Sighing at my worn down pen,

Its empty cartilage, its dried out nib.

I thought about casting it away,

In the trash, among the waste.

“Stop!" Cried my pen out loud.

"All these years I served,

Only to gain such a miserable end?

I've served when all abandoned you,

With all my ink and strength,

I kept your secrets and your pain.

I loved you much, that I turned every tear,

Into words that people would listen and hear!

Ungrateful human you certainly are,

I helped you overcome your fears,

I chained your demons and poisoned them with ink.

Truly unrequited are the feelings of the pen,

When first brought home, treated with utmost care.

Like a new bride or a porcelain doll.

Once all used up and all worn out,

'Throw it away!' You say, 'Throw it away!'

Is this what I get for my faithfulness?”

I stared at my old pen, and wept.

-complains of my pen.

At first,

I thought it was

Darkness

Sleeping through

My very core

Enveloping me

Swallowing

All the light

My happiness

Unavoidable

Unrelenting

Doom

Then

i thought

It was

Loneliness

Having no one

By my side

When I’m spiraling

Down Down down

No one to catch me

No one

To remember me

No one to endure my pain

Make me feel

Empty

But when I met you

You brought me

A companion

Happiness

Unforced smiles

Yet the darkness

did not

Disappear

It there forever

The monsters

Hiding

Creeping

Waiting

To come out

When I’m at

My most

vulnerable state

To devour me

Drown me

In the darkness

I can never get away

I can never leave

For it is within me

It is what controls

My very being

It is my mind

It is me

Stumbling laughter

as alcohol no longer burns,

tickling down throat.

Dancing abandon

beneath the blacklights

and the swarming glow.

I, who am so

reserved, quiet,

safe.

Unnerving nerve,

secreted desire

driving for once.

Observing him,

approaching him,

kissing him.

Horrifying repulse,

shoved away,

alone.

Oh

you poor

undesired

thing.

we are always holding hands

linking our fingers together

never wanting to let go

but you leave me

my friends leave me

my family leaves me

and i am alone

eventually i leave myself

The his jaw, the ache of his rage, the quick wit and inability to forgive.

A Fierce reflection, and my greatest fear

What reflects my father within me

The Darkest truth, the ones I cannot hide from.

We are more alike then not.

Two toxic plants for the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Only I choose to be more...

At least, I try to.

i'm in a cave

a dark, dark, cave

rendering my sight useless

so much

that i can't even see myself

so i stay crouched

to reassure myself that i

am indeed

still there.

and sometimes,

out of the darkness comes a ripple

breaking my tide of thoughts

and i run

to the place

where i saw the light

only for it to close back and

once more,

leave me alone in my cave

hungry,

for a light, or if too much,

then a person

by my side.

i'm stuck in the cave,

and i'm crouching,

Trying to hide,

so that i may be able to escape

being eaten by the monster

that is called

my mind.

I know that it's unavoidable

and that one day it will come.

It scares me that it's unforeseeable

and it leaves me feeling glum.

One day when I least expect it

he'll come knocking on my door.

He comes in with no permit

and leaves behind a mess of horror.

Maybe I'll be ready to go

or maybe I'll want to stay.

There's no way to know

until I get to that day.

I only fear a thing that's rather grim

and his name is Death.

I will always fear him

until my very last breath.

Happy sad sappy mad crappy glad sheisty bad feisty rad...

Steady.

Am I ready?

A glow in her eye, a subtly tense vibe.

Queiscent anticipation.

Expectation.

Familiar intimation.

Self-deprecation.

Lack of reciprocation.

How do I revert to a hedonist pursuit

when the scholar in me has tamed the brute

and we dream of something more...

daring to believe in the romance of lore

until someone asks, "Do you believe in love at first sight?"

and it fades again, with the loud,

battering.

a sword of vengeance

a shield of logic

... a dreaded monody of mad sorrow

solitude, familiar elixir

bring the comfort cold and extinguish the cinder

of passion.

For I have come to fear love.

Looking back on a reckless life,

both shot and stabbed,

hit by a car,

fallen from a third-story window,

bones mending slowly,

feeling life will be as twisted

as the bones and muscle housed by flesh.

But that isn't what I fear now.

Two marriages, no children.

Sadly, always wanted to be a father;

never happened.

One marriage good,

the other, hell incarnate.

Batting 50/50, not so bad.

Single now, happy, content,

at least I think so.

But none of that I fear now.

Decade after decade rolled by.

When twenty,

you think you will live forever.

When seventy,

you laugh at the things said at twenty.

All that in the middle are lessons learned.

Age is what it is;

we are all born to age,

so death is commonplace;

expected.

None of this I fear.

What do I fear?

At first,

it was my heart attack and five surgeries,

not knowing

if I could walk away

from an antiseptic room on my own,

but when I finally did,

the fear was gone,

for it was not yet my time,

and it made me appreciate

what life brings us.

Now the story unfolds,

and call this a silly fear;

but it could happen, can happen,

and somewhere it did happen.

My greatest fear is to lose two things:

my imagination,

and the hands I use,

to put the words of my imagination to paper.

I have been through much, and survived.

To lose those two things,

is a battle I could never win.

(The photograph is me on my first birthday. I chose this as a connection of the first and last word of this title. Looking back, even then I had a look of a person unafraid to question anything. Damn I was a sexy-kinda thing then!!)

Long ago humans were afraid of fire. Afraid of the droughts that came and the heat that scorched, and the way forests burned to ashes among the roaring of the red light, and afraid of searing flesh curving easily away from bone. By the Elizabethan era we were still afraid. Of our cooking being the end of us as smoke collected in rooms and we all suffocated, of our chimmneys not working of another family home, burning next to ours. And even today I quake. We have alarms for smoke. We have vents for steam, but the pain of burns is like nothing else.