#and if anyone tries to call my bluff ill do anything to prove them wrong

[valtsv]

idc about "toxic traits" or "red flags" whats your fatal flaw

[good-rwbyaus]

Be Careful Who You Blackmail pt. 1 / 2. | #Criminal Minds RWBY AU | mod lilac

AU Description: Based on n3b1r1us's AU Prompt where Jaune's plans usually consist of crimes. Also, Ren is the sole voice of reason because the rest of team JNPR are filthy enablers. 

Cardin blackmails the wrong person. Story’s written in Cardin’s POV.

previous piece in this AU :: The Voice of Reason

Uggh. His head. Why’d it feel like he got hit with a sledgehammer or that all the blood in his body was rushing to his head? Did he fall out of bed or somethi-

Wait. Something’s wrong. It’s too windy. Wasn’t he sleeping in his tent earlier? Why was he outsi-

Cardin startled as he opened his eyes, the world upside-down as he dangled from a tree branch. Even worse was that the tree branch he was hanging from happened to be jutting past a cliffside, and underneath him was the forest of Forever Fall, cloaked in the shadow of night.

The alarming thing was that, underneath the ropes tying him like a hog, he was clad only in his boxers. No weapons, no armor, just him and the very real dangers of Remnant. Seriously, he needed to get out of here and find his way back before the Gri- 

“Grrrrrrggr.”

His gaze turned directly downwards and met a pair of glowing red eyes. His throat dried up as a large vague outline peeked out of the treeline, a stalwart figure that only meant one thing in these parts. 

The Grimm. An Ursa. 

“Shit!” he couldn’t help but yell when the Ursa rose on its hindlegs, its attention clearly on him. Wiggling and flailing like a worm, he screamed to anyone that would listen, “Somebody. Anybody! Help!”

“You know if you keep screaming and moving, I might not be able to keep hanging onto this rope,” spoke a familiar voice.

Wasn’t that....

With dawning horror, Cardin lifted his gaze from the Ursa and spotted the last person he expected to see on the cliff. Peeking out from behind the tree he was tied to, Jaune waved his hand jauntily while holding his lifeline in his hand. 

No way. Jaune didn’t have the guts to do what he was threatening. This was after all Jaune, a doormat shaped like a person. Didn’t voice a complaint despite the humiliating things he’s requested Jaune to do in exchange for not telling Ozpin about the blond’s faked transcripts. Hell, even during this trip, he was always scurrying away and hiding in the most random places in Forever Fall just to avoid him. A clear bluff. 

Cardin gritted his teeth in anger and sent a sneer towards his fellow classmate.

"Jaune! When I get out of these ropes, I’m going t- AHHH!" Gravity suddenly took hold of his body, the ground closing extremely fast. His eyes closed shut as his screams rang through the night.

“Hurk.” A sudden resistance took hold as the rope around his feet pulled taut. 

Realizing he’d been given a momentary reprieve, Cardin opened his eyes once more and found the Ursa was a lot closer than he’d like. Its claws groped skywards trying to reach the tasty morsel just dangling out of its reach. A warbling discontent growl echoed from its maw as he felt himself being pulled upward towards the cliff edge and met the face of his tormentor once more. 

"I was really patient, you know. Ren said that bullies go away if you don't give them a reaction,” Jaune explained as he kneeled down to meet him eye-to-eye, the same innocent smile still plastered on - as if the blond hadn’t tried to send him to his death seconds earlier. "And well you just didn’t go away. So you thought to blackmail me instead.” The blond began unfurling the rope in his grip, Cardin belatedly realizing what his classmate was going to do again. 

“STO-!” 

He felt another jolt as he descended the cliff in freefall, screaming. Only when he felt the rope pull taut against his legs did he have the courage to open his eyes once again. He wish he hadn’t. He saw the metallic glint of the Ursa’s claws sail right past his nose, the wind of its swipes beating upon his face. He was so close to the abomination that he could smell it, a disgusting cloying mix of sugary syrup and iron. And within its eyes, he could see his brutal death reflected in its crimson hues. Even with Aura, you don’t survive an Ursa, even a Minor, without weapons and armor. "Stop lowering me Jaune! Pull me up! Pull me up! If you don’t, I’m going to-!” 

What was his stupid mouth about to say?! Threatening Jaune at this point? When Jaune was already willing to go this far?! 

“Jaune! Come on. We can talk it out! You know you can’t get away with this. I won’t say anything if you just st-"

"Oh. I am going to get away with this; I just haven’t gotten to that part yet,” Jaune grinned. “You know, I nearly died several times trying to find the most obscure places to hide, knowing that you and your team were looking for me, even after off hours." The blond rubbed his jaw with his free hand. “I even remember taking a couple punches for inconveniencing you too.”

The insane boy moved his hand away from his chin and snapped his fingers. “But now team CRDL has the reputation of being reckless explorers, breaking the rules to explore deeper into dangerous areas. Such a gunner, you. Even going out at night to prove your worth.” The blond sniffled a few times, hand wiping a fake tear, as if he were a proud parent watching his kid get an award. 

“Not a bad result from a game of hide and seek, right?” the blond looked straight at him, grinning.

How- Him chasing Jaune through Forever Fall was part of Jaune’s plans? How many steps was Jaune thinking ahead? How long was he planning all this behind his back? How deep was he in the other boy’s schemes?! He’d always thought it a joke when people said Jaune was a brilliant tactician, but....

Cardin shivered as he felt himself being slowly pulled upwards towards the cliff again. His blood turned cold upon seeing the expression that met him, Jaune looking like the very cat that’s found a mouse to 'play’ with. He wanted to say something more to Jaune, but the fear that he’d say the wrong thing and be sent plunging to his death stayed his tongue. 

“And well, as for me getting away with this...”

Jaune opened up a Scroll and revealed a screen displaying a live recording dot and a familiar blond figure talking to the rest of team JNPR at the campfire. 

Cardin could only stare at the Scroll in horror. 

"How?”

“You don’t have to ask where I got the body double. In any case when morning comes and roll call happens, everything’s going to think Cardin Winchester bit more than he can chew and never came back,” Jaune said solemnly. “Your team...well, your team will go on an ill-advised journey to avenge you and then disappear forever into the depths of Forever Fall. No one will ever find the bodies.” 

The blond held his chest with his free hand and closed his eyes, momentarily silent.

