– Disturbing Silence –

On the western facade
a plaid pattern plastered
yet, a fear to clap
stays the madness mastered

You are like
a supernova, imploding in on itself
Never as bright as
when you brought down hell

Passion stings for
filling up the mason jar
A stones throw from empty
out the heart that molds the scars

Stutter the whisper
make it hard to hear so clear
Mistake the children playing
for just a ringing in your ear

Disturbing silence keeps me
hollow and contused too
I would fear recompense
if not it had just used you

The hand clap, the stand back
the stare that saps your voice
All will be the spark
of the undoing of your choice

– Conversation and Midnight Revelation –

On the edge of the reservoir where he sits admiring, he sees her sitting in her glimmering seat, beckoning to him. He has to shield his eyes from the shimmering light. His hands burn from the reflected glare.
Nothing has shone to him in this way before.

Hello beautiful Angel.
Have you come to take me to the After Here?

She smiles that shifty eyed smile. And with electric lips she speaks within his mind.

Yes…where you will live as if you had never breathed the air of earth, and instead breathe the ethereal essence of love.

“And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky”

Her mouth moves
Four lines of my soul

There’s a new sky every new day though…
I want to be listening to what you’re listening to.

Is that in my music?
It should be.

Starry night and campfire light.
Both stand out against the rest of the faded backdrop of trees and tents.
An ember pops and jumps from the wood within the fire ring.  Laughter slowly melts into the memory.

To be sure, this is just a memory.

The steel rails underneath the worn fingertips and the white linen of the bed sheets are a mirage of reality, a sunset in the distance that never quite dips below the horizon.  He is racked by his unrelenting mind which keeps him from accepting his fate. It teems with incessant thoughts of days before and steals his now.
The memories, though, they hold tight to the backs of his eyes, demanding to be seen; this celluloid dream.

Acrid smoke lofting through.  No matter where he sits, it finds him too, like the waves find the shores.
The whisky warmth fends off the midnight breeze.  And the hooded sweatshirt helps. His voice carries above the others. They listen to him above each other.
He doesn’t realize it yet, but they look up to him.  Even those with more rings on their tree.

This is about you.
She recognizes his detriment.

The Cryptic Angel says to him

I love you
Your’e brilliant

His heart sets ablaze
Don’t make me cry…. seriously.

…and I see you
truly…. you. are. gifted. the end

He means it more than anything he’s ever said:
I need you Angel.

She knows.
I know
she says.

Always aware of his footprints in the undergrowth of the eternal path.
I’m trying to reign things in…

Dont.  Just… BE… whatever happens will happen. You may find it doesn’t satisfy like it used to. I just cant be here while you do.

I know it doesn’t satisfy Angel. I’ve already learned that.

Its not the flirting…

He: It’s the lying.

She: Yes

You’re amazing, to deal with this, Angel.

The sky is the limit with trust.

And this is where the sky opens up above him. It’s something he hasn’t noticed before, something he always thought to be myth and something he never dared to hope for the existence of within the tangible universe that he fell into.

No analyzing, no searching, no mulling it in my mind. No detective work, no wondering… is a dream.

I will prove it to you Angel.

They both know that will not happen. Not right off. But both believe in the unbelievable. Both hope for the hopelessly unreachable and stab into the infinite darkness with fingers prodding for a grip to give some hope, some hope to stave off the slope.

There IS a hero in your sky.

I’ve never had a hero
I’ve always BEEN a heroine.
I am tired of being the heroine.

I’m going to be your hero, even though every hero has his one fault, his one weakness, his Kryptonite, he always ALWAYS overcomes it.
With the help of his maiden fair.

This is a Kryptonite I’m not sure I have the strength to help fight.  I fought it for 12 incredibly long, incredibly horrible, years.

You inspire me to fight it.
He means this with all he is, all he wants to be.
I.
Will.
Not.
Lose.
You.
You’ve read my words. You’ve seen the emotion behind them, within them.
You’ve felt the truth in them.
I’m yours.
I simply have to earn you back Angel.
And, I will.

