House of Lincoln

17

The Dragon: First Draft
By: Lincoln Loud.

A ring of fire casts around me with haste,
entrapping me within, and I'm accompanied by a beast.
It stands like a monument, and it only shifts to breathe.
It blows out smoke from its nostrils,
no doubt ignited by rage.
It stares down at me with glowing eyes.
Two burning suns,
Envisioning my peril in its grasp.
It shakes the floor with its growls,
and it waits for my decision:

Will I take my life?
Or will it for me?

—

The Dragon: First Draft
By: Lincoln Loud.

I've felt everything there is to feel negatively.
I've been through flame and ice.
I've found you now.
You hid in the corner of Hell.
What are you afraid of?
Come out and face me.

—

The Dragon: First Draft
By: Lincoln Loud.

You've taken everything.
What is there left to have?
When you become as deprived as I have,
DUMB DUMB DUMB DUMB DUMB

—

The Dragon: First Draft
By: Lincoln Loud.

You are my dragon.
I stand completely disadvantaged.
I stand not a chance against you.
Despite the despair,
In spite of the affair,
WRONG WRONG WRONG

—

The Dragon: First Draft
By: Lincoln Loud.

We are the same.
We are opponents.
I don't care who thinks of me "weak."
The fact that I'm alive still,
shows that we are equally strong.
You've yet to breathe your fire.
What's your secret weapon?

—

The Dragon: First Draft
By: The Knight.

The world is separate from my house.
My house is its own world.
Heaven and Hell stay adjacent.
While I, in my home, am stranded somewhere in between.

I will conquer cluelessness.
I will map this land.
I am the hope that shines as light.
I am the knight.

—

       I'm not much of a writer, and especially not a poet. For some reason, short text with large meaning seems the most fitting form of expression right now. I don't know why, but it just felt right to write something so... "meaningful," though it probably just comes off as pretentious and amateur. Not to me, and that's all that matters. I also should address the thoughts and compulsions I've been having. I thought about smoking a cigarette. I haven't yet. I can imagine the taste somehow—maybe from the few times people have puffed out their smoke across sidewalks I've trekked. I can't tell if I want the flavor or the relaxation of it. Relaxation is a weird term because smoking tends to be associated with the feeling of being "on edge." Ready to fight or ready to fall. A cowboy smoking before a million bandits bust out from the saloon. Or, alternatively, a sad woman in France standing on her balcony thinking of him who has left, and she smokes to suppress the tears that freeze on her face in the cold November winds.

       I don't plan on smoking. Not once. In fact, I think it's a desire given to me by the house, or by the stress always present, that further whites the hairs on my head. Breathing in a huff of smoke then shooting it out of my nostrils... hah. Like a dragon, right? How to slay a dragon: A sword. How to slay a house: A hot red stick of dynamite. No. Too simple. Can't. Won't.

       I walk into my bathroom and run some sink water to splash on my face. The cold water succeeds in straightening my thoughts back into coherence. Finally, my mind has been translated into normalcy again. (Sometimes I start to live in my head a bit too much, so I have to bring myself back to reality again.) The room is quiet. I don't know the exact hint that gives it away, but this room is different somehow. I look over the ceiling and the floor but they're both unchanged. I look back in the mirror. The shape is the same... or is it? Is it rounder now? My reflection looks darker. What's wrong with this mirror? That's not the shape of my nose at all! I don't look like that whatsoever! Oh—and the arms! They're too thin! Are you stupid?! I look nothing like you! Nothing. Like you. At all.

So I pull back my fist, and punch through the mirror.

" Through the mirror. "

       My hand has gone through the wall. Glass shards fall from the top of the frame. My hand is cut up. The mirror is completely fragmented, and the pieces are scattered beautifully on the floor. Where the mirror was intact before, now revealed an opening. An opening into a room, which I curiously crawled into.

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Pulsus Cordis