mondaymisfortune

[mondaymisfortune]

Just two yappers yapping

[mondaymisfortune]

12/27/24 - Ashes to Ashes

There is trash blowing on the highway

A lit cigarette grazes the windshield

And I swear

This is not the world I left for you

A man screams on TV 

Says I need to believe 

Says that I must pray a certain way

As to apologize for my living 

All the while a family screams for shelter

Bombs and fire raining everyday

So fast to seep away is the water

From thirsty cracked mouths who

Know not whether to pray for another day or wish for final peace 

Behind the final light of eyelids

And by god I swear 

This is not the world I left for you

People and forests alike beg to be seen

But as quick as they are to open their mouths 

They are cut down 

And chopped and burned to

Suffocating ash that fills our lungs and clouds our streets

And all I can seen is the tiny burn from where 

Your lifeless body came fluttering down

So soft and so quick

It grazed my windshield

A measly blink on the freeway

And I swear

This is not the life I left for you

SAVE OUR EATH, FREE PALESTINE

[mondaymisfortune]

take care of it

[mondaymisfortune]

Chapter 1

The mattress cradled my sleeping form. The cold air of my new empty room battled to beat the fortress of blankets and quilts that weighed down on me like a cocoon. My heavy eyes blinked awake, and I was bitterly reminded that I was no longer home. Everything was new; this state, this house, my room. The floors, the walls, the ceilings, even the smell. Nothing was familiar, nothing was comfortable. Numerous boxes crowded the empty space of the fresh four walls before me, reminders of how my life could easily be packed away and shipped across the country just like everything else. These plain tan boxes were honestly an insult to my being. The colorful art, and clothes, and games, and pictures, and hobbies that made me who I am, all trapped within identical boxes of cardboard lingering with the smell of mildew from the ever present humidity of Maine. 

Maine. Even the thought of telling someone “I live in Maine” was a stranger to me. No, I’m not from Maine, no I don’t live in Maine. All things I wished I could say, all things that were false. 

The trip from California had been a pretty smoothe one, minus the traffic and the cramped hours and the frustrated tears of constant bickering from my parents. It could have been worse. 

I had spent my entire life, all 16 years, in California. I loved the sun and the beach and never ending excitement. But everyone in my little three person family would agree, we couldn’t stay there forever. The noise, the people, the bullying. It was all too much. I suppose my family moved for my sake. Thought it would be a fresh start, a chance to reinvent myself, find my footing. But like so many others, change was totally not my thing. 

I love my parents, I really do, but I don’t think they understand that moving to the middle of a forest is NOT the move for someone who constantly imagines people that aren’t there and freaks when left alone for too long. 

The visions started when I was 11. Small things like hearing my name called when I was alone in the house, seeing a passing shadow in the corner of my room at night. All things that could be chalked up to the imagination of an only child and unmonitored access to the internet. But as I got older, they never stopped, only matured. The voices became louder, the shadows took forms. Suddenly I was being followed everywhere I went, watched from every corner. 

Though no two visions are ever identical, one element has remained the same, there has always been a man, or more or less, a large figure. Even in my earliest memories I recall a tall and looming presence, no, not threatening, just…present. My first memory of him (or it) was when I was five. We had this little pastel playhouse, just a simple four-wall, plastic thing that I decorated with various princess and monster truck stickers. Inside was the tea party spot. I held countless spectacular tea parties with all of my dolls and plushies, and the occasional parent (though I quickly learned they were far more fun by myself). I was throwing one of my famous tea parties with my plush bunny, Lucy, my Ken Barbie, and my teddy bear, Charlie. We ate TownHouse buttery crackers and sipped lemonade in plastic tea cups until the sun went down. That was when I saw him, through the plastic window cut-out, right along the fence, within the trees. He blended in, seamlessly, I convinced myself there was an eyelash or something in my eye. After furiously rubbing my eyelids, blinking, and batting, and rolling my eye ball around, I sneaked a peek through a slitted eyelid, and there he continued to stand. A tall, black, blurry blob, staring. Or what I assume to be staring as he had no eyes…no nothing. He carried no distinct features, only a static outline. As quick as my little five year old legs could carry me, I dashed inside, tears brimming and brewing. When I delivered the news to my parents, they didn’t fear ghosts or interdimensional beings, they thought I had seen a real person, a real man. My mother secured me to her chest as my dad bolted outside, ready to swing on whoever was creeping on his little girl. Wielding the butter knife he had been using to cut strawberries and the flashlight from his phone, he marched across the yard, only to find no one. No man, no figure, no nothing. Only trees. 

Pretty quickly the source of my tears switched from being the mysterious presence to having forgotten my dolls. How could I have forgotten them in such a moment of weakness? How could I have left them all alone in the dark playset with that creature? What kind of friend was I if I had run off to save myself and let them fend for themselves? Much to my pleasure and comfort, my dad retrieved the toys and brought them all back inside and any thought of the creature man quickly dissipated as my little five year old mind began to jump to other trains of thought. My parents let it go, not wanting to bring it up again, satisfied with me being in the house and safe. As I got older, I asked them about the occurrence frequently, having it set in my mind that what I saw was real. They fostered the belief that what I saw was just a trick of the light and a wild imagination, not wanting to poison my child brain with thoughts of scary monsters and figures . 

