MartenHoyle

Dear Readers-- Here is Chapter 16 of The Day Death Rested, Book Five of my Filii der Bedlam series. I am sharing the book one chapter at a time for my Readers, who may not be able to afford or who do not have the means to purchase my work. In this current incarnation, the novel is not edited. So please forgive any errors you encounter here. This is a horror story. It is intended for a mature audience only. Thank you, --MH SIXTEEN At the door of the Garden, we were met by four Sisters. Their thorned vines lay on the floor in front of them, as they waited for us to pass. “I suppose,” the Administrator said, “they are expected to come with us.” “Yes, Madam,” said the Doctor. “As you know, they are here—’ Dismissing him with a wave of her stylus, she said, “Yes! It was not a question. I know perfectly well why they are here, Doctor. I simply do not like them.” As always, two traveled before us and two behind. The Doctor

“Hate” There is a man who hates me, Because I feel nothing. His smile is seen through me. The longer I try to kill him… The longer he lingers. I cannot wound him, For his doom is mine. The longer I try to make him leave, The stranger he becomes… He becomes someone I never knew, While my disguises become useless, As he sees, my choices will not go away, Even if I choose to call them mistakes… He is always here to hate me Because I feel nothing… I try to kill him every day… With the question: Was the choice ever mine? Will he always hate me on your behalf? He knows everything you’ve told yourself, All along, I could not be possessed— Or was that me talking to myself? I cannot wound him, For his doom is locked to mine… It would only hurt you for a moment, But it hurts me every day… I try to explain that you are all I see, But I am lying…because he is always there, Hating me… I cannot wound him, For his doom is mine. I cannot wound him, For his doom is mine. © 2024 Marten Hoyle

After assisting in his terminally ill lover's suicide, a young man suffers a mental breakdown and enters The Program: A sleep study that will decide the fate of reality. The above is a general, quick synopsis of the second novel in the Filii der Bedlam series. The book is called Brother of Death and will be coming out soon from I Ain't Your Marionette Press. The first novel, Voces Animarum, is available now at the links provided below in this post. Oddly enough, Brother of Death was written before Voces Animarum. Upon completing the manuscript, I sent it out to perhaps 100 (no exaggeration) literary agencies and publishers, but none of them wanted anything to do with it. Not even the LGBT-oriented agencies and publishing houses. I suppose a book that begins with such an Under the Rug topic as assisted suicide appears to be a bit much to most people. Every place that I sent it to (that bothered responding) said much the same thing: "I cannot bring the right amount of passion to your

“Under the Window Sky” I want to live—not forever—but for a time— I want to live inside a snow globe, Where I am always surrounded by glass. You see—I slept once…I slept once… …I slept once in a place with no windows. It was almost like they took away my eyes— Windows unto themselves, that they gave shadows to... So sometimes, I like to imagine myself living Under the confines of a perfect, glass sky… There are no clouds there, while it is snowing, And there is no-one to take away my eyes. Over plastic lakes, all the little flakes Fall like ashes, for they are never cold. Over the pseudo-vale, the endless winter gale Flutters and shifts underneath the window sky… The storm silently flows, while the wind never blows, And my tears shall never know the bite of frost. And it is good to cry beneath the window sky, For those whose eyes were once taken away. And no-one will intrude upon the solitude, Of the snow that—like ash—is never cold. No one will steal my eyes, where winter never

“Dancing in the Valley of Bones” In the valley of bones— You are my life, and that is why I wanted the world to end: You see, it is when I hated you that I needed you the most— Whenever I loved you, was when I wanted everyone to go. But would you—won’t you stay with me while the life is draining? I don’t want to live unless you leave me here to die— I don’t want to die, unless you were to force my hand. But we will live forever, so I don’t want to trust you To give me a reason to stay alive for half as long… I need you to try to listen to what I never say, So when all is silent, you can see the reason why. It is never awkward if you can hear between words The way I would never beg you to make me happy— —because your happiness means the world to me— While my happiness meant the world was going to end, And we can watch America become a cemetery together, But I’m scared of living forever because I never learned how to dance, But if you teach me how to dance upon the valley of

