The Abyss
Fallen over the edge of the canyon,
Stumbling through the black.
A million, million needles
Lodged deep in my back.
Isolation heavy,
Like a fog and I can't breathe;
I don't know how I got here
And I don't know how to leave.
Crysanthemummies sleeping
Lambpyres keeping watch,
I walked the line between art and life
And fell into an ink splotch.
The kisses I can't feel
Like I have someone else's lips
The music has no meaning
Like I'm dancing in a crypt.
My eyes see nothing but black
As though they're filled with tar;
I can't even feel the razor,
It leaves nothing but a scar.

The Dark Man
I saw him again last night. The Dark Man. Standing in a room of body parts like a demented Dr. Frankenstein while the candles cast their dim light on the disaster around
us. I was too horrified to speak. The figure in the corner spied me. She was as dark as he was, and infinitely more terrible to behold. She just stood there with her empty black eye sockets fixed on my every move.
“Am I the only sane one in the house?” I shouted to both of them, although I knew that the Dark Woman would not answer me. The man acknowledged me with his eyes, but said nothing. He looked back down at a leg he was working on and continued his mind-numbing science experiment. I could not bear to look around anymore, I was becoming weak at the knees.
“If you do not answer me, I am going to leave.” I said more quietly. I was losing my courage. The Dark Man looked at me, exasperated. He opened his mouth and a deep, crackling voice racked his impossibly thin frame. “You do that well, but you can't leave anymore.” I looked at the Dark Woman but she only nodded. I looked back at the Man. He was holding an eye in his hand and he began walking toward the Woman. He then placed the eye into her empty socket. “You know that I will be with you until the end of time.”
Tears began to well up in my eyes and my face began to burn, not with fear this time, but with anger. “I don't want you. You belong in hell.” He turned to me with a touch of humor on his humorless face. “You're right. But I am not creating this hell, you are.” I stood speechless. How dare he trivialize my pain! How dare he turn his deplorable actions on me! I did not cut up the bodies! I did not give him the scalpel! I did not hold a gun to his head and make him create the Dark Woman! Reading my thoughts, he sighed. “But you did, my dear, when you sought out the truth.”
I was perplexed. “You're a lunatic and I want out of here.” But I knew this was a lie before the words left my mouth. “Everyone around me is so big, so old. I'm nobody.” I breathed. As soon as I said this, I saw his face change. He reached for a second eye on the counter and handled it gently. Blood fell from between his fingers onto the floor forming shapes I did not recognize. “Do not try to become them, they are as lost as you.” He said, slipping the second eye into the other empty socket. The Dark Woman blinked. I did not see this, for she was still shrouded in the shadowy corner. I just felt it.
“What are you doing to her?” I asked, becoming fearful for her. He ran his fingers through his mop of short, unkempt blond hair. “I told you, I am doing nothing. You made her. I am simply doing your bidding. But I cannot make her speak.” I felt the anger explode into my cheeks as they flushed with blood. I was screaming before I could stop myself. “Make her speak? So that she can say what? How disgusting you are? How afraid she is? How much pain she is in? It's not fair to do this! She will be different from everybody else every day of her life! She's not normal! Can't you see how much she hates you? Look at her! Look at what you've created!” I began to cry tears of rage, sadness, and exhaustion. I collapsed on the floor in a crying heap feeling bitter and broken.
Darkness overcame me and I felt a hand on my shoulder. I could not look up into those dark eyes of his, it would destroy what little sanity was left in my body. The hand brushed my hair off my forehead and I opened my eyes, staring into my own face. It was the Dark Woman. Her body was criss-crossed with scars and her eyes were deep and black. She held her hand out to me and said, “Walk with me. You're not alone anymore.”

