Too busy running running away from that hellish beam that follows me, chasing me through these streets, leaves me running like a desperate outlaw, a substantial lose of any moral conviction I once had, any pride long since flung away, just a wandering shadow being hunted down by that hideous unseen force, people turning the lights at the top of the world on, throwing my hopes into the dark unknown, at the mercy of a higher force I can only pray they let me go soon, let me walk alone into a new day a better day.god damn.

Too busy running, to stop to think, can't contemplate, cicumstances that force themselves into my life, rumours hiding around the corners, heart in the inferno, choking, sweating, ducking, running from that old place, that smell, the cobwebs, looking for lightness, the brightness, to welcome me, and set me free, to begin at the end, and to end the beginning, watch for the clues, an hour in time is all it takes, I've seen yesterday and I've seen time, people jesting, mocking, now I have a reason, no more no less.

I'm leaving this world ,your sad mood gives me permission, the end of a black and white dream, hazy slow morning, can't see the wood for the trees, can't handle another experience like that one, god knows I'm good, trouble is he is the only one that does, stained and empty now is as good a time as any.

Life with her granted many privileges, self-admirable, privileges that my soul would gloat whenever within her aura. I say my soul inwardly radiated with such illuminating, light that I began to glow whenever in her presence. "Glow", Glow like they say, when one has been blessed to carry life in the womb, sparking a conception of love and emotion to my mental and physical composition, and that is what she did to my soul....Her presence, Herself, and just her way of being.

She flared my innate sensibilities of being complete. This warm and soothing embrace that we shared helps me to understand the non-conceptual ponders of beauty. Our love is an art, often questioned, leaving others perplexed at the enigmatic duo; and there was nothing more genuine than our natural appearance when we are together.

Expressions of complete bewilderment left on the faces of critics as they shrew, flinch, double take to catch a glimpse of the "odd couple", as they stare blankly in self admiration trying to determine the fallacies on behalf of those that have testosterone, and make pitiless remarks of what you need to experience "good luvin'". This art (our love and bond) was a spectacle; a masterpiece to be viewed by on goers of all cultures adored by some, but agitating many.

My soul mate was my artist and the person responsible for redefining my new and exciting attributes giving me the head turning poise that strikes the crowd and makes an audience. My poise was that of a Runway model in elegance with attitude and charisma with the stance and pose of a newly crowned debutante with such whimsical air and grace.

My artist's courage, inspiration, love and devotion was my rib and with that was the breath I needed to really accept all of life; and this was my artists's most valuable and cherished gift, and in this the world became my Eden. I understood not just the conceptual qualities of beauty, but a willingness to understand the complexities; and only with my soul mate did these qualities seem so prominent, my artist's love and devotion helped my understanding of the world to become more resilient and carried a purpose.

My body (the canvas) became selectively permeable only allowing the strengths of my artist's true feelings of heart and soul to penetrate my once tattered frame, worn by the trifles of others who did not want promising futures. My previous charlatan for an artist was self-absorbed with the most basic forms of art (only able to ascertain knowledge of color versus what could be seen and then developed) and had no faith in my abilities, for all I were at that time was just a mere canvas, His merciless and haphazard strokes to my canvas flesh would never blossom to a renowned portrait with critical acclaim for essence or character.

But my artist (my soulmate) was a connoisseur of the fine arts, subtly and provocative in all ways, but always avid about making me radiant and always finding that perspective quality that gave the personification and clarity to be a distinctive and prominent masterpiece.

Shouting is what the children at the primary school do. And Mr Banks at my school. He's famous for it. Shouting hurts my ears. Lots of things hurt my ears. I usually shout at mum, but once we had an argument with nonna too. I can't shout at Samantha because she is a spider and her web is what might make you shout. If you shout then you fall into the web where she can gloat at you. Shouting is what I want to do when I am feeling depressed and/or insane. My mind fights my mind and I just can't stand it. Times like that I want to scream I want to yell I want to smash my tiny skull to smithereens and wee bitteens. I want to shout HELP!!!

