Short Stories/Poems

[Sekot]

God alone cannot break these gates the world itself has crested over its own horizon and the stars have all bowed in reverence to the void that has come to encapsulate them all the storms themselves have given up their greatest goods and the lightning forks with a thousand fingers to grasp the world in eternal harmony.

the leaves are falling plummeting one by one as they change their colors and the clouds have vested interest and so they rain their powerful goods upon the world until it itself is captured and destroyed. I am the ecstatic and the high and the world has nothing to offer world worlds worlds unto worlds i speak of towers and myriad crests and I am alive alive alive.

and the comedown was worse than the rise but still we find ourselves trapped and willing and so we cry aloud to nothing in particular insanity is so fitting after all that the end is jealous of itself and the horizon has

[Sekot]

We live within glass cages within glass houses oh god help me i can see myself in my walls.

I am trapped was trapped by the glass walls glass ceilings and the sun is rising will i find myself melting in my own home? How embarrassing to be made a puddle in one's own home.

Nothing makes me happier than a crowd. A throng. A public outing amongst the people. And when that crowd gets moving we are the sea we are the fire and we are alive a mass a body we are bacteria come together the single making the multiple.

We are so much more than I am.

Its the people who cry, who scream, who cheer and clap at the concert event. Ecstasy is tasted in the very air breathed by so many mouths open in sweet joy. Its sex. Its sound its feel and taste. It is the body in motion and power thrown to the wind. It is the mass riot, the primal force, we were made for more for us for groups for life.

Do not be afraid to desire, for desire is passion and life is desire. Never be afraid never let go give in to it all give it your all and never back down never turn away never be afraid never let go. We are dancing children we are prancing minds we are alive and ecstatic and power and joy. We are despair and we are sorrow and we are misery compounded by anguish on top of spite and malice. We are human and we have created our own condition. Do not be afraid, do not turn away, embrace everything that you are and set upon that never ending journey into oblivion.

Electric daisies growing in violet silicon fields underneath viridian plastic skies. You wish you could see this taste this feel this. The mind tingles it is excited and exploding and so the spine shakes and quivers and your mouth falls open in inability to express.

Can you move this long dance this long? Can you be this forever and ever and nevermore?

[Sekot]

and for once i am out of words and can only imagine what this is

[Sekot]

Rampaging blistering heat devours the endlessness lost in the hearts of the confused. I thought I could handle my own greed but I have surprised myself once more. And so I'll throw myself off this cliff and throw myself into the embrace and fall and plummet into the deep abyss.

I am become monster monstrosity deepening horrors unwrapping in front of our eyes yes our eyes for we together watched the end of the world and were tasked with bringing about the new world.

Ambition ripped from my own mind was made manifest as a hole. A deep empty thing that had no end. Could you handle this could you handle me I watched in despair as my heart was torn from me and fed back to me and so I danced underneath the starless sky where only planets were left to watch.

I danced with Venus and I fucked Mars and I was the jester and the master and I am a force a power a cruel wind for I have embraced myself and the endless expanse that stretches and stretches.

Where the leaves fell I walked, amongst the vibrancy of a dying world. We went out with a bang. Cold rain falls from cold clouds and we step through the forest wondering where all the good had fled and we give up on everything else while we conspire amongst ourselves for ever and never until we once more find ourselves traversing along the razors' edge.

I babble and blather and I spill forth the contents of my insides to be examined underneath the lights and the more confusing the more stable and so I dance with Venus and fuck Mars and the world ends and I am beautiful radiance the starry night was me and I was nothing.

Until this world divulges my own sanity I will continue wrapped in my own bizarre grief.

Edit: but is it really grief or merely madness? Have I transcended myself and beat myself in a false race until there was nothing left but this precarious state where none have yet tread?

Don't you worry child, it will all be right in the end, we just have to wonder when that end will ever come. It is easy to be confused by our own inability and our own ability and so the storms crashed around us but we were oblivious and we were overjoyed and content amongst our lives and and and.

It is the stare of the desperate puppy, the lost and wondorous eyes of the child and the smell of innocence as it is lost in the final end.

