I drove through a ghost town when I was seventeen; population six, empty windows like hollowed haunting eyes leering as I passed. I remember that often when I’m with you. I think twice and turn my back before I undress. You’ve seen, held, everything I have, but it’s still mine if I say so. There’s something so human, so flawed, about my need to please. I smile and nod and don’t say anything when you tell me your stories more than once. Do you think those six people really existed? Were they there, sitting around a dinner table, watching through those empty windows? My grandmother told me she believed in prophets Touched my cheeks and said she saw the dreams in my eyes Maybe that’s why I see this coming. You’ll think twice, eventually, and turn your back. You’ll do it before I do, I have endurance if nothing else, and things will end with the hollow stillness of a ghost town. You don’t hear it happening yet, the warning alarm, so I sink back, and stare at the too-empty
Something impossible speaks with the voice of an ancient. He stands in his tower - smoke wreathed and scowling - shining lights and pulling strings, speaking words that fill me with fear. But I will stand in his way, to keep him from her. Something impossible speaks with the voice of a woman. Though she echoes through spaces too vast and broken for me, when I see her she looks like a woman, and feels like a woman, and loves like a woman. And I’m just a man- so maybe there’s nothing I can do. I’m just something so possible and full of cliches. But I’d be lying if I said I never saw something impossible in her eyes, flashing bright in the firelight. And I’m a liar to everyone but her. So when I find her, standing at the edge; my lover, my savior, something impossible, watching the blood-red sunset, I ask her if she’s the carrion or the crow. And she holds me close and tells me that everyone leaves their mark, and takes their tithe. And at the end
I walk into the fire and I see you there. Wheels on pavement like squealing desperation, like the sweat on my palms, like the breath from her lungs-- I can’t stop now. It’s human to care, to comfort, to rage and scream and struggle and to do it alone. That, too, is human. But I walk into the fire and I see you there. Her voice echoes in my head, a personal haunting, a ghost-- my family, a ticking time bomb with no numbers I can see. I can’t stop. Not again. When I search through the trees that she scribbles on the walls I wonder if she’s here, if she’ll die how she lived-- lost in her own fear. And I’m afraid, too. But I keep walking into the fire, And you’re always there.
I'd sink my teeth in if I could but I keep myself starving. When nothing's what you're used to having something just doesn't feel right. And she's something, alright. She might be poison for all I know, but she might just be sweet. Well, the hunger pangs hit like family. They hit like a hard day's work and the back of a hand. And sure, it hurts, but it hurts familiar. And maybe it's complicated, how I'd live for her but never love. But a starving dog dies of a full belly quicker than if he'd had nothing at all.
It nearly escaped just then, and again, and again. Each day I tell myself- this won't last forever, I should just pack up and go before the hurt gets too bad to live through again. And again. But the word keeps coming to my lips when you smile at me like that, or say all the right things. And it almost escapes, again and again. There will come a day, I hope, God, I hope, when I can free it without fear gripping my chest, when I can go an hour without worrying that I care too much to lose you now. Well, worrying hasn't broke me yet, and love did once, so I'm taking my chances and taking my time, and maybe nothing'll go wrong. 'Til then I smile at you, and bite my tongue, holding back a word, at least, if I can't hold back anything else, again, and again.
Dear Darling, I'm terrified. And it's raining. Start over. Dear darling, I'm terrified. But you know that. Why am I saying it again? Start over. We both know family means loyalty and honesty, blind faith, and love-- scratch that one. Family means do what we must, when we must. Or there will be consequences. Am I remembering that right? Yes. I'd love to-- Start over. We won't call it love, not yet and maybe not ever, but I have had to deal with the consequences of needing you with me. I told you you're nothing like her, but then again, I'm nothing like me. I promise to not compare you to her, as often as I compare myself to the man I once was. Wait, start over.
