'I want to eat you,' he said with his eyes closed.
'Why?' Still, even though she was afraid-unfathomably afraid, she was infatuated with him; this creature so terrifyingly comely that she was sometimes scared of it-she could not then help peering into his bright face; its exquisite whiteness was dauntingly mysterious, but again full of indecipherable words-just like a dangerously emotionless sea; which could but turn tempestuous in the course of just one shadowy second.
'You're simply too tempting to me,' he replied after what seemingly very careful thinking; this time with his lips coming nearer to hers, until his breath she could see emanate in bold wreaths of white, pearly bits; bits of ice-lifeless, and tender whilst in handfuls, but at times heartless with their cold souls.
She reflected on the answer for a while, then slowly formed a thoughtful smile around her lips. 'Then where would I be, if you ate me?'
'Within my soul, my blood, and all the length, mirth, and the very crown of my heart,' he uttered the last two words confidently, before further lurching straightly forward to bestow a playful kiss on her trembling lips.
'Ah, but still it won't be the same, my love,' she cupped his cheeks with her cold hands and whispered to him quietly, when they finally pulled away. 'I would no longer be here by your side. And as you have but stated before, you surely like having me here alive better than dead, don't you?' She let out a deep breath, and showed a flirtatious grin so captivating that he wanted to kiss her once more. And possibly mesmerize her. Startle her. Eat her. Partake of her. Consume her. Conquer her. Possess her. Tear her. Tear her apart. Tear all her senses apart. Break her up. Break her body up. Break it up into nothingness. Until she was nothing. Entirely nothing. No more of anything of herself but what he had. Nothing but what he owned. And secretly desired. And had always longed for. Nothing but he possessed; and treasured within his very body; and its very own capricious cells. But still eventually, be her everything; or simply, be everything to her. Be everything she ever wanted. Everything she desired. Everything she wished. Everything she, with all her human weaknesses, ever eagerly wanted him to be. Or to do.
'Don't worry, still it will be the same,' he caressed her hair with his free right hand and kissed it. And when she became puzzled by this tauntingly obscure remark, he explained, 'It will still indeed be the same, and will forever be the same, because you will dwell within me, and thus within my heart will be carved your name. So that you're the sole torch that keeps my flame. And the mere lamp that lights my soul. The medicine that heals my wounds. The very deeds of my desires. All the merriment of my days. And the very light that is thrown onto my ways.' He stopped and sighed for a while, before continuing, 'Thus, on top of all that, you will still own the same brand of addiction-to which my entire being is addicted to. Really addicted to. Incurably addicted to-as I will never be able to continue to live without it. I will prefer death, and cherishing a gruesome life among the dead, to having you not within my being-just like I will be if I ever consume you not. So within me,' he took her hand and pressed it against his chest, 'there shall be nothing but satisfaction,'-he stepped closer into where she was standing, 'with having you within me; so your soul shall blend, and merge but perfectly into mine, querida. And such is an occurrence I shall never regret; even if I eventually have to eat you.' Having proposed these last two words, he closed his eyes again; before launching his body right onto hers, and this time missing not planting his fangs onto her shoulder.

You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth
and the world at your feet
always taunting me
dauntingly
you held out the spoon
dripping in your spit
I held out my tongue
and prayed for rain
to soothe the pain
of thirst
but never tasted it

And your tongue tasted more like iron
and your touch felt like steel
and so sharp and cold
against the dry of my skin
my sin
you loved to hold
and stole
away from me
the overprotective mother
of a child you *****
and praised

You told me we'd dance
but it felt more like pulling
like swinging
like violently orbiting 'round
the sun you're too well aware you are
you are
bound to burn out before too long

bathe me, cleanse me, shave me
make me
everything you want to take me
touch me
beat me
anything
any kind of embrace will do
will you?