I'm sitting here. Staring into space. Not really thinking at all. But I am thinking. My lids low from crying and tiredness. My eyes red and bloodshot. Pain inside and out. I feel like I have died on the inside and I need to lay my outside body to rest in peace. It's so sad yet it's so beautiful. I have a painful lump in my throat. My tummy jumping everytime I take a breath. I'm angry. 'WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY?' I constantly scream at myself, but why? It's life that things are unfair. You just have to take it. But I make myself hurt even more. I even it out on the outside. I hate myself for making me feel this way. It's like a vicious circle. I feel bad about something so I go and make myself feel even worse and then for doing that I hate myself and because I hate myself I deserve to be hurt so I hurt myself again and again... if I felt one person really cared it would be ok. If a person cared so much about another person it would be ok but in my world I have no one so I punish myself. If I just had someone there to lean on, to help me out, someone I could help out and love back. I need another person to love so I can stop thinking about hating myself, and maybe if that person loved me back I wouldn't feel so bad about not hurting myself. Just I feel as though I deserve the hurt. Whatever it is that's hurting me keep hurting me because I deserve it and one day it will drive me to complete suicide and it will be beautiful, to see myself lying there in complete peace, at last, happy, peaceful. The thing is, the opposite to hurt is love. But love hurts. Theress no way of winning and if there is it is impossible to me.

It's been days. The clock remains indifferent. I will silently for night to let me dream, day to save me from the dark, and night again. The ticking is so sure of itself. So patient. Time can't quite hide its knowing smile. I let my head fall back to meet the cold grey expanse I lean against.

Almost all quiet. But it's slowing down. I can feel it. I'm gasping now, I can't open my eyes. Shoulders pushed forward, neck raised and knuckles white. Nausea comes in waves.

The shadows move. I sense change. How long has it been? Since what?

A destructive urge overtakes, but there is nothing here I could reduce. I'd throw myself against the wall but I'm already broken. The clock is staying where it has always been. It is the only enemy I have come face to face with, even if this face is just another of its many guises. I can't reach it anyway.

My faith deteriorates further with every second Time gains. No, not my faith in you. My faith in your promise.

I see your name. Your face left me long ago.

You said you feel everything I feel. I clutch at air. I feel nothing. Anger has put out its own flames, despair has cried itself dry. If you were here, you wouldn't feel this.

Sound no longer exists. What watches over me possesses only movement, but I no longer look upwards. YHead hangs, body twisted and limbs spread.

On waking, I did not see concrete, as I had grown to expect to see. I saw black. You felt soft.

I bolted down the street to where a glare of my boyfriend's gold cross necklace reflected off the blood from his body. I knelt down in disbeleif. I look at the sky looking for some kind of relief. I looked for helo that I could not find. In the process of looking, I looked down at the walls. As I looked at the walls a murky illusion came about them. They looked like somebody drenched the walls with deep red paint. Looking down at my boyfriend a faded murky illusion come to his body. I finally realized that the red blood that blanketed the hard cement ground belonged to my boyfriend. His blood flowed like a river on a rampage. I wiped a thick layer of blood off of his face, and he let out a screeching cry for help. He faintly said," Katie, help, help, help me...please!"

My heart fell right out of my chest. I wanted to do everything in the world for him but I couldn't do a single thing. I heard the sirens in a distance and told my boyfriend to hold onto my left hand; help waited around the corner. He let out a bloody cry for help. Blood sprayed at my face. As I stood to my feet, and I looked down the street, people standing, staring, gawking, crying, and walking had a blurred look to them. I looked all around and everything turned to a complete blur. The whole world faded into an oblivion. The only thing that came into focus remained my boyfriend. I saw the murky red blood, my boyfriend's flesh ripped to the bone by gunshots, and pebbles stuck in his dried blood. My boyfriend's brand new Doc Martens looked like a cat just got done pawing at a wood board. He lay there helpless. I help onto his left hand as he lay on his back on the hard cement ground. I put my blue Nautica flannel under his head so he could be a little more comfortable. The alley lay silent except for the screams of my boyfriend and the cries of my agony.

"Don't let the pain be a bliss grab yourself crumble your fist, then com down and think of this..." "A rainy dark night no street lights, no buildings and nothing to to touch but the rain drops dropping before you." "The only thing you can do is wander off into the darkness not knowing what lies ahead or stand still and think of every weird thing that is going through your head." "Your mind then becomes even more frightened." "Before you can make up your mind you see a flashing light going off and on very gently." "So you force you wet and dripping body towards the warm and gentle flashing light." "Your body travels long into the distance to reach the light but your getting farther rather than closer."

I hold in my hands a stick of wood, perhaps nine or ten inches long, near the diameter of a broomstick, curved, spit on the ends, a bit of bark still clings. A fragment of a branch from a long dead tree I would guess.

