strawberrygorechata

[strawberrygorechata]

jesus watches from the wall,

but his face is cold as stone,

and if he loves me

as she tells me

why do I feel so all alone?

they’re all gonna laugh at you, ethel

[strawberrygorechata]

Incredibly small among the rubble and the noises from the Divine Machine that Man built, you look around you in a futile attempt to take it all in. Is this the God you praise?

[strawberrygorechata]

Penance

Shimmering in my eyelids disturb oblivion

Nothingness is contained solely within my skin

But light threatens to break apart my self imposed isolation

It leaves a warm imprint where it passes,

Entitled to shine on those marks left by the past;

“Have you no shame?” say the faithful,

Scorn is not enough for someone tainted by familiar hands.

They see them raised, ever closer to God

Praise be! As they rain upon the sinful and the odd

May these welts ooze temptation until I’m clean

Though I am not a gambler 

I’m betting that I deserve it.

Maybe then the odds will favor me, 

And I’ll buy my way to heaven.

My first words called out for my procreators

Born with “Sorry” embedded in my lips,

I had betrayed my first command

So I learned the meaning of the word first hand.

Then learned to pray with mine raised.

God fills the hearts of those that follow him with joy,

So who am I following that filled mine with dread? A ring around my finger didn’t ease the feeling

But I was taught redemption came through penance

Please scorch my sins so they stop bleeding

Burns meant nothing when crucifixion lay ahead

This dark blood of mine shall turn into wine

Quench the thirsty and scour their insides.

[strawberrygorechata]

-rough beginnings beg for softness.

[strawberrygorechata]

-through the tears lay sharp teeth.

[strawberrygorechata]

[strawberrygorechata]

We all bleed the same, it's just that it pours from different wounds.

[strawberrygorechata]

// IMAGE POSTED ON ONLINE BOARD, ANONYMOUS USER CLAIMS TO HAVE FOUND IT ON THE RIVERBANK HE FREQUENTS WHEN HE GOES FISHING.

whose fucken kid doin these freaky shits? i relly hope their bullied at school because these cringy as hell loool medicate yo kids y'all

// FURTHER QUESTIONING UNNECESSARY, POSTER'S POSTS AFTERWARDS ARE FISHING AND LOCAL LITTLE-LEAGUE RESULTS.

[strawberrygorechata]

Fingers

Sparks fly and a flame flickers on, waving violently, threatening to extinguish soon if it’s not sheltered from the wind. Burly, callous hands prevent this outcome, as another brings the lighter closer to an unlit and roughed up cigarette. The quiet crackling of the tobacco burning as its owner takes a long drag is suddenly interrupted by the louder clicking of the Zippo being closed. 

A faint, orange glow illuminates some features of the man’s face; flat nose but a thick bridge, slightly crooked and scarred over from multiple fights, dry thick lips, threatened to be covered by a mostly graying beard, green eyes that had lost their shine years ago, bushy eyebrows, uneven since his left eyebrow was missing the external end, which had a faded but still noticeable scar. 

He stared at the blank space between trees, at first because he wanted to rest his eyes from staring at bark all day, but he ended up doing so because it somehow felt more dangerous to take his eyes off of it. 

Another uninterrupted, deep drag provoked the orange glow to reignite and crawl towards his fingers. The warm feeling became burning and without processing it, he let go of the cigarette, which landed between the interlocking, exposed roots of the vegetation around him.

“Fuck.” He said to himself.

He quickly looked around to try and find it, as if it could ignite the whole forest and burn all of the possible evidence, and with it any chance of finding that kid that had gone missing a few days ago. Pulling the lighter out of his coat pocket, he shed light over the forest’s floor and knelt down to try and fish it out of any of the crevices and holes. A sudden gust of wind took out the weak flame, sinking everything around him back into darkness. His eyes struggled to get accustomed to the changing lighting as he struck the flint with increasing desperation. 

With each strike, the whitened system of roots increasingly resembled pale, lifeless fingers interlocking with each other, not in the way that mortuaries place the deceased’s hands to make them look like they’re resting, but rather as if each hand was pulling down on the other in an attempt to escape from the cold and moist ground, where the insects tunneled and ate everything that had nutrients in it. His breathing became labored and louder than the wind blowing around him.

He sprung back up and closed his eyes tightly, trying not to let 40 years of grisly experience turn into a weapon against him.

“Not here.” He thought. “Think about something else.”

The image of a roughed-up adult kneeling down to find the still-lit butt as if he was a tobacco-dependent teenager who could only manage to hide a single Pall Mall from his strict parents made him laugh to himself, helping him overcome the unnerving sensation that had just washed over him.

