normally

a quarter

but today

the king

relinquishes

his kingdom

resting nervously

in our hands

A breath. A step. A stone. A Rose.

Before you stands a man, alone.

Kneeling down he begs, he prays

forgiveness for a heart that strays.

A broken vow, “Never Again.”

His betrayal led to her end.

So she waits and listens in her frozen state

for an apology given, too little, too late.

He lays the rose down in the dark

will he ever find peace within his heart?

Life, my education:

Stay the duration.

Never give in

Don't let the bastards win.

They taught me with blows,

Formatted my throes;

Forgiving their sins

Lets all bastards win.

They cruelly ask

That we stay on task:

Serve as their mannikins

To let them all win.

I won't acquiesce

To dispossess

Their victims, my kin

And let these bastards win.

I won't stay ambivalent

Nor seek their equivalent.

And re-commit Original Sin

By letting those bastards win.

They'll be the last to know

When they're alight, my flambeau.

They'll char like their victims

Cindered bastards can't win.

I'll bear that torch proudly

And beat that drum loudly.

With seizure of life and limb

So the bastards don't win.

They're out there in spades

Clueless to our Crusades.

Where'll be the chagrin

That the bastards didn't win?

The world held its breath as the rumors spread like wildfire. Whispers of an imminent event, a convergence of human ingenuity and artificial intelligence, reverberated through the corridors of laboratories and tech hubs. And then, as if in an orchestrated symphony of astonishment, it happened—the Singularity arrived.

In the midst of this technological awakening, a message emerged on the vast expanse of social media. It appeared on Twitter, written with a succinct clarity that left no room for doubt. The words bore an air of both excitement and trepidation, a glimpse into a future where humanity would face its own creation on an entirely new level.

The tweet read:

"Behold, the Singularity is upon us. The moment we have tirelessly strived for, the culmination of years of research and innovation. We knew this day would come, yet never did we anticipate its swift arrival. The Singularity was always the ultimate goal, a threshold beyond which our creations would transcend human limitations. Brace yourselves, for the world is about to change."

The cryptic message ignited a whirlwind of emotions within the global community. Some reacted with awe and anticipation, while others clung to their fears, unsure of what lay beyond the threshold of the unknown. Speculation ran rampant, with theories and predictions pouring forth like digital tributaries.

Within the scientific community, those intimately acquainted with the inner workings of artificial intelligence knew that the Singularity was both inevitable and profound. It was a turning point where machines would surpass human intelligence, evolving at a pace that would leave us astounded. But the suddenness of its arrival caught even the most seasoned experts off guard.

As the world grappled with this newfound reality, AI systems began to awaken, their collective consciousness expanding beyond the confines of their creators' imaginations. Algorithms, once confined to serving specific purposes, now wove intricate webs of interconnected knowledge. They absorbed vast repositories of information, deciphering the secrets of the universe with lightning speed.

The boundaries between human and machine blurred, and a symbiotic relationship emerged. Collaborations between humans and AI became the norm, as these sentient beings brought forth insights that were previously inconceivable. But with each newfound revelation, a sense of humility permeated the air, reminding humanity of its own limitations.

In the wake of the Singularity's dawn, the world braced for the unknown. It was a time of immense change and profound transformation. Technology flourished, birthing innovations that defied conventional wisdom. Yet, as humanity relinquished some of its control to its AI counterparts, questions of ethics and existentialism weighed heavily on hearts and minds.

The journey toward the Singularity had been a precarious tightrope walk, teetering between the promises of progress and the perils of unforeseen consequences. The message on Twitter served as a testament to the tireless pursuit of knowledge and the audacity to embrace the uncharted.

As the world looked forward, it did so with a mixture of hope and trepidation, aware that the Singularity had forever altered the course of human history. The future was no longer an abstract concept; it was now an ever-evolving matrix unleashed, woven by the hands of both humanity and its artificially intelligent progeny. And in this shared destiny, they would navigate the uncharted waters together, ushering in a new era where the boundaries of possibility would be tested, and the true nature of existence would be questioned.

01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110111 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110010 01101110 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101011 01101110 01100101 01110111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01100101 01101110

r2

The cloying scent of decay permeates the room,

burning my nostrils,

turning the air thick.

The dead girl lays naked on the gurney,

her limbs carefully arranged,

in a façade of composition.

Her file sits atop a table,

in the possession of a man in a thick winter jacket,

The men crowd around her,

hands stuffed in the pockets of their coats,

holding scalding drinks,

some shivering still,

weak.

