I wait patiently for a chance

for our hearts to quiver,

spasmed together.

Boldly, I want you in my life.

I stuff the sadness

of your absence

in my right front pocket,

taking it out once in a while

to ingrain you in my mind.

Is this the beginning

or the end

of our existence?

We are braided

closely together,

no matter how far

the ribbons unravel.

We both seek

the worlds in which

we are not,

wanting to tear

down the walls,

living for days

within our sanity.

Yearning, I touch

the glass window,

seeing to break

in pieces

the harsh reality

of you on the other side.

We are 50 struggling steps

beyond our time,

an allegorical street away

but there are no paths

connecting.

Striding down lonely roads

accompanied by hordes

of anxious souls,

my heart is heavy

without you

in my long tunnel

of disquiet,

a blinding haze.

I ran to hug you once

but you were only

lingering in my dreams.

The measure of distance

dashed in futility

on threatening rocks.

My body crumples

like scratch paper

without the pen

of you

inscribing our story.

I delete

my stark emotions

and slip beneath

the crying water,

wishing to embrace,

rather than imagine,

what could be

but never was.

And so, my love

we parted

before we began.

the dragon fire engulfs me

the battle to rule my brain

is driving me closer to the flames

and with every breath of ash

I am driven deeper into the dungeon 

A hound that bellows through the night

Wails a cry not wept to muffle

Her howls are only tried and trite

On the tame ear deaf to struggle

Let her sing her piercing call

Do not cease her tireless fret

Her story spirals far beyond your small

And narrow label, "just a pet"

Her eyes have shown a sorrow deep

Harrowing trials wandered through

It is for these reasons she may weep

This untold worry does accrue 

For this, she hollers into pines

A wood for miles behind your border

Her woeful scream will not resign 

Til she restores her family's order

The pain that feeds your hound dog's whine

The tale that fuels her howling

Began two weeks before the time

Your rubbish brought her prowling

She was only looking for a treat

To curb her famine and her pain

So seven children now could eat

Nurse teets and drink her milk again

She was drying to the will of nature

A starving dog without a bone

But she left those pups in way of danger

When she found your home 

And while she's grateful for your love

She only needs one hour of freedom

To find the babes she's speaking of

So that she may warm and feed them

In your fence, you jailed this hag

Good intentions were to salvage

You gave her name and bowl and tag

But left her pups to open ravage

Her bawls they answered for ten moons

Until a storm came from the skies

You scolded for those blinds she chewed

But she could not hear them from inside

And from that night, their whimpers ceased

Although she hopes to hear an echo

She will return with puppies from the trees

If for only an hour you will let go

She will race the hollows of the forest

And find their belly's growling

She will fill them full and make them nourished

Come home with babes no longer howling

But, you see...

She has not the heart to understand

Ten years have passed her bellows by

The hound cries for naught but bone and sand

A mother left in mourning til she dies

Whirling, swirling, swiftly

       Madness stranger creeps in

       planting subliminal messages

       of insanity into my mind

       the voices, the voices

       mindless masked intruder

       digging graves of no meaning

       finger hooked into my wall

       in insane dots of fractured thought.

Whirling, swirling, swiftly

       Stranger absorbs me, takes me away

       caterwauling rhymes of madness

       ebony rocks striking my face

       unpredictable fire - sweet and sour

       elevator erupting up but never stopping

       dressing me with mad sparkled wreaths

       blinks of delusion smite my eyes

       spinning, spinning out of control.

Whirling, swirling, swiftly

       nonsense words scar my festering soul

       moonlight falls out of loveless sky

       collapsing into sunken eyes of mine.

       dried up barren well, I lick my lips

       feeling nothing, locked in darkness

       heartbeat freezes, I don’t breathe

       craziness prevails as I sigh softly

       we are not so different after all.

Whirling, Swirling, Swiftly

       Insanity is earth, twisted and fractured

       marigolds marching, invading, closing ranks

       madness is genius, kicking and screaming

       bones jabbed with pain, without release

       cemented feeling encasing my blackness

       obsessed with death, don’t know where I am.

       blooms of craziness hurled by stranger

       infiltration of fogginess, flowing madness

       mind wanderer lost in struggle evermore

       out, out damned spot, blood on my hands.

The darkness has been awakened inside me

Now I stand here

A image you can no longer see

I'm the monster under your bed

I'm the hurricane

Stirring up your head

Don't be scared

I never said I was a saint

Telling you I was a angel

I never meant heaven sent

Wings of black attached to my back

My dark spirit was awakened

By sounds of the earth cracking

As my bloody red heart was jacked 

In this darkness it's my domain

I prosper in the shadows

As I make blood drip with the rain

I'm a sinner

Or

Am I a saint

Either way

You will feel the hurt as you lurk through my darkness

Don't fear me now as

I swim through your head

Tell me 

Are you intrigued yet

or 

Am I what you dread......

I feel my fingers melting

as you step out of my skin.

The mist of time

quells the spirits

speaking to my soul

through locked doors

and dusty shelves.

My heart weeps

in still of evening,

blank pages stare

back at me.

Silence decays

as I whisper your name

in roaring words

but our time has

blown away

on wings of a dove.

Heavy lids and

burdened heart

drawn on wet canvas

pages keep turning

as sun drowns

on my sea.

I’m lost inside

without you

time walks on

to cast shadows.

