Your Wall
My heart has fallen for you
Believing that I could give you my all
I was smitten at our first conversation
Speaking from behind your wall
Denise, you are so kind and beautiful
To you my heart is in thrall
But you don't know how special you are
As you stand behind your wall
I want to hold and love you
For your love I would gladly crawl
I'll be patient
Standing outside your wall
You are worth the wait
Upon your wall my love I will scrawl
My arms will always be opened
For when you come out from behind your wall
Your past doesn't matter to me
Within me love has been reinstalled
You've broadened my horizons
From behind your wall
Lullaby
As soon as it was clear no help was coming a shade of obedience flickered in his eyes. Well aware the air at this altitude sought to displace the strongest drug, his will flexed as hard as his body, and the breathing mask disappeared somewhere in snow far out of reach.
The solitude and endless waiting were gone with the cold wind that touched his still sentient skin, and he beheld them, concealed in silence of their majesty, crowned with starlight by the night, as frozen waves of some elder-world ocean, that had faded from human’s memory. They allowed nothing but to contemplate them, in an indifferent demonstration of a man’s inferiority, with their shadows being brighter then our minds and their silence louder then our cry. With each breath they blew into his body and soul their own freshness, drowning him under waves of numbness, dragging away to a different dimension no one had returned from.
Black sharp peaks only, revealed the tonnes of granite hidden under the velvet silk mantle of snow. He found himself in mysterious temples of peace, too big and ancient for him to enter, but too tempting for his heart to stay and enjoy the everlasting serenity.
Like a child to it’s mother, they aspire to touch the veil of sky. Giants, grown under wandering stars, destined by the Lord to be the thrones no one would ever ascend.
America
Fuck your 'can do' mantra
Them puking mouths
Of liver lipped hawkers
Those dry boned closers
Squawking from sidewalks
Casting unveiled glances
To the bleaches of left field
Your valley gurl antics
WTF LOL
We cry
more...more
My God what have we become?
Like totally
Like my pic
Lick my life
If I hear the word awesome
One more time
I will kill a fairy
Maybe get good with God
Before your final hour
Hell, I’ll hedge my bets
And surrender to your creed
Maybe grab a Bud and
Turn tricks
In vinyl seats
Stuck like muck
To the asshole interior
Of a Chevy Ego
Take your three hundred channels
Of high resolution
Spewing airbrushed anchormen
With their 15 minutes of shame
Hey, pin it on the timeline
Piss it on the grapevine
Of twitter and Instagram
Yeah mam!
The bar is closing
As you shuffle deck chairs
On a sinking ship
It’ll take us under
And beach us dry
We'll no doubt comply
As we are prone
To breathe it in
Bloated full throated
Plastic lips
Sucking dead air
Like a dying whore
With stage three candy crush
s w e e t
Just go
Please
Instinct
Green is good it means go.
Blue is great it means sky.
Red is bad it means foe.
Yellow means caution but try.
They are hard to read
But they're often in life
You just gotta see
Then there will be no strife
Just follow that voice
It's what you feel
It's your first choice
It's really real
All you need is you
Something you love
Maybe a Cross or two
And you can fly like a dove
Just look for the signs
Just listen for the codes
Get the right times
There's different modes
You need to link
Listen to everything
You need to think
This isn't a fling
If you can trust
If you can dream
Then you really must
Life is more than it seems.
She knew
She died without knowing I love her. She had so much pain at the end, I thought it was
selfish to tell her about my feelings as she laid there in the oncology ward, retching uncontrollably from the medicine that was to make her better.
It all started when I answered the ad for a math tutor, she was in her senior year of college and needed this class to graduate. She answered the door, and I was struck by her smile.
As we went on, I'd steal silent stares. We grew close over those weeks, we became friends too. But then she started looking like she had lost a lot of weight in those last few sessions. She had asked me to come to the doctor with her, because she was scared. She said she had a feeling she knew what it was.
So I went with her, all the while, taking in those long silent stares as much as I could. I didn't say anything then because she just needed a shoulder at that time. A hand to hold on to. And that's what I did till the end, held her hand, somehow, I felt like she knew.
A Light in the Pit
Somewhere distant, the sound of water dripped into a small pond. The ruins had been sealed shut to any human intervention for more than seven thousand years, but not sealed to the water. In time, the nearby river would wash all of it away, the recent floods threatening to accelerate the process.
Eve maneuvered carefully down the stone steps, proceeding deeper into the bowels of history with only a flashlight and a machete to cut away the roots that had followed the progress of the water.
They’d warned her not to go down there. From the locals, it was superstition; legends of a lost tribe turned to monsters, cursed to remain buried with their ill-gotten treasure until the end of time. From her colleagues, it was the instability of the region. It wasn’t just history that was in danger of washing away; it was the entire way of life of the neighboring tribes. Soon they would be uprooted from the homes they had built, forced to move further downstream, or deeper into the harsh jungle to the north. One wrong move, one slip of her foot, could start a chain reaction that would send the weathered bricks into a landslide.
