april showers

ah! you know us well. summer always did give us the most hope, settling so easy down into our bones.\n\nwe have so many sugar-spun stories to share, and honey-heavy ones too, or tangy or sour or a little coffee-bitter\ni have stories of the moon \nlike a lemon slice hung up bright in the sky or like hushed reds enveloping us with luck or like a pearl from the sea still salty to taste <<replace "or">> or or <<becomes>> or or or <<endreplace>>\n\n[[how lovely, how sweet, how many stories can we have?|how sweet]]\n[[i would rather - not.|rather not]]\n

we mean it, though. everything we do, we mean.\n\nyour drink:\nforbidden kisses that smack of danger, mother death around the corner, smelling of detergent and your crimes, sweet like moonlight herself came down to cry into a chalice\nyou will drink from it, and your heart will race up into your throat, and you will not know where to go from the burn\n\n[[drink|neutral 1]]

we look into the mirror each day and see a different face\n\n[[there is possibility within us]]\n\n

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move on?\n\nwhen there is culmination to things, when the past filters into the present with every sigh? \nmothers teach propriety. [[or guilt.]]\n\n[[we know to fear the past]]

maybe. we are unsure.\n\nthe haze in our head, you see - we hollow ourself out when there is nothing left to give, we hit the bottom of this pit before we turned blemished and wrong and we've been digging our nails ragged ever since\n\nyou see:\nnothing receives no justice\nnothing can only deserve nothing\nnothing deserves this weight and so, we are - \nnothing\n\n[[take my hand. i am here. i am something. you are here. so you too-|you too][$goodend += 1]]\n[[then there is no point. there is no worth. there is no you.|worthless][$badend += 1]]

no. not lucky. stubborn. we were all, so, so, stubbornly in love\n\nyour drink:\nfluoxetine to replace our system, and a whiff of it could knock you out, but the weak lifeblood it gives will keep us alive. crushed violets move gently throughout our thoughts and taste like stale sugar\nyou will grimace your way through to survive.\n\n[[drink|neutral 2]]

welcome! welcome! welcome!\nstranger in my own mind, no stranger to my heart\nit's [[cold|warm]] outside\n\ncome in\ni've tidied up i've cleaned off my shoes\n\nmy love, leave yourself at the door, there are slippers for guests set beside it\nthe lights are on\nrefreshments? the condensation of my memories with a pinch of sugar, a hint of lime\n\n\n\n\n\n(take a fuckin' sip babes)\n\n[[spring]]\n[[summer]]\n[[autumn]]\n[[winter]]

it was hard to cherish the autumns of our life, but\n\nthere is more\ndeep within\nlike tearing out the pit of a peach from the hollow grave of a stone\n\nah\n\nwe often dreamed of spring - a green notebook with entries that stopped when the brother we never had went away\nbut there were autumns\nautumns spent with our head pressed close to hers, then theirs, then hers, then theirs -\ngirls who saved our life in fibers of black and bronze and gold\n\n[[do you think that something had bloomed?|bloom][$goodend += 1]]\n[[you stole from them their youths. parasitic love.|parasite][$badend += 1]]

ha\n[[ha|haha]]

oh yes \nthat and [[more|hospital]]

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<<replace "please">>don't say this to us<<becomes>>please<<endreplace>>\n\nhas your flesh never felt like life given despair?\nwe can't be the only [[one|dysphoria]]\nyou must listen, you must understand\n\n<<replace "please">>listen to us<<becomes>>please<<endreplace>>\n\n[[but, not once have you tried, have you?|not once]]