A beam of light washed over him, seeing that reddish glow through his eyelids and hearing the steps of one of the search volunteers. 

“Markus, we’re heading back to town, I’m buying beers for our party. You coming?” Said a young woman, her voice slightly shaking as she went over the rougher parts of terrain. 

He slowly shielded his eyes from the light with his right hand, “Stop shining that flashlight directly on my corneas and I’ll think about it.” 

“Right, so sorry.” She said quietly, lowering her flashlight.

He nodded and walked towards her.

Moonlight took over what was hers and a faint, bluish glow illuminated the forest once again, slowly giving permission for the rest of the creatures in it to continue with their cycles. Under the roots that provoked Markus to struggle to maintain composure laid a single hiking boot, in the insole tag read the initials LS, almost faded to the elements. What seemed to be fingers held onto the laces, slowly dragging it into the mud.

[strawberrygorechata]

RESEARCH ENTRY #1

// K9 UNITS FOUND ABANDONED, PARTIALLY TORN AND BURNT SLEEPING BAG BURIED UNDERNEATH SUPERFICIAL MULCH LAYER. INSIDE OF WHICH A SEARCH PATROL VOLUNTEER FOUND A HUNTING JOURNAL THAT APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN SIMILARLY TREATED, DUE TO WHICH SOME OF THE CONTENTS WERE UNRETRIEVABLE AFTER RESTORATION ATTEMPT.

[REMAINING LEGIBLE CONTENT OF FIRE DAMAGED HUNTING JOURNAL FOUND AT SCENE]

11/02/1993

City folk love talking about how quiet it is when they leave their suburban homes and enter the quiet outskirts of the forest, and how nature blossoms and the air clears up.

They never go any deeper though, staying only as far as they are able to see the night lights of a life they claim to be escaping from. I never liked pretending to be listening to them while they excitedly asked me what camping spots were good since I “seemed to know the area”, then watching them pretend to enjoy the diner food they well know is the same they force themselves to eat downtown. 

They don’t know how loud it really gets in the forest, especially at night when predators prowl around, looking to hunt the creatures that couldn’t find refuge in their underground tunnels, hollow trees, or even because they couldn’t keep quiet while hiding from them. The scuttling of the leaves when one of them senses that pending doom looming above their heads, followed by unnerving silence, as every living creature holds their breath hoping that they are not the ones found, ending with sudden sounds of struggle and squeals of agony. Rinse and repeat.

There’s a reason why I stopped coming to sleep here, but now the noises at home are just as bad, if not worse, than the sounds of the food chain in action. There’s something calming about knowing that I’m the apex predator in this forest, like the status itself protects me from following the same fate as everything scurrying about around me. I become the loud thud in the night that decides when silence starts, even if for a moment. I wonder if that’s what he feels when he’s drunk and [SCRIBBLED OVER].

12/02/1993

Came back home around 4 am after the wind blowing through the trees woke me up and the air going through the knitting of the branches started sounding like loud whispers. It freaks me out when things sound like something they could never be.

He was passed out on the couch, reeking of piss and alcohol and barely illuminated by the distorted image of our CRT TV. He probably hit it again. I stood in front of him for a few minutes, trying to see if he’d wake up if I disturbed him enough. He didn’t, so I kicked his dirty leather boot a little, which made him snore as he adjusted his skull around the headrest, scratching his neck and squinting his eyes. I don’t understand how he can sleep so peacefully, knowing what he does when he’s awake. 

My hands felt red hot and itchy, I reached into my pant pocket where I kept my skinning knife and reassured myself with the same lie:

“One day.”

[AUTHOR SKETCHED A PORTRAIT OF A MIDDLE-AGED MAN WITH AN ANGERED EXPRESSION] // FOOTNOTE: K9 UNITS FOUND WHAT SEEMED TO BE BLOODY RAGS PLACED INSIDE A HOLLOW TRUNK, AFTER INSTRUCTING THE CANINES TO FOLLOW THE TRAIL, THE TWO ELDEST REFUSED AND STARTED SHOWING SIGNS OF AGGRESSION TOWARDS ANYONE REATTEMPTING INSTRUCTION. YOUNGEST K9, HOWEVER, SHOWED EAGERNESS TO FOLLOW THE TRAIL, TO THE POINT OF ESCAPING HANDLER AND DISAPPEARING UNDERNEATH BURROW, ATTEMPTS TO FIND UNIT PROVED UNSUCCESSFUL. ATTEMPTS TO FIND ANOTHER EXIT TO THE TUNNEL PROVED UNSUCCESSFUL, LENGTH OF TUNNEL EXCEEDED WIRED CAPACITY OF AVAILABLE EQUIPMENT.

