NOTE TO THE READER – Once Apun a Time

This yarn is a flossy fabric woven of several earlier warped works, lightly laced together, adorned with fur-ther braided tails of human frailty. The looms were loosed, purling frantically this febrile fable...

Some pearls may be found wanting – unwanted or unwonted – piled or hanging loose, dangling free within a fuzzy flight of fancy...

The threads of this untethered tissue may be fastened, or be forgotten, or else be stranded by the readers and left unravelling in the knotted corners of their minds...

'twill be perchance that some may  laugh or loll in loopy stitches, else be torn or ripped apart, while others might just simply say “ ’tis made of hole cloth”, “sew what” or “cant seam to get the needle point”...,

yes, a proper disentanglement may take you for a spin on twisted twines of any strings you feel might need attaching or detaching…

picking knits, some may think that
       such strange things ‘have Never happened in our Land’,
       such quaint things ‘could Never happen in our Land’’,
       such murky things ‘will Never happen in our Land’’…

and this may all be true, if credence be dis-carded…

such is that gooey gossamer which vails the human mind...

and thus was born the teasing title of this fabricated Fantasy...

                                NEVER LAND

An ancient man named Peter Pan, disguised but from the past,
with feathered cap and tunic wrap and sabre’s sailed his last.
Though fully grown, on dust he’s flown and perched upon a mast
atop the Walls around the sprawls, unvisited and vast -
and all the while with bitter smile he’s watching us aghast.

As day begins, a spindle spins, it weaves a wanton web;
like puckered prunes, like midday moons, like yesterday’s celebs,
we scrape and *****, we seldom hope - he watches while we ebb:

The ***** grinder preaches fine on Sunday afternoons -
he quotes from books but overlooks the Secrets Carved in Runes:
“You’ve tried and toyed, but can’t avoid or shun the pale monsoons,
it’s sink or swim as echoed dim in swinging door saloons”.
The laughingstocks are flinging rocks at ball-and-chained baboons.

While ghetto boys are looting toys preparing for their doom
and Mademoiselles are weaving shells on tapestries with looms,
Cathedral cats and rafter rats are peering in the room,
where ragged strangers stoop for change, for coppers in the gloom,
whose thoughts are more upon the doors of crypts in Christmas bloom,
and gold doubloons and silver spoons that tempt beyond the tomb.

Mid *** shots from vacant lots, that strike and ricochet
a painted girl with flaxen curl (named Wendy)’s on her way
to tantalise with half-clad thighs, to trick again today;
and indiscreet upon the street she gives her pride away
to any guy who’s passing by with time and cash to pay.
(In concert halls beyond the Walls, unjaded girls ballet,
with flowered thoughts of Camelot and dreams of cabarets.)

Though rip-off shops and crooked cops are paid not once but thrice,
the painted girl with flaxen curl is paring down her price
and loosely tempts cold hands unkempt to touch the merchandise.
A crazy guy cries “where am I”, a ****** titters twice,
and double quick a lunatic affects a fight with lice.

The alleyways within the maze are paved with rats and mice.
Evangelists with moneyed fists collect the sacrifice
from losers scorned and rubes reborn, and promise paradise,
while in the back they cook some crack, inhale, and roll the dice.

A *** called Boe has stubbed his toe, he’s stumbled in the gutter;
with broken neck, he looks a wreck, the sparrows all aflutter,
the passers-by, they close an eye, and turn their heads and mutter:
“Let’s pray for rains to wash the lanes, to clear away the clutter.”
A river slows neath mountain snows, and leaves begin to shudder.

The jungle teems, a siren screams, the air is filled with ****.
The Reverent Priest and nuns unleash the Holy Shibboleth.
And Righteous Jane who is insane, as well as Sister Beth,
while telling tales to no avail of everlasting death,
at least imbrue Hagg Avenue with whisky on their breath.

The Reverent Priest combats the Beast, they’re kneeling down to prey,
to fight the truth with fang and tooth, to toil for yesterday,
to etch their mark within the dark, to paint their résumé
on shrouds and sheets which then completes the devil’s dossier.

Old Dan, he’s drunk and in a funk, all mired in the mud.
A Monk begins to wash Dan’s sins, and asks “How are you, Bud?”
“I’m feeling pain and crying rain and flailing in the flood
and no god’s there inclined to care I’m always coughing blood.”
The Monk, he turns, Dan’s words he spurns and lets the bible thud.

Well, Banjo Boy, he will annoy with jangled rhymes that fray:
“The clanging bells of carousels lead blind men’s minds astray
to rings of gold they’ll never hold in fingers made of clay.
But crest and crown will crumble down, when withered roots decay.”

A pregnant lass with eyes of glass has never learned to cope.
Once set adrift her fall was swift, she slid a slipp’ry ***** -
she casts the Curse, the Holy Verse, and shoots a shot of dope,
then stalks discreet Asylum Street her daily horoscope -
the stray was struck by random truck which was her only hope.

So Banjo Boy, with little joy, he strums her life entire:
“The wayward waif was never safe; her stars were dark and dire.
Born midst the rues and avenues where lack and want aspire
where no one heeds the childish needs that little ones require;
where faith survives in tempest lives, a swirl within the briar,
Infinity grinds as time unwinds, until the winds expire.
Her last caprice? The final peace that no one could deny her -
whipped by the flood, stray beads of blood cling, splattered on the spire;
though beads of sweat are cool and wet, cold clotted blood is dryer.”

Though broken there, she’s fled the snare with dying thoughts serene.
And now she’s dead, the rumours spread: her age? a sweet 16,
with child, *****, her soul dyed red, her body so unclean.
A place is sought where she can rot, avoiding churchyard scenes,
in limey pits, as well befits, behind forbidding screens;
and all the while a dirge is styled on tattered tambourines
which echo through the human zoo in valleys of the Queens.

Without rejoice, in hissing voice, near soil that’s seldom trod
“In pious role, God bless my soul”, was mouthed with mitred nod,
neath scarlet trim with black, and grim, behind a robed facade -
“She’ll burn in hell and sulphur smell”, spat Priest and man of god.

Well, angels sweet with cloven feet, they sing in girl’s attire,
but Banjo Boy, he’s playing coy while chanting in the choir:
“The clueless search within the church to find what they desire,
but near the nave or gravelled grave, there is no Rectifier.”
And when he’s through, without ado, he stacks some stones nearby her.

The eyes behind the head inclined reflect a universe
of shanty towns and kings in crowns and parties in a hearse,
of heaping mounds of coffee grounds and pennies in a purse,
of heart attacks in shoddy shacks, of motion in reverse,
of reasons why pale kids must die, quite trite and curtly terse,
of puppet people at the steeple, kneeling down averse,
of ****** tones and megaphones with empty words and worse,
of life’s begin’ in utter sin and other things perverse,
of lewd taboos and residues contained within the Curse,
while poets blind, in gallows’ rind, carve epitaphs in verse.

A sodden dreg with wooden leg is dancing for a dime
to sacred psalms and other balms, all ticking with the time.
He’s 22, he’s almost through, he’s melted in his prime,
his bane is firm, the canker worm dissolves his brain to slime.
With slanted scales and twisted jails, his life’s his only crime.

A beggar clump beside a dump has pencil box in hand.
With sightless eyes upon the skies he’s lying there unmanned,
with no relief and bitter grief too dark to understand.
The backyard blight is hid from sight, it’s covered up and bland,
and Robin Hood and Brother Hood lie buried in the sand.

While all night queens carve figurines in gelatine and jade,
behind a door and on the floor a deal is finally made;
the painted girl with flaxen curl has plied again her trade
and now the care within her stare has turned a darker shade.
Her lack of guile and parting smile are cutting like a blade.

Some boys with cheek play hide and seek within a house condemned,
their faces gaunt reflecting want that’s hard to comprehend.
With no excuse an old recluse is waiting to descend.
His eyes despair behind the stare, he’s never had a friend
to talk about his hidden doubt of how the world will end -
to die alone on empty throne and other Fates impend.

And soon the boys chase phantom joys and, presto when they’re gone,
the old recluse, with nimble noose and ****** features drawn,
no longer waits upon the Fates but yawns his final yawn
- like Tinker Bell, he spins a spell, in fairy dust chiffon -
with twisted brow, he’s tranquil now, he’s floating like a swan
and as he fades from life’s charades, the night awaits the dawn.

A boomerang with ebon fang is soaring through the air
to pierce and breach the heart of each and then is called despair.
And as it grows it will oppose and fester everywhere.
And yet the crop that’s at the top will still be unaware.

A lad is stopped by roving cops, who shoot in disregard.
His face is black, he’s on his back, a breeze is breathing hard,
he bleeds and dies, his mama cries, the screaming sky is scarred,
the sheriff and his squad at hand are laughing in the yard.

