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authorized-trash · 4 years

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To Tie a Knot: Chapter Three: Virgil’s Verdict

Ao3

Chapter One , Chapter Two

Trigger Warnings:

Sympathetic Deceit, self hate, mild language, hospital mention, panic

Chapter Summary:

Fate works in mysterious ways (in the dead of night, apparently.)

Word Count:

2,400+

Note:

This is where things get tricky, as the story on Ao3 has Deceit’s name down as Ethel, while here it is Damian. And since im copying and pasting from where i posted it to ao3, i gotta change his name over to here haha. If you see a mistake where i called him the wrong thing, yell at me

Anyways, we’re just going to ignore the fact that im pretty sure its nearly been a year since last time i updated, shhh

reblogs and comments are so greatly appreciated!

Damian was getting real sick of this stupid hospital room.

The walls were a obnoxiously bright gray, and the curtains did little to block out the pale sun of winter. There was this stupid little picture across from his bed, with a cute silhouette couple holding hands, a small loopy string dangling from their fingers.

Damian rolled over onto his side, picking at the slightly peeling paint. He’d been in here for days, and still had an hours wait before he was discharged.

His spine hurt from being in this position for so long, but he’d already explored the hospital five times now.

He didn’t understand what was so important about him being here so long. They already told him the bad news. He’d already passed the mark for another soulmate. He had already come to terms wi-

A lump raised into Damian’s throat, but he swallowed it down. He hadn’t cried yet. He wouldn’t now.

Perhaps the hardest part about this whole ordeal was the pitying looks. The nurses telling him it was alright to cry. The therapist that had stopped by to tell him it wasn’t healthy to act like everything was fine.

Everything was fine though, right? It wasn’t like Damian lost something important. He didn’t lose his job, didn’t lose his house. No, he lost someone he hadn’t even met yet. Surely it wasn’t that important.

Yeah, he’d be a bit lonely, but was that really important? No. It wasn’t, not really.

His stomach twisted into knots. It didn’t bother him, it didn’t. The feeling of nothing he found didn’t mean anything. The complete lack of movement from his fatestring meant nothing.

He ran a hand through his hair, and even after all this time, was a bit disappointed when he didn’t feel the string pull against his finger.

With a sigh, he sat up, reaching for his phone. He had gotten a notification from Remy, five minutes ago. He opened it. They’d be here soon.

His phone buzzed in his hand as he got a message from Emile. Sometime this week they’d swapped numbers, the therapy student wanting to be nice and keep him some kind of company.

-Hey were heading there now, you ready to leave

Damian rolled his eyes.

-no, i really do enjoy it here

-Thought so see you soon

Damian put his phone into his pocket as he stood. Stretching. He stretched out the soreness in his arms and headed out of his room. HE was given some paperwork, which he finished quick enough.

The hospital was on campus of the town university he attended. He would’ve normally just walked to his dorm, but Remy had insisted he drive Damian.

He spotted Remy’s car, recognizing the sunglasses clad male as he opened the side door.

“What, no Emile today?” Damian asked as he buckled in.

“He had work. Where do you wanna go babes? We can go out to eat or-“

“I think I’d just like to go home. Today is just such a lovely day.”

Remy looked out the window to see the thunder clouds rolling up over the hills in the distance. He rolled his eyes as he turned out of the parking lot.

“Yeah well, I’m not leaving you alone all evening, get that into that pretty little head of your’s Dee. We’re goin’ to your apartment if you are, hon.”

“Figured as much,” Damian said as he pulled his hat over his eyes and laid his head back against the head rest. That feeling of emptiness was present again. ‘We’ Remy had said. He was most likely bringing Emile along. It just reminded Damian about how he wasn’t going to get another soulmate. Another fatestring. Another chance. He didn’t do anything wrong to deserve this, did he? Sure he took that pack of gum from the store without paying, but that was years ago. And yeah maybe he was a bit sarcastic and stand offish, but surely-

“Hon I can hear those gears turning in your head.”

Damian flushed. He looked at the frayed end of his fatestring again, messing with it with his other hand. Remy’s eyes caught the movement as they pulled up to a stop light.

“You’re looking at it again, aren’t you.”

“No.” Remy sighed, “Damian, sweetheart, platonic love of my life,” Damian grumbled at that one, “It will be fine. The reassigning is just a little late is all. Perhaps its finding the perfect match to tag you onto right now. It’s rare not to get reassigned babe, there’s no way you won’t be.”

