Ik/sting(k)SH(a)n/
noun
1. ultraviolet silence. fracture patterns in the exposed knuckle bones. we pray with our knees in the dust but the gods do not answer us. the pines creak with the weight of ghosts.
2. it is a fire light dance. it is a marrow-born dance. close your tired eyes. let yourself be spun in winding circles. remember to breathe, remember to breathe.
3. no red feathers, all red ashes. listen to me, child, it always starts with you saying, I am doing something right.

/'mad-nes/
noun
1. I forgot I had fists today. my heart decided to be a warrior. punch after punch, does it seek glory?  I’m washing my hands; they shine like red sunsets when I first found paradise.
Am I a murderer? or did I **** my thoughts in self defence?

2. angels are talking behind my ear. they don't sound like the cruel laughter i know but they never leave (everyone always does) should i call this love a lie? for the first time I think I could be holy.
I almost smile.

3. my lips are full of crimson coated lies. As I dance in forgotten light, I pour a trail of gasoline, yesterday I tried to burn my mind, I left three bodies fading behind my back (all were mine mine mine) forgive me father for leaving those marks. mother says heaven doesn't want me anymore.

P- pages torn from books coated in prophesies  
R- razor blades slice through memories
O- open wounds drip crimson blood upon chalk stars
P- pen drawn runes coat your skin drawn in black ink
H- haloed in holy fire angels descended with knife blade wings
E- eyes gunmetal grey rimmed with puffy red highlights
T- they call you proclaimer, gods words carved into your bones.

As Icarus fell, he laughed. Because for the first time in awhile he felt something.
He felt the wax burning his skin.
The wind rushing around him.
And the sea acting as cement.
For it was Apollo the sun
the Anemoi who controlled the winds,
and Poseidon who witnessed his last moments.
But it was Thanatos and Hades who took
him to his new home. Where he could live a new life in the underworld.
And thats what they don't tell you in school.

My English teacher said
The opposite of love
Is hate.
But it's not hate,
It's apathy.
Hate still breathes,
It's fiery, raw, and real.
But apathy?
Apathy is a void
Where nothing's left to feel.
No anger, no tears,
Just empty.
So if you ask what's worse,
Hate or apathy,
I'd say apathy,
The silence,
The hollow space,
Where nothing is felt
And nothing is left
Between us.

i.
your shoulder blades bend themselves back into wings,
your spine bows under the curved chapel roof ;

ii.
you say gabriel visits you in your sleep,
tells you with to cold eyes and bared teeth soaked in crimson
that you are the messiah,
before speaking about the end of the world,
the ichor in your palms.
red hyacinth dust drifts off his eyelashes,
and apathy falls off his tongue like boiling blood.

iii.
for the next month, there are bruises on your elbows and the remnants of a dead language rattling in your lungs. you wake up in the river, thighs carved with sigils and crows perching on your shoulders, weeping ichor and ancient clay. the names of your newfound kin ring in your ears until your partner confesses that you scream them in your sleep.

iv.
Gabriel visits again, six months after you
realize that your native language has
slipped from your tongue and realize that seclusion is more of a gift than another cross for you to bear, afterwards, you tell me that he had four sets of wings, three eyes, and seventeen hearts, and the most unusual feature was the trembling in his steps, his inability to remain still as he phased in and out of this world into another.

v.
you say his reverence was a holy march, a fragment of bone, an aching lung.

"i was written by a man" this "i was written by a woman" that.
i was written by myself because no one had the energy to pick up a pen and do it for me. i wrote myself with scavenged ink and put myself together bit by bit with agonizing scrutiny because no one wanted to write the details