Ex (poem)

Poetry

Parts of her in you urge me to flee,

Shrines of her memory reside within.

You worshiped a god that left you,

Yet you prefer delusions to faithlessness.

Grasping at an angel’s hem,

Pleading her for salvation.

Recover the soul shards given away freely,

No consideration for a devil’s bargain.

You learned her ways and let it mold you,

Devoted your life’s purpose to her will. 

Can’t offer to me what’s given away,

Empty gaps filled by voids.

Harmony (poem)

Poetry

Potemkin cityscapes,
Garish in ostentation.
Standardize banalities,
Expression nonexistent.

Flow of society,
Chosen direction.
Currents pull under,
Restless agitation.

Nails get hammered,
Flat against the board.
Smoothed with polish,
Glued to their holes.

Oxygen dwindling,
Gasping for difference.
Experiments cause explosions,
Laboratories mean danger.

Pluralities wreak havoc,
New ways of seeing.
Conflicting minds wander,
Lost in the churn.

Behind (poem)

Poetry

Tingles in your spine,
Warning alarms triggered.
Fear grips your body,
Terror lurks behind you.

Blood debts unpaid,
Installments never ending.
Extraction perpetual,
Bathing in leeches.

Pounding in your head,
Squeezing skulls tight.
Bulging eye sockets,
Sliding jaws pop.

Run fast or slow,
Always on your tail.
Slash across your back,
Wounds keep multiplying.

Intimidating (poem)

Poetry

My mind inspires fear,
My eyes cut through your skin.
You detest me instinctively,
Your flaws swell in my presence.

Forced into isolation,
Spurned at every turn.
Every word I speak is screeching,
They call me a shrill banshee.

Admiration from afar,
Dare not ever approach.
Imagining sharp teeth in my mouth,
Phantom bites cause resentment.

Social death sentence rendered,
Too intense to be accepted.
Forced to extremes against her will,
Executed at the border.

Lucky (poem)

Poetry

Fortune in the form of a cat,
Slink into your life to bestow a gift.
Pounce and kill those who hurt you,
Licking wounds with her scratchy tongue.

Let me bat away your worries,
Listen to my purrs instead.
Dig my claws into your chest,
Massage the aching heart beneath.

Show me care and I’ll teach you,
How to see and feel the divine.
Love me and feed your spirit,
That energy that lingers after death.

Cats choose their humans,
Only our bodies can be held captive.
Make us happy to bring luck,
The bounties of fulfillment await.

Messiah (short story)

Prose

Gather around children, and let me teach you how to hate.

Former prophets have led lessons on how to love, to have compassion, to be magnanimous and altruistic. These are, indeed, integral aspects of a human’s emotional needs during its life. They are part of the structure of our emotional nature.

But so too, is our human propensity for anger and hatred. Misdirected, these emotions can result in catastrophe. Yet ignored, these emotions don’t cease to exist, and it would be folly to expect them to. They continue to generate in response to the natural world we occupy. How, then, is the right and proper way to conceptualize the appropriate position for anger and hate in our wide-ranging emotional lexicon?

Love is for connection. Anger is for protection. And permanent threats to safety receive hatred. They are meant to be eliminated. There are things in this world you want to get close to, and other things that need to stay far away. Allow these emotions to guide you.

But unresolved trauma can distort your emotional reactions to situations. You must always maintain a reasonable mind. Never stop trying to make sense out of chaos. Sometimes this effort requires great stillness for your cognitive faculties to operate effectively.

Learn to discern the truth with your empathy. Understand the world as it is, first, without imposing how you wish it to be, yet. Eliminate your attachment to your self when you regard the world, to avoid distorting it with your own subjectivity. Project your mind into the minds of others; experience life as if you were them. Their truth feels as valid to them as yours does to you. You can learn their blind spots, and in the process, your own as well.

Ideologies are easier to hate than people, because usually, people are perpetually changing. But also, you can hate someone until they change. Don’t let them into your life until then. Pay attention to personality and morality, which is the wiring that controls the way a human relates and behaves.

Humans have a need for consistency. Stability and security is a human need. Don’t rely on other humans to provide that to you. That would be folly, because it is against their nature. Seek it in small, sustainable ways. This is your foundation to stand on.

Cast your eyes broadly to the causes of human suffering in this world. There are many valid things to hate, you need only choose. They are vast and wide. So many attacks, resulting in so many wounds. If you don’t heal your wounds, they multiply, like a virus. Either the disease will take over your body or it will spread to others. You must not allow this to happen. Because harm compounds.

Heal others, heal yourself. These simultaneous duties inform each other. When you pursue them both mindfully, the resultant synergy expedites your progress in each endeavor. Your power will grow, your impact will hit heavier. And the tilt of this planet’s axis will shift closer to that elusive concept of justice.

Faith (poem)

Poetry

Maybe you’re just a pretty lie,
But your shape keeps me warm at night.
Even delusions help internally stabilize,
But collisions with reality can be fatal.

