#back like they are in the middle of a mutiny and Curly walks in like wtf I was gone for 4 hours it’s not even the entire shift or like maybe

[dykedvonte]

Mouthwashing AU where they work in a fast food place

corpirate wouldn't let them close down during a hurricane and now they're shut in for the forseeable future

instead of mouthwash it's a massive shipment of expired special sauce

Curly gets horrifically burned by the deep fryer after Jimmy dumped an entire bag of ice in it

I like normal real life aus because I treat it like Curly is just mildly injured/incapacitated (like sick leave) as their boss/manager and Jimmy takes over because like, no one is gonna die but when he wakes up or comes back it’s basically this:

Like there is no reason working at a Pony Express themed Waffle House should lead to death and destruction of that magnitude but Jimmy finds a way. He likely caused the fucking hurricane.

[mistaeq]

Saturday, 26th December

Romeo!Don Giovanna x Juliet!Reader: The Masque

TW // mafia is mentioned, please don't take it lightly. Mista x Trish is implied, but I've aged her up.

Today I offer you this, which I'm proud of, and it doesn't happen often. So I hope you all enjoy this.

A darker point of view on Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.

WORD COUNT: 3.5k

Two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Naples, where we lay our scene,

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

Do with their death bury their ancient strife.

The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,

Is now the two hours' traffic of my fic;

The which if you with patient eyes attend,

What here shall miss, my toil shall strive to mend.

"I will be honest to thee, if thou do not mind me saying so, Don Giovanna. But I am still struggling to understand why thou wanted to show up to the event." the golden haired signore slightly chuckled, after his councilor's words, who was now helping him with fixing the bow which perfectly fit his elegant braid. He never gave up on styling his hair the same way, and now that he was showing up to an event out of pure spite, he was not going to change that.

"It is not that I wanted it, my dear Guido." the Don said, fixing his cream colored jacket's sleeves, an amused grin animating his relaxed features. "They don't expect me to show up at all, all they did was inviting me, thinking I would have chosen to not to go. And make fun of thy lord's attitude. It would be rude of mine, to not to let them know how good I am doing, despite their several attempts to push me down."

"Indeed, signore. Thy reasonment sounds just right." the young councilor Guido Mista agreed with the Don, crouching to give a better look at the lord's image in the mirror and nodding in satisfaction when he made sure the bow was symmetrical as he wanted. "In addition to this, I am pleased to inform thee about my choice of asking Lord Diavolo's daughter's hand in marriage, as soon as she will turn eighteen. Lady Trish." Giorno's grin, if possibly, widened. His councilor marrying his worst enemy's daughter? Sounded just perfect, since she was gonna move in their mansion. By her own choice. She hated her father, and had agreed to the marriage. Great to hear.

"Thou spoke music to my ears, Guido. And I thank thee for thou fixed my bow properly." the golden haired Don stood up, and started walking towards the door, eyeing at his councilor's outfit. "Get ready, we are going." Believe me, he was about to touch the door handle, when a rough voice, who always allowed itself to speak too much, interrupted his actions.

"What about thy heart, signore? No love story nor marriage for thee?" The gunslinger dared to say, perfectly knowing his Don thought he had to keep on being focused on his own affairs, rather than have love related ones. He just liked to drop the question every now and then, but started being genuinely worried. Guido know how romantic Don Giovanna could get, and the thought of him getting old without getting married, weirded him out. At first, he used to think Giorno needed time to get used to his role as a boss in the neapolitan mafia - the biggest reason of his strife against Diavolo -, but now, years had passed, and it was getting worse.

"Tender is the way love might make this man change. Thy lord is not ready to face such a thing. Unless it is really worth a try." Don Giovanna's hand lingered around the doorknob, caressing it in an attempt to examinate a thin layer of dust. "Do me the favor to tell Ghirga that cleaning up every little thing, even the most insignificant one, is definitely not optional." the blonde said, finally tightening his grip on the door handle and exiting the room. Left in the whistling silence of the place, the councilor proceeded to get ready for the event himself. He knew his signore didn't like to make someone wait.

As soon as he came in the hall, everyone turned around him and his councilor, Guido Mista, who soon blended into the crowd, for his betrothed Trish Una gripped on his arm and pulled him somewhere else. "Bothering thy councilor is not my intention, Don Giovanna. I am asking for thy permission, to take him for a while." What else could the blonde man even answer, if not agreeing with it happening. Without any doubt, he was left alone so fast, he had now nobody to cover him, as his golden hair didn't blend at all into the crowd.

A pleasant smell of cooked food and wooden furniture penetrated the Don's nose, as he gripped a glass of wine from the servant who was walking around with a tray holding some. The man shook the crystal glass a little, before he smelled the alcoholic liquid, and took a sip from it. Then, he quietly snorted. "And this would be wine. I consider myself lucky, being these people's foe. This truly doth be terrible."

