Welcome to Gaia! ::

Well thank you! I just read it again today and I also realized how depressing it was too. biggrin

Some great works can pop out at three to four am. I suggest everyone try it.

I believe it is spelled "moi". And I may have to try my hand at this, though I don't usually submit my writings anywhere. . .

You've been added love.

@Reiku: Always up to you, no pressure, talk all the time you need to create something perfect. o.O

Well, I'm not quite sure how to begin this, but here it is:


I have far too many to post, and I'm going to keep this more or less contemporary from here on out, but here's a quick overview of what I've written in the past. Starting from latest (last one was a week or so ago) writings and going to the very-early (to about 6 years ago, when I first started writing) writings.

I'm mostly a poet but sometimes I dabble in prose, too. I rarely write more than a few pages in length with my short stories, so they're usually *very* short stories. XD

Anything that doesn't have a title is just that, untitled.

Projects Post



Poetry

---

Vixen

My sensual vixen standing softly
romance in pale crescent moonlight
speaking those words so awfully
speaking like nothing can make it right

Romance in pale crescent moonlight
left me stale as a crypt
Speaking like nothing can make it right
out of your element reading a script

Left me stale as a crypt
by providence or proxy I've been found
out of your element reading a script
and you gage me, strike by incessant strike, into the ground

By providence or proxy I've been found
speaking those words so awfully
and you gage me, strike by incessant strike, into the ground
my sensual vixen standing softly

---

i wish i knew
what i could do with you

When my heart beats
Thump thump thump
When my heart breaks
.

what is Real?
What is infatuation?
If i knew one
or the other

i'd stop both!

Dead in their tracks
a shotgun blast
shrapnel of sameness
covering all emotion.

Who wants to be human?
Pain, suffering, love, hate, death;
an android am I,
those emotions cannot touch me.

And then you come
and strip it all away
cold outer shell gone
and i'm back to where i was again

Back to where we're just friends
and i'm infatuated again.
We're just friends
but I'm in love again.

I hope.

---

Beauty

Beauty comes with a price,
high kick and plies
and always being nice,
I take care not to betray

High kick and plies
a cringe I hide
I take care not to betray
how I feel inside

A cringe I hide
with delicate care
how I feel inside
with the face I wear.

With delicate care
and always being nice,
with the face I wear;
beauty comes with a price.

---

Strangle me
My lover
Watch me writhe
my dear

Bleed me dry
dearest love
Mahogany river
Elegant end

Charm me
from my sill
Dropping
Out my window

Sparkling
like a satellite
Orbiting the face
of the west wall

Bitter end
Broken bones
crushed organs
but the cement is fine

Chalk silhouette
Authoritative snickering
modern-art mockery
Picasso on the pavement

To my deity
My only one
Say the word
I'm happy to oblige

One command
uttered in silence
Stinging cold invocation
for Ophelia's caress

Scattered insanity
fibrillation
Gurgle sputter cough
The Masque of Lost Lenore

---

Beacon

Light in the distance
A glimmer in jagged seas
drawing me to her

I succumb, I don't
I fight, I lose, I give up
drowning in the waves

Struggle, breathe, search out
A light draws me, I surface
Beacon guides me here.

Where is here, this place
nothingness, everything, both
all things and yet none

What I have is none
I seek all, have I found it?
She is my light, hope.

Torrents draw me in
but she rescues me from them
Light in the darkness

Just another storm
Is she another sharp edge
Or is she release?

She is Beacon.

--- (Everything here down [within poetry] is more than a year old)

Warriors of Peace

Tired of stories
of death and deceit
of anger and lying
and lives not complete.

What happened to love
and kindness and the like?
When did the world curl it's fist
and with all it's might strike

everyone down to the ground,
into the hole of contempt?
Why can't we crawl back out
of the hole and just reinvent

ourselves as people
and our feelings again?
What happened to the human
spirit, our ability to ascend

above the hardships befallen
and the slums we grow from?
Is this not the same anymore
or was the fight over before it begun?

No!
it does not end here,
pick up yourselves and fight
and your vision will clear

into a hazeless view
of the future that comes
march toward it now
to the beat of the drums

we know so well,
like soldiers we will never stop
we will not end this war
until we win or we drop.

So pick up your arms, comrade,
and don't look so pale.
For this battleground is our stand
and we will not fail.