But, she had to know; had to know if the faded ink on the map in her pocket was correct. Had to know that her professor, the man she had come to think of as a second father, hadn’t wasted his life chasing a myth.
She came to the bottom of the stairs, her boot splashing into water several inches deep. Perhaps the pond she’d heard wasn’t so small after all. Her flashlight blanketed the surface, small waves rippling out from where she stood. Before her stretched a long corridor, the end of which her light couldn’t reach. Yet she could see something, in the distance; another beam of light, flickering like her own.
Had one of her colleagues found a second entrance? Had they come to find her, to talk her out of her suicidal search for the artifact? She wouldn’t be dissuaded. If they’d come as far as her, then they would just have to help her, or get out of her way.
She trudged onward through the water, searching for passages that might indicate the way to the artifact. But the walls were solid, the stone unyielding despite its fragile location in the jungle.
The second light progressed towards her, at the opposite end of the corridor, but she ignored it. She was much too fascinated by the markings on the walls, the crude pictograms of the lost tribe and their vast riches. Much like the stories of local legend, the images told of the rise and fall, including their transformation into grotesque monsters. The further she progressed down the corridor, the cruder the drawings became until all that was left were smudges and claw marks. Whoever had written the story took great care to scare off grave robbers.
Her foot caught on a raised stone beneath her and she stumbled forward, her hands breaking the fall in a loud splash. Her flashlight rolled from her grasp, flickering in the water before it went out.
Waterproof, my arse, she thought. Rising back to her feet, she looked down the corridor to the light of her approaching colleague. They were still a ways off.
“My torch is out,” she called to them. “I don’t suppose I can convince you to lend me yours?”
There was no response.
Eve sighed, continuing her near-blind trudge towards the light. The water had soaked through her clothes, and the dank smell was becoming more potent as she went.
Had she been crazy to follow the professor’s map? Maybe there really was no artifact? Maybe the old man had been desperate to complete his life’s work and had simply forced a conclusion that wasn’t there.
Though she couldn’t see anything other than the approaching light, her hands still felt along the walls, felt each crevice, scratch, and dangling root. There were no branching corridors; just one long channel that led underground to some other exit on the other side. This wasn’t a storehouse, a tomb, or any ritualistic site. It was an aqueduct. She’d traveled halfway around the world to visit a stagnant aqueduct.
The only solace she took was that she didn’t have to see the disappointment on the professor’s face. He’d died thinking he’d found the discovery of a lifetime. And she could think of no better way to go.
She reached the light at the center of the corridor, though she couldn’t see who was on the other side. It shone in her eyes, a wall of darkness just behind it.
“Alright, you win,” she said. “I’ll go peacefully. Can’t blame me for trying.”
There was no response.
“Are you trying to scare me? You made your point. James? Emma? Let’s just go. We’ll head out your way.”
Still, there was no response. Then, the light winked out.
“Hey, come on! I said you won. Do you want me to apologize?”
She reached out where the light had been but caught only air. Then, the light reappeared, further down the corridor.
Eve picked up the pace, running in the direction of the light.
“Hey! I’m sorry, okay? No need to be a dick!”
Just before she reached the light, it vanished again, then reappeared out of her reach.
“This isn’t funny!”
She chased after it again and, again it drew her like a carrot on a string.
“Bugger off!” She said. “I’ll find my own way out.”
She turned to head back the way she came, but the floor gave out from under her. A loud roar echoed through the structure as stone ground against stone. She slipped and fell, careening downward until she landed with a splash.
Eve kicked and clawed her way to the surface, took several deep breaths, then swam away from the torrent, still falling from the passage above.
She found purchase on a nearby stone slab and pulled herself free of the pool.
The room around her was pitch black, leaving her with nothing but the sound of rushing water somewhere to her left. After catching her breath, she rose to her feet. There were no walls around her, so she walked in the only direction that supported her feet. Onward she went, one hand prodding into the darkness, while the other still gripped the machete.
“Hello?” She called, her voice echoing off distant walls. “Can anyone hear me?”
Something rustled nearby. She turned on it, holding up her weapon.
“Who’s there?”
Then, she saw it again, the light, across what she now realized was a cavernous room beneath the aqueduct. It looked different, or had it always had that greenish hue? It winked off, then on again, closer now.
Eve’s heart beat in her chest.
“Stay back!” She said, but the light continued to blip closer, now accompanied by sloshing steps.
“I’m armed!”
The light flickered out several feet away and the sound of footsteps ceased.
Her machete was still extended before her. Maybe whoever it was would impale themselves, or else feel the prick of it and back off.
Then the light was there, just to the right of her head.
Her eyes turned, sweat dripping down her brow, and she saw a face; twisted and hairy with eyes blacker than the ruins around them. It was there, for only a fraction of a second. Then, the light went out.