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Moon Eye Fire Eye     Sit
he says to me, and I sit and feel very small.

     Let me tell you,
he says to me,
     how it happened.

     The creek dried up that summer and
     the crops gave their last shiver
     and bent down to the earth. And at night
     you could hear the leaves crawling down the creekbed
     like goddamn spiders along the rocks.

His face is half winter
pale and sparked with a milky eye like a moon
and half raw summer, twisted

PilkunnussijaHere's what I think:
There's a certain joy in not doing this face-to-face. For one, I don't have to leave my apartment and I have the quiet company of my goldfish and my goldfish alone. (I don't like people, which is why I love books. You can understand that.) For another, I don't have to see your presumably crestfallen and injured attitude when I tear apart the prose you cried and bled and sweated over for weary nights on end. But really the best parts are those uninterrupted hours alone with your manuscript and the shred of you that lies inside. It's a small shred, but an important one. It's the one that tells me who you are and what you think and how you feel and I never have to look at you and be disappointed when the real thing doesn't come up to scratch. As I sit there, un-tensing and re-tensing and tense-shifting and shift-entering (and damn it, wishing English were like German so I could get rid of those clunky space-wasting n-dashes--oh, damn there they are again) I feel li

summergirlNow read aloud over here. Do give it a listen, won't you?
i. summergirl,
you are crowthroated and tumbling
through the aspen grove
hair on fire with sunrise, lungs
full of sky.
eyelashes like wildflowers
and every morning brings
a new spray of freckles
and a sharper curve to your collarbones.
the cornfields hold no shadows
for your lighthouse eyes
and there are no endings in that
surefooted smile.
ii. you have grown
so fast.
autumn finds you with broken ankles
leaning on an oak branch
and watching the skies.
crow to sparrow--you are quiet.
summergirl, there is peace in silence,
perched treetop,
fallen antlers in your hands.
you will come to mourn your deer.
keep them close.
iii. by winter you have paled,
and like the streams
your eyes have frosted over.
you feel the chill--
there is no need for sight.
summergirl, th

my howls are silentI, too, see the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness. We are decomposing too early, our souls dying before our bodies can catch up. We are silently ravenous, a quiet craze in our hearts, not quite the same as your generation, Ginsberg. We do not shriek "Holy! Holy! Holy!" as we burn. We drown soundlessly.

The overeducated, proud products of postmodernism dissolve in a lukewarm soup of ennui, bored balloons filled with hubris rather than helium. Fragile dolls with flaking bones and hair and skin like flowers wilting, weighed down by indomitable wills and insecurities... these plastic girls starve to death and diabetes in the car b

always half finished
i can tell you how much i loathe anyone or anything that lingers, even when they're beautiful. My anxiety disorder can't handle any of that. Yet it's been 1 year and 1 month and i'm still stuck in reverse.

nauseated is the prettiest emotion i've felt so far cause for once, i can see an actual physical rejection, rather than these invisible strings snapping on the inside, but never showing even a blemish on the outside.

my screams have begun to ferment as they remain bottled up in what i imagine to be gruesome-colored vials within the shelves of my intestines. each vial must be carrying individual, heart-straining yelps, yelling and sobs f

noise(this place is packed.)
we were the kings of soulless
screaming beasts
we
played to soothe their tattered nerves
untaped so many larynxes
we were snakecharmers
and liars
both.
(with echoes.)
we broke their ribs to
pieces and stitched them tenderly
back up
with kisses and apologies
whispered promises that everything
would heal and the scars
would never show
and did it again every night.
(and ghosts.)
and they've
all left now
nomads to the core
chasing
     some
          other
               high.

StringsNatalia was, blatantly, a pianist. It was impossible for her to have been anything else. She had this liquid grace about her that whispered sonatas and nocturnes and moody Beethoven. She'd sit at the piano in the college music room, rocking slowly back and forth and making a waltz rumble deep within its wooden body. Her fingers were long but her nails were always cut short so they wouldn't click against the keys, and her hair, long and smooth, was always pulled back into a big, soft braid.

"Daddy wanted me to be a concert pianist since the day I was born," she'd say in that gentle Eastern European accent of hers. I believed her. She could pl

The Hymns of Granny Madeline “It’s bath time, Madeline,” Frederick said. He wrapped an arm under his grandmother’s armpit, around her back, and started to lift her up from the chair. She looked at him with a scrunched brow.
            “Bath?” she said. “No, I don’t need a bath.”
            “Of course you do,” he said. “It’s eight o’clock. Eight o’clock is when you have your nightly bath.”
Now on her feet, she still held onto his sleeve for support. “Is it?”
            “Yes, it is,” he said. “Now come on, I’ll help you.” Slowly, he walked her to the bathroom. He’d already brought in her CD player, and a towel was draped o

SmokeYou smoked, and everyone hated that. The cigarette would hang loose between your knuckles, tendrils of smoke mimicking the tracery of veins and tendons that stood out along the back of your hand. You could do the most graceful French inhales, and sometimes you'd lean in close and grab me and kiss me, blowing warm smoke into my mouth. The scent would always cling to me—I'd drag it back home with me and there would always be a fight over it.

