Prologue
Pages turning, made of a wilting flower,






1
Running mouth, in a despondent hour.






2
Only with sorrow, through a bleeding light,






3
Living lost, watching the world ignite.







4
Other faces turning sour,








5
Giving two sides to even those who cower.






6
Ultimately many people must say,







7
Endings are prevented on many a day.







8
?

1
Wilting Flower
Flattering young,
Sitting warm.
Spying on,
Trying for.

Scattering far,
Unwitting scorn.
Crying hard,
Flying storm.

Saddening smile,
Quitting loss.
Lying lonely,
Dying crossed.
?

2
Running Mouth
Running fast, words flowing loud,
Ripping past a silent shroud,
Tearing through an unmarked road,
Casts a shadow, then suddenly slowed.
Gasping for breath, already broke sweat,
The words meet their death, at one tiny threat.
Yelling for silence, which fin’ly contents,
To return events, from what was made hence.
?

3
A Bleeding Light
Black fog, swirling with dim shadows.
Night sky, stars blotted by dark clouds.
Tree trunks, looming as birds’ gallows.
Halved hole, split by light that shrouds.

The bleeding light, giving harsh fog a nemesis.
The cold’s bite, feeling for feeble victims.
Onward looking, seeing only a dark abyss.
Stumbling, falling, scrambling with numbed limbs.

As light enters sight,
An eye squints as it glints,
Ever closer to night’s disposer,
But the darkness grows bolder.

When bleeding light comes to sight,
It becomes clear that it’s trite.

A truer dark shall soon arise,
Thieving life from ambient skies,
Drawing shadows through the Aether,
Stifling glimpses of something better.
?

4
Living Lost
Watching, glaring through a lucid haze,
The dull glint of its carefully waxed shine
Caressed by the tempestuous blaze.

And then it fell.

But there was no silence.
The growing crowd of debris was joined
As the sky pressed down upon the beams overhead,
Laying waste to the last chance of escape
From the terror that was only matched
By the loss of that which would no longer matter.

Blinked.

Rushing through the foam of a white river
That was not white with froth but with heat.
A heat that rose and rose in height
A water that licked at wood
Until it became so thoroughly soaked
With a blinding orange glow
Never ceasing to grow
Pulling everything into death throes
Until there’s nowhere else to go.

Took a breath.

Reaching out for that glint,
The rarest shine,
The most gleeful presence,
The endless chorus of clarity,
The utmost beauty.

Looked down.

A mangled hand extended,
Grasping through smoke as
Eyes filled with tears
To sweep away the ashes.

Sheets.

Fingers closed in on consciousness,
Dousing flames until they burned no more.
But the heat remained, and was joined
By a rough grip that pulled,
Pulled away from that rarest shine,
The most gleeful presence,
The endless chorus of clarity,
The utmost beauty.

Kicked them away.

The darkness crept further into vision,
Distorting pulsating lights and bursts of cold air,
Filling lungs that burned with ice to extinguish
The terror and hold back darkness.

Awake.

Masked faces took frequent turns,
Circling, feeling, dancing across burns.
Painting a crude image of that which was before,
Ignoring the glint holding the heart in its store.
Having no need to look back,
Only to save,
They had forgotten that shine,
The glorious crave.

Glanced around room.

It was gone now.
Too late, not their loss.

Nothing more in the room to abolish this strife,
Only means of escape, an edge, a knife.
If the masks could not save it,
Then this mask isn’t sufficient.
They tried to mend the wrong “it”,
No attempts to protect it.

Searching for a new freedom.

A sharp thought entered mind,
It’s counterpart entered body,
Severing connection between the two.

Wrapped inside hand.

Rose pedals fell to the floor,
From a “Get Well” that wouldn’t.
And they drowned in a deeper shade
As the sheets too were doused.

Bliss.
?

5
Turning
Well embossed upon a gleeful life,
Stirring each day from a fearful night.
Never once found in a moment of strife,
Always feeling the cold harsh bite.
Seen through clouds of carefully disguised hate,
Grinning back through one-way clear skies.
Burned by a positive state,
Hiding wounds with white hot lies.
?

6
Two Sides
One man's gold is another's cheap prize.
Some must fail for others to thrive.
To one, catching a cold might keep you alive,
For it stops you from going to an early demise.
If you think about all of the things you've done,
All the things entered in, all the trophies you won,
Then you might just take a step back to see,
Why you’ve arrived at this short hyperbole.
?

7
People Must Say
Some people say that for every life saved,
Another is lost.
Others keep trying,
Regardless of cost.
If you reap what you sow,
You sow what you reap,
And all your life's gifts
Will be yours to keep.

If you wake up each day,
And burn life away,
Then your pile of ashes
Will find you some way.
As all color seeps slowly,
From your friends’ faces so lowly,
When you stare into their eyes
Awaiting your demise.

On a deathbed you'll wait,
Slowly pondering some fate,
One of gold and of glory,
Or one terrible story.
It's up to you to decide,
While everyone's still beside,
Before you've lost them,
Your friends, your gems.
?

8
Prevented
One man woke up this morning and was happy to be alive.
Another man got out of bed and decided he wished to die.
He walked out on his porch and said, “World, please pity me!"
And was answered by a cold hard world that cared to no degree.
The first man rolled out to his porch on a wheelchair gaining rust,
And yelled, "I love all I see!"
As he turned around to wheel back inside he noticed with a grin,
A small young man walking away from the fall he would have been in.