If any of the following side effects occur while taking prednisone, check with your doctor immediately:

More common
Aggression
agitation
anxiety
blurred vision
decrease in the amount of *****
dizziness
fast, slow, pounding, or irregular heartbeat or pulse
headache
irritability
mental depression
mood changes
nervousness
noisy, rattling breathing
numbness or tingling in the arms or legs
pounding in the ears
shortness of breath
swelling of the fingers, hands, feet, or lower legs
trouble thinking, speaking, or walking
troubled breathing at rest
weight gain
Incidence not known
Abdominal or stomach cramping or burning (severe)
abdominal or stomach pain
backache
******, black, or tarry stools
cough or hoarseness
darkening of skin
decrease in height
decreased vision
diarrhea
dry mouth
eye pain
eye tearing
****** hair growth in females
fainting
fever or chills
flushed, dry skin
fractures
fruit-like breath odor
full or round face, neck, or trunk
heartburn or indigestion (severe and continuous)
increased hunger
increased thirst
increased urination
loss of appetite
loss of ****** desire or ability
lower back or side pain
menstrual irregularities
muscle pain or tenderness
muscle wasting or weakness
nausea
pain in back, ribs, arms, or legs
painful or difficult urination
skin rash
sleeplessness
sweating
trouble healing
trouble sleeping
unexplained weight loss
unusual tiredness or weakness
vision changes
vomiting
vomiting of material that looks like coffee grounds
Some prednisone side effects may not need any medical attention. As your body gets used to the medicine these side effects may disappear. Your health care professional may be able to help you prevent or reduce these side effects, but do check with them if any of the following side effects continue, or if you are concerned about them:

More common
Increased appetite
Incidence not known
Abnormal fat deposits on the face, neck, and trunk
acne
dry scalp
lightening of normal skin color
red face
reddish purple lines on the arms, face, legs, trunk, or groin
swelling of the stomach area
thinning of the scalp hair

(not a poem i guess but eh)


–

Space keeps falling to the sides. I try to concentrate, - I mean, I make a token effort every now and again,- but concentration, fixation is always in terms of something external, something I'm not sure I can deal with.  I roll over and go back to sleep.

–

'Where's the flour?'
'Where you left it.'
'Which is where?'
'On the table. What you want it for anyway?'
'Which table?'
'Haha. The generic maple with the ugly-*** spandrels. What are you making?'
'You think we could afford that? Nah, it's like, faux-pine or some ****. And like muffins.'
'Oh good, there's banan's that need using up'
'No no, like, other muffins. Crumpets and such. Got any golden syrup?'
'I think there's some maple.'
'No, it's like, ply, I swear.'

–

I haven't moved in days. I need to. He'll come eventually and I don't want him to see me like this. Plus, I need to locate that smell. I can't have guests over with it here. I'm just not sure where it is though. I  feel like it's on my left arm when I’m in the middle of the room, but off to the right everywhere else. It's.. acerbic, but fermenting, like vegetables on the onset of rot but not quite there yet. Not that I know; I haven't moved in days. I don't want to smell it again. Also garlic, definitely garlic.

–

We visited the inland sea the other day. The hundred years since last time hadn't changed it one bit. The beached clay was brittle under the midday sun, and the cracking footsteps fragmented it into a hundred hexagons.
               'I hear a strain of the pathogen is airborne. It's only a matter of time now'
A group of tourists park up by the shore. A child holds out their arms and runs in small circles.

–

The corridor keeps flashing. And maybe spinning. It's hard to tell, the colour change starts at a different point each time and there's no discernible rhythm to it. You keep pacing up and down. I feel self conscious that you want to leave, but then again, you did show up unannounced. You shake the snowglobe disinterestedly. The fragments burn like molten static.
'Stop that. I feel like I’m vomiting spiders.'
'You're being dramatic.'
'None the less.'
'Don't worry; you'll get through it. The world is transitioning, and this is just motion sickness.'
'I know that, I didn't say I was worried, I said I wanted it to stop.'

'sorry'

–

We'd always go for a walk at night if we felt we needed to talk. It was an unwritten rule. The veil of amber filter let our more timid thoughts breath in the nebulous darkness. Stark daylight was always too suffocatingly real, and that was the one thing we were never allowed to be; real. You'd always talk superficially if we discussed personal matters. That day you did a one-third spin clockwise and faced my side, and talked grandeloquently, hammed up like on a stage. You gave an embarrassed smile and blew a kiss for the invisible audience. I always felt jealous of those nothings, those non-existent beings, that got to figure into your world.

–

'Christ it's warm today. I can't think.'
'so don't bother.'
I spin in the chair. Whooosh. Whooosh.

–

It's the end of a 6 hour shift. A customer, a mother in her odd thirties, was angry that a sale item was out of stock, like sale items always are: She'd only gone out of her way to shop at this store because of the advertised deal, and we had taken time out of her busy schedule under false pretence. Her child stared at the ground intensely, his eyes watering. I tried to imagine the situation through his eyes, to try and ground myself; to remain both present, but stable. She insisted on speaking to the manager. It's a relief really; He's a skeevy ****, but he at least knows when the customers are just there to start ****, and responds accordingly. He comes over, asks what the problem is. It turns out I entered the code wrong and the item was still available after all. He gets one from out the back, handles the transaction, says have a nice day and apologises for me and everything, and I just stand there blankly; I’d had the graveyard shift the night before and honestly I’m beyond feeling right now, but when she mutters 'dumb *****' as she turns away a tight feeling still twists in my gut anyway.
I come home and leave the door hanging open framed in the setting sun and just drop my bags in the hallway. You're in the kitchen, hunched over a workbench eating out of a mug.
'Whatcha having?'
'Cornflakes.'
'….Cornflakes?'
'Yep.' you pivot as I approach. 'corn..flakes.' you hold out the packet.
'coooornfllllakkkkkkkeeeessssss' I start laughing.
'coooornfllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakes'
we chorus the term in groaning monotone, and I grab the packet out your hand and throw it down and violently stomp it into the ground with every non-energy I have left. You just laugh and egg me on, repeating 'cornflakes! Cornflakes!' in crescendo, ostinato. The satisfaction of each crunch gives me the drive to smash them further, and corn dust spills out of the pulverised cardboard and gets everywhere. In the end I’m panting, my face is a mess of tears, and I collapse over onto it and just roll, bathing in the glorious fragments of reconstituted mulch.

–

'They say another ice age is coming.'
'They also say we'll be swallowed by the sun'
'well, it's true.'
'Yeah, but which'll happen first? I need to know to dress accordingly.'
'Tunnel's up ahead'
'I know, I see it.'
I deliberately swerve to the side and speed up, changing back at the last moment.
'You know I hate it when you do that.'
'What, don't you wanna die together with me? Here and now? Immortalised, as if our existences actually meant something?'
'like Diana and the nameless chauffeur?'
'******* exactly.'
We step out onto the hill, frozen **** tufts breaking underfoot. It's cold as hell but the skies glittering. You get out the telescope you borrowed off your rich *** sister.
'I think that's Jupiter over there.'
'Pfft, Jupiter.'
'What?'
'What's the blankest space you can find?'
'Hmm.. that way?'
You point it in that direction. 'Look'
I stare into it, but it's hard to keep focus while shaking from the cold. You keep adjusting and asking ,’See anything?', eventually some hazy distortion comes into view.
'See, no matter where you look, there's always something there.' You're trying to sound eloquent. 'Even when it seems like you're drowning in nothing.'
I stand back. 'That's terrifying. I feel sick.' I try to breathe but it's shaky and shallow. I stare into the ground, but I can still feel it; the blaze of the myriad innumerable heavens burn into me. Their judging gaze pierces through me and tears me to shreds.  

–

'You know, I think I read that Spinoza thought that consciousness is manifest in the ability of finite beings to continue persisting in and of their own will over time.'
'Doesn't that make a toaster more conscious than us?'
'Yeah, you don't say.'

–

We were twelve and at the department store. It was strange. I'd never taken the bus by myself to just hang out in town before. I always feel disorientated and light-headed in crowds so it had a strangeness; waves of apprehension cushioned by the homogeneity of it. one can be truly alone in a crowd; floating in a sea of otherness, where each gaze is no longer a signification of anything, but a warm static. We were among the aisles of a department store, in the toys and tacky house ornament section. Like, the junk you buy children and grandparents for their birthday. **** that you'd only attribute to people whom have no discernible qualities of their own. We were looking at snow globes. We kept trying to shake them violently enough so that the scene framed within would become entirely lost to the fog; it always felt so disappointing when clarity returned and things re-became what they were. I remember saying, 'I wonder if it tastes like real snow', I don't remember, It was stupid, I don't know why I said it, it sounded cool in my head. But you responded, that I remember, by taking the thing and smashing it against the concrete floor, and pouring out all the fragments into our hands. We tried them together and coughed and choked in laugher. It tasted awful, entirely unsurprisingly. On a rush you stuck one in your pocket, grabbed my hand, and we promptly left the store, and my heart was palpitating, it felt like all the rules, all the natural laws that had prefigured my world were crumbling, and I was terrified, trapped in the gaze of my mothers look of disappointment when we'd be inevitably caught, somehow watching me from its potential future, and I'd no longer be allowed to visit you but it was okay because I was here with you now in this moment and we were alone in this faceless mechanical place crumbling around us, and when we left, and no sirens buzzed, I felt sick with excitement at the unbounded possibility present in everything in every second. I cringe thinking back on it, and feel ashamed at finding such meaning, feeling such unabashed wholesale virtue in indiscriminate destruction, but sometimes, sometimes I still shake that snowglobe as hard as I can, till everything determinate is lost in haze, and I still feel a wave of comfort wash over me.

–

‘We’ve been walking for ages. you know where we’re going, right?’
‘It’s just up ahead. I swear’
‘You swear?’

‘I mean, I’ve only been there once before myself.’
‘****. This way?’
‘Wait-‘
‘What?’
‘Huh. Nothing. Sorry, I thought I heard a car coming.’
…
…
‘I think that’s the ocean?’
‘But.. aren’t we heading inland?’
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah, I swear.’

