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#this is escapril day 1: when i opened my eyes

circadeacademia · 20 days

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Prompt: Bad Habit (Escapril Day 9)

A list of bad habits I possess:

• Profusely biting nails when the butterflies in my stomach transform back into caterpillars.

• Staying up late at night because my brain identifies as darkness.

• Not drinking enough water ever since I'm drowning with my head afloat.

• Slouching like an open first bracket as I struggle to keep the burden off my shoulder restrained.

• Being a woman and (not) utilising my uterus up to its full potential.

#1 confession : my nails often look like the map of sri lanka

They live at the mercy of my incisors, much like slapstick characters next to my mother's precise C-section. I destroy them with the same audacity like butterflies in my stomach go through retrogressive metamorphosis. At times, I think of ripping my torso open like a rotten tree and unleashing the apex predator inside.

So the next time I declaw myself, spare me as a creature of habit. Because maybe if I try, I can make it precise.

#2 confession : unbothered, hydrated and in my lane (?)

3 litres a day, I thought would be enough to just ‘live, laugh, love’ through life. But I'm 7 part saltwater and a pretend salmon. Some days, I also mimic a biblically accurate eye candy : sour & pre-saturated in brine.

Make it make sense, but it's not really my fault if I remind you of a fish, actively drowning while gasping for water.

#3 confession : this rusty old uterus will be my endgame

Bloody hell! innit? You should've seen their faces when I decided to keep the river flowing and leave the barren field for aesthetics. This old hag is in her main character era and will chew right through your nerve endings to prove so. Enough with the uterus talk you say, but old habits die hard.

On a side note, I could've lectured you about the ‘Y’ in audacity, but well, what would I know? I'm just a woman and a woman I stay.

— circadeacademia

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goneahead · 2 years

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The (very) Unofficial Bob Ross’ Happy Trees Poetry Tools Workshop Day 30 - What If?

I want to end this workshop by talking about my favorite piece of writing advice—and it doesn’t come from a poet! Stephen King has often said that asking “what if?” is a writer’s most powerful tool.

Let’s build a poem by using ‘what if’:

One of the Escapril prompts is ‘blink and you’ll miss it’. When I read this prompt, I immediately thought about three things: eyes blinking, time, and missed opportunities. Now let’s use “what if” to write a fresh take on this prompt:

-What if I wrote a poem about a different sort of eyes, or a different kind of blinking? -What if I wrote a poem that wasn’t about time? -What if I wrote a poem about seizing an opportunity, not missing it?

Blink and You’ll Miss It

My blinking turn signal and GPS know where to go, but me, I’m still driving, because I don’t want to turn off, not when the open road is such a wonderful adventure.

@goneahead

OK, that’s a good start. But the first line isn’t grabbing me, the middle isn’t landing quite right, and “open road” and “adventure” are pretty meh—so let’s do some editing!

-What if I rewrote the first lines to show the repetition (day 1) of the turn signal?

Blink. Blink again. My turn signal and my GPS know where to go

-What if I added a little more ‘ma’ to the middle? (day 6)

but I don’t want to turn off. Not yet, not when

-What if I made the open road anthropomorphic and threw in some imagery? (day 14, 15, 16)

the open road still has me in her sun-warm embrace, her tar-black hair winding around my heart

-What if I added Something Else to shore up the ending? Maybe a comparison, one that builds on the poem and the prompt? (day 29)

her laughter opening the very eyes of my soul

Now I’ve shored up the poem and fixed that sagging middle. So—what if I rewrote the poem to add some white space? (day 8)

Blink and You’ll Miss It

Blink. Blink again. My turn signal and my GPS know where to go, but I don’t want to turn off. Not yet, not when the open road still has me in her sun-warm embrace, her tar- black hair winding around my heart, her laughter opening the very eyes of my soul.

@goneahead

So, what do you think? Do you think Stephen King is right? Is this poem stronger because I kept asking ‘what if’?

I hope this workshop was helpful - and have fun writing happy trees!

#napowrimo 22 #napowrimo #happy trees april pad #poetry

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the-cautious-zombie · 2 years

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"When I Opened My Eyes."

The first post I did for escapril! I really liked how this came out and it got me very excited for every prompt this month!

