well,here we are again.

There is absolutely nothing glamorous

About spending your son’s birthday

Behind steel bars.

-

And there is nothing romantic

About a pregnancy test

And a twelve step program

( Don’t fucking jump.)

-

You tell your children to get out of the streets

But publicize them like a Hollywood movie set

And turn your murderers into hometown heroes

-

We should be idolizing

The ones that made it out

Not the ones that make it in.

-

A Benz and some paper

Is never worth dying

At the age of 23.

-

Respect is earned from surviving the streets

Not taking others down with you.

-

How can you sleep at night

Wearing a diamond encrusted fucking Rolex

While your neighbors don’t have food to eat.

-

The only time that’s on their mind

Is the day the rent is due.

-

How dare you sell these people

Fucking crack rocks and meth

To make yourself richer.

-

Shoot eight

Load nine

Save the last for yourself.

-

Heaven’s a pipe dream

Hell’s a nightmare

Society is purgatory.  

Men in suits and ties live life like vagabonds in disguise

With a veil of professionalism to hide the monster hard at work

Casting out poor men in ski masks and making profit’s off of their demise

For when the dead do all the dirty work, they bask inside the dirt.

Behind a facade of a loving father, desperately trying to provide

Lies secrets of money laundering and scandals now unearthed

These men were once the echelon of upper class society

But now in a jail cell they’re all the same, let’s see just what they’re worth.

The only thing that separates an anarchist from a crooked politician

Is the anarchist does it publicly, whilst the politician behind the lines

And the anarchist suffers under the weight of a debt that’s ever and all consuming

While the politician makes a profit off of the man and his supposed crimes

It’s a story that’s told to absurdity, and get’s truer every time.

Hurry, hurry step right up, come one come all and bear witness to something I’ve struggled with for years now, the freak show. On one hand exploitative garbage that takes the notion of the individual and mocks it to no end, being constantly ogled and ridiculed for being different, and constantly reminded of your otherness and the fact that you don’t belong; yet on the other hand a benchmark for celebrating ones individuality and differences and proving that not only is it okay to be different but sometimes it’s better. Such polarizing opinions would come from something that sheds light on the conjoined twin don’cha think?

Now we all obviously know that there was a time where freak shows were just about the most demeaning thing on the face of the earth, ironically enough in it’s golden years. With cinema still being an untested medium and the advent of television still years away people needed entertainment, and so they would flock to these freak shows to see something they hadn’t seen before, being promised spectacles such as “ The Amazon Woman” or “ The Man With No Legs”, people generally being stared at, mocked and ridiculed for the way they looked. These people were in high demand on account of their otherness, the bizzare quality to them that made them different and in that sense alluring. This also meant that many times these people’s lives were living hell’s as they were constantly ridiculed and mocked for whatever conditions or differences they were born with. Many times the practice of caging African men and women in the freak shows was used to highlight what was thought to be a raw and visceral quality of the African race, linking them to their jungle roots which they were ironically taken from. This practice is one of the lowest in human history because it shames them from birth and gives them no chance of ever leading a normal life.

Currently the freak show has changed quite a bit, it has gone from act’s like that to street performers encountering danger and instilling fear into the audience by performing acts of torture and extreme danger. One of the most notable differences is that the differences are now celebrated and not ridiculed, what was once deemed simply otherness is now a unique trait that essentially puts them on a pedestal above their audience, like an artist with their respective works or an actor with his respective films if you will. These men and women have trained their entire lives to hone a skill, all be it a rather eccentric one and are now being celebrated for it. The act of shaming has also nearly completely erased from the psyche of freak shows as all of the performers not only choose to be in the act but find joy and fulfillment from delighting and astounding the crowds.

