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Everything I am not

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Feast

Mother is in the kitchen as usual The town awaits her feats every year Her plaid face escapes her work into the den “Dear get your siblings. Guests are almost here”

Brother and Sister are sleeping upstairs He’s soiled the sheets again, too old for that She’s sleeping soundly in her crib Still clean from last night's bath, unlike Brother

Father is sitting at the table now, roused from the den Mother has placed Brother and Sister in their places Her feast sits on the table, organs and delicacies Having poured her heart on the table, she finally rests

Guests arrive, mouths agape and drooling Those first inside grab the organs pilled on platters Behind them, guests tear into Mother and Father Brother and Sister are taken, and those who still hunger

Turn their mouths to me.

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Familiarity

My father knows He makes jokes when I grimace, his beams mirror mine My mother knows She explains when I’m puzzled, we tear up in tandem My friends even know They can feel my smugness from any distance So why couldn’t you Absorbed in your own emotions, blind that you were scaring me

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Half and Half

Sick of waxing, tired of waning Half on the right, half on the left Always coming new and dark Never full and bright

Never anything complete

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Alone to the Elements

Alone too I take my boat to the lake, to join the moon in its starless silence The air around me is warm and wet, sticky like a hanging memento Once one with the tranquility, I can lie looking at the sole alabaster friend I have Till the air becomes jealous, and steals the only light I have left with swift cloudy recompense

The wind, hot with hatred, comes to my boat. It roils the water beneath my small shred of safety, threatening in its anger to take what little I have left Its final act consumes me, and I plummet into the ever-gaping maw of water below There is no more of me for the wind, only for the water to take what it wishes.

I open my mouth and empty my lungs. If the air could hate so fully, I will fill my body with the lake It wasn’t painful, as if it had always been waiting for me The water fills me, and for the first time I feel complete My eyes open, and I remember what used to be the lake The cragged dry dirt I lay on, reminds me the lake is no more The sun has eaten everything in its greed, waiting to devour me too Still, I vomit water from my lungs, emptying myself again

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Harvest

Sap dripping from the wound Dull yellow, against the dying green Warm and gray the harvest sky Carry away the death in my arms

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Environmental Storytelling

[Open door to the right] The door to the right in the Forgotten Hovel moves slightly but is quickly stopped by hitting something inside the room. The door is opened enough to barley peer inside. [Look at door to the right] Peering inside the ajar door, a you can see a desk littered with papers neatly stacked on top of one another. At the foot of the door you can see it is blocked by another neat stack of papers. [Attack door to the right] You ram into the door, the sound of paper sliding off itself chimes your arrival to the room as the door swings the rest of the way open. Before you is the Paper Tomb. [Enter the Paper Tomb] You step into the Paper Tomb and carefully maneuver around piles of neatly stacked paper as you peer around. The only places of note to you are the Withered Desk and the Foreboding Closet. [Leave the Paper Tomb] You’ve had enough of this place, it’s time to leave. As you try to move to the door a stack of neat paper crashes into the door closing it. You try the door. It is now locked. [Look at Withered Desk] A grand writing desk sits before you. It is bare of objects save a Fountain Pen, an Inkwell, a Blank Sheet of Paper, and a Penned Sheet of Paper. [Take the Fountain Pen] You take the Fountain Pen. Fountain Pen added to Inventory. [Look at Penned Sheet of Paper] Looking over the paper neatly left on the desk it reads. “Read or write it doesn’t matter, your only audience your future cadaver.” Use the Withered Desk You sit at the desk before you. It feels comfortable. Almost natural. [Leave the Withered Desk] You do not want to leave the Withered Desk. [Leave the Withered Desk] Use Fountain Pen with Inkwell A pen is no match for a sword without ink. You dip the Fountain Pen in the Inkwell until the nib is fully saturated in the beautiful black ink. Inked Fountain Pen added to Inventory. [Use Inked Fountain Pen with Blank Sheet of Paper] You’ve always been told you were a good writer. Now is the time to try. After you are done, you reink your pen and place the newly inked sheet of paper neatly on a pile behind you. Inked Fountain Pen added to Inventory. The Withered Desk has a new Blank Sheet of Paper on it. Use Inked Fountain Pen with Blank Sheet of Paper

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Pick Me Up

Eat all of me The flesh of your savoir I’m just a guy who got lost And you’re all cannibals now

Place your steps behind me Follow in a line I found this cliff I wanted to see past And you’re all flying

I know my body more than yours My bones stitch back together My skin grows fresh and dewy And my feet pick themselves back up

Jump in the water Make sure you pulled the lever I'm hungry for that toast And you’re all dancing funny

Watch me drink my cup This party sucks But the kool-aid was free And you got so, so sleepy

You aren’t me I don’t know who you are But if we’re together, I’ll try to make sure Your feet can pick themselves back up

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Blind Routine

We become one by ourselves A clock that makes noise Gears move and churn With no bell to toll the hours

