ten questions that rattle in your head

nine memories replayed to raise the dead

eight flavors of muddled murmur madness

seven days of pent-up stinging sadness

six unspoken unthought words

five breaths that lead you towards

four blinks in the harsh light of fear and

three picks you shan't ever go near

two hands left loose and hanging

one heart still empty and clanging

A doorway surrounds me

I stand at the threshold

Between worlds

Between the known and the unknown

I balance on it

Like a tightrope

Swaying from side to side

Trying to decide

Which way I want to let myself fall

Each direction pulling me

Playing tug of war

Feeding on my fears

That no matter which path I choose

It will be the wrong one

Each waiting to transport me

To their own versions of Hell

Even if I wish to fly among the stars

I am in limbo

Trapped in ambiguity

I am nowhere and everywhere

I am in the space

Where time does not stop

And where it does not begin

I am liminality

©HeatherAnn

#Poem #Poetry

I've died many times

On escape-trails– fleeing

From your air. But every time

You have caught me,

Either lurking in my

Dreams – or beating...

Somewhere... in the

Venues of my heart.

Caught up in your

Seamless web.

Crucified for your

Iniquity.

I've died so many times

Now, and I don't know

If I still have any more

Lives to die. But if–

There were any lives

Left in me, I'll, sorely,

Kill them again;

paving

my

way

over

my

sha

tte

red

Ci

ty

.

#poetry

I don’t know if it was really him... but tonight I’m gonna give my heart what it wants, and it wants to believe that it was his words that I read.

His mysterious grey hidden behind the black and white surface, gliding about in stealth mode. His words so pure, raw and true that I could feel his pain melt into my mind. My soul began to long for him, long to comfort him.

Yet as I read on, it was all so suddenly clear... he already knew. With each word that was written the veil of denial was being lifted. He felt me as I had felt him.

It was in that moment that our life together was about to begin. I am ready... I’m ready to swim. Yet, I’m still left to wonder... was it really him?

The apathy that brings to death

The laughter you innately possessed

The mental fatigue

That only strengthens every breath you take

The brutal reality

Only ticking away awaiting the inevitable

This pain you feel

Belittled by others

Impenetrable to advice and solution

Digging an abyss

Without any trace of a hollow aspect

It left you in purgatory

Fighting every demon to stay

But persuading all love to finally allow transcendence

The worst is over

The best will never return

Some you scar

Others left unchanged

Regardless of what happened

I’ll never blame you

Betrayed

What drove you to do this?

How and why did it come to this?

Does it even matter anymore,

I don't think so

For all you've done,

I'll never forgive you

Traitor

I gaze into your eyes,

Bright with unshed tears,

And I know

You understand what I've done,

The tragedy I've caused,

But you can't comprehend why

And why would you?

There was no way for you to know,

The thoughts buried,

The emotions hidden

If it's for you,

I'll commit crime after crime,

Make myself a sinner

In only your name

For you, I'll become a traitor,

Your traitor,

The person you most despise

Even if I bleed,

Slowly withering inside,

I'll mask the me that used to be,

Throwing everything away

To protect you,

I'll do anything

Bit lips, dirty mouth,

black eye, little swelling,

blackberry scratches

blood that does not break

the skin

but pools just beneath the surface,

fading bruises like a map of ghost towns.

You're trash, she says, but I still beg

her, Let me come. No, no and no, she

always said.

Yet for all the No, she sits on the edge

of the bathtub, watching me wash

dried blood and dirt from my skin

and out of my hair. I can feel her eyes

even when mine are closed. Just to escape

I submerge my head in lukewarm, filthy water,

which fills my ears with the bells of Ys and

the rattling chains of shipwreck anchors.

Her fingers are like seaweed, slithering over my

chest and cupping the back of my neck,

lifting my head out of the water.

No and no, yet she helps me out of the water

and dries me with a soft towel, patting dry the

cuts and scratches, dresses me in the sweatpants

and tshirt left by some other man, and lays me

down in her own bed with pale white arms,

I lay on my back on the cool sheet, watching her

undress and dress again in an oversized shirt and

lay beside me.

I would have loved to see this happen, she says,

turning off the light.

The dark consumes us, my eyes adjust and I can

see her pale arms like milk, curled and her pale face

turned to see me.

The hours crawl, neither of us sleep.

In the morning, all my scabs and cuts reopen

as I get up and move around;

there are trickles of ruby down my arm,

but still she makes coffee and unbuttered

toast and we sit without speaking

across from one another, eating and drinking,

the radio on, telling the news of the

death of a minor celebrity we had both

known once. But we don't even meet

each other's eye, and I become more and more

awake to the open cuts and exposed nerves

of my body. I wipe blood with a wet rag,

but she takes it from me and takes up

where I left off, gentle, maternal.

I can see her pulse twitching in her neck,

fast and strong.

At the door she says,

I don't want you coming here again.

Of course, I tell her. You said that last time.

you cut my soul and now there’s a

void i can’t fill

my heart bleeds tears

since my eyes can’t

(i have forgetten how to cry)

and i bleed blood

no one can see

through the wounds you etched on my skin,

they were kisses of warmth till you left,

and now they are only,

kissses of cold

that hold no memories,

only a hollow void

i trace with lost fingers

(my heart bleeds tears)

and it feels like winter

white snow like ashes falling down as rain

the world,

my world casted in darkness

the sun hidden by the falling clouds

(but it’s summer.)

We’ve fixed a bunch of bugs and made a few other quality-of-life improvements. If any of these bugs don’t seem fixed, or you know of any others that remain unfixed, please let us know in the comments below.

Performance Improvement: Stream

Some optimizations have been made to improve the stream (home screen) loading time. In most cases, it was taking far too long to load posts from authors you follow.

UI Improvement: Message/Block Buttons

New message/block buttons have been added to user profiles. These buttons appear both on desktop and mobile versions of the website in the upper right, near the profile picture.

Improvement: Challenge Browsing

We removed the filter that, when browsing challenges, hid most challenges by authors you do not follow. You will now see all challenges when browsing. This is experimental. If it ends up swamping you with challenges, let us know and we'll revert the change.

Bug Fix: User Swapping

A bug that previously caused profile pictures, comments, posts, messages, and other things to appear as though they were created by the wrong user has been fixed. This bug was particularly common when posting new comments and sending new messages.

Bug Fix: Liking/Reposting

A bug preventing likes and reposts from registering properly has been fixed. This affected posts that were part of a concluded challenges. Affected posts have been modified to reflect the correct like/repost counts.

Bug Fix: Challenge Resolutions

A bug that prevented challenges from properly resolving upon reaching their deadline has been fixed. This prevented winners from being notified when their post was selected, and challenge creators from being notified when it was time to pick a winner. Both issues have been fixed.

Bug Fix: Usernames with Hyphens

Hyphens were never intended to be allowed in usernames. All usernames that previously included a hyphen have had that hyphen replaced with an underscore. New usernames will not allow hyphens.

Bug Fix: Autoscrolling in Messages

A bug that prevented the message window from scrolling to the bottom when opening a conversation has been fixed. The window should now properly scroll to the bottom of a conversation when a message window is opened.

Bug Fix: Attach Portal

The “Attach Portal” button is now properly greyed out when editing a post. In the future, we will likely allow for posts without portals to be retroactively added to a portal.