What do you see when you sit and listen? What do you hear when you observe?

You tell me I am barren. You tell me I always have been.

When do you seek out a voice long passed? When do you wait and let it come back?

How did everything die here? How does the rest survive?

Is it grit? Is it natural?

Has it been changed beyond repair? Has it become something else entirely?

Will you be riddled by humanity? Will you persist with monstrosity?

Can silence hold a whisper? Can I tell you a secret?

“Time knows all”

I’m fighting the ace with arrows of romanticism.
The distance protecting her nature, The arrows poisoned with desire, I nock one,

She looks back, fists raised, face adorned with pink shades “What is love to you? Romance?” She yells “What is the difference between a friend and a partner?” She yells She bows her head, running towards me, she yells, “You think this is the only way?” she continues “Desire can rake through my skull but I’ll be damned if you don’t do it yourself! Intent matters!” she persists

I stay still I aim She’ll realize it’s for the best It is the only way

She crosses the distance faster than I expect The arrows slammed away They ooze I glare What is romance with no desire?

She picks one up, hand grazed in the process Licking the edge of the blade “Let me show you what I mean” She kisses the back of my hand, I watch desire seep into my veins She’s immune My mirror shatters

A/N I might edit this later bc idk if it makes sense it kinda doesn’t but that’s also kinda how I write (without thinking too much ab it) ALSO it’s kinda NTP

There’s anger in their tone. Calm but seething with tension, a question follows “Why are you telling me this? You want more from me? What do you want? Are we not enough as we are?”

“Nothing! No!” you reply, “nothing at all, all I want is for you to know. At least if there’s a time where you don’t feel loved you can know that I love you and I would express it in any way you’d let me. In any way you’d feel understood. Seen. My desire to do so simply feels more than platonic. The things I’m willing to do go beyond platonic,” your heart almost breaks at the implication that the only way they know love is through transaction.

“But we say I love you all the time, what happened, what flipped to romance for you? Do you feel led on?” The latter question dares to be laced with concern.

“No, I find your presence comforting, I trust you, and I admire the way you exist. I’m not sure I want to tell you when it flipped for me though, at the risk of tainting memories..”

“How long?”

“The potential has been there since we met, I wouldn’t admit it to myself until summer though, and I didn’t decide to tell you until new years, because hey, I fully expected to be in deeper, but sue me for entertaining the possibility that you’d reciprocate.”

You take it as a good sign when they crack a smile at the tentative return of your usual banter,

Eyes open. Water rushes and melts our cabin in some icy tundra. It ricochets off the roof and loosens the foundation. The house clinging to a rock, I to my friend. When we slide out we rush past a polar bear in slow motion, It can sense us.

Eyes closed. It’s silent. This is the best hour to be in my house. When all are asleep but me, and I talk to Nyx through my window. “Thank you for the insomnia,” it’s genuine. Lifting the fog from my brain, attention garnered towards soul, survival instincts resting but not dormant. I am imperceptible.

in a voice note to one of their best friends and coworkers they say

“I’m not shocked that there are cameras. I’m not even shocked that they’re hidden. I’m shocked because they’re hidden horribly! I mean really, if I could find them at the ripe age of 23 who did they even get to hide them?” they ponder for a moment and their eyes widen at no one in particular, though the emphasis can be heard in their voice and their friend will know the expression all the same “WHAT if they got someone to hide them BADLY so I am the one that finds them? But this makes no sense either because why would I even be targeted! But it was my office- I should probably see if there’s anywhere else bugged and what I can do about it…”

A/n idk why this is what came from my brain tn but I was thinking ab Hanji from attack on Titan lolol

No streak! Just monkeys on typewriters stumbling Shakespeare by accident! Do they go insane trying to find him again? I write and I write and I write And I think and I think and I think

Appear and disappear Until my friends think I don’t care Or they think I’m mad I don’t care and I do what I want But then what I want is influenced By choosing to care

