recall if that was a story she had heard, or would hear in the future.  She sobbed spilling each and every sorrow she could. Every tragedy yet to come. Her father smiled gently placing a warm cloth upon her brow. “Shush my child these nightmares will fade soon enough.”


The young girl opened her eyes again. This time a years’ worth of history unfolded. She saw soldiers gathering arms. Battlements born of the Bronze Age burning with righteous rage. Steel blades clanging against bronze shields in preparation for war. Boats fully loaded departed.


She closed her eyes once more. It would be another two months before she opened them. In the meantime she pleaded with her father to leave the city. Day in and day out begging, sobbing, and screaming until she was sent away.


It was becoming harder and harder to keep her eyes closed. There was a burning force aching to escape. She managed five more weeks until she could bare the pain no longer. As her new sisters bathed her pale dry skin with the sweetest scented oils the young girl recited all that she saw and felt.


The first footfalls of the first soldier’s feet to touch the beach. The feel of the sand as it swirled in, out and around the soldier’s sandals. The general howling commands. The green eyes hungry for battle. The faces contorted in controlled rage. All that intensity burning under the once civilized façade. She closed her eyes again.


Cassandra sat silently in exhaustion, as the sisters slowly brushed the knots out of her long brown hair. They brought her a blindfold, which allowed only a small comfort. This time she only managed to resist for two weeks. The vision came upon her with such force that she cried out and collapsed.


Now the city was burning. Citizen screamed as they ran in terror. Brave men rushed forwards to be impaled on the spears of other brave men. Arrows swallowed the moonlight picking at the earth and scavenging for some bare flesh to devour. Blood ran like red rainwater. Streets streamed thin crimson pools diluted by warm summer showers. The stench oh, the stench, it made Cassandra ***** up chunks of soggy bread and half-digested beef mixed with red wine and stomach acid, while she tried to force her eyes to close.


Finally, she closed her eyes again. The sisters tried to sooth her sorrows, to no avail. Within a years’ time the young girl lost the ability to close her eyes. Cassandra eyeballs slowly burnt out until there was nothing left but charcoaled eye sockets. By the next year she could no longer speak. Cassandra became paralyzed by the futility of her existence.


In her mind the war had come and gone. The sieges were no longer an issue. She no longer felt the urge to cry for the dead. What was, will be, and what will be cannot be undone. What cannot be undone has already happened. Apollo had cursed her. Her beauty had enraptured him, her wit had charmed him, but her will had enraged him.


She was only thirteen with brown eyes and long hair of rare quality, soul so powerful that almost anyone who met her could feel its energy. She shamed the gods with her purity, and unwillingly ensnared their affection.


At first Apollo came with strong arms and tender words. Wooing to the point of painful pleasure. Her eyes could not handle such radiance. His skin burned as his chariot burned. Hair golden flames, skin solar yellow, eye orange as the sun. Each kiss burnt like the worse fever, taking her against her will, savaging her sanity. As if, as if being a god gave him the right to take such liberties.


Apollo viewed her early rejections with whimsy, believing them to be some cute token of her modesty. A god can afford to wait, after all eternity was on his side. After the first hundred no’s his affection gave way to anger. Until his desire could not bear rejection any longer.


At last he cried out to Cassandra. “I will have you or else.”


With a firm but fiery hand he swept her up.  Forcing his mouth against hers. Parting her pursed lip with his powerful tongue.  He shoved his tongue into her mouth, until tears streamed down her cheeks. She could not resist with words, because her mouth was occupied, so she took the only action she knew available to her.


She bit down as hard she could. Lava spewed from Apollo’s lips, roughly singing the inside of her mouth. Without realizing what was happening she swallowed. Her skin began to glow, tiny childlike limbs lengthened and tightened. From her eyes radiated the most powerful light ever seen by man or god. For a moment Apollo cowered beneath the awe of her power, stumbling backwards to the ground dumbfounded.


Regaining his composure he slapped her aside. Scowling in rage “How dare you. You. You worthless *****.”


Her lips parted now of her own volition. Her voice raged with a deep and powerful resonance. “How dare you, you whimpering fool.” The power still flowing inwards filled her with confidence. “I see you for what you are. A tool, a man made invention.” The radiance of her skin was slowly fading. “I see too much now.” She cried out in an ******* fury. A smile crossed her lips. “I see what will become of you and your ilk.”


With strength previously unimagined the young girl thrusted her small hands out throttling Apollo’s throat. He trembled in fear. “You cannot hope to contain the power of me. I am generations incarnated. Passing power from one age to the next. I will not be enslaved.” Her skin began to blink, her voice loss much of its force. “I am Cassandra, and you a merely a passing phase. I will tell the world of all I have seen.”


The last bit of godly energy faded from her skin. Cassandra collapsed. “I still see it all, and you will never touch me again.”


Apollo brushed bits of earth off his person. “See all you want, I care not.” He lunged for her. A flash of thin white light flung him back.

Confused, Apollo rose. Glaring he screamed “You may see all now. It is a gift my blood has given you, but soon it will become a curse. For no mortal wishes to believe that the fates have already written their story. They will ignore you, and in doing so you will find that this power you have gained will be for naught. Thus will be your curse to see all, with no power to stop it.”


Cassandra’s eyes opened wide, seconds split into eternity. She felt the passing of all those around her. She felts time’s stench and rot all around her. Her skin would wrinkle to a certain degree but she would be eternal. She saw cities rise and fall. Some to rise again others to be forgotten. She saw herself seeing each of these visions again and again. She lived her immortal life over and over, events unchanged be anything she said.


The only real comfort was that she saw Apollo wither away. As the old gods fell to ruins weakened by the rationality of new gods, then the rationality of structured reason. Then came the rise of something new and better. Reason with abstraction, abstraction with order, a cycle of energy which emboldened and empowered man. She chuckled.
“Go away little godling.”
And like the little thing he was, Apollo ran.
Her father shushed her, wiping the tears from her face.
The sisters bathed her; singing songs of love and adoration.
Troy fell under the onslaught.
Apollo came and went again.


Cassandra’s eyes opened wide closed and open wide once more, seconds split into eternity. She felt the passing of all those around her. She felts time’s stench and rot all around her. Her skin would wrinkle to a certain degree but she would be eternal. She saw cities rise and fall. Some to rise again others to be forgotten. She saw herself seeing each of these visions again and again. She lived her immortal life over and over, events unchanged be anything she said.


The only one real comfort was that she saw Apollo wither away. As the old gods fell to ruins weakened by the rationality of new gods, then the rationality of structured reason. Then came the rise of something new and better. Reason with abstraction, abstraction with order, a cycle of energy which emboldened and empowered man. She chuckled.
“Go away little godling.”
And like the little thing he was, Apollo ran.
Her father shushed her, wiping the tears from her face.
The sisters bathed her; singing songs of love and adoration.
Troy fell under the onslaught.
Apollo came and went again.

Cold, unforgiving.
My soul froze in time.
I gave love its last chance,
And clocks stopped.

The big hand contorted,
To mock my closing veins.
The small just pointed
And laughed in my face.

So I shattered all the timepieces,
Forbidding me to count the seconds alone.
In an hourless world,
I lost faith in hope.

The walls as my best friend.
My bed the only lover.
I'm content in waiting
For my torturous life to be over.

But you found me
Wrapped in passing seconds.
Prisoner to tic tic
Pacing in my head.

Where my skin
Tasted of decay.
And my claws retired
From scratching at the gates.

Given up on fighting,
Satisfied with thousand pound lungs.
A half timed beating,
Beneath my hollow ribs.

My souls began to thaw,
Clocks began to move.
All from your touch,
All from your air.

The big hand straightens.
And the small silences itself.
Opening my veins.
No more comically mocking my pain.

Your gentle hands piece together,
All the pieces I shattered.
Back to counting
All the seconds I'm alive.

My walls become acquaintances.
You replace my bed.
I'm not waiting,
This life won't end.

No longer bound
By the song of passing time.
Free from "tic toc",
It's a little less crowded in my head.

Warmth returns to my skin.
My hands click awake.
Not ready to scratch,
But to create.

There is no fight to give up.
Air quickly lifts my lungs.
There's a full paced beating,
Inside my glowing chest.

All because you touched me.
You kissed me.
With a calm fear,
You woke me from my sleep.

Two drinks in and all my thoughts are racing.
But for once it's almost positive,
instead of mostly negative.
I know I'll always have my issues,
my mistakes are who I am.
But why should I let them break me
instead of push me ahead?

There will never be a moment
where I don't remember his face;
sweaty and contorted
forcing me to keep silent.
Or his hands around my neck
and the darkness closing in.

But he's not here anymore,
and the torment is all over.
I have people surrounding me
who love me for everything and anything.

And there won't be a day that passes
where I don't remember the love
of me and Josh sitting on that hill
watching the sunset sink beneath the clouds.
I can never forget that sacrifice,
of a young life lost to save another.

But in my memory he will stay,
because I have someone who cares.
Who knows all of my faults,
and wants to help through the pain.

And I have my friends
who only want the best for me.
Who listen when I talk,
laugh at my corny jokes
and love me for who I am.

I will never be perfect,
but I need to stop trying.
Imperfect is beautiful,
and I'm starting to see my beauty.

The scars will remain,
white and raised against my skin.
But they're reminders of a past
that changed my course of action.
The bones will never heal,
and the insults won't disappear.
But learning to live with them
is something within reach.

I'm not broken or damaged,
but pieces put together,
mended and healing.
I am superwoman.

