Obsidian

My hand squeezes a pen, every line in every finger screaming desperation; why won’t the ink flow? Dark blue ink paints the mind the same shade, and with the faintest tinge of black humor I observe the ironic symmetry; my hands hold the pen through which nothing flows.

My hell is a hell of mirrors,

where the dreams and hopes

Of long-distant futures

rend and tear at the present with their glorious claws,

Leaving nothing but tattered, bloody fragments of blood, bone and soul

littered in their wake.

Questions buzz around the mind like bees, yet the hive has no honey. Nothing flows, and they remain trapped within an event horizon only they can feel, pollination forgotten in their haste to go nowhere.

My hell is a hell of mirrors,

with my eyes boring into my own head ad infinitum,

emptying forth their ceaseless mantra of scorn and disdain;

self-condemnation rises incandescent from the ashes left behind,

flowing over walls raised in haste and confused in purpose;

do they contain or halt the fire?

Panic is easily solvable; inability is not. Logic is easily managed, feelings are not. Rationality is easily tamed, irrationality is not.

I am easily tamed; you are not.

The satisfaction is grim as I tear my beating heart out of my chest and submit it for judgment and witness.

The sentence is life.