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Cass Jan 2018
The morning after I killed myself,
I woke up.
I made myself breakfast in bed.
I salted and peppered my eggs and used my toast to make a bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwich.
I squeezed a grapefruit into a glass, and scraped the ashes from the frying pan and wiped the butter off the counter while I sipped.
I washed my dishes and put them away.

The morning after I killed myself,
I fell in love.
Not with the pretty girl next door or the middle school's hot vice principal.
Not with that cute jogger or the shy grocer who always left the milk out of the bag.
I fell in love with my mother, and the way she sat on my bed holding my drawing of the rose girl and butterfly until it grew damp from sweat and tears.
I fell in love with the way Dad took my arrows to the river and went bow fishing just so he could **** something.
With my siblings, who would each go to school and wrestle with the reality of my indefinite absence.

The morning after I killed myself,
I walked my dog.
I watched the way her tail wagged when a bird flew by, or how her pace quickened at the sight of a cat.
I saw the empty space in her eyes when she turned around with a stick for me to throw, but saw nothing but empty air where I ought to be.
I stood by as a stranger scratched her behind her ears and she melted under their touch like she once had for mine.

The morning after I killed myself,
I went to the spot at the park where 2 year old me had waddled into the wet cement, and noted how the footprints had begun to wear away.
I went home and picked a few roses and pulled a few weeds and watched the elderly woman across the street through her window as she read the news of my passing.
I saw her husband tap the ashes off the end of his cigarette and bring her her daily medicines.

The morning after I killed myself,
I watched the sun rise, and thought what my 2 friends might be thinking then.

The evening after I killed myself,
After spending the day watching the world keep turning without me,
I went back to my body at the morgue and tried to talk some sense into the lifeless husk.
I told him about his dog, and the dragon headstone grandpa carved for him, he remembered how much I loved dragons.
I told him about Dad at the river, and how his little brother was starting drugs to numb the pain.
I told him about the sunset she was watching without him, and his friends playing one-sided card games, and reminded him of their secret cabin in the woods.

The day after I killed myself,

I tried to un-**** myself,

but
I couldn't

finish
what I started.
1.3k · Jan 2018
Speechless
Cass Jan 2018
So, if my vocal cords can't collaborate to produce sounds to communicate audibly to your beautiful mind that I have an endless mission of loving you, can't there be another way to articulate this feeling?
What are my tongue, lips, alveolar ridge, hard palate, and velum doing?
I never knew that emotion could effectively shut down my speech tract.
How I wish my voice could play a melody into my heartbeat, and my heart have an audio port above my skin, so you can plug in your headphones in and listen to the lyrics of my love, because you have rendered me speechless.
I had it scripted in my mind how I would tell you eloquently how beautiful and charming you are.
Yet when I drew nigh, I decided to start with hello, to show some decorousness.
But I soon realized that my lungs couldn't even draw forth the air necessary to widen and narrow my vocal cords, and I stood ultimately voiceless, except for having stammered those 2 solitary syllables, let alone the remaining dozens.
Should I comply with the belief that actions speak louder than words? That I might employ charades to better convey my feelings?
I always thought I was one who could speak with the power of a warlord, yet here I am before you squawking like a sick parrot.
But what could render a spoken word artist so totally silenced?
Maybe let's try establishing causality.
The first time I saw you, you blinked.
When you opened your eyes again, I saw a vibrant blue universe I wanted to explore.
Is that what silenced me? Well maybe you could do that again? It might set me free.
Don't wait for me to ask,
I can't speak.
I hope you never go to an event where the performer needs to concentrate, cuz you'll distract them and they might actually die.
It's because of what you carry,
More mystical than mermaids, you shroud me in Medusa's curse, your eyes communicate to mine, and I am now petrified.
I came of my own volition, but now I'm at your mercy.
Look away and set me free.
Instant infatuation within me converted into electric surges and fried my speech tract.
From a distance I was in great haste to meet you. Up close, I slow to a halt and stand like a big, dumb pillar.
I wonder why I am speechless.
I wonder why I am speechless because I am a man with a silk tongue who can stand before a woman and captivate her with words.
I wonder why I am speechless.
My negative lips attract positive kisses. Maybe we're both negative, so we repel.
How I wish my vocal cords would comply at least enough to produce a sputter of some kind, so at least you know that I'm stricken.
My hobby is to speak, and I am well practiced, so I wonder why I can't even stammer.
My phonetics cannot produce a squeak, let alone weave an elaborate syntax to melt your heart.
How unfortunate it is.

