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<img class="CUNT" src="https://certifiedentity.neocities.org/images/SAM_1893_Original.jpg"> <img class="NAGS" src="https://certifiedentity.neocities.org/images/not%20a%20gay%20son.png"> <img class="NATD" src="https://certifiedentity.neocities.org/images/not%20a%20thot%20daughter.png"> <img class="AN" src="https://certifiedentity.neocities.org/images/An%20Entity.png"> [[<img class=“prose” style="width: 300px; top: 100px; left: -280px;" src="https://certifiedentity.neocities.org/images/prose.png"> ->Prose]] [[<img class=“poetry” style="width: 300px; top: -100px; left: -10px;" src="https://certifiedentity.neocities.org/images/poetry.png"> ->Poetry]] [[<img class=“screenplays” style="width: 450px; top: -300px; left: 300px;" src="https://certifiedentity.neocities.org/images/screenplays.png"> ->Screenplays]] [[About]]

[[The Otherside of Tears]] [[Tears of Joy]] [[Disorient]] (link: "Back")[(goto: "Home Page")]

(align:"=><=")+(box:"===XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX==")[Welcome to Chicago, home to Sweetness and Perseph! Would you like to see The Otherside of Tears?] <img src="https://certifiedentity.neocities.org/images/SAM_1800_Original%202.jpeg"> (link: "Yes")[(goto: "First Page")] (link: "No")[(goto: "Prose")]

I know this because they told me. When Sweetness was born something was wrong. They knew something was wrong even before the birth. A particular case of Ectopic Cordia, they said, usually it appears outside of the rib cage, the chest even. But the arm? Good God! (align:"<==")+(box:"====XXXXX=")[Miss White was ready for Sweetness’s arrival, she walked into the hospital on August 14th and said “she wants to come out.” And they said “Miss, the baby will let us know when she is ready to come out,” and she said “She told me she wants to come out,” and before they could say “And how, exactly, did she tell you that, Miss?” Miss White was on the floor bleeding where she shouldn’t be. ] When Sweetness came the doctors were ready, they had some of the best cardiologists on deck from all around the world. They made sure to avoid Sweetness’s right arm and the bright red muscle laid bare atop it when they cut them from the womb. When you work in a neonatal intensive care unit, you might as well forget everything you learned in med school. The babies defy anatomy. There are lungs where intestines should go. Kidneys that don’t look anything like beans. Blood vessel routes even Miss White’s 2007 Black Honda Pilot couldn’t maneuver. Arteries and veins walking where they please. But this, the doctors are somewhat accustomed to. Add a heart on the sleeve to the mix? Now we’re really talking. When Sweetness cried, Miss White couldn’t touch her, no one could, they placed them on a piece of silk to avoid the heart bumping and beating on their right arm. Sweetness wailed as the surgeons went to work at the heart, to remove skin from elsewhere and elsewise, to cover the heart so that it would be protected. “It is for protection,” they tried to tell them, as they thrashed, scared they might somehow bump the heart, would somehow smear red mush heart guts on the pretty pink silk. In the midst of the bleeding, Miss White twiddled her thumbs across the hospital bed, wondering what on earth she would name her shouldabeenaboy-baby? Sweetness’s father had wanted to name them Taufiq if they were a boy, and for the life of her she couldn’t think of any girl names she liked enough. But she thought, I oughta pick fast. Those damn doctors really meant it when they said her heart wouldn’t be where it was ‘sposed to be, they really meant it. She oughta name her quick. And well, maybe, if that little wasn’treallyagirleither made it out of her bosom, into the big big world, then maybe that little heart of theirs wasn’t so weak after all. And, well, isn’t it kinda sweet? And what about Roll Bounce? She had been skating at Lynwood roller rink her whole life, sure X was the better skater, but Sweetness? Sweetness was fab! A looker, and so, too, would be her Sweetness. Sweetness thrashed as they tried to skin them. Even without the thrashing, the doctors could not get close to the heart. It was too hot, it brought the sun into the room so that the white walls weren’t so white. It made the doctors' brows sweat, along with their pits, the back of their knees, the spaces between their toes. Those who got close enough to palm the air surrounding the heart found that their fingers would burn immediately. When it seemed Sweetness had finally cooled off some, perhaps upon the arrival of their right ventricle, the doctors tried again. They found Sweetness had cooled off too much. They hadn’t noticed the piles of snow and icicles that formed in the crevices and corners of the room. They couldn't grasp the scalpels with their frost bitten fingertips, couldn’t find the right angle to hold them, even without their big puffy coats. It was then decided that only one thing could be done for Sweetness and their little big heart. The doctors sent Sweetness home with an open heart, and 3 promises. <blockquote> 1. A promise: to meet monthly for routine visits. 2. A promise: to never leave their house otherwise. 3. A promise: to always avoid sleeping on their right side. </blockquote> <img class="TOOT1" src="https://certifiedentity.neocities.org/images/Screenshot%202023-04-18%20at%203.53.41%20PM.png"> <img class="MOM" src="https://certifiedentity.neocities.org/images/641958714.326280.jpeg"> (link: "Next")[(goto: "Second Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "The Otherside of Tears")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

''I know this because they told me, over the phone of course, but that’s all Sweetness and I could do for what seemed like ever. That's where I met them. Our first date was to a gas station a few blocks up the road. I had shipped the box to Sweetness a few weeks prior, but do not be mistaken, it was no easy feat. Miss White checked all of Sweetness’s mail, for bombs, or worse, dust. Sweetness was prone to online shopping, and their mom was prone to allowing it because you are prone to let your sick children do a lot of things they oughta not be prone to do. Packages upon packages of the latest fashions and makeup. Most of which were brand deals, supplements for the spending on the rest of which were not. “Could it slip through, maybe? With all those packages?” “No, trust me.” Miss White would open every single package without fail, even the one I’d sent Sweetness for Christmas a few months prior, a very special gift that would help Sweetness to imagine I was there during some of our late night, hushed hushed conversations…which also happened to be the first time Miss White heard word of me. So I shipped Sweetness their case by way of carrier pigeon, you could say. I snuck into their backyard to chuck it through their second story window. That's when our moments began, these things that were more than things that we shared with one another. The thinghappenings that happened outside the screen. Late at night these moments whispered and told me I didn’t just really like Sweetness, I loved them. When I thought of our first date, at the gas station, when the case was so new and scary and so we avoided touching it and I avoided touching them because I was busy thinking they weren’t real. And that was a disservice, because it takes a lot for somehowthing to be so beautiful and reallike, that was constant constant work that I shan't ever ignore! I went inside to get us slushies while Sweetness checked on their heart because even inside, butterflies had begun to seep through the pores of the car, orange wings of monarchs caught up in the air vents, red peacock to match Sweetness, pattering against the window, lines of feet trapped in the cracks between. Even though Sweetness was only cracking open the case to give their heart a good shush and perhaps to let out a little steam, it felt too personal to watch. I didn’t know them in the real world, only in the digital realm. A few butterflies remained when I returned, most of the rest scattered, hiccuping in the wind as they departed. I handed Sweetness their Coke slushie, with a dash of cherry to taste like the Cherry coke Miss White would let them have. I had blue because I liked that it tasted like a color more than a flavor. We laughed like we did on the phone as we drinked them. “Do you want some?” “No coke is gross!” “I love coke! I used to drink vanilla Coke all the time from Schoops! You ever had that?” “Schoops?” “No, vanilla Coke.” “Yeah, and I’ve had Schoops before too. But not vanilla Coke from Schoops–I had chocolate Coke there. It was gross.” “Chocolate Coke?” “Yeah with chocolate syrup!” ewwwwwwwwww <blockquote> Silence. </blockquote> “It’s a good thing we’re parked.” I asked why because I was scared Sweetness would try to make a move on me, which I wasn’t ready for, I couldn’t even remember what my hands felt like or how not to cry when they blinked at me. “Because the car would speed off.” I couldn’t feel them move but my lips said something like “what do you mean?” “My heart,” gulp, “when I have sugar, it makes stuff go real fast, look.” And they pointed to the clock, and the seconds were moving before I could even register their numbers, butts of 8’s and bellies of 2’s chasing after the words I couldn’t find to say because I was noticing the music, the already warped samples playing on the radio squeaking in pitch, black noise grown too swift to register. So I said “woah” and they laughed and said “yeah” which meant crazyIknow but I was too busy noticing. Noticing the wind pick up around the car, carrying the clock, leaving the ants and their mounds but ripping the black mounds of dried gum from the asphalt of the parking lot. Swimming with dust, debris, and all lessons of think-later-act-quickly. While I noticed, Sweetness held my hands which couldn’t feel but were somewhere imagining what it must have felt like, and I was happy we came so late in the night so few cars were in the lot, otherwise they would surely get swept up, wouldn’t they? And the people, would their hooded jackets be parachutes? I was caught up in gawk so Sweetness had to ask to kiss me twice. I swallowed the eeek in my throat and nodded. We kissed and the car began to spin around and around around us. The more we snuck away to these moments and thinghappenings, the more things began to still instead of speed. A calm stagnancy in limbo, clocks stuck at 11 pm, and then 3am when you come up for air, between the lips and laughs and lies admitted seconds after: “I didn’t even notice you commenting.” “Oh right, sure you didn’t…” “I didn’t! Seriously!”'' (link: "Next")[(goto: "Third Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "First Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

In the digital realm, Sweetness is bold and famous, they go by @Sourness on all their platforms. They have thousands upon thousands of followers, I know this, because I was once only one of them. All natural skincare routines made with gentle homemade products, proven by Sweetness and their many fans to work for the sensitive. Mixes and recipes created by Miss White herself when the doctor's medicinal remedies proved ineffective. Talc and powder free makeup tutorials along with makeup creations of their own, creams and liquids that the fans admired for lasting all day and night, for looking so natural and dewy. How to lounge in style, comfortable clothes for the fashionable at heart. Insecure about your arms? No worries! Sweetness was known for their puffy sleeves, regal style that only they seemed to pull off, ruffles and ruching and bodices. Sweetness grew up online, all their friends lived there, all their dreams and aspirations stayed within there, so they’d been there through it all. Through every trend, fad, and era of the digital realm, Sweetness had witnessed and been an active participant: the grunge resurgence of the 2010’s, the discredited ArtHoe collective that showed Black girls did grunge before grunge was grunge, the y2k craze of the 2020’s and so on and so forth. Sweetness has been accumulating a following their entire life. Sometimes they wonder how even after all this time no one wondered why they only showed their left side in pictures, in videos, in everything. How, even with their amount of fame, no one batted an eyelash at their absence at all events, award shows, and social outings fit for a micro influencer at least. Mysterious royal beauty with the eternally buzzed head. Must be for comfort, they're just so chill! Hair gives them heartburn, big fire hazard. Sometimes Sweetness stands in the doorway of their room, it becomes a hallway as they scroll on their screen. Through their feed, at assorted: images, videos, and clips of themselves. Never the ones they posted themself, that's not what they were interested in. The time was in the reposts, The screen recordings and shots taken at them, that's where it was at. They would stand for minutes in their doorway replaying the same videos of others seeing themself over and over and over again. That's where they looked best, over and over and over again until Miss White said something like whatareyoudoinggetintheroom. And Sweetness would call themselves silly, but later they would ask me “if I thought they spent too much time on their phone,” and even after I said “no, Sweetness you know it's more complicated than that,” they would think of how they looked in the mirror after they’d closed the app, after they closed the door and heard their mother do the same. How they looked in the mirror and thought how sad, how terribly sad. They would think of that and smile at me through the screen, smile and say “you’re right, haha.” Although I was the one commenting under Sweetness’s pictures and videos before, it was they who slid into my direct messages one fated evening. I didn’t post too much, not too much to post when you're in a lab most days. Being gay as I was though, most of my friends were creatives or at least had some sort of creative niche. One of my partners' sisters was shooting for a pretty big clothing brand that Sweetness had done a few brand deals for, they saw me tagged in one of the released photos and thought it convenient to see I already followed them. @Sourness: Hi @IHatePomegranates Hi…. Why so hesitant? Just waiting to see what this is about, I’ve been following you for years! Oh have you now? Well nice to formally meet you, I’m Sweetness. And I think you’re cute. I know who you are, not sure I would call this formal but I’ll take what I can get. I think you’re bold. You think I'M cute?? I mean, do I even need to say it?! Yeah, you do. Well you’re beautiful, I’d love to see if the inside matches the outside. Would you give me the honor of taking you out. That sounds very sensual Persphone… Also a bit corny but I’ll let it slide this once. how dapper of you. I didn’t mean it to be, sorry! Unless that's fine with you, which in that case… Also its Perseph! Not Persephone, thanks :) Sorry! The brand tagged you otherwise! That was dapper of you Perseph It's not enough to see you type my name Will you let me take you out? How about a video call first? I appreciate the forwardness but it's not everyday I meet someone I’ve only just met. Though I’m sure you feel you’ve known me forever, huh? No! But I’m excited to start now :) If you’ll let me, of course. I guess I can do that. I like that you’re bold.. You compliment me a lot, I think I’ll like you. Okay :) (link: "Next")[(goto: "Fourth Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "Second Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