Before me stands a door. The stick becomes a key. I open the door, and enter. We are in a dark room, a room in a brick building with a Spanish tile roof. A roof built to withstand ten feet of snow, in a place where it never snows. (Military intelligence they call it). Outside, in the early morning dark, the thick white fog hangs like drapes on the tall dark eucalyptus trees standing on the nearby hill. From the distance comes the soft moan of a foghorn, and the faint chug, chug, of a one-cylinder diesel engine, as a double end fishing boat labors through the Golden Gate, and heads toward fisherman's wharf with a catch of fresh crab. No bridge spans the gate.

The ten-year-old boy in the bed opens his eyes and looks at his father, standing at the foot of his bed. "Daddy, say something. Don't stare like that. You are scaring me." "Go to sleep son." Did I know? Did I know then how very close I was to death? When it enters a body, a forty-five-caliber bullet makes a small hole, about the size of a dime, but it makes a hole the size of a fried egg when it leaves. Did I know then? Did I know how close to death my mother was, and that father was waiting for a call from the hospital saying that she had gone, or that he planned to go with her and take me with him? I think that somehow I did. I had played with the heavy colt Army issue automatic when Dad was visiting mom in the hospital, taken the short fat bullets out of the clip, lined them up like soldiers, put them back again, and carefully replaced the pistol underneath Dad's clean neatly folded socks. Yes, I think I somehow knew, when I was ten.

The scene is fading. Here's another door. What's that sound? Oh, the rain. It rains a lot here. Four hundred and twenty inches a year they say. Outside the tent, the tall Philippine mahogany trees with their trunks flaring at the base stand a hundred feet tall. The Seabees drained this swamp. Empress Augusta Bay and a fifteen-mile perimeter, is all we hold. The rest of this island, eighty miles long and some forty wide, with its thick jungle and steep mountains, its two volcanoes, still belongs to the Japanese Sixth Army. A backwash of the war, they call it. But, a year is a long time to stay in a backwash, so close to the Japanese Sixth Army. They were the ones that raped Nan king, someone told me.

A nineteen-year-old United States Marine Corporal is sitting on his bunk reading a small piece of paper, they called it a V-mail. The borders of the paper are black. What an immature thing for his young wife to have done when she wrote that letter telling the young Marine that his father had shot himself after his mother died.

"So you did it Papa. So you finally did it." Had I been in the same room, I would have been safe. You were always very careful not to violate army regulations. Killing a Marine would have constituted the destruction of government property." Hey, knock off this crap. Marines don't cry. "Daddy, where are you. Remember how you held me on your chest while you rolled on the floor and sang, "John Brown had a little Indian Boyeee, John Brown had a little Indian Boyee. Put and take, yes, the little wooden top with put and take on it. I had a stack of matchsticks and you had one. The walks, remember the walks along the high cliff overlooking the ocean."

During World War 2, I was, for a few months, a member of a Marine Corps Guard Company assigned to protect the dry-docks at San Francisco's Hunters Point. The assignment was temporary, pending my being shipped out to a combat unit in the South Pacific.

I was then an underweight 5 foot nine eighteen year old kid who had, like many of my fellow war time Marines, thought that joining the Corps would somehow magically change me into a rough, tough Marine. No so, on the night of the first part of this story, I was still an underweight, afraid of the dark kid, walking a guard post in the chilling San Francisco fog.

The soft, repeated, mournful sound of a foghorn, far away near the Golden Gate, deepened my sense of solitude as the cold mist worked its way into my body and soul. I did feel some slight comfort from the weapon slung on my shoulder, although I wished that it hadn't been manufactured by the Daisy Air Rifle Company, the wartime manufacturer of cheap throw away submachine guns, derisively called grease guns. Albeit, its long clip of 45-caliber ammunition clearly announced that it was well suited, with the simple pressing of its trigger, to turning some poor soul into a bloody dying mess.

As I walked my lonely post, I was aware that attempts had been made to sabotage the destroyer in the dry-dock that I was guarding, and that someone had fired on one of our guards the night before. I was turning these thought over in my mind when I was startled by the shape of what appeared to be a large man that suddenly became dimly visible through the fog, some fifty feet in front of me.

Summoning forth my best, and most tough, and official Marine Corps voice I shouted, "Halt!" But what sounded through the fog was the high nervous voice of a frightened teenager. Twice more I gave the time honored call of "Halt." Suddenly, as if it had a mind of its own, my weapon slid from my shoulder and assumed the firing position, its lethal muzzle pointing straight at the advancing form.

