All the spoken words I've ever heard
And every journey written in pen
Gorgeous conjunctions and beautiful sentences
Are one combination of a 26 letter alphabet.
We are a mix of A's and T's, C's and G's
And not just the mix of scientific bases
But the actual letters make up a person
With a personality and a body and a face.
Every book to ever grace your hands
And every poem the danced in the mind
All the 'I love you's and the 'I regret nothing's
Every 'I miss you' to have been spoken in time.
We make friends with a combination of syllables
A different mix of two 'l's, an 'h', and two vowels
We end relationships with the horrible g-double o-d-bye
Quitting it all and throwing in the towel.
And somehow we overlook the simple fact
That everything we have ever been and will be
Is somehow linked together with these 26 sounds
Every fiber of our everything and piece of history.
So that little song you learned long ago
To the tune of one sparkling little star
Remember that every letter you know today
Makes up every fantastic piece that you are.

Hell is not made of fire.

A lot of people believe that hell is a world covered in flames, with heat that sears through your very being, scorches your soul, and inflicts terrible agony. They say Hell is a place for fiery torment, where fire is a vicious serpent that winds through your existence and seeks to quench every feeling except anguish, but at the same time refusing to let you be conquered by nothingness, keeping you wide-awake so you can feel every blistering sensation.

They're wrong.

Hell doesn't look the same for everyone else. Hell is a multi-faced mirror with countless reflections caging you inside the hollow of a diamond so you can see the glaring facets you refuse to look at. Hell is not always a place; sometimes it's a feeling, sometimes it's an event--sometimes it's a person.

Hell shows itself not only in death. Hell is everywhere--it's just somewhere around the corner of the street, hiding its face behind a newspaper, waiting for you to make the wrong choices. It's just somewhere behind you, an invisible fiend watching your every step, waiting for you to stumble. And once you do, it will laugh at you. You won't hear its sinister laughter, nor would you notice the subtle shift of the ground beneath your feet.

The odds are no longer in your favor.

Hell is cold. Hell is calculating. Hell is terrorizing.

Hell is reaching inside yourself, searching your heart, trying to find out how you really feel--but ending up finding nothing. Hell is opening your mouth to scream but nothing comes out because there is nothing left inside. Hell is the immovable boulder weighing down on your chest, it is the desperate need for the ability to cry, it is the panic and anguish that comes when you realize you can't.

Hell is watching him with his perfect hair and perfect eyes and perfect smile, knowing he isn't even aware of your plain existence. Hell is realizing for the first time that unrequited love is not as romantic as people say. Hell is waiting, waiting, waiting for something you know won't come. Hell is finally getting the nerve to say 'I love you' but only receiving silence in return. Hell is laughing it all away and saying it's nothing, I understand why, all the while wishing you could run to someplace where you can cry and scream without being heard. Hell is falling in love.

Hell is the red mark on your record, the frowns on your parents' faces, the pitying looks on your friends' expressions. Hell is the star you failed to reach, the shaking heads, the consoling pats on your back. Hell is the mocking laughter ringing in your ears even after they've long ended. Hell is the condescending voices echoing from somewhere in the back of your mind, reminding you who you were, who you've been, and who you are now. Hell is laughing at you. Hell is disappointment. Hell is trying and trying over and over and never succeeding. Hell is failure.

Hell is building your life with damning patience, with meticulous thoroughness, with painstaking care, and having it all knocked down to the ground. Hell is desperation, hopelessness. Hell is the blooming rose standing amidst a bed of withered blossoms. It's the touching beauty of life at its most exquisite, the surging anticipation, the reckless triumph, and the next day when you look for the rose you only find a withered stalk. Hell is hope.

Hell is the silent night torn apart by raging screams and flying furniture. Hell is the deafening wail of a child accompanying every insult, every furious, careless word that escapes your mouth. Hell is the empty threat he took as a promise. Hell is holding his hand and realizing it's no longer as comfortable as it used to be. Hell is the sadness weighing on your apartment, so palpable you could wrap your fingers around it and try to snap it--but you can't, because hell is already there. Hell is the silence, the eternal quiet screaming in your ears, as you pack your suitcase, as you stuff in old photographs trapped behind the cracked glass of their picture frames. It's the painful need to sit still and concentrate on breathing because you suddenly forgot how to. It's looking around you, seeing the stripped bed, the empty closet, the unsettling dust floating along the light filtering through the misted windows. Hell is falling out of love.

I could go on about hell forever, and I would never be able to enumerate all of them because there can only be so many words that can describe hell, and there are too many people in this world who see different kinds of hell. I cannot accurately define hell, I don't know much about it. I cannot claim to have seen hell, because I've never been to a place like it before.

But I know that hell is cold.

Because hell is not always made of fire.

We will build a carriage
Out of ice and nice dreams
To take us across the bridge of screams
And sighs like nights passed through
The sorry trees

With their necks soon to be cut
From the hand of the son of the old father
And the new fathers sons will arise
And cut his old fathers throat
And watch the signs fill up with
Eyes in disbelief

They have known and know
Rights to snap and creak
The speechless mouth
Of the fathers son
Wide open on a sour leaf
With a strand of hair
In the shower drain

Clogged up and
Stained down
To the core

I wanted more
I never settled for less
I waited for
I saw you at your best

You gave me your eyes
I took them into mine
And drowned slowly
In your beautiful ocean

I would rather eat every grain of sand
Off of every white sand - black sand beach
For a thousand - two thousand lifetimes
Than be anywhere near you or them
and to attempt and cough out every reason
Why I must do this and leave again.

There is not enough fire
On this God forsaken earth
That could come close to that
Inside of my heart and
My eyes will never close
Or come close to your mouth
As long as there is water
In the salty seas and as long as
That blackwater flows
Through the old oak trees. . .

I will never be inside of you again.

There won't ever be an end
As long as you keep adding more
And more pieces to the conclusion.

The story is over,
It's time to go to sleep.

Fly high,
Know your dreams have wings,
Be an albatross...
Clearing above the blue seas,
Until the curve of the horizon,
Can be bent and seen!

Fly high,
You know you can steer,
Tame the winds...
And break the waves;
Even storms can clear,
Giving way to brighter days;
A new season blooms,
Fear not, nay!

Fly high,
And break off from the hibernation,
See yourself with a redefinition;
Even a single prism,
Gives birth to a spectrum!

It was many and many a year ago,
  In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
  By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
  Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
  In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
  I and my ANNABEL LEE;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
  Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
  In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
  My beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
  And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
  In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
  Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
  In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
  Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
  Of those who were older than we—
  Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in heaven above,
  Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
  In her sepulchre there by the sea—
  In her tomb by the side of the sea.