Now Railroad Bob’s done lost his job, he’s got no place for working,
His wife, she cries with desperate eyes, their baby’s head’s a’ jerking.
The union man don’t give a ****, Big Brother lies a’ lurking,
the boss’ in cabs are picking scabs, they count their money, smirking.

Bob walks the streets and begs for eats or little jobs for trying
“the answer’s no, you ought to know, no use for you applying,
and don’t be sad, it aint that bad, it’s soon your time for dying.”
The air is thick, his baby’s sick, the cries are multiplying.

Bob’s wife’s in town, she’s broken down, she’s ranting with a fury,
their baby coughs, the doctor scoffs, the snow flies all a’ flurry.
Hard work’s the sin that’s done them in, they skirmish, scrimp and scurry,
and midnight dreams abound with screams. Bob knows he needs to hurry.
It’s getting late, Bob’s tempting fate, his choices cruel and blurry;
he chooses gas, they breathe their last, there’s no more cause to worry.

Per protocols near ivied walls arrayed in sage festoons,
the Countess quips, while giving tips, to crimson caped buffoons:
“To rise from mass to upper class, like twirly bird tycoons,
you stretch the treat you always eat, with tiny tablespoons”

A learned leach begins to teach (with songs upon a liar):
“Within the thrall of Satan’s call to yield to dim desire
lie wicked lies that tantalize the flesh and blood Vampire;
abiding souls with self-control in everyday Hellfire
will rest assured, when once interred, in afterlife’s Empire”.
These words reweave the make believe, while slugs in salt expire,
baptised in tears and rampant fears, all mirrored in the mire.

It’s getting hot on private yachts, though far from desert plains -
“Well, come to think, we’ll have a drink”, Sir Captain Hook ordains.
Beyond the blame and pit of shame, outside the Walled domains,
they pet their pups and raise their cups, take sips of pale champagnes
to touch the tips of languid lips with pearls of purple rains.

Well, Gypsy Guy would rather die than hunker down in chains,
be ridden south with bit in mouth, or heed the hold of reins.
The ruling lot are in a spot, the boss man he complains:
“The gypsies’ soul, I can’t control, my patience wears and wanes;
they will not cede to common greed, which conquers far domains
and furtive spies and news that lies have barely baked their brains.
But in the court of last resort the final fix remains:
in boxcar bins with violins we’ll freight them out in trains
and in the bogs, they’ll die like dogs, and everybody gains
(should one ask why, a quick reply: ‘It’s that which God ordains!’)”

Arrayed in shawls with crystal *****, and gazing at the moons,
wiled women tease with melodies and spooky loony tunes
while making toasts to holey ghosts on rainy day lagoons:
“Well, here’s to you and others too, embedded in the dunes,
avoid the stares, avoid the snares, avoid the veiled typhoons
and fend your way as every day, ’gainst heavy heeled dragoons.”

The birds of pray are on their way, in every beak the Word
(of ptomaine tomes by gnarly gnomes) whose meaning is obscured;
they roost aloof on every roof, obscene but always herd,
to tell the tale of Jonah’s whale and other rhymes absurd
with shifty eyes, they’re giving whys for living life deferred.

While jackals lean, hyenas mean, and hungry crocodiles
feast in the lounge and never scrounge, lambs languish in the aisle.
The naive dare to say “Unfair, let’s try to reconcile.
We’ll all relax and weigh the facts, let justice spin the dial.”

With jaundiced monks and minds pre-shrunk, the jury is compiled.
The Rulers meet, First Ladies greet, the Kings appear in style.
Before the Court, their sins are short, they’re swept into a pile;
with diatribes and petty bribes, the jurors are beguiled.

The Herd entreats, the Shepherd bleats the verdict of the trial:
“You have no face. Stay in your place, stay in the Rank and File.
And wait instead, for when you’re dead, for riches after while”;
Aristocrats add caveats while sailing down the Nile:
“If Minds are mugged or simply drugged with philtres in a vial,
then few indeed will fail to feed the Pharaoh’s Crocodile.”
The wordsmiths spin, the bankers grin and politicians smile,
the riff and raff, they never laugh, they mark a martyred mile.

The rituals are finished, all, here comes the Reverent Priest.
He leads the crowds beneath the clouds, and there the flock is fleeced
(“the last are first, the rich are cursed” - the leached remain the least)
with crossing signs and ****** wines and consecrated yeast.
His step is gay without dismay before his evening feast;
he thanks the Lord for room and, bored, he nods to Eden East
but doesn’t sigh or wonder why the sins have not decreased.

The sinking sun’s at last undone, the sky glows faintly red.
A spider black hides in a crack and spins a silken thread
and babes will soon collapse and swoon, on curbs they call a bed;
with vacant eyes they'll fantasize and dream of gingerbread,
and so be freed, though still in need, from anguish of the dead.

Fat midnight bats feast, gnawing gnats, and flit away serene
while on the trails in distant dales the lonesome wolverine
sate appetites on foggy nights and days like crystalline.
A migrant feeds on gnats and weeds with fingers far from clean
and thereby’s blessed with barren breast (the easier to wean) -
her baby ***** an arid flux and fades away unseen.

The circus gongs excite the throngs in nighttime Never Land –
they swarm to see the destiny of Freaks at their command,
while Acrobats step pitapat across the shifting sands
and Lady Fat adores her cat and oozes charm unplanned.
The Dwarfs in suits, so small and cute when marching with the band,
ask crimson Clowns with painted frowns, to lend a mutant hand,
while Tamers’ whips with withered tips, throughout the winter land,
lure minds entranced through hoops enhanced with flames of fires fanned.
White Elephants in big-top tents sell black tusk contraband
to Sycophants in regiments who overflow the stands,
but No One sees anomalies, and No One understands.
At night’s demise, the dither dies, the lonely Crowd disbands,
down dead-end streets the Horde retreats, their threadbare rags in strands,
and Janes and Joes reweave their woes, for thoughts of change are banned.

The Monk of Mock has fled the flock caught knocking up a tween.
(She brought to light the special rite he sought to leave unseen.)
With profaned eyes they agonise, their souls no more serene
and at the shrine the flutes of wine are filled with kerosene
by men unkempt who once had dreamt but now can dream no more
except when bellowed bellies belch an ever growing roar,
which churns the seas and whips a breeze that mercy can’t ignore,
and in the night, though filled with fright, they try to end the War.

The slow and quick are hurling bricks and fight with clubs of rage
to break the chains and cleanse the stains of life within a cage,
but yield to stings of armoured things that crush in every age.

At crack of dawn, a broken pawn, in pools of blood and fire,
attends the wounds, in blood festooned (the waves flow nigh and nigher),
while ghetto towns are burning down (the flames grow high and higher);
and in their wake, a golden snake is rising from the pyre.
Her knees are bare, consumed in prayer, applauded by the Friar,
and soon it’s clear the end is near - while magpie birds conspire,
the lowly worm is made to squirm while dangling from a wire.

The line was crossed, the battle lost, the losers can’t deny,
the residues are far and few, though smoke pervades the sky.
The cool wind’s cruel, a cutting tool, the vanquished ask it “Why?”,
and bittersweet, from  Easy Street, the Pashas’ puffed reply:
“The rules are set, so don’t forget, the rabble will comply;
the grapes of wrath may make you laugh, the day you are to die.”

The down and out, they knock about beneath the barren skies
where homeward bound, without a sound, a ravaged raven flies.
Beyond the Walls, the morning calls the newborn sun to rise,
and Peter Pan, a broken man, inclines his head and cries...

In age of old, in time that pass like tides,
When Prometheus lived and Lo! He strived,
As thirsting for Heaven, he climbed its hills, and trees,
Clenching at the Sun, its spark he seize.

The leaves, they warmed, turn bright and evergreen,
As Prometheus, he to fierce fire wean,
Swell lips sip lightning, of the nascent noon,
And divine heat from his hand duly shone,
To Roses, who sing, uprise and sweet rebel,
In bloom to conquer, vanquish concrete hell.

A wish for fire, fulfilled, angered Zeus,
He thought the fire be given, not to choose,
That excellence with fire, laurel his,
"A crime against the Gods Prometheus did."
For glory of the light from Heaven sent,
The hour of his favour now gone, spent.

Smite down the hero, tear ambition down,
Old Zeus, but young ambition wears your crown,
For daring, striving why not badge of God?
The Promethean vision all time hath applaud,
It art of upper world, belong in sky,
Praise Prometheus as fire goes roving by.

Mind gilded by the golden, whirling thread,
You seize from Heaven, through the Earth now spread,
Bringing hope to hearts, life to the dead,
As for forgiveness of the Gods you plead,
For an uncriminal act and sublime deed,
The arrogance of Zeus? Need not to feed.

VERSE 1

Another year has come and gone,
I realize now that I was wrong,
For ******* at you way too long,
Blaming you for us not getting along,
Arguing with you until dawn,
We go back and forth just like ping-pong,
About all of the crazy conclusions I've drawn,
Now it's eggshells we are walking upon,
I hate that you are distant and withdrawn,
I'm trying but it's so hard to be strong,
I know that with you is where my heart belongs,
I'm reminded each time I hear our song,
This feeling is one I wish I could prolong,
Your love is a drug, I love to be on.

