Swim

In the bitterness of the night we are wholly alone. An island quiet in a sea of ideas. The ocean which sprawls before us is an endless array of decisions. Choices to make. Paths to be followed. Sometimes the hardest part is choosing the path to destruction. The one that you know will only lead to unhappiness. Tragically, sometimes that is the only path that seems to make any sense.

In the darkness, everything is muted and vibrant which shades of blue. Blood is made black, all the rich red drained away until you're left with its absence. And still it is vibrant, slick and shiny rich in the light of the moon.

The beach stretches in a seemingly endless way. Huts nestled into the rich lush tropical foliage fade away. No longer loud in their arrays of browns against an array of eye catching greens, they whisper in the night. Somber grays and stoic blues. This leads the optical illusion that perhaps there is only you. Only you and that great wide world. The wilderness behind you. The stretching maw of the ocean, lapping at the shore.

That soft sand, rich and creamy in the light of the sun is hushed. Cool and pearlescent, each step is carefully taken. Delicacy seems required. No birds call. No wildlife screeches. No insects hum.

Maybe this isn't the life you wanted. Maybe this isn't the path you chose. But now, its all you have left to you. A tropical paradise, abandoned and abhorred. Vibrant is the pulse of the sea. Luscious and light in the bask of the full moon, staring into the depths is like watching a deep teal colored night light painted dark with silhouettes of the animals going about their lives. At first it seems inviting. Schools of fish. Flickers of turtles and sting rays. And somewhere inside you know that this is merely a warm welcome. The fervor and flash of an rendezvous you've already agreed to.

The first glimpses skirt the edges in fleeting flashes. But you know they are coming. You know they are there. The hard packed sand beneath passes quickly, marking a clear trail of where you were. The history of where you've been. In one cool sweep she washes it away. No trace. No memory. The sand is always one salty kiss from a clean slate.

The ocean is cool enough to be tempting, and warm enough to seduce. The silhouettes pass by you now, rolling you into their dance. You pass through it all. And the sharks, they swarm in closer. Greater in number and more menacing in their lurking passes. This is why you've come. Perhaps there was no destiny greater than this. Maybe you were never meant to be anything more. If everyone is a whore for something, than maybe whores have something. Maybe it is easier to give pieces of yourself away than to have them torn. And if you cannot rise above. If you cannot cater to your enemies. Perhaps it is a greater gesture to lend yourself to the feeding frenzy.

Nothing hurts as badly as the first scar, and all other pain is fleeting.

201059

If you reached into her chest you wouldn't find anything there. Hollowed out, what was once mortal and soft had been altered. Changed. Rendered into the new machine. All the systems were there same as before. It breathed, it ate, it slept, it drank. But it was no longer human. No longer ubiquitous or pleasant. No longer something to be desired. Even the casual onlooker was put off. Whatever had once inhabited this shell had long since pass and now no man, woman or child would be able to place a name to it. A mere title of convenience. Something to manipulate this new machine.

Treat.

A false name. A lie. A sinister practical joke at the expensive of whosoever sought this prize. And sure as where treats are tricks are soon to follow. Perhaps the man who owned her was mad, or perhaps he had been spurned by her. The stories were many and each of them tinged with inklings of truth, and in the end if you took bits and pieces from them, along with time, you could puzzle together the legend. Whatever could be said of the man, one thing was true – he was nearly as empty as she was.

However, where his had been a slow withering from corrupt morals, a lack of ethics and a seriously skewed set of values; hers had been taken by his whim. As if in an ironic twist of fate, he was aptly named by fate. Mr. Trick. Whether his first or last or something in between, Trick was the official name on his birth certificate. An ill omen that cast a shadow over his family until he had crawled away from their all to bright and eager socially acceptable world too a slimy darker one where he could reign supreme. Often the worst nightmares are the ones that we wake to.

