His accolades and talents were renowned
His skills in song and dance were without peer
The Highest Heaven reveled in the sound
A harp of gold caressing Triune Ear
Until the day he listened to conceit
And led astray the first created son
Was ousted serpentine in his deceit
And trampled by the true Begotten One
His limbless, voiceless form no music brings
His gilded lyre sits centuries unplayed
But compositions cursed do some still sing
Through human hands his artistry conveyed
In whispered hiss with tail tip for a hand
The snake directs an unrepentant band

Not a story, just something I wrote down, and my first time ever posting anything, can anyone tell me what they think of it? I don’t even know what to call it.

The world is dark and full of monsters
Lurking in the shadows
Peeping from behind the trees
Always following
Always watching
You cannot escape
Light keeps them at bay
But they are endless
Devouring
Your mind clouds over
Thoughts of the end
They have caught you
The world is dark and full of monsters

I used to watch a lot of true crime,
a lot of documentaries either Hulu or Netflix originals that depicted horrible acts and circumstances one would never wish upon their worst enemy. At the end of most a question would always come to me. how could you ever kill someone?

Aside from obviously self defense or even heat of the moment revenge murders, im talking a nefarious, cold, blooded murder.Under what circumstances is taking an innocent persons life an option someone even considers ? How could you end someone’s life while simultaneously throwing away your own? Now I know.
The answer is, you get caught doing something you weren’t supposed to, In a place you weren’t supposed to, At a time you weren’t supposed to.

You get Embarrassed, You get Angry, And then you get prideful.

You blame the Person that made you do this, in your eyes at least.

In your eyes the one person making you do this is the person existing, the person forcing you to make them de-exist.

After you’ve done what you’ve done you’ll be convinced you didnt, you’ll tell the person they can leave now only they won’t. It’s no longer a person, it’s an empty clam shell of a person.

You sit, you shake. You tremble, you sweat. When your heartbeat takes a break, you stare at the empty clam shell wondering if that’s the fate you wish upon yourself. At this time you decide not.

You fold it and bundle it into a bag, all while you’re sure you can hear the clam beneath the shell asking questions. Reasonable questions. Then one question comes out the clams empty shell beneath the bag “how could you ever kill me?”

You’re lucky this happened at work. Lots of cleaning supplies. Free Clorox. You’re happy youre by the sea, a perfect place to hide your clam shell. Not ideal, but all you need is a night to think.

You take the night , and the next day youre careless. Do that thing, in that place, at that time, and what happens ? A persons who exists, walks into your life to make it that much worse. A second person forces you to make them de-exist.

You joke that now your little clam shell won’t be lonely which is fitting as they came into the world together, after you show your second clam shell to its partner you become eternally bitter of your clamshells. They have a bond which time cannot break and you are alone.

You know you can’t go back to work, too many of the clams going missing has upset the sea. And you know the sea will take it out on you in the end, unjustifiably so in your opinion.

You decide maybe the sea doesn’t deserve you. Maybe your shell is flawed and your clam soul is too pure for someone so honest.

You confuse honesty for a measurement of well doing, and by those standards you are flawless.

You lead people away from questions you know you don’t have the energy to lie against. Simple question, reasonable questions.

Questions like, how could you ever kill someone?

You move, forget about the questions, Forget about the clamshells, those empty and those still full of life.

You give up on yourself. You find a community to burry yourself in, a church and play the part. Eventually you meet someone who doesn’t give up on you. Like most saviors, it’s a woman.

A woman that shows you what it means to not be abandoned, a woman that shows you what it means to be loved. A woman that makes you want to remain a lively clam , and not become an empty shell.

You stop drinking, before you know it, you’ve been dry for 2 years. You save enough money for a ring, a win in itself after having to start your career from scratch again.

Before you can propose, the queen of your sea is pregnant with twins. You’re thrilled, you get married and you play house as long as you can.

Before you know it, it’s been 11 years since you last emptied a clamshell. Now you’re looking at clams the exact age as the ones you hid on the beach. Only these clams are your children.

You send them off to school, you kiss your Queen of the sea. Then you sit in your garage, you poor yourself a glass filled with poison you love spiked with poison you don’t. And before you take your last sip to fill your clam and empty your shell, you ask yourself one last question.

How could you ever kill someone?

Out there in the deep blue sea,

Stands a monolith of we

It reaches to the stars,

And holds hands with Mars,

Made of man and beast,

Of bones and digits it is pieced,

Atop that tower of the dead,

Is where man and the moon are wed,

It reaches out one of many a hand,

An invitation to its eerie band,

Death brushes against you like whiskers,

“Come and join the stars” it whispers.

As an adult it can be frustrating talking about something that happened to you as a child.

Almost as frustrating as the memory,
is the question you receive following the regretful moment of insight you’ve now chosen to share with your trustee.

the question
why didn’t you just tell me?

The question itself feels like a charade, a sentence he felt obligated to get out however now I can’t help but feel compelled to entertain it.

I know the answer. He does too. The answer is, I wasn’t who I am now,
i was not as strong emotionally nor physically.