The Emperor's new shoes

Painted imitation leather, polished and treated with care
admired and envied, all eyes drawn, especially yours.
Look at me, envy me, look how I dance.
Look at my silhouette marvel at how I make you feel,
Throw yourself to me,  l make you feel so true
We are elite .
Walking stronger, dancing so much faster
How fanciful I am you,free unaffected
How do I make you look and feel, the emperor's new shoes,
Legitimizing your nobility

But how I pinch, and how I hurt you, how contorted you’v become,
How you twisted and bent to fit with me,  
contrived , like me ,our artificial natural .
Your need for me and performance reflecting my own.
This illusion , only granted by me.
You never really chose, i led you to believe you are some king.
Your allegiance will not be rewarded the crest has to fall,
You can not always dance for me .
Remember i am painted and cannot become worn ,
I will not become comfortable for you,
I will not become misshapen from accommodation and give.
I will not shine if you dull me, my radiance is painted ,
Only you my emperor masked our deceit.
Now i leave you barefoot .

Fireworks!
In such a razzle dazzle fireworks flash and bash in vibrancy,
In a spectral aura of contorted colours,
Stars sparkling, noisily highlighting the sky,
Release the Gods of chaos, as on the sparks they fly,
Amid a colour scheme supreme, a total fascination,
In an argument inopportune as fireworks hit home,
In a firework of a love-struck soul my body is vibrating,

Travel on a firework fly beyond the moon,
For on a pyrotechnic dream, embark beyond those stars,
Saw rowdy fireworks the day I met you,
Still seeing them now, those flashes,
For in my heart those fireworks are popping still,
Wish I could ride upon a rocket to be with you today,
Make the fireworks flash in procession,
Let the marching band play on!

By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

We have souls that are plunging off this planet,
in hopes they will be swallowed by the cosmos-
fearing the hurt is never ending,
leads to renovations of existence.

To silence the beating
of a heart,
to end a life.

Morality is stuck behind
the gates of purgatory

& society is too scared of
what will happen
if we use our mouths for
meaningful conversation.

Indeed.
A tourniquet can stop the bleeding,
but can’t do justice for spread of infection,
or the scar serving as a reminder.

People are dying from depression-
faulty chemistry in the brain.
As well as suicide.

It is the crying of phantoms,
never to be heard-
wanting change,
a re-birth,
of the contorted humanity
we proudly call ”life”

Ache that’s carried lifelong,
but never resolved.
Truthfully,
those vague questions

don’t save lives.

Death knows this,
of course.
He is an omniscient force
lingering in the scenery.
Possessing the inability
to tolerate the teasing
and the wagers.
Coming to collect early
because, we’ve begun
to shatter
every fragment
of light
life reflected.

Now,
Darkness makes him feel welcome
and entitled.

KRM

A swerve and crumple

the too-low Miata meeting
the steel of a
semi's rear.

top speed impatience
becomes

a mangled massacre
of twisted plastic and metal.

Bone just powder in
a pillow of pink
red-streaked
pulverized flesh.

my jaw agape as I pass too slow-

existential dread is the hand
contorted upward
a few fingers missing
or lost in the mass-

A horn brings me back.
People too late
to care.

I contemplate stopping
but I'm late too-
and there's nothing to salvage
for me here.

O, the Horror! Halloween Poetry!

Halloween Poetry: Dark, Eerie, Haunting and Scary poems about Ghosts, Witches, Vampires, Werewolves, Reanimated Corpses and "Things that go Bump in the Night!"



Thin Kin
by Michael R. Burch

Skeleton!
Tell us what you lack...
the ability to love,
your flesh so slack?

Will we frighten you,
grown as pale & unsound,
when we also haunt
the unhallowed ground?



The Witch
by Michael R. Burch

her fingers draw into claws
she cackles through rotting teeth...
u ask "are there witches?"
… pshaw! …
(yet she has my belief)



Vampires
by Michael R. Burch

Vampires are such fragile creatures;
we dread the dark, but the light destroys them...
sunlight, or a stake, or a cross ― such common things.

Still, late at night, when the bat-like vampire sings,
we shrink from his voice.

Centuries have taught us:
in shadows danger lurks for those who stray,
and there the vampire bares his yellow fangs
and feels the ancient soul-tormenting pangs.
He has no choice.

We are his prey, plump and fragrant,
and if we pray to avoid him, he earnestly prays to find us...
prays to some despotic hooded God
whose benediction is the humid blood
he lusts to taste.



Styx
by Michael R. Burch

Black waters,
deep and dark and still...
all men have passed this way,
or will.

Charon, the ferrymen who carried the dead across the River Styx to their eternal destination, has been portrayed by artists and poets as a vampiric figure.



Revenge of the Halloween Monsters
by Michael R. Burch

The Halloween monsters, incensed,
keep howling, and may be UNFENCED!!!
They’re angry that children with treats
keep throwing their trash IN THE STREETS!!!

You can check it out on your computer:
Google says, “Please don’t be a POLLUTER!!!”
The Halloween monsters agree,
so if you’re a litterbug, FLEE!!!

Kids, if you’d like more treats this year
and don’t want to cower in FEAR,
please make all the mean monsters happy,
and they’ll hand out sweet treats like they’re sappy!

So if you eat treats on the drag
and don't want huge monsters to nag,
please put all loose trash in your BAG!!!

NOTE: If you recite the poem, get the kids to huddle up close, then yell the all-caps parts like you’re one of the unhappy monsters, and perhaps "goose" them as well. They'll get the message.



It's Halloween!
by Michael R. Burch

If evening falls
on graveyard walls
far softer than a sigh;

if shadows fly
moon-sickled skies,
while children toss their heads

uneasy in their beds,
beware the witch's eye!

If goblins loom
within the gloom
till playful pups grow terse;

if birds give up their verse
to comfort chicks they nurse,
while children dream weird dreams

of ugly, wiggly things,
beware the serpent's curse!

If spirits scream
in haunted dreams
while ancient sibyls rise

to plague nightmarish skies
one night without disguise,

while children toss about
uneasy, full of doubt,
beware the Devil's lies...

it's Halloween!



Ghost
by Michael R. Burch

White in the shadows
I see your face,
unbidden. Go, tell

Love it is commonplace;
tell Regret it is not so rare.

Our love is not here
though you smile,
full of sedulous grace.

Lost in darkness, I fear
the past is our resting place.



All Hallows Eve
by Michael R. Burch

What happened to the mysterious Tuatha De Danann, to the Ban Shee (from which we get the term “banshee”) and, eventually, to the Druids? One might assume that with the passing of Merlyn, Morgan le Fay and their ilk, the time of myths and magic ended. This poem is an epitaph of sorts.

In the ruins
of the dreams
and the schemes
of men;

when the moon
begets the tide
and the wide
sea sighs;

when a star
appears in heaven
and the raven
cries;

we will dance
and we will revel
in the devil’s
fen...

if nevermore again.



Pale Though Her Eyes
by Michael R. Burch

Pale though her eyes,
her lips are scarlet
from drinking of blood,
this child, this harlot

born of the night
and her heart, of darkness,
evil incarnate
to dance so reckless,

dreaming of blood,
her fangs ― white ― baring,

revealing her lust,
and her eyes, pale, staring...



Like Angels, Winged
by Michael R. Burch

Like angels ― winged,
shimmering, misunderstood ―
they flit beyond our understanding
being neither evil, nor good.

They are as they are...
and we are their lovers, their prey;
they seek us out when the moon is full
and dream of us by day.

Their eyes ― hypnotic, alluring ―
trap ours with their strange appeal
till like flame-drawn moths, we gather...
to see, to touch, to feel.

Held in their arms, enchanted,
we feel their lips, so old!,
till with their gorging kisses
we warm them, growing cold.



Solicitation
by Michael R. Burch

He comes to me out of the shadows, acknowledging
my presence with a tip of his hat, always the gentleman,
and his eyes are on mine like a snake’s on a bird’s ―
quizzical, mesmerizing.

He ***** his head as though something he heard intrigues him
(although I hear nothing) and he smiles, amusing himself at my expense;
his words are full of desire and loathing, and while I hear everything,
he says nothing I understand.

The moon shines ― maniacal, queer ― as he takes my hand whispering

Our time has come... And so we stroll together creaking docks
where the sea sends sickening things
scurrying under rocks and boards.

Moonlight washes his ashen face as he stares unseeing into my eyes.
He sighs, and the sound crawls slithering down my spine;
my blood seems to pause at his touch as he caresses my face.
He unfastens my dress till the white lace shows, and my neck is bared.

His teeth are long, yellow and hard, his face bearded and haggard.
A wolf howls in the distance. There are no wolves in New York. I gasp.
My blood is a trickle his wet tongue embraces. My heart races madly.
He likes it like that.



Sometimes the Dead
by Michael R. Burch

Sometimes we catch them out of the corners of our eyes ―
the pale dead.
After they have fled
the gourds of their bodies, like escaping fragrances they rise.

Once they have become a cloud’s mist, sometimes like the rain
they descend;
they appear, sometimes silver like laughter,
to gladden the hearts of men.

Sometimes like a pale gray fog, they drift
unencumbered, yet lumbrously,
as if over the sea
there was the lightest vapor even Atlas could not lift.

Sometimes they haunt our dreams like forgotten melodies
only half-remembered.
Though they lie dismembered
in black catacombs, sepulchers and dismal graves; although they have committed felonies,

yet they are us. Someday soon we will meet them in the graveyard dust
blood-engorged, but never sated
since Cain slew Abel.
But until we become them, let us steadfastly forget them, even as we know our children must...



Polish
by Michael R. Burch

Your fingers end in talons—
the ones you trim to hide
the predator inside.

Ten thousand creatures sacrificed;
but really, what’s the loss?
Apply a splash of gloss.

You picked the perfect color
to mirror nature’s law:
red, like tooth and claw.

Published by The HyperTexts



Siren Song
by Michael R. Burch

The Lorelei’s
soft cries
entreat mariners to save her...

How can they resist
her faint voice through the mist?

Soon she will savor
the flavor
of sweet human flesh.



