My tune

Whether late, or whether soon
In the noon, or under moon
Soil will shift and leaf shall grow
Oh what wonders are found below

The green will push and filter through
To greet the air and bloom anew
Violet and amber, crimson and blue
Every scent, and every hue

Spring has come, never late nor soon
Just in time, to colour my tune

Mr Tiggalu

'Where's your brother?'
Sophie ignored the voice and scrubbed her hands furiously with the coarse sponge. Her skin was starting to hurt and the water in the sink turned pink but the blood remained.
'It's just, I haven't seen him in a while,' the voice continued.
The hand wash let out a muffled grunt as she punched the top to let out another ooze of blue gel. She had been scrubbing for so long that the sound of the sponge on her skin became a sort of white noise that drowned out the world outside the bathroom. Like the SHHHH... of a broken television. She hated that sound.
'Why isn't it coming off?' Sophie thought aloud.
'Oh, she speaks.'
Sophie refused to look at him. Looking made it worse. She kept scrubbing. The antiseptic smell of the hand wash was thick in the air. It reminded her of the time she was taken to the hospital. Or was it her brother? She hated hospitals.
'Tut tut tut. It's not working at all is it? You're probably making it worse. Your parents will see. Aren't they on their way home right now?'
Beads of sweat formed on Sophie's forehead. She felt one of them creeping down and wiped it away with her forearm.
'I'm impressed, you know. I don't think I could have done what you did. Brave. Very brave. And cold.'
Sophie's arms were aching. She couldn't keep this up for much longer. But she couldn't let her parents see her like this. She continued fighting the fatigue. How long had she been scrubbing? She ignored the sweat that was now running freely down her face, matting her hair to her temples and stinging her eyes.
'Oh, won't you look at me Soaf?'
He was behind her. Always behind her. Probably sitting on the edge of the bath. Sophie knew him. Knew his voice. She fought the urge to listen, but it was difficult. His voice floated effortlessly; a silk scarf on a gentle breeze, waiting to caress her ears with impossible delicacy.
'Is it the guilt troubling you my dear?'
'I didn't do anything!' she replied, immediately regretting her response.
'The memories are fading again aren't they? Oh Soaf. What's on your hands my dear?'
Sophie felt the fatigue spread. Her eyelids grew heavy, yet she found the growing sense of helplessness almost pleasurable. She enjoyed the way each word seemed to playfully touch her neck and wither to make room for the next. It was calming. Was she still scrubbing? She couldn't hear the sponge.
'You should go find your brother, my dear. Be a good girl and go see where he is.'
Sophie wanted to turn around. Every word increased the urge to look at him.
Maybe it will be ok this time. He wants to help me. But...
'That's it Soaf. Let me help you. You must be so tired.'
Sophie's arms hung limp, dripping pink droplets next to her bare feet. She didn't notice herself in the mirror. She turned her head, although it didn't feel like hers anymore.
As she turned, his last silken words were, 'There she is. My dear Soaf.'
Sophie looked at him. His features were blurred through the sweat in her eyes. Yet, his eyes. Those eyes were clear, and mesmerizing. The dilated pupils. She could see them expanding. Those two black pools reflecting a starless sky. They were growing.
There was no sound. His eyes drew her in, and shut out everything else, as if the air itself was sucked into those deep black wells. Unblinking eyes staring into infinity.
Sophie's calm surrender was interrupted with a sudden shot of panic. What am I doing?! I must not let him! Not again! Please...
She fought for control of her thoughts. He was wrapping himself around them. She felt him slither and coil, tightening his grip in the darkness of her mind.
'It's too late now my pet.'
The voice was back, yet different. This was not a silken touch. This was a shovel scraped along the contours of her brain.
Her eyes were still fixed on his, but Sophie caught a glimpse of the rest of his face as she fought the spell.
His mouth was not a mouth at all but rather a terrible wound infected with teeth. It hung open but didn't move even as the words bruised her brain. Were they his words at all? Surely...
'Who am I?'
Who said that?
Sophie? Sophie? Am I here?
The black pools grew and grew. Sophie felt a pain between her eyes like a nail being driven through her skull. She felt herself wince. Or was that him?
'I don't re..,' Sophie tried to get the words out.
'Don't remember? Your brother remembers. Doesn't he, my pet?'
The grating of his words made her want to retch. Her stomach felt like a snake consuming her heart. One big gulp.
'Listen...'
Sophie heard an almost imperceptibly small voice making its way meekly down the corridor before fading at the bathroom. With it came a whisper of a breeze that cooled the sweat on her forehead.
'Tee-ga Tee-ga Looo...'
'Do you hear him?'
The gentle singing weakened Sophie's resolve. Her knees hit the tiled floor of the bathroom with a crack as her legs gave way. It was so cold.
'Sammy?' she said.
'Tee-ga Tee-ga Booo...'
'He's calling me. Should I go to him?'
Sophie sat on the floor, staring back up into those pools. And that grinning wound.
'You know what I do if I'm called, don't you?'
Tears welled in her eyes. She gave a weak nod.
'All we ask is whooo...'
The moment the singing stopped everything went dark. A sudden WHOOSH removed all light, plunging Sophie's world into the black night of a deep ocean. Her ears were ringing with the SHHHH of a broken TV.
She lifted her aching arms, searching for something to help her up from the wet floor. Her hand found the edge of the sink. She pulled herself up. The shift of her weight was a sledgehammer pounding at her knees. They were sticky with blood.
'Hello?'
Her voice was a feather probing at dead air.
Nothing.
Sophie walked with agonising caution towards where the bathroom door should be. Warm air touched the back of her neck. An exhale. It froze her progress for a moment. She closed her eyes, trying to fight the shiver of fear that threatened to bring her to her knees again.
Forward.
'Tee-ga Tee-ga Looo...'
Sammy. Don't...
'Tee-ga Tee-ga Booo...'
Sophie got to the corridor. She guided herself through the pitch black with her left hand never leaving the wall. The singing was coming from her parents' bedroom. Sammy liked playing in there.
'All we ask is whooo...'
The breathing in Sophie's neck was gone, but she still felt a presence following her. Hovering. Watching. Waiting...
'Is he not me and youuu...'
Sophie made it to her parents' open door. She grabbed onto the door frame. A crushing weight suddenly slammed into her back. The air was ripped out of her lungs. She fell forward, hitting her face on something hard.