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april showers

yes, then then then\n\nsharp as nails clever as a trick and heart wide as the sky, too wide, too wide - they took her away, far away from us. her jewels dangle from our ears, and we send her sheets of our day, and we listen for her voice in the winds -\ngentle as a sea-breeze, gathered up in their arms, smoke always hanging down on us like a comfort, they breathe out in rings and let us inhale citrus deep into our lungs. orange always did make our heart fill to burst - \noh and we all know about the sweet lemon moon who took us flying into the air, chest about to burst, can't quite breathe but we could die happy here hands clenched together tight - \nwe brush away their hair, brush away their pain, like a mirror, they brush away our hair, brush away our pain, together we are so much more than our parents - \nthey laugh and i would never have children but i have them -\n\n[[oh, your love builds up and up and up, we will light up the world too with our love, we all grow from love.|build up]]\n[[you call this love?|as if]]

love isn't always easy\nwe build with it\nwe grow with it\n\nridges rise up on our skin and the sea laps at our toes and we dig deep into the sand\nget up\ntry again\nbuild a sandcastle for the ocean to take\nand dream of overcoming the walls we build for ourselves\n\n\n\nsome part of us loves some part of you

we find ourself returning time and time again like clockwork compulsion to our roots\nthere is no great mother tree, but if there were, she would be guiding us back without fail\nwould she be a willow? an oak?\n\n[[in our story she could be anything|spring is our story]]

a place where we could be right\n\nyour drink:\ndims your sight but the colors we add will muddy your head to clarity, with a warmth like completion, and the cup rings out a lovely sound, wistful and forlorn. longing\nyou will long for home.\n\n[[drink|neutral 1]]

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h a ha a h a h\n h a aa h\n ah\n\n\n\n[[...|but]]

h a ha a h a h\n[[ h a aa h|tears2]]

it's what you gave us. this is what we gave you.\n\nyour drink:\ngrains of apathy in a tepid mixture of shallow hope, shallow regret\nyou will be thirsty. you will swallow it down like sand. \n\n[[drink|bad]]

we are here. we are something.\n\nyour drink:\nheavy. heavy like you are taking in an absolute. there are edges here, but there is certainty too.\nit will center you. \n\n[[drink|neutral 1]]

she would miss us, wouldn't she?\n\nshe came to our hospital bed with dark circles, with meteor wounds. they came to us in the cold with a smell like sandalwood and the quiet woods. she came to our side with soft hands and worried sounds.\n\nthe moon shines down on me even when i have lost the sun.\n\n[[i want to be their sun.|desire]]

[[WE KNOW|i know]]

like an idol, an unholy image made in the figure of a god, struck down\ndisappointment is a familiar flavor to this tongue\nwe have hollowed out this space for us\nwe have sanctified our body\nspring is our home\n[[spring is our story]]

do you know what i dream of?\n\nyour drink:\npromises that bind you - to the earth, to the sky, to all the celestial beings orbiting our soles, thick like molasses on your tongue but with a scrape of orange in there - a sun-blessed kiss\nyou will be bound, that is for certain. \nbut there is a fortune at the bottom of this cup\n\n[[drink|neutral 2]]

our neck feels so light\n\nyour drink:\nfrustration in the color of smarties spilled across a desk, melts on your tongue, fizzes and pops with age-old possibility, and we lost a tear in the process, but kept on\nyou will shed tears, you will gain a memory.\n\n[[drink|neutral 1]]

[[rude]]

one body, this is the only chance we ever had, and we look down at ourself like a filthy dog, mongrel, go back to our dirt, our home but we never asked for this for your eyes to tear us apart for the conquerors of our ancestors to place history in our lungs for the sullied image of a goddess fetish between our legs\n\n[[how could we not want to starve our way to salvation?|penance as mistake]]

we never say no\nwe want you to be happy\nwe want you to be loved\nwe want\n\nour mind to stop\nstop?\n...\n\nmaybe one day we will stop breathing altogether\nand maybe one day a man will place his hands around my throat\nand maybe one day our bones will be gnawed clean by maggots and wolves\n\nat last

[[that's fine|that's fine]]

rotting in the heat\n\nthe earth says to us\n"what a waste of flesh"\n\n[[the earth gives. she can be kind.|the earth gives]]\n[[what a waste of time]]

in a language i wouldn't be able to understand if not for years of repetition repetition repetitive reparations can never be repaid can never be repaired -\n\n[[a language like fruit flies scared of their own shadows and their songs|chatter]]

spring is a good birthplace, you know?\nwe grit our teeth and weather the storms and there is hope, out there\ngreen fields, blue skies, pink and orange whispers into listening ears\nwe sink our hands into the mud and we let ourself learn\n\n[[like roots of a sturdy tree]]\n[[still stones sink to the silt of dirty ponds|dirty ponds]]

there is a scar on our neck from where something could have been growing\nsometimes we raise our hands up and imagine pressing down\nstitches coming loose\nthroat an open wave\n\n[[it'd be easy to empty ourself out then, wouldn't it?|easy throat]]

