Listen

Listen

I don't expect you
to understand.
It's not like anyone
does anymore,
telling me that I'm
too busy thinking
with my heart
to hear my head
screaming itself hoarse
trying to
show me
trying to
tell me
trying to
pull me out of
some abyss I've
dug for myself,
but they're wrong.
They don't hear
the drumming beat
that courses through
my chest,
a rhythm that
invades my very core,
reminding me
day after goddamned day
that I have a choice,
and I'll never give
that up.

There are some
that do see,
though,
those that drum
alongside me,
show me that
perhaps I'm not alone,
that there is a band,
a loving percussion
to march alongside,
however small it may be.
And as the world
stomps along
to its own destructive tune,
I hold on to
the tempo
that's brought me this far,
the silly sonnet
that I can't help
but dance to,
laugh with,
sing at,
love.

There will always
be those whispers
that hiss into my ears
like an airy tape worm,
trying to rip into me,
tear out the good bits,
leaving a pile of
rotting poor intentions.
And I'll rip
each one out
with a self-assurance,
with satisfaction,
with a broad smile
on my face,
the one reserved for those
who can never truly know
what they mean to me.
But,
if they were to ask,
I'd tell them that
it's my way of saying
thank you
for not leaving
me alone.

The Heart That Beats for Many

The Heart That Beats for Many

You may not see it now,
but you are such
a beautiful person.
You hold your head high
when every passing person
seems to want to pull you down.
You see a world
filled with hypocrites and liars,
yet you still seem
to manage to smile
here and there.
You carry the voices
of many,
those lost along the road;
you speak for those
who can't help it anymore.

And yes,
I can see that
your heart is heavy,
that it drags
with the weight
of so much.
I can feel its beat
from miles away,
such a powerful rumble,
such a magnificent sound.
It thumps at the tempo
of a hummingbird's wings,
swaying this way and that
out of the sheer effort.

But that doesn't mean
you have to set down somewhere,
some dank out-of-the-way place,
and be alone.
That doesn't mean
that the world is worth
giving up on just yet.

You never need to face this world alone.
Not while I'm here for you.

It may seem silly now,
may seem absurd and unreal.
And I get that;
most people think that too
the first time I say it.
But those who have stuck around
know better.

Let me carry
some of that burden with you.
It may not be much help,
but I hope it's enough.



I leave you with this quote from Lord of the Rings: The Twin Towers:

Frodo: I can't do this, Sam. 

Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something. 

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam? 

Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for. 

Leaves

Here's a short story that I wrote for my Writing Fantastic Fiction class. Please give me some feedback and let me know what you think.

Leaves

It took years of practice, but eventually Liam found he could identify a sword simply by plunging it into his chest. It was like shrugging on a new shirt each morning; somehow, he could feel the difference. He suspected it had something to do with the texture, the polish, the rippling shudder that shot through the gleaming metal as it lodged itself in a comfortable place, a familiar cot to rest in.

He had stopped counting how many times he’d done it; there was hardly any point. The scars had tried keeping track for him at first, reaching out from his healing wounds and wrapping around his skin like the rings of a tree. But soon they began to morph and writhe, snaking around one another, knotting themselves together in the cacophony.

Only the humongous scab that coated his sternum remained stagnant amidst the madness, plate armor he could never take off. Liam had tried removing it before, chipping away at it with a chisel and hammer. He had felt around the lumpy clod of hardened pain for a weak point, a chink, some sort of opening that he might break through; all he ever found beneath was more blood. He had wondered if there was anything underneath anymore, if there was a heart still beating below the surface.

He didn’t really care anymore.

Liam had begun carrying a sword with him everywhere he went when he turned fourteen years old. At first, he tried carrying around a dagger, but it just didn’t pierce deep enough anymore; there was no feeling of satisfaction. But, more importantly, he was tired of having to go home and stab himself on his own time. And bed sheets were expensive; he didn’t want to have to ruin anymore. He only got so much allowance for waking up every morning. Sure, it was a chore, and he felt he deserved the cash after all. But that didn’t mean he needed to spend it all so he could get back in bed at the end of the day. He might as well have never left at that rate.

