Jmb - Blog Posts

You don’t see the decay at first

Not at first glance nor the second, no you pass your lives through with silly little tasks

every morning you walk to work, sunshine bright enough to disguise that which you don’t see, certain patches of day seem dull as you walk by the pastry shop, colors bleeding, no longer true to form where they meet

the talons of light grasp signs and bruise the colors darker than you remember

you keep walking

you look down

you do not see

at night you laugh with your family, smile fondly as a book or chuckle at the news. Curled before the blaze you can block the chill of the void leaking in through your window pane.

The almost too close burn in your shins drowns out the whispering, the bright dancing cheerful orange distracts you, pulling your attention, away from the silvered, hungry smile with spindly teeth grinning just past your periphery where it waits for you to notice

you keep watching

you look down

you do not see

at midday! You lunch with your love, discussing mundanity and boredom to fend off themselves sipping sweet wine with a bite and licking drops of fat off your fingers as they’ve dropped from your meal

The savory oil coats your tongue and for a moment your thoughts are not your own, a flash of True Hunger grips you, an impulse to consume, devour, tear and rend to satiate your hunger with the cat you’ve caresses in a moment of love you want to grip and bite in a frenzy of feeding

but you blink

you look down

you do not see

you blink again

You do see, but now? They See Too

More poetry for you

A short one this time

I'm a Summers child

I sup on rays of dust suspended in oxygen and filtered through sunlight

My bones are simply vehicles for the green scent of life growing against all odds on a cliff face

The cold pulls the will to live out of me, away from me, like a sieve my pores turn to the gaping maw of winter as all the me-ness of me seeps out and freezes with the tulips buried under snow

I miss the rain

Or better, i guess i miss the way it rained there

Fat heavy drops

Not like delicate tears on your skin but so full of water you could feel the individual impacts like your grandmother's hand patting you on the head

But just like grandmother's, not all rain was soft and kind, it also raged and thundered

Loud screaming into the night and the sound of those heavy blows on the roof like rocks from the heavens

To go out, to experience the storm was to feel whole and yet also wholly small

The rain is

Quiet, here

Tamed and angry in it's taming

Anger of futility

Anger of frustration

Maybe some others would call it gentle or kind or soft

But there just isn't enough of it to be those things

Not to me

To me it's just a drizzle, never more than a pattern of calm and too still even in it's movement

The last remnants of a still dying god killed long before it's time

The rain here is dead

And so

I miss the rain

Sad in the Desert

Its harder being sad in the desert

The wind bites instead of hugs

The voices of people who shouldn’t have been there in the first place, dug their heels in and decided to die just to spite the people who told them to leave

My ancestors don’t whisper in the long pull of an American Spirit, not out here

My grandfathers voice doesn’t sit at the bottom of that bottle of Jack saying “girl if you don’t straighten up”

Its harder to be sad in the sands and scrub

Its barren and cold

You cant get away from your emotions by walking through the trees and just crying out to the leaves, telling the wind to take your sorrow

Theres just sand, sand and dry

I guess that’s one thing about being sad in the desert,

The tears evaporate right off your face like the desert is taking everything from you, even the salt and water from your tears, even the salt in your blood you give to the desert it takes and takes

Doesn’t think about what to leave so you can keep on surviving so it can take again tomorrow

Its harder to be sad in the desert

It's. . . Odd

I'm deeply Appalachian

Fundamentally claimed and cursed and part of that mountain chain that's older than words and hides and traps things older than that

Those mountains were my womb, where i first hurt and where i first held, how i learned to heal and harm in turn

Those mountains are the spine of the world, sinking under the weights of ages, settled in their rage and power but no less dangerous

These mountains are flash in a pan

Young and loud and tall and prouder than they should be

They take and take and take and forget that if you want to keep taking for long then you need to take less and more kindly

