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Prose - Blog Posts
Cogito, Ergo Sum
I write ugly things.
That’s who I am.
I expel the bad onto paper.
Otherwise it gets stuck in me. Emotional constipation.
That’s probably why people hurt each other.
They need to get rid of it. The ache.
Can’t keep it in. Easiest way to get rid of hurt is to pass it onto someone else.
Most readers like it though. The hurt.
Look at Bukowski and Hemingway. They’re successful. Apart from the alcoholism and suicide.
I don’t understand them all that well.
You’re too young to understand, they tell me.
I don’t know about that.
I think I just don’t understand men who create their own suffering.
I’ve had enough pain. Disease and dead friends and all that.
Good thing for a writer though. To suffer.
Suffering brings validity to narrative.
I hate that.
I hate that perspective only matters if the writer has gone through something horrible.
Suffering adds to character. Solidifies it.
I also hate that.
Identity should not be so fickle.
It should be made of curiosity, interests, relationships, passion, and peace.
It should be made, fostered, cared for.
Not victimized.
But maybe that’s just the way we are.
We must rot so that others will salvage our blossoms.
We must dish out counterfeit pain to remember we are alive.
Mortal.
Look at me, you say, beaten red.
I bleed therefore I am.
Wrath
The screams and yells of her parents are muffled. Kore’s green eyes are glazed as she sits pretending to listen to her family’s scolds and barbs. Her skin is pale enough to sparkle under the moonlight most days, but it is sallow today. Her legs are crossed under her plain, black, calf-length skirt, back slouched as it crumples her white dress shirt. Her dark blonde hair is perfectly kept, pulled into a tight bun. She sits at the dining room table, silently, dainty hands placed in her lap. To most she would seem like a perfect daughter, listening quietly. However, to her parents, she is an insolent child that cannot do anything correct. Her mother’s shrill voice cuts through the layer of dissociation she placed. “Kore?! Are you listening, you ungrateful brat?!”, her own mother shrieks. Kore lets out a slight sigh, “Yes, Mother. Are you done scolding me?”. Her father yells, voice booming, “Don’t give your mother attitude, you leach!”. Kore stares silently at their disheveled appearance. She can see the features of her parents that match her own. Her mother’s hair, her father’s skin, it goes on. Yet, she fails to understand how they can be so angry and hateful, all the time. She is a perfect student, receiving perfect grades and is always on the honor roll. She is never in trouble with her teachers. At home, she is invisible, never leaving a trace. Her parents treat her like the perfect daughter when others are watching. Yet, the moment she is left alone with her parents, they are vicious with their berating. They practically foam at the mouth as they rave at her about mistakes she has not committed. Her eyes narrow and she scowls. Her mother snipes at her, “What are you scowling at, parasite?”. Kore looks at her mother and plainly says, “You. Both of you.”. Kore rises from her seat, watching her parents sputter and their faces contort into confusion. Kore’s face is calm, as a storm rages inside. She says calmly as she moves to leave to her room in the attic, “I have no desire to listen to your griping of falsity. You lack the constitution of real parents, so please, screech at each other about your own mistakes if you must. Good evening.”. Her parents faces contort into unbridled rage. Her father’s hand comes down upon Kore, a resounding crack echoing in the air. Kore falls, something inside her cracking like the sound of her father’s hand upon her face. She does not hear her parent’s berating, blood rushing in her ear. Kore feels and hears more cracks, but they do not come from her parents. They come from her body, as the dam inside her bones breaks. The storm that has long been festering inside, comes rushing out. Her bones shift and change under her skin. They become larger and longer, stretching her skin taut. Her fingernails lengthen, blackening with her own rage. Spines erupt from her skin on her back and joints. They are black, like her nails. Her parents have gone silent by now, not that she can hear them. Her lips split, reaching her eyes and revealing her teeth that have lengthened, sharpened to a point. The skin of her extremities turns black, like the spines and claws. Glowing green veins snake up her limbs. Her eyes are the last to change, filling with ink. A ring of glowing green is all that is left. Such eyes snap to those that were her parents, malice and wrath apparent in them. The former parents are frozen in place, horror having long replaced their own rage. They turn pale when a guttural snarl escapes the former girl’s throat. She lunges and their screams can be heard from down the street as every ounce of wrath they put out, turns to devour them.