HOOK

It's hard for me to say, but I'm addicted to loving you,
Always chasing my next fix, you are what I pursue,
I need to feel your high, I need to have you close,
I just want to fill up on your love, so I can overdose.

VERSE 2

Baby you know you are my everything, my high when I am low,
You pick me up when i am down, I can't let you go,
You really are the best thing, that I have ever found,
When I'm with you i feel like I'm ten feet off the ground,
Nothing can compare to you, babe you are the best,
But when I'm too far away from you, I turn into a mess.
To the point I will do anything to feel your caress,
And rub my hands across your bare chest,
I don't know why I do this, a different side of me emerges,
When you get me alone and I give into my urges,
Since I had a taste I'm craving you and no one else,
It's obvious I'm strung out, all my friends say I need help.

(HOOK)

VERSE 3

We've been staying up too late,
This addiction I'm growing to hate,
My mind is fuzzy I can't think straight,
I've even started to lose weight,
When you penetrate me we levitate,
I'm elevated, my pupils dilate.
I try to slow down, gradually wean,
Myself off of the magic inside of your jeans,
But hard as I try I can't break the routine,
I'm beginning to think I'll never stay clean.

(HOOK)

BRIDGE

I'm addicted to your love, though it's tough to admit,
This habit is one I'm not sure I can quit.

In a wayward adventure in curiosity —
lured away from savvy of cooler judgment,  
he oversteps the bounds of reality 
into a state of altered awareness.

Overwhelmed by a rapid beginning
of a buzzing sensation — The Rush;
emanating from deep inside him, 
surging along the veins streaming 

euphoria through cells of his entire body:  
inside the body, with warm pleasure waves
flushing over the by now tingling skin
soughing off all unpleasant feelings.

Mouth numbed, limbs heavy, and eyeballs 
rolling back from hitherto an unimaginable
state of bliss, he savours the calm explosions
of the pulsating bubbles in his head.

A magical moment of sheer ******* 
rapture—that ends in a lasting sedation—
during which he's dazed with wonderment
while covered by a cozy blanket of content.

He falls in love with the insidious drug.
And he begins to relish its sweet fruition
in a seemly pattern of use that is put
in the shade to protect his best interests.

A stake in normalcy that seeks to confine
his usage of the opioid to a social occasion.
But soon enough he drifts towards a regular
recreational use; indulging on weekends,

floating, flying, and soaring in wonderful
ripples of pure delight, feeling very mellow
and satisfied, in an illusionary paradise of
forgetfulness where nothing hurts any more.

Bit by bit as time goes by his body builds up
a tolerance for the sedative, prompting his
intake of higher and more frequent doses
to feel as well as to sustain the desired effect.

This occurs because his body attempts to
adapt to the presence of the drug by quickly
breaking it up and purging it out of the system,
thus making it less potent as it was before.

At this stage of his drug abuse he's still able to
control whether to use the stuff or not, where
and when to use it, without stress. He could
also abstain from the opioid fairly responsibly.

But at the limits of his body's flexible response
to the dangerous substance, he begins to suffer
from its unpleasant side-effects that show up
a short period of time following his last use.

The pleasurable, but short-term, therapeutic
effects of the hard drug are now being
overshadowed by several of its undesirable
withdrawal symptoms that manifest as:

fatigue, irritability, cold chills/sweat, itchy skin,
muscle spasms and tremors, body ache, and
stomach cramps among others, with an
increase in his body's cravings for the opioid.

The onset of these torturous side-effects of
the stimulant marks the beginning of his body's
physical dependence on it, as he now relies
on the drug to fend off the terrible affliction.

He has bitten at the bait of pleasure oblivious
of the hook beneath it. The once casual user,
who had thought he could quit the habit at will
without stress, has advanced to problematic use.

The drug has become an integral part of a daily
routine that is gradually heading towards chaos.
Regardless, he's still able to go to work and
take care of his day to day responsibilities.

In time, a new sickness begins to fester inside
him: the opioid is tightening its grip on him,
as his body's physical dependence on it
is now generating his addiction to the drug.

This psychological dependence on the drug
has set in with anxiety disorder accompanied
by emotional and behavioural problems:
the duo classic signs of a progressive disorder.

The drug has become something he needs
to sleep or to fully wake up. His sleeping
pattern has also been altered; up at night
and intermittently dozing off during the day.

As dosage of the narcotic rises, so does
the torture of the painful lows and other
symptoms of addiction, making his cravings
for the sedative increasely more intense.

As it is, he's needs several hits of the drug to
make it through the day. All at once he wants
to use! He begins to look forward to using.
He would ingest the drug in risky situations

such as, while at the wheels of his car or
working at his job; always desperate to avoid
withdrawal symptoms as well as to revel in
the bliss of the drug's comforting warmth.

At times he'd skip work 'chasing the dragon':
pursuing the out-of-reach elation levels of
his initial euphoric high, swinging between
feelings of mediocrity and that of ecstasy.

Always, his body would afterwards crash
below baseline, barely able to cater for his
daily needs. The habit has long ceased
to be the fun that it was intended to be.

Like a vicious cycle the relief from the opioid,
which is not justified by external reality,
is being obtained at the cost of the
worsening addiction and a spike in distress

whenever his body is low on the drug.
The more he indulges on the sedative
to calm his racing mind, the more
its comfort zone seems to be desired.

Disoriented in the rigours of his vice,
he strays in the abyss of drug addiction:
a dark, weary place where priority disorder 
is dictated by events outside of his control.

It is this corrupted impulse control that
causes his sick obsession with the narcotic,
rendering him unfit to articulate rational
thoughts: a chronic brain disorder.

In this harmful shift away from reality,  
utmost in his mind is the insidious drug:
over and above his job, his goals, family,
love, friends, hobbies and personal hygiene.

Oddly enough the foremost essentials of life
like water, food, and sleep are also not spared.
He could be ill and he won't care.
No other thoughts can cohabit in his world.

Emotionally invested in his fantasy world,
the toxic substance has kindled in him
an inner turmoil — setting off an overriding
feeling of emptiness that aches in his heart.

The habit much harder to lose than it was
to find: an ongoing effort to wean himself off
the drug is being crushed by a dysphoric mood
and a sickly feeling that intensify in severity.

These horrifying withdrawal symptoms
are a result of the sedative's induced
alterations in the biochemistry of his
brain's system of reward and punishment.

Instead of a mild, blissful flow of the brain's
happy hormones, as is experienced while
one is indulging in a tasty food, on receiving
a great news, or while engaged in any other

kinds of novelty that fill us with a delicious
pleasure, the opioid whose chemical structure
is similar to that of the natural chemical
messengers of the brain, Happy Hormones,

by mimicking these primary drivers of the
brain's reward system the psychoactive 
drug sends a false signal of euphoria to
the complex *****, triggering an instant

and fast secretion of an abnormally large
amount of the 'feel-good hormones', that
begin to surge along its pleasure pathways
overwhelming the reward centre of the brain.

It is this huge outpouring of happy hormones
in the region that elicites in him a sudden
burst of energy, a pleasant state of mild
drowsiness, mental alertness, relaxation, ...

This already intense, euphoric effect of the
opioid is further amplified by the drug's
blocking of the pain partways of the reward
system, thus dulling his emotions and worries

by eliminating any feeling of sorrow, regret,
guilt, fear, or loneliness. Upon intake of the
mood-altering drug, he would feel warm when
cold, calm when angry, bright when grumpy,

filled when hungry and happy when irritable,
with almost a total refrain from the tendency
to view anything in bad light. This dramatic
result makes every normal thing look better

and brings forth a deep sense of satisfaction
as though all his needs have been met.
However, this almost perfectly desirable 
body and mind experience is an artificial

feeling that only lasts a few hours at most.
When the drug's effects wear off, because
the brain, which has come to rely on the steady
supply of happy hormones, cannot adjust

all at once, it gets stuck in overdrive which
results in the withdrawal symptoms. It is so
because his brain, whose system of reward
and punishment has been tampered with,

seeks to counteract and accomodate for
the sweet thrills of the drug's euphoric high,
by secreting much less happy hormones while
the foodgate of pain hormones is thrown open.

Just like a huge surge of happy hormones
elicits unnatural levels of euphorical pleasure,
a spike in flow of pain hormones produce
in him the torturous withdrawal symptoms.

These unwanted side-effects whose rise and
fall are subject to drug levels in the system,
is the debt he has to pay for the supreme
bliss that is relished during his opioid highs.

It is all about his brain seeking to maintain
Homeostasis: a normal, healthy body function.
Once he's able to amerce with penance due,
he'll feel good again with no need for the drug.

