It Might Plunge

　　Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

　　Reminds me of the color of storm,

　　the sick green tinge to everything,

　　the wind a mixture of heat and freeze

　　that could shake in a tornado. But darker.

　　My demons have given me no time to slink

　　down to the cellar, close the windows

　　and avoid breaking glass. I`ve read about the place

　　of fire and brimstone, maybe even joked about it,

　　laughed at the Halloween costumes with pointed tails

　　and long red horns. But there are no red cherubs with teeth

　　and wings. No fires burning or lakes of lava.

　　No river of skulls for me to cross by a man

　　swathed in black mist, his paddle a scythe.

　　It is the green of natural terror, the green that borders on

　　purple like an angry bruise—I don`t know how it got there. Everything seems to be climbing downward,

　　like old sink water plunging through the pipes

　　into the belly of the city. I forgot to pay the rent,

　　and gravity is calling in his debts. Naked terror as I fall

　　through the decades and reigns of scientists and kings.

　　Tumbling from fading gray to demanding,

　　judgment-day black. There she is, the woman

　　I thrust in a cell, my own prison—I hold all the keys here.

　　While she idles on the other side of the metal

　　she doodles, storytells over the phone, paints

　　her fingernails three different shades of red.

　　My fingers tighten around the bars. She will suffer, not

　　me. I will force this premeditated agony on her,Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author`s consent. Report any sightings.

　　give her a taste of her own tragic cooking.

　　I will not forgive or forget. I spoon-feed lies, judgment, withheld love or money or work or food,

　　hate and polite indifference. She downs it all

　　without complaint, attention elsewhere, gazing beyond

　　me to a fiery star that threatens to burn through this

　　hell. And as my anger rises and falls into despair,

　　self-loathing, I crack open the safe and lock myself

　　up with her—we will rot together, two diamond-sized

　　blocks of coal scraping the bottom of the Earth,

　　and the things that prowl beneath it. But she continues

　　to level with the light like it owns the place, owns her,

　　owns me. I dare not look—the shadows here

　　are cold and bite like chiggers, ripping

　　into the skin like sticky fire. Tangled shadows

　　and shades, mud up to my throat, assassins

　　with painted faces: grinning abandonment,

　　armed pain, wealthy betrayal and haggard

　　unworthiness. That light does not call to me.

　　But it doesn`t take eyes to see the burn and blaze

　　of the light on my back, through my spirit, threatening

　　to run me through like a hot, celestial blade and erupt

　　through my heart. The color is still storm,

　　but a storm that refuses to break, a heat

　　that will not be released by torrents of rain

　　and heaven tears—do not cry for me.

　　I raised the concrete blocks, curled the barbed

　　wire, jammed the bars into the floor and fashioned

　　the jail keys. Years and decades of molding

　　a permanent dwelling for my enemies, real

　　and pretend, assumed and appointed. But my prisoners

　　do not linger on the walls or chains linking them

　　to me. They all focus in on the light

　　like so many telescopes training their sights

　　on a new set of galaxies. The blaze hurts

　　not only my eyes, but my pride and plans.

　　I will make them pay, vengeance is mine—

　　Plucked, lifted from the wreckage of my obsession

　　and war. God`s eye view. A long line of prisons

　　beside mine, shouldering each other like stone

　　soldiers, guns loaded and pointed straight between

　　the eyes. Point-blank range. No escaping this one.

　　But every prisoner looks at that cosmic flare,

　　that mighty star that shakes hell`s sandy foundations.

　　I`ve hurt, I`ve pierced, I`ve lied and cheated,

　　murdered or mocked, I belong in the trap

　　of my own making—

　　Radiance destroys me, burns through my skin

　　and thrusts me out of humanity`s fall.

　　Forgive yourself, or be turned to dust by the fury of the universe`s love.