A reflection, always less than he wants to be
and he is caught in his own selfish wishes, a god
captured by comparisons. melancholy rains, bittersweet
ending summers and beginning winters. stealing the harvests,
stealing the wind so that it dies out from behind the sailors.

cursed to eternity watching his reflections freeze in ponds,
reaching for dreams only to find they were illusions,
creations of his own rains and delusional self-loathing
but is it self-loathing when the rest of the world loathes you?
evil winds come from the east, and they are never sweet
taking summer away from the revelers

and there is his twin, western winds carrying the dreams of the dead
sunkissed gold, flower blossoms and sugar, overflowing with bounty
and the thousand blessings of the spring rains.
everyone loves him. cupid takes his twin
into the fold, crowns him in flowers and promises
and it is never enough for him, never enough love

evil winds come...

Always looking for my roots, for that
place where I'm supposed to belong, where I stand
in the rush of life and cry out through wearied lips
that I am home and these are my people
but I only ever find turned faces and curious eyes
and shuttered hearts

Where are my roots? I am a girl,
born of the Spaniards and the Irish,
English and German, Swedish and the Swiss;
father speaking Spanish over my cradle and growing up
drunk on the sound of Japanese coming from 
my television, playing in the backyard with my adopted cousin,
and maybe it has something to do with my mother's side,
same-eyes same-face same-smile same-hair same-hands
and maybe it has something to do with my father's side,
redwoods in the mountains and the sound of the sea
but I have always been conflicted

I was not born in this town, was not raised with the people
I attend school with and...

Sai’el passed through the world in silence - it, in turn, passed him by. Centuries spun past, delicate like sugar, crumbling to ash and dust when he reached out to touch them. There were moments where people called out to him, and Sai’el came down from above to lend them a fraction of his power. He grew flowers to save those he loved, but they burned up his mortals from the inside out, until they were only bitter jealousy and tempests of flames. 

So those who had once turned to Sai’el  stayed away, out of his reach. Sai’el burned everything he touched - perhaps this treatment was only fair, then.

But the longing grew in him, no matter how hard he tried to snuff it out. He was fire incarnate, burning passion and greedy-eyed, and Sai’el wanted more. But he could never get enough, never. It tore him apart.

He was isolated, sentenced by his own nature to burn...

Raine buries her brother in the way of the Mer - she lets him out to sea. She has no boat to lay him in, no flowers to throw at his feet. She just lets him float on the waves, and the receding tide brings him out to sea. Each wave pulls her brother farther away, and Raine closes her eyes because it’s too much like losing him again.

Jack’s hair blends in with the water, and his old tattered white shirt looks like sea foam. He disappears before he has even left Raine’s line of sight.

And the ocean is pouring out of the cove, coming back again. And Raine sits on the beach, drowning in open air, begging the sea to take care of her brother’s body. She closes her eyes, tighter and tighter, until her blue pupils are hidden from the sun’s prying rays.

“I’m sorry,” the woman in the white dress says. The skirt of her...

Starfire. Warm. Kind.

Kind? Has it ever been kind?

Red wants to be kind, to be warm and welcoming, and to sing her children to sleep under the gentle blanket of the night sky. And the starfire in her soul will spin out golden songs, threads of legends and beautiful perfect lies. 

But starfire has never been warm, only cold and bitter and biting at Red’s throat. Cracked lips, dry eyes, and a rasping voice - never warm, never warm, and as much as Red wishes to she can never be enough for these people in front of her.

“Lady,” he cries out to her, as if she is something distant and remote that he cannot touch. “Please.”

And Red sits on her throne, cloaked in silk and silver and gold. The metal sits heavy on her throat - no matter how beautifully the blacksmith hammers the gold the necklaces always sit like chains. She looks at this man, kneeling...

The sea is coldest when it laps against the northern beaches, rushing in and out in spraying foamy tides. There is no mercy in its rushing waves, in the spray of salt and the whistling wind coming across the cliff sides. The castle stands high above, golden light fighting the endless dark, and already revelers are coming, drunk on the promise of something more than what they already have.

And Blue stretches out her arms, begs the northern night to take her whole, take her whole.

The forgotten nights, the bitter lonely days. Solitude stretching in front, behind, in the gaps between the seconds. Blue watches time trickle through cupped fingers, snow falling on the highest mountain peaks and silt floating back into the ocean. And where does she fit, where does she fit?

The ball will be extravagant, masquerades and sheer dresses and pointed shoes. Blue puts on her rogue, lines her eyes with black and pulls her hair...

I met her under the morning sun
as the summer flowers bloomed
She wore a crown atop her head
of ivy tipped with dew

Her eyes were green, her branches strong
Thickly grew her leaves;
She danced alone on the river's edge
and swayed in the summer breeze

I suppose you always expected me
to be a bard of the tragic type, listening to dreams
that left me singing poetry of the ages with a tongue
of silver. But I have never sung in tune, and
these hands of mine do not fly across the strings,
only tumble through the chord changes with drunken melodies.
I cannot sing of your heroes because they are not mine.

Icarus, oh Icarus; wings of wax and broken things,
do you know what it feels like to be free? Plunge into
the unknown, brush your hands among the stars, and I suppose it doesn't matter
but someday I want your story to have a happy end.
Even so if I can tell that story, it will be a lie;
my tongue and my truths ever interchanging.
And do you know what it feels like to be free?
Stars above, sea below, and yet we always focus
on you, tumbling through the in-between.

I suppose you always expected me
to be a bard of the tragic type, listening to dreams
that left me singing poetry of the ages with a tongue
of silver. But I have never sung in tune, and
these hands of mine do not fly across the strings,
only tumble through the chord changes with drunken melodies.
I cannot sing of your heroes because they are not mine.

Icarus, oh Icarus; wings of wax and broken things,
do you know what it feels like to be free? Plunge into
the unknown, brush your hands among the stars, and I suppose it doesn't matter
but someday I want your story to have a happy end.
If I can tell you a perfect story, then it will be a lie;
my tongue and my truths ever interchanging.
And do you know what it feels to be free?
Stars above, sea below, and yet we always focus
on you, tumbling through the in-between.

