And I don't want to be when and where the angels fall, weeping and gnashing for them all, lack of repentance; a fantastic appall

I don't want to be when I'm without you no matter what you do, you could lie to me through and through, you could kiss her the way I kiss you

...With color, shape, and feeling...

Yours used to leave me reeling, now I find myself nightly kneeling, strongholds and principles violently peeling and there's a line in the sand

Loyalty and love went hand-in-hand, our romance was a candyland, full of golden flecks like the river panned, like shining flakes in schnapps

As soon as the cap from your canister pops, it's like time stands still, it's like the world stops, that first precious inhale and my heartbeat DROPS, pounding ever so shallowly

Nicking my throat , blood does occur, as I swallowed what we finally were, turning my song voice into a guttural purr, inside it's not my heart that's astir, but a teeming, insatiable thirst

For the one that I have come to put first, the one that threatens to make my lungs burst, the one that pollutes the breath against which my lips are pursed and there's no lights in the mist

I'm balled as tightly as a fist, wrap the leather around the wrist, tightly now before I'm missed, before aerosol takes me away

You're more than my habit, you're the only way, you're the light at the end, you're the bright of new day, you're everything I wish I could say, you're all I want to consume

… But with you in my heart, there is no more room

And so, AGAIN, another sleepless night, system suspended in fight or flight, medication- be they heavy or light -I CAN’T SHUT MY EYES

Through my mind sprint unhelpful lies, “You’re at cliff’s edge; JUMP - take the dive of all dives…” MINE is one of the indifferent lives: it won’t matter if it shall sustain

I don’t even CARE about the pain, the ‘feeling’ of such is meaningless, it’s inane, to disappear would be of zero loss or gain, it would be just an empty space

And this is not to say it’s a terrible place… It is FILLED with beauty, it is draped in LACE, but to locate an area, to obtain complace is unfailingly my particular war

There was a time in which I believed in the elsewhere and otherworldly only MY mind conceived, now, mentally, I bleeeeed, I seethe… red and fire consume my thoughts

Across my vision dance the absence of color shaded dots and inside my chest long-dead importance still ROTS, but atop my lap, loyalty feels, listens, and shares thoughts; a commiserating tiny beast

Five attributes are expressing the LEAST…

“Purr, purr, purrrrrr…” remains a creature comfort for me even IN this as I see frigid, rouge, dark black sea, she’s returned to me- Dub -time and timelessly -a familiar and true friend

I couldn’t care less of your opinion, though over animals, man has dominion, I love her so, I wouldn’t trade a dollar, a thousand, a billion… she has BEEN

From the needful kit to the fearless hunter she is now, if I could GUESS- she has made a vow -critter or not, I’ll ALWAYS give her a bow- to my feline, I appreciated you then and, oh, how I LOVE you NOW

Though I’m here, it doesn’t matter that I write my poems nakedly. It doesn’t matter AT ALL. Even WHEN amplified, it appears my style resonates with NO ONE.. Sure, sure… I’ll get an eye here… heart there, and- MAKE ABSOLUTELY NO MISTAKE -this is not even about THAT. This is about connection. I KNOW I am NOT the only one, that I do not exist in this particular manner alone; there ARE others who are… mm… horned. Yes. Call us “horned”. Be it one or two… horned. And the horn is our weapon, used to maim, but more frequently, to protect. Because we have hearts in need of protection as they are open, sympathetic, empathetic, understanding… hearts that HAVE been there. Sometimes, but of course, we use them for brutality and, SOMETIMES- ADMITTEDLY -that usage and that violence feels, to me, like home. Like my horn and I were designed for no other purpose than to simply disassemble, to annihilate, others. With words, surely, I WILL EVISCERATE. Naturally, there is someone out there who is “bigger and badder” than I, BUT, STILL, I CAN HURT YOU. I don’t want to hurt you. I plead with you, do trust me, I do not WANT to hurt you. Don’t corral me. DO NOT CORNER ME. You don’t have to accept me. But, I do require respect. If you like my work based on superficial, vapid motives… Nahh. Move on. If you listen based on true identification, sincere connection…? Yes:), kindred spirit, I will shiningly call you ‘friend’. Because misery loves company, selfishly or not… And because certain animals can smell the SICK and we tend to run in packs. If you are lone and that fact is a detriment to you, I’m here. Just know… I identify. I connect.

