i haven't seen you in a year.

it's a relief.

it should be a relief.

instead it's a dread.

i'm not stupid. i know

you'll be back.

sometimes when i lie awake

at night

i feel your approach

fading away just before

you arrive.

i breathe a sigh of relief

and fall asleep.

i push you from my mind

because i have to.

i cannot think about you.

don't think about it.

don't think about it.

don't talk about it.

don't write about it.

but here i am. writing it.

thinking it. maybe you

were right.

maybe i did want it.

maybe i even

needed it.

i haven't forgotten.

my days are spent

not with sighs of relief

or the cherishing of each night

that i go without—

but instead with the fear

of the night you'll return.

because i know you will.

maybe once upon a time,

i thought you went away,

but i've given up on

kidding myself.

you are, after all,

a part of me.

isn't that what

my first psychiatrist said?

you are the rot in my gut that i

try to starve out of me;

you are the intrusive thoughts

that make me believe i am a monster;

you are the distorted disgusting image

of my bare body that i spend my life

trying to cover up.

you are the hatred that i

cannot beat out of myself.

i'm always externalizing my flaws.

building people in my head to blame

when i fuck up.

you are the shame.

so many people told me

i had no reason to be broken.

so i invented you

to break me.

and it worked.

which is why i know you'll

be back.

because shame doesn't die.

it can't be killed.

it can only be stalled, delayed,

pushed away towards some

abstract future date

that i know is fast approaching.

you're coming.

i'd like to say i'm ready for it.

i'm prepared, or at least i'll

have time to prepare, to guard my throat

against the acid reflux, to

build up my mental defenses and stand up

to you again.

but i'm never prepared.

that's the funny thing about shame.

it creeps up. subtle.

you are the space in my brain that i define

by what's around it, the life, the love

that you displace. because i cannot

face it head on.

i have to stay on the outskirts,

fencing off the pitfalls

in my brain, tunnels in the amygdala,

rivers in the frontal lobe

that will lead me straight to you.

you're the part of me

that i cannot admit is mine.

and until i can,

we'll be stuck in this endless dance

of torment.

you: my flaws, my shame.

and me: forever looking for

excuses.

breathe...

stomach tightening into knots,

something in the windows, or

something is not where it's

supposed to be. disarray. panic.

a stranger. the walls are moving.

shifting, like an A.I. generated image,

I cannot trust my eyes. I cannot trust

my ears. I cannot trust my fingertips,

all six and a half of them. wait. not

right. I cannot trust my brain, my body.

I cannot trust you.

b r e a t h e . . .

everything feels slower now. in a

fast way. slow and fast. all at once.

my breathing is slow. fingers clenched

tight. I cannot afford to let go. of myself.

I cannot stop. writing. thinking.

breathing.

was that always here? the hole in the

wall? or did someone drill a hole,

trepanation, planted a camera, a nail

to hang a picture frame to cover

their eyes. watching. I am being watched.

b r e a t h e . . .

I am stretched thin trying to remember

who I am and where I left the keys. check

the pocket. the car. under the bed. the other

pocket. hiding places are everywhere. I cannot

let it swallow me.

i don't have time to check today. running

late. don't look back, or i'll be. trapped here.

i don't have time to cross my t's or capitalize

my i's. is there even an I left or is it only i. do i

have a proper noun or only this false semblance,

meant to be an adjective. i describe you. i am u.

b r e a t h e . . .

too long. too loud. too much. too many. not

enough. make up your mind. paint it until

it starts looking like all the other brains,

pink and grey and white and wrinkled flesh,

dopamine and serotonin and chemicals that

make me feel something. make me feel something.

my face is painted to look angry. sad. happy.

i didn't check today. i didn't capitalize my i. or

cross my t. now i am stomach tightening, breathe

fast and slow and nonexistent. heartbeat the same.

now i am cold. dark. sightless and soundless. everything

and nothing and something, once upon a time.

but no longer. now i'm

PART I: WORMS

worms on the sidewalk

writhing fat and long in the rain.

maybe i should not be outside.

the worms seem fatter

than i remember.

are they thriving while we wane?

the rain distorts my screen.

some of the letters are fat and long, like the worms.

some of them are thin and gaunt

like the survivors of a genocide

happening on the other side of the globe.

it feels far away sometimes,

and other times it feels like someone

is screaming it in my ears.

this would be

good weather to die in.

i would decompose by morning,

worm food.

they grow fat while i am reduced

to bones.

all of my friends

know where they are going.

they have big plans

for tomorrow,

whereas i wake up every morning

and check for rotting flesh

to see if i became worm food

in my sleep.

maybe they have eaten me already.

maybe i will wake up and be gone.

maybe i will wake up in a cradle made of bombs.

maybe i will wake up

to the sound of birds singing

outside my unshattered window.

maybe i won’t wake up at all.

every time my eyes open

i am reminded of my privilege.

i wipe the crust from my eyes

and stare at myself in the mirror.

i look like a corpse.

maybe there are already worms

under my skin

eating me away.

i plucked a grey hair today.

it slid from my pores

as easily as a needle

being pulled from a pincushion.

clumps of pus or dead skin cells

clung to the end of it.

it didn't feel right.

everyone tells me i'm too young to die,

but i think i've been dead

since the moment of my birth,

living my life

backwards.

cotard's syndrome.

the belief that you are dead, or dying.

delusional parasitosis.

the belief that there are worms living under

your skin.

am i crazy?

the early bird gets the worm

the early worm

gets the corpse.

the early corpse

gets honored

flowers and crying parents,

"gone too soon"

but you never hear "gone too late"

or "gone right on time."

is it true that people only love you

when you're gone?

no longer around to let them down

with your humanness.

if i'm dead i won't rebel.

if i'm dead i won't talk back.

if i'm dead i won't make you cry

when you roll up my sleeves and see

fresh wounds.

if i'm dead. if. when.

the worms come out when it rains

and then die on the sidewalk when the rain

stops.

they are immortalized

like the morbid sculptures of pompeii

frozen in the agonized poses they died in.

if i died right now, what position would i be stuck in?

hunched over my phone

fetal position in my bed

it seems like those

are the only positions i'm in

these days.

PART II: RAIN

raindrops are not falling on my head.

my head is a million miles away.

i cross the road-river to get to you.

i look at puddles and i see the sea.

making mountains

out of molehills.

you are close. but not close enough.

how long is too long

how far is too far

how many words does it take

to describe a thunderstorm

and the emotions it stirs in me.

everyone else has an umbrella.

i hate umbrellas. they're just another thing to

carry and lose.

they give nothing more than

an illusion of safety.

the man walking four feet ahead of me

is just as wet as i am, despite his plastic-coated shield.

is water wet?

do we define a thing

by what it does?

if water makes you wet,

is that the same as being?

am i my words.

am i the lack of them.

for that matter,

what does it mean to be dry?

even cracked peeling skin,

dehydrated and scabby,

produces its own oils.

unless you're dead,

and then the worms and the rain

will claim you.

everything means something.

the letters scrawled

on the brick wall of the stairwell,

impossible to decipher.

the sounds coming from the neighbors walls.

the rhythmic drumming of the water

on my skull

in the shower.

if i knew morse code, i'm sure i'd heard a warning

in the creaking and groaning of the walls

or the ceaseless drumming of the rain.

what if the rain never stops,

and the biblical flood

rises up out of history to consume us?

i wonder who god trusted

to build the ark this time.

maybe no one.

i mean, i know i wouldn't trust anyone i know

to restart the human race from scratch.

we're all much too flawed.

being inside

offers no sanctuary from the rain

the rain stays slick and warm on my skin

like burning wax.

it weaves itself in between the threads of my shirt

and settles there.

it plasters my hair to my head like a greasy crown.

i want to go back outside.

at least there, i can embrace the rain

instead of feeling like i need to wipe it off.

i want to feel like i don't have to resist

existence.

raindrops race down my window.

i'm dry now,

at least, as dry as you can be without being dead.

the one closest to the edge of the window

is winning

but there's one in the middle that's

gaining on it.

then they're both gone,

falling too fast to track, falling into oblivion in unison.

i guess i won't know

which one won.

PART III: STORM

severe thunderstorm warning.

i don't know why

but seeing that notification

always thrills me.

will this be the night

that my roof is torn from my home,

that a tree falls and someone hears it,

that i am whisked out of kansas?

life is as boring as it is far too exciting.

i crave stability,

but when i get it,

i spurn it.

over-and-understimulation.

my brain felt everything at once

and then burned out

and now there is nothing left.

is the storm over,

or am i trapped in its eye?

in the moments before lightning strikes an area,

the people there have their hair stand on end,

reminiscent of a manic einstein.

evolutionary fear of death.

my hair feels like it is always

standing on end, skin plagued

by an unscratchable itch, like bugs

underneath my skin.

that's another symptom of psychosis. am i crazy?

i used to be afraid of thunder.

it would wake me up at three a.m.

and i would lie awake

until the sound faded into oblivion

and let my eyelids shut it out.

a few times i'd crawl into my parents' room.

the thunder always sounded quieter there.

at some point,

the thunder became a tranquilizer

rather than a stimulant,

lulling me to sleep

no longer forcing my eyes open.

i don't dream anymore.

i'm too tired.

sleep is my new addiction.

fourteen hours isn't enough.

i still want to nap through the storm.

my whole life is sleeping through storms.

i wake up and i've missed it.

the beauty and the catastrophe.

my entire life is made up of

the calm before the storm

anticipation building up to

a crash

and then sleeping through the moments

i've been waiting for.

i want you to

turn me upside-down

like i’m caught in a twister.

i need the release,

so don’t

release me.

is this what it feels like to die?

weightless in your arms

the winds take me

to wherever you want me to go.

i follow blindly.

i’m not allowed to have my own

direction.

i keep telling myself

this means something.

but i don’t think it does.

the rain falls without

knowing where it will land

the thunder does not plan

where it strikes

the graffiti letters in the stairwell

were not meant for me.

i am not important. i’m just another

droplet of rain in the storm.

eventually i will fall into oblivion, like

others before me.

i will have neither won the race, nor lost.

only run it.

as we all do.

rats in a maze, rats in a cage, rats in a race.

there are songs about that.

maybe one day i will write another one

about rats in the rain.

the cracks in my window sing me to sleep

with whistling breaths.

to some it sounds like screams, agonized wails

of the dead and dying.

to me it sounds like company.

my misery loves that.

puddles ripple in the wind.

the sky distorts.

i wonder what the world would look like underwater.

i wonder what reality would look like.

maybe i am drowning while everyone else is afloat.

maybe that’s why i feel this way.

i step on the sky in the puddle. for a moment i

am flying.

reality

is broken.

i do not sink into the puddle. i keep walking.

i wonder what i would look like above water.

one of my favorite quotes says to

write about the silence.

i keep trying to listen to it.

to the spaces in between sounds.

but i cannot find the silence. there is only

noise.

like raindrops. constant. droning. until it fades

into the background.

is that what silence is? tuning out?

maybe i should write about

that.

