Your eyes burn as the hours stretch on.
Closing them only makes the dark
that much more complete. Then you
truly are all alone
with your racing thoughts.
So you open
them again
and stare
​up.

Everyone always tells me to smile.
You'll get more tips that way.
You'll look prettier.
Don't be a downer.

But sometimes, I don't want to smile.
Sometimes I want to rip that mask from my face,
tear off my skin if I have to,
and show people what I actually feel.
The gleaming sinews that writhe
and twist under their scrutiny
their forced optimism.
Somehow communicate to them
that I don't even know what I'm feeling anymore
underneath that painted-on smile.
Just what the world keeps telling me
​I'm supposed to feel.

You sunk the knife into me
twisted it like a key
unlocking my gut for the world to see.

You left me to die there
alone in the dark
with the cold ground below
and a starless sky above.

Did you ever think for a moment,
did it ever cross your mind,
that I might lay there forever
and never truly die?

That the earth might creep up into
where you left me ajar?

Well that's what it did to me
held me solidly in place
as it carved me from the inside out
into a statue,
a monument of a lonely heart
now turned to stone,
but somehow still beating.

AI's do write great
poetry, but you only
give humans credit.

"HANDLE WITH CARE" was traced in bright bred ink on the wood,
so fresh that it had begun to drip
tracing the grain in bloody fingertips.

No return adress.
No stamp.
We had clue what it was.
But both of us wanted to open it.

Jordan found a crowbar
and I brought my camera out.
Someone had to document it all
just in case.

Nails gave way squealing
tearing out splinters.
And we found another box.
Another "Handle With Care".

Somebody was screwing with us.
But we had to know what was inside.
So Jordan pried
and I watched.

Next box was thick green glass.
Scribbled with a red "handle with care"
months too early for Christmas.

Soon as the crowbar tapped the top
it cracked around the middle
like an easter egg.
But nothing else.

We waited,
just in case.
But we'd come too far by then.

The top came off easy now,
and inside
nestled in a black tanglewood
were me and Jordan.
Dolls with posable arms
a little camera and crowbar,
black eyes and screaming faces.

Mom doesn't know about them.
We burnt them behind the shed.
But everytime I close my eyes
I hear them screaming
​and feel the drip of wet paint on my face.

I float through empty space
exploring this place
unbound.
Without any trace
my veins with light laced.
Unfound
by mortals, I taste
Mars' dust unabased.
​No sound.

The air was expectation,
​hair standing on end
a breath caged.
Darkness reigned absolutely
giving no ground to the buzzing of fireflies
or the eyes searching for any faint glimmers.

They mocked us.
The air and the darkness.
Mocked our desperate hope.
Our anticipation.

But in the end
after seconds soaked in eternity
the bright sun arose
tip-toeing over the horizon
so as to not awake the slumbering land beneath it.

There was a part of me that thought it would never retrun.
The echoing chasm that sits somewhere behind my eyes.
It always thought the worst possibility was the truth.
Good thing it was proven wrong once again.

When was the last time you looked up?
Just tilted your head back
and took in the sky above you
through eyes unburdened by expectation?

Cloud watching and star gazing
is not only for the young.
No matter your age
the act of watching
and letting your mind wander to and fro,
creating landscapes of imagined worlds,
and exploring them from afar
will always be a peaceful undertaking.

Raindrops trail down glass.
Cold, still and unmovable
holding back the storm.

Beware the cursed ones
with eyes gleaming black,
tainted pearls set deep into drawn faces
with tongues unfurled
dragging along the ground below them.

None have survived their touch,
so whether they burn with hellish flame
or with a chill that devours flesh,
I cannot say.
But the corpses they leave behind are torn assunder
with eternal screams echoing through their lips.

​They come and go as they please
without pattern or predictions.
We are at their mercy.
Only divine mercy
and sheer dumb luck
have kept us alive so far.

We wish you the same.
Pray to your gods as you rest this night.
Pray that the cursed ones
​do not find you helpless.