The Carnival

The sun stared at her but she did not stare back, not for lack of trying, she loved the sun but it was just too bright. The light did hurt her eyes, so she bowed her head and looked down at the uneasy ground deciding to hate it forever. The heads of people were coming and going under her feet, of every color and kind, the blond, the red and the brown, the short and tall, the small and the ones she was sure were full of themselves. She did not focus much on the faces, nothing interested her anymore. She knew them without even having to look at them, the man laughing with his family with eyes full of worry if he’ll be able to pay for the next ride and dinner as well, the teenage girl with blushing cheeks and the boy who’s trying to impress her with a stuffed animal and a fake flower and the children who were constantly staring at the ripples of her rainbow colored dress. They were the worst, because they would stare and only see the colors and the white painted face but not her, never her. Sometimes she hears little girls shouting out to their daddies that they want to paint their face white like the lady up on the wooden wheel and dress in all the colors of the world like her. In the carnival, she thought, everyone wants to dress up in as much color as possible, trying to experience life in everything however small, so they go on expensive rides that will make them scream and take pictures with bizarre faces and figures they know are nothing but fakes, only humans dressed up in custom, but they don’t like to think about that in the moment they take the picture, no one wants to take a picture with the community college drop-out in a clown suit. Of course not, that person only exists to himself, for in the carnival your custom is who you are.

And she was in a sea of the colorful ripples at the tail of her dress, with stripped stockings slender all the way up to her thighs and ribbons of red and gold hanging from her waist, her breast and her hair. Her place was higher than those who walked by, yet no one looked at her like she is some sort of queen or the owner of anything, not even the wooden wheel she was tied to at four limbs. For all they knew she was a slave for that piece of wood, with nowhere to shield her from the cloud’s breeze or from the sunlight, with nothing to do but to wait for the next gentleman to stop by and play her game. That was her corner, her role in the endless horizon of laughter, chattering and mindless screams, and she did not run it nor did she want to be a part of it, but tied at four limbs by his chains, there was nothing she can do but avoid the sun’s glare.

The owner of her corner was the devil in the suit of a man, who believed she had no will to fight anymore. He should know, he was the one who exhausted her to this state, not without her help of course, and he made her into the pretty obedient doll she is now. When he first saw her, he could see it in his mind, her voluptuous body up on that wheel spinning her wits away, waiting for the gents’ knives to fly towards her. He longed for the anticipation in her eyes to where the knife will hit her every time a man raises his arm to aim. As he collects the gold and stands shouting for more. He would shout for more to see her suffer, he thought, he would do what it takes to get her up on his wheel.

She was just another girl passing by, and she was alone, dressed in jeans and a plain white T-shirt, anyone but this man could have easily missed her. But those girls, invisible to their surroundings, were his cup of tea. They lived in their private worlds when no one else accepted them in theirs and he enjoyed tearing through the meaningless smiles and polite nods to the creatures inside, beyond the young sparkle of their eyes. And he had many ways, being in the suit of a man. Because all those invisible girls had one thing in common, they were dreamers. And dreamers, as greedy as they are, would have all life at their command if they could. And what is more appealing than the promises, the touches and assurance of acceptance from a great man. He did all what he can to bring out the beast inside them and show it to them, flash it in front of their weary faces and shatter all what they knew about themselves, all what they were made to believe they are, just comes tumbling down.

Then, it’s time for a last choice, either they live with their new versions of themselves and what knowledge they have learned about the hideousness of their souls, or they accept his offer of redemption from the guilt and sin with just a simple game they have to play with him. They would let him paint their faces in white and their lips in bright red, then he will dress them in such a colorful dress that replaces how boring their white t-shirts are. And then they should just climb upon a wooden wheel voluntarily as he ties their limbs with chains that are instantly tight enough that they hurt. And then he would spin the wheel and they would get in a drunken state from that spinning, so when the men would come to aim their knives trying to hit their eyes, hearts and their beautifully sprung legs, they would not feel a thing at all. It will only feel lighter in their bodies and their souls with every drop of blood that oozes out, as each one takes away little parts of their sins.

