prose/story: Most Peculiar

Last night I dreamt a stairway, in a trailer old, reminded me of blood spilled by my own hand.

“Odd,” I thought. “Most peculiar.”

I can hardly crush an exoskeleton on a good day.

Then my best friend Binky, the six-foot-tall roach agreed “Most peculiar. Most strange.”

(c) 2011-2012 Luz Briar.

poem/lyrics: "Mask"

Juliet Artston: Mask

I looked out the window of my tower.

I saw you and I knew.

I knew my mirror cracked

Into bits of glass

But what did I care. What did I care.

I reached my hand out into a world

I had been barred from

Just so that I could touch yours

But that was that

Did you take mine? Did you take mine?

I entered a world of glass and gold

With no journey back

I thought if I could lie then I could hold

All my heart has ever lacked

Even knowing that glass fools shatter

I called out your name

I wrote it in a poem,

I sang it in a song

But did you hear? But did you hear?

Better than singing in a gilded cage

Wouldn’t you guess?

I made a daring escape

But that was that

Is this dirt on my hands? On my hands?

I entered a world of glass and gold

With no journey back

I thought if in disguise I might still hold …

But I fear there is a crack

And I knew

Yes I knew

You were my doom

And I know

How I know

I wear a costume

Shadows know

Yes, they know

They know the truth

I know

You know

The mask wouldn’t last

Yes I know

Yes I see

Yes, I feel the cracks.

The mask was cold but the sin was kind

And I can never mend those cracks

Yes, the mask was cold but the sin was kind

And I can never take it back

The mask was cold and the sin was mine

And I will never--

(from "Midnight Dreary" novel. (c) 2011 Luz Briar)