[strawberrygorechata]

Cocoon

Your love felt like a sheet of silk, 

Softly wrapping around my body,

Lightly caressing my skin,

Tingling my eyelashes, my neck,

Holding at first with weakened grip,

Afraid that if I tugged too hard I’d rip it apart

But silk is more resilient than we give it credit for.

You held me up like a cocoon,

And placed me on a branch under your shadow,

Rays of light would shine through and make patterns on my skin,

Marking the spots where you would leave your lipstick.

I wanted to tattoo that shimmer, so that you would kiss me forever.

Suddenly you were interested in the shining of distant glimmers,

Though you said you thought naught of it 

Claiming that you preferred a familiar glow over distant glints,

Yet I knew that reaching stars was not an impossible task,

For I had reached you.

I then held on to dear life, as you had become all of mine.

Autumn came and your leaves left,

Dried up, your branches had now become sharp edges,

Windy nights threatened to guide them towards the silk,

But you seemed disinterested in keeping them at bay,

Choosing instead to watch that same wind,

Guide your leaves towards the night sky.

I felt the silk slowly tighten,

At first so slight it felt accidental,

Until it clutched my neck and made my chest heave.

Resentment irradiated from the threads that I unraveled,

Animalistic attempt to escape from what felt like divine punishment,

I had gotten so comfortable that the rope around my neck went unnoticed.

Now all windy nights did,

Was help me sway.

[strawberrygorechata]

Pretty Flower

Your words of tenderness rung hollow

As if rehearsed for this purpose, 

To try and trick into a sense of security

A justification behind your actions and behaviors.

Unfixable, inevitable.

A beautiful flower with hypnotizing colors,

Enticing scent,

Pearly dew drops resting peaceful on its petals

It glistened even surrounded by darkened mist.

Even its mysterious nature was alluring.

So I understood when you reached towards,

Held it on your hands, 

Afraid not of hurting yourself,

Rather worried about damaging its portrait.

When the hidden thorns sprung behind timid leaves,

And made way past your skin and into your softest tissues,

It was already too late to take it all back.

The pained expression that was about to slip out from your lips;

Censored

Pushed back by slender fingers that felt cold and soothing,

Fighting against the warmth that loomed, 

Despite the remedial energy from them, 

They rested callous over your lips,

Shushing every concern and complaint.

He then took your hands and pried them away from his flower.

With doe eyes, glossy and blurry, you were blinded,

All senses overwhelmed, vulnerable. 

One hand still over your wound, he put the other around your neck

And squeezed.

Familiar harm, a threat you attempted to scrub from buried memories.

A sign that for others meant nothing but danger,

But for you it was a language you had been forced to be fluent in,

He was thirsty.

So you stretched your arm,

Placed your bleeding hand over his flower

And clenched, dug your nails into sore flesh

Until you wrung out a drop of blood,

And watered him.

[strawberrygorechata]

Fugue State

The intermittent reminder that the elevator descends floor after floor on its way to me serves as a tempo for my thoughts to drift away from the present without having to lose myself in the hypothetical. I wonder if one day I will be unable to find my way back to the helm behind my mind, like a maze, growing and shrinking, twisting previously straight paths and collapsing walls, creating new ways to lose myself within it. I always visualize the great emptiness that looms over me, and that mystery without walls terrifies me more than the apparent safety of my own walls.

A sharp alarm warns that it is time to return to myself, to a reality that we have convinced ourselves remains objective, with natural and invisible but immutable laws; they seem to serve a similar function to the walls of my unconscious, but on a more global scale. It is better to know that things will happen a certain way, without a way to change the outcome, than to live in a reality where these rules do not exist and everything remains unknown.

In an act that borders on routine, I let my legs guide my body into the metal container I rely on daily, its shape closer to a coffin than any other method of transportation, yet I always push the thought into the corner of my spontaneous thoughts, in favor of carrying on with my day. The metal doors creak behind me, and the routine continues.

Fluorescent lights flickering, as if an entity observed me; it evoked no fear in me, it was as if a curious child had just discovered an ants nest in the midst of their feeding cycle. In a way, I was similar to them. I wondered if the ants have ever gazed back, so I decided to find an answer through my own experience.

Looking up, I realize the elevator ceiling panels are gone, and seeing the dark void growing above me reminds me of the infinity looming over my mental maze. I was in the midst drowning in horror when I felt the impact of a small object on my body, followed by a metallic sound on the ground. Surprised, I searched around me for the source. Its shine gave it away: a corroded washer.

The twisted and corroded iron is analogous to my brown eyes, rapidly dilating in fear as I felt the same immutable laws of nature that inhabited my distracted mind moments before; gravity, pulling this metal coffin to my point of origin. Six feet underground.