I stood still

Rigid

My eyes peered forward

Time had never

Ever

Passed so slowly

I did not move

My body, frozen

The seconds ahead,

Fleeting

And yet,

So slowly

I wished it would come sooner

A wish I would soon

Regret

A small foreign object

slicing

Digging into skin

Between my eyes

Time

Has

Never

Passed

So

Slowly....

A sky full of stars seemed dead and cold;

A place once so magical now hurt to behold.

A time of war, a time of killing;

That has passed, now we begin rebuilding.

Brethren, lend me a hand;

Once again, we will make this place grand....

“We have evolved to live in an ever decaying world,” my teacher preaches. I tune him out for the lecture until the liberating bell releases us students from class.

“Zephyr!” A woman calls for me from a ways away. I walk faster, smiling at her. When I reach her we link arms out of habit. I grin wider, showing off my canines, and peer at the burning sun above. “Hitting the clubs tonight?”

“Yes, o...

Vince hops between letters on his gigantic keyboard, lungs straining with overuse.

“I am a divine creature!” He grumbles to himself, scowling at a colleague as they pass his fiberglass cubicle, “a fairy as powerful as I should not be degraded to a typing machine!”

“I need these papers photo copied before my meeting, Vince,” instructed a superior, throwing a stack of paper worthy of being a bric...

Mother is a doctor,

A shaman,

A preacher,

Her words and her choices

Make all that is wrong

Corrected.

I am her patient,

Her follower,

Her worshiper,

I am the wrong

She is correcting.

It is believed

All children are born

Without sin,

All but I.

My words are met with,

“Hush.”

My actions are met with,

“Why?”

My curiosity is met with

Unending lectures

Unending shame.

The doctor’s treatments

Or t...

As soon as I exit the police cruiser, I gag on an unwelcome laugh.

I walk towards the scene, a lowly apartment building in the suburbs barricaded with caution tape. Joining my fellow officers, I stare at a heap of fabrics. One of the gloved officers tosses the sheet aside—it required more effort from him than a normal blanket would—revealing a mildly mangled body with a tissue box as a foot and ...

Mother and Father grip my hands tighter than normal, they swing me to-and-fro as I erupt in laughter.

Mother and Father lead me down a tunnel. I’m not afraid, I’ll never be afraid with them at my side.

Mother begins to cry, Father’s fists clench into stone. They nudge me on, “Go on, be brave,” they say, holding onto each other.

Mother and Father wave goodbye....

Three, two, one

You’re done.

But why?

Because I said so.

One, two, three

Open wide.

I didn’t want to.

But still, he poked

I gagged.

One, two, three

That’s how many teeth

I lost

Zero.

The amount of virginities

I

Have

Left....

I dash down the hallway as soon as I hear the doorbell ring. Mail. I fumble with the door handle, itching to look through what little attention I get from the outside world.

I throw aside the repetitive letters; bills, newspapers, coupons. I stop searching when I find a letter sealed with red wax.

I take the letter to the living room, eyeing the peculiar seal as I plop into the cushions of my l...

The sun and moon, an endless story of chase and repel. If I were water, you’d be oil, and with no soap to bind us together, we will never see eye to eye.

I will never settle. You are mine and mine to me. I have not ownership of you, but it is you that I have claimed for myself. Every conscious moment I dedicate myself to you; my time, my efforts, my belongings, my being itself. You are my purpos...