You see the armies driving now
forward with their cries
they launch themselves toward the prize
and sacrifice their lives

to the cause of peace
that may never be achieved
but they try so hard
for what they firmly believe

so be the same as them
and stand for what you know
So you too will go forth
and strike the vital blow

to this festering hatred
and these war-mongering men.
They wish to destroy us
with their fear-setting trends.

But they will fail as you see,
not because of iron or flint,
but because of our voices
fighting this sorrow and discontent.

So lift your weapon,
your pen, and your voice
and do your part now
the future belongs to your choice.

If your choice goes unheard
yell it all the louder,
scream at the top of your lungs
until the final hour.

And you will be heard,
your opinion recognized.
So, too, your belief
will be finally realized.

---

The King

Languish away on your throne
king of pleasures and of lust
never finding something real
to grasp onto and to trust

down flow his dried up tears
when he does finally realize
it's too late to relive the years
lost on greed, silently he cries

but the tears are inside himself
and never will they appear
he feels the pain but will not show;
never was his happiness sincere

his only feeling is that of regret
for which he cannot now achieve
he will never be truly content
he knows comfort he will never recieve

so his soul is one of stone
bred during years of neglect
he was and is and will be alone
no one with whom he can connect

the stone has grown cold
as has his body's heat gone
and his hair has become white
into himself he has withdrawn

and so the noble king dies
no tears did drape his face
but a smile did once appear
as he has found his final release

---

Hope in Lyrics

always gettin' lost
never bein' found
people tell me things
all I hear: simple sound

I listen hardest I can
but still nothing to know
nothing from them, at least
all I learn from rhythmic flow

bouncin' to the beats
up and down my body goes
immersed in the lyrics
and my knowledge grows

the lyrics are my novels
the albums my text books
I'm always learnin' from 'em
still people give me these looks

they don't understand like me
they do not see like I do
these wavelengths penetrate
the words speak and all is true

I listen and learn my lesson
others' stories and their lives
unfold before me and tell me
how they live in their own eyes

whether is be fightin' like soldiers
or being blessed like o' holy priests
their lives be my learnin' books and
their knowledge gives me all my peace

if they can live successfully
so can I, thank ya very much
it helps me get through nights
that shred of hope, heavens touch

some may not believe that
even me sometimes regretfully
but other times I believe
without doubt and completely

so come and see this freak of nature
this loser who learns from only song
and I can show you beyond the mundane
and wisdom so even you can be strong

Hope for the best
Believe in yourself
Cope with difficult
and conceive the rest

---


False Prize (Freedom)

lying bloody and broken
forgotten by his country
he won't be remembered
cold lists bear his memory

struggle gone unappreciated
come back to your repression
and thronging masses of hate
oh my conduit for agression

freedom but a deception,
a shroud over our eyes
to keep from revolution
tricked into a false prize

we need you yet again
cog in our great war machine
come and fight senselessly
Uncle's good little marine

bleed yourself dry for us
remain faithful to the cause
fight, fight, and fight again
for your petty and useless laws

freedom but a deception,
a shroud over our eyes
to keep from revolution
tricked into a false prize

your priest once told you
to fight for your god
now we are your divinity
die for us whom you laud

country above anything else
before friends, family, child
kill your own blood before we,
for they our name have reviled

freedom's just a conception
of the weak and the blind
to keep them feeling safe
when in truth we are confined

---

White Death

Feel it flowing through your veins
Hissing and fizzing, red hot
Scalding the arteries as it spreads
The capillaries are alive with sensation

White fire, my life, my lust
Give me more, feed me
Jack me up, again I say!
Let me feel the sting, give me life!

Stab me again, you know where
Give me my lifeblood, peon!
I’ll pay your price, whatever it be
Just fill me with your powdery magic

Back again, I cannot stop
I need the rush again, give me more
It’s not the same, more I say!
More and more, I am your patron

Money for your art
Dark as it may be
I need it, its feel
I need my life again

Suck
Stab
Push
Revel
Again
More
More
White
Death

---

Sociopath

The droning of the mob
the little girl that sobs
the people in my mind
they won't all grow blind

Here they come again
I stop and count to ten
one, two three, four...
I trip and fall to the floor

Distracted again, go away
I don't want to hear what you say
You're not real, just my imagination
then I make the vast realization

They're part of me
how couldn't I see
they're my brain
I'm not going insane

Too many, so complicated
so as voices they've resinated
so I'll hear them all, every one
there seems to be a ton

One say get this
another wonders what's amiss
still one more telling me to kill
but another saying take that pill

I've become a sociopath
I'm already a psychopath
kill myself or the one by my side
should I murder or commit suicide

Niether, people want me
people need me
or do they?
the voices won't say.

