Mike B. Ryl

In this moment they reach out slowly, their dark tendrils feel through my soul in search of the heart. The same heart that scratches and claws across the ground just to stay an inch ahead of their reach. Every second my atrium pumps, ventricle jumps and again I avoid their deft swipes. They snake along the ridges and timbers of my spine. Chills left behind in their wake attempt to skip a beat but for a reason i can't quite fathom I keep beating in rhythm to their entreaties. Finger wags, hip movements and playful smirks mask the fear I feel knowing that they want me. I cannot recall ever having looked back at them. Have I ever truly regarded their promises of eternal peace and rest seriously? I imagine myself turning to embrace their suicidal promise. I see friends and family gathered for an unremarkable funeral. How could I be so weak to let the easy way out be my answer? How could I when so much bright light was promised to lie ahead? Oh those many miles I ran hoping that one day I would find this luminescence. Instead I find myself stumbling blind in the darkness.

I refuse to look back at them and their promises of relief. In my minds eye I envision them now like sharks in bloodied water. Their powerful thrashing send the waves crashing and lapping at my heels so close to knocking me down, so close to biting me, close to rending my flesh from bone until i am nothing more than a bad dream to be forgotten by those strong enough to stay out of the water. The beasts that seek to destroy my being slowly slither up and down my spine causing ripples of agony unlike any I've ever felt before. What is it I've done to deserve this horror? Why was I destined to find myself again straining to survive in such a pitiful condition? Could I really be given a glimpse of light only to be reminded that in the end the bright lights which should have been a blessing were nothing more than a type of fools gold, a train on a collision course rather than an arch sent to save me from drowning? Rather than deal with the devil i don't know that lies behind I sprint eagerly toward the light of the runaway and embrace the damage it deals. As smoke pours over me I realize that what I am being run over by is a ghost train, corrupted by outer beauty yet possessing an emaciated terrible soul. The smoking ghost train whirls around me, slowly taking the form of one lithe figure followed by another and yet a third. An unholy trinity of sirens surround me each with their flaws and their claws. Incorporeal though they may be their touch hardens me and makes me sweat with anticipation. Soon with a wave of my hand and shake of my head I dismiss their promises of tainted devotion and the promised taste of their flesh. They don't have what i need and what you have Mike. I can't tell you that I love you because I can't be sure until you look at me the same way. But your eyes fail to see the same peaks that I do, fail to see the wisdom in sharing the light we already have with one another. Instead you and I will always drift apart and share ourselves with others. My rotted wood barely able to muster more than a spark pales in comparison to the bonfire you have set.

Your waved hand and shaken head rock my dreams. My body turns to ash and I float away, carried on the currents to a place where you and I will never be. My love I see, this reality.