Do not stop do not ever stop for the hounds are chasing nipping and biting and do not stop for your end will not be quick and will not leave you as anything more than a pile of ash.

[Sekot]

Cold hands brushed across my face as the last bits of sun disappeared behind the trees and hills. My world was cast into the darkness and I was met with the vision of stars that spun above me. I am a babe in the crib, reaching out with fat fingers to touch the mobile.

That far away thing just within my grasp.

I close my eyes and I listen to the soft sounds of the evening. I am neither comforted or alarmed but merely existing as if floating in nothing. And I dream.

If I could speak to the dead, I would spend my life listening to their stories. I would go to those ancient graves and hope to find their still wandering spirits in whatever state they may be and converse with them to reveal whatever secrets their lives held. The serf in the field, the noble in her castle.

I was never able to tell the dancer from the dance. Death from life. Are the shadows I mock by merely existing mocking me in return? Have I become the dance rather than the dancer?

Without my rage, without my fire, I am exposed. Cold. Empty. I have lost my sorrow, I have lost my angst. What is this? All I know is cold. Strange. The beating wings of the birds have fallen silent, and the waters have risen around my feet. Moonlight is shattered across the rippling surface and the dead rise from the depths to march toward the shore as I step past them.

And I hear the cries from the ocean floor, so many more wanting to rise and see the sky once more without the murky lens. And my heart breaks a thousand times for I am helpless, I can only march into the waters until they have reached my waist.

The water is filthy, it is black and filled with bubbles of tar. As I wade, I become more and more restricted until it is dragging me further under and I take my last breath before the water swallows me and takes me into her breast.

The dead have tales to tell but no one to listen and so they scream and wail in hopes that anyone might hear just one word.

[Sekot]

It has grown warm here underneath this beating sun.

Lights blazing blinking snapping quickly faster than my eyes can catch the world is a blur of running color.

We have gained such short lives. I have no wish to extend it. So stay with me, and together we'll bathe in the sunlight.

They are screaming cheering clapping their hands and smiling underneath the flashing lights they are here with me and we are living.

Rest your hand against my chest to make sure my heart still beats. I have grown still and the land has risen up around me. But still I can see the light that rains upon me as I lay in the grass.

They are singing with their hands raised high they have closed their eyes and are feeling and listening for all else has failed and they swept themselves away to a land that never was.

Am I still here? Have I wandered too far? Weren't you supposed to stay here with me? I fear my heart has ceased and I am only able to lie, burning underneath this sun that hasn't moved. I will not die so I merely exist.

We are a pool a liquid mass surging and bubbling together until we have sucked each other dry of any remaining energy and we stumble out departing and forgetting until we return to being lost.

Running through the forest my feet barely touch the ground. Weaving between the hearty trunks and thick bushes I am chasing. a voice is speaking to me from just behind that tree, just around that rock. My heart has long since burst and I do not know what propels me forward.

Delicate is the waivering sound, barely audible over the screech of birds. They speak of death and so I ignore them. The sun has faded behind the towering canopies that stretch above me.

Trepidation steals my passion and my feet come to a rest. I clutch my chest, suddenly afraid of my own mortality. Frozen, I witness the destruction of the forest with ice and fire, with flood and storm. will I swept away with it?

I should turn and run back the other way but still that voice is calling to me.

[Sekot]

I will demand that this disease that claims me will be devoured whole by the end of the world brought about by my own hand. The stars will cry, shed tears of twinkling beauty, and I will be blind to it. I will laugh at them, blast them and annihilate them and not stop until they have all bowed their heads low.

The world crumbles, constantly. There is never any sure footing. It is raining stone and ash and the dust is thick and clings to your skin. Spread his hands wide and watch as the keys he hits signal the detonation, each note a piercing call to collapse.

The world is crumbling. The clouds have grown thick and nasty and broiling with impotent rage. I am pulled out of the earth with the sounds of fierce confrontation and I wield my weapons with my many arms and gnashing teeth and my cloak of flame billows about me in ferocious tenacity.

