The Great Campaign

Lay down your shield
She doesn't want your protection, anymore.

Lay down your sword
She doesn't want you to fight for her, anymore.

Lay down your helmet
She doesn't need you valor, anymore.

Release your breast plate,
Let it fall to the dirt.
She doesn't need your strength, anymore.

Take off your sabaton
She doesn't want you to stand guard, anymore

Warrior unwanted.
Knight released.

Relieve your post.
March off into the night.

Love me dammit

Find a way to love me dammit!

I hurt you and you hurt me

But your face torments my mind

So find a way to love me dammit.

Like a time lapsed sunset, 

my world went into darkness when you left

I raced to find greener fields but came upon a dessert

So find a way love me again dammit

I kissed my soul into yours

we filled that jug of bliss and now it's in pieces, 

there's no one else to give it to.

So find a way love me dammit

I swear I hated you for breaking my heart

Living with a hollow in my chest

Now I cant love anyone again

So find a way to love me again dammit

You sit in your pain, well I sit in a void 

plastered with walls of your face and how we touched

Crushed by how intense our pleasure was

So find a way to love me dammit

I can't walk away, because my legs won't move

I cant love again because my heart was branded as yours

I can't feel again because my skin is you

So find a way to love me again dammit

Blaze me with your anger

Go ahead, shout your pain in my face

I can't go anywhere anyway

So find a way to love me again dammit

List out all the things I did

Guilt me with everything I did

But will bare it until you're done

So find a way to love me dammit

Cast away from your heart

but I'm chained to it

A lock that will not come off

So find a way to love me dammit

Give me back your embrace

Give me back your lips

Give me back your eyes.

Turn around and love me again...dammit!

Carcass

I stare inside on my life like a homeless beggar.

I watch my life proceed without me.

The party ensues.

No one realise or cares that my carcass on the table is simply that.

Music plays, people walk by, friends, family, strangers.

When they need something signed, they hold my hand on a pen and sign my name, laugh and walk away.

When they need money, they roll my body over and fish in my wallet for what they want, laugh and walk away.

Girlfriends and exes, sit on me and shove my rigored dick inside them, fuck me then walk away.

This whole party celebrates but mocks me at the same time.

I stare in.

Watching this life go on without me.

I'm dead, inside, but outside, I don't exist.

My shell is just for their amusement.

Their chatter of how they think of me is not whispered here, but openly shared like conquered quests, as they match story for story. Many lines starting with "remember that time..." then ending with everyone laughing.

My rotting body lays there and the bustle of the night flows on.

They lean on me as they talk and share drink. I guess they feel that means I was included.

They roll me over again and take more money.

A drunk girl leans over and proffesses how great her love is but then gets up and walks away.

Another straddles me again.

Everyone in this room is celebrating their benefit from me, but I am dead, inside and outside I don't exist.

Behind this glass window I watch time pass. I feel the season's on the back of my neck. But inside, my rotted stenched body lays and they party goes on.

They roll my body again and this time there was nothing to find so they curse me and walk away. The girls come over but there's nothing left to shove inside them, so they curse me and walk away. The drunk girl came back to proffess her love and when my dead lips didn't answer, she cursed me and walked away.

They came to use my signature but with crumpled fingers of no more use, they curse me and walked away.

People started to leave, not because of the stench of my corpse, but because there was nothing more they could use.

I watch them leave, until it was just me outside the window staring at me, dead inside. As they passed me outside, they glimpsed at me like I didn't exist. The real me never mattered. They turned their heads after seeing me...the real me, living, breathing, feeling. But that meant nothing to them. I might as well have been dead to them.

Silence took over. Standing alone outside the window to my life, watching the empty quiet room, as I wait to be adopted, by death. Maybe there, I will matter.

Cloud

Sometimes the cloud in your mind is so thick that everybody's advice only seems like lightning rather than a silver lining.

Sometimes the cloud is so thick you end up protecting the cloud.

Why? Because the cloud has become all you have.

Sunshine on your skin is an ancient parable.

A cool afternoon breeze seems like someone else's dream that you're not allowed to steal.

Misery is your milk, feeding the hopelessness in your veins and in your cloud, your supply is endless.

The cloud owns you, it dances you, it replaces your eyes with a grey space.

Nothing positive that comes in survives in your desert mind.

A trail of dead sunflowers mark a line off into the horizon back to somewhere you've forgotten.

