And he says to himself, "Story of My Life."

Once upon a time I was a happy young man.

Then, one day, a wicked witch cast a spell on me, and I started (very slowly, at first) to become someone else altogether.

The handsome prince promised he'd slay my demons, and be patient, and when the real me fell totally asleep he promised he'd wait for the 100 years-spell to pass.

At the worst of it, locked away, demons all about me, unable to think for tears falling or feel for numbness aching me, I was abandoned by the prince.

At this point, I succumbed and the real me fell further from the surface; the demons overtook me, and I became the Monster that knights and princes travel the land to slay.

(No wise prophets were there to recognise the innocent person underneath.)

Things got really bad.

And worse and worse.

I was abandoned at the worst possible time.

I was blamed for everything that happened to me. Was it my own fault this thing happened to me, then?

Now the prince wishes to roam the world, slaying demons for others, and wants more than anything for some other knight to come and slay me.

And I still need saving, but no one seems to care.

I don't think this is even the happy young man talking now. I'm someone else, still.

Written on the Occasion of a Confrontation

Hesiod the Hellenist, and Homer’s Homos

Do you listen to old Aesop’s fables,

Concluding the dead fabulist knew best?

Does Shame still reign your anus, unable

To enter Eros? This attorney rests

His case on science, on logic, on facts:

(The fact being you did not choose what pleases

Your being.) Retract assumptions: enact

Redemption for We that love erastês.

Fabulist and fabulous: ne’er collude,

‘Lest to suffer the rude, the boisterous –

Like an idiot you get fucked (no lube!),

Mentally at least: it’s preposterous

That your frail dignity should yet depend

On the judgements of lesser men (mere boys

At a loss, you concede, to comprehend

The situation.) You and I both toyed

With feelings we chose to reject, respect

Arbitrary mores and social controls,

Dare we not upon death, rewards collect,

For setting hell for ourselves as our goals.

You’re nearly free but so far from awake

That I could shake you by your bones, ring you

By your ears, drive you with a wooden stake

(Forsake that mistake, for is it not true

Vampires rest in horizontal closets?)

Wake up to see that a swirling access

To the uncommonly possessed (trust it’s

Me who wants what’s best; abide where digress

-sions spring from passion!) by the uninspired,

And get fired up! Reclaim the fires of hellls

They invented to throttle our desires,

ART IS YOURS – (mostly mine) – listen as bells

Ring out to proclaim my words as music:

Do not relent ‘til your face is in stars,

Praise poetry (its art metaphysic)

That teaches it’s fine to be who you are.

Had it been