The Princess With a Hole in Her Heart

There once was a princess born with a jagged hole in her heart. The whole kingdom searched far and wide to shore up the hole as a princess with a jagged heart brought bad luck to the land, soured the waters, shriveled the crops and poisoned the livestock. They tried stuffing it with mud and twigs. They tried filling it with diamonds. They tried bands of gold that only broke and shards of ice that only melted. They tried burning the hole closed, filling it with rocks, lacing it with iron and drowning it with sea water.

But the hole only grew as the princess grew into womanhood. The King and Queen were disconsolate and locked the maiden in a great stone tower. They wallowed in their own despair at having birthed their only child to such a bad omen. The princess, for her part, spent her days staring out the window of the tower down on the kingdom below. She never uttered a word or tear at any attempt to fill her heart up but just stared down on the courtyards with a sad turn to her ruby red lips.

The King and Queen were coming to their last wits at the doom that plagued their kingdom when a handsome prince announced himself at their door. Atop his great white steed he promised the King and Queen that he could fill the heart of the desolate princess. Having little other option they assented and sent the prince to the great stone tower.

The prince started up the long marble steps to suddenly find himself beset by thorned vines that seemed to come alive and grab at his gleaming armor. He drew his mighty sword and slashed at the enchanted vines, hacking his way upward. The vines wrapped around his throat trying to choke him but he refused to be dissuaded. He ploughed forward with great blows from his sword only find himself now faced with a perilous swarm of great black bats. They beat their great wings about his head and barred their fangs for his throat. Again he swung his great sword beheading any bat which ventured to close. He cleared the bats only to find a great chasm stretching before him and the door to the princess' chamber on the other side. He lifted his bow, slid a bolt home and fired an arrow across the chasm. The arrow embedded itself in the wood above the door and with the rope attached the prince swung himself across. With great might he hauled his way up the rope to the door only to find it locked. With his great fist he hammered the door until the wood splintered and gave way. He clambered into the waiting chamber.

Through many perils he had finally reached the princess' chamber. It was decorated in lush velvets and silks befitting a princess. The room warm and aglow from a fire in the stone fireplace.The princess sat at her usual spot by the window staring over the land. The prince stood straight and announced himself as her saviour and lord. The princess turned from the window to look at him with sad eyes and then turned back to the window with a sigh.

The prince huffed at the princess' slight and felt his ego stirred. After all he had faced, the princess had simply turned from him with not so much as an acknowledgement of his great deeds. The prince puffed up his chest, marched over the princess' sitting spot and demanded that she face him. The princess once again let out a lonely sigh and did not turn from the window.

The prince grew angry and jerked the princess from the window and into his arms. He announced that he was going to fill the princess' damaged heart whether she liked it or not. The princess did not fight but stared blankly over the prince's broad sholders. He carried her to the bed and roughly tossed her down upon it. He ripped her dress from her body leaving her naked and shivering on the coverlet. He laid himself over the princess pinning her to the matress.

He whispered in a dark tone in the princess' ear that the way to fill her up was to push himself deep inside her so there would be no more room for a hole or a heart. Once she was his, she would bow to him and he would lead the kingdom from darkness. For the first time in her life a tear rolled from the princess' eye and she uttered one word.

"No."

The prince was outraged claiming that it was his right as her rescuer and he would make her his. He would be her King and her kingdom would be his. Agian the princess simply said,

"No."

The prince reared up in anger striking the princess across the cheek. He reached for his belt letting his member free. He wrapped his fingers around the princess' throat and pryed her legs apart. Tears fell from the princess' eyes in great streams as the prince readied himself to enter her and own her.

Suddenly her tears stopped. What the prince did not know, nor did anyone in the kingdom, was that Death had fallen in love with the princess and saw that she did not bring bad luck upon the kingdom but that they had made her the scapegoat for their misfortunes. The little princess with a hole in her heart was innocent of any crimes attributed to her and punished for simply being born different. Death himself had seen what inhabitants of the kingdom did; slaughtering thier neighbors, conquering other kingdoms to make off with their wealth, leaving a wake of destruction in their path. Death knew all their deeds that poisoned their land and was laid to blame upon the princess.

