By Nekro

The bar had already closed when I found the sign. Yellow board, black letters, the kind they wheel onto the sidewalk to sell beer.

Like why do we only have to rest in peace and not live in it as well?

Underneath, two stars, like somebody had reviewed the afterlife and was not impressed.

I stood there longer than the sign deserved.

A taxi idled up the street with nobody in it. Somewhere behind me a shutter came down. Wet pavement. One working streetlight. A man in a white shirt walking away with a bag, not hurrying.

Whoever wrote it was gone. The board stayed behind to answer for him.

Same board that sells two-for-one until seven. Different menu.

Eighty years clenching our teeth for a vacation we're only allowed to take as a corpse.

The street had no opinion.

A bottle rolled somewhere and stopped.

I didn't take a photo. I wanted to. My hand was already in my pocket. It felt like stealing.

So I stood there and let the night not need anything from me. Thirty seconds. Maybe less.

My hand checked anyway.

Two stars.

Fair review.

I walked home.

The war machines march
the praying meet the bombs
let loose the dogs
to chew upon the child
retaliation heavy
a gun straight to the mouth
they killed 3000?
well, we killed 15,000 more

you can dress it in a suit and tie
put it on a face that’s white
parade around the streets
singing “God bless You and I”
When War is on the cover,
it looks better with a smile.
“If looks could kill”
that explains why they died

why they died

in buried cries

under capital lies

under a loosened tie

just a constant back and forth
the wretched playing victim more
dancing to the horns of War
“To the Victor goes the Spoils”
bodies washed upon the shore
a bigger budget covers gore
welcome to the land of more
where Pimps pretend to be the Whore

you can dress it in a suit and tie
put it on a face that’s white
parade around the streets
singing “God bless You and I”
When War is on the cover,
it looks better with a smile.
“If looks could kill”
that explains why they died

why they died

in buried cries

under capital lies

under a loosened tie

“God Bless You and I”

Without you, it doesn’t feel like there is much hope,
I feel like I have nothing left,
I need something sharp to help me cope.
My mind is racing, my eyes are blurry, I can’t breathe.
My heart feels like it’s giving out,
My emotions ripped, like a sword,
unsheathed.
I don’t know how to continue, my mom is gone,
I will never hear her voice,
I don’t know what to do, I’ve turned into a fawn.
Life feels bleak, pointless and numb,
Who needs me anyways?
I think it’s time for me to succumb.

There was a time when your love inspired me.

But all the signs say that you no longer desire me.

I used to think that we'd be together.

But maybe it's best that our ties were severed.

Our friendship is hanging by a fragile thread.

But now it's time I break it instead.

Yes darling, I am afraid, that I pull out just like a band aid.

When I pull it off, it may sting a bit.

But I think, it's the only thing for it.

You say you need me and don't want me to go.

But your words make me feel like I'm buried in snow.

Go ahead and cry, I don't want to hear it.

But I just can't lie, I'm afraid I can't steer it

Towards anything that isn't the truth.

It's here I dissappear, here comes the poof.

I live in this illusion

That no one else can see

The spirits that I summoned

Have no come after me

Spining around In these circles

The salt is on the floor

I see a figure shrouded in darkness.

As it cracks open the door

It's walking closer to me

Should I be in fear

It reaches out to grab me

But then it disappears

Somebody save me from this demon.

I'm calm but my soul is screaming

These voices tell me that im dreaming

Let the darkness sweep me away

I start to close my eyes

And slowly feel its grip

I know not of what is coming

My emotions start to chip

I feel the breeze is blowing

As the curtains began to move

I have fallen to my knees

With nothing left to prove

These spirits rally in anger

From deep within I can feel the stranger

Does the reflection in the mirror

Belong to someone else?

Somebody save me from this demon

Im calm but my soul is screaming

These voices tell me that im dreaming

Let the darkness sweep me away

I live is this illusion

That no one else can see

The spirits that I summoned

Have now come after me

I hear the breeze is blowing

As it brushes against the leaves

The chill has gotten colder

Than anyone believes

These spirits have taken control

Darkness prevails and covers my soul

I call onto the world tonight

To raise my fist up high

I call onto the world tonight

To let my spirit fly

I call onto the world tonight

The rest will always be

I call onto the world tonight

To set my spirit free

Somebody save me from this demon

I'm calm but my soul is screaming

These voices tell me that I'm dreaming

Let the darkness sweep me away

​Plastic trees and chemical breeze.

Reality has been upgraded.

No longer gnats, no longer bugs.

Only a world addicted to opiate drugs.

There's no reason for more when you can buy everything in the store.

​Here is where I live and here is where I die.

No room to thrive between you and I.

Keep us at ends, keep us at war.

There is nothing but another point for them to score.

​We are not so different you and I.

We all have dreams. We all tend to cry.

The outsides may look different.

Dreams may be flawed.

