*Smiles with in Solitude*

It’s been a while since I showered, I'm beginning not to care. My decorum and pure form become a ploy to win your love and admiration, something I care not to have. I'm descending in to filth my life a junk yard, such a mess. Madness seems like an option but a card I dare not face. I'm tired of pretending, these disguises just aren't fun. My life's become disgusting, which I've refuse to ever face.

I've become a tiny pack rat, my collection not quite complete. I shut the door to my own findings, not being sure what it all means. Under layers of pollution, I find pictures of the past. Wiping off the grim and mildew I find smiles painted on. It seems we're all pretending, the picture vanished in muck.

Icons of the future are all plastered on my wall. Their faces have all vanished, their true person is revealed. The lies begin to pile up and my back begins to give way. I've lost the strength to fight back, the air gets thicker as I speak. I'm in waist deep on all my findings and can't quite seem to get away. The dirt around me starts to pile up, losing sight of what is real.

It’s been a while since I've showered, my reflection hard to see. I've lost track of who I truly am. My life has rotted all way. The lies, deception, those goddamn mask, they've all been added to my collection. My skin and person are all a myth, a child’s fairytale all turned to crap.

"What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive"

Summer months for slowing down, now
I desire naught but speed.
Faster, faster-
It's easier to run. Leave behind everything you've wreaked
and charge off into the night again.
Blessed shadows, cover my eyes
and shield the mirror so that I may not see
what I've caused to spin behind those pupils.
Faster, Faster.

No.
Turn on the light.
I want to see it all.
Not because I want to, no-
because I must.
I've spent days eating naught but memories
thier sweet taste now bitter and spoiled to my palate
but I must go on, too many people
expect me to be standing ready to brace against the storm; levees
that take one hit are expected to take another
and not complain, not collapse.
So I won't.
Turn on the light, take that mirror out of the shadows
and let me gaze on the face the world sees, the mask
that is slowly melting, dripping onto a floor
devoid of tears.
I didn't cry for her, no-
I didn't cry for me.

Faster, Faster.

""As I sit before the fire, I wonder how many before myself have been burned.'"

I look up at the sky,
The valkyries are in battle again.
Storms brew and temperatures soar as their battle ensues.
Like beautiful Aves,
They ride through the clouds masking the horrors of battle.
A soft breeze runs through their hair,
Letting us know the battle continues.
Fires are brewed,
As the fighting persist.
A fiery mist falls on the field.
Acid rain that burns through the soul.
The weapons,
The anger,
It all soars through the air as it clashes through the night sky.
The moon's shadow covers the fallen,
As it breaks through the clouds allowing the dust to settle.
The battle put to rest,
As the valkyries vanish through the night.
I close my eyes,
Allowing my imagination to rest.
Put to sleep by the breeze of a battle cry.
The clouds are gone,
The wind is calmed,
As my dream prepare for tomorrow.

"What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive"

I sat on the dock yesterday
as golden sunlight swept the mirrored water around me
to a glow unparralleled by any I've seen.
My eyes swallowed everything
greedily absorbing everything, everything
I'm getting to know myself again, getting to see
where I live. The water ripples
as a school of silver-backed perch poke their fins through the barrier
into open air that suffocates them.
I breathe deeply. Cool crispness of a summer morning.
Leave all that holds me back in the city behind, buried
in neon lights and overturned trash bins.
Rebuild the heart, winch open the eyes
pour in this golden ambrosia.
The trees stand testimony to the silence, cast in glass
the green glimmers with dew and not a shudder shakes it.
The sun gleams down on me. Faces past assemble in the water before me
and vanish to the depths on the backs of the perch.

""As I sit before the fire, I wonder how many before myself have been burned.'"

I'm on the ground laying on grass.
It’s sharp, and as it pierces the epithelial I find peace.
A fresh breeze, almost foreign to my skin, runs through my wounds.
I find comfort in the agony.

The cumulus clouds form battle ships and horsemen,
As a storm begins to form.
Droplets of water splash the follicles; it burns.
Purifying my wounds, steam rushes off my skin.
I become clean.

I turn to my side only to find myself laying on rocks.
There smooth, and as I turn the ridges scrape close my incisions.
The burning allows me to know all is well.
As the old flesh rips off in slow motion,
I'm cradled in the arms of the intense suffering.

The color of my eyes dilute with the tears and the rain,
As my inane fears, tie me down to the surface.
The rocks and grass go through my body weaving an intricate pattern of rage and fear.
As my eyes vanish all I can see is the pain.
I am silenced and relaxed.

I'm left with the memorize of light,
As I begin to settle in.
I’m bound and gagged by the invisible,
As colors of anger try to infect the skin.

