The tavern breathed like an old beast—thick air, warm with the ghosts of a hundred dead conversations, the low murmur of men who had given up on everything except drinking. The candlelight barely touched the dark corners, flickering, weak, as if afraid of what it might reveal.

Two men sat at a corner table, their glasses nearly empty, the weight of the night settling over them like damp wool.

One of them, Nikolai, traced the rim of his glass, the other, Andrei, exhaled smoke from a cigarette he barely tasted.

They had spoken of many things already—of debts, of women, of the quiet horror of waking up and realizing the best parts of life had already passed them by. And then, Nikolai leaned forward, eyes shadowed beneath his brow.

“You ever hear about the artist who lost everything?”

Andrei smirked. “Sounds like every artist.”

Nikolai shook his head. “No. This one… this one really lost it all.”

Andrei swirled the liquid in his glass, watching it catch the light. “Alright. I’m listening.”

---

He was a painter once. The kind who thought his hands could carve something holy out of nothing. Who believed he was destined for greatness. The fools always do.

And for a while, he had everything. A wife. A home. A name that, if not well-known, at least carried whispers in the right circles.

But art is a cruel god. It demands everything and gives nothing back. The world did not love him the way he thought it should. The galleries were indifferent, the critics cold, and slowly, the cracks began to form. First, the debts. Then the disappointment. Then the doubt.

And, as always, then came the ruin.

The wife was the first to go, in the way that women always leave before they actually walk out the door. She lingered, out of duty, out of nostalgia, out of habit. But love, real love, had long since rotted between them.

She found comfort elsewhere. In a man who came in the quiet hours, who whispered things in the dark, who left before the sun could name him.

A man who, every time he was inside her, looked at the paintings on the walls.

“I knew him,” Nikolai said, his voice low, unreadable. “Not personally. But I knew his work. Every brushstroke, every violent, desperate smear of color.”

Andrei tilted his head, intrigued. “How?”

Nikolai exhaled through his nose, a faint smirk curving his lips.

“Because I spent years fucking his wife in front of them.”

Andrei let out a short, breathless laugh, the kind that wasn’t really laughter at all. “Jesus, man.”

Nikolai leaned back, taking a slow sip of his drink.

“She wasn’t faithful. Neither was I. But those paintings… they were something else. Every time I was with her, I’d look at them. I could see it—the madness, the obsession, the way he was clawing at something just beyond his reach. The last bits of his soul, bleeding onto canvas. He didn’t paint pictures. He painted his own slow death.”

Andrei shook his head. “You ever meet him?”

“No.” Nikolai set his glass down. “Only saw him once. The morning after. He was in the kitchen, drinking coffee like a man who had long since stopped tasting it. His hands shook. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a decade.”

Andrei exhaled smoke. “Did he know?”

“Of course.”

There was a silence then, thick and heavy, stretching between them like a noose.

Andrei broke it first. “What happened to him?”

Nikolai’s fingers tapped against the glass, slow, methodical. “He lost the fight.”

“Suicide?”

“Worse.”

---

The artist did not kill himself. No. That would have been too easy.

Instead, he kept painting. Even as his body failed, even as his hands trembled, even as his mind turned against him. He painted like a man clawing at the walls of his own grave.

And the sickness grew. Not one the doctors could name, but something deeper, older. He aged in fast-forward, like he had been cursed. In five years, he became an old man. His wife was gone, the debts swallowed him whole, and even his art—the only thing that had ever made him feel real—became meaningless.

And then, one day, he stopped.

Not just painting.

Living.

He vanished. Some said he fled the city. Some said he withered away in his studio, forgotten before he was even dead.

But Nikolai… Nikolai knew the truth.

Because months later, a package arrived at his door. No sender. No note.

Just a painting.

A masterpiece. The last one.

And in it, Nikolai saw something that made his stomach turn to ice.

It was a painting of himself.

Him and the artist’s wife, frozen in a moment of pleasure, of betrayal, of something primal and raw.

But the face in the painting… it was twisted. Wrong. As if something had looked through Nikolai’s skin and painted what it saw underneath.

Andrei stared at him, silent. Then, finally, he spoke. “You still have it?”

