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Broken Thoughts… Came Undone…

March 14, 2023 — Leave a comment

Broken… and letting go…
The words come but I don’t know
Breaking like glass all around me
Shattered… and left behind…
Kneeling down about the thoughts
Wish there was more to say
On the subject… and the pain…
But I know it would only get in the way
Wouldn’t even know what it means
The glass digging into the skin
Drifting away is all I was meant to say
About the subject… and the rage…
Further from the truth is all that I know
Emptiness… all that is left inside me
Sweating out the poison left behind
Corruption of the internal structure
The glass has entered my blood stream
Becoming part of me on the way to the heart
The infection has spread to my brain
So broken… and letting go…
The words come but I never know
What it is you are trying to tell me

I’m having fun I guess… Kind of depressed…

Ignoring everything is harder than I thought…
Your disappointment is echoing in my head…
Salvation is the only sin I can prescribe…
What is it that you are looking for in a drug like me?…
Your actions have become nothing more than a symptom…
Nothing more than an addiction to who I am…
Hold on tight the withdrawal is the greatest fear…
The most confusing of emotions after the fall…
Ignoring everything is so much harder than I thought…

Two wrongs don’t make a right but it’s a great fucking start…

Rusted skin breaking down over time
Once again we find ourselves here
History doesn’t bother reading
What’s already been written
So obsessed with repeating old news
Repeating the same mistakes once again
That new mistakes are all the same
An industry built on praying for a new day
Another day of emotional decay
Industrial for a new day that won’t come
Another day spent watching this waste away
Behind a screen made of glass
The fabric of society comes undone
Tore at the seams… what was meant to happen?…
History can’t change what has already happened
What’s already been done to you and me
So obsessed with destroying everything
That our mistakes are missing the point
This never was about you, me, or the sands of time
We all want change… while refusing solutions
Stuck in place… wasting away…


Broken Thoughts

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I have to give credit where credit is due… I didn’t come up with… “I’m having fun I guess… Kind of depressed…” Typically I don’t recycle things Sylvia has said to me… but every once and awhile we all say something that can’t be ignored… and must be stolen for others to enjoy… That is kind of the thing with writing… writers… authors… poet… artists… or whatever you want to call yourself… labels unfortunately… aren’t something I’ve come to enjoy as of lately… too many subcategories for me to fit into at any given moment… that I don’t enjoy any of them… when the only label I’ve ever really wanted was… me…

Not really the point I was trying to make… Writing isn’t so much A to Z… nor is it exactly what has ever happened to me… you… or anyone we know… but in a dark twisted way it is… I can’t invent new scenarios… I can only twist them further… I can’t create people out of thin air… I have to steal them… from those around me… what seems real is probably fake… and what feels fake is probably real… the real goal though is for no one to be able to tell the difference… Kind of how life feels from day to day… I’m having fun I guess… Kind of depressed…

Broken Thoughts Vol. 3… Now Available…

Ads are randomly generated… using some sort of magic… reading our thoughts… the algorithm knows us better than we know ourselves… but does that mean we should give in?… Maybe… the algorithm hasn’t told me how I should feel yet… But apparently I should pick up some more shirts…

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Chewing On Glass Presents… Just Breathe…

February 2, 2023 — Leave a comment

It all shatters right there in front of me. Glass, steel, two moving objects going at what feels like a thousand miles an hour. Was it? Is that how it really was? Everything so slow, a miss perception of time and place. Memories shifting in and out of place. Two thoughts as though they don’t exist. Two people caught in time. There was more than two? I wasn’t driving, was I? No, I was standing. Standing still as if I wasn’t even there. I no longer was there was I? I disappeared somewhere in myself. Took myself right out of there. Right out of my own thoughts and feelings. But I remember the glass.

It bounced off my face but I didn’t feel its inflicting pain. The screams all around me with no sound. Faces moving in panic, mouths open in horror, mouths open without any sound. The smell of tires and burning engines but I wasn’t even there. Where was I? Where was I standing motionless? The corner of sixth and Wellington. The burning sensation? The coffee in my hand. Two creams, less sugar. I need less sugar in my diet. Too much sugar in the coffee. Tasted too sweet, my last thoughts before the flood. The last real thought before everything took over. 

People all around me. Fingers bloody, I reach out for those in front of me. Was I crying? The ground hard against my side. Everything hard to remember. Everything a blur of thoughts and emotions. Was I sad? I was very sad. No one to go home to. Family out of town and I’m stuck here working. Lonely, am I alone now? Everything is so dark. Can’t tell if I am seeing or dreaming. The merger did it go through? Important business and I’m late, but I stopped for coffee anyway. So tired, so lonely without them. They went on holiday to see our extended family. Parents, grandparents, brothers, and sisters. Family I find myself missing more now than ever.

