my Biggest

Fear

That I

Will Have

to Kill

Again

& Again

the Seer

Said

There Were

Wolves

Parading

As Men

& I

Was Him

you See

the Taste

was Acquired

In

the Kennels

the Pen

Where

They Taught

you

the Value

of Sin

& Size

Did Not

Matter

On Wit

you Lived

& the

Only

Win

Was Standing

Out Side

Bars

That

Did Not

Bend

That my

Friend

Is Fear

#B27321

You say don't fight fire with fire

But I can't help it

I am fire

Like white ash,

I look harmless,

But burn the the touch.

My fire always burns,

It's all I have to keep me warm,

Don't tell me not to fight,

Don't tell me what to do,

'Cause just like fire,

I don't listen.

I stand in the doorway of the plane looking down

I'm so high up

I can't see anything but clouds

No cars

No people

No buildings

Nothing

The wind whips around me

It pushes me forward a bit, and I stumble

I catch myself on the door

The wind whips harder, begging me to jump

I look down again

My hands gripping the pole next to me

My knuckles white against the silvery metal

I shakily stand up

Let go of the pole

Secure my parachute

And I jump into the oblivion

Smooshed behind those purple bruises,

From torn, ravaged skin it oozes.

It's so red, so sticky, so hot!

Soon, it becomes my only thought.

My head is thick and my knees are weak.

That's just what happens when creatures leak.

Stupid.

Ridiculous.

Sissy.

Do they know, this fear is my shame?

I engulf souls

I have an insatiable hunger

I project ghosts

Imaginations in your mind

I am that strange noise

Tickling the window

I make children shiver

Even when it's not cold

---

But I often cry and cry

And you are my only solace

The only arms wiping away my tears

When I am embraced by you

I dissolve into the salty dampness

that is my pillow

Thinking that if anyone askes

I'd say I sleep-drool

Then I realize,

I am not afraid of darkness

But the demons within me.

Terror hovers in wings dangling threat -

evil schemes to intensify all my fears.

Terror convulses with laughter as he designs

a convoluted plan to combine my aversions.

First, he introduces me to a skyscraper summit

takes me to edge and makes me look down.

Then, he drags me to the glass elevator

hanging from the cable on the building outside.

After that, Terror suggests the crowded arena

so many pushing people, I quiver like jello

But the final thing that does me in

Terror induces me to submit to an MRI

Terror laughs wickedly as he finishes me off!

She stands there waiting

Waiting for that moment

That moment when she can shine

That moment when she'll sing the song of my failure

She weighs me down

With the weight of failure

Waiting for that one moment where I fail

That one moment I don't reach my standards

She causes the guilt

The guilt of failure

The guilt of letting people down

The guilt of letting myself down

Ribald wit stirs

In her wake, with her 

Peach ripe beauty. Call her

Not a friend, for she allows

not solace, or compassion. 

Make her an accomplice 

in every Dirty deed, we 

make no excuses

For shrewish behaviour. 

Take a pause

Suspended skeletal 

Curtain call

With each fawning 

Reflection upon

The nymph-laden pool.

She walks with a heavy burden 

She walks alone

For a while that burden kept her company

Now there is nothing 

She fears she does not know how to do this new life

She searches for something to fill the hole 

She fears she is taking too long, she fears she will always be empty

she fears the outside, the people, the ticking hours, the inability to know what she wants

She fears but it is not necessary

She did not know an angel had always been with her whispering

Do not fear, you are not alone, walk with me

The king of the abyss

writes me

like he writes his daughter.

He casts his silver mandates

to me,

hoping I'll be like my father.

He thinks of me in greens,

but he washes me in reds

so I pretend that

I'm not bothered

when he wants me

in his bed.

The king of the abyss

poisoned

my wine every night.

Drew from my spine

the nectar

with which he treated 

all his bites.

And while he tended to his wound,

with the moon against my back,

I slipped and scurried out the castle doors

and deep into the night.