A Tension Exists in the Utmost Room

In the utmost room of a building rich with story and stature, there exists a supposed sanctuary sapped with a holy tension that I was compelled to pursue. As I was led to understand, the room reveals itself in relative magnitude to lend itself to revelation that only the individual present is led to realize. All that a man was, is, and ever will be is taken into account.

I cannot, unfortunately, explain how I came to find this building; it is all I can do to tell how majestic it was in its primal grandeur. Matchless indeed in its architecture and design, there are no clear descriptions that can give on

The building itself stretched far into the sky, so tall that one’s eyes could not make out its rooftop. I entered with reverence and soon became aware of its profound sanctity as there were no stairs to assist in ascending to the utmost room. There was, as if quietly insisted by the building’s architect, only the bare means for one to climb by might and struggle to rise upwards, balcony after balcony stretching up story after story.

So I did. By my hands and feet, calloused through the tightening and retightening of my grip I scaled the never-ending stories in pursuit of the utmost room, whose hope of existence strengthened in my bones with each desperate inch I climbed.

At long last, I made out the forming of a rooftop above my head and saw one final balcony to reach and overcome. This was the utmost room that I had been purposed to find. With a final exerted effort, I pushed over the balcony wall; landing my feet into the room: the sanctuary of holy tension.

The room, covered with decadent rugs and furs of all nations, was adorned with only various sizes of tables that were methodically placed. On each table were picture frames of all the saints, holy men and women of my life.

Their faces followed mine as I walked to the hearth of the room. I turned to see a large, low-rising, table in the middle of the room. A figure sat on the opposite corner, alive and present with me in every way.

There she sat with legs curled around her, looking so beautiful as to make me think I had never laid eyes on a woman before. She looked at me with eyes half-hidden beneath her locks of glowing blonde hair and quietly proclaimed:

“I am your future.”

I could only offer silence as I stood in a stupor, locking eyes with this saintly woman. Was she real? Or was she a representation of something I was supposed to perceive? I had not the time to churn this enigma in my thoughts as we were not alone.

From the opposite corner a figure approached, crossing to the holy threshold of the sanctuary with the humility of a childhood friend. The figure, a woman so vaguely familiar, looked at me with eyes of pure hazel that perfectly matched her auburn hair. With smooth intention, she spoke to me:

“I am your past.”

So this is the tension that exists, a mystery I cannot fathom as I am caught betwixt the two. Am I to choose or am I to ponder? I have left myself to stand and wonder while two figures of divine symbolism await my hand. The utmost room holds a tension that I, by my own power, am powerless to force a decision upon and it is to this end that like a triangle of marble figures those within the tower remain.

His Tender Head Requires Mending

enjoy the analysis and suggested symbolisms.

My feet walked along a well-tread path, arid and dusty as it begged for moisture. I frequented this path often at night, taking comfort in the anonymity of the dark and those who I encountered along it.

One does not usually meet others along the path under the midnight heat, but on this night an uncommon occurrence stood before me as a vehicle sat blocking my passage. Its mangled body idled gruffly under the moonlight and it appeared the vehicle had just survived a vicious accident as several individuals lay scattered on the trail.

The vehicle, dented and barely holding itself together, roared away at the hands of its indifferent driver, nameless and faceless. Of those who had been vaulted from its clutches, all had managed to arise and walk but one. A boy sat hunched over in a pothole large enough to encompass his small frame. I walked slowly towards him, scanning the steaming debris and broken glass that glistened under the hazed glow of the night.

I approached the boy under the watchful eye of those survivors that kept their distance. The enormity of the situation appeared to have overwhelmed them as one by one they walked off, separating themselves from the severity of the boy's condition.

I knelt beside the boy with calm reserve as he was without sound, so engrossed in shock that he did not even blink or acknowledge the presence of another right before him. With his hood tight around his face, the boy's eyes maintained a forward stare, empty of thought and purpose. I moved directly in front of him and looked him over for injuries. My hands reached for the hood and slipped it back down his neck, revealing a massive gouge on top of his head, sitting atop his right eye.

What appeared to be an absence of flesh was really a brutal dent in his skull, resulting in a large amount of blood being spilled down the entire right side of his body. The blood cascaded from the wound down over his ear, had covered his neck and was soaked into the collar of his shirt.