The soft whirling hum of a fan works its way from one corner of the room to the next. I succumb, defeated, deflated, shoulders slouched over, to passing wafts of air that briefly foam over the drooped skin of my emotionless face. Its touch invigorates the senses, momentarily reminding me to take in a breath of the foul and arid air that lingers lifelessly in this second story bedroom. As a sliver of light makes its way slowly up my chest and falls back to its original place, a muffled sound of pain boils over slowly softly searing through my torpid ears. Meanwhile, transparent tendrilous hands of memories begin to curl through my mind appearing and quickly vanishing like steam before I can grasp the true gravity of their presence.
        It must be ninety seven degrees in here. A drop falls from my face onto the back of my clenched hand and for a moment the fan is at it again pulling my head with it from side to side. Oscillating, it dictates a hypnotic lullaby, an ***** riddled rhythm sanding away at my rigid thoughts. Another drop falls toward my wrists driving me away from the blissful moment. Then losing its grip a metallic clang reverberates throughout the room as the object leaves my hand and finds the old wooden floor. Looking back at my hand I see where the two drops had fallen, now glistening in the dimly lit room. Were those tears? When I direct my sight down to meet with whatever had fallen a rush of blinding pain jaggedly inhibits my vision with a flaming wall of white instinctively calling my eyelashes into the backs of my eyelids painfully. My voice cracks and I hear the same singe of grief from earlier reflect ballistically throughout the room and into the hallway where ghosts gargle back an echo of my anguished voice. Am I hurt?
        Afraid now of what I may have done,I cautiously work my foot away from the chair and navigate it across the floor until it hits the handle of something sending it spinning around. Reaching down, the once trance like hum of the fan falls deaf and gives way to a steady beat of drips that are accompanied by an ever increasing tightening of my chest. When I reunite with the object I had dropped the image of blood and steel mesh a murderous hue onto my fingers as I fumble to recover it. Realizing what has happened my mind fizzles and pops with panic and I begin to beg for respite, for a chance to revisit the moment before I had slit open both wrists. Cold anguish flushes the heat from the room and out into the hall as the dam of reality breaks and in with it a torrent of emotions and images of the blood peppered hardwood floor that now seeps dauntingly with the new life it is drinking. In desperation my eyes fire off in every direction, finding an open journal perched on a coffee table. The pages are in a fretful fury revealing pages dotted with smudges and smears of bloodied ink and teary paragraphs. Confused, I begin to search the room again and there beneath the window blinds lies the woman I have loved for eleven years lifeless in a pool of blood. Lorraine.
        My head lashes violently backward as if to howl toward the moon of time in an attempt to beckon the falling grains of sand to return to me what had once been mine. A sobering clarity strikes me and I begin to recall the events that led up to this moment. Beginning with a distressed phone call from Lorraine. I came,I told you I would come. And then I recall the strange feeling that scaled through my body slithering down my arm until it coiled its nervous grip around my fingertips as they bit into the **** of our bedroom door. As it creaked open, I had thought, I'm here baby, but you were already gone. Lorraine. It took what felt like hours to reach the part of the journal where you had confessed your infidelity that resulted from the tangles of promises I never kept, from the things I hadn't done, and should have said. Oh Lorraine why didn't you tell me. I would have changed, would have done anything for you. I'm so sorry,I forgot, I hadn't noticed. After seven years I thought you knew, but I will show you now. I will give you my life as you had given yours. I would have forgiven you ******, they were only kisses that meant nothing. Lorraine...and then nothingness.
        A grey shadow in a once enraged Congo of colors and emotions in an otherwise empty room now fill my eyes until I'm choking on its thick smoke and drowning in tears. When one of those tears fall, this time on my bloodied wrists I'm called back to the present moment. Once more the fan catches my sight directing me toward your lifeless body, and then a warm hand from the deepest recesses of my mind begins to cradle my shoulder. Lorraine. My eyes flutter open and find you placing a kiss on my forehead as you say something sweetly into the soft embrace of night. The scent of your hair bristles around my cheek and ears while you caress the short hairs along the ridges of my neck. All I can manage in the moment is to pull you in closer as I whisper "I'm sorry Lorraine. I love you. I can show you." A tear catches a lock of your hair as you kiss my lips and with your love I am drawn back into our bed and out away into sleep.