  
"A thousand lifetimes ago, Haiya created the world. Her hands shaped nothing into everything, into a small planet in the great universe. And her tears of joys filled the oceans, and her smile became our sun. Haiya was overcome with emotion, so much so that she didn't see the small rift in the universe behind her.

"There had always been others, pushing at the edge of the universe and intruding where they were not wanted, but this was when they finally slipped into our reality. They were other gods, not like Haiya, cut from another universe's cloth and obeying different rules. The false gods, who would claim Kestara as their own creation when Haiya fled from them.

"It is true that these usurper gods created the peoples of Kestara, raising them for decades to be faithful to the gods. But these gods were fickle, and cruel. Their reign swiftly began to sour, and those who had listened to...

It was a long time ago, at the end of the Era of Legends, when the residents of Kestara first realized the land had begun to drain of magic. After the Divinity Wars, where they had banished the gods to their own world, the people of Kestara had been using magic without realizing that it was the gods and their continued presence in this world that let them use magic.

The world was quickly toppled into crisis, each race trying desperately to find a way to replenish their magic. Some turned to fighting, to stealing magic relics and spell books from others. These were considered the worst of their kind, giving little thought or care to how their thievery would affect the people they stole from. And these people, shunned by the rest of their kind, quickly began to band together into larger and larger groups until their little stealing missions became great raids.

It was decided, then, that although...

The woman is quiet, and beautiful. Her curly black hair ripples in a cascade down her back, the depths of the sea and the darkest corners of space. She wears a feather earring in one ear, white and gold, and a tiny golden stud in the other. Her eyes are blue, bluer than anything Raine has ever seen in her life. They are quiet eyes, sad eyes. But they crinkle at the corners.

The woman doesn't dress like anybody else Raine has ever seen, but Raine has never left the Archipelago. Perhaps in the outside world people dress in loose dresses that are just strips of fabric crossed in the front, hooked around your neck and joining a skirt that billows around your feet. It must be there that this woman gained her otherworldly grace, her piercing presence, her ancient timeless face.

"I am sorry," the woman apologizes to Raine, and her voice echoes with the rolling surf. "Are you...

1. what was the weirdest thing you've ever done as a kid?
For a solid three years of my life, when it was time to go to sleep, I would twist my feet into my bedframe and dangle upside down off the side of my bed and that's how I would fall asleep.

2. which bird in the area that you live in do you hate the most?
Seagulls. We don't even live by the sea, but those birds are convinced we do. They're everywhere.

3. i know what google says, but do you consider turtles to be reptiles?
Turtles are turtles are turtles. That is all.

4. what is the meaning of life? (courtesy of whoever did the #capitallettersq&a, i can't find them for the life of me.)
Living? Experiencing? Or 42. It depends on who you ask, and you shouldn't ask me because I have no idea.

5. what do you think of soulmates? (courtesy of lasl)
I haven't really...

Salya isn’t supposed to be in the woods this late at night. But she loves the sound of the crickets at night, and the way the fireflies dance under the stars, and the sound of the trees in the moonlit breeze. She pushes her hands towards the stars that hang so low under the canopy of the dark sky, and imagines she can brush her fingertips against their warm gentle glow. It feels like safety, and home, and a word she can never describe.

The sun on her skin sings to the magic in her veins, the magic of ashes and quiet embers. Salya savors the final moments of sunlight and soaks up the summer heat, and her skin almost glows. But eventually the sun sinks below the horizon, and the sky stains pink and blood-orange. Salya means to head home, and she is walking along the path homeward when she sees the flowers. They’re in a patch by the...

Salya isn’t supposed to be in the woods this late at night. But she loves the sound of the crickets at night, and the way the fireflies dance under the stars, and the sound of the trees in the moonlit breeze. She pushes her hands towards the stars that hang so low under the canopy of the dark sky, and imagines she can brush her fingertips against their warm gentle glow. It feels like safety, and home, and a word she can never describe.

The sun on her skin sings to the magic in her veins, the magic of ashes and quiet embers. Salya savors the final moments of sunlight and soaks up the summer heat, and her skin almost glows. But eventually the sun sinks below the horizon, and the sky stains pink and blood-orange. Salya means to head home, and she would have gone if she didn’t see the flowers. They’re in a patch by the edge of...

suns, stars, moons, void, ash, dust
sky and sea and earth and ground,
things we have forgotten to time
lost things we never found

she's dancing in infinite skies, trailing galaxies in her wake like spun sugar. and the comets swirl by, parts of her dress that fall off as she twirls. she laughs, and the universe tastes like cinnamon and smoke and it swirls like it has a thousand secrets to share if only you ask-

and she is an enigma in an enigma, and maybe that's okay-

and she sings, her voice trilling among the stars.

broken, shattered selves reflecting in tidal pools
mouths sewn shut; black twine and
cruel lines and it goes
on and on and
on until I
lose my
voice

if I am to fade away into the dawn, let it
be in a cascade of flower petals, the spray of the sea,
something quiet and not too flashy -- don't let me
disappear with a bang
don't let me leave you alone, creating a twisted tale
of sorrow and loneliness in my wake

Listen closely. There once was a girl with no past, and she turned into a monster. Nobody knows how, but there are rumors - they whisper of a man with coal eyes and a smile of ice and daggers. 

They say she lost herself on the night of the Red Dawn. Wouldn’t be surprising if that's true. If that was the moment when she turned from human to monster. Burning bonfires and choking smoke can do strange things to a person. So can lies. There was plenty of all that on the night of the Red Dawn.

Do you know where she is? No? I can tell you. She hides in the shadows, the floors, the walls. She might be listening right now.

Be careful what you do, or she might come for you, too.

.....

It’s been a thousand years - a day. No - it’s been a moment between breaths, one where a microcosmic universe is created and...

I have this stack of notebooks in the corner of my room. they're all the size of regular library books, with bound spines and beat-up covers. these are my writing notebooks, and they are sacred. i carry at least two around with me at all times, like some sort of obsessive hoarder. take one out, write in it in pen so i can't erase my mistakes, and squirrel it back in my bag. 

between those pages, worlds take shapes and stories are told. i have written poems that have brought me to tears, and poems that show me how far i've come as a writer. these are my writing notebooks, and they are sacred. i never ever let anybody read them without express permission. i never ever talk about them. 

it's like, if i talk about them openly, they'll lose their magic. 

and then somebody asks about them. i'm sitting on the floor of a classroom, applying stickers i've been slowly...

