diphthongsfordays

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characters who see themselves as more of a Force or an abstract concept acting in the world than as a person. characters who prioritize their role as a cog in some greater mechanism over their own personhood. characters who get their hands dirty, who run themselves ragged, who take on an unbearable weight, who hurt or neglect or give up or straight-up betray the people and things they once held close, because they believe in doing so they are fulfilling their Purpose, the thing they exist in this world to do (and no one else will do it, *can* do it, so it has to be them). characters who've determined that they are constructs bound to preprogrammed code, to a script already written for them by someone/something else, and have been operating under that mindset for so long that they don't know how to live on their own terms. characters who uphold the fate that is smothering them. can anyone hear me

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How to subtly show the passage of time in your narrative

For instances where actual concrete numbers would be either jarring or unrealistic for your characters to know, like if they’re castaways in a remote region, prisoners of war, under house arrest and unable to access technology, or any other situation where a character cannot ground themselves in a reliable timeline. Or simply in fantasy settings that don't tell time in concrete numbers.

Giving your readers actual numbers can be jarring, whether it’s explicit measurements of things that invites readers to do the math that you might not have (thus risking plot holes), looking out of place in your narrative style, or giving numbers your characters realistically wouldn’t know.

Things like a 60lb bag of dog food, or an 8ft ladder, or a 2 liter bottle are different. Those are common measurements most people come across in conversation or otherwise. Taking an aside to make sure your readers know that a kiddie wagon is 3.5 feet long is… weird. Unless the story demands that, for some reason, this measurement is critical knowledge.

Passage of time is the same, and even more prone to potential plot holes. If you’re writing a story where time is critical, like characters are on a mission and timing must be perfect, then lacking numbers would be strange.

Anything else, though, and in the real world, we estimate all the time. “It’ll take maybe 45 mins” we say, not “it’ll take maybe 36 mins”.

But if you’re in a situation where characters don’t have clocks and calendars, their estimates should be broader and broader and more hyperbolic. “Talking for hours” “sleeping for days” etc. Otherwise, how do they have an exact sense of how much time has passed, and why is a specific number important? Readers can tell when a character or narrator is being hyperbolic.

If you want to get even more vague and subtle, you can either have characters notice environmental details, or clue the reader in without characters even knowing.

I think I’ve mentioned this already, but my go-to here for cases that last months is characters commenting on how long their hair has gotten, or the narration saying something like, “their hair has grown out over their eyes”.

But there’s a bunch of others

How thick the dust is on their surroundings

If the leaves on the trees have changed colors, grown back in, or fallen off

How long their fingernails are

How chipped nail polish has become

How nasty bruises have faded and changed colors

How much weight they’ve lost or gained

How much mold is on bread, or how much food has been eaten or rotten

How many cobwebs/spiderwebs have appeared

How desiccated the corpses of frogs or lizards have become

How grey their hair is, or their dog’s fur

How many weeds are growing in the sidewalk or in the gutters of their house

How many leaves are covering the lawn

How faded paint has become

How far natural roots have grown out, or hair dye has faded

All of those tend to be a more negative passing of time so here’s some lighthearted ones

How full the refrigerator door has become with children’s drawings

How cluttered the dresser is now with family photos

How warn a favorite pair of jeans/shoes or sweater is

How big kittens or puppies have grown

How many baby clothes don’t fit anymore

How many gummy fingerprints are all over the sliding glass doors

How worn the couch cushions are

How the floor is all scratched from dog nails or toy wheels

How much fur is everywhere

No matter what, even if characters do have clocks and calendars at the ready, you can still be subtle about it. Yet another example of showing, instead of telling, in about the same amount of words.

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Anyone who has ever written a “we’re running from our pursuers in the snow” fic–

You leave a huge goddamn trail in snow. Folks can see where you went. 

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If you want to “shock your audience” maybe you should just try writing a good story.