How Long the Night (anonymous Old English Lyric)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song...
but now I feel the northern wind's blast ―
its severe weather strong.
Alas! Alas! This night seems so long!
And I, because of my momentous wrong
now grieve, mourn and fast.



The Wild Hunt
by Michael R. Burch

Near Devon, the hunters appear in the sky
with Artur and Bedwyr sounding the call;
and the others, laughing, go dashing by.
They only appear when the moon is full:

Valerin, the King of the Tangled Wood,
and Valynt, the goodly King of Wales,
Gawain and Owain and the hearty men
who live on in many minstrels’ tales.

They seek the white stag on a moonlit moor,
or Torc Triath, the fabled boar,
or Ysgithyrwyn, or Twrch Trwyth,
the other mighty boars of myth.

They appear, sometimes, on Halloween
to chase the moon across the green,
then fade into the shadowed hills
where memory alone prevails.



The Vampire's Spa Day Dream
by Michael R. Burch

O, to swim in vats of blood!
I wish I could, I wish I could!
O, 'twould be
so heavenly
to swim in lovely vats of blood!

The poem above was inspired by a Josh Parkinson depiction of Elizabeth Bathory up to her nostrils in the blood of her victims, with their skulls floating in the background.



Nevermore!
by Michael R. Burch

Nevermore! O, nevermore!
shall the haunts of the sea
― the swollen tide pools
and the dark, deserted shore ―
mark her passing again.

And the salivating sea
shall never kiss her lips
nor caress her ******* and hips,
as she dreamt it did before,
once, lost within the uproar.

The waves will never **** her,
nor take her at their leisure;
the sea gulls shall not have her,
nor could she give them pleasure...
She sleeps, forevermore!

She sleeps forevermore,
a ****** save to me
and her other lover,
who lurks now, safely smothered
by the restless, surging sea.

And, yes, they sleep together,
but never in that way...
For the sea has stripped and shorn
the one I once adored,
and washed her flesh away.

He does not stroke her honey hair,
for she is bald, bald to the bone!
And how it fills my heart with glee
to hear them sometimes cursing me
out of the depths of the demon sea...

their skeletal love ― impossibility!



Dark Gothic
by Michael R. Burch

Her fingers are filed into talons;
she smiles with carnivorous teeth...
You ask, “Are there vampires?”
― Get real! ―
(Yet she has my belief.)



Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.


Athenian Epitaphs (Gravestone Inscriptions of the Ancient Greeks)

Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
― Michael R. Burch, after Plato


Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gulls in their high, lonely circuits may tell.
― Michael R. Burch, after Glaucus



Passerby,
tell the Spartans we lie
lifeless at Thermopylae:
dead at their word,
obedient to their command.
Have they heard?
Do they understand?
― Michael R. Burch, after Simonides



Completing the Pattern
by Michael R. Burch

Walk with me now, among the transfixed dead
who kept life’s compact and who thus endure
harsh sentence here―among pink-petaled beds
and manicured green lawns. The sky’s azure,
pale blue once like their eyes, will gleam blood-red
at last when sunset staggers to the door
of each white mausoleum, to inquire―
What use, O things of erstwhile loveliness?


Reclamation
by Michael R. Burch

after Robert Graves, with a nod to Mary Shelley

I have come to the dark side of things
where the bat sings
its evasive radar
and Want is a crooked forefinger
attached to a gelatinous wing.

I have grown animate here, a stitched corpse
hooked to electrodes.
And night
moves upon me―progenitor of life
with its foul breath.

Blind eyes have their second sight
and still are deceived. Now my nature
is softly to moan
as Desire carries me
swooningly across her threshold.

Stone
is less infinite than her crone’s
gargantuan hooked nose, her driveling lips.
I eye her ecstatically―her dowager figure,
and there is something about her that my words transfigure
to a consuming emptiness.

We are at peace
with each other; this is our venture―
swaying, the strings tautening, as tightropes
tauten, as love tightens, constricts
to the first note.

Lyre of our hearts’ pits,
orchestration of nothing, adits
of emptiness! We have come to the last of our hopes,
sweet as congealed blood sweetens for flies.

Need is reborn; love dies.



Deliver Us ...
by Michael R. Burch

The night is dark and scary―
under your bed, or upon it.

That blazing light might be a star ...
or maybe the Final Comet.

But two things are sure: your mother’s love
and your puppy’s kisses, doggonit!



the Horror
by Michael R. Burch

the Horror lurks inside our closets
the Horror hides beneath our beds
the Horror hisses ancient curses
the Horror whispers in our heads

the Horror tells us Death is coming
the Horror tells us there’s no hope
the Horror tells us “life” is futile
the Horror beckons, “there’s the Rope!”



Belfry
by Michael R. Burch

There are things we surrender
to the attic gloom:
they haunt us at night
with shrill, querulous voices.

There are choices we made
yet did not pursue,
behind windows we shuttered
then failed to remember.

There are canisters sealed
that we cannot reopen,
and others long broken
that nothing can heal.

There are things we conceal
that our anger dismembered,
gray leathery faces
the rafters reveal.



Duet
by Michael R. Burch

Oh, Wendy, by the firelight, how sad!
How worn and gray your auburn hair became!
You’re very silent, like an evening rain
that trembles on dark petals. Tears you’ve shed
for days we laughed together, glisten now;
your flesh became translucent; and your brow
knits, gathered loosely. By the well-made bed
three portraits hang with knowing eyes, beloved,
but mine is not among them. Time has proved
our hearts both strangely mortal. If I said
I loved you once, how is it that could change?
And yet I watch you fondly; love is strange . . .

Oh, Peter, by the firelight, how bright
my thought of you remains, and if I said
I loved you once, then took him to my bed,
I did it for the need of love, one night
when you were far away. My heart endured
transfigurement―in flaming ash inured
to heartbreak and the violence of sight:
I saw myself grow old and thin and frail
with thinning hair about me, like a veil . . .
And so I loved him for myself, despite
the love between us―our first startled kiss.
But then I loved him for his humanness.
And then we both grew old, and it was right . . .

Oh, Wendy, if I fly, I fly beyond
these human hearts, these cities walled and tiered
against the night, beyond this vale of tears,
for love, if it exists, dies with the years . . .

No, Peter, love is constant as the heart
that keeps till its last beat a measured pace
and sets the fixtures of its dreams in place
by beds at first well-used, at last well-made,
and counts each face a joy, each tear a grace . . .



Horror
by Michael R. Burch

What I ache to say is beyond saying―
no words for the horror
of not loving enough,
like a mummy half-wrapped in its moldering casements
holding a lily aloft.

No, there are no words for the horror
as a tormented wind howls through the teetering floes
and the cold freezes down to my clawed hairy toes ...

What use to me, now, if the stars appear?
As I moan
the moon finds me,
fangs goring the deer.



Strange Corps(e)
by Michael R. Burch

We are all dying, haunted by life―
dying, but the living will not let us go.
We are perishing zombies, haunted by the moonglow.

With what animation we, shuffling, return
nightly, to worry Love’s worm-eaten corpse,
till, living or dead, she is wholly ours.

We are the dying, enamored of “life”―
the palest of auras, the eeriest call.
We stagger to attention ... stumble ... fall.

We have only one thought―Love’s peculiar notion,
that our duty’s to “live,” though such “living” means
night’s horrific wild hungers, its stranger dreams.

We now “live” on the flesh of eroded dreams
and no longer recoil at the victims’ screams.



Love, ah! serene ghost
by Michael R. Burch

Love, ah! serene ghost,
haunts my retelling of her,
or stands atop despairing stairs
with such pale, severe eyes,
I become another pallid specter.

But what I feel
most profoundly is this:
the absolute lack of her kiss,
the absence of her wild,
unwarranted laughter.

So that,
like a candle deprived of oxygen,
I become mere wick and tallow again.
Here and hereafter ...
gone with her now, in the darkest of nights, the flame!

I lie, pallid vision of man―the same
wan ghost of her palpitations’ claim
on my heart
that I was before.

I love her beyond and despite even shame.



Eden
by Michael R. Burch

Then earth was heaven too, a perfect garden.
Apples burgeoned and shone―unplucked on sagging boughs.
What, then, would the children eat?
Fruit indecently sweet,
redolent as incense, with a tempting aroma ...



Outcasts
by Michael R. Burch

There was a rose, a prescient shade of crimson,
the very color of blood,
that bloomed in that garden.

The most dazzling of all the Earth’s flowers,
men have forgotten it now,
with their fanciful tales of apples and serpents.

Beasts with lips called the goreflower “Love.”

The scribes have the story all wrong: four were there,
four horrid dark creatures―chattering, bickering.
Aduhm placed one red petal in Ehve’s matted hair;

he was lost in her arms
till dawn sullen and golden
imperceptibly streaked the musk-fragrant air.

Two flared nostrils quivered, two eyes remained open.

Kahyn sought me that evening, his bloodless lips curled
in a grimacelike smile. Sunken-cheeked, he approached me
in the Caverns of Similitudes, eerie Barzakh.

“We are outcasts, my brother!, God quickly deserts us.”
As though his anguish conceived in insight’s first blush
might not pale next to mine in Sheol’s gray realm.

“Shining Creature!” he named me and called me divine
as he lavished damp kisses upon my bright scales.
“Help me find me one rare gift to put Love’s gift to shame.”

“There is a dark rose with a bittersweet fragrance
as pungent as cloves: only man knows its name.
Clinging and cloying, it destroys all it touches . . .”

“But red is Ehve’s preference; while Envy is green.”
He was downcast a moment, a moment, a moment . . .
“Ah, but red is the color of blood!”

Disagreeable child, far too clever for his own good.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)



No One
by Michael R. Burch

No One hears the bells tonight;
they tell him something isn’t right.
But No One is not one to rush;
he lies in grasses greenly lush
as far away a startled thrush
flees from horned owls in sinking flight.

