Devilish blue eyes, frozen gaze.
Influencing me against my will,
Submitting into dropping defenses.
Overcome with an inability to escape,
I become bound by those piercing eyes.

Sapping once kinder thoughts,
Replaced by detached isolation.
Shuttering at the crack of the whip,
Blindly I walk to death.
Carved flesh ammunition against
You, weakness exposed.

Lacerations to the heart exchanged,
Milky fog clouds my oppressor.
Pieces held together by hatred,
One blow away from cracking.
Further into broken self.
All freedoms come at a cost.

Social Network, droll and at times informative: keeping me in tune with out of tune people. Except, this time you did something different. This time you took a life from my web of friends a trend of late: One loss to cancer, one to a fatal accident, another to pneumonia, and the rest deceased from overdoses. It’s been so many that the track marks are beginning to show across my veiny webs, long black thin trails leading to round puncture wounds where the touch of cold steel kissed your skin, stroked your hair back, and slowly laid you to bed exactly where you sat. This network doesn't show me the nights you cry curled in the corner, it doesn't reveal the moment when the ocean came crashing into the Steel Pier you are, tearing away lumps of mangled frame work from beneath, soaking brine and rattling support beams that you depend on. A smile instead manages to froth along the pages scrolled like white curled lapping shorelines pushing foam further up the sandy coast with each eroding wave.  Now I stand in the wave of your wake; among seagulls flapping their dense thoughts and cretinous like minds and memories each vouching for the validity of their affirmations about the soul whose body is now center stage like a porcelain doll on a shelf to be displayed and examined exposed to all with each and every flaw highlighted so that they can have a chance at reciting her history, origins, funny moments, and fatal mistakes. The difference here is that there is no makers mark; there is no branded tag, no little black book of logs from which we can pull and decipher or recall every waking moment of your life. The reality is that for those of us who lost touch with you all that we know now is only history or what we thought we knew. It’s such *******, I’m not a historian, I really was your friend back then, but because of that I don’t remember ****, just the frame of the picture within, the shell of who you were, of what we did. I can tell you it was fun: the Bacardi filled Gatorade bottles, the sound of your laughter diluted in an intoxicating environment of rollerblades on the rink-floor, contemporary music and house beats reverberating against the circling congregation of equally happy and inebriated teenage youths. But how could I ever describe you today, who you were when you passed. That is not something I can claim as some of these birds squawk. Your social posts were a false facade. Obviously there was something I missed, what was it. Was it so subtle? So much like a light breeze fluttering at the thin frayed thread of a seam that I could have seen but didn't care enough to realize it was there. Were you just a tumbling leaf among a forest of fresh autumn arrivals lost in the vastness, one among millions? It pains me to admit that as much as I would have liked to have been a friend to you during your dark times, I too was in a dark place of my own and in turn was deaf and blind to the billowing smoke signals that tried to underline and emphasize the sorry plights of others. I wish you could have told your story yourself, could have left a memoir of the ****** up thoughts that zipped through behind your eyes while you filtered the layers of **** served in white paper bags that this world seems to dish up like a fast food chain of heartbreak and deep ruts, while every so often rewarding us with a mistakenly placed toy or salad to “make up” for the rest of the empty calories served. I've tried so long to be an optimist, to look at the glass half full, but that glass is shattered on the floor right now, I broke it. My life hasn't been easy, not many people’s lives are and that’s life, I understand that much. If it isn't raining it’s snowing, if it isn't snowing it’s hailing, and if there isn't any precipitation it’s either hot or cold as hell and you have to fight through it to make it to the next day. I’m taking the shoes I wear now off so I can step on that pile of excrement they call a glass half full, half empty. Give me the pain, it hurts and the tears burn as they roll down my cheeks while I stare at this half a cent card with your face on it and some mass produced poem on the back listening to the ******* eulogy mutterings of everyone around me, but I want that. I would take this shuttering pain, this volcano of discharged emotions erupting from the shaking core of my body. I would take it any day over the numbness that is ******. Wasn't your child a life raft? Wasn't he the duck it or **** it of your life? Had you not a fiancé to whom which you could have rested your beaten structure on? Did you not have an array of support, a field of pile driven beams to share the weight in it all? Or was it a mistake? Was it a fault of somebody else that provided you with the birthday batch of ******? When you blew out the candles and smiled behind the thin line of adumbrating smoke that sketched out the soul behind your eyes did you think to yourself, today will be the celebration and cessation of my birthday; a bitter sweet memory for all who know me: on this day she was both born and deceased. Today she began to live and learned of death. I will never have the answers for the many who continue to fade into the credits of their dismal painful lives, but I will never stop trying to understand and I will never learn to forget or let go. This blood in my veins detest the cold steel rush that so many of you have tasted, that so many of you ran to when no one was listening, when no one was looking, when no one could comprehend you anymore and the only languages you spoke were procured from endless nights on the cushioned wooden floor as you drifted off among the silver linen clouds, as you left this body on earth and spoke with angels perched over the smoke stack that overlooked the back-lit-keyboard of lights that was your city, your town, your home while the strand of rubber slowly fell from your arm. We couldn't hear you, and those **** angels seem to weave such a pretty tale sometimes when you forget that you are speaking to your own deceitful mind. I will learn that language, I will look for those signs, I will place a candle on the sill beckoning every friend of mine to come and share with me in person. Let me reach into that white bag and see what is inside, I’ll eat whatever you pull out whether they are empty calories or not, preservative filled fries cold or hot. You are my friends and Social Networks are a lie, just a wall to hide behind, an occasionally droll and informative medium, until you die and then there is nothing left to pretend to say or be.

Today shall be a talking day
a walking day
and I shall walk and talk and say things
to myself and maybe others too
and if I do
it may make this day seem okay.

At times the rhymes that stymie me
those unreleased
I will set free to walk and talk along with me
another piece of poetry.

Others look and wonder why this man that mouths words passes by
with spittle dripping from his lips and tips of cigarettes unlit
just waiting for a light to rip into his eyes and slip a match into his hands which make the shuffling of the pack
another cigarette and back to walking
talking
stalking through the rush hour crowds which pass like clouds around my feet
and will I ever find a seat
to sit?
unlit again.
'Hey mister have you got a light and if so might you give some substance to the nicotine'
and I,unseen
the haunted of the haunting dream
lit,unlit and barely time to clean or clear and my oh my oh dear
the heavens open up and fill my begging bowl which in actuality is a Starbucks cup which in the breaking makes a better place to put my shamefaced
unlaced misery.

A cup another cup of steaming tea
sweet,delicious and given to me by a sweeter looking lady who maybe felt a little pity,sadness too
but who am I to know what goes on in the minds of those that throw this sausage dog a bone?