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The way necromancy works is this: Everything in your body — meat, bones, skin, blood — has something like a memory. They remember, in their own way, what it’s like to be alive. Skin remembers the sun. Bones remember what shape they’re suppose to be in. Muscle memory is more than just an idiom.

The way necromancy works is that the caster puts a little bit of their willpower into a corpse to order it to remember how it functioned in life and obey. This is easiest to do with bones, which are easy to trick, and becomes increasingly difficult the more of the original body remains.

To reanimate a full body to your command, you have to have a lot of willpower.

The necromancer checked the map. She checked the map again. She squinted up at the stars, lips moving silently. Then, taking the lantern off its hook, she peered over the side of the little sailboat.

There wasn't much to see. The sea was dark and still as glass, except where the lanternlight turned a patch of seawater a yellowish-green. A tiny fish flitted into the gleam, attracted to the light, and then vanished into the murk again.

The necromancer chewed the inside of her cheek. She sat down again, the boat bobbing gently with the movement, and checked the map one more time. Then she opened the little wooden case on the floor of the boat, which unfolded into a neat arrangement of drawers.

There were. Things. In the drawers. Some wriggled. Others twitched little beetly legs into the night air. A few of them made noises, which ran together into a squeaky, wheezy squeal of horror.

The necromancer twiddled her fingers over the display as she considered her options. Then she grabbed a few of the twitching, wriggling things, held them in her palm and squeezed her hand into a fist as tightly as she could with a squelching noise.

She opened her hand to inspect her work. She breathed the spell into it, and then, holding her hand over the edge of the boat, dropped the spell into the sea.

And that seemed to be it. She sat back in the boat and closed the little wooden case. After a moment she started looking over the map again.

There were a lot of handwritten notes on the map. Each one was connected to a mark and some coordinates; some of them said, "Storm 1457," or "Struck a rock 1483." Others said "Total failure," or “Completely dissolved.”

The note the necromancer seemed most interested in was the one that read, “Battle of Salzstein, 1501.”

The necromancer checked the map. She checked the map again. She squinted up at the stars, lips moving silently, and then she was suddenly thrown down to the floor of the boat as though a giant, invisible hand had crushed her.

Her mouth opened in a noiseless scream.

Two minds were fighting for control of the corpse; on one side was the mind of the caster, and on the other was the memories of bones, of flesh, of skin, trying to drive the caster out.

The weight of that mind was incredible.

Sweat poured off the necromancer’s brow; darkness whorled across her vision. Then slowly, every movement a bone-breaking agony, she pushed herself onto her hands and knees, lungs straining.

The trick was that this mind knew how to obey.

The necromancer stood, wobbled, steadied herself and poured her willpower into the sea. She tried to make hers the full willpower the thing had obeyed in life, the will of the wind, of the sea, of the rigging and the wheel.

Because of course it had been alive. In a sense, they were all alive. Sailors talked of them like they were alive, gave them names, called them “she.”

Sailors knew they were alive.

It was the cessation of that life that interested her.

The necromancer reached out with her power, seized the mind in her hands and pulled, blood and foam flecking out the corners of her mouth as she ground her teeth together with the titanic effort and ordered it to obey.

The sea roiled, hundreds of tons of water moving fast as something deep below boiled to the surface.

A bowsprit sprouted from the water. Then a wood-rotted figurehead of a mermaid. Then inch by inch, yard by yard, the huge barnacle-encrusted bulk of silt-stained timber rose out of the deep, seawater streaming out of every gunport.

For a moment the warship hung in the air like a monstrous fish held by the gills of a colossal fisherman. It dropped into the sea with a sound like a depth charge; the little rowboat lurched in its wake.

The necromancer released the spell. Then she threw up, and passed out.

———

Later, once she had woken, gathered together the tackle box, the lantern, and the map and had scrabbled aboard, the necromancer inspected the undead ship.

There was a hole in the hull where a magazine charge had exploded. This was, admittedly, fine. Undead men could walk with a hole in their bellies; an undead ship could sail with one as well.

