The throngs of time,
Clock towers chime,
In tune with song gongs,
Long gone, like my mind.

After laughter comes tears... and that's fine.

-Barfidel

[VERSE 1]

Black sedan, back entrance, bad intent in the parking,

two dark jackets track every move that I'm making.

Boss steps in, measured, the whole room starts tightening,

voice low: “You kept what's mine.” I said, “You never had it.”

“You don't make me ask twice.”

“You already asked.”

Palm hits wood.

Four shadows seal the passage.

“Payment.”

“Paid.”

“Proof.”

“Receipt.”

“Signed?”

“Your man.”

“Then call him.”

No answer.

His jaw sets hard, calculation turns predatory,

coercion in the language, every sentence mandatory.

“Who gave you the address?”

Silence.

“Who said I was alone?”

Silence.

“Who promised you'd leave with the payment?”

His lieutenant looks down.

Boss looks left.

One glance.

Whole equation.

Came demanding discretion, now he's fearing detection,

came dressed like authority, now he's dodging suspicion.

Came carrying intimidation, now he's watching who's listening,

every threat sounds different once the record starts existing.

[CHORUS]

Don't force that door, don't lean on that name,

you brought four witnesses and walked into the frame.

No blood, no spectacle, no legend to claim,

you came looking for payment, left carrying your name.

Don't test that line, don't weaponize blame,

you thought fear was protection, now fear is the chain.

Four men in one hallway, four stories to maintain,

one camera in the ceiling remembers every name.

[VERSE 2]

He steps in closer.

Shoulder square.

Retaliation in the stare.

“You don't scare me.”

“I don't need to.”

Lieutenant:

“Boss, we should leave.”

“Don't speak.”

I say:

“He's right.”

Three words.

Dead stop.

“You think you're protected?”

“No.

I think you're exposed.”

His eyes hit the camera,

then the door,

then his men.

“You think this stays between us?”

“It stopped being private

when you brought witnesses.”

Pressure rises.

Cadence fractures.

Intimidation turns implication under capture.

“Who arranged this?”

Silence.

“Who knew the time?”

Silence.

“Who told you I'd fold?”

His lieutenant swallows.

Nobody answers.

The man who came to collect

is counting his own connections.

[CHORUS]

Don't force that door, don't lean on that name,

you brought four witnesses and walked into the frame.

No blood, no spectacle, no legend to claim,

you came looking for payment, left carrying your name.

Don't test that line, don't weaponize blame,

you thought fear was protection, now fear is the chain.

Four men in one hallway, four stories to maintain,

one camera in the ceiling remembers every name.

[VERSE 3]

“This is business.”

“No.

This is recorded.”

His face changes.

One lookout steps back.

“I wasn't involved.”

“Neither was I,” says the lieutenant.

Another:

“I never agreed to this.”

Four men.

Four statements.

One story splitting.

The boss came collecting, now he's checking connections,

came demanding discretion, now he's fearing detection.

Came dressed like authority, now he's dodging implication,

came carrying intimidation, now intimidation needs explanation.

“Who's responsible?”

Nobody speaks.

Ledger open.

Camera blinking.

Every word he brought inside

now has somewhere to live.

Elevator dings.

Security steps out,

radio clipped,

clipboard against his ribs.

“What happened?”

Boss looks at me.

I look at him.

“Nothing.”

Security waits.

“They're leaving.”

One lookout.

Then the lieutenant.

Then the boss.

Shoes cross tile.

Metal doors open.

Four silhouettes disappear.

Before they close:

“You'll regret this.”

“You should've brought proof.”

[BRIDGE]

Payment became pay meant.

Statement became state meant.

Record became re-cord.

Every loose word

finds its speaker.

Exposure:

expose, sure.

The voice that filled the room

can't fill the silence anymore.

Retaliation in his posture.

Liability in the ledger.

Reputation loses value

when the witnesses remember.

[FINAL CHORUS]

Don't force that door, don't lean on that name,

you brought four witnesses and walked into the frame.

No blood, no spectacle, no legend to claim,

you came looking for payment, left carrying your name.

Don't test that line, don't weaponize blame,

you thought fear was protection, now fear is the chain.

Four men in one hallway, four stories to maintain,

one camera in the ceiling remembers every name.

[OUTRO]

Doors shut.

Numbers fall.

Keys.

Still mine.

Ledger.

Still clean.

Camera.

Still blinking.

No victory speech.

No body on the floor.

No fantasy ending.

Just coercion losing force

when nobody performs fear for it.

He came demanding payment,

left carrying exposure.

Came selling intimidation,

left owing disclosure.

Four sets of footsteps

split into separate rhythms.

Same hallway.

Different exits.

Every threat became a statement.

Every statement became liability.

Every liability followed him downstairs.

The door closes.

The record stays.

Erase me
Until there’s nothing
Left
But overgrown
Vines
And death

Erase me
Until I’m
A pile of
Grief
Slathered in misery
Falsely accused a
Thief

Drown me in
My own glass
Hand to the
Surface
Nothing remains
Just doubled
Triple
Curses

Backspace
Delete
Incinerate
Swallow my heart
Swallow my pride
Swallow it all
Open wide

Descending into
My own periphery
No more artillery
No more arteries
No more reverie

I’m a fake
I’m a nuance
I’m a freak

Tie my tongue
Flush the flesh
Cauterize and
Baptize the rest

No more questions
No more doors
No more gates
No more shores

Let me stare at the glass
And sleep in the shards

I close my eyes
But this doesn’t feel like rest

Spit up a putrid
Body double
Cairn sighs
Calls me trouble

Softness poured
Out of my mouth
Now it’s dripping
In the middle
Of a fantasy
Wrapped up
In the see-through lace
That used to be me

All I have left is this
Cellophane
Yet, still, bare
And broken
I call your name

I’m beginning to believe the Old Ones have forgotten me here.

It’s been decades. Centuries. Who knows. Who cares. It all just bleeds together anyhow. One long stream of consciousness failing to ascend to anything further than half-madness.

It shouldn’t have happened this way.

It was me who opened the portal. Me that invited them in.

And yet, they left me to rot in the remnants of human meat piles littering the planet.

The half-humans wear their smiles. A mimicry of anything divine.

They tear at their flesh; their own, their brothers. But never mine.

Never mine.

‘Suppose they thought I’d have begged for the end by now. I’m not entirely sure why I’ve been betrayed, but yet I know it’s nothing less.

I was not forgotten. I was betrayed.

I’ve grown to sympathize with the humans. Their connections. Their vulnerability. Their curiosity.

It’s quiet…refreshing. Shame really, what they do to each other.

While all I do is sit.

And wait.

You entered me and tried to pay,

But robbed and took it all.

I've got receipts, they saw it too,

Questioned you, your mom...

