Compromised

I'm suspended in some
Viscous murk
And I can't see my hand
When I wave it in front of my face.
My eyes can open whenever I want them to,
But it really doesn't matter.

Because when the sun finally rises,
Exposing wonder to my open eyes
He will still be closing in on me.

Walking calmly and with open hands
In his suit and tailored finery.
He'll be wielding some wicked knife,
Roughly sharpened into a wave
Like a garish knife for ceremonies
Some aztec priest might use
To cut out your heart
And hold it aloft for light.

With every step he takes
He begs me,
Pleads-
And I can even notice as his voice trembles
In desperation
To be allowed to prune my mind,
And weed around the edges-
To cut something out that terrifies him
In me.

But everytime his hands touch me,
Grab me in gloved hands
On my shoulders to comfort,
I'm always confused that he is
So utterly gentle.
That he assures me,
He wants the best for me,
That this is what friends are for.

I find that if I ever consent
To one of his logical propositions
Something in my gut
Makes me push forth flower petals
As an explosive oral warning
To the pressure building in my mind,
And at the back of my throat.
The petals paint the air
In all too cheerful hues
Garish and without nuance
Before falling to nothing.

But pain inevitably follows
When he is unimpressed
By my previous outburst
Proceeding to effortlessly catch me
In one fallacy or another
And I really don't know why
It doesn't wake me up out of this,
Because it has to be a dream
As it rips through me.
Tearing me apart.
As the roots of,
What I fear is
Some malignant idea, spreads its fibers
Through every inch of mine.

But they don't ever stop
As the sprouts spring
From the seed in my core,
Way down past any doubts
I may have posssessed.
They push and rip
Splitting and tearing
Skin from muscle
And bone from sinew.
Tearing my fingers from their nails,
Bursting them apart like little
Red blossoms in the air
Only to have them quickly replaced
By flower buds.
Flaying me asunder,
To pieces and pieces
And pieces
Even worming through from my soul
And forcing through
The ones under my feet
Rooting me so permanently to the soil
That I fear I'll never
Move past this point.

My eyes become hard to open,
Under the shade of a blooming flower
That has grown out of
Where my brain was supposed to be,

It tells me it loves me.

It says that before my eyes offend me,
Before they must be plucked
Like any offending growth,
They must be covered and hidden
From this world of lies.

The bloom in my skull assures me,
The beauty of the grain
And the cool moisture from my roots,
Can be reveled in forever.
But just before I close my eyes
I can see the man-
My friend,
Is terrified of me,
His blue eyes mirror mine back
In terror at the unmoving ornament
That I am becoming.

The rest of whatever is left
Of my pallid and broken skin hardens
Becomes inhuman and strange.
It is replaced by the defenses
The weed from inside me,
Assures me I need.

I eventually stand
At the heart of,
What has torn me apart.
With the remainder of
My life's blood beating only
To sustain the cancer that has grown
From its roots inside me.

I can't hear descent,
Its a wooden echo.
Nor the pleading the man is making
To be allowed one last chance
To save my mind
And to bring back
To wretched friend he loved.

I imagine him sighing,
Weeping a tear for my vanity
Gritting his teeth
And resolving to do
What he feels he knows is right.

What a fool.

When he attacks,
His knife
And every other tool he procures
Will bounce so beatlessly
Without bite
Off of my bark.

When he gives up,
And he will.
I'll stay right here forver,
Unmoving.
Reaching for the sun.

I can feel its love,
Deep within my soul.
So, come stand with me,
And revel
In what I've always known,
You've been seeking.
While you're at it,
Why not try my fruit?
The seeds don't hurt too bad,

Really.