“Stars” I want to watch the sky eat itself alive— No…I want to… To shower myself in bleeding stars. You say their light faded long ago— But I’ll dance in their blood as it reaches the Earth— Tonight, I shall stand on misty, abandoned mountaintops And taste the dead that you call your prayers. The sun has never done me a bit of wrong— I have scores to settle with galaxies. Our prayers rose, but never once blossomed— Only the light of death in a black infinity Has ever sprouted from twilit gardens far away, Where I have planted my voice in horizons Drowned by stars that no one will ever name. So, tonight, I will climb to some deserted Heaven, Somewhere, where no one has ever touched the sky. There, I will wish to taste the blood of the stars— And I shall dance as it rains over my naked body; As it laces my tongue in eons of forgotten light. Bathing on misty, abandoned mountain tops, I will eat the sky before it can eat itself alive. And with the skin of heaven and stars inside of

“The Parasite Folk” My mind is undead, and it tasted so alive. I feel myself blink now among the Parasite Folk— Gazing from a shell of terminal, flowery fangs… I see no delivery from their translating thoughts. I only hear you speak when I should be listening, But you don’t get to watch them taste your words, The Parasite Folk that blink inside of me, As they vomit what you really mean into my mind. I love you, but this isn’t where I should be— I belong to voices that chase the wind away, The parasites are ugly—that is what you see, My soul is buried, or perhaps it only chose to hide? I say this, because when I try to find my grave, I can never find the flowers of the Parasite Folk… All I hear is someone crying from far away, But it is inside of me, so—how could this be? So, if I rip my chest open, will all the flowers come out? I would do it in front of the mirror, if you would watch, To give you the bouquet I keep inside of my bones… I think that is what you meant by, “Look

“Once Upon a Dying Eve” It was once upon a dying eve, We do not recall, but our disease Thinks the snow fell, dark by twilight… Though winter had passed the walls of Hope. I watched the sun weep over mountains Between the guarded walls that read, Hope— Outside was the gate of our folly, The only place we may truly enter. We lay a barbed wire wreath in the air, To try to keep the smoke of our dreams From escaping those high, asylum walls— Of all we wanted to mean to the world. In the name of Madness, we chose To lock the door upon ourselves, And prayed the smoke would never leave, For the name upon the walls now read, Despair. But that was once upon a dying eve. We kept the embers of the snows between What was right, and what we chose to do, In case there was anything left to burn. © 2024 Marten Hoyle

“In My Heart of Minds” In my heart of minds are always such bloodless thoughts— Sometimes, They say that I died, just last night. Without much lack of enthusiasm, They say The truth that there was nothing They could tell me—at all— To convince me to stay amid the pleasure of Their kind… Such company leaves a sour taste in my brain— So They say, when Their minds will not stop repeating With the beat of the now-entombed hours, left behind— Without flowers—only blood to give the graves. They say the names of tears pressed against my lips— Names it seems I have not laid to rest: That no one else will suffer to hear one more time: So They must tell me all over again Of all the ways my heart failed the night before, When someone caught me smiling and wounded: When my love was depressing enough to hurt you: You say you’re sorry it never happened, I say all is forgiven if you never go away— You could not kill me, so I am weaker now, So, please strike me with your last blow— I grow weary

“Your Words Are Drowned by Tomorrows” I never wanted our goodbyes to end, Though I wanted to make everything else go away. You are gone…all of you…to find an early rise, While I slumber on what your life was taken from. Only your meaning has stayed with me— An impression of ‘presence’ is held Wherever you used to try to listen To the sickness and pain…of the emptiness, Where I knew you would ask that I do not follow, Someday …though you saw it lay inside me. Crawling beyond the monument where your greeting lies, I see a future of echoes, whose words I will not recall— Though now and then, I would hear myself think In words whose ghosts never belonged to me until now. All specters have left me to haunt you, alone… …alone: to haunt the voice that once kept me From mourning—my thoughts surrounded by loss. Alas! I do not know what you used to say, anymore. Though the speech is with me now…alone… To haunt what I never heard you say, But that I can believe you would tell me, Now that