Blanket city run along soaked in rain. Idiot Boy wastes his time visiting a passing crush at the other end of town. Slips between two houses and a metal sheet, communal refrigerator in the middle of the road filed with half-empty soy bottles.

Dead bell stop, mocking red blink of the operator. Father arrives, a mess of wiry muscles and hair.

“Hey. Is Coffin Cat here?”

“Who?” Father squints at Idiot Boy’s cap. Idiot Boy avoids eye contact.

“Um.”

Recessed in the blackness behind Father, a Figure says, “You looking for Coffin Cat?”

Idiot Boy nods.

The Recessed Figure turns. “I’ll go get her.”

Father returns to his parched body on the couch, content.

Indistinguishable forms move back and forth in the kitchen to the right. They stop their pacing and glance at Idiot Boy as he passes. Idiot Boy avoids eye contact and slips into the left-bound arterial vessel.

“So this is the heart chamber I’ve been living in,” Coffin Cat says as Idiot Boy enters her room. There is music gear. “It’s pretty comfy.”

“Oh, sick mic,” Idiot Boy says, pointing at the mic behind Coffin Cat’s head.

“I feel like a ghost,” Coffin Cat replies, falling on her bed.

Idiot Boy settles next to her. Animal distance. Intensely aware of his rain-soaked right shoe. “Same.”

Nothing comes out right, intersubjectivity a false God to mediate the impossible kernel of being, nobody can find nor express. Idiot Boy searches for connection. He glances around the heart chamber, at the music gear, but nothing grips. Four pears sit on a table by the window, their skins garish green in the harsh grey light.

Coffin Cat moves from the bed to the floor. She opens a virtual aquarium on her computer; fish eat pellets dropped from the sky to **** out coins to buy more fish to **** out coins to buy more fish. Capitalist investment and accumulation. Every few minutes a rocket-spewing robot teleports into the aquarium to attack the fish. Ruthless competition in the global marketplace.

“No! Why would you swim there, you ******* fish?” Coffin Cat yells as one if her fish is eaten by the nomadic war machine. “So dumb. ****. Why did it eat my fish?”

A knock at the door. The Recessed Figure from earlier enters the room. “Hey, mind if I join?” Their arms dangle like fine threads of hair.

“I like your music gear,” Idiot Boy says, pointing at nothing in particular.

“Idiot Boy also makes music,” Coffin Cat adds from the floor.

The Recessed Figure does not respond. They are enthralled by their phone, streak of dead pixels along a digital chessboard, minute reflection of their own gaunt face in the glass. After an extended period, they decide to move none of their pieces. A gaping coffee grinder rises out of the rubble at their feet. They begin filling it with tobacco from broken cigarettes.

“I’m surprised you’re still playing this,” Idiot Boy says to Coffin Cat. “I swear this is one of those games designed to ruin your life. Get addicted, stop going to work, become a hikik weaboo.”

“Already there, man,” Coffin Cat laughs. “Nah, this is my new job. I’m going to be a professional gamer.”

“Stream only PopCap games.”

Another knock at the door. Tired squander in an endless pacing of flesh. Strawman enters and nods at the Recessed Figure. “Hey bro.”

“Good to see you, man.” The Recessed Figure plugs the coffee grinder into the wall. “You got any ciggys?”

Idiot Boy points under the table and says “Ahh” with his mouth.

The Recessed Figure empties it into the coffee grinder. The device whirs into motion, creating a centrifugal blur, a mechanical and headless hypnotic repeat.

Idiot Boy and Coffin Cat look for horror movies to watch. The Recessed Figure empties the contents of the coffee grinder onto a metal tray. Strawman repacks it into a ****. White smoke fills the empty column, moves in slow motion like an oceanic rip a mile off coast, surface seething with quiet, impenetrable violence.

Idiot Boy refuses the first round. It’s never done him any good. Face turned to smoke and the wretched weight of a tongue that refuses to speak. Headless carry-on as time ticks through the clock face.

The door bursts open. Everybody turns as Manic Refusal or the Loud Person saunters in.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. They’re selling me off!” the Loud Person says in exasperation. “First time back in New Zealand in five years and they do this to me!”

“What? What’s happened?” Strawman asks.