These mountains are barren in a way that Appalachia never was

Stripped of life and all emotion except numb fury

The things living in these hills aren't tricksy and wily and powerful, they're injured animals on the run and they're cornered in by the press of toxic humanity

They don't know me

And i don't know them

But they see me, sense me, look for me

And I'm afraid sometimes

I don't dislike them

They're alien

They're wild

They're not home

But i could learn to work with them

But also? I miss clever jack, i miss the plants i know by heart and smell and sight

I miss the ghosts of those who should've never been there but dug in deep anyways

I miss the AGE

I feel old my dear

I've been around too long, this is not the first meaty church my spirit had occupied and these mountains make me feel old and weathered and like I've walked into a party i was not invited to

but my heart went west so now thats where we make our home, itll do for now

Sweet Tea Time

It's the hurry up and wait that gets you

The slow turning of everyday into some day

The glacial slide of present into future as days melt together like the ice in a glass on porch on a hot summer afternoon

The heat of decision turning ice cold anticipation into chilly condensation as choices lead to consequences lead to cool reality and lukewarm peace as you sip on still sweet tea, less refreshing but still speaking of love and home on the tongue till someone else makes a decision

To put more ice in your cup

It's hot but it's not too hot it's hot in that summer, carnal, sweet sweat and hard work smelling strong of sawdust and body odor way

And you only get it from working in the sun, sweat doesnt smell the same if it's a hike or just sitting outside or a workout indoors in the winter

There's some . . . Visceral about hard work sweat in the summer

It's original sin

A wet hot American summer

Adam eating "the apple" under a blazing sun feeling the sweat bead under his curls at the back of his neck at the same moment that sticky savory juice graced his lips changing forever how he saw the world

It's what the pope fears more than anything

Raw

Humanity

Unfiltered

Un fettered

Animals running flat out across a grassland under golden rays

Laying in the shade of trees older than their speech

All their warts and beauty on display for anyone to see

Drops of it, stories encased in wet salt hit the ground and color it dark in a silent plea for rain

I dont know if you can call it “coming of age” when you’re 25, coming into my own I guess. It when your body changes again, like it did ten years ago. Except now the joy you felt at the physical signs of womanhood, are replaced with disgust, fear and revulsion at the reminders of all the ways you are not what you want to be and all the ways that others see you merely as weapons, or tools to be used and abused.

I am coming into my own, into a series of fights that feel like I have entered the ring too late to win.

I am afraid

I am tired

I feel as if any fight that I had was long ago drained away

I want to want to fight, I want to want to resist

But if I am being honest with my self the only fight I have any energy for is the fight not to off myself

And in that moment of honesty is peace.

I want to lay down in the dry and brittle grass, I want to give up, I want to die I do I would rather die than continue to be stuck between what is and what I cannot have

I want to farm, and be at peace, and write and sleep soundly, and be held by those who love me and for my greatest enemies to be deer who eat my radishes and the rabbits stealing herbs from my garden

I want to drift away into oblivion, into the dark unknown of life after death or nothing after death at this point I don’t much care

But also I want to rage against the dying of the light

I want to fight fight fight

I want to try to make the world a better place for all

I want to try to create lands that are safe

but i just dont know how and I dont have the energy

Airports

There’s something romantic about airports

I don't mean romantic in the way of falling in love but in the way of how its an in between hub

airports are a stop from dream to reality

from sadness to joy

from missing to hugging

from chance to certainty

And as I sit in this airport, the day after the longest night I can’t help but wish I could sit in this moment forever 

This moment of chance, this moment of opportunity

I COULD get on the flight that I booked ahead of time and go to my planned destination

I COULD continue on with my life completely unchanged waltzing from plan to plan as some fall apart and some fall into place

Or I could not

I could follow my feet where they want to go

Pick a random gate, buy a ticket at the desk and board a plane to destinations unknown

See what I can make of life in this new place

If I wanted, the option is there for me to start completely over in a new place with a new name and a new purpose

Who would I be if I chose that? Would I still be me? Would a new name and a new place and a new job change me so completely that even those closest to this current version of the person I am wouldn’t recognize me?