As it had been trained to do, my had slowly closed and my trigger finger brought steady pressure on the trigger, thereby moving whoever that was, one millimeter closer to death. Then time seemed to freeze, and the thought, "Oh my God, I'm about to kill someone," shot through my mind, and then the words, "Thou shall not kill," flashed into my consciousness, and with that thought, it seemed as if everything was flooded in a soft white light. A full moon had burst through a hole suddenly opened up in the shifting fog. My trigger finger relaxed as I saw, standing before me, the figure of an old man, a thin black wire running from his ear to his jacket pocket. Again, summoning forth my best official Marine Corps albeit scared teenage voice, I said, "Don't walk around here with your hearing aid turned off. I almost shot you.

The last vestiges of my contrived tough Marine image faded completely, and I seemed to shrink in size as the old fellow gave me a fatherly grin and, disappearing in the fog, called back. "I'm leaving now sonny, don't shoot me."

A year later the war had just ended and I found myself foolishly walking alone down a jungle trail on the island of Mindanao in the Southern Philippines, were our unit had stopped for a week in route to North China via a slow LST, landing ship tank. Sensing someone behind me, I turned to see the glow of a cigarette in the dark. I called out a friendly greeting, and got no response. Being unarmed, I responded to a strong inner message to get out of there fast, and I started to run. The glow of the cigarette followed in absolute silence. Realizing that whoever it was barefooted, and remembering my father's stories of Moro natives on this island attempting to achieve instant entrance to heaven by killing Christians, my sense of danger increased, my heart pounded, I increased speed. I dodged to the right, the cigarette;s glowing red tip dodged with me, continuing to follow my every maneuver as it steadily closed the gap between us.

Then, up ahead in a clearing, I saw what appeared to be a safe haven. The gull wings of our big Marine Corps Corsair fighter planes were dimly visible in the dark. I darted in between the familiar fuselages of the big planes. The red cigarette glow retreated, and my heart beat began to slow, when a soft strong, commanding voice behind me said, "Stand still. Don't move." I froze, and heard nothing for what seemed like an eternity, then the voice said, "OK, relax." I turned and saw a Marine approaching, carbine in hand, he said, "I had the sites of this carbine trained on your temple and the trigger half squeezed before I saw the globe and eagle on your cap. This isn't my carbine. I drew the wrong one for the first time since I've been in the Marine Corps. My carbine has a hair trigger.

The Japs on this island don't know that the war is over. They've been sneaking in here and throwing grenades into the cockpits of these planes. I have orders to shoot to kill." "How could you see that emblem in the dark?" I asked. It seemed as if the guard had difficulty believing his own words as he slowly replied. "The moon came out from behind a cloud for just a second just as I was about to fire."

Today, I am a retired schoolteacher living with my wife of 55 years in our Napa, California home. Where I routinely E-mail my four grown children, and six grandchildren and my former tutees, one a Mexican boy, the son of a farm worker, who is now in Stanford on a scholarship, and the other, a the Japanese boy, now in college in Japan, whose parents didn't think he was college material until I convinced them otherwise.

I wonder if some of us are saved for a reason. Perhaps God sent a bit of moonlight in gratitude for my listening to and obeying his words one cold foggy night, or to make it possible for me to help the son of a poor immigrant Mexican farm worker win a scholarship to Stanford, and give me an opportunity to show love and concern for my children, the son of an immigrant Mexican farm worker, and grandson of a former enemy. Maybe not, but it's nice to think so.

The Chubb institute was located on 22 Cortland Street. I attended this school during the 2001 campaign. Each day I would enter a tin box called the R train and embark on a journey of success. This daily trek of freedom would carry me safely from Bayridge Brooklyn to lower Manhattan. Surrounded by a sea of black and blue suits I would turn on my music box and dream of future glory. Once inside my inner drive would take full control a gift that had been given to me by my first love. My appetite for gold grew with each successful test and presentation. Across the street stood the Silver Towers. They stood there in all their monetary glory. Their presence intensified my drive for success. During my breaks I would stroll out to the fountain at the base of the Towers. A large bronze globe gently caressed streams of cold blue water. Immigrant tourists swarmed like locust in a weak attempt to capture the majestic glory that the Towers presented.