Really, she thought, despite the discomfort the spell had worked masterfully.

It was a perfect start.

She unfolded the map on the soggy floor of the quarterdeck, sucked the end of a pen, and next to the last marker wrote “Total success.” Then her finger began to trace down the page to the next.

And the undead ship — unbidden and obedient — shifted its sails and began to move south.

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oh i never know how to explain this properly but i looooooooooooooooove when a story just absolutely TELLS you something and it’s so obvious it goes right by you. like the equivalent of hiding in plain sight. i’m thinking in the original cut(?) of alien where they showed the full xenomorph, crouched and ready to pounce, but because we’ve never seen it before, we can’t tell what it is and interpret it as part of the spaceship. or it’s a detail that seems so out of place or wildly insane that you automatically ignore it and assume you misinterpreted until that exact detail comes back in a big way? (like when noah the raven boy flat out tells everyone he’s a ghost and they take it as a joke, so the reader does too) is there a tvtropes name for this i’m obsessed with it

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✍🏼 Seven sentence someday

Thanks to @alintalzin for the tag!

📝 Share seven sentences from your story.

These are from Name From Nowhere. Aria and Gillen have a difficult conversation (because that's the only kind of conversation anyone gets to have with Gillen)...

I feel so fucking stupid now, hearing him put it into words like that. “I guess so. And I know it doesn’t make sense. Maybe I deserved what they did to me when I was older, when I went off the rails and I must have been a pain in the ass to live with, but I don’t think I deserved it when I was a kid. And it was constant, from my parents and my brother. There was always either the violence itself or the threat of it, and it was easier to be angry that they sent me to rehab than it was to…” “To admit how badly they fucked you up and how different your life could have been if they hadn’t?” he says.

Tagging @diphthongsfordays, @drabbleitout, @drippingmoon and @duckingwriting if you'd like to do it, with an open tag for anyone else who wants to join in 🩷

Reblogs, replies etc on my tag posts are always welcome, but if you're doing this tag yourself, please make your own post instead of using mine to start a reblog chain.

[diphthongsfordays]

"Defying the Default"- Skin Tones and the Presence of Black Characters

Okay, this one is going to be half lesson and half a thought experiment- it may get a bit frustrating, as conversations like this often do- but remember, discomfort is not always a bad thing! So I ask that you walk with me for this one.

It’s also interesting, because I’m going to direct this towards everyone (readers included!), but specifically towards my fanfic writers of media with no visual medium, as I’ve noticed this pattern there, and it makes up a good amount of creators on this site. Okay? Okay.

Behold! Many shades of brown!

I had to wade through a lot of colorism for this, and even this link is subtly racist in its introduction- the idea that brown is ‘unexciting’ 🙄.

Anyway, you know where I’m going with this:

"Chocolate and Coffee"

Even the link above pulled this! Writers who use this... they’re not ‘wrong’ per se but… often uninspired. It feels... Lazy. When you can tell an author has put no thought into the brown of choice, it makes Black readers feel like you believe these are the only shades of brown- that that’s all we look like. Even chocolate is more diverse (white, milk, dark, marbled, cookies and cream?) Coffee can come in numerous shades as well (light, medium, dark roast? Type of bean?)

My first direction to help with this: make it a point to know what shade that character is (whether canonically, or if you're the original creator, look at a reference and write it down) and find a name! Be consistent! Find similar browns to one another. If the canon Black character's skin color is done poorly, find something similar and use that! (I'll get more into this in the next lesson!)

Our skin colors may modify as we age, it changes over the seasons/presence in the sun, and some people even have vitiligo! But we're not gonna be “dark roast coffee” one morning and “light milk chocolate” suddenly. We're not chameleons lmao.

