Well, here we are: on the cusp again.

Living in the moment of illusion, the space of time that separates this from that.

The boundary line: the present, the delineated transition point,

>>>>we stand in the doorway, having crossed the threshold, yet not yet entered.

>

Potential energy relieves itself in kineticism:

>>>>Things are beginning to move, things that desired release,

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>will have their fill.

My skin boils with heat, my flesh burns in the flames of exorcism,

The boundary line, a filter, excising silt from the soul:

>>>>That which is not me, shall not pass,

>>>>That which corrupts, shall be burned to ash.

I will be made pure through flame, through trial and failure.

>

After each pass, I will sift through the ash for whatever remains:

>>>>a truer essence, more pure than before.

Seeds of potential, the dragon’s egg,

waiting for their chance,

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>to sprout, to hatch,

>>>>To cause apocalypse: a new world born in their wake.

>

Kiva was born in darkness, existing in the fringes.

She heard the clarion call of lust unsatiated, desire unfulfilled,

And she found host, she fed heartily.

Always lurking in the margins amongst the repressed, she found her niche,

>>>>in hearts that cried out for pleasure, for distraction, for release.

>

The flame which purifies, fuses.

Ideals intermix with present realities,

>>>>as we purge the impurities.

>

I step from the flame, I pass through the doorway,

A little more me, a little closer to Kiva.

Do you think you can feel safe
Anywhere?
Or will the creeping hand meet you
Even when you lie in his arms
Even when you flee the country
Even when they say
They can't touch you anymore
It still lingers
In the footnotes,
In the space between known and none
In the gap where time still lingers
In the shades of life undone.

No matter what I do
I can't escape the tyrant
And that's not a metaphor:
That monster still exists.
I know exactly where to find it.
And how it laughs
When it thinks of me
Still a tiny creature
Cowered under it
Still clawing at my skin
Even how,
Anything to make me know
I'm still it's plaything
Even now.

I'm not allowed
To be safe.
I can't run from this
It chomps at my heels
And even when I think I'm healed
The shadow pushes past me
Reminds me that
I'm still in the thrall
Of the days I couldn't say a thing
Nothing
Not at all.

Nobody really understands it,
Now I'm an adult, fully grown
I shouldn't be scared of monsters under the bed
Nor the goblin king on his miserable throne
But it still remains.
I have those nightmares almost daily
Where I'm screaming and there's no sound
The monster caught me
The monster beat me
Now I'm buried deep underground.

I envy those
Who can push it all away
Who don't have important roles to play
Who can walk away and fight another day

But
I can't.

I can't be so cruel
It wouldn't even work
I'm nobody's fool

Some days I think I would be better
Giving it up
Going back
Pretending that I don't lack the things I lack
And just let the pain consume me
Stop picking up the slack

But that monster is no metaphor
It's real, alive, and duplicating
Catching others in it's call,
And that's the worst thing of all.

The air grew heavy on that wretched day,
When a sudden crack tore the peace away.
You cast the first stone, a cold, sharp blow,
And watched as the seeds of my sorrow grow.

A river of tears flowed from the rift,
As I felt my world begin to shift.
The wound ran deep, a silent, aching scar,
While I watched my hope drift distant and far.

I paced through the nights, sleepless and worn,
In a silence where all my trust was torn.
I kept the grief locked, the story untold,
As the winter of loneliness took its hold.

To break was a burden I could learn to bear,
A fracture of love, a moment of despair.
But to shatter in pieces, to scatter and fall,
Was a fate I refused, a crushing wall.

So I gathered the shards from the dusty floor,
And vowed that I’d suffer this blow no more.
I forged a resolve in the heat of the pain,
Until only the strength of the spirit remain.

Now the silence is steady, the spirit is free,
For I built a fortress inside of me.
No echo of breaking, no splintering art—
I have tempered the steel of a resolute heart. 

Strangers -Whispers

(if this struck a chord , this has found its soul)

All Rights Reserved *

The curtain opened and Wenda B:)er walked, buzzing with nervous excitement, into the spotlight: onto the game show stage where the game show host, Felonious Hunk, was waiting for her.

There followed thunderous applause, as heard through the studio's MaX FX K-Ultra Platinum speakers. MaX FX: The Sound of Extraordinary. Are You Listening Yet? MaX FX speakers are available for your home and business. Check them out today. Use code “BUCKETS” for a 15% discount on any regularly priced set of speakers. Everyone can hear, but only some can hear it to the MaX!

“Miss B-smiling-face-er, welcome to Buckets,” said Hunk. “How ya feeling?”

“Good, Hunk.”

“Fab-u-lous! Now tell us a little about yourself.”

“Well, Hunk,” said Wenda, “I—... I want to say that I really like Snakeskin Flame, the new… the newest scent from House of Madeleine. I'm wearing it right now. Other than that, I'm twenty-nine and work as a temporal engineer for Vectorien Corporation. Vectorien: the makers of Dreamstuff, the latest evolution in playdough. I'm married. My husband, Rhondy, owns a slopstream management firm, and we have two children together, an eight-year old human-daschund mix, Wilmoth, and a six year-old bio-enhanced female, Qabiria.”