Damian shrugged.

“Okay. That’s it babes. We’re getting some coffee. I ain’t goin’ into some sappy ass monologue just for you to shrug me off. I’m going to cheer you up with chocolate and sparkles. Buckle up.”

“I am.”

“Shuthu’ fuck up.”

Damian hid a smirk as he lifted his hat from his eyes and looked up to see Remy’s irritated driving. They pulled into the starbucks, and Damian attempted to forget the whole soulmate thing for the time being.

Easier said than done.

Two Months Later

“You are being ridiculous.”

“Oh, am I? I’m being ridiculous? You, sir, are ridiculous. I am simply trying to get my work done, now if you’d simply leave me alone,” Roman huffed, crossing his arms over his chest in indignation.

“Ro, honey, you were shouting lyrics to beauty and the beast at nine in the afternoon, people are sleepy.”

Roman gave an outraged cry, he was being ganged up on by the glasses gays! He would not stand for this! “It was not shouting, I was belting! I was singing as loud as my heart desires, I simply wish to follow my heart!”

“More like belching them out,” Virgil snickered into his hoodie sleeve from his seat on the counter. Roman gave a few offended noises that sounded suspiciously like squawking.

“How dare! I am simply trying to memorize my lyrics-“

“And why don’t you,” Logan came up behind him, placing his hands on his shoulders lightly, “Memorize them in your room, and not off the balcony.”

“But there’s no romanticism in that.”

“Baby, I’m sure that nice imagination of yours can think of a nice audience to listen to you,” Patton said, kissing Roman on the forehead as the redhead fell to the couch.

“A more willing audience then our neighbors,” Virgil grumbled, “I don’t want another sound complaint.”

“Better yet,” Patton said, pulling Roman right back to his feet, why don’t we go to your room, and I’ll listen to you..”

Roman perked up like a puppy, nodding and already pulling Patton into his room. Logan and Virgil watched them leave, both with love stricken looks.

“This happens every night,” Logan said, walking to the coffee pot to poor him another cup.

“Yeah well, it’s a routine at this point,” Virgil said, eyeing the new cup in Logan’s hands, “You’re not planning on staying up all night with that, are you?”

Logan sighed, running a hand through his hair, “I do need to stay up late, yes. I have an essay that needs edited.”

“Logan you are going to work yourself to death one of these days.”

“And you plan on sleeping soon?”

Virgil grumbled some excuses, just as Logan thought he would. The bespectacled male smiled into his mug as he brought it to his lips to drink.

“Whatever idiot, I’m going to bed. And yes, whatever, by bed I mean I’m going to be on my phone for another hour or two. Sushi. I- I mean- damnit, sue me.”

Logan laughed, setting his drink down and pulling Virgil into his arms and off the table. The emo grumbled but returned the embrace anyways. Logan gave him a peck to his lips, brushing the hair from his eyes.

“Goodnight Virgil, please attempt to get some sleep.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Virgil said, pushing away from Logan. He was sure his face was a deep red, but he didn’t expect Logan to notice as he rushed away down the hall.

Logan smiled again. He wasn’t normally the one to be all lovey-dovey, but it was late and he was in a good mood. A great mood actually. Life was good, stable, had a rhythm to it. Logan liked to keep things organized, liked to have a schedule, a routine.

There had been no outside factors messing up this schedule for a few years now, and he planned on keeping it that way.

He finished is coffee and work sometime in the early hours. He couldn’t tell when, as he had immediately curled into the bed next to his soulmates minutes after. Sleep made his eyelids heavy as he drifted off to sleep, completely unaware of the faint numbing feeling in his fingers.

Morning came with a buzz of an alarm clock. It was annoying, and loud, but it did its job well.

Logan woke up the same way every day. He’d carefully untangle himself from his fiances, wincing as his bare feet hit the cold ground. He’d yawn as he exited their shared room and entered the bathroom. He’d brush his teeth, shower, and leave. He’d start the coffee and solve a word-cross puzzle. He’d make himself a Crofter’s covered piece of toast, leave a small note for his partners, and depart for work.

This morning shouldn’t have been any different. He woke up, untangled himself, stretched and yawned. He left the room and entered the one across the hall. He was too tired to notice when he reached for his toothbrush. Didn’t notice as he rinsed his mouth out. He noticed as he patted his mouth dry with a hand towel.