Out of town. Where out of town? The roses, Fedele’s roses always smelled the sweetest. The smell of innocence and purity on my hands as I hold the flowers. Was this real? Am I there now? No, I don’t know. I see them now the flowers, but all I can smell is engines. The smell of gasoline. I taste it on my tongue. Bitter like dirty metal, hot. Were they hot? Where am I if I’m not there? Screeching tires, metal collapsing, and my ears still ringing. My ears still buzzing with that hum. Am I alive or am I dead? 

Is death just nothingness or am I only in between? So many questions and no one to answer. So cold like saline going in. Washes over me, that time I was sick. Food poisoning, bad chicken, not enough fluids in me. Am I bleeding? Why can’t I breathe? Try to breathe. Gasping but it’s not working. Inhaling but nothing is happening. A rush of pain. Nerves on end. Nerves on fire. My eyes open, flood of light, emotions. “Just breathe,” the voice says. “Just breathe.” But I can’t. 

Layne Ambrose

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Much To Discover…

January 26, 2023 — Leave a comment

So, as you can see, I have clearly lost my mind. Oh, wait please forgive me. I forgot that I took your eyes. You can’t see anything so, allow me to describe the horrors you are about to feel and most certainly taste. Hey, have you tasted blood before? Nothing? No Answer? How rude of me you are missing most of your tongue. The little bit you would need to help you speak. How silly of me to keep forgetting the things I have already done to prepare for this evening. If by now you don’t think I’m crazy you really should start. That warm iron taste, the one that reminds you of childhood, picking off old scabs, and licking away the blood is from the parts of your tongue that just won’t heal. It should taste sick at first, but by the end of all of this it will become comforting as you hold on to what memories you have left. My apologies regardless, but you have been more than difficult during all of this. I envy you none the less, you know?

No one has ever treated me this way despite my demands. I’d pay good money for an experience such as this. It’s always too sick or too wrong. That’s how this all started. Worthless sex workers. I didn’t want it to go this far. Do you believe me? What difference does it matter? They set me free from all my pain. Hopefully I can do for you what others were too afraid to do for me. Excuse my laughter I was remembering the screams and inevitable reminders of past mistakes. The memories like to bounce back in place while I work. Well enough of this talking let’s begin the fun. Never. Never shake your head no at me you sniveling cunt. I’ll cut your dick off and ram it down your throat. Is that clear? Sorry, that was unfair. You didn’t deserve that outburst. It’s just. It is hard being on this side of the veil you know? We’re good right? Your hair is so soft it calms the nerves. Good take a deep breath, first things first we must maintain the sharpness of the blades.

God, isn’t that a sexy sound? I use to do this beforehand Out of sight. Out of mind kind of thing. Always be prepared, but where’s the fun in that? That’s good keep up the moaning. I like that you still try to make words. It’s a little hard to understand you with what’s left of that tongue of yours. If only you could see how hard I am you might appreciate what’s going on. It interests me to see how the muscles get removed from bone. Have you ever watched a butcher work? It’s like magic. The skill, the craft, the determination. It’s almost as if the knife is his hand or part of him. My father use to be a butcher and I’m embarrassed to say that the papers call me the same. I am not my father though.

I don’t have the skill my father possessed. It is almost insulting you know? Being compared to a skilled professional such as that. This is more trial and error than anything else for me. A form of unresolved therapy. I know I talk to much, but I have things that need to be said, you know? He used to come home smelling of blood and death. Some days he would let me skip school and let me go to the shop with him. He used to say, “One day my boy you will be a butcher.” That is about all he ever said to me. That or this is for your own good before he would beat me. That’s it that simple. We only want the love of our parent do we not? Life at times is only that simple. Right or wrong simple-minded thought. We know different, don’t we? We’ve seen more than just the butcher block. For all his skill and all his talent, he was nothing more than a dumb piece of shit is what I mean. He didn’t like my reading, jealous of my education. A transition of the times from craft to thought.

Long story short he disappeared shortly after my eighteenth birthday. Mother closed the shop and I inherited the very knifes you can feel today so, in a way the papers and my father were right and believe me that makes me very unhappy. I thought about becoming a doctor once. Hey, hey you still with me? Good, but now I am only sure that I will be studied by one. Don’t know how that is going to work though as I’m fairly aware that I am what one might call crazy, but then again, it’s not me they have to convince is it? It is the twelve other people. Now for the fun part at least for me anyway. I never liked going to the dentist myself, but if I don’t at least pull out most of your teeth your mouth gets a little rough after your dead. There I go laughing again. I had you going, didn’t I? I mean I am going to rip out your teeth, but what kind of sick freak do you think I am? Do you honestly believe me too be that far gone?

Sit still now this is going to hurt unfortunately. A byproduct of all of this but if I snap the tooth rather than pull it. Well, you’ll only have to feel it happening again, but don’t worry I have needle nose pliers as well. Your choice though honestly, I can go either way. Shh… Stop your shaking or you are only going to make it that much worse. I know that some of it is involuntary, but you really must try to calm yourself. Think of something peaceful. A happy moment from the past. Your childhood maybe? The laughter is involuntary as well I must say. Man the fuck up already. We’ve made it this far. What’s a little more pleasure? Wait… Did you hear that? Fuck, mother is home. I guess we will just have to finish this later. She hates it when I work in my room. Try not to die now. You promise? Promise you won’t die on me. We still have much to discover about each other.