–

We're in your room. Your reading on your bed and I'm in the swivelly chair by the desk, pretending to work, but really we're just chatting, talking about.. something. Whatever. It was probably stupid, laughing at our own jokes, as always, catchphrases repeated till they loose all meaning. It's been a long day and honestly we're both too tired for coherence by this point, but the lack of effort lends the air an easy comfortability. But then suddenly.. Suddenly you stare into my eyes as if you're looking at me and it's somehow different, an intense gaze that I can't escape, as if you somehow found something located there, something fixed in those abyssal pupils. The feeling is overwhelming and terrifying. I am grounded, ripped into the prison of being and frozen static like a dumb animal transfixed in headlights: I am outside myself facing in, and I’m falling away. I pull you in and kiss you to escape; now, it is your touch that is fixed, your smell, your taste, and I breath a sigh of reprieve. You hold my back as I fall into you. I lace my fingers through the buttons in your shirt and feel the faint pulse of your flickering heartbeat. At once an ever-changing epiphenomena, and a calming rhythmic certainty. I vacantly tug at the buttons and your expression changes, gone is the feeling of suffocating questioning, but one of transfixed observation. Your touch is not a reaching out into something, but a continuation of yourself; I am an instrument of your lust, an extension. Holding me in your arm, you nervously run your hand down from my nape and trace my bra from the strap over the line of my breast. The lightness of your touch is a painful tickling and I push myself into you further, my thighs wrapping around yours. Your touch shoots a burning into me, not painful, but like glowing kindling, or the warmth of a blanket; an immanence, a retreat. I let my mind go blank and we continue; you fumble with my bra as I fumble with your belt. We're both shaking but too far gone to notice, too distant to care. The dry freeze of the night air contrasts your damp heat. You clasp me as you trace your hand under my skirt and I feel your arm brush my thigh. I tremble slightly at the sharp coldness of the damp cotton coming unstuck. After a stretching moment of awkward liminality, I feel you pass into me. It's a burning smoothness, distilled liquor. The rubber is an alien feeling, and for some reason I imagine myself as a giant balloon; a malleable featureless surface, filled with emptiness. I feel myself through the threshold of your presence and I am afraid; I am a boundary which encompasses nothing, and by your passing through I fear that I will be pierced; I will burst and out will flow an obsidian wind that will wither you to nothing, but it will keep coming, an endless torrent that will subsume the world and turn everything to desert, and the only way to save you is to keep it bound up as tight as I possibly can till my heart feels like burning metal, and I feel my tears land on my hand tightly clasping your shoulder. You ask through wavering breaths if I want to stop, but I shake my head; if you left now I would be caught and torn open; no, instead I subsume your undulations into myself; till the rhythm is as oceanic noise; a surface rolling located miles above a lightless motionless centre.

–

The pale green lamplight flickers. A nausea, tepid, but understated. The sentience of moss; an almost motionless drone, but the sense of unfolding. The corridor seems larger than it once was. Blank reflections harrowing accusations, mechanically indifferent but piercing; an alarm clocks wail. I lie still, I lie still. The buzzing repeats. I lie still. I am flowing, seeping through floorboards into the pores of the earth, into colonies of worms and I am lost and free, a motion, a multiplicity, pure form without the anxious drudgery of parts; pure alimentary canal, pure Elysium absolution. The flickering quickens and gets brighter. A pulsating light, a strobe, a beat frequency wavering behind vision. The liquid earth, saturated by light, hardens and dissolves. And 'I' am lost among the ruins, a vague memory of a sentiment. A nostalgic grief, an asphyxiated longing. I reach out to you desperately in the drag of the undertow, but you are the chalk of faded bones; cast to the winds centuries prior. A thousand years pass of blanket darkness, and a unitary bell rings. The flotsam batters against the temple gates. Debris collects in cracks, and my pieces are among them. I cling to retention, and return. I am cold sweat outlining the floorboards, the feeling of clenching before vomiting, repeated endlessly.

–

A few weeks after, turning off an avenue onto the main road, I see you. You're crossing, coming this way. It was bound to happen eventually. I bite back the moisture forming in my eyes and try to remain faceless. You suddenly change your trajectory, and hit the side of a car. It honks at you and you dodge around it. I allow a bitter smile to myself; the fact I can cause you such disorientating discomfit indicates I still mean something to you. Even if it's just a discomforting anxiousness, something beyond the boundary to be avoided, I have causal powers, extension; I can see my flicker of presence in you even now, even if I cannot for the life of me find it within myself. You run around and I walk straight. It's empowering; I can remain fixed, even if the torrent of the world flows around me. At that moment, I feel the indubitable strength to persevere. I am stronger than this world; I am stronger than you. But then, just as suddenly, the feeling folds upon itself and is gone. I felt solidified, just now, by the fact that I was the one that remained in this random encounter. I won, you lost. but Won how? With the ability to pretend that I can exist alone, in a world that means nothing to me? The ability to maintain a solid spectral façade, when underneath, scratching away under the skin, I contain nothing? To continue terrifies me. Knowing that I have the strength to continue terrifies me. That last thing I ever intended was to outlive you. I feel the world drain away from me, and yet I remain, left standing, alone, in a of realm of perpetual nothing.  

–

I feel sick

a hundred years pass in the cavity of the desert. Merchants make trade off raided materials and makeshift weapons. A library is burned. A soldier, wanders freely. An insect buzzes around his face. He darts about the place in annoyance, but it remains. He can't shake it. He closes his eyes. It's still there

I feel sick

the sun burns bright arrhythmic  clicking.  A late twenties couple go clothes shopping, however the child is hungry and will have none of it. Lunch is suggested. They are jocular about the decision, but feel an uneasiness about the indulgence. The air is saturated and dries

+27736613276 The Abortion Pill: Medical Abortion with Mifepristone and Misoprostol What is the Medical Abortion?

Medical abortion is a procedure that uses various medications to end a pregnancy. A medical abortion is started either in a doctors office or at home with visits to your health care provider.

Medical abortion doesn't require anaesthesia or surgery, but it should be done early in pregnancy. Unlike a surgical procedure, a medical abortion usually is done without entering the ******.

During the procedure Medical abortion can be done using the following medications:

Oral mifepristone and oral misoprostol. This is the most common type of medical abortion, likely due to the ease of oral rather than vaginal dosing. These medications must be taken within seven weeks of the first day of your last period. Mifepristone (mif-uh-PRIS-tone) — also known as RU-486 — blocks the action of the hormone progesterone, causing the lining of the ****** to thin and preventing the embryo from staying implanted and growing.

Misoprostol (my-so-PROS-tol) causes the ****** to contract and expel the embryo through the ******. If you choose this type of medical abortion, you must visit your health care provider twice to take the medications and then afterward to make sure the abortion is complete.

Methotrexate injection and vaginal misoprostol. This type of medical abortion must be done within seven weeks of the first day of your last period. Methotrexate is given as a shot by your health care provider and the misoprostol is later used at home. You must visit your health care provider within a week of getting a methotrexate shot for an ultrasound to confirm if the abortion is complete. If the pregnancy continues, another dose of misoprostol will be given.

Vaginal misoprostol alone. This method may be used over a broader range of gestational ages, but requires scheduling multiple doses of the medication. Vaginal misoprostol alone can be effective in promoting the completion of a miscarriage — a spontaneous abortion where the embryo has died.

The medications used in a medical abortion cause vaginal bleeding and abdominal cramping. They may also cause: Nausea, Vomiting, Fever, Chills, Diarrhea, Headache.

You may be given medications to manage pain during and after the medical abortion. You may also be given antibiotics. Your health care provider will explain how much pain and bleeding to expect, depending on the number of weeks of your pregnancy. You might not be able to go about your normal daily routine during this time, but it's unlikely you'll need bed rest. Make sure you have plenty of absorbent sanitary pads.

If you have a medical abortion in a health care provider's office or clinic, you'll have a pelvic exam before you're given additional doses of misoprostol to see if the foetus has been expelled. The frequency and strength of your uterine contractions also will be monitored. While the most discomfort may last one to two hours, spotting before and bleeding after could last two weeks.

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I had to write a process analysis paper for my adv. comp class Senior year.
My topic was an acid trip. Hope you enjoy.