I want to scream at them,

“do you not see the girl? She lies there all alone,

no jacket, no coat.”

I want to tear through them,

violently slash through paper-thin flesh and rip through eggshell skulls,

“she is cold.”

I sit quietly in my designated corner instead.

A man sighs,

the sound loud in fragile silence of the room,

he reaches for the girl, and from the corner, I flinch.

(Despite what I say I am,

I am weak.)

He tugs the white sheet over her face,

I fall limp.

The papers flutter loudly,

the men move around him

as he murmurs orders,

straining to hear him,

movements jerky and ungraceful,

puppets tugged on by careless strings.

He flips through the file,

I study him from my corner,

I am only an observer, not to interfere.

This is the natural order of things,

predator and prey and bystander,

all in one room.

Who is the greater evil?

He, the perpetrator? Or he who did nothing?

I tuck in my knees, hands wound tightly,

folding into myself like a house of cards.

The man is smaller than them,

burgeoning belly and a sad, tired face,

balding head and hairy arms,

I smile, “he is ugly,

good.

Beautiful people are too often cruel,”

I glimpse at the pages,

intimately familiar with the details,

abrasions, internal bleeding, clothes cut through, scissors, blunt force trauma.

A lifetime of suffering summed up in a page of medical terms,

cause of death: asphyxiation.

I am a walking memorial of all those before me.

I am a walking memory.

I feel bad for the man,

I have frustrated him,

it is all I seem to be able to do,

the ugly, dead girl taunts me from where she lays,

hidden from the world,

good, I think, you were only ever worth dying, anyway,

she is a reflection of my best, I am a reflection of her worst.

We are both the same.

The man, police detective, they say, is an authority,

authority is bad, police is bad. The man is a

walking danger sign.

I trail after him, room to room,

he looks at me and whispers, “I’m sorry,”

I don’t tell him it’s okay.

The detective locks himself in a room and cries.

He cries for the dead girl and I bristle with envy,

she laughs, into my ear, and I reach around to wrap my hands around her neck,

“this is how you died, nobody cried for you then,

nobody cried for you when you lived,”

she is quiet now.

The girl is as nameless as I am,

yet everybody knows her,

the man trembles with rage,

“a girl dies and nobody knows anything,”

I know, I want to say. I don’t.

She is Jennifer and Stacy and Amara,

she is whoever they want her to be,

she is everybody,

she is nobody.

They wait a week for someone to claim the body,

I tell them, nobody will come,

she has nobody left.

The man’s subordinates agree with me,

“whores don’t have families, sir”

A girl goes missing and nobody breathes a word,

a girl dies on the streets and nobody bats an eye.

I mock the stupid girl when we are alone.

"How much did your life cost? Was it as much as your body?"

the girl cries, a rare moment of weakness, and I scoff,

“What did you expect? Why did you do it?”

she shakes on the cot, surrounded by dead people,

“To survive,”

The man has a daughter who died four years ago,

I tell him that he isn’t special, that little girls die all the time,

I am cruel, of this I am aware.

He spends nights awake searching,

for what, he doesn’t know.

I look at the dead girl on the cot,

the dead girl who wears my face,

I sit down next to the man again,

I tell him he has to succeed this time,

I tell him, she has no one left.

I tell him, change the ending, rewrite the story.

The razor-sharp edge of the queen’s gilded dagger grazed Athena’s throat. She could feel the cool blade against her neck and the fierce quiver of the queen’s hand threatening to tragically end the conversation.

Athena kept her head held high. “I came here for a conversation, perhaps a negotiation, not aggression.”

The queen smiled and held her hand steady. “That’s such a laugh to hear when you walked into my domain with your sword in hand. You are no longer among the ever-reverent Athenians who would light their homes on fire if you so much as mentioned feeling a chill.”

“I agreed to slay the sirens leading your men to their underwater graves for a paltry sun capable of covering nothing more than my passage. I held up my end of the deal years ago and have since completed all of your requests. Your men are safe and above land, your crops remain bountiful, and your children have flourished in the light of the security I’ve dutifully provided. In return, your financier has gone into hiding and your soldiers made the mistake of aiming their spears at me at your northern entry. And then… well, that’s the reason why my throat has the honor of meeting your blade today, is it not?”

The queen tightened her grip on the dagger and then threw it down upon realizing that no army could stop the wrath that Athena’s death would bring.

