#nycwriter

[girlwiththeladybugtattoo]

I wrote a piece on 27 things I’ve Learned as a Writer for on my blog ‘Mad Seasoned’. Give it a read 💖 • Film shot by IG: getchamans 💫💫

[uziegonyc]

CASTLES OF CLOUDS 

THINK BEFORE

YOU BUILD

CASTLES OF CLOUDS

IN THE SKY

WITH ANYONE 

OTHER THEN 

YOU ALONE

[savagesneversleepnyc]

THE SPIDER by UZIEGO

The spider

He weaves his web

So succinctly

Scaling high

Awaiting the fluttering

Feast of flesh

Lay in wait

And salivate

Tendrils tenderly

Intertwined with

Tumultuous hunger

Plucking upon the line

A hiss and and hop

And across the web

to the spot

Of stasis

In the entanglement

Enchanted creature

So fair

So ripe

So perfectly

Frozen

Awaiting

That

First

Bite

[wtfcraigslistnyc]

HUMAN RIGHTS FIESTA

BY UZIEGO

It’s always very difficult to remember where I was going to or coming from at this time.

It is however possible to remember the exact spot on the two lane tarmac slicing through the trees where they stopped..

It was damp and bone chilling cold as my left foot slipped in stride behind me and my right hand and thumb popped up like a toll gate, inversely receiving the oncoming vehicle. HITCHHIKING is a strange KARMIC art.

One cannot possibly appreciate getting from point A to B with any certainty having NOT EXPERIENCED utter uncertainty of HITCHHIKING.

Many times I’ve reached with eyes wide shut into the archive of my mind, trying to gently pass through the halls of memory and retrieve the first time I stuck out my thumb and began the walk down the road. Not knowing who would take me or when they would come. The road is very different when you are on it alone on foot.

We travel our whole lives in steel carriages at a mile a minute. Completely oblivious of the world that we pass through. When one is removed from the convenience of a carriage and is left back in the state of nature where your person, the elements and geography become one.

The shoulder can vary in size. On most paved, two lane, rural route roads, the shoulder would typically be 2 ½ feet or 2 cubits.

When walking upon the tarmac it’s quite easy to forget where you are going and melt into the environment through which you step. The guardrail will rise and fall slowly and lonely as you quietly pass by like a thief in the night. The cows will moo and gawk at your foolish plans to be anywhere, anytime specific.

I once walked up a road to my girlfriend’s house in the middle of an afternoon ECLIPSE.

This was in the pre-Internet era where information lived in a very animate and direct manner. People watched the news, read NEWSPAPERS and shared the news of the day directly WORD OF MOUTH. As I reached the fields that lay atop the sizable hill I marched up from the main road, the sun began to change and the sky began to vibrate. The couple dozen heads of cattle started to moo in fear and confusion. The light began to fade and the mooing turned to a roar as I slowly proceeded up the paved path to her crib. The sun would all but disappear and light would decrease to roughly 30% of full daytime light for a few minutes before slowly returning to full brightness.

We would drink pink ZINFANDEL from a jug and have awkward teen relations to ALL APOLOGIES, as KURT COBAIN had died earlier that year.

The morning when they picked me up it was gray and wet, but most likely the same hue as the day the chorus of cows cheered me on through the ECLIPSE to my hot tawdry destination.

The SILVER, two door, FORD FIESTA, signaled as soon as they saw me. This was not uncommon. Many times when you HITCHHIKE, someone will instantly see you and throw the signal to let you know that you are about to get off the tarmac and into a stranger’s car to go to an indeterminate destination.

The car slowed and pulled up next to me. I had a backpack and my skate in my hands. The guy in the front seat practically fell out of the car as a cloud of weed smoke erupted from the tiny compact. He seemed very faded and had his head down, bracing himself with his hand on the roof of the car. He said nothing. The lady in side driving said:

HEY HONEY! POP IN AN GET WARMED UP!

I threw my bag and deck into the tiny back seat and crawled in. We slowly pulled away and she turned up the EDDIE BRACKELL. She was doing this kind of HIPPIE HAND dancing type thing. It was very easy to imagine her making her whole body do the thing she was doing with her hand that wasn’t driving the car careening down the road.

The man in the front seat had his head slumped down. He lit a large spliff and hand took several large blasts from it and passed it to the lady. He coughed a bunch and she took a little baby blast of the jay.