And valor should not be present in what is designed to be most intimate, it should not be an option, a thought, or even remnant, it should be a thing nonexistent

As connections should not be wars, should not be cuts, should not be sores - attachments should NOT be competitions; who can cause the most turmoil and who can keep those fictitious scores

But the snow fell just as white there, though far from my fingertips and people came in and others went out, in simultaneous reddened drips - try as I might, I could not keep the trembling from my lips as my head SPLIT APART, my stomach concave, and it was all I gave, to simply, SIMPLY RESTART

RESTART the part at which I fell, telling secret thoughts and feelings no one should ever tell, to professionals whose aim was to guide me to hell and after the dust settled, I was no more than SHELL

And what do you DO with emotional emptiness..?

When vacant, you still writhe with painful restlessness; to take a deep breath is utter uselessness

I still TRY-

And, OH, do I TRY to let the undercut and disrespect fly lightly by, to let the hushed whispers become their perpetual lie, I TRIED!! I TRIED!! I TRIED… I TRIED!!

But inside another piece of me dreadfully DIED

George was the protecting evergreen of my formative years… My refuge. Within the occurrences- the shifts in which my momma wasn’t MY. MOMMA. I would run to George, book in little hand, and climb to his height of heights- where the setting sun still shone -to escape. All it would take was a single LOOK from MY momma who so very suddenly was NOT MY momma dearest; Jean. She was something else… MOTHER. Jean had a tendency to alter at no profectical, and perfectly patternless whim. She was unapologetically HERSELF: momma, protector, caregiver, eccentric friend… She was LOVE, its very self- MAGIC. Until…

Suddenly- and, oh, so SUDDENLY -Jean, my momma, was gone. She was replaced by something alien: cold, disconnected, an enemy… danger: MOTHER. I knew then to make my swift retreat, being of no mental or emotional match for MOTHER, ohhh, no, no, NO. She never laid so much as a violent pinky on me as MOTHER OR as my beloved momma. This was a developmental discrepency. So… Knowing not what to do to save myself, my run-to was an Evergreen tree I, for whatEVER reason, dubbed George. I knew MOTHER was currently NOT momma and would not search for me, because she was elsewhere, let alone even climb a tree at that point in ‘her’ life… So I had found comfort in an Evergreen, sunlight, and literary escape. Ah, she- momma -would return, without discernable rhyme or reason. She would just be BACK, as though nothing had ever even happened. I, to this day, can recall the eyes that somehow were quickly not HERS, but were adopted by something else. I, too, fondly- HOWEVER, ENTIRELY BROKEN HEARTEDLY - remember momma: OUR MOMMA- The woman who taught me LOVE and the one who taught me what love is not.

And when the head begins to SPLIT- I KNOW SHE IS COMING

Running, charging, an animal yet gunning; before me, after me- MYSELF -crafty, cunning

I am ME, but so is she, fractured, counterparts, ALTERS

But who was born and who made from scorn is where our cut mind falters

Because impossible to tell, who came from hell, and who now belongs to Him

As she is me as I am her, and sanity once thick, lies slim

Before I wake, when sleep does take, I FEEL her more then see-

In our dreams, by any means, the one who ISN’T, but IS, indeed, ME

Weeping and gnashing, tears, cuts, and gashing, we, NO-

I

AM

RIPPING

APART

Because, of COURSE, it’s JUST me in MY mindful occupancy; simply one being- NO MORE

But if THAT’S the truth, WHO is the sleuth that plagues ME with visions; BLOOD AND GORE

Opal to onyx - velvet to chronics, and I can’t see anymore

And what will today bring…? Too cold or too early to hear the birds sing- even IF they did, would their melody incite or ring any memory, any recall, of ANY joyous thing..?

