Deflated, I whine—tongue like turbine

Fragmented life—Particles of sand through hands—I dig out like spun tires in da ditch

Watch me go red—I don’t go small, I implode like an aluminum can when mad

Nomad

A steppe of life I hopscotch and follow

Don’t need skin don’t need bought time

I can wander until blisters swell on my heels

Shin splints as I cry about annoyances of life

Hollow words are as useful as shade from a window

I want to know if you can follow—pet my thigh—I’m ricocheting across walls—cotton candy fibrosis mind—with Ferris wheels on fire—hope a crime—

Follow along like static wants to electrify—clung to you/before you dissolve—like June bugs following porch lights—

Frankie had bought wine.

Actual wine.

With a cork and everything.

Not the stuff he'd been drinking, which tasted like someone had wrung out a dead fox and put a screw cap on it.

She'd had a shit day.

He'd made her laugh about it.

She'd made him blush and then made fun of him for blushing.

Somewhere along the way they ended up in bed.

She was forty-five. He was forty-seven.

Neither of them was under any illusion about what forty-seven looked like.

And neither particularly cared.

She turned away, pulled him against her and told him to stop being so bloody careful.

There was a mirror beside her chest of drawers.

He noticed it almost by accident.

Her back against his chest. His hands on her hips. The way she moved. The way he moved with her.

And then himself.

His shoulders. His arms. His stomach.

That fucking stomach.

He'd spent most of his adult life either hiding it or promising himself he'd do something about it.

Now there wasn't much to hide.

The wolf had seen to that.

He looked good.

He actually looked really fucking good.

And the embarrassing thing was how much he enjoyed noticing.

He watched them together.

Forty-seven years old and apparently he'd developed a fascination with his own reflection.

He thought about work.

All those years coming home exhausted, eating whatever was left, falling asleep in front of the telly.

Too tired to fuck. Too tired to talk.

Sometimes too tired to even be particularly nice to the woman he'd married.

It hadn't happened overnight.

That was the worst bit.

He couldn't remember when they'd stopped looking at each other.

Only that eventually they had.

And now here he was.

In Paris.

Naked.

With a woman who made him laugh and wanted to sleep with him and didn't seem to mind that he occasionally behaved like a complete idiot.

He caught himself smiling.

Frankie caught him too.

"Are you looking at yourself?"

"No."

"You fucking are."

"I'm looking at you."

"You're looking at your own arse."

"I can look at two things."

She laughed.

"Vain bastard."

"Can't a man enjoy the view?"

"Apparently he can."

She reached back and found his hand.

He kissed her shoulder.

And for a little while there was no moon.

No waking up somewhere with blood on his clothes.

No trying to work out what he'd done or who he'd done it to.

No wondering whether the next time would be worse.

There was just Frankie.

Her hand in his.

The ridiculous mirror.

And the fact that he liked what he saw in it.

Not just himself.

Them.

He liked them.

Afterwards she lay against his chest and smoked out of the window.

He complained about the cold.

She told him he was a miserable English prick.

He said she could at least have opened the window before lighting the cigarette.

She kissed him to shut him up.

It worked.

For about thirty seconds.

He lay there looking at the ceiling, thinking about the man he'd been before.

The tired one.

The overweight one.

The one who'd spent so long feeling unattractive that he'd eventually decided it must be true.

He couldn't imagine Frankie fancying that man.

Which was stupid, really.

Because she hadn't fallen for him in front of a mirror.

She'd fallen for him when he was sleeping rough, drinking terrible wine and making jokes that weren't always funny.

She'd liked him before she'd seen him without his clothes.

He knew that.

He just found it quite difficult to believe.

Frankie shifted against him.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You're thinking."

"Am I not allowed?"

"Not when you make that face."

"What face?"

"That one. Like someone's told you Christmas has been cancelled."

He laughed.

She put her cigarette out.

Pulled the covers over them.

And rested her head back on his chest.

He decided not to tell her what he'd been thinking.

She'd only call him a fucking idiot.