This is where the question lies though, with no real end to the bizarre acts to come and no real way of censoring them or the audience where do we draw the line from showcasing someone’s talents to merely exploiting them for profit. How do we separate originality from otherness? There’s always going to be someone who looks at these people as different, freaks, hell the show’s fucking called a freak show. Maybe it’s all in the individual and how they feel about the whole activity, maybe if they really enjoy being out there and performing we should all enjoy it along side of them and be happy they’re showcasing themselves off to the world, even if some of the world may be mocking them for it. This might be where the beauty of it all is, we think they’re being exploited, when really they’re just getting attention for something they may find beautiful, something they may enjoy. Who are we to say it’s wrong for them to showcase themselves just because some prick treats them without the respect they deserve? In the end that’s basically validating everything the asshole stands for, saying that we’re treating them differently and they don’t have the same opportunities that we do. Not everyone is born the same and not everyone should be, and highlighting this might be the best thing we can do, celebrating how amazing our differences can be and how we can all make up this amazing world we live in.

Long live the modern day freak show, because they’ll live it with you. Just remember that in the end we’re all people, and deserve to be treated as such.

Crimes been at a stand still as of late

So The human torch’s offering his services to the local hospital

He henceforth shall be known as the human tourniquet.

-

I wonder if superman ever get’s jealous

That Batman’s alter ego is a billionaire

And he’s just a reporter.

-

He and spider man

Should definitely collaborate

On an expose of the billionaire Bruce Wayne.

-

Why don’t more people ever

Run around in capes

And try to save the world?

-

The human torch and Mr. Freeze walk into a bar

They die upon contact.

-

Their puddle entertains the penguin for days.

-

What if the Joker’ just a really bad stand up comic

Who everyone hated because of his fucked up sense of humor

And his entire life was devoted to just making people laugh?

-

Batman and Robin should have a sidekick in a wheelchair

Call him Dodo boy.

-

Where does the hulk buy his stretchy pants?

-

What if Tony stark made his stretchy pants with fascinating new technology?

-

THAT WOULD MEAN TONY STARK KNEW BRUCE BANNER BEFORE HE KNEW BRUCE BANNER

-

WHAT IF EVERY SUPERHERO SECRETLY OUTSOURCED THEIR GADGET PRODUCTION TO TONY STARK.

-

NO WONDER HE HAS SUCH A HUGE FUCKING EGO.

-

When Captain America goes to other countries does he act rude and obnoxious?

-

Have you ever noticed that Captain America is the polar opposite of America in of itself?

“ I’m not sure if you’re trying to start a business or start a revolution.”

“ They’re one in the same my dear.”

“Really? How so.”

“ Well, ones an organized version of crime and deceit for profit, and the other’s an organized version of crime and deceit for change, and change in this world only comes in shades of green.”

“ You mean shades of red.”

“ You use violence as a means of progress, you’ve turned a tool into a crutch.”

“ and you’re using a crutch as a tool, what’s your point?”

“ My point is with that attitude the change won’t be worth it in the end because no one will be here to see it.”

“ The ones who matter will live through it, the ones who fought for the change.”

“ What good is progress if it murders those progressing?”

“ Fine, you tell me a better way.”

“ Okay, start out with an idea. Market that idea, cloak it in a veil of technology and celebrity and make sure it travels through all the airwaves. People will latch onto it, that’s a given, and whether or not they truly understand the message they’re carrying out they’ll subconsciously be fighting for change until that change comes and they’ll consciously embrace it knowing they’ve subconsciously embraced it for years.”

“ So progression without people actually progressing?”

“ Fine, let’s see you do better.”

Start a regime, get the people behind you and get them to take this city back piece by piece, eventually we’ll have everything we need to start over, and everyone will know exactly what they were fighting for.”

“ But what good is having the city back if it took destroying it to get it in the first place?”

“ We’ll have what we need, and the people who matter.”

“ Maybe there’s a middle ground?”

“ Maybe you’re too busy searching for one to see it.”

“ Maybe we’re all just looking at this the wrong way, maybe we’re already in the midst of a revolution the likes of which we’ve never seen, we just don’t understand it because it feels mundane?”

Yeah, technology is better now then it ever has been, and social change has rapidly spread faster then any other time in American history”

“ Maybe this revolution we dream of is just part of a bigger picture.”

“ Maybe, but I’ll tell you one thing.”