It's summer vacation, and my aunt's family has come from Connecticut and Kentucky to gather at my grandmother's house. I've spent the past hour sitting in the living room, knitting a thick sweater for the coming Wisconsin winter, and avoiding people. I love my family, love them with every bone in my body, but I'm a hopeless introvert and I can't sustain an hour-long conversation. They understand, or at least do their best to find a happy medium with me, and I appreciate it. Even so, I barely talk, and I suppose it serves me right that the one question I'm asked is the one I didn't want to answer: "So.... are you still thinking engineering?"

"Yep," I lie. "Aerospace." And my aeronautical-engineer cousin nods, pleased with the prospect of another engineer in the family. From her perch on the plum recliner, my ex-nurse grandmother nods sagely, even though I doubt she heard a word I just said. She refuses...

It's summer vacation, and my aunt's family has come from Connecticut and Kentucky to gather at my grandmother's house. I've spent the past hour sitting in the living room, knitting a thick sweater for the coming Wisconsin winter, and avoiding people. There's a story building up inside my head - the details are foggy, but the characters are coming into focus with every stitch I make. I haven't really talked to anybody yet, pure introvert that I am, so I suppose it serves me right that the one question I'm asked is the one I didn't want to answer: "So.... are you still thinking engineering?"

"Yep," I lie. "Aerospace." And my aeronautical-engineer cousin nods, pleased with the prospect of another engineer in the family. From her perch on the plum recliner, my ex-nurse grandmother nods sagely, even though I doubt she heard a word I just said. She refuses to get hearing aids, something that bothers my STEM+ family to...

It's eight on a Friday night in a gas station somewhere in Iowa, and I'm staring at myself in the mirror while washing my hands. I usually hate doing this, hate looking at myself. It's not self-loathing, but it comes pretty close.

But tonight's different, because those strange overhead lights warp my face into something different. An unfamiliar landscape; features I never notice leaping out in stark detail.

The face in the mirror? It's the face of a stranger, and I can't get away from the reflection fast enough.

It takes 15 minutes for my hands to stop shaking.

It's eight on a Friday night in a gas station somewhere in Iowa, and I'm staring at myself in the mirror. I can't stop, which is strange. I hate looking at my open-book face. It's not self-loathing, but it comes pretty close.

Tonight, my eyes gleam in gray-blue-green-brown glory, framed by naturally-highlighted hair that's survived the shower without turning into "floof". The bathroom lights draw out my cheekbones and banish my dark circles.

The face looking back at me is the face of a stranger.

I leave the bathroom in a rush.

Apparently I like my own face better.

Welcome to insomnia.
I will not pretend to be happy for you, because I
can see your puffy eyelids and the desperation
clawing its way past your throat is a reminder of my own shredded vocal chords, 
raw from screaming "i am here" and "i can't sleep" to faceless voices and
voiceless faces; people who care but cannot help you and those
people who can help you but do not care.
We have all been there, fighting for a moment's peace and dreams that
don't wake us up screaming, dreams that
will carry on past moonrise and on to sunrise, dreams that
will remind us that this empty hole inside of us is meant for love, for 
things like the stars and blankets and hugs,
midnight text conversations and secret adventures, things we
feel so far away from at two in the morning. 
Night will stretch on forever, and I will forever
watch my camp roommate sleep in the quiet...

Alex had been Fynn’s friend since zir first day of school, when ze was stumbling in crowded hallways and noisy classrooms on weak and trembling legs. Zir mother had never sent them to school - so at twelve years old Fynn was thrust into a complex world ze had no idea how to navigate.

The teachers would whisper to each other, words like “trauma” and “poor thing” and “not applying herself” falling out of their lips in endless cascades. The students knew too, in that strange way that children did - not what was wrong, but that something was different about this new kid. It was the worst kind of isolation, because everybody tried to include Fynn but never included zir feelings in the equation.

It came as no surprise to anybody when Fynn had a hard time fitting in. Between zir “home-school” past and zir lack of experience with other people, Fynn simply didn’t understand how other people acted....

It began long ago, in a house falling apart at the seams. The lightning flashed, the  thunder raged, and the rain fell down heavily on muddy ground, broken blacktop. The child was curled up somewhere in the woods, in a small little treehouse with a caving-in roof, and if ze were crying the storm covered it up. 

The raindrops hit the tarp stretched over the treehouse, tap-tap-tappity-tap, and the child tried to lift zir hands to zir ears, begging for silence. But the rain didn’t stop falling, and the wind blew hard overhead until the tarp began to shudder. 

Somewhere in the distance, a car door slammed shut, and the child curled into zirself tighter. Stick-thin arms hugged bony knees, and zir ribcage was prominent under zir old, ratty shirt. Hollowed cheekbones, haunted eyes, calloused hands and feet. Ze was a scarecrow, nothing but bruised skin and fragile bones. And ze was coming dangerously close to death.

“Are you...

Here we are again, back in this
endless loop we call daily life, and I'm
standing here with the words
stuck halfway up my throat. won't you make this
easier? it hurts enough already, so please
don't look at me like that.
mirrors, a thousand silver panes, all reflecting
the same twisted scene; you dance away into
rose-colored sunsets, prince charming in the distance,
and I watch you go with relief etched in my eyes.
won't you make this easier? it hurts without your voice
breaking down the glass into knifelike shards, and we all
know how this ends, anyway. we all know I
have always been the monster in the fairy tale,
even though I have done nothing but exist. I cannot please you,
too fat as I am, too foolish as I am, too cowardly and too
stupid and too stubborn and too dramatic and
too different as I am. so please, don't look at me like that...

Fynn wasn't expecting a strange boy to suddenly appear in her room. Then again, she wasn't expecting much of anything to happen at all. It had been one of those summer days where absolutely nothing interesting had happened at all, and where there was no sign of anything interesting happening anytime soon. The temperature had remained at a scorching 83 degrees all day, with no clouds or breeze. The sky had remained the same pastel-blue since sunrise.

