#mrwritesshit

but the air tastes of colder times

You can no longer pinpoint the true roots from which this aching, unnamed feeling stems, so deeply embedded it is within the soil of your soul. Tangled branches rake against the inside of your ribcage (it hurts), leaves unfurl in your airways (it's suffocating), and flowers bud and bloom from your eyes (no one wants flowers of these kind).

You've become a garden. A garden with no form, an overgrown mess.

I met up with Cupid the other night. 

((that is a lie, you know it when you see it))

Prompt: Hypothetically, Your attractive crush turns out to be a serial killer and traps you in their basement. What do you do?

I play the role of hapless, dumb hostage whilst finding ways to arm myself behind their back. They may be hot, hell yeah, but my dignity forbids me to die in this dark dungeon of their basement at their mercy. I did not plan on going down without at least a final kill, whether it was their death or my own.  So I play along, just for a while, trying to find ways to gain their favor and please them. Days pass and it feels like I can charm my way out of here. But one day they walk down into the basement and I look into their eyes, and I know they've come to end things before they got too attached. I could understand. And I am ready. They're acting like they've decided to let me free, to put my guard down. I say nothing all the while, not a word, heart beating furiously. They lean in and hug me as if they're reaching behind to free me of the zip ties around my wrist...  short to say, I am not surprised by the blade embedded in my back. Adrenaline dulls the pain for now. I pretend to sag from the blow, then lunge forward, teeth bared, jaws clenched. They stagger back with a shocked expression, a hand reaching up to meet the red that now spurts from their throat. I spit out the sharp object I had concealed in my own mouth, and give them a bloody grin before crumpling sideways to the ground. Whether the blood in my mouth is from my tongue or from their neck, I can hardly tell, It doesn’t matter anyway. They're panicking, screams filling the room, losing blood fast. So I did manage to hit something vital. I wonder what they will do, choose to attempt to get medical help, or finish their job? They lurch over to me unsteadily. Looks like they already estimated they won't crawl to the phone upstairs in time, and even if they did, they were damned once the law followed in suit.  "Fuck you." They lean over me, dropping to their knees, and try to yank out their knife for a second blow. But they're weak now, I can tell.  "Find me in hell first," I say as my sight fades, "count it as a date."

 Hours later, the cops find our bodies tangled in a final embrace of death, lying in a large pool of our blood, their cold hands curled around my neck while a cocky expression remained on my face. Our gruesome deaths make headlines for that week, and our story survives as a dark urban legend of how two evils have canceled each other out, unwittingly, for the better good. 

 The end. 

And in that dream, I wanted to disappear

And the thought of it became so tangible

That I saw it in the threads of my clothes

( "fade away" )

I found it written in the shading of my art

( "I should leave" )

I saw it dancing beneath the dark waves of a beckoning, violent ocean,

( "break away" )

saw it etched in the finite moment of all the stars crashing into the horizon

( "nothing left; leave" )

I am not a stranger to this feeling

am I unhinged or just lost at sea?

Yes indeed

I had a dream

(So I rested my chin on the coldness of a gun)

I had a dream

(And I blew my own face to pieces)

I had a dream

Those words hung in the silence between them, heavily, like sinking anchors, before Blooge choked on the food in his mouth, scattering the quiet moment into a series of dry, abrupt coughs.

The small orange critter looked up at the solemn, hunched over figure sitting beside him on the rocks, the being many sizes bigger than he was, and held back an immediate reply as if he were waiting for the other to claim a joke of some sort.

There was none.

His resulting question came out tentatively. “Death isn’t eternal in this realm. Will you be back?”

“That is not for me to decide. Everything that I am is unraveling and losing form. With enough time, this world will forget the ways in which I choose to exist. It would be difficult to reincarnate by then.” Another pause as Morphesto watched one of the butterflies flutter past his head, or did what Blooge assumed it to be watching, as his features were obscured once more by the glimmering wings upon his face. There were fewer and fewer butterflies in the Glade than before. The place used to be shimmering with life and the whispers of wings, and now it was very still. The realization felt a bit much for Blooge to bear as he sat in frightened confusion at the uncertain future. He had not known things were this bad, and it seemed like the lone sane person of power in this realm would be gone soon.

Seeing how his small guest was stunned into speechlessness, Morphesto spoke up again, voice hollow but gentle. “When I have gone under, there will be a power struggle that follows. Whatever happens, small one, remember to seek outside help when things grow dire. The rest of them, already existing, or to become existent, their pride could hinder them from ever admitting weakness. You could be the one to bring this ecosystem the help it so needs.” The butterfly demon rose to his feet carefully, long sleeves draping behind him in a manner almost regal yet resigned, gathering himself. Time was running out.

“Take care,” he uttered this to Blooge with a low whisper almost unheard, and it was then that the sorrow he had been holding back seeped into his tone.

With that, Morphesto stepped into the shadows of the Glade, accompanied by the sound of long grass rustling under his departing steps and tail, and a few of his butterflies. Blooge stared on with wide eyes until he could no longer see the gleam of Morphesto’s iridescent blue among the shrubbery as distance increased.

The blue haired man steps silently into the interior of an old house that had a big tree growing through the floorboards, its root sprawling and branches piercing right through the ceiling. The place is completely bare of furniture, an empty shell of a house, but there remains signs that someone once lived there, having left behind nails in the yellowed wallpaper where picture from could have hung. 

Here he stands for a long moment in the semi darkness of this house, with only a bit of sunlight and distant birdsong trickling in from the broken roof and the gaping windows. He breathes in the air of haunting emptiness. It settles in his lungs like aching lead, constricts his heart in a painful grip. He knows this place.

Passing too quickly and merged together like a dream within a dream, his memory shows him more glimpses: warm colors that of a zinnia, scar-crossed skin and echoes of a merry laugh. 

There was no mistaking -- the shape of absence here was hers.