/lit/ - Literature

>>6428951
As always, the crumbling foundation of my NEET neighbour's house shows signs of vermin living inside.

>>6428951
And I look out unto the world, and, behold, a church of the Lord stands mighty with its spire reaching for the Heavens, whereover the sun has decided to shine a new day.

A mass of concrete and blue windows stuck - straight up - through the skyline, against the milky sky. Teenagers in windbreakers drifted across its facade, stepping over cement parking lot stops, still glistening with the early morning rain.

Rain falls in ugly beads, the usual grace of the storm is turned eastward by the wind. I walked through the cold thinking I looked stoic, but in the reflection of a window I simply looked like someone else.
I see a dark shape in the sky, darting into a cloud.

>>6428951
The half dimmed florescent light strips casted enough light to see, but not enough to see well. The strain on his eyes caused a dull ache to creep through his head. Who designed a lecture hall with no windows? Wasn't this a school of art and design?

I often ponder what sluggish utterances are produced during their intermittent interactions.

on another note this old guy cuts his lawn every single day- is this how OAP's justify their being past 60?

It's dark. I can't even see the lights of another house. Why did I buy property in the country?

>>6429067
Fuck me that grass is amazing.

>>6428974

Only one I liked so far. All the other descriptions are trying to hard.

Mine:

Luz pálida, por toda a parte, céu azul-claro e nuvens; logo a seguir às grades da varanda o telhado de telhas velhas e pequenas, a fachada de uma casa baixa com uma janela à minha frente; atrás, um pouco ao longe, aflora a parte superior de um edifício muito maior, pintado de cor-de-rosa, com linhas rectas e curvas, chaminés, antenas parabólicas e um anexo no telhado plano, directamente contra as nuvens e o céu.

Sorry, but I wouldn't write it in english.

>>6429083
clearly not; he's back at it again

the repeating shapes of the perfect windows curved around the square yellow building, gently tipping one would trigger a domino effect that wouldn't be as pleasant for it's residents as watching the whole thing from my sound proof window, letting no sound in, a demolition in outer space. surrounded by small trees and shops, a slight contrast from the blue gray sky colored so by a nearby brush fire. From my office I could see the smoke at the source illuminated by the flames, giving the clouds a mountainous look of undulating moving sand. I imagined the burning smell and a slight smile came to my face. I stood there looking at the fire through the window until it died. Time for lunch.

>>6428951
The bucket they had left out over night is now over flowing with water, creating a small river running from the foundation of their portico down into the flower bed, where a puddle is forming, drowning the petunia buds.

I move the curtain and sunlight hits me in the eyes. I'm wearing lenses so it's ten times worse. However, my immediate urge to call OP a faggot disappears, not because I'm not on /b/, but because this gorgeous 20 year old is walking down the street in pink flowery shirt and black thighs. I drool.

I light my last cigarette staring into her manipulative bubbly buttocks while a van parks momentarily and blocks my view. She's gone by the time it dives away.

I'm left with a road, neighbours' hedge that has grown into a rusty fence, my dumb cat going somewhere.

I think about how we used to kiss this time last year, how she could pull off the red lipstick without resembling a clown, unlike her friends. It's over now.

Water is boiling, got to finish my coffee. Why did I even bother with it? I'm out of cigarettes anyway. Idiot.

>>6429123
Sorry for bad english, it's tights. My bad

The sunless blue tinge of early morning makes the chaparral landscape look as though it might have been swallowed up in a flood, and I have been submerged along with it.

Der Vogelsang kämpft mit dem Lärm des Bürogebäudes, das auf der anderen Straßenseite entsteht. Die jungen Knospen und Blätter der Buchen bedecken zum Teil den Blick auf das Gerüst, das höher und höher gezogen wird. Zwei Kind streiten sich in der Frühlingssonne. Es wächst.

>>6429153

Translated this and liked it.

>>6428951
There are no windows in my room. Sleep is a distant goal. Pills are nearby. Too close, yet always too far.
Misery loves company.

>>6428951
Um

>>6429164
Well, describe it.

>>6428974
good. simple, illustrative, to the point.

>>6429008
>concrete and blue windows
this implies that there are concrete windows and blue ones.
>- straight up -
no thanks
the rest isn't bad

>>6429046
>simply
this is one of those useless words bad writers add in. what is really lost by making the sentence
>>in the reflection of a window I looked like someone else.
nothing is lost, and the sentence is better. i do like the dark shape in the sky bit.

>>6429066
funny

>>6429067
>sluggish utterances
>intermittent interactions.
no thank you

>>6429075
sure, ok.

>>6429119
>square yellow building, gently tipping
try a semicolon there. i really like that first sentence, though you lose me in the rest. keep it up.

>>6429123
hm, ok. drop "resembling" from your vocab for that context though

A fountain spews upward near the forest canopy whose counterpart is dense lush swampy undergrowth, most of which is obscured by the garage (only half of which I can claim association to, and no car is within), and on the left of this, there is a man dallying about the entrance, what he gets out of one of those apartment-janitor (there are buckets and things, but not entirely sure what he does, besides, say, grab the trash that's holed up in these chest-benches kept near the apartment entrances) golf-carts, parked near a private-property sign that once had a rosary hung up on it, but no more.

>>6429170
Rothko is depressed

>>6429181
* and on the left of the garage
* about the entrance to the apartment complex
* the rosary probably only there for the day I saw it

>>6428951
After the rain of the night, the sun of the early morning lights puddles and dew. The grass, green, sits vacant, without a gnome or flamingo. Leafless trees mark the territory, and line the street, though it is already Late April. It is only early morning, and not a soul to be seen. A bird flutters and dives for worms.

>>6429157
Thanks. Did you use google translator? I feel like the translation of gl seems better than the original.

>>6429180
>hm, ok. drop "resembling" from your vocab for that context though

Yeah, it turned out to be awkward. "Looking like a" would have been a better choice.

>>6429193

I translated it to my native language and then to english. I had german some years ago but I've forgotten almost everything. It's not cluttered with words, you move well from image to image and I liked the way you describe how the book obstructs part of your view.