You stare at it and wonder why it's there.

This cloud is yours.

Its gift, though a vast nothingness, makes you feel like a king of a thousand cities...wave at your subjects.

The cloud is your life, a magnificent blindfold serving as your crown.

The lightning strikes fade away and you go to sleep, in its bosom.

You Cannot Stop A Sunrise

2 men fought in the woods.

Eventually and as old as time the successor prevailed when the other was shoved off the cliff.  Sunrise marked this event but so did a woman who came out to pray and saw. He gave chase, for fear of witnesses. Succeeding again but this time needing to hide her motionless body, he dumped her body in a a lake. As he climbed out the lake the earth rumbled, cracked the lake's belly and drained the water away exposing the cocoon he intended for her final resting place. Dismayed, he dragged and buried her on the mountain side cursing the sky as he worked. The next day there was a terrible thunder storm causing a mud slide, unearthing her and sailing body down to the middle of the town and stopped right in front of the town church. The aftermath of search teams looking for the living found her. The cocoon eerily unwrapped by a rescue worker found a faint and very weak pulse and immediately rushed her to the nearest hospital. 

The woman recovered, suffering some brain damage. With a slow and agonizing 2 years of therapy, the woman was able to tell the police what she saw, what happened to her.  A subsequent search found the man 3 months later and he was sent to prison.

When he knocked her in her head she didn't die she only fell into a coma and in his haste, bound her body leaving some air and the earthquake came just in time before the air ran out. When he moved her body to bury her he put old ply wood over her body inadvertently leaving some air. When the mudslide unearthed her body, it flipped her on to the ply wood sailing her down the hill right to the church delivering her as on a sliver platter. 

Some say coincidence, others say divine intervention. I like to think that since God knows and sees all, this woman was born specifically to bare witness and was called into action that morning when he whispered to her to go out and pray. Once God declared her so nothing was going to stop that from happening because it was already written.

Bleed

Walking on broken glass, pieces slicing my feet.
But my only concern is that I don't bleed out before I make it back to you.
Your anger broke the windows and shoved me back.
I even took all my clothes off to show you I am not the enemy.
I walk this glass back to yo to show you that I'm here for you and only you.

My bare body, this walk, this blood, I dedicate to you, my love.
Your beast knows me, I'm sure of it, let me come and calm your soul.
Everyone walked away from you, but I do this walk towards you.
Let me be bare this witness to you.

I'll forget about the bruises, this time...again.
I'll forget about everything you said.
Just let me be yours.
Let me be your comfort.

What I see in you, no one else can see.
I see my home in you
No matter how many times you threw me out
Our love is meant to be.

This pain in my mortal body is my sacrifice to your throne
See how my bleeding  is silent as I only want to scream in passion for you.
Take my broken bare bleeding body
My life if yours as long as I get to love you.

Champion

If it was an argument, I'd win and walk away with a smile.
It it was a fight, it would be bloody and vicious but my victory would be sweet.
If it was a war, it would be calculated and precise and I would take your flag over slit throats with blood on my boots.
If it was a hunt, the kill would be silent and the skin be my new coat with the head in my trophy room waiting for stories to be rgailed.

If it were anything else, I would come out on top every time.
But this was not the usual clash and battle.
It wasn't about fists, knives, bullets or flags.
This was about her coming back in my life and I had to decide.

No enemies, just entangled love with other.
Now, to her I had to break hearts.
I had to rip dreams, I had to unkiss them, I had to rot hopes.
They wanted what she wanted but she deserved it more.

Why did she have to come back now, at this time.
But I unsheathed my sword anyway and I killed their desires.
This time as I walk to her holding my crown, 
It wasn't rose petals but pieces of broken heart being thrown on at my feet.

Her love costed theirs and this victory was bittersweet.
I cannot unlove but I can love deeper, with her.
The wine in my cup was their tears but she will be in my bed tonight.
I'll make love to her then fall asleep to nightmares of them.

She will kiss my forehead while they haunt me inside.
Slain love doesn't die like soldiers on a field.
It haunts you and all you see is them on their knees, holding their hearts in their hands.
A love I never thought I was waiting on, greater than them all came back for me, I chose but this trophy, is heavy.

I broke hearts to to hers, I ruined lives to live my life with hers.
I can only hope the haunting and nightmares end some day.
One eye sees her smile, the other sees the pain I caused.
A win that cost too much.

