Born Broken

You tease me with your sacred silence. I had forgotten how hard it was to reach out and hold this tiny ball of the sun. It warms my skin, dries all the tears on my face, and makes the leaves rustle and burn behind me as they spiral out of control.

I go deeper inside. I cannot care anymore what the world thinks of me. Have me or destroy me. It’s not up to me anyway. I’m out there for everyone to see, but I’m met with walls of shadow. I think I must be deeper than I realize, which is why I spend all my time here. I can’t conform to shallow routines. I'm simply intensity too hard to handle. Anymore, I think it must be a curse, the role I have to play, all this pressure inside, a deep, unbroken sea, while the games wage war from up above. I can think of you no longer. It simply brings too much pain. I cannot pretend, or breathe your face, wish you into existence, pretend you’re real, have you there when I need you most. It’s like trying to hold a shadow, a puff of smoke, and I think about how much time I've wasted, how much got away from me, trying to believe it was all real. My heart alone is more than I can take. I wrap it up on a daily basis, trying to stop the bleeding, but nothing helps. I go deeper inside, hiding inside me, curl into a little black ball that blots out the sun.

I used to want to make it sing, louder than anyone could hear, deafen your ears, make your heart soar, change you as a person, make you think and be something you never thought you could be before. Maybe I could write poetry that moved easily, like water over polished stones. I am my own deception. I create the lies, all the situations that make me think there’s hope out there, but I get in my own way. I didn’t know there was more than one of me. All this talk and crazy voices, drowning out the life I see, and they won’t go away. They speak and make mouths on the table, on the walls and counter tops. Eyeballs watch me from every which way. It is just me in here, with all this going on, worlds upon worlds, and I haven’t touched the one I really live in. I wonder what my fate must be. I don’t care if I never make a million dollars. I realized that was never the most important thing, just another reason to be a prisoner to a materialistic regime. I don’t care anymore if I meet the woman of my dreams. She’s brought me too much pain that I can bear, and I haven’t even seen her face.

The leaves rustle, burn like crimson, and turn away again, unable to stop these tears on my face. Odysseus cried a lot, it seemed, and there was never a stronger man. This does not make me weak, I tell myself. But I’m not sure I believe it. Odysseus was, after all, a king.

I wanted to write all these sonnets for you, little poems about love, how much you mean to me, change the face of art as we know it, save a life or two. I figured that was a noble dream, but too high a delusion, and it just made me insane. Between these two demon voices waging war with each other is my twisted face anyway, nothing more than a lonely, haggard visage, haunted by everything and feeling too much. I adopt other people’s pain. It seeps inside and won’t go away, makes me feel I’m being generous at least, performing some selfless, charitable deed. Do they feel better after they give it to me? Or maybe I take it without asking. Helps me forget who I am. That is not a bad thing. I am a ghost to myself. My whispers bear no weight. Cry on my shoulder, but try not to fall through. I am not substance. I never have been.

Cut me here. And here. And here. And there. Sever everything that ties me to you, and watch me float away. Part of my fantasy was dreaming in space, beholden to none. None of the pressure now to be so perfect all the time, this impossible challenge, this quandary I gave myself. A belaboring issue warns. God, I just want to be rid of you! How long must you follow me around with your sad little eyes and your puppy dog tail? You make me so damn furious! What is this even supposed to be? Expression? Madness? Pain? I’m just tired of the same old things.

Lament and drop this heavy stone on me, my marker of repose. Leaden those skies! Burn my face with fire! I just need a really good excuse to not go out anymore. I guess my heart has shattered. Nothing surprises me anymore, gets me excited.

There is water in space. Pretty water, like silver, has bubbles. From there, maybe I can just watch the rest of the world go by. I can have my own silver bubble, just for me, just my own, something outlandish, like a fairy-tale, that finally makes sense. Hope, I think, would have been a good thing to go without. Hope creates want, and want creates pain. If only I’d never had hope, I think, I could’ve learned how to live, learned how to breathe. Hope is a devil of a thing. All this wanting, all this longing, human ache opened up a wound here, a wound there, watching my blood spill out all over the place. Angry voices telling me I’m not good enough, reminding me I’m not a movie star, that everyone has wants and wants and wants, and the things I have to give no one cares about, so get used to it. They want football stadiums, fancy meals, and travels around the world. I’m just another poor and lonely man among the rest, a heart twice as big as his chest, and not a single confession can I utter that means anything. I'll take just one soul who cares.

