— we are metamorphosing!
07.06.2025 08:16
His mouth tastes like sand, dry tongue turned to thin paper. He licks his lips. They crumble to ashes, and he touches them, unsure, just to see if they’re still there. He looks down at his hands, faded at the edges like a ragged ghost, and laughs again. Right, that’s just how it is.
I’m going crazy, aren’t I? The bodies in my closet are leaking and leaking and blood is soaking into the neat brown floorboards.
It’s the black stars once again, whispering and murmuring disapprovingly from behid his curtain. He’s closed every window in the house, boarded up the door with a rope tied lovingly around the ceiling fan that rotates constantly. No one gets a break, you know, especially not from the heat. (He thinks about tying a bow. It’ll be cute, and he wants to rest cutely, in a way that he can be admired at last. Even if he hasn’t written his final great piece, his body will be a work of art — post-mortem magnum opus. Modern-day relics.)
His legs jerk in the air, mock-seizure, his hands are scrabbling at the rope like bunnies do when they’re about to die, thumpthumpthump frightened feet on the ground. The fear melts into his nervous system, sets it alight. He’s on fire. Burning. It’s art.
— can stand on — own now, watching from the doorway as the ghost of a crippled marionette dances quietly through the kitchen, motions stiff and uncertain as it goes through the dishes. The ghost of a body — never possessed. It’s like — can see you in her eyes, the two pinpricks of light dead center in her pupils. Biological meat machine. Upon closer look she’s not even a girl at all, just a silly boy playacting at being one. Writing himself into the skin of a woman because he simply doesn’t know any better. Being a woman might be better than being a man, — might never know. Is that you there, in that restless shell? Are you still looking for —? The scrapes on — knees from where you pushed — in the street have long healed, but — can’t speak for the wounds inside.
A glass of soda shatters. You’re clumsy, strings fraying. Spidersilk. Fear smells like the acrid tang of urine released when men are faced with death. You can’t help it, you know, fear is of course the most human emotion. It makes you animalistic. Rabbits, with their little feet scrabbling at the dirt. Two seconds before takeoff. Two seconds wasted, the fox snaps, it’s over too soon.
Do narcissists love their children?
Dirty? Tainted? Yeah, fuck that. He hasn’t been human in a thousand years. He hasn’t had an idea in a thousand years, really, there was one on the tip of his tongue and it slipped away from him like a fleeting dream. It’s like waking up with the windows open. The light hits. You forget everything. It burns, you blink, it’s okay. The clouds gather around the sun and are quickly dissipated by a soft breath. Whose? He doesn’t know. Maybe it’s that little part of him that split off millenia ago and never came back. Spending his days searching for a person he left behind, ghostly arms wrapped around his waist, faint pressure like ivy scraping his sides. He can almost feel the breath tickling his neck — his breath? No, no, not mine, that’d be just silly, wouldn’t it, that’s not me.
He can’t turn his back now, not on the voice that hovers gently on his shoulder murmuring go, go, go! It’s an abnormality, warm heat radiating against his cheek like fresh blood. It guides his hand, forces it to write thousands of pages, a thesis for a college he’ll never attend because he forgets the last time he’s left his house. Has he changed out of the pants he ruined? It’s getting hot, is there a tank top under his shirt? Men can go around shirtless, that’s not a problem. He’ll do what he fucking wants, no one’s here to see him but the ghosts in the attic. They filter in and out from the vents like dust.
Maybe he does want to die. Burning doesn’t seem so bad anymore.
Rihanna’s Father, Ronald Fenty, Dies at 70: Report - Billboard
The heat, a thermal anomaly spreads through his system and fries the ends of his nerves. Abnormality dancing boy. Almost like an electric shock, fear shoots through his veins. Neurons look like they’re fried, already, ends fraying and buzzed and burnt. That’s what they say — neurons ‘firing’ off to each other, little messages travelling up and down your spine. If he thinks hard enough he can feel them, little warning bells at the T12 vertebrae as his limbs jerk in a spider-dance, seizing under the table hard enough that he smacks his head into the corner of the table leg and his face falls into the rapidly pooling blood. Marionette gone rogue. Incompetent puppeteer. He pisses all over the carpet like a dog and cries, open and unguarded and grasping for someone that never comes.
