I’m waiting for my silver lining.

I’m waiting for my one good thing.

When all I have is suffering,

I need my broken soul to sing.

I need to feel the joy of love.

I need to hear the songs of birds.

Springtime can’t come soon enough.

This darkness borders on absurd.

The universe is killing me.

Death’s rain falls like razorblades

falling from a sunless sky

as daylight dies as sunset fades.

I reach out for a helping hand

as loneliness descends.

As death’s dark shadows twilight sends,

I’ve reached the jagged cliff side’s end.

I sleep,

I wake.

I sleep,

I wake.

And still I think of you.

My mind's adoration,

my heart's envision,

standing there before me.

I cannot breathe

and therefore speak.

I cannot say your name.

To announce it

would be to see the truth of it

and that I can't yet bare.

The devil wears mascara that's not waterproof.

the devil cries in her sleep.

The devil in my life wants what she does not need .

The devil wishes for less.

For less.

For less

All the devil wants in my life is less.

The devil wears sweats that do not fit.

The devil cries for people who want her dead.

The devil in my life is not an outside offense.

The devil is me.

Sunshine soup

to revel in,

warming blood

and bronzing skin.

God may dream

on days like this,

as worries a-way

like clouds adrift.

I wake up to the sound of trees falling. I hear I-love-yous and I know your blood. Crimson and siphoned through tissue, mostly unseen. I feel the strings of death that tie me to bed. No wonder you can't kill a god. Any kind of end is too quick, too kind, for something of such magnitude, such power. Everything inside me has been torn out, tossed to the corner of my room. There lies nothing of consequence: dust, toys, I hear the screams of a young boy as he runs from his father, Jenna's sweater, CDs from last week, candy wrappers, cars turn corners, racing, running, heavy breathing, hearts pounding, beating, stopping. I can make it stop

I can't sit up but I can make it stop. End. I sense it. But, they laugh and they yearn and they hurt. They live. Somehow. Who am I to strip them of their horrors? Who am I to leave them awake, with all the terror they create? The strings pull tighter and tighter and my veins, my skin, my self splits. Among the floral sheets lies a mosaic of reluctant divinity and blood.

I close my eyes.

I was pretty okay with being a kid.

I sat still and soaked myself in the lulling waters of childhood. It's empty now. I didn't want to be older. The haze of girlhood--something to be penetrated and dissipated--was unknown to me.

There are hollows in the ground from where I stand still and look back.

Marjorie Flowers had never married. Nor had there ever been a significant other in her life. Nor did she have any children. Insular and abrasive; unloved, even by her parents, Marjorie had lived all eighty-seven years of her miserable existence in the same house where she had been born. And miserable is the word that best described Marjorie, who had always been as shrivelled and bitter as a preserved lemon.

A long retired librarian, no other profession better suited her, Marjorie had chosen instead to fill her life (such as it was), and every room of her dormer windowed and thatch roofed cottage with carnivorous plants. They sat in pots on sunlit window ledges. They hung in baskets, at varying heights, from the ceiling's exposed beams. They stood on shelves and occasional tables, as a singular prized specimen, or grouped together according to genus. What it was about them, precisely, that had attracted Marjorie to her obsession she could not define, other than her admiration for their self-contained independence.

It pleased Marjorie to think she could die at any moment and the plants would carry on regardless. An unsuspecting fly, or a sporadic moth, was sufficient to sustain them. The pride of her collection was a Chilean Nightwing. Native to the high desert plateaus of the Andes, the Nightwing was believed to be extinct in the wild. Its three broad and flat glaucous leaves, each tipped with a needle sharp spine, remained tight closed through the day, only opening as the sun was setting to reveal a large flower with three petals of a deep dull crimson, with the texture of velvet,

As the night sky darkened, the flower would detach itself, and with its petals spinning like the blades of a helicopter, would rise into the air and fly out through the dormer window Marjorie always opened as the growing gloom of dusk descended. Unique in its method of harvesting the required nutrition necessary for its survival, the Nightwing would seek out some large mammal and, attaching itself to the neck, would absorb the animal's blood through the pores of the skin while simultaneously exuding a toxic anticoagulant, with fatal consequences.

Climbing the cottage stairs one early evening, the toe of Marjorie's slipper caught on the frayed carpet, causing her to lose her balance, and falling backwards, tumble awkwardly, breaking her hip. Immobilised by excruciating pain, she lay at the foot of the stairs, all too conscious of the approaching hour, when the Nightwing's vampiric flower would emerge, and the fact that the dormer window was still firmly closed.

Visions flood the images of my mind’s eye

Of a happy, charmed point in time so random

When things were simple and so carefree

And as a child, I was able to laugh with ease and abandon

At the allure of the small, sweet birds flying above,

The sound and salty smell of the ocean’s roll,

As bare toes mingled with rough grains of sand,

And felt the warmth of the sun on shoulders that knew no toil.

Fresh was the sweet taste of homemade pies and ice cream

Or ripe watermelon juice on our chins.

The chitter-chatter of adults filled the summer silence;

And laughter, ease, security, were all wrapped in a veil so thin.

Nights were spent gazing at the star-studded skies

Dreaming of lands so far away and distant,

We knew no bounds with how our lives would twist or turn

To take us to places dreamt of with little or no resistance.

Life is so simple and sweet when one is young

While the hinges of doorways have not yet spread,

Opening to things that seek to pull us elsewhere

From the places whence we were once well-placed to tread.

Forest fires burning behind your mind,

Fires of red leaving you blind,

Soul screaming into the embers left behind,

Why am I alive? A question that permeates the misery

Existing when you're in pain, is like drowning endlessly,

You feel the ice water scorching your lungs but you don't sleep,

How can someone dream when they are in pain?