The tree who whispered to me of certain things burned away, was erased within a splitting moment. It was there and then it wasn't. I watched it go, wrapped in tendrils of snake-flame that hissed and snapped as they tore its branches away and ate it from the inside out. The world opened its giant maw with a slow and certain grace and swallowed the ashes. Their graves rest at the center of time at the center of the world where no one shall visit them and where only torment rests.

And we danced underneath the flashing lights for there was never a care for anything other than ourselves and the crowd and we knew each other more than we knew ourselves.

I forgive myself the atrocity of living. I forgive myself the annoyance of moping. What I seek is the end. An end. But I have decided to not go quietly. I was seared and drowned and born again countless times so hopefully now it will stick.

And the stars will bow and the planets will cease their movement if for just a second. We are radiance and power and beauty, gods and goddesses. For in this moment we are sacred. In this moment we dance in the silence, for that which comes after will be blinding and all encompassing devouring hunger.

It is in this moment that I breathe and life was born.

Amongst the owls they chatter and chant and when the final hoot signals aloud we all flutter away, flying above the homes of pregnant women and praying quietly our delicate prophecies.

I see their eyes, constantly searching. Maybe that phantasm that lurks just beyond will one day come to me and speak but until then we dance in the silence.

[Sekot]

It is in the field the children play. The grass is at their knees and their laughter is the only sound. Twilight is forever here, the last vestige of light just peaking over the horizon, stilled before it would begin its final plummet. The few stars that are out shine brightly, and the barrier between light and dark is alive with energy.

The children play and we watch them from far away. We silent wanderers rest every now and then to be reminded.

And when the crows sing their requiems we are awoken. We rise from our weary states and begin once more to walk around and around. Preserving now and forever this delicate state of inbetween.

[Sekot]

With that old sun setting, the new sun rises and we are stuck in the inbetween. The bearded man sat down with me for we had not talked in quite some time. They only came during this period where no sun rose or lowered and the horizon burned.

He ran his hands through his beard and across his bald head in manic movements. He chattered about something, but I couldn't understand him. I wasn't really listening. The golden leaves upon the cinnamon trees reflected the myriad lights of the wandering souls who came out of their hiding spots to watch the sky. I looked at them but they did not look back.

They were solemn, stoic. They were frightened and awed and looked as if they had been crying for eternity. The old man still muttered next to me, but I enjoyed his company. Ravens with four wings and five eyes hacked up blood that ran in tiny rivulets down the barks and into the clay where it pooled. And in those pools the ghouls drank.

The old man rose and departed, leaving me alone. My eyes hurt. I tried to rub them but still they ached. The earth itself could claim me as a stone, for I had not moved in ages. Waiting for this moment was not for the faint of heart.

She appeared out of the light, lithe and tall. She was adorned in burning feathers, a dress made of glass. Her hair roared about her like the medusa or as if she were drowning. Her flesh was charcoal, her eyes brilliant silver. And I looked at her and knew her.

She reached out a hand for me. And I took it.

The five eyed ravens with their quadruple wings took flight, blood still spilling from their beaks. They fluttered about us in a mighty torrent and the ghouls roared in frustration and the souls let loose a piercing wail. The trees fluttered in the wind until they were uprooted and tossed into the sky. The tangerine grass melted underneath our feet. As far as saviors go, her presentation was astounding. But her heart was as cold as ice and it touched me and I knew fear.

The suns were set in motion and sent backwards. For the first time darkness touched the land. It was brief, a momentary flash and the world stood still. Snow covered every inch of surface. Snow that had never been yet we knew it for what it was. I could see my breath, feel my breath, and my body would not move.

We killed the doves and ate their flesh. We pecked away our own eyes and the old man set fire to his beard. My heart is racing again. I can feel it. I am scared. So cold. Her radiance cannot save me she will not save me and with one horrid action her jaw unhinges and lowers.

And from that dark maw comes forth countless more ravens. And madness. Will this end please let it end?

And out of the storm comes a man in brown, his own golden eyes beacons of hope and deterrence. Save me I scream and he takes my hand while the other lets go. And the suns are set in motion and it is day once more and the snow is gone and I no longer feel my breath.