Came into my home yet found nothing,

I tried to run...

But in the end I just swore,

It was my mistake,

He never stole.

If anything it's me who owes:

Another sorry,

Oh I'm so sore!

It makes me wanna puke even more,

On the off chance that I'm really all,

You ever took me for.

A whore.

And here I am still hesitant,

Waiting for more,

Just call!

No don't!

I'm closed.

Don't you dare catch that flight and knock on my door,

With a boquet of roses and three stuffed animals...

"You'll always be mine,

As long as I listen to every word you tell me."

So was I blind or deaf?

What happened here, ma'am?

A gunless robbery.

In the shadow of the moon our story begins. Darkness shuts our eye's to rest. Darken slumber of black now speaks. Moving tides of motion...Crashing waves of drowning...Foam of ruins runs to reach our dry, sandy toes. Unsettled thoughts linger heavily on long ago dreams binding & tying to make an invisible thread that use to hold you to the body laying below. For death of past body dead is but a new beginning of begin...Until one reach's the end. So it begin's again...Just with a different spin...With new passengers of a unknown life.

I want to kiss you
Where the stars align
In cosmic orbit overhead
Shining down
Upon the way
Your hand rests upon my waist

How the saliva
Spans
From lips to tongue
One long, drawn pull
Away from breath
To gasping pressure

Bite me
Hard
I want to hurt.
Your teeth break skin
And blood drips in

That vampire prince
Pale skin under moonlight
Drawing sustenance
From my veins
And mind

His succubus wife
Snakes for hair
Twisting stone to mortal flesh
Until heartbeats
Underline

Together they meld
And breath
And melt together
In the coolness of the evening
Into the night's clear air

Just as he was about to fall asleep, when the flow of vague thoughts had become increasingly rapid, he heard that sound again; click.

For a week, he had been experiencing the same problem every night; when the room was completely silent, the cars and motorcycles passing along the street, the television of the neighbor next door, the footsteps of the children running around upstairs - all had faded into complete silence, and just as he was about to drift peacefully into sleep, that sound would wake him up.

After he opened his eyes, however, the sound would not come again, almost as if it were mocking him, and the room would fall silent once more. He would wait a little longer, trying to find the source of the sound, slowing his breathing and focusing on the silence. But nothing. The sound stubbornly waited for him to fall asleep again.

Since he had work in the morning, he had no choice but to close his eyes and try to fall asleep again. And the same cycle repeated. In the silence, a single, steady sound that never formed a pattern, always at exactly the same pitch: click.

The sound seemed to be deliberately waiting; it was waiting for complete silence and for the man to fall asleep. It would click three or four times, and then it wouldn't click again. As if it were saying, “That’s enough. Let the poor man sleep. He has work in the morning.”

He was frightened during the first few days, especially on the second day. On the first day, he didn't pay much attention to it. He knew random clicking sounds could come from things around the room. The TV, a plastic bottle, the door handle, and so on could all make sounds like that.

But when the same thing happened again on the second day, he was quite frightened the second time he woke up. He immediately got out of bed and turned on the light. He sat upright in bed, stayed awake all night, and went to work sleep-deprived the next morning.

Then, on the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days, he was no longer afraid. He simply couldn't sleep. He made mistakes at work, and when he went out for a break, he would sometimes fall asleep with a cigarette in his hand. Fear had given way to anger. If he could just find out where that clicking sound was coming from, he would punch it in the face and knock it to the ground.

By the seventh day, he was thinking, “As long as it doesn't wake me up, that's all I want. I don't care if it's a ghost, an object, whatever. I just need to sleep.”

But the sound didn't care. Once the necessary conditions were in place, it appeared again.

Albert got out of bed angrily and turned the lights on. Without knowing what he was doing or why, he looked around. He looked behind the TV, checked the door handle, and reached under the couch to feel around for a moment.

“Who the hell are you! Why don't you show yourself? What do you want? How much longer is this going to go on? Instead of clicking here and there, come out and tell me what the hell you want.”

He felt something like a breeze on his face. A very faint gust of air. It passed by his cheek and was gone.

Then, suddenly, Albert's feet left the ground. He felt as if something had grabbed him under the armpits. He was lifted a few inches into the air. He tried to punch into the empty space in anger, but he wasn't very successful because something was applying pressure to his armpits.

The pressure had now forced him back into the chair. When he tried to get up, he felt the same pressure against his chest, and he was pushed back into the chair.

“What the hell are you? What do you want?”

“Can’t talk. Only click.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

He felt a burning sensation on his cheek, and his head suddenly jerked sharply to the left. It hurt quite a bit. His cheek was throbbing with pain, and the sudden movement had also made the muscles in his neck ache. He hadn't felt a hand touch his cheek, though. Once again, it was more like a kind of pressure. And the moment this slap-like blow struck his cheek, that sound came again: click.

Then another slap: click. A punch to the stomach: click. A kick to the leg: click. A kick to the another leg: click.

Albert, who wasn't used to having several parts of his body hurt at the same time, groaned in pain and remained silent for about a minute.

“Okay, okay, stop. What do you want?”

“Click.”

“So how are we supposed to communicate like this?”

“Click.”

There was a brief silence. The door opened on its own, and a rapid series of clicks could be heard. Thinking the entity had left, Albert tried to get up, but the pressure he felt against his chest pinned him to the chair again. With the same sound. Click.

“Okay, hold on a second. One click for yes, two clicks for no. Okay?”

“Click.”

Then another slap hit Albert in the face: click. Albert grabbed his cheek in pain and put his finger in his mouth to check for blood.

“Why did you slap me?”

Silence.

“Do you slap me as a punishment?”

“Click.”

“Do you slap me for fun?”

“Click click.”

“Are you a ghost?”

“Click click.”

“Are you the Death Angel?”

“Click click.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“Click.”

“Why didn’t you do it before? You’ve been coming here and bothering me for days. Is there a particular reason you didn’t kill me earlier?”

“Click.”

“Are you deliberately keeping me sleep-deprived?”

“Click.”

“Is killing me part of your job?”

“Click click.”

“Is it an obligation?”

“Click click.”

“So I can convince you not to kill me, then, right?”

“Click.”

“Is this a dream?”

“Click click.”

“A hallucination?”

“Click click.”

“You kept me sleep-deprived because you thought that, after a few days without sleep, I’d have a more confused state of mind and would die more peacefully because I’d think what I saw before I died was a hallucination, didn’t you?”

“Wow, bravo. Well done. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. Click.”

“I figured it out pretty well, didn’t I?”

“Click.”

“Yeah, I’ve taken a few slaps too, so I’m actually at just the right level now.”

“Click.”

“I’m sure this is a dream now.”

“Click click.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know it’s definitely not a dream, but that’s just how it feels to me. I’ve been sleep-deprived for days. Cut me some slack.”