BFLP Syndrome

There are some days when I want to just sit back from it all. Days when I don’t seem to be enough, or maybe there’s just not enough out there for me to consume. Big-fish-little-pond syndrome. I’ve got the itch and it lies in a spot that I just can’t scratch, no matter how much it burns.

I want a million little things. I want just one thing. I want to be caught in the implosion, that magical explosion where you burst out and suck into yourself in a contradiction – the universe’s idea of a joke. Can you be everything and nothing at the same time? Is it possible to be content and utterly restless? I want to run until I am at one with everything – until I am nothing.

I’d like to explain some things, but there wouldn’t be any point. There rarely is in these hours, these moments, these tiny eternities that stretch on forever connecting and overlapping with one another like ripples in a pond. And if you could see further ahead, that telescopic glance would lead you to the past.

I’m sure the smile on my face is somber and sad, belying the notion that there is something wrong. And if there is I couldn’t be the one to tell you, taking every thing as it occurs. All of its fate and divine intervention and independent will. All at once there are choirs of angels and god on a throne in heaven while satan slithers in the shadows to coax you with ease to hell – and there is only me, no gods, no devils, no hope or faith or belief.

I wish I could tell you that I am afraid, that all this seems to weigh in on my like some crushing rock. That I am lost and merely seeking some small comfort.

But that would be a lie.

The object that I seek is just out of reach. Alas, I have continued the journey long past the death of Hope – she waits still, martyred in that room full of blood and roses and the shredded wings of angels. And I am here, which is nowhere. Where everything is nothing and all of it is riddles – some misspent youth in a looking glass with snarky beguiling cats.

I’d like to tell you that everything will be adequate and that time and faith will mend all that ails you. But I have never been one to lie unless it served a purpose. There are times when the journey serves no intention but to wear you down and put you out – when the sole function of the endeavor is to see just how much we can load on that camel. And I wish you would never have to go through it, never have to face all the horrors and monstrous things that lurk in the world, all those misdeeds and skeletons locked away in proverbial closets that would make Dracula and Frankenstein’s Monster run screaming for the light of day – but I know of no other way to build the character.

Much like articles of clothing, you must be broken in and worn down as vintage carries a great many things, including wisdom. And all the nightmares that you face are merely a question of obstacles, of choices you need to make – Athena weaving the tapestry of your life wondering what adventure you will find yourself in the middle of.

The Fates have no interest in building your life for you and so the gods gave you free will. The same determination that makes one abused child a sociopath and the other a champion for civil liberties – that makes one rape victim a prostitute and the other a founder of organizations to help the victims and raise awareness. They care not if you flounder and fail or fight and win, they are simply here to throw you into the deepest pool they can find at a moment’s notice. And it will always only be you that has chosen the area.


I have always preferred to imagine the worst. I like to spend my free time thinking of tomorrow’s possibilities and twisting them to breaking. Visualizing the most horrible outcome for any number of activities that I may be required to perform or happen to chance upon. Vivid and garish: the sounds of breaking bones and steel and glass; the slick feel of blood, like wet velvet; the sensation of exsanguination, of death, of broken bones and dislodged joints, of ripped flesh open wide, the possibilities are as welcomed as the impossibilities.

I enjoy the fantasy of suicide, the sensations of dying by various methods. The predicament of my body upon discovery, the assortment of stages it will take throughout its decay. I have never thought very much of this habit, and in truth its an exercise I take part in many times a day, some more than others, but always during everyday I can remember I having thought of it at least once. I have never set to undertake an examination – a thoroughly noted analyzation of the possible notions, the underlying meaning, the subtext of the subconscious, the wherewithal to complete the flights of fancy.

I like to imagine the horrors. I like to dissect each one, replay the action slowly and examine the inner workings. There is something to this – to knowing the terror intimately. Terror is stronger than horror, so the nightmares lent to it are greater, and if you can be well aware of this – of the things that given to creating night terrors in brave adults, then there has to be something said of preparation. Knowledge is power, and all power corrupts – and in all of us there is a capacity for power then we are all, on some level, monsters.