No One hears the cannon’s roar
and muses that its voice means war
comes knocking on men’s doors tonight.
He sleeps outside in awed delight
beneath the enigmatic stars
and shivers in their cooling light.

No One knows the world will end,
that he’ll be lonely, without friend
or foe to conquer. All will be
once more, celestial harmony.
He’ll miss men’s voices, now and then,
but worlds can be remade again.



Bikini
by Michael R. Burch

Undersea, by the shale and the coral forming,
by the shell’s pale rose and the pearl’s white eye,
through the sea’s green bed of lank seaweed worming
like tangled hair where cold currents rise . . .
something lurks where the riptides sigh,
something old and pale and wise.

Something old when the world was forming
now lifts its beak, its snail-blind eye,
and with tentacles about it squirming,
it feels the cloud above it rise
and shudders, settles with a sigh,
knowing man’s demise draws nigh.



Ceremony
by Michael R. Burch

Lost in the cavernous blue silence of spring,
heavy-lidded and drowsy with slumber, I see
the dark gnats leap; the black flies fling
their slow, engorged bulks into the air above me.

Shimmering hordes of blue-green bottleflies sing
their monotonous laments; as I listen, they near
with the strange droning hum of their murmurous wings.

Though you said you would leave me, I prop you up here
and brush back red ants from your fine, tangled hair,
whispering, “I do!” . . . as the gaunt vultures stare.



Contraire
by Michael R. Burch

Where there was nothing
but emptiness
and hollow chaos and despair,

I sought Her ...

finding only the darkness
and mournful silence
of the wind entangling her hair.

Yet her name was like prayer.

Now she is the vast
starry tinctures of emptiness
flickering everywhere

within me and about me.

Yes, she is the darkness,
and she is the silence
of twilight and the night air.

Yes, she is the chaos
and she is the madness
and they call her Contraire.



Dark Twin
by Michael R. Burch

You come to me
out of the sun―
my dark twin, unreal . . .

And you are always near
although I cannot touch you;
although I trample you, you cannot feel . . .

And we cannot be parted,
nor can we ever meet
except at the feet.



East End, 1888
by Michael R. Burch

Past darkened storefronts,
hunched and contorted, bent with need
through chilling rain, he walks alone
till down the glistening cobblestones
deliberate footsteps pause, resume.

He follows, by a pub confronts
a pasty face, an overbright smile,
lips intimating easy bliss,
a boisterous, over-eager tongue.

She barters what she has to sell;
her honeyed words seem cloying, stale―
pale, tainted things of sticky guile.



A rustle of her petticoats,
a flash of bulging milk-white breast
. . . the price is set: a crown. “A tip,
a shilling more is yours,” he quotes,
“to wash your privates.” She accepts.
Saliva glistens on his lips.



An alley. There, he lifts her gown,
in answer to her question, frowns,
says―“You can call me Jack, or Rip.”



East End, 1888 (II)
by Michael R. Burch

He slouched East
through a steady downpour,
a slovenly beast
befouling each puddle
with bright footprints of blood.

Outlined in a pub door,
lewdly, wantonly, she stood . . .
mocked and brazenly offered.

He took what he could
till she afforded no more.

Now a single bright copper
glints becrimsoned by the door
of the pub where he met her.

He holds to his breast the one part
of her body she was unable to *****,
grips her heart to his wildly stammering heart . . .
unable to forgive or forget her.

Originally published by Penny Dreadful



Evil, the Rat
by Michael R. Burch

Evil lives in a hole like a rat
and sleeps in its feces,
fearing the cat.

At night it furtively creeps
through the house
while the cat sleeps.

It eats old excrement and gnaws
on steaming dung
and it will pause

between odd bites to sniff through the ****,
twitching and trembling,
for a scent of the cat ...

Evil, the rat.



Temptation
by Michael R. Burch

Jesus was always misunderstood . . .
we have that, at least, in common.
And it’s true that I found him,
shriveled with hunger,
shivering in the desert,
skeletal, emaciate,
not an ounce of fat
to warm his bones
once the bright sun set.

And it’s true, I believe,
that I offered him something to eat―
a fig, perhaps, a pomegranate, or a peach.

Hardly the great “temptation”
of which I’m accused.

He was a likeable chap, really,
and we spent a pleasant hour
discussing God―
how hard He is to know,
and impossible to please.

I left him there, the pale supplicant,
all skin and bone, at the mouth of his cave,
imploring his “Master” on callused knees.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)



Role Reversal
by Michael R. Burch

The fluted lips of statues
mock the bronze gaze
of the dying sun . . .

We are nonplused, they say,
smacking their wet lips,
jubilant . . .

We are always refreshed, always undying,
always young, forever unapologetic,
forever gay, smiling,

and though it seems man has made us,
on his last day, we will see him unmade―
we will watch him decay
as if he were clay,
and we had assumed his flesh,
hissing our disappointment.



Excelsior
by Michael R. Burch

I lift my eyes and laugh, Excelsior . . .
Why do you come, wan spirit, heaven-gowned,
complaining that I am no longer “pure?”

I threw myself before you, and you frowned,
so full of noble chastity, renowned
for leaving maidens maidens. In the dark

I sought love’s bright enchantment, but your lips
were stone; my fiery metal drew no spark
to light the cold dominions of your heart.

What realms were ours? What leasehold? And what claim
upon these territories, cold and dark,
do you seek now, pale phantom? Would you light

my heart in death and leave me ashen-white,
as you are white, extinguished by the Night?



Liar
by Michael R. Burch

Chiller than a winter day,
quieter than the murmur of the sea in her dreams,
eyes wilder than the crystal spray
of silver streams,
you fill my dying thoughts.

In moments drugged with sleep
I have heard your earnest voice
leaving me no choice
save heed your hushed demands
and meet you in the sands
of an ageless arctic world.

There I kiss your lifeless lips
as we quiver in the shoals
of a sea that endlessly rolls
to meet the shattered shore.

Wild waves weep, "Nevermore,"
as you bend to stroke my hair.

That land is harsh and drear,
and that sea is bleak and wild;
only your lips are mild
as you kiss my weary eyes,
whispering lovely lies
of what awaits us there
in a land so stark and bare,
beyond all hope . . . and care.

This is one of my early poems, written as a high school sophomore or junior.



The Watch
by Michael R. Burch

Moonlight spills down vacant sills,
illuminates an empty bed.
Dreams lie in crates. One hand creates
wan silver circles, left unread
by its companion—unmoved now
by anything that lies ahead.

I watch the minutes test the limits
of ornamental movement here,
where once another hand would hover.
Each circuit—incomplete. So dear,
so precious, so precise, the touch
of hands that wait, yet ask so much.

Originally published by The Lyric



Keywords/Tags: Halloween, dark, supernatural, skeleton, witch, ghost, vampire, monsters, ghoul, werewolf, goblins, occult, mrbhalloween, mrbhallow, mrbdark

Published as the collection "Halloween Poems"

I look at the fractured streets
littered with broken promises
peeling billboards peddling luxury to the wrong audience
the contorted vertebrae of this country's spine
and I mourn
the death of the American Dream.
I see it lying at my feet with every step
like the broken-winged bird from childhood fables.
"Fix me," she wheezes.
I tried once, but it died in my hands.
Apparently,
"The Dream" used to be two cars
but now it's two good fists
the wisdom to know when enough is enough
and the strength to say it.
I was born too late to remember anything else.
Here lies the American Dream,
bruised and battered by those who vowed to protect her
doused in oil and set aflame
by misdirection
misdemeanors
and Miss Universe.
Here lies the American Dream
who was born from revolution
and died in its absence
who waited for a day that never came
who lived long enough to see the fruit of her labor
become a raisin in the sun.

Sometimes I watch the others,
So comfortable in their skins
Of whatever form they've chosen,
Or miraculously been blessed with,
And remain a passive observer
Of the beauty before me.
I view their spirit animal forms,
Alongside the incarnations of gods,
and goddesses, and other holy beings,
Dance across their human flesh.

When viewed closely I can see
The smallest units of infinity
Struggling to expand, sometimes succeeding,
Other times dying and quickly vanishing,
To be suddenly replaced by elements
Of others, or the world around them.
They are cloaked in visions
My words can't comprehend,
Which I have heard some call yugen.

Other times I find myself
Wanting to join in with the excitement;
I flit between the disguises that
I have made for myself, in
An effort to seamlessly fit in
Unzipping one skin as discreetly as possible,
and hastily pulling on the next
As I rush from group to group,
Hoping nobody sees who lies within.

I have no concept of my own beauty.
Mirrors do nothing to help, being
designed to only reflect a physical presence.
I suppose that- to a piece of glass-
An eyebrow is just an eyebrow,
And lips are just lips.

If you could see beneath the reflections
Of your own selves I had tried to create,
I am afraid of what you might see
The bitterness that lies beneath.
My multiple façades sometimes breaks free,
And slowly breaks whoever is before me,
Causing mouths to form wide O's of horror,
Or else silences them completely.

This skin I inhabit is not my home-
I appreciate it's gloriousness and accept,
As I do in others, the meanest emotions it conceals,
And treat it as I would any other. I
Wish it no harm, and would be loath
To abandon it on some distant kerb
Like an unloved pet.

My Celtic forefathers had a word to describe this;
"Hiraeth"- a longing for a home that never was,
Or a place one can only recall in distant
Memories; unrecountable to those who
Never knew of its existence to begin with.

Maybe the skins I wear are part
Of my journey home; pupating like
A moth who longs to search for the light,
Yet lacking the wings to do so.
Perhaps they are only walls of my
Own devising, covering the window
To my own soul, that writhes inside
Like some contorted navel.