I landed a high-class job at Prudential Financial. This had been a temporary victory at best. My Sept 11 started in June a few weeks before the attacks. Enemies from my past drugged me causing a period of psychosis. At the peak of my delusion I found myself at the base of the Towers once again. I saw a fireball coming out of the sky. It looked like the sun was crashing into our great blue sphere. Black and blue suits stared up at the sky in silence. With great fear I ran into the towers, yelling and screaming that we all were going to die. My vision vivid and true.

On Sept 11 I resided at a mental ward located in north Brooklyn. I had been committed for the second time in two months. Brave men in blue transported my tired soul to cowardly men in white. Needles of pain and hopeless pills overtook my agenda. That morning I awoke to a woman in white, "Dave the towers are on fire". Her adult tone serious but her words had no affect. My anger was strong. All freedom had been lost. I marched over to a shiny box of light. It threw me a trance of horror. I saw a steel bird cut the Silver Towers in half. Silence screamed as those around me stared at a tiny fireball in the center of the wall. Men and women in white scrambled for position awaiting senseless casualties. They arrived by boat in the thousands. Silently I screamed, "We are all going to die". My anger turned to sadness and disbelief.

Once my freedom was restored, I fled. Leaving New York to start a new life. Hoping that one day I could return to the city I love. Today, I wallow in solitary bliss awaiting redemption. My personal box of lights throws me a daily trance of hate and retribution. Visions of nuclear weapons and war cancel all hope for peace. Our great blue sphere turns red with blood and rotting flesh.

Do you know how much it hurts? How much it hurts when the boy you like doesn't like you, but someone else. And that someone else is your second best friend. Well, it hurts a lot, more than any one-person can imagine. Sometimes all you feel like doing is crying, and nothing but that!

Sometimes I wonder why I like this one certain boy so much! For some reason I can't help it! I tell my mind not to like this boy, but my heart wont listen. How do you stop liking the boy who showed you he liked you, more than anyone ever before.

Why can't I get over this boy? I try and I try. I try harder than ever before. But all that happens is I start to like him even more! All I want to do is get this boy out of my mind. Everywhere I go, everything I see, reminds me of this one boy.

How come ever since I met him, it makes me happy and queasy to see him, yet when I see him with another girl, it makes me want to cry. Now that me and this boy don't talk, the only thing I feel is sadness, i'm full of tears. I fake happiness so I won't wither away at the mere age of seventeen.

I know I'm too young to know what true love is, or to know who my soul mate is, but all I knew when around that boy, was true love! And when I think about that boy, I know I'm meant to be with that boy. Maybe I'm obsessed and crazy, or maybe my heart is telling me truth. I don't think I will ever know, for I don't care to know now that I have lost this boy, the only thing I care for, is crying.

This boy was the nicest blonde haired blue-eyed boy I had ever met. That boy said he like me, what happened? That I don't get! Is the reason he doesn't talk to me because I asked him to be with me? This boy is the reason I go to school everyday, for a day with out seeing him is a day longer than two life times of wait, to me. I'm not infatuated with this boy, I know where to draw the line! But some people can't seem to understand that.

In my dreams I wish for a place where I can live with out the thought of this boy, but all that happens is this boy appears in them almost every other night. How do I stop the madness? How do I return to a normal life, one where I didn't live to see this boy, or to catch a glimpse of this boy? I want to return to happiness that's not being faked.

This boys name is the one name that's always spoken on my lips, far more than any other name I know. I speak about this boy so much, my own mother knows him like the back of her hand, even though she's met him only once or twice. If I could get his name off my lips, I'm sure all the happiness I have, the little ounce it is, would drain away.

I say that I don't want to see this boy. I say that I don't want to hear his name anymore. I say I don't want to hear this boys voice or name on any other girl's mouth. I lie! I want to see this boy, and I want to hear his name, and I do want to hear his lovely voice. My heart wants al that, but my mind wont allow it, how do I rid myself of all this confusion?

When a boy tells you he likes you, it means exactly what it implies, right? I'm so confused now, I know not what to do, do I talk to him, and ask why we don't speak, or do I stop trying all together? Do I tell this girl whom is my second best friend that I do truly care if she goes out with this boy? Do I tell her it hurts me to see them together? Do I tell her how I truly feel, even though I will probably jeopardize our friendship, our friendship is only a month old, do I want to ruin something so great over this boy?

What do I do, some one please tell me what to do, someone please guide me in the direction where my life will not be damaged in anyway, the direction where all happiness will subside with me and I wont have to fake happiness anymore. Please answer this: why this boy?