[[NO|no boy]]

the essence of the world!\n\nlavendar catches our eye - a candle for them\npalms sweating in the heat, but we see a cat arch her back - we think of them, of course\nthe frayed pattern on the edge of our blanket - she should draw this in crayons\nelectric colors, a public forum, a blast from the past - them\nloud laughter in a dark room - them\ncare knit by hand - her\nmanibus - her\n\n[[oh love!]]

none of that then? how about something more still?\n\nsinking slow into the grass, insect legs walking across our right arm, a spectre in the distance but for now you are here and he is far away, a family sitting around a wooden table older than our years - we eat watermelon together, strawberries and cherries\n\n[[please, continue, we have settled down now, we promise.|please continue]]\n[[we tire of this. we tire of your chatter.|chatter]]

but perhaps we do need a body to give\n\nyour drink:\nthe last dregs artificial cherry selflessness, scooped out of a teal-tinted jar with a hand-made label you couldn't understand. we float an umbrella on top, because you would not wish to see the fallen flesh of fear down below\nyou will taste them anyways. but you will know that that is never all we have to give. \n\n[[drink|neutral 1]]

like looking towards the future\n\nyour drink: \na fine red powder sprinkled in, and it tastes like the energy of tomorrow and also, a little like passionfruit\nyou will wake up. you will smile. \n\n[[drink|good]]

we could never be what she wanted, we never looked right, never thought right, never pieced together our soul quite right, never looked at the stars and all the moons in the sky right\n\nwe wanted small burrows, a rabbit-family of warmth, peaceful fields that would not feed us to the wolves\n\n[[you should get such a safe home.|safe]]\n[[the fields are never peaceful, the warmth never stays, and the wolves are always circling.|wolves]]

we braided a rope together out of yarn one year for art\nit was cute\nblues and greens and pinks and creams\nsoft, like we could be children again\n\n[[we tied a hangman's noose|rope]]

we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know [[i know|please]] we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know we know

the last piece, heavy like a stone, and it tastes of our favorite songs slowed down and sped up and spun into our love - all us, all us, [[but the world too|it'll be okay]]

breathe it in\n\ndragons on her ceiling, mean grip around our wrist, keen eyes keen heart, did she ever catch us staring?\nshe never knew, they never knew, oh we hope they did - run our fingers through that long, long hair, lay our head down, she's here\nshe's here. she's here. she, the one who knows us dreaming, knows us well\nknows the way we laugh, the way we hold in the smoke and laugh-cough it out\nout of my body and they pulled me back\nand more and more and more\n\n\n\n<<replace "inhale">>exhale<<endreplace>>\n\n[[not a noose, then, love.|not a noose]]\n\n

two points off from excellence, ninety-eight points of shame, when she gave up everything for you and only ever sometimes seems wistful, we wish she had never brought us forth, wish we did not know what we know\n\n[[we know fear|move on?]]

like webs over us, and sunlight could not reach our heart\nour mother the earth, bereft of choice, coaxed us to her chest\nbecause our mother the sun had lost sight of us, lost mind of us\nand our mother the mother of us all said\n\n"selfish\n lazy\n ungrateful unknowable unreasonable unloveable by all - except me\n your mother\n the one mother\n mother of all - of you"\n\n[[...|well she did love us]]

our story in sleepless notes and ramblings and thrown-away reminders\n\nfresh slices of fruit, like oranges and mandarins and tangerines bursting joy at our fingertips, soft things, warm things, comforting pressed up against our face or in our arms, because that is how we long for contact, and we do love contact, between hands and foreheads and lips like we could pour our soul into another being with such little movement, the stillness of the world belies a nostalgia we cannot regret, light, so much light, we would burn out our eyes - \n\n[[can you imagine?|can you imagine]]\n\n