Would he be overcome with flashings mental of dear mother or could instead he be assaulted by what favors her, yet is other..? Waiting, oh, just waiting, for the reunion with his aquatic-hued brother, the red one sits… A stoic, through and through- through yet another-

Day composed of monotony, torture, beyond missing; longing, pining… Avoiding the mirror, and the pictures, so dear, running far from the reminding

But it more than seems that even within his dreams, they

Are

EV-

ERYWHERE

Even if he pulled his own heart from his very chest, he couldn’t circumvent the emotions that dwell there

She wrote of loss, but didn’t even come close- HER pain paling so minimally beside this… Not even a shadow to drift behind his trail of blood, even the elixir couldn’t fix: Mother’s kiss

So he trudges along, murderous rage breeding within, writhing, yearning to be set free, wondering solemnly, sullenly, solidly; “Can ANYone, at all, AT ALL, AT ALL!

EVEN

SEE

ME…?!”

When we speak of pain, it’s an absolute JOKE- it’s a stubbed toe, it is the needle’s poke

His is the constant stabbing of the torrid fire stoke, the femur that compounded, and through the flesh, broke

And he’s COLD…

Not outwardly, but intrinsically COLD- 37, yet thousands and thousands of years old, HE is the story still screaming to be told, but he STANDS

The remaining pillar that his sister demands, capable and calloused from what work commands melding with malice and love; strong and gentle, fatherly hands

He is two-toned, in more ways than one, and he has been so since the day he had begun;

Those who belong to him, he keeps from coming completely undone

But some words of warning to the ones who cross:

RUN, RABBITS, RUN

This is a slow burn and my eyelids are heavy, having fought for so long.. Wounds of ANY variation are, to me, everlasting, gaping, weeping. Each and every avenue seemingly leads me to a dead end; concrete walls and no weapons. So I exist, physically unarmed, trudging along, prayers the only communication in which I engage. I don't cry, I don't scream for reprieve- I don't make so much as a conversational peep anymore. An internal dialogue is all I have, stretching thinly between us. IT'S ENOUGH. Enough to carry me through each day. Enough to protect me through each night. It is MORE than enough. It is the ONLY thing I can trust, unabashed. I am reliant upon a sole person and He doesn't leave me… He doesn't abandon me. He never HAS. He never WILL. And though His love is not contingent upon what I can GIVE Him materialistically, through this life AND eternally, I OWE HIM ALL. All that I was. All that I am. All that I will become. Because in Him, I am a creature, anew. Still, though… Something wicked this way comes, bringing with it a subtle ache.. But He is my anchor against it and I fear no wind nor wave. I AM FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE. And I am not afraid.

Loss is an unnervingly acute and unforgiving, sharp edge that doesn't dull. It slashed me wide and I LEAK, leaving behind long vermilion trails of who I was BEFORE as I trudge with avolition straight by what used to 'matter', through the ticking time, only occupying space.

Because- AND MAKE NO MISTAKE -that's what and very simply ALL I, as a freshly eviscerated structure, am equipped to do now. OCCUPY SPACE. The hopes, wishes, and wants- what was true and had 'matter' - that I had held BEFORE have become fraudulent. They are now the ideas of what happiness, fulfillment, and love mean according to others ENTIRELY, according to WHOMever said WHATever the most eloquently, the most realistically, that I regurgitate with bulemic ease when I'm asked just what precisely ARE the things that I desire. There IS no desire, so I recite dreams stolen from the uncut people. I try to blend in, but my appetites for what once sustained me, what had fueled LIVING, have mutated into inorganic cravings that are only fractionally, if even AT ALL, sated by A) what swims within the deep, heavy, pining dark and B) materials conceived and born after Minds chained to lucidity by a combination of tolerance and boredom marry Visions of neoteric synthesis.

...And they're all cloaked in a pristine white...

Even my RESPIRATION is artificial, unreal in both its soft, steady sound AND its vitalizing purpose. I barely even exist anymore. The WHOLE of actuality- everything that had been REAL and FULL to me -was categorically emptied the very second loss struck and the only things of 'matter' NOW are poisoning what's left of me...

Inside, I am anhedonic in presence, mimicking humanity. I am a flightless mocking bird echoing emotion. I am a counterfeit, illegal personality. I am the aftermath of loss.