...

The dead sound their rise, an empty glass bottle hum, a low percussive wind, I slip away into a realm of unreality, where their touch doesn’t steal me in breath, they shadow sway in mimic of willow boughs, a rise of anger grips me at their manipulation, I look to the serrated blade of silver light upon the wall, rain splattered horror adding a depth, I raise my hand to its possibilities, it catches my flesh, my mouth wild with tastebuds blooming, I lick at the severed flesh, the taste of death, they inch closer, riveted by the romance of survival and my not giving a damn, crossover, my boredom an unregistered tone, they simply stare, mesmerized and motionless, unaware of their opened door and gaping mouths, of which I rob each their tongue, bundling the fleshy arrangement with threads I pull from their funeral attire, I toss the bouquet to the dark corner lurking behind the moonlight, issuing forth an ebon figure that parts the dead and forces them through the floor, eyes of pitch meet me glare for glare, love, a promise made to me in growl, to which I laugh, evil, a bruising insult I accept as accolade, crossover, an order that halts me, an arrow straight through me, precise aim, torturous beings, we forget how we once would interact, I blow a kiss and the moon burns out

E.A. O'Connell

...

My mind sets a scream free when I sleep, reverberating off the interior walls of my skull, giving the visions that haunt the backs of my eyes, a vibration of near explosion…shadowed beings speak in lacerated tongues and hushed secrets, their footsteps giving more texture to the supposed dream, their touch like spider filament or a lost strand of hair, initiating a suffocating itch, that raises my hands and eyelids…staring into the dark of the ceiling, going further and further, getting lost into the eigengrau oblivion, I count the silences of cricket strings, knowing something, someone mutes their white noise, and I exhale my presence, rolling to my side…I’m aware the clock reads 3:03am, and as my eyelids begin to close, a singular tap from the mirror upon my closet door…a second tap and I know…a third tap, sends me to sleep, meeting him on the otherside of this reflection…

E.A. O'Connell

Thoughts

I happened upon a pumpkin, plump and orange. Upon the ridged flesh, a black sharpie scrolled,

What are you grateful for?

I gave thought to all the replies others had written in passing…all varying messages of thanks for friends, family, coffee, Autumn…and my answer hit me…

I’m grateful for small glimpses of humanity, reminding me of the good, keeping hope alive.

E.A. O'Connell

Tundra

Permafrost and polar icecaps. Snow blind days masquerading as endless nights. Regale me with too good to be true tales of having worth to another…to someone outside the realm of blood and DNA, beyond the betrayal of my maker. Whisper to my chest, straight through to my inanimate heart, what it feels like to be seen, accepted, unconditionally loved. Insist to my damned being that the matter of existing in the mind of another, to never be too far from their thoughts is a panacea, doing wonders for the condition of one’s soul. Hope seems but a figment of the imagination, a fable of my incoherent thoughts, a mind lost to, for not. But I plead, with all that is unholy for I am wholly undone, allow me this one fortune in a dismantled and reassembled life, to gift another with the wicked foretellings in my laughter, to know words I’ve spoken from my monstrous tongue, have set aflame the ragged remnants of feelings built from the life uninvited, imparting the knowledge that I’ve seen in implausible ideas come horrifically alive, to know the value of their existence isn’t lost on my scarred ideals, and in turn, I could entrust my idiosyncrasies in their care, my death-warmed hands in offering. Oh, to bear witness to our symmetry, an abomination of mortal parameters. Are you out there?

E.A O'Connell

{Excerpt}

…What is my blood? The origin and chemistry of the esoteric, abstruse and reviled…Spilled in rivulets of loss, the gnashing of teeth, set in a trap of rust clad iron, medieval and torturous, chained and bound, I’m a ship of a singular fool that ran aground, anchored to my undoing, tethered to a decision of drastic nature, I allow the teeth to sink straight through, devouring and severing me from the dead weight of my trapped limb, grappling at the earth, dead leaves shatter like glass with each palm slap…I pull away…blood trails in a most horrific fashion, giving weight to skeletal debris, I have no means for a tourniquet, resigning myself to the demise of another beast at the hands of ignorance…but what man steals out of folly and with disregard, nature avenges, gifting liberation and sovereignty…from the gaping wound, from my blood, a rhythm, a drum beat echoing off the earth, rattles of the venomous hiss in low tones, punctuating the night, widespread wings build a pulse in undulation, soothing my threshing body with silken winds, easing my evolution from extinction…

E.A. O'Connell