“I’m sure Beacon Academy will provide your families the appropriate remuneration.” 

This lunatic's going to kill him. And he’s not going to let off the rest of his team. His heart pounded like a jackhammer. Jaune’s seriously trying to kill him. This isn’t a joke. He’s going to die. He doesn’t want to die. No-

“Look Jaune. Jaune. Buddy. Friend. I wasn’t really going to tell Ozpin. Really. It-was-a-joke. And-”

“Yeah about that, I'll admit those forgeries weren’t my greatest work,” Jaune scratched his chin in bemusement. “They look good at first glance and even at second glance, but well it was my first time, and I might’ve overdone it when I realized it might give me a chance to meet my idol.” 

“But there’s no good excuses for poor work, and I really have a reputation to keep,” Jaune stated sincerely before looking at him straight in the eyes, expression as serious as death. 

This didn’t seem quite right. Wasn’t Jaune scared about being expelled from Beacon? When did this becom-

Jaune must’ve seen the surprise in his eyes because the blond laughed. 

“Oh. You were thinking Professor Ozpin would expel me for something like a fake transcript?” Jaune laughed, “After I made it this far? After showing I can learn and become a great tactician and leader? When there’s students from Beacon who’ve never been to any sort of combat academy at all? As far as I’m concerned...”

“He’d probably give me extra credit if he knew,” Jaune bared a toothy grin. “Cardin, the only reasons why I let you blackmail me was because I didn’t need to be known as someone who did shoddy work and that I didn’t want my peers thinking I cheated the system to get in. Even if I totally did.” 

“Wow. What a funny misunderstanding. But... well now we’re here, “ Jaune shrugged, “Though one of us won’t be shortly.”

His heart skipped a beat, alarm bells ringing in his head. His breath turned unsteady as he tried not to succumb to the growing panic and horror; he thought he had Jaune figured out, only to find he’d been provoking a complete psychopath all along.

“Look. Jaune. I won’t say anything at all. I won’t bother you ever again. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll clean your clothes. I’ll clean your team’s clothes. I’ll pay y-”

“Your offer sounds really good,” Jaune held a hand up as he interrupted, “but I’m the type to get rid of trouble before it festers. I mean, if I get rid of you and your team now, I don’t have to worry about having my reputation smeared in the future. Don’t worry, Cardin. I’ll make sure you have company.” The blond began unwinding the rope from his arm again, “Bye Card-”

“NO! Please! I don’t wanna die. My mom and dad are waiting for me back home. Ihaven’tmade a name for myself. Please! Idonwanttodieireallywanttolive. illwalkyourdog. ill make pancak-” The incoherent blabbling wasn’t something he could help, the words forming faster in his head than his mouth could say them. The tears and nose dripped down his face and forehead as he tried everything to appease this demon from hell. Pride - who needed pride at this point -  just as long as he could stay alive!  

As he babbled continuously, the blond boy just hummed as if considering his words. 

“illbeatupwhoeveryouwant. illbeyourlackey. illfetchyouyourlocker. please don’t kill m-”   

“Hmmm,” Jaune tilted his head, “Okay.”

“and I’ll- Huh?” He couldn’t help but drop his jaw in surprise, his brain screeching to a halt at that simple single utterance. After all this talk about killing him, was- was Jaune seriously going to let him go? 

“Oh, you’d rather the Ursa have you? Well if that’s the cas-

“No!” 

The blond smirked in amusement. 

“Alright. I’ll let you go for now. But remember, if you speak a word about this or the other thing to anyone else...”

“I won’t. I swear. I’ll-” He was definitely going to stay far away from the clearly unstable blond if he could help it. No one can pay him enough t-

“Just remember, I can get to you at any time. It might be eaten by an Ursa today,” Jaune whimsically said, “It could be maimed by a disgruntled bunny-eared Faunus tomorrow. Well. Good night.” 

“Good nigh-? Urgkurguurugurg.”

His body spasmed uncontrollably as something struck into the back of his neck. And then he knew no more.

[queenofthefallenangels]

Think Twice Part 1

"I am going to make sure you never even think of touching my girl ever again. I am going to make sure you wish you never even met her."

Loosely based on the song “Think Twice” By Eve 6. 

Seth Rollins x OC x Jon Moxley

Rated: M 

Warning: some abusive themes, violence, drinking 

Tag Team: @sithstatlander @xladyxfatex @writtingrose ​

If anyone else wants to be added to the tag permant or for this story ask is open.  

As Always ENJOY

-----

~

Aria's POv~

“You don’t think this is too soon, do you?” I asked Alexa as we sat in the lunchroom break room together.

Alexa shrugged as she pushed a fork into her salad. “I mean, it wouldn’t hurt. It doesn’t have to be anything serious. It could just be you two ending up being friends. Besides, you need something to cheer you up and get you out. You have been depressed this whole time. It worries me honestly. You know that leads you right back to him.”

I sighed. She was right. Whenever I felt lonely, it was easy to back to him. I couldn’t help it. I was in love with him. He just wasn’t good for me.

~flashback a few weeks ago~

I was minding my own business, watching Netflix like any other night after work. Seth was working late on the books. It was pretty normal. I would have never expected what was going to happen next.

Seth came storming into the house. The door slammed so hard the pictures on the wall shook. I had no idea what had gotten into this time, but it wasn't good. I was too scared to even get up and ask. Not like it would have mattered because his long legs aided him to get to the living room fast. He threw his phone on the coffee table. "Is there something you want to tell me, Aria?"

I looked up at him confused. I could see the anger fueling in his eyes. The normal soft, caramel orbs were dark and harsh. It almost scared me. Anger like this I had seen before, but normally I had an idea what it was about. I moved towards the edge of the couch looking down at the phone. It was a screenshot of  text messages. My text messages. "How did you get these?" I asked him. They were from my Instagram. It was a completely harmless dm. To Seth, it was more. Seth had a huge jealousy problem. He didn't like me talking to other guys thought he was always talking to other girls.

"Why does it matter how I got them? Keep going I got more screenshots."

I swiped to the side looking at more. My heart sunk. I knew I should have deleted those ones. "Seth, this one isn't what you think."

"You told Alexa, you had a plan to leave me. That I was too overbearing. Too hypocritical. I can go on." He said as he paced infront of me.

"Well, don't you think going through my texts kind of proves that. You don't trust me."

Seth groaned. "I used to, but it’s hard to with all these pictures you post on social media."