Matthias was the only other person Liam knew of who shared his enthusiasm in blades. He didn’t really use them for anything though; he preferred mounting them in a variety of ways, like a hunter would stuffed animals. He would pose them to fight one another in the air, the swordsmen obscured by the imagination. Some he would simply have sticking out of the floor, like weeds that were found to periodically sprout out of the concrete. Matthias had once tried to make his own Iron Throne after watching a few episodes of Game of Thrones. His ass was so cut up he couldn’t walk properly for a month.

All his swords were medieval in some manner. His favorite was a replica of King Arthur’s sword, which he hung from the ceiling above his head, the blade pointing downwards. He figured if he was to be killed in his sleep, it might as well be in the warrior’s way.

Not that it had ever killed Liam, but he didn’t say it out loud. Everyone had to have dreams, he figured, even if they were hopeless.

Liam was nearly twenty when he first met Elizabeth. The first thing he noticed about her was her hair, a stream of gold shining down her shoulders and back. It captured the best moments of autumn, when the leaves were just the right color, caught in the wind, flowing with a veracity that cannot be contained. It had a wildness to it, an energy that could not be explained. And, down at the tips, red flecks shone as if someone had ignited them; he worried that it was only a matter of time before it all disappeared, burnt away from its own sheer beauty.

The second thing he noticed was her tail.

Elizabeth said that it was a wolf’s tail, although Liam wasn’t entirely sure how she could tell. He insisted it had to be a fox’s tail, not that he would know. It’s not like he had anything to compare it to. Years later, Liam inquired how or why or what or where it even came from, but she never gave him a straight answer; he suspected that she liked the mystery of it all. He asked why she only had a tail. She said she had misplaced her fangs somewhere, giving him a toothy grin. Sure enough, Liam didn’t see any fangs in her smile, only sincere glee.

Elizabeth is an aspiring leaf sculptor. Not was, is. I don’t think she’ll ever give up. It’s one of the things I love most about her.

On the tenth day they knew each other, Elizabeth brought Liam to the valley where she did her work. Try as he might, Liam couldn’t see any grass amidst the sea of leaves she worked in, a constantly churning mass that would rise and fall with the wind, the waves dancing to and fro with a cunning tempo that made Liam’s heart soar.

Elizabeth’s sculptures were incredible to Liam, if only because she was the one who made them. He could never really tell what they were supposed to be. He never asked; that would be rude. But he didn’t care what they were either; they didn’t have to be anything to be magnificent, to capture an emotion so potently that it can’t be explained, to make Liam feel alive again.

He hadn’t felt alive in a long time.

Liam had been raised in a cinderblock box of a house, with the walls, coarse and callous as they were, claiming him for their own. When he was younger, he would rush out the door each morning so fast that they couldn’t catch him, traipsing out into the world of light that shone brilliantly in his eyes, and where there was more than one hue to behold.

He remembered trying to guess what color the sky was each day with his eyes clamped shut, simply by smelling the air; he was only wrong half the time. He would try this with everything; the rough, rotting bark on the dead trees in his backyard, the slimy, stench of the yellowing snails that squished down the street, the steaming-hot cars that would be parked along the road. Sometimes, he would see if he could change the shades of things just by closing his eyes and wishing it really really hard.

He tried changing the color of his house at least once every day.

Hiking was what he enjoyed most of all. It was like walking through a kaleidoscope to him, with all the patterns there for him to reach out and touch. He would run through the woods with a child-like wonder that couldn’t be stymied until he saw everything nature had to offer. He would not be denied, and his parents knew it. They never tried to stop him, though they did worry. They would stand anxiously in the frame of the back door, watching their son pretend he was a bird for the umpteenth time, leaping from a tree branch, flapping his arms wildly to a tempo all their own.

Hunting was a big pastime where Liam lived. Everyone had tried it at one time or another, or so Liam was told. He knew that was a lie, as he had never intended to himself. His father had tried time and again to get Liam to give it a shot, with promises of adventure and new sights and smells. He even took Liam to the shooting range every day for a month to show him just how cool it could be. “You could be like a Stormtrooper,” he would say, holding up the hunting rifle.

