I’m learning to live

with sadness, anger,

learning to survive

with loneliness.

Because there isn’t going to be

a replacement, a new love.

Not in time to save me.

I don’t have the energy

to look for someone new

and there isn’t anyone old.

There is only you

always waiting in the wings

and I’ll wait until my last day

speaking your name

with my last breath.

Not all of us get happy endings.

Some of us just get slow deaths.

I dream of love. The kind where life without each other is not even an option.

I want nothing more than for someone to whisper my name against my skin. I want to look in their eyes, and in one look know that I am home.

Small caresses. A finger slid down an arm. A pressure on the small of my back. The murmur of a touch across my lips.

The kind of kisses where I forget that I need to breathe. When I know pulling back for air will feel like drowning. When neither of us say a word, but we're both thinking of the same one: More.

I want to fall and not worry about touching the ground.

BUT NO! IM STUCK WONDERING WTF THESE SIGNALS YOURE SENDING ME MEANNN

There is vision and there is visionary.

I look—I look hard.

Immaculate skies waft toward me at 475 nm.

A blanket of clear blue is beautifully clear, but cruelly dishonest.

Still and quiet, the silence hides the turbidity of a roar behind it.

What will follow, I foresee, is black and intangible,

But it will be delivered as flak.

Thus, it means to kill me.

The missiles are aimed at me by persons I do not know.

And they don’t know me.

Oh, but our nations know each other very well.

Clear skies are quiet and warm and calm.

But death is noisy and black and, having no wavelength,

Absorbs all living wavelengths.

The birth of Man was white—all colors, all possibilities, all at once, all the time.

Prismatic unfolding was our history.

But black is our death.

That’s the way I see it.

A visionary vise

Holds me fast as all fades to black...

I spent a week

In Battle Creek

To write content for backs

Of cereal packs

The hardest thing I found

Was coming 'round

To finding content befitting

Breakfast food while sitting

My assignment was Rice Krispies

And Frosted Flakes, fifty-fifty

And authoring about taste

To make them sound GRRREAT

But Krispies are mostly air

Except for the arsenic that's there

And Flakes are mostly sugar-refined

Contributing to my large behind

Post and Quaker want me badly

And now the other cereals—madly

Next job of which I'm dreaming

Are limited series on network streaming

Lover,

In the echoes of victory, I hear your name

argue with its hubris as your sly nobility

lingers about the isle- the

Worldly Prince's poor disguise.

Ancient glances catch across the glass

and conjure crows along the gateway

Secret Muse, softly dreaming

in the quiet shame of midnight.

With the wisdom of a century,

I pour your cup into mine, and

crown thee King, our Royal Majesty

of Passion and its impish woes.

A puff. Exhale. Then another puff. She frowned at the smoke trailing off into the stars.

"I thought you quit."

"I quit for three whole weeks."

"World record."

He rolled his eyes and threw his cigarette into the dead bush nearby.

"Happy?"

"You didn't put it out."

"I didn't put it out."

"Ricky, that's basically dry brush-"

"Relax. It's supposed to rain or something. It's late. Morning dew will get it. I'll even piss on it if that'll make you happy. You worry too much, Ser."

A small, pathetic wail came from inside the house. Ricky, moving past his long-time girlfriend, pulled open the screen door. As he walked inside, he wailed loudly, mimicking the tone and cadence of his son. Serevina rushed in behind him, ready to tend to the newborn.

"Relax. I got it."

"Are you sur-"

"Ser. Sit down. Have a drink. There's beer in the fridge if you want one."

"Did you wash your hands?"

Ricky, unresponsive, headed up the stairs into their son's room. Serevina sat on the couch staring into the darkness of the stairway, eavesdropping on Ricky's interactions with the newborn. After a moment, Ricky left the nursery and wordlessly swaggered to his girlfriend's bedroom. Serevina waited to hear the thud of Ricky's body onto the mattress and then followed his steps into the nursery.

As if on cue, the infant heard his mother's gait and wiggled within the tightness of his swaddle. RJ spat out his pacifier, chewing on his hand in between soft, desperate grunts. Serevina lifted her son from his bassinet, took a seat in a chair on the other side of the room and guided the baby to her breast.

As Ricky Jr. nursed, Serevina craned down her neck to kiss his head. Mixed in with the inexplicable sweetness of infancy was a touch of lavender lotion and the unmistakable stink of discount cigarettes.

So, So,

the theory goes,

We are all a part of

Everything Else.

So,

the mind psycher says

"Don't let others define you,

You are your own, independent person."

So,

It is like the Trinity,

Or ingredients in a recipe,

We are human alone,

But humanity together.

So,

If I define myself

the way others see me,

and they're wrong,

And if I define myself by

how I see me, and I'm

wrong,

then myself can never really

be realized,

and is destined to swim in

oblivion and half truths

until I am simultaneously

and paradoxically lost and found.

Along with what’s already been highlighted by previous commenters, I write because it flaunts control in a world with no guarantees. Success or failure is not determined by others or outside-influenced excuses. I write to hold fast to the expressive freedom I crave. Writing gives me empowerment to live fearlessly.

was a Time

we wrote on

the mirror

we wrote

wet

behind the ears

after the shower

or dry

with shaving cream

or lipstick smear

or by

sticky note...

to consumer test

our reaction

and resolve

while holding the edge

of the sink

now hands are on

the lap

top

and we write

as we must,

in the mirror.

03.13.2025

Why? challenge @KarenKitchel

Either one of them had to go. It had been a very long game of manipulation—where one was powerful, the other resourceful. Gone were the days when there was a duel for a fair chance to stand at the end, where the other became the victim of their slowness.

Spencer had been waiting for a while now. He started off with a light breakfast, his men surrounding him, and occupying every single seat in the café. Three hours went by, and it was lunchtime. He called the waiter for the lunch menu. It was unlike him; he ordered two portions of a seven-course meal for himself and began to eat when it arrived. He was on his fourth course when a limousine stopped outside the café across the road.

A woman stepped out of the car and glanced at him. He acknowledged her with a chin flick, and she nodded in return.

Her name was Dakota. Her men emptied the café as well and secured every seat.

Spencer and Dakota faced each other—he was eating his food with his hands like they do in prison, while Dakota sat poised, waiting for him to finish. Not once did they take their eyes off each other. Their men were prepared to charge.

The silence around them was enough to put up a sign that read: We are closed.

After Spencer finished his food, he ordered himself a cup of coffee. Dakota imitated the gesture. Looking at Dakota, he put two packs of sugar in his coffee, while Dakota put only one. One of his men grabbed the tray and walked towards Dakota, and her man did the same. At the intersection, they exchanged trays and brought them back to Spencer and Dakota.

They gazed at each other for hours; the coffee had gone cold, all the staff members of the cafe locked themselves in the kitchen.

Dakota couldn’t take it any longer and ordered one of her men to drink the coffee. He was scared, but what option did he have? He finished it in one go. It was then that Spencer drank his coffee himself, he kept looking at her, slowly his eyes turning red, and he vomited blood. His men put him inside his car and left.

Her entire team shouted in triumph, but it sent Dakota into silence. A layer of tears formed in her eyes, hidden beneath her shades.

“Congratulations. What no one could ever do, you did it, ma’am.”

And she left the cafe in fear, she whispered, “What have I done? What now…?”