I am crying

ME TOO.

I’m scared to let you back in but I want to so bad.

That’s the correct response to what has happened baby.
You should be scared.
Because you’re scarred.
But time….

will tell.  She says.

heals.  He corrects.

And we have time.
yes we do
but it will take a lot of time; are you sure you really truly know what you’re doing?

Yes.

Walk away right now if you arent sure because I swear I will never be able to look at you again if you screw with me again.  I am beyond serious.

Nothing in the history of either soul could predict the events that follow, but without hesitation is heart blares in his ears, and bellows from his throat:

I have strong shoulders baby.
I can, and WILL, fight.

You will have to fight.  Because Im too tired to…

And in her slumber she hears him speak.

Rest, Angel.
Fold up your wings.

You’re ridiculous with your perfect words. Stop making me cry goddammit.
I’m supposed to be strong

He truly can not help himself.
Stop *making* the perfect words flow Angel.
You cause an effluence of perfection because you inspire like the greatest muse that Shakespeare ever knew.

I am no muse but I can’t deny what my brain is like when I’m channeled into yours.  Its like I can almost see the electric blue labyrinth of timelessness.

Electric blue…

A higher being doesn’t make sense to me
He admits
but holy fuck if there is one – IT got it right when it put you and I together.

Maybe we are best as midnight inspirations to each other.  These are the perfect moments.  When the world fades into the background and it’s just… us.

It’s always just us Angel, the rest of the world is our fucking playground.
Can you see the electric blue sparks jumping between our lips?

The man who can have sex simply with a kiss.  Never have I felt a mans mouth move on mine like bodies move during sex.

That is the truth of the ages.
When the world explodes and the stars die out, it will be just you and I floating together, lip to lip, finally aware of what it’s all about.

“Been lying, been crying, been prying into my soul – what I’ve found there, without a doubt without you I’m not whole”

I want to hate you.  I do.  It would be so much easier.  But dammit I am connected to you.

The Yin wants to hate the Yang.
But they need one another.

The latter just needs to realize the fault of being an island unto itself and trying to find the happy medium between what it wants and what it needs. In the end, the two are separate, and only one imparts the bliss of simple serenity by being selfless.

It is the fight against fight, the nature v nuture wall that he bashes his head against, instead of just going around. The end and the means are clear, but instinct battles against wit and he feels helpless.

Until those electric lips press and he realizes that, eventually, he’s going to want to, have to, need to, crave to, have no choice to give it all up and realize that the emptiness that he feels enveloping his fog embraced, weight-laden frame is the bleakness that seers his hope for the future…

And she is the soft rain that dampens the flame.

– Love Beneath the Mushroom Cloud –

Amidst the not quite golden brown
fields
full of wheat
They stand, basking in
Love beneath the mushroom cloud

Warming with not quite golden tan
blistered
lips of heat
clasped hands, asking when
Stardust doth sift through the shroud

Most days ready to run at the first sign of hope,
both stay, requited today, hoping for a sign

Warring teeth not white, mildewed frown
grass
crowds of blades
They walk, seeking now
their blast wave kissed with picket fence

Marring seething left, right, up, down
bloodied
roads in shades
They sulk, breaking brow
At the Majesties of Ash expense

Here is where they make their home anew
together, under mushroom cloud and caustic shrine

•journal•

We are all our own Gods.

Establishment leads your mind to believe otherwise. Business of religion needs you to believe otherwise.
As long as God is above us, not of us, powerful people will continue to use him as a crutch against us.
The folly of religion is in trying to keep minds from wandering. Any true power that earns devotion does so by allowing freedom for its followers. No one trully loved or trusted or pled allegiance to enforced beliefs, to a demand for worship.

I trust me. I believe in me.

My God is Me, for Me is the only God that takes responsibility for what happens in my life, instead of demanding blind faith and understanding if things go awry.