“The Rebel Alliance never employed any animals,” Liam replied matter-of-factly.

“What about all those aliens?”

“They just look like animals; they don’t count.”

Elizabeth’s tail wagged whenever she would talk of her sculptures. She would talk of them endlessly, her bright blue eyes shining at the thought of just one more statue she could create. When they were walking about, she would stop to scoop some leaves off the ground. “This’ll be perfect,” she would say to herself quietly, tucking them away in her back pocket, which rested just to the right of the hole she had made to accommodate her furry appendage. By the end of the day, it would be bulging with new materials. Sometimes, Elizabeth would teasingly tell him to stop staring, not that he ever was; he wondered if she asked if she queried to encourage him, but Liam knew this was a dangerous line of thinking. But he considered it nonetheless.

He couldn’t help himself; something about her made him so content to simply be beside her. One afternoon, he had tried to come up with all the reasons, writing himself a list; he realized after a while he would never finish if he kept writing, so he went to go see Elizabeth instead.

She was working in her private gallery again. Liam never understood her work ethics or methods, if he was honest with himself. But that didn’t really matter; some things can simply be, no comprehension required. Elizabeth would often start by simply leaping into the leaves with voraciousness, like she was trying to catch a mouse hidden beneath the surface. His favorite part was when she would leap back out, trying to surprise him if he happened to be visiting. It was like his personal wildfire, so full of heart and excitement, so happy to be alive for what little time it was allotted, a fiery dance that Liam wanted so badly to learn. He promised himself he would figure out how to do it someday.

Often after this, she would hug Liam tightly, as if afraid he would run off. Liam wouldn’t have even if he had wanted to. They would stand there for minutes on end, simply holding one another in the shimmering sunlight, sighing contentedly for the fact that they had one another.

It was on an occasion like this that Liam swore he heard his father’s old rifle going off in the distance. It was an unmistakable noise, the unsettling crash breaking through the silence, sending a metallic shiver crawling up his spine. Shifting his weight, he threw himself and Elizabeth below the shimmering surface, where they could be alone. They waited silently, listening to the slow steps that crunched through the leaves, an unmistakable violence to each movement, as if even his boots were looking for blood.

Liam’s panicked eyes stared at Elizabeth as he tried to calm himself. He still hadn’t let go of her.

That’s when he wondered what would happen if they were found, Elizabeth would stand very still, very quiet, as she does when she’s scared or ashamed. Her tail would droop ever so slightly, just enough for it to be noticeable.

Just enough for the hunter to get a good look.

Liam leapt from his hiding place, pulling his sword from his sheath, slashing wildly in front of him. Fear fueled his footsteps as he charged forward. They say that bravery cannot exist without the presence of fear. But this was not bravery.

The hunter fell in a pool of his own blood, toppling over on top of one of Elizabeth’s sculptures. He looked like any other man, foolish and full of unwarranted self-confidence; in a way, his identity died with him. Even in death, he seemed sure he would catch his prize if he looked hard enough when riding down the River Styx. Liam raised the sword to cut the expression from his face.

Only Elizabeth’s squeal stopped him. Her face had grown whiter than snow, as if she was the one who had been killed. Liam was barely able to catch her as she fell, her body cold and quiet, shivering with the world’s weight on her shoulders, something she had no business carrying on her own. He carried her all the way back to her cave, leaving her to sleep as he stood at the entrance. He liked to imagine himself as a stoic samurai standing guard, but he didn’t delude himself enough to believe it. And, honestly, he cared little for such foolish fantasies. What mattered, though, was that he never wanted to see Elizabeth look at him like that again, never wanted to feel the shame of knowing that he had been the one to bring about such a pain in her heart.

And, in that moment, Liam threw himself onto his sword.

It wasn’t the first time.

The following morning, Liam showed Elizabeth his home, if one could call it that. It was a large, plain box that sat in the middle of a clearing. There was nothing overly special about it, nothing peculiar beyond its existence. Elizabeth was hardly paying attention to that, though; she was a bit distracted by the sword handle that was sticking out of Liam’s sternum.

