head held heavy in

dirty, dirty, dirty hands, while

tears push up against my eyes and

threaten to overflow--cannot

unhear your voice in my ears,

the whiny question of "she"

"didn't want to come?" and i ache at

feeling the tremor in my spine and the

cracks that shatter through my bones at

the thought of disappointing, of

hurting you, even if you laugh it off later

and call me dumb for believing you--i

tried to say the words of "i don't want to"

"see you," even in the privacy of my own

room, but i couldn't, i couldn't, i couldn't make

the words come from my lips; couldn't stop the

racing of my heart for hours afterward.

and only half of this is true, as

i didn't even see you today. only really

re-enacting previous scenarios and pretending

that maybe i am stronger this time.

i do not think

so.

and my eyes close, soft against the pale and freckled

skin i have, tears so absent from my ducts that

i think maybe my emotions have finally dried

up, finally dried up, finally dried up

and i ask--i ask!--will i ever feel again? as

though there is some shrivel of a reality in which i

will never feel and never think again. and yet there is nothing like

this, no shrivel of reality and no hope, none, none, none

whatsoever, as i understand that i will

feel again, and achingly so, in the morning hours soon to come. and

i will also think, and will do so, so very, very, very much. it

will make us both sick, just how

much i think and just how

much i feel, so let's just

pretend i don't and that i won't and that i am

not here, that maybe i--

i want to hold the words you said to me today,

want to hold them close and want to bury them

in the place where they say my heart is.

i want to bury them and maybe, maybe, maybe

the seeds will grown into beautiful things that

we are both so very proud of.

i want to bury the words you have said to me, bury them deep into

my chest.

i want to be someone you are proud of and i

want to be someone you think

about when the day comes to

and end.

i miss kindergarten and i miss fourth grade and i miss

eighth grade and i miss all

of this time i have missed, before,

thinking on what to say to all the

people i thought i might meet and

to all the people i wished i didn't

know, anymore. i miss the idea that i might

one day just be able to stop

thinking and just start--

i want to start over,

so very badly,

except that it is only on

days where i wish to run away

from you. and also on days

where i want to run away

with you.

and let's pretend i am not here. let us pretend

so many things, such as all the things i did not

say to you (although, i really did) and all the things i

did say to you (that i really did not) and just that i did not

speak, not at all, and that i am not here and i will not be here and let's

just sleep off all these mistakes i have made

with the both of our hearts. let us sleep these mistakes off and

maybe, when you wake up, i will have been nothing

but a dream, nothing but a

distant memory that will

tease at the edge of your vision when

you turn twenty-three and when you have your

second kid and when you are taking naps at forty-seven and

when you retire and then i will be gone, from even a

subconscious place, and you will die, not even a thought on your mind

of me and all the time we have spent together.

let's sleep off the memories and the

mistakes and then i will be

gone and you will soon

forget me and then

it will be a-okay

because i wasn't ever all

that good for you, now was i,

and there was always someone better

for you to be around, so let's just sleep off

the memories and the mistakes and then i shall be

gone & off & away & nothing but a distant memory &

then you will die and not remember even knowing who i am

(and maybe that is what you deserve, what i deserve, what we both need)

and i want you to ask me

to stay, not, perhaps, because

you need me, but maybe because,

in the words of my selfish thoughts,

you want me around. maybe you want

me around, you know? maybe i want you

to want me around, because i, so very desperately,

want you around. but i refuse to be around you

if it is not what you want, too. and, either

way, it doesn't even matter, because i will

never tell you that i want you to want

me around. i will never tell you, i just

won't, i won't tell you and i won't

have it. i will not tell you.

and i kind of wish you were

here, maybe--closer, perhaps?--but

cannot fathom anything that you would

think and don't want to think of you thinking

badly about what is happening and who i am, as

you continue to say otherwise--that i am okay--and

i do not want to disappoint you. but maybe i do. maybe

i think that if i disappoint you now and that if you leave now

it won't hurt so bad. maybe. i doubt it. i tend to hurt, all the same,

all the time, no matter when someone leaves and no matter how

they go about it. it seems to always hurt.

and i miss you.

terribly so.

and i love you.

most horrifically so.

National Yo-Yo Day

D-Day – WW II

Drive-In Movie Day

D-Day or the invasion of Normandy was the major battle that pretty much put an end to World War Two. Too bad we still have so many other wars going on.

National Yo-Yo Day

June 6th is the perfect day to get out your yo-yo’s and try your hand at The Sleeper, Walk the Dog, Shooting the Moon, Around the World or Hop the Fence.

