I believe I’ve taken up my words because they are the closest I’ll come to self expression in the freest form. I have talent. My talent is not perfect, but I will never stop working to create beautiful sentences that I can feel proud of. The idea of self expression can be a personal hell to someone who has no idea how to do it. When you’ve got pent up ideas, thoughts, emotions and nowhere to put them you will always feel like you’ve missed out. I could practice drawing, maybe even become good enough to write a story in one picture. I want more than one picture. I want a thousand pictures with a thousand different meanings derived from people with their own interpretation. Although, I’m not very good at letting my work into other arms. Even entering a contest like this, with a piece like this, is a moment of risk. I suppose in writing, it’s much easier to edit your work than in drawing. I can fall in love with entire worlds that I’ve written, and for a moment, I can forget the things I dislike about myself. I can forgive myself for not being perfect when I can create imagery that reaches me in the most vulnerable of places. To write is to grow. I’ve only been writing for about two years, and I can see so much growth. In my vocabulary, in my sentence structure and world-building. But in myself, too. What I value is much clearer to me because the themes I tend to write revolve around the things I’m missing. Writing is not my sole form of self expression. But it is the most candid.

Prompt: Lovely and I know you don’t need to be a good idea to me about it but I don’t know what to say that man is drinking water and eating bread in the past few days ago

Bread and water. It is all my father has allowed me to feed him the past few days since the incident. His shoulders were once strong and they have carried thousands of pounds over a life time that he did not choose to have. At a young age he was chosen. In front of him was an entire life mapped out perfectly, and he was not to stray. And he didn’t. So he took a career he didn’t care for and married a woman he didn’t love. He could live with his own unhappiness as long as it kept his parents even faintly satisfied. He is happy for me in his own way, but he needs to mourn the life he could have had. Our marriage will happen because I will choose happiness where he could not. I will choose to celebrate the engagement of any child I have instead of isolating myself to my old wooden rocking chair thinking of what could have been. For him, I will wait. I cannot tell you how long, but if you will hold my hand and wait with me I will love you the rest of my life. At his age, the weight he carries now sits on his back. I will not be the feather that floats down to sit atop his existing concrete. I will not burden him with my feather because it will cross his breaking point. His knees would finally buckle, his spine would finally snap, and he would reach a place he could never return from. I will hold my feather for a little while longer until he can shake the concrete that haunts him.

inside of a normal human world there is another unseen. One filled with gods and ugly, influential monstrosities. Here, people are given second chances when they have been taken from the life they were entitled to. There is a trespasser, but she is welcome. She gets to live in this world despite the fact that she is alive, but she can stay. Without her, this story would not have come together the way it has. There is a young boy who deserved to live. He is not supposed to know this, but he does. Against all odds he will try his best to cheat this second chance he has been given. As long as he can reconvene with the family he thinks he lost. But he has not lost anything. Tragic as it is, the boy lives a better life on the other side of death. The hands he hopes to shake once more are the same hands which killed him. The hands he spits on belong to the person who loves him most, even if he cannot understand it. Those hands belong to a man with horrible fashion sense really. Who wears a scarf and a tracksuit? Surely not a real god...

I am constantly within reach of monsters who will drain me for all the worth I have. No matter where in the great black expanse I could hide, astronomers would find me eventually. I could hide far away in the Andromeda Galaxy and they would have me caught in a matter of hours. I could build a nice home on an extra solar planet in a solar system with two suns and they would wake me in the night telling me they had found me. I could consult the asteroids and comets and ask them to usher me away someplace out of reach and somewhere far away a person behind a telescope would watch the whole journey. I will never shake this Earth. She is beautiful but the people she holds are not. They terrify me in ways zero gravity and black holes could not. A black hole would not think first before crushing me, but a person would look me in the eyes and tell me they loved me first. I do not feel safe from their grasping hands even light years away. I would sooner shake the hand of the sun than shake the hand of a man.