She had tried tearing it from his body when she discovered him passed out at her cave entrance when she awoke, despite his calm reassurances that there was nothing to be done. Once they got stuck, he explained, you just had to wait for them to dissipate naturally; there was a reason Matthius refused to lend him any more of his equipment. Liam explained that he would eventually wake up and find a pile of dust and debris settled in the center of his bedspread, having gradually accumulated overnight, peppering his clothes with the fine material. Those sheets usually found themselves in the trash soon after, as it was such a chore to try and clean them. Recently though, he found himself trying to stay thrifty, setting aside some linens for such occasions. He even had a wardrobe of tees with holes cut into them to accommodate the unseemly protrusion.

Walking through his front door, Liam settled himself soundly on his bed, lying sideways so he wouldn’t poke anymore holes in his walls. They tended to stand out on the stark white walls, with a thin line of plaster coating the gray and tan furniture. He already felt himself dozing off, his eyes sliding shut like wide drawers, closing with a firm click.

When he awoke, two years had passed.

It took Liam a while to discover this, as the day seemed like any other. In fact, it looked as if the world hadn’t changed at all, as if it didn’t even miss him throughout his hibernation. The only real clue was the thick, gray gunk covering himself and everything in his home; Liam suspected that it was the sword debris left to mold and fester and feast on a lack of concern. Not that it was really noticeable; had it not be for the unbearably pungent smell, he probably wouldn’t have done anything about it.

It was only when Liam meandered his way over to Elizabeth’s cave that he came to the conclusion that he had slept much longer than expected. It wasn’t that there was much of a metamorphosis within the place itself; in fact, it seemed as if Elizabeth had stopped building her sculptures altogether, with no new additions, only the originals left to rot and broil in the sun, a browning mess of sopping wet earth and insects scuttling about, gorging themselves on the sticky sludge.

Rather, it was the simple absence of Elizabeth.

With her, the colorful patterns and energy and life faded to a bland palette of degrading grays, grimy greens, and an unsettling white seen to fester and puss away at the edges of the environment. Even her scent, the unmistakable fragrance of fresh fur and innocence, was missing, as if misplaced in nature’s rush to take its own course.

Liam’s mind ran almost as fast as his legs would let him as he charged through the trees and brush, his fear fueling the mad dash. Surely there were more hunters, he thought. They must have come for her, looking for their friend and finding a defenseless rarity, a bright commodity to revitalize the stagnant city.

He swore to himself he would never go back to that wretched hive of foolhardy insolence and unnecessary hatred, that he would hide for as long as he could from the emptiness that was doled out day after day without so much as a thought. But this wasn’t about him anymore.

He didn’t get very far, though, as he felt his legs crumple, an intense pain coursing through his body. He tried to get up, but his right leg wouldn’t move, weighed down beneath the leaves by an unseen entity. Pushing aside the upper layer, Liam found not a bear trap latched to his heel, as expected, but discarded fangs hinged around his flesh, the teeth digging ruthlessly into him.

Limping, Liam barely reached Matthius’ home by nightfall. It resided just on the border of city, often seen as the silent peacekeeper between the two provinces. Liam rapped on the door heavily, his body pressed up against the wall of the house to hold himself up. His rubbed his back against the bumpy, wooden texture, feeling as old, dead skin fell away from his back, making room for the scab to reform.

            It was only when Matthius opened the door when Liam realized something was wrong. Matthius had always been an odd sort, yes, but he was never seen as cracked per say. Eccentric, yes, but not without sensibility. His eyes, in that moment, told another story; as if they had been struck by lightning, the blue of his pupils cracked and hissed with a ferocity that plotted and schemed. Liam felt as if he too had suddenly been struck, jumping back a little at the shocking sight.

            Maps, charts, and other such schematics lined his walls, pinned to anything and everything, even the floors. You could hardly take a stride without stepping into another place altogether, covered in curious markings that connoted hundreds of tracks and paths that seemed to have random beginnings and no ends.