PART IV: EYE

the calm before.

ironic perhaps

that i’m writing this after.

i can only reflect on the calm before,

never the calm now or the calm later.

i am always reminiscing on better times.

every once and a while i am reminded

that the childhood i remember

was much darker when i was living it.

i remember being excited

when i moved houses in first grade.

my parents remember the nightmares i had for months,

the sickness and sinus infections,

the side effects of

displacement.

i remember the calm before the storm.

i am reminded that the calm never existed.

a coworker of mine was talking about how

her son chews on the collars of his shirts

because of his anxiety.

i remembered chewing on my own shirts.

i don’t remember being anxious.

but i guess i was.

i guess i’ve always been this way.

always in the storm. always looking back

at the calm before.

i wonder if death is the calm before.

i wonder if,

when i get there,

i’ll look back at my life and call it the calm before.

i wonder if i’ll ever be able to enjoy the calm

when it’s happening.

maybe

there is no calm

at all.

the forecast says we’re in a tornado warning.

it’s sunny outside.

like the week before my suicide.

people told me i was the happiest

they’d ever seen me.

the calm before.

maybe my attempt

succeeded.

maybe this is

the storm after

that i am forced to weather.

i can’t try again.

the failure hurts too much.

i was a straight a student.

i’m used to success on the first try.

school taught me how to attempt suicide

but it never taught me how to complete it

if i failed the first time.

i’ve been talking with my therapist about my dead cat.

i don’t know why it hurts so much. it was

a long time ago.

i still see her ghost

in the room down the hall.

she was the calm before and the storm after.

when your mind is a hurricane,

tragedy is the eye.

i find myself comfortable

when i am suffering.

pain is soothing, perhaps even

pleasurable.

i fantasize about evisceration,

daydream about the apocalypse,

have trained myself to revel in grief.

is that crazy?

or is it just a symptom of the one track

information highway leading right into

my brain and stopping traffic with its

flashing lights and bright colors and

click here to know what happiness feels

like and oh my god the world is ending but

holy shit check out this super relatable

meme and would you still love me if i was

a worm?

the worms come out in the rain and the

thunder

and the storm

because they don’t have to worry

about being struck

by lightning.

neither do i.

i’m short enough to fly under god’s radar.

would i love myself if i were a worm?

would i have a self?

do i have a self?

in the eye of the hurricane, there is a moment

when you can see the yellow green sky

the color of pus and decaying teeth.

the sky is blue

until it isn’t anymore,

and if that’s not true,

then what else have i been lied to again?

is the grass pink, my flesh green, is the world

merely a product of what other people

told me to see?

i peel back the layers and look underneath.

true colors or the lack thereof.

perhaps we are all grey.

i look at the sky and it’s yellow.

the eye of the hurricane winks, blinks, and is gone.

PART V: THUNDER

THE WORLD IS TOO LOUD.

I CANNOT WRITE ABOUT THE SILENCE.

THE SILENCE IS NOT REAL.

THERE IS ONLY THUNDER

AND

THE EXPLOSION OF THE BOMBS

AND

MY CLENCHED FISTS

AND

MY GRINDING TEETH

AND

MY HEAVY THUMPING HEART

AND

THE SCREAMING STUCK IN MY THROAT.

WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME?

count the seconds between the thunder and the lightning.

the storm is coming

(or it already came, leaving us behind

to deal with the fallout).

we are afraid of the thunder.

we flinch when the loud noise comes.

we lay awake at night and find ourselves

holding our breath until the next sound comes.

but by the time we hear it, the damage has

already been done.

the tree

has been split down the middle

the house

has lost its power

the storm chasers

have gotten their thrill.

the thunder is merely a reminder that it happened.

that the tree made a sound when it fell,

that nature has made its mark,

a defiant excision of the scars of man.

the thunder was here before us,

and it will be our funeral bells

after we are gone.

my anxiety is like thunder.

it only shows up when everything is over.

my fear is in retrograde,

running backwards and tallying up

the myriad ways in which in which i screwed up

my own life before i even had the chance to live it.

if only i had— (but you didn’t)

if only i’d known— (but you didn’t)

if only.

but i couldn’t.

i’ve been counting the seconds between

the lightning

and the thunder

and i haven’t stopped counting yet.

the numbers keep getting bigger,

time keeps ticking, i’m getting older

suddenly it’s 2024 but i’m still eleven years old.

i never moved on.

the thunder never came and now i’m stuck in limbo

wondering if the lightning was just a trick

of the imagination.

maybe i imagined it.

maybe there was no lightning.

or maybe i wasn’t paying attention and i missed

the sound of thunder.

if i spend all my time counting seconds,

i’ll miss the moments that matter.

PART VI: LIGHTNING

i like staring at fluorescent lights

until purple spots spawn in the center of my vision.

i wait and blink them away,

wondering if this is the day that it will finally become

permanent.

nature goes clubbing and lightning is the strobe lights

purple and and white and black

in a dramatic dance across the sky

flirting with the tips of trees

and the edges of power lines.

i used to love power outages.

my parents would take us

into the basement and eat popsicles to save them

from melting

in the dysfunctional fridge.

we’d whirl our flashlights and my brother and i

would admire my mom’s flashlight—

big, industrial strength, enough to light up

the whole room.

man-made lightning. man-made sun in the storm.

i remember one night,

the power went out at three in the morning

and my mom let us sleep in through it.

i was mad.

yet again, i’d slept through all the fun.

i still wonder how many power outages i’ve missed

because of my brain’s lights going out.

i miss eating popsicles in the basement

and huddling around pocket flashlights.

i miss being a child, surrounded by a family i knew loved me.

these days, all of that feels less certain.

one day, the power might go out

and not turn back on.

maybe then i’d be able to write about the silence.

but no one would ever know i’d done it.

maybe that’s the point.

maybe we’re supposed to talk to walls.

maybe i don’t have to share everything i write.

maybe there is meaning in

not sharing.

the sky is

purple and yellow and grey and white and black and

everything except blue.

what is real?

am i crazy?

maybe the sky has never been blue.

maybe it’s always been grey.

i don’t remember the lightning always making

this shade of purple.

like the sky itself is bruised.

black and not-blue.

the lightning strikes

like bugs falling from the ceiling or out of my

hair and onto my wrist and maybe i’m rotting

and the maggots are eating me alive in the rain.

i thought it’d be easy to die in a storm.

i’d rot quickly.

but the weather’s never nice to die in.

sometimes the lightning strikes even when the sun

is shining.

i’m a zombie, reanimated by lightning.

electroshock therapy or the electric chair.

that which does not kill me…

makes me a monster.

am i crazy?

no. not yet.

i wonder if this is what it feels like to lose my mind.

i saw the lightning. it struck.

now i’m waiting for the thunder

to cement my severance from reality.

i’m stuck in limbo

between corporeality and crazy.

between body and soul.

between reality and psychosis.

not quite crazy yet.

but close enough.

my skin tingles like lightning is about to strike.

scalp itches. hair stiff.

if i ripped the strands from my head would i even

feel it?

probably not. the hair is already dead. i am already

dead.

