[ID: a poem written in a phone notes app. punctuation has been added to increase readability. the poem reads as follows:

repeat it over and over again until the words are hackeneyed and overused

the first time you read it it sounds like a cliche

and you wish you could forget it

it's what you wanted to say, but not really

language as a filter is so limiting: using shapes and squiggles to define and catagorize thoughts that can't be defined or catagorized

but you have to post at primetime or else no one will read it

1001 poems in 1001 tombs in 1001 libraries and they all say the same thing:

i thought i'd be dead by now.

[ID: a poem written in a phone's notes app. the poem reads as follows:

i write poems about hate and say theyre about love

anything sounds romantic when you wrap it in a metaphor

we were an ocean

we were deep and mysterious

in reality, you were cold and dark, and i was poisonous like a coral reef

we were an animal

we were soft fur and teeth glinting

in reality we were claws and fangs and hurting each other any way we could

i think its all right, though

i never mind when people tell me how sweet we were

after all

i thought it was love at first, too

"Stop struggling," Father said, pushing Nathan's head underwater again, and Nathan coughed immediately, spluttering, pushing his head back so he could get a breath of air. Anything would do: he just didn't grab one in time, and he didn't plan on drowning at Father's hand today.

"I--" Nathan started, but he was pushed underwater yet again. This time he really did snap, pushing his head back up with strength that he didn't know he had, forcing himself out of the tub of cold water, glaring at him through the water dripping in his eyes.

  "Don't." Nathan said, with enough ice in his voice to freeze the water running down his face. "Don't touch me."

"What did you say to me?" Father said.

  "Don't touch me," Nathan asserted again, but this time much less confident. His hand touched where Father still had a hold of his neck, but he lacked the strength anymore to pull it away.

  "Well all right," Father said, in a calm, level way that chilled Nathan to his core. "You've decided you're too good for my teachings, I understand. But until you've realized that you deserve your punishment, I won't touch you. In fact, I don't even want to see you. Go to your room and stay there. If I see your face and you are not begging for forgiveness from me..." Father left the threat open-ended. Nathan would fill in the threat using his imagination better than anything the Father could come up with.

“Look,” the boys were sneering. “He thinks he’s so much better than us. He can’t come outside with us cause he wants extra facetime with Daddy.”

“Just because you’re Daddy’s new favorite doesn’t mean that you’re better than us, you know,” one of the boys, Alec, the Father’s most recent acquisition before Rami, sneered. “Maybe you need to be taken down a peg.”

It was like all the other boys moved in unison, all on the same page somehow, leaving Rami to scramble to realize what was going on as one of the boys grabbed the hood of his coat and started dragging him backwards, pulling him away from the house. 

“Don’t you dare fucking scream,” someone hissed in his ear, and Rami stifled the shriek that was coming out of his mouth. He knew that no matter what these boys had planned for him, he would not come out the victor if Father came to rescue him. And whatever Father would do to him would hurt way more than anything that Alec and his posse had planned. So he covered his mouth with his bare hand and tried his best to dig his heels into the soft snow underneath him, as the oldest of the boys dragged him down the field. 

Down to the riverbank.

“Oh shit,” Rami breathed, realizing all at once what they had planned. 

The big one, John, who was dragging him, stepped confidently out onto the frozen river, despite the way the ice cracked ominously under his feet. Rami found himself praying, knowing that there was only one way this would end, and just hoping that he wouldn’t permanently drown in the river. 

They got out just a couple of steps, and the ice splintered beneath his feet. John did something and yanked Rami up and seemed to throw him through the air, launching him right in the middle of the frozen river, and Rami did scream then, being hurtled through the air, and then his face hit the ice with a crack and he was suddenly underwater. 

The first thing you realize, when you’re thrown into a frozen river, is how cold the water is. This seems fairly obvious. Rami started shivering immediately, his arms instinctively pulling in toward his body, only to have his torso sink even faster underneath the water. He kicked his legs and splashed and quickly realized the second fact: the river, while mostly frozen on top, was still very much moving in a lazy wave downstream. He had no idea where he had fallen through, and couldn’t find a way out, his face once again hitting against the ice, but from the other side. He almost gasped at the realization, when he realized his third problem: he had almost no air in his lungs left to speak of. 

He panicked, flailing under the water, trying to do his best to swim against the current. His coat was already soaked through, and dragging him down, the down inside of it heavy and doing nothing, anymore, to keep him warm. He reached out desperately with his hand, and, oh glory be, found the hole he’d made when he was thrown through the ice. He gripped it with all his might and pulled his body up, just high enough to grab a blessed breath of air--

And then the boys were back, one he didn’t even get a good look at, using their little hands to push his head back underwater. He barely held on to the edge of the ice with his hand, and then someone’s boot came down hard on his fingers, and he choked on water, and released his grip, and he was spiraling downstream again. 

