I am the sympathetic stain,

I can’t run from the pain,

I am well hidden in life,

I do not exist in front of others,

Im invisible for all to see,

Only those who have the means,

There is no knowledge of me,

Just a well kept secret,

No one will ascertain,

I will ever remain,

The sympathetic stain.

Have you ever been trapped in a mind palace? A spoiled Princess hidden away from the world. Not able to handle the dangers it offers. Well guess what? She's running.

The mind palace has always been her prison. She hated it. Being stuck. When she was very young, a monster called anxiety trapped her there. It would tell her to sit there, to never encounter anything that gave stress. That if she ever tried running, the mind palace would crumble and fall on her. Well, the jokes on the monster, because she's running. Mind palace be damned. She'll take all calamities. She's running.

Everyone tells you a story of a prince or a knight coming up to save the princess. Destroying the cruel monster, kicking the door open and swooping the princess off of her feet. He would take her and place her in another palace, never letting her see the light. Never actually conquering the monster that's called anxiety. So she's running. Running away from falling into someone, falling into patterns. Running away from the monster.

The princess picks up her speed, if it's not now, it's never gonna happen. She stumbles on the ground a few times, she has to get up again and again to make process. Sometimes it's painful, the glass pieces falling and cutting her. She tries various things, makes a note of how the mind palace works. She comes up with a plan, tries to remember it. Run but breath. Run but breath. Get up from the ground and dodge the glass pieces. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.

But is she really running? Everything is slowing her down. The progress is mediocre. The monster is laughing at her. The mind palace breaking down often. She stops sometimes, takes a step back. Sometimes two. Sometimes three. Sometimes four. Thinking she should stay in her lane, stay where it's harmless. Maybe wait for a prince. But then she's running. Because no one ever comes here. No one ever understands. So she's running. At her own pace. She's running as she pleases.

She realises when she comes out after a year long battle with the mind palace and the monster. At the entrance, no one waits for her. Nobody is holding a party. Nobody is congratulating her for her victory. Instead there's a whole world out there, ready for her, ready to break her. So she pats her own back for winning the battle, the first of many.

And then she's running.

I walk into the bank and raise my gun with a shaking hand. All the hustle and bustle of people walking around stops suddenly as a single gunshot rings across the room. Kids cry out and people dive under tables.

I walk up to the counter where a worker's trying to duck down so to not be seen, but the cover of the counter isn't big enough. I pull him up by his hair, and put my pistol against his forehead.

He looks at me and there's visable fear in his eyes, and even without words I see him begging for mercy. For what must be the millionth time, I think about my life. I think about the monster that I've become. But I know it's too late to turn back now.

I tell him calmly, "I want five hundred-thousand dollars in this briefcase right now, or your brains are gunna be splattered against the wall behind you."

He nods vigorously, then ducks down and starts loading green hundred dollar bills into the black briefcase.

Suddenly, I fall to the ground, my breath knocked clean out of me. I roll over, and a man who looks to be in his 40s in above me. He makes a move for the gun that had fallen from my hand, but I get to it first.

I grip the cold steel in my hand as I aim the shaft at his chest. My finger pulls the trigger.

He puts his hands on his stomach where the bullet hit. Blood slowly seeps though the shirt, the crimson red soaking his white button down. He drops to his knees, and somewhere behind him, someone cries out, "Daddy!"

A young boy rushed up to him and held the man in his arms, sobbing. Through the tears, I keep hearing "No! No, daddy, don't leave. Don't leave me."

The man's breaths get shorter and shorter, until finally his chest stops moving.

The little redhaired boy sits on the blood soaked ground for a moment before getting up. He walks up to me screaming, "You did this! You killed my dad!"

He Pounds on my chest, and he reminds me of my five year old son. The son I left. As the sirens in the distance start to get louder, I think about my life, about all I left behind. And I run.

I run from the bank,

I run from the sirens,

I run from the little boy,

and I run from the money that I killed a man over.

But I can't run from my thoughts.

the lower jaw of my articulate skeleton

doesn’t quit producing echoes,

the softest and blackest of which

become faraway heroes, shapeshifters.

my blotwork methods

give voices to bruises

and glory down visor helmets

for all that seems

common and unremarkable.

#writing

lowborn. black chipped grit. how far into the chlorine can i get, before it all goes? i keep begging. the label is blurry. take a break from the feed. write for yourself. words are all made up, so where’s the fault in aligning them in whichever ways and whims you wish. upon. grace. there is no standard of perfection, is there. it’s an expression. a gesture, of oneself. which couldn’t be preconceived. my hunger is the ordained. are you? what you eat? running dry, running rampant, hindsight is a throat that makes itself noticeable. i’m coming to the high end of the climax, of the octave, of this, the song that downpours.

This is more than an unearthing,

this is an expose, ripping rib cage

each bone until it is cracked,

until one's innards are raw and

thin against the air of a world

that would rather turn a blind eye.

I smoked a cigarette today,

Puffed at a soggy tab,

For I had dropped it in the rain.

Though the Sun, he was out in full;

Split all the heavenly clouds asunder,

But not these fatal simmers.

And even the birds gathered,

To watch my painless journey

Down a fetid pipe.

And all their eyes sang of their hollow goodbyes,

To the freshness of the Summer breeze,

As I calmly inhaled.

But the Sun had his pity on me,

For I bathed dreaming for a short while,

Half-asleep in the cancer.

__________________________________

Image: Skull Of A Skeleton With Burning Cigarette (1885-86)

There's just a lot going on at my house that prevents me from writing. A lot of stuff with my parents, plus school coming up, plans for newspaper, theatre, all of that. No idea when I'll be able to actively post again, but right now I have way too much on my plate. Sorry about the silence!

Peace--

--SelfTitled.