The yo-yo is an object consisting of an axle connected to two disks and a length of string looped around the axle. It is played by holding the free end of the string, allowing gravity or the force of a throw to spin the yo-yo and unwind the string, then allowing the yo-yo to wind itself back again. The activity is called “yo-yoing.”

It is believed the yo-yo was first invented in ancient Greece. A Greek vase painting from 500 BC displays a boy playing with a yo-yo.

The yo-yo came to the United States through a young boy by the name of Pedro Flores. When he immigrated to the United States from the Philippines as a young boy, he recalled playing with a toy called a bandalore. The toy inspired Flores to create a business, and he called it the Flores Yo-yo. Between 1928 and 1932 the Yo-yo Manufacturing Company operated in Santa Barbara, California. Flores later sold his companies to Donald F. Duncan.

Donald F. Duncan, Sr. made the yo-yo popular in America when he manufactured the Duncan Yo-Yo in the early 1900s. He first trademarked the name “Yo-Yo” in 1932.

In 1999, the National Toy Hall of Fame elected the Duncan Yo-Yo to its halls at The Strong in Rochester, New York. The National Yo-Yo Museum is located in Chico, California.

The term yo-yoing is also often used to describe a person fluctuating between two difficult decisions.

Drive-In Movie Day

Drive-In Movie Day is the perfect day to honor a tradition that was extremely popular during the 1950s and 1960s. Drive-in movie theaters were viewed as romantic for couples and convenient for families, so they became a big hit.

However, they started to lose popularity when conventional movie theaters became popular throughout the 1970s.

In recent years, though, we have seen a bit of a resurgence in drive-in theaters, not only in the United States – where they are known to have been especially popular – but around the rest of the world too. The 2020 coronavirus pandemic can partly be attributed to this.

During this period, a lot of traditional movie theaters around the world were required to shut, and so drive-in theaters provided an acceptable way of getting entertainment while at a social distance. Drive-in theaters were not required to shut during this period, causing an increase in their popularity again.

This history of Drive-In Movie Day is literally the history of the Drive-In theater, and how it was born out of one son’s love for his mother. In 1933 Richard Hollingshead noticed a recurring problem with theaters, his mother simply was unable to find a comfortable way to sit in the seats provided by the theaters, but loved the cinema. He started trying to come up with a solution, but reinventing the theater seat just didn’t seem a viable solution.

They were already designed to provide the maximum amount of comfort possible while still packing in as many people as possible. With some time and a lot of experimentation, Richard slowly started finding the best combination of elements for an outdoor movie viewing experience.

This was more difficult than it sounded as he dealt with issues like protection from the rain, best placement of cars for maximum viewing ability, and how to get the sound to broadcast in a reliable and enjoyable way. Daunting though the task was, he wasn’t going to allow it to get in the way of his ambition, and in May of 1933 he received a patent and opened his first theater.

After the success of Park-In Theaters, Inc, the idea spread like wildfire, and drive-in theaters were soon appearing in cities all over the U.S. They reigned as king of the movie-going experience ever since, until things started to decline in recent years. Efforts are made to preserve them and keep them in operation, and there are over 300 still running all over the US.

There was a time where two to six people in a car could get into a drive-in for $6.50 a carload, and I'd love to see that come back into vogue. (Not counting the three hidden in the trunk of the car.)

People are enjoying a movie at the drive-in

when a loud booming voice comes over the intercom.

“To the man who’s taken my wife, I know you are here,

I’ll be coming round with my baseball bat until I find you.”

27 Cars left right then and there.

More Strange Holidays Coming!

The sandcastle stands proudly in the middle of a freshly dug moat.

The tide surges higher and higher, filling the moat, until it swallows the castle altogether.

The smooth water laps up the beach.

Beneath the water, bubbles surround the underwater castle as someone laughs, and a small grey hand reaches out to touch the unexpected new plaything.

#microfiction

Phew. Safe at last. Dundro sighed. He noticed the Horde of the Orcs were getting closer. Their unnaturally synchronised marching gradually filled the marsh with a terrifying din. And then came the Orcs.

An Albino was leading the Horde. He struck a terrifying figure, towering over his subordinates atop a Silvermane Warg. His armour was dull, blades keen. The milky white of his skin was criss-crossed with old scars. healing but nevertheless there. The rest of the Orcs matched Frodo's descriptions exactly. Their squarish blades cut the humid marsh air. Some had long spears pointed heavenwards. Their helms were rusted and bent, revealing only their hideous mouths lined with yellowing teeth.

Dundro watched all this from above. As much as he was scared out of his mind, there was something else about the sight that reinvigorated the adventurer in Dundro. He imagined Bilbo, crouched upon a burning bough, looked on by Wargs.