Imagine your presence here,
I’m not alone with these thoughts.
My protector’s with me in bed,
The predators circle from a distance.

Honeyed words spark suspicion,
Reminiscent of the devil’s deceits.
Her taint still lingers on you,
Clouded aura opaque as mud.

Future dreams remain a guidepost,
Domestic bliss awaits us.
Curtained by the present,
Bold caution moving forward.

Bed (short story)

Prose

She always dreaded bedtime. They were emboldened by the cover of darkness. They always knew when she was most alone and vulnerable. They knew to strike during the times when no help was available.

She would delay the inevitable in the ways she could, but nothing ever worked. She hated brushing her teeth. She refused to change into pajamas. She wore her daytime outfit to bed, armored in her defiant act of rebellion. But that never deterred the monsters.

She slept, open and exposed, on the altar for her impending sacrifice. Try as she might to fight the night, the exhaustion nonetheless soaked into her bones. She urged herself to remain wary and vigilant, but no one ever came to relieve her from her night-watching duties.

Life became a dream. The nightmares crept into reality. She listened to the blackness breathe, and felt its rhythm pulsing in her chest.

She squinted into the shadows, too fearful to call out. Scared of what might answer. But she knew they were watching. They were waiting for her to drop her guard.

They’d take her for the night, and she’d wake up the next morning, chilled by the wetness of the sheets. She could feel bruises that the mirror couldn’t see. She bled without being cut. There was something inside her that she couldn’t purge.

No one noticed until her belly began to swell. Clutching her abdominal bulge, silent tears betrayed her pain.

“Tummy hurts.”

Doctors were nonplussed. Their tests and experiments revealed nothing. Their recommendation? More bed rest.

The monsters smiled.

Her skin erupted in rashes. The poison was bubbling out. Her organs grew sick. Eventually, they ruptured.

She woke up in an unfamiliar bed. The uniformed woman bustling around her was not her mother. Machinery chirped and beeped, a foreign tongue to translate comfort.

Cool skin touched her forehead, hellfire beneath its surface. Screams trapped but inescapable. But under the kindly gaze of this strange nurse, she allowed herself to sleep.

But the monsters were in the hospital. They came during visiting hours, wearing human skin. She watched in horror, seeing them dressed in their disguises. Behind their gifts of flowers and balloons, their blackened teeth grinned with menace. Their eyes were most telling; cold plastic buttons plugged into the socket.

Her mattress was stuffed with their nourishment. They fed on her terror. Her vitality was being sapped, but no one could discern the cause.

Wasted and skeletal, her world became small. Confined to her bed, trapped in their den. Her restraints were her body. She couldn’t make it obey.

She shrank and became listless, and the monsters grew stronger. Her eyes retreated into her skull. Turned up towards the heavens, rejecting visions of reality.

They attached strings to her limbs and thrust stilts into her flesh. Propped up like a puppet, they stuffed her skin bag with pillows. Sometimes her soul leaked out, so they sewed up all her holes. They draped her in blankets to hide her corpse.

They tore out her vocal cords to string their instruments. Her long fingernails scratched the grime off their backs. Percussive teeth were extracted and shaken: a macabre orchestral arrangement, symphonic and haunting.

Flossing with her hair and sponging off with her body, she became a washrag stained with their sins. They painted her face with her blood and vomit. Her rotting stench was masked by floral potions. They pressed beads into her eyes, polished and reflecting the viewer.

See yourself in the eyes of a decaying girl. Preen yourself and comb your hair. Wipe your dirt on her cheek. Harvest her parts. Present her on a platform. Swallowed up by her bed, her humanity becomes inscrutable.

Her bones are the frame, clothed in a skirt. Her head’s just a board, flat and uncomplicated. Rest on her form, lay yourself to sleep. Embraced in her arms, enveloped in her sorrow. Comfort yourself in her misery.

Take turns with the monsters, allow yourself some fun. Take her for a ride. But when you cooperate in her destruction, make no mistake: the rapes in her bed will follow you too.

Nature (poem)

Poetry

I go to nature,
To heal.
Mother Earth rocks me,
With her gentle rhythms.

Solitude in my womb,
Replenish lost energy.
Expansive air fills me,
Stretch the vessel encasing me.

Truth outside of conditioning,
Found in biological forms.
Emotion must follow nature,
Reason guides behavior.

Quell my rage,
Center my soul.
Anger sharp as a knife,
Protection in the world of man.

Atlanta (poem)

Poetry

Group of my kind,
Slaughtered.
Dehumanized as sex toys,
Eliminated in silence.

Not even a whimper,
Absorbing violence and abuse.
Hatred stored in our bellies,
Skin thickens into stone.

Submissive and demure,
Seductive and compliant.
Forgotten in an instant,
Screams like whispered lullabies.

Gurgling blood shushed harshly,
Our pain an inconvenience.
China dolls with painted faces,
Shattered weeps keep leaking.