aries - the buzzing sound of neon, sparklers, red velvet, spilled ink, fogged up windows, fire dancing, city lights

taurus - dust storms, tumbleweeds, fireside lullabies, the sun breaking through barren tree limbs, dried up flower petals, worn out boots

gemini - sleepovers at the bayou, cracked mirrors, lucid dreams, psychic parlors, lavender, hotel hallways

cancer - paper cranes, the city reflecting off the pavement after it rains, dripping honey, fields of wildflowers, hazy mornings

leo - paint splatters, buzzing bees, bright beach towns, cinnamon, walking out of the movie theater into bright sunlight

virgo - pomegranate seeds, film noir, silver bullets, seagulls & their riddles, skylight roofs, vials filled with healing herbs

libra - dandelion fluff, slow dancing in your bare feet, curtains fluttering from the open window, rainy sunrises

scorpio - a ghost town after midnight, spiderwebs, elixirs & potions, shades of red, obsidian, an emptied out swimming pool

sagittarius - war paint, harp strings, a bird’s loose feathers, burned out light bulbs, mushroom rings, letting your feet hang off the edge 

capricorn - snowfall, marble statues, ivory, a quiet unbecoming, the scent of vanilla, black & white polaroids, white ink tattoos

aquarius - aquariums, wispy clouds, jewels for eyes, sea salt, lava lamps, a siren’s song, renaming the constellations

pisces - watercolors, swirling skies, rose petals, sea shells & the way you think you can hear the ocean on the other side, strawberry fields

I see us dancing.

Champagne drunk and your arms around me

while we spin on joy.

A thousand stolen kisses

and a hotel room you sneak in,

satin sheets against my bare back

and you and I together, laid out for miles

How do I inspire in someone, a feeling that I struggle to ignite within myself. I cannot tell her what she is worth, I cannot help. I'm not great, not even good to date, today. I just want to taste her tongue. She just wants to bear his young. He sticks his dick in, thrusts once, twice, maybe a whole ten minutes, and then he ducks out again. Her other girl called K, she's been saving up her feelings and locking them away. I don't know how to preserve this innocence when nothing gold can stay. If I had, had it my way, nothing would have been this way, and everything gold could have stayed and stood and withheld the test of time. My mind is prison, and while I'm locked in its fizzing, acidic thoughts eating their way out of my skull, my opinion is null, no one has ever really cared all much anyway, as I simply don't hold that much sway. From here I want to run away. I think I would be okay if I were to die today, to die to death, and yeah that's too death because there is just too much though some say it's a rush, I say it's onward to the next adventure. After all death is all we have left that we haven't cracked open and killed. Over filled and over filed and over studied, goddammit why can't we just be pals for as long as we are around and just sit still why to we have to do the drill, I'm getting ill. I'm tired of crying but it feels like I'm dying and maybe there is some panic involved because my voice is getting shrill and I'm writing with a quill and this isn't real, so reel me back in to the reality in question, cause I'm questing onward despite all error and folly. I'm high as Alaska and goody golly ain't that baked and jolly. Santa Claus and Santa paws and who the fuck let out the dogs my life isn't working who is licking me I'm dying dearie can't you see. 

Put me back to sleep, 

I am far too tired to stay awake,

The rain pounding on the glass,

Has kept me awake all night,

The rhythmic beat of it,

Scared me in its unending storm,

A constant reminder,

One day I will wake up,

And my world will be gone,

And the only one left to greet the rising sun,

Will be a girl who does not know,

And is still wondering what it means to live,

She worries that it will hurt to die,

So she keeps her friends close,

And her heart trapped in her chest,

Because you never know what is going to last,

And what is going to be lost,

Or who is going to leave you behind,

Life is so hard, and the price is too great,

A breathe is waisted with every hesitate,

But is a word of worth if it does not ring,

And when a tear is just a tear

What does sadness even mean,

And when a girl lies trapped in bed,

With too many thoughts inside her head,

And she tries to pray,

But falls asleep before a voice answers,

And she never wakes up,

And she never remembers,

The gentle arms, and a gentle kiss,

Because the unloved are just ones who forgot they were loved,

And the happiest have weathered the hardest storms,

But the safest are the ones who never fight,

And a life is only alive when it dies. 