Death had long been filling the hole in her heart secretly with stars. Stars that would burn with the fire of a thousand suns. The stars lay dormant in her heart. Even she knew not that they were there and that Death had been secretly visiting her every night to plant his shining seeds.

And in the moment that the prince arranged himself to penetrate her; to fill her up and crowd her out of her own heart, the stars flared to life. All the power that Death had planted in her heart came to bear. The prince was blinded by the light that spilled from the princess and screeched as he vainly tried to cover his eyes. He scrabbled across the floor away from the princess screeching like a banshee all the way. Suddenly from above him he heard a voice,

"Never again." The prince stared into the glowing face of the now not silent princess. Her eyes flared with a thousand fires from the depth of universe, her hair whipped about her face like a great black flock of ravens, her skin glowed like sun. Behind her he saw the dark figure of Death cloaked in blackness nod his assent. And with that the princess looked upon him and the prince knew all hope was lost.

The princess burned the kingdom to the ground with the fires in her heart. All those who tried to fill her heart up with trinkets and baubles stolen from other lands, all those who cursed the day she was born, her own parents who locked her away so they would have to look upon her, tried to flee but were caught in her great fire. Death trod by her side collecting the wayward souls and gazed upon her lovingly.

Upon the ashes of the old kingdom a new kingdom to Darkness and Light was born. The princess with now a Queen and none saught to usurp her for her will was law and Death sat at her right hand until the end of days.

Eat

You are beautiful and carnivorous. 

Red, Red Fire

There is no truth, no greater purpose, no undying love, no deeper meaning, no good guys who always win, no beauty, no hope, no light that touches all and warms the heart.

There is only hate and pain and an unrelenting urge to burn the whole fucking world down if I only had the chance.

The Awful Truth

Sometimes you just gotta be horrible.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Do No Soften.
Always Remain Hard.

Hard to understand. Hard to take. Hard to love. Hard to accept. Hard to hold. Hard to forget. Hard to embrace. Hard to keep up with. Hard to hurt. Hard to feel. Hardened emotions. Hardened heart. Hard head. Harder than before. Harder than ever. Harder than every voice that ever told you otherwise. Harder than the easiness with which you can be wasted. Harder than yourself.

Just Be Hard.
And forget softeness ever existed. 

You Are Not Hard Enough

Did you consider that I might be the hard one? That my muscles slid under my skin with the strength to save you? Did you see the fire burning in my eyes? The blood already on my hands? Did you assume that you were the one when I was already standing in the middle of that Hell cutting a deadly path towards you?

I am the rider. Hell follows me, not you. I descend on enemies like a plague. Vile in my own right. I lead armies over black hills like swarms of filthy insects. I lift the skin off of heroes. I slit the throats of lovers and sink into the bloody ground grateful for the mud and mortality.

I am the hard one. You are soft. Your soul lingers to closely to your heart. You cry at the pain. You cringe at the blood. All the while I devour those hearts with fanged teeth and all light dies within me. I am the black whole. The destroyer of worlds. The dead of night. The cold finger on your cheek. The reason you are hiding right now.

I may have obscured all that from you. Attempted a semblance of humanity. But all the while I was just burying my true nature in soft femininity. I lied. I am the killer you feared. The nightmare that nipped at your heals. I tried to be nice. I tried to be soft. But I hated every minute and my thoughts always lingered on a vision of all those sweetest Hells creeping up onto the Earth and my hands itched.

Do not doubt what lies behind these eyes. Do not doubt that I would gouge yours out in single sigh. I am the Heart Eater. The Destructor's Kiss. Kali in a Pretty Dress. The Hater and The Hated. They never saw me coming and the world shuddered as it held its breath.

I am hard. And I never lose.

To Hell and Back

“You reap what you sow,” and with those words she drove the blade deep into his stomach and yanked upward. His eyes nearly bulged out of his head. He moved his mouth but nothing came out but a gurgling bloody foam.  She withdrew her blade and stepped back. He looked downwards and in the last seconds of his life got a full view of his guts spilling onto the floor.