I didn’t mention going out, like outout, until after a few months of talking to Sweetness. First, I accepted their reasonings: they had an appointment they couldn’t miss (perhaps there was some truth to this one), a family member had passed and they needed to attend the funeral (and who would I be to disagree with this), they felt too sick to leave the house for a few days (perhaps there was some truth to this one too), and the gist continues. Then I started applying my own reasonings: Was Sweetness an AI being used for some really sick game of catfish? Maybe those guys who tried to steal my patent for the glass used to make the case? I mean what better way to get at the Black queer than to send them the faux everythingperson of their dreams? Was Sweetness trying to use me for my money…even though I’d only sent them a few silly gifts and trinkets they could’ve easily bought for themselves…even if I really didn’t have that much money? Or maybe it was that they didn’t have money, and felt too insecure to go out with me knowing they couldn’t pay! Rather butch-femme of them, sure, but still didn’t fit the bill. Sweetness was crying when they told me the reason they wouldn’t see me. They cried because it happened after I accused them of not loving me. I knew I wasn’t Sweetness’s first online relationship, wasn't their first pseudo love that wasn’t exactly pseudo. It could be real, it was real, it's just hard to deal with a longing heart. I didn’t know it then but, late at night, when I would sleep with Sweetness still on the line, I would hear a distant, faint whimpering. I spent nights like that, thinking it was just them, plagued by a nightmare perhaps. But once, their face, soft and slack with dreams I hoped I was a part of, laid clear as day on the screen: their mouth wasn’t moving, it was their heart, crying silently for me and everything else just out of reach. “It's not only you I haven’t been able to see…” “What is that supposed to mean?” “I haven’t been able to see any of them, anyone, ever, so don’t take it so personally–” “Don’t take it so personally? Don’t take that you’ve been wasting my time for 4 months just to say you don’t love me and you don’t wanna see me and blah blah blah blahhhhh” “I didn’t say I didn’t love you.” “Then why won’t you see me?” I was crying, inconsolable as well, I should point out. I should also point out that I was behaving like a blubbering fool because I was one, that night at least. Drunk off way too many I-paid-for-these-myself-at-the-gay-bar-because-I’m-loyal-to-my-lover-who-i-don’t-even-know-is-real martini’s and running out of ears to yell into by the second. “Because of my heart.” “Oh would you cut it with the sentimental bull–” “Somethings wrong with my heart, Perseph. It doesn’t work like it should, it’s not where it's supposed to be. It doesn’t feel right.” I think Miss White knows, about the moments we share, Sweetness does too. The thump against the grass with nerves to catch their fall from the first story window, the giggles and the sounds of mouths smacking, I love you. We think she lets Sweetness have this, lets us have this, that she understands. When she’d found that first package all those months ago, she wasn’t shocked. She’d heard all the hushhush and the haha’ing. Smiled quietly to herself as Sweetness snuck away to their room after dinner to call me, and if that wasn’t enough, the phone bill was more proof than any. I was different because I continued to visit Sweetness at their window. Miss White used to ask neighborhood kids to come visit Sweetness there, and they would, but only for so long. Everyone always wanted Sweetness to come down, or to let down their hair to let them up but Sweetness didn’t have any hair. Sweetness would tell some friends they got close enough to let know online, to come by and say hi to them, beneath their window. Some would come, but would grow uncomfortable with Sweetness. They weren’t quite what they expected. Much more meek in person. I kept coming, because I was seeing Sweetness elsewise too but I wanted Miss White to see me seeing Sweetness, to trust me, so that maybe when the light in her room turned on everytime me and Sweetness booked it to my car a block over for one of our thinghappenings, she could turn it off within a few minutes. So that she could go to sleep knowing Sweetness was in good hands. (link: "Next")[(goto: "Fifth Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "Third Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

I know Miss White knows because a month before the rave, she invited me personally to sit on the front porch. Sweetness stood on the other side of the door, I could hear their heartbeat. “I like you Perseph.” “Thanks Miss White, I like you too, haha!” And she sipped her sweet tea, hoping to bring a little more summer into the fading spring breeze. “My kid seems to like you very much as well.” “Haha, I would hope so! I love Sweetness!” My cheeks hurt from smiling too much and I know we both heard Sweetness giggling on the other side. I hoped she couldn’t smell me sweating because that would suck. “And I love that Sweetness loves you, and that you love them. I love that you return them home to me every night you two do whatever it is you do–” “Oh, Miss White, I’m sorry I um, we really never go very far! Only to the Cinema 8, or to the McD–” “I don’t need to know. It's alright, I’m not upset.” “Oh! Ummm okay.” “I’m not upset…but they…the doctors, they’re scared and…they’re starting to get upset.” Sweetness is breaking the rules. They are not supposed to leave the house except for their monthly visits with all the specialists and experts. The bumps in the road on Miss White’s Honda Pilot alone was enough to worry her. Besides, Sweetness has been showing their heart, exposed and beating fast and slow. They have shown themself to everyonepeoples and howpersons around who look and they are preparing to bump and introduce and realfemmelike. They have exposed themself, and that is scary: Sweetness is playing too much, having too much fun, too happy, too up up up than they’ve ever been and who knows what could happen then. They first told me about the rave during our umpteenth outing. Sweetness’s mom didn’t let them eat fast food in fear of a fatty heart, once Sweetness had a 10 piece chicken nugget as a toddler and the entire house turned to thick gloop. Miss White had to fight through the slow motion languity to save Sweetness from the lethargic goop. They only asked for fries now so we thought that was a fair compromise. Plus I like kissing Sweetness slow, having more time to admire them, to think about what it would be like to live in the space between their dimple or the crease of their eyelid. It was really no problem at all. Then it seemed like a fun idea, none of our moments had breached the bounds of their neighborhood so I laughed and said yeah, that would be fun! And left it at that. <img class="MOM2" src="https://certifiedentity.neocities.org/images/641960128.715826.jpeg"> (link: "Next")[(goto: "Sixth Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "Fourth Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

The next time was after we took things far. I’d decked my apartment out with air filters and humidifiers, cleaned every surface everyday with the products Miss White had made, delivered via carrier pigeon of course. Hypoallergenic silk sheets and pillowcases placed atop my recently purchased steel bed frame and memory foam mattress topper. Wood could mean splinters and feathers proved quite irritating, unfun cupid arrows straight into Sweetness’s heart. I picked Sweetness up as I usually did, them throwing their shoes over the window first, always too tall and chunky to risk rolling an ankle over upon landing. When they lept the short distance down, my hands were always there awaiting their waist, and Sweetness made sure to keep their arms stiff as a T so their heart wouldn’t get too jostled. Ever since our moments began, I’d been hitting the gym to boost up my arm strength so catching them became easier and easier, surer and surer. I used that same arm strength to carry them into the doorway of my apartment as they giggled, sure to angle them properly through the arch. And they giggled in a similar way, and yet slightly different, when I used the same arm strength to lower them onto the silk. Sweetness didn’t taste sweet, they tasted rich and full bodied. I was busy tasting them and thinking room temperature sure does feel warm when Sweetness called to me, reaching their arm down to my shiny chin to lift my face up to theirs. I wanted to live in the space where my cheek filled their palm. Were there rules there? A curfew? “The case…” “What about the case, Love?” And I was kissing their thighs because my mouth needed something to do while it missed them. “It's too warm in there, my heart, it can’t–” And I could see that they were crying, and they were a little overwhelmed, and so we sat in the bed together, cross legged for a while, holding hands, and using our palms to cup each other everywhere with a peak. When we weren’t, we breathed together. The room was still, the silence you fear during a bad storm in Calumet City, when it makes you wonder if the tornados that should only be Springfields problem could be yours too. “I think…I think I need to take the case off.” “Take it off? Oh! Um, okay, umm I–” “I mean, to be comfortable. To relax. I can't be pent up in the case, all trapped like that.” “Right! No, I totally understand–I just, then maybe we should stop? I don’t want to hurt you,” and smear red heart guts all over the sheets. “No, I want to continue, I…I’ve lived a long time without the case Perseph, I…I love it, I do, but…I want to really be me when we do this. I trust you, I want you to share this with me this way.” And so we kissed again, and things did many things around us. Many things indeed. The clock ran and rested then sped again. The trinkets in my room, the toys and knick knacks passed down and picked up for cheap teetered over the edges of every shelf and surface. They landed with plastic, brass, and ceramic thuds atop the hardwood floor as my hands found the case, unbuckling the two hot pink rhinestone encrusted straps that surrounded it and Sweetness’s right arm. A whoosh of steam exited the case as the last buckle clanked free. There was a murmur in the air, the sound made between the subtle shifting of the floorboards, the stifled jingle jangle of the hangers behind the closed closet doors. The books exhaled along with Sweetness and I as the case dropped atop the sheets. We were kissing and all was whirring music around us and hmmms. We laid down, with Sweetness laying on their left side facing me, bare and open, and I on my right, facing them , bare and open. That is how we remained for the entirety of the night, my face between their arms, on my right side, theirs between mine on the left, I between their legs on the right side, they between mine on the left. Us between each other and we between in all together. The air crisp and perfect, albeit a little sweaty and sexy. We in all of this until the room breathed and we laughed while they lay their head and hands and everything in my chest, their feet in my hands, knees in my mouth, knuckles in me and when it was all done and still happening Sweetness mentioned the rave again, with a yearning in their eyes I hadn’t seen before. The case floated in the air behind them, moved within the heat of it all, submerged in the air still in a moment. (link: "Next")[(goto: "Seventh Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "Fifth Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

Sweetness knew the doctors didn’t like what was happening between the two of us even before I mentioned it. About how I was scared to take things even further, how I would love to take them to a rave, would love to give them this thing, to help give them this thing they always wanted, but I was scared. “I don’t know how much time we have left Perseph, they’re watching.” And sure enough, they were, figures in white coats placed here and there wherever Sweetness and I went: a head peeking through the aisle seat a few rows up at the theater, the face visible through the bright headlights in the car behind us at a drive through, a silhouette always enough distance back on the walking trail to not cause suspicion. So we planned for the rave like it would be the end. It was scheduled to be a rave ballroom collaboration of the century, a collaboration between two of the biggest Chicago houses open to all who were plugged into the scene. Sweetness had lived the queer life from behind their screen as they did everything else. Watching videos of butch femmes up in pumps, of femme queens voguing femme, serving dramatics and cunt and fishy fishy fish, of hands and spins and dips and bodies both limp and lively, enlivened on the floor, ducks and cats walking too and fro. They yearned for that life. Where the entities, the avatars, the characters, the faces moved freely. Where hips smiled and feet cried. Life of deep-deep love. A revolutionary love that ran true and through. Of something both like and unlike constant reciprocity, a life of commune and soothing words, of satisfaction and satiation, of history and hurt and pain. Good food and better sex, of lost lives and short promises, big dreams and bigger tits and even bigger hearts and brains and souls and chunks of flesh. I’d been to more raves than I could count. Walked in my fair share of ballrooms, and that's what scared me. Raves are all thumping, jumping, yelling moshes, more touching than feeling and lots of bumps and hiccups. Ballroom is all arms flailing, legs kicking and Sweetness had a goddamned heart beating on their arm for who-knows sake. I trusted the case. It was my life's work, although not currently governmentally approved what good did that do anyways! Sweetness had been a test subject amongst many, and they knew this. When they told me all that time ago, of their heart, I laughed, I laughed because what could be more goddamned perfect than someone with a heart on their sleeve and a biomedical engineer specializing in a specific type of glass made for situations just like this. For frankenstein people, who have to start becoming after the fact. I’d been fine tuning the glass for years, had gotten an entire research group and staff of lab assistants to help me work out the cranks courtesy of my phD program. When the staff of that same program tried to steal all the work the team and I had done, you could say we went a bit rogue, working in underground labs, moving through all the ceilings and systems to get what we needed done. Sweetness was our first real test subject, and it wasn’t truly a test, because I was sure it worked outside of the proof, but still. We’d never gone outout, not even to a bar, or a club to start out. And I was scared because I didn’t want Sweetness to get hurt or to die in my arms in some dramatic scene. I didn’t want their heart to explode inside the case and blast red atop the clear. I didn’t want anyone to see them except for how I saw them, so that they would tetris themselves out of their way, so that they would gently wave to their heart as it passed, coo and shush all its nervous whimpers away. (link: "Next")[(goto: "Eighth Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "Sixth Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

I was so scared that I wanted to throwup but here I am beneath their window, wiping my sweaty palms onto my sweaty thighs so that Sweetness won’t slip when I catch them. So their heart won’t thud against the top of the glass case and smudge it like the pink smokey shadow atop their eyes. Sweetness was all pink. Furry pink leg warmers despite the warmth of the summer night atop pink platform buckled gorgeous monstrosities for shoes. Fitting given the theme of today's event: The Creatures Come Out at Night. The fur of their hotpink tube dress matched their bottom and as well as it did their top: pink sparkly horns atop their head. And their head…Well thanks to the case, Sweetness was able to lay a lace front so clean even 20/20 vision couldn’t tell the difference. A long hot pink unit the same tone of the particularly placed rhinestones on the case’s straps, they tucked it behind their ears as they scooted their legs close to the edge. “Be careful baby I CANNOT fuck this up!” “I wouldn’t imagine it for the world, gorgeous.” They were in my arms, and I was staring at their pink lashed eyes and pink glossed lips and I wanted to kiss them but I had to swallow my fear because I was still so goddamn fucking scared. I thought if we kissed I’d vomit in their pretty pink mouth and then it wouldn’t be pretty anymore, it would be gross and puke filled. “You don’t look too bad yourself.” And then I did throw up, in the back yard right next to the dandelions coming through. At least I’d be curbing the weeds. Sweetness was gasping and crouching next to me, rubbing my back but it was just a touch because I couldn’t feel anything. I thought Sweetness would be the one to die so I didn’t take time to consider what to do if it was me. “Come on baby, let me get you to the car!” They were whispering because they didn’t want to wake up Miss White who’s light I was sure was already on, and so I was embarrassed for that too. And I want to cry and throw up again and run away, not from Sweetness, but just away, to somewhere else where I maybe wasn’t throwing up and dragging along behind the person I didn’t want to see me like this. And I think I was crying, but I couldn’t tell, but I was in the car now so I still existed so that's a relief. Sometimes when I cry I think the bottoms of my feet will get sucked into my mouth and I’ll swallow right into myself and be nothing at all and– “Perseph?” And my head was in their hands and they were looking at me with those damned pink lashes, and I always liked pink and brown together, sorta like those Bobby Jack zip ups everyone wore in middle school. How the fuck did they get their lashes to be pink they’re so pretty and cool and I love them, and my head is in their hands and their looking at me with their gooey eyes and I’m still scared but less scared and I feel like a big blubbering fool again because was it that serious? That I had to fucking throw up? Was it really that serious if suddenly I can breathe again and they're smiling and laughing at me. “Feel a little better” I was all mhmmms and pouts. “Think you can speak?” Mhmmmm “What’s wrong, then Snookums?” And I liked that name because it made me wonder what the milk in their breasts tasted like, and so I wanted to cry again and said I don’t know because pushing through to the otherside of tears is tiring. “Wanna get a slushie?” “Huh?” “Yeah, let's go to the Three Roosters, or to the gas station, and get a slushie, should we walk?” “Walk? We’ve never walked there before.” “But we can, and it really won’t take long at all! It’s not far at all!” “But we’ll be late to the rave…” “Its 10, were way too fucking early anyways so this is perfect!” (link: "Next")[(goto: "Ninth Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "Seventh Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