And you know what? That shade you choose might very well be 'coffee'! But it's not going to be because you didn't look and assumed we're all some random brown! That’s the intent showing! If we can find endless ways to describe the beauty of white/pale skin, we absolutely can for brown! Be willing to unpack why you may not believe brown to be capable of beauty, and work through unlearning that- it will show in your writing! One way is by pausing with yourself, and recognizing when you had a biased thought. Even by this, you’re learning!

Here’s where I want us to get into the thought experiment:

I want you to think about the description of characters in stories (as a whole). Challenge yourself- in the fics and stories you read, how often is anyone blatantly labeled 'White'? Read a story or fic; how long can you imagine them as not-White before it's ever clarified? Because not even 'pale' automatically implies a White person!

You know how I’ve mentioned before that 'Black people are not a monolith'? I can find you at least some examples of Black people fitting some of the common descriptions of white characters.

"Brunette with brown eyes"

(Fun fact: I actually learned back in my Masters program that genetically no one has ‘black’ hair- our eyes are processing it as black, but it’s really just dark brown due to eumelanin. Regardless, if you stand us in the direct sunlight, you will see that our hair is usually just dark brown!)

"Red hair with pale skin"

“‘tanned’ skin with hazel/green eyes”

“blond hair" (period!)

Now, I’m not saying that blond haired Black people or Black folk with albinism are overly representative of my people. What I AM saying is that it needs to not be taken for granted that a reader is automatically assuming a character is White in your piece of fiction- I can assume your character looks like anything if it's not stated! Especially if the OG source is a book or a podcast! We’re just used to assigning these features- and characters- as white until ‘proven not’! The default!

I am guilty of this too! Even still, I reread many of my works and go ‘ah, I didn’t clarify.’ And I have to work on doing better at it. This is having intent for your Black characters, but really, it’s having intent for all of them!

(This doesn't mean going “the Black man said,” the way sometimes people say “the Chinese said” (which…. Tbh we should all stop doing that anyway, it's weird and racist))

My Next Challenge:

Some people may disagree, but- Ahem:

Say BLACK!

Breathe lmao! Take the time to recognize that it's OKAY to introduce a character as Black, to say Black, it's fine! Obviously be sensitive about it, don't shove it in there to “win your diversity points”, but like… People are Black. It's not a bad word. What matters is the context in which you used it!

You don't even have to say it every single time. Really just the first, introductory sentence will do. For example:

“[Character A], a bright, young, Black girl with knotless braids to her mid back, glittering hair clips matching her bright green t-shirt, and a brilliant smile that shined against her bistre skin.”

I recognize that some might argue that by saying “bistre”, you don't need to say Black. But 1) you don't have to be Black to be brown or dark skinned, and 2) There's a social stigma behind even saying Black- of discussing race in general, because it leads to discomfort. Race (as a sociological construct) exists. When we say nothing about it, allowing Whiteness to be the default, we're still emphasizing race, however silently! If you're already doing it... Why not mention it? 🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️

(here's a good clip of Ijeoma Oluo discussing the difficulty of discussing race; while I highly recommend the whole thing, the relevant clip is 4:25-5:39)

Maybe they're in the Black student organization in a lead position, maybe they're in a Black main cast of a play- it's okay to have those things in the story to help develop the idea that your Black character is actively Black! Just do your research to make sure you’re not leaning into stereotypes!

“There’s no races in my fantasy/future world!”

That’s fair! But I want to give you an example of how people will still project these identities onto your characters anyway:

No one has an explicitly stated 'race' in Avatar: The Last Airbender (afaik); they’re all divided by element culture. YET, many people were offended that a mixed-Korean actress was cast in her role in the live action- they ‘just didn’t see it’, because subconsciously they'd imagined her ‘face claims’ as WHITE, despite it never once being mentioned in the canon! (there’s also a firm sexualization and east Asian fetishization argument to be made about it, but that’s not within the scope of this particular conversation.)