The man is gone and I am here alone on the tangerine grass with the cinnamon trees and their golden leaves. The ghouls and souls are gone, departed back into the impenetrable forest of refracted light. Silence falls upon me and I get up. Travel, that is all I know. Down the dusty path and away.

[Sekot]

I went to a land where the dead don't rise and I picked a flower. Time stood delicately still underneath the beating sun. And I heard upon the wind voices from the past while visions of the futures danced upon the endless field. The petals wilted at my touch, became pallid, and it died.

I let it go only to see it disappear in the wind.

And as I stared up into the sky I wondered why.

Collapsing, I pressed my back solidly against the bark of the old nameless tree that was my only shade and I turned away from the sun. It was cool underneath the shade and no wind parted through the branches that had begun to wrap around me.

"Why?" I asked, my voice foreign to my own ears.

"I cannot answer," was the tree's response.

"Why?" I asked again.

"I cannot answer," the tree repeated.

I grew silent and the tree only brought my closer, pulled me tighter. I made no movement.

"You grow hot to the touch," the tree whispered.

I did not respond. I merely shut my eyes and imagined all those flowers, that endless field gone. "I have given you protection and comfort yet you would see me dead?"

Maddening were his words but they could not pierce those ancient walls. The flower wilted over and over no matter how many I retrieved and I tried and tried to keep them with me but they only disappeared. And so I grew hot. And the tree grew afraid.

How quickly the mighty clouds appeared that had once been just beyond and the sky grew dark. The wind pierced the foliage and the branches and leaves rustled and the tree's grip loosened.

I would see this field rotten and broken and torn apart until the graves far below were open to the raining sky. Such was my desperation.

I could not watch her die could not face that inevitable end would not face my enemy my compatriot my companion and so I stayed within the field and cursed the sun and the tree. I would see them burn and darken.

[Sekot]

The water drips slowly, trickling from the end of the open pipe only to plop into the gathering puddle below. Maddening is that noise so impossibly rhythmic.

The world spins upon its edge, dancing delicately as it peers over into the deep hole that penetrates the nothing. From within it it can hear the songs of the ancients in words it cannot understand but finds itself attracted to and appreciating nevertheless. It is entertainment, delightful, calming and invigorating, but nevertheless it is incomprehensible. It is noise.

A silent fire burns within the hearth, unnecessary as it is with the warm of electrical heating, it sits behind its glass cage and prances merrily for those who pull comfort from it. A silent fire is a troubling fire. Where is the hungering growl? The snapping of twigs like gnashing teeth?

The cold wintry wind pulls at the grass, bending it their knees in forced reverence. Dark, heavy clouds are pulled across the sky to send us to our sleep. Off in some far away place I can still hear the whispers. I am afraid that I am slowly beginning to forget their speech, that their songs are beautiful and full of sorrow but nevertheless they are noise.

Upon this stage I have gathered my masks and laid them out. They are endless infinite smiling frowning laughing crying and I want to wear them all. But even as the heavy velvet curtains fall I have yet to choose and so I go without.

I have long since forgotten my guide and have trudged forth on my own and I find the way is hard. And I do not know where to go. And the darkness clings but I can still see. I have yet to fall from this edge, I have continued my dance along it and I peer every now and then into the penetrating deep. Never content am I to stand still for long, I will continue until I am the last man.

We speak in tongues and gestures while our words fly past one another. We are strangers to each other, speaking but never hearing. I can see you and you can see me but only on the way through. Invisible ghosts stand forever at the edges of our world, I wish to see what they see.

I have committed to the worldly grave and so as the waters rise above my tomb I bid you all a fair goodnight. The curtains will rise again and I will, as ever, perform, but for now I have grown tired and so must retire. My end is my beginning and the time that has wrapped around me will unwind. As I said I do not sit still for long and the way is winding and difficult.

[Sekot]

We are all the flame and I was spurned to become alive and I was eaten alive by you and I became one with you and together we made love underneath the stars until our bodies ran cold and the earth itself had grown tired of our shaking and quaking. Our lips tremble with every breath that passes and we yearn to speak but we are far too intertwined to express our beliefs and so we are underneath these stars and the world was our witness until we devoured us amongst the whirlpools.