Instead, he’s left with dull, crusty razors that require samurai pressure to make even a dent in his skin. Trash bags on his wrists; you can’t possibly make out where the scars start and end because there’s so many. Can’t let them fade, yeah? Not when it’s the same every day, it grounds him, reminds him that even in the end he’s still here, no matter how many fragments of him there are hidden away in the cupboards. Tomorrow will be better, he thinks, today is worse. Today is always worse, because tomorrow will soon be today and yesterday was once today and every day, in the end, will be today, over and over again. Days of the weak.
Don’t do that.
He sighs.
In the end, he leaves it, but watches himself in the mirror.
Ah, well, you’ve always been a little boring like that.
Australia on the verge of qualification - FIFA
Feelings bubble up and flow down the sides of his elbows like small rivers. Sadness sea. Eighth major body of water Nile river’s best friend rivulets of rain you get it et CETERA; he licks it up and pretends the razor doesn’t catch on his tongue. It hurts worse than his tongue piercing, oh, fuck this, man. It’s a sharp, stinging pain, and he wishes it had caught a little further, taken his tongue right out so he’ll never have to speak to anyone again. Sometimes he thinks about shattering his own eardrums just to stop the whispering. He can’t go anywhere without being followed, without something being missing. There’s a man right behind him and it’s the piece he’s been searching for his whole life. God, what am I? Oh, I’m a god, that’s right, I’m a false god but that’s still a god in the end, isn’t it.
I don’t miss you, whoever you are, but you haunt my kitchen as if I’ve tied you to the knives.
The stars are the same color as the dark eyes that watch him from the mirror, tracking him carefully. It’s far from frightening. The young man watching him has a soft heart and lashes that feel like gentle kisses.
PS5 shooter goes from 5 players to bestseller after devs defend game - Polygon
There’s something that compels him to listen. Be a good boy. That missing piece? Yeah, it’ll just slot right into place if you do what you’re told, ‘kay? That’s it. Pick up the pen, PICK UP THE FUCKING PEN. WRITE. WRITE UNTIL YOUR HANDS FALL OFF. I DON’T GIVE A FUCK IF IT HURTS. PICK UP THE PEN. PICK UP THE PEN, AND WRITE.
Three gulping, desperate gasps for air and it’s a little quieter from where he clings to the back of his desk chair. He’s turned his back on everyone that needs him and somehow he can still hear their screams as if they’re still alive. Not much of what he lost in the fire, but it’s the things that have long left him that continue to dog him like fruit flies to a garbage pail. And that’s what he is, in the end, little more than trash itself.
I would recommend this piece to older audiences. Don’t read if you’re squeamish.
How do schizophrenia symptoms change throughout the day?
His fish sits belly up in its tank and he can’t bring himself to feel any remorse. Blub blub. Let go of your false joy, it says, not much of ‘blub blub’ anymore, god he’s going fucking crazy. The fish’s mouth opens and closes. Blub blub. A stream of bubbles exits his mouth — the fish’s mouth — oh, he’s going crazy, what the hell. Black stars, dark goldfish eyes. Boba pearls. He hasn’t had boba in — he’s never had boba. Okay, but maybe he could, maybe it’s time to drop the pen. Shall we run away to the sea?
Or sets. It’s hard to tell with the blinds closed.
Head wounds bleed a lot, but that doesn’t mean anything, so he drags himself to the bathroom. The lights don’t work, so he stares at his dark reflection, hanging off the sink hoping it doesn’t break clean off like he sees sometimes on his tv. It’s almost impossible to start laughing. He’s a walking infection, vomit spilled right down his shirt, sweatpants soaked with two days’ worth of piss. He might as well go out and burn in the sun.