Another flip side of the illicit habit is that over
time, the regular surge in happy hormones
disrupts the resilience of the reward region
of the brain, causing physical changes that

have drastically reduced his brain's ability
to produce the 'pleasure juices', or respond
to any stimulus other than the one being
triggered by the psychoactive substance.

This is clearly seen in his lost of interest in
activities that he once enjoyed, since his brain
suffers from lack of happy hormones which
influence one's capacity to be in a good mood.

Because the narcotic has also disrupted
activities in the control region of the brain,
his whole thought pattern, perspective and
behaviour, all radically change along with it.

It is this reprogramming of his brain that has
altered the interior reality of his mind, in ways
that result in him going into 'survival mode'
in the absence of the drug during a withdrawal.

While in this irritable, aggressive and erratic
state, he would forego anything and everything
to obtain the narcotic because he's thinking
of his drug use the same way an individual 

who is parched with thirst thinks of water.
This desperation in seeking out the drug as
a vital lifeline is due to his compromised brain
'thinking' it needs it as a matter of survival.

A habit he had maintained at the outset
because it made him feel extremely good
has tuned against him, quite often, coercing
him to use for the avoidance of pain.

The sedative as dear and painful to him
as an imbecilic child is to its mother,  
he continues on the foreboding route 
for which he has no power of deviation.

Despairing in the clutches of addiction,
the drugs traumatize him, they infuse
toxins into his spine, and he wouldn't
know whether he's coming or going.

He's kept on saying to himself, 'I'm going
to quit for good after using one last time.'
But that remains to be seen as the drug
goes on dulling his inner light day by day.

In a downward spiral that stuns those 
acquainted with him, he loses his job,
his car is repoed, and he's evicted from
a nice home that had been stripped bare.

Drowning in unpaid bills and desperately
in debt having blown an entire life-savings
on the drug, the loss of everything and a few
remaining friends leaves him fatally devastated.

The dangerous drug has evoked a negative
ripple that is felt throughout all that he's
part of. An awful realization that settles in
with cold clarity, eliciting a lurch of dismay

over his dire ignorance about the drug
which has led to the ugly entrapment.
In deep, sorrowful thoughts consumed
with self-loathing he puts a curse upon

the day he first laid eyes on the hard drug.
With the best resolve he's able to muster,
driven by exasperation to kick the habit,
he strives to make his will like stone —

a facade that is soon razed by his urgent need
for the ****** to stave off withdrawal. With a
burden of guilt and shame that can't be faced
he retreats into the haze of his own misery.

With more problems and stresses than ever
he plunges from troubled life to no life,
completely losing touch with reality as the
disorder assumes a more dangerous form.

His fixation on the ****** has taken a turn for
the worst. Besides his strong cravings for it
to ward off withdrawal as well as to experience
its euphoric high again, it has become more

crucial than ever for him to keep his emotions
constantly desensitised to life, by numbing
the agony of living to ease the passage of
day with purchased relief from the sedative.

Locked in this highly destructive pattern
of drug use, he would stop at nothing
to feed the habit: he would cheat, steal,
lie or betray no matter who to get his 'fix'.

Like the spreading of cancer in the body,  
his affliction has metastasized way 
beyond him, chipping away at the sense
of wellbeing of everyone around him.

As frequent and ready targets for theft
his family have to always watch out for him,
in a resentful relations in which they never
could feel at easy with him around their home.

Wallets, jewellery, gadgets, or any other
easy to carry household valuables, that are
not safely locked away, will go missing.
For days at a time he, too, will vanish.

He'd eventually return like the 'prodigal son'.
Always, he's found the door open after
prolonged periods of avoiding home, even
on occasions when he'd been kicked out.

In the many months gone since losing his
source of livelihood, he's been pushed
into a number of rehabilitation facilities,
but as yet has failed to clean up his act.

He's also been in and out of rehab thrice
following hospital discharges for drug
overdose. On the last occasion, he was
found passed out in the family's bathtub.

Timely arrival of the paramedics had saved
his life. Notwithstanding, a nagging urge
to 'use' continues to feed and reinforce
the habit after each discharge from rehab.

It's been most upsetting to the parents
who have had to watch him visibly change
before their eyes: from a good, healthy
son, who had always had his act together,

to as it is, a thin, patchy-skinned loner with
a baffled demeanour — who buries his head
in low self-esteem to conceal the frequent
dilated and glassy pupils from mutual gaze.

Nothing points more to the helplessness 
of the family's plight than having to finally
admit to their little, or no influence, over
the ravages of the stigmatized disorder.

A harrowing experience for a household
whose life-savings, along with compassion
for him, have completely been exhausted
with no more tears remaining to shed.

The hurting family at the end of its tether
confronts him with an ultimatum:
to get his life in order or face the music.
Coldly, they all watch him leave home.

His descent into the final stages of rock-
bottom has been swift. He starts by crashing
on fellow addicts' couches and floors,
but soon his welcome quickly wears out.

Now among the ranks of the homeless the
hobo would wake up feeling sick, and his day
would consist of shoplifting, petty thefts,
begging, and struggling to find others ways

to obtain money in order to feed the habit.
At nights, even on stormy ones, the rough
sleeper would crash wherever there's shelter,
never worrying about waking up the next day.

A hellish existence on the street that has
provoked a string of run-ins with the law. 
Nabbed stealing on ill-fated occasions,
he's manhandled in a most indecent way.

Tired, hungry and sick, the erstwhile ray of
hope, who once had a strong sense of self,
is currently a nervous wreck who envisages
life through the lens of opioid stupor.

Much beyond his ability to ask for help, 
his hurting family proceed to rescue him.
Under the humbling load of drug addiction
he staggers into another rehab facility.

But the often slippery climb to recovery
is never easy. It's yet another chance for him
to submit to a slow and delicate therapy on
his brain, whose structure and functions are

badly impacted by years-long use of the drug.
The healing process is a labour of discipline
and commitment, coupled with patience
in order to allow the brain to adapt back

toward normalcy by gradually regenerating
and rebalancing itself. In a gruelling task he's
expected to learn to care for a body that
now must struggle to work in a different way.

Desiring to put their lives back together many
druggies have been able to crawl their way out
of the murky shadow — a big chunk of them
through the guiding light of structured help.

Amongst them were 'walking corpses' whom
possessed by their 'enough is enough', were
enabled to find the inner fire vitally needed
to rekindle the cold embers of self-image.

There's the fella cast adrift feeling wholly
disconnected from self and the world.
He's mourning the loss of a vital lifeline
that has always helped him cope with life.

He had been through it many times before,
the fatigue, stomach cramps, aches, itchy skin, ...
But, he's in the early stages of withdrawal when
cravings for the narcotic are at their worst.

This initial withdrawal agony is the biggest
hurdle any addict has to overcome in the often
stop-start journey to recovery. If he could
somehow find the courage to suffer through it,

the fierce and ceaseless cravings for the drug
would be considerably reduced, making
them easier for him to deal with. Eventually,
they will dissipate the longer he stays sober.

He's being offered a way out of his captivity,
but he's unable to embrace the opportunity
with open arms because the addiction,
which convinces him the only option available

is to indulge on the drug, is blocking him from
seeing the available escape route. It has shut
off his ability to get up on the inside to face
the seeming overwhelming barriers to sobriety.

Like one in the grip of Stockholm Syndrome,
he has developed a type of trauma bonding
with the treacherous drug: the more it hurts
him, the more his irrational affection for it.

With his consciousness constantly revolving
around the insidious substance, he just
can't imagine a chronic user like him
being sober and happy again without it.

That being the case, he fails to see any point
in struggling to remain sober when in such
times he's beset by an awful illness attended
by a serious depression that is no help.

Regardless of the wreckage of his past,
everything that is dear to him plus the very
essence of life on the line, he's left convinced
that giving up the destructive habit would

mean endless suffering and feeling deprived
for the rest of his already sad existence.
More than any other reasons, he just
won't quit because he's powerless to resist.

In default of any dreams of ever recouping
losses that are manifestly out of reach,
the drug with a firm grip on him serves 
as a buffer to keep his ugly reality at bay.

All that he wants is to return to the 'loving
arms' of the opioid, very much aware that
the feeling of the drug's high now that he's
in pain can be one of the best things ever.

But even so, as tempting as the desire to jump
the healing process may be, he's bitterly
mindful of the horrors of street life that
loom upon him with such frightening aspect.

Savagely trapped with no good choices he
slips into a real fear of relapse. In anguish
withdrawal and cravings plague him daily,
and they won't allow him a moment's peace.

Utterly incapable of rising from the ashes 
to hold it all together—no hope—
nothing to hope for—everything out 
of focus—mind spiraling out of control.

In a fit of extreme anxiety the now rampaging
urge to 'use' prods him, closer and closer,
to the brink of a nervous breakdown. Suddenly,
his need for a 'hit' becomes most vital as.