You’re not hard to find; A traveling home with long strides, somewhere near the beach, or maybe roving mountain trails. I’ve watched you pass, half a dozen times; scuffed knees, broken windows, a nice conversation before I went back to bed. I don’t have a knack for timing, but everything comes around eventually. It could be this life, or the next, but it was nice to hear from you again. You’re not hard to find, but the lock is rusted shut. Sometimes you spend years just trying to forget that a house is meant to hold people close. So you take your broken windows, grit your teeth, and keep on moving. I’m not hard to find, sometimes hard to see. But when I get too close to you, peek in those shattered windows and try the handle, I might simply slip through, quick as a ghost. I’ll learn to live inside you before you know I’m there.
It's always when I'm half asleep that I remember a house that only exists in my head. When I was ten I thought I saw a ghost at your door, silhouetted in sun glare and pollen haze, and you said you believed me. The house is still there, a roller-skate away from my childhood bedroom, but sometimes I think things only exist when I can hold them in my hands. Losing you was a decision made slowly, deliberately, through active neglect and forgetfulness. I guess I never realized that losing people means losing places, too. My personal mythology is written in apple trees and porch steps; an almost-believable oral history in house plants and home movies. Remember that time I painted your nails? Remember playing card games on the tile floors? Can I write a poem about you without you ever knowing? Different people grow different ways, but I was never a plant with a single pot, and I never knew that going home wouldn't be easy when half my home was yours. I remember everything
Appointment with the Worms by silkshines, literature
Literature
Appointment with the Worms
Sometimes I write poems in the dark, where the light Can’t see my thoughts to judge their worth. I often feel like an appointment you’ve forgotten the date of; Could be next month, last week. You could have simply forgotten to call at all. I sit in this labyrinth of my own mind, spending hours Analyzing a word never said - explicitly - But was it implied? Did I infer? Was your meaning intended? Does any hole in the ground intend to be a grave? If I step into it, if I Lie down and squeeze the dirt in my fists -- A passerby might see me a corpse. But I’d rather be a worm. Sometimes I write poems in the dark - by the fleeting light of a computer screen So that I can read it back later. I missed an appointment with the worms next week, but, “Like all worldly things - I will in time wear, and be used up. We are always lost, late, or soon.”
“We don’t take passengers.” Sabine said, and she let them know it was final by punching the close button on the hatch and watching their dismayed faces through the quickly closing ship door. She turned away and headed deeper into the ship.
“That wasn’t very polite.” A voice admonished as she walked. Sabine heard the cold feminine voice leak through the walls, surrounding her as if the ship was a living person. An annoyingly pious living person.
“You know, Gaia, if I want your opinion I’ll ask for it. Ready engines for departure sequence.” Sabine straightened her jacket. The plastine fab
The ocean was calm while Lou checked her nets in the afternoon light. She pushed aside the flopping piles of fish, looking for anything that didn’t look like mackerel before dumping the lot through the hole to below deck. It was a slow process: setting the nets close to the shoal, waiting for the mackerel to swim into the waiting trap, engaging the power block’s hydraulic engine to pull the (hopefully full) net back to the boat, and hoisting its treasures above the deck for examination. It could be faster if Lou didn’t work alone, but out here on Monhegan there wasn’t much in the way of hirable crew.
She wasn’t
In The Gathering Shadows [p2] by silkshines, literature
Literature
In The Gathering Shadows [p2]
Flora’s head hurts the next morning and she’s pretty sure it’s not from the minimal amount of alcohol she ingested the night before. She was up half the night wondering if Gimmick would appear. Sometimes she wished Gimmick would stay away, stop bothering her and interfering in her life, other times she just wanted Gimmick to appear on her couch, offer a laugh and a chance for adventure, allow her to apologize.
She’s not precisely sure she should be the only one apologizing though. She still doesn’t know how the fight even started. She’s never seen Gimmick act that way before. She’s been rude, of cour
In the Gathering Shadows [p1] by silkshines, literature
Literature
In the Gathering Shadows [p1]
Her fingertips tingle as the moments rush through her mind: A heat resistant metallic mold next to million others riding the conveyor belt, molten hot metal poured and then cooling, fashioning and sharpening, packaging and transport, then a store shelf. A man arrives, his calloused fingertips pick the knife out, he purchases it and takes it home. There’s a lot of silence then, a lot of waiting, and Flora feels the suspense building in the back of her mind. The man takes the knife. He takes it to work, he attacks his victim in the parking garage next to his beat up red Civic. He abandons the knife down the street, throwing it from his ca
She's got a lot of nerve and you don't by silkshines, literature
Literature
She's got a lot of nerve and you don't
The first time is a lot like the last time, and when you see her walk in, all pomp and swagger and a smile that could kill stronger women than you, you tell yourself you’ll be fine as long as you walk away now.