I stood up at this. "Me? Me?! Show me one picture on your page where you wear a shirt that doesn't promote the gym or is of us which by the way barely exists!"

"Why do you keep turning this around on me?!" He yelled getting closer to my face. "We are talking about you."

I held my ground getting right up in his face. "Because you do the exact same thing. Let’s go through your dms. I bet I can find tons of flirty ones of you and Becky." I still had his phone in my hands. I took it and started walking towards the bedroom. He quickly ran behind me as he yanked me back, but he wasn't fast enough. I had already seen enough. "You...you…"  I couldn't get the words of my mouth as tears began to fill. The texts were beyond what I thought they were. They were dirty with pictures included. I almost couldn't believe my eyes. I was so mad, I slammed his phone against the wall. It broke into pieces against it. Seth stood there with his mouth open. He closed it glaring at me.

"What the fuck was that for!" He yelled his grip tight on me.

"You know what that was for," I said pushing him off me. I pushed him hard again making him fall back. "You motherfucker! You always make me look like a fool! Trying to pin cheating on me when looking at what you are doing! Sending your dick again. I forgave you last time, but you go and do it all again! How do you think this makes me feel!"

"You aren't any better!"

"Am I? I never ever sent someone else pictures of my naked body parts."

"We were sending pictures of our results." He said rolling his eyes. I hated it when he did this. He acted like everything I said was the stupidest thing.

"Really? I didn’t know you were working out your penis with her.” I said the sarcasm dripping as I spoke. I turned from him heading into the bedroom to grab my bag. I had one secretly stashed in case something like this happened. I hated being prepared, but with how Seth and I have always been, I couldn’t help it. This wasn’t the first time I caught him cheating and it wasn’t the first time I took him back thinking he would change. He doesn’t. I am no perfect angel in this relationship, but at least I try to make things right. He tries for a while. He makes me feel like things could be different this time, but every time, every single fucking time, I am wrong.

As soon as I come out with the bag, his eyes widened. “So you do have a bag. I thought you were just saying shit for Alexa to get off your back, but you actually have a bag.” He shook his head. “You aren’t actually going to leave.” He stated, trying to call my bluff. I wasn’t bluffing though I walked passed him hitting my arm against his shoulder. He shook his head grabbing me back. “You aren’t fucking going anywhere.”

I pulled my arm back, but his grip was too tight. “Who says? You aren’t the boss of me.”

“I say so.” He said as he pushed me against the wall. “I fucking love you, Aria.”

“Well, you got a funny way of showing it!” I screamed at him.

“God damn it,” He said punching the wall in anger. The drywall cracked under the pressure, dust hitting me. I screamed in shock as his hand went through it. He pulled his hand back as he started to realize what had just happened himself. “Aria, I am-”

I held my hand up before I pushed him off once more before I grabbed my bag and left for Alexa’s.

----

I hadn’t spoken to him since. He had tried to, of course, get in contact with me. He sent over a million apology texts and flowers. Becky had even come to apologize to me. I forgave her. I really didn’t hold any ill will towards her. She had said he told her we had broken up and were just living together until I found a place to stay. She would have never if she had known the truth. I couldn’t hold her against her if I tried. She was just caught in his web. If he really wanted to be with me, he would have told her the truth.

“Maybe you are right.” I finally spoke as I pulled myself from my thoughts. “I need some fun regardless of what happens.”

Alexa smiled at me. “That’s the spirit. Now, come to my house at seven and we will get you all ready.” She said before getting up.

----

I felt like the week sped by. Which was good because my nerves about this date were crazy, but also bad because I was still really nervous about the whole ordeal. It had been years since the last time I had tried to go out on a date and that was with Seth. I was sure that was going to be the last time that ever happened. Did I even want to try again just to go through it all again? Alexa was right though. Just go and have fun. What could it hurt just to go get to know somebody? It couldn't hurt right. 

I was in the car sitting outside the bar we were supposed to meet at. Trying to calm my nerves. Alexa did her best to psych me up, but I could still feel the nerves pool deep down. I slowly got out of the car. I had to hold my dress down. It was so tight. Alexa had given me a small black dress that hugged every inch of my curves. I pulled my leather jacket closer to me as I felt eyes fall on me. I could tell guys were staring. I shook it off finding a seat. I pulled out my phone looking at the time. I was a bit early so I had time to try and use some alcohol to relax. I ordered a rum and coke. 

"That is not all that I would have expected from a girl like you." The man in the seat nearby said when he heard my order. 

I wanted to ignore him, but I couldn't help but glance where the voice had come from. I should have known a deep husky voice like that belonged to a strong-looking man. His shoulders were wide and you could see his muscles from underneath his tight leather jacket. He was fit. I could tell he worked out. No man could look like that without it. His piercing blue eyes watched me as I moved to face him. "What exactly is that supposed to mean?" 

"You look like sex on the beach type of girl?" He said as he took a drink of what looked to be whiskey. 

I rolled my eyes, “Looks can be deceiving.” 

He raised an eyebrow, “Really? Well, why don’t you tell me, why a pretty girl like you is doing at a bar by herself on a Friday night?” He gave me a quick look up and down. “If you must know, I am waiting for a date. What are you doing here all by yourself?” I asked, crossing my arms. 

“Waiting for your date to be over with,” He chuckled as he put a drink down. 

“What do you mean?” I was taken aback by this response. I figured he was waiting for a date or a few friends.

"I guess you will have to wait since I think your date is here." He said gesturing as Kevin walked through the door. I had only spoken to Kevin a handful of times. He worked with Alexa and I, but he worked in a different department. I saw him for parties and other things. Alexa knew him better than I did and knew he had just gotten out of the relationship himself so maybe it would be good for us to get out. I think Alexa was just trying her hand at matchmaker. 

He smiled as he walked towards me, “Hey, Aria, sorry I am a bit late. Traffic sometimes can be hard to get around.”

I smiled back at him, “It’s fine. I understand, How about we get a table?” I said as we walked towards the table. I could still feel that man’s eyes on me. I wasn’t sure what to think of him. His whole waiting thing was probably some dumb cheesy pick up line, but yet as my date went on, every time I looked over towards him. His eyes were still there. I wasn’t sure if Kevin was aware of it. He didn’t show it if he was.