Then he would scream at the top of his lungs ‘’Behold, gentlemen’’ to the people coming and going to seek life in the colors of the carnival. ‘’The best way to unleash your inner hunter, to aim at a pretty woman’s heart. Five points if you aim it at the glide of her waist, ten if you pierce her high riding breasts and fifty points if you take out one of her emerald green eyes.’’

And men would come in in groups, laughing and giving their gold to the devil willingly. Competing to see who is the best hunter, to see who is manly enough not to care for a woman’s flowing blood, her wounds, and her pain. They’d pick a knife from the devil’s box and he’d give the wheel a good hard spin.

And she, well, she tries to take it in and into her head, try to lose her thoughts into a time where she knew who she was so she’d speed up the drunken effects of spinning. But she still remembers the first knife that accelerated towards her, and she remembers all the effects of spinning being erased by this moment of anticipation to where it will hit her, she tried to shield her eyes and say a secret prayer to a deity she no longer connected with and then when she felt more alive than ever, she knew that the devil had lied. And when the first knife hit her arms, she knew for sure. As the pain she felt, however intense it is, did not make her feel any lighter, it made her feel more powerless than ever. And her blood that flowed all over the wheel did not take anything from her sin, in fact, she realized she had voluntarily given her soul to the devil and bowed and that in itself, she knew, was a sin.

So she felt more guilt and repented, but her limbs were still tied leaving her feeling more helpless and so it went on. A vicious spiral that deepened with every knife that came from a sadist’s hand seduced by the same devil that seduced her. She was stuck in his game just as much as every other man that aimed at her and walked away laughing at the sight of her blood-stained dress with a sense of accomplishment in his eyes that he himself did not understand. But the devil did and he enjoyed it. He enjoyed all the colors covering the darkness and all the laughter mixed with evident pain they all deny, it was his playground and he was their king because they let him.

That day the sun stared at her and she couldn’t stare back was no different than the others. The experiences she had were not new, and she did not anticipate anything. She had reached the final stages of her enslavement and no more was she willing to even raise her eyes to fight his smile when he counts the gold he collects off her pain. She was ready to die in her chains that she was even eager for the one man that will come and aim correctly, a man colder than the devil himself that will come and aim for her heart pitilessly, forever ending the devil’s game.

What she did not know is that, in that very same hour that she decided to hate the sun for shining, the devil was taking a man’s gold. Little did the devil know that the man was a hunter and he, with a snide smile, was looking for a heart to snipe.  The man took the most rusty of all the knives in the devil’s box and polished it in a handkerchief that he held in his pocket. All the rust disappeared and the knife shone with silver and glistening white in the sunlight. He looked at the girl’s dress weaving around her in a most chaotic manner and he looked at her eyes darkened and dim against her pale painted face, and her legs and arms tied to the wheel almost tearing her into two. And he with all dexterity raised the knife and aimed at her heart. He shall be the last man to ever hunt her young heart and he, unlike all the others, saw what was beyond her custom. The blood streamed from her chest and it started dripping on the floor. And the devil smiled at the sight of it and looked to the man with sparkling eyes, for his game was over.

‘’Congratulations, good sir’’ the devil said ‘’you won. Do you care to collect your prize?’’

‘’And what would that be?’’ the man inquired.

‘’Her very heart in its chains, sir.’’

‘’The heart and the chains are worthless now that she is gone, mute figures. You tied her up there, they are yours. I am merely the man that gives the devil the chance to start his game anew’’ in a cold steady voice the man said.

‘’Oh, that’s where sir is mistaken’’ the devil said ‘’I never tie anyone who wishes not to be tied. She could have gotten away anytime for her chains were merely strings and she chose her role.’’