I’m trying to let them go, trying to forget them. I’m not sure what that means. I put my hands to my ears and scream and scream and scream. Shards of broken glass lodge in my throat. Just to think…Something still…something broken…something beautiful. Beauty is different for everyone, I guess. This is okay. This is beautiful to me, despite what you think.

Something soft…a rose petal maybe between my fingertips, satin against my cheek. Left out here in the middle of the highway with my guts spilled out all over the place and only a needle and thread to stitch me back together. Born broken. Two demon horns lodged into my chest, driving me up against the wall. Confessions and honesty that amount to shit, that amount to shit, that amount to shit. My face staring back at me in pity and shame. All I can do is shake my head. Maybe there’s something more important than dreams coming true. More than just a movie star. Loathe to live with myself, sick to read this drivel and blasphemy. I know that’s you Death, creeping around my door. What the fuck are you afraid of, you pansy-ass piece of shit?

Hold that pretty porcelain face, cupped in my two hands. Stare into my eyes. Look deep. Deeper still. Beg. Plead. No. No. Don’t cry. I need you to see something beautiful inside. What a fool I am, with only myself to blame.

I shatter another glass in two, look behind me and cry some more, wondering how all this happened, who made me what I am. Was it me? Was it you? God above? A choice I made? Not sure why. There must’ve been a reason. Because it simply seemed like the right thing to do. I look behind me, demon’s at my heels, a horde of them, laughing, grumbling, garbled voices, claws like teeth, teeth like knives. Sometimes there are simply too many wounds to heal, and there I take on the wounds of others. Lessen your pain. Make you smile. Put myself on hold for a while. It’s okay. It takes me out of myself. That’s the best gift I can give. Helping you while helping me. “Could someone pick up my arm and put it back in place? I can stitch it back together myself.”

There is a child there, sucking his thumb, his back against the wall. He is terrified, too afraid to even cry, to speak. We all have one. I step close, bend down, but he doesn’t recognize me. His eyes are sewn shut.

Tiny sun. Little ball of white. Fill my hands, warm my brain, give my heart a golden plate. Satin between my fingertips. Rose petal on my cheek. Going deeper. Deeper still. Always deeper. Suffocation. Under water pressure. Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe. Deeper still. I have to do this, uncover as much as I can, despite how much it terrifies me. I tell myself this makes me brave, but I wonder…I’m starting to think this is a full time job in here, and that’s just the way it’s gonna be. All those dreams will have to wait a while.

I whisper to myself: Demon Slayer. Knight of Honor, Truth and Chivalry. Poet Prince. Golden Warrior of the Sun, to make myself feel better. I know they’re in there somewhere. I am good for something, something for me, something for you, even if you’re not there. Wanting just got in the way. Painful wanting. Bitchy, horrible, asshole wanting. You got in the way of all the good things, all the things I tried to do that meant something beautiful. None of them with you. How I wanted. How I prayed. God, at least, gave me a heart, a spirit strong enough to endure it. Does being alive mean I obtained a victory? I can hurt. I can bleed. Thank God for that. Some cannot. I can make my emotions count for something, for someone, even if only for pretend. Even if for me. It’s about time I put myself at the front of the line. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before.

Silence echoes through my den. My pen falls and writes again. I have nothing new to say, nothing to change any lives, just another confused muse trying to get through, wanting to make sense out of something senseless. Why not through me, I think? I needed something to do anyway. There’s still so much I don't understand, after trying so hard, after coming so far. Did I think a reward would be given? That I deserved some Nobel Prize? That I was entitled? Was I really that naïve? I deserve to be humbled.

Something’s clawing at my window. Best to leave it be. My footsteps fade and echo along the street. I walk by couples holding hands and utter to every one of them, barely above a whisper: “May you always be in love.”

Nothing Broken

I have walked along the trail of fire, no longer composed of shadows and screams, nightmare visions, ripping up through my spine and into my brain, shattering me in two, like it used to do. This softer, newer place is more like a quiet lullaby, fireflies between the trees, every dream I have shared with another, and every other sharing their dreams with me. This boldness allows me to see things from a higher plain, clouds all around me, where I have to stand on my tippy-toes to see over and above and into everything else. Everything as it really is, as things really are, which is sometimes better than pretend. These aren’t illusions anymore. Hope swells here, my chest burns bright, and I feel like flames from the sun. Precious diamonds make my skin. I am a spectrum, a prism of light and color. My eyes turn everything magical. I begin to think of words that never existed in my vocabulary: Glory, Mighty, Awe. An angel hums in my ear, a clarion call.