Sweating profusely and trembling all over
with fear clutching a pilfered smartphone,
forgetful of future suffering the rehab
jumper hurries along the forbidden path.

All alone with the merciless companion: 
nowhere to go and no one to turn to. 
Wretchedly wretched in additive agony
the ****** fades away into nothingness.








AUTHOR'S NOTE


The Abyss Of Drug Addiction is written in 112 non-rhyming quatrains.

The rendition is a poignant story depicting the sad existence of many drug users. The verse uncovers and illuminates, step by step, the different stages of drug addiction and the mental processes of the unable to function drug users.

The paramount aim of the work is to shed some light on the sinister shadow of drug addiction: to unveil to all and sundry, especially teenagers and the youths, the hazards of drug abuse and the vicious downward spiral that can be caused by it. 

Just as the euphoric experience of all kinds of hard drugs differ significantly, so are their withdrawal symptoms. Despite their seeming surface unrelatedness, whichever hard drug it may be, the creation of an illegal and dangerous dependency in users is a common denominator.

[The Rush is described as a feeling very much like a heightened and prolonged ****** ******. A great relieve of tension. It is mostly felt when ****** or any of it's derivatives opioids/opiates is administered intravenously].

In quite a disturbing hyperbole a ****** addict described the drug's EUPHORIC RUSH as follows:
"Take the best (******) ****** you've ever had, multipy it a billion and you're still no where near it... "

Now swarthy Summer, by rude health embrowned,
    Precedence takes of rosy fingered Spring;
And laughing Joy, with wild flowers prank’d, and crown’d,
    A wild and giddy thing,
And Health robust, from every care unbound,
    Come on the zephyr’s wing,
      And cheer the toiling clown.

  Happy as holiday-enjoying face,
    Loud tongued, and “merry as a marriage bell,”
Thy lightsome step sheds joy in every place;
    And where the troubled dwell,
Thy witching charms wean them of half their cares;
    And from thy sunny spell,
      They greet joy unawares.

  Then with thy sultry locks all loose and rude,
    And mantle laced with gems of garish light,
Come as of wont; for I would fain intrude,
    And in the world’s despite,
Share the rude wealth that thy own heart beguiles;
    If haply so I might
      Win pleasure from thy smiles.

  Me not the noise of brawling pleasure cheers,
    In nightly revels or in city streets;
But joys which soothe, and not distract the ears,
    That one at leisure meets
In the green woods, and meadows summer-shorn,
    Or fields, where bee-fly greets
      The ear with mellow horn.

  The green-swathed grasshopper, on treble pipe,
    Sings there, and dances, in mad-hearted pranks;
There bees go courting every flower that’s ripe,
    On baulks and sunny banks;
And droning dragon-fly, on rude bassoon,
    Attempts to give God thanks
      In no discordant tune.

  The speckled thrush, by self-delight embued,
    There sings unto himself for joy’s amends,
And drinks the honey dew of solitude.
    There Happiness attends
With ****** Joy until the heart o’erflow,
    Of which the world’s rude friends,
      Nought heeding, nothing know.

  There the gay river, laughing as it goes,
    Plashes with easy wave its flaggy sides,
And to the calm of heart, in calmness shows
    What pleasure there abides,
To trace its sedgy banks, from trouble free:
    Spots Solitude provides
      To muse, and happy be.

  There ruminating ’neath some pleasant bush,
    On sweet silk grass I stretch me at mine ease,
Where I can pillow on the yielding rush;
    And, acting as I please,
Drop into pleasant dreams; or musing lie,
    Mark the wind-shaken trees,
      And cloud-betravelled sky.

  There think me how some barter joy for care,
    And waste life’s summer-health in riot rude,
Of nature, nor of nature’s sweets aware.
    When passions vain intrude,
These, by calm musings, softened are and still;
    And the heart’s better mood
      Feels sick of doing ill.

  There I can live, and at my leisure seek
    Joys far from cold restraints—not fearing pride—
Free as the winds, that breathe upon my cheek
    Rude health, so long denied.
Here poor Integrity can sit at ease,
    And list self-satisfied
      The song of honey-bees.

  The green lane now I traverse, where it goes
    Nought guessing, till some sudden turn espies
Rude batter’d finger post, that stooping shows
    Where the snug mystery lies;
And then a mossy spire, with ivy crown,
    Cheers up the short surprise,
      And shows a peeping town.

  I see the wild flowers, in their summer morn
    Of beauty, feeding on joy’s luscious hours;
The gay convolvulus, wreathing round the thorn,
    Agape for honey showers;
And slender kingcup, burnished with the dew
    Of morning’s early hours,
      Like gold yminted new.

  And mark by rustic bridge, o’er shallow stream,
    Cow-tending boy, to toil unreconciled,
Absorbed as in some vagrant summer dream;
    Who now, in gestures wild,
Starts dancing to his shadow on the wall,
    Feeling self-gratified,
      Nor fearing human thrall.

  Or thread the sunny valley laced with streams,
    Or forests rude, and the o’ershadow’d brims
Of simple ponds, where idle shepherd dreams,
    Stretching his listless limbs;
Or trace hay-scented meadows, smooth and long,
    Where joy’s wild impulse swims
      In one continued song.

  I love at early morn, from new mown swath,
    To see the startled frog his route pursue;
To mark while, leaping o’er the dripping path,
    His bright sides scatter dew,
The early lark that from its bustle flies,
    To hail his matin new;
      And watch him to the skies.

  To note on hedgerow baulks, in moisture sprent,
    The jetty snail creep from the mossy thorn,
With earnest heed, and tremulous intent,
    Frail brother of the morn,
That from the tiny bent’s dew-misted leaves
    Withdraws his timid horn,
      And fearful vision weaves.

  Or swallow heed on smoke-tanned chimney top,
    Wont to be first unsealing Morning’s eye,
Ere yet the bee hath gleaned one wayward drop
    Of honey on his thigh;
To see him seek morn’s airy couch to sing,
    Until the golden sky
      Bepaint his russet wing.

  Or sauntering boy by tanning corn to spy,
    With clapping noise to startle birds away,
And hear him bawl to every passer by
    To know the hour of day;
While the uncradled breezes, fresh and strong,
    With waking blossoms play,
      And breathe Æolian song.

  I love the south-west wind, or low or loud,
    And not the less when sudden drops of rain
Moisten my glowing cheek from ebon cloud,
    Threatening soft showers again,
That over lands new ploughed and meadow grounds,
    Summer’s sweet breath unchain,
      And wake harmonious sounds.

  Rich music breathes in Summer’s every sound;
    And in her harmony of varied greens,
Woods, meadows, hedge-rows, corn-fields, all around
    Much beauty intervenes,
Filling with harmony the ear and eye;
    While o’er the mingling scenes
      Far spreads the laughing sky.

  See, how the wind-enamoured aspen leaves
    Turn up their silver lining to the sun!
And hark! the rustling noise, that oft deceives,
    And makes the sheep-boy run:
The sound so mimics fast-approaching showers,
    He thinks the rain’s begun,
      And hastes to sheltering bowers.

  But now the evening curdles dank and grey,
    Changing her watchet hue for sombre ****;
And moping owls, to close the lids of day,
    On drowsy wing proceed;
While chickering crickets, tremulous and long,
    Light’s farewell inly heed,
      And give it parting song.

  The pranking bat its flighty circlet makes;
    The glow-worm burnishes its lamp anew;
O’er meadows dew-besprent, the beetle wakes
    Inquiries ever new,
Teazing each passing ear with murmurs vain,
    As wanting to pursue
      His homeward path again.

  Hark! ’tis the melody of distant bells
    That on the wind with pleasing hum rebounds
By fitful starts, then musically swells
    O’er the dim stilly grounds;
While on the meadow-bridge the pausing boy
    Listens the mellow sounds,
      And hums in vacant joy.

  Now homeward-bound, the hedger bundles round
    His evening ******, and with every stride
His leathern doublet leaves a rustling sound,
    Till silly sheep beside
His path start tremulous, and once again
    Look back dissatisfied,
      And scour the dewy plain.

  How sweet the soothing calmness that distills
    O’er the heart’s every sense its ****** dews,
In meek-eyed moods and ever balmy trills!
    That softens and subdues,
With gentle Quiet’s bland and sober train,
    Which dreamy eve renews
      In many a mellow strain!

  I love to walk the fields, they are to me
    A legacy no evil can destroy;
They, like a spell, set every rapture free
    That cheer’d me when a boy.
Play—pastime—all Time’s blotting pen conceal’d,
    Comes like a new-born joy,
      To greet me in the field.

  For Nature’s objects ever harmonize
    With emulous Taste, that ****** deed annoys;
Which loves in pensive moods to sympathize,
    And meet vibrating joys
O’er Nature’s pleasing things; nor slighting, deems
    Pastimes, the Muse employs,
      Vain and obtrusive themes.