All I know is that the parts of you
I have stolen, or borrowed, or bought,
Or acquired through other means
Are the closest to home I have ever been,
Enabling me, in those brief moments,
To view the homes you keep within yourselves,
Until you reach out and touch me,
Causing me to run away, tail between legs,
Before my true self can be seen.

As i lay in pain staring at a photo of my deceased nan wishing things were the same. The day she died i felt an emptiness but this emptiness i am feeling right now i can't explain as ****** has ravaged me from vein to vein. The sweats the ***** yeah i'm truly in bits i have the devil sitting on one shoulder telling me to run straight back to a fix. This is the start of an evil hellish game finding the strength from within is driving me completely insane. I lay in the bath i can barely talk each days getting better at least thats what i thought my bodies all contorted twisted and lean the last time i'd eaten was 2 weeks ago it seems. As i look deep into my heart I try hard for this to not tear me apart  but I know i'm never going back to that deadly sin as i think about the future and sort of smile from within. To give your soul to drugs your gonna pay the price your family your friends or even your wife its something i learned long time ago drugs will take everything  that you ever owned. The smell of it the hell of it ****** is a curse it will drain every single penny out of your purse.

I wrote this about a year and a half ago, so mind you, I was but a mere 14 and a half years of age. I've detected problems in the plot and grammatical errors, but I don't want to take away from what it was when I first created it. Thank you.*

There are times that I decide that I must stop, so I pause in my placid, scheduled routine, and wonder about life, and how I came to be such a disheveled human being. I stare at the repetitive pattern of white squares on the ceiling, count the squares a couple of times (it's always 54), and just think. My thoughts bounce around my head persistently, I can feel them hitting against my head, back and forth, back and forth, never stopping. They slither like evil, determined serpents, throughout my veins, around my face, between my fingers. My thoughts fuse together with my dreams, intermingling with my memories, desires, the lies I was fed every day as a child, and the constant anger so close to the surface, but for what reason it is truly there, I was never able to figure out.
Each time I feel the need to think, I start with the same beginning, that same beginning which my mother repeated to me so many times, every morning, every hour on the hour, every night. “You are Todd Stevens. You have beautiful green eyes, the color of emeralds. You are as quick as a fox, and as sharp as a needle. Your mama loves you very much. You've got a great future ahead of you. You killed your sister, Holly, but mama still loves you.” After that, which was so deeply penetrated into my skull, it would be impossible for me to forget it, my thoughts would wander and dwindle down the stream of consciousness.
On this particular day, my thoughts were focused on my current position in life. If I had such a great future ahead of me, why is it that I'd been locked away in an asylum for the past ten years? My mama never lied, she was the best thing that ever happened to me, except maybe Holly. She was my twin sister; we looked so much alike, we could get away with trading places and mama would never even know. We both had the same cropped tawny, brown hair, piercing green eyes, and olive colored skin. I looked down at my flesh, and saw my sister's hands before me. I tried to remember the last memory I had of her, tried to remember how I killed her.
“Todd,” she had called out from behind a door, the door my mama always told us never to go into, 'cause it was our daddy's workshop. “Todd, please help me.” she had whimpered.
“Holly, I'll help you.” I yelled, clawing at the door and grasping for the doorknob. It wouldn't budge. My mama was standing at her doorway, looking at me with the most pitiful eyes I had ever seen. She was sniffling a whole lot, and had one hand behind her back. I became entranced in her stare, and I immediately ignored the small cries of Holly from behind the door. Mama starts approaching me, and I saw something silver in her hand. And then it ends, just like that. I never saw or heard about Holly again. A lot of my memories ended that way, seeing mama come at me with a silver thing. But I always woke up, very happy, if not a little bit ache-y. She'd sit there and run her hands through my hair, and murmur her repetition to me, over and over. My name was still Todd Stevens, I still had green eyes, I was still quick and sharp, mama still loved me, I still had aspirations, and I still killed my sister.
Mama was always the best thing in my life. She loved me a lot, really cared about me. She never truly appreciated Holly as much, but that was fine by me. Sometimes, when Holly had been jealous, she'd yell at me, so loud that it pulsated throughout my head like the ocean waves on the shore. I'd never been to the shore, but mama showed my videos of it all the time. She never let us out of the house, she said she didn't want the other kids laughing at us. I would ask why anyone would laugh at us, and she would just smile and shake her head, and say, “Oh, you're special Toddy.”
I look up at the ceiling again, because I'm feeling too emotional, and count the 54 squares again. Thinking of mama always makes me feel funny, especially when I think of the day she sent me to the place I've lived in ever since, this asylum I call home.
It was all of a sudden, one day out of the blue. She looked at me with ferocious, hating eyes for the first time in my life. Without words, just her intense glare, she forced me to go to my daddy's workshop door. She was breathing real heavily, like she did when she chased me around the house and scooped me up into her arms, and kissed my forehead. This was not one of those times, though. She pointed at the door.
“Go.” She commanded. I never said no to my mama, but I was scared and stuck in her trance again, like I was when Holly was calling out to me. Mama began to walk closer to me, her hand still pointed towards the door, shaking. “Please,” she begged, her face instantly softening, “I can't do this anymore, I'm sorry. They'll take care of you, Holly. They're much better than me. I'm not a good mama. I ruined you.” She then began to cry, and I had never seen her cry before. It was all too much for me, so I twisted the handle and left that house once and for all.
I ran and closed my eyes, because I didn't know what I was going to find in daddy's workshop, and I didn't want to see Holly after all that time being so far apart. I didn't think as to why mama called me Holly, or why she abandoned me after so long. I left mama behind me, and sometimes, if I think hard enough, I can still hear her cries.
What I found behind that door was absolute nothingness, like a dream of black fog, thick and enveloping, not letting me go. Pictures appeared before me, quick and not ceasing. The pictures showed me and mama when I was born in a hospital a long time ago in a place I didn't remember ever seeing. One was of me and her, right when I was born. She looked so happy and at ease. Then, another picture showed mama with another baby, it must have been Holly. What confused me was that she was real blue, and wasn't crying, and mama's face was all contorted in this strange look of horror. I shied away from that picture, it made the anger come up again, the worst it had ever been. I screamed in this strange state of delusion, and that picture was replaced by ones I didn't recognize in the least. Mama was in one of them. She sat in a small cell enclosed with metal bars, and looked completely lost and alone. She looked much older; her once black hair was a shade of silver and her porcelain skin was cracked with age. I wanted to comfort her, to reach out, but that snapshot was then replaced with another picture, of me, with long brown hair, green eyes, and a door behind me. I smiled a goofy grin, and pointed at the name plate by the door. It read, “Holly Stevens.” Then, like a movie clip, it showed me opening that door, looking around a small white room with 54 white squares on the ceiling, sitting on the bed and smiling, then the door slowly closing behind me.
I look up at the ceiling once more. I count. 1, 2, 3, 4... Subconsciously, I knew I had just stumbled upon the truth, but I would never let myself admit it. After all, my name is Todd Stevens. I have beautiful green eyes, the color of emeralds. I'm as quick as a fox and as sharp as a needle. My mama loves me very much. I have a great future ahead of me. I killed my sister, Holly, but mama still loves me. ...51, 52, 53, 54...

His feet was crunching snow.
The dark was thickest,
Battled only by a single light.
The snow crunched beneath his feet,
But the doe made no noise,
She passed,with confidence,through the trees,
For she was nothing but light.
Deeper and deeper into the forest she led him,
And he walked quickly,
He was sure that when she stopped,
She would allow him to approach her properly,
And then,he assumed, she would speak,
And the voice would help him understand.
At last she came to a halt,
She turned her beautiful head towards him,
And he broke into a run.
A question burned against his cold,
But as he opened his mouth to ask,
She vanished.
He was tired and confused,
There was wetness somewhere,
But everything was muddled,
He only thought of his doe.
He was descending into a dark pool,
His head swung to and fro,
He seemed to forget he couldn't see through dark,
Nor did he realize properly the depths of his dementia.
Waves lapped his chin,
He seemed impervious to the cold,
He walked on,still searching,
A madman's errand.
A sliver of fear penetrated his mind,
A trickle of doubt,
A pinch of awareness.
He was fully submerged and wondering at the burning in his nose,
"Where is my light?"
Lo the doe appeared,
'Ere eve of death,
A ways ahead,before him,
Big silver eyes watching,bitter eyes,
She started deliberately stepping backward,
Wickedly leading him on.
He tried to follow,
His body contorted,
He struggled for breath fuel,
For the poisonous air,
His heart skipped into his mouth.
The doe grinned,
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
He still didn't recognize danger,
He was staring at his doe,
Mesmerized,his eyes confused, his face reflecting fear,
His mind cracked with cold,
The surface of his consciousness broke.
He was withered and shriveled,
Falling into the cold,darkness beyond,
Every pore of his body screaming in protest.
He looked at his doe again,
Somehow remembering,on the threshold of death,
Her face was indifferent,
He tried to force his eyes closed,at least look away,
Her face then changed,
A cold,cruel,contorted mask.
She sneered,
Loving to linger, craving agony, she likes to put her hands in death.
                                                                                                          -**Firefly

they're the worst, and i mean that literally
imagine this, imagine that
everything that terrifies you, from any age that you've been
from the things that barely ***** you to the things that you are deathly afraid of
under one tent, an old worn down halloween coloured carny tent, filled with broken down rides and fallen apart structures and lit only by the moon
all with one intent, all of them working together to reach one goal
to get you, and have their way with you
and you can't fight back, every time you try to, they just get stronger
so you do the one thing you can do at this point
you run
you run faster then you ever have before, and none of this weird *** dream running where you move slowly when you're trying to run
i mean full out sprinting
you run and try to escape
but there's no way out, the holed purple and orange walls of the tent flap in the wind but when you go to touch them, they fill and turn solid
solid concrete below three inches of dirt, and you can't see anything to climb
you run and try to hide
the lesser terrors might try to help you.
trying to convince you that this place is safe, or to let them lead the others off of your trail
but they never tell the truth, they only do one thing
they help the greater terrors find you
so you refuse their help, shooing them away, and you survive for a bit longer
but its always the same, in the end, no matter what you try, every time it ends the same way
they find you, hiding on top of one of the structures, in a little cave, somewhere in one of the rides
and you're tortured
you're tortured worse than you ever thought that a being would do
sometimes your tongue is split into thirds from side to side, and is then cut from front to back
sometimes your limbs and body are twisted and contorted into strange shapes, making you into human art
you foolishly believed that these things might have a heart and not make it as slow and painful as they could
well you're right for the first bit, they do have a heart of sorts
after they're done playing with you
after they're done toying with your body
they don't just let you be, leave you where you are to stay there in agony
no, they **** you
nothing extra, nothing complex
just a stab through the heart, a ripping off of the head, and you're gone
unless they're being crueler
at which point, you have the option of fighting back
or letting them **** you in a gruesome way, hanging you from a rope over an open tank of water with lots of hungry creatures eagerly awaiting your fall

at least, that's what you think they do, you're never asleep long enough to find out
and that's why youre glad that they've only now begun to come and get you while you're awake