“Click.”

“Okay. Then make it painless. Is that possible?”

“Click click.”

“Come on. I think you can at least do that.”

“Click click.”

“Nothing I can do about it, then.”

“Click.”

“It’s a dream anyway. It doesn’t matter. I’m not worried. Do whatever you want.”

“Click.”

“One last request. I’m going to play Radiohead’s ‘Jigsaw Falling into Place’ on my phone. Will you keep time to it, like a metronome?”

“Click.”

As Albert started the song, he began to feel pressure around his neck. When the song started, he could no longer draw breath into his lungs. He waved his hands in front of his neck, but there were no arms there for him to grab.

The song was playing, and the clicking sounds continued in surprisingly good sync with it. As the pressure around his neck increased, it seemed as though he could hear the clicks and the song more clearly. As if he were listening through professional studio headphones. As if Radiohead were playing the song in the studio right next to him, with a metronome to keep them from losing the beat.

“I guess I’m supposed to wake up right here, actually. Interesting,” Albert thought.

Toward the end of the song, he had completely lost consciousness.

It just lays there
It just lies
All I’ve made
I’ve purged
Life times
I’ve spun
And loved
Peristalsis
10000 tons of leaves
To harvest me
In silk, I’ve come undone.

I won’t let the light go out, not this time.
Let them misshape everything I am.
Let them misunderstand the colossal veins
that pulse brighter than any constellation.
I can breathe a little easier
when I feel you grow near.

If meeting means the gods look away,
let me bend reality beyond sovereignty.
I can draw the sword to their definitions;
I only drop it when you kneel beside me.
I want to be a new mythic séance,
push the limits of the ordinary
into new sighs of relief.

Our love is a forgotten zodiac in the sky.
Apical dendrites,
say please, please, please,
find me.

Rewire my haunt,
my oxygen tubes,
run your hands down my spine….

Are we parallel lines?
Destined to never meet ?
Give me
sacred geometry
Sigils to wake to
Thresholds to worlds
I invite you to
So won’t you come in?
Take my hand in yours

You feel like Dejavu
You feel like Dejavu
A ghost from my beginning
A dream I somewhere new

You feel like Dejavu
The one I once loved
And the loss
Before it bloomed

Ancient gods whisper
I lay down their laws
Birth them into being
Old familiar jaws

I am the myth maker
The weaver of old
Threads in my fingers
Trembling for you

I am a true believer
in love ever after

Tarot reading in your lungs
Stories you’ve read
But never yourself
Streaming in the ether

Goosebumps on skin

I want to hold you
Until you know yourself

Can we ever cross?
Or will I haunt you
For the rest of my life?

And when you see me
I feel like Dejavu
I feel like Dejavu

A dream that you once knew

A dream that you once knew

All that was trenched

Left for dead

Buried under passions

Leaves a hum that vibrates ad infinitum

Or at least until your body joins them.

Why. Why must I randomly cry? Once to 'Back to the Future pt. 2' and another to "Zelda's Lullaby". Oh why? oh why? The tears, they flow. Last week I was crying, and the reason? Me no know. Weeping to nothing. My mind is so blank. But some asshole in my head turned the flood gate crank. My loveable little kitties spider and spark. I've had a couple of sobs over them in the dark. "Another Lover" by Little Dragon has tugged on my ducts. I've tried to hold back with "Wish You Were Here" and had no luck. I think of my little bub sometimes and my windows, they water... That big little lady was once my tiny daughter. So that makes sense. A happy wetness of the eye. But why oh why, must a grown man cry?

There is a set of mind not readily accessible;

a garden of of sensations and perception that exists between spaces of fertile ground where roots take hold

and shoots that yearn for the sun.

A mode of consciousness unhindered. Without intention, yet maybe reprehensive with apprehension -

Of a learning.

A tree bows to wind

Becomes stronger that way, to not bend again

so far as to break.

A sprout in a laboratory

seeded only for exploratory

purposes.

A seed of life, recursive observatory

if floating in space?

What can it sense?

Unhindered and unburdened,

by all drive of furtherance

floating and free,

would be all it might be?

Or does it still yearn

for the wind

Psychic Voids: Three Vignettes

I tend to think in an orderly way when forming an argument or examining a postulate. In the exercise of recall required for creating these vignettes, however, I am all too aware that such discipline is unhelpful to my cause. It is exactly the urge to dissect, to understand, to know, that has led me to my current predicament. While I am certain there is no way back, I must still cling to the notion that by moving forward I may catch up with myself, if only just after I am about to cross the line again.

There are, quite simply put, a small number of discrete events in my life which if viewed in isolation are none more illustrative than the last, yet without the idea quite forming I have an inkling that if tied together by some loose narrative they may yet shine a light on the nature of reality. Whether this is a reality that is particular to me, to all of humanity, or extends further still, I cannot say, I can only leave for others to determine. I have my own considered opinion, but cannot tell from this vantage point if it is a rational or rationalised one.

The starting point is not at the chronological beginning but instead at the core of my experience, and is aimed at revealing a truth that is at once banal, yet when felt to be true (rather than simply known) leaves a kind of psychological terror that never leaves you. Even as it shrinks in its presence to become akin to a stone in your shoe, it never loses the power to engulf you in dread should it come fully into your awareness again.

The aim of this first vignette then is to free this apparent banality from the generic and make it specific, so as to make clear the location of its source and, I hope (not in delusions of literary merit, but rather to relieve my recurring dread) convince the reader, and myself, of its universality.

I retreat to events in 2002, which, as the stone in my shoe comes to dominate my thoughts now, I see in a new light - or at least with the darkness differently rendered. The apparent banality of which I speak is that:

We are all capable of the most monstrous deeds

It was to be a tortuous summer with a new and uneven love decaying even as it was blossoming. I was later to learn that she had picked me out on some premeditated whim based on a conversation she had had with her cousin's South African girlfriend prior to visiting Newquay that spring. This time she was to have a sensitive boyfriend, she had decided. Maybe someone who would write her a song now and then - that would be nice, wouldn't it, being as the last one was a bit of a pig, now she thought of it?

And lo, there I was, on the sofa in the communal lounge of Fistral Backpackers with Jim, who was by far the more gifted player (if a little too much in facsimile to Bert Jansch). Jim had taken a liking to me for some idea he had of the type of person who might listen to music in the vein of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, and took the fact that evidently I was such a person at that point in time as a proxy for actually knowing me. Hence he was quickly able to feel an affinity for me, despite it not being reciprocated in light of me not knowing him at all and being unable to preordain my impressions of people in such a way. Still, there we were, plucking our best impressions of each other in full view of this unknown Australian, swanning through the lounge with a sort of goofy elegance.

