#this is probably garbage

A small poem I wrote at twelve in the morning.

Addled minds don’t belong in clubs

Battered brains and broken hearts

Confusion and collision beckons 

Drink up, you’ll feel better when you drunk

Every evening uneventful, everyone too eventful

Foundered relationships

Gone off and ruined it again

How much I long to fix it

I don’t know now

Juiced of my memory and locked in a bottle’s embrace

Kids grow up in broken homes

Live their lives longing for a change

Maybe I’ll be better

“Never” says the empty glass

One night stands are bad ideas

Particularly when you’re lost and lonely

Quiet mornings cause a wound to fester

Revert back to isolation and mundane life

Satire of a bouncy narrative

The night out on the town after the separation

Ubiquitous heartbreak at the bar

Vulnerability is my sin

Whimsy was a friend now a distant memory 

Xanadu was a stable life

Yet there is an empty glass

Mick had seen various versions of the future. He’d also seen the seediest underbellies of present day crime. So being in Zambezi? Almost as peaceful as Aruba.

The only difference was Aruba didn’t have a baby that fucked up his sleep schedule.

But he wouldn’t trade peaceful Aruba (with or without Julius Caesar) for his little Esi. Or her mother.

(He’d burn anyone alive who knew that though. Except Amaya.)

He rolled over, couldn’t even hear the crickets over the wails of his daughter in her nearby bassinet. He scooped her up and went over to the window, holding her just under the moonlight streaming in. When her eyes settled on her father’s face she calmed a bit, eyes still glassy from crying.

“You give us hell, little one.” Mick shook his head.

“She gets it from her father.” A voice came from behind him and he looked over his shoulder to see his partner in crime, mother of his child, Amaya, wild hair tied away from her face in a scarf, topless for easy feeding (a visual bonus for Mick too), with the sheet pooled at her waist. She had her knees pulled up and her arms lazily wrapped around them as she watched father and daughter in the moonlight.

“But how loud she gets, she gets from you,” Mick replied suggestively.

Amaya shook her head, a small smile playing on her lips. She got up and rounded the bed, coming over to her family.

“She’s half you and half me, some things are bound to overlap.” She traced the soft cheek of her daughter who was quickly dozing back off. Her eyes, shared with her father, were drooping shut.

“Never thought I’d meet my granddaughters before I meet her. Never thought I’d have either.”

“Well I’m just too irresistible.” Amaya playfully shrugged. “You couldn’t stay in that shack brooding at your typewriter forever.”

“You’re sayin now I’m finally livin?”

“Yeah. And you’re a better man for it. And a wonderful father too.” She pecked his cheek. “She’s asleep, come back to bed, my love.”

Mick laid their daughter back in her bassinet and crawled back into bed, gathering Amaya in his arms. “You’re the only one who can get away with calling me that.”

“Who else would be calling you that? Do I need to have a chat with anyone in the village?”

The last thing Vincent remembered was Damon kneeling down next to him and loosing the connection to Mina. He had been dragged down into darkness, emptiness, weightlessness. At first there was nothing but silence and Vincent thought that this was finally the end. Through six thousand years he’d seen the rise and fall of empires, many of his own making and destruction, been through some of the most famous battles history had ever seen and still he had never been injured this badly. He never thought his end would come because of the actions of his own people, by the hands of other Originals. His life had been dedicated to saving them from not only the humans but from themselves as well. It would have made him sick to the stomach if he’d still have control over his body. 

Time was no longer a concept he could grasp. Vincent had no idea how long he had been like this, if he was alive or dead. If this is what happened to the energy of a consciousness once the body had died then he knew he hoped that he was still alive. The peace would be comforting for a time, finally getting to rest but there was so much he had left behind. It would eventually become unbearable, not knowing what was happening to his family would drive him mad. Perhaps he would just fade away, but how long would he have to endure that pain?

This kind of peace, this quietness was also something he tried to achieve with his meditation. Now that he had it though, he didn’t want it. It was as if he was in a mental prison. His mind was restless; it was constantly going over plans, ideas, thoughts, the future he may never get to see. Most of his thoughts were centered on Mina, his unborn children and his brother. Had they been born yet? Had Mina been able to survive childbirth without him or was she trapped in this possible afterlife alone like he was? Would Damon be able to protect them? Would they be able to bring the clans together to put the abominations of Atlantis’ lies to rest? 

“thanks for believing in me”

 in a bent spiral notebook

under dirty city streetlights

beneath mountains of biology

at 5am in tears

in fluorescent lit hallways

with fingers hovering over “submit”

before your earned applause

through the worst 5 minutes of ice skating history

huddled together in a blackbox theater

when no one else knew

 “why?! Why me? Why do you care?”

 on a cold, early, April morning

when the words were finally freed from the cage I built

after you wore it down beyond repair

and your words left bullet holes where butterflies should have been  

“don’t”

      “never did”

“never will”

 well,