Unstiched clouds

 

My head feels like an unstitched

cloud, the fluffy memories falling

out, the threads, loose, start to tangle

in the growing unease that encroaches on me.

 

What used to be a safe space inside,

where I could find my open fields

and run free, letting my words play loud.

Now sits threatening me with its

void-like imitation of who I used to be.

 

Ever-darkening clouds

and rumbling thunder echoes around.

 

The crushing surrender to a sky falling down.

I feel like laying my heart on a slab

Witnessing its final breath as it fades into death.

 

I’m beginning to wonder if my

hope is worth the pain. If the

landscape can take being oversaturated

by more crashing rain, or will it

flow away clogging the drains.

Leaving me slumped in the remains

of a moment, left clinging to the wreckage

of a long-lost daydream.

 

And my head feels like a memory

of a day. A whispered melody

lilting on the breeze,

It fills me with unease

at the way the keys play,

out of tune, warbling

as it strains to lift the mental load.

 

It used to be the sanctuary

inside of me, a temple

where dreams would play,

a place away from the nightmares

born of earlier days.

A shrine to the muse that

shone down on me,

now the light has gone

only darkness left surrounding.

 

And I wander empty fields

trying to find my former belief.

The self I held tightly, now not felt

anywhere around me, and my

night-blind eyes can’t seem to

find a way to locate these lost memories.

 

Maybe if I move the wonders

the mind will move itself

into a better tomorrow,

where the river flows beside me

and the moon glows

brightly to light my way.

They

 

As we sit

late after midnight,

letting

the crawling darkness

envelop us,

 

when the true witching hour

falls upon us.

As the clocks sync to the rhythm

of your breathing, and your

heart beats more erratically.

 

The shadows can seem scary,

But it isn't their darkened hues

that shiver our bones

But the things we see and just don't know.

 

The void creatures,

whose skin is hollow black.

No light can enter or touch.

It devours the ambience

that should surround,

leaving just an imprint,

a galactic footprint.

Its true silhouette

printed on your sandy mind.

 

And this is something

we cannot comprehend

or understand,

the dimensions within

too vast, too complicated,

Escher-sketched beings,

with one or maybe a million

unfurled limbs

morphing and melting 

into the air.

 

They unfold into our atmosphere,

seeping into the pores.

They swallow the atoms of all,

and belch a cloud of vapour

as black as their

countless hearts of liquid tar.

 

At first glance,

your pupils will dance,

dilating and collapsing,

like a neutron star

combusting in space.

 

Your lips will quiver in fear,

but not just fear, something deeper,

more fearful than fear, more primal,

more ingrained in the atoms of the cosmos.

 

True terror at the being

that stands mere feet

from where your heart echoes

its redundancy into the still air.

 

Your feet will shake,

before you collapse in pain from

an ache that didn't exist,

 

the view will mist, as your eyes

search for anything in the darkness

that really exists,

 

anything to remind you

that your reality

is not this void of emptiness.

 

But no.

You think in panicked handwriting,

it's not empty,

it's full of shapeless entities

that your brain just doesn't

know how to witness.

 

So, you slip deeper into a fit,

thrashing limbs crack and split

as your brain erupts inside your skull,

a meltdown

of your internal Chernobyl,

 

and as one final gasp

hits your lips,

a few last words slip.

 

They. Exist.

The flotsam of time

 

In the grand rift of

the swirling library hall

of the paradoxical cosmic palace,

where the lord and keeper of unsealed stories

sits watching the cosmos bend and twist.

 

The dancing orbs,

the magnificent worlds

that the other gods

look down upon with such scorn.

"The flotsam of time" they scoff.

 

That melting pot of who knows what,

bubbling with what ifs, and so many possible plots,

always filled the keeper with awe.

 

The moments when the dust and ashes

coasted across vast galaxies in majestic,

graceful fluid ballets, pirouetting across

the emptiness of space.

 

He saw as those dusts combined,

clumping together to form

something dazzlingly sublime.

The spheres that begat the stories of time.

 

On the grand cosmic clock,

this was mere months ago.

Until then the shelves had lain empty,

spare for a shelf labelled, “The pantheon.”

 

Then a cosmic week ago.

A new sphere.

Insignificant.

But strangely beautiful.

 

A cosmic collision.

The universe colluding

to place a new moon

so perfectly in position.

 

Could this be it, the place of prophecy?

 

However, the keeper didn’t see, 

for space is a vast place,

and even with as many eyes as he,

you can only look at so much

at any one time.

 

A day or so passed as he gazed

at empty rocks circling a red star.

On the new planet water amassed.

 

The land heated and cooled,

the moon pulled the tides

and miraculously...

Life emerged.

 

Suddenly the shelves

rained with whole new stories.

The keeper unsure, scanned the heavens,

saw nothing untoward.

 

He pulled at a book.

Delicious, delirious thoughts

flooded his many brains.

They told tales of giants,

walking those green lands,

grazing upon the trees and plants.

 

He scanned the view

for something new,

but saw only a blanket of starlight.

 

A day passed.

And on the planet a comet crashed.

The giants were laid to waste.

Their stories great but now no longer.

 

But wait.

The mammals

have taken their place,

scuttering across the surface.

The sharks slinking through the seas,

winged creatures flying free.

 

It all seems so majestic

and wonderful he thinks.

"If only I could see it."

 

5:30 this morning.

New stories started

popping forward.

New life.

 

Two legged hunters,

devouring everything.

Ploughing the green, ripping up the trees.

Building monstrosities. Calamitous monstrosities.

 

So much noise. So dirty.

But in amongst it all

a brief snippet of song.

 

And on the shelves the books

pile up so fast, so many stories

formed in a heartbeat.

 

Then, 5 minutes ago,

they forged a new sun.

Dropped it upon their own.

 

And now the clock

is ticking seconds down.

 

He glances across the milky way.

A tiny world.

Blue and green.

 

A flash.

 

The story has ended

before it truly begun.