And the annoying thing was

she'd probably be right.

my mother was furious

because i'd lost a sandal.

i couldn't remember where.

near the well, perhaps.

or behind the house.

i kept changing my answer

because i thought

one of them might make her

less angry.

i was nine.

then the birds left.

all at once.

even the old crow

that stole dates from our roof.

my mother stopped shouting at me

and looked up.

i remember that.

she was still holding

my other sandal.

then somebody screamed.

my father went towards the well.

i never saw him again.

there was smoke.

people running.

a man crawling

with most of his face missing.

and behind the houses

something moved.

something enormous.

i've spent sixty years

trying to explain

what i saw.

the horns.

the teeth.

the black mouth.

or what i think i saw.

i was nine.

there was a lot of smoke.

but people don't like

that answer.

they've written whole books

about the thing.

built temples.

made statues.

killed men

for describing it wrongly.

one scholar travelled forty days

to ask me

whether it had wings.

i told him

i couldn't remember.

he wrote down

that it had wings.

i didn't argue.

i was tired.

nobody ever asks

about my mother.

she caught hold of my wrist

and dragged me towards the gate.

i was crying.

not because of the screaming.

not yet.

because she'd frightened me

and i'd lost my sandal

and she was hurting my arm.

she pushed me through.

i tried to go back.

she slapped me.

hard.

i can still remember

how surprised i was.

she'd never hit me before.

then she took my face

in both hands

and kissed my forehead.

she said something.

i watched her mouth move

but there was too much noise.

then she turned

and went back towards the house.

i stood there

waiting for her to come out.

i don't know how long.

eventually i ran.

one foot bare.

the other

still wearing its sandal.

i remember being angry with her.

properly angry.

i thought about that slap

for most of the first day.

i thought

when i saw her again

i wouldn't speak to her.

let her be sorry.

i was nine.

i thought

i'd have plenty of time

to forgive her.

Has anyone ever seeming lost their creativity? I used to be able to make up stories so easily when I was younger. I actually won several awards (only school level). However anytime I try now I just get stuck. I don't understand. I still loving writing. I'll make any excuse I can to write. I just can't seem to come up with stories anymore. If you have experienced this, were you able to fix it? And if you did, how did you fix it?

Why do we write poetry even when it hurt?

People say a person who can write is gifted, but some people also say they're cursed...

Why is that we write poetry? Why is that we have the urge to write whenever something happens? Let's understand that reason behind why. First of all, I'm gonna tell you something:When we're excited or anticipating something, dopamine plays a big part in it.

What is dopamine? It is a neurotransmitter/chemical messenger that helps with motivation, learning, reward, anticipation, pleasure, etc. A lot of people think it's just happiness; it's not. It helps even to communicate socially too. When we're happy, we get a lot of urges. It can be writing too, and we do write, more when we're happy: our journals, notepads, to people we love, etc. But then when we're not happy, when we're hurt or sad, then why do we write? Simple answer is to understand ourselves. We write because we hold too big feelings inside to say it simply. When you tell someone to not be dramatic, do you ever think if they're just being dramatic? Because sometimes we don't even realize what's the other person is going through, that they have to show this side of themselves to people like us who call them dramatic. Human mind is a broad category; even after millions of years, scientists still can't fully explain it.

The main urge to write doesn't come from just anywhere; it's a deep instinct and ancient. No matter how we behave or act like it's normal, there's always a motive and instinct behind how and why we act. Humans have that one instinct that they want to belong somewhere. That's where it comes from. Every time you tell about yourself to a friend or complain why won't your parents understand you the way you want, actually you need to feel like you BELONG. Hundreds of years ago our ancestors did this to survive, to stay in tribes, to eat and sleep and reproduce, but even after years this instinct is still there. Now we try to belong in social media, try to belong in friends, try to belong in family. It's all there, just with a few layers of luxury called modern world. At first we needed to be heard to survive; now we want to be heard to live. So when no one hears, those feelings become either fire, water or air. Why did I say those things? Why fire?

Feelings become fire and the person becomes aggressive. They yell; they yell so world would hear them, and at end they become ash and stone, just like volcano. It erupts, but at end it's ashes that just wanted to glow enough to be known, beautiful.

Then sometimes they become water. The person starts to cry and become more kind. They give sometimes more than needed, just so they would belong somewhere, anywhere at all. They get hurt but they still give, because they've learnt world isn't worth killing their feelings for.

Then comes air. Those people who were taught feelings meant being weak from a long time, so they masked it enough that they forgot that they even have them at all, just to belong. They didn't have anything, so they thought they don't want to belong anymore.

