Mother spider,

she wanes to wrap her children -

it's a sordid affair,

and eight faucets fault at once,

and it must be done.

No burial is more loving

than one tucked away

into dustbins of discards.

No grave is lonelier

than one left unmade:

a lazy morning's heartbreak

that won't roll out of bed.

She sows pristine dresses

for her paper-doll children.

Tomorrow they will finally

fray, and she'll be left with

split milk's acrid taste.

Outside it's February, and

the closet's own brittle bones

have weathered.

Any chance I have

at finding something

that resembles happiness

seems to be drifting

farther and farther away

into the foggy haze

as my face begins to sag,

my hair begins to disappear,

my memory fades

along with memories of good days

that seem so long ago now

and pain and suffering

have aged me far beyond my years

like hurricanes and tidal waves

corroding and pummeling

a beach away to nothing

and I’m still standing barely

but I fear the end is coming faster

than my last chance at salvation.

You are so horrible

I can’t stop thinking about you

The irritating way you speak my name

Captures my full attention

The weird way you view the world

Makes me laugh with abandon

And your regrettably stupid face…

Too handsome to bear

I really can’t stand you

I just thought you should know

You suck

You suck

There is the minor inconveniences,

the turtling up and twisting faces.

I can see how she turns, cheek to shoulder, eyes cast down and then up with that glossy violet blaze. Shuddered shivers shake me to my waist, making my heart pound with the idea that my body is acting like dead weight.

There's something so pristine,

so ethereal to have her under me.

Tongues pressed, sweet kisses.

No hold. No reserve.

Breath stolen, and regretful words that linger in the back of my mind. Words that I'd never utter again, knowing I'd be putting barriers between us. Heartfelt 'sorries' and gut-wrenching 'I knows' will never account for the things I said or did, but she's here now. The pain is so serrated, like it's slivering off from me, shedding away with the old skin. The skin of my shriveled self, the part of me that no longer takes hold.

Insecurities can't take hold,

cannot form me into an uncomfortable mold.

Here, there are no secrets. Not from me,

when I try to unravel the depth of pain she will not let me see.

Short hair, fluffing against her shoulders. Lips pressed hot, molding over hidden skin. A modest girl, she once was only mine to take. Still, there is nothing to part us. No one to take her from me, she is mine. Mine and mine alone. She promised, she never would have left. I was the one that forced her to. Never again, never would in my worst nightmares would I ever utter such words to her again.

Under the dim grey fog of midnight, A large freighter moved across a vast ocean of darkness, The glitter of stars sung dim in the backdrop. The splashing of sea waves mellowed beneath the vessels movement. Two Months prior she had awoken in the arms of some barrel chested beer bellied drunk she met the night before. Her life was loose, Like his breath had been putrid and rancid, The result of a volatile mixture of whiskey, bourbon, Tobacco smoke and a rough persistence of one too many late night binge drinking sessions deep into his 40s. But he had been a hardy worldly man of a certain charm, that often dazzled unsuspecting female bar patrons. And his gift of the gab had worked its dark spell upon her that night. She had been enjoying her time off, Her legs had grown wobbly from being 8 months at sea. Her work as the captain of a commercial trade vessel, Kept her at sea for several months at time. She scarcely had time to develop what one would call a healthy romantic partnership. Marriage was a long distant concept, like the pouring of her first drink of the night. Her hair was long and white of silver, She was pretty and aesthetically beautiful like a chiseled piece of marble, that sat in a museum for all the world to see. But her beauty was not without blemish, Her right eye was gone replaced with black marble, And a large scar ran its way straight across the left side of her face, She had been unfortunately scarred, during her time serving aboard a naval vessel as the Co-Captains navigator, In the dead eves of a vicious war that swung and cleaved its way between two fierce empires. The sea opened its mouth like a pit, swallowing ocean and Wave into a funneled whirlpool that moaned as it fed. She fell from the mast, Her fingers ripped free by mighty oceanic winds, Sent her plunging deep into a realm of void and blackness. There was only silence, save for the trembling terror that filled her mind, A dark colossal shape circled her in the void, Its teeth like Spears, Its eyes rolled over black like a dolls eye. It draw her body when its breath, She hung onto its mighty serrated teeth, Gouging out her right eye in the process, As she attempted to fight through oceanic wind and hurricanic breath of beast. She was miraculously saved by the sudden oncoming sneeze that befell the beast in the moment, sending her crashing several hundreds of feet back into the deck of the ship, Where she fell into an unconscious dream of darkness that lasted for several weeks.

What's my shame? I just wrote a paragraph and deleted it. Someone else on this thread, for this challenge, wrote that Prose deleted their first paragraph by accident. Oops - I just did, on purpose.

