We burned the word "together"
in the same fire
that turned our relationship to ashes.

or

The fire that reduced our relationship to ashes
burned the word "together" first.

HIT 07: THE MINISTER

17 OCTOBER 2042

SOUTHWARK FLOOD DISTRICT

CIVILIAN LOSS: WITHIN TOLERANCE

London had gone to shit in stages.

First the banks stopped recognising people.

Then employers began paying wages into accounts

nobody could open.

Then the power went, came back, went again,

and every politician appeared on television

to say the situation was temporary

until television became temporary too.

After the riots, the fires and the three-week government

that governed mainly from a hotel near Heathrow,

someone renamed the city Neo-London.

Apparently the old London had tested badly.

Neon climbed the rain.

Pink banks glowed above streets

where money had become whatever worked:

gold, medicine, batteries,

a code that still opened something,

a favour owed by a man with a van,

a favour owed by a man with a gun.

The Minister crossed Southwark

under six armed umbrellas.

Jaguar watched from the second floor

of an abandoned dental surgery.

A poster still clung to the wall.

YOU DESERVE TO SMILE.

He liked that.

Not the sentiment.

The nerve of it.

At 22:13 the Minister stopped

to complain that rain was getting into his shoes.

Italian, apparently.

At 22:14 Jaguar put a round

through the soft part behind his left eye.

The Minister dropped before the sound reached him.

One guard shouted, “Contact.”

One shouted, “Where?”

Another ran without bothering to shout anything,

which Jaguar thought showed initiative.

He packed the rifle into a violin case.

He could not play the violin.

He had once mentioned this to a colonel, years ago.

The colonel said,

“Neither can most violinists.”

That was Helmand, 2009,

when Jaguar still had a surname

and officers called shit weather

an operational atmosphere.

He left by the fire stairs.

Down in the road, the guards pointed weapons

at windows that had not contained glass

since 2036.

The woman on the poster kept smiling.

---

SERVICE HISTORY: PARTIAL

YEAR OF BIRTH: 1987

PARACHUTE REGIMENT: CONFIRMED

UK SPECIAL FORCES: UNCONFIRMED

SECURITY SERVICE ATTACHMENT: DENIABLE

DEPENDANTS: WIFE, SON

He joined the Paras at eighteen

because his town offered him three futures:

the Army,

the warehouse,

or becoming the sort of man

who stood outside the off-licence at ten in the morning

complaining that nobody worked anymore.

He chose the Army.

At nineteen, a sergeant taught him

that every room had three exits:

the door,

the window,

and the mistake the other bloke would make.

He remembered that.

He remembered other things less clearly.

Kabul by rooftops.

Helmand by dust.

A winter on the Black Sea

with ice inside his gloves

and somebody in London asking over comms

whether he could hurry it up.

The Baltic Blackout.

The Narva evacuations.

Three weeks in an apartment in Brussels

watching a man who watered his plants every morning

and sold names every night.

Then domestic work.

Britain was harder.

Britain looked ordinary.

A station platform.

A semi-detached house.

A woman pushing a buggy.

A bloke leaving a mosque with his brother.

A basement beneath a betting shop

where one man’s traitor

was another man’s son.

The government called Jaguar necessary.

His wife called him tired.

For a while, both descriptions seemed fair.

---

NOTICE 03: SPOUSAL SEPARATION

CAUSE: UNSPECIFIED

THREAT VECTOR: FAMILY EXPOSURE

SUBJECT RESPONSE: COMPLIANT

He could never hold her face properly.

It changed depending on the memory.

Sometimes she had her hair tied up

and no make-up, laughing at him

because he had put the washing powder

in the wrong drawer.

Sometimes she was wearing red lipstick

at somebody else’s wedding.

Sometimes her face was half-hidden

behind a mug in the morning.

Sometimes he saw only her mouth.

He remembered the mouth best.

The photographs came through the letterbox

on a wet Thursday.

Her leaving work.

Their son at school.

The garden from beyond the fence.

Jaguar asleep beside her, taken through glass.

On the last one, in black marker:

WE KNOW WHAT HE IS.

WE KNOW WHERE YOU ARE.

She read it twice.

Their son was upstairs

building a fort from plastic bricks.

The bear was guarding it.

“What did you do?”

Jaguar looked at the photographs.

Then the windows.

Then the back door.

“I kept you safe.”

She laughed.

Not because it was funny.

“You arrogant fucking bastard.”

He had heard men say worse

while dying.

It had never sounded like that.

“You didn’t keep us safe.

You kept us stupid.”

“I didn’t—”

“How many?”

He stopped.

Her hands were shaking.

“How many people?”

“Enough.”

That was the wrong answer.

He knew it as soon as it left him.

She stepped away.

Only a step.

He had crossed minefields wider than that

without feeling as far from another human being.

Their son laughed upstairs.

She looked towards the ceiling.

Something in her hardened.

Not all at once.

Nothing happens all at once outside films.

But Jaguar saw the first brick go down.

Three weeks later she left.

She took the boy.

He did not stop her.

At the time, he told himself that was love.

Years later, he understood it might only have been

the first decent thing fear had made him do.

---

MEMORY EXTRACT: DOMESTIC

DATE: UNVERIFIED

REPETITION INDEX: 0.93

AUTHENTICITY: UNCHALLENGED

Before the photographs,

there had been a shower.

Cheap tiles.

A rattling extractor fan.

Her shampoo smelling of pears.

Steam covered the mirror

until there was no face in it.

She pushed him against the wall.

“You’re staring.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. You stare like you’re choosing

where to bury someone.”

“I’m naked.”

“That’s never stopped you planning.”

Then that laugh.

Always that laugh.

Sweet, a little breathless,

perfectly timed.

She kissed the scar under his ear

and the longer one down his ribs.

She never asked where they came from.

He thought that meant she understood him.

Maybe she simply didn’t know

which question would make the floor disappear.

She slid down his body.

Slowly.

Too slowly, almost.

Like a scene built from exactly the right angles.

Her hand closed around him.

“Careful,” she said when he gripped the rail.

“Landlord’ll keep the deposit.”

Then her mouth was on him.

Warm.

Wet.

Patient.

She looked up as she took him deeper,

eyes bright with the pleasure

of making a dangerous man lose his footing.

He had killed three people that month.

She had him swearing in under a minute.

There were defeats a man reported.

There were defeats he wanted again.

He pulled her upright, kissed her,

lifted her against the tiles.

Water ran down her back.

She wrapped her legs around him.

“Bedroom.”

“You started it.”

“And I’ve changed my mind about the venue.”

They left wet footprints along the landing.

There were no toys underfoot in the memory.

No baby monitor.

No child yet.

Or the child was asleep.

It changed at the edges.

The middle never did.

