Before me he stood snarling voraciously
Two hundred and thirty some odd pound
bulging half man half rat
Standing ready to vise the life from me
Paralyzed by fear I looked to my hand
I launch the useless length of garden hose
Eternity expires as I watch it end over end
It cartwheels into massive pectorals thudding futilely
against sparse hair
He almost looks like Castro as he takes a
last pull off a girthy Cuban cigar
Embers diffuse across hardwoods
Adding effect to his demonic screech…

The woman in the window glared at its glass,
These hallowed panes with fittings of brass
Have kept her captured, gaunt, and frail,
Smothering her boring, vehement wail.

Stripped are her trinkets, trifles, appeal,
Prized possessions in glaring masses.
These panes suppress all that is real
Concealed and maintained, composed for classes.

The woman in the window finally escaped:
Brimming, then spilling, ovately shaped.
Making her entrance, she greedily sped
No one was there; she lamented with dread.

You walk the shadows where light does not reach
Hiding behind names and deceiving with each step
Who are you today?
Lucifer or The Lawless One?

You haunt the corners where purity shrinks and recedes
Each poisoned step is soaked in your treachery
Who are you today?
The Antichrist or Satan?

"Number of the beast six hundred and sixty six
Seven heads all two-faced with ten horns
Serpents slither upon the crown he adorns

And so, with pounding head and aching eyes
I dragged myself back to bed
Only to be awoken by the family dog
As everyone else had abandonded me
to my well-deserved misery, I got up
After his morning defecation...
I couldn't look, let alone pick it up
I had to brave the smell of a freshly opened can
of horse-meat [that he found perfectly acceptable]
He washed his face and my bare feet with a drink
When he tried to thank me with kisses
I left an offering in front of the porcelain-god

My tongue sits in my mouth
like a boulder in a granite quarry
Hardened and dry, like caustic lime
My head pounds and rings out
Like a steel worker’s three pound hammer
On the rivets of the Chrysler building
I check myself for head trauma
I find nothing but self inflicted misery
Vague memories of triple hopped I.P.A.
Icy tumbler of Glenlivet like citrine glows
Up on its soapbox making bad noise
Twelve years in it’s barrel, half a day late for work…

We lock eyes for a momentary eternity
I am inexplicably swallowed
Falling into bottomless voids
Blinding black madness with no remorse
Waves a disapproving finger
Like a mother implementing discipline
Adrenaline!
A great tidal wave surges over me
My terror filled eyes disengage lunacy
Incidental voyeur now turned quarry
I have but one option remaining
Run!

Black hair hangs below the floor

Shadow bangs hide open window eyes

Nothing is seen that is not supposed to be

Her whole world is a disguise

She's wrapped in magic carpet dreams leaving all to the imagination

To wonder what she is made of or if she has any limitations

She walks alone at night with her hair over her eyes

To keep those drawn to her from being terrified

She only seeks the lost

The broken are her mission

She turns the truth on them and offers her redemption

Sitting in my unlit window
in the dark, I watch the alley
Sweaty and yet chilled
from the scene before me
I watch the struggle and see
the gleam of a knife flashing
Once, twice, a third time
and with a muffled, gurgling sound
an indistinct form falls
limp against the dumpster
I give a start, my chair squeaks...
the murderer stares in my direction.

Alas I encountered no mermaids
With fathoms below and twenty foot seas above
I watched as my former prison at sea
Was swallowed whole by towering whitecaps
Tenaciously they drove the over stuffed hull into the reef
Illuminated by the strobing of forked lightning
A dark archipelago loomed foreboding
Behind me, a doomed ship began to come apart
Aided by the furious maelstrom
I drifted more than swam until at last consciousness evaded me…
Head throbbing and mouth dry
I awoke to the sound of surf on sand

Your lies flow like water into me,
they seep through the cracks of my self-esteem
and damage the fragile foundation on which I am built.

Your approval is poison,
Intoxicating electricity.
Not unlike the air I breathe,
I crave it, purely for survival.

Your voice is the earth on which I stand.
When you quake, I quake.
Shaking loose the already damaged walls
and leaving my life
falling to pieces

Your touch burns me from the inside out.
It hurts and I need it
And I hate it.