“ What’ that?”

“ I sure as hell miss shooting at rich fuckers.”

“HA.  Prick.”

“ Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it.”

Modern day prophets living under a social microscope

Brandished with a pen and paper to jot down the daily news

Dissected under lock and key by men who have no name

Faceless vagabonds who run courtrooms like carnivals, and poor men who sing the blues.

Adorned with tribal ink of scarlet and crimson that flows throughout their chest

Abstract art that spurs the poetry that breaks down the civilized man

An assault rifle can make a statement, but a sentence can change the world

People may have died by the sword, but they live for the paper and pen.

Prophets hand out black books like they’re bibles

Che Guevara is their god

Well Karl Marx is my personal Jesus

And I know you may think this is odd

But though theirs blood on my hands and my shoulders

I will not throw my corpse in the flames

I know from now it only grows colder

But I know in the end I’ll remain

I don’t have to fight to get where I’m heading

I don’t have to kill to know I’m alive

I’ll write my last rites and requests in my own blood

And wait patiently to die.

Whenever I think about the fathers of modern philosophy I always feel like I’m stepping into a fantasy novel. As if J.R. Tolkien or Ray Bradbury found out the secrets to reality by creating these vast expansive worlds for each other. It’s amazing to me to think that at one point someone who was considered one of the smartest men alive, and the man that basically invented calculus also believed that every part of you was made up of tiny particles of your essence, and whenever you perceived something those tiny particles jumped out and assaulted your senses. Like if you saw a chair, thousands of tiny little chair particles would jump into your eyes and infiltrate your soul, giving off the illusion of perception.

I wonder what life must have been like for these men, to have something so utterly mundane as seeing something be so magical and creative. Every second a new facet of nature sprinting it’s way into your soul. This must have been a revelation and yet somehow I don’t think they saw it like that. I think to them these fascinating and damn near inspiring events just seemed normal, even boring. Somehow, these men would be far more interested in what we have now, far more inspired by the truth we perceive and not the magic they perceived as truth, just because it’s new to them. Sometimes we forget that what we have now is amazing in of itself, just because it’s here, and just because we no longer notice that doesn’t make it any less true.

I know we all want to be somewhere else, hell you know I would. I’d do anything to live back in the golden era of jazz and modern writers, the roaring twenties, or to be able to go back to the sixties and see Woodstock. But I think we all want to do that because it’s something new, and eventually we’d all miss what we had. I mean think about it, all these fantasy writers write about these different worlds not because the world they have is imperfect or wrong, but because they’re fed up with it.

Don’t you think the characters in those books we read would kill to be in our shoes, dream about what things are like for us, fantasize about our lives the same way we fantasize about theirs? I sure do.

She’s like crystal, but she ain’t no diamond

Fun to look at, deadly to touch

The allure’s in the danger, I knew it would kill me

But I’d die for your signals, I’d die for a rush.

You come on so fast, crack like thunder and lightning

But just like a storm you’re so bad coming down

I’m addicted to wading in uncharted waters

And we both know eventually I’m going to drown.

I can say I know better, and I probably should

And you should know better then to lead me to a fucking slaughter home

But you enjoy me too much to let me go and live on

But you don’t enjoy me enough to let me not die alone.  

They called him the pianist, the man with the hands of a god, fingers that danced as if they were all living breathing virtuosos in of themselves that somehow melded together to create something ephemeral. He was revered as a prophet, but his personal life was that of a phantom, which made his legend all the greater and his story all the more interesting. Like all good things though his story had to come to an end, as he lived up to his extravagant name on a hot August afternoon. Some say he just lost it, others say this was planned for years. I say he just got a little too caught up in his story.