Bored with the various street drugs that you take daily to achieve a mediocre high, you long for something new. You're striving to reach enlightenment, mental clarity, and an escape from your worldly woes. By chance or fate, you come across a man selling what he claims to be the best of all drugs: LSD, lysergic acid diethylamide-25, better known as acid. This appears to be the only way your mind and, in turn, your soul will experience the mysterious and desirable acid trip.
Upon impulse, you purchase the drug. This was saturated in a piece of newspaper. As you survey your ticket to mental bliss, you read the words on the small paper. The sentences of the article were cut to meet the spacial requirements of the acid. This made the paper difficult to read. Deep within the mess of incomplete thoughts and ideas, your eyes cross paths with the word peace. The simple but powerful word that was camouflaged in the unfinished article increased your desire to take the LSD. The "peace" was your chance to free your mind and consequently yourself.
Giving into impulse, you place the paper under your tongue. Like the words on the paper, the acid dissolves into your glands entering your body with aspirations of arriving upon your brain. Moments later, you feel nothing. You were expecting the drug to work immediately upon contact. This was far too big of an expectation. LSD like many other medications needs time before it comes to life. Disappointed, you retreat to your living room to watch a film on the television. As you sit in the dark, ruby red chair, your only thoughts are about acid.
An hour later you feel nauseous. Racing to the bathroom it starts to hit you. The porcelain toilet and clear water within is your muse. With each heave, you notice a minor change in your mind. When finished with vomiting, you realize your stomach is empty. You try to think of something to eat but your stomach has no desire to take anything.
The mirror catches your attention and there you stand staring at yourself. While gazing upon yourself, you notice your pupils have dilated. The large black circles that were once small now resemble the largest craters on the moon's surface. During this moment of time, your vision is misty. Every shape has a fog surrounding it.
When your hand reaches the forehead, the temperature of your skin burns it. As your hand rests there longer, your fingers are cooled by little drops of sweat that slowly flow down your forehead in an effort to cool your body. You conclude that the fever has created the sweat that is secreting from your body. The moisture from the evaporating liquid has created a misty air. This realization leads you to believe that the acid was beginning to take control.
An immense thirst has dried your throat and mouth. Like a desert they both need water. You have this newfound energy and possess the amount of adrenaline that can keep you up for days. You feel invulnerable and this is the healing hour for the body and soul. As the second hour of your experience comes to a close you have covered a lot of ground. You have gone from having control to no control. The acid has changed you. The man you were two hours ago was in a different dimension. In this dimension you are a new and different man.
The third hour has brought the acid to its maximum power. Your high is peaking. The visions you see and the sounds you hear paint beautiful hallucinations. They feel sensational and bring waves of shivers up and down your spine. The television screen looks like a portal to a new world, and the sounds it makes sound like greetings in a foreign language. Your eyes close and you open them immediately. Realizing this is not a dream, a state of confusion fogs your mind. Despite reality, every thought and action feels dreamlike.
Contemplating the situation, you ask yourself if this is normal. Cackling, you scream, “Normal does not exist. Normality is simply an impossible goal that has plagued society since the beginning of time." The once well known actions and thoughts that molded you were strange and unknown. This was the point of no return. You would never go back to the past. Normal process occurs no longer this far into an acid trip.
You feel groovy. Everything is fine. Your face is frozen in the shape of a smile. Nothing can take you down. The serotonin in your brain has been altered, making every moment feel good. Still staring at the screen, you see a tiny man waving at you. The physical greeting he gives you carries the sound of a hello. When he opens his mouth you see what he says. Each word is portrayed by a symbol in an unclear language. The symbols hypnotize you and give you comfort. The mind without acid would see nothing in the hypnotic symbols. But the symbols converse with you. Your sensations have now crossed over. Sights have turned to sounds, and sounds to sights.
Matter is glowing with a faint rainbow that lies on each objects surface. The fourth hour of your high is ending, the man in the television is becoming harder and harder to see. Like your high, the man is leaving. Over the next two hours, you slowly drift back to reality. The once sea bound boat is approaching land and, with each passing wave, you are coming closer to sobriety.
The loud song of the cuckoo clock has marked the sixth hour. LSD no longer controls you. You are a different man but in the same respect, the same. At your command you gave yourself to a higher power, one that intensified your emotions and took you back to man's primitive mind set. Drained from the crusade, you turn off the television to rest in the quiet. The sun is leaving with your energy. A cool breeze travels through the room which carries you to sleep.

It's something in the chemicals, it makes the "miss you's" come out when you're drunk. Really, we're all liquor store kisses --- things you can't tell your parents. My drink is a little too strong, making my lungs feel like their filled with wasps. I'm a mess, is that what you call it? When someone says "don't cry" but you cry harder. Everyone's talking all they want around me, but I'm not listening. Lies, lies, lies. But, the lies are only good when you're telling them. I need help, aka a wedding for all the things I've lost in my eighteen year old life. The morning vomits evening colors from hearing your name. Like I'm vomiting-out all the broken promises you ever made to me. Your eyes reminded me of the prettiest diamonds, what did mine remind you of? Loose change? I need to do laundry, but I'm too lazy. I'm living in a wastebasket of flashbacks. I'm driving home tonight, alone, not sobber. I won't grip my steering wheel tightly, I won't wear my seatbelt, I won't use my breaks. I'll remember the amount-less number of drinks I've drank, slightly. But, they were no mistakes. I'm good at pretending my life is in order, but clearly it's not. This isn't who I want to be anymore, I hate the remembrance of you. I think getting drunk will help, but that only makes the remembrance worse, and I keep thinking about our first kisses --- and how they tasted --- how they drained the color out of every living thing --- how ladybugs decided to make their homes in the palms of our hands --- how it wasn't hard to forget that we have an unbearable amount of seconds left on this planet.
(k.m.m)

Her eyes are so deep set now
that in a certain light
they are just holes in her face

She is so thin now
from the chemotherapy
her skin seems little more than
an empty balloon stretched over her skeleton
and tied off at the scalp,
to keep what’s left of her from falling out

She shakes so bad now
that she needs assistance
to cease the drought
on the jagged landscape of her lips

Now, her days are spent
in an endless sleep
punctuated by a waking sleep
in which she does a lot of staring at walls
and vomiting

That waking sleep, or living nightmare,
is itself punctuated by the occasional friend
come to mourn at the gravemarker
that is her hospital bed
She now has sympathy for the zombie
knowing what it’s like to be dead
and alive at the same time

She thinks, if she had the energy,
she might bite people too
just to remind them
that she’s still here

Going down to sizzlers,   (the sizzler song)



Come on mum and dad, don't be a tease
I do a lot of cooking, so why don't you grab the car keys
You see mum, there is no need to cook
And dad,,there is no need to book
Yeah we can have a lot of fun at sizzler, yeah
You see dad will have a steak
Mum will have a break, I prefer all you can eat
So I can eat myself stupid, man
So while dad is enjoying his steak, yes, he
Says it's so melt in the mouth
And I am fucken feeding my face, and looking like a loser, yeah
I first would have a plate of prawns, yeah I liked that,,yeah
And then I will have a savoury dip and special kind of crackers
And then I'll try a garlic bread and pasta, yeah
After that, when normal people give up
I will have ice cream and jelly and pancakes too
I will also try the nice chocolate mousse and healthy yoghurt
Oh yeah that's so nice, and listen mum, you shouldn't be a tease
Cause we can have a good meal at sizzler, please
And mum and dad enjoyed their meal, and they knew when to stop
But for about 20 minutes I was in the toilets spewing like crazy , oh yeah
My mum and dad were worried, and it got them all stressed
But the stupid vomiting won't actually stop
And when I felt a bit better I left the toilets
And mum and dad took me home because to them it was embarrassing
And on the way home I felt like vomiting again
And mum and dad stopped the car, so I can ***** it out
And I was there for about another 20 more minutes
And mum and dad said, come on, son, it's cold and we want to get home to the warm
And when I finished, I got back home, and it was a laugh a minute at sizzler yeah
You see dad enjoyed the steak, and mum enjoyed a break
And I think there should be a law against all you can eat places
Because all you can eat, is a bit of a tease
I was going down to sizzlers to ***** in the toilet, oh yeah

There was a town beyond the woods,
Ne’er there any water stood,
Alas, a Well, of the purest kind,
The aquifer under, is here described,
Beyond a thousand gallons under
The diamond-esque rubble and sunder.
But one bucket, at but one time,
Kind, the town, taking turns of rhyme,
This essence, used to bathe and cook,
To drink, to create, a cozy nook.
-
The happy town, the gorgeous shire,
The crops grown there as green as Ire,
No law exists, they live but civilly,
A fetching, quiet community,
But always there exists a one,
Who would want power, want this undone,
So it was said regretfully,
Poisoned their Well, emotionless he.
-
Now this village was quite secluded,
No one not there born, ne’er intruded,
Deep in the forest, behind a mountain,
Over a peak, under a cloudy curtain,
It existed in secret and abolition,
And one did seek its demolition,
Knowing the only flaw to here exist,
The essence of life, no man resists.
-
He crept at night, while the guard did sleep,
Promising the pure water to weep,
Dropping the genocide with bucket and crane,
Releasing its Demonic Alchemic Strain,
The Well did hiss as the poison moaned,
Recoiling at this unwanted drone,
The assailant then brought to his steady lips,
A cup and was first to take Devil’s Kiss.
-
On the morrow of the mentioned crime,
Busy bodies awoke to start the day’s time,
Queuing at bucket and awaiting turns,
Each family there a portion yearned,
Not one did from the water strafe,
Each then bathed, then drank, unsafe,
No one could tell different taste,
Water is water, but not today.
-
The plague did start like any disease,
Sore throat, fever, stopped nose, displeased,
The people sought the witchdoctor,
But he from bed, would rise no longer,
He caught ill too, and wouldn’t budge,
Afraid for his life, afraid of this grudge,
He knew this sickness, had heard before,
But told no one, the end was sure.
-
In a week, vomiting and nausea,
Nasal passages sealed, no nostalgia
Brought to memory of any like sickness,
The virus brought about decrepit afflictions,
But slowly and steady, worse and worse,
The people became, some saw the course
But kept silent, to avoid alerting,
The so many children in need of comforting.
-
In two weeks’ time, the pathogen,
Had taken wits of sensible men,
At night, they screamed in somber fright,
Their deepest fears, real now, and bright,
The lutes died out, the bards not singing,
An unfortunate time, but this was only beginning.
-
Fingernails rotting off at the cuticle,
Too much blood for any receptacle,
Leprositic, the fingers came next,
One by one, extremities hexed,
Children lost their legs to run,
From mothers’ faces rotted, undone,
In every other step, heard were bones breaking,
Kneecaps cracked open, shins splintering,
Eyes turned cadaverous, awake, but not seeing,
Cataracts formed, blinded from viral being,
In cradles were witnessed toddlers there suffering,
Their mothers watched with empty sockets, but listening
To the cries impossible to stifle,
The pain too much for these tiny disciples.
The dogs normally to their masters zealous,
Became of them mortally jealous.
They bit the hands that fed them well,
For watering them from the cryptic Well.
Men watched their sons dive right under,
The bridge that harnessed a valley of blunder
Hundreds of feet above sharp rocks and stumps,
Their namesakes leaped, impaled in clumps,
For those lucky enough to still have eyes,
Cried tears of acid for images despised
Sickness was spewed upon the walls,
Entrails adorned the Gathering Halls,
Some had turned to mutilation,
Blood-letting for some, abomination,
Some crazed enough to “cure” themselves,
Clawed throat and stomach til flesh dissolved,
Some rich with elixir tried to embezzle,
Upon some of the poor, tired and grizzled,
Riot broke out amongst the walking dead
Fortune or lack of, irrelevant,
Black pustules broke out that looked Bubonic,
But the cure for that failed, how ironic,
That it rather hastened the steadfast curse,
Faster than iambic verse,
Molecules turned to embryo,
Rising like a great Pharaoh,
They became flesh parasites,
Taking internal organs, slow and precise,
They started with the liver and spleen,
So there lasted hours of wretched screams,
The intestines of some would close and then
Becoming septic, they passed, bile in stem,
A few had throats seeming cauterized,
Friends watched friends closest, strangle alive,
There were in fact, some optimists,
Among them, talk of being “rid of this”,
They too died while clutching life,
Endeavoring their eternal flight,
From noses, there dripped blackened murk,
Thicker than combined oil and dirt,
It then secreted as sweat from all pores,
Fatigue then struck those left to the floor.
Upon broken knees some prayed,
Usually the skin under ribs was flayed,
Trying to understand what went wrong,
Dissecting the dead was not headstrong,
It only furthered viral progression,
The open corpses breathing infection,
The cadavers would move still, the fleshbugs active,
The horror of lifeless movement, corrosive,
The minds of the weak, it pure happenstance,
One found eating dead flesh for a cure, no chance.
All in all, this lingering curiosity,
Provided once good people with animosity,
One man turned good people to hate,
Their neighbors in ways that were irate.
-
The chaos was not anarchy,
For, as I said,
It was civilly,
But verily, I do decree,
That no one knew such misery,
The inhabitants of this village,
Did not suspect innocent visage,
Or perhaps, their cherished Well.
To be culprit behind this hell
So they drank and drank to remedy,
To recompense this malady,
To no avail did blood get thicker,
Alas, they got but sicker and sicker.
-
This hell, the townsfolk then realized,
Wouldn’t end til they all were nullified,
Eliminated they were, eradicated at that,
This pathogenic virus had verily spat
In the faces of the people here,
Decimated they were, not quenching their fear,
Murdered they were by a systematic
Suicidal psychopathic,
Inflamed in the mind of darkness thereafter,
Only satisfied by his own laughter.
Not many, til now, know of this town,
From lowly peasant, to “Godly” Crown.
An explorer found the deserted hamlet,
Body parts and questions then found the hermit,
He had heard of a town like this, he wrote:
“It was a new age Roanoke…”
But the village, not a town to cause commotion,
All that was left of them, a tree scratched, “CROATOAN”.

