Her winds are howling to the dawn of day

Snarling atop her steely plinth

Raised herself to the sky

Beneath the churns of hazy ash

She stokes the patchworks of blinding fires

Inches away, it strikes my ground

Scorching grasses that curl my nose

She growls to her crowded one

Holding defiance past wavering innards

Innocence hasn’t the need to run

I tried to keep my head afloat

Resist the pull of her screaming reality

But she yanks my legs until I bleed

She wraps my arms with the weight of chains

No gasping breath or yearning plea

I utter can be heard

Instead she steals the painful pleasure

Of plucking slow my once feathered wings

This bitter assault dragged me through the clouds

Punishment towards my trying escape

Her spite for my wings, my vanish from her storm

It drives her desperate cruelty

Desire for such easy addiction in my wake

Petty blows to stroke her ego

Grasping “proof” of her control

Smugness grips her solemn jail

Carefully feeds her casted craving

Judgement falling to the wronged

But I defy her claim of victors

Her triumph means abandon of my dreams to soar

Grounded by my jailer who cannot pass the clouds

I desire witness to the clear above the storm

The free resist for Death to deny

Yearn for the strength, I wish a fate

I dare to refuse, endeavor defy

Stand to run, soothe the wounds

Before forthcoming, stolen flight

Her spoil of war elude her still

My vision and wings are not her right

I’m trying.

Trying to drown every noise. Trying to cage myself in. Trying to disappear on the spot. Trying to dry my own tears.

Can’t you see?

I’m trying to stop.

Stop listening. Stop seeing. Stop feeling. Stop breathing.

Stop living.

But I can’t. I’m here. I’m alive. Where the air is poison and I can’t take a breath without starting to choke. People ask if I’m alright but how the hell could I be? How could I be alright when I’m alive and you’re not?

No one pulled me aside. No one called, no one texted. All I needed was one message. A singular word from someone who knew and instead I had the pleasure of finding out at school. With a class full of people, whose world’s didn’t stop. Did I really mean so little to you?

My veins practically froze, when he pulled out the paper. We’d been through this before on two separate occasions. I didn’t have time to pull out my phone. Not when my fingers had frozen in panic. Because he read out your name layed smack in the middle of a copy-and-paste sentence.

I lost control of my body in the seconds that followed. He’d yelled my name worried, but I was too far down the hallway. Before I knew what had happened, I’d disappeared out the doors. School vanished behind me as I tore down the streets. Our memories flooded my mind. Tears streamed down my face. My surroundings blurred madly; soon I collapsed to the ground. And that’s where they’d found me. A sobbing wreck in a ball, crumpled and curled on the edge of someone’s lawn.

I’d screamed in denial when they tried to bring me back. No counselor, no teacher could convince me you were dead.

That was short lived denial. I can’t refuse my own eyes, even if my vision is bleary from this place where I stand. Days have passed, yet I haven’t stopped crying. At least, these are quiet. The day they announced your funeral was the day I fell silent. Too long, I’ve been alone with my thoughts but I still can’t believe that this is our end, that everything we built has shriveled and fallen.

I failed you, promised you wouldn’t be alone. I said I’d be there in the moment you needed me most.

You always hated promises. Said no one can promise the future. Did you know I would fail you? Or were you counting on me? Did you wait for a text that would never come?

I feel my heart quivering. I think it might shatter.

Can you see the damage that you’ve left behind or is death oblivious to its aftermath?

I want to scream at you and sob, to tell you that I’m pissed.

I doubt you’ll hear me. I mean, you finally escaped. You found your way out so why would you ever return?

We had so much to do, entire futures ahead. High school was just a chapter in two books being written. Now one is unfinished and a chunk of the other is missing. I wanted you with me. I wanted to be by your side. I wanted to explore what we could be. Together. To carry each other through all the lows and the highs.

I’m not ready.

I can’t do it.

They want to shoo me along.

