oh how quiet, how radiant each face shines

as the fire talks back: the weary travelers of life

sit by a stone, warmed by company when the lonely

road threatens to tear at sanity trying to preserve

and losing fast, each step towards the shadows being cast

when footsteps are only heard, with no other sound

though it is said the forest is alive with people.

hear, hear, pug, pedro, val, lilith, sharon, lucy and hal

they cast their eyes on each other, exchanging tales

of experiences hard won, easy pleasure and painful one

rather not taken: “paths – a born sadness“

a glimmer, a twitch, a cough, an embarrassed giggle

words whispered across thin air, ears pink,

the forest eyes gleam, ears elongating within the dark

to listen, to catch a juicy gossip of those forgotten times … …

then lilith said, and what a wretched time it was

just from a lack of power, infant, children have no place

because of their stature, morality is alive only to those

who wield a sword. what a tiny weak thing i was,

ugly as well, then i blossomed, saw as i became a teenager

the changes that came when bosom burst forth,

a subtle change in demeanor from the opposite sex,

almost reverence even. that’s when my life changed.

ah yes … … pedro sighs, those times i rather not think about,

dream about them i do, it can’t be helped when i am unconscious

what i see, feel, make light, take a few puffs and tomorrow’s burden

falls off your back, works wonders tell ya,

dreams only became dreams, not nightmares

when i too had my share of whippings, i laugh now

because i rather believe this version, truth is whatever i make

of it you know, we all know that, reality is not fixed,

hey take another drink, watch the smoke rise, fantasies become alive

it is how i have lived my life, shit happens, take another puff, smile.

val: enough of this nonsense, as if life could be riddled away

to obscurity with pain being dressed as pleasure, how absurd

the rod that spares the child, the child who grows up

not in anger, turns to be normal, remarkable even

few want to mention for myths must be solidified,

it is what we tell ourselves each day even

when alternatives abound, our past echoes to our hearts,

something amiss, a quest, a mission to fulfill this emptiness

surely i have not missed that train.

then sharon exclaimed: i share lilith’s sentiments, an oak tree

that adapts not break, i rather be the willow, flexible, adaptable,

be all things, a chameleon if you will when the world is

really just us living together with a bunch of objects,

some claim to have heard the divine, i say horseshit

and i smell a big fat rat. did they become the divine?

still i suppose it could be true, i would not know,

the divine most certainly spoke not to me, thus

it would not be horrid for me to think poorly of them

for otherwise i should have heard something too

when slaps came fast just because i did something

seen as wrong, who decides? they. bigger, stronger they.

lucy weeps and sobs, shaking her head … … but no, they loved

you, to speak of such love in this manner is a manner most

improper, most cruel to those that went through such hardship

to make life livable, for the weak, the child, how can they know?

of beast, monsters, serpents that whisper even when seduction

stings the heart, numbs it such that a person no longer cares

for anything but the deliverer of the toxin? a hellish world we do

live in, thus the slaps were to remind. then spoke hal now to break

the silence that came about with Lucy’s tears: damn with tears, with lament

of what was never, musings perhaps when the dead are long gone,

care to bring them back the most loving memories? care to heal? or

be the child who hides under the desk, yes, daddy is coming back

to give another smack, his hands are large and he is strong! so lilith and rogue

seem more adaptable, more true to the cause of pragmaticism, isn’t that

what any living being really wants?