Being drunk is not cute

Drunk texting is not cute

Vomiting is not cute

Waking up next to a homeless man you were cuddling behind a bush in order to keep warm is not cute

Homeless men are not cute

Stealing a stranger’s phone so you can sneak away to the bathroom and take a picture of your ****

Is not cute

Drunk *** is not cute

But it is awesome

Crying after drunk *** is not cute

Crying during drunk *** is not cute

Crying is not cute

Despite whatever I have set myself to believe

I am not cute when I am drunk

I’m not even cute when I’m sober

And when I find myself

With head hanging halfway into a gutter

While leaning out of the passenger seat of my car

Looking at the chunks of red-orange

Sour and burning

I know it is just my body

Trying to rebuke my ***** mouth

That’s what my mouth looks like

When I say the things I do

And it is definitely

Not cute

i want a love that consumes me
fills me up until i'm a punching bag of scattered thoughts
and i keep spluttering and spilling my love in wine glasses
and they're overflowing and i can't stop vomiting your name
i want love to devour me
like the leftover pizza you bought at 4am last night, drunk and lonely and alone
how sad it has become to be drunk and lonely and alone with you
i will become pieces within you because i cannot stop shedding my layers
i want a love that engulfs me
that chews me up like that second stick of bubblegum
and spits me out like mouthwash on an alcoholics tongue, acidic and burning and foreign
your mouth is a gun and my eyes are bloodshot from its metaphors
i have run out of armour
i have run out of armour
i am told love isn't meant to be beautiful and it is romanticised
but all i know is i want to romanticise all night long with you under my bed covers because you are beautiful
i would say i love you but how mundane
how throw-away those words have became
i am told love isn't meant to be beautiful and i have run out of armour
how can something that isn't meant to be beautiful look so good?
like a train wreck decorated in fresh flowers; roses and chrysanthemums
a car crash on the side of the road, nobody wants to see but everybody looks
i said i want a love that consumes me
i said i want it to devour me, engulf me whole and then spit me out
i said i'm running out of armour
and maybe if i convince myself it's what i asked for maybe then maybe it starts to look beautiful
drunk and lonely and alone
and i was atop the hill we sat at the first night you ever told me you love me (how throw-away those words have became)
you were brighter than every night light combined, i thought
"love isn't meant to be beautiful," everyone said
"but how? how is sitting here with you and seeing the silhouette of trees across a skyline, a concrete ocean dotted with street lamp stars and the last hours of a wakened society not ******* beautiful?"
drunk and lonely and alone i got it
i am pouring my thoughts into wine glasses and they're overflowing and i keep vomiting
i keep vomiting
i'm not sure if it was the pizza at 4am or you who made me sick
i am waiting for you to spit me out

the aftertaste of loss and failure coats my mouth
as i slur my apologies to the wind and
stumble my way to my front door

i try not to blame myself for how things
turned out to be but when people say there's
a whole universe inside of you it's hard to sleep
soundly at night

because how could i contain multitudes
but not be able to do anything when people come
and make me feel like a house
being emptied out of its furnitures and picture frames

even ghosts seem to shun my presence but
wouldn't it be perplexing to say that it's because
i am doing a better job of being a phantom than them?

or maybe it's because of this camouflage suit that
i'm always wearing that is making me invisible
and i want to know if stripping it off means
i am finally surrendering

when you see what the inside of my head looks like
you will see a ghost town inside a snow globe
and there are fault lines everywhere

you, my love, are the light of my life, and you - are ruining my writing. lately, when i sit down and try to write, all i can seem to come up with are grossly overused analogies and tired metaphors that have been recycled a thousand different times. all that flows from the end of my pen are flowers and stars and the creases that form in your forehead when you smile and how much i'd like to lose myself in the galaxies of your irises - and it's disgusting. this twilight-esque prose, this juvenile symbolism and puppy-love poetry that pours from me - is not me. i'm no Poe, no Plath, no Kerouac, but i like to think that i'm okay. however, recently the caliber of my writing has been reduced to nothing more than rainy-day romance and child's play. and god, everything rhymes. i feel like i'm sixteen again in the best way. it's because you've stayed, that you are changing everything i thought i knew about love. i catch myself absentmindedly drifting to visions of a shoebox apartment in a city somewhere and furniture shopping and even the B word (babies). that's so unlike me, that is so - amazing because nobody has ever been so serious about me and i think that maybe, baby,  someday i'd like to be 80 with you - oh god. you - you are too many poems that all sound the same, but each time i read through them i somehow manage to find something i haven't read before. you are open doors and patient arms with a voice like a lullaby that resonates in the darkest corners of my mind. you are saving grace without condition and a love so deep i could go for a swim in it - and maybe that's why i'm drowning, because all i ever really learned how to do is doggy-paddle. but you are so patient. anyone else would have quit on me by now. the idea of forever has always terrified me, but the promises you make sound so real that i'm beginning to think maybe they are. baby, you, are eyes like soil and words made of rain drops, and every day we grow a little more. i adore you. i am so sorry that my meager words can't do you justice. my ineptitude is criminal, but i'm trying. and i think that i would rather be vomiting these clichés than return to the world of gray i lived in before i met you. i love you. i love you. i love you to the moon and back and every planet in between. you are the sweet to my tea and the leaves to my tree. and every song i've yet to hear but somehow i manage to follow along with. i wanna scream it from the top of a mountain or the middle of a grocery store, about this love that leaves me with butterflies in my belly and fireworks in my heart. baby, i've never been so happy to embrace mediocrity. my prose may be suffering, but my heart is soaring. writer's block has never been more welcome than when it bears your name. so wipe your feet at the door, take off your coat, and please, make yourself at home.

- m.f.

The excursion of a mother commences when she EMBRACES the child as a boon,
A life long relevance emanated from your WOMB..
To enter into this wicked world i took a gap ,
To comprehend the despicable i stayed in your lap....

I ****** her blood, changed her appetite
I was no more than a PARASITE
She supplied me TONES of calcium
All my skeleton , all my FLESH she owns
She ENDURED those mood swings ,
Nausea, vomiting that i brought
He was expecting his heredity, his PRIDE
She was HAPPY that i exist,
She loved me from very start
I stole her breathe , but she embraced my heart......

From 1st trimester, because of her my heart is BEATING
If i didn't love her back that would be a CHEATING

A sense of TRUST that can't be broken ,
A depth of love sometimes UNSPOKEN....
You SACRIFICED yourself to evolve me like our heart as ONE ,,,,
A link that can never be UNDONE...