Layne Ambrose

From the dark mind of Layne… he doesn’t mind going to a much darker place than the rest of us… oddly enough he is probably the nicest of us all… I don’t think that it is an act or anything…

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Keep It To Yourself…

November 3, 2022 — Leave a comment

“I tried to quit smoking recently and it didn’t go well. Go well is a bit of an understatement really. In the aftermath though I realized a few things about myself. Turns out I wasn’t addicted to smoking or some oral fixation, which sounds like I will suck on anything pointed at my face by the way. No, the reason I can’t stop inhaling dried leaves laced with additives and chemicals is because I am addicted to a much darker thought. I am addicted to the thought of death. Even if it is a slow drawn-out death. One filled with hacking and an overall weathering of my body as I watch myself slowly extinguish like the very thing I love. I am fixated on the thought of death to just stop myself from killing myself. Does that make sense? In some ways we are self-destructive.  That isn’t a new idea in this world. Some of us shoot shit into our veins. Others barrel down the road in hopes that a child doesn’t pop up in a school zone. I put something to my lips and take a deep breath. We as humans are addicted to destroying ourselves. On purpose or by circumstance we can’t give it up. I can’t think of one thing that I do that isn’t killing me in some way. Which may be a good reason to give up one that I know will, but why? What’s really in it for me?

Life always ends in the same whether we want it to or not. Right or wrong all we have in life is faith that we are doing what is best for ourselves even if it is not. Our judgements and our thoughts are ours, but sometimes there is no need to express every last one. The mind is a terrible thing to waste and sometimes hearing a piece of it can be too much to handle. Opinions maybe like assholes and everyone’s got one, but it doesn’t mean we want to hear them,” I spill out. “Yes, these are all valuable points Layne, but what were you thinking about at the time?” The lady with the clip board asks me. “I prefer Ambrose,” I inform her. “My apologies Ambrose, but please answer the question,” she says in a way that lets me know that she doesn’t care. This is another job. Another moron she has to deal with. “Those were my exact thoughts give or take a few on the spot additions. I tend to fixate on an idea and kind of “black out” or chew on that idea for a while. Well, until something else pisses me off or annoys me. Then I switch to that one,” I ramble on. She gives me a look that I have seen before. Everyone gives me that look whenever I try to explain myself.  Same look just before they roll their eyes.

“Those were your exact thoughts when you were,” she pauses to flip through some papers on her clipboard. “Ah yes, here we are,” she finally says before turning the clipboard towards me. She shows me a picture of the aftermath of my actions. I try to not look at the picture, but when it is basically shoved in your face it is hard to look away. “Those were your thoughts when you did this?” She asks again. I fidget against the restraints they have me in, “I mean give or take. Yeah, that is what I was thinking about.” She turns the clipboard back to herself and flips back to where she left off.  “How does it make you feel doing what you did to that innocent lady?” she asks me.

“Well, it doesn’t make me feel good, but let’s not throw around the word innocent so loosely. I mean if you would have heard what she had to say and the way she was saying it. My actions might almost seem justified. I mean in the right circle,” I try to joke. “Justified? This isn’t a joke Mr. Ambrose. I’d hardly call decapitating a defenseless woman in front of her children justified because she was simply informing you about the harm you were doing to yourself,” she says all butt hurt. “Words, words, words it is all about how you say them. That’s the thing about perception. I’ll tell you one thing. Those children learned a valuable lesson that day,” I say in a less playful tone. “What possible lesson could those poor children have learned from you that day?” She asks with fire burning in her eyes. “Besides the obvious? Those kids learned that sticks and stone will hurt them, but words will surely kill them,” I let off a dark sinister laugh.

Horrified the doctor gets up from her chair. “You are sick Layne Ambrose,” the doctor tries to say over all of my laughing. “You haven’t been paying attention,” I say in a low tone between all the laughing. She stares at me. Puzzled as I leap at her from across the coffee table. Dislocating my thumb before I leaped at her I knock her to the floor. I sit on top of her as she tries to fight me off. She isn’t strong enough to get me off of her. I pop my thumb back into socket and grab the pen the lays next to us. “Help,” she screams. “Help me,” she struggles to say as I put my hand on her throat. “Someone,” she fights to say as I stab the pen into her neck over and over again. She slowly stops fighting me, but I can see the life still left in her eyes. I release my hand from her throat as more blood rushes from her wound. A large hole in the side of her neck. “You think I am sick?” I ask her. “You think? Maybe the next one will be smart enough to keep their opinions to themselves,” I get up off of her and head back towards my chair. “I think we are going to need some help in here,” I shout as loud as I can. “This one seems to be leaking.”