            “What… what is all of this?” Liam sputtered.

            The only response he got was the scraping of stone on metal as Matthius sharpened one of his many swords.

            It was only later that Liam noticed the fox-like visage of the symbols that coated the maps in red.

Matthius was a gracious host in the sense that he never bothered to kick Liam out, nor say anything about his presence whatsoever. So Liam remained, lying on the cold hard floor as his foot slowly healed itself, scabbing over much like his chest, giving him the feeling of club foot.

            Over time, Matthius began to tell him of the mission that had driven him to such madness. “It started out with rabbits, man. Like, they’re so damn cute and shit, but I just… I dunno, I wanted to actually do something with all this,” he said, gesturing to the various weapons that sat about his abode, “rather than leaving them to rust. I mean, why the hell have ‘em unless you’re gonna use ‘em?

            “Soon, I started hunting deer. Once I got to bears, though, it wasn’t nearly as fun. But then I saw her. A predator of both man and beast.” He looked at Liam with an expression of pure giddiness and intensity. “How could I resist?”

            Liam tried to show him the destruction Matthius was causing, but that always somehow led them to talk of his father, a topic not to be broached in his presence. “That fuck left me alone in this goddamned cabin years ago to fend for myself. I was alone at the edge of civilization man. How could I be like him if I have no one to leave behind here?”

            “What about me?” Liam asked plaintively.

            “You can leave whenever you want, Liam. I don’t need anyone, especially not some flake who disappears on me after four fuckin’ years only to show up when you’re on your last leg, literally.”

            But Liam didn’t leave, and Matthius would come and go as he pleased. But he’d always return before dark with a nice shank of meat for each of them. He’d go as far as to cook Liam’s for him; Matthius’ was always consumed raw. The blood that ran down his face reminded Liam of a twisted river, running off into his brown beard, a plant in need of watering. He never shaved, nor washed his beard; he considered it good luck, and he wasn’t about to tamper with that.

            Liam found himself on the cusp of recovery the day that Elizabeth walked through the door, a sword in hand, presumably of Matthius’ make. Matthius, who had been muttering to himself as he went over his various maps once more, looked up, unsure of what exactly he was seeing, as if coming face to face with his ultimate prize didn’t seem real anymore.

That’s when his head came clean off in a spurt of crimson and a slice silver. There were no screams, not a moment to contemplate or consider; the deed was done, and that was that.

            Matthius’ head rolled over to Liam’s wounded foot. His eyes appeared to be looking up at him questioningly, as if he could process what the head no longer could. The body shuddered a little, the arms and legs jerking a bit as the nerve endings came alive one last time, before it fell in a heap, a pile of bones and filth and regret.

            Only the silence seemed to make an effort to keep its cool, thinking to itself as it always seemed to, the curious watcher never surprised by always intrigued.

            Shaking from the effort, Liam rose to his feet. He wasn’t sure what to feel or think or say, so he just stood, his eyes asking openly for some sort of answer from the stranger that stared him down.

            Elizabeth had grown since they had last met. Her height now held an authority, and her demeanor was that of royalty, the grace she strode with now translating to something much less innocent. The shine of her hair had dulled to something of a golden brown; while still beautiful, it was so in a more controlled manner. And the fire in her eyes had grown more tempered, hammered on a harsh anvil until becoming contained to two steely ingots.

            Liam had remained the same as ever.

            He was about to speak when he felt cold metal touch his bare neck, the sharpness drawing some blood. “How are you here?” she snarled through bared teeth.

            “I… walked,” Liam said.

            “I cared and coddled and babied you for two years while you slept in that godforsaken box of yours. I waited day after day for you to wake, for you to open your eyes. And yet you left me alone in that fucking cage you made for yourself. I was chained to you, a prisoner without a warden. You left me to rot and fester in your own misgivings. So how is it that the moment I gave up, when I finally left you for dead, you just… wake up?”