The Fruit of Pain

When hate is all you've been given, when hate is all you've known to survive on, when hate is all you've been taught, then hate is what you've become.  And I'm not just talking about the outward disdain of others, that's too easy and child's play.  I'm talking about deep seated resentment that gets born from secrets exposed.  I'm talking about the need for spite that comes from failed loyalty.  I'm talking about time and time again, people who claim to have your back but were only riding on your side for what they could get until the getting was over.  Fake lovers, torn and disrupted, bleeding from an infraction that never healed. Putting my heart on the line to say "yes you", but you said "no" and walked away.  Worse is the love that gets reeled in slowly because they didn't want to work through a challenge.  The love that gets filtered.  The love that gets hidden, the love that gets diluted or inflated.  All of these have graced the table that I was meant to feast at.  Bitter meals for years have turned my blood into poison and I no longer remember what a rose smells like.  I see one and all I do is expect it's death.
I especially enjoy when my hate gets turned towards someone so I can play my fantasies of death with them. Pouncing on them in the middle of the night, ripping their chest cavity open to feel their still beating heart or sometimes a sweeter feeling is to just squeeze their neck and watch their fight dwindle until nothing moves.  That drain from them is like a filling to me as I've finally got someone to feel what I feel every time she lied.  Every time she said she loved me when she didn't, every time she said he was with a friend when she was not, everytime she said she was at work but she was out with someone else.  A small taste of that betrayal I am able to return and it feels so good that sharing this pain takes away my loneliness...company for a few moments, stolen though it may be.
Why was it always taken away, why was it never given to me freely the way I was ready to give it to them.  Every time, taken away like you take toy from a child for breaking a vase. Never once did she stand in the hurricane and call my name.  Never once did she let the Carnival sail away and wait for me.  Never once did she fight even after receiving the first blow.  I was never worth their salt even when I poured my blood from my own neck on their feet and washed their heels with it. I drowned over and over again seeking the love to match what I had to give and not once did she think I was worth a cold night. Death to them all.

Frozen Secrets

Covered in snow, frozen deep under.

Hidden so long, the tracks to their places have been lost.

Covered so long even their details have been forgotten

But hidden they must stay.

Melting them away to see my true face

Warming my heart away from their pain

Making me create new tracks going away from them

Determined you are it seems.

Bring your fire, I see the blaze in your eyes

Bring your desert heat, I feel it in your chest

Show me the hand you will use to rescue me.

Show me the paradise in your body, my new home.

But you may have to scream louder than a phoenix

You may have to burn brighter than a thousand comets

You may have to shake my frozen tundra harder than a planet breaking in two.

My eyes and ears ache to see you win

Until then, I sit with my rock of ages

Torn, broken beaten, forgotten...frozen

Never to see what real love is, ever again.

So try my love...try.

Things That Come

11pm.
Dark fingers with steely hair reach up.  
Tap tap tap, black finger nails strike the window.
"come out come out, its time to play, we missed you."
The taps on the window echo in the dark room somehow in slow motion.  They reach his ears and his eyes open.  A heavy sigh instead of a sleepy exhale.  No sleep tonight...again.
"We are here for you to pay us with your dreams, pay us for all the wicked and evil things you have done...yes...yes."
As he sits up he can now see through the window where the taps came from and behind the hand still on the glass he could see a group of black misfigured demons nodding their heads.  Nodding to a rhythm he can't follow.  
"Ah there you are, come with us, it is time, we are here to feed on you because you deserve no sleep wicked one''  and with the dark night sky behind them, they start to dance. Their ugly bodies moving to a silent song beyond the glass.  He sits and stares almost hypnotized but not quite. They dance to put him in a trance so they can replace his thoughts and turn his vision inside to make him watch reels of thoughts, thoughts of all those he hurt.  But tonight they show him more than what he did, they show him what happened to them after.  He sat there in this captive state, his body their hostage while they torture him with their pain.
An ery voice whisper in, "wicked must see what wicked do, you wicked but you do not see wicked man, but we are here to take payment for your wickedness, you will not sleep, you will not be happy, we will come every night and take from you what you take from them" 
Hours pass with the man sitting up in this trance, watching their pain become his nightmares, over and over and over again.  They dance, dark ugly shadows of demons right outside the window, prancing in their dream conjuring, feeding the pain of those he hurt while stealing his happiness.
The dark blue night gets tipped with orange and they stop dancing and vanish.  His body falls back to bed dazed and tired. Only one hour to sleep before the alarm goes off in an hour. Tonight, they will be back.

