We are trapped in a room with Susi_Trash, who wields a blood-dripping, 12” dagger in either hand while spinning, twirling and slashing them ninja-like. ”One more comment with a freakin’ <3 heart and I’ll kill the stupid man!!!”

As I look around me, I swallow hard; Mariah, dctezcan, Mnezz, and MeeJong.

I am in real trouble here!

I write because my hand can’t follow instructions to draw. Even in writing I still fail to meet the standard. But I am bursting at the seams and my relief valve has been set only through words.

I want to take all the anger in my head and project it onto a screen. Played before me like a movie. A feature presentation to show those around me how it feels to live trapped inside my mind. A place full of doubt, inadequacy and anxiety. Still with a glimmer of hope deep in the pits of my soul.

I didn’t use to be like this. I was optimistic and hopeful. I felt capable and strong. When I was alone in my mind, the world I created was happy. Controversy didn’t exist and my self-image was smiling at me in every reflection. Voices from outside penetrated my skull of security and the scene began to shift. The dialogue of hostility.

Over and over, I have allowed external forces to plant seeds of discontent in the fields of my mind. Weeds and vines have strangled what was, and now consumes the space I used to flee. My growth hindered from the negativity that surrounds me.

Conditioning that continued for so long that now those seeds are planted by me. The words of hate are spoken in my voice. As if I created them and had felt this way all along. Eventually I convinced myself that it wasn’t anyone else but me. Tearing myself up from the inside and just watching me bleed.

It was getting colder out and the rodents were coming in for shelter. I could hear the mice running the walls while I tried to sleep. It wasn’t uncommon for me to feel one run across my feet when I brushed my teeth. Meg would chase the sounds of the mice in the walls and I was going insane. I had flies in the room. They would come in from cracks in the light covers and take over the place. One night I spent six hours killing every fly I saw with folded typing paper. I became obsessed with them. I would crouch behind the big stand after I had cleared the room of them and wait for one to crawl out from the ceiling, and I would spring on him and flatten him. I thought I would never get to Manhattan, I thought I would rot there. The car had been on empty for weeks. I had nowhere to go and no money. All I had was the warehouse and I was lucky I had that. I could feel my mind slipping away moment by moment. It had nothing to do with where I was or the lack of food or humanity. It had to do with the morbid process, my incessant repetition of speeding into brick walls, my travels further into failure. My own brother lived close and he didn’t give a fuck. Time came forth and showed me pictures only the dead could see.

I was not human anymore. I hadn’t used my vocal chords in over six weeks, aside from talking to Meg. I was barely surviving. I learned to adapt to Meg’s food but that made it go quicker. My brother in the south end drove over illegally one Sunday and gave me a twenty. When he walked in and saw me he had to stop and put it together. I was ashen, my ribs were showing. He took me out to eat but my stomach had shrunk and I couldn’t put down half a burger without getting full. He bought me a can of coffee and some groceries. I was able to live for a few days off the groceries. All I had was the typewriter. It was all I ever had. He wanted me to come stay with him in the south end. He even said Meg could live upstairs with me. I couldn’t do it. I convinced him that I was fine. I had become so addicted to being alone that even spending the day with him was painful.

Another month went. On my 29th birthday I locked the place down. I could see headlights outside of my room and I heard someone knocking but I didn’t get up. Insanity had come fast, but it came certain. I didn’t know if it was the years behind it, or if the room was simply the last straw, the snapped end of string with no time left to replace it. I knew that I had lost my mind sometime in the passing week, but coming to terms with it only lost it further. I wanted to be surprised that it had finally found me there in the room, but I wasn’t surprised. The time it took had been well-earned, since the age of 16. The speed of its arrival was only offset by things bigger than the room that I wouldn’t let break me. The room was only there to garnish the grave, what the room reflected was what I’d traded my mind for, to let it go without another fight in me.

