Detecting someone evil seems easy, no? You just feel it. But what if they are someone you love? What if, they look inncent but are actually conspiring against you even now? Cartoons and movies don’t do them justice. Not every tall dark and ominous is evil. Likewise, not every sunshine and rainbows is good. That is the flaw. Evil can have many definitions. Evil is not just one thing. What might be evil to you might be survival to someone else. Let me show you what I mean. Someone or something has snuffed out a life. Evil, right? But what if I tell you that they snuffed it out to protect their family? What if they had to do it or everything they loved would be destroyed. Another example. Someone abandoned their child at a young age to fend for themselves. So evil, so cruel. Then you find out that person had to in order for that child to survive. They had to choose between the child being killed and themselves and they chose the child to survive. Don’t judge based on what they did, no. Rather, judge them on why.Why did they abandon their child? Why did they snuff out a life? Think on that, and form your own definition of evil. Reject the black and white way of thinking, and don’t be afraid to introduce some shades of gray.

I say I’m about to slip and

fall off the

precipice of the present

into star-dark, empty

void night

But it feels more like I’m

standing on a

conveyor belt,

stranded on this

one moving piece

in a flat wasteland

of cement

Looking forward, where

all I can see is the

endless, endless,

endless,

endless

Please, I don’t want eternity

a common girl, wavy bangs hiding acne covered forehead

daydreaming

blowing off mini 200 candles from a baked cupcake/ feeding it to herself 

singing aloud just to feel her own voice against her ears/ tapping her feet and dancing her heart out 

putting balm over others pains, she forgets to pat herself

happy?! 

but who can she share her happiness with?

putting up on the Instagram story? 

or putting it on those whatsapp groups, to show people who you call ‘friends’, who message you when they need you?

she’s a stranger to them, known people who are strangers to her

she smiles and then thinks about her wtw family

they mean a lot to her, strangers who make her feel better than her friends (oops, insult to those people who aren't entitled for this wonderful word)

wtw family made her realize how good it is to be loved 

now it’s time to hide behind the moon

200 FOLLOWERS!!!! ON WTW!!!!! THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH :)

Heavy eyes

Try not to blink

Look away

Smile

Make yourself look happy

Don’t let your tears be seen

They will call you cry baby

Trying to suppress the tides but

Once a while tsunamis break it

Crying is like a stalker

Or a use and throw friend

Who comes back only when they need you

Emotions filled tears burn down my cheek

Blazing fire in my eyes

Fire drying the tears

Born to cry

Sea of smoke emerging from the spark

Spark turning into fire

Emotions filled tears burn down my cheek

Blazing fire in my eyes

Fire drying the tears

Glowing warmth brush and burning down flesh

Tears acidic tearing me

I am bearing

Not crying

Born to cry

A thousand voices,

All sounding like my own,

Speak over one another.

I can’t do anything to please them.

Nothing is good enough for them,

Nothing is enough.

Persistent and savage,

They rip me apart and devour me,

In larger portions everyday

Some are scared,

Terrified even.

Of everything.

They screech endlessly.

Some are dark,

Somber and tired.

They have one wish:

Self-destruction.

My head is so full.

Yet, at the end of each day,

I am left feeling entirely

Empty.

I don’t remember the exact day I discovered I could switch from invisible and visible. Just the day when I couldn’t anymore. The day I permanently became stuck like this. Invisible.

At first, I had my fun with it. You know, the classics: tugging at hair, scaring people, misplacing their possessions. But pretty soon, I got bored with that and people started to notice that I was missing.

My brother was the first one to call the police. Hysteric, he insisted I had been murdered or kidnapped--but let’s be real here, I’m an adult, it would be abducted. They made him file a report and wait. And wait. And wait. And wait.

Meanwhile, my parents were in Hawaii or Fiji or whatever topical paradize they picked out this time with their phones on silent. Honestly, their phones could have been on full ringer and I still wouldn’t expect them to pick up for me. I’ve always been invisible to them. Ironic, huh?

Since I wasn’t going to work--or my boss couldn’t see me there, at least--I lost my job. Lost my apartment too. Now, I camp out in the soggy corner of my brother’s apartment in silence. One tired evening I slipped in with him and have been hiding out ever since.

I know what you’re thinking: why don’t you talk to someone? Explain that you’re still there?

And to answer your question, around the end of week one of staying at my brother’s apartment, I broke my vow of silence. Then, I pretty much talked to him nonstop--until he was involuntarily sent to the physciatric ward of the hospital for hearing voices. It was hard to follow him in there. What, with all the fancy keycards and whatnot. I don’t talk to anyone but myself now.

He’s been gone for a few weeks now. For some reason, he can’t seem to convince the staff that he’s actually sane--though, I guess everyone in that building is trying the exact same. The apartment seems too big without him. My brother doesn’t have any pets or plants, so no one stops by. I’d leave the place myself, but then I’d be condemned to living life locked out. Completely abandoned and alone. So, for now, I’m gonna stick to eating his expired canned foods after I went through everything in his fridge.