He started playing in the Black Barrel, an old jazz club in Queens in the late 40’s. He got the chance to play every night, busing tables to assure that every night he would have a spot on that stage, a promise from one business man to another. It was simple enough, accompany some flirty songstress on stage, fill in the empty space she exuded, and don’t try to put the attention on yourself. Slowly though he gained a name for himself, his talent and creativity rivaling that of the great Django Reinhardt on the guitar. Each night more and more people would flock from Brooklyn to Bayshore to this small hole in the wall to watch this cat play, I’m sure the pretty girls did some to help him too. As word spread rumors formed around this man and his relationship with these girls, to this day he’s the only man in all of New York to have been sleeping with nine different girls at once and none of them at the same time. You see he was a recluse, and aside from the shows he barely ever got out. He was afraid of the people around him, and afraid of the cost of fame. This grew to be more and more of a problem as he got older, as he started coming out less and less.

He could have been king of New York if he wanted to be, but he’d rather be in his tiny apartment playing songs. He did have a deal with the record company though, each year on August 9^th he’d leave a stack of five hundred records on his doorstep at around four A.M. The company would then pick them up and distribute them, his yearly record. Each year it got harder and harder for him to write this record, but each year the music got better and better.

One year however there was no record, fans rioted and people picketed in front of his apartment complex throwing Molotov cocktails and flaming bags of shit at the door. The record company tried to reach him but there was no answer, when they tried to get into his room the door was locked. All that could be heard was new music filling the room, evidently his new and final CD. Private investigators were hired to check the place out and get in, when they got inside they found him dead on the floor and the music playing, a slow somber piece. At the end of the movement a loud bang was heard then faded out like white noise.

They called the record “Shotgun symphony.” It was his best to date.  

We all have our secrets. Sometimes they’re just little insecurities, like that time you had a crush on Vanilla Ice back in high school or the fact that you watched seaseme street on and off until the age of thirteen and still do occasionally with your nephews to this day. Sometimes they’re bigger, big enough to be cemeteries, with enough skeletons to fill every grave. This girl’s got bodies to spare, and a body that would make you forget about all of it if only she could. If only she could.

On a dark November twilight in the pouring rain she made a choice, a choice that would change her life forever. It started as a lie, a lie to herself that grew bigger. She fell in love with a wolf then cursed him for growing fangs, all the while begging him to use them on her. She was afraid though, and knew somehow that no matter how hard she tried to tame this fucker he would let loose some day, maybe that’s what she wanted all along. When he finally did she followed the trail of blood to little red riding hood plastered on the floor and watched in horror as the big bad wolf ate her out with those big teeth of his, and scraped down her thighs with those big claws of his. He was her victim, her feast, and boy did red love it.

Needless to say she snapped and pulled a shotgun on the big bad wolf watching him howl at the moon as he writhed in pain, red writhing on the floor in ecstasy as if the shotgun blast was the straw that broke the camels back. With the gun now pointed at red she was lead out into the rain and forced into a ditch outside the edge of town. She was buried alive with the remains of her lover adorning her like a badge of honor.

This is the part where most revenge stories would end. You’d get your popcorn, finish up your soda, check out the girl giving you the tickets and contemplate for a few seconds giving her your number and then leave. This is where you’d be wrong.

The blood wouldn’t come off her hands, not even in the pouring rain. The water glided off of her as if the scarlet vengeance was pierced into her skin, inside of her, what she had done is now eating her just like the wolf ate lil’ ol’ red. She drove as far away as she could, made a new name and life for herself. Called herself Alice, worked in basically the only place you can on a moments notice without any education, needless to say she was in high demand. There were wolves at her doorstep, and she was being drawn towards her beck and call.

She would wake up every night terrified however, each night the same nightmare of the blood pouring further and further into her skin, consuming every inch of her. Red was following her, dancing underneath her every footstep, her silhouette a ballerina off in the shadows writhing in ecstasy and pain as if her final act of obscene lust was being killed. This drove Alice mad, the idea that she could have enjoyed the punishment that was given to her. She went back to the body and ripped it to pieces, but felt no better. Only when she ripped into herself did she feel this strange euphoria. She cut into her stomach far enough to where the blood was gushing out of her like bursted levy’s, the blade like a hurricane destroying cities in her body, killing millions in it’s wake. As she collapsed onto the floor it finally hit her, she wanted to be used. She wanted to be ravaged and for her body to be cut open and displayed as a tribal piece, a sacrifice to the demon she sold her soul to and a feast to the wolves she loved so violently. She just didn’t want it done to anyone else. She was finally at peace, she was red all along. As she closed her eye’s she saw red and the wolf in front of her singing.