I was dead and destroyed, wasted, sorry, lonely and fucked. I had once had women and people who believed in my work. I was once a human with honor and strength and muscular flesh. Now it was gone. Everything was so gone I wondered if it had ever existed. Maybe I was born in the room and everything had been a dream, a neuro-chemical hallucination brought on by flies crawling down my throat and copulating as I slept. I had quit masturbating because it exerted me, and it only made me hungry afterward. I was not even alive. I was a cell in a jar and I was being monitored by giants who had painted this life for me to live as though it was real. I inhaled deeply, closed my eyes and refused to breathe. Not because I wanted to die, but because I was bored with breathing. My body went through a cold wave and then it was dark.

I woke up with a headache and vomit on my chest. Meg was on top of me, licking my face. I was naked, and I reached down and counted the thin muscles that poked out of my stomach. I had eight of them. Eight was a magic number right then. I thought of scenarios with the number eight. If I cut off two toes and two fingers then I would have eight of each. If Johnny had ten apples and Susie ate two of them then how many apples would Johnny have left? Eight, goddamnit! Eight was a powerful figure! I drew figure eights in the air with my finger.

I was 29 years old and I was a loser. I had tried but I had failed. The world was good and sports were good and careers were good and a job meant success and only fools thought they could write. Brad came into my room and told me he wanted money for the utility bill. It was a total of two hundred and eighty-six dollars. I jumped up, and told him there was that number again. I told him I would give him eight-hundred and eighty-eight dollars in eight days. He backed away slowly and said whenever I got some money, that was good enough for him. He told me to take it easy, and he backed out the door. He had his hands up and he bumped his head walking out. I looked at Meg and she cocked her head at me.

I was a freak. I was wasting away by flesh, rotting away by soul. Where were my people now? They were out in the sunshine and they were making love and talking to God and God talked back to them. I was no concern of anybody’s anymore. I was now at the gates of my real self. I was born for the room. I was born to write in the room. Without the room I would blow away and die in the dusty wind.

One night I woke up to the sound of Meg growling deeply. I had never heard her growl like that. I reached back and flipped the light on. She had this huge rat cornered in the room. It was drawn back against the wall, hissing at her. It was horrible. He was big and vicious and his tail reminded me of a whip used to snap out my eyeballs. He took a scratch at Meg and I snapped. He was diseased and hungry and he had the heart of a demon. Then I got it. He was a demon, coming for me to take me away because I had even failed to do that on my own, and the devil was fed up with me. He sent the rat to me to gnaw out my esophagus in my sleep.

I stood and hissed back at him. He was watching me with those eyes and he wanted me. I picked up my typewriter and held it over my head and stepped toward him. He gave me a flash of death and I brought the typewriter down and killed him.

Meg jumped onto the couch when it hit. My typewriter was broken and he was on his back, a claw still ready, but the nerves died in seconds. His face showed pain, remorse to his master for not carrying out his work. I scooped him up and carried him out the door. He was heavy. I walked down the hall and saw myself in the big mirror. There I was, naked, holding this rat. My profile was sick. There were my ribs, and I had a six month beard and long scraggly hair. I saw the picture again and my mind rushed back into my skull. It hit me and I took one more look at the mirror and stumbled back against the wall and slid to the carpet, holding the rat and sobbing. I threw my head back against the wall and screamed. I sobbed and heaved and coughed up yellow and blood on the rat. I cried for him and for my life. I screamed for my mother in Heaven and for my soul, for a way to get back into my body and live again. I screamed at the ceiling and called my fate a worthless whore.

Outside I held the rat by his tail and swung him in circles until I let him go. He disappeared in the darkness, and I heard him thump far out in the grass. Back inside I turned the valve and scrubbed myself with hot water until my skin was red and raw and it pulsed. I spent the next hour bending and screwing my machine back to use.

Use your blade shaped with vowels,

to cut me deep through the vein.

Hang your noose made of verbs,

So, I may cross over that plane.

Kill me with your story,

Then bring me to life with your words.

Stitch me back up,

only to tear me apart from the herd.

Let me read one more saga,

and begin where I did start.

Let me feel what you felt,

When you wrote these pages from your heart.

You did this to yourself you know. You left me when I needed you most.

You'd scream every name you could think of at me and tell me I should die then play pretend to everyone else like everything is fine. At night you'd hold that blade in your hand, tempting me to give it a try. You're the worst person I've ever met in my life. If I ever meet you outside of my mind, you'd be wise to run and hide, it was always going to be your or I.