I decided to do what I could to keep him lucid and alive until help could be found. To my surprise, the bolstered himself and rose up from the pothole. I steadied him with my hands as he began to move his feet and shuffle out and away from the crash site. While it was remarkable, I was sure someone in his condition need not walk so much, even though it was clear there was a driving force within this boy that was could not be adequately reflected through his expression.

I ushered him off the path for a period of rest, finding an abandoned courtyard, broken and corroded by years of neglect. I sat with him on my lap, holding his hands and praying that help would come soon. The wound had long coagulated, adorning the right side of his face in thick, crusted blood. Still, despite bearing this horrendous gouge, he lived, breathing and perceiving what comfort I could give him.

In the dull glow of dusk, the gray sky opened and released its waters on the dry trail and those treading upon it. I arose, helping the boy to his feet as I raised a hand to keep the falling drops from aggravating his dried wound. He remained silent but responded to every supportive gesture I made as I guided him to again walk down the trail in search of refuge from the waters.

The trail inclined slightly as it approached a grove of trees, in which was nestled a small cottage. The cottage, surrounded by high-reaching oak trees that basked the home in bucolic comfort, gave one the impression that it had existed forever, flawlessly kept in its quiescent state.

I had been to this place before, though I had been alone on my previous visit. This place, the cottage and its surroundings were no ordinary place. When last there, I was made aware that this was a house where memories of past events played themselves out in real life, seemingly free of danger but still a harrowing phenomenon to behold when it occurred as their frequency and recurrence were unpredictable.

The cottage was procured by a man and his wife, older in age and exuding an air of experience that I knew would lend itself useful to the boy and myself given our predicament. As our feet crossed the threshold, they were there to welcome us with calm, close-mouthed smiles that matched the kindness and wisdom in their eyes. They looked at me and at the boy as they ushered us inside to their kitchen, their expressions unchanged as they looked over his dented, bloody head.

Just as the man and his wife were opening their mouths to speak, I caught out of the corner of my eye, a figure walking up the trail to the cottage. I turned my eyes and head from the man and his wife to see in full a bearded man, traipsing up the lane in his purposed and stuttered walk that set within me a fear that gripped my bones. His eyes, burning with an odious ire, refused to flinch from their set gaze. In his left hand, the bearded man gripped a handgun in his bloodless knuckles.

It was in this moment, in the precious ephemeral seconds between my seeing the bearded man and his arrival past the threshold, that the phenomenon revealed itself in understanding. This was a past memory of the man and his wife. It had happened before, it belonged to them alone and two individuals stood in the kitchen that shifted the balance of a peaceful conclusion.

The boy and myself were not supposed to be there and could prove to be a catalyst for something disastrous. I gathered the boy in my arms and flung myself past the man and his wife, towards the stairs. The man and his wife, in their unchanged stoicism, watched my flight. As my sweeping gaze caught their eyes, they rendered unto me an understanding of the situation.

In this memory, the bearded man was including them in a game he liked to play. He would walk into the house and hold them at gunpoint, forcing them to stare down the barrel of his gun and rage. All three would hold this position in a motionless stupor. The game was only that if the man or his wife, or anyone in the cottage, made a sound or flinched, the bearded man was justified in firing upon all residents, leaving the house with the only beating heart.

In the corner of the cottage's basement we sat, myself wide-eyed and cold with panicked sweat. I again sat with the boy in my lap; my arms around him and gripping his hands with my own.  The bearded man had entered and I could perceive that the man and his wife were already at his mercy.

I held my breath as the game began, resting my cheek on the boy's tender head while I tightened my grip around his limp hands. I closed my eyes and whispered into his ear a desperate plea, "Please. Please be quiet. He will hurt us."

Her Eyes Remind Me of Another's

Flung from the grasp of my fragmented hand,

An invocation to regain something grand.

For crowns and trees with my petition,

Demand a man's bold remission.

And so it sets about undoing

The forge of whispers and cooing.

A hapless prank, though not my vision,
Invokes this unforeseen division.

For she is stunned; she and her eyes.

They look, but cannot recognize.

To cast a broken glance my way
Employs a departure, twice-turned gray.