I don't think I ever understood the gigantic floods and the swelling flames and my heart tried to tell me but I was always unsure and unaware. Was this the passing stream that brought the light or was it the darkness hidden in the boxes where dead memories lie? Either way I have found the floor where the lights flash and pulse and the men are free and the women are happy and the world is spinning.

Quickly now run with me amongst these trees and over the brush. Hold my hand for I will never let you go and we will be together underneath the watching stars and we will taunt them with our love. I am was god and you were my creation and I was yours and together we were. The floor is thumping and I cannot sit still and I am alive tingling with energy and I am power and we are power and we are amongst the darkness where we can only feel one another.

You wished you could feel this and I will let you just give yourself to me. Smiling hungry I am the devourer of worlds of conscious thoughts and I am and we are the devourer of lives and we are the walking dead the undead we have cheated death and fled to the ancient worlds and we will forever find ourselves awandering amongst the flowers and trees and along the edge of the deep abyss.

Dance with me upon my stage and together we will know each other and I will have become passion itself and the people will devour us and we will be consumed underneath the sun that shines so heavily and we will be the nourishment of the masses. We forever and we together and the fire that comes with the water shall swallow us whole and spit us out in a torrent of flaming hail.

[Sekot]

And with the storm past, a cold wind blew in the vacuum it left behind. The air was pulled from his chest, but he no longer needed it to breathe. Only stumps remained where once proud trees stood and whole mountains had been reduced to dust and leveled. The sky was a boiling pink and indigo, a churning mixture of ferocious icy and fiery colors.

She sat upon her gilded throne, vultures and ravens adorning her crimson crown. Her cerulean lips parted in an arrogant smile as she observed his coming. Her ivy eyes were alight with greed and pride. Even from where he stood, he could smell the rolling scent of death coming from her. From the ivory gown that flowed like rivers down her stately chair and around her decaying mound.

And with the passing of the storm went the thunder and the rolling drums. There was no sound but the wind and the cackle of the birds. They spread their wings at his arrival and bowed their heads. With a wave of her hand they fluttered upward, circling high above until the word was sent once more.


And he looked upon her with his soul for he had no eyes to see. They had been stolen from him by the storm and he was left as a shell. She returned his eyeless gaze with her own steely stare and the two were locked in a battle of wills so powerful that the earth itself ceased all movement and lay perfectly still within its little plane.

Slowly she rose to her full height atop her quadruple legs. Her arms stretched outward, reaching for him with grasping fingers. He felt her presence near, felt the air disappear between them. A heartbeat could not have trembled louder within that empty space between moments. If either had a heart.

And fire rained from the sky. The heavens were opened and the churning had produced hail. All around them the charred earth caught fire once more and towering twisters rose upward into the sky. "Resurrection" was the word that passed across his cracked lips.

"Denied" was the voice so soft that it was itself the wind and so sharp that the sound of roaring fire was cut silent.

The fire stopped in mid air, in mid collision, in mid explosion. The birds flocked closer, perching atop her in nervous anticipation. Their rainbow feathers had dulled into matte grey. He could feel them and smell them and nearly taste them.

"We were all born to die," she spoke, placing a hand against his cheek and picking away a chunk of flesh.

"I have never lived."

"What do you call this?"

He grew angry, furious that this creature would not grant him his wish. "The storm...."

"Is gone," she interrupted.

"The sun will rise."

"And the moon sets."

"I am..."

"I am both moon and sun and I am neither."

She turned her back to him and returned herself to her seat of power. The birds cawed in laughter and pecked at him as they flew in circles around them. "I can feel you."

The woman merely waved her hand. "I am God."

"God is Dead."

"We are all Dead."

"Resurrection."

"Sublimation."

"Birth from death."

"Haven't you grown tired of this yet? The sun sets and the moon rises."

"And I have leveled mountains."

"And scattered their dust across the world."

"Your moon and your sun no longer set."

"Again...are you done?"

The words cracked, a thousand whips released, and the fire fell once more.

"Sing to me," he said.