I howl and I can howl and how I bark
but not when I am in the park sat by the swans and ducks and in being somewhat of a lucky man
which I most assuredly feel is what I am
feed the wildlife with stale bread and talk the words that flow in seasons round my head.
I'm sure these birds appreciate my soft spoke words but they don't tell me so, and so I go into another walk and talk
with skateboarders,
talking tall orders as they whizz and skid along the concrete tracks
on which the local councils with their tightened schedules close their eyes and turn their backs.
And back to City
unmade streets
leaking drains and leaking brains that leak through walls and wall street halls and madness ramparts
broken and rebroken hearts
false and even falser starts until it falls apart.
The falling I can understand
another matchstick in my hand and one more cup of tea
I've had enough of lunacy and lunatics
I shall go home to egg and chips
retire and
sat by the fire will watch the flames that flame out names and burn the corners of those pictures that I carry on the inside
another fireside
an ash grey day
a walking,talking time today
tomorrow
who knows?

to hold a photograph in my hand
  and believe what is presented,
  take is at it already is – why not?

if I close my mind’s shuttering eye,
will you be as candid as before?
unrestricted, unsorted from the hullaballoo,

you, freer than what is imagined, closing
in like a bullet from yesterday shot out
of the sky’s contrived clearing –

to hold a photograph in my hand
and tug closer by the mouth of the fringe
as if to pour water on a broken glass,

slithering now, a shadow of moon
at the very dull end of my cup;
you are closer than any rehearsed moment

ready to catch the inner canthus of the eye:
this relentless picture-passing, tense and
fervent, avid like bankiva to air,

water to chrysanthemum: behind thick shrub
of crepuscular, an arboreal locomotion
shatters loose, your frantic figure.

to hold a photograph in my hand
and size it down to the dimensions
of this home – there is potential in this

comparison: flaring out like smoke from
where it infinitely burns, I seek an ache
and hence place a finger to shush,

to hold this photograph in my hand
and confabulate a soft blow to the gut
and feel it realer than any dagger or berretta

held at one’s life-edge: this delusory intimation,
a slipshod work of feeling. to feel it rejoin
me somewhere I ought to be back again.

Wicked nether-land. Nether world, white, askance. Capitulating mangroves, verdant trees spliced with hyperbole, onomatopoeia, and manilla envelopes; her world is stuffed with secrets, she listens to gorillas cracking mussels a kilometer away, near a rill. Never she thought. Nothing that could provide....providence. Mangled heliographs  sprayed all over the everywhereworld.

"Don't be S.A.F.E.," she whispered. A bouquet of gorse, cistus, and pimpernels squished in her small fingers. She climbed her way through the pedimented stairway, then collapsing on the porch. Legs spent, and spread out upon the desiccate grayed four by four planks of the portico.

And as time elapses, the shuttering shake of the hemlock, which writhes through her skinny nimble dactyls, upwards straining the heart as its toxic bends appendages- crisp cerise lumens bend on the Titanium White walls, where only shadows bend time. The hour, still nine. Every adornment, furnished with red and its hues. Not purple, periwinkle, or any masked enhancement.

These are the symbols that reticulate splines, that curve temperatures, perverse hemispheres and debunk worlds. Upped antes, verbs that terns flirt worth, birth words. Ooh. Aah. Camera. The forest wraps her in its verdant pasture, where at last the moribund tamarisks disperse.

While at the plateau she is quiet and longing. Arms astride, dangling. Vaunt with highs and bliss- a kiss of withstanding pleasure serves her the cure for a lifetime of whining. This, yesterday where her body rattled through crooked vines. Square ships toasting her vocal melancholy in the sweet-waters of Time. So that all of her ripened limbs could grow, no more sheepishly than the magic she knew as a child. Stress free. First among the Earth-words, verbed-up and made jealous by pronouns that encompassed her joy-brimming hide. Closing down her voice and hugging her from behind.

I'm a bright blue box with a bitter black inside.

I screamed 'open me! open me!' to those who had tried.

As they peek in it takes their breath away,

how broken and sad before them i lay.

Shuttering and sobbing, i scream out: close the box!

because i know no one can undo my sad twisted knots.

shame on me for trying, who could ever care?

I wanted to be happy, but i doubt I'll make it there.

My inside grows darker, my dreams more disturbed,

but the outside still gleams blue, fake, unperturbed.

My dark insides take over, I can't turn it off

I'm trying, I'm trying, but the voices just scoff.

Happy? Loved? You? You've got to be kidding.

These things are reserved for light, your darkness is forbidding.

Close your eyes babe, and try to make it through

while your dark dark insides utterly consume you.

So come on, sit down. Make yourself at home.

Let the voices talk, let your mind roam.

Because you're trapped here darling, inside this blue box

no keys have the power to undo your locks.

Your blue box is shut. Seal it off, seal it tight.

It's simple, you just have no hope to ever see light.

The people, they leave. They don't understand.

Each time they go, unable to withstand.

You're a being of sadness, disguised as a girl

come on, fake a smile, let your lips curl.

Yes, cut yourself off, you little blue box.

Make yourself tough, a foundation of rocks.

Because not feeling anything, nothing at all,

is the sure-fire way to make certain you don't fall.

Trundling through the loud clouds
that barrage me with thunder.

Pausing to smile at the lightning
shuttering from the red-carpet-crowds.

Tripping on the crimson rug
as they capture my blunder.

And smiling fake feelings,
whilst thinking of you.

You, with your unrequited
commitment to critters.
You, with your dedication
to the unknown.

******* and only you.
That's all I really wanna do.

On a spring day, Emelia soared through the field, like a baby robin learning to fly, running in diagonals with her hands brushing against every shrub and leaf she saw.

Mud drenched pink overalls
and a bright blonde bowl cut.

She ran like a bumble bee on a mission
to pick the freshest, prettiest flower.

Stepping over bugs and playing tag with chipmunks,
she giggled uncontrollably and was a friend to all that walked nature's green carpet, tripping over wild, wispy grasses.

She looks up with innocent eyes, beaming like two sunflowers,
"We have to share," she announced to the big tree
that resembled Grandmother Willow.

She had just seen Pocahontas for the first time
and wanted nothing more than to become a color of the wind.

The wind blew the leaves in a nodding fashion,
showing agreeance to the young sprites statement.

She whipped and whirled her arms toward the sun
as it danced on her skin through the branches of her friends.

"I want to do this forever," she squealed.
So, she did.

20 years later, the girl grew
But with a dimmer light
Weaker legs
And a hole in her chest.

On a cold night, Emelia staggered through the barren field, fueled by a magic dust that made her feel like a crashing plane
Running in diagonals with her hands
Brushing against her watery eyes, keeping them from flooding.

Mud drenched ripped jeans
and a long, shaggy haircut mirroring the bark on the trees.

She ran like she was being chased by a vicious monster
trying to find the safest space for her to vent after feeling her brain bleed from her nose and heart deflate in its cage.

Stumbling over broken bottles and playing tag with her inner demons, she was a slave to all that walked nature's casket, tripping over roots and graves, smashing against a tree.

