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.

Okay... so I know how this is supposed to go.

I- the hesitant hero- am called on a grand quest,
wherein the fate of the world is at stake.
But I am reluctant to give up my perfectly content life,
so my home is destroyed
or an army approaches,
or something like that.

Blah blah, blahbitty blah!
Can we just skip all this intro stuff?

I'm ready to fight now.
Yeah, where's this great evil?

What- what do you mean I'm not ready yet?
I'm the hero!
That's how this works!

No- don't- all this "training" is pointless-
oh come on!
You're really going to ditch the only hope you have
in the middle of a dark forest,
just so I can prove myself?!
Asshole.

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.

Toughened boots come down
cracking the ancient bone floor.
The beast's eye opens.

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*

Another day gone
each second lasting hours-
huh? Where'd the week go?

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.

Is it so much to ask
for just a tiny bit of change?
One little shift
to come from weeks of struggle
throwing myself up against a wall again and again?

It feels like I'm incorporeal.
Stuck in a state of stasis
where nothing I try makes any difference.

No matter how much I push
not a single pebble shifts.
Not one tiny stone
that might skitter down the hill
and start the avalanche I need.

I don't even have the benefits of being a ghost
whisked off this world to whatever comes next
or at least left without the physical parts of living.
I still have to go through the motions
​but never get anywhere.