Dissociative Identity Disorder

Dissociative

Identity

Disorder

Written By Adam Leon

Battleships

I feel an almost frantic urgency as I copy the memories locked within my mind onto the yellow faded pages of my journal. Faintly do I ever remember with certainty what I recall, but given the circumstances, I am compelled to remember to hold on to the last fraction of sanity within the grasps of my mind. Despite my conceptual understandings, the phrase that speaks loudest to me is the silence of its reply screaming into my eardrums of self­loathing. I miss you. Yes, of course, I’ll always miss you. So let me remember who you are to better understand that of which eludes me. Even though I am rather certain that you will never remember me.

He sat alone in the dark room. A room so unfathomably dark that despite there being a window pouring in the rays of the sun like waterfalls; he could hardly see the walls around him. Yet, somehow, he could hear them. Bleeding their soft breaths upon the room with the whispers of Denial. He heard them cry, he heard them shout, he heard their breaths over his own; bleeding a word of doubt upon his sanity.

So he spoke quietly.

“I’m alone.” he remembered now. He could feel how the walls echoed his words in agreement. He felt as if he was lost in a world so foreign that the walls considered him an outcast for speaking his mind.

“I’m alone.” He said.

He folded those words onto his tongue and let them fly like a crippled paper plane on the air falling silently without it ever reaching its destinations. It crashed and burned along with his dreams of being heard by someone that would react with more than just the echoes of loneliness.

The walls laughed at him like a thunderstorm striking the debris of an already broken city. He needed a hug like it was blood, food and rescue teams. He saw his life flash before him like a movie screen, black and white, filled with the

grey undertones of faded morality. He felt like he was a sheep in wolves’ clothing, knowing he couldn’t ever fit in with peoples or walls.

In an effort to continue standing, he began to fall. Screaming with the silent echoes bouncing around him, announcing his loneliness to the stature of Gods. It was almost as if he became lost in a single room with no twists and turns but a burning resonance in his heart. He fell apart as the walls fell together and in a last ditch effort to contain his mind, he screamed for silence.

“I’m sorry!”

He repeated lightly.

“I’m sorry.”

The walls laughed.

“I said ‘I’m sorry’.”

The walls stopped.

He said he was sorry. Sorry for being too crazy to be insane. Sorry for yelling at the only person who made his mind calm. Sorry for being another raindrop drowning her life away. Sorry for not being who he was but what others wanted him to be. He said he was sorry and even though a word and a contraction meant every fact of the emotion that he felt, he knew that it would never be enough. she was already gone. She was nothing more than dust in the ground. A decomposition of the residue that was once a beautiful girl. A memory of a ghost that passed away from his life, yet he could hear her in his walls.

He could hear her knocking like she was waiting to be invited back in. A tap­tap­tap ​ reminder of a tragic sin trying to grab his heart and tear it out of his ribcage. He could hear her titanic implications with each knock through the walls.

Any minute now he knew they would all come crumbling down. He knew that wherever he was, there was no one around.

“Are you okay?” the girl sitting next to him said with a worry in her voice that reminded him of a cats purr. He remembered where he was now, fading back into reality from the recesses of his mind. He saw in her a genuine kindness that stretched out an open hand to release worry and care. He came back from his broken stare and smiled with the last bit of happiness in his heart.

He said “Yeah…” continuing on his thoughts as they faded back. “Just thinking, I guess.”

She nods in a steady repetition with a lack of worry. She smiles to him. He reacted with the same level of admiration normally seen in a hurricane survivor to a Red Cross rescue team. She seemed so innocent and relaxing in a way he couldn’t quite describe. He’s never known such kindness from a person he hardly knew as a friend.

“You think too much.” She said as she mockingly places a fist under her chin in the same manner as he does when he’s in a deep contemplation. He let’s go of the darkness for awhile and begins to fully smile with his soul.

“You study too much.” He said.

She shook her head in a manner that allowed him to deduce that she didn’t quite believe so.

They continued to laugh so quietly it seemed only faintly above a silent breath; however, as she shook her head, he tended to make several more psychological deductions.

She shook her head because she felt too uncomfortable to speak above a whisper; in effect, he began to make a list of her psychological tendencies. She felt that if she continued to speak, the advisor would begin to peak from behind his cubicle and glare at her disapprovingly. In that effect, her self­esteem would take a hit like a pirate ship to the bellowing of a cannon and because she couldn’t manage a look or a glare, she shook her head to indicate her answer with a silent reply.

Within those five seconds, he began to calculate with his biological human calculus the odds of her emotional turmoil. He figured that it boiled down to how many times a day she was given an impact to her self­esteem. He could see in her a victim of physical abuse, not from a friend, not from a foe, but from family, something he related to.

Those five seconds gave him enough evidence to fall in love with the girl who sits next to him.

“I don’t study too much,” she played, “I just study more than you.”

He broke his posture and sat up in a manner that resembled a father correcting the rationalizations of a girl too young to understand the complexities of her mistake.

“Actually, I don’t study at all, man.”

She made a face indicating a playful level of annoyance, wrinkling her nose and tightening the curves of her mouth. He was quite familiar with this look; it was a red flag declaring an imminent shot through his heart from a beautiful announcement of his mistakes.

“First off,” she said with a tiny smile bending the corners of her mouth like the tension on the bow of an armored ship cutting through waves so thick you could mistake them for walls of white bubbles and blue pearls. “My name’s not ‘man’.”

With a quick smile and an even faster tongue, he spun his words around like an attack countered by an evasive maneuver masterminded by a war hero of the sea who’s all too familiar with red flags and white walls.

“I apologize,” he spoke sincerely, “Your looks just always seem to throw me off.”

Her mouth held open in a shock so cute that he couldn’t help but smirk with a proud delight. It reminded him of a gaping wound at the portside being bombarded by waves of emotion; a direct hit unanticipated from such a beautiful enemy; but as if a bullet was deflected with a block or a twist, she continued on her list, advancing her attack on his mistakes.

“Secondly,” she turned away to glance down at the warming glow of a clock on her electronic device. “I still do not understand how you pass all your classes despite developing such laziness.”

“Yeah, well, neither do I.” He realized he lost the battle, not a single sinking blow to her armored ship, just a disregard and a smiling reply from his beautiful target; However, her attack fired a shot through his heart so violently that he could hardly remember if he ever had a heart to begin with. “I suppose I’m just a genius.”

“No, that can’t be it.” she replied shaking her head and bringing her fist to her chin in the same mocking manner. “There must be another reason.”

He was destroyed; hit and sunken in an emotional barrage of counterattacks and defensive maneuvers. Still, he continued to smile to her. His perfect beautiful target of whom always seems to emerge unscathed and unaffected by his comments and reflections.

He couldn’t contain his subtlely any longer. He was absolutely loving his enemy and couldn’t help but burst into a stream of laughter. A geyser flooding

every dried plant life and dehydrated animal in a manner so profound that they would need to build an ark to ensure their survival.

“What’s so funny?” the beautiful target questioned with a bright smile. She could see a likeness in him that is only portrayed on rare occasions. She’d seen shooting stars and brilliantly blue moons more times than she could entertain her eardrums with his uncensored laughter.

“Battleships!” He cried continuing on his laugh through madness and misunderstandings. She had no idea of the battle that took place amongst them within the beautiful confines of his forgotten sanity. She only knew he was happy, and for the moment, that’s all that seemed to matter to her.

She turned away smiling her brilliant radiance and shaking her head in disregard to his absolute madness.

“You’re so weird,” she whispered, “Why are you laughing at battleships?” A question geared only to herself in an effort to better understand their misunderstandings. He could see in her the way she couldn’t fathom the meaning of his answer yet was still so eager to learn his thought patterns. She sat in such an honest sincerity that he remembered exactly why he fell in love with her.

His beautiful target who joined in with laughter.

But there was still a trick, he always had a trick. A concealed weapon hidden behind a big red curtain pulling all the strings of the monstrous machine he knew only as his insanity. The battle wasn’t over until he shattered the beautiful target like a treasure chest blown open to reveal the golden gems hidden away from public consumption. He knew that he had already won.

As the advisors voice came storming down the hall, a man so thin and hunched that he looked as threatening as how much strands of hair rested on his head, which was next to none.

He said calmly, "What is going on?"

The laughter grew into a soft giggle while the girl who sat next to him grew nervous a little, allowing the subtle satisfaction of his plan turning into fruition to encourage his next few reactions.

"Nothin', just chillin' man." He gave a soft smile that reached out like a steady hand between the likeness of God and michelangelo representing peace and

acceptance of the advisors presence. The advisor lifted his glasses from the bridge of his nose and rubbed them against his shirt.

"Before you came, I never heard Mina laugh as much as she does now." He softly places the glasses on the bridge of his nose again and turns to her judgingly.

"It's all his fault!" She shouts pointing at the enemy. He notices how there's a worry in her voice with the radiance of sadness within the peripherals of her eyes as she tries to deflect the blame, but to him it's all the same.

He won.

"It must be." He countered. "Because the alternative would be that she just can't accept responsibility." He turned to her and smiled, revealing to her his satisfaction and his lack of worry at this particular predicament.

She eased back into relaxation as she was comforted by his smile. It was a genuine emotion, a feeling born from a truth of care inside him and she knew that everything was just for play. She was with him and he was there.

The advisor smirked and turned away, "Despite your laughter, you guys perform better than any other partnership I've seen here." He began walking away in a manner of proud acceptance of his subordinates, like a king honoring a knight who's proven honesty and valor in the most dangerous of scenarios.

As he left the room, the tension in the air was released like a beautiful fragrance fulfilling a calm satisfaction of the residents within the room.

"I hate you." She said jokingly.

"I hate you too, man."

He felt that if he smiled anymore than he already had, then the muscles would permanently contract and glue that look onto his face. He didn't want that, he was too unhappy to always be smiling, although it would be quite fitting if he could also be stuck at the hip with this beautiful girl.

"Mina..." He spoke softly. He was remembering the darkness that dwelled inside him. That monster that tears away at his life and mind until it fulfills its mission of mutually assured destruction. He had to pull away or else he would begin to launch the nuclear weaponry known as his deductions. She turned to him.

"Yeah?"

He needs her. There was something whispering in his ear, reminding him, 'you need her'. He knew that she was there, to him she was sanity. She could pull

him back into reality. She could say the most poetic concepts until his depression was cured. He had a lost identity, a forgotten sanity, a broken soul, a forsaken kindness that he didn't know.

He needs her. He remembered. He needs her.

However great a relationship, he was reminded that everything ends. Despite how hard you fight for immortality, despite restlessness and hopelessness; everything ends. Although, he could spend the rest of his eternity fighting to be her enemy. With her, he always remembered.

He forgets the most important things sometimes. Names, locations, relationships and even himself, he forgets.

He forgets, but he needs her. She wasn't just love, or hope or purity. She was everything to him. Every thought, emotion, concept, and cure. She was there.

He couldn't bring himself to the inevitable thought that everything ends. He couldn't face the fact that he had a mouth like a cannon. She turned to him and he remembered.

"I'll miss you." He said.

"Why?" She smiled, "I'm right here."

A Twilight To The Midnight

The wind felt so peaceful upon his face. He loved it's soft embrace as he stood beneath the star­lit sky watching every motion like it was a dancer performing her most beautiful ballet with the symphony of a genius forged into a masterpiece. He felt at ease as he saw the absence of the large celestial body that encompassed that trait he so very much adored in the girl he was waiting to see once more­ the pale moonlight of the night was gone, and he recognized with a greater emphasis the beauty of the stars.

They were nuclear explosions billions of light years away and they surrounded him like the hands on a clock ticking all their time away. He knew that they were eternal, each one of them with the capability of forming a singularity; the potential to form the monstrosity of a black hole, he felt so in common with the stars in the sky.

"Another restless night." He whispered. He couldn't quite remember anymore why he was there, he was lost amongst the stars, drifting violently through waves of torture and darkness trying to grasp onto those fragments of the night sky that brightened the vacuum of their existence. He had to hold on, he was too scared to find out what would happen if he let go.

"Don't let go," he reminded himself with certainty to never forget it's dangerous curiosity, "don't ever let go."

He fell into the darkness, lost in a never ending tunnel of void; nothing created, nothing destroyed.

"It's okay, I'm right here, man." He heard a soft voice speak from behind him, driving his mind back into reality. It was the girl he was waiting for, foreign in her own way to the world he existed in now. She was from a land so incredibly different that he would have to learn another language to speak their tongue.

He saw Mary in the moonlit and felt his foreign beauty dance across the grass to make a true embrace of her entirety. He remembered the light she brought along with her, the resemblance of his depression that she encompassed that made him feel not so alone.

"You have that look on your face again, the lost one." She sung as she held his hand and looked up into the eternal void, dreaming alongside him, keeping pace and staying afloat in the waves of torment.

She was all too familiar with a lost identity, she knew who he was but not what she represents. She loved the darkness, the constellations, the ever­growing conscious connections established between their genius. She was perfection to him, but to her, she was lost as well.

"They're so blue," She spoke with an arrogant certainty that felt as if she was merely stating the obvious. "Reminds me of 4 A. M. Tuesdays."

He understood the significance of an early morning on an unimportant date.

From the twilight to the midnight to the dawn and the sunlight, he could see the soft blue sky peeking around the corner speaking of a new day.

"Why can't I remember you." He said with a sadness in his heart that showed his soul parting away at the midline. Her hand felt so cold in the soft night air, her breath so warm on his face, her lips so soft in the dark, she felt so real and yet he knew that she wasn't even really there.

"I'm gone." She hushed through a whisper that peeled his skin back and relaxed his muscles so shockingly that he felt that if she continued to speak then he would begin to silently melt away.

A blue night, white stars, soft breaths, cool arms, whispers of denial and cracks of the mind. He hardly knew where he was.

"Why did you leave me? Was it something I did? Can you tell me?" He was teeming with questions, trying to find the reasons for her absence presently. She was merely another hallucination trying to bring him back into sanity.

"I'm sorry," she said with a shiver. There was a sliver of regret reflected in her pupils, a small sign that gave way, a warning, a thought, another concept.

It was all a puzzle to him, pieces scattered amongst himself that he must pick up and place in the appropriate position, hoping to catch a glimpse of the full picture. For now, he could only see the shapes and colors. The reds, the blues, the kiss, and a small fraction of regret living in her eyes.

"Where are you now?" He leaned in with the most important question on his mind, or so he thought. He knew the answer would be the final piece of the puzzle he had to put together or else he would never feel the satisfaction of fulfillment.

She whispered back softly, with a small cry and a large shadow.

"I'm in the walls, won't you let me in?" The darkness consumed him. The stars vanished in the sky as the grass leapt away; he began to fall through himself and back again.

He wasn't sure where he was but he could hear the walls surrounding him.

He could hear the tapping, incessantly begging him to let it in.

"I'm sorry," he heard it speak. "Won't you let me in?"

He stopped all breath and held his head to help contain the sound from echoing through. The tapping amplified to crashing that felt as if it would soon bring the walls down. He didn't know where to go.

"I'm cold." He heard her whisper past the crashing and the walls. He couldn't stand it anymore, he needed his foreign doll.

He aimed for the cracks within the foundation, reaching out with a failing hand and a decrepit sadness. He heard the shouts of madness wrapping him in a chaotic level of dissociative. He was fading before he could even reach between the lines grey that held her frozen in darkness.

He marked his end. He saw the tragedy overcoming into an anxiety that couldn't be persuaded back into clarity. He could feel his fingers leaving him with the effortlessness of a butterfly on the wind. He knew any minute now, he would disappear along with them.

The cracks opened, standing still between the lines of grey he saw a figure covered in shadows of regret.

"Mary, I need you." He uttered with the last of his energy. He was too unstable to feel anything coming from the figure, but he could hear it laughing at him.

It laughed just like the walls.

"You let me in..." It whispered like a snake slithering through the Savannahs preparing to coil and launch at its wounded prey. "You're such a broken fool."

"I know..." He replied. "I can't help it," He couldn't fight it any longer, he was soon to giving in.

"No." He slithered through encompassed by the shadows. He was a long legged demon stretching from one side to the other with a darkness so absolute that light would disappear in each of its steps. "You don't remember."

He stood up with the last of his strength and stared face to face with the darkness. The tension built around him and weighed down harder than the gravitational pull of a dying star. He looked into its face and held his head, "I remember..." He paused trying to hold his breath from shaking with fear, "Mary."

The darkness detailed, becoming more and more humanoid seemingly taking a form he could slightly recognize. It was a boy, a look of loss and sadness on his face that resembled his own. Pale skin and forgotten eyes that pierced through his, reaching into the windows of the soul and creating a gateway to connection.

Without another word or concept he knew who it was.

It was his own face.

"She's gone." It spoke sadly. "She's gone and she's never coming back." The last of the walls cracked, shattering into an oblivion as the sin came pouring about the way like a tsunami washing both lives and debris; In this case, both a life and a debris were essentially the same thing. A record on repeat replaying the track of a lost mind, a record laughing through the walls from a lost time in the past that’s so far away now that a time machine couldn't repair the damage.

“Shutup…” He held his ears trying to block out the broken record. He held his ears trying to block out the broken record. He held his ears trying to block out the broken record. The broken record. He held his ears trying to block out the broken record from seeping into his eardrums of self­loathing, but he was in his own mind. The record wasn’t coming from around him, it was emanating from inside him.

“Get out of my head...” He whispered. the record repeated. It was now at a volume so profound that even if the voice of God was thundering in his ears, he wouldn’t be able to hear a single word from over the shouting of his thoughts. The recording repeating over and over again, singing its song of pain until it encompassed its very essence.

