candlesticks fell on the mattress

and the room is on fire.

(watch the notebooks in the corner;

those stories are unfinished)

we can fall asleep here,

if you like.

you can watch the flames lick my skin.

(you used to)

different, different, different.

does the heat feel the same?

still catch just under our tongues,

still leave singed trails on the carpet?

how many ways

can you unburn a room?

if i beg,

will the flames eat me whole?

because

to stop playing with fire

is certainly out of the question.

14

He slumbered and as he did he transported into the bowels of his sbconconcious or perhaps somewhere else entirely. He was in a woodland shrouded in a dense fog. At his feet was a rapidly moving creak whose waters rushed like New York traffic.

On the other side of the creek was was figure that sent shivers through him. The it was human...almost. the being had no face or even the traces of a face. It beckoned him or was it taunting him?

He waded in to the creek with a splash. The figure with no Visage also made no sound except its own splashing foot-falls through the water. He chased this mysterious being into a cave and with a resounding splash tackled him down into the water!

They struggled but He pooled the Faceless One up out the water and stood astonished, for the being now had a face. He had been the faceless man.

High above, the sky is burning,

and I can’t lift my eyes.

I’m only what is passing,

what keeps passing me by.

Branches bend ~

a flicker of dark,

like film burned through.

It isn’t there.

Just a wing,

erased against the trees.

A shadow of a bird ~

I can’t stop it.

The day unfolds,

I watch it happen.

I’m a frame without the film,

I’m a body without weight.

The air splits,

a feather of silence,

a fracture in glass.

The bird is high;

I only catch

what it leaves behind.

Hands won’t close ~

air runs through them.

I walk, I walk,

but I’m not in it.

The sky is burning,

the trees don’t move.

The shadow passes ~

and I don’t.

Shadow of a bird ~

I can’t touch it.

The sky is too far;

earth won’t take me.

I’m behind myself again,

dragging daylight through my teeth.

Hands and hearts reaching into the depths of the unknown.

A story maybe retold with two characters seeking early afternoon,all alone.

They're hands touch,a brush with fate in a poorly lit aisle.

A familiar title with a foreign cast standing above and laying below the scattered pile.

Eyes meet,locked, and reloaded for a story that tugs and won't let go.

One copy displayed framed by two hands that form a broken frame.

The need for new found drama,writes a story of shame.

Two souls that were seeking for mystery found what they didn't bargain for.

A hunger was fulfilled in an awkward place that multiple as they walked out the door.

The sunken treasure left amongst nuggets in a colorful crate.

A moment of selfishness that transpired into unknowing fate.

The present rewinds in a poorly lit aisle the strangers treasure revealed,the two matinee leading actors gasp.

Theyre bodies fall in perfect time as the story unfolds,a silent picture with two onlookers with a bonding future predestined to last.

psychologists say there are five fears

from which all other fears stem

like digits, as manufactured,

the handful presumably

Natural, like

...extinction,

...mutilation,

...loss of autonomy,

...separation, and ego death...

to quote from Psychology Today

in this list, the median we see

of aggregate sum, or mean

centers on loss or losing...

which is to say

the irrevocable closing,

of the slatted gate...

09.11.2025

Gatekeeping challenge @Last

As I lie here, basking in the heat of my bed with the one I love, I think about the laughter we share and the moments between the stress of life.

I think this is what Death will feel like.

The sweet embrace of a lover as they touch my knee with absentmindedness. The feeling of sweat-soaked skin touching my own. The sound of laughter wiggling in my eardrums.

I tell them I love them because they remind me of Death.

The moments before you go are told to be cold, and then suddenly filled with a sense of warm and fuzzy calm.

Is that Death? Touching my shouler and petting my hair, coaxing me into the afterlife?

I would hope Death would look like a lover.

I'd be terribly afraid to go alone.

How kind of Death, to be there to walk with me into the unknown.

"So, I get to choose," I answered the Empty.

"Yes, but it has to be two consecutive."

"Hm. So, I stick my second choice the minute I pick the first," I mused.

"In effect. Your range of choice is Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter," said the Void.

"Ok. So, I can't do Summer and Winter."

"Obviously, no. You can do Spring, Summer. Or Summer, Fall. Not Fall, Spring."

"Why not?"

"That's the order of things."

"Hm. Ok," I said thinking the Blank must not be all that, "gimme a minute."

"Take all the time you need," yawned the Infinite, while I felt quite limited.

"What is Fall like?" I said finally.

"Depends on where you land," responded the Great Darkness.

"Oh. Is that random?"

"It is. More or less."

"You mean you Know, but I don't?" I speculated.

"Mhm."

"What if I were more specific? Like what if I say Rainy season? what follows?"

"Well, the Gu is followed by the Dayr, meaning the small rain comes after the big rain."

"And what if I say I want to end on the dry season, what then?" I pressed on not exactly sure what I was talking about even though the words were here.

"It could be Summer or Winter, Tropical or Temperate."

"Then it could be anything?" I said feeling somewhat exasperated.

"Yes."

"But I have a choice?" I said feeling doomed.

"In part. We do."

"What if I don't live to be 80?"

"...Do you want to live or not?"

