Crossing my path

with your cold heart

is why I’m lukewarm

towards you!

©️Duncan Alidza

#love # heart # lukewarm #pain # broken #worldsapart #mixed

the flower in my garden

never watered

never trimmed

was just an ordinary plant

until a stranger uprooted it

and placed it in his shades

nurses it into the most envied

flower in town

how blind could I have been?

©️Duncan Alidza

#lovelost #blind #unnoticed #brokenhearted

it was too late to drive home

and exactly, adults don’t have a curfew,

so what does it matter if i come home when i

fucking want to?

2 seconds, 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 10 hours

away

traffic or no traffic

i think i will stay

i adult everyday.

my car was fucking up

well obviously it was,

seeing how it just got fixed for a good

amount of dough

and driving a fucked up car

in the dead of the night

when highwaymen may stop to help you

or to harm you-

well i wasn’t chancing it either/or.

i was too tired

and maybe i was,

tired eyes see even less well than mine.

i don’t battle the dark,

preferring safety over sorrow.

and it doesn’t really matter if i stayed up

super late,

hanging out with friends-

like you don’t know how the lines can

become all blurry

once the yawns set in.

i got sooo fucked up, i couldn’t drive home

and for the record

i never drive intoxicated

and i rarely suffer from hangovers

if at all.

it was raining too hard

so yea i stayed

i can’t see for shit at night

let alone in the rain.

and it doesn’t matter if i have the bomb

windshield wipers or not

night time plus shit tons of rain

equals no driving for me.

i can hardly see in the daytime when the

sky insists on dropping gallons of rain,

but my windshield wipers suck balls by the

way,

still it wouldn’t have mattered.

like i said i don’t see well at night

so rain+bad night vision+bad drivers

means i am fucking staying right where i am

and don’t give a shit if it makes you mad.

all patterns of your overthinking

these are just 5 ways i see you

trying to control me,

but i am gonna keep being me

over and over.

7 out of 8 times you’ve been betrayed in love

but not by me,

we haven’t even grown into a relationship yet,

still i have never done you wrong,

i am your friend.

i’m just trying to figure me out

so i can bloom into the woman i know i am

supposed to become

so i can love myself first and give freely my

heart without bringing my damage along

so stop overthinking and overstepping

every single thing

because you aren’t going to control me

i have already had that relationship before

and let me tell you,

it never works.

I dont know how I got so fucked up....

In my head.

I used to be on my shit,

Everything going good,

I was living back then.

Now I’m just exsisting..

Doing everything I can,

For her, accept, being a true friend.

It’s hard because I’ve had so very few.

And I’m sorry i am not a better friend.

At least I’m able to love,

And have someone who loves me,

Might not be in the way I want,

But its love.

And that’s more than most people ever have.

It’s hard to change something you have no idea is not right. Life kinda fucks you up.

OCD is a motherfucker.

I hate that I think so much.

I also hate that I dont know how to fix myself, if i even can be fixed.

I love someone, but fuck everything up about every 3 weeks. I dont want to hurt her, but end up doing so because of the fucked up thoughts in my head.

I dont want to drive her away....

She is the one most beautiful person I have in this life of shit I have.

Sad thing is,

I think it’s too late.

I just wish I knew how to fix myself.

I’m sorry I’m so fucked up....

I love you. You are the most beautiful.

i'll bury the version of me

that only existed for you

i'll bury her in a field of flowers

so she'll forever live in the scent

of the perfume on your neck

and when everything is done

i'll fall asleep without crying

and i'll be able to see you sober

- deathetix

I hear the whispers from the sky

spores floating on winds of change

hems of oceans unraveled in foam

silver sprinkle of murmured breezes

I hear the whispers from the sky

gentle sweetness on lips like wine

peaceful silver waves in aqua sea

gulls swooping low to catch reflections

I hear the whispers from the sky

A thousand moons slipping into dawn

echoed seaweed strewn on carpeted sand

unhealed wounds washed clean by tides.

My first inclination is to speak in generalities, but I’m going to instead post random bits of things that work for me. They might not work for you; that’s fine. Disregard at will. But for 20 minutes I’ll imagine I know something, toss out some thoughts and post them, and perhaps someone will find something helpful.

1. Show, don’t tell, as all the writing instructors say. Never tell your reader what to think when an image will do.

2. While editing, you can probably strike half your adjectives. If you use an adverb, too, you’d better have a damn good reason.

3. Does it really matter what color your character’s eyes are?

4. Listening to the right album or playlist while writing can make a big difference, in no small part because

5. you should never neglect mood.

6. Hemingway for economy (even if he is a bastard) [“Old Man at the Bridge,” “Hills Like White Elephants”], Virginia Woolf for lyricism and her ability to narrate silence [To the Lighthouse, for a start], Thomas Hardy for scene setting linked to narrative vision [Tess of the D’Urbervilles], Joseph Conrad for frame narrative [Heart of Darkness, though Achebe’s right about the racism], Jane Austen for wit and restraint [Pride and Prejudice], Flannery O’Conner for the sickening irony and portrayal of a fallen world [“A Good Man is Hard to Find,” “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”]. The Great Gatsby gets my vote for The Great American Novel (TM). I’ll take Ta-Nehisi Coates over any living essayist I can think of, though I’m less widely read in that genre than I ought to be.

7. And to flip to a different medium for a hastily-considered list, Vertigo, The Virgin Suicides, Moonlight, The Third Man, and The Illusionist, and Tokyo Story all have things to teach a writer.

8. Sections of dialogue become more vivid with properly-timed descriptions of physical actions and setting, which can also provide pacing.

9. Balance the abstract and the concrete.

10. Find a reader and editor you trust (easier said than done, but incredibly valuable and rewarding).

11. Leave your reader space to interpret. Guide the reader, but don’t shoehorn them into a lesson.

12. Being a good Proser means reading, not just writing.

—phone rings—

my heart beats

f r a n t i c a l l y

—phone rings—

why does he decide to call now?

it’s been years

of voicemails

and

s i l e n c e

years of

l o n e l i n e s s

and

w o n d e r i n g

(wondering where i went wrong, or if he still cared)

—phone rings—

Y E A R S

doesn’t he realize how much that hurt me?

years

of

late night

whiskey tears

years

of

straining to read

glowing texts in the dark

attempting to find the answer

to all of my

b u r n i n g

questions

—phone rings—

no

he does not get to call me

after all of these years

of

e m p t i n e s s

(it isn’t fair)

—phone rings—

(i take one deep breath)

i will not stoop down to his level

“Hello”

(that one word was the start of a conversation but the end to years of suffering)