To write of Love, of Heaven, and of God,
Hills of joy, o'er which Angel pursued
Of that Boy, a sublime hippie shepherd,
Who in Heart the wisdom of Heaven had,
My pen, it labours, I give sweat and blood,
To paint world in cerise, a sweet red flood:

Or Prussian blue, depending on the scene,
Let Poets tell true folk from chess piece Kings,
Feign benevolence, when they are mean,
Who strut and rule above, superior things,
Who on the carcass of the suffering wean,
Drunk on power, Almighty sovereigns.

To write of Love, Heaven, apart from days,
Spent in drudgery at whim of Lords,
Who sit engorged by gold, wealth as they graze,
Upon the fruits yield by the mass, that horde,
As mass toil deep 'neath sun's sweltering rays,
To give and barter time they can't afford.

But they will be the ones in Heaven crowned,
As all time vindicates the plight of souls,
Who in port, or wine, have never drowned,
Rich gluttony the faithful mind abhors,
Upon which Saints and angels incensed frown,
So to tyrant's whims take pious war.

Fat midnight bats feast, gnawing gnats, and flit away serene
      while on the trails in distant dales the lonesome wolverine
            sate appetites as dawn alights and daytime's crystalline.

A migrant feeds on rotting seeds with fingers far from clean
      and thereby’s blessed with barren breast (the easier to wean) -
            her baby ***** an arid flux and fades away unseen.

Wee cosy, tranquil Gatehouse Library
Ah come in quite a lot tay see yi,
Tay read yir books and use yir wifi
                An' chat tay Joannie,
Sae noo Ah'm goannie sing yir praises,
                Ah'm pure dead goannie.

Ye're sic' a cultural oasis,
Wan o' ma favourite learnin' places,
Yir books can form the verra basis
                O' Scottish brain power,
Enrichin' minds an' cheeky faces
                O' Scottish wean power.

So let us pray they never close yi
Tay those who would, we will oppose yi.
We'll be the storm an ill wind blows yi
                At sic' a crunch time.
The only closin' we'll allow
                Is Joannie's lunch time.

I have come to the conclusion,
I might be the only one who can help,
if the doctor found out about your head,
the pills would **** with your meds,
I don't think your strong enough,
to wean off the addiction,
so the pills would twist you till your dead.
   Council would help,
but you feel safe without the attention,
if people knew,
it could be fatal,
so I suppose I'm the only one,
who won't stop helping you,
so I'm your shot at redemption.
   So what can I give you?
   Vitamins and endorphins,
I won't stop trying,
even if I am good for nothing.

With an incident in which he was concerned

In the sweet shire of Cardigan,
Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall,
An old Man dwells, a little man,—
’Tis said he once was tall.
For five-and-thirty years he lived
A running huntsman merry;
And still the centre of his cheek
Is red as a ripe cherry.

No man like him the horn could sound,
And hill and valley rang with glee
When Echo bandied, round and round
The halloo of Simon Lee.
In those proud days, he little cared
For husbandry or tillage;
To blither tasks did Simon rouse
The sleepers of the village.

He all the country could outrun,
Could leave both man and horse behind;
And often, ere the chase was done,
He reeled, and was stone-blind.
And still there’s something in the world
At which his heart rejoices;
For when the chiming hounds are out,
He dearly loves their voices!

But, oh the heavy change!—bereft
Of health, strength, friends, and kindred, see!
Old Simon to the world is left
In liveried poverty.
His Master’s dead—and no one now
Dwells in the Hall of Ivor;
Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead;
He is the sole survivor.

And he is lean and he is sick;
His body, dwindled and awry,
Rests upon ankles swoln and thick;
His legs are thin and dry.
One prop he has, and only one,
His wife, an aged woman,
Lives with him, near the waterfall,
Upon the village Common.

Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,
Not twenty paces from the door,
A scrap of land they have, but they
Are poorest of the poor.
This scrap of land he from the heath
Enclosed when he was stronger;
But what to them avails the land
Which he can till no longer?

Oft, working by her Husband’s side,
Ruth does what Simon cannot do;
For she, with scanty cause for pride,
Is stouter of the two.
And, though you with your utmost skill
From labour could not wean them,
’Tis little, very little—all
That they can do between them.

Few months of life has he in store
As he to you will tell,
For still, the more he works, the more
Do his weak ankles swell.
My gentle Reader, I perceive,
How patiently you’ve waited,
And now I fear that you expect
Some tale will be related.

O Reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle Reader! you would find
A tale in every thing.
What more I have to say is short,
And you must kindly take it:
It is no tale; but, should you think,
Perhaps a tale you’ll make it.

One summer-day I chanced to see
This old Man doing all he could
To unearth the root of an old tree,
A stump of rotten wood.
The mattock tottered in his hand;
So vain was his endeavour,
That at the root of the old tree
He might have worked for ever.

“You’re overtasked, good Simon Lee,
Give me your tool,” to him I said;
And at the word right gladly he
Received my proffered aid.
I struck, and with a single blow
The tangled root I severed,
At which the poor old Man so long
And vainly had endeavoured.

The tears into his eyes were brought,
And thanks and praises seemed to run
So fast out of his heart, I thought
They never would have done.
—I’ve heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning;
Alas! the gratitude of men
Hath oftener left me mourning.

Every single day I tell you how I feel.

Why has it turned out this way?
At times I sense you pulling away then you snap back coming to your senses.

Admittedly we need each other. The pain of withdrawal is too much. Addiction is bad but what do we do? Our connection brings with it completion of who we are...

That missing piece was found in the most unlikely place but who cares about when, where, how? It is the why that keeps us together.

My emotions are real and they are steady. You are the single point in my numbing world where I feel myself in feeling you.

In all our time together we were beautiful. This beauty is not destined to fade.

When you are down, I feel it. I feel you every day. Do you feel me too?  Do you sense my affection as being true? What does your gut say? The eyes trick. Emotions are roller coasters. Logic gets perplexed and stand like a deer in the headlights.

"When we are together" this screams loudest of all! When will we be together again?? I come to you the way a moth goes into the flame—focused, magnetized, excited, heart racing, tears of joy I hold back...

Rehab is not in order for me. I am not willing to give you up. The sheer need of a 'fix' drives me. It will never die.

We aren't a couple. We are One. Live in denial if you wish. Live without me if you wish. That gaping hole inside you will return and it will try to **** you in because it was once filled with a love real enough to touch and a woman strong enough to wrap her mind around you, knowing your history and never speaking a word of it because she looks at YOU. She looks into your eyes and reads you. And she loves you all the more.  

Trifling affairs provided a momentary fix but it was so fleeting. They were all incomplete. They were so easy. So boring... Same thing over and over like a hamster on a wheel. Yes, their bodies were different but their responses to you, the same. 

I am you in female form except pursuit of men was never my thing. I'm smart though you think me stupid at times. I anticipated your next move before you made it. I stayed with you as I let you lead.

Even now, this final step before total withdrawal.

Little by little you wean....
You're not the type to cause harm when potential for backlash is present. You win hearts which seals your secrecy. They love you. They will hold their time with you as sacred.

I knew exactly where this was headed and I let you lead. Yet... Why do you hold onto me? I played you as well as you thought you were playing me.

But what about me? What role am I playing? I tell you I play no role with you. I am open to you. You have the ability to rip my heart from my chest and pulverize it. Do you wonder why a part of me is detached? Do you not know the answer? You know me better than anyone. Step out and use logic for this one.

You have so much fear I will do to you what she did.. You have no reason to believe I won't... Except I waved a flag for you. I guarded you. I put myself in the line of fire—where I rightfully belonged.

It's complex and yet simple.  So tired of the games. No games.

The moment you touch me my detachment attaches.

We only just exist.....-ed.

Crisp white sheets
fall into routine
no more "sweets"
they must wean

in the psychiatric ward

And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they
hanged them in the hill before the Lord; and they fell all seven
together, and were put to death in the days of the harvest, in the
first days, in the beginning of barley-harvest.

And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, and spread it for
her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until the water
dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the
air to rest upon them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night.

2 SAMUEL, xxi. 10.


  Hear what the desolate Rizpah said,
As on Gibeah's rocks she watched the dead.
The sons of Michal before her lay,
And her own fair children, dearer than they:
By a death of shame they all had died,
And were stretched on the bare rock, side by side.
And Rizpah, once the loveliest of all
That bloomed and smiled in the court of Saul,
All wasted with watching and famine now,
And scorched by the sun her haggard brow,
Sat mournfully guarding their corpses there,
And murmured a strange and solemn air;
The low, heart-broken, and wailing strain
Of a mother that mourns her children slain:

  "I have made the crags my home, and spread
On their desert backs my sackcloth bed;
I have eaten the bitter herb of the rocks,
And drunk the midnight dew in my locks;
I have wept till I could not weep, and the pain
Of my burning eyeballs went to my brain.
Seven blackened corpses before me lie,
In the blaze of the sun and the winds of the sky.
I have watched them through the burning day,
And driven the vulture and raven away;
And the cormorant wheeled in circles round,
Yet feared to alight on the guarded ground.
And when the shadows of twilight came,
I have seen the hyena's eyes of flame,
And heard at my side his stealthy tread,
But aye at my shout the savage fled:
And I threw the lighted brand to fright
The jackal and wolf that yelled in the night.