At this time I should probably describe the man in the passenger seat.

The man had a massive head of DREADLOCKS and was wearing an army fatigue jacket. The area of VERMONT I lived in was virtually devoid of non-caucasian folk. There was a small Jamaican community there that had always worked in the many trades and artisanal things produced there.. VERMONT hosted a very large REGGAE festival for over a decade. Many of the biggest legends would come to play the GREEN MOUNTAINS because they loved it so much there. The clean air and generally friendly people appreciated the music.

I hadn’t ever seen this person before. He seemed to be in another place. I could understand being quite stoned as we drove into WOODBURY and they dropped me off at CHIAM’S house. I thanked them both and stumbled out of the car with my bag and waved. As I went into CHAIM’s house it dawned on me that I had left my skate in the car! I was really bummed. It was a junk CREATURE deck, with whatever BS wheels and trucks someone broke me off with, but it was my whip and it was now GONE.

It’s also of relevance to note that I did not live in a house at this time. Myself and my buddies lived in tents at the end of BARRE st in MONTPELIER. Squatting in a forest on town property. We decided to live as LORD OF THE FLIES people due to a variety of sad and difficult circumstances too morose to mention in this context. But it was filthy and fabulous. We would steal stuff constantly and pay to take showers at the gym downtown several times a week. This was all by choice. We were not living on the streets, begging out of some sense of teen rebellion. We lived in tents like HOBO’s because that’s what we chose to do. This of course represents an issue if someone needed to contact you because you don’t have a phone or a home to pop in and find you. Such was the way of the world in 1995.

I would hitchhike back to town from CHAIM’s house the next day, defeated.

I had lost the most important single possession in the world. My skateboard was not just an object to stand on and move from point A to B. It was a weapon I could defend myself from anyone with. It was a seat to ponder the next nefarious move. It was the friend who always wanted to hang out and do that thing over and over out of the pure joy of the pavement chatting us both up.

In the next couple of days I would continue my aimless existence of reading, eating, sleeping in the woods and hollering at the young ladies.

We did get ladies to come back to our CAMP as we preferred to call it. My mate once got down with a young lady on the hood of her car on the road below our camp. I was not around, but our slightly OFF buddy was. When our frisky friend returned to camp, head high like a goddamn stallion,,our OFF MATE said:

OH MY GOD!! I’M SO GLAD THAT YOU’RE HERE! I THINK THAT SOMEONE WAS GETTING RAPED DOWN ON THE ROAD!!!

My other mate stepped back and lit a cigarette in his long boney digits.

NO JIMMY. NO ONE WAS GETTING RAPED ON THE ROAD. THAT WAS JUST ME AND MY FRIEND.

The days were getting warmer and I was restless without my skate instantly. It was one of the first times I learned to put away a feeling of regret so that it didn’t consume me.

But then the magic thing happened…

I was standing in the sunshine in front of the library. I heard a voice call out something,

RUDE BWOY!!!

I saw a blur of someone running toward me.

The DREADY man approached me with a huge smile and my skate in his hands. He spoke to me in a stew-like accent that crackled and popped.

RUDE BWOY! YOU DONE FURGOT YA SKATE!!! BLESS UP INTO THE LIGHT YOUTH!!!!

And just like that we hugged and he walked away. I remember the smell but I cannot describe it. I was so blown away that I had lost and then found my skate. I was so thankful to the kind stranger and his lady for seeing me and returning it. It felt like good karma. Much like the good karma one feels when the silver FORD FIESTA signals and pulls over on a cool gray morning..

I was awestruck by this that I simply pushed this moment into the ether of memory.

I had a thought while I was in the back seat of the car with the couple who returned my skate. I wondered ever so briefly before completely dismissing the notion, that the man reminded me of HR, HUMAN RIGHTS, the iconic frontman of the BAD BRAINS. Even as I sat in the back seat it seemed completely impossible and I dismissed this idea almost instantly. Surely the man was just another fellow who happened to have huge DREADS, many of the men from JAMAICA in VT had huge dreads.

I would watch the doc about JOSEF, HR many years later and have a shocking revelation. In a key moment in the story, after things went into a bad direction with HR and the band, he took a hiatus. He went and hid out in VERMONT.

I’ve never verified this with JOSEF himself, but it seemed that even through the fog of memory and the many many times I’ve smashed my head into the pavement that I am certain.

