EYES IN THE DARK Folio Four/Edition Five The ideas and views expressed in this newspaper are not always shared by the other writers and editor.

Freedom Track Eleven Did you know it's over? My bags are packed, sweetheart I've got every memory we ever made tucked away in a boot box And tomorrow morning I'm striking the match and burning it all to worthlessness It'll all be dead and damned by the time I'm halfway across the country I've got forty-eight bucks and the will of the gods to my name So I can't lose There's no more I'm Sorrys There will be no more fucking I Love Yous because it's over, babe I wish I had time for a proper good-bye but my train leaves in twenty minutes Send me off into the wild black yonder with a prayer for my prosperity and inner peace If you think anyone's listening Ask yourself where I am and what I'm doing the next time you're lying awake after midnight Go ahead and wonder if I'm better off without you The answer will be yes, Babe, and it'll flash neon, superimposed on an image in your tortured mind --YES BABE YES BABE YES BABE And all the time it flashes, I'll just be walking away I'll walk so far away from you that my shoes will wear through And then I'll walk a little farther to spite my tired feet that mistake return for relief I'll walk the city streets, turning corners in an endless labyrinth like a nomad following the herd, until I don't know where I am I'll walk country roads with my thumb stuck up indifferently incase some lonely no one wants to pick me up I'll walk until I leave my train of thought twenty miles behind me Twenty miles of pavement and journey and double solid lines There's no more I'm Sorrys

There will be no more fucking I Love Yous It's over, hon I'm walking away and you can't stop me Tell the family I went crazy Tell our friends I ran off with the circus Tell the police I heard voices and guitars and native steel drums in the middle of the night Tell yourself it was your own damned fault There's no more I'm Sorrys Because I'm going And I won't even send you a postcard or a prayer, darling If parting is sweet sorrow then I guess I'm nothing but bitter And you can tell yourself lies about me You can say you didn't really love me and call me a worthless bitch and talk to yourself about all of my little faults that drove you up the wall You can tell yourself all that next time you think you need a woman There's no more I'm Sorrys I've got my luggage and my courage, babe And I won't be coming back. --Vega   (From Young Headhunters in Love) blessed, then, are the quiet for they shall inherit the Voice press your wrists into darkness press your mouth into light and the meaning of meaning the wonder of words Then She'll look deep into you and give you lily-white arms with pencils in clenched-up, come-hither hands and say, "Now, write it down." --Mandy Sturgil   When from our better selves we have too long been parted by the hurrying world, and droop, Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired How gracious, how benign, is Solitude. --William Wordsworth

A Curtain of Green After the silly proceedings of the calling hours, and the wake and the funeral, I was laid to rest in my hometown of Clinton, New York on February 26, 1995. I felt an odd sense of calmness as I watched myself being cried over at these pre-burial rituals, and had almost forgotten the undeniable fact that I was dead. Not unlike a dream, when you wake up right before you die, I have no recollection of just how or when I died. All I can remember is looking at my mom as she was poised ready to capture my flight off a cliff overlooking Corbet's Couloir, a trail at Jackson Hole, Wyoming where I was spending my President's Holiday Vacation. It was the last day of my seven day stay in one of the most challenging ski areas in North America, a fact I had chosen to forget. It had been sunny all week, and the conditions were perfect for my attempt. I knew that I probably could not make the twenty-foot cliff drop into the the Couloir, an avalanche chute less than ten feet wide, and on a sixty degree slope, but I never thought that the consequences of my foolishness would result in my death. As I looked at my mom that day, I saw mixed emotions in her face: happiness, excitement, and definitely fear. These first two emotions gave me the extra boost in confidence that I needed to complete my journey into one of the most difficult trails in the world. The adrenaline surged throughout my body; I pointed the board down the incline and smiled for the camera as I became airborne. I remember feeling the sun on my face, which had already been burned by its intense heat, and squinting to spot my landing, I heard people cheer, and the camera click, but already I knew something was wrong. There was an incredible feeling of dread and panic as I realized that I had built up too much speed, and would not land in the Couloir, but instead I would crash into its jagged rock side, and probably be badly hurt. I remember the rock getting closer and closer, and as I began to accept the inevitable I lost consciousness. I regained consciousness some time later, and felt very strange. My movements were slowed, and my vision was blurry. All I could think was that I was hurt and in a hospital. Then I heard a voice, "Relax, calm down, be natural, it will come with time, just let it." The voice was eerie, and seemed to echo within my head, instead of throughout the room as I would expect. My vision was getting steadily better, and I could distinguish shapes, bodies, people, and then finally, faces. To my horror, the first face I would see was my own, wearing a blank stare, and a large gash across its forehead. This startled me for a moment; the horror came back when I realized that I was not seeing my face