Or would I surface the same? Would I have the same insecurities and personality? Would my music taste change or my the way I liked to dress? Or would I be even more me? Like a less watered down version of the me that I am currently?

Most of the famous love poems begin at the writer,

“Shall I compare thee to a summers day?” “How do I love thee, let me count the ways” “When I love you, I become Liquid light”

and the focus is on how the love affects the author.

You are not loved like that

You are loved from afar by a host of witnesses, partial observers who sing your praises and laud your name. I am merely one of many who’s life’s been changed by your black girl magic.

You are the flower and the sun, an entire ecosystem of beauty, pain, feral aggression, and nurturing softness trapped within skin and summarized with stardust.

You are the rot that consumes, dark slick fertility doing away with that which is dead and dying, prying life away from the undeserving.

You are an all-powerful inevitability, like mycorrhiza, interconnected and an engine of reincarnation turning that which you kill with your terrible, exquisite existence into vibrant life.

You are the power of a fire set spinning into a void, so intense that it attracts life and inspires art and who’s mere proximity is the Prometheus of existence.

You are an illustration of regeneration in motion.

You are not just a pretty girl, or a smart woman or a good person.

You are a vision of the universe manifesting itself to experience life and doing it with such style and grace that it takes my breath away.

And so, I will not disgrace you with talk of the love of possession.

the love of self, reflected in the face of the other.

the love only begat by desire

or need

or lust.

Instead, I will pray to you in the way that the moon prays to the sun.

I will describe the love of a devotee as they turn their face to the façade of their goddess and stand in awe of her power, majesty, and the ineffable certainty that they are unworthy.

I will set a record in stone of the magnificence of you.

I will, if given permission, promise to learn you

I will cleave my soul to yours leaving behind a love that endures and will never end, merely change forms

I will inscribe my adoration on the monolith of you, perfect, deific, angelic, demonic, human,  you

I will learn your habits, like how you take your morning coffee

I will create tender, intimate moments where I simply watch and wonder at the gift of you in my life

I will love you, with every burning, bared, imperfect part of my broken, bruised, and barely beating heart

Golden Boy and the Black Sheep: Part 1 The Golden Boy

He’s an angel, always has been

The youngest son, the golden boy, the favored child

Shining and resplendent with bright hair long and fair cascading in curls, far more perfect than mine ever were, down his back across wide shoulders to a tapered waist to put models to shame

“Hes too pretty for his own good” “That boy has more charisma in his little finger than anyone else I have ever met” “see how tall and pretty that guy is?” Whispers follow him, praise even in the dark

In my dreams he has wings white and whole, huge things pristine and glistening except for the golden metallic liquid that the tips are dipped in. Blood thick I alone know that its the souls he's been given and the mark of all the hearts he’s unwittingly broken.

In reality he has long thin fingers, piano fingers that are perfect and kept soft and agile for music and grace, in my head those fingers are stained black from manipulating the ink black minds of poets and kings, inspiring them to beauty and malice and greed.

He doesnt have a halo but he might as well, all the compliments heaped upon his lofty brow make him hold his head even higher from the ground

some days I feel like I should hate him, my perfect, favored, oh so loved bouncing baby brother

but how could I hate he who I helped raise? he who I helped create and grow? he whos potential I saw first and gave him love and space and the words so that he could grow

people tell me I should hate him because everyone else loves him so much

but I can’t because he was the first person I loved too

Strands of Existence

Recently one of my favorite pieces of media featured a character brought back to life with the exclamation of EMPTY! empty empty empty EMPTY!