It took a long time, but there was something my brother was able to get discharged long enough to attend. My funeral. Despite having enough money to go to Paris five times a year, my parents ‘splurged’ for a petite funeral for their only daughter. The service lasted exactly one hour and that was it. It was already over.

The crowd dispersed, but I stayed, looming over my new gravestone. It had my name engraved on it. Right there. Right above the fresh mound of dirt covering an empty coffin. My foot sunk into the fresh dirt. I suppose this is better than being buried alive. But, I still bit my tongue to keep from screaming.

My brother wasn’t readmitted to the mental hospital. I didn’t sneak back into his apartment and drive him insane again. Instead, I stayed at the graveyard. I sat by my stone and watched as my stone slowly blended into the sea of death around me like I blended into the background of everyone else.

Pretty soon, even my gravestone became invisible.

What’s to be expected, honestly? I did nothing about it. Nothing but curl up next to the freezing chill of the stone and wait for it to become warmer than my flesh as a soft hunger consumed my stomach. And wait. And wait. And wait.

I write because there is a passion within me that cannot be extinguished. There is an undeniable drive that cannot be tamed. My words are the expression of the deepest, most vulnerable part of me. You read my work, you see my soul. My heart is poured out into every prose, story, and poem. I write in hopes it may touch you, the way writing it touched me. I’m allowed to be so intimate and so vulnerable, yet hidden behind my words. My writing screams what I’m too scared to say.

It’s hard to be a writer. Half the time nobody wants to read what it is you wrote. No matter how short or long. Ask a family member and you get looked at like you asked them to scrub the toilet with their tongue! Ask a friend and they will say “yeah! I’ll read that.” but they almost never do, or they skim it over and tell you how “good” it was.

No writer in the world writes for their own convictions. We write to tell a story that will insight emotion into the reader. That will leave the receiver with deeper questions, or will fill a void in the person’s heart.

We write for the world to read our stories, and yet, we can’t find a single person who wants to read what we wrote!

So do we as writers (who have a need to put words together) stop writing?

No!

Do we stop begging people to read our labors?

No!

Do we stop sending in our stories to publishers who will continue to reject it?

No!

We persevere, not because we know our writing is great and needs to be read! Because if we don’t write, then we lose a piece of ourselves. We read what others have written and think to ourselves, “I could have depicted that better.” We can’t help but put to paper what is in our heads. And yes, we do it for the fulfillment of others. Not for us.

I have never written something I deemed well written and said, “This is so good, I am going to keep it to myself so nobody will ever read it!” and I doubt any other writer or published author has either.

Being a self-proclaimed writer is even harder. Nobody takes your writing seriously. You either don’t have a grasp on proper grammar, or your punctuation and formatting are all wrong. And you think to yourself, “that’s okay that’s what editors and proofreaders are for”, but you are wrong! They are there to help real authors who are published and have a grasp on proper grammar, punctuation placement, and the correct formatting, not for the newbies and the eager to learn.

As a new writer, you are excited and quick to want to share and get feedback, so you join Facebook groups and sites like NaNoWriMo or Prose.com. You pour your heart out and into your work, but when you run it through Grammarly and Hemingwayediting.com, you are disheartened to find your writing level is below average and your awesome “show don’t tell”, words are looked at as mediocre. You get advice and critiquing like this:

“Don’t use adverbs!”

“Don’t use passive voices!”

“Don’t use too many adjectives!”

“Don’t attempt to write if you don’t have the skills!”

So those of us who don’t have “it ”right, stop writing. Who is going to listen to what we have to say anyway? Especially when the libraries, book stores, and editorials are all filled with what others have already written. You can’t help but wonder,

“Is there enough room for me on those shelves?” The answer should be YES!

Yes, there is room, yes you are good enough, yes, yes, yes! But that’s not the feedback you receive.

Your rejections and your lack of supporters begin to weigh heavily on you. Your goal of 1,000 words a day, get cut in half, and then in half again, until all you are doing is thinking about writing, instead of actually writing. All those short stories, prose’, and poems that you thought were going to get recognized don’t. You begin to realize that the only person reading your work is you and that’s not why you write!

You join creative writing classes and enroll in local authors clubs, but everyone there is in the same boat you are. They want their works published too! And of course, if that means undermining your works to get theirs noticed, then so be it. It’s better than being unknown.

And so the unpublished, unrecognized, under-educated writers who write for the world, slowly start to retreat. They hide their notebooks of half-finished ideas away. The delve into other talents they have or other hobbies to occupy their mind. They read books that they think are okay but could’ve been written better. And they forget. They forget about all the rejections, the criticisms, and the critics. They busy themselves and their minds until they have buried all the negativity and self-doubts and they take out the notebooks, the half-written and almost forgotten stories. They rewrite and re-word and revise and they send their work out into the world yet again, just to go through the same vicious cycle.

Until one day, somebody reads what you wrote and gives you a simple thumbs up. On that day, you are a real writer! Who cares what everyone else said. Who cares about the rejections from the publishers, the critiques from the editors, and the looks from your family! Someone out there read something you wrote! And guess what? They liked it!

with a simple piece of paper . I’m sinking ink in your foundation

touching those callus

yet gentle fingers with my soul

leaving footprints so deep in your bones

.