Tanka 3

I am lost in dreams
I know not who I am now
Identity gone
The world shatters before me
Then I awake, and it's true

At Least We Have Each Other

I want to ask you a favour
Would you please break me down
Spread the ashes in the wind
It would mean so much to me

Shatter my bones and
Inhale the shards and
Bathe in my marrow and
Drown in my blood

In doing so you will see me
The me without my mask
The me without my lies
The real me would be exposed

Wouldn’t you like that?
To see me before I’m gone?
Drink in my true person?
Meet me the first and last time?

I want to ask you a favour
Would you please push me too far
Watch me crack under the weight
See me break under your love

Then rebuild me and
Try to fix me and
Stand me up and
Fuck my broken shell

In doing so I’ll see you
With your support for me
With your love for me
The real you would be exposed

Wouldn’t you like that?
To have me bow to you?
Bend my knee in your honour?
Meet you once again?

Throw yourself over me
Shroud me from the truth
Pull me over you
Hide yourself from rebuke

Save me
Save me
Save me
I can’t be saved

But still, in my time of need
My want of freedom
From this life of mine
I have to confess to you

I still love you
I still love you
I still love you
I still love you

Is This All?

I see you have found another and you’re gone
Leaving me in my bleak thoughts, confused, alone

I am falling into mind-consuming pain
As I turn and see the falling of the rain

I am lost in my guilt, filled with great self-doubt
I’ve lost what I’ve built, what can I do now

Is this all that I can know?

I am falling into mind-consuming pain
As I turn and see the falling of the rain

I am lost in my guilt, filled with great self-doubt
I’ve lost what I’ve built, what can I do now

This is all that I deserve.

The Folly of the Usurper

"God. I, and every other human since the concept was introduced, have wondered if this being exists. I can't be sure if He does or not, but I can be sure on whether Satan exists or not. He does. His purpose is to deceive and conquer. He is a petty, warmongering Hellspawn. I have looked into his eyes, and seen his handiwork. The Cold Boy. The Quiet. The Plague Doctor. He has created these monsters. He will not stop until he is defeated.

"Will you help the cause."

Thus spake the usurper, bravely out of range of rebuke

Hiding behind dynamic defence, always replacing defeated forms.

This hunter from beyond our borders assails not one, but all of us

While promising to amass his own numbers for grim usurpation.

Time, time, and time again he is beaten back

Yet still he persists

Crying for retribution for some supposed sleight on our part

To him, brother, and their friend

And all the while not-so-subtly attempting coercion

By empty threats of self-destruction.

And lo! one great defender speaks:

"I will never allow you back in, not if this is how you view us."

And with his decree, all who hear, we stalwart defenders,

Rally in an instant to our home's defence

Whereupon the folly of the usurper is illuminated for all

And he might know that we are, and always will be,

Stronger, more persistent than he.

Haiku 3

In silence I stand
Watching as my hope erodes
For I am alone

Terrence Anathema Transcribes: Autopsychography

(By Fernando Pessoa , 1931, translated by Richard Zenith)

The poet is a faker

Who’s so good at his act

He even fakes the pain

Of pain he feels in fact.

And those who read his words

Will feel in his writing

Neither of the pains he has

But just the one they’re missing.

And so around its track 

This thing called the heart winds, 

A little clockwork train

To entertain our minds.

Manufactured Surgery

Machinery and metal surround
though one is not perplexed by their intricacies
for a goal is formed and pursued
though one's path to its completion is unknown.

Taking instrument after instrument in hand
the mechanical lobotomy begins
as one unbinds and peels back that metallic skin
and reveals dust and cogs vital for automation.

Transplantation thus follows,
as memory is tested and replaced
and in this surgery on nonsentient entities
the sum of those various parts might grow.

Satisfied with one's work of hands,
that metal carapace is restored
and machinery and metal no longer surround
now that improvements are fully engendered.