******.
     Dauntingly so.
Haunting light.
     Emits,
From hazy heads.

It is vice versus virtue, in vindictive victories,  laden in vanity, as venial villainy, intervenes in the memes of the idolatry, that dauntingly hangs from branch-less trees, vetted out, and stripped by thieves, as only on our knees we breathe, in peace.

... a lamentable natural disaster ―
no one really ever understood
the uncomfortable loneliness they read,
left unsaid,  in the silence between the lines

Gathered words often revealed
an awkward vulnerability
a life tethering by a frayed thread
unable to shed the skin that enfolds
the dauntingly misunderstood laments

Suspended at friendless crossroads
melancholy days of malignant indifference
stifle the whispered thoughts,
"accepting an unfinished life"
evanescent as the faltering light,
musing many a sleepless night

It’s as if there was always some wordless reason
to never feel "good enough" to just be,
unworthy to discover elusive love,
cleave a labyrinth out of the darkness,
okay to just let go

It’s not a weakness to be human
"Tears are the heart’s traces" … he once wrote
"only eyes cleansed by teardrops see clearly"
heaven's rain unconditionally enlightened
by love and light.

Someone said a poet died
trying to make sense
out of all he thought he'd given
a word at a time was left behind
only abandoned words remain
                             orphaned in the drowning silence


                                      harlon rivers ©

Story after story
Displayed on stories upon stories
Of multiple library floors
In large spacious rooms

Levels of fiction
Nonfiction
Mystery
Poetry

On and on they go
Lined on shelves dauntingly high
Or Child-level low
Artful as featured works in museums

We congregate with hushed voices in examination
Yet we can touch them
We are invited to
We can reach out and remove a piece of history

From the ancient days of scrolls
To the modern pages
We pull them from their places
To discover the wonders within

Sharing in the joy that emanates
From the joining of imaginations
A connection so powerful
It unites the hearts of strangers

We lose ourselves for hours
In our favorite chapters
With our beloved characters
Whom we come to love as precious friends

Reading ignites the imaginative powers of the self
And it all begins by pulling a book off of a shelf

Its nefarious arrogance, that's scaring grandparents, but its in the air and I'm airing it, as we are seeing all the signs, but just staring at them.

Somehow there is safety as an arian, where we are safely alien to  Americans made in sapient sanitariums, shooting you first for glaring at em.

So what if i'm Dolling up my delirium for a serum to cure them all.

I am awol, from my call to duty, recreating movies, for serial groupies, suiting up to slither a delivery of a soothing sour piece.

I am stalling to clean the secretions from hostel sheets from the screamers being eaten, by Cretans, with beaten dogs at bay, staring blank at the fanfare from a cage.

Im burning white sage, under pages of poetry anointed by a stoical spleen, tuning out the dreams, of lesser beings, until complete.

A zoo within a zoo within a zoo, i barely know you now

Barely know how, to know you as a model citizen with baller trimmins, fixins, and a life with others wives, in the rough diamonds of the bluff, before the door opens just enough, to look through and confirm what you already knew.

Love is the stuff dreams are made of.

And through you..

Im through.

Pleading, to seed the need for repentance and with reduced sentences, bleeding the demands on stances of chance, in costly cants.

I am convulsing in the congruence, in which I am influenced, by my afflictions of depictions in my head

I might be addicted to the dread of previously said decor, in my adorable horror show afloat, deplorably denoting the nopes of logic, and the slippery slopes of khangi, that spring off me when i'm coughing on my green tea.

You are wrong to stop me in my dislogic, dodging the narcotic mocking of toxic strong arming, in proxy alarms, setting barns ablaze.

I praise the poetry pushed on me, dauntingly haunting me with savant like ambiance, from the have nots, having things as far as the eyes can see.