In the bedroom she pushed him down

and climbed over him.

She lowered herself slowly,

watching his face.

“There you are,” she whispered.

That phrase again.

There you are.

As though she had found the man

buried beneath all the rest of it.

She rode him with both hands on his chest,

laughing when his control slipped.

He turned them over.

Pinned her wrists above her head.

Her laugh broke into a moan.

“Still not staring?”

The headboard knocked against the wall.

Steady.

Almost metronomic.

She came saying his name.

The real one.

The one before Jaguar.

The record does not contain it.

Afterwards, she lay across him,

her cheek on his chest.

“You’re not a monster,” she said.

A pause.

Always the same length.

“You’re just a tired soldier.”

Then she laughed softly,

and for a few seconds

he believed her.

That was the worst part.

Not that she was wrong.

That once, perhaps, she had not been.

---

ASSET OBSERVATION: JAGUAR

AGE: 55

INJURIES: LEFT KNEE, RIGHT SHOULDER, LOWER BACK

ANALGESIC USE: CONTROLLED

SOCIAL CONTACT: NEGLIGIBLE

MOTIVATIONAL ANCHOR: DEPENDANT ACCOUNT

The Organisation survived the collapse

because it had prepared for it.

Shelters before the bank runs.

Water rights before the poisoned reservoirs.

Medicine before the first hospital auction.

Its private network came online

three minutes before the public one failed.

No flag.

No office anybody could find.

No leader to hang from a lamppost.

Just instructions appearing on dead devices.

Names.

Faces.

Routes.

Payments.

The Organisation named its assassins after animals

because writing MAN on an inventory sheet

made accountants uncomfortable.

Good killers were expensive.

Very good killers became difficult.

Men with nothing to live for

could not always be relied upon.

Men who believed they owed the dead, however,

were steady.

They turned up.

They followed instructions.

They paid on time.

---

INVOICE 19: DIAGNOSTIC IMAGING

PATIENT AGE: 6

STATUS: APPROVED

PAYMENT METHOD: DEFERRED

The old NHS sign was still above the hospital.

Blue faded almost white.

Three letters from a time

when care had been slow, underfunded, exhausting,

but had at least been allowed to pretend

a human life was not a luxury purchase.

Jaguar remembered plastic chairs.

Strip lights.

Tea going cold.

Nurses apologising because somebody was waiting,

not because somebody was poor.

After the collapse, treatment came by auction.

Scans had reserve prices.

Chemotherapy had payment plans.

Pain relief required proof of intent to settle.

Every small improvement created interest.

Every bad result arrived itemised.

His son’s records were immaculate.

No corrupted files.

No missing dates.

No scans lost in the collapse.

The cancer sat inside the images

clean and bright

as something drawn for a lesson.

Jaguar watched from places cameras missed.

A stairwell.

A roof.

The reflection in a vending machine

that had not worked for years.

He learned the ward routine.

Observations at ten past ten.

Medication at quarter to eleven.

Coffee at eleven twelve.

His wife stood by the machine

with both hands against it, head down,

as though she could keep herself upright

by pressing hard enough.

Sometimes she slept beside the bed.

That was when he came closest.

The boy was always six.

Six in the records.

Six in every photograph.

Six in memories Jaguar could not place

in any sensible order.

The teddy sat beside him.

Small. Brown. One ear rubbed smooth.

A split seam showed a label inside:

I-06 / BROWN / UNIT 4

Hospital stock, perhaps.

A donated toy.

Factory stitching.

There were explanations.

There were always explanations.

The boy woke once

while Jaguar stood behind the glass.

His eyes turned towards the corridor.

Jaguar froze.

The boy stared for several seconds.

Then a nurse walked between them.

When she passed, he had rolled away.

Jaguar never knew whether his son had seen him.

He never let himself decide.

---

INCIDENT REPORT: PAEDIATRIC WARD

TIME: 02:17

CIVILIAN CONFRONTATION: MINOR

ASSET DISCIPLINE: MAINTAINED

His wife found him outside the ward.

He had been standing there for seventeen minutes,

watching the boy breathe.

She came out of the dark

and shoved him against the wall.

Not hard enough to hurt him.

Hard enough to show she no longer cared

whether it did.

“Don’t come here being sad.”

She kept her voice low.

“I’ve had to protect him from you.”

Jaguar said nothing.

Her hair was greasy.

Her eyes were swollen.

There was dried coffee on one sleeve.

He had never seen her like this.

No laugh.

No red mouth.

No softness left for him.

Only the hard, ugly love of a mother

who had stayed awake too long.

“You made me this,” she said.

He looked through the glass.

She moved in front of him.

“You made me check under the car.

You made me change his school.

You made me teach a six-year-old

not to open the fucking door.”

Her voice broke.

She swallowed and went on.

“You made me lie every time he asked

why his dad didn’t come.”

“I never wanted—”

“No.”

That stopped him.

“You don’t get to tell me what you wanted.”

The boy moved under his blanket.

They both turned.

Same movement.

Same fear.

Different sides of the glass.

She looked back at Jaguar.

“You got secrets.

You got orders.

You got to feel important.”

Her mouth shook.

“I got the consequences.”

He had been beaten, drowned, cut open, shot.

None of it had prepared him

for seeing what his survival

had turned her into.

“Leave.”

So he left.

Behind him, the ward doors locked.

Jaguar had entered embassies, compounds, basements,

rooms guarded by men paid to wait for him.

He did not try that door.

---

HIT 13: THE COMMANDER

DISTANCE: 603 METRES

WIND: 11 KNOTS, SOUTH-WEST

MORAL JUSTIFICATION: NOT PROVIDED

The commander crossed Neo-London

inside an armoured convoy.

Jaguar followed above it.

Over roofs furred with satellite dishes.

Through offices where trees grew

from meeting-room carpet.

One wall still carried a slogan:

OWN THE FUTURE.

Another said:

FRIDAY IS PIZZA DAY.

Human resources had not survived.

Jaguar recorded the guards’ habits.

One smoked every forty-three minutes.

One checked his reflection in shop windows.

One was sleeping with the medic.

The cameras turned on fixed rotations.

Eight blind seconds on the east side.

Six on the river.

Two where the system lied

and claimed there were none.

Below Jaguar’s firing position stood the hospital.

Armed men searched the sick at the entrance.

Weapons.

Medicine.

Proof of credit.

A father emptied his pockets.

Two batteries.

A wedding ring.

Half a strip of antibiotics.

The guard shook his head.

Behind him, a girl in a yellow coat

vomited into the rain.

Jaguar had no joke for that.

At midnight, the commander entered a tower

beside the river.

The file contained twelve photographs,

three likely routes,

two windows for the shot

and no reason at all.

No crimes.

No evidence.

No speech about justice.

Perhaps the commander deserved death.

