She was born in a land of sunshine

Where rainbows danced on waterfalls,

And the ocean whispered in the breeze.

She was crafted by the hands of a gentle giant,

Coffee skin and russet bark,

Two creatures in harmony.

She was the dancer and the singer,

Rolled into one,

The chords of her heart a beautiful

Melody.

Her little body,

Was a deception,

Of her titanic soul.

But the gentle giant already had one,

His own songstress mistress,

And put her on display for another to claim.

She sat untouched,

Her strings unplucked,

For months...

And then years,

Just another nick knack to ogle at.

The sunshine within her grain

Began to dim,

For her soul could not sing on its own.

But then!

Hands caressed her curves,

Snowy not earthen

But still beautiful fingers,

Made her music dance once again.

These strange hands paid her dowry,

And took her from the silence

Into the sunlight once again.

But it was only for a moment,

For soon she sat,

In the belly of a metal

Humming, beast.

There was no chance her song

Could out drone this mechanic behemoth.

She was alone again.

It was a only a short time,

Compared to the years,

Before she reunited with her milky companion.

But the land she found herself in…

Was bizarre,

With breezes baring frigid teeth,

And a strange darkness,

The sun seemed to hide in.

She had been cursed to

A never ending

Frozen night.

Her bronzed wood skin,

Felt tight,

Her strings taught.

It was like the cold was stealing

Her warmth,

Sapping memories of sunlit dreams.

She was not a creature of the artic,

And her tune

Was unmistakably altered.

But the sloshed and tipsy

Bar patrons,

And the mass of subway travelers,

Never seemed to notice,

The tin like way she sang now.

They only saw the little island mistress,

In the palm of her owner’s hand,

And placed their pennies in his cup,

Thanking him

For forcing her to dance for them too.

Only those few travelers,

From the sunlit isles,

Would hear her cry entrenched in

Her strains.

But they could not rescue

This stolen sister,

Only refuse to be one of the pennies,

In his cup.

She was but an instrument

Of her master,

Forever tamed and broken,

By the black cold.

Broken Words

Break on shores of Broken Dreams,

Grit settles into each salt water

Etched crevice.

Silence is the poison and antidote

To this torn up book.

I’ve washed down lyrics with liquor

And laughter with a draught of sorrow.

Now I sit in the sand and twiddle

My thoughts around my undecided

Eyes

Not sure whether to crinkle in

Joy

Or tears.

I let the passages of this story

Drift away on ever pulling swells.

You can be the tidal wave

On someone else’s shore.

Fuck. Me.

It finally happened, the human race truly hit the self-destruct button. But it wasn’t nuclear war or climate change that ended our pathetic saga of humanity, it was god damn zombies. Now, yes I know this is only the first day of said zombie apocalypse but FORGIVE ME for being a little over reactive to the whole zombie take over. Or as the government and world health organization is choosing to refer to it “pellis manducans pandemic.” Fancy words for skin eating, or flesh eating disease.

Yes, there are actually semi dead people, with rabies like bites waiting to turn me into one of them, shuffling around my neighborhood as I sit huddled in the storm shelter beneath my garage flooring. Not to mention there’s one of them knocking its bony arms against the outside of the trap door because it found a way into my garage and can smell me through the metal. What a day it has been.

The pandemic seemed to just explode all at once. There had been pockets of outbreaks and rumors of some weird knew strain of bird flu that was making people act like they were on bath salts. But there was little elaboration and much hush hush around the whole topic as far as the media was concerned. Then BOOM, newly dead neighbor guy from next door is peering in my window at 8am with a blood stained newspaper and suspect bits of flesh hanging from his teeth and bushy beard. Plus his left ear was just gone. There were also 20 more of my neighbors each with assorted limbs or pieces or flesh missing, now searching for their own victims.