Lying face down on the floor, pale grey light seeped into the darkness of her world. Sophie strained to look up. She saw the edge of her parents' bed. The unmistakable silhouette of her brother was sitting there, staring up into vast black pools that hovered over that grinning wound. Sammy...
Utter darkness.

Warm liquid copper. A bloody tooth on shag carpet. Pulsating pain. Crippling fatigue. Sophie was awake.
The sun glared through the window at the far side of the bedroom. Sophie shielded her eyes with her right hand. Where was Sammy?
Her knees were stuck. The blood had caked into the fibres of the carpet. She jerked them free and grimaced at the sting. She crawled farther into the room. She couldn't remember ever feeling this tired. Sophie paused for a moment. Two bare feet came into view around the corner of the bed. She pulled herself along with renewed vigour.
'Sammy?'

Jane fumbled with the keys at the front door as she tried to clutch the grocery bags between her arms while talking on the phone.
'Yes, I'm here now. Finally. Traffic was horrible again. I swear people drive like lunatics just to ruin my day,' she said, opening the front door.
'Well, I'm glad you got home in one piece at least.'
Jane could hear the playful smile in her husband's voice. Then she saw the blood.
'Harry? Oh, God!'
'Jane? What's wrong? What happened?'
Jane's arms went limp. The phone fell to the floor, bouncing twice before sliding underneath the couch. The groceries crashed as well. A milk bottle smashed on the tiles and the white liquid flowed along the grouting to form perfectly square streams.
Jane didn't even notice. Her eyes were fixed on the trail of blood smears that started at the bathroom door and ran along the corridor wall towards the bedroom.
'Sophie?! Sammy?!'
The shrillness of her own voice shocked her.
No one answered.
Jane wanted to run but her feet were heavy. She moved forward as if wading through a swamp. A vice grip was tightening around her chest. The only sounds were her own belaboured breathing and her high heels on the tiles.
She came to the bathroom door after what felt like days. The white porcelain of the sink was a mess of pink and red with blue gel accents, like some grotesque Jackson Pollock forgery.
Tears were stinging her eyes. She followed the red smear along the wall. She saw it was made by a small hand. The bloody hand had pulled a family photo off its nail. The photo featured the quintessential family holiday in the sun. Beaming faces laughed through the cracked and bloodied glass.
A faint, almost ethereal voice turned Jane into a statue. She was only a few steps away from the bedroom. The door was open. Looming. The vice was crushing her lungs.
'Tee-ga Tee-ga Looo...'
'S-S-Se-Sophie?'
'Tee-ga Tee-ga Booo...' 
Jane struggled deeper into the swamp. It felt as though the thick mud was up to her thighs. She reached the doorway.
'All we ask is whooo...'
Another step. Jane almost tripped on her son's favourite toy. It was some character from a kids TV show. She couldn't remember the name. It was covered in blood and there was a tooth lying next to it.
She saw Sophie.
'S-So-Soaf?'
The girl was sitting on the carpet at the foot of the bed, and was staring straight into Jane's eyes. Strands of blood-and-sweat-drenched hair was matted to her forehead. Her mouth hung open and bled onto her shirt.
'Is he not me and youuu...'
The girl's mouth wasn't moving, yet Jane heard her daughter's voice.
'Wh-What...' Jane tried to ask but couldn't find her thoughts.