We all lose things and find things sometimes. We all move from point A to B and usually know roughly when we will get there. I know many people in my life who are not capable of stepping out of the shower let alone the front door with such uncertainty.

But in my heart of hearts, with great certainty that JOSEF HR returned my skateboard to me on a sunny day in 1995.

[somedarkhollow]

construction remnants

Someone spilled rock and sand on the city street below. I didn’t see them do it, I can only guess how it happened. The clamor to rush away as the traffic light announced the alternation of stopping and going. A truck’s tailgate pushed too hard by the weight of the load upon acceleration. A trail of dust and sand tumbled to the asphalt in an effort to escape, only to be trampled by thousands of cars over the next few hours. Each time someone drives over the rocky debris a hiss escapes from tire and sand skittering in opposite directions while somehow maintaining a glistening track on the dark street. It sounds like someone thinks it’s going to snow, like preparation for the ice and cold February is known for. It feels like spring though. The air is warmer and the sun lingers longer, diminishing the length of the darkness that haunts us from one season to the next. I find myself drifting off, dreaming of a deep, clear sky speckled with dots, sifting the light from distant planets and stars through the dark, warm air. In my mind I remember a summer night where the stray sparks from a fire mingled with the stars. Everything felt so possible, so near. Then wheel meets dust and I’m back in my apartment. Sitting up in bed, the only night sky I can muster lives on a backlit screen and the line of sand in the road is one I cannot cross nor can I understand. 

[thewrittentales]

Ron's Christmas Miracle, Short Story by Hunter Spurlock. Please share and help Written Tales become the #1 literature home for writers and readers. https://writtentales.substack.com/p/rons-christmas-miracle

[gayandthecityblog]

Inhibitions

Last night while dancing in the Washington Square fountain, I started to think about inhibitions. Where do they come from and why do we have them? We’re completely free as children when it comes to instinct. If we want to cry, we cry. We create entire scenarios and worlds based off of whatever we choose. We don’t care to make a fool of ourselves as long as we complete our objective. So, why after years of being who we are and learning about ourselves do we get more and more restrained? 

Of course, you have those that naturally do what they want and usually end up succeeding when it comes to their choices. They’re carefree and bold, but sometimes we label them as insecure and attention seeking. We’re taught so early that if you don’t follow the same path as everyone else, you won’t make it to where you want to be. It’s funny to think about because everyone’s paths are always going to be inherently different. Yes, we can end up applying for the same jobs as our peers, but the journey is never going to be the same. So, where did the inhibitions start?

Some say it starts as children, which I feel that with everything whether it be good or bad can start off when we’re kids. I also want to say however that it starts with the adults in our lives; the incessant nagging and rhetoric that comes along with growing up. Yes, of course we need to learn how to behave in certain situations, but isn’t it detrimental to the growing psyche to be told to second guess everything you do and that, “no, you’re wrong. This is the right way of doing things,” is actually harmful in the long run. 

What if we were to say instead of constantly telling the younger generations, “No. You can’t do that,” or, “No, that isn’t right,” we start exploring new ways of teaching and/or discipline. Instead of writing them off right off the bat, why not try to see how they got there in the first place and find out how their brain works. We’re all unique and different when it comes to who we are and how we learn, and our journey of education, whether that be actual schooling or just how to live in general, should try to accommodate that.

That can be a bit of a pipe dream especially with learning institutions, but when it comes to the study of living it’s not just a skip, hop, and a run down the yellow brick road. Life is inherently difficult in and of itself. Yes, there are those born with privilege, and yes, quite frankly, there are those that are never going to experience the rougher side of life; however, there’s nothing we can really do about that tax bracket unless we work in the hierarchy of our own government. 

There is one thing we can do though: we can break generational cycles and teach a new way of living. Maybe then we’ll be less inclined to second guess ourselves and more inclined to trust our instincts and do the things that set us free.