You were sparrowlike, all taut pale skin and prominent bones. Your hipbones jutted slightly—sharp elbows, sharp knees, a sharp jaw softened by cornsilk hair. When I ran my fingers down your back

WakefulnessStanding in the pitch blackness of the chilled night and with my sandals sinking ever deeper into the mud beneath my feet, I listened as the putter of motor drove steadily further away. Apparently, the rain earlier that day had reached further south than we had expected, and after several skids and spills, my companion and his driver decided the road was too dangerous to continue. And thus, after several murmured words between our drivers and my friend and the passing of several leaves of US dollars, we were unceremoniously dumped at the side of the road. The road, being nothing more than a narrow path between the unhindered growth of tall gr

and I still keep running into parked carsMama,
your baby girl's swimming
in dead of the night
hair, scarred knees,
overgrown weeds, and
countless pairs
of shoes-
with those
orange and yellow wheels
that hug my toes
and heels

I'm running into
parked cars
trying to get
my kite to fly
and hiding under
dashboards
listening to you
fight

I'm rummaging through
boxes of secrets
that Daddy tried
to hide-
solving puzzles with pieces
I'll never uncover
in these thoughts
of you

pyrite girlNote: Pretty please listen to the audio version for the full effect.
you noticed things
little things that came sneaking slyly in
smiling crooked like good children
with bad deeds freshly done.
of course you loved her all the same,
your little lighthouse among the tendrils of east coast fog
she tasted like mineral water
concrete
new pennies
and you lived in soft, sweet depression
intertwined
gazing out at a broken world from a tenth-story window
and breathing in the cigarette smoke.
your little pyrite girl
bright eyed and dark mouthed
a tiny dirty moon, dragged through the gray city snowmelt
and left to dry in the glare of rooftop suns
"who would live here?"--
musings from the tenth floor
and you knew the answer.
broken cities feed on broken souls
and even they need angels.

a paradiseEveryday, a sticky sun squeezes its viscous light out of the corner of the sky. It oozes out, slowly dripping down the throbbing walls of the earth. The walls aren't brittle - they're hard as bone, strong and thick; so thick that they let no sticky, yellow light leak through. Everyday we stretch out our arms, just to imagine the feeling of that sticky, yellow light touching our fingers.

Every night the sun gets washed away by a river of tiny, white lights. Every night we tilt our faces upwards, religiously, almost asking the lights for forgiveness. Forgive us for our pain, forgive us for tearing our muscles as we reach for the sweet, warm li

The Space BetweenShe had seen him looking at her, his brown eyes tracking her movements as their bodies rattled inside of the train.

Each day he seemed to move closer, becoming more daring. At first she was only flattered, catching his eyes in thanks as they left the train and went off to their separate worlds. Soon, it seemed she knew him. Knew him in the swaying of his body as he gripping the rail, and in the lifting, flick of his wrist to look at the watch with the brown, leather strap, and how her hair would stand on end as the gaze of his eyes left tiny pin pricks at the back of her neck.

His actions were silent love letters that touched her

Gnome Noir  "I did it for the money and I did it for the girl.
        Well, I didn't get the money – and I didn't get the girl."
::  Walter Neff - Double Indemnity
So I point the flintlock at the guy – and that's no easy thing, big musket like that on a little gnome like me – and I peer down the sight. Not many people know what it's like to stare at a man through a glass. But in those sacred moments, the whole world takes a breath and it's just you and him. I line up the shot, and I think about the girl, and--

What? That is the start. What do you want, Sheriff, my life story?

Alright, well, I'm Gniles Brody the Third – that's

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nightmarethe foxes are at your bedside and singing--
feversongs,
songs of boiling thoughts
and broken muscles.
their lullabyes.
they sneak so quiet, and
somehow,
you can't quite
dream
anymore.

with thanks to frosttwo roads diverged in a soulless dawn
and you pull over,
idling on the shoulder of route 50.
it's a polaroid morning and
the world is as grainy
and sleep-heavy
as your eyes,
and one million miles
is not far enough.
it plays back, filmstrip,
blurred along the length of
optic nerves,
and here you are:
facing a choice between
on
and
out.
and this?
this loosejointed, hollowbodied
weightless ache--
this is what
gone
feels like.

rapid eye movementi am jealous
of my birdwinged half-sister.
later, birdwinged reapers--black,
looming quiet in every doorway. they
followed me from my hemmed-in waking terror
to the free reign of my subconscious.
far better suited to their purposes.
thunderstorms like supernovae out at sea, and
empty little boats tossed on emptier shores.
it rains, and the sea advances,
cresting the saguaros. someone is lost.
i don't know who. i don't know why i
care so much.
cliffs and skyscrapers. tightropes. sometimes
i am afraid of heights, and sometimes
afraid for those who are not.
the skinny girl
with the long dark hair is
always worth dying for.
sex. i am in turn
bemused, and indifferent, and bored, and
frustrated, more often than anything.
i like that i still remember how it felt to hug my dog,
right down to the cool wirecoat
and the warm fluff beneath,
and his immense
patience.
sometimes i wake up with misty
recollections and the overwhelming thought:
i wish it could be like this.
jungles with ancient

sun worshipand we, the broken-winged disciples
thrum closer, closer--
seeking warmth on our dust-drenched backs,
and reflections,
and a landmark in the wide and open
dark.
we breathe,
together
(closer)--
moths among the fireflies.