The grass around me grows above me.
Engulfed in the past and rooted to my fears.
I break through the soil fresh from the pain.
The memories buried,
Along with my pain.

I start over yet again,
Fearless and unbound.

"What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive"

I'm nothing like you! Your face is but a mere image that vanishes in the morning dew. I'm angry. My dreams haunt me with images of you and I can see how much I hate you. You left me in the hands of a stranger, even after I asked you to stay. My trust was shattered. I've never felt so humiliated. Countless mouths stating the same thing, and all I could hear was white noise. All I could hear was your accusations and utter denials. I knew I was alone. I wasn't family anymore, just an intruder trying to brake up your family.

Young and naïve, I thought you were there for me, not knowing I had been pushed out of the equation long ago. Your fear of being alone led you to choose them over me, and all I can say is COWARD! I'm your kid and you pick a prick over me! I depended on you and you choose to fight to keep him, while losing me in the process. I hate you! I think about you and I can't believe it’s true.

However, as I think back the signs were there all along. Your conversations with me should have led me to the truth. My deletion began the moment you met him. A childhood stripped away by your utter disregard for my well-being. I became my family. I was my protector and you hated that about me. Your lashes and taunts weren't able to break me. I grew strong. I had no need for you.
I can still see the anger in your eyes the moment you realized you were obsolete in my life. My heart and will grew strong that day. I was independent and you a mere lesion in my past. I hold no place in my heart for cowards. I hold no place for you.

"What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive"
[  Edited by neuterdbynature at   ]

Downcast eyes, I smile to myself
as I watch the newsreel peter out to its climax
and the lights come up in the theatre. People stand
leaving popcorn and memories in the seat behind
of a laugh, a cry, a kiss, a hand.
I watch them go, arm in arm
and I stand alone from the show
in an empty theatre.
My notations, commentary are filed away
in that dusty drawer in the back of my mind
and I walk from the thearte smiling to myself
as a couple kisses and another battles silently
struggling to keep the credits from rolling on it all.

""As I sit before the fire, I wonder how many before myself have been burned.'"

There's this little old lady who dropped by work today
looking for returns (It's a shoddy job, bottles
something I do not for the money but for the entertainment
the company's good, the yearns weave on and on.)
A dollar forty five in cleaned out cans
where no sugary ambrosia gone to seed clung to the covering
pass through my hands. She smiles as I counted
"My god, you're fast with those."
I merely smiled and got her change, a dollar bill, quarter, two dimes
passed from grimy to wizened fingers. (Truely no difference.)
She turned to me and said, "Young man, what do you want to do with your life?" a simple question, one several have asked me.
I replied I have to many fields I'm acceptable at to determine.
She smiled at me, a lonesome smile, and told me of her son
who trumped on her day and night, failing classes
digging ditches
but working his way out of it to become an archetect, builder of tommorow.
Such glowing tones she used. She sang his praises
and she sang mine, such support I've never felt before.
So I thanked her and smiled and continued our chat-
her church, my work, poetry, everything
(It was a slow day, we took our time.)
and when ten minutes had passed she drove away, leaving behind her empties and a filled person in her wake.
I still do not know her name, but I will go to lengths to find out.
A dollar forty five is slight to pay for a day's raise.

""As I sit before the fire, I wonder how many before myself have been burned.'"

I cut my hair out of sheer paranoia
not caring for the out come or the look
I just chopped it off. Its gone, half is all gone, but
at that moment I cared less. Sleep deprived in my room,
I ran to the bathroom and cut the past away.
I felt clean, a burden lifted from my shoulders
and thrown straight to the trash. It was all off character,
I'm not an impulsive person. I surprised them all.
Their murmurs and whispers meant nothing to me,
my hair is not who I am.
I was safe from the thoughts, true they were absurd and a bit
out of whack. But what's done is done and there is no going back. In a
couple of months it all be the same, like that moment of panic never
happened that day.

[this actually happend at 1am in the morning ]

"What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive"

I sold beer to a killer who shot an old friend
on the morning where I biked cross town to my job
a line of cruisers blew by, sirens screaming the news
and the air about me was rife with radio DJs
talking about trajedy and casualty, the policemen spoke
with leveled tones of what to do next
as they faced the unknown muzzle still smoking its death.
I heard none of this, I rushed into the air-conditioned store
chilly as usual, they always crank it up, and rushed out back
to empty the refuse to its bin. The truch was there
to cart it away, I called to the man, asking How's life, How's the wife?
How's the kids? He replied. Cross town whence you rode
the man still runs free at the moment, death shoved in his waistline.
The machinary whirred, pneumatic pistons crushing the sheets of paper
and warning my ears that its harsh retort was not the first of the day.

