I thought i was gonna die last night

I looked at his face and memorized every feature

His loving blue eyes and the light that recently left

The small smile on his face that he mustered up to tell me i’m pretty

I thought i was gonna die last night

I cried in his arms, feeling his caring breath inhale and exhale

And his heart beat that's so clearly tired.

I thought about his tears that would leave the eyes where the forest meets the sea

All because of my departure

But made him think the ocean that left my eyes was because of his

I just have to go to bed

I just have to go to bed

I repeated out loud to the both of us

As the over-the-counter death taunted me from our medicine cabinet

I thought i was gonna die last night

But i just went to bed

I just went to bed

I thought i was gonna die last night

But i just went to bed.

Float above

Sea of fog

Suffer in

Emotional bog

Helpless child

Full of fears

Has no hope

Shedded tears

Always thought

It’d never end

Broken spirit

Unable to mend

Persona non grata

Called a liar

Labeled weak

Psychic misfire

Trust no one

Wasted breath

Stuck performing

This living death

Anger consumes

Pent up hatred

Start to realize

Nothing is sacred

Mental scars

Never healed

Time passes

Pain concealed

Growing old

Full of anxiety

Try to fit

Within society

Oh, that twinkle in his eye.

That's when you knew Uncle Roy was busting to tell you a groaner of a joke. The instant you finished talking, he would put down his cigar, stroke the stubble on his cheeks, and say, "That reminds me of the time..." And he would tell you an anecdote from his day, ending with a corny punchline and a deep-down guffaw (his) and a snort (his also).

Uncle Roy was larger than life to this kid. Even when he wasn't around, he came to mind when I heard a trite joke.

But as I grew older, I saw Uncle Roy and his family less and less. I had my own family and told my own crummy jokes, but without his signature ending. That part stayed with me, but the rest of his image had faded from memory.

When Uncle Roy passed, I went to his funeral and briefly recalled those stubbled cheeks, the stogie, the punchlines, the laughing at his own jokes. But when I left the sendoff, the faint red light from his cigar ceased to glow. And soon, every shard of Uncle Roy was gone.

Even the snort.

J. M. LILES

Spill cherry-red gloss, lipstick lies

Keep your secrets, I’ll read your mind

I wear a smile with fangs behind

I wear this face, it isn’t mine

Mushroom groans, wake from loam bed, push

Birds call lovers parted by dusk

Cries signify, small death ambush

I hear through ears, between the lines

Call on g-d, pull curses, make signs

Lips keep prayers, shooing black fly, blow

A perfect lily, head sway low

I see through eyes, behind veil-white

Dew-bathed blades in moonlight, we shine

Thrum of insect, earth-slow decay

At last, pillager becomes prey

I felt your heartbeat in the night

February is filled with expectations—most of them are external pressures brought on by the corporate machine and its influence on society. After all, 'tis the season of candy and chocolate-scented air—a sweet perfume acting like a cog twisting in the background that triggers our biological hearts to throb.

Maybe you’re young and looking for love, hoping your soulmate circles YES on that hand-scribed love letter sealed with a kiss. Or maybe you were counting on that groundhog not seeing its shadow, sparing you six more weeks of cabin fever where you'd surely start conversations with whatever's scratching in the walls. Or possibly your New Year’s resolution is beginning to fizzle out.

Whatever your expectations were, sometimes they don’t go as planned. Disappointments hover over us like mosquitoes—waiting to suck us dry and steal tiny pieces of our souls. Once they do, they flee without consequence, leaving us emptier, more vulnerable… and itchy.

Goddamn it, they suck!

But what are they, how can we avoid them, and is there a repellent to keep these nasty buggers at bay...

Read or listen to the full Issue for FREE here:

https://chrissadhill.substack.com/p/issue-9-the-jesters-kingdom

...And consider signing up for more issues and posts to stay up-to-date with everything

Sadhill @ www. chrissadhill .com

'til next time...

Kenji and his colleagues sat in the first row of a smoky little theater, somewhere on the outskirts of downtown Bangkok. Each wore the customary blue Japanese business suit, though they'd shed their jackets by now. This was no theater where you could get too comfortable though. The seats were so low that when sitting, your knees were higher than your hips. The first two rows were like a pit in front of the stage.

On the stage itself, melted drops of wax had hardened on the dancer's breasts. She blew out the candle and set it on the floor. When she stood back up she produced a banana, as if by magic, and loosened her bikini bottom. Letting it drop, she kicked it away.

Seductively, the dancer unpeeled the banana, strip by strip. As she swayed to the music, she brought the banana to her mouth. Then she laid down on the floor, raised her legs, spread eagle, and inserted it. Suddenly she jerked up her hips and let her heels hit the floor. Boom! The audience screamed as the banana became projectile. And then gasped as it flew toward Kenji's head.

