Subterfuge in touching you

Alleviate was my purpose.

Somewhere along those missguided shores

I left you gasping for breath

As my blood surged. 

Striking. Spectacular. Imposing. 

I leapt, dashed, strangled

Without ever meaning to.

All I yearned for

Was the chance to heal you.

Mistaken. Unsound. Imprecise. 

My faults leaked from my well-intentioned fingertips.

To handle your inescapable pain

Let it escape. Let it be mine. 

And as your hushed heartbeat thumped to the rhythm of my selfish ways

I let you slip away.

Unease. Sorrow. Compunction. 

I'll regrettably live to heal another day.

I fell a long way, down into the Abyss. 

Came out anew. Crawled out from the depths into a different world. I could feel a surge rippling beneath me, tremors of ancient power. 

A mirror's reflection, in eyes and glass, is the true deception. I am not the same underneath my skin suit. What would come of me, now that I could move the Earth? Pick up boulders like they were cotton balls. 

Bend steel as a child would bend licorice. 

I will not look my parents in the eye. They would see past the pale exterior and know I am not the thing that was birthed by them. What tales would their eyes tell as they gazed upon my becoming?

I thought I could bring order to chaos. I thought I could be made whole. 

I thought. 

A human bone is strong, durable. To my hands it becomes chalk, a burst of white powder the spreads across the air like the baker's flour table as he slams his fists upon raw dough.

He laughed at me. Cracked his chapped lips apart and howled out guffaws. A song bird chirping beneath the paw of a bear.

I made quick work of him, crushed his bones until chalk dust poured out of his body. Dead twigs snapping beneath feet. 

I hope I find the strength to stop myself. 

I hope. 

I can see your thoughts like paintings

of vulnerability, doors cringing wide,

they weep at my entrance and in secret

I embed my desires like a virus.

the merchant has arrived in your harbor

with inflated rates meant for amusement.

I could have saved you, but I peeled

your honesty to bandage my infection.

your wrongs make me right

and my power breeds within your fading,

I rise while you thank me for the dirt.

it's shaped like my ascended heel.

I am

a Super

Hero

I Cry

Bull Shit

When Ever

I See

It

If I

Have

Abused

my Powers

Only you

Can

Tell me

How

to Stand

In

a World

of Plastic

Clowns

Is Why

I Was

Endowed

Bull Shit

Is

the Cry

As I

Dot

you

In

the Eye

Bull Shit

Is

the Theme

As I

Beat you

To

your Knees

Bull Shit

Is

the Sound

As I

Put you

In

the Ground

#B27321

Now Remember

Kids

Only you

Can Prevent

Bull Shit

I belong

To "The League Of Super DJs"

My power comes

From the beats I play

At the begin

My spin

Broke evil men

But now I'm all in

For the personal sin

My slide into darkness

Has been quite hard

Since the group

Voted to pull

My "Hero Card"

Samuel L. Jackson

Was heard to call it,

"A Superhero Card? It's not in his wallet!"

I'm cruising at 50,000 feet, propelled by laboratory-forged pterodactyl wings, the earth nothing more than a blue and green cat's eye marble below. I climb into the stratosphere, higher and higher. I've never felt farther from the sun.

I was assembled in a Petri dish. Vein-infested wings sprout from my shoulder blades, stretching 12 feet in each direction. My respiratory system more fighter jet than human, high altitudes offer no obstacle. I am the first of my kind. I am the only of my kind.

The boon-turned-curse of flight has no patience for walking. I never strolled through the park, I never danced with a girl at a party, I never waited in line for a movie on opening night. I was always above. My legs are useless with atrophy. Even as I soar, they dangle sadly like a marionette's wooden limbs.

Birds are my closest companions. Though their chainsaw squawks declare that I am not welcome in their flocks, I find I have more in common with these plumed aviators than I do with the creatures on the ground. My one-man flock migrates from town to town, never calling any place home.

And I suppose even an anti-hero needs a catchphrase: Never fly before you walk.

With a final cursory glance at the matted canary yellow and blood red mess prone on the stage, I turned away and negotiated my way through the crowd. Frozen sneers on fury filled red faces, several hundred salutes paused in time, eerily similar to grainy black and white pictures from 1939.

Someone hadn’t acted quickly enough back then. This time they had. I had.

I had tried clown faces. Stripped him bare and left him tiny in the breeze. Planted drugs and animal porn on his premises. Forwarded emails clearly outlining his Orwellian plans for the future of America. Leaked the pictures I took of the Nazi memorabilia collection I didn’t have to deposit.

No. Still the baying crowds dumbly followed and fawned. I only stopped short of murdering someone in his name because the outcome would be exactly as he had predicted; and I’d be left with the guilt.

I had had no choice. For the future of the country and for the rest of the world, this had to be done. I would have acted similarly back in the late 1930s, so it was a no-brainer now. Content with my choice, I undressed as many of the xenophobes and bigots as I could and calmly walked out of the arena.

Abuse is a subjective term, especially when it comes to superpowers I mused; and with a well-practiced nod, I started time back up again. A heartbeat later the screams began to frame my smile.

It's been three years now. I've managed to keep it a secret. Well, at least I've managed to keep it mysterious. It is truly a beauty to be here right now, on this mountain peak that I don't even know the name of. I look upon the shimmering lake with much awe. I don't feel the cold. I'm fully grown now. My feathers keep my warm. There is no one here but me and the singing wind. The ability to fly is high maintenance. But it also means I could travel all I want, without any appropriate visa or passport. It means there was no boundaries. After all, no one cared about birds crossing the border. Countries are such a vague concept now that I am a changed man. I am part human, part avian. When I'm not flying, I'm eating. When I'm filled, and wind-streaked, I drape over the palm trees, and write songs of my lost love.

Tralala

Goes the river of sadness

Like the stream of tears

That the city cries

What a delight

What a sight

Her wings under the pale moonlight

How I wish, I could fly away from time.

I couldn’t stand it any longer. I wanted to break the glass that separated us, grab his neck and squeeze it until there wasn’t a single breath left. 

It had been days and we still didn’t have a single shred of evidence.

I could hear him though. It was as clear as actual speech. I knew where she was, where he’d kept her, what he’d done to her. I even knew his reasons.

I felt sick with every thought of his that swept into my own. It was as if my own hands had done it. I could feel the touch of her skin; I could see the glint of the shovel as it bore down onto her head. I could even taste the lust in my mouth. Yet none of these senses belonged to me. They were his. 

He was going to be released, let loose to do this to another poor girl. I couldn’t let that happen. We needed him to admit it out loud. I had to make him say it. 

I never used to be this in control. At first, it was like I had a special frequency. I could just hear things. Suddenly, I knew strangers’ inner most desires, their worries, even their pain. It wasn’t for a long time that I realised I could do so much more than that. I could control their thoughts, manipulate them into doing what I wanted and I knew then, what I had to do.   

Alter Ego flutters over earth on diaphanous wings

taking arrows from quiver, piercing scribes

aiming at the heart where creativity germinates

endowing writers with wrapped presents of voice

bestowing ability to look, perceive and permeate

experiences mixing and migrating unto others

exalting sacred words with wisdom and vision

mantras for living disseminated through phrases

enhancing ideas with tapestry woven with love

emotional healing for all supping their wisdom

magic carpet of anger and cruelty hitching a ride

pushed aside by words of tenderness and passion

super heroine Alter Ego becomes arrogant in power

Miss Ego circles critically close to smoldering sun

wings catch on fire in resplendent burst of glory

leaving writers and poets to carry on blazing ideals

evolving super heroes and heroines dispersing truth.