He dropped the cloth into the sink and shouted, stumbling back until he hit the wall. He shoved his hand into his pajama pockets, trembling all over. A feeling of dread filled him, the feeling he got when something major messed with his schedule. An unknown constant added to his perfectly mapped out life.

Logan heard his fiances start to stir and get up. He took his hands out of his pockets. They trembled violently, bringing them in front of him, praying that he was wrong, he hadn’t seen what he thought he did.

With a shaky intake of breath, he confirmed the impossible.

There was a thin yellow string attached to his pinky finger where there hadn’t been last night.

“Logan?! Logan are you alright?” Patton was the first to round the corner. He had shot up when he heard the scream and thump. His breath caught in his throat. Roman and Virgil were next, damn near getting wedged in the door with how fast they both rammed into it. Logan was shaking his head in disbelief, staring at his hands, at the four strings that were connected to each finger. The others looked down as well, at the string that had connected itself to their pinky fingers.

“How is that possible?” Roman asked in disbelief, messing with the string. Logan just shrugged, exhaling shakily.

“It shouldn’t be- you are born with strings, you shouldn’t be able to gain them.”

“Who are they?” Patton asked as they all looked up at each other. They had five soulmates. Five. That was a ridiculous number, absolutely unheard of.

“I guess,” Virgil swallowed, “I guess we’ll find out when we find them.”

Damian woke up with the feeling that he’d been hit by a truck. Everything was sore, and his hand hurt to move. Maybe he slept on it weird.

He sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, wincing as his fingers tugged weirdly. They felt like the circulation had been cut off, they were all sleepy and heavy.

He got up, shivering as his toes touched the freezing floor of his apartment. He could see his breath in front of him.

He really needed to fix that heater.

Walking into his kitchen, he made himself a cup of coffee, his eyes barely open. His fingers gave another uncomfortable tug. Weird.

Slugging into the bathroom, he took a shower, running his hands of his face. Perhaps it was a good thing he was never reassigned a soulmate. The ugly scar on half his face would scare them off.

He dried off afterwards, brushing his teeth. He looked at himself long and hard in the mirror, scrutinizing every inch. He had school and practice today, enough people would see him to need makeup, and he applied the simple face he wore with practiced ease.

It didn’t do much to cover up the scars, but it was something.

He left the house with his coffee in hand and backpack slung over his shoulder, wearing a black long coat and a scarf. It was beginning to feel a lot like winter, and Damian wasn’t one to like the cold.

The walk to campus wasn’t horribly long. Just a walk through the park and up the block. He was pretty fit and in shape, both from the walk and practice, so it no longer bothered him any.

Damian ignored the few looks he got from passerby. There seemed to be a lot of them today. Odd. He had lived here for a while now, surely most these people who were routinely out at this time had gotten over their staring phase.

He spotted Remy waiting at the fence as always, speeding up slightly to catch up with him. The glasses clad male waved without looking up from his phone.

“Hey hot stuff, how’s your morning been?” Remy asked, still texting. Probably Damian if one was going off the fond look on his face.

“Dreadful,” Damian grumbled, leaning against the fence, “I must have pulled a muscle in my arm or something, it hurts something awful.”

“Uh huh. Well, I wish the best for you babes. Maybe take some meds or somethin’ before class?” Remy looked up at him over his glasses. Damian nodded, running a hand through his hair, missing how Remy followed them movement.

“Yes well that’s a giv-“

“Holy shit babe,” Remy exclaimed suddenly, grabbing a hold of Damianl’s wrist.

He moved out of the way of the street light, holding Damial’s wrist out, staring at the shadows on the ground in absolute disbelief.

“You have four and you didn’t tell me?!” He have shrieked in excitement, looking up at Damian in surprised. The other man raised a concerned eyebrow.

“Four wh-“ His throat closed in on itself, and the world around him seemed to melt away as he stared at his hand. Four- four strings. There were four fatestrings connected to his fingers. Four-

Four soulmates?

Taglist:

To be added later

#sanders sides #ts fandom'ts sides #soulmate au #soulmates #remy sanders #emile sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #deceit sanders #damian sanders #sympathetic deceit #to tie a knot #ttak #sanders sides soulmate au #fatestring #holy shit this took forever

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vcrp · 3 years

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could i add emma stone to mara's hold, please? thank you.