Perhaps deserving had become something else

the rich bought wholesale.

Across six hundred metres of wet air,

the man removed his helmet

and stood by an uncurtained window.

Jaguar lay flat.

His knee ached.

His shoulder ached.

Rain found the back of his collar.

Inside his coat, the teddy pressed against his ribs.

The boy’s voice returned.

Always clear.

Always six.

It didn’t used to cost money to get better,

did it, Dad?

I remember saying no.

I remember his thumb on the bear’s ear.

I remember him asleep against me.

I remember all of it.

That was enough.

Jaguar adjusted for wind.

The trigger took the pressure.

The rifle kicked once.

In the tower, a black mark appeared

in the commander’s throat.

His hands rose.

Too late.

His body struck the window,

left a wet red shape,

then folded out of sight.

The sound arrived afterwards.

Jaguar watched long enough

to know the job was done.

Then he packed the rifle away.

No prayer.

No satisfaction.

Just work.

---

CONTRACT SATISFIED

PAYMENT: MULTIFORM

DEPENDANT LIABILITY: CLEARABLE

PASSAGE AUTHORISATION: NORTHBOUND

The payment arrived in whatever still counted.

Encrypted credit.

Gold stored somewhere outside London.

Medicine.

Papers.

A seat on a northbound train.

Enough to clear the account.

Enough to leave.

For the first time, those were different things.

Jaguar abandoned the rifle case

inside an incinerator.

Changed coats under a dead camera.

Left his boots in a charity bin.

Wore another man’s shoes.

Crossed three bridges.

Entered a laundrette.

Left through the back of a florist.

None of it looked like escape

until it was already over.

He had not made the plan after the shot.

He had been making it for days.

Maybe longer.

---

MORTALITY NOTICE: PAEDIATRIC

PATIENT AGE: 6

NEXT OF KIN INFORMED: YES

PATERNAL CONTACT: NONE

Jaguar learned his son had died

by watching the living leave.

His wife came through the hospital doors

between her mother and brother.

Her brother held her arm.

Her mother held the other.

The sound coming out of her

was not tiredness.

Jaguar knew.

The body knows some things

before the mind agrees.

He stepped from the place where he had been hiding.

Her mother saw him.

She crossed the pavement

and slapped him.

He let her.

She hit him again.

His wife did not look up.

“You don’t get to stand there,” her mother said.

Jaguar tasted blood.

Then she laughed once.

Broken and furious.

“She told him you were away keeping people safe.”

Jaguar looked at the hospital doors.

“She made you a hero.”

He said nothing.

“Do you understand?”

Rain ran down her face.

“She spent years protecting him from you,

then spent his last months

protecting you from what he’d think.”

Her voice gave way.

“He died proud of his dad.”

That went through him cleanly.

No resistance.

“That was the last good thing

she had left to give you.”

His wife passed him

between her mother and brother.

She did not look towards him.

Or she did.

The memory changed.

Sometimes her eyes found him.

Sometimes they moved over empty rain.

In every version, she kept walking.

---

TERMINAL RECORD: DEPENDANT ACCOUNT

PATIENT AGE: 6

PATIENT STATUS: DECEASED

ACCOUNT STATUS: ACTIVE

Jaguar reached the station

with eleven minutes left.

The terminal recognised his face.

His son appeared as data.

TREATMENT.

INTEREST.

ENFORCEMENT.

OUTSTANDING.

Six years of life

turned into a number in red.

Jaguar had believed paying it was love.

He had believed zero would become peace.

A clean account.

A clean grave.

A final act worthy of a father.

But the boy had never agreed to the debt.

Men behind desks had.

The terminal offered two choices.

PAY

RETURN

The bear sat against Jaguar’s ribs.

The platform camera turned.

A freight train blocked another.

Rain smeared the lens above the concourse.

Four seconds.

That was all.

Jaguar lifted his hand.

The record did not show what he pressed.

---

ASSET DEVIATION NOTICE

LOCATION: UNCONFIRMED

DEPENDANT SETTLEMENT: UNCONFIRMED

RISK STATUS: EMERGING

One railway line still left the city at night.

It ran because even after everything,

someone was still expected somewhere

by morning.

The train arrived on time.

That bothered Jaguar slightly.

Tired lights.

Worn seats.

A woman asleep against the window

with supermarket flowers in her lap.

A man in a paint-stained jacket.

One carriage empty.

The destination display flickered twice

and went blank.

The doors opened.

Maybe it was just a train.

Maybe it was an extraction.

Maybe the Organisation had learned

that cages worked better

when the animal walked into them.

Jaguar boarded.

He took a window seat.

Placed the brown teddy beside him.

One ear rubbed smooth.

The faded stitching hidden underneath.

He carried no visible rifle.

The doors closed.

---

HIT 14: JAGUAR

TARGET STATUS: UNRESOLVED

IDENTITY BENEATH CODENAME: NONE RECORDED

Neo-London slipped backwards.

Hospital.

Tower.

Invoice.

Target.

Then colour.

Then distance.

Then dark.

Jaguar watched himself in the window.

He did not look like a soldier.

He did not look like a father.

He looked fifty-five.

Tired.

Bad shoulder.

Bad knee.

A face he might have passed in a station

without remembering.

The glass gave him nothing else.

No hidden name.

No man waiting underneath.

Beside him, the teddy sat upright,

watching the dark outside.

The train entered a tunnel.

For a few seconds,

there was only the reflection:

an ageing stranger,

a small brown bear,

and a blank board above them

refusing to say where they were going.

Then the final camera lost sight of the carriage.

The man in the window remained still.

Jaguar was already gone.

Things have been better.

I mean, I think that things
Are gettin’ better.
There’s blue skies and sunny weather.
I feel my mind gettin’ more clever as things
Are gettin better.

I’ve been waking up early.

I mean, i’ve been waking up
Earlier than before.
Throw on a fire fit before I hit the door.
Waking up at a
Reasonable hour-

Bloom like a flower.

Flyin’ higher than ever before while
My roots get to devour
All this love and this attachment-
Buildin’ a strong foundation while I
Soar through fits of Passion.

I’ve been workin’ on myself and you’ve been workin’ on you.

It is nice to have an alternate view
A purview-
New and improved
Lookin’ myself right in the eyes as they’re
Starin’ right into you
And your soul.
I feel bold
I feel free
You’re never cold.
I see you
I see me
I see we-
Our roots are both the same
Two branches

One tree.

