The Dark Side

There is blood on the pavement from a life that has met the end. It is the blood of revolution. Born of youth and passed on to old men as veterans. Somewhere between the spilling of that blood and the survival of man a story develops. Sometimes the story is glorious and sometimes it is of dissatisfied destruction. But nowhere should it be of love. There is no love in war only death. The living carries on only to fight other wars, because they cannot learn from the dead. They cannot learn from the Monk’s burning on the street or read the tealeaves inside a bamboo viper’s mouth. They are speechless; they are the dead and the tiger smiles. I stand in the pool of blood and wonder “why not me?” Did that bullet have their name on it? Is that really what happens…fate? “Wrong place right time,” that’s what God said to me. It’s an enigma no one dies they just change places. The monkey’s scream in the jungle and the rain falls through the trees and the worms go on about their business even though the dead lie with them. Do I dare swim in that pool and face the universe from the other side? It’s dark in here and it’s dark out there. Is the struggle for freedom just a sick twisted trick on mankind? Are we ever free of a life that is destined to end in mortality? I wait for death to sleep. I watch her lay there breathing as her breasts move ever so gently up and down and the clock ticks out like a leaky facet. Broken umbrellas cover the bedroom floor waiting for her to sleep. I can’t help her on that journey only the traveling hands of time can do that work. I step out of the blood and back into myself again and realize I have been dreaming again. The dark side of me has visited me and is a beast that will burden me until we meet for the last time.