Some nights, in the quiet moments before sleep, he could feel it pressing down on him—an invisible weight, vast and nameless, a thing without form. It wasn’t the weight of worry, nor the heaviness of a burden carried from the day; it was something far more insidious. It was the weight of existence itself, a suffocating truth that had no clear edges, no escape, and no release. The world around him would grow thick, the air itself seeming to thicken, pushing against him from every angle, as if the very space he occupied had become too narrow to breathe in. Even the act of inhaling felt slower, more laborious, as though the gap between breaths was lengthening, dragging him into an inescapable eternity.

It was not a monster, lurking in the shadows of his mind, nor a ghost whispering his name from across the threshold of his thoughts. It was something subtler, something that did not require the presence of a form, but one that filled the silence between moments, creeping into the cracks of his awareness. This presence was not malevolent in a traditional sense. It had no fangs, no claws, no twisted face to strike fear into him. No, it was a quiet thing, a still thing. Yet it was the most terrifying thing he could imagine, because it wasn’t a thing at all. It was an absence, a lack of meaning, a truth that pressed down from all sides, reminding him that there was no exit from his own existence. Not tonight. Not ever.

Death, he realized, would never come. Not now. Not in the future. Not ever. It wasn’t that he feared death—it was that he realized it was no longer a possibility. He was caught in something worse: an endless existence, unmarked by beginnings or endings, untroubled by the merciful release of finality. Death had been promised to the living, to those who fought, who loved, who burned with desire. But what of those who refused to participate? What of the ones who drifted through life like a whisper, unnoticed, unimportant? For them, there was no peace. There was only an ever-tightening grip of time, an eternal stretch of moments that bound him tighter with each passing second.

The ache wasn’t in the promise of death; it was in the absence of it. It was a deeper kind of suffering—a slow, creeping suffocation of the soul. The world had no place for those who did not live fully, those who did not carve out a name for themselves in the chaos of existence. The truth began to settle over him like dust, invisible but everywhere, as pervasive and unyielding as the passage of time. He wasn’t alive. He wasn’t dead. He was something worse, something that didn’t even have the dignity of ending.

A loophole in the cosmic order. A thing too insignificant for erasure. Too unimportant to even be remembered. He had become a man left behind—not forgotten, exactly, but abandoned by the very force that should have taken him, leaving him to rot in the in-between, a lingering shadow of something once human.

But if he wasn’t dead, what was he? The question lingered, unanswered, as he tried to grasp at the thought. The gods couldn’t have simply left him, could they?

He thought of the old alchemists, hunched over their dusty tomes, their hands stained with ink and mercury, searching for the secret to eternal life. They spoke of potions, of blood sacrifices, of dark rituals performed under the pale light of a crescent moon. Perhaps they were wrong, he mused. What if the answer was simpler than they had ever imagined? What if the key to immortality wasn’t the drinking of poison or the sacrificing of lambs? What if the secret lay not in action, but in the passive refusal to live? The rejection of the world’s demands. The denial of participation. No blood, no bargains—just a quiet rot, a failure to live. That, he realized, might be the true curse. A life without death, but not because of some divine mercy. No, because the gods themselves had simply overlooked him.

The elders whispered about him in the dark corners of ancient temples, their voices low, thick with caution. They called him the Forgotten One, a name spoken with the same reverence one would reserve for a curse. He was not a ghost—not in the way the tragic and the lost were. He didn’t belong to the realm of the sorrowful, nor the doomed. No, he was something else, something far worse. He was a shadow in the shape of a man, lingering at the edges of existence, a footnote in the great narrative of life and death, a thing that was neither. They said he had once been a man, flesh and blood like any other. But he had moved through the world like a whisper, unseen, unheard. His footsteps left no mark, his words passed unnoticed. He did not fight, nor love, nor hate. He had neither ambition nor despair. He simply existed, a passive participant in a world that demanded more than mere existence.

And when the Reaper came to collect the souls of the dead, it had missed him. He had been overlooked. Forgotten. Left behind in the cosmic shuffle of things.

So now he lingered.

The world had its laws, its silent, cruel laws. Live fully, love deeply, hurt deeply, rage against the tides, and you will earn your exit. But what of those who did none of those things? What of those who slipped through life unnoticed, who never burned with desire, who never sought to leave a mark on the world? Those who never lived, never fought, never loved, never hated—what of them?

They were not granted the mercy of endings.

