Sunflower Ink

Pronouns: They/He/Ae

MBTI: INTJ

Hobbies: Reading, Writing, Watching anime, Drawing, DnD, Playing Wuwa

Current Interests: Malevolent (Please listen to it, it’s my current fixation and an amazing podcast.)

I mainly set this up to post writing drabbles in case I lose my notes, so some of these are barely coherant.

A lot of the things written here aren't first-hand experience, but rather just my personal interpretation.

Happy birthday, friend.

You don’t mind if I call you friend?

Why, we have known each other

For a long, long time now.

You’ve left me many gifts, friend.

So many encounters, so many…chances.

We’ve walked hand in hand,

A scorpion leading a frog,

Though I suppose it is apt.

How long has it been, friend?

Are you not tired?

Cathartic apathy: is it not that?

I remember when you feared me,

The final bell chime,

The augury, and forgotten bottle;

You, like many others,

In awe-struck petrification.

But that is not true for you, is it friend?

It hasn’t been true for a long time.

Now you welcome our meetings

With open arms and a smile

That belongs on a man much older than you.

Is this…my fault, friend?

How many times may we court

Before your ultimate ruination?

Before the scorpion betrays the frog

And the phoenix no longer burns?

Do you believe in an end, friend?

You refuse to take it,

Biting and clawing like a rabid dog,

But my friend you seem so tired,

So afraid, so weary.

I wish you would rest; the end is so close

Your fingers brush it like piano keys.

But you refuse to grasp it, don’t you?

There is…a hurricane in you -

Like the beating of a hummingbird’s wings.

I saw it in our first passing,

I still see it.

You will not stop, will you friend?

Even if each of our meetings

Become more tenuous,

And your body a canvas

For the most destructive artist;

A growing painting of scars.

Well then, friend,

I will not keep you any longer.

We will meet again one day,

Face to face,

As tangible, cloaked beings.

But for now, live friend

For many more clock chimes,

And pray the next augury isn’t yours.

You may not fear it,

But when we do next meet,

I hope you are truly ready

To quieten that storm of yours

And let go.

Do not look back friend.

Tw: Grief, Drowning Imagery, Alcoholism, Death of a child

There are sunflowers on her grave.

Not from him.

The man reaches for them,

His fist curling around

Golden yellow fading into brown

A honey coloured syrup

Of curls like hers.

He kneels at her grave

Knees digging into piercing stone

Silent floodgates watering

The small grass blades by her headstone.

Silence.

The cars chugging past,

The wind’s sluggish gale,

All quiet, as if his ears

Were no longer his own,

But basins of water,

Clogged and unclean.

It hangs like miasma,

A choleric plague that follows

Him as he abandons his ghosts

To drown in amber liquor

And empty his pockets

of gold and copper and silver regrets.

And his veins course with its heat

Perhaps his blood turning to wine;

Strangling his throat with a dry hand

His nostrils burning and he cannot breathe

Under the weight of this boozy haze.

Is this how she felt?

As the water would entomb her lungs,

And her heart beat. Beat. Beat.

Until it didn’t.

Because even the drink couldn’t flush out,

Her haunting figure in the window;

Sandy curls damp against cool skin,

Her music box hoarding dust

In the living room he dare not touch.

And as he staggers out the bar,

Head pounding like his feet as he lists

This way, and that.

He feels her cold, cold touch:

‘Daddy, it’s okay’

‘Daddy, please wake up’

‘Daddy, I’m scared’

But he cannot, will not hear her.

Instead he drags his ghosts and drowns his thoughts

In liquor and tears and guilt

As his daughter can only watch

Her Icarus fall from the sun.

And he returns to her grave,

Trembling pianist fingers

Tracing the stark inscription,

The sunflowers by his feet

Decaying for the grass’ life.

Under the cover of darkness,

As Patroclus dons a false face,

This lie he has built

Of borrowed forgiveness

Will never last, the house of cards

Toppling under the weight

He looks at the clock

Tick, tock

It does not move.

Where is he now?

Who was he now?

Stuck in a place

Neither here nor there

In a place of fantastical creation

And murderous reality.

Blink. Again, and again.

Breathe. Do it once more.

He lives and breathes and beats

But there is no choice.

His heart will beat in it's echo chamber

His breath will fog.

He doesn't have to remember.

It doesn't matter anymore.

Just live. Blink. Repeat.

Sleep, and the dreams will come

Wake, and the world is the dream

Day after day

Watching the clock

Tick, tock.

Are you dead yet?

Are you alive?

No matter, friend.

You can join him

In this world of dystopian utopia

It's funny isn't it?