She rounded the bed. She saw Sammy lying on his back. His throat was slit. His blood had pooled on his little chest. The girl was sitting with his head between her knees. Harry's cutthroat razor was on her lap. The mixture of shock, confusion and despair that throbbed itself through Jane's body was soon overwhelmed by an intoxicating blend of release and mesmerization.
The girl's eyes kept staring. Her twisted expression didn't change. Jane was getting lost in those immense pupils. Those expanding pales of oil in which she wanted to be drowned.
Jane fell to her knees, fully immersed in the dark rhythm of her own insanity.
'Tee-ga Tee-ga Looo... Tee-ga Tee-ga Booo... All we ask is whooo... Is he not me and youuu... Tee-ga Tee-ga Booo... Tee-ga Tee-ga Looo... He whispers then we dooo... Can you hear him tooo...?'

By Moonlight Sonata

Her hand was cold and wet in mine. I strained to pull her free. The moisture on our skin fought the tenuous grasp of our extremities. Her legs had disappeared in the sodden soil. The earth sucked on her limbs, slavering for the rest. In the darkness only the sliver of moon lit her pale skin. Its light failed in her eyes, drowned in the black pool guarded by the fierce blue ring, thinning with the growth of her fear. The weight of the earth wore my spirit down as hours seemed to pass. Sweat crept down my arm in rivulets, defying the chill breeze. Exhaustion would soon crush me. My grip would slip. She was sinking. I could see the clarity surge up into her eyes. She knew. Her grey lips opened and closed yet I heard no words; a fish pulled from the water. The rain came down in a torrent. She was down to her waist. The hole was spreading outward. The soil's toothless gums chewed on my feet. She had given up on trying to speak. She didn't need to. Despair was all that was left to understand in her eyes. The words were washed away, pulled under by the current. The descent quickened with the fall of the rain. Her shoulders were under. My knees met the muddy surface. As her chin felt the earth's touch, her eyes were vacant and her face turned to pallid marble. She let go of me and went under, leaving behind brief bubbles of air that burst under raindrops. 
The sun broke through the clouds, searing through them until only the blue of her eyes remained. The soil hardened around my legs, locking me in place as I stood watching the dirt transform through the hand that had held her. In that position I remained, unable to move. "She was taking me as well," I thought as my eyes closed. 
When I woke, the wind was blasting me. That which the soil had not swallowed was covered in sand and dirt. I could still see my hand grasping at the air in front of me. Her bubbles left circles on top of the soil wherein she lay. My eyes closed once more, and could not open. There I was, a prisoner in arenite skin. In darkness. Loss and sorrow flooded my thoughts. I wanted to be broken, smashed into little pieces and pulverised until nothing remained. Instead the wind eroded me. Whittling away at my sediment at a geological pace. The years shaved away at my layers until only the core was exposed. By then I had forgotten the struggle with the elements. Her face was nothing but the shift of the top soil through the seasons. With time the meaning and desperation of that night slipped from my mind's grasp. I had become a part of the forces I had fought. Where hope had once fueled the futility of my rebellion, I now crumbled and scattered in the wind that which was left of me, that which I never possessed, was lost.