The truth continued to weigh on him, pressing down like the slow accumulation of dust. He wasn’t alive, he wasn’t dead. He was simply forgotten—too unimportant to be remembered, too insignificant to be erased. A man caught in the space between, a soul left to rot without ever having had the chance to live. It was a terrible kind of purgatory—one without even the faintest hope of redemption.

And so, he waited. He waited in that vast, empty place where all the forgotten things rotted away. He waited in the space where the gods themselves did not dare to look, where even the force of existence itself dared not venture.

He waited in silence, with nothing but time stretching endlessly before him.

When twilight's veil cloaks the sky,

And shadows whisper through the gloaming,

Think of me in that dusky haze,

A spectral form, softly roaming.

In the still of moonlit night,

Where phantoms tread with silent feet,

I am the ember in twilight's breath,

A flicker on the edge of night.

In the echoes of a distant bell,

Where time itself begins to fray,

I drift through cosmic streams of thought,

A timeless wanderer at the gate.

When dawn's pale light begins to creep,

Through windows veiled by time's neglect,

Recall me in those shadowed rooms,

A fleeting form, a dark aspect.

In tomes of old, where secrets lie,

And words are whispered to the brave,

I am the ink that stains the page,

A haunting verse beyond the grave.

As days dissolve in memory's mist,

And nights grow long with whispered dread,

Keep a space within your heart,

Where dreams and darkness gently spread.

For though I dwell in realms unknown,

In memory's embrace, I'm sown,

A spectral touch, eternally—

Don't forget,

Remember me.

At 27, life became a cruel parable of self-sabotage and relentless despair. I stood amid the wreckage of my flooring company, a venture I once nurtured with the fervor of a man seeking redemption. That business had been my sanctuary, a place where the hum of saws and the rhythm of hammers drowned out the cacophony of my inner demons. It was more than a company; it was a testament to my struggle against the dark tides of addiction and depression.

But like all things I touched, it withered. There were whispers of betrayal, the cold sting of discovering everything had been stolen—the trust, the money, the dream itself. My sanctuary was violated, and I found myself facing the harsh reality of my own failures. Pride had become a noose around my neck, tightening with every misstep.

Then there was her. Ten years, we shared breaths, dreams, and nightmares. But as the years wore on, the space between us grew wider, an unbridgeable chasm. We became distant shadows, two strangers cohabitating in a bed once warm with intimacy. The silence between us was a living thing, suffocating and relentless. No sex, no tenderness, just the cold, hard reality of two souls drifting apart.

I knew she was fucking someone else. I could see it in her eyes, the way she avoided my gaze, the way her body tensed when I reached out. But how could I blame her? For years, I had battled my own demons, drowning in a sea of depression and addiction. How could she love a man who couldn't even love himself? I was a ghost, haunting the remnants of a life that once held promise.

Our home, once filled with laughter and the playful chaos of our dogs, became a mausoleum of broken dreams. She took the dogs when she left, and with them, the last vestiges of warmth and companionship. I was left alone, the echoes of their absence a constant reminder of my solitude. The bed, now a barren expanse, mocked me with its emptiness.

The nights were the hardest. I'd sit in the dark, chain-smoking, the glow of the cigarette a solitary beacon in the blackness. Memories flooded back, each one a dagger to the heart. I could still hear the laughter, the whispered promises, the shared hopes. But those were ghosts now, haunting the corridors of my mind.

Recovery was a relentless grind. The AA meetings, with their well-worn phrases and bitter coffee, were a ritual of survival. I'd sit in those circles, listening to the confessions of others, each story a mirror of my own shattered life. I wasn't just battling addiction; I was wrestling with the existential dread that seeped into every corner of my being.

Jung's archetypes danced through my thoughts, taunting me with their elusive meanings. The warrior, the lover, the fool—I embodied them all and yet felt disconnected from each. My unconscious mind was a labyrinth of symbols and shadows, each twist and turn leading me further into the abyss. The collective suffering of humanity weighed on me, a constant reminder that I wasn't alone in my misery. Yet somehow, that shared suffering only deepened my isolation.

The question of meaning gnawed at me. Was there a purpose to this suffering? Was it a test, a trial by fire that would forge me into something stronger? Or was it all a cosmic joke, a cruel twist of fate that left me grasping for answers in the void? The universe offered no solace, only a cold, indifferent silence.

I envied those who found comfort in faith, who wrapped their fears in the warm blanket of belief. For me, there was only the harsh, unvarnished truth: life was a series of losses, punctuated by fleeting moments of joy. Each day was a battle, each breath an act of defiance against the crushing weight of despair.