Point is, if you are including humanoid characters in your fantasy stories, fine. You don't need to say ‘Black’ outright. But, that just means that you’re going to have to be even more detailed in your description. Because if I were watching a TV show and a Black actor shows up as an elf… I know what features I’m seeing! Entire protests have occurred over the casting of Black actors in a role ‘meant for a white person’; so... everyone sees it!

Conclusion

This is another reason why intention in character design and writing is important! Context clues and socialization help me understand who your character is. If it works like this for white characters, it can work like that for everyone else! You just have to know enough about me to write it in (and that's where the social and societal bias lie, because how much do you really know about me?)

A way to better understand this is reading books by Black authors (for fantasy, I would highly recommend Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko and Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi) as well as Black literary classics! Finding and reading Black fic authors in fandoms with Black characters! By learning how we describe ourselves and our skin colors, you’ll learn and practice how to appropriately describe us!

Now I can't make you do any of this! But I do want you all- writers especially- to start noticing our bias, how we may default to the experience of whiteness- and how that affects the way we write. When we have Black characters, and really any character of color, we need to start paying attention to how often their features, culture, and activities are emphasized, even for what we may consider to be 'background' details. That’s how we normalize creation and understanding, and become better at writing!

It’s just something to practice; remember, it’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!

In addition, if you are interested in a simple read into why approaching race is so uncomfortable as a whole, I've attached Robin DiAngelo's book here! Thank you to the PDF guru @toiletpotato for the link!

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Birthday Month Sale

Hi. Hello. Hi.

September is my birthday month 👉👈

To celebrate, Beyond the Darkness is on sale all month.

$0.99 USD for ebooks

$11.99 USD for paperbacks

If I hit these benchmarks in sales, I'll be doing a giveaway.

10 books sold = ebook bundle giveaway (Signed ebook of BtD plus 2 short stories)

15 books sold = art print and sticker giveaway

20 books sold = annotated paperback giveaway

Please share so I can spread the word, and if you'd like to take advantage of the sale, you can buy my book here.

*paperbacks are $11.99 through amazon and $12.99 everywhere else because Ingram's print costs are higher

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A sudden, terrifying thought

When you see an animal with its eyes set to the front, like wolves, or humans, that’s usually a predator animal.

If you see an animal with its eyes set farther back, though—to the side—that animal is prey.

Now look at this dragon.

See those eyes?

They’re to the SIDE.

This raises an interesting—and terrifying—question.

What in the name of Lovecraft led evolution to consider DRAGONS…

As PREY?

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Sometimes we’re unsatisfied with a thing we made because when it only existed in our head, we saw all the things it could have been and when it’s done we know all the things that it isn’t, but we can’t see the way it expands into a million new things when someone else unpacks it in their head.

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nine lines, nine people

I was tagged by @space-writes. Thank you for the tag, space! Luckily for you, the opening paragraphs of the snippet I wrote last night happen to be exactly nine lines!

tw for grief, death mention, and heavy guilt

(For context, at the start of yesterday's session it was the birthday of our deceased party member, who died to revive Rook and save the rest of the party.)

As the day wore on, the black cloud of grief that had settled over the ship grew thicker and more oppressive. Rook paced the deck, nearly vibrating with tension. It was almost suffocating, pressing down on him with the weight of a thousand regrets.  Thoughts clawed at the back of his mind, bringing unwelcome reminders of the part he had played in Warren’s death. If things had gone differently, if he had been a little faster, a little smarter, would his friend still be here? He shook his head rapidly, trying to shake off the guilt that clung to him with barbed claws. The others didn’t blame him. They’d made that point very clear. And yet, he still couldn’t help but blame himself. 

I'm going to tag @akindofmagictoo @transmasc-wizard @tc-doherty @cljordan-imperium @nrivanwrites @diphthongsfordays @talesofsorrowandofruin @bloodlessheirbyjacques and @italiangothicwriteblr.