One's grand flights, one's Sunday baths,
One's tootings at the weddings of the soul
Occur as they occur. So bluish clouds
Occurred above the empty house and the leaves
Of the rhododendrons rattled their gold,
As if someone lived there. Such floods of white
Came bursting from the clouds. So the wind
Threw its contorted strength around the sky.

Could you have said the bluejay suddenly
Would swoop to earth? It is a wheel, the rays
Around the sun. The wheel survives the myths.
The fire eye in the clouds survives the gods.
To think of a dove with an eye of grenadine
And pines that are comets, so it occurs,
And a little island full of geese and stars:
It may be that the ignorant man, alone,
Has any chance to mate his life with life
That is the sensual, pearly spouse, the life
That is fluent in even the wintriest bronze.

.
… and the look of fear
co-existing with pain
     on a contorted face
that knows
it is in mortal difficulty,
as ragged fingers

     clutch,

          clutch,

at a fire they cannot reach,
ripping agonies react,
     to an enforced cardiac episode,
as blackness closes in
gravity heaves its hardest,
but the fall is fake,
a red herring in the event,
     and the weight of the world

presses down, searching,
retracts
waiting,
presses down, searching,
retracts
waiting,

as breath is given freedom
in exhalation to the light,
     that slowly rolls back
the pitch hue of the void,
returning back images,
feeling,
a new belief,

          and the fire inside quietens,

                    and the fire inside quietens,

to the intense glow
     of a burnt aching heart.



© Pagan Paul (2018)

The veil lifted
from the mechanical slaughter
of the coastal engineers.

Waves crash in that soft,
whispering hiss. The sound that
is usually betrayed, contorted,
through terabytes of purchased bliss,
of a meditation wrought in sickness.

Freed of employment ties,
I stand at Earth's compromise.
Wavering boundaries broken,
conquered, and regained once more.

Cyclical, cynical, tempered battle.
War-torn property rolls in the throes
of the Moon, endless, gentle
discrepancies between land and sea.

I dip my hand in the brine. Long
written of, rarely encountered
in my daydream, salt unreal on the tongue,
only when spoken.

This roar, the old marginal sea,
it obliterates the pneumatic sounds of the
yellow-coated henchmen of progression.

Slaves, breaking backs to build roads
for the already-fallen pyramids,
already stolen marble coat and golden
spinning top,

we've dug it all out.

And the lighthouse winks. It winks
through the fast shadow of January's afternoon.
No land at the horizon, instead a sheet
of hostile, infertile water, and clouds
to stifle my lungs.

Oh, lighthouse; my childhood's end,
now but a lack of time taken to notice
you. You spindle-spin the light, powerful beacon.

You roll back the decades,
to times of ships and books;
of journeys born and placed
over profit's end.

This journey, this journey now so brief,
once dug by many, once an undertaking,
now one quiet train ride away.

Like a prophet, I strive. I strive
to notice Earth's balm,
the Mother and protector,
of all terrestrial innocence.

Bind me not in gravity, nor in debt.
Instead, let me scale the North Sea's
surface. To join the glamour of the
fairy-lit, tough Norwegian liners,
grey like Scottish shores.

Boundless power, opulent force
in a decaying town. City street lights
stretch up to bring the folk under the
dentistry light.

The groynes will hold this beach
like a girdle, as a holster of sand,
a harness for erosion, whilst the
traffic sounds signal lack of footfall;
mounted failure.

But, for evermore, the waves sing to us.
They sing the truth: that they will remain
long since our passing, long since the stench
of fumes; long since we've given up
on the fall.

With this and lightened body, brought
to betterment through cannabis and
Astral Selves, I turn to my life
and remember it well, as a fraction
of the entire self.

Kiss blown to darkened waters,
the paternal, cooing waves and whispers
of ancient whale, I turn back to the sand dunes
and hardy grassland.

A hotel stands at a distance,
privileged guests with fluorescent luggage,
and half-filled parking spaces,
whilst the Romans still stand in ruin.

That lighthouse weeps its goodbyes,
the sand drags me back in my prints,
knowing me, identifying me – careful police.
They sing, “Oh former tenant, Northern heat,
gentle visitor, help us cleanse your feet!”

Clumsily, I stagger back to my lifetime's
worth of worries. Back to the conglomerate
of blackened, distorted figures, sculptured
rain-soaked children, standing with feet
indiscernible from the globe beneath,

locked out of motion.

To them, I understand their isolation,
their helpless gravity in a heavy world.
To them, I return to artificial light,
where will suffers, where lungs heave,

but for all this I am glad,
of the sweet ocean-side reprieve.

i remember when my mama took me up the mountain,
she told me,
"now, you are ready."
and pine and oak softly fluttered their leaves at my arrival.
there were yellow flowers,
growing wildly,
strangling the delicate blue blossoms,
made of flimsy roots and spindly bosoms.

i was the youngest in a tribe of
golden skinned people;
dreadlocks, tattoos,
moon cycles on the sides of their eyes,
and hair like cattails whispering in the dark.

with my stomach churning,
i entered the tall, dimly lit tepee.
the medicine man sat churning the ashes
in an empty fire-pit,
and women stood around me scattering
flower petals like
soft skin
all over the red-dirt earth.

his eyes twinkled,
and told me things that he would only let the
dusk unfold.
i took my seat on a white sheep-skin,
settling myself.

as the night grew older,
the fire grew larger,
shapes elongated on the fair skin of the stretched
tepee,
the flames dancing wildly,
smoke drifting up into the
starry dark.

the fire keeper stoked the raging
yellow and orange tongues,
and the medicine man sat with a bandanna on,
his waterfall nose moving,
and his leather brown skin creaking,
as he told us stories of the sacred medicine.

and we sat,
somebody started singing.
my mothers warm frame was close to mine,
and my step-father next to her,
shoulders touching in the close proximity,
intimate, smoky air.

they beat the deer-skin drum,
badum badum *** badum badum ***
in native languages like
roaring rivers,
they sang songs to the medicine,
for the opening of the heart;
their swift and strong voices
rising like smoke and flame.

when the drum was passed to me,
i didn't know any songs,
wasn't aware that i had to know any.
i started to hit the drum with the padded
stick, and
closed my eyes,
feeling the sticky sweat of my perspiring forehead
drip down upon my licked lips,
tasting of wood and dirt.
i sang something lilting
sounds coming from the deepest
crevices of my throat,
being gently pulled from the grasp of my ribs.

the medicine man put pine on the fire,
it sizzled and breath was filled with
sweet and sharp.

when the air was right, and
the night was thick with song,
he uncovered baskets of small,
green and ridged fruit-like shapes.
"buttons,"

the medicine was taking her form, and was cradled
as a native man took it around the circle,
along with oranges.
i'd find out soon why.

i took two, small and light in my fingers.
i closed my eyes and took the first bite.

my mouth was struck, eroding teeth
and erupting tongue
my face contorted from the bitter juices the small fruit
held within its delicate skin,
my stomach churned and i swallowed it down
biting into the orange, skin and all
begging for a shock of zest to take
down the intense flesh of the medicine.

i looked around,
some people were on their third, fourth.
the beat of the drums was constant,
along with the quiet,
restful crackle of the sighing fire.

the second bite was less of a surprise,
and i finished my first one.

it was only at the third bite of the second button
that my stomach refused to go any more without
heaving,
the astringent juices of the
small fruit working its magic on my stomach.

i closed my eyes and embraced what was around me;
slowly swaying in the deep voices of my
family,
mi familia,
'ohana,
and the heartbeat of the
mountain drums.

soon, i felt weary.
my mother rested her hand like falling rain on my shoulder,
and i lay in the warm arms of her
shawls,
twisting around me like snakes.

a traditional rollie was passed around,
made of corn husk and hand grown tobacco.
my eyes grew slow and drooping,
and i fell into the waiting arms of sleep
while listening to the music of
tobacco and wood smoke, hushed voices,
wilting night,
dancing fire, and alive laughter.

my sleep was deep and dreamless,
my body carried to other places by the medicine,
leaving my mind behind.

i woke to rough feet on the red dirt,
and my mother and father intertwined like red roses,
sleeping below the tepee's watch,
my mothers white skirt fanning out like
soft sheets in the summer
walls.

there were goodmorning smiles,
light spreading from one set of a skin to another,
as my family embraced me,
told me they were proud and grateful to me
for sitting with them.

a bowl of chocolate was passed around, along with a crate
of juicy, pink, dawn touched strawberries.
i dipped them in the dark, sweet and rich paste
and one after another,
felt myself expand into the universe even more.
only when my mother awoke,
to sprinkling flowers,
and lifted sky,
she told me that the chocolate held the medicine too.

i made my way across swaying, long grass,
and sat in the sun, sipping tea with a sliced lemon,
making art with twists and curls of my pencils and pens,
listening to the experiences of last night,
the enlightenment,
the sense of overwhelming love,
that was not quite drowning.

i basked in everything,
let the heat soak into my flesh,
the lilting laugh.
somebody handed me a guitar,
and i sang with my chocolate tinted lips,
and let my voice float within and around the mountain,
filling the tepee and the empty fire pit
once more,
with the sweet and bitter tastes of
the medicine
*peyote.