“Get out of my head!” He shouted with a ferocity that would put lions locked away in a cage that have been beaten, misfed, mistreated and burning with a dying revenge to shame. The darkness receded . The record stopped. The debris washed away. The mind was cracked but the soul was intact. He stood at the edge of the world and stood up to the darkness residing on his horizon.

“I’m still…. in control….” He spoke with an emphasis on each syllable to show his power and his anger towards the darkness. The face reappeared and spoke menacingly. manically, softly while laughing.

“Not. For. Long.” He looked down and noticed his own legs had taken the form of the demon. He noticed that they felt the same justifiable anger towards each other. He noticed he looked and felt exactly like the demon. He faded between their consciousness, unsure of who was who, who was he? Within the anger, he noticed that he was a demon.

It laughed at him. It was the noise behind the walls, it was inside his mind. It was pure hatred and it was feeding. It began to speak with the same voice of the girl he knew only as Mary.

“I’m cold,” It mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

“I miss you…” He countered.

“Do you remember?” She said.

“No…” “Then why do you miss me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you see me?”

“I don’t know…”

“Can you hear me?” “...I don’t know…”

“Won’t you let me in?”

He held his tongue. He needed to stay in control. The girl isn’t real. He had to remind himself that it was just a demon in disguise. He had to make sure he stayed in control. He didn’t want to be a monster anymore. He couldn’t be a monster anymore.

“Just leave me alone…” She said… “Just leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me alone.” She said.

Just leave me alone. He remembered those words as he heard them over and over again. He wished he was friends with Atlas to help him hold up the sky as it came falling down. The blues, blacks, greens, greys and browns of the dawn were only held up by the sighs expressed by the multiple personalities walking through the air.

He could smell a faint breath of her vanilla­coated hair. He could remember the sensations, the feelings, the sights, the smells…. the emotions. He just couldn’t remember his Mary.

It spoke once again as he fell between the cracks at the edge of the world.

“When people stop acknowledging each other and start contributing to the cynicism in this world,” She spoke with the softness of a feather on the broken wings of regret, “it only furthers the continuation of vanishing love.” *** He awoke in his bed to the ringing of his phone emanating from his pocket.

He knew that he must have fallen asleep in his suit but could not recall how he got home or how his day ended.

He answered the phone call. It was just another movement he had to complete to hold the guise of an ‘I’m okay’. He tried to forget the demon who lived inside his walls. He tried to forget falling through the edges of darkness that swallowed up even the heroes of old who could fell giants and demolish Troy. He answered the phone call because it wasn’t just a phone call, It was a wakeup call.

“Hey…” He heard a voice whisper through the line with what sounded like the cracks of a broken heart.

“Hey…” He whispered back with the emotions of an uplifting notion, holding onto that broken heart keeping it from shattering into a million pieces.

“It’s um… I’m just calling to um… you know… just wanted to see how you’re um... How are you?” He recognized the voice, it was Mina. He could hardly remember anything that happened that day, he can’t even remember how their conversation ended­ if he spent his time with an expertise of scrutiny or the rest of it laughing alongside her.

“I’m awesome.” Even though he hardly felt fine, he reassured her because he couldn’t survive another battle. He just wanted to lay down and fall asleep in his now wrinkled suit. He didn’t want to suffocate under the weight of his own thoughts, he just needed some time to forget what happened.

Before he could realize that there had been a sustained level of silence between them, Mina broke the silence with a sigh and a question. He could hear her breaking from over the line.

“What ​ happened​ today?”

He didn't know, he couldn't remember today.

"What do you mean?" He questioned. He didn't have it in himself to explain his insanity, he couldn't worry her with his trivialities. He just couldn't remember what happened.

“What you said… Why did you say that?”

He had no idea what he had said or how it affected her, he just knew that she was sad and that it was his fault.

“I don’t know… I’m sorry…”

“Are you?”

Another silence.

“There’s times when it feels like you disappear.”

He slowly breathes in, he slowly breathes out. He wants to tell her, but he just can’t bring himself to worry her. He doesn’t want anyone to know of the constant battle going on in his head. He can’t let her know of the bloodstained battlefields and the demons of darkness that torture his mind. He can’t let her know that every waking moment is a struggle to be who he is and maintain the control necessary to stay lucid.

“It just… It feels like you’re not there.”

“I can’t… Help it.”

He laid there, in a room, in the middle of nowhere in a wrinkled suit with no memory of how it all happened. He held the silence on his tongue and mouthed the words he wished he could say. The same two words that he wants to say to all of those who become a victim of his mental incapacity.

You can't justify being crazy.

"I'm sorry." He spoke sincerely.

"I know..."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

He could hear her breaking.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

He knew she wasn't trying to convince him that she was okay, she was trying to convince herself. He had to take action or their battleships would begin to sink and drift away.

"Mina... I didn't mean to­" "I know, it's okay."

He could hear the teardrops in her voice, the condensation forming into tiny thunderstorms at the corners of her eyes pattering away their droplets at the line.

He was sorry for losing his mind. He was sorry for losing control.

"I­ I gotta go..." She said.

Click.

That was it. A phone call, a wrinkled suit, teardrops and another victim of his emotional damage.

He could hold his head up to monsters, stand at the edge of the world, balance on the cracks between the lines, fight away the walls that come crumbling down. He could speak with the force of armies, influence with the power of politicians. He could hold out his hand to the glory of God and feel an equality that rivals even the highest of narcissists.

But he couldn't remember what happened today.

He couldn't think of the words to say, couldn't laugh like an encore to a smile, couldn't pretend to be lucid for just that little while longer needed to hold the seeds sown from their friendship.

It was a twilight to the midnight.

He was already losing control.

He closed his eyes to fall asleep, and with his last breath... He whispered.

"Mina... I'm sorry."

Roses of Regret

He saw the way they all lined up perfectly, such an astounding sense of uniformity that he wished he could’ve been apart of. He noticed how all the food given was within the same rations and portions despite the sizes of each persons variety.

He looked out his way and saw through his looking glass the crowds of people getting their due pay. Each task was just as meaningless as the last and yet each person still held onto a sense of belonging.

“How incredible,” he would think to himself in regards to their sheep­like ignorance, “such a beautiful compliance.”

He couldn’t ever be apart of their societal darkness that kept them herded together like the cold trying to stay warm with a dying fire. He could only merely look out at them and wish that he could be the subject on their mind, a light showing that you can battle the heavy burdens of loneliness and still stand with a sense of might.

His shoes began tapping on the paved cement, reminding him of something he couldn’t quite recall. He was held together with the pressure of his suit and tie that knotted him into the stature he had to personify while surrounded by the sheep he so very much adored.

"They're all scared, they're all dying... and they're all alone." He was trying so hard not to care for them, he wanted them all to slip from his mind and be nothing more than a seconds' thought­ but without the sheep of the world, who would be there to feed the hungry wolves?

Maybe God? He contemplated Him often. He was always fascinated with the idea of an all­powerful being that will only ever always be surrounded by others beneath Him that place Him on a pedestal far above anything they could ever achieve. How lonely God must truly be.

His hands started bleeding again.

"The thorns," he said aloud within the safety of his thoughts, "I always forget that with every rose, there's a thorn."

It wasn't another one of his metaphors. It was a literal fabrication of the fact that a bouquet of beautiful blood red roses went trickling down his hand. The roses themselves were a physical representation of his apology.

Yet he enjoyed the idea that beauty is protected by such small thorns. They were too small to protect anybody. The roses merely lived in a denial of the actual danger they were in. Something that none of them could ever understand, only those who've ever been wrapped in truth could face denial.

It was both a friend and an enemy. It was a reminder of how horrible all of life's subtleties are to the point that not even the infinite expanse of the human consciousness could ever believe it's true.

Denial lives inside of you, fed by hate and anger and nursed to it's fullest potential through the lies you want to be true to create a false protective layer of small thorns so that you can ignorantly live within the belief that your so­called beauty is well protected. The truth is, it's not.

Denial is nothing more than your blind spot.

“That’s okay,” he reassured himself smiling, “I’d rather be blinded by beauty than to live without these cuts... from such small thorns.” *** He shivered, it was the beginnings of cool summer nights that stretched out into those small hours that he’d become such close friends with. The nighttime air embraced him like a caress that empowers lovers to perform backflips for their significant other. It was the only thing that could calm him during his times of insanity.

He loved how the dew of the grass would slide between his bare feet, how the opinions of the trees could be swayed by a single gust of wind and how even though he was all alone, he felt more at home than any other place he’s ever been.

There was another voice in the night and yet this time it wasn’t coming from inside him.

“There’s no lights in the park,” he listened, “allows me to watch the constellations without censorship.”

Sitting on an old wooden bench held up by moss and rotten screws was a beautiful young girl. She had hair as dark and pure as a raven with wings outstretched in the midst of taking flight, eyes so captivating and blue that he thought she had caught a piece of the morning sky and held it in their place, skin so flawless and perfect it makes porcelain sculptures look distasteful. she was such an

angel that the creatures in heaven whispered amongst themselves, ‘what is one of our kind doing down there?’

“Don’t you just love the stars?”

She looked at him in a way that made him feel that they’ve known each other for years. He smiled.

“I’ve never really looked up at the stars before.” He turned to admire the lights in the sky he’d always seem to ignore. “I guess I just never took the time.”

He approached her slowly “Life’s too short.”

“It’s actually the longest thing we’ll ever do.” she spoke softly. He sat down beside her on the old wooden bench and glanced around at the darkness of the small hours at the lonesome park.

“What’s your name?” He said.

“Liefde.... Mary Liefde.”

“It’s very nice to meet you Mary, you have such a beautiful accent.”

“Thank you.”

They sat together quietly, unsure of each other’s presence. It was such a perfectly odd encounter of two different souls so far away from the other that even the short breaths they took felt as if they were from an opposite planet.

He didn’t know what to do or what to say. He’d never had friends, merely acquaintances, each of them left behind in his life. He’d never sat so close to someone before, never had the chance to sit quietly alongside such a beautiful girl.

Oh, how he wanted to be her friend. She was such an interest to him, a puzzle that seemed more complicated and out of place than his own life. He always came to the park at night to escape reality and this could be just the perfect excuse.

This could be the next step to help him advance from his reclusiveness out into an open world by taking the blind hand of a perfect stranger and diving into the deep waters of mysteries and adventures.

He raced in his mind to find the words necessary to capture her attention and wrap himself with the humility needed to keep her from breaking away from him.

He had to find the next sentence on the tip of his tongue to plunge himself into the warmth of the cool summer nights. He was frightened he would be the first man to freeze to death in Summer.

In the end, he spoke with an elegance the only thoughts he could muster together for his beautiful foreign doll.

“Why do you enjoy the stars?”

She faced him. He could see the full extent of her beauty only inches away from his likeness. He liked it. It was subtle yet obvious, soft yet powerful and even most of all it seemed so perfectly familiar to him that he couldn’t turn away. Her eyes locked his into place like a skeleton key fitting into each and every lock inside an old mansion; he began branching out.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he didn’t know if she was answering his question or talking about her unimaginable beauty. “Billions of miles in any direction from our solar system is nothing except complete darkness, so void, so cold... There's absolutely no life or sound or thoughts out in that darkness and yet billions of miles away those tiny lights travel all that distance in an attempt to light the darkness."

She stood and walked forth down the path as if walking out towards the stars themselves. “And I think that’s beautiful,” he followed her as her soul moved silently across the dew of the grass, “because even though we see them as nothing more than tiny lights in the sky, minuscule in nature, they’re actually millions of times larger than anything we could imagine.” She faced him once more, guiding his soul across the vastness of her mind.

And she said, “It’s as if comparing atoms... to elephants.”

She was right and from that moment on he always noticed how beautiful the stars were at night. How they could project themselves and shine on brilliantly through billions of miles of darkness. They were more than tiny lights and left alone sparks.

With all that said, he truly fell in love. The lonesome park, the stars in the sky, the dew on the grass, her beautiful accent. It was all so entirely captivating that he couldn't help but let loose his heart and fall apart for this foreign doll.

As the summer night stretched on, their conversations carried more and more weight to themselves. They spoke of the constellations and she took the time to show him each one and tell him about their lives, the greek myths or stories of old that always seemed so fascinating with the way she spoke.

She continued on with its science and their existence­ nuclear fusion lectures and quantum mechanics. She was absolutely brilliant. He never met anyone like

her before, so powerful in their likeness and confidence with a beauty and brains to match.

She was quite the catch.

He didn’t want their first night to end in case it would be the last time he'd be graced with her presence. When he began to see the first blues of the morning sky he listened to her quietly to hold her in his memories.

“That’s my favorite color.” She said pointing towards the line on the horizon to show the changes as the sun begins to arrive. “The oranges, the blues, the blacks and the pinks and browns... It’s almost as if God Himself is collecting His palette to paint a new day.”

He couldn't help but cringe at the mention of God. It was an honest reaction that seemed more dramatic than needed of which the foreign beauty instantly acknowledged.

"Do you... Not like God?" She questioned as if she was the reflections of the sunlight.

"I... Don't really have an opinion about Him." She looked at him quite curiously and yet cautiously as if preparing herself for the imminent collapse of their friendship for such a simple topic.

"Do you want to know my opinion about Him?" She whispered in her beautiful accent.

He had to admit. He wanted to hear her opinion on everything from the blades of the grass to the endless expanse of the universe around them, from the meaningless sheep called people to the brilliance of the wolves that feed off of them, from the tips of snowy mountains to the gorges of the grandest canyons, from parallel dimensions to existence in theirs, from the thoughts she's had to those she will have, but, in truth, he did not care to hear her opinion of God. "No... Not really." He muttered.

She became quiet and without another word she stood and faced the horizon.

He could only make out her silhouette, the shadows of her being as she was facing away from him.

"I should be going."

He was scared to see her leave; he didn't want her to leave.

He feared that he had upset Mary and now she would be leaving him behind as many have done to him before. He was terrified that she wasn't walking towards the horizon, but instead that she was walking away from him.

He tried to tell himself that it would be okay but he knew that it would never be quite so if he allowed this perfect beautiful girl to walk away all because he let his hate interfere between them.

He reached out his hand and quickly held hers.

“Mary... please... tell me about God.” She continued facing forward, he was scared that she was already gone. He was scared that she couldn’t even face him because of his attitude towards something both meaningful and insignificant.

He felt her begin to shake and his fear subsided as he realized she was laughing at him. It wasn’t an insulting or insinuating laugh, it was a cute, calm and an understanding notion. An ocean of relief washed away his turmoil and she turned to face him once more.

“How about I tell you tomorrow night?”

He began to laugh as well, her happiness was nothing less than contagious as he felt the softness of her skin in the palms of his own.

“Okay Mary, I’ll be here waiting.”

That’s how their friendship began. This was the marking of the dropping of the anchor on the shores of their secret meetings and philosophical conversations.

He made a friend that grew each night and each time they held hands and looked at each others brains and beauty.

He was captivated by her soul and the innocence of her being. Needing a friend was something that was always on his mind but could never find the time to make the appropriate reactions. It was a friendship that not even the opinions of God could break.

From then on... he wasn’t alone. *** He was unsure of whether or not he was strong enough to be able to look Mina in the eyes and apologize for something he couldn't remember.

Adulthood seemed so distant from him now. The act of taking responsibility is something left to the men and women of the world, not boys and girls. Even

though legally he was old enough to be considered an adult, he never learned how to be one.

That may have to do with the fact that he never learned how to be a kid, but childhood was now worlds away from him.

He continued holding the roses in his hand as he entered the perfectly blue building that held captive the princess he was there to save. He glazed over the other employees helping to feed the hungry lines of sheep, something he felt so disinterested in.

“Hey, how you been?” he heard a loud voice echo from behind him in a very positive and uplifting manner, he was already smiling before he even turned around.

“Oh, hello there Evie.” He spoke with the undertones of a pleasant surprise.

She was a very beautiful pale­skinned girl with short brown hair cut perfectly to emphasize that cat­like appearance of her hauntingly green eyes. She was wearing a crisp new dress that flowed with her likeness so incredibly she looked as if she could be a model on a magazine starring the hottest sex icons of Hollywood.

“What are you doing here, darling?” She reached out and graciously held his arm close to her warm inviting body. She looked deeply into his eyes and smiled her usual smile. He never did enjoy the smile, it was a mask plastered over herself hiding the tears and depression she felt daily. Despite being such a perfect beauty, he could feel that she would never know it herself. It was such an unattractive quality.

“I’m just here to talk with Mina, got her flowers as well.” He held the roses between them, separating himself from her smile. She consumed them with her gaze that didn’t resemble envy or jealousy, but instead was saturated with heavy doses of loneliness.

“Those are very beautiful flowers.” she whispered so softly that he was unsure of whether or not she was speaking to him directly or to herself. “She’s lucky to have someone so caring.”

“Yeah,” it’s funny how a single sentence made him feel so guilty, the roses were an act of care, but only because he shattered the porcelain soul of his beautiful target, “Do you know when her shift is over?”

She shook her head as if trying to wake herself up from the loneliness that almost seemed to have consumed her, “Um... it should be over quite soon actually, any minute now.”

“Alright, thank you, Evie.” He looked at the lines of people and felt too disgusted to want to stay within their boundaries. He noticed from the peripherals of his eyes the way Evie stood, she looked so broken despite wearing a smile and a beautiful dress.

He didn’t want her to have to stand there and feel the heavy burdens of loneliness the same way he does. She had a perfect look of sadness that created a painful reminder of the real reason why he was there.

He was there to help a captive princess, and she was a captive of the same long­legged demon that encompassed his own soul.

He didn't want to be within their boundaries but he couldn't leave her without standing for his beliefs and helping to battle away the monster that lives inside the darkness.

"Hey... Um... How are you?" He said turning to the captive. How beautiful Evie looked with a genuine smile as she embraced him.