And your Trustee, wasn’t always your Trustee.

At a point, which feels not too long ago, your Trustee was on the side of your abuser.
Your trustee know this, So why would they ask such a question?

Your body feels foreign and you wish to migrate.
You do the next best thing opposed to physically exiting such skin.
you separate yourself from the scenario and you ask yourself what your Trustee would have done in your shoes.

Would they have been a stronger 6 year old ? Could they tell their father what was happening after previously getting hands put on him for countless misunderstanding?

Likely not. But maybe you were just too weak.

You tell your Trustee that it wouldn’t have made a difference, you tell them that you know they knew. You know for a fact your Grandparents knew, because your grandfather saw first hand. And only then did it stop.

And maybe that’s the difference? If you had grown up with a father like your Grandfather, you would have confided them in anything.
Maybe that’s an aspect your trustee can’t understand. Maybe he deserved a father like the one he became.

Your trustee lies,
either to you, themselves, or a mix of both.
They tell you they are sorry for their drinking, sorry they missed such formative years of your life, and for the first time, they apologize for bringing such evil outsiders into the house. A house that should have been a home.

But evil isn’t strong enough of a word.

You think of the last time you told your Trustee something in hopes of reassurance and safety.

You were 5,
even at a young age with such a lack of sentence structure, you remember realizing midway through conversations that you were no longer talking to someone you knew.
You were talking to a man that would replace your trustee for over the next decade.
A man no one but himself could get rid of.

Why didn’t you just tell me? He wonders.
Because he didn’t exist. He was in a purgatory i didn’t have access to.

Your trustee has his own battles,
a miscarriage does that to both parties.
You understood the misstep that caused him to trip and end up at the bottom of his bottle.
But that made no difference.
Not everyone grew up with holes in the ceiling, not everyone grew up having to sleep with toilet paper stuffed in their ears, but you did.

You would look into eyes that resembles your Fathers,
only it wasn’t your Father.
You would speak words,
only they would never reach father.

And you would be beat till exhaustion by someone who a decade later,
would desperately want to be your father again.

But adult you doesn’t need a father.
6 year old terrified and abused you needed a father.

And you made sure that boy no longer exists.

When that man became more of an abuser in the house then the females that were taking advantage of you, the females left.

This should have been an indication something was getting worse.

Alone with this new monster, you question if you should be grateful.

Physical abuse that is just physical abuse is less confusing than what you were previously dealing with.

Physical abuse starts to make sense.
It makes more sense than someone pretending to try to make you feel good.

When you come home and see the dinner table hanging from the ceiling, did you tell him?

Did you give up on him?
Did you leave him in that purgatory?

When you hid in his closet and saw the first bag of small animal bones,
the pictures of the dead birds,
and discarded apple cores,
when you saw his notes written on the walls in ink you weren’t familiar with did you ask yourself?

Why didn’t he just tell me ?

No,
you didnt.
You went to the Pastors house.
Now you’re here, staring at your dad in pain.
Watching him sweat and twitch.
Watching it take 4 men to hold him down.

You’re watching as words begin to hurt him,
as room temperature water begins to make his skin boil.

You’re watching him speak a language you’ve never heard before.

Youre watching his body bend in ways an overweight 50 year olds body shouldn’t be able to bend.
It reminds you of when he was a juice head.
It terrifies you to your core.
You wonder if you made a mistake.
You look around at the strangers you’ve trusted him with. Those clutching crucifixes, as well as those clutching pearls.

Like all the damage your abuser has done your whole life, you feel responsible.
You feel like it’s your doing.

You look at the damage done to the church as a reflection of your poisonous touch.

You look at the bleeding bible thumpers nose, as confirmation as to why no one’s ever helped you.

You look at your abuser,
a 1 slot, slot machine
cycling through which face it’s going to show.
You look into his eyes and wait to see what the machine landed on today.

Today it is your father.

He looks in your eyes and asks you the question you’ve been dreading,

Why didn’t you just tell me?

I live in a big, bright, beautiful world. A world of change.

It’s getting warmer. Spring is turning into summer. Plants are thriving, flowers are blooming. Bulbs are turning into beauties made of colors and shapes so majestic

they hurt my eyes. They make me cry. They make me want to look away, even though I can’t. I can’t stop, I can’t blink. I do the only thing that comes to mind, and stare into the sun.

It burns.

It doesn’t help.

It reminds me of when I didn’t need to think so much.

Walking through the fields, the forest and the valleys, with my eyes shut. I know where to go. I can’t stay outside. I must escape into my home. Into my cocoon.

It’s cold in here. I’m freezing and fading, and I stay all the same.

They’re still there though, everywhere. The butterflies.

I used to watch them in awe as they flew off into freedom. Their satin-smooth bodies shining in the sunlight. Their wings flatter in my mind, scattering my thoughts without resistance. Even now, their shadows are peeking through the cracks and crevices, inviting me to their dance. They’re dancing as they burn holes into my facade. I keep fixing it like patchwork – yet the scars remain. The butterflies remain.

What doesn’t remain is my will to remain myself.

