ptsd,

his wobbly voice

tells me one more time

and i know this is false

because i have not seen violence.

i have not witnessed body and blood

separated,

nor torched homes lighting a path

in the darkness.

i have not carried the guts of my brothers

on my back,

i have never watched fire fall

and touch every layer of every existing fiber on it.

a mild case,

and i refuse to believe it

because my pain

doesn't hurt that much.

no matter how many times

i dare myself to stare,

i have not seen the whites of death's eyes.

there is a fine line between my fears and what scares voids into men's hearts,

one i have never dared to cross.

it's different for everyone.

you're in denial.

i tell myself,

this label is yours

but i have enough dignity to know

it is not.

One, two, three

Counting the seconds until my consciousness leaves me

Four

My body shakes with every blow

Five, six

Why do you enjoy this

What did I do to deserve you

Why do I let you

Seven, eight, nine

My vision blurs and reality bends and I see bright lights and then

Ten

You hunger for my bloody demise and I hunger for your bloody satisfaction

Levi released his hands from the sides of the door and swung an accurate elbow around, catching Frank on the chin. It sent Frank stumbling back and the silenced .44 magnum that was pressing onto Levi's lower back was relieved. The long black barrel had already left a mark that would become a terrible bruise.

Frank grunted and spit teeth into his hand as Levi stood there, wide-eyed, shocked that he had hit him. The moment was suspended in the air.

“I’m sorry Frankie.”

Frank cut his eyes at Levi. He let off an inaccurate round near his head and it zipped by Levi's ear. Levi fell backward in shock, the suppressor had done very little to silence the gun.

Levi went squirming frantically into the doorway of his apartment and got up trying to shut the door quickly until Frank sent his wide body pummeling into it. At this, the open-swinging door knocked Levi's nose and sent him tumbling backwards, almost falling onto the kitchen tiles near the small sink in the studio. Frank's full-bodied bombardment through the door had caused him to fall forward onto the nearby carpet, as his head was still rattled from the brutal elbowing he received. He hit the floor and the gun stumbled off somewhere into the darkness.

The broken-nosed Levi quickly grabbed the nearest knife from the cutting board and went on stabbing the air wildly near where he thought Frank had fallen. His nose was bleeding profusely and eyes were teary. He held his face with his other hand as he swung the knife around wildly, yelling out viscerally. Neither of them had turned the light on and both of them had been blurry-eyed from their hits.

Frank heard the knife cutting the air in the dark a few feet from where he fell. He started to desperately feel around for the gun along the thin, cheap carpet.

Frank saw his silhouetted frame from the thin film of moonlight that was cast into the apartment from the door once he had stopped seeing double in the dark. He went for the light switch by the door but Levi wrapped his legs before he could get to it, hearing him try and run by, and wrestled him to the floor. They fell to the ground, Frank still reaching for the light switch but Levi holding him down and preparing to stab him from behind. Frank turned and grabbed his wrist before he could stab down the knife and they wrestled there for minutes, pitting their strength against the other.

Frank kicked up a knee to Levi's groin, sent him rolling to the side moaning in pain, and again tried to scramble to his feet to reach the light switch. Levi stuck him in the thigh before he could get up. Frank screamed out in agony and fell to the ground. The knife stuck out from his leg.

Levi was still blinded, but he tried reaching for the light switch in the darkness as Frank lay writhing on the floor still. Levi had much trouble with finding the light switch. His head was swimming, his ears were ringing, his eyes were blinded with tears, and he was on the verge of passing out with every sudden movement.

Levi took too long there pawing the walls for the light switch and Frank grabbed his legs from behind and sent him stumbling down. He shut the door, locked it, dismissed the light and gun, and proceeded to drive his fist repeatedly into Levi's throat. Rage, pain, and meth drove him madly.

Levi’s flailing attempts at knocking his hands away grew increasingly fragile with each driving fist into his throat. His eyes began to roll back and he felt the blood conjuring up near the back of his tongue. The blackness that his eyes could see was becoming sporadically interrupted by vivid memories of life; the memories flashing before him at the rhythm of Frank’s increasingly quick fists.

He first saw April’s hazel eyes wide, the morning light bathing her skin softly in the back of his hatchback by the lake. He saw her again, laughing with pieces of cake all over her face when they got a little drunk at her birthday party the previous year. He saw his father beaming with pride at his graduation ceremony, and then again on his deathbed smiling warmly three nights before he didn’t wake up. He saw his mother gardening in the back by the rose patch in her big straw hat and then his sister dancing hula at the county fair. He saw his brother on horseback in the woods on vacation in Alaska, and his niece jumping around in front of the television when her favorite cartoon was playing. Then he saw Frank when he was a young boy and they were wrestling in his aunt’s backyard. Frank started crying when Levi got a little too rough, so Levi hugged him and told him that he loved him, that he only wanted to make him tougher.

