#afterlifepress

[asthecollective]

Very stoked to start going through this first volume of @afterlifepress! Go pick one up if you haven’t yet! @zacscheinbaum @the_grime @codonnell_nyc #afterlifepress (at OLD ROSE Tattoo shop)

[canvassence]

Reasons by Canvassence (parts 1 to 4)

[hookingarchive]

A set of eyes clicks with mine, a new story unfolds, leaving lines scattered  all over the place. It’s a cold night, our breaths make clouds just once or twice.

I don’t like whispering dark secrets at 2 AM, and flowers are no more than pretty fantasies coloring outside the frame. It’s not love. 

This could be another branch of jealousy, ink crashing against the shores, during summer, or it could be something deeper. It could be  a feeling deeper than all wounds I’ve ever gotten.

It could be the time in the middle where you  just don’t know what it is,  and you drink yourself to death in the middle of the heat  longing for trick-or-treats, longing for life.

As time goes, it grows bigger.

Every day, I see you breathe.

The ease with which you pour stories, like blood from papercuts,  like leaves during the fall, to the paper, puzzles me

seamlessly

all year.

[velvetandvinegar]

12:45

I should've known better.

How could I have ever thought that today would be any different from all the times I've tried to reach out to you before? How could I have thought that 6 months without any contact with me would make you miss me more? Or make you magically care more?

I had thought I was finally living in reality but when it comes to you I'm stuck in fairy-tale land. Why can't I shake this? I know, I know for a fact that I care so much more than you do. I know for a fact that nothing I do will make you love me the way I deserve to be loved. I know for a fact that 9 out of 10 times you will disappoint me, and yet I still can't help putting my faith in you. 

One day you're gonna burn through the little bit of hope I have left for us, and I can't believe I let you do that to me again.

I can't believe I let you make me cry. 

I promised myself I wouldn't let you do that to me again

But <shocker> another promise broken

And you'd know all about breaking promises, wouldn't you?

[christophermwilt]

Girlfriend

Laura and Sigmund are so in love and everything's just great; long walks, hiking, dinners in the evening air. They often expressed the sentiment to one another that they were the luckiest people in the world.  On a fairly standard evening they decided to try a new bar in their area.  Upon arriving they found that it was far louder, darker, and crowded than they could have possibly imagined.  Laura screams to Sigmund that she needs to use the restroom and gestures for him to stay put.  She comes back from the restroom and embraces Sigmund, they make out while leaning on the bar; blissfully neglectful of the scowls they are receiving from those surrounding them.  More drinking and revelry in the dark fade into a an impressionist haze of evening.  

Sigmund wakes the next morning to find that the girl he came home with wasn't Laura at all, and in fact bared very little resemblance to his purported soul mate.  Laura stands in the doorway to their bedroom crying and asks why he has done this to them.  The other girl wakes up and asks who Laura is and why is is she standing in she and Sigmund's bedroom.  Sigmund asks the same thing and tells the Laura he was sleeping beside to call the police.  The crying Laura in the door asks what's going on, but Laura of the bed simply gropes Sigmund and tells her she needs to leave.  Laura screams that she has no place else to go, but Sigmund simply says, "How?" and then she notices  three wolves pacing the living room that was once hers.  Without any notice the wolves smash through the bedroom wall and consume Sigmund and Laura of the bed.  Laura of tears runs out the front door only to find a monolithic traffic barrel in her front yard that reaches infinitely into the sky.

Sigmund's car pulls up in the driveway and he gets out and frantically tells her that he's been searching for her all night and he's been so worried.  The back of his car is pulsating with cats, making her doubt that he is who he says he is.  He tells her that they're in someone else's yard and they need to go home.  

[canvassence]

Reasons Part 4 Reasons part 1: http://canvassence.tumblr.com/post/59983321672 Reasons part 2: http://canvassence.tumblr.com/post/63375409479 Reasons part 3: http://canvassence.tumblr.com/post/65609399320

[frenchbobbyfrench-blog]

All these fucking things could happen

All the fucking vessels in my head could explode. All the fucking birds in the sky could eat my organs. All the fucking rays from the sun could burn off my skin. All these fucking things could happen.