The demons and devils of lore are nothing more than the fears we harbor about ourselves. Satan is nothing more than the skeleton of the scapegoat we slaughtered haunting our closets. Maybe we’re all just afraid of being monsters, afraid of admitting the terrible things we are capable of. Though I’m pretty sure if we just manned-up and dropped our balls it would be more invigorating than we think.

To be at ease with the atrocities we are proficient in creating on a whim – secure in the knowledge that we are better for rising above and succumbing to these caprices based on any given moment and separate situation. To have the judgment we are all guilty of casting based not only on our mayhem but also on our benevolent endeavors. Maybe that’s really how it goes. Maybe the ticket to getting into heaven isn’t all those benign acts, but also the deviances we take part in with wholehearted gaiety.

Dark Whispers

Shadows orating tales
Anxious anticipation
Ice milk along burning sand
Atmosphere thick hot heavy
Speeding technophonic rhythm
Red races flushing
Clutching stability against
Violent captivating trembles
Invading weakness
Ice fire life lightening
Dizzying spiral dance tilts
Phoenix burn

Asmodel

He was looking at her. That was it. No emotion in the gaze, mere observation.
The bile rose thick in the back of her throat following the cold sensation creeping up her spine, setting fire to the nerves in its wake. It spread slowly, seeping into her bones. She kept herself tightly wound, breathing deep slow breaths subtly to subdue the rage. This had happened before, suppression was an automatic symptom now. And it might have worked like the cherry it was, if he had stopped staring.

It was the sharp trembling of her feet along the outer edges. Like someone who had pushed themselves to far during a workout or in marathon runs. At least that's how it had always been in the beginning when they had been trying to induce the storm that erupted from within, those furious frenzies where the devil hisownself took a sick day to avoid.
She remembered gasping.

Lunging across the table she had time to analyze several possibilities of action he might take. He was slight, so physically no match for her unless he could fully pin her in a vulnerable position and then use the full strength of his upper body as well as every ounce of weight on his skeleton. The guards coming in the door were more of a challenge, being specifically bulked up to be dogs of war. Well bred and well trained. Arching herself mid-leap her right hand shot down to his weapon, her left catching his shoulder and using it as a gymnast might use a bar to turn.

Shoving him into the table and landing herself in a crouch behind him in the fractions of a second it had taken the two guards to enter, and in another she had angled his frame against her to the guards. They could not see her from beneath and behind the furniture and body, yet she could see their feet and shadows. Calculating their moves and the time she had left, she slid the gun beneath his right ear. And pulled the trigger.

Cowering from the shot, even though he had turned to avoid the blowout thus saving him his hearing, he had provided the opportunity to be used as a weapon. And she took it. Hurling him at the first guard and taking out the second as they collided. Landing to his right she fired on the first guard while yanking him up and across her body.
"Time for you to be useful again, Asmodel."

The terror ripping her from what ever subconscious state she had been was almost as painful as the blinding lance radiating from her side. Sweat broke out and she huddled fetal to ease the shock waves into something manageable until her body responded appropriately. Sighing hesitantly she counted the breaks. Whatever had happened, her ribs and shoulders had taken the brunt of the beating. Numerous rib fractures and breaks, as well as a shoulder out and collarbone floating. Hell, her whole right arm was out. Which was such a shame, she had always favored that hand for shooting and at heart she was still a gun-bunny greaser.

Pulling herself upward she took in her surroundings. That shame stopped dead in the tracks of a frozen heart. He was here in this place with her.

I Was Happy To Be Hollow, Yet You Wanted To Fill The Void, And Now I’m Bursting With Death

Some sympathetic ear taunted me with vicious dreams of capricious pagans. Wholesale slaughter at private prices, and someday I’ll be just another whore. Maybe then you’d want me. And I smile; feigning delight, because what you want is a star and unfortunately all I can be is a phoenix. How quickly all the color in your world has faded. Scantily clad in red I try to hide, ruby amongst ashes. My tears tread black along pale faces, a porcelain lie.