I turned my back with heart a'breaking

A needless foe now in the making;
As correlation blinks and blurs,
Reminding me only of another's.

Encompassed by a stricken host, 

Akin to depths unknown to most.

With steps repressing from her unseen tears,
I invite and welcome the chorused jeers.

To thus retire to my makeshift home,
A restless soul ne'er fit to roam.
And by dust and sand the corners corrode,
For I left the path I should have showed.

So this is where my fortune rests,
Upon my shoulders, invalid crests.
To sit and ponder a grander past;
The crowns and trees that could not last.

The Circle

Round and round
You go and go,
With two doors down
And one door left.


Will it be good to you?


Round and round
You try and try,
The switch to flick
And path reroute.


Will it be right to you?


Round and round
You leave and leave,
Under idle eyes
A flight presumed.


Will it be enough to you?


Round and round
You show and show,
One to run, and one to chase
Whose blemish cannot erase.


Will it be all to you?

A Secret Housed Within a Structure

The world was an immense plain of nothing, miles upon miles of landscape meant to be avoided, colorless and void save for he and myself. For seemingly all of my existence, I had been searching for this place.

I could see it in the distance, across the gray valley, sitting on the crest of a hill that overlooked its surroundings. The structure, a cube half buried in the hill's protective soil, had proven difficult to find as years upon years had passed in my relentless pursuit.

Regardless, I had found it. I had felt it in my bones long ago that he could not hide this from me. Even if it took years, which it has, to find its location. The structure housed a secret, one that he had been keeping from me for ages.

The dull, pallid sides of the cube glowed ominously in the dark, barely but sufficiently standing out from the terrain. Within minutes I had glided through the gray valley and arrived at the western wall of the structure. It was not a large building, at least what was shown above the surface of the black soil, barely surpassing my own height.

I walked around the structure, perplexed at its simplistic complexity. Without windows and doors, how was I to gain entrance and retrieve the long-kept secret within? I returned to the western wall and stood before it. Disbelief began to overcome me. Had I come all this way only to be stymied by a structure with no way in?

With eyes closed, I lifted an open palm and placed it on the cold concrete wall. My elbow was nearly fully extended before I realized I was not touching anything. I opened my eyes and saw the concrete wall had engulfed my hand up to mid-forearm. I gasped in astonishment. Perhaps there were rules older than his securities, rules that granted my touch significant.

I stepped through the borders of the structure. What I had thought to be a cube half-buried was much larger as it seem I had walked into the top story of a skyscraper, lost and buried with time and dirt.

With the ceiling directly above my head, I looked downward, scanning endless stories of catwalks and stairs that reached far below the surface of the ground. Deep in the structure sat an enclosed, cube-like room, surrounded by a maze of metal walkways and pipes. The secret withheld by him was there, in that room that sat deep enough where one would need to commit to the menacing, dim-lit labyrinth in order to reach it.

Again, as if destiny itself was lending its direct guidance, I had found my way to the room as only minutes passed. I entered through the door, bringing my feet to rest before a stainless steel table. I had made it. I felt sure that whatever was in this room, whatever secret that I had long been pursuing, would soon present itself to me, at long last providing fulfillment from this endless game.

My eyes transfixed on the table, whose coldness upon my hands quickly enlightened me to an alarming observation: there was nothing on the table and nothing else in the room. As it was empty and starkly void of any relevance, I understood the room had cleverly been prepared for my discovery.

He knew.

My heart quickly passed the fleeting adrenaline of victory near at hand, sending echoes of grave error and an immediate need for flight throughout my body. I stood with mouth agape at the incredulous fault that I had not foreseen.

He knew that I would stop at nothing to find this place. He knew that I would find my way to the room, so far recessed in his labyrinth in blind pursuit of a secret I thought to be vindictive, that I would risk all and everything on obtaining it. Everything I thought to be of my own strength and advantage was used against me.

As the entire structure proceeded in its lockdown and the door to the room sealed itself, I only stand and watch, stunned as my own naive resilience passively resigns to his beautifully crafted abyss. Even attempting escape at this point would have been foolhardy.

Here I was, trapped within the earth by a maze crafted of my own confusion and stupidity and whatever cogent notions that drove me to this place now serve as the catalyst for my entombment. The only secret that this structure housed was that before I had even begun looking, he knew how best to trap me.