-Lucian Shade
“Just remember. None of us have any idea what we’re doing either. No one chooses to exist. You just do. You’re gonna be okay.”
— Halsey
The Recognition of Śakuntalā, Kālidāsa/Sappho and Phao, John Lyle/Raja Ravi Varma
I want to love and be loved. I want to find a way where I don’t hurt myself. I want to live a life where I say things are good more than things are bad. I want to keep failing and discovering new and better directions. I want to enjoy the tides of feeling in me as the rhythms of life. I want to be the kind of person who can walk inside the vast darkness and find the one fragment of sunlight I can linger in for a long time. Some day, I will.
Baek Sehee, tr. by Anton Hur, from I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki
Wish them healing—after I'm done fucking them up.
“Never wish them pain. That’s not who you are. If they caused you pain they must have pain inside. Wish them healing.”
— Najwa Zebian
You get a piece! You get a piece! Everyone gets a piece of my heart.
Take your time. Take what was mine. See if it fits.
Looking to give away all of it. Not of any use to me anymore.
“Continue to share your heart with people even if it’s broken.”
— Amy Poehler
Sirop de Fraise
pur sucre
Oh, fraise. You make me feel unsteady with your saccharine juice.
And, why so? I haven't the faintest idea.
It is particularly strange to think that I might be attached to a red fruit. A tiny one, at that.
Fraise, strawberry, is my God. It crafts a welcoming juice into my mouth's sensitive parts. I feel its nectar flowing in my lips, tongue and palate. It graciously stains my lips, leaving behind a natural reddish color and finally making me more esthetically appealing to men's eyes.
Fraise, fragola, brings me to paradise. While the essence floods down my esophagus, my cheeks burn. Try guessing where my mind went to? I couldn't tell you.
Fraise, fresa, la reina de las frutas. Why do they call her that? In its composition, it is the only fruit in the world that has the seeds on the outside. And in addition, its intense fragrance and sweet taste make it irresistible. So, remember that you are savoring the queen of fruits. Does this make you a queen too? Well, it depends. Do you have seeds on the outside? My man used to have freckels for seeds. He had them everywhere. Even in his adam's apple.
Fragum, fragaria, Fragaria. Wild strawberries grew in the forests of France and Italy during ancient Roman times. They used to believe that the "fraga" were special fruit that had medicinal properties and used them to heal wounds or to make spells.
Erdbeere, strawberry, the first fruit to ripen in spring, making them a delightful harbinger of warmer days. My man, who loved munching on some strawberries, smelled of their fragrance. And he augmented my fertility. I was devoted to his seeds and sperm. It would surge in my insides, producing a new feeling in my head. We had unique offsprings. They were all made of love and strawberries. We took care of them and brought them up, nurtured them to be as lavish and eager as strawberries.
Be careful about the origins of your strawberries. Check out their provenience, because in sylvis proveniunt fungi, fraga, myrtilli et cetera.
Placentne tibi fraga?
I don't know if this is done yet but!
A character who instead of saying adjectives says the names of gods instead. (And their friend that has put up with them for years)
(i only know a little so I'm gonna do Greek Gods and it's not even going to be accurate, sorry)
Ex. 1
A: *emerges from the fitting room in an evening gown* what'd you think?
B: *in awe* Aphrodite
A: what?
C: *has known B for years* she means you're beautiful.
Ex. 2
A: *runs into a fight and punches a random guy*
B: UGH! THAT ARES-
C: that's an overstatement. He has no chance of winning.
A: *comes back with a broken nose* I didn't think that one through
B: of course not! You're no Athena afterall.
C: An understatement
Ex. 3
Characters is in a feminist protest (have no idea how this works)
A: *waving a banner with one hand and a megaphone in the other as she makes a speech*
Crowd: *agrees with her*
B: ah! Artemis and her hunters
C: people better be careful then.
Anaïs Nin, from a novel titled "A Spy in the House of Love," published in 1954
Alive And Yet I Rot
Ever so slowly. I am dying as I walk. I am withering away as I breathe. I am decomposing as I sleep.
I don't want to panic about all these small things anymore
I’m just always scared that everything will only keep getting worse. Scared that it’s and endless downward spiral leading to a lonely ending. All these small things keep reminding me of the fact that there’s nothing I have control over. A part of me still wants to control everything even though I know that’s impossible.
A Lullaby
Thank you. For the bottom of their heart, for existing.
