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"History" by S.J. Saighead
What lies below, wait to arise? The past may be done, but always will rise in moments of quiet, when thoughts occur, the past will find you, simply waiting for a chink in your armor, built over time of gold and of silver to strangers fine. But you know its waiting for time to pounce, you give history an inch, it will denounce the present and future over which you laboured, to create something, someone favoured. Great tragedy can be buried in sand, But we know over time it soon becomes land on which you live, your roots are set, but your past shall live, so don’t dare forget.
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“Time” by Connor Orrico
words the time and space of language as I understand it which is to say as I misunderstand it I speak them from somewhere beneath my bones I write them for lack of space in the elsewhere I dress myself in
let us how I do enjoy the first person plural let us not get too poetic too dandy though I suppose what do I suppose well life as it once was as it is as it is not becoming yet will
my life so called my room so temporary like the body both eternal both an infinite sepulcher I will walk the perimeter then the interior or the interior then the perimeter or and this is certainly what I will do the space and the nonspace oh perhaps that miasmic diction is Cioran’s influence though I recall something else from two grandparents with hands stained yes and no and high school eyes oh who said we can never be original perhaps forgive me
back to words back to person back to life and room how all of these I lack without lacking might I jettison their absence to sink with the bliss of millstone I write as I feel so called I write as I am so called I write now which is the false extension of then as everything is what together like a straitjacket my palms do not change I simply lack the perspective
memories of words memories of person memories of memories erase them which are me tautology that is okay that and nothing else beneath my bones I shiver the fetid
quiet words yes my suicide footnotes started when in the kitchen I learned to tie my shoe then presumably to write all of these pasts one point one now I extricate to wind the music box I suppose my room then my room now different and different a parade of pasts press phosphenes into the language of my room my so called life my library of suicide notes that are not and are oh perhaps that miasmic diction is what
quiet memories forgive me as it once was as it patterns itself here a subset of there a permutation of where I write as I write as I feel to sink as I misunderstand it the language of disease the endless etymologies eagerly consumed
thousands of thousands of pages of black ink from gray eyes from white blinding light mountainous insipid to phantom creaking joints futile fourth floor stills of languishing speaking somewhere with hands stained their absence my life so temporary not enough insatiable fragility I can fracture my room my memories my
so called writing not becoming yet and what back to person straitjacket palms time beleaguered laying beneath my absence my quiet parade my suicide quiet back to nonspace the words of it the time of so called person I sink I feel I lack I oh that poetic miasmic blinding body of language that noise in my palms beneath memories yes my thousands of eyes from my room reaction formation of arachnids to recoil associations to renounce having been consumed to odium of self a silence of words so called my name tautology that is nothing else
the hours frictive the thousands of memories night-foundered to be open to insects in my bed in my room my pathology lapsarian remorse I feel I know I neither yes that is okay back to everything to life so called
to the chatter of time to the delusions yes the delusions no I feel my bones erase them I write false nothing else thousands of nothing else thousands of thousands of nothing else speaking a silence having consumed my name and its etymologies its patterns its pasts I write as I feel oh yes like a body like nothing unique thereby phantom unique thereby the path I saw once when time was avicular chatter axiomatic nothing creaking
quiet creaking yes perhaps thousands of creaking suicide notes so called thereby suicide so called bildungsroman the language of person night-foundered morning-joyed yes but back to my life the millstone quiet nonspace and space I shiver the fetid the chatter the hours I suppose well what do I suppose as it is
gray language gray person back to so called my life and words noise of too poetic too lacking let us suppose
perhaps let us suppose my library grew beneath my bones stained yes it grew when I learned presumably these pasts from two false words yes no
memories of Cioran’s memories no I shiver as it is not yet will for lack of space a subset of misplaced though I recall the words of language as I understand it I dress myself in phosphenes which are me my memories so called
beleaguered I write elsewhere I suppose what I do I laying beneath my life the perimeter together like memories pressing quiet etymologies of suicide too what never original forgive me elsewhere misplaced renounced speaking beneath
them which are words which are nothing which are the miasmic person my palms never my life too so called beneath so endless I will feel I will
recall the memories name the disease change the sheets
speak the time and space of language in silence
my library my life
let us suppose what back to back person to room erase them
so called writing so called vomiting my bones to the chatter I sink time is the shiver time is the fetid time is the what I suppose the so called the languishing the hands the person I sink I feel I lack I recoil
associations of absence thousands of phantom music pasts in the kitchen in the so called memories like the perspective of nonspace and insects I understand that I am a name and body and quiet endless notes the diction I change now like a straitjacket never elsewhere stained when I gray when I in the disease of time with hands insipid the perimeters of time I recall
so called laying a subset of when I grew my eyes when I learned elsewhere how all of these memories of language somewhere consumed so temporary from my room which my life eagerly is beneath I write too much I shiver
I dress my memories fetid erase the sheets which are myself too poetic too dandy something quiet from my suicide becoming the miasmic person so called my palms yes arachnids I sink to space and words so called I suppose chatter as it is as eyes renounced everything so called back to beneath back to the axiomatic let us suppose the words vomiting my life my room memories of my person thousands of phosphenes press back
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"I relapsed, so did you, time's a game for two" by M.A.A.
