Heart to Heart (by Bayard)

I wasn't ready to die, a young man, older than my years, younger than my skin, fooling everyone, death saving me the humiliation of prosthetic hips, teeth and hair. Not all dead complain their deaths. Not all are unwilling to die. Some, and not just the old and infirm, are prepared for the end of earthly toil, the end of the mortal coil and ready for the next phase. The next phase a secret surprise as yet unimagined by the living will remain an enigma for them.

For those who meet a violent death, in an automobile accident, a fire, certainly those soldiers, brave and not, killed needlessly in wars, and for those like myself at the hands of another, a murder, death is not welcome and we, for lack of a better word, haunt the living, hold fast to them as if their lives become, in lieu of our broken lives, our own.

I plagued this physical plane with my noncorporeal astral plane presence for the love this dead man, incapable of feeling, yearned to feel. I can be quoted, A fact, I will be quoted. Perhaps not in a specific realm but my words will dwell on and on looking something like this:

No physical love for a dead man, no flesh left to love.
Hartford Samson DeCyre.

Love, I could receive but peripherally as a dead man, I could give capably to the living. In breech of this otherworldly contract I'll slip with intention and reveal the living need love with far greater frequency than the dead.

The dead are love. The living simply desire.

After an out of town sniper put thirteen unlucky bullets into my body, exploding my internal organs in rapid succession, my heart, the single remaining organ intact by living bequeathment became the property of a body less fortunate than mine, a body who by birth had not been blessed with good health and working organs.

Suneph Mann is a charming child. I know because my heart beats with astounding health inside him. For simple understandable conjecture it can be said I live within his breast. Comfortable, warm, full of all good things, blood and oxygen. And life. Sixteen years old when he received me, two years have passed inside him. What of time, so important for the living to count the years till their demise but for me, a dead man with a living heart, time is nothing.

Nothing is far less than nothing to lose.

My heart beat in the physical plane, I, in the astral plane, watched and conducted from my behind the scenes view. The astral plane, for clarification, should not be confused with the aero plane. Very similar are these hypothesis. Both feature a choice of in-flight movie and air waitresses/waiters offering beef or chicken but not kosher unless requested well in advance.

Analogies for comprehension. Imagine my presence backstage, a director, whispering lighting cues, scenery and costume changes, moving mortal players upon an operatic stage like chessmen. Knight to King's seven. Check. What corruptible power! No better seat in the opera house for my purposes, directing living lives, overseeing, overjoyed at the prospect of life, this life, this human living life, again singing. King takes Knight. Checkmate! A vicarious rush of greatness courses through my energy fields, not a suitable substitute for real passion.

Not all my desires are selfish.

Questions tortured my soul. Not revenge on my murderer, my out of town sniper. I claim him as mine. He and I are forever joined in the spiritual register. How like a marriage he will live to regret, pitiful fool, avenging my death himself, has done so by his obscene act of murder. He falls by his own hand. More a victim than his victim. Victimized by his victimization. Vengeance was not mine but his alone, he creates a living hell in which he and his devils must dwell. My murder barely icing on his cake, a hell cake, of fear, pain and loathing. Bon apetit!

My murderer lived and I died. Thirteen times. Once with each bullet entering my human body. Revenge was not required. Only justice. Not for myself, a sentient being no longer, a single organ, a heart pumping a stranger's lifeblood. No justice for me or my sudden brutal end but for the man left behind awash in the wake of my spilled blood lapping his shores. For Mars, sweet Mars, whose love for me was a reciprocal arrangement, written in didactic prose upon the heavens. For Mars I wanted justice.

To say Mars was unenlightened would seem a slander against a wonderful man. What living human is enlightened? I ask. A rhetorical question requiring no answer as no human living is as enlightened as they wish to be. Perhaps not all humans transgressing the physical barriers are as enlightened as they wish either. Myself, because of the violence of my death, consider myself a man, no longer a man, but for these purposes, a man of superior enlightenment. The chance I fool myself as deeply as those living fool themselves is of no consequence.

Mars traveled in a belief system of his own design. He lived in and for love. In and for the love of me is a grandiose statement wrapped in super-sugarcoated conjecture. Mars lived in and for the love of all things. Pulling spiders from the sink before doing the dishes. Catching his cat, Goddess, I say his, but certainly Goddess was ours, only her insistence upon him as his familiar, for casting spells, reading minds, playing tricks, catching Goddess when she had caught a mouse and freeing the frightened trembling mouse outside to once again run about its mousy life unfettered of cat.

