i. we are walking outside and

suddenly you put your arms around me,

as if to suffocate me lightly,

laughing off-key and wearing

khaki shorts. I know I should want this,

for all this time it’s what I’ve wanted,

but the sun is too bright (is that music playing?)

this isn’t you

and I wake up in a cold sweat

ii. the night before I leave for my leadership camp

I see myself stepping downstairs only to find you

wearing a leather jacket and a v-neck,

having a casual conversation with my parents.

I tell you I have to leave and you

envelop me in a lukewarm hug (is that cologne?)

this isn’t you either

I wake, indifferent

iii. I tell you I love you one night, as we are

sitting in class, and you scream at me: all types of

hurtful things, things I’m sure you’d never say,

this cannot be you.

(but how did my subconscious make it seem so real?)

you exit, carrying stormclouds behind you

I wake to the pattering of rain

iv. we are alone in my room and everything is so hazy,

I've lost my glasses and I can’t think straight, your face

drifts in and out of my vision. I accidentally trip you

and cannot stop apologizing, I join you on the floor,

and for the first time ever I touch your bruised face, gently.

it comes back into focus,

this is really you.

you lean forward and barely brush your lips to mine,

and suddenly my eyes fill with tears, it still aches.

(how do I express to you that this is what I want?)

I whisper one last sorry and immediately you answer,

in your voice and no one else’s, it’s okay.

I wake up still feeling your kiss,

half-expecting to see you laying next to me,

forever awaiting your return.

A body

Starves.

Yet, there is food.

A body-

Tried.

Yet, it has not moved.

A body-

Living.

Yet, in solitude.

A body-

Frail.

Yet, can’t step on a scale.

A body-

Trapped.

Yet, in it’s own mind.

A body-

Waiting.

Yet, doesn’t know the time.

A body-

Hungry.

Yet, too weak to cry.

A body-

Longing.

To disappear.

A body-

Existing.

In constant fear.

A Body-

Anybody-Nobody...

~Benz

Copyright © 2019

5/5/19

i dont know where i am

only that he's here

and i've never wanted this before

but i want to hold his hand

and i want to feel his hand in mine

and we walk

to where

we are in a shop

and i don't know why

and he gestures to the window

a display is set up

a message displayed

and i want to be

with him

so we look through the shop at

the necklaces

and things

and they go on forever

it seems

and he's gone

no

hes waiting

and i'm still looking

and deciding

i dont know

and he says nothing

and he's here but

far

and i'm looking i'm looking

why can't

i

make

up

my

mind

and i find one

i touch a necklace and it's

a tiny coffin on a delicate chain

black coffin

the lid slides open and

music drifts out

sounds eerie sounds

but i like it

and it smells

funny

but i finally can tell him

i've made up my mind

a large man blocks the aisle

not that one he says

and its too expensive so

i put it back

and i keep on

looking

and i don't stop

i just keep

on

looking

Until the morning sun wakes me up.

According to the Prophet Joel in the last days young men will see visions, children will prophesy, old men will dream dreams.

I belong to the young men/women. This is the last days. No we are almost in the end of the end days.

A few years ago.

or more than a decade ago I had this dream that my friends and I together with ofher geoup of youths were wearing a full soldier armor the ancient ones, the gladiator type of armor. We were fighting with enemies not the physical enemies but spirits. Some dropped parts of their armor, while I dropped my sword. It is the word of God, and almost dropped my shield which is faith. Then in the dream we are winning but then the Commander approached me to fasten my armor from my helmet down to my shoes.

-=-=-=-=-

In year 2011 around (October 30-Nov.2)

I was kneeling down praying. I see my cou try from above a bird's eye view. I was not able to see some part of it in the south it was dark and clouded I can't name the province. The speaker on stage was seeing exactly what I'm seeing he mentioned the place that is clouded. He call for a prayer for the place from its residence.

I dunno what they did. December that same year the place was destroyed and devastated by storms, flash floods and landslide. Hundreds died.

-=-=-=-=-

A few years ago I had a dream the same dream where I was wearing my armor. This time it was different. I was literally on fire. I was caught up in fire but it was not burning me.

I was so scared I woke up.

Last few weeks I had the same dream.

I was caught up in the fire. I was so scared but then the fire isn't consuming me.

Not even burning my clothes.

A week later I was in a conference.

The speaker talked about the consuming fire of God. He told us he'd seen himself caught up in fire that is not hurting him.

Then I realized it was the fire that cleanse not consume to hurt.

My dreams may be vivid, but they're also limited in several ways:

1) I never remember or get to the ending

2) There's usually a random reference I can point out from the previous day

3) They're either weird, random jumbles of images or they're professionally produced horror films

The good news is the production value of my nightmares actually renders them less scary, since part of me understands that visual graphics this good can't be real. Yet it also leaves deep-rooted and disturbing visuals in my head that I remember for years.

My production team's credits include:

- The Dumb Killer : In which a conspiring couple who own a remodeled bed and breakfast use the old dumb waiter to ascend in costume and frighten their guests away....until the dumb waiter suddenly starts to move on its own towards them

- The Imp : In which a party-goer walking along the cobblestones of a dark, lamplit street sees a shadow scurrying underneath the parked cars and begins to run - chased by a squat, red imp with a razor sharp grin, rushing under their feet and cackling in the night

- The Cannibal Cruise : In which a cruise ship floats adrift at sea, not a living soul on board except for one deceptively young girl in a blood-stained dress and several large, putrid oil drums filled with leftover human fat and gristle she could not manage to digest

- The Bomb : In which our hero finds themself tied up in the trunk of a moving car, struggling to escape, when a buzzer starts going off along with a blinking red light on the box stored next to them (hint: my alarm pulled me out of this one)