-Jacob Terry

[aaronaglover-blog]

In 31 days (Thursday, October 7th), I will be performing at @inspiredwordnyc NYC Voices. Now, if you’re excited as I am, naturally, you’ll ask, where can I get tickets? The answer? Follow the link in my bio. Now, if you’re saying to yourself, why should I come, well, I will be displaying some reasons over the next month. Can’t wait! #nycvoices #poetry #aaronglover #poet #writer #nycwriter #thursday #october7th #linkinbio https://www.instagram.com/p/CTgVXhKM09y/?utm_medium=tumblr

[chaoticd0ll]

During the beginning of quarantine BLM was at it’s loudest. The unjust murder of George Floyd lit a fire in everyone unlike anything I’ve ever seen. During this time I was also asked to write an essay in regard to how I felt. In fact over time I feel as if these words still apply and my feelings have gotten much stronger in the matter. Here is an excerpt from my essay that I feel more should read. PLEASE LIKE & REBLOG.

America has treated black people like animals since they were first forced here. For years black people were mistreated and disregarded. All those 400 years of being degraded and humiliated, just for the descendants of slaves to not even know their native language or culture. Our last names are given from our ancestors' masters, our language is that of our captors and it has taken over 400 years for people to finally make some noise for us. It took dozens of lives to be lost for people to see that this is a clear genocide. We built our culture and new identities from the ground up, we have people who look like us making history and yet we aren't seen as equal. It doesn't end with police, it’s ingrained in our society, the constitution that's supposed to guarantee our freedom for being an American was written by white men who owned slaves. The large corporations take our culture and use it as a costume, African American vernacular English is taken and made a mockery of, our skin is trendy when it’s not on us, our hair is fashionable when it's worn by celebrities, our music is seen as loud and aggressive, our youth is seen as dangerous and ghetto, our women are seen as sexual objects or angry, our men are seen as evil and lazy, our president says “what else do we have to lose” and words we set out to reclaim are thrown around without a care and I have been tired. And now finally the people can’t turn their heads and ignore how deeply systemic racism is. They must hear us, as we are tired of being tired. We are no longer going to allow us to be killed and treated without respect. Hopefully, now with time, black people will be able to truly be free to live in “the land of the free”.

[rebeccariveraa]

Prologue to Womanhood | Rebecca Rivera

[uziegonyc]

CHEETAH TYCOON

BY

UZIEGO

CHEETAH TYCOONS’ SUSHI STEAKHOUSE MEMORIAL MIXTAPE PART ONE

Reimagining the mythic dream that led to the iconic eatery’s rise and ultimate demise.

RYU TAKEUCHI was a REBEL. Growing up in a small home in SAITAMA prefecture.

His parents did their level best to keep him occupied, but RYU was wild from his first breaths.

As a young man he moved to BROOKLYN and took up work as a cook at his brother-in law’s hibachi restaurant. It was hard work but it occupied his mind. It drained him of his mischievous juices. It left him empty to sleep and dream.

It was in these reverie spaces where he saw it. A vision. A dream that every immigrant carries. To build something that you put your name on and leave as a legacy. To work on one's own terms, answering to none.

What he saw was something most profound…

In the VISION that RYU saw, deep in the recesses of his subconscious was something that no man had dared to dream off.. He saw a palatial sushi, steakhouse and hibachi that would be NYC’s only destination featuring the taboo and all but lost art of eating sushi off people. In his place the customer would be king. The staff would avow themselves of the morays that bind normal humans in a pitiful cage of fear. His people would require lion size passion and hearts brave enough to allow strangers to feast upon succulent cuts of HAMACHI, YELLOWFIN and mighty dollops of UNI, flown direct from the TSUKIJI FISH MARKET in TOKYO.

Cost would be no consideration. If a high roller should turn up he’d send one of lackeys to fetch all the fixings from KLAUS in the BRONX.. a 10 k seafood tower with all the ambitious trimmings of STURGEON CAVIAR from IRAN, massive u2 PRAWNS the size of sweet LOBSTERS from the SEA OF CORTEZ and freshly picked WELLFEET OYSTERS all sourced from SAMEER on GRAND ST. Not even the most outlandish request would be turned away. If a sultan required a pet goat, chimp and baby elephant as accouterments to a HUMAN SUSHI POO POO PLATTER, then a mere claps of the SULTAN’S mitts would trigger a CODE RED and all the employees rush into motion to frantically accommodate him.