  "Ye were foully murdered, my hapless sons,
By the hands of wicked and cruel ones;
Ye fell, in your fresh and blooming prime,
All innocent, for your father's crime.
He sinned--but he paid the price of his guilt
When his blood by a nameless hand was spilt;
When he strove with the heathen host in vain,
And fell with the flower of his people slain,
And the sceptre his children's hands should sway
From his injured lineage passed away.

  "But I hoped that the cottage roof would be
A safe retreat for my sons and me;
And that while they ripened to manhood fast,
They should wean my thoughts from the woes of the past.
And my ***** swelled with a mother's pride,
As they stood in their beauty and strength by my side,
Tall like their sire, with the princely grace
Of his stately form, and the bloom of his face.

  "Oh, what an hour for a mother's heart,
When the pitiless ruffians tore us apart!
When I clasped their knees and wept and prayed,
And struggled and shrieked to Heaven for aid,
And clung to my sons with desperate strength,
Till the murderers loosed my hold at length,
And bore me breathless and faint aside,
In their iron arms, while my children died.
They died--and the mother that gave them birth
Is forbid to cover their bones with earth.

  "The barley-harvest was nodding white,
When my children died on the rocky height,
And the reapers were singing on hill and plain,
When I came to my task of sorrow and pain.
But now the season of rain is nigh,
The sun is dim in the thickening sky,
And the clouds in sullen darkness rest
Where he hides his light at the doors of the west.
I hear the howl of the wind that brings
The long drear storm on its heavy wings;
But the howling wind and the driving rain
Will beat on my houseless head in vain:
I shall stay, from my murdered sons to scare
The beasts of the desert, and fowls of air."

I thirst, but not as once I did,
The vain delights of earth to share;
Thy wounds, Emmanuel, all forbid
That I should seek my pleasures there.

It was the sight of Thy dear cross
First wean'd my soul from earthly things;
And taught me to esteem as dross
The mirth of fools and pomp of kings.

I want that grace that springs from Thee,
That quickens all things where it flows,
And makes a wretched thorn like me
Bloom as the myrtle, or the rose.

Dear fountain of delight unknown!
No longer sink below the brim;
But overflow, and pour me down
A living and life-giving stream!

For sure of all the plants that share
The notice of thy Father's eye,
None proves less grateful to His care,
Or yields him meaner fruit than I.

screaming and crying, not on the outside but soon
I found it dad
I found your baggie of ****
the SF muni rolls past Mariposa St
I did not want to believe it
when I saw the make shift bongs
not ****, bongs
how many of the ******* things do you need

I know it’s big in the gay scene to smoke **** before ***
but I thought you could find other ways to enjoy yourself
did your new boyfriend wean you on to it
I’ll ******* **** him
lock me up, I have always wondered if I would like solitary

you brought the make shift glass pieces to thanksgiving
you don’t even live with us anymore
but you brought it anyway
the SF muni scoots past Wawona St
guess you needed your fix
guess your kids, the genetic bits of yourself, were not  entertaining enough

I could always think
naw, I bet he is smoking hash out of those
but then I found the baggie today
in a long rectangular bag I found the shards
I cried in horror
there was room for more than 10 grams of **** in there

so now I’m on the bus headed home
I run from the bus stop all the way home
all out sprint, hoping to run myself docile
It does not work

I get to the house and find a hammer
I decide to unload my anger on an old wooden door laying on the side of the house
I get a few good swings in before the hammer head breaks off, flying across the back yard
I’m not calm yet
I get to our garage door
and I snap

I see red, I scream my throat raw and I kick our garage door
I do not expect it to cave’
but it does
I feel the weight giving out against the sole of my boot
for the first time today, I am winning at something

I kick
I see my father
I kick some more
I see my father’s addiction personified beneath my boot
It’s face miming the expression, ‘Sorry, not sorry’

I give it one final kick and inspect my handiwork
I’ll have to come back out with a different hammer to fix the door before my mom comes back home from work
****
I thought I was a calmer person than this
I go upstairs and pass out
I want you to see my grandkids, dad
you won’t be able to while on that ****
I walk by or open my garage every day
every day I think about how such a beautiful man could come to a place where **** is the answer

A big, dark creature is the velvet landscape,
Perforated, so that tiny origins of luminescence
Freckle the breathing mountain’s gently sloped nape
And validates the distant city’s inner flamboyance.

The spine of wet tar, peppered with lustre,
Arcs the creature’s hunch of a back -
It summons me to the city’s sordid muster
To wean me of myself and to render its flak.

Instead, I think I’ll stay on the footed side of the nameless beast
Where I can soak in my tatters and be but my own, homeless priest.

I fall asleep before 11 PM and dream that I am grazing graveyards with my fingerprints that I thought were my own when it turns out they are identical to yours. I wake up feeling soft and I wait for you to get up so that I can take over the warm spot your body left – it feels to me like the soft and butter-sunken center of a pancake stack and I like that. I like you enough to want you to come back but I do not love you enough to pay for your name to be on my license plate. I want hell to freeze over because that’s when you said we could be together and maybe afterwards we could go ice-skating there? I will lick your eyeballs with snowflakes on my tongue and fire underneath my feet. I think about you eating Fig Newtons and laughing at Wallace and Gromit, even though I’ve never seen you do either of those things. I feel like you’re wrong about most things but I would think the same way for you. I am trying to become a smaller part of the universe and less of a burden to you so that you can dangle me off of one pinky finger. I mouth-kiss you but it’s not the same as sleeping on your stomach. I mouth-kiss you and wish I hadn’t. I mouth-kiss you and wish you were a caramel apple. I mouth-kiss you in a futile attempt to remember what my fifteenth birthday was like. I mouth-kiss you period. I will wean off of you – eventually, and wane, and waste away.

On harried days when our world seems unkind,
There lies a place my senses crave to be,
Within the shady woodland wild and free,
To ease the burdens of my troubled mind.

I soak much joyous sounds the Wood bestows,
Absorbing dawn aubades each songbird sings,
While zephyrs murmur notes like chello strings,
Beneath a harsh cacophony of crows.

Infectious woodland scents I fondly yearn,
A wily pungent fox peers with unease,
The sweetness of the wildflower on the breeze,
Against the bitter of the trodden fern.

A rotted branch falls crashing to the floor,
As Nature shows its sudden crushing powers,
Two butterflies then kissed some purple flowers,
Such gentle grace that startled me much more.

A speckled thrush begins her fledgling wean,
In search of ration squabble in a fume,
A worm to share with raised and ruffled plume,
She watches proudly o'er in perfect preen.


The sparkling sunlight dapples through the shade,
As if it dripped from sun drenched foliage,
A scene where light and shadows both engage,
Unleashing dazzling splendour on the glade.

These wilds intoxicate me as I stroll,
The need for drugs or liquor I decry,
Near Nature I am naturally high,
As Gaia lulls me to her leafy soul.

Dusk slowly looms, as daylight moments wane,
Return I must to cruel society,
The healing woods restored much piety,
This ailing mind refreshed and freed of pain.

Uneasy eyes comprehend the easy lines of the minds who dine and constantly define all sacramental chimes without a whimper or whine I decline,
To be invited reunited I decided to combust without a rush might find a crush more than trust isn’t lust tho we do tend to touch less than enough,
Belief to be discreet the preacher falls to his feet help the man stand or pass again without demand now am banned from their gospel, am without welcome to their church, reached the spiritual out come that can praise without a book.

Shepard’s crook has created a nook of who play with the for play, my forte no pay do the doomed approve, or wether sentence you to a private room where all disapproved can go loose as is pleased, feel the ease then recklessly leave believers grieve.

Feigning teachers relentlessly fail as they see their fallen students have trials on bail, as unborn babies wail no need to be ail is a chance of good tales unreasonable detail of all hail, praise the male, position fail while grows frail as have said..He bled, the sermonizer not to seem mean but he has dreamed to wean off the unseen, ruining the light hearted beam he forgets to bring.

Evangelist is common type unless it brings a bible fight of heaven’s fright the right delight a fearful night in believer’s sight they might reunite, domestic might be what we need the preacher pleads ‘Oh please believe’ we don’t take heed we simply need to take the lead and set again demons pretend all sacrilegious men, do forgive of what we do, faithful to you, do not approve of what we choose to loose is You.

