gxllery240

He told me that pain was just releasing weakness. 

“And now? How does it feel?”

“better.”

That’s right, he said. It’s always better after. 

Countless burns and strained muscles and broken bones all feel better after. Organ level problems. Drink a glass of water and move on with your life. You have to power through and it’s your fault if you can’t handle it.



But what about infection?

What about the illnesses that are rooted in the cells, at a level no one can see? The illnesses that spread and take over and become you? 


There’s only one solution.


You have to destroy whatever it touches. 

No cure. 

Only prevention. 



——-



people love to make promises. to buy into the idea that if you try hard enough, everything will work out. that if they say something, they’ll believe it. they stay blinded by the light, while true reality lies in darkness. 

and the reality is- everything matters. life is so much more than one dimension. life is plane after plane of details and concepts and systems moving around. balancing. constantly shifting in order to add the puzzle that creates the picture of our perspective. things will slip through the cracks. the difference between a magnet zapping to a piece of metal and staying still is no more than a centimeter. 




—



i laid there, knowing sleep wouldn’t come. but i was to be patient, to ride out the wave. so i put my hand on my stomach and i sighed and i looked up at the ceiling and I waited.


a door opened, and in marched five words dressed in a black and white prison jumpsuit and red heels. they grinned and struck me with their blood-soaked axe and in came a sudden, painful sting of clarity.



I wish i was dead.



—-



the moon looks perfect. iridescent. like you’d see in a movie. it sits dead center in a patch of midnight blue in a sea of black, layered with clouds of varying opaqueness. 


their jaw chatters, and not from the cold.



—-

The risks just keep slipping out of my grasp. They’re usually much more solid than that, but i can’t fucking hold on to any of them. Every what if is answered with a certainty that it’ll be fine, because it’s him. Which doesn’t make any fucking sense, because i’m pretty sure he’s the one who could hurt me the most, even more than myself. Even though he convinces me he never will. but he could. it doesn’t make any sense.





——



maybe i didn’t mean as much to you as i thought i did.


leaving is ok. i know what it’s like to be left.

i’m used to it. i have a script and a structure and i can do it well. it’s how you made me feel so special one day and so unwanted the next.



i was fine before you. independent. maybe even happy. then you show up, uninvited and welcome, and you flip the switch the system of fairy lights in my nerves. you start my heartbeat. then you left with all my colors and i can’t move.


i want to say something.

“i’m sorry” or perhaps “fuck you”. i wanted to make you know that i let you in in a way that no one else has known me, and you abused that position of power. but no no no. my heart still wants to say “hug me please, please, and we can forget it all”.


or maybe i want to say “i forgive you. you’re not sorry but i still forgive you”.


i will live my life alone. when they ask about you i’ll brush it off in the best way i know. i will tell strangers we loved each other but it wasn’t enough for him. i will say i hope that you are happy and that i understand why i could never have you.  i will smile and tell them i’m okay. 


because they won’t watch closely.


they won’t see how i have to take a deep breath when your name comes up. how i have to laugh to cover up how my voice shakes when i talk about who you are were. how when they turn their backs my shield will drop. 



i will live my life and i will tell people that i do not love you anymore, but my heart will beat just a little bit faster when those words leave my mouth because it knows i am a liar.



——


distance will swallow us for breakfast one day

chase us down it’s wicked throat with a glass of orange juice 

us, with our tear-streaked cheeks and our cherry-stained lips

our tragedy-stricken hearts and sugared teeth.



we craft metaphors of our pain, build something breathtaking out of the rubble.

we twist our words to heal our hearts and romanticize all the things that hurt us, but love

that there’s nothing pretty to see here. 

nothing beautiful about how even though we see the same sky 

there’ll always be another 3 hours in between us 

another three months until we feel the sun kiss our skin in the same old town.


it’s christmas and we’re still sitting at the low table,

even though our bodies have outgrown our old clothes and our scraped knees are hitting the underside of the wood.


we’re too young to be this sad, and yet 

we still take stupid risks 

(go on, tell him)

we still get excited over little things

(remember the scholastic book fair?)

we still live and kiss and cry and breathe

(we can’t help it. we’re human)



i know your mother told you to never swim on a full stomach and i know the waters cold

but your lungs are filled with all the things you’re too afraid to say

and you can’t afford to wait 20 minutes because this time there’s gonna be love, 

so much that you’re gonna drown in it

“kids these days think theyre invincible”

we’ve heard it a million times.

we know. 