Fynn hated those summer days. She hated that strange feeling, as if the world had been paused mid-second and left there. She also hated the heat, since it forced her to sweat it out in her trademark gray cardigan. It had been her friend's, and now it was hers -- a gift. Fynn hadn't gone a day without it for years, and she certainly wasn't going to start because of some weather (even if it lasted for a quarter of the year).

In...

My alarm wakes me up at 5:20 in the morning.

Groaning, I roll my way across the expanse of my bed, still tangled up in my sheets. With bleary eyes I try to find the "off" button to silence the radio host. He's reading off the hourly news -something-something-something. My questing hands finally find the "off" button at 5:22.

Glorious silence. 

My second alarm wakes me up at 5:30 in the morning.

I'm close enough to hit the "off" button again, but I don't. Instead, I lay there, staring at the face of my alarm clock as it slips to 5:31. And 5:32. And 5:33.

Around 5:35, the shapeless sounds coming from the radio resolve into coherent English, and I turn the news off. Why am I so.... exhausted?  And then I remember the date: Monday. Which means yesterday night was Sunday night, when two of my favorite podcasts aired on the radio. From 9:00-11:00, I was listening...

Once, all of the multiverse existed in one great world, in a dimension far removed from our Third Dimension or even the Fourth. And here, all existed at once and never, so that time was a distant dream held in scorn by those who contemplated it. This world, Akome, was everything. And the people who inhabited it wove light to their will, sang poetry to cause the stars to weep. They traveled through Akome with single strides, spacetime rippling in their wake.

But no thing can last forever, and Akome, torn apart by its very nature, fragmented. Each people, once linked together through the greatest and most precious of bonds, found themselves stranded in a different world, a different dimension. The great mirrored palaces and works of art tore at their foundations. The songs were plucked from the air, snapped in two. The Dimension That Is All split itself asunder, each concept scattered into a different dimension, a different...

The
water
pulls me under, fingers grasping for
the smallest weakness and plunging me between
the waves, until I am gasping
and
asking for mercy, plastered with regret
in the form of the dying tide

Darling
why can I never reach you? Your hand
is right in front of mine, but I reach and I reach
and you slip through my fingers
sand in a cupped palm, never to be mine

I sink under the waves, shouting
until the water comes rushing in and crushes
the final cries; I am spitting out seawater, trying
to stay afloat in an ocean that wishes to drag me down
And you stand on the beach, trying even now
to bring me
home

We have reached the end of the story, and you put down the final page with a sigh. That sigh echoes through space and time, through mountain halls and starry nights, through abandoned castles and fluorescent-lit classrooms, until it comes rushing back to this room at the end of the world. 

"And so it ends," I say, because I have given all my words to the paper and ink in your hands. And when the Moon crawled over the horizon, and shone down on the final manuscript, I had known this was the way it ended. Now I sink down into my chair with my own sigh, scrub my face with my hands.

You frown, shove the papers in my face. "But that can't be the ending!"

"There once was a boy named Evan, and a boy named Ash, and they faced their problems together. Is that not an ending?"

"Yes, but what about --"

"That's not my story to...

Hi! I'm participating in the review-a-thon next week!!! (I'm just too lazy to change my profile pic yet....I'll probably post my editor profile picture over the weekend?) So I was thinking about what I would do for the reviews, since I want to do as many as humanly possible to help as many people as I can! I've only got a fuzzy idea of how to accomplish this, though.

So!

I would like to put this out there: if you want a review, please-please-please feel free to ask! I'm willing to review ANY pieces you want a review on (no limit!).

 

The knock at the door comes at two in the morning, and if Evan hadn't instinctually known who it was he would have let them stand on the porch. But he does know, and so he unfolds himself from the chair in front the the television, pausing his videogame mid-battle, and goes to open the door. He brings a blanket with him, because the night's cold and he hasn't heard the telltale rumble of a car engine.

She's shaking when he opens the door, tears running down her cheeks in tidal waves. He doesn't ask questions; he never does. He walks out to her, unfolds the blanket. Wraps her in it and coaxes her aching feet across the threshold. 

"Would you prefer tea or hot chocolate?" he asks, gesturing to the kitchen. Ashley stares at him, a ghost in her own skin. He can count her bones under that pale skin; she is fragile, delicate like a bird.

Evan sets...

Close your eyes, don't look at our
travesty of an ending, buried six feet under in cairns of stolid stone,
marble forever left to tarnish under the heavens and their mocking light
    And turn away, close your ears,
ignore the shouts echoing from men with black-hole mouths and
women with eyes that burn into your heart;
I will hold my funeral now, and this is my elegy written by
pain and heartache just like it was always meant to be.
        Let there be --
    Do not let the standard flag!
we march to war, darling, to the beat of those ancient war drums.
Somewhere Mars is reveling in the chaos we cannot escape,
and I am afraid I do not wish to leave the cause, now,
        My dearest, I --
    not from me, but from you; your words echo hollowly
down the halls of my heart, and won't you let me go? bury me with the ghosts.
    This was...

    Close your eyes, don't look at our
travesty of an ending, buried six feet under the inkwells
we so foolishly substituted for our voices.
    And turn away, close your ears,
ignore the shouts echoing from men with black-hole mouths and
women with eyes that burn into your heart;
I will hold my funeral now, and this is my elegy written by
pain and heartache just like it was always meant to be.
        My dearest, I --
    not from me, but from you;
words echo hollowly down the halls of my heart
where the left aorta now stands unfulfilled,
and won't you let me go? bury me with the ghosts
    This was my choice to make, and I pulled the plug;
we will not watch the world fall down around us together
because I have placed you safely with the stars in your eyes;
glitter brightly in the night sky
so that you are my final vision of this world.
        Together,...

It begins in the night, under the light of the moon

The moon is rising, slowly, his eyes winking open to stare down at the quiet land below. He yawns, not entirely awake yet. The Sun, that good beautiful golden Sun, shakes him awake--

She sinks below the horizon, her eyes already drooping down. The Sun is tired, now, after yet another day reigning in the sky. It is time for the Moon to reign. She wishes to keep watch over the creatures of the Earth a little longer, but she can never stay awake.