I am just sad and cold and want to die. I am teasing the edge. I can write now, I can write. But not for long I’m already done. There where the ideas of the new era somewhere, locked away in my head waiting for the release of incomprehensible advisors. They kind lathed in blathered pink and with poly-chrome hats, dancing on the rivers boat-moon-spell moments, the kind that happened to every kid at every intangible, hallucinated camp. The one they make up in their head before bed on the streets in the muddy motel alleyway dirt. I couldn't hold back the want to die. As I sat there perched bellow the roofed rim of the building I could feel the splashes of water grace around my ankles, the water had been soaking for hours. I was the always rain. It never stopped, not once in the history of our race. We had to find houses along the rocks, soil was apart of the sea, or at least that’s the way I understood it. There was not time for anything besides keeping dry. It was really a mater of wet or less wet, there was nothing anyone could do about it. The earth moved without relent. I see a ***** in the ****** mary. I know because everyone else I know does too, we just want to be polite about it, not make to much racket. I debate even writing again. To who? an upcoming age of enlightenment? To say what is already been said by the mind of every mind in every place, that we are the collective unraveling of the fabric of our own making. I am the turtle. It finally hit me, I am the meekest of all of them, the slowest and most looked down at. I am the capacity of a nuclear wave. I am the only one who knows of my own power. A crazed soul I am. Sold into my own slavery again! I just wean to hear you breathe, to prove there are the balance and manifestation of the infinite love I hid away in my mind. The one love I created with one thought. I am the product of the indoctrination, they left a bomb in my mind. I am altered among the alter and always dying. No one should have to see their soon to be dead mother crawling around on the ground like a bug waiting to pounce on your leg. Too close to home and too soon for my own mind. Some girl who's name started with an M, it's fuzzy and I haven't the clue to remembering. Its all over finally, they are done, I am impenetrable by their foggy morning evergreen attacks. Try to leach and drain off of my unconscious collective. My hive honey. my meat. They are nice in the dream of reality, but in every way they are spiders waiting for the kids to come, they will feed on me first. They will eat. Always i remember our own journeys and I forget to dance most of the time, loose eye lids sweating now, A video arcade. Finished.

what's it like when all forget you?
how does it feel when the world just quits too?
they fell in line and left me stranded.
forsaking friendship to become branded.
society says, 'congrats. you're normal.'
to me? less kind. 'you're far too formal.'
slow change, it seems, can't hurt enough,
for friends must then forsake your trust.

dear sir, you're kind, i'll give you that,
but good sense spots my shameful acts.
so sadly i must now suspend
this bond you've known. now this portends...
we know through life you've suffered greatly
we also see that hurt known lately.
she broke your heart, we all know that.
just quit your tears. she won't come back.
assure you now, i surely must.
that karma shall prove to be just.

we don't quite care that you're left out.
deny, we will, without a doubt.
see? we're still here. semblance of care.
it's strange how you are not aware
for false support and apathy
are truly acts to help you see
that we've in no way cast away
the friend you still are, day by day.

it's in response i wish to tell
you cheats and fiends of wanton hell.

so now attend. you'll hear this voice
it's time i've left you all no choice.
before i'm gone you'll know the truth.
that you were far beyond uncouth.
your forged endeavors fooled me not.
i won't forget that you forgot
all that i've done for all of you.
but, foolish, still, i stand quite true.
despite this pain that you all caused,
it's not as though my throes just paused.
there, in my time of greatest need.
i meant it when i knelt to plead.
i'm strong enough to fend of much,
and this you know, and so, as such
why can't you see that when i tried
to reach for hands when mine were tied
that surely then, in dire straits
i was, for sure, no pride abates
in simple scenes where i could hold
my head aloft, and remain bold.
i needed you. i couldn't see.
my vengeful fear had blinded me.
my love for her had left a curse
i couldn't shake, dispell, disperse.
i doubt that you shall ever know
of hurt that could consume quite so.
a scalding burn that transcends each
of prior wounds; pain you shan't reach.
up to this point, since i was born
i've struggled, fought, withstood the storms
not as a bridge that needs support
but as the the ship that sees no port.
i waged war with the reckless sea
of life-dealt pain and misery
alone i dealt with constant bathos.
fears born of stable crushing loss.
she left me shattered, nothing less
a beaten, battered, ****** mess.
i felt that i should quit this game.
who was i fooling? death was tame
compared with such a crushing blow.
how could I cope? i didn't know.
for reasons still unknown to me
i held onto complacency
which is to say i've not a word
that fits to shape that form absurd.
a huddled mass of spiteful spleen.
how cruel to force my heart to wean.
i needed love to quell that force.
divert my torture. stem the source.
i thought that what i'd done to try
to be the friend that never lied.
that stayed beside you, resolute
would pay off now, here on this route.
that sounds much worse than i would like.
but friends are friends, and friends alike.
i love you all, and i just hoped
for you to help me as i coped.
it seems that asking this was wrong
as i was left to sing this song
to empty seats in empty rooms
true solo, this. my heart assumes.

Even in the scabbard
The sword does not blunt
She sends a warn
When drawn out

Curve still sharp
Promises to hurt
An unruly beholder
She shall bleed you
Should you doubt her skills at all

Her forte does not wean
Even if your memory
Fails to recognize it
Even her silence is fierce
Do not encourage her to ring
She may just prove
All your fears!

1.....His Bearer's Plea.

What would it cost to send a million dogs to war,
Than turn my babes into raging Beasts?

Leave the Boys to grow and revel in age.
Leave them strapped to their mothers *****
until nature run's its course and calls them MEN.
Without guns,rage and War pivoting that stage.

Too many broken Boys parole as Men,
building bridges without appeasing the gods below.
Too many hold life at its helm,
boasting of nothing to risk or gain,
Inflicting Pain to ease their pains.
Too many were sucklings before Wars came,
cruelly snatching them from their mothers breast....
handing them guns when milk was what they needed.

#2...His Lover's Plea

What price COULD I have paid to save my lover's head from being Twisted with tales of war?

the man I once knew now resides in a realm of obscurity
dodging reality, dreading emotions, refusing one ness.
A man with hands now Cold,
my skin forgets the prowess they possessed in the past,
a gloomy present looms.
the man whose weaning I continued, now bites hard till my ******* bleed, the taste of blood he now savours.

Cries of war creased the tenderness off my lovers tongue.

What did i owe the earth to be robbed this way?
What kind of man will my children call father?

Well....What will it cost to send a million dogs to war,than deny our babes the privilege to wean until nature calls them MEN?

©Comfort Amiso Pius
2018-08-29

Silence is the night
so is counting sheep
Into the wean hours of the morning
my heart beats down the loneliness
When I am missing you?

The sparrows nestled under the branches
as the rain goes pita, pata, pita, pata
The cricket compose its last four-note tune to me
sorry my baby, that you can't sleep
The jackal, the wolf and the herdsman
Slept soundly

Nevertheless, here I am counting headless sheep
That’s life you always say,
My life my lonely life,

Without my poetry to keep me sane
My jukebox music to keep me cheerful and lively:
a glass of red wine  blended with the silence
So why am I missing you:
Because this is my way of tricking my heart into loving you more
~~~~~~~~~
“Missing you is flashes of our past and fantasies of our future
with the hard irony of the absence of our present as present occur.”
Quote:― Zhi

I wish for her - and wishing's not my wont -
then moments later ween my wish too much.
To see her, hold her hand, is all I want
to wean me of her distant love by touch.
So I must words most tenderly select,
-to woo this wish from her I deem most fair-
write them, speak them, fight them till correct.
Ascendant recitation, be my prayer:
Give me this day, an hour of your time,
forgive me if affection makes me bold,
but tempt me, lead down paths to verse and rhyme
and I'll deliver beauties yet untold.
     Unlock this gated garden of the heart
     and henceforth ever play the muses part.

I'm sad.
I don't want to
be poetic about
it, and compare my
tears to the
drops of
rain before the
storm, or how this
weight inside my
chest shortens my
breaths and
makes my
heart work
harder,
beat
harder.
I'm done with trying to
write everything
away, like paper can
keep my emotions
prisoner when I
shut the book.
Why does my
throat tighten,
and my
eyes feel heavy
with grief like lead?
Why can't I
shake the
dread and the
worry, the belief that
there won't be
a better tomorrow?
When will I
be at rest?
When will I
be asleep at two
in the morning, instead of
nursing my
demons at the
mother's breast of
my mind,
too tired to
wean then from the
****** that
drains me?

That I may wean Calliope's Time recall
Which in your Motives prove a Great Invite
With Deadening Memes praise our Dying Fall
And permit to draft our Scriptures incite
Yet how must these Stars let our Sages be
Then spice Darling Life Base Men endeavour?
Such - the Crumpted Art - though Ages percieve
Mothered our Values most take to Fetter?
God's Fire does Mend; As Proofed Stories say
Though Mint Investments became a Lost Cause
Yet to Win Hearts; Then Transform Someone's day
Was that same Fuel made Souls to Un-Pause.
Star-Spangled Angler, if my Verse un-impress
The least I Tried my Support will digress.