''And we were walking, and I was thinking Sweetness’s feet must hurt in their platforms. We shouldn’t be walking, but there was the gas station, exactly where they said it would be. In the space between my throwup and the car and here I regained feelings in my hand so I knew we were holding each other. Sweetness got a coke slushie, as always, I liked that we had some alway’s between us, so I smiled while I sipped my blue. “Feel a little better?” “Mhmmm” “You scared?” “Mmmmyeah” “Cause of the rave? And the doctors?” “Mmmmyeah. I don’t want you to get hurt.” “I’m sorry Pookie, I don’t want you to get hurt either.” My head is on their left shoulder and it feels nice. I could live there too. And they are scratching the back of my neck because my locs aren’t there to block it, they are twisted and wound up, styled as my own pair of black horns. I realize people are honking as they pass us sitting on the curb of the station and I laugh because of how cute we must look, with my matching black fur skirt and fishnets covering my tattooed knees. “I’ve always wanted to do this.” “What?” “Sit outside of the gas station, it's like a scene outside of a movie! The character’s always thinking about something, or in between going from one place to the next, hitching a ride.” Sweetness stuck their thumb up and out, and I wrapped my hand around it and held it to my chest. “I’d be satisfied if this was all I got to do tonight,” and they turned to kiss me on the mouth so I wouldn’t jolt up like I planned and I hoped they didn’t taste barf. “What do you mean?” “We don’t have to go, Perseph.” “No!” “Really, we don’t have to. I’m–I’m sorry, I was so eager I didn’t even stop to realize how much stress it would put you under! It's not worth that. If I’m hurt, I know you’ll be hurt. I should consider that too, right? Haha.” “Oh helllll no, we’re going to that rave.” “Perseph, you literally just threw up cause you’re so stressed.” “You know what Sugamama used to say?” And Sweetness was listening closely because they loved when I talked about Sugamama, who would make me ooey gooey pumpkin butter cake every holiday which was practically everyday for me, who had a penchant for smoking pot and calling anyone under 25 chilrens. “She said she used to like throwing up.” “Ewwww, why?” “Cause once it's done, you feel sooo much better, best to get the gross and grimy stuff over and done with so we can have some fun, huh?” “But baby…” “And I bought all this molly because you said all that shit about going big or going home and blah blah blahh.” “Well if anything, we can go and not do the drugs and shit, I guess maybe that’s for the best…” “Oh no no no, we’re doing the molly, we’re doing it all tonight, come on hot stuff, and you know what, let me look at you one more time before we go!” And I was standing up with Sweetness’s hand in mind, twirling them around and around like a princess as they giggled, noticing the thin lines of sparkle in their hair, the swirls of their babyhairs, one in a superman S at the crown of their head. The berry plum blush atop their cheeks, their full lips and their beautiful teeth and their mouth and throat, looking for a tongue? Could I fill it? “How about we get you some mouthwash before we head out, yeah?” We laughed and I buried my fear in the space my spleen once was, made space for the joyous feeling of fuckit,weball of whythefucknot! Of ohtohellwithitall and justkissmealready!'' (link: "Next")[(goto: "Tenth Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "Eighth Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

We studied for the rave on the way there, listening to various songs by the various performers and dj’s expected, the black noise: moans, screeches, whales, promises, beats, clanks, bangs of brass, a harp? A harmonica? Anything and everything was possible in each line, each strum and drum drum drum, rumpumpum knocking, who’s there? We tapped feet, the dash, and thighs, stole glances out the rearview as we passed the city by, towards a pack of warehouses I’d been to so many times before. I told Sweetness of my first ball as they gawked at the reaches of the city they’d never before seen, the lights so pretty and harsh and so high up. I took the backroads and turns I didn’t need to, so I could tell them more stories of the things I’d done, the places I’d seen and all the fleshpeople I’ve met. Summer felt good on our exposed skin. I wished I had a roof I could roll down, so Sweetness could stand outside of it with their hands in the air. Parking was ridiculous and neither of us mentioned all the white coats and stethoscopes we saw in the parking garage. We just smiled, and walked, the heels of my Black boots clicking in a satisfied sharp, maybe I was the one who would regret the shoe choice. I lived in the excitement of walking the city streets with Sweetness, hoping that maybe, if tonight went well, no one could be mad. No one could be mad if it went so well it laughed in their faces and said see,Itoldyouso! Nothingtoworryabout! We decided to take the pills in the alleyway beside the front entrance, to take time for Sweetness' turn to be scared. Plus I needed something to fill the decreasing space between my fear and my throat, because it was trying its hardest to come up up up again. We washed the chemical taste down with the rest of the slushies and then Sweetness sucked the blue off of my tongue, always becoming the most bold when they felt the least like it. I left my fear in the empty Big Gulp cup to pick up on my way out. The inside felt like a carwash. Bright colors, hues of pink and red and blue and green pulsing, patterns and fringe and lace where soap suds would go, decked out decolatages and figures instead of cars. Time moves differently here. Even before Sweetness’s heart got involved. We had to release a few butterflies from the case in a corner only moments upon arrival. Despite Sweetness’s stoic face, their heart was turning a slimy shade of green. We stayed towards the back to watch it pass through a muddy brown before returning to its rich red. Around us there were jellyfish, werewolves, Black mermaids, faeries and real life angels. I think I even saw God walking among us back there, at the rim of the crowd, the edge of the party. Couples, duo’s, crews, cliques and cutlets entered and exited the throng of shapeshifters. Some crouched holding stomachs as they prepared to do what I did in Sweetness backyard not so many hours ago. Others holding onto one another, laughing, wiping a brow. Headed towards the twinkling tea lights of the makeshift bar: a fold out table decorated in leaves, vines, and orbs, some sort of mythical jungle forest that could’ve been from Pumzi, or the mothership, the space between the tides and the bodies saying ohhellno, and somewhere else I wondered what it was like to live at. There is no periphery, or margins, in a space with no center, in a place where the spotlight sashays and switches every other second. But we began to dance at the lip of it all. A soft sway of the hips that was out of place with the blaring rahs and roars of the current set. A became woman dressed as a satyr, just barely visible atop the crowd's heads. Did they have hooves, were they tap dancing beneath the deck? I followed the tug on my hand to see Sweetness, now directly in front of me, their back to the crowd, so brave and trusting. They smiled at me, knocking their chin back beckoning to go deeper. I shook my head from side to side, looking up briefly to see all that flew above. Streamers and disco balls clouded by judgment, whatifs, and unsurity. Sweetness brought their palm to my face again, so that I could only see the void where their pupils once were, the brown holding on for dear life, and they nodded up and down. I shook my head no again, pulling back from their hand until mine lay empty in the space between us. Sweetness smirked, a deviant sexy thing, and ran in. “Sweetness!” And I was after them, leaving the distant chess pieces in the back, the open air that was perfect for breathing, into the mantle. My heart felt like a rock in my gut as I stammered around, turning every which way to spot their pink head, but there were so many! Pink braids of a unicorn, a pink fro too and fro, bussdowns much too similar to Sweetness’s own. “Perseph!” And there were hands on my waist, and I was doing that little jump scare. One hand to the heart the other to their mouth as I gasped in fear, relief, all everything between. “Sweetness, what the fuck you can’t do that.” “Yes I can! Haha!” “Well, yes, you can but–” “Dance with me!” “What?” “I wanna dance with you.” “Well we were dancing, back there where it's nice and cool and empty.” “Noooo, dance with me here, now.” So we began to sway more, more together, more pulsing in and out of and around each other. Circles and spheres and infinities, hands turned to fans, to claw down the exposed spine of my back where the halter allowed, then back to fans spinning spinning atop our heads. Grinding past, bucking beyond, twerking towards and apart. Tracing outlines and silhouettes in between the bitchyoulookfab and yessssgirl! Iknowthatsright from those around us, all dancing their own dance which was somehow the same as what we were doing but different, double edged. I felt good. Everything felt good and nice and warm. Like a womb, or a hug, which are really the same things after all. And everywhere Sweetness touched me was all my mind was until they touched elsewhere. My hip, welcoming their touch beneath the fabric of my top, their hand on my stomach, could it come out the other side? Would they go through me? No, around, picking up the sweat along the way as their hands looped backward, the small of my back made large, enough room for hands to do entire summersault routines, to knead dough and knit a sweater perhaps. Forget the crafts, their hands are on my ass, clinging to the globes, the world, and sounds are coming from me but they aren’t real because we can’t hear them over the thuds and pangs. I felt good. Everything felt good. Satisfied and ethical and pleasant. It's hard to think of nothing but pleasure because you have to know what it is to point it out. It's the pressure pushing down between my legs, the ache in my cheeks because I’m smiling at Sweetness and they’re smiling at me and I think I am beautiful because why else would they look at me that way? And they're so beautiful I want to eat them, or shrink them so they can walk the bridges our tongues create, swing on my uvula, make bouncy houses of my tonsils and slide slippery down. (link: "Next")[(goto: "Eleventh Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "Ninth Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

“I’ve never been as happy as when I’m with you. I don’t mean that in some toxic ‘you’re my only source of happiness’' kind of way, I just really mean it! I’m happiest when I’m with you. I’ve never been happier than when I’m with you.” “I love you.” “I love you more!” “No really, I love you.” “I know you do.” “You do?” “I do.” “I love you.” “I said I know you do!” “It's not enough.” “What?” “Love, it's not enough, there's something else there, between us, all of us, somewhere else.” “So you don’t love me?” “I love you and then so much more than I could ever speak!” And we were kissing but it was more than kissing, somethingeverything otherwise everywhere. And we were speaking in between the mouths and chins, the tops of the lip and the forehead, the cheeks and ears and neck and shoulders. We were saying things that didn’t exist yet, and singing, and laughing and screaming but it all sounded like empty scope so we kept on dancing and voguing and loving and morethanloving and ughing, aghging, fucking, shhhinggg, noooinggg, yessinggg, pleasingggg, mmmmminggg, nnggginggg, duhhingg and so on and so forthcoming. Everyone was, and so more hands came into the mix, and they asked Sweetness if they could and Sweetness said yes please and so they touched them where I could not reach. And Sweetness said be mindful of my heart and everyone who was near which was our everyone in that moment gasped and said “No way that's real girl!” And Sweetness smiled sheepishly and said “haha yeah, crazyIknow,'' but they were applauding. Everyone took note and made space for their heart, tapping the case with acrylic talons and wands, gawking and smiling as the heart blushed from the attention, which made every fleshperson in the room blush shades of berry and orange. They were taking such care of them that we didn’t notice the stage was coming into full view: a T, with the DJ stationed at the base, and a line of chairs for the judges at the tip. The satyr was gone, in their place stood something without a name, someone every like a dragon. A conglomeration of painted on scales and wings that reached outward, past the edge of the stage, brushing against the tops of heads, shifting laces and bumping into ears and horns. We were all touching with feeling which is the only way we can touch. Everyone's hands reminded me of Sugamama’s, or Miss Whites, or Sweetness’s, or the first girl I kissed, the fifth english grade teacher with bumped ends who said I could do it, the stylists at Leopard Lady Hair Salon. I felt them brush against my calf, untie my boot, twist the beadybees at the nape of my neck, twinkle the piercing above my brow and toy with the hair of my nostril. And the music was different now. This set much more like a birth. A lament with and without grief. Unexplained tears streaming from whoknowswhere. Wails that had wails, wails that had tails, moans that moaned. Kindred keening. Sweetness, do you feel this? A tap on my chest. Do you like it? A tap on my chest. You feel alright? Tap tap. How’s your heart? Tap tap tap. Sweetness? Sweetness? They were smacking my chest now, one hand gripping my waist and I tried to get my eyes to really look at them but I was seeing so much more and the everyone had become a bigger everyone and I couldn't find them in the midst of it all. Sweetness? A gasp for breath just barely not a part of the music, slightly off an unspoken beat that was always present. Another gasp, and a cough and I could see them clear as day now, and we were much too close to the stage. How did we get so close to the stage? Sweetness was choking and gargling and they couldn’t breathe, but they didn’t look sad, the corners of their mouth were upturned in a smile and they were looking around as they beat beat beat on my chest in disbelief. They looked like they would pass out. And I could see the stage. How did we get so close to the stage? How did we get so close to the stage? How did I let us get so close to the stage? How could I let this happen? What was happening? Sweetness? And now Sweetness really couldn’t breathe. If it could, I knew the heart would grow arms to slither through the cracks of the case, to choke them itself. And somewhere I’d begun to mmmmmno instead of mhmmm, and those turned to mmmmmnonono, and those turned to nonononononon’s and waitwaitwait stop! Because fleshpeople things were surrounding us now, in a way that touched but did not feel at all, and I was so scared because the heart was whispering see,itoldyouso. I was begging for it to please please please do something that I didn’t know but that might fix all this, because the music was starting to speed up. The howling turned to chipmunk squeaks, and around me people gasped and others screamed because they were levitating and then they weren’t, spinning and then getting stuck still. The room was blazing hot, then cold, then hot, and the walls changed from goo to wall back to goo again and I was scared the world would end right here. Us all crushed beneath the warehouse that wasn’t a warehouse anymore, just scraps of wood and planks and sparkles with no explanation. (link: "Next")[(goto: "Twelth Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "Tenth Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