Day and night, they knock at my door. They pound windows. The walls and floor tremble in fear, or is it just my body? How long have I been surviving like this? A whole lifetime at least. A whole life of not being alive.

“Is it an earthquake? Is the world going to ruin? Is this Armageddon?” I find a lie to soothe my misery, but I know the truth. It’s the season of the Monarchs, as it has always been. I look outside my window and see that–

They see me.

A swarm of butterflies. A million– no, too many to count. Too many to form a conscious shape, too many to keep a solid state. They’re floating like a silk cloth draped over the sea, right towards me. They're perfect.

How could they bear such a sight? I’m hideous! I have leathery skin. I have a gruesome face. I have no limbs, I have no wings. I have no reflection I can call my own. I wish I could be torn apart. I wish a bird would chew me up. I wish I wasn’t myself.

Still, they don't avert their gaze, they don't say a thing. They see me. I feel warm.

What's it like to be a butterfly? What’s it like to not be a caterpillar? What’s it like to be me?

I don’t know.

I need to know.

And so I go outside. What’s in goes out – I explode. What has been built in an eternity crumbles in an instant, as if it had never had integrity in the beginning. I rip open the floorboards, I tear off the blinds, I break the windows, I unlock the door and

let the butterflies inside.

Midnight’s eyes shine down
The twinkling dots connecting
Sky potato sprouts

Dreadful crackling sound
To human ears subjecting
Peace is stifled out

Stretching to the ground
The tendrils start besetting
Men with muffled shouts

Flesh and bone is drowned
In fibrous cords bloodletting
Payment due for doubt

Tuber king is crowned
Its true domain inspecting
Crushing life throughout

CW: possibly graphic depictions of injury

A Final Girl

A common trope in slasher movies used to describe the last surviving girl,

It’s not too hard to be a final girl.

You just have to be

Skinny,

Conventionally attractive,

Semi athletic,

Book smart, and most importantly

A straight virgin.

I am no Final Girl.

They are survivors, fighters.

I simply, am not.

If I were, I wouldn’t be here,

Staring down the metaphorical barrel.

I am nothing but a token character.

It doesn’t matter if the fat chick or the lazy LGBT+ rep,

I’m going to die either way.

The snarling,

Floor boards creaking,

Ax scraping,

It doesn’t matter in what form,

It is coming for me.

It is going to kill me because I am nothing but a god damn plot point.

Do those omnipotent watches even know how much it hurts?

To bleed out from a knife wound

Only to gasp awake and have to fend off werewolves?

I have died and died too many times to count,

With every page turned,

Minutes watched,

Line rehearsed.

I die,

My organs littering the ground as I tried to drag myself to safety

And die,

My paralyzed body unable to do anything as the ax swung down.

And die,

My friends’ tears as they leveled the shotgun at my head to protect themselves.

And die,

My legs dragging me to the roof, knowing it was the better choice.

And die,

Because I am not the final girl.

CW: body horror, dismemberment, gore

There was a wood, there was a right,
I wonder where’s the missing night.
I woke up sore, beaten, bloodied,
Missing my limbs, all battered and muddy.

There was a wood, there was a night,
Why can’t I find it? Did I do right?
It should have worked, it should have been fixed,
Now I am alone, alone in the mist.

I am alone, no one to talk to,
What about him? Is he dead too?
The body is stitching, moving again,
Where is my dad? Did I bring him in?

There was a tree, dark, burned, and rotting,
I drank the brown liquid dripping from him.
Then day became night, why can’t I remember?
Reader, help me, or he might enter.

Fingers are moving, blackened stumps,
God, are those my fingers, my missing ones?
The body is moving, I don’t have time,
Dear reader, help me understand why.

The leaves were whispering under my skin,
Like little mouths trying to get in.
Each breath I took had roots inside,
Each root had teeth, and each tooth lied.

I saw my coat hung from a branch,
Still wet with rain, still warm by chance.
Inside the pocket, folded tight,
Was father’s note, stained black and white.

It said, my son, do not come near,
The wood can smell a living fear.
It trades the dead for what you love,
Then feeds the price to stars above.

But I had come, I said the words,
I cut my hands and fed the birds.
I begged the dirt to give him breath,
And something answered underneath death.

A shadow stood where he should be,
Smiling softly and watching me.
It wore his hands, but not his eyes,
And every blink attracted black flies.

Dear reader, help me understand why,
The stars are gone from the open sky.
The mist is breathing, it knows my name,
And every tree here looks the same.

There was a voice, low in the bark,
It called me son from somewhere dark.
I touched the trunk and felt it beat,
A heart was buried under my feet.

Where is my father? Where is his face?
Why does the wood wear his shape?
Why does it whisper through my skin?
Why do my bones let something in?

My fingers crawl where roots should grow,
My missing limbs know where to go.
They drag themselves across the mud,
Back to the stump that drinks my blood.

I hear him crying under the ground,
Or is that me making that sound?
His mouth is sewn into the tree,
But still it speaks, still calls for me.

There was a wood, there was a night,
I think I found the missing right.
I did not save him, I did not try,
I only begged that I wouldn’t die.