 The talk of the date mostly revolved around work and getting to know each other a bit better. He was a really nice guy, but I knew I wasn’t attracted to him in the slightest. It wasn’t that he was ugly or anything. He was a bit bigger built, but he was still fit in a way. He was a decent guy all around and it could have maybe worked out, at least for a second date, if it wasn’t for the man that was sitting across the way  watching us. He was hiding it quite well too. If I wasn’t watching him back, I would have never noticed. He talked to other girls, but it never lasted long. He talked to people about the game on the tv. 

Kevin excused himself to the bathroom when he took this chance to turn around and face me.. A smile was on his face. “So, are you enjoying the show?” I asked him 

“Greatly.” He said as he took a drink. He had switched to a beer. He must have been trying to sober up a bit. “I am also glad it’s almost over.” 

“How do you know that?” 

He shrugged, “I just know things.” 

“How about you let me know something?” He raised an eyebrow at me. “What’s your name?” 

“Jon, and you?” 

“Aria,” Kevin said from behind me. I bit my lip. I had no idea how this looked. Maybe it looked like an innocent conversation. I hope it did. “Can you come here?” Kevin asked. I nodded as I got up from the spot. 

“I am so-” Kevin held up his hand. 

“Let’s face it, Aria, we have zero chemistry. We both just agreed to do this for Alexa. How about we just end this night? You can go talk to him. I don’t want to hold you back. I know Alexa will kill me for leaving you alone, so if he turns out to be creepy just call.” I nodded smiling. 

I wrapped my arms around to hug him. He hugged back. 

“I am sorry it didn’t work out.” 

He shrugged. “Maybe, its for the better.” He said as he let go. I gave him a quick peck of the cheek before returning to speak to Jon more. 

--No POV-- 

Kevin sighed as he walked back towards his car. He kind of should have known Aria would have no interest in him. He honestly couldn’t blame her for wanting someone else. The date wasn’t the greatest. He still wasn’t over his ex either, so there was no way it could go good.. The whole date he just wished it was her instead of Aria. He was kind of glad that she found someone to take interest in so the night wouldn’t be a total failure. He remember Alexa mentioning that she was worried, she would run back to Seth and Seth was no good for her. Alexa really wanted to show her that there was more out there and she could find better. Hopefully that guy could help more than he did. 

 He walked towards his car hitting the button to find it in the parking garage. All of a sudden, a van with blacked out windows pulled up next to Kevin with two men coming out. They jumped on him almost immediately. Kevin tried his best to defend himself from the blows, but he was out number. He wasn't prepared to fight, but he would be damned if they got him. He had been a fighter before giving it up for a normal life. He was rusty but he knew he could take them. As a rush of adrenaline pushed through him, he was able to take out the two men. 

He heard clapping from behind him turning around to see one of his old foes, Seth freakin Rollins. "Well, looks like you still got it in you, Kev, after all these years." 

"What do you want, Seth? I told you, I wasn't coming back." 

"Why? The whole reason you stopped left you." Seth pointed out as he grabbed for something in the back of the car. "That isn't why I am here. I am here, because of your little date with my girl." He said as he held a steel bat in his hands. Kevin tried not to let this scare him. He was just trying to scare him. 

Kevin looked at him confused, "Both her and Alexa said she was single." He knew somewhat of their relationship. Not enough to think this would happen.  

Seth didn't respond to this statement. "I got a question though. Was she not good enough for you to at least walk her to her car? Make sure she got there okay? There are a lot of creepers out there. It would be a shame if something happened to her.”

Kevin scoffed. “You wouldn’t hurt her besides I didn’t leave her by herself. She met a guy she seemed to like at the bar.” Seth’s eyes widened. He pulled the steel pipe back and smacked Kevin hard in the stomach. “What the fuck?!” He yelled as he fell to his knees.

“You just left her with some guy! Who knows what kind of scum you could have left her with.” 

Kevin groaned, “She seemed to like him. He didn’t look like a bad guy. I mean she dated a guy who hits people with pipes. What could be worse?” Seth hit him again this time in the arm. 

“Akam! Rezar!” He yelled at the two men. They stood up and grabbed Kevin standing him up so he couldn’t move as Seth gave another blow to his stomach. “Now what did this man look like?” 

“Fuck,” Kevin groaned in pain. “He was just a guy with reddish brown short hair and a beard. He looked like any ordinary bar guy. I heard him tell her his name was Jon. He didn’t say a last name.” 

“Get him out of my sight.” Seth growled as he handed the pipe to Rezar. 

“Wait, no what?!” Kevin screamed as the men took him into the van. Seth walked off pulling out his phone. He dialed the number fast. “Murphy! Send me a picture of the guy Aria is talking to in that bar. He hung up the phone. It wasn’t long before the picture appeared on his screen. Seth could feel anger burn inside him as he looked at the image. He tightened his fist as he looked to the sky. “Ambrose.”

[castlehead]

mx pharaoh -b-side u-

Ideals and notions slash into every oblivious dawn, which now I can only see through windows in the visiting room Clark 8 has. My friend on the outside came to visit today. He said I was living on “Borrowed Time” and that I should be lucky. I listen to him and do not quite know what he means by that.

. . . . . .

Ether swirls forlornly.

Merit in people, like merit in poets, according to poet Wallace Stevens, is a bore. Well seems to me a baseless assumption but I have not a friend in a single bloodvessel so maybe I am doing something wrong. But contra standards everything is baseless, sideless, endlessly sidereal. In a lit World. In a leaning, lit up, bloodshot World. But that is where I am in the night under a cloak of meds turning me robotic or like something.

. . . . . .

Generally, if the sky fell, which it has, would to me the sun in actuality be the burning pyre of a onceplanet, diffuse now, back then, though, home to matter unfeasibly unfreezeable, in regards the fiery heat, and lurking in their heat those burning bodies, knowing the surface of the sun as theirs, or at least learning like as we do of the grand mirror of consciousmind.

Under a newer cloak of mild hospital patterns I live a milder life than once I knew in being thrust indeterminedly blank, into sideless nothing. Knowing not.

A thing unto myself like a sack of carrion carried. Locked in a thrust of obligation and to trudge through my blazes and situations and then come to crisis.

Frame of reference disappears. Seeing God, whether true or untrue, which really doesn’t matter, produces doubts you hoard like a magpie. They are special to you. In the moment of seeing, there it dawns, lets itself be seen, is seen, but for you only, and never again: then you are forced to find understanding within yourself. You will be at inward war for endless time, I think silently: finding kinship with hope and an impossibility.