Reserved!

#reserves #fatestring

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peachyblkdemonslayer · 3 years

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Viana Ashido Quirk: Acidic mud

She can release a acidic mud substance from her hands and mouth, when she tries hard enough she can also harden the mud as well though only for a short span of time. She a very relaxed and open girl when it comes to her emotions and very book smart as well never ranking anything lower then #5 when it comes to her class. Her mamas Ari and Mina meet sometimes after high school and have been together ever since.

@fatestrings

#ashido viana #ashido mina #ari johnson #bnha black ocs #bnha #bnha oc #bnha next gen #black girl magic #my art #character design #wlw ship #black wlw

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criticalrolo · 4 years

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Some more worldbuilding...

After explaining how the planes work in my last post, I wanted to do a write-up of the Gods in my homebrew setting Asterion. I’ve also included a sample of how I’ve gone about designing individual religions for one of the gods :)

ETHRYS' PANTHEON (THE OLD GODS)

Sovereign of the Gods/Justice/Time - Ionid

God of the Earth - Gelion

Goddess of the Skies - Cielara

God/dess of Death/Fate - Onthys

Goddess of Light/Life/Civilization - Elowen

The original pantheon of Gods created by Ethrys was made up of five individuals: Ionid, Gelion, Cielara, Onthys, and Elowen. These gods presided over the most fundamental aspects of space and time. Of the five, Ionid was elected the Sovereign of the Gods as they oversaw the flow of time through the planes and enabled the rest of the Gods to care for their domains.

In between the time of Ethrys' Sealing and the creation of the Astral Plane, Elowen and Onthys walked among the planes, sewing the rips and tears of reality back together where they found them. From these spots of condensed, healed chaos, the first humans, elves, dwarves, and other beings came into existence. Elowen loved these new beings dearly, and worked with Gelion and Cielara to make the planes beautiful for them to enjoy. When Gelion saw the beings, his tears of joy and delight splashed down and created the first oceans. Cielara created the sun and the moon so that the new beings would always be able to behold the glorious domains of the Gods. Elowen poured her sparks of light and life into the new creations, giving them the ability to create and think and love as the Gods did.

The more beings Elowen created, the more Ionid and Onthys grew concerned about the precarious balance of nature that Ethrys had sealed herself away for. Because of this, Onthys tied their strings of fate to the sparks of Life Cielara had given the new beings, and attached them to their loom. These shining threads became the first Souls. The new beings were then joined into the cycle of life that the other living beings followed, beginning with birth and ending with death, to maintain the balance of existence.

THE NEW GODS

God of Knowledge/Magic - Thaldorn

Goddess of Strength/War - Kivan God of Home/Artisans - Hipoar

Goddess of Luck/Trickery - Tiva

With the creation of living Souls came the creation of new Deities, born from the minds that Elowen gave them. There were dozens of these new Gods created. Just as the Souls were able to adapt and change, these gods partially created themselves, taking on their own aspects and domains. Some only lasted for a generation before they were forgotten and faded away, while others attained powers nearly equal to those of Ethrys' Pantheon. Some of these more powerful gods included Thaldorn, Kivan, Hipoar, and Tiva. These more powerful gods could encompass multiple aspects and persisted longer than some of the smaller, more specific domain gods. For example, a city's local god and Thaldorn could both preside over Roads, Thaldorn in general and the city's god along their own streets.

There was tension among Ethrys' Pantheon and the New Gods, especially in regards to which group encompassed the truly superior Gods. The Old believed that the New were too unpredictable and unbalanced, and that they should not be seen as parallel in power to the Old as they had not been directly created by Ethrys. The New believed that the Old were denying the innovation and creation that Ethrys had stood for by holding the New below them. This schism was present on the Mortal Planes as well, with each God's followers arguing for their own superiority. Tensions became even worse after the arrival of Oknus' Pantheon and the sacrifice required for the creation of the Astral Plane, which made the Old dependent on their followers for power much like the New.

Elowen was the first deity to decide that the fighting had gone on long enough, and started to compromise with the New on behalf of the Old in order to unify all the good and neutral aligned deities against Oknus' Pantheon. This unification effort made her a symbol of Civilization among the Souls, as a bridge between the old world and the new. Begrudgingly, the Gods agreed to tentatively put their differences aside in order to focus on protecting their domains against the more important threats from the lower planes.