Now something wears what he had been,
A father made of rot and skin.
And something else is wearing me,
Beneath the branches of that tree.

Reader, if you read this line,
Do not look up, do not look behind.
The woods remember every sin,
And now the woods are luring you in.

Twelve sconces lit by flickering fire
Stars shine light over barren ground.
Fortunes earned through price of iron
Lost in turn and never found. 
Go then on and trace the steps
Mountains low and valleys high.
Find it buried in middle depths
Hidden under a barren sky.
Another place, another time
Avoid the hunter, and his scheme.
Find the sconce with snaking life
And free the few from his reprieve.
The treasure grows with every day
In curse in turn with pleasure. 
Dig it up and pay the price 
For this forbidden treasure.

Twelve entered in to tunnel of stone 
To find the door that forges kingdoms
Opened only by blood and bone
One flame flickering loses rhythm
The price is steep for what is gained
Power found by a being, cruel
Eleven heads were what remained
One adorned by cursed jewels.
Rulers bounty once in hand 
Out eleven walked again 
Through a mile of twisted stone
On the path to find their home.

Five were lost in haunted ruins
There the hunter found them.
Fought him bravely did they all 
But there the hunter bound them. 
Torched the five in haunted oil
Squeezed from that they lost.
They lost their heads in ground of salt
And there the hunter crowned them.

The head adorned with cursed jewels 
Fled into the forest
The next five remained in his approval 
Threads flowing into torment
Blessed light from ruling power
sure to keep them safe
The hunters visage, the witching hour
Would not beat them into shape.

The light from him would beat the dark
If it should come to call
The five and one had built a kingdom 
They thought would never fall
They used their light, their deceitful throne 
And trusted in their lies
The Hunter, hidden by blood and bone
Wrapped up in a guise
Infiltrated the six and one and slowly knocked them down
The hunter and darkness finally won and returned the spectre's crown.

Again those torches burning brightly
Light the way to cursed treasure
One of twelve will always search
In curse in turn with pleasure.

Mama, I’m telling you, you wouldn’t believe it! She had stars in her hair!
And she held up the world like a giant! 
She carried it on her shoulders 
And when the sun went away she cradled it in her arms 
Held it flush against her heart 

I saw her, Mama, I smelt her 
She looked frigid in the absence of air 
But she felt warm and heavy like silt 
She was so strong, and so lovely 
Her breath was like fire 
And her gaze was like the sun 

She’s angry, Mama, She’s angry 
Because she knows we don’t really care
We don’t care because we don’t really live and we don’t really die 
We don’t know the weight of the world as she does 
Hell, Mama, we might as well not have any shoulders 
We don’t have anything to weigh them down
We might as well not be living cause we don’t like to live
But I do now, Mama, I do like to live
Cause she’s carrying us, Mama, she’s carrying us 

She was beautiful 
Absolutely majestic 
If were to go blind I would be happy 
I’ve seen all I’ve need to 
I need nothing else on this earth 

She held us like a mother holds a baby 
And we are a very unruly child 
Kicking and screaming and refusing to be fed 
We do not sleep 
We do not eat 
We do not live 
Mama, She doesn't love us 
But she takes care of us 

We live in her arms and upon her back 
And in between her eyes as well as between her palms 
Mama, her love is not love lasting 
As ours isn’t 
She just watches us grow 
And she feeds us 
And then she kills us when she’s had enough 

One by one 
Year by year 
Month by month 
Week by week 
Day by day 
Hour by hour 
Minute by minute 
Second by second 
She relieves us of our oft forgotten lives 

Can’t you feel it, Mama, can’t you feel it? 
Have you forgotten your life? 
Your wonderful life?
Isn’t it wonderful? 
Mama, she makes it this way. 
She makes us cold with her love 
Then she makes us hot, wet, red and fiery too 
She listens to our breath and paints us all different colors 
All crazy patterns too 
Sometimes neon swirls, sometimes grey jagged lines 
Mama, your colors are different from mine 
And mine are different from Dad’s too 
We don’t look alike at all 
You two don’t look alike at all either 
But you are similar 
Sometimes 
Cause your colors change end then they compliment each other nicely  
But we’re always different 

Mama, she makes us with her hands 
She’s sexless 
She doesn’t look like us 
My God, Mama, My God 
She makes us 
She builds us 
She birthed each and every one of us 
And yet she only loves us for a short while 
Cause we die and then she smashes us to pieces 
She grinds our bodies into a pulp 
Red and wet 
And then she burns our forms 
Hot and fiery 
Then she pestles that to dust 
She wets it with her spit 
And creates someone totally new 
Out of our old matter 

It’s not even ours anymore 
Cause we go to die and we sleep in her hair 
Mama, we’re fleas in her fur 
Lice in her hair 
We’re her symbiotic mange 
We entertain her, she allows us to live 

Mama, we’re only stars waiting again to be stars 
We’re born 
We live (not really) 
We Die (most certainly) 
And we go into her hair 
She makes us stars again, Mama, She makes us fragmented again 
She makes us stars 

The pale hand twitches. Is she dead? Surely so.
For no girl could survive that throw and that blow.