Should I ask them
should I slaughter them
killing won't help this condition
just take your damn medication

It's in my mouth, it's swallowed
only forty more minutes I have to wallow
in this self doubt, then I'll be normal
in only forty minutes I'll be normal

Just sit and think until then
don't touch anything until then
Don't want to do anything bad
In thirty minutes I won't be sad

Ten more minutes pass
sitting here but alas
it's getting harder to sit here
it's getting harder to battle my fear

they're coming to get me
I have to get away, be free
only twenty more minutes
although this time seems infinite

I have to make it through
I have to so I won't kill you
I have to so I won't kill myself
maybe if I take the book off the shelf

Time will go faster
Please time go faster
Flip through the pages again
the minutes have waned to ten

Come on, almost there
until I have no more fear
Nothing to be afraid of
until I'm in heaven above

Wait again, just five more
this sitting makes me sore
I've been waiting for too long
maybe if I listen to a song

Yes, once the song is over
I'll feel better, like under a cover
I'll be sheltered from my anguish
only one song more I have to manage

one minute left, the song was too short
why was it so short, wasn't that a port?
Oh well, I'm feeling better now, feeling good
What's that warmth, what? Just my blood.

It flows freely now, how'd I do it
I don't remember having a fit
I don't remember the knife in my hand
the gash in my wrist, I don't understand

I'm feeling lightheaded all of a sudden
I'm dizzy, how could this happen?
How did this happen, again I ask how?
Oh well, the medication is working now...

---


Prose

---

"Say it again," growled David Swift, hand on his holster. "I beg you, say it again."

The laps of the sea against the crags below were the only things that spoke for agonizing seconds, a reminder of what the wrong response might garner. The wind tore through Alphonse's sweater and sent a shiver down his spine.

"We come bearing bombs of truth and beauty and no man can stop us!" he shouted. "Go ahead and shoot me, toss my corpse into the watery grave below, it won't make any difference. Your kind, the ugly and disparaged, will be gone after today."

Smoke rolled from Swift's firearm and it roared like thunder. "Truth and beauty bombs?" David scoffed. "Heave that sap over before we are all infected by his special brand of insanity."

He turned just in time to be hit full on by the gentle wave of relaxation that exploded from the center of the city. "No!" Swift exclaimed as he ran back toward the city. But it was already too late as Alphonse had said; there wasn't any sign of misery anywhere within a two mile radius of the epicenter.

With one stroke, the challenge of the city had been ripped away. No more did people care where or how they lived. No more did people try to get higher or better. There was a vile and putrid sense of contentedness wafting from his city now. This would be the beginning of the end.

No more secrets and no more lies. No more anger or unhappiness. Just like that he had become an archaic token from another era, an ugly reminder of the past. David J. Swift felt a fresh tear fall down his cheek, the last tear that would ever be shed in the city. He left, never to be seen again but always to be remembered as the last man of misery within the gates of Heaven.

---

The Provider

The leaves are green and the flowers budding. The trees sway in the breeze and all is right in the world. All is right. The subjects escape from their shallow rhythms into a full tempo: hunting and gathering. As the mothers give birth to litters and cubs and all the wonderfully cute names for equally cute creatures, all is right in the world.

The leaves darken their shades as even the most diminuitive subjects begin their production, and now it is at a maximum. Children grow and ripen as days rise and intensify like the Provider. The subjects remove their coats but still they gather. Still they hunt. Still they play, batting at the mirror of themselves, a playful doppleganger in the stream of life. And still, all is right in the world.

The subjects change. As the sun sets, so too do those gatherers. Finished gathering, they continue on their cycle. With reds, yellows, oranges, and all the colors of the Provider they express their gratitude. Gathering is over and preparations must begin. And all is right in the world.

Or is it? Something is the matter. Something is wrong. Perhaps they got too close to the provider, for now it is mirrored here in a terrible way. As the Provider's punishment sweeps through, his subjects flee. They flee, away from their judgement. Away from the too-large bounty they have claimed, and all is taken away.

After the smoke clears, nothing but waste is left behind. Nothing but ash. The provider mourns, tears falling onto the subjects that incurred his wrath. He becomes sullen, cold, dead. The Provider mourns and nothing is right in the world.