And then I wonder if I care about what I want Because that leads people to expectations I neither expect the worst Nor the best I expect nothing and therefore always have surprise

I surprise myself every time I’m right When I don’t want to be Pattern recognitions power Be damned with foresight Hindsight’s blinder twin, Usually

I usually don’t go this far Or commit to things Commit to myself Prove to myself being trapped today fruitless to forever Aware of the prison to my own brain’s design

Designing was more of Hannibal’s ‘will’, But I’m fine to let the media bleed into my Life and being, I care for media I’m tired and this helped when I didn’t expect it Surprise surprise, that’s not unusual I think I’ll let myself rest, though it’s unearned

I decided to write thoughts and things said to me in relation to avoiding scenarios resulting from the prompt.

‘Everything has consequences you know? Everything you do is a choice you make, even the times where you do not choose’

‘The absence of data is still data’

‘If we ask questions to understand the other persons perspective, it turns from an argument against each other to teamwork against an issue.’

‘You can only choose depending on the information you have at the time. We do the best we can with what we know’

When we go in understanding the intent but ignoring the impact, it is still a misunderstanding all the same. The same is true when one understands the impact of something without considering its intent. Always ask. Always try to find out both.

We pop and we crack when we face We laugh and we duck away Eyes darting to the wall Sneaking back to tick tock out of turn met gazes and sharp wit flit the spark

let it crackle Light it ‘Set it free’

Billowing the smoke through a breeze Cooling between the trees oxygen fans flames, sure but dust settles all the same

Breathing the same air in true desires coming out Pooling sand in hand Dirt, clay, foundation’s potential Pressed us against newly cleared ground

authors note secondary succession is something that occurs in nature, one of the main examples is essentially when a forest burns down and things then grow after, the ecosystem changed but still alive. I semi tried to make that translate to love or a budding relationship. Idk! Enjoy!

“Should we…?” A “What play it? He responds, “there’s no bench.” B

“We can make a bench,” a A wave licks up their ankles, directly mocking his statement.

“The only song I know is hot cross buns,” he continues “How have we walked here every day and never seen this before?” B

“Well obviously it emerged from the ground and is waiting for you, oh holy chosen one, to play hot cross buns,” his boyfriend replies. He had to be sure. A

He walks over to the piano tentatively. “What are you going to do if I press a key and it swallows me or something? Takes me right back where it came from,” he posits, chin lowered and eyes gazed up in a pout. B

“Only one way to find out!” A coy smile returned, a pause, then more quietly “I have told you before to never go where I cannot follow.” A

“Oh you sap-“ b

“You started it,” a

He saunters the final steps to the piano, presses the key at the highest pitch, and the piano crumbles to sand, the ocean rushes in once again to retrieve it, no trace remains. B

“So like, I totally thought someone left a piano on the beach as a prank and that was not some sign of divinity, was I really supposed to do that? Probably not right? The ones who poke and prod generally aren’t supposed to, and now it’s got me spiraling which is the exact opposite reason we take walks on the beach, this is-“ b

“Hey. At least you didn’t dissolve with it, I really wasn’t ready to challenge divine forces today,” his boyfriend stops him and gently kisses the finger that made contact with the piano, remnants of its sand still lingering. A

“But you would have for me? Really?” B “No, I actually would’ve just found a new boyfriend somewhere,” the same coy smile returned. A

The boyfriend brushes the sand that transferred to his lip off, wondering why the sand trap his family sent didn’t work, and how they found his beloved. He was always more of a planner when it came to challenging deities. A

a & b tagged for convenience lols

beyond the maps, where legends dwell, I ventured into the unknown.

My friend seeks a void to scream to, The other a cure or a cleanse of sorts.

One seeks a deity to face, The other follows behind, a sword in one hand and bandages in another, and hopes the deity doesn’t look like their brother.

I venture into the unknown with no plan of knowing, Because ‘not all who wander are lost.’

And being unknown doesn’t mean it’s actively hiding

Though my friends are seeking it will soon turn to sought. So too will I know, because forward I go.