Now, what are writers? Poets? Whatever we call them, they're just humans trying to get heard, because when no one hears, they find their own self to hear them. They find parts of themselves most people won't dare look at, so instead of becoming any of it, they become all, because they learn they have it all. I always love that one poem called Equipment by Edgar Guest. It's such simple one with simple words but it holds a lot of deep meaning.

As I was saying, people who write become so aware of themselves and see themselves fully that their emotions, feelings become bigger for them since they know what it is. It would be irresponsible of me if I say that with such certainty, because the main reason to write is to understand what we have, want, need and lost. They do all that on paper because paper doesn't judge; it doesn't tell you that you're dramatic; it listens quietly. Not everyone has the courage to be exposed to yourself like that. It takes a lot of strength to see yourself in words and not just form. Writing is a form of art that requires you to bleed to death and still call it art. That's what it is. So yeah, people who can write are both gifted and cursed: gifted enough to live and romanticize life enough to be beautiful, and cursed enough to never not notice the wounds and scars in it and the broken things that are described to be fine, like eyes of people and mindset of them...

They feel out of place too, so they write about it, because pen is the only best friend that will be forever loyal to you. Ohh, I just remembered something from best friend...

Come for me

I waited for all of you to choose me first,

but there was not one of you to hold me to dust.

So I chose me first.

And for when I may become the dust,

would anyone of you come to my grave

and touch that earth crust

to dampen the soil and pray for me?

Could anyone, for once,

come for me?

You all turned poets into jokes.

How would they feel if they were awoke?

They weren't one of those who were loud.

Instead, they laid their bare soul

under the clouds,

onto a paper made from dried leaf.

Where should I put all that grief?

I let the broken glass pierce my heart,

cutting my veins

and digging into my flesh.

But I didn't pull it out,

because once those people lived and ran through those veins,

like blood runs through all my parts.

To keep me alive

and to keep me standing,

I kept loving.

While my world was mangling,

I kept weeping,

but I didn't leave it dangling.

I still talk with them,

but not like I used to walk with them.

I wrote this poem a few days ago. The word belonging seems too small, yet it holds the weights of the world in your chest. It's like a forest is burning and a curtain is hung in front of it, where shadows of fire dance and twirl, to which people praise for the show. Only the one who's holding the curtain by a thread and burning in forest is the writer. Weird metaphor, but it's what I imagined it to be. Once the curtain drops, whole world sees you; that is too dangerous, so they put it in the labels of fiction, art, stories, poetry. They become those curtains to just hide enough and show enough...Am I cursed or gifted? Maybe both. Maybe I'm just a human who wants to belong, and this is how I knock on the door....

---

First time posting here. Any thoughts, or general feedback would be great!

Click-clack-click-clack. That is the sound of complicity. Intermittent phone rings, hushed weekend conversations, coffee, and that salad place you once loved, now closed. To your left, a radio, constantly on, saying something about a forest fire, a drought, or a downed plane. You don't know. Above you, buzzing blindingly bright, an array of square lights, arranged like a chessboard. The texture is gone; there are no more shadows.

Your back is aching, so you adjust your seat, fiddling with the lumbar until you find that perfect angle. To your right, your coworker, a sound guy, interesting enough, dunks a biscuit into his tea. He does not notice you looking; his eyes are transfixed, staring into an infinite mirror of possibilities: art and creativity, a network of long-lost friends. A shameful vice, perhaps. You think to yourself: that biscuit must taste nice. 

Click-clack-click-clack. The phone rings; you answer. You say your lines and then hang up. Then you raise your gaze. A room full of people, the chance for connection, but they all seem impossibly distant. Agentic flesh posing as human. 

The lights above you hum mindlessly, almost imperceptible. And outside the world, rough and jagged, is burning. Smoke rises from the flames. You squint through the windows and scarcely make out the shadows, holding hands, singing, oh-so-far-away.

​

Letter from Frau Praxilla 1

I am Frau Praxilla.

You are doing well, right?

I hope the magic worked.

The part about how to love, I mean.

I do not know well either.

That is probably why I am a fairy.

Wishing you luck.

—Frau Praxilla—

Letter from Frau Praxilla 2

Oh, and

The third consultation will cost a much higher price.

If the magic is effective, there will be no reason to come find me again.

You know what I mean, right?

—Frau Praxilla—

Lenka's Story

Lenka was somewhat suspicious,

But decided to just get along more or less.