Layne Ambrose

Not based on a true story… they let me out for good behavior… that’s a lie… they let us out because we talk too much… apparently there is a limit to the amount of thoughts… even a doctor can handle… but they gave us some meds… so we can keep on working… which is good because the wifi in the asylum… fucking sucked… we really need to invest in better internet speed… no wonder most of them were talking to themselves… it doesn’t take much for someone to go a little… mad…

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All I Feel Is Pain…

September 1, 2022 — Leave a comment

All I Feel is Pain

Memories are nothing more than random bits of information processed at varies speeds. This is how I remember my childhood. It comes back to me in pieces as my head slams back into the ground. Lift and repeat. Lather, rinse, and dry. Blood runs throughout your body providing oxygen and nutrients to every cell. When blood gets into your eyes it provides nothing at all. Nothing more than pain. How does someone end up reliving all their horrible childhood memories on the cold pavement? I’m not really all that sure anymore.

Where did I go wrong? Politian’s, health-conscious assholes, leftist fascists would say it was when I smoked my first cigarette. Signed a one-way ticket to hell by today’s standards. God, would I kill for one right now. Just to feel the smoke hit the back of my throat and shoot down into my lungs would make all of this a little bit more bearable. I wonder what heroin would be like in this scenario. I wonder what food will taste like as my teeth fall to the ground. Will anything ever taste the same again or will it always taste like blood? I don’t think the iron, rust like taste will never leave my mouth. I always speak my mind maybe that’s how I ended up here. The more my head hits the ground the more I forget. In the end all we have are our memories. The good ones and the bad ones. Our memories are all we have. For some reason, the only memory that keeps popping up is the time I learned to tie my shoes. Maybe because when all is said and down here. I’ll never be able to do that again. Funny how after all of this something so significant won’t even matter. Too defiant anyway. Never really learned to tie my shoes. Found a way, but not the way I was taught. The memory still comes breaking through.

My stepmother left me in a chair all day with the same story that I could get up if I tied them the dumbass way, she showed me. With the bunny ears or something. The instructions are still lost on me, but the torture is clear. “If you tie your shoes we can go to the beach.” I used to love the beach. I used to love a lot of things. Too bad we were in the middle of fuck all Indiana where there is no such thing. She paraded around in a bathing suit and beach bag as if we would leave as soon as I miracle my shoes lace together. What kind of sick fuck does that to a child? The company you keep, I guess. Too defiant maybe that is how I ended up where I am. Too strong-willed and stubborn to tie my shoes. To listen to anyone else.

My head hurts so much that my face has gone numb. I’ve been trying to pick myself up, but my head feels as though it weighs too much. Leaning into the punches is didn’t helping any. I say lean but it is more of a sway. Confused by what it is I am even doing.  I’ve got nothing left. Everything I had was all used up before I even got here. A teacher once told me that you come into this world with nothing and you leave it with nothing. I can see her old wrinkled out face mouthing the words, but the world has gone silent. Gone away into the distance that is my existence. She was full of shit. You come into this world screaming and you leave it with pain. The constant that doesn’t let you forget. Can’t change much when your life flashes in and out of focus.

Can’t change much when you know you are going to die. Can’t take away the things that you have done as the last breath leaves. Can’t forget the time that you pissed on the street corner as the neighbor’s daughter watched. Can’t take back the punishment. The belt that struck over and over again. Not even the truth can set you free after it is all said and done. That she wanted you too. No, you are only left with the memories of a childhood you wish you could forget. Can’t change the time you climbed a tree you were told not to climb. Ended up in the hospital for not listening on that one. Should have stayed in the tree. Why didn’t I just stay in the tree? Can’t change the time you got a girl pregnant and waited in the abortion clinic waiting room. Scarred out of your mind, sad for the life you wasted, and too young to realize they are one in the same. No, none of that will ever change. Time can’t change after it is already past. Time can’t change after you’re dead. Your impressions, actions stay with those you’ve affected long after your gone. Actions speak louder than words yet the words of those around you in circle your every thought.

Don’t do this, do that, why do you got to be such a little shit, clean up your room already, have you been drinking, this is for your own good, tell me what happened, happy birthday, please take the dog out, win some and you lose some, thou shall not kill, I hate you, why couldn’t you have been better, clean your face, you disgust me, this is what you deserve, I love you. Some good and some bad they all flood in as if they should mean something, but they don’t. Is now really the time to reflect on all of this? Maybe I just wanted freedom. Maybe it was only love. Maybe it was both. I don’t know what anyone could ever want out of a world like this.

For some reason, they have stopped. Could be because I’ve stopped fighting? Maybe because they know it is already done? I can feel a smile come across my face as the hits start back up. Their anger in this world somehow more intense than my own. I want to laugh, but do I dare? I can still feel as though that all of this is some kind of prize at the end of a long game. The words aren’t clear in my head anymore. Here and gone. Trapped and freed. I feel cold yet warm. But all I really feel is pain.