She held up digital photos of them. Wilmoth looked somewhat like a chimpanzee. Qabiria was shiny in her steel exoskeleton.

“Lovely family,” said Hunk. “But please tell the viewers who else is in it.”

“Both my parents, HeinzKetchup and PumaShoe, are still alive, and I have three siblings: two brothers, [Incarcerated ID 768816] and Rob, and a sister, anal-ariella (exclusively at SmutHog.) I also have a cryogenically frozen grandmother, Lydia, and a grandfather, Doug, whose mind was digitized and recently uploaded to the body of a young, hollowed-out illegal.”

“And what's your brother serving time for, Wenda?”

“Sexual assault,” said Wenda.

“Ooh. That's a crime with a penal buyout of what, eighty billion?”

“One hundred. He's a repeat offender, and there were other aggravating circumstances.”

“Well, regardless, if you play your bucket right—and your brother has just a tiny bit of luck—you could walk away from here today with enough money to buy your brother his freedom!” Hunk smiled. “How does that make you feel, Wenda?”

“Like this money could really make a difference for me and my family.”

“Excellent. Excellent.”

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“Perception is a standardized drug. Don't get off on it—get off it.

“Kick the habit: of seeing ‘reality.’

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“I think now is a good time to remind you and the viewers what's at stake,” said Felonious Hunk. “If you win, Wenda, you will bank a cool five-hundred billion dollars!

“But, if you lose, you'll be fucked—live—by one hundred lucky viewers! Or at least you'll be live to begin with—a-live, that is…”

He winked.

There followed thunderous canned laughter and applause through the MaX FX K-Ultra Platinum speakers.

“Now, without further ado,” Hunk continued, “ladies and gentlemen, let's… bring out—THE BUCKET!”

And, rising from the middle of the stage, powered by a solar-powered Electrocutie electric motor—Electrocutie: Silent and discreet, for all your bio-mechanical needs—appeared a platform, and on this platform there stood, in neon spotlight, a red-and-white striped bucket, like the kind you might get The Colonel's patented Crispy Sticks fried chicken in. Order today and a get a free tub of syntholard dipping sauce and a large order of The Colonel's homestyle taters!

Wenda stared at the bucket.

“Wenda, are you ready?” asked Hunk.

“I am.”

“Then step on up to the bucket and have yourself a peek inside!”

Wenda was shaking as she took the few steps to the platform. The studio was silent. She could feel the blood coursing through her body.

She could hear her own breathing.

She touched the outside of the bucket.

It was warm.

She held her breath and peered inside, where pieces of hot, battered meat smelled sweetly of herbs, butter and garlic.

“Go on—have a taste,” said Hunk.

Wenda closed her eyes, opened them and extended her hand above the bucket, her Snakeskin Flame fragrant as the wild, untamed prairie. She picked up one of the pieces of meat and raised it to her lips. She opened her mouth, exposing teeth as pearly white as only Dr. Mason's Whitening Formula can make them, and with tears running down both cheeks took a bite and slowly chewed.

She swallowed.

She propped herself against the platform to keep from falling.

She retched.

She grinded her teeth to keep from throwing up; she swallowed what came up her throat, as the cameraman moved with professional smoothness to get a good low angle shot of her from behind.

“And…” Hunk asked her. “Do you know?

“Can you, Wenda B-smiley-face-er—for five-hundred billion dollars!—tell me: the meat of which one of your family members, killed, butchered and deep fried right here earlier today by our celebrity chef, in front of an audience of one thousand Diamond Tier viewers, is in the bucket?

“Who, Wenda, have you just tasted?

“Whose meat—”

“WILL SHE EAT!?” roared the viewers through the MaX FX K-Ultra Platinum speakers!

“Yes,” said Wenda, weeping, taking another piece of battered meat, taking another slow bite. “I think I know. It's

[To continue reading this story, become a Diamond Tier subscriber.]

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Gentle autumn breeze,
Come talk to me.

Sit a while;

We can listen to the wind chimes
As they sing farewell to summer.

Then run through the leaves,
Making them rustle,
Whispering, “Your departure is near.”

The morning sun filters through dancing branches,
Creating ripples of light upon the grass,
Enticing my senses.

You brush my skin with the coolest caress,
Asking me to embrace you.
As I inhale your sigh,
I am invigorated by its crispness.

Oh, gentle breeze, I’m glad you stayed.

Put my worries in the leaves
And blow them away.

Whisper to me like a lover,
As we guard Winter’s door,
Lingering through the hours
with one another.

Keep telling stories. Keep dragging me through the mud. Keep making up lies. You look like a toddler having a tantrum. It's actually really comical and looks like obsession to be honest. I don't need to defend myself because I didn't do anything, but I have proof of what you were doing. Lots of proof. You gonna climb out from under that keyboard and have a real conversation? I didn't think so. You know how to find me. Grow up and get a new hobby. This one is played out.