He allowed his disgust to subside long enough to talk about the mundane aspects of such a forgetful day. They talked about grey skies and crisp new dresses, the workload of jobs and the understanding of the turmoil of a student trying to balance both in their life.

He didn't mind wasting himself and his stories on such a lonesome being. He felt her rise out of her shell as they continued on with their conversation.

Smiles became genuine, laughter became common and the more they spoke the more and more comfortable he became around their boundaries. He understood them as people, watching each of them rush in and out, wondering what each of them could bring to the conversation.

Evies personality was complexifying before him like a toddler taking their first steps into a wide open world, how familiar it all became to him reminding him that we was no longer alone.

Without warning, he hugged her.

She smiled.

After awhile he became aware of the passing of time and turned to see the lines of people vanished from him. He grew quite worrisome and glanced around at the emptiness.

"Where's Mina? How long has it been?" Evie grew worried as well and broke away from the conversation to address the questions asked in such a speedy manner.

"I'm not quite sure, let me check."

He remembered how each second stretched into an eternity as he was embracing a realization that may be too much to bear. He was bleeding again from the thorns and couldn't help but feel that they would no longer play a role in this chapter of his life.

Evie stepped back through the doorway and held a grave look on her face, "She left... I'm sorry."

"How did she leave? Isn't this the only way out?" He looked around trying to find a trace of Mina somewhere amongst them.

"Yeah but she must have snuck past us when we were talking and­" "Couldn't she see me here waiting for her? Didn't she see the roses?" He waved them around at her violently as they began dropping petals on the concrete floor.

"I'm sure she did but it probably looked like... Well it probably looked like they were for­" "For who, Evie?! You?! It looked like I got you roses?! Why would I ever get you roses?! Why would I ever look like I­ I­ I ..."

Evie turned away, she couldn't look him in the eyes when he was angry. No one can look him in the eyes when he's angry. He didn't mean to get upset or to yell at her, he was just mad at himself. It wasn't her fault, it wasn't his fault, but he didn't know what to do.

"I didn't mean to get angry... I'm not mad at you­I'm just trying to­ I'm just..."

She shook her head and waved her hand to disregard the anger despite having raindrops fall from her eyes.

"It's okay... I'm­ I'm sorry that she's gone."

"Don't be, I just need some time." He began to walk away thinking back about what had happened. He sacrificed his own safety and defenses to battle for a girl he hardly cared for.

How odd it seemed that without knowing what he was doing, he managed to sacrifice his own well­being for another. Would he have done the same if he was aware of the consequences? He was unsure, he will always be unsure.

He no longer cared for the roses in his hand or the apology they represented.

He grew in him the disgust for their denial that he had fought within his mind just earlier before. He felt so angry at them for being too ignorant to know that their thorns are such meaningless aspects.

Could he blame them?

He was in the same boat, he was born with the same problems. He was born with this emotional turmoil that tore him from the inside out and he couldn't help but hate himself and the roses.

He knew that just like him, they would never truly get a grasp on their cluelessness, they will always be nothing ever more than roses of regret. How they disgusted him so.

With a silent breath and an emotionless wave he gave his last contribution to their meaningless conversation.

"Goodbye."

He walked a few steps, tossing the roses into a broken trash bin while stepping out of her life forever.

She was just another unwritten chapter of his life...

And it was now over.

The Perfect Beautiful Girl

She laid sprawled out on her bed, feeling each sensation of the pillows and fabric to help distract her mind from the evidence that seemed so clear to her now.

She squeezed the edges of her feather pillows until all the air was released and she

could feel the tension between each individual feather. It didn’t help to make her feel better.

She began pulling, yanking and stretching the feathers between her hand.

She felt entranced by the way they floated to the ground as she started to empty out their contents onto the floor. It grew more and more violent and before she realized it, each pillow was gutted and the feathers were on the floor in a soft pile.

She sighed and then knelt to refill the pillows that she disemboweled. She felt a little guilty for murdering the objects that always seem to comfort her when she’s distressed­ when she’s too upset to voice her opinion. After finishing her self­inflicted task, she quickly grabbed her phone and scrolled down the contacts to reach the name she wanted to speak to.

She saw it there beckoning her to make the first interaction, taunting her to send the message, laughing at her to try her move.

What could she say? She saw him there with the roses for Evie and she knew that none of it mattered. None of it would ever matter enough to try to win someone that she could never be with, her family would never allow her that freedom. She was a prisoner of love that was trying to tunnel out of her cultural chains­ a sensitive topic.

Instead of sending that lonely message, she began to call her friend of whom she told each secret and lonely aspect of her life to. They felt like sisters amongst themselves and she knew that they could relate.

She held the phone to her ears and the frog in her throat.

“Hello?” She heard a tired voice appear from the other side of the line that made it sound as if she just woke up.

“Hey, Ashley,” She could hear her own voice crack as she heard her friend beginning to awaken, “How are you?”

“I’m sleepy, you’re cutting into my sleep­time,” Within any given moment, her friend was always trying to find time to sleep. Outside of volunteering, working as a waitress, studying for school and playing in athletics, she was always too busy to do anything that could help her escape her reality. Mina remembered how her friends’ only peace are the small fractions of a night that she can sleep quietly. She felt like another burden and couldn’t stand it. Jokingly, her friend continued, “this better be important.”

“I... I didn’t mean to wake you it’s just­ It’s about...” She tripped and stumbled over her words, falling over each syllable and concept until she couldn’t help but embrace the sadness that overwhelmed her completely, “I’m sorry...” she began holding back tears from flooding through.

“Hey... no, don’t worry about it...” Ashley spoke softly as if comforting a terminal patient in its last moments, so delicately and understandingly. “Mina, what’s wrong?”

Mina remained silent, hardly able to find the words necessary to complete the thoughts racing around her head. The sadness and the darkness kept her from embracing her friends’ comfort.

“Can we meet at our usual spot?” She whispered through quiet gasps and silent sadness.

“Sure... No problem.” Mina quickly ended the call and then tossed her phone onto the bed, separating herself from the name that caused her such darkness. She wiped the tears from her eyes and tried to hide the degrees of heartbreak she felt.

She noticed her thin silk shirt on the dresser next to her and placed it into a small pink bag that she used to pull together the comforts she needed. With a glance and a peak she checked the time and the light outside realizing that night was fast approaching, another comfort for her. She always enjoyed the darkness of the night, it felt like a blanket that brought cool air and soft breezes.

Mina raced down the stairway catching her mother in the kitchen. She saw her ironing clothes with her bright red headdress wrapped around.

She never did like the headdress, it was a reminder of those cultural chains forged into her that bound the reasons why she couldn’t be herself. They haunted her, filling her with despair each time she thought about her childhood, her entire life struggling to be accepted and yet finding those same boundaries within herself.

She could never understand why her mother could always smile while wearing such reminders. She was glad that she was no longer forced to wear them herself.

"Hello honey," her mother quickly placed the iron to the side and walked over to the oven to grab a large piece of meat that had been cooking. "Your father's still at the restaurant, he should be home in a few more hours."

How uninteresting it was to be aware of her own fathers absence. It didn't make absolutely any difference to her whether or not he was home or miles away.

She just never felt the need to know her father. She quietly nodded her head and read the last of her lines to her mother.

"I'll be back, I have to go do something." She held the bag over her shoulder and began reaching for the door out into the open night.

"It's late, when your father gets home he'll ask me why you're gone." Her mother's reply caught her off guard, she forgot all about her father's approval and couldn't remember what made her think it would be within the realm of possibilities to leave so late. She held her breath and quietly emphasized.

"Just tell him it's important." There was a silence between them as her mother walked back to ironing almost contemplating whether or not Mina would be allowed to walk out that door. Without another fight she sighed and gave her last statement as if preparing a death row prisoner for the inevitable end.

"He's going to be upset." She said.

Mina stepped out the front door like a porcelain doll accepting the cracks within her reality. The finality of the action was such an impact to her that she could feel her heart race and her breath leave her body. The sun felt like the hour hand, the moon the minute hand, she felt so at peace stepping into the star­lit sky.

Who cares about approval when the night blossoms for only you?

She ran through the obstacles laid before her path until she reached the safe haven she calls 'her spot'.

Waiting there was her friend holding a glove and a baseball on her chest as she was laying on the bench battling with fatigue and exhaustion from a long day.

"You okay?"

Her friend quickly sat up and made a loud groan. Although completely unnecessary, it was a warm and friendly noise that was overly dramatic but still executed perfectly.

"I could ask you the same thing." She walked over and sat down next to her friend with the same smile reserved for special occasions. She remained there for awhile before beginning to tell her the story.

Ashley listened on patiently, observing every movement and eye contact given from Mina’s broken heart. A small part of herself was imprinted into each memory where she found the need to hold her friend as she began to cry.

It all seemed so meaningless but she understood that she wasn’t upset about what she saw or what happened, she was feeling something that she wasn’t used to and didn’t know how to ventilate.

Her friend held her close to herself to make sure she knew that she wasn’t alone. Ashley was all too familiar with the feeling of tired anxieties and the darkness it brings.

“Let’s just forget about him for awhile...” *** She was staring off the balcony looking over at each building top and grey sky, attempting to imprint the view into her mind before traveling to a new world far away from the only place she ever called home.

She could hear the peoples chattering and conversations being carried on within the rooms beneath her. It has the likeness of an ordinary day and an extraordinary nostalgia that would soon be gone from her. It was both intimidatingly exciting and infuriating, the change was sudden and as a young girl, she wasn't used to foreign worlds or lost homes.

"Mina, come inside and finish packing." She quickly turned and pattered her tiny feet against the floor as she raced to pack the last of her clothes. Everything she owned could fit into a small pink bag that was given to her by her uncle, an odd fellow who always gave her advice and listened to her go on about her day.

“Okay, daddy! I got everything I want.” She pulled the bag down from her bed holding a smile plastered onto her face. She loved grey skies and rainy days, they reminded her of the first time she met her uncle.

Her father walked in with a grave look and took one last glance around Mina’s room. He sauntered over to her dresser and noticed a small blue stuffed bunny sleeping softly on the edge, preparing for a fall. He picked it up and looked at it with a curious intent; he turned to Mina and knelt down before her like a king to a princess.

“Don’t you want to take this with you.” he said.

She held out her hand and touched the ridges and edges of the bunny’s being, noticing the softness and feathery feelings wrapping its entirety. She shook her head and brought her hands back to herself, forcing the bunny to stay within the grasp of her father's protection.

“Why not, sweetie?” He reached out and touched the side of her head, feeling the flow of her hair that reminded him of the great river that stretched across the land they were leaving.

“It’s going to be a gift!” She bubbled through her boundaries like an explosion shattering glass windows and glass hearts.

Her father squeezed the bunny in his palms, knowing exactly who the gift would be for. He became saddened by the thought of leaving his brother and the place they grew up together. He stretched out his likeness and pulled in his daughter, holding her close to himself.

“Why don’t you go take this down to him before we have to go?”

“Okay, daddy.”

Mina grabbed the soft blue bunny by the ears and turned away from her king. She trotted down the stairways and balconies, looking for her uncle of whom she knew would be hiding away in his small room.

By the time she reached the bottom of the staircase, she was overflowing with happiness and excitement. She wasn’t the slightest aware of the fact that this would be the last they’d ever speak to each other.

She knocked on the door with her tiny fingers banging through, echoing her presence. You could say that there was something soft, sweet and gentle about those tiny fingers.

All the little motions and flowing patterns they carried, the deep understanding of happiness and love to open the door to someone's heart. You could say that even darkness is scared of those tiny fingers.

It could never stand a chance to a young girls love, to the piano of her grace playing the melodies lost away in the cynicisms of such a broken world and forgotten home.

Darkness opens it's doors and allows her light to shine on through, standing within its edges was the recipient of the gift, she ran to him holding outstretched hands that made darkness break and falter.

It was a weapon that could keep all the monsters and demons at bay, away from their moments and conversations. She looked up at him and smiled again.

"Mina, how are you."

She held out the bunny and lightly kissed him on the cheek.

"Daddy said we're leaving soon, so I want you to have this."

He placed her down, settling her like a flower laid upon a bed. He took the bunny and stared into her bubbling boundaries.

"He likes to run all day and he takes long naps in the afternoon," she looked up at her uncle as she noticed him gazing at her like an astronomer to constellations, "he only eats the freshest grass and his enemy is the fox, so be sure to watch out, he's very sneaky."

Tears began rolling down the hills of his face as he turned away. She so closely resembled another young girl from years before that he loved more than how the waves love to dance beneath gravity and moonlight, the previous owner of the small pink bag.

His daughter, now lost amongst the fiery swirls of this world that he knew only as his home. He never felt more guilty in all of his existence and he knew that wherever broken fathers go, it would never be enough for his atonement. So, doing the least he can do, he battles the darkness everyday to protect the little girl with tiny fingers who makes it seem all too easy.

“I’ll be sure to watch out...” he said trying to bring a smile to his eyes, kneeling before the princess of light.

She walked towards him, floating above the ground like feathers on the air caught in a draft. She began wiping away his tears as he was attempting smiles and small laughs.

“Why are you crying?” She fell to the Earth trying to understand his raw emotion. He was given a gift and yet he had tears that shined sadness through.

“Was it something I said?”

“No sweetie... no, it’s just­” He stood at his edge and began to think about the lost girl. Darkness resumed inside him and he could hardly fight it back as he was trying to explain, “It’s just that sometimes the world is such a horrible place and people are such demonic tragedies that everything that once seem fixed is now broken and the only time greatness is ever shown, it’s unexpected.”

He clutched the bunny close to him as he was holding the memory of the lost girl, “­ and that’s why I cry, you’re so beautiful in everything you do that I can’t help but be saddened by this world and its constant cynicism. When I think of you, I see a princess, an angel of grace that can help those out of the darkness.” He pulled her in along with the bunny, holding both of them so close to him now. “But we can’t hate those that are demons, we can’t hate those that break the world, because when I watch you I realize that hate doesn’t stop the darkness from advancing, it only furthers its creation...”

She wasn’t understanding a word he was saying but it felt like poetry at its finest, she continued listening on despite confusion and misunderstandings. “So let us forgive them, let’s forgive this world and try to keep on smiling because even though they’ve taken my princess away from me, I’ll stand firm as your knight if you will continue to smile the light that can shine through darkness... so will you promise to keep on smiling for me?”

She nodded.

“Okay uncle, I’ll smile.” Mina began smiling with a likeness of an ocean across worlds. He began laughing through his tears as he stood back to watch his world begin to violently wash away.

Her king stepped through holding the small pink bag across his shoulders.

He looked over at the princess and the knight and brought in the same grave look he’s carried since the grey skies formed.

“We’re going to be leaving soon...”

“Alright...”

Mina watched the knight stand before the king and whisper so closely to each other. It was both soft and yet strong, holding the love of brothers across a lifetime of experience in each and every word, whisper and movement. It was sadness and separation incarnate.

“I’m not going to ask you to leave with us again... but I think that you should know that the option is still available.” The knight looked at the pink bag, remembering how his princess used to carry its weight. He remembered how her hands wrapped around the straps as he would place it about her. He remembered exactly why he couldn’t leave and why the absence of sleep tortured him in the small hours.

“I can’t... my daughter... your niece­” His armor cracked and splintered, showing the remnants of a broken heart and a tortured mind.

“It’s okay...” The king helped to repair the armor with a reassurance and an understanding. “When she... left us... it was hard for everyone... I couldn’t begin to imagine what you’re going through, if I ever lost Mina, I don’t know what I would­” He choked, stumbling and falling over his own tongue as he tried to conceptualize the loss of his own princess. “­and that’s why we have to go, because this world is a horrible place and life is colder than the desert nights and I don’t know what I would do if anything­ if ​ anything​ happened to Mina.”

There was a long silence between them. The Princess, the Knight, the King and the Bunny stood there at the edge of the world, balancing, just figuring out who they’re going to be for the rest of their lives.

If there was a word or phrase that could best describe the feeling of absolute love and loss, then it would be repeated amongst them with whispers of angels and demons, but that magical phrase of the darkness either doesn’t exist or we just can’t find them. They are beyond the reaches of humanity where even the gods are afraid to acknowledge, the feeling of Absolute Love and Loss.

“Goodbye... Brother.”

“Goodbye.”

As the king was readying to leave, he held the hand of his princess and started pulling her away with him.

Mina became overwhelmed with the sight of stepping from her knight, abandoning him by the wayside to fight off long legged demons and fire­breathing dragons alone. She felt the need to reach out and run to him for one last moment where each of their breaths would be entwined with the heartbeats of princesses and knights.

"Mina, we have to go..." Her father walked over and grabbed her by the arm again.

"No, I don't want to leave! I'll miss you, I'll miss you."

Tears ran like a stream of the coldest rivers down mountainsides and glaciers. They encompassed the uncle, the father and even Mina herself.

"You have to go sweetie, you can't stay here." Despite fighting against the need of holding her as his own, the uncle reached forward to hold hands with the little girl once again.

"No, no, I can't go, I don't want to go."

"I can't protect you... I couldn't even protect my daughter!"

"Mina!" With a piercing yell and a strong force, the father tore her away from the knight and stole her soft heart from his grasp.

"Daddy... No daddy! No please."

"Mina, we have to go... I'm sorry... We have to go." He held her arm so tightly that he noticed a bruise beginning to form around her wrist, it hurt him more than it would ever hurt her to have pulled themselves away.

Although she may never realize it herself, the darkness weighed him down as he took each continuing step. The strength it took for him to pull himself and her away from the only person he's ever known to be the greatest man he's ever met could rival the astronomical forces of the battles of gods over humanities decisions.

Each incision upon his heart tore the cardiovascular side of love. He couldn't find the words, but he knew that somewhere, they exist.