Layne Ambrose

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Chasing Darkness…

July 7, 2022 — Leave a comment

Things aren’t quite the way they used to be. Things change fact of life and death. Even if we can change those facts like I have. Things still very much change. I no longer know who I am or what I have become. I’m not what most people would consider normal. Most would consider me to be eccentric. They always have from every moment that I can remember. Strange not normal. Broken and not equal. Different in every sense of the word. They were right of course, but I guess chasing endless winter is not most people’s idea of a good time. Not most people’s idea of where I should be or what I should be doing. But I like the isolation, the cold, and the loneliness of it all. It helps me think and that is all they really want from me in the end. They want me to think for them. To create for them. Being out here in the nothing makes me feel more alive than a room full of people sucking up to my money. Yes, I am rich. Richer than most nations to be exact. To be fair though that isn’t saying much considering most nations didn’t go with technology. The choice was too easy to follow me, to invest in my ideas. Man is flawed in that way. Self-doubt, too easy can’t be the right way. Must resist and so they did. Investing in war and death. I shouldn’t have to tell you how that turned out. But history, stories they are summaries of things we already know.

Turns out bombs don’t feed people or build homes or take care of you when you get old. No, bombs only have one purpose and they do that function very well. But robots? My robots? They can do so much more than kill. Most nations fallen to the way side, disappeared off the map of everything including people’s minds. The advancements were swift, they were quick. I discovered a loop hole that we had missed. An easy option no one believed to exist. Greatly enhanced soldiers that feel no pain, targeting systems that can target any and everything you may desire, and a defense system so advanced that it would make nuclear war less of a fear and more of an annoyance. Whole nations wiping themselves out before the missiles even left the ground. Only took a few of these “brave and fearless leader” to wipe themselves out before all nuclear missiles were deemed obsolete. In fact, less bombs destroyed whole nations then had ever been tested in the history of any nuclear program. I didn’t just make the world better. I saved humanity and everything with it. These were only the beginnings of my ideas. Yes, my pockets were lined with dirty dollars of anyone who was willing to pay for protection. This is capitalism at its finest. This is everything that we once believed in. Things they change even if we don’t think that they can. No one notices if you stay within the lines.

What is left of Christianity would blame faith in false idols and other dated terms for what was coming. Yes, I am that old. Faith can come to us at any moment, but it cannot change in an instant. It is enduring like that. The same can’t be said for nations. Even to those who neither fear or believe in God. Faith is something else. Faith isn’t something than can be so easily pushed aside. Even the most faithless person believes in something. Something they cannot see, but swear that they can feel. The new question now became how do I get them to believe in me? The faithful fought the next wave of advancements. Pushed my patience beyond their limits. I grew bored with enhancing nations to the highest bidder. It was time to take my ideas beyond governmental and to the people. Take it beyond the surface of what I knew and go deeper. Humans are a flawed design. Boasting about how we are the greatest at everything. Spreading lies beyond the fabric of what we know to be true, but I knew with my help. I could make all our lies, all our fables, and all our faith in ourselves a reality. I knew that I could make them true.

My advancements in nano tech and hybrid parts brought the revolution to the people. Put everything in their hands to do with as they wished. So long as they paid. So long as they understood what it was, they were getting into. They didn’t, but it didn’t matter. Humans adapt to ideas they don’t understand. It is a slow process, but they accept the way things are eventually or they die off. Evolution sits as a theory, but the problem is we understand it better than we like to think. We accept it as truth even as we question its very existence. Deep down we already knew. We have always known what is that we are, where we come from, and how it will all go. There may be no all-seeing god, but something moves us to follow blindly. I would give them the means for what we have spent existence to discover. No one, not even myself can be as arrogant to not believe in a purpose. A self-fulfilling prophecy written before the beginning of time.

The fall was coming. Everything I had created was going to turn. Human history is riddle with stories similar to mine. The Roman Empire, the Chinese Dynasties, the rise of early man, and the list could follow us all the way to today. Life doesn’t stop under the wheel of change. It grows stronger. Picking up speed until we no longer understand what it is that we have created. A bump in the road, a great fall, but this one was different. This one was not like the rest. Unlike the falls of the past, the missteps that lead to something else. This one changed the game. Changed the world and the human race. We moved past everything we thought we knew with built in control. We became something greater than ourselves. The ones that were left that is. The advancements I made in human tech changed the game. We became one with the robots. Equal to my creations. Working side by side until we cleaned up everything. We needed something more though. We always need something more. We looked to the skies once again. Except this time, we knew that we were ready to face any and all challenges. No longer a dream, but the next step in our evolution. My evolution, my purpose in this world. For the first time in human history people are too busy thinking. Thinking of ways to make everything better rather than how to destroy. For the first time in human history everyone is thinking like me.

