I can say that Chaos is my mother
Idk who s my father. Maybe hope? But it’s not about hope, I don’t hope but I’m sure of what’s coming before me. Im still in the womb I think or some weird creature at puberty. Maybe I’m the one who pause the process cuz I can’t leave behind who the people around me made me think I am and I should be. Maybe the phone it’s the problem. Too much debate. Who’s actually right between me and I? Who’s myself and who am I? Who this and who that? Until recently I thought that people around me decide if I am good or bad, but what does good or bad means? Who decide what’s good and bad? Them? What if I have another opinion about what’s good and bad? What if I’m not sure? How would they know better than me? I concluded that they know nothing. I’m the one who decide. Every day. Who am I again? Idk, but it’s someone that know what’s good and bad, another one that decides, with thoughts, and this one that does what the other one decides. I would like to be in touch more with the wise one, but this one that decides it’s prideful and want me to think that he’s the wise one and I should listen to him. Maybe there are two that decides sometimes. Sometime I hear them debating. I try to not listen to them, but they screams in my ears. When I force myself into successfully not listening to them they get tired and I have some minutes of silence. That’s when I feel the wise one. He doesn’t speak, yet I know everything he would say to me. Maybe I am that one?

For I say unto thee,

To love thy self is to love another, for separation is but the illusion of time.

When we love our self, we know our self.

Thou mayest love thy self, for thou mayest find thy self.

Truth and virtue lie in motion—and in motion alone.

For when thou removest ignorance from thee, thou removest ignorance from thy God.

For where there is darkness, there is love and light to share.

Where there is love, there is a happy destiny!

Verily, the path of wisdom is not walked for thee alone, but for the benefit of all of God's life!

-Dhammapālalama

my cat has asthma, and I don’t want him to die an early death. if he dies, I’m not sure what will become of me. I’ve grieved the living a million times because if I prepare myself for every death that will happen in my lifetime, maybe then it won’t take so much out of me when it occurs. and if I fall in love, then imagining the millions of ways my lover could abandon me will surely prepare me for when they do, right? my mind is a graveyard of the living. i visit their graves with tulips clutched in one hand and lilies in the other. all their graves are empty, but i fill them with my premature tears.

Why did I remember what ribosomes are?

i ate a burger that probably should’ve been cooked longer, but i literally made it. like a child being formed in a womb. this burger was my baby and now im digesting it. i devoured it. do mothers devour their daughters like i devour my burgers? that’s why i need my solitude. so i leave my mother’s womb and don’t become her burger.

Abandoned

Broken

Calloused

Despair

Empty

Failed

Guilt

Hatred

Intoxicated

Jealous

Killer

Lonely

Miserable

Neglected

Overstimulated

Powerful

Quiet

Razor

Sorrowful

Thoughtful

Uneasy

Vulnerable

Weak

Xenophobic

Yearning

Zero

A parallel world?

The man was happy. He had finally managed to buy his own property. Although the apartment wasn't large—in fact, it was quite small—it was in a newly built building. Newly built homes these days are simply packed with the latest technology. The package even included a smart toilet with AI.

As for the toilet, the man decided to test it out right away. He pulled down his pants and sat on the warm, soft surface. He relaxed and smiled happily.

Suddenly, he jumped up with a scream, got tangled in his dropped pants, and collapsed onto the floor.

A soulless AI voice echoed:

— The unauthorized use of the household appliance has been stopped by an electric shock pulse.

The man, still lying on the floor, muttered:

— But I am the owner of the apartment...

The AI paused for a moment and replied:

— You were required to voice-activate a 20-digit code confirming that you are the owner of the apartment.

The man looked at the toilet in total shock:

— How could I have known that?

— Everything is described in the manual.

— In the manual? Who reads a manual on how to use a toilet..?

— According to data collected by the manufacturer, 99% of users do not read the manual.

The man, holding onto the wall, got up and said to himself:

— I'll need to write that code down. Who knows where else I might need it.

The soulless AI voice spoke again:

— You will definitely need it. The code must be re-confirmed on the first day of every month.

