Psychopomp

Welcome again to short burst resting 4 to 5 hours is all I'm getting,

This strange upending, every Winter, where hours for others are stolen by deep breathing and slow thinking, reaching inner-outer before dawning, yawning still

Yet the still dark night barely shifts as my rapid eye movement play stiff

Born to be a sworn in fifth degree guardian over outtake hours where I abide the over lording rest cycle of no rest,

Its test pilot to show as experimental effects broken a circadian stretch when the weather does strip me make me impotent

Eyes not calibrated here but shy into the shining devices thanking, tiredly, the light of Capital's silicone Siren

On spec tech squeaks beep reminders to echoing halls empty of Sun longed at function's horizon

Faceless sound and darkness wrinkled form elaborate our diurnal pact

I stalk my anxiety laden past in the best attempt to pass hours within the dark,

I hesitate, I shiver, I should never

Have listened

To these abyss

Where I gave up bliss

A chance to live like others

Live the dance it was a march hard to forgive hard to relive hard to dismiss

And

Underworld witnesses slip through the cracks in unsealed double glaze sill of my mind,

Symbols invade us, too sensitive now the pain divide us

Below the festival of high canopy, in ecstatic manic dancing, a week solid of Winter wind blow

The shadows twist and latch click snatches wits quick

The sliding front door insist my heart miss a beat as my last laugh catch

No air

No applause to explore

My good senses pause,

My poor eyes pour over the horrifying opening door

I hear it but I can't see it, round a corner I got no portion of vantage to it

Lamplight fills the hall now and the air does flee, filled with screams and shrieks, in disbelief I retrieve some bravery I attempt to say "Hello?"

But you know it gets stuck in my throat and I croak as a mouse under hammer,

Here comes the hammering of heavy wooden landing,

Followed by heavy linen rubbing and clawed toe stepping

I see what I thought it was, I didn't

I saw an image of an ancient god, I'm missing

My wits are limping behind what I'm witnessing

Nor the simple thing, some guy's razor, this isn't any sign and signifier this is the real deal, I reel and appeal to the thumping in my chest,

"Heart don't you leave me just yet this looks like a mission at hand, we're already knee deep and I need to place hand in hand as the underworld conductor, Psychopomp no other, offers theirs"

He says,

"Welcome to your shadows, I'm a day late. Time to rearrange your past, here and now.

My hand, take it - no waiting

Let's play at making change where mistakes hurt you, derange your sense of wronged and frightened

Keep you from biting the young you who barks a tune of salvation if only you could train him, re-place him in your heart and remember that darkness is just where there isn't enough sparking!"

And suddenly there is enough spark

Boys and bushwacking, domestic drama and whose tracking as one spy the other a soothing lacquer, a smoothing ticker, a gentle tacker and one takes as he was taken from, he stakes a claim as a harm held precious son as the dark in his heart makes pressure stones and these he stuffs in my throat with his cock as he knows I won't talk under threat of repentance to the social score, small town big deal when the who of whose crazed in immoral ways becomes a stage set and matches lit they are thrown at the witches kindling

And this is just before I grab Psychopomp's hand,

I see the terror at hand I'm gonna have to attend,

I'm gonna have to descend,

I'm gonna have to defend against defensiveness

I'm gonna have to open up and trust,

That no matter what is seen and no matter how it is received, I am safe

And retrieving anything from this place is a decent exchange,

As I attempt to smash a bust of shame

"Descend Man-child, into your deep

Re-member what Avoidance pledge to keep

Re-member what Fear pretend you reap

Re-member your dearest and what they mean

Descend Man-child and end your hyphening"

Screaming melting machines the body automaton comes apart hermeneutics of childhood drag me down I ride Psychopomp my Dog Stallion seek,

I see mirrors with all my meanness,

I see layers deepening,

I see my shell turn inside out,

I hear the moans of discontent as rumbling groans hidden in doubt

I leave behind a sense of Home to know the roads I broke my pleasure on

And whispering cripples as the cringing whispers, the burden barks at the 'Bulk on the back of a bus I never rode,

The lust I never earned of walking home alone,

Stalked as I became by strange memories of a violent kid and his viciousness the way he clipped my wings to not be so lesser than his lack of innocence,

To feel higher than a peer,

When the lowest of his home is prone to the lowest of the low, his medication distracts and detracts from the trouble in his dome

He beats on me weekly,

Takes to me the rage of his broken peace

And meekly I receive him and take what he needs to give me as he seethes and I please his meanness

Now - I'm - less

I'm missing his blessing to leave this behind and know peace

And I've just landed, with Psychopomp hand-in-hand, somewhere on the edge of a city and the city