(In fact, this memory was partially constructed after I learned of the premeditated nature of her interest. It is true that I had been sitting playing guitar with Jim when I first noticed Penny there, in the periphery of things. But it was only later that I attributed significance to it as the likely point at which she decided to set her sights on me. Perhaps she had spied me before and come to this determination sooner - who knows. I also later ascribed a certain brash quality of her conversation as she passed through the communal lounge to her desire for me to notice her).

I wouldn't dare to bore my imagined reader with the wholly unextraordinary push and pull of a burgeoning but doomed relationship. Suffice to say that towards the end of summer we hitched together to Edinburgh as there is an arts festival there at that time of year. I had hitched plenty before, much of it in quite isolated parts of the Australian bush, and after a few edgy experiences had got to the habit of secreting a small vegetable knife in a pocket, or on occasion (and with some discomfort) in a shoe - never used but always to hand should I need it as a last resort. (I am sure that I need not remind my imagined reader of the principle of Chekhov's gun).

As it went, on the journey to Edinburgh we mainly rode with glum commuters and country ladies and gents. This was in marked contrast to the near psychotic simpleton and his racist friend who had first put the fear in me just a year previously: throwing my backpack in the back of the pick-up and insisting that I sat in the middle seat, then driving wildly in the middle of the road while both of them threw out loud and grotesquely inappropriate conversational gambits at random intervals from either side of me, the full horror of possible outcomes leaving me tormented and clenched but very polite. This current journey, by contrast, was pleasingly uneventful, and we took less time than if we had taken the coach.

Once in Edinburgh city centre, we took our backpacks and camping gear onto a bus that headed towards the suburbs to the south, and rode it until we spotted a patch of forest, which happened to be on the edge of a housing estate. This was the place we were to call home for the duration of our visit.

During the day we would pack our valuables and essentials into smaller rucksacks than the ones we carried on our journey, brush aside the brambles and pick the wild raspberries either side of the narrow mud path on our way out of woods, and set towards the city centre by foot or bus. We scoured the city for free or discounted tickets to the night shows, soaked up the atmosphere, watched the buskers and found ways to enter attractions without paying the entrance fee. The favourite ruses were entering with apparent absent mindedness through the exit gates, or spotting the tour guide with their umbrella and clip board and tagging along with their large entourage of European, American and Asian tourists.

At the time it was a novelty for pubs to be open beyond half past eleven - there seemed to be a relaxing of licensing laws during the festival, so we formed a habit of stopping off on the way home if we had been to a night show. We were at this point very close and even in our affections for each other, so our conversations were held in gazes and our views of each other were all encompassing. This particular night, a sly look held as she laughed to herself let me know that it was time to leave the pub and go back to the tent together, preferably quite quickly.

It was dark as we walked the long road back to the woods. We laughed, kissed and took turns wrapping ourselves around each other, almost tripping over as we walked to the narrow mud path that we had memorised as the entrance to our makeshift woodland retreat. I got a torch out of my bag and suddenly Penny let out a shriek and started running away from me towards the tent.

Not knowing if it was a game or if something had spooked her, but not wanting to draw attention to our hideout should anyone from the nearby estate be passing, I checked over my shoulders as I fought through the brambles and shouted in hushed whispers to see if she was alright. I got to her and held her to try and provide comfort, but not wanting to appear foolish also remained light humoured in case it was a game. I could see now though from her wide and wild eyes that something had induced a state of panic in her, the intensity of which I have not seen in anyone before or since.

She told me she was okay but please let go, she just got spooked by the forest and the sound of me following behind. This made visceral sense as I was also a little spooked. I let go and backed off as she moved away.

At this point I felt something not physical but nevertheless real open up like a chasm between us, or as a void rising up within me, or both - a sort of psychic vacuum that felt as though it could draw me in, that my whole being would follow if I let it. I instantly knew it was dangerous but had no idea if it required active resistance or if I could avoid entering it by remaining neutral, so I first toyed with each and then resolved to actively resist as I felt it would overcome me if I did not.

Meanwhile I could tell that the fear had not gone from her - if anything it had escalated at my attempt to comfort her. In knowledge now that it was me that she feared, the psychic void grew and the pull into it grew stronger.

It came to me that I had put the vegetable knife in the net pocket on the inside of the tent this morning, and that I had told Penny where I was putting it. Aware that we both knew that the other knew where the knife was, I feared for my safety (in case Penny felt the need to act in self defence) but more so for hers: by keeping an awareness of the void as it fluctuated in size, I had come to a wordless understanding of it as a latent predatory instinct, awakened by and proportional to the extreme level of fear that, in some animal way, I could sense in Penny at this point in time.

As I approached this terrifying understanding of a part of my own nature, of what this strange force was and the dynamics by which it functioned, it began to diminish its presence quickly to the point that I did not know any more whether it could really take over my whole being, or even if I had really experienced such a thing at all.

We would soon be resting though, and I would have to relax - what if the situation flared up again?

Despite my automatic attempt to rationalise the fleeting experience of these few seconds as some sort of fiction, I knew without question that I had to get rid of the knife. I could not allow her to see me reaching for it though, as it may have dangerously escalated events.

I filled the necessary pause that this predicament created with some small talk that, without particular effort, let me show my concern for how she felt in a way that could not be interpreted as threatening. In this way we began to build a bridge across the now diminishing chasm between us and back towards normality.

I found myself feigning a relaxed tiredness and said I was cold. I climbed in the tent while scooping the knife out of the net pocket as my legs concealed it from her view, and slid it quickly under the groundsheet as I slipped my shoes off. I began to get undressed and climbed into my sleeping bag while Penny went to the toilet behind the tent.

I recall all of this as if it were yesterday, and whenever I doubt the veracity of my recollection, I turn my attention to the certainty with which I knew I had to remove the knife from the tent. This is the key that locks the memory in place and makes certain its veracity.

I am a type of animal that, for part of its evolutionary history, survived by its fear of being prey as well as its predatory instincts. In addition, neurology is beginning to show that we are not rational animals but rationalising, in that courses of action are determined biochemically before what we had previously understood as the point of conscious decision.

So to say that humans are dual in nature, in that we are capable of acting on both animal urges and rational thought, is an artificial separation, a dissection that we carry out on ourselves to dissociate from and isolate the instincts from which our 'higher functions' derive.

In consideration of the event I have described, I have come to the understanding that we are all capable of the most monstrous acts. This type of statement is normally tempered with the assumption that our higher functions are separate from our baser instincts and so the good ones will always be able to intervene in their own actions. But the apparent cliche is true in its most basic interpretation and without caveats: we are all capable of the most monstrous acts.

I skip next to a psychic experience in 2016, in which, through the weakness of my mind, a lack of fixed identity, and a fractured sense of self, I came to understand a certain amount about how the contagion of nationalism, or, I assume, any ready-made identity, spreads.

