Jammed into a sardine can

ripping through the sky

at thirty-five thousand feet,

no one asked me

if I favored cock or pussy

for over two hours—

I guess it was either altitude sickness

or they didn’t give a shit.

We all shared our misery the same,

hating the ungrateful little bastards

kicking our seats

more than each other’s sexual orientations.

And when we lowered beneath the clouds

and when Florida revealed itself,

I raised my finger at the window

to the governor,

and offered a greeting from America.

According to Disney

my trip was soon to start

in the Gayest Place on Earth

DeSantis must have forgotten which State he ran for.

The man sleeping

upon the bus stop bench

blocking your view

of this month’s

burger ad,

paid for by the fast-food joint

around the corner,

is hungry,

and his name is Bert Huggins,

if you cared to know.

Children

of the world,

call me Daddy

because I’ve decided

on becoming a priest,

so, I can finally tell my lies

without anyone questioning me.

Hold onto my every word

as if I am God himself,

and I’ll offer you penance from the pulpit

making you curtsy before me

like obedient sheep.

I am merely a Shephard

controlling his flock,

and your only job is to baa.

Cry your tears at the altar

into the kneeler trough

so, I can later bless

and bathe your babies in it.

Offer me your starving tongues

on Sundays,

then confess your darkest,

most precious secrets

the other SIX.

We are all but sinners,

but I am a God among Men.

If he made me in his image,

then why shouldn’t I be worshipped?

SIX Hail Marys

and a guaranteed seat in heaven

just for me

because I wear this costume

and you don’t.

Forgive me, lord,

for I am the father

who hath sinned

too many times,

trading one black suit

for another,

and I murdered myself

breaking commandment SIX,

but remember

that the filtered city water

waiting for a lever flush

from the confession toilet

already washed away my filth

by the baptism

blessed on me

in your name,

as if it never happened.

Thanks for that.

Amen.

I am but reborn and righteous now,

refreshed and clean,

living tax-free and untouchable,

and now

I AM YOUR GOD.

Anxious waiting

Comprehending

The full weight

of this

imminent collision

Time will be measured

from that point on

Only as

Before

and

After

There’s a window open to the night sky. I’m surprised to see it naked, no drapes. The glass is crystal clear, and stars twinkle in the distance. The moon is bright enough to cast a shadow, and I see her moving in the room. I think she’s smiling, at least it sounds like she is when she says my name. I don’t want to listen, but I turn towards her anyway, my ears perked and primed. I know she won’t use this room in the daytime. There’s no hiding from the sunshine here.

Our lips meet and I want to forget, but I can’t. In the darkness, I imagine it’s her. My mind knows it’s not, but in the dark, the senses can lie. Her hair brushes over my chest as we kiss and I’m there. Mexico ten years ago. With the one, I’ll never forget. I’ve forgotten everything, but I’ll never forget her.

Her eyes glow red and I become lost in her black endless center. I’m hypnotized. She never blinks, burning a hole into my soul until I submit. She begins piercing my lip with a tiny nibble, until a bead of blood forms around her tooth. She is hungry, but she is careful not to ruin her meal and she takes her time with me and then I submit. I get lost in Mexico again to ignore the pain. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but I am not. I long for my Samantha and I wonder where she has gone since I was taken.

***

They usually forget. Everything. But this one, he holds on to something as if it will restore to him the life I have usurped. The first time I bit him, I was just hungry. I wasn’t even going to keep him, just drain him and go. But there was something there, as I watched the light vanish from his eyes. Something I wanted to see again. And I stopped, which is something I never do. I have been accused time and again of having zero control. Which, of course, is hilarious to me. They brought me into their fold for my uniqueness, thinking that would help their cause. Then for centuries, they cursed me for not adding to their ranks, only depleting their prey. Yet they never asked me if I wanted to join them. Not that I asked Seren. But he is grateful for his new life, I think.

