I miss October summers and April winters,
The touch of a soul against mine.
I miss July downpours and December heatwaves,
The spirit holding me as I cry.
I miss underground gardens and overhead basements,
The whisper of electricity along the line.
I miss delicate roses and prickling buttercup,
The ache of my mind asking why.
The zone is a crease.
Like a dimple of haunting.
Diving into the wild sensation.
Feeling prickly.
Pine trees grow at night.
There is a vampire.
Takes all the pinecones to his nest.
Spiraling like October does.
The zone is a person.
Like me except she is a ghost.
Or worse.
Eats worse things.
They grow at night.
We know because,
The prickling.
Like rabid spiders.
A place under construction.
All the time, being excavated.
By wild, mysterious beings.
Like me, but worse.
They grow at night.
Pop up by morning,
And no one believes me when I tell them…
You can’t cross there.
Someone always does.
And gets eaten by a pine tree.
Growls and snarls.
In this nothing-world.
The zone.
Is under construction.
It’s not the place.
It’s us.
Being pulled under.
Like a lily pad going ‘boop.’
Bobbing around, then nothing.
No amount of clearing my mind will undo it.
A spider whisper.
He likes me.
Prickling like his legs.
As if I’m in a dome.
Pulled under.
There are other people who have the slobbering feeling under their hair.
Faded out.
Like a pinecone with its edges shaved.
Fingers focusing.
With gripping finger pads that do nothing.
And the kitchen is always a mess of weird things.
Bugs and things.
My edges shaved down and caved in a little.
Grappling under the ice, but there’s no water, just feet of ice.
Someone else used to live here.
He was like a centipede to me.
Everyone is like a centipede to me.
Climbing the walls.
So am I.
Always around in the basement.
Depression.
Is when you are a spider, centipede, lily pad, or pinecone.
And could get crushed any moment.
But you don’t.
Two hearts lost to love
Our dreams writ across the skies,
A flight of Sun and Moon,
Bringing opportunity, not obstacles
Beguiling reality, so vivd
Yet unreal simultaneously
Are we caught in mirror's gaze
Movement from the corner of an eye
Senses prickling with realisation
Have we truly waited this long
To find and be found
Did fate flinch for us
Navigating by the same stars
Our compass points are true
The destination is unknown
Yet we yearn for the journey
We reach through that mercury
Proving no obstacles bind us
Summit mountains where others fell
Threading the needle of our dreams
The heather weeps, a purple bruise,
Across the glens, the chilling news.
No bagpipes drone a mournful sound,
But sirens wail on hallowed ground.
A thistle bleeds, its prickling crown,
As innocence is stricken down.
Young eyes, once bright with Highland fire,
Now gleam with something dark and dire.
The steel they flash, a twisted boast,
A stolen childhood, dearly lost.
Each shadowed lane, a whispered fear,
Of blades that gleam and futures near,
Consumed by rage, a hollow pride,
Where youthful dreams have gone to hide.
Parents clutch, with hearts ablaze,
Afraid to loose in this iron maze.
The ancient stones, they stand and stare,
At broken vows and whispered prayer.
Can Scotland rise, her spirit mend,
And teach these children how to bend,
The steel to craft, the hands to heal,
And learn the wounds are truly real?
To trade the blade for open hand,
And reclaim peace within the land.
Dear heart, I dreamed you would rest upon floating clouds,
not on the prickling hay, nor the coldness of unyielding stone.
That’s why I stayed away from the smoke of his breath,
spiraling to claim my neck with a misty embrace.
I kept my skin away from his secret touch,
and my gaze lowered, afraid to catch his gleam.
Before our demons introduced themselves,
speaking in foreign tongues until their words united.
Before we understood each other's burden of pain,
before the first tear fell, before joy
shattered into a fragile smile that spoke in whispers.
After he laid a tapestry of unfulfilled thoughts at my feet,
and I danced for him, moved by his unspoken desires.
After mastering the art of creating a melody from two notes,
only then did I wish to... but why tire myself, dear heart,
when time follows its own path, regardless of our wounds?
Ignoring the fervent desires of people,
to possess a spark that hides an inferno in its belly.
Thus, we remain dreamers under skies that do not yet know us,
hoping that one day, the clouds will know how to bear our burden.
Prickling, my intuition is charged.
I can see what I need to do,
even if I don’t know how;
Some will tell me it’s off,
the way I listen;
Right then I win,
with that old
wildcard
thrown.