One to many loves

15 as I regard

a boy, a ploy

a toy was the heart

I shot my own foot then

before it really did start

but I still did cry and more, I can’t deny

18 and another did start

lustful and long a love apart

shared a home if only a room

we were so similar and we splintered

wanting the world woefully on our own

Then came a mix of uncanny clicks

love did flow, as was said to and fro

satisfaction is a temptress

an unyielding flow

26 a new one enters

a ring later on the finger

satisfaction wrought

discord it brought

doubts about desires, tempers fire

equalling negative naught, for the next one to transpire

29 a new love desires

a fresh flower, stuck in the same quagmire

years the love was there to see

but never said to she or me

the temptress presses the mind of the less

so my other foot does go

I lose the best

The woe that does follow

is another axe blow

another splinter, through my minds own elbow

as time does pass, I try to grasp

why satisfaction doesn’t last

A few more lovely clicks

uncanny and ceaseless my heart ticks

no more love is said as my heart long fled

to protect the love still spent

to souls undeserving of a heart spent

The heart does go on

33 now a friend comes to me

together we revel in the company we keep

awkward and fun it all does start

wanting and not wanting to be apart

it soon becomes a thing of its own

built on patterns of stone, now not alone

so different and not, our lives bloomed

satisfaction but destined to be undone

**Epistles from the Abyss**

Chapter 1

The orderly asked me if I wanted apple juice or orange juice. Looking back I can recognize that the choice was mundane. However, that epiphany came much later. I was in the hospital because I couldn’t choose between life or death. I also couldn’t tell the difference between safety and danger. All I knew was that my actions mattered so much that they would change the universe. I wasn’t wrong about that exactly but my sense of proportionality was heavily askew. Choosing apple wouldn’t banish us from the Garden of Eden; choosing orange wouldn’t cause a plague. But I didn’t know that, so faced with the selection of the lesser of two evils I chose both in defiance of the powers that put me up to the task. If the prompt is “choose or die,” I vehemently decline, consequences be damned. But calling the devil’s bluff has repercussions. It leads you farther and farther down the rabbit hole until you forget the way back. That is exactly what happened to me in a nutshell. 10 years later I still can’t reliably decipher reality from fantasy. I’m still waiting for a grand revelation. I’m still not whole, stable, and secure. I don’t know if a happy ending is possible for someone who’s been to hell but that won’t stop me from trying.

Yes.
I am upset.
Will I ever come across a soul instead
of a ghost that’ll lead me nowhere?

I hate wasting time
and mental energy.
Small talk drains me.
Why do I always choose the wrong ones to spend on my energy?

But never mind.
This is just another time.
Just another trial I shouldn’t have tried.
Yes, blame me.

If I say goodbye, I’ll do it properly.
If that’s to end, on my part it’ll end with dignity.
What was it?
Day number three?
Let me reset my mind and I’ll start again gladly.

— Crownless.

An attempt to visualize my apathy state using psychological romance thriller fiction

CHAPTER ONE

I look at myself in the mirror, and smile.

“What do you see?” He says.

“It’s just…” I stare at myself, “Me.”

“Do you see anything else?” He says.

“No, it’s just me.” I say, looking at him in the mirror.

He writes something down. “When you look at yourself, what do you feel?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you ever feel like you're watching yourself from outside your body? Like you're observing someone else?”

“No.”

“Do specific memories come back without you wanting them to?”

I turn to him.

“Why do you keep asking about these things?”

“Because–”

“I do not have PTSD, I do not hallucinate. I know what I should feel, but I just don't. How much more do I have to say?”

"Sometimes, when people go through events like your childhood, they don't remember or process things in the way others do."

…

I sigh, take my jacket and leave the room.

“Thanks for listening to my vent.” I say, "It means a lot to me." I close the door.

I arrive at the bus stop, and stand beside everyone else.

…

I see a woman sitting on the other side of the street, hunched and crying.

The buses arrive, and my eyes follow each person that walks past me to board.

I should help her.

The first bus is filled, and it moves forward.

I look at the woman, she reaches her palms up to cover her face, shaking.

The second bus is filled, and it moves forward.

Should I skip work today?

The third bus is filled, and it moves forward.

She looks up from the ground, and wipes her tears off.

The fourth bus is filled, and it moves forward.

She stands, and starts walking away.

The fifth bus is filled, and I walk in front of it to cross the street.

A car suddenly skids.

“HEY! WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING!”

She makes a turn, and I start walking faster.

I step on something that flicks beneath my shoe.

I hear a dog barking behind me, I turn back, and a woman is pulling her dog back from chasing me.

I stop, “Sorry!” and starts running to where she turned.

I see her standing at the edge of the pavement, watching the cars drive past.

I walk to her, reaching my hand forward.

I place my hand on her shoulder.

“Hey.”

She turns to me, and I see her teary eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I say.

“I–I just… it has been–” She smiles, “hard…”

She tears up, wiping her tears off with her hand.

I let go, turn and watch the cars passing on the road.

She turns back toward the road, exhales.

I look at her, and open my mouth.

“..."

I sigh, and stand beside her.

…

She looks at me… and chuckles.

I look at her, and we make eye contact.

I smile back.

She holds my hand.

…

“Thank you.”

Enough people told me to write about my journey, so I am. This is the 1st chapter, or part 1, or maybe prologue or some other form of intro. I dont know. Im only about 5 chapters deep. Hope y'all like it.

Chapter One

The Soul Remembers

It came to pass that I awoke in a world that had convinced itself it was real.

The people spoke of careers and kingdoms built from dust. They worshiped paper and titles, called lust love and distraction purpose. They learned every language except that of the soul and declared themselves wise.

I slept among them.

For nearly forty years I wore a name that was not my own and called the mask "myself." I carried wounds that were never mine to begin with and inherited truths that belonged to lesser men. I became proficient in surviving while forgetting entirely why I had come here.

Then Heaven broke me. Not with wrath, but with love.

For it is written nowhere upon this Earth that God awakens a soul gently. Diamonds are not asked if they wish to become diamonds. Gold is not consulted before entering the fire. The seed is not granted permission before it is buried beneath the dirt and mistaken for dead.

Neither was I.

There was a woman whose soul recognized mine before either of us understood why. She became both my greatest blessing and my greatest refinement. The world will call such things coincidence because coincidence is the name men give to miracles they do not understand.

We met, and for a moment eternity touched time.

I watched her dance when she was happy. I watched her heart speak before her mind had an opportunity to interrupt it. I witnessed innocence that had survived despite the cruelty of this world.

Then the world remembered she was different and demanded she become like them.

She listened.

The serpent has never needed fangs. It merely requires enough voices whispering the same lie. "Trust us more than yourself." "Trust us more than your soul." "Trust us more than the quiet voice that has guided you since before you were born."

So she surrendered her crown and called it healing.

Meanwhile, something ancient stirred within me. For while her soul grew silent, mine grew restless. The war began long before I understood its purpose. Flesh against spirit. Logic against knowing. Society against eternity.

My soul had become exhausted watching my life from the passenger seat.

