John Patrick Robbins is a southern gothic writer and editor in chief of the Rye Whiskey Review.

His work has been published in Horror Sleaze Trash, Red Fez, Punk Noir Magazine, Disturb The Universe, Spill The Words Pressand Piker Press.

His latest book is Midnight Masochism from Black Circle Publishing and is available on Amazon. His work is always unfiltered.

A Breakdowns Sonata

So they tell me you live in total isolation much like myself.

You have no one but the noise of barking dogs to remind you of the world you are very much not welcome in.

You pen the pages and the poets scoff at your creations.
Calling themselves contemporaries, calling themselves friends, when they cannot even be proper enemies...

I heard you tried to overdose yourself but your stomach only bloated as you sat in a daze of what was never to be.

I wonder if you recall that fragment of a person who only brings me sadness deep within the confines of the asylum where I hide my thoughts.

I wonder where that person escaped to as I wonder why I cannot do so myself.
Insanity knows no logic yet it knows not malice either.

I listen to the world outside beyond these dingy walls that imprison my thoughts, along with my soul.

I am insane but, if I acknowledge this truth, am I not sane enough to admit my faults?

A hamster's wheel and the outside world's opinion make little sense. We are all running circles.
Just not the ones that suit the so-called norm.

This, on a rare occasion, makes me smile.

Trinity Church

Old, seemingly as time and peaceful as a dream, I yearn always to revisit.
Haunted only in its beauty to my senses.

You stay etched within my soul as southern breezes and old friends are fondly reflected upon and aged as wine.

I saw you today as I stood before you, as my heart's memories were embraced in a magic I cannot fully describe.

Bury my thoughts with my burdens beneath your cold earth for I have no truer friends than old ghosts and empty structures as you.

The drink is truly half empty, but I'm good, and that's good enough for when at last I see you again.

Under Lock & Key

I will keep my voice silenced, as your malice speaks equally for us both.
The times were sweet as candy, in a sense, they lacked any true substance.

So now I say nothing as you speak of a rip tide's deceptive embrace.
Winter's chill, a faux ignorance suits your truth as well as your nonexistent personality.

I'm sober now, but you are mistaken, old friend.
For it is you that has never truly mattered.

When I close the door you will know just how cold this life can truly be.