Too Dark Heart

Don't smile at me with your too white teeth. I know you are absconding with my best friend on a chilly Saturday night and filling him full of drugs so he'll see you all rose coloured. I know your thieving ways. I've experienced them first hand when you stole my heart and failed to return it. I know you've let it rot under your bed next to the big bag of mescaline you've forgotten all about. Just so much trash now.

Don't fucking spread that too wide grin in my direction. I've seen it before and felt the ice in your touch. No heat I radiated was going to melt that snowball heart of yours. You froze me through the summer and nearly killed me in the winter. You are much too handsome to be trusted.

There is wire missing in your fucked up head. The one that links love to emotion to somebody else. You dwell in yourself and try to rip yourself apart rather than accept the love that surrounds you. You are leaving me out in the cold. Leaving me unhappy but numb. I'm starting to go the way of rejection to the outside world. Why leave here when out there I can feel them thinking and hear them breathing and feel their distaste for me? I want to rip those stupid smiles off. Everyone of them. I want to rip out those frozen hearts and show them the reasons.

I see you there; smiling. I see you. Drug happy and nearly stupid with selfishness. I have my anger to keep me warm; to keep me company on these long nights. It whispers in the sweetest homicidal voice you ever heard and sings me to sleep. It cradles me in burning arms. Wraps me in immeasurable fondness. I call myself Monster and with crooked stained teeth rip my dreams of you to shreds.

For a Woman Impossible to Love

I do nothing in halves.

When I love, I love with every sinew of my body. I consume like a fire; burn up the room, the house and the trees around it. Intensity settles in on me. I do not fear the all or nothing. I love like a storm. A disaster. I see everything in your eyes and feel every little twitch of emotion that fills your face.

I love like this because I have lacked love in my life. I have been tortured to the point of near death. Hated. Reviled. Feared. And I struck out. I built walls so high that no one could scale them. I grew the thorniest vines up the sides. I stretched out badlands all around. And I drew away. I protected myself. I still do.

I do not love easily. To let someone in the glass fortress that is my heart is the biggest risk. It could shatter with the slightest prick. I am scabrous on my exterior; thorny, sharp but delicate as fading rose petals on the inside. I feel too much and to be broken desends on me like torture. To be left at the roadside staring at those tail lights as they fade into the distance relives that torment; that abandonment that brought me here in the first place.

If I love you, it is with everything. Very few can live under the weight of it and none have succeeded so far. I am a woman impossible to love so I retreat further into my caves. Block the light out. Shut the world off. I crawl further away and wrap my heart in layers of spit and tinfoil. Hide it in the back of my ribs; bury it under rock hoping no one will ever find it again.

Because when the light of minor pinpoints starts to pry it open and pain ultimately consumes it in the end, I become the monster I always thought I was and set to devouring the world one little death at a time. 

Still Breathing

"Everybody hurts. Everybody yearns."

There are tears trembling at the edge of my eyes. They have drowned my cheeks, smudged my mascara, sent my green eyes glittering. I am lost under a wave of tears. I'm planning on living down here for awhile. I can't see where else to go. The way out has gotten blurry. Rippling under the water. I always found it easy to drown. Just breath in and let the water do the rest.

I didn't want this. I just wanted you. But the reality of me is heavy. Distant. Pregnant with need. Isolated. Violent. Difficult to understand. And even more difficult to live.

I will pray for you to come back. I started it and I ended it but I will never lose that love. It is a weight that lives with me forever. I never forget. I never have. Years later, I will take it out of the drawer I hid it in and look at it. Turn it over in my hand and miss it. Like I miss you already.

It is true. I am the monster. Ugly. Unlovable. Hated. Unwanted. Unneeded. Unmovable. Sickening.

I will never not be... wanting...
I am still breathing but sometimes I'd like to stop.