PART VII: CLOUDS

atoms held together by imagination.

i see pictures and portals in the clouds.

do the clouds ever look down and see

pictures and portals

in us?

it’s hard to believe that we can’t

touch them.

hands pass right through the white fog

as if it’s not even there.

maybe it isn’t. maybe the clouds are a collective

hallucination.

reality is transient. malleable.

if you tell me the sky is blue,

i’ll believe you. even when i look up and it’s

white.

white like maggots on my

dead flesh.

white like bone underneath blood.

white like death.

the sky isn’t falling. it’s already dead.

held in place only by our belief in it.

white like the dead skin around my fingernails

where i’ve peeled the flesh and cartilage away.

white and pink where the blood fills the loose flesh.

white like the callouses on my knuckles and heels.

the sky isn’t falling. it’s already dead.

i am not falling. i’m already dead.

held in place by your conviction that i remain,

that a heart is beating underneath the corpse body

and corpse mind.

do dead people have thoughts?

i think they must.

since i am dead, and i am still

thinking.

a cloud passes over the sun.

how is it possible that broad daylight can feel

so dark?

before a storm, the clouds shift from white to grey,

darkened by the rain like a damp cloth soaked in tears.

i wonder if, like a tissue, the clouds

shatter under the weight up my sobs,

break apart and leave fluffy white paper bits

on the earth’s floor.

the tissue cannot keep holding up the weight

of my formless grief.

it crumbles. the sky falls.

except the sky can’t fall because it’s already dead and

it’s white not blue like a corpse like a skeleton like

maggots and death and the stars on the american flag.

let’s talk about inaction.

it’s about time i confessed.

i am like the clouds. looking important, lacking substance.

your hands can pass right through my opinions,

white sun-bleached sand through a sieve.

i keep telling myself i need to

DO SOMETHING,

be the lightning that warns of thunder

or the thunder that announces that

something has gone

WRONG.

instead i hold in the rain until i can’t anymore

and i take it out on all the wrong people.

the world tells me i am broken and perverted and wrong

and i whisper that they’re the wrong ones,

but i can’t find the strength

to scream.

laws get passed. They try to tell me

what i am allowed to learn, what i am allowed to wear,

where i am allowed to shop. where can i get

the healthcare i need.

i used to think i’d care when my rights got taken away.

i’d scream and kick and cry, ask about FREEDOM

what happened to AMERICA what happened to

BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS.

i do not scream, i do not kick, i do not cry.

i lay in my bed until noon and wonder if

this is what the end of the world looks like,

if it’s even possible to scream and kick and cry.

how do people find the strength to rebel

against ideas older than humanity itself,

systems that have roots far deeper and

far thicker and far stronger than my own?

i can only laugh when i hear about the latest

horror.

am i a psychopath or a product of a culture that

turns death into a spectator sport, gore into a game,

maybe when i watch the japanese woman in unit 731

get her flesh unzipped at the wrist and degloved

down to the bone maybe then i will finch and wince and groan

and finally

feel something.

i wonder what it felt like. i wonder if i could do it to myself.

strip off my rotting flesh and expose the pearly bones underneath,

fresh and white like clouds on a sunny day.

would it kill me? or am i already dead?

am i crazy?

i keep asking myself. i don’t think so.

i’m just a cloud, a ghost.

your hand will pass right through me

as if i’m not even

real.

PART VIII: SKY

the sky is blue.

not white not yellow not black not grey not purple.

the sun is shining.

not burning not dying not heating not hurting.

i am alive.

not dying not dead not rotting not still and pale and tired.

we all have our own version of reality.

this is yours.

in which the sky is blue and people are not zombies and bugs

fall from trees and not from scalps.

we all have our own version of reality.

the antidepressant commercials say depression

robs you of color and medication

will give it back. the world

will no longer be white and grey and dead.

the sky will be blue.

i look around and i think i see color.

the sky isn’t blue but it’s purple

and grey and green and yellow and red and my jacket

is orange and my eyes are green and that means

the antidepressants are working, i guess.

but in the morning i wake up and no amount of sunlight will

bring color into my room.

and at night i lie awake and see only tv static.

i wonder, if i switched my medications, if they actually worked,

would i realize that what i’m seeing now is merely

psychological colorblindness?

would i see the world with new eyes?

would the sky

be blue?

am i crazy?

just because i don’t see the world

like you?

just because your sky is blue

and mine is

(grey and green and purple and red and white like

maggots and death and clouds)

not?

the sky is flesh colored.

undulating, breaking, weeping.

my arms are

white and purple and green and yellow and red and

bruised

like the sky in a storm.

the rain starts to feel like pus

oozing from white pimple-clouds.

the ground starts to feel like clumps of hair.

we are lice on the scalp of the earth.

we are the maggots that feast on our

mother’s flesh and the flesh of the brothers and sisters

and gods far older than us.

we eat them all without care.

the earth itches her hair and tries to shake us loose.

am i crazy?

i’m not ready to let go yet.

i still have a few more words

to shake loose.

like hair and earth and maggots.

but for you,

the sky is still

blue.

PART IX: FORECAST

people tell me the weather tomorrow

will be sunny.

some people have the audacity to tell me my yesterday

was sunny.

as if they know the answers.

as if the weatherman is always accurate.

they still haven’t predicted my weather,

even though it’s constant.

every day they say

maybe today the sky will be blue

and every day i have only storms

and discolored skies.

i’ve been crazy before. this feels

different.

more permanent, perhaps.

like if i go crazy now,

i’ll have to be crazy forever.

and forever is a long time.

am i crazy?

sometimes i wonder what other people’s forecasts are,

and if they’re ever right.

someone predicts sunny blue skies and then

they wake up and the sky is blue and glowing.

they predict storms and get storms. there is routine.

maybe all i need to do is expect the storm.

then the blue sky will shine for me

just to prove me wrong.

i think i’d prefer the rain.

i’ve never known what it was like to look up

at a blue sky.

when i was a child my skies were pink,

and by the time i realized my sky was supposed to be blue,

it was too late.

now the best i can hope for is purple.

but it’s still just

grey and white.

like death.

like sick worms oozing out their life on concrete

sidewalks.

sometimes i google different types of psychosis.

i check boxes on faux-medical surveys waiting

for someone to tell me i’m crazy.

for someone to predict my forecast as storms

and get it right.

i want a name for this feeling.

schizo, loco, psycho.

give me a label that i can wrap myself in.

give me a forecast where the sky

isn’t blue.

where the storm

isn’t all my fault.

let me blame my genetics, my parents,

ex-friends or premature birth or maybe

the doctor who dropped me on my head at

birth or the concussion when i was eight or

the second concussion when i was eleven or

something. someone. anything. anyone.

tell me why i am the way i am.

as long as it’s someone else’s fault.

am i crazy?

i hope i am.

it’d make things easier.

the idea that i’m the sane one

is far more terrifying.

my phone tells me the high today is

seventy five.

i wonder if i’ll live that long.

the doomsday clock says ninety seconds to midnight.

i wonder if this is what the apocalypse feels like.

i wonder if we’ll notice when the clock strikes twelve

or if we’ll all be too burnt out to care.

how long is ninety seconds, anyway?

the forecast tells me

tomorrow will be sunny.

the sky will be blue.

i wonder. are their instruments broken?

or is it just me?

PART X: WIND

you can have wind without rain

but you can’t have a tornado without

a storm.

wind turns rain into bullets,

hair into bird’s nests,

spark into flame,

dust into dust,

ash into ash,

fate into fantasy.

i wonder when the wind blew me off course.

i wonder when the wind

whistled sweet temptations into my

innocent ears

back before i knew that thoughts could be dangerous

and lured me off the beaten path

and into the thorns.

perhaps it was the wind that drove me crazy.

a tornado

picked me up and carried me away and now

i’m not in kansas anymore.

i’m not here at all.

i’m still whirling in the wind and rain.

i used to wish something exciting would happen to me.

something scary, something thrilling, something new.

now that it has happened, i’m bored. i stared

into the face of the wizard of oz and beheld him

to be a fraud.

i found my world to be made up of paper cutouts

and lies.

the wind knocked them over, whisked it away.

the sky was not blue. the sky was not anything.

all the color we saw was just a trick of physics.

the only real thing was the wind. moving air.

you could not touch it, could not hold it

but you could feel it. and it felt you.

hands tugging at your clothes trying to pull them off

just

let me touch you

the wind begs.

you’ll like it,

i know you want it,

the wind puts a hand on my leg.

he had a name once but i don’t remember it.

the wind was young too. he doesn’t remember me.

and i know he doesn’t know my name because i changed it

after i moved away

from it.

he didn’t follow me but the wind did.

there are more tornadoes now than there ever were

before.

i don’t see him anymore. but i feel him. in

hallucinatory

dream like glimpses

in psychological damage

i didn’t know i had in triggers

long forgotten and

dug back up in the doctors office or by

the television show i watched during the pandemic

when a lewd joke made me remember.

am i crazy?

i don’t think i have a right to talk about it.

i didn’t care when it happened, so why

do i have the right to care about it now?

the audacity

to try and steal attention away from people

whose stories actually matter.

telling does nothing. for me or them.

the words are taken by the wind.

i don’t know which of my memories are real.

my most vivid recollections have been proven

false.

the wind took the real things from me,

whisked them away and took them to the land of oz

and the fraudulent wizard gave me replacement ones

and told me to throw water the real ones and

they melted.

and i trusted the wizard.

now my memories aren’t mine.

they belong to my parents. held hostage until i ask

what happened when

and they tell me

and i’m forced to realize

i used to be different.

maybe i’m better now.

maybe the wind made me bearable.

i’ll never know what i would have been without it.

PART XI: OVERCAST

i can always tell when a storm is coming.

the clouds hang heavy, as if they cannot hold

their own weight any longer.

atlas cannot hold the sky up forever. eventually,

it must fall.

so must we all.

the sky is not blue. it is black and grey, the color

sucked out of it as if it is preparing

for a rainbow.

the rainbow never comes. instead the clouds

march forth dark and angry, a vengeful army,

zeus shaking his fist in warning.

surrender, or else.

prepare for the storm.

huddle together with flashlights and canned food and

wonder if today will be the day your home washes away.

foggy roads. telephone poles like

black obsidian crosses built to honor forgotten gods.

the electricity won’t reach you here. the sky

is too dark. even if the lights were on,

there’d still be nothing

to see.

hidden behind the clouds, we no longer know

if the sky is blue. if the sky is real.

when life is a constant storm, what does it mean

to be sunny?

am i crazy?

the overcast sky screams to me that i am. that i must be.

the order of the universe, of stars and galaxies and

planets and all things larger and grander than me

demands it.

if the sky calls me crazy, who am i

to disagree?

isn’t that what

sweet dreams

are made of?

or perhaps,

nightmares?

surely there must be a sun behind the clouds.

how else would the world keep spinning,

trapped in a cycle of day and night, wind and rain.

the storm does not change the cycle. day and night still

come and go.

it’s just harder to tell which is which.

am i crazy?

black sky. overcast heart. a cloud passes in front of

the sun and stays there, waiting for something.

waiting for me. i make eye contact with apollo

through the screen of the black cloud suddenly

transparent and he winks and the cloud moves on

its way.

i wonder

if this is what it feels like to love.

loneliness. a cloud over the sun. and instead of

moving on,

it stays there. i cannot

stick my hand through this cloud and touch the sun.

it is a wall. keeping me in my cage. keeping it

between me and the sun.

i am icarus but i cannot fly too close to the sun.

daedalus has me on a tight leash, promises me one day

i’ll be allowed to use my wings.

one day, when the storms have passed.

not yet. not yet.

excuses, excuses. just let me

fly

through the overcast sky.

birds do it all the time.

why can’t i?