The man said no other words but took the heart and walked away, he knew the devil and he knew the girl. He knew she could have gotten away if she had known how to say the right prayers, if she had known to take the roads less colorful, then she wouldn’t have had so much to pay for even if she would have ended up as cold as him, but she could have avoided her dreadful fate. He toured the carnival for one more time and behind him he heard the devil at his wheel shouting out ‘’Behold, gentlemen’’

Mythical Girl

For all those who are asking if the myth is real,

It's as real as breath, so listen, so feel,

I am the girl that stole a horse,

Into a night paved with remorse,

I rode it like no other can,

I mounted it when no one was looking and ran

Away from the arms of a home

To the heart of a home,

Away to the heart of hearts,

I am the girl that ends where she starts,

And never starts at the same end twice,

The one that steals at no price,

And seeks refuge in her stolen treasure,

Until the time comes for the pressure

To rise, she drowns in covers of ''what if''s,

I am she, the one who for leisure dived off cliffs,

And came back ever more alive, ever more dead,

Came back with horns and rings all on her head,

And thorns in her eyes,

And a mouthful of poetry and cries,

To ride again into lands new and old,

Old because she's seen them all unfold

Beneath her feet, new for she's never lived enough

To endure the most precious of the stuff,

So she tasted, she smelled, she touched and kissed,

She saw her dreams and she aimed, but she missed,

And she drank from rivers hidden,

She relished in fruits forbidden,

She trode carefully but stepped on souls and,

She turned meanings into sand,

With just a touch from her hands, weak,

Small, Barely enough for her to seek,

What life had for her on the top shelf,

Eager, but barely enough to help herself,

Yet, this girl is so mythical because,

If you were to see her, you'd never know who she was,

You'd never know the things she said,

The sins she committed that rendered her dead,

The lands she visited, the hearts she knew,

The souls she loved and how her love is true,

How many eagles lifted her and her free fall down,

Then the holes she dug searching for a wooden crown,

You'd never see the real price,

This girl has paid for being nice,

And being nice is all what you'll see of her,

You'll think it's all what's truly there,

And you'll keep wondering if she's real,

Will you ever feel what she's capable to feel,

Or has she known the borders of the devil

To willingly dance with him at every revel,

Tapping over water together with every last breath,

Or is it true the end of her myth,

That this girl trode away on her stud,

From the borders of the devil to find God,

And once she rode on this path alone,

Little about her was actually known,

But rumor has it, behind her she left a friend,

Who knew truthes about her to no end,

They say he was a part of her,

And he knew her when no one would dare,

He'll be the one to tell you the relentless truth,

About how much anility was in her youth,

What he's found out in the dungeons of her home,

About monsters and creatures she's all become,

But ask him if she's good at heart,

Ask him why is it that always alone she departs,

Why she left home in the first place,

What are the meanings of the markings on her face,

How was her smile, her cry, her shoulder

How did he watch her get older,

Ask him if he ever saw the wooden crown

If she wore it dusty and muddy brown,

About her eyes speaking instead of her tied tongue

And about the fading silver in her lung,

Say, do you hear of her?

Did you and she breathe the same air?

And when he says yes, and he will,

You'll have the answers solid and still,

Then ask him, after he tasted of her tears and blood,

If he knew if she's ever found God.

The Rising

The room was dim,

And I, the great promising

Heiress bowed to him,

His strong legs never missing

From my sight and old battle fields,

Dressed in black and golden shields,

And behind them, he was, over most

Else a non-existent form, a ghost.

His hands slowly reached,

To my streaming eyes and my chin,

For so long to this effigy I had preached

On my knees, till the cold ground tore off my skin,

And so he lifted my chin off the ground,

His hands were ice cold, I have found,

And my eyes scanned his face,

Of silver, steel and endless space.

His eyes coal black and his lips sealed

Shut by death,

Such grave miserable death,

To which his soul must yield.

And I, an heiress of a great world,

Am threatened by the same sword,

But no more, my soul said,

No more holding your legs of stone,

Steady like a statue of a hero, dead,

Buried in me, till I find a grave of my own.

So I stood up, hands free to cherish,

The highlands of my own kingdom

To be, where you, O Prince, will parish

For the sake of my own freedom,

For the sake of my own beauty,

Haven’t you said, it’s always been your duty

To bow to me, so how am I the one

Bowing and shielding my eyes from your sun?

And still you claim you want me,

That when you look, it’s me you see,

So tell me, my beloved Prince,

About what you truly see

When you close your eyes and ever since

You did, have you even once dreamt of me?