What are some of the best photos of your favorite Korean model?
It’s like he’s dying before he’s even pulled the plug. Yesterday’s words spiral around the room like a hurricane, this can’t be real — do it, do it now — don’t, don’t, don’t — get down from there — you still haven’t written shit — what else do you have for the world, just let go already — you’re chasing a failed dream — “My dream is to die,” he says aloud, throat burning and raspy with disuse, and he slips off the very head of the armchair.
He wakes up a few hours later, pissed off beyond all reason and struck with a throbbing headache. The rays of light streaming in through his blinds strike his eyes like bleach thrown in his face. Hey, man, what the fuck is this? He laughs. It’s absurd. It’s like a part of him is missing. Parts of him have always been missing, he knows.
Don’t call me that.
Why did we evolve to have so many nerve endings in our anuses?
Prayers, pain, sympathy, he’ll take it, even pity. He doesn’t remember when it started or how it ends, but he knows he’ll go the way he wants to. Any way is a good way, probably, as long as he’s gone in the end, because he hasn’t truly been an artist in years. What good is being a writer if you have nothing to write? It’s always been ‘something’s coming’ (and I swear it is, I swear, please, just give me a chance), but nothing ever came at all. Except him, maybe, tissues littered across the floor because he’s got nothing better to do. A guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do, right?
His throat has been swollen for days. The water’s been shut off for days because he hasn’t paid any sort of bill for God knows how long — the summer heat brings his body back to its natural state, cleanses and dirties it all at once. Is sweat a pure or inherently dirty thing? He contemplates that for a while, burying his face in the old carpet underneath his coffee table. He’s wormed himself into the small space, arms and legs sprawled out awkwardly. Sweat cleanses your pores and stains your clothes. It smells, but it’s clean, right? He’s cleansing himself in the most natural way possible, the sun plays him like a marionette and wrings the liquid from his pores. His forehead shines with it, he reeks of it, he’s Apollo’s being at heart. A molten masterpiece for the gods. Am I clean, or am I dirty?
Black stars dot his vision when he stands — ah, not stars, speckles of ‘hey-you-got-up-too-fast’ because his weak, anemic near-cadaver of a body refuses to be manipulated the way he wants. “Let’s see how much this frail figure can take.” He’s not the pretty young marionette he used to be, talking like an old man though he’s only in his twenties. Little boys are the purest. Everyone’s everywhere except for him. People spread like ants until they’re all swarming his kitchen, rows of legs swinging off his counters and waiting for him to prepare his next meal. They fall upon it like vultures when it’s ready, yes, eat, my adoring fans, eat! Eat the words I have carved within my own flesh! Savor it and call me your GOD!
Does the Lil Wayne song ‘Lollipop’ refers to a Lollipop sweet or a metaphor?
That night, he sleeps on the floor, among the sweat-soaked clothes he just doesn’t have the heart to put away.
Card houses fall when you blow on them, secure or not. And he’s no architect.
There’s vomit in his hair when he wakes up, dried overnight but he can still feel the thick stickiness on his hands, almost like honey. It smells like honey when he opens the window a crack and takes a deep sniff before closing it. Germs, you know, germs and heat, they’re permeating the air of his apartment. He can’t let the heat in, he’ll burn, and he wants nothing more to burn but to burn you have to die and —
No, not really, he says to the fragments of his heart lingering in the alcoves, waiting for him to finish making dinner. Why, do you think that’s true? Rebirth? I can’t imagine such a thing.
Oh, he wants to rip out the stud in his tongue. Something tells him to do so, to rip it out so he’ll never speak again, leave a useless lump of mangled flesh in his mouth. Cheeks full of blood. Piercings get so easily infected, you know.
Wobbling on the armchair, he cracks the blinds open and the crescent moon bares its teeth, laughing at his rotten shell of a body from where it hangs cackling in the sky. There’s no man sitting there to watch him, so he closes his curtains as tight as he can and kisses the inside of his wrist like a lover might. His lover, so tightly entwined with himself — uzumaki, Ouroboros, they are one. Night of the man and he is the man.
