There is meaning. it  slips, behind chattering teeth, under my tongue. 

Lurks just beyond the periphery of the mind's eye. Taunting, shy, mocking with silence. 

It stalls, like the tug from the hand of a spoiled child. Not something to be left, light enough to drag, but too fragile. If pushed far or  hard, it will pack up, secretly, safely, darkly, and will be off. 

Like she dreamt of the circus. 

Living like a lover. Always clinging to the back of the skull,  a vampire. 

With teeth and the scraping, she tumbles at tantrums, 

wishing reality finding her true, discernible.

Empty Spaces...

It stings, I feel through the fog in my eyes. 

A single, hot and salty drop trails, 

sliding down my cheek leaving a path that cuts deeply. 

A torrent of bitter-sweet battles furiously behind my eyes, 

warring, struggling, pulling, and twisting. 

The thickness of my eyes works so hard to hold it back, to make it fake, 

to try and try to squelch the feeling that real is real, that there is an is. 

I try to harden my eyes, to fill them. 

I pull them shut hard, strong, fast, to hold them,

 to ignore the empty spaces inside me...  

It's all okay now...

Fine, white blonde hair falls thickly in front of tired, young eyes, filling a void between vacant eyes and a broken, hopeless landscape.

Her tongue slides slickly past her teeth, tasting her coppery blood. She shoots a sharp glance to see the red on her softball bat.

A shift spins her insides round, when remembering his twisted face, crimson red, purple black, contorted in ways that would be comical if it weren't sickening.

The wind chills past her neck, taking its costly toll of warmth from her pale neck. She pulls her scarf tightly around her face.

“I'm okay now...”

Nothing There...

Nothing stopped me from falling. 

I always wondered what the edge was like,

 I would get close, 

I would imagine the next step. 

I would see it happen, 

but I never made the plunge. 

I never took the chance. 

I never actually did anything real. 

It happens though when you take that last step, 

you start falling, 

you fall, 

there is nothing there to catch you, 

nothing left. 

It is exhilarating, 

exciting, 

and once you realize that this is it, 

your choice is made, 

terrifying. 

 There is no going back, 

there is nothing to stop you. 

And then, 

there is...

Sequins

Sequins, shimmering and shaking in the light.

 “I knew her,” I think to myself, “I could have called her friend, maybe more.” 

She walks by, a sparkling smile directed at me. Is it recognition, or just a faint formality.

I quake, standing still, but I feel like my mind will shiver me to pieces. Time slows, sending my mind racing towards its intermittent mission of ripping me to shreds, tearing me to bits, crushing and killing every part, then bringing enough back to regroup for another beating. My soul gasps, reeling and writhing, grasping for something in the dark... 

Something...

Jagged Edges...

Dark, red, rose-like crimson spills freely from fingertips. 

Cascading in terrible slivers of warm hues, catching rays of sunlight as it slides. 

I look on silently, shocked. 

“These are my hands,” I hear my mind say as I look on from a mile behind windowed eyes.

I hear the indiscernible muffled sounds of surroundings, slowed by lack of attention into a monotonous drone, a strange and inescapable ballad of simplicity.

It continues pouring, plunging effortlessly from the fingers, violently rushing to meet a new place, to find it's end. It doesn't care for me. My heart's jagged edges just pump...

One a Day...

"There is one outside right now."

"A what?"

"You know, that thing that shows up."

"Oh, that thing? I thought it left."

"It did, but it came back."

"Why?"

"It comes back ever day."

"But it left yesterday."

"It will leave again today."

"But isn't it still out there?"

"Yes, exactly"

"But if it's there now, then when will it go?"

"How should I know?"

"I thought you knew?”

"No I really don't."

"I thought you timed it.”

"Nope."

"Can it come back again today?"

"I'm pretty sure it that only one comes each day."

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure..."

Brown

Dust and must singing softly, smelling sweetly.
Sinking, swimming in a sea of brown. Books, shelves, a leather chair.

He is small, still, and almost swallowed by the ancient seat.
Younger in years than many, older at heart than few.
Sitting, he pours over pages and pages, reading passage after passage.

A warm light lurks behind. 

Sun bathes the slatted blinds, lining the room in limitless slices.

The glow beckons, wishing, wanting, and waiting for one to come to live for its warm embrace.

He stays. He sits. Still, safe, and silent.

Never to know of love or the sun.

Anxiety

Around and around, swirling in thought.
Back and forth, running a rut.
An anxious argument, a nervous nightmare.
Indecision in its highest form, a standstill, and quicksand.
A subtle switch can send it forth. A torrent. A storm.
A curse, passed down through ages.
A tool, misused, mangled, and malign.
Driving the best who care to climb to the climax, to crash and crumble
Driving the worst into the ground, pitifully, finally, and disgustingly.
Cannibalistic in its drive to destroy.
King in the land it lives.
It lives in us, on us.
Can another defense cripple and kill so absolutely.

The Outskirts of Town

She sits, still as the bone bleached porch she rests on. Waiting? Watching?

Silvered hair, sanguine eyes, moon-white skin, and lips, tinted a hue of ice.
Listlessly her arm lifts, sweeping less hair from her eyes than intended.
Paint peels above, humid air clings around, and lies lay beneath her, sleeping soundly.

The golden grass wraps the house as cloak of dry death.

The foundation of stones was rolled from their homes in the dark, cool earth.
The windows are shadows of frozen souls, blisteringly black.

She sits as I watch her silently, from the stolen home of the stones.

I missed it somewhere. I made a wrong turn at the start, 

and in some anxious stumble,

I ended up at the end.
There was supposed to be something that filled up the middle, a plot of sorts. 

Something worth it.

A point.
It all starts with a nothingness, then it builds. It heightens, 

gradually, slowly, methodically, until,
The peak.

Where things go fast. Where memories are made, 

the ones that you have at the end.

Where real life happens.
But I don't remember the climax. Though sometimes, 

I think I can see the end.

Or is it the beginning?