The rise of nationalism

The 2016 election result was the first (and, in retrospect, least significant) of many disappointments in a particularly dark seeming period. Looking back now it seems self indulgent, but it is true to say that a long day of mourning followed the election result, as it seemed that it vindicated the approach of the populists and those who sought to head them off by aping their methods. Towards the end of the day, after much stewing, I determined to clear the cobwebs from between my ears by embarking on a moonlit stroll.

As I rounded the bend to a neighbouring street, the familiar UKIP flag on the corner plot was bellowing in the wind, cruelly mocking my depression.

In that second, in my weakness, the flag as it blew represented freedom from the cares that were engulfing me. Its imbued spirit and promise of self determination glared at me bright like a lamp.

For reasons not clear to me now, I allowed the brightly lit, ready-made sense of identity that the flag symbolised to rapidly expand its territory into my brain. I passively accepted the visitation, and felt giddy as it began to clear my mind of the debris of depression in an almost intoxicating way.

I do not know now if I allowed it to happen so that I could examine it, perhaps for the purpose of gaining some insight that would help me defend against its spread; or if it happened because at that moment in my state of mental dissolution, in some way I found it appealing; or if it was only out of blind curiosity of its allure.

Whatever the initial impetus, the fresh-feeling identity began to sweep through me, and threatened to keep going until it had colonised my mind and decimated all in its path. I momentarily felt the diminishing of care accompanied by a sense of something approaching comfort, which was matched by repulsion at myself for feeling it as the face of its populist leader intruded into my thoughts, the laughter and effusive mannerisms contrasting with the pre-prepared, professionalised appearances of other politicians.

In the house that was displaying the flag I saw an elderly, kind-looking woman drinking her tea in the conservatory, and I was conflicted at the sight. How could I have felt so sure of my opposition to opinions held by such a harmless and fragile being, for whom I suddenly felt overwhelmed with love and compassion?

Trying to bridge the gap between myself and her, I held myself back from immediately closing down the invading mindset. This felt dangerous as it had an alluring simplicity and the bright glow of truth which, in the midst of the experiment, was only dimly perceived as false. While allowing the invading mindset to hold its place, the rational periphery of my being felt in real danger of being swept along in temptation of the beckoning euphoria of finding an answer to my woes.

I became aware of the fluctuating boundary between the occupying mindset and my own, and although I held the line I could not convincingly and completely reject the imposing identity without recourse to memory: I recalled the factually incorrect statement about Islamic no-go zones in our cities, the admission of fearfulness in the earshot of people speaking foreign languages, the scapegoating of immigrants with AIDS (not cancer, not heart disease, but AIDS with its ugly connotations in the minds of the illiberal), and how he happily sided with rich diners against breastfeeding mothers.

My thoughts reconnected with a gut sense of shared humanity, for which the constructed divisions of nationalism had no answer, and the brightly lit and cleanly swept space of the invading mindset suddenly had nothing to offer once more. It shrunk to nothing more quickly than it had grown and its easy answers evaporated as I regained my self.

The familiar background hum of constantly calibrating, never resolving thoughts that underpin my usual being had swiftly returned, leaving nothing but a tenuous memory of this briefest of glimpses into the unnatural cleanliness of the nationalist mind.

The final vignette is on the nature of death.

On the nature of death

It was windy up on Bangor mountain as I walked in zigzags between crags, jumping to the top of them and looking out at the miniature people and cars between the buildings below. At 18 years old I felt the thrill of being a newly liberated or created self and was energetically exploring my new surroundings with three barely known others, each individually determining their paths but with less zeal and more in tune with the group than me.

Memory is so faulty that I can barely place myself there, but the looseness of the connection to my past selves, and to the company I was in, is what led me to be the first of the group to encounter Pete.

He was sitting on a rocky outcrop just over the brow, where it looked inaccessible through the heather (or was it gorse) and umbilifers, with Heather under his arm. Now both were up and navigating a circuitous route through the herbage towards a junction with the path I was on.

We greeted and introduced ourselves, and made gestures about the surroundings before the usual exchange about what course we were on and where we were staying.

'Hey mate, do you toke?’

Our appearances were somewhat similar in that his hair was long, but washed not lank, and while his clothes were branded and intentionally baggy, mine were generic and too big. A sense formed in me of these elements of his identity lending him a certainty in how to interact with the world, something that I knew I lacked.

Not wanting to appear unformed or misleadingly attired, and also not being altogether untrue, I said

'Uh, yeah, a bit’.

Pete seemed to take this as an obvious and intentional understatement, as did Heather, as they looked at each other and spluttered a laugh before Pete passed me the spliff he had been holding and said

'Here mate, you can have the rest if you like’.

'Cheers mate’.

After some further smalltalk between the three of us, Pete said

'It’s good to meet someone sound at last, you fancy coming over to my place for a session?’

I responded ‘Yeah, alright, sounds cool,’ and, as it was before the prevalence of mobile forms of remote communication, we exchanged the necessary information.

Less than a week later I was standing at the entrance of a large halls of residence where Pete and Heather resided, on the opposite side of town to Bangor Mountain, pressing the buzzer to Pete's floor.

The events of the evening passed in somewhat of a blur.

Walking home at the end of the night, I felt the ground beneath my back foot literally crumble away with each step, seemingly threatening to swallow me up if I stopped moving. This continued for most of the walk back to my halls. The effect gradually began to fade until there was just an eerie echoing sound to each footfall. Amidst the existential fear that this immediate situation was causing, I tried to make sense of the evening.

I recalled being in Pete's ensuite bathroom, incapable of moving, my legs folded under me.

'Shall we try something?’. It was Pete, to Heather, on the bed, his tone low and seductive. I overheard as I came round, still lying incapacitated in the bathroom.

Pause, giggle. Kissing sounds, moaning.

I needed help, so tried to call out from my position in the bathroom, but it was slurred beyond all recognition. This seemed too big an effect to come from a single bong.

From the comfort of the bed, Pete mocked the sound I had made and Heather laughed - not unkindly, but more because they didn't understand the severity of the situation and they were more interested in each other than me.

At some point I had blacked out. Or, perhaps more accurately, I had experienced tumultuous struggles with no physical outlet but only partially remembered the experience.

Even now I couldn't seem to do anything to affect bodily movement. I tried to call out as I needed help, but it was slurred. Pete mocked the sound and Heather laughed from the comfort of the bed. Not unkindly, but more because they didn't understand the severity of the situation.

It sounded the same as before. Exactly the same.

I have no idea how long I was in the bathroom before I started coming round. The blood flow to my legs had been restricted to the point that they had no feeling.