Religion

Onthys Our Lady the White Wolf, Our Lord the Black Wolf, The Shepherd of Souls, The Fate Weaver Onthys is one of the original gods created by Ethrys before her Sealing. They were created as a counterpart to Ionid, the Sovereign of Time, as a means to create a direction for the flow of time. They also balanced Elowen, the Goddess of Life, to act as a shepherd for the souls from the Prime Material Plane to the next world.

Depictions of Onthys vary by different cultures, and they are typically presented as a man, a woman, or another non-binary gender according to different accounts. They are referred to by any pronouns. • Domains: Death, Fate, Balance • Clerics: Death, Grave, Life, Twilight, Blood, Unity, Nature

Colors and Symbols Depictions of Onthys typically show them wearing a mask made of a ram skull and carrying a tall black crook. Onthys' holy symbol is a black shepherd's crook inside a white circle. Wolves, dogs, and rams are all sacred animals to them. Unbroken, perfect circles are also considered sacred to Onthys, as well as looms, crooks, and the color black.

Rituals, Holidays, and Festivals • Veil's Day: This is a holy day when followers will visit cemeteries and gravesites, following the paths in and out as their souls will do someday as they join Onthys' Flock. They typically wear black veils, to represent their eventual separation from the mortal world, and will fast for twenty four hours, beginning at midnight. This holy day occurs on the first full moon of winter. • The Fated Feast: At the end of the harvest season, followers will take three full days to prepare an enormous feast celebrating the renewed cycle of life and death that has allowed them to prosper for another year. If possible, they will weave themselves a new article of clothing. This is also a day of remembrance for the people that passed in the year since the last Fated Feast, and it is believed that Onthys will allow these souls to visit the celebration on this day.

Tenets • To deny fate is to deny existence and reality. • The designs of fate that guide our lives are a gift from the Gods and an opportunity to learn and grow. • Death is as natural and vital as life -- the undead are an abomination. • If it is fate for someone to be healed, then they will be healed. If it is fate for someone to die, then they will die. Attempts to intercede in our Lord's fated shepherding of souls must be prevented at all costs.

Temple Clergy and Followers Onthys' most dedicated followers are referred to as her Flock. Local ministries are led by Denmothers and fathers, and the religion is headed by the Grey Wolves. Conversion efforts are not as prominent as in other religions, as Onthys' followers believe that everyone will join the Flock between life and death, but the church will send their followers known as Fatestrings to smaller territories in missionary efforts. The Flock typically gets along well with other followers of the Old Gods, but is hard pressed to trust the New Gods, especially followers of Tiva, the goddess of luck, who they believe disrespect the eternal nature of fate. They are sworn enemies of Oknus' evil Pantheon.

Artifacts and Sacred Items • The Staff of the Fate Weaver: A black wooden staff shaped like a shepherd's crook, supposedly carved from the first tree that withered in the first winter. It is inlaid with rows of small white diamonds and has a mother-of-pearl grip. This staff adds +1 to a spell caster's DC and has seven charges that are regained at dawn. Casting "Blindness/Deafness" costs one charge, casting "Life Transference" costs two charges, and casting "Circle of Death" costs four charges. • The White Wolf's Circlet: This delicate silver white circlet depicts the head of a wolf with inlaid sapphire eyes. When attuned, the wearer is immune to the fear condition and all fear-based attacks, as well as immune to forced movement effects.

Sects • The Northern Wolves: This splinter group is located in the far northern continent and believes that Death is the only true God that one can trust. They eschew all forms of healing and medical intervention, instead opting to put all their trust in Onthys' loom of fate to determine if someone lives or dies. They purposefully live in dire, survivalist conditions in order to be as close to their God as possible and will frequently fast for days or weeks on end to prove their devotion. These extremists live on a nearly completely carnivorous diet and will go on Hunts that they see as a form of sacrament. The most fanatical of these have even branched out into humanoids in some cases. • The Butcher Souls: Primarily an underground urban-based sect, these cultists revere Death as the most natural, desirable state of being, and believe it is their duty to return as many Souls to Onthys as possible. Their rituals involve some members drinking poison to bring themselves to the brink of death, while others comb the streets for unlucky passerby that are chosen as sacrifices to Onthys.