So I stood amidst the ruins of my life, a recovering addict at 27, stripped of everything I once held dear. The future stretched out before me, a barren wasteland of uncertainty. Yet somewhere, deep within, a flicker of defiance remained. I wasn't ready to let the darkness claim me. Not yet. There was still a fight left in me, a spark that refused to die. And perhaps, just perhaps, that would be enough.

Or maybe it was just another lie I told myself to keep going. But in the end, what is truth but another construct of a mind desperate to find meaning in the chaos? Either way, the road ahead was long, and I was still standing. And for now, that had to be enough.

The night life happened, I was ten years old, and the air was thick with the kind of oppressive humidity that makes breathing feel like a chore. The living room, dimly lit by the flickering light of the television, felt like a stage set for a tragedy that had been rehearsed in whispers and shadows.

My mother sat on the threadbare couch, a cigarette burning slowly between her fingers, its ember the only sign of life in her otherwise lifeless form. Her eyes were vacant, staring through the television screen into some dark void that I couldn't see but could feel creeping into our home. She had been like this for days, trapped in a silent battle with demons that only she could see. Depression, they called it, but it felt like a possession, something dark and malevolent that had taken hold of her and wouldn't let go.

I reached for the phone, my small hand trembling as I thought to call for help. “Dad…” I whispered into the silence. Dad, we called him, but he was anything but. Likely, he was at some dingy bar, hunched over a drink, his face etched with the lines of a man who had given up long ago. He was always drunk, it seemed, always doing everything he could to avoid being home, to avoid the life he pitied. When he did stumble through the door, it was with the heavy scent of alcohol and regret, his eyes bloodshot and his movements sluggish.

He had his own demons, ones that he drowned in whiskey and cheap beer. I knew he hated himself for not being able to save my mother, for not being able to save any of us. But instead of fighting, he chose to flee, seeking solace in the bottom of a glass and the temporary oblivion it offered.

I stood in the doorway, my small frame trembling with a mix of fear and anger. I hated her in those moments. Hated her for the weakness that seemed to seep from her very pores, for the way she had let herself be consumed by whatever darkness had claimed her. Yet, beneath that hatred, there was a flicker of something else—pity, perhaps, or the remnants of the love that had once bound us together.

She moved suddenly, a jerky, desperate motion that sent the ash from her cigarette scattering like grey snowflakes onto the carpet. Her eyes, now wild and frantic, darted around the room as if searching for an escape from the demons that tormented her. I watched, frozen, as she began to mutter under her breath, her words a jumbled mix of fear and incoherence.

"Mom?" I ventured, my voice small and hesitant. "Mom, are you okay?"

She didn't respond, didn't even seem to hear me. Her muttering grew louder, more frantic, and she clutched at her head as if trying to keep it from exploding. I took a step closer, my heart pounding in my chest, my mind racing with the urge to help her, to save her from whatever horror she was experiencing.

But then she screamed—a raw, guttural sound that cut through the silence like a knife. It was a sound that spoke of unimaginable pain and despair, a sound that would haunt my dreams for years to come. I watched in helpless horror as she collapsed onto the floor, her body convulsing, her screams turning into sobs.

In that moment, I saw the demons. Not as she saw them, but as a reflection of the torment inside her. They were the dark shadows that had consumed her spirit, the invisible chains that bound her to a life of misery and despair. And I hated them. I hated them with a ferocity that surprised me, a burning rage that was only matched by my helplessness.

I wanted to run to her, to hold her and tell her that everything would be okay. But I couldn't move. I was rooted to the spot, paralyzed by a mix of fear, anger, and sorrow. All I could do was watch as the woman who had once been my mother was reduced to a sobbing, broken shell on the floor.

As the night wore on, her sobs eventually subsided, and she lay there, exhausted and spent. I finally found the strength to move, to go to her and wrap my arms around her frail body. She didn't respond, didn't acknowledge my presence, but I held her anyway, hoping that somehow my touch could reach through the darkness and bring her back to me.

In the rare moments when my father was sober enough to speak, his words were slurred and bitter, laced with the pain of a man who had lost his way. He was a ghost in our lives, present but absent, his presence a reminder of the life he was trying so desperately to escape.