You don’t.
She doesn’t speak to you, not at first, but you dream of her like you’ve never dreamed of home, dream up the way that her mouth could feel on your throat, and the noises she could sing for you.
The second time you see her she ends up spread open in front of you. You’re never sure how it happens but her body looks like it wants you and the way you fit together feels catastrophic. She smiles at
It was still dark when Genny woke up. Her limbs felt stiff but as she stretched out in the bed, she could feel the tension leave her muscles. She rolled over to observe the apartment before her. The only light she saw was the small one above the stove, just bright enough to illuminate the small kitchen and the dark figure curled up on the couch. Only the barest hint of pre-dawn light from the window gave her any sense of what time it was. She was warm underneath the covers but she felt the cold air on her exposed face. She sat up, lifted the blanket around her and walked to the couch. Jax was asleep, his mouth open, his arms tight to his ches
Jax hefted her limp body up into his arms with practiced ease. There was only one exit from the restoration room and that was back through Mr. Garcia's office. He was sure to notice the unconscious woman in Jax's arms if he tried to take her through there but that was the only option. Jax walked back through the hallway, Genevieve's head leaned against his shoulder and he breathed a sigh of relief at the feeble breaths that warmed his collarbone. Garcia would want her dead, of course. She wouldn't be the first to be more curious than Garcia's contacts had led him to believe and she wouldn't be the first that Jax had disposed of. She was the f
A faint mist rose from the cup of coffee on the table. She always ordered her coffee the same way: two sugars, one cream and two ampoules of mood boost charm. The mist sparkled as it dissipated and she lifted the paper cup to her lips and took a sip. She sat in a table near the door and watched the crowds pass by the coffee shop. She didn't understand the people who didn't need their daily caffeine. It was mid-morning, after the early rush of commuters and before people needed coffee on their lunch breaks. Genevieve Chase spent every morning at this table for two reasons: she favored routine and also she was unemployed. The coffee in her hand
The train windows were fogged, the countryside looked like some surrealist painting that belonged in one of your museums and your nose left a print on the window you were looking so close. It was 1936 and Prague was a city of dreams, at least for me. You looked like a child in that red beret and navy blue coat, like you went to an English boarding school and even when you turned your attention to the files on the tray in front of you you looked more like a petulant little girl than a stressed woman. I watched you for some time, intrigued by your concentration and ultimately curious as to what was bringing this woman child to Prague
I told him that I thought I couldn’t write anymore.
And when I did I made a joke: most women writers kill themselves by now. And he laughed and I smiled with the open oven in front of me and the river outside rushing mockingly towards the sea.
He said it was okay, all the trendiest writers have writer’s block he said, what do you think all those hipster intellectuals do all day since they have “no inspiration,” buy more scarves?
This time I laughed, but he laughed harder. I laughed even though I own more hats than there are days of the week and I wear scarves in the dead of summer.
I told him I wasn’t doing
"Sticks and stone may break my bones but words can never hurt me."
It's been a long time since I sung that particular tune. Even longer since I really believed it.
I used to wonder why, every time I felt the sting of some cootie-laden boy's insults, or heard the spiteful words of clishmaclaver from my supposed 'friends,' and went running to an adult for comfort I was always told to fire back that little one-line rhyme, and everything would be better. Soon to follow was, "I'm rubber and you're glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks on you!" Yet no matter how vigorously or how loudly I'd yell and scream those words, I always fe
Hey, I saw that studiotwentyfive disappeared recently. I appreciate you featuring my piece there and I had planned to re-visit the page and check out the rest of the featured work. Anyhow, just thought I'd drop a line. Take care.