***

I’m lost on the winds of a Gulf beach, and I know the stinging of sand across my bare skin is a stand-in for the pinch of pain from this monster’s meal. Will today be the day she lets me drift into the dark forever? Am I going to be cursed to walk the world next to her, never to know the warmth of an ocean sunrise again? Part of me hopes for oblivion while wishing for the curse of her gift. My instincts to live any life I can rage against my despair and I surrender completely. My hopes don’t matter; I am food. I am completely hers.

Unbelievably, I am content. I open my eyes and the moon stares at us in our dark embrace. And she’s smiling at me. It isn’t the evil smile of a predator gorging on its prey. It’s the smile of someone who’s genuinely curious. There’s a strange interest I can’t put my finger on.

“Do you know what this is?” She asks. I shake my head slowly.

“Do you know what I am?” Her words are breathed out with a smoldering fire.

“Yes,” I say softly.

“Would you like to be one?”

I was weak. Her question perplexed me and my limbs were frozen in place. She held me up while I took the time to find my feet under me again. Then I found my voice.

“Be, Like you?”

She tilted her head back and licked her lips from the rest of me draining from of the corners of her mouth, but never took her eyes off me. Her mouth didn’t move but she still spoke to me inside my mind.

“Yes, do you want to live forever?” She began smiling.

“Do you want me to erase her from your mind?”

She reached up with one finger and ran it across my lips smearing the now cold and drying blood across them.

“You could love me, like you love her, you know?”

***

I don’t know how it was that I knew that light in his eyes was a woman. I guess the stirrings of so much human blood coursing through me over the years has sensitized in some way I don’t understand. But in that moment, that one tiny moment of an infinite life, I ached for someone to think of me that way as they die. And maybe that’s the power of the immortals my peers were always antagonizing me about. Maybe that’s the pull they feel as they create the new undead so loyal to them and this new life. So dependent on them for the foundation of their path forward. But is that love or a superiority complex?

***

To be a dead thing, imitating life. To be a dead thing, moved on to the next world. Why can’t my choice be to be left alone? But I know I’ll never walk free. An absence of a fence isn’t freedom. To see the horizon and know that I can’t approach it without a chain of regret pulling me back is almost enough to make me break. My will to live wanes, but refuses to snap. Is it weaker to wither, or to rot? Which is which?

“My love for her was never a choice. It just was. You can make me love you, but I’ll never choose it.”

“Choose life or choose death,” she whispers in my mind.

“You don’t offer life. You offer shadows of living.”

“Choose the shadows, or choose the fire. I’ll not force you.”

In the end, my will isn’t strong enough for oblivion, so I choose damnation.

"I choose you,” and my tears mix with my blood.

And she smiles and puts her teeth in my neck again, but this time it’s more kiss than bite. And she pricks her finger with a tooth and lets the blood trickle into the bite wound and she kisses again. Rather than the kiss of life, it’s the kiss of the undead. And it went on for what seemed like an eternity. When she backed away, I felt regret and longing. A deep dark longing. A hole in my gut, in my very soul. A hole through my entire being.

“You should have killed me,” I said.

“I said the same thing.” There was a great sadness in her voice. “I’m sorry.”

She walks away toward the open window, disappearing in and out of the shadows until she reaches the sill. One side of her shifts in the light and she absorbs the brilliance of the night. Her hair drapes down her shoulder and covers her chest and her long black robe blends her into the darkness of the room.

“You will never love me the same, will you?”

She looks down at the ground seeming disappointed.

“I was a fool to think it was possible.”

***

There are two sides to one bite. They equal a different forever. I pause at the artery and listen as if his blood holds secrets. Does his blood hold secrets? There was a tell in his eyes, the way they shone, there was a taste, reverberating through the blood I’ve ingested over the years that spoke of that shine. So elusive, so interesting.