I held my mother tighter, feeling the weight of our shared despair. I pitied her, pitied him, but most of all, I pitied myself for being caught in the crossfire of their demons. The night it happened, I realized that I was alone in my fight, that the adults I looked up to were too broken to save me or themselves.

In that darkened living room, surrounded by the echoes of my mother's sobs and the phantom presence of my drunken father, I made a vow. I would not let their demons become mine. I would find a way to fight back, to carve out a life for myself that was free from the shadows that haunted our home.

And as I held my mother in my arms, I promised myself that I would survive. I would endure. I would find a way to escape the darkness, even if it meant doing it alone.

Dear Klaus

In this cold, unyielding realm beyond the veil, where time curls in on itself like a wounded animal, I find a strange clarity that eluded me in life. I see you now, struggling through the same absurd labyrinth that ensnared me, wrestling with the same existential demons and grappling for meaning in a world that often seems devoid of it.

Listen, because this is important: Life is a brutal joke played by a sadistic cosmos. The punchline is our own existence, filled with fleeting pleasures and persistent pain. You’ll find yourself often questioning the purpose, searching for answers in the bottom of a bottle, the hollow glow of a screen, or the transient warmth of another’s body. I did. I found no answers there, only more questions.

In this liminal space, I’ve come to understand something crucial—embrace the absurdity. Dance with it. Our lives are filled with shadows, Jung's archetypes lurking in every corner, our personal unconscious a reflection of the collective. The shadow, that dark part of you that you fear, is not your enemy but your teacher. Embrace it, understand it, and you’ll find strength you never knew existed.

Remember Dostoevsky’s words: "Man is a mystery. It needs to be unraveled, and if you spend your whole life unraveling it, don't say that you've wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being." You’re not alone in your struggle. Each moment of suffering, every pang of despair, is a step on the journey toward understanding.

And the satire, the humor—the fucking irony of it all—don’t lose that. It’s your weapon against the crushing weight of existence. Laugh at the absurdity, mock the societal constructs that try to confine you, and never let the bastards grind you down. Life is too short to take seriously, and too long to endure without a sense of humor.

From this side, I see the intertwining of light and shadow, the delicate balance that we must maintain. You’ll make mistakes—Christ, I made more than my share—but they are not the end. They’re the chisel that shapes you. Be kind to yourself, forgive your failures, and keep pushing forward.

In the end, we’re all just searching for connection, for love, for a moment of understanding in a world that often seems indifferent. Cherish those fleeting moments, hold them close, and let them be your guiding star.

I leave you now with one final thought: Life is a tapestry woven from both our triumphs and our failures, our joy and our suffering. Embrace it all, and you’ll find a kind of beauty in the madness.

From the other side, with a clearer vision and a heavy heart,

I Once Was You, Klaus

ʕ⁠´⁠•⁠ᴥ⁠•⁠`⁠ʔ

The morning light seeped into the room as he slowly woke up, his body heavy with the remnants of a restless night. He trudged to the bathroom, each step a reminder of the weight he carried. Standing before the mirror, he stared at his reflection. The face that looked back at him seemed unfamiliar, a ghost of who he once was. Dark circles framed his weary eyes, and his expression was devoid of the spark that used to define him. He ran a hand over his stubbled chin, feeling the roughness, and sighed.

Downstairs, the coffee machine was struggling gurgling out a lifeless brew, a fitting metaphor for his existence. He stared at the black liquid, contemplating its emptiness, its void. It used to invigorate him, now it just reminded him of the abyss – the nothingness that awaited at the end of this monotonous journey. The kitchen, once a place of warmth and solace, now felt cold and unwelcoming. The sunlight that filtered through the window seemed dull, unable to pierce the thick fog of his thoughts.

As he sat at the kitchen table, an untouched piece of toast mocking him with its pointless presence, he realized the absurdity of it all. The toast, once a simple pleasure, now symbolized the futility of his daily rituals. He picked it up, feeling the rough texture between his fingers, but couldn't bring himself to take a bite. It was as if his body, like his spirit, had lost its ability to find sustenance in the ordinary.

His eyes drifted to the calendar pinned to the wall, each day crossed off in red ink—a bloody testament to time slipping through his fingers. He thought of all the mornings that had come and gone, each one indistinguishable from the next, a relentless blur of mediocrity. The routines that once provided structure and comfort now felt like shackles, binding him to a life devoid of meaning.