But I can’t find the strength to move. If I could, I might run. I can’t tear myself away from the sight of your body. Horrifically pale and coated in makeup. My eyes soak in the nausea as it gaily twists in my stomach.

Just do me a favor? Please don’t be dead. Come back in a year, maybe six, even ten? Don’t be gone when our story’s not done. There’s too much to say and I already ran out of time.

Don’t make me end it. You never liked the rules, so throw them out the window, why should the law of death be final?

I’m begging you. I’m choking on bile. Don’t make me say it. We swore we never would.

We’d say “see ya” and “good night,” “later” and “so long.” But we’d promised to never say it or did you doubt that all along?

It’s too final. Too official. Too assuring of the end. The word’s buried in my throat, jagged and vile.

I told you, I can’t. Not when I can’t even smile.

This can’t be the end.

I can’t say goodbye.

slipping

tumbling downwards

stumbling by nearing end

breaking, broken, beyond repair

stopping

system

fallen pieces, shattering down

destruction runs rampant

anarchy lives

and thrives

Against the shadows of the night

Is my luminous laptop screen.

Lighting up my tapping fingers

As these hours of dark are slow to wane.

Outside the window is an orange street lamp.

Above there’s a great big oblivion,

In my ear is the sweet melody of medicine,

In my head is the whisper of everything trivial.

Staring at the shadows and the demons alike.

The record of my nights is stuck on repeat.

Up in the silence, as this house surely settles.

Awake because sleep is too much a relief.

Across the hall, she snores in her slumber

Ignorant to my long unanswered yawn.

While here I lay, unable to quit,

Listening to an echo of the same damn song.

#poetry #sleep #awake #writing #laptop #insomnia #broken #record #midnight

My vision tumbles

As I fall to the side.

Head hits the pillow

Veil of hair hides my eyes.

Somewhere to the side

Muffled music lightly plays

I’d pause it for silence

If only my arm would raise.

But my body is frozen

As tears stream down my face.

I cannot search for nowhere

Near is a single ounce of strength.

And taunting me

From the far reaches of the room,

Is a soul so sickeningly lost,

Hollow, it wanders,

Entrapped in this tomb.

It’s torturous cry

Is screaming to me

“Hunt down the stray,

It’s not hard to see.”

Do you understand?

Have you seen what I’m missing?

The search still continues

While I am stuck wishing.

It’s not just an empty quest,

A mocking spirit’s mission

There’s a plea of insanity

If only I might listen.

But my brain still protests,

So eager in dismissal.

Waving away in denial.

Because I’m what is hidden.

I used to be someone.

At least I think that I was.

I think I was there,

In everything that I loved.

Like the quotes on my wall

Or the books that I had.

I think that was me,

But I don’t understand.

That messy blue paint,

And those colorful stickers,

Trophies and art projects

And walls full of pictures.

I know that was me.

So where the hell have I gone?

What part of me’s left?

Or is all of that lost?

My smile is bleak and fading.

My eyes are lifeless voids.

There’s an empty pit

Where my stomach was

And my veins are dark and barren roads.

Jagged stubs replaced my nails.

I can barely lift an arm.

Sparkling shadows

Cloud my view

When I stand and fall to harm.

Such an absent weight,

Where my heart used to be.

That missing ring on my finger,

Now a misplaced part of me.

So, who am I now?

Am I the pain in my head?

From the ribbons of stress

And every bead that I’ve bled?

Am I the tears on my face,

The ones to silently fall?

Am I the constant screaming in my head,

While my gaze is fixed to the wall?

Am I the dark circles

Deep set under my eyes?

Or am I the bile at the back of my throat

Forged of dread and lies?

Am I a poet at all?

Do these words have a meaning?

Is all of this torture

From a malevolent demon?

Because I want to cry,

But the tears aren’t there.

And I long to scream

Past my vacant stare.

There are words in my mind.

Yet they died in my throat.