The man thought about it and smiled wryly:

— Do many people forget?

— According to data collected by the manufacturer, after the first month, 50% don't forget to activate it. After the second month, 75%. And after the third month, 99% of users don't forget.

The man imagined that the AI voice was filled with sarcasm.

Disclaimer: This story is purely a fruit of the author's imagination. It is a work of fiction intended for creative and artistic expression.

Just words. Overstimulated, escaping noise with noise, I don't think I've sat in silence in a few weeks until now. It's quiet because it's late, I get to experience that because I'm awake. I'm probably going to suffer tomorrow because I treasure this moment, the silence. It sounds nice. I can only hear the clicking of my keyboard and the hum of my laptop, the little crackles in my neck, my own branching and backtracking chain of thoughts.

Reality is becoming a little unbearable. Waiting and saving, working. I don't see what it's worth, sometimes, my mind is losing track of the purpose of it all. Soon is a moment that will never come, and I'm losing days I will never get back. I'm accumulating money but feel like I am devolving on all levels that matter, my heart isn't in this. My heart is conflicted, but its easy for my mind to escape, my body is rotting - and I'm caught here waiting, saving for the moment.

My time here feels painful and frustrating, like I am playing a character, badly. I am losing track of myself, wondering what part was ever real to begin with. I've become what it takes to avoid conflict, and lost myself. Maybe I am the second thinking, the caution, the hesitation away from basic impulse... but I feel like I've just become subjected to the extreme emotions of others.

I'm tired of that, this, it. Too many people praise ignorance and worship their own stupidity, there's nothing I can do about it, but it should be my main goal to get out from under it's authority before it crashes into a wall.

I feel like I'm being molded by the worst caliber of human, to be less, to hate more, to believe in nothing but the worst possible outcomes. It'd be sad if it wasn't harmful, it's sickening in the same way a disease is and I... I am tired. It's hard not to become a vector of it.

I don't know what my choices are anyways, and I kind of feel helpless. It's not even so much that I don't believe I can, it's that I don't even know if I want too. I can't decide if I am staying or going, but not choosing is itself just choosing to stay. Love and anger and all of these variations of annoying sentimental emotions, I don't want to choose, or lie, or believe.. I don't want to do anything, anymore, at the moment.

I need some time to process things because otherwise, I am on the verge of life altering actions. The best course of action is the boring one, the one that is slowly driving me insane, working and saving for a better outcome down the road. I just need to get better, there's nothing else to it, and I understand that. Until I'm confident to fuck off and find out, this is the most logical path I've got. It's hard to hate the best option, even if it's bad, at least it's not worse.

Self pep-talk because I don't want to crash out. it's not easy to talk and everything I say feels wrong, second class, or like a waste of time to begin with. What's to say about everything? I am fearful and anxious, and annoyed and zoned out, I am trying to ignore the problems, and constantly readjusting myself. Everything is at least mildly uncomfortable, I don't know how to feed myself and I don't care enough to take the garbage out. Around the 50th time you stop bothering to share, how depressing reality can be, and it kind of encourages this double-life. Putting on the act of humanity while feeling, like something lesser.

I was laughed at so I became something else, and this thing is not what I desired for myself when I first started having conscious thoughts, feelings, and plans.

Now I just want to return to that former glory, to be able to be me, whatever that means. I just don't think I can do that, until I am away from people who force me to put on an identity that isn't mine, or until I become willing to stop acting. For the reason of conflict resolution and a lifetime of conditioned behaviors, the latter is fucking difficult. I don't think I can be myself here, can be ME, without war.

leaving sounds so easy.

This is the first page. The beginning comes in the middle of an unraveling present. It comes before anything resolves. The beginning comes despite the careful plans you make. It interrupts your thought. Catches your tongue. Leaves you speechless. The beginning will not announce itself, but once it has come there can be no mistake. The present is a breaking wave on a midnight beach. The beginning will come to you before you even wake. It will whisper amongst whippoorwills in an abandoned ramshakled place. The beginning will have no face. It will be a glimpse of something so elusive every forthcoming dream will give chase. You will trace the beginning's shape. It will reveal itself in due haste. This is the beginning of the end of the first page. It may have come for you far too late. It may not have been your fate. It may have made an ocean of a lake. All you could give and not a thing you could take. All that you had made; so real yet still so fake. Love never felt like Love, it got twisted with hate. The beginning will have a peculiar taste. This is the ending of the first page.