#writing #poetry #writer #poems #poet #poem #words #art #poetryofinstagram #escapril #escapril 2022 #escapril day 1 #when i opened my eyes

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verwandlung · 2 years

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escapril 2022

When i open my eyes

and the pillows smelled of you —

turned away

still seized by slumbers'

cruel clutches.

fractured colours

through fractured glass,

dancing across duvet covers,

prancing across pillow cases;

slink and shy along

loose strands of hair;

tendrils woven, tightly wound,

locking the locket —

the chest of deep,

deep within mine own

#escapril #escapril 2022 #poetry #my own poetry #my own writing #day 1 #escapril day 1 #when i open my eyes

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flugsvamp88 · 2 years

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when i opened my eyes

(1/4/22)

sweetened vinegar staining blankets chemicals in the air that darken it iron spat from between bones soon offered a cold, pale hand pulled up from the tangled growth that had sustained me through death

c.m

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goofyjesterman · 2 years

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When I opened my eyes,

I saw you- on that fateful day.

When the sun shone with light delight,

And the ocean glistened sapphire blue.

The sand- soft, you always said.

I hated it, but the way your eyes sparkled,

That moonlit night on the beach.

How could I deny that?

Escapril 2022 | day 1 - when I opened my eyes

#escapril #escapril 2022 #poetry #poems #poem #writing

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lillibet · 2 years

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Escapril Day 1: When I Opened my Eyes

This morning when I opened up my eyes

the sky was miserable and full of cloud.

I was full ready the world to despise.

Rising this early shouldn't be allowed.

Silencing the alarm's insistent beep

and getting out of bed my mood does worsen,

my greatest wish is to go back to sleep.

Can you tell I'm not a morning person?

But through the clouds the sun begins to break,

possibilities appear before me,

suddenly glad am I to be awake.

New month, new plans, new adventures for me.

With that in mind the day can now begin.

I’ll face every task head- on with a grin.

E. Wright 1.4.22

#escapril #escapril 2022 #writeblr #poetry #my poem #poems on tumblr #national poetry month #shakespeare #sonnet

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literary-nymph · 2 years

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escapril day 1: when i opened my eyes

#escapril #poetsofinstagram #writers and poets #writers on tumblr #my poem

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dumbsagbitch · 2 years

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Escapril 2022 (credits to Savannah Brown)

Day 1 - when i opened my eyes

when i opened my eyes

i couldn’t recognize

who it was

staring back at me

on the surface

i knew

exactly who she was

swollen cheeks, sucken eyes

a look of misery and i dare you to try me

but underneath

the surface of meat and tears

loved a girl

who i had became

dreams turned to nightmares

thoughts turned to fear

love turned into loathing

mirror, mirror on the wall

who’s the fairest of them all

it’s not me

a decaying body

rotting from the inside out

messy hair

streaked eyeliner

she is me and i am her

and i could not recognize

when i opened my eyes

- kat kohl

#escapril #escapril2022 #savannah brown #sav brown #spilled ink #poetry #writings #kat kohl

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write-away-from-here · 2 years

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Escapril Day 1 - When I Opened my Eyes

I'm doing Escapril again! Good luck to anyone else doing it! I hope everyone can enjoy reading the poems I and others are posting this month :)

Darkness faded,

Light filtering in through eyelashes.

Slowly coming to my senses

Blinking away the dreams.

When I opened my eyes,

I remembered where I was.

Sticky salt air hitting my face,

Sand had crept into my bed,

Rough against my legs.

What a wonderful feeling it is,

To suddenly be where I forgot I was.

#escapril2022 #escapril #write away from here #writeblr #my writing #amwriting #poetry #when I opened my eyes

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sunriseantebellum · 2 years

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“act of grace, recanted”

i asked you to meet me at dawn. all you had to do was be there, leave the rest to me. i had everything i needed— except you. and so i waited.

when i opened my eyes, it was sunrise. you, who i have been searching for my whole life, left me waiting all night. was i not enough to be your escape? didn’t i mark the spot, the end to our hunt?

maybe i was simply too graceless to even ask you to run away with me; to think you could leave all this behind— to imagine i could be better, different, and everything you needed.

i see: so this is the kindness you once claimed to kill with. your colors and fine things are better suited to the wind. without you, i’ll go back to black.