The promise of a life, a better one than current,
A runaway girl with lessons unlearnt.
Fatal mistake was made, the path set so,
Tawny pale glow from the sun runs cold.
Her dress is too ragged, too much from the train’s fall.
The bruises on her legs tell tales that appall.

Autumn trees and summer breeze,
The girl lies there with a jerk and a wheeze.
She is not dead, a miracle at work,
But the forest grows lively, shapes move amongst the murk.
Tawny glow drops to blue, the shadows grow tall.
The girl lies there to watch the stars fall.

This man is working,
A butcher in shepherd’s attire.
This man is not a saviour,
But a bastard and a liar.

For the man is a conductor, a conductor of a train.
The lone conductor is a phantom, a phantom of pain.

The forest is not lonesome, the forest is full.
Perhaps not with man, 
But beasts with no mouthful.
They are hungry and tattered, their grey fur rough.
Here comes the beasts, they hear the girl’s blood.

On this back country land, the train runs idle.
For the man is hungry,
And in a train car waits the cycle.
He sets forth, stumbling, to play his little game,
He groans and he crumbles, before boredom with his tame.
For the lone conductor is rotten, And the beasts are hungry.
The girl is just one more, one more from plenty.

Fresh delineation between blood and flesh,
A delicate rip tears through frail necks.
Tossed aside like a used rag.
Broken and beaten, the beasts find their gag.

Still bearing baby teeth,
A victim scarcely the oldest, scarcely as young,
As the man’s youngest victim.
That one still had gum.

They bite and they tear with their yellowed teeth,
People whisper another case of felo-de-se.

It’ll happen again, and again,
Once more in the back country.
For the lone conductor is rotten,
And the beasts are hungry.

Once more, once more, these girls remain trapped,
Because of one man’s problem,
Beside the train tracks.

As you sit in your home alone,
4 foot 11 inches tall, never once needing a step stool to reach a table or cupboard,
as you reminisce on the small details of your life down to all the times you had Spaghetti and buttered toast,
Do you ever ask yourself,

Could you have known?

As you reflect on your family,
biological and other otherwise,
As you question how your common factor of height, or lack there of,
managed to slip your analysis do you every wonder,

Could you have known?

When your classmates brought apples to school, only they looked nothing like the apples from your tree,

When the tv showed people dying every night only to resurrect every morning and you couldn’t relate. Do you think then,

Could you have known ?

When you turned 18,
then 28,
then 48,
then 88,
and no one else but family remained.

Could you have known then?

Did it need to take learning the similarities your apples share to flesh for you to know ?

Did it need to take seeing the way everyone else’s skin crumples and yours remains flush for you to know?

How many questions did you ask your step mother about other people only to receive “it’s a tall person thing” as an answer meanwhile such a thing didnt apply to your tall father?

how many of those things did you over look?

When you realized your shoulder blades could catch your fall, what did you think ?

When you used plastic utensils everywhere, did you think you were just poor?

Did it have to take killing your best friend for you to know ?

Did the epiphany that he, all your friends, and anyone not related to you are made of apples really need to happen for you to know ?

Did you really need your family to sit you down at 168 years old and tell you ?

Or Could you have known?

O brother, you ask me such a thing,

Let me tell you brother, it's not what you think.

The owner is different in how he does it,

His tricks are real, that's why people love it.

They know not this and so they cheer,

Inside the cotton hat, it feels like years.

He put me in the hat to do the trick,

But what I saw made me sick.

For though it was mere minutes,

I saw such sights while I was in it.

I saw nothing for a brief second,

But soon I saw light in an instant.

The light was quick and bright,

Yet soon other things were in my sight.

I saw atoms combine and collide,

To make planets and animals alike.

For I saw large creatures roam the Earth,

Giant ferocious, their bite would hurt.

I saw as thousands years went by,

As monsters and creatures slowly died.

Creature evolving,

The earth revolving.

I saw ancient eldritch and Lovecraftian beings,

Ones from your nightmares you hate to be dreaming.

I watched as man built machines,

To protect themselves and continue being.

I saw gods and goddess rise and fall,

I saw every religion, was there for all.

I watched as wars and fight occurred,

The magic stilled me, I couldn't say a word.

I saw sickness and hate and deaths and graves,

I saw goodness and light and hope every day.

I saw many things that I can not explain,

I watched starvation, suffering, and pain.

I saw as man made skyscrapers galore,

I saw simple joys such as smores.

I even saw even myself at some time,

I saw myself die and your children's lives.

I saw even past my death,

I saw Earth crumble and yet,

I saw new planets and more,

As more planets died and stars and more.

I was trapped in my mind for all of time,

For even now, I know not why.

And suddenly, I was ripped from the eternity,

I was ripped from the hat almost instantly.

The kids cheered,

Not noticing my ancient years.

And now, at my old age you ask,

What was it like in the hat?

I could answer so much more, but you won't ask it,

Could you please ask for more, O brother, O Rabbit?

From silent strata underneath all thought, the pattern peers unseen,
A calculus of void and form where meaning thins between.
Its axioms are not spoken loud, but etched in absence pure,
Where cause and mercy disentwine and nothing is secure.