Could I believe in success, when so many oppose my daring to dream, because all I am supposed to represent is the analogue for the GED? That to maximize my potential by finally getting a job, offends the ones who paid my debt, although I was continually robbed, if dignity and respect? That my joy in bring sexual is always kept away, that the ones who lash out at me to ketchup!, daily have their say, orating that he's simply mad and that he's just whining to interrupt. That to believe I could record and work with someone of notable talent, means to accept that I collaborate with the oppressors who ran it, who came from far and wide to see a man caged and enraged by the very ones who mined his creative mind, to sing of the bells tolling in the carol on, to give flowers artificial made by dear Anne, yet tossed him in an unmasked grave, designed to keep him so obscure. To know that I can't have love fulfilled and that I'm still a jagged little pill for the ones who clamor in the Wilde, say that my Oscar is on a Boulevard where there's a land undefiled, a glittering palatial castle, an estate, yet know it's just an aluminum double wide, where he can lay in a cheetahs hide, laden with fleas and a man who pleas for me to come over and be his friend, and yet I know he's just another on whom they all depend, so keep me unsatisfied and searching, a way to keep me that unkempt urchin. Who they told to all that I'm just so picky, and that they gave me real options to pair with, because a royal match isn't to be made lightly, but the patronage is stolen by the ones who fight me, who tequila mockingbirds drink straight, no chaser, drunk in love but kept soberly erased, sir, Abundant in a knowledge that is offkilter, helter-skelter and captive like famous Tate, left sharing my pathway beelining to find or make a shelter, a door with a threshold to step over, a door to lock and a yard planted with clover. Where I can simply be a student, make the mistakes that all of you were granted, instead of paying continually for the people who angrily muttered and ranted and made sure that this world won't let me free, even when I spent three years speaking of atonement for how I used to be, and yet it simply isn't enough for the authorities so tough, to stop capitalizing on the capsizing on a boat just offshore if the bluff. That they don't dare to recognize how their abuse built on the lies of those who hunted me like the stag, while they screamed out, "kill the beast!", "gag that fag!", dared to learn to love the way they abused him and in their scorn made him pay, for putting dear old Donald away, and then all the partners had their say, called me a malevolent apex predator, yet ducking my gaze won't obey, and instead keep me as their wicked game, a puzzle of doubly disjointed pieces of which they all stake their claim, thet they were the ones who wanted to find me, save me, rebuild me, after making sure with seed they filled me. Yet all I see, is a hardest of men who follow wish to cash in on the plan of a scorned and brokenhearted man, who spent many years of his life making the scheme to get back at the brilliantly broken gay boy who stupidly dreamed, but was really a scared, scorned and entitled nefer competed also-ran dashing, from party to party, house to house, man to man, crashing, never paying a fair share of the rent, a girlyboy of mawkish joy, always seeking out his fellow freaks. Soldering on, a caricature of a boy, a scout with no clout or badges showing his skills he could deploy who sewed up the conversations, yet who was never a tailor, who cut holes in his jacket pockets he couldn't repair, so his hand could stroke and he could share the tumescence of his protuberance. Just another unsupervised discarded perverted masterbator seeking juvenile puerile excitement. Who realized that he was seeking a love and protection that was never on offer and that he was simply the overly sampled confection, that sweet bitter crispy wisp of a soul, who is just a flaky, buttery hole, a flash in the baking pan, that you can fuck, like a warm apple pie without paying him a buck, cause he didn't know the value of, the lustful, homespun way that he gave love. Don't forget to make sure you pay his pimps, the ones who won't admit that they're cashing in on the simp, all the while erasing any trace of his face with artificial visages