Persephone

She balanced on the tips of her toes, like a dancer, gracefully poised on the lip of the railing. Her feet barely made contact with the blocky stonework. It felt as if she were floating. She couldn't feel her legs. Headlights swept across the bridge. She felt their heat, felt the urgency of their gaze. Time was running out. Tires screeched as they deadlocked. Before the car finished skidding to a halt she heard one of it's doors open, heard the incessant beeping that comes when a key is left, forgotten, in the ignition. She heard heavy footprints moving quickly her way. A desperate hand groped out of the darkness, a ragged voice called her name. She couldn't face him, not then, and never again so she moved forward; stepped off the ledge into the waiting silence, into the beckoning void. Things were more distant then than ever. She felt herself hit the water but it didn't feel real, it felt like a dream. Darkness was finally falling over her and with it the solace she had always hungered for but had never known.

He watched her jump. His heart shattered the moment she threw herself off of the edge. Empty were his hands as they hung trembling in the air, he had caught nothing with them but wind in the wake of her final passage. Passion overwhelmed him, bringing him, too, up on and then off of the ledge. His body streaked through the air. Not fast enough. His empty hands broke the river's surface. Shock of cold brought convulsions to his form. He surfaced, gasping. Lungs filled and, adjusting to the cold, he dove down again. Inky blackness enveloped him. Even without sight he knew just where to go to find her. His love was that impossibly strong.

She had fallen like a stone, straight down, for the current was not strong, and was laying at the river's bottom. He came to her, folded her up into his arms and drove his legs against the murk to bring her up. Prayers came unbidden to his mind. He bargained with a god he did not believe in. He called on angels and he called on devils; sold himself to whatever force might change the truth that had settled heavily within his bones. She was dead before they broke the surface. He came up carrying a corpse. He laid it gently upon the river bank and sat mutely, staring off into the dark horizon until police and paramedics arrived. Those flashing lights brought no hope. That ambulance was a wagon of death.

The toxicology report told him nothing he didn't already know. She had so much liquor and Ambien in her system that officials were astounded that she'd even been able to make it to the bridge. The first time someone told him that it wasn't his fault he fell into a rage, a tremorous self directed violence which left the bones of his empty hands shattered. His fingers became jagged, kinked at unnatural angles. He had to be sedated. Many feared that he would follow in her wake. That he would never fully return to his life. He made slow progress but eventually his perpetual sadness began to recede. He went back to work. He spent time with family and friends, who were ever talking amongst themselves about the revival of his wit, the return of color to his face, of the renewed interest he began to show in all aspects of his life. He even married to a woman that all of those close to him deemed 'suitable', and had children. Two girls.

No one ever knew how much of his happiness was feigned. No one ever truly realized that his shattered heart could never fully mend. Until his death, which came on the eve of the anniversary of her death, fifty four years later, he was affected by sleeplessness. Many were the long, dark moments of the soul. Caught up in reverie. Every night thinking about that night. Snared, captured, imprisoned by a love that refused to fade. Wading through the tepid tar of fate's merciless decree.

She had left a note but never once in it did she mention him. Others had been surprised by this, had been offended and appalled, but he knew better. She hated saying goodbye to him. She hated being apart from him. They had loved each other too deeply, had complimented each other too perfectly for her to put her final farewell to him down in the vulgarity of the written word. She would have been incapable of writing the things that she would have needed to write and still commit herself to the finality of death. He didn't need to forgive her. He understood her. He knew why things had to be the way they were. He accepted that the devil of depression was a stronger force than their love. He was not bitter. His late nights were his time to be with her, the only way he could, in his mind's eye. His sleepless nights saw him at his most vigorous, at his most alive, traveling through the pastel corridors of his memories.

I know of these things because his youngest daughter is my mother. Because there ought be a special bond between grandfather and grandson. Because something within me reminded him of her, his long lost true love. He used to say that my eyes reminded him of hers. That we both had a kind of darkness swimming behind them. He worried about me. He knew of the beast that dwelt within my heart. He feared that he might lose another. So he brought forth his secrets, like buried treasure painfully dragged up from a dark, brackish abyss. He shared those deepest of intimacies in order to teach me of the fragility of life and the responsibility that we all hold to each other. Looking back I can see how he was speaking to her through me. Letting out all the things that had been building up within him for so long. Purging himself, finally, of a lifetime of tight lipped silences.

Phineas Gage

I wander about, with an inch and a quarter of iron sitting deep within my skull. I drift. I've changed.