You experience the thing. It lights up your flesh like the last burnt being on an inhabited sun. Once. Once I could relay a moment with another, focus my thoughts, have a diameter more than an inch of reason around my headspace. Different however than phrenology. Old World cures. Trepanation. That guy Geoffrey Dahmer drilled acid like LSD into the brains of 14 year olds. And turned them into idiotzombies. Like he drilled holes in their heads. And poured pure acid into the drilled holes. But maybe that’s just an urban legend. In any case.

Who? Is? On? My? Side? Slipping slipping slipping dawn proves this abstract to think about when there is nothing to grab onto. Like in that moment of reckoning, even; you forget your confusion and say, “The star was never a planet, nothingness can exist godlessly most sensibly.”

But not that no. Not a farrow for the plow there. Just old rusted junk and the skeleton of old mouse of Burns. I frame it as a remark not a question needing appeasing: Who is on my side. Words on the life and soul of one, whose difference between life and death relied on a fucking air conditioner, and hence, a fall broken.

Then and then only can it be seen what it is. Something I guess not like expecting anything. There’s an old bluff in every answer to a personal question I use and it’s, Well that’s just me. Or. Something of the sort. Nearly draconian my sense of self whips me. Lashing a handsome leather one.

And maybe I block myself out of my own portrait or maybe others do that I wouldn’t know I’m not a fan of blaming people like I wasn’t there man I didn’t geographically locate the body of another and install myself fucking into their fucking harddrive. And see their thoughts about where he was and also reflections in sensations and impressions of emotions. I am the static field my space proclaims, and the static reality is where I am in the moment however the soul is often placed where I long to be and suffer to be.

. . . . . .

In this fecal birdcage I am hassled by the names I call myself. Hateful little whispers my own mind builds together and that unto itself, is unto itself, it is pressing, it is a pressing matter, it presses on me like a lover of a kind. Cosmos, touching. My evicted head, squeezed head, attenuating.

There is nothing different going to happen besides some screams. In answer is the clogged place the sound releases me from, once again, into the World, the whirly World, filled with friends or not with friends or not with friends but family or not family but just my Dad.

So I am injured greatly at heart. I am very sad. What is my sadness I do not know what my sadness is but it remarks on a soul hurt as if it knew more than that, more than little horrors, here and there, and mere, stubborn names, frames of mind, or all of it observed through a still glass, time then seen in and as frames, each: memory nearly real as present, and all of it a polaroid, a stillness made from the primordial clay by some mindfuck cretin upstairs.

So I knew perhaps a stubborn, loud thing of being had, which invaded all possible analysis with its goofy inverted visions. Trembling under disregards. You know, cutting myself out; or do I make nothing for nothing is real? Maybe the only real thing one does is his laps around his true character, his head waiting for an end to the meanwhile. As if to prove through the effort that truth is present there somewhere in the greymatter and would present itself, living and fecund and like a mirrored life maybe drumming in some morsecode blather of an arc I’d travel to in that life, a clime mine, and away from that picture in the glass, a face which even by the mundanest observance causes ringing in my ears.

And yet an observance guttural and still viewing the spectacle of nothing there. Dear everyone, my sumptuous actions. Are of bloom or like I guess to say in bloom sorta. These my fatted acts. Rosebud caught not in the bud, left unfed anyway to fetidness, roaming lights in the mind revolving, as would alive stones, real expanses of mind, of a mind of leafy strands of hair, soupy lectures on an element about me unfulfilled.

Well spare me, me. Or do I speak or have I ever spoken; I do and have. Logic’s remaining drug will be unapproved by the FDA. It will go waxing, first waiting to draw closer these stones, these eerie feelings about a glutton replenished again, a waterglutton again, rose budding again. Tears. Amor Fati. Winsome of incipient chance. Out of a straight line a knot. Something a definition. Not what I was. Who I was.

Will I not be owlish in eye, stretch rude features? Generous little snot. Begin. Provoke me. Tell me you matter, do you. Drain me out like foul blood. I am. Say breaths. Este loco. Este loco. Este loco. Precarious rich flowershoots fished risky out of a vase on the ledge of leaning dawn. Or I am fucked up and leaning on my friendless self. Or am I somewhere weightless and dark in a dried out morbidity, this horseman of myself pacing, clicking, clicking around his halls of hell, chiseling out aggressive conversation with himself despite me, whether I engage him or not. I am the place droopysnouted humankind takes their feelings, a place to browse through them, be a dog at. It is just some people walk in the shade and think it’s more than that.

. . . . . .

Staring down a bottle of expired Roxicet, right there, and my eyes glued there, and my face plain and stoic, and I already nearly under the table with five shots of Jäger and three lines of good shit. Like I mean fucking fire. But I guess blow and liquid shitface didn’t drown out the noise of my own mind, harping at itself, again, batty again.

Besides the talk of different friends at this guy’s house I mean, which was like thousands of pianos tapping a variety of keys. An eager discord I thought, eagerly. To drown out with.

Weird half-convos and I guess a few pills. Yeah, it was reason enough to ingest that shit. Reason enough to eat half the bottle nearly, and wind up passed out on the side of the street at 3 A.M., picked up to my shaky haunches, heaved rather, by a few preferably [in my mind] anonymous ex-friends, them all bodies for the carnage, this disturbing wastefulness, nearly a tale for Fitzgerald to read and think of abandoned

Airdales. I was green. Froggy. But at least I wasn’t blue.

But from that day on I figured out how easy it was to steal pills. How easy it was to lose people. Everyone. A few simple turns and you can be throttled forever until you put down the brick. Left me with a massive headache. The loss of trust people had in me is a gift doe. And, at least now, I take an aspirin or two, maybe. I was fourteen. In a word I have started recovering from my own illness that is yet too much a choice for me to call disease. Been shattered by drugs, this time bundles of heroin.

Spent four months in and out of seedy places in Windsor Locks, CT, cultivating this addiction, ignoramus that I am, who does not listen to his body. Tried quitting seven times; sick sick sick, unending sick, physical convulsions, puking black grease, needing water that yet when I drank it burned my throat. Physical addiction is the story of Narcissus embodied. Wasted money, wasted years.