But what is this? A subject with a stubbornness that only comes with youth pokes her little head out. Amid the barren landscape the Provider has punished, amid the ashen landscape a little one pops out. And then another. And another. by example the little ones come from their hiding places and the Provider rejoices! A smile comes over his face and tears of joy sometimes trickle down. With time, more will come out of hiding, and all will be right with the world again. All is right in the world.

---

Hannah

She was beautiful. I remember the day she sat down for me so clearly. Another wave of my life floated up and away as I exhaled the smoke from yet another cigarette. I hadn't smoked since she made me an ultimatum: "Joseph Liam," she had said. Telling her my full name is the only thing I regret. "I love you and you know it, but unless you stop this habit I'm leaving you. I won't have such a thing taking you away from me and I will not be subject to that grief." She always talked as such, so formally, when she was angry. Sometimes I had to keep myself from laughing.

I took another drag and ran my fingers down the cold glass that housed my favorite reminder of her, and turned away. I walked into the kitchen and amongst the garbage found the box of incense and grabbed the bag I'd prepared last night. Today is the thirtieth anniversary of Hannah's death. Today is my last pilgrimage to her, even if I don't know it yet. I open the door. I step out. The sun is just rising from the horizon, cutting through the skyscrapers. My back to the sun, I begin walking.

The first couple of hours are uneventful: shops, buildings, people, cars. The year after her death I began this walk, and I hadn't prepared any water to take with me before hand. "Water is free" I thought in my utterly naive and still perhaps grief-stricken mind. Well, let me tell you this: water is NOT free. In fact, a gallon of it is almost fifteen dollars if you buy it in 20-ounce bottles. I argued for nigh twenty minutes on the cost of the water that day but the shopkeeper, Omar, never did budge. In any case, on my 29th time past these shops, it was uneventful.

By ten o'clock, I was out of the city and walking south. It's August, just like every year, and the trees are the color of a sunset. Reds, oranges, yellows. Beautiful. On the seventh year of my pilgrimage, I stopped and ate lunch not far from here. Moodies' was the name of the diner. Had a nice outdoor patio where you could sit, smoke, and watch the leaves change as you do it. It was actually quite a popular restaurant. I say "was" so many times because on the eighth year, when I came back across it, it was a burned-out building. I didn't eat lunch that year. As I walk past Moodies' now, the trees that made it such a popular restaurant are now beginning to overtake the remnants of the surviving framework. I stop here for fifteen minutes today, eat lunch, and watch the leaves change.

After lunch I begin walking again. It's eleven-thirty now, give or take a few minutes. This route is always nice and shaded from the sun; at least it has been since I started walking it. Around 1:45, as the sun is beginning its downward slant to meet up with the western horizon (though it's still very high in the sky now) I reach where Hannah crashed. My monument, worn by the elements and knocked to the ground by a mixture of those elements, the carelessness of man, and wild animals is broken into a few pieces, and the picture is ripped. I set my bag down and right the monument. From my bag I then take a hammer, nails, and some bits of wood. The first time I found it in such condition (it amazingly stayed in pretty good shape until that, the ninth, year) I was furious. I made Rosalyn, who had just gotten her license not three days before, drive out with my tools so I could fix it. These days I brought my tools with and fixed it when it was broken. After I had done that, I replaced the old picture with a new copy, which I had to do every year. I took a stick of incense and let it burn.

"Hannah..." I spoke aloud. "I know you're disappointed in me, so today I've decided to stop again." I fished the pack of cigarettes from my pocket, removed the rest of the plastic, and burned those with the incense. "I... I just hope that's the only way I've disappointed you." I sat for a while, watching the smoke from the cigarettes and incense twist together and rise to the heavens. Finally, I stomped out the remaining smolders from the cigarette package and gently extinguished the incense. I left another stick, unlit, there. I don't know why I did it, it's just another tradition. Really, the incense itself didn't become a tradition until the thirteenth year. I think she would have liked it. When I left, it was around two-thirty. I began to head back east.

The shortest and most uneventful part of my pilgrimage followed. No trips down memory lane here, nothing angering or eventful ever took place on this part of the walk. This walk, the walk between the crash-site and the graveyard, was the solemn part of my walk where I walked in silence and self-examination. At the end of this trek is Rosalyn, our daughter. Ever since she found out where I went every year on this day when she was sixteen (before I had her stay with friends or had a babysitter stay with her) she came here with me. Thirty-six and she hasn't missed once in twenty years. It's now seven-forty and the sun is starting to match the leaves. I walk down the aisles of gravestones and meet up with our daughter. "You're getting slower every year, daddy." She still calls me daddy.

