Wordle #290

Guide: Revenge is only a delusion. What has been done cannot be reversed, least of all with violence. Are you beast or man? Choose or be consumed.
Grieving Man: I mean not only to bruise his flesh but to splinter his psyche. I am entitled to blood.
Guide: Nothing entitles a man to murder. You will only rob the world of the man she loved.
Grieving Man: I will relish his death, this is my justice.
Guide: And who granted you this boon? This burden? Only fools play God. What you speak of is madness. Your grief is justified but your grief does not justify your current course of action.
Grieving Man: The moment of her death flashes before my eyes even as we speak. My heart brims with rage. I am only a man weak from suffering.
Guide: Then let her story serve as a warning, a reminder than one death does not erase another. Will you bathe her legacy in blood? Will you peel the soul from your body and crush hers with the weight of your sins?
Grieving Man: I have nothing left, my future is blank. I would that my heart too were blank.
Guide: Then you could never have loved her. Is that the world you wish to create? In such a world you could very well have killed her. Tell me would you knowingly become the object of your revenge?

–

Since I don’t usually write stories I don’t have much opportunity to write dialogue. When I saw the words though the scenario just made sense.

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Writing Prompt #97 “Ktenology” March 8, 2015

My grandma always said I had the devil in me. She meant it as an endearment rather than an accusation. I was full of mischief but my “crimes” never hurt anybody. Well that’s not entirely true, my pranks furnished me with a reputation that I was never fully able to absolve.

I preferred to get my education outside of the classroom. Nature is the only honest depiction a man’s got of his history. Textbooks are biased. Man’s ego always supersedes truth (I think I might have negated my argument by saying as much). Needless to say I wasn’t exactly an honor student and although I graduated high school I never did make my mind up about college. I got a job right away. I didn’t get on well with my dad (my mom left when I was still in diapers) and I wasn’t keen on sticking around. I am not sure if it was the drinking or if he was just a bastard (I suspect the former enhanced the latter). I moved out as soon as I had two cents to rub together. It wasn’t a home so much as a roof but it was enough for a bachelor like me.

I learned to fight when I was a kid at least I learned to block and dodge I never did like to swing my fists. I am a big man I’ll take a blow if it’ll keep the peace. I met Michelle at the diner, she was a waitress, we talked casually. She wasn’t one to flirt with the customers though plenty of men had an eye for her. I admit to thinking she was cute and if she had given, even an inkling, of interest I might have asked her on a date. Not so much as a wink. I reckon she had someone in mind already. Now I saw her next to everyday on account of the diner had the best coffee and the refills were free. She was good company for small talk but I talked more to Steve, Steve is the cook, at least he was last time I was there. We were in elementary school together, Steve is one of those guys you can just pick up with real easy.

I didn’t usually go to the diner at night but it was the holidays. Ever since my grandma passed holidays are a lonely time. Michelle was there, which surprised me cause I figured she’d have people at home waiting. She seemed out of sorts but I couldn’t get anything specific from her. She left before I did on account of a call, which by her face was important. She was in a hurry and I didn’t think it right to interrupt just for the sake of my own concern. Had I known what was going to happen I would have offered to escort her.

I left not long after not in search or anything but I’d finished my “Christmas” dinner special. I thought about going strait home but it had just started to snow (I love snow). Now it was pretty late for dinner I admit maybe 12 pm but the ham sandwiches I’d eaten earlier just didn’t satisfy my Christmas spirit. Anyhow I was walking and it was pretty well lit with the addition of the holiday lanterns. I never did think much about taking the alleys on account of no one messes with me (speculation on my appearance?). I saw the body soon as I came around the corner. I thought maybe a homeless woman had collapsed on account of the cold. Once I got closer I recognized the uniform and Michelle’s curly blonde hair. She grabbed my arm, clawed into it real hard and looked me right in the eyes before collapsing dead in a pool of blood. Now I don’t know what she saw in that moment but I am certain it wasn’t me. I’ll never forget that look either, it was something between terror and rage. After that you know what happened I was spotted by a patrolling officer. I lost my life that night right there with that poor girl.

Whether my death will weigh upon the people’s conscious I cannot say, even now I maintain that there is more good in this world than bad (though I have seen much within these walls that would discredit such notions). There’s very little conciliation knowing that the true culprit walks the streets. And even less conciliation in the fact that I cannot furnish a design for his rehabilitation in the short time I have left. Though I regard his crimes as the very lowest I still do not condone the death penalty. In about an hour I’ll receive my last meal (I’ve decided on a Thanksgiving theme).

When I was a kid I once caught fireflies in an old mason jar. I kept them by my bed and when I woke the next morning they had all died. I still can’t claim to know exactly how they felt but as I sit here waiting for my life to run out, for reasons incomprehensible to me, I think I have a fair idea.

For

https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2015/03/08/writing-prompt-97-ktenology-march-8-2015-2/

I am not much of a story-teller I am afraid! After proof-reading this I am wondering about Michelle’s perspective until her death.

Prompt 36 Virtue

Keeping New Year’s in mind this week’s prompt is Virtue.

Just as there are 7 deadly sins, there are 7 virtues and they are

1. Chastity
2. Temperance
3. Charity
4. Diligence
5. Patience
6. Kindness
7. Humility

Choose one or more for inspiration. You can write about an individual who embodies one or more of these traits. You can write about your own self-improvement efforts. You can share your own personal definitions. You can write about life experiences which are conducive/coercive to the development of one or more of these traits. You can write about situations that push you to the other extreme. For example you might generally be a patient person but holiday shopping might leave you very short-tempered and stressed out.

