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aug. 21 - before violence @nosebleedclub

text under cut

beautiful isn't enough.

we need ugly to know beautiful. you need me to know you. i need knuckles to know kisses

when i was born, it was death of an innocence. sacrificial lambe to slaughter. i punched my way through somebody's guts and other warm places, just to get to live

for all my life, i've been punching.

kindness is irrelevant when somebody loves you. it's a wither storm in a bunker house. it's calm in the eye but you gotta move with it if you want it to last

because once you punch, there's only four ways:

left, right. up, down

once you punch, there's only two things:

aim, recoil

once you punch, there's only one outcome:

they think i don't know grief because i know knuckles. i'm not there for sick leaves and funerals and wakes. i was only there for the killing

i found death in somebody else's eye and told it: less roadkill. more boxing.

but before it:

a consruction site, living cement. a master polishing intricate leather gloves. gentle breeze

a mother, blooming in somebody's arms

and before it: blissful, mossy ferns of silence.

when i finally die off, like a disease, they won't box me up, 'cause i might just punch through it

[nosebleedclub]

day 21...

before violence

still water calm and the low thud of old shutters in the wind. the pot boil, a gathering of ticks in the chest, the collection of dead daisy petals over the remains. the echo of screams from the backyard, disturbed earth and bite marks down the length of stiffened limbs. to plot an explosion. to devise your demise. bodies pile like unread books, like aliases over widened distances. throat closes like a venus fly trap, minutiae tidied and encased in cement.

-kab

@nosebleedclub day 21 prompt

[nosebleedclub]

sharp intakes of breath, failing to satisfy. muscles trembling from the strain of long clenched fists. legs so weak it brings the whole world to the brink of collapse. just one exhale and you snap.

@nosebleedclub ★ aug 21 — before violence

[nosebleedclub]

homeward (to you)

always at the end of love, my heart asks to be laid to rest. it is old and tired.

bury me, it says, where notebooks are buried when they’re old and filled with words.

for it too has been filled, emptied, then filled once again. many times it has tried to hold onto a name, your name; in many lives it has had to let you go.

if i were a word, laments the heart, bodiless, infinite, small as a seed yet vast as a universe, i might have known how to contain you. or if i were paper—ink-starved, ink-loved—surely, you could’ve stayed.

oh to be paper-made! to be a collage of ephemera, or a box full of witness statements—because what good is the flesh, what good is a body made of living cells, if it can hoard nothing but loss?

no more, no more, the heart says; many times it has galloped and strained and failed. it is sick of losing you.

but here & now, i am. sodium, moonlight, clay. i am made to be alive. i am made to be. in the half-dark, it’ll be easy to know you again.

no more, no more.

prayer. penumbra. i was born to lose: all flesh, no sepia pages, no indelible lines. so i wade towards the shore as always—homeward (to you).

22082025 - not over yet - august @nosebleedclub

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@nosebleedclub August Prompt 9: how far i'd go to see you

I am drinking my coffee when I get a text.

STACEY: I want breakfast

STACEY: Sammy's Diner?

ME: OK

I check the directions on my phone. Diner Obscuro to Sammy's Diner. 26 miles.

ME: Can be there about 1030

STACEY: K

I wave down the waitress. "I have to go, can I get the check?"

She replies, "If you don't like what's on the menu, I could tell you about the specials."

"Just had an emergency, that's all."

There is an accident on Cabin Road. While rubbernecking, I see an overturned car. There is a woman sitting on the curb. The left side of her face is covered in blood.

The drive ends up taking 50 minutes. I arrive at 11.

ME: Here. Did you get a table?

STACEY: Fell back to sleep. But I'm dressed now

STACEY: Be there in 20 minutes

I sit in the lobby and pull out my phone. I read an article about a controversial blue jeans ad featuring a TV actress and sleazy puppets.

[nosebleedclub]

Until my fangs grow in I’ll wait patiently  and try to smile

@nosebleedclub's August 21st prompt: before violence

[nosebleedclub]

@nosebleedclub August Prompt 23

Curry

I sit by the garden and watch the petals twirl to the breeze

Whilst you walk about the house, fixing corners to perfection

Nobody speaks, the silence is comfortable

As the sun inches closer to the horizon

You join me with a cup of lemon tea

The sweet lady next door puts on some slow jazz on her gramophone

And the birds, homeward bound, accompanies the chorus

We hum to the tune as the lights begin to glow

Then decide to cook pumpkin curry and rice for dinner…

Wren~

[nosebleedclub]

Incorrigible

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Chaïm Soutine (1893-1943)

Le pâtissier de Cagnes

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For @nosebleedclub 's prompt, lichen

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@nosebleedclub August Prompt 13

Lichen

The hill was green and soft beneath my bare feet

Where the Zephyr blew wild through the blades of grass

And fluttered the pages of my book astray

The clouds rolled in, white as a lamb

And I ran and chased them like a child

Tripping on rocks covered in veiny lichen

The fields stretched endlessly like the heavens

They led me to the very edge of this world

Where stood a little stone hut that lost souls called home…

Wren~

[nosebleedclub]

Where is your heart?

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@nosebleedclub August Prompt 12

Thrift shopping

One windy autumn afternoon, you knocked on my door

To ask if I’d go thrift shopping with you

Bundled up in a warm grey sweater and a woolly cap

You smiled like a kid when I agreed to tag along

The roads were littered in fallen foliage

Hues of brown, red and orange covered the asphalt

As we trudged forth the birds chirped and gossiped on the tall boughs of trees

And squirrels scurried hurriedly to claim the acorns that lay strewn about

Despite the chilly weather that prevailed,

A quiet warmth crept into my soul…

Wren~

[nosebleedclub]

@nosebleedclub's August 10th prompt: barely visible

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Where is your heart?

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@nosebleedclub August Prompt 11

Foghorn

When the storm thrashed my lonely boat onto jagged stones

And ruthlessly tore away its fragile white sails

I never heard the foghorn sound

Whilst lying on the sandy shores of some unnamed isle

Beside the remnants of a vessel in irretrievable fragments

I watched how the skies turned pure blue after a heavenly turmoil

A subtle breeze caressed my pale cheeks as the clouds floated about lazily

And somehow falling down didn’t feel so miserable anymore…

Wren~

[nosebleedclub]

day 11...

adomania

a foghorn over the monday mist, a speedometer rising and the rush of blood to the head. the calendar flips with furious intent, your hands clinging to nostalgia and the need to slow its orbit to a trudge. in fast forward, burials and wordless goodbyes. a cabinet drawer that is filled with sorrows, with question marks scattered over the gritty pressed wood. watch the vapor of yesterday dissolve into a lake of tomorrows you cannot contain.

-kab

@nosebleedclub day 11 prompt