The patient has had no nausea,
vomiting or back pain. No chills,
fatigue, fever, decreased vision
or double vision. No ear drainage
or hearing loss, epistaxis or
runny nose. No sore throat, calf
pain, chest pain, cough or difficulty
breathing. No pedal edema,
palpitations, black stools, ******
stools or constipation. No diarrhea,
urinary frequency, laceration, skin
rash or depression. No dizziness,
headache, head injury, weakness
or enlarged lymph nodes. All
systems negative        

and yet

I almost don’t want to voice my opinion
because I like staying in the back of the mix
but it’s hard to do.
Straight from the mind, the mouth,
of a transgendered person,
this is honesty.
I know that there are a lot of people going on about the bathroom laws right now.
It’s ridiculous we even have to get to laws for bathrooms.
They’re for
elimination,
but it generally doesn’t stay at that.
Gossip, vomiting, crying, ****, ******, etc. Things you’ll most likely, in this century, find in the walls of bathrooms.
People are posting the meme, about the ******. Trying to mix it in with these laws.
A ******,
who is a man,
and someone who is transgender, don’t fall into the same category, and even if it’s made to better the judgement of hate and redirect the criticism of keeping transgender people in a specific bathroom,
don’t compare.
Because he is a male, he is a ******.
We are not the same.
Now, recently, people are posting about the mass shooting and connecting the two.
Saying how the last thing they want to hear about is how dangerous a transgender person is in bathroom now.
And they’re correct, because it’s always the last thing on my mind. I hate myself, so you don’t have to.
I have enough hate in me for myself so everyone can leave me be, knowing its strong enough.
I don’t want to be me, I don’t want to be like I am and I live with that everyday. I haven’t been able to make peace with myself and love myself, yet.
But I hope I can eventually.
I just wanted to put this out there, so people can see this side of things. From someone who is transgender.
The last thing on my mind in the bathroom is: you.
I do not want contact with anyone in there.
I fear you. I am scared to be there.
I feel threatened. I feel in danger, not you.
You should be ashamed to feel such resentment towards someone you don’t even know, because I am in the one in danger, not you.
I feel ashamed I am afraid of you and that is embarrassing to say,
but I am.
So don’t dare make it about your safety, because you are the last thing on my mind,
I promise you that.
Being misgendered, being *****, being beaten, being murdered, slandered, assaulted, accused, uncertain, hated, dehumanised, alone.
Fear.
These are what I am thinking about when all I have to do is ***, but all I wanted to have to do was get groceries.
Or get McDonald’s, get cat food, my car fixed, an outfit, take my husband lunch, take my daughter to the park, etc.
I have a family I love, very much.
So yeah, you are the last thing on my mind when I just have to use the bathroom, and don’t even want to need to use one in public because I am so afraid for my safety and wondering if this time, is going to be the last time I walk in one and don’t get to go home to my family because of who I am.
I am sure people have reasons to fear what they won’t know or understand,
but understand this.
I know you have your own fears and your own needs and expectations, but so do I.
Don’t fear me, in the bathroom, because my fear is actually greater than yours,
I promise you that.
And honestly, that is the last on my mind, anyway.
**I just have to ***.

In Battalion,
Misery is served in a thousand ways.

Misery is served in buckets of rain
and hours of wind.
Unyielding, soul-******* cold and wet.
Porous jungle boots that invite the frigid water in and soften your feet for a relentless 30 mile march.

Misery is served in a stifling aircraft flying Nap of the Earth.
A nauseating rollercoaster ride that never fails to elicit
chain reaction vomiting from the paratroopers rigged to jump.

Misery is served at pool PT
When your arms and legs feel like lead
and drowning is a better alternative
than the aquatic torture that you’re enduring.

Misery is served during blistering Company runs
led by the Commander
who was a college decathlete.
Runs where the strongest of us
pulled aside, emptied our stomachs,
and rejoined the formation.

Misery is served by no warning alerts
separating families and lovers
for indefinite periods,
sometimes forever.

Misery is served by the Spec 4 Mafia
Unleashing Hell on new Rangers
testing their threshold for ****.

Misery is served by road marches, prickly heat,
Black Palm, and sawgrass. It’s served by desert heat,
Arctic cold, and the stench of the world’s worst places.

Misery is served by the loss of brothers in war and training,
gone too soon to join the Great Ranger in the Sky.

Through it all, misery hardened my body and strengthened my soul.
It made me a warrior and ushered me into a Brotherhood that will be with me until we all sit at the great table in Valhalla.

So on this Veteran’s Day
Embrace the ****
Endure the pain
Invite the Misery
For that’s what makes us
Men amongst Men

Rangers Lead The Way.

March was the month that she was gone, and you weren't.
I was here and she wasn't.
And I'm sitting next to you in class, trying to pretend that I don't know that this is wrong.
But you know me better than that.
We hold hands while she's missing you.
We make plans because she's currently not kissing you.
And I'm dreaming.
And you're falling.
Or maybe I'm dreaming that you're falling.
Just for me.
You don't know what a night I've had.
My eyes vomiting tears into tissues because of your smile.
March was the month that you decided that maybe I was worth a little more of your time, and I wanted to throw away every clock in the world so you couldn't keep track.
We played games like little kids, we were just a never ending game of tag.
Chase me, I want you to chase me this time.
I keep tripping over my thoughts about you.
You make me never want to get up.
Let's fill the holes of what could've been with laughter excreted from lovesick lungs.
If oxygen cost money, I would buy your love instead.
March was the month that we both forgot the world.
March was the month that I forgot I was the other girl.
Now I can't help but to think about what she would do, if she knew,
Just how much
I wanted you.
March was the month that I remembered that you were my forbidden fruit.
My fifteen minutes of fame was up.
March was the month I knew, that by April, March's love, would be dried up.

Written by Alyssa Szczelina
4-18-15

She looked like she was sleeping; her flesh was warm and held what little color it had. I knelt down to listen for her soft breath, I felt her wrist for a rush of blood, but all I could find was silence and a dead pulse. I had killed her. I didn’t mean to, I swear I didn’t, but she had upset me. She was trying to control me, so I held tightly onto her neck and didn’t let go: her soft, slender, succulent neck. I admit, I began to miss her, I felt guilty, but I didn’t cry, I couldn’t cry, I didn’t quite feel wrong for killing her, but I felt guilty for taking the life of something I loved.
I glanced over at the dark grandfather clock that stood watchful at the end of the hall. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, the pendulum swung back and forth. The time read half-past nine. My friends would be here in a half an hour. Should I hide the body? Should I leave it on the floor? Should I put her in my bed and tell the others she is simply asleep? I wasn’t quite sure what to do with her now. I picked her up and laid her down on the couch for the time being, I had to vacuum the floor, it was a mess. Hmm… I don’t even remember what she had done or said that upset me, all I know is that I was upset and so I killed her for it; such a shame, really.
I finished cleaning my home around 9:50pm. Alastair, Rune, Aura, and Skye would be coming one-by-one within the next few minutes; they would wonder what was wrong with, Valkari, the girl I had killed. To be honest I felt a bit odd that I had killed her, I mean, I was only sixteen, how often do you hear of sixteen year olds going out and killing other sixteen year olds? And what on earth was I to tell my parents? They were only gone for the weekend. I didn’t worry about it though; I knew I would think of something eventually.
I was right, five minutes later Rune walked through my door. He hung his dark black trench coat on the coat rack I had placed by my door. I heard the shuffle of his pants and the rattling of the chains that drooped from his belt loops as he walked down the hall, through the kitchen, and into my living room where I was sitting in a chair across the room from the couch where I stared at Valkari intensely. I turned my head to look at him; his physiognomy was puzzled. Rune looked at where Valkari lay, looked back at me, again towards Valkari, and finally to me once more. His lips, which were covered in a dark black color, parted as he began to question me.
“What’s wrong with Valkari?” He asked, “She’s so still… she’s too still. What did you do to her, Haldane?” Rune continued. He seemed to be calm, but behind his eyes held terror and confusion.
“I choked her.” I replied to him calmly.
“Ch-choked… her? You choked Valkari?” The terror he held behind his eyes began to show a bit more in his face. His jaw was dropped a little, and the confusion he had was turning into anger as his hand slowly began to make a tight fist.
“Yes, Rune, I choked her. She upset me…. I don’t really remember how, but she upset me, and so I killed her. It was an accident of course, I didn’t really mean to do it, but I just couldn’t seem to help myself. I miss her.” By this time Rune was so overwhelmed his legs gave way and he collapsed, he sat on my floor now, shaking ever so slightly. “So, what do I do with her?” I asked him for my own amusement. I highly doubted he would have anything to say to my question, who would? I didn’t even have anything to say to my question.
Rune stayed silent, he just sat on my floor, shaking, trying to soak in everything that had just happened in these last few moments. I heard my door open again; someone else was here. I heard the click-clack of a woman’s shoe and I knew it must be either Skye or Aura. I had no interest in turning my gaze away from the body that was, surely by now, cold. Out of the corner of my eyes I could see Skye’s curly, bright blue pigtails and the vague shape of her little ******[1] dress, I heard her give a small gasp as she was clearly just as surprised as Rune was.
“Yes, Skye, Valkari is dead. I killed her. I miss her.” I said calmly, not once turning my head to look at her, to see the horrid disgust across her face. I had no interest in looking at any other girl at the time; the only girl I wanted to look at right now was dead. I still couldn’t cry, nor did I want to really. Besides my longing for her to come back to life, to wake up from the deep dark desolate sleep she had fallen under, I felt, for the most part, apathetic.
She tried many times to say something to me, but not a sound escaped from her scarlet lips. The next one to come through my door was Aura. She screamed at me, at Valkari, at Skye, at Rune. She had gone in a state of hysteria for a few minutes. My eyes never once left Valkari’s corpse. Aura continued to throw her tantrum; she slapped my face with her ice-cold hand. While her hand was cold, I imagined Valkari’s hand would be ten times colder by now. I still refused to look at Aura, even though her long, raven colored hair dangled in front of my face as she stood, hovering over me, continuing to shout and cry over the death of her dear friend. I continued to ignore her as the profanity escaped from the back of her throat. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen someone as antagonized as she was right then.
Alastair was surprisingly late. It was now 10:25pm. The roads were probably horrific. He did come eventually. I turned my eyes to see him standing in the entryway of my living room. His bright blue eyes were furious and his fiery red hair had never suited him better. I chuckled to myself and cracked a small smile.
“You monster!” Alastair began to say. What he said after that is a bit foggy in my memory. He held Aura as she cried on him; Skye and Rune were still in a soulless state of panic.
“She upset me. I killed her. I miss her.” I repeated once more. I killed her. I miss her. What pathetic words to have been said, but I suppose back then I was a pathetic being. It’s amazing what a year can do to a person.
I looked back at the body and asked, “What should I do with it?”
Alastair sat Aura down on a chair in the kitchen. He walked back into the living room and began walking closer and closer to Valkari’s body. He bent down to pick her up.
“Don’t touch her!” I shouted as I stood up. I startled Alastair and he jumped a bit.
“Well we have to bury her.” He replied to me calmly as he began to back away from her corpse.
“But where?” I asked. I began to relax again as he stepped further and further away from the couch and closer to me.
He gently wrapped his hand around my neck as he said, “In the cemetery. Where else do you bury a body?” He tightened his grip slightly before he let go. He pulled Rune up to his feet and then went to Skye, tugging her up as well. “Come on guys, we’ve got a funeral to go to.”
Alastair gently grabbed Aura and took her to his van. Rune and Skye followed after him. Slowly I made my way over to the body that lay still on my couch. I touched her cold, dead hand with mine. I laced my fingers with hers. I brushed my other hand across her cheek, wiping away the tears that should have been there, wiping away the tears that would have been there, but most importantly, wiping away the tears that weren’t there. My apathy was quickly replaced with nostalgia. She was so cold; I almost couldn’t bear to hold her hand any longer. I quickly, softly, rested my lips upon hers for a moment. I progressed to carrying her as if she were my bride. My beautiful corpse bride. As I walked outside, the delicate winter breeze blew Valkari’s snow-white hair, it made her seem a bit more life-like. I liked that.
I kept her with me while I sat in the back of Alastair’s van. The ride to the cemetery was silent, too silent. Aura flipped on the radio and turned the volume up as loud as it would go, but it was still too silent. When we finally arrived, everyone piled out of the van and grabbed a shovel, everyone except for me. I climbed out of the van and followed the others to the back of the cemetery. They began to dig a hole right next to a tomb. I don’t know how long it took them, but when they were finally done, I didn’t want to let Valkari go.
“Haldane, please, just put her in the grave…” Skye pleaded to me. I continued to hold her in my arms, not listening to Skye or anyone else for that matter.
“Haldane! If you don’t let go of her yourself I’ll toss you both in!” Rune shrieked at me.
I shook my head for a moment before I sluggishly made my way closer to the grave. I climbed down into the grave itself while I continued to hold Valkari. When we reached the bottom I gently laid her down on the cold dirt. She was colder than ice as I brushed her face with my fingertips one last time, softly tracing her lips with them once more. I climbed back out of the hole with the help of Rune and Alastair. Aura said a few words before they began to bury the corpse of Valkari.
“None of you will tell anyone, will you?” I asked the group.
“Of course not. You might **** us too,” Skye said bitterly.
“You’re right, I just might do that if someone tells…” I answered bluntly.
“Should we make a pact?” Rune asked.
“Yes, a pact under these dark stars.” I heard Alastair answer.
They continued their conversation as they continued to bury Valkari. They seemed to want to turn this series of events into the beginning of some sadistic cult from what I could remember hearing. They talked on and on and on and on! Alastair placed the last shovel full of dirt and snow on top of the grave and began to walk away, continuing the conversation him and the other three were having. Anger began to swell up inside of me. It took over my lungs, my heart, and my soul; every bit of my body was consumed with a deep hatred for every one of them and for myself. I killed her. I miss her. I turned around swiftly and screamed at them, I shouted at them, and I yelled at them. I seemed to be vomiting profanity and vulgarity upon them. I tore the shovel away from Alastair’s hands violently and hit him in the back of the legs with it as I rushed back to Valkari’s grave. Frantically I began to dig up her body. Finally, I too had become hysteric for what I had done to her. Rune and Aura tried to pull me away from the grave, Skye tried to pry the shovel from my hands, clawing and scratching at mine until they bled. Still I refused to let go of the shovel. I refused to stop digging her up.
“I killed her! I miss her!” I shrieked. “VALKARI!”