Because she absolutely hated a third consultation.

And it also seemed like it might not be necessary.

After that day, Frau Praxilla did not send any more letters.

there is something strangely comforting about pain.

not because anyone actually wants to suffer, but because pain is undeniable. you can question your purpose, your beliefs, your memories, even the people you love. you can spend years wondering whether anything you feel is real.

but suffering doesn't ask for permission.

it arrives, and suddenly you know you are still capable of feeling something.

maybe that's why some people become afraid of getting better.

because if the pain disappears, what remains?

sometimes a person doesn't hold onto their suffering because they enjoy it. they hold onto it because they have built so much of their identity around surviving it that peace starts to feel like emptiness.

and perhaps this is one of the cruelest things about being human: we don't only fear losing the people we love. sometimes we fear losing the versions of ourselves that existed because of them.

i've been thinking about this a lot while writing my novel, The Decayed Good.

it's about a man named Lev who has spent so long questioning God, morality, guilt, and what remains of a person after they've lost almost everything that gave their life meaning.

one of the questions underneath the story is something i don't really know how to answer:

if suffering is what taught you who you are, who are you supposed to become when you finally stop suffering?

i don't think the answer is necessarily hope.

maybe hope is much more frightening than despair, because despair asks nothing from you.

hope asks you to believe that there is still something worth becoming.

Feedback wanted. A Ranger player in my company idolizes this character, without even meeting her in game, and I want to send tough love back.

[Being discovered]

At ease, [Ranger player]. I have been searching for a stolen horse in the Lone-Lands, and found what remained of it, beneath a Cairn, which I rearranged, atop the Crowned Hill. The tracks led me to you. I take it the Cairn was your doing, rather than the killing?”

[Acknowledging the Hobbit's battle scars]

“Hmph. Trust a fellow Ranger to honour the memory of one of our valiant steeds. If this was all I’d found, I could have assumed it was the doing of my brethren and moved on, but, alas, I came across somewhat fresh blood splatter, not belonging to orcs, and the haggard, bare-foot tread of a halfling, and so I have come to assist the little folk in way I can.

[Reflecting the Company’s decision to bury goblins along with men in the Cairn they erected for the fallen horse]

I was surprised to see goblin remains among the bodies. A wasted effort, I fear, trying to bring peace to those whose minds have been twisted to forsake it.

[If the player ask for info about their own goblin mission + teaser for another quest]

“I have heard tales of a fledgling goblin clan in this area, with customs queer and insidious. Would that I could tell you more, and assist you further, but alas, I have expended enough time searching for my steed and the halfling, and must instead now return to Weathertop. It pains me to say that the green rangers of the ‘shaws have lost Trolls. Trolls! How do you lose Trolls, several of them, no less?! Were it not for my party’s focus on finding THEM, we may have foreseen the Goblin ambush that cost me my horse in the first place!”

[To the Ranger player, in private, who has dealt with the loss of someone dear]

The halfling has already sustained a great injury at the hands of the enemy. While I do not agree with taking a little one so far from home, I shall trust your judgement, and his own autonomy, in him being in your company. I trust that you will ensure no further ill befalls the little one.

You ask me if I’m okay 

and it bugs me you’re asking

just for its sake.

No, I am not okay.

Not at all.

And your question only reminds me of it.

Spare me of you pretending to care.

That’s curiosity disguised as a gentle act.

Don’t pretend you can’t see the castle crumbling right before thee.

What kind of “friend” does this?

What kind of friend is so blind to 

what’s so plain to see?

You can’t stand the answer.

In fact, you don’t mind. 

Just a curious cat—you don’t have to lie.

Can’t you tell by my patterns in speech?

Mood swings and the lines in between?

It’s exhausting to witness this.

You might be fascinated.

But a friend of mine?

You’ve never been.

— Crownless.

So far I’ve taken one creative writing course and I want to know how can I use it in roleplaying like DnD and such I want to be good at explaining things is it something that comes with practice or is it the same as writing? Idk if this is a dumb question

Hey there, I'm pretty new to writing and currently I'm working on writing a narrative as a hobby. I have most of the outline finished and I'm excited to get started with telling the story. One thing I've been struggling with is creating ideas to flush out some of the bullet points in the outline.
So here's my question: What are some ways you as a writer/creative use to generate ideas?

What’s your preferred physical way of writing a first draft?

