Lamb

There was a doleful serenity to the spaces within her eyelids. She gazed at the world like it was a gift. Startled and awed by all that presented itself to her. Flitting and fawning between each obstacle, gingerly charmed by all that existed. She was a lamb. Soft and innocent, carefree and curious. Trotting through hardships as if she was lightly skipping through a blossoming meadow. That was before the shepherd arrived. Riding on an ethereal cloud, mighty and undeniable in his superiority. He was a beacon of hopes beyond her means and he exploited that trust, that enamoured delusion. He offered to her a hand, filled with nourishments she could barely comprehend. All the evils and wonders of the hidden world, sinister and tantalizing in their splendor. She gorged on their plenty, her mouth desperate and hungry. She ate and ate, never thinking about where the subsistence descended to after the explosion of taste consumed her. She got high on it. Ravaged by the frenzied euphoria that the treats imbued within her. But they began to take their toll. Her organs churned and her mind depleted. She began to notice the darkness in the world, she grew weary of it round the corners of her flouncing walks. Warped manifestations stemmed from her naivety and she lost her way, straying from the path of daffodils and purity and stumbling further into debauchery. It consumed her, plucked her like a bag of meat and slaughtered her. It sprayed her sinew on the sidewalk, the concrete prison that had sprung from her delicate gardens and it humiliated her. It carved her into prime segments and sold her to the hands of demons, the impish guards of evil. It ravaged her simple mind and deflowered her virgin heart.  It left her dirty and abandoned. Lost and confused. Her bright white fluffy coat of innocence besmirched and her beliefs shattered all around her, she hardened. She formed an exterior of doubt and ridicule, one she exercised readily. The only soft spot that remained, that foible beneath her heart - that belonged to the shepherd. And he would poke at it, molest it until it bled raw, deform her insides beyond repair, strike her from the earth itself - before he would let happiness sprout from her valleys once more.

Fall

His eyes fell upon the descending leaf as it fluttered to it's grave beneath his feet. Fall was here. He could smell it on the air, crisp and heavy. He could feel it's hands lightly touching his shoulders, the places where skin was exposed from his light clothing choices. He could sense it clutching at the caress of summer that had gripped his body these past few months. He could feel it's grip being loosened from around him, and he was afraid. His foot grazed the leaf, he heard it crunch under his stride. He took to a seat on a bench facing the play park. The mellifluous cries of the joyful children warmed his heart. He saw fathers and mothers standing watch, their protective gaze scanning the unknown faces around them. Like lions guarding a herd they waited, patience etched into every wizened line of their troubled faces. He stayed to the shadow of the mighty oak, being sure to remain half hidden in plain sight. He watched the golden curls of a passing girl reflect the light from the mid-afternoon sun. They shone orange where the sun kissed them, and blazed yellow where they hid from it's glow. Ever changing, the shimmer and flash of a liquid sunset mirrored within each lowly strand. He smiled as he was bathed in the luminosity. He saw to his right a young woman sat silently crying, staring with unfixed eyes at him. He knew she couldn't really see him, she was too engrossed in her own torturous thought. She wore dark lipstick, the race tracks from her shadowed eyes mingled in with her lip's lurid hue at the corners creating a tenebrous pool of black. He wondered, if not a little condescendingly, if perhaps when her outside began to match her standoffish appearance - she felt a little bit proud, as if she finally deserved the medals of  misery she wore on her wrists. He returned his gaze to the playing children, marveling in their delicate purity. He longed to be a child again, to be blessed with such virtue - to revel in his own naivety. To battle only the giants of the playground, to know no troubles but grazed knees and broken pinky-swears. But here he sat instead, a man. Whoever he was didn't matter. Only the location, the motive, and the time mattered now - exactly to the second. The lives of every person around him all intertwined in this poignant moment and they would never untangle. His past was of no relevance and his future did not exist. All that lay before him were open chest cavities, marrow freezing screams and slack-jawed mouths that would never smile again. And as the nameless man sighed and envied the innocence, he pushed the detonator that would destroy it.

Petal

I've been cursing a rose. Every morning, incessantly, it brushes against my murky window. Squeak, squeak, squeak. I lie and I dream of it's destruction as I roll in torment contained to the space between my sweat sodden sheets. I can not move to stop it, I can only dream of it's halt. I did not know the nature of what I was condemning until today, until Tanya moved the curtain too far and it finally came into my view. As she propped me up to feed me my eyes fell on the rose's tragic beauty and I lost my breath. I'd imagined it to be a twig, a lowly and feeble thing, something so ordinary and dead - reflecting my existence. But there it was, it's pink flourish mocking me, reminding me of the life once in me, now so irrevocably depleted. Tanya left me to my own thoughts, exiting through the only door, one i will never have the pleasure to walk through. I exhaled shakily, my own decrepit version of a sigh. I sat, slumped against the crackling sheet of the mattress, and tried to feel my body. I wiggled my fingers strenuously, surprised by how much such a simple act pained me. I wondered existentially if i'd ever really been able to feel my body, to sense the organs I could not locate now - enjoy them pumping in their desperate way, futilely rushing the blood around my ungrateful body. Maybe I never could. Maybe I'm mourning for a feeling i am a virgin to, coveting something that does not, can not, physically remain. Or maybe I just never noticed the activity, as I was too busy living.
    I felt a line of drool extending from my lax mouth and down my freshly shaven chin. I attempted to wipe it away, to be rid of it's embarrassment - but my arm did not complete the motion it was so instructed to. Instead it shook in protest, still confined to it's grave above my sheets. The more I tried to ruse it, the more it disobeyed until eventually a second moisture, one cascading from my bulging eyes, mingled in with drool and both fell to their deaths just above my chest. I thought in that moment of every cigarette i'd ever refused in the fear of cancer, every occasion i'd ever worn a rubber in wake of the fear of infection, ever girl i'd ever not kissed to avoid rejection, to feign off regret. I thought of these things, of the intricate and undeniable components of a dreadfully wasted life. What did it all mean now? Now my body was no longer my vessel of vigor, but one for disease and decay. They were ripe within me and I couldn't stand it. I moved my leg, struggling against the condition in my mind screaming at me to stop. I dragged it over the edge of the bed and the other followed, a dutiful pal - and I fell to the floor like a haunted rag doll. I lay in a crumpled heap, my chest heaving in panic. I turned onto my back and gazed through the somber window. My voice could not produce words, it simply rasped in an ethereal manner - it would take them hours to find me. I felt a light warmth spread from my crotch and as I heard the drip of liquid I knew my final civilized ability had left me. Humanity stripped from me I lay stagnant. Out of the corner of my eye I could make out the rose, it's hue soft and comforting - a petal fell from it as I watched it, swaying carefree in the spring breeze. Squeak, squeak, squeak.