That is why I live here alone like this. To free myself from all the noise. That is why among other things I do what I do. To clear my consciousness. I feel this need to distance myself from them. I feel this over encumbering need to be as far away from them as I can. So, I can better them. So, I can better us as people. Nothing will ever stand in our way of achieving greatness ever again. We will conquer the stars as one. We will take all that is ours as one. For the first time in human existence, we all have a singular reason to flourish and all it took was me.  The weight of the world sits on my shoulders held up by the strength of so many. Change is inevitable even if nothing ever seems to change outside the lines. The wind howls outside of my cabin. A few more days left of darkness and the chase will begin again. The world advancing by the minute and my wealth grows. The owner of this world, my empire, lives in near darkness studying the sky of the lost planet no one’s even heard of yet. Trying to make sense of our new purpose in this universe and the darkness beyond.

Layne Ambrose

This fucking story… This story didn’t start out like this at all… the original draft was trash… an idea that I didn’t know was there until I looked a lot deeper… So I worked on it… worked with it… typed up the whole thing on my phone… had it all amazing… had it to a point that I thought was good… then technology and my stupidity fucked me… While trying to transfer the file from my phone to Layne’s computer… using all the great advancements that Google bestowed onto us… We lost the whole thing… didn’t save it correctly… or lost internet connection… who knows…

Back to step one… and I was fucking pissed… I’m still pissed and it has been over a week… still pissed and I have rewritten the whole thing for a second time… but it is over and done?… I just read it… why are you so pissed?… Who cares?… you are right but it doesn’t matter… We’re pissed because the story was vastly different… and how it was different I don’t know… but I know… it wasn’t sci-fi… I write by the seat of my pants… I write until it is done… I purge the thoughts and move on… then one of us takes over… so if it isn’t written down… saved somewhere… neither of us have any idea what it was that the other even said…

So… all that work… all that effort… gone in a flash… and like this character all I think about is progression… not going back… But we had to go back… We had to finish this story… redo this story… woke up today… and got it done… It isn’t that bad actually… still pretty pissed that I had to do it again… but for all I know… it might have all been for the best… destruction and loss… may have all been for the best… or maybe it wasn’t… “Faith can come to us at any moment, but it cannot change in an instant”…

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Don’t Stand So Close To Me…

May 26, 2022 — Leave a comment

Don’t Stand So Close To Me…

I like to keep my things in jars. I have many jars all around my room. I used to as a child go out in the woods behind my house and collected bugs. I had so many in my collection. Water bugs, butterflies, lightning bugs, and all sorts of beetles. I used to watch them crawl or fly around their jars. Each one or type I guess had their own jar to call their own. Little worlds that they could live in. Live in until they died. They always died. Why did they always die on me? Everything always dies on me. Mother, sister, and the bugs. I used to label them and everything.  It would drive my mother crazy. All the jars filled with dead bugs under my bed. I couldn’t stop collecting them though. No matter how many died or how upset my mother got.

Growing older I became more and more fascinated with the bugs I kept in my jars. Though I never had the passion to really understand what it was that I was collecting. I wasn’t book smart my mother used to say. I just liked the way they looked in their jars. One day while exploring in the woods I heard this odd noise cut through the singing birds. It sounded like nothing I had ever heard in the woods before. It sounded as though a small child was crying. Was my sister lost in the woods? Over and over I heard the noise. The closer I got the louder the noise became. I knew I was on the right path. Frantically I searched for the noise until I came across a small deer. Not quite a baby but not yet an adult. It was just there lying in the open grass between some trees. It saw me before I saw it, but it kept crying. Figured it would run away when I got close enough and between me and you it tried, but the little deer had broken its leg. As I got closer it struggled to get away. Dragging the broken leg behind it. Leaving a trail of blood. I had never seen so much blood before. It looked so odd, so out of place amongst the green of the grass. I got so close to the deer that I could reach out and touch it. The cry it was making was so loud by then. The sound was almost unbearable. I studied the hurt animal as it tried to get away. I watched it for so long that after a while I couldn’t even hear the sound it was making. I couldn’t hear anything.  

It must have grown tired because after some time the deer stopped trying to get away. It laid its head down in the grass, its mouth moving, and its chest moving up and down rapidly. Cried and cried as I watched. In that moment in time, it was only me and it in the whole world. The deer’s rapid breathes become slow and shallow breathes. We locked eyes for what felt like a life time. I placed my right hand on the back of its head and it went silent. Silent like it knew what was going to happen next. I tried to make it quick. Grabbing the top of its muzzle with my left hand I gave it everything my little body had in a twist. Its neck snapped. I know I heard it or maybe I only felt it, but it wasn’t enough. Its body flopped around in the grass as I tried to hang onto its head. I tried twisting its head again, but it just kept shaking my hands lose. I could barely keep a hold of the deer. So, I jumped onto its back like anyone would I suppose and tried to wrestle it still. It was all happening so fast until everything seemed to stop around me. I was so frustrated, so angry that I lost control of everything. I seemed to have gone to another place within myself. By the time I came back to reality there I was holding this deer’s head in my hands. I no longer cared about bugs. Not when there were so many things out in the woods that needed my help and attention. I find that people are much the same as that deer or the birds or the rabbits of the world. They all need my help and attention.

