"'Rome! Good livin' Hell, 'Rome, I feel so good right now!" Chrissy manically shouted as she bolted into the common space, turning more than a few heads.
     Not missing a beat, 'Rome lept off of the ping-pong table he was lounging on, shouting, in a crouched position, at Chrissy, "What the Hell's got you so excited‽"
     "I'm happy!" Chrissy belted five feet in front of her. "I woke up and I'm happy! Oh, dear nether-regions, how did I get these many happy chemicals‽ Don't let it stop!"
     'Rome had barely let Chrissy finish before he was barreling towards her, not bothering to look back as he grabbed her hand and charged through the door, screaming, "Get the fuck out' the way!" to any who might've been heading to relax.

     Chrissy snorted into her hand as 'Rome pranced around with his shirt off; no one was particularly certain how his braying and shirtlessness were an image of the warden but, judging from the rolling laughter and sizable crowd gathered in the lunchroom (outside of lunchtime), no one particularly minded. James sat towards the back, near one of the entrances, smiling gently. Amy was playing with a deck of cards, mostly shuffling them repeatedly; she glanced up every so often, smirking to herself.
     "And what – is going on, may…I…ask?" Charlie called out, slowly goose-stepping his way through the myriad of tables and chairs and people draped across them. 'Rome immediately jumped to attention at the table he was on, facing Charlie.
     "Just an enactment of display, sir! A crowded spewage of obscene caricatures, sir! A stage, sir, in my growing out of immaturity, sir! A, sir, part of, sir, my prescription, sir! Sir! Sir!"
     Charlie gave a crooked smile as he swaggered around the table that held 'Rome up, his eye never breaking contact with 'Rome's. He pulled a chair out from the table and, with an exaggerated flourish, sat down. Amy continued to smirk, shaking her head as she shuffled her cards once more. "At ease, soldier."
     Charlie stretched his arms out as he yawned; he tried to lean back in the chair but the unyielding metal frame caused him to just slump down. With hyperbolic irritation, he hoisted his legs onto the table as 'Rome jumped off. "And what are you all doing here?"
     "To watch the fool, sir!" Chrissy immediately piped up, the sides of her mouth turning upward for the first time in the past week.
     Charlie's eyes jumped from the fashionable 'Rome to Chrissy. "Aren't you supposed to be depressed? Shouldn't you be crying in a corner somewhere right now?" Charlie scoffed, taking his feet down.
     Amy put the deck down immediately, thumbing through the entire deck as she did so until she had everyone's attention as the sound receded. "Is depression so antiquated a notion," she asked as she stood up, before 'Rome could formulate his already confused facial expressions towards Charlie into words, and proceeded, taking her deck with her, towards 'Rome's table, "that you are unfamiliar with it, Charles?"
     Charlie casted Amy a bemused look. "You want something?"
     Unceremoniously, Amy casted her deck towards Charlie's face. "The Hell –" Charlie sputtered as he tilted backwards, his arms then spasming as he attempted to balance his chair. Before he had a moment to right himself, Amy grabbed a handful of his shirt and pulled him inwards. "Break this table – now." She thrusted her share of the shirt back at him as she released him.
     "Now!" Amy bellowed, her fist ripping through Charlie's composure as it rattled the table. He gave Amy a flustered look that seemed to misunderstand the request but Amy was already walking away, addressing the surrounding patients in the lunchroom. 
     "What's the matter‽ Are you just lazy? You haven't even bothered to start!" Amy's piercing calls rang out. Charlie managed to stutter, his eyes scouring his palms, before Amy whipped around and smashed her fist, again, on his egression.
     "I said…to break this table."
     In complete bewilderment at this task suddenly thrust upon him, Charlie's eyes darted across the room for tools – any – that he might use, his brain desperately trying to conceive of them in ways he hadn't before to tear apart what was in front of him.
     Causing him to jump in his chair, Charlie's surroundings infiltrated his thoughts once more as Amy snatched a nearby tray and slammed it against the side of the table, splitting it cleanly in two. Chucking the piece still in her hands onto the floor, Amy leaned across the table so that her leer was merely centimeters from Charlie's face. "There you go, a small example for you. All you gotta do is do that to the table. Think you can do that for me?"
     Amy got up from the table and started to pace in front of it, completely upright. She cleared her throat. "You probably want some hints." Charlie gave the pacing Amy nothing but a steely look as his right hand grasped the table in an attempt to stop shaking. "You should probably try smiling," she observed. "It would probably reassure me that you want to be cooperative and boost my ego that you're smiling around me." Charlie sat there, breathing steadily. "You could probably use my lessening up to try to regain composure." Hesitating, Charlie's lips twitched in an attempt to rise, his muscles trying to muster a grimace into a grin.
     With a sharp turn, Amy pounded the table once more. "How haven't you done this yet? I mean, you haven't even started! I already gave you an example. All you have to do is do what I did. Get it? Do it again!"
     His eyes burrowing into the ground, Charlie refused to react to Amy's repeated pounding, each downward execution of her wrist and shout perforating the blanket of quiet that had enveloped the room.
     "Do it again! Do you get that‽
     "Do it again!
     "Do it again!
     "Do it again!
     "Do it again!
     "Do it again!
     "Do it again!
     "Do it again!"
     The nightly recording for lights out creaked out over the loudspeakers. Sighing, Amy stood up as Charlie still refused to make eye contact. "Task still isn't done.
     "Go get some sleep; we'll do this again, same time, tomorrow."