Tw: war imagery (only a little)

I wander through his Flander’s field

The poppies closed in moonlight glow

And in the echoes I still hear

Bullets flying to and fro

I hear the way

It tears into a man, his blood

Watering flower buds by his feet,

Only he would never see these blooms

Never see the one waiting for his return

Watching, waiting, praying to an empty moon.

The one who waits 

Will never know his pain

Only see his name upon the grave

The cenotaph inscribed in red

And empty promises of ghosts he saved.

My hands cup a trodden flower

Red petals spasming under gentle touches

Falling to the ground in gentle shudders

To settle amongst the stained soil

Of shells and bone and bullets.

I was not there, nor born

To see the howled cries of this man

For mercy, please, mercy

To live to see his little girl again.

But he never did. Never will.

As his blood fed the poppies beneath

My feet, their toxic fragrance

A reminder of their cost

Of men never given a second chance.

I wander through this Flanders field

And watch the poppies blood

And wonder if they knew

That people will learn

To remember. To look past the pain

How long has it been?

He did not know.

Time moved...oddly

Some days the sun crawled

Splitting into threes and fours and eights

To traverse the sky in orbs of lights

Others it never seemed to rise

Simply let the moons languish in the cold

Dead air.

Still, he waited, watching his little human.

Mikael he called himself.

He was not much of a boy anymore,

Those soft fingers becoming calluses

And gangly limbs hanging from

A growing man's frame.

But the eyes were still the same,

At least almost.

There were swirling flecks of amber

Smattered like stars in the deep blue

Not unlike his own embellished halls.

He would invite the boy, no the man to visit again soon

Favour him with songs as he did his predecessor

And feed this growing cracked thing

Beating in his chest.

Perhaps he would hand this man a blade

To see if he would strike first

Or teach him more like the man before

To let him see further,

No, he wanted to do more than see.

He needed to experience, to learn

It was puzzling.

A being such as him

Hoarding such mortal experiences

Like a badger does an anthill.

But he had time, did he not?

Time for this thing in his chest

To fester and bloom.

And so he watches as this man

Once again finds a steed

Who defies wind's gale

And finds himself lost

Arriving at gates of gold.

He will invite the man in,

Tend to his steed, feed this guest.

And as this man watches him

Drinking in the robes and thorned crown

He wanders if he remembers

The tale he told him many year ago

Although only seconds to him.

And he watches as the man eats,

A knife cutting through marbled meat.

Hearing that thing in his chest

Now beating. Thumping.

The man puts the knife down,

His eyes meeting that of his host.

There is no recognition.

He does not remember.

But...his hand does not go for the blade

To perish the inhuman before him.

The man leaves the next day,

Leaving the ancient one to dwell in his abode

Once more alone, the gates locked

To all outsiders not to find.

And he does wonder;

The man did not remember.

He couldn't figure out

Whether that in itself was a betrayal

Dear little child,

My, how funny, a child

A human one at that.

I don't know how

You found yourself upon my doorstep

Swaddled in cotton gold

Embraced by rain.

But no matter little child, please don't cry.

I'll tell you a story,

Youd like that, right?

And there once was a human

He looked a little like you,

But his face shredded by

Ribbons of scarred tissues

Never healed quite right

Never smiled quite right.

He rode into the night

On his steed he called

Forward, Forward!

Towards the furthest view

The golden gates of Carcosa.

I greeted the man with open arms,

Music swelling the corridors

In a cacophony of Melodies.

Into my city of dreams

With Ivorian goblets

Topped with a swirling hazed cream.

Together he sat at my table,

Blue eyes so...cold

Yes, cold, a little like yours.

You have his eyes little child.

He intrigued me, this blue eyed man

Auestioned, defies, argued

All matters of mortal minds

Who argued morality, mortality.

Mercy.

He did not beg, though

Curious thing - he would stand against me

Like others would not dare.

Perhaps it was merely a feline fancy,

A fleeting amusement

But he took my hand

And painted a world in song

One of beauty and great destruction

Of people who loved, and helped, and hoped

And people who killed and cursed and sinned

But there was always hope

Isn't that an awefully human thing?

Hope.

Yes, he...taught me hope.

Opened my eyes to the peculiar joys

That a mortal life could bring.

Though perhaps my mind had grown drunk

Or I grew tired of his distant affection.

Instead I invited him to my chambers,

Gifted him a most beautiful song

Yet as my back was turned

And I faced the white keys,

I felt a cold ice.

A blade.

A betrayal.

He ran. I know this.

I know he did not get far.

His heart plays the most beautiful music

Now singing in the display

Beside that music chamber.

Did you know, child?

All you humans did to me was take.

