#non-fiction
If it is a race, then the pace of one set of clouds out does the ones that float above lazily. Smokey dragons cut across Odin’s one good godly eye. The night pursues its cold cool wind muse,
and I cannot lose, because I use this muse so well. I walk the building corner to brick corner unwilling to enter the unyielding nightmare hallways. I do not wish to walk in the white hollow echo chambers, alone and uninspired while the night spirals in lunar delight. I postpone it as long as I can, walking the yellow concrete corners like they are tight high wire. I swerve and struggle to maintain my perfect position, for fear of falling into the black top lava pit. The inside world waits for me like a ravenous beast. Please oh please do not force me to leave the light breeze that brushes my skin gently. Glass and metal doors see me swallowed whole. I did not want to go but now I know this white washed world will be my graveyard fantasy. The red buds on the tree beckon me, but I cannot go back out. The musical clank of metal clips that hang the flags summons me beyond the security doors with their dangerous whipping movements, but I am not allow to explore such freedom. The strangers of varying degrees, shapes, weights, skin tints, hair, and teeth beckons me to question their history. I cannot go out there to the fantastic. No that is a lie. I could if I tried, but I chose to hide in a secure hourly wage paid life. I could leave and let my wanderlust take me where it will. I could go back to Pleasantville, Champaign, Williamsville, Pontiac, Mt. Vernon, and Danville, then go see places I have never been. I could give in to the seductive siren call of landscapes unseen, sounds unheard, and strangers not yet met. Instead I sign my time sheet, walk and repeat, securing nothing. I drive home tired and come back and repeat that as well. I accept the mundane. It is a part of the price I pay for a slice of peace.
Mar 29, 2017
Mar 29, 2017 at 11:16 PM UTC
A Glistened blade with the serrated edge. Lays down on the floor christened with crimson. The limp but clinging to life hand dangles over the edge of the single bed.
Sobbing is heard from the bed, laying face down is our victim of self disgust and loathing.
Our victim
ME.
Oct 23, 2016
Oct 23, 2016 at 12:06 AM UTC
it all started in year 5
we dated and 3 weeks later we broke up
life went on, we went to secondary school,
at first, it was the same one, then i moved away
i got a new crush, an impossible crush,
a few weeks after my later fantasy left my life,
my ex walked into my dreams.
i fell in love all over again
every time i think of him, my heart and chest aches
every time i think of my latest, my breath catches in my throat.
when i see him, my stomach flips yet nothing happens when i see my ex.
who am i falling for?
Aug 28, 2016
Aug 28, 2016 at 1:34 PM UTC
I almost died when I was in the 5th grade
I struggled to lift my baby sister up
My mom couldn't even do it
We woke up cause she started crying
and I threw up, everyone kept throwing up
My father slurred his speech
said we all caught the flu
and we all slept in the living room
Till my brother came out and said
we gotta get out, now
So thankful he slept with the door closed
He drove the minivan, 15 years old
off to grandma's house
Got a blood test done
cause even the dog was blowing chunks
Please check your
Oct 7, 2015
Oct 7, 2015 at 1:04 AM UTC
If I'm wrong about God
I've wasted my own life
If you're wrong about God
You've wasted your whole eternity
Amen, Bless you, I love thee
You are the one who guides me
Whether you're fiction or non-fiction
You have given thy a direction
Jun 7, 2015
Jun 7, 2015 at 8:25 PM UTC
*Ever since I was growing up
I've been walking a rocky path
Each long night wouldn't be the first
Nor would it be the last
Now this is something most of the time
I've only felt in my heart
But never before did I feel it straight
Until one cold hike in the dark
I got spikes in the grass
Mud on my shoes
Blood on my hands
But nothing to lose
Skin full of needles
Head full of hope
Time to get back on the slope (I hope)
Ever since I was a college boy
My monochrome scarf from France
Accompanied me on the bleakest of days
Though I guess it wasn't meant to last
Because I got spikes in the grass
Mud on my shoes
Blood on my hands
But nothing to lose
Skin full of needles
Head full of hope
Time to get back on the slope*
Dec 13, 2014
Dec 13, 2014 at 5:03 PM UTC
*Foul-mouthed parkers
Young and grown alike
Made for a productive day
A troublesome night
The residents to my right
Slandered behind me in fear
And that is when I cracked wide
Into a body of screams and tears
I cried
'Stop! Stop!'
'I can't take any more!'
My heart turning to glass
'I just want to be left alone!'
'Is that too much to ask!?'
This tragedy may not have been
If I had simply smiled their way
But all I did was drown them out
Until this fateful day
Little did I know
That they were watching me all year
Trying to find a way
To console me and my fears
But not once did I wish them well
Or turn to them for help
And so I brought this crushing ordeal
Entirely upon myself
And I cried
'Stop! Stop!'