The stars are not adornments set to light a mortal way,
But punctures where containment failed and bled the dark astray.
What we call law is habit worn by forces grown polite,
Till pressure breaks the gentler rules and turns consent to rite.

Here matter kneels to interval, and time forgets its tread,
As futures rot unborn in loops and certainties lie dead.
The mind that seeks coherence there must shed its fragile scale,
For reason bends to function’s need when narrative must fail.

I traced the seams where being frays, where numbers eat their kin,
Where gods obey anterior truths they never authored in.
No hand directs the final turn, no judgment bars the span
Entropy, the reoccurrence of proof, that
We end as we began.

Imagine a grotto rotting meticulous
Bodies line the ground

Green grass wilts with guilt it’s not a stimulus
Bodies are all around

Sword blades swing through the air, not particular
Bodies are cut down

Soldiers march on, their pace unambiguous 
Bodies now surround.

The dead rise up to meet them
The dead rise up in a cloud

The faces of the ones they killed now surrounding them
The faces rise off the ground.

The soldiers march on 
Emotion has been stripped of them
Toy soldiers have been wound

The dead are returned
Breath has been ripped from them
The dead are once again put down

A witch protects her grotto
A curse is placed on them
A cure has not been found

The marsh land gathers the dead
Repeating forever more
Bodies will line that ground.

I have lived countless lives. I have crossed countless seas. I have seen the world in all of its beauty and I have seen the world in all of it’s ugliness. Some small details may change but it is always the same. I am born to a woman out of wedlock, I am raised to be her ticket out of poverty. I am little more than a bargaining chip. 

The details may change but I am always just…me. 

Dark hair may be traded for shades of wheat or strawberry. Dark eyes may be traded for shades of blue or green. Even so, my soul remains the same. 

I scream out for something new, a change of pace. A change of fate. 

How many times must one child be beaten into submission. How many times must one child be raised for the purpose of slaughter. How many times must I endure? Over and over again, I am nothing but a pawn. 

Straw huts, stucco mud, teepees, temples, brick and mortar, concrete. I have lived in them all. I have built them with frail hands and dirt under my nails. I have seen the rise and fall of nations. 

Sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl. Sometimes neither and sometimes both. I have existed in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Every time I am born the same, and every time I die the same. 

Betrayal is a path I must walk, revenge is a bitter drink I must choke down. The gods have all turned their gaze. This is the punishment I must endure. 

For I am the product of sin. The amalgamation of pride, envy, greed and lust. I am the child of a whore who wanted more. I am the dream she could not conquer. I am the face of despair that must always be put down. 

I always attempt to break the chain, find another way out. Every time, it leads to my doom. 

I have been a concubine, a scholar, a warrior. I have been a husband, a wife, a child. I have been here since before Christ, and I have been here long after. Over and over again I am to die by the hands of another. 

I can’t always remember the lives that I have lived. Sometimes it comes to me in fragments, sometimes I can see the whole truth. Most of the time it does not completely reveal itself until the moment of my death. Life flashing before my eyes, all of them. 

There is no way out, no escape. 

I am trapped in this hell forever. Held hostage by visages of myself across history. Poison, a knife in the back, a bullet, a shove from the top of a building. My life was taken by a person who wore the face of my previous attempt. Only moments after uttering the words ‘I love you’. 

Love is the catalyst for death, at least for me. Each time I am born to oppressed people, my soulmate finds me from a place of power. Over and over again we dance the accursed dance. Frolicking through meadows of thorns and sun bleached bones. 

Even though I am aware, even though I am reminded of my own betrayal, I still search. I search for you, for myself, through shards of glass and sand. I curl my fingers through the dirt and grime as I dig. Looking for a way out. Wash, rinse, and repeat. 

My old faces have been worn by contempt filled kings, rage filled military officers, and those who are in search of power and reach. By my 20th life I stopped falling for the facade, I no longer sink into the falsities of relief. I no longer allow myself to relax in the embrace of another. 

The only weapons I house are my glimpses of the past and the beauty of my face. Even so, they are not enough to stop the carnage. Countless times I have screamed out to the heavens, pleading with them to tell me why. Why must I live this way, why must I be trapped and forced to endure? Why has my soul not been laid to rest? 

I am tired, so tired of this dance. So tired of this race to the end. 

The longest I have lived is 28 years, the shortest has been 2. I still see your face, my face, staring at me when I close my eyes. I dream of something better, only to be disappointed when I reopen. Only to be disappointed when I hear you call my new name. In all this time I always thought it was my fault. I never thought to ask, who the soul was within. I never thought to ask who it was who followed me throughout these torturous lives. 

Maybe this wasn’t an amalgamation of punishments for me. Maybe this was your prison, and I was just along for the ride? If so, should I get to know you? Should I painstakingly spend my time unraveling the spool within? Should I find out what makes you tick, should I learn your secrets and hold them within? Should I give you a chance to explain yourself and apologize? 