But perhaps...perhaps you,

Who is still young, still...inexperienced

Perhaps you would be different.

Is this that hope?

If so I was right; it is a foolish, awfully human thing.

But I suppose I will hope

As I watch you sleep now

That when you grow up,

I will not find another knife in my back

I am selfish, possessive,

Frivolous in nature.

I will take, and take, and take

Everything to fill

The empty glass tipping,

Swaying this way and that

In my mind's eye.

Can you see it?

How behind that quiet girl,

That kind, obedient child,

Or that funny, unusual friend

There is a curtain

Between that face

And the world that looks upon it;

A learned face

And an amalgamation of characters

Who breathe on pages.

So who is it really

That heaven will judge?

The smiling, kind girl,

Or this cowardly, masked man

I was a good child I think. At least, that's what everyone said. In truth, my memories are more like sand, lost in desert or hay bale or sea. Though I do remember one thing - a small thing. I loved to write. To immerse myself in a world where I didn't have to be that girl. I could burn fierce as a firebird or sink under waves where dragons roared, horns dripping with glistening ice. Their eyes swirled with coral spirals, tails cutting tides and scales like shields between the world and me. Where oceans parted with a pen flourish and nations crumbled with an ink blot. I was happy here; in my own fantastical world.

Yet, slowly at first, I did not realise how less flowers seemed to blood under each stroke and flourish, the dragons hibernating under colder winters. Spindly cracks crawled across a new frost and I walk a new crumbled path. The quill does not falter, doesn't shake in my hand as I navigate a border that seemed blurrier; between dreaming and memory. Though, I couldn't quite recall the face of the girl sat neside me through equations or the essay still awaiting on a dust-covered desk. Still I escape to this daydream world, night spilling like ink across a wet page, watching colours bleed in real time, away from a bleeding knife calling from a kitchen cupboard.

On my final night, my final breath, I return to that forgotten land, the pen trembling as it blots the paper; it is not as I remember. Blood drips from gnarled roots, dragons petrified in eternal sleep by Medusa's glare. Sirens hum on rocky shore, stained fangs glinting under a crimson moon. The augury cries as the firebird burns, steam unfurling from its broken wings. It crashes to the dirt ground before me, smouldering as its heart beats, painfully slow against my racing one, until nothing. I swallow, throat dry, looking at this greying dream as the wolves bay and tree rustles.

Still, I hear a little chirp from the ash dust pile at my feet, a little bird tumbling out. Its dusted feathers failing to hide a pulsing, burning glow of embers. It hops into my palm, chirping, a stark light against the crimson night, before it takes its first shaky flight - the lone star amongst the fog.

(TW: SH implications.)

I can feel it getting bad again

I can feel it in the way

Even my bones seem heavy

In the way

Getting out of bed seems

Harder than before.

I can feel it in the way

I'll lie awake into morning hours

To hear the cockerels cry

In the way

Laughing seems to become so foreign

When I can laugh yet feel

So very empty at the same time.

I can feel it in the way

I begin to question it again

My origin, my purpose, my future

In the way my mind itself

Seems hellbent on erasing itself

From sight, from sound.

I thought, no I knew

I knew it was getting better

I was getting better.

I was happier than before

I had found people, companions

Why now?

Perhaps it is just my fate

To feel my fingers itch once more

For the serrated edge locked

Away by some feeble hope.

Perhaps I wasn't truly happier.

Yet I still feel that suffocating

Selfishness whilst I feel myself drown.

That heavy feeling again,

Because I know where the judge and the jury

Place the blame; on myself.

Only I can heal,

Yet somehow, even now,

The pain beckons,

And I feel myself slip back there.

I can feel it getting bad again,

I don't remember

When I started to forget her -

The little girl in the photos,

Smiling in the picturebooks, teeth out,

Splitting open her face.

She used to be everywhere you see;

In the walls, in the paintings

In the way my hands used to shake

Before my mouth opened to form words.

I can remember fragments

Entire pictures of memories of things

That happened in that old movie tape,

Yet still I could not remember

The little girl; who was she?

When the camera pans

To her smiling face alight

With melting wax candles

I do not recognise her as my own;

Her eyes are shapeless, different.

Who is she?

Why can't I remember her?

Why?

I wish I could go back, to apologise

For forgetting her,

But she is like fog; how

Could you find a missing person?

The camera flashes in front of me now,

Framing dark eyes and dyed hair.

I miss the little girl, I wonder

What she would think of me now.

I hope she's happy,

Even if I don't quite recall

What she was like

From the bottom of my heart,

(I'm in an ORV mood Also I've decided any of my notes will now be in red to make them easier to distinguish...maybe.