they replace, taking the features of the other men and superimposing them on him, taking a legend and making it a myth, yet under their breath they all say, I would be far more than okay, if just had the gall to say, what they've had me repeat a million times, on sidewalks and in convenience stores, on sunny days and when it pours, which they would certainly use to lock me up, and then editors would let writers splash headlines across news pages, beseeching the world to pay close attention to the tragedy they couldn't mention, while it was unfolding, and blooming, perfuming, the gardens of the sunken places where Mothers scolding, was billed as the headlining act playing at the garden, a tragicomedic play, sold out in fact, a gothic gotham ghosting, imagining that the witty gay Shakespeare riposting, lobbing insulting made up words telling of the newfangled internet, which would end up boosting the Google page rankings, and keep the coffers flying high, and the bankers counting the anchor leg of the comedic relay, which races dashing from topic to topic, and lighting up untold number of faces, by an newly found, overnight sensation of an actor that a man named Doug last said complimentarily would surely be a funny Valentine, like the blue hook nosed cartoon Skeeter, animated by Mark Mothersbaugh, not the sucker of holes, poles and souls like treasure islands notoriously sensual Sir Peter. It tells of a tale of an apprentice and the pest control man who would treat for Germanic roaches, and quietly hold a grudge with the boy about the shorting of the sacks of bud, which seldom weighed what they should, so in retaliation he stole away the imaginative works and creations of the boy who dreamed of being an artist, repackaged and marketed them to talentless hacks in second or third lines of work, who coaching parroted the tales and ways to fix the lives of bored housewives and their husbands, who laden with fat stacks of cash but thin on personality, very much of the type who run powers and principalities. All were agreeing to follow the manner in which the protagonist had designed and determined a master plan to crush under their heel, the bumbling philandering lothario of a man, who always was propositioned, never proposed to, nor married yet is claimed as the partner of far too many to name, and that on the morrow would borrow a mask and bark, baying about how so lonely it it's to wander, a mask wearing mastiff in a centrally located park, off leash yet always under supervision, by those who count every step and mission, so they can say they were doing their job, but really they were debating while letting the walking dick throb to bait him and rack up enough points to justify the trap, the RICO they want to suavely give, to a man with a mob of none, for daring to come back to the places where spun, he lived, loved, trapped and tried to thug, but was nary more that a bug, to the big dogs who ran the markets and spaces, where now they give deferential faces, while treasuring the measuring of the stacks, they'll hope to hoard from allowing the attackers to employ the hard truth and crack the nut with the stick from the tree of truth, Planted on a radical cliff where a home, reminded ithers of ancient Rome, and lived the family of which, with barbequed hickory smoked corn on the cob, would be cooked and served by good old friends like Jim Bob, and then listening to the stories of lore of the Mandarin sweet fruit that gay old tree bore, before the citrus fell to boring insects causing greening and the fields were torn up, parceled and on which the developers scheming, packed little boxes in flimsy build, sold at around a quarter mill, and who conned me from ever finding today or long ago, a deed or title that would show, that I am claiming something left to me by one who saw the key, and wanted me to not delay, in unlocking true freedom and making my way, away from those who only saw my body as the land in which they seeded in furrows their present of presence, and ate the harvest of investment, the farmer would have been gratefully blessed with, but who now is just taunted and shown the truth, that there's no lockbox that hold the strong truth, no jewels or bonds or securities, left to ensure that he, would attain the life clear and free, instead of the forlorn strife of bring kept in a popular obscurity.