Happy New Years!

Inversion

I used to walk

Until dawn surrendered

Adroitly to dusk

My terminal tethered

To the horizon

To a land

Primitive with heat

And lascivious wires

*

I sought the nostrum

Of a more compelling

Illusion

My life being

Wholly inconceivable

I welcomed

Asphalt flowers into

My soiled heart

For is it not tenacity

That propagates myth

To chase the sun

Whatever the expense

*

I used to wear a forgery

Of my asperous smile

Each scar accented

From a pretentious palate

Each virtue smeared

Haphazardly

Into the lower lashes

Like the blight

Of an impious contagion

Uncompromising

I grew fearfully

With a predisposition

To inversion

=

This is a deeply personal and traumatic piece I am not certain it makes sense outside of my own head. As a child I would walk until my shoes filled with blood, it was my way of escaping a horrible home life.

Adolescence

The angle of a hip

Never meant to bare

Bends to the pressure

Of a coarse proposal

*

Youth is fire

And accusation

Indignant tongues

That evade apology

Innominate egos that

Borrow diversion

At the expense

Of their freedom

*

I claim insomnia and stress. My brain has taken a detour and we’ve not met up in a while now. Ugh I am so unhappy with this one

Polarity #6

Seconds crept into minutes. Minutes wept into hours. Hours spiraled into days. Days bled unsealed into weeks. Weeks spun surreptitiously into months. His old life seemed to him distant, irretrievable. His heart ached, too tightly tuned to yield to grief. Music remained a source of inspiration, a clear iris amidst colliding tempests.

*

In the absence of supervision the residents fought continuously with one another. Each with their own means of embellishing violence. The atmosphere was fevered and uncertain, every step taken was in violation of some inscrutable farce. What had seemed at first a fierce individuality appeared now as posturings and affectations. He withdrew into her and she in turn embraced him, even that which stood, a monument to his anachronistic virtue.

*

His sobriety was a point of contention to some of the residents for they took it to be condescension. Others exalted him for his resistance to social pressure but neither view seemed to involve him directly. Caricature, opposition, deceit. He knew not to which paradigm they affixed his likeness only that his words and deeds never measured against it. A villain. A hero. He knew himself not in such black and white extremes. He saw in each man a vulnerability, guarded, resented, and preyed upon. He saw happiness assumed in jest. Insatiable was the illusion of freedom for it depended solely upon excess.

*

She held him, his love for her a panacea. He was willing to remain indefinitely. Until one day she betrayed him in a way that his heart was unable and unwilling to fathom. “What are you a monogamist?” She had asked, the final word drawing from her a smile of contempt and ridicule. Here was a question he’d never pondered for it had seemed to him quite obvious. He was and he had assumed she was as well. Had she not said “I love you” only hours before? She had never mentioned an open relationship and had assumed happily the titles that he had naively bestowed. What of his best mate? The other man knew well his feelings for he could not help but speak of them. Had the pair just assumed that he wouldn’t mind? That he would defer or perhaps even applaud them their secrecy (discretion)? If they had thought it natural why had they lied in the first place?

*

“I knew if I told you…you’d make a big deal out of it…” He would have because he would have known himself well enough not to enter such an arrangement. His heart would have been crushed but as it stood now he was completely devastated.

*

“Life is just a game right? You ought to loosen up a little…” He had loosened up but he would not become someone else entirely. Doubted that any of them had become someone else entirely for their reliance on parodies and pills.

*

“We can still have fun together so long as you don’t pull that morality bullshit on me…I get claustrophobic in relationships you know….” He wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth or if she had simply assumed the lifestyle in order to fit in. But standing there watching her fang-bearing smile flatline, he knew that he didn’t belong. More importantly he knew that he did not wish to conform to their despotic notions of authenticity.

=

We’re not there yet but we’re getting there it was a pretty long and involved dream haha I tend to have one dream that seems to go on the entire night or I only ever remember one. Today I turn 33 I love birthdays, the aging thing not so much haha

Growing Pains

Every lesson I’ve learned

Has come with expenditure

I’ve eaten

Of sorrow’s lurid fruits

I’ve wiped sweat and tears

From a shadow-woven visage

I’ve suffered

And in the nucleus of strife softened

I’ve worn the faces

Of countless women

And the shoes of fellow drifters

I’ve faced both mirror and metronome

With a resolve to live and become

I’ve wasted and cherished

Chased laughter through open fields

Loved as if gripped by contagion

Sinned and served

Morals for which no law

Need profess and for which no law

Could deter if I determined

The deed in circumstance just

For I have the sense to know

Without threat or damnation

The ethos which governs my soul

I know that rebellion is essential

When governing bodies oppress

That true peace conceals

Neither arsenal nor agenda

I have failed

Despite endeavor

And in failing

Surpassed limiting contractions

Like can’t and won’t

I have survived

With the inconsolable notion

That survival

Is not enough

I have struggled forward

Knees, elbows, nail beds

Unclean

Every triumph

No matter how infinitesimal

Stacked on a foundation

Which I have built

The Devil’s Hands

I crossed the park into the city

A webbing of steel carcasses

Exalting a skyline smudged

In charcoals and prosaic blues

*

There are no angels in this city

Only precarious thighs

*

I watched each would be consumer

As they weaved their spindly souls

Through red lit alleys and glass facades

Wanton arms leaden,

Dent-less lips liberally greased

*

The Devil suffers no shortage of idle hands

*

Impotent souls yield adroitly to greed

Everyone here wants to be someone else

To evade consequence and intimacy

For their fragment of prefab paradise

*

Empty eyes always hunger