I know how to swim

But I can’t stay afloat.

And now I’m stuck in space

Shrieking to no avail.

There’s a husk in my place,

Where I used to be

And I’m suffocating without air.

#absent #missing #lost #cry #find #emotional #depression #anxiety #home #me #whoami #found

Specks of dirt stuck sprayed my face, getting caught in the slick sweat from the hot sun. I stabbed my shovel into the hardened soil until I reached the soft layers just beneath. Next to me lays the last of the plants I have yet to put into the ground. Carefully, once I’ve dug the final hole, I grasp the plant and set it’s tangled clump of roots in, sweeping the excess dirt back in the spot until it was firmly packed down.

Exhaustion overwhelmed me and my back hit the ground behind me. I smiled softly at the blue sky filled with swirling, white clouds before my eyes closed to block out the still shining light from the sun. Grass tickled the back of my neck, holding my head like a softly woven, slightly scratchy pillow.

It was then, that moment of peace that held my heavily breathing body, that I heard Her.

Find me. She murmured softly in my mind, so soft in fact that at first I thought she hadn’t spoken at all. But then her voice grew louder.

I am here. Tiny thumps pounded in my chest to her echoing words and yet there was no fear. She didn’t ask me not to be afraid, she didn’t need to. Her words washed through my head in rippling waves of calm. Hear me, child unlike the many who’ve ignored my pleas. Find me.

My eyes fluttered open. “Why?” I whispered to myself, riddled with confusion. “How can I find you?”

No response came but like a puppet on a string, I found myself slowly sitting up and pulling the gloves off my hands. I was on my knees again, something pulling me towards the softly turned layers of Earth before me. Still, even in the calm, hesitance held back my hand. Even louder now, her voice was filled with insistence in her repetition. Find me!

So outwards I stretched my hand, trembling slightly. Dirt rolled between my fingers as I pressed my hand into the ground. I closed my eyes and reached out to the Earth. She reached back as I stretched further to reach her. Her words had faded dully, leaving the pounding anticipation of the search behind in the silence.

A shiver shook my spine when I found her and she latched onto me desperately. Her voice no longer calm but rather a despairing scream of pain. Barely scratching the surface, I felt her heartbreak, the pain of giving all you have for nothing in return but even more so I felt her burning anger, thirsting for revenge. But slowly, beginning right at the tips of my fingers as she asked permission to enter, I let her anguish seep into my veins.

At first it all but froze my blood, the horror of her howling agony as it traced its way up my arms and legs. Baby blue vines filled with shards of ice snaked through my body, made me gasp as I stared in awe at my glowing hands. Through the vividly bright snakes that crawled up my skin, I saw the oceans. Waters teeming with oil, the carcases of animals that couldn’t escape the waste. Dying reefs and once blue waters stained with blood swam in my veins all the while I felt torment of each and every one. Even worse was Her chilling despair as she suffered their sufferings while she could do nothing. Nothing, but sit by and hope their pain would end.

But that spreading chill soon turned to searing fire that enveloped my soul and my vision burned. Brimming tears spilled down my cheeks from the blistering pain that glowed like lava. All that came before seemed immeasurable against this deep set fury, this white hot ire fueled by outrage that had been messily stitched together over thousands of years. It was the crying of every tree chopped to the ground, the tears of melting glaciers and the hacking coughs of every living thing choked by ash and fire in the smoldering rainforests that had surely begun to disappear.

Just as it became nearly unbearable to feel even a second more, the fire faded to empty. Nothing entered my blood, for a second I believed it had stopped. Until I heard her voice again in the tenebrous void that followed.

Avenge me… She whispered, words echoing inside my head. Such simple words and yet they weren’t even needed. Her eons of torture had dimmed and yet I still felt an ardent wrath deep in my bones. This however was my own.