I think about how it should be, love, to the point where I speak to God above. Who'd ever think that a single word of imperfection grasped upon an intersection of feelings and mutual benefits, yet here I speak of how it doesn't fit. It doesn't fit my personality judging from the way I prove my mentality, it isn't much of a problem given that I didn't care at all, sadly for this love of mine, for you I decided to fall yet it was un-explainable how unattainable you were how you talk, how you move even how you blink your eyes, no one other than her. I loved the feeling you gave me the meaning you filled the laughter in the air the love that you killed, because I realized one thing, it was that It couldn't be, how one sided the love was just added to my misery, a pain in the chest, it stung at best it hurt like hell but I was lost under your spell, I am pathetic because of how sympathetic I was, falling over your words of empathetic mistrust. No longer do I judge my way of impulse I feel my heart. Its one sided

Stranger than Fiction

I slyly peer a 30-something woman from across the room. 

A sibylline beauty,  her features are mysterious, ominous. Her profoundly green-hazel eyes are icey, almost jaded. 

She scans a cell phone screen superficially. After a pause, navigates her index finger around the tiny display. The rough, callused digit delicately twirls like a rudimentary ballet. 

A smoldering cigarette barely dangles from her bottom lip, almost completely vertical. She exhales thickly through nostrils; shrouded by a veil of smoke.

Who is this portentious prophetess? 

Vaguely familiar to me; profile a shadowy archetype from amorphous dreams. Maybe a moonlit figure I casually noted in passing. Perhaps, we were acquainted in a past life. What an annoying conundrum.

This female creature fascinates me.

I want to ask her name, her interests. I ponder her potential hopes for the future, aspirations, epiphanies. Could she contribute wisdom or pertinent information? A flurry of potentials and possibilities circumnavigate my skull.

Pandora's open box.

I pinch my thigh to stop the sensory overload. I clamp my eyes shut; slowly re-open them to slits. 

She is staring, stoically, back at me. 

It seems as though my perception plays a rather cruel trick. Chest tight, breath shallow, I realize. The stranger I struggle to recognize is my own reflected image.    

Who am I? Where has the time gone? What have I become? Where will I go from here? 

My immediate reply: deafening silence. 

I never know what to say when someone asks me if a stranger is attractive. I mean, you can’t know that just from looking at someone, right? You have to spend time with them, get a sense of their personality. Their likes and dislikes, you know? I was at a bar the other night with a few buddies of mine, and one of ’em asks me, he says, “See that lady over at the bar? She’s hot, right?” 

I mean, sure, she has a nice face, I guess, but can she hold a conversation? What does she do for fun? Does she ever just stop and think about dinosaurs? You gotta ask these questions first. That's how you know.

Oh, perfect example. Last week, I’m walking through my cornfield, right, like I often do. Suddenly, wham! I’m sitting at a table in the middle of this empty white void, and across from me is this lady. Thin, blonde, probably thirty-something, from the looks of her. Hard to tell, especially ’cause she’s got this visor thing covering her eyes, like that Cyclops guy from X-Men. She’s also wearing a full-body silver jumpsuit. 

I think, whatever, you know? Free country.

We exchange small talk for a minute, you know, the normal “Hello,” “How are you,” “I am an emissary from the distant planet Merculon IV,” all that. Then she pulls out this ear of corn, sets it on the table, all casual-like. Stares at it for a good long minute.

Long story short, her people over on Merculon IV (real nice place, from the sounds of it), have been observing us for a while. She says – get this – they’ve been checking out our “seed pods,” says they’re not “up to par” or whatever. “The individual seedlets are a sickly yellow,” she says, all formal, “and the protective sheet is dangerously frail. Your gene pool will require serious intervention in order to ensure continued survival of the species.”