This time, he had a bit more air, so he let himself be pulled downstream, holding his breath for all his might. The river was deep here, but he knew it got a bit more shallow and rocky the further down it went, so he just curled his arms and legs close to his chest and closed his eyes, just for a minute. 

He hit a rock. 

Here, where the water was more choppy, it had yet to freeze over, and so hitting a rock was a blessing, it meant his head was above water, and his butt was solidly on the bed of the river. His back was pressed up against the rock, anchoring him in place. He was freezing to death. 

Rami was alive, though. 

He tried to get to his feet, shivering, and stumbled so badly that he fell face first back into the river. He clambered to his feet once more and this time it stuck: his legs were wobbling and he could barely support himself with the weight of the wet down coat, but he saw the farmhouse in the distance and began walking back toward it. 

It took him way too long to get there, his lips and fingertips were almost blue by the time he reached the front door. He hesitated and then removed his coat, still dripping wet, and his shoes, squishy and half frozen, and left them inside the enclosed porch where hopefully they would dry without freezing. He let himself in the doorway, and was immediately accosted by Father. 

“Where have you been? The other boys came in ten minutes ago, why didn’t you? And why are you soaking wet?”

Rami looked over Father’s shoulder, just for a moment, and made eye contact with Alec, who stared him down. 

“I fell in the river,” Rami lied, the words bitter on his tongue. 

“Go get changed,” Father spat. “You’re going to be punished later for ruining your clothing. And you won’t get any dinner tonight for lying.”

“Only the best for my favorite child,” he said, and Rami warmed even more under the praise. He laid back on the bed, stretched his arms up over his head. 

“You know the rules,” Father said, “If you want to lay in bed you have to…?” He trailed off, giving Rami time to correct his mistake. Rami scrambled off of the bed and immediately started stripping, his sweater and slacks falling to the floor until he was dressed in nothing but his socks. He piled back into the bed now sans-clothing. 

“Sorry, Dad,” Rami teased, getting comfortable again. 

“Let’s get you dressed in something else,” Father said, like the idea was just occurring to him, and Ramiel looked up at him, his eyebrows knit together. Father grabbed one of the tall, thin candles from off of the nightstand. “Turn over.”

Rami obeyed instantly: he knew from experience that things would be worse if he didn’t. But he couldn’t stop the stone cold fear from seeing Father holding the candle. What did he mean? Father knew he had a crippling fear of real fire, something that stemmed from years of parents using. It was an all too common occurrence to wake up with smoke filling the room, unsure if the smoke was from the drugs or from a fire caused by the drugs. It was usually about 50/50. He couldn’t possibly imagine what else Father was going to do with the candle, other than burn him in some way with the dreaded fire. 

When the first drop of wax hit his back, he flinched. He couldn’t tell if the sensation was better or worse than whatever he was expecting. It felt like nothing at first, then the heat set in, sinking down to his bones, searing him. And then it cooled, and hardened and just felt like a shell, drying to his back, his skin firm and unwilling to move at that spot. It made him shiver as the heat left his body. 

Father dripped the wax again, letting a small river of it pour out of the top of the candle, and Rami cried out, shifting to put his face in his hands. A little bit of it at a time burned, but a lot of it felt like lava, like liquid fire searing his back. His thoughts ceased abruptly and he shook with the pain of it. 

“Does it hurt?” Father asked. Rami nodded, still facedown, still with his head in his hands. Father did it again, a fountain of hot wax landing on his lower back, drips splashing away from where the majority of the wax landed to land on their own. Rami arched his back, trying to squirm away from it. This was so much worse than he was expecting. It was terrible; a bright heat that made him feel like he was going to be sick. Everything hurt. He started to wheeze, to hyperventilate, anticipating each drop of wax before it came, flinching every time he was so much as breathed on too heavily. He tried not to cry, but the tears came anyway, equally as hot and stinging as the wax being poured. 

“Just a bit more,” Father said, breathy and low. “You’re doing so well.”

A sob squeezed Rami’s lungs and he cried openly into his hands. Father seemed to have two lines of wax left to drip painstakingly onto Ramiel’s back, and Rami tried not to shake too much so as to disrupt his work. He breathed in and out in between sobs, and when Father finally put the candle down, now significantly smaller than when he’d picked it up, Rami all but sobbed with relief. 

“That wasn’t so bad,” Father chided, “You don’t need to cry.”

Rami sniffled, lifting his head up, wiping his wet palms on the bedspread despite Father’s world weary sigh when he did so.