The all but lost art of NYOTAIMORI began when a monk was tasked with serving a cruel and merciless lorde who had beheaded his predecessor for a lack of ambition in his presentations at his lavish feasts… despite mastering so many components of technique and flavor he knew his mentor hadn’t died in vein…

Being a EUNUCH and devoted master, the MONK (who’s real name has vanished into the quicksand quagmire of timer) had the steady hands to gently place the delicate cuts of fish upon supple flesh to be wheeled before him on an ornate BAMBOO GIRODON’…

RYU woke up in a panic. His heart pounded in his ears and the daylight blinded his eyes.The honking and banging of garbage trucks on WOODRUFF Ave always startled him awake every morning regardless. He grasped desperately for anything he could find so as to jot down this vision. The only thing his digits touched was an old newspaper and a paperclip.

He recklessly thrust the straightened paper clip into his bare thigh like an ink quill and began frantically writing every piece of his dream he could recall in his own blood on the newspaper… Years later that very newspaper would be hermetically sealed and mounted in his office over the door.

Once he ran out of newspaper and his plastically sticky fingers couldn’t bear to clutch the scant bit of metal any longer he stopped… Reaching for the handle of VODKA next to his pillow and his waste bucket, he filled his cheeks like a chipmunk with the triple distilled swill and sprayed the contents all over his festering wound….

After bathing and dressing his wound he rushed out of his home as was already late for work. For the next decade he worked tirelessly saving every penny. When he had saved $250,000 he called his uncle and asked for a meeting with KAIJU, the ultimate boss of bosses in his world.

The plan was brutally simple. He would present his savings and plan before KAIJU and he would take the money, multiply it ten fold and become partners OR KAIJU would slit his throat out of disgust for the audacity shown in even approaching him. As such.

He went to the barber and had a shave before putting on his most serious formal attire. As he marched to the gate of the compound with his life’s savings in one hand and his balls in the other he pressed the bell that summoned the butler…

The door opened and he was escorted through the grand residence and at last sat face to face with KAIJU.

KAIJU sat motionless staring at RYU in a neutral position. RYU bowed deeply before the crime lorde. After slowly raising his crown and locking eyes, his hands reached for the suitcase that opened and placed directly before KAIJU.

KAIJU removed the tattered bloody newspaper with two fingers and held it high above his head. His disgust and amazement painted upon his face were profound…

WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THIS?!

KAIJU (proclaimed in JAPANESE)

IT’S MY DREAM LORDE KAIJU. I DREAMT OF A GLORIOUS EATERY THAT WOULD BOLDLY GO WHERE NONE DARE TOO. WE WILL WARM OURSELVES ON COLD NIGHTS TOSSING BUNDLES OF 100’s AS DON PABO ONCE DID WITH BOUNTIFUL BOOTY WE SHALL PLUNDER…

RYU most humbly stated this in a bellowing, confident tone. He kept his head down on the floor, kneeling after making the statement to show utter submission, and to receive his blessing or the steel that would remove his head from his shoulders…

KAIJU bowed his head as well to ponder the bloody newspaper, suitcase full of money and the prospect that he could be a partner in the flagship NYOTAIMORI empire he too had shared since childhood in silence. He too had hit his head very hard. He suffered from brutal cluster headaches. The only reprieve from his pain was demanding his wet nurse strip so he could enjoy his meals utilizing her as a human plate…

JŌSHŌ!!!!! (RISE in NIHONGO)

KAIJU screamed in a death cry.

Both men gasped and pounded to their feet in a singular grunting motion. They stood huffing and puffing, attempting to pull to the oxygen inward to command the response that would follow…

RYU SAN!!!! I WILL PARTNER WITH YOU. I BELIEVE YOUR VISION IS CLEAR AND YOUR HEART IS PURE!!

RYU replied in a deafening roar with his eyes averted to the floor.

YOU HONOR ME BEYOND WORKS LORDE KAIJU! PLEASE ACCEPT THIS GOAT AS A SIGN OF MY SINCERITY AND GRATITUDE.

With that, RYU’s cousin walked into the room as he’d procured the GOAT in anticipation of this going to plan and the plasma in RYU’s person not painting KAIJU’s palatial office like a DNA FIRE HYDRANT that had been pulled open full bore…

RYU again bowed his head deeply as TACHI placed the GOAT before KAIJU and stepped to RYU’s side, bowing as well so as not to make ANY eye contact with KAIJU.

KAIJU clapped his hands very loudly and several servants rushed in with a large platter of COCAINE and a pillow that gently cradled his HANZO STEEL.

He leaned in and took a KARIBUTO like hork from the COLUMBIAN MARCHING MOJO… The servant scurried to RYU and TACHI insisting on both hork as well.