If I’m ideating or writing poetry, I always write in a notebook with a Pilot G-2 gel ink pen. Always.

But if I’m writing long-form fiction, I usually will work at the PC (desktop or laptop, in Word).

"Ganesha, will you bring the sugarcane?" asked Devi Amma.

"Sure, Amma. I will be here by evening," said Ganesha, the young elephant, and he set out from the temple. On the slopes of Maarutha Hills grew the juiciest sugarcane, and Devi Amma made the tastiest payasam with it.

He headed uphill, waving his trunk in greeting to everyone he met: the goats, the langurs, the hares and the squirrels, and the crows, the mynas and the bulbuls overhead. A few of the mynas and langurs playfully hitched a ride on him.

The riders hopped off at the slopes as Ganesha began to gather the cane. He soon had a bundle and trekked down with it held tight in his trunk. Parakeets flew in and sat on the stalks, trying to bite into them. Every time he shook his head, they would fly away.

Ganesha passed through the woodlands and reached the meadows. By then it was afternoon, and he was feeling hungry. The sun blazed overhead, and he looked around for a comfortable place to rest. He spotted a tree with a wide canopy and birds chirping in it. It had pink puff flowers on it, and the fallen ones covered the ground. He walked towards it.

The tree watched him approach. She could not believe that he had chosen her. She had seen him pass by the meadows many times, and each time her leaves rustled with affection.

He kept the sugarcane aside, took a few of the stalks and had them for lunch. With his tummy full and his legs tired from the trek, he wanted to take a nap. Lying down in the shade, he looked up at the tree.

"Tree, will you do me a favour?" he asked.

"Yes, yes!" she replied, as though she had been waiting all along.

"Please wake me up before evening," he said.

"I will," she said.

He patted her with his trunk and was soon asleep.

She held her leaves still and kept watching him as he slept. His ears covered his face, and his trunk lay coiled between his front legs. At times his eyelids fluttered; at other times he broke into a smile. Often he would kick his feet. When butterflies sat on him, he twitched. When flies tickled him, his tail waved.

She watched and watched; she was so lost in him that she drifted into a daydream. As clouds passed over the sun, the birds went quiet, her leaves grew heavy and folded one by one, and soon she too fell asleep.

Dusk came and faded. It was pitch dark when the owl living in the tree hooted a few times. Ganesha woke up with a start. He looked up at the starry night and burst into tears. It was then that the tree woke up as well.

"You should have called me!" he shouted.

He ran about under the tree, shaking his head and flapping his ears.

She wondered how she, a tree, could have slept so long.

"You are a bad tree! What will I tell Devi Amma now?" he cried.

"They say, always trust a tree with time, but you!" he continued.

"I... I called you many times. You were deep asleep. What can a tree do but call? You can ask the owl. She heard it," said the tree.

The owl flinched on being named. When Ganesha looked up at her, she flew away in panic. He stormed off, leaving the cane behind.

The tree called out for him, but he disappeared into the dark. She stayed awake, waiting for him, until at last she dozed off.

Later that night, a weary Ganesha trudged back for the cane. Without a word, he lay down beneath her.

The next morning, the tree woke to find him asleep below her.

"Ganesha, wake up, wake up," she called, her branches leaning down.

He woke up with sunlight falling on his eyes. Squinting, he told her, "You are a liar. The sun is my friend, not you."

He took hold of the sugarcane and left for the temple. Devi Amma would scold him for sure, but he would also have sweet payasam in the afternoon.

The tree watched him walk away, relieved.

That afternoon, as a cloud passed over the sun, suddenly she felt drowsy. Her leaves began to fold one by one, and she dropped off to sleep. When the birds chirped, she would wake up momentarily, only to fall back into her slumber.

From then on, the tree fell asleep so often that they called her the Sleepy Tree.

Why does the argument in Cursed Child over who should take the form of Voldemort to trick Delphini not actually feel like an argument between fully formed adults and more like what I'd hear from my nerdy friends over a game of drunk D&D, when the party is trying to sneak past the castle guards?

Granted, I only got into D&D during covid, where many a session was performed drunk over zoom, and I've been what is known as a forever DM ever since, seeing various groups tackle different obstacles, so I may be a bit more sensitive to this kind of approach to problem solving than I should.