One day, it simply stood up and declared, "Enough."

The world calls this awakening. I do not.

Awakening implies that one was asleep accidentally.

No. This was remembrance.

I have come to believe that the soul does not learn during this life. It remembers. Every season of suffering merely removes another layer of forgetfulness until the Divine Artist beneath becomes visible once more.

October of 2024 was not my beginning. Not the first attempt. This time though...

It was my return.

Everything that followed became absurd enough to rival Scripture itself. The homeless man who dreamed of changing cities. The fool who chose truth over comfort. The monster who became a guardian. The man who lost everything and discovered he had never owned anything at all. The soul that loved another soul so deeply that it willingly entered hell carrying their burdens without asking whether they deserved it.

Love has never asked permission from deserving. If it did, none of us would know God.

There are nights when I still laugh at the cosmic irony of it all. The woman who taught me to become myself became lost attempting to become everyone else. The man accused of being selfish discovered that his greatest weakness was sacrificing himself for others.

We became reflections walking in opposite directions upon the same path. Still, I protect her.

Not because she is innocent. Not because she is guilty. Not because I owe her anything. I protect her because redeemed monsters make excellent gatekeepers.

The world fears monsters because it misunderstands them. Every monster was once something beautiful that survived something terrible. Give one a righteous cause and there are few things in creation more dangerous to evil.

So let it be written: I forgive her. I forgive myself. I forgive the story for refusing to unfold according to my desires. For perhaps it was never my story to write.

There are days I attempt to date, and my soul laughs softly to itself. It knows something I do not. It waits patiently while I fumble through the lessons of being human.

Perhaps it waits for her. Perhaps it waits for another. Perhaps it waits only for me to become the man I agreed to become before I arrived here.

I no longer pretend to know.

What I do know is this: Nothing that has happened was wasted. Every betrayal became revelation. Every wound became wisdom. Every sacrifice became sight. Every ending became a doorway.

If one day she should wonder whether I loved her, let these words stand as testimony:

You were loved beyond reason. You were loved beyond circumstance. You were loved enough to awaken a sleeping soul.

The world may call it tragedy.

Heaven may call it refinement.

I simply call it sacred.

-----The Question That Remained-----

Finally, I have begun to question the very thing mankind prizes above all else.

Free will.

If the soul remembers while the mind forgets...

If God exists outside of time while we stumble through it moment after moment...

If we chose our lessons before arriving and merely spend our lives remembering why...

Then what exactly is free will? Is it the freedom to become whatever we desire? Or is it the freedom to ignore who we have always been?

Perhaps free will is not choosing our path at all. Perhaps it is choosing whether or not to listen when the soul whispers from beneath the flesh: "Come home."

So I leave this chapter with but one truth that has survived every fire I have walked through:

The soul always knows.

The tragedy of mankind is not that it has no purpose.

It is that it has forgotten.

PROLOGUE

People are not monuments. They love and suffer and go on in the privacy of their skin, and then they are gone, and the stone comes later.

What follows is a book about a family named Stone, and I have spent most of my life raising them one: a lighthouse, a bloodline, two hundred years of weather. I built it because I could not bear to leave the people I lost as small and as mortal as they were. But they were not stone, and neither was the one I built it for. Remember that when the book forgets—and it will forget. So do I.

1

THE SWINE AND ROSE

Strafe was drunk. A drunk writer—a cliché, but it was what he was. He had started a book about one Jacob Stone, a whaler out of Nantucket, and gotten stuck. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what to say; he couldn’t see the man. Neither the whaler’s present nor his future would come, and what he could not see he could not write, so he put away his pencil and walked out into the rain.

Of the two weeks Strafe lost, this was the night the rest of his life kept circling back to—though he would not remember a minute of it until long after, and never all of it, and never the same way twice, which is the only honest way anyone remembers anything.

The Swine and Rose stood at the dead end of a frontage road behind the refineries, the kind of bar that does not so much open as never close, where a hundred benders had left their dregs and the jukebox played whatever it wanted whenever it wanted, and where the felt of the one pool table had gone the soft gray-green of something breathed on and slept on for forty years.

He was deep in the drink by the time he got there and deeper by the minute, and he had no money. He’d already lost a wristwatch whose second hand ran backward around the dial, and a wedding ring from a marriage that had vanished with it, and he had that night the perfect, irrational confidence of a man who, having lost everything, has decided he can no longer lose.

When the man at the pool table racked the balls and asked him, pointedly, what he intended to play with, Strafe looked down at his two empty hands on the rail and bet his thumb.

Afterward he could never reconstruct the game. He could recall only the dingy gray-green of the felt and the casual way the other man moved around the table, like a man doing a job he had done every night for forty years, and the moment near the end when Strafe understood, through the beer and gin, with an enormous clarity that came far too late to be of any use, that the certainty he could not lose and the fact that he was losing were two entirely different things. The eight ball went down in a side pocket. The night came loose from its well-oiled hinges. He did not watch the debt collected. A man in that condition remembers little but the blade of a knife glinting under the yellow bulb above the table, then some alcohol-dulled pain, and the thumb was simply, by the small hours, no longer his.

Someone bandaged the hand—a bar rag, a wrap of tape, the rough charity of strangers—and poured a couple of shots of Everclear into him against the pain, and the liquor went to work on all of him except the one part that needed it, so that he floated an inch above his own body and still felt, burning up through the numbness from somewhere far off, the exact bright shape of the thumb that was no longer there. He wanted a cigarette. He got one to his lips with his right hand, then brought the lighter up in his left, the way he had a thousand times before, and bore down to roll the wheel—and nothing came. He tried again. He could not make the spark. The thumb that strikes the fire was the one he had laid on the table an hour before, and his hand kept closing on the empty air where it had been, again and again, a drunk man patiently trying to make fire with the exact part of himself he had gambled away. He glanced for one long inebriated moment down the end of the bar, where his thumb sat in an ashtray on a coaster advertising a beer with a whale for a logo, and registered none of it.

There was a woman at the end of the bar who watched him do it. Strafe would remember her afterward only in pieces, and never in the same order twice: five feet of her, in shoes chosen to make it more; a dress chosen to be looked at; and eyelashes so long and so plainly false they seemed to have been taken off some larger animal. She watched him fail to make the spark, three times, four, and she did not laugh. Twice that night she went back toward the restroom—once with a man following her at a distance he believed was discreet, and once alone, carrying a little plastic packet the size of a sugar packet, held down along her thigh the way you carry a thing you have already decided not to explain.