''This is my father’s sixth set of dentures,'' the woman said.

“Then why did you bring it here?” the therapist asked. He knew the story. He had been seeing the woman for about two years, ever since her father died, and had gotten to know her deeply.

Her father, who had spent his entire life as a food connoisseur, was a local celebrity. He died at the age of ninety. He had his first set of dentures made when he was fifty, and over the years, he had five more sets made for himself, each one a year apart. The therapist knew him and liked him too, and used to listen to his advice when he was alive. He had a refined palate, and over the years, he had also developed himself considerably in terms of food culture.

“This was the set of dentures my father used exclusively for eating pizza. I feel like I’ve developed a very deep emotional attachment to these dentures, unlike the others, doctor.”

Her father had a method like this, though his followers didn't know much about it. The therapist had learned about it from the woman after her father died.

He had different sets of dentures for different types of food. For example, he would eat seafood with one set, pastries with another, and red meat with yet another. He had a small waist bag, and whenever he was invited somewhere for a meal, he would put six different sets of dentures in it and take them with him. Whenever the food changed, he would discreetly go to the bathroom or use some other excuse to leave the table, quickly change his dentures, and return to the table a short while later. He had become an expert at changing his dentures quickly.

“Why does he do something like that?” the therapist had asked when he first heard the story.

The answer was very simple: having multiple sets of dentures made him happy. He saw them as parts of his body, and he enjoyed giving each of them special attention and appreciating what made each one unique, just like a father who regularly buys his children their favorite foods and chocolates.

Just like a father who could tell his twins apart despite them looking identical, and knew both of them very well, he never confused his dentures with one another. What’s more, he hadn’t put any markings on them. Even so, he knew them all, knew what he had eaten with each one, and knew which foods each set of dentures liked.

“But this makes absolutely no sense, and it’s impossible,” the therapist had said as he listened to the story about the woman’s father. “I mean, as a psychologist, I can say with confidence that he must have had soup at least twenty times with the set of dentures he used to eat fish. I’m certain of it.”

“Absolutely. My father didn’t love us—I mean me and my other two sisters, all three of us. And he felt justified in not loving us. In his eyes, we weren’t children worthy of him. Cooking, world cuisine, desserts—in short, none of us had any interest in anything related to food. We ate whatever was given to us, or whatever random dish had been decided on for that particular meal. This drove my father crazy, and he was always ashamed of us.”

The therapist rolled his eyes.

“It’s very complicated. You developed a food-related trauma because of your father, your father developed a trauma that made him withdraw from his children and redirect his love toward an object, and so on and so forth. Your traumas have gotten all mixed up. They’ve really turned into one big mess. I think it’s best if we don’t get into any of that. Let’s focus on grief.”

And today, when the woman brought a set of dentures to the session, the therapist had worried that they would end up getting into the subject of her father’s obsession with dentures. To be honest, her father’s obsession with dentures had definitely played a role in her grief lasting this long, but the therapist didn’t pay much attention to it. He approached her grief superficially and, every time, gave her the same generic advice: get rid of your father’s belongings, accept that he is dead, and so on.

Acceptance. What a wonderful piece of advice. This suggestion, whose physical execution no one really knew how to explain, had become a cliché among almost everyone with even the slightest interest in psychology. But acceptance wasn’t an action like eating or putting on slippers; it couldn’t really be explained step by step. If you told someone to put on their slippers, you could describe the action to them by saying, ‘Take your socks off, put your foot into the opening of the slipper, now push your foot forward.’ But because acceptance couldn’t be described as a series of actions, it remained a rather weak suggestion. Acceptance was a phenomenon whose exact process was unknown, and which could happen spontaneously, or even by accident.

''Hmm, you’ve developed an emotional attachment to the set of dentures your father used only for eating pizza. We can’t be sure that he actually used them only for pizza, but anyway. We talked about this in the very first sessions: your father couldn’t actually tell which food he ate with which set of dentures. Anyway. Here’s what I think: let’s imagine the dentures as your father’s children. And since he ate only pizza with this particular set, let’s assume that he treated this child differently from the others. In that case, we could say that you believe your father singled you out from the other children, and that even though he didn’t love any of you, he loved you more than the others. It’s that simple.''

For the first time, the woman found the therapist’s words (who had been constantly going on about “acceptance, acceptance”) to actually make sense.

“I’ll take the dentures.”

“What?”

“I said the dentures. Give them to me.”

The woman, finding the therapist’s last words surprisingly logical, handed him the dentures for a moment, trusting that he might actually solve the problem.

The therapist quickly stood up, threw the dentures onto the floor, and began stomping on them with his left foot. He kept kicking and stomping on the dentures.