The faint blurry image that he could see of Frank above him was growing darker--not more blurry, but darker. The last thing he could remember feeling was the blood sputtering out from violent coughs in between the hits.

centuries of learned destruction

one after the other after the other

a snowball rolling down hill

it all started with just a tiny snowflake

here we all sit in today, this hour, this minute

never seen before and never seen again

there are times i want to grab the moment

i want to hold it like a lover and keep it safe

there are the times my mind

my thoughts swims backward

i walk into my 6 year old self

everything looks different

nothing is familiar or comforting

there is a tension that is palpable

in the air, a dense fog of unhappiness

my mother screaming at full volume

my dad laughing then driving away

my sister and i not even cringing

"guess we aren't having supper tonight"

we play candy land because that is fun

apologies, drunken stupors, violence, bruises

nostalgia is a bitch in red heels

violence is ugly; it is rough

violence is insolent, devious and evil,

he lured the little ones into his house

like so many before him throughout history

a death den, tortured molested maimed

and murdered the little boys one by one

sexual pervert, predator

buried them under his house

while dressed as a clown

to do his vile deeds

violence is insolent, devious and evil,

violence appears almost sublime

as when a beast stalks and kills

another beast to feed

violence benign as when the bear

that killed for starvation's sake,

berries were in short supply that winter

so that it killed and ate a human once

which by tranquilizer it was put to death

violence is rough, it is unsightly

against the grain of love

it is necessary and it is not

nature's hurricanes and her quakes

her molten lava, her polar shifts

her droughts and tsunamis

havoc wreaks

her acts are violently benign

and violently maligned,

as when mechanical forces of heat meet cold

and their aftermath of a peaceful plain

of a calm spring day

violence intrudes malevolently aligned,

as when the thief one night

broke in and pillaged;

he was about to leave the house

when caught by a young lady

she looked so fine, he laid down his sack

and pounced on her with vile attacks

her father disturbed, heard the noise

rose from his bed with a .45

and blew his brains against the wall

of that pristine home

and red upon his own, daughter's robe

an act of violence justified

No matter what you look like,race,religion, gender,or age-violence will always find a way to get you

Violence is a cold hearted action that kills the purpose of enjoying ourselves without the sense of fear

Violence consists of pedophiles, abusers,rapists,violent exlovers,sex offenders with an idea to kill kids or women due to their fucked up sexual fantasies which will end up in a coldplayed fight,murderers that are dressed to kill and bathe in their victim's blood as if they're trying to be the next O.J. Simpson or Charles Manson,terrorists who hate us for our values and beliefs, and mass murders that have no idea what are they even doing trying to hurt humanity due to the lack of common sense of the government that can't brother to promote awareness for mental health issues and instead let them buy guns without a background check ,do anything without stopping them,or if nothing was even wrong with them but just decided to act like a stupid lone wolf scorned revengeful loser and buy a $1 gasoline and use 2 matches to mark his/her revenge or maybe just mad that someone is trying to leave him/her but that scorned person kills the other person in their sleep beating,shooting,stabbing,choking,or suffocating him/her to their deaths without mercy or common sense while the other person plays the innocent person with their cunning ways until police points the truth to the alleged innocent person who inside was a mastermind of the brutal torture with/without reasoning that leaves a trail of blood which represents the last moments before they are taken by a hateful sin of murder

One of these days,we have drug traffickers who will do anything for money like they're trying to be Tony Montana but in a deadly,murderous and twisted game of life and death and sex traffickers that like to make a woman their slut,whore,b....,h.. as if they were property with no respect for a woman's value by forcing them to submit to their darkest desires to be used,tortured,and abused without knowing their purpose of freedom without playing the twisted game of survival

Violence kills all and when someone dies of any violence, we all die inside and demand more antiviolence protection from controversial killers like George Zimmerman or Jason Van Dyke who think that they can stand their ground and kill someone

Culture and society should determine how to stop the madness of blood spilling from innocent people being killed

Concentrate!

every muscle, every fiber

of his tense body

waiting, watching

ready to spring into action

perfect moment arose

sprinted up behind her

grabbed her hard

deep purple bruises

gasped in pain

fear overwhelming

threw her boldly

on the ground

raped her violently

planned by both

she knew ahead

fun and games

a big turn-on!

I still remember the gentle caresses of your fist, the soft wet gnashing of my cheek

against my crooked and made crooked teeth.

Your straight forward nature

and the sick smell of fear

that I could never shake off.

A force of nature, anger incarnate,

son of Montezuma, even Cortez

would beg for deliverance.

I could never run fast enough,

I could never run far enough,

I could never fight hard enough.

Yet I am here. Yet I am better.

Every day is my revenge,

Every night I sleep in peace.

In my memories you are a monster

but in truth, you are nothing,

rotting in the barrio where I left you.