“ Whose afraid of the big bad wolf?”

She was devoured whole.

You don’t have to paint to be an artist, or be able to write or speak eloquently to be a poet. Being an artist does not have to involve you honing a craft or refining a skill or years of practice or any of that. All it involves is you telling s story, your story, and a damn fucking good one at that. You can do something respected like write or sing or dance but you don’t have to. Being an artist doesn’t require everyone to like you, it doesn’t even require anyone to like you. Just be yourself. If your brand of art is flinging shit at a wall then do it, fling that shit like no one has before. You’re not here to impress anyone but yourself, so just do what makes you happy and don’t worry about being liked or respected or praised.

Everyone’s obsessed with becoming an artist but let me let you in on a little secret, you all are, all of you. You were born one.

Love someone today. Love someone like they’re your most favorite thing in the entire world, like everything they do is the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen. Use your fingers like anthropologists and explore the uncharted lands of the one you love, be a stranger in a strange land, it’s okay if you don’t know what you’re doing as long as you’re welcome in this new world just enjoy your immigrant status, because it only happens once. Play the curves of their body like it’s your reason for living, whether it be molding a block of clay into a work of art or dancing your fingers over piano keys or guitar strings or writing the most sacred fucking prose whatever you do just make sure you’re in love with it, because if you can feel it, they’re so much more likely to feel it too. Find out what they want, and how they want it, and when they want it. Don’t start with something physical, sex can wait, trust me. Make an emotional connection, a fucking mental connection, tug on their heart strings before you play with anything else, because those are the most important and with any luck they’re going to become your favorite some day, just trust me on this one. Fucking is primal, instant, implicit, love takes time, remember that.

Don’t worry about what you like, or what they like. Everyone’s different and everyone’s beautiful in their own ways. If your needs are pretty fucking out there and so is your partners then great, go for it and fuck what anyone else thinks. As long as you both are happy and what you’re doing is legal then nothing else matters. If you’re not happy then speak up because that’s the only way anyone can know. I know it’s a tough notion but they can’t read your mind and you can’t read theirs, so speak up. Compromise is key, this is the most important thing.

Don’t be scared to try new things, explore each other, maybe you’ll find something you like maybe you won’t. If you feel uncomfortable say so, if they love you they’ll do what they can to help, if not then leave. Let yourself go and be free to be yourself around them because you’re not going to be able to put on an act forever. Above all else just be yourself. That means if you like to have sex all the time then go do that, if you don’t you don’t have to. Sex is not the most important thing, and in the end it doesn’t matter how many people you’ve slept with or they have because they’re not there in this moment, only you two are.

The rules are that they’re different for everyone, so get to know each other and write your own rules. Find out each other’s hopes, dreams, favorite places, explore each others hearts, minds and bodies. Just love someone, and do your best to let someone else love you, because love is the most beautiful thing you can do, and it will make you happy, trust me.

One last thing, don’t worry about what you look like or your personality or what you like because someone’s going to love you for who you are someday, I promise, just trust me on this one.

Hidden behind a veil of ignorance lies the modern day philosopher

Lost in the fabric of time and a blank page, which he eloquently calls empty space

Reciting the treaties and psalms of his forefathers, revolutionaries in their day

Murdered for what they believe in, while the modern man sit’s comfortably.

Staring out into a world of possibilities, and sees only that which isn’t in front of him

A thousand realities to choose from, he chooses to avoid the one he’s in

To escape the mundane he creates revelations through the minds eye and it’s mistaken perceptions

The whole worlds built on misunderstanding, hold your breath and jump right in.

People line up like lab rats on their way to experiments then fall like abstract art

Corpses piled up high to recreate skyscrapers of human flesh and bone

The modern philosopher sees this, and recites how we can do better

But unfortunately the modern philosopher will not practice what he has shown.

