The year died and then breathed again - like I, phoenix rising, baggage clearing. Plane almost landed. Soft or hard, bring it on. Night darkest before dawn indeed, let that dawn on you as your mind's sun awakens again, please. The year is waxing. That ain't a warning. Quite the opposite - not taxing. That proposition's simmering in your cranium, the crowd in your frontal lobe stadium roaring, the flow state waters pouring again. Rise and shine, friends.

I can’t feel my hands.

It’s the only thought she can get out, the only thing she can process, the simplest set of words she can string together in the moment. The world is suddenly dark, so dark, and she could swear that just a moment ago there had been more than this, the crushing weight of invisibility pressing her down.

I can’t feel my feet either.

She kicks and struggles and her toes meet hard wood—couldn’t this sort of thing break a bone or twelve with ease? She wouldn’t know. All she knows is that she has to go up, past the wood and the weight and the awful dreadful suspicion that there is nothing else for her broken spirit to feel.

What can I feel?

Any other day, it would be a simple question with a simple answer. But she can’t feel, she can’t see, she can’t know what this is or how deep she is. She scratches, fights, claws her way forward, pulls a deep breath into depleted lungs and forces a response to her own question.

Nothing.

She looks down at her own body, her hands just as unfeeling and lungs just as empty as before. There is no longer the weight of burial dirt and splintering coffin wood to battle, no fear of invisibility or numbness to push her forward.

What am I?

Is she…free? Untethered? Set loose? She doesn’t know. She stands, stares down at the grave before her. The heart she had in life would be beating out of her chest now had it followed her into death. But now she only sighs, a single shallow breath to welcome herself to the afterlife.

A ghost has no use for feelings here.

Loud, but invisible

Everywhere but nowhere

The beast inside me escapes my grasp

And you were the unfortunate soul to see it

Fear encases, growing inside

As I wonder what you'll think

Of the true me

Never understood how others couldn't see

Restricted and confined

Clouded by judgement

Until they open their eyes

But are you willing to see?

See my unique power

The folds inside my mind, happy and free

And unseen long hours

Ink smudged across the creases

Worn-down but still young hands

Stanzas written in pieces

That I can understand

Filled if you look closely

But nothing if you don't

Despite this, you've been by my side

Since the start

Or are you one of them,

Who's words sputter into my ears

I'm forced to succumb

They slowly remove it, as my peers

Can only see why it's dumb

They crumple and tear the papers

That I still long to remember

A thousand needles

Pricking my every move

All these peoples

Never approve

Crowded around, pairs of eyes that gossip

But what could I possibly do

A broken engine;

The gears in my head slow to a stop

Looks but no interventions

As they wish that my art will flop

They'll never think about their action

But I don't know why I've lost

Journals abandoned, no way to trace

The voices that's been removing

My hard work, I can't see my magical place

Dimmed and not able to prove

What's behind a phrase

"Why are you still here with me?"

The waning crescent is dark, but

I keep trying to take flight

And you still help me be

A small sliver of light

That maybe, someone can still see

I'll show you my work in a year

We'll never be split

Old times will change, if you are still here

And I hope you're willing to see it

Entry into challenge "Rising Prosers Soiree # 2 : Numb" @ChrisSadhill

Rollerskates were a mixed bag of feelings growing up. At the roller rink, my only friends were the disco ball lights, and the candy from that claw machine that guaranteed you always win. Nothing else really ever went my way.

Both desperate to be seen, and wishing to hide. Feelings that my young mind could barely process. The rush of air past my face as I skated mimicked the rush in my heart. Surrounded by people, but always alone.

Both trapped and free, inside of me was that mixed bag of feelings.

@chrissadhill

It was damp, the sidewalk. Blue moon. The skates wouldn't, they just wouldn't. The roll, the roll was of toilet paper and the skates she had transfered to a rink. The paved hill was damp, as dark as it would have wants. She wasn't, she could. She could, always, a little, a further, more... The skates at the rink, sidewalk turned, going grey in the meilloring sun, as nothing ever occured, it's powers still stainingly fadingly empowering, a rock, a rink, and the questions, that was what she had at damp midday, because she could, skates on or not, always.

@ChrisSadhill

Look

I think we got off to a bad start

It's really not your fault how awful I've been feeling

Really, it isn't

And I've been blaming you for that, that was my bad

It's just that

You know how great last year was?

You know how great that was for me?

Having him in my life this time last year?

It was so heavenly

HE was so heavenly

He made me love you

He made me love the leaves, and the sky

And sending him pictures of how beautiful you could get

I loved wearing his clothes when you got extra chilly

And then it was like you and I had a little thing to share

Just the two of us

We could talk about how great he was making us

How loving him was making me love you even more

I could whisper how lucky I was to your winds at night

Like girls gossiping at a sleepover

He was like a little bond we shared, something to keep us connected

He was the sap of our birchwood kinship

Because I loved him, and you gave him to me

And I was so grateful to you for that

So look, it's not your fault that he's not around this year

I've been blaming you, hating you for not bringing him back

For making me walk the crunchy leafy streets alone

For having no extra warmth to your chilly autumn air

For taking pictures and having no smiley boy to send them to

For feeling alone

For missing that

But it's not your fault

You didn't do that to me, and I shouldn't have blamed you for it

That was unfair

Because this is probably hard on you too

I lost him, but you lost both of us

I've been sulking a lot lately,

Staying inside and resenting the season I used to hold so dearly

That used to reek of new love, and possibility

Depressed and disillusioned, as many often are with you

That you could be so loving one year

And so vacant the next. So grief-stricken, and mournful

But I'm sorry. Him leaving didn't mean you're out to get me

It doesn't mean you're trying to hurt me, or haunt me

You're just doing what you always do

You're wonderful

You're as wonderful as always

Because even now that I'm alone,

Alone, and stubborn, and vengeful,

You still gift me autumn days

And crisp breezes,

And orange sunsets, and spicy donuts,

And thick sweaters that I don't have to share,

And the smell of pumpkin and leaves,

And bags of apples, and warm hugs and fires,

And you know what?