Before the darkness behind my closed eyes, she appeared in sloping hills of my mind and Mother Earth gave a somber, tired smile dotted with flowers. Her mouth never opened and yet her voice echoed all around in rumbling hills, the rushing streams and the rustling winds that tickled the trees. Take my anger, my child. Take my sorrows and my strength. Avenge me…

Part of me desperately sought to ask why. Why me? Why now? What could I possibly do? But no such words fell from my lips. Instead, I felt my head fall and rise and her swirling form disappeared behind my eyes. My eyes snapped open and an audible gasp escaped me as I felt the cold again. Cool black streams crossed my arms in spiderwebs, embedding themselves in the very essence of my soul. This wasn’t the tears of her anguish or her rage fueled fires. The raw powers of the Earth held only one emotion. A single desire.

Her commanding words repeated over and over in my head. The silky rivulets of ink found home in the pooling, empty voids of my irises. She called for human blood. She screamed her pained dissent. A tiny, wrath filled grin crept it’s way onto my lips. Together, the ground beneath us shook and our shrieking power called for revenge.

#shortstory #narrative #earth #pain #goddess #revenge #power #globalwarming #disaster #disappointment #lost #found #search #fire #tears #void

This place,

This prison,

That of impudent crimson.

Such greedy a grip,

Taking each moment of mirth.

Above theft of the artist,

Is their theft of all worth.

Rawness of flesh

Under tightening ropes.

Torment too much,

I had to let go.

Set free of such dreams,

Still fresh in my mind.

Since they’d broken my strength,

Every shred they could find.

Why expect me to shimmer, in a sky full of stars?

Dismissable dust without much a cause.

Why, when all I am is exactly this?

Where they all but stare through my body of mist?

The night sky so bright

Constellations abound

Swimming in darkness

Yet here, I have drowned.

Not once did they dim?

Swallowed by what might await?

No...

stars mustn't worry about the darkness of space

When the Upper Hand

had chosen our fate.

Not a barren spot remained,

yet I was replaced.

So here falls the pain,

the rejections I swallow.

Here’s my abandon,

and my soul now scraped hollow.

#poetry #soul #stars #rejection #fate #creativity #theft #prison #escape #pain

Thickly somber, idle chatter clogs the mournful air

From up above, her knees still wobble on the shaky dais

Her shameful stare centers on her bluish ink smudged hands

In and out uneven breaths are ragged and unsound

Teary cheeks grow alive as buzzing slows to fade

Her time to speak creeps closer still and pounding heart ensues

Butterflies in chaosed frenzy flip her heart as she lifts her view

Yet just before she starts to speak, her entire body stills

“You?” She whispered, widened eyes frozen in the air

Her frantic words denied it hard despite her plain in gaze

“It cannot be… no, no… not here.” resounding fear now louder

Heads turn to her distressed cries yet nothings found as their eyes scour

Frustrated she yells, “Why have you come?”

Murmurs rise, her hands go numb

Windows freeze as cold as ice

And there she stands clear in her sights

Clearly now, the crowd is chilled

Searching for the bother in place unfilled

Vexation grows as she’s yet ignored.

“She’s right there!” Her terror roared.

For there she was, in the middle aisle

With a haunted gaze, she could not describe

Tears had formed from growing pain

“There,” she gestured yet again.

Few shook their heads with incredulity

Rumors of “crazy” flew accusingly

None but she could see her there

Instead to she, the crowd turned their stare.

Her head whipped around with pleading eyes

Still begging belief, she continued to antagonize

As if on a string, her broken neck lifted

Her lips twisted up in a heinous grin

Slowly now, her legs start to move

Each stomp of her feet is heavy and cruel

Her hands reach out towards her,

claws dripping blood

The sickening sight made her green, as she trudged

“Don’t you see her?” came another plea

Her heart continued to pound wildly

Feet crept further forward, nearer to the screams

And tears poured down her face in streams

“My friends, dear fate has left you blind!

Ghostly pale, she towers over,

creeping towards you from behind!”