Tears fall for the faces that are blurred out from your mind,

An infestation of bad energy, and memories that lurks inside,

Waiting to strike when you let doubt create a fairytale

You never think that you can prevail, so you go to the bottle.

Time freezes, the trees are destroyed, the ground is scorched,

The air becomes nothing but sulfur and dark smoke,

Pain and anger it just chokes you, infects you with lies,

For a while you try to resist but it lures you back in with indifference

It's not just an illness but a nasty, vile, salivating demon.

Sadness, is nothing like this,

The pain infects your body then it spreads

Like a black butterfly cocooning inside of your heart,

Poisoning it until you die,

The cause of death was depression not suicide.

Dear prosers prosettes and proseters. in the past few weeks I have been terribly unproductive, feeling mostly blank and bland. I have written very little and cannot bring myself to even read much. you may say that it's just the world being particularly nasty, or the cold that I can't seem to shake, it could be the exhaustion of work, or the worries.

You might say all that... but no it isn't any of it.

you see...

this is not the first time that this has happened. it's called the Astral Vortex.

I'm trapped in the Astral vortex again!!.

there!

I admit it.

the fucking vortex.

spinning and crushing, squeezing and stretching, all on a plain of existence that I have no control over, but can painfully feel the results of all too well.

And so I have decided to write about this awful, awful mess of a thing that whorles around and sucks out any will to do anything.

it is quite possible that you are also enthralled by the Astral Vortex, and perhaps could better deal with this curse, or at least draw comfort from the misery of others. because enjoying from other people's suffering is what it's all about...

1) I try occasionally reading what others write. and I can't help but feel that what i put out SUCKS!!!

well, duh..

that's right! the vortex takes away the Mental padding that is normally layered upon the inner self, to sheild against the realization that i don't have anything like talent, or basic knowledge of human languages to make for passable writing. even worse, older things that I have written, are by far better than the crap I put out more recently. it's not much better, but it is at least something. comparatively speaking, of course. it is a wonder to me how I managed to summon the words and string them up, placing them in correct functionality and purpose. if not tastefully so.. i feel a need to try and understand, how i was able to do some things, when those skills are now long forgotten. an archeologist struggling to understand how the pyramids were built, at least knows the materials that were used and the laws of physics that governed this effort. i do not.

incidentally, this of course is also a poor analogy, as that the pyramids were monumental acheivments of man's will , determination and ingenuity.

again, this is the vortex spinning all that pointless self deceit away, and stripping you bare of all protection. it was never good, or well - structured. I just believed it was. and this is certainly NOT an acheivment!

2) the vortex often takes me to a place where I have to face the hungry eyes of the evil ones.

This happens about every morning; the methods inwhich the vortex transports me to that place of misery is something I shall never really know. but a quick glance at those evil ones.. oh, the horror..

in any case, the vortex relishes the agony and frustration. it feeds on that rich, bitter ,

sap. and peers at you greedily. and you know that there... is...no...escape..

3) Whenever I make some feeble attempt at resistance, the vortex finds a direct or indirect means of thwarting my efforts.

it is very creative and resourceful in anticipation of my plans and it has a wide range of ways and endless resources to intercede, interdict, frustrate , distract, confuse, or crush (if need be) my efforts.

they say madness is trying something that fails again and again. but they do not know about the Astral Vortex. it's easy to talk about doing other things, when you don't have a temporal funnel sucking things over your head.

4) The world seems to be developing all kinds of stuff I have absolutely NO UNDERSTANDING ABOUT.

things are moving very fast now, suspiciously so...

5) There is a truck that is stacked with massive sacks, right in front of me. it is filled with SUPPOSEDLY garden trimmings. all kinds of branches and leaves sticking out.

yeah, right. the ability to notice that something is off is something the Astral Vortex takes last. i can't claim to know what is REALLY hiding inside those sacks, but it's nothing good...

6) Rotationary Symmetry doesn't really exist.

there!

draw a ' Z' on a notepad, turn the note a 180° turn. is it really the same? did the note end up in EXACTLY the same position?

didn't think so!!!

7) Overeating.

mostly crap. but the point is that the Astral Vortex doesn't really mind the quality. it really only cares about tonnage.

8) Other people sense the despair!!

frankly, it isn't that surprising. they all have this gouch kind of look. this disdain, saying basically "what? so what if you have the Astral Vortex? boo hoo...you know, i've got troubles too, buddy" . others prey on your eagerness to find refuge and try extorting you and shaking you down.

9) I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare.

yes, it's not original, but duplication is the sincerest form of mitosis .

10) Moss covers the boulder that once was the gateway. the scepter of T'rang is not in my hand, so there really isn't much i can do about it.

if you ever thought the opening of the great portal of Zaggorla would be as easy as saying "open seseme" then you need to get your head examined. the great portal depends on so much to function and open that it would be about as likely to get the thing open as to get some random construction material and dynamite, blow the thing up and get a type-C life-form compatible outhouse. it COULD happen but it almost undoubtedly won't.

now. i do not know how this is going to end. it could be that the vortex will trap me inside some dimentional dungeon, or that it will just move on to filthier pastures. my spelling will never recover, that's for sure, and the weight i gained in my anguish is most likely here to stay. scars, and landing rings, severed tentacles and ossified hopes. i wish i could offer you, dear reader, some hope, if you are reading this tripe. but the very fact that this is arranged in a shopping list just crystalizes how low this could go.

if you are the chosen one, i urge you! the time is neigh! go forth and vanquish the overlords of Gar-Valoom and bring the virpal scepter forth. just hurry up , please.