THE FERAL BEAR [REVISED]

I stepped into a downtown corner diner that was modestly busy. It’s L-shape provided a counter that ran along both lengths of the inside, while an array of booths sat against the large windows. There were several people I knew who were on the far side already engaged in their meals. I seated myself at the counter perusing the help wanted section of the newspaper.

I walked down the near end of the counter to ask the cashier if they had any positions available. At a booth straight across from the counter sat an associate conversing with a friend. Seeing him out of the corner of my eye alerted my anxiety as I felt sure he was watching me; he was, as always, looking and waiting for my next great embarrassment.

The cashier politely informed me that there was nothing available. I walked away knowing my associate had seen this interaction and was now sneering with his friend at how foolish I had looked receiving the rejection. I made my way to a booth near the corner of the diner, sitting down beneath a cloud of angst.

As I sat down I caught a brief glimpse of a bearded man sitting in the booth behind mine. He wore a dense red and black flannel jacket and over his mangy brown hair he had pulled a hat down low, covering his eyes. We sat back to back in our respective booths, though soon he had turned, bringing his head to my shoulder to whisper in my ear.

From his rough, growling voice came a stream of hushed taunts and jeers, so violent in nature that I was too shamed to react . I could feel his facial hair scratching against my neck as his raspy breath, foul and hot against my ear, moved me to severe discomfort. Still I did not stir, frozen in this moment of discordant affirmation.

By some miracle, I shook myself free of the unwanted attention, escaping from the booth stiff-necked and into the bathroom; though part of me knew that he would follow me there.

I stood alone in sick anticipation, facing the door and awaiting his arrival. What little bravado that attempted to stir within me was soon quelled by an unnatural and extraordinary event. Soon, the bathroom door was thrust open violently, as the man had transformed into his true nature, an oversized feral bear whose own body was bulging at the seams with exaggerated viciousness.

In seconds, his bleeding eyes advanced on me with savage purpose, overcoming me with a mass of ragged fur whose stench alone could have bent my will. He knocked me back against the wall, throwing my weightless body around to assert his control. When I attempted escape, he secured my elbow in his seething jaws. Amidst his heavy panting he growled:

“Don’t you know what’s happening here? I’m going to kill you.”

A realization of pure, innate fear overwhelmed me as a terror-fueled adrenaline rush allowed me to somehow escape from his grip, tearing out of the bathroom and through the length of the diner to burst out of the doors.

A flock of individuals were waiting for me outside. I screamed at them to run, to flee as fast as they could. They joined me in my flight as we spilled into the sunless suburban terrain. As we split off from each other, I took my course through backyards and was soon joined by two peers, male and female, running abreast of me.

We found ourselves in a yard that transformed itself into a box-shaped room, isolating us with the soon-approaching beast. In this room, my companions possessed the power to manifest anything with their minds. They went about in a calm frenzy, preparing the room with ideas and tools for a defense and hopeful defeat of our enemy.

Seconds passed as we awaited his arrival. His plangent gallop from afar echoed forcibly in the room, growing louder and louder as he neared. The blackness of his caustic quest overwhelmed me. He would stop at nothing to rip my heart out and claim it.

When his pounding steps reached an unbearable apex, he had arrived. The Bear threw himself against the barrier of the cube, crashing into the room with reckless hatred. A battle ensued where I found myself keeping out of harm’s way, watching as my two companions took themselves against the enemy.

My companions proved to be equally matched, wearing down the enemy with cunning traps and methods. The Bear slowly diminished in size, weakened and no longer the menacing threat he was in the diner. He was to become the man he used to be. I searched through the wreckage and aftermath of the battle as my companions sat down with the Bear. I could not allow his transformation without personal vindication.

Sitting on his haunches in defeat, the Bear expressed remorse for all that had transpired. My companions listened, replying in sympathy as they desired to offer him their aid. I listened from a distance as I found what I was looking for among the mounds of discarded ideas and tools.

I held in my hands a shovel. I calmly loaded the shovel with a deck of cards and with candle in hand lit a blaze of revenge.

The Bear was earnestly listening to the words of my companions as I approached him with purposed feet. I hated him and wanted him to see the vengeful wrath that boiled in my eyes for what he had done: I was but a piece of soulless flesh that could be used and destroyed without a care.