Or have the lust for the virgins’ blood

Blind your soul and in the flood

Of your overwhelming appetence for

Their moans, you’ve lost the way to my door?

I will not apologize for my attitude, my lord,

No more will I be a slave to your soul,

By sin and dust, by sinew and cord,

No more, heart and head and silent call

To gold and black covers of a ghost,

I will not apologize for being lost.

Because I am forever found,

Sadly for you, my place is not the ground,

And though with every call in my body,

I showed you how I love you,

With my all that’s in me, be it calm or bloody,

I’ll also show you how I hate you

To the core with all what’s burned and burning,

I hate you with the passion of loving

And with the madness of every single thought

In my endless realm you’ve once sought.

But there's one thing you didn't account for,

When you lead me in and shut the last door,

That I am the key to my own

Existence, it’s in my hand alone

To bow and break or to stand

And turn your heart into sand

Swiftly slipping from my hand to the wind,

That carries it far to the world’s end,

For I am the heiress,

The queen in the making,

The cruel mistress,

And the witch in the waking,

I am the virgin’s blood spilled

At your door, it was my will for you,

And the heart that you’ve once killed

To escape all what’s old, all what’s true,

It was your sacrifice made unwillingly,

Truly for me, but for you seemingly.

So in this kingdom, take your right place,

Bring your knees to the ground,

Let the cold silver of your face,

Shine upon a hell profound,

And recognize your fate that’s grim,

Under my heels and twisted waist

In veils of scarlet and dim light,

At the shores of royal lips you’ll never taste

At hearts in hands and surging waves

All breaking into rotten graves,

Never to be seen again, just like you,

Bow, O prisoner Prince, to the queen anew.

Sinful Poet

Nothing's worse than the sin of a poet,

Even if their tongues pleads to be forgiven,

The soul's pain collects the pleasure when they saw it,

And rejoices in it when in the heart of a dirge it's driven.

Nothing's worse than a poet that sins,

They see the scars in their souls eye to eye,

In mutating portraits with burning falling skins,

And then a trophy on their tombstones when they die.

Men Of God

This is a very different poem from what I usually do, it's about a subject that have always drove me insane with fury... I don't know what to actually say about it... It's way out of my comfort zone and I've been reluctant to posting it... But when something is so different, it's when i need the most extensive feedback to expand myself... so please, don't hold back on criticism :)

In unison we speak,

And we talk of one word,

We cure the souls that are weak,

With bargain and with sword,

Our minds are all set,

To the path of our lord,

We honor our holy debt,

As we're men of God.

We walk in our ropes,

And we hold on to our poise,

We bless you with hopes,

We relief you from choice,

Our hearts are all green,

and unburdened with mud,

It's nothing you've ever seen,

For we're men of God.

There's no time for laughter,

When the world is in sin,

They'll spend their ever after,

Serving demons in their boiling skin,

They say that we judge them,

When we demand their blood,

And discard us when we redeem them,

As men of our God.

In the name of our Lord,

We claim all heretics' heads,

We gather their cancerous word,

And burn it to shreds,

Yet they say that we use his holy name

When we're up for no good,

But our hands only light the flame

to serve as men of our God.

They say we strangle freedom,

And their art we oppress,

That we build the lord's kingdom

With what he'd never bless,

They help the devil in his devious plan

And plant his seed and enjoy the bud

Then relish in evil that's destroying man

But we shall survive as men of God.

Their minds are deluded and they don't understand

the poets and the rebels, those facing the flood

Refusing to bow and kiss our white hands

And glorify our graves, us, Men of God.

At The Bottom I Met Medusa

"Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice."

             Robert Frost’s ‘’Fire and Ice’’

He was born to a scream and then quietude like every other human. And then the quietness and emptiness of his existence started to diminish, worlds started to conquer him, and realms started to contain and release him again and again. Until he was only a son of the world, inside him different forms of humanity, and angels and devils, and other creatures without a name, but they also defined him.

In the place he was born, everything started with a cloud and ended with a ghost.