PART XII: SHOWERS

april showers bring may flowers.

april showers bring

picking at dead skin and wondering

why my body looks so discolored

under fluorescent lights surrounded by

ceramic white walls.

hair is going down the drain in clumps. i think

about the guy who ate hair from the shower drain.

i think about my friend who pulled out her eyebrows

with her fingernails.

i wonder if i’ll pull my hair out like that.

nothing left but

empty pores like boreholes in my head where the worms

can crawl in and crawl out.

maybe the worms are already there.

i try to scrub away the dead skin and the grease.

it doesn’t work and i wonder if it’s because i’m dead.

permanently embalmed by my eons of poor

hygiene and neglect and i cannot clean myself

anymore because i don’t have the time and

i’m always making excuses.

my body hates me and i hate it back.

which came first? does it matter?

no. not anymore. the hate is so deep and so

permanent and so painful that it has become

a solution, soothing, a balm.

if my body is the problem, the source of my storm,

i won’t have to worry about my mind.

am i crazy?

touch the sky,

run your fingers through

the strands of grey hair

until they

fall.

grey like the

flakes of dead skin,

ashes of lost civilizations,

pompeii erupting, preparing

to bury me.

just bury me.

when you’re underground, the sky is always

overcast.

the clouds are always

black

like rich soil

falling into your mouth

and down

your throat

until

it chokes you.

am i crazy?

i cannot even make the words

anymore.

i am choking on my own voice,

drowning in my own spit and tears

and blood and piss.

i am nothing but an ornate self destruct button.

press me and i’ll

take us both out.

april showers:

the water drills holes in my skull,

self trepanation, the hole to the soul

is the cure for the wound the wound is

the cure and my brains are

spilling out on the floor for you to

gather up like may’s flowers.

today there is rain.

tomorrow, allegedly, there will be

fruit to come from my labor,

sweet to balance the bitter, life

to replace the dead.

i wonder if the life that replaces me will

look up and see blue skies. the skies

i wish i could see.

april showers bring mayflowers,

the pilgrims sail the rivers of water

flowing down my body, leaving track marks

where they cut through the waves like a knife.

i am just another colonized colony, another

subjugation, another stop sailing on me.

i turn the water off.

i can’t do it anymore.

as the water drips off, i see mold

starting to grow on my skin.

the rot looks like flowers, blooming in may

after a storm.

maybe death is beautiful.

PART XIII: TURBULENCE

hot and cold, dead and alive, white and black,

opposites attract

in my mind

and merge together, yin and yang, balance and

turbulence.

i am one and then the other, like a seismometer

the line

goes up

and down

and up

and down

until it becomes a nonsensical scribble. the earth is

preparing to shatter the sky is preparing to fall the

world is preparing to end and i am preparing for

my mind to follow suit.

the line

goes up

and down

and up

and down

and i’m waiting for it to straighten out again.

steady now. i am seasick on dry land,

world trembling beneath my feet, i wonder

is this why i refuse to step on sidewalk cracks?

there are fault lines in my brain. turbulence on my

flight path danger on my radar and everything is

crumbling.

the line

goes up

and down

and up

and down

like the ticking of a grandfather clock, if you went back

in time and killed your grandfather would you

finally know what it meant to be dead and alive

i am schrödinger’s cat.

dead and alive until you open my box and find my

insides rotting underneath cardboard skin and then

you’ll find i was dead all along. but with the box

sewn shut you can pretend i’m still living.

still laughing. still loving. like the sign

in the kitchen that became a meme but you still

don’t know what it means

to live.

to laugh.

to love.

you did it once and couldn’t understand what all the

fuss was about why bother laughing if people just

tell you it sounds weird or you’re annoying and why

bother loving if people just call you a faggot or

a pedophile even if you’re the same age

as if you don’t know what it means. as if

they don’t know what it means. and you

hear about another death on the news and feel nothing.

you were supposed to feel something. but you didn’t.

maybe you were the one that died. maybe we are

one and the same.

and what’s the point of living if you can’t

laugh

and you can’t

love?

there is nothing left but maybe and grey. no more

yeses and nos and white and black. opposites

attracted and then they blended and now

everything is flat. balanced. the turbulence

got so loud and went on so long that it became

your new normal.

the plane took off and your stomach protested and

the seismograph drew a picture of death and it

looked like you. and me. and the storm.

the turbulence rocked me

to sleep.

and the rain came down

harder than before.

the line

goes up

and down

and up

and down

and then flat.

straight.

steady.

dead.

PART XIV: FOG

the end - 8 graves

because the storm is coming for you.

the rain is not your friend.

the clouds ain't gonna hold you

the thunder brings the end

it’s the end, it’s the end.

the forecast says the world’s gonna end

today.

but they said that in 2012 and they played the

r.e.m. song on the radio and then

the world moved on.

endings never come when we expect them to.

sometimes they come in the middle

of the poem that you’re writing at midnight.

that you’ve been writing for the past

twelve midnights in a row

waiting for it to mean something.

instead all you get is fog.

mixed up thoughts and messed up memories.

sludge the color of maggots and bones.

white like the clouds, but thicker. you can almost

touch it.

it parts for you, moses and the red sea.

i part for you, too.

come see my rotting insides, watch my heart

pump nothing but fog through my veins

where the blood should be.

a misty graveyard, a morning drive down

unknown roads. the fog is rolling just like

the wheels on the bus going round

and round as we ride towards

crazytown.

in movies, fog means something.

there’s a monster in the trees, a secret

in the breeze a meaning to the storm.

i don’t think it means anything anymore.

it’s just another inconvenience on the

drive to work, another honked horn and

narrowly missed accident on the big highway

near my house and i wonder

how the fuck am i not dead yet?

am i crazy?

no. i’m just lucky. the fog hasn’t eaten me yet.

but it’s always there.

fuzzy brain fuzzy vision fuzzy mold growing

on the loaf of bread i only just got last week.

wait, has it been that long already?

time isn’t real. i’m not real.

the only thing that’s real

is the fog.

and you can’t even touch it.

you can’t touch me either. there is only

water and air where a human

used to be. if i was ever

human.

i’m not sure i ever was.

i’m not sure what being human means.

maybe the fog is human. maybe

the storm is human. maybe humans

are the fog. maybe humans are

the storm.

maybe humans are the worms.

fog so thick you can cut it with a knife

like tension. like moldy bread. butter it and

serve it with a smile and maybe you can

convince yourself it’s not rotting.

i smile at you with black gums.

you smile back.

you don’t know i’m rotting

yet.

you’re blinded

by the fog.

PART XV: FROST

fight or flight

or freeze.

sometimes when the storm ends it leaves us

frozen, the rain

cooling into dew on the leaves and then

crystals, weighting down every blade of grass like

bags of sand on an air balloon.

icarus, don’t fly

too close. you might burn.

you might fall into the sea and drown

or you might

freeze.

a picture. a moment in time. they might

paint your picture moments before you die, icarus,

but they will never remember who you were

when you used to be alive.

they will remember you

frozen, a sculpture,

a monument, a myth, a moral, a martyr

never a man.

fight or flight

or freeze.

i like hitting sandbags until my knuckles bleed.

i’m looking for the power that the government

refuses to give me. disenfranchised by my

dissociative dissonant dysphoria.

i no longer dread the name on my driver’s license.

it’s an identity, not a prison.

but there’s still signs. signs of what once was.

the past is frozen. only the future can melt it.

the present is black ice thick and deadly on the

roads, invisible so you look outside and you say

oh, the storm is finally over. and then the wheels

roll out from under your skin and you’re flying

too close to the sun and crashing too close

to the sea.

goosebumps. hair standing straight up.

fight or flight

or freeze.

you cannot run. your feet are sealed

to the floor by twin blocks of ice.

you cannot fight. your fingers are too

numb and too swollen and too red

to make a fist.

there is nothing left to do

except freeze.

for moments, for minutes, for millenia.

your cranium is your cryo-chamber,

And you’ve locked yourself in. wake me up

in two-thousand-and-twenty-four years

and tell me

have we changed yet?

have we fought?

have we fled?

or are we still

frozen?

they tell me the ice

is melting. it’s getting

warmer.

they tell me we need the ice,

that without it

the water will rise up from its shallow grave

and consume us, like a zombie

feasting on the flesh of its former kin.

they tell me the ice is melting.

soon it will be fight or flight,

no freeze.

will i raise my fists in defiance?

run for the stars and hope when the world ends

the storm won’t follow me to mars?

or will i sit back, iphone camera

in hand, livestream recording the

receding ice and the incoming waves?

will i fight or flight or

forget about it.

a lesson in futility.

the last stage. acceptance.

i think, like grade school, i hit

this milestone too early.

i could do something.

instead i sit back and watch

the flood.