Dear Eric,

I just wanted to tell you to keep your head up. Life is going to keep swinging, man, and you better believe it. You’re hung up on a girl? Trust me, you’ll be hung up on several more. You’re having trouble deciding what in the hell you want to do with your life? Well, I’ll tell ya man, all these years later and I still haven’t got a clue.

But I’m not writing this to scare you, or to make you feel hopeless about the future. I’m writing to tell you it’s going to be okay, and to let you know that it isn’t a crime to breathe.

There is no magic age, man. There’s no magic birthday where every piece of the universal puzzle is going to fit perfectly in place. Where you’ll float above the completed picture, saying “that’s it! It all makes sense now.” Life just doesn’t work that way, at least not in my experience. You’ll be working on that puzzle for the rest of your days. But that’s part of life’s charm. There’s no fun once it’s finished anyway, right?

I’m also writing to let you know that many of the battles and obstacles you’re facing now are worthy adversaries. Some will drift away in time, and become nothing more than vague memories, but others are going to fight to make sure that their voices are heard. You can either let the voices cripple you, or you can learn to live alongside them. Sometimes the latter might not seem like an option, but we’re adaptable, and we’re strong. Don’t forget that.

Oh, and don’t let anyone tell you what you should be, and what you should do, because here’s a secret, my young friend, they don’t know either. Some can project confidence better than others, but in my experience, once you get them alone and comfortable enough to strip down the bullshit, they’ll tell you they’re lost and clueless, too. We’re all just trying to carve a path in the dirt during a torrential downpour. Yeah, as you already know, it isn’t easy.

I know I’m rambling, but I want to make sure I fit all the important tidbits in here. So man, you need to try, as hard as it may be, to live in the present. Because here’s another nugget of truth: people have a way of getting lost in nostalgia. Dipping your toes in those waters is fine, but full submersion will leave you living a life that isn’t real. Your existence will become an illusion of a past you thought you lived, accentuated by those deadly rose coloured frames that consume us all like the purest of drugs. Living in the future can have a similar effect.

Reality is where you need to build your home. You need to face it, accept it, and most importantly, enjoy it, man. I know it’s cliched, but I rolled my eyes at wisdom for years, thinking that time would never catch up with me. I was just too damn fast. But here I am, writing this with a beer in my hand, and a gut to match it.

And one last thing before I sign off, enjoy art. Keep reading, listening to music, writing, and playing guitar. It’s food for the brain, and it’ll serve you well when all other things seem pointless and mundane. No matter how heavy that weight you carry becomes, art will always lift the spirit.

Trust me. You’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.

Sincerely,

Your biggest fan

This post is part of an ongoing introduction to the cast of my epic fantasy series, 'The ShadowWood Chronicles.' There are 26 primary human characters, 8 Eldergods, 8 Eludae (Shadow Beasts), plus myriad side characters.

2: Micah Smith (nee Burwitt)

Vital Statistics

Initial Age: 17

Role: Protagonist (secondary)

Occupation/Title: Apprentice Blacksmith, Protector, Demigod

Archetype: The Companion, The Love Interest

Game Piece: The Guard

Physical

Micah grew up down the street from Jazzlynn in Faire Oakes. He is 5’11” and 160 lbs, with dark short curly hair and caramel skin with soft brown eyes. He is, unbeknownst to himself, a demigod, having been born of a union between the now-cursed Eldergod Deloni (now Balzor, the Shadow Lion) and a human woman, who was left outside the city gates of Faire Oakes as an infant.

Emotional

He is fiercely protective over Jazzlynn and although she is very independent he is never far behind and always watching over her. Truth is, he is in love with her and has been for some time now, but is too scared to admit it and risk ruining their friendship. She is the most beautiful girl/woman he has ever seen, and in his heart he knows that she is the one, and there will never be another for him.

He hopes and prays that she will realize how much he loves her, but he would rather suffer in silence and stay close to her, than find she didn't love him the same way, and then become uncomfortable around him.

Social

He hadn't decided to become a blacksmith until Ash had offered him an apprenticeship, and at the time, he mostly thought of it as a way to always stay near Jazzlynn, but now, he has discovered he actually enjoys the work.