Thirteen gaping bullet holes in my body left an equal number of gaping holes in Mars. Not physical, spiritual. Mars never a victim of tears, "I will not cry," a favorite pastime of his as he fought back emotional sensations and damp spots in and around his eyes. Not in the many earth years we cohabited in love together, enjoying the mature fruits of earthly delight joined in the passion of each and each other, ripe, fecund, overpowering in our devoted devotion, did I see Mars cry.

Or had I?

How often had I seen Mars cry? Once when Goddess was struck by a motorist, an accident of fate as potent as the accident of fate that put me in spot A when my out of town sniper was placed in spot B so thirteen bullets could enter my body in spots C through O. Once when Goddess was struck down. Once when a woman, the popular press dubbed a saint, a stranger to us, offered her home to babies affected with the AIDS virus was burned out. Pickets with signs: NO AIDS BABIES HERE!

After years of torture I learned never to watch the news with Mars. The news always brought tears. Tears for strangers. Tears for humanity. Tears overflowing scented with Mars' compassion and orange, jasmine and correct me if I'm wrong, burnt sugar caramel?

Once for an eternity when I was struck down by my out of town sniper.

Mars never cried, except at the movies. Drama, romance, comedy, action adventure, sci-fi. Movies, all movies, made Mars cry. Perhaps the medium of film overpowered him. He'd grip my hand, often greasy with the soil of popcorn grease, mine not his, his hatred for popcorn legend, yet Mars would grip my popcorn soiled hand and weep openly, as often as he laughed openly, all the time, that laugh, not stifled or inept or honking, please lord help the honking laughers.

Mars' laughter falling pure like a blanket of fresh snow blared as loud as any twenty seven car pile up complete with exploding propane tanker. How Mars could laugh, in what the hoi polloi dub all the wrong places.

Strangers, turned to stare wondering why he cried at the supposedly funny parts, why he laughed at what they considered sad, they, the emotionally dwarfed masses will never understand the complex structure of Mars' complex nature. A gem stone among mere rocks. How he shone. His brilliance usurped by my sudden violent death. By the tragedy, not my word, that befell me.

More a tragedy for Mars alone on the physical plane with unmerciful reporters wanting interviews, pictures of the widow, not my choice of word, not his, but those acquaintance of ours so attuned to that segment of popular culture as to buy and embrace all forms and forums of self hating pity.

Mars remained silent. He did not give interviews. A hundred, a thousand, a million interviewers wanted a word, or enough words to fill a human interest spot or two newspaper columns, with the man who unselfishly allowed the donation of his lover's heart. Lover, a horrible word, not my choice, not Mars', but the choice of a stupid media, a stupid world of strangers who found our union and unions like ours less than valuable and often, though seemingly embraced, obscene. A word with the man who after my brutal murder gave my heart so a child less fortunate might live.

The words Mars didn't want to utter:

Hart bequeathed it. I had nothing to do with it. I was against it from the start.
Mars Makepeace

She, who is the queen of daytime, with her penchant for drivel passing as intelligent talk, put her people on Mars, as my out of town sniper had put a bead on me, wanting him desperately for her top rated program, as my out of town sniper had wanted me for his mental scorecard. What ratings would be generated by reuniting Mars, the possessor of my emotional heart, with a stranger, Suneph Mann, the young man who had received my physical heart? What ratings indeed!

How She wanted him and her people haunted him with more persistence than any disembodied spirit. Badgering and cajoling remorselessly with promises and enticements including cash until Mars, who would have done it for a lark, to laugh and not cry. "I will not cry," on the glowing tube in millions of households globally, unwilling as a trophy, a notch on the ratings belt buckle or a sweeps bedpost, consented, only to be done with the queen of daytime's harangue.

Mars will meet my heart, heart to heart. Pay the price and reap the reward. Not the reward offered by She in cash and prizes, but that engendered by me behind the scenes, orchestrating an earthly symphony.

Mortals imagine the parts they play in this drama their own doing, never once imagining, unenlightened mortals, someone else behind the scene, above the plane, pulls the strings making the meeting of hearts possible.

There is my purpose in their purpose. My actions in theirs. How easily mortals dance to my fife and bugle corps. How easily my plans blossom, flower and stink the sweet pungent sex of flowers, the sweet pungent sex of men.

My sudden death will be avenged. Again I'll feel love flow through my heart and my body. Not my body. A borrowed body. Again I'll feel Mars. And Mars, my love, will feel me.