He was sorry as a father, as a husband but especially as a brother leaving behind a wounded sibling left to battle away the darkness on his own.

He was sorry, yet she would never know. She was just too young.

By the time they reach their destination, Mina was fast asleep from the tantrum and crying she was using to exemplify the emotions she felt. They were standing as a family at the edges of a train station already far away from their home..

She had been quickly awoken by the feeling of light petals washing against her face. They caressed her skin like a kiss from an angel telling her to awaken.

She opened her eyes ever so slowly to see the chaos surrounding her.

In every motion and direction there was something moving, spinning, running, or turning away from their world. It was a universal form of chaos, each moving body representing an element of their surroundings that only ever always seemed to be eluding them.

They danced both within and away from their partners, harboring silent feelings and emotional entitlements that encompassed the humanity inside each lonely being.

It was a calming sort of chaos that seemed all too familiar. It was nothing more than routine and decisions of logic that dictated where to go and where to be.

She could see how everyone was lost.

Everyone is wounded.

They began shuffling through the faceless crowds of people, punching tickets and buying seats just like sheep herding together to find a safe pasteur. As they were seated, Mina was placed on a top bunk that tried to resemble somewhat of a bed for the passengers who were both small enough and tired enough to dream.

It all seemed so foreign to her; The runaway train, the forgotten home, the princess of light and the abandoned knight all reached to the broken parts of her soul crying out to her.

She looked out the window covered in both a cold fog and the streams of the light blue petals falling from the grey clouds that was now releasing the floods of emotion she held inside her.

She pressed her hand on the glass window of the runaway train, tracing the raindrops that littered each cubic inch of their racetrack. She began to look back at the city as she noticed the grey skies opening blue.

It was all being taken from her.

It was all being tortured, hung, destroyed, annihilated, consumed, crushed, dismantled, eradicated, exterminated, mutilated, extinguished, broken down, snuffed out, laid waste, swallowed up and torn apart...

There was that feeling again, that feeling of both absolute love and loss that she needed to articulate to help her mind grasp onto the concept that depression can be cured. It was within those five seconds of looking out at the home that was now leaving her that she found those lost words.

A magical phrase that she knew existed but always seemed to elude humanity’s understanding. She dropped her hand and fell back falling to sleep within those last moments as the runaway train pulled her away from the only life she’s ever known.

“I’ll miss you.” *** The ball was whistling through the air as Mina ran back and grabbed it within the tips of her fingers before hurdling it past the forces pulling it down as fast as she could whip her arm towards her friend.

“You know, he’s quite odd,” Her friend caught the ball with an ease showcasing her athletic skill and practice that she’s had over the years as she spoke loudly across the field. “I wouldn’t have figured he’d be something more than just another guy to you.”

It was rather odd and embarrassing for Mina to admit it herself, but it felt like a weight was lifted off her shoulders as the confession fluttered out of her soul.

The night was a cold reminder that embraced her smiles and understandings, she wasn’t quite sure how she felt, but she knew that she’s never had this feeling before.

“Yeah...” Her friend dropped the small item they’d been passing between them, it was nothing more than an insignificance now, “I don’t know... there’s just something about him.”

Ashley glanced down at her wrist, noticing the small hours of the night were passing. “It’s getting late,” she gazed at the stars above her “I don’t think we’ve ever been out for this long before.”

She didn’t want to leave, even though she felt sick from the lack of sleep and tired from the chaos of her day, she knew that she preferred the night over her bedroom. The small town afternoons were on the other side of the world. The idea of the separation alone made her feel at ease. She just wasn’t meant for bedrooms or small town afternoons.

“He used to talk about the stars to me, I never knew why.” Without understanding herself, she began placing the small items into her pink bag from a life and a world away from her now. “I think I’m starting to understand...” She held it over her shoulder preparing herself for a departure from her friend. “There’s a method to his madness.”

“So you can admit he’s crazy?” Her friend continued on as they began their routine movements, a push and a pull, a hug so tightly that you could use the space inbetween their bodies as airlocks and compression chambers.

“I don’t know.” She said.

“Even ​ you​ said that there are times when it feels like he disappears.”

“I know but... I’m not sure if I can let go.”

“What do you think would be best for you?”

“I don’t know.”

She began genuinely opening her emotions to the world with such a perfect beauty that her friend remembered why it was so worth it to lose sleep over this princess of the light.

There was no such thing as a wasted night when you spend it out within the open stars and uncensored friendship between great minds and eternal trust. There was a sort of magical dust that sprinkled its way into each and every gaping wound that instead of causing further discomfort would actually generate a pleasure far beyond that of the broken world.

She was the beautiful target. She was the Princess of the light. She was the whispers amongst angels. She was everything he could ever ask for.

She was the perfect beautiful girl and...

She was gone.

Why Do Apples Fall?

On occasions, when he would open the tormented universe that dwelled inside him, he found that he needed the comfort of rain clouds that had been seeded with sins of another life to pour their tears down on him. Thunderstorms always seemed to calm him, they were reminders that the power of Nature and God far exceed anything he’d be capable beyond the years of his life; however, today was cursed with blue skies and a light breeze.

Summer was the predominant season this time of year and it stretched out with a lazy hand and broken promises. The flowers were all blossoming and blooming to show the radiance of their contrasts with the morning sun as he looked out from his bedroom window down into the crevices of a small garden of roses that grew rather politely amongst the weeds and grasses.

The visibility of the town was at an astounding level, he could see all the perfectly blue buildings and small park benches that laid out before him like an ocean that licked the shores of the beaches. He could lay there in the waves within roses and crevices, holding up seashells and small pebbles smoothed out by the forces of the world. The only thing on his mind now, was the distant memory of the perfect beautiful girl that slipped through his hands.

He let his mind slip away from him, wandering through mists and fogs that begin to distort his reality. He couldn’t live within this world with the constant sorrows he was feeling, the abandonment and the false tomorrows peeling back their routines and disfiguration. It came back to him through air thickened by misinterpretations, the thoughts of the beautiful target that was now so incredibly far from him.

It had been months since his eyes consumed any remnant of her, his internship was now over and the job he knew as his daily routine was now broken and left alone in another life. He tried forgetting every social interaction they ever had together. He wanted to believe that she never existed, that everything they ever did was a distant dream and nothing more.

He closed his eyes and remembered the late night phone calls; hours and hours of conversation between themselves that could never be forgotten.

He remembered all the midnight jokes, the angry small hours, and the tears they held within themselves over the line when it came to their understanding of each other.

Despite whatever their phone calls could have been about, the only time he ever hated their conversations was when she had to remind him to try to get some sleep. He never could. His insomnia was a torturous aspect of the night that constantly refused him the pleasure of sweet dreams or chaotic nightmares, he would just stare for hours on end at the linings of his ceilings, thinking of the feeling that she produced inside him that was now gone.

He thought to himself with the greatest of emphasis.

I just need a phone call...

He opened his eyes, pulling out his small electronic device, and began to believe that if he thought about her strongly enough then maybe some mysterious power or phenomenon would cause her to remember everything they ever did.

Every laugh they ever had would come flooding back to her and she’d be able to accurately understand her feelings for him.

He wished he could just have one more phone call to help him sleep the nightmares of reality away. He wished he knew why he missed her so much.

The phone began to ring with the echoes of titanic implications. His hopes grew into mountains as he thought of the once beautiful target he knew as his princess of the light. He gazed down at the identification on the small electronic device and noticed that the caller wasn’t of whom he expected.

His reality came back to him as he became lucid.

“Hey..." He heard in a rough voice reminding himself of sore throats after hours of screaming, "I­ I’m in town for some time­ I heard there was a carnival or something..." He could feel the levels of hesitation and despair within the silences between each sentence, "and I was wondering if you wanted to hang out together... or do something.”

It was his father, of whom always seems to jump in and out of the shells of responsibility. He shed his skin on such numerous occasions that even snakes would shudder at the thought of such discomfort.

When it came to his father, he always had a rather skewed opinion of him.

He was unsure of if he loved him or hated him, but whether or not either statement was true, he was always an aspect in his life. His father was an untied knot and disfigured stain that he was either always trying to tie into place or find a pattern amongst it like a rorschach test that could explain the answers of his own mental deformity.

He knew that there had to be some underlying reason as to why he was calling, but he gave a reluctant disregard and continued on with his social norms, identifying the relationship he has with his father.

"Sure, sounds like it'll be fun." He was unaware if there really was a carnival in town or not, he usually stays within the confines of his world without any reason

to engage the sheep he desperately tries to ignore. They’re mindless, ignorant, and prideful to the brim, in his perspective, he has gathered the rather redundant information and experience to come to the conclusion that people are nothing but work. “I haven’t gone out in a while, it’ll be a good change of pace.”

“Can we meet at the place on Douty?”

Memories of locations always seemed to elude him.”

“Douty?” He could hear his father sigh with the realization of his sons condition, it made him feel a little less than approved. He tried to put himself in his father’s shoes, wondering if he would ever feel the same if he had a son that suffered from an identical mental deformation as himself. Could he ever consider a son like him something as horrid as a monster?

He felt the need to hate himself again. What kind of stupidity could crawl up inside him and snuggle so warmly against his own being that he couldn’t recall a simple location as a street in a small town? What kind of helpless fool walks amongst shadows and fogs without ever realizing where he’s going or where he’s at? What kind of monster is he?

“Yeah, I can be there in a little while...” He said trying to pretend as if he wasn’t as helpless as the monster that his father often sees him to be. Within that phone call and those short sentences between each other, he began to question whether or not that maybe he’s a sheep just like everyone else. Although, he’s not accepted, nor approved, he could very possibly be a sheep. A black sheep outcasted by the majority of whom see him as a monster. *** His fists were clenched as he began remembering the days events that unfolded out in front of him like a map revealing the destinations to anger. His father was the sole reason as to the swelling of such raw emotions and it began tearing him apart. When he spoke with his father, he would hold his heart on his sleeve continually causing him such emotional distress that would blossom out into the open world and lay out seeds of despair.

His anger swelled inside him into volcanic explosions that fired out the cannons of his vocabulary. He spoke with such magma pouring from his lips that he would need to drink fire to cool his throat.

He became so absolutely livid that he nearly completely forgot that walking alongside him was the beautiful raven­haired girl that often wandered through late night parks and distant memories. She lightly breathed in the cool summer night while bearing the burden of his anger and despair that burned through each cool breath she took.

They had became such close friends by this time that no topic or emotion seemed too taboo or off­putting. Hours were spent contemplating common philosophy's, the constellations and interconnections of people through their social interactions and the emotions that would swell inside them.

“What kind of father would do that to their own son?” He breathed with a fire licking at his tongue, “What kind of father would disregard the morality of his actions and yet feel the need to be hypocritical to the point as to tell me that I’m the mistake, that I’m not wanted?” His voice carried the weight of supernova explosions as he raised his tone to the foreign beauty that only ever always cared for him. It should always be remembered that he has a mouth like a cannon.

“You always talk about your father...” Within the nanoseconds of speaking her lines between her breath she wasn’t aware if the statement she responded with was within the confines of her mind or had projected into the cool summer night.

She grew rather still as she held the likeness of a perfect porcelain statue, hoping that her voice would be lost amongst the light breeze.

She was aware of his violent reactions that resembled dangerous chemical experiments mixed into a beaker with a heater applied to cause the effect of such explosions. She knew that she had forgotten the social norms accepted in a society that only embraces courtesies and denials. Everyone smiles at each other wishing that no one will speak the obvious truth about the problems that are so incredibly visible that astronauts could view them from orbit with the ease of the naked eye.

“What are you trying to say, Mary?” She cringed when he spoke her name with the anger and hate that tightened his vocal cords causing strain in each sustained note. As they were walking Mary began noticing the blueness of the midnight moon, it helped to personify the sadness she was now feeling.

“You need to stop.” She spoke with such a confidence that it generated a feeling of vulnerability within him that forced him down into a corner and trapped him amongst his own denials and pride. He reacted with the only means of escape

he’d become familiar with, the only way to regain control of the situation that began unfolding beyond his anticipation. He fired his cannon.

“Stop?!” He turned to her and raised his voice to the resemblance of a singularity swallowing a dying star. “You want me to stop?! Why? Because you can’t stand the sound of my complaining? Do I not fit into your perfect little world? Do I annoy you because I’m not listening to​ you ​ and instead you’re forced to listen to​ me​ ? I always knew you were self­obsessed but I never figured you to be so solipsistic to the point to where you’d tell me to quiet myself just because you can’t handle the real world!”

He stood towering over her like a mountain crushing a valley despite being the exact same height. He could hear the echoes of the last two words bouncing around the vast emptiness of the late night park that only furthered the emphasis of the shots fired.

There was a long silence as he steadied his breath, he realized what he’d done only before it was too late. The truth was, he was now learning to hate himself.

“You need to stop...” She paused as she gasped inbetween breaths, “You need to stop being so angry...” Her words cooled his skin as the hairs at the edge of his body stood on end. “When you’re angry, you don’t hurt the people you hate,” She turned away to hide the raindrops in her eyes, “You hurt the people that care about you.”

She had her back to him, he could hear her gasping for air with the lightness of a beautiful sobbing. His heart began bobbing up and down, tearing away at the heart strings she strung to play the symphony of a lovers soul. She was a mastermind of care and understanding, and it tore away at him to have caused such despair in his foreign doll.

“Mary... I... I didn’t­ don’t... please don’t cry... I didn’t know that­” She quickly turned around and wrapped her arms around his neck. At first, he was unaware of whether or not she was embracing him or trying to strangle him to death for being such an asshole; The latter seemed to be the most justifiable and no one could blame her.

Yet he soon realized that he was still breathing and came to the most beautiful conclusion that she had forgiven him.

Could this be perfect love? It was as if she was raised by angels that trained her in the martial art of forgiveness. It was the most attractive quality he found in her that radiated more light pollution than the combined natures of large cities and towering skyscrapers. Her heart was forged from the likeness of God’s true love and generosity. She would embrace even the most tormented of humanity if she believed it still had a chance to learn how to love.

The only aspect of their love that wasn’t perfect, he realized, was himself.

His cannon only has a place in warfare and turmoil, it could never fit in with the perfect love that boils down in her soul, warming everyones heart from frozen tundras to sharp icicles. He knew this was the reason why he was starting to hate himself.

“Forget about him.” She buried her face within the side of his neck as he continued looking out at the horizon. It was always the most interesting part of the twilight, trying to find the line of where the Earth ends and the Sky begins. He felt as if it was this invisible line that held up the Earth and Sky that was the only tightrope left to balance out the circus act of his mentality.

“I can’t forget about him...” He witnessed the sun’s light bending around the tips of the mountains. It showed him the light oranges, pinks, blues and browns of a new day. He remembered how it was Mary’s most favorite color and concept in the world. It made him feel even more guilty to have yelled at her, because as she had her face buried in his neck, she would be missing one of the most memorable rising suns they’d ever experience together. “He’s my father...”

“No, He’s not. Let him go... and forget about him.” She knew that he must be separated from the serpent that tightens around his heart and keeps him from learning how to love completely. She was tearing open his ribcage to make more room for him to breathe and for his heart to beat loudly through ample waves of hate. He was drowning amongst his darkness.

“I can’t, I can’t forget... I just can’t...” She removed her face from the safety of his neck and began climbing up the mountainside he resided on to meet the face of the monster he considered himself to resemble. She stared deeply into his eyes forcing him to witness the horrific effect of his actions, forcing him to witness the raindrops falling from her eyes into the small streams that gave life to the lines on her face. It was the next sentence that she uttered through gasps of breath that

would water the seeds of his forgiveness and begin to truly blossom into the being he always wished to encompass.

“Just... try...” It was within those five seconds it took her to say a two­word sentence that caused him to realize the beauty of the rising sun hiding behind mountains and layers of geographical angels. It was within those five seconds that he found a philosophical truth within the realms of the light that showed him exactly why bad fortune happens to good people. It was within those five seconds that he understood how to form his concept into words and articulate his thoughts and expressions to a simplistic understanding of the truth in his mind.

The phrase was the following:​ Often times, there’s a sun shining its light down on you, it’s warm, its loving and it’s understanding, but the sun won’t shine on you forever. After a while, night will begin to approach with the same level of change to summer days that mirrors the acts of when the sun arrives with light on cold winter nights. It’s not because the sun doesn’t love you that causes it to leave your presence, it’s just the natural order of all creation that causes the planets to rotate around it forcing the sun to hide behind mountains. In this sense, this is how I imagine God. What if there are angels as there are mountains and gravity, and they react with the same natural order that commands them to continue on in existence.

What if these angels are the reasons that sunlight has trouble getting to us every now and again? What if they’re just in the way and blocking the light of God from reaching down on us? What if this is just their duty as it is the forces of gravity and mountains to block the light of the sun?

The hardest part about this thought isn’t that maybe angels aren’t always benevolent, but that maybe it’s just this hard of a world. Maybe it just is. What if you’re a guy like me and you can see the waves of darkness swallowing up everything and everyone around you but you’re the only one that can’t breathe.

What if these angels just grab people out of the way but leave others to suffer just because it’s that hard of a world?

What if God is also a slave to our love and hate as we are to each other?

What if he’s just as lonely as me but these angels continue to separate his light from us? If any of these statements are true then I must accept the responsibility of my happiness and remove myself from the hope that the light will guide me

away from here, I must take the action that will forge who I am to who I want to be. I must love Mary...

It was within those five seconds that he tightened his arms around the light body of his foreign doll and began to breathe with the soft ease of feathers falling.

He buried his face in her neck as she did to him and kissed the sweet porcelain nature of her perfect flawless skin. He could smell the vanilla scent in her hair, it was as if heaven was within his arms at this very moment whispering to him. With his last breath of the night he spoke with utter assurance to her.