The Sun sinks below the horizon; the Moon rises to take her place.

For a time, it is peaceful. The wind whistles across the landscape, rustling the trees and sweeping the fields. But suddenly it encounters something it does not expect--

The creatures of the wood are caught off guard when the wind comes up short before the two humans. Curious, they raise their heads from sleep,...

things found in my high school, in no particular order.

i. paint
When they rebuilt our high school, they doused it in white paint. The fluorescent lights glare down from the ceiling, casting gray shadows on uniform cinder blocks. Our locker bays are held in place by ghostly white bricks, the navy lockers a beacon of color in a sea of its absence. Not that anybody uses the lockers, really. We drag our backpacks back and forth through the halls, zippers and tags and water bottles denting and scratching the walls. When the paint peels, we look underneath it curiously. But it's just more white paint.

ii. bleachers
When they rebuilt our high school, they had to rip up the old bleachers in the gym. Nobody was sad to see them go; the wood creaked and squealed under our feet as we clambered up them for pep rallies. We saluted the end of the old oaken boards with something like...

i. children. we were young and free, scraping our knees on hot asphalt and coming home bruised from the trees we climbed. "boys will be boys," they said, and our parents shook their heads at us; we shook our fists at them when they turned away. the band-aids on our elbows became battle scars, proof that we were victorious. 

ii. kindergarten. we lay restless on the floor, closed our eyes and pretended to sleep. we wreaked havoc with paint and marker, painting the classroom into the adventure-land we craved. we were inseparable, like always, evanandash foreverandever.

iii. elementary school graduation. your parents didn't come to see you graduate, but mine did. it was okay, you said, fists clenched like you were going into battle. we gorged ourselves on ice cream after; chocolate-chip-cookie-dough and double-chocolate in alternating stacks. diplomas and sticky hands and battle scars still on our elbows from all our tumbles.

iv. middle school. we...

I know this isn't what you wanted and I  
            wish I could fix it for you, 
        weaving time back into orderly conformation 
        but I lost my loom and you lost the thread so 
            here we are again, just like before. 
So breathe in and breathe out, sit cross-legged 
        on marble floors, darling, close your 
            eyes and 
        imagine something better than this travesty 
            of a fairy tale 
Don't you already know how this ends? Stop looking ahead 
            and look at me, look at my eyes, 
        stop looking at that snarled past. Pull your 
            feet together in front of you and bend, 
                    bend until reality stretches taut 
Look, I know your world is all 
            lopsided 
        and I wish I could push it back on its axis like it's a miniature top 
    but I...

Dear Evan,

Sorry, but my phone is dead and it is the middle of the night and I was looking up at the night sky and I just could not help myself. Because do you see that sky? The Milky Way is spread out before our small insignificant town, each star glowing with its own light. It felt magical, Evan, it really did. 

Sometimes I wish I could freeze time and just share these magical moments with you.

I know why you sent me that first ciphered note, even though you have always been too shy to admit it outright. It happens to be the same reason why I am writing this note now, staring at the night sky. There is something in this world that is wonderful and amazing and sometimes you just need somebody to share it with. 

There is something special about the act of putting pen to paper and just letting yourself bleed out until all...

The following piece of paper was found in a rain puddle. When dried out, only the following words could be made out.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
He had gone//////////////////////// to the trouble of///////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////looking//////////
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//////for////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//////////////////////////////////////////Neptune////////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
///////////////////////////and I guess/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////that//////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//////////////////////////convinced people/////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Unknown to its owner, this paper had fallen from his backpack on his way home. While you, the readers, cannot decipher it entirely..... this narrator can (perks of being the narrator).

This was originally a story about a boy's grandfather, who reportedly went "Looking for Neptune" and can still be found to this day in the sea spray on a misty day. But the last sentences.... well....... not to spoil things, but to spoil things.

"My grandfather was found two weeks later wrecked on a small rocky island, starved to death. It turned out he had been drunk the whole legendary...

I wish you could tell me what I am doing wrong
because the sky is falling down
    and a long time ago the world was bright
    and the sun shot golden thread through windowpanes but
    now it has fled down behind the horizon, leaving me in
    the darkness to wait out the night

I wish you could tell me when I started this downward spiral
because I can't remember before
    and I can't imagine an after
    and I can't imagine a single sheep
    only a long and endless night spent
    with the stars strewn across the heavens, where they are
    just outside my reach

....it is always now, just past midnight,
    that the solitude presses down between my shoulderblades
and I feel the earth's gravity pulling me down

I wish you were here to chase away the shadows
because I attended the sun's funeral
    and she isn't coming back for a long time
    and the moon has left to weep ...

The night was creeping in on the horizon when the young man appeared from nothingness onto the deserted plains of the planet Leyilo. There was no warning, no explanation. One minute, the crystalline plains of Oliya were filled only with humming blue crystals delicately spearing the heavens. And the next minute, a strange being was standing there, his very arrival absorbing the song of the plains. The sharp pop that came with his entrance echoed, bouncing itself into oblivion.

The man stood for a moment, head tipped back to see the stars appearing in the night sky. And then he collapsed into a heap on the ground.

It would take Oliya’s residents a day to discover the young man. It would take the man five more days to wake. And as he lay, sleeping, it quickly became clear that something was strange about him. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The inhabitants of Leyilo were familiar with foreigners appearing unannounced on their planet - it...

 i wish you could tell me what i am doing wrong
because the sky is falling down
and a long time ago the world was bright
and the sun shot golden thread through windowpanes but
now it has fled down behind the horizon, leaving me in
the darkness to wait out the night

i wish you could tell me when i started this downward spiral
because i can't remember before
and i can't imagine an after
and i can't imagine a single sheep
only a long and endless night spent
with the stars strewn across the heavens, where they are
just outside my reach

....it is always now, just past midnight,
that the solitude presses down between my shoulderblades
and i feel the earth's gravity pulling me down



 

[existing in the bottom of a trash bin, crumpled severely, is this letter. There is no specified date]

Topn Ovpi,

Qjnny, lsr hy kcjio dq topt pit dr dq rco hdttgo ja rco idbcr pit D wpq gjjfdib sk pr rco idbcr qfy pit D esqr ujsgt ijr cogk hyqoga. Loupsqo tj yjs qoo rcpr qfy? Rco Hdgfy Wpy dq qknopt jsr loajno jsn qhpgg diqdbidadupir rjwi, opuc qrpn bgjwdib wdrc drq jwi gdbcr. Dr aogr hpbdupg, Ovpi, dr nopggy tdt. 

