Defiance

Darkness recalls my fall into the open field of nightmares.

A bloody nose is an atrocity.  The unexpected heat against a sweaty brow; angst tempered by a gentle breeze on the neck.  How long have we been here?  This seemingly endless desert and the abandoned dwellings held in place by the naked cacti.  “What the hell happened?” Death dangles a tethered noose, taunting my spirit with the offer of a second chance—no justice for the imbalance of expectations; menageries, my dying wishes saturating the ground.  Ghosts are walking through this valley of death; their painful gestures are pointing to what could have been; wasted time into sifting dust.

A life spent inhaling the malevolent smoke and soot of toxic ideologies into my lungs, tasting the smoldering ash of anarchy.  I keep hearing multiple echoes from the past and present in my head.  My life is cancer, a piece of lethal flesh-eating away the optimism as catastrophes spread, contaminating the devotion within the center of humanity.    Self-judgment leads to a conviction, waiting amid oblivion, beneath the endless sky.  The familiar face of a demon holds the penance in exchange for an eternity with these bleeding thoughts.

Escape from this wretched place is nothing less than a miracle.  Begging for acceptance, within the sacred coven, prayers offered for fulfillment of a spirit left empty and cast aside—freedom removed by ignorance, the soul forsaken within the turmoil.  Something touched my face; it felt like a gentle kiss from her lips. All I want now is silence!!  I stopped listening to the noise because I accepted my fate.  Nothing left to do except lie in the warmth of this cerise immersion.  Everything I am and struggle to become is ending! “God, why did you bring me here?”

He doesn’t answer; he never does. When we meet face-to-face, I will use my last shallow breath to curse his name just before he turns my body to dust.

I’m going to die, and there is no one here to listen to my story.