All things mesh together, realizations of light-colored eyes, reasons for the way things were that have easy explanations now. Forgiveness held more power than I ever imagined, a chain that reacts to love, that reacts to joy, that reacts to bliss, that concludes with Freedom, which makes it all go round and round again.

It’s funny to walk on two feet, to be on solid ground, and feel like you’re flying. My heart is a lance, penetrating every breast I walk beside and encounter. Nothing broken. No shadows. No torture chambers. No permeable darkness. No laughter mocking me.

Someone told me I created all this, but I never thought I could take credit for that. But now, I see they weren’t lying. Several conscious efforts put me here, standing tall, proudly, surveying the scenery. What do I have this sword for? A spiritual dragon cannot be slain by such superficial means. My hair is blowing in the breeze, and all around me—vineyards, farmlands, sheep grazing, rolling hills after hills of lush, deep green. The sky is a perfect, cerulean blue with huge white clouds lazily moving across the sky like giant spaceships. Tiny cottages dot the landscape. A cliff overlooks an endless, unpredictable sea. Birds call, seagulls. I think I see a sea-lion or two. I could stand here all day. Nothing’s stopping me. Maybe I will. I have this valorous duty to defend the land, my King and Queen, rise in the face of wrong-doing to set things right, be a strong and noble man to some fair maiden, and tell her chivalry is an honor I practice every day. I’ll invite you to my castle, and we’ll read poetry by candlelight and you will see a side of me far from the battlefield. No, my dear, please. Do not get up. Let me…

To capture all this beauty in ink is impossible. How do you capture a feeling on a page? You can paint a picture, see a knight in armor, feel the warmth of the sun penetrating my breastbone. Some come close. Truth is all there is here. Truth captured. Truth fought for. Some naïve nobility I laugh at, but I cannot help but be me.

Radiant smiles leave an impact like a cannonball. Keep that fire burning. I want it never to leave me. I put it in an unbreakable jar for safe-keeping. No one can touch it then.

Pretend, imagine, go away to some lost paradise, some fairy-tale creation, a perfect fantasy of my own making and watch it come to life. Someone tells me I created all this, and it turns real. It was real all along.

I burn like fire. This trail is easy to follow once you get the hang of it. I am like a lost treasure waiting to discover myself, and amazed by what I find. You mean all that was inside of me?

There are no shadows here, and nothing is broken. Love burns with blinding, white incandescence, knocks on my door, and by God, it wants to stay! It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

If you’ll excuse me, I have to set the table and get dinner ready. Playing a good host is one of my favorite things.

If Not For All the Screaming...

Here's another little horror tale in the traditional sense. Available on the Nook for only .99 cents. Don't have a Nook, no problem. You can download the app, too, my friends!

If Not For All The Screaming...

The Truck Driver

One of my very first horror story ideas, available through Kindle or Kindle apps. For a measly .99, you can't go wrong.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004YEZB8E

My Little Golden Bell (For Cookie)

What was once silver, turned brown somehow, sometime back long ago, amber, blonde, platinum with streaks, pieces of white, then turned purple if you looked close enough, sometimes silky black, then chestnut brown, depending on the light. Looks perfect with the curl, wavy elegance, I think, long, lacy sleeves on that blouse you wear, floral skirt, and I always think, Lady—with a capital L. Do you see what I see?

Fair, like alabaster, white marble, the milk you drink so much, only smoother, with a pink blush, something you probably have to touch to believe, make real. Know what I mean? Probably not. Makes me wish I could touch it freely, run my finger down the length of your pretty white cheek and tell you, “This is only one of the things that makes you beautiful to me, that stirs my blood.” The rest…well…I’ll try to get there eventually. This is just the beginning.

Sometimes, too, like a porcelain doll, healthy and flawless, skin that can’t be real and you wonder how such a pretty girl had that miasma of personality that shot through the roof. Gonna meet a superstar someday, make the devil blush. What a lucky bastard someone’s gonna be. Brings a tear to my eyes, sometimes more than one. It often does.

Don’t be afraid to cry. I see sometimes the hurt you go through (It’s hard not to with those puffy red eyes.), knowing there’s nothing I can do, but let you let it run its course. No hug will do, not for this girl. She needs something more, a magic word, fairy dust, to make her feel better, a carpet ride or something. Did I tell you you look like a princess today?