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #world building #pantheon #idk i'm just organizing and saving my thoughts!#long post

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signalterminated · 3 years

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Of Favors and Fatestrings (a witch AU snippet)

"I have heard the summons."

Jon's eyes snap open. There's something lurking in the dark beyond his flimsy candlelight, now, patient and poised. Watching him.

"You're the Voice of the Mother?" he calls out cautiously.

"A Voice."

Long legs stretch out from the dark, black as pitch and bristled in coarse hairs. As the voice, or saint, or whatever it is creeps forward, it says, "For no god speaks through only a single mouth."

Jon locks in place, seized by a coldsnap of pure frigid terror from the inside. Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god —

Beholding slots a memory into place: a door, stained with old blood. A boy knocking on that door and being yanked through by the same monstrous limbs —

"Y...you. Ah." Jon would be hyperventilating if he could get any air into his lungs. If it weren't for his patron prickling in the back of his mind, he would've likely fainted. He's shaking enough as is. Any other stuttered greeting peters out into silence as Mr.Spider stares him down, hardly moving a twitch.

"Jonathan Sims." That ancient voice carries a note of intrigue which Jon doesn't like at all. He likes even less when it begins moving, drawing closer with unhurried steps, each one echoing as a painful thud mirrored in the frantic beating of his own heart. He can hear soft whispering brush of its hairs against the ceiling and the subtle click of each claw against the floor and he wants so, so badly to scream, but it's frozen in his lungs like the rest of him.

"Perhaps it was fate that you stand before me now." Mr. Spider's eyes glitter with an intelligence that can only be described as alien. Nothing of it is earthly, no matter how it mimics the shape of an arachnid horror. "No doors between us. No book."

#tma #the magnus archives #magnuspod

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kaieffingleng · 7 years

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fatestring

replied to your

post

I always kinda feel like people who are upset they...

Easy opinion for someone who is catered to in every kind of popular media, lol.

my point was more about hey this has always been the message of Star Trek and anyone who claims otherwise is doing it wrong

again: not trying to diminish anything, I’m just

yes, it is an Easy Opinion for someone who’s been watching star trek since he was a literal child, my confusion is that anyone could be a star trek fan and fail to absorb that set of values.

Yeah I own my privilege. But it’s not central to this point.

The point of what I’m trying to get at is more being pissed at the revisionist attempts to act like Star Trek hasn’t always been at the forefront, and that Discovery isn’t building on that foundation...and that any star trek fan could be confused about that foundation’s existence.

This comes down to the core theme of the series, a brighter future. This comes down to me being ashamed of anyone who failed to grasp that or try to live up to it.

#fatestring #This Blag Exists Because We Allow It #texted

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pussymagicuniverse · 5 years

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fatestrings

(Trigger Warning: Cancer, death, pregnancy, abortion, eating disorder, mental illness)

At times my mother will tell me she can sense the coming rain or snow in her body. I never understood it, but I always believed her. I started to feel the earth’s pain inside me too, not long after my father’s death.

On bitter-cold days I felt it, stark as an earring penetrating frostbitten cartilage, icy metal under my skin.

The earth was as tense as my body. I wanted to tell her that sometimes it feels good to open your body to the cold, to let yourself shiver, the warmth leaving your body in seismic waves.

The pain itself starts somewhere between my left buttock and thigh, then travels lower and lower along my sciatic nerve, like a dressmaker’s soft yellow tape measuring a seam. The muscles in my left leg buzz like power lines. When I stand up from the toilet in the mornings, I feel lightning in my blood as I try to straighten out my spine. I curl and crumble like a slap bracelet around a wrist. I breathe in hisses through my teeth.

I silence the scream on the inhale.

…

Most things do not have only one catalyst. Most things do not make sense. I told myself a story about the root of my pain. The story went like this:

It was sometime in early May. I was home to visit my father. It would be the last time I’d ever see him.

He couldn’t take the stairs anymore, so he used the tiny coat-closet-turned-bathroom in the corner of the kitchen. There was no light in there, only a toilet and some shelves, coated with dark dust, tainted by the coal stove. At some point between the toilet and the living room, where his hospital bed was, he decided he was too weak to walk, and laid down on the dull yellow linoleum.

He couldn’t stand up on his own. After a few failed attempts to lift his body from the floor—he was so small then, yet I felt my back and hamstrings strain with the weight of him—I took off my flannel shirt and placed it beneath his balding head like a makeshift pillow.