— j.a.

escapril day 1: when i opened my eyes

#jade writes #IM BACK #escapril #escapril 2022 #napowrimo #napowrimo 2022 #glopowrimo #glopowrimo 2022 #poetry #poem #spilled ink #blorpowrimo #tho i feel like if you read this blind without the tags you wouldn't even know #i feel like if u read this blind u wouldn't realize but #ofmd spoilers #our flag means death spoilers #blackbonnet #me as lucius writing this based on what ed told me in the pillow fort

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amieyhko · 3 years

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Escapril 2019

escaprilday 2019 // 1: a fresh start

two Costco bags full of

umma-certified clean clothes,

“unpacking cannot begin with wet clothes”

Taipei humidity is unkind.

coins clink,

white noise revs

drowning out the drizzle

as heart somersaults

to the rhythm of the cycles:

what — tum — am I — ble

doing — tumble — here?

the darks tumble its final spin

as the lights

click —

into a stop.

a whiff into a warm towel

warns me the comforts of home,

promising

of munchies, blankies, and speedy wifi

of cushy floor space where crafting

and writing past midnight can be done in secret

but —

fold — maybe — toss — I changed —

yellow blouse — or gave up too easily —

fold — or could it be —

toss — I’m listening to all the wrong voices? —

red turtleneck — no — flick —

wait, this is so soft now, I guess the washing machine in that guest house in Seoul was indeed really terrible —

fold — yes, this is how it should feel on my skin —

toss – my heart knows, though —

fuzzy sock — maybe home is where I need to be right now —

into basket — there’s nothing wrong with —

grab — starting over again.

escaprilday 2019 // 2: april showers

you said all memorable moments

include an unexpected deluge

I nod and laugh

as the metro ac pierces through

my drenched jacket

I shiver as I feel my clammy socks

cling onto my not-rainproof Docs

("they're not?" you ask in shock)

ears ringing still

from speakers booming

throat scratchy from scream-singing

at the top of our lungs.

still, you smile, shiver, and say,

with half-dazed eyes,

all good memories

end in rain.

escaprilday 2019 // 3: incorporate music

“Hope I’m not tired of rebuilding”

at this in-between

this time of heating up lukewarm lattes

and microwaving soggy french fries,

a surrendering of old and new

kindles a familiar tune:

“not what’s easy, what do you want?”

at this in-between,

the seconds between a squat and a jump

or the hours during an endless free fall,

a whisper sings an awakening:

“even a phoenix dies”

so at this in-between

muster up the strength to

inhale blue

and exhale gold.

escaprilday 2019 // 4: anxiety

lacuna

¡amiga!” he chimes like clockwork

with a sonrisa that has probably charmed plenty of hearts.

my fist bumps his and I walk toward the dark halls

where they tilt their heads forward and say

“안녕하세요” they grin,

some fake, others genuine,

mostly muscle memory.

“哈咯“ she greets as I turn the corner—

a sound of familiarity.

the velcros on my lips finally relax

till we part ways to our stations

“how are you?” their words flow dry

they probably don’t want to find out

my tongue lands on one syllable:

“good”.

escapril 2019 // 5: back to nature

I’ve a secret spot for seeing stars in Taipei City.

after a day downtown,

blasting my headphones at damaging decibels,

fixing makeup with samples at drugstores,

and chasing after buses,

I skip down the announced “platform two for Taipei Zoo”

and gaze down at the light show stage named Zhongxiao Fuxing.

as the red greens, a rush of headlights streams at me—my eyes

lose focus, my heart

leaps back into my chest just as

the home-bound metro approaches.

I’ll always remember the yard at Tiszavasvári

where we lay to see a starry night drawn by the Creator

after a day of listening to screaming children,

braiding their hairs,

and chasing after the impossible ones,

we stood in awe, jaws dropped, then soon learned

our necks weren’t strong enough

so we lay down, evening breeze

accompanied by the crickets sang a lullaby—

my eyes played a senseless game

of connect-the-dots, my heart skipped several beats

as I let go of the memories of beds and blankets.

escapril 2019 // 6: nostalgia

missing you is easy.

remembering you creeps

up in little mundanities

like a cup of fruit tea

a bottle of Clorox

or an inappropriately loud laughter--

to my consolation, yours is unmatchable.

although,

the sound of your laughter rings

quieter

till I can whisper:

escapril 2019 // 7: start with a time of day

3 a.m.

why wait

for dawn when

we can set yesterday

in flames

over this river?

escapril 2019 // 8: love poem

I cannot recall the exact words uttered

but something in my heart fluttered:

our eyes met for a millisecond

we cracked, till our breaths weakened.

