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The Day After

the world looked dull

it was too hot for autumn

the ponds dried up

the flowers turned yellow

the campus echoed with screams

we made a suicide pact

i wasn't joking

they told us nothing changed:

there were still good people and bad people

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Thirteen red stars glitter on my floor. I have declared Martial Law on love and the home.

Horrible things were happening and I can't remember anything but the feeling. I hear the buzz of street lamps and their simmering orange glow looks like the harvest moon. They changed me.

l asked you to stay. I promised to change with you, to return with you. On moonless nights, I know you are still there. Love, I changed. The real me lurks beneath the armor, and you see right through it. I know you. I can close my eyes and find you blind. I love you. I trusted you.

Wish on the first star you see at night every night you see a star. I will come back. I have to. Far away a field grows gentle flowers that cradle the skin and kiss you back to life. Everyone I ever loved has come from there. Thirteen red-petaled poppies die in my hand as the field burns an angry orange.

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something i find very important when writing is to learn from other mediums. i'm currently watching videos about arcane's amazing storytelling (namely the visuals) that keep stressing the idea of not insulting your audience

decrease in media literacy notwithstanding, it's important to remember your readers can piece things together. keeping that in mind will help you “show, don't tell”. things don't always need to be explicitly spelled out

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every night i forget what i learned the night before

tonight i'm going down to the tracks, walking the road barefoot. it is cooling off and the crickets are warming up as the sun sets. i know i'm there when i feel iron beneath my feet. i cannot see the graffiti, but i run my hand along the wall and write my name until the can is empty. it still doesn't feel real, but neither do i. i step back to admire my work in the sudden light and the crickets stop but the train does not. with a wall to either side, the only way to run is forward, and the only way to feel alive is to feel like i might die

tomorrow i will go down to the tracks

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she’s crying as i get in the car, fat tears rolling down behind black lenses as she confesses i murdered a mother duck

what a strange situation. curious, even, to use such phrasing, but she tearfully explains the crime

a highway. a car. a mother and her children. swerving. blood.

no confirmation of death; the highway is not a place for stopping, only for remorse and a red mirror

she’s crying and i’m silent. what can i say? i feel so small, a duckling dwarfed by metal murder, as i silently ask

let my mother be okay

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i used to believe in god when i was younger, but now i can't go anywhere blindly (which is to say i would've followed my father anywhere until i saw where he was going)

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“Of course I don’t trust you. But I love you. Isn’t that worth staying for?”

—c.e. victor // if the rain comes

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The Shopping List I Found Written on His Arm in Pen

notebooks / a notebook / the smallest notebook money can buy / 0.7 HB pencil lead / gift eards / jump rope / as many OTC meds as you can get without funny looks being thrown in for free / bleach / a hug that doesn't feel like choking / flowers / a last meal / more paper / another chance / more lead / another chance / more bleach / another chance

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In Which Isaac Dies

If all the angels came down from on high

trumpets trumpeting, thousand eyes swirling ‘round

I would laugh and ask How can you play your trumpets

with a thousand eyes but no mouths?

There isn't a parasite in the world that loves its host

There wasn't until humans, anyway

God told a father to kill his son because He did it once

and it felt kinda nice, sin as it was, wrong as it is to be Cain

You can break anything you make, and He made the rules

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and now they’re coming up with their own backstories for me. like fym you know this guy?? alright man sure

i love when the characters start writing themselves

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my problem is i want to write every kind of story—space adventure, superhero, pirate, magical fantasy world, all of it—because what’s more enticing than a world entirely of your own design? it’s why i enjoy writing so much; i get to create this wondrous world and the most interesting people living in it