I wish I could be younger sometimes with a chance out there, or you could be a little bit older, and we could run, and laugh, hold hands, and play like two little kids always getting into mischief. Turn the kitchen into a den of flour from floor to ceiling. You got it all over your face. Smear the chocolate syrup in your hair and think about the beating our parents are going to give us for what we did to the kitchen and not care at all. Open every single cookie jar. For some reason, there are a million, make sure that loud laughter of yours continues to ring and ring and ring. Change your name and call you My Little Golden Bell, tinkle like a snow chime, watch the lights at Christmas time, open up a jar of honey and say, “I made this special for you with all the bees’ cooperation. You should have seen the looks on their faces. Bees smile. Bet you never knew that, did you?” Take you back to a land of lost chivalry, let you ride upon a handsome steed, because I always have to throw in some romantic fantasy to make it complete. All the townsfolk are throwing flowers at you. See, the blush in your cheeks.

Carry you up to your tower at night, put you to sleep, and stand guard by the window, watching the stars come out, making sure all is safe, no monsters, no dragons, no villainous creeps, nothing to harm you, watching you sleep, peaceful little princess girl with all that drool on your pillow just makes you look that much prettier to me.

A Honeymoon in Outer Space

I can be a killer, too, as I watch it progress into outer space. I took your hand and told you not to be afraid. You don’t have to worry about breathing here. You trusted me. That was a good thing. This was just the beginning of the adventure. We would see things through and through like magic. Take this bus ride all the way home. Paint it pink and send it off like a sling-shot into outer space.

I saw, at least briefly, the way it was supposed to work between us. Some caricature of me I had a dream about one day like a flashy, bold cartoon. I imagined Thor, because he was the only super-hero with hair like mine. That wasn’t conceit, just a way to build my self-esteem. I would’ve mentioned the Silver Surfer, but he doesn’t have any hair at all, despite traveling at the speed of light through space, which I like. But I’m getting off the subject.

You were my courageous little princess. The funny thing about you was I just needed that smile. You gave it to me many times with those big brown eyes of yours, so that was all the strength I needed. You were my little hammer, like Thor. I was strong, plenty strong, I thought, but not nearly as strong until I could hold you in my hand. So, that made me want to be your provider and protector, a champion, here like every little myth and archetype history created for man and woman to be. We had a step above them, though, because we had our own definitions of each that we were living up to. That was the key. I had armor made from steel and sun beams. Still, I couldn’t do it without you.

“There,” I said, pointing to the night sky. “Look.”

You followed my gaze while my cape billowed behind me. You put your hand to my shoulder, and we watched as every star imaginable shot across the sky.

“That,” you said, “is a lot of wishes.”

“Aye,” I said, nodding.

These rivets were just the shirt I was wearing. I didn’t need armor at all. We can confuse ourselves into thinking the silliest things. So, I told you to hop on the back of this dragon. I was never meant to kill such a big, cuddly thing. We could train him, make him a household pet.

“Good,” you said. “What shall we name him?”

“Leprechaun,” the dragon said, and winked at us. All three of us started laughing.

“Hop on,” he said. “I’ll take you for a ride.”

“How’s that for agreeable?” I asked.

“Pretty cool,” you said, then asked Leprechaun, “Where are you taking us?”

“Past the sun and three times around the moon. I want to show you the rings of Saturn, too. And Uranus has these huge ice cliffs. I thought we could have a barbecue and watch Neptune rise in the sky. It’s pretty far-out.”

“I think this dragon is tipsy,” I said.

“Never been more sober in my life,” he said.

“In that case, lead on Leprechaun.”

He nodded and took to the sky.

“This is gonna be one hell of a honeymoon,” you said.

“But I haven’t asked you to marry me yet.”

“Well, what a better time to propose, on the back of a dragon, soaring into outer space. What girl gets to say that?”

“She’s got you there, champ,” Leprechaun said.

“We’ll have to stop at the store first and pick you out an engagement ring.”

“Can we try that pizza place on the mall first?”

“Of course. What do you say, Leprechaun? You hungry?”

“I love pizza!”

And that’s how I imagined our fairy-tale to be.

If Only I...

It’s funny how sincerity is not always a good thing. You think being honest is what it’s all about, but it must have to do with the people you meet. You hear that all the time, being honest, being sincere, because it’s the right thing to do, but you meet the wrong people to be honest and sincere to. I’m no stranger to irony.