our words, lost in the waves

transformed into safes

I open in my heart of hearts

to feel at home within the laughs of your loves.

escapril 2019 // 9: focus on the color

chorok hadn't found its form in

korean of old. fields of

grass and evergreens,

little plates of herbal banchan,

lush of summers,

and squirming caterpillars

all existed as paran-- that same

color ascribed to vast oceans,

and sunny skies

then one lively spring, chorok

creeped its way into our tongues,

demanding to be seen on

street signs,

the mountain tops, and

cross walk lights

though some still speak "the light

turned paran",

and the incorrigible children's tune

singing of spring

blossoming into paran,

chorok sprouts an entrance

undeniable to out naked eyes.

escapril 2019 // 10: femininity

the bus,

back slides down on the uncomfortable bus seat,

fingers stroke through my freshly buzzed head,

while many eyes fixate above my eyes,

asking:

"is she a boy or a girl?"

"is she a lesbian?"

"what happened to her… hair?"

eyes read their faces,

mouth struts a big yawn with no reflex system telling me to conceal it.

imagination floats to a stadium,

feet stands on the podium,

voice declares:

I'm still so-very-much a lady--

just not fair like Audrey,

nor dainty like a stereotype,

or as brave as Joan,

and definitely not as attractive than most

but maybe more like

the ones writing history

now.

escapril 2019 // 11: not from your perspective

most of the time I sit beside the maroon sofa

where you watch tv and transform into a potato

I wait and wait for that sweet moment

you grab my handle

travel me to a flat desk

wind me up with thread

hook me up to a pedal

switch my light on

smooth out a piece of fabric

pinned up in zig zag

then

zoom, crackle, buzz,

your hands sync to my rhythm

you pray I don’t jam

or break your thread

then you announce with pride

“et voila!”

escapril 2019 // 12: spring cleaning

it takes two countries

few cities

thirteen houses

fifteen boxes

thirty trash bags

and an infinite repetition of

"do we need this?"

for a soul to grasp the spider web line

between a desire and a necessity.

then a decade teaches the

same soul

sometimes,

spectrums soften

escapril 2019 // 13: celestial bodies

if only

seeing you was as easy as

some nightly glow at your half

reflecting off

a big blazing ball of light on my half

escapril 2019 // 14: make it rhyme

a sonnet-full of embellishments, fake

notions of how lovely you are like some

weather in summer or spring, homemade cake

that tastes like cheap flour and rotten eggs, numb

from clichés, the love songs that never shut

up, posed photos of arms around my waist,

a let-me-take-that gentleness, so what

are you doing? leaving sour aftetaste

in our hearts. no, this sonnet is not for

us. we don’t need guidelines to fall in love,

nor the recipes known to prevent war

(it cannot be all fair in war and love),

so stop. steep in this silence as your hand

finds mine in this complicated quicksand.

escapril 2019 // 15: describe a smell

a dash of prickliness:

prickly, like appa’s beard attacking my forehead as he plants a kiss.

then an overwhelming sense of saltiness:

salty, like that time I accidentally used the spoon side of the seasoning bottle

or tasting my own sweat or tears.

something rotting at slow decay.

fruit flies feast.

my nose shoots me back to

halmoni yelling something in dialect, umma replying.

I stand in the middle of the market square, I’m ten.

they promised me jjajangmyeon,

my nostrils can hold out just a minute more.

escapril 2019 // 16: any dreams?

five—

I was to be a Pokemon trainer by day

and Sailor Moon by night

but adults hung my creativity dry

seven—

a singer-songwriter

but music chose me not

ten—

fashion designer,

draw designs, sew coutures, walk the runway myself

but whispers yelled discouragements

fifteen—

couldn’t care: I was a realistic teen

now—

I tip-toe about my heart

trying my best not to pick on scabs,

unable to answer any questions

albeit an I-don’t-know

has never sounded more

comforting and clear.

hear the wounds heal

to the beat of the unicorn hooves.

escapril 2019 // 17: body as friend or foe

I was born in Guatemala,

but my father’s from Georgia

he’s a musician, he produces

K-pop albums and we travel the world

searching for the next big deal,

my mother paints apples, she’s from Zimbabwe

she also writes Chinese poems.