She looks up with innocent eyes, welling with painful tears,
"We have to share," she whispered to the big tree
that resembled Grandmother Willow.

She felt an unbearable pain that no one should live with and wanted nothing more than to be numb.

The wind stopped in it tracks, the leaves stagnant on their branches, showing heart wrenching dismay to the old skeleton's statement.

She sobbed and heaved with her arms wrapped tight to her torso
as her skin danced with her shuttering bones and tightening muscles.

"I don't want to do this forever," she helplessly breathed.
But, she did.

Never finding expectation to exist beyond the last known blip of the past, projected through my back, in tackled grounds, bound, in the banter of spectators, speculating the specifications of specialised  weaponry, silencing the empathy, and seducing my enemies in the isolated idolatry of their stupidity that i sculpted from the scrutiny, that was wished to have eluded me but soothed my playful solidarity to my sickly game called reap and sow instead.

We are all dead, all dead inside, residing in thriving wounds.

Left unsaid in rhymes etched in tombs.

In the lies of old bafoons

I shall not fight, myself, as they do, nor shall i defy whats right just to eat tonight.

I will fight until I am mine and sleep.

Cradled in my shrine of thoughts amiss, in the frost of loss vs reward.

I am torn, between torture and a vultures wait of the prize to pedal the pestilent pettiness to the edges of my testaments, in the truth of youth-less suicide, slicing social structures into cylinders to swing in circles around the room.

Swooning, in my looming threat of self immolation to warm the heart with shopping carts of satire, killing the sad away.

Delaying the the decay of hope.

A stay of patience in my irrelevance,never hesitant in my clever projections of nothing.

I feed you nothing

But emptiness

Shuttering in the sultry shade of my suffering and loving every moment of it.

Saying nothing too much in things of such insignificance.

Spilling the mizpellings and settling for wordlessness after a good ***** of belligerent arrogance.

Im tempted to quit but my wick is lit and to submit now, would just put the fire out and i want to watch the burn.

The crisp sounds
of the trail
the pure nature
the peace of it all
yet
A headache that was too much to bare
made my nose drip blood
and taint some purified leafs
Guilt began to strangle me
I picked up the two stained leafs
the leafs illuminated the color red
against its dark brown canvas
my nose was still bleeding
The crisp sounds were shuttering about
I fall to my knees
with the leafs in hand
I look up to the branched covered sky
and think
Guilt
the feeling tightens around my neck
and my wrists
making me let go of the leafs
the pressure in my skull made the blood from my nose spew
the constriction grew stronger
and stronger
as I fall to my side
and grasp for one last breathe
i think
Guilt

Bustling energy of trade, fueled by wind and sea
By the bay, this town lived and died
Hauling stock, beast and trade

Commerce of lives, both benign and mine
Thousands of souls, the lifeblood of a town
Building, crating and shipping

Southward rumors of ancient gods, living in ocean deep
Too fantastic for the mind, first trickled then rain
They said, Cthulhu had walked again

Scoffing, things of myths and madness
Forgotten legends, and salty sailors' threats
But rituals pestered, beneath night and cloak

Attentions turned, as they always must
From fantastic, back to life and living
Until adrift, floating death made fall

Rumors resurfaced, cinders to flame
Dockyards without workers, migrants leave
A strange disease, visited from slave to master

From managed flame to fire, the grotesque grew
Crying of unexplained pain, watching madness spread
Freezing port, travel and even the wind

The bay lay like glass, frozen in August's heat
Neither wind, nor wave bothered the docks
And folk looked now, to the religious for bread

Of those, Christians alike
Busied with new, task at hand
I thought, we might pull through

But newcomers mingled, stole members away
Slowly churches emptied, in a span of days
As even their pantries, emptied and barren

I speak now, last fateful night
More dark than pitch, as quiet as death
A silent fire blew, giving neither heat nor light

Beams cracked, charred to ash
Before my very eyes, unbelieving and true
Foul smoke, oily and slick crept

Tendrils spilled out from the hall, I shuttered back
Those that it touched, almost gently
Fell, shuttering and breaking with plague

Gathering my wits, wife and children
We fled town, witnessing gathering horrors
Mishappen feature is friends, family terrorized our way

They had been broken, white eyes seeing naught
Flesh drained of color, ashen and sometimes crushed
Clawing at faces, a great violence to all near

A couple puking sea water, conjoined at the hip
Another opened his own gut, searching and chanting
Still more hunted, having features more akin to the depths

In the morning, as the ocean birthed the sun
I could just see, what remains of the town
In its unearthly stillness, movement caught my eye

A procession of black, marching in step
Strangely orderly, a contrast to the night
Following a symbol, a banner held high

It was then that I knew, remembered from the past
Prophecy foretold, elements of evil from lore
Stories from grand mere, meant to frighten or more

Fallen gods, cast from the stars
Slumbering, undead and yet alive
Bedded beneath, immortal in the deep

Such creatures, nightmares of another race
Gathering ours, devouring sleep
Now, awake

The light catches his body and
will not let it go, as I lie

and smile and make the appropriate
movements, always thinking -

my head never shuttering, never silenced
as I count up the crimes of the day,

reflected from sight of the light of him,
slapping my face as it hits.

Shuttering in the in between.
Trying to search for some sort of normalcy.

Some place I'll never know.
Some place I've never been.

No sort of consistency has ever maintained me.

No established foundations.
No branching deep roots.

No part of me has any sort of regularity or normality.

It is how it has been, it is how it will always remain.

Across and abound to the sounds of fire, they lurch and leap toward the river bend. The twilight is thunderous and bold, a fragmented frown upon this calamity of calamities. It's jagged, smooth streaks of light passing judgement from the heavens above. God himself looks on.

Bright Blues to blend with Grim Greys upon such an all encompassing canvas of green. I hadn't known the extent in power of the color Red before this night, in overpowering; in swallowing up, smothering. Exploding in iridescence and irony, in trite translucent tragedy. It sinks into the ground. As it sinks into the bones of myself and my posterity.

I shivered and clutched my chest, that my heart did still beat. Noticing to my relief, it was thudding quite audibly amongst the quiet stir of grass and leaves beneath my feet. It was then I noticed the haunting silence of it all. I was alone.

But I was not alone, my eyes could see the smoke rise, they could almost feel the bullets whip through the wind. The chill of which caressed my skin in sensation. But sounds of gunfire, bombs bursting, yells yelping, the riotous roar of it all, were absent as a shadow. My veins turned to ice, my skin to stone.

In one particularly magnificent mingling of light, in one irradiating instant; I stumbled as sound met my deaf ears. Lightning and Fire danced in the sky. In this soulless shimmer, the slow shuttering lens of humanity captured the essence of something much beyond the present frame of existence. Breaking glass and pouring out of corners, a transcendental photograph. Reaching out through the pages of time to be acted out in accents yet unknown, by peoples yet unborn, to scream with insoluble resolve. The heart of man beats as one, we shall overcome.