I stood in front of the Feral Bear with my companions flanking me in silent protest. With vacant expression, I threw the burning embers directly into his remorseful eyes.

I watched him writhing in his pain, screaming as the fiery cards seared upon his face, burning him beyond recognition. I felt he so justly deserved what I had given, yet I found myself void of the fulfillment that I was so sure would be mine with this deed. Vindication had apparently eluded me in my quest for redemption.

Why could I not find fruition in destroying the face of a monster?

The Third of Three

taken from a dream that occurred a month or so ago. cheers.

The traffic had stopped. Everyone piled out of their vehicles in a confusion that angst-ridden crowds usually possess. As I was among them, I, too, congregated in the intersection that sat in a valley, under a bridge and between two hills. A cop stood on the western hill, with two individuals handcuffed. He made some incoherent comment about how two criminals had been apprehended, but the third of three had eluded capture, too cunning and wily to have surrendered under traditional advances.

I stood in the crowd, curiously watching and observing the two criminals when a chorus of gasps turned my gaze to the eastern hill where a line of citizens stood. A crazed lunatic, the third criminal, had appeared. Armed with a sizable knife, she took the first woman hostage from behind amidst the flurry of cries from the shell-shocked crowd.

As she spewed bitter fragments of fulfilling her task, I became mindful of not standing out in the crowd, lest her gaze fell upon me. At the same time I looked at the faces of those in line atop the eastern hill. I knew all of them and though none were among those closest to me, I was aware of each vague connection that linked myself to these individuals.

The hostage remained frozen in submission beneath the blade of the third of three's knife as I found myself as comfortable as one could be in the crowd of captured faces. Without warning, the third of three cut off half of the woman's ear, terrifying the masses as her voice expelled further obscenities. She moved to the next woman in line, taunting her only briefly before slicing off an ample portion of her nose with a swift, vertical chop of her knife.

The victim stood in shock as blood poured out of her snout, looking at me in credulous bewilderment as to how I allowed such an act of primal cruelty to occur.

A Graduation to a Crooked End

Endless rows in speculation
Of an observance premature.
Among the eyes aglow with stupor,
My own, glistened in apprehension.

"It is too soon!" I cry to no one.
"Too soon for a lad inured."
Yet, hands continue in their lauding,
Heralding the brewing detachment.

Despite my passive protests,
The proceeding is fructified.
Alas, I cannot reverse nor deter
A motion as ancient, as primal as this.

And so He moves,
Beyond my grasp and sight
Moving far too quickly for I
And my weightless words.

Released to wander,
A stroll he feigns to grasp.
Graduated to a dire traipse
A trail unto a crooked end.

Contrast

In the last month I have added three clients to my caseload, including twin four-year-olds, blonde-headed with bright blue eyes. The twins live in a foster home after SRS took them from their home due to neglect and unfit conditions. They have been in several placements before arriving at this foster home where I began seeing them.

What fascinates me about them, as young as they are, is that both of them have reacted to their early-life trauma is opposite ways. One exhibits mostly external behaviors: ADHD, aggressiveness and difficulty getting along with his peers at preschool. His brother seems to have internalized everything they experienced as he is quiet, more reserved and has been observed talking to no one, as well as engaging in fantasy play which has manifested itself in him 'planning' Spongebob parties (I was even invited!).

These twins, contrasting in the outcome of their trauma, are as cute of kids as you could imagine. It is a privilege to work with them and I pray for their progress and growth as they develop.

Laugh Not, Hyenas Three

On sandy shores,
Six eyes find me
On my knees, forgetting.
A present mind, arise to flee
From snarling lips
their hatred curls.
And by my hands
two jaws are snapped.
Still run from one
an alpha mutt.
Strong, yes strong
Unbending and unending.

Tree and sand give
to a tiled hall, endless.
My hands cannot break him
my traps cannot ensnare him
Four gaunt legs
Stained under scabby sores
Carry two glassy eyes,
ever-seeing, ever-seething
Funneled down a corridor
unto his harrowed den.
Betwixt his fangs,
and the eyes ahead
Arrested by this mongrel,
or choose assimilation.