——



“what is your deal with them?”


in theory, it’s a simple question, and it’s one that he knows the answer to, so it has no right sticking in the throat the way that it is, practically choking me. my deal with them is this: we trust each other just as readily as we hurt each other, thoroughly and unconditionally and more than anyone else in the world. this is something that is easy to say, hard to understand, and impossible to live without. it’s a nonsensical and non-negotiable ebb and flow that only we can tread water in, but we don’t know anything else, so we keep swimming. 


sometimes, i think i’m tired or swimming. sometimes, i think i’d die if i had to get out of the water. what i know, though, is that they feel the same way, and that’s why we carry on.



——


sometimes, i feel that all the work i do to try and get better and progress opens up a web of different problems. my intense, jumping from 1 to 100 side needs to tick off a box as soon as i fix a problem, but the problem usually isn’t gone. the main concept might be recognized, steps might have been changed, but my flaws are infections. they spread quick and deep and invisible through my roots and i have to go through and hand cut them out. 



infections. 


the advancement of medical education and equipment has led to a huge change in the way we’re able to treat problems in the body. not as much with infections.


there are three steps with infections. 1)prevention- routinely cleaning a wound and taking care of it. 2) antibiotics- when you first find out about the infection, you might be able to catch it and kill it in time with these. if it doesn’t fight back and win. 3) the third step. if infection spreads, it presses into the core of what something is. the only way to get rid of it is to cut the poisoned part off.


in the olden days, sure, they didn’t have pain meds so you had to bite a bullet while they sawed your leg off- but it’s the same idea. now, it’s just a little more cushioned. sugarcoated. 


i don’t have to energy to go through and cut off the poisoned parts of all my roots. the bonds i can’t have. all my problems i haven’t been dealing with spread and take up my energy. the ones i have tried to fix, to push back to, have simply adapted and grown under the pressure to become something new and hard and unstoppable. 



——



my relationships with people suck because of me. 



they just exist, and i can’t take it. it’s all games of who has value because of what, of who will do what for me, of how can i make myself useful. wanted.


i’m wired wrong. i’m not meant to exist here, in this space, in this world. i make bad choices to cope, and the bad wiring slips out the cracks of me even when i’m spending so much time creating a barrier. a wall to hold it back, a wall of asphalt and dried blood and whatever else i can find. dried blood. when the party’s over, i guess. 

it slips through the cracks. i make a mess and i just wait for the people who like me, love me, 


the ones who are supposed to know me value me to pick up the pieces. the ones i collected. manipulated. whatever you want to call it. i wait for them to come do what i expect for what i pay them. the cost is in time, energy, tears. whatever i have on me. my pocket change is lies and compliments. 

it’s transactional- loans and debts. i can’t take thinking of it any other way. 

sometimes i think that all the work i’ve done to take down obvious barriers and to loosen up just removes what’s in your line of sight first. the big, easy stuff. all 1-dimensional. all my emotional problems and walls are still there, just better hidden. 



—-



people don’t understand the word ruthless.

 they think it means “mean.”



 it’s not about being mean. It’s about seeing the bright, clear line that leaves from point a to point B. The line that goes from motive to means. Beginning to end. It’s about seeing that bright, clearly not caring about anything for the beautiful fact you could see the solution. Not caring about anything else but the perfection of it. 



——



by the middle of the week, i am tired of being a person. so on thursdays, give me space to die a little in private. i don’t want to go to my homework, fold laundry, or cut up cucumber for dinner. let me sit quietly in a room alone with my knees folded to one side. i will retreat into myself, where i have resided obscurely through immeasurable and contrasting lives, all disorganized and stacked on top of each other in the pit of my stomach. sometimes, they spill out of my mouth like a sheet of ice because of you and your nagging fingers pulling at my bottom lip, hungry for me to tell you what i think before i know how to say it. 



—-



he calls my name and smiles, and i can’t help but wonder- how long will it take before it’s gone? for the parasite in my heart to stop squirming the second i see him? my hand clasps around the railing but it feels like a knife, sharp enough to draw blood. i wonder if i’d bleed purple. i wonder if when my bones struck the blade, they’d ring like a gong. it sits in the yearning cavern of my stomach, that’s what it does. something bright and golden and sharp. he’s shining, clean, in dimensions i can’t access. and i am bloody and dull and it’s all coming together now, faster than before, and my heart squeezes in sharp edges and soft curves. 