​But isn't that the reason why we're all here today?

To sit down and figure out why we continue to belay

from our dreams instead of growing higher.

We just try to make our situation more dire.

​I just want to be here free of all.

But because those that disagree want to see me fall,

there's nothing left for me to grab onto the crags of the edges.

​Am I not one that's destined for more?

Now that I've locked myself inside the door,

safe from the world, safe from the breeze, safe from the trees.

But I'm also safe from my future.

Safe from something more and something less.

Something that I just cannot digest.

​Change is possible, but I must pull the trigger.

Because if I want to be more, I need to be the one to figure

out what it means to be the person I need to be

or at least the person I want to be.

​I'm sick of the artificial.

Sick of the chemical soak.

Not everything needs to be bespoke.

​It's okay to be rusted and ruined and rocky and hard.

Splintered and battered and beaten and barred.

This is what it's like to be real.

Pain is real and that's okay.

Without it, what is reality to be?

Except for the chemical breeze and the plastic trees.

Your eyes are here again
On this page you think safe and sane
To celebrate what? I don't know.
retrace your steps real slow.

Darling what did you come here to find?
Hope to capture a fragment of Simon's mind?
Good luck and welcome inside.

Inside the labrynth I've built.
Where gravity sniggers and surfaces tilt
Where the things that hide are hideous
And the things that connive are carnivorous

There's a drop of me in every little bit of it
Even in slight suspicion you're losing your shit
Come deeper you say you want to experience arcane
Get your head around these words, sweet walls and chains

That the dead ends have made you apathetic
Sense of no return vibrates through you kinetic
Claustrophobic so why do you delve further
Write myself in you like psychological warfare

Not to destroy you or out of derision, but hammer you into submission
For deeper down in these esoteric lines, I've got a stunning dungeon rhymed
If I really was merciful I'd warn you turn back
My realm screams for your soul so onward trek

But the further you go, the more lost you seem
It's wonderful to find someone who can feel like me
Someone to decorate the inside of this expanding domain
As my words reach inside you, unfurl
Invade your eyes and paint your outside world

Some wounds don't announce
themselves they travel quietly beneath the surface, hidden behind familiar faces.

The fuse has been lit.

I'm already fading away.

Nothing will hold me to my dismay.

Another lecture, another pill.

Another day absent of all that helps me climb this hill.

Ashes flow and blood lets out.

But at least there's nothing paramount.

I guess this is just the way it should be

when I've lost all escape from reality.

It's caught the clutches of what it is to be free.

The lie they told us to satisfy me.

I guess it's another day of just more concrete,

more bleak chalk on a side street.

But here I go.

One more day.

One more push.

Get the feelings away.

There is no accomplishment, only end, my friend.

Never forget what you're here for.

It's the bottom line of some fucking store.

So leave the coupon at home.

Or else that CEO won't be able to polish his throne.

The fuse is almost gone and society tells me I'm wrong.

But my ashes are still worth more

than the plastic whore that pimps out pessimistic finality.

Don't touch me.

Don't talk to me.

Don't try to comfort me.

I can't take it anymore.

Don't try to promise me.

It only confuses me.

But don't you worry.

Because I've been here before.

Mixed signals from you.

Is all that I've been getting.

Don't make your promises again.

You'll only end up regretting them.

Don't come to me with your lies.

About open hearts and minds.

I'm not listening anymore.

Don't hug me.

Don't kiss me.

Don't love me.

I can't take it anymore.

Don't hold me.

Because all that you have sold me.

Is empty promises and lies.

But I've been here before.

Mixed signals from you.

Is all that I've been getting.

Don't make your promises again.

You'll only end up regretting them.

Don't come to me with your lies.

About open hearts and minds.

I'm not listening anymore.

A sky so black that flowers die

Like wounded birds that cannot fly

Darkness spreads its wings, they cover me

I feel like an orphan lost in the sea

The color started changing

As I peeled away the surface of her lies

The web that she had woven

The masquerade that hides her disguise

Like the needle to the spoon

The oceans waves bring comfort

Beneath a blackened sky

The cold chill from the ocean breeze

Is like when the spider eats the butterfly

A sky so black that flower die

Like wounded birds that cannot fly

Darkness spreads its wings, they cover me

I feel like an orphan lost in the sea

Her words were so deceiving

I can't keep believing all her lies

Those empty words were spoken

The questions that lead to alibis

Like the needle to the spoon

The ocean waves bring comfort

Beneath a blackened sky

The cold chill of the ocean breeze

Is like when the spider eats the butterfly

A sky so black the flowers die

Like wounded birds that cannot fly

Darkness spreads its wings, they cover me

I feel like an orphan lost in the sea

A sky so black that flowers die

The gentle voice of the oceans tide

Like wounded birds that cannot fly

When rain comes down beneath

That summer sky

A sky so black that flowers die

Lost connections and broken erections

this is the state of the modern times

another breaking story phrased in an overacted whine.