"LOOK!" So quietly you choose to speak...
I hear the sweet vibrations of your voice
my eyes lift to search a dark night sky
and you say, "There! Did you see?"
miles distant, shadowy light flashes
flickering over the mountain shades
lightning slicing through that atmosphere
and I answer you, "Yes.
"I wish that the thunderstorm was here."
you respond with your enigmatic silence
yet still I strain my ears
hoping to somehow maybe hear something from inside of you
even just a faded echo of your unshared thoughts
because you are my deepest desire
it's you alone that I most desperately crave
I'd sacrifice everything I have in this life for you
for only just a fleeting moment, I would
a moment in which you were solely mine,
worth more than I could ever have to give
my very soul cries out, agonizing, for you
my heart begs for your love to fuel it's own love
my flesh, my bones and blood burn to feel the warmth of your embrace
my lips quiver at only a thought of brushing against yours
my entire being tingles and aches to find solace in your affections
I'd rip my very soul from my deepest depths and place it in your hands
my heart I'd also eagerly tear right out of my chest
my promise, my solemn vow I'd gift with my bleeding wounds
never would I- could I, forsake you
if I could keep you, keep you, I would, indeed
a treasure I'd never relinquish willingly
passion, grace, unconditional love, yours forever and free
A picture of these, my most fervent of prayers and dreams...
split- second bursts of color and light
electricity, a bringer, a conveyor of destruction,
birthing fires in the brush and trees, and, mocking, denying me my love...
in that far away storm, a creeping portrayal; image, stretching wide:
I see a vision of your cherished face
I feel unbearable, disabling pains commencing
there's unfathomable sorrow, misery within me
I realize my heart is about to crack, break, shatter to dust and ash
no mind to how great and vast my love for you
no heed to my willingness to give up everything; anything
I glimpse it all in that fraction of a second
those stars; twinkling eyes, tell me an entire story, at the speed of light...:
so unfortunate, that you won't be mine now,
never else either, shall you ever belong to me
my gaze is drawn away, and departs from the place where the mysterious and celestial dwell
relinquish their view of power unleashed, blinking far off, in the sky above
I turn my head; swivel towards you,
for dire, is my need to take in every aspect of your beloved face...
maybe I'd misunderstood; maybe I'd been mistaken,
maybe a bit tired, rather easily confused,
or perhaps, it was a lie that the lightning storm's vision, sly and sneaking, portrayed...
but I can see the tangible, physical you, before me right now,
and, the truth - - -
(which I cannot positively know, for certain,
perplexed and having some doubts...)
- - - an obvious, unpleasant, ugly reality...
my tears have already begun brimming, as I watch, through a blurred void,
and prepare, because that mouth of yours is, once again, opening to speak
a bullet, slivers, pierce through to my soul when I hear you softly utter my name
"Alex, what's wrong? What is your problem now?"
how can you be so oblivious, as I feel so transparent? I ask,
but only to myself; not in such a way for you to actually hear me,
giving you, instead, yet another of my head shakes; slow, speechless reply...
I'm broken, and it's painful when you look at me,
what if you were to notive the sadness and hungry longing buried within my eyes?
please, please don't you look at me!
all of your questions, I'm incapable of answering,
never could I openly share with you how I so intensely feel
my fear of rejection has given me an answer in your stead
and, thus, this love shall go on only inside of me, in silence, secretly
despair, loneliness, burdens so heavy; wicked,
thick enough to rot me inside-out...
torn down, destroyed by love; my very own love - - -
(mine, a love undescribable... immense, immeasreable love;
love which was borne of my seeking indifference, but finding you...)
- - - until my savior of death comes,
will be working diligently to ******, slowly and bitterly, my life force
and impatiently, I'll live out the remainder of my days waiting and suffering;
looking forward to the moment when my black-robed executor shall, at long last, come,
and set me free of these suffocating bindings scarring, straining my heart...
for without you to hold, I am empty and lack purpose
I've no other hope on which to let the weight of my hurt bear
still hoping, inanely, for some unforseeable chance;
a growth of buds sprouting forth from the blooms of God's grace...
"Alex...?" oh, the way you say my name...!
"Say it if you have something to say!"
but still, once again, I say nothing at all,
just give another of my small, weak, neck-twist type of shakes;
a minuscule gesture that gets neither of us closer to anything, or anywhere...
I wipe away, quickly, a single tear that's escaped to leak down my face; slide down my cheek
you are the happiness of my world; my everything,
and yet, here I am, excruciatingly frightened, and left alone with that fear
paralyzing terror, stalking, menacing me into remaining silent;
horrors feeding my tentative heart cruel and brusing, nasty notions,
convincing me it's my destiny to uncover a crushing ruin of defeat, unavoidable,
if ever I was to make an effort to reach out
pitiable... I'm a motionless, frozen captive to its stagnating, discouraging taunts,
a demon, so intent upon pushing me to my hope's final demise...
until then, I'm just some pathetic subject to ludacrous torment; prisoner to torture
shuttering, I hear gleeful whispers in my ear - a surreal voice saying that all my fears could,
maybe, just possibly, maybe, be a confining falsehood; a tower of cruel lies...
...but then again, how could I ever find out and know for sure...?
condemned I am, by my own terrors; haunting fears of loneliness and rejection,
and so, I suppose, I'll never discover what you truly think and feel...
as I sit here, the passenger in your car, I'm so desperately wishing,
~ wishing that my lips and tongue could remember how they used to work;
~ wishing, so fervently, that my mouth, sewed, cemented, and stapled shut,
would somehow break itself open, and then, free, suddenly speak,
something! anything! any words at all!
a simple sentence could potentially be sufficient; could be enough to break these chains, to set my thoughts free...
perhaps, all it would take, language - me, bringing myself to fearlessly say,
"John, do you think you could ever love me?"
but no, I stay void of speech or sound
for now that's it, and there's no more to do - that I can do...
maybe the strength to ask will arrive on another, different day,
only, I hope, that if that could be true, it won't be too far off from now,
because, by then, it may have gotten to be too late...
SILENTLY, secretly, my very pulse screaming of my emotions;
declaring, to no one other than myself, my feelings, my love for you...
and without my vocalization, you just may never know,
but still, sweet man, my beautiful John, I so very greatly love, love, love,
everything about you...

You walk with me parallel on the beach,
You in the water, the charge and retreat,
No fear of what isn’t in your control,
But it can move fast, swallow you whole,
I stay on dry land; I like what I know,
But you urge me in with your eye’s glow,
We walk slowly through the water at first,
Adjusting to the cold with shuttering bursts,
A saunter turns walk a walk turns dance,
We tango in the water hands holding hands.