            Liam didn’t have an answer; he knew he didn’t. So, instead of trying to provide some half-assed excuse, he remained silent. They stared at one another for a while, the tension becoming a noose, tightening around Liam’s neck. Finally, Elizabeth turned, saying, “I waited for you long enough; I’m not going to stand here and wait anymore.” Before leaving, she ran him through with the sword she held.

Liam wandered the woods out of sheer uncertainty of what the hell he was even supposed to do. He figured he might as well keep moving though; there was nothing behind him worth salvaging. And he knew that if he stopped for a moment, time might try to pass him by again. He was sure that’s what had happened; it certainly wasn’t the sword that had put him to sleep. Unless… had it been his penance, reparations for murdering the hunter? Or had he simply pretended to be asleep for the last two years, too afraid to face a world of shame and doubt?

            Some questions don’t have answers; Liam recognized this and kept walking.

            He continued blindly trudging along for a month, his foot growing weaker every day, undoing what little healing had occurred. Then, he collapsed, wheezing, tired, alone. He cried for a long time, longer than Liam wanted to admit to himself. And, as the tears poured onto his chest, his scab began to soften, fading away until it was barely there anymore. But still, the sword remained stagnant, unmoving.

            When all the tears had dried and Liam could bear to sit no longer, he moved to rise, but found his foot once again in a state of disrepair. Looking about for something to prop himself up with, he felt the once icy metal shift ever so slightly. After a moment, Liam was able to wrench it from himself, pushing it into the ground so that he might rise. Stumbling, but moving all the same, Liam began to walk. He wasn’t sure where; he couldn’t say he cared anymore.

            He wondered if he would ever see Elizabeth again. He knew it was a silly thought, but he 
didn’t admit that to himself; everyone had to have dreams,

How I'm Feeling Right Now

Short Story Gone Wrong

Most of this evening, I've been trying to drum out some kind of beginning for a short story that's due next week. In the end, two attempts came out of it. And before you ask, yes, these are fictional accounts.
This first one isn't much, but I felt it was worth mentioning:

Groggily, I roll out of bed until I tumble onto the floor, tangled in an elaborate noose composed of my own appendages. Part of me knows this is my little, drowsy way of forcing myself awake; the other part doesn’t give a shit.

                Pushing myself up off the somewhat grimy carpet, I scramble around for my phone in hopes of discovering what ungodly hour it is. I’m surprised my phone even made it back here in one piece; sure, I never lost it, but I sure as hell considered breaking it in half on several occasions. Not that it would have been a big deal anyways; I’ve been needing an upgrade for a few years now.

                See, my mother refuses to buy into the whole smart phone craze. Sees it as a waste of money, or so she says. I just think she doesn’t know how to use them and doesn’t want to admit it. I’ve caught her glancing over how-to’s online about that sort of thing, puzzling over the interworking’s of Microsoft Word. How she even got online at all is telling of just how far along she’s come. But whenever I bring it up, it always comes down to me having to pay for my own 3G, and on a college kid’s budget, that’s just not going to happen.

The second one is a bit lengthier:

College is the best place to fuck someone over.

                Everyone’s so damn fragile, little china dolls with all their dreams and hopes and morals and ideas lined up at the compound. Those wide blue eyes almost seem to widen in the brief moments before they’re crushed, when they realize just how unprepared their little sidewinder suburbs have made them.

                I’ve been traipsing through life for a while now without too many cares or worries. All I look for these days is a good drink, a good fucking, and some misery to share with the world. And I have plenty of the last one, enough to share with the whole goddamned class.

                My closest friends are the folks who I’ve screwed the worst; funny how that works, really. Sometimes I just wait off in some distant corner of the universe, wondering whether or not anyone will ever find me, or even bother looking for me. But they always come running; they always know where I am, like I give off some unique scent of woe and depravity, as if my pain leaves markings in the sand to trudge after out of desperation and uncertainty of what else to do.