KAIJU exhaled and thrust his robe to the floor, exposing his full body suit of tattoos and genitalia. Both men and the servants averted their eyes as KAIJU was known to still take heads for any action that could sully his ritual of partnership.

He grumbled in a tone that sounded less like words and more akin to monks praying in semi-throat vibration. His eyes clamped shut as he clutched the KITANA, naked, panting, sweat gushing from every pore….

NYOTAIMORI!!!!! FORWARD TO GLORY

KAIJU lifted the blade from his draw stance above his head and let out a furious roar, casting the KITANA’s edge in a crescent, cleaning and decapitating the GOAT in one stroke… The clean, whizz of the blade through the flesh and fur resonated roughly 2300 KHZ per second, nearly splitting the ear drums of everyone in the room.

The GOAT’s lower half flopped to the floor and dowsed the floor in the remaining liquid it held…

The pitch had ended well and RYU would have 2.5 million to build his opulent palace of excess and NYOTAIMORI SAVAGERY…

On opening night KAIJU appeared with his pet KIMOTO dragon on the red carpet. Stepping out of a stretch ROLLS, with 5 companions. A separate ECONOLINE van pulled behind the limo and followed KAIJU and his harem, throwing tiny chickens at BORIS (THE OBESE KOMODO DRAGON KAIJU LOVED LIKE A SON, WHO WOULD GLADLY EAT HIM…). This was imperative as BORIS was known to get mean in public settings and bite folks… He hadn’t eaten ANYONE unless he was taken to the subterranean pool where KAIJU would host DOG and COCK fights. This was also were BORIS was allowed have a nibble of some screaming wiggling piggies before longingly looking at KAIJU for approval to Perry north and enjoy the tasty SLIM JIM THAT BEEN JIN as it had already been a long day and BORIS was always rather hungry…

KAIJU smiled and waved as the camera bulbs erupted causing BORIS to nip wildly around him at the feet of the screaming ladies… It was all they could do to smile and not scream as the camera shutters fluttered like locust wings in a plague. BORIS was pissed but his handler was KAIJU’s mentally challenged baby brother who’d raised BORIS since hatching to be obedient. A truly magic feat to tame a DRAGON in the modern world. Many would look at BORIS and JUNE walking around the compound and think many disrespectful thoughts of this drooling fool leading a deadly dragon on a leash.

It was beyond forbidden to speak to him or interact with him or BORIS in any manner. KAIJU was fiercely proud and protective of both. As JUNE led BORIS down the red carpet, KAIJU’s lackey’s threw baby chickens so as to lead BORIS on the red carpet and also busy his mouth. BORIS most eagerly slagged forward sucking in the little chirping chicks like a HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPO on a 1000 LBS. chain.

Dragging a smiling person whose eyes gleamed as wide as the CHEETAH charging ahead and setting the pace of the pride. Storm clouds circle and the watering hole is many more miles still, but the charge forward continues unabated across the SERENGETI PLAIN.

FIN PART ONE

[savagesneversleepnyc]

LBS INDELIBLE or HIVE MIND DIE

The weight we take is often too great to forsake all the many steps and ways it makes haste to step to.

Innocuous intent smells of fresh baked breads we walked through fallow plains with bare feet so discreetly. Sneaky with bellies hungry like tadpoles that glow after eating raw sewage. The new age was upon the dam and the COHO ROE was untold upstream.. AS cohorts revert into red clay dispite endeavors splendid in design.

Caravans cannot handle the damage of the plan to roll out and employ auto biographies they plagiarized and took for granted all in one stroke. Broken hopes sling muddy balls at walls taller then whales being brought up on deck to hack and illuminat e the filth they wallowed in as blind moles…

Portions irrationally spaced out of places we waited on hand to eat feet with open eyes. Hearts exploding in confit emotions vastly injested innocent but irreverent, irreversible entanglement of aborhamt behavior abound

Persephone’s lips tasted sweet like rubbed rubarab cocoons festooned in flaccid elastic bands stitched back in place by two hands

The sorriecfantasy was more vastly irrational but whole easier to execute in a less sincere context. The algae covered rocks waved goodbye to the high tide as nets dug below, stirring the pools slowly and low as leaves fall and turn back to earth sky and die to smile again

The black bear was unaware of the hawk and the mouse and the family in the little house just outside the gates he never wandered far enough to meet. But the smells and the sails tips dripped in seagull jelly and arctic char guts. He would await the sound of the voices then hide in pride inside the cave he made safe in no small bit of effort.