Started with the cloud of fear that blocked most rays of hope and cast twilight shades on most of his days. It was so familiar that he did not have to look up to understand what his reality is; there was nothing to comprehend about what became a fundamental part of his existence. Sometimes he would justify the presence of the cloud; sometimes he’d say the shadows are better for his skin and for his sight. Some other times, he spent hours asking people if they see it too, and whenever someone said they didn’t, he would call them crazy or simply call them an alien, claiming he was the only human and that’s why he can accept the cloud of fear in his life, lurking above his head at all times.

So he lived in the shadows and darkness. Went on meeting other people who have also found shelter in the same safe place. And he kept building worlds and destroying others, in moments, in memories, departures and arrivals, all from the same place inside him. He said many hellos and many goodbyes and felt so little about both, he held hands and gave hugs, because that’s what humans do, and he is, to the core, human if anything.

But like all the others, the sun was not an option because the shadow offered food, water, and perfect temperature for building and breaking fields, then building all over again so he can justify another fall. So why choose a path away from the safety of the shade and into sunlight that god knows what can do to a creature as mortal as himself? It did not make sense, so he did not mouth it to anyone, he did not even speak of it to himself. The cloud is there for a sane reason, for protection. And if your eyes are opened too widely in the sun, it can hurt them and burn your soul by its strength.

And as for what the ancient carvings on hidden walls of caves had said about the freeing rays of hope, it will never apply to his land and his age, because freedom has changed, freedom in itself became in the dark. You have the freedom to be afraid of anything and anyone you want, you have the freedom to invite all your ghosts to any tea party that you set in your own fields and watch them offer all their experience to you as bedtime stories, so you can build another wall for another fortress that will crack and collapse inside you. And that was enough.

The ghosts were just a natural ending created by every fallen tower inside him, and that’s exactly what the ghosts did when invited outside the soul and into the field, so they can fill empty spaces and then work as slaves for him to build new foundations. And that’s always how the story ended, and how the story started again in a boring dance routine that replayed for ages.

And in one of those ages he built a wall of glass at the edges of the shade, he was far inside it, but he could see the borders of sunlight so definitive at the doors. He dare not have come closer if it wasn’t for a strange breeze that eased some meaningless conflict he’s been having, and when he did approach the borders, he found out what caused it.

She twirled and swayed, her arms going up and down, disturbing the air’s stagnation into waves of harmony, a silent melody that only she knew about. Her legs were barely touching the grass and the more he watched her the more he believed she was flying, nothing holding her down to this earth but the way the earth itself responded to her dance.

He did not know how long he had stood there watching her, but he could not turn away. Suddenly his freedom was held down by invisible shackles to the ground from which he can always see this mysterious creature of beauty that looked human to the outside eyes, but to him she wasn’t. And finally, after he spent hours being invisible, she noticed him and she came to the glass wall separating them and kneeled. By then, he too was kneeling on the other side of the glass wall with hands on it firm, as if trying to extend it through, to explore her.

‘’Are you human?’’ he asked.

‘’Yes’’

‘’But you’ll burn in the light!’’

‘’Or you’ll freeze in the dark’’ she smiled.

From this first encounter onward, the words had varied, the words were many and the meanings were too. And they never ended, so a friendship had to start.

Every day at the same hour they met by the glass wall. She told him about the different paths of the sun rays, how each one offered a possibility and a purpose, she explained about something called faith in so many things and in an omniscient spirit, a God that he told her that in the shadows they call it habit. And she explained happiness, while he explained pleasure. She explained halos as he explained electromagnetic waves. And every single day, she convinced him to leave the world under the cloud and join the world under the sun, for the sun is vaster and warmer, and all those who were buried under the cloud left marks that the sea washed away soon after they’re gone, but marks made under the sun were carved in stones.

As a resident of his field, the glass wall had to remain stable and unchanged and he dared not touch it. But from her side, her meadow, the glass wall was her canvas and every day she came to visit; she carved a line, a shape, a letter. Something to crack the glass and let him out. But as days passed by, the wall he built proved itself to be thicker than she thought, but she did not give up, while on the other side just a step away from completion, he did.