I smile. "I'm sorry, honey." I take another stick of incense out from my bag and put it on the well-kept incense holder on the top of the gravestone. I light it, hold my daughter, and we bow our heads. In the old days when we would come here (I of course brought her other times when she was younger) and even when she began coming here with me on this day, of her own device, she would be the one crying and I would end up driving her home. Today, however, I am the one who lets loose a tear. Rosalyn looks at me and I can't do anything but smile my bittersweet smile. Even with tragedy, we survived and our daughter turned out something wonderful. As I bowed my head, I saw: she had brought Hannah's favorite flowers. I composed myself and spoke; “Ross, hon, are you ready to go?"

"Whenever you are, daddy." We walked to her car after extinguishing the incense and she drove me home. "Do you want to come in and have a cup of coffee, Ross?" I offered. She shook her head and gave me a hug. "I need to get back to Jack and the kids." I smiled and kissed her forehead. "Okay, honey. Be careful." "I will, daddy."

That night, Hannah came to me in a dream. "I see you finally quit, Joseph Liam." Her face was tight in a frown, but even then she was beautiful. And then, the frown softened into her even more beautiful smile. "You did a wonderful job." I couldn't do anything but smile as she took me into her embrace.

---

Eggshell Shards and Oxblood Kisses

I pant, I sweat, and I drop my brush. It's finished, and the oxblood red paint drips down her eggshell wall, the words I've scrawled mixing with each other in their giant-sized print. I look upon my creation, a simple "I love you," each letter in its four-foot majesty. Even in its simplicity, there is nothing more I could say, and even in its sweeping generalization words so true were never written, spoken, or even fathomed.

Why, then, do I vandalize her apartment? Well, usually I suppose this would be the time to tell a story, but it's a story anyone who's ever lived, anyone who's ever loved, anyone who's ever hated knows. A story that cannot be fathomed by any amount of words, and if a picture is worth any amount of words at all, by any amount of pictures. The story that can only be felt deep down in the bowels of the soul (not to imply that those feelings are refuse, but instead that they are deep within even the deepest reaches of the psyche) so that it reverberates upward and spills out, singing the melancholy melody of relationships that were from the depths of being. But that doesn't answer the question.

The truth is, though, that even the answer I give will not be definite, for the only answer I could even begin to explain is somewhat of a great riddle in itself. Nevertheless, with all confidence, the answer I must give is this: love and hate are two sides of the same blade. Thus, even as the indignant wave that I've succumb to washes over me and guides my hand on the downstroke, the upstroke becomes my loving embrace in some sick, twisted way. When I vandalize her apartment, I vandalize it in a loving way. I take my time, looking around, remembering the things that were hers, and the things that were ours. The latter I cannot help but treat with almost holy regard, the former I cannot help but despise with the same depth of soul that I would sing our song. I kiss the things that were ours with my paint, the things that were hers with my violent demeanor, with my fist and my foot until all around me lie but shattered hatred and painted love.

Deviant passion is my noble blade, cutting with hatred and love both.

--- (Everything from here down [within Prose] is a year or older)

Closer

We had a couple of drinks, that's all.

We laughed and giggled and drank and schmoozed until the bar closed at 2. I don't know who got the idea, but after it closed we all piled into our car and headed over to the old amusement park. We were in such high spirits that I guess the name just beconed us, I mean how could we not go somewhere that promised amusement, even if it was closed for the year. So we got there and we drank some more, John always had a secret stash in his car, and we laughed in red-nosed delight. We found the house of mirrors, and that was a blast. It took us a whole hour to get out of that damn thing, but all the time we were in there just seemed to fly by as we searched so diligently for the way out. It was great fun, we all agreed. Really, the only person that didn't think it was all that great was Cassidy. For some reason, the running into mirrors and our jeering as we ourselves ran into the them just pissed her off even more, the only thing I can think of for her anger now is that she's an angry drunk. I don't know, though, 'cause that was the first time that she'd gone with us.