Proteins slow to burn into dreams as the winter eases back and the buds break through honey cold branches at the licked kiss of sun rays in spring. But ant sleep too and knew the ARMY and THE QUEEN were far too mean to touch the sky or see outside the HIVE MIND

$7:45AM J TRAIN TO Bk 4.18.24.0000003

[wtfcraigslistnyc]

NO UMBRELLA

A MAN DOES NOT REQUIRE AN UMBRELLA

Though the rain may pound down in torrents

That crash as dense sheets of liquid pouring from the heavens. A man does not require ANY protection from the elements as he himself is a force of nature to be reckoned

KENNETH had lived his whole life in a dignified manner.

STERN, HARD WORKING, NEVER EVER COMPLAINING, FOR ANY REASON OF ANY KIND.

THIS IS WHAT A MAN DOES

He lived to see the days when the many faces

Of his many kids’ kids’ would appear as

Spritely characters in brightly colored

T-Shirts and fancy sneakers

Speaking quickly in words that sounded like a saw ripping through a hard piece of CHERRY wood

KENNETH KNEW NOTHING OF THIS.

He showed every kid that crossed his path

What path they would be taking after

Their time together had come to an end

KENNETH WAS A MAN HARD AS NAILS

Inextricably tied to the antiquated model that he and he alone would DEFEND with every ounce of blood and every pound of muscle versus a hail of bullets before succumbing to anything beneath him and his standard

He distributed a higher potency and frequency of ass beatings and brutal verbal punishment for any infraction of his IRON CLAN AGENDA

KENNETH grew old and would watch reruns

The days grew softly shorter and his temper less quick

He awoke up one day to feel an intense pain in his belly

Like a red hot poker straight into an open wound

Searing pain clutched his chest in dire bondage…

He lay there. Eyes closed and remembered the rain and how his father had taken his umbrella away from him, and told him about the tide that would rise and how a man would have to stand and command his piece of land or die trying..

For two days and two nights KENNETH told his wife that he felt crumby and wanted to be left alone. Probably just a bug. But he knew as each agonizing moment elapsed that he was facing the great foe. The one force even he couldn't stand tall against.

On the third day his wife insisted that they go to the hospital. When they were admitted the DR and staff were modified to inform her that his appendix had fully ruptured and exploded inside of KENNETH’S body 24 hours prior…

KENNETH’S chest and abdomen had been filling with brutal fluid for hours. His color and breathing grew jaunt and labored. He was rushed into the surgery. But not before looking at his dear wife, mother of his children, best friend and legitimate thorn in his very last shred of patience for decades…

DON’T LET NOBODY SAY NOTHING ABOUT ME…

TELL EM ALL TO KEEP MY NAME OUT OF THEIR MOUTHS..

And off he went. After walking the many miles in the freezing cold over the many miles to school as a child, or having to work the fields alongside his family all those years growing up, all those times he saw the storm coming from miles away and still walked out the door knowing he would indeed get caught and be forced the stand up against all the forces of evil that will try to thwart him…

KENNETH died on that operating table supported by massive amounts of morphine and a cocktail of other substances used to stabilize his plummeting vitals.

He never said he was sorry to anyone ever.

He most certainly never once touched an umbrella in his many, many years of life…

[nakedwritingblog]

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[somedarkhollow]

hearts are delicate

it’s funny to me, increasingly so, how those of us who make our way through the city each day have learned to pluck our hearts from our sleeves and stow them deep within ourselves. We lock them away, there’s no room for them on the crowded stairs down to the depths of the subway tunnels. There’s no room for them as we cautiously monitor the proximity of the person walking behind us up a dark street. It seems the idea that to love and lose is better than not to have loved at all was pushed aside as we decluttered our way into living more compact lives in crevices sold to us monthly. In my pursuit to brush any vulnerability aside, I think my heart has become more and more fragile. When I kept it on my sleeve, it would brush up against things, face the cold morning air, and so it grew a thicker skin. But now, sick in bed, peering out the window or tethered to my phone, I feel so small and so weak. I cry at almost nothing, a dream I had spoils my day and I wonder if the girl who traded her strength to live in a shoebox in the sky would even recognize me now as I write this to assuage my shame and maybe even attempt to console myself.