“Some rich ****** in Australia has bought me as his wife. I knew it, I knew if I came back, my parents wouldn’t let me leave again. Whole ******* thing arranged!” the Loud Person laughs bitterly, before hitting the ****.

“Oomph, that’s rough,” Coffin Cat quips from the side.

“No, you don’t even understand. This is the first time back, the first time back in five years, and I’m being sold to off some rich ****** who owns all the banks in Australia.”

“But like, who is this guy?” Strawman asks, pointing.

“And he’s been reading all my profiles. He has access to all my information. I don’t even have control over my Facebook profile. Grand Larson’s logged in as me, posting for me,” the Loud Person continues. “I met him once in Australia, clubbing, and now he’s tracked and bought me.”

“That’s creepy as ****,” Idiot Boy says.

“So he’s not a complete stranger?” Strawman asks.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. First time back in five years and I’m being sold off!”

Idiot Boy decides one hit from the **** wouldn’t be so bad. He packs the cone with chop, lights and inhales. Smoke rushes through the glass channel, a swirl of white ether, more than he’d expected. He quickly passes the **** to Coffin Cat, before collapsing onto the bed, eyes closed. A suffocating sensation fills his body. He sinks into the chasm of himself, further and further into an impossible, infinite depth.

“Still working at . . . ?”

“Yeah, yeah. Management. Hospital. You?”

“Like, property. Motions.”

“Subcontracting? Intonements?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Mmm.”

Idiot Boy doesn’t know what’s going on. He feels sick and tries to get Coffin Cat’s attention, but cannot move his body.

“Come on. Sell me drugs, Strawman.”

“Nah. I don’t deal drugs. I don’t deal drugs.”

A strange silence stretches like an artificial dusk, a liminal duration, the hollow click of a tape set back into place in reverse. The Recessed Figure coughs and the Loud Person whirs back into motion.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. They’re selling me off! First time back in New Zealand in five years and they do this to me!”

The Recessed Figure makes a noncommittal noise.

“I knew it, I knew if I came back, my parents wouldn’t let me leave again. Whole ******* thing arranged!”

Coffin Cat laughs quietly.

“No, you don’t even understand. This is the first time back, the first time back in five years, and I’m being sold off to some rich ****** who owns all the banks in Australia.”

“How about this fella? He doing okay?” Strawman asks, pointing. Everyone turns to Idiot Boy and laughs affectionately.

“Still working at . . . ?”

“Yeah, yeah. Management. Hospital. You?”

“Like, property. Motions.”

“Subcontracting? Intonements?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Mmm.”

“Sell me drugs, Strawman.”

“Nah. I don’t deal drugs. I don’t deal drugs.”

Idiot Boy slowly opens his eyes and stares out the window. The same grey light as before. He moves his arm further towards Coffin Cat, but is still too weak to get her attention. The same strange silence stretches. The Recessed Figure coughs and the Loud Person whirs back into motion.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. . . .”

As the conversation repeats over and again, Idiot Boy begins to think he has become psychotic, or perhaps entered into a psychotic space. He thinks of computer algorithms, input-output, loops without variables, endless regurgitations of the same result. Human machines trapped in their own stupid loop. Drug-****** neuronal networks incapable of making new connections, forever traversing old ones. Short-term memory loss, every repeat a new conversation of what has already been. The same grey light painted upon four pears by the window.

He’s not sure if Coffin Cat’s laugh is getting weaker with each repeat.

Signal-response. The exterior world oversaturated with variables: roadways, rivers, forests, wildlife — an ever changing scene to respond to — the illusion of depth. Automatic response mechanisms reorient to new stimuli. The soul rises like surfactant, objectified fractal diffusion. A becoming without end.

But within the border of this interior world, the light stays grey. No input, no change; the same dead repeat, over and over, until sundown triggers a hunger response. Lined all along the street, a black box ceremony of repeating machines, trapped in their idiot cults, walls of clay and blood.

Idiot Boy finally gets Coffin Cat’s attention. She helps him through the house’s arteries to reach rain and wet stone, overcast skies. As he shakes in shock, Coffin Cat mumbles, “It’s cold.”

Idiot Boy sits silent on the ride home. Travels through himself. Tunnel through the body or Mariana Trench. Loses his footing before a traumatic void. Leaves the car and pukes.