In light of my last post being Harry Potter related…

A repost. I feel like it's not strong enough to stand on its own, still, but Kaz gave me his seal of approval on it so that has to count for something, right?

Below that is my favorite piece of fanfiction (though that may just be because I don't read fanfiction all that often). Maybe it's also because I just didn't expect it to surprise me. Oh well, I think it's good writing. As noted last time, that piece contains mild, graphic sexual content. My piece of writing does not, just the usual profanity (it's actually rather light on that, for one of my writings). Original source for the fanfiction: http://port70.net/?htext/fanfiction/hp_girlslash/174600.html

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    She cried, when Dumbledore died.
     The entire damn theatre was empty, too; the movie had been playing for weeks now, and she was the only one who kept showing up, the sound of her sobbing filling the room.
     If I could go back a year and attend high school again, I might've tried to actually talk to her. Not to say I didn't know her; well, as much as everyone knew her. She was always the one to pull out notebooks that had pages falling out by the end of the first week of school. She didn't seem to use them for school, anyway. God only knows what she wrote, but there was plenty scribbled all over the front of each one. From what papers fell out, we could see doodles and other trailing paragraphs of what we figured probably weren't notes from class; we hadn't been taught the amount of writing that was on all those pages by the end of the first week.
     Some of the lifeguards said they'd seen her on the weekends driving her siblings for swimming lessons in the family van. She always wore the same getup: hair back in a ponytail with some My Chemical Romance or other band t-shirt and the usual jeans. She didn't take lessons, herself. She just watched them from the side until it was time to take them home again.
     Another friend of mine had said he spotted her at Jewel one time. She had been alone, pushing a cart filled with groceries.
     Her dad didn't live with them anymore. Leastwise, not for the past 10 years, as the rumor flies. He just got tired of the extra weight and skipped town when he got the chance. Perhaps she missed him. A question I might've asked had I talked to her.
     But she had the dishes to do when she got home, as well as the yardwork, and usually the youngest had to have her diaper changed if her mom didn't get home quick enough, and then there was always the homework so that she could get to sleep, as well as the clubs she was involved with after school, since her mom said they'd help with colleges eventually
     And that damn Harry Potter movie, before they decided to take it out of theatres; two times a week, or so she hoped usually. Like a fucking duty, she took the time out to cry for Dumbledore.

