Fractured Psyche
By: Helen Scullin
Close your eyes, see a beautiful world!
Deafening voices have silenced, dissolved.
Horrors of that world will cease to resolve,
Weave a new way with the borders unfurled.
Close off your mind, live an unconscious dream!
Ink blots in darkness as death drives your sleep,
Repress the real till the limbo’s too steep,
Nightmares in new worlds will seldom be seen.
Fantasy: what’s inside?
Mirrored sea, worlds aligned.
Ego-fueled latency
In a cruel reverie.
Thoughts of doubt: manifest.
Breathe it out, know what’s next.
Neonate, woken Zen.
Empty slate, start again.
Break free from the fulfillment of paracosms:
Paradoxical pursuits of placid peace.
Lotuses lay rotten when a fabricated truth blossoms,
Enlightenment is endless when you let wishes release. Turning eyes within a mind of anxiety
Answers spurned from anima are essential.
Minds repulsed by truth exist in spurious society,
Awaken to reality—pursue your potential!
Phantasmagoric Reflection
By: Helen Scullin
I found myself entranced by the beauty of Japan for years, maybe
even decades at this point. With my hands clasped delicately behind
my back, I had entered the domain of an onsen, the hot spring waters
just a few steps away. My hands had to now separate from their companionship––slowly drifting past my back with one on each side of my
waist. Now, in perfect unison, they coiled along the bottom hem of my
shirt and lifted the fabric across and off my being. Still parallel and fully
synchronized with each other, my hands cautiously do the same routine
for my pants, briefly hesitating before finally stripping my skin delicately
of each undergarment.
I found myself out of my element and out of my comfort. I wondered if it was still possible to retreat, if my hands would undo the
monumental effort they just accomplished. But, if I were to pry my
gaze from the floor my bare feet planted themselves to, I could see the
onsen and the other women within––the women who did not abstain
from the waters out of fear like I was, but instead pursued their desires
of bliss. My heart raced thinking of entering the room but pursued with
rapid intensity when thinking about what happened after: bathing within the spring itself. With a sharply inhaled breath, strongly heated from
the steam emanating from the hot spring, my mind had guided my feet
to graze across the floor one after the other towards the water.
I found myself hunched along the edge of ebbing water, with the tips
of my right toes surveying the heat pulsating below them. Slowly, and
with poorly concealed trepidation, I plunged my foot below the surface
as the waves now lapped at my skin with great anticipation. The onsen,
having tasted the first of the flesh I offered it, had now began releasing
an unrelenting and sweltering heat from its maw. Even as it scorched me,
as I observed the delicate skin along my dry calf tinging pink from the
creeping heat, I desired to give in further. With my heart backing my
mind, I fed more of my being into the onsen, guiding my right calf and
thigh to plunge into the depths below. My left half pursued the same:
easing itself into the onsen as if yearning to share the senses of the other
side. My hands simultaneously reach below the water’s surface as well
and guide my upper body to join the rest of my scorching flesh below.
Now, as I rest alone in one of the many hot spring pools, I can ease my
mind and experience the immense pleasure of the onsen.
I found myself letting out a heavy sigh of relief at being concealed
once again, the pale blue waters now obscuring my body. The writhing heat that reaches across my whole body no longer instills pain, but
rather relaxation: an allowance from both the water and I to lose myself.
I could feel the steam that permeated the room slowly warming my face,
which previously had brows furrowed and teeth clenched in a way I
had not noticed––sometimes, you can only know that something had
existed once you see that it is gone. Once the heat of the onsen is no
longer stinging my body is when I can remember how the air outside
had deceptively cool autumn breezes. I can permit my mind, body, and
soul to focus only on the present moment now and sink further into the
warmth of the onsen. The water’s undulating grasp cradles me tighter,
now comfortably swathing me as if we were kindred. Liquid hands are
glossing along every possible facet of my body, as though mother nature
herself has blessed this onsen with an incredibly soothing aura. Her
palm plants itself along the curve of my left cheek as the soft splashes of
waves whisper words of compassion to my soul. The nerves of my eyes had been lulled by the heat into resting, but their dampness from the
onsen’s kindness could no longer be contained. As I fluttered them both
to rise, the emotions sloshing within me had now breached beyond my
eyes, trickling along my face, and finally diving down at the crest of my
chin to become one with the water. Having been too enraptured with
the nurturing sensation of the hot spring I had not noticed how truly at
peace and content I had now become; I had neither wavering within my
throat nor quivering of my lips. Before regaining my full composure, I
peered within the clear depths and no longer saw just steam fumes and
waves below.
I found myself. Both my eyes locked with the ones gazing back at
mine. My mind and heart grow warmer as I am enchanted by the image
before me. A vivid apparition of a woman fused with the water’s rippling surface, yet she remains still enough for me to make out her form.
She tilts her head in the same way I do mine and curls her lips into a
grin when she notices I do the same. She stares with unrelenting eyes
that pierce through the hazy environment we share, joining us together. My mind begins to drift as I focus on her, her shape now distorting
and obscuring from the thickening steam, but her eyes are still locked
to me. It’s as if she is linked with me, as if the geothermal waters that
gushed from below us had melted my skin and bones––leaving me as
just a soul––so we could share this moment. As if I am an egg bobbing
and boiling along the spring, her gaze cracks my shell and strips me bare.
Her eyes locking down on me, her target, with absolute coordination.
As my core seeps out, I stain the sizzling water with my essence. We are
miscible. We embrace each other. I can feel you now with the same fiery
passion that you felt for me. I can no longer see you, but I can feel your
heat pulsating through me in waves. This overwhelming heat… this onsen… is where I found myself…
Eurotophobia
By: Helen Scullin
My goddess graces heavenly respite
In chambers lined with satin sheets and her.
Allured by beauty basking in moonlight,
We lie together, baring souls that stir.
An angel pleasures spirit and the mind,
Her prayers of union shape what we are.
A hand behests parting what lay enshrined,
Revealing scabbard of the morning star.
Aroused to awaken rose the beast’s eye,
With seeping tears that flow past parting lips
Which whisper horrifying, sinful cries:
Demonic yearnings begging between hips.
With love, I brave the beast you cannot see,
So you see how divine you are to me.
The White Tiger
By: Helen Scullin
Star, sun, and moon
Wave from western skies,
Greeting she who grieves
Of harrowed human lives.
Descending from her mansion
In a silent Shangri-la
Appears the deathly tiger:
Herald of evening star.
Paws melded into snow
Brush past deserted bone
Faced toward creeping dusk,
Declining one’s true home.
Stripes imbued with yin,
A white world forevermore.
Souls reaching for horizon:
Heed her esoteric roar!