                I see Brian as my greatest achievement in life. He was a pretty cool kid once, a down to Earth sorta guy who went through life loving everyone and everything. He hadn’t a care in the world and wanted for nothing. It was only when I pumped his girl fullah drugs and she went and died on him that he began to lose focus, began to question why, began to see just how fucked everything really was. It’s funny; I was giving her the pills, but he was the one who was awakened by it all. In a way, I was his Morphius. I tried at calling myself Morphine Morphius for a while after that, but no one really gave a fuck what I was called, as long as I had their stuff. But I kind of enjoy that too in its own sick way, me being a nameless bringer of doom, a wraith that haunts the doors of those who come knocking on mine.

                Brian took it a step further; he lives with me these days. The closest he could get to me without strapping an umbilical cord to my chest like some kind of eerie harness, not that I would mind that much. This life gets kind of lonely sometimes, hence number two on my shit-to-get-done-daily list. I don’t really have a type; I don’t think any guy really does. I mean, a hot chick is hot, no matter what color hair she has or how big her tits are or how wide she can spread her legs. Attractiveness can’t really be categorized or measured, it just is. Kind of like my dick. But you don’t wanna hear about that; even I get tired of hearing about it pretty quickly these days.

                I consider that the price I pay for sticking it in more places than I should. I can’t stop myself; it’s like an addiction all its own, a rush I get from putting myself literally out there for someone else. And, try as I have before, I can’t stop wanting after it, needing it, craving it constantly, an appetite that can never be satisfied.

People say that I’m sick, that I should go see someone. I tell them I do; I see a lot of people every day, and none of them have ever been able to help me. That’s when they usually call me an asshole and walk away. I’d be bothered if I thought they wouldn’t be back.

See, that’s the one good thing about all of this, the twisted life I supposedly live; I may always be alone, but I’m never without company. It’s like misery has its own radio wave that calls out, a wailing beacon that can only be heard by the ears of those nearly deafened by the benign bullshit that fills their unfulfilling lives. We’re constantly meeting under the most obscure and unprecedented circumstances, like we really give a fuck where and how we find each other, just as long as there’s someone else to help carry the burden.

Why do you think Brian’s stuck around as long as he has? I mean, besides the fact that he doesn’t really know my role in the whole his-girlfriend-being-dead thing. Yeah, yeah, so I haven’t told him; call it my sick fascination with life-or-death scenarios, but I almost want him to figure it out sometimes. Almost.

He sure as hell doesn’t stay for the fucking décor, for the shit stains that crawl across the walls, consuming our wallpaper like a hungry caterpillar, growing more pudgy and pungent every day. Not for the beds, the wretched, molding mattresses that haven’t had the ability to support anyone’s back for a few years now. He might stay for the rent; we don’t have any, just about the only good thing about the dilapidated mess. But what he really waits for is an end.

I mean, how can you not after seeing the shit he has? It would have been enough seeing his lover kick the bucket, but his parents, his career, his dignity? Only so much around you can die before you become obsessed with it; just ask Emily Dickinson. That bitch was messed up.

I was an English major once, way back when I thought it majorly mattered, back when I thought I’d actually do something with it. You know, a diploma. That’s when I thought that letters scrawled on a piece of paper meant whether or not I was gonna do well in life, when I figured I’d go work in some swanky-ass company and live in some not-so-swanky place and maybe sleep with some girl I actually loved.

Love. What the hell is that shit anyways? Everyone’s always trying to define it, apply it, study it under some little fucking microscope, waiting for it to squirm or reveal all its secrets. Well, let me rip away that mystery right now; love is a figment of our imaginations. It’s what we think we want for an uncaring, unhelpful, cruel, suicidal, violent, violating world. We want to think it’s not all that, that someone out there really gives a care about someone outside of themselves. Except that at the end of the day we’re all very, very alone. I would know.

People stay with Brian and I for days, weeks, years at a time without so much as a “please” or “thank you.” I hardly notice that they’re even there, because they don’t seem to care that anyone else is here. It’s like we’re all already dead, spiriting through our lives like they were never there to begin with. Everyone’s seen it at some point; I’m just the only one who’s accepted it.

Curious to hear what you guys have to say about either, so feel free to leave a comment or text me and let me know what you think. Any and all feedback is appreciated, even if these are just random ideas and not fully fleshed out yet. Also, I haven't edited any of this yet, so let me know if you notice anything that doesn't make much sense.