'I can't take any more!'
My heart turning to glass
'I just want to be left alone!'
'Is that too much to ask!?'
This tragedy may not have been
If I had simply smiled their way
But all I did was drown them out
Until this fateful day
Then they held my hand
And reassured me on their knees
That they have someone dear to them
With the same troubles as me
Still this tragedy may not have been
If I had simply smiled their way
But all I did was drown them out
Until this fateful day*
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 6:30 PM UTC
*They say that all is fair in love and war
But is all fair in the war of love?
Is there temperance amidst the virile and the delicate?
Or is it just a guise shielding us from the bitter truths of love?
Dear brother of mine
Bold lawman in the making
Had a young sweetheart years apart
He was climbing up fast
With the promise of a bright future
And she would only be the start
But two summer days
Of ecstasy and pleasure
Were all it took in the name of time
For the young sweetheart
With his heart on a hook
To tear apart the cord of his precious spine
Now his reputation, his hopes, his dreams are on the line
Because of a young heart whose blood was replaced with slime
How can this happen to a man of pure heart and mind?
Such a burden to my dear brother will never be a friend of mine*
Jun 28, 2014
Jun 28, 2014 at 6:23 PM UTC
a trembling reaction
to every way you fought to keep my hands in yours
a fickle name to how your eyelids only leaked promises
and how i only ever met your lips with broken glass
you tried to pry the answers from my cigarette but you forgot that I buried your baby teeth in the backyard last summer
one, two,
count my fingers out the window like your swans almost in flight
every creature passed under your embrace learned how to curve their wings up like forged protection
from your spitfire
our teeth leak venom and motor oil, it tastes like how your fists feel against your children's skin
when you wrap the women in chains made of expensive gifts and shattered promises, sometimes they clean their teeth and fight back.
maybe i won't remember to draw the curtains after you leave
but i'll always leave a key under your pillow.
Jun 25, 2014
Jun 25, 2014 at 1:46 PM UTC
In the moment of present day bliss,
We wonder if the next day will still offer wealth,
Hoping that tomorrow can still possess gold.
The journey to good fortune is an unpredictable path,
Like rolling dice in a game of chance.
The future holds no guarantees,
Leaving tomorrow a mystified puzzle.
Forget about the mystery of the unknown.
Instead, move with the currents of the ocean—
Continuing in stride with each flow.
Apr 19, 2014
Apr 19, 2014 at 4:33 AM UTC
last call,
she wrote, with her fingertips still tangled in the wire wrapped around her faulty heart.
each breath laced with shards of glass, an aching pull that was simple in the darkened sheets and quiet. an answer that seemed too simple because there was no question.
i'm dying,
she cried as her hands slipped on the tear-slicked phone that couldn't quite convey the way that she was trying to be so, so brave with each labored breath.
there were no words in the screams that pounded off the yellowing linoleum.
a desperate, hoarse cry pleading that she needed someone on the other end of the static to wipe the sweat off of her brow and call an ambulance.
when are you coming home?
little bouncing ponytail of four is grasping fingers and trying to fix injuries with whole-wheat goldfish. her pink salt-scuffed snow boots are breaking hearts down the hall.
and i'm here again. once cheery monkey slippers worn through the toes shuffle down hallways lined with trepidation and antiseptic. this isn't old-fashioned, white-apron clad matrons grasping hands and adjusting crisp peaked hats. medicine is doled out in plastic sheets like candy, accompanied by bent knees and scanned bracelets.
privacy concerns, signed waivers, no liabilities. hospitals are less for healing and more holding cells, storage lockers, fraught with too-thorough questionnaires and grasped pens like swords defending trustee boards from lawsuits.
my mornings are finger ****** and sunlight that seems empty without those sweet trills and a whipping reach of wind. stagnant air, the faint smell of ***** hiding under regulation bleach wipes. this is what i wake up to. soft chimes aren't rousing, nor soft, at eight am lulled through too-new loudspeakers.
the ***** mint green trays never lose that sickly smell of rotten food like the undergrowth of a fallen tree. the only coping skills i've mastered this far are how to effectively channel all my breathing solely through my mouth. hospitals never lose that smell, the ache of death and sorrow that clings to the floorboards and plays cards under the bed, waiting for its turn to reach corners much further than the cleaning crew can.
eyes draw to the torn edge of my sweater, revealing the milky white skin that lost it's sweetness. i've been ravaged by needles and rubber tubes and electrode pads full of gel that shouldn't sting, but does. i spent fourteen hours climbing the walls of my subconscious while gloved hands made adjustments flanked by heavy shoulders and eyes that seemed to never shed their bitter tears.
fourteen hours, i spent with my id. it passes in jumbled snippets of emotion that are still lost in that haze.
i was a creature,
without reason,
or cause.
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 12:43 PM UTC