His hair and beard were trimmed short then. I still remembered the first time I visited him in the hospital in February. How shocking it had been to see him so thin with a long gray beard. He had always been a round, hard man with a belly like a bowling ball, decorated with dark blue veins.

He looked up at me from the floor, his skin the same shade as the linoleum. We had the same golden Lithuanian skin. The same way mine had gone yellow as a smoker’s teeth when I started starving my body in high school, his skin had also turned sallow. His eyes looked so green. He was looking right at me, but I don’t think he saw me. His pupils were dilated. Come to think of it, he might’ve been strung out.

“I’m scared, Beck.”

…

I told myself that this pain—always there, sometimes crippling, like grief—took root that night. I realize now that perhaps it didn’t, but linking it to my father made me feel connected with him. His ghost nestled just below my left buttock like a cyst, like a tumor, shooting pain through me.

…

A new ghost nestled inside of me, deep in my guts. It didn’t have a name. I never wanted to call it human. I called it “tadpole” because that’s how it felt—like my womb was a bloated plastic bag from a pet store with some squirming thing inside.

At first it had been like getting butterflies, but more aimless and foreboding, like moths slamming against the single-bulb porch light.

Then there was pain, there was bile, there was the time I made my sister pull over outside of town so I could lean from her passenger side window and dry heave, a jagged and ugly sound in the small town silence.

I had taken the test already. My water had spurted out haphazardly, stung the dry skin on my hands. I’d glanced at it and seen that one line, that negative, that flatline, and buried it in the garbage. Now I can picture it seething there with its little blue crucifix.

The second time I took the test, there it was—that slow crisscross, like airplane contrails in a cloudless sky, crossing paths before they bloat and fade. Positive.

…

I couldn’t get an appointment until two weeks after. Those two weeks dripped by like the end of June always does. I reveled in the times I forgot it was there, that little teeming thing—part me, part someone else, part fish with its eerie unblinking eyes and insatiable appetite.

The morning sickness came and went like a fickle lover, appearing unexpected and twisting up my insides like a dishrag, wrung out through my mouth. The vomit always came out clear and yellow like the inside of an egg.

I had never felt so alone and so reminded of the sin in my gut. I found a robin’s egg on the sidewalk, cracked open. My stomach turned.

…

Like god, the body works in mysterious ways. My body had become a host to this parasite. I was exhausted. I lost weight. When my boyfriend ran his hands along my back and told me I was looking a little too thin, I reveled in the deliciousness of those words.

He scowled at the way my face would contort when we’d watch television, when I’d compare my body to every other body I saw: teenage girls in cropped shirts, women whose waists didn’t fill their lovers’ forearms. The ways my eating disorder manifested already exhausted him, but his annoyance seemed magnified during those weeks. He always made sure I ate and the child in me that I’d starved into silence basked in the cheeseburger and soft serve ice cream glory of summertime. It tasted like being a kid again.

The tadpole was curled up in me like some almost-frog, with useless little limbs and a comically long tongue that snapped out and caught calories like flies.

…

When the time came, the nurse asked me if I wanted to know anything about the ultrasound, but I couldn’t bear to look at it. The infant in miniature like a Barbie baby. I had a pregnant Barbie doll when I was a child. Her smooth, tan belly collapsed in like a button, creating a crawl space for that terrifying plastic baby, and there was a round, new belly to snap into place with the baby rattling inside.

I imagined my 8 or 9-week old fetus looked like that. I imagined it had eyes that still had not grown eyelids, so it would be staring at me, still as a doll.

Tadpole, I reminded myself.

…

I left the clinic with instruction to swallow some pills, to push other pills up inside of me, wait for the poison to spread.

When the bleeding started, my entire torso felt ravaged, torn apart by something rabid. My womb was on fire. The pain was white hot and I knew this was death, secondhand. I laid down on the bathroom tiles.

This pain was unlike anything I’d ever felt—not like a bee sting, or a blow to the stomach—this was pain without an end in sight, horizonless. I was killing it, or it was killing me.

Vicodin stolen from my boyfriend’s father’s armoire lulled me to sleep.

…

I woke up to blood. When I undressed in the bathroom I stained the toilet seat and left drops on the tile. It came out steadily, reminding me of the way my mother would leave her sink running in the winter so the pipes wouldn’t freeze. That thin, steady stream of water.