It takes me a few minutes more of her explaining to figure out what she means. But oh man, then I get it! Seed pods must be how they reproduce or whatever, over on Merculon IV, and they must look a lot like our corn here on Earth! And what she was, um…proposing, I guess, was to, uh…add some genetic material. Direct-like. With yours truly! Crazy, right? Feels crazy just talking about it. Little old Phil, savior of the species. 

Anyway, I explain the whole thing, she looks embarrassed, I tell her no worries, it happens to everyone. We have a good long laugh about the whole thing, and she drops me off at home. 

Anyway, I’m with my buddies, same ones, over at the bar that night, and I tell ’em the whole story. Greg’s going crazy the whole time, just losing it. Asking me all kinds of questions. But meanwhile, Jim’s real quiet through the whole thing, which is kinda weird, and when I finish, he just stares off into space, looking a little green.

“If I was you, I woulda done it,” says Greg, goofy drunk grin plastered across his face.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I mean, she was pretty, right?” says Greg. “I woulda just gone along with it. Add to the gene pool, if you know what I mean.” He guffaws, and elbows Jim. Jim doesn’t laugh.

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “You mean just lie to her?”

Greg burps, and grins again. “I guess that’s one way of putting it. She sounds hot. Was she hot?”

I mean, what did I tell you, man? Some people. That’s all they care about. I don’t even think Greg’s met any cornfield aliens before, and that’s the first question he asks. Just embarrassing.

“How should I know if she was?” I ask, feeling kinda irritated. “Couldn’t’ve been up there for more than five minutes. We didn’t even get to the whole dinosaur thing. “Was she hot?” I mean…man. That’s a real shallow way of looking at things, Greg. I’m disappointed.”

“Mine was,” says Jim.

Me and Greg go all quiet for a minute.

“Your what was, Jim?” asks Greg.

“I don’t feel so good, fellas,” says Jim.

I haven’t seen Jim in a few days. He rushed home after he said that, and no one I know’s heard from him since. You fellas wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you? I know, you’re all official and stuff, you’re asking the questions, I know. I’m just wondering. He’s just my friend, you know, and I’m kinda worried about him, is all. 

But you wouldn’t know about that. You’re here about the noises and lights in the woods. Don’t even know why I asked.

Man, I hope Jim’s alright.

What was the question again?

Even to myself, I am no one until I am someone. Whether I like it or not, I am nobody until I'm somebody to another consciousness that makes up this reality. By myself, I'm merely an idea, a network of concept thoughts of possibility waiting for actualization.

Alone (away from the world,) what I say and do remains nothingness to everyone but me, like a flower blossoming inside an uninhabited dried out log. Only if that flower grows tall enough to peak out of the log to be seen at a distance, or makes enough fragrance to be smelled from elsewhere, will its existence be known, unless an observing animal (human or otherwise) happen upon it for discovery, on the way to somewhere or something else. 

Even in my present, I am a memory to most who've known me at all-- only someone during reflection of past events-- otherwise, often irrelevant. Like a book they've forgot they read.

Solo, in the shower, I am water-usage.

By myself, in bed (in the dark) I am a heat signature.

In solitude, reading, I am an unknown observer, a ghost in another world.

I am always me but the context of who I am only has depth in the presence of a sentient mind. When I boil it down, I have to share myself to be someone. Share my presence in places others are, or will be. Share my thoughts and feelings when there's sentience to give me substance in the living world.

After all, alone behind stone walls in the silence of my own being, I am only ever who I was to those who knew me, because there's no external context to who I am in that moment (religious & spiritual beliefs aside.) In the corporeal world with which I reside, living isn't the same as existing. Who I really am only has weight and meaning when engaged or in the presence of other life, without it, I may be alive but I may as well, not exist.

I'm the kind of person who thinks about these things...

|| another_proser ||

Your gentle touch

Pulls at my heart

Gives me strength to love

A broken dove

Fluttering without hope

I will hold you close always

#haikus #ProseChallenge