.
But they do not say, for their tongue feels the weight of a star. A very whimsical, forgetful star. Such a thing it is they cannot catch it for longer than a second, and can only feel the sensation before it burns where they are cradled and goes far, far away.
i have a teacher kinda like this and i feel like she’s under appreciated
To the hero professors
So, I’m taking U.S. History one and two over the summer at my community college, and the professor is this older white man. Naturally, this is history, and my first assumption walking in to the class is that I’m gonna be stuck listening to this guy drone on for two months of boredom. Great.
Within the first five minutes I knew I was wrong. So, so wrong.
“I don’t want you to be stuck memorizing dates,” he says. “I want you to know the story, the people, the conditions and reactions so that maybe we can all learn from past mistakes.” I was baffled. A history class that doesn’t require you to be able to rattle off dates? Not only that, there’s no homework and we don’t have to read the text book. The only things that are going to be on the test are things that come straight out of his mouth during class. He introduces himself, and proceeds to go around the room and greets every person one at a time. He will do this every day for the rest of the summer one and two semesters.
Then the lecture begins. I say lecture, but it feels more like story time in kindergarten. He begins to speak with such prose and personality that I forget this is a college course. He’s taken something that has so much potential to be mundane and turned it in to a book that I can’t put down. You bibliophiles know what I’m talking about. And then this glorious fucker ends the class in a mid-sentence cliffhanger.
Every class he carries on this way. It feels as if I’m there. Signing the Declaration, fighting against brothers in the Civil War, listening to FDR’s fireside chats, storming the beaches of Normandy… And he remains unbiased. He wants to make sure we see there’s two sides to every story; understand the conditions that lead to those reactions.
We took a test today, a week from our final exam. He goes around the room in his usual affable fashion, but rather than just ask how we’re doing, today he asks if there’s anything he can do for us. Most folks like myself say something along the lines of nothing, or I’m good. This girl next to me jokingly says, “You can buy me a coffee.”
“How much is it?” He asks.
“About five dollars.” She answers.
And without hesitation, this professor, this wonderful man with a love of teaching, and a love of his students, pulls out a fucking twenty dollar bill, hands it to her and just says “Go get your coffee, and bring me the change.” Then continues on his way like it’s nothing.
And it may be nothing. Maybe I’m blowing something small out of proportion. But in a world where it feels as if every class is just dragging you along in the gravel behind it, and the professors seem to just be going through the motions; to see someone actually do something kind and ask nothing in return is so refreshing and uplifting.
I don’t know. Maybe this is just a boring shit post, but I really needed to share my appreciation for this hero of a teacher. A teacher who after over 30 years of teaching is still happy with what he does.
tl;dr: Some teachers leave a long lasting impact on your life; change the way you think, the way you see the world. Appreciate them for what they are. The unsung heroes of a failing education system.
I want out
The pinnacle of giving everything up,
was not something that I thought I would ever reach.
The pain and frustration had exceeded its threshold that the thought of my efforts be put into waste
I no longer deemed regretful.
It was a mistake to have you know that the limit of my patience was non existent
For it gave you the sense of security that I would always take you back.
And so, it became an endless cycle.
Our happiness fluctuated ever so often.
Eventually it started to wear me out.
The fire within me started to fade.
So you began to ruin yourself again.
You made the rain and thunder of your storms much stronger
The noise you had inside your head became louder and intolerable
You cut yourself bleeding just because you know were going to lose me.
And by doing so, you know I would come back.
For I have always been drawn to those broken souls.
And I have always saved you from all the chaos you started
But love, I hope you know that each time you lose me,
I’m not the same person who comes back.
And time will come when all the love in me
would become nothing but pity.
"There is some inescapable part of me that yearns for you- and not just for your rough, cracked hands to lift my head by my intrusive chin and tell me that I'm handsome, or to run them down my arms and back up again, teasing me (encouraging me, even) to let go, and give in- but there's an element to me that flows through my body like sticky sweet blood that powers me, it moves me. And you know it.
You know that you drive me insane. I'm sorry that I can't give it all back to you. But you know that you have this ability to drive me wild and you manipulate it like you do me; every move is planned and has its purpose, like you're folding me into origami- a sitting duck, floating on a pool that's drenched in your aura, your fucking charm. You disgust me.