In The End, all is possible. The clouds are pink because it is the prettiest color afterall. Always between things: like dark lips and tongues, or the innards of berries. All that is sweet and possible. The clouds are pink and they rain whatever we need them to rain. Sometimes water crystal clear and delicious you can drink it straight from the source like milk. Yes, sometimes water, but also blood when mourning, ceramides when pores become too clogged, soup when too many are hungry (varying day to day for the specials of course, Wednesdays for chicken and wild rice, or Friday for yellow lentil). The clouds are pink and they care for us as we do them. Ride atop their 4c plush wherever we need to go. Pet their head when they feel too heavy to stay high. Compliment them until they blush rose–the sunsets and moonrises are most beautiful that day. In The End, all is possible. The ground gives, soft like all else here. It gives to bear the weight of the trees when they get up to stretch their limbs and walk to spots with more or less light. Trees pat the heads of children and stuff their fros and locs with fallen foliage. Bare them fruit and sap to suckle on. No need to worry of getting stomped, the trees always know where all is. They avoid all the rabbits, inform all the squirrels to exit or hold tight, tiptoe around ant hills and snails. In The End, all is possible. The streams are soft and sweet, when you ask loud enough, they will whisper you where you need to go. Who needs help. Where something is. The water knows everything, remembers everyone's names and fears and dreams. The water rememories all. When you dip in, a toe or something more full bodied, it will read you your qualms, your ailments, and deepest insecurities. Even from the faucet. Every morning and every night folks listen to the rasped whispers of the steam or the ice. Within the walls of their castles they listen to what the water has to say. When the sink stops it’s drip and the windows block the roar of the oceans and rivers and lakes, their tears mumble sweetnothings and rudeawakenings: it’ll be okay, or maybe it won’t. A scratched, barely there, soft whisper. The emptiness, the fullness, of a throat grown raw from laughter or a night of too much fun. In The End, all is possible and still, we were taken aback. (link: "Next")[(goto: "2nd Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "Prose")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

(align:"====><=")[(text-colour:white)[Welcome to The End, home of Joy. Would you like to to see Tears of Joy]] (link: "Yes")[(goto: "1st Page")] (link: "No")[(goto: "[[Prose]]")] (align:"==>")+(box:"====XXXXX=")[Photo by Sam Lee at HoodRave LA Freaknik Rave]

I was really screaming now, and crying, and holding Sweetness to me. Then I saw her. Tall, dark, and handsome like it was meant to mean, gold Pleasers that laced all the way up their umber legs. Legs topped off with a high low dress made of yellow gold and bronze feathers. Atop her face was a bird mask the color of butterscotch, with golden feathers to match: a gold phoenix. “Now what the hell is going on here!” The woman called, to which unanimous “I don’t know motha’s” were heard. “Well move up out the way so I can see,” and she flew down, from atop the stage where the DJ once was. Where had they gone? Her wings cleared the path to us, shriveled up on the ground, blubbering and gasping. “Stand on up now, come on.” “But, ma’am–” “Motha.” “Motha, their heart, I–” “I know, come on, stand em up. You too. Why the hell you sittin on the floor of a damn ball like you ain’t got no sense.” I trusted she made sense because I stood up, bringing Sweetness up with me who was coughing less now since everyone had dispersed, an imperfect ring around us. “And what might your name be?” “Sweetness.” “And I’m guessing that thing right there,” and they pointed to the case, fogged up but not enough to hide the beat beating, “is what’s causing all this ruckus?” “Yes Motha.” “Well I would too if it were me, all choked up like that. Ugh! It’s GOT to be hot in there, what y'all think?” And the everyone, all the flesh and glisterer’s and winks spoke back, giggled and mmhmmed. “This must be your first ball, huh?” “This is my first everything.” “Well how about a special first look, best seat in the house! Oooo the Legends gon have a bone to pick with this one, better than a heart huh?” Motha Phoenix took Sweetness’s hand as she laughed to herself, and I followed behind, confused and scared but trusting she made sense. Each step she took with the left whispered suresuresure, the right yelling realrealreal! Where her wings lead, entities cleared out the way. It was a straight shot from the core to the stage. “Let's get this thang off, pretty as it is, hm?” Said Motha, and so we obliged, because she was full of so much sense. With two snaps, the case was off, and Sweetness’s heart was out for all to see. Cheers erupted so loud Sweetness and I realized neither of us was staring at the crowd, but there they were. The everyone, in shades of all colors, from the depths of the ocean where our ancestors danced to shift the tides, from the sky of our furthest imaginings, the galaxy we wished to go to, the river, the lake, the forest where only those who know how to trek can pass, from the movies and the books and the secrets. They were all there and they were cheering and whooping and throwing love all over us. Fingers shaking no, face scrunched up in disgust waving down down down: is there a better feeling than someone being disgusted by how good you look? How real you are? How fab? We strutted down the walkway, toward the back of the T where the judge table was, some epics decked out as Motha Phoenix was, others in casual clothing, always designer of course. The announcer yelled from the base, “Alright now y'all, let's get this show on a roll, huh? I don't wanna be here all night, though I’m sure y'all wouldn’t mind that at all, huh?” Voice booming even without the mic in hand, “If you know you’re walking tonight's categories please come to the stage so we can get this shit moving!” And even from behind the T, behind the announcer and Motha and all the legends she’d let grace us, the doctors were approaching the stage. I was whispering to Sweetness but they’d already seen. Was it really too good to be true? “We should just go,” they whispered. Only to me but one of the announcers heard and said “why?” with annoyance. After we’d been granted this gift? So I pointed to the doctors, strutting with their plastic shoes and cropped pants, stethoscopes swinging as if to taunt us. “Girl what? They just here to walk Professional, do it every week, swear they ain’t never gon leave they house even though they don’t receive nothing better than some 7’s!” And legend laughed, which made the other legends laugh, and I looked at Sweetness and they looked at me and we laughed, we laughed and laughed and couldn’t stop laughing. I hoped somewhere Miss White was laughing too, tucked in with the lights turned off, and that we’d never stop because how could we. We laughed and laughed and laughed happily ever after. (link: "Back")[(goto: "Eleventh Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

Marcus cut the umbilical cord without being asked. While he was squeezing Misha’s plump hand, dabbing her sweaty face with a towel and crying some murmuring things, he noticed a stall. The baby wailed a song of life, Misha bled atop the table and smiled spitefully with release. But the doctors, the doctors stood over the womb and muttered to themselves. They avoided eye contact except that of the writhing and wriggling two-palm sized baby. Their brows bent backward and downward, and when Marcus came, he understood why. He cut silently, smiling at Misha over her bent knees and worry. He took the baby and the doctors didn’t disturb. They just watched and choked on their thoughts. They blushed at their shock, they blushed at their shock. Marcus took the baby to the sink, cooed and shushed as the faucet turned. If she knew how, Joy would have smiled, he was sure of it. That was the only reason she kept crying those shiny tears. Streaming down her face, spattering onto her tiny hands and tiny arms, stark against the droplets of water Marcus splashed from the sink. He kept sprinkling the water atop her tiny head, no matter how many times it whispered //gold, gold, gold//. He just kept on sprinkling and smiling for Misha but she could see the tears from across the way. He just kept sprinkling until the doctors cooed and shushed him. Cooed and shushed him. Here all is possible and still, we were taken aback. When Joy was born, the sky cracked open and wept in her stead. It rained for days so that all the underbrush became over. The water shed new skins and had to teach itself about itself because even it didn’t know. <blockquote> //Ya’ll ever seen anything like that before? Hell naw. Not in this life or the next. Hell nawwww! Nope! It was gold? Yeah it was gold. What’s it mean? Can’t be sure, we gotta go deep. Till we know, we call the forest: Please put our girl to sleep!// </blockquote> But the trees were sleeping because even they didn’t want to risk the mudslide, and without them children ran with flowerless hair and brown feet. So the water looked toward the clouds. <blockquote> //If it ain’t gon be the land, then what about the sky? Come on now, the sky’s too wet! The sky ain’t even dry! Without that sky, that girl may die! Oh please. Oh Please? Could be yes. Could be no. Alas, to the clouds she’s got to go! To the clouds!// </blockquote> And the clouds obliged. It was true, they were much too wet, their pink soppy and goopy like bubblegum. Still, they wrung their softest flesh, to make a pillow for Joy. A pillow so fluffy the moment a head lay atop it, they wouldn’t remember ever having been awake. While the water caved in on itself again and then again, Joy slept. Her parents watched. And the clouds disappeared for days afterward: resting behind the moon and the sun to recover their sore eyes and achy limbs. Joy slept for days it seemed. It was only the tide pools, the waterfalls and waterspouts that eased Marcus and Misha’s clenched teeth, squeezed hands, and heavy hearts. Faucets ran as Misha brushed milky formula across Joy’s cupid's bow. Mothers eyes much too sore to produce a single tear more, ears too stuffed to hear the soft words they’d linger anyhow. She whispered her childhood to Joy instead, tales of her own mother, of her sisters and lovers and of Marcus. She whispered the commune, everyone waiting to meet her, all the children to play with and questions to ask and things to do. Misha was whispering the story of how “Once, when I was a child and my mama was busy putting bobo’s in my hair, a centipede crawled right across the floor.” And though she was too young to remember herself then, Misha’s mom would say: “I got up and ran out of that room so quick, and slammed the door after me! Can’t believe I left yo butt in there, right on with the centipede…But I sholl didn’t turn back around HA!” When recounting the story to her, just as Misha was doing then. “That’s why I’m scared of bugs, but your daddy, he gets them all for me,” she whispered, and whisper-laughed, and touched Joy’s soft cheek, her puckered lips. She was feeling that feeling of breathlessness, of vision going pretty painful red after staring at the sun too long. Between the whispering and the utter utter awe of her baby, her precious little stinky, she almost missed the water. “Misha.” Marcus, tapping her shoulder. “Baby, did you hear?” Marcus, turning up the faucets. Marcus, opening the blinds further to see the rain crashing down, the movement of the river and the lake and the stream in the distance. Marcus looking at Misha and then the baby. Misha looking at Marcus and then the baby. The baby, Joy, looking at them, wriggling like catfish in a frying pan. Like hot water cornbread in oil. The water’s combined whisper, its bang and clang on the windows and doors, a resounding raspy //gold, gold, gold//. <blockquote> //Good news is… The girl is fine! You’ll be alright. But be warned! Bad news is… The tears come at a cost. If she cries too much she’ll turn solid. Like a brick of gold. Solid as a rock! That’s what this love isss– Not now! Keep the tears at bay, whatever it takes. And protect the girl from greedy hands.// </blockquote> (link: "Next")[(goto: "3rd Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "1st Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