Come closer my child,
do mind the fire.
and I’ll tell you the tale of
Wayne, the Good Squire.
It was once, long ago,
in the kingdom of Kam,
that a cruel, recreant knight
controlled the whole land.
He had taken the kingdom
through fiery force,
And though many had died,
he showed no remorse.
He captured the castle with
hatred and slaughter.
No one remained, except the
king’s daughter.
For she was the picture of
beauty and grace.
The cruel knight fell in love
when he looked at her face.
And so there they remained,
the princess and her captor.
The kingdom was silent,
devoid of all laughter.
In a neighboring kingdom there
lived a knight.
With his armor all shined he
was a formidable sight.
He had heard of the story with a
mixture of glee,
for he needed to prove himself
to the community.
But he was young and stupid,
as most of them are.
He had not the brains,
he was only good for a spar.
So his kind, caring father
sent him off with a squire.
His name was Wayne,
and his wits were much higher.
The knight went for glory and
the love of a girl,
while the squire went for money
from the hand of an earl.
And so off they set, our
squire and knight.
They were well prepared for all
but a difficult fight.
They travelled for days without
sign of the castle,
Din the knight began to
complain, cursing such hassle.
He wanted the glory
but none of the trouble.
And while he was toiling
his anger did double.
He wanted to turn back, to
give it all up.
To go home and sleep with
ale in his cup.
But Wayne the Good Squire
convinced him to stay,
promising his fame in just one
more day.
This promise was good for on
the next night,
a castle loomed just ahead:
the cause of their plight.
The knight rode ahead,
ready for battle.
But Wayne followed slowly,
wary even of cattle.
Our Din was too loud,
too sure of himself.
He would soon be a trophy  
above the castle shelf.
The Lord of the castle,
the cruel knight named Lor,
knew he was there before
he came to the door.
His armor was on,
his sword by his side
he planned to be done with it
before he even stepped outside.
But Wayne had been watching
him prepare for the fight.
He rushed down the hill to warn
his burdensome knight.
He had concocted a plan above
either knights’ thinking.
He would switch places with
Din, faster than blinking.
He would go to the door
in place of the knight,
and when the door opened,
Din would give Lor a fight!
So Din went to hide in a bush
near the door,
while Wayne rode up proudly,
looking ready for war.
But when the doors opened,
there stood a man.
He was so large and monstrous,
Din forgot the whole plan.
He sat frozen in fear,
hidden in the bush,
not even brave enough to give
Wayne’s horse a push.
And so Wayne was left alone to
face the giant knight.
Lor looked upon him with a
laugh of delight.
But the brazen, young squire
refused to run back.
He charged without thinking,
his sword ready to attack.
Lor was astonished,
the squire caught him off guard.
The sword hit its target,
whacking Lor hard.
Dazed from the blow, the cruel
knight fell to the ground.
Wayne struck him once more,
and Lor died with no sound.
Gasping for breath after his
arduous fight,
Wayne fell out of the saddle
still dressed as a knight.
He stumbled into the castle to
make himself known,
but all he could manage was a
soft, feeble moan.
He fell to his knees and
curled into a heap.
Unable to stay awake,
he gave into sleep.
He awoke to find himself in
a soft bed,
he was so warm and content
he thought himself dead.
But then he saw a figure
slouched in a chair,
he saw it was Din, but he
could do nothing but stare.
Din saw him looking and
quickly sat straight,
his eyes were angry, his face
contorted with hate.
He accused Wayne of stealing
his glory and good name;
out from the beginning to
capture his fame.
Din got up from the chair and
moved with a knife,
and so Wayne was in yet
another struggle for life.
The fight was short-lived
for when Din stood he swayed.
And when he went to attack,
he fell onto his blade.
Wayne was astonished, it just
couldn’t be;
the knight that lay dead was the
one that started this spree.
He had planned to **** him
for fake lies and deceit.
So Wayne felt no remorse for
the man at his feet.
He left his room, in search of
the princess,
in hopes that he would return
with reward for his success.
He needn’t go far for outside of
his door,
there stood a woman whom
he couldn’t love more.
She too was taken by Wayne’s
good looks and charm.
She apologized for being
the cause of his harm.
He couldn’t hear more so he
got on his knee,
asking her to let him help
rule the country.
She accepted this offer with
happy tears.
For he was the knight that had
destroyed all her fears.
They embraced and as she
looked past his shoulder,
she received a scare from a man
that lay still as a boulder.
“My sweet who is that man that
hast scared me so?
He looks to be stabbed,
was he your foe?”
“My dear, don’t take fright of
such gruesome a sight.
That is only the once grand,
Cowardly Knight.”
Wayne and his love were
soon wed for life,
and never were their lives again
full of such strife.
And so it was that many
came to admire
and listen to the tale of Wayne,
the Good Squire.

Tracing smoke with dry ice fingertips,
I hold my breath and begin to float.
The heat of a bellies past burden
steams to my head, until I begin to rise.

No where to go, except everywhere I'm late,
so I drift along a black and blue sky pretending
to be a storm. Pressing clouds into my skin
that slowly evaporate into recovery along the way.

Unconscious and shattered, I land where I've
always been. Cloaked in dew drop kisses and
pink morning yawns, I could pull the earth over
my head just to snooze into eternity.

But there's a mouth at my neck, breathing sticky
lies and humid affairs. Each whisper a grain of
sand, filling my vision with a million fragments of fog.
Blurring what ever I was and who ever I will become.

I drink shape shifting water that always refills as
*****, lubricating contorted lust and pages that
won't burn. Scraping scabs for clues and emptying
all my pockets for loose change as a compass for hope.

Slippery slumber, the hot air rises to make room for
cold confrontation and chilling truths. On every
surface you'll find manic scribbles that feel
like immortal truths
bleeding from my fingertips,
only to wake in silence with no resolution.

Just the melodic drone of recycled air from the AC.

The cold distance between two hearts,
Once beating simultaneously, in unison -
A small disconnection,
A simple malfunction,
Unforeseen miscommunication amidst unvanquished certainty -
Muzzled, tightened grip,
Cloaking an angst shell of a body,
Harvesting repressed emotions,
Alluring a passive tongue -
Releasing an outpour of an outcry in an outburst,
Retribution -
Freedom released from with-in,
Healing of a contorted soul...
Commence.

Motionless trees sinister
In their silence
Images swirl of twisting pirates
Shapes and shadows stoop
Contorted, turn and beckon
A voice whispers softly
Of things that only darkness knows
Shivering, eyes deceived

We run blind,
Hair blowing, arms flailing as
Blithe heart’s make a blind start
Into the sweet unknown.
Stop.
Taste the tangy so-its-sore,
Make-your-eyes-*****-up
More-than-your-contorted-face
Sweets.
Such as licorice sherbet straws.

Poor blind hearts.
Caught in the net of Time,
Sickly sweet now obsolete,
My heart starts to beat
Away from my running feet.
I don't like those straws no more.

​​     I was ten years old when I wrote it.
One lone sentence. A sentence that would become my mantra; the sentence that defines my existence.

I wish I were dead.

I first wrote it in my journal. Then a couple days later, I wrote it again. Then again. And again and again and again. Until eventually, the pages had all been claimed. Each line on each page reiterated one phrase – I wish I were dead.

Although I was merely a fourth grader, this was no passing phrase (get it?). Ten years separate me from that lone sentence, yet I am ready as ever.

​I wish I were dead. I wish I were dead. I WISH I WERE DEAD.

​This is how I feel six days out of seven.
I can no longer count the number of failed attempts, the static loony-bin trips, the hospital hopping routine – a process I’ve memorized verbatim.

Can’t say how many times I’ve survived these garbage disposals for the insane.

You’d think if I really wanted to die, I’d be dead already. Yet, in a bizarre manner, not even the Grim Reaper wants me. I’ve consumed rat poison and lived, rolled my mom’s car and escaped without a scratch, tumbled from heights so high, yet – here I am.

One night, last summer, I mixed molly with coke with ****** with so much liquor – because liquor is quicker – thinking for certain I’d orchestrated my demise. Some of my friends were squatting in this foreclosed house, so there was no electricity, and I spent hours playing Sims with some girl in the dark.

Eventually, my computer died – but I didn’t.

The list goes on.

On this list, there’s one night I’ll never forget; an attempt that far outweighs the others. A night I’ll forever regret. The night I came face to face with the grim reaper, for the first and only time, and somehow turned away.

This is how it went.



​     The Last Supper was comprised of 150 assorted pills, and some secondhand Jack Daniels.
​
I ate alone. I’d exchanged dining hall for bathroom; chair for bathtub. I held one lone utensil – a razor blade – nestled safely in my hand. Cradling the blade like a child who found the cookie jar – the way my boyfriend worshiped a fresh syringe of ******; I snuggled that sacred utensil.

I failed to savor this Last Supper – for dine and dash would more appropriately summarize my actions. I ravaged the meal as a stray dog would raw meat. Gagging and choking, whilst feeling nothing at all.

All those pills, that jack, I poured into a jar and chugged like a freshman in college. (Get it?) The most unconventional supper you ever did see.

