Shades of thought surround, shadows dance in judgement of me, my mind has turned against.
The voice within has found me wanting yet again, imperfect, incomplete, unworthy of this life, of this heart that still beats.
Shades of thought surround, evil ministers that administer that poison guilt. The sentence against my soul. Doomed to wilt, damned to falter, nothing left.
Shame has claimed my mind and hate does cloud my soul.
Nothing of me to be found, nothing remains but the shades of thought, those evil things that whisper foul deeds. Things to do to me, to pay penance for the crime of being; of breathing and continuing.
My crime was nothing but existing, and for that I am found wanting, and stand in judgement to my own self, never satisfied, never free, never allowed to truly be, to be anything more than a hated being.
Author: Lantern
Let It Despair
Constructed, contrived, flailing failure with nothing within, nothing there. Fake foolish failure, without feeling, without friends, with nothing there. Constructed, contrived, utterly contemptuous in deviance and design, the flawed failings of demented minds. Nothing within, nothing there, blank mind, empty soul, a stupid failure, a little fool. A contrived construct of failing thought, nothing of worth, no reason to care. Let it wither, let it despair.
Winter Worries
No warmth, nor joy, nor autumn ease. Cold winter me, worried and weary and frozen to the core. As autumn dies and winter breathes taking sway over that once bright day.
No warmth, nor joy, or sweet summer breeze. Memories cling to worried things, and sounds best left unheard. Cries of dismay, as colors fade and cold, empty ice holds sway once more. I let my troubles go in autumn, but here they came to nest. Their children brought their cacophony, to break my back and steal my breathe.
Still I trundle on, still I march once more. Up the hill and through the snow, to the forests I know so well. Gold leaf trees and red leaf days have given way to monotone grays and despair has found me sore.
No warmth, nor joy, or fervor of sweet spring. That chill sleep grips the land and holds it paused, as if some great beast does hold its breath, afraid of that final day. Mortality has come to call, as the sleep of winder does remind us one and all. Tomorrow is no promise, nor prize or sweet surety. The future is a dream in a brutal land, and winter is here to make all take heed and see.
So without warmth, or joy, I set that kindling of mine to blaze. I have not love, I have not joy, but I have my passion true. Without anger, without rue, I'll burn brightly. I'll blaze through. I will see that sweet spring, and feel that summer breeze. I'll know once more that touch of autumn's ease, red leaf days and gold leaf trees. I'll send winter on, I'll send it packing through. Once more I'll go into that sweet night, and I'll be my own light. For I remember that touch, that flame, and I will set it free.
I'll now bow, Dry autumn am I, not winter's chill, not spring's hectic fervor or summer's flame. Autumn's ease, nature's gold. All that matters that never holds. I'll send each season on in order of the day, until once more I know my home is true and in autumn's court I rest once more. Until that day I'll blaze and blaze until I can burn no more.
Autumn’s Ease
No spark, nor flame, nor fervor of sweet spring. Dry autumn me, cold and cooling, as summer flees and winter rides forward, on the heels of the day.
No spark nor flame, no swift idea of dreams long past. Summer breeze gives way to autumn ease, and I try to let me worries fade. For if they stay they’ll winter near and I’ll be troubled for a year and day.
Yet still I send them on, autumn ease is all I need, and the hope for another spark. Come back again in later years, in spring or summer fields. I’ll tend you then but not of now, I’ll not let you hang around.
No spark nor flame but I keep my kindling dry, still winter holds a home inside. Dry and brittle my heart is true, dry and brittle and not a flame to burn.
I hold my kindling for sweeter days and not give way to autumn ease and lust filled dreams mistaken for love’s delight. Not turned away, just passed on by, until the time is right.
Dry autumn am I, alone and in between. Always something seems to be leaving with another trouble on the way, yet still I stand in that autumn ease.
I’ll not bow, I’ll not cease. I’ll just smile, and shrug, and keep my kindling dry. I’ve known true cold of once, and I’ll keep my dreams close by. In case once more that chill sets in and my brittle dreams of flighty things, of hopes and goals I’ll never see, must again catch flame to keep that chill at bay.
Until then I will drift in autumn’s haze, on gold leaf trees and red leaf days. On quiet streams and windswept hills, under apple trees in all their golden glory I’ll gaze to the next. Never the goal, always the passing point in time. Rest with me a pace, let go the worries on your mind. Embrace that autumn ease and take some with you as you leave.
No spark, nor flame, no drop of summer stress or bit of winter worry. That autumn ease is cider and apples, pumpkin pies and happier times.