What's my shame? I am ashamed that my biggest desire is to go to an open mic and read aloud my writing. That I could possibly fathom, in any planetary system, that my writing is on par with other writers, that what I have to say matters.

Here's what happens:

I take that insecurity and put it in a glass jar. My writing is inside that glass jar, and the person I think of as my "writing self" is in there too, unaware that their words are transparent for everyone to see. Because for me, my "writing self", I am talking into a void, potentially a void where someone will see me and understand me, and relate to me, but a VOID. The internet is a void. I write posts about my trauma and don't think anyone is going to know, at the end of the day, what my name is on my driver's license - and be able to link that name back to me, the "writing self" me.

I'm hoping to dear god no one on here knows me personally.

Just like today, at the brewery, when the bartender said he "definitely knows me" from another bar he works at, and I literally could not remember seeing him once, ever. This is my terror: that I will be recognized as the name on my driver's license in a situation where *I actually want my trauma to remain anonymous*.

This, ultimately, is why I don't do open mics: because someone always has a camera, and it's always turned on to video, and I'm going to be somewhere on social media, whining about my trauma, when I had hoped to be remain mysterious, someone who doesn't share my legal name. I don't want to be OUT THERE. When I can be HERE. Anonymous and contained.

So how is this "my shame"? Sometimes I get published and become horrified when it becomes clear that - what? omg - MY name was published alongside what I wrote. Like, no no no. Because like in my real life, where I'm the girl who wears the sweatpants and no makeup to the store, and there, and at the end of the day, I don't want to be recognized as The Girl Who Has Trauma. I'm just here for eggs and milk, thanksverymuchandhaveagooddayma'am. But I do want to be seen as who I "really am" on this writing platform. I do want to be seen as my "writing self." Just don't, like that bartender, say my legal name out loud to me in real life.

Because I will cower, and I will run.

There's a girl on the train. She sits alone, typing on her computer. Her glasses slip a little too low on her nose and her hair rests in two mismatched braids-- one much bigger than the other.

Yet, she types.

Maybe you think she's cute. Your mind plays fantasies of dates with a random stranger as you inevitably hit boredom on the seven-hour train ride.

Your eyes follow her hands as they dance around the keyboard. Stroke by stroke, making her keys click.

The seat next to her is gapingly empty and, for a moment, you contemplate sitting next to her, starting out what could be comparable to the events of a rom-com.

But you don't.

She stays a girl on the train, open to the fantasies of your mind. A simple existence, avoiding the complexities of life.

Obsessive

Compulsive

Disgusting

Repulsive

Circular thoughts haunt the crevices in between

Never cease

Never halt

The car shook and vibrated, the locked up wheels cutting screaming furrows in the packed dirt of the road. My foot felt rubbery as I pressed with all my might against the brake pedal, trying to force the steel behemoth to stop before I ran into the child.

I looked over and Mary’s face was white, her lips pulled back in a grimace of expected horror and her hands on the dash board as if trying to hold back the front of the car.

As the car shivered to a stop, the dust rolled around from behind us, obscuring the road in front. I hadn’t heard--or felt--us hit anything. ‘Please God,’ I thought as I threw the car in PARK, ‘let her be okay.’

“Steven! Did you hit her? Where is she?”

“I don’t think so. I’m sure we stopped in time.” The truth was, between the adrenaline that was still coursing through me, and the clouds of earth in the air, I wasn’t sure of anything.

“Well, go look!”

“Right.” I opened my door and stepped out.

As the dust cleared, I could see her. The little girl, no more than five or six years old, was still standing in the road, inches in front of the car.

Thank God!

“Mary, she’s fine!” I heard my mousy wife get out of the car. We both came around to where the girl stood, and it wasn’t until I saw the ax in the child’s hands that I once again began to become concerned.

Mary stopped, and her stare grew wider as the girl raised the heavy tool. Before I could move, she swung it down and buried the sharpened head deep in my poor Mary’s head.

The girl-shaped creature then turned its face toward me, and I saw hideously long teeth as it opened its mouth much wider than should have been possible. It hissed and narrowed its eyes; with a wet ‘schlup’ sound, it pulled the ax free from Mary’s skull.

I fell to my knees. My horror had combined with my rapidly beating heart to shut down my motor skills; I was helpless to even raise my arms as I watched the now dripping ax head rise into the air above me.

-------------------------

(c) 2017 - dustygrein

I used to imagine them

As wizened philosophers

Holding tight

To some segment

Of cosmic driftwood

Turns out they were

Just a bunch of lonely drunks

Imagining themselves

Young and strong

And once again worthy

Of one for the road

The way I do

David Burdett

2/4/2023