Malevolent voices command that I kill! I’m surrounded by harsh, condescending and abusive random words, swirling, twirling. You’re worthless, they say, you’re going to Hell. People are spying on me, reading my thoughts. Hammering and pummeling, they urge me to hurt myself or others with complete abandon. I can’t block the whispers to kill my mother. She is destroying my soul, I have to kill her to get rid of her threat.

Crowds of people scream at me, resounding with power as negative thoughts filter into my skin, disabling my brain and changing my behavior. I can’t fight the darkness; genes inside my bones strike blows as delusions surround me, urging violent acts. I inhale the fog of paranoia, engendering bitter resentment. My thinking is racing around me in circles as my speech becomes incoherent. I can’t talk, I can’t talk! I can’t live with the demons so must hide in my mean streets. I can’t make sense and walk, walk, walk in circles. I’m emotionally flat until the voices overcome me and tell me what I must do.

Eat this sandwich, the sympathetic girl offers as I twist her words around trying to sort out her motives. The food is poison. Kill her! Kill her! Black clouds flail all around, discord drumming, jarring, rasping and overcoming my mind. I can smell and feel the evil emanating, hallucinating my fear, knowing she means me harm.

I jump to my feet and grab her by her pulsing neck, squeeze until the threat oozes out. A few sighs of this she-devil is all that I hear, as her malicious presence ceases to exist. I have done what you said, I tell the voices. I have erased her menace. She is my mother in another form.

Why are people in uniforms surrounding me? It was my imagination, not real. I tell myself this, over and over, mowing down my doubts. I convince myself with the incessant chorus of voices, chanting, ranting, yelling, do it again, bane of my life, but guiding me onward toward cessation of my life where I will end in a pool of despair.

Two faces strain in different directions

conflicting emotions tearing apart

drowning slowly in a sinking boat

constantly battling for spotlight

one person, two personalities.

THE GOOD

Your eyes are soft from affection and desire.

I’m caught between your pages as

you melt resistant walls with your love

in flaming fire and crimson blood

as I try to hold open your door

with waxen key to unlock the goodness,

layered like paint in old beloved house.

THE BAD

Your closed windows of hate slam shut,

casting shadows over musty sheets,

hatred welling in your slitted eyes.

Reflecting heartbreak over my dawn,

your eyes strike like ice in glacier ponds

a beating drumbeat infiltrating my skull

bilingual body lost in hopeless translation,

confusing power of love with hatred.

DILEMMA

Where do I go to get the whole person?

Can I fuse your gasping lungs together

to allow struggling cycle of love and hate

to breathe together in one affinity?

The hunter in the tangled thicket looked out through bloodshot eyes at the forest clearing. He felt his anger boiling up from his cauldron of festering rage. Why did his father dislike him so much that his only childhood memories were of beatings and scathing remarks? He still had the scars that his father had inflicted. Even his mother hadn’t wanted him. Sometimes, she even sent him to bed without supper for no reason at all. Now that he was no longer a child, he could finally get back at all those who had caused him grief. His world was a dark, foreboding place as he tried to keep his escalating insanity in check.

A young woman was kneeling on the yellowed grass in the open space, picking wild strawberries and humming a little melody. Why should she be happy when he was so miserable? He took careful aim with his rifle, imagining she was a rabbit, and shot her in the back. She moaned as she flailed her limbs, trying to survive as she gasped her last breath.

The huntsman smiled to himself as he pondered his name, Chase. It was such an appropriate name for one who preyed on others. Running over to his young victim, he prodded her with his rifle but she didn’t budge. He wiped the saliva from his toothless mouth, slung her over his back, and headed back into the forest to the little dingy cabin where he lived.

“Ma! Pa!” he yelled, still trying to attain their approval after all this time. “Here’s another one for the barbie! Stoke up the grill!”

Heartless emotions saunter aimlessly,

icicles congeal under my eyes

in winds of loneliness, murdered

by arctic winds and tilted rains.