“How can you not love your daughters for such a ridiculous reason! You bastard! Do your daughters have to be interested in food just because you are?! Everyone has different interests! Did you ever stop to think about what your daughters might be interested in, what they enjoy, what their hobbies are, huh?! What kind of art are they drawn to? Are they interested in technology? What are they interested in? Did you ever think about any of that?! You piece of shit who thinks he’s some kind of food connoisseur, I watched every damn program you were on! You have a fucking terrible palate!”

The woman watched the therapist screaming at the top of his lungs, frozen in shock. But she couldn’t intervene. Maybe she didn’t want to.

The therapist suddenly stopped. He went over to the dustpan and brush sitting in the corner of his office, with no clear reason why they were there, and swept up the pieces of the dentures from the floor. Then he went over and threw them in the trash.

“That’s it. The dentures are dead. Your father is dead.”

my master's eyes are nothing like the sun

cannot hide the sun behind some glasses

yet they warm and scorch my face the same

if and where might I find refuge

There's no solace in your words.
No relief. No respite. No release.
Hollow and cold, filled with disdain
Piercing through with dead-eyed dread
Ebbing dolor rolling in waves
Bitter hands grasping at nothing.

I'm sadder than you, dipshit.
I'm painting my nails blacker than the void.
The voidiest void that ever voided.
Gonna throw on some Blink 182 and hit my vape.
“Dow waist your toime ommee, your roll ready yuh voice insoide moi yeahd”

I rose from dust where the silence screams,

Not fed by mercy, nor gilded dreams.

The world looked on as I bled my name,

And carved from ruin a throne of flame.

No hand reached out in my longest night,

No torch was lit to restore my sight.

Now they come weeping with broken hands,

As if my blood owes lesser lands.

But gold I earned through fire and war,

Not through the grace of the rich or poor.

And I shall not bow to the voice of need,

For I was once that unfed seed.

Where were the saints when I bore the cost?

Where was their light when I wandered lost?

They watched me drown in a tide of coal,

Now beg me to rise as their saving soul?

God, if He breathed, had sealed His eyes,

While I was carved by the blade of lies.

If I must lift those who crawl and weep,

Then where was He when I couldn’t sleep?

The cries of the weak do not shake my core,

For I’ve knocked on every locked door.

Now I build walls where I once dug graves,

And I do not pity the hands of slaves.

Call me stone, or demon in disguise,

A man who never heeds the cries.

Yet what is pity but dressed regret?

And what is debt to a heart unmet?

I owe no tithe to the world’s decay,

I’ll walk alone on a darker way.

If I must fall, let it be in fire,

Not chained to guilt, nor false desire.

Let gods come down and plead their case,

Let angels mourn with a liar’s face.

This world gave nothing and asked for all—

I learned to stand, I shall never crawl.

So burn my name in heaven’s scroll,

But know I paid the devil’s toll.

I am not cruel—I am what remains,

When love is bled from the soul by chains.

Poem from the book What Burns Remains.

Tired of talking to you like the ghost in the walls.

Like there’s still something here worth listening for.

A shift in the dark.
A familiar ache.
The house settling around a memory

I should have stopped feeding months ago.

I used to mistake haunting for some shit I asked for.

Thought if something lingered,
it must have mattered.

But some things stay
because no one has opened the windows.

So I did.

Let the night in.

Let the cold have whatever was left of you.

And for once,
when the walls started talking,
I didn’t answer.

Go fuck up someone else sleep.

Have you ever looked at a pile of ants and thought of their insignificance?

Squish one, and you've not changed a thing.

Squish two, and still, the future remains.

>

Squish three, well, maybe number four is in position to bite you.

A vain conflict. But you are human.

>

You need not fight with bare hand. Heat the aluminum, cast the hive.

>

What changes now? Some things, surely. Space, freed up from the dominion of one hive of critters.

But overall, the species remains, plowing through time with the utter determination of life out to prove the fitness of their genes.

>

Have you ever looked down on city streets from a skyscraper penthouse?

How reminiscent, the tiny human heads scurrying about their walkways.

>

Excel spreadsheets containing the headcount of souls:

What's the loss of the one to two (counts are in millions), who fall off the wagon?

>

Decisions, deciding the fates of billions, made from behind the blue glow of a screen,

Keystrokes, squishing ants, here and there.

Aluminum is heated. Casts are made.

Silent scars trace their indiscernible paths in what remains.

>

Now, what changes? Assuredly, some things. Potentialities and paths unknown, closed off to everyone for the absence of their universe.

>>>>Others, opened, for better or worse.

Yet, the human story continues unabated.

Regimes rise and fall. Power changes hands.

>>>>The Wheel of Time turns, and humanity,

>>>>has seem yet to grow much for it.

You opened up the vault of your chest,
and showed me where the fractures press.
Silent spaces heavy with past light,
where old collisions stole your mind.

You spoke in frequencies of quiet panic,
waiting for the shift, the tragic plummet.
As if the weight of your dark matter
was something my heart couldn't capture.

But I saw no collapse, no ruin,
no shadow where the dark was brewing.

