MissWrite:
Look around you. Pessima. If you cannot find people like yourself, they are probably in Hell. The courage that you lack is to go there. Nobody was meant to be alone. You weren't. Someone is waiting for you too. Down in the valley of the shadow of death; where hot coals line the streets to blister your feet; where it rains fire and the wind is a breath of fury. Stop walking about aimlessly and yield; go to where somebody says your name with a smile, and with a tickle in their hollow chest, "welcome home"; even if it is the devil's voice you hear. We all want love - the wildly wicked, wickedly wild and the wretched saint.

It is easy too. To go there. You must only want it badly enough. You must want it madly enough. The taste of poison. The taste of your own blood. Every demon knows its taste. As well as they know their own name. Do not run from it; because you are one of us.

Where am I? My soul has traveled beyond the horizon, but my body is still here; in a room with no light. Not from the tired lamp. Not from the snubbish sun. Not from the distant God. Who am I? My body or my soul? There is the devil's cocktail in my hand; and I have only a decision to make: set a broken soul free to find succor in destruction, like a crazed falcon in the molten sun, or to hold on to it. Even if it doesn't recognize me anymore. Who am I? One of them. A demon.

I was born with a madness. A madness that was mine. My madness. A madness that was me: demon. Mama knew when I was six; but more than my affliction, it was her shame. Her mad child. Not a mad child. She was important and I was not. She kept me in a box, away from those eyes; and she painted me in colors that people could understand. "Do not isolate yourself. Play with your friends." But my secrets were a wall for ever. As tall as mountains. The greasy colors dried in the sun and peeled off like a crust of semen. They fell away. And mama is gone now. But, so is her box of colors. All that is left behind is me and my unbelonging. I did not learn to paint my face. So, I sink steadily in quicksand. Nothing binds me to the walls of grime, to rise or sink in unison. I watch the world rise past my shoulders- higher and higher, up and up - until the great divide slips by and I see it all again, but upside down this time. I am upside down this time. There are no ugly roots hiding below; holding everything down; the world itself is fickle. I do not belong here.

I belong in a garden of withered flowers.

Tulips. Tall and disgraced. A signpost of shame.

I hear him call my name.......

And his voice is sweeter than honey. That fake sugar sweet saccharin seduction. But sweet is sweet, I reckon; and it is sweet indeed. If I can hear a lie six times, the seventh time it will be the truth. It would taste just the same. It would taste just as sweet. But first the bitter taste of poison. First the ferric taste of blood.