If I could but learn to discard a wounded piece of self
If I could part with the beautiful symmetry
Of the cogs, driving forth the machinations,
Churning with their white noise, that
Turn to shape maiming thoughts
Then I might one night close my eyes,
Not to images of words bound by self-deriding connotation,
Comprised of typos and back-strokes
But to a peaceful blackness

Yes, I might lie down, close my eyes
Out of a will for rest, not contrived
But organic and my own
And so I know this as my waking dream
Relegated to wake for the night has been
Deemed the world of painful perfection
A place where protection is offered
With a backward hand, carefully made
Patron to the lovely polished mental instruments
Used to bludgeon simplicity and idiosyncrasy
Used to leverage pressure on the scales of the heart
So to tip downward the side of known cyclic indifference
And lift upward toward heightened neglect
The side of pleasure, the side of silenced retrospect

I grow, each sleepless evening, more fearful
That the ugly, backward hand might never forgo its leverage
And, if life is a wellspring of knowledge
Feeding into a stream of lessons
Then my strife stems from reading of the
Same page in the same chapter of the same textbook
A book filled with words bound by self-deriding connotation,
Comprised of typos and back-strokes

On this page, one learns a fundamental formula
It derives the relative weights of who we are
And the happiness we might find
Through some convoluted tale of misfortune
My page was written by an ugly, backward man
So, through unsagely studies, I’ve concluded
That the art of well defined reprimanding thought
Does outweigh in its beauty, the unseen hope
Of a future left to whim and bliss, or perhaps
The simple elegance of chance, goodness unsought

So, for the first time in my life, I seek to unlearn
I seek to roll back the defining lines that once flowed
From the pen in a backward hand that yearned to sow structure
But the vaulted walls that hold the scales of one’s will
Are so dauntingly difficult to unbuild or puncture

This, truly, is the weight that each sleepless night
Bares down upon my sleepless heart, so heavy
If I cannot pull exacting, formulaic pages from my sight
I fear the only peaceful blackness I will find
Is one against no patron hand can levy.

Black tidal waves encompassed by the wall of lipstick,
releasing steam becoming inhaled from the mouth that sleeps.
Black curvatures sped along the ghostly lines to ease the tick,
relapsing legs touching to the web that weeps.

No winged-beast, no unpredictable mind,
to lullaby the creator of both the invisible and the translucent.
Slowly suffocated to the echo of the riled up rhyme,
slowly spitting out the guts of red paint.

Freedom flown, fists formed,
molding white pieces into scattered clouds.
Head hung, heart hummed,
wailing teary notes into ripped wedding gowns.

Cycle of the eaten, and the uneaten,
all must gallantly fall; however births ripples.
Sanctions of the needed, and the unneeded,
all must dauntingly call; however pictures simple.

Colargrins

I pull daggers from my sinking heart, liquefy blades, and splash back in spades upon the staggering departure of my starts.

Ill finish even with a diminished will.

Im not always first, but **** it in the last minute in nervous fidgeting of my reality rippling through residual hauntings of the feel of the feeling of your reeling in the excitement.

Dauntingly, flaunting, the alarming charm of tongue, eniticing the romantic knifing of lungs, in spent breaths, confessed of the love of truth.

Rasp out the hiss, as whisps of winds licked from jackals lips.

Whip the words in willful waning of the facts.

Aim to ****

Ill just Relax to the drop of the ax

Im a ridiculous idiot

Meticulously breaking it down to absolutes, in my astute fickleness.

Lustily finding finesses in the regrets of others, smothering prideful chuckling of chummery in distractive strumming of the nothings, shielding the view of this place, changing the hue of my face in the light.

Step away from the light

You dont wanna see what lurks within the night

My lackluster mustering is the recipe for disaster.

Ill just master the disguise, with too much time, miles of smiles, lies, and cold hand shakes that imply my maniacal despise.

Hi!

Cold, cold floors press
against the soles of my feet,
as I roll out of bed
still affined to my sleep.

While my eyes remain low
and quite dauntingly heavy,
my hands moving slow
part them ever so stiffly.

Then, before me a speech,
spoken only in vision,
brings tears to mine eyes
by its glorious image.