I Need To Be Super Human

I need to be super human
For her gaze will weaken your knees and you will fall.

I need to be super human
For her touch will light your skin ablaze and burn a passion in your mind you could never imagine.

I need to be Superhuman
For her kiss will rip you from this earth and transport you to another galaxy.

I need to be super human
For her words of love will drown you in an abyss of delight that you will never be normal again.

I need to be superhuman
For every man before me was never strong enough to give her the love she needs.

I need to be super human
For my days loving her will be only to lift her up as my queen.

I need to be super human 
For the nightmares of her past pain comes like a dragon and my hugs need to be the shield that rocks her back to sleep.

I need to be super human
Because I cannot give her one lifetime when she offers forever.

I need to be super human
For my love will burst my chest if I never get the chance to love her.

I need to be super human
For if she walks away I could never live.

Shelia

My mother was treated inferior
But she still didn't become wayward

My mother didn't throw away her life because she was thrown away.

My mother's life was hard
But we were treated like royalty

My mother was raised where the only lesson was that life was hard and no one cares
But she says my room is always here, no matter how hard my own life gets

My mother was forced to go to school barefoot
But we always had more than we needed

My mother was shown hatred and neglect
But she has shown us nothing but tolerance and support

My mother could have given up on hope
But when I'm lost, she always knows what to say.

My mother had to hide to study and was still held from taking exams
But when we needed something for school, the world had to wait till she made it happen. 

The darkness they beat into her back
She chipped away with her little light

Every hit was a hammer's blow to the iron that made her sword.
Instead of breaking her, it made her strong, stronger than any woman I know.

That strength, she passed on to us.
The hope stolen from her, she gave back to us in her words.

We now know how to love because she wasn't loved
This woman was never broken down by her past, she was built up by it.

My mother is the Barefoot Queen, hunter of Love and gatherer of peace
We are the presentation of what she never had and we stand proud in her fight, her will her love.

All hail my Queen, my mother.
Her name is Shelia.

My Gravity

That inexplicable gravitational pull. It's not love or choice...it exists beyond your permission, does without asking and ages not, over time space or separation. Fighting it is pointless as its torment is relentless. Obey it like a leaf to the wind and feel its magnitude take over your insides like 2 planets in a slow collide. That is you to me and me to you. It exists for us and we will listen to its inaudible commands. 
Give me you and take my soul. Us is ours.

Don't Call

There's that point when you've been hurt by someone and the anger starts to dissolve and you're human side wants to forgive.  So the anger turns to missing and the missing cries out in your soul.  It grabs your lips and makes you remember the kisses.  It cups your bosom and makes them ache for his hands.  You squeeze your thighs together and you remember how he filled your soul.
So you go and sit and stare at your phone, fingers itching to call...but don't....don't.

That spell was too big for the both of you, neither were you ready for it.  The passion drew you in and some truths were forgotten under the name of lust. He hurt you because that's the cost of choosing to be blind and you got hurt because you were too eager to feel again...don't call....don't call.

I know you want to fix it, go slow, ask more questions, but you don't get a full summer day in the middle of winter.  That fire burnt exactly the way it was supposed to burn and now it's out.  Staring at embers seeing his body on yours and smoke clouding your senses trying to feel something that you cannot repeat.  You lost yourself in passion and it's OK, gather yourself...don't call...don't call.

He's a wolf smitten and bitten, crawled in a cave to hide his pride and lick his wounds, leave him be. He danced like a gypsy in your love and he gave too, caught up in your rapture that you poured out like free rounds at a bar. You can't blame him for the love you fed him.  His wounds will be permanent scars and he will never forget and maybe never look for happiness again because your body haunts his eyes, the wind trickles your perfume in his nose, every time he warms up from the cold he will remember your arms, when the thunder claps he will remember your voice keeping him calm.  But he will also remember your tears, every time it rains, let him have his torment...don't call..don't call.

Let your heart bleed, the bleeping will stop.  Let your body ache, the aching will stop.  But if you call you're going to hurt yourself again because that fire burned exactly the way it was supposed to burn and burned out the way it needed to burn out.  It was good, it was fun and now it's over.

Don't call...don't call.