How I miss it
The taste of tequila
Warm
Acidic
Slithering down the back of my throat
Blooming hot in my limbs,

Reaching each fingertip
Numbing
Bubbly sprinkle font
Shrouding my brain
In happy thought
Carefree wistful abandon


The burning choke
Of refer flower
Swaying my body to the
Rhythm
   Of life
      THIS MOMENT
   His taste
The beat of his drum

Thumping
  Thumping
      Pounding
Madness
So caught up in him
I no longer am

Hooked
Shared
With his cosmic love

Submerged in subs trance
Lost to the essecence of the right now
Def to the whispers of tomorrow
In this moment I
Exist

As I have longed to
To just be
Me
Carefree
Floating on Cloud 12
Because Cloud 9 is full of want to be's
Ignoring the rancid truth of reality

Lost to it
Within it
Attention held by one and many
The shuttering, shake of atmosphere

His breathe the back of neck chill
Goose flesh intensity
Tangled in sensation
Over-infatuation.

.
Rain fell in commotions—
The birds would have none of it,
The moon bellowed in ghostly white,
Faced in the sprite, ringing indifference
Of low fading stars, trees in posted dark
Scratched the grasslands of the fallen
Firmaments and the small creatures
That are holed up in days, scurried
With the creep of night and moan
Of oceans slide, mangled clouds
Clutched the murky burn of sky
And smallish eyes everywhen
Shuddered in the frosts
Of a shuttering rose.
.

The terrifying teeth chatter into the crimson lips of a wound up smile, chattering along the very risen table top that draws all small toys to their finite dooms. While breaths sour hour upon hour, each idling ear suffocates the last gasping breaths of its epicurean syllabic tongue, drizzling down the stomach like melt water from a cubic glacier in an ornamental silver tub, and sternly quibbles the stem-like dactyls drawing rose champagne into a fissure of the brain's tumescent humming.

Each finger tips' nail rouge and red, each dry crevice sewn into the knuckles, and a leaflet on sadism near the scratchy illegible lines whittled on the topside of the wrists and the slalom runs of the ankle. The ankle sinister. The ghost-like hallow sockets of where eyes could have once be seen. Plaster and albicant-like dying death white skins forbade from the Flushing streets where the jazz dance once began. And with each nellypotted hop, three useless nuisances could not carry the bridle towards each nearly favorite sound that curiosity enslaved man to lean towards.

The women weirded out by corners, plastic-wrapped furniture in outdoor corridors, where sinners veil their retreats into state run triage centers. Fake plastic countertops built from fake plastic trees. With an M14's muzzle stiffening and shuttering, she who vents off her cured romances will always find herself flaccid on rubber knees. The disease of the plea, is once more an affectation of not falling for royalty but instead the royal we. There is this weapon of fraud that perplexes geneticists, that enslaves heterosexuals, where albeit nor the time or place, she venerates the libations that her mind creates, she lubricates her cells, dressing, her skin ripening, heaven trickling across her humble nape, where gentleness is only a fool's disease and need.

She. We. Heathens of eternity bowing our breaths in grand hyperbole see. I see she, and she sees me.

Show me the peace of mind that I lack.
Apart I am weak and wondering and shuttering and stuttering.
And at time's I am very alone.
More panic attacks.
More feelings I'm stuck muttering as others are meddling.
Not having a life of my own.
not completely
although maybe bleakly.

So please show me the peace of mind I can't find for myself.
Stay my mind I beg you
because the alternative is... Unspeakable.
Stay my mind for me. I don't have the strength to do it myself.

Self-pity is so easy. Comes so quickly. Flows so hazily.
From now on that stops.
Maybe it's time I learn a thing or two...
and begin to stay my own mind.

dreamingswanseyeaperturesboxboatsevergreenstarzenithgazing



~

­

while dreaming,
i became a swan's eye,
i was dreaming through both its apertures at once,
clicking separately, click, click shuttering
both sides from out a box, or from out a feathered,
living boat, or two, severed visions
superimposed:
evergreen under,
star over at a zenith
gazing twice over
paddling under



~

Who am I
Who am I to think that it all will be ok.
When my heart is shattered for the first time
A million pieces on the floor
While I stand up confident and smiling
I'm shuttering and in excruciating pain inside

Who am I
To seem put together
To put on that plastic smile
That makes money and wins hearts
The smile that wins; the smile that takes

Who am I
To crush hearts
But when I myself am crushed
Be surprised at the anguish

Who am I
To just want to touch you
To just want to hold you and feel your warmth
To feel you there in my sleep
To once in my life not feel alone
You can run, you can go
Just a moment more with you would be worth a million heartaches and a million bruises
I'm broken inside, but I'd do it again just to kiss that beautiful face and feel ok for a moment more.


And so I drown into myself. My hard controlling self. But I have to breathe eventually. And I come up--gasping for air-- and pooling my tears around me; I remember how it feels to be broken. Then I pull myself down to drown once more. Covered in my plastic suffocation. I am safe. I will be safe. Blissful suffocation

The flame
In his chest
The same
To the rest
But twisted
As he was
Blessed
But gifted
With inferiority
And was horribly
Conflicted
Of the message
He was meshing
With the decrepit
Feeling
Of his fleeting
Half stepping
To the
Recollections
Of his blessings
That he was tempted
To dissect
From the crowd
Inflicted
Despite the
Shroud
Of clouded
Bouts
Torn from
The panicked ****
Of the phobias
He knew they were scared of
And glared
Right through them
Before he opened up
His coat
And started shooting
Proving
Others wise
In the silent
Reprise
Of 45's
And nines
He smiled
In the exile
Of fear
Escaping
Through
The fading
Lights
Of dying eyes
In the wild
Surmise
That with each
Trigger squeeze
Eased him
Into shame
As he
Aimed
To please
For the release
Of lives
Crawling
For the
Finished
Lines
And in gorgazmic
Slitherings
He delivered
The final blows
With power ups
And scores
Progressing
The killing
As he reloads
With shrilling
Grins
And stints
Of compassion
Fashioning
The rationed
Satisfaction
He received
From the screaming
Mothers and babies
Brothers and maybes
Splattering
On the plastic trees
Of escalators
And skeezes
That laid shuttering
Headless
Upon the exits
Of his
Insurrected mind
And he was just fine
With dying
In kind
And he was just fine
Shining from
The shrine
Of Santa
In a sonata
Of solidarity
To the led
Soldering morals
In a story
Of victory
And of
Personal glory
For the lords
Of defeat
Seething
In the completeness
Of a defeatist
As he stuck
The heaters
In his mouth
And was out
Without
One doubt
As to what
Nothing
Means

Those magnificent sunsets, riveting
to the bone.
I walked into the prairie,
and felt like the cool wind on a Saturday night.
I can see the old rusted behemoth.
It sits, lost in the wastebasket of oblivion.
Tall whisky willows, tower in front, their boughs
blocking it's menacing complexion.
A hummingbird approached me.
The shuttering of the old clock in the truck,
fell to a lonesome silence.

