i am not safe

The doctor tells me I am safe.
The preacher proclaims that love will conquer fear.
The old-timers declare no need to be afraid.
My mentor points out I shall not come to harm.
Yet I am afraid.
This fear lives inside the center of my belly;
larger than terror,
deeper than horror.
This fear is much older than me.
It has been here since before me.
It is the only thing that is true.
It is not the end I dread.
It is believing the truth I know in the center of my belly, is false.
It is believing those who seem to know more
about me than what I feel from inside the center of my belly.
These people who mean so well.
These people descended from murderer's, thieves and liars.
These people who daily sell their integrity
in the name of some future
that will never come to be.
For the sake of the children.
So they say.
So they seem to believe.

I am not safe.
When I feel safe,
I will know that I have abandoned my truth
I am right to be afraid.
Each of you know within the center of your belly.
I will be sacrificed
on some bloody altar.
Or someone like me.
Or worse, it might be you.
It is only a matter of when, where and how.
It is older and deeper than you, or me, or us.
It is older than the whale or wolf or desert creature.
It is the only truth that can be
living within the center of our bellies.
We must be as one.
We must be strong.
We must remain united.
We will do what we must.
We will cull the pack.
We must.
There is no other truth possible.
I know I am not safe.
I am right to know this.
This is the only truth that speaks to me
from inside the center of my belly.

Scattered scraps

Writing from a freeze-dried
stretch of rancid wasted time.
Nothing here but empty shells,
random shattered dreams, and
scattered scraps of useless crap.

Moth to a flame

Everything he has ever been taught
alerts him to avert that dancing flame.

What is it then that demands he must
proceed towards his certain fiery end ?

Some deep and ancient voice within
invites him to the promise of the light.

But primal lust for instant satisfaction
draws him without fail into the blaze.

The darkness

Our author has vacated the premises;
the rent being well overdue.

Nothing here but crusts of moldy bread,
something green at the back of the fridge,
the fruit-flies long abandoned the joint,
only those scuttery cockroaches remain.

The darkness finally took over.
The days had turned blacker than night

To continue was a mockery.
A shell game with no pea to play.
The cards long ago shuffled to dust.
What used to glide smoothly
became frozen with rust.
And the thing I feared most
was the clear light of day.

The darkness finally took over.
What's left is the blackest of nights.