M.T. Billings

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West End Love for All the East End Girls…

April 28, 2022 — Leave a comment

“So, are we doing this or what?” He asks me for the thirteenth time in the last five minutes. “We need to do this,” he reminds me once again. “We or you need to do this?” I ask barely looking away from my phone. “I’ll slap that thing right out of your hands,” he threatens. “I’m sure you will,” I sigh but I’m not putting away my phone. “Look you need to do this. You are in a rut,” he pauses rethinking his words. “No, you are stuck in some ditch in the middle of nothing town,” he declares. Should have thought harder I think to myself. “Well, I’m not stuck anywhere. I am choosing to be in the middle of nothing town because I want to be,” I let him know. “No one chooses to be in nothing town. Someone chooses it for them or they are there by happenstance,” he tries to recover. “Fun fact I am someone and this is where I have chosen to be,” I say in an abrupt tone signaling I am done with this conversation.

“Okay fine, I need this,” he concedes. “Now will you come with me?” I shake my head no.  “I need a second you know that,” he whines. “I’m not dragging my ass across town. I’m just not,” I proclaim once again. “I’m not shitting where I eat,” he admits. “Never stopped you before. I’m pretty sure your bathroom is right next to the dining area in that trash apartment,” I joke. But then I realize what this is really about. I have the nicer apartment. What a little snake, I think to myself. “Okay, you have me there. Correction I have shit too much where I eat. Is that better,” he smiles trying to get on my good side. “Didn’t we just go out the other night?” I ask deciding on a different way to get out of this other than pointing out I am better off than him. “Yeah, but you are single now. So, we can go out more. Maybe even twice a week,” he suggests. “Twice a week?” I ask my eyes growing wide. “That’s pushing it don’t you think?”

Before I know it I am driving his ass to the other side of town to haunt the usual spots. We don’t come here much anymore and for good reason. He tries to hand me a bottle from under his jacket. “Are you kidding me right now?” I ask pissed off. “Do you have any idea how many cops are staked out on this side of town,” I bark. “That’s what makes it even more fun,” he tells me before taking a swig. I shake my head as he puts the cap back on. “Just a little pre-gaming,” he smirks putting the bottle back in his inside jacket pocket. “You need to learn to find your center without alcohol,” I tell him. “Yes, Master,” he claps his hands together and lowers his head. Not amused I keep on driving and ignoring him. “I’m seeing a lot of ladies that should be having my baby,” he quotes excited behind the glass. If he wasn’t my only friend I wouldn’t hang out with him either.

“No one should be having any of your children ever, Jackson.” That is a fact for a lifetime. “It’s lyrics to a song. I don’t literally want a child, ever,” he rolls his eyes in annoyance at my lack of excitement for this evening. “Could you imagine?” He asks staring out the window. “I mean how does someone like me, like us, not literally carve the child right out of the womb?” He ponders into his reflection. His voice turning cold as it often does at times like these. “Could you imagine how boring it would be to wait for the thing to come out? Then have to actively try to keep it alive,” he shivers. “Plenty of our kind do it all the time,” I remind him. “Yeah, because they don’t know what they are,” he says turning to me. “I take it you have decided?” I ask looking over to him. “Yeah, I think I have,” he returns his gaze to the streets. “Let’s get ourselves a pregnant one,” he grins. His sinister smile reflecting back to him in the rolled up window.

Layne Ambrose

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Beyond the End…

April 21, 2022 — Leave a comment

“Despite purified air, despite not going out for months, despite no human contact in over a year, and despite a diet balanced out to be everything that my body needs. I have become sick. I have become infected with something I have to silently suffer with. Alone and isolated I lost everything and yet I still managed to pack everything for this exact scenario. I have planned every possible outcome of everything. The architect of my own demise. How could I have been so careless? They warned me long ago but I didn’t listen. I didn’t think it was possible. Chasing darkness into the night. Should have known better. Should have been better than to question the idea of immorality. I dreamed of immorality but what is it really? It is nothing more than infinite knowledge and a never-ending legacy of pain and sorrow. Threw it all away. Should have let the idea of death take over. Would I be human then if I had?

I am well suited for immorality since anything that mattered died a long time ago. I’ve given up on the idea of humanity. Become more like God than I’d like to admit. I am as if I am immortal though only time will tell how long it will last. Time and days are a human idea. Immorality and life are God ideas, but where and what are you when stuck in between the crossroads of God and man? I can create and destroy anything I wish by shaping this reality. Shaping another’s reality. I am my own God and my own savior, but will I also be my own end? The question fills my heart with no answers. The isolation proves theories I thought were only myths. There is no God greater than the sun. There is nothing beyond the stars but more darkness. There is no true meaning of life beyond the end. Not when we can control it ourselves. I’ve unleashed the end of all things to come. Now is the time for me to enjoy the end. For we are our own damn God’s.”

