Flask

I am the god of broken promises and regrettable deeds, yet for all these pustules and scars on my skin the stars still shine down on me with pale and iridescent light. Those lights, those little gaps in the Void, they chill me in a somber and comforting way, a coolness and clarity of thought. I walked all the way down the road, potholes and all, to see the Tree where my demon has his bed made of skin and bone fragments, but it was guarded by a breed of dragon I've never seen before. The breath of that dragon fell out of a maw reddened and moist with the blood of young girls and men with kind hearts, and then as it filled my nose I knew the truth, so shocking and relentless; that bastard had moved, and left a forwarding address. With haste, I ran, stumbled, loped, sped for the oak tree behind my house, the one with the skeletal remains hanging from its branches. I will blow blue smoke in his face while I piss on his corpse, the god of revenge and petty rememberings reborn.

There is a pile of ash not far from that tree, and I shudder to think of it, a pile of loveless letters written with care, syllables constructed to deceive and hide, words meant to shroud, cloud, and confuse. Now the boldness comes, sudden with little vanguards of lightning and numbness, willing me forward, down, down, the length that Jackson spans, that little field of pavement, all the way to the end. So there I stand staring, hoping, wishing, waiting for the pain to end. But it comes in such all encompassing waves it is almost too much to bear. I wait for a half a second contemplating an awful choice, I turn again, doubling back, like a beast who knows his realm is small, I crouch and let my effluence drain into the earth, no one other animal will challenge my domain. What would the bright eyes say if they knew the dreams that haunt my waking world, those tiny thoughts that fill me with such guilt, even when no real crime has been committed? I'll never know, I turned away, and threw my head back and swallowed down the contents of a flask filled with urine, bile, and tears.

Intensity flowers from a seed that was never meant to planted, a little accident, an unhappy reminder that this isn't the way it was meant to be, no picket fence or curving hips for me, no more the boy with combed hair always in his Sunday best. A twisting little road, at the end a house with no number, welcome home Morpheus, I've missed you and your seedlings of woe. Like icy hands, or cracked lips, I remain in a quiet state of disrepair, no vibrant with entropy, just middling, a glass half empty.

The mind creates its own cosmos, and I'm left drifting aimlessly at sea, wayward and forsaken. With only the dancing ghost lights to taunt and tempt me, and taint the night with luminence that chips and drags the solid spirals down, dragging them deep under the surface of the unhappy waves. All things become one. And one thing become everything.

I never expected to see her again, at least not in the same light as before, not serene and bright, not soft or warm. No, now she's distant, far off like a star or a half forgotten dream, a thing for lonely nights and grey afternoons. A mind shouldn't be a cage, a body shouldn't become a prison, but the longer I lay here the tighter the chains become, digging into my flesh, and searing the marrow to the muscle. It's no surprise that nothing makes sense anymore, I've been lost in the fog before, and the threat of sorrow seems too real to bear. So a little trickle of courage down my throat causing me to reconsider and infer that something is wrong or off balance. And even though it feels warm and fine, there's something else, a swirl of apathy, or a tremor of uncertainty. A shadow, a shape of unwillingness that stalks and pries into the scabs of my heart, seeping liquid fire and sopping up the blood with little handfuls of dust down in my veins. 

It was in candlelight, that I saw you for the first time, saw you for who you really are. In that flickering light I saw the truth in you, no flaws, full of perfection, there was only me and you. Some spoonfuls of sugar, some stuttering words, so eyes sizzle, or tear up, who can tell the difference these days? It's all taken with hushed glances and spittle dripping from clenched teeth, love is a weapon and honesty a currency.

I stood in my kitchen, holding half a brick from the foundations of an old forsaken house. The voice that spoke from the stone was frantic and tinged with passive-aggression, yet it claimed to only speak of for my benefit and only in concern for the flesh and blood that stretched so far between us. I threw the brick through the church's window, and never looked back. In this moment I am fulfilled; made empty.