The Host
I remember that the sky was a blinding white, as though it was bleach that had rained down the night before. It must have been cold outside that day because I was wearing the long black coat and boots on my daily walk through the cemetery.
The woman didn't see me approach; she was much too busy tending to a grave that had become quite overgrown. Ahh, that's the grave of Josephine McConnel. It had been a long time since I'd seen good old Josephine, a few years at least. Such a lovely creature she was, and her daughter Margaret was just as beautiful. She had her mother's soft features with long black hair that rolled gracefully down her back.
I was afraid that my breathing would disturb Margaret, but she never looked in my direction. Lucky for me. I looked at Margaret carefully, not at her hair, not at her features, not even at the small but pronounced breasts under her sweater. I looked deeper than that, into the abyss where she had walked since the death of her mother. She began to cry, her breath coming out in big white puffs that hung in front of her face like ghosts.
That was my moment, there was no way I could pass it up. I ran to Margaret, excitement building within me as I sprinted in the cold air. She looked up briefly but I could tell that she still did not see me. Wonderful. I feel my stomach becoming light and my run turned to a skip. I was so excited that I could even feel the tender lips between my legs opening, spilling their juices.
Margaret was the perfect host body in every way. She was strong enough to fight me off for a little while, but in the end, I always won. Her young body was supple and strong as I slipped, undetected, into her skin. Mmm...how I love the young beautiful ones. I am one of the very few of my friends who can be selective about hosts, most of them are slaves to the elderly, the infirm, the terminal. But not me, I come and go as I please.
She didn't even notice my presence, it was perfect. I watched her pray before the tombstone and I couldn't help but admire my surroundings. The abyss is such a dark and lonely place filled with wailing and weeping, but the Earth is so beautiful. It was my pleasure to bring these haunting creatures back with me. When she was finished praying, she contemplated everything that was wrong in her life, and I helped to jog her memory. I whispered to her. I told her what she had to do.
Now, as she lay slumped over her bed, I can admire my handiwork. Her pale white skin against the white sheets. The blood blossoms that grow near her cheek, the silver gun in her hand, the broken shards of skull, she looks like music. I begin dancing around the room as she is taken away. She never fought me, and she isn't fighting now. The music ends and it is time to look for my next lover.

Dear Lenore,
Where are you, Lenore? I'm still here. I love you. Okay, so it's just my skin that's here. Remember when you said that I was fucked in the head? Guess what? I'm not anymore. Isn't that great?

I miss you, Lenore. I wrote you a poem yesterday. It goes like this... "I touched the virus in your mind, I ate your tongue, I pierced your soul and I put my hands in your womb." Wait, that may not be quite what I said, but it was something like that anyway. I didn't have a pen so I wrote it in menstrual blood on the side of my house. But it rained and the words are gone now. Oh, well.

Are you out there, Lenore? Can you feel me when I touch you in my dreams? Can you feel my fingernails gouging your back and peeling off the skin? I love you but it kinda pissed me off when you said that I was fucked in the head. What did you mean by that? I mean, really. If loving you is wrong, I don't want to be dead. Shit, that's not it. How does that song go? Lately I can't get you off my mind.

Why don't you realize that every word from you is like a penknife jammed into my body and twisted, tearing holes in my insides the size of craters. They spill from my body onto the floor, making shapes, unrecognizable and pulsating. Gather them in your arms and hold them close. But you would never do that, you would laugh. You would laugh and drive the knife deeper, until they became bloody ribbons. Then you would wear them in your hair to show the rest of the world the depths of your madness.

You are a disease, a darkly draped destroyer. You are just below my skin, devouring everything you see. Can't you see how you are tearing me asunder like so much worthless newspaper, shredding and ripping to start your fireplace.

Oh, Lenore! Lenore my love, my true one, my passion, my life! I want to absorb you! Come to me my love and know the meaning of darkness. Be the light that pierces my soul. Break me, destroy me.

Love,
Me

I'm trying to remember...
...how old I was when I developed the smell. You know the one, the perfume that tells everybody around you that you are easy prey. The one that says "I'm different". The odor that makes one stop what they're doing and turn around, a lusty look in their eye, a desire to tear and shred. You've either had it, sensed it, or saw it in action and thanked every living and dead deity that you are not that person. Then you held your books close to your chest and became invisible.

Some of us attempt to cloak ourselves in black, hoping to go as unnoticed as a shadow on the ground. We wear the makeup of death, almost inviting it to come and take us away from the world. We are the feeders with red rubbed raw emotions and scabs that open and bleed. We drink from each others' scars and kiss each other with bloody lips. We mourn the dance that is forever lost to us. We yearn for the light but withdraw into the shadows, softly sleeping sunsets burn our eyes.

La insignificancia de la locura
I am insignificant. I am nothing. I am you. Do you want me? Do you want you? Do you want to be thrown into the dungeon too? My presence is like a knife that can open a vein. Try to choke myself, it's how I stay sane. You call me a freak and I say, that's my name. I kiss you until you're laughing in pain.

I embrace you with my thoughts and hold you in my hell. I'll give you some pills, make you think that you're well. Kiss my fingertips, and say you won't tell. This time, I'll believe you, because you're under my spell.

Soy insignificante. No soy nada. Soy usted. I talked to the fish, the fish is dead. You say you need proof? Look, here's its head. I drink from its eyes and take it to bed.