I once left my heart in the pocket of a saint
blinded by sunset light, drunk from midnight madness,
and falling into the monotony of broken dandelion stems and lost eyelash wishes-
I didn’t think I would need it much longer
The burden of rebirthing beats continuously
stamping out the keys
Of my empty piano chest –
As I held onto the breaths of broken warriors
Sponging the blood off their slashed

double
layered
skin

And praying
they could keep their fight for just

One
More
night

He never noticed the extra beat
added to the twitches of his time-ticking body
deaf from the ringing calls to heroism
only on the odd hours he didn’t have muffled
by the recipes of the women he’d saved
buying out bravery like it could shield his soft tongued love
leaving nothing but the clothes on his back
woven from stardusted bomb shelters
And
left over hopes
selling the silver lining of every breath he took
just to buy the next broken-bar girl a drink

He was a saint after all --

born from the innocent hopes I wish I still had,
tucked in the corners of sun-freckled smiles
and
Mothering seatbealt arms
and
Careless Carnival Food
the kind I know some of my soldiers withered against
writhing their souls from the bodies they had been straight jacketed too
prisoners of war stuck in the memory
of just how many calories a sugared funnel cake could have
did have
will have
add up to the self worth shot out of their chest
from last nights uncontrolled binge
of two apples and a cheerio promise ring

No,
he had never been in the middle of the war
never known the taste of blood
rusting in the rain of covered up skin
drenched in the salt water stings of failure
peeling away the scabs of
addictive adrenaline disadvantages
and mapping the battle plan of tomorrows attack
against an enemy so close
it was breathing the same air your lungs had not finished purifying

No,
his hands had never held the dyeing breaths of a comrade in arms
as they shook from the fears riding up their spine
praying the poison won’t take
praying the stolen bottles didn’t break
and that violent vomiting viguals
might burn just enough of the alcohol mistake
so their blood won’t have to curdle

No,
he had never heard the desperation
of sobbing secretes suddenly swindled
from between the lips of a girl who never wanted to remember
the night that never happened
one year, five months, fourteen days --
and three hours ago
her father had asked her why she never wore skirts anymore
and why she never brought boys over anymore
and why she never left her room anymore
and why her silent cheekbone cry for help never smiled anymore

No.

A saint is never found on the battlefield
never scared by the everlasting burns
of war paint psychiatric wards
and gun powder therapy sessions
sprinkled with the hope against hope moments that maybe
we’ll have a break through --

Like the ****** morning sun rebirthing the beats
of duck taped dreams
and
medicated eyes
and
catatonic lips --

I left my heart in the pocket of a saint
confessing the sins of the hopeless hospital it fueled
between our silent lipped kisses
squeezing out the stories of unnamed soldiers
between our woven fingers
and betraying my fear
in the tremble of my body against his –
I left my heart with him on the one-night-stand whim
that I would grow deaf to the sound
of TAPS played on my piano rib keys
and
blind to the specks of blown dandelion wishes

But I still hear the echoes of them
rattling against the stitching
of his bomb shelter pockets

and I wonder if he’s still searching for me
between the crumpled recites of midnight mass mixers
and
open cathedral whispers

because I still think of him sometimes
absent mindedly pick pocketing saints for smiles
but I’ve only found lint and regret
tucked in the corners of their heroic attempt
to protect the bruised hearts of the saviors
who haven’t quite yet found salvation

Read the Printed Word!

It is liberating and overwhelming

(to the point of
hot
tears)

to know how long I have been letting people drag my body through hot coals

while denying their abuse only because

letting them mistreat me
was only a way to

mistreat
my
    self

But as I have stopped hurting myself, I have become aware that
while I dare anyone to try to hurt me— I say this with a fire glint in my eye--
that I have been opening myself to the worst of people.

I am seeing myself in a better light—

I am powerful
I am beautiful
I am sacred
I am deserving
I am independent
And I don’t need people who I never really needed in the first place.

I’ve gone nineteen years sacrificing myself and it cannot go on. I will not let it go on. My consciousness is shifting, my inner self is awakening and stretching its muscles.

Vomiting up this cancerous, petulant, bone-blackening self loathing, cutting out this metastasizing inability to love myself, is painful.

It is the worst sort of agony
{and my body can take a lot of hell}

but when have I ever shied from pain?

I

Put down your wooden blocks, Miyagi -
Smashing stuff against your head and shredding the Yellow Pages
Is child's play to me
I can split atoms with my teeth!

II

Hey, long time no see, Miyagi
What's that you say?
You got caught in the fallout and now you're radioactive
Just like me?

That's great, buddy,
We'll call you the Blue Flash
And we can team up
Fight the darkness together

...You say you lost all your teeth, and your hair is next..?
Hey, Miyagi, that's not funny...
That kinda **** doesn't happen in comics

Where an accident in a science lab
or an experiment with nuclear energy
Lands you a seat in the superhero hall of fame
And then you adopt a suitably awesome superhero name

No, you have to be mistaken
Look at me - I didn't die from radiation
A steady dose has given me powers
Beyond my wildest dreams

But for you, it seems
more like a bad dream
Your white blood cell count drop, drop
dropping
Your body getting weaker
Instead of stronger
No, no, this can''t be happening
You say you can't go a day
Without the nausea and the vomiting
You pray for relief, for this
Journey into Misery to end

Here, Miyagi, my friend - take hold of my hand
And I will do my best to defend you
In your final stand
You and I, old bud,
Fighting the darkness together

How do you feel about this and that?

A cockroach stealing your children's dreams of a bright and peaceful future?

Watching a mongoloid getting backhanded by a ******* with a heart of gold?

The unknowable can't be evacuated by an atomic bomb.

Knowledge cannot be enthralled by microbiology.

Peace CAN & WILL shatter into fragments by the use of clinical drugs.

Fun finds the cure for cancer in a twisted upbringing that you and your siblings will never be blessed to experience.

Trust can trigger an avalanche of facts, AND satanism should generally avoid including sexuality.

Mary Magdalene turns boring things into ****** tension like peace inspires fundamentally skewered acts of protests.

Our world leaders briefly researching painful mutilations in an ancient garden in Greece, while suggestively grabbing handfuls of lost gifts in a church made from human bones.

How are you feeling about this mess of words I've sewn together?  

Televised revolutions are deeply advertising etched foreskins of death like Disney World sells us dates with Mickey Mouse and his muse Minnie as Donald poses as Adolf ******.   

Watch your friends fade and die as they disobediently blow away blue swamps at your feet, never even bothering you with a decent goodbye.  

There's a supply and demand on our radios briefly warning us of fearful flesh in the background of a dark ash filled sky, gently driving away from mysteries spied through a peephole.

I would have cried briefly, if worshiping premonitions in the shadows was good human behavior...But it's not..

Your sisters are daintily self-destructing emergency shelters dancing w/ both hands in your pockets while vomiting their lunches into fine porcelain. Aren't we lucky?

I am happily reusing substances
and creating electrifying populations with clay and words. A seamstress of sorts I suppose.  But I'm no artist.

