Writing the fourth:

Kathy: Eva and I for today have decided to alternate which stanza we wrote! I’m not telling which, you gotta figure out yourself! Only people who have known me (or us) for a while will get it, I recon! 🤭💜

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My dad told me to close my eyes, not at the pools of blood- but at the man, who had *that* look in his eyes

My dad told me to scream, to suffer, to reach out to the stars and burn my palms, to reach through oblivion, through damnation, through to hell and back

He taught me well, that scream saved my life. The burns on my arms are proof of my serving in hell. I walk back with a smile

Yet I yearn to soar the blood stained skies of innocence, to reach back into my youth and pull manacles of rot and feels, yet they strengthen like steels and drag me into the depths of my mind’s non-existent eye, oh to suffer a fate worse than death — of nonexistence and forgetfulness. Here still to question humanity of mine.

Innocence? I can barely recall that word. Was I innocent once? Or branded apon entry- was there a youth in which to remenice? Saving yourself from a fate worse than death comes at a costly price. My dad now tells me to close my eyes.

Yet with the dark comes the light

It burns me and etches its signature to my bone, it kisses me and tears my flesh raw. Stars shine and a stained glass reflects the blood of my hate. My cynicisms. My deathlessness. My hate for those who take me and guide me. My hate for all.

Hate is heavy, hate is comfy, it tucks me into bed, it tells me to close my eyes, it tells me who to trust, it tells me stories, it loves me and leaves no room for others

Yet tales fall on deaf ears. I lash out violent, push all away as I embrace my hate. Sensory deprivation overwhelming my senses as I scratch at the fabric, I can only scream a harpy’s spite as I crawl back into the warm recesses of my minds myopia

My mind wills sleep, aware of the alternative. Absence is always the first response- my body trying to protect itself from the dangers of consciousness. And it works. Every. Single. Time.

Sleep is the cousin of death

Heaven the cousin of hell

As I descend to hades’s dwell’

My reality tears, the taste of trauma my Macbeth