	*BAYARD*
*Heart to Heart*
I wasn't ready to die, a young man, older than my years, younger than my skin, fooling everyone, death saving me the humiliation of prosthetic hips, teeth and hair. Not all dead complain their deaths. Not all are unwilling to die. Some, and not just the old and infirm, are prepared for the end of earthly toil, the end of the mortal coil and ready for the next phase. The next phase a secret surprise as yet unimagined by the living will remain an enigma for them. For those who meet a violent death, in an automobile accident, a fire, certainly those soldiers, brave and not, killed needlessly in wars, and for those like myself at the hands of another, a murder, death is not welcome and we, for lack of a better word, haunt the living, hold fast to them as if their lives become, in lieu of our broken lives, our own. I plagued this physical plane with my noncorporeal astral plane presence for the love this dead man, incapable of feeling, yearned to feel. I can be quoted, A fact, I will be quoted. Perhaps not in a specific realm but my words will dwell on and on looking something like this: No physical love for a dead man, no flesh left to love. Hartford Samson DeCyre. Love, I could receive but peripherally as a dead man, I could give capably to the living. In breech of this otherworldly contract I'll slip with intention and reveal the living need love with far greater frequency than the dead. The dead are love. The living simply desire. After an out of town sniper put thirteen unlucky bullets into my body, exploding my internal organs in rapid succession, my heart, the single remaining organ intact by living bequeathment became the property of a body less fortunate than mine, a body who by birth had not been blessed with good health and working organs. Suneph Mann is a charming child. I know because my heart beats with astounding health inside him. For simple understandable conjecture it can be said I live within his breast. Comfortable, warm, full of all good things, blood and oxygen. And life. Sixteen years old when he received me, two years have passed inside him. What of time, so important for the living to count the years till their demise but for me, a dead man with a living heart, time is nothing. Nothing is far less than nothing to lose. My heart beat in the physical plane, I, in the astral plane, watched and conducted from my behind the scenes view. The astral plane, for clarification, should not be confused with the aero plane. Very similar are these hypothesis. Both feature a choice of in-flight movie and air waitresses/waiters offering beef or chicken but not kosher unless requested well in advance. Analogies for comprehension. Imagine my presence backstage, a director, whispering lighting cues, scenery and costume changes, moving mortal players upon an operatic stage like chessmen. Knight to King's seven. Check. What corruptible power! No better seat in the opera house for my purposes, directing living lives, overseeing, overjoyed at the prospect of life, this life, this human living life, again singing. King takes Knight. Checkmate! A vicarious rush of greatness courses through my energy fields, not a suitable substitute for real passion. Not all my desires are selfish. Questions tortured my soul. Not revenge on my murderer, my out of town sniper. I claim him as mine. He and I are forever joined in the spiritual register. How like a marriage he will live to regret, pitiful fool, avenging my death himself, has done so by his obscene act of murder. He falls by his own hand. More a victim than his victim. Victimized by his victimization. Vengeance was not mine but his alone, he creates a living hell in which he and his devils must dwell. My murder barely icing on his cake, a hell cake, of fear, pain and loathing. Bon apetit! My murderer lived and I died. Thirteen times. Once with each bullet entering my human body. Revenge was not required. Only justice. Not for myself, a sentient being no longer, a single organ, a heart pumping a stranger's lifeblood. No justice for me or my sudden brutal end but for the man left behind awash in the wake of my spilled blood lapping his shores. For Mars, sweet Mars, whose love for me was a reciprocal arrangement, written in didactic prose upon the heavens. For Mars I wanted justice. To say Mars was unenlightened would seem a slander against a wonderful man. What living human is enlightened? I ask. A rhetorical question requiring no answer as no human living is as enlightened as they wish to be. Perhaps not all humans transgressing the physical barriers are as enlightened as they wish either. Myself, because of the violence of my death, consider myself a man, no longer a man, but for these purposes, a man of superior enlightenment. The chance I fool myself as deeply as those living fool themselves is of no consequence. Mars traveled in a belief system of his own design. He lived in and for love. In and for the love of me is a grandiose statement wrapped in super-sugarcoated conjecture. Mars lived in and for the love of all things. Pulling spiders from the sink before doing the dishes. Catching his cat, Goddess, I say his, but certainly Goddess was ours, only her insistence upon him as his familiar, for casting spells, reading