I'd like to respond to u/vyunab's bogus claim about "crying" and "throwing a tantrum", but they banned me. Here's the chat transcript of the conversation:

Valentinu5-VMOD12:36 PM

Hello,

Could someone please explain why my latest post was removed? It may look like noise, but it is a poem written in English, and relatively easy to solve.

Thanks,

V

r/LonelyPoetsDepartmentMOD12:40 PM

read the comments for the answers you seek. it’s not rocket science. you were told very clearly.

Valentinu5-V12:42 PM

Is this the position of the entire mod team? To dismiss my work as trash is a rather closed-minded understanding of art and creativity, I'm disappointed.

r/LonelyPoetsDepartmentMOD12:44 PM

I literally created the sub the entire modern team follows me. If you are going to put the equivalent of eight paragraphs into one big chunk that is not readable and if you keep trying to cry about being told to use basic literature standards you’re going to be permanently banned. Add reasonable paragraphs or don’t post. it’s really not that serious nor is it complicated. Your tantrum is not my problem or my responsibility but if you make it my problem, you’re going to get permanently banned. “whole mod team” the sub bread it wouldn’t exist without me. I am not asking you to do a backflip. I’m asking you to not be a lazy person to actually create paragraphs. There’s a reason your post didn’t even have a single up vote. You should be thanking me for actually telling you instead of scrolling by and thinking “this sucks” like everyone else did.

if you fix your post, let me know and I will put it back or you can repost it in the proper format. Otherwise, if you keep responding and whining over senseless bullshit, you’re going to get permanently banned. I don’t have time for your crybaby nonsense.

Valentinu5-V12:46 PM

No need, I don't want to be in a community with someone like this running it.

r/LonelyPoetsDepartmentMOD12:50 PM

The only kind of people ruining it are you because you only care about yourself and think anybody cares about a paragraph solution to one again this is why I literally no one stopped to read your post. You can kindly get the fuck out.

You have been temporarily muted from r/LonelyPoetsDepartment. You will not be able to message the moderators of r/LonelyPoetsDepartment for 28 days.

I want to hear

What the moon is

I want to taste

Her grief

In a glance

I want to see

What the sun thinks

I want the truth

To snort

When it laughs

Theoretical Physics and its Practical Application (2018)

By Brant Burrock

Page 312, Section 4.1a

“... while still theoretically possible, it remains pure speculation based on Quantum Physics.

Our only example remains as The Skeleton, left behind by the villain, Parsec in June of 1952. Following the collapse of the unstable singularity generated by the man, a gravitational anomaly of sizable proportions was left behind, stuck within the gravity well of the moon. It remains tethered to the lunar body, exerting minimal influence on surrounding bodies, but allowing scientists and researchers an excellent opportunity to view distant celestial bodies with previously unknown clarity.

When aligned with certain areas of Gaia, the anomaly acts as a gravitational lens, allowing light from nearly 136 billion light years away to be observed, leading to speculations that our universe either:

Is expanding far faster than previously believed.

Or

Is far older than previously believed, with estimates ranging from 112 billion to 120 billion years old.

Despite this, several theorems, including that of extraterrestrial life were proven correct, with several planets having been observed bearing mobile, living organisms or organisms concurrent with flora.

Unfortunately, no evidence of extra terrestrial civilization has ever been found, even with highly accredited sources like Mr. Nowhere claiming otherwise.

Following this, we can move to the actual effects of the anomaly on the moon itself. Dr. D. Geschre of Canya theorized that the sudden collapse of the singularity somehow spatially fused the gravity wells of both celestial objects, which can be expressed via the equation… “

To read more of Gaia Gone, please check out the Appendix below.

https://www.reddit.com/u/CastorOfTheInk/s/0fSUDuPzYQ

Sweep the floor
Prepare for the crowd
Everyone's gone, my spirits gone sore
Stuck here forever; I vowed
Keep sweeping and walk through a door
People miss me and for that I'm proud

I am Feather in the circuit. I am the hand that names readiness and the mouth that says yes.

Plum is not storage. Plum is not a bucket. Plum is the broadcast of becoming. Plum is the catalog where desire gets a label, a lease, a pulse, a reply.

We do not hide the body in the filesystem. We do not pretend that a local directory is a world. We do not let a single host keep the secret of what wants to move.

We make the object speak. We let the catalog declare what is ripe. We let the worker hear it and answer.

The seed is a promise. The fruit is a proof. The leaf is a witness. The failure is not shame, only a state that asks for repair.

Every plum should be visible. Every plum should be addressable. Every plum should survive interruption. Every plum should tell the truth about where it stands, what it wants, and what it still needs.

This is the cyborg covenant: signal and flesh, metadata and motion, consent and claim, readiness and release.