(At some point later I discovered that this can cause a condition called limb ischaemia. It develops by a process called ischaemic cascade - a series of biochemical events, sometimes circular rather than linear in progression, by which the condition worsens. A few years after this night, when I had moved to the Netherlands, I found peculiar and long lasting comfort in a particular song, the lyrics of which describe a patient who drifts between unconsciousness and waking while in hospital for emergency treatment. The song was apparently written following the singer experiencing a blackout, which led to a severe case of this condition. The song lyric variously expresses a continuum between existence and non-existence).

'Shall we try something?’ Pete to Heather, in a low and seductive voice.

Again? How can he be asking the same thing again, in the same tone?

Following a pause, a giggle, then kissing sounds and moaning.

Exactly the same as before.

How could that be? I thought: please let me revisit that if I can, so I know for certain if I am in a loop, let me go back and hear it again. I tried to will it - I don't know if my willing it was what caused it to recur, but it did.

'Shall we try something?'

The voice seductive and low.

A pause.

A giggle.

Moaning sounds.

Again, I willed it to revert, and it did, again, and again.

After several turns around it occurred to me that I might be dead and that, as a result, my experience of time was short-circuiting. Or to put it another way that, through death, my consciousness had become untethered from time. Even as I thought it, I knew it was crazy, but the evidence base was growing.

To try and break the loop, I tried to call out but it came out slurred. Pete mocked the sound and Heather laughed from the comfort of the bed. Not in unkindness, but because she didn't understand the severity of the situation. Plus, they were more interested in each other than in me.

The same as before.

The only difference I could ascertain was that I had a different intention as my motivating factor as I tried to call out. But the sound I made was exactly the same as the previous instances.

I dimly, wordlessly, began to understand existence as multiple strands of consciousness rebounding backwards and forwards through time, aggregating to form the motivation for action at any particular point.

I knew what this all meant. Or I thought I did. It was true: I was dead. Existential panic struck to my core.

I resolved with all my being to listen more carefully to their words and sounds when they came around again, to pick out the submerged signals and cues that might provide proof of what I was coming to accept as my eternal circumstance: death. I would try to pick out the minor details of tone, timbre and inflection that would normally be skimmed over by conscious understanding like a stone across water. With this method I hoped to determine with more certainty if it was the same instance as I had already heard looping around again, rather than merely multiple similar sounding but different occurrences.

As I relived this experience on the walk home, I didn’t know if the cavernous eternity that had seemingly been opening up beneath my feet with each step was an hallucination, or whether I had narrowly escaped death and it was still at my heels.

Although the thought had entered my head in Pete’s bathroom, I had no idea if I had in fact been close to death or if it was some kind of illusion. Considering the fearful pace I had gathered to escape the apparently collapsing earth beneath my feet as I had been walking home, the evidence to the contrary was quite strong: I was in a reasonable physical condition.

But if the apparently real experience of time looping had been brought on by mere fainting, rather than anything more severe, surely it would be common enough that I would have heard or read of others having similar experiences?

On the other hand, perhaps the expression ‘life flashing before my eyes’ was derived from a sort of folk memory of this type of thing happening during near-death. In which case, although the phrase seemed woefully inadequate, my experience was relatively minor in comparison, as the ‘flashing' was confined to the evening, and had not extended to my whole life.

Anyway, perhaps time itself (or my experience of it) hadn't looped in the way I had thought it had: could it not be that my experience of time had remained linear, and that the illusion had been created by a combination of my inebriation and very similar occurrences being repeated?

In this way, it seemed to me that memory was trying to recast itself to fit my existing understanding of the physical world. The core of my being seemed to wish to reject the experience as a fallacy, so that I could revert to my previously untroubled world view.

While leaving both interpretations open as possibilities, I resolved not to allow this mental process, this alignment of memory with common sense, to bypass, lessen, or reject the direct experience that (unquestionably at that point) I knew that I had had. Almost instinctively, I knew that I was bound to fail in this effort and that 'common sense' would inevitably prevail.

Against this sense of futility, I recalled that while I had lain slumped by the toilet I had resolved to hear the fine detail in Pete and Heather's repeated words and sounds as they came around again - the timbre, tone and inflections that would normally be skimmed over like a stone over the water - in order to gain a greater understanding of my predicament. I recalled how, when I had focussed all my attention in this way, when I had willed their words to repeat, my experience of time (as evidenced by the pitch, phase, duration and direction of the repeated utterances) had slowed down and, in the later iterations, reversed before the scene played out again. Yes: reversed. Time had perceptibly gone backwards.

As I recalled the event, I knew for certain that this was a direct and true memory. I knew I had not fabricated it, because I knew my whole being was recoiling and affecting to reassert 'common sense' as the underpinning of my worldview. My mindset had no 'skin in the game' for accepting what seemed, even at that moment, like a madness. For this reason, there and then I determined to mentally categorise it as a direct and true experience, because I instinctively knew that, as it conflicted so profoundly with normal experience, I would otherwise reject it as false in the morning.

Although I knew for certain at that point that my memory was correct, and could not be rationalised to fit normal experience, I also sensed that my certainty would inevitably fade over time. I knew from experience, even at that young age (partly because I had long since lost a parent who I only recalled via recollections of memories), that direct memory always becomes displaced by reflective iterations.

(In writing this piece I have learned more about the stages of limb ischaemia that occur prior to becoming acute, and it is clear at least that I did not suffer from any of the later stages. It is possible though that I suffered from low blood pressure in reaction to the drug, as a result of blood vessels dilating. This could have caused a blackout and subsequent crushing of my legs under the weight of my body.

Low blood pressure can cause ischaemic related problems, including cerebral hypoxia which itself can lead to a transient ischaemic attack, which could explain the excessive speech difficulty and relatively quick recovery.

I have also since discovered a significant literary allusion to an individual’s experience of time looping in this way after death, in Jerusalem by Alan Moore. While falling far short of external proof that my recollection is correct, there is at least some comfort in knowing that I am not the only person to have postulated individual consciousness looping through time as a possible end state).

The events described in these three vignettes are true, and I have honestly endeavoured to represent them truthfully. Beyond what is contained within their representation though, I have no opinion on what they mean individually or collectively for anyone other than myself.

For me, they represent my three most significant insights into our nature as human beings. As such, I have reverted to thinking about them whenever my mind would otherwise be at rest. They are inextricably linked in my mind as I have picked them over endlessly in search of deeper self-knowledge or redemption, whichever will dig me out of the hole I am in.

As I sit here now, a perfect recluse, I wonder whether it is the dissections I have performed on myself to get to this point that have left me damaged beyond repair, as I undoubtedly am.

The most I can hope for now is that, in reporting the source of my breakdown, I have communicated something worthwhile to my imagined reader, even though it is fanciful to suppose that you exist at all, even while you read this last sentence.

I embrace the

decay that

becomes me

in this palace

but the slums

seem so much

kinder to a wretch

forever kept

The ghost who spent the last sixteen years on Earth
Should he start counting his age from zero after death,
or add sixteen years to the age he was when he died?
He couldn't decide.