 ‘’Let me help you’’ she had said the last time he spoke to her.

‘’You can’t’’ his tongue broke her heart like a poisoned spear and he knew it ‘’No one can help me’’ he added, in a failed attempt to mend even if just a piece. But she was already broken, just as much as he was and he could not have stood there to watch it, so he left the glass wall and disappeared in the shadows.

Back then when he thought he’s too deep into the dark he still saw the sky; he still felt some breath inside his lung, not just a process of inhaling and exhaling he was no longer aware of. He did not know that when he turned that glass wall into stone that he created a spiral for his own soul. And that once it had started from the earth’s surface down, it takes away from his precious humanity and during this spiral he passes death many times, as it holds him and releases him into a lesser form of life that vanishes slowly as he slides into steeper slopes.

And now, it is the bottom of the spiral, where all lives end. The meeting of all the veins into a pool of long term stagnation disturbed by unearthly hurricanes. He did not complain about the dark or about being clueless of what’s next at hand. There was nothing to do, as he knew nothing to be done.

He is in that place where no one can help him, where no words can save his soul because it was already in the grip of the spiral for so long and by the end it was sliding by too great a velocity for human hands to catch up with, or strong words to summon him back to at least grayness.

He is in that black place of nothingness. Where it is as close to heaven as it is to hell.

Icy blue wind from one side and fiery red from the other, trading places and merging into each other, colliding inside him then outside him, then piercing deeper into what’s left of him.

In the choice between heaven and hell he did not know which is which, for the fire would burn his skin and then the ice would sooth it, then the ice would freeze his core just as bad, and the fire would give him some reassuring warmth. And in this black place of no choice, he did only that. Kneeling on the floor, eyes up to the sky, where he once started, searching for a God that he once found in the girl’s words and lost in downward acceleration.

In his final field he is as motionless as a scarecrow. In one hand a gun on the ready and in the other he held his heart, so exposed to everything that has come to taste its bloody walls. First the fire would come and boil each drop of blood until it is almost vapor and then the ice comes and freezes it as it turns into mute stone in a most excruciating process. He had the gun in his hand and he had the heart, he could have made his choice any second to stop the pain and liberate himself from the fear for once, if only he had believed earlier, he would know what to do now to get away from Medusa’s glare that’s spreading stone into his extremities.

It is too late, and with every fiber of his heart that turned silent, a blister of infected stagnation was drained away and instead left emptiness. And by the last viable fiber, he was barely alive, his limbs have gone hard and so did his body.

He felt the fire and the ice fighting over his soul for one last time, and it was unfortunate that he knew how it always ends by now, and as the last breath of humanity drained out of him, he died to a scream and then quietude, like every other human.

The Furnace

Do I dare to say that in such a world,

Controlled by numbers and swords,

That I too, have lost my soul to,

A pretense that I know not what’s true?

Do I dare to reach inside the old

Graveyard, silent, melancholy, cold,

No matter what my seasons are,

And say that it holds inside it a star?

Or have I become, myself, whom

Once was a stray witch on a flying broom,

A graveyard for my very own light?

Have I become one with the night?

In a grave at the corner, so fresh,

There’s a desire of newly rotten flesh,

To sink my claws into your chest,

And tear my way through the rest

Of the strength and steal and whatever,

Has concealed you long since forever,

And then reach the faintest fiber of your heart,

And turn its weakness into lands of art,

In colors dark and deep burning your pride,

To ashes blown away in a universe wide,

Then make you wear it on your sleeve,

Every time I get up to leave.

Our world uncontaminated with pleasantries,

On spider-webbed-white as clouds- tapestries,

As you smile and cry and pour your heart’s blood,

Into my vessels unburdened by its heavy thud,

And I guide you deeper into mutual anoesis,

And hold in my soul the keys to all the pieces

Of a skin that once broke only for my touch,

And a mind that never opened up itself as such,

Our souls no longer wrapped around

Ourselves but one another’s, profound

As to set us apart from the dying fire

Burning us deeper into furnaces of desire.