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     Moaning Myrtle can be very quiet for a good enough reason.
     Having Pansy fuck herself, skirt up, panties hanging from one foot, shirt unbuttoned and a nipple peeking through the lacy bra is definitely one among them. Fuck, yes.
     Pansy’s eyes are hidden behind her school tie, the green and silver going beautifully with her pale face.
     ”Blind yourself with the tie.”
     “Didn’t know you were so perverted, Myrt.”
     “I’m not the one enjoying masturbating in front of a ghost.”
     It’s an agreement that leaves both satisfied. Well, as satisfied as a ghost can get.
     Myrtle still remembers certain tastes and smells. Ironically enough she can remember exactly how Olive smelled; lavender and slightly dusty, like an old house.
     And she can remember the taste of cunt. All the butter beer, the food, the hideous amount of chocolate gobbled throughout years and still -- the thing she can hint on the tip of her tongue is the slightly salty - almost how you’d imagine an ocean tasting - flavour of cunt.
     Pansy buries her fingers inside after she has come, a usual procedure. They’re glistening from her juices when she pulls them out. She uses her middle finger to teasingly trace Myrtle’s transparent mouth. Sometimes she sticks them inside Myrtle’s, down her throat and with a grin asks Myrtle to ‘choke on them’.
     But not tonight. Pansy starts to lick them clean, lapping slowly like a kitty; looking more graceful than her usual self.
     “Like an ocean right?”
     “Yes Myrt, like an ocean.”

TRIGGER WARNING: Self-Injury/Self-Harm

     I've spent most of my life hiding below the surface of everything just to keep sanity and being while my mind yearned for so much more. I always imagined I'd create such pretty things – of wonder, adventure, and fascination – while the actuality of my life continues to consist of the trite. It's how I came, brooding, into the world and, I imagine, it's how I shall leave it.

     Do you even get it? What it meant to cut? It meant that even those few uncontrollable emotions were silenced, that my body – for at least one moment – stopped screaming at this unsufferable world.
     "And I get it!" Chrissy screamed, swaggering about in a staggering rage. "I get why Amy fights everybody, as if the entire world owes stabbing her in the back.

Father: Thanks, Jonathan.  Like I said before, I read the stories and poems.  They're not bad, but I do think you could do better.  You should write more and write longer stories.  I genuinely think you're a good writer.

Confusing length with good writing is a folly that I'm not sure I even know how to properly respond to. I would like to know upon what qualification he bases his arraignment. To think I've always wondered where I retained my ironic sense of humor.

Sorry, do I sound miffed? We'll put aside that each of the pieces I exposed revealed concepts which I've struggled with, particularly in trying to make sense of them (the pieces were "The Only Thing We Have", "The Darkling Plain", "The Phonecall", "Fabrication to a Love Ode", and "A Memory"). Really, in all honesty, that's not the point.

It's that he's, somehow, designated judgement without the least bit of reasoning. Perhaps I'd be more understanding if I were less certain about the pieces (so perhaps my peeve is, once again, the complete lack of assumption of possible, even remote, fault in such an assured statement).

Sure, the pieces, to a degree, could be perceived as mere exercises in writing (and thus not trying to achieve something exceedingly beyond the pale at the sacrifice of the obsession with a particular technique or concept); I've always seemed to have a taste for the technical. I've also preferred doing a job that leaves no room for fault, even if that means it's short and doesn't achieve fame-level work. "A Memory" is not significant for being the next "Paradise Lost". It's significance lies in what it's able to accomplish and communicate in a mere three sentences; it may not be Hamlet material but it is well done.

I mean, there were five fucking pieces in that document. That's five pieces to dissect and tear apart and pillage for meaning. And how do you summate five pieces of writing? "They're not bad[…]."

Forgive me; perhaps I'm undercutting his sentences. The full sentence is, "They're not bad, but I do think you could do better." This is followed by the advice that I should write more and longer stories. Seeing that the following sentence moves focus from the writings I provided to future writings, I can only assume that his take on the pieces was that, "Sure, they're writings in the proper sense; but, really, give me something which I don't have to give, at best, one sentence of attention to."

On that note, here's an old piece I've done some revision to. You can find the original here. I've cut out good chunks of it just to trim the fat. Notably, it changes the focus of the piece a bit; certainly makes it more of a meditation on depression, though it also fleshes out the technique I was trying for the piece (even if not for as long of an amount of text).

I'm still on the fence about it, given that it really doesn't reach for much; it's certainly not nearly as busy as "Fabrication to a Love Ode". But it is an interesting technique and not one immediately noticeable; plus I think it captures what living with depression is like quite well. Oh well, here's my short piece of writing that's not even worth the time for a likewise-length dissection.