Fragments again, past lives screaming WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING all over the house now. They’re angry, he’s angry. It’s the heat. The heat makes everyone mad — 90F and above, it’s enough to make a man crazy. Crazy? He was crazy once. He’s not crazy anymore, thank God, but he’s damn close to it. The rope feels like finality as he tightens it around his neck, gentle like a warm lover’s embrace oh God a lover. And when he dies, his throat will swell into a great big thing, tight and wrecked by the screams of nonsense ス文学 he uttered in death. Magnum opus, he’s returning to his roots now; alma mater, pitifully writing his final soliloquy only no one’s here to hear it. There’s not a soul to see the work of art that is his body naked and bleeding about to be hung like a criminal.
PLEASE READ “DAWN” FIRST —— VINCENT KNIGHT
He’s art, and he’s beautiful when he dies.
It’s too much thinking for one day. He hasn’t written a thing since morning.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀——⠀もう⠀すぐそこまで⠀
His forearms are sullied with the pitiful cries of hope from years months days past. He can’t be bothered to keep track of anything anymore, much less what fucking time it is. Maggots don’t have to worry about time, just lay your eggs and grow and eat and die but at least they’re creating along the way, maybe he’s a maggot, maybe he’s a dirty fucking worm crawling along the trash bags. Pitiful. What are they saying about him, he wonders? Oh, it’s not like he doesn’t know what they call him, the voices in the kitchen trailing into his bed, seeping into the covers saying what in the world are you doing, boy, get up, there’s not an ounce of good you’re doing here, you did say you’d bring something big, didn’t you, what a liar, a liar.
It’s been a long day.
The trash bags in his kitchen are starting to seem appealing. It’s impossible to see where one bag starts and the other ends — they’re piled up all over the floor, massed together to the point where they’ve all become one massive bag of shit. He laughs, because it’s ironic — and laughs some more, because he’s quite the bag of trash himself. Not to mention he smells a bit like one. If he could crawl in one and make himself a little home among the bits of lettuce and the worms that raise their heads when he stomps, he might melt into the bags without a trace.
He breathes.
It’s like a butcher-shop. In, out.
“Something’s coming.” His chest heaves. He vomits all over his sheets. It coats his hands, sticky with the soggy pieces of moldy bread he half-heartedly chewed from breakfast. Don’t blame him, okay, he can’t bear to go into the kitchen when ghosts are tied to the knives. Ribbons, bows, it’s like silken strands of bile tie his wrists to his throat, a pool at his side decorated with bits of half-eaten fruit and partially digested eggs. He can taste them coming up. Sour. It burns, burns, burns. He tries to sever the ties, but ends up gagging all over his pillows, too exhausted to stand. It’s the heat, the heat’s making him so sick, that’s all he can blame it on. It’s the heat.
Do you believe in rebirth?
He’s a good dog. He doesn’t bite. He never gets lonely, you can leave me alone all day and I’ll do all you like — put his lithe body in your hands and he’ll pass out right there. Being held does that to a guy, can you blame him? He’s a good dog, a happy dog, his name is carved not into a tag but into the table.
And he is a criminal, he’s worse than that, he’s a rotten old worm who’s done nothing but take his whole life. His scarred, meatless thighs tremble as he climbs onto the armchair, covered in old clothes he’s been picking up and wearing without washing for ages until his back gets covered in rashes. Burns, too, from the piss drying on the backs of his thighs, red and raw and painful. It’s supposed to be painful, he can’t tell if he likes it or not but it’s good either way. He’ll burn now, the burning is good. He was wrong about the heat. He’ll let it take him even if it’s wrong.