[[inhale]]

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that's awful kind of you. you could sit down with us right here, this sun-warmed patch of stone in our backyard, or the cool purple plastic of a years-gone swingset, or even the rocking chair we've carted miles around with grandma-sewn covers - red, still, softer, still\n\nthere's a comfortable seat to be found in the open air above, a muted teal couch with the lemon-slice moon in the crook of our arm. \nthe floor where the red love can't reach, but the sea-breeze moon can, and they cradle our face in their firm, reaching palms. \nthe unsteady fingers, noise dulled by time, by wear, by sewing up tears and seams and loose strings, lulled to sleep by all the moons of our world.\n\n[[we will sit with you, our palms pressed to yours.|sit]]\n[[you must move on, you know? these are memories to be left behind.|move on?]]\n\n

springtime is our home, and so we can say\n<<replace "who we are">>who we want to be<<endreplace>>\n\n[[who we love]]\n[[what we love]]\n

[[DONT LOOK AT ME|don't look]]

i guess you could say we "deserved" it -\nwires taped to our ribcage\ndoors all open just a crack, wide enough for an eyeball to peer in\na timer, the time, somebody who timed the motions in our mouth, the food going down our throat\nneedles in our veins at 7 am\ncold water down the drain, mother watching -\nthrough the act of dirtying our body, they purified us of the acts we committed to purge sin\n\n[[it hurts. it hurts. but your heart still beats.|still beating]]\n[[that's called penance. what you did is called "a mistake"|penance as mistake]]

[[ha|ha]]

a body is a body\n\n[[but there is purpose in ours]]

it was hard to cherish the autumns of our life, but\n\nthere is more\ndeep within\nlike tearing out the pit of a peach from the hollow grave of a stone\n\n[[ah|ah]]

a bitter taste, leaden in my throat\nwe will try to pour you a drink, but you may get nothing but ashes - our house was never very warm during the winter months\n\nwe have stones tied to our limbs, every surface a waiting grave\ndoes dirt not look welcoming? do blankets and sheets and dark, damp spaces not all return us to the earth?\nwho could expect anything from us if we never moved again?\n\n[[soulsick. heartsick. mindsick. deathsick.|sickness][$goodend += 1]]\n[[shall we turn the spotlight on you then, desperate as you are?|desperate][$badend += 1]]

we have something for you, if you'd like a taste\nlike so:\n<<replace "oranges">>oranges or peaches<<becomes>>oranges or peaches or pears<<endreplace>>\nor would you like something [[more|example]]?\nor something like <<replace "this?">>this - and we'll spill our heart for you, all for you.<<endreplace>>\n\nof course, it really is all up to you in the end\nwe are here to give and give and give -\n\n\n\n\nand here it is your choice to\n[[begin|cold]]

we slowly find ourself again\n\nyour drink:\ntastes like blue, like reflections cut off from each other in jagged lines. there's too much lime, too much absorption wrung out of not enough cloth to hold it.\nyou will not break apart, but it will be close.\n\n[[drink|neutral 2]]

[[h a ha a h a h|tears1]]

mother to us, but maybe only in our dreams\n\nyour drink:\nrich, like gold dust in soil, tapping into a vein and draining out what you can. there is the knowledge of withering. there is a question of fear.\nyou will have to choose.\n\n[[drink|neutral 2]]

that's what we thought, too, you see? \nthat's what we thought. too.\n\nwe should have scraped out our veins. kept our stomach empty. let them line up to place their hands on me and take out our heart, first one piece, then another.\n\nthey know we are empty, and they want a doll to hurt. \n\n[[don't let them take you. don't let them own you.|own]]\n[[their defiled hands have more worth than you.|defile]]

