Locked up, isolating ourselves from a world brimming with animalistic hostility, we recognize the shortcomings of the society we have constructed for ourselves.

We realize the house we have built with our avarice and self-righteousness has a foundation of sand and a frame of matchsticks and scotch tape, ready to unravel with the faintest breath of the wind. A pantry besieged by panicking hens, riled up in a frenzy and pecking one another to death over scraps. Beds that are too rough and too small. A yard littered with the bones of the less fortunate, bleaching out in the sun whilst those within shower them with scorn. All the while the house creaks and groans, threatening to collapse and indiscriminately bury one and all within its rubble.

They say tragedy has a way of bringing people together, but in a nation of individualistic beasts it has driven us further apart; galvinized us in our beliefs that we live and die alone. That one can only ascend by standing on another's shoulders until we are a hysteric mass, kicking and clawing and scrambling over each other to reach the top. Unaware that the top is miles out of sight, let alone reach.

This pandemic has not shattered our society, it has shown us that our society has been shattered for time immemorial. Throughout the nation and throughout the world, the masses fall to their knees and pray things can return to normal, not realizing that deep down, this is the way things always were.

The disease didn't change us, it exposed who we really are, deep in the dark corners of our persona that we ignore and hide and pretend never existed.

So ask yourself: is the world we left behind a world worth going back to?

Matilda Twitty was young and pretty,

the princess of Fairly Hall.

And popular too, nearly everyone knew

her well as the belle of the ball.

The trouble though, what they couldn’t know,

was that Tildy had a twin,

an evil tart with an onyx heart

who used magic to do men in.

Tabitha Twitty was unknown in the city

as the family hid her away,

in an upstairs site, where they hoped they might

keep her villainous powers at bay.

But the men from town, determined and bound

that Matilda see their allure,

came to call, at Fairly Hall

on its princess so fair and demure.

But what the boys got was not what they thought

as they serenaded their love.

Those courtships were jaded, while the boys promenaded,

Tabitha spied on them from above.

Sipping her wine, biding her time,

unseen from her garret’s gable.

Awaiting her chance while ”Sweet Tildy“ danced,

to cut in and turn the table.

This sis in the attic was a raging addict

who when the night grew late,

would sneak below, and steal the soul

of he who had courted fate.

She would sneak to his bed, bend over his head

as though to plant a kiss,

but instead she would sip, the breath from his lips

and leave him in virulent bliss.

This evil twin would run away then

with a life’s breath sucked inside,

she’d hide in her room and the garret’s gloom

while her clarity got fried.

For when she exhaled, it never failed

to make her as high as a kite,

as that breath showed her dreams, and the nightmarish things

that her victim envisioned that night.

Wicked Tabitha loved to lord it above

her sister, and all of her beau’s.

She relished their dreams, being privy to things

that “Sweet Tildy” never would know.

She was having a time, til she happened to find

something that brought her up short.

It seemed that her bill for each mystical kill

was a bulbous, revolting wart.

Two grew on her hand, there was one that demanded

she never wear sheer hose.

But the largest of cankers, the one that most rankled

popped up on the end of her nose.

So while stealing breath, and causing death

gave Tabitha inebriate joys

she might have to pause, and determine the cause

of these hideous corns and boils.

But pay heed to my tale, if you’re ever availed

to go calling at Fairly Hall,

then if after dinner a young girl enters

your room... take a glance at the wall.

If her shadowed beak has a rounded peak

then you’re the victim of a switch.

Go ahead and scream, don’t give your dreams

to that damnable Tabitha b.... witch!

there's no opinions. we exist no matter what. whether or not you decide to be angry about our existence is up to you. but what's the point? why be angry when you can feel just as much potency in love? why is there supposed to be one way to love, one way to present yourself, one way to exist? there isn't. we are not sick. we are not new. we are not going through a phase. we are not existing to force the "gay agenda" on the world. but even if we were, what's it to you? My existence does not harm you in any way. There's no option to have an opinion on my existence. I will exist no matter what you think. I will be gay and queer and proud no matter what.

My name is Clear because I am glass. Breakable, fragile, weak. I am shattered and I am remade in fires I did not start; I am molded and formed into a key, a weapon, a hand, a lock. I am glass, bent and curved until I

 S

 n

 a

 p

 Broken.

 Shattered.

 I am glass.

 I am see-through. I cannot hide. I‌ am laid bare for all to see and yet I cannot see myself. I see reflections of others slide across my surface, warped and distorted but somehow more real. I see of myself only a glimpse. A flash of light, a crack in the glass.

 A crack in me.

 I am breaking, straining under the weight of reflections that do not exist outside of me. I am worn from battles I have not fought, I fear for danger I do not see.

 Tighter, tighter, tighter, lose your hand or lose your mind. Lose your life if you’re lucky.

 I am brittle, and I will break.

 My name is Clear because I am glass.

Sometimes, when the clouds are just dark enough, when the leaves of the trees shrivel to dust, when words evade my system like breath, the world ends. For even the briefest moment, I have doubts. Not the doubts of a supernatural being, or that my existence isn't meant to be, or about my impact on those around me. It carves deeper into my chest, leaves scars of damage over my mind and seeps into my soul.

I doubt that I am a writer.

Why bother to scrawl words over a page that no one will care about? What makes my thoughts, my internal stories that shut sleep from my eyes, any different from millions around the world? Selfish, naive. I am nothing but a dreamer, the one who trips before the race even starts, the one who dreams climb inside to sleep. Ideas find me and die. The world will never care. No one will ever know. My name will forever disintegrate with my youth and spring of ideas. They are nothing.

Then, the sun pokes over the horizon.

I sink into a chair and uncap my pen, and magic sparks sputter against the page as a new world unfolds. One where anyone is important, everyone has value, we all have a chance to make our dreams come true. And I know.

I am a writer.

Why do I write? I write to incite feeling, and too expel emotion. I write to make the world seem less desolate, to pretend like we aren't the worst. And to remind the reader that it isn't as bad as things might seem, because at least we can smile, sing, laugh and write. For now.

I write because what else is there to do on the days when my emotions close in on me, like grinding, churning walls made of dark and jagged teeth that scream: "You. Are. Nothing." But I am not nothing. And neither are you. And writing is the reminder of that, for as long as you have a pen in hand or keyboard ready, you can remind everyone and yourself that the world isn't the terror it pretends to be. To be able to write is to be free, to be free is to hold some semblance of power, and no matter how small that power is, if you can use it to change just one person in this world then that is beautiful.

And that is why I write: for change. Any change.

To keep from crying....

I'm not good at it, but I hear music

so I write to the beat of it

sometimes its ok

I'm not good at talking, but I listen

so my heart tells me to

just cause

sometimes it helps

to keep from crying

I write to ignite frightened minds and remind them of the might they might be inclined to find inside the confines of life interwined with divine vibes and sublime rhymes propeling lives to rise and thrive. I write because words are magic and sentences are spells, and the thought of underutilizing ourselves is tragic so I feel frantic to go savage and ring some chilling bells. I write because letters are elements, words are molecules, and paragraphs are the means to create worlds forming books upon shelves. I write because I can.

Understand?

There was a myth in Ancient Greece long ago

Of two gods from opposite worlds

One of life and Spring

The other ruled the dead and damned

Until the day the met and ran off together

To be forever wed among the dead

Now some will say that the God of the Dead

Stole the Goddess away and trapped in darkness

Until she agreed to marry and be his queen

But I think this Goddess saw something more

Something lively

Her kindness and touch melted his cold heart

And left willingly to help give him life in a dark world

#fiction #romance #Greekmythology