And the hollow places within him sang. A hundred angry voices spilling their words into the nothing of the world around him. She grew silent and still, so very still. The fire ceased its falling but the sky remained stationary. So perfectly seamless was the world lost in time, a snowglobe just before it was shaken.

"Sing."

He collapsed to his knees.

And the birds dropped one by one.

She watched in horror as he was consumed by flame that did not burn. Light shown behind his empty sockets, the flame that literally burned within his skull and ate away at his remains. An animate torch.

"Resurrection."

Her throne cracked. She flew from it, running toward him with arms outstretched, claws at the ready. Her mouth opened wide in hunger. But one cannot swallow the endless void. He was a whole in space, an empty spot in time a nonexistent paradox.

A dream that had become nightmare.

The sky was wrenched open and the stars were revealed. She watched in horror as the moon hurtled toward the sun. And together they faded, exploding and departing.

Unto this wicked dream he played his song and the world responded in kind. Atop her throne the nightmare queen was imprisoned enslaved unraveled until with one last breath she spoke a word. With this command she too collapsed. He placed his hand upon her and consumed her with his own endless hunger.

Mountains that had been leveled and fields that had been cleared lay under boiling skies. The eyeless man continued forward, chasing the storm that sat forever on the horizon.

[Sekot]

The sun set and the rainbow sky was alight with fire. Oh dear sister moon how long have we danced like this? Oh brother star how long have I been lost?

The earth is newly churned and I have risen. Resurrection rebirth from the womb of the world. Churned out of madness so comes forth the relentless assault of the unbridled conscious. Oh fingers five how long have you toiled at the dirt? How many layers have we clawed our way through just to watch this brief passage of time?

The sky is cool to the touch. It is blue/black, it is purple, and it moves like water. Just open field, dead grass. Winter has come and the winds are cold. But the sky still burns. My sibling realms I have returned I have come anew, will you recognize me?

Amongst the graves I amble, my touch lingering for but a moment on the cold granite stone. And they too are awoken from their mad sleeps and the ground churns and rises in great heaps. They part from the world with its many spread legs and they cry out with their first breath. Should I guide these souls or merely let them go? Who am I to lead when I know nothing more than where my feet are?

And with one last, heavy sigh the sun disappears and the rainbow has cast aside its visible glory and resides itself to the silent watchers. Now is the reign of the gods and their innumerable eyes always vigilant against some unseen host. Would I just for an instant see what they see, would I still know? I lay amongst the ruins of worlds and I wonder.

And the choir has reached a fever pitch, all the air is alive with their constant sound. I am uplifted and troubled, unsure of myself and this new sight of mine. We are wandering past one another through one another and we recognize nothing. Are those gods happy? Or was it all a lie? Was that whispering I heard deep down below nothing more than the gossip of worms?

This car cannot go fast enough. I cannot see enough. I cannot feel enough. Faster and faster. We are quickly running out of road. Do not stop. Maybe now they will see, my sister and brother. Together will they come to stop me?

The images shift as fast as they appear and the reality is upended and downturned until the double-helix spiral sends them all rattling end over end into infinite voids full of finite terror.

And the sun rises, once more the rainbow sky begins its caress and the gods fall gently asleep.

[Sekot]

The bird has been captured in motion. Each individual feather points in a new direction upon the massive wing. Its large eyes are forever searching, staring into a distance I cannot imagine. Floating, it appears so different, so alien. I could just reach out and grab it.

But the moment I try, life comes back and it continues its unhindered flight. Destined to watch for the damage I had wrought had led me to this point. The summer rains keep me entombed within a humid world and whisps play tricks on the weak willed. Off in the distance a piano plays and a violin. Long gentle strokes with a vibrating undertone. A minor key.

dreams and nightmares no longer part but come together in matrimony and together the world is seen anew across a phantasmic stage. Oedipal stopped loving his mother and the death drive took a walk. Symbols point to symbols and blame the phallus for all their troubles and I am perpetually amused and yet confused by inability to consume the praxus. We are quickly approaching that critical point of trauma where one world ceases to be and another begins where sister moon meats brother star.