>>6429217

But yeah I did use google translator.

>>6429106
Look at that shit! It's like a fucking golf course green near the tee. Goddamn, what a champ.

>>6429217
Book? "Buche" is not book, it is beech.
"Buch" is book.

Silly google translator. Though I remember confusing the terms as a small child, and saying to my grandma "Oh Oma, hast du viele Buchen!" (As in: "Oh Gramma, you sure have many beeches!")

>>6429228
Where do you live? In my country, all the lawns looks like that.

>>6428951
I gaze across the field, trying to conjure words that will give you my sight. I find nothing in my empty head.

Oh, tree so close you block my view,
cutting my view so brief,
between the lonely bird-feeders few,
sit a wall made of green and crimson leaf.

beyond the tree sits a sky of white,
a view to contrast my feathered plight,
for one breed of bird shall set me snarling
By chasing off all but-- FUCKING STARLINGS!

I think I need to stick to other types of writing.

I live in the fourth floor. I can see trees opposite my window, which is better than another concrete tower. There is a single tree that has snagged up from the top. Sometimes a woodpecker hacks away at it. In the morning I get sunshine straight to my apartment if it's summer, which is nice. I can spy at the backyard of the nearest apartment complex from here. It's pretty good if you consider most landscapes of urban environment. Noise level is low since there are no big roads nearby.

Rain through dusted blinds never felt so uncomfortable, unless you focused on the cracked street beneath the passing cars going Over The Speed Limit, which splashed cool 40-something-degree puddles over my green whatever-they're-called bushes that were flattened in winter and just barely regaining half of the vitality of the previous spring.

>>6429185
toppest kek

A brick wall.

>>6429499
I am pretty sure prose was wanted.

A intellectual wasteland, the death of middle class dream.

>>6428951

I am currently masturbating to cuckold shemale pornography acted out by Pikachu and Tails the Fox. I am tasked with writing about what is outside my window. I lift my shades with the taut drawstring. And there she stands: the witness. She is something less than half my age plus seven. I suppose she is looking at my veiny and erect cock. I close the shades.

Oh, the grass was green and shit.

>>6428951
I stepped away from the bright actuality that almost consumes my life, I stood and stared into a perpetual haze of darkness and it's tinges of light. The heavily cold night, heavy winds and hasty rain hustled in perfect pattern amongst the darkness as if to accompany each-other; here I looked out alone. A reminder not only of what I did not have but also a reminder that what I thought was my reality was really an omniscient machine that felt as if it had more control than I. Slowly that murky night was a reminder of my own impending darkness much needed to be fall. The brightness that once was faded and only the sound of rustling wind forcing rain to impact into anything in its path could be heard.

>>6429546
...*doublechecks* Point. Used to running across that term as a restriction, i.e. when rhyming is required.

I'll try this again. With another window.

-----

The sky is a sheet of cotton, with the only hints of dye at the far horizon. Closer, trees - verdant and healthy - fill the lowest edge, limes and emeralds intermixing with hints of brown concealed. Except for that one almost-certainly-dead branch on the far right. The pine, extending up the left edge of the window, is mostly leafless, but only due to its sparse limbs; those are hale with hefty amounts of needles and more than a few cones. In front of it all, the window sits, with a stained-glass diorama of birds feeding on spilled food in front, blocking the top of the pine from view.

>>6429681
When does the book come out?

I wish I could look out at the blue sky and think about something else than seconds ticking by.

The edge of the world is about to swallow the light of the sun. A mere few rays are still trying to poke through the atmosphere. Trying to keep the worries of nightfall at bay. Small waves pointlessly emerging from the dark blue water. Too small to make it to the mainland without breaking into a spot of foam, yet too big to go unnoticed. What are they trying to achieve? I think about the current situation in the Mediterranean; Refuges, trying desperately to make it across the ocean. To start an actual life. Many failing to do so on the way. A tiny peninsula blocks the view of the horizon. Stripped off any vegetation. Just cliffs in red granite. A stain of blood on an otherwise entirely blue canvas. A couple of seagulls pass by. Quietly floating above the surface. Looking for something to eat? Who knows. They probably won't find anything at this time of the year. Although the mild, comfortable breeze and welcoming temperature in the air is here, summer still hasn't arrived. Crabs are still currently hibernating in the deep spots of the ocean.

>>6429776
>tfw world has no edge and is round
>"dark blue water"
>"spot" implying it's singular section of foam
>boring non-descriptive irrelevant thoughts about refugees
>becomes a geographical/biology journal entry towards the end
>tfw

Middle of April and still my balls shrink. Fuck this shit. At least the squirrels give me respite from the misery of climate change.

>>6429814
Thank you. I'm new to this.

>>6429776
>Small waves pointlessly emerging
what does that even mean?

There's that stupid cat again. I wish it died. There's that hot neighbour again. I wish she sucked my dick.

>>6429681
9/10 Would visualize again

>>6429681
teh feels that I know too well.

>>6429718
I'm so so glad I kept reading past sheet of cotton!

>>6429906
Yeah, it's a bit tough to read through, and it gets worse beyond it, doesn't it?

(I should have thought of a better metaphor, like 'The sky was the white as the paper of an author with writer's block' or something.)

Sun long set and sky evening-dimmed, the street stood cold beneath orange street lanterns, which marked the road at iron intervals and with artificial throb gave light to the plain paves beneath them. All was still, but for the trees, which still skeletal from the retreating winter twitched and swayed like insect antenna. The evening wore, and a single car issued suddenly forth, its bulk and cuboid form issuing a greater divide to houses that stood in otherwise silent opposition. It was a divide soon reopened, and a silence soon resumed.

>>6428951
I am an epileptic man looking at a neighbor's promenade and pavilion, from my basement rented room in a boarding house of 8

>>6428951
It's a sports centre. It's white, with some blue stripes across the roof. In front of it, some gypsies putting loud music again. I close my courtains and say "Depressing shithole, I should do something them".