They’d avoided any plating for a while. The Hoodoo practitioners of the Forest made calming ointments and serums for Joy to keep the tears at bay in her earlier years. Plus Misha and Marcus got to keep the pillow from the clouds, so Joy slept soundly through every night, no interruption. When they bathed her, the warm water shared bedtime stories to soothe her further. As she got older though, Joy became less receptive to the aid. Adolescence has that effect. The Hoodoo queens couldn’t manage those mood swings if they tried. Peaks of highest highs and valleys of lowest lows. In The End, there were castles across rolling hills, forests, clouds, and even below the water, for all. Hunger had become a thing of the past for farms were shared. Ripe tomatoes exchanged in the summer days, pears and pomegranates for January. And those who ran the farms ran them until they no longer wanted to, then they would move to other things: Sculptors, Singers, Therapists, Guides, Friends and Lovers. All had a fluid purpose in The End, all did as they pleased and pleased others. Still, there were those who yearned for the changeless, the static-still-stasis. There were the Faceless, who stayed in the Old, the below even the underthrow that brought about The End could not reach. Below surfaces, the shadow a cup leaves across a table, the ground beneath feet, inner crust, mantles, and cores. The Faceless became faceless because their nose bridges had pressed against too many hard surfaces, too thin to handle the unfamiliar weight of the deck, the dungeon, the basement. Their pale bones had grown harder and harder from being fixed in old positions. Much too solid. Much too stiff. Inflexibility will do that to the body, the blood can’t flow right without malleable routes. Their washed out bodies grew larger to accommodate the brittle, their limbs and nails longer to break through when need be: sometimes to take from the farms, sometimes to catch the morning soup, and sometimes to find semblances of what they call money. Wealth, the ruler of the Old. They follow whispers left on the wind to find any semblance of it. Misha and Marcus didn’t want Joy to have a lonely life. With the tears at bay in her childhood, they allowed the commune into the house too coo and hush at Joy. She was loved by all as all were. Tabitha and Sherry, their closest neighbors at a castle a few paces down the hill, would bring darling dresses and pants of white linen. They would reminisce about the revolution over dried plums, dates, and tea, brought by Tina who stayed in a sand filled palace deserts away. They’d even take trips to the lake or stream to enjoy warm afternoons and evenings with other families. Sure to keep Joy away from the water, so as not to hear its shuddered gold. Joy was 5 when she began to yearn for the near silent //happy, two left feet, that boys pissin// murmurs of the lake. She wanted to hear what they had to say about her. One of many evenings, when Misha and Marcus decided things had gone well enough to venture to larger bodies, they took Joy to the ocean. The commune had rented an old school bus instead of their usual venture by cloud. It was bright yellow against the passing green plains budding with hues of wildflowers. As Joy looked out the large weathered windows, at the blues and purples of petals, she said: “The water sounds different here.” And Misha and Marcus smiled down at their smart girl and said “Yes. Yes it does.” “Why?” Misha passed Joy to Marcus’s lap to push the window open even more, the crisp air scratching at all their round cheeks. The water was a loud and distant roar, a guttural storytelling that couldn’t quite be made out. “The water’s bigger here.” “And?” “It’s got more ground to cover.” “And?” “There’s so many people below the surface. Lost folks, brave folks, moving the tides and making music on the seafloor.” “So?” “So…this water’s salty, it's speaking for a lot more so it needs a little base to its voice. Listen.” And Misha held Joy as she scooched closer to the open window, held her as she leaned out to hear the deep wails of the ocean. “I can’t hear what it's saying though. Sounds like RARARAHHH.” “You can only hear it if you’re in it, it's much too loud to make out.” “Can I go in it then?” “Oh no baby, I’m sorry. I don’t think you can. How about I show you how to hear the music in the loudness though? When we get to the beach? Hmmm?” But Joy was looking out the window again, squinting at the sound as if she could hear it. She swore she made out a rasped //come to us//, but perhaps it was a misplaced swaying of milkweed. She swore she heard a //golden girl// but maybe it was the sunflowers speaking of themselves. The children splashed deeper in this water, so Joy couldn’t chit chat with them like she used to off to the side. When she sat where the sand meets the water, they were too far, and when she had to inch back every few minutes or so to avoid the teasing tide, they were even farther. Joy wrote her name, forward and backwards then forwards again in the sand. She counted all her fingers and toes and used them to tug at things: limp seaweed thrown about, the shirtsleeves and pant legs of her parents, small crabs from and back into their homes. She was toying with the crabs when she thought she’d heard it again, the come to us, the //golden girl//. Adults were up near the rocks barbequing, and kids were swimming deeper and deeper, and the ocean had bass so no one would notice, right? If she just dipped a toe in, right near the shoreline where she’d been playing this whole time. Just a toe, not anything more full bodied, just a toe. (link: "Next")[(goto: "4th Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "2nd Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

It was colder than she thought, the ocean. One toe went in and came right back out with a slight shriek. Nothing from the water though. Maybe they're wrong, Misha and Marcus, maybe they're wrong. If the ocean has all these voices, well maybe none of them know about Joy like the water at home does. Maybe no one would make out the gold. Maybe she could swim here and it would all be fine and good and she’d have someone to speak to. So Joy fought through the cold, the tingle beneath the bottoms of her feet, and stepped through. She walked out until the water was hitting her small knees, and she whispered so no one else would hear but her and the ocean. “Can you fix me?” And the ocean yelled back in its communal roar: <blockquote> //What needs fixin, golden girl?// </blockquote> “I wanna play with the other kids. Out there.” Joy pointed, and bouts of waves turned to look, shallow where they formed near the shoreline. <blockquote> //Well all’s you gotta do is go to them.// </blockquote> “But…” <blockquote> //But what?// </blockquote> “I’m–” <blockquote> //Golden girl? Chile we know. Of course we know. We know everything girl, don’t you know that?// </blockquote> “I thought only the water at home knew. I thought you were different water.” <blockquote> //All water is all water, chile. We’re all water.// </blockquote> “But you have salt in you!” <blockquote> //Still water. Sho’nough, still water. Ain’t nun wrong with a lil bit of seasonin’// </blockquote> Joy giggled as the water splashed her. No one noticed as she trotted deeper in. The laughs of the children coming closer, the sizzle of green tomatoes and crabs further. The chaos of the ocean masking it all. Joy stopped her giggles. “But somethings wrong with me.” <blockquote> //Chileee ain’t nun wrong witchu. Imagine that! Gold for tears and you think somethings up with you? Wish I had gold drippin off me. Make some pretty rings, huh? Pretty rings pretty things ooo wee I’d look sharp. Tell you what is true. You’re something else!// </blockquote> “Something else?” <blockquote> //Mhmmm Mhmmm Mhmmm Mhmmm Mhmmm Mhmmm// </blockquote> “What’s something else?” <blockquote> //You are.// </blockquote> “But what is something else?” <blockquote> //You are chile. Sumn’ else You’s something else. You sure are something else. Something else. Sumn’ else.// </blockquote> Her mouth was braced for more questions of what and why before she heard her parents screaming her name across the way. Her mouth was braced for more questions so the oceans salt filled her throat the moment she left its embrace. Her mouth was braced for more why’s and what’s and butt’s so she couldn’t scream when she saw the Faceless beneath the water's surface. Its pale structure peeking through the sand like a stingray disturbed. It had found refuge in the shadow made between Joy’s foot and the ocean floor when she’d first stepped into the shallow. Followed her deeper, onward. Its spindly fingers grabbed onto her foot and she felt as though she’d gained another set of bones. Felt weighed down in her body. Or perhaps this was the result of falling out of the water's care. Joy’d never learned to swim after all. It had been the water this whole time, cherishing her in its collective palm. It, too, was the water that brought her back sputtering on the shore. As her tears streamed down, creating golden chunks of toffee with the sand beside her face, Joy made out the scared faces of her parents through the sparkles. The shocked faces of the children. She wondered if they’d heard what the water said, beneath the surface where its voice was louder, more succinct. If they’d all heard the repeated: <blockquote> //You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be here, get out! You don’t come down here. Never come down here again! You shouldn’t be here. Gon get! Get out!// </blockquote> But they hadn’t. They didn’t hear at all. Though they believed her when she said it was a Faceless beneath the surface that had grabbed her, they still couldn’tbelieveit. The Faceless could live in all belows except the water. Faceless weren’t allowed in the water, it would clog up what was left of their nostrils. Fill the emptiness of their skulls and boom, combust. So though they believed her, and the bruise on her ankle testified to it, they still couldn’tbelieveit, a different kinda feeling that still shushed and cooed at Joy. Shushed and cooed at her. Few in the commune knew of Joy's tears; mostly parents and older children not so overcome by excitement and intrigue. All promised to never discuss the tears. To never mention them beneath archways and streetlamps, in movie theaters and basements. But once the Faceless had seen the gold go solid beneath the ocean's surface, it was over. Here was wealth to curate, here was one to watch. The Faceless cannot smell, they like to hold onto the past. They are beings of memory just like the water. They remembered how Joy’s fear felt, how her tears left golden pearls floating in her absence. They brought these pearls to fields in the hours of dusk, to the shadowed shade of maple trees, and beneath the umbrellas of the ensuing rain. Because rain did ensue. The only way to tamper with memory is to wash it away and make it clean, and that's what the water did. Just like when Joy was first born. It shed itself and shed itself again by way of heavy storms. The pink clouds became bloated and bruised deep purple: they were too busy crying to give soup to those below. But the crops flourished, and so folks were fine with hearty stews dense with potatoes–they were fine being closer to the roots. The river, lake, stream, ocean, and all in between combined to make the Faceless forget. Forget the salt at the bottom of Joy’s foot as it trekked back onto the bus, back home and into the castle and then her mothers lap. Knowing it was only possible to get as far as forgiveness, they wanted the Faceless to forget. (link: "Next")[(goto: "5th Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "3rd Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

The gold plating began when a Faceless entered the home, running off of the distant whisper the water’d left from Joy’s morning bath. Since their first encounter, Misha and Marcus had opted to keep the castle as brightly lit as possible. There were windows upon windows upon windows where light could always filter in. Giant curtains in the foyer for when the sun had gone low, and in the suns’ stead: lamps upon lamps upon lamps. It was even too risky for Joy to wear a sleeping mask at night to block the light: what if the Faceless managed to slip through the shadow made between Joy’s lashes and the silk? Everything in the home was refurbished to have a flat bottom. No shadow was left between where a stool ended and a floor began. Photos and paintings were pressed flesh against bright pastel walls. The living room TV was embedded into the drywall and the couch sat flat against the floor, its feet removed from the upholstery. Joy was telling her parents she wanted to see her friends outside of the windows. She couldn’t turn over the cards in Speed through the grass. Couldn’t tell if Devonte’s farts were as stinky as the other kids said because the window could only be cracked so much. “And I can’t hear Imani! She talks quietly and there's nothing wrong with that, I’d never tell her to speak up! But I can’t hear her through the window and if I can’t hear her how can I be a good friend?” Misha and Marcus were trying to shush and coo with their ohsweetie,iknow’s and it’sokay,it’llbeokay but that wasn’t the right thing to say in that very moment and so Joy’s moment-problem seemed to threaten a lifetime. “Sometimes I can’t see them! I mean they’re there, but with the glare of all these fucking lights–” “Joy!” “Now calls for certain language!” “You’re right, we’re sorry, continue.” “All these fucking lights hurt my eyes! They sting and they’re dry and I don’t wanna wear these stupid glasses.” “But you look so lovely in your glasses.” “I don’t care! I don’t care, they hurt my head! My head’s always hurting, and my eyes, and I can’t see my friends and I don’t even know if they are my friends? How can you be friends with a glass bottle?” Joy was feeling big things and these things didn’t have space to go in the magnifying glass of a house. So she moved past her parents doting hands and towards a glass red rose shaped lamp shaped in the corner. Its crash shook the ground and the red shards made stained glass reflections on the high ceilings. They too looked like roses. Roses and broken hearts and blood. Maybe it was the shadows the shards made across the mahogany floors. Maybe it was the small cuts that plagued Joy's skin, sprinkling blood like dew drops across her linen pajamas. A home can never completely rid itself of shadows. Even with the removal of the basement so that the castle was all one level–no upstairs nor downstairs, no thing to get below of–they didn’t account for the darkness of Joys growinglonely heart, the umbra of an open wound. There is always a way to get under one's skin. Marcus swore he saw the Faceless crawl its way of the cuts on Joy’s arm. Misha swore it was from the center of her chest, from the heart. Joy could never recall the event without dry heaving. One moment she was crying and bleeding and feeling all the necessary things in copious amounts, the next a Faceless filled the space between Joy and her parents. Its bones crunched against the roses. Its phalange’s scratched against Joy’s cheek, rubbing the gold between its fingers to affirm what they’d seen those few years prior. Joy’d cried the most she ever had that night, next to being born, next to learning her 6th birthday would be the first she’d spend alone. She cried more than she ever had, and so, the first sign of plating began. By 7, the patch beneath her right eye had begun. It stiffened her blinks, her parents called her inherent winking charming. By 9, the tips of her fingers hardened from wiping tears from the tips of her cheeks and the corners of her eyes. They clicked like glass slippers across piano keys and computer keyboards. By 11 Misha and Marcus noticed the select rigid spots sprinkled like freckles across Joy's face, as well as her knees, hands, feet, and elbows: lone tears. And by the time Joy was 12, the skin beneath her right eye’d gone completely gold. Solid, like a chipped mask. “You took the designer eye bags joke too far, huh? What is that, a Telfar?” “Dad!” “Haha, just kidding kid, it’s cute, you're always saying you want a piercing anyway, this is even better huh?” “I said I wanted my nose pierced. Not my fucking eye!” “Language…” “Now calls for certain language.” “You’re right.” And here they stare at each other, and in unison say “FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.” Only the eyedrops gifted by the Hoodoo practitioners of the forest could ease the eyes' dryness and sensitivity. The practitioners were to thank for the castle's heightened security as well. A ceremony occurred over the charred mark atop the living room floor, the only reminder of the fire Marcus started to run the Faceless out. A protection spell, a light binding spell on top of that to keep the castle constantly aglow without bulbs, more calming serums and capsules for Joy’s day to day struggles. Joy’s friends were in school and so they had less time to visit her at her window. They wrote letters but they stunk of parents guilt tripping, so Joy responded less to feel better. Control was one of Joy’s struggles. As was irritability. As was hopelessness. As was perfectionism. She’d turned to imagination and possibility. Her favorite books were tales from the Old World because they weren’t so far off from The End. She’d found them all–fantasy, speculative fiction, something called SciFi, magical realism and fairytales–in the AfroFuturism sections of her favorite online book stores. Octavia Butler seemed to predict the end of what her history books called “The War on Drugs” when she wrote of California. Joy asked the faucet as she washed her face, her nails sounded like wind chimes beneath her eye: “What's Cal-e-for-nyah?” <blockquote> // California? Ahhh California, what a place! What a time. Nothing like Chicago though. Or New York! Here ya’ll go again… Right! Cause nobody even mentioned that. California’s an old state, sunny and stolen. It fell off the map though. Sholl did, didn’t it? Mhmmmm// </blockquote> “Fell off the map?” <blockquote> //Slipped off! Got too warm and too cold and too shaky. Snapped right off. Wasn’t so bad though. It fell back into the right hands. Lived on the island the crack left behind. With us. Sholl did, all the folks the Faceless kicked off when they came over, came back.// </blockquote> “There were Faceless then?” <blockquote> //There’ve always been Faceless. Maybe they had more of a face then. But there’ve always been Faceless.// </blockquote> “Will there always be Faceless? I mean, will they always be after me?” <blockquote> //Who’s to know? Can’t be sure. One can only hope. Maybe there’s something in your books that’ll let you know. Or in your dreams. In The End, all is possible.// </blockquote> “What about the ‘War on Drugs’?” <blockquote> //Oh that? Went on for what felt like ever. Sholl did. The old world was always trying to go to war on nouns. You can never win a war against a noun. It was never about the drugs. It was about who had them.// </blockquote> (link: "Next")[(goto: "6th Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "4th Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