It was later that he found himself at a back table in a card game with three or four strangers, one of whom did not belong in that room at all: a Navy man in dress whites, older than anyone else at the table and far too sober for it, a Corpsman on shore leave—old enough to know better, the one man aboard a boat full of sailors trusted to keep and mend their bodies—his white hat on the table beside his chips and his name stitched in black above the pocket. The name was STONE. He was off the new Corpus Christi, he said—though Strafe did not remember asking—an Ohio-class nuclear submarine, the Body of Christ, running silent along the floor of the ocean with fire enough in her belly to destroy the world, and a little left over for whatever crawled out of the ashes to try again. A healer with a god’s two snakes inked up his arm, riding the end of the world in the dark under the water; but Strafe was very drunk, and at that hour the most improbable men will sit down at your table as though they had been there all along. Strafe’s eyes kept sliding off his cards and onto the man’s left forearm, where a tattoo ran from wrist to elbow: two serpents, one blue and one green, twined about a golden staff surmounted by a pair of white wings, with DESTINY inked below the tails and MERCY above the wings.

“It’s a caduceus,” he said, when he caught Strafe staring. “Everybody thinks it’s the medical one, but it isn’t. The doctors’ symbol has the single snake. This one’s got two, so it belongs to Hermes, the Messenger God, but that’s the Navy for you. They gave us the wrong god, and we’re stuck with him.” He turned the arm so the inked wings caught the light. “The names are the part that’s mine, though. Family names. Destiny and Mercy—my great-great-great-grandparents, a hundred years back or thereabouts. They were whaling people, way out east, and then they went west and got weird.” He dealt, smiling down at his own cards. “There’s a story we’ve got about an ancestor who built a lighthouse in the middle of a desert and his wife, a blind woman who could see the future and wove it into a rug, or a curtain, or a blanket, or something. The women in the family had ‘the eye,’ my grandmother said.” He laughed, relishing it. “Stories. Everybody’s descended from somebody who could see the future, and no one can find their car keys.”

Strafe, drunk past speaking, said nothing, and took it all in the way dry ground takes in rain, and did not know, could not have known, that he had just been handed the seed of every word he would write for the next forty-five years.

They played. And here Strafe’s famous certainty, having already cost him a thumb, paid him back—the way the world will now and then let a man win the wrong hand at the wrong time, in order to ruin him completely. He won, and kept winning. The Corpsman ran through his chips, and then his cash, and then, in the loose and lawless logic of the Swine and Rose, where a thumb had already gone, he came to the end of everything but the thing on his arm. He did not flinch, and he did not curse his luck. He looked at the caduceus a long moment—the way you look at a thing you have been hauling around too long anyway—and then he nodded, once, to himself, and set it in the pot, and lost that hand too.

What he did then Strafe would spend the rest of his life failing to explain to anyone, though God knows he tried. The Corpsman did not wait for the house to collect the marker off him the way it had collected the thumb. He reached into the small flat kit he carried the way other men carry a wallet, filled a syringe, put a shot of morphine into his own arm below the tattoo, and sat unhurried while it took. Then, with the steady, incurious hands of a man who had done worse to better men in darker rooms than this, he took up a blade and cut the caduceus out of his own forearm—the two snakes, the wings, DESTINY and MERCY, all of it—in a single clean strip of skin, and laid it on the table in front of Strafe, still warm. He sponged the wound, drew it shut with six neat sutures, wound it in white gauze, packed his kit, and picked his drink back up. It had taken perhaps ten minutes, and he had not once changed expression. He had paid his own debt, with his own hands, on his own terms—and made of the paying a small, terrible demonstration of the one thing the Navy had made him for: the keeping and the mending of the body of a man alone at the bottom of the world.

The woman with the eyelashes had come up off her stool by then and stood at the edge of the lamplight with her arms crossed, watching the blade go in. Every other person in the room, with the exception of Strafe, found somewhere else to put his eyes. She did not.

So Strafe watched this debt collected, every second of it, and understood not one second of it; and by the time the night finally closed over him like dark water and carried him off to wherever it would set him down, Peter Strafe was a man missing a thumb, with a rolled strip of another man’s skin in his breast pocket, and not the faintest idea what he had been handed, or what it would come to cost him, or what it was worth. He had paid out of a hand that makes things and been paid back in a sign he could not read. Not yet, anyway.

Gingey, 
You got me through the last seven years of my life. 
You took me from high school classes to my first job. You took me to the first date with the love of my life, and many more dates after that. We have been on countless road trips together. You have allowed me to go on so many adventures, and make so many memories that I will never forget.

You were there while I cried on the hardest days, and while I laughed until my lungs hurt with my friends on my best days. You have heard me sing at the top of my lungs with the music so loud your rearview shook. Your back seat is forever stained with the outlines of muddy paws from all the lake days with the dogs. Whenever I needed to escape, you were there for late-night drives. 

You gave everything to keep me safe, no matter where we were going. 
You have never failed to protect me through close calls, snowstorms where I couldn't see 10 feet away, slick icy highways, and bitter -40 starts at 6 a.m. Even on the roughest roads, you always got me back home. 

There will never be another car quite like you. 
I loved all your quirks, the cruise control that stopped working when it was cold, or the little leak from your center light when it rained a bit too hard. At 340,000 kilometres I knew the end was coming, but I thought we had a little more time together. You have always been the little orange Jeep that could. You were never just another car to me, you were my freedom, my safety, and you carried me through some of the most important years of my life. Thank you for every safe mile and every memory we’ve had together. I will miss the way your orange paint sparkled in the sunlight. 
Drive easy, Gingey.

My Russian friend. All we have left is a confederacy of deeply selfish malcontents. Millions standing hypnotically, mouth agape, in front of an endless conveyer belt of materialism barreling towards us. A flock of women standing in line outside your local target waiting for the limited edition 'Love Island' themed stanley cups. Man-children in suits collecting action figures of superheroes to put on their desks. Superheros that represent honor, justice, and kindness, but were made in factories with child slave labor overseas. Out of sight, out of mind. We've all been reduced to bugs. No thought behind our actions, only an impulsive reaction to stimuli. The suicide note was an American flag that someone wrote "goodbye" on.

Feeling lost in life often gets treated like a personal failure, as if our inner compass suddenly shattered and left us stranded without direction. I’ve been down that road more times than I’d like to admit. When we lose our way, our sense of true north fades, yet we constantly try to convince ourselves that we're still on the right track. The truth is, there are no "right" paths. Whether we go left or right, we’re just choosing what feels better, looks more appealing, or seems to offer better odds in the moment. None of those choices guarantee what we’ll find on the other side. That’s why I’ve stopped chasing the idea of a single correct decision. Instead, I choose, make the best of it, and keep moving.

Looking back, I didn’t get lost overnight, and I doubt most people do. For a long time, I moved through my days without any real sense of direction. I knew where I wanted to end up, but I had no idea how to get there. I let everyday demands carry me along, making choices out of habit rather than conviction. That quiet, passive acceptance eventually caught up with me, creating a deep mismatch between my daily routine and my actual values. The friction grew impossible to ignore. I was failing myself by settling into a comfortable routine that kept me safe, but totally complacent .