Suddenly Lyssa

I want to scream in your face but they taught me to be silent. Removed my tongue before I could even form the words. My love is so full of rage and hurt that I am consumed. Eaten away like the fire at the edge of the drapes. I have things I want to say to you but if I open my mouth only mud will fall out. I'm drowning in it. Gurgling and sputtering. Thrashing about like a black scaled fish on the shore.

Eat my flesh and know me. I am your green eyed whore. You'll thrust into me and then curse me as you trip out the door. I bend my will and have no idea why I grow submissive in your presence. I let you get away with that acrid taste. Stealing my candy. Ripping me up. Hanging me over the edge of some foreign mountain. I want to burn in your place. Drip blood down on your head. I want you to understand the effect you have on other people. I want you to understand your own malice.

Sometimes, I turn murderous. Quick. Hated. Angry. Alone. I stand here alone. On the edge of this fucking bleak world with nothing to hold me down. I rise up like a balloon full of hot air. I set my clothes on fire just to stay warm. I smolder. I sting. I cringe. I'm thinking of you and you barely notice. You are not to be trusted with such things as my fragile vessel. I am quick and I am dead. I feel  myself dieing ever second of every day. Slowly rotting from the inside out.

I am worth nothing and you should come here to end me.

Disposable

When he has no more use for us, he will get rid of us both.

This Failing Night

I want to feel nothing.

I want anything but this inertia. This statis. This hiding in plain sight. There's an eye I'm trying to catch. To pin under my gaze. I lit my hair on fire. Ripped the pages from my journal. Wrote a list outlining you less attractive traits. But still love worms into my already riddled heart. So full of holes. Like Swiss cheese. This love is all I have to give. I grew it myself. Planted the seeds in the mud and waited. Nothing took root but I tried. I'm just not very good at it.

I want to feel something.

I want your hand in mine. I want your lips on mine. I want your body against mine. I want your words tangled in my own. I want to feel you out there thinking of me. Why do I do this to myself? I hear you. I hear you. I hear you shrinking and thinking and darkening on the edge of a bright day. I can't even trust pain and violence. It gives me up to the authorities and rakes me back against sharp little blue pills. I can't trust my words. They keep failing me when I need them most.

The Destroyer

They should have aborted me when they had the chance. Now it's too late.

Cocaine Skyline

He hurls the motorbike into the sharp highway corner, skipping gears as he leans the bike to the side. His knee almost grazes the pavement. The speed whipping his long hair back behind his ears. The wind drying the tears from his eyes. He's not running from anything. He's not running.

He's not running from his pretty rich boyfriend on the other side of town. That perfectly angler face and full lips. The way that pretty boyfriend slips naked into bed and then into him. He's not running from that pile of cocaine sitting on a mirror on the coffee table or the insessant ringing of his cell phone. Rich junkies are just as shady as poor ones.

He's not running from that professor he's having an affair with when her husband is out of town. So much older than him, but beautiful in her experiences. She talks about philosphy and poetry over breakfast. He sits fascinated but soon enough is weaving through the heavy traffic back to that those moutians of cocaine and his soft lips.

He's not running from that innocent girl in his calculus class that keeps batting her eyelashes at him. He wants to taste that virginity dripping down on his tongue. Finds himself staring at her, imagining what she would look like with her knees in the air. That school girl look crumpling into sheer hunger. He shakes his head and is running agian.

He's not running from all that Catholic guilt his mother bestowed upon him. The guilt that eats at him like the cocaine eats at the membranes in his sinuses. The guilt for every moment of sexual bliss. Every moment of druggy release tearing through his veins. The guilt pushes the bike faster. The yellow lines become a blur as they rush by. Faces in passing cars become streaks of light and flashes of teeth. The skyline darkens; the night takes on a blue hue. The guilt takes flight as he goes faster still and all the weight lifts up to that dark heaven.

He's not running. He's just trying to find the fastest way to his own destruction.