They may not be mine and his

But now they are mine and yours to share.

I can hold your hand as I walk sunsetted streets,

And whistle with your winds as I crash into leaf piles,

And share the sight of the moon with you

Except you don't need me to send you a picture

You can watch it right there with me

I think you've actually been right with me the whole time

It's good to have you back, my friend

It's good to be back myself

There were times where I thought the world would be better if I just disappeared.

People like me didn't always think that they wished that they were dead. People like me wished that they never existed.

- letting go my past thoughts, part 2.

11:11 P.M.

I always said "we" in reassurance

As if there were inhabitants,

Or an ever-peering audience

I guess I half-suspected

You were witnessing and listening

To me discover every puzzle piece

Now I see; it's about time we meet

After all those days in retrograde

It feels nice to be spinning straight

I am sure you're, too, enthused

But as we exit from those traveled years

Where do you suggest we go from here?

You always said I wasn't worth it

All the work I spent building our core

Would always at least an atom short

And all the seeds I delicately planted

May as well just wilt away

(They'll never reflect the light of day)

And to think! I was believing

That smug fog on my inner lens

You breathed to occlude-

-Hey, may I interject? You seem stressed

Your muscles feel all tight and tense

So I'll suggest to you that you should stretch

Bend at the waist

Lower our arms

Use them as weights

So here I rest as I'm encompassed

In the warmth of friends from far away

And light bleeding from the window pane

I gaze at the path behind me

It looks so much greener than

The earth I first traversed and tracked

And all the songs I chose to sing

Are still heard swelling endlessly,

Still enchanting with their melodies

And I feel whole; and only half afraid

So you ungrateful, incessant pest,

It's my turn to speak, you may not interject!

Your arms dragged us through the sand

Then you jammed us in that trench,

Ashamed of your insignificance

I promise you I've shown you my best

And although I've lived this long,

I'm not done living quite yet

I don't think I am something

That the sun will eclipse

When I'm hidden behind walls

Constructed by others' wrists

And I don't think I am clever

I'm just a voice that retorts

As I'm swallowed by the flood

And the waves that I ignore

When I left the attic empty-handed

I shook all my dreams awake

All my joints have cracked and rusted

There's no use to run away

As dusk rears its head

On its long body of night

It's abundantly clear soon

There will be no more lights

So I wish I had your answers

Or had some advice to give

But how could I impart wisdom

When I don't even know how long I've got to live?

I don't blame you for anything I've inflicted upon myself. Driving states away, making the biggest decision of my life, and sleepless nights were all worth getting away from you. I don't blame you even when I want to. The door slams that wake me up at night, the panic attacks where I can hardly breathe, and the time that never seems to pass. Every call, post, and email I've blocked, you always have another way to find me. You know my weak spots and prey on them until I break. I will never break and, still, I will never blame you.

"I punched a rat in the face today" a tall and bearded man said loudly and out of turn on the train. Seventeen people his captive audience, just a few looked up to see the face of the man who claimed to punch a rat in the face.

He repeated himself only louder.

"Okay, how did you punch a rat in the face today?" someone asked. The same three people looking at the bearded rat face puncher.

"I woke up and I was wondering if I could... so I did" he smiled.

At this, now half the train is looking at the wanna be, perhaps did punch a rat in the face man for his response.

"But you did not say how" chimed in a new onlooker.

"I woke up and after thinking if I could punch a rat in the face, I went to the local pet store, bought a large feeder rat and told myself if I can punch it in the face I will and if I can not, I won't".

Now nearly all the people on the train from the original announcement of a man claiming to have punched a rat in the face were looking at him.

"How much did you pay for a rat to do this?"

"I paid seven for the Uber to the pet shop, five for the rat, twelve for the McDonald's and I walked home, so like twenty-five bucks."

The whole train is now leering, the doors open and no one gets off- only new people get on the train with the man who woke up and considered punching a rat in the face so he took an Uber to a pet store, had breakfast, got on the train and began the conversation.

"What does McDonalds have to do with anything?"

"I fed it first, like if it had glasses I would have asked him to take them off, but he didn’t and I am not a brutal man, just a curious man so we had McGriddles. Also I know it was male because I picked one with balls."

"So you took a rat into McDon....." someone started and then a very bothered old man in a MAGA hat interrupted "...did you punch the damn rat in the face or not? I have to get off now damnit and I have no idea what you are talking about but I am here so how did you punch a rat you fed McGriddles to after purchasing it, in the face?"

"Which time?"

The train doors open and a woman rushes to her feet "someone take my seat I need to get away from this next part."

A man in a suit, wrapping his mouth around a bit of a McGriddle slides into her seat, listening intently- and as they pass he mumbles with a mouthful "I don't blame you."