The Show

As the shadows lengthen on our street, and the sounds of industry are drowned
The turning of the cogs slow, and weary muscles ease 
The foreman releases us for the evening, to rebel within the constraints of fleeting freedom

As we walk the trail to our homes, we catch a glimpse of the sun's descent
And as that red fringe dissolves in the ocean, a silence falls over every one
A chilling stir is felt, unspoken, as the purple glow lingers
A current pulling at our core 
An ebb towards the edge of the horizon
Recognition of this eternal show reflecting in each of our eyes

As the day's end gathers strength, to pull the veil of night over the shifting canvas above,
the sun builds its fury elsewhere, to break a new day and rise once more

For the hour glass is tipped 
And the sand flows to the shore

The Skinless Man

The skinless man didn't make a scene. In fact the skinless man didn't draw attention. The skinless man seemed almost serene. That's why the skinless man is worth a mention.

The skinless man first looked at me on the bus. Well, stared. But that wasn't his fault. You see, the skinless man had no lids on his eyes. So staring was all he had.
He was sitting at the front of the empty bus when he turned his head and spotted me. Calmly he stood up and made his way towards my seat. Despite his obvious health problems, he positively strode down the isle. I wasn't scared, or even nervous. Because apart from his exposed muscles and tendons gleaming in the morning sun, he seemed like a nice enough chap.
"May I have your skin?" he asked, or so I assumed as it was impossible to make out a word the skinless, lipless, lidless man had to say.
"What for mister?"
"Oh nothing peculiar. I only wish to wear it. If you don't mind."
The skinless man was painfully polite despite his obvious blood loss. 
"Why sure mister. I'll have it off in a jiffy," I said as it seemed like the right thing to do, especially considering how polite I imagined him to be.
"I always carry my pocket knife. Well, uh... right here in my pocket in fact!"
He would have smiled at that I was sure, had he only had lips and cheeks at his disposal.
The lipless, cheekless man stood in what I assumed was awe as I plunged the two-inch blade into my neck. It seemed like as good a place as any to start. The pain was indescribable, but I didn't want the skinless man to feel bad so I cut and cut right down my side until I reached my toes without as much as a squeek. Then I came back up, back down and back up the other side until I made it all the way round to the first cut.
The skin fought against me as I pulled at it but it eventually gave in and peeled off. The blood was something fierce, but it wasn't every day you got the chance to give a skinless man a lump of skin. So who was I to complain?
"There you go mister," I said, handing the speechless man my cut-up skin.
He didn't say a word, or so I imagined. He simply started pulling my skin over his bloody bones and meat. Just like putting on a shirt.
The skin wasn't quite enough to cover his entire body but he kind of made it work by pulling it tight and stretching my skin to its limits, and in some places putting up with a couple of tears.
I'll be honest, he looked worse than before. But what can you say to a skinless man who was putting on your skin? He seemed positively content with the outcome. 
"Hey that's a great look!" I said. "Who knew you looked so good in a boy's skin!"
That made the skinned man burst with laughter. My bloody lips almost tore with the force of his joy. I felt like saying, "Hey take it easy with those!", but thought better of it. "They're his lips now," I reminded myself. "You can't blame him for using them, now can you?"
It was strange looking at the man of former skinless fame. He had my face after all. That's how people recognised me. Wasn't it? I wondered if people would recognise him. 
Watching him made me feel sick after a while. Completely skinless or completely skinned. Was that right? I think that's the same thing. Maybe. Anyway, either way is ok but in the middle was horrifying. At least he was happy, or appeared to be, considering he was smiling through a skinless boy's previous bloody attire.
Relief was what I felt when he got off at the next stop. For I couldn't close my eyes to avoid the gruesome sight. I was skinless you see. I only had staring. Because that's the nature of things when you're skinless and lidless, waiting to bleed out on the bus.

meat

rear
rend
sunder 
cut 
from life in one
breathe in void
swallow filth
mutate to fit
tear from spilling wombs 
inject
brand
reject
sear
repeat

fledgeling flames forsake fetal futures
fucked and flayed formaldehyde freaks
thalidomide-faced abominations,
the meat

riven asunder
cut from one
tossed into void
swallowed
a perfect fit 
torn apart
mutated
to feed the flame
burnt in fear
piece of meat
rear
repeat
sear
repeat

36193

Tide bleeds toward the shore
Ravens stab at flesh
Beaks of steel in grey
Depraved unity
Torn from nests 
Unfeeling hands
Machine instinct 
on display
on display
Fueling matricide in stark morrows
Vengeance for fallen brothers 
Unfettered brutality 
Fallacy of nature 
A distant play
For all to see 
For all to see 

Chaos pulls discordant 
ends