Yet Living Dead
Here I sit upon this bed, withered and dry, the yet living dead. My breath still comes, my heart still beats, yet this isn’t a life, at least not one I want to keep. The dark comes now, the rest comes next, a quick exit, a calm escape. Here upon this bed, withered and dry that pitiful living dead. My passion died first, my soul died next, so bury me soon I’m rotting in my head, nothing but sharp corners and dull screams. The day repeats, each dawn is the same, nothing left to give, old before my time and without the care to give. No care towards myself is seen, no hope for tomorrow known, let me rest my head, let me sleep, let me go.
Yet still I stay upon this bed, the yet living dead, my rot can’t be seen, my pain isn’t clear. Nothing left to give, breath still comes and my heart still beats but my blood means little, its not something I want to keep. Let it spill, let me rot, let me match that image in my mind, life has left me raw, too painful, unkind. Nothing but sad days, nothing but dark times, here I am the living dead withered and rotting inside. Still I sit upon this bed, the world marches on as I continue to die inside. The day repeats, each dawn is same, nothing left to me, old before my time and without the care to give myself. No care, no worries, nothing there, hollowed empty, I barely dare to continue upon the day. No care towards myself is seen, no hope for tomorrow known, let me rest my head, let me sleep let me go.
Pain I sought no longer eases the ache, the self inflicted wounds ring as hollow as the dull ache. Acting out with unfinished motions, intent is clear but conviction unnoticed. Content to worry myself to a rotting grave, my tomb my mind, my soul you can’t save. It’s already dead, and I died long ago, the living dead, my body just doesn’t know. Passion quenched, desire fled, it is only fear that keeps me shackled to this bed. This death bed I live in, sleepwalking through the motions of life, no spark, no gleam, no smile is seen. Rot on my breath, rot on my mind, let me die soon, the reaper missed my time.
My ticket was punched but never collected, this purgatory space is where my head has been. I can’t keep wandering through ashen halls, life without color, without sound at all. Just whispered murmurs of pain and poignant piercing screams that remind me I have yet to truly die. I still draw breath, I still walk this earth, this purgatory plane, this place of blood and dirt. Let me go, let me be, let me rest, but let no one see.
Written Word/Whore of Old Ideas
I find I fear the written word, that whore of old ideas. I find I fear, indeed my dear, that written word of mine. I find I fear with dire dread the writing of a tale, that thought of fickle failure near that does drive me to despair.
I find I fear that written word that would show me to the crowd, that motley mob of cruel humility there to drag me down. I find I fear, indeed my dear, that written word of mine; thoughts that dance inside my mind rarely make it past my mouth let alone to the page to be read or shout.
I find I fear that fickle fate of trying to be more.
I find I fear my written word and my muse so damned and divine, for if I write, or if I speak, I must claim what’s mine. So I sit with dire dread and put to page this bloody pen and carve this path of mine.
Here I sit in dark despair the future so grim and clear. The failure near, drawing fast as the words of mine appear. Yet still this written word of mine that flows so oft doth no disappear.
It does not fade like some spirit gone against the day, it does not flee this fear of mine that dawning of the light; so with dread so known and fear so clear I put upon this page these words of mine. Words I know so well that drives me to a rage.
Yet still I fear that written word, that whore of old ideas. That bloody spirit that claims clarity and within this thought there is a clear disparity, and obfuscation of the truth.
I fear that written word, this old muse of mine, for nothing is known and little is clear, the old liar of the times. The words that twixt and twine about our souls and clutter the clarity of a mind. Words and intent, one might claim to know both and be so frightfully bold.
I however know little of the harlot except that she calls this bleak mind of mine home.
Tired Soul, Kindly Soul/Tempted
I know a tired soul, a kindly soul, that often stands alone.
Standing aside, letting life go by, a smile and a wave, a gleam in their eyes.
Still standing there, with help to spare as those go by, hoping perhaps someone stops for a time.
Yet the smile is a sham, the gleam uncried tears, the help a call for such from a wish for a friendly ear.
Yet now all alone they stand in the dark, amid the whispers and the secrets of their own soul, cold and stark.
Weakly weeping with weary mind, tired eyes that I’m tempted to close this time.
Tempted to sleep, tempted to dream, tempted to disappear into that deep unseen.
Tempted to go, tempted to leave, tempted to let the breaking happen and shatter at the seams.
The cracks run through, spiderwebs of fractures along a dusty tired soul. With little to know of hope, or love, and only clinging tired dreams.
I wish this weakly weeping soul, this weary tired fool I know…I truly wish it wasn’t me.
The Old Hero’s Last Stand
And so the hero stands, no longer bowed by age, free of time’s cruel cage. He marches forward, his steps yet heavy, his armor battered his sword at the ready.
One last moment, one last gasp, an adventure founded and followed, held within his withered grasp.
Behind him stands the youth, before him stands his death, still unbowed he follows, with a smile until the last.