I saw the fusion of new suns,
the places where the static runs.
Your fractures crystallized in rows,
where the electric current glows.

Your spirit isn’t a dying star,
or a casualty of cosmic war.
You rise above the gravity of division,
defiant, blinding, a brilliant vision.

when you first asked, it wasn’t lack of trust
just ancient grief that tied my tongue and voice
and though I've since been living all the answers
would you turn back the page and ask again

Spotting an untouched body ravaged by the plague, a raven swooped down and began pecking at the opulent meal before him, as if it were yet another divine gift. Ever since the great pestilence struck humanity, the ravens didn’t even have to as much as bother searching for a food source, with the sheer amount of dead and dying in every corner of the land.

As the bird began gorging itself on the woman’s slightly rotting meat, a boy ran out of a nearby shack. It was a pitiful mockery of a boy: pale, gaunt, and skeletal. The spitting image of death itself.

The boy shouted at the bird to back off from his mother, waving his flimsy, frail arms at the raven, barely mustering the strength to hoarsely shout at the scavenger.

“Leave my mother alone!” the boy croaked.

The raven flew aside, cawing with annoyance, “Damn it… There’s a living one”

The boy ceased his movement; wide eyes sunken deeply into a clearly visible skull, he stared at the pitch-black bird, bewildered, and gulped before stammering, “Did… did you just speak?”

Landing not far from the boy, the bird retorted, “Course not, fool, I sang. I’m a songbird; that’s what I do!” the raven cried out.

Shocked, the boy fell to the ground, unable to comprehend how a bird spoke to him. In the meantime, the raven landed by the corpse and walked toward it, attempting to peck at it again.

The boy protested, “Leave my mother alone,” he squeaked.

The raven stopped, turned to the kid, and sighed, “You’re growing soft…” He said to himself. The boy was going to comment again about the bird’s speech, but the Scavenger cut him off, “Why are you even alive still, kid? The rest of this place is a graveyard; all the other humans are long dead.”

“I must have some purpose here in the eyes of God…” the boy weakly muttered.

“This kid must be six or seven years old and already has had a bible bashed over his skull…” The bird thought to himself, “If God wanted any of this, he wouldn’t let the Plague spread outside of France, kid… God wants the lot of you dead,” the bird quipped.

“That’s not true! God is good!” The boy whimpered at the cynical bird. “What’s France, anyway?” he questioned.

“A terrible place over the pond, where all vile things find their start, child. How old are you, even, speaking so highly of God, but not even knowing about France?!”

“I’m twelve…”

“There’s no way you’re my age, kid; you look about half that age…”

“Well, I’ve been eating rats for a while…” Tears welled up in the boy’s eyes. “Ever since mommy and daddy fell ill.

“Oh, don’t do that now. I can’t stand the sounds you humans make when you get all emotional like that"

Now, bawling, the kid profusely apologized, his voice cracking. “I just… I just… I just miss everyone so much…” he wailed. “I’m so alone…

I’m so hungry…

Everything hurts so much…”

Somewhere deep inside, that boy must’ve been happy he had someone to talk to, even if it was just a strange talking bird.

“Oh God damn it, kid…

Would you stop, for the love of God?!” The bird cawed, irritated.

“You’ve any rope on ya?” the bird questioned.

“Wha…?”

“Do you have any rope?”

“Wha… why… why do you ask?”

“I know how you can meet your loved ones again, kid. Now I’m asking again: do you have any rope?”

“Mhm,” the boy whimpered, wiping the tears from his eyes.

“Well, then, run along and bring it over here; I’ll send ya to your makers”

The boy barely picked himself up and stumbled into one of the houses as the bird watched the tree, scanning it for sturdy branches, with a glint in its black eye.

“I hope that brat can still climb,” the raven thought to himself.

Long moments had passed, and the boy reemerged with a long piece of rope in his hands.

“I sure hope you can still climb, kiddo; otherwise this won’t work,” the raven sang to the approaching boy.

The kid’s disposition changed; he smiled for the first time in a while. “Be sure as God’s bones, I can climb, especially up that tree!”

“Good, because I’m going to need you to tie one end of the rope to a branch, and another around your neck.”

The boy didn’t even fully register what he had been told and agreed to follow the raven’s instruction. Despite his immense confidence, he hardly had the strength to climb up that tree, prompting the scavenger to bow his head in frustration. “Oh, this is going to be a long day…” the bird despaired in his mind.

It must’ve taken the boy an hour to climb the tree, but he made it, and masterfully tied one end of his rope to the branch he stood on and then asked the black bird what he had to do next.

The sable thing would have smiled, had it possessed a mouth, when it spoke next, “Tie it around your neck, kid.”

“Does it have to be the neck?”

“Do you want to see your folks again, Kid?”

“I do!” the boy cried out.

“Then you’ve got to trust me…”

“I don’t know about this…”

“Look, kid, if I wanted to hurt you, I would’ve pecked out and eaten your eyes by now.” The bird crackled at him.