“End of transmission,” the computer states. “But there is no body?” A solider questions. His uniform the same as the rest. “Then we have to assume he is still out there. We must find him. As long as he lives, he holds the power to end it all,” his superior says. “So, it is true then. He is the source. He is the God of all of us?” The young solider questions. “There is no God only the devil. This man is no architect of our creation or our end,” their leader barks. “He is nothing more than a virus. A sickness we have been trained and created to get rid of. We will find him and put a stop to all of this. Now let’s move out,” he orders. 

Valerie Hannigan

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A Story Never Told…

April 7, 2022 — Leave a comment

“What the hell are you even doing up at this hour?” A voice asks with a yawn. I bang on the door harder and harder. “Ain’t no one want to see you in there. Hell, I see you and I don’t even want to,” the homeless man moans. “Shut up you stupid vagrant. As a matter of fact, someone in there really does want to see me,” I inform him. “Oh, really? That why you have been out here for a better part of an hour messing up my sleep? The only fact I see around here is that no one wants your ass around. So, why don’t you go ahead and give it a rest and I can get some myself. Got an early morning believe it or not. I’m a very busy man,” the homeless man mumbles into his filth ridden pillow.

I stop banging on the door and I’m ready to bang on something else. I raise my fists, “One more word old man and I’ll see to it that you get plenty of rest.” The homeless man giggles. He giggles at me. I can feel my anger and frustration rising. “Don’t go starting trouble when troubles already found you. Take my advice. I didn’t end up here by design,” the man preaches. I start to take the steps down to his garbage bed when a familiar sweet voice takes a hold. “He’s right you know?” Her voice cutting through the commotion. All I wanted from her was an acknowledgement that I was even there. “I’ll ring you in. I guess we need to talk,” she says from the second-floor window. I turn back towards the door.

“Are you sure Miss Kelly?” The vagrant asks. “Of course, she is sure,” I snap at the man. “There you go starting trouble again. I ain’t afraid of you. Honestly, I ain’t got nothing left to lose,” the homeless man smiles a toothless grin before putting up his fists. “Yes, I’m sure Frank, but if I change my mind,” she begins to say. “I’ll be right here miss Kelly,” Frank finishes for her. She smiles and moves away from the window. Moments later I hear the sound of the door buzzing and I head inside. Frank lies back down on his makeshift bed, “Can’t get no peace and quiet. Thoughts this was a good neighborhood. God damn kids with their pointless drama. You want a challenge. Try washing your ass with no water. That right there is a situation.”

I ascend the stairs rapidly. A flight of stairs in an instant. There is much to say and who knows how long to say it. The door is cracked and waiting for me when I get there. I take in a large breath. Be cool Miles. Be cool I tell myself one more time before knocking on the door. She is waiting just on the other side as I enter. “May I ask what is so important you have to disturb me and the whole neighborhood at 3 am?” She starts right at the door way. There are so many things that I want to say. All at once, but only one thing I should say. “I’m sorry.”  

“Sorry for what? What you did or disturbing everyone? Because only one of those things can be fixed with an, I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry for all of it. I’m sorry I’m here so late disturbing you and everyone else. I’m sorry for what I did earlier. I’m sorry for a lot of things,” I say searching for my words. “Yes, you should be,” she informs me watching my reaction. “I’m afraid, your sorry has come too late. Unfortunately, the words are useless at this point and are no longer any good here,” she pauses for a moment to let it sink in. Her eyes trapping the light from the hallway within. Her eyes look different than the times before. Something so different than the times before.

“Kelly please,” I interrupt. “Kelly please what? Forgive you again and again? Damnit Miles you can’t just keep messing up and thinking I will forgive you later for it. You can only play a song so many times before it becomes background noise,” her eyes like fire now. I step closer to her. I let her speak her mind and now I have to try the one move I have left. If I can get her in my arms, I know she will change her mind. I’m greeted by an open hand on my chest, “Not this time Miles. We are done,” she says sternly. “This is the last time I swear,” I reach for the hand on my chest. She quickly moves it away before I can even touch her one last time.

“You said that two times ago and every time before. Let me say this so you understand. I am done and this is the last time I am going to tell you.” She locks eyes with me. “But?” I try to say. I’m at a loss of words. “It’s time for you to leave and I’m not asking. I’m telling you,” she commands with her finger extended towards the stairs. I look her in the eyes one last time before doing as I was told. There comes a time in any battle where winning is losing either way. I put us here and know damn well I’ll only do it again. There is only one thing to do. I turn and walk my new path. I hear the door close behind me and the door’s lock click over as I reach the stairs. “I didn’t mean it,” I say to an empty audience. From behind the door, she breathes a heavy, “I know,” before her held back tears fall to the ground.

I leave the apartment building at the slowest of speeds. Lost in thought. What have I done this time? What have I given up for nothing? Questions I only have excuses for but no answers. I pass by the vagrant known only as Frank. “Out on your ass I see. You ain’t the only one. Join the club as they say,” he lets out a small laugh. The street goes silent as I walk down the block. A coldness washes over me from inside. Where I am to go from here. I really don’t know.

M.T. Billings

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