@judas-redeemed / Wilhelm Schulz, “All Soul’s Day” / Neil Hilborn, “Our Numbered Days” /@petfurniture

"One might take the tip of the pencil and magnify it. One reaches the point where a stunning realization strikes home: The pencil tip is not solid; it is composed of atoms which whirl and revolve like a trillion demon planets. What seems solid to us is actually only a loose net held together by gravity. Viewed at their actual size, the distances between these atoms might become league, gulfs, aeons. The atoms themselves are composed of nuclei and revolving protons and electrons. One may step down further to subatomic particles. And then to what? Tachyons? Nothing? Of course not. Everything in the universe denies nothing; to suggest an ending is the one absurdity."

- Stephen King, The Gunslinger

Death Anxiety, or Memento Mori

Is this not all our lives? We spend this moment in the sunlight being afraid, and trying not to be, and trying to make up for the fear when it never leaves. I scramble, try to scratch my name in the Earth before She takes me back. Remember, remember. One day, my name will be spoken for the last time. If I am lucky, it will be by someone who never knew me. ‘Til then, I know what will happen when I die. The ones who loved me will miss me. They will speak my name. Tears will wet their eyes as they do, and some will blink them away like acid rain. I know. Silently they will scream, and rasp against the ache in their throat and the pit in their gut. No matter how ready the dead were to die. No platitudes will dull the scraping of our souls into raw piles of nerves. Nor should it. Remember, remember. Cry. Cry past the ache in your throat. Knees in the dirt; face in the sun and remember. Let your body shake. Let the hurt flow past the scars in your soul. Let it sting. Hold fast to the Earth, lest the grief swallow you whole. Anchored while you weather the storm. And when you emerge, sail on - and ever remember your death.

Gently I tuck another idea to rest in the mausoleum - an archived document, dead.

Melodramatic, I loudly intone that I had the best intentions to finish the work, and yet…

Damnit, it happened again.

the trees might be changing… but what about you?

sonnet for the uncanonical, 2025

written for two-bees escapril; the prompts are 'sonnet' (week one) and 'apocrypha' (day three). i will admit that this is probably only partially a sonnet; i've never been great with meter, but the rhyme scheme and structure is mostly there! i think. either way, i had fun challenging myself.

A man in the hospital died today

I'm in the room next door when it happens. No alarms sound his death. No one is there to scream or cry.

Just two nurses, gathered round his bed like doves in blue scrubs. I hope they thought to hold his hand.

His mottled arms are folded neatly across his chest when I arrive. I study his body, instinctively looking for the rise and fall of breath. He is, of course, perfectly still. The sensors have all been removed, he is covered in a feather-light sheet. His skin, nearly translucent, glows in the sunlight.

The older of the two nurses must see my wide eyes; she beckons me and shows me what to do.

This was a good death, she tells me.

I am not convinced. She continues as she hands me a roll of gauze.

He was comfortable.

She shows me how to moisten his eyes to protect them for donation. I touch his eyelid gingerly. The cold makes me flinch. I remind myself that bodies do that when they die.

He was clean.

I place the gauze on his lids, covering his priceless eyes. I remind myself that I cannot hurt him. I still handle him as if his skin were eggshell.

The sterile water runs out from the gauze and streams down his cheek.

He wasn't alone.

I used to dream of death

or blazing, blistering pain.

A mark of martyrdom above my

twisted, tortured brain.

But now I sigh and dream of life

and care for all my wounds

No need to be a martyr

I don't need no cocoon

Me: You know how when you were a kid and you’d wish that you’d get sick or injured in a way that would justify why you didn’t live up to your potential?

Everybody, apparently: No?

As far as animals to be afraid of, deer rank pretty low. From afar, a deer is harmless certainly. Docile, wide eyes, silent staring before they bound away. But if you’ve ever been up close, that likely means you’ve found one trapped. Wounded maybe. Only then will you realize what fear does to a prey animal. If you wander too near, the acrid smell of desperation and deadly will to live is pungent in each flare of its nostrils. Then all of a sudden that deer seems much bigger, and fiercer, and you really ought to back away, but your brain works slower than its instincts, and you’re about to discover that hooves are like rocks and like knives, and those legs are longer and your head is closer than you would ever like. And for a split second, you, apex predator, will understand prey-fear.

Vintage wlw will forever own my heart. We have been here for ages, and we won’t leave.