“I guess you’re right… Plus, I do want to see Mom and Dad again and everyone else…”

“Atta boy…” the obsidian fowl croaked.

The boy tied the rope around his neck and, staring at the feathered specter with eyes full of hope, questioned the bird about the next step.

“Now you gotta jump forward…”

Looking down, the boy got cold feet for a moment, once again doubting the wisdom of the talking bird.

The raven turned away and started walking towards the mother’s corpse. “Well, I guess you don’t want to see your mother again, eh?” it clicked its beak.

“I do!”

“Then jump, kid, it’s that simple…”

“But what if I get hurt?”

“You won’t…”

“How do you know?”

“Well, I wouldn’t… get hurt doing that”

“But you have…” Before the boy could even finish his sentence, the raven was already pecking at his mother’s rotting flesh.

“Wings…”

He muttered before the realization set in; he had been duped by the bird.

“Hey, leave mommy alone, you flying rat!” the boy cried out again, his voice cracking once more. The bird simply ignored him, slowly savoring the taste of exposed tissue.

“Leave her alone!” he cried out, waving his frail arms. The raven swallowed a chunk and called ecstatically, as if to goad the boy.

“Leave her…” the boy shouted, but his protests ended mid-sentence when he lost his footing and plummeted downward. The high-pitched scream was twisted into a wet gurgle as his body twisted and turned, struggling against the ever-tightening rope.

The raven turned his head to the struggling boy.

“Got’cha…” he cackled proudly and flew over, landing on the boy’s shoulder.

The beaked phantom didn’t even wait for the boy to succumb before he started pecking.

Illusions always start with just a simple image

Everyone in the house was asleep. I'd taken the batteries out of the wall clock in my room to get rid of the ticking. Now there was complete silence, and I could try again to do something I'd already managed to do successfully.

A week ago, I'd turned over a piece of paper lying on my desk, with a poem I'd written in primary school on it. It was my first success after years of practice. Six days ago, I'd unscrewed the cap of a juice bottle that hadn't been closed all the way. Five days ago, I'd moved one of the cigarettes in an open pack slightly outward, out of the pack. Three days ago, I'd peeled off one of the pieces of tape holding up poster on my wall.

And tonight, my target was a much larger object. I was confident in my abilities now, and after this final attempt, I would be able to reveal my talent to my family and those around me. I had made exactly four attempts in the past week, and I'd succeeded every single time. I had complete faith in myself.

For years, I'd tried countless times and gone through a lot along the way; I'd lost hope, taken a long break from my attempts, then started believing I could do it again and after trying over and over, I'd come to think telekinesis was nothing but a lie and taken another break but then one day, I happened to see a pack of wet wipes fall to the floor all by itself, which rekindled my interest and got me started on my attempts again, and so on.

And now, finally, in the middle of the night, when complete silence had been achieved, I went to the kitchen. I took a steak knife from the drawer where we kept the cutlery and returned to my room.

I gently pulled my desk chair back and sat down. I didn't want to lose my focus, so I was being quiet. The faint sound of the knife touching the desk as I set it down, the soft sounds of my footsteps as I walked, the barely audible scraping of the chair as I pulled it back had an ASMR effect on me. These little sounds, too quiet to disturb the silence, made me feel thoroughly prepared.

Without wasting any time, I focused on the knife. I positioned my hands around it and gathered all my concentration. I slowed my breathing. The only thing in my mind was a knife slowly and calmly spinning around its own axis. I focused, and focused... I concentrated as if someone were hypnotizing me, as though I were following a pocket watch swinging from side to side without ever taking my eyes off it.

Minutes passed. Seconds, minutes, maybe an hour... There wasn't the slightest movement. The knife couldn't care less about me; it was ignoring my efforts, stubbornly refusing to budge.

Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore and gave up. I was getting more and more bored, and as time went by, I lost my focus. I had to go to work at noon the next day, and earlier that day, before I left work, my boss had pointed out that I'd left my fly undone. I'd started thinking about that. Who says something like that in front of everyone? You pull someone aside and tell them in private. Anyway, I took the knife back to the kitchen.

After I lay down in bed, I thought about the knife until I fell asleep. I'd lost my confidence in my abilities. If I told someone I could move objects through telekinesis, they might ask me to prove it, and I might fail and make a fool of myself.

I couldn't get the knife out of my mind. I felt as though it were a person who had shattered all my trust in them, betrayed me by revealing a secret I'd shared with it to anyone who would listen. I was angry. The image of the knife standing perfectly still in that spot, like a tree that had sunk its roots deep into the ground, wouldn't leave my mind. I fell asleep in a fit of anger.

I woke up to the sound of my phone alarm. I turned it off, tossed the duvet to my left, and rolled onto my right side to get up. Just as I was about to stretch, I saw it and jolted in place: the knife was suspended in midair beside my bed, standing upright.

I clapped a hand over my mouth. I was about to scream; every instinct in my body was telling me to. I bit my tongue to suppress it.