But is he interesting? I am starting to think he is not. Evoking a feeling of weakness, there is no room for that in my…life. I am starting to think he is just desperate. Or am I projecting? What happens to a mind after so many years of eternal life? Does it begin to…degrade? Is this what is happening? Am I allowing these humans to demoralize me and warp me into a sensibility and desire for intimacy I never had? I position myself for the final bite.

***

The ritual is complete, she leaves me, and my body is wracked with the pain of a million dying cells. I think it’s over, and the pain begins again with a million cells being reborn. My skin is on fire and the sound of silence is a white noise hiding a thousand creaks and groans of wood and nails. I smell the iron of the hammers that drove the nails and I smell my rusted, spilled blood covering them.

I notice no heartbeats because heartbeats belong to food.

I hear her watching me in the Moonshadow.

I scream until I am raw, but I’m not breathless.

I do not breathe.

I can’t forget what it’s like to live, because this pain is a reminder.

I gasp out of habit, collapsed, curled, waiting for the agony to subside. Still, she watches.

I sense the sunrise nearing the window, and I wait for her to take me by the hand.

I consider gripping her when she reaches for me, holding her like the lover she pretends to be, while we burn.

I decide to wait.

I’ve forgotten how to live, but I still know how to die.

When the time is right, I’ll remind her of what it means to do both.

This week's writing prompt was inspired by the Italian movie poster shown on the above cover, "Dimentica Tutto."

Written in order by @Ferryman, @Ledlevee, @ChrisSadhill, and @Meejong.

Money doesn’t make the man,

his word does,

but loose lips grow quiet

in dark alleys,

not Nasdaq floors,

so, any decent man

would be detoured

from doing the right thing,

especially one with

mouths to fill

and a roof to keep.

I hang my head low

watching the ground move

beneath me as I walk home.

My pride and ego

both cleansed

by the emptiness of the morning,

but it’s within the shadows that I blend in.

I wear the black for them.

Upon my broken back

they eat their breakfast,

and wash it all down

with discounted milk

and cartoon giggles,

using my stained shirts as napkins.

I don’t care

because as long as they’re full,

they sleep well,

and make it to the bus on time

I am doing something right.

God knows there Ain’t much

I’ve gotten right,

but I’ve never begged, borrowed,

or cheated to survive.

Some do

and some win,

but most pay the price.

Living among the filth

keeps you true,

and most of the time

the truth is all you have—

And being quiet

adds another box on that calendar

to be Ex’d

filling you with the hope

that you’d be lucky enough

to find a way out

before it’s too late.

Even if all the riches

filled every ocean,

today’s children would drown

trying to swim them

because uncharted waters

and false horizons lead to certain death—

But wearing a suit of black

can be a heavy burden

dragging you under just the same,

especially as the riptide of the world

pulls at you.

So, why teach them how to wear that heavy suit?

Because I want them to struggle enough

to learn how to swim upstream,

and be learned enough to know

when the water’s too rapid

to get out.

I want them to hold their breaths knowing

that air will eventually come back

and they will resurface

because every night

they watched their dad disappear into the shadows

always bringing the sunrise back with him.

I want them to know

if he did it

then they could too.

A magic mirror

only exists in fairytales,

but here

there’s no

wisdom hidden

within the glass;

Yet I still stare at it

waiting

for something

amazing to reveal itself,

but the person

glaring back at me

is just as fucked up,

just as scared,

and is entirely confused

about the future

as I am.

I say,

fuck that guy.

He’s no help to me either.

There’s a silence

at dawn,

when half the world’s asleep.

A firebird,

hangs just above the horizon.

A blue Jay gathers her nest

into a twig-wrapped bowl

to hold a future hawks breakfast.

A bass breaches

the lung dimension,

treading the waters

of unexplored places,

skipping across Lilly pads,

and pipedreams

then disappears back into

a shallow grave

for an unlearned kid.

Either this is a peaceful start

to a beautiful day,

or it's the calm before the storm.

Only time will tell.