PART XVI: FLOOD

i think this might be too much.

too many words too many drops of rain too many

revelations too many secrets i promised not to tell.

but that’s what anonymity does.

you don’t know me. you only know

my secrets.

you don’t know my storm,

you only know the flood that shows up on the news.

and you might never realize that my storm is yours

that the flood on your tv is the one in my brain

the one that i caused the one that i made the one that

started with the worms.

am i crazy?

because it’s starting to feel like crazy is just another

storm. the drop that overflows the bucket. the flood

that washes away humanity and noah get the boat

except there is no noah and there is no boat because

there is no god there is only the earth and it wants us

gone.

i wonder who god trusted to make the ark this time.

maybe no one. maybe me.

guess i should start building.

maybe tomorrow, when the rain

stops.

except i know the rain won’t stop.

maybe i want the flood to take me.

the human race ends with me, the

chosen one refusing his burden because

i stared into the past and it took me to the future

and the world is a circle.

and the world is a flood.

the continents were never meant to be apart.

maybe they were never meant to be.

maybe they’re meant to be swallowed under the sea.

maybe the myth of the sky and the earth isn’t true.

maybe the ocean and the rock have been the lovers

all along.

the sea foam kissing the cliffs.

maybe that’s why

poseidon was also the god of earthquakes.

the sea is the only thing that can make the earth shake

as they rock in their shared bed and the sky

watches on with envy and

summons a storm.

and now the sea erodes the crust.

the cliff wanes and falls.

the rain keeps coming. maybe the earth

wasn’t meant to be loved. or maybe we made her

unlovable.

i’m underwater.

i used to think i was drowning.

i think i grew gills.

the water feels soothing to me now.

without it,

i don’t think i’d be able to breathe.

what doesn’t kill you,

changes you. maybe not for the better,

but doubtless, you evolved.

you had to.

i had to.

we had to.

we’re the first to die in the flood and the first to survive.

wrinkled fingers. like the scrunched face of a

crying baby or the stoic face of an old man.

is there a difference between birth and death

is there a difference between living and dying?

have i ever truly been alive?

am i crazy?

i keep asking myself that. i stopped expecting

an answer.

no one seems to know.

the internet says crazy isn’t a

politically correct word, so no one is ever

truly crazy and if by some miracle they are

you shouldn’t dare to call them that.

i wonder what i am instead. maybe i’m nothing at all.

after all, corpses can’t be crazy. they can only be

dead.

the floodgates are closing now. but not quite closed yet.

there’s still some rain left to fall.

there’s still basements left to ruin.

i’ll stain and warp the hardwood floors

of your mind. so it’ll match mine.

PART XVII: WRECKAGE

other people describe the ruins

much better than the victims.

perhaps because those with the best stories

are the dead ones. and dead people

can’t talk.

nightmare - halsey.

i, i keep a record of the wreckage of my life.

i gotta recognize the weapon in my mind.

they talk shit, but i love it every time,

and i realize

we all feel like we are so original,

only to find that someone else expresses our

innermost thoughts

better than we can.

i've tasted blood and it is sweet,

i've had the rug pulled beneath my feet,

i've trusted lies and trusted men,

broke down and put myself back together again.

stared in the mirror and punched it to shatters,

collected the pieces and picked out a dagger.

i've pinched my skin in between my two fingers

and wished i could cut some parts off with some scissors.

scissors aren’t sharp enough.

i learned that the hard way.

graduated from scissors to stolen x-acto knives and

broken glass.

soon, nothing is sharp enough.

you crave an obsidian knife.

then nothing is sharp enough

to cut through your calloused skin

and carve out your rotting heart.

’cause kindness is weakness, or worse, you're complacent.

i could play nice or i could be a bully.

i'm tired and angry, but somebody should be.

i’m not tired and angry anymore.

i’m one of the complacent.

even in my dreams i’m running.

never fighting. never confronting. never rebelling.

i’m not doing anything, but somebody should be.

i got no one to smile for, i waited a while for

a moment to say i don't owe you a goddamn thing

i owe you everything.

someone like me can be a real nightmare, completely aware,

but i'd rather be a real nightmare than die unaware, yeah.

someone like me can be a real nightmare, completely aware,

but i'm glad to be a real nightmare, so save me your prayers.

i was supposed to say something here.

instead i relied on you to say it for me.

i guess i should say thank you.

or maybe apologize.

sorry i wasn’t original enough. sorry you

were so much better than me. sorry i

lost my mind and died and the words

went with it.

bits of songs that i never sung,

stories that i never wrote or lived.

quotes i stole from instagram posts six years ago.

i am broken bits and pieces that other people tossed away

and i built myself from you.

all that’s left is wreckage.

PART XVIII: AFTERMATH

send in the clean up crew

to sweep the sticks off the streets

pull bodies from the boards

wipe wreckage from ruined windows.

you are alive.

the house might have crumbled.

the pets might be lost

the tree might have fallen when no one could

hear it.

but you are alive.

you must march onward.

you owe it

to them,

to me

to

us, who died along the way.

us, corpses eaten by the worms

in broad daylight.

send in the cleanup crew

and scrape away the cobwebs of

unused joints or overused wires.

maybe then i’ll know what’s real.

the sky is blue for them now.

for them the storm is over.

for us, the corpses, the storm

is eternal. the sky is black like eternal night

or white like maggots eating the eyes from

their sockets.

am i crazy?

are you?

the dead skin falls like rain when i shake my head no.

my scalp burns and tingles where the storm

touched it.

i think i might be dying.

i think i might be dead.

the dead skin falls

like rain.

the storm is over. for now.

but the aftermath is just beginning.

itch. scratch. pluck. the hair

keeps coming out and there is

white pus on the ends like my skull is rotting

and the worms are there too. the worms and the

dead skin cell rain.

this isn’t how it’s supposed to happen.

i’m doing everything right,

for once.

just when i thought i was learning to survive,

i find out i’m dead. always have been. always will be.

i wonder how many of us are walking corpses in the storm,

waiting for the worms to eat us.

i’m dead. always have been. always will be.

the security, the routine of it

is soothing.

easier to be dead for all time than it is to be alive

for some of it,

fearing death at any moment.

i do not fear death. it’s already

happened

to me. and you. and the storm.

i think the world might have ended already.

we are all just ghosts.

bound by routine,

walking through the aftermath on our way to

a workplace that no longer exists

in clothes that burned off a long time ago.

maybe we are all that’s left. specters kept alive

by social media and robotic muscle memory.

deja vu. have i been here before?

was this where i died?

was there where i lived?

am i crazy?

no. i’m dead.

dead people can’t be

crazy.

they can’t be anything.

they’re just

gone.

send in the undertaker to

undertake the task of putting us

under.

that is what comes after

the storm.

PART XIX: SILENCE

the silence.

shh. stop breathing.

i cannot hear the gaps between words.

i can only hear myself gasping for air,

lungs heaving.

shh. stop breathing.

maybe when i’m dead i’ll finally be able to listen.

dead men make good listeners.

i talk to ghosts. they listen.

i used to talk to my dead cat.

she listened.

i want to learn to listen the way they do.

never interrupting, never introducing

a story of my own halfway through someone else’s.

guess i’ll have to die first.

everything is too loud.

you cannot hear the silence

anymore.

it seems like a thunderstorm

is the closest we’ll ever get,

the booming and the rain.

no one out driving. no one out playing.

it’s too dangerous to go outside.

but the wind still howls out its

mournful song.

shh. stop breathing.

sometimes i hear the static say my name.

like it knows me.

am i crazy?

yeah. i think i might be.

the noise has driven me to it.

make it stop.

MAKE IT STOP.

shh. stop breathing.

tell me your story.

distract me from the noise.

i know i can’t write about the silence,

but i can write about you,

and that’s

the next best thing.

tell me the story

of how you died

and arrived here.

limbo.

limbo is loud.

it whispers to you.

asks you if you

belong here.

i don’t think i do.

i don’t think i belong

anywhere.

hell is silent.

maybe i can write about that.

mouths stretched wide like a scream

no sound. only static.

the kind of silence you can get lost in

and never come back out.

silence like the earless eyeless worms

deaf and dumb and crazy.

am i crazy?

would you still love me if i was

a worm?

well you don’t love me as a man and i

can’t be a worm because worms are silent and alive

and i am loud and dead.

itching. itching like a dog or a dead man.

the rot on my foot has grown. mold. fungus. blood.

it does not itch. it does not hurt. it simply is.

red and growing and shedding brown dead skin.

i wonder what it would feel like. if i could feel.

sometimes i pinch myself just to make sure i’m still

alive.

sometimes i pinch myself and i feel nothing.

the flesh turns bloodless white with the pressure and i

wait for it to hurt but it never does.

even in my nerves there is silence. no more

electrical signals sent pulsing red hot to my brain.

i wonder if i slit my wrists would it hurt.

would i enjoy it, simply for the

pleasure of knowing that, for a moment,

i exist. i feel. i am.

only for a brief moment. then i’m

dead again.

life is just a series of deaths.

death is only separated by the little flashes of life

in between the emptiness and the lack.

language is defined by lack.

life. the lack of death.

death. the lack of life.

chicken and the egg,

which came first, which one

birthed the other and sent it

tumbling across the path of humanity,

time and space and someone’s unsuspecting thoughts.

you came first. i came first.

you died first. i died first.

we lived and we died

together. now i keep being dead while you keep

living.

i don’t know who you are supposed to be.

some vague figure in my mind.

maybe you’re me. maybe you’re the silence,

the space between the words i can’t say, the space

between the words i do and the substance of the ones

i don’t.

maybe you’re the moments of life in between the death.

maybe you’re the moments of death in between the life.

which came first?

me or you or the life or the death?

the silence came first and it will be here after.

if a tree falls and no one hears it, is that

silence?

or is silence, like language, defined by

lack?