[[exhale]]

we are tired. nothing can change that, but time and rest.\nso rest we shall, quiet where we can, soft where we can, breaths synced up to those far away around the world\n\none day we will get up and find what we are looking for, what we need right beside us

it is comfortable here in the shade we've created to cover our eyes\nthere is more to go\nthere is more on the horizon\n\ni settle back down

what do you want?\n\nyour drink:\nfrozen, rotting foilage, memories we don't want to return to, cobwebs that should have long ago disintegrated, but here they are, here they are, here we are. it tastes like an old record feels when it scratches\nyou will feel it too\n\n[[drink|bad]]

our stories, all in a rush, like entering a room to bells!\n\nyour drink:\nsunlight caught in our cupped hands amongst playful reeds. striped seeds kept falling too, so we crushed them up and mixed them together with dream paste to brighten the greener tones. brown sugar kisses and orange-lemon lyric drops. a sprig of trust.\nyou will hurt. of course you will. but you will drink this and you will set your feet into the grass, lift your arms up, and sing\n\n[[drink|good]]

thank you. thank you.\n\nyour drink:\nescitalopram sieved through a fine silver mesh of fresh snow. there are no ice cubes, but slivers of failed attempts keep it cool. sweetened by shy smiles, shy sunlight, shy fingertip meeting fingertip meeting cheek, looking into her eye\nyour hands will tremble, as will your heart, but warmth will build up in your stomach, in your lungs, in your veins\n\n[[drink|neutral 1]]

impurity in our bodies, an unclean mind\nwe purge it out\nthoughts like flies buzz around our carcass \nwe starve them out\nsustenance\njust selflessness\n\n[[not perfect, no. but love we could give|could give]]

we didn't eat much, to be fair\nour heart kept beating, our blood kept flowing - there were tremors, to be sure, and withdrawals on study floors, but - \nfeeding off of their flesh\nmaybe that's why they were all so lifeless\n\n[[we all need each other. we all need to take. did you give?|give and take]]\n[[worthless. lucky they didn't end up dead.|lucky lucky lucky]]

cruel. you're cruel.\n\nwe want to exist. we want the sun in our veins and the sky at our fingertips and the earth lifting us up towards our next step - why wouldn't we?\n\nthere's just -\nthis weight.\n\nperhaps atlas let us go a long time ago, braided his own rope together out of soft, sturdy yarn, and hung it around his neck and the hook of the crescent moon. she must miss him. i will miss her.\n\n[[she needs you still. we must look up to her when we bear our burdens.|burden][$goodend += 1]]\n[[the earth needs not the moon. the earth needs not you.|not you][$badend += 1]]

yes. and you, too. \n\nyour drink:\nself-destruction grows as long, thin, white mushrooms that give off an unsurprisingly sweet scent. but there is the sturdiness to counteract any failing in this drink, only when harvested with intentions of heart\nyou will have some heart.\n\n[[drink|neutral 1]]

a steady foundation.\n\nyour drink:\na drop of resentment, flown from the sea by a lost gull. a cup of reflection, and it hums slightly in your hands. your bones recognize the tune.\nyou will be tired, but you can be content.\n\n\n[[drink|neutral 1]]

for you we have\n\nyour drink:\nunderstanding through raspberry-stained patience, light, practically no substance at all, until within you floods hard-won peace\nyou will be weary, but you have sat with us. you have known a part of us.\n\n[[drink|neutral 1]]

ha\nha\n[[ha|hahaha]]

we have seen our fair share of hospital beds - though we have laid, wasted, in only one\nwe have seen wakes in our premonitions - pills scuttling out of stomachs torn open, bedsheet nooses tied with no hangman's knot, wrists and thighs and arms and bodies cut apart\nwe have seen futility in the face of the world - fathers and mothers and institutions long rotten, bullet in his arm, drink in her hand, criss-crossing lines in their head\n\nplease, tell us\n\ndo you mean the words you say?\n\n[[yes|we love you][$goodend += 1]]\n[[no|we left you][$badend += 1]]