Qjhordhoq D wdqc D ujsgt anoozo rdho pit esqr qcpno rcoqo hpbdupg hjhoirq wdrc yjs.

D fijw wcy yjs qoir ho rcpr adnqr udkconot ijro, ovoi rcjsbc yjs cpvo pgwpyq looi rjj qcy rj pthdr dr jsrndbcr. Dr cpkkoiq rj lo rco qpho nopqji wcy D ph wndrdib rcdq ijro ijw, qrpndib pr rco idbcr qfy. Rcono dq qjhorcdib di rcdq wjngt rcpr dq wjitonasg pit phpzdib pit qjhordhoq yjs esqr ioot qjholjty rj qcpno dr wdrc. 

Rcono dq...

[existing in the bottom of a trash bin, crumpled severely, is this letter. There is no specified date]

Topn Ovpi,

Qjnny, lsr hy kcjio dq topt pit dr dq rco hdttgo ja rco idbcr pit D wpq gjjfdib sk pr rco idbcr qfy pit D esqr ujsgt ijr cogk hyqoga. Loupsqo tj yjs qoo rcpr qfy? Rco Hdgfy Wpy dq qknopt jsr loajno jsn qhpgg diqdbidadupir rjwi, opuc qrpn bgjwdib wdrc drq jwi gdbcr. Dr aogr hpbdupg, Ovpi, dr nopggy tdt. 

Qjhordhoq D wdqc D ujsgt anoozo rdho pit esqr qcpno rcoqo hpbdupg hjhoirq wdrc yjs.

D fijw wcy yjs qoir ho rcpr adnqr udkconot ijro, ovoi rcjsbc yjs cpvo pgwpyq looi rjj qcy rj pthdr dr jsrndbcr. Dr cpkkoiq rj lo rco qpho nopqji wcy D ph wndrdib rcdq ijro ijw, qrpndib pr rco idbcr qfy. Rcono dq qjhorcdib di rcdq wjngt rcpr dq wjitonasg pit phpzdib pit qjhordhoq yjs esqr ioot qjholjty rj qcpno dr wdrc. 

Rcono dq...

Dear WtW members,

    It's been over a year since I first joined this site, and I have never regretted it. Because I have found something precious in the people I have met here; the pieces I have read; the feedback; the contests; the kindness I encountered. For that, I will forever be grateful.

Recently, I reached 50 followers. A milestone of my writing career on this website, and a marker of just how supportive you, the Writers of Write The World, can be. I can never hope to express how happy this community has made me; it feels amazing to be able to share my writing with other writers. 

It was you who inspired me to write my very first piece, titled Lora, and to follow up with my poems. All of you have inspired me at one point or another, and pushed me to become a better poet. It was you, sharing your favorite books, that...

LordOfGalaxies
        hey are you still coming
            to the club party?
            i'm considering skipping
                                                                                LadyOfStarLight
                                                            I'm not going. It'll be too loud,
                                                                      and I'm too high-strung.
LordOfGalaxies
        if you're not coming
                to the club party tonight,
                i won't go either
                                                                                LadyOfStarLight
                                                                      Evan, you've been looking
                                                                    forward to this for months.
LordOfGalaxies
        well, i was under the impression
               that i'd know somebody there
                                                                                LadyOfStarLight
                                                                    It's Space Club. You know
                                                                every single person attending.
LordOfGalaxies
        we both know that's a lie.
                ash, the only person there i know
                is you.
LordOfGalaxies
       i don't think i'm going, either
                i'm just terrible around people,
                and you know that.
                everybody there terrifies me.
                                                                            LadyOfStarLight
                                                         ...

It had been almost five days since anybody had visited Karin, and she was beginning to get lonely. The constant day-to-day normalcy of the hospital was lulling her into a stupor, and she was afraid that if she let herself get lost in it she’d never be truly awake again. Not to mention that a wall can only be stared at so much before being dismissed as boring. So Karin not-so-subtle people-watched people outside the hospital.

And sometimes, doing this, Karin felt an ache - the type you get when you are left out. The sun shone outside her window; the days were beautiful, even when it rained. Sometimes there were children playing in the distance that she could see from her 13th floor window, and she wondered if one of them might have been her long ago if she hadn’t gotten sick. People walked around together, all of them bound with unbreakable bonds… unlike her family- all torn...

There's a place where I belong,
somewhere,
where the skies are golden and blushing and

the sun is just dipping below the horizon and

the stars are just peering out from beyond the atmosphere
to see if it's time to come and dance

and

I can never seem to reach it,
as hard as I try,
so a long time ago I settled for a small little corner with
the blanket made by my former friend
where I lose myself in a small black keyboard and

I learn to craft words that stand as replacements
for the worlds I lose sight of when I wake up
to face the unforgiving light of the sunrise and

those stories that dissolve like the rain
on the sidewalks slowly come to life again

and

soon enough, those worlds
will form a horizon where the sun sinks down
to allow the moon it's turn and

when it's time I will finally be able
to...

So a little while ago, I wrote this piece called I do #askthewriter and am social and as promised here are my answers to your questions! But first, I just want to thank all of you who asked me questions for reaching out! :)

Okay, here we go!

@palindrome
1) Do you watch Marvel movies? 
    I was practically raised on them, so yes. I love Guardians of the Galaxy (volumes 1&2), Antman, Antman and the Wasp, and the original Avengers movie the most.
2) Have you read Harry Potter? 
    Yup! I've also watched all the movies. I've managed to collect all of the books from free book carts from my local library. 
3) Do you prefer reading or movies? 
    Depends on the genre. I can't watch horror, but I can read it. I love animated movies more than the comic book/manga forms. Whenever there's a book-to-movie adaptation, I'll try and see it. I try and...