Mariana had everything a girl could wish for
Her parents approved it and she smiled
Her friends said for once it was right
Everything easy - the waters still
Everything in place, where it should be
Her lover kissed her everytime
but she can't put her soul when she does
2 meters tall and blue eyed
A breathing fantasy - but something's amiss
Mariana always felt this
Mariana had the perfect life
But she has the perfect twist

But Mariana has a yearning inside
A blaze devouring her guts
making her burn in desire
All of this is a lie
She's missing the fix from his brown eyes

Mariana had already done this before
But this time she feels so unwrong
Mariana has already broke up
with everything in the world
but this time she'll shoot for keeps
this time she doesn't get killed

Mariana said STOP
Suddenly, so abrupt
I want to get off this bus
Because she's got something best
This is not what I want
I am merely trying to get along
Mariana burnt the house down
in pure joy to exist

Everyone was so shocked
She saw the light
she had been trying to look the other way
but you can't run away
from the promises desire makes

And now Mariana is on the road
and she's home
her soul is free and some say she's gone
but she does not care
beauty hit her in the face
and that's something she can't refuse

A bond too strong to be broken,
If I felt pain you felt it too,
If I lost hope you made me believe,
If you lost faith I'd send you a song,
If I was lost you were my path,
My yellow brick road just like in Oz,
Sometimes I lost my sense of direction,
Wandered off to the darkest of places,
You'd shine bright for me to find,
My way back to what is right,
If a dissaster were to strike,
My yellow brick road you came to be,
Whenever I was lost in the land of Oz

-Kathia Mariana Landeros

What is it worth to shout, when no one will reply?
What is it worth to scream, when no one hears the cry?
What am I worth, if I scream but no one listens?
What am I worth if my cry is only heard in these four walls I reside in?
Asking for help begging for a chance yet nothing good to come.
Stuck in a trance, my mind can't handle these thoughts.
Thoughts not new but still morbid.
Gruesome perhaps, enlightening to myself.
A point at last reached, not desired but truly deserved.
Calling one that will not answer, that once was there and has gone.
Mistakes in my shoulders being carried, clearly a well deserved scene.
A call for Superman to lift me up from this shadow I've hidden behind.
One last call please save me now.
I've lost all hope in myself.
Just one last call for Superman.

-Kathia Mariana Landeros

Swim in the deepest part of the ocean,
With waves over head,
A life pieced by water,
A nautical life,
Or aquatic wonders,
There is no fear,
Living in fairytales,
Mithical creatures,
Sorrounding the waters,
Travel sea to sea,
Hopes disguised as flounders,
Surfers all above,
And here come the divers,
Ready to explore,
The kind I belong to,
Sing to them now,
They'll jump off from sails,
To follow the voice,
Deep in the waters,
Desperate souls,
Following as I speak,
Gullible minds,
When told to go under,
This siren awaits,
For sailors to wonder,
To bring them in deep,
In dangerous waters.

-Kathia Mariana Landeros

Mariana in the Moated Grange

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

With blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the pear to the gable-wall.
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

Her tears fell with the dews at even;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,
When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
  She only said, "The night is dreary,
  He cometh not," she said;
  She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
  I would that I were dead!"

Upon the middle of the night,
Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:
The **** sung out an hour ere light:
From the dark fen the oxen's low
Came to her: without hope of change,
In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn,
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn
About the lonely moated grange.
  She only said, "The day is dreary,
  He cometh not," she said;
  She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
  I would that I were dead!"

About a stone-cast from the wall
A sluice with blacken'd waters slept,
And o'er it many, round and small,
The cluster'd marish-mosses crept.
Hard by a poplar shook alway,
All silver-green with gnarled bark:
For leagues no other tree did mark
The level waste, the rounding gray.
  She only said, "My life is dreary,
  He cometh not," she said;
  She said "I am aweary, aweary
  I would that I were dead!"

And ever when the moon was low,
And the shrill winds were up and away,
In the white curtain, to and fro,
She saw the gusty shadow sway.
But when the moon was very low
And wild winds bound within their cell,
The shadow of the poplar fell
Upon her bed, across her brow.
  She only said, "The night is dreary,
  He cometh not," she said;
  She said "I am aweary, aweary,
  I would that I were dead!"