Also 2 posts in one day, shocking.)

I'm so tired

Of being tired, powerless

Despite the powers I hold.

Of never knowing

If or when or how

Or why.

So I wish to sleep now

Little human, leave me to rest

Let me awaken

When the dawn finally breaks

And the sun conquers night.

Leave this incompetent god

And perhaps in this endless rest

I will find

The peace I am looking for

Amongst this wasteland

Of static numbness

As I drift away

Do you ever feel it?

Like the world is watching you,

Yet not

All at the same time.

My life, projected

As a stop motion movie,

Projected onto blank screens,

Fleeting ignored memories

Of times so sweet,

They turn rancid on my tongue.

My thoughts more

Like dandelion seeds, than the sharpness

Or the intelligence they expect.

Perhaps they are not watching.

No longer watching the boy on the screen

Who only waits for the credits

To his own movie

Rain slicking his skin

Like a mother caresses

Her newborn's cheek.

They're bored. They want more.

But the boy looks through the screen,

As if he were mocking,

Daring these spectators

To take him on one last time.

To entwine themselves

In the pity story they called entertainment

From the pillows of screens.

Coward. Face me.

I will show you the truth.

Do you feel it yet?

The way your heart pulses

Wildly, erratically

At the thought of my truth.

Yet I tire of you fools,

And all your masks.

So goodnight, my dear watchers;

I had always admired the moon,

The way its beauty shone

Onto dancing rippling waves,

Luminescent crescents warping into light.

I had always resented the sun

For the light thst seemed blinding,

Too much. Too bright.

For the way it seemed to demand

Attention as if it were a queen

However, as I look up at twilight

In the sun and moon's embrace

I feel no war, nor peace

Just a restless yearning,

A hatred for one that seemed to have

Everything I wish I had

Though as I twinkled in desolate night,

I realised perhaps, I did not

Truly hate the way sunlight would speckle

Across coloured blossoms

But rather, longing that the light

Would wash me aglow too

Wrapping me in the embrace

Of twilight.

PART TWO

Yet when I felt that sunlight

There was nothing

We stand side by side,

Bodies twinkling with light,

And within I feel neither

A burning hatred, nor

A sense of completion

But rather an aching empty

And still we stand,

Together. Companions.

But I do wonder

In that empty vacuum of mine,

If I cannot feel that warmth,

Cannot feel sunlight

Caressing my arm

I do not understand

This...emptiness.

Nothing.

Wishing upon myself

As I scatter across the sky

I do wonder

What is left for me

After I leave the sun's embrace.

I do not feel its warmth,

So perhaps

When it is time to leave

I will never feel

I recognise I'm in a vehicle, speeding into the night. It bumps abruptly with rubble, before continuing it's venture onwards; an odyssey into the night. The moon hangs overhead, a goddess watching over our journey in radiant waves. I try to stand, before being held back by the nylon strap binding me to safety. Dissonant notes float through my ears, sparking a familiar tune in my mind, yet the lyrics lost.

The night is long, languid, the car a mere shadow in a sea of lights. My breath mists the window as I raise a finger to the cold glass causing an involuntary shudder. Condensation drips as I trace the letters of a word that seems important. Calyx.

(I don't own any dolls, but this felt right-ish?)

Sitting quietly in the window, I see her, my glass green eyes glowing under harsh light. She points to me, her breath fogging the window, a twitching grin across her face. Roses blossom in her cheeks, blue eyes bright and striking. She rushes in and grabs my hand, running her fingers along my seams and stitched smile. Warmth bleeds through her touch and my stuffing seems to crawl, rejoicing in this foreign sensation.

She takes me home that day, hands tightly locked with mine. I sleep beside her, watching as her chest would rise and fall and chasing the monsters from under the bed. Sometimes she'd hold me tight, my head pressed against her chest so I could hear the steady drum over adult screams. I wipe her silent tears and sit with her quietly, hoping it would come to an end.

And I watch as she falls down some days, wiping the blood off her face, and the I see the days her tears are like torrents I cannot dam. All I can do is watch as her crayons become perfumes and princess dresses turn to booty shorts and heels. She tosses me under her bed, too old now for 'silly dolls' but I hear her each night; the quiet sobs that suffocate her, cloaking the room in a lingering fog.

Dust clings to my seams as I watch her destroy herself with colourful capsules, covering her vision in beautiful illusions of light. A temporary escape to a chained paradise. I am watching as her skin becomes pale as paper, like a wind gust could blow her away.

(I lied have another depressing piece. Also, I would like to establish that because of the type of things I write, no I have not personally experienced all of them, but most of them. But if there's something you don't think is represented right, please let me know.)