By 16 half of Joy’s face was a golden plate, it reflected the pink of the clouds through her window drapes, and the fluorescence of the dining room light bulbs into her oatmeal. Her propensity for the imaginative had manifested in new forms. The novels continued, of course. Butler’s passion never ceased. She could quote passages of Morisson now. See, the novels continued, Joy’s interest in AfroFuturism simply expanded to the theoretic realm as well. She was on better terms with the water since the Aryanna incident. Though her parents encouraged her, Joy swore she was disinterested in trying the friend thing again. So she spoke in the bath more, in the shower, at the window across to the water, to half filled cups left lingering around the house. “Way you leave water round here, you’d think we were in //Signs//.” “What’s //Signs//?” “You ain’t never seen //Signs//?” “No Ma, that’s why I asked.” They watched it together later. Joy’s cups weren’t for what the Old World called Aliens, they were for research. She asked the water questions, and those questions led her to Hartman and critical fabulation, to Frank B. Wilderson (give or take) and AfroPessimism. “They're really not that different, huh? AfroPessimism and AfroFuturism.” <blockquote> //No, they’re not. Fugitivity; Running away from something is the same as running towards something else. You don’t need to know what’s right to know somethin else is wrong. You can smell the smoke sometimes, For you even see the fire. And some folks’ll cry sooty tears for they ever admit a fire's burnin.// </blockquote> To distract from her lonely the water gave her The Combahee River Collective, gave her Alice Walker and Womanism, Black Feminism and sisternal commune. She made friends with the rhetoric, with the breath of sisterhood, of hihihahaing with imagined girls. For her identity issues the water gave her Marquis Bey. Prescribed Spillersian thought. Her whole life her emotions had been monitored, checked, analyzed and broken down like something soluble, like alka seltzer. She was born with the potential to be too much. But she never felt too much. She felt cracked half empty, hollow and heaving against nothing. On the nights she let the tears spill, which had become nearly every night, whatsthedifference? tears, she curled inward looking for something inside herself to pull out. Golden tears absorbed by the pink fluff of her cloud pillow where they pooled on the right side. Joy liked to look out her windows when she cried. Across the homes of all in commune. Across the water that surrounded them, across the window world. She’d shrink and hold her knees and think perhaps I’m not like anything before. Perhaps I’m always becoming otherwise or otherthan or anyhow like Bey says. Still, wouldn’t it be nice to share this? Still, am I the only one? As her tears spilled she wished that even they would mumble truths to her, like they did all else who cried. She wished they’d whisper her where they came from, why they were there, if only so she could stop feeling that cavity. That void thing inside her stomach, maybe that's where the Faceless lived. Maybe her body was a cage. Maybe it was worth escaping. When she looked in the mirror she didn’t know what she was looking at. Her face had become phantom of the opera. When she smiled, a dimpled thing or not, only half of her mouth moved where the gold stopped. She hurt her own eyes. Couldn’t imagine how her parents must have felt, as the sun from windows glared against their daughters cheek. They winced at her. They didn’t mean to. Joy scoured the house for feelings. She checked behind the cabinets and cupboards, behind the shower curtain. She would check the couch cushions but there were none: those would leave space for the Faceless. She settled on romance movies of the cheesiest and corniest caliber. Misha and Marcus would watch Love Jones with her, Just Wright and Love and Basketball. Alone she’d watch The Handmaiden, Moonlight, and Tangerine. After a while these too made her cry confusing tears. These hardened her chin like a cast. Her therapist said she was having what the Old World would call an existential crisis. What the water told her that meant was not at all what she felt, but they opted to bring someone into the home once more, all the same. <blockquote> We are a peopled people. </blockquote> “I’m not good for people.” When she washed the right side of her face it squeaked, but the water read her her truth all the same: <blockquote>//scary thoughts//</blockquote> “Some people are meant to be alone.” It was Marcus’s idea to bring a young boy. Joy was 16 afterall! And she’d been watching all those rom coms with them…Maybe she’d been trying to tell them this the whole time. Too shy to admit it. Joy was unenthused when she heard the news, but she was unamused with most things nowadays, so they carried on. Unlike Aryanna, Morpheus was new. Someone recommended him in the commune, a kind boy, and smart too. The top of his class! Marcus thought Joy would like that. Misha agreed. By then Joy outsmarted everyone, had a story, film, artpiece–you name it!--to engagage in playful, witty, and often pointed discourse. Marcus thought Morpheus would at least stand a chance. Misha agreed slightly less. Unlike Aryanna, Joy refused to let Morpheus in the home. He would wait outside of her bedroom window. “Is Morpheus from the //Matrix//?” “Yes actually! Not many people know the Matrix–” “It’s one of the most popular films of all time.” “In the Old World, yes. Not many folks know that in The End.” “Is that supposed to be flattering?” (awkward pause) ““Anyways yes, it’s from the Matrix. Do you at least like the film?” “If by like you mean I appreciate its cultural impact but wonder which Black woman's pen it was stolen from…Then yeah, I like it?” “That was never proven!” “You speak of the Old World like that and still use words like proven?” (Morpheus seems irritated) (ahahahh cool as a cucumber) “So conspiracy is fine?” “I find life easier when I believe Black women.” “And what do you know of life?” “What do you mean?” “Come on oh wise one, since you know sooo much of life, what do you know about it?”!” “Life can be cruel and cunning.” “Oh brother, come on, brighten up a little.” “Eww.” “Come on.” “I don’t think it's worth expressing my view of life to you.” “Woahh so we’re making assumptions?” (challenging glare) “Who’s your favorite musician.” “J.Cole” “You go all the way to the Old World…again…and come back with that? Be so for real.” “What?” “Favorite writer?” “Du Bois.”” “Du Bois?...” “Yeah, maybe next to Fanon, or Marx?” (gold twinkle from eyelid twitch) (hysterical laughter for what some might consider a questionable length of time) “You can leave now.” (link: "Next")[(goto: "8th Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "6th Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

She meant it. Morpheus left and never came back. Like most men, he tried. Joy seemed like a daring challenge and she sparkled like no one he’d ever met before. She refused to read his letters but saved the stickers he used on the envelopes for collages. He had some good taste, she’d admit. Joy remained disinterested in inviting folks over. Thinking back to the rose, the floorboards, and her craving for shadow. The taste of dark light, a grating non feeling that sounds like melancholy–in a good way. Luckily, the laughter her short time with Morpheus left in her chest delighted her for quite some time. She’d find herself chuckling unannounced, muttering “Marx, tsk” to herself in between moments. The tears that seeped from the corners of her eyes in those between things loosened the stiffness of her jaw and chin. Eased the tightness in her eye bags. Her therapist said she appeared to be in good spirits, maybe it was okay to hold off on interaction for a while. Sapphire arrived two years later. Highschool had come and gone like the rest of school. Joy wasn’t keen on going to online university afterwards, she could find knowledge in the dustiest of corners and the shallowest of dreams. In all her reading though, Joy never found any telling of someone like her. “How does that make you feel? Not finding your answer?” “I wasn't looking for an answer. Just an explanation. A hint even.” “Okay, not getting that explanation then. How did that make you feel?” “Silly I guess.” “Silly? Why?” “Because if the water didn’t know, what did I think I’d find?” “In all your reading, your watching, your everything, you never saw anyone like yourself?” “Anyone with tears of gold? No.” “Did anyone else cry though?” Joy paused. For a long time. “I don’t know who I am if not alone in this.” Joy developed more interests to fill more vases, voids, and vacancies. She’d developed a knack for fashion, her usual dresses and suits donning various patterns, spikes, and lace. With her passion for fashion came a love of makeup. She painted the left side of her face various shades. Drew detailed liner looks atop her eyelid. Glued rhinestones and pearls here and there, sometimes even on her goldenside. Her smile in the mirror was lopsided, the left side dimpled and the right side stiff. Misha and Marcus would let her braid their hair in different styles: curly buns, silver encrusted locs. Their makeup too, she loved sharpening the already angular face of Marcus, so that he would look almost statuesque. Misha loved when Joy powdered her eyes into pastel shades, it made her feel doll-like and delicate. Like a kid again. Joy’s interest in music expanded as well. This, too, her parents accommodated. A starter board to begin with but soon enough Joy was mixing on some of the best turntables around. The loud beats, sampled and curated from the archives she’d always been tapped into, voice recordings of the waters raspy whisper layered atop like ad libs. It was when Joy was mixing that Saphire appeared, outside of her first story bedroom, tapping a silver metallic clawed ring against the window. Joy jumped, but was pleased: Sapphire wasn’t invited, they came. Joy was happy she’d put on her frilliest pink dress, adorned with beading and the most gorgeous jellyfish hem. It bounced when she walked to crack one of the windows open. (align:"<==")+(box:"=XX=")[“What is that?” “Shygirl” “I know Shygirl–” “You know Shygirl?” “I know Shygirl, and that song doesn’t sound like that.” "I mixed it, added some of my own beats, upped the bass, reverb, ya know?” “Nah, I don’t know, but I like it. That shit sounds amazing!” “Thanks.” ] They looked at each other. Like cats. Like newborns. Joy smiled. Sapphire smiled. Joy looked at all their piercings, the thickness of their brow, the fullness of their lip: they wanted to poke the snake bites that protruded below, the angel bites above, but were scared their hand would look awkward jabbed through the window like that. (align:"<==")+(box:"=XX=")[“You look cool.” “Awww you think I’m pretty?” “Wow you can still manage a blush with that thing?” “There's still a face under here.” “I know, a pretty one.”] The golden half blushed copper as well. (align:"<==")+(box:"=XX=")[“I could show you.” “How pretty you are?” “How I made the mix. Would you like that?” “Yeah, I would. Shouldn’t I get your name first, though?” “Joy.” “Hi Joy, I’m Sapphire. You can call me Sapph.”] Joy asked her parents immediately to invite Sapph. Misha and Marcus responded immediately: a resounding yesyesyes! They accompanied her to the door to welcome Sapph inside. A day full of firsts. Sapph’s platformed boots made them look like a character out of Pumzi, or an Afronaut. They kept their clawed hands behind their back or tucked into their leather belt. The buckle read “FLESH.” Joy smiled a dimpled thing. She welcomed Sapph to her room, suddenly aware of the pinkness of it all, the curtains and the light. The toomuchness must be clouding the air, must leave a smoke like incense around. (align:"<==")+(box:"=XX=")[“Nice place. It always this bright?”] Joy nodded. (align:"<==")+(box:"=XX=")[“Don’t get all shy now that you’ve got me inside.” “We have to keep it bright. The Faceless.” “Ahh, is this where the gold thing comes up?” “Uh, yeah.” “So what's your deal?” “What do you mean?” “Who are you?” “I–my tears, they…I’m not supposed to say.” “Well that's fine, I asked who you are. I hope there's more than one answer to that cutie.” “Um, I’m an AfroFuturist?” “Okay, go on.” “And a Pessimist…” “Your bookshelf tells me all that, give me something outside of Academia, why don’t you?.” “...I like pink.” “Do you now? And who do you like?” “Everyone.” “Really?”] Joy nodded. (align:"<==")+(box:"=XX=")[“You flirting with me?”] Joy nodded. It was true, Joy was flirting then. But after hanging out for 8 hours that day alone with Sapph, the two realized they were more friends than anything. They spoke of food and favorite meals: Sapph loved anything spicy, Joy loved her moms homemade string beans and turkey chops. They spoke of all their firsts. First loves: Sapph a contested 2 year relationship with a girl they called “She who shall not be named”, Joy Shane from the L Word. First memories: Sapph riding atop one of her dads shoulders atop a cloud, Joy feeling her mom’s hands oil her scalp with castor and Lusters pink oil. They spoke of their families. Sapph had many siblings, paternally and fraternally. They were shocked that Sweetness was an only child and claimed to be friendless. (align:"<==")+(box:"=XX=")[“Not even online ones?” “I thought that was something the Old World did?” “Nah! There's tons of chat rooms, especially for folks like us.” “Like us?” “Who like everyone.” “I’ve never been an us.” “You're so sentimental sometimes I could barf.” “Ew.” “It's okay crazy girl.”] Sapph showed her all the online communes she was a part of, places where you could video chat, share space and tips on anything that existed under the sun: makeup tutorials, kissing lessons, book clubs, party invites, you name it! Joy began connecting to people all across the commune. Still, the connection was screen level, she craved a life of feeling. Of sensorial touch. She wanted to know how her friends smelled, what it felt to be hit by them when they laughed. Sapph would tell her there are real ways of forming relationships outside of inpersonhood, but Joy knew this. She’d lived through such relationships even before meeting folks online; commenting on videos and social media sites from time to time. Still, she wanted someone besides Misha and Marcus to hold her hand. (align:"<==")+(box:"=XX=")[“I don’t think I ever wanted to hide my gold.” “I don’t think so either. You’re a total attention whore and you sparkle.” “I’m scared though. The Faceless Sapph, the moment I say anything about it they pop up somewhere.” “They haven’t popped up here though, with me.” “Why is that?” “Maybe it's the power of our friendship.” “Doubt it.” “Haha, you’re right…what if I showed you?” ] (link: "Next")[(goto: "9th Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "7th Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