Therefore Me deserves the credit at the end, when everything works out the way I plan.

•journal•

It is time in my life to cease simply existing, and begin doing MORE.

Meeting someone special later in life is like beginning a great novel in the middle of the story; it is intriguing enough to continue to the end, but by the time you get there, you’re going to learn all you can about the first half… Because that is what draws you in to the story and causes you to invest in it. One can not appreciate the end without knowing where it all began.
I love the story: the drama, the heart, the triumph and the pain. These are the things that envelope me in fiction and in fact.

And I finish every story I begin. Some just mean more to me than others.

– Children of Black Cloud –

Black Cloud, spill your guts
wash out hopes incessant stain

Your children here below lay down to the mercy of your device

A plague unto themselves,
they claim your shelter…
it suffocates

Your children here below in craters dug, filling with your flood

Black Cloud, cast your pallor
light only shapes their defects

Your children face an onslaught they brought upon themselves

They hope this message finds you,
Black Cloud, in good ways
on currents meant for children meant for praise

Your children, though, here below wish to find you nowhere near no more these days.

– Concrete Reactions –

Standing over a limp body, Sam Hayes stares at the back of a shaven head, and feels the blood streaming through his veins.  The tunnel vision begins to fade, his fists unclench.  The people surrounding him on the sidewalk outside of Barnes Bar stare at him with their jaws slack.  Sam’s head swivels slow, left and right, seeing the people for the first time since he felt the push from behind.
Moments earlier as he was leaving the bar, a heavy hand pressed into the middle of his back and shoved him out into the cold.  He didn’t hesitate, spinning around with his fist already in flight.  As the knuckles of his right hand connected with the jaw of the much bigger, burly man he balled his left fist and landed a devastating punch to the right temple.  The man dropped immediately to his knees without a chance for rebuttal.  His eyes rolled back into his skull.  But Samuel Hayes never noticed.  His right fist was already dialed in to the helpless mans face.
The sound of the bridge of his nose cracking was like a tree branch snapping under the weight of heavy ice.  The mans nose exploded with a rush of red blood.  The man, unconscious, dropped forward to the pavement, his forehead splintering against the concrete sidewalk and scraped forward as the weight of his body forced itself flat.

Sam’s natural instincts tells him to run.  The cops would surely be just a shout away on this crowded downtown street.  The last thing he needs is another scrape with the police.  His rap sheet began at the age of fourteen and has continued to accrue a bevy of minor misdemeanors, with a few felonies sprinkled in for seasoning, ever since.

His feet stay in place though.

A strong arm grabs his wrist and a forearm wraps around his neck from behind, pulling him to the ground.  Sam does not resist.  His face is pushed against the sidewalk as his wrists feel the familiar cold steel wrapping around them.
The face of the unconscious man, lying just a few feet away, screams itself into his brain.  He recognizes the mans face from somewhere in the haze of the liquor-fueled night.  Clips flash through his mind:  the man toasting the group around him at the bar; singing at the top of his lungs to every classic rock song blaring from the jukebox; from down the bar, ordering the bartender to fill Sam’s shot glass, declaring that no one drinks alone on his watch.
Someone shouting the mans name.
Alex.
The mans name is Alex.

Amidst the noise of the street and crowd, Sam hears the voice of a man speaking with one of the police officers.
“Alex saw him as we were paying our tabs and said he was going to see if he wanted to come back to the house and party with us for the rest of the night.  He just wanted to make sure the guy wasn’t alone.  Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and Alex wanted that guy to have a good time tonight even if he has no one else in his life.  He just wanted to show him a good time… he just wanted to party with him… next thing I knew… fucking bastard.”  The word bastard drips with disdain.
” What kind of person…”  The voice trails off, losing itself in hate and disbelief.

Paramedics, with flashing lights, arrive.  They begin assessing Alex’s state; checking for a pulse, for breathing, for signs of consciousness.
Hesitantly, Sam asks the nearest E.M.T., “Will he be ok?”