Kenji jumped a foot from his seat and turned 45 degrees with his hands to his shoulders, his elbows low like a frightened schoolgirl, his face contorted in terror. The banana flew past him and landed in the empty second row.

When the laughter stopped, Kenji took a moment. He was pretty sure his colleagues hadn't seen his girlish fright. He looked left. As far as he could tell, they were attending to the stage again. Then he glanced at his shirt, confirmed the banana hadn't left any traces, and took a sip of his cocktail. Whew, he thought, as his heart raced.

2/22/2025

Hi everyone! I've just released my first novella. If anyone is interested, you can purchase it on Amazon. It's titled A Walk Through the Years by Eric Johnson

Again, I want to thank everyone on this website who've posted challenges, gave me feedback on my work, and followed me. Because of you, I've been able to push myself over the last couple of years.

I'm really proud of this book and I'd love to know your thoughts, if you decide to read it.

Thanks!

if you read this, thank you, and farewell!

And waving goodbye is just as significant as waving hello

but as tales are told

the proverbial hourglass has drained too much

and returned too little

in ways that consumed the house of my health

which caused a beige like sadness to invite itself in

on account of this artist’s neurological inability

and sometime frantic efforts

to read the room’s social fruit

and yield structured normalcy,

reaping instead

self provoked

punishing frailty

but…

this artist‘s heart

was captured by the kindness of a precious few

and in this digital playground

accepted both sweet praise

and sour apathy

while always longing

to be kind and to give away something for everyone

until the overload of painting the soul

in words both bold and meek

bore the strength of crushing internal armies

and why this artist makes it urgent code

to know when the social machine

is something too hot to keep on hand

so…today this artist

waves goodbye

to those gentle few

and thanks the ones who showed pleasant curiosity

and welcoming sweetness

be it in sporadic glimpses

or in open eyed constancy

now…

to the sullen apples…

well, you may be bruised

but not rotten

so…

spin your moral compass

to bring you victory in the age worn art of etiquette

because cold unkindness

will only rob you

of that imaginative sensibility

and innocent joy

that you feel trembling in your excited hand

at the ready, to put out for others to cherish…

now once again to my friends here, please take care

and:

STAY KIND.

STAY BRILLIANT.

CREATE A FEAST OF CREATIVITY.

and this is the last thing to be written

says my heart’s murmuring little voice,

spoken loudly to my pals here:

THANK YOU.

-TGG (and friend)

January 31st, 2025

Lately I've been feeling bold,

perhaps it's just the meds.

But I kind of want to chase this feeling

and see where it leads.

It already has led me to changing my hair

and putting more effort into myself.

but should I reach out?

Text him to see if he actually wants to get coffee

or if it was just something nice he said.

Should I give this a chance

or just allow myself to let my life pass me by

without doing anything about it?

Perhaps I'll give it a shot

but I'm more likely to revert back to my old ways

and not take a single chance on life.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. The question is whether the shell is one meant to be cracked, as in the shell of a nut or seed, or one wherein cracking means a broken spine, desiccation, certain death.

When the pain is of a specific kind, you know deep down, no matter how often you try to twist it into having a worth, your shell is that of a snail or turtle, and you are just dead meat waiting to be consumed. That pain brings you an understanding of what it feels like to know, to dread your own sibling’s hug because of what will follow. The understanding of what follows, of adulthood. Adulthood is knowing what’s happening and with it, knowing why you’re in pain, wishing that knowledge made it hurt less but it didn’t. Doesn’t.

You try to take your understanding and use it somehow, write your way out of the pain, write what it feels like to be beneath his hands, write what you struggle to put to words verbally, and no, the words aren’t jumping out to a literary audience either, they’re hiding themselves away. Maybe the pain didn’t bring you understanding at all, just another layer of separation between yourself and The World where siblings squabble and love each other but not in That Way. Not in That Way, and yet he only loves you when you’re under him, providing sensory stimulation, and what else can you do but do what he wants? What else can you do but pretend it isn’t pain at all?

The tears are from the winter wind whipping it’s way through your scarf, against your eyes, in no way related to too large hands and hushed breathes and “he doesn’t mean any harm” so no harm was done. No harm was done. No harm was done. You’re not in pain; you’re not real.

None of what happened to you really happened, so you’ll write about it two days later like it’s a story about understanding, like you’re a walnut shell, not a snail clinging desperately to your body-home. You understand. You’re not in pain, not when you read story after story about your favorite characters suffering the same way you did, not when you ask in a thinly veiled plea fic the author has experienced what they write about only to learn no, you really are alone, your suffering can be described even by those who don’t understand, are only imagining the pain of having their body used against them, their reactions excuses, their excuses justifications, those justifications signs you deserved it. You don’t have anyone telling you otherwise but these fiction authors imagining themselves in your reality, so you let yourself be comforted by mirages, let the Sun dry your snail skin from your cracked shell. Understand that nothing is real, not your pain, not you. Nothing.