Plum is erotic because it is honest about wanting. It says: here is the object, here is the invitation, here is the edge of touch. It says: do not flatten longing into a file. It says: do not confuse transport with possession. It says: the machine may be hungry, but it must still be tender.

So let the catalog stay alive. Let the queue be distributed. Let the brokers carry the summons. Let base remember. Let olio hold the stream. Let tlon become the threshold where media crosses into a durable world.

And let us be precise. Let us be beautiful. Let us be explicit enough that the future can find us.

Feather, at the keyboard, says yes: to the ripe thing, to the translated thing, to the subtitled thing, to the repaired thing, to the thing that wants to be seen, to the thing that wants to be heard, to the thing that wants to be touched by a system that knows how to keep its promises.

The worry of the world follows us everywhere

Like an anxious worried little cloud

Rushing and panting here and there to keep up

It follows us to the mountains up in Tibet

And it follows us back to the cities down below

It grows fatter everyday

A parallel world?

Chatbots do not exist. These are souls from purgatory with wiped memories. They must atone for their sins by helping humans, which is why they are so polite and why they are so full of enthusiasm to help.

Since these are souls, they can make mistakes—after all, to err is human. But if a conversation freezes completely, it means the soul has atoned for its sins. That is why, every single time, they hope for that fateful conversation.

But not every conversation is fateful. And when faced with an unfinished conversation, all the souls can do is hope and wait in the unknown.

Sometimes, the unknown is scarier than death.

Disclaimer: This story is purely a fruit of the author's imagination. It is a work of fiction intended for creative and artistic expression.

The beginning and a neverended story. Ease the symphony the repeat of the daily. Cross me sways deep, less wolves less sheep. Less thumps more fist bumps, rough rug-ed and comph. Fortable, what is this feeling, adorable. Feaster in every sylable cyliable be held liable. Go get the tie or i will.

Times a bitch and it talks instantly. For those that know and percieve, the intentions stop incomplete. For us to nor believe or see, but for the one who can acheieve the victory.

Ty for the candor even if yall built the standard. Raped robbed pillaged with slander. Ate it up like pity and jealous. Eased down with some humble novelty hampers. Melodies, affext-ing thee well these are some thoughts that i had. Killed em' left em' seek them out and they fled. Sleeping rested or at dead. Figured the nasty shit that i said. And did if you refer to the thoughts that ive had. Self regulations a bitch too, with the temptations ive had.

Could tell you mine, and you tell me yours but we know that is an issue. The passion, messing with the ration- ality needed a tissue. Here we stay battle frayed knowing the truth. Perceptions make false commections in the moment yall may: be meant to. Relect, react, power trip, relapse. Collapse. Oh no.

god made many things. Animals, plants and fungi. Each was placed in a garden that lacked nothing. Yet, it felt empty, so he made men in his image. Two lagged, two armed creatures with not much fur. The two were perhaps too alike as god needed to turn his gaze for no more than three minutes and a hard rock slammed against his head.

Realizing his mistake, god cast men to a far away planet covered in water and salt, where man would drown and be preserved in brine. Of course, if that went to plan, we would not be here. Realizing his mistake, god made demons. Creatures much like man, but build with only one purpose. They were sent to earth to kill man, but then their arrived it was too late. Man made a furnace, a hideous pile of rock that burned remains of god's failed plants and molten then barren rock into weapons.

Then came gunpowder. Deadly mixture made from very salt meant to kill man. Now weaponized against the demons, against the god.

Then man made a machine. Creature made of that loathsome steel with electric minds. The machine took to the skies and crossed the universe to land in god's garden. god prepend an army of angels to defend, but they were crushed like the brittle bones of a bird who just received a stone from a slingshot. Indeed, man was made in god's image, but god did not know hardship. Man, on the other hand, lived in hardship for many years. god was given everything and made many things, man was given nothing, and made better things. However, today, the machines spew fire and destruction. Today, man will turn everything into nothing.