Little Faces

Hate

Sometimes feels like it should be our fate.

In a a country among the greatest of nations

We refuse to have the simplest of conversations

We fight and shot all the time

While those in charge are sitting too high.

Our bullets screams and tears can't reach them

Because they hold the keys and know we will bend.

Bend to feed our families 

And bend to protect those little faces.

Faces that just want to play 

But the old teach them what to say.  

Breeding value into color

Ruining everyone's summer

Kids can't play together

Because we've taught them to think about who is better.

Laughs never get to touch the air

Smiles never get to be born

But we've guaranteed they will be torn

Over something people who are dead have sworn.

Beliefs that mean nothing now 

While we shout "get in the car now!"

Ripping them from a new Black friend

Ripping them from a new Asian Friend

Ripping them from a new Middle Eastern Friend

Ripping them from a new White friend

That rip in their minds will never end.

Who do we feed when we hate

Who do we feed when we shoot

Who do we feed when we stab

Who do we feed when we kick

Kill the stories

Kill the lessons

Kill the ripping

Open their minds

Open their hands

Open their eyes

Give them the power that was already theirs waiting for them

Watch the beauty that will happen, if we all forgot color.

The Prince's Crown

I kiss my mother's feet 
She has walked the valley of shadows
With those feet she has aldo stood stead fast
Waiting for her champion.

I kiss my father's hands
He has fought for his place in this world
Lost and won but built his life
He continue to protect his queen.

I kiss my sister's forehead
her knowledge and guidance
Patience and peace
She gives to me in times of need.

I kiss my brother's shoulder
A fellow knight and shield on my right arm
To fight and Strive
sharing in the spoils of our endeavours.

I touch the crown of my head, I see my Kingdom.
I look at my shoulders, I know the weight I will need to bear.
I look at my hands, I know the fight they will be asked for.
I look at my feet, I know the faith and patience they are capable of.

Made from strength t so I am strength
Made from love so I possess it's inner core
Descendant of gods as it were
To carry the torch and pass it on.

Her Rock

I'll wait I'll wait I'll wait

Hold on, hold on, hold on.

don't do anything, don't change anything

She'll come back and it'llbe ok...just wait

Sit here, like the Rock of ages

Still and silent but smiling

Still and quiet...still, I'll be still.

For her.

Let the years pass, let the hopes pass, let the dreams pass

she is bigger

let the chances pass, let the offers pass, let the memories pass

she is worth more

I kneel covered in dust and stillness like a samurai in prayer

I will wait

She will come back, I know she will

Everyone changes their mind, right?

She will come back

she will remember that I'm here, she will.

Dust will turn to stone over my eyes

I will wait, she will feel it and come back

The ache in my knees bent for years will surge in her dreams.

The wind with carry messages from my dust to her ear

and tell her how much I miss her...right?

The vibration from my slow heartbeat 

will resound in her hands as she holds the steering wheel

The light will turn on from where she left dark and see me

and she will come back...right?

Altar

Your whirlwind into my life then you disappear

And Just when I'm picking up the pieces off the ground you bring an earthquake and swallow them up.

Just when my tears start to fall you bring a monsoon and drown me.

I look up to ask God why and you scorch the sky with a hurricane.

I seek comfort to regain strength and erupt a volcano and burn my inner piece with lava.

You strip me, you take from me, you leave me bare and broken

I didn't know looking in your eyes was going to be an apocalypse.

There's nothing I relied on still intact, 

Shield and spare lost in the waves...of you.

But it was what you required

It was what you needed

The love you were about to give needed me to walk away from everything before I met you.

You needed me exposed, you needed me vulnerable.

Something so powerful yet fragile at the same time.

But your request was simple...me and nothing else.

I let your whirlwind in, 

I nodded to your earthquake, 

I stepped aside for your monsoon and 

I sacrificed my peace in your fire

What you showed me you were giving me

The price is understood

The price is paid.

I am delivered.

We all feel

The pastor that asked his wife for a threesome
The con artist that finally asked for forgiveness
The bullet that finally got permission
At some point, we all feel

The hard man that finally broke into tears
The high school popular girl that gave away her crown
The rich lady that left her coat for the sleeping homeless man
At some point, we all give

The hunted meal finally clutched
The moment you chose to awaken your soul
The sleepless nights preparing
At some point, we all take

The dreams that never stop
Those moments we get lost in a hope
Sights that pull our groins and drown our tongues
At some point, we all want.