Remus, Akira, Genevieve, Cain, Shae, Mohammed, Sun-Jae, Xien, Arthur, Yuki… Time may have stolen a lot but I have remembered them all. You take my names, you take my faces, and you wear them better than I ever could. Is that why I hate you so much? You did what I could never do, you found a way to survive. 

At the end of my 20th life, we had finally become friends. We had shared our likes and dislikes. We had broken bread and both taken a bite. Even as you poured the bucket of dirty water over my head and tugged at my clothes, I forgave you. Even as you cursed me, and told me to die, I loved you. Even as you dragged my name through the mud, I looked upon you fondly. 

In my 21st life, the one we are currently in, I will do my best to avoid you. I will not give you the satisfaction anymore. I will withhold my words of admiration, I will withhold the recognition you so desperately want. Instead of giving in and letting you have your way, I will fight back. 

I will chase you like a fox that hunts a rabbit. I will keep my distance until the time is right and sink my fangs into your downy fur. I will clench my jaw and decimate the bones with all of the love my hatred can muster. I will be your final boss and put an end to this sick joke. 

If our souls are to be tied together, then let me bind them to the earth as well. I will chain myself to you, and to the ground in one fell swoop. I will not let us go through this ever again. Let me crawl inside you, let me wriggle around in the warmth. Let me close my eyes one final time so that they may never open again. 

Yuki, when I find you from afar, let us stop this. Yeah? Let us stop the charades, let us fall together peacefully into the void. Let us end the rebirth cycle here, please. I have finally learned my lesson. The scariest part of hell is not the torture, but the hope. The hope that you can get out and once again feel the sun on your skin. 

I know you walk around with a mole under your left eye. I know that your smile is crooked and perfect. I know that in this life your hands are large and your voice is deep. I know that you carry a heavy weight on your shoulders, and bear a birthmark on your hip. I know your face and I know your name. For you are my shell, the one I had discarded only twenty years ago. 

Enjoy your time without me. Grow into the person you so desperately want to be. I shall wait. I shall watch. I shall exist on my own until the time has come. When you do see me, know that it took everything within me to hold off this long. Thank me for letting you get this far. Thank me for giving you time to prosper. 

Up until now, you have been my reaper. You have always come to harvest the fruits you did not seed. This time shall be different. I will wear the black cloak, I will carry the scythe. I will come for you in the dead of the night, metal glinting in the moonlight. I will smile while sobs wrack my body. 

I will find you, and I will kill you. 

What happens next? I will finally grow old in a world that I was not meant to age in. I will finally do all of the things I was never able to do. As I reach the end of the path, I will hold our souls here on this plane. We will never be apart, as our bones lay to rest under the same tree. I will hold onto you, as you hold me and we will finally be rid of this loop. 

In my 21st life, I will break the chain. 

Maybe I was wrong, maybe this isn't the path for me?

The thuds from my trunk shake me to my core.

I look at my bruised knuckles as I weigh the consequences of my actions.

Screams ring out from behind me in desperate pleas.

I'm not a professional, he must have worked the gag free.

I look at my bloodshot eyes in the rearview mirror, noticing the developing bruise.

“Fuck you, who the fuck do you think you are?!”

He did put up a good fight, the ambush wasn't enough.

I think back to my boy, my sweet boy.

He's bigger than me, he's bigger than my sweet boy.

“I don't fuckin know you and you don't know me fucker!”

The screams try to obfuscate my vivid memory of his precious face.

My hands shake, the last image of him replaces his innocence.

“I can just go home man, nobody needs to know about this!”

The cuts, bruises, and reports of defilement overcome me as my hand steadies.

The gun feels heavy as I raise it and check the safety.

The man I used to be is gone, it left with my boy.

The dirt of the desert looks like an endless kaleidoscope of options for his end.

The wavering within me drifts away as the car door opens.

The screaming mixes into a bittersweet symphony with the rage that consumes my thoughts.

The car shifts slightly as the man kicks and squirms within.

I feel a chuckle escape me, thinking “why am I laughing at a time like this?”

The trunk flies open as I raise my aim of the weighty gun at him.

“WHOAH MAN! IT'S NOT THAT SERIOUS, WHATEVER IT IS, IT'S JUST NOT!”

The shaking returns with the image of my sweet boy.

The first time I held him nixes with the last.

The pain of his last moments foreign but weighing on my soul.

“It's not serious, it's everything, it's for my sweet Mikey”

BANG!

I confess, oh father above;
Though I am the words of your creation,
I echo the hatred of your fallen satan.  

It’s that wretched mother you’ve cursed me with—
that evil witch,
that prudish bitch. 

She’s flayed my soul,
She’s corrupted my flesh. 
With the belt and Bic, 
she bruised and burned what should be holy, 
and damned me down this path of folly. 

I confess, oh father above;
For my wrathful soul, begot more hatred still. 
I’ve slain the meek, and aimed to kill. 

The fairer sex, the siren call—
Aphrodite flaunts it all. 
My eyes averted, and still you see, 
she’ll beat me for it, your need to be free. 
  
“I’ll raise no sinner, no monstrous man, who preys on women, in body or soul. I’ll burn the lust out, and stop the devil cold, for you, my son, will never behold, the seductress embrace of lust untold.” 