All day within the dreamy house,
The doors upon their hinges creak'd;
The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd,
Or from the crevice peer'd about.
Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.
  She only said, "My life is dreary,
  He cometh not," she said;
  She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
  I would that I were dead!"

The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,
The slow clock ticking, and the sound
Which to the wooing wind aloof
The poplar made, did all confound
Her sense; but most she loathed the hour
When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping toward his western bower.
  Then said she, "I am very dreary,
  He will not come," she said;
  She wept, "I am aweary, aweary,
  Oh God, that I were dead!"

A pursuit for motivation
In an overweight nation
To become what I have dreamt of
And not what I became of
What I eat
When I sit
For hours with no end
The slob meets its end
A motivation found
At last

-Kathia Mariana Landeros

Black moss and flower pots.
She cometh not, she cometh not.
Lonely and moated,
Rusted nails broken.

Dew with tears,
An hour before sunlight.
Cold winds wake,
A greyish mourn.
Clustered marish-mosses,
Silver green bark.

In a dreamy home.
Among wainscot,
Door hinges creak.
Like a mouse,
She shrieked-
She cometh not, she cometh not.

I want to free fall into the Mariana Trench.
I want to watch the world become darker and darker till light is not in the dictionary.
Forms of life will become less distinguishable with every meter.
Motel rooms and apartments litter the crevice's walls-"low" income housing-
Soup kitchens begin to occur less frequently-
Replacing them are drug houses and grimy gas stations with metal bars for windows.
Every creature notices my existence.
They dart their eyes just too much,
And I know they suspect that I came here to sleep. To be at peace with myself again.
To watch them, to hear them, to wander them.
In my mind, seconds melt like ice cream cones in July.
Minutes cut through the silence unnoticeably.
Time slips underneath me as the rug is pulled out from my feet and over my eyes,
And it covers my mind.
I remember nothing of past events,
They told me to leave all behind.


As the day grows darker into nothing but here and now,
My skin turns blue. I am the ocean in this divide of magnetic silence.
I am the fish who struggle to find meaning for themselves.
I am time which does not exist here.
I am the water whose stagnancy sinks me deeper into earth and beings of past eons.
My hair becomes the nutrients, the seaweed and algae that provide for the citizens of this primitive paradise.
My eyes are now seashells which house these forgotten creatures.
My arms stretch out towards surface and harden into coral shoots, but my mind is rooted into sea floor basalt and sand.
I will never leave.


                   An eel approaches me.

He welcomes me with a warm embrace too far up my body.
Not an under-the-arms hug,
A beating, lively hug around the neck.
It takes my breath away,
And so I cannot help but gasp with excitement,

And I find my peace.

A man once told me
He felt as if he had created me
From scratch, a muse
Conceived by invention,
Rather than the precision of my blood
or the tiny cosmos within my marrow;
He was mine,
But did not belong to me

The path of sirendom
Is paved with gilded lilies,
Soft flesh, and quiet angles
If you let them,
You can drift on through
Your feet hovering three inches above the soil
Saturated ripe with fertility,
Easier than breathing

But there will always be
At least nine of you
In every patch of every field
Preserved in light
The quicksand of reason, immortalized
Delicate whispers convince you
What a lovely work of artistry
An inspiration, the birth of genius
But you are only the vessel
Left empty

But I have never
Belonged to anyone,
No square of grass
Lush enough to rest my head
on a practiced lap
I was not an island to discover;
Sprung from beneath the Mariana,
I was built from the deep place
No pedestal to extend
The unhinge of my reaching arms

I took the long way up
Scratching through earth, long dead
No fruit, carefully arranged
No marble, heavily lidded
The flowers collapsed,
Like your idea of Woman,
To linseed stain
A smashed sunrise
It wasn’t god, but myself
That I met on the other side

Mariana, how are you?
I left you at 13 and now I come back
Mariana, you died because I killed you
but it wasn't me, but the pain I was put through

Mariana let me kiss you
And tell you things are going to be okay
You committed the mistake
to hide instead of burning the bridge
with desire to fly from this ******* grey thing

Mariana, you burnt your skirt and danced
and I died instead
Now you take the wheel
and it's for keeps
it's for dreams
Mariana hello there
Mariana goodbye
Mariana stay