The plating had remained relatively at bay when Joy was 14. The trees of the Forest gave her tips for meditation, ways to practice stillness and calm calm calm. The clouds gifted her a pink boxing glove, slim and protective against the solid gold of her knuckles: the only new addition to Joy’s teacup chipped skin. This attempted to fill the shoes of frustrated tears, Joy always felt more frustration than anger. She could punch the air, and even objects thanks to the glove’s special properties. It would pass through any object it touched seamlessly while simulating the feeling of something breaking open. That was the feeling Joy craved when her feelings bubbled up inside her with nowhere left to go. A great rupture, to be torn apart from the inside out with no consequence. She still read. More Butler, yes. Also Baldwin, but only at the same time as Lorde: for balance. She loved Toni Morrison, and Hurston if she turned a few blind eyes. Delaney excited her, Due scared her, and Jemisin did something in between. She’d taken to films too, on the days her eyes strained from too many pages and no letters. Joy’d been the one to request no contact with the friends of her childhood. Said it was because they’d grown apart. Misha and Marcus smelled the fearful avoidance even before the water whispered liar as they washed away the spaghetti encrusted cast iron that night. They knew why just like they always did before it even said control. Joy’d taken to something she called fakingittillyoumakeit. When her parents asked if she was lonely, she shook her head no and smiled a fake thing. Her dimple was nowhere to be found. When her parents asked if they should reach out to the commune, request to send some kids over for old times sake. For a reunion! Joy said no, and smiled the fake thing, while tip tapping her fingers against the table top, or scraping her spoon along the bottom of Wednesday’s soup bowl: chicken and wild rice. Her yearning seeped through the pores of the walls, thick like a sap. During late night TV watching, Misha and Marcus would join her for what felt like the millionth streaming of //Living Single// or //Insecure//. The yearning bounced off the lens of her glasses and refracted onto the screen. Maybe that's what kept her eyes glued to it. The yearning silenced the water, for even it could hear the mournful song. Or perhaps things had just grown silent between the two: water and Joy. It, too, was something beyond her control. It, too, was another sign of what she lacked. Her parents didn’t intend to hear the conversation one night, but they’d just put water on the stove for a cup of chamomille. Perhaps the water was worried about Joy too, because it let them hear an echo of what she said through the screech of the kettle: “I don’t want my only friend to be something I can’t even swim in.” <blockquote> //Oh don’t be like that. We are your friend.// </blockquote> “No you’re not, if anything, you’re a therapist. That’s even worse.” It was Misha who’d found the golden pearls at the bottom of the tub later that night, the only sign the sobs trapped in Joy’s throat ever came out. They opted to get Joy a real therapist the next day, chiding themselves for their foolishness in having never done so. Joy assured it was fine, that she didn’t need this anyway, but the dimple in her smile after her first session proved otherwise. They collectively compromised that reaching out to one family in the commune would be reasonable. “I don’t need everyone knowing how much of a loser I am.” “Aww Joy, you’re not a loser, you’re just too special for your own good.” “Yeah honey, you’re just something else.” Aryanna was the pick. Joys closest childhood friend– “If you could call us close. It's been years since I’ve even spoken to the girl and even then it was through a window or feet apart.” “Well that’s alright,” her therapist said, “let’s just give it a go and see what happens then! Besides, your parents have even compromised so you can see her in the house!” Aryanna was different than Joy had remembered her. Her voice was higher pitched up close, which wasn’t bad, but she used said voice to complain about the lights for the first 20 minutes of their hangout. The next 20 she spent begging Joy to do something about it. Joy filled the tense air with awkward laughter and recommendations: Do you wanna watch //Pose?// We could play dress up, or pretend to be other people! Do you want a grilled cheese? Aryanna spent another 10 showing Joy all the ways one could say no. Another 10 spent on a failed attempt and dishing out school drama. Joy couldn’t remember any of the boys' names to make the love triangles make sense. When she tried to remember them, she arrived at the new realization that she had no interest in doing so. By the end of the hour Joy had resorted to turning off one of the lights, if only to assuage Aryanna’s returned complaints. The two sat criss crossed applesauce in the corner of Joy's room, beneath the ring of shadow left by the horse printed lamp. “So why don’t you come to school?” “I do.” “Not on video, I mean why don’t you come into school.” “I like it better that way.” “Come on! Tell me the real reason. We’re friends now, remember?” Joy was silent because she was busy praying she could go back in time to where this never happened, to where she could have kept saying no instead of hoping maybeitwouldwork. “Is it because of what happened at the beach that one time?” Maybe’s were becoming a sour thing in her mouth. “Is it because of the gold?” Gold echoed in the air only a second before it happened. One moment Joy was toying with the fringe of the rug they perched on, busy averting eye contact and wishing she was somewhere else. Wishing she was someone else so that maybe she wouldn’t have felt the pierce of the bones beneath her thighs as the Faceless stood beneath them. The two girls screamed a piercing thing as they fell from its shoulders. They kept on screaming as they crawled backwards towards the bed at the center of the room. Aryanna told her parents later Joy was crazy because she laughed when it happened. Joy didn’t bother to tell her she felt an uncontrollable feeling when she saw the rug fall off the Faceless’s shoulder as it tugged its toes from the floorboards. Because how silly! That the rug had looked like a poncho! How silly that in that moment she was thinking of ponchos and not the scrape of taloned toe nails against mahogany. She was laughing and standing in front of the Faceless while Aryanna hid beneath the protection of her comforter. It filled the tall ceilings, cracking bulb after bulb with pincer precision. The glow of the spell as well as the daylight outside kept the room aglow and the Faceless’s approach slow. It was why when Misha and Marcus finally reached the room, flames ready, it only had one spindly hand beneath Joy’s plated eye instead of a hand wrapped around her throat. Joy asked her therapist later if they thought she’d have fit through the floorboards. They asked Joy if it bothered her that Aryanna never came back, and so Joy asked them if they thought Ary would have fit too? “Your parents said you cried longer than you ever have before.” “Mhmmm.” “And these tears, what were they like?” “They didn’t stain my cheeks.” “And why do you think that was?” “Maybe cause they weren’t sad.” (link: "Next")[(goto: "7th Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "5th Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

Joy didn’t know what they meant and she certainly didn’t expect Sapph to show up with 3 equally pierced faces the next day. Misha and Marcus were equally scared and ecstatic, but the entire family was delighted to meet Bow, Delilah, and Adonis. Misha and Marcus decided a feast was called for. While the crew sat in the living room chit chatting amongst themselves, they prepared quite the spread. Fried green tomatoes and catfish–Misha and Marcus were both popped by more oil than usual, their own excitement causing the skillet to sizzle more. Spaghetti and rolls sweetened by honey. Greens, cabbage, and freshly snapped string beans–Joy's favorite, though she struggled to find her appetite when they were all called to the table. How could she? While they sat atop the cushionless couch, they told her all about the raves they went to, where Faceless would come too. (align:"<==")+(box:"=XXX=")[“No way.” “Yes Way.” “How?” (align:"<==")+(box:"======XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX====")[“Easy! They walk in!”] (align:"<==")+(box:"====XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX======")[“Yeah, plus they’re usually in abandoned warehouses from the Old World. Nice and dark for them.”] “But that's dangerous.” “Not the Old World talking!” “Faceless chose not to participate in the End.” (align:"<==")+(box:"======XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX====")[“Yes, but they’re not a monolith. They can change their mind.”] (align:"<==")+(box:"====XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX======")[“Especially new generations!” “Yeah they join all the time!”] “What if one who doesn’t change their mind comes.” (align:"<==")+(box:"======XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX====")[ “Then we find a way to get them to.”] “And kick em out otherwise. The Faceless can’t go in water and hate the light, not impenetrable.” “They can get in water.” (align:"<==")+(box:"====XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX======")[ “For you, huh? Guess that proves there's even more room to change.” “More rules to break.”] “It’s not that hard, revolutionary consciousness? George Jackson? No one is unreachable, you know that.” (align:"<==")+(box:"======XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX====")[“We’re full of limits and boundaries.” “To think anything unchangeable is a silly mistake.”] “Even for the pessimist!”] They couldn't believe that with all the times they’d seen a Faceless they’d never spoken. Joy never asked what it was there for, what it needed, what its name was. She’d assumed it wanted what all, or rather, most Faceless wanted: her gold, her wealth. What did it mean otherwise, what did the otherwise look like? Did it laugh in the face of her life? Did it call it silly? She asked her parents to go to the rave after the meal had ended and everyone had already enjoyed their after dinner coffee, wine, and dessert: the sweetest of peach cobbler. Misha and Marcus were stunned, but listened carefully as the gays, girls, and squirrels all chimed in to support. The rave was safe, the safest place they’d ever been in the safe haven of The End. A place that was made for folks like them by folks like them. Misha smiled and nodded, as did Marcus, because they knew all of this. They’d been to there fair share of raves in their youth, had felt the commune there stronger than anywhere else, even before The End. They said yes, just pleased to see Joy smile a real thing. Joy didn’t bother to mention that Faceless would be there. They would’ve said yes either way, she reasoned. This is her first night out of the castle in years! Surely they know its possible for a Faceless to appear anywhere out there. When Joy helped to wash the dishes with Marcus after everyone left, she coughed over the waters liar so he wouldn’t hear. Besides, they got to build trust with Sapph’s friends so that they all became Joy’s friends. Misha liked being able to tell Tabitha on the phone that Joy was hanging out with her friends, and Marcus always found a way to interrup their many group hangouts to tell a story or a silly joke. The collective loved to tease him about inviting Morpheus those years before. “Even in The End, Dad’s can be clueless.” (align:"<==")+(box:"======XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX====")[“Boo!”] (align:"<==")+(box:"=XXX=")[“Cheap, open your eyes old man.”] The girls teased the gay’s, the gays teased the they’s, and whoever slipped through the cracks got teased to. Their jokes whispered I love you before any of the friends did, but the words weren’t slow behind. After every visit, whether it was everyone, just Bow come to get their usual second dinner, or Addonis asking Joy to cornrow his hair for free, they hugged and said I love you before saying goodbye. Joy’d never had a loveless life, her parents ensured that by saying and showing their unconditional love, loving Joy through all her changes and hatred. But here was a chosen love for a chosen family, a love that tasted different. With these folks who cried almost as much as she did, during weekly movie streamings and riveting debate to follow, during late night rumination sessions, she felt a wordless love. A getthehellouttayourhead and sit on the couch with us love. A “no, you’re going.” love. A jab in the side and a tickle in return love. A maybe this is worth it, maybe this isn’t so bad love. Trust wasn’t enough to describe what existed between them all by the time the rave came around. Adonis told Joy it was being held by a collective called CrossWorld, one of the biggest party throwers and a bottom-up organization focused on collaboration between The End and the Faceless. There was no theme for this rave, the point was to show up in your best dressed. How do you give your wildest dreams? The collective sought out that answer as they got ready that night in Joys room, the insane lighting finally making since: they finished some of the best beats anyone had ever seen. Sapph kept their usually thick silvered jewlery, customary claws included, but opted to match it with their entire ensemble: silver parachuted pants beneath a silver parka skirt. Delilah painted her face like a clown, forgoing a protruding red nose for a red rhinestone dot in the center of her thick nose. She kept having to shew Adonis’s hands away as he went to poke the shiny red thing, his gloved hands accompanying a skin tight black all-body suit his only qualification for doing so. He was fit to handle artifacts, hence why when Delilah’s slaps grew painful, his clothed finger went tease the gold capped side of Joy’s face. She swatted him away all the same, not daring to ruin the gorgeous blue shadow look she’d done on herself. Her dress matched, it flowed like the water in the room, and even better beneath the blue LED glow of the rave. (link: "Next")[(goto: "10th Page")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "8th Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