“Okay, Mary... I’ll try.” He could feel her arms wrap around his body ever so slowly. It felt as if his version of heaven was embracing his forgiveness, this was her promise to him. It was a perfect love.

The night ended there as the sun came from around the line on the horizon.

The last breath was had as they held each other within the morning light. He knew she would soon have to leave as the sun rises, but he was assured this time that even though she was leaving, she wasn’t leaving him.

Mary Liefde, his heaven. *** The smell of vanilla filled the air surrounding him like a cloud of memories flowing in and about his person. His father was sitting across from him, wrapping himself in the surreal moment of meeting with his father again after a year of not seeing any signs of his existence. He was already wishing that he could leave and go back home and act as if he never called. It wasn’t anything against him, he just didn’t want any human contact for awhile.

They were slowly eating the ice cream they ordered amongst themselves, quietly devouring the vanilla memories they were making. It felt as if there was a tension in the room so thick that if you didn’t take full breaths to ensure your lungs the maximum amount of relief, then you’d be caught in a mudslide of horrible past experiences that will suffocate every last volume of oxygen from your being.

Neither him nor his father wanted to speak their thoughts aloud.

At first, he thought it was a game of power that his father was trying to play with him. That maybe he was observing his every action and wanted to see who would be the first one to break under the weight of their worlds crashing together.

But he soon realized that was not the case.

As he watched the lines on his fathers face begin to crease and dance across the weariness of his portrait, he knew that there was no power game amongst them to play. He saw that his father was breaking in front of him and he had no one to hold onto.

The next few words he spoke helped to assure him of this theory.

“I missed you.” whispered his father above another spoon filled manifestation of his sorrows and sadness. Those three words have become so familiar to him over the past few months that as his father spoke them, he wondered for a split second if he had been the one to utter those words from a voice so deep inside of him that God couldn’t find it.

He didn’t speak. He couldn’t speak.

He was too busy trying to find the words that could personify both emotion and care. He was trying to convince his father that an “I miss you” was good enough and that he could feel some sort of emotional connection. He was trying to be human but the truth was, and the truth is, that he still felt nothing.

How could he? He wasn’t choosing to feel nothing, he was merely lost within himself. He didn’t hold any grudges nor did he feel compelled to try to remain hollow, it was almost as if something inside him just accepted such responses and didn’t generate anything himself.

He prayed that it was some sort of subconscious self­defense mechanism that kept him from feeling any emotional understanding. He wanted to believe that it was because his father had hardly been a father as to why he didn’t feel like a son but the realization deep inside of him was more absolute. He could feel that.

He could feel those reasons all slipping away from him as he came to the comprehension of his condition. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel like a son, it was the fact that he didn’t feel anything. Everything was boring him now.

Excitement and reasons became meaningless in the aspect of all things dictating his existence and perspective of the universe. People bored him too often now.

He could see how they drown amongst their insecurities and all the psychological turmoils as to why their broken souls can’t form into the full potential of human existence.

No one is special.

He just slightly smiled and proceeded to whisper back the things his father wanted to hear, something that became rather routine when engaging other people.

His mind was too busy focusing on the person he truly missed to meet his father’s emotions halfway.

Everything disappeared from him.

He was given an audience from the darkness that dwelled inside his soul. It spoke with the ease of waterfalls pouring rivers of blood from the ears of the silent.

It stretched its words down his esophagus with the forcefulness of mountain lions eating the young. He could feel his tongue burning with what he could only compare to stories of a devil’s fire.

He couldn’t speak, he could only listen.

“You gave in too easily this time...” the demon sighed, “Did you think that I was gone? Did you think that the memories of me were nothing more than a mere illusion? No, you’re just broken.”

He laughed with the walls, tormenting the soul of silent.

“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”

He soon found that he could speak. Traumatized by the demon’s sudden appearance, he could feel his entire body shaking in an absolute fear. He could feel each and every hair on his body stand on end as a frozen chill shot through his spine. He tried to let go.

“You don’t exist” he whispered reassuring himself, “You don’t... exist.”

“I think, therefore I am.” The demon replied.

“But you don’t think, you’re just a small piece of my mind, I’m all that exists, you’re only a figment of absolute imagination.”

“Who are you trying to convince? Me or you? It must be you because as you said, only you exist.” the demon caressed his face with the sharp knives that were his nails, “And how funny I find it that you fear me more than anything you’ve ever encountered. Why? Why do you fear me?”

“You don’t... exist.”

“Oh, but I do, you can say that sentence over and over again; A hundred times, a thousand times, you can say it for every second of every minute for your entire life and yet you know, somehow you know, that I will always exist, even long after you’re gone.”

“You don’t exist... only I exist.”

“Are you so sure of that?” He watched silently as the demon tore an opening in the darkness surrounding them, it began to manifest in front of him with a tunnel­like vision portraying the events of his day like a prisoner forced to watch a tape of his own wrongdoings over and over again until a confession was uttered from his lips to crystalize the convictions against him. “Because it looks to me that I’ve always had control and that you’re just the self­loathing monster inside my head.”

He saw himself talking to the perfect beautiful girl from through the opening that looked as if he was staring through a window. He held his breath as he heard them speak.

"I'll miss you." He said.

“Why?” she smiled, “I’m right here.” She fluttered her hair from side­to­ side as she’s done on occasion.

“I don’t think you understand...” He was saddened by the thoughts that held him on the edges of abyss but somehow she found it necessary to continue joking alongside him as if she was incapable of being empathetic for him; Yet, at the same time, empathy was starting to anger him. How can others find it a reasonable reaction to try to mimic another’s behavior just to “ease” their pain?

“Well, it’s not like you ever could.”

The perfect beautiful girl turned to him, he could tell that she was expecting some kind of joke or laugh to echo from his direction to ease the infection of anger that was spreading throughout his body like a virus tearing away paper hearts and porcelain veins.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She recited automatically while smiling to her enemy.

“Just shutup.” He was tired of anything that even partially resembled ignorance and stupidity. He couldn’t help himself, he knew that everything would soon be crumbling away from him and that none of it mattered. She didn’t matter.

How could he ever consider her as anything special when she couldn’t even understand how to react to him?

He could see everyone’s reaction a mile away like a thunderstorm warning its victims of its imminent arrival. He could hear everyone’s thoughts aloud like a

volcano spilling its contents onto a village in destruction guided without control by the forces of nature and gravity. He could understand everything about everyone around him and yet she was too stupid, too ignorant, too broken and too annoying to even try to understand him.

She was just another sheep in his eyes and she was breaking away from him.

“I’m tired of you.” he whispered amongst them with the same thoughts of destruction and sadness that held him at the edges of a nothingness. The only pleasure he took from this was the evidence of the lines on her face that proved to him that she cared. He loved how she twisted and contorted her heart into a ringed rag of dripping despair over a few sentences and words that he could whisper without a moments hesitation.

“What did I do?” She began pacing her eyes around the room trying to create a connection or understanding amongst each other to find the reason as to his emotional detachment. She couldn’t understand how he became so angry in such a short amount of time following a laugh and smile.

She tried to give him the benefit of friendship and thought that maybe he was just having a bad day. Maybe he would soon explain to her why he created such a whirlwind of despair amongst them and come out of the hurricane that is his random act of anger. Maybe that’s all it was; an act that he was having to see if she actually cared.

She ran through a list of questions and answers within herself to try to understand this broken mess of a human being. She thought back to her childhood and tried to find some hidden meaning in his current emotions.

She soon had to face the horribly saddening inevitable conclusion that she was denying to have existed in the first place.

She realized that maybe it wasn’t an act at all.

“Please stop this, I can’t watch this anymore!” he began screaming above tongues of the demons hoping to find some sympathy from this darkness that held him to observe his forgotten sins.

“Why? What’s wrong?” it laughed with the heaviness of a mountain falling from the sky onto the shoulders of Atlas. “Can you not handle any of this?”

“What do you want me to say?” Raindrops began falling from his reservior.

“I understand that I hurt her, I can’t remember it all too well but please don’t refresh my memory to it.” He took up to shaking uncontrollably and breaking before the demons very eyes to try to show the human side of him. “The pain she shows is a pain that grows inside of me like a weed tearing apart concrete cracks and broken souls. I may not remember but I will never forget how it felt to hear her raindrops on the line between my horizons. If I am to lose my sanity in payment of my sins then I would completely understand, just show me an ounce of mercy and make it quick!”

Silence grew as he knelt before the darkness that swallowed his heart and soul opening him to the insane sanity that required him to observe his reality more closely. He thought for a moment that maybe the demon found some sense of humanity and would soon end the madness before him.

A thought that would soon be shattered.

“Do you take me for a fool?” The darkness turned away from him without granting another second of grovelling and begging from such a worthless peice of existence. “You’re far from learning your lesson.”

Within the window of his memories, he watched as the scene quickly changed into a more current condition. He realized that he was watching the events of his father and the carnival. He was quickly overcome with fear, not a selfish kind of fear the was only a mere concern for himself, but one of that for his father.

He understood that his father was breaking psychologically and if he became a victim of his cannon then it would create untold disasters amongst them. He didn’t want to be held responsible for the destruction of his father.

“What are you trying to teach me!?” He growled.

“Has it not yet become obvious!? Are you too blinded by your own self pity that you can’t even understand yourself!? How dare you question me, you worthless piece of nothing!? You don’t even know who you are!” The demon held him by the neck and began suffocating him of all life and motion around him.

A greater part of him wanted to die, it wanted to be relieved of all the pain and darkness that could now control him regardless of his mental state or emotional participation. He wanted to finally have control of his destiny and his life yet only found such a pleasure in knowing his imminent death.

He embraced death with the relief of ocean tides and warm waters.

“Kill me,” He whispered back silently over gasps of breath and happy cries, “give me the satisfaction... Give me the control.”

The darkness leapt away like a rat running from the fear of death, the window slammed closed with the forces of stars collapsing in on themselves, he watched as the demon loosened its grip and began smiling with the pleasure of a king decapitating an enemy of ages.

“You’re finally starting to understand.”

He awoke to find himself standing beside his father, he was staring at him as he realized that he was holding a small blue ball that felt rather soft within the palm of his hands. It was a brilliant invention, holding the color he felt so comfortable within.

“Alright, this is your last shot,” he heard his father announce in his ear with an emphasized whispered, “all you have to do is knock down that last pin and we get that damned prize that seems to elude me nearly every year.”

He turned to see the reason for the blue ball in the palm of his hand. On the edges of a countertop stood a lone pin that seemed to be the objective of the carnival game they were playing. By the looks of all the fallen objects around the empty spaces of the silent pin, he quickly understood that he would soon win this meaningless game. Somehow, he felt a sense of pride and inspiration rise inside of him.

He flung the object he’d already grown attached to from the ends of his fingertips as it flew alongside the wisps of the air. He held his breath as he watched the symbolism strike the edge of the countertop, completely missing the main objective, instantly float backwards and snap the nose of his father.

A woosh followed shortly by a crack showed him just how unlucky he was as he turned to face his father of whom’s nose began bleeding profusely. In an effort to sustain a level of happiness amongst his customers, the carnival host gave them the prize as if the pin had been hit and flung alongside the other fallen empty spaces.

He watched his father's face as he saw a sense of relief overcome him as he retrieved the prize for his sacrifice. It made them both smile and laugh as they started to walk away, each for their own reason.

His father laughed due to the fact that every year he would try to successfully win the prize he desired but would find himself to run up a bit short.

The funny part was that had he known that the only way for him to ever receive the prize would mean for his nose to break, then he most likely would have disregarded it for the sake of his health.

The son laughed because he realized the irony of the prize and the payment.

He understood that his father desired it because it was a large teddy bear with the scent of strawberries that lingered around it and considering strawberry milkshakes were his favorite smell in the entire world­ an odd desirable of a grown man indeed­ he found it entirely hilarious that he wouldn’t be able to smell the victory of his claimed prize, only the rich iron of blood and the irony in the reward.

As the daylight began burning the hours away from them, they soon found themselves underneath a beautiful pink gin blossoms tree that fell leaves on the fingertips of the air falling silently and rising continually.

They quickly opened their pre­made pre­packaged turkey sandwiches they bought from a convenience store located only a few blocks from where they are now. Devoured quickly alongside fresh soda and bagged chips that crunched with each bite into them. They shared stories amongst themselves like vikings at a great hall conversing about victories in battle.

They held the air with sustained laughs and insane idealisms that they found common between them; they would soon realize that they were identical more so than they could've imagined.

“Today was a pretty good day,” the father spoke like poetry as he witnessed the sun setting on the lines of horizon. “What do you think?”

It made him smile that his father needed his approval of whether or not the day was good, he quickly reassured his father with a nod and a laughing statement of “Yeah, it was.”

They held their tongues for a short while as they enjoyed the end of their day together. They were both unsure of whether or not a day like this will ever return to them, making that sunset a bittersweet revelation.

“I should get going” his father broke the silence, “it’s getting late.”

“Yeah, I’m getting rather sleepy.”

“Here,” his father handed him the teddy bear of strawberries and laughed while walking away, “We’ll get another one next year.”

“Goodbye, Dad.” “See ya later.”

He sat there alone underneath the cherry blossom tree thinking back to the perfect beautiful girl that he let slip through his hands.

Before he had time to truly analyze his own emotions, he realized that he had finally established some sort of connection with his father; something of which he had hoped for.

It wasn’t built through care and understanding, it was built from memories.

He held the idea close to him that maybe it was these memories that held the condition of love and understanding between people. Maybe no one ever really loves anyone but grows to become apart of their life of which can be interpreted as these different emotions.

He truly felt nothing, yet he felt a closeness.

He gathered the items around him and began to make his way home, far away from that lonely cherry blossom tree.

He crossed streets and railways and perfectly blue buildings that manifest to make the city he’d spent the majority of his natural life. He watched everyone of whom passed by him and considered the presence and teachings of the demons.

He found that the only way to be human is to hold onto the memories that are long forgotten; he realized that the demon was showing him a form of control.

He knew that it was a painful notion to remember the girl that has slipped from him but he also equally understood that remembering her and what he did wrong was a key component to continuing these humanistic connections between the people he hoped to care for.

As he began nearing his house he looked down and stared at the contacts of his small electronic device, scrolled through for the name of the perfect beautiful girl of whom he knew from a life ago, hesitated for the last few moments while taking a breath and pressed call.

He held it out in front of him to listen to the ring symbolizing his heartbreak and shame, a noise that made his heart leap across canyons with each sustained note.

He lifted the phone closely to his ear and fell between the lines of grey sunsets and forgotten horizons as he heard the reply of an angel.

“Hey... how are you?”

The Voice of Darkness

If there is any universal truth in this world, it is that everyone has heard the silencing darkness within their short timeframe of existence. It is a persistent voice whispering its philosophy and destruction into the paths of those too weak or too strong. It reaches through like waterfalls that carve down mountainsides and canyons. It is, always has been and always will be, the voice of true insanity.

It reaches down your throat with burning hot hands and grabs onto the edges of your heart to freeze it within it’s contractions that supply the gift of life throughout your veins. It takes this biological highway system to distribute fear and sadness in an effort to take full possession of every emotion and action you will ever have while effortlessly giving you the illusion of control.

It stands on your tipping point waiting for a single bad day to help throw you off the edges of your sanity in the hopes that maybe you can embrace the darkness that holds your life together as it tears you apart. It laughs within the melodies of

broken pianos and lost symphonies of the mind to try to portray its eloquence with a sense of belonging that can only be found in notes and scores.

This is the voice of Darkness.

It’s the only companion that has stayed by his side relentlessly without a moment of silent hesitation. It is the only entity he knows that will never leave him. It waits for those small hours and decrepit times of sadness to make its strike...

And he was taking control of it.

“I missed you...” He held on the air around them with sadness fluttering about his vocal chords. Walking alongside his presence was the perfect beautiful girl that stood between his love and recognition of self­loathing.

The air was frozen as they exhaled stale icy breaths with plateaus of clothing wrapping themselves in the warmth of each other and themselves. She held her tongue as they continued strolling through waves of nostalgia and crowds of faceless people.

“Everyday,” he tried to fill the silent notes of their symphony of a conversation, “I missed you everyday.” The melody began to play the heartstrings strumming throughout his ribcage, “Every second was filled with thoughts of you, you know, I guess that’s a little weird but I just wanted you to know how I felt.”

He glanced over her way smiling between the lines faded, hoping to catch a glimpse of the happiness she would radiate; however, on this occasion, all he felt was sadness and sorrows. “You didn’t miss me.” She spoke softly as she covered herself in a blanket of disbelief wrapping her entirety in the assurance that she was discarded from his memory.

“Yeah... I did”, he was confused and dumbstruck to have heard such fallacies pouring from her tongue. “You don’t know what it’s like... I thought of you every second.”

“Come on!” Mina paused her movements as she faced the demon she’s known from the life before, she drew her sword of a silver tongue and lunged forward with a striking blow.

“You didn’t miss me. Knowing you, you probably just forgot about me in a couple of months and then carried on like you never knew me. Well, I know ​ you​ , and that’s all you do, you delete whatever you can’t handle and then disappear

from this world as if it never existed and I have to stand here and try to pick up the shattered pieces of ​ what ​ you were.” He watched her bleed out the last of her monologue, “So no... no, you ​ didn’t​ miss me.”

Quickly, he turned away and continued walking with the nonchalant motions previously used between them. “It might not be quite noticeable, but truly, there is a method to my madness.”

She followed suit, rolling her eyes, disgusted by the blatant lack of addressing the actual problem at hand.

“It is as evident to me as the moon that trails the sun’s pathway and the rotations that enhance the turmoil of the waves,” He smiles to her with the radiance of happiness that her likeness would often encompass. “I get lost somewhere inbetween quite often, I’m aware of that.”