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Help, encountered people now saying Noblebright means nothing bad ever happens and it's a lighthearted kiddie adventure and not serious fantasy genre. Noblebright isn't the "I can't stand conflict and everything must be family friendly and defanged" genre. Lord of the Rings is Noblebright, in fact it's one of the genre shapers, the Legend of Zelda, NamcoBandai's Tales series, Startrek and Doctor Who are Noblebright, as are many more series.

Noblebright doesn't mean main characters don't suffer, doubt, hate, or die. It means they refuse to fully break, even if they struggle (example Boromir falters, but he doesn't fully fall. Yes he dies, but it's as himself, an honourable and selfless man who really only faltered because Sauron knew how to prey on his desperate desire to protect). Noblebright is the main characters staring down the horror in their world, and while it may harden them, they refuse to let it make them cold and cruel, at least not permanently. You can still explore dark and painful themes in Noblebright, that doesnt negate the genre, it just means those themes will be resolved with hope and healing instead of festering in bitterness. Sam's quote from the films sums up the spirit of the genre perfectly.

"It's like the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad has happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it'll shine out the clearer. I know now folks in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something. That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for."

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OC confession tag

Tagged by @space-writes 🤩

So this comes almost at the very of the first book of the Insuppressible Electra Ray duology, and hints upon the title. :)

Simon POV

“Why don’t you just ask him? Bell knows, he can tell you.”  “He’s not you,” the judge said slowly in a tone suited for the child she was behaving like. “Ms. Ray, in all my decades of practice I’ve never heard a defendant less eager to reduce their sentence.”  “There won’t be a sentence, you can’t do anything to me.”  “Just say it,” Simon blurted. “For Christ’s sake, Electra, just tell them.”  His outburst drew too many eyes for comfort, but their connection was killing him - he felt her cornered, terrified, lashing out wildly and stupidly at anything that came close. Delaying the inevitable. Even now, glaring at him like he'd done something wrong. Oh, she wanted a battle of wills in front of this entire crew? He'd stare her down until his eyes fell out. “Have you got something you’d like to get off your chest, Mister Bell?” Judge Baker asked.  “No, she does,” he said plainly. “Say it. Now.”  Honestly, he'd expected her to spew a bit of vitriol in his direction from the stand or at least send her best attempt at a telepathic stabbing, but all at once she squirmed in her seat and became inexplicably small. "I'm a piece of shit," she murmured, casting an empty gaze at the concrete floor. "There, I said it. I fucking killed him by accident 'cuz I'm an idiot and then I ran away 'cuz I'm a coward and then nobody found me because I'm just fucking lucky. And then, they started calling me an evil genius or a dangerous sorceress or whatever, and I liked that better than what I was, so I just, took it.” She leveled a scowl at Judge Baker. “If you were as shitty as me you’d do the same. All of you would. You have no fucking idea what it's like to be this way." wrong, wrong, wrong in a way nobody can fix, wrong in a way that's not sexy or gritty or interesting it's just EMBARRASSING and it's all my fault I did it to myself I did it to myself and I'm so ANGRY and NOBODY CAN- Ten years of practice with his power and it was all he could manage to reduce it to a dull roar. A look passed between the judge and the warden, an entire silent conversation.  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” the judge said, his head bowed. “To the public, Ms. Ray has been exonerated. Extenuating circumstances of an undisclosed nature changed the shape of the case, and the original verdict is reduced to involuntary manslaughter. I will not have people thinking we’ve set a monster loose.”  Electra was barely listening. Her murder conviction was a prized possession and she wanted to keep it. This hearing was one thing but soon everyone would know and - And he pulled back out. Back into the room. “This is not a free pass for life,” the judge continued, oblivious to her turmoil in a way Simon dearly envied. “If you so much as put a toe out of line again, we’ll hold another hearing like this one, incarcerate you again for as long as we can, admit the truth to the public that a new breed of magician exists that cannot be suppressed, and start a panic. Look at me, Ms. Ray,” he demanded, his voice booming off the cell block walls. “I don’t want that to happen, do you?”  She frowned begrudgingly. "No."