>>6428951
The street, surrounded by the leaning facades of half maintained apartment buildings, looked the part of a canyon. One whose carving river brimmed with the reflective sludge of college living.

It's gotten dark, too dark too see.
Parts of me wants to stay here and continue my fruitless labor. Parts of me still hopes there's time.

>>6428974
Nice and simple
>>6429008
Concrete windows?
>>6429046
Last sentence is great
>>6429066
Funny
>>6429067
No
>>6429075
Bland
>>6429101
Wish I spoke this language
>>6429119
A little verbose, but nice.
>>6429123
Paul Auster esque
>>6429153
High school german tells me it's good
>>6430272
>cuboid
I like the rest
>>6429776
Nice
>>6430315
Boring and trite
>>6430388

me

many a leaf of mulberry
in cool night draped

fin

The window is covered by a pair of earth colored drapes. I could see outside if I had the energy.

> implying I'm not a literary genius

Out yon the dying Hydriastele set down in its little plot of white stones and past the screen there stands the Callistemon, branches drooping and sprigs and bottlebrush buds and seeds soughing in the wind and its crotches, crude and Godly basins, collecting the rain. A cardinal rests. A squirrel ascends. It is beginning to pour.

>>6428951
Fuck your prose, here's some poetry.

>Sharp trees
>to the horizon
>the world
>like God's dildos' drawer

The soggy leafless trees point towards a white sky that has mostly given up its angry deluge. Despite the drops drizzling down, my six year old neighbor is playing in the yellow grass, and in the water flowing down the street.

Through the window I saw the dark fog of night, singular streetlight piercing through.

>>6430618
florida?

>>6428951

Peeking through the velvet drapery, I spotted a pliant pine tree guarding a set of bushes. Its red leaves rushed to the ground as heavy winds rattled the tree.

A mixture of condensation and dirt blurred my view of the street. There was no moon that night. Two lighted windows across the road lay bare of curtains and blinds despite the late hour. I guess anyone living behind these would see my window naked too. Every now and then I spied figures floating past on the other side of the glass or perhaps even miniscule changes in the hue of the rooms caused by television. Aside from that, nothing else was visible except from the cul-de-sac's one street lamp. That particular light was strongest of all and its orange occupied a whole quarter of my window, imitating the sun.

>>6430578
That prose ain't very Australian of you m8

>>6430451
>Paul Auster esque

Never heard of him(because I'm a pleb). I'll look him up because this may actually have been a compliment.

>>6430451
>>6429190
>>6429181
I'm guessing this means my 'me' was just there, not bad enough to 'no', not good enough to 'yes'. oh, well.

>>6428951
Satan's beating his wife again. She deserves it though.

>>6430774
It is, he has very simple but evocative prose. Though, it's his structure that puts him above others
>>6430808
not sure what you mean here

Before they can come home, they must buy supplies for the long week ahead, or for the demands of now

>>6429254
united kingdom

>>6430707
That a good thing?

>>6430904
It was nice, especially the last three sentences. Reminds me of something Van Dyke Parks might right.

However, I don't think one should write cosmopolitan prose. Obviously this doesn't mean right entirely in dialect, that would get annoying for foreign readers. But write how you think, be a voice for your people.

Bleak. Trees are bare, the wind is rustling. Only the art building has sloped walls.

>>6430921
>I don't think one should write cosmopolitan prose
>cosmopolitan prose
Can you tell me more about that please ?

I don't post anything in the writing threads.

>>6430952
I'm not sure if anyone's wrote much about this. I read an account of Alexander Trocchi, Scottish novelist and heroin addict who lived in NYC, being called "cosmopolitan scum" by another Scottish writer since Trocchi's works seemed more American than Scottish in style. Scottish literature carries strong traditions and I'm sure there's probably something Aussie going on in Aussie literature too.

The hand of man has created a sea of brick and mortar where the trees once thrived

Was just at truck stop

I passed a wall stand selling artisan jam and loaves of bread. I was happy when I opened the door outside as there was little wind in comparison to the front. Smoking my cigarette, I watched the people walk in serpentine paths around their trucks, parked in a way I'm sure is logical to them and with great purpose but to the uninitiated completely random. They looked different then me, and they made me feel more foreign. One man was stout, or fat; he was wearing a yellow winter jacket obviously distressed with time, covered in the front with filth. It was zipped only half way, possibly broken and worn that way forcedly. Approaching the door, he greeted me with typical Midwest humbleness, using his energy to tip his face slightly towards me in recognition of my humanity, followed by the smallest of nods, probably invisible to those not of the Midwest. The next to extend the same greeting was thin women, leather faced. She looked as if she smoked light cigarettes. In reciprocating greetings I worried that my cover would be blown. The next to go through the door did not greet me. He wore the headset telemarketers wear.

>>6430979
Interesting. Does my being American affect that notion at all?

The re-birthing trees of new spring casting weak shade over patchwork pavement that refuses to dry.

>>6431016
There's something good hidden in there
"He wore the headset telemarketers wear."
This however, bears the mark of a derivative hack

>>6431021
Even though cosmopolitan is connoted often as being "Americanised", I think there is a pure form of Americana in the form of the likes of: Herman Melville, Mark Twain, the Beach Boys, Thomas Pynchon, Joanna Newsom, Walt Whitman, David Lynch, Paul Thomas Anderson. I think it must be harder to find a pure American voice as an American seen as how your culture is so homogenised, but some have managed it.

But's that all just like my opinion, man.

>>6431050
This isn't the end(or the start) of what I wrote actually, I just cut it off to not force a wall of blah. There is no emphasis on that line
Should I post it in its entirety?

the grass on the central lawn of the apartment complex is yellow from seasons of growing in bad soil and from literally being steeped in urine from dogs. no children play here; it is a graveyard of excrement constructed and fortified by "neighbors."

>>6431070
thanks, bud.

Blue. No clouds. Still no clouds. Time to get up.

Two students walked hand in hand towards a streetlamp, heads bent, laughing at some joke I couldn't hear. In the parking lot beside them, cars glinted in the dark like a knife in a back alley, featureless and winking in the gloom. Further back, a line of trees ran horizontally and out of sight. Above them, only black. There was no moon out tonight.