He stretched his hand across the sky to change the shades and tones of the background surrounding them. “But before I had my sun to shine such beauty onto me, I was forced to understand desolation.” He could hear the soft humming of a silent melody over the repetitive ambient noise of the city, “I believed that loneliness and anger were the only emotions that were friendly to myself in nature.”

“What does this have to do with anything?­ comparing yourself to ​ nature​ ?

I’m tired of your riddles­ your poetry­ your goddamned monologues­ just talk to me!" She fluttered as she flustered, emphasizing the waviness of her hair and the magnificence of her fluidity.

“Refer to me as this, Sociopath or not, when I discovered you, I finally understood that I could feel more than just anger or sorrow, but when you left... a piece of me left as well." At the time being, he couldn't quite find the words to express his thoughts exactly, so he did what was asked of him.

He tried.

"When I disappear from the lives of people, the lives of others...” He began to analyze his own emotion with the care of a surgeon's hand. “The more I leave people behind, the more I feel as if I'm leaving pieces of myself behind as well and the less and less substantial I feel like I'm becoming to myself."

She grew nervous, believing that any minute now he would succumb himself to his cannon of vocabulary, anger boiling down to a volcanic explosion destroying

the last hopes of their relationship. In an effort to contain her anxiety, She held her breath.

"So, maybe I reuse the same redundancies of idioms and similes, maybe my little monologues and forms of broken poetry don't quite make sense, but this is only because the words to express how I ​ feel ​ do not exist.” His tone began from anger into passion, lasting through a mentality of deterioration where the voice of darkness began knocking about in his mind.

He couldn’t let it slip from him. He couldn’t let her slip from his hands.

“And maybe you can't understand what it's like to have all these pieces of your life scattered like breadcrumbs down a forgotten path, or maybe you can, but I am tired of fading, I am tired of falling and I am sick of being broken to the point that I don't even recognize myself anymore."

He held onto his gentle warfare tearing his soul apart at the midline with a cascading depression and anger tormenting his mind into the dust that comes and goes on the winds he used to listen to whispering through him alone.

"So I'm going to hold onto the last thing that can keep me sane,” the cannon left him with the effortlessness of mountains crawling, he began stalling through the last sentence needed to tell her exactly how he feels. He whispers silently, “I'm going to try.” He held his breath, hoping to contain his soul within himself before it began pouring out like rivers and waterfalls. “ and I can guarantee you, Mina... I missed you.”

Her eyes grew to show how beautiful the gateway to her soul could be.

Although, he wished more than anything to continue staring into her eyes alongside a calm mind and a loving affection, he soon turned his attention away from her and began walking again.

Just as she has done for him on a matter of countless occasions, he brought her back smashing into the fading fabrics of reality, holding feathers on the air and moons in his heart. She quickly began pattering her feet alongside his rhythm that matches levels of happiness as harmonic keys.

"You know I missed you, right?"

"Yeah... I know."

"Good, at least we're on the same page of this book." The look she gave him helped to strengthen the belief system that has encouraged him to hold back the

demon living inside his walls. He caught a glimpse of the happiness he was so accustomed to seeing in her being.

"Mina..."

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry about what I did." He stumbled over his apology hoping she could forgive him for such an astounding level of stupidity, "I was an asshole and you didn't deserve that." He remembered spending hours of sleepless nights contemplating on how to deliver a perfect apology yet could never find an answer to aid him in such an unrealistic endeavor.

"Why are you so intent on bringing up such painful memories?" She spoke underneath a breath as she held her head down remembering all the experiences they had together.

“They’re the ones that keep me up at nights,” He focused on the frozen ropes holding his lungs compacted and contracted within the prisons and jails he refers to only as his ribcage. “I just want to be able to sleep again.”

“It doesn’t do any good.” the princess began removing the jacket wrapped about her being. She felt constricted and encaged inside a foreign skin that denied her both comfort and freedom.

He watched as she slowly emerged from her casing, loving every second that revealed to him her body. He mapped out every line and curve that he observed with the precision of electron microscopes.

The beauty she was graced with became increasingly prevalent as he watched every highway and horizon running across her porcelain skin. He daydreamed the travelling pleasures of her anatomy thinking about the emotions and feelings that would encompass himself if only he could run his fingers across the roads, lines, highways and curves of her frame.

He consumed every inch of her with his eyes.

“What are you looking at?” He realized that the princess was now aware of his continual staring, causing a slight panic inside him that only furthered the heartbeats increasing for her.

“Y­your dress.” He stuttered.

“My dress?” She said in both annoyance and disbelief. “Do you want to know why I get annoyed with you when you talk and even more so when you ​ don’t talk?”

He smiled.

“Sure.”

“It’s because when you do manage to spout the stupidity that lurks within the redundancy of your sentences, you editorialize everything you say. You think you’re being intellectual but you’re not, you’re just annoying.” She ran her hands down the side of her dress­ straightening out the creases caused by her anger and annoyance, “but­ somehow­ your silence reeks of more hypocrisy than anything you could ever announce; you proclaim that you want an ‘audience’ with me just to try to justify your anger in an effort to seek forgiveness and restore our relationship but yet, you remain ​ silent​ ! It’s infuriating!”

He realized that maybe smiling isn’t the most appropriate response to be having as she ended her argument staring deeply into his eyes; however, he was beginning to understand just exactly how much he missed their warfare of the sea and the memories they held together.

Her anger was reassuring to him, it showed that no matter how many battleships were surrendered unto each other, she was still emotionally invested in him. She was still trying to be there for him.

They continued the gaze for a little while longer, he watched as the waves of emotion and turmoil on the creases of her face slowly began to deteriorate her look of anger into something more loving and tender.

He remembered staring into the gateway of her soul and thinking of the mythological beings referenced to only in storybooks and insanities.

Continually, he dreamed of what it would be like to meet an angel so pure that the heavens would stop to watch every second of its actions, and now he understood that he didn’t have to dream any longer of such a request. An angel was standing there before him staring so deeply back into his entity that he felt the constellations starting to whisper conversations referencing to them.

As their consciousness connected and they maintained the line between their gaze, he found that his heart and skin were melting alongside the frozen dew that surrounded the cool air around them. It was a passion burning so deeply inside him

that he couldn’t help but fulfill his urge to love her more than anything he’d be realistically capable of.

He watched her eyes dilate, confirming a suspicion that he had developed over the years of them having known each other. Friendships turned to battleships, good nights mixed with goodbyes and everything else that falls inbetween holds the connections established amongst them.

Somehow, somewhere inside him, he could feel her. He didn’t know how and he couldn’t imagine why but he could feel her.

She reached in, grabbed him by the collar and pulled him in so closely that their breaths collided in an act that mimics the air currents of tornados. He could smell the perfume encompassing the fabric of her clothing, it felt all too familiar.

She leaned in with a silent whisper, holding a sweetness on the tips of her tongue, “Won’t you let me in?”

Tears like waterfalls eroding down the rivers of his face found themselves created by the awareness of his insanity.

He held her closely, “Please be real... Mina, please be real!” he watched as his sky fell through with the forces of meteorites cascading. “Mina, don’t disappear from me, I need you. I won’t be able to hold on any longer without you.”

“I’m cold... Won’t you let me in?” *** They laid there consumed underneath the stars, daydreaming of an unrealistic future between them. His cheeks burned a bright red as he felt her fingers intertwined between his.

“Mary...”

His statement was greeted with silence as he called her name. He soon observed that she was sleeping on the grass hill they were spread out against, her hair dripping down like soft rivers of glass and porcelain.

He contemplated stealing a kiss from her lips; sweet and soft, waiting to be pressed and warmed in the chilling night air that he grew to be quite familiar with.

He leaned over her limp angelic body and lightly pushed his lips against hers, feeling the intense satisfaction of love between their lines faded gray in the cool summer nights he knew only as his representation of perfection that she held on the air.

He pulled back, like a thief of the night as he stole the last breaths of her lungs, he slowly reopened his eyes to find the coincidental action of his foreign doll doing the same.

She replied like an angel of Michelangelo hovering above with the likeness of gods, "hey.."

"Sorry," he whispered, "I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay..."

She held out her hand and lightly caressed the sides of his face as he smiled to her graced with pleasures that would make sinners cry.

"Do you love me?"

He didn't know what to say, such questions were usually beyond them. Such ideas were usually lost to them.

"I don't know," he said, "but I do know that I want to waste an eternity here with you."

He remembered how each blade of grass danced around them. He watched for the signs of the constellations hoping they would grant him answers of the unknown.

He pressed his lips against hers once more as her fingers traversed throughout the forests of his hair. He ran his hands across the likeness of her body and felt rivers and oceans partway to establish their deepest connections.

He held his head lightly against hers as they inhaled each other's souls.

"I want you to stay with me." He continued as they held each other even more closely, "darling, I want you to stay with me."

"Here, underneath the stars," she whispers alongside angels of the darkness and gods of the summer nights. "I am... Naked, in front of you."

He understood that she was bearing her soul unto him, and he felt more blessed than the prophets that have heard the screaming replies of the most high god. He felt more blessed than the angels who are privileged to be amongst His presence. He felt more blessed than anything that has ever existed that could whisper the phrase 'I've been in love'.

"Promise me something," he began to lick the edges of her porcelain skin with the tips of his fingers, "promise me, that you will stay with me."

She gasped in pleasure as waterfalls streamed down the canyons of her face, "I promise you..." She held his soul between her likeness, "I promise that I will always stay with you."

He smiled with a likeness of such genuinity that his foreign doll couldn’t help but do the same.

Had he been made aware of the rippling effects of the actions established here, he would have pleaded with the forces of the universe to change the course that was now being taken.

He remembered, this was all just a distant memory... *** He found himself lost within the darkness surrounding him. He watched as memories floated on by into the swallowing abyss wondering what message they were trying to send to him.

He felt as if he was falling both upward and downward simultaneously, lost amongst clouds of doubt and insecurities. The darkness was so eternal that by this time he was completely unaware if he had had his eyes open or closed. His body vanished from him as he tried to hold onto the memory of the princess.

She was so clear to him now, so near to his heart that he was aware that only the thoughts of her could bring him back into reality before his soul began tearing apart in an effort to rid himself of such torture.

Eternities came and went as he spent all his efforts and energy trying to escape the darkness of insanity. He would find himself screaming into the nothingness, laughing at the darkness, crying for his memories and whispering for his lost love.

He dreamed only of the princess of the light to help guide him out of the somewhere he could not escape. He began scraping the essence of this dream and looking through the bottoms of barrels and broken seams to help him find some pathway out of eternity.

It soon became quite clear to him the methods and means of an exit strategy from his mind.

He stopped screaming, laughing, crying, whispering, dreaming and fighting against the darkness. With a heavy heart and drenching atmospheres he allowed his tears to dry as he accepted the insanity of who he was and of whom he represents.

He let his eyelids comfort him as they rested like blankets over the windows to his soul.

He let go.

“Why do you close yourself off from the beauty of this world? Why do you stand there with the emptiness of fear and allow it to control everything you believe in?” His eyelids forced themselves open like curtains allowing in the rays of the sun to pour in through the openings of a forgotten room. “If I were to disappear from you forever, would you miss me? Or would you think that it was just a matter of time?”

He turned to see of whom was speaking to him; however, he had had already established an accurate guess as to who it was due to the likeness of her voice. His heart raced as he saw the daylight of his foreign doll approaching him through darkness and broken walls.

The sight of her excited him in a manner that could only be exemplified as the electricity of the mind that resembles the action of as if the blind could have had a sight for sore eyes. He ran towards her like an avalanche of snow sent hurtling towards frozen lakes and abandoned cabins to hold her in his arms once again.

Despite the lack of memory of everything she was and everything they did together, he recognized that he missed her with the wholeness of both his heart and soul. She was a lover of the night that vanished from him for currently unknown reasons and he felt the blessings of good fortune turn for him.

He shouted with the emotions of happiness as he approached her closely.

“Mary, Mary I missed you!” Tears of joy began filling the spaces between his iris and eyelids, “I thought I’d never see you again! I’ve never been more happy to be so wrong in my life!”

“You ​ are​ wrong,” she emphasized, “You’re wrong about everything.”

He released his stress and worry through laughs of genuine emotions and pleasures of an angelic meeting. “I know!” he bubbled through, “I know!

She screamed in anger and frustration that resembled volcanoes mixed with tornados to represent the danger of her emotions, "You don't know anything about me!"

He slowed down near to a stop, suspicions grew inside him like seeds sprouting into fruition as the distance between the foreign doll and himself shortened in length. His fears were actualized as he became consciously aware of the horrifying fact that she wasn't looking at him.

She was looking through him.

She was walking like a ghost of a memory inside the movie reels of his insanity. She was a recording replaying over and over again in his mind.

“You say you know but you really don’t, you’re a hypocrite and a liar...” he watched as she held onto the edges of her skirt, almost as if she was holding herself down to keep her being from floating on away into the constellations.

He approached with the caution normally reserved for phobics and little children lost in an undefined territory.

“Say it or just leave me alone...” As she walked forward whispering this statement into his direction he quickly rushed in to hold his foreign doll between his arms once again. He was praying to the gods of the ocean tides and the angels of the moonlight to grant him this last pleasure.

He could smell the sweetness of her hair and taste her lips on his tongue. He heard the waves beating against his heart and he believed for a split second that maybe he could hold her once again.

His life came shattering into oblivion as he reached out with an empty hand and destroyed likeness as he soon witnessed his arm move through this foreign beauty. She continued walking and faded right through him once more.

She disappeared into the darkness as the waves receded. bleeding out through his eardrums of self­loathing, he wondered how he could be so ignorant to the fact of her being such an obvious hallucination.

He was, he is, he always shall be... Broken.

That’s when he heard it, the voice whispering darkness that reminds him of the true nature of humanity. It appeared behind him as he was trembling on his knees, placing its claws on his shoulder and its hate in his heart.

“Tell me I don’t exist...” He could feel the vibration of its vocal chords on the air like guitar strings and symphonies carrying their weight on musical notes. In an unexpected way, it soothed him.

“You win,” He said in between gasps and sobs, “I’m letting go, you can have control.” He knew that his collapse was only a matter of time, his surrender wasn’t an act of weakness, it was an act of inevitability. He was only trying to shorten his sentence of torture.

“Let me show you something.” The demon motioned with his claws as the foreign doll reappeared as a statue standing before them. He could only focus on the beauty of her eyes and the design of her clothes.

"Who is she?" He asked quietly to the demon of darkness standing beside him observing with open eyes and fainted lies.

"Still don't remember..." The demon sighed almost as if it was hoping that the statement it spoke wasn't true. "She is the reason why you are here." The darkness intensified as its arms laid outstretched in every direction.

"She's the reason why I'm like this? Why I'm broken? Why I sit here amongst darkness and converse with demons?" He began hyperventilating with a worry and panic that personified parasites attaching to his innards and tightening with a striking pain. How could he ever believe it? His foreign doll of flawless porcelain was the only thing separating him from reality, it was a haunting realization.

“Among other things.”

“Other things? What do you mean?” With another twist given by the demon a few more manifestations appeared before them. The perfect beautiful girl to his right, the foreign doll to his left, his father out in front and a bottle of popped pills in his hand surrounded him with the titanic forces of celestial beings and bodies.

His eyes fixated on the bottle.

“You’re an addict.” The demon soothed him.

“An addict!? I’m not an addict! I’ve never done drugs, I’ve never done this before, I would never do this no matter how bad it gets!” He stood against the forces of mountains and astronomical outcomes to throw the bottle as far from him as he could, watching it fade through the bodies of his memories.

“That’s not going to do you any good...” the demon signalled once again.

It screamed, it screamed and carried on the air around him. It was the record replaying the thundering voices of his insanity screaming at the volume only

comparable to the voice of God. He yelled and begged the darkness for silence as he could feel rivers of blood and regret pouring from the edges of his ears.

Falling to his knees, he understood the reformative nature of pain. It was the ultimate educator. Pain held him by the tongue and made him silent just long enough for him to be forced to listen to his sins. It inquired in him that absolute brilliance that was needed to teach him how to be human. It was everything to him now and he was falling in love with it.

He could feel something manifesting into his palms again, pushing open his fingers and rubbing against the softness of his skin. He opened his hands to see pills running from them like thousands of droplets of rain drenching him in sadness.

“I’m... I’m an addict...” He fell into his depression, unbelieving of ever having come to this. He was accepting the hard fact of his addiction as he tried to keep the screaming from entering into his mind once again and crushing the last of his power and self­esteem.

Memories came rushing back to him, showering their sorrows and sadness into the madness that he now exemplified. He tried to keep them buried, hidden inside the vastness of his subconscious being only to be greeted with denials and intensity. *** “Why do you do it?” He could feel the palpitations of worry and dejection on the quivering sounds of her breath. It haunted him more so than anything she’s ever asked him before.

“You wouldn’t understand...” He felt the need to vanish from her presence.

Embarrassment never sat well with him since the day of his birth, of which currently reminded him of a time before his insanity was a prevalent complication.

“You can’t say that... you don’t ​ get​ to say that.” He was dreaming of dying as he felt every emotion she was trying to supress to keep herself together. He was hurting her and it was killing him. “Explain to me why you think throwing away your entire future is so worth it for these pills!”

“They stop the screaming!” He closed his eyes to pretend that the perfect beautiful girl wasn’t listening to his every confession of his trivial insanities. “You

don’t know what it’s like...” He repeatedly hit the side of his head as if trying to jar loose the memories of the screaming.

He continued.

“When I meet people, I will know everything about them. From a single conversation I can hear all their problems and psychological breakings. I can feel every emotion and hear every breath of loneliness they carry. I can see just exactly how BROKEN they are. All from just a single conversation. One conversation!”