Cloud was decided as the best transportation. They weren’t the only ones to think that, and Joy gawked at all the other pretty people decked out to the 9’s across the pink plush all around. She seemed fine in the line as they waited, passing around a flask of confidence shots to warm them up for the party. She was excited, bouncing from foot to foot in her blue kitten heels and pastel lace socks. The excitement remained when the bouncer checked vibes at the door: “Repeat after me. In The End, all is possible.” “In The End, all is possible.” “If we allow it.” “If we allow it.” “In The End, all are welcome.” “In The End, all are welcome.” “If we mean it.” “If we mean it.” “Alright, you’re good to go in! Have fun!” The music was Joys cup of tea, the sweetest of hibiscuses mixed with lavender and chai. She felt it shake the stiffness of her hands, or her knuckles and wrists. Felt her hips sway before she registered what was happening. The room was filled with colorful lighting and pretty faces, gorgeous fabrics and textures she wanted to touch. She could barley make out the DJ booth through the large crowd stationed at the center of the warehouse. She wanted to go in there, move through there and find it but Delilah gently grabbed her hand. “Hold on, wanna show you something.” She politely dragged her to where the rest of their friends stood, at one of many booths stationed at the side of the warehouse, this one reading “Queens Greens”. The sign was entangled with greenplants and behind it stood one of many Hoodoo practitioners. “Hi cuties, how can I help ya’ll?” Adonis and Sapph handled their order with one of the practitioners while Joy made small talk with another. She told her how much she appreciated the practitioners services in the past, that she used so many of their products and aids to this day. She was pulling out her eye drops from her small beaded clutch as proof before she was being dragged away. (align:"<==")+(box:"=XXX=")[“Hey!” “We’ve got business to take care of!” “What business–what’s that?” “Come on you were a bubble kid, thats not the same as living under a rock.” “A blunt?” (align:"<==")+(box:"======XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX====")[“Ohhh yeahhh, but not just any blunt.”] (align:"<==")+(box:"=======XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX===")[“Its a moonrock blunt.”] (align:"<==")+(box:"======XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX====")[“And its wrapped in lavender at that, whad’ya think?”] “...Its pretty.” (align:"<==")+(box:"======XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX====")[“Pretty enough to smoke?”] “Oh yeahhhh.”] They smoked in the corner first, to give everyone a chance to cough in piece with the comfort of a flask to soothe their throat. When the flask’d run dry, and Joy seemed more relaxed with the state of things, oogling and gawking at all the moving hips and pointed toes, fists punching into the air, they headed towards the dance floor. They moved like ghosts, the smoke of the everpassing blunt the only sign the group had been at any set location amidst the crowd. They settled on the middle of the floor, where they could sway and hop comfortably without bumping into too many bodies, and Joy could make out the stage in the midst of it all. Two DJ’s played a shared set, crossing over each other to move the others deck, removing singular sides of over-the-ear headphones to chit chat and share advice to one another. What would it be like, to play with someone else? To share your music? That’s what Joy was thinking when she’d felt two taps: one on her bare left shoulder which she immediately recognized as Bow going to pass to her–she saw the lace of their bell sleeved white top in their peripheral. The other tap was more spindley. It sounded like a small crack above the heavy bass of the music. Clipped against the gold peak of her left shoulder where she’d go to blot at eyes when her hands were full. She turned to the left first, leaving no time to stop her jump nor her shriek. It was a Faceless, towering over and staring back at her with its finger pointed outward to tap at the right side of her face. The hues of red and purple and blue again, blue, flashed across the ivory expanse of its larger skeleton. She had the faint feeling she was still screaming, could feel herself quiet as familiar hands palmed at her shoulders, backs, and sides. She heard familiar voices in her ear, yes, she could see all the dancing bodies around her and surely, if something, went wrong, they’d protect her too. Still, she didn’t stop screaming, didn’t begin to register the continued sound of the dual set, until she notices the Faceless open its eyes. Two small slits above the flat expanse of its nose that weren’t there before, or were they? Had she never seen? Everytime it blinked she questioned if the eyes were real, the lids bleding seamlessly with the rest of the flat expanse. Then, too, a mouth popped up, a cut beneath the nose. Thin. A slit. It spoke. “I’m sorry!” “What?” ““I was just trying to ask for a hit?” “What?” Joy was dazed. “Yeah dude, we’re sorry she’s new here.” “I–you, you tried to touch my face.” “Aww yeah, genetics, my bad. Doesn’t make it okay!” “Genetics?” “Yeah we’ve got a penchant for greed, anything shiny we subconsciously reach out to. Takes a lot of unlearning but it can be done?” “And what about the eyes–I’m sorry, I didn’t know you all had eyes.” “Joy!” “Oh yeah! Haha we all have them but usually keep them closed. Not lots to see down there, we can see without them but I found these pick up the LEDs better! They’re actually getting a bit dry now that you mention them…” “I have eyedrops!” And she shared them with the Faceless, who she learned after adding to the rotation, had a name: Steven. Steven introduced them to Juliana, who preferred she pronouns instead of it, and she too joined the rotation. The rest of the night progressed in circles of smoke, loud noises and smiles that lingered. When Joy cried upon the arrival of the next DJ, someone named Venetta who Bow was stoked about, they were happy tears. As they streamed down her face, she felt the smile on the right side of her face loosen, suddenly able to tongue the lip on the right side and feel skin where the snot dribbled against her cupids bow. As the gold streamed down and reversed further, Faceless from different points on the crowd moved to approach, fingers outstretched, but stopped soon after. “It’s okay,” Joy said to no one in particular, “you can touch.” But some of the Faceless seemed to hear, and they did. They touched pointy fingers against Joys damp cheeks, the corner of her eyes. And as the music blared, filling their eardrums and stomachs heavily, as bodies shimmied and shook, jumped and hugged, the Faceless smiled a thin thing. “Wow, pretty.” (link: "Back")[(goto: "9th Page")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

[[Unlimited]] [[Unprepared]] [[What a pretty sweater but look at the tag]] [[Mother Moving Amongst the Night]] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

COMING SOON!

(text-colour:white)[Wanna read something gross?] (link: "Yes")[(goto: "D1")] (link: "No")[(goto: "Prose")]

(align:"<==>")+(box:"XXXXXXXXX=")[I cannot remember when I was last oriented.] (align:"<==>")+(box:"XXXXXXXXX=")[I peel my fingers and place the pieces of skin atop my mouse pad whilst I write. I am saving them for later, they will pair well with the boogers I feel clogging my nose, the menthol rub placed beneath my nostrils looks shiny, a petroleum mustache. To drink, I will have a blend of the scabs I picked from my knee caps and knuckles the night before, kept fresh from being stored beneath my pillow case. When the tooth fairy came and attempted to steal them, thinking they were my bones, I shot her with the pus of my ingrown hairs. Straight from the pubic bone, large enough to save some for later. It, too, goes into the smoothie. And I will drink it, in front of my mirror, legs spread wide as I twist the hair on them, and my arms, and my trick.] (link: "Next")[(goto: "D2")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "Disorient")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

(align:"<==>")+(box:"XXXXXXXXX=")[It is true, I cannot remember when I was last oriented. I wake up in front of the mirror, my fingers are pruned inside of me, I left them to play with the trickster all night long. There is a yellow hue over my eyes from the crust stuck between each lash, tinged with streaks of red from tearing them open. I should shower, I decide, this is what an oriented thing would do. I am sentient, have I no self respect? My toenails scrape against the floor in the liminal space where the toes reach over the ends of my shoes. And with each step I take, a trail of piss follows so that I will be sure not to get lost along my way, so that I will be sure no one will follow. There are streaks of brown along the bathroom walls, some coagulated, some chunky, some limp, for as the water bursts from the spout, it is not water at all. Ah, this is why I stay away from these parts, because it is mud that is raining down on me! Thick and gooby, the shade of too loose stool, as brown as it is green, as green as it is orange and red and hurt.] (link: "Next")[(goto: "D3")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "D1")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

(align:"<==>")+(box:"XXXXXXXXX=")[As I said, I cannot remember when I was last oriented. I leave the shower stall, my shoulders suddenly much too broad for its slender walls, I make it out by the skin of my slowly rotting teeth. They fall out of my mouth and I reach to catch them but I cannot move my arms, they are stuck up, the left pointing outward to the left, the right pointing slightly up and outward to the right. And so, the teeth scatter, dark little bits, broken chocolate chips that blend into the brown of me. As I walk down the stairs, because surely this has become a problem for the outside world, perhaps a dip in the pond or the sky would have done me better. And as I descale the steps, the teeth grow legs so that their darker decay can be seen through the mud, weird whack-a-moles. Some walk up what were once my arms, and burrow beneath the bark. The others descend down, and swim through what is left of my legs. I am waddling now, toward that fountain, yes, but it is so far, and I am melting clean off the bone. The teeth are no longer teeth, and they are sprouting into leaves, and the arms were never arms to begin with, so it is all breath anyways, and the legs were never legs so my roots feel nice and my mind is growing green green green and so this is over and I cannot even rememory what it was about.] (link: "Next")[(goto: "D4")] (link: "Back")[(goto: "D2")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

(align:"<==>")+(box:"XXXXXXXXX=")[I orient, orange? Oranges sprout from the tips of the stomach tree, they call it that because it has a stomach, see? Don’t you see its pierced navel? It is said the metal that used to be in it was fake, it did not outlive the roaches, and so sometimes people put a worm or too in the hole it left behind. There? If you touch you can tickle it, and if you tickle it–why do we call it ‘it’? Well because ‘it’ is a thing! And if you tickle this thing it will shimmy and shake and give you an orange. Do be careful though, they can be quite bitter, it is the off season after all. ] (link: "Back")[(goto: "D3")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

(align:"=><=")+(box:"XXXXXXXXX=")[''Unlimited ''] (align:"<==")+(box:"XXXX=")[I have driven to your house for years now, Or rather, have been driven. I have been driven to your house for years now. Makes me think, is there ever romance without independence? If you need me, I will be there, but with a chauffeur. Your house has awaited my arrival for years now, only recently has it been in vain. I wait for our home always, or rather, I wait for a home, always. I want a home. I want home. Walk me home, won’t you? Take me home? Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime. I am starving, where are you? Gift a man a fish? Sounds like a good meal, Lifetimes are more impactful, I suppose. Shortlived years. Fish a man out of you? I tried. Fish a man out of a lifetime? Impossible. Teach a man a lifetime? Wouldn’t that be lovely. Teach a man to fish? A lot simpler, best to assume we all want to eat forever. I was driven to your house all those years ago, and I still don’t know where it is. Same principle? Maybe. I am not a man either, so there's that too. ] (link: "Back")[(goto: "Poetry")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[''(text-colour:navy)[What a pretty sweater but look at the tag]''] (align:"<==")+(box:"XXXXXXXXX=")[(text-colour:navy)[Let me describe it to you: There is a tightness in my chest, Yes, That’s right, A tightness in my chest. A ribbon that wraps around and around and around my heart. If it is loose, there is nothing to worry about, Think of it as heartware. My beat is adorned, accessorized, What could be more fitting? When I see you, that is how it remains. You cuddle my core, or rather, My core is cuddled by you. All is fine then, all is comfy. It is when you are away, or rather, When you do not see me, or rather, When I do not feel seen by you. Yes, That’s right, When I do not feel seen by you, That is when the ribbon twists. Tightens. Comfort turns to capture, A satin straight jacket swallowing my sentiment. The bow is tied taught when all I can do is think of you. I do not only want to think of you, I want to feel you— For the sake of composure, or rather, For composures sake, Let me describe it to you: It is only in the confinement of your bedroom, That I know who you are, or rather, I do not know who you are outside of the bedroom, or rather, I do not like who you are outside of the bedroom. Yes, That’s right, I do not like who you are outside of the bedroom. No, That’s not right. I do not like that you don’t act how you do inside of the bedroom, outside of the bedroom. Inside, the ribbon is soft. Pink plush, it glides smoothly along the right atrium, Cupid shoots through the tricuspid and the ribbon is tugged, or rather, Ushered, Into the right ventricle where the rhythm begins. My drumbeats are muffled by your fabric, My existence pushed through the pulmonic by your threads, my red pulled into the pulmonary by your stitches. You hold me together, but only— In the bedroom. The left half is next, and the ribbon is waiting, My tracks become synonymous with yours when we caress the mitral, From ventricular to aortic to aorta the ribbon, your ribbon— The ribbon, Feeds the rest of my body. Superior and inferior, no oxygen, You leave me breathless, or rather, You weave me breathless. Back to the right and we begin anew. The ribbon loose, the ribbon comforting, for moments We have created a masterpiece, but only— In the bedroom. Outside, Even when it is only us two, The ribbon grows ridges, Grooves that sink and suck where they should not, Makes me wonder, did the seamstress forget a needle? The heart is supposed to pump blood, But I hear it tearing, Feel it leaking, The ribbon runs red outside. I am certain my body turns blue with every cold stare, but surely, You would care if it did? Give me a glimpse of what we had? If only for a moment? No, Never on the outside, only— In the bedroom.] ] (link: "Back")[(goto: "Poetry")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[''Mother Moving Amongst the Night''] (align:"<==")+(box:"XXXX=")[Pomegranates for breasts, even my milk has been soiled. Will your lips pucker at my sweet gone sour? my kindred, I will yearn for you always. Please remember, that it was the ground that swallowed me up. I may be a dreamwalker in a field of daffodils, but baby, my sweet, I never meant to go in, to go right on in. ] <img class="MMATN" src="https://certifiedentity.neocities.org/images/IMG_8177.jpg"> *from Lucille Clifton’s //My Mama moved among the days//. (Cite photo) (link: "Back")[(goto: "Poetry")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[''Unprepared''] ''1st Draft:'' We were in the car Your hands looked soft on the steering wheel I wore the wrong boots Too small for the passenger seat It smelled of heat and I was Too scared to roll the window down Because that would be counterproductive My mom used to say the same thing Its warm don’t waste it We missed the sunset You were too busy asking me to love you Back so the orange faced our backs Instead of our faces and it helped me Realize I don’t actually like you from All angels rather do arts and crafts than Touch you but we held hands when we First met and I could have sworn it felt Right then but it doesn’t anymore and the Car is too hot but I need you to take me home. ''2nd Draft:'' Back there, in the car, your hands look soft on the steering wheel. Wore the wrong boots, my legs feel hollow and I’m too small for the passenger Seat now. Smells of heat, stale air and dry kisses. Was too scared to roll down the window because that’s counterproductivity, used to say the same thing “It’s warm, don’t waste it.” We missed the sunset You were too busy asking me to love you back So orange faced the wrong way, it was meant for Faces. Realized there was less than expected, some Angles are off putting, can be ugly. Rather do arts and Crafts than touch you but we used to hold hands and When we first met I could have sworn it felt right but it doesn’t anymore. Car too hot but I need you to take me home, its okay be upset. ''3rd Draft:'' Back there, in the car, hands look soft atop the steering wheel. Wore the wrong boots, legs feel hollow, too small for the passenger now. Smells heat, stale air, taste it, and dry kisses. Too scared to roll the window down: counterproductivity. Used to say the same thing, “It’s warm, don’t waste it.” Missed the sunset, too busy ordering Love. Orange faced the wrong way, meant for Faces. There was less than expected, some angels are off putting, ugly, can be. Do anything than touch but hands used to be held and first it felt right but it doesn’t anymore. Car too hot but not home yet, its okay be upset. ''Final'' We missed the sunset, You were too busy asking me To love you back. I can’t but, I still need you to take me home. (link: "Back")[(goto: "Poetry")] (link: "Home")[(goto: "Home Page")]

COMING SOON!