If You Go Down To The Woods Today

 The crown effect guarantees ends don’t quite meet in the folio dome of this cathedral. 

Timorous squeaks and piercing pleas out of reach to uncaring ears. 

As atheistic as I am, I recognise the prayers of the prey,

the pleasures of the predator.

Withheld warmth brings my uncaressed flesh to shiver.

Croaking, he hops. Eyes sharp, beak sharper; unobscured intelligence.

He’s come for my liver.

Head dips, gore drips and I am reminded of life’s 

carbon carousel.

Scream if you wanna go faster.

I had screamed, but what came after was not speed. 

What came after was 

dilated 

time.

I aligned myself with the smallest of beasts.

Ants. Watchmen beetles. Dispassionate and industrious.

Clouding eyes fixated on them; skittering, chittering.

Unmindful of the violence above.

Dry twigs and my bones were indistinguishable

snapping beneath brutal boots. 

Roots remodelled cheeks

deep lividity carving the caved contours into violets

blooming in darkness.

Ragged jagged breath and nails, too, tear

 for any available oxygen.

Desperation transforming 

grunts to glossolalia;

debutante to cooling cadaver.

In the post-orgasmic vacuum, psithurism roared.

I seeped through dank earth

and releasing claim on physicality,

observed from without.

After The Storm

 

I never thought the I would side with an aggressor.

“Never let the means unjustify the ends"

But it's hard to have honour suffocating under pressure 

When the enemy of the enemy's temporarily your friend.

12 step. Goose step. Misstep. Fall.

Fatalistic, impotent. 

Flailing fetid firmament. 

Perpetually panic-perched

In fight or flight frozen.

But the show's on.

So it goes on.

Mask in metaphor,  mask in reality.

Putting  on the face of a sunny personality. 

Scars in metaphor, scars in reality.

No more question of my strength or my sanity.

Crossfire massacre of crazed masculinity;

No Man's Land is my permanent vicinity;

With extra helpings of aggression at Christmas,

“for old times’ sake" it's a sentimental sickness.

Threat-making, bear-baiting sarcastic cowardice.

Rage-churning, bridge-burning emotional terrorist. 

Promises vomited into pits of lies, bilious

dismissive, supercilious 

and sneering in your bitterness,  you're hideous.

My defence is the simplest;

nullifying narcissistic assaults on my peacefulness 

by finding you ridiculous.

You're piteous and less than this.

I am the carapace that weathers every storm.

I'm the arrow-struck, 4ft thick, besieged fortress wall.

I am Horatio standing on the bridge.

I'm a nanny-goat protecting her kid.

You are a buzzing gnat,

A toxic stinking sewer r*t,

A remnant of an era that

is over and I won't go back.

I've lost count of the times you've tried to inspire suicide 

But my success is measured in the things I have survived

and every time I smile I know I'm breaking free of your control.

My laughter is the fanfare at the rebirth of my soul.

I am stronger now that I'm free.

I am seizing liberty 

My choices are my own (inside constraints of living)

My future is unwritten.

It's only just beginning 

And my life's my own, 

My life's MY OWN. 

(In case anyone was wondering,  we don't use the word R A T in this country. It brings terrible misfortune.)