Rance looked at the speedometer. Set  at 65 and on cruise control ,which he was fully aware of - at least he should have been. He kept looking anyway.
   Every time he glanced at the speedometer , he had to lift the fingers of his right hand to see, as it was draped across the 12 to 1 o'clock Zone of the steering wheel in the most casual way ,causing his fingers, in drooping repose- to resemble an enormous back scratcher.
   His left arm rested on the window sill at the elbow as he was experiencing a slightly manic episode  of nerves,  therefore he was doing his best to stretch his left ear lobe  all the way down to his shoulder . Okay, maybe not that radical, but he was firmly  in danger of removing the inner layer of skin from his earlobe with his rubbing thumb.
    Quick glances to his right with darting eyes confirmed his fear .  He  also saw the absence of Largo's large grey head., so a quick backward glance into the rear of the camper- unintentional but habitual -allowed him to see that Largo was asleep beside stormy in the approximate territory each  had staked out
  It was as he was pulling his head back forward , that Piney glanced up from The Notebook to smile.  There in the co-pilot seat , she sat gracing him with a  warm smile , and as far as Rance could tell , those lips that  smiled at him- so friendly -/were totally natural and uncolored, and if she were wearing any makeup at all ,it wasn't enough to cover the four or five little freckles just above the tip of her nose.  The natural look  gave her face that timeless look.   She could have been anywhere from 18 to 25 or 30 he didn't really know and....he really didn't care .
    It was noticing  those walnut colored flecks, just outside the iris of her light ,hazel colored eyes that  started causing him such personal turmoil.  As it seemed - to his astonishment- that he seemed unable to detatch  his own vision from  those eyes.,  Until she looked back - that is.
    First happening to him when she had  accepted his offered ride and as she wss climbing into the copilot's seat. If it hadn't been for largo, who had instantly attached his chin onto her  thigh ,she might have noticed how he was staring .  Fortunately  he was able to break it off but he was still self conscious of that effect she was having on him.
   After he'd done the initial stumble in the parking lot , he had actually carried on with - amazingly enough  -surprising clarity. It was in those 10 minutes that he had learned of her hometown and  all of the time she had been on the road up to now. Which had been all of 30 miles.
    It was that nagging voice that  kept repeating - in the back of Rances mind- the thing that she had said. " I wasn't really planning to be stopping at that restaurant , but I had to get out of that car.   Although the rest of what she said mattered , it was that part that kept resonating .
  " Oh that guy ! "/She grumbled "was just getting creepier and creepier.  The farther we went down the road , the bolder he got ,as he began to get handsy.
First , puting his hand on my knee and then a little bit later a little higher up my thigh." She shuttered  as she spoke  , in a pantomime inspired gesture before continuing. "It was after he pulled out that bottle and then started taking swigs that things got really bad.   When we started coming around that long curve, just before we got to the restaurant he was unable to bother me and ,adjust  for the curve,  so he kept driving over into the other lanes. Then he over-corrected ,almost getting  us killed  by a semi that came barreling through in the slow lane.   Laying on the horn as it swerved away to miss us, and then I knew I had to get the hell out of that car. Anyway possible.
  " So right then I saw the restaurant sign and I tried to get the best lilt into my voice and the most calm that I could muster as I said  "Hey! there's the place  I'm supposed to play tonight. Pull over ..right here! RIGHT HERE!!!"
    But in his slow, befuddled ,drunk and almost run over  brain he stopped right in the middle of the slow lane . " Where we at?"
  "We're at the place I'm playing guitar music tonight " She said -that she told him this - to keep his attention so she could wrestle the guitar case out of the back seat ,over the seat back and out the doorway of the car.  Then just as she had it ready to pull through the open doorway she reluctantly said " Thanks for the ride." Then with a little thought and ****** attitude " yeah ...I'll be playing here tonight at 8 o'clock , so why don't you come by and listen" she lied
  A bit perturbed and confused but he was still able to find his inner creep as he spoke.... muttered .....gutterally.... whatever  "Yeah I'll do that and then me and you can have a drink and I got a little Coke " then he did that drunken kind of wink where they end up opening their mouth in  such a crooked fashion that it looks like a stroke victims Visage
  " Where is a fly when you need one ". Piney  said that then she pulled  the guitar case on through  the doorway , wrestling it the 10 feet over to the grassy apron of the road . Returning to close the door as  he asked "what did ja say?
   "Oh . I said I've always wanted to give Coke a try " and with that she closed the door -/just short of a slam.
 " You got it ba "...as he pointed his right forefinger like a pistol, but if it went off Piney never heard as she trundled her case across the grass area  in the most direct route towards the building and the safety of people.
  At this moment she was still in the process of confirming the abject fear that had Rances heart doing flip-flops, as he was aware that she was still sitting there ,reading his poetry.
    As soon as she had settled into the copilots seat, allowed Storm and Largo to introduce themselves and as they happily filed her smells away. Storm returned to his spot after just a half of a minute while Largo, on the other hand gently lay his head on her leg and for all appearances seemed to go into a trance.
     She confidently rubbed his head as she spoke in a slight cooing sound then looking up at Rance as he was guiding them out the parking lot and did the cruelist thing possible . As polite as a butterfly landing on the petal of a flower she asked if she might read some.
  To which Rance had said "Sure , go ahead " and then began trying to do damage to his left earlobe. After 30 miles he was beginning to catch up with his runaway thoughts.
   Any remnants of sua da vi that he had mustered up in the parking lot , now long gone -evaporated. Unfortunately now it was being  replaced by a carrousel of thoughts in poor Rances mind that spun to the cacophony of music from the most  sinister sounding Calliope.
   Though the music blasted a torrential sound wave throughout his mind it was not enough to silence the voice that kept repeating " oh man oh man oh man" - with annoying and echoing  persistance - from an obscure region--, somewhere beyond the Swirling carrousel.
   Then suddenly the crazy carnival and the voice came to a sudden mind shuttering stop.as piney's soft velvety voice interceded. " you wrote these...i mean ...all of them ?"
  A quick glance towards Piney was enough to.see this fresh faced girl with those magnetic eyes- now filled to overflowing  with tears -  was looking at him in a wonderfilled  way as she held the open notebook in right hand and with the other she stroked largos head.,Which had rematerialized.on her lap , just as soon as her voice had broken the relative silence.
    " He really likes you" remarked the reemerging Rance ,as he indicated Largo with his head. 'And yes I did ...write .....yeah all of them." Not really smooth he said to himself ..but okay.
    " This one " Piney pointed to a page that Rance could not take time to recognize " Somber Sunset. Its killing me....my grandmother just went ...and went through Alzheimer's before she passed. "
    Rance was still staring out the windshield, in silent astonishment - at her perception- when Piney gathered herself to the point of unbroken speech. " that is what its about ...right ?"
      Rance turned a full face ..straight on and confident gaze into her tear glissening eyes ( sua DA vi having returned full force) "Yes " he softly acknowledged her perceptivity" as I read it ...yes"
      Thats  when that annoying voice decided to reassert itself . "  There is always something about a damsel in distress that always brings  out even the most quivering coward ...." SHUT THE HELL UP!! Lance barked out at the voice as he stared out the windshield while making a slight adjustment to avoid.a small box in the road.
   At that very moment the sleeping Storm opened his eyes to stare forward with both ears and eyes , as if he had heard his masters voice call out in angry distress. With no danger detected as he scanned the area, he was about to resume his squirrel watching -which had just gotten good before the interruption -/Storm let his eyes scan around and land on Largo ." Humans "he spoke to himself " good thing they're smart enough to befriend dogs. Now that Largo...that's a dog that poor Rance could learn a thing or two from." Then he closed down his eyes and calling out "squorrely come on squirrel where'd ya go"  as his slight snore began and his right rear leg began twitching.