The Orcs marched swiftly, and soon enough, Dundro saw the last in their ranks pass by, leaving only the cacophony of footfalls in their wake. Dundro counted to 100 before feeling safe enough to descend from his arboreal shelter.

And so he did. As soon as he landed upon terra firma, he took off like the wind, making once again for the Brandywine river, hoping to follow it upstream so he could return to the Eastern Road and back to Hobbiton. Thus was his plan.

He followed the Orc tracks back to the Brandywine. But on his way, he spotted a strange article, embedded in the mud. Dundro caught it in his peripheral vision and stopped in his tracks to investigate. He bent over and pulled the object out of the mud, and shook the dirt off of it. His eyes widened. He looked the object over multiple times, trying to discern its purpose. But he could not glean anything from its appearance. It was fascinating to see, but Dundro could not make any sense of it.

What was it?

She looked out towards the snowy caps of mountains that rose ahead of her. Her blonde hair whipped behind her, blown by the freezing wind. Gashes had cut through her pale skin. Her threadbare clothes were torn and bloody, turning a deeper shade of crimson as blood seeped out of the deep gash that ran along her waist. She fell to her knees as she glimpsed a cloaked figure speeding towards her.

“Mark?”

Her dry, cracked lips moved as she made an inaudible sound.

Then she fell to the ground, her body careening as her heart thumped one last time.

“NO!” a thunderous yell shook the icy tundra.

All was quiet.

Nothing could be done.

To save her.

“NO!” she shrieked an ear-piercing shriek that echoed throughout the field. All around her, blood was being spilt as a war waged but all her attention was directed towards the limp figure lying on the ground. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she cradled the dead body of her lover. She kissed his forehead with cracked, dry lips and suddenly gave a gasp. A sword’s tip was poking out of her ribcage. She could feel the rusty metal in her body. She fell, positioning herself so she lay next to him. 

“I love you,” she whispered with her final breath as she held his hand.

As the sun began to sink, the two lovers lay dead side by side, victims of the treacherous war. 

I have not been as active on Prose as I used to be. Though this is not what this post is about, nor is it why you were tagged, I will briefly cover that before getting to the important information: the reason why I tagged Proserville and the writers of The Kincade Chronicles. To my followers who I have also tagged: sorry. The mass-tagging of all of my followers will happen next to never. Just warning those of you who want to know.

When I started, I was making sure I was posting once a week. I kept this up for almost six months, and then I burned myself out. Finally recovered from my burn out, I wrote Home, which I thought was great, and the feelings seemed to be shared with those who read it. Then all of the group projects were started, so I shifted focus to those, which is why I did not write much after that entry. I have something planned, and I am hoping to write it soon, though I do not know when I will write it because, as I stated, I have shifted my focus to the books that were started.

Over the course of my burn out, I realized that writing is a hobby that I am supposed to enjoy. Forcing myself to write will just produce poorly written stories and cause unnecessary stress. If I do not have time, I do not have to write. Eventually, I will figure out a schedule again; but, for now I will be posting whenever I have the time/inspiration to write. I have a couple stories planned, and, who knows, maybe I will finally work on the book I promised all those months back.

Now for the important part. Huge news. And with this huge, amazing news, there is a little bit of bad news for my Prose family.

On Friday, my Civil Air Patrol squadron (and a few other squadrons) were given the amazing opportunity to go to an Air National Guard base to fly in a C-130 (which, for those of you who do not know, is a military cargo plane). The flight was amazing, I learned a lot in the talks and tour before the flight, and standing in the cockpit while the pilots bob and weave through the air was amazing. They also opened the cargo door, and two of the crew walked onto it.

That was incredible. One of the coolest things I have ever done. I did not think that the day could get any better, but it did.

Many of the cadets in my squadron, including myself, wish to become a pilot. Knowing this, the senior members were trying to find a flight instructor who was willing to come to the airport where we hold meetings to train us how to fly. They were hoping to aid in the cost a little bit by doing more fundraisers. In fact, during the tour I mentioned to one of the senior members that, since we had done it before, we could probably hold a fundraiser where I work.

On the way home, we stopped at a gas station to drop off one of the cadets whose parents wanted to meet us somewhere along the route, rather than at the airport since they lived along the route. Once there, one of the senior members (you do not know how much I want to use names) exited his truck, climbed into the passenger seat of the van I was in (the senior members who were in the front had stepped out to stretch their legs) and said, “How many of you want to become pilots?”

In his magnificent way of explaining things, he told us this: there was a senior member who went to a squadron not far from us. This man was willing to give us our flying lessons one hundred percent for free. We would not be paying a dime! On top of that, if the weather is bad, he owned an FAA approved flight simulator, which he purchased with his own money, that we will be allowed to use.

