Reflexia.

It burst into flames on a summer night as the girl went on as if everything was alright. A car on a field with gasoline on every inch erases evidence and memories of anything that was to exist. She sits in her room in a castle in a sky, looks at her mirror and begins to ask why.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s forsaken me most of all?”

“You, my dear,” the mirror smiles, “believe in fate and your honor will thrive.”

Shaken, forsaken, the little girl cries. She stares out her window and watches flames take the fire from her eyes. Burning from the inside, the little girl dies.

She lives in flesh, dies in wounds. Gave herself confidence in the world she doesn’t know.

I am the mirror, the reflection of you, ask me a question and it will deflect you.

She turned on herself on that summers eve, someone grabbed her wrist and pulled up her sleeve. She was lost in youth, lacked creativity but not self-doubt, dug herself a grave so deep not even a ladder could get her out.

The measure of faith shallowed by lack of love, for herself the mirror gave an answer enough.

King's Tithe.

The lion is king, the earth is tithe. There’s a problem with poetry, nothing but rhymes. He has a mane full of gold, chasing birds that are in the silver lining of the clouds.

The lion chases, he pounces on fear. King of the land, the earth is his maiden. Fueling his strength, claiming his years, undoubtedly the center of suicides each year. Stuck on the ground, there is prey. Crawling and hiding, praying for hope of life, but flesh is weak and the prey, meek. No chance for life, although hope remains, because the earth has sacrificed itself for the world of the lion’s mane.

There are pretty little birds, they can still fly away. Blinded, backdoors, using wings to proclaim youthful flight. Those who can fly, fly away, shaking the fear of the king’s powerful pride.

Without the tithe, without demise, art vanishes into less than light.
Earth to eh, death is my life.

Smocks.

We’re sick and we mock, we play with the smocks that we wore during our younger art phase. Creativity and no doubts, throw paint at its mouth, as if to make words colorful like they uniquely can be. Innocent, so true. Naïve, confused.

Such sweet sadness when love is lost of a creative mind with the thoughts of changing the world and climbing mountaintops.

What happens when the world shapes the mind, like the swirls on that chair, clouded out by a sponge with white paint? Covering the yellow base, masking hazardous optimism, emphasizing the green and the pink, envy and misfortune, youth like innocence and a child-like personality. You are mauled by the bear of the mind, the bear of the world, the bricks from the sky.

They fall on your shoulders, shaping your height, destroying your posture, initiating fright. Capability crafted with a smock tied at waist, creativity capable of painting earthquakes. They rock and they tear leaving the world in despair because the fault type strike-slipping and destroying.

See the clarity?
It is not there.

Because the darkness of past defines the present layer.

There was a child in a smock, painting a chair. Colorful and bright, unaware of truth, of the meanings of colors and what the world had to share. You made a coat rack, I made a chair, sponged with swirls, the color of your hair. I won a prize, but was sadly dissatisfied, comparison became the thief of joy.

We’re sick.
We mock.

Done playing with smocks.
That innocence, untrue.
Naïve, abused.

Checkmate.

We’re playing a game, a game of chess, you, a shadow, and I. But you are me, and I am you, so how can we three be playing a game for two? I hear you scream, you look at me, my face showing nothing but an open mouth and greed.

There is greed for the world, of a screwed up place, to account for belongings and no one’s mistakes. There is greed for death, for burial underground, for a resting place in the peaceful dark.

You are white, you make the first move. Pawn to f3, I move mine to e5. Strategy wins, anticipating moves, I know nothing about chess although there is another part of my mind that does. It knows clevers, it is sharp, yet it does not know about the dark. Time has faded into ash, the absence of light came all too fast. There is greed for the game, to checkmate the opposer, but to know that no one else could win you over. There is greed for the life that the you part of the mind knows, of what you feel, of how you’ve grown. The me part stuck in a solemn abyss, not worth all it has gained.

The shadow, contradicting, a black mark, stain, playing as innocent white in a game. It chose, behind our back, the pawn of irreproachable nature, perceived less likely of attack. The shadow is there, hitting time, hearing me scream out of your mouth.

From the arch of a shadow hidden on the wall a whispered, “checkmate,” makes our skin crawl. Strategy wins, because he knew it all. Knew the moves and smarts, all from being a flower on the wall. Watching, perceiving, greedy of life, of being able to walk on two feet and feel alive.

We played a game with life, we played a game with the night. We played with a shadow on the wall, you and I, we lost it all.

... Checkmate.

War of the Bleeding Bird.

A war is fought between white and red, Kings and Queens, their armies and steeds. White for purity, red for blood. Who will win-- the answer fluxed in your head. But since we’re all birds, we all think the same. So what is the answer, fire-like flame?

I am red, you are white. I am not the bird, I am lost in flight. Floating high, flying free, the birds migrate without me. Stuck in a box, a cage you might say, a bluejay came to set it free. But flight without wings is exemplary of a stupid bird, one that will fall to the ground and bleed on the floor. It will leave stain on your fresh new heart, motive resembling cries for help, laying alone in the dark.