Calling All Creatures of the Night
Are there any gentlemen left? The beautiful dandies, the poetic vampires, the multi-layered enigmas that haunt me? The tattooed, brooding beauties of a lost century? The intellectual, pale, manicured artists with their polished shoes and self-inflicted scars? Did the rednecks and idiots force you out of your natural habitats? Where are you, my lovlies? Did you slit your wrists with your fountain pens? Lestat and Louis, Poe, Marilyn, Dracula, Shakespeare, all of my tortured artists, are you really as beautiful as you are depicted? Did television eat you? Did your women destroy you? Did drugs devour you? Did you sell your souls for ratings? Did you fall into an absinthe coma? Did you ever really exist outside of my imagination? Where are you? I just want to talk.

I do not want to fuck you, you are all too beautiful for that. I just want to talk to you all. I want to sit up late, smoking clove cigarettes and talking about philosophy and religion. I want to danse macabre with you. I will have you inside before the sunrise turns you to ashes. Then I will lie with you in your coffin and sleep while the black-winged angels watch over us.

My Baby is a Mansonite
Met a girl, she was oh-so-goth
with fangs and jewlery galore.
The darkest cape at the Noche club
so I led her out onto the floor.

As we danced her eyes were glowing,
her pouty lips so red.
I invited her back to my place,
my pretty little undead.

When she stepped into my car
I could not believe my ears.
She took out my Bauhaus cd
and Manson was all I could hear!

Oh, my baby is a Mansonite
and I thought she was so cool
Oh, my baby is a Mansonite
how could fate be so cruel?

She started talking politics
and I thought I still had it made
but then she started in on God
and I knew I'd never get laid.

Oh, my baby is a Mansonite
and I thought she was so cool
Oh, my baby is a Mansonite
how could fate be so cruel?

She drinks Absinthe and bangs her head,
throws her corset on the bed.
I can't believe my rotton luck
she's already in love with the God of Fuck.

Oh, my baby is a Mansonite
and I thought she was so cool
Oh, my baby is a Mansonite
how could fate be so cruel?

For Than
My halo is anemic. Quiet stranger with the blackened eyes, hold me closer. Cradle me in spiderwebs and hold me high. It's too late to think, my beautiful friends. Sleep well, Nathaniel...may tomorrow look brighter. Maybe it will all make sense then. Your poetry stole my heart and reminded me of how dark the abyss can truly be. You said that I was dark, and you are right. But darkness is not all about death, it's about life as well. Shadows and light. Reality is what you create, create what you love. Sleep well, my lovely, macabre audience.

Answers
I was browsing through the yahoo profiles as I am prone to do when I am bored and/or tired. It's a great time-waster and appeals to my nosy nature. It's like a peek into someone's life. It occured to me that it would be so easy to forget everything I've worked so hard for. It's not the first time this thought has crossed my mind, in the wee hours as I contemplate lazy thinking.

Maybe I overthink things: society, religion, philosophy, politics, music, human nature, Farelli brothers movies...

Maybe I could learn to appreciate sheep culture. Is there not some beauty in giving my thoughts over to someone else? Instead of constantly trying to question things? I remember being little. I took everything I heard to be absolute truth. Then the questions started...the ones that nobody could/would answer for me. It was frustrating, especially in those formative years. The why's and how's that were met with blank stares or obtuse bible verses or worse...anger. The greasy-faced politicians who prattled on about peace while they bombed countries I'd never heard of. One thing became blindingly apparent...nobody could give me the answers I craved.

The feeling was the worst I'd ever experienced. For a few years I withdrew, alienating all but a handful of people and burying my nose in books. At church camp, I would sit in the company of the trinity tree and nobody else, and I would read my bible. I talked to God. I asked him what the answers were and you know what? They never came. God was just like everyone else...he couldn't answer them either.

It took a few more years of delving into Eastern philosophy, yoga, tarot, the bible, music, meditation, wicca, athiesm and magick before the answer fell in my lap. The answer is that there is no answer. Never was, never will be. That's why sheep mentality fails. It can't stand up to reality. It relies on vague words spoken by others and circular logic to give it validation. There is no answer. Life is the question.

We create reality for ourselves everyday, by our words, our thoughts, our actions. It's a hard way to live because you suddenly realize that there is no holy punishment for the wicked, no karmic backlash, no retribution, no salvation for the pure. And in the end, we die. Period.

But there is a positive side to this, Buddhism relies heavily on balance and there is a cosmic truth to that. We can make whatever we want of this time on Earth. For me, throwing the Ogham works. Tarot works. Dreams are reality and reality is a dream. Absolutely anything is possible in this beautiful world. You can be a rock star, you can be a thief. The world is completely open and you can make of it what you will.

Stay beautiful...