Family / History

After being orphaned as a young child, Micah was found by Lance and Courtnie Berwitt, active members of the community. They adopted him and gave him their last name. Now that he has become apprenticed as a blacksmith, he has changed his name to Smith, as all young men do at this point in their lives.

He has always been curious about where he came from, but never really tried to find out very hard, since he didn’t want to offend his parents. He has always considered them his parents and his love for them is so deep that he doesn't ever want to hurt them or make them feel like he isn't their son. They have taught him how to be a kind and gentle man, but sometimes he still wonders about the people who had left him at the village gate, near the dangerous ShadowWood.

The first time I caught him, I was 10 years old. We lived in Iowa but my dad flew into Omaha every day for work. He took me out of school and let me go to work with him one day. I remember wearing a velvet pink skirt and matching top. It had small embroidery flowers around the wrist. I thought it was the most beautiful dress in the world and absolutely perfect for a flight to the big city to spend the day with your dad. His office was at a smaller airport and had large windows that faced the runway. It was huge and had 2 desks side by side. One for him and one for his secretary who was named Lori, just like me. She was tall and thin and beautiful with long brown hair just like mine. I met her once before and I was in awe of her. “Maybe I’ll look like her when I grow up…I thought.” Right now I was just a pudgy 5th grader with huge thick eye glasses in a pink velvet outfit. I wasn’t polished and sophisticated but I knew when Lori the secretary walked in the door that she was exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up.

“Hi Lori, I’m so happy to see you, I didn’t know you were coming today.” she said in a velvety voice as she looked not at me but at my dad. “Hi, I said.”, staring down at her high heels. She went to her desk drawer and took out a Tootsie pop and handed it to me. She walked out of the room and my dad followed. I was left alone in the office. I unwrapped my Tootsie pop and looked for the Indian on the wrapper. I walked to the windows with my lollipop stuck between my cheek and my teeth. I leaned my head on the window and looked down at the planes. I’d been in planes my whole life. I named them off in my head…that’s a Baron, that’s a Cesena, that’s a Commander…the juice from my lollipop began to drip out of my mouth onto my Mary Jane shoes. I sucked in really hard to prevent more from dripping. My mom would be mad if I messed up my shoes so I took them off and went to find a tissue to clean them. I opened the center drawer of my dad’s desk. I didn’t find a tissue. I found a Polaroid of him sitting in the chair I was sitting in. His legs were spread apart and he had his hand between his legs with his middle finger pointing up. I didn’t know what it meant but I didn’t like it. I shut the door and decided to go to Lori’s desk. I opened the middle drawer and found a Polaroid of her making the same pose. I quickly shut the door and crawled under the space where her chair went. My young mind couldn’t make sense of what I saw. My shoeless rights snagged on the nubby carpet. I went to my knees and took my Mary Jane’s and rubbed the slobber off them onto that carpet. I knelt for a while and thought about planes and flying and my mother but no matter how much I tried to think about something else, all I saw where those Polaroids. My legs were falling asleep, I needed to stand. I crawled out from under the desk and rubbed knees. My tights were bumpy from the intentions the nubby carpet made. I heard laughing and my dad and the other Lori walked in. My dad gave other Lori some tasks to do and he asked me to go to lunch. I didn’t make eye contact with either of them. I simply put my shoes back on and followed behind my dad out the door. I never wanted to go back to that office again. It was never an issue. That was the first and last time my dad ever took me to work with him. Not because I didn’t want to go but because of what happened that night.