she did, didn't she?\n\nsmall at home, small outside, big wounds, big voice when we couldn't keep it in\nunder the table, inside the cubbyhole, crawling inside the darkness, closing the lights to mute out the sound\n\ncrack open the door and <<replace "we see">>we have knvies behind our books and we vomit on our knees and the moon she comes to us and kisses us gently all the way down until we are dripping with phantom light and guilt-ridden tears.<<endreplace>>\ncrack open the door and <<replace "she sees">>we are crying. we are alone. we defy our mother and our mother and our mother, and our mother has no choice yet again.<<endreplace>>\ncrack open the door and you see\n\n[[you are hurt you are hurt. oh how it hurts |it hurts][$goodend += 1]]\n[[a liar. a sinner. a drain. |liar][$badend += 1]]\n\n

welcome! welcome! welcome!\nstranger in my own mind, no stranger to my heart\nit's [[warm|so bright]] outside\n\ncome in\ni've tidied up i've cleaned off my shoes\n\nmy love, leave yourself at the door, there are slippers for guests set beside it\nthe lights are on\nrefreshments? the condensation of my memories with a pinch of sugar, a hint of lime\n\n\n\n\n\n(take a fuckin' sip babes)\n\n[[spring]]\n[[summer]]\n[[autumn]]\n[[winter]]

we have been shot full of holes\nbut that's how it goes, isn't it?\nit hurts - it hurts so much - but you get up and with shaky hands, sew a cotton patch over the wound. the thread we choose must be sturdy, and it is. it feels like home\n\n[[we make ourself a home]]

then, since this is what you think of us\n\nyour drink:\nblood burdens steeped since childhood, since we were almost left outside that screen door, coagulating in your throat and seeping out the slit down your navel\na swarm of white faces will watch you drink poison that stinks of rotten fish, when all they want is to chase you off hoarded earth, there is nowhere left for you but space\n\nit is weightless. it is cold. it seems to barely breathe\n\n[[drink|bad]]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[[refuse]]

then we shall say, love is like a red fruit and sometimes it turns black and bruised and brown inside of your stomach and the white mold grows to line your flesh and it opens up pale fleshy flowers [[to say|to say]]:\n\n"why can't we understand you?"\n\nand we hold up our heart sweet as a just-right just-ripe peach as an offering, and what comes next-\n\n[[hush, hush. it's okay. it'll be okay.|it'll be okay]]\n[[oh yes, what does come next?|what next]]

it's fine - we have more, we have more of us to give\n\nbits and pieces without the love to glue them together can never make a whole - we taught ourself to make us whole\nup until the brink of the cliff of the drop of the fall of the end\nwe waited for our mother sun, our mother earth and her rivers, our mother the greatest of all\nshe never came\nso we looked to shine a light on <<replace "our selves">>ourself<<endreplace>>\n\na facet plus a facet plus a facet plus a facet\n\n[[is a whole. you make yourself whole.|a whole]]\n[[there will never be enough facets.|never enough]]

our story in a non-definitive, non-linear list\n\nlemon-slice, eating shaved ice together, salt water eroding our skin away and all we want to do is kiss the blue from their lips\nsandalwood and smoke, and we think an herb garden would suit them, or snow-tipped pines, or a house by the shore\nred for good luck, good love, a fortune we do not deserve, like our mothers took us apart and gave some to her, safeguarding me, steadying me\nlike a storm, she sees who we are, cuts us in half and asks us where she can heal, though her father was a doctor and she still left, broken\na mother who cannot understand our language, cannot remember her sins, and we cannot forget, but she tucks us in and cuts up fruits and peels them too\nif only blood could tie us together, because they seem to leave so easily, but they nest in our burrows and send us small bundles that only days later lose their smell of home\n\n[[can you imagine all of this?|can you imagine]]

so many stories so many memories leaking through my fingers like full melted droplets of a sticky popsicle,\n\nbarefeet with gray skies overhead, she and we build a futile wall of sand against the sea and we wish we could see the pale slope of her neck\nthen\nlate at night heart nervous in our chest, dodging our attempts to quash it, to seat it down, to bind it down, it jumps into our throat, and they send us a heart\nthen\nsleepover, can't look her in the eye, thinking about our lips meeting, thinking about our hands touching, skin touching, electric in the air - our gazes meet for one burning second then we rip our eyes away\nthen\n\n[[yes! then then then?|then]]\n[[alright.|alright]]

what you cannot see, all our eyes have already seen.\n\nyour drink:\ngritty sidewalk cynicism like a skewer through a watermelon taste. the glass is clear, and the color ever-changing, but you do not know this. condensation runs down your fingertips.\nyou will forget, because you will not cherish.\n\n[[drink|neutral 2]]

