Before you were here

I was lost in a spiral

Of counterfeit friends

Never the real deal

'Til you proved I'm worth something

Surprised me with gifts

Gave me the courage

To be me and have a voice

That nearly matched yours

Helped me recognize

I was no longer alone

Never forgotten

No need for a requiem of the life I once led,

You breathed new meaning into a world I thought dead.

One day I want to ask.

What is it you have against others?

Why are you personally offended by a colour?

Do you use that tone with your mother?

Does your world really break because of other people's lovers?

You were always on the wrong side of history, circling like vultures, the side where the grass was only greener because they rolled out a carpet and called it horticulture.

We don't talk anymore. Not that we ever did much to begin.

Your own fragile life calling everyone else beacons of sin.

Do you really think this is what your God wanted? Hate and destruction and abhorrence flaunted?

Please give me a break, you're not high and righteous. You're starting a fight just to fight against justice.

My memories of school are foggy at best, but we were taught Canon law and let me tell you a jest. The Church believed in tradition, father and son, they also favoured striking down barbaric laws in favour of new ones.

Things change with the times. Get your head out of the clouds. The world is not yours to control, it's ours to turn around.

What happened to peace? Do you miss the war? Calling poor women and children your whores?

You don't need a voice if you ignore those of others. You don't get a choice if it means everyone else's are smothered.

We don't talk anymore. But maybe we should. Maybe if someone set you straight, it would actually do you some good.

In overgrown gardens lost to eternity, we wait. We wait to grow old with the mountains and then wish we were young again.

Walking by cemeteries, the evening chill is just the wind. If it's something more, it's not like we'll ever know. We never know a lot of things.

Where is the merriment, the wonder, the drive? We're waiting to grow old, but we've lost something along the way and it's a long walk back.

The tree is now taller than the house. We climb to the top, yet only see the bottom between the swaying branches, and we sway along with it.

We sit around the campfire and regale each other with stories and tales that fail to mesmerize anymore, because they're only stories and are turning grey as the flames die out with the voices.

Where are the embers to grasp onto as they float into the night? Where is the spark we used to know so well? We'll never be young again, it just won't be the same... until we find out... where did the magic go?

Roses are red,

Smurfs are blue,

I'm somehow shorter than them,

Less than five foot two...

He was a merman,

Tried to drag me into the sea,

Only one problem,

Can't swim for the life of me.

He took me to dinner,

I guess sushi wasn't the best choice,

Suppose I'm just not a winner,

And I think a witch stole his voice.

We have little in common,

Not just my lack of a tail,

Next time I'll date the navyman,

About time we set sail.

Quiet is the world where all hope is lost. It's tossed about upon the waves, rocking back and forth, strength wavering until it finally veers off course and crashes into the rocks. Shattered, it falls into millions of pieces at the bottom of the ocean where no one dares go to retrieve its broken bones. All hope is lost when that one word tumbles from their mouth, so silent at first until it strikes with an unearthly fury against the sensitive ears of a lost and rattled soul.

I was hoping for a yes. Is that so much to ask? Down on one knee, lying vulnerable to the public eye. The trees were swaying peacefully, rocking back and forth and back and forth. I was swaying too, adrift in a memory, a daze that held my heart ever closer to theirs. Voice quavering with each and every syllable, I let all passion do the talking for me.

The birds swooped down to get a better look and sang a little hymn to set the mood. Passers-by dropped their mundane tasks and took a moment of their precious time to gawk. Their precious time, wasted. Thrown away like broken glass or the scattered shards of my blackened heart.

I was begging for a yes. Is that really so much to ask as they left me to rot, leaves swirling about as the wind picked up and carried my dreams away? Crushed. Sitting silently on the ground as my skin rippled and shook and I clutched tight to my weary mind as I rocked, back and forth and back and forth.

Night falls and darkness obscures the only sunshine I had left in my life. I whisper to the moon that I might just remain here forever, perched on one knee and waiting... Waiting for the clock to mark the time where that one little word no longer burns against my sorry spirit as I sit here, rocking back and forth... and back and forth.

I'm not sure if they were real...

The memories collided in my mind, sliding over each other and sweeping back and forth, becoming nothing more than lost and twisted recollections that haunted the edge of my dreams.

Yet I saw the soft lines of their face, the glistening tears in their eyes that could have been blue or brown or even grey. I couldn't really tell through the flames... Leaping up at me from below, crawling down from above, blistering heat searing into my face and singing my hair as screams rang out from below.

Then the stranger appeared in the haze, donning a mask of amber and sulphur fire. The only things visible were his eyes... and the shadows dancing across his gaunt, sunken cheeks. He reached his hand out toward me as a violent cough escaped my throat and I made a weak attempt to meet him halfway through the blaze.

Collapsing to my knees in front of him, he placed a hand on my shoulder. The ridges of his bones clawed into me, as if they were protruding from his skin. It... it was freezing. His hands were clammy, void of heat or warm blood. I'm not sure if the feeling should have been a welcomed relief to my heat-stricken body or a new obstacle to fear. But I could still look into his sunken eyes and they told me I was safe. Soon the roaring scene of destruction blinked out around me as the darkness swallowed me into its clutches, the stranger's hand still cold against my back.

Then chills raced across my body and ice seemed to course through my veins as I realized I had awoken in a hospital bed, the lemon fresh scent of Lysol invading my fevered thoughts. I couldn't remember if he was real. The scars etched into my skin from the blaze were real. The charred sweater next to my bed was real. And death is something that is very real. Had I met Death as a stranger parting ways? And had he decided, that just maybe we'd meet some other day...?

I'll be remembered in history,

Dying in fame,

All of the weary,

Will all know my Name.

Yet death is a blind man,

Corrupted by men,

Doesn't distinguish,

And doesn't know when...

...A man may be innocent,

Not guilty of crime,

Only lost and confused,

Wrong place and wrong time.

Grief-Stricken with sorrow,

Hovering over the scene,

No hope of tomorrow,

But my hands were clean.

Sirens wailing about,

My hands drenched in red,

Beginning to shout,

T'was not blood I shed.

And I glanced upon the limp body below,

Only her and the angels would know,

Death was not to be my maker.

Hell is where another will go.

In time.

But not me.

No.

Soon,

I will break myself free.

Where the world is quiet,

Where I'd hoped I'd never go.

Where the ground is silent,

Where I live below.

The wanderers, the lost,

Stay with me if you may,

For in time, we will forget,

The tragedy that day.

For I wish upon my grave,

For I wish it were not true,

Come home, come home, come back to me,

I wish to be with you.

But I can't.

I can never go home,

Yet I can never leave.

Where be the heart,

Where be those who grieve?

So I close the curtains,

I hide out of sight,

You wait for my enemy,

I wait for what's right.

Though fire and brimstone may wait down below,

Just know that I loved you short while ago.

Yet obviously you did not love me.

Left without choice,

For I'm all alone.

Deprived of my voice,

A woman of stone.

I light the fire,

I make it spread,

Rise higher and higher,

O'er my enemies' bed.

Vengeance may be my sweet fruit from Hell,

Yet I shall have comfort to know where you dwell.

In the fields of the lost, the tortured, the damned,

If only you'd loved me, I'd give you a hand.

But my enemy was worth more to you,

And now you know,

Enemies can be made anew...

Thus we fall together.