"Seven o’clock on a Monday morning, five hundred years after the end of the world, and goblins had been at the cellar again. . . "  Don't tell the Norse gods that. Why? Because they've disappeared without a trace. The world is now controlled by a group known as the Order, who does not tolerate imaginative storytelling, anything pertaining to the old histories of the Nine Realms, or dreams. Especially not the kinds of dreams that become realized and turned into a book based off of old Norse mythology.

Runemarks by Joanne Harris, published in 2007, is a Norse mythology fantasy targeted at young adults. I personally read Runemarks when I was seven or eight, having encountered it in the public library system. And over the past seven years of my life, I have checked out Runemarks at least six other times. When I moved, and couldn't find the book on the new library's shelves, I was prompted to learn...

If I were to give name to the song
singing inside my bones,
it would be
                                                                                                                       An ode to the wingless night,
                                                                                                                             the kind I have rewritten
                       ...

So I'm always pretty active on WtW, and I've noticed the #askthewriter trend going around. It seems really interesting, and it got me thinking: I've actually posted nothing about myself on WtW. Sure, some works based on my experiences, but nothing personal. Thinking about that made me a little sad.... because I love WtW! And I really like all the writers I've encountered on this site. I'm just way too shy to actually communicate with you guys. So I decided to do something about it! 

But I'm wary of bandwagons, so that's why it's taken me two weeks to actually pen this thing.

WHAT'S GOING ON: A few fun facts about myself, but also #askthewriter. Basically, if you want to ask me random stuff, please do so! But I'll just put some stuff about myself on here anyway so I feel like I'm getting somewhere socially.

FACTS:
1) I knit. Actually, I knit hats for donation drives.
2) I'm really really...

"Seven o’clock on a Monday morning, five hundred years after the end of the world, and goblins had been at the cellar again. . . "  Don't tell the Norse gods that. Why? Because they've disappeared without a trace. The world is now controlled by a group known as the Order, who does not tolerate dreams, imaginative storytelling, or anything pertaining to the old histories of the Nine Realms. 

Enter Maddy Smith, a young girl in a small village in the middle of seemingly nowhere, born with a strange "ruinmark" on her palm. With this mark comes a host of unnatural powers, including the ability to magically exorcise goblins from local cellars. The entire village, convinced that Maddy is a witch, shuns and isolates her. Maddy's only friend is the strange Outlander known as "One-Eye" who also bears a "ruinmark" (his is reversed, however), and sees Maddy as an opportunity and an apprentice.

Soon Maddy, at One-Eye's request,...

WRITER: I have a book I'm writing, the kind that's a thousand times retold in my mind in the hours between sleep and morning. The characters in it are raw, and beautiful, and I have put off their tale for far too long. So now, this year, I have decided to complete their story and shout it from the highest mountain peaks.

CRAFT:To publish an actual normal-form story on WTW. I keep going on poem splurges. Or whatever the heck "It turns out Saturn is beautiful after all" is.

Shh-shhhhhh-rat-tat-shhhhhh-ratatatatarat-kkksss------ksss---
Thunk. 

A long exhale. "Ash, help me set up the telescope."

Rustling, crunch, crunch, shhhh-shh--ratatata-shhhhh-------------------shhhh-------shh----- 

Rusty bolts protesting against adjustment ---REEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH-----

"Evan, where's the socket wrench?"

Clink-clank-clatter
The sound of metal smacking against a palm.
REEECH, shh-ratat-shhhhh-------ratat-------------------shh---------------shh
The sound of an owl in the distance

"Hey, the viewfinder's actually right for once."

grooooaaaan, hhh-haaaa--hhhh-haaaa
Shuffling, crunch-crunch, ratatatata-shhh----shh------ratatatataratatatata-----------shhhhhhh----------------------------

"......Is that Saturn?"

"...Move over, lemme see, Ash."

Shuffle, crunch-crunch-shhhhhhhhh

"Wow, yeah."

Shhhhhh---------------------------shhhhhhh-------------------
The wind fades into the distance.

Walls and clouds
All hail the dreamer, who once stood
upon a stretch of land
and saw nothing to obstruct an equal view
For now we see nothing; the nightmares
have built a wall
separating us from the dreamland
we so desperately tried to create
All hail the dreamer, who once, 
so overcome by the possibilities,
cried
to see a new world
Would that our tears could be
joyful
not residue from the pouring rain
All hail the dreamer,
for they beheld no clouds
when they looked upon this land

Bridges and sunlight
I tend the garden after the storm while the soil is still wet
marveling at how the world seems greener and brighter
after such a solemn moment
And it is just me
and the garden
as I stitch the world into something even more beautiful
a bridge between the darkness and the new light
After the rain comes the new day:
after the clouds comes the sun

Saturn by Sleeping At Last
                "You taught me the courage of stars before you left"
                             Let's face it, Garen, it's you.
The Scientist by Coldplay
                "Questions of science, science and progress"
                            You know where this ends, don't you, Aiela?
Blood Red Roses by C21 FX
                "The depths, they wouldn't claim her"
                            Cardinal. Honestly. This is your angst song.
Clocks by Coldplay
                "Tides that I tried to swim against / have brought me down upon my knees"
                            Galithan. Oh, Galithan.
The Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel
                "But my words like silent raindrops fell"
                            Arthur. 
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For by U2
                "But yes, I'm still running"
                            Sage, this is you in 4 minutes and 37 seconds.
Here I Am by the Boxer Rebellion
                "I follow blindly, however unlikely"
   ...

December - month of first snows, cold days, and of change. Not always fast ones; they can be compared to the movements of a glacier. But change nonetheless, sweeping through my world in a flurry of snow and shouted wishes for good holidays out of car windows. 

This year has found me struggling with a great change: a new school. Not that I moved, but that the school was renovated to become a monolith of glass, sheetrock, and clean modern white walls. For me, change from routine is hard enough when it's simple things like a new schedule or a new after-school activity I signed up for. An entirely new learning space, even if it is filled with all the same people it always has had, threw me for a loop. My fellow classmates, whenever I expressed this panicked feeling growing inside of me, looked at me funnily. After all, the school is larger, better equipped for all of...

