The villain...

The effortless manipulation of the innocent story plot, right?

Or rather, that unmistakable tarnish on the heroic centerpiece?

Maybe a refrence to that ringing in the ear of the divine society?

The villain...

the term we’ve coined for our feared opposition, you mean?

Oh. I know she better than the hero shall know glory.

I host one of her kind currently. She is the curb to me honest existence in society.

My villain ponders around my lips.

Rather, at the unexistent, yet ever so necesary, movement of them.

#villainchallenge

#februarychallenge

Mother Earth birthed us all

so that

With our bones

stand the trees

With our blood

flows the rivers

And with the wind

pipes our breath.

Each one of us,

a different land.

Standing together,

stirring alone...

Our melodies crafted

by the birds.

Our growth captivated

by seedlings.

And our very own lives

independent...

but ever so interdependent.

She nurtures us,

day in and day out.

Watches us

working in unsynchronized unison

for much of our own benefit...

but never percieves our instigations

to her own slow departure.

Our lives

her existence.

Interpreted individually

but enacted in harmony.

Intertwined and coexisting

but falling disconected.

We thrive on her presence,

but her abundance,

living on the shallows of our disregard,

is slowly decaying.

May we forever repay her gifts.

A silver stream snakes elegantly through a vast, dark tunnel of trees. Gently but powerfully cascading down with an infinite amount of cadence. The stream gets wider, and wider, into a silver creek. A creek gliding past obstacles with unbelievable grandeur. Boulders will shape the creek, making it twist, turn, toss, its beautiful reflective surface swirling, spitting, chasing. Fasters, faster as is the world has no end, enlarging into a river, the river runs with mad desire. Tossing, flipping, twisting, captivating everything it touches, spreading its wonder, want, and love, until it is nothing but a small stream once again, falling, falling down, furious, until it is nothing but surreal silver droplets floating in the thick air. Every single droplet of its love and wonder captured. The silver stream, the river, the creek, are eternal unless forgotten. But for now, the droplets start over again, falling, falling, falling into a new silver stream to start over again.

january 14.

I have a confession to make. I haven’t been keeping up with my writing. I have been brainwashed, diagnosed, my condition is diaphanous. Today, I spent 5 hours on a screen. 5 hours. I think this condition was spread to me, and I have caught on the habits of so many others. But it is not completely despondent. Looking away from the screen, away from the filters, to looking through a lens on life, may be harder. The filtered one may be like an adult’s answer to a young child’s profound question: Only telling them what they expect, what they want to hear. But although it is harder, less pretty, less distinct,

It is all a lie. Because really, all the filter does is make life fake. It treats you bad. It deceives you. It may look pretty, but my friend, reality is divine. And you may want a cure for this highly contagious condition, or perhaps not, and maybe you would rather live life in that filter, but for those that would like to rid of this condition, I will prescribe to you a simple yet effective dose of awareness. But then again, ignorance is bliss, yet reality is divine. Maybe choose to live life

#nofilter.

january 30

43, 44, 45, 46. There are exactly 46 stairs to the metro platform. Bet you didn’t know that. Because your eyes and mind are transported to the screen in your hand, the vast expanse of potentiality that your mind has shoved into the glowing box in your hand. Well, you also don’t know the number of stairs because you took the elevator. Which is reasonable. But I’m not reasonable. That way you are taking the escalator yet I am taking the stairs not the escalator and you are staring at your screen, not the number of steps yet I am focused at the number of steps not the chimy thing in my backpack. You can’t even count steps on an escalator. I’m on the thirty-third stair and I see a minuscule piece of paper that is folded reasonably on the thirty-third stair of forty-six stairs. My hand reaches out and unfolds it. The front reads “vacation express”. On the back, it says things in a list like candles (check) exploding kittens (unchecked), glass flowers (unchecked) and blankets (checked). An unreasonable person reading a not-so-reasonable reasonably folded note. Exploding Kittens. Hm. (later I would find that this is a popular game). Glass flowers. Interesting. You probably would have never picked up this dingy note and hung it like a piece of resistance art in your reading nook, just as I did. But then again, you took the escalator. And even if you took the stairs, the chances of you picking up this soggy note is slim. Maybe because all of your focus is on that filtered world, not the steps. Or maybe because you’re reasonable and I’m not. Either way, you would have never experienced the small resistance against this malefactor when I count 46 in my head. Either way, you never would have experienced the laugh I gave when I read

“Exploding kittens”

february 9

There is a pathway of mustard yellow carpets ahead of me. Silence hangs in the warm air that greeted me as I entered. The velvety capet gives way to my cold feet as I peer into the airy gallery. Colorful art of the early 20th century stands before me, like a guard. A painting of a coorful neighborhood sparks my imagination. I stand there for at least five minutes, making sure to notice every last detail, from the hanging laundry to the young woman peering out of a purple window. I take a seat on the inviting bench, the type they have in museums. My mind is determined to focus on every last detail of this beautiful painting, but part of me, an unknown part, is tugging me away. My mind seems elsewhere, wanting to open up my phone and scrutinize every perfect life. Part of me is taken away from the simple life framed in the painting. Its like I was transported from the purple windowsill into an unknown world. My mind is tugging tugging, trying to resist the temptation. Why? Is it the silence? The emptiness?

I resist. But for all I know, it was there.

february 14

Enduring the brutal cold, the wind screaming in my face and my thin jacket is useless against the restless cold. Small snowflakes swirl around my body. The metro rolls in, making a rush of freezing air collide with my face. Stepping into the warmth, I walk towards a seat at my favorite spot in any metro car: In the back where one seat has one huge window, so you can see everything. But today, it is taken. I am not mad at first. I just sigh and sit to the back where there aren’t any windows. They look like they are together. He puts his arm around her halfheartedly and pulls her closer. But I wonder, how can he pull her closer when they both are separated by the screens in their hands? She carries the red roses and a heart box of chocolates he probably gave to her, and now she’s taking a picture of them and making him focus so she can pose a fake smile with him. She posts both of them. They go back to focus on that filtered world. I just can’t even. Love is not supposed to be fake or posed. I tap her on the shoulder. “It’s Valentines Day. Stop letting screens get between you guys.” He is now looking at me with mad eyes. “Do you know her?” “No, I have no idea” I probably should have just stayed quiet, but I couldn’t do that. There are plenty of people out there who aspire to have a valentine. But look at all that love, to waste. “Hey, you need to leave. Leave us alone and leave the train.” He says, practically yelling. “Fine” I say with something inside of me, a burn makes me spit it out with rather strong heat. As I’m walking away, I hear her say to him “I love you” but he is stuck in this world, so he doesn’t hear her and replies to her with a phrase that we hear all too much, with a hint of carelessness and confusion. A word one can reside to when they are jailed in this fake world. “Yea.” Because in this world, one only hears, not listens.

february 26

You may ask who the jailer is. You may ask why we should fear this jailer. You may ask why we don’t just escape. Why we don’t just open up that unlocked door and escape from the wrath of this anonymous demon. You see, it may seem like this cell is locked. It may appear that way. But in fact, there is a lock. A lock with no intention of realeasing its inmate. A lock that was not created by the jailer, rather, its inmate. A lock that can easily be unlocked. Just with the right key.