Immediately you may be thinking: what’s the catch? The catch is that we have to show initiative and dedication to becoming a pilot.

My heart did somersaults. I began to shake. It is things like this that make me believe in God. As many of you know, I was struggling with figuring out my future. What am I supposed to do? What is my next step? After a lot of support from friends, family, and you guys, I decided to take life one step at a time and rely on God to lead me to the right path in life. I prayed about my future on a daily basis, and I placed it in His hands. Lo and behold, only a couple weeks later, “the chance that [I] asked for… showed up on my doorstep like, thud-thud, I’m here” (LAYERS by NF). I went to God, and $10,000 worth of flight training was offered to me for free.

It’s… it’s… “unbelievable (yes, yes), inconceivable” (CLOUDS by NF. I am a little obsessed. Okay, maybe a lot a bit. Don't judge me!). One of my dreams quite literally fell into my lap.

So what does this mean? Why did I tag you? Well, I tagged you to announce that I will not be as active as I want to be. I need to focus on my studies. I have driver’s ed to finish, and I need to study for the tests that are prerequisites for taking flying lessons.

What will this mean for Proserville and Kincadia (I hope you don’t mind my calling it that)? I will still be as actively involved in those projects as I can be, but if I find myself unable to make a deadline, I will ensure that you know what is going on.

For those of you who tag me: feel free to continue doing so. I will still read it.

I will learn more details about what is going to happen on Tuesday. I will make sure to update you (Kincadia and Proserville). I have four more weeks of school if I am not mistaken, by that point, I should be able to start writing more frequently.

Thank you for the love and support! I love you guys… and I mean it!

Until next time,

~CJ

and maybe I still love you. 

maybe every time I hear your name,

something catches in my chest

and my throat feels tight

and I feel like the world is ending for a second.

I laugh along with them when we talk about you,

it seems they have forgotten how much I cared,

they can’t see the knife stabbing into me every time I hear your name.

perhaps they think I forgot you, who you were, who you became, 

but every time I hear your voice, it’s an unimaginable ache 

from when you accidentally dropped my heart without hearing my screams. 

because it’s been six years, and I loved you too much to forget you

after one day of falling from hope into that realization

that we were never meant to be.

do not wish for that “unrequited love” that is so romanticized in fantasies,

do not wish to love or be loved, 

because when they drop you, 

without even turning to look at your heart which now rests on the ground

you will lose yourself in loss, claim you are over it, and then continue to love

as you always have, 

but the only difference is that 

you will be

broken. 

those voices in my head keep telling me what to do and who to be, 

they say, "no one wants you, what a fake and fearful heap of messed up dreams"

I push them back, trying to forget, 

I don't want to hear/ I don't want to listen to their hatred

but the voices get louder/ louder/ louder

and they shatter my ability to think, 

pieces of my intellect lie in fragments on the tired ground

I have lost it / I am lost

and if someone comes back for me, it is because

a tempest has begun within their mind. 

it will tear them apart until they cannot breathe because of guilt but

slowly the storm will end, the winds will fade into calm 

and they will turn and walk away without me /I am forgotten

but am I brave enough to calm the storm?

I'm like a dam waiting to burst open, 

carrying my problems, seeping /seeping

from my head to my shoulders, 

to my waist, to my toes, 

dripping into the earth, 

creating that inevitable entropy. 

what if I'm not a light, not a torch to burn away the shadows

but a cloud, darkness drawn to me like moth to flame?

each day, the rain feels heavier, 

I have fallen into a whirlpool that will never let me go/ I want to be free

I'm too ashamed to pull myself from the thick darkness, 

no one wants me back above the waves, so

as the numbness takes over, 

should I stop fighting back? 

why should I care what happens to me

when I am nothing but a weakness

an imperfection/ a flaw

I owe it to the people around me

to blame myself for the mistakes of our generation. 

I owe it to the memories

to become as perfect as allowed, as pristine as possible. 

but it feels so wrong,

when the night comes and never ends;

when I stay still and don't attempt

to steal the moon and stars for light / have I given up? 

why do I feel guilt crashing down on me?

I'm trying too hard

and giving up at the same time. 

those voices in my head keep telling me what to do and who to be, 

the night has come, the storm begun, 

but I'll turn and walk out of the rain, I'll steal the moon and 

I won't listen to those voices, I won't be phased by their fake and fearful

messed up dreams. 

*i find happiness in my confusion*

i should fix it, i know-

try and figure things out

*but i'm out of glue*

so i might as well stay broken