Admittedly I’m pretty sure the skin eaters aren’t physically dead, as in their heart is still beating. But they might as well be with the necrosis and penchant for human flesh that over takes their entire being once they’ve been bit. It’s an extremely fast acting disease and it doesn’t take more than a nibble. At least that’s what I’ve been able to gain from watching a mix of disturbingly calm and extremely neurotic newscasters reporting on this subject for the last 12 hours, holed up in my little storm shelter cave. I have zero desire to test out any of what I’ve heard. At the same time, I’m not exactly sure how long I’ll be able to live in this tiny hole in the ground…

I’m also alone, which has its pluses and minuses. It means more space and a lack of a potential zombie roommate. It also means I’m going a little bit bat shit, because I have no method of contacting someone right now and verifying I’m not the only one in this literal living hell. All I have is my 13inch wireless TV I keep in the storm shelter to watch the weather updates whenever tornadoes do dine to hit nearby. So, I’ve done nothing but stare at a screen filled with the normally picture perfect plastic faces of female newscasters that now look like they’re melting, for the last 12 hours.

At least I’ve got a watch or I would have no concept of what time or honestly day it is because this dimly lit hole feels like an endless prison. But it’s only 8:00 P.M. I would typically be watching wheel of fortune right now, because even though I’m only 32 I watch TV and decorate my house like your 75 year old grandma. Don’t make fun of my pink quilts, they are warm and I will fight you. I also body build and box for fun because what the hell else am I supposed to do with my free time with no boyfriend or cats to love me (I’m allergic) and a mind-numbing banking job. So I would probably win said fight. DAMN, I am rambling a lot right now. You’ll have to forgive me. Did I mention the flesh eating monster that is still incessantly tapping on the trap door above me?

Anyway…Maybe I should try and sleep and forget about the rampant disease, death of my loved ones (there’s a few good one’s at the office, we get coffee every third Saturday, and my mom is pretty cool), hunger in my stomach, and most likely imminent death. If I’m honest the hunger one is the one bothering me the most right at this precise moment. Dead guy from next door interrupted me right as I was about to tuck into a delicious eggs benedict with smoked salmon. I’m a little bit peeved about that. Also, I’ve needed to pee for 11.5 of the last 12 hours I’ve been crammed in here.

Well the future doesn’t exactly look promising and I probably won’t have a journal entry #2 because I’m probably going to get eaten the second I step foot on the outside of this door tomorrow morning. Yes, I will be leaving this hole in the ground tomorrow morning, because I will not starve to death in a crawl space when I have a full chocolate chip cheesecake sitting in my fridge. So in that case whoever finds this, balls to you for out lasting the zombie fuckers.

BUT on the off chance I do successfully manage to beat the zombie outside my trap door to death with a shovel tomorrow morning I am going to eat a huge piece of cake, drink a large glass of whiskey, and get ready to head for the hills. Not to mention I will be buying, more realistically looting, lots of guns and supplies and getting ready to fuck up these bastards. I may like quilting but I’m literally going to go down swinging before I concede defeat and accept a world without coffee shops or mall santas or idiot teenage boys with their pants around their ankles.

Yeah coffee shops can be over crowded, but they bring people together. Mall santas are creepy on the best of days, but children are so innocent you can’t help but want to see their faces light up when they get to ask Santa for Christmas presents. And teenage boys who sag are some of the most annoying creatures, but if you’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing one trip over his own belt around his ankles as he walks you haven’t truly lived. I thought I might actually shit myself from laughter.

So, screw these zombie sons of bitches. I want my god damn chocolate chip cheese cake.

He bit the flesh from her bones

and found it rotten.

Lovers lips

piercing apple sweet skin,

twisting tongue through tender sinews,

searching for the tenderest morsel.

Tongue too eager to taste

left gagging on worms

burrowed beneath the surface.

Gentle shades of purple

and black.

Bruises left

by sucking,

biting, writhing,

mishandling...

not its cause?

Purest flesh turned

tainted whore.

The world is a fickle mistress.