Rites of passage Going through my normal rites of passage, I think about what has been and what is,

now. I shudder as I see what I see now, memories of lives long passed and past, memories of things that no longer exist yet I still see so clearly, and I wonder, what is wrong? Once upon a peaceful world, a land full of greenery and springs and birds and flowers, now all of a sudden turned to a labyrinth full of immortal beasts and fiends of the most sinister sort. Why? You may ask, or I may... yet I weep as I see the answer, answers that provide one answer only to my darkly deep thought....that which I thought was the most desired of sorts to me is now the source of my misery and gloomy thoughts. Mystery, misery, how they rhyme, as they both complement each other, for the source was a dark force, an invisible river dragging hearts with it-mine- and now, it drowns me, spews me out, sending me back to the beginning of time, time where the world was dark and all there is, isn t... Does hope lie anywhere? No, for I see the entire same sort as equal, fiends of the gorgon face who at the first sight freeze you stoned. So where doth the error of my thought lie? I say it lies nowhere, yea it lies nowhere for as I speak, one stands not so far from me, milky in voice and face and thought and speech, yet I feel at the next turn of her tail, strike without a second look at the carcass... I stay to grovel, to brood, to think, but I see nothing, feel nothing, think nothing- I m frozen over, the entire same sort in the same grey skin hiding under the bright happy mask of goodness, while beneath, hell brews and boils over... So what s next? I think that the end hasn t drawn, for I m yet to suffer a lot more- I lie if I say a little more, yea many a great suffering awaits me in this deep dark dungeon of a heart, where I m a lone prisoner awaiting the next snap of the dragon s jaw, for death to send me to where it wills- the vicious cycle of fate in royal glorious vile joy... Finally, here I am, I wait for the next crack of the whip, while I carefully avoid everything that hath the look of the feminine god; woman. My rites of passage are many a long way ahead...