The clouds look like ash from where he lies crumpled on the floor. He doesn’t move until night. The stars seem to explode over the sky all at once; he wonders what Jupiter might have looked like among them. Maybe one of them is a fragment of Jupiter, a little piece of a larger body like all the lives he’s had before. Lives like stars, grains of sand, seven point five sextillion grains of sand on this beautiful green earth and all of them are clear eyes watching him in his living room.
Dead variable, written to but never read. Letters pile up on his nightstand. He doesn’t want to open them, they might let the sun in, you know, he’s terrified of burning a̶g̶a̶i̶n̶.
Based on NETSU IJOU (Nightcord at 25:00 + Iyowa).
Two halves of a fortune cookie. More like three-fourths and one-fourth split off somewhere many, many years ago. Something’s coming and it’s not pretty. Has it ever been pretty? Not really. That’s just how it is.
神を忘れ いつの間にか迷宮に迷い込んだ
Oh, he thinks, delirious with fury and fervor. I’ve forgotten. Neglected myself yet again. His sweatpants are soaked through. Call it what you may; ‘working himself into exhaustion’ but hold on now, he’s got an idea, an idea! It’s an idea worth pissing your pants over, he thinks. Somewhere along the way he forgets about it, works himself into a fever again because it’s easier than facing the skeletons in his closet. Somewhere around the ninth cup of coffee, his heart stops, and his weary body finally falls to rest among his scrapped papers.
Will you hold my hand, please, ghost of my past? I don’t know who you are but I crave your embrace, sweet and kind, even though it’s unbearable to be touched. Skin on skin feels like burning, it feels like being loved and I long to be loved even though I smell like chlorine. Not that I don’t like the smell. It’s chemical. Sharp. Not acrid, but clean enough to be strange, empurpled words watered down to disguise the bitterness I feel towards all the little versions of me tumbling in the past. Each one sits on the power lines, twisted legs drying and dangling like washcloths out to dry. (The sky remains blue all day like your eyes; if I opened my palm would I find you staring back at me?)
Maybe he is dirty.
臆病羊 科学というフィルムに取り憑かれて
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀DUSK.
Heat Abnormal, now coming to WHERE YOU ARE.
He watches the noodles rotate slowly in the microwave. He’s tempted to put aluminum there for the hell of it and watch the sparks fly — he’ll be fine, probably. Even ice can burn. Risk and reward. Fireworks in his very own little kitchen. He doesn’t do it, in the end, too tormented by the screams of the past haunting the corners of his apartment. He stumbles, throwing his papers off his desk. Numberless papers scatter and fall to the ground in a whirlwind of letters, but he’s too terrified to care. Everyone’s speaking at once, every version of him in every timeline saying hey stop it stop that what’s going on shut up go write what’s happening you’re pissing me off go away that’s rude go WRITE —
Sometimes he hears himself whispering in the kitchen, some part of him separated from the whole long long ago — who’s that, you’ve gotta tell me, ‘cause it isn’t me. That’s not me in there, I’m not the one handling the knives and holding them in the flat of my palm like I’m not gonna hurt myself. That’s him.
TW: v0mit, blood, s/h, somewhat graphic su*cide scene, copious amounts of piss
The sun rises.
He slams the razor into his skin, instant fascia. Skin splits like a cut banana. The lines are methodical, but this one’s fat and curved, flesh lumpy and red and it hurts. He holds his arm over a pile of tissues on the floor and waits for it to stop spurting. Clots of blood fall out. It’s worse than any kind of burning. He remembers being burnt. Or does he? He doesn’t entirely know. He never really knows much of what’s going on, so it hardly matters in the end. Like a galaxy, one long red swipe surrounded by small beading scratches. The sun and the stars. Dead variable, he adds soon after, and stitches the wound up on his own.
Oh, something’s definitely coming, he just doesn’t know what. Does it matter? It’ll be a big change, now, a big development for America — well, is it good or bad for the economy, that’s the real question! His radio laughs from where it’s seated on his nightstand, old white man’s voice crackling as he shares the humor with his co-host. Oh, that’s the real question, all right. Will I stay or will I go, yeah?