Everything around
is gorgeous and I can't stop
screaming babbling!

The key specter, Telemanen, walks through worlds
trailing the sounds of chimes behind it.

It has no will to be silent
though it rarely uses words.
For it is chained to its loneliness and hope.

Draped in innumerable metal links,
the keys it seeks have become its armor
its lips and teeth.

Each discarded piece of manmade metal
may hold the power to send it home,
to a world that's remained hidden for millennia.
So with every footfall
its choice is clear.
To collect every key that falls in its path
and use them to cross the dimensional barriers.

One day
it will find its way to the sweet embrace of home.
Nothing will halt this task.

Torment and torture have become so inelegant.
Yes, holding a knife to a person's throat will scare them
no matter how they deny it,
but when you do finally drive that blade into their chest
and their soul drains from their eyes
that's it.
They are lost to you.
A broken toy that you tore apart
and enjoyed while it lasted.

This is such an outdated solution for your cravings.
A waste of a perfectly good unwilling volunteer.
The truest way to pump from them every last drop of precious fear
is to never let their torment cease.

Allow them to feel that final impact
the blade's cut
the creatures many teeth tearing them apart,
and let them think that it is the end for them.
That this scream and gurgle will be their live's conclusion.

But do not allow their soul to soar off to whatever heaven or hell awaits them.
Bring them back.
It doesn't matter how.
Just anchor them to their broken flesh and bone,
their agonizing mind.
Then they can be your plaything for as long as you see fit.
And you can subject them to as many horrors as your twisted little mind can concoct.

Why when I try and draw a breath
does if feel like the air is frozen solid.
I know it's there,
swirling around my flailing fingers
and tousling my hair.
But it refuses to lend me its lightness,
to fill my lungs
and sooth the frantic gasps
that sound like frantic shrieks inside my ears.

I saw the golden-handed man again today.
He was sitting on a park bench, alone,
all ragged and grey.

I'd been to afraid to look before,
and so had missed so clearly
the look he always wore.

A gentle smile beneath kindly eyes
and wrinkles that crinkled and creased.
And it pained me to pass him by.

So when I left work for the day
I went back there and explored
this man who'd been so ostracized.

On days where my self-confidence is low,
I wish wearing a sword belt would become socially acceptable again.

Nothing would make me feel more like an epic badass
then having a sword on one hip
and a dagger on the other.

I wouldn't have to pull either from their sheaths,
twirl them around
or be threatening.

No, just being able to carry around physical proof to myself
that I am strong, sharp, and willing to lunge through the air at a moment's notice
would be enough.

The weight of blades
within reach
and within sight
to show myself that i am just as powerful
as I've always imagined myself to be.

So is permission to wear my swords around
in public without a fuss being made
​so much to ask?

I took a stroll through my mind today.
And there were patches that were nice, I'll admit.

Groves of trees strung with fairy lights
and crossed by brooks that chuckled as they ran.

Art galleries of memories
exhibiting days when I laughed until I cried.

Even a white-sand beach
where the whispers of the tide lulled me to sleep.

But there were moments when dark mist choked out the light
where claws reached out and ripped at me,
their many knuckles popping and cracking as I jerked away.

Or when the ground beneath me broke apart
like a gaping maw, complete with rows of teeth.
I don't remember how I got away.
Only that when it opened
I tumbled and shrieked for days.

My mind can be a lovely place,
but next time
I'll remember to bring a friend along
to help guide me
when the monsters become too much.

I want to uncover a mountain.
Walk from it's very peak and
study it, all the way 
to the roots. Where it
grows from soft earth
into a
stoney
​keep.

The night air is smooth
and strokes my cheek with fickle
shaded fingertips.

We cannot be everything. Sad, but true.
As the more we tear ourselves asunder,
the less each part is given its just due.
The more we yearn to revise our blunders,
our regret thrums inside us like thunder.
We have to pick and choose our battles here.
To be a Shakespeare or a buccaneer.
To be who we want, not who we should be.
No matter how being everything endears,
You are a person. A human. A me.