Changeling

The world is cold for babies born on fire,
Born to an addicted open secret.
The arbiters of order do not weep,
Their rule navigates on a tearful sea;
They're blind to them. A world with eyes downcast
Hurries along, greasing its gears with blood.

An inheritor of doubly-cursed blood,
But still a child with the spirit of fire;
Yet convinced their being is void, downcast,
Born a refugee of wars kept secret.
Childhood, an island in the stonefaced sea,
Smacks with wonder, but fear enough to weep.

And so he grew, differently, he would weep,
Afraid of a chill that runs through his blood,
Barely comprehended deep in the sea
Of adults' opinions and burns like fire
From other children's glances. Some secret
Rift separates, blown by a bolt downcast.

What does it mean—human—for one downcast
From ideal oblivion? All kids weep,
But tears like oil slither with a secret:
That he will not continue his line's blood.
While they could share the creation of fire,
A dirge beckons him down into the sea.

He snatches a breath, choking as the sea
Submerges his ears and nose; lost, downcast,
He crawls pronated to each distant fire,
Specters in the glittering sands which weep.
Can he even have what runs through his blood?
His unreachability his secret.

The mirror's years refused to keep secret
The prognosis of loneliness. A sea
Of whiskey and narcotics in his blood
Carries him from his own body's downcast;
Failing each time he tries to love, he weeps.
Did he wish for an all-consuming fire?

For fire it was—it burned every secret
And leapt, weeping, into memory's sea:
His downcast grimace in a pool of blood.

That’s How it Goes

That's how it goes when you're not like the rest:
They lay down the rules that suit them the best,
But some of us play from a different book.
I don't think I'm above it, I'm no crook;
An addict perhaps, if I have transgressed.

Those of our kind, our static's possessed
By demons of sickness set to divest
Us of joie de vivre by their seething hooks.
                            That's how it goes.

How can one live at the system's behest?
None can be civil with spirits oppressed
By an inner void which hurts just to look
At, let alone have the courage to brook.
I have nothing to add nor to contest,
                              That's how it goes.

Reflections on how I got here

"Beware this reckoning,"
Glares a spectral pair of eyes.
Blood quickens in frozen veins,
Stricken as though paralyzed.

Leering back from inside 
The mirror, a crack which grows
The distance facts drift at one's
Insistence; then slackens, slows.

And crawling over shards,
Wounds are all to show for wants
Slicing black weals of static
Lack of any real response.

The daunting pain of silence
Spawning deranged interviews—
A prison with no orders,
Visions thrown to trinkets' truths.

Worst is when it's within 
The first sentence of doom speaks.
Overpowered by black bile,
Loathing and foul wrath it wreaks.

The dreadful sensation
In the head made manifest:
Seizing trips that mark the sick,
Squeezing grip of panic's press.

Heaviness dimly drapes
Every limb, as though submerged 
In water's lips; every move
Murmurs, stripped like a soul scourged.

Beneath this awful weight,
Seething, clawing to maintain;
While fearful of this deep hole,
Here the soul can greatly gain.

It's a cage, and no skill
Engaged will, it confounded
Me; but blessed with room to pace,
They dressed patience around me.

Basically life support
Is the grace the dice produced
To hand me a family
Withstanding my sorrow's sluice.

To think they looked at hell
Without blinking, it took more;
More than courage, more than faith,
The surge of strength love looks for.

Looming death, fate diseased;
Assuming the weight of both,
How they faced it despite dread.
They allowed my glacial growth.

They paid for my prices 
As I laid, a dying mind,
Withered body torched in hate—
Delivered by a fortune's find.

They believed in a time
When even I am able,
Condoning this path to shed
Loneliness's black label.

It was pure chance to meet 
Him, to endure and advance
Past privation and piss-drunk
Starvation's soul sunken stance.

My family props the sky
Up while hammers drop on nails;
And my head has turned up for him,
Ready to earn grace's grails.

Am I a wretch reborn
By a lucky catch? Of course;
Without either my life's in
Doubt, but strife still stalks its source.

His presence builds me up
A pleasant hill to defend,
But misaligned spheres can soon
Find my spirit brought to bend.

We've grown this better sense,
Sown medicines, worked what found
Subsistence, a miracle
System sheer as sculpted sound.

Our one-room made of smoke,
Blunt and bespoke, fleeting home;
In a flash what saves me could
Crash like waves of frothing foam.

I cannot guard, protect,
By forethought or by power,
Against illness, accident,
Killing events' furled flower.

There's much I can't make kneel,
A touch could steal all I care
About. My dear, meekly tread
And scout ahead. Best beware!