I am speechless because

I am in love
601 · Jan 2018
The Most Knowledgeable
Cass Jan 2018
I danced with you and forgot all my regrets.
I remember when you cried for me. I remember when they made you cry, and then there was a short circuit, and the light bulb above us exploded.
Then I said, "I wonder how many light bulbs it takes to change a person," and we both laughed.
I still remember all the times you said you were ugly, and how hard I tried to make you believe otherwise.
I love you just the way you are, but you don't see you like I see you.
You shouldn't try so hard to be perfect, perfect should be trying to be you.

You never did believe me tho.
You planted seeds of love in the empty spaces of my well-worn heart,
and my heart told my head "let it grow,"
but my head told my heart "this time, no."
And in the end, we're nothing but space dust drifting across a pale blue dot, trying to find our way back to the stars.
And I saw those starry galaxies in your eyes, so what hope did I ever have?
I'm no astrologist, in fact I'm not much for academics at all,
But I would never tire of studying the chemistry of how you touched my skin
And set fire to my mind
And how
you sat down next to be and I forgot how to breathe,
In which case,
I am the most knowledgeable in my field
329 · Jan 2018
~Gold-Plated~
Cass Jan 2018
She seems to have a heart
of gold,
A whispering
Love story soul.
She's a whimsical warrior,
Carrying a shield of truth,
with a titanium heart,

bulletproof
Cass Jan 2018
Humans, by nature, are creatures of the present.
We live in the now.
And maybe your now was 4 years ago before she died,
And maybe your now is a visionary hope of days yet to come.
Whatever the case, I've had a beautiful thought, or better said, a bit of happy revelation;
The seed never sees the flower.

If you had met me 3 years ago, you'd have a vastly different experience than if you met me today.
Then, my countenance bore the look of a fox lily seed bulb, or rather, a soiled ******* with a shriveled pink petal of hope and thick tendrils of pity, like some kind of monster bug that got lost while looking for where the wild things went.
A rather pathetic sight, coupled with the stench drug abuse and swelling cresendos of loneliness.
Back then I lived in the shadows of regret, and walked on a leash with a noose as my collar, made tame by the demon to whom she sold my soul: Depression.
I drowned my sorrows in ***** and stifled it with the fragrance of dank ****.
My head hung lose on my shoulders, my shoulders slumped hopelessly over my body, and I had an distinct shroud of gloom.
I wanted to die.

But as those long and lonely hours drew out into dreary September days, and on to weeks,
then months,
then years,

I began to blossom.

Thick tendrils of pity took root in the rich soils of friends in need and grew into powerful roots of compassion, transcending years and onwards to a lifetime.

The ******* actually became a heart.
Strong and bold, and inscribed with the scars of every story.

And that little, shriveled petal?
It blossomed into a steadfast and fiery fox tail lily, and when the sun hits it at just the right angle, it almost looks like the burning flame of invigorating life.
And there I stand, stalwart and garish amidst the rolling hills of our very own pale blue dot, looking back on the path that lead me here, simply by letting time pass and enduring the onslaught of change.

And I remembered

The seed never saw the flower.
Cass Oct 2018
Along an interstate highway somewhere on the road to Colorado from the east coast, you might spot an old truck on the side of the road. At first glance it's not unlike any other old drifter trucks, parked all across the continent for a nights rest from a long day's travels.
But in the back of that particular truck, 2 people lay, young and dumb, but together, then and there, they found paradise.
Love is the best kind of maddness, and these 2 were the craziest of them all.
Now she's fallen asleep in has arms, and he's basking in the ecstasy of her existence, with his ******* skyward, because together they turned the impossible into somehow.
They were going to travel the world together and share romantic flashlight-lit dinners of truck stop donuts and thirst busters, seeing all the unappreciated  glory of love and earth.
Cass Mar 2018
She was beautiful. Everything about her sent serotonin surging through my veins. I simply couldn't comprehend how happy I was feeling, it was beyond words. Her silken hair soothed my soul. Her sweet scent filled my lunges.
As we laid there, I could feel her breathing, her body pressed to mine.
This is it. This is my heaven-on-earth. This is my bliss.
I looked up at all the brilliant stars, and for the first time, I didn't feel any smaller. Against all odds, we were together, here and now, and nothing else mattered. A grin split across my face as I raised my ******* to the sky. We had done it.
Out of all the billions of people against all the zillions of stars,

we made it.

— The End —