As I showered off the blood, a clump the size of a silver dollar fell out of me, slapped the pink porcelain and slipped down the drain. Just like that, it was gone. Out with the bath water.

It occurred to me then that it was the fourth of July.

…

The thought came to me from nowhere that my father—dead for one year and two months then—would be disappointed in me if he knew about the abortion. I lit a cigarette, felt the blood pooling beneath me like a shadow, like a trapdoor. I didn’t apologize, not even silently.

Dad used to say you couldn’t trust anything that bleeds for seven days and doesn’t die. Now, I’ve bled for more.

…

At times, I feel defined by the pains I feel. At times, I try too hard to connect my physical and mental pains. The cutting of the fate string, the becoming of a muse. The dryrotted elastic of the sciatic nerve.

I am tension embodied. Perhaps I am feeling the storms building beyond my window. Perhaps my grief manifests itself physically each time I cannot cry at the thought of my father.

Or perhaps not.

•

Afterword: On Writing Through Grief

In the past 19 months of my life, I have become familiar with the hierarchy of sorrow, as well as with the flatness of language, as I struggled to wrangle my emotions into the confines of poetry.

When trauma seeps into your life, you become familiar with the complexities of unhappiness. Tragedy does not hurt less when you are already sad. Depression is not suitable practice for grieving.

19 months ago, I lost my father to lung cancer. Since then, I have lost other parts of myself. I have lost friends, I have lost love. I still do not understand my grief. My grief has never been linear and has never been defined by a single tragedy. I untangle it only through writing about it.

Something else I have realized over the past 19 months is that grief itself means more than one thing. By definition, grief is a deep sorrow, especially caused by someone’s death. Related words include pain, heartbreak, and woe. I look at these words and I realize that grief takes many forms and is less ambiguous than it lets on.

Often, we feel compelled to downplay our emotions, to remind ourselves that someone, somewhere has it worse than we do. Who is to say that heartbreak is a less valid form of grief?

Writing through pain can be difficult but I believe it to be necessary. There are some emotions we may never want to revisit even if we are meant to.

Once, as a teenager, I came across a piece of advice in a book that stuck with me: to allow myself to feel emotions fully so that I may someday let them go. I find that my only true catharsis is through writing. I also find that letting go should not always be the end goal.

My first attempts to write through my father’s death were clumsy and unpolished—most of those poems never made it past the Notes App on my phone. It was only when I realized I have been writing through grief my entire life—from early, tender heartaches to searing betrayals—that I understood my mistake: I was forcing myself to do something that would eventually come naturally.

Later on, I tried to articulate my grief into prose, experimenting with creative nonfiction. The experience was freeing in a way—I felt no pressure to be poetic. I felt no struggle for the right word. I just wrote what was true. Sometimes, the truth comes out lyrically. Sometimes it’s clunky and off key. Sometimes it’s bad writing.

Either way, it is necessary.

Here are some tips and exercises for writing through painful experiences:

Write about an experience with grief, yours or someone else’s, that may be perceived as “trivial.”

Try switching from your primary form. For example, if you usually write formal poetry, try writing in free verse. You don’t know what you’re capable of until you try it.

Think about the concept of death. Where do you see death in the world around you? Can death mean different things to different people? (i.e. death of a season, death of a past self, death of the bug you stepped on yesterday, etc.) Explore “small” deaths versus “large” ones.

Be gentle with yourself. Writing through pain and through trauma is difficult and should be done with patience and understanding toward yourself. Just because you are a writer does not mean you are obligated to put these words on the page. Take your time and know your limits. Return when/if you can.

Rebecca Kokitus is a writer and poet currently residing outside Philadelphia. She primarily writes about her connection with nature, her experiences with mental illness, and also on subjects such as trauma, love, sex, spirituality and femininity. Born and raised in rural Pennsylvania, she has always felt spiritually connected to the Appalachian woodlands, which sparked her interest in magick. She is a crystal collector, tea witch, moon worshipper and flower child who can probably be found picking up every acorn and leaf she finds. In her free time she enjoys reading and writing poetry, spending time in nature, going to concerts, and exploring abandoned places. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram at @rxbxcca_anna, and you can read more of her writing on her website.

#abortion #pregnancy #mental wellness #mental illness #mental health #cancer #creative non-fiction #creative writing #rebecca kokitus

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