Sunday morn, skies that mourned,

wrinkled blankets, undone laundry,

notes that piled, lectures paused,

plates and bowls, last night meals.

Seasons changes, fall and rains,

falling apart, piece by piece.

Save me, please, screamed to the skies,

begged and hurt, lone in a crowd.

Deep inside, something changed,

life felt different, so did I.

What once was, what now is,

what would be, all blurred in one.

Barely human, days all same,

can't be machine, feelings clawed.

Bewitched in a maze, no way out,

dark that stayed, lights that frayed.

Would I leave, this game of hurt,

or would I stay, forever and frail?

Shall I try, when all things fail,

or just let go, as fate may plead?

But I will wake, to another day,

for dawn may break, and the sun may rise,

birds may sing, and the rains may pour,

nights may fall, and the cold may creep.

I will wake to another day.

It is not the rain.

It is not a deep well, or

anything else dark or dank.

It is not ash and flame.

It is green spring with unacknowledged birdsong,

applause for someone staring into space,

flawless sentences misconstrued,

love that doesn’t count.

It is habitual coffee, untasted,

a once-beloved book, unremembered,

a birthday text, unanswered,

perpetually waiting,

untrusted and feared.

I sit and I stare at the screen on my desk

and I watch as my friends make their posts;

my thoughts are awash with great story ideas

but for now, they’re elusive as ghosts.

I long for the days when I cavorted on Prose,

and great poetry spilled from my head,

but I bought this new wireless keyboard and mouse

and all the damned batteries are dead!

At midnight

when

I cannot sleep

and thoughts run

dark

and wild

and deep

and tears

inside

I cannot keep

and death

to me

seems

oh so sweet

as knife-like

pain

tears through

my heart

and rips

and tears

my soul

apart

and fills

the cracks

with angst

and woe

for actions

taken

long ago

I ask

and pray

and beg

and plead

God hear

these words

of them

take heed:

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray thee lord my soul to keep

If I should die before I wake

I pray thee Lord my soul to take --

which leads

to existential doubt

and many-layered

apprehension

does God exist

or is He just

a figment

of imagination

does it even

really matter

if there is

a something after

if who we are

will never know

what really is

above

below

till we are dust

or ash

or mist

at one

with what

is infinite..

such are

the thoughts

my mind

does weave

at midnight

when

I cannot sleep.

I don't usually tell folks about my own private Hell, and I had no intention of doing so here, despite the invitation, but a second invitation from LilEnigma has also arisen--something about vulnerability... about trust. What kind of horrible things have we donein our lives--which kind of lends itself to a type of private Hell. So why not? I'd often heard about "the gates of Hell," but I always figured the term to be sort of... fantastical. As it turns out, there actually is a gate to Hell just outside of Poughkeepsie.

Poughkeepsie-- all my life, I'd never known, or considered, for that matter, how to spell it. Strange though, the moment you see it, you know how to pronounce it, regardless of its many letters, and regardless of how one might think it would be spelled. I got stuck staring at it-- Poughkeepsie. I stared at it so long that there developed little faint white rings on some of the keys of my otherwise black keyboard--a tell-tale sign of someone who has found one of the gates.

There's divided highway east of town called Haight Avenue, which turns into Manchester Road coming through Arlington-- three lanes of traffic headed either direction. Officially, it's simply, Highway 55. About three miles east, you can take an exit onto a plain, two-lane road, Old Manchester Road, which immediately turns into Titusville Road beginning at the bridge over Wappinger Creek, then leads south into, you guessed it... Titusville.

The gate of Hell, to which I refer, is located almost exactly halfway across the 181-foot bridge over Wappinger Creek. In June of 2016, I stood on the edge of that bridge and decided to jump.

I did not. Instead, my phone rang, and it was someone saying they wanted to publish my book. The gates of Hell would have to wait.

Telling you about the gate is the easy part. I've done that so many times that it's begun to become numb. No, the intriguing part of this exercise is the vulnerability... the trust. So, let's try this.

In 2012, Kendall was 17, Ashley was 9, and their mother would harm me physically if I revealed her age at the time. Danielle. Danni. I had recently published (self-published) The Second Rape of Doctor Emily Pershing. Life was good-- damn good. Our family had been on a quest, seeking out information regarding Danni's birth mother, as she had been adopted as an infant and had decided to find out as much as possible about her past. We found out a lot. A lot.

The love was thick, heavy, wonderful. The proverbial cup had runneth over. We decided to share the story-- share the love, so to speak. Danni, Kendall, and I shared as much as we could remember, and the majority of it was handed down from Danni's mother, and a beautiful friend whom we desperately wished we could meet. The crux of this thing-- the book-- was that sacrifices were made in order to give Danni life, and in turn, give life to her daughters, creating every beautiful thing which filled the cup.

As much as I wanted to believe the story was well-prepared and researched and presented, I have come to accept that there is something missing. The reviews have been as exceptional as they have been rare. To my knowledge, fewer than ten people have ever read the thing. Call it what you will, the simple fact is... it's a failure.

On March 4, 2016, Danni's impossibly adorable brother, Percy, had treated the girls to a road trip to visit my parents, who had moved to New York for reasons that I still cannot fathom. One of our family quirks was that, whenever we saw something while traveling which made any of us wonder, "What is that?" or "Where does that road go?" we'd head off to solve the puzzle. I imagine, someone must have thought, "Why do they call it 'Manchester Road?'" Then they convinced Uncle Percy to exit on Old Manchester Road, to confirm whether or not Manchester truly existed.