>>6429101

haha fuck this guy. "everyone else is trying too hard" and then he doesnt even write in english.


A brick brownstone dominates the view out the bottom half of the window; a couple lux each out the small windows prove that people live next door. Looking through the top half, dirty slashed mesh prevents any resolution as to whether the sky's clear or cloudy. Redemption: the third floor balcony features marigolds in bloom.

>>6428951
The sunset over the factory glowed straw-gold at first, then subsided over some minutes to blue clouds, underlit by a orange glow, that then faded to a flat peachy color, before finally desaturating. As always, it was wonderful, a treat for the eyes, and well worth the three flights of stairs I climbed every day to this high, wide window, to await the slippage of the sun. I take pictures of it sometimes with my phone, or my laptop webcam, held awkwardly. The pictures are terrible, not worth showing to others or even to myself, but I take them anyway, and am tempted to buy a real camera. But even that wouldn't be enough. I want to bottle these sunsets, uncork them, imbibe them, devour the sun's light and bear it within me. I covet the sunset.

It had just become dusk, and my shift ended early. I was waiting for my ride somewhat impatiently; in the seat next to the window like always. The headlights of the black Volvo in front of me seemed mocking. Forcing the fact that I don't own a car down my throat. Dead silent and dark, the parking lot vacant, and the restaraunt empty. The black Volvo was the only thing that really caught my attention, it's headlights making my wait seem all that much longer.

>>6428951

Piece of garbage apartment building followed by street and fucking pedestrians.

>>6431415
A+

>>6431307
>writing in english is hard
>writing should be hard
>>6429046
good for something jotted down. i also like the ending, the idea of something familiar being turned into a dark shape fits in well with your reflection seeming foreign
>>6429066
made me laugh, but "florescent" tripped me up (I think you mean fluorescent) and casted seems ugly because it's very seldom used in place of cast
>>6429075
look at the sky and you'll remember
>>6429119
i understand that /lit/ prompts are an exercise in rapidity, but i'd like to see a more cohesive version of this.
>>6429120
this is what there is, but is it all you see?
>>6429149
"chaparral lanscape" is nonsense, it should be "the Chaparral landscape" or "the Chaparral." really great, though, simple and engaging
>>6429160
ehhh, i think we both know what i dislike about this
>>6429164
"the onyx blackness exploded into a prism of ebonies, sables and inks"
>i wish the past participle of "to explode" was different than its past simple
>>6429181
you have the observational amplitude to write good descriptions, that's abundantly clear, but pacing is just as important as content (if not more). this just sounds like the path your vision took as you looked outside
>>6429516
this is endearing, so if that's what you were going for, i think you nailed it. keep an eye on conventions
>>6429517
good, i could nitpick but i'll just say that i think your relaxed tone is interesting and made me curious about the narrator
>>6429543
best in thread

>>6430388
>>6431433
that feel when skipped

>>6431454
i got skipped as well

>>6431454
>>6431532
feels man

>>6431433
>>>6429120 (You)
>this is what there is, but is it all you see?
it's the only thing of note. the rest is just Suburbia, which i wouldnt bother to describe because it's been done already.>>6431433

>>6431454
>>6431532
Same
>>6430578

>>6431532
>>6431562
>>6431555

>>6431586

>>6431593
>>6431586
>>6431562
>>6431555
>>6431532
>>6431454

>>6431454
>>6431532
>>6431555
>>6431562
>>6431586
>>6431593

As I creak open the dust-laden blinds, the piercing rays of sun strike me through the cloud of snowing dust. In the background, large ceders sprout up, surround the apartments in their shroud. Too bad the useless fucks of green-capped shit-trunks don't grow fast enough to block out the sun. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk. I somehow feel the need to be out there, outside, with people. That need quickly dissipates as I spot a young couple, holding hands, strolling along so comfortably surrounded buy their cheerful banter. She laughs, leans against him, then away again, their hands intertwined. They pass out of sight. I close the blinds, then the heavy curtain, and surround myself in the usual darkness. There alone in my chair, by the computer, typing this, I silently wish for a loving girl to come into my life to rescue me.

>>6431623
>>6431626

>>6431649

>>6431664
>>6431664

>>6431454
sorry, i didn't mean to skip you, i just stopped before i got down that far!
>>6430388
corrected for grammar:
>The street, surrounded by the leaning facades of half-maintained apartment buildings, looked the part of a canyon, one whose carving river brimmed with the reflective sludge of college living.
i like the rhythm of this, the way you bring us inward, then back outward, it's reminiscent of actual river weathering. i also noticed a pattern in the endings, which i liked: surrounded, leaning, maintained, building, looked, carving, brimmed, living. for all the style i think it has, though, i didn't come away with any emotionality. writing visually instead of viscerally isn't bad, but if this is where you live or spend a lot of time, i'd like some more introspection.
>>6431532
well i guess i'll do the whole damned rest because you didn't tell me who yah are
>>6429552
this seems insincere at best, and sociopathic at worst. is this how you really think of your surroundings, or are you trying to be cool?
>>6429681
you're excellent and i'm sure you know it, but you could take your writing from excellent to exemplary with some more attention paid to easily-avoidable style issues.
>>6429718
also excellent, but when i got to "in front of it all," i was frustrated. i don't feel like i got to imagine it all, only this one little tree.
>>6429766
read like bad lyrics, and "else than" is not a common construction ("else but" and "other than" are common)
>>6429776
when i read this out loud, i began using that skimmy mumble voice once I got to "the current situation in the Mediterranean." though i feel you wrote that in earnest, it startled me and seemed almost abrupt enough to be a joke.
>>6430272
this has been my favorite so far, really thoughtful renderings of things that are so familiar as to be hard to consider artfully. i'd love to read more
>>6430294
barely fits the prompt, too short to critique, interesting nevertheless
>>6430419
all of me hopes you get yourself a nice shower and go to sleep
>>6430479
made me very nostalgic, actually
>>6430509
sight doesn't require energy
>>6430578
you can't write like that and not end with "It has begun to pour," so i'm assuming this is a joke
>>6430618
"towards" is not in vogue, but my real issue with this is that you seem to be capturing a moment in time—the sky is an evanescent thing—but you say they're playing both in the grass and the street. it's a small thing, and you may disagree, but i feel like i didn't have much time to savor the moment.
>>6430641
ubiquitous imagery, which i feel says more about streetlit places than about your writing.
>>6430669
as a rule, don't use a pronoun and then state the object it object it refers to afterwards (especially not in the same sentence!). did the wind rattle the tree, or its branches? and as "red" is your only color descriptor here, i feel it falls flat. its carmine leaves, surely, or its vermilion leaves? something that narrows it down from "red."