We started the airplane engine and buckled in to take off. It was a Baron, a six seat small plane and I was riding co-pilot. I loved to ride co-pilot. It was dark outside already and snowing at a good pace. I was shivering in my seat but happy to be going home. The flight was short, only about 30 minutes. We taxied down the runway and my dad got clearance from the tower to take off. Up we went and I was so thankful to watch that town get smaller and smaller as we flew home. My dad always did a steep take off and sharp turn. I loved the feel of the pull when he pushed the plane to the edge. I giggled when my stomach did some flips. One thing about my dad and I is that we love adrenaline. When we leveled out he did a maneuver I loved where he made me weightless. It only lasted a few seconds but it was incredible. If you had a saltine cracker, you could let go of it and it would float before dropping to your lap. I didn’t have saltines today but I could see them all the same suspended in front of me just like my body. The only thing holding me to the seat was my seatbelt. My behind wasn’t touching the seat and my feet weren’t touching the ground. “Again, again!” I say with pure joy emanating from my child’s heart. I look at my father and he isn’t responding. He’s looking out the window and pushing the button of the radio. He’s asking the tower for permission to land. There is ice forming on our wings. We are forced to turn around and land back in Omaha. We make it to the big airport. The plane hadn’t even had time to warm up. I’m frozen as I climb out of the plane and my dad helps me down from the landing on the wing. “Sorry kiddo”, he says. We take a cab to a hotel by the airport. It’s not a nice hotel but its close and it’s only for one night he keeps reminding me. We have no clothes, no toothbrush, no stuffed animals and most importantly, no mother to tuck me in. My dad puts on the TV and he leaves saying he’ll be right back. I’m hungry. I watch some shows on TV. He doesn’t come back. I watch the news and there’s a story about the snow storm and all the planes that couldn’t take off. He’s still not back. I’m tired but I’m too terrified to sleep. There is a vent above the door and all I can think about it someone climbing into my room through that vent. I’m shaking but I’m not sure if it’s from still being chilled to the bone or the sheer terror of being alone in a hotel room. Johnny Carson is on now. I sit at the foot of the bed and pick at the snags in my tights. I want to cry but no one will hear me or maybe someone will but they may be a bad person so I keep quiet. I want to stay invisible. I want to stop thinking about the photos I saw. I want my mother. I hear a key in the door. “Please let it be my dad”, I think. It is my dad. I pretend to be asleep on the floor. He doesn’t call for me. Doesn’t check on me. Doesn’t he know I’ve never been left alone at home let alone in a hotel in a big city? I’m petrified. I hear him pee in the bathroom. It’s along pee. My cheek is itching from the carpet but I dare not move. He walks past me and climbs into bed. He smells different. I recognize it’s alcohol but also something else. It’s musty and sweaty and I realize later in life he smelled like sex. I make it through the night waking up between his snoring. I hate it when I wake up because I re-smell him. I’m so terrified to move. My mother was going to be furious. Wait, I can’t tell my mother. It would hurt her. I decide right then not to say a word to him or her about anything that happened. We flew home the next day. I didn’t talk to my dad for entire year and he didn’t even notice. I would nod and smile and maybe I said yes or no but I willfully did not have one conversation with him for an entire year. He never asked me about school or my girl scouts or gymnastics. He never attended one event. He was in Omaha all week and home on some weekends. We didn’t matter. I had proof now. That’s the way it was and I've spent my whole life trying to prove we mattered.

Walking back home on a windy winter evening after attending my college farewell party, I realized that I didn't want that winter to end and I wasn't ready for what I was going to face later in life. I wished that time could stop, that my hair would stop falling out and that my youth would stop slipping away. I wished that I had taken things more seriously, that I hadn't driven everyone away from me, that I had at least enough money in my pocket to catch a bus, that I had at least considered the inevitable consequences of my instantaneous actions. I wished that I could somehow escape from the harsh realities of my life, that I could eradicate all the suffering from this world, that the long walk back home would never end. But alas! no winter lasts forever!

Their eyes met, almost naturally, for the second time today. The look ignites into a gaze, set ablaze by a fire in their beating hearts, kindled with the blood, passion, and fury of possible paths and impossible worlds.

A pull exists between them, a magnetism, an aura, an undertow. Two planets, one warm one cold, drift softly into the orbit of the other, threaten beauty, promise chaos; and as a cataclysm begins to spiral in the space between them, its coming destruction becomes even more devastatingly incalculable the closer their skin comes to touch.

But such is the fate of all cosmic objects, never to be held, choked to be spoken, created to fall deeply, madly, insatiably from the sky like the heavens around us and die like all else. So we leap, like we always do, into the pyres of another’s flame, curiously forgetting the creation of this new world brings about the inevitable end of two more.