It’s all true—

my body deceives every bit of reality within me.

escapril 2019 // 18: a happy place

hear nose tickle

with the sound of lavender feathers

fluttering by

eyes will open up to inhale

the golden hours spent

under Your glorious dance

escapril 2019 // 19: without your name, who are you?

if an utterance of a name

can form a heart,

her name has been called by many

if each spoken word forms

a vibration into what we are,

she's a someone

whispered into a myriad of paradoxes:

she's an asteroid, crashing fast,

uncontrollable, unexpected.

she's a cup of tea, calm,

idle, ready for nothing.

escapril 2019 // 20: a liminal space

this amorphous ground feels comfortable,

excuses acceptable:

the excruciating humidity,

drowsy rain, busy friends,

false pride, miscalculating time.

they say:

Prufrock measures his life in coffee spoons,

but Zeno says nothing ever reaches its destinations.

the Knight holds his tongue

yet his heart flutters a violent beat.

I’m just another contra, letting my feet skip away

as each step echoes heart beating somewhere

back.

escapril 2019 // 21: it’s the end of the world

no zombie apocalypse,

the sun still functions,

stars are still, hearts

unbroken, no one

escaping to Mars,

no fatal goodbyes.

one silent pink noise

a purple glow,

“welcome back home”

it said.

escapril 2019 // 22: nourishment

last month, I met a little

potted plant.

I took it back to my little

suffocating room

and named it little

foggy star.

I loved it little

by little

I gave it little

droplets of water,

spoke little

words of compliment,

took it to my little

window sill

the sun peeped through

a little.

it grew a little,

I did too.

escapril 2019 // 23: when the party’s over

recollect spilled laughters —

this, for unworthy jokes,

that, for suave comments,

maybe one for someone dreamy —

bottle them up,

keep them fresh

for the next sea of

stragglers,

mutual someone,

you-look-quite-nice,

wow-so-interesting.

escapril 2019 // 24: liar, liar

how to be a compulsive liar

one: disregard empathy, embrace despondency, think selfish,

my life doesn’t have to tell truth tales, no one needs to know.

two: rehearse recollections, think practicality, use names they’d never check,

let myself believe in each detail, each sight, smell the scenario

three: speak the perfectly fabricated phrases into existence,

no need to bat an eye, stutter a detail, overthink a loophole.

for example: “yeah, the party was fun. we walked around the park afterwards.

who? oh no, he wasn’t there. he had an important family dinner.”

four: remember the lie, inform reliable partners in crime if necessary,

never bring it back, stick to your guns.

promise yourself: they can’t hurt, they’ll never know.

remember: truths hurt, they’re inconvenient, it’s none of their business.

dig: until your shovel breaks.

drown out: every kindness the world has to offer.

die: in the said dug hole, climb out just to

repeat: until trust is a pair of cracked glasses, refuse to see a redemption until

die again: learn that these walls must go —

invite: the uncomfortableness that is vulnerability

repeat: until system reboots.

escapril 2019 // 25: pick an animal

my giraffe friend

shades me when the sun’s high

and warms me when the wind’s rough,

meeting her eyes pains me with

an aching neck,

she will always stand tall in a room,

there’s no shelf too high for me,

when she’s close by.

escapril 2019 // 26: girlhood, boyhood, childhood

when I was older, I had a pair of

very pink sneakers

they'd glitter in the sun,

glamoured in gemstones for dignity

velcros loud enough to turn heads

when it was time to take them off

I glanced over my neighbors' shelves:

ugly. blue. brown. ugly. mine trampled over all.

then my eyes stood silent

as I zone in

on her pair of Gundam sneakers

secretly jealous, mostly confused,

extremely frustrated of rule-breaking

girls, defying pink, watching animation

for boys only

now, I wear boring black or white shoes

so do most humans with feet.

escapril 2019 // 27: the state of it all

“you're it!”

a harmless push from their arms

my chest thrusts back

limbs under a spell

all bones removed

“catch me if you can”

why don't you save me

'cause you can?

escapril 2019 // 28: reflection

memories retraces a blur

crooked smile

red dye fading

cigarette between your fingers

standing mostly on your right leg--

you let out a puff as i tell you “i’m imaginary.”