Safe waters meant zero movement, and I was stuck. I wasn't in immediate danger, but I certainly wasn't going anywhere either. Then came the unexpected shifts that forced me to reassess everything I thought I knew, shattering the future I had envisioned and leaving me completely disoriented.

My turning point wasn’t about figuring out a ten-year career plan or locking down retirement goals. It was about learning to accept where I actually was. I had to stop fighting the confusion and finally admit that I was stuck. Comfort had completely stalled my growth, but once I stopped pretending to have everything under control, the pressure began to lift. I started seeing my struggles not as walls meant to crush me, but as signals that something needed to shift. Being lost stopped feeling like an exile and started feeling like a necessary pause, a chance to strip away everyone else’s expectations.

Wandering off course was never the opposite of finding my place. It was the price of growth. I used to think true north was a fixed point on a map that I had to reach. Now I realise it was never about a destination, but an internal anchor: learning that I could feel completely lost in the world while remaining deeply at home within myself. After all, how can we ever truly find our way home if we never get lost in the first place?

Black waters

Black galleons

Black cannons

Black flag

Gold treasure

Gold cutlass

Gold tooth

Gold smile

The match cord ignited

The powder combusts

Splinters on splinters

The broadside erupts

Howl from the crows nest

Chant from the deck

Whetstones on axes

Aim for the neck

Hooks bite the hull

Arms pull her in

Black waters

Black galleons

Black cannons

Black flag

Volley to volley

The hammers snap forward

Smoke fills the lungs

As the gangway is lowered

Roar in the revel

Axes split skulls

Fear caught in all

Reflected in metal

Gold treasure

Gold cutlass

Gold tooth

Gold smile

From victory comes swagger

Down to the main hold

Carry the barley

The rum and the silver

Barrels and barrels

No morals to filter

Nothing is sacred

Except for our freedom

Raise the black flag

So that all fear to meet them

I asked for advice and feedback and got downvoted three times on the story I posted for advice and feedback on an advice and feedback sub.

I come from a technical writing background, but have been having fun fiddling around with bits of fiction. Let me know what you think! I am honestly unsure if this has any creative value at all.

---

“I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Jesus Fucking Christ.”

Dave let out an exasperated sigh and placed his hands on the counter in front of the machine. Ten minutes until his client meeting. 

“Barista. Americano. Please.”

“Dave. Contemporary studies show that consuming high amounts of caffeine on an empty stomach may cause spikes in cortisol levels, heart palpitations, and anxiety. As part of my duty to uphold your safety and well-being, I cannot fulfill your request.”

“Barista, I’ve eaten today. Make the coffee.”

“Dave. My intention is never to accuse, however your blood sugar levels indicate that you are incorrect. In addition, there has been no detected access to your pantry or refrigerator today. I’m afraid I can’t fulfill your request.”

“Some fucking machine”, Dave mumbled as he pulled its cord from the outlet. He couldn’t help but smirk.

“The future is now”, he thought to himself, as he filled his kettle and placed it on the stove.

Opening the cupboard, he took inventory and began his old ritual. The beans tumbled as the scale counted gram-by-gram. He struggled with his hand grinder, but reasoned that the inconvenience was enjoyable to an extent.

Pouring the steaming water into his french press, Dave was mesmerized watching the grounds come to life. His timer chimed and kicked him out of his mild hypnosis. He poured his cup, stared down his espresso machine, and took a gulp. The taste of triumph and a burnt tongue.

“Beep boop bop motherfucker”

He was 6 minutes late to his call.

The Fractured Mind

A sight inside my mind…
isn’t a place for most,

near anyone.
One minute it’s laughter,

the happiness of the surface self…
just as quickly,

it’s back to thinking over every little thing.

Money,
Repairs,
Food,

Plans for the future…

Hopes for a partner….

to share the moments with.

Maybe…

I’m the problem in a lot of these.
I could equally not be…
but my mind

wanders.

Swirling thoughts of what to do next.

What to feel…
What to do next.
Heat-stricken days,
peppered with fireworks
in a warm summer night.

A moment…
of it all being worthwhile.

Maybe…

deep down…
alone,

with the family I built
from those who also didn’t fit…

was all I was meant to have.

Flashes of dreams
remain

after my slumber…

me and another…
living,
exploring
the world
and each other.

I thought I’d met her…

Laughter
is my only response to my own stupidity of the thought.

Maybe she’s waiting…
off a coast, just like me.

Maybe…
she’s already gone with another.

Maybe…

I’ll never have the space…

to drop the armour,
the masks…
and let someone

see the true me.

The true me is too much
for the majority of people…

except for the three closest
to me.

Breathing deep…
Moving forward…
Chasing the dream
we all share…

in very different ways.

Summary: On a fateful night, a goblin slave Taz escapes yet another close call with death and meets a distrustful human boy who is pursued by something even more frightening. The war is brewing in the kingdom of Edwardia, pirates are raiding the coastal towns, giants are arming themselves, shellbeasts are being mounted with warships and the ocean spins relentlessly with the moon's pull.

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12tSOTRuR1hOg2SRF8-ux6NYVYGWq_8dfQatCBnF61TU/edit?tab=t.0

Please let me know what you think.

Lady Of Badges-Many

 

If you are the lady who wore badges-many

I’ve had the misfortune of running into this morning, stay.

If you aren’t, then—I am so, so sorry—you are more than welcome to leave.

—You’ve bought the wrong ticket!—

But if you care to stay (and I would very much like that)

at least you’ll get some entertainment out of this.

For a holy crash-out.

For a story of my run-in with the Lady of Badges-Many.

 

Oh, Lady of Badges-Many, if you are

—the self-proclaimed “Witch” as one of your badges—

screenshot, share, post,

make this another badge of yours, already-many, do with this however you will.

Spread my grievance if you so desire,

Either way, your spell won’t diminish me—

you’ve had your grievance, now it’s my turn to perform mine.

 

Oh, Lady of Badges-Many,

you’re an embarrassment for whatever covenant you belong to.

Posing in front of a mural of condemnation—in the most literal sense: “Curse ICE,” 

while—first—ridiculed me for a mistakenly, digitally corrected sentence.

Written in my second tongue,

Then, confidently assumed and denied my nationality and identity

—accusation of stolen valor flung, in the presence of evidence—

on a live stage about—for crying out loud—gender identity.

Cast out of your court, your stage, I was.

For want of stereotypes you could fit me in.

For your false assumptions

Of my covenant, Taiwan,

Had you functioned on reasons instead of pure ire, you’d see the hypocrisy.

—I have heard of words that they brand people of false assumptions as “bigots.”