I am clean now I guess and scared of drugs generally, but will probably pick up cocaine again. Perhaps this reasonable fear comes too late to retain the whole of what (or who) I once was. But I pick up the scraps and call it a day like anyone does.

So as of now I am clean. Only fitting I’d push myself to the extremity at the very end. I am doom-eager as Orpheus, my solitary lady, haha. I have thirty days clean and feel higher now than I ever was quenching my habit by the coming of the sun, my girlfriend and I driving to Hartford to pick up and sick as hell.

Every morning that was what it was. Blank sleep, maybe too disturbed to call it sleep, waking and heading to resume my disembodiment etc. Ah,

  Hell,

I am done, I am serious, life is no joke; I tell myself this. If one doesn’t take what they have been given seriously life will respond and turn them into a joker, and their life an exposed punchline, meaningless, detrimental to everyone. A bug is in every family as Kafka said. But we are all bugs, sweaty, stinking, plain, thoughtless, wrong. I have in such and such a way quit my buzzing against the window and resigned myself to dying in this place, this World, this planet: this imprisonment etc., between two walls of infinite glass. It’s lovely. For we are all resigned. We as a race of people are stuck with life’s retaliation against those who do not celebrate the gift that it is. The positivity here is muddled I guess but it exists here in the words.

I am staying sober. Alright? For good. For my brain. For my body; I can make out a few of these directives without stalling. I still stall. But I am healing. Just like you. I am healing forever. We heal by affirming the awesome power that takes our ommateum and feelers to the glass walls and reveals our painful futility etc. which is grace. Life is grace. So we shall live and continue to live gracefully.

i don’t regret surviving anymore from that long fall a subsequent long haul i know it yes through these days of insidious boredom after too long a while walking the halls brought to me like unto me like 'unto’ like a thunderous punishment or a poison’s delay creeping stiffness over my slouching heart

a ‘wellnesss’ now and faked well for all time over itself, over itself and out i go into a dreamt stop of it all one of these days that encircles vulturelike round me whom is in this senseless room ordinarily and draped in an ordinary at least for the place a hospital a gown greeklike and soiled kind of by the wiping of snot and snot the more

i was listening to m83’s “soon, my friend” and came up with an idea. the idea was being stabbed in the chest. i thought this was a good idea because it hurts to be stabbed in the chest but life also hurts so to not be stabbed in the chest would hurt but maybe just later or over time collectively. i guess it’s a metaphor or something.

[Fecal ape. No remonstrance to that in this tattered brain, thank Lordy. None but the blare. And then these swaying things. Meretricious, subdued talk, of something hungering wealth in something aside from this field in my dandy head. Grope, grope, youth. File the truth. Mister, she came by but in the end asked for nuffing like you didn’t say. You don’t say. Well laddie churn about on that liquid sea. Black as regular. Another day on the Hudson, another yearned conversation, another bandaged head against the wind.]

so then i thought abt what love was and it was like being stabbed in the chest the first time you love and they leave you, then you meet someone else and you leave them, and they remove the weapon. and it’s like there’s this blind pain for years before that: you’re telling people, “Hey man, I’d love to hang, but I have a knife in my chest,” or “There are things I wish I could have done before this knife was sticking out of my chest,” or “The additional six inches of this leather knifehandle protruding from my chest make it very hard to navigate crowded rooms.”

[Embattled in scorn, years of shouts, foreign eye, a foreign, bleeding eye, yes, an evil one of those a better evil than the finest smile’s chancedisgust seen by that very communicated evil. In the eye. Shivershivershiver. Oh and what did the lady say a'you. Well sire she said I had not got a melon ripe enough but my head’ll do. Cheers. Tripe, well gone’s miss. Feel around in the dark for some verb, aside, you know, from anything like 'feel.’ Dread upwards, vertical people pounding pulpit. I’d say. Mmmmsmash.]

and then the other person comes along and they ask why. so i explain to them. and they hold my hand for awhile and maybe sit under a tree with me. then i say to them will you take this thing out please and they do it and i finally bleed out and die, after all these years. then they walk away, heartbroken. i left my girlfriend of three years a week ago. she finally let the wound be a wound. and then i think there is this subtle exchange of stabbings between rejector and rejected. and i think, we have enough blood to get us through the year, we have enough temperance to hide ourselves this last time, until the last time ends, and even she, thinking she saved you in removing whatever offending object, has unknowingly conspired to rid you of her. for death takes all, and where a relief begins another ends.

[Sad sad sad. My noise, but a ghost’s achoo through paper floors.]

. . . . . .

—To understand the interconnected conversation or to just somehow prove that something impossible could happen. How is nothing impossible you may ask well let me tell you. Our hero taps his crooked index on the chalkboard. That is life. And our life is rational thought. Not in a solipsistic sense, wherein the five senses are overseen by some abstract Will For Things More Pleasing. But in that reason gives us the pleasure of life for that is synonymous with purpose. So then. For something to be Impossible, besides conceptually, is impossible, because for it to exist as a word it needs to in its extremity pinpoint something absolute in words that do not exist in reality. It says that words are realer than beings in at least our three dimensional reality. It does not matter what this image, object is, or looks like, -but is this even logical for a word to etymologically call for itself to get gone to nothingness and exist, impossibly in its own fourth dimension logic, as an example that is not itself, within the ballpark of its opposite meaning at most. Words literally make more sense than reality doez. Which basically tells us we are the result of words and can be draped with whatever context makes the most sense. Look at, and I mean really look at the idea of Being. To me, the universe seems to have an aim, that is, expands itself with everything because not to include everything would imply not only that something could exist and calls for something other than everything in order to be/.-after but that if manifested would be absurd, nonsensical, for yet there. This statement proves the absurd. At the end of the day the word is pretty clearcut. Not possible. To make it possible is a logical fallacy. Well then haven’t we figured this out? Do you want me to spell it out for you. Ok then: It is not possible, so it is possible, as itself a word, qua a word. This has some catastrophic consequences. It means that language is fleet. It can simultaneously make sense and not. The Meaning, confined to the word itself, is one that exists as much and as light and heavy as money. Yet why is what is possible possible? How do we mark that. It means a load of assumptions. It means that there need be a lifeline for the universe. That at its most far reaching, Throughout its life, the universe itself denied that this would happen, when, and this is crucial -when there was more to add. That possibility were a matter of duality. Impossible cannot be called possible bc that is absurd. It is not the definition of the word. An infinite universe says this: impossible is an impossible word. It assumes something other than it’s own infinity.