I would tell them, let them know the truth, everything about me, because you think it’s the right thing to do, the right way to start it all, but the world is a funny place. I’m here to let you know about all the realness I have inside me. The last thing you should be is ashamed, you tell yourself, but you end up feeling that way anyway, at least sometimes. I laugh about it because it’s the only way I can get past it. To think all that honesty and sincerity would come back to bite me. It’s like your heart is talking to you, telling you there is no other way to be. Is my heart wrong, I think? Is my soul lying to me?

I put her up on this little white cloud, held her beauty there like the sun, wondered all the time if she was just that beautiful inside. I think I said that to someone once. It’s part of the mission, I guess. Part of the quest, the one thing to get you past all the rest, that everything I thought and felt was real, genuine through and through. How could you fail, you think? Everything I wanted to say, knowing it came right from the heart. Some had to do with honor, even. Unbelievable, you think. Old fashioned approaches, authenticity. All dead now. To think none of it was pretend, and that’s what you were trying to convey. All these men are really little boys, and there was a measure you were living up to that said otherwise. You were trying to tell them you were worth more than that, that you were worthy of them, good enough, when really, it was just the opposite, wasn’t it?

I wasn’t just talking to amuse myself, to give you all the things you wanted to hear, to sound like every other guy who just wanted to get what they wanted at your expense. There’s just so much suspicion anymore, it seems. I guess the right person would know better. You wouldn’t have to convince them of that, would you? They would know. That’s the difference between the right ones and the wrong ones. They didn’t believe you anyway, despite what you felt inside. They couldn’t feel what you felt inside. You wondered where this role reversal came from. Little boys and their video games, their lack of responsibility. Women without a shred of sensitivity, colder than a drill sergeant. Something happened along the way and this, today, is the catastrophe. Frightening. I would kill to find a girly-girl, a shred of pink, a bright color, a laugh like a lilt. You can cry at everything. I don’t care. Just cry on me. That’s all I ask.

I was always putting the perfect personality to the pretty face. You can imagine my disappointment. Someone who actually cared about the way I thought and felt, saw the world. Supported my beliefs and ideas, stood beside me, said they wanted to come with me on my pilgrimage, because they believed in me. What was the point otherwise? That’s what made it work. But alas, it was not to be…

I wanted her to know I could listen to everything she had to say, let her be who she was, good and bad and love her for it. Be sensitive, thoughtful to her every need, acceptance, without judgment, protective, honorable, and all that old-fashioned crap people don’t care about these days. Seems the world is in short supply. I was just trying to create a little balance. But some women don’t need men at all. They have all those qualities anyway.

It was your femininity I liked best. Old time movies, your girly nature, soft-batting eyes, you little coquette, coy looks and laughter. Girl through and through. Radiance when you walk through the door. You make the sun blush, a beacon through the cloudy haze. Eyes that smiled, too, charm—virtually villainous. That is how you seized my heart. You taught me more about love than I taught myself. If only I…I thought. If only I….If only…

We’d have these late night conversations, pillow to pillow, every subject covered, every secret revealed, every word like a bridge of conviction, a dawning solidity, confirmation that two identical souls had come together and set the world on fire. We were the dawning, second by second, moment by moment reality. Proof that sometimes things were meant to be. A grand scheme, a design, a compliment that we could be part of something that bold, mysterious, and beautiful. A play, a poem, a sonnet revealed, a song, a Victorian novel, or some damn thing. I wanted you to be my Jane Eyre, my Anne of Green Gables. She deserved someone more dark and mysterious than Gilbert, I thought. I could love her more than him. I built myself from the shrine of ashes, everything like new, but still scarred and somehow that made you like me more. Even boys can have fairy-tale dreams, like you girls do. But some girls turn into men, and let them die. Boys turn into girls and do the same. That’s why some dreams never come true.

I wonder what happened when we both built for ourselves the perfect each other, conquered demons, slaughtered dragons, only to find the tower empty. Created myself for myself and you to be everything I could be, I thought. Unrequited love, and there was never even a lover. Go figure. Just a thought in my head I didn’t want to be the only one to uncover. Words on a page. Bitter irony. Alas, a dragon slain. And for what? To walk the streets alone in wonder with myself as my own company to keep me company. Do you meet the same dead ends I do? Why is it always a destination I’m trying to get to, as opposed to understanding this is enough here now, the way I am? I am missing the moment otherwise. Do you wonder why just being you left you so frightened and alone with no one to talk to but an idea I might be out there? That’s how it is for me here, finding my own solid ground to stand on. But still wondering…If only I…