i am the lack of you.

the lack of blue skies and life and joy and all the things

they say make us human so i must be lacking

humanity and thus i am the nonhuman.

the freak the ghost the dead the evil the silence.

i am what you are not. i have to be. it is what

defines me.

you are alive, so i must be dead.

you are the silence that i cannot write about,

so i must be the static in between radio stations.

you cannot tell your story. so here i am. telling it.

in between the lines of my own.

it used to mean something. we used to mean something.

we used to be the silence. we used to

have something worth writing about.

now we are just noise. the dead and the silence

and the loud loud noise like screaming but hell

is silent and limbo is loud and the storm

is drowning me and my thoughts in the flood and

is it drowning you too?

can you hear me?

am i crazy?

am i dead?

i never had to ask that before. i never wondered

what it meant to be alive.

i have a heartbeat (too high)

i have a body (too low)

i have a brain (too small)

i have a spine (too twisted)

i have hair that grows (with the worms)

i have these things. but i am not them.

you can possess life without living it.

i am defined by lack. i have life, thus i cannot live it.

only by losing will i remember

the calm before.

the calm before. the worms. the thunder and the

rain and the wind and the lightning and the storm

and the aftermath and the flood and the wreckage

and the sky and the forecast and the clouds and the

eye and the silence and all the spaces between.

the dead.

amidst broken down asylum walls and

drug addled graffiti and peeling lead paint and

inhaled asbestos,

the cemetery full of unmarked graves,

bodies left to rot

stolen headstones and the hole

i crawled out of.

dial my name on the phone of the afterlife.

i will not answer. my story

is in the ringing of the phone in hades’s hotel,

the lack of spoken words.

i cannot, will not

answer your prayers.

just tell me where you are.

i do not know.

my story is here

in the worms and the storm,

blown away in the wind and across the landscape

of ones and zeros into your fingertips like the

newspaper blown out of the fallen trash can

three neighborhoods away and into

your lawn.

the headline asks

am i crazy?

that’s for you to decide. read my article and answer

my question. fill in the gaps

between the columns,

the hesitation before the words.

the words on the crossword puzzle that don’t have

a clue to guide you.

they say dead men

tell no tales.

i suppose i am the un-living proof

that is a lie.

my tale might not be told,

but it is here for you to find

in the

silence.

there is no face in the window.

asylum.

a·sy·lum

/əˈsīləm/

noun

1. the protection granted by a nation to someone who has left their native country as a political refugee.

shelter or protection from danger.

2. an institution offering shelter and support to people who are mentally ill.

how confidently i announced

that ghosts were nothing more

than figments

of an imaginative (or perhaps deluded)

mind.

$2,000. help wanted.

i thought,

what the hell? why not?

the cameraman never dies.

it never crossed my mind

that the cameraman

could suffer a fate worse than death.

there is no face in the window.

they even provided me a camera;

some fancy gadget

they ordered off of amazon

that claimed to be able to record

the paranormal.

it was heavy. i figured if a ghost came at me,

i'd go down swinging 300 dollars

worth of equipment at their dead face.

we saw nothing.

honestly, as much of a skeptic as i was,

i've always hoped something

(or someone)

would prove me wrong.

as we walked through the hallways,

grainy, dim-lit footage marking our path,

i found myself hoping:

show me something, anything.

we marched along for hours,

with a kid four years younger than me

narrating the scene.

"12:34 p.m., eastern standard time...

no signs of any activity yet. my name is

kevin schumer, i'm here with my crew

and tonight we are joined by..."

he pauses.

"the cameraman," I finish,

which prompts a few uneasy giggles.

yep, that's me,

the eternal watcher.

i see and i record

for posterity.

there is no face in the window.

we were there until four a.m.

our eyelids had grown heavy.

our livestream had exactly one viewer.

perhaps that was why

i felt like i was being watched.

nothing had happened. no doors

had slammed, no windows broken.

we were alone.

yet i could not shake the feeling...

there is no face in the window.

i drove myself home.

headlights lit up the parking lot.

yellow lines. black asphalt.

then darkness again

as i made my way up

three flights of stairs

to my apartment.

my lights refused to turn on.

a power outage? or had my power

been cut?

i did not know. i was too tired to care.

tomorrow, my check would hit

my account

and then i could solve the problem

of late rent.

i laid down,

in nothing but boxer shorts,

awaiting the release of sleep,

and found that

i could not hold my eyes shut.

a feeling was sinking into my spine

like a numbing injection

and i found myself tingling with

some unseen awareness.

i was being watched.

there is no face in the window.

it has been

three weeks

since i had looked outside

that night

to reassure myself

that i was alone.

there is no face in the window.

yet the feeling did not leave.

it only grew.

more and more, i believed

i was hunted. haunted.

there is no face in the window.

each night i check the door,

the closet, the bed, the window—

wait, the window—

tonight,

(one last desperate cry,

the moment before the mind

shatters)

THERE IS NO FACE IN THE WINDOW.

it has followed me home.

now i will follow it home.

to my sanctuary.

to my asylum.

i am the face in the window.

you will feel me watching,

just as i felt it.

when you look outside tonight,

do not trust your eyes. trust

your instincts.

there is a face in the window.

Death

is beautiful,

he told me.

And I could

only agree,

because he

was Death

and he was

beautiful.

i refuse to hold you close to me,

afraid of commitment and intimacy.

the feelings that dwell in my heart beguile

and i know deciphering them will take a while.

it's not fair to make you wait

while i chase my thoughts as they dissipate.

i'll keep my thoughts held at a distance

until i solve the problem of our coexistence.

the way forward is far from clear,

but i know someday i'll take you away from here

and my distant thoughts will instead be by my side;

by my feelings i'll be no longer mystified.

This is a bad idea.

“I know you’re struggling, Gareth, but trust me. I know what I’m doing,” Olban said, gritting his teeth. He was muttering under his breath, so as to avoid Gareth’s dad hearing him.

I agree with Gareth, Eloise said. This seems like it’s destined to fail.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Eloise. Now be quiet. I need to focus on Mr. Wilks.”

Eloise wanted to protest, but luckily for Olban, she didn’t.

“So,” Gareth’s dad says. “What’s next up on the agenda? Teeth pulling? The rack? Maybe my wife will break my ribs again? Oh, sorry, I forgot. You never repeat the same torture twice. Maybe my son will rip my entrails out. That would be new and exciting.”

If it was possible for Gareth to wince without a physical form, he did. Although he didn’t voice the thought aloud, there was a growing pit of anxiety in his stomach: What if Dad never trusts me again?

Where are you planning to take him, Olban? Gareth asked. You said somewhere safe, but…

Olban gritted his teeth. Eloise, tell Gareth that I’m taking him to Master Stell’s workshop. All his tools are there, and I can probably find something I can use. I can’t keep talking out loud.

Eloise relayed the message, but not without some bitterness. It felt like this was all she was good for. Relaying messages. Things kept going wrong, and it was all her own fault. And she was helpless to stop it. Gareth and Olban seemed to be doing all the work.

Gareth was struggling with similar feelings. Here was his dad, so close to being saved, and Gareth couldn’t do anything to help. He couldn’t even talk to Olban— he had to rely on Eloise.

Olban, too, felt hopeless. He’d never been good at navigating others’ emotions. Now he was expected to restore sanity to a broken man. What was Master Stell thinking, trusting him with this? Eloise was more empathetic. Gareth was certainly closer, and more knowledgeable about his father. Olban was the least capable. Yet here he was… in charge.

Each of them felt more alone than ever. Each of them worked hard to hide their feelings from each other.

Brian Wilks was beginning to breathe heavily. He was not used to walking. Although his injuries had been mostly cured, and he was relying heavily on Olban for support, his endurance had been shot. It would be a long time before he’d be able to achieve the active lifestyle he once had.

Olban noticed. Finally, he stopped. He knew if he kept pushing Brian like this, he'd practically be living up to the expectation of torture.

“Ah,” Gareth’s dad said. “So… this is where it’ll happen.” He looked around, taking in the setting with vacant, hopeless eyes. Olban did too, albeit for different reasons. He needed to make sure they were far away from the Nameless One and his minions… or any other creatures that might be lying in wait. Luckily, they were in a long, flat expanse of grass. Olban hoped that would make things easy to spot if they got too close.

“We’re stopping here for the night… mortal.”

Seriously? Eloise said. ‘Mortal?’ That’s the best you can think of.

“Hey!” Olban exclaimed. “The Nameless One’s minions aren’t exactly known for their witty insults.”

Touché.

Mr. Wilks continued to look around, wary of any potential threats.

“Hey, meat sack! This tent isn’t gonna pitch itself!” Olban used a trick his master had taught him to conjure a wide sheet and several stakes. Olban tried his best to mimic an evil minion’s way of talking, crude and intimidating.. It fell flat in a way that was almost comical. Still, he clung to the charade. And Gareth’s dad, if he suspected anything, gave no sign. Instead, he helped Olban set up the tent. As Olban dragged Gareth’s dad inside, the man let out a sigh.

“You’re really not one of his minions, are you?”

Olban was stunned into silence.

“I mean,” Brian continued, “you don’t look familiar. It's been hours, and you haven’t killed me, or hurt me, or even left me to rot somewhere. The worst thing you’ve called me is ‘human garbage,’ which, while I’m sure it’s a scathing insult to you, is downright tame compared to what I’ve heard in the last… how long has it been? Days? Months? Feels like years.”

Olban rubbed his fingers against his forehead. “You’re right, Mr. Wilks. We are not working for the Nameless One.”

“The Nameless One, eh? Is that what that demonic psychopath is called?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Well, no wonder he turned out so fucked up. If I didn’t have a name, I’d get pretty damn pissed too.”

