Dust.

Standing on a balcony a hundred feet off the ground, wipe the dust and soot from the railing onto the floor. The cold of the breeze and the sting of the metal inch under her skin like goosebumps after a warm bath. What was meant to save acts as a lure to death, standing on the balcony a hundred feet off the ground. Hands barely holding on, her cold feet widen apart by the fate of the wind.

Breathlessly falling,
breathlessly feeling,
breathlessly reaching out for dust.

The soot on the bed is from she and I, dirty minds and dirty bribes. The soot on the pillow, that is mine. The chemistry of love combined with the chemistry of the mind creates soot from the eyes that bleed onto cotton-poly blends that will never wash out. Like a tattoo on the face, it will never wash off.

By the fate of the wind, fall from balcony to grave; fall from balcony to grave and still stay still awake. The sound of strangers awaken me, their feet feeling like a colony of ants having their way with me. That light you see, that light that’s so bright, fluorescent they say? It’s blinding me. The brighter the light the darker the shadow, I see the shadow floating out to sea. I look at the balcony and raise myself up. The stronger the love the deeper the cut.

The cold of the breeze and the distance of the fall would have better ruined her than given her another chance at all. I look at the balcony and raise myself up. A shadow is watching, mimicking every move, the mind unallowing of the fates to corrupt.

Standing on the balcony, a hundred feet off the ground, there is a girl below about to drown. In a puddle of torn love and unconscious mind, I jump off and breathlessly reach out for dust.

Self-Nemesis: An Abecedarian Sonnet.

Let me breathe, let me go, let me travel to the moonbeam.
Nemesis in my head, but there is a sound—falsetto,
piercing through my ears; a cirque
reeling in my head as I run through the gleams,
turning my head to find a psychiatric guru.
Vengeance, maybe, I am caught in a willow,
excruciating pain, my vision goes awry;
zipping my jacket to save myself, a panacea
birthed from a twist of a hand. Still, I am toxic,
demure yet brash, I have no love.
Fugitive to a glamorous life, I am going,
halcyon, I will go; halcyon. I
justify myself, both of me. Let me go, let me sink.

Molten Ruins

Caution tape covers you like you are the enemy during an apocalypse.
Stay away; I will not hold back.
The raging fire of your heart swells into a volcano;
Gripping, grabbing, I am your eruption.
Contagious, your love left me in ruins.
With rugged rock you stabbed me,
liquid seeping from my heart like the molten remains of the natural disaster you are.
As you reign as queen atop your mountain of passion
My lava slips into your soul, your elevated peak,
into the visible cracks of our love—
Are you no longer in control?
I am the eruption of your gold,
The orange-red prize that your insides hold.
I will hurt you like you hurt me;
Give me your rugged rock and let your lava free.

Tale of the Typewriter

There is an old typewriter that sits on a shelf next to dusty books and burnt candles.
Untouched for years, harsh feelings linger of the sticky, temperamental ink tape.
Watching arms bend as each letter transfers from ink to paper
Its keys are like fingerprints matching to mine and I listen—
I hear the click and zip sounds as my words write themselves
Bringing me back to grandmother's house during earlier times
As I sat writing, typing, staying awake for days
Finishing a story: The Fairy in the Flower,
Celebrating a birthday and independence of childhood
Much unlike the agedness of these tacky keys.
Light green and yellowed, the stories it has created,
All the fingers it has felt and the tears that have fallen on the letters.
If the typewriter could speak, the tales it could tell...
Just like the time I sat typing in a chair making up fairy spells.

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.