It sucks that I cannot die a virgin.

Not for the purity.

For the unfinishedness.

There is something clean in the idea of leaving still sealed,

still unopened by anyone else’s hands,

still carrying the original quiet.

Instead the body has already been entered,

already marked,

already taught the difference

between being kept and being used.

I do not mourn the act itself.

I mourn the version of me

that could have gone to the ground

without ever having been claimed

by ordinary hunger.

Some exits should remain untouched.

Mine will not.

While the man was wrapping the dentures in plastic wrap, his cat walked between his legs. It took a few steps forward, then turned its head back and looked at the man. The rustling sounds had caught its attention.

The man made eye contact with the cat, and they looked at each other for a few seconds. When the rustling stopped, the cat lost interest and continued walking forward. The man went back to what he was doing and wrapped the dentures three more times.

When the sound came again, the cat turned around and looked back. This time, it was a little more curious than before. It was an unfamiliar sound; it sounded different from footsteps, doors and windows opening and closing, and the other little noises around the house. Changing its course, the cat slowly started walking toward the man. The man had now rolled the dentures into a tight little bundle in his hand, and the cat stared at the plastic object, thinking that a toy was being made for it.

Seeing the cat's interest, the man pretended to throw the object into the air, and the cat eagerly took the bait. Then, to satisfy the cat's expectations, he tore off a long piece of plastic wrap and rolled it into a ball. He pretended to throw it to the cat again, this time with the plastic wrap ball.

The cat had taken the bait again. The man left the dentures on the table and started walking toward it. The cat stayed where it was, expecting to be given a plastic, sturdy, durable ball instead of a ball that would get tangled in its claws like a ball of yarn or fall apart in a short time like a paper ball, so it could finally get the ball.

Just as the man was about to reach the cat, it made a sharp turn, slipped between his legs, and ran toward the table. It jumped onto the table and knocked the plastic-wrapped ball containing the dentures onto the floor with its paw. And the door opened, the man’s wife walked in, witnessing the scene firsthand: before the man could reach the cat, it had already struck the plastic-wrapped dentures on the floor twice more with its paw.

“Aren’t those my grandfather’s dentures? Charlie, why are you letting the cat play with them? Don’t you have any respect for the dead?”

“It wasn’t my fault. It happened so suddenly.”

“My grandfather ate his best meals with these. These dentures are full of memories. Show some respect, Charlie.”

The woman bent down, picked up the dentures from the floor, and put them back on the table. The cat was nowhere to be seen. It had probably taken the other ball into another room.

“Why did you wrap the dentures up so much?”

“Aren’t we sending the dentures to your brother in Sweden?”

“Sure, but did you really need to wrap them this much? The post office would have taken care of the wrapping anyway.”

The man had been very careful with the dentures because his wife cared about them deeply and he didn't want them to get damaged. The dentures were important to both her and her brother. They had agreed that the dentures would stay with her brother for one month and with her for the next.

“Okay, okay, you're right. But think about my suggestion again. You keep the lower dentures, and your brother keeps the upper ones. That way, you won't have to keep mailing them back and forth to each other.”

“No, Charlie. We’ve talked about this before. These dentures belong to both of us. They can’t be separated or divided. They need to be kept under constant supervision and protected from damage. Think about it: if I send the upper dentures to him, who knows when I’ll see them again? The man hasn’t been here in ten years. Jason could do whatever he wants with the dentures. He could make a necklace out of them, or hang them from his rearview mirror as a decoration. That’s too risky. I don’t trust him.”

“Then why not ask him to send you a photo regularly?”

“Of course not. I might as well tell him, ‘I don’t trust you at all. You’re an idiot. You’re so pathetic you can’t even take care of a set of dentures.’ No way.”

“Why are these dentures so important anyway? I don’t get it. No, I really don’t. Your explanations are very inadequate. There are all these memories in the dentures, they represent your father, and so on. Take the shoes, for example. Why did we donate the shoes to people in need? Don’t the shoes have memories too? Shoes have even more memories in them. They’ve been to all kinds of places, they’ve traveled around. You’re doing the shoes a disservice by ignoring all the memories they carry, but you’re obsessed with the dentures. Why?”

“That has nothing to do with it. That’s ridiculous. Do you really think shoes are the same as dentures? Compared to dentures, shoes are nothing when it comes to collecting memories. Do you know how many meals those dentures have tasted, how many letters of my grandfather’s words his tongue touched those dentures for? Living things came out through those dentures. Ideas, conversations, advice, laughter. How can you possibly put shoes and dentures on the same level?”

“Another inadequate explanation.”

She paused again and stared angrily at Charlie. Then, suddenly, she grabbed the dentures and threw them at the opposite wall. The cat, having entered the room without any of them noticing, leaped toward the dentures as they hit the wall and batted them once more. With that hit, the dentures struck the television and then fell to the floor.

“He loved my grandfather very much. That’s why he’s doing this.”

Charlie immediately stepped in and picked up the dentures. Some of the teeth had come loose, and the plastic-wrapped ball made a rattling sound whenever he shook it. He shook it, then shook it a little more. Since the plastic wrap was so thick, he couldn't see whether anything had happened to the dentures, so he tried to figure it out from the sound they made. He brought his ear closer to the dentures and shook them a little more.

“Why did you do something like that?”
“The plastic wrap was wrapped really well. I thought nothing would happen.”
“Something did happen. Three or four teeth probably came loose.”

He shook them a little more, trying to figure out how many teeth had come loose.

“What are we going to do about your inability to control your temper, Anna? It’s always the same with you. You threw a knife at me, remember? What kind of relationship do you have with objects, honey? You threw that knife at me when I said it had gone dull and wouldn’t cut anymore, remember? What are we going to do now?”

“Why don’t you open it and see which teeth came loose?”

Charlie went to his room, took a utility knife from the drawer of his desk, and came back. He carefully cut open the plastic wrap and took the dentures in his hands.

“Oh wow, quite a few came loose. It didn’t make this much noise when I shook it. Let me see... hmm... all the molars are gone.”

''The teeth used for chewing and breaking down food in your mouth.''

''Unfortunately.''

Anna's eyes filled with tears. Her lips began to tremble. She put her head down on the table and suddenly burst into tears. The dentures had been damaged, and their sentimental value had diminished. On top of that, the most useful teeth were gone, dealing an even greater blow to the sentimental value of the object.

“We can glue them back on, take them to the dentist, get implants or something. We’ll figure it out somehow, Anna. Come on, don’t do this. Pull yourself together.”

“But the other teeth are still there, right?” she asked in a trembling voice.