She refused to get back in the car when it was time to go, and it wasn't because she was having so much fun. She just seemed so angry at us, and so we thought we'd cheer her up a little by scaring her, that always seemed to work on everyone, you know. Scare 'em out of their skin and they just seem to loosen up so much, it's kinda weird actually. Anyways, John got the car and we all piled in, minus Cassidy. We decided the best way to scare her would be to pretend we were going to run over her. She'd jump out of the way and maybe scrape her ankle. Maybe she wouldn't want to walk anymore after that and we could just carry her into the car and go home and have something to talk and laugh about the next day. We don't get hangovers, you know.

"Come on, Cassy!" we called. "You better get in the damn car right now or we'll run you over!!!" Laughter resounded in the car, but she just gave us a look like she was going to come over and beat us all down and then trash the car. Instead, though, she just turned the other way and started walking. "Alright," I yelled to her. "Here we come!!!" And we did. John revved the engine and we took off toward her. She turned and screamed. Instead of jumping, she screamed and we hit her. Well, she didn't walk, alright. Or breathe, either. We brought her to the emergency room, but it was too late. A mistake none of us would forget and all of us would regret.

Now, you'd think this would make us give up drinking or something like that, but it didn't. On the contrary, the one-year anniversary of Cassy's death we drove to the amusement park again, this time with baseball bats, and got totally smashed again. We went back to the House of Mirrors, but this time instead of finding our way through it we did something different. We dragged our bats to it and broke every mirror in the damn place, trying to climb into a world where the car got hit by her and she just got back in after stubbing her toe. It became a ritual, we do it every year. We even bring our own mirrors just in case they're not replaced.

This year I could have sworn I heard her voice again, not just her scream. I think we're finally gettin' closer.

---

I knelt down and prayed to God, I prayed for Him to make people like me. I prayed for Him to let me help them. All I ever wanted to do was help, and He saw this. He smiled upon me, and I felt the warmth of His smile upon me like rays of sunshine cast down from Heaven. I knew he had granted my plea, I would now be able to help people, and they would like me for it. I stood and whispered another thanks to the Almighty and left the Chapel. People smiled at me for the first time as I left there, not giving me dirty looks as they always did. It was amazing.

I decided right then that I would aid people with my powers, whatever they might be. I figured they would awaken themselves when I truly needed them. Walking home from the Chapel I encountered more and more friendly faces; I felt loved by the whole world. I continued my trod toward the railstation and home, and I happened upon a man that was carrying a package. He looked strong and somehow deviant. And then he sneered at me, and I knew it: he was stealing goods. Amazing that people have the gaul to take things in broad daylight, and even further to sneer at passer-bys as they knew they were deceiving them, doing it right in front of them with them none the wiser. Not me, though, for God had bestowed upon me special powers, they must have been of perception. I saw right through his ruse. "Put down that package, thief!" I said with great conviction, extending my arm and pointing in a grandiose stance reminiscent of the superhero comics I had read in my younger days.

"I dun' know what you talkin' 'bout, buddy," he said defiantly. "Now get outta me way, I gots a job ta do." he was still smiling. It sickened me how calm he was: shrugging off my conviction, which he and I knew to be true, with such causality. It infuriated me, and I stood up to him. "I know you're stealing, now stop or I will stop you!"

I stood directly in his path to the van he was undoubtedly using for a getaway and transport vehicle. "Get outta my way ya ********' crackpot," he ordered me. I stood unmoving, unwavering. I would not let this brute, this common crook, order me around. But then he did something uncalled for, he roughly grabbed my shoulder and pushed me to the ground, tossing me aside like I was some piece of trash hindering his work. I stuck around him and, luckily, found a heavy pipe lying on the ground. I picked it up and swiftly, powerfully with the gifts God had given me, knocked him out cold with a blow to the back of the head. He was bleeding a bit, but I was sure I didn't kill him, superheroes never kill the villians. Then I noticed: his van, his clothes. U-HAUL. My god, was I wrong? I couldn't have been, God had given me the power of perception, hadn't he? I ran, flee the scene of the crime, though just who committed the crime was now unsure. I darted past many people, all smiling. Smiling as if they knew what I had done, that I had struck that man. They betrayed me, every one of them; they just smiled. They knew.