>>6431709

>>6431717
>you can't write like that and not end with "It has begun to pour," so i'm assuming this is a joke
What?

>>6431433
>>>6429543 (You)
>best in thread

I win!

>>6431717
You're doing God's work, anon. Does another kind soul want to do these:
>>6431641
>>6431372
>>6431357
>>6431307
>>6431269
>>6431108
>>6431094
>>6431036
>>6430930
>>6430869
>>6430689

Golden sunlight transforming suburban purgatory into an Eden-esque cornucopia pregnant with life for a few precious hours.

Melancholy born from an awareness that this won't last forever sets in, and the children playing outside only serve to remind one of their youth, long gone and wasted far away from beautiful days like these

A lone street light. Still, and stretching upward toward thick clouds that block out the escapist everyman's go-to mind sedative. The sky is no longer here and I am no longer at peace. Staring out of my box I see nothing more than the burning remains of a ruined age. There it stands adjacent to everything that is wrong with my mind. I can not see how this can end differently. Heavy rain, a cold wind and a great fire to burn all of our integrities. I look out into the distance and can see only pain, pain and suffering. Death is coming to everything and everyone. The empty street no longer interests me.

>>6431717
STILL GOT SKIPPED

>>6431108
i like

I should not be awake at present and so the daily facade of light has been lifted. Nothingness. Not dark, not black; nothingness. Only my bedroom exists and I daren't open the door. At least the window's nothingness carries the excuse of 'night'. Nothingness is intermission and the play resumes at dawn when the actor playing my mother opens the ~7000th act with "Time to wake up".

>>6430689
something about the cul de sac's one streetlamp and the play of light from the television made this a sentimental read, and i think that must have been intentional. it feels inevitable that this is either your childhood home or will be the home of a childhood some day (though that may be untrue). lovely little snapshot
>>6430869
it's your use of "come" rather than "go" that impressed itself upon me. it's a little too short to tell if that ruined or improved what you were trying to evoke.
>>6430930
you could benefit from repeating this exercise under different conditions, i think. it seemed like it wasn't a challenge to write so little, which i wouldn't expect from someone willing to contribute to a prose thread.
>>6431016
you on a trip, anon? this could have been written about any experience i've had past midnight in a kansas truck stop, but you have insight unique enough to be worth imparting. it does feel very blunt at its ends, but you said that it is an excerpt, so i can forgive that.
>>6431094
you're clearly working with some powerful emotions, and they'd be best worked through in a longer format.
>>6431108
i know those mornings well
>>6431269
"glinted...like a knife in a back alley" is a bit garish of phrasing. you and >>6430689 are "no moon at night" twins
>>6431307
you're using an interesting perspective, with your "quest for affirmation" thing. your final sentence was powerful, but it feels disjointed from the rest.
>>6431357
can i see a picture you've taken? i know this feeling, it's what attracts me to film. even the most high-definition footage with the most realistic color grading is still not enough, though i'm not sure i want it to be.
>>6431372
i don't like that you seem to have attenuated your emotions for the sake of this writing. when you said the headlights seemed mocking, you were setting me up for a payoff that i did not get with the long wait there at the end.
>>6431641
this seems dishonest, which is probably a product of factors i could know nothing about.
>>6431727
it was intensely lyrical and ended with a sudden "blah"
>>6431769
i love that you began with "suburban purgatory" and ended with "beautiful days like these," it seems like a sudden growth of maturity very in keeping with the latter paragraph
>>6431779
too too much
>>6431782
i'm sorry ;_; i must have skipped it accidentally! please point it out to me if you still want my insipid comments
>>6431830
sounds like you need to move out, anon. this is an experience that a lot of young people have, where they're awake at night but in a house full of people who go to bed at 9. interesting choice of topic.

>>6431935
behold, the best sunsets, mashed into deeply unimpressive low-res color blobs

>>6431935
I've been enjoying reading through your critiques, definitely of a more consistent quality and helpfulness than others who respond en masse in these threads.

Because of the difference in your responses, it might interest you to know that I'm >>6430689 (22:17) and >>6431830 (02:57)
It is my childhood home, but I guess I've stayed awake longer than I should have on accident.

>>6431935
You're doing Gods work son

Thank you

>>6430845

Water on the street plays with the reflections that the streetlights cast. Aside from this glimmering movement, the world is still and silent, waiting for the morning to wake it up.

Btw OP i love this thread, i already did one post but now im doing another. Bonus points for anyone who guesses who i am.

>>6431995
breathtaking! i took pic related inspired by you—gotta love those stratocumulus
>>6431996
that means a lot to hear, it was a pleasure to read your work
>now get to bed!
>>6432020
>>6430618
my guess

>>6431016
End seems a bit abrupt, but ill forgive as it is an excerpt. Your descriptions of people are fantastic, and I like your little diversions like: "[...]parked in a way I'm sure is logical to them and with great purpose but to the uninitiated completely random."

>>6432065
>breathtaking!

Yeesh, if those feeble copies took your breath, it's a good thing you didn't see the real deal, or you would probably have been struck blind on the spot

Lovely picture though, that wider angle to encompass more of the horizon at once is real nice.

>>6431717
>i like the rhythm of this, the way you bring us inward, then back outward, it's reminiscent of actual river weathering. i also noticed a pattern in the endings, which i liked: surrounded, leaning, maintained, building, looked, carving, brimmed, living. for all the style i think it has, though, i didn't come away with any emotionality. writing visually instead of viscerally isn't bad, but if this is where you live or spend a lot of time, i'd like some more introspection.
I get criticized for an overabundance of style and intelligence in my workshop as well– funny how it even creeps up in these prompts.

Out the window my eyes only see the dark. But how can they see the dark? The dark causes an absence of sight, a voiding of glances and warping of looks. Forever they toil for the slightest sliver; they are not rewarded, and like diamonds miles within brimstone, my eyes waste. Oh, but with another slumbering blackness my jewels are cleaned, cut, and ready for sale! Then they may greet light and all it entails.

There is a pink line marking the mesosphere coast as the faint foam of cirrus curls in to shore. Whoever lives up there on their beachfront property is already tucked in their woolens and watching their thin, glowing sea fade into night.
Maybe it's the result of a funeral's corresponding "goodbye" ritual, but the watcher has thrown one thin lock of silver hair to float low in the dark purple waters just above the faint black sea-wolf clouds. My green coral stands rustle as they pass overhead. I am very small.

In the last true frontier, the thing is old and worn. It's old, decrepit - as uniform and uninteresting as the people that live inside. Every year it is battered by the wind and the cold and the national budget, but somehow it survives. It survives to spite me.

>>6429149
The sunless blue tinge of early morning makes the Chaparral landscape look as though it might have been swallowed up in a flood, and I have been submerged along with it. Red is rising just out of view revealing an imitation fog that threads through the trees providing a reminder of distant fire. Gentle winds blow the dead leaves, shriveled and crisp, from their perches on the edges of buckeye domes, and by afternoon those subtle gusts clear away the smoke. In the summer heat there is no greenery but prickly oak leaves, and I am left peering out over dry ground covered in golden stalks of grass.

I think this might be one of my favorite threads on /lit/ in awhile

>>6429681
I really enjoyed this for some reason, It's excellent even though some things I thought were a little cliche or used.

It's my personal 10/10 on this thread for some odd reason

>>6432176
>diamonds miles within brimstone
I'm not sure that this image captures the darkness you're looking for--sulfur is bright yellow. Maybe "miles under bedrock," or something like that. The rest is very good. Tastes of Melville.
>>6432274
Is the thing a barn? A landscape?
Not that you need to say in submicro-fiction, the description just really instills curiosity. Really enjoy the last line, although I'm sure others will call it edgy or whatnot
>>6432428
I love the "imitation fog" image. As a whole, your writing is very pretty, but I think you fall into the trap of trying to make it too pretty--try to cut down on unnecessary or flowery adjectives, and be more direct. That being said, you more than adequately convey your image, better than most in this thread.

Still storm wails, thunder shakes, lightning pops, rain whispers "sshhh" in my ear. That big grey concrete is slightly darker, damp and slick. Those lights that stay shining all night anyway are shining.
I hear other noises, hellish sounds; no, not the wind or the rain but a great industrial moan that threatens to swallow up the concrete and the light and the dark and me with it. I pull my blanket up around my bare back.
A kid will walk by every so often, yelling on the phone or to a comrade or to themselves for all I know.

Between cigarettes, mashed in the shot glass, a slivered splinter of smoke winds. It's path is straight and sure; to the window, and out. If I bothered to turn, to look to see where it went, then I would see the wall, the plaster abomination.

>>6433098
> Misusing it's
It's like you didn't even proofread before posting on an anonymous japanese animation website

>>6433251
Sorry anon. I may or may not have been an alcohol at the time.

>>6433253
> may or may not have been an alcohol

Oblique blinds shut out all but one star. The second movement starts; its bounce bounces me, my bounce bounces the star. Through the blinds and in the room we dance together.

I think you should all consider crawling out of your own asses for a little while and try to get some fresh air.

>>6433268
it's a meme you dip

>>6433349
oh

They're still building that damn building, I wish they'd finish building that damn building.

>>6429119
>>6429180
>>6430451
>>6431433


The repeating shapes of the perfect windows curved around the square yellow building; gently tipping one would trigger a domino effect that wouldn’t be as pleasant for it’s residents as watching the whole thing from my sound proof window, blocking every scream as if a vacuum separated us, a demolition in outer space. A clinical voice in the PA announced a brush fire to the east and warned against traffic delay –“We recommend taking the I-95 west or Shortbrand Road and stay away from Melbourne Av as authorities fight the flames. We wish you a productive rest of the work day here at M.D.I. Research and have a safe drive home.” I looked towards where it’s icy tone directed me and saw a towering brown nimbus with an orange glow near it’s base. How could there be brush fires in this cold weather? I thought to myself. The source suddenly flashed a brighter orange and out poured a lumpy bubbling mess of black smoke, the effect resembled black ink being dropped in a clear cup of water; us humans being drowned by the sky and a violent force breaking through by way of velvety tendrils of fire. My brain conjured up the smell of burning rubber or something acrid like that, an old memory from childhood I couldn't quite recollect. the window vibrated and I thought I felt a slight shift of my balance. In the distance small dark objects fell down from the thick clouds. I felt a slight smile on my face, no use in checking the news feed now, It’ll probably get redacted by corporate, better to check the black slate when I get home. I stood there looking at the fire through the window until it died. Time for lunch.

hows this? Im not sure about some parts I added. "icy tone... towering brown nimbus" and "black ink...us humans" might be too wordy. thanks for the feedback, this is actually helping.

Since the dawn of time, mankind has wondered what is outside my window. In this paper I will tell you what is outside my window.

In this day and age in society, many people want to know what other peoples' windows look like. Webster defines "window" as "an opening in a wall, door, etc., that usually contains a sheet of glass" which is important because it is such a contested definition. The first thing I see out my window is a small green shrub with ants crawling around the floor (which I avoid like the plague), which taught me the value of hard work. Thirdly there is a large asphalt parking lot that is black as the night. Fourthly I can see my roommate walking into my room "get out" I said to him, "alright" he replies as he strolls out, busy as a bee.

In conclusion it is about to rain cats and dogs, right now it's the quiet before the storm. At the end of the day what is outside my window is not important, we must live and learn.

The parking lot was lined with empty cars. Rain falls on to the metal husks. The sun hides behind grey clouds, and an ephemeral fog hangs in the air.

>>6428951
When I woke up this morning, I stared out the window at the foot of my bed. Often I part the thin veil of glass and send my hand out to read the day's weather and attitude. My handshake was greeted with humid clammy apathy, and small flecks of rain. It was lazy rain, the type that spits down from the sky in little bits not caring about hitting the ground. I closed the window. Hulks of concrete, brown grass only freshly free of snow, and a relentless sticky cool mixture of gas and water collaborate to bring down the spirits of those trapped in this environment. Combined with the headache that encapsulates a freshly concious mind, the world seemed to scream at me to stay in the bed, where the world can be vibrant, soft, and warm.

>>6428951
There's a firestation. They help people but they hurt my ears.

>>6429101
Ficou legal. Tu é português ou brasileiro?

A lone palm tree lazily swaying over a dull brick building with a dull gray sky at it's back.

>>6434209
I like "metal husks"

The resident fog that occupied the morning sky was of a light but stubborn nature. The blinding authority of the sun has been stripped away leaving an impotent simmered glow ,impatiently waiting. All local colors, from the green blades of grass to the red bristles of the bottle brush bush, haves seemed to lost a tone of vibrance. Fresh dog shit lay on the lawn, impaled by green grassial spears. Interestingly, the dog shit had seemed to gained a tone of vibrance under the lesser sun. A good layer of fog brings out imperfections simply due to the lack of autotroph vibrance that will distract your naive eye.

Through a part in the curtains the sunlight spills across the room, like a small river running from the sill to the closet door. Wasp have been entering from the open window, it was a while when I first noticed them as their buzz was canceled out by the jazz playing from my headphones. As I drew open the curtains, to let the wasps out, the smell of cedar and ducks filled my mind, I should go outside, but first I ought to reply to thread.

>>6428951
The wind blows liberated leaves from last year's fall and empty beer cans from hundreds of weekend parties around on the pockmarked pavement of the silent back alley parking lot. The veiled sun shines on the half dozen shoes hanging on power lines criscrossing the charcoal sky. Rain's coming and soon and it will drench the frat houses and student apartments and dormitories in the promise of a new life.

>>6434377
> Tu é

I think we live nearby. This grammatical mistake is quite common over here.

>12
A whiteboard full of symbols and equations I don't understand.
>1
More symbols
>2
More equations
>3
A bunch of people, none of them are friends
>4
More people
>5
A mexican girl who tells me she's actually a spainard, probably would cheat on her boyfriend with me, I wish I was as happy as she is.
>6
Fat Asian kid, all I know about him is that his English, much like his tacky watch, is broken and that his name's Will. He's reading something on his phone, it's just black characters against a white background in a language I don't understand, probably Chinese.
>7
Somewhat cute white girl with braces, don't know her name. In front of her is another Asian, a girl who won't let me copy her lecture notes. Go fuck yourself Cathy.
>8
Some douche that plays football
>9
Another Asian girl, tries to act like her life was tougher than it was. Constantly uses slang she probably picked up from watching videos on Vine.
>10
Mexican girl, hardly talks. She's not very attractive, I borrowed a pencil from her once and forgot to give it back, now I'm scared to look her in the eyes.
>11
A bulletin board of sorts that has graded work pinned to it. Underneath that there's a black sweater next to a trash can.
>12
A whiteboard full of symbols and equations that I think I understand a little better now that I've taken a break to think.

It's getting dark, a solitary lamp shines no-one's way. I live in the middle of fucking nowhere.

>>6429123
Only one worth a shit and it still sucks. Kid Hemmingway.

Past the pane opens an expanse: green tumbledown fields beset with daffodils war with one another, pinkblue flowers rise above and betray their beholden soil, and out on the chalk cliff horizon the last straggling remnants of bushes or scrub cling like sailors to the mast off a splintered ship, their roots battling gravity for the pull of the stone. Azure skies and unflawed clouds locked in attrition look joyous to the clumsy watcher, and as the rippling torrent of a raging brook appears to most as a calm lap against the stones, so too is my sorrow mistaken for peace.

>>6434948
it's aight

It is dark out, a sallow moon hung in the nights sky. Rows of identical terraced houses stretch across the lowlands. The suburb is quiet, for my cat going through my neighbours bins. As I contemplate what to write about a faint but bitter smell wafts into my periphery. Looking around to find the source of it I am confronted with the dried remains of some vomit. She was ill last night, made the toilet smell something rotten. Ah well.

From untoiled soils too barren to bear fruit grow trees still yet unbloomed from the late snow.
The rain has finished now, first in a looming fog yesterday, then wickedly violent last night and grey upon the early hours of the day.
Through gaps in the skeletal trees cars dart in brief glimpses upon the road that moves in the valley behind the house.
On the yard sits a stray cat.

Shutters are letting only small spots of light into my room.
The only noticeable thing coming from the outside are noises - an occasional bark and distant, ceaseless drone of traffic.

>>6435252
This is one of the best in the thread, but that's like being one of the best competitors in the special olympics.

>>6431779
Very apocalyptic

darkness

There are cars. They go broom broom.

>>6435294
>>6435295
most obvious samefag ever

Houses, cars, sirens, bricks, and grass. Bright colors everywhere. No verbs.

>>6435294
Wow, thank you.

But I stole that phrase about traffic from a game...

>>6435329
oops, i meant

>>6435252
>>6435294

>>6435343
Nope

Are you jelly because the anon liked my writing but didn't like yours? :^)

>>6435029
>tfw ignored

>>6435358
>mfw i haven't posted
>mfw i have no face

>>6435329
not samefag

These blinds haven't been touched in ages. The sight I see between them is a stranger. My patio seems a hundred miles beyond me, lost somewhere past the latch on sliding door. I check it again, just to make sure. Still locked. I can breathe. Where is that pizza guy?

fag

It was one of those hot, sticky North Florida rains, in which the rain seems to be merely an extension of the air, sticky like bubblegum and nearing triple digits on the thermometer. Puddles of slushy, dirty water formed in the numerous ditches of the woods, where somewhere an imaginary line separated the states of Alabama and Georgia from this swampy, brackish, overcooked state that would be the home base of Lucifer himself had air conditioning never been invented. In an oddly shaped and stale expanse of real-estate scams, dried pink houses and locals who seemed to complain about everything under the unforgiving sun, this tucked-away corner in between two bastions of Southern society represented a little slice of Florida not yet corrupted by the rest of the hedonistic spring breakers - instead, it was still rendered almost completely uninhabitable due to a variety of factors, such as the constant nipping of mosquitoes and the air so humid that it almost reeked of ruined makeup and sweat: for the most part, though, the most inhospitable part of this God-forsaken place was, in fact, the other people who lived there.

>>6428951
The high, wild voice of the North wind sings over a golden hillside. The vastness of the sky seems to race with the great expanse of the earth, each daring the other to grow greater and wider still. Wolves howl as the sun takes to it's bed, painting the sandstone hillside in a warm red blush. I smile, an ancient affection and purely selfish pride in my home cracking my face in a wide grin.

It's awful, I know...

I look out to see a large darkened field growing produce, only the distant sounds of gunshots could be heard besides the crickets and other animals of the nearby woods. Here I see that I have toiled away so that I may feed my fellow humans lush carrots, tomatoes and other greens. I am but a simple farmer, nothing more, nothing less.

plant slag forgotten pig meal mug corn fuck steal pans on the corrosive sleeper and idol me perennial tonight babe. sick surreal painting flag march santa can't even real flac marisa maroon maybe makes marshmallows into moog synthesizers who knows? ghost toast on a sunday roast with the most boasting proud found frill make sent dont scent plague forgotten spade sword stuck straight down into the

>>6436320
this sounds like shitty indie rap music
it's already fucking unplayable on the air
don't base your work off of literally the lowest of low art forms

>>6436234
What part of North Florida?

Grand green grass littered with rusting keystone cans and debris from the last party. Cigarette butts rest on the dirt like fresh fossils soon to be covered up by the sediment of eternity. The degenerates lawn decays decadently.

>>6436376
I live in a small town called Marianna, bordering both GA and AL. It's not really much of anything; there was a notorious reform school here, but I'm not sure many people outside of FL have heard about it.

Half my view is obscured by a frankly dull green leafed shrub directly outside my window, but the first thing that catches my eye is a diseased looking orange flowered tree rising from my neighbor's canyon. Limp swamp plants give his yard a sinister gloom. The sky is losing color as the sun sets, I catch it somewhere between blue and gray.

>>6437002
That last line was good.

>>6428951
>Write some prose
disgusting

what a wasted opportunity for some descriptive poetry

>>6436320
I enjoyed it, anon

>>6434173
Fucking Martin Luther King's reincarnation

>>6428951
The darkness of the rainy night is pressing against the cold window pane, trying to push past the reflections of a room as empty as my mountain dew cans taste the dew.

The rough lines of black and grey cut through a hint of green. The grass emerges from every crack in the unforgiving pavement. White, pristine angel trumpets rise with the wind; the leaves dance with the murmuring air - speaking in tongues once known, hidden and forbidden.

>>6437896
Shit
now hidden *

Completamente escuro, frio e úmido; a relva se curva ao mais leve vento e o barulho da chuva abafa qualquer outro som que gostaria de ser ouvido.

Lá fora? Não ligo, deve estar tudo igual.

>>6428951
Homeless man, why must you shit in the alley? I dont fault you, if I were in your place I would do the same, but I am not, so I will not, so I wish you would stop.

>>6437896
Pure shit

>>6438151
I liked that

>>6438107
Caecelius est in via

>>6438107
Che Pepe di molto raro

I'm glad that dog got hit by that fucking car, gives me something to talk to the neighbours about tomorrow

>>6428951
Blinds are shut; I know its dark out there.

>>6428951

The door of my cell is unlocked and the bars made of glass. Freedom is but a few yards away. Yet I remain in my cell, quietly anticipating lunch time.

>>6428951
white flowers flutter and swim in the wind. The roar of man's mechanical making zooms by frequent and loud. Green juxtaposed against grey, inherent beauty against bland creation. His face wet with liquid, strained red under the sun. The energy of his labor put into the earth, soaks in, gives birth to new life, a cyclical flourishing beauty.

>>6438372
thanks /lit/izen

Meth heads are having loud buttsecks behind a dumpster. Lucky me

>>6441503
How kafkaesque

El culo de paulina es ampliamente visible desde mi ventana, mientras se cambia alcanzo a ver cada maraca de estrias que recorre de su estomago a su ano.
Mas abajo de este glorioso espectaculo solo alcanzo a ver antiguos autos y arboles mas antiguos que cualquier construccion levantada alrededor de ellos, que sin importar su antiguedad seran convertidos en papel para estos marchitos libros mios.

>>6428951
The owner of the pizza parlor across the street immigrated from somewhere in the middle east. Yet the place bears an italian name. His kid daughter likes to do chalk drawings on the sidewalk in the summer, I rarely see her in the winter. The barber next door can often be seen getting lunch from his neighbor. There's an auto-shop right next to it which seemingly only operates during that time of the year when people change their tires shortly before and after winter. Further down the street there's a portugese wine bar I've never been to but often passed by unsure whether to go in or not. The apartments above house numerous people. I think I caught the blonde above the barber giving head to someone once, who in turn caught me spying on them from the corner of his eye but didn't move his head. I wonder if the tenants of the upper part of the building can watch me masturbate through the drapes. I overheard someone talking on the bus about how she once looked out the window to see her neighbor masturbating furiously in bed and wondered if that was me. Then again I can rest assured that they would never recognize me on the street.