"Mariana in the Moated Grange"
(Shakespeare, Measure for Measure)

With blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the pear to the gable-wall.
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

Her tears fell with the dews at even;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,
When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

Upon the middle of the night,
Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:
The **** sung out an hour ere light:
From the dark fen the oxen's low
In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn,
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn
About the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "The day is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

About a stone-cast from the wall
A sluice with blacken'd waters slept,
And o'er it many, round and small,
The cluster'd marish-mosses crept.
Hard by a poplar shook alway,
All silver-green with gnarled bark:
For leagues no other tree did mark
The level waste, the rounding gray.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said "I am aweary, aweary
I would that I were dead!"

And ever when the moon was low,
And the shrill winds were up and away,
In the white curtain, to and fro,
She saw the gusty shadow sway.
But when the moon was very low
And wild winds bound within their cell,
The shadow of the poplar fell
Upon her bed, across her brow.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

All day within the dreamy house,
The doors upon their hinges creak'd;
The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd,
Or from the crevice peer'd about.
Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,
The slow clock ticking, and the sound
Which to the wooing wind aloof
The poplar made, did all confound
Her sense; but most she loathed the hour
When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping toward his western bower.
Then said she, "I am very dreary,
She wept, "I am aweary, aweary,
Oh God, that I were dead!"

If my depression hits
The darkest depth
Then I’ll be in the Mariana Trench
If my happiness gets to the top
Then I have climbed Mount Everest
And there’s no sign of stop
If you spark my fire, there’s nowhere to go
I’m at the boiling point
I’ll  erupt like a volcano
My personality’s never what it seems
I’m sad and I’m  happy
And everything between
I’m hit by emotion
No matter what road I take
I’ve got too many feelings and there is no escape

What will be,
Mustn't change.
What we'll see,
Mustn't blind.
What we'll say,
Mustn't mute.
What will fly,
Mustn't fall.
What will dance,
Mustn't trip.
What we'll dream,
Mustn't fade.

-Kathia Mariana Landeros

Hadn't been seen in a while
Reasons why the smile was so much bigger
The tightest hugs I've ever gotten
The shimmer in eyes filled with joy
To just sit on a bench
At a park
Talking
Stories beginning of new conversations
Laughs and smiles
Your attire all black
Black button up, rolled up sleeves
Black tie you removed after a while
I proceeded to steal that tie
Laughing, hugging
Pulled out your phone
Attemted to take a photo together
I refused
The reasoning being I was simply too shy
Even though that friendship meant the world to me
Walked for hours just talking
I miss that
I miss the friendship worth fighting for.

-Kathia Mariana Landeros

Don't tell me I'm lazy or foolish
I'm not doing the best that I can
I'm doing a hell of a lot better
Than the type of girl that I am
Self esteem lower than Mariana's trench
Daddy issues too many to count
Depressed, apathetic, and lonely
How these girls usually turn out
Don't remind me of what I should be
What I could be
I would be
I won't
I'll be the girl that takes all these problems
Takes the sad and the sullen and bad
I'll force it to be something beautiful
Make it art
And flavor
And sound.

When it seems all the world wants to sell me on painkillers, you face the troubled of all sorts with a scalpel and a wink. Even when those stitches holding your own spitshined heart together are looking a little iffy.

Since childhood, we’ve floundered like fish out of water both longing for the sea, but with age, I think that you and I have come to view the ocean in very different ways.

What I see as an adventure, you’ve always seen as home.

The sea could never quite mystify someone who’s strived to be more siren than human. No, unlike the flower from which you were named, your real garden patch is present with the planets.

You make me want to be as stalwart as Stonewall, and save my wishing well quarters for the pigs who tried to suss out every non-straight playing broad through her suit clothes, so that on the days where the face of my best friend's assaulter bears down like the man in the moon, she’ll preserve her beautiful, blessed hands by halting her fist before it can hit any wall.

Apparently, you’ve been learning Russian on a whim since age eleven. You love tattoos and art in it's sometimes most tantric forms. The firm and sometimes too-firm handshake between aesthetic and soul, and what, дорогая сестра, is more human than that?

And you called yourself cynical.
Yet when the life of a honeybee means so much in your hands, I can’t understand how you tried to scorn the weight of the world. You found beauty in banana slugs, and I have to believe you do not know your own self.