My makeshift chair filled slowly with water like concrete – and soon I’d be buried alive. So I squeezed the razor tight, pretending it was a loved one’s hand instead.

​Yet – nothing happened.

I considered my lone utensil – the blade – then laughed, and threw it aside. How high school of me – a time when I confused my wrist with a cutting-board. Oh, silly me; my insides could do the work without external additions.

​However, the nausea hit before I’d relinquished consciousness. I feared I would toss my cookies – ones stolen from the cookie jar – before they could toss me.

​An important factor to note is this was not my house. It belonged to my boyfriend’s aunt. And although she was not home – he was. Earlier, I’d thrown a knife at his head and told him I was glad Morgan died, to ensure he’d leave me be, but now I was bored and nauseous and so I got up and left the Last Supper to pursue a bad cliché I just died in your arms tonight.
​ What happened next is not important – I’ll fast-forward to what is.

The first to come was a young girl.
​She wore her blonde hair in two braids. Her tiny body, adorned in a loose, blue dress. Her feet were sheathed in neat white socks beneath modest, black slippers; slippers that matched her headband. A headband to cradle her mind.

​Her existence stupefied mine – for I knew at once who she was. And I was terrified.

This girl was coasting her eighth birthday. A birthday she’d never reach.

And yet – she was as wise as I am thin; far wiser than my nineteen-year-old self. She never spoke, but there was no need. Everyone talks, but seldom is speech genuine. Only in actions can we find the truth.

I’d waited my whole life for her. My true, beloved best friend. A girl as imaginary as could be.

Alison Wonderland.

Unfortunately, she had no intention of staying. She had no interest in my world; she’d only come to take me to hers. She’d come to take me away. Far away. Away so far I could never return.

This time – finally – I’d be gone for good.

My whole life I’d waited; now, she’d finally come. Not to join my life. She’d come to watch me die.

We both knew my lifespan would hardly outlast the hour.

Collapsed within a shower, I floundered for words. Separated from her by a mere pane of glass. She was so close. And yet, I was far from happy – I’d nearly surpassed hyperventilation. Literally stunned to death.

This beautiful angel maintained composure, however; unaltered by my frigid welcome. An unwavering smile illustrated her entire physic, whilst she offered her hand to mine – arm outstretched and waiting.

The ultimate invitation.

However, we were not alone. Not two, but three souls occupied this bathroom. The bathroom of my Last Supper.

On my side of the glass was a man. A man I knew. A man I loved. A man whose manhood was verified by little more than age – 25. Whilst numbers generally distinguish between childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, he was much more a boy than a man. His maturity – vastly negated by defining characteristics. You see, this 25-year-old boy was also a pathological liar, a sociopath, and a ****** addict. He was the stranger your mommy warned you not to talk to – and he was my boyfriend.

My boyfriend, our third addition, was christened Daniel no-middle-name Rodden. An alias more accurately spelled Rotten – which I knew, but refused to accept. So instead, he was just Danny.

Anyways.

I surrendered consciousness slowly. I was crumpled, trembling and mumbling, grappling to sit up or speak.

With all my strength I pointed, terrified and confused, at Alison.

“How is she here?” I wanted to scream. “How’d she get in? What’s happening?”

“What are you talking about?” Danny’s voice wondered. “There’s no one out there. I promise I promise.”

He must have been blind. For Alison remained, hand outstretched, waiting and waiting.

However, Danny Rotten and Alison Wonderland could not see each other. Nor could they hear or feel one another. They existed within uncorrelated dimensions. They were, in fact, entirely irrelevant to one another, compromised by one single factor. Me. Because not only was I physically dying – directly between them (monkey in the middle?) – my consciousness floundered amidst their two wonderlands.

But this was temporary, for we all knew I had less than an hour to make a choice; a life with this toxic boy, or a death with this loving girl. Death, which I’d coveted since I was ten. This decision could not be undone; I could not keep them both.

I never took this hand I was offered – Alison Wonderland’s – I clung to Danny instead. A decision I’ll forever regret. But I had yet to meet the Grimm Reaper.

Somehow, I’d been transported back into the bathtub. I sat back at the table of my Last Supper. Only, this time, I was not to dine alone.
I remember Danny’s face – if only for a split second – covering mine. His handsome, Spanish features contorted in fear; even mussed and wet, his dark hair swam across his forehead with graceful finesse.

On his face I’d never seen such emotion, nor will I ever again.

Drifting in and out of consciousness, I lost sight of that face. I knew he was speaking, perhaps even yelling, his physic – inches from my own. But then, the stampede arrived, trampling him whole.

Empty handed, Alison might have left. But this evaded me.

For into the room poured innumerable intruders. My ghostly escort, it would appear. Some spoke to me, some avoided. Some set up a poker game in the corner – waiting on my choice – whilst others conjured chairs like rabbits from a hat. Chairs they set up around this bathtub. Enveloped in bodies, my Final Supper had become a banquet of sorts. Danny tried to hand me a bucket, to throw up my poison, but I was so weak I couldn’t have held it had I wanted to.

Out of all these people – souls I presumed dead – I recognized only two faces.

Preston and Henry. Two boys I knew – and although ****** addicts, they were alive and well. Not ghosts like the rest. However, within the next two weeks those two would both overdose and nearly die.

Coincidence? I think not. Yet, I digress.  

That was when he appeared, for above the bathtub stood a window. Outside that window, I glimpsed a man. A man I’d been chasing since I was ten.

Mister Grimm. I remember not his attire, nor any defining details, only the expression on his face as his eyes singed my own. Complete and utter hatred and malice, with fatal intentions. He looked to me as his arch nemesis – and had I invited him in, he would have given me what I’d always wanted. I knew this to be true.

I knew also that, although Alison had appeared to be the defining choice, she was not. This man was. And in that pivotal moment, I began to scream.

I screamed for Danny – to make this Grimm go away, to tell him to leave.

Danny did. And when I next looked up, the man was no more. Gone, too, was everyone else. I took Danny’s bucket, hurled, and knew no more.

This is one night I’ll never forget; an attempt that far outweighs the others. The night I came face to face with the grim reaper, for the first and only time, and somehow turned away. A night I’ll forever regret. Sometimes, however, I wonder if it was not mister Grim I was looking at, but Danny’s reflection: the monster he soon became.

Or, perhaps, it was not a male I saw in that window.

Perhaps, It was myself.

Last night your bedroom was tattoo-parlor-red…

You were a relentless *** machine
and your Alex Esguerra painting was knocked from the wall
during our rough housing. I found it
broken behind the bed
when I was looking for my second sock…
the other sock was still in my hand when I woke.

I love the way you always fall asleep diagonally
across the bed, so that
I lie awake, contorted and trying to figure out a way
to fit comfortably and proportionally
into your sprawling unconsciousness.

Yesterday, I loved your morning countenance;
void of expression
as you looked down your nose at the coffee press.
Your upper lip rested heavily on the lower, which seemed
immovable, that I’m not sure it will ever change.
It was too tired to be a pout and
I couldn’t look away –
so I must have loved it.

In the throws of passion last night,
you moaned that I made you sick to your stomach. I asked
if it was because I was too far inside you. You said,
“you’re always too far inside me.
That’s why you make me sick.”
And then you came and
rolled off of me.

I woke with only one leg in my jeans,
my mouth was coated with body paint,
and my chest was clawed into military ranks
by your flesh filled nails.

My other leg was propped on top
of an old pine blanket box at the foot of your bed
and my right arm was folded behind me
and numb. So I threw a sweatshirt over my shoulder –
I think it belonged to your old boyfriend, the one
you made the Esguerra painting with –
and I walked out of your flat leaving the door open.
Your cat slipped out behind me and
followed me downstairs to the sidewalk.
I didn’t care.

I sat blankly staring at Sweet’N Low packets
under a newspaper rack at the coffee shop on the corner,
holding my mug for what seemed like
an eternity of suspended animation –
the grip on it’s handle was the only thing
that connected me to the planet.

My eyes held that same lack of expression as yours did, but
my lips were parted so that air could
flow freely in and out if it
became necessary.

Sitting lost in state, it occurred me, that
I deeply and authentically affect you
and it has nothing to do with *******.

Your boyfriend’s sweatshirt was a size too big for me
and I could tell he wore Creed –
I saw a bottle of it on the toilet tank. It’s redolence
clashed with the aroma of roasting coffee and
I was startled from stasis.

So I left, walking out to a cacophonous city, where
the sun had just exploded over the horizon,
and I smiled into its blinding brilliance.
As the door squeaked closed behind me to a snap,
I looked to the right for a moment,
then turned left.
I had no idea where I was walking to and started
blithely swinging my arms
as I accelerated my gait.

I still had my sock in my hand.
And your cat is probably dead.

Sometimes when I look at myself
all I can see is
ugly
worthless
****
I learned this from you.

You taught me that nothing I ever did was good enough
not for you
or anyone else
I would never be enough

Most importantly, you taught me what love is
That to love someone
I have to give away everything I am
my confidence
my body
my self-worth
until I am only an empty shell of a person
so they can hold power over me

Sometimes
when I can’t find these pieces of me
I can see your face
contorted with rage
insistent, pleading until I obey
or
smirking, condescending
I can hear your voice
you can’t wear that, you look like a ****
I’m the only one who really loves you
I did it for you, you owe me
I don’t owe you anything.

I taught myself how to love who I am
Reassembling all the pieces that you stole from me
took everything I had but
I am beautiful.
I am loveable.
I am worth something.
No one can ever change that.

an enduring cypress
immortal knotted rings
until death
two as one
held breath

a contorted filbert
purple catkins bring to flower
deeply rooted visions
creativity, awareness, knowledge
enlightened fruition

a variegated willow
to drink up sorrow's rain
in tolerance we bend
but not to point
of breaking

three trees
foretell a future
laced with little deaths
cypress, filbert, willow
lest we should forget