<<replace "it's not okay">>it will be okay<<endreplace>>\n\nwe want it to be okay\nwe want to be okay\n\nglue the pieces of me together. the one we buried with our not-brother a decade ago. the one we left with the girl with a mind like claws to wish her well. this one and that one, scattered with people and things and moments and days and the ideals we carry with me to build us up\n\nand there [[we|we]] are. \n[[there we are.|there we are]]\n\n

the noose around my neck held us up\nlove held us up\ncould you possibly live both for and against the ones you love? \n\nit's choking us\nit's choking\n[[it's|noose]]\n\n[[love is not a noose. love should be like air.|like air]]\n[[did you hang?|hanging]]

ha\nha\nha\n\nyour words taste like mango flesh forced down my throat, some comeuppance for our sins as we vomit onto the floor\nhow could nothing matter?\nhow could the water weight inside our mind ever leave us, when the echo of a nightmare drives us to a scale\na balancing act\nas we purge our body of crime\n\n(what does crime taste like? well,\nthe burrito we had at qdoba after school thursday afternoon; the dumplings from the worst dinner of our life; too much whiskey and not enough oj; but mostly - bile bile bile)\ncrime tastes like we are <<replace "fat">>unworthy of existing<<endreplace>>\n\n[[you commited no crime. you were held by but a rope.|rope][$goodend += 1]]\n[[and did you receive your justice, your penance?|justice][$badend += 1]]

can you feel what our heart says? \nit wants so much\nit loves so much\nit could tear us apart but we tell it to build, instead\n\n[[for you]]

we also have dragonfruit, though its flesh is hard to come by, or mango, and all that its weight brings, or apple, like sharp cleansing, or lime, a pucker in the air, or lychee, sinking light into your tongue, but, for now\n\n[[shall we go back?|Start]]

there is scuttling coming from afar\n\nyour drink:\nblood-salty, like flossing far past when it hurts, there is a smile in the mirror and it lines up with a neck, rock-salt, regret left to ferment until it's lost its original flavor\nyou will smile. it will sting. \n\n[[drink|neutral 2]]

[[shatter|of course]]

"i look like a gremlin in that photo"\n"it's really you! you're wearing red"\n\nwe have that photo in our heart\nred is good luck, after all\nwe were blessed with such luck\n\n[[happiness is a good look, we think]]

what would you have us do?\n\n<<replace "what would -">>...<<endreplace>>\n\n[[we know.|we know]]

welcome! welcome! welcome!\nstranger in my own mind, no stranger to my heart\nit's [[so bright|cold]] outside\n\ncome in\ni've tidied up i've cleaned off my shoes\n\nmy love, leave yourself at the door, there are slippers for guests set beside it\nthe lights are on\nrefreshments? the condensation of my memories with a pinch of sugar, a hint of lime\n\n\n\n\n\n(take a fuckin' sip babes)\n\n[[spring]]\n[[summer]]\n[[autumn]]\n[[winter]]

it's fall, <<replace "it's 2009">>it's 2012<<becomes>>it's 2014<<becomes>>it doesn't matter does it?<<endreplace>>\n\nof course it does. of course it does. \nyounger had the girl with flaxen hair who has never really left your heart (we baked lemon shortbread cookies, i wanted her hand in mine)\nthen came a girl with claws and dragons inside her heart (we lost the scar she gave us - how unholy of us - but a worry-smoothed stone lays in the secret chest below our bed)\nthen marshmallows burning campfire hot on our tongue, a pile of bodies on the grass, ear pressed to the murmurings of a body (could they hear us laughing? could they hear our heart beating? could they hear us shyly wanting?)\n\n[[more, please more. we are tired. we are hungry.|more fall][$goodend += 1]]\n[[they're gone, replaced or lost. the leaves that fall don't come back.|gone fall][$badend += 1]]

for you, then.\n\nyour drink:\nskepticism is a bitter side to golden glows and homespun presses of palm to palm\nit will sting a little when you drink\n\n[[drink|neutral 1]]