Seeing you make sense of other people, I now believe that mermaids are incredibly self-conscious, so when we asail our Somali plundered doubloons, blood diamonds, pearls of tortured oysters, and other ill-gotten goods back into the sea, may we feel we’ve done our duty when they see their own reflections for the first time and become narcissists.

Because of you, I tried for the first time to love myself, because like it or not, this is what I’ve got. What we’ve got. The most detached tag team duo the world’s never seen.

But on the day that I finally throw the dragon’s den fortune of our mother back into the mariana trench from which she and the sessions family came, I’ll think back to the time where she said that, as siblings, we’d grow up to be best friends. But let’s face it, we have both lost a lot of best friends, though you are the only one of all those come and gone who’s yet to steer me wrong. Okay, that’s a fat lie, because for a second of my life you convinced me to believe that you are cynical.

Comparing your stride to the rest of the world’s, I will never again judge somebody for the way they walk. Even if they have to drag themselves, kicking and screaming from point A to point B, the last thing a person needs is another stranger stepping on their lifeline.

I hear of everything you're doing, day in and day out, think of all the times this world’s nearly lost you, and I remember the statue in our neighbor’s front lawn. A little girl-an angel- with butterflies landing atop her precious hands. Then I realized that to be an angel statue means you can never reach out for more, and suddenly, I know why you always preferred cyborgs.

Dear Diary,

It seens that I appear to be stuck in my own mind. Trapped perhaps, in this horrible thought process of mine.
Been locked up in a cage of hatred towards myself. What was it that I had done for a concequence like this one?
Seeking answers never given. Searching for clues never placed.
But like a maze, found a reason to keep walking till freedom was found at last.
But no, not in this case. Yes I did find the exit to this maze and I had a reason to do so. However freedom was not a reward.
It was much more than that.
It was an answer to all that had been questioned. An answer to a prayer laid to rest. A message in a bottle reached me, as it was read a smile drawn upon my face.
No smile had meant more than the one drawn that instant.
Drawn, in fact, by an artist himself.
Never had I called myself to bear such beautiful smile but he, had drawn it with the hands of an artist a genious.
An artist whose canvas was a human body, the skin of those who craved that sting in return for a memory. A work of art.
This artist managed to draw the most incredible smile upon my face that I had ever laid eyes on. Impressive I must admit.
But how was said artist capable of this?
With words painted in the back of my mind as he spoke, bursts of joy flew.
An artist who once loved this selfish being and who had permanently drawn her name on his own personal canvas with a beating heart.
An artist she calls superman.

-Kathia Mariana Landeros

In the darkness I live in,
There's a man so tall and thin,
And in the morning he goes hiding,
Though at night he screams I'm lying,
And in the night,
My thoughts break into silence,
A life remains,
Within the mist of phobias.

When the sun is up I find escape
From the demons in my head,
But as the sun sets here he's creeping
Through my mind as I am sleeping,
And in the night,
My thoughts break into silence,
A cry through rain,
I lost my mind in phobias.

If paranoia is my only friend,
Well I must fall with him again,
As he reminds me of my sorrow,
While I cry for a tomorrow,
I lost myself
In silence.

-Kathia Mariana Landeros

Long arms of moonlight are stretching out
To the gigantic ocean,
For touching those soft curls
Of her mahogany coloured hair.
Eyes more azure
Than Pacific's quiet dream
Glowing too bright,
Embarrassing the fluorescence of water.
Resting hands on the fair *******
She is floating on her back
Gazing at the blessed purple sky.
While silvery cream of starlets
Is nourishing every wet curve
Of her slender body, with
Gentle caress.
But the unfortunate humans are
Still unable to witness
The mystery of her beauty,
Which is carefully confined
Inside the secret chest of Mariana Trench.

With blackest moss the flower-plots
         Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
         That held the pear to the gable-wall.
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange:
         Unlifted was the clinking latch;
         Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
                She only said, "My life is dreary,
                        He cometh not," she said;
                She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
                        I would that I were dead!"


Her tears fell with the dews at even;
         Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
         Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,
         When thickest dark did trance the sky,
         She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
                She only said, "The night is dreary,
                        He cometh not," she said;
                She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
                        I would that I were dead!"