In the silence, he could hear the faint hum of the refrigerator, the ticking of the clock, the distant world carrying on without him. It was in these mundane moments that the weight of his existence felt most oppressive. He longed for a spark, something to shatter the monotony, to remind him of the vibrancy life once held. But as the minutes dragged on, he sank deeper into the void, the lifeless brew cooling in his cup, the toast growing stale in his hand.

Amidst the haze of cigarette smoke and whiskey fumes, I found you. Or maybe, I lost you, like finding and losing oneself in a cracked mirror. We were fragments, shards of shattered glass in a dingy bar, reflecting the emptiness that clung to us like a second skin.

Love, they called it. A word as hollow as the echo in an abandoned alley. You, with your eyes like the bottom of an empty bottle, stared into the abyss of my soul, and I saw nothing.

Nothing but the shadow of what could have been, what should have been. What never was.We danced, didn't we? In the ruins of our dreams, we danced to the tune of despair.

Our steps were clumsy, awkward, like lovers who had forgotten the rhythm of life. Each touch was a reminder of the void that lay between us, a chasm too wide to bridge, yet too narrow to ignore.

Your laughter, once a melody, now a dirge. It echoed in the hollow chambers of my heart, a mocking reminder of joy's fleeting nature. We were fools, weren't we? Chasing illusions, grasping at wisps of smoke, believing in a love that was never truly there.

I remember your words, like knives dipped in honey, cutting deep while sweetening the pain. Promises whispered in the dark, dissolving with the dawn. We were artists of deception, painting our lives in shades of grey, masking the black hole at the center of our existence.

Love. A four-letter word that promised eternity, yet delivered emptiness. It was the silence between our conversations, the coldness in our embrace. It was the ghost that haunted us, the specter of what we could never be.

And now, in this desolate landscape of broken dreams and shattered hopes, I stand alone. The emptiness, my only companion. It whispers to me, in the language of the lost, telling tales of love and longing, of despair and redemption.

**Title: The Hollow Echo of Us**

**Genre:** Literary Fiction

**Age Range:** 18+

**Word Count:** 560

**Author:** Nickolai Brennan aka Klaus Dreadful

---

**Why Your Project is a Good Fit:**

"The Hollow Echo of Us" delves deep into the complexities of human relationships, making it a compelling read for those who appreciate introspective and emotionally charged narratives. It offers a poignant exploration of love, loss, and the human condition, resonating with readers who seek depth and authenticity in literature.

**The Hook:**

In a dingy bar filled with cigarette smoke and whiskey fumes, two fragmented souls dance to the tune of despair, revealing the haunting emptiness of a love that never truly existed.

**Synopsis:**

Amidst the haze of a smoke-filled bar, two lovers confront the desolate reality of their relationship. They navigate through the ruins of their dreams, clumsily dancing to a melody of despair and deception. As they reflect on their journey, the hollow promises and fleeting joys of their love become painfully clear. The narrative captures the haunting emptiness and inevitable solitude that follows the dissolution of a connection once thought eternal. In the end, one stands alone, accompanied only by the whispers of lost love and the shadows of what could have been.

**Target Audience:**

This story is ideal for adults who enjoy literary fiction with a focus on emotional depth, psychological complexity, and the exploration of human relationships. Fans of authors like Haruki Murakami, Raymond Carver, and Jhumpa Lahiri will find this narrative particularly engaging.

**Bio:**

I am just a regular guy who shares his experiences through life and records them into stories.

**Platform:**

- Twitter: https://x.com/KlausDreadful

**Education:**

3+ years of University

**Experience:**

Just Writing For The Passion, But Always Wanting To Write More and Professionally

**Personality / Writing Style:**

Known for a reflective and introspective style, I write with a lyrical yet grounded voice, capturing the nuanced emotions and inner lives of characters. Their storytelling is marked by a deep empathy and a keen observational eye.

**Likes/Hobbies:**

When not writing, Nickolai Brennan enjoys reading contemporary fiction, exploring nature trails, practicing yoga, and discovering new music. A lover of coffee and conversations, they often find inspiration in the everyday moments of life.

**Hometown:**

Alma Michigan

**Age (optional):**

33

She was a goddamn miracle wrapped in a mess, a chaotic symphony of contradictions that left me breathless. Her hair was a tangled wild thing, like she’d just come from a fight with the wind, and her eyes, Christ, those eyes, could strip you bare with a glance. She laughed like the world was ending and she didn’t give a damn.

