I wonder if you ever loved me -

Not that it matters now.

It’s funny the things that your mind thinks

Before it begins to shut down.

All I need is one more sleep

My eyes are tired and weighted.

It seems that my dreams are the only

Things in my life that still can be celebrated.

I’m jaded. Everything’s broken and tense-

And tents give such little shelter

When your heart is feeling so cold inside

What I would give just to once again swelter-

Melting away in the summer sun

The joys that the warm weather provides.

But the summer can’t ever feel actual

When it can’t warm my heart inside.

Deprived of all love and loathing,

All feelings are feeling forgot.

What a dream it would be to feel something

Be it wonderful, pleasant, or not.

But this nothingness I cannot take

This void that begs to be fed.

If nothing is all that I ever will feel,

There’s no point, for I’m already dead.

Instead of living this empty life

Where the living and dead co-exist,

It’s time to put an end to my strife

And pray that I won’t be missed

I swallowed my choice -

Too late to turn back

I can feel my stomach churning.

Drift away from the noise

Let it all fade to black.

Try my best to ignore the burning.

This yearning inside is begging me, stop.

But the tiredness still grows greatly

A smile, goodbye, it’s my time to fly

And see what dreams still await me.

waving the end of the emptiness

Usher in the new beliefs

Feeling just so lost in this.

The pain stifled underneath

Rip it out with disordered strength

Drive me from my knees

Feel something while the times still bent

Rid me far of this disease

Look away, don’t look at me

I don’t want you to know-

Feeling is ever sold and cheap

And you have front seats to the show.

You know that there’s so much more to me

Than what your iron heart will bare.

When days do end and I fall asleep

Do you wish I was still there?

Do you care or is that a wishful thought

That the monkey’s paw grasps tight?

To spare love where it’s sparse and naught

Is that selfish, wrong, or right?

To invite someone to the pain

Where heartache and darkness slumber

To only say they loved in vain

Still forever enchained to each other

Alone and depressed

Help me out of this mess.

The light I beseech so brightly

Can only shine

If your words do incline

And you stop holding it all so tightly.

The dark bravery of the moat -

The bracing winter melts.

The wide eyed smile of the boat

As it licks and sticks on felt.

Feelings feeling starch

Loose and blowing in the rocks

Crashing ships drawing cheering crowds

Who splinter and eat the docks.

Standing still while dancing,

Music to my tears.

Don’t you see the coral prancing?

And stinging in my ears.

My, the years have sped so slow

Time marches into the wall

Never to be stopped or go.

Catch the wind that breaks your fall.

Smacks to the left side stern

Drive the sword into the switch

What has been stolen, has been earned

Line down and flavor the itch.

I stop to look at stars.

No matter where I am,

No matter where I’ve been.

The sky lends us all her mysteries;

A sneak peek into the other side.

The sprawling unknown that no human mind

Can ever fathom or pretend to understand.

I look at the stars and I remember we are

Just grains of sand, beached on a blue marble

Lost in an ocean of leviathans.

Try as we may, we’ll never

see the strings that tie us all together:

From here to andromeda

to Greater Places unknown.

Racing toward the Great Attractor where

We will all be once again formed as one.

Smashing and colliding

Weaving and subsidizing.

Until the pressure builds so greatly

Our bubble will burst with a big bang

Scattering the shreds of us across the abyss.

Nothing more than energy,

Designed to be recycled.

And new civilizations will build

And think that they’re unique.

And wonder what it all means.

Maybe they’ll look at the stars too

And see what I see.

I can’t write

In darkness,

The absence of light.

I can’t think, breathe, or otherwise exist

In the places that the light has missed.

Too many terrors come flying together

Seeking to leave me scarred forever.

You mean you didn’t see her??

How could you not?!

She’s right over there!

No, she’s moved to another spot.

There! Can’t you see her,

Bent all twisted in the night?

Her hands are reaching for you!

Quickly, turn on the light!

Whew! That was a close one

You almost made the plummet

Into her land of twisted reality,

So I had to save you from it.

Be wary of the shadows!

The light cannot reach over there.

In ’tween spots, her fellows

Wait for the chance

Your guard is down

Then they advance

Creeping ever closer, but

You’re blissfully unaware.

But I see them!

I see them!

Huddled in the black

They’re waiting in the darkness

Every time you turn your back.

I see them! I see them!

Hiding in the halls.

Lurking in the closets,

Scraping at the walls.

Begging to be unleashed

The moment you look away.

They feed on your every agony,

Discomfort, and dismay.

In the darkness, they steep,

Growing ever stronger

Every time you fall asleep.

I don’t know why they all seem to have

this aversion to the light.

The brightness seems to drain them,

Yet recharging every night.

Oh God, you don’t believe me!

The insanity unleashed!

So I must face the night alone,

Every time you are asleep.

She’s back again, I see her,

Standing in the kitchen.

A light to obliterate the night,

But still, another vision:

She’s under the table now!

I see her watching me!

Glaring with the deadest eyes,

Dear God! How does she see?!

Those hands...aren’t human hands,

Knuckles cracking as she beckons.

No! Stay away from me!

The hours turned to seconds.

Hurry! I scurry to turn on all the lamps

Send her away before she gets closer.

I will not give her another chance.

An hour til dawn,

night is almost over.

Outside, I now can hear the

roaring booms of thunder.

The lightning sizzling against the sky,

The storm seeks to pull everything under.

The booms,

the rain pelting hard against the roof

She’s watching me from the hallway,

With a stare both hungry and aloof.