10.  it’s like when you get to the airport
just in time to watch your flight take off without you.
it’s like when you get up dance but the music’s already over.
i think sometimes we’re all scanning the crowd
for someone who is never going show.

4. baby, you make nervous
like i’m not talking butterflies, i’m talking a mass exodus of monarchs
shuttering from the trees in mexico
like the sky’s rippling around their wings.
i’m not talking fireworks, i’m talking atomic bombs.
i’m talking terrible internal bruising
and the first time i saw you was like the first time
i saw the sun rise.

6. please, please, please love me
even when everything about me feels like ****.

8. love will never ever feel like it did when i was 16, 17, 18.
love will never feel like it did the first time again.
and first love only seems perfect
because it had nothing to measure up to.
so i stopped trying to catch it, stopped waiting for miracles or for magic.
because i’m not sure it’s out there.
i’m not sure there’s The One in capital letters
but maybe more like a lot of ones. plural.
maybe everyone you’ve ever loved was The One right then.
see, love is not a choice but the way we do it is.
and sometimes forever is just deciding to stick out
for as long as you can make it.
because, sometimes, things start fading
and we either choose to throw them out or color them back in.

2. my heart is unfocused;
love is not obedience and obedience is not deference
and i love you is not i always will.

7. i wish i could send sixteen year old me
a letter about love like “baby,
you want to rip yourself apart to find space inside of you to fit them in,
this is not love. i know it feels like it sometimes, but this is not love.”
i wish sixteen year old me knew how the **** to listen.  

3. see, i am 90% bravado and bad timing.
a lack of serotonin and a closed mouth.
more fistfight than handshake, more gritted teeth than grin.
and i love myself like you’ve got to love yourself
when you don’t always really like yourself.
i am in the room full of my mistakes
and they are telling me ghost stories about you.
see, i didn’t love you, it was… just the music.
my heart got confused, caught up in the baseline.

9. and i’m always reaching for something that burns
the palms of my hands, leaves me blistered.
i am always trying to hold onto borrowed time.

1. and i know this isn’t the love letter you asked for,
but it’s the one i’ve got.

She was alone,
Positively prone to persistent poverty
Cruelty
Shown shuttering darkness as the door locked,
The light gone.
Her moms love massacred monstrous by drugs
As her heart stirred to stone
But see, she’d rather be alone.
She could die by neglect benign rather than the desired suicide
A homicide
Would cause the law to head on collide with her mom’s careless ride
And crush her from the inside.
Mental ******
As prison became her permanent reside
Why was suicide desired,
Seen brighter,
Than life?
Why was dying alone,
Locked in the never ending absence of home,
better than being with her?
She only provided horror,
Terror,
Tore her limb from limb,
Skinned her clean and hung her limp
Her body was perfectly profitable
Tasty, like prey for an animal
So mom made money, men got ******, and her spirit died brutal
Utterly dishonorable
She clung on for survival
All the while that devil on her shoulder told her to crumble
To let go and tumble
For the darkness of the depths would feel better than the bombs of this one-woman brothel
And in despair so utterly understandable her hand unbuckled
and she released.
As gravity pushed, her speed increased
Chest hit the ground, her battling lungs ceased,
Blood clung to life on the sidewalk, filling every crease.
Peering over the edge,
her mothers face was emotionally at peace
as the light of her day forever deceased.

Last tendered lifeline sought as battered psyche under your bellowing wave rips
Final act of penance remitted from bleeding, parched lips
Hemorrhaging from bandaged sorrows that only strerile soul doth eclipse
A hollow stare from deserted strand harboring the wreckage of two, desolate ships
Posture now callous bearing the scars of your shallow, superficial preening grips
Disheveled hair, limp dividend declaring inferior complex that from each emotive strand drips
Pale, drawn face; vessel sunken from draining sinkholes as our relationship dips 
Pensive smile revealing the fault line of each strained shock as chasm deeper slips
Shuttering ears filtering out the rehearsed, rhapsodic notes of your telepathic scripts
Token, parting gesture from arrhythmic heart erasing each beat as your radar blips

Panic races through 
In a high voltage 
Bright red jeep 
She flings past  
And crashes through 
 The doorway 
Clanging with metal 
Chains, studs 
Through her ears 
Black combat boots 
A belt slung about 
A slim waist 
She is full of 
Confusion 
Trying to make herself 
Forgive and forget 
Lying 
Convincing 
Cheating 
Persuading 
Herself 
It will 
Be 
Okay 
              Maybe? 
A tough exterior 
Leather bound with lock and ice 
A fragile shuttering 
Doubt 
Inside

You think the thick blackness under my eyes looks like
War paint.
Like I am going out to battle the world and defeat one and all
that dare stand before me.
You think this thick darkness under my eyes looks like
Attention seeking.
Like I am silently screaming for people to notice me
and come closer.
I only draw in those
enchanted by demons
in love with darkness
at home in the night.
You say that eyes are the window to the soul. You are right.
And I am shuttering mine.
But my war paint does not help me battle
the world
My war paint helps me hide the battles that rage
inside me.
I could cry
Wash it away.
Let it go and surrender
and then let you in.
But when you see me
I see myself, reflected
in your eyes
and my own verdict
is damning.

2 o'clock is the loneliest time. Looking at the red beaming numbers on the clock, craving the warmth of someone next to you but all you get is the cool cusp of air penetrating your sheets from the window that never fully shut. You opened that window and said you'd always keep me warm, and not to worry when I yelled and yelled at you about how it wouldn't ever shut again.

2 o'clock is the loneliest time. But now it's 2 am and my tears have frozen on my face because you're not here like you promised you would be. The faint silhouette gently graces my mind. I can still feel your heart beating from my ear lying on your v neck covered chest.

2 o'clock is the loneliest time. I should be dreaming. Asleep with your muscular and hairy arms wrapped around my pale skin. But you're not here anymore. So I pull down my covers and glide across to my window. Turning the *** until my fingers indented the pattern. It shut.

2 o'clock is the loneliest time. But I stay asleep dreaming of colors and beautiful beaches with glowing waters and warm sand on my back. I can feel the beauty within my shuttering eyelids.