December - month of first snows, cold days, and of change. Not always fast ones; they can be compared to the movements of a glacier. But change nonetheless, sweeping through my world in a flurry of snow and shouted wishes for good holidays out of car windows. 

This year has found me struggling with a great change: a new school. Not that I moved, but that the school was renovated to become a monolith of glass, sheetrock, and clean modern white walls. For me, change from routine is hard enough when it's simple things like a new schedule or a new after-school activity I signed up for. An entirely new learning space, even if it is filled with all the same people it always has had, threw me for a loop. My fellow classmates, whenever I expressed this panicked feeling growing inside of me, looked at me funnily. After all, the school is larger, better equipped for all of...

Frigid winter wind
gusting
among pillars of ice and snow
Constant, and yet quiet

Silence is King here,
Malice is Queen
[Although he has admitted
to liking Beauty better--
Everything likes her,
so he is forgiven]

A long way North
of Somewhere
East of Nowhere
in between thought and reality
They are there, but in solitude

For Winter is demanding
and scepter of ice
melts in the warm air
Cape of ermine fades;
the throne should disappear
but Malice and Silence would remain

No, no,
much better to be alone --
forever frozen in the cold
than to meet those
who rule this haunted place

Frigid winter wind
gusting
among pillars of ice and snow
A kingdom within a kingdom-
in a place all its own

Polaris Terra Dolosus had never truly liked her uncle, even before she had entered the Court of the Stars. He was a seedy man, with a long willowy frame and two sharp black eyes. On his hands sat ten spindled fingers that had the habit of tapping against anything he could find. And, as if to prove a point, the crown he wore upon his head was ill-suited for such a skull as his. It looked stranded on the long black mane that made up his hair. It looked as if did not belong.
That crown, Polaris knew, could have been her father's, had he survived to fight for the throne.
Her uncle's voice was cold as the void of space, cutting through everything in its way. If there was ever any emotion in him besides that of the ice, Polaris had never seen it. It was fitting, and some would say poetic, that such a cold man would have...

There is so much to say, and so little time to speak it all: if I were to begin at the beginning of my heart and unravel every core rule I believe in, it would never end. Because I am always learning. And while I hold that belief dear to me, there are still other ones to speak of, to whisper into the cover of night like they are but mere phantoms that will blow away in the light of day. 

This is what I believe in: the me that lives and breathes came here through a series of choices - not all of them mine, not all of them good. But they are the past, and we live not in the fourth dimension but the third. There is no anti-time; there is no moving back to change that which has worked its ways on us already. I accept who I am - I accept what I see in the...

The sky stretching overhead
becomes a canopy of hand-painted wonder
and the trees live and breathe,
rustling about the latest breeze and sighing out a whisper

The corn shakes itself just a few 
blinks of peaceful over the way
and somewhere there is a deer stip-stepping,
leading their herd on a search for a sliver of the fading dusk

There is an owl, 
beginning to sing
Perhaps it's on the roof
perhaps the sky

A shooting star arcs across the darkness,
leaving behind it a trail of secrets
and stardust and fire and wishes
and it winks before heading on its way

The grass murmurs quietly
and the crickets inside begin to sing their soft soli
to the fireflies overhead,
who flicker to the beat of night

 

World hangs heavy over the roof;
gravity stretching up to grasp at ankles scuffing the ground
World-weariness - gifted, not asked for - ringing in ears too tired to listen

Oh, but that we could close our eyes,
push ourselves back into the world of imagination
That these mortal temporal issues could fade away
like sugar on a waiting tongue
and not bother us for a day, a year, a century

But the sky presses down on our dreams,
mocking us, saying, "I'm the limit; this is all you could ever be."
And you know you could but shove upward
and the sky would bow to your wishes and rise up
but there seems to be no point.
What goes up must come down: this is a basic law of the universe,
the type you've forced into your head in a desperate attempt for knowledge

World hangs low over our heads,
whispering of things made of monochrome;
of things left...

Green carpet spread out beneath the sunshine,
swaying in the breeze -
the scent of cut grass lingering as blades flop defeated
on the hot asphalt

crossing the driveway without shoes, feet still wet
from the garden hose, listening to
birds chittering at the empty feeder

Sky overhead is blue-blue-blue like a robin's egg,
commandeered by cumulus clouds towering above

there is the smell of hostas blooming,
and the sharp scent of tomato, too;
my stomach rumbles and I sneak a raspberry
from the patch in the backyard, savoring
its tart sweetness while it lasts


 

She is bitter acerbic rain,
a whirlwind of cataclysmic sorrow encroaching on the horizon;
She is the sound of laughing quietly to herself
when nobody else is around
(If nobody else is around,
does her laughter make a sound?)

She is a cacophony,
the dramatic crescendo sweeping the piece up for the finale,
a chord echoing through the heartbeat of a thousand people;
she is the tumble of words spilling out onto paper,
mindful of their order and intent yet still untamable

She is black to the sun's gold,
rain to the clear sky

She is their antithesis,
and yet they can't walk away

Laughter, breaths spent whispering in my ear. Late-night conversations, banter, inside jokes. Forgiveness and trust. Your home was my second home. You’d catch me when I'd stumble and I'd catch you.

When we parted, you were still stubbornly with me, saying “We’re in this together.”
 

Listen closely. There once was a girl with no past, and she turned into a monster. Nobody knows how, but there are rumors - they whisper of a man with coal eyes and a smile of ice and daggers.

They say she lost herself on the night of the Red Dawn. Wouldn’t be surprising if that's true. If that was the moment when she turned from human to monster.

Do you know where she is? No? I can tell you. She hides in the shadows, the floors, the walls. She might be listening right now.

Be careful what you do, or she might come for you, too.

.....

It’s been a thousand years - a day. No - it’s been a moment between breaths, one where a microcosmic universe is created and destroyed. Yet, at the same time, it has been forever. Because it isn’t possible for such a moment to be so small. It shouldn’t be so easy.

She’ll...