Conservation of energy. No loose ends is the assumption here, which can be used if they are put in this environment to simultaneously justify and call their existence false. Everything that exists is everything that exists and impossible is a literal lie and proof of this, I feel, because it is a word that needs itself, you know -in order to be. Said MX Pharaoh through miraculous whiteness and white ethersglow a ascending him to a head of breathed punk until he realized he is too late for this car. The monolith. It will get HIM. I will give up my HIM. And Cherryblossom my own, forever, yet that will kill us both. I give up my myself to words that don’t exist.

—The stunt of a wonderful, broad nascence too ill stemmed to not screw out at every board’s unclung fangs. This thick meteoric chamber. Guide us willful. Plank to plank, threadless way, pushed mechanic feet -Dickinson //

To start out on the water and end in the meadow. To deny the distance between anything in my reach, everything, the least or perfectest touching The Mind Of Cosmos with ye own bare lurid looking. You look long when you lose me. Then you lose me I am back to the nurses harping on old fellas who stroked out. Endless debate in the brain, then nothing, k-holekablooiy. But nah. She doesn’t give up not for nothin. Dwelled hard in my brain and barely there before. What difference was there ?? well the loose chains to myself, makes clouded things. With its armor. Making it perilous to merely move.

—Honestly the only dead writer I relate to Is Antonin Artaud. A'saith. Love can drive a man to cruelty. His mind can rebel against its borders and piss off into nothing. I took my hand and petted the venetian blinds with my hand. “Touch with my tactile impressions.” I remember. Pessoa.

Monolithic as it was there was space enough to hit him. Made in no debt to anyone but himself, to reason, to find sonorous reason compiled

In this ship of mates. Long groveled he. Atop his vestibule shedding cuticles. And some mute drone like a cateye’s dearth in it o such a thing, and such

a thing as would insist me past deliverance, working wicks at both ends and driving the conversation. Looted, but not unemployed. Free hat. Free HAt !

–What    . [?] –Keeps getting better. It does. PRomise, I.

… …

Few rue the slain, even in these irrational days. Corruption is seen from afar when it is right in front of you. Begging rhetoric, gold mountains of rhetoric. Feasibly HE was as far away as the floor. Busiest one. Soaked not in sun. For one day to bruise through venetians, that day, some part in the mix, or a lost umbrella or unoriginal ideas or faked curiosities I seize myself and slap him up right well to unhook his jaw M8 just a tiny flaw HE had nothing to do with ye ruining. Sun aslant. Sun given. OR a one his own. Where circles fix one of their ends.—

—That Shia Leboeuf or whoever’s motivational speech got to me. MX Pharaoh, a'saith. Extend the pause between period and period ol patcheyes say it is I JJ I have come to blight you, strike you, be like you like me to be and something carried with that black as art, as the puppetmasters speak again for you -M8 these are not real quarterstones through the suck. Sneak in the creaking bed, surrounding me like folds of weatherdd sheet, wooly mup of hair stickin, embracing into an egg of lightness, outside of a world filled with truisms, hiccuped persuits hosing down the interest like a brainwash: club me silly: So some by the dreaded thousandhead come like thunderheads. Stuff not lasting awhile. The only way to do it is to do it. I was abt to hit post on a status and two text messages. This is what that happens after the book. It was like i was abt to drop a bomb or something, which is why similar things happen in reality we call ‘dropped bombs’ -and just furiously held myself alone, but together. Strike, my patience.

“Yr so sexy.” They fuck. And that no more I would feel. And that no more I would but try and strain myself out of, instead of undeveloping the complacent rut. To not feel something different that impossible time in Bantam CT.

… …

The hanging pendulum, famous pendulum, I brought a disguise. That ippie Jesus lad was he. Round squat lad. That’s right. Annour away from here. Ye. Das Righ. When cannit. Some guy talking to the police bout a crash somewhere. We had this great blanket that had ciggie holes in it it was Black one side White the other, forget leavening, have liquor be the rise always, and forevour, she had a worst part of life, dolour, cherry, feast of I admit another’s blocked chemistry, gangly ganglion fretting the nethers’re fed well worser then and as the corroding jism implies and implies all day long. Playing skermish his index with words on the board: Don’t! Perceive! Doubt! Make it like he dinna think of doing it the night before in this the dim place, of a city [THE FOLLOWING IS A TRANSCRIPT OF THE WELLKNOWN “STRIDENT BAT” NSA RECORDING, DISLODGED FROM ITS SAFE AND BROUGHT TO THE BLEAK PUBLIC] lording over his width and graveness obsoletely,ekin -int o- INTO the air. We was playing catch. Teleophne. The sars scare -Why –Cali hipsters -Bay Area, true heroes Fazzfazz. Fazz. Lonely mean men off to the sides of the street looking you. Fortunate you look. MX Pharaoh. Lonely alien plains their eyes. Ghost meat. Feel them burn a hole in ye back as ye cross. And called her that, for she is blossoming, for she limitless, pigs raining down to the world in droves of ström, lorilee the chance was -Ear -Wax parents.Searin-bet- stridenscimist. Then to the anchoring felicity that night feet in me lap. Stringy memories launch by like a list of buzzfeed. He struggled to notice fingers of him in hers. delicate cross, small, pink foison of bushytail, or a thing we had, or when it was it was had. Feeble embers these. The tap of a shoe is like a kiss and there’s, a sopping tongue there’s, white guilt there’s, manic, seeing figures in the tar of a television’s blank screen, of which frightened Cherryblossom, fidgeting her psyche to recall and experience and re-live a done for sure thing. Worried told her he was. And now this. MX Pharaoh left the door open all night. He says he means the window said patcheyes. Lost delivery, hope those vapethings get here. Squatting to piss public. Glad I don’t got to do that. Pharaoh said. Massagin a bad neck hoping madness to bend him back to life. It was never that I was back HE said. I was neck. I broke my neck in the crash. Is this even real. And all this looking into her eyes that day speaking lil wayne fashioning pigeon grills, good movies and tainted moments and their audacity to be tainted. Comforting things like that song in my head most times.