08/28/2025

A single season challenge @dctezcan

I once knew a man, he was my old cell mate. He claimed he was innocent everyday, hell we all claim it. But something about him was different. It was a national story, you probably heard about it. A true philanthropist, he helped so many people. One day, he was arrested, with some of the most heinous charges. Things that made people here look like angels. Kidnapping children from other countries, murder & torture, accused of tricking families out of their money. The public who once loved him, turned on him overnight. No one even questioned if the accusations were true, just being accused was enough. As if they’ve been waiting, hoping, that this pure person was an illusion all this time. Why? Maybe because he made them look bad, maybe because those who have seen ugly for so long. That’s what we’re used to, that’s what we want. It’s hard to see the good in bad people, but easy to see the bad in good people.

As he walked into the building they paraded him through the streets. As he got pummeled with rocks, food, people punched him, grabbed him. Yet when the camera showed him, he simply kept a smile on his face. The entire time, down the street, up the stairs, into the court room where he was cursed. Surprisingly, when you watched the trial, the only one’s who supported him were his supposed victims. All of them crying on the side, none was allowed to testify. After the first day, none of them showed up to court again. No one knows why, maybe they couldn’t take the truth coming out. Yet, day after day, week after week, he kept that same smile on his face. It didn’t matter, the case was against him, even his own lawyer didn’t put up much of a fight. At the end, he simply asked to speak before the jury gave him his sentence. I’ll never forget the words he said.

…”I forgive you all. The people who curse me, the jury who will sentence me to my death, the judge who will allow it. You all can only go by the information you were given, how true or false that information is, doesn’t matter. You can’t know what you're not told.”

Someone asked him, why he didn’t testify, was he too ashamed. He simply answered

…”I could never hurt those who believed in me.”

He was sentenced to death. He stayed here with me in my cell for a while. I hated it at first. Putting this kind of guy in with me, I couldn’t stand him, I wanted to kill him myself. Luckily I never had to raise a hand. He was beaten by the inmates everyday for the crimes he was convicted of. At first I celebrated it, but that stupid smile on his face, day after day, no matter how much he was beaten. IT was the first time I started to believe in an unbreakable will. I finally asked him, why keep smiling. After everything he’s done, after he was convicted, being beaten everyday, even before being here. The hate he received from the public, what was that strength that kept that smile on his face.

…”Those inmates, they are here for some of the worst crimes people shouldn’t commit. Even they think what I did was especially heinous. This is their way, to use what they know to do something good for once. WHen they tell someone what they did to me, it will be the first time they are told, ‘good job, he deserved it’, the first time they won’t feel like such a piece of shit.”

…”Did you really do those crimes”

…”Whether I did them or not doesn’t really matter anymore does it, I have one night left. Some people get to be on death row for the rest of their life. They barely let me last a month. But hey you finally talked to me, thank you. Also you should call your sister. She misses you, Nathan right.

…You knew me?

…From the first night, she showed me so many of your pictures, you still look the same even after 10 years. She forgives you, but is too scared to reach out. You should know the number she never changed it just in case.

…”Wait man, how do you know my sister?”

…”You lost your mother’s house, which caused you to kill that man. I helped her get it back, at first she hated you, but after we reclaimed it. It all seemed to melt, but she hated you for so long, she just thought you hated her back. Good thing I finally got to tell you. Thanks for talking to me.

Man I never cried as much as I did that night and he thanked me for allowing him to tell me that. The next day he was killed, I stayed inside that day even during our outside time. I heard someone crying from the next cell. It was the leader of one of the gangs. I asked him, what made someone like him break like this.

…”The guy they killed today, he saved my family, paid for my daughter's surgery. I secretly told him, if he wanted help I could at least stop those daily beatings he was getting. He told me not to do anything, he gets to leave, but I have to stay. If something happens to me, how could he face my mom, my daughter in the afterlife. You believe that he said that, that HE GETS TO LEAVE, LEAVE WHERE, HE LEFT IN A FUCKING BODY BAG.”

I told him my story and since then, me and him have been tight, as if we have a secret between us. Every now and again, I hear the inmates brag about beating him before he died, I just keep my head down and let them talk.

…”Ok, man, but was he innocent or not”

..."I don’t know, but even if he was a bad guy, there was some good in him. I was able to see that first hand."

..."Come on bro people like that. Those who think they so holy.... helping people out. They always got something to hide. You not doing all that for free unless you got a guilty conscious"

... "Yeah, Maybe."

Cliche that I tried, cared and tried. Tattoos permanently on your thighs. Marilyn Manson the guise. Gay. Lame. Fake. Fruit flies. Sweet yet nasty. At the split you devise, the right life, you have comprised, transition, reprise. You're married now but where am I.

It's great to grow and behold. Feed and grow old. It was never in what I knew for you. You wild little screw. But trust im happy, maybe, fuck me. What I've seen is dirty, messy, and skitzy. Doesn't change a thing, I miss thee.

You are chubby, pink, and stinky. But you chose everything but me. Sour days in bed talking to mom. Her fly trap over flow-ed. You're dad drums of gold. I tried, you saw some value in a beat persistent as a nuclear mossad.

We shared good taste in music. You showed me Gun Ship. NO² fits. With our agressive addiction fit. Happy songs I never thought were congruent, with you. With me. Yet you let it be, with no commitment at this vanishing point.

Years later I wrote this, thunk this, hate this. Not at all worried you can dissect this. Attack this. And. Trivialize this. My only hope is you never see this.

subway is a series

of sandwiches

now

to be had

on the go

or seated

in rows

sedately

they're offering

a free drink

to each

but sh*t

I forgot to ask

and the paper

clip is a coupon

of the past

like a bindle

lost in the lot

of all these

side by side

drive through

windows

grey brown hazel

that pass

without second

glance...

with so many rails

to run, and jump

07.21.2025

Tennessee Williams challenge @Mariah