It resonated harder than it should’ve to be honest

because I feel like that

I feel like I’ve been killed by life

by friends who should've been

family that wasn't

lovers who refused to be

My soul, exsanguinated by those who said they would cherish it

My dreams scooped out of my skull by harsh words and harsher realities of funding and conditional love and security

My wonder pulled from my chest by the same hands I once placed my stained glass heart into

My skin sensitive not from angry and rash touches but from the lack of any love at all

And its left me Empty

Left me feeling like the only things left are the strands of the person I once was and tried so hard to be tying me to a life that I don’t really want.

I tried to cut those strings

those delicate blue strings running the lengths of my arms and legs and release the hot red magic held within them

tried to free myself

tried to leave on gossamer wings

but it didn’t work

it failed

i failed.

So I stopped trying, I now bleed on pages instead of pillows and try to find those wings within me and let them free without letting them see the light. I try to leave those strings be and let them puppet me towards a life I want to lead instead of one I want to leave.

I still feel like there’s only strings within me, but at least I stopped trying to cut them 

Now I pick up the pieces of my shattered stained glass heart and use yet more silver to weld it back together and try to believe what they say, that broken things fixed are just as beautiful if not more for the proof of recovery

And if I can do it

Maybe you can too

Maybe we both can one day look up and realize that those strings weren’t trapping us, but leading us to our destinies like red strings of fate tying us to happiness and a future that we can’t yet see

Lately I've been staring myself in the face again

Looking deep into my eyes and coming to terms with who I find

Not a scared girl

Not a strong man

Just me and all my insecurities

I find a kind heart that wants to know

I find a brave soul willing to grow

I find a tender heart willing to show all the love that I possess

I find self expression not in skirts or suits but the marriage of the two

I find happiness in being me without labels, naked and free

Stripped bare of expectations there's a place of exultation where I can be

Simply me

Tired

Is anyone else exhausted by all the violence?

The needless and senseless bloodspatter patterns that decorate my television walls and the wallpaper of my brain.

From the procedural made commonplace turning horrific crime to daytime entertainment for the lonely and alone at 2pm on a weekday contrasted and compared with the graphics and lies projected on channels with three letters and a failed promise to tell the truth.

A battle rages in my living room, the combatants painfully familiar to each other yet only one is aware of the war going on. The other believes it merely youthful idealism soon to be squelched by the tint of age and cynicism. 

The man medicating with food and numbing the pain of a capitalistic hedonism born lack of hope with the gunshots and head wounds of his favorite "more stuff blows up" drug. And me, the far from peaceful activist cooking and tuning out his chosen coping mechanism with my own, music played louder and louder, that preaches a similar method with drastically different goals. 

One child resigned to nothing, so preemptively tired of the fight that he wishes not to engage in the warfare at all. Running, constantly distancing himself from the truth that another whom he loves totally disregards the pains and existence of others whom he lives in concert with. Those the child sings and dances with, those he performs alongside creating spectacles of beauty and emotion to make the world feel again. 

The other dedicated to the fight long before she even knew there was a war. Desperately trying to explain why and how to care for other people to the ones who first taught her the very empathy she attempts to raise in their hearts. Running towards the fight at home and the fight on the front lines. 

I am tired of sighting, tired of fighting, tired of seeing the tension so broadcast and obvious and yet having the same conversations over and over and over fruitlessly watching those on the other side slowly slide into the muck and drivel they are fed from the very hand that bites them. 

I wish they would choose love, 

or at least

choose me

Control

My emotions are like currents under the waves, deep and powerful and yet on the surface I can seem completely calm. 

I am tired of having to seem calm 

I want to rage and gnash my teeth against the light, 

I want to scream and bellow my anger and sorrow to the winds 

I want to use this power I feel, this passion to wound and break and bend the world into my image, into what I see fit, into what would suit my whims 

But I don’t 

I muzzle my rage, I suppress my howls of pain and tether my biting indignation to other calmer outlets, like logic, like patience, like fore thought and premeditation 

I direct my anger inwards, I point my passion at myself and shape it into a desire to cut out injustice and create better lives and healthier places for those I love. I turn it into a drive to do better, to be better, to accomplish more. I seek to improve, to inspire, to incite others to also be better and do better and yet. . . 