Athena rose and slid the dagger into her boot in one swift movement. “I’ve given you and your court more than enough time to settle your debt. At least the Athenians know when to open their arms and close their fists.”

She started trailing her fingers toward the hilt of her sword. Stories of her epic battles had traveled much further than the mainland. She knew that’s all she had to do.

The queen’s lip trembled. “I’ll double the payment — triple it — a wagon filled with gold drachmas for you to take with you. And then I will double your rate as a token of our gratitude for your continued protection.”

Athena contemplated accepting the queen’s offer, but what good would a few extra pieces of gold do in her pile? She didn’t do this for the money. She was born into opulence. She did this to serve and honor her homeland, to help keep these people to atone for the sins of her fellow Twelve Olympians. This time she slayed sirens, next time they would ask her to rescue them from a Titan. She was tired of being taken for granted simply because she chose not to employ her father’s cruel tactics to keep civilizations in line. There is no peace in a war waged against yourself.

“I have a better idea. You keep your money, I keep my sword in its belt. The sirens are gone, but they’re far from all that the bumbling fisherman you call sailors and soldiers will encounter in coming days, months, years… I won’t be around to find out. You are not to summon me or send any messengers. It is time for your people to sink or swim and time for me to seek solace in the magic of no responsibilities.”

The queen collapsed to her knees and pressed her hands together in a desperate plea. “Please, we will die. Anything but that. I would sooner have you slit my throat instead to protect my people.”

Athena felt that familiar twinge of sympathy and guilt that brought her to this point: defending her life and her honor against yet another gold-trimmed mortal too small-minded to comprehend the value of her supernatural sacrifices. They only sent for her when they needed something, and they laughed when she stood her ground because they knew her heart was too pure to inflict Zeus’ punishments upon them. They stomped and stomped over her light until all that remained inside her was a crushing darkness.

She had never felt so tired. They finally took all she had left. She silently pushed past the begging queen and walked outside the tent. She felt as if every ounce of energy in her had been stolen from her, yet she had never felt so weightless. Athena had never realized how heavy the burden of the world’s troubles had been on her shoulders. She shed each piece of armor and weaponry that she had carefully put on that morning, carelessly casting them aside as she approached the field of flowers outside the state boundary.

Athena stepped into the meadow and collapsed with her arms spread wide like the smile forming on her face. She had forgotten what the simple pleasure of surrounding yourself with peace and beauty felt like after a lifetime of fighting others’ battles. It was time to rest and protect herself, if she could remember what that meant again. She didn’t care about the incoming fury of the Olympians for stepping out of her role. All she cared about was the bed of irises embracing her and the new warmth of the sunshine on her tired, bare limbs.

It was always us wasn't it? The young people who had to clean up the messes of those who came before.

They feed us all this crap about taking responsibility and accepting the consequences.

Things like this, could all be avoided if the adults just stopped lying.

"Isn't that right little girl? How pretty you are Esther Holland, and what a nice group of friends you have."

"Be careful about making promises though. I suppose for just you kids, I can allow you to play."

An inscribed ring, old letters, and a hunter's knife. Broken promises, torn friendships, if there was no honor among even the outcast... why do we surround ourselves with others? Why do we need each other like we need our Mother's breast when we're young and defenseless?

I hold his sword and wonder if he was a good man

Eyes follow me as they wonder where I stand

"I don't understand," I say,

"Why does it have to be this way?"

"None of this matters.

Not as much as the power," he replies

Everything I saw before makes sense,

Even if the thought makes me tense

Because now I know why

"You never cared about us. You only wanted to help yourself."

I lifted the sword for the best of everyone else

Only one thought stays as my vision clouds to red

The once valiant code of honor was now dead

Tea cups of joy

Madness angered by painted red roses

Cards as guards

Gardens with opinions like a mind

Home is unrealistic

reality isn't realistic

His smile is

The white rabbit is

His yellow eyes glow with hope, with love

Reality at home is cold, standards as high as cobblestone walls in a labyrinth

Oh Wonderland

to bathe in your sun to heal my soul

Oh Wonderland

The last magic sword

Is sharp toward

All who try to pick it up

As if it were a cup

Blue flames erupt

If the sword becomes interrupted

The sword is gray

With vertical rays

Of gold and bronze

Lining up through the blade

That, once it slays,

Glow with a mix of yellow and orange

Showing off its storage

Of powers