“That’s… an interesting thought, Mr. Wilks,” Olban said.

“So, if you’re not working with him, then… was it true? What you said about my son? Are you really who he’s been talking to all these years? And this is… your world?”

“Yes. I know it’s hard to believe, but—”

“These last few months, I’ve seen and felt so many impossible things, I think I’d believe anything. Hell, show me some evidence and I’d believe the earth is flat! But…” His voice broke. “If I’m in your world… and… and everyone else is still in mine… well, that might just be the cruelest torture of all.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Wilks,” Olban said. “Getting you home is our top priority.”

And the funny thing was, despite the dimensional warfare, despite the rioting and carnage plaguing Gareth and Eloise’s worlds… Olban really meant it. He’d get Mr. Wilks home. For Gareth’s sake.

Everything else would just have to wait.

As Olban closed his eyes, he could hear the muffled sound of Gareth’s father weeping in the dark. A broken man.

Olban hoped he could live up to Master Stell’s expectations and ease Brian’s mind.

For now, though, they all needed to rest.

Tomorrow, when they arrived at Master Stell’s workshop, they would have much work to do.

***

Eloise.

The Nameless One’s voice echoed through Eloise’s dreaming mind as a landscape formed around her. It was Nice. Or, rather it used to be. Now, what she was seeing didn’t look nice at all. Eloise saw rioting, agony, cities on fire. Tears sprang to her eyes.

“Eloise.” The Nameless One’s voice was clearer now, and Eloise could hear the remorse in his voice. “I need your help.”

“My help? H-How?”

“I am doing everything I can to contain the monsters I created. To keep them trapped in my realm. But, as you can see… the strange emotional link I have with your world is causing problems. Some of these vile spirits have escaped. The mortals don’t know it, and can’t see it, but they are feeling them. War. Hunger. Conquest. Death. Despair. Pandora’s box has been opened, and Eloise, I believe you, with your experiences, are the key to solving it. You are torn between worlds. Seal that rift, and we might be able to stop global decimation.”

Eloise felt a crushing weight in her chest. “But… I’m stuck here. I can’t help.”

“That is where you are wrong. Yes, you are here now, but… your ties to your original form cannot be erased. You could return to your body. Your home. Use what you have learned to fight against my creatures, in your realm. Let Gareth and Olban fight here, while you fight there. It might be the only way.”

“I… I don’t know. What about Gareth and Olban? I can’t just leave them. I…”

“I understand. Think about it. But remember that time is ticking. The rest of the Council and I are doing the best we can to hold back the hoards. But we can only do so much for so long.”

The view of Nice, her birthplace in ruins, vanished, and Eloise sank back into dark, dreamless sleep, with only a looming, subconscious dread to signify that anything had changed.

***

When Olban awoke, he felt as if he was jolted awake by some electric terror. He quickly swallowed the feeling and looked around. Mr. Wilks was still asleep. Good. He needed the rest, after everything he’d been through.

The sun was only just starting to show over the horizon, a thin sliver of light painting the sky in shades of pink and gold. Olban took in the view. Nothing in Gareth’s world had ever compared to the beauty of this world.

He became aware that Eloise was awake, but she stayed silent. Eloise was thinking about the Nameless One’s offer, and about her home.

She decided not to bring it up.

She’d come to a conclusion on her own, one way or another.

“I think it’s about time we wake up Mr. Wilks,” Olban said, as Gareth joined them in the waking world. “We need to get moving.”

He kept the source of his urgency a secret. He didn’t want to scare them by mentioning the strange, dark shadow that he’d seen on the horizon… a familiar shape, but one he didn’t like. It reminded him of the Nameless One’s minions. With their master subdued… how would they react? Where would they go? What havoc would they inflict upon the universe?

It was even more important that they made it to Master Stell’s workshop. Because if the Nameless One’s minions were here… it meant the boundaries between worlds were weakening. And that could either prove to be a useful step in their plan… or it could mean the entire universe was about to unravel.

Either way, Olban needed to talk to Master Stell. He knew this was a problem he couldn’t solve on his own.

In fact, he wasn’t sure it was a problem he could solve at all.

My first meal was a bitter one. Wrath.

It was a fire, an ugly one, that sent convulsions down my body, my throat closing, my stomach twisting, revolting against the sensation.

I wanted to kill. I wanted to maim. I wanted to hate.

This was the demonstration my benefactor provided me, that unholy demon. He gave it to me as a first meal, a small taste of the future I was to inherit.

When the all-consuming fire abated, I was left with a strange sense of satisfaction, a sensation that I had almost forgotten.

I was full. Full of energy, sustenance, life. As revitalized as if I'd just enjoyed a hearty breakfast.

It had been so long since I'd felt that. Years, perhaps. Maybe even a lifetime.

Despite the hate-filled nausea lingering in my stomach, I smiled.

And thus began my sampling of sin.

Lust tasted of cinnamon candy, burning and sweet all at once. I felt intimate moments, both tender and violent, and I savored them the way a kid savors halloween candy, the flavor often lingering within me for days.

Wrath was perhaps the most variable, with flavors ranging from pure agony, as my demonic master had shown me, to simply spicy. On the worst occasions, the flavor of murderers or criminals, it tasted of rot and decay, an unholy sensation that coated my tongue for days. The only thing that seemed to relieve this taste was that of Pride, although for what reason I cannot say, as it is my experience that Wrath and Pride are often accompanied by one another. Perhaps it is that the ultimate sin of murder is one that you cannot take pride in: you cannot brag of watching the light drain from someone's eyes, or of wrapping your hands around an innocent, fragile throat. The sin cannot be told. It is forced to fester, to rot alongside the dead.

Pride was unique in that there is no comparable taste. It was more of a sensation than anything else, a warmth, a confidence, seeping into every pore. I always found these meals the most satisfying. With Pride in my stomach, I felt as though I could do anything. However, it always weighed heavy in my gut, and I found that although it had the best flavor, it was the least energizing. I almost always followed these sweet meals with a long nap full of pleasant dreams, only to wake up and realize that my time for productivity was slipping away.

Greed tasted of copper and metal, like pennies settling on the tongue. I grew accustomed to this taste, as I found avarice to be the most common of sins— even more common than its sugary-sweet counterpart, Pride.

The consumption of Envy always left me hungrier than before. The taste of women who felt they were fat, men who felt they needed to be stronger, people who were constantly in search of betterment, so obsessively that it came at the cost of their own health. It was the taste of starvation, a taste I knew all too well, and so avoided at nearly all costs.

Sloth, on the other hand, was even more filling than Pride, although considerably more bitter. It tasted of sweat and crumbs, of static and exhaustion. It was this sin that made my eyes droop, and yet I found it to be the most motivating. In every lazy man, there is a deep pit of shame. The feeling of "I should be doing something... but I can't." The disappointment, the stagnation... the taste of it is enough to make even the most resolute of degenerates stand up and begin the process of betterment.

And at last, the finest taste of all: gluttony. I taste the meals of every man, the finest of cuisine, the richest of culinary delights. Through the rich man I savor the most expensive of dishes, and through the impoverished I feel the relief of a meal, however humble, after so long. I taste of excess and luxury, the finest of flavors.

The taste of Gluttony is what truly cemented the benefit of my decision. I knew I'd made the right choice in accepting the devil's deal.

And in feeding on the sin's of others, I found a way of perhaps cultivating my own sin's. Not intentionally, of course, but rather as a side effect of my condition. With my whole life defined around the consumption and discernment of sin, it was perhaps inevitable that I fall victim to it in some form.

That form came in the shape of a business venture: a weight loss clinic. A confessional for the desperate. Here I could feast upon Gluttony, revel in Envy, and satisfy my own greed. I could take away their sins... for a price. Thus I kept myself fed and clothed, all in one. I thrived on the insecurities of others. I kept them coming back, month after month, offering just enough progress for them to feel accomplished, but just enough subtle sabotage to prolong their sin, to satisfy my dietary needs for as long as I wish.

I continued along this path unhindered until the day I tasted a new flavor. It was the unmistakable cinnamon taste of lust, but there was a new flavor there, a deep, rich flavor, smooth as silk.

It was coming from my most devoted client, a woman I'd been seeing for nearly the entire duration of my clinic's lifespan— going on 3 years now, and 5 since my... dietary shift. She was married with an infant son when she arrived, and was struggling with her weight and diet as she recovered from her pregnancy. Her son was now three, but her destructive eating habits remained.

The emotion momentarily stunned me, and I stumbled to find my words.

She seemed to find my shock enticing, smiling at my blunder. And it was then that I realized what the difference was.

I was not just feeding off of her lust. The thing I was tasting was lust... for me.

I nearly laughed aloud. It was too good to be true. Here it was, the opportunity to have an endless source of food. I could feed off of her lust forever, indulging her forbidden pleasures while secretly satisfying my own hunger. It was too good to be true. Especially from one such as her, ripe with endless sin.

It was a delicate process, but I achieved it. With my insider knowledge of her feelings and insecurities, I could easily goad her into doing what I wanted... and all the while she believed she was goading me. It was a beautiful, complex dance of sin and deceit, and I relished every moment.

At first, our meetings were only once a month. Never before or since have I experienced such a delicious rush of emotions, both physically and mentally. It was, to put it bluntly, the best sex I'd ever had. The taste of her primal lust lingered in my mouth long after it was done.

We grew bolder, and soon we were meeting nearly every day. Sometimes even in her own house. Each time, her flavor grew stronger. Cinnamon and cream. My stomach, my tongue, my brain, was full of it. It became all I could think about. I wanted more. More. And more.