you say you couldn't have

so i tease you more with a kiss

“that wasn't real

that was you imagining it all

new school

a manic pixie

the loneliness got to your brains

that's all”

you flick away the cigarette

eyes reflecting my face

you kiss me back and say

“please don't do this to my brain

you're real

far too real for me i'm not smart like that”

i snicker

the buzzing bus terminal is real

you and i are real

but i'm not

you're no more

escapril 2019 // 29: may flowers

she died a few days ago—

flew off the rooftop

fallen against teeming

reborn lives

the most beautiful of flowers

only last a day or two

you said we are beautiful

because we’re ephemeral

but what happens when

fleeting moments like

a crash kilometers away

pain for someone I never knew?

escapril 2019 // 30: catharsis

yesterday, I cleaned out my room

bugs infested each and every corner

I tried to catch them but they

hid away between the nooks and crannies

whispering schemes to each other

learning the dustiest corners I’ve ignored

waiting for a perfect time to kill

so I dusted out the corners

rearranged the furnitures

repainted the scratches

thinking cover-ups should make anew

yesterday, I cleaned out my room

praying for the bug spray to kill,

I felt seventeen, rearranging photographs,

filling up a space with desired personalities,

she would have been proud

there’s nothing I’d tell her, but to say

yesterday, I cleaned my room, for another hundredth time

they say an odyssey is a cycle

ending with a catharsis

where you come clean

but yesterday, I cleaned my room

again

#poetry #poems #escapril #escapril 2019 #writing #writer #amieko #journal #reflections

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szabvero · 4 years

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Escapril2020 Part 1

Since I got reeeeeally far behind on my Escapril prompts, I decided to post them all together. It got a bit dark.

Dawn

The mountains were quiet for most ears, but he knew what to listen to. Every little murmur of the wind had a special meaning, and over the centuries he learned to understand most of them.

His eyes closed, the boy turned his head towards the last owl reurning home, its path crossed by a bat only a few seconds later. If they were worse flyers, they would have crashed into each other, feeding a few lucky predators with their flesh. This was not the day.

He felt a subtle change in the wind that was not there two days ago. He couldn't exactly figure out what it was, but as his eyelids turned red on the inside, he was sure he will see it clearly in the morning light.

Growth

As he blinked away the sparkles in his eyes, he noticed a tiny creature in the soil, only a few hundred meters away. He shouldn't have sensed the minor difference, since the leaves barely made it to the surface, yet.

As he leaped from the tree he called his home, he felt a subtle inner pulse coming from the so far purple plant. His curiosity led him forward, crouching down next to the new neighbour, removing a twig from over it to give it more space to grow.

Is anyone listening?

"Hello, little creature" he whispered, barely recognising his own voice. It's been months since he felt like talking, and out here alone, nobody would care anyways.

The boy gently caressed the little plant, and as his ears picked up a new noise coming from the west, he gracefully jumped back onto the tree, hiding between the branches.

Eartlhy pleasures

He liked watching the fragile ones arriving in his forest thinking they know where they are. It was an adorable sight; expression of expertiese on their faces while looking for treasures they believed to be hidden. He could barely contain his chuckle when the old man and his dog dug out a mushroom from the soft ground, congratulating themselves on the achivement, while nature gave them the treat willingly.

He remembered the time he fought dragons and drank wine to have fun and shook his head, with nostalgia caressing his skin with a warm tingle.

The view from up here

A few minutes passed, and he turned his eyes the other way, looking at the mountains as the morning sun gently discovered them again.

Sometimes if bored, he would rearrange the clouds, write ancient stories with their shadows on the top of houses and fields of grass. His language was so old, that noone would recognise the signs, not even seeing them from their fancy airplanes and helicopters.

He only stopped when the flowers below started crying for more light, or not even then. The boy knew they were strong and could take his cruelty, as he took part in their pain and multiplied it for himself. It was only fair.

Obsession

He has always been drawn to the concept of pain, himself being incapable of feeling it, only when he stole it from others. It was a curse he had to fight when he moved to the realm of the humans as they called themselves.

Many have died who tried to help him understand what they were feeling, and many more who did not have such desires. The boy had to learn how to balance on the thin line separating as much as possible from too much.

It took him decades to silence the urge and take control of himself, but he still had to keep it in his mind every day, it being the most important part of his endless existence.

Chemical reaction

His thoughts were interrupted by a creature flying in his field of vision, softly caressing his face with tiny waves of air as it flapped it's tireless wings. The colours once hurt his eyes, but by now he got used to the vibrant presence visiting him every morning.