School Shooting at Essex Elementary School, Killer Chris Williams, Two Teachers gunned down, four wounded. RIP Mary Shanks, Linda Lanbesis

""As I sit before the fire, I wonder how many before myself have been burned.'"

I've heard that "fear is the heart of love," but your fear is far from love. Your fear makes you struggle through the dark. Fear of abandonment makes you scream out for help. Your muscles start to spasm and you finally cry yourself through this endless nightmare.

I'm aching inside as I pick you up. Your fear keeps me from leaving you alone. It makes me try to stop your pain, but to no avail. I stay up to ease your pain, as I wipe the tears from your eyes. You cry--such an angel. I can't stop this pain. Your movements are erratic; I don't know what to do. Your fears makes me hold you close as I hope that my warmth will help keep you alive, keep you with me.

I've spent to weeks watching you grow and two days watching you slip away from me. I fear loosing you. I fear having to say goodbye. I fear having to deliver you to the darkness forever. I'm strong through any pain but when I see you scream for comfort I'm torn inside.

Shattered to pieces I'm unable to ease your discomfort only sit back and watch as the darkness pulls you in further. Fear is the heart of pain, because as I watch you die in my arms your fear kills me inside, and this pain just won’t go away.

Mocos (kitten) 08-03-06 to 09-01-06

"What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive"

This is to the woman whose face I don’t know
But imagine is glowing in the eyes of my dreams
Whose hair is fair golden, curls bobbing just so
And eyes whose deep blue lights the room with its gleams.
This is one for that lady who has yet to lay claim
On this heart that so cares to know the visage of her
To the goddess whose touch can kill this hard pain
Whose image is one that my mind can infer
As a steady copilot, one to stand by my side
and to know she won’t leave me through the toughest of times
but I know that till then, I must continue to stride
with this heart of mine e’er laden; with lead it is lined;
as I walk alone long this dusty street, knowing not who I’ll find.

""As I sit before the fire, I wonder how many before myself have been burned.'"

Slashing and hacking myself in the dark
though I don't move, still chaos reigns
as I begrudgingly slog through the remains in my mind
of itself, as I fully see now what I've become-
The conniving bastard that always was
and always will be so long as I allow.
And I watch the shadows reaching up, thier attempt is no longer vain
as I reach out to squeeze and shatter the fading lightbulbs of those who
I clung to silently before, paying no attention to the pain I felt then nor later.
Solitude, blessed solitude, as I merrily divide crucial friendship
into pain by which I wake up nights screaming.
Why, why do I do this to them, to myself? I thought my intentions were
honorable, but instead they're destroying all I thought I stood for?
How can this happen, how- who?
There's one answer I know, that culprit be me.
And I shatter the mirror in a vain attempt to destroy its subject.
And all through this, I do not move.
I simply sit on the bunk, legs folded
and eyes shut, sometimes tranquilly
and sometimes slammed together as I struggle against a foe more deadly
than any hollywood writer can ever dream up-
that foe is myself.

Why, Damnit, why?

(Collapsed and asked out my best friend, shot down, offended another good friend, lost trust in self, all over a 48-hour period. This isn't right.)

""As I sit before the fire, I wonder how many before myself have been burned.'"

Ha! Come life,throw spears at the boar
as I weave through the underbrush squealing in delight
at the thrill of the hunt, the hunter; the prey
they all are the same to me, charge o'er cliffs
fear not the landing but delight in the flight
then roll out of it and come smiling, the spear flies
if I am the hunted, I dodge; the hunter, a perfect strike
I run on or I halt to collect my quarry finally apprehended.
The woods are my friend, the trees my confidantes
who whisper thier secrets to me in the breeze
telling me where the hunter is laying in wait
or informing me of game stalking the shadows, depending upon where I stand or crouch, laying in wait.
Life is such a joy when the thrill of the hunt seizes you,
a hunt for whatever it be you seek to find.

This is the mercy.

""As I sit before the fire, I wonder how many before myself have been burned.'"

I'm tethered to the unknown, afraid to move forward. So many mistakes witnessed I'm not sure I want to continue. The anger and deceit it all lingers on, as the pain of our fathers torments us inside. A brave front is seen as I look in the mirror, a priceless expression that hides my denial. As innocence falls it clashes with stars, a liking, a passion, a repression well hid. My instincts are killer, a fury of time. A burn unimaginable, a pain without scars. I lash out in anger, unbeknownst to all, as I run through the streets getting lost in the crowds. My borders are empty, a well structured force. No rocks, no explosions, can break through these walls.

"What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive"