/lit/ - Literature

Las night I posted this but one read, i'll try my luck on this new thread:

He came out of the bathroom and stood on his feet for a while looking at the living room's windows. The building's third floor windows. He started to walk. Mahui's father released me and formed a body - barrier between Reptil and the windows. Bort stayed squatted by the bathroom's door and yelled something at Reptil in his native tongue. Reptil stood on the center of the living room looking at Mahui's father, his fist thighten. I had my attention on Bort's words when the metalic noise startled me. Reptil was kicking the chairs around out of frustration. Bort stood and tried to jump him. Reptil got him with a fist on the stomach's pit. Nobody said anything. Mahui's father lowed the guard and came back to his chair. Reptil's head was shaking. Then I heard Bort's first retching: coffee. Second retching: coffee with smell of rotted fruit. Third retching: sandwich leftovers, badly digested. Fourth retching: blood and saliva. He touched his forehead and passed out right on the reeking puddle. His hair looked like spaguetti.

>>5690597
the opening of a short story i've written so far:

The gas station was normally overcome by the stink of gasoline, menthol cigarettes, and broken exhaust pipes, but not at this moment --the air was subjugated by the foul stench of desperation. One of sweat and death and permeated for several blocks each way; the kind among the periphery of human suffering: heroin withdrawal.

>>5690924

Would continue to read/ 10

I don't know whether the sort of constipated sort of style is intended or intentional though - either way it grew on me.

>>5690597

-Ain't seen a man who couldn't do it like him.

-Naww, me neither; the guy was like, the legitimate messiah.

The flock of introspective junkies rubbed their spindly arms, splintering sticks of kindling as they murmur shades of concurrence.

-Sucks without him. The old fuck could suck a cock like a sentient fleshlight.

-Never saw his dong though, I always thought-

-Nah, he had those weird yellow bumps around his scrotum the old fags get when-

-That was years ago, he was getting the proper cunt strength hydrocortisone from that spic pharmacist on 5th street

-Well anyway, it’s not as if cock, bollocks, gob or ass matter to him anymore

-He's in faggot heaven

-Isn't that just hell?

An olive skinned Pakistani shifted awkwardly on his young little ass.

- I suppose it is

The oldest guy sat with a grease stained brown paper bag on his lap.

-Eternal McDonalds. My good lord will deliver.

-We'll be dead and gone and those cum stained patties of cow cunt will still hiss like bladdered rattlesnakes.

-To think I’ll be some grain of putrid dust - trapped in the pubes of a new little fuckboy.

The middle aged cock-jokey spoke with his teeth. Cutting grooves into the words he spoke - his great, dark, circled eyes of bottomless black blurring in and out of perfection with the flaws of his diction.

Purple ellipses sketched across his cheeks, bursting leaks of watercolour veins staining his voice.

-Pipe down asshole. You'll get your own ceremony one day.

Charged fingers of beryllium light twist into the grey urban rains of an Indian summer, bifurcating into a million strands of a redundant and ill-formed reality. The junkies are bent double, needling the wet tarmac with their arms like dirty hypoderms.
Eyes like great white footballs, seeping a lucid sound of nothing. Abstractions of some genuine emotion, dripping into a pan of fat.
They crawl into the air, onto each other, scuttle and hurry in and out of each other’s gaping orifices.
They linger momentarily on the Plasticine horror of Old-Joe’s perfectly circular, bloody mouth.
And then they disappear, leaving the bag in the middle of some deserted out-of-town diner whilst Old-Joe chuckles a callous aphorism from his slumber.

>>5690597

Posted some of this yesterday, polished on it some more today.

By popular demand, the protagonist is no longer named Zeth. And yes, "Grim" is a real name, and not as tryhard, edgy and dark as one might think (I want him to have one that is unusual but not unheard of)... I think it works, but if anyone hates it feel free to say so.

>>5690929

the word subjugated is a turn off

>inb4 muh vocabulary

>>5690937

>The old fuck could suck a cock like a sentient fleshlight.
>proper cunt strength hydrocortisone
>Eternal McDonalds. My good lord will deliver.

I know you probably didn't mean for it to be funny, per se, but holy fuck my sides.

>>5690597

While wandering and wondering,
I saw a leaf spiriling
down
to
the
ground.
I reached out my hand and caught it.
It whispered for help.
I crushed it.
I'm
a
monster
because
I understand what it's like to spiral
and maybe I don't deserve to end a life.

>>5690956
How much of this are you done?

I'd be interested in reading more of it

>>5691044

I'm like 2 k words in, so about double what I posted now. Thing is I write in Swedish and then translate to post here. This is the polished part though, I'm taking my time with it.

>I'd be interested in reading more of it

So it's at least decent then? Has potential?

This is a shitty story I'm writing for a girl who likes fantasy books.

Context is the MC was daydreaming about a childhood memory and asked how long until a tree reaches its max height, he said "Centuries, I bet."

The canopy above shrouded the sky. Its leaves were broad and their branches were as thick as what the trunk once was. Monstrous sea serpents with scales of root danced around me, disappearing under an ocean of soil, a sea of grass. Time had aged the vale; in its annals the white oak had flourished and so had I. Another decade returned me to this moment, to relive that which was forgotten.
"No, Not centuries." I stumbled to my feet, leaning against the trunk—its bark every bit as smooth as I remember—and muttered under my breath. "Millennia."
Surrounding the oak: a village—charred, desecrated and molded by time. Its bricks smothered in ash, crumbling and concealed by moss. Wooden logs long decayed, planks burnt, wasted away. The ghost of fire left every breath to choke with soot. Homes collapsed in piles of rubble and the ones left standing had caved in. Saplings took root in fissures and holes; growing within the wounds, reclaiming their home through the homes that replaced it.
"Auskal."
He slept, curled up alongside where I had laid beneath our tree. No longer a pup, he would dwarf any fox and grew heavier than most wolves. A body long and slender, what he lacked in bulk was compensated with grace. Ashen fur just as pure but thinner and flush. His ears were sharp and his tail flowed a silken river unlike the bush it was in his youth. Auskal was a refined creature that disguised its ferocity in elegance.
My foot tapped against his side, waking him from his nap. "It is time to go, my friend."
It had been months of traveling. Day in, day out; endless walking towards a destination that never ceased to stop. A goal that moved further away and turned ever more daunting as it neared. Through vicious rainstorms and gentle skies, the loneliness of an empty winter sun and excitement from the first signs of spring; I wander, for my feet is all that remains of me. A lost soul that has long since left its host, searching to find a tranquil frame of mind and its missing heart.
We moved through the village, down a dirt trail made feral with weeds. I spoke a lighthearted tone, wracked with disgust. "I have a feeling that if we travel any slower, we'll keep finding settlements defiling our cherished memories."
The sounds of cracking stone spread from a chimney, infecting the house beside us. It snapped, toppling over across the path, littering it with fragments of brick around our feet. "What do you think, Auska?"

Rip that shit apart

>>5691023
gay

>>5690956
Ah, i see you've made the changes I recommended. I'll check it out in a minute.

I'm the guy with the campfire story from yesterday, feel free to shit on my work here:
>>5691069

>>5691023
Autist here. The problem I have is that leaves aren't "a life". If they're falling they're most likely dead already. even if they were still technically alive, you're just crushing part of a tree, like crushing a human's skin flake or something. Also, if the leaf is green and alive, crushing it will just sort of fold it, not really "end its life".

>>5690956
>>5691084
Much more poetic and vivid with it's description in places, I didn't notice any of that science paper feel it had before.

>to put it mildly, a fucking dive.
That like was incredibly sudden and maybe I'm just stupid and lowbrow but it gave a needed impact.

as
>>5691044
said, I would also be interested in reading more but since it's a translation I know that'd be hard.

Like I said before, very solid. Just one nitpicky thing I've got though, you use the word mildly twice very close together (might just be a translation thing though)

>to put it mildly
>mildly interesting

Other than that though, keep up what you've got.

>>5691084

>i see you've made the changes I recommended

I did, thanks for those again, works much better I think. Fleshed out some other parts a bit as well.

>>5691069

Heh, is there a pattern here of writing things for chicks? :^)

>The canopy above shrouded the sky.

I like this sentence as a starter, short, concise, but compelling, the follower is good to, but maybe "their branches were as thick as the trunk once was" would be better? "as what" feels misplaced.

I'm having difficulty critting this, the language feels a bit heavy and reaching, but then again it's fantasy so that works as a stylistic choice, just not my cup of tea genre wise, so it's hard to be objective. I don't see any of the classic mistakes though, so pretty solid.

> A goal that moved further away and turned ever more daunting as it neared. Through vicious rainstorms and gentle skies, the loneliness of an empty winter sun and excitement from the first signs of spring; I wander, for my feet is all that remains of me

Favorite part right there, I think. Flows well without clashing with the style

>>5690597

>>5691113

>I'm just stupid and lowbrow but it gave a needed impact.

The word I use in the original, while profane, doesn't really have the same stigma attached to it as "fucking" does in the anglosphere, but it was the best I could come up with.

> mildly twice very close together

Yeah, it's more varied in the original, but I'll see about a slight rewrite there. Maybe "it was, to put it kindly, a fucking dive" for the first sentence instead.

>I would also be interested in reading more

I think I'll be translating it throughout actually, I find it helpful in expanding the vocabulary, sort of like doing two paralele drafts.

>>5691136
Everything

>>5691125
>>5691142

Well I don't know how the original is, but just as a translation it's great, keep it up man.

And thanks for the critique.

I usually have that very heavy style normally. I started writing this particular story with a more free flowing prose, but I really couldn't handle it, didn't turn out well at all.

So instead I'm doing a mix of the two, flowing when I'm being sentimental and heavy on descriptions.

>writing things for chicks
Honestly, this was a story I thought of writing 4 years ago for a girlfriend I had. I wasn't good enough to pull it off then, so now I'm giving it another shot.

>>5690929
>menthol cigarettes
Wut

>>5691165
A cheap, shitty brand of cigarettes.

>>5691165
>>5691204

Dem Newports

Here's a few of my latest shitty poems, hope you guys enjoy

This first one is about chain smoking

One, with the smell of cofee and morning dew
Two, for the city rings too loud
Three, for a bit of talk with a few
Four, Five, Six, smoke rolls by like a cloud
Seven, for each of my sins
Eight, for redemption not found
Nine, clouded by malicious grins
Ten, bury those worries in a mound
Eleven and all the teens rushing along
Twenty, probably won't live that long

The next two are just some fragments, I still don't know what to do with them and could really use some critique

Then they cheer us, then they boo us
Baby we'll just keep on drinking
And I know if I inch closer
you'll inch away further back
And I know that there's a distance
between your lone heart and mine
But our gazes are connected
and the stars they are reflected
And the constellations they conspire
to bring about a new moon that will shine
in a new way, so that your kiss will be mine

Forget the tropical paradise
Venus is instead Hell
we rest on a broken bed
time has shown it well
Mars is Earth's brother instead

>>5691204
didn't know that menthol cigarettes had a different smell from non-mentholated cigarettes

t. smoker

>>5691434

In my experience, they smell a bit minty, though no where near as much as they taste of the awful crap.

t. Someone who occasionally bums a menthol off his sister when he runs out of snus.

Does /lit/ accept non-fiction?

Last year, I went to Haiti with some friends who were making a documentary of sorts. I thought I might write a travel book (or novella?) about it, but I wanted it to be different, and obviously make it sound less douchey than the premise makes it seem:

"Near dusk along the lighter ridges we found the first of our owls. They’d roosted among the Crossbills and expropriated several from their nests, and they watched impassive the rising torments of the other birds black in the storm light across the mountains. They didn’t look like fighting birds. They were solemn things and didn’t look capable of violence. But the birds were gone from the nests and their eggs lay dead and the owls cracked them apart and ate the embryos quickly. Sarah was delighted to have found them and was set on spending a night beneath their nests, filming. Fine with us. When the last light left the trees and lilac lashed out across the sea and when it faded, too, the owls rose and swung about their heads about in the nighttime. Even while hunting they were placid and they hummed and moaned and we camped south-west of them for the night. I said to Sarah we should mount the camera on a fold in the rock but we couldn’t see, and it seemed awful to bring light into the place when it belonged, then, to the owls. Droopy headed, staring sometimes for long periods down on us, their eyes aligned and glowing the style of many Jupiters and we grew to accept one another.

In Haitian Vodou there are spirits in all things. Awake in an ambience of night bugs and the torrid sleeve of the sleeping bag, I counted those around me. Kalfou was some open abyss and the loa of all things dark and fathomless and he was surely around. There was Bakulu the chain-bearer who presides as the most terrible thing in the woods and takes his sacrifices in the desolation of his image. Bade in the winds of September brought Sogbo and her thunder in the distance. And of course Brise, who is black and very large in proportion and takes the from often of an owl. He is a gentle soul and is said to like children."

>>5691106

Definitely true, but it could be that the narrator is viewing the leaf as a symbol for something else, like a broken relationship, and crushing it as a way to metaphorically move passed it

Slam! A door moves swiftly shut.
My feet clap upon the
Stairs. My mind still asleep
A silver teardrop grows,
A silver teardrop falls.
Poor baby, woken from a
Dream.

I had a dream too, you know?
Twas more of an illusion.

I lived in a place of self
Determination. I was
Free, A man with no master,
Or mistress to mistrust me.
No one to whip or chain me.
No person to restrain me.

Ah yes mirage! Ignis
Fatuus.

One year maybe...
One year to go...
Though I know it's all in vain
Now. I wake up to my life,
To now find my freedom feigned.

>>5691502
I can't really help much because it is non fiction. I've got to ask though, is it meant to be informative? Or maybe something based on true events? Anyway, here is some basic critique.

>They'd roosted
sounds a little clunky, change it to they, or roosted to roost.

>watched impassive the rising
try impassively watched.

>didn't look, didn't look.
A little repetitive

>Fine with us
The narrative is pretty past tense, maybe rewrite it to some form of "That was fine with us" also Fine by us sounds nicer.

>last light left the trees and lilac lashed
The alteration is nice here, it might be a little too close together for the first 3 but, I like it.

>when it faded, too, the owls rose
I'd rework the sentence and make it
>when it faded, too did the owl's rise
or something.

>hummed and moaned and we
Just an opinion, but I prefer to avoid using and in a row like that, especially here since the first two things (hummed, moaned) aren't parallel with the rest of the sentence after the second and. For example:
>Hummed and moaned and screeched
is more acceptable when repetition in the word and.

>I said to Sarah we should
make it a dialogue, or change it to
>I said to Sarah, that we should
Flows easier, the comma is important here for grammar

>when it belonged, then, to the owls
This is just a little convoluted for the sake of being convoluted. Not sure how to fix it, but, it's clunky and it isn't worth it for the style points


>In Haitian Vodou there
>chain-bearer who
>In Haitian Vodou, there
>chain-bearer, who
Commas yo.

>Kalfou (entire sentence)
Three ands, again me being a cunt about that.

Mostly some nitpicky stuff and grammar bullshit, but for the most part it's serviceable

I'm going to assume you were going for the scientific/informative approach in which case, no need to make it poetic or give much vivid imagery

Not bad.

Since I've probably bruised your ego a little bit (don't worry, even the best writers can get their work torn to shreds if someone looks hard enough) feel free to tear apart my shit if you're into that sort of thing.

Here:
>>5691069

>>5690924
>father released me and formed a body - barrier between Reptil and the windows. Bort stayed squatted by the bathroom's door and yelled something at Reptil in his native tongue.


...What?

>>5690929
You can word this better. Keep at it.

>>5690937
Dark and off putting with some grit. Not something I would read, but well done.

(1/2)

II. Algernon is Tired on a Couch

Algernon is lying on the leather couch. He can remember being upright (yes of course, he was sitting right in the middle of the couch. He remembers spending quite a lot of time trying to center himself perfectly) but he can’t recall when his torso slid to the side. It doesn’t matter, now Algernon’s head is resting on the armrest, his arms strewn in front of him, limply bent in subtle angles. He tries to lift his head to see if his rear is still in the middle of couch but his neck gives out and his head drops back to the brown leather cushion. He really did put a lot of work into sitting on the middle of the couch. Algernon hopes his work hasn’t been undone. Suddenly the sound of Gerald’s voice slips back into his spectrum of attention. Algernon looks up at Gerald, who is pacing back and forth, leaning on his cane. He walks to the mantlepiece, steadies himself, then turns around and walks to the painting of the god Neptune on the opposite wall. Algernon wonders if the painting would be damaged if Gerald were to lean on it. Gerald’s words begin to clarify in Algernon’s ears.

“...and that’s all this is. What life is, Algernon. Dreams upon dreams. The individual can not tell the difference between dreaming and waking life. He can however be sure that he is not on a level of consciousness lower than his present resting place… consider a dreaming man. He is sure that he is conscious, which he is not, but if he was thinking dreams in his dream, he would know he was not dreaming in the dream, when in reality he is only dreaming… I’m having a bit of trouble making myself clear, Algernon. Do you understand?”

Algernon moves his head in agreement. Maybe less in confirmation of his understanding, but at least to show that he is listening.

>>5691699
(2/2)

“Good. That’s good, Algernon. Where was I going… mm, the dreaming man. The dreaming man may not be aware that he is dreaming, but he is aware that he is not dreaming within his dream, which to him is just dreaming. Algernon, maybe a better way to visualize this would be to imagine a tall building with many floors. But these floors are made of glass, see Algernon? You can look below you and see all of the floors that you are not on, that are below you. However Algernon, no one looks above them. Everyone assumes that they are on the top floor because they do not see any floors above. Algernon, I am trying to look up and I know you are doing the same. I have not looked up yet, I am learning how, but I have embraced the idea that there could be many more floors above me. Perhaps this building is infinitely tall, and there is no highest level of consciousness. Perhaps the higher levels are reserved for the dead, maybe they are reserved for the unborn, perhaps for the enlightened. Or perhaps I am at the top level and my pursuits are without purpose. Either way Algernon, it is crucial that I find my way to look upwards. I feel that there is more waiting for me.”

Algernon understands and appreciates Gerald’s message but feels no need to respond. He shifts and slowly rolls over onto his stomach, his face nuzzled in between the couch cushion and the armrest. He hopes he’ll remember to take this position on the couch again some time in the future, it’s quite comfortable. He hears Gerald laugh

“Why Algernon, you seem to still be looking down! Don’t you want to learn your place?”

Algernon hears Gerald collapse into the loveseat.

trying to attract some comments

Slammed taut between the bellowing brackets he whistled and weaseled his way out of wu wei; he walkered the sky in his own dinky manner and blotter he did out the want after it was long since on. A rascal if ever, never tilly the soul before bickering again, risk the rhyme and whisper his name: you. Black out the best boy, bring him to face with the ripples in the waste, rile him up or ruffle his whiskers to sleep him a song of relentless ink. I bit him, I bit him! I am dead to all but another, if only the wind was as wide as the doe, who's thighs are thickening by the minute, by the very hairy fall of the dogskull. I want more from this moment! Could a killy kinch ever rise to hate or slap him, I couldn't, I? I bate it to bite me, if only it could do less than bleed, I'd wish it away and risk the world in its poor state to pile another feast on my greasy plate. If only, if only. I want to wash myself, a filth of furth up on my turning style, never go on, I can't lie to my wandering jew, sinpathy. Grace me! Me, me, me! I am an adjective with ambition to residue, wrestling with wispy citizens of the nounship! My want is on, my want is on, my word is my bon-bon, my glass is tracing paper, my structure is an eco. Alas, wantering still, feel i should halve less.

>>5691699
>>5691701
I won't go into grammar and stuff because its a style that I don't even.

I did like how the repetition of the names and the simplicity in the sentence structure represented Algernon's stupidity, fatigue, drunkness, or whatever you're going for here.

My major issue is with the wall of text that is Gerald's monologue. It's somewhat repetitive. Basically, I understood the idea in the first bit of dialogue. Maybe though, it's meant to be that way because of the line "I'm having trouble making himself clear."

In reality though, the concept is too simple, he's clear almost instantly and the rest is him just hammering the idea. Maybe if it was a much more complex thing. I would suggest tightening that up.

It kind of can't be done because it needs to be written simply, but perhaps put a little more description?
also words like "Suddenly" (basically all ly words but suddenly in particular) leave a sour taste. but like... that's just my opinion, man.

It's a good start though, polish that shit yo.

Feel free to tear apart my shit
>>5691069

A beer-bellied bastard on La-Z-Boy, swilling pisswater lager, transfixed on a 24 months with no interest 52” plasma screen TV’s from Best Buy, watching fast, advertisement-plastered cars go in a circle—can you see it? Can you see those vacant eyes, fat and glistening with impotent monkey rage? Can you see those mustard stains on the wife beater too small to cover the gelatinous blob of hair and flesh called his stomach? Can you smell him—can you feel sweat, motor oil and poorly wiped assforcing its way up your nostrils? This man—let’s call him Frank—works as a short order chef at Waffle House, making $8.25 an hour after 10 years. He hates niggers. He hates spics. He hates faggots. He loves Jesus. He loves Nascar. He loves ogling teenage ass. He’s an all-American. He votes for whoever waves the flag the most enthusiastically, whoever tells him that he gets to keep his guns, whoever says the world freedom the most and whoever believes in freedom the least.

I hate Frank and he is also me.

>>5691706
>>5690924

I've commented on it before so It'd just be repetition
Basically what I said is the constant name dropping is annoying, but I don't see an easy way to fix that without it becoming confusing

Another thing is
>body - barrier

Maybe make it human shield, or something?

I'm also trying to find comments.
>>5691069

>>5691738

Just some basic grammar problems I have with it.

>on La-Z-Boy
>on a La-Z-Boy/on the La-Z-Boy
Flows better to me.

>whoever says the word freedom the most and whoever believes in freedom the least
Favorite line.

>impotent monkey rage
that doesn't make sense to me, he's angry he's watching nascar? I like the words though, just I can't see how it makes sense in the context

>I hate Frank and he is also me.
Maybe make it
>I hate Frank. And I'm Frank.
or something? 'and he is also me' doesn't do it justice.

I love the concept of it, just needs a little polish

The air was stale in the apartments. In fact, it was stale regardless of where the student went, so long as he remained at that same altitude, halfway between the top and the bottom of the city. It was a nostalgic scent that harkened back to his childhood, those barely-cogent years of innocent simplicity and simple pleasures. His unit was small, like the one which his parents had rented as he was young, an impoverished little one bedroom unit with an attached kitchenette. Of course, he never cooked, and the glistening stovetop, a domestic must have from yesteryear, remained as pristine as the day he had moved in. Sometimes though, due to an oversight made during the construction of the apartment, or some clandestine operation performed afterwards, the smell of cooking from one of the adjacent units wafted into his suite, fragrant and rich.

When the spices and aromas of domesticity (undoubtedly, the product of the newlyweds who occupied the unit to his left, and not the lonely pensioner who occupied his right flank) mixed with the stagnant darkness of the middle city his nostalgia became crippling, and visions of his young mother toiling away in a cramped corner preparing dinner jumped out of a murky past. Her voice seemed to echo out of those wistful mirages, welcoming his father home from work, as she put her dinner preparations aside to prepare him a bath and a pot of tea.

>>5691706
Hi, I'm this guy, looking for advice on this weak paragraph of mine. How to improve it?:

Reptil closed his eyes and showed the palms of his hands at shoulder's height. He moved thenm in an expression that all of you would read as "i'm calming myself down". But for Reptil it should had meant a different thing, something along "i'm getting tired of you all" or "i'm losing my goddamn head". He put his hands on the back of his neck and took air.. slowly... He took a step backwards, heading to the internal door, hands still on the neck. He exhaled... Took another step. Then another. He opened his eyes in the say way baby crocodiles must open them up before hatching. Then he screamed.

>>5692460
same way*

WHO WANTS TO READ 8300 WORDS OF FANTASY FICTION?!? :D

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NyQVNiRaf-P-5YdjI2zbDdrm1hFQjcdRUG1PGA9dUwQ/edit

>>5690597
That part was really smart, and Bolano made me happy when I gave the same interpretation Lima and Belano did.
>>5691136
My answer is fog.

>>5692708
I always though it was something (for may fit) crawling in.

But months ago I went to a Bolaño exp on a local museum. They had some manuscripts on screen, mostly unfinished drafts, but some of them were from Savage Detectives. There was an early outline with all the riddles and their solutions and let me tell you, right next to the final riddle on pic related it was a basketball goal. It may be a joke from himself to himself, but I don't know.

Just looking for any criticism.

The Golden Rider charged, red bases flitting,
Lance couched in targe, on tall saddle - sitting.
Eyes ablaze with fervour, wide open for the assault,
Unlike stoics moreover, whom deny passion's result.

The wyrm emerged from its lair, drawn out to The Rider's challenge,
Bony detritus of evident crime, empty of marrow which beast enamoured.
Forked tongue and fangs to bare, and against steel-tipped phalange,
A carapace slicked with slime, though neither verdigrised nor enameled.

The princess knelt in awed prayer, consoling the lamb leashed to her
From that scene at which she stare - the wrath of her beseeched savior.

The Golden Rider charged, slimy faulds splitting,
As stallion's hooves barged, at The Rider's bidding.
Escape no longer a choice, though try as the beast may;
A desperate cry it did voice, not enough - to be kept at bay.

The wyrm having ceased despair, met The Rider's gaze - to avenge,
With fangs bared in mocking grin, grasped lance with claw and clamoured.
This mortal wound of the affair drove into the beast a steel lozenge,
Which then released its final din, a breath ablaze with embers englamoured.

As shaft came loose of its furled grip, serpent's deflated head lolled,
Releasing thick, vile fluid from its lip, and down its chin it rolled.

>>5692746
That's really interesting, thanks anon.
Where does this museum exist? A Bolaño exp would be awesome in my shithole.

>>5692818
I was on Barcelona. The exp is gone now. I'm not american, so it doesn't pumps me up, but I read somewhere that the exp may travel to NYC in response to the public acclaim of Bolaño's work.

>>5692828
Oh, I'm italian mate .__.
We had a good section dedicated to him in Turin in 2012, that's it.

I walked all winter through foreign fields, stopping never to lift my foot
From the ground I left behind.
I found myself frosted, bathed, in a sea of tears that stole me away to death,
But they were not mine.
The snow cascaded in rows and files, drenching trees with soft white blind
But the river was left untouched --
For what does not keep flowing in time,
Is fated to be drowned in dreams' velvety touch.

>>5690924
what the fuck I'd throw the book away
>>5690929
because you can really distinguish menthol butts from normals..
>--the air was subjugated by the foul stench of desperation
nice thesaurus use
>One of sweat and death and permeated for several blocks each way;
how would I know this? I thought we were at the petrol station, now we are a birds eye view because from a local standpoint you can't smell "several blocks each way", you don't smell the sise of a stench. Either way it's a shift in perspective and it's confusing.
>s, but not at this moment --the air was subjugated by the foul stench of desperation. One of sweat and death and permeated for several blocks each way; the kind among the periphery of human suffering: h

Do you see that? In like a two half sentences you have used 5 different types of punctuation. It makes the story needlessly hard to read.

>>5692874
why would you throw it?

He felt the familiar sensation the signaled his inevitable return from his dream state to the waking world. The colors of his minds eye faded to grey as the dull paint of reality coated him once again. He clung to his dream, as he always did, hoping to prolong his fantasy for a few moments longer. He teetered on the bridge between wakefulness and sleep, leaving him in a half aware daze. Slowly but expectantly, his dream became a vague notion as it pulled away back into the now distant locked room of his subconscious. It felt like a past life now, hidden beneath the world of his increasingly unavoidable cognizance.

He would lay in his bed for a few more hours, hidden beneath his blankets hoping to recapture the elusive pleasure of being enveloped by his inner mind. He would curl into a ball and cover himself in his thick comforter, holding his eyes shut tight. He would picture his room, tucked into the corner of his small ranch house and focused on the idea that he was alone here. The weight of reality lingering overhead would slip away as his world became this small dark corner of the universe. He was completely outside of the tangled web of life, isolated and hidden. He would live in this desperate surrogate as long as he could, as it was the last, brief moment of happiness he would feel before entering the coming day.

The once overwhelming gratification of his dream state dwindles to nothingness. He slides out of his bed unceremoniously, leaving the comforting encasement of his blankets behind. He refamiliarized himself with his limbs, awkward and pale. His eyes met the dull gaze of the man staring back at him from the mirror on his wall. Empty eyes stained black. The light that once danced in them had long since retreated from this world, leaving behind a void to be fruitlessly filled by one empty glimer of emotion after the next. With a practiced precision, he blinked his eyes until he recognized the counterfeit normalcy that he projected into the world. The faint glimmer of life that he could bring forth. He prepared with a ritualistic familiarity the mask he would wear before stepping out of the comfort of his shell.

Stepping out, he would have the same fruitless wish he always did. Let this day just pass him by, and let him stay in the sanctuary of his mind where he belongs. He would fill his day with one tedious escape to the next, never looking down lest he see the hole he was sinking in. Driven forth by the single obsessive thought, that his terminally absent light would be waiting for him when he returned, somewhere.

>>5690937
this is a maturation, throughout the piece it goes from youthful optimism to LOL XD to "omg I am sooo emooo and poetic" to goth, characterised by moody 'art' journals and strains of "omg my writing totally sucks everything is bleak waa waa -but secretely I think I have great talent and experession, another misunderstood artist, whose 'talent lays dormant within the depths of impermeable covers "

I hate your writing style and I hate you

>>5691023
so lame and tryna be deep all self-pitying and 'moody introspection" fuck off
>>5691069
I got bored halfway through and stopped reading that shit is boring and tiresome it's just description description metaphoric description poetic description description metaphor and another metaphor cringeworthy poetic description description DO YOU SEE HOW FUCKING BORING THIS IS TO READ NOTHING IS FUCKING HAPPENING I DON'T WANT TO READ YOUR MASTURBATORY SELF-CONGRATULATING DESCRIPTIVE BULLSHIT

>>5692890
>>5692897

>>5692897
someone has some issues.

It's supposed to be very descriptive, its early in the scene dumbass.

and shit did happen, MC started talking and a chimney blew up.

If anyone would like to give CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, feel free.
>>5691069

>Currently going through the dozens and dozens of random fiction .doc's all over my hard drive. Here's one from 2011. I think I posted it here back then too:

His city is a happy city and you couldn’t find him sad if you tried. Sticking on a sheet of leather he lies. It is like God’s palm - the designer had called it God’s Palm. It is designed to an inch of his frame and molds in tune with growth and movement. Made to fit! The designer had laughed and he’d laughed with him, bloody brilliant good-on-you-mate fucking wow fantastic. The greatest place on Earth. The man smirks and sips his drink. He is miles higher than every building and higher still than the shit-stained streets below. Further out: all the grazing fields. His sandwich before his mouth unhinged by the smell then stupefied by the taste. He can feel the grease seep between his mouth pores like rivers of blood. When he closes his eyes and chews he imagines he is clamped down on some animal jerking him around. Real Soma. He almost chokes in hysterics. After much heaving from some fat laden lost place inside he stands. It is time to work.

In the office downstairs from the rooftop are two hundred or so young men desperate for money. The man plods through peering down. He can hardly see them in their chairs behind his fat-packed cheeks. One chair he cannot see at all, and unsure if there’s someone there he tips forward to see.

‘What are you doing?’ he asks the young man found there.

‘Working.’

Cow grease spittle on the boy’s neck as he says: ‘What are you working on?’

‘I maintain the swine and bovine slaughter process.’

‘How does it work?

‘It’s difficult to explain.’

‘I will watch you.’

The boy is leaning away but the spit still hits him. It drips onto his fingers before slipping into the wet keyboard. The breath intensifies. The man is bovine and swine slaughter maintenance illiterate. The boy whimpers. Things flicker incoherently on the screen and soon he just says ‘Good job’ and walks away. It is simply routine. Nothing gained except for an idea; trepidatious on the brink of thought, held there by some final clung to limbic tendon. The sweet smell of that boy. Like the grease on his fingers.

Be nice on the weird grammar, im not a native English speaker.

The heaviness of It'Aahl

Martin was sitting by some table at yet another coffeshop, minding his own business, turning pages and reading the headlines of some shitty tabloid paper when It'Aahl came bursting out from the american-sized coffecup he was clutching onto. The creature floated in midair, wearing an all too small suit that seemed to burst at the seams. Its hands was glistening with slime in the otherwise very cosy light of the shop, its face made out of several eyes and rotten flesh. "Oh god, not again!" Martin exlaimed wearily to himself, to It'Aahl he said: "Please, Your Heaviness, Just leave me alone.. Im not scared of you, if thats what you think." He tried making his voice sound bored with the boredom only confidence can summon, but It'Aahl just
laughed his booming laughter that resonated through the coffeshop like an ice cold wind. "Do Not Try To Fool Me Boy! You See This Eye?" It'Aahl shouted, pointing to the third of the five eyes that made up his face. It was totally
black, and the biggest of them all. "Its The Eye of Despair!" He laughed again. "I Can LITERALLY See The Fear Pouring Out Of You! There's Nothing Stopping Me Now! You Fought Me Of Last Time Boy, But Im Back, And You Are Gonna Feel The Heaviness Of It'Aahl!"

"Can you at least drop the cheesy Demigod stuff?" Martin said as he finished his coffee which just moments ago was one of the best coffes in town. Now it was nothing but a cold, bitter, dreary soup that Martin forced down his throat. He stumbled onto his feet and forced himself to walk to the door, despite his spinning head and his seemingly dwindling muscles. When finally out on the street, Martin noticed that at least the creature hadn't taken away the sun. He walked on, trying to ignore It'Aahl, who was floating besides him humming some slow, sad melody. The sun stinged in his eyes and Martin was freezing. "Fat lot of good you are" He spat towards it, the sun looked kind of sorry where it hung behind the autumn mist, bleak as if it was struggling not to burn out. His Heaviness chuckled malevolently.

At last Martin arrived at the office, walked straight into the sliding doors twice, ignored It'Aahl's sly comment about how the doors recognized Martin
for the nobody he really was, and sat down at his desk and exhaled deeply. Just as he started typing something about the superiority of Ygdrasil AS' new paper formula, Henry the accounting guy walked by. "Hey Martin, you're in early today!" "Yeah, the coffe didn't taste as good today" Martin replied. Henry laughed and went on his way. "Ouhf, 'you're in early today' Did You Hear The Sarcasm Dripping? Plip Plop! And That Look He Gave You For That Shitty Joke!" It'Aahl chuckled. Martin looked dumbfounded after Henry. "What look? That's how he usually is, he's kinda--" "--Well If That's How He Usually Is, He's A Goddamn Dirtbag"

>>5693517

>A second, from 2011:

Untitled
By me

Cracks ran from roof to floor in Jack’s house. Most of them had formed late one year doubled in width by January. Dust from their brittle interiors could be seen at the carpet base of each and one needed only flick the walls to watch more crumble down. At least one face of each room suffered so severely from the cracks that it looked like one of Earth’s might’ve when its tectonic plates had first begun to shift and crash.

Summer highlighted the kitchen as the worst off. At the end of it, on one particularly hot and sunny morning, the last for a very long time, Jack was eating breakfast and skimming his young eyes over the day’s headlines. Suspicions of an incoming attack on America dominated almost every page and after reading the comics Jack became bored, pushed his food away unfinished and looked about the kitchen. It was only then that he noticed the cracks. A painting across from where he sat was slightly askew but rather than rising to inspect it he just leaned a little closer and squinted. A thin black mark became discernible, stretching behind and up through the painting’s center. Jack, curious, went to correct the frame’s position and as he walked his eyes traced the crack up to the roof and he stopped.

They were everywhere. For an odd and unpleasant moment he had the impression he was standing inside a giant hollowed-out tree. Above and on every side, everywhere except the carpet below did the dark lines splinter and entwine to and from all ends of the white plaster. Jack sat back down and stared. How had he not noticed them before?

>>5693527

"God? I thought you didn't use those words, Your Heaviness?" Martin replied, whith a faint hope that It'Aahl would leave him alone for some time if he taunted him enough. "God Died Ages Ago, i don't care." It'Aahl said flatly.

>>5693528

>A third, from early this year (I'll post just one more):

'Bali'

They booked their flight to Bali on a whim, two weeks in advance. Neither of them knew anything about the country nor had any special interest in it; it seemed fun, though. Chris took a photo of their tickets and posted it on Facebook with the caption: Summer with the girl, sinking beers on the beach in the Bali sun. While they sat in silence at the cafe across the road from the travel agent, Chris occasionally peeked over his phone at Michelle, trying to catch her assured smile when she saw his post. When they paid the bill, he had not seen her smile once the whole evening, and assumed he must have missed it.

>>5693532

>4/4. From 2012 - written originally in one of those /lit/ roll threads, where you had to write about the topic designated to the last number of your roll post. Who else misses them?

Mrs. Cthulhu tunneled down the hallway, cracking the walls of the house, which threatened to give way below her. ‘You’re not going anywhere!’ she shrilled. A baby screamed from the apartment below. The beast heaved herself, with great effort, from the hallways end to the living room.‘How will I manage without you?’

‘Christ, you’ll be fine!’ David burst from his room at the other end of the hallway, petrified by the noise. He reeled in disgust at the sight of her. ‘Please mother, oh my god, stop moving.’ He ran back into his room and went sick. The smell was quashed by her unwashed tentacles that now flew about in chaotic fury.

‘I just worry for you, my dear.’

‘Please don’t look at me.’ Her eyes reminded him of a boiling pot, brimming with living infants and animals. ‘I have to go some time. I’m an adult now!’

‘Phnglui mglw nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah nagl fhtagn' she replied, and the sky turned a baroque red, filling David’s mouth with the taste of blood. She crashed through the east wall of the living room, her mass now unconstrained and expanded to ten times its size, and descended into the ocean with a deafening wail that was wrought with incomprehensible doom - a noise idiosyncratic of her frequent tantrums. David shook his head as he watched the local sea life rise to the surface, their flesh eviscerated and their bones contorted. The baby downstairs had silenced, and David could hear the father crying, lamenting his murder. She just won’t listen, he thought. Why bear children if you can’t let them go?

The sky reverted to its normal hue; she had finally sunk to the oceans lowest depths. David grabbed his bag and walked outside into the dusk tipped western sky.

>>5693517
>>5693527
>>5693528
>>5693529
>>5693532
>>5693539
I'll run through one or two of them, but I really need critique on my own stuff. I already gave advice to 4 others.

So if you'd kindly tear my shit apart I'll rip yours a new asshole.
>>5691069

>>5693528
>>5693532
>>5693532
I like this one best, it is more precise than the first one, and flows better than the second. There's something about the second that doesn't flow at all. I think there's something off about the sentences. I'm not well versed in English syntax terminology, but it might be that many of them are passive(i think that's the term.) ex:
>At the end of it, on one particularly hot and sunny morning, the last for a very long time, Jack was eating breakfast and skimming his young eyes over the day’s headlines.
I would've written it:
Jack was eating breakfast while skimming over the days headlines, sitting at the end of it.
It was a particularly hot and sunny morning, the last for a very long time.

>>5693569
No, wait.

Sitting at the end of it, Jack was eating breakfast while skimming over the days headlines.
It was a particularly hot and sunny morning, the last for a very long time

>>5693548
>>5693569
>>5693575

Thanks dude I'll look at yours in a minute

>>5693592

That guy wasn't me, just sayin.
But I'll start working through your stuff.

>A fifth because I like this one

One evening, in the Winter following her Summer return, Mary served them her Crown Of Thorns, which she purported as an exquisite tasting ‘ethical alternative’ that was ‘exempt from the suffering involved with other meat dishes’: a fish, scaled and complete in shape, curled inside a ring of assorted plants. Annabel was staring at the incision she’d made in the fish’s head with her knife, deep enough for the point to poke the plate below, when Mary tried to get her attention by clearing her throat. Annabel did not react; Mary coughed a little louder. Annabel looked up. ‘Something wrong?’

‘Fourty dead in a horror crash in Belgium. Twenty of them children.’ Mary covered her face and shook her head. She peered through her fingers at Annabel across the table, and extended an arm to rest on it. 'The guilt will destroy him long before he dies in a cell.’

Her sister eyed her and remained silent. She glanced at the oven. When she looked back her sister’s face was no longer covered, but she was still staring at Annabel, who was beginning to think she could smell smoke. ‘What, is someone else dead? Anyone I know?’

‘I found a McDonald’s bag in the rubbish today.’

‘Weird. Didn’t you quit-’

‘I did - have!’ Mary tapped her fingers on the table rapidly, then pointed one at Annabel. ‘I thought you had too.’
‘I did. Long before you.’

‘So the bag is there from four months ago.’

‘It would be five months - but Mary, you are cooking a fish in the oven. Right now.’

‘So? They don’t count.’

Annabel shoved herself out from the table and left the room. Mary raised her voice.

‘Can you smell smoke?’

>>5693599

True

>>5693548
>>5693599
here

>>5693517

>It is like God's Palm
'it is' kind of hurts the flow, I'd recommended
A (cough/sofa/chair/whatever) the designer had called God's palm

>and sips his drink. He is miles higher
To improve the flow
>and sips his drink, miles higher

>Further out: all the glazing fields
this feels out of place, I would connected it with the previous sentence
>than the shit-stained streets below and all the glazing fields further out.

>mouth pores like rivers of blood
rivers of blood feels way too edgy for this so far, and mouth pores I would replace with (gums/teeth)

>Clamped down on some animal jerking around.
I like this part, it's got a little flow to it and its got a really really subtle rhyme. The previous bit does feel a bit wordy but I can't see how to fix that without a full writing, it's not too bad though.

>It is time to work
It is again kind of hurts to flow I'd suggest just
>Time to work.

>unsure if there's someone there he
>unsure if there's someone there, he
Just a missing comma.

>I will watch with you
doesn't flow well, and not really a believable line.Maybe make it
>Then I'll watch

>is leaning away
leaned away would flow better

The next few sentences all start with The, try to diversify it a bit
>The breath intensified
should be part of another sentence, it doesn't deserve one of it's own.

My overall thoughts is that it's solid, but a tiny bit bland. Could use an adjective here and there, maybe a little more vivid description.

That said, it's still rather solid, a good start. Just needs some polish with prose and sentence structure and it'd be good to go. My opinion on the description is just an opinion so don't let that bother you.

Everyone has something to say but nothing to tell, vacuous words like a preacher, a vat of senseless sounds and empty thoughts. For example, in high school, I went to church–well chapel–everyday. Well actually scratch that because I didn't go to school everyday; I was regularly sick and often healthy. Anyway, the father–he was a poor man's priest–was named Butler. And when he spoke, his words seldom cast the spells they might have in a church full of volitional worshippers; kids heard but forgot to listen, sat and forgot to stay awake, most, other than the anomalous zealots, simply waited for the precession to end at 8:30 like it almost always did. He would drag his pontifications about the holy spirit and its graces around like a dead cat in a wheat field. One time, to save us the energy to pretend to listen, he decided to play rock music with his "band," which, despite the mediocrity, came like a cool breeze in hell (and here I'm exaggerating). No, nobody listened to father Butler, but people cared enough to act, because in earnest, he was a kind person, a "nice guy," someone who was genuinely concerned for others, which is exactly why he decided to help a group of Sudanese refugees one characteristically Fall day last year. What proceeded couldn't have been expected.

>>5692890

i actually like this critique, thanks m8

>>5693702
why is he wearing shorts whilst on the toilet?

>>5693729
Because he's retarded? I mean it's pretty fuckin' obvious m8

>>5691069
Ok I'll bite, because you have been delivering a lot of feedback for other people in this thread.

Firstly it is hard to read, with little reward. The senntences have no relatioinship to each other. Example: the second and third sentences.

>Its leaves were broadand their branches were as thick as the trunkonce was.
this is a null statement. trees grow from sprouts so throretically the veins on the leaves were as thick as the trunk once was.

The third sentence tries to mutate the tree into some mythical sea monster, but fails, and taperrs off weakly. Either work this into an entire nightmare or scrap it.

Another recouring irritation is your insistant biuld up of empty suspense. Ths is seen in how you describe the canopy in sentence 2, and in both the secondtolast and last sentences of the paragraph. There is no pay off. These sentences just yell 'look how intreguing i am!'

there are sentences that aren't bad, but they aren't spectacular, and when you areclearlyseentoby trying it is like a sadistic dentist pulling teeth without novcain. I am squirming in my fucking chair.

The dogpart is alright, but needs heavy work, and unlike other parts does not need to get deleted. Except dwarfing a fox... bloody hell, any dogthat isn't a handbag accessory would dwarf a fox.

>My foot tapped against his side
seriously?he kicked the fucking dog he loves so much? wouldn't he bend down and pat it? or just call its name with authority? but no he kicks the fucking mutt.

>endless walking towards a destination that never ceased to stop
wat?

>for my feet is
feet are. but this whole sentence shows a complete lack of gramattical understanding, but by this part of the piece that is a given.


Otherwise just general no parts:

>The sounds of cracking stone spread from a chimney
>A goal that moved further away and turned ever more daunting as it neared
>A lost soul that has long since left its host, searching to find a tranquil frame of mind and its missing heart.

There is a consistant break between the point of view. Sometimes it is first person, sometimes third.

Get your shit together cunt. I couldgo on and on, but this must be only around 300 words, and I don't want to provide 500 words of critisism against it.

>>5693805
I'll give you the roots line tapering off and that some of the sentences are fucktarded

but there are some parts that i don't think you get.

The whole thing is world building, description of the area, not a major story point.

It's an old man, so that's why he didn't bend down, and i used the word "tapped" like a gentle nudged with his foot. also it isn't a dog.

I broke grammar rules for some things like the "for my feet is" because its a fantasy/medieval setting.

The whole thing is poetic, fantasy bullshit, yeah, I don't think you got that.

Well thanks for the critique, some bits were useful, I'll work on it.

>>5693825
nvm I take back the feet thing, I'll give you that too, that's stupid as shit.

>>5693825
You can play the you don't get it line all you want, but it doesn't make your writing any better.

If you are going to ask for constructive critisism, and then turn into a defencive faggot when it is given, why did you even bother asking for critisism.

I understood that it is world building, but you are no fucking architect, let alone god.

I mentioned nothing about major story points. All I said was that your writing was shit.

>The whole thing is poetic
You are deluding yourself. This isn't poetic. It is a mess.

Once again you are a faggot. If you want people to tell you how good it is tell people to say that. However, if you say rip me a new asshole and it happens don't complain.

You are such a little faggot. You better be 14 or I fear for your future. Fuck I am so fuck mad. I hope the chick who you are writing this for returns the AIDS that this shit will give her

>>5693856

>being this mad

And I'm not even the guy

>>5693856
jesus christ man

like 90% of your criticism wasn't even good, it was "this is shit."

Also, you are projecting so fucking hard.

"Let alone god" Like seriously, where do you come up with that? Did he ever say he was god? He said he was building a world for his story.

And Im pretty sure when he said "Rip that shit apart" he didnt mean be a gigantic cunt about it.

>the whole thing is poetic, fantasy bullshit
pretty sure that also isnt a complement on his own work. If anything that's an insult

Post some of your shit, i dare you.

>>5693979
I understand why you are white knighting as much as I understand why I amresponding to you.

What am I projecting?

If you are world building you are playing god. Why don't you take a minute to go and read some of Nabakov's lectures on creating fiction.

Sure I was a cunt, but this is 4chan. If you want to be told sweet things join a writing group, the people there speialise in turning critisism into a string of compliments. Don't want to hurt an ego now.

>the whole thing is poetic, fantasy bullshit
this was not an insult to his work. It was an insult to a genre of writing that /lit/ typically looks down upon. It was a diminishing statement like 'I was drunk when I wrote this' or 'I wasn't really trying'

I am not going to post any of my stuff because I am scared.

>>5690597
Trees
Copse: a corpus, eo ipso category.
Root reposed in silted skein;
bled rot cork between my lingua mind.
Blanket me. Hidden in aletheia,
disclosed dually between representamen.
I am what am I am, but I am not.
Yes, circumspect the knotted nihils,
for naught, their whole is unarticulated.

Iotic, I am Isolate; born asunder
the Clash.
I breath, soft and slow, toward
Scintilla
whispered in my being. Collapsing
from sincerity.

I is the canopy
bundled
but I is dying
alone
because of nothing
indexed
as an object
of not

I
am
Tree

>>5690924
Does nothing significant, boring, I don't care about it.
>>5690929
>the air was subjugated
don't just used big words to sound smart
>desperation. One of sweat
bad transition, had to read it twice to understand what you were referring to
>of sweat and death and permeated
use less ands
>the kind among the periphery of human suffering
I cringed this is awful
>>5690937
>The flock of introspective junkies rubbed their spindly arms, splintering sticks of kindling as they murmur shades of concurrence
holy shit this is awful. I don't want to read any more. Read some Faulkner to see how shit you are.
>>5691023
Kind of neat I guess. 7/10 (where 5 is average)
>>5691421
>chainsmoke
Doesn't really dig that deep into the human condition. I feel like you could go farther
>>5691699
>Algernon is lying on the leather couch
10/10 imagery
>>5691888
>stale air
oldest trope in the book. older than "oldest ____ in the book"
>>5692851
shit, boring, awful, gay.

>>5693683
its okay

>>5694199

The skin shredded like wheat be in skeet. A red smear was splashed against the paperback stage of reality thanks to a grotesque evisceration; high energy plasmation vis-à-vis conflagration. The sirens horned, cawing for death, shifting through indifference and crazy, and entering the cracks of everywhere between. No one is safe from these monsters, a thermal percussion of theirs beats through the sky as they hunt for humans. It’s an executioner’s fury as the impossible has finally come; torpid bodies line the Earth, from the American Front to the Russian contiguous grace. I’m here to set you free my darling, Don’t you, don’t you see? Ostensible mystics shroud their nebulous heads, and a disdain for the spiritual blood trotted across their spirits emerges, this pollution, parasitic—tapeworm fornication—sex with a monstrous squirming beast. Oh, don’t you see?

Here's some of my prose too

I had starting writing a post analysing everything you have said but now realise you are indeed le edgie b9master xD

it isn't funny

>>5694199

Your critiques are shit and your writing is too

>>5694199

>eo ipso category
>silted skein
> lingua
> aletheia
>Iotic

>>5694272
why so butthurt?

>>5694279
best critique I've heard all day

>>5694272
which shitty ass story did you write?

>>5694281

you complimented the most autistic one

(>>5691023)

and rained shit on everyone else.

And genuinely your stuff is awful.

Yes, I am someone you critiqued but holy fuck is your stuff shit.

>>5690924
Alright this guy isn't the greatest, but it has more potential than you make out.

>>5690929
Has a really poetic feel although is a bit cumbersome and awkward with some of the structuring and word choices. I agree with >>5691680 on this one.

>>5690937
You are a monumental asshole for not at least finishing reading this one. And I have read Faulkner and see no correlation between what he does and what this guy doesn't. Not to say he's a great writer but I get the sense you through out an author in order to make yourself seem Monsieru Literary xD

>>5691023
You complimented the shittest thing here. Autistic english class tier poem.

>>5691421
>baby we'll just keep on drinking

that could change.

the first one is alright though - not all writing has to go to the heart of the human condition you pretentious fuck

>>5691699
with this guy I assume were being sarcastic.

By poring over this and looking for some tasteless and tactless imagery (as is evident in your work) not only do you contradict your previous comment about le human condition but emphasise the fact you aren't a proficient reader.

>>5691888
Can't handle a cliche? Looks like you have out-ruled any classic literature ever anywhere on the planet.
It is shit

>>5694308
it's beyond redemption

on such a blandly insightful day
i write this poem
out of curiosity and interest i play
like a new born cat who has found his way
letters form words
words form lies
i try to hide you from all the eyes
to keep you sheltered
to keep you safe
i will go to great lenghts
no matter how insane
how implausible or scarce
i will protect your yellow scarf
that little sign of hope that glitters along the way
is what keeps me going,acting in this play
you are fragile my precious
i am not .or so i believe
could it be true
that you aren t real
a mere image in my mind
projecting my desires and dreams.
i count on you my dear
to save me from my fear
ah how foolish of me to think
that i can change yet not sink
under all the sorrows of this miserable ride
life is neither white nor black
my path is colorless
yet you will never be back
in the end you die
i am alone
where is my innocence
where is my home
god took you away
then gave me hate
was it all
just because of my faith

>>5690597

i will return again not
and i will chase dreams long sought
this autumn will last forever
and these ties i will soon sever
erase me from your memory
or at least think of me as a whisper

>>5694351
is this a joke?

>>5692897
He must be from the other side, give him time.

>>5694199
decent, you seem to have a grasp on poetic techniques, but it feels like you're just picking words from a dictionary

>>5694625
I like the 3rd line, and the final 2, but the rest feels too constrained. It feels too much like you're attempting to fit a rhyme scheme, instead of attempting to express yourself properly.

Here's mine:

The sky is on fire, the air is dry. I step out into the golden afterglow, tasting the remaining sunlight with my fingertips: cool, wispy, electric, static. Days have drifted away since I was left alone, but I haven't noticed until now. Until I felt the lack of sun, the few rays of day that were unable to find their way home, the chattering of leaves like teeth in the autumn bright, I had not remembered you. I had forgot you, if only for a moment. It all comes flooding back in: the tears, the shouts, the ripping wounds that beat with an animalistic rhythm, pounding pounding pumping through veins, you flood back into my mind with a flurry of rain, a drought interrupted by the sound of a siren. A siren song, you sing me to my death, you draw me back to the rocks, and I cannot be your Odysseus; I can no longer tie myself to a pole and watch while you drift across the horizon. The deep water is rising, the tide is falling, my feet are wet but I cannot bring myself to jump into the stream. Maybe that was when it happened, I think while I reach my hand thoughtlessly into the mailbox. I'm touched by a stray leaf, blowing through the wind happily, lazily. Maybe the water was too cold. I shiver, my nose runs, I walk back into the apartment.

Yesterday I found again the grove in the pines i would lie in as a child
The next day I had realized it was all from a dream of a me entirely unlike the present
And the day after then I knew what I must do, I told my dog to keep watch as I went

>http://pastebin.com/hH5zh8T0

>>5698285
I'd be happy to go through it, I've given 5-6 people in this thread critique.

Give me a minute while I read and whatnot,
Would you be kind enough to take a look at my work while I do?
>>5696547

>>5698285

I'm pretty tired so it might be a shitty critique but I'll give it my best.

A little honest here, the first paragraph was very simple, basic statements, I honestly had feared the entire work would be like that, it didn't but I'll mention that in a minute.

>They were always odd . . . deemed harm to be necessary
These two sentences both mention "they never harmed before, but now they do" twice.
"Or even anything" doesn't add much to the sentence, if you're saying "people and animals" then I would recommend changing "anyone" to "any living thing" or just something.
Also, with the previous sentence mentions her hobbies being odd, I would personally combine these three sentences, separating the description of the corgi into a new one and make them more compact

Again, I want to say the first paragraph needs work. It feels to bland.

However, that being said,
>his sister would boisterously exclaim while correcting him, using her brother's full name to elevate the melodramatic nature of the situation.
>Benny begins to proclaim, attempting to approach his sister's levels of melodrama, opting to raise his voice instead of continue on with pounding the door,
Just two examples. These sentences are much nicer, more interesting. It's more showing than saying "This is what was and that is what it looked like."

I'm too tired to pick them apart any deeper than I will, but, these are solid. One minor complaint is that the words "melodramatic" and "melodrama" Two close together in the story and even working on 3hours of sleep I noticed the repetition. I would change one.

The best sentences were around that area, I'd try to work on expanding on what you've got going there.

The liked the dialogue and would honestly read more, I guess the thought of children speaking satanic sentences is endearing somehow.

Overall I liked it, maybe be a little less on the name drops but that's just my opinion.
"Lord of the Rings" felt a little out of place but that could just be me.

Also, I assume that the cat wasn't sacrificed and the brother had freed it or something? There might be a little inconsistency with that and "nobody has seen it"

Anyway, just revise the first paragraph and you've got something good started. It's strength is definitely the sister's dialogue.

Keep at it.

Here goes

He came by the car and would leave by it. New tundra past his dashboard, to the end of his sight and beyond. His front bumper left muddy scraps across his backseat. Phone had become useless, its language of turns and exits mute against the road’s fresh ice skin. Radio spoke in a dull voice, meterless yet constantly sounding in the back of his skull. The road’s old shape had been inverted with pock marked craters that shook the rearview mercilessly. His car revealed its metal bones, now snub-nosed like a street fighter. Or so his mother had said over text. Dash intact, his double 13.1 stickers still affixed although curling at one corner, just like their twins on the rear bumper. Full blasting heat scorched his knuckles, yet the cold still seeped into his biceps through the window.

>>5690597
"woven innocence"
my mother's sewing machine,
always with pursuit,
wove the childhood curtains
that shielded my eyes of the forbidden fruit
that is
the world outside: evil and uncertain.

now, covered with dust,
smelling of smoke and her lust,
it anguishes over innocence.
its handler, and her fickleness,
was amiss --

whose hands are eternally inundated
in satanic sap
from clutching the tree
of deceit
until it snapped.

Eleven eighths, the world fades away
Knocking knocking, set the fire aside for today
While you wander, whisk, wallowing
Through the yolked egg snow
And the sun sets, melon-drop,
Burn the forest above, below.
I will call out to your feet
Covered softly in a fleecen snow
And pray for your eyes
Suffocated in the ash-gone glow.

story been working on for my fiction writing course.

His hands felt that familiar burn as they gripped the glass like a vice. The condensation traced over the hills and valleys of his knuckles before dripping onto the table. That frigid sensation served as a distraction from the knot beginning to tie inside his gut. Kyle looked around the restaurant, studying the wallpaper, trying to find the spots where the patterns did not match up. The booth they were sitting at was an island amongst the rest of them. Her voice brought his mind back to reality.
“Kyle, are you listening?” Her eyes locked with his in desperation, pleading for him to give her attention, “I’m pregnant Kyle.” she said again. She looked down at her plate and grabbed a solitary French fry and put it into her mouth slowly chewing.
“I don’t get it Claire, we have been so careful.”
She grabbed another fry and traced the spiral of life into her ketchup puddle, her face grimaced while inside she struggled to fight feelings of pleasure.v
“Nothing is a hundred percent effective you know, we are both adults here.” she said.
“It’s just. What are we going to do. Neither of us are ready for this. Excuse me.” Kyle got up and made his way towards the bathroom. He looked at himself in the mirror while turning the sink on. He splashed the water onto his face and began to lose himself in a trance of emotional thought, before he could, a flush filled the void of the restroom and a large man stepped out, smelling like toilet.
“You gotta get out of the way man, these hands are fresh.” he said.
“OK.” Kyle then dried his hands and hurried out the door. He began the long walk back to the booth where she was sitting patiently awaiting his return.

1/?

>>5700381
“So this is actually happening, I just thought it would be different.” he said.
He was interrupted by hysterical laughter coming from her side of the table, her hands wiped tears from her eyes as she keeled over into the fetal position.
“Oh man, I got you good.” Another fit of hysteria consumed her and Kyle just stared at his partner blankly.
“What?”
“It was a joke. I am fucking with you Kyle, now grab the check.” She got up from the booth and gave him a glare of indignation and headed towards the exit, laughter could be again as she pulled open the doors.
Kyle sat there for a moment still shocked with the fear he had felt moments before. He slammed his hand onto the table which caused people to stare in his direction, he mouthed apologies to them and grabbed the check and headed to the register to pay. Claire was waiting for him outside in the parking lot, smoking a cigarette. Kyle approached her and dug his car keys out of his pockets.
“Hey, let me drive, you drive like a grandma anyway.” she said to him and grabbed the keys out of his hand. She laid a peck on his cheek, “plus you will probably get lost.” She skipped to the driver’s side of his black SUV and climbed inside. He followed and got in on his side.
The long highway road was accompanied by a lonesome forest on both sides of it. A considerable amount of time had passed where both of them were completely silent, listening to the sounds of the road. Claire reached for the radio and flipped it through the static until she found some country station and cranked the volume up. She began to sing at the top of her lungs along with the music.
“What the heck are you doing?”
“What?” she yelled, then went back to singing.
“I said, what the heck are you doing?” he matched her volume this time.
She turned the volume up even louder and went back to singing. Kyle let out a sigh and stared at the window watching the trees fly by the vehicle.

all i got so far.

"Blaze, you should have said something… If I knew this sooner, I coulda helped more.." She purred into his ear, her arms picking him up and setting him between her legs on the bed. She spread her legs, letting his body fall back onto her stomach area, and let her hand trail from his chest tuft, to his stomach, then to his sticky shaft. She trailed her finger up it, taking the pre off of it and to her mouth, where she lubricated her fingers enough to not hurt Blaze. Running her cool fingers up his steaming hot shaft, she began to stroke it with the tender, loving feelings of her inner self. After she began to build his climax up to a small peak, she shifted her body, picking him up so that his rear end was on her chest, and her head was against the plush pillows.

>>5700381
A few things I'd do:
1. Start with Kyle looking around the room. Get rid of the stuff before that as it's a bit confused and unnecessary.
2. Slow down! Kyle is in the bathroom for like three lines. Show his anxiety. Show his sweat when he dabs his face with a paper towel and notices that it's already damp for the sweat of his hands.
3. Avoid overwriting. What I mean is don't add details where they don't need to be and don't try to be elaborate on purpose. Yours isn't super overwritten or anything, but lines like "traced the spiral of life" are unnecessary. (Really, this doesn't apply all that much to yours. I've read and written much more overwritten pieces.)
4. Get rid of "smelling like toilet."
5. He gets over that joke a bit too quickly.
6. The tension is introduced as her being pregnant, which is then dismissed as her joking (totally fine!), but then that tension disappears. Think about where you want the story to go and how you can use that tension.

HOLE DIGGER
The girl dug at the ground with a single finger, creating a very small hole. Her jaw hung stupidly, while her eyes were intensely locked on her project. She had to stay focused on the hole, she had to stay distracted. Because, when something happens that is too horrible for you to cope with, the best you can do is create a distraction.
Her nail filled with dirt while tears quietly stung her eyes. She could feel heat from the fire that was at her back, but her mind told her that it wasn't her body feeling the heat. Her right hand felt the warmth of blood rushing into its fingertips, the bat that it had held lay by her side. Her eyes focused on the hole, not wanting to look up, not wanting to see.
She started the fire, but that was ok because the fire was righteous and it closed around the evil, purifying it. But what that stinging hand had done with the bat was not right, it couldn't be her hand that felt the sting. She was righteous, that stinging hand was not.
It couldn't be hers, but it was. And The Hole.
The hole.
Hadn't he told her about the hole? He said he dreamed of it. He described a man in a fur coat, with a hood drawn over his head, and a shovel in his hands. He said the man didn't have a face, but it was probably just a trick of the light. The sun was setting behind the hooded shovel wielding man, it brightened the outlines of his shoulders but darkened his face.
When Jamie walked beside her and told her of this dream, he said the words came into his mind the second he saw him: HOLE DIGGER. He said the hole had already been finished, and the hole digger just stood over it. Shovel in one hand, the other hand pointing into the hole. Under his hood his face revealed nothing, because Jamie couldn't see his face, but somehow he knew the hole digger wanted him to look inside. HE also knew that if he looked into the hole that it would drive him mad. Because there was some secret buried there, and if he knew the secret it would eventually lead to his death.
He never said whether or not he looked in, but now he was dead, and she was alive. Her hand stung, the end of the bat was red. Her face was covered in a warm liquid, and her nail was filling with dirt. She was digging a hole. One hand stinging, the other digging a hole.

Digging a hole, digging a hole
The hole digger; digging a hole.

I could perfectly say in which occasions I'm her or not. Her behaviours and ideals
are invented by me because there was no other way to find them out. In fact,
I feared a crushing disappointment, that was already ushering, which I, with a
fast and uncoscious freudian repression, deleted. There is nothing poetic or
dreamy to talk about and if at first I felt a bittersweet taste on the back of my
tongue to pronunce her name and her dispersed status, now just seeing the
only picture I took of her makes my face swell like an allergy. Perhaps it's
a physiological response to the fact that I desired her features on my approssimative
face, and look into the mirror and see her, and her apparently surgical way to look
at things, which hides a herbivore's fear to the things themselves. Doing my duty
has become my labour of love for her, to feel the pain in my legs, the fatigue, an
unhealty loneliness that clings like meningitis and recalls the side effects of
paracetamol. She can see me everywhere, even when I wasn't her, when I
allowed myself to wallow in my old bones and lay an eye on something she
would find disgusting, screaming like a banshee, listen to music maybe.
But she was there, in my head, like a petite virgin Mary that looks at
you and asking what are you going to do with nails, a hammer and her son,
then starts crying like a cat in a lot.
I don't even remember her voice , and I don't want to hear it anymore, she rised
and became a concept, as a poor girl-saint and her osteomyelitis , that makes
the violets bloom on the peeled walls interposed between my ribs and sternum.

>>5690956
Skulle du inte kunna lägga upp den oöversatta versionen så man får se hur den ser ut? Föredrar personligen svenska.

I wrote this for this prompt on spark notes:

Everyone has a soul mate, and when your soul mate dies, everything turns black and white. You were born into a world that’s black and white, and have resigned yourself to it, until one day you wake up and the world is in color.
**

I have had a prolonged adolescence.

It’s hard when you’re applying to a bussing position and the owner of the restaurant, an asian woman in black, maybe 26, asks you about your goals for the future.

“I am currently studying full-time towards a career in business management. I also work full-time at a cafe in Reston Hills. Within five years I would like to own shares in the Vanguard S&P 500 fund, and have a sustainable income for my future, when I have a family.”

“Why did you apply here? What interests you about this position?” The woman is curt and accusing. Her face is pale, her bangs parted like a dixie cut, and she sits with her legs crossed, almost sexually inviting. Her blouse, a virginal white, hangs loosely and freely. She has tinted her lips a dark shade of grey. We sit alone at a table, and I feel paranoid that a customer will enter and expose me. I wonder, am I attractive enough to have deceived her? Or is she merely tolerating me? After all, expectations of colorblindness are highest at the bottom of the food chain; CEOs and diplomats seldom suffer the condition — it follows that service workers are the largest colorblind population. I take it for granted that the world is unjust; while many are colorblind, there are many that have seen color since they were born.

I, too, am colorblind. To me, this quality is a degradation symbolizing my incontinence, which I see everywhere in everyone. For example, the woman sitting across from me is not a virgin, but has known her lover a while; in fact, she has slept with many other men. She is commanding and self-assured, educated, responsible — a strong woman. But her reputation carries far: of exalted moans and screams; of innocuous passions, hopes, and idealism; and of her dope usage and history; these as echoes in the oblivion of bars throughout the district. No, she is not just the owner of a restaurant: she is Loren College’s youngest self-made multi-millionaire, and the anti-thesis of its Catholic teachings. She is known as “the color-sighted whore”.

This reputation is not without its merits, however. If I can be hired by the Milton restaurant chain, working directly under Ara Westall, I will be made…

“What interests me about this position? Everything. Employment by Milton will give me many opportunities to improve my cooperative skills. I enjoy working in a fast-paced environment. Not to mention I’ll be working under the most revered boss of the year.”

Her face, set hard and cold, tells me, Do you really believe that? What are you trying to do here? “How did you find out about our job opening?”

>>5701332
“I have been looking for a replacement job for a while, since I want to see more of the city when I go to work. This location is far from my apartment — I found it through craigslist.”

She leans back in her chair and surveys my parts above the horizon of the table. Apparently she approves of the Brooks Brothers tweed jacket I bought on credit yesterday; her eyes scan the rest of me in judgement. I look fairly attractive. I have a slightly-dark turtleneck on, smart glasses, and slicked black hair. I am cleverly disguised as a men’s fashion catalog…I care that much to impress her.

Ara looks at my face, beard, and eyes. “I see what I like and what I don’t like. You’re too Ivy-League, too proper. But you’re not there, you’re here, in D.C.” She sighs. “I don’t want you working anywhere near people. I know your references, but you would be much better packing boxes in the back. We need strong men, and the pay is virtually the same.”

“But that’s not what I’m applying for.”

“Take it or leave it.”

***

“God doesn’t exist,” My friend Roger smiles and speaks loudly, confidently, in the speak-easy we are accustomed to. He is a philosopher and enjoys this kind of debate (mainly because he knows he can always win), although I have never been interested. A few patrons besides us glare and whisper menacingly, a man and his woman, though who knows whether or not they are meant to be. No one will ever ask them.

Roger rambles on about the importance of stoicism in the face of despair and the likeliness that colorblindness is just a genetic mutation. “I mean, think of it. There’s no record that says ancient peoples had colorblindness. It’s a ‘new invention’, so to speak. The new illness, the new torture. It can’t be supernatural, there’s no proof of it.”

Roger is a true embarrassment to me sometimes, like now. He’s color-sighted, yes, and good for him; but who besides his true love could stand him? Speaking of which, he began to see color when he was just four. For him, it has been fifteen years. Twenty-one years have eclipsed me, and there is nothing. Roger, you bumbling intellectual, how come you can have a love and I can’t? Am I that repulsive, or did my love die long ago, right after they were born?

“Hey, you know Ara Westall? That beautiful woman from Loren? I interviewed with her today,” I stretch my arms across the table and almost knock over my tall rum-and-cola. Roger laughs and takes a sip.

>>5701355
“And what of it? Just because you’ve lived her lifestyle doesn’t mean you’re as brilliant as she is, and you’re not,” Roger crosses his arms and leaned forward. “Why do you obsess over her? She’s older, and doesn’t look interested,” He took another sip and looked at his watch. “How much is your tab? I’ll pay half. I need to go soon.”

“Wait,” I tell him. “I haven’t asked… how are things? Is your search for the woman going well?”

“I wouldn’t be that close-minded if I were you,” He pouted with pretend scorn. “It could be a woman, or a man. Or something inbetween. They’re alive, anyway.” Roger arises and walks to the counter, pulling out his ancient wallet and handing the cashier a twenty-dollar bill. She smiles and waves goodbye to him. He grins and waves as well.

***

This morning I find that I had slept on the couch in the common lounge with the television on. However, there are four dozen students crowded around the set, now blaring through every hallway of the dorm.

“We are here with the director of the Research and Development division of Google, Mr. Samsa. What can you tell us about the development of your new product, Eros X?”

“Very well. Eros X is so named because we have discovered a formula for determining the likelihood of two people being a match — there is never a 100% chance, because no two people are alike, as is the case with brains. However, we find that similar biochemistry at birth predicts compatibility across the board. The “eros” signifies the probability of compatibility itself, and it is the dependent variable; X is our constant, the similarity of these two chemistries (it must be over 90%), and their reactions to similar phenomena are the independent variable…essentially, this product scans your brain.. compiles your biochemistry scans.. and they are wirelessly sent to our database.”

“Will this product only be available for newborns?”

“No, for older people the process will be much harder, but it will be made available to all ages. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also strives to make this product available to everyone in the world within twenty years.”

Suddenly, GOOGL skyrockets 60, then 70% to 936. It isn’t even 10 o’ clock — then abruptly, surreally, stupidly — I see the clock on the screen in a shade not black or white. Can I see color? Is this real? Then I realize the world is beautiful, life is beautiful, but my true love is twenty years younger than me. I cover my maniacal grin with my hands. I have already betrayed her with my one-night-stands, the women, the young classmates in high school. All of them, confused and searching for color, for love. I feel I don’t deserve a soul mate. Life is unjust. Why should I join Ara? Or Roger? Should I have happiness too? And once I have it, will I waste it? Only time can tell… but I won’t spend it waiting. Now my real life begins.

I'm writing this masterpiece specifically for this thread. I call it Ode to Niggers

Nigger, nigger
Why do your rims in the night shimmer?
Who among you can claim to bring home dinner
For the family which grows oh so much thinner?

Nigger, nigger
Are you living alone
Or have you left children in another women's home
Where you came and went like a wedding-day drone?

Nigger, nigger
Are you selling coke?
You can see now this is no joke
If I encountered you on the street I'd surely choke.

>captcha: juvenile yearsupl

This may seem pathetic, but I have stopped trusting myself. Is my writing, or more importantly, is my concept shit?
It's about a girl whose father tries to order pizza by throwing his voice over radio waves with his satellite. This throws the girl over the edge and makes her kill her whole family. It's called "Heavier Than A Death in the Family," after the LRD live album. Here's what I have so far.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ocbhhS93MzZ22rAnAhHmkJ1LfhZiQe6CnqLG9XO4lYw/edit?usp=sharing

>>5700743
That was fucking great! Seriously,that was something that resonated with me, totally. It wasn't something melodramatic, she didn't die of cancer, she just left. It just didn't happen the way you hoped then believed it would. That is sadness.

>>5703140
>>5700743
Same guy, do you have someplace where your works are posted? I want to read more. This is striking.

>>5703140
>>5703148
you should try browsing tumblr, partner. i think you'd like their style.

>>5703225
He talks about the situation, weeding out all fluff, making it just bare truth. The woman isn't the real subject, she's just the hook. Him standing from afar and inventing her through assumptions is the real subject. And the acknowledgement of it, of his ability to persuade himself of a reality where him and her are together is what hurts truly, not his desire lying unfulfilled.
I know that this is said alot, but how common it is doesn't take away from this situation, you truly just don't get it.

Lon, Mort’s super, came to Mort’s door with grievances.
“This guy, Ed,” Lon said. “He’s living here?”
“Have you seen him?” Mort asked. Ed had been missing since morning.
“I found him on the fricking roof, Mort! You know how serious I have to be about roof policy? Violating that stuff is grounds for eviction! Building rules, not mine!” Lon walked past Mort into the living area and sat down on the futon in front Mort’s fungus garden. He was panting a little, a little red in the face, likely from hauling his girth up the stairs, Mort thought. “Dang, Mort,” said Lon at the fungus garden. “This thing is real nice. Can I have some bottled water?”
Mort got two bottles of bottled water from the fridge and sat down next to Lon.
“Notice the fruit bodies of the Hydnellum pekii,” he said, pointing. Little globules of blood colored juice were oozing from them. They shimmered in a soft, gem-like way all over the fuzzy white caps. “H. pekii bleed this stuff whilst young. Inedible, of course, but alluring.”
“Dang,” said Lon. He gestured at the Brain Mushroom. “What’s this one?”
“It’s the Brain Mushroom,” said Mort. “Fatal if raw.”
They both sat back and sipped their bottled water. Lon panted some more and Mort contemplated death: breakdown of liver, breakdown of kidney, vertigo, delirium, death.
“Where is he anyway?” Mort said. “And what was he doing on the roof? I’m not even supposed to let him leave my sight technically.”
“He was just cooling his heels up there. He said he hit the wrong floor.”
“Jeez, I told him not to take the elevator. There’s no reason for it. He should have just taken the stairs.”
“You got that right,” said Lon. “It’s only one flight.”
They both drank some more bottled water. It was top quality stuff. It came from a snowy country and was filled with life-giving minerals and health.
“Wait,” Mort said. He screwed on his bottle cap. “You didn’t leave him up there, did you? Ed should probably not be on roofs.”
“Yeah, roof policy is fricking serious!”
“No, that’s not it, it’s— I’m not even supposed to let him leave my sight technically!” Mort stood up in the direction of the door. Lon put his feet on the fungus table.
“What’s that guy’s deal anyway?” Lon said. “I come up to the roof he’s doing this side to side thing, you know, twitching, swaying, all spacey eyed. It creeped me out, kind of, like what’s the guy’s deal?”
Ed could be explained best via narrative, so Mort reached into the past for a story of Ed.

>>5703260
>weeding out all fluff

>>5700743
>I feared a crushing disappointment, that was already ushering, which I, with a fast and uncoscious freudian repression, deleted.

This is all fluff.

Ok guys. I'm fucking ready. I'll post it.


Left the door open
why bother, I suppose
that it's useless hit or miss, typical
pissing of dreams to listening
to things I wish I understood or even
would care to figure out
Without a life to live in any effective method, a methhead wandering the streets to meet myself,
Fucking lossless taking flack to attack the repression
of bullshit lost in hope and translated and
emancipated from mind like a song I never heard.

first paragraph of a novel I'm trying to write

The safety and the stagnation of the past year, with all of its sterile conversation and misdirected rage, was drawing to a merciful close. Less than an hour now and Clement would leave for the life he always deserved. His head ached from last night’s farewell, a farewell that he neither asked for nor wanted. Momentary flashes of the night before reaffirmed his assumption that not one person in the whole complex could celebrate his departure with any sincerity. Even the nicest among them was jealous to the core. Antoine orchestrated the whole thing. He hated them all but he couldn’t slip away without the proper ceremony. He hated them but he needed them to remember him. Only he and Clement had received the invitation to leave, although others had expected to be tapped as well. All desired to be. So each of the thirty-two inhabitants had observed with transparent agitation as Antoine and Clement walked out of the supply room with crates of top-shelf alcohol. Shipments of the good stuff arrived intermittently and disappeared quickly. With Antoine at the helm they would be lucky if any bottle went unopened by dawn. “What do we care?” Antoine had whispered to Clement, “we’re leaving and there is nothing they can do about it.” Clement’s feeble resistance to a farewell party ended there. Antoine was right, of course. They were leaving and nothing here mattered anymore.

>>5703598
2angsty4me. But really, it's too colloquial, too childish. What is the anger, what is the loss, the fear stemming from? It just feels like causeless aggression.

This is mine if anyone wants to critique (although this thread has been dead as fuck):

I feel,
Coarse, sand running over a lake
Ice, unsanded, silk cut into ribbons
Over my head
As the building crashes down.
Look out
The ceaseless sea, ceaseless sleep
Where is it gone,
The days we forgot, the nights you left?
Ceaseless sleep, come flooding back to me
Warming, cool waves rush, rush me back to dreams
I feel soft now:
They set me free.

>>5703636
>2angsty4me. But really, it's too colloquial, too childish. What is the anger, what is the loss, the fear stemming from? It just feels like causeless aggression.
Fair enough. I'm really just trying to get a style down. Something that sounds pretty I guess. I really do need to work on content though. Thanks.

Yours gives me vibes. Which is good.

>>5703532
Define fluff.

>>5703721
It's full of unnecessary clauses and verbiage, and the imagery feels weakly phrased (I can't really quantify that last one).

Born too late to explore earth
Born too early to explore space
Its some weird kind of Rebirth
To explore the two galaxies on your face

>>5703805
I say with little discretion
The way you look at me
It gives me an erection;
Let my rod go free!

>>5703059
>It's about a girl whose father tries to order pizza by throwing his voice over radio waves with his satellite. This throws the girl over the edge and makes her kill her whole family
W-what?

>>5701268

Visst, google docs länk: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wGeawWHYj7Dsw0aXdpUKFpAs3MRYTLg74XfiopptdwU/edit?usp=sharing

>>5701268
>>5703930

Skriver den på Svenska, givetvis, översätter mest för att det hjälper till med att komma på variationer i ordval och struktur, samt att det är enklare att få feedback på själva handlingen då.

>>5701268
>>5703930
>>5703939
Viska de dankti vorki. Sveniourkyo si arik der fjallbruguher.
http://imgur.com/FgyqdQx

>>5703948

wat?

>>5703957
>Viska de dankti vorki.
Simple, really.
Virgui puss filt ar armid soljour puss.

>>5692708
>fog
fog inside a house?

>>5703968
>>5703957
>>5703948
>>5703939
>>5703930
>>5703832
>>5703816
>>5703805
>>5703059
>>5701268
>>5690956
Don't worry, by popular demand I have google translated my work.
Riverrun, förbi Eva och Adams, från väja ut till havs för att böja
av viken, leder oss genom en commodius Vicus av återcirkulation tillbaka till
Howth Castle och omgivningar.
Sir Tristram, Violer d'Amores, fr'over den närsjöfart, hade pas-
core rearrived från North Armorica på andra sidan scraggy
näs Europa Minor att wielderfight hans penisolate krig: nor
hade topsawyer klippor vid bäcken Oconee överdrivna themselse
till Laurens County s Gorgios medan de gick doublin deras mumper
hela tiden: nor avoice från brand bellowsed mishe mishe till
tauftauf thuartpeatrick: inte ännu, men venissoon efter, hade en
kidscad buttended en intetsägande gammal isaac: ännu inte, trots allt är rättvist i vanessy var sosie sesthers vred med twone nathandjoe. rot en
hack av pa s malt hade Jhem eller Shen bryggt av ArcLight och rory
slut på regginbrow var ses ringsome på aquaface.
Nedgången (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur-
NUK!) av en gång wallstrait oldparr är retaled tidigt i sängen och senare
på livet ner genom alla kristna minstrelsy. Den stora nedgången av
offwall innebar med så kort varsel att pftjschute av Finnegan, erse solid man, att humptyhillhead av humself prumptly sänder
en unquiring en brunn i väster för att uppsöka sina tumptytumtoes:
och deras upturnpikepointandplace är på knock out i parken
där apelsiner har lagts för att rosta på den gröna eftersom dev-
linsfirst älskade livvy.

Mediante la niebla ofusca la vista, aclara el espíritu. Cuanto todo se amalgama en el fondo con gota y neblina, el espíritu, recién despierto, emerge de la corcha con cual el pensamiento lo cubrió y se sienta a pintar. El lienzo, frescamente preparado por la niebla, la noche y la lluvia, se deja pintar sin resistencia ninguna.
Lo que antes ere montaña ahora es contorno divino; lo que antes era un chorro ahora es interminable cascada; lo que antes era sendero ahora es destino. Todo coge forma que nada mas al espíritu se le ocurre. Y cuando el espíritu coge brocha, uno no es mas allá que velero bajo nuevos e imprescindibles vientos. Tan polarizador es esta sensación, que a uno se le duermen los sentidos para acostumbrarse a la nueva red.

Bajo las columnas gordas de la entrada, Darío caminaba a paso de gato callejero cuando se le olvidó por donde andaba. La plaza familiar del local, por donde tanto había cruzado en sus salidas, parecía tierra extraterrestre gracias a la lluvia que a uno desfiguraba la vista y parecía hasta alterar la forma física del panorama. Las casitas, a penas iluminadas por las lámparas eléctricas, trasmutaban a colinas de muertos budistas. El mismísimo aire parecía susurrar que él se había equivocado y cogido a otra dirección. Pero a ver el boletín familiar con las palabras "Villa César: resort and spa", Darío cercioró de que estaba en el lugar correcto. Aquí, después del estacionamiento y la plaza, con la fuente centralizada y bancos a ambos lados, se encuentra un caminito estrecho y poco traficado que dirige hacia su alojamiento actual, una de las miles de indistinguibles casitas del resort en el primer nivel del edificio adyacente a una colina, bordada por un precipicio, con vista al mar y el hotel lejos a la derecha.


That's all I have. It's taken so long.

>>5703990
es esto una guia turistica?

>>5704005

Para el Brobdingnag Hispano.

>>5704005

Hay mas. El problema es que no esta en la computadora aún.

>>5704032
hay cosas que no entiendo. sere muy inculto?

colinas de muertos budistas?

no entiendo el primer parrafo. es una metafora? es un pintor literal?

>>5703989
>tfw there are actual translations of FW
>tfw some poor fuck had to translate the entire thing into Greek and must have realized at some point how utterly misguided the endeavor was

I started writing a short story: "The Revolving Room of Doctor Renaldo." An eccentric scientist moves into a home with a dark past anf recruits the boy across the street as his lab assistant. His project is a room that lets you switch places with the you of an alternate reality. Here's a bit of the opening:

When the house on 152 Princeton Drive was finally completed, many welcomed it as a much-needed change to the rather homely homes of its neighbors. It was two stories, Victorian style, and painted a brilliant white that caught the sun and made it glow like a beacon, inviting any who could afford it. All were excited over who would inevitably move in and grace us with their presence. The first family to move in was the Schmidts. Mr. Schmidt was an avid hunter, with a collection of rifles, revolvers, and shotguns that put that of my father’s to shame. Mrs. Schmidt was a gentle woman who didn’t say much, but was always pleasant and made anyone who entered the premise feel like a member of the family. Their two children, Albert and Samantha, were twins whose hide and seek skills became legend in the short time they were there, as the neighborhood children and I painfully learned during many summer games. The family was immediately welcomed with open arms, with the community praising the injection of new blood to the area.
Things were well until three months later, when in the dead of night several shots rang out of the home. Since we lived immediately across the street, my father was the first to respond. He kicked down the door with his own rifle ready, afraid that some maniac had broken in. What he encountered was a scene straight out of a horror serial: Mrs. Schmidt and the children lying dead in the parlor with their heads blown clean off, and Mr. Schmidt standing among them with his shotgun in his mouth. He looked up at my father and smiled as he pulled the trigger.

>>5704059

Las colinas se refiere a los stūpas budista. Si lo googleas vas a ver bien rapido a lo que me refiero.
El primer y segundo parafo intendé personificar el espíritu como un pintor y usar eso como mi motif para la descripción de una circumstancia especialmente mística

>>5704103
ahhh. Por que no usas la palabra stupa directamente?

osea para entenderlo toca hacer el recorrido: colina de los muertos budistas->stupa-> casas en medio de la niebla. No se mucho, no soy experto, pero me parece un rodeo muy largo. Salvo que quieras recalcar algo con la muerte.

Lo de spiritu como pintor lo sospeche.

>>5704103
yo pense en estas obras japonesas.

>>5704165
>Por que no usas la palabra stupa directamente?

Lo he pensado y ahora que lo mencionas nuevamente lo pienso. Mi unico problema es que con referirme a la imagen directamente con el nombre le da un sentido mas técnico, que quiero evitor. Me gustaría mas que el lector se visualizara algo impreciso con "colinas de muertos budistas" que tengan que salir del cuento para buscar lo que es un stūpas.

>Salvo que quieras recalcar algo con la muerte
Es mas para hacer un contraste entre la casa, algo ordinario, y una imagen mística que emerge de la poca visibilidad (para continuar el motif del espíritu como pintor).

He worked at The Marlin. He showed up at six, walked out onto the stage, and played. He knew the songs so well he didn’t even think about them anymore. So he listened to the people talk, instead.

You goddamn fool, he thought. She’s drifting away from you and you don’t even know it. You’ll never find someone like her again. And on he played. You’re an idiot, he thought, if you think that what your doing enough. Maybe if you showed him some respect he wouldn’t act that way. You need to leave him, now. Like this he played, his fingers listless as his mind.

He was finished by 10, though he stayed a while longer, playing out of courtesy for some lovers there at table 6. Deeper and deeper they fell into one another, lying, again and again, tongues heavy with love and wine - reeking of falsehoods and thoughtlessness. But of course they didn't know it. He could plead with them to understand their foolishness - but of course they wouldn't listen. On he played. He heard a wine glass fall from the table as she leaned across to kiss him. <- ambiguous pronoun

At last they left. He shut the keys and left without a ceremony. He didn’t stick around to talk with the waiters or the chefs. They were just like everyone else. Worse, even - they got caught up in the magic without knowing it, and they pretended that they knew it wasn’t real. He went home. He lived in a little house in the suburbs. It was clean. He had a cat. He fed it, put some things away and watched TV. TV was like The Marlin, but worse. When you’re out in the world, there’s a chance that you might get stuck somewhere, like him - unable to play the game, unable to feel it, unable to do anything but see it all as it really was, in all its naked ugliness - but on television that never happened. They were just there to entertain you. Just a pack of lies. He didn’t know what he'd expected.

He had no friends, so he used his time to practice playing or to exercise. Early in the morning, he got up and ran. A father and his daughter, playing in the park. He cut far around them, miles around, until the sweat was in his eyes and the desert was all that he could see - but his mind was clear and he was sure that the truth was with him.

I'm trying to write everyday now. This is my most recent work.

Noelia a veces parecía un joven distraído llegando de la universidad o tal vez, un trabajador incansable (tanto más parecía un viejo de la contru correteando chiquillas en su hora de almuerzo). A veces parecía algo que no era, pero la mayoría de las veces, parecía exactamente ella, pero en otros cuerpos, en otros rostros.
La cámara que a veces colgaba de su cuello era determinante en cómo yo la veía. Probablemente, sentía que no podía ser sino un monstruo quien nos había capturado tantas veces, tan fielmente como era posible. Ella era un oxímoron, una mujer que también era hombre y que, a su vez, era una abominación hermosa, un intangible, un inenarrable. Noelia nos veía a través de su cámara y era un poco de todos nosotros, como si los antiguos hubieran tenido razón y ella robaba pedazos de nuestras almas cada vez, como si tuviera algo que decir siempre pero lo callara concienzudamente sabiendo que éramos nosotros los que perdíamos con eso.
Ella no se veía como una chica casi nunca. La veíamos pasar a veces por la calle en cuya cuneta tomábamos vino, llegando de su trabajo, con una cara que no podría describir ni en volúmenes escritos con dedicación. Vestida con botas militares y una chaqueta larga, una bufanda en su cuello y un extraño sombrero, parecía más bien un monstruo citadino de una antigua Londres o, tal vez, era mucho más una persona que, veleidosa, cambiaba todas las mañanas de parecer y, así, mutaba o al menos eso parecía.
Noelia sacaba fotos y nosotros nunca las vimos. Solo podíamos imaginar lo que vio en su cuerpo de mujer cambiante, de terrible infante que se disfraza para poder pasar inadvertido, de juez imparcial de nuestras realidades. Noelia sacaba fotos y nunca nos mostró, tal vez porque ahí terminaba la magia.
Nunca más la vi y puede ser que nunca la haya visto.
Dejé de tomar en esa esquina, de frecuentar esos amigos y dejé de ver a Noelia. Tal vez estaba enamorado de ella, pero sólo como uno se puede enamorar de actor de cine o de un escritor; estaba totalmente fuera de mi alcance y la única forma que tenía de estimarla era a través del personaje que podía ver en ella, de su obra, en la particularidad de cada día. Podría ser que fuera eso lo que me gustaba de ella, pero estaba tan lejana como el objeto está lejano de la sombra que proyecta, como el acto de filmar está lejano del acto de observar.
Probablemente siguió sacando fotos, pero ya no de nosotros. Me pregunto si se habrá dado cuenta que yo faltaba en ese cuadro.

I hope is intelligible. As a Chilean, is very difficult to erase the argot of my stories.

>>5705107
This is an English-speaking board.

No one here can fucking read it.

>>5705100
le hemmingway face

Please guys, critique mine:
>>5693527

>>5705112
I tried to translate it, but my english is pretty poor. I'm sorry if there's any mistake.

Noelia seemed like a distracted young fellow returning from college or, maybe, an unremitting worker (she mostly looked like an old journeyman, chasing little girls in his lunch hours). Sometimes, she came across as something she wasn’t, but most of the time, she was just her, but in other bodies, in other faces.
The camera which hanged on her neck was determinant in how I looked at her. Probably I just felt like she had to be a monster who had captured us so many times, as faithfully as can be. She was an oxymoron, a woman that was also a man and, at the same time, a beautiful abomination, an intangible, an inenarrable. Noelia looked at us through her camera and she was, in a sense, all of us, as if the old ones have been right and she stole pieces of our soul every time, as if she had something to say but she always fall silent thoughtfully, knowing that was us who had lost with that.
She never looked like a girl. We watched as she passed in front of the ditch where we drink wine, arriving from work, with a face that even Proust couldn’t describe in volumes written with dedication. Dressed with military boots and a long coat, a scarf in her neck and a strange hat, she looked as a monster denizen of the old London or, maybe, she was more like a person that, capricious, changed every morning and, with that, she metamorphosed or, at least, so it seemed.
Noelia took pictures and we never saw them. We just could imagine what her mutant woman body watched, her terrible infant body which disguised itself to pass inadvertent, impartial judge of our realities. Noelia took pictures and never showed them, maybe because that’s where the magic ended.
I never saw her again and maybe never saw her at all.
I stopped drinking in that corner, frequenting those friends and ceased seeing Noelia. Maybe I was in love with her, but only as one can be in love with a movie star or a writer; she was completely out of my reach and the only way I had to estimate her was through her character, her work, her particularity, day by day. Maybe that’s what I liked about her, but she was as distant as the object is far from the shadow it casts, as the act of filming is far of the act of observing.
Probably she kept taking pictures, but no longer of us. I wonder if she noticed that I was missing in that frame.

This is probably the shittiest critique thread I've ever seen.

The sun shined down and blistered his slowly cooking skin. Unable to gather the will to move, he simply laid basking, taking in the feeling as his body felt warmer and warmer. He inhaled a deep breath into his lungs of the fresh air into his longs, and stretched his hands onto the cool grass. The embraced him, a hundred blades gently running themselves across his cloths, across his hair, and across his arms.
Gathering his strength, he shifted his legs to a more comfortable position and continued his glare towards the sun. It was difficult to understand the gravity of it, the magnificence that such a grand figure truly was. It was like good weather, he supposed; far too easy to enjoy and far too easy to forget. It was even easier to forget that one day it too would be gone, but then that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. All things gold must fade, and so all days must give way to night. He had always thought that endings were a grand thing, an item of great inspiration and in all reality joy, though even now he had moments where he wondered how a shelf life could ever be a good or joyous thing; but then he had moments of clarity. How could one ever know motivation without the threat of nothingness looming over them? How could they understand joy without the threat of pain breathing down their neck? How could people understand life without the threat of death standing in the corner of their eye? Maybe he was being pretentious. Maybe he was looking too deep or trying to sound too smart, but he couldn’t help but feel thankful for an end of some kind. The way he saw it there were only two things in this world that ever mattered; how you begin something and how you end it. It was a simplistic ideology, but simplicity never hurt anyone. On the contrary it was people’s inherent need to complicate their own lives that brought true pain. How much pain had been caused by someone who felt they needed more when in reality they had what others would kill for? He was just being cynical, naïve, or some other form of what really just amounted to being stupid, but he still longed for such simplicity.

>>5705405
He shook his head, realizing he had been staring at the sun for minutes. He blinked, watching small specks that riddled his vision dance in front of him as his eyes adjusted back to their normal state. They felt warm, though not in a remotely pleasant way.
He realized it then. He was in love with time. Not the concept of it like some philosopher fantasizes about or the human representation of it you’d find in childhood fiction. No, he loved time. He fell in love with memories and parts of his life that he would never truly relive, constantly personifying them into whatever he could rationalize in his head. He raised women to these pedestals to represent to him his childhood, happiness, and countless other emotions he never truly understood. To represent all the good times he had long since left behind. It was selfish, he realized. He remembered the first girl he could ever say caught his eye. Her name was Diane, a sweet girl filled innocence and ignorance of the world around her. He remembered when he moved, how he would visit and how he would use her like a tool to go back to those wondrous days of childhood. No, he wanted her as one wants a memory. He felt for her as one would feel looking through a photo album. All the women of his life fell to the same fate, to represent a point in his life one which was never truly as great as it once was. Lonely times represented by sparks of hope, angry times represented by moments of sight, and apathetic moments mistaken for the gaining of maturity and knowledge. He was helplessly, head over heels, and blindly in love with the great delusion of time. Lost time, spare time, old times, and new times, but god damn him if it wasn’t the good times that were slowly killing him.

The Coroner’s funeral went ahead on the twenty-sixth, demanding the whole sour-stomached morning to let him go. It was agreed among everyone that the man had been an expert diagnostician of Death, who had greater experience than anyone in the field of the infinite, before turning post-graduate, and had been a rather likable figure, where Coroners (professional or otherwise) are considered more morose characters. I’d never bothered to learn his name; the stamp-sized portrait and caption told me it was Haros. The last searing month and a half (which, I was later told, had constituted our Summer) had been suffocating. For the first time in years, I’d started creating scenarios: Belinda, in a cashmere curtain with hot furs at her neck, sprung an embolism outside the jewelers and promptly died, the festering cavern of her corpulence mine then to occupy; Jessica, at the store one day, slipped one day on the nacreous film of my milk spillage and split her dainty skull apart (God almighty); Stacy, the whore, found one fetid afternoon folded pretzel-wise in a ditch, by some jealous abuser or other, was capable now of being hung from all my furniture gold-infused furniture. Of course, any real liaison was impossible; a replacement Coroner first had to be found, then invited on three dinners’ worth of character analysis, then, all checking out, included in my many marriages.

One and a half months of interviews. Mondo film reels of pretty Arabian girls and their dusty divinity, their retribution in the stone. Middle-aged and merlot drunk, spilling from my bathrobe in a hotel room at the Grand, I traced a styx of ladies and girls in the abstruse wall art. A collapsing uterus on T.V. Meanwhile, in the morgue, the Mayor and other county officials presided, knowing they would never again find someone qualified as highly in law, medicine, and the smatterings of necromancy offered by H. Boxed up in the corner, I hear he, the Coroner-Emeritus, silently advised, his heart sinking with his chest cavity at each demonstration of ineptitude. Beauties were burned and buries without me. Eventually (at which point I was far gone), they announced him: a scrawny thirty-something, who didn’t make a public appearance and who, it was said, managed to fill the desired place of underwhelmitude. I tried to remain optimistic. In my experience, the louder types were always the most liberally inclined. He was there at the funeral, near the back, in a skinny burgundy. I made a point of striding up to him, dressed in my voluptuous black Huntsman, with all my wonderful teeth, to welcome the boy into the private fold.

now alone with useless equipment
she fears a fellow widow
whose pity is genuine
and face not so pretty
a small bubble where
movement of chairs in the slightest
can tell whether or not
two men have been united
and the sudden shared attributes
urge you to push farther
to avoid being gulited into
self-loathing with a partner

This time around I'm born again,
peel off the skin of former men.
Tramp on dead leaves of naked trees,
the warm turn cold on open seas.
Take one step forward, no steps back.
Your past will follow in a sack.
I walk in circles to stay sane,
on night in doubt with autumn rain.

A war between canaries
wages on in childish chirps:
Chirp, chirp, chirp. Peck.
Feathers fly off the yellow
blur, and drop likes stones
in the eyes of the sloth
who watches from afar
on a mossy telephone pole

>>5707309

>born again
>dead leaves
>open seas
>one step forward
>autumn rain

Man, chill out with the cliches.

A Letter to My Younger Self

Y

If Plato's a Republican,
then so am I.

My mind, body, and soul;
My Father, son, and holy spirit;
My President, Senate, and House;
My Neocortex, Limbic system, and Basal Ganglia;
are all
in disarray.

And so,
on some corner in the world
inside my head,
there stands a neglected man
shouting with his hands out of reach:
"The End is Nigh!
The End is Nigh
The End
is Nigh!"

And no one listens.

And the whole crowd cheered,
buzzing like excited guinea pigs.
The President waved a hand
and smiled his way off stage
exiting the address to his home
address, led by a woman in
an enclave of black suited men.

The bedroom doors shut, night
set in wet concrete under quiet
feet and the president just sat
at the edge of his bed and
buried his face into his hands
just to weep.

>>5707473
rofl

>>5707369

Yo, would love some back-feed on the feedback for this

>>5707379
Overwrought.

>>5709045

Assuming you know what 'overwrought' means, this must be a joke.

>>5690924
I'd read more so I could find out more about Bort.

>>5690929
>but not at this moment
This was the beginning of your problem. You could say, "but today there was another smell:"

>>5690937
Funny, but tries too hard to be well written and ends up somewhat pseudo-intellectual sounding. I like the Eternal McDonalds and repetition of phallic themes.

>>5691069
Each sentence sound nice and somewhat fluid, but together, it can't quite keep itself together. You may want to change tone a bit now and then so the reader doesn't get bored.

>>5691699
>>5691701
pls b sarcastic

>>5691888
>stale air
Why was it stale? Cigarettes, mold, as if it hadn't been opened in a long time?
>in fact
Don't.

>>5692882
Banal college student prose. I think it's somewhat decently written, but it seems to lack a definitive style and I'd find it hard to keep on reading.

>>5694351
Please link your tumblr blog so I could reblog your soft grunge pics

>>5707473
>The bedroom doors shut, night/set in wet concrete under quiet feet and the president sat/at the edge of his bed/buried his face in his hands/and wept
FTFY

>>5709441

So, redeemably good?

>>5709470
Sure.

So, this is how it ends:
Destruction coming first,
Remains recomposing into
Almost what they were,
When the war swelled and the
Killing was mushed by inertia, and the
Cowards succumbed to
All their fears of greatness and
Becoming remembered by history.

‘Hi, have we met?’

‘That’s a joke, right?’

‘Not at all. I’d remember you.’

‘Clearly not. Meredith festival, last year. I’m Nick’s girlfriend?’

The other two laughed. ‘You absolute idiot, Paul,’ said Annie.

‘Shit, you are, aren’t you?’ He laughed as he spoke. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

‘Too bad. Fuck you.’

Annie laughed again, alone this time.

‘Fuck me?’

‘Uhuh. Fuck you.’

‘Fuck you.’

Paul had somehow positioned himself between Madeleine and the other two, who glanced at each other as the reacquainted laughed.

Annie cut them off. ‘I think Nick’s already inside.’

The laughter stopped, but was sealed in the dark by two secret smiles.

‘Oh?’ said one. ‘That’s great,’ said the other.

The four turned the corner and found themselves at the back of a very long line.

‘I hear it’s worth it.’

It certainly looked like it.

Nearly 7000 tumblr likes on this short story, hopefully it polevaults me in celebrity status.

It was 3:08. Dangies looked down at his pocketwatch. He started texting from his pocketwatch. His soul was in 2014. The pocketwatch had returned in better form. This model allowed for communication as well.

He walked outside and saw a dog. It was approaching another dog from its rear. The dog mounted. No sense of what else was going on. No care if other dogs watched. He did not ask for consent. He just jumped on. This pleased Dangies momentarily.

Then a speckled bird, humbly inspired, ran across the road when it could have flown, and this made me smile. The road was long, and he ran the entire way across. I saw him smile at me, but I couldn't be too sure. Maybe he smiled at a bug on my sweater. The dirt rod adjacent from my yard led to many things. More dirt especially, with men shoveling and moving it. These men did not work for free, but they seemed to enjoy what they did. Worms in the dirt cried as their homes were destroyed and their families were separated. Most of the time this separation lasted the rest of a worms life.

>>5709725
“Kiss me! Kiss me! You’ll do nothing wrong the sooner you kiss me! James! I need all of this! This hiding in the bastion has got me sick. I’d rather burn than see myself grow old with him, and this seems less likely the case with you. Do you not want a secret to hide? Something to keep us up at night, I say! Less than quicksilver the ideal, of course. I’m growing awfully tired. I’ll try not to suck my thumb, but I must ponder! What’s so great about India? Are they too busy flying kites to even notice we are gone? That must be it! The summoned serpents seem to be the only ones doing as they’re told, and that’s by way of flute! Am I inaudible to you James? Am I insane? Look at me James. Fetch me another poppy, one that is in full bloom.”

>>5709731
Bottle cans and containers of food line the walls. Up nearly 5 feet, all the way along the room. I sit here waiting for someone to clean it up, but I don't think that will ever happen. Sims online is very fun, and it's how I spend most of my time. I control humans, just like me. I build them housing, lawns, and I give them food. I like being in control. My sims move to the clicks of my mouse, obeying everything I order from them. I wish my brain would follow in a similar manner.

For now, I will sit here. This is not the way I plan on living for the rest of my life. But for right now, it gets me by.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v1fAAu3xDdarp0-1WqNcWYkn5fdFHza_wUx-LUrp-PA/edit?usp=sharing

It had been nearly a year since his eyes looked upon a book. For him, a man who since his youth read nearly one hundred pages a day, a man who had such a voracious appetite for literature, a man who has a personal library composed of three-hundred and eighty four books ranging from subjects such as metaphysics to ecology, this was torture. He knew that day when he picked up a book (which he thought was Rousseau's Confessions of a Savoyard Vicar), and saw that the words were nothing more than a blurry pattern lines and curves that he was in trouble. He never understood why his eyesight receded so quickly nor why it did. Well, he did know explicitly the reason behind his blindness, slowly he developed cataracts, but he could not comprehend why it had happened to him. Being a practicing Catholic he felt that God would always be on his side. He expected God’s protection to always keep him along with his eyesight safe. For Edward P. Joyce, however, that was not the case. It seemed as if God abandoned him and let this happen. As a sort of a revenge upon God and his empty promises of protection, Edward abandoned his Catholicism. He left his seat at church empty, and soon a new person claimed it as their own. The Bible which usually sat upon his bedside table was thrown out. To him it did not even matter, he could not even read it anyway.

Any thoughts?

>>5703979
> What's OUTSIDE the window?

Where did you leave your reading comprehension, anon?

Tentacled foyers grope
the athlete's beleaguered visage,
covered in blankets sewn
from the facial hair of
award winning trophy makers of
the raiders, and not the park,
where crusaders grovel for
a ruined lost ark, a messy meso
Mayan delight. Sunny-D: Son of the
lightweight-less detergent amidst
a mist: googling gregarious gurgles–
It's the gargoyle! So he hid the boil for
snapping alligator gars, who beg for (not
the precipice of aurora borealis) but
jamais vu: the ubiquitous nothing that is
invisible. When no thing unseen is:
eyes have you in their custody. Can
gloveless hands catch a home-
run ball, a glimpse of odd-numbered
feet and feats and wisps? Running
weary, King George III feels
tickled (Ears bleed, my dear deer, so
smear the blood from the jet, leer.)
Hear! Hear! Hear! Hear! Silence
sieges epileptic seizing: the wriggling
nervous capillaries forged by burnt
limelight. Seething piles of human-less meaning: slimy
slats of slizz. (The Jabberwocky is on trial for
identity fraud.) So I pack three nines to defend
the moat with more than lead. No, not
just with bullets–I lead them to Victor's
place, then say you led them to my
disgrace, this forsaken place, and
asked: who forsook the big apple? I
deem it an addict of decay. (Thankfully I
decide to mention nothing
of the cyanide
in the seeds
of its core.)

Tentacled foyers grope
the athlete's beleaguered visage,
covered in blankets sewn
from the facial hair of
award winning trophy makers of
the raiders, and not the park,
where crusaders grovel for
a ruined lost ark, a messy meso
Mayan delight. Sunny-D: Son of the
lightweight-less detergent amidst
a mist: googling gregarious gurgles–
It's the gargoyle! So he hid the boil for
snapping alligator gars, who beg for (not
the precipice of aurora borealis) but
jamais vu: the ubiquitous nothing that is
invisible. When no thing unseen is:
eyes have you in their custody. Can
gloveless hands catch a home-
run ball, a glimpse of odd-numbered
feet and feats and wisps? Running
weary, King George III feels
tickled (Ears bleed, my dear deer, so
smear the blood from the jet, leer.)
Hear! Hear! Hear! Hear! Silence
sieges epileptic seizing: the wriggling
nervous capillaries forged by burnt limelight.
Seething piles of human-less, meaning:
slimy slats of slizz. (Jabberwocky is on trial for
identity fraud.) So I pack three nines to defend
the moat with more than lead. No, not
just with bullets–I lead them to Victor's
place. Then you led them to my
disgrace, this forsaken place, and
asked: who forsook the big apple? I
deem it an addict of decay. (Thankfully
I decide to mention nothing
of the cyanide
in the seeds
of its core.)

Tentacled foyers grope the
athlete's beleaguered visage,
covered in blankets sewn
from small-town, facial hair grown
by award winning trophy makers
for the Raiders, not the park,
where crusaders grovel for
a ruined lost ark: a messy, meso
Mayan delight. Sunny-D: Son of the
lightweight-less detergent amidst
a mist of Googling gregarious gurgles–It's
the gargoyle! Now, hide the coal for
snapping alligator gars, who beg (not for
the precipice of aurora borealis) but
jamais vu: the ubiquitous nothing that is
visible. When everything unseen is:
eyes have you in their custody. So can
gloveless hands catch a home-
run ball, a glimpse of odd-numbered
feet and feats and wins? (If I knew,
I might answer.) Running
weary, King George III feels
tickled (Ears bleed, my dear deer. So
smear the blood from the jet. Leer.)
Hear, hear! Hear, hear! The silence
sieges epileptic seizing: the wriggling
nervous capillaries forged by burning
limelight. Seething piles of human-less meaning:
slimy slats of slizz. The Jabberwocky is on trial for
identity fraud. So I pack three nines to defend
my moat with more than lead. No, not
just with bullets–I lead them to Victor's
place. Then led them to my
disgrace, this forsaken place, and
asked: who forsook the big apple? I
say it's an addict of decay. (Thankfully
I decide to mention nothing
of the cyanide in the seeds
at its core.)

Tentacled foyers grope the
athlete's beleaguered visage,
covered in blankets sewn
from small-town, facial hair grown
by award winning trophy makers
for the Raiders, not the park,
where crusaders grovel for
a ruined lost ark: a messy, meso
Mayan delight. Sunny-D: Son of the
lightweight-less detergent amidst
a mist of Googling gregarious gurgles–It's
the gargoyle! Now, hide the coal for
snapping alligator gars, who beg (not for
the precipice of aurora borealis) but
jamais vu: the ubiquitous nothing that is
visible. When everything unseen is:
eyes have you in their custody. So can
gloveless hands catch a home-
run ball, a glimpse of odd-numbered
feet and feats and wins? (If I knew,
I might answer.) Running
weary, King George III feels
tickled (Ears bleed, my dear deer. So
smear the blood from the jet. Leer.)
Hear, hear! Hear, hear! The silence
sieges epileptic seizing: the wriggling
nervous capillaries forged by burning
limelight. Seething piles of human-less meaning:
slimy slats of slizz. The Jabberwocky is on trial for
identity fraud. So I pack three nines to defend
my moat with more than lead. No, not
just with bullets–I lead them to Victor's
place. Then led them to my
disgrace, this forsaken space, and
ask: who forsook the big apple? I
say it's an addict of decay. (Thankfully,
I decide to mention nothing
of the cyanide in the seeds
at its core.)

>>5690597
As I cross into the dirty restroom, I look to see what greets me in the mirror. The same sight greets me every morning- a failure, growing worse by the day. What else is new? Everything's gotten a bit more scraggly, so I decide whilst brushing to shave. I cut myself a couple times, mutter curses, and head on yet again.

Everything's just fine today.

I look out into my humble abode. The only thing that makes my existence worth living lies here- a two year old desktop. I had originally procured such a valuable item when going to college, apparently for educational use- however, those plans had fallen through, and thus, the computer contained things not pertaining to study. I had a couple hundred gigabytes left- what wasn't stored as porn or pictures that caught my eye on the internet was various games and pirated television shows. However, none of my magnificent eight hundred gigabyte collection would be put to use yet, as I decide to occupy myself with the internet. I start up my computer, check to see if my neighbors have changed their network password (they haven't) and open up my internet browser.

A brick upon my broken bone
Will weigh my wilted words
Will almighty lights make me so lonesome
As what I find so burdensome?

In class I hide my plain truths
Before reading them aloud
It's folly yet I stay aloof
Whispering naught but a sound

The black velvet could crush me
Don't say I don't know
The cruelty of infinity
Could make anyone feel low

"Isn't nothing ugly?" he asks
"Don't joke" I fast retort
"Purity is the perfect mask
On a world this much contort"

He laughs until I storm out in fume
Is a pinprick worth so much?
Meaning derived from certain doom
Has denying this been my own crutch?

I consider the lone pixel
There's a simple beauty
When everything is fickle
What else is there but be?

"Magnificent"
He could see it from where he lay. Just... what was it, levitating? only appropriate... Just levitating there, maybe three feet above the cold floor. He could smell the ground beneath him; it smelled metallic; it smelled as one would imagine a one-cent penny to taste. He briefly recalled the man at the station mentioning that the temple was plated in copper in the ceremonial chambers.
He inched forward towards it, only to be stopped near immediately by the blinding pain shooting through his abdomen. He averted his attention toward his waist and saw the dark blood leaking profusely onto the patterned floor. The room was beginning to grow darker.
He tried again to crawl toward it, this time pushing himself forward despite the pain he felt washing over his body, though to no avail. The chamber was now significantly darker than it had been when he first entered. His vision was fading. He was dying, he knew, and as he lie there, his life dimming, he could see the object floating just outside of his reach. He felt a quietus creeping up and down his body now. He shivered.
With one final attempt, he placed his hands flat on the ground and pushed with all of his remaining strength toward his objective, and with one final attempt his life was drained from his being.
In his final moments, the milliseconds during which his upper torso fell limply back to the floor, a trail of blood smeared behind him, he had but one thought.
"I have failed. Nobody will ever pleasure their anus with the sacred golden phallus of Fourtwenty Wallace, and the blame rests soley upon me. May Yeezus have mercy upon my soul."

I,
for the lack of
a better
word,
am.

>>5712351

I didn't read a word of it, so my opinion about it is totally Swiss. But if you read my following poem, I'll hook you up Snoopy:

Cast out
from the lightning
rod, my line shined
in the 4 AM light.

Apprehensive
about hitting the surface,
I hooked onto a memory
of wiggling around
with my friends
in the soil, where life
was 50% air and 100%
home.

>>5712351

>it smelled like one would imagine a one-cetn penny to taste.

This is way redundant bruv. Everyone, except African children, knows what a penny smells like. You could have just left it at "smelled metallic." Anyway, a "one-cent penny?" Come on, that's like saying "A fat obese person" or "watery lake."

Essentially, you really must focus on precision and moving the plot forward with over detailing unnecessary components of the piece.

my body is a mess
how could you follow me
what about the dirt
is there an apology there
is this all excess
how could we make houses
what do we mean when we say make houses
will we ever learn to float
will the flowers float with us
are we already doing it
can i hold onto your shirt sleeve if it ever happens
are you tired
i am tired
why don’t we sleep more
did you want to make houses
is that what this plywood is for
are your teeth sufficiently sharp
i think so
can we talk about your skin for a while
should i start the conversation
i really like your skin
how else can i say that
it’s dumb sometimes trying to describe it
so why bother
all i will say is i’ve stopped sneezing
and started dancing
did you see my body dancing
is it magnificent at all
tell me is it

>>5712419
a
faggot.

>>5712747

We're not in a movie in a movie theatre, so why are you projecting?

>>5691023
This would be good if a poem with a lot of line breaks about a falling leaf hadn't been done 10000 times before.

To all the readers of YA literature. This is for you. It's my prologue of a novel I'm writing.

http://pastebin.com/CLeQwG0d

For my last meal,
all I want
is grandma's chicken-fried steak smothered in gravy,
honey buttered biscuits,
and collards greens (for vitamins) too.

But I would be fine
just having her famous peach cobbler,
with vanilla ice- cream melted over
the golden crust.

Rewritten and expanded... dunno where the fuck this is going yet

I really do despise all rhyming,
all it is is dumb and pointless work.
Anyway, I'm bad with good timing,
so why strive for such a fruitless perk?
Teachers said: don't draw outside the lines.
So, I smeared feces on the white walls,
and was sent home, without any fine!
In the car, I shouted kind catcalls
like, "hey lady, I can smell your queef!"
My Mom slapped me, and I sat on lease.
Then, the hag croaked in disbelief,
and I laughed till sleep, resting in peace.

I really do despise all rhyming,
all it is is dumb and pointless work.
Anyway, I'm bad with good timing,
so why strive for such a fruitless perk?
Teachers said: don't draw outside the lines.
So, I smeared feces onto the walls,
I was sent home without any fine
and In the car, shouted kind catcalls.
Like, "hey lady, I can smell your queef!"
To which my Mom slapped me, still on lease.
Then, the old hag croaked in disbelief,
and I laughed on, till resting in peace.

I really do despise all rhyming,
it's nothing but dumb and pointless work.
Anyway, I'm bad with good timing,
so why strive for such a fruitless perk?
Teachers said: don't draw outside the lines.
So, I smeared feces onto the walls,
I was sent home without any fine
and In the car, shouted kind catcalls.
Like, "hey lady, I can smell your queef!"
To which my Mom slapped me, still on lease.
Then, the old hag croaked in disbelief,
and I laughed on, till resting in peace.

I really do despise all rhyming,
it's nothing but dumb and pointless work.
Anyway, I'm bad with good timing,
so why strive for such a fruitless perk?
Teachers said: don't draw outside the lines,
so I smeared pooh onto the blank walls.
I was shipped home without any fines,
so in the car yelled friendly catcalls:
"Hey gram, I can smell your dusty queef!"
For which my Mom slapped me, still on lease.
Then, the old hag croaked in disbelief,
and I laughed on, 'fore resting in peace.

>>5712622

I hate to ask, but are you overweight?

you do realize that everything you wrote here is an utter crap?

She left me that day, she said to taste life.
The morning hurt, the daylight tore,
I had forgotten how the New York air felt
On an open palm.
The stinging on my hand reminds me of her.
I cannot get her back.
My hand hangs open.

>>5713380

You do realize you haven't replied to everyone and that by saying 'you,' you're implying that the entire thread was written by one person, of whom you are one?

>>5713438

*anyone

If there was
no such word
as if, I would
become a time-
traveller and go
to the future a
second at a time.

>>5713369
No, just skinny and weak