Is MINE

This is where my insecurities shine, across the sky in neon lights you see my name I am the heights of the made, the chime on the clock, the prize in the maze

I'm no slice I'm the whole cake in this place

No need for me to stake a claim I stole this vision from the images in my brain made of the images on the screen

Where I lost my teen years attempting to brave the steam of obscured shame

Call me by my mother fucking name, I am The Prince, bitch! Don't whince at the insult I'm giving you my dim soul, the in-soul for a fucked up gait, walking too late into the illuminate shadow where hate and blame and pain do not follow

I'm at the gate and I run the mote, exchange a note of promissory hush for a night of safety lull

And to my right is Psychopomp, calm in his role, warm in his robe (i'll bet) and charming the stolen imitated protective bravado

"Quite a light show. Hell of a place to slow down and not show up where you force the pain down that must not rise up and blow up the miser walking by and exchanging a moment of glow. You won't let them in.

So you turn invisible, inside out and crippled cruel, keep it to yourself you're a victim-tool. Play the mouse and chase your own tail. Set the trap and snap the pressure head clean off to be clean of the heated moments when you choke on what I showed you when you stoke the coals that smoke you out.

It's in your abdomen you know the one you've been adamant is tobacco letting you know to stop? With the taking and toking you blow rings that become chain links and chain links keep you faking keep you making the same mistakes waiting for that inevitable no show changing. You still blame him, as though he came in weapons a-blazing and your damsel ways got taken got raped in the thicket. Chained in your victimhood you can't dismiss it but it's not quite so simple, is it?

Victim is the typical role that the toll of pained strange relation makes us say, when seeking a safe way to be without the pain and so cause this sheer force of locating the shell game your rough frame calloused into, there's beauty in there if you let that in too,"

Before he causes any more distortion of my protective wails I find myself in the undercarriage of my own city,

The dirty sewers,

I steam operator the coal thrower,

The elites of me can forget while I atone in the lower rung where the power of the city is the lowest rung of the power ladder,

I am the former and the latter,

I inform the luxury of charming public speak with affordances afforded me by my own slavery to this way of needing an above and below,

A just and a not so, the visible and the marginal, the Prince and the criminal,

A presented distance and the distant presence

Made of layers of cement, made of hedonics and made of lament, made of innocent bliss and made of the other song,

The one that sounds alot like this

This is the heart of the city, the heart of me which starves in the steaming sea of choked out pleas, stuffed down pain and thrown out needs,

Hard won memento and the list of stolen things,

A list of sordid ways to dissuade deep connection too much attention from anyone who might go digging or who may find the mirrored backdoor,

Traps for,

The mapper of sore hearts,

How to deflect those who saw us, so they see themselves

Defensively this place is more sophisticated than the city walls or propaganda could ever be,

Let loose a Jason and he won't be finding a Minotaur as a centrepiece, he'll die here and become rat feed,

Just as people see me as friendly but hiding, a shifting essence,

Like the core is made of steam, like the distortion field is my personing is the key

To my personal deceit. To my social doubt. To my personal defeats. To my hurt. To my knees I deserve what release I can serve when I see that I'm heard so I run take a sip make a scene make it last I play mean so you leave

"Please leave

Please leave me alone, I'm trying to get through the pain."

Psychopomp appears now, he's in a towel just come from the steam shower,

He looks deeper and I feel power,

He stands tall and the roof becomes the sky the city is my tower of Babel

Built to deflect, built to project, built to intercept

From the top down the intersection of the lost and found

Where I confused howls of disaster for a call to "Run faster!"

Feeling like the sole bastard with anything troubling at the roots, like the base of the tower is made of rot, is moving in the swamps, like the tower is disapproval

"You wanna ride this thing to the ground?

Crash this shit down and start somewhere new?

Learn to hear the crows speaking Crossroad news? Learn to know the cues of faces keeping their gaze on you? Learn to forgive? Learn to trust? Learn to Love? Learn how to be loved? Did you know it becomes a bridge, this tower of confusing things?

When it falls on the valley of Living Again,

It stretches the divide of holy missing

Offering the bold admission that you're not healed at the end of this just steps closer to a bit of bliss.

A little bit less of bitterness.

It's the simple things, not time reversed and frightening perversion dispersed by arriving just in time to be yourself and fight,

Never swallowing the curse, never following the hurt into now.

Would you really do it all different? I'll ask that again after we hit the pavement and walk a ways into the next phase where this pain did more than deliver defeat,

As it goes 'hurt people hurt people', you see?"