Then a grin so wide,

I can see her rotting teeth.

Why is she smiling

So wildly at me?

Our eyes meet,

I will not turn my back.

Still staring at me,

I hear a sudden crack.

Tears in my eyes as I realize

The power’s gone out and

everything’s gone black.

Too late to fight,

not enough light.

I feel her breath against my neck.

The darkness suffocating me,

tasting me,

Leaving me hollow, meeting with death.

Here you appear, to check on me

Armed with a flash of light.

“Why?” I say. I grin: “I’m fine!

Wow that beam is bright!”

I wrap my hand around your hand,

Kiss upon your head.

Knuckles cracking as I reach the door:

“Come on, let’s go to bed.”

I look upon the barren waste

To which I seem to be surrounded.

It has the left the most polarizing taste,

Of feeling both victorious and confounded.

I remember the glistening city

That used to stand tall, now diminished.

So it all seems to be oh so fitting

To say everything‘s undone and finished.

I wished that it didn’t have to be this way,

Words have lost all meaning.

Can’t someone take me back to the day

When the buildings still stood, gleaming?

I leaned into books and gleaned what I could

To learn about time travel

To rewind the clocks before I would

Cause everything to unravel.

Back to the times when things made sense

And decisions were my own.

To drive my own knight into the sea of light,

To the place that I called my home.

But alas, the past

is like ash

on a cigarette,

Begging to be flicked.

Try and try, but even a fool could bet

That it can never be relit.

I only find me in this misery

It’s a home I gladly share alone,

Rather than with those I love,

Where happiness is so far flown

Away, away, don’t come near

The annihilation is contagious.

The vibration that I’ve come to fear

Is both boring and outrageous.

This humming, buzzing, is coming from me

It destroys everything it touches.

If I could voice it, I’d finally be free-

Free from its outer clutches.

But it is lodged within my soul

Forever to remain, devilishly divine.

The rumbling that could turn a city of gold

To a worthless, abandoned mine.

Dare you still to journey near?

Then do not blame me, hence

The wicked rage’s head should rear

And come to my defense.

Oh please spare the agony—

Spear the righteous trends.

Bow down to the air you breathe.

Say goodbye to all your friends.

Say so long to all your enemies.

A fond farewell to lovers.

Maybe we could’ve beaten this,

If we’d learned how to treat each other.

If only neighbor had been neighborly,

And stranger had been friend;

We could’ve saved humanity

But instead we’re facing the end.

So much time was wasted and lost,

Looking at gender and wealth and skin.

If only we had realized the cost

Of dividing by land and religion.

It was hate that made us create it:

The virus in our labs.

We didn’t realize when we made it

That there’d be no taking it back.

We didn’t realize how fast it would spread,

And all the lives that it would take.

We finally see it now that everyone’s dead:

Epidemics don’t discriminate.

Hickory dickory dock

The man looked at the clock

“When the clock strikes 12”

He thought to himself

“I will murder my wife with a rock.”

Hickory dickory deep

His wife was fast asleep

The man watched the clock

And grabbed for the rock

This secret forever he’ll keep.

Hickory dickory deeper.

His wife had been a cheater.

She really should’ve known

When she left him alone

That no one else could keep her.

Hickory dickory closer.

The deadline is almost over.

As the minute passed nine,

The man felt just fine

And thought of the ways he could pose her.

.......

Hickory dickory “Please!”

The mailman screamed for the police.

The woman was dead

With a rock in her head.

The mailman fell down on his knees.

Hickory dickory miser.

He almost didn’t recognize her.

His lover was there

Body full bare

Oh, how he had prized her.

Hickory dickory dock.

The husband now brandished a glock.

Two shots from the dark

The gun met its mark

Hickory dickory dock.

A seamstress of the emptiness

The brokenness and vast

Loneliness, to the times we missed

And wish we could take back.

A breath of golden stitching

Knotted tightly in forced loops.

The caress of the old and itching,

Where hate and darkness stoops.

This wonton existence, sewn together

Through dark and closeted means,

Bring forth the wave of souls endeavored

To harsh and broken dreams.

“Not I” you say, wallowing about;

Sunbathed in all your pity.

If tears and fears created hurricanes

You’d bog down and drown this city.

You owe your debt to the seamstress too-

Everyone has come and paid.

You think she’d let the worst of you,

Leave the fine to be mislaid?

You say that you’re fine,

The Earth knows that you’re not.

The moon and the stars, they speak.

The seamstress sews a crooked line

And the creatures and planets weep.

Unspoken words left searing,

burning into my soul.

The end I fear is nearing,

still learning to grow old.

With all that is endearing,

turning me from my goal

My eyes can’t help the tearing,

yearning not to fold.

Yearning not to fold, again.

God oh God when will this end?

This ungodliness that I’m living in

Driving forces seek to mend.

Or rather the forces seek to break-

Break me softer from my mind

Bottled up, they take and take

Draining me faster of my time

Time. My only valuable source,

And I spend and spend and spend.

Wasting away on frivolities,

driven means without an end.

I contend there’s heavier crosses to bear

Swollen and shattered together

Judging I’m no worse for the wear

I have faith that things will get better.

Or never. Or not. Who am I to guess?

At the end of it all

can I look at myself

And claim I did my best?

Did I lay to rest the times forsaken

Will it all just be forgot?

Will I find an end to this mess?

The losses I’ve taken?

So may it be claimed-

Or not?