An Advocate is He

i had the first and the fifth part of this written on a piece of paper and figured i would fill in the rest.

His steps have tread the crooked path,

Surpassing a passive notion that lines cannot suffice.

So listen now for the tremulous vibrations
For he walks with purpose along the dusty road.

Approaching with the migrating flocks,

Scores of birds understood within his walk.




As miles unknown withstand beneath his soles,

Travesties tirelessly extinguish by his foot and deed. 

So listen gently to what he mouths,

For inaudible prods shall save your life.

He who has seen your calloused road,

Crossed with intent, He now sees you.





Match his gaze, receive the words
That float with the countless wings.

Rise up from the curb, find your own feet
Whose strength permeate your being.

He passes now with purpose more.
As you walk once more, towards the other way.

Bought

Blood twice bought ne'er seeps

For in that purchase lies this truth:

That first it bought from whence he fell,

And thus bought back when love was yours.

For once was once, but not for all,

Ere twice occurred to thwart the fall

And now you live as if for two

Apart from yourself, within the One

Now with that purchase a deal was set.

Your blood was bought and kept for keeps.

Eternity reigns within this truth,

So let it live as He let you.

also from a few years ago. 

Lateral Glances

Standing still remains in question

For if in doubt I'll learn my lesson

Twice fooled and yet in vain

Stopped short; my fabled bane

Twists, contorts, ever so crude,

I seek the same skewed solitude

To once again retain my sorrow

And let linger what won't follow.

this is from 2008, just transferring it over from an old myspace blog so it's not lost forever. 

A Mongrel of Man and Malus

this just kind of came out of nowhere. i was going to write something summarized the rabbit dream in a few lines, but this happened instead. fyi, 'malus' is a genus of trees, most notable for the crabapple tree, as well as serving as a ballin' homophone. there's your fun fact for the day. i will redo this one someday.

Little one, 

A question to ask:

Do you not know,

Binding weeds have foiled maturation?

          Teeth have bitten

          A heart unwritten.

          As an apple once bit,

          Learns twice to quit.

Little one,

It is no small task:

Do you not know,

Roots erred demand redemption?

          Ashes spat from tongue and cheek,

          Rewrite the man, however meek.

          His deviant deeds undone,

          Stitched, strangled and wrung.

Little one,
No longer ask,
For you now know,
As burgeoned limbs discover just fruition.

Harbinger of Healing

this is expounded on from a dream I had in early December, a combination of Watership Down and From Fear to Love, both books I had recently read. 

My steps took me to the open shop door. The yard, basking in the summer warmth, was empty save for myself It held a curiously absent feeling, as if I had entered my own mind as a stranger unfamiliar with familiar surroundings. I stopped at the threshold of the open door, for there sat a small white rabbit with his ears flat against his body, crippled in a trembling fear.

I approached the rabbit with a tender caution. I understood it represented a part of my own subconscious. This rabbit, frightened and lost, was a manifestation of childhood fears in guileless nature. Without speaking a word, I gently lifted the rabbit into my arms and held him against my chest. He had been wronged somehow and vindication was necessary, as much for me as for him.

Whatever discord had befallen him it had been most unnatural; this brand of fear in a rabbit his size and age begs vengeance on him who is responsible. That deed, however, was not for my doing. The rabbit, wide-eyed in his fear and inured by the danger of the world around him, needed assurance that he could exist in his own fur; an assurance that could only come from discerning an identity above whatever trauma he endured.

In his shaking fear, I attempted to find a location where he would feel safety, a place where he could begin to talk about what had happened to him. From corral to coop, barn to bin I walked, my feet crunching against the gravel, the sound of which echoed against the seemingly airless surroundings. With each stop, he only shook his head.

"Not the place," he seemed to scream with his eyes, "This is not the place."

My feet continued on, still cradling the rabbit in my arms. He nestled his nose in the nook of my elbow, nervously checking his surroundings. All I could think to do was to speak a steady stream of affirmations into his folded ears: "You are safe. I have you. You are safe. I will keep you safe."

With several more locations I, at last, understood. I looked into his vacant eyes, my own filled with compassion and searing empathy. We were finally on one accord and his taciturn voice seemed to erupt as revelation flooded over us.

"We have to go back. Back to where it all began."