Lost and wandering through a thick fog. Snapping at anything foolish enough to dog my heels.

I wasn't always like this. I wasn't always Phineas Gage.

Before my insides were carved away I was a different kind of man. I had a fire burning in my soul. I had a penchant for unapologetic idealism, fearlessness and resolve in the face of dire calamity, and utter disdain for the filthy compromises of bi partisan politics. I had not yet turned bitter. Then was the time to know me, before the erosion of the elements.

and the beast shall fall upon ye...

It's happening again.

All around us. 

The stomach of the sky, so bloated, so pregnant,

has been rent open.

Casting down around us

the juices of the heavens.

It's happening all over again.

The dull ache.

That old familiar feeling,

reminding me

of days spent watching shadowplay

of a time when everything was still perfect.

But as far as I can remember

it's never been that way

so why is the feeling there

how could it exist

fresh from the womb

we all stared down the rabid mouth of life

hearts pierced by the mercilous

gaping hunger

eyes stained by the deluge

of blood

It's happening. It's all happening

around us.

Stay under cover.

Stay warm.

Stay hidden.

Hinder

Restless.

My skin feels raw and worn, wrapped in sweat soaked sheets.

I'm anxious and I can't place the reason why. I can't sleep. I hate not being able to sleep.

Angry at engorged politicians; vultures feasting on dreams.

Carrion.

Bleached, skeletal remains. Wasted.

It makes me despise the lidless eye. The angry sun. The inescapable gaze.

Gives life at the dawn. Asks much more in return when the time comes to slip past the further edge.

These machines have never known conscience.

Soul.

The price. The final price.

In the wasteland you've got to go the extra mile to make it real.

Pretense of submission might appease those on the lower rungs but it doesn't do the trick here.

Serious sacrifice. Serious bloodletting. True angst, honest horror, cloaked in shame,

standing in the shadow of the tower of dread.

Life.

Can be punished, but never destroyed.

Passion can be submerged but never fully expunged.

The spirit of zeal is a bottomless well, which keeps drawing pure.

No matter the poison leeching to the depths.

Buying time. No matter.

Twisted empire.

Will fail.

The Gaze of the Maw

All these tiny flames, lonely, heartbroken, singing softly to themselves, speaking into brick walls just to listen to the sound of words bouncing back, calling out in the darkness like lost lambs, crying out for a sign, clambering up to peak over the edge, to fall back to the ground, dust themselves off, start over.

They've found something to gather round, invincible, expensive, crushing weight, the shame, guilt, rapturous tortures, this holy place to shelve all sin, an explanation, a diversion, lock your eyes up tight child, don't let yourself look that way.

Others, they don't deserve it, they didn't work for it, their dreams are not sacred, their thought is unworthy, they have a place, they should stay in their place, they should dance round their tiny flame, be happy with their little space, glad, allowed, contrivance, vicarious, necessity, more....

Hopeless are the dark eyed dreamers. Locked in. Bereft. Passing cancers on to their children, rotten, reeking tumors. Children don't know any better. They'll feed on anything. All the better that repression feeds upon itself. Bottle it all up. Every drop of humanity. Capture it. Seal it up. Sit there vacant as it festers as it spoils and boils and one day cascades up bursts through devastation consuming destroyed

Rage is the light which catalyzes change. Rage is the flame. Let it set fire to all that has decayed. Ancient, withered. Let it free us. Let it cut the cords, the shackles, may it sound the chord of the freed. The untethered truths are so abundant, so myriad, so convoluted and confusing. Exploration is innate to the spirit of man. It mustn’t ever be contained. It can never be defied. Not for too long. Dust myself off.

Scientific principles hold no meaning without philosophic insights behind them. Men are not machines. Never born to serve. Borne to live, to breathe in mountain air, the sundered surf. Mount the trials and tribulations of mighty, savage warriors, bathe in the decadent lusts and riches of sultans, flounder amongst the filth of ne'er do wells and grifters.

We are all rushing headlong towards the void. There is no escape, no reprieve, no quarter, no second chances. That terrible black maw, an infinity of darkness, oblivion. It beckons, it calls us closer with every passing moment, hungry for the vitality that still runs through our blood, even if it has departed from our spirit.

I won't lie. Sometimes it feels enticing. There are still days, those days, when I would like to peel back that veil and dive headlong into the depths. Feel the pure serene bliss of nothingness. Not yet. Be patient. There will be plenty of time for nothingness. In the end.