minds, playing tricks, catching Goddess when she had caught a mouse and freeing the frightened trembling mouse outside to once again run about its mousy life unfettered of cat. Thirteen gaping bullet holes in my body left an equal number of gaping holes in Mars. Not physical, spiritual. Mars never a victim of tears, "I will not cry," a favorite pastime of his as he fought back emotional sensations and damp spots in and around his eyes. Not in the many earth years we cohabited in love together, enjoying the mature fruits of earthly delight joined in the passion of each and each other, ripe, fecund, overpowering in our devoted devotion, did I see Mars cry. Or had I? How often had I seen Mars cry? Once when Goddess was struck by a motorist, an accident of fate as potent as the accident of fate that put me in spot A when my out of town sniper was placed in spot B so thirteen bullets could enter my body in spots C through O. Once when Goddess was struck down. Once when a woman, the popular press dubbed a saint, a stranger to us, offered her home to babies affected with the AIDS virus was burned out. Pickets with signs: NO AIDS BABIES HERE! After years of torture I learned never to watch the news with Mars. The news always brought tears. Tears for strangers. Tears for humanity. Tears overflowing scented with Mars' compassion and orange, jasmine and correct me if I'm wrong, burnt sugar caramel? Once for an eternity when I was struck down by my out of town sniper. Mars never cried, except at the movies. Drama, romance, comedy, action adventure, sci-fi. Movies, all movies, made Mars cry. Perhaps the medium of film overpowered him. He'd grip my hand, often greasy with the soil of popcorn grease, mine not his, his hatred for popcorn legend, yet Mars would grip my popcorn soiled hand and weep openly, as often as he laughed openly, all the time, that laugh, not stifled or inept or honking, please lord help the honking laughers. Mars' laughter falling pure like a blanket of fresh snow blared as loud as any twenty seven car pile up complete with exploding propane tanker. How Mars could laugh, in what the hoi polloi dub all the wrong places. Strangers, turned to stare wondering why he cried at the supposedly funny parts, why he laughed at what they considered sad, they, the emotionally dwarfed masses will never understand the complex structure of Mars' complex nature. A gem stone among mere rocks. How he shone. His brilliance usurped by my sudden violent death. By the tragedy, not my word, that befell me. More a tragedy for Mars alone on the physical plane with unmerciful reporters wanting interviews, pictures of the widow, not my choice of word, not his, but those acquaintance of ours so attuned to that segment of popular culture as to buy and embrace all forms and forums of self hating pity. Mars remained silent. He did not give interviews. A hundred, a thousand, a million interviewers wanted a word, or enough words to fill a human interest spot or two newspaper columns, with the man who unselfishly allowed the donation of his lover's heart. Lover, a horrible word, not my choice, not Mars', but the choice of a stupid media, a stupid world of strangers who found our union and unions like ours less than valuable and often, though seemingly embraced, obscene. A word with the man who after my brutal murder gave my heart so a child less fortunate might live. The words Mars didn't want to utter: Hart bequeathed it. I had nothing to do with it. I was against it from the start. Mars Makepeace She, who is the queen of daytime, with her penchant for drivel passing as intelligent talk, put her people on Mars, as my out of town sniper had put a bead on me, wanting him desperately for her top rated program, as my out of town sniper had wanted me for his mental scorecard. What ratings would be generated by reuniting Mars, the possessor of my emotional heart, with a stranger, Suneph Mann, the young man who had received my physical heart? What ratings indeed! How She wanted him and her people haunted him with more persistence than any disembodied spirit. Badgering and cajoling remorselessly with promises and enticements including cash until Mars, who would have done it for a lark, to laugh and not cry. "I will not cry," on the glowing tube in millions of households globally, unwilling as a trophy, a notch on the ratings belt buckle or a sweeps bedpost, consented, only to be done with the queen of daytime's harangue. Mars will meet my heart, heart to heart. Pay the price and reap the reward. Not the reward offered by She in cash and prizes, but that engendered by me behind the scenes, orchestrating an earthly symphony. Mortals imagine the parts they play in this drama their own doing, never once imagining, unenlightened mortals, someone else behind the scene, above the plane, pulls the strings making the meeting of hearts possible. There is my purpose in their purpose. My actions in theirs. How easily mortals dance to my fife and bugle corps. How easily my plans blossom, flower and stink the sweet pungent sex of flowers, the sweet pungent sex of men. My sudden death will be avenged. Again I'll feel love flow through my heart and my body. Not my body. A borrowed body. Again I'll feel Mars. And Mars, my love, will feel me.