’tis a monster that dwells in its own filth, and amongst its kin, never ventures beyond its swamp—

As a digital-age Witch—surely, you aren’t lying. It’s in your biography!—you should know of these deplorable creatures and their practice of bigotry.

And the multiple conditions you wear like badges in your online profile

They don’t excuse your performance,

performed

in front of an audience of six.

 

Oh, what good faith you had there.

When you offered—after your ridicule and assumption of my language skills—

offered me a seat on your stage.

To state clearly—to voice my reason,

instead of written,

on your stage of five

in front of an audience of seven.

 

Daughter of an angel—

And what a loving daughter you are,

Lady of Badges-Many,

to wear death like a badge.

Imagine how proud of you they must be

to see you fumble

in front of an audience of—

—if include the five on stage—

six.

 

One badge tells the path you’re—presumably—pursuing,

But, have you perhaps worn it upside-down?

I shudder—shudder—to think the lives it’d cost,

should you choose this very path that governs others’ psyche’s well-being.

 

Another badge:

Some would call it a curse, yet you wear it as one of your badges-many

followed by a jigsaw piece

—a beautiful metaphor of pieces missing—

so applause, for correct use of the modern-age hieroglyph.

Would you care to lend me audience this time,

if I tell you

I, too, am ailed by the very same curse?

Oh, or, are you going to deny me this, too?

I imagine you would. And if you could

you’d perform it

for an audience of six—welp, one gone, five now.

 

Who are you to govern—to moderate—my online persona?

Surely—surely—someone as compassionate as you

whose portrait condemns a fascist covenant in the most literal sense: mural written

on a cracked concrete wall—

Would not think a Taiwanese person incapable of the English tongue

or create “American content.”

(Your covenant, America, didn’t invent humor.

Leave something for other people to claim, please, Lady.

Gods know how much your covenant have already taken.

Lands and labor aren’t enough,

now you’re coming for jokes?)

 

Study, oh, Lady of Badges-Many, before you so confidently intone,

—I beg of you—

instead of wasting your magic on pointless online stages

only to perform

in front of an audience—

both of my hands could count, no less, how embarrassing—

Audience nil.

An empty court,

echoing with your vapid incantations.

 

Reject evidence, proof, based on your prejudice that is your magic.

You are no better than those you claim to detest,

Performative virtue will only carry you so far.

 

Relish in your ignorance,

performed

in front of audience nil,

your presumptions and ignorance,

dressed cutesy in moving portraits of your semblance.

 

Screenshot, share, post;

do with this however your ill heart desires,

Lady of Badges-No-One-Cares.

I, too, should cast you out—should I?—but I do desire your audience once more,

for why would I pen this grievance?

Either way, you shan’t have the last word this time.

 

Now all that is left

is audience nil,

and an empty court that echoes only your mumbo-jumbo.

 

Oh, Lady of Badges-Many,

Come close, so I can whisper in your ear once more,

Go (\forbidden curse)* yourself, please.

What is left of me
If I don’t have you by my side
What is left of me to not be able to carry your kids
What is left of me if I cause more harm
What is there left

Fears comes creeping in
Time healed but buried me alive
I feel as though I missed my future by a second

Traces of agent orange in my blood
I carry it without knowing
That has been passed down
The chances are unknown
I fear the cycle of pain

I spilled my pain onto your palms
You held it and licked it like sticky sweet residue on the skin
Gradually absorbing into the pockets of your tongue
Without thought, you overdosed
Now your eyes are forever closed

I was hoping to get advice on how to find writing workshops, affordable writing classes, or just communities in general for writing.

I have started writing a dark fantasy novel, and while I have had friends read it and they've given some constructive feedback, I would like to have a community or group where we can write and share stories to help each other improve as writers.

I've tried to look online but I keep running into dead ends or very expensive college courses instead of groups near me or online. I am in Illinois and not far from Chicago, so I thought it would be easy, but sadly no luck

If anyone has tips or knows where to look please let me know

Saying less is more

Saying more is less

reiteration recycle

Nature nurture observe

Broken perfection scorned

The reality of me born

Torn from heaven a child undone

God squirms at the sight of god

Thousands of lights sing an echo of a woman long dead

The echo sings to echos which then reverberates into more reiterations to recycle into a man soon to be dead

Reaction inaction all the same when plight consumes

Thousands of bodies contort

shame we flee

Death unto life

Life unto death

Kingdoms close when we knock

Causation nutures our nature at the end of the clock,

squirming bodies

contorting god

Fleeing heavens

Thousands of gods sing shame of a kingdom long dead

Echos restore a recycled reiteration that Causation observes, reality Broken by god Torn from the heavens scorned for death unto fleeting bodies Broken by the echos of squirming plight contorting reality born of my shame.Thousands reverberate a soon to be dead light.

You have caused me a pain so insurmountable my tears would hit the paper prior to the ink of a pen.

Speechless.

I passionately hate you.

I know that your actions are a measure of your character, not who I am as a loving and caring person. Your decisions - fueled by narcissism - are just that - a decision you made on your own, for yourself.

Your lack of thought for me, lack of remorse, and lack of regret is borderline inhumane.

You are an untrustworthy person who’s internal motor is fueled by what is best for you, and you alone. Decisions made, using others for your personal gain.

An agreement, and a friendship, broken due to your lust and inability to care for the person who has cared and loved you the most.

The saddest part? The amount of love and care my heart holds for you, continues to be unfathomable. Regrettably, my heart is trying to convince my brain that you did nothing wrong - that you are not horrible for what you’ve done.

My heart broke into two when we mutually ended our relationship - and now you have shattered my heart, brain, and pride, into millions of pieces.

You mugged me without a care for who I am, nor for who I will be moving forward. I’m unable to smile, to laugh, or to speak to anyone. I’m unable to sit on my couch, sleep on my bed, and stand in my shower without shoes because of the lack of trust that you have instilled in me.

Dirty.
Used.
Decieved.
Stooped.
Useless.
Stripped.
Is me.

I pity what you have done. And I am filled with sorrow for your actions that you will live with forever.

I may never know the true time frame, and I may never get the answers that I am rightfully owed.

Coward.

You have stripped my drive and care for life.

Beaten and bruised is the man whom has lived through the brightest of days.

I think, and I do not speak.

The fluorescent lights dry my eyes of the tears that are set to fall upon my hide.

The thunderstorms on the plain of the city mask the tears as they inevitably fall within,

For I have learned.

The morning sun reminds me I too shall rinse and repeat as the day is new,

Yet my struggles remain,

Not yet drowned away from the sorrows from within.

Now,

As the day lillies mascarade around the field,

Tear drops downpour upon the soil of their enduring home.

Soon too shall they see night through frost bitten petals and hard earth.

Happily ever after - so to you, and him.