A chess sesh, a royal fancy, two lads at a match in frenzy, neither sane one shall stay, a lot of buzz for a stupid game the old hand’s rough, beardy plays like a veteran at time's match, rather silly while the young buck small, accordingly ugly plays it safe, god willing nothing but an early vanish keeps a man ready to dodge the savage. Anyways, it goes like this a winner takes over the other's essence and the loser's ruling is to succumb to the void to be physically senseless mindless, reckless, leviathan's meal, its senile feasting and the arena changes from plastic walls to electric locks to love's loss, to loss of love to war's drums, to hired guns teacher's sword, lieutenant's pen son's betrayal and enemy's friend. Friend, flip the table when victory flees this four dimensional being pretends to see us all in his seed yet only children will decide which monuments survive all lies, the whole fable please, flip the table. But the old man is an honourless fucker, "don't you look into my past," yells the young pal sobbing miniatures fleeing, the climate justifiably self-murdering "how about you don't look into my eyes, you death cheating son of lies," fighting words, all in smiles a few cups of coffee, mouths wide open for snakes' growls Ouroboros is about to let it all out shit, here it comes, the final move the old boy runs out of time behind the ceiling of endless blackness, he goes senseless, swallowing, injecting numbness, someone's throwing up their lungs what's more nothing but an early vanish makes a man outlandish I mean – keeps a man ready to dodge the savage.
"now is the time" by Linda M. Crate
they say there's no time like the present, but sometimes they whisper now is not the time; if not now then when? how many innocent people must be slain, and how many dreams must die? i just want the world to be more full of dreams than nightmares, and i grow tired of the divisions of people and those who choose willful ignorance instead of being able to admit they are wrong; and allowing themselves growth— if every life matters, then now is the time to put your money where your mouth is; there are so many suffering we need to end their plight and be more than a blight of society and the world because i know we can be more than all of this discord.
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"Novus Dies" by Laura Stringfellow
January bides the last furtive revelry of New Year's in the hour before the dial turns, like the combination clicking on a high school locker where the halls were heavy with sweat and testosterone, the feral defiance of youth. Or further back when the maps of Magellan lined the walls of the school room, their square, laminated faces calling out to the eager among us, where the cheap drug store clock tick tocked, and the air was filled with fevered optimism. Now, it seems, we only meander through the fog like a ship that strays from its last course, the rolling eye of the compass searching desperately for home. The hands of the clocks turn six times as we drink down the eve, the bite, the sting of loss and become numb, subdued with the uneasy ache of nostalgia. In the distance, a church bell rings and then dissolves into silence. . . Until, at last, a new morning slumps forward over the horizon and bares its bright teeth against us.
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“Season of a Love” by Alberte P. Steengaard
Spring
She was perfect. Her small frame always seemed to fit perfectly in my arms, and with her head on my chest I felt home. It was impossible to not fall in love with her. She was one of those people with presence. Everyone fell in love with her a little when they saw her smile or heard her laugh. And she was always laughing, always so attentive. Yet somehow completely oblivious of her effect on people. People wanted to hear her speak, they listened to her. She was magnetic.
Summer
How, or why, she ended up with me I will never know, much less understand. The first time she kissed me I froze. She was so apologetic because she thought I didn’t like it, but in reality my brain just short-circuited. We were eating ice cream in the park and a pigeon nearly flew into her head, so she jumped. And then she laughed. I can still see the picture in my head. The ice cream slowly dripping down her finger, and her head thrown back in a full on belly laugh. Then she stopped she leaned forward and planted a sweet kiss right on my lips. I could taste the ice cream vaguely. Just like that, she was mine, and I was hers.
Autumn
They say the people who smile the brightest, hurt the most. The first time I saw them she stormed out, and then didn’t talk to me for a week. Her scars. Small white lines on the top of her thighs. I tried to help her, but she fought me. She told me she didn’t deserve me. I couldn’t get it to make sense – I was the lucky one. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to help her. I held her through her nightmares and wiped the tears from her face. I told myself we could get through it. The two of us, that our love would be enough. To me she was still perfect, that never changed for a second.
Winter
It was a cold January morning when it happened. I came home after another night shift, and every window in the house was open. The cold crept into my soul, and it gave me chills. As I pushed open the door to the bathroom I knew. I saw her. She was dancing, as light as the snowflakes that had started to fall, down the street. As she passed the streetlights, they turned off one by one, letting the light of dawn take her place. She was free, almost flying, her skirt slightly bouncing with every step she took. And just like that, she was gone.
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Next week’s theme: BEYOND
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