He turned to her and saw her staring at him in disbelief, frightened of him.

It only caused him to feel more isolated.

“Can you even imagine what that’s like? It reverberates throughout me like screaming inside my head over and over again. It shouts its insanities and holds my own tongue against me!” With every word he added, he saw the fear grow on her face, he was scared that if he continued his explanation then he would begin to lose every establishment between himself and his princess of the light.

Tears began filling in the lines of his face.

“But the bottle,” he whispered while holding his finger on his temple, “the pills quiet everything. They dull everything. It stops the screaming for just that little while longer needed to keep me from falling into myself.”

He truly felt like dying.

“Mina... you don’t know what it’s like...” He tried to wipe away the condensation forming underneath his tear ducts, “and if I want to stop the screaming, if I want to risk my future, then that’s my right... because I know that if anyone else was in my predicament then they’d do the very same...”

She was silent.

He couldn’t believe that he told her everything. He felt like walking away before she had the chance to tell him it was over, he knew that it was over. He couldn’t feel his legs anymore, he couldn’t feel anything. He was cascading back into depression, believing that any second now she would be leaving him.

She spoke.

“It’s not good for you...” She only added fuel to the fire, variables to the equation. He figured that if it was all over already then he may as well give her his everything.

“You don’t think I know that?” He whispered with poignancy.

“I don’t know.” she paused to herself and then continued “Why didn’t you ever tell me this before?”

“I didn’t want to worry you...”

“It’s a bit too late for that...”

“I know.”

He wanted more than anything to hold her against his body. He wanted to feel her lungs open and close in the same manner with her breath. He wanted to feel her arms wrapped around his being to keep each other from falling apart.

He had the greatest desire to love her.

“Is it over?” He asked. He usually never asks a question that he doesn’t want to know the answer to.

“What do you mean?”

“Are ​ we​ over?”

“We were never together...”

“I know... your family would never allow it.” *** “You were always an addict.” The demon rumbled throughout the darkness “Ever since Mina, ever since the beginning.” Its words repeated inside him, emphasizing the disease of his identity.

“How could I have not known?” His addiction was a shocking discovery. He couldn’t comprehend the acts of his subconscious blocking his interpretation of reality.

“I’m the ‘You’ who should’ve been, the true manifestation of everything you are and your potential.” The demon personified all likeness, all images and memories. “I’m the ‘You’ of whom you will be when you finally remember everything and allow those experiences to define you.” The darkness smiled to him a taunting grin “And yet you say I don’t exist... the truth is... ​ You​ don’t exist.”

Within an instant, all the memories of the pills that laid behind cracked walls and deniability came gushing back through him like a lake bursting through a Dam. He remembered every argument and hurtful conversation that stemmed from the pills causing misunderstandings and incoherent anger. He remembered every instance of pain inflicted unto the perfect beautiful girl due to his addiction. He remembered every thought and experience related to the pills.

The pain created a certain pleasure inside him. He loved seeing her cry, she was so beautiful and emotional that it allowed him to deduce that she cared for him more than anything. He loved every high and addicted thought. He loved every feeling created from the drugs of which he knew that were slowly killing him.

The pain developed into pleasure; the pleasure into thrill; the thrill into excitement and the excitement into power. It caused his heart to race as he felt a dominance among all things, happiness encompassing every emotion and thought he was now having. His screaming soon turned into laughing as he realized pain is such a beautiful concept, such a pleasurable idea.

It swelled up inside him, all the experiences and memories held him on the edge of acceptance of who he really is. He wanted to get lost amongst the high. He wanted to stop caring about everything and just remove all the responsibilities of this world. He began laughing away the thoughts of the perfect beautiful girl.

He laughed just like the walls. *** “What do you think makes people stronger?” Liefde asked as she rested her head against his shoulder. They were sitting so close to each other on the old park bench with rotten screws and forgotten planks.

He leaned his head back, relaxing as he thought of the answer to this riddle.

“Power...” He closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling of being so close to the foreign beauty who’s traveled from worlds away. “Power is what makes people stronger.”

Hardly paying any attention to what he was saying and to whom he was saying it to, he mouthed and lips the words of his subconscious. He proclaimed power was superior to all and that it allowed people to grow in strength and meaning, something he always truly believed in that he kept secret locked behind bars and cages.

He felt the weight of her head leave his shoulder, he was unsure of the reason entirely but remained at peace with his eyes closed, dreaming of an unlikely future between them. After a prolonged level of silence he lifted his head and opened the heavy natures of his eyelids to peer through and watch what the foreign beauty was now doing.

“Something wrong?” he spoke with a scratchy voice, tired from long nights in the pale blueness of the moonlight. Her face was only inches from his scanning

every line and movement within him, trying to confirm a belief she held closer to herself than the distance between their face.

She moved in closer like a moth to a flame, she couldn’t stop herself from reaching in and stealing a taste of his lips.

“Mary, what are you­” “Quiet...”

It tasted like strawberries to him. Perfectly natural yet entirely sweet to feel her plump lips pressed against his so lightly in the cool summer night that was escaping from the both of them as every second passed between kisses and questions.

“What do you think?” She whispered in a tone that reminded him of sexual innuendoes and busty rubenesque beauties.

He held his mouth open trying to project the words and sounds to tell her exactly how he felt as his heart raced away far past his brain and lungs. He was speechless, he could hardly have anticipated his first kiss to have been in such an electrifying manner.

She smiled to him and laughed as her eyes grew in pleasure of his speechlessness. “Would you fight for me?” She whispered, “Would you fight away all the monsters to protect me, darling?”

He remembered that her question continued to ring on repetitively inside of him. It was such a weird question.

“Would you try to always be here for me? Would you try to be someone amazing for me? Would you try, my darling?” she began lightly touching the edges of his face that started the bright lights of stimulation across his skin. He felt that he would soon electrocute her if she continued any longer.

“Of course.” He grabbed her hand and held it within his, feeling the softness of her skin and the cold fingertips wriggling through the spaces between each individual finger of his hands. “I’ll always try for you, Liefde.”

“Would you be stronger for me?” she spoke this question sadly, as if trying to prove a point hidden amongst her insecurities and his insanities.

“I will be stronger for you.” He promised. ***

The pleasures receded away from him like the shores minutes before a devastating tsunami. His laughter resumed into cries of pain and realisation as he found that he was slowly slipping away into his insanity. The only memory urging him to not give in was his understanding of true power.

He remembered how his foreign doll secretly and subtly taught him that love was the greatest incentive for growth. Love creates the purest of desires. Love creates the perfect of pleasures. He knew that if he held onto his love for Mary and Mina, there could be no experience and memory that could tear him away from his reality.

The air reeked of blood. He could smell the suffocating essence of iron around him as a new memory formed. He felt the waves crashing against his body as the tsunami came rushing back into him holding the ideas and beliefs of something that he knew would destroy him.

He reacted with the speed and precision of propulsion technology that launched him towards the demon of darkness and the voices of insanity. In an effort to continue standing, he grabbed onto the demon and pulled his body tightly into his.

The pain and pleasures multiplied, the screaming echoed through tunnels and caverns, the ideas and thoughts collapsed in on themselves and the memories started to become far more clairvoyant to him.

“If your ideas are the only ones to exist, if you are the only one who exists, then give me back the memories.” He shouted past the noise and thunderings of voices repeating in his head. He shouted with a greater force than anything he’d dreamed he’d ever have been capable of. He was fighting, he was trying.

He was growing.

The demon changed forms as the air thickened with blood so profoundly that he was convinced he would soon drown in the mist of it. He could feel the soft sweet body of Mary between his arms as he fell in love with the feeling of absolute love and loss. The blood filled his nostrils causing it to drip from the tips of his nose.

Her clothes transformed into pools of the red velvet liquid as it washed off her body, revealing every inch of her porcelain skin. She peered into his eyes

deeply and repeated a phrase that has haunted him ever since he held the demon within his arms.

“Do you love me... Do you love me now?” *** He shattered the walls as he ran across his soul through vibrations of beautiful epiphanies and forgotten memories. He traveled past moons and stars to reach back into the pale blue atmosphere of which his body rested.

He found himself staring at the palms of his hands, reading each line and wrinkle like the pages of a secret diary. His reality began restoring unto him like a stale glass of water filling to the brim, he was recovering the memories that spilled out of his mind and away from him.

He glanced around the room to assure himself that he was once again lost in the real world. He analyzed the sunrise alongside the beautiful colors of God's palette reflecting on the clouds surrounding his grace. He wondered how many hours passed between his lucidity and insanity.

Had he slept? Had he spent the entire night conversing with demons?

A lightning strike comparable to the thunderstorms of ocean travel and godless seas struck him amongst the edges of his brain stem and neurological system. He realized that he felt no more cracks within his walls. No more demons feeding on the darkness inside him. In fact, he felt no more darkness.

It was replaced by the loving embrace of everything he was taught, every piece of philosophy that he had gathered over the years of his life and love. He was now no longer thinking deeply, he was thinking clearly. These dreams and aspirations encompassed the actions he knew he would have to take to recover the princess he was caring for.

Even despite this change, she was his everything.

She was all he could think about. How he needed her in his life to help craft him into the person he so desired to become. She was his anvil and hammer pounding away his imperfections and melting iron body with heartbeats that riveted and reverberated throughout his soul. He yearned for her.

It had never been more so clear to him, his love for her. He knew without an inkling of a doubt spilled upon pages of yellow journals that he needed his princess of the light.

"I need you..." He whispered into the morning air, allowing it to sail down throughout the ambience of the city below from his window. He never knew happiness such as this before, he never felt certainty such as this before, he never truly understood his love for her such as this before now.

In effect, he began to classify his thoughts into categories and perfectly blue headings of concepts and happiness that he would call his manifesto, his philosophical standing. He was absolute in his feelings now.

At the end of the day, no one will remember me. Everyone will go off to sleep and forget every little detail or memory imprinted on them by a passing stranger. This is not only truth, this is law.

You can make a million right moves, glitter the world a beautiful shade and change the disease that remains prevalent in all of humanity until everyone is shouting your name in joyous laughter and support; however, if you fail once, fall once, break only once, then they will­ without a doubt­ forsake you.

The best part of a bad day is knowing that in the end it doesn't matter. The worst part of a good day is knowing that when it feels real, it is forgotten. The memories screaming in my head and bouncing about my being have taught me that the strongest will thrive with or without a reason, with or without support, with or without anything to help me stand up to the mountainous obstacles that emphasize their hazardous terrain and deadly consequences.

The truth is, I stand alone. I fight demons in my freetime and stand on horizons in the sunlight where I have only ever always been amazing. Yet, somehow, she has been imprinted onto my soul, the perfect beautiful girl. She has found a way into the cracks and crevices that stand between only me and my mind. She is the beautiful truth and I am the perfect lie.

I could recite the phrase of an “I miss you” until my lips numb and my throat grows hoarse but it won’t make a difference. It won’t change your opinion, her opinion.

I have learned this, pain being my educator; memories being my textbooks; philosophy being my journals. I will continue to be of whom I have always been destined to be, I need no help in achieving the impossible.

I stand tall, I stand strong, even if it means that I have to stand alone.

I can watch this world grow into a beautiful truth or burn in its perfect lie and it will be of no difference to me because when tomorrow comes I will have forgotten the real and dismissed the yesterdays. The story doesn’t change, only its perspective does.

That is what I need; perspective.

That is why I need you to be existent into my life, that’s why I need her to be my princess of the light because only then will I gain the perspective to see through the voice of darkness and fall into her beautiful truths.

I am the only me that has ever existed of which will continue until everything is lost.

I am unsure of how I lost myself. I am unsure of where I have been, yet that is of no consequence. I have finally found myself again and I will retrieve the perfect beautiful girl in a way that will shine onto my soul.

I have finally gained control.

Split Decisions

He tightened his fist around the edges of his steering wheel, clenching his anxiety and stress into the palms of his hands, wondering what the effects would be if he just decided to swerve into oncoming traffic. Would he feel pain? Would he die on impact? Would he be missed by anyone? The thought of those questions made him increase his speed abruptly as his anxiety took hold of him.

Could he do it? Could he take his own life and possibly the life of another just to rid himself of this world’s pain? Is he that selfish?

As the seconds grew smaller and the thoughts screamed louder, he began to lose all sense of self. He no longer cared what the consequences could potentially be. He just wanted to be rid of his everything, his thoughts, his angers, his regrets, he wanted to let go of everything.

He jerked his steering wheel off to the right and parked at the edges of the road. He watched as the dust rose into a dark cloud around him, shielding him from the sunlight.

He screamed. He screamed out everything, yelled out his anger, shouted his regrets. He hit the edges of his steering wheel and cried out the rest of his sadness. *** His phone trembled in his hand. He was unsure if it was caused by the vibration of the phone call or the emotion of fear that was forcing his hands to shake unsteadily. It was electrifying, reading the caller I.D. information­ it was a declaration of possibilities­ caused palpitations to become audible on his breath.

The fear and intensity stemmed from his expected responses and excitement around the caller.

It was a perfect reminder of his current mentality. It was both everything he had wished for but had hoped would never come to pass. It was both a dream and a nightmare. It was his princess of the light.

It was Mina, a direct call from the past.

He allowed the phone to continue ringing until its sound was smothered away. He thought to himself a million miles a second, thinking back to everything that he had done to her, everything that had happened. Why now? Why would she be calling him now?

What’s changed?

It has been 26,856,694 seconds since he’s last heard her voice, since he’s had any remnant of her being. He couldn’t help but contemplate the reasons as to her phone call. Did she even miss him at all?

Was she trying to correct a wrong she felt she had made? Was she hurting herself by ignoring his every effort? Could she have possibly felt the same? Was she hiding behind masked feelings of love and loss? Did she even care... at all?

Hours passed as minutes during the time he spent remembering every second and every seemingly impossible possibility of reasons why she was calling him. He allowed the shorthand of the clock to move as the long, hoping to find some solitary comfort inside his epiphanies and realizations.

He checked the time, 6 hours had passed since her phone call.

He scrolled through the contacts until he found her name, a bright red text filled the screen reminding him of the missed call. He pressed his thumb against her name and held the small electronic device against his ear.

As the ringing carried, his anxiety grew, he was unsure of whether or not he was making the right choice. After all this time he was still unsure if he actually deserved to have this princess of the light existent in his life.

The ringing stopped.

She answered with a prolonged level of silence.

“Mina..?”

He could hear the sounds of a sigh across the line, a stress­filled breath being released onto the air as vibrations.

“Do you remember...” She began, “that day when Martha had broughten chocolate covered strawberries into the office and we ate all of them?”

“Yeah...” He answered, trying to hold onto the normalcy of a conversation but could hardly hear past the screaming of a single question stuck inside his mind.

“Mina, why are you calling me?” he trailed off as he heard the sadness in his voice, containing his demons. “Give me a reason for why you’re calling me.”

“I have three.” he heard the sounds of what appeared to him as the noise a piece of crumpled paper unfolding. “Reason number one, I went to the store the other day and bought a bunch of strawberries... chocolate covered ones... It made me think of the incident back at the office.”

Her explanations were beyond him.

“Reason number two... I saw someone today that looked a lot like you from the back. The front... not so much.­” “Stop... Just stop.” His thoughts intensified, “It’s been 26,856,786 seconds, 26,856,791 seconds since I’ve last spoken with you and all that screaming is supposed to just go away because you remembered me?”

“You act like I never thought about you once when I left... You know I had good reason not to talk to you.” Spaces filled with silence once again, “If you don’t want to talk to me, that’s fine, I understand, but at least I tried...”

His anger swelled up into mountains ready to burst past volcanoes and earthquakes as the melodies in his mind swelled to symphonies of string instruments and acoustic strums. “You don’t get to use that excuse! I tried! I spent all this time wanting you to forgive me! I wanted nothing more than to speak with you again, I missed you every second! I counted every fucking second, can you!?

Are you even capable of that?” He allowed the dust from his St. Helens to clear as he continued calmly, “Don’t act like this is my fault, it’s taken me almost a year for me to just forgive myself...”

“I didn’t say anything is your fault. I just said I’d understand if you didn’t want to talk to me...” As the silence spoke louder than words, he wondered if this would be the end of their conversation. A thought destroyed by the added statement Mina would soon supply. “You didn’t let me get to number three... which was the most important...”

“Then tell me...”

She made the odd noise of what sounded like a small cry coming from the edges of her voice as she read aloud her last reason, hoping that it could fix the last of their arguments. “Not talking to you makes me feel terrible... It’s not something that was easy for me to do, despite what you think. I just wanted to say that I’m really sorry for any pain that I’ve caused you, that wasn’t my intention at all...”

He felt like crying... allowing sadness to take hold of the last of his soul. As if waves crashing could smother him within the sweet embrace of death, he wished for every breath he drew to be a poison slowly draining him of his life. He wanted to run away from this.

“That’s it? That’s your reason number three? That you’re sorry and you feel bad? What, am I supposed to forgive you or something...” He gathered the last of his sanity in a manner that resembled to him the action of standing upon horizons against demons and sunsets. He needed a good lie to help him get through another sleepless night. “If that’s what you want... then I forgive you.”

“Please don’t­” “­It’s okay. Don’t feel bad.” He could hear her breathing begin to race sporadically as he denied his own emotional tuggings pulling on every heart string like an acoustic guitar playing the scores of a dying heart.

“But I ​ do​ feel bad.”

“Mina... It’s okay...” He held fastly onto the last bit of love he had stored inside him, hoping that he could have used it as an emergency ration on a crashing tornado or painful hurricane of a day instead. “I don’t want you to feel bad, I just want you to be happy.” He needed a good lie. “If you’re happier without me then it’s okay, I’ve been trying to move on...” He needed the phone call but wished for a sunburn. “Just please don’t feel bad...”