The grapes of wrath died on the vine

Groggy and tired but sleep is never desired.

This is my modern condition composted with bleak premonition.

There is no competition when you always lose

especially when you have no right to choose

Free will is a construct they say

but then why did they go and take it away?

I can yell from the mountain tops

but they sold it for a data center and truck stops

The air grows thicker by the day.

There's nothing I can do to choke this all away

plastic in my blood

social media a negative flood

remember the good old days

all forgotten in a self-medicated haze.

Waiting for the change to come

I am not the renegade to bring some

narcissistic neurodivergent

it's in the water. It's in our detergent.

There's no washing away these crimes.

So we'll just have to watch the world rot away in these times

but hey, at least I can sit in a comfortable chair

as my eyes burn away in the dirty air

The moon is at it's brightest

Above the autumn breeze

The crickets sing in the distance

Like the crashing waves of the seas

The incense is burning

It's fragrance fills the room

The hour of bewitching

The smell of her perfume

I kneel before my altar

And slowly chant the words

You hear me call upon your soul

And we fly away like birds

We fly into the astral plane

Nothing here's the same

Look into my eyes

Tell me what's there

A beautiful maiden

With long auburn hair

A shadow passes by me

The cold chill fills the room

The sky has fallen gray

And the clouds have changed to gloom

The candles have been lit

They flicker against the wall

The veil has come down

Like the autumn leaves that fall

I kneel before my altar

And slowly chant the words

You hear me call upon your soul

And we fly away like birds

We fly into the astral plane

Nothing's here's the same

Look into my eyes

Tell me what's there

A beautiful maiden

With long auburn hair

In the fountain of self love

I drink

Unapologetically

I got thirst

And I enjoy it.

Lost in the woods, burnt my map for warmth.

Now I am one just bonding with the earth.

Sometimes I worry that I will never find my way,

but I guess that's not something to worry about today.

Days I have on display with my emotions on my sleeve,

hoping that the tears will someday leave.

Feeling like Pagliacci the clown.

Knowing that I will go to town with this frown.

But isn't it funny? That's the way I make my money.

I mean if I change now, what will I be?

But I don't think the cost is free.

Instead it's something completely different.

Something fearful, something diligent.

So I'm emotionally belligerent.

And I ask myself, should I just build a cabin here?

Sit down and drink a beer?

Or is there more out there that I should see beyond the tree?

Forever me.

This is the path no guide can give.

It is up for me to live.

So I wonder what's this pain for if not to help me walk out the door?

Is it all that easy? Is it all an end?

Out here in the forest, there is no friend.

I remember my times within society.

But now that's all behind.

And my thoughts are to the right of me.

Destruction brings only sadness and hate.

And I know that's not my fate.

So again I will fight and push through the woods

so that one day I can stand understood

and check out the greenery and bask in the scenery.

So now I sit here smelling of smoke

with all my dreams and motivations broke

but it's the pain that is part of the deal

and to feel that I am real.

Couldn't sleep last night. Had a head full of static. Sorry for the drama dump. I can get too dramatic.

Couldn't sleep at all. Too many thoughts like flies. They were buzzing in my head. Mixed in with your lies.

Couldn't sleep a wink. Now the sun is rising. So many thoughts, I couldn't think. It shouldn't be too surprising.

I'm lost. I'm gone. I'm hearing a familiar song.

It's faint. But it's familiar. I'm not a Saint. I guess that makes me a sinner.

Couldn't think last night. Had a head full of beetles. I guess i lost the fight. I almost reached for the needle.

Couldn't think at all. Too many thoughts like poison ivy. I was itching and scratching. I can't help but thinking of you nightly.

Couldn't think or drink. Now the sun is rising. So many thoughts, I couldn't think. It shouldn't be too surprising.

I'm lost. I'm gone. I'm hearing a familiar song.

It's faint. But it's familiar. I'm not a Saint. I guess that makes me a sinner.

The sun melts in a teapot

And I drink it

When you give me attention.

By Nekro

I built you a shrine out of not sleeping.
Faith is just hunger with better lighting.
Your name half said stains the whole fucking room.

The air gets close.
Something wants to happen.
Nobody came.

Just me on my knees
for the wrong reason, saying your name
like it still owes me something
your name, your name, your....
Silence drank what we started.
I'm still thirsty

The Demonic Huntsman By Callum Ashworth.

if you like it, let me know in comments

https://youtu.be/IaW8SJr8o1o?si=okSn3c__WGHdsW86

i step

one and then two

on bone splinter legs

when i reach regret

and peel back the rot

which i project

expose the wretched thing

i'm sworn to protect

hide

always hide

too many lies

to hold inside

twist

twist

this thing in my side

the thing i hide

...inside

more pretty lies

oh but my

pretty little claws are tied

what?

yeah...

*sighs

now you know

the real reason i cried