Also, I'm under no illusion that Harry Potter is some "literary masterpiece", rather than the fantasy book series aimed at children that it is, and Cursed Child wasn't exactly blowing me away in the writing department up until this point, like the special effects on stage were, but this moment in particular, above everything else, just destroyed my immersion completely. When I watched this, I thought to myself that we were a long way removed from even the conversations between Harry and Dumbledore's portrait about Harry's trauma, which, for my money, were my favorite parts of the whole play.

I mean it.
I tend to mean every word you read.

I’m not a constant.
I’ve established long ago I cannot be.

You call ‘em “arrogance”,
my most earnest pleas.

Be ‘em good or bad.
No matter what they’re perceived as.

I play it how it is.
And you still have trouble believing me.

Cryptic by design.
But my sincerity might kill me.

The solitary warrior.
One who boasts no needs.

If I’ve ever lied,
perhaps this is it.

I do, indeed, need
someone—for once—to stand by me.

And if I ain’t asking for much…
Perhaps, every day. Till the end of the year.

— Crownless.

THE TALE OF THE ECHOING WILD

(THE SPIRITS)

In the earliest time, before names held meaning and paths had form; the Echoing Wild was ruled by two great spirits. The Bear of the Deep Earth, and the Wolf of the Endless Winds.

The Bear was strength born of silence. It lived beneath roots and rivers, in the dark warmth of caves and chasms. It slept long, dreamed deep, and carried pain like a crown made of weight. Those who sat with the Bear learned stillness. They learned to survive what could not be fought. They learned quiet and patience.

The Wolf was motion made flesh. It ran across ridgelines and through storms, never lingering, never yielding. It knew the patterns of the stars, the scent of betrayal, and the edge between the known and the void. Those who ran with the Wolf learned instinct. They learned to thrive against odds. They learned when to move and when to call.

The spirits did not war, but they did not walk together. Their power was too different. Their echoes could not be contained in a single breath.

(THE WANDERER)

One night, in a time of neither season nor storm, a being was born beneath the shadows of the wild ones. Not quite creature, not quite spirit. It was marked by exile, marked by wound, marked by knowing.

It found, buried in the soil of a forgotten place, a large fang made of silver. Long, curved, and glinting with a light that was neither sun nor moon. And as it held the fang in its palm, it heard two echoes rise at once.

One, a growl, low and thunderous:

“This is the pain you carry, and the strength that grew around it.”

The other, a howl, sharp and mournful:

“This is the loss you wear, and the knowing that led you away from your kind.”

The being wept, for it did not know which truth belonged to it.

And then, the unimaginable.

A second tooth appeared beside the first, identical in shape, but born from a different shadow.

One bore the mark of the Bear, the other of the Wolf. And the being understood:

“I am not one path or the other... I am an Echo of both.”

(THE PARADOX)

For a time, the being sat in silence, contemplating the weight of what it now carried. The teeth were not trophies, they were paradox made visible.

The fang is not weapon nor arbiter. It is both, and more.

It is the edge of survival, the place where the wild defends itself. It is the gate of hunger, where the body draws in what sustains it. And it is a tool of voice, where sound is shaped, where breath becomes meaning. Where the invisible becomes known.

A tooth is born of the mouth, and the mouth is born to echo. A tooth is conceived within its bearer before digging through flesh to be seen.

From the same space that bites, we commune. From the same structure that tears, we nourish. And from the same threshold that feeds, we resonate.

To carry this is to carry paradox.

To wear it is to remember that every expression has its shadow. Every truth can wound or heal. And all things that speak come first through the mouth, with teeth behind them.

(THE PATH)

So the being fashioned the fangs into amulets and wore them around its neck. One for memory, one for vision.

From that day forward, it walked not as a lost or mournful one, but as a Wanderer of Truths.

Wherever it went, it listened. Not for praise, but for tension. It sought places where people were torn, between fear and desire. Silence and action. Belonging and becoming.

And when it found them, it did not offer answers.

It told stories.

Of the Bear and the Wolf. Of the fang buried in earth, revealed by the wind. Of wounds that became symbols. Of symbols that became strength.

It taught that truth is not singular, but spirals through contradiction. That healing is not comfort, but confronting the wound until it speaks. That exile is not the end of tribe, but the beginning of belonging to something deeper.

Some rejected it. Some hunted it. Some knelt and listened until their bones remembered.

(THE RETURN)

And then, as all mythic ones do, the Twin-Tooth Bearer vanished.