It’s an optical illusion
Has my brain had a contusion
I look on in rapt confusion
It’s a trick of the night
There’s a shadow in the doorway
Coming my way going your way
It’s as slippery as a moray
It’s a trick of the night
It’s shape is vague; it’s indistinct
I didn’t see from where it slinked
Would it vanish if I blinked
It’s a trick of the night
Dogs don’t pass, they turn and run
Like they’re seeking out the sun
Even rats avoid the fun
It’s a trick of the night
Dust and dirt rise in the street
At the tread of unseen feet
Something I care not to meet
It’s a trick of the night
There’s a creaking on my stairs
On my neck are prickling hairs
But she caught me unawares
It’s a trick of the night
There’s a beauty standing there
With a shimmer in her hair
Not a stitch of underwear
It’s a trick of the night
Manly acts I’ve quickly planned
But I do not understand
Is the dagger in her hand
Just a trick of the night
boxed to a corner
horde by unseen eyes
shirking the coming dusk
slashed to a million pieces
prickling the mind
wailing, screaming
with concise thoughts
as a lasso to the soul
we pant to the sabbath
as we come to birth
but with the brevity of breath
smirking with utter defiant
swimming in an ocean of doubt
A waste paper basket, a trash can, a bin
Whatever you call it, some things won’t stay in
The things that you write
Long into the night
May make, when discarded… one hell of a din
*
Don’t write by moonlight at midnight
Do not trash your tale late at night
For powers unseen
And terribly mean
May use it to give you a fright
I know, for it happened to me
I tell for I need you to see
I binned every word
And later I heard
A screech of malevolent glee
*
I lie wide awake in my bed
My discarded verse in my head
I tiptoe downstairs
With prickling neck hairs
For something smells like it’s long dead
A full moon sheds just enough light
In the room where I sit down to write
But somehow I know
It won’t let me go
This thing I created tonight
It lives for it never can die
I think I now understand why
I wrote about strife
My words gave it life
And you can’t kill words, though you try
The waste paper basket taunts me
It’s dark in the room but I see
A claw on its rim
My thoughts turn to Grimm
It mutters my name… and I flee
I have an inkling
My writing is winking
At me behind my back
Or maybe its just blinking,
Mindlessly thinking
While wrinkling up
My tiny universe
By tinkering
And intermingling
The real and the false~
I hear a clinking,
A chilling kind of whistling;
What is that stinking prickling
I can feel bristling
Up and down my spine?
I hide from my demons but they walk through the halls
Of my mind and my soul and the reality that falls
I drown myself hoping that they can't follow me
But there's nothing I can do so that they can't see
What was stolen from me can never be returned
Fractured my spirit, it's liberty was burned
Everywhere I go I see glimpses of their shadows
Prickling on the neck as if they were to follow
A blade on my thigh carried to wherever I go
Can never be certain where the wind of death will blow
This life that we live in is all an illusion
Where everything I know is filled with confusion
You said you'd protect me, now I bare the scars
Red tears of blood collected in porcelain jars
My sore bleeding heart will continue to suffer
While I tell myself that one day I'll be tougher
Now I hold the knife and it's wrapped in my hands
End it all now or live on with the brand?
Fire consumes me and fills me with rage
One day I'll escape this horror filled cage
But now what more can I do but beg for release
The chains that bind me, I'll never be free
Ice laces the heart that once was warm
Now no one can stop the approaching storm
Our love is but a chilled shiver from a forgotten breeze,
Stunned neck hairs prickling to the touch.
Our love is but a happy memory,
Sweet to the mind, numb to the tongue.
Our love is a place called home to me,
How far away we’ve traveled from.
A thousand drummers playing drums
within my head,
like firecrackers bursting,
Rivers of (whatever) oozing out,
Trickling eyes, prickling nose,
Snee..achoo!..zing...and sneezing...and sneezing!
Every muscle aches,
Feeling fatigued and flushed,
Puffy eyes, stuffy nose,
Bouts of throaty cacophonies come out uninvoked ,
Body sore, mood sourer..
Even the bed seems uncomfortable,
Pain deludes, sleep eludes (snuffle!)
Inflamed glands fight ill-famed flu,
Tasteless food, faceless foe, endless distress,
Don't come near! This is contagious!
Life is drear, this is outrageous!
Eyes flowing, nose-blowing!
And I feel like...
Chasing this flu away.
9th Feb 2023
For Charles Messina's "I felt like" contest
You are a lustful Pharisaic shark, who feeds voraciously from the sea of corruption.
You turn your soul away from the righteousness of God's ordinance, and now your head is sick with greed.
Your flesh burns with desire.
Your heart becomes laden with iniquity.
You wear an integument crimson as you let the tide of immorality navigate you to an equable rookery.
You are trapped in a world of get rich, stay rich syndrome.
So, at will, you summon your false devoted mien when you assemble the sheep.
You are a rhetoric genius.
You are brilliant in systematic explanations of the biblical text with theatrics and thematic expository narratives.
With an unpurified soul, you instill in yourself the force to be personable and charismatic as you sink your articulate fangs deep into the throats of your faithful sheep.
You gave birth to yourself and you live in a realm of narcissism.
You live with no prickling stings of regrets.
January 16, 2023
1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 8
2 corinthians chapter 8 verse 21
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