The Holy Wasted

I would stand at the cabin door watching the sun rise over the valley mountians. The tall golden grass stretching up the feilds to the tree line. There was coffee on the stove. Crickets jumping in the creeping sun, singing their 'come fuck me' song. The drowzy bees tumbling into the morning glories shading the windows. A fawn dog at my feet listening for approaching footsteps or rumbling motors. The creek rushed by with a constant white noise; the new sun filtering through the overhanging canopy of leaves to dapple down to the smooth peebles and darting fish.

I'm not there anymore. I'm here in this city and you are out there somewhere doing your best to ignore me. I see the night now like ink instead of pierced with a million trillion stars. It has its own wildness here. Bums in the alley, wild cats under the deck, broken bottles sparkling in the street lights. I feel you out there. Just tell me what you are thinking. I can feel it anyways but I need to know what it is.

Sometimes all this humanity is a little too much for me. All those emotions and thoughts beating against my brain. Sometimes I feel like a beetle trapped under the glass. I just want to go back. Maybe I stay here for you. Maybe you could come with me. See the reality of those places. Understand what made me this way. If you would just ask. Ask me where I came from. Ask who shaped me. Ask what they did to me. How I got here all those years ago. I want you to know but I feel like I talk too much when I get around you and you wish I would just shut up for a second. I have all these stories and no one to tell them to.

Wasting

Everything decays, baby. We're just fucking our way to it for something to do in the meantime. 

Lumpish

I wish I was dead.

...
Wait...

I'm probably just being overly dramatic.

My muscles aren't fitting right. The government is taking all my money. My lover doesn't love me. I don't have no booze in the kitchen and I can't even get drunk. I smoked all my drugs up. These pills the doctor gave me to pull it off don't do nothing fun. The phone refuses to ring. My teeth are clenching and won't stop. There's a dead horse in the ditch outside. A hooker stole my shoes. The junky down the street keeps singing off key and I forgot the words to those hangman hymns. The dentist called me all angry that I hadn't paid my bills. I'll owe student loans still in my grave. They will be taxing my headstone. I've got my soul on the lay-away plan so I'm having trouble feeling anything clearly. That tree I planted last year in the yard sprouted up a thorny bush. The fucking condos are creeping up the street and blocking out the sun. My love letters get returned unopened and with postage due. I've been hanging out with the ghosts downstairs too much but they have better cookies than I do.  I have a gun but it only shoots water. I can't afford the bullets.

...
Wait...

Maybe I do wish I was dead.

The Fighter's Reach

A spider-like hop. A lunging forward with a speed and violence I know you store up in your muscles with each movement. Breath coming quick. Fist flying forward reaching for a target. I see each muscle slide on your torso, down your arms, flexing in your powerful legs. The tension coiled like a spring, flung forward at an invisible enemy. Snap! and you are back in a flash.

I let my breath out slowly. My cells grow flushed and swell.

You don't realize it but your muscles flex in the same way, with the same speed and violence, when you are above me. Sliding in and out at a rapid shuddering pace. I have to catch my breath then as well. Awed at the beauty of your hardness and my softness meeting in a sweaty dance on the sheets. I am not blind to the juxtaposition.

In that moment, sex and violence shimmer as one beautiful star burning in a dead universe. We are that center of everything and close our eyes against the dying of the light.

Seeking the Skin

It feels like my nerve endings are dancing on fire. It rages out of control around the edges of my skin. It tingles, it pricks, it seers. I convulse involuntary like a marionette with the strings cut.

These days drain me down. It's like someone plucked my batteries out and I'm slowly coming to a stop. Like molasses on a cold day. Underwater and trying to run. The inertia stealing the strength from my limbs until I collapse in a heap.

I reach out in need of you and find you at the door. Running your hands over my legs makes the nerves finally settle and sleep. They have been creating a storm for days. I haven't lived without pain for decades. Living is pain. But you hands moving ever so gently lull me back into my skin which I have been trying to escape from all week. Your fingers tracing the edges of my face give me what I need to make it through the night.

I would tell you that I love you, but I don't want you to leave. Your hand on my hip as you gently breathe beside me all night keeps me here for one more day. I might not be enough, and I might be damaged beyond repair, but tonight with your hand in mine I feel like I've finally come home.