And so the hero stood, that old and withered man, the bravest soul I ever knew, and hope to know again.
Still that hero stood, and shouted out his cry, he darted forward lightning quick, knowing his time to die.
The withered lion, the aged and weathered soul, the kindest man I ever knew, and oh it hurts me so.
To watch that champion fall, to go a hero’s death, still to die with sword in hand is better than to go clawing and grasping for breath.
Behind the hero I stood, that old and weathered man, frozen by a fear I could not understand. Yet now I know, as I knew then, to go forward into battle is to take death by the hand.
I hope before my own death I can stand instead of kneel.
To attack rather than beg for that little bit of spark, that bit of moment when life is filled with meaning for the impending doom at hand.
I hope, that when I face death I can go out like that old man, a hero not a coward, brave unto the end.
Diary – Have you ever felt your heart was dead?
Have you ever felt your heart has died before having a chance to be truly born, let alone live?
That for whatever reason there is simply nothing, there is no love…no pain. At least, not pain in a sense you can describe. It does not sting, there is no ache of knives or burn of fire.
There is simply…nothing, and that…that is worse.
That nothing drives into whatever cracked remnants of a soul you might have after your heart has died, and it spreads and you are only ever nothing. You might rage, you might cry, you might scream at against that night, that you are something, but you know better.
You are nothing, there is nothing to you, and everything else is just the last flailing nerves of a body long dead, broken beyond repair that simply…goes through the motions for fear that if you stop the oblivion that waits beyond that empty feeling will finally swallow whatever cracked pieces remain free of that awful emptiness.
Despite the motions, you never try, there is no passions beyond the pain. No joy and little sorrow, and those moments of sorrow, those moments of raw agony where your very soul hurts for the pain of grief.
Those become blessed moments, sacred in that agony, for without that pain you’d never truly feel anything at all because worse than pain is the apathy of a life un-lived, of a soul undone and a mind unmade.
Worse than pain and sorrow and agony, is never feeling. Never experiencing and rarely caring, and understanding that this, lack is a loss you cannot grieve. A wound you cannot heal, and a mask you can never remove for it becomes you in every way that has ever mattered and banishing it is likened to killing the last remnants of who you were before, if only because the lack has been all you’ve known for so long everything else seems like nothing more than a distant dream.
A story you told yourself to convince you that there was something before, that things did matter, before the hollow formed within your gut and color seemed to drain from your world as if it was water through a sieve.
So, have you ever felt as if you heart has died, and all that it has left you is nothing, no smiles, no tears, and only the false echo of anger in a vain and pointless attempt to simply not tread into that bottomless hole, and let yourself fade?
All of this before you ever knew what life was, what love was, how it felt to greet the dawn with another that makes you smile, that one person who can tell you, it’s all going to be okay and thought you know they lie that it won’t be okay.
Nothing will ever be okay again because it has never been okay to begin with, you let them say it and you smile and for that one moment, that one instant, everything will be okay, because this is life and they are there and you are alive and this is as close to good as its ever come to being and that, for this moment is okay.
Has your heart died before this moment could ever come to pass? Shriveled and wounded you give up any attempt to find this moment because you know not only is nothing ever going to okay, there is nothing good left within you that deserves this moment. Blighted by hollow shadows that fill you with every dark thought just to attempt to drive out the pointless static that scratches at your tattered soul every day, the idea that one could live with love while their heart was dead, their soul was broken and their mind so much empty static.
Even now that idea makes me chuckle, just a little bit, at the pure fancy and fantastical it attempts to put across.
Love doesn’t win, my heart does not beat, there is nothing to me now for I am nothing but empty.
Shriveled and dry, next to pointless there is no blood in my veins, no soul in my chest, just emptiness and dust in a vessel that doesn’t understand when to end.
I still don’t understand when to end, I fight oblivion with all I can because its all I can see, all I understand is that the ending will come and I will lose and the emptiness will be all that I am. No more stories, no more words.
Nothing but silence with not even the soft sobbing of my agony to break it.
Simply…nothing.
And that terrifies more than any nightmare, any ending I can think of.
A
Play – Repeat
Drifting smoke forms lazy wisps, the maze of problems, the haze and hits.
The ground is mired in time and despair and though the goal can be seen, I’m not yet there.
The distance is growing, the ground falling away, shattered and sundered by a future not to be.
My heart is silent, it does not beat within my chest, my soul has no rhythm, I’ll not survive this test.
My actions are hollow, my responses are false, play and repeat the message, the beat, the meaning is lost, the sound washed away.
Drifting smoke forms lazy wisps, the maze of problems, the haze and hits, back to the start, again it begins with this.
The Lantern Lit Corner 
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