So 50,000 words is just a hop, skip, and a month away!

I wonder what the weather will be like there...
Clear blue skies, a cloud or two, and nice not-to-cool weather?
I hope so.

It's gonna be a little while 'till we reach there.
So everyone fasten your seatbelts,
plug in your headphones,
and ready those spare pens and snacks!
We're gonna get those words out one way or another this month,
contractions or no.
So three, two one...
​Here we go!

How about we skip it tonight?

There's no need for the sounds of fists banging
on locked metal doors outside
or fists on cracked drywall.

How about we let the night decide the sounds?
Let whatever wind may blow guide our course
amidst the soothing chorus of crickets.
​
Let fears and memories of yesterday
fade into the background
while the marvels of our minds take the lead.

Whenever my fingers start typing or scribbling
I never know what's going to happen

They might drag me down through underground caverns lined with swinging blades
or lead me gently through flowered meadows to the sound of fae in flight

They might decide I'm in for a scare and toss a score of ghouls my way
or drop me neck-deep into a memory that's far beyond my sight

Either way, the urge to type and scribble is always nibbling at my mind
and even when I try to plan
I really never know what's going to happen.

Dice clatter and roll.
We're at the mercy of these
merry fiends of fate. 

The more ink that I pour from my hands
the thicker they feel, heavy with
a lack of motion, aching
with tendons all stretched taut,
drained of energy.
My stories take
What's freely
given
​them.

Is it strange that I mourn the breath
that I held in my chest just yesterday?

Dull and throbbing as it left,
breath escaping into June air that shouldn't be so cold.

It's awake still.
Waiting, tapping on my windowpane,
begging for yesterday's safety from the rain
that threatens to wash it down the drain,
away from the lungs that held it.
Felt it leave as all others had,
its brothers and sisters expelled to the air that made them.
These breaths that stain windowpanes
until the rain washes them away.

Why has just this one come back?
Why that puff of breath?
Does it hold more of me than all the others?

A piece ripped free and flung away to aerosol,
screeching from the other side of glass
that its end will be mine,
that unless I let it back inside
I'll die just as sadly,
as the stain washed from the windowpane.
A smudge rubbed away and forgotten just the same
as hundreds before it.

Do I listen to it?
Should I?
This muffled screeching warning from the other side of-

Oh. There's the rain, come finally.
Shining down the windowpane
​in silence.

I don't really know what day it is
the month or season
or phase of the moon

But I do know that my life is filled with wonderful people
kind smiles, loving words, and warm hugs
funny gifts, adorable animals, and stories

Really, what else could I ever ask for?

I revel in the dust motes
dancing in the sunlight
amidst the giggles of fae

glints of earth and sky alight
float around and above
without touching a mortal soul
but briefly drawing the eye
before our attention unwavers once more.

their flinty smiles have cut away my blindness
peeled away the attachments my forefathers forged

I've decided
that I enjoy their ever-shifting world far more
than this one of concrete

no, you can't come
unless they invite you along

but​ don't worry
maybe you'll catch a glimpse of them
and they'll grow to fancy you
​
maybe your graceful hands and pretty face
are exactly what they're craving

I'm still here. Typing.
How am I still on one page?
*computer growls softly*

Far below the mountaintops
where no songbird has ever sung
lower than even the most persistent of raindrops reach
sits a tree.

No- not a tree even.
A sapling.
Not yet tall enough to be called grown
but carrying a small fistful of leaves upon its stem.

It sits amidst a darkened copse of its elders
listening to their creaking
taking in their every word
but not quite loud enough to speak.
At least- not with the towering trees above it.

But its voice does reach the tiny insects skittering
and the rodents chittering 'round it
down there on the forest floor.

And while it may not have the stature of its family
or bare sweet fruit
or give off cool shade,
it does hold a certain power within it
that none else do.

If you kneel down next to it
and press your ear to its thin bark
you can just make out its tiny voice.

But what does it say? I'm sure you wonder.
Well... I don't actually know.
I've only heard rumors myself.

Its message is different to everyone who listens though
that one thing's for certain.
Some hear the echos of their lost love
or feel the rekindling of their passions.
Others are shored up by compliments and truths
and come away with a spring in their step.

One day, I'll make it there.
And in the shadows of all those monstrous trees
I'll lay there in the dirt
and we'll have a nice chat,
the sapling and me.