We met in a dive bar, the kind of place that smelled like old regrets and spilled beer. She was sitting at the counter, nursing a drink that looked as bitter as my past. I slid onto the stool next to her, more out of habit than intent. She glanced over, raised an eyebrow, and I was hooked.

“Buy me a drink, or just sit there looking pathetic?” she said, her voice a smoky rasp that curled around my brain and squeezed.

I bought her a drink, and another, and before I knew it, we were talking about everything and nothing. She told me about her dreams, about the art she wanted to create but never did, about the teachers who dismissed her dreams and the lovers who couldn’t handle her intensity. I told her about the stories I wrote and never finished, about the words that never seemed enough. We were two broken pieces, trying to fit together in the madness.

Her apartment was a disaster, a testament to her beautiful chaos. Paintings half-finished, books piled in precarious towers, clothes strewn like she’d been in a hurry her whole life. But there was something in the mess, a kind of wild beauty that called to the parts of me I thought were dead.

She’d lie next to me, tracing the scars on my chest with a finger, whispering secrets and dreams. And I, the cynic, the bastard who thought love was for fools, found myself believing. Believing that maybe, just maybe, we could make something out of the broken shards of our lives.

One night, as we lay tangled in each other’s arms, she looked at me with those piercing eyes and said, “Do you think we’ll ever make it?”

I kissed her forehead and whispered, “We already are.”

She was a whirlwind, a goddamn force of nature, and loving her was like standing in the eye of a storm. It wasn’t safe, it wasn’t sane, but it was real. And in the end, that’s all I ever wanted.

Alone among millions. It's a phrase that echoes through the corridors of my mind, haunting me like a ghost in the night. Today, as I navigate the crowded streets of this bustling city, I am struck by the profound sense of isolation that envelops me like a suffocating blanket. The faces that pass me by are like strangers in a foreign land, each one a reminder of the vast expanse of humanity that surrounds me, yet remains impenetrable. In the midst of this sea of humanity, I am but a solitary figure adrift, lost in a crowd of indifferent souls. There's a heaviness in my chest—a weight that presses down on me with each passing moment. It's the weight of loneliness, of feeling insignificant in a world that moves at breakneck speed, leaving me trailing behind like a forgotten relic of the past. I find myself yearning for connection, for a glimpse of understanding in the eyes of a stranger. But the faces that pass me by are like masks, concealing the true depths of their souls behind a facade of indifference. As I sit here, pen in hand, pouring out my thoughts onto the blank pages of this journal, I can't help but wonder—is there anyone out there who feels the same? Is there someone who understands the ache of loneliness, the desperate longing for connection in a world that seems determined to keep us apart? But perhaps it's futile to search for meaning in the midst of such overwhelming solitude. Perhaps, in the end, we are destined to wander alone, adrift in a sea of strangers, our cries for companionship swallowed by the deafening roar of indifference. And so, I resign myself to my fate, to the solitude that has become my constant companion. Alone among millions. It's a phrase that echoes through the corridors of my mind, haunting me like a ghost in the night. Today, as I navigate the crowded streets of this bustling city, I am struck by the profound sense of isolation that envelops me like a suffocating blanket. The faces that pass me by are like strangers in a foreign land, each one a reminder of the vast expanse of humanity that surrounds me, yet remains impenetrable. In the midst of this sea of humanity, I am but a solitary figure adrift, lost in a crowd of indifferent souls. There's a heaviness in my chest—a weight that presses down on me with each passing moment. It's the weight of loneliness, of feeling insignificant in a world that moves at breakneck speed, leaving me trailing behind like a forgotten relic of the past. I find myself yearning for connection, for a glimpse of understanding in the eyes of a stranger. But the faces that pass me by are like masks, concealing the true depths of their souls behind a facade of indifference. As I sit here, pen in hand, pouring out my thoughts onto the blank pages of this journal, I can't help but wonder—is there anyone out there who feels the same? Is there someone who understands the ache of loneliness, the desperate longing for connection in a world that seems determined to keep us apart? But perhaps it's futile to search for meaning in the midst of such overwhelming solitude. Perhaps, in the end, we are destined to wander alone, adrift in a sea of strangers, our cries for companionship swallowed by the deafening roar of indifference. And so, I resign myself to my fate, to the solitude that has become my constant companion.