And you sit silently amongst flames, frigid by the open window that smothers the fire. Inhalation of ice is lancing red and I can’t help but breathe you in. Thick in my lungs I want to keep you here. But destined to leave; you smile and reassure me that you’re my shadow. By my side always. Moon brilliant, I’ve lost myself – but who was I to begin with, not anyone I cared to know.

Slowly the blood crimson of the bismuth oxychloride smears delicately along the labium inferius. A decadent doorway into the abyss. Still I stare with vacant, oculus hollow.

Sometimes I think my heart would shatter to be found. I’ve lost it and see no need to find it. A white queen within an endless realm of snow and bitter cold. Alone and unyielding; Caesar had friends – it’s all to easy to see where it got him. Harsh and bitter, I am the north seas. Chill with the omen of death. But the crueler the mistress, the greater the bounty. Perhaps there is some treasure at the end of this bleak gray rainbow….

Some Silent Cat Whispered Sweet Nothings In My Ear Then Abandoned Me At The Altar

Some intrepid sin forgotten by a long abandoned god crept upon me whilst unawake I lie. Cushioned in clover and lost in blissful dreams of chaos. Suffocating blankets of NAG CHAMPA curled around, hugging the warmth by a still beating heart locked within.

and in the shadows, cloaked in observance death still solid perched the audacious shadow. gingerly tiptoed dainty delicate cat stealth, creeping e'er closer.

gentle as the morning dew

curled atop the muscled rhythm

one beat, two beat, a tango within the veins. and nine lives of fur void black and satin soft stooped to whisper in my ear.

in vein i lie there still

Can You Feel Me Dying?

Perhaps it’s the Rains; but I feel Ancient.

weathered.

worn.

The sunlight is distilled here. -- washed tainted muted pastel -- Devoid of warmth, the bright spots are chilling as the first frost.

I am Tired. Exhausted.

understatement of the year

Driftwood.

Mayhaps vanity, the sick clock ticks somewhere deep inside. Evidence of existence in solitaire. Alone. Unwanted. Washed.
This bright day is cold
And I'm left Alone
Pondering. . .

To Whom It May Concern;
The Hours have grown long
Razor and I had a conversation
On heartache and time
Seems he fancies a fellow
Astride a white horse
Elusive
My confessions flow ice cold from devil's lips
Shadowed whispers
In hallowed halls
Maybe I'll marry him

suicide

We could live together

beneath the hard packed earth

Forever
Razor sighed to hear it
A proposal to the end of our torrid love affair
Who would notice?
Who would care?

The silence held no answer

Shimmer

Shimmer soft in deep recesses
Of ebon velvet darkness
Glow darkly
Dim star among shadows
This pale candle
Calls home diamond winged
Lover of the night
Commanding wish
Shall I burn for you brighter?
Beacon from home

Accident

Supple amber words trickle down
Soft petal lips
Gentle instruction soft in encouragement
Gray steel fang shines
Newness creates inanimate anticipation
Tremble gently silver ice melts
Into solid milk
Exact precision becomes deathly
Ruby caramel explodes violent
Are you happy with crimson regret
Filling goblets for you
Drink deeply talking to
Shadow voices
Tell her it was an accident
I did what you asked

Daemon in the Daylight

A golden illusion
Rays of light blinded me
Because I saw him
By the brilliance
Of a burning chariot
Blood born boy
With crystal black soul
Beauty birthed of darkness
Amazed and elated
My breath caught
A rush to touch
This creature of blood and shadows
Sensation so new
All because I saw
Daemon in the Daylight

Today

Silent shadows sprang
The cat came out to play
No one saw the blackbird fly
When Johnny died today
Torn veins shuddered
The guard dog slept
Like death in the morning
Blue curtains were wings
On acrid air
And I dreamt through it all
Because I no longer care