Let me tell you a story... .. . It is what you cannot see that terrifies you. The killing of the light. Under dark waves, when the world fades. Your negative self. Prose for passing on. Your fickle aspirations. Wasted growth. That which is so easily destroyed. We are all phantoms without hearts. Spilling our seed in anxious, opaque spaces. We are best forgotten. Forlorn and unfocused. We are destructive and without care. We exist at odds with everything. Scrawling our words out as proof of our lives, fearful of not leaving a memento. We were here! Please! Know where we once cast our stones! And they can hear your fears grow. And as the rain comes they force you to breathe in the bloom of cruelty. Your blood will tell them all they need to know. If your mouth is silent: Spirit away all hope. This will be your last... A feast for the twisted wolves, corrupted and sickening. The light of your life, they hope, will sate them. Until dawn slips in and the frosts of winter sets their hunger ablaze again. Would you ever take the hand of someone who one day would leave this earth much earlier than planned? Because the unknown offered more to them... than the experience of living ever could deliver? I am here. Conjuring Death. Nestled in the roots of this old tree, clawing at the Earth. Down, down toward Hell. And up toward Heaven as well. Threatening to pull the very sky down. Watching the water, vexed. Ripples alive in the overall calm. The cast stone so much louder in the silence of nature. I can hear her call. Like the gentle breeze. She hunts, but not for me. And here I pray. I curse. I cry for release. Mother of Death, of Oak, of Wolves: Your teeth, my throat. ...Please. Let my bones provide what my flesh could not in life. She tastes like the void and I can't get her out of my mind. It's dark... It is dark... and I fear I have lost myself. But I know, I am. Right. Here. Though these pieces are scattered and weakening. I will not say no. For none can say no to Death. If ever there was barren land it surely is my heart. Given up it's light, one day, so long ago. Taken naught in return. And now we ghost through these days, just playing our parts, perhaps not so well. We pretend the spark is still alive and vibrant. But we are a truly devoid, terrible art. A sketch on the precipice of disaster. This is an ode to slowly drifting clouds. To the many vacant spaces within. Inter-dimension 29. Matrix 17. Softly muted stars and handcrafted day dreams. It's a funeral for a friend. Come with me. The love we have shared when we were whole. Hearts entwined. Distance never mattered. You're gone now. But I'll carry these memories. Forever... .. .

**Proceeds to read you a mix of bad poetry and prose from a culmination of years past, in no significant order, selected from a folder of torn note pages at random.** Let me tell you a story... .. . It is what you cannot see that terrifies you. The killing of the light. Under dark waves, when the world fades. Your negative self. Prose for passing on. Your fickle aspirations. Wasted growth. That which is so easily destroyed. We are all phantoms without hearts. Spilling our seed in anxious, opaque spaces. We are best forgotten. Forlorn and unfocused. We are destructive and without care. We exist at odds with everything. Scrawling our words out as proof of our lives, fearful of not leaving a memento. We were here! Please! Know where we once cast our stones! And they can hear your fears grow. And as the rain comes they force you to breathe in the bloom of cruelty. Your blood will tell them all they need to know. If your mouth is silent: Spirit away all hope. This will be your last... A feast for the twisted wolves, corrupted and sickening. The light of your life, they hope, will sate them. Until dawn slips in and the frosts of winter sets their hunger ablaze again. Would you ever take the hand of someone who one day would leave this earth much earlier than planned? Because the unknown offered more to them... than the experience of living ever could deliver? I am here. Conjuring Death. Nestled in the roots of this old tree, clawing at the Earth. Down, down toward Hell. And up toward Heaven as well. Threatening to pull the very sky down. Watching the water, vexed. Ripples alive in the overall calm. The cast stone so much louder in the silence of nature. I can hear her call. Like the gentle breeze. She hunts, but not for me. And here I pray. I curse. I cry for release. Mother of Death, of Oak, of Wolves: Your teeth, my throat. ...Please. Let my bones provide what my flesh could not in life. She tastes like the void and I can't get her out of my mind. It's dark... It is dark... and I fear I have lost myself. But I know, I am. Right. Here. Though these pieces are scattered and weakening. I will not say no. For none can say no to Death. If ever there was barren land it surely is my heart. Given up it's light, one day, so long ago. Taken naught in return. And now we ghost through these days, just playing our parts, perhaps not so well. We pretend the spark is still alive and vibrant. But we are a truly devoid, terrible art. A sketch on the precipice of disaster. This is an ode to slowly drifting clouds. To the many vacant spaces within. Inter-dimension 29. Matrix 17. Softly muted stars and handcrafted day dreams. It's a funeral for a friend. Come with me. The love we have shared when we were whole. Hearts entwined. Distance never mattered. You're gone now. But I'll carry these memories. Forever... .. .