Fading into the world, I cut the ropes

that hold me back and anchor me

in wreckage floating under the water.

White blossoms of hope sprinkle

my face in confetti dust and I flower

in warm pause of sovereigns,

embrace the swishing satin sheep

feeding in lofty heavens.

I hang my image on a star

in the crest of silvered heaven,

immersed in moonbeams casting

beckoning spell and release myself,

unveiling my hidden mysteries

and greedily grasp the limitless sky.

Oh, Ho White was not a virgin

she slept with every young prince

knew all the tricks of the trade

the men lusted after every creamy inch.

The Queen found out and was furious

because Ho White was the fairest

in the land, prettier than the Queen

she banished Ho White to the forest.

Told the huntsman to bring back her heart

after he, also, slept with the fair maiden,

he didn’t have the will to end her life

so he put a plump pig’s heart in a box, laden

Took it to the Queen who chortled

shaking her rolls of fat like grape jellies

realizing she was the fairest because

she made sure the other maidens’ bellies

were either dead or locked in towers

where they smelled and couldn’t take showers.

Ho White came to a little cottage

and found seven little dwarfs residing

named Storm, Thorn, Lance, Stud, Manfred,

Big Boy and Bud, all there abiding.

Luckily, although they were little in stature,

they were not little where it counted –

in fact, their unmentionables were huge

she couldn’t believe the size when they mounted.

She tried one out each day of the week

and sometimes, she had threesomes or more

she was so naughty and having a great time.

Queen found out, sent a poison apple to her door

Ho White ate the fruit and fell in a coma

only a prince could awaken her.

One day, a fair prince who had known

her in the past, saw her and asked “Whatzup?”

He remembered she was a good romp in the hay

so rubbed her body sensually with oil

she began to tingle and moan, “Oh, oh! more!”

and he did and she did and their blood began to boil.

And he swooped her up on his princely white horse

took her back to palace bed where she remained

deliriously romping with the Prince day and night

Happily Ever After! For it was all preordained!

I find myself in words of mirth

waiting out the storms of life as

your lips gleam across whispers

in filtered light from sun’s radiant smile.

Unearthed in interludes of fantasy dreams,

the wildness of the dance of night

winds chains of flowers loosely

through my tangled, silken hair.

Captured in abyss of drenching rain,

I taste you and inhale your heart.

I unmask myself in golden sphere

inflating the painted blue sky,

within the woven music of my life.

I touch the shadows reawakening

the flames of embered fire,

encounter foaming whitecaps

simmering like lips on softest dawn.

I pillow my happiness in billowing love,

find myself hidden in diamond crystals

of brisk mountain breezes,

bask in eternity of unending oceans,

divine myself in abundance of color.

She was the purest milk on tongues

when they dipped mouths in painted lies,

spilled her juices to thirsty blowhards,

spread them thickly on tomorrow’s bread.

Sour milk curdled on windy breaths,

a distasteful smell of defamation wafted

on wisps of gossip blathered through town,

a slander poisoning her soul and theirs

in a black defamation of the night.

Story foamed and took new shape,

no one wanted to sample her truths

After all, it must be sincere – surely,

they wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t bona fide.

Her body was found submerged in lake

How could it happen? Why did it happen?

Clotting of the milk of human kindness,

a life sunken by malicious gossip.

Don’t pull my ropes

to swing my bells.

Put your credentials

back in your pocket.

Tightly braided ideas

strangle me

as I struggle to listen

to my own song

in my heart.

I walk proudly

in righteous way

traipsing through

my own immortality.

If I hearken to you,

I’ll lose my way

and fade into nothing.

My footsteps lead

in my own direction.

Your ideas

cut me from inside.

I whisper my own truths

in echo of steps,

find my own alibi

for being alive.

My pores emit

my own sweat

so I peel off

your emotions

and shun

your misguided glow

as I repeat

the light for which

I long.

I’m not sure where

I’m going

but I’m moving on

listening to the song

here in my heart,

finding release

as my dreams

are heard.