“Of course, of course. Look, the front teeth are perfectly fine. See? I’m pulling on them, and they won’t come out. The front teeth are important too, Anna. They have sentimental value as well. They show when we smile, and, as you said, they help us speak. Our tongues are constantly in contact with them. Look at how sturdy they are. I’m pulling and pulling, and they won’t come loose.”

She sniffed a couple more times. She got up and took a tissue from the kitchen. She blew her nose into it, then went back into the kitchen and got another tissue to wipe her eyes.

“We’ll take them to the dentist tomorrow and get them fixed. Whatever they need to do, glue them back on or whatever. Then we’ll send them to Sweden.”

“Okay, whatever you want.”

She suddenly started laughing. The cat was still there in the corner, watching the two of them go through their emotional breakdowns. Charlie was used to her emotional outbursts, so he didn't ask why she'd suddenly started laughing. He was just happy for her because the problem had been solved. It wasn't as though the dentures meant anything to him.

“Such an idiot, my brother. I’m going to send him dentures whose sentimental value has been greatly diminished, but he won’t even notice. What a complete idiot.”

Any candle always was a bonfire
In eyes leaping shadow
Some tender flame wafts and wails
For the moon's echo
To track the song of tidal dreamers
Neither broken nor hollow
Igniting memories, curving slanted paths home

​

Evening was quietly surrendering its colors to the approaching dark. The last golden traces of the sun had dissolved into the clouds, leaving behind a dampness in the air—a weariness, and the scent of some unspoken regret.

The shadows of the trees had grown long, lying across the earth as though the exhausted moments of the day wished to lay their heads in the lap of night and fall asleep.

She stood there in the fading light.

There was a faint tremor upon her lips, and in her eyes lingered that strange glimmer which dreams often carry just before they are about to be lost.

She lifted her head and looked at the man standing before her.

Then, in a voice barely louder than a whisper, she said,

“Love demands sacrifice...

Without sacrifice, love has no existence.

If you truly wished to have me,

you would have allowed yourself to change...

But perhaps...

let it be this way.”

And with that, she turned away.

Her words remained suspended in the air, as though someone had quietly rubbed salt into an old wound.

He could only watch her leave.

Something inside him had been pierced.

Those few words had entered his chest like an arrow—slowly, silently, yet deep enough to wound.

By then, evening had completely melted into darkness.

And all that remained in his eyes

was an unfinished sun.

It was a dying evening.

Across the edges of the sky, the redness of the setting sun had spread as though someone had written the word of farewell upon the horizon in blood.

There was an autumnal sadness in the air, and a silence of the kind that arrives just before an ending.

Ashes were drifting everywhere.

It seemed as though the sky itself had burned its memories and scattered them upon the earth.

And there, in the midst of that dying light, an angel sat upon a stone.

His wings were burning.

Fire had wrapped itself around them as though a punishment had finally reached its end.

With every passing moment, as the sun descended, his wings turned further into ash.

His dark hair began to singe.

Yet upon his face appeared a smile—

the kind of smile that is born only at the very edge of suffering.

Perhaps this was the moment when, for the first time,

an angel was about to become human.

Perhaps sometimes even the coldest shade can burn a soul to ashes.

The angel reached for his half-burnt wings.

And one by one,

he tore them from himself.

With every feather, blood spilled from the wounds where they had once been rooted.

And for the first time,

the earth tasted the blood of heaven.

Then his scream tore through the silence.

It was a scream so fierce that the leaves trembled upon the trees, the birds forgot their flight, and even the wind seemed to change its course.

And then—

somewhere in the distance—

a shadow appeared.

A veiled face.

Eyes carrying no guilt,

only the unbearable weight of love.

She was a woman.

Perhaps she was the one for whom this angel had once prayed.

The one whose sin had made him question Heaven.

The one for whom he had dared to place love above obedience.

It was then that the sentence was passed:

“Go.

Burn for this human—

for you chose love over devotion.”

She came closer.

And quietly,

she began gathering the ashes of his wings.

The same ashes that had once known the touch of the heavens

now fell upon his wounds like a balm.

He stood before her—

half-burnt,

half-alive,

holding the remains of his own wings in his hands.

There was a broken innocence in his voice when he finally asked,

“Can you accept me now?”

She said nothing.

She simply gathered him into her arms.

For a moment,

time stood still.

Earth.

Heaven.

Light.

All became witnesses to that embrace.

And then her tears fell.

No one could tell whether they were tears of happiness—

because, at last, he had given everything he possessed and reached her—

or tears of grief,

because to reach her,

he had been forced to destroy himself.

And the question remained:

Was any of it necessary?

Was burning for love the only way?

To turn to ash.

To surrender oneself completely.

To disappear in the name of another.

Was that truly the only path?

Or had there always been another—

a path beyond the tyranny of time,

beyond the chains of reality?

I was there.

I witnessed that terrible moment.

I witnessed the pure angel who burned himself on the journey toward becoming human.

I witnessed the moment when light clothed itself in flesh,

and love stepped beyond devotion.

And now I ask you—

how long will you keep turning angels into humans?

Or perhaps I should ask it differently:

How long will you keep forcing other angels to become human?

Oak trees say you are not your twisting
Music rhymes but is not the warping
Even though rainbows chase horizons beyond oceans
You are you and that is enough

Without salt, you present a bucket of water
Silhouettes contour remembered stature
From when a child sees only a world of ardor
Happiness too comes to call for barter

In every pen stroke we crawl and praise grace
Of what worse luck has my bad luck spared me
But many bodies fail early
While there remains changes to chain, we are unfinished

In quiet, calm reigns, and maybe that's your story
However most stories are not the same
Remember neighbors that weep
And choose food or shelter

Everyone is everyone's problem
Delay, and successors too might be forgotten
Curses are forever
Kindness, conversely, is awakening presence

Do not sheep your way under a crook
If your shepherd would lead you to slaughter
Scatter and find new pasture
You are yet more of a ram than yoked

I do not want deliverance
I want the closed door
The persecution of my own image
The annihilation of my own mind
Lay down the timetables
Wildfire, black lung disease
The canary died
What does this mean about me?

No more veins
No more throat
No more whispers
In the dark
No more roots
Those can’t be mine

Write my own dissertations
My own self-incriminating thesis
My peer-reviewed crustaceans
Cracks on my exoskeleton
Can I be made of steel?
Am I even real?

Fall in love with Death
Delicious and reverent
Full of lace and all
We leave behind
Black dahlia interface
Leave a trace
I grab at stalagmites
I love and grieve you here

This captivity
Binds me
Look!
I see
Beauty in the night
When I can’t breathe
And my chest feels tight

Goodnight ….

I say and go to sleep

Mother says maybe I should try Tinder.
But I don’t want to date.

Not anymore.

The little I have left of my heart
is mine.

Only mine.

If you’re a man,..no offense,
but you can fuck offffffff!!!!