If one bird bleeds, don’t the others bleed too? Haunted by feelings that feel so new. There is no virtue, there is no refrain, because the ability to stop is masked by the choice to be uncontained. Out of control, out of the mind, mentally insane, words must rhyme. They rhyme as a tune, a piece of art, skin matched with skin, grave matched with scar.

“War will commence,” the Majesty screams, "It will continue until there are no more spots for bodies to lay. Fight to the grave, fight with the mind, fight using weapons, fight by smarts. Two sides, the pure and the stained, only one can win, only one can remain."

What is the answer, who will win? Tell me, tell me, mind’s fire-like flame.

Flux and die slowly like a combination of patience and stabbed heart, you just lay there and die, unsteady as feather dart. Haunted by the masses of those deceased, the war breaks people who were nowhere near becoming a beast. It creates a monster, the battle of red and white, the Kings and Queens dictate decisions from the start. No one can run, no one can hide, no one can escape the feelings thought to be resigned. There is a war, a complicated set, disillusion of majestic innocence and what’s bled.

Shells.

We’re shells, we meld, we break and we grow. We move across sand to find another home. We move into a new resting place to overcome being alone. But being a shell does not mean they’re all the same because they are so very different, they are all that remains. They are fossils, ancient artifacts, dug up by the future, placed in glass boxes to last.

Hidden Monsters.

I’m not a demon, this is not my shell. Fighting, raging, fierceness within. Let me go, unleash the monster, he’s already out straight from inside. I’m radioactive, watch me blow. Disassemble the world, surprise the crowd, cannot be contained, biochemicals.

Push you down, out of control, heart racing, mind blown. I resist me, you release me.

With me there’s a monster, he’s fighting for life, suppression of the past, making him weak. I expand, he contracts, busting seams, gigantic revolt.

We fight and we fight, but she is fierce. A lion, a tiger, a bear-- amiss. None of these can mark the monster inside, but a scorpion will, darkness’s sidekick.

Firecracker, spitfire, raging, fighting, confused, rhyming, laying, dying. Inside me, inside you, are you going to let it show? Death by chemical, inhale poison, exhale love. This isn’t lust, this isn’t revolt.

In my bones, bass and beats, overtaking the mind, showing monsters, redness. Fast asleep, hurting from burns, brutal and crying, this monster’s myself. Lethal and lonesome, its motives that match mine, with hopes and aspirations crushed by societal design.

Painted red, seeing red, feeling red, drawing red. Looking down, the monster feels. It’s feeding on memories that should not have been. Pushing for revolution.

Music dies, the clock lies, we’ve stopped in time and I’m stuck below. Floating high, breaking free, the monster, again, no longer hidden within me.

Beatdown.

Barns burning, bullies and beatdowns, the things you have done to me. Scars tell a story but you are not there, fresh wounds don’t appear, in my mind they just tear. Crazy, forgotten, the thoughts I can’t bear. I left you, you left me, nude with no care.

Lonesome Hearts.

Screw the ones with the lonesome hearts because manipulation is at its finest during dark. We talk and we pray, converse and persuade, but the darkness reclaims the light.

She lives in a place where the darkness can’t reach, so far in a fairytale even I cannot beat. A fairytale somewhere too far for us to find, she closes her eyes, sees a dark paradise. Lonesome, so lonely, heart left so sad, a wonderland mistaken for a crude old man.

“The King, he reigns,” all the followers say, “The King, he is grand, we have to obey.”

Thought to be kindness, the King holds his own. Vivacious? No, his heart left oh so alone. Just as the lady is stuck in her land, the King holds his crown, sinking into quicksand.

Lonesome hearts are misleading, they really want love, but go to find it in ways that ache and disrupt. Hate to the fate that misleads you this way, but it is your darkness, not mine, that leaves bitter tastes.

So screw the ones with lonesome hearts, because manipulation is its finest at dark. Manipulate minds, manipulate me, my dear, my dear, oh how I shall flee. Create a place, a grand fairytale, with kings and queens and mad hatters, I will. To drink tea all day, mistake madness for wits, shrink and grow tall, play croquet with misfits. Battles and lovers, viridity unclaimed, I create fairytales of beliefs, not manipulation games.

Leave lonesome hearts alone in the dark because darling, they are not my thing. So we’ll sit and we’ll pout, let’s cry tears and self doubt, all for your little childish craves.

Chalk Outline.

Jane Doe number one, Jane Doe number two. Anonymous was all she wanted to be. Dead to the world, lost through love, cold and blue, lack of blood running through. Craving the need to be unknown, dying in her mind to not end up like you; you’re just like me.

Worlds collide in her mind, but no face can be placed on who was left in the chalk outline. Keep returning to the scene of the crime, the battles of the two fight, they lie. Crossed and beaten, cursed and cut, shattered and forgotten, they cannot rhyme. Two as one, or maybe one as two, a constant battle waiting for reign over Jane Doe’s mind. Concept of anonymity, lost in transit, unknown doesn’t exist, the world certainly bans it. Left behind a chalk outline of who she used to be, but the rain washed it away, almost immediately.

Jane Doe is me, Jane Doe is you. Fight and win or fight and lose, being anonymous is up to you.