- The Caves : In which our Scooby-Doo style investigators search an old shack overlooking a resort, only to discover a hidden system of caves below along with an old map outlining how to navigate the tunnels and avoid the mysterious beast within (Interesting note: My partner had nearly the exact same dream that night, except their team started inside the caves and spent hours finding a way out, only to end up in an old abandoned shack)

The butterfly, ebbs then flows. The arms punched holes in the cocoon. Feeling freedom, long last, she’d been incubating for a century at least, gathering all the powers from her world of shadows, and learning persuasion in imperfect shapes around her. She emerges, blood on her lips. And she bestows me with a kiss. “With this, see all things hidden from your feeble vision, and spend eternity in a minute.′ I fall, and awake in a tomb. And as I squirm around, I flinch, bruise up against the stone, it aches my bones, and there’s something else, this strange protrusion from my back. I touch what are silk feathers. I strut them, flex them, instinctively I turn into a moth. I flutter out the crevice in the tomb. And I meet her. “Dear sister, now I am not alone.”

When I was younger I would get a reacuring nightmare. This nightmare included both of my parents, my two brothers, my dog, my cat, and me. When I would get into the nightmare it would be in a restraunt like Jungle Gym, but super big. My family and I were all spread out while the jaguar would get run around. By the end of the dream I would end up watching some of my family get hurt. At the end I died everytime, but it was a different way each time. So my childhood nightmares were scary backthen so yay.

               It is like the sun coming through a stained glass window.  This light upon his closed eyelids.  As within this deep illumination Dave moves his point of concentration to find interesting geometric patterns shape-shifting only—  no—  what is truly interesting—  what really compels is more the area around them, the ever-changing color spectrum—  not so much the crystalline images themselves—  although these, too, splashing and morphing and diming and glowing and pulsing with themes mirroring those coinciding with, becoming concurrent with the music—  patterns if more compressed, if more geometric—  like classic Media Player visualizations—  but rather the degrees of luminous darkness which surround them—  Dave noting how they seemingly breathe, emerge from recesses incredibly deep to become lighter darknesses—  patterns of rich and deep emerald-greens receding to return as noctiluca amidst the peals of laughter—  the natural gravitational weight of obumbration—  deep sea creatures of his consciousness phosphor- and bioluminescent in bursts erratic gelling, working to make of things an eerie underwater blue fissured with a network of lines stark like bolts of lightning crackling not white but black as fissures spidering across some first century fresco.  Alert, Dave feels at ease.  And he registers his condition, his state of being, as pleasant.  Funny.  Pleasantly funny.  Amusing and so pleasing to consider.  And all the more so for not demanding of him the requisite energy necessary to laugh. 

               Although there is someone laughing—   

I wake in the empty blackness, which slowly lightens just enough that I can see. A large hall stretches before me, seemingly endless.

I am asleep, but a part of my mind remains awake. My guide speaks to me, and I hear him clearly.

“Tell me anything you find.” he says.

So I do. I mention something every once in a while- the grey, Victorian-era style of the walls. The crystal chandeliers that hand from the ceiling. The dark red rug that stretches the entire length of the hall. The stillness in the cool air. It is raining outside.

The doors.

To my right is a red door, my left, a yellow. Further beyond the yellow is a dark blue door made with golden trim. Beyond that is a silver door. All are made of wood.

The red red door is glowing. My guide says it is dangerous. It glows so brightly that I can see it even with my eyes closed. It hurts. I turn away.

Next is the blue door. It seems warm, but I do not go to it, as much as I want to. The silver door is cold, but something drives me to open it. I do not make this choice for myself.

Inside the room is a fireplace, off to the right. The room appears to be a den of some sort. In front of me is a desk, covered in papers. I see writing on the pages, but when I go to them, the words vanish. There is a window next to the desk. I can see the rain.

I turn to see a space on the wall that should hold a door, but it is empty. It even lacks the gold trims that the rest of the room has.

I glance back at the papers again, and I see the words have returned, but I know they will only disappear if I approach them again.

Something is wrong. The temperature is wrong. I am next to a fire, yet it radiates cold.

I look back at the empty space. I cannot see Him, yet He is there. I know His name immediately, but I may not speak it. I do not dare. Such an action will only make a demon stronger, after all. He is not the only one, but the others have yet to bother me. For now, it is only Him.

Panic begins to seize me. The walls are closing in, they must be. I must escape. The rain feels louder than before. I try to run to the door, to leave this nightmare, but I stumble, and nearly fall. He is here. He is coming for me.

I finally make it back to the hall. In the instant I look back down that endlmess hall, I see Him, and the world inverts.

Darkness.

For a moment I float in empty nothingness, solitude aside from His maniacal laughter.

I was lucky that my guide, my brother, was there to save me.

(This actually happened while I was playing a game called The Doors to Your Mind.)

Playing with tarot cards is my hobby. Reading the future is a fun game -- sometimes I win, and sometimes I lose. You could say that my ESP works at about 68%. One time, a prophecy of mine actually came true.

It's the morning of October 1st, 2017. I'm getting ready for the Pride festival, and I am having a bad bout of anxiety. You know, because psychos with guns like to hunt us for being queer. I drew the worst card of the pack: The Tower. For those of you who don't know, "The Tower" brings chaos and disaster. It didn't help with my fear, but I went anyway.

The festival itself was fun! Safe, no shooters. I went to sleep believing that I was in error, that I just flubbed up and picked a card based on my own feelings.

Wrong.

It's the morning of October 2nd now. I open my eyes, wipe off the sleep crust, and turn on my phone.

"Gunman Kills 58, Wounds 400+ in Las Vegas," read the headlines. The bottom drops out of my stomach. Chaos, disaster, and death rained down from the tower that is the Mandalay Bay hotel.

Still gives me the creeps to this very day.