Upon the middle of the night,
         Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:
The **** sung out an hour ere light:
         From the dark fen the oxen's low
Came to her: without hope of change,
         In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn,
         Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn
About the lonely moated grange.
                She only said, "The day is dreary,
                        He cometh not," she said;
                She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
                        I would that I were dead!"


About a stone-cast from the wall
         A sluice with blacken'd waters slept,
And o'er it many, round and small,
         The cluster'd marish-mosses crept.
Hard by a poplar shook alway,
         All silver-green with gnarled bark:
         For leagues no other tree did mark
The level waste, the rounding gray.
                She only said, "My life is dreary,
                        He cometh not," she said;
                She said "I am aweary, aweary
                        I would that I were dead!"


And ever when the moon was low,
         And the shrill winds were up and away,
In the white curtain, to and fro,
         She saw the gusty shadow sway.
But when the moon was very low
         And wild winds bound within their cell,
         The shadow of the poplar fell
Upon her bed, across her brow.
                She only said, "The night is dreary,
                        He cometh not," she said;
              She said "I am aweary, aweary,
                            I would that I were dead!"


All day within the dreamy house,
         The doors upon their hinges creak'd;
The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse
         Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd,
Or from the crevice peer'd about.
         Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors
         Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.
                She only said, "My life is dreary,
                        He cometh not," she said;
                She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
                        I would that I were dead!"


The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,
         The slow clock ticking, and the sound
Which to the wooing wind aloof
         The poplar made, did all confound
Her sense; but most she loathed the hour
         When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
         Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping toward his western bower.
                Then said she, "I am very dreary,
                        He will not come," she said;
                She wept, "I am aweary, aweary,
                        Oh God, that I were dead!"


                            *Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Lift the corners to the sky,
Squint the door to your soul,
So the past in past will lie,
Maybe now you'll smile some more.

-Kathia Mariana Landeros

As childhoods flourished
We were always told
Up in the skies we had a valuable soul
A guardian angel watching us grow
One for each one
To watch over us
To be our helping hand
As this rose bloomed
She came to see
Her guardian angel was not in the sky
Her guardian angel roamed through the night
Sometimes in a tie
Others in a chef coat
Regardless of clothes he watched over her
With hugs and laughs years of a friend
It wasn't till now that she came to see
Not only an angel was he
But a friend much more than she could see
He'd smile at her
Even when she was not in sight
It kept her alive through lonely nights
He was a friend a guardian, you see
A helping hand in times of need
Soon her eyes were opened
He kept her safe
He kept a smile on her face
She will always believe
She will always love
She will always be thankful
For her guardian angel.

-Kathia Mariana Landeros

With one black shadow at its feet,
         The house thro' all the level shines,
Close-latticed to the brooding heat,
         And silent in its dusty vines:
A faint-blue ridge upon the right,
         An empty river-bed before,
         And shallows on a distant shore,
In glaring sand and inlets bright.
                But "Aye Mary," made she moan,
                        And "Aye Mary," night and morn,
                And "Ah," she sang, "to be all alone,
                        To live forgotten, and love forlorn."


She, as her carol sadder grew,
         From brow and ***** slowly down
Thro' rosy taper fingers drew
         Her streaming curls of deepest brown
To left and right, and made appear,
         Still-lighted in a secret shrine,
         Her melancholy eyes divine,
The home of woe without a tear.
                And "Aye Mary," was her moan,
                        "Madonna, sad is night and morn;"
                And "Ah," she sang, "to be all alone,
                        To live forgotten, and love forlorn."


Till all the crimson changed, and past
         Into deep orange o'er the sea,
Low on her knees herself she cast,
         Before Our Lady murmur'd she:
Complaining, "Mother, give me grace
         To help me of my weary load."
         And on the liquid mirror glow'd
The clear perfection of her face.
                "Is this the form," she made her moan,
                        "That won his praises night and morn?"
                And "Ah," she said, "but I wake alone,
                        I sleep forgotten, I wake forlorn."


Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat,
         Nor any cloud would cross the vault,
But day increased from heat to heat,
         On stony drought and steaming salt;
Till now at noon she slept again,
         And seem'd knee-deep in mountain grass,
         And heard her native breezes pass,
And runlets babbling down the glen.
                She breathed in sleep a lower moan,
                        And murmuring, as at night and morn
                She thought, "My spirit is here alone,
                        Walks forgotten, and is forlorn."