Alive yet again,
the sight gives me relief,
for the glorious sun
shan't deliver disbelief.

you are my booming clap of thunder during summer rain,
my inconvenient papercut placed conspicuously on a knuckle;
my stringent alcohol spilled into a pulsing, gaping wound,
and my burning bee sting on a painfully humid afternoon.
your ugly fangs spew venom more toxic than any poison,
and you hiss and growl and spit dauntingly.
with words so harsh and grating they are impossible to ignore,
you raise your head, poised for attack, and you shreik and wail
until the sound echoes throughout my whole being,
shaking me from the core and eliciting curious emotions.
my feeble defence is no match for your well-trained
and perfectly executed attack, and i crumble.
it's a poisonous cycle, inevitable and futil, that drains
every ounce of moral fiber and happiness from my soul.
suddenly, my fingers entrap your small little throat,
and they squeeze as hard as they possibly can,
until the blood bursts into your eyes.
it's only a dream, but my fingers can't help but remember...

It was the rose
Who he misses
That once was his
Until one day he shattered it into pieces

It was the willow
Who he mistook for love
But he refuses to believe
That he's now in the sharp-edged of betrayal

The rose he was once longing for
Has grown itself into a magnificent one
Guarded by mischievous sacred shields
Even he can't divert any glance without causing his heart to hurt
But he'd do anything for his rose

And the willow too has grown
Into a dauntingly poisonous one
Also hazardous to touch
Even he's suffocating from the lies it built

He begin to wonder for the sake of love
For the guilt of breaking his rose
For misunderstanding his love

And he began to misses his rose once again
Though he doesn't deserve much
He's willing to get hurt to earn its love
It was his rose after all—
Who he hurt millions time harder a while ago

Shall I spill words?
Shall I spill tears?
Or Shall I spill blood?
Indegenious to my nature is the fact,
That it can't stay,
It needs to flow,
It needs to be felt and heard by another existence,
A much kinder and understanding one
Hitherto,
the sacrifice to spill has left a dauntingly adverse repression,
Nothing has sustained,
all has been robbed,
"Shall I spill away all that has been left of me?"she wonders

The undead surge endlessly.
Drained and muddied will.
Holding them back with everything left.
Delightful blood they've come to spill.

Barracading the doors - only surrounds.
Moans and groans dauntingly loud.
Sleepless nights hoping they don't breach.
The scariest thing is how they sound.

We thought they weren't real.
Just comic book stories.
But when they came knocking.
The first to go was four-eyes.

All the horror movies.
Won't leave you prepared.
To face to undead horde.
Brains aren't meant to be shared.

This is not easy
progress is dauntingly slow
I will persevere

We fear Silence.
We fear the absence of sound like we fear the emptiness it fills us with.
When one fears the silence consuming them, they must only remember to listen.
Listen to the sounds that are always there, but never noticed,
Listen to the sounds that are often overlooked,
The sounds that prove to us that we are never as alone as we feel.
The sound of a plane soaring overhead.
Trains rolling along their tracks with yellow headlights piercing through a black night.
Rain falling steadily on a window pane.
Silence seems dauntingly inescapable.
It seems as if a moment too long trapped in a world of silence would be enough to forever descend in a world of loneliness.
What we don’t realize is that true silence doesn’t really exist.
We fail to understand that true loneliness is simply fictitious,
For there will always be something there remaining to obliterate the perception of silence.

After all that we’ve been through,

I thought we were okay again.

I thought that it was a change

for the better.

Night

after

Night

had come

and

I missed you

less

and

less.

Suspicions haunted me

dauntingly,

day

after

day.

and each time

I blocked them

they didn’t matter;

you didn’t matter.

I no longer craved

your embrace,

but you gave it

anyway.

I no longer needed you,

but you gave yourself

anyway.

Sunlight came,

and morning broke,

and you took it away.

You pretend

under false pretense,

and lie through

your teeth.

You clench them

and demand it’s me,

not you.

The truth is,

it’s always been

you.