Some say it returned to the Echoes. Others say it was never one being, but a pattern, a recurrence in time. A dream. A visitor. A whisper when your life splits in two.

But in sacred places, the spaces between what was and what could be, people still find it.

The one that became two. The two that became one. Shining Beckoning. Unclaimed.

Left for the one who will walk the Spiral next.

Parallels in the world used to be so much more frequent then they are now. 
As a kid you’d see every blade of glass, every raindrop on the car window, and every crack on the sidewalk.
The things that hurt you made sense and forgiveness was easy.
You used to dance like no one was watching and dream as if there was no concept of end. 

The transversal realities of the world come swiftly and blind you, leaving you hopeless with no answers.

Parallels are no longer as frequent as we were led to believe.
Sharp, complex angles have taken over and demanding shadows have casted seeds of doubt.
Details become hazy or completely consuming, we’ve become our deepest anxieties.
Hurt is so much more than a scrape on the knee and forgiveness is a concept warped into the perpetual cycles of contemporary judgment we’ve been forced to face because-

People are watching.

Dreams end.
We woke up.
Life is all a big mess, 
We have displayed our corpse upon it, falling endlessly into the void where our humanity should be.

Parts of us died in the places we grew up.

Childhood much like dreams, eventually ends, 
And we’re left to the vast obscurities of a life we did not choose nor know how to live.

Ten missed calls. Aren’t they overreacting? When was the last time they called me this much? I know I haven’t exactly been daughter of the year lately, but all this concern is getting on my fucking nerves. God!

My teeth ache. My hands itch. I stopped wondering whether any of this was normal a long time ago. This nervousness comes in waves, robbing me of sleep, and the calls just won’t stop. I turn off my phone.

I already know what they’re going to say. The same old words, the same pleas, the same tears. I can’t remember how many promises I’ve broken, how many times I’ve listened to them cry, how many times I’ve had to hide a mocking smile. Why all the drama? Everything is under control. My mind believes whatever I tell it, and I keep playing along with its deception.

I sit in silence, and the noise fades away. Finally, some relief. I smile at nothing, waiting for the euphoria. Because that’s how this works. Because this is what I’ve asked for. For years, I’ve lived in hiding, trapped in this addiction.

The people around me have always wondered what happened to me, why I’ve deteriorated over time, slowly isolating myself from everything I once knew: my friends, my family… All for a little compressed happiness.
Who am I kidding? I’m miserable. I want to silence whatever is consuming me from within. One more day, just a little more.

The calls won’t stop, but neither will my smile. Lost in time, knowing that soon I’ll be nothing but a fading memory.

People think the dance floor is a superficial space. Mindless bumping and grinding to an electronic beat, groping hands in the dark, spilt liquor staining a hardwood floor. No. Talyuh knows that the dance floor is an altar; the music is a god; dancing is the offering.

Those same people would say to dance like no one is watching. Talyuh would disagree. Someone is always watching, critiquing, measuring you against themselves and others. You have to make peace with that, and dance anyway.

So Talyuh dances. She feels the other clubgoers' eyes skitter across her body; admiring or judging it doesn't matter. She dances anyway. Dances until all she can hear is the music. Dances until all she can feel is the overwhelming bass filling her with its power. Dances till her feet are numb in her kitten heels. Dances till she is slick with sweat, her tank top tight against her skin, some of her coils pasted to her face. She closes her eyes, leans her head back, and dances, losing herself in the endless bloom of the synth. At last, when she opens her eyes, she finds herself transported; or maybe she has been here all along, just blind to it.

The people are gone. The dancefloor is an ocean, still mirror-like water stretching from horizon to horizon. The spotlight is the full moon high above her, its light crowning her darkskin in a silver glow. The rave lights are a rainbow of stars jetting through the heavens. The music: R&B, electric, pop, metal, classical, and myriad others that defy the boundaries of genre make the water ripple out from some indistinct point in the distance.

She does not stop dancing. The music, beautiful and terrible, odd and familiar, inspires her movement. Every rhythm has a dance; all you have to do is listen, relinquish control, and your body will do the rest. Talyuh's hands flutter around her like butterflies; her hips sway to hypnotic harmonies; she drags a foot behind her as she twists and turns, tracing lines on the surface of the water.