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     "Wha– sorry. Could you say it again? I jus-I wasn't listening. …. I see. Well…heh, well, who's to say? I mean – I suppose I just don't understand denial.
     It just becomes…suffocating, sometimes. It’s like I'm continually under this expectation to match every single internal and external action with the right response. Because when you respond incorrectly, that sends the wrong message. Which I'd hate to do. Because it's not unreasonable! Remember a birthday, remember Mother's Day, look happy to see someone when you say hello, go see the play your friend has been working on for God knows how long, check in on them when they're sick keep in mind when they had an interview attend their speech talk during the conversation respond make eye contactnodarcheyebrowsblinkbreathe
     "I spent the entire last weekend in my room. Heh – yeah…the entire thing. I just…didn't see the point in leaving. It took too much effort to get out the bed. And I was tired. So I tried to make sense of my computer screen for 36 hours. And it was…nice, because I didn't have to put any effort into anythin- no, I – I got lonely. I jus-
     I just needed to breathe.

     My largest difficulty was seeing far enough ahead. It was only through building concrete examples that any larger form became apparent for me. Give me rules, give me regulations. I'll be quiet; you won't even notice I'm there. Learning mazes is fun.
     I had to take my mother to the emergency room once. Everything was clean, filed, and helpful.
     I always felt more at home in sickness.

     "Oh, fuck!" Perhaps not the most elegant I could have been but an adequate translation of a headache cleaving my skull into two and a chest of mucus causing unmitigated reverberations throughout my rib cage. It was a deep cough, the kind you feel embedded in your very frame. Each expulsion let forth a rolling grumble, like an engine turning over as it strains to start; it's the sputtering before coherency.
     With a rapidly waving gesture, I managed out, "Grab me a soda: cream soda, if we have it; root beer otherwise," as I tumbled into one of the chairs.
     In spite of heading to the fridge anyway, she shot me a questioning look. "You've had 5 today already!" she exclaimed, her voice muffled from being stuck inside the fridge. "I have a feeling that cough and headache you have are not signs of good health."
     I started laughing, wheezing from my currently articulated predicament, so much so that I jumped in my seat as the can of cream soda was thrown into my lap from across the room.
     I smiled a grimace as I cracked open the can's top and held it up, commenting, "There is never an excuse to stop enjoy the best that life has to offer, even if you have a point. If I don't have diabetes type II sometime within the next 5 years, I will truly be surprised." I shuffled around in the recliner, feeling it envelop my sore body. "Besides, it's nothing that a good night of sleep cannot fix."
     "Don't you ever worry you'll sleep your life away?" she asked, shaking her head as she walked over.
     I kindly grimaced at her again, wheezing softly, "Ahh, no; I'm the lucky one." Her brow furrowed. "Get me tired and I have no issue going to sleep within 5 minutes; I also need 12 hours at least to remain operable. Some people toss most of the night and, once they do escape into sleep, they have nightmares to contend with. Is not the current world nightmare enough that we should be forced to bear more of it?"
     I settled back once again, sighing deeply with a steady, though dim, rattle. "Oh God! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space—were it not that I have bad dreams."

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I occasionally like to pretend I can write.

Am I asked to kick it?
Slick with it ('xcuse the fidget…) –
But rather posit the premise in H.E.R. presence not to wreck it
So check it:
Party people, can y'all get funky?
Shiiit, bring back the Monkey
Like you looking for fleas: get plucky
Move your feet, honey girl, 'cause you too lovely,
So forget the perms and pervs – does my skin look like vanilla, honey?
If life is beautiful, you best believe it's sundry
I ain't your type – that's alright
Find another – I won't fight…
There's too much beauty here tonight to protest
I want a girl who'll impress: highly intelligent bachelorettes
Fat ass or small breasts
Sarcastic wit with finesse
Pale, splotchy freckles, or ample plump to caress
You best believe that's the best – I won't settle for less
I want the reverse of bereft:
In this party I plan to invest
So you can chill DJ – this ain't no test
The track is Grade A: ought to hit you like a slug to your chest
But you can rest – the party's as legit as it gets:
Check the set
Breaking open bubbling 'pagne as we groove to the best
Moving[/move it] to a mess in hopes of keeping us sane
Working so hard dancing to [Aretha] Franklin – we 'gon make it rain
Rihanna the best Hard for mavens 'cause we got no restraint
And we 'gon ride that bounce of [Gladys] Bentley 'til the ending refrain