“Why can’t they see… why me? Why me!”

Her eerie screams “Why am I to blame?”

All at once, her words had faltered

She stumbled backward, crashed to the altar

Mournful little wilting flowers

fell back from her broken rage

Trembling fingers failed to find

a firm hold on the stage

Her lungs constricted, tears burned her eyes

Bile in her throat was on the rise

The blurry specter who stumbled closer

Soon her ragged breaths grew lower

And suddenly she disappeared

Her dragging feet could not be heard

Yet just as she almost let out a breath

The evil hanging in her face,

stopped her heart dead

Bloodshot veins crept through her face

A decrepit smile stood fixed in place

Her bloodied nails teased,

dragged slowly down her neck

And pierced her heart,

ripped it from her pounding chest

#creepy #scarystory #poetry #sorry #bloody #spirit #funeral #darkness

Circling hounds who seek the iron scent of dread

Even the slightest slip to give and left of me is but a shred

Evermore inquired still, demand the deed I cannot fill

Know that I might babble in return for what you will

But who would sit to the tune of a narcissistic ramble

The dark of dawn, where sunlight is concealed by the thunder

Your ears are closed to answers for the questions never asked

A query to not befall your lips, too obvious and daft

Still this shadow’s whisper steals the living light of life

Sweet poison curled in wisps of smoke to foster ruinous rife

Yet I find, to even hold such persuasive words of death

Few would truly listen smelling the blood upon my breath

Ribbons flow in crimson red from bitten ragged stubs

Demons come to lick away the rivers made of blood

Dripping stream snake further downwards towards the pooling lake

Such sickening liquid stains the crooked arm and floor beneath it

Was this the outcome you sought to find? Such violent of an end

Perhaps you’d hear my bitter sighs had I a voice to speak and send

Instead despair your eyes in this horrid sight to view

As I, in turn, take my final leave to bid adieu

Cold linoleum tiles clicked under my briskly tapping heels. With each beat, the noise grew louder and louder in the deafeningly silent room.

Other patients, who were scattered around, had their noses stuck in magazines or seemingly let their minds wander as did their eyes. My leg jiggled quicker, swiftly rapping against the floor. It shook my arm as I tried to focus on other things but every wall was disappointingly bare. Few posters were scattered around and underneath was nothing but beige painted concrete blocks that made everything feel even more like a prison cell and I was awaiting the sheriff to take me to trial.

Even the front desk held nothing of interest. Just a few depressing brochure piles all talking about treatment options for the sick and a metal can with logoed pens because everything is about marketing these days.

Still, as I tried to distract myself, my mind kept wandering back. Soon my fingers drummed to the same uneven beat of my foot, much to the annoyance of everyone around me. A particular lady on the other side of the room, professionally dressed and sat stiffly in the corner, quite aggressively flipped the pages of her magazine while glaring me down from over the tops of her glasses. But even as we made eye contact and my already flashing heart quickened, I could control my shaky limbs enough to stop and I simply tried to avoid her stare from then on.

Every time the door next to the receptionist's desk would open, my head whipped up only to hear a different name called and as the room slowly emptied I couldn't help but wonder what could possibly be taking so long. It felt like an eternity had passed by and yet here I was, still stuck in this prison with my foot tap tap tapping away.

Eventually, the old wooden door creaked open once more and a nurses squeaky tennis shoes joined my incessant tapping. And as she glanced down at her clipboard, everything slowed. My eyes focused on her sluggishly moving grim expression as I could only hear the pounding in my head. Her lips mouthed my name even as her words were drowned by the constant thuds and everything stopped.

She glanced around the room and her eyes finally stopped on me as she repeated my name. “Come on back.” Her voice was too loud in the stunning silence that followed. I stood up, smoothing out my shirt and trying to keep my hands still. My shoes clicked in rhythm as I marched through the door with her to face the threateningly empty hall of doors behind it.

Oh no...