Tagging @foxboyclit, @winterandwords, @andthebubbles, @zmwritesand :)

+ the Electra Ray taglist for good measure!

👠 💄 🥀 💋 🍒

@avrablake​ @adie-dee​ @dontjudgemeimawriter​ @ryorine​ @thelaughingstag​ @winterandwords​ @afoolandathief​ @asomeoneperson​ @cedar-west​ @diphthongsfordays​ @lowslore​ @poetinprose​ @cilly-the-writer​​​​​​​​ @harps-for-days

[diphthongsfordays]

✍🏼 Heads up seven up

Thanks to @kingragnarok-writes for the tag!

📝 Share seven lines from your story

These are from Name From Nowhere...

There’s security on the door when we get here and I’ll never know how to look at people in positions of power without thinking about how to take them out if it comes to it. They give Rafe a nod of recognition and one of them looks me up and down and says, “Weapons?” “Yeah.” And I know my face is doing something, but I don’t try to fix it. She waits for a moment like she asked what, not if. Then she shrugs and says, “Try not to use them,” and ushers us through. It’s dark enough inside that no-one’s paying us any mind, but busy enough to get my knuckles twitching anyway.

Tagging @ahordeofwasps, @asher-writes, @cheerfulmelancholies and @diphthongsfordays if you'd like to do it, with an open tag for anyone else who wants to join in 🩷

Reblogs, replies etc on my tag posts are always welcome, but if you're doing this tag yourself, please make your own post instead of using mine to start a reblog chain.

[diphthongsfordays]

But I don't have the words | sometimes words

I don’t have the words.

I mean, of course I do. my vocabulary is immense, expansive - I have a library full of words and their spines are beautiful and some are more worn than others - I absolutely have the words. but how to put them together? how should I line them up in perfect little trains so that the engine moves it forward and it stops when I hit the brakes?

I don’t have the words.

limitless, really, are the options here. I have every color from which to choose and a million moments to reflect on and move into the spotlight and explain precisely what I mean when I open up my tiny fists and place my train cars down. this track, for instance. I know where it goes. or that one. I see where it’s been. and the newest one, over here? it runs through the tunnel under the mountain where only dragons dare enter.

I don’t have the words.

there’s a recurring theme to sentiments I express, almost like I’m feeling something, like it presses on my teeth and begs my tongue to confess. if I say it one more time the intention will turn and all the words will burn and I will feel release from all the shadows that are keen to keep me here. I am not a prisoner. I am just a stranger. and oh, but the footprints fade when the waves come in. I watch the tide like I imagine myself with any power over it.

but I don’t have the words.

it aches, and almost all the time. I don’t quite know the meaning of the word tired, anymore. am I still grieving? does it count if I’m happy in between? what are my limits? can I watch a scene and partake in the emotions adjacent to my own and not be thrown back to that damn sunrise that haunts me, it will not leave me alone, please, I’m sorry I ever said the world was on fire, save me from this, I don’t want it.

I don’t have the words.

my poems speak of death and little wonder, really. but why am I so morbid? is this the legacy? when I remember fondly are there only daffodils at my door? there are, actually. it’s spring. I hate them and their memories. how long, really, does this go on?

I don’t have the words.

I had some, a year ago. I put them together and made people cry. I cried, too. it was good. I’m glad I said them. the smiles through the saltwater opened the gates for later release. and it happened, I believe it, but only on one side. and until I can look at daffodils with ambivalence, I fear the door must remain sealed. and my aching emotions left alone with the memories I shudder to reveal.

I don’t have the words.

it doesn’t hurt all the time. and it’s disingenuous to say that I have never been so tired. or that I have never cried so hard I thought I’d never heal my fractured heart. or that I’ve never had to feel like all my bones have scars. or that I never lost and the space was never filled. it doesn’t hurt all the time but when it does, it kills.

I don’t have the words.

and I don’t want them.

[diphthongsfordays]

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