The routine is known But its meaning ever present Removed from mine Is what I take from yours

Apart no longer, together in body The hour draws upon us To break the silent march I reach into you and feel you do the same

Together we talk With hands and lips and warmth The coldness of routine is gone And the warmth of dreams begins

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Birthday

New dewy skin, soft and supple Abandons the shell of old

With fresh hands, it’s hoisted to the wall Pinned next to it’s siblings, reminders

To start anew is bane of every year To start again is the boon

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Sunrise

The sun is born, delivered from the plains of the east Shedding light on its sibling, festering in the mountains The plague of yesterday, a withering reminder

Wet and heavy, thinks the undertaker, Unbearable stench As they hoist the carcass over their shoulder The burial site is far, and the weight is ever-present. But still, the rite must be completed.

It’s been some time since they’ve seen a star die like this. A deep dark husk, a slit in spacetime, filled with an endless void. It’s manifested hands, bony and emaciated, fingers like sewing needles. Arms gaunt and thin, but still heavy nonetheless. An unfathomable density sits within As they walk, the undertaker can’t help but look at the sibling still living. Without the light, maybe stars all look like the corpse tied to their back. Does every sunrise bear the chance of becoming a rotten reminder? Will every day need its grave?

No, it is why we have the rite, the undertaker thinks. To sanctify the putrid mark left behind, and in turn to strengthen the stars above. Now at the pass, the undertaker rests It should be just before midday when the rite will be done They laugh, it seems just only years ago this would have taken them the whole day That there would have been multiple stars atop their back And they would see the deaths of those in the sky, fall down in a sickening flight.

In the light of memory, the weight of the one they carry seems to lessen. Once again the undertaker moves, the rite awaits. And soon the new day will truly begin

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Personal 1

It's been forever since I've done anything resembling art, or the like. My life has been a swell of things, like moving and breaking my bike and totaling my car. Just now I am able to get a little out. And hopefully, my time in Alaska can give me more time to read and study/write. Maybe I can still make a batter me.

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Neither

My day begins at the steps of  the temple, to see what the masters have left behind. It is a space of quiet contemplation, a silence brought on through power unspoken. Gazing at the flesh adorning the walls, I see the artistry etched in, that make them worthy. I make etchings of my own, in a notebook I hope I can remember exists.

Moving on to the adjoining rooms I learn the tools of their craft. Scalples, razors, and whips. Saws and needles. Hammers and other blunt objects. There's even a room where you can use a mock instrument on yourself. I bite. But even as the pain enters my mind, I know it is being dulled to be used by anyone. This is not the right amount of suffering.

Traveling further in the hallowed halls I come to face the craft of blood. Vials and jars line the walls, each modified to stand out from others. Each worthy. Some jars carry a deep viscous red, while others have added color. Vibrant blues and blacks swim within the red, ever swirling and mixing, never ceasing to bring new experiences.

There’s another station to attempt to copy the masters. I leave it to those who want to just try. I’m done trying. There’s nothing left for me in the temple, I have seen what I need to see. My own flesh itches at the anticipation, my mind thinks of the tools I have stored in my own home. My blood in its veins begins to boil. The bubbling underneath only makes me wait faster.

Once in my own walls, I throw everything I carried with me aside. My clothes hit the floor and my work of flesh begins. Hours pass and I’ve made no progress. My cuts are sloppy and ill-thought. My blood stains the floor, carelessly left behind, unpreserved. I’m just not correct, intertwined my body can not make the shape I see. Of what I know it is supposed to be.

All night I attempt. Soon I’ve run out of material to work with. A walking exposed nerve. The pain that once guided my hand is now another screaming voice to add to the cacophonous chorus. It too is not correct anymore. I can feel the tendons and the muscles binding me together begin to lose their tautness. I’m unraveling in front of my own mirror. Soon I will be nothing.

As the moon hangs in the sky, the temple sits in silence once more not of reverence, but abandonment. My hands plunge into the ground at its feet, I know they will slip away, but for now, they can work once more. All that will be left is bone. In the temple of flesh and blood, all that I can leave behind was never asked for. My hands hit something hard, rattling. My muscles snake away from my form, leaving my bones to fall into all the others, indistinguishable, unknown.

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Weight

I wish to be free of all this weight that lays on me in its spectral form. Locking me down imperceptibly binding my limbs in fashions I'd rather not speak of I'd like to think it would be as simple as removing my flesh but it is not my flesh that has created these weights though they do feel it It is neither my mussels which carry the tension of the weight that I could hold responsible for they only respond in kind to the forces upon them Nor are my bones to blame for the weight atop me It is their nature to support my body against the weight that tears them down It is only my mind that creates this weight that creates these hardships that my whole body suffers and in tune with the rest my consciousness that writes this drab dirge is stuck inside the crafter of this body's demise

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Borrowton

A small village I made for a one-shot, that I have written like this so other DMs I work with can also easily use it.

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18 Bandits

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Finally Rest