A moving truck lost a wheel-- an entire wheel-- while crossing westbound on the bridge over Wappinger Creek, causing the driver to lose control and cross over into the eastbound lane. Percy, Danni, 21-year-old Kendall, and 13-year-old Ashley were hit, head-on, bouncing their minivan up and over the guard rail and into the creek, killing everyone inside.

My heart damn near chokes me when I think about how I used to joke that life was going to suck when Ashley turned thirteen. I thought she'd be such a tremendous pain-in-the-butt, so head-strong and argumentative. I thought she'd be impossible.

She wasn't. She wasn't. Dear God in Heaven, she was absolutely perfect!

I've found salt formations to be remarkably resilient. How they last under constant abuse is beyond me. The only thing which seems to break them down, other than some type of cleaning agent which I haven't the heart to employ, is the very thing which created them. And here I am, having once again, added more droplets, which will eventually dry, the salt crystalizing, reinforcing the little white rings.

The publisher who called about the book was complete BS-- wanted me to spend hundreds of dollars to have them redesign the cover, proofread it, and put absolutely zero effort into advertising it anywhere other than where it's already easily found... and that's the hard part: the vulnerability. Sacrifices were made, lives were uprooted, hell, lives were lost in order to ensure just the possibility of Danni's existence. Her life was made possible, Danni's children's lives were made possible, and I was, by far, the greatest beneficiary of those lives... and now they're gone. All there is, to demonstrate the awesome selflessness of the people and the extraordinary beauty of the sacrifices made, is this story--my contribution, my effort-- and as I stood on the edge of that bridge and stared into mouth of the gates of Hell, it was my greatest, most profound and contemptible regret, in this cruel life, to have known that in that effort, I had failed them. All of them. It's as if none of them were ever here.

And neither am I.

I learned the horrors of prescience at the very moment I discovered I was gifted with it.

She was a childhood friend, a year younger. There happened to be a pause in our rambunctious play, a pause just long enough, and our play just close enough, that we accidentally found ourselves looking into one another’s eyes. Being children, the staring itself became the game; exploring each other’s souls inside them, daring ourselves to venture deeper while at the same time being revealed. We passed that point where one laughs to hide their discomfort, or looks away, and we continued even longer, her winded breath so close that I could feel it on my chin, and on my moistened lips. It was then that I saw who she really and truly was, and she me. And it was then that I knew.

“You are going to die.” I whispered.

“I know.”

“What will you do?”

She answered the only way a child could answer when the question is so fearsome as death. “Hide.”

When I left her that day I never saw my childhood friend again.

“Robert?” My mother called from the foyer. “Alicia’s parents can’t find her. Do you know where she is?”

“No Momma,” I lied.

But it did find her, even where we had so carefully hidden her; inside that big old trunk down in her basement, covered between the musty old clothes and things, the heavy cedar top closed and latched.

There’d been death in my friend’s eyes that day. There is no hiding from that.

These hands, she fills them.

Delicate china,

held by the bull.

Hummingbird feathers

and hollow scrimshaw

decorate the labyrinth,

But she remains unbroken,

bending, instead,

lifting, pulling, pushing us

ever skyward.

The burden too heavy,

clouds too far,

slipping grips and crushing

weights, I fell and I'm fallen.

She moves up,

she moves on,

and I mourn.

I will welcome my Theseus.

Where did they go? Mother's red eyes and Father's rueful glance –

under harsh lights, their helpless looks harken broken romance.

Life's dream ebbs

like silken webs,

gone as if by chance.

What is this place? No life or touch, old sets of memories –

gossamer echoes of times long past, sweet host of reveries...

But all before

I knew the score

of my life's treasury.

Time does not pass. It's come to rest. No sun or darkened sky –

watch the moments, both joy and shame, and all fool's hope gone by.

I am outside.

I am apart.

No effort here to try.

Emotions come and then expire, but envy lingers here –

jealous of he who lived my life and never knew to care.

He stood inside,

with angst and pride,

and let love disappear.

I can't abide. I cannot look. Exhaustion. Endless pain –

imprisoned death, unmoved so long that I forget his name.

I only hate

his laggard youth.

Ignorance, you are my shame.

when you fell asleep at my house,

i traced my finger down your cheek

over the freckles sprinkled across your face

over your hidden dimples

over your sweet cherry lips

i leaned down,

feeling your breath on my cheek

your soft lips parted

and it took all i had

not to kiss you.

because we're just friends,

you and i,

we braid each others hair

sleepover every other day

whisper velvet secrets

but you smell so sweet

and when i look into your eyes,

i forget to breathe

your dimples

were they left by the deep kiss of an angel?

at school when you run to him

and he kisses you

you look at him with your soft doe eyes

i clench my fists

my fingernails dig into my skin

until they draw blood

you're so cruel

when will you realize?

that you torture me

with your smile

and

your

dimples

There are so many people in here but not enough room,

there is an empty trash can too, but no trash bags or a broom.

Someone put their coke cans in the sink

and now the small room begins to stink.

I hear an awful song in my head that appears to be stuck on repeat

and I'll be damned- someone just turned up the heat!

It's hot and humid and spiders are crawling up the wall

I do not like this room so much, I'm not fond of it at all.

There are bingo numbers never called and cake that's never made

As I come to realize this, my smile begins to fade.

Sitting next to a talkative Know-it-all

I get what I believe is a spam robo call-

All of this has happened before my day even begins,

I cannot help but wonder what fresh hell I'm in.