For he’s traded a gun for a textbook and any morals for a phony degree

A community college class and summers off for medical leave

A life of adventure for blank pages which will soon be mere sihlouettes

Then a scarlet covered truth for the man searching for one, in scarlet covered regret.

There’s a crack in your voice like the cracks in your skin

Caverns brave men have fell through

Hoping to traverse your ribcage

And kickstart your sputtering heart.

You call it phases

Say your body changes like the moon

Today you’re a wreck

But tomorrow you’ll be beautiful.

I wonder though

If you take away the cracks

Would those men have come at all?

Maybe all they were looking for

Is something to fall into?

Maybe all you were looking for

Was someone to fall for you?

Now I’m not an astronomer

But the cracks in your voice

Tell me everything I need to know.

These men had nowhere left to go.  

Eyes are like conversations with a world renowned author

So immersive and detailed that we get caught in what they tell us

Yet we never do remember that what they’re saying could be fiction

These visions could be black spots on a beautiful white lie.

 We want to believe the world they set in motion before us

And know that this is truth and it is where we need to be

But the truth is we don’t know, and frankly never could

Our eye’s decieve us darling, and we’re drifting out to sea.

Your mind is a dangling anchor, and it’s pulling you towards the bottom

Of a dark and unknown sea floor, where nothing’s as it seems

I think we’re slowly drowning under the weight of our own ideas

Being pulled under by the tides of a misunderstood reality.

So, now’s probably as good a time as ever to tell you all about the reason most of the things I write are rather dark, have ghosts and spirits as a theme, and all that jazz; and why I used to be an insomniac for most of my life.

To begin I want to make clear that this is not some made up story with characters and settings and plot twists, although it might seem like one. This is entirely true, based on what I perceive and believe. I’m not saying I’m 100% correct in what I perceive, or that it is 100% what I perceive it to be, this is simply what I believe, so take it with a grain of salt and do with it what you will.

My house is haunted, well to be fair nearly my entire block is. Every house has this eerie vibe of a forgotten town in the middle of suburbia, it’s all blocked off by trees covering the roads and such, the streetlights are rather exceptionally dim, the ones that work at least, and the area around it is just generally creepy. It’s not an exceptionally bad area mind you, just creepy. I live in a ranch style house that seems to have been built or remodeled sometime in the late 70’s to early 80’s and although I don’t know the history of it very well I know for a fact that some weird shit went on around here at some point.

First there’s this dude that walks around the woods in my backyard at night. Yes, there’s a ghost that likes to roam around my backyard just going about his rounds basically. He carries a hatchet and looks a bit like charlie manson, full scraggly beard, tattered clothes, blood running down his shirt. At one point this terrified me, but I soon realized he wasn’t real and every day he would do the same thing. I was too afraid to tell my parents because I figured they wouldn’t let me watch anymore horror movies, well that and my mother might get too excited, she’s very intrigued by ghosts and such. Then at times I would hear weird patches of white noise and beeps and bloops and things as if something I didn’t understand was going on. Sometimes it even turns to inaudible whispers and such, nothing menacing, just conversation.

This is something that must be said that I feel is very different from the common perception of things like this. Ghosts are not menacing, they are not violent, and they are largely no scarier then your neighbor or friend. They just want to go about their business like you do, and aren’t interested in bothering you unless you give them a reason to. Of course there are angry spirits out there, but for the most part most ghosts are harmless, and there’s no need to fear them whatsoever. I think of them more as roommates then things to fear.

I’ve been interested in them for a while, but things amped up exceptionally when I moved from my old room to my new one on the other side of the house. This one includes a door to the backyard with a window in direct view to the hatchet man. The first night I fell asleep in this one I saw a women with long red hair that had forgotten how to speak, that I had befriended somehow and slowly began to understand her and she told me her story. This was the inspiration for most of my Jack and Alice short stories, where a woman named Alice and a man named Jack Seral told me about their lives in my dreams.  Around this time I began sleeping a little more, so I would see them on and off but I still didn’t sleep very well.