          

it starts like this, doesn’t it?

the roots that take over the land
drinkers of the groundwater
	dendritic thief

it starts like this, doesn’t it?

weaving their tendrils into the ground
risen from the logs, dead, alive
	treekiller colony

?????

but does he know?

they
	stay
		king.

has it always been like this?
	has it always been like this??



little sapling? are you okay?
  … 
no, it hasn’t, has it. 
  … 
we’re all waiting for the rains. 
  …
what do you mean?
  …
oh.
  …
it must be hard to watch them, well, die. 
  … 
you? … i, i wouldn’t let them. 



it starts like this, a whisper, a breeze, a two-masted boat, the memory of a seed. 
it starts like this, rainfall, tall trees, your mindless growth, insufferable need.
it ends like this too, in silence and fear,
for a thousand fallen kings you shed nary a tear.

and yet,

for all the wounds my body holds
your roots expand and make my mold.
you the tumor, cleric, knife –
you hold it back, so take my life.



IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HU–

im sorry.

          

Curators note: This story may not be able to be read in it's full glory due to the formatting quirks of gxllery, especially on smaller screens. Please look here for the original copy

A land as dry as it is wet. A land as frigid as it is scorching. A land of strange 
legends and uneasy omens. And yet, a land populated by plentiful townsfolk. 
Situated at the foot of a great, spiked mountain that pierces into the clouds 
above, a mountain endlessly shaped with monolithic triangular protrusions and 
labyrinthian caveways, is the town of Kulku. Known only for the dangerous tales 
from their own Mount Kulku, and the distinct melody of their ritualistic anthem, 
the town remains quiet, and yet so full of life. In a place where folklore is 
shared by candlelight, no one thinks twice about the validity of such tales. It's 
all just a work of fiction, made up by creative minds long ago. But one of those 
minds saw something else. Something frightening. Something that felt real. A 
vision of great disturbance: a prophecy seemingly foretold by the universe itself.

And so, in a state of deep confusion and disturbance, Airut got up from the desk 
he had dozed off on. Pens on the desk had knocked over and scattered on the 
ground, leaving behind tendrils of congealed ink inching across the floorboards, 
seemingly growing on its own as if it was alive and trying to go somewhere. He 
picked one up and immediately scribbled what he could remember down on the crooked 
page next to him.

                             "FLIGHT OF THE SCAVENGER"

Next to it, he sketched an image of a large raven-like creature with wide, 
withered wings and three glowing green eyes in a triangle formation on its head. 
The creature's form was very chaotic and eldritch in nature, with many strange 
thin tentacles jutting out of its back and wrapping around underneath to 
ultimately face forward. This dangerous and frightening being, The Scavenger, was 
set to be erected from the heart of Mount Kulku's centermost chamber, and break 
its way out of the stone prison by way of eroding the material around it. Once 
free, this beast would bring an end to every Kulkuan life and leave the town's 
structures in ruin.

Of course, as soon as Airut came to his senses, he had the thought of telling the 
people around him. He warned everyone in his immediate family, but they all 
dismissed it as a strange and spooky story. He tried to call out to the people in 
neighboring homes, but they didn't even bat an eye to him. Eventually, after 
everybody had seemingly not even cared, Airut admitted defeat and assumed all it 
had been was a weird nightmare. A big unholy bird creature born from stone? 
Crumbling the rock around it by the gust of its wings alone? How foolish. Of 
course nothing like that could be real. It was all just a bad hallucination, no 
matter how real it felt to him. Airut just simply needed to forget this ever 
happened. And so forget he did.

Four years pass by, long and uneventful. The town is still carrying on how it had 
before, surprising to no one. But the long forgotten visions of Armageddon had 
found their way back to the town in a new physical form. As the four years had 
passed, something stirred within Mount Kulku. Something that had gone completely 
unnoticed. Something just as the visions had told. The embryo of a raven once 
small had evolved into a larger mass. All that was missing was consciousness. All 
that was missing was the seed. The seed of grief brought forth by the machinations 
of Mother Nature. The seed in the form of a pebble, cut loose within the central 
chamber's ceiling and brought down upon the unconscious being. Of the creature's 
eyes, two were closed, but the third eye situated right center and above the other 
two had remained open but empty. A hole in the organism where the key must be 
inserted. And as the pebble tumbled down towards the mighty bird, slipping 
directly into the third eye, Kulku's fate was sealed in a dark bloody velvet.