I can tell you I had a dream. I know that zebras are digging holes in the ground and they are coming for all of you. In the event that one holds you at gunpoint, you need only play the kazoo to keep him at bay. When the cinemas explode and the stars only come out in the day, you know they have succeeded in their master plan. There will be no stopping them by then and I won't be able to help you anymore. They are working quick, they know I'm here. Send your strongest horseradish to Pluto, the Rhinos will take it from there.

If they do not get the horseradish there in time, there is no hope. I can only give you these tips in hopes that some of you will make it. They will come up from the earth. They have dug interconnected tunnels beneath the ground. If doomsday is to come, they will emerge from the ground using their tunnels and attack from the sushi restaurants. They despise salmon, and raw fish in general. They cannot stand the smell. Warn the sushi restaurants, armor up with all of the yellowtail and halibut and salmon you can find. Keep the fish eyes! Those are especially toxic! Throw fish eyes at the zebras, and you will keep them at bay.

Once they have demolished all sushi, they will head for cornflakes next. Arm yourselves, ladies and gentlemen, buy as many frosted flakes as you can! Crush them up, roll yourself in eggs and flour and coat yourself in the stuff. Do not give me that look, do you want to live, man? Natural selection is very real! But I suppose if the cornflakes are too much for you, you could use the crayons. Green crayons specifically scare them. They have been training for this since birth, and they are ready for your tricks, humans. No zebras have died in the past 200 years, there are billions of them ready to come at any and all of you. You each need to take on at least twenty.

Stop walking away from me you worms! Don't you want to live? When did life become so devalued for you heathens? No, bomb bunkers won't work. There is no hiding. There is only combat. From doomsday forward, you needn't worry about taxes. All you'll need to worry about is survival.

They hate balloons. Specifically birthday balloons, because it reminds them of how old they all are. They're insecure about their stripes and bags too, Christine. At least you all have face creams. Create an anti-aging cream for them, offer it to them as sacrifice. Perhaps some of them, the weaker willed will leave you alone.

You need to exaggerate that you reached space before they did. Really just shove the fact that you've reached the moon in their long-nosed faces. They have a sweet spot for the Mars rover though, keep pictures of Oppy on you at all times. In desperate times, pray to Oppy. Keep a walkie talkie on you at all times and pretend you are speaking to Oppy. They will leave you alone in fear of upsetting Oppy by intercepting one of Oppy's chosen ones.

They're really nosey. Carry a suitcase on you at all times but keep it locked. When one approaches you for a battle, refer to your suitcase as your secret weapon but don't open it. The zebra will inquire as to what is in the suitcase, and lower it's weapon. Tell the zebra that you will tell it at recess. To this comment, it will insist that you tell it now because it doesn't want to wait until recess to hear your big secret. But you must keep insisting, because your suitcase is empty. Buy yourself time. They won't do anything to you before knowing what is in the suitcase.

They despise change. Quarters, dimes, pennies. Save the nickels, those are your last resort. leave a circle around your shelter with pennies, they won't go anywhere near you. The smell is much too strong for them, and they can never remember if pennies are one cent or five cents, so they feel stupid and embarrassed and avoid them sat great lengths to avoid social judgment. Use this.

Lastly, they hate puzzles with missing pieces. Take any finished puzzles you have and run over it with puzzle glue. remove some pieces. Keep it handy on you at all times, but only 1000+ piece puzzles will work because they have poor eyesight. Unless you can craft glasses for zebras and convince them to wear them, I suppose. They'll scoff and cry at the missing pieces because they are a very poetic species, and they'll likely go on about how sad it is, how it's a metaphor for opportunities missed. Console the zebra(s) with a tissue, a slight "there, there" wouldn't hurt either. Give them a warm beverage and tuck them into bed. Then line the edge of the bed with pennies. Now you have captured a zebra, and you have a bargaining chip in case you ever need it.

That will be the first cinema explosion then. I need to go. Perhaps the next planet will listen to me. You thought zebras were bad, Saturn has porpoises. Heed my words, take to heart what I have told you. Survival is crucial. Do not let them catch you. It is not death that waits for you if they do.