as a reflection, but rather as a separate entity, as if I was seeing through someone else's eyes. I felt out of place, like an outsider intruding into someone else's private world. I looked around the room and found myself to be correct, it was a hospital room, and I was the patient. I heard the flat line warning on the EKG monitor, a device that monitors a patient's heart rate, and thought to myself the flat line corresponds to no heartbeat! Suddenly everything meshed, it was as if there were still some part of me in my body that had not yet escaped, and my body's final breath had exhaled that last little bit of myself to make my spirit whole. Although I was now totally beyond life as I had known it, there was still some link between my spiritual self, and my physical body. I could feel my parents' tears rolling down my cheeks, and could feel them holding my hand; but it was a distant feeling, like the feeling of deja vu, slightly familiar, but still too far away to fully recognize what it was. I followed my body from the hospital to the funeral home and then to the church, and finally here, to the graveyard. I was surprised at how well the workers at the funeral home had hidden the wounds from my fall, and also I was happy to see that I was being buried along with the half of my snowboard that my parents had found after my accident. When the lid was closed on my coffin, I moved as if to lie down in it, in my body. It felt so comfortable, as if I had re-established the link between my two entities. I lay peacefully, hearing the dirt being poured on top of my coffin, and began to realize that I could see into the beyond, past the coffin, past the green layer of grass that had been placed to cover up my grave, and past my world, and it was there that I saw the answers to all of my unanswered questions. At last I was comfortable, the curtain of green had been drawn, and once again I felt as if I was where I belonged. --Chris Roach     Society's to blame the little voice in my head is muttering something new I can't understand it I never do nothing is clear I cannot see voice in my mouth I struggle to breathe. . .

my heart used to tell me what to do now it is silent my actions are crude dictated by some unknown force I don't think for myself others are the source. . . society now controls my thoughts I'm never alone but what is the cost? my independence? my originality? I'm part of a mob I've sold my morality. . . just a statistic as the philosophers say waiting for God I can't seize the day in the play of life I have a minor role but I can't change that they have taken my soul. --The Invisible Man   The tears he sheds are not his own, He weeps for the race of man, He weeps for sins that are not his, Lost in eternity, he cries for us all. He dances in darkness, his light is gone, Stolen away long ago by the world, Its coldness comforts him, chasing away pain, He cries for us all, as he dances in the darkness. He sings our loss away, our misery embodied, All of our pains and hopes and dreams, They all vanish into his song of madness, He cries for all of us, in his madness and pain. --Darkstar   Lavender in my heart, Will you be pretty? Maybe if you surround us with your scent, He would feel the same. Open your soul, Let him know. But you lavender, are shy Bid goodbye to your love, Somehow forgotten, Because he never knew --Ava

Twilight Confessions I believe some things are and some things aren't I believe in things real and things unreal (swirling misty fantasies courting dragons and fairies; hard grey mundanity with blacktop pavement and vinyl siding) in infinity and the finite limits of humanity I believe eternity is forever and ends are all beginnings. Filling my beliefs (through the rainbow mists of pixies and aluminum garbage cans weaving infinity into the cloth and shattering the glass sheets of forever) between a circle's end and its beginning and spiraling around grey paradox, the core of legends: I know Love is beyond reality. --Quinn   The cleansing rain is falling falling pure, cleansing, emptying, wash me clean --forgive me Father for I have sinned-- wash me clean. Dance, I dance, an ode to the rain in form and motion A physical song of thanks and sorrow Dance a dance A piece of cleansing and forgiveness of repentance I will do better feel the rain on my back I am being cleaned feel it on my face, like tears of someone, forgiving The rain will never end, the scrubbing grass beneath my feet will hold me forever and the sky is a three-dimensional pool of holy water straight from the eyes of God Wash me clean Forgive and forget --Thank you, Father-- --Hunter Rose "Eyes in the Dark" is published occasionally by: The Editor Writers --Hunter Rose, The Invisible Man, Shadow, Sparrow, Chris Roach, Ava, Vega, Darkstar, Kuroi Ayame, Quinn