Both hands in her pockets
She stared toward her feet
As she walked away from the bus

Her dark hair
Parting in the breeze
As if to gesture to me
To breathe
Before hooking me
Delicately
In temptations
Tethering

As i tailed with inexplicable ease
It was all beyond me now

And with the park
Coming up on the left
I closed our distance
In a frantic persistence

Limited

Only by blind vigilance
Inhibiting
All else from
Existing

Her shadow
Emanating
Upon mine
Dimming
The light
Between us

Her scent intoxicating
Causing my blood to thin

My strength to diminish

So i sprinted in
And grabbed her throat
With one hand
Jerking her back
To my chest
The black
Pulling from her chest
As i stepped
Into our place
In time

And with a Pinch where
Thumb meets finger
I recite the loss to the letter

As i whisper her name into her ear

Pulling her nearer
To the darkness of the park
I punctured her heart
As she disgustedly starts

Struggling
Pumping
Her legs
Apart

Inside she begs
Attempting to pry
My hand away

As if to say
Don't stop

In lustful froth
I had found
The one
And none
Could stop
The sound

Of her silent shuttering

As i eased her to the ground
She weakened

Falling softly
Into love with me
Sinking into me
Serenading me
In weakening
Dreams
Drifting
From her being
And into me

My one moment
Of ecstasy
Was her infinite

But the park
Will always see
Will always taste
The iron soil
We have made

Beautifully

She stared blankly
Back at me
In the blackening
Of the light

Then the shakes began
And she lost all her fight

Loosening my hand
In the captured sight
Of first contact

As i gently laid her
On her back

Resting my lips
Upon her eyelids
I released my grip
To the fluttering
Upon my
Lips and
Kissed
Her

the small boy leaning against the high grass, feet perched on a rock
looking down into the turning water of the river below

Running forever, for days on end, nights running, even when sleeping the mind never rests.

A miraculous (mi-rac-u-lous) winter stunning of silver and gold
glitter being tossed in the air as the sunlight comes over the white hill
dancing on the hanging ice, shuttering trees dressed in lace.

His intricate fingers
shadowing your soft cheeks,
and picking apart rainbows
to mix with your eyes.

He studies your lips
and knows exactly what shade,
defining your dimples
and sprinkling on freckles.

Strokes of a dark brush
running from your face,
like a chocolate river
or a wild bear in the woods.

He captures the way
you stand with the moon,
longing to live with the stars
and deny the force that holds you.

He draws the veins on your wrist
like blue broken tree limbs,
with scars that resemble
the night sky.

Shuttering greys
leave with dark shadows,
a landscape full of black;
he portrays you as the sun.

Unto the maw of Oblivion, I dare to stand!
All alone without the company of man;
So as my madness drives me deeper within,
Doing so without a look back and by the guide of my hand.

Stabbing through a peerless darkness swallowing even the slightest of light,
Engulfing all around me, nothing surfaces to my sight.

Deep into this jungle where groans accompany screams,
I struggle to open my eyes in a desperate effort to see.
As I had feared, they are already open as wide as can be.

And so in this grave truth, I set out unto this hopeless mystery
With my hand before me and my other behind me.
I walk among the shadows surrounding me.
Touching and breathing all the smells this cavern seethes;
Upon every sulfurous whim and every inhale I dare to take,
Deep within my throat, I often hesitate.
To taste what I breathe, and with the most restraint, I try
Keep myself from vomiting all over the place.

Not that the smells I would contribute would be anything new
For all I have smelled foul, disturbing, and putrid, but none compare to these…
These scents forbidding me to travel any further.

Sheathing my mouth and nose with utmost haste
And doing so in an effort to never again taste these vile scents
Which have trespassed upon my tongue.

Into my body, heart and lungs.
The once mere groans slowly grow
Into weeping howls echoing to and fro

What was once soft cries,
Now becoming louder with each step I take…
I try to move, I try to muster the strength to put my left foot forward.
But the fear slowly grips me
As I try to step forth, all I feel is a consuming agony.

From the muscles of my feet to my mouth,
I collapse upon these stairs and descend into shadow.
Tumbling and smacking each violent step;
Much too often I can feel a new limb snap.

I had barely made my fall into the Maw of Oblivion
Only to open my eyes to see the world I’ve fallen into.
A beastly dog cloaked in rough ebony fur stands from within.
Fur thick as steel, glistering, and erupting the loudest bark I’ve ever heard.
Eyes, nothing less than ghostly moons,
And sprouting three heads I’m sure others would claim absurd.

Three heads with each possessing their own set of haunting eyes,
Glaring upon me as crescent moons that have once lit the night.

Doing so with such a deathly gaze unto my paralyzed stare,
Each snarl and bark given by a different beastly mouth,
Erupting the smells I had previously smelled so foul.

As fear itself slowly cripples my heart;
Each heavy foot step this beast takes,
From every step, the world surrounding me violently quakes.

Larger than any sort of monster I’ve ever seen.
With every blink, the beast trespasses closer unto me.
With my eyes locked by fear,
I close them in desperation and pray what I’ve seen isn’t truly there.

And as the thundering foot steps come closer,
And every muscle begins to tremble,
From the shuttering sounds and smells,
Corrupting every thought as I accept I’ve foolishly descended into Hell.

An enormous gob of slobber descends upon my leg,
Only clarifying I’ve bought a one way ticket unto my grave.
So warm and diluting what ever hope I might have,
In this second which seems forever, I open my eyes.

To see the ghastly dog standing with each of its heads at each of my sides,
One before me, and two more on each side of me.
No where to go.
No where to run.

I plead a prayer unto my God.
“In these jungles of hell where I’ve made my fall. Please remove this dog. From my sight and from my presence. Do so with no hesitance.  Forgive me for a life time of sin. I beg for your forgiveness for I am just a feeble man.  Of the shores of Italy, will you not take pity upon me? For I was born a sinner and I have sinned.”
And so as my prayer had concluded,
The beastly spoke in a never before heard hymn

“Forgiveness, a tool of the weak!” The center head spoke unto me.
“Can’t you see, you’re a fool to beg, a fool…” The left said unto me.
“Did you expect heaven as a result of your blasphemy? To beg for forgiveness before your death means nothing!  You’ve had a lifetime to change, and change you did NOT!” The right roared into my ear.

“Beg for your savior mortal for none can save you now!” The center howled unto me.
“For you WILL NEVER ESCAPE THE BOWELS OF HELL!” They all cataclysmically roar unto me.

As the roof began to rumble and this ghoulish dog gripped me within its fangs.
It did so instructing the most ferocious pain.
I arise in shock as each head has a different limb of me.
In one furious tug, it rips my skin in all directions,
Severing me limb from limb.

And chuckling as my torso and single remaining leg clash upon the ground
Enforcing a heavy THUD sound.
In this pool of my own blood,
I look to the cavernous ceiling above.
No hope or light shine through.

Only the emptiness of the dog’s mouth beheld by a gate of enormous teeth,
Clamping around my neck as I lose sight of all I had once seen.