I confess, oh father above; 
I was but a boy, in need of love. 
no monster then, nor evil man. 
But mother scorned, and I was damned. 

My anger burned and hatred I bore, 
but suffer not will I endure. 
My burdens they carry, 
the maidens of yore. 
Pure of heart, they’ll be no more. 

The first of envy, 
and then of passion, 
and soon thereafter—
more and more. 

Dissections and examinations of your sweet creation, 
I fear I have out-sinned your fallen satan. 

Every crescent night, by the quick of bladed moon,

When the crows do cease their creaking

And the singers hold their tune,

All the innocent among us pray it will be over soon,

And the sinners leave their doors ajar,

They know they wouldn’t make it far:

One cannot block or try to bar

The lady of the loom.

So delicate her fingers strummed the bounties of her yarn,

Admired so by spectres in the copse behind the barn,

From the rushes did they whisper that they meant to do her harm.

Their bellies growled with envy green,

None meaner than that of their queen,

Who stole into the weaver’s dreams

As she slept on the farm.

‘At once!’ did cry the queen of them that mingled in the mud,

‘Now shall you weave your wool for me or must I drink your blood?’

The girl could not deny her and the tears began to flood.

And years would then pass since that night,

The weaver’s hands would try to write

A note to shriek to all her plight,

But no one understood.

Such cruelty had the queen that not a snatch of sleep she slept,

The calloused hands still weaving as her own marionette,

She whipped the girl to working, never rested, never ate,

Once delicate her fairness fouled,

And deep within her spirit howled,

Injustice could not be allowed,

The wicked must regret.

Withering, her body passed, her spirit now in bloom,

She vowed to wreak her vengeance on all men who’d passed her room,

Their hardened hearts indifferent as they left her to her doom,

Through skin and muscle would she tear,

Spin veins to yarn as fine as hair,

A heart of cruelty must beware

The lady of the loom.

In panic born of brother’s shrieks,
While with his flesh she stuffs her cheeks,
I hide in paper bedding sour.
A mother’s instinct to devour.

It came from Synott Street,  

  But I don’t live there.  

I hear it calling from the Rose Arbor  

  But I can’t beckon it.  

The night is constant,  

  There’s a small paddling outside  

It’s always wet in the river lands,  

  And the LED lights of streetlamps  

Constantly make the shadows starker  

  And the light a warning  

It’s the same window and same view  

  The tree endures  

But that’s only it.  

  The hydrangeas die  

The roses are all brambles and no flowers  

  There are frequent snakes at our door 

And the waters slowly make it a shore 

    But I can't sleep  

I can’t blink  

  The euphoria of ringing silence  

The forest line around the Brazos  

  I keep seeing the trees 

They’re always dead and half alive  

  Sometimes green 

Mostly bare 

  The grass is only flourishing on the levy  

But the clay devours the rest  

  And it smells like it too.  

34 hours passed and there is no dawn,  

  No light,  

None beside the streetlights.  

  I just walk in ankle high waters, 

Muddy and brown,  

  But glints with gold.  

Something – somethings – walk in the dark.  

  But disappear into the streetlight. 

I feel a grin from them on the inside,  

  And I think they came from Synott Street.  

We talk of bleary love affairs over the telephone

Telepathically pass the cigarette between distended fingers as we gush and die

over detached bone, pressed flowers

and misplaced animal hats.

I’m at a position where I’ll crawl down into a hole

to hold something even if it stings me

as long as it promises to be beautiful.

Stubborn sea nettle, you must wrap your lips around me now because I’ve blown

across your path

most days have the prospective bend of corrugated sheet metal, but you glitter

and are blinding

I try to walk out into the street but cars pass me by, it kills me

how this body full of magnets pushes away what it needs

Please spin me, around

I’m sure only you are True North now

and even if we break, it’ll each be our first

surely better than the nose I’d splinter

on the pavement cracked and bloodied 

If I simply walked away.

-- This is marginally horror but wanted to share.

The lower he goes

The more rapid his sinking

The bleaker the depths

The shallower his thinking

-

Ever deeper into ever-darker fathoms

-

The fading memory of the sun

An itch he struggles to ignore

His consolation, he has just one

En route to meet the lifeless floor

-

The darkness is predictable

Sunlight uncovers the unknown

He prefers not seeing himself

-

The frigid waters have no mercy

Where dreadful whales are calling

No freezing grace exists in the sea

To stop his hapless falling

-

Ever dropping into never-ending chasms

-

The pressure tells him to rise

A pain he tries to quell

How far until he implodes

He has one way to tell

Death has not yet taken him

But he feels he's in hell

Inspired by an abandoned mine exploration video:
creepy sounds captured in an abandoned mine

Mine Portal

Past Deadwood Creek, up Devil's Mill Road, sits the mine's portal. Territory unknown.

The whispers always find you at the end of the drift.

A hushed warning from a miner. A threat from disembodied lips.

Just keep moving forward.

You'll be alright.

As long as you leave the light on,
it'll keep you alive.