I am still left angry, my self hatred battering the walls I so carefully construct to keep others from being harmed by my emotion. And when the walls crack I am reminded of why they are needed. 

I hurt other, I twist and my face contorts into venom and malice and reveals an inner core of ice caps broken over a volcano. The hot and cold fighting for control causing the winds to whip ever louder, ever stronger, ever wilder. And I wound. I take offense to words that should not hurt, I bite back viciously at perceived attacks and stab using words meant to wound in such a way that I can twist them later to soothe the pain I have so caused. 

and so I must maintain my control even as I weep from the pain of being caged

Hunger in the Skin and Soul

Sometimes you need to be held, 

The skin holds a hunger that can only be thwarted by the touch, the pressure of someone who loves you. 

But underneath that hunger 

underneath that layer of Mud and Stone that we call Blood and Bone, 

lies a heart, 

A soul, 

A song, 

Something that screams and howls with pain, something that coos and purrs with happiness, something that sighs and moans with pleasure, something that rages and riots with anger. 

Souls need to be felt 

and Hands need to be held

A speech spoken over the body of an enemy

There are things they don't tell you when you are a young bright rebel,

With the taste of wrath in your mouth, a rally cry in your ears, and a mission in your heart.

They didn't warn you of how blood bounces on snow when you are chomping at the bit for action against inaction.

They're stories of glory, not of sweat evaporating before it leaves your skin, never of the smell of blood in a forest cooling on the damp ground. Or the look of an empty battlefield.

But there are good things.

The satisfaction of a job well done, the knowledge that you're saving lives and times, like now, when one finally beheads one of the true evils.

The rush of relief in knowing that the broken bloody mass at your feet will never again cause pain like he once had and that his last moments were ones of misery, misery that you meted out as recompense for his crimes.

They send you out with a sword and a promise that your anger can be used for good and it's moments like this that make good on that promise.

Our righteous anger bubbles like lava, biting at injustice and growling at inaction.

We, the young and restless vibrantly bash against the rocks of tradition. Slowly changing the world, an inevitable tide never coming in fast enough for our liking.

We longed for change, we would burn the world and remake it in our image.

We would kill

We would bite and scratch and tear to protect what we love and seek truth and justice for all.

I walked amongst these thorns along a dangerous road, but I do not walk alone.

We stood and will stand together against conformity, relentless and strange, enigma on a cliff waiting for wings.

The Soulless

Those who do not see and care even less. 

The soulless aren’t those without an eternal soul but those whose souls are born asleep. 

They annoy me 

I am awake, ALIVE 

I was born that way, I don’t know why 

I’ve been awake since I opened my eyes 

I pity those who never awaken but I weep for those who awaken later in life because then they realize what they have missed. 

You don’t have to be awake to be saved but sometimes that change in your heart can awaken you 

That should shock to your soul acts as a defibrillator 

or you have a choice 

and the Psychosis will Worsen 

Light

I saw the light of day begin to dawn

I watched the final rays of moonlight die

I’ve seen the end of life

And birth begin

I know when my frail breath will leave my lungs

Stars

And as she sailed across the plain,

The men awestruck stared at her wake.

The beauty of her grace so sweet,

Forever gone from his embrace.

The king so sad, destroyed was he,

Her life was once his great escape.

The prince distraught, his mother gone

He’d miss her touch tender yet strong.

The star she was shined brightly through.

The years she spent on earth now done.

The blessings of her days endure

While she ascends to take her place

Her place among the stars awaits.

Ours

Ours is a life of certain uncertainty and frustrating simplicity

I want to be Free

I don't know what I'm doing

And I barely know who I am

But I'm tired of being censored

By every woman and man

I'm tired of hearing outcry

And alarm from "my clan"

I want to be praised

Want to be someone worthy.

The chastising scowl

Accompanied by a single oft repeated phrase

"That's no language for a lady".

