Author S. K. Nicholas

Ancient statues. Burning lanterns. Arrows piercing flesh and bone. Arrows inside the temple of the mind. Golden Pavilions, and luscious gardens of wheat and aged dolls. Porcelain flesh. Guerillas in the midsts of somewhere unseen. Animal instinct. Time ticking out. A car crashes in foreign lands; dust and burning suns screaming as a soul not yet ready to be taken slips from this realm to the next. Wolves at the door. Fingers open and lifeless. Fortune passes. Love desiring to be found while others bow down to laws and forms of passive glory. Broken metal. Crimson smiles as yellow sands dance around lifeless limbs. Duct tape and cinnamon swirls. Notes from a lover. Indian summers. Birdsong drifting to the heavens. Tyre tracks in the dirt. In a split second, everything loses its meaning. From a God to a devil then back again. In view of all mirrors, there’s no escaping these mountains of fate. We are bound to their shadows. We are forever destined to suffer beneath their gaze. Sister on a ledge. Raindrops that hush out of sight. Etched into your heart, these feelings have no other purpose than to be swallowed whole. Crayons not knives. Bubblegum not battle. A fiesta of springtime chivalry. Gothic pout and tremulant disdain. Hare Krishna. Cryptic like the steam coming from the crumpled hood of a convertible. Cracked windscreen. Exhaust fumes and black’d oil. It swims and slithers across the ground. It swallows holy martyrs without restraint. We say don’t let these days escape, yet they disappear without warning. The Sandman comes calling. He comes singing songs we know not of. Coins on the seabed. Pearl bracelets, flung deep down wishing wells. Switchblade pandemonium. Hands upon her body. Tongue inside her sex. Layers of time and space spreading wide like the pages of a book. Immortal together, we eat fire and die. Embracing the flames until they take away every last inch of what we don’t need. Lullabies and souls sweeping closer on sidewalk number nine.