About a year ago I started sleeping better for reasons I still don’t understand, and I slowly stopped seeing them. Everything seemed normal for a little while. Up until recently that is. Recently I have been able to look around and see figures out of the corner of my eye that are unexplainable, indescribable, impossible to even begin to tell you about largely because I couldn’t get a good look at them and didn’t know what the fuck I was looking at. One did show up as clear as day however. One day I looked up and saw a women doing heroine on the steps leading into my bedroom. She was young, about 19 or 20 with long blonde hair and freckles, and she looked absolutely gorgeous, but slightly faded. At first she didn’t notice me, then when she finally did all she did was stare at me, she came closer and as I blinked she was gone. I’m not sure if it was a dream or a ghost or what but it was something, definitely something.

I’m still not sure if what I’m seeing is what I’m seeing. I’m not sure if it’s their or I’m psyching myself up or there’s something wrong with me or what. All I know is what I see. The point I want to make though is none of these things are frightening or menacing. None of these pose a threat or are dangerous in any way. There really just people like you and me, trying to live out there days any way they can. For some of them it’s doing the last thing they did when they were living, unfinished business if you will, or maybe just following a comfort zone. For others it’s just exploring something as if you would with the curiosity of a new set of rules. Just remember, they might be as scared of this situation as you are, and they’re definitely as curious.

Don’t be scared, dead people are people too.

Like a phantom writhing in ecstasy she shrieks but no one hears her, no one dares to notice the skin withering away like the pedals of a rose, the wings tethered to anchors so delicate that they broke as the wings ripped off as she ran towards freedom, a makeshift home and a wolf in a dashing suit and tie. A dinner party for those too crazy to live, but too rare to ever die. Her name means danger in the only language that’s universal, the language of sight. Everything about her screams it from the marks that cut her shins and turned skinned knees into poetry to her eyes pools of fire that burn cave etchings into your subconscious. Once she lived in fear, she lived in a castle in the clouds of the minds eye watching pedestrians walk by as strangers, lovers, knowing that she saw them in a way no one else would, and everyone else saw them in a way she never would. A silent understanding that even if nothing made sense everything was beautiful because everything was in one way or another uniquely hers. With the help of a boy dressed in black she lovingly referred to as the night owl and the shadows turned loved ones she made her way into the unknown and found herself among the vast nothingness.

She was never safe, but she never wished to be. Everywhere she went wolves followed her every step and bartered their time, waited for her to give herself over to them; they were far too sinister to just take her on their own, she was forced to go on with this charade until she gave in and gave herself up to the night, to the fear that was this pack of ravenous wolves. There was one that presented itself, with a dashing smile and eyes green with envy, he was smarter then the rest. Instead of waiting for her he seduced her into following him, running from the safety of the night owl to the alluring mystery of the wolf at her door. Today she stands in front of the wolf, ready to give herself over to him and accept whatever life he has in store for her. Today the wolf no longer wants her, this is the design of nature. The love comes from the chase, the allure comes from the hunt, once a creature is theirs, the weight they once held is gone and with it goes the passion.

The phantom widow now stands alone, walking towards a makeshift home and away from the wolf in a dashing suit, for she knows that as he left so goes her fear, so goes her freedom. Underneath the moons watchful eye and the star’s narrow gaze she searches not for another but for herself, somehow lost within the rabbit’s hole she so eloquently found it in. I wonder, does fear make us weaker or stronger?

With a sirens call she reaches out and finds a man with no name standing on a tightrope. He is walking from building to building hundreds of feet in the air. He says that if he can make it across he was meant  to make it through the day, and if he doesn’t he dies doing what he loves, making his heart beat again. She falls in love with him. They jump from the tight rope deciding that if they survive they were meant to, if not then this was their time.

We do not get to choose our fate, we only get to choose how we approach it. Fear is the only choice we have. For most of us, this is a crippling notion, and we try to stay as far away from it as possible, but for a lucky few this fear is what they live for, it’s the only thing keeping them alive.

When they fell, the blood on the pavement splattered like abstract art.