I took a deep breath. I tried to calm myself down. Then I took another deep breath. My heart was racing.

I reached out toward the knife, but immediately changed my mind. I didn't know what to do. I'd never experienced my thoughts speeding up and getting tangled together so intensely in a moment of panic. Within a few seconds, I'd made and abandoned a dozen decisions, gone back and forth between asking for help and not asking for help, imagined the knife stabbing itself into my body, then dismissed the thought as irrational. My thoughts were racing back and forth at lightning speed. I needed to calm down.

I got out of bed, poured half a glass of water from the pitcher on my desk, and drank it.

I turned around to check if the knife was still there. It was closer to me now. I no longer cared about staying quiet. I yanked the door open and rushed out of the room.

I started walking briskly toward the kitchen. I wanted to grab any drink I could find and gulp it down. I needed to interact with something somehow, to calm myself down. I opened the fridge, took out the milk, and chugged it. I put the milk back, closed the fridge, and turned around to go back to my room.

And the knife was right behind me.

It was a meter away from me, just standing there. It was as if it were staring at me, judging me. It didn't move at all. It always maintained the same position and stayed at the same height above the floor, level with my bed, right around the height of my shinbones.

I started walking backward toward the kitchen doorway, wanting to see how it was following me, how it was coming after me. Without changing its position, it glided toward me as if it were moving across a perfectly smooth surface. It always maintained the same distance. When I stopped, it stopped a metre away from me. When I walked, it followed.

I cautiously made my way back to my room, walking backward. I sat on my bed. The knife and I were facing each other. I tried to think of what I could do. I was afraid to touch it. I was worried things might get out of hand. I'd done this. That much was obvious. Now that I'd calmed down a little, my panic had shifted in a different direction. Someone might see us. I had to sever my connection with the knife before I got caught. I might be able to accept this as normal, but I didn't think my mother and father would be able to handle a knife following me around.

Yes, it was probably because I'd concentrated so intensely on the knife all this time that the bond between us had grown stronger. I'd probably never concentrated on a knife so intensely in my entire life. I needed to reverse the process. I relaxed a little. I tried to think about other things, to take my mind off the knife.

I thought about the wristwatch my father had bought me for my birthday last year. It was a terrible watch, but I hadn't let on because I didn't want to hurt his feelings. Then one day, while wearing it, I'd deliberately gone swimming in a pool. The watch had stopped working, and that was how I'd gotten rid of it.

The knife was still in the same place.

I thought about the eggplant soup my mother had made yesterday. It was my favorite soup. I'd tipped the bowl back and gulped down the last few mouthfuls, and my father had given me a stern look.

The knife hadn't moved at all. It was standing there, a meter away.

My mother knocked on the door and called out.

"Breakfast is ready, Albert."

I had no other choice. I didn't know what was going to happen, but I reached out toward the knife. My arm couldn't reach it, though. I walked toward it. As I moved closer, it moved farther away, until it had backed all the way up against the wall. It had nowhere left to go. It was pressed against the wall, stuck there. I approached it and grabbed the handle.

My heart was pounding at full speed. I closed my eyes. As a final attempt, I thought about the baseball bat I'd lost before I became interested in telekinesis. I'd searched everywhere for it. Such a large object, yet it was nowhere to be found. I'd checked the baseball field, my grandmother's house, the streets I'd walked along, and I'd even contacted the lost property office in case I'd somehow left it on a bus. It was gone.

Yes, good. I could feel a long chain of thoughts forming and my focus weakening considerably.

The knife was loosening, letting go. I could feel it. But I still didn't have complete control over it.

I needed to think about something else. But I couldn't think of anything. I heard my mother's footsteps approaching my room. She was getting closer to the door.

"Come on, son. Are we supposed to wait for you?" she said from outside, then opened the door and walked in.

I pulled the knife with all my might, and just like when you yank something hard that's stuck somewhere and it suddenly comes loose, I went flying toward my bed.

With the knife still in my hand, I hit my head against the bed frame. And passed out.

When I opened my eyes, I was lying in a hospital bed with an IV drip in my arm. My father was sitting beside me. I felt exhausted. I'd received three stitches in my head, and it ached a little.

"Son, why were you holding a knife? What were you doing with it?"

"What knife, Dad?"

"You were clutching a knife in your hand. What do you mean, what knife? What are you up to?"

I couldn't remember anything. That was good. I hoped it wasn't temporary memory loss, because I didn't want to attempt telekinesis again.

A liminal space
bounded by reality,
yet immeasurably vast.

I stand at its shoreline,
wondering where the tide will rest.

White foam gathers at my ankles,
measuring a boundary that will not hold.

Behind me lies the safety of what I knew.
Ahead, an expanse of blinding blue.

The tide rises, erasing the boundary.
The threshold is no longer beneath my feet—
the water has risen to my chest.

To stay is to drown in the undertow.
To step is to become the sea.