And finally, I got more. I achieved my ultimate satisfaction. In one of our meetings in her home, in her bed, bodies on display, at the culmination of our desires, I felt it, like the infusion of dye in water, spreading throughout each of my limbs. It was so deep, so complete, that I felt as if I would never need to eat again. In fact, I was sure this feeling would still remain in my system long into my old age, long after my body ceased to be able to perform.

I can only describe it as eternal bliss. Deeper than any orgasm, longer than any passionate love, purer than any drug-induced felicity.

For a minute, and then another, and then another... life was perfect. I could easily believe that this was it, I'd achieved the emotion that normal men could only dream of.

Then came the fire.

In the five years of meals I'd tasted, there were none as potent or painful as the first meal, the one given to me by the demon. No wrath, not even that of murderers, was ever as cruel or painful.

Now I understood.

The first meal was not a gift or an example.

It was a prophecy.

The demon was warning me, in his cryptic, mocking way, of the fate I would meet. The reason that the wrath was so potent, so cruel, so painful, was the same reason that my forbidden lover's lust was so much stronger.

Because it was directed at me.

Now, I was feeling the same fire that the demon had once fed me, though impossibly stronger and longer than I could have ever imagined.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Hell hath no fury like a husband cheated on.

My lover was sobbing. My body had not yet caught up to the shock. I was still erect in pleasure, still reeling from the violent shift between euphoria and agony.

Before I could react, before I could scramble for my clothes or run for my life, I found myself blooming with a new agony. At first, I thought it was a new, more potent sin. Then I tasted rot— the taste of murder— and I realized this agony was physical.

I had been shot. I was dying.

The world faded away into black. I waited for the end.

Instead, a familiar, grotesque face appeared.

"Hello, old friend," the demon said.

"What do you want?" My voice was stronger than I'd expected it to be.

"Oh, nothing in particular. I'm simply here to deliver your last meal." He chuckled to himself.

I flinched involuntarily, expecting an onslaught of wrath.

"No, no, nothing that violent. You've already tasted the worst I have to offer. There's only one sin you have yet to taste..."

"Oh yeah? And what's that?"

"Your own."

The demon raised his spindly fingers to my lips, and I felt the incoming onslaught even before I could taste it, like animals fleeing the scene of an earthquake or hair standing on end in anticipation of a lightning strike.

It was a meal like no other. I tasted the sweetest sugars, the bitterest unripe fruit, the distinct burn of spices.

The most overwhelming of all was the flavor of Greed. Copper pennies and salt.

I realized with a jolt that Greed did not just taste like money. It was not the sour flavor of metal that I was tasting.

It was blood.

The blood of all the people I'd exploited, all the sin's I'd encouraged. The blood of the wrathful man and his unfaithful wife that ended my life. The blood of the sick, the blood of the hungry. It might not be entirely on my hands, but it was in my mouth. I was tasting it. Drinking it like a vampire.

And then I realized I wasn't just tasting it. I was feeling it. The sensation of liquid was bloating my stomach, coating my throat. Hot and sticky, impossible to swallow. I found I was choking on it. Spitting it down the front of my shirt, yet still it kept coming. Filling ever orifice. My nose. My lungs. My throat. I coughed and spluttered, gagging on the invisible blood.

And thus it was my own sin that killed me.

We live in a world where my poems must be prefaced with:

"Trigger warning: contains Something."

Suddenly the agony that forms Substance is to be treated

like broken glass,

a sign marking the landmine underneath,

in the hopes that will alleviate its danger.

But Poetry is built upon Pain,

like the shock of being immersed in cold water.

If I tell you the ending,

will you still want to stick around

for the Journey?

I have depression.

I have anxiety.

I am neurodiverse.

I am queer.

These are all things society has told me

to hide, to censor, in the name

of preserving the peace.

I have been told not to talk about my experiences

with suicide, with self harm, with addiction.

It could hurt someone.

It could scare someone.

Poetry is my way of sharing my experiences,

a guidance, a light shone down into

the black hold of my mind

in the hopes of someone casting down a rope.

Now, even among my art,

even among like-minded friends,

I am expected to censor myself.

I am expected to predict and anticipate

the reactions of others,

and then prevent them.

But those reactions are what makes my feelings Real.

I want to share what I feel,

even in my darkest moments.

I want people to see my life as it is,

with shock value that jumps out from

behind street corners

and leaves you shaken.

Just like it left me shaken.

I want to be able to share my opinions.

I want to be able to live.

I want to shove the research in their faces that proves

Trigger Warnings are ineffective.

They do not protect us.

They do not prepare us.

They only prevent us

from authenticity.

But I cannot say that.

It would make waves.

It would be disturbing.

So I guess I should preface my research with:

Trigger Warning: contains facts

that might prove you wrong.

Contains facts that might

scare you.

Because Trigger Warnings will not stop the flashbacks.

They will not lessen the anxiety.

They will not stop the self-destructive thoughts

that run rampant in your brain.

You must do that yourself.

With work, with therapy, with time.

And that's hard;

that's scary;

that's dangerous.

We are all searching for a Quick Fix,

and many have latched on

to Trigger Warnings as The Solution.

But alas,

healing is long and slow.

It is not as simple as a warning.

If it was, wouldn't we have recovered already?

Trigger Warnings are an easier solution.

They prevent us from looking inward,

from asking

the hard question.

If Trigger Warnings don't work,

what will?

whispers in the cherry red booth

of the local diner.

the equinox is approaching,

a merging of day and night.

an auspicious day, even for the uninitiated

like me.

only a week away.

i watched as they each ordered the same meal—

toast with butter.

they ate slowly, crust first.

that was perhaps the clearest indication:

something was very wrong with them.

an ordinary man may have feared them,

moved to the farthest booth, or taken his meal to go.

but i, in my privileged position,

had the booth immediately adjacent:

primed for eavesdropping.

at the word “sacrifice,” my attention was caught.

“… the virgin prepared?”

“of course. ready and willing. unaware, of course, of their fate.”

“good. The Order of Tyche will at last achieve

the goddess’s favor.”

the savior within me

roared and beat its chest.

to slaughter an innocent woman!

so young! so pure!

and blissfully ignorant of her cruel, twisted fate!

i could not stand it.

for many long, treacherous moments, i debated.

how to act? how to proceed?

i was trapped, at an impasse, protests

frozen in my throat.

finally, i resolved

to approach, a script

forming in my mind.

“excuse me, sirs? I heard you mention

Tyche?”

they stiffened, turning like clay on the potter’s wheel

to face me.

“who is asking?”

“well,” i said, the words

flowing fast and free

now that the opening hurdle

had been cleared.

“as a history enthusiast, i know

Tyche is the goddess of fortune.

and, well… fortune is something

i could certainly use these days.”

already, a tragic backstory was forming in my mind,

the likes of which would make Melpomene herself

weep in sympathy.

the men glared at me with suspicion.

“you think we can grant you fortune, fool? you think

we are some kind of magicians?”

“well, no… but evidently you are scholars.”

flattery, like the butter on the bread,

makes the lie easier to swallow.

“evidently,” i continued, “you must have knowledge

of the world that i do not,

to be such successful men.”

i gestured at their black suits.

the taller of the two, with piercing blue eyes,

seemed to accept my deception. the other,

his shorter, shrewder companion, continued to glare.

“we do not provide handouts,” he said.

“a position such as ours requires dedication.”

“of course,” i said. “what must i do?”

the two men exchanged glances.

the taller man shrugged.

the shorter man grinned.

and just like that, i was in.

i told them my traumatic backstory,

and they nodded with approval.

like a mouse among rats, i learned their ways.

how to earn the favor of the goddess,

how to prepare my body to be the ultimate host

(hint— it involved an unhealthy amount

of carbohydrates).

the equinox was fast approaching,

and still, i was no longer any closer to finding

the woman that they planned to make their victim.

i was beginning to lose hope.

the diet, the stress, all of it was getting to me.

and then, of course, there were the trials.

tests of strength, skill, knowledge.

they told me they needed to find out where I fit

in their Order.

at last, i received my robes,

and the dice that marked my reliance

upon Tyche and her blessings.

every decision was to be made

upon the roll of a dice:

for better or for worse.

finally, the day of the sacrifice came.

the preparation was over.

i watched as their leader, the short, shrewd man,

hid his face behind a wooden folder,

scrambled with his devices

in an unholy ruckus.

his associate, the tall, blue eyed man,

was in charge of the offerings,

great bowls heaped with delicacies:

cool ranch doritos and barbecue-flavored lays

(the cuisine of a true psychopath, i was sure).

we gathered in a circle.

my heart pounded.

i looked around, waiting for the sacrifice

to emerge.

“behold,” cried the short man

(I’d learned since his name was Liam, but

within the confines of our cult he insisted upon

the title of Master)

“the night is come,” he cried,

“where our latest initiate

faces his first trial.”

those surrounding me began to chant with joy,

each one using my cult-assigned name,

Ladon the Cleric

(after assessing my skills,

and my miserable failure at each,

they decided that, since they had no Cleric,

it would be simple enough to train me

in their sacred magic

to aid their cause).

“the sacrifice begins,” the Master cries.

“the woman is brought forth.”

i looked around.

no woman in sight.

“Ladon, as our Cleric, it is you duty

to hold the sacrificial blade.”

the group fell silent, and each looked at me with

anticipation.

i kept waiting for them to hand me a knife.

for a woman to appear.

for the ritual to commence.

yet they were looking at me as if it had already begun.

“Ladon,” the Master prompted.

“what do you do

with the sacrificial blade?”

i looked down at the sheet of paper they gave me.

i’d never examined it closely before— apparently,

it was the summary of my abilities.

there, in the top left corner, was a logo:

a twisting dragon, and the damning words,

a glaring representation of my ignorance:

Dungeons and Dragons.