“Would you rather me stop talking to you?” She whispered above the angels of the silences that hold hands with the dreams of michelangelo and rain clouds.

“What do you want?”

“I asked you first...” A smile crawled across his face as he heard a small laugh echo from across the line. A subtle statement of an ‘Everything’s going to be okay.’

“I...­” He paused as the smile vanished from him within the same second that it appeared, he was unsure of his wants and needs, “­Don’t know.” He

understood the potential havoc and consequences it could cause in the near future, hurting her and destroying the last of his stability; however, simultaneously, he desired her more than anything.

Their conversation carried past late night hours and unexpected time frames.

Every now and again she would remind him that she was soon to be off to sleep in an effort to keep herself safe from tired eyes and crippling fatigue the next day, only to be interrupted by another interesting topic between them that held her awake for another hour or so.

They took the next few hours to catch up on the events of their lives that swallowed up their past year. As soon as they believed their conversation was nearing an end, the other would allow another mysterious fact to slip from their lips and begin the river of flowing conversation all over again, feeding tired eyes with perpetual thoughts.

It was a beautiful change of pace. It allowed him to remember all the great memories and laughs they had together, guilt and embarrassment seceded away from them as they became lost within each other. Every now and then they would mention something from the past that would cause guilt and emotional pain to rise within themselves but would soon be extinguished by a few laughs and a change of the topic.

All of their pain, hate and sadness would repeatedly seem to devolve into notions of laughter and friendship. It was far more refreshing than anything he could have ever imagined.

As seconds grew longer and the night became shorter, he checked the time in order to convince himself to get some sleep. He realized it was already a 4 A.M. on a Tuesday, they’d spent the entire night conversing over memories and films of nothing.

She hesitated within the last few moments... begging a question in his head that he desired to know the answer to...

“Is something wrong? You seem a little... distant.” He couldn’t quite place his finger on it. For the first time in a long time, he asked a question that he was scared to know the answer to.

“To be honest...” He held his breath, he foresaw a red flag sign that could potentially crumbled all of his bubbling white walls of ocean tides. “I still kind of feel like I made a mistake...”

“A mistake? You mean, about what happened?” He let the silence carry on the air... hoping that everything she was saying was just a sick joke, but he knew.

He knew she was referring to the phone call. He knew that she viewed their renewed friendship as a mistake that would most likely end in a catastrophe. The breath fell from his lungs, collapsing every fiber of his being.

“I don’t want you to have to talk to me if you feel like you made a mistake. I really don’t want you to block my number again but... I want you to be happy and comfortable. You can block me if you want, you don’t have to feel bad about it.”

He was tired of holding onto a good lie, he just wanted to feel human again. “Can we just at least say goodbye this time instead of ending it in an argument?”

“Are you sure that’s okay?” Her question was masking an answer that revealed to him that his assumptions were all correct.

“If it’s what you want... then yeah, it’s okay with me.” It tore him apart knowing that he would have to let go. It was killing him from the inside out.

“I won’t block you... if that makes a difference.” She needed something to believe in. Unfortunately, there was nothing left to hold onto.

“You...” His voice continued without him, with every word he spoke another piece of him passed on to the wayside. “Should block me.”

“Why?” Her voice resembled that of frogs burrowing into the bottom of dried ponds. Hopeless endeavors.

“I know myself, I’m going to lose it some days...” Rhyme and reason being the only thing keeping him breathing as he uttered his explanations. “What happens in a week? or a month? What’s going to keep me from needing to talk with you?” He steadied his hand, it was shaking; he straightened his voice, it was quivering; he cleared his throat, it was choking.

“I just don’t think this is a good idea...”

“You should block me... if you feel like you’re making a mistake then block me.” He was trying to match the vocal implications of anger in an effort to hide his transparent sadness. “It really wouldn’t be fair otherwise.”

He could hear the sounds of raindrops forming on the line... this time from both ends. His and hers. He tried to cure the rain with a sentence of satisfaction.

“But hey... you made me happy... you have no idea. I loved every second of you, I almost forgot what you were like.” He stopped for a few seconds just to hear her breathe, he needed to be reminded of the reason as to why he was killing himself. “I’ve been unsure of what was real and what was just in my head... and you reminded me of strawberries.” As the conversation stretched, his incoherence grew. “I missed you so much, Mina.” He grabbed his chest. “Today has to be the best day I’ve had in a long time... the seconds are all gone.”

She stayed silent.

He knew that it was all bullshit. Everything he had said explaining why it was okay for him to go through this. He knew that he was only going to be hating himself more for allowing her to slip through his hands. His obsessiveness became self­loathing as the greater good inside him was ready to self­sacrifice.

He felt that he was mixing up a good night with a goodbye. All he was sure of was that it was a good thing...

I guess that’s what makes a good lie.

“Goodbye Mina... I’ll miss you.”

He was inbetween the action of dying and lowering his phone when he was suddenly interrupted by his Princess of the Light once more.

“Wait...” She spoke with an urgency of near­death experiences and painful sorrows.

“Yeah?” He spoke softly.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

“Mina, don’t­” “­I’m going to talk with you tomorrow... I promise.”

Click That was it, a phone call and a sunburn from his Princess of the Light. Tears filled the iris of his eyes as pain and intensity burdened his soul. He came rushing back into life with a heavy heart and an empty shadow. He could hardly feel the tips of his fingers as he dropped his phone from his hands.

Both Pain and Pleasure swelled inside him like a double helix...

Yet, he couldn’t be more happy.

*** “Don’t you see how much better it is for me to be in control?” The demon was walking around within the darkness wearing the skin he’d grown quite comfortable of. He’d spent the entire day wearing the suit of humanity and found that it fit him quite nicely.

Another voice echoed from the corners of the forgotten to respond to the claims of the monster. “We both know that that phone call had nothing to do with whoever was in control at the moment.”

The demon smiled to himself, quite content of such a reply from a faceless voice. “It’s not about the phone call, it’s about seizing the opportunity.” He ushered in both arrogance and ignorance as he spoke.

“Are you sure that’s how she saw it?” The voice sounded closer now, as if it was approaching with the speed of a slight walk.

Angered by the incessant questions and the persistent doubt, the demon yelled into the darkness. “Who cares how she saw it? We still won.”

“We care," the voice emerged from the darkness to reveal the being of whom actually owns the humanity, "you've been taking unnecessary risks, do not treat this as a game."

"Oh, what would you know of deception?" The demon growled. "You spent the majority of your time in control wrapped in daffodils and sorrows." It mocked him, playing on both guilt and shame. "No, I've been flawless. Every breath I took­ every emotion I portrayed­ she bought every single lie I gave her."

"Our relationship between us and the Princess will not stem from dishonesty." He glanced around the darkness, allowing a subtle look of content and assurance to wash over his face, "she is the beautiful truth... We cannot hold onto our perfect lies."

Astoundingly, he spoke with an air of command. Strictly, sternly, lecturing the demon of his mind, as if it was a child lost to temper tantrums and self­destructive proposals.

Oh, how it angered him, the monster.

“If you think that I’d give up control back to you just because of the fact that you are uncomfortable with my decisions, then you must be a fool.” The darkness descended as the demon thundered laughs across the cast vacuum of a mind lost to

insanity. “I have felt physicality and it is far more pleasing to me than this enclosing mess of a mind. I have felt the chilling breath of air on my face and I have found it to be far more beautiful than anything you can convince me of. So no, human... I will remain in control.”

He and the Demon exchanged a stern glance between each other, holding their resolve and reasons. He smiled, the demon growled. He placed his hands behind himself as he began his pace from to and fro, holding explanations on his tongue and hidden weapons in his vocabulary.

“It’s quite amusing,” He spoke between laughs and sighs, “You may have felt the air on your face, but by being locked away in here... I’ve finally been allowed to breathe.” The grounds shook as his likeness crossed oceans of debris and madness. “If you think that I’d ever allowed you control in the first place­” He stood tall next to the voice of darkness, “­then you must be the fool.”

Hurricanes met with tornadoes, Earthquakes with clashing waves of volcanoes. The demon blossomed into a monstrosity of darkness and horrid nightmare, screeching with the energy of lightning strikes crackling against the wind.

“You don’t scare me anymore.” whispered the child of whom was finally allowed to breathe. “You’ve forfeited that right.”

The demon lunged towards him with claws outstretched to embrace the soft skin of the one lost to his own mind. With a one­word reply, he shattered the darkness into a million pieces that fell like dust into his face.

He breathed in the sand that epitomized his mental freedom.

“You don’t scare me...” He reassured himself with absolute power, “You don’t exist anymore.” *** The birds splashed and played in the fountains across from him, exercising their freedom and happiness in an admirable manner.

The statues of the fountain resembled Greek gods and heroes of old that could end despots and darkness. He watched as the water trickled down from their entities, representing either the flow of their blood or their spirit. It was both a horrifying and honorable experience.

He then tried to fill in the time with images and visions of how the fountain could’ve been created. He wondered what it would be like to carve in every single crack and crevice, every single jet and spout, every single individual attention to detail it would take to make such a, awe­inspiring masterpiece.

He soon became aware of his surroundings as a tap on his shoulder alerted him of the presence of another person. He turned to see the Princess of the Light standing there before him and remembered all the reasons as to why he was wasting his time watching Freedom and Greek Gods.

She smiled to him. Instantly, he became dumbstruck and silent. After several spaces of silence were met with silence, he tried to think of something to say­ anything to say­ to try to start a conversation after such a long absence of each other’s presence, “Hey, you’re late.”

She glanced around and noticed that there wasn’t anyone else around in this area, something of which made her quite content. She quickly took out a small electronic device from her back pocket and checked the time.

“No... I’m early.” To verify her claim, she held the small electronic device up to his face to show him that she was, in fact, not late. She was a whole five minutes early to the agreed time they’d compromised between themselves.

“Oh yeah...” He stood corrected. “Guess I just didn’t want to accidentally miss you or something.”

They filled in the next few hours with long walks, ice cream cones, festival detours and meaningful conversations relative to what they’ve been up to seperately and how their life was at the moment.

They filled seconds in with whispers of secrets, tears of regret and happiness that would swell up in their lungs and burst out as laughter and smiles. Their entire day carried an almost magical sense of absolute within them that nothing felt like it could destroy each other's happiness.

“You’ve really changed...” She spoke through pride and power that symbolized her emotion and care for his newfound mental stability.

“No... No, I haven’t.” He spoke quietly, hiding behind a truth that he knew no one could bear. “I haven’t changed at all.”

“In my eyes you have...” She turned to him to try to emphasize the epiphany pouring from her belief system.

He looked into her eyes deeply­ trying to find the evidence of his change within them­ only to be disappointed by her beautiful brown eyes that only showed an evidence of disbelief. He tried to fix the situation with a joke to keep her from embracing hopelessness.

“You need to get some glasses or something.”

“That must be it.”

She was expecting a different answer from him, one of which he knew he could never agree to. He had already come to the conclusion that the only way to blossom the relationship between her beautiful truths and his perfect lies was to no longer lead her in a deceiving manner.

Fear took hold as he knew that the only way to keep her would be to plunge into the blunt honesty of his insanity. He had to come clean with all of his crazy and tell her all of the little trivialities that he’s been hiding away from her all this time.

So he did...

“Mina, I didn’t change. I’m just... you’re not seeing the crazy me.” He tried to remain coherent as to better explain his mental deformities. “Maybe it’s because I’m no longer obsessive over you or maybe it’s because I’m just not losing my mind right now, but I haven’t changed.” He saw a glimmer in her eye of which he was unaware of what it could possibly represent. Sadness? Understanding? “Just don’t get your hopes up that you can expect anything from me.” He ended with a sigh.

“Oh...” She turned away from him. She ceased all commands and actions as he witnessed her thinking to herself, screaming understanding into her own mind.

She began again with a hesitation. “Maybe I understand what you mean now when you say you’re insane, even though I really don’t like that word... All I know is that you seem like you feel okay more often than you did before.” She couldn't help but smile to him a genuine smile to reassure him of happiness, the child lost to darkness.

“I just really care about you is all.” He breathed far more steadily now, “If I don’t have the decency to care about myself, I should at least think of you...”

“Yeah, I can tell...”

They continued matching each others pace between them as they followed the pavement of the cement tapping a rhythm beneath them. She turned to him once more to make sure that he was okay, maybe try to get a read as to what was chasing throughout his mind. He noticed,so he spoke his thoughts to her.

“I had seen this documentary thing on mental diseases­ it helps to not feel so alone­ and I saw one on bipolar disorder, and thank God I don’t have that... but there was this scene that really got me thinking, you know? There was a long point where I thought that there ​ was ​ no point in trying to remain in control­ it just seemed meaningless­ but in one scene, this girl went all bipolar and crazy and was shouting and throwing shit and... she just looked like a train wreck.

“Her younger brother ran up to her and tried to calm her down, he was probably only maybe six or seven? He said, ‘Why are you mad? It’s okay, It’s okay.’ and she told him to get away. When he asked her why, she said ‘I’m not myself, I don’t want to hurt you. Get away!’

“Even despite her being batshit crazy and angry, there was still that part of her that loved her brother and didn’t want to see him get hurt. I know that most people would probably just glance over that and not care and just be like ‘ah she’s just insane’ but coming from another insane person, that’s something really fucking hard to do...” His face fell from a stern, grim look into a relaxed ease that washed over everything like roses and lavender. “So I think there is a point in trying. It might not look like much to everyone else, but it makes a difference...”

As he laughed a little to himself, he began to notice the sadness creep across the face of the princess, resembling darkness consuming the purity of light. It hurt him more than she would ever realize. This was the exact reason as to why he never wanted to speak of his insanities.

“I couldn’t possibly understand what that feels like, but I can tell by how you said that, that it must be really difficult for you to deal with... I feel like sometimes you’re trying to explain these things to me but I’m too ignorant to understand or at least fully grasp what you’re trying to tell me, so I’m sorry...” She stared off into the distance, watching horizons and sunsets establish in the expanse.

“To be honest, I don’t have the slightest clue as to what you’re going through and

it’s really hard for me to understand exactly what you’re telling me, and I don’t always try to understand which is pretty messed up...

“I want to say I’m proud of you,” She turned to him and smiled, proving that, once again, light will always win in the eternal battle between pure light and chaotic darkness. “But I feel like you’ll take offense somehow.”

“None taken... I only wish we’d talked sooner.”

“What do you mean?”

They walked across bricked sidewalks and cages of flowers that reeked of pollen, a matter that was only aggravated by the constant passing of cars.

“I just mean that... I missed you.” He rubbed his eye clear of pollen as another car passed by, “I wished we could’ve talked like this sooner.”

“I’m sorry about that but... I feel like if we did talk earlier, then all of this wouldn’t have been the same... we both needed to mature.”

“Yeah, I am much more mature. I don’t got a bedtime no more.” He smiled quickly at his attempt of humor but then soon shook his head, a way of communicating that he also found his statement to be ridiculously unfunny. “I also wish you’d come over for dinner sometime.”

“Wishes don’t come true.” She realized that they’re both not quite good at jokes.

The rest of the evening was filled with awkward attempts at ridiculously unfunny jokes, efforts to disperse the awkward tensity and then hours of conversation about what could’ve been.

As the day began nearing an end, she asked him a question that he didn’t quite know the answer to, something that doesn’t ever sit too well with him.

“Who’s Mary?” She spoke aloud abruptly.

“Um­ what?­ no­ who?” He was quite confused. He was as confused as a homeless man who’d suddenly been told he was on house arrest.

“Mary... who is she?”

“I­I don’t­ I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He stuttered and flustered about.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” She tried to reassure him, imply that everything was going to be okay.

“That’s not it­ it’s just­ I only remember bits and pieces...” His eyes glazed over, as if he was completely unsure of where he was now. He looked at her suspiciously as he continued slowly, “How do you know her?”

“How do I know her?­” “How do you know about Mary!?” He shouted. He was panicking, confused as to whether this was all just another complex and highly detailed hallucination in his head.

“I don’t know­ you mention her sometimes when you’re talking, I don’t even think you’re aware of­” “Are you real?!”

“What are you­” “Is this real?!” Is this really happening or are you just another hallucination?! I thought I was done with you, with all of this!” He glanced around, trying to find a fault in reality, a crack, a break, something to assure him it was all a dream.

His vision blurred as his hands shook in front of his face. He looked ike nothing more than a neurotic mess.

“You’re­ you’re scaring me...” Mina spoke softly, still trying to hold onto the illusion that he can be calmed.

“I’m... I’m scaring you? I didn’t mean to­ I just...” As he established his reality, rushed back into lucidity, he felt a profound level of guilt incomparable to anything before him now. He didn’t mean to scare her, to hurt her. “I’m... I’m sorry...” He sighed, trying to calm his mind even further.

“If this is something that bothers you so much... I won’t question you about it anymore.” She peered around and noticed the darkness of the night that had crept up on the both of them. “It’s getting pretty late, I think I should go.”

They held seconds on the air and words on their tongues as they gazed into each others souls deeply. She arranged a quick smile, sad eyes and then turned away.

Each step she took, each tap against the sidewalk reminded him of the incessant tapping against the walls.

Tap­tap­tap It grew and grew the further she walked away.

Tap­tap­tap It amplified as the distance exemplified his insanity.

Tap­tap­tap He listened to the seconds disperse, the words trickle and the constant tapping reminding him that if he allowed this to continued any further, his mind wouldn’t be the only thing to slip away from. It seemed all too familiar to him, He ran to her, trying to drown out her steps with his own. He quickly grabbed her hand and spoke softly, releasing both pent up seconds and waterfalls of words. “Mina...” She turned to him once more. “Let me tell you about Mary...”