Soldier

That siren has been going off for a while now...
Red. Loud. It screams,

Something is Coming.                                    

When are you going to wake up?
Your room is the brightest of oranges and yet your eyes are still glazed over.
When will you WAKE UP?

Come now, the fog is getting thicker, and thicker, and darker.

Blackened ceilings crumbling,

Ground beneath you rumbling,

Sky above you burning,

Just how long will you take to wake up?
Listen, you don't have the time to lie there.
You don't have the time to wait.
Soon enough, if you don't move, this room will be your grave.
Soon enough, that siren will be silenced
...and you may be too.

Wake up, Wake up.
Smoke is slowly descending upon you, and here you lie, still asleep.
Wake up.
You need to wake up.
...Please, wake up...

Wake up, its time to Breathe
Wake up, it's time to Dream,
Wake up, its time to Leave.

I'm tired of going Home

I'm tired of going home.

Back to tired and exasperated "Yes mother"s and "okay"s. 

Back to anger, back to fear, back to pain and paranoia. 

Back to "You're so stupid", "You're clueless", "Why are you so rude?", "You're lazy and a pig and it's a wonder you have any friends." Back to doubt. 

Back to worthlessness, because I can't manage the same ease and grace in pulling good grades as I did in elementary school, when everything was based on whether or not you did the assignment, not how well you did. 

Back to being nothing more than a trophy in a glass case, silver and tarnishing, slowly, slowly. 

"..." - In which reality ceases to make sense, and time refuses to exist, at least coherently.

I have a need for answers. 

Mists

Things grow ever stranger. 

With each twisting breath, each twirling wisp of insanity curling towards oblivion, I can help but... Wonder. 

And change. 

And shift just as my surroundings do, a second vision playing itself out just behind my eyes, and sometimes I see it better than what is actually in front of me. 

I live through dreaming. 

My heart no longer a regularity, just a hectic drum of chaos, too loud, too quiet, too fast, too slow. 

It can't possibly be healthy to have an extremely hard, slow heartbeat. 

And yet. 

And yet, as the mists of my mind's eye close in over me, a quick check reveals just this, as if me, as I exist, is fading away ever so slowly, melding into this other universe I so easily touch. 

I'm simply stuck wondering, when it will end. 

When one side finally dominates the other, when life conquers dream or dream conquers reality. 

Not for the Faint of Heart

Stage One

Admiration, a difference between, small glances & daydreams with or without accuracy in character. 

Stage Two

First contact, giddy anticipation, anxiety and light obsession.

Stage Three

Tactical Subterfuge, long stares and distance among closeness. Utterly confusing the victim. 

Stage Four 

Distancing, loss of interest, branching off either to cease contact altogether or form a coherent, functioning bond of friendship. 

Stage Five

We understand. 

WE. DON'T. KNOW. 

Comrade

There's something in the air today. 

I might just be paranoid,
or utterly drained from a weekend of anemia, but...

I can't stop thinking

Its a normal human process, I know. But that's not the problem.

It's that I keep thinking like a lost cause rather than a human being. 

I waste time
and time wastes me in return

Spaces between the lines

Meet me at the park, under the cherry tree.
Meet me by the creek, lets have a moment by the old bridge.
Meet me... somewhere, anywhere, just not here.

I am a prisoner. 
A captive. 
I've spent too many seasons at the mercy of a malevolent demon.
I've watched too many looming ends to myself pass right on by, apocalypses that dawned but never came.
I've got a black box against my head and its finger is always teasing the trigger.
Not just that, but this Russian roulette it plays doesn't help for sanity.

So meet me by the creek side, let's sit awhile on those rocks and watch the water run by.
Because heaven knows I need a shoulder to cry on.
Heaven knows I'm a crumbling relic at seventeen, when it seems everyone else was just barely built.
The hurricane is just on the horizon, and I don't know if I'll make it through this one.

So please.
Meet me in the park.
By the creek.
On the old bridge.
Maybe on the swings or someplace in the trees.

Meet me there. 
And maybe just maybe I might make it this time like I always have, even with chains around my neck and ice cold claws gracing the inner reaches of my mind.
Maybe. Just maybe, I can make it through the tempest with you.

Do Not Be Afraid of the Dark

Do not be afraid of the dark

She looms, but she means no harm

Do not be afraid of the dark

Your enemy is the cold

The stars

The barren nest that welcomes you

Absence overwhelming

Shadows consuming

Do not be afraid of the dark

She was only ever a hostage to evil

Four broken eggshells. One egg missing entirely. Eaten? Either way, Gone. 

Wings, gone. 

Mate, gone. 

Blood on the floor. Blood everywhere. Her underdeveloped young unprotected. vulnerable. Dead. 

Weakness. She was weakness. 

Worthless as well. 

Orchids clutched in trembling hands covered in red cuts, mirrors shattered, her room in disarray. 

Only a few living left. 

They couldn't take care of it all. 

They couldn't possibly take care of the ruins of a once grand now somber castle. 

Even if it wasn't even in ruins.  

Even if it was untouched by the raiders, who only came for one thing. 

Her passion. Her pride. Her joy. 

All of it. Gone. 

Why did she live, when they all died?

Why just her wings, why not her life?

Where was her last child, the missing soul?

Clutching the flowers close to her chest, she tilted her head skyward delicate iron balcony filigree ceiling curling around stars, and soft clouds up above...

A silent prayer, for someone to come. Anyone. Anyone who could end her misery. 

Fingers uncurling, the breeze took the flowers away, her eyes opening again as lanterns, soft like embers, floated upon the sky above. The survivor's mourning. 

House

Your HOUSE is a PRISON

Maybe you don't realize this

Maybe you do

But either way, it is in SHAMBLES. 

You may wonder how many LESIONS in the BEATEN DOWN WALLS are your own, or your CAPTORS. How you came to fear the OUTSIDE just as much as you desire it. 

You wonder when the RATS will stop existing within your HOUSE, those vile, genius things that know just how to torture you. DOUBTS. FEAR. Your SWORN ENEMIES. 

You don't think to wonder how many of them are ILLUSIONS that you've made up in your ALMOST ISOLATION.

Perhaps it is the DUST that gathers upon everything you used to CARE about. Perhaps it is the FEAR of ELECTRIC SHOCK that you expect to come as soon as you take one STEP out onto your own PORCH.

Perhaps it is the COLLAR around your throat that you can't seem to remove, because even if you have the KEY, you can't quite get it to fit into the SMALL LOCK on your own. You just aren't that FLEXIBLE. 

And you, you stand in your DOORWAY. 

Begging, pleading with your TIRED EYES because you don't dare say anything in case the RATS come for you. 

Hoping that SOMEONE, ANYONE, would come in. 

And when they do, you don't know what to do. 

It's CLEAR. They'd rather invite you to THEIR HOUSE but you can't just... LEAVE. 

Or maybe you're just PARANOID. 

Home Again

It had been so long. 

The trees, they were taller, thicker... The flowers were ever so abundant, and the hint of a small puddle had bloomed into a beautiful oasis kept safe by towering willows and a set of rocky pillars surrounding it, slowly overtaken by moss and vines.