We build a world based on rules and borders
While we dream of being the lion and the eagle
We exchange pleasantries in our suits
When all we want is to sink our teeth in our passions

Living the daily fight between what you want and what you need
Set to carry equal value under free will in a world of rules.
We can define and organize and require.
In the end, we all feel.

Flutter

I've chased her for years
She changed her face, her color, her hair, her skin
Everytime I think I've found her, she dashes off
But each time instead happy giggles of a friendly chase
It's tears and heartbreak.

The Experiment

Lay in my hollow
Feel my emptiness swallow you
My darkness gouging your eyes
Silence screaming in your ears

My hands seep inside your veins, up your lungs...cold
Your gasp feeds me, your fright fills me
The terror in your eyes are my joy
This is my freedom, my prison.

I take when I want to give
Replaying the scene over and over,
Trying to get it right, the way she did it...to me.
She did it so perfectly an I must know how.

So I become her, over and over again.
Test after test, heart after heart, I plant the fatal stab
But I can't seem to walk away, guilt free..like she did.

Take 16, take, 30, take 42...action!!!
Flawless falling, but I can't walk away smiling...like she did, to me.
How did she do it, I must know.
Get a new test, make her fall and do it again.

Maybe I need to make them fall, faster, deeper, like I did?
Maybe I need to be their sun and moon, like she was to me?
Maybe they need to feel like they'd die, like I did?
Maybe the harder they fall, will make it easier to drop them and walk away?..like she did.

Maybe this is my Sisyphus. 
Forever trying to understand how she could walk away
From the one thing I breathed for, the one thing that truly made me feel alive.

Day after day, each boulder a new heart, a new test,
But never the answer, as I loop without knowing.
Looping, yet a forever thirst.
My prison, my experiment, my prison,...

Broken Cage

The overdone football comments when we spoke.  The bro laugh even when I didn't say anything really funny.  The questions where the answer was then seemingly obvious, but the staggered stare was the only thing mutual.  I rushed in late that morning, but it was just us still due to the weather.  Still getting settled I decided to hit the restroom before I hunker in for the day's lull. An empty corridor echoes my shoes along the walls, my own fans cheering me on in its reverb, today will be a good day I said. The clean bathroom with its cold stiff unused air ready to be the conveyer belt of relief for the day welcomed me with a nod as the door swung shut behind me, the urinal with its porcelain innocence, a standing throne in its own right awaited my service. 
The silence broke as the door swung open, a sound that shouldn't even mean anything on a normal basis, this morning sent a shiver down my spine as the only other person who could have walked in, was him.  Steps you should hear as someone walks to another urinal didn't echo as they should.  Instead, a shiver ran down my spine as without turning around I realised the steps were absent because he was now standing behind me. Shivers ran down my spine and over my ears and my skull, in surprise, in fright and in anticipation.  
A tension that I've been hiding for years poured down as I exhaled the smell of his cologne. I leaned my head down as his left hand calmly grasped the nape of my neck only to see my member that I had pulled out to urinate turned into a swollen pulsation.  He stepped in closer and his breath on the back of my neck now was like fire against the chill of my shivers still playing in anticipation like waiting turn in double dutch. 
My ignorance was present, so in fear of making a fool of myself I placed both hands on the wall over the top of the urinal like a criminal about to get searched by a cop.  The relief breath I just breathed from all this hiding now picked up speed as his right hand glided around my side and grabbed it.  Before he moved me, he leaned in and bit the open side of my neck with the mouth that laughed at my corny jokes and asked me obvious questions...now igniting a secret. Slowly gliding me with his right hand, he went faster. My head spun, and time slowed like a witch casting a spell.  I could feel the swirls in the air.  I open my eyes to see his gold college ring on his finger, shiney going back and forth contrasting against the porcelain white background.
An explosion of my body in that moment was like a tiger restrained for years made to live one way... made to love her... made to raise them, now feeling the bars break open and the hot pieces of iron bouncing off me in this baptism.  Now free to finally breathe and walk and talk, they way I want to, the way I've been dying to.  As I caught my breath, he let go and walked out, his shoes echoing down the hall until the door swung shut again leaving me to my silent kingdom and I stood there looking down at a new me out of breath and rebirthed.  A hunger allowed to be hungry, a thirst that has now been offered the drink, a new me walked back to my desk.