But really who decided that's the goal?

Or that a "lady" has to speak a certain way?

Why is my voicing my opinions or cutting my hair, or saying damn

An act of rebellion? Of feminism? Of being on the lam?

I'm not running from the law of government but the law of the land

I'm fleeing the fences that surround me

Expectations that choke and bind

I'm running for salvation not knowing what I'll find

Hoping I find redemption and a clue into myself

That someone has a plan to take me off the shelf

I'm no porcelain doll, I'm strong I know at least I could be with time and a gentle hand

But maybe that hand is mine, maybe the plan is mine, maybe the time is mine

I've made a decision

I want to be free

I want to be healthy

I want to be me

“What would you have me do? O Great and Powerful Man?” 

nothing, I would have you do naught but that which you wish 

“What would you have me be?” 

nothing, I only want what you are, I have no desire for you to be anything but what you will 

“So, what’s the catch? Why do you seek this?” 

beloved, you ask the wrong questions, 

“What then should I ask?” 

what will I do for you? 

“Fine, my darling, beloved, he who knows my soul, what would you do for the one who has laid claim to your heart?” 

I would thread flowers in your hair and worship you as you lay in fields of golden grain, I would remove all barriers before you and watch as you fly chasing the breeze. I would be your wings. I would be your home. I would put the universe in your hands because I want to see you tear it down and rebuild it in your image. I would see you become all that you could be, terrifying and powerful. I would tremble at your sight, but not with fear. I would love you and all that you are were and shalt be. 

Be not afraid

Be not afraid of that to come, for you are stronger than you think 

Be not satisfied with pictures of places, long to see them and be 

Be not afraid of success, that which opportunity affords those who risk 

Be not complacent in your life, but show your feelings and strive for the best 

Be not afraid of emotions, raw and powerful, but let yourself express and experience 

Be not who you were 

Be not afraid of who you could be 

But love who you are 

I dreamt of a Man

I dreamt of a man, with long black hair, curling and twisting like laughter down his back 

I dreamt of a man with bright blue eyes, sparkling and winking and closing at my touch 

I dreamt of a man with long thin hands, strong, graceful and grasping against my skin 

I dreamt of a man taller than I, with head thrown back and face raised high 

I dreamt of a kiss, tender and sweet 

I dreamt of a million kisses all meant for me 

I dreamt of a Man who one day, could belong 

To He Who I Once Loved

I promised you something, laying on a curb in a tiny town, bits of broken asphalt digging into my back 

I made a vow under the stars holding your sweaty hand in mine 

I cleaved my heart to yours through a conversation to rival those had by ancient philosophers looking up at the same moon we beheld on that fateful night 

I promised to hold you in my soul even as my body got used to being held by your hands, large and unsure aginst my waist feeling like maybe we were too young to truly love 

I remember that night the snell of the freshly cut grass of the suburbuan maze we wandered deep into the night 

Do you remembeer the years to follow? Telling me I was special but treating me like normal 

Do you remeber breaking my heart? 

I kept my promise but not in the way you may think, I still think of you, the reminder of what we were still makes me cry and I still pray for you I pray for who you may have been and who we could have become but 

my dedication to those promises has been fading even as the skin you touched sloughs off my body in sheets of replacing cells 

Maybe by the time all of it is gone I will be ready to break my promise 

A Warning to my Future

Look at my Pinterest boards, no seriously do, 

you will find a person covered in tattoos

 upon further exploration, you'll find a transcendent nation 

of a person, or a place or a word 

you'll find quotes and myths, logic and a missing piece 

travel and a mission a need to leave and a desire to stay, 

Knowing that to complete your purpose you have to go and do and see and become before you can make life all that you wanted 

you must leave 

you’ll see recipes and plans, and gardens and the sands of time slipping around the squared edges of the screen 

you’ll see clothing I’ll never wear and ideas I’ll try to write for then lose the inspiration that comes in the night for me and only me 