dance party of oneever the same, rob thomas
there's a bonfire in the drum
of a washing machine by the lake and
bottles tied to trees with sparks
glancing off like so many
fireflies.
the a la menthe, nikkfurie
most
get lost among the cobblestone
rabbit warrens or
take to the sea but our road
is lit by midnight cameraflash
and the neon,
with our tracks scuffed out among
the hush and rumble of
a city
where no one
knows our names.
travelin' on, norah jones
shoulders just broad enough
for six strings and a hollow body
and the weight of
all those words yet to be--down the
train tracks and through the
blue dawn, with that
crossroads rumble
in his bones.
don't let go, weezer
and the irony is
that they were always right
but we never cared.
are you happy now, by somebody whose name escapes me and i'm too lazy to look up (and covered by cassadee pope)
pretty little thing with a pretty little gun
and a smile like the devil on a
monday morning...
breathing, lifehouse<

three dogs in the churchyardThe chain link around the graveyard runs straight through an oak tree. The bark looks crippled where it passed through the wire--mutilated in a faint diamond pattern--but you can see around the edges where it's fusing together smooth again.
The kids with the distant eyes always come here to smoke. You've never seen eyes like that. Distant, but not glazed, like they're looking into eternity and watching the threads of livewire possibility arc and writhe before them. The embers at the ends of their smokes cast cherry-red reflections on their irises.
The top of the fence is buckling where it enters the tree. You wonder if they'll have to cut it loose if they ever take it down. You wonder how far the roots have crept.
You wonder why the kids with the forever eyes never stand, vulpine, by the churchyard with its stray dogs and subterranean hum of faith--of vulnerable hope. Maybe all the life drowns out the eternity.
On winter mornings, they exist only in the pinpricks of light from the ends

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Submitted: September 4, 2012
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A Love Story in Four Acts

by *disrhythmic, Sep 4, 2012, 4:09:09 PM
Literature / Prose / Fiction / General Fiction / Flash Fiction & Vignettes

i.
     I loved a blacksmith once, back when the sand still clogged up my soul. It was only far after that I began to love the desert too.

ii.
     Underneath the casual noise--glass on wood, heat-smothered conversation, worn cards slapped down in careful triumph--there was this low, thrumming quiet that wouldn't be broken. He spoke in sepia undertones. "We're getting out."

iii.
     Hot iron smells like hot blood, like blood that's been poured out under the white Arizona sun. It's something you don't forget easy, like the taste of whiskey or the plasma patterns left on your eyelids after watching fire all night. It sticks.

v.
      My childhood was fed on medical books, and I've got this pain right behind my eyes and I wonder if this is what it feels like being lobotomized. Of course the brain has no nerve endings, but the hurt has to manifest itself somewhere.

A Love Story in Four Actsby *disrhythmic

Literature / Prose / Fiction / General Fiction / Flash Fiction & Vignettes

I kept thinking more more more but I guess sometimes you have to write deserts with desert writing.

love 3 3

~~joy 0 0~~

~~wow 0 0~~

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

~PaniCrusnik09 Feb 18, 2013

This definitely deserves a DD. I'm not quite sure how to recommend you, though.

Absolutely love it. So eloquently expressed, so powerful and impacting.

*disrhythmic Feb 19, 2013

Thank you so much! That means a lot to me.

`FuzzyHoser Nov 20, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

iii.
Hot iron smells like hot blood, like blood that's been poured out under the white Arizona sun. It's something you don't forget easy, like the taste of whiskey or the plasma patterns left on your eyelids after watching fire all night. It sticks.

This reads like an exerpt from a book I might not want to put down, if that makes sense.

*disrhythmic Nov 20, 2012

Oh gosh. That might be one of the most amazing compliments I've ever received.

Thanks so much. I'm glad it resonated.

`FuzzyHoser Nov 20, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

A pleasure, dear.

*xlntwtch Oct 31, 2012 Writer

Congratulations on the DLD, *disrhythmic -- this is a fine piece and it ends perfectly. Thank you.

*disrhythmic Oct 31, 2012

Thank you! <3

*xlntwtch Oct 31, 2012 Writer

=Sammur-amat Oct 30, 2012 General Artist

This struck a chord with me and I can't really put my finger on why exactly other than how beautiful your way with words truly is

Congratulations on the well-deserved DLD, love!

*disrhythmic Oct 30, 2012

Thank you so much, Sammylove.

That means a lot to me.

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