Dreaming, she knew it was a dream:
         She felt he was and was not there.
She woke: the babble of the stream
         Fell, and, without, the steady glare
Shrank one sick willow sere and small.
         The river-bed was dusty-white;
         And all the furnace of the light
Struck up against the blinding wall.
                She whisper'd, with a stifled moan
                        More inward than at night or morn,
                "Sweet Mother, let me not here alone
                           Live forgotten and die forlorn."


And, rising, from her ***** drew
         Old letters, breathing of her worth,
For "Love", they said, "must needs be true,
         To what is loveliest upon earth."
An image seem'd to pass the door,
         To look at her with slight, and say,
         "But now thy beauty flows away,
So be alone for evermore."
                "O cruel heart," she changed her tone,
                        "And cruel love, whose end is scorn,
                Is this the end to be left alone,
                        To live forgotten, and die forlorn?"


But sometimes in the falling day
         An image seem'd to pass the door,
To look into her eyes and say,
         "But thou shalt be alone no more."
And flaming downward over all
         From heat to heat the day decreased,
         And slowly rounded to the east
The one black shadow from the wall.
                "The day to night," she made her moan,
                        "The day to night, the night to morn,
                And day and night I am left alone
                        To live forgotten, and love forlorn."


At eve a dry cicala sung,
         There came a sound as of the sea;
Backward the lattice-blind she flung,
         And lean'd upon the balcony.
There all in spaces rosy-bright
         Large Hesper glitter'd on her tears,
         And deepening thro' the silent spheres
Heaven over Heaven rose the night.
                And weeping then she made her moan,
                        "The night comes on that knows not morn,
                When I shall cease to be all alone,
                        To live forgotten, and love forlorn."


                                    *Alfred Lord Tennyson

Ever have one of those nights where you listen to Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt on repeat while you drive your car into the city and proceed to climb the steps of a parking garage while you try to get your ex girlfriend to answer her phone and when she doesn't you stop sit on the third story railing look down and think maybe if I fell I wouldn't quite die but then she'd have to acknowledge that I still exist.

Ever have one of those nights where you're hanging out on a roof with your friends and you're standing on the edge and you really want to jump but instead you step back and freestyle the bars "**** love it ain't a beautiful thing/ it was created by the Devil and all his demons/ and everything's swell til its ******* ending/ then you're slicing through your left wrist's ******* tendons."

Ever have one of those nights where you're in the driver's side back seat and your best friends are filling up the rest of the upholstery and you're having a good time playing "have you evers" and "would you rathers" and **** get's real serious when you friend turns around and says "Jon, do you cut yourself?" and you just feel the tears run down your face a nod you head and they all tell you they love you and they're always there for you and you know that and you've known that.

Ever have one of those nights where you put on one sneaker just so you can stomp on an old disposable razor spend thirty minutes picking off all the plastic pieces and then carve a train track down your forearm in hopes that all your sadness will climb on board a locomotive travel out your veins down your finger tips and crash land on your bathroom floor.

Ever have one of those days where you’re ten years old and no one’s home besides you and your two sisters and you end up getting in a fight over something you can’t quite remember but you end up in your bedroom crying and decide it’s a good idea to take a belt and wrap it around your throat climb onto your dresser and jam the buckle into the slot at the top of your closet door.

Ever have one of those days where you jump
Where your body swings like a pendulum
Where your toes claw at the side of your bureau
Where your sister holds your dead weight until your feet can find a flat familiar surface and you can breathe again

Sometimes I look at myself and think why have my scars healed so seamlessly as if there were never wires strung through my wrists like a marionette manipulated by the hands of hopelessness maybe the last time I drove a razor blade into my forearm the puppeteer made a mistake and severed the strings he had laced deep inside my tendons.

I once filled a bathroom sink with my sadness and walked away I still don’t understand why if Earth is 70% water God allows so many people to be walking aquariums why he gave them leaky faucets and hands that could turn them like a door ****.

Do you ever have one of those days where you feel like there are not enough “do not disturb" signs in the universe and you've had this growing curiosity your whole life about who is knocking on the other side.