This is our prized addiction, riddled with cold sweats, rumbled tummies; a curse, a judge, a jury, a sentence condemning those who hear it and like pyroclasmic magic burning only those who still believe in it. Found in busy college hallways, empty alleys, every story ever told except the ones we tell ourselves more often than we’d like to admit.

We’re reminded of its vital nature when the notifications cease, when the e-mailman stops coming; when friends give us snapshots of their stories and never of their sprawling minds, portraits of their filtered faces but not a brushstroke of their painted souls.

Or when the room darkens, nearly unlit, into a spectacle of dim whites and pale blues, signifying a TV on somewhere in another room, where the remnants of absent passion assault our ears, our lies, and our lives through the tireless moan and rhythmless rattle of the only thing that’s still breathing in there anymore… (don't worry, it's just an old air conditioner…)

He found and lost it up North one Summer on an empty lake, in the moments before an exhale of a sigh, released like breath upon dandelion snow; a single end, countless beginnings. Time, faith, courage, and a canoe was what he needed to get there (you might need something else, so be careful), don’t get lost, it’s different every time, sometimes a left at the pier, sometimes a right, sometimes you have to keep going, unable to see past the dense colorless fog of warm air over cold water, but for those few months he found it and was encapsulated by the journey of it all.

The splash of laughter, the yellow fish, the sadness in an August breeze, the sand in their hair, and life without words to spoil it. He still searches for it sometimes, carefully and sparingly, but rarely catches a glimpse.

He never hears about it anymore, never feels it, (God forbid tastes it) but ever so often, like twice today, he sees it and is terrified by it. What does one do with such an image of our luminous lives? A look that lingers and departs just as quick as it was brought upon back into the wretched loneliness that gave it tears and eyes for this precise purpose. Anyone? What does he really wanna do? Give it a chance? Two truths and a lie? Cross his heart and hope to die? It’s right there, staring right back at him. Bright eyes, a shale wish, a dream of drowning where you emerge and fade, emerge and fade, choking on nothing, dying on some distant beach, waiting for a kindred spirit to softly begin your resuscitation with a little mouth to mouth…

And boy is it complicated.

It’s never born, never actually dies, just washes away, only to be rebuilt again, trampled again, lost again, found again, forgotten again, thrown away (again), overlooked (again), mistaken for something else, ripped to shreds, wrecked beyond all imagination, marginalized, battered upon, ignored, and struck upon a match and burned for fun…

And boy is it complicated.

So there he stood, arms out, over sandcastles begging for the waves not to come, for the rain not to fall, but if we never wanted to break we never should’ve built, no, no, not on this planet. Yea, you’ve seen the sunset, had some grapes, but have you seen the storms? They’re not just outside. The sandcastles, they’re not just outside. The changing seasons, crashing tides, everything and everyone wants us to give up and die (and they’re not just outside.)

So believe me, Love, the castle’s lit, it’s

Buried but the motive fits, I’m broken,

Burnt, and holding on with words that hold

Me like your arms once did, once, upon a–

And right before his eyes she materializes, the woman of his gorgeous nightmare, the one he’s been waiting for since before our God made stars and time and dedicated this very moment for him to find... Something boils from within and perspires, becoming frost upon his heart, slowing it, almost to a complete stop, and then he realizes-

She’s still staring.

And so is he.

Gazing obliviously from the shadow of his looming soul, he panics because she sees him and doesn’t know, he tries to speak but nothing comes but a distant echo from an endless hole… Hoping to be… Praying to be... Dying to be... Anything.

Tell her.

I don’t know what it is about you. Tell her. It’s… It’s embarrassing how I feel. Tell her. It’s never like this, or it-it hasn’t been for years. Tell her. Maybe long ago, when I was small, but standing here before you now makes me so unsure. Tell her. But I loved you in another life and must’ve lost you ’til now. Tell her. Please, please keep looking. Tell her. I'm begging you. Praying to a God that doesn’t believe in me, or doesn’t listen (or both.) But I love you. I love you. I love you... And I haven't the faintest idea why.

In her eyes he sees lightning and in his own he feels a primordial storm, brewing with power and purpose; carrying a message from the original explosion that brought us to this very place, a room, four walls, a moment in time, a suspended sliver of space, where he can go on and on and on and on… Or he can just-

Tell her.