Reviewing the organization (or lack thereof) you’ll realize truly that I pin what I love 

so one day, my darling I hope I’ll pin you too

Nightmares Part 4

I was alone once more the journal was left on the table that had mysteriously appeared beside the bed the day the walls changed colors. I was afraid. I felt the compulsion to write, but when I picked up the pen I wrote obsessively, like I was attempting to make the words stay by willpower alone. The only way I could stop writing was if forced, otherwise, I would forgo food, drink, sleep and other necessities in favor of writing. They left me, the doctors left me to write for the eternity, never stopping me, I wasted away. The words taking all that I was or could have been. I died a husk, totally drained and floating in oblivion.

Nightmares Part 3

The door opens to a small grey room with only a table beside a bed to furnish it, a girl sits at the table writing ferociously in a journal the only thing visible about her is that she is exotic and has been beaten and tortured other than that she could have been any girl in any room and any journal because you could not see her face for the tears and the hair spilling over her head and into her eyes. As she writes a woman comes in and asks her a question, without hesitation she replies savagely. The woman seems unimpressed and strikes her then walks out leaving the girl laying on the floor with blood-mingled tears running down her face. When she looks up all of the walls have transformed into glass and on the other side there are men, taking notes, she looks down and seems to notice that the floor has suddenly become water. She begins to swim, the climate continues to change and the men continue to take notes and the girl continues to cry, and wail, and try, and survive.

Nightmares Part 2

When I awoke there were 3 men in the room. They all looked very different: the one closest to the bed had skin like muddy water with eyes the color of a blood moon and longish hair the color of the evil night, he was dressed in a white long-sleeved shirt with a tweed jacket over it, and a pair of bloodstained trousers were barely hanging onto his muscular legs, he had no shoes on, he could not have fit them over his massive paws he had human hands and lupine paws; and a collar that barely fit his huge neck. He was by far the most normal of the three.

The man closest to the doctor had bleached skin as if he was already dead blood was running freely from his eye and nose he had numerous brands on his chest and upper arms his fingertips were claws he wore no shirt and his disproportionate muscles were left for all to see. His pants had gaping holes in them where raw wounds were seeping through the gaps in the material. He wore a belt that was a chain and ran right through his body, held by an unseen force that kept him still as death. He wore shoes but they had holes in them where fur and claw peeked through the stained leather. A dark force surrounded him. The one nearest the door was the most frightening. He wore only a blood-stained loincloth. The parts of his body that were visible under the blood were covered in black, dusty, foggy scales. He had no face, but where it should’ve been was a mask of dripping red liquid that was too thick to be blood but thin enough to drip down to the floor he had no hair and claws for nails he was barely humanoid with no neck and bumps in awkward places. The doctor herself was the strangest person I had ever seen. She had ashy skin and long gray hair it looked like she had turned into ash there was no color in her entire body except for her blood red eyes. She was the most terrifying of the three because it was as if she was a black hole sucking up all life, hope and all things good in this world she was the darkest being I had ever seen. She was alive and not alive she was dead yet she was animated and walking around. She was a terrible puzzle a calamity if you will a person, yet a beast, someone who literally killed the mood and made her own sinister presence felt.

When they approached the bed it felt as if an eternity had passed when in reality it had only been a couple of minutes. The muddy-skin man spoke first; it was as if some of his speech had been removed his voice was a mix of gravel and an avalanche. Then the doctor spoke her voice was lilting and deceivingly contradictory to the words coming out of her mouth

“If you do not cooperate you will be scheduled for immediate termination. I do not care how valuable you are I will; kill you if you decide to rebel.”

I did not reply not wanting to talk to the horrible doctor, not wanting to obey but afraid of rebellion. As they moved closer, the doctor with a journal in hand, a sinister looking device became visible. When the men carried it into view I, at last, realized what it was, it was a suspension device, it was for keeping heavy things in the air for extended amounts of time and often used for torture.