Type type type
Delete delete delete
Why all of a sudden is writing now a feat?
“Just write what comes to mind!”
But my mind’s wiped clean
Like the blank white page on my laptop screen
Nothing flows, nothing spills
Tauntingly the cursor blinks
I’m certain I’ve forgotten how to think
Nothing circulates, nothing pours
Hauntingly my fingers tap
I’m certain I’m about ready for a nap
Nothing runs, nothing spews
Dauntingly I press some keys
I’m certain I’ll never be at ease
I type type type
I’m finally overcoming my feat!
But I read it back, one word at a time
And now we’re back to
Delete delete delete.

I'm haunted by a ghost
who won't text back
I need it the most
but it only gives black
this ghost from a heart attack
leads me down a disheartened track
of perilous cracks
so I can't relax.

Your Danny Phantom
threw our new tandem
off like Drew Stanton
giving me a true tantrum
tramping to the netherworld
to find a bed of pearls
instead of twirls
in dead end whirls.

I stare at people talking
in my mind I'm throwing ****
sounds like the gun cocking
right before the trigger flick
killing me quick
in a ghost's grip
instilling gross and sick
voices telling me to quit.

I want to go to the astral world
to be in your presence
I want to be your astro girl
then extinguish your essence
to get my revenge
after getting incensed
from the haunting intense
of a ghost with malicious intent.

Your apparition isn't an aberration
plenty have seen the line of demarcation
between relationship adjacent
and my next replacement
so I hide in my basement
people wonder where my face went
a ghost set it to its blank placement
to cover up the rank grave scent.

The spirits of the undead
notice that I'm unfed
repeating that I'm *****
until I've done bled
they cackle with triumph
after I've run
for someone
to see the sun.

So go chill on your ghost ship
with your ghost clique
whose locust lips
give you focused hips
just stop haunting me
I view recovery dauntingly
because for a while I've got to see
every person as wild ghosts mocking me.

A piece of glass
a shiny square plastered on a
meaningless, thin, and paper-like wall
So fragile
So delicate

But so dauntingly haunting

A little square that screams its piercing cry with each and every painful
flash and glimpse of something
horrific when eyes meet glass

Horror
Washes over every breath that i breathe
with anguish and fire engorging my veins
at the monster in the glass
Something revolting and destructive blazing
back just waiting to extinguish any light
ill-fated enough to traverse its darkened path

What is this ghastly abhorrence? me

There is something eerily comforting
About being
Stuck in my own mind.

There is something dauntingly
Familiar
About why I am
Stuck in my own mind.

There is something beautifully ironic
About myself that I
Fail to express;
I am a content girl spreading
Giddiness among others,
But,
I have a dark mind.

Thoughts purged by the
Darkness.
And, a heart that is
Light.

No.
My mind is not always full of
Darkness.
Stars linger in the dark of
Night,
And stars linger in the
Crevices of my mind.

There is no finality in
Darkness.
The stars; my heart -
They have proven this.

A blinding light
Blocked my sight
A pervasive plight
That invades my life
Then degrades to night

The light is you
In a darkened zoo
Where my hatred grew
Until you shined through

You emanate a warm aura
More fragrant than God’s flora
Teaching more than God’s Torah
So you’re like my god sort of

When I talk to you
I feel love in my heart
So to avoid stalking you
Our ways I do part

I think of you constantly
Like you’re haunting me
Dauntingly
Taunting me

Your face
And smile
Show grace
For miles
So I race
To exile

But your hair shining brown
Like an earthy crown
Rules my town
Pushing me down
Underground

I hear you everyday
I hear everything you say
I hear your beauty
I hear you rebuke me
Like it’s your duty
To cut right through me

I see you everyday
Through the fray
Of swirling grey
In my heart
And my soul
I fall apart
And grow old

I tell myself I’m just waiting
I tell myself I’m still looking
But I’ve been self hating
Ever since you shook me

I look at the night sky
And ask God why
I can’t just fly
Away from this guy
So I just start to die
In this love I’m capsized
Wailing these laugh cries

I can’t love anyone else
So instead I just melt
This is the pain you’ve dealt
By just being yourself