Choosing peace? Maybe.
Tag: fiction
aSoSS 30 | Gossip
Joanne, how do you pronounce your last name?
(-)
[a moment later] Hey, stop talking about me!
Morris Lawrence Building, 2:30PM, 9/7/2024
under the norway pine there are faint notches in the bark, one tally for each secret you have spilled. its twin used to bear the weight of teenage angst, hearts carved so deeply they scarred the cambium. it burned down one night, struck by lightning in front of your house. confidence or coincidence? we were young and nameless; admit it, there is no more value in saving face. buttercup blues–scale a tree, snap a branch, so you can’t leave.
How many followers do you have?
One.
See, then the ratio of one to eight hundred following is crazy! Who’s the one anyway?
A random.
Mosher-Jordan Dining Hall, 11:30AM, 9/6/2024
we sentence dynasties of mice to their deaths, eyes strapped to a display, a paralysis of creature and conscience. outside, i am drowning in distractions. i see your mouth and i smell your voice, just out of reach, a parasite in the brain. i turn to the screen and immediately the sensation fades. my screams are reflected in a pleasant digital echo, but it does not matter anymore. above, an observer makes a note– turns to the supervisor–makes a face that betrays a flash of fear. the wheel keeps turning, though none remember why.
Separate my work from my life, I’m glad that I was the one to answer the phone before my story goes public…
Barnes & Noble, 10:00AM, 11/1/2024
there is a collage of shoe prints at the front door. how long has it been since i visited you? there are boots and canes and infant shoes strewn across the hallway. we embrace like lovers; we discuss the weather like strangers. the heat, am i right? we are two ostriches with our heads buried. quicksand logic: time moves slowly if we reminisce, as if memory moves counterclockwise and we can escape to the treehouse and the campfires and the blanket tents. your ingenuity reflects my innocence. the baby coos and you whisper lullabies in a foreign language–i realize it is foreign to no one but me.
Ringo From the Stars | Alien Vibe
Ringo blends in in a peculiar way.
aSoSS 29 | Terror
I get stressed out when people don’t take in the environment around them.
AADL Downtown, 10AM, 8/31/2024
absorbed should have a much more negative connotation than it carries. you are so full that there is nothing left of you. no more capacity to love, to help, to notice. you successfully create an alternate reality that only you can see: everything cut off, no inputs from above, the plane has lost its radar. to pop the fantasy like a balloon feels like slicing into flesh, attention spreading rapidly from the cut. your eyes finally look up–and then, like an infection, the condition switches to me…
I can handle suspense, I can handle horror, but I can’t handle blood… that’s why I hate the Saw movies.
Salvation Army, 5:00PM, 10/14/2024
you are counting the age of a dead child. she lies immobile, chest heaving in the wind. a good pretender, i’ll admit. perished from inside, limbs left to rot. there are flowers where her fingers used to be. i grab a bone and snap it, relishing the crunch, the final release of form. to grow for decades and disappear in one pinch–energy stored is energy gained, nothing is permanent except for a loss of permanence. from the middle of the stump, a seedling reaches for the sunlight. even in death, life always finds a way.
Dementia’s kinda kicking in, huh? But yeah, she’s in good spirits…
AADL Downtown, 4:30PM, 10/29/2024
look at the lips, how they twitch. the eyes, how they lead. beneath the scalp, an occupation–quick to burn, quicker to bleed. having no anchor will leave you stranded even in the harbor. the tide swells and the eddy swirls and you spin, around and around, forgetting which way is forward. we are privy to the comforts of a world unchanged, a diorama, a beetle encased in resin. up in the brain: more spirits, more childhood bedrooms, more confusion, more spinning. the mind’s eye, shattered into a thousand infinities, each one smaller than a drop of water.
Ringo From the Stars | Secret Identity
Human interaction requires improvisation…
aSoSS 28 | Assumption
You don’t need to be working when you’re not getting paid. Don’t make a habit of it, because when you leave college, people will take advantage of it.
Central Campus Classroom Building, 10:00AM, 8/25/2024
the lighthouse beckons. why do you listen? you’ve seen the scars: salmon slashes, tally marks against a dungeon. you call them bruises of honor, a spirit lived in pitcher and storm, throat muddy from screaming in the rain. bow, says the wind, and you do, with your knees in the sand and your face in the bowl of your hands. prayer or punishment? stop trying. the lighthouse blinks once, twice, and then winks out.
Summer reading for engineers? Summer reading??
Mosher-Jordan Dining Hall, 10:30AM, 8/27/2024
the seasons flit past–flecks of paint, a crumbling castle, an anchor in an empty sea. i drag my feet against the asphalt; i find solace all the insufficient ways in the way only a prisoner can. time dilates from within, a scrap the size of a single breath. a flattened lung, once composed of its consumptions, carving out my chest from the inside. i watch, delirious, as my name is etched into a headstone. they will throw my body out into the desert, a skull to be labeled an ancient and nameless king.
Is he really that short? I mean, he’s short but not short short. I guess five four.
Cancer Center Inbound, 3:00PM, 10/17/2024
we must be accepting of the things we cannot control. like two leaves skating the upward draft, we drive each other dizzy with our tongues (straight and sharp as quartz, a lesson in diffraction–light and feeling, are they really separate?) is it man versus man or me versus you? there’s a difference, even if you don’t admit it. i stare at the mirror, at the figure that plays with my hair and presses falsities into my mouth and avoids my eyes, and i know that no amount of time will turn it into a friend.