But, you rule me. I'm a slave to you. If you held my head down in that pool, I'd be blessed and rather then cry out "dear God, save me!" I'd only find the words to thank him for giving me what I've always wanted. You. I want you. Unfortunately for me, God has abandoned me- or at least he doesn't acknowledge me and that's more then I can say for you. Rather than be benevolent or silent, you torture me and you punish me for what I can have. I can have you- you know I can, otherwise you wouldn't abuse my affection so liberally, dragging me on, leaning in a little too close, whispering a little too soft, drawing my hand to yours and pressing it ever so slightly against your thigh- I could have you, if I wanted. And that's just the problem.
I don't want you. I don't, I don't, I don't. But I need you. You are a horrid person; I abhor myself for knowing that there is a capacity in me to fall so hard for someone that I'd call against my very nature. But you're also intoxicating. You've bewitched me; I'm drunk, I'm stoned. I'm poisoned. I long for your tongue to cross paths with mine- even if it means that you'll bite like the waiting asp you are and I'll die. But I'll die loving you.
You're so open about it. You openly sport your prey, your toys- when you're tired of them, they dissolve away into the background, and I've watched it. Women, they come and go- like a cycle of evaporation, they come, they dry- they leave. Women, you get rid of. But me...I'm different, because I am not one of them. I linger; I tell myself its because I am ice to you- I refuse to bend and show you how much it affects me, but I'm melting. Dripping. For you.
One day, I'm going to give in to you. This is my acceptance of defeat. I will never be able to resist you for much longer- but I wanted to have it stated, have it shouted, how much I bloody despise you despite the fact that you are all in the world that could ever make me happy. These words are my paper crane- a thousand of them, a thousand more never said and never written- and they are my deepest wishes. Come and claim me, whenever you are ready."
-siriuslyblackhearted
Lost at Sea
By sun.after.winter
The world goes to shit
Were all lost at sea
I wish to swim further
But my eyes ceased to dream
Were all in a statis
Waiting till death
Alone yet together
Not yet built to last
How does one plan
To thrive in this world
Without a person to cling to
As the ship nears the shore
escapril: into the woods
Warning springs forth into the glade of my mind Troubling portents of events yet written Beckoning with gnarled hand and tempting my wandering eye
“Into the woods, my child” it speaks, “Into the woods once more.”
The scent of whim hangs like morning dew upon blades and boughs A tantalizing portrait of unspoken prospects Laden with foreign baubles and familiar laughter
“Into the woods, my son” it sings, “Open your wings and soar.”
Melodies of sugary sunlight guide my tired steps Promising respite upon linen and down, lavender and raindrops All coaxed by crackling flames amidst the sound of strings
“Into the woods, my light” it pleads, “Follow the forest floor.”
Here I stand puzzled as I gaze upon a ruin of lumber Lamenting the loss of time itself, cursing poor insight and planning ‘Til the siren call returns to beckon me
Into the woods once more.
escapril: hands, wrists, teeth
You claim again your hands are tied, We know this much is true. But there’s a fact you still deny: All this is caused by you.
Through fear and doubt and moment’s pause, You craft that fateful wire. To bind your wrists and bleeding heart, And snuff out your inner fire.
The walls are raised and mask is worn, An old routine in place. The world is free to turn once more, Just at your cautious pace.
So laugh and smile, spin your tales, All through gritted teeth. Waste your light and love to hide, The creature underneath.
escapril prompt: how did the sky look?
A canvas of void splattered with starlight Ever distant in its comfort Much like the encroaching breath of uncertainty Belying the fizzle of anticipatory reunion
The frames lightened upon each reprise Revealing unknown melodies of laughter and love Until the light revealed such wondrous beauty before me And the sky ceased to exist
No longer am I to be known as a king of the clouds Rather a bard traversing the galleries below Finding joy within details once overshadowed By idealistic portraits of expectations
Yet I fear despite my melodies The lines will smudge and color will run Leaving another muddy memory I will look back on in fear and sadness
So ask again In a week a month a year How the sky looks And hopefully I’ll reply
I don’t know
escapril prompt: grief
Tonight I leave behind nightmares of yesteryear. Of memories drenched in tears of shattered possibilities. For light has broken through din and haze. And I await your warm embrace delivered upon morning’s arrival.
May we cultivate a shameless cycle of self-love built upon the smoldering embers of grief so that I may create once more. In your name. In your visage.