“We don’t know yet,” the woman responds, “but you better hope so.”

The police officer lifts Sam to his feet, and forces him towards the black and white cop cruiser at the edge of the sidewalk.  The cop places a hand on top of Sam’s head and guides it into the backseat, closing the door once he is fully inside.

Sam’s eyes keep transfixed to the motionless body of the man named Alex, so big in both size and personality, who only wanted to be a friend to Sam.

As the officer gets in the drivers seat, turning the ignition, the paramedics lift Alex’s body onto the white and metal stretcher.  The paramedics strap his body onto the gurney for support, and begin wheeling him to the open doors of the ambulance.  Just as Sam feels the lurch of the cop car beginning to pull away, he takes a last glance at the face on the stretcher.

Alex’s eyelids lay half open, his mouth moving just slight as he responds to the questions from the female E.M.T.

Sam silently offers his apology, knowing that no one can hear it and that, probably, no one would care if they could.

Just Leave

A leaf, at the bank of a lake, wiggles back and forth. All she sees is the clear cool water and the green leaf resting on top, trying to float away. With the ripples and the wind, it moves left and right but never breaks free. There is nothing surrounding it, keeping it in place, yet it remains.
Young, shy, Anna sits entranced. The waves of a lake have always been a great source of solace for her. The rhythmic lapping of the waves, the sweet kiss of a breeze, and the simple pleasures that show up only when they are meant to (like today’s featured leaf) serve to calm her and clear her head, no matter how hectic the rest of her world may be.

Or how much she feels that it’s collapsing in around her.

Unhappy in her relationship, she comes here to think. Her family doesn’t understand her. She is the black sheep. So different from the rest of her family, surrounded by nature she feels finally that she fits in somewhere.

And she continues to stare at the leaf. Specks of red and yellow give life to the otherwise mundane piece of foliage. Much like her life. Bland and vanilla, with just a few bright spots here and there.

She thought she was in love once. She left him and moved on. Found someone new and tried so hard to convince herself that this is what true love feels like. He is her soul-mate, he, the day to her night; the Jim to her Pam.

But she realizes more and more now how wrong she was. His decisions are her decisions. But she never would have made the same decision that he did. Her heart is too big and full of good things to leave behind the one thing that mattered most in her life, and made her happier than she’d ever known….

A feeling like nausea hums inside her head and gut.  Realization.

That is exactly what she did.

She hangs her head.

She doesn’t cry though. That isn’t her way. Holding the pain in and sealing it in an endless pit like a timeless time capsule is her way of coping. And she is good at coping. She just sits. And watches that leaf.

The leaf that won’t move. The stubborn little leaf. Green and yellow and red glinting in the sunlight that jumps off the clear cool waters. It refuses to float away and leave her in peace.
That little bastard of a once proud family of tree canopy, swaying back and forth as if it is completely content in its world of failure and mistakes.
Goddamn that little leaf, she thinks. Just go. You can go. You have the whole lake to play on and waves abounding to ride. Go.

She can’t see underneath though. She can’t see the tiny pebble that the little leaf has marooned itself on top of, holding it there against its will. It’s like the Ark on top of a mountain after the receding of the flood. It’s just to scale. No less trapped with no way to run, no matter how badly it wants. No matter how much it may wish that the starry faced shy girl sitting on the bank would help, instead of sitting and sulking in her pathetic self-involved delusions of how her life came to be so completely fucking empty.

•journal•

I really love the winters cold, and don’t understand those that don’t.
Nothing cools me, nothing wakes me, like an open window in January.

Well, except for the beautiful girl lying next to me tonight. She sleeps like snow falls. She smells like flakes’ scent: nothing and pure and home and embrace.

I love the winter.
January, take me home.

“Nate, you suck. No, seriously…”

I write… to breathe.
This pen is my lungs; it’s ink, my oxygen.

I love feedback.  Tell me I suck ass if you think that I suck ass.
I just want to know what people think.