Simone to my Jean Paul. Delineating skyscape in the night waging itself free into the starry Staten Island chasm. Hope little prose roses lift him. Croon. Empty now. I was poor once. Less of an appetite now. Can starve for a few days and be fine. I had a little house in Bantam in Connecticut where I did that. Furtherance. Lift me now and ever in good stead. Such sadness. Such inexplicable maddening stabs of sadness. A knife’s throat drinking up quaffing up. Bloodblood. Bloodspew. Recoil at me she do. Fear symperanekromenoi for they are those who know not they are dead. Lifted lies, old father. That’s what they are and I read them to you for my video in the coffeeroom. Pharaoh shirking his moral duty. Pishyynallalastersheppalalalalalala. For when you can’t think of a word for omnipotent eyes. Teacher, teach. Little ones one day sighted in my possibility will too wag from me o sorrow. Pharaoh took his last drag on her porch.

“Rose the tenant. Crazy bitch.” This, Simone. “You put her out soon.” I say. Then her:

“Granma makes me hold her papers when she’s trying to get things in order.” “Soon enough. Seems nice.” I say.

… …

Well it goes faulty. Drip. Drip. Drip. The faucet singing her tone row into the night. I stayed on the couch that night embodying soft abstractions. Dripdripdrip. Into faculties my night emits like systems, unlike faculties, like the mechanism of dripping itself as consummate, like they each were in their drops blessed whole: not form, unformed, but reaching into form through concept, concept, generality by generality elucidating the complex: a'saith the poor-sighted phantasm in his eyepatch. Dragged her into this. Pharaoh was bleeding thoughts. He says to himself did I see all this time a lie shining broken light all over the fleeting like it would make it lift, make it see itself through into clarity. My thoughts. He thinks man what a day what a day. Something of kin I feel. After this book is over, there will be a part of the life of Pharaoh where he thinks clearly of his epitaph. It will say A Just Death. For he thinks, at least it will be his, and if so, some moral measure could exist in the world, if by these granted hallelujahs a punishment makes me rescind back into the wordworld like some rite of passage, but writing nothing. Meets a good friend halfway. Tries to get back her, begging for Cherryblossom. And all these repetitions. Are they with gusto ah, enough? Or twirling leaves. Senselessly from the tree. Deciduous as mine pineal perspective, growing anew, growling anew, then dead, dead again, faced again, risen. He believed, then, that if T. were to kill himself he would feel for him, and her, and not be glad it happened, and not have such a secret to keep. For it is not to stomach without a bitter feeling in the right way of how that feeling is in that pit there.

No beginning no end. Stone heart, pealing laughter. Cherryblossom he wanted some sifting through. Some irrational need to. Maybe to make sense. Find GOD. But GOD would not have any multitude be in his creamy lap. Lost folds of sheet. Or lost in them. I would have marked another blight. I would have come again in six years to leave Cherryblossom thought Pharaoh. Thought Pharaoh: my inkling of prescience was not a rudiment doubt but one more complex chink for the place the hole. Chest cavity’s ache. I shouldn’t have done. Well now who is that young squanderer: he makes to heave his cutlasslegs and paint the street with kicking blood. Can goes: blunkunk! Blunkunk! He kicks the sodacan like an old maid he does. Well that’s what they think of me, he thinks; and he channels HIM who gives Pharaoh the thoughts of others. More trained. More the luckier. I still learned to use the words Pharaoh thought. And when they gently there in my head manifested as actual words -that limited the whole scenario. GOD-train. Mellifluous summer and home again from a stay in Staten Island. Waging silent postures waiting at the curb. Fat tangle of feelings:

[So it would have easily been the soft gloaming, so it would, so it would have righted itself in the encroaching rheum, and yet he was here, now, Pharaoh was here: and in his grace met something nondescript amongst big waves of time, something like when he smoked a ton of Angel Dust and thought of the rain, and himself, and all the lightning in the distance, opining and scary, the faced, the unfaced, the lorded morals of a scared kid in the corner, the corner an eye and an eye a flick away from being a movie for our lives to look at, and we see the movie: and he thought of her silly, raven hair, and the somber grate outside by the sitting trash; and of Cherryblossom, by now but the trillionshadow’s abrupt gaze, waveful and timely, back into the night of a substance, like perhaps the remembered reality of drugs, drugged reality, embracing the life of him who falls: Saw my feet a'saith. Hanging in the air. And HE was not the cause. HE had the very first knife that broke the spring in his gut. HE kept it on his celestial mantlepiece, you know, that towering muttering spaceconstruct through wild byways, where once HE hanged Pharaoh by the tits of void. But Pharaoh. Oh my lovely by his docks biking to the piers the metal napes sinking slovenly into abusive, hurtling waters. Like a thousand pounds. Andandand. Food for thought: life’s done. I can uncreate HIM. But for the plied wares I would not have reckoned HIM, thought Pharaoh. So then out the speckled iris the man shunned doubts and things and claptrap shaped into these light, fitful unnamables, seeking their tide yet really the wreck, the blind misery in the heat lightning of that alien Connecticut night, wherein I [and this the voice the woodwork wouldn’t have guessed] was this GOD in the moon, and the moon a plane’s drifted glint a distance resized and resized. Fly fly fly. Oh my Cherryblossom, and my friends, and specky hipsters, and the delicacy of life, and ooo the righteous glint a sand speck dries the eye to. And so he go scoffed at the feeble reed he but was. He thought of himself as he was, and of you as well, strange, omnipotent eyes, and of all the hankering voices singing from their last climes. licking yon wounds of wonder. Usurper and usurped in union and none in charge. No last buck. No trinity of sleepless nights giving him his religious stomachbutterflies. So it was neon yellow morning finally across the last day and Pharaoh smudged in his eyesocket once out into his breach, once that eking bit of the unreal panted into thought and out of strange scope and thoughthindrance. Tempted by dreams to punch through floorboard and in him a wandering wastrel’s presence a fertile eye like a dunce nudged into the chair in his corner. Forgone this, foregone that, so much had happened. Pharaoh needed more time to understand this but was tired of waiting and the light poured and the mouth of the window was all gripping and finding views here and there he made a wizz on the sides of the toilet kind of. Shaped crass the eye. The umlaut of moon and sun above the brow of mankind. Pharaoh smudged in his eyesocket and thought of his patronage, absurd ghosts, and his histories within him and all aflame like sightless ruin, like something needful in the dark.]

[These connections, these feeble relations I have forged, between myself and myself, and others with others, they are nothing, they are dull words in the dark, when still I have not bridged myself to those others, nor them to me, for then is left but GOD to mangle.]​