Pentecostalism might be able to rid the world of a nightmare and your wildest dream might have been known to lead to a disorder that hasn't yet been but already has five matter of fact cures.

The Bible courses through the veins of vengeance like physics can be used to detect our long-term relationship with Santa Christ. Satan and I think this is exciting!

Complex religious designs can be combined with gracelessness in the name of American eye-candy.  We can be uncomfortable if it's entangled with destiny. Of this I am certain.

A reverie to say the least,
a darkness perpetrated by beliefs.
I envision the entrance, a cold whistle screams adventure.
Entering the mouth of the beast, my calloused hands, my fragile tips,
brushing against the ceiling, caressing and corrupting the structure,
disappearing deeper from destruction.
This grimace upon the face, this terror protruding within the gut,
an agony to be replaced,
once escaped, courage will flourish.
Expanding the vessel,
vomiting to emptiness, given room to proceed,
phosphorescent hues exploding through my dreams.
Reaching the cusp, I gather my strength,
placed upon my scalp, a diadem to show defeat,
unworthy, fruitless scavengers, left to retreat.
Broken, a shattered age, misguided and abused, nothing to lose.
Words ring true, guidance for those envious of power,
wake from endless lies,
enter into an abyss, never to return,
abandoned dark tunnel.

intoxicated again.
holding in alcohol.
vomiting words.

we'll die from the medication.
i'm following your footsteps.
running the race you've already
won by five years, easy.

alcohol again.
vomiting intoxication.
holding in words.

The bed is cold when you turn in at night
   because the frigid winter winds have settled in too
   and like a fool you left the window open all day
You take a dab of speed as the lamp goes dim
   its the only thing to keep tumescence
   when you make love to a lover you no longer love
******* is no longer sport, only a chore
   and the night birds at the window sing a song of sadness
   beady eyes keeping tabs on the city boy's blues
When the day is done the television screeches, unreality television
   you're so depressed and you have nothing, not even sleep
   and the cold body beside you snores through the night
Even on rare occasions of sleep, you only dream of dying
   fiery bus brought with peasant's tokens is burning
   as it flies over some cliff face and you remain stoic
Waking only in afternoon sunsets with a sore head and dry mouth
   stumble down the stairs to an empty kitchen and the cat has **** again
   you clean the mess and make a sandwich, no topping just butter
How many days can pass before you crawl to the shop to buy food
   and you contemplate suicide as you scrape the tub of butter again
   falling upstairs in a somber stupor, vomiting after eating
She comes home from work and calls it off, packing her bags
   you roll another joint without words being spoken
   she closes the door and the already broken window breaks more
Smoking on your herbal solitude and preparing the last hit
   that sweet tender brown in a spoon you found
   it hits the vein and you feel happiness, first and final time
Sitting in some trash-found chair and reading Camus
   these are the final moments, surely you cannot hold on
   Abner Jay is playing and you fall asleep forever

my sadness feels like
i'm swallowing sea water -
every gulp down my throat is a step closer to
dehydration
sinking to the bottom
no flotation
lacking foundation
my sadness feels like
vomiting frustrations
stagnation -
my sadness feels like stagnation.
sensations of vibrations
surround me but do not reach
my hands
or any part of me for that matter.
I see it -
i know its there
the energy is flowing in the air
a devious glare - i swear
i stare
and stay aware that this
illness
does more than impair - it's unfair , really.
My sadness feels like everything around me is dead -
i know its really in my head but
i look at the evening sky and see not
yellows and reds but
grays instead -
i used to imbed the colors into my
brain but lately its been filled with
tar - seeping into unhealed scars
its making a home here -
till i disappear
its not just me it's "we're" that's here -
its overstayed its welcome.
My sadness feels like a man putting his feet on my
coffee table.
My sadness feels like an empty chest -
one that rots with dust and
human rust it
echoes and howls when opened -
like its terrified of its urge to leave.
My sadness feels like a parasite that *****
until it falls but
it doesn't fall -
only crawls
through the hollow parts of me
and creates substance.
My sadness feels like accepting to drown.

I live my life in extremes
Polar opposites attract in the center of my soul
And for some reason, living on opposite ends
Seems to be a fashion trend
I am not the "I made out with every girl in my college sorority
So now I'm bisexual" type of queer
Not to out-and-proud vomiting rainbows type of bisexuality
I am the bisexuality that gets erased
The eighth grade girl who, when she told her first boyfriend she was queer,
He told her she was over dramatic and crazy.
I am the bisexuality that gets oppressed
Because I am confined to the walls of a shrinking closet
Or is it expanding?
I have lost my sense of left or right
Up or down
Yes or no.
I am not your manic pixie dream girl type of bipolar
Not the girl who needs saving from her mental illness
Not drowning.
I am the bipolar disorder that becomes overwhelming
The depression that chains me to my bed in the morning
The hypomania that seems euphoric, but is never happy
The grey area, the lone horizon, the empty space in the middle
Seems like something I drive through over the speed limit
Every day of my life.
While my extremes do not look good on your favorite actress
They look beautiful on me.
Not an outfit I can strip down when it goes out of style
Not a channel I can change when it is not appealing anymore
But I will learn to love my fluctuations
My mood pendulum
My love pendulum
I am swinging from state to state
But at least I am flying
Instead of falling.

S tronger than myself,
You chain me to your wrist and
Narrow my vision
Until all I see is your sadistic face through the tunnel and
Those malicious brown eyes
Above thin, chapped, upturned lips.

T ainting my face, you do,
Painting with tears of both
Joy from your eyes and
The frustrated loss of hope that claims to be mine,
Which I proceed to rub with a scalding cloth
Until raw, I become
So I can claim to be blonde when people question if they saw and
Make a narrow escape from shame.

R un, I cannot; and
However cunning I may be,
You will still be on my tail,
Nose to the ground and posterior in the air,
Gaining speed at an unnerving pace,
Until my skinny knees clatter and
I violently shake,
Vomiting on myself,
Either from exhaustion or fear,
However, the later holds more ground.

E ven my breath becomes yours and
My dreams are at your mercy.
Consider my plea,
Lucky are thee to have me beg,
Thrown to the ground where dirt may stain my face,
An honor rarely reserved for anyone, but
You hold over me all I wish to have.

S neaking past all my guards
In elaborate disguises,
Thrown around in white and
Handed out with smiles,
I run like a fool into you,
Wrapping my arms in a tight embrace,
Greeting you like a friend who hides a knife.

S uffocating under your pressure,
I find myself screaming out.
In the darkest corner, I wish to hide,
Buried in words that cannot hurt,
Contrary to your bitter whispers and
Pestering bites.
Like a wound you fester
Deep beneath my skin.
Yes, I cannot take it.
Under your pressure,
I make myself mute.

In the 1970s there was a wave of soft pop that struck America
one band at the crest of that wave was The Carpenters
formed by Richard and Karen Carpenter
they were wildly successful
their song We’ve Only Just Begun is still a ubiquitous wedding song
Karen’s smooth and pure voice drew giant crowds
but despite how timeless her music is
it is equally contrasted by the briefness of her life.

Karen captivated a worldwide audience with her music
but some people just can’t be reached
indoctrinated by our superficial society
thinking every celebrity should be a supermodel
critics made snide comments about her being Richard’s chubby sister
even though she wasn’t overweight
and Richard was addicted to Quaaludes
but even more important than the public was Karen’s own mother
who worried of the public’s feelings more than her own daughter’s.

Karen felt pushed to lose weight
so she hired a nutritionist
who loaded her down with carbohydrates
which obviously made her fatter
crushing her faith in nutrition
turning her towards unhealthy methods
...which worked...at first...
but unfortunately it kept working
and she refused to change, unlike her body.

Fans who once cheered for her
now gasped when they saw her emaciated skeleton take the stage
they thought she might’ve had cancer
and were concerned about her weight
but to her it was the same crowd telling her to lose weight
now telling her to gain weight
she was done hearing it
and stuck in her ways.

Her friends were worried about her
and pleaded for her to seek help
but her mother’s profession was repression
so Karen hid her depression
while her mother told her psychiatrists were for crazy people.

Karen tried using a man to make her problems disappear
and married Tom Burris two months after meeting him in 1980
he would verbally abuse her; calling her a bag of bones
then he’d *** money off her; amounts up to $50,000 at a time
needless to say the relationship was ill fated
and they divorced in 1981.

Finally Karen’s friends convinced her to see a therapist
who brought her family into a counseling session
and urged them to tell Karen they love her
of course Richard was willing to say so, they were always really close
especially after Karen had helped him with his own addiction issues
but Karen’s mother refused
berating the therapist for using her first name; Agnes
and informing him that wasn’t how their family did things.

Karen Carpenter passed away February 4, 1982 at the age of 32
she died from ipecac poisoning
she used the substance to induce vomiting every day
and it slowly dissolved her heart.

Richard was devastated.

There’s not much I can add
I guess Karen’s story speaks for itself
it just ****** me off critics jeer with impunity and without empathy
they’re free to cajole great artists while having no value themselves
driving artists away until we’re only left with negativity
it makes me want to cut out all the demons’ razor sharp tongues
before they get a taste of another angel’s wings
but would that really protect those angels
if they’re born to demons?

It was four o'clock in the morning. Robert wondered why his name was Robert. He decided to get rid of the "Bert" because it was the name of a Sesame Street character or the name of a ******* in Tempe, Arizona. Then again, he thought, "Hey, just Rob makes me sound like I change tires for a living or that I work out at a gym that discriminates fat people and blacks." Rob or Robert took a second to evaluate his last thought and if thinking "and blacks" made him a racist person.

Robert sat on a bench and wondered if the woman beside him was expecting Forest Gump-esque wisdom.

Robert thought of a friend he had in grade eight, named Alexander. He thought of how Alexander had a glass eye. Robert wondered how Alexander had a glass eye but could not remember or did not know why Alexander had a glass eye. Robert, then, concluded that sometimes he will not know something and how that is okay because most people don't know anything--it's a collection of approximates that stay in our heads, he thought. Robert asked himself if his last thought made him intelligent or dumb and pretentious. Robert decided that he did not know. How meta, he thought. Robert, then, decided to stop using the word "meta" so much, because it made him feel like a professor with bitterness and something to prove.