The pebble was absorbed by the eyelid, now closed shut. Inside, it crumbled down 
into tiny subatomic particles, rearranging itself supernaturally into materials 
previously unknown to man. As the eyelid opened back up slowly, the green light 
filled the dark chamber.

                              And the wings slowly   s p r e a d .

             The genesis of a destroyer.

                     And the destruction of the current world.

The mountain began to shake. Very minimally, completely unobservable to the naked 
eye at first. But then it grew. Over the course of several hours it grew. Within 
the chamber, the Scavenger was born. Its wings slowly moving in an oscillating 
motion, now growing faster and faster with each pulse. Wind gusts on the ground 
moving further and further with each swipe. Small rocks being pushed away, inch by 
inch until...
                      t h e y
                                c r u m b l e
                                                i n t o
                       n    o    t    h    i    n    g

                                                              And as the SCAVENGER
                                                              took its FLIGHT,

                                                              The current UNIVERSE
                                                              would lose its SIGHT.

The rocks previously situated on the ground below had vanished. Consumed by the 
Scavenger, they were eroded from reality and replaced with an empty vacuum of 
space. And as the matter disappeared bit by bit, the Scavenger grew that much 
more, until eventually, a pathway formed within the mountain. Continuing to grow 
ever longer as the creature scavenges for rock in front of it.

    l   a   l                                                         f   a   f
    o   n                                                                 n   u
    n   d   o                                                         u   d   r 
    g                                                                         t
    e       n                                                         r       h
    r                                                                         e
            g                                                         t       r

            e                                                         h

            r                                                         e

                                                                      r

                   until it breached the front of the mountain.

The townsfolk finally took notice of the anomalous entity, but by this moment it 
was already too late for any of them to prepare. Airut had been quietly reading a 
book when his family had received the evacuation call. They quickly dropped 
everything and went outside. Up in the sky was the Scavenger, flying high above 
the mountain now crashing down upon the town. Airut looked up at the Scavenger 
completely stunned. He had forgotten entirely of his weird dream, but the creature 
seemed vaguely familiar to him. Had he seen it in an illustration? Perhaps a 
friend drew it? He knew he had seen this somewhere.
                                         somewhere.

                                         somewhere.
                                        

The erosion of the rock and the very ground below him began to make running more 
and more difficult. With each passing step, a foot would easily get caught in a 
hole left behind. The townsfolk flocked in hundreds as the houses around them had 
begun collapsing. A smoke cloud had formed around the Scavenger, a smorgasbord of 
materials circling around it with the wind. It had singlehandedly formed its own 
tornado in a place where tornadoes had never formed before.

The world around was eroding to nothing, the terrain growing more jagged, more 
beaten. Running out of breath, Airut dripped over a loose stone and faceplanted 
dead into the rough ground. His nose immediately started bleeding. His feet stuck 
in a deep gaping hole, ankles twisted.

He tried to get up
                                                                but it was useless.
He tried to call for help
                                                                   but nobody came.
He tried to cry
                                           but his tears were dried up in the wind.
He tried to live
                                             but the Scavenger consumed any chance.

While chunks of matter were disappearing all around him, he too was withering. His 
skin peeling off of his body. Chunks of muscle eroding into thin paste. The air 
around him turned into a thick red cloud. Painful shrieking slowly lulled into 
silence as Airut's very own brain had began to rip apart into dust.

The town of Kulku once bustling with culture

          was reduced,
                             e r o d e d
            i   n   t   o
                                  e     m     p     t     y
                    s
                            p
                                    a
                                            c
                                                    e
                                                            .

As the Scavenger took its bite out of the world...
reality had faltered.

The fabric of space ripped open by a creature...
born of stone...
born of nothingness...

The universe...
born of dust
                                                                        AND TO DUST
                                                                               THOU
                                                                              SHALT
                                                                      R E T U R N .



                                    -- E N D --
          

what do you see?
white and black and blurry lines. the world is ephemeral. the word is
ephemeral, and lost familiarity is the most painful thing: a hole
in your heart and the thing that could fill it has grown
too far away.

what do you see?
i think it used to be a language i could read. i think i used to be a person
who could read it. ventricles wither and blood turns to dust.
i can only keep breathing for so long. open me up & decipher
my insides: tell me what i’m doing wrong.

what do you see?
white and black and blurry lines: all the secrets i could never know.