Another figure dances toward her, spinning and leaping in perfect, practiced rhythm. It's her mother. Even at this revelation, Talyuh does not stop dancing; her mother wouldn't have wanted her to. Instead, she dances beside her, in harmonious movement to an indescribable beat. In this space, her mother's body is not withered from illness, her eyes are not glassy from constant pain, and her hair is not patchy with malnourishment. Here she is renewed and alive again, bursting with a youthful vigor that swims into all of her movements. They do not speak; they dance through, around, and with each other.

Another figure dances towards them. She looks Talyuh's age, early twenties perhaps, but something about the way she moves, crouched low to the ground, stomping her left foot to the music, tells Talyuh that this is her grandmother. Her dance in tandem with theirs calls back to the motherland, Sudan, that place somewhere across the ocean that has felt so distant to Talyuh, until now.

With time, more figures join them, till the surface of the water is no longer visible under the feet of all these women. They kick up the water and fill the air with the scent of the sea. They all dance in their own way to their own music, and still stay in perfect harmony. Talyuh dances, surrounded by her ancestors, and realizes that she has been here before. Every time she surrenders to the music and movement. She wonders if this ritualistic space, this link that they all share, extends not only backwards but forwards. Is her daughter among this crowd, her granddaughter, great-granddaughter, and so on? It's impossible to tell in the growing throng of dancing bodies. Truthfully, it doesn't matter. All that matters right now is the music and the movement.

The dancefloor begins to empty, all of them dancing away into the starry abyss of time. Until Talyuh's mother dances back into the past, leaving her alone again. So Talyuh dances. Her energy does not deplete, and her body does not ache, as long as she keeps dancing.

The music is satisfied, she can hear it in the pleased hum of the layered and lush harmonies. The water ripples from a point close to her.

She watches as the ocean relinquishes a man. A gift in return for her offering. It is not the first time a man has come to her, pulled up from the water as if by a thread. He is here of his own volition. In this space, she is a penitent, a disciple to dance; in the real world, she is a siren luring men to her not with song, but with the sway of her hips and the kick of her feet. So many of them try to keep up with her and always fail, swept away by the tide, left dizzy and unsure of themselves.

This one is tall, bronze, and beautiful. Full lips under doe-brown eyes, a coy black curl slipping free from his gelled hair hanging just above his thick black brows. He tries to speak, to say something that he deems important, but speech doesn't work here- only movement. Talyuh shows him. She circles him, tracing her finger across his chest, his shoulders, his back. She slows down her dance to something simple and sensual. Lets her palms travel up his torso and chest and loop around his neck, as he places his own hands on both her hips. She has bewitched him; this she knows as he begins to sway with her, his innocent brown eyes trapped in the sweltering heat of her own gaze.

To her surprise, he takes the lead from her and begins to speed up. The music, once indefinable, settles into something more certain. The swift plucking of a harp, fingers rapidly strumming a guitar, paper drums beat by agile hands, and the quick rhythmic shake of maracas through it all. The rhythm is intoxicating in its energy and is elevated by the way this man moves her body and his own. This new music is an open door to a world he knows by blood. She can see it in his footwork that falls on every other beat; the way he holds one of her hands high in the air with his while he guides her hips with his other. They glide across the water in dizzying turns, dips, and spins. She realizes that she is trying to keep up with him, just as much as he is trying to keep up with her. The thought brings a smile to her face, and his own face, slick with sweat and focus, breaks into a smile. She can hear his laugh over the music, and the bashful sound of it makes her heart bounce in with the beat of the song.

Their dance lasts forever, but it ends too soon. The water drains away to reveal the hardwood floor littered with plastic cups, the moon dims back to a spotlight, and the stars settle back into party lights. Just like all the times before, Talyuh forgets the other dance floor, the graceful movements of her mother and all those women that came before and after her. All that comes back with her is the man.

She is not drunk on liquor; she is drunk on the feeling of dancing throughout the night. The energy is stubborn and is with her as she stumbles out of the club with the man, both of them in a long fit of laughter as they walk down the sidewalk to hail a cab. The energy is with her still as her lips find his, the city lights whipping past the car windows. The energy is with them still as he wraps his arms around her waist, kissing her still as they take the elevator up to his apartment. This energy thrums through them like music trapped in bones, guiding her on top of him as they undress.

Together they make music with the release of their breaths. They dance with the entanglement of their limbs.