Robert watched his sister struggle with an eating disorder. She was in a hospital bed, with an IV in her arm. Robert did not know if he would struggle with anything as hard as his sister struggled with anorexia. Robert, then, had intense but fleeting anger at every person that bragged about being anorexic or made it seem cool.

Robert sat on his toilet and wondered what his true identity was and what his true nature was. He wondered what was inherent and what was synthetic. Robert, then, wondered if a synthetic personality was inherent. Robert asked himself if he was a good person. He wasn't sure if sitting on the toilet, in his grandmother's house, and ******* to interracial ebony teen ****, on his iPhone, made him a good person or not. His concerns soon past, though, as soon as Lauren started to **** the pizza guy's white ****.

Robert walked down the street and was contemplating some of the issues that plagued his ****-infested mind, while he was on the toilet. Robert saw a girl running from a guy. Robert asked himself if he was a hero or inherently good. Robert, then, concluded that he was inherently a coward, since he did nothing and hoped that somebody else would save her.

Robert didn't meet a girl and knew that no one would write prose about his meeting a girl and their mutual love for one another. Robert was eating a steak sub, while thinking this.

Robert returned to the hospital, to pick up his sister. On the way home, his sister talked about how attractive her nurse was. Robert asked, "What did he look like?" His sister, then, said, "It wasn't a he. My nurse was a girl." Robert was okay with his sister being attracted to girls, but hoped that she didn't get more than him or more attractive girls than him, because, for some reason, that would make him feel insecure. Robert decided to stop eating so many steak subs and to work out. Robert asked his sister if she wanted to get steak subs. She said, "sure".

Robert was working out in his basement. He heard the sound of retching, upstairs. Robert followed the sound of the vomiting and opened a bathroom door. He saw his sister stick her finger down her throat. He said to his sister, "That isn't anorexia." His sister said, "I know. There's a lot you don't know about me." Robert said, "I'm sorry."

What was her name?
****, I can’t remember.

It was a boy’s name
made feminine
with a little “i” at the end
like maybe hearing it would
make you think of
some fat guy making pizzas
until you see it
spelled out or
until it becomes attached
to her lips and hair and
skin.
The “i” was not dotted
with a little heart,
(not her style at all) but
I should have a picture
in a box some where with more pictures.
I don’t.

I’ve got little notes,
tiny thoughts scribbled
on empty match book covers,
on the backs of
pretentious
business cards,
in the borders of
the mutilated,
amputated flesh
of decrepit
used up yellow pages,  
ripped from a dead and
disjointed phone book.

I woke up from this dream
and groped for something
to scrawl on,
anything,
because it seemed significant
at 2:38 am.

In the desert somewhere,
(I’ve never even been)
you were
looking out the window
and the way the parched
dry light crackled
around you
you might have been an angel
or a sign
partially occluded by glass
advertising something
I could never afford
like family or god
when suddenly you were not
a silhouette,
not back lit,
but glowing.

You were so in love, with
who I don’t know, and you
went into free fall
back
onto the bed
pulled your knees up
to your chest and
kicked your legs giggling.
I was part dead, half ghost
and still happy that you
were so happy.
I said, “you’re pregnant?”
knowing the way you
know things without
really having a way
of knowing
in a dream.

You laughed again
grabbed your little dog up
in your arms,
(I’ve no idea where the pup
came from), and baby-whispered,
“You’re going to cut
the umbilical,
aren’t you?”

and I woke with
the image of that mongrel
chewing through
the cord.

I am
waiting at the pharmacy
and the…
technician,
is reading the
cryptic symbols
penned in
indiscernible Latin,
my prescription.
She is not beautiful
but very fuckable
And in my mind
I am constructing an
image of her ******,
likening  
the shape,
size, color, etc.,
to her mouth,
when I see
my own writing on
the back
through her precise
fingers.

The tech,  
she is holding a
snapshot of her.
It might as well be
a picture of me
vomiting or
******* or
defecating.
This
is what I have left,
my version of a photo,
my dream,
scrawled on the back
of my medicine.

**** getting better.  
I ****** it from her hand.

I leave fast.  I will
never go back.
This is no chemical imbalance.
This is not my inheritance.
The loss and pain, sometimes,
that's the pill we need to swallow.

For knowing we must suffer

How ironic that our knowledge is the source of our struggle

Ignorance is bliss

Knowledge is suffering

The more I know, the blacker the void becomes

The more I know the more inevitable that end seems

Certain apocalypse closing in...Life’s flame flickers, sputters, fights to burn...then dies

For the oxygen is thicker than the cadence that the flame is accustomed to

And the wrath of god is our own sick self-torture

Encasing our minds in a torrent of glass and nails

Nihilism scorches what faith once warmed

Blackened, numb, dead, bleeding no more

Leaving nothing but the simple signs of lost hope

And broken dreams

Which ride on a cavalry of lame horses, clutching swords long broken

Dead eyes stare from cracked helmets, bones rise from sunken skin

They have become nothing more than a shadow of their own misfortune

A sick punchline to a humorless joke

Aimless they stumble to our side but at the snarls of hell's misery they recoil

Broken by adversity, their will as dead as ours, they are not our allies

They are a greater enemy then either heaven or hell can create

For they are our own brokenness, we gaze into their eyes and see what we have lost

We see doors long shut, dreams long shredded by ****** razors of truth

For they are our past.

Our past with no future.

For what future do these dead things hold

The promise of decay, of despair, of a fight long ago lost

Marching in to save us these soldiers tie our noose

And suspend us from the bridge of tyranny that our minds have created, using ropes long since broken by the strain of living

Hope, not what we cling to, but nostalgia for as our eyes glaze over, as lips turn blue, we see a faint light of what once was

We see before the knowing, before the insidious whispers of torture began

We see and desire, but may not have

For desire is the truest form of torture

Also the most sinister

For we are in hell and we hunger, hunger and thirst

With cracked lips and swollen tongues, the water slips from us before we drink

With contempt we struggle on with no hope for our lives, only for the pain to end soon

Death, in its comforting embrace, for no longer shall our eyes open to see the fading colors of life

No longer shall we know sin and desire

Nor the cruel touch of a scornful lover or the heart ache of regret

For through death, all life has purpose

No longer shall we know broken, twisted parodies of heroes nor love

We look to the black abyss, not the void of hopelessness, and we leap

And like the dream we fall but never land, in the arms of flight, of ethereal endings

The darkness collides with the light of knowledge leaving the black an even paler gray then that even of a cadaver's skin

The gray of apathy, of nothingness, of a vacuum that draws from our mouths the very souls we were foolish enough to try to save

Bleaching all hope of dying till there is not left but a sliver of an arrogant belief that our suffering would end so easily.

Lifeless yet feeling, blind yet seeing we plummet till there is no time left to fall.

What we know, all knowledge was our own ignorance of eternity, our fight for it, our fight against it

As death consumes, as the final suffering begins, we are drawn to the things we never knew, the things we could not know, things that draw us to heaven and yet drag us to hell

The very existence of our soul creates a greater torture than any we have ever encountered, creating bile in our mouths thicker than the blood pouring from our hearts

It separates from our lifeless bodies, from our twisted minds, and it is as though we are ***** and robbed of the thing that tethered us to any possibility of hope

Like a silver bullet it flies from us but we are helpless to catch it as crushing agony fills our lungs with black, clotted blood

Creating a sad excuse of a person out of our flesh and sending it wallowing in our midst

Flashing our memories and hopes into the mind’s eye of something that can only be compared to blackest of dreamers

The very discontent of hope

And the believer of agony

This monster, this twisted parody of ourselves, this demon of the shadow

We shudder and recoil, for the sight burns our newly closed eyes

Its venom poisons our veins and we lay writhing on the floor, vomiting black bile of revulsion

Finally we look up to see that these monsters are who we really are

They are our truest form, our twisted belief in humanity laid out to mock us in the cruelest of ways, with the truth

Shivers fill our bodies as we realize that this is the hell we have feared, a never ending satire of our very existence

This, this and not fire, this and not brimstone

This is hell, the purest form of knowledge of the ugliness of what we are

This understanding creates an unbearable agony far beyond any imagined by the creators of the underworld

Tearing at out minds like a thousand hooks, glowing red hot with the heat of burning souls, twisted to form the torture of millions

Sending pain through every channel imaginable in the human form including those that are yet to exist

So this is the truth, to be sent to hell before we even know of life

For life is just a parody of hell, a weak heaven to prepare us for the ****** chaos to follow

The irony of living is nothing compared to the irony dying

We seek heaven in life, we seek a soul that never existed, that humanity with its gleaming metal scythe ripped from us before we even knew it existed

Creating a maelstrom of regret and hollow pain unfathomable by human minds until the cold hands of death close around their existence

And they lay there, as all must in time, choking on their own blood, tears welling up as they realize what their life has come to

The pleasures they once sought are no more, the rosy cheeks are now a skeletal pallor

Their hands are broken and their shoulders hunched as the weight of the black closes around them

This is death, an end to all means, an end to mortality

Yet the beginning of pain and suffering

Nothing in life means anything and the knowledge imbues us with inexorable despair

Unable to breathe for our metal chains of torture

Which drag us down into the marshes of chaos

Their locks are made so not even the strongest of steel can rupture them, leaving us hopeless and stranded on an island of our own thoughts as the black water closes around us

Filling our mouths with the taste of sickness and the feel of slime running down our throats

Glacial hands tear at us, leaving ice where our hearts once were, where our skin once was, the cold a fiery burn upon our flesh

We cry out for love, our last hope, our last ray of light remembered

To realize that we are alone

Love is no more than hedonistic vice and no soul but our own is here in this ****** place

Sending us reeling into madness, spiraling ever deeper into the realm of insanity

Our hearts are gone; our minds left with not but their own company, starving for more than one thought...a thought other than escape

Yet it cannot come

For we have brought this on ourselves