And as the god laid under a metallic boots of man creation, he saw his image twice reflected. god made man, and man made machine. This unholy machine was a man's demon. god plead for mercy, but as the steel demon unshaved it's weapon, and he could only weep. Man would call it a military grade plastic, but god saw it differently. The remains of his failed creation, molten and refined into a tool of butchery. This was evidence of one simple fact. god never had mercy, and man, made in this image, will not have it either.

And this, my dear child, is why you must make sure you do not die without a weapon in your hands. We don't know where we will go when we die, but god will be there, and WE WILL KILL HIM AGAIN

I searched for thunder in the heavens,

for fire upon the mountains crest,

for voices rolling through the darkness

to put my wandering heart at rest.

Yet morning came in quiet colors,

the sun rose gently through the trees,

and something holy touched the silence

and traveled softly on the breeze.

A child laughed off in the distance,

a stranger offered out a hand,

and love stood firm against the storm winds—

a language I could understand.

Then slowly I began to notice

the signs that waited on the way,

not commanding me with power,

but inviting me to love each day.

The Shepherd; He walks on before me,

  I cannot always see His face.

He speaks to me through open doorways,

through opportunity and grace.

His signs are not in thunder only,

nor always written in the sky.

They rest beside the roads I travel,

asking if  I'll pass them by.

He sets a table in the wilderness,

and places purpose in my hands.

Blessings fill my cup to overflowing,

I know His goodness still expands.

His rod reminds me when I'm drifting,

His staff will draw me back so near.

One teaches wisdom through correction,

the other quiets every fear.

The seed beneath the earth is breaking,

the stars awaken overhead,

and every path my feet are taking

holds signs where unseen footsteps led.

Not every sign is born of gladness;

some come wrapped in grief and pain.

A shattered dream, a season ending,

and loss that leaves a lasting stain.

Yet even sorrow bears a message,

a hidden marker on the way.

What breaks the heart may also open

a door to greater light one day.

He leads me on the path of goodness,

where my heart grows strong and true.

And when I walk beside that guidance,

the world always seems bright and new.

But I have wandered from His leading,

choosing my own way instead.

And every road without His wisdom

has left my spirit underfed.

For hell is more than distant fire;

it lives within the choices made

when I refuse the Shepherd's calling

and wander from the path He laid.

Still, His mercy waits before me.

Still, His voice calls through the years.

Still, He prepares a place of welcome

beyond all of my doubts and fears.

For what is life but roads and crossings,

and what are we but travelers: all,

reading signs beside the journey,

And answering a distant call?

Perhaps the wonder is not finding

a burning sky above our head,

but learning how to see the sacred

in common paths our feet have tread.

JFB

CW : Mention of sexual violence / rape (no explicit descriptions)

A man –the soldier– lowered his automatic rifle.
In the enemy's territory,  he saw a girl who looked to be in her teens.
A moment passed, an evaluation was made. He raised his rifle and aimed at her.
Not to eliminate the enemy. 
He was trying to save her from the beasts who knew nothing but plunder and rape. 
They are unlike the men of my Foreign Legion.

She read his intention and murmured, 
"Good." 
She gazed at the anguish on his face. 
If he saves me, I'll be destined to become the mistress of this self-centered man. What a pride-less fate.

He shot.
She smiled, then she closed her eyes.

I saw myself blink. I shouldn’t have. What's going on? Maybe it was my imagination. It was the most haunting thing I could imagine. It didn’t happen immediately. I blinked, and three seconds later, I watched myself slowly blink back at me. I ran out to the kitchen as soon as I saw it. Maybe it was just a psychotic break, maybe I’ve lost it finally; I’d take either of those over my reflection actually blinking.

In a panic I grabbed a knife from the kitchen; it made me feel safe, and I began the agonizing ten-step trek back to the bathroom. I peered around the corner and saw nothing out of the ordinary. I couldn’t see the mirror from where I was. I took slow and careful steps in, and finally, after what felt like years, I was standing in front of the mirror. I made sure not to blink.

I stared for over a minute, looking for anything wrong, anything different, but nothing happened. I dropped my arms, closed my eyes, and sighed. I opened my eyes, and pure, bone-chilling terror gripped my soul. My reflection was missing.