An Editor's Self Assessment

It's after nights and papers like these when I really have to wonder how I can enjoy editing.
I mean, what kind of sick fuck puts himself through such a masochistic process? More often than not, the essays you do get are fairly poorly written, with sentences that aren't actually sentences and words repeated over 30 times in a four page paper. The round-about arguments made start becoming jumbled in your brain, and by the time you reach the last page, you hardly want to make any more marks on the page; your pen is probably out of ink already. And afterwards, you have to confront the individual in question about it, all the while needing a positive frame to put the crooked, wrinkled, ripped picture in.
Sure, not all the work I've gotten is that rough, but those mostly come from other English majors, and even then we all make mistakes. Hell, you can probably find a few errors here as you're reading. So, why do I do this anyway? Why do I want to spend the rest of my days studying huge manuscripts from cover to cover ins search of any and every error within?
To be honest, the answer's pretty simple; I'm helping other people. At the end of the day, I'm changing someone else's life for the better. They'll get a better grade on that essay because of the edits I put forward, or they'll rework their story in a way that makes it more comprehensive to a general audience. Even if they don't take any of my advice, at least I've gotten them thinking about their work and jogging their brains with all sorts of ideas of where to go next with whatever they may be writing. Can it be grueling? Yes. But the pay-off, while not material, is clear; meeting new people and making their lives just a little easier, not to mention more experience with editing in general. The best kind of reward there is (though money is nice too :P)
Ironically, I cannot stand editing my own work for whatever reason... But perhaps that's a thought for another evening.

A Grand Return

Well, it's been a while, that's for sure, but I'm as ready to jump back into this as ever.

For those of you unfamiliar with what the heck this is, my name is Luke Muench, a 21 year-old English student looking to share some of his writings with the world.

So, enough faffing about, let's get down to business, hmm?

This comes from one of my writing classes this semester, a publishing class to be a little more specific. The task that was provided for me was to write a narrative within the mind-set of an orange with the persuasive tone of a preacher. As you can imagine, I had a lot of fun writing this; I had even more fun presenting it, with absurd hand gestures and the over-the-top preacher voice. Try to imagine it, it's much more enjoyable that way :P

Orange You Glad?

       Today, my brothers, our Lord has sent us a glorious sign from above, a shining symbol that our toils and troubles have not been in vain, that we are, in fact, on the righteous path of salvation, Of course, I am talking about the brilliant drops of life that we bathe in this fine morning, that shine on our skin like the morning dew and fuel our feverish growth to someday reach our ultimate purpose.
       Of course, I refer to the rain.
       Now, I know what some of ya'll may be thinkin' to yourselves, that rain ain't anything special, that we are still threatened by the moving menaces of these Earthly plains that plot and scheme to tear us down from our precious perches, our sacred homes provided to us by our Mother, who holds us above all evils to this day. But, my friends, to say such things is to ignore the bountiful gifts brought unto us by She who deigns to let us live, who has forever been our life and death incarnate. Do you think that we deserve such treasures, that we are entitled to the richness of such holy drink? Still thy tongues! For you cannot yet conceive of what sacrifices have been made for you to simply be here.
       Do you not feel the life coursing through your souls? Without it, we would all be grimy rinds, curled up on the ground in utter decay, sinful shells left in the mud for carrion to carry off. That is the lifeblood our Mother provides us from her own bosom, giving up some of Her own time in this world for our sakes, so that we may one day spread Her word and seed, letting Her teachings remain timeless.
       I will not lie to you, my brothers; there will always be pain in this world. There will always be cuts and bruises on our skins, always be those carried away before their time, always be Gravity, trying to drag us into his realm to suffer and writhe eternally. There will always be death. But it can only mean something if we hold the life and gifts given to us today with the utmost joy and thanks, and if we can bring ourselves to be glad for the bad so that the good might mean that much more.
       Can I get an Amen?


If you have a hankering for more of my work, feel free to look at past posts, as well as my various film critiques, which can be found through Rinema or on my Facebook page. Until next time, live life to the rhythm of your heart.