[dicktoo]

girl in the yellow dress

sara squatting like a hen

that farrow-colored shadow in the crack

the hole in the wall at her back filling and then unfilling like tiny days

the dog is barking but soon dies

sara implies the light from the window makes me wolf-like and feather-mouthed and I notice how she’s aged

and so soon

everything so soon

– Cab Driver

[christophermwilt]

Off

She had found that the best way to maintain a sunny demeanor in soul-crushing relationships was to store away horrible things about her significant other for potential future use.  It was entirely probable that these observations and feelings would never need to be used, but simply their presence was all she needed to remain generally cordial.  In instances of extreme discontent she would write down her thoughts and leave them scattered around his apartment.  This gave her a slight thrill every time she received an incoming phone call in that it could be the beginning of a relationship ending fight, or he could be calling just to say he loved her. 

She was entertained by the thought that in either case, answering her phone with a chipper attitude was completely appropriate; if he had found the notes he would be doubly enraged at her amicability, and if he was calling to say hi, he was receiving the status quo.  The notes generally contained her musings on the relationship with topics such as, “how can I respect a weakling”, “public toilets I would prefer cleaning to having sex with you” and “what part of my brain needs to be shut down so I will not want to fuck your 80 year-old neighbor instead of you”.

--

She wears a short black skirt and vulnerable makeup.  The security guard in the lobby is quite taken with her and quickly asks if he can help her with anything.  She blushes as she looks him up and down, bites her lower lip slightly and tells him she’s not sure where she’s supposed to go, but she has an interview.  He directs her to the elevator and advises her that HR is on the twelfth floor and then swipes his badge and presses 12.  She smiles and thanks him before casually hitting 30.

The letter is pressed to her chest as she looks at the horizon.  One step after another through the frigid wind of the rooftop, she walks toward the sky.  He would find the letter and miss her. He would know the absence he felt would be her no longer watching him, no longer slipping into his apartment while he was out and hiding the hateful notes into which she poured so much honesty and heart.  She does not see the edge approaching, only continues to look at the sky.  There would be no crowd to watch her at the edge, no negotiation.  Her last thought before the impending terror would be an empty blue expanse and then the roof ended.

--

The girl who had jumped from roof had held a letter with his name written on it.  He wasn’t at work the day of the suicide, but had been called in after the letter was discovered.  He was unable to identify the body, in part because he didn’t know the girl’s actual name and in part because the roughly 350 ft fall had left little to identify.  He opened the envelope and found a series of photographs.  The first of a homeless man pushing a shopping cart, then the homeless man seeming to hold the camera and take pictures as the girl performed fellatio on him, and finally the man dressed in a familiar looking suit engaging in all manner of sex acts with the girl; the latter taking place in a very familiar looking bedroom.

[canvassence]

36. Her madness shakes hands with my madness.

[ericboyd]

MOTEL ROOM

He hit the light switch and, eyes adjusting, stumbled back across the room. He sat down on the bed and felt for his keys on the nightstand. On the key ring, a small, metal screw-top bottle of pills. The room was hot, but the pill bottle was cool; he held it against himself, rolling it over his forehead with the palm of his hand, and felt better. 

        People were screaming next door; it wasn't clear if that was good or bad. 

        But this was a safe place, he thought, because so many bad things could happen there. Anything could happen--so realistically, thinking of all those times something didn't occur--nothing ever would. It was the calm, quiet places where terrible things truly unfolded. A doctor's office, a large home, a mind. Those were places to fear.

        He listened to the screaming a while longer before turning on the radio. A Ravel string piece. Staring into the dark, holding his bottle, unscrewing the top, he thought of how nice it was to not be alone.

[frenchbobbyfrench-blog]

She Hunts Horses

She hunts horses She uses trails of enemy blood She painted her face in "war paint" until someone called her "savage" She disavows cultural appropriation She makes blankets She weaves in memories she's had She cried when she she sold her first blanket to a homeless man She cares about class warfare

[dicktoo]

cajun fisherman

terry hip go out on ‘m. flip, de doeg, weedle on he leg – terry kick‘m and thoed it out. now he cain’t fish de bank enamo.

he go down de pond enaway.

da sun making jewlry on da water. terry, he feeling touch of de nekked baby jesus. terry tear up. think maybe it jus he hip, call flip. terry think, where dat doeg enaway?

– Cab Driver

[canvassence]

34. Her mystery is the only one that I revere.

[canvassence]

33. When she agrees to my silence, a cord of light passes from my spine to hers. I understand how I am bound (in unspeakable ways).

[canvassence]

32. I am never fully resuscitated by anyone else but her.