The Hanged Man

This is my time...manifested in such obscurely-lit heights
Jaded by raven-claw reason
and stained by crimson blood sights

Knocked into some melody-ridden mirrored cave...turned inside out
belly up with an eye embedded in my exposed tongue
in view of one way out

Scores of dead bodies...come alive
explode within mid-rise
left are five

sacrifice, change, truth, birth and death
wrapped in the wings of startled suicide epiphany
delivered with bittersweet moist breath

This is my time...manifested in such obscurely lit heights
stabbed with a civilization of prophetic swords
in shifting essence of flickering lantern lights

|...|

The Yearning Well

Under the bright warm green light, he fell fast asleep below a jet black sky teeming with pulsating stars as big as planets. His sleep state carried him into a very strange world.

As he slipped down into what seemed like a never-ending well made of smooth round-cornered stone blocks, rich forest-colored devils with emerald jewels for eyes and mouths that stretched open to reveal dancing screaming teeth, reached out to him with long two-fingered hands revealing semi-translucent, shiny, taut skin.

As he looked up while falling further below into...something...somewhere...he could see the coal black sky shrink to a tiny point which eventually disappeared.

He looked down and could finally see the end of the well. It was an open mouth with a large gleaming rapidly blinking eye in the middle. He felt he would die, feel excruciating pain or encounter a sensation which would obliterate him, but once his body fell through the open mouth and into the fluttering eye, he realized he was submerged in a very warm, embracing body of liquid. Liquid that composed the image of the large flickering eye.

Immediately, his mind and consciousness shifted and he experienced the perception of everyone that he had known and seen throughout his entire life. It was an indescribable and profound happening. He let out a mixed series of yowls, laughter, screams and indefinable vocalizations.

----

Glenda leaned over the bed and looked at her husband. He was in a deep sleep. She decided to wear her exotic black sweater tonight with shimmering crystal sequins. It made her feel elegant and special.

Tomorrow she would be leaving to explore new opportunities. It was time. He looked so peaceful in bed. So very vulnerable and innocent.

He never saw her for who she was. She knew that once he awoke, he would still be asleep, but alive somewhere else. With her he was dead and tired. No longer did her beautiful green eyes create a stir in his soul. Those days were gone.

She decided that the disappearance of special days held great wisdom. They were mothers embedded within a world of watchful esper mothers, swirling around amongst one another with their glorious strands of pixie hair, shaking off gorgeous particles of intoxicating sighs and snowy loving whispers.

She was infinite birth and an apotheosis of all seasons.

----

As all of the omniscient sensations emptied out of his body with each wild utterance, he felt the grasp of a hand becoming stronger around his left leg. The water felt so warm and fluid that he wondered if he was floating within a liquid illusion. He pushed his body around and saw that the hand was attached to no one. It bore a crisp-looking diamond ring with a gold band on the ring finger. The hand looked like it belonged to a woman. A woman with a slight pleasant build. Someone familiar but someone he couldn't recall no matter how hard he tried. The skin was delicate; as if it would tear away from the hand upon the gentlest of touches.

He reached down to grab the hand around his left leg and saw that it disappeared and reappeared on his right leg. However, upon reappearance, the hand was now decayed-looking, mottled gray in hue and the skin was jaggedly broken in several areas with an old worn leathery texture. The diamond ring was now replaced by a bulbous black spider with its thick hairy legs clenched around the hand's ring finger.

Something violently pulled him down into the liquid. He held his breath as he frantically felt his body moving further down into the liquid abyss. He could not make out any direction. He could not see and the temperature of the water became colder. So cold that he felt like he was going to become frozen. His body started to go into shock and he could no longer hold his breath due to time and panic. Just as he was about to give up, he felt his body land onto a soft springy surface. The coldness went away and he was no longer in liquid.

The area was dark but it began to brighten and reveal the interior of his bedroom. It was morning outside the open window next to his bed. The closets were open and his wife's clothes and belongings were gone. He could not move or speak although everything was visible.

His wife came back in the room to stand in the doorway and look over at him again. He tried to call out to her but she could not hear him. He tried again and failed.

He could only hear echoes of his voice as he looked into her eyes. Staring into them conjured up a fervent fever of aching and longing within. Like the early days.

The room disappeared abruptly and Glenda appeared everywhere. Even as he blinked, visions of Glenda appeared as split-second snapshots, reaching out to him in a faraway distance. He looked down at his body and saw thousands of copies of her hands reaching out to feel, grab and seize him.

The floor, filled with faces and garments of Glenda, broke away and revealed the opening of the stone-made well. He began to fall forever...always seeing the beckoning and smiling face of Glenda at the bottom.

The Disappearance

She tried joking with him. Lifting her voice and seeing if he'd loosen up and eventually crack his usual crooked, warm smile. But something was wrong.

Very off.

Brian stared down at her with a very unsettling, piercing glare. The expression in his face was alarmingly serious and his eyes were hollow, empty and strange-looking, appearing much darker than usual.

Sharp instinct sent a jolt through her being and made her realize that her husband of 15 years was no longer there. The presence standing before her, posing as Brian, felt gravely threatening and deadly; teeming with dark sadistic desires.

Caryn felt like if she said one more word to him or even reached out to touch him gently, he'd abruptly seize her by the neck with all of his capacity with wild eyes and strangle her lifeless. She had never felt this energy from Brian and she was never scared of him nor did she ever have a reason to be. They had gotten into a typical mild argument earlier and now her attempt to break the ice had invoked the presence of a malevolent stranger.

Someone that had been lurking, undisturbed and asleep, within Brian since childhood.