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we know that the fear keeps us going\n\nyour drink:\nthe feeling of a firefly landing on your hand, we look up to the sky but the streetlights block out the taste, because, looming, is the earth. she tastes a little like three-day-old plums\nyou will feel bile.\n\n[[drink|neutral 2]]

a bitter taste, leaden in my throat\nwe will try to pour you a drink, but you may get nothing but ashes - our house was never very warm during the winter months\n\n[[what do we have?|have?]]

[[oh]]

[[if you know love so well, how do you not recognize it here?|if you know]]

your drink:\nwarm, at least, warm enough to hold, warm enough to hold hope for the coldest of months. tea leaves can't be found without a faint sheen of despair, but collected under the moon, our love, her love, who loves us, anything can survive\nyou will survive\n\n[[drink|good]]

you say this to us as if we care!\n\n[[here, let us play a trick on you|a trick]]

[[of course.|of course]]

but maybe\n\nmaybe that is what we were\n\n[[...|not much to eat]]

yes.\n\n[[sickness|yea boy]]\n\n

well \nshe did love us\n\n[[she hurt you too|hurt][$goodend += 1]]\n[[and look how you paid her back|payback][$badend += 1]]

that's what we thought.\n\nyour drink:\nlies carved from the meatiest part of the heart and squeezed out into a shallow basin. hand-crafted sugar dusts the rim of the glass, actually crystals shed by the winter moon, but it tastes like hope upon the first sip.\nyou will grimace at the taste. but there is the chance that the moon will turn golden on your lips.\n\n[[drink|neutral 2]]

hexagonal

grew and died and grew, just like anything else, yes, yes\nbuilding me up all the way\ninterlocked fingers or quiet hunger or static silence over the phone\ncould we have survived any other way?\n\n[[perhaps. perhaps you saved each other with your love.|saved each other]]\n[[perhaps. perhaps you held them back with your burdens.|held back]]

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C O W A R D

how could they cry for us when we hurt them so?\n\nyour drink:\nboost, everything you need in chocolate-strawberry-or-vanilla, except there only ever is vanilla and all it ever does is catch in the corners of your mind and pull you to bloating. \nyou will be strong, and you will regret it, and you will hate yourself for regretting it\n\n[[drink|neutral 2]]

our story of vulnerable flaws\n\nyour drink:\norange juice, from a straw, one of the bendy ones that we lost our minds over as children. there is happiness in there, and we're pretty sure that's scientific fact\nyou will be confused, but we are right here with you, laughing with you, weaving our story with you\n\n[[drink|good]]

please,\ndon't look at me\n\nmy scars raise up on my skin. one day they will cross each other enough times to build me armor that will swaddle me to death\ni will open up like a flower then\nflesh peeling away\nthen the muscle\nthe veins\nbones\nand i will be <<replace "gone">>clean<<endreplace>>\n\n[[but you deserve more. we all do, don't we?|what we deserve][$goodend += 1]]\n[[go, then. you're tired aren't you? we're tired too.|what we want][$badend += 1]]\n

still beating, beating still\nthe water ripples and we surface to have our cheeks peppered with kisses like lilacs spotting our skin\n\n"did you miss us?" we ask\n<<replace "yes">>don't you ever do that again<<becomes>>love you so much, don't you dare try that again<<endreplace>>\n\n[[they cried for us, i think|for me]]

[[th-that|stutter]]

as if that means anything to us. we know the fields and the wolves and the cold in a way that you never could. you know them in ways we never could. \n\nyour drink:\nso far from the mother's land, nothing is warm enough, even blood debt or a piece of our heart with the weight of forgiveness. we sprinkled the stars in there, but nothing will change the notes of desperation\nyou will never be able to give her back her days. you will live with the absence of approval.\n\n[[drink|neutral 2]]

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