I knew he was real when I was ten. I was on the swingset, just down the street from our little pale blue house. The playground was small, a yellow, red, and blue jungle gym with chipped paint and creaky rusted bolts, next to it one giant metal slide that became a frying pan in the summer under the California sun. The playground was surrounded by a weak and worsening chain link fence that I fail to believe was even close to being up to code. A smart and warry parent would quickly mark the place as a hazard, but as a kid, I couldn’t imagine a more perfect location. 

The star of the playground was the swings. Two sets stood on opposite ends of the wood chip-filled square, one a shorter, more condensed version of the other. It held six swings, three pairs of two, sized down for the smaller kiddies and the babies. The other also held six swings but in one giant row. It reached higher than I had ever seen a swingset reach. You could swing so high it felt like you just touched the clouds. Two boys, brothers, who lived in the neighborhood swore they had been able to do a full 360 around the upper supporting bar. I believed them, I was ten. 

My favorite thing to do was head out when my parents started dinner, swing till the streetlights came on, and then dash home like my life depended on it. One evening, as the sun began to sink her way down behind the hills, I found myself swinging and swooshing to my heart’s content. I swung higher than I ever had before. If I had made the choice to jump off, I was certain my arms would transform into wings and I could soar up up and away from our little street, high into the clouds, away from the Cali heat. I closed my eyes and imagined flipping and twirling and dashing through the fluffiest of clouds, each grey huddle of droplets grazing my face and kissing the hairs on my head. I was completely free, unrestrained from the chains of the swing or the ties of gravity. 

A touch of nausea was coming over me as I vigorously swung back and forth and I re-opened my eyes, touching back down to earth, landing among my place in the universe. And there he stood. Again. Far away, outside the chain link fence, occupying the little break of empty space among the rows of trees. Watching. Waiting. For what? So I may walk towards him or so I may cease swinging and allow him to rush forwards towards me? My heart dislodged from its rightful spot in my ribcage and dropped straight down to my stomach. I thought I might throw up from how full it made me. Faster than I should, I dug my feet into the dirt and wood chips beneath me, sending splinters flying in every direction, logging pieces in my socks and skin. For a moment I stared back, part confused, part scared, part daring it, asking it, what are you going to do? When I blinked and he refused to move, I took that as my cue to haul ass back to the safety and warmth of my home. 

I launched myself from the swings, ignoring the small stabbing pains of the wood chips in my shoes, more focused on the fact that in order to make it out of the playground I would have to run towards the only opening in the chain link fence, which unfortunately, was towards the creature. I was so scared. As I ran I felt a headache more painful than I have ever felt before, even to this day. Every twist and turn in the road, I refused to look back, to acknowledge his presence. I knew he was there, still watching. Always watching. 

I sprinted and sprinted till I pretty much crashed into the front door nearly letting the scream escape my throat as I frantically searched the house for my mother in the kitchen. My vision was blurry with tears and panic, my head pounding like a jackhammer was being directly drilled right into my frontal lobe. Something wet came seeping down my nose towards my lips and nausea bubbled up inside of me. I thought I might just pass out then and there. As I came screeching to halt in the kitchen. I tried voicing for help but nothing came out, all I could manage was sobs and sharp breaths. My mother looked to me, wide-eyed and startled. I will never forget the look on her face as she stared, mouth a-jar, trembling she asked,  

“Honey, why is your nose bleeding?”

[mondaymisfortune]

And as I stared out the window, the long awaited silence filtered through the car. It snuck through the vents and wove its way right through the cracked leather seats. It soothed the itch of agitation on my skin that had long been building from hours and hours of meaningless small talk. 

Still, peaceful, silence. My sanctuary. 

A warm tired breath escaped my lips, making a new home on the cold window, a small circle of condensation already condensing into little drops trailing down the glass. 

 I yearned to run through the trees that flew past as we sped through the forest. I imagined a deer, leaping and bounding through the brush, free, excited. Looking too deep into the depths of the foliage tied a knot in my stomach. The boredom was messing with my head, filling its time with pointless paranoia. Among the imagined faces I created in the leaves, I could’ve sworn I saw a figure. But nothing is there. Nothing was there. 

Born anxious, I don’t think I was ever meant to be bored. Any idea of respite tainted by worries, moments of relaxation occupied by fabricated fears. From a young age I struggled being alone in my room, also freaking myself out, convincing myself there was something, someone, outside. Someone watching, someone waiting. Waiting, yes, always waiting. Waiting for me to make the wrong move, stay out too late, step too far into the woods. 

No, nothing was out there. No, I was not out there. I was and would be in this car, speeding away from the trees, burning rubber until reaching our destination in the city. Paranoia, paranoia. That’s all it is. That’s all it was. That’s all it will ever be. Right?

Let me know what y'all think! Maybe this could be something

[mondaymisfortune]

At this point I'm just going to start writing my own fanfiction

[mondaymisfortune]

Take me to Chappell 🙏🙏

The Midwestern Princess

[mondaymisfortune]

[mondaymisfortune]

yyaaa

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The Showstoppers

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The Grabber tryna lure in Finney

[mondaymisfortune]

GIRL DINNER

would give anything to be invited to this

[mondaymisfortune]

A light-hearted spot of stabbing between friends, circa 1920

[mondaymisfortune]

Real

[mondaymisfortune]

[mondaymisfortune]

You don’t pick the hyper fixation, it picks you.

[mondaymisfortune]

Words cannot describe how pumped I am for the Barbie movie