He held out his hand and let the butterfly take a rest on his skin, reading his very being with its sensitive receptors. He was amazed by how swiftly their conversations went compared to using actual words with beings of speech. This was a more defined way of communication, putting a faint smile on his face.

Hometown

The friendly insect reminded him of his own people. Sometimes he dared to wonder where they might be, since he was torn from them at a young age, not knowing the way back home. It might have been for the best, as sometimes he was too much for himself alone. One more like him around would turn his world upside down.

As he felt the butterfly say its goodbye, he sent one nod to the creature, and he spent a few minutes staring after it. The boy couldn't explain how they got along so well; maybe it was the forest connecting them, maybe the lack of words spoken, or even as something silly as the fact that they both had wings.

Natural light

As another human walked by, he stepped behind a bigger branch to hide himself. It was hard to live a low life when you have shiny wings attached to your back, but he didn't mind it at night. The Moon was his friend, showing him the way to his prays, presenting a clearer path than the Sun ever could.

In his new position, his attention was drawn to the purple flower that appeared close to his tree. The glowing coming from inside it has quited down, but he could feel the pulsing energy coming from it becoming stronger. Something was not right.

Parasitic

As he flew closer to the living thing about to bloom, he tried to remember where he felt this power before. It sparked long forgotten memories, but it was all just a blur, a smudge on the edge of his mind.

As his feet touched the ground, the energy ran through his bones shaking his core, so he flew back up, his wings desperately trying to take him further from danger.

As the purple flower opened up and the petals reached out to wrap around his body, he ralised his mistake. It was too late.

Heaven/Hell

The boy tried to push on the walls around him, and as someone who once fought with the most fearsome monsters this world is a home to and won, they should have at least budged. Never before felt panic reached his throat, as he screamed for help - to whom, he had no idea.

The flower's petals covered him in a liquid that glued his wings to his back, and as he struggled for freedom, his lungs hurting from the toxic air around him, his skin started to burn as his screams slowly died on his lips.

Submerged in water

As suddenly as it started, the choking hold on him started to ease, and he slipped down from the petals. He had no control over his body anymore, had no strength to fight.

As he fell into the pool of liquid underneath, he waited for his body to rise to the surface. He knew the parasite wouldn't kill him. It needed his life energy to stay alive, just as he needed to hunt every night.

The boy took a gasp of air that immediately got stuck in his throat as new thoughts started to flood his mind, none of them his own. He was connected to the flower, and with it, to all living things.

It was overwhelming.

The city

How long it took him to finally breathe, the boy didn't know. He felt all emotions of the world at once, and it took all his remaining sanity to not let himself go mad because of them.

He was floating on the surface of the water, his wings completely destroyed by his struggle and the toxins, and all he could do was to rebuild his mind from the ashes.

He envisioned a mountain of dust that swirled around like a hurricane, as it felt closest to what was going on in his head at the moment. He carefully reached into the hurricane, grabbing one tiny dust particle at a time, and got to work.

Pink, like your brain

As the last grains of dust found it's place in his creation, he admitted to himself in his agony that he should have seen it coming.

Ignoring signs and taking rush actions has never been his luckiest move, but somehow the parasite got the best of him. Maybe he was finally getting old.

Otherwise how could he have missed the colour of the bud, vibrant blue energy from the planet itself staining the clear innocence of the pink flower growing all around his home. He tried to shake his head.

Euphoria

The boy realized what was making him so disoriented. Even tho his wings still felt usual, a distant part of himself while crumpled and sticking to his back, the rest of his body was in pain. Actual pain that was not stolen from an outside source; it was coming from within, making his nerves shiver with anticipation.

Tho it was still nowhere near to his usual preference, the agony that itself is capable of pushing one out of existence, it was still elevating his mind to unknown heights, opening up new possibilities.

Maybe almost being squished to death wasn't so bad afterall, he thought.

Part 2

#escapril #escapril2020 #1-15 #part 1

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emmaconlon · 2 years

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when I opened my eyes

escapril day 1: when I opened my eyes sleep cocoons me in her misty hands, lifts each phalanx tendril in temperate procession, dusts the sand from my eyelids while the fog lifts. from the borderlands of consciousness, I sense your breathing, a small comfort as I descend back into my earthbound body, the world of the living. I mourn my unfinished dreams as the hypnopompia shimmers like…

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m00nscenery · 2 years

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When I opened my eyes

Escapril day 1: When I opened my eyes