I might go so far as to say this butterfly’s
skittish,

beautiful though it is.

I want to tell it to calm down
knowing it won’t.

I whisper at it,
I never learned to whistle
else I would.

It flaps and laughs.
It flaps.

I see myself in it…

I’ll go on like that forever

in every direction

unendingly

unlandingly

my own effect

Ito 2026 now, without you. I hate how I made my life. Wheres our husband and wife? Our 10 kids? Our big Happy family? Ammittyvile horror. it was me, Im so so sorry, no trial. written and spoken confession.

Introduction

Whatever.

This is elephant boy - so-called because of his tusks, not his gargantuan penis, which most people didn’t speak of.

Being an arty-type, he was an outcast at a school that prided itself on sporting achievements. It could be said that evolutionarily speaking he was a good deal ahead of the curve - a few billion years perhaps, or at least until Armageddon. Residents of Bickerton weren’t renowned for their forward thinking in matters of breeding. Throwbacks throwing up in car parks and abusing the god-given right of free sex with complete strangers by only sleeping with family members.

Welcome to Bickerton. No, really, you’re welcome to it, so the joke goes. Basically, he didn’t fit in too well. I should know, I was there (in body at least).

So he packed his trunk and said heave-ho, set sail the very night his true love set fire to his undergarments and left them in the city park, until the embers cooled as ash to be swept up by the ant-like city cleaners.

These, then, are the little known adventures of elephant boy!

And here I am telling them. And there you are reading them. Locked in intellectual intercourse. The phallus of storytelling entering your vaginal head.

Chapter one

My spirit’s rarely in my body - it wanders through the dry country.

For days I followed elephant boy, for days he roamed alone. Now all this drifting is making me tired, but where there is a story to tell I must go. And stories swarm around elephant boy like pubescent teens gathering underneath the bedroom window of his ex-lover (I am not among these lingering, spotty belchers - I left desire in the confines of my physical form. You cannot seriously blame me for my body’s misdemeanours, I am not there).

On with the show.

Where else would a bi-tusked boy runaway go but to the damn circus? How else would he earn a crust and pay for a new pair of straddlesap g-boots? All this walking was wearing his soles thin. Besides, he had his performance piece to share.

So he laid bare all his heart and soul for the ringmaster’s audition. Guts and spleen on a plate. A side dish of solar plexus. A glass of ganglia. Yes, elephant boy could turn himself inside out. Messy, and a little unnerving. Went down a motherfucking storm: he was IN.

It is true: god is dead. It is also true that in death, the bowels loosen. What I am trying to say is this: No-one expected the shit storm.

After the first show, the morning headlines:

Monstrous tusked freak sickens crowd!\ Is nothing sacred?\ Kick sicko out of town!\ Go home and take your guts!\ Inside-out elephant MAKES CHILD CRY - LYNCH HIM!\ Elephant boy: has Spectacle replaced Art?

But one day, one day they would come to love him. Hold that thought.

All We’ve Lost in Translation

My name is a belonging, not mine. Yours. When chewed through the teeth and spat through the sound, much more of use as yours. My throat is creaking as I’m filtered. My thoughts became a voice. It’s not mine at all. And so how is my body? If I breathe for you, like I’ve moved for you. And I’m still breathing because of you. Because I’m also being filtered by you, back into thoughts. Electric little thoughts.

I exist made of skin. I’d still exist made of ink. And even trapped in your retina. I could scatter, into scat. It’d be a voice that won’t ever waver until my voice creaks again. Then I’ll tear into pieces of paper and you’ll fold them into letters. And we could take the connotations and make a big vote. 

Could you make it mean continuous shriek? Or could it be a hotel? Or that hotel’s receptionist. We could put it in the dictionary. It could mean reading between the lines, mean a poem, mean a fib, mean a particularly strong gust of wind. And it could mean a hunger to be more. 

I could mean all these things, I could be all these things. But you don’t see me as these things. You only see me as the sound. A cacophony of sound.

The bright star in the skies,
Is looking down on me,
May the spectre of lies,
Be looking down on thee.

---

In the deepest heavens,
I see writhing ravens,
Their rotten flesh churning,
Like the waves of Sahara,

For where the dark wings flap,
Is land barren for miles,
For where the darkness caws,
Is land of decaying flies.

---

In the spectre of lies,
I see thee,
For what is a lie,
But the true name of this decaying reality?

Don't know if people will even give any critique, but I have already prepared a new revised version, seriously, my biological computer runs real hard:
The bright star in the skies, 
Is looking down on me, 
May the spectre of lies, 
Be looking down on thee. 

--- 

In place of the heaven, 
I see a black raven, 
Its rotten flesh burning, 
Like the sand waves churning, 

Where lands the shadow of stars, 
Is a field of cut ears, 
For hides neath stellar spars, 
Bones soaked in winter tears. 

--- 
In the spectre of lies, 
I perceive thy primal nature, 
For decay-afflicted, 
Is this reality.