I finally arrived at the second leg of my way home: the subway station. Jogging, I made it to the subway car. I didn't look at the people in the subway, they would undoubtedly know. I had to think. THINK. I went through my previous actions of the day. The prayer, the knowledge of the crime. The confrontation, the attack. I ran them through my mind a million times. And the car caught me off guard, it began to move. I was only lightly holding onto the rail in the tighly packed car, and accidentally backed into a person. I looked back to apologize, and they were smiling. Just like everyone else. They all smiled at me, all day. And then it hit me, everyone DID smile at me that day. God had given me a superpower, alright. My super power is everyone smiles at me. As I look around the car, I scan all the faces. They all smile half-hearted, sneering smiles. I don't know who to trust.

---

Colors dance across my eyesight, preventing me from reading what I write, and I recall my day... Waking unusually early, before the proverbial rooster call and mumbling to myself about whatever that sound was that reverberated between my eardrums like a car colliding against a brick wall at 60 miles an hour.

The old ears, 18 ripe years, don't work as they used too. Good thing I can usually guess when the sounds come on my hearing test or I might have an aural aide which would definitely not be used, just as the optic aides. Don't need no fancy hearing contraptions here, one-hundred percent American made human here, needn't any alchemist's magic to calm myself or any glassblower's spheres to see. Back to the waking up, my mind wanders like a lost child in a Super Wal-Mart toy aisle.

Being born on the bayou describes my recent aural fixation as the previous was the father grabbing his morning coffee before he daftly dashed out of the door, or was it his mind? One can never be too sure when it runs faster than he can himself. I wander in as he rushes out, circulating into the kitchen rotation to survey the contradiction of the emptiness of my completely full cupboard, nothing to consume, as would be expected. After scrounging through the crumbs and boxes I finally settle on a pastry, toaster oven not included. That's alright, ovens never really enjoyed my company much anyhow.

Now on my epic journey of ten steps into the computer room. Plop, I fall into the same scratchy chair, readily a bed. Look over the daily publications, it is Monday after all. The tediously angsty artists I so much identify with update today, or do when their angst doesn't beat them into a lifeless bag of loathing and self-acrimony that pumps out but a few words as "i'm sorry i suck it'll be up later today" The fans will surely denounce this accusation, but who knows the author better than himself?

Mail? I have mail you say? Lets look? Buxom beauties at my visual disposal for only ten measly dollars? Surely you must jest, mister cumguzzler. Only a terrorist would make such a wily accusation, I must delete this before you infect my computer with your anti-nationality; what a crime against the capitalistic state this is. And what's this? My entertainment espionage agent reports to me again? Oh, right, daily investigations into the nature of this generation's favorite past-time, interactive television. More reports on the next earth-shattering moment, happening once every three years, or however long it takes to contrive and impose another story upon those whose souls you have already secured.

Now that I've gotten my morning injection of the glowing box of misinformation and the world's fantasies it's time to tame the beast which I once called my residence, but has recently taken up new tenants of the arachnidian class, such a biting class they be. My search and cleanup operation begins anew with a new day, not only to eliminate but to contain the contents of my room. Tedius work, creating and seperating piles of unneeded effects which have been recently spread throughout this white-walled prison without bars. My measely attempts at personalization of this lifeless room seem nothing, still so white with my tasteless papers hiding minute amounts of the blinding color of pigmental nothingness. Now comfortably numb within my ears as my mind wanders to mid-day feeding time, before which a mattress tries to hide my fallacious attempts at covering nothing. As the misnomered sea-chicken is intertwined with mayo the beginning credits of Executive Decision begin to roll, I hasten past the warnings against copying my physical property tell me the dangers of copying someone's mind, regulating the replication to only certified herds of ignorance.

After such a visual attraction I found myself finished, but not nearly complete, with my search for the vermin in my cube of space, and found myself attacking virtual people with my automatic rifle. Oddly insipid, I retired from the bloodshed which has brightened such a great many years. After which, somnolent wistful serenades of foreign artists vocalizing what one Ash Williams once-doppleganger might call 'teh 3v1l'. After drifting between the realms of consciousness and starbucks I found myself back in my languish-inducing surroundings, nothingness on the walls, an unofficial cathedra, and 3v1l musical stylings. Ah, home, sweet home.

Oh my goodness... Well you two have been linked up. I'll be able to eat a whole meal still not be done with Bishop's post. XD

Tsuji had me thinking of... Corduroy? biggrin

Bishop, I be enjoying "Beauty" a lot. A 10 out of 5.

YAY SHORT STORY IN LIKE AN HOUR I GUES!!!S

definite no from me! i wish i could post anything half as good as our post. im working on all my projects now, i have some bad audio tracks and poetry that arent quite ready yet