Love echoes

but doesn’t repeat.

If only my world

would end

with you.

Time will tell

years from now.

A beat of the heart

is timeless.

Time lost all vestiges of me

as the fog crept into the land,

icicles of my heart formed

as phantom voices crooned,

transparency embraced

the absence of reason,

negligees of evening

uncoiled in lashed warnings,

naked eyes seeing, yet unseen,

masked ghosts along mossy earth,

smoke tendrils disguising the sun,

vines of spiraled thoughts,

broken heart of wanderlust moon,

negative forces swathing my world.

Come to me and touch me I implore

but I can’t see them in smothered soup,

echo chambers silenced by apparitions of

smoke and vapors – shadowed reminders

of muted shores and unknown spirits

Oh swallow me! Oh swallow me!

I can no longer fight that which

            envelops me.

Morning, Prosers. 

This week's TBT is a Throwback to the time where @LillyZ and @DaveK wrote this beauty. Feast your eyes on this and check the bottom of the piece for the link to the beautiful infographic only on The Prose Blog. 

Sylvia Plath was born in Massachusetts in 1932 and died by suicide at the age of 30 in 1963 while living in London. While literature will always honor her as a beacon of brilliance, let us strive to be who she should have been, not who she was. The legacy of Sylvia Plath reminds us that no matter how talented we are, we are still human and prone to frailty.

Sylvia Plath was first published at the age of eight in the Boston Herald and would be published on several occasions during this time in her life. Her father also died when she was eight from complications with diabetes. His death effected her deeply, causing her to lose faith in her Christian upbringing and most likely contributed to her lifelong battle with depression. Sylvia’s first national publication was printed in the Christian Science Monitor when she was 18 years old. She attended Smith College and graduated with honors despite a brief stay in a psychiatric care facility where she received electroconvulsive shock therapy for depression. Her first suicide attempt was by taking sleeping pills and crawling under her mother’s house to die. She stayed in the crawl space for three days before being discovered. She also drove her car into a river and would eventually die from carbon monoxide poisoning with her head in the oven and wet towels at the base of the doors to keep the fumes from her children. While there is a debate on whether or not she really planned to die, an officer at the scene is quoted as saying she “had really meant to die.”

Sylvia married poet Ted Hughes only a few months after they met when she was 24. She said that he had a writing voice like “the thunder of God.” The two would separate after she learned he had been sleeping with another woman. She died six months later. After hearing the news, Hughes said in a letter that “That’s the end of my life. The rest is posthumous.” He chose the inscription on her gravestone that reads, “Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted.” Her headstone has been vandalized numerous times by admirers angered by Hughes name on the stone, attempting to scratch it out so Sylvia’s would be the only name left. When Hughes’ mistress, Assia Wevill, killed herself and their four-year old daughter, the vandalism became more frequent. Hughes has repeatedly had the stone removed for repair. Sylvia’s son, Nicholas Hughes, killed himself in 2009 after a history with depression.

Sylvia Plath advanced the genre of confessional poetry, publishing poetry collections and novels before being awarded the Pulitzer Prize after her death in 1982 for The Collected Poems. A critic said of Plath that, “The horrifying tone of her poetry underscores a depth of feeling that can be attributed to few other poets…Plath writes of the human dread of dying. Her primitive honesty and emotionalism are her strength.” In 2000, it was reported that there were more than 104 books in print about her. Though her life was brief, Sylvia Plath left a legacy that will outlive historical events 1,000 years in the making. We can only celebrate what was while we mourn untold numbers of moving words that will never be, hoping that her legacy is one that inspires future writers to see how far their words can climb while their hearts still beat.

If you want to visit this piece in all its luscious image heavy glory, visit here, now: http://blog.theprose.com/2016/06/throwback-thursday-looks-sylvia-plath/ 

Thanks once again to @DaveK and @LillyZ, both of whom you should follow on Prose if you don't already! 

Until next time, Prosers,

Prose. 

The nightmares are back.

But this time, I do not think they are going away. If anything they are getting stronger.

I can smell the cigar smoke, i can hear his laughter from behind me.

He is the wolf when i write about him, the wolf to sound as story book as possible. The wold because i want to believe it was all a make up story, some sick.. horrific, folk take that has never left my mind.

Every time i blink he is standing there under my fingers nails.

Every time i blink i see him hovering over me.

I punch and kick at him begging for someone to help me, Begging for someone to hear me.

He wont get off.

He wont get off.

im begging. screaming. scratching.

The wolf has me under his claws and stuck in between his teeth.

He was me in his trap.

I run away as fast as i can.

I dont want him to hurt me again.

Too bad the wolf is fast.

HELP.

It was only a dream.

Right?

I blink again, he is back.

The big bad wolf is here to blow my happiness down.

blow my relationship down.

Blow my life down.

But this time,

he isnt leaving.

I plead with myself

to stop talking in words

that make no sense,

raised eyebrows of delusion

as I struggle for perch

on my moon out of reach.

I sit on the brink

waiting for estranged gods

to rain darkness on my soul -

retaliation for the fight

I battle daily with myself,

waiting for the sword to fall

on my hidden thorns.

I wait for green leaves

of peace to head across

sharp rocks of violated reality

of the truths only I can see.

Intense heat of retaliation

masks my torment.

There is no room for me

in the red streams of

shameful heart as score

is settled and I bleed alone.