Giorno mentally commented almost everything in the hall, judging the furniture... "Outdated.", the people... "Seeing them stare at me pleases me. If they are willing to criticize my appearance and attitude, I will be even more pleased.", and the service as well. "These servants are just what Lord Diavolo likes. Being so useless, it pains me." he took the last sip from his crystal glass of wine. "Let me see how much will it take for some servant to notice."

No wonder, the signore was really full of himself, and he was right, for all the people's voices murmuring when he passed by, were coming from pure envy. Diavolo staring at him, from the top of a huge flight of stairs. Don Giovanna had not noticed him, for he didn't consider necessary the action of looking above his own head. Giorno knew he was the one to be already at the top. If so, it were others who had too look up to him. He had learnt he had to stand up to ferocious beasts too, and he managed, in his life, to dominate the worst out of all the beasts. Humanity.

Plus, he was extremely focused on what was happening in front of himself, for he could see, in the middle of the hall, several couples dancing. No need to specify, that was the place where Lady Trish had brought the councilor Mista. Don Giovanna couldn't help but slightly smirk. That man had always been so loyal to him, and he was genuinely proud of him for he had found a wife and helped his affairs at the same time. He watched at the curly, dark haired councilor moving his betrother around with grace, until they accidentally bumped into another couple who was dancing beside them. The Don was now elegantly chuckling, he was amused, he was...

...Love-struck. The couple who Mista and Una had bumped into, consisted in a young lord and a beautiful creature who probably came from heavens above. The angel apologized to the pink haired Lady with a laughter, and bowed to Guido in apology. The angel... were you. Diavolo's niece/nephew had made the impenetrable heart of Don Giovanna fall in love. Could he talk about love? He wanted to. All in a matter of two seconds, the golden haired man imagined you dressed up for a luxurious wedding. What he did not know, was that there would have also been Diavolo in the crowd, watching his archenemy marry you. He had no idea you were related to him. As the same servant he had taken a glass from before passed by, Giorno gripped her arm, and pulled her closer.

"What angel is that, which doth enrich the hand of yonder knight?" he frantically asked, his tone was serious and imposing, as if he was ready to squeeze the information out of the poor servant. But she knew nothing about you, it was not like she was a family servant. She was just there to serve for the event. "I know not, sir", the poor waitress said, holding the tray on her chest and trying to go back into the kitchen. "I apologize. Uh. More wine?" The girl also asked, as Don Giovanna remembered he had ran out of wine. But he shook his head and left the empty glass in the servant's hand, moving towards you to have a better look, not noticing he was right under the flight of stairs where Diavolo and a follower of his were standing. Then, he started to talk to himself, contemplating you.

"O, they doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems they hangs upon the cheek of night." he moved his hands together, in a similar motion as one of a prayer. "Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear. Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear! So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows, as yonder angel o'er their fellows shows." Don Giovanna's fingers intertwined with each other as he spoke. "The measure done, I'll watch their place of stand, and, touching theirs, make blessed my rude hand." with his intense gaze, Giorno's left hand moved to slide on the side of his body, as the right hand touched his chest. "Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night."

He made the mistake to melt right under the sight of Diavolo, who smirked in seeing him so vulnerable for such a thing. Nobody was there to tell him that falling in love with you would have been his end. The pink haired lord was not irritated, for even if Giorno had tried to humiliate him, the golden haired boss was humiliating himself now, over a fleeting love. The man on the stairs wouldn't even have needed to do anything. Not that he wanted it in the first place. He would have behaved, to show his superiority off.

But Diavolo's loyal servant, lord Cioccolata, had other ideas. "This, by his voice, should be Giovanna. Fetch me my rapier, boy. What dares the slave come hither, cover'd with an antic face, to fleer and scorn at our solemnity?" the green haired man bent over the banister to take a better look to the supercilious Giorno, who, again, had no clue of what was right above him. "Now, by the stock and honour of my kin, to strike him dead, I hold it not a sin." Cioccolata murmured, but felt his arm get gripped from his boss.

"Why, how now, kinsman. Wherefore storm you so?" the servant's jaw dropped.

"Signore, this is literally Don Giovanna, our foe, a villain that is hither come in spite, to scorn at our solemnity this night." as the same servant who Giorno had talked to approached Diavolo and offered him a glass of wine, the pink haired boss smelled it and took a little sip from it. Then, grinned. He was not in the mood for violence. For now. So he had to keep Cioccolata back from every kind of bad decision. It wasn't easy, to keep such a man from murder. Out of pure honesty.

"Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone, Cioccolata. He bears him like a portly gentleman, and, to say truth, Naples brags of him to be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth." Diavolo explained. It would not have been good if something happened to that man in his mansion. He was part of Naples' pride. "I would not for the wealth of all the town, here in my house do him disparagement: therefore be patient, take no note of him. It is my will, the which if thou respect, show a fair presence and put off these frowns, and ill-beseeming semblance for a feast." was he asking his most violent servant to have... patience over his archenemy? Yes, he was, and Cioccolata was speechless.

"It fits, when such a villain is a guest. I'll not endure him." the angered man replied, trying once again to get his signore to reasonate and realize they could get rid of him so easily if they wished so. The councilor Mista was even too distracted by Diavolo's daughter to keep an eye on his boss. It could have been so simple, for Cioccolata, to...

"Am I the master here, or you? You'll not endure him? God shall mend my soul! You'll make a mutiny among my guests! You will set cock-a-hoop! You'll be the man!" the pink haired man slightly raised his voice - not enough for Giorno to hear - and made himself clear, so that if the green haired made any possible mess during his feast, he would have had to take his own responsibility.

"I will withdraw, then." the servant gave up on his ideas, but rudely. His one almost felt like a poisonous gaze. "But this intrusion shall now seeming sweet convert to bitter gall." he said, indirectly threatening an oblivious Giorno. Talking about him, during their conversation between the two men on the stairs, he turned unnoticed until Cioccolata left. When Diavolo looked down on him again, the golden haired boss was now in the middle of a crowded mess of people who was dancing, people who was eating and conversing. He was with you. Finally.

Giorno Giovanna approached you in a way you couldn't help but notice. He looked like the sun, a golden being, it caught your heart as well. Neverending seconds of staring at each other followed, until... "If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this." he gently took your hand in his. It felt warm. "My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss." as the man said so, he leaned in to leave a soft kiss on the back of your hand. His sweet scent overwhelming you as he moved. How gentle.

"Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this." you withdrew your hand and slightly chuckled, reassuring him it was fine. Someway, the two of you found yourself moving away from the crowd. In a more intimate spot. Diavolo couldn't even find you. "For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch..." your sweet voice was soothing the man more than you would realize. "...and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss."

Giorno bit his lip in anticipation, and gently exhaled. "Have not saints lips... and holy palmers too?" he asked, leaning down right towards your soft mouth, before you moved aside and, chuckling like an angel playing in a field, avoided the gentleman's kiss, jokingly scolding his mind with a mischievous smile.

"Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer." You provoked him. Where had Giorno Giovanna's temperance gone? He had swore to his councilor, just before leaving his house, that he wouldn't have let love blind his senses. And there he was. Plus, you did not know each other. You did not know who you were. You did not know you should have not been there together. Due to this, he gladly accepted your game, and chuckled back. God, he was so ethereal and he did not even realize it.

"O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do." he begged, looking almost afraid of touching you, or your waist, or your own hand. How can someone fall so deep in love after having just met someone? Does love at first sight even exist? "They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair." Don Giovanna's tone sounded impatient.

But you had accepted to play his game, and now you would have played it until the very end. You smirked, staring at the blonde man's trembling lips. "Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake." you said, implying the fact that you wouldn't have made the first step. It made sense, though. It was him, who had compared you to a saint first. Little did you know, you were playing with fire, for that man you felt love at first sight for, was your uncle's archenemy.

Giorno grinned, and hid you more against the wall, as your hands automatically wrapped around his figure. Though you didn't move in for a kiss. Until... "Then move not... while my prayer's effect I take.", said the man, grazing with his lips against yours, and finally pressing. You felt all your senses relieve and relax, as your hands grasped on the fabric of the Don's jacket. You didn't like your uncle's crimes. You wouldn't have liked Giorno's ones too. But you had no clue. And he had no clue you were Diavolo's niece/nephew. And you were in love.

His sugary sweet lips clicked against yours a last, neverending time, when he pulled back and thought staring right in your eyes was a good idea. "Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged." Don Giovanna whispered, breathing hard against your giggling mouth. He hadn't stopped playing, you noticed with a pleasant feeling.

"Then have my lips the sin that they have took...?" you slyly asked him, clearly wanting the kiss to continue, clearly wanting more, having no idea of how wrong it was. Having no idea of how dangerous is was. Though his eyes widened, and got even closer, so close to giving you what you wanted for the second time. You felt yourself growing so enamored.

"Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!" he paused for a second, before he bit his own lower lip. "Give me my sin again." Giorno whispered, grabbing your waist with his hand and kissing you, almost desperately, but romantically, against the wall. He had been so focused on anything else, that he had forgotten the true flavor of love, and living it all again after he had swore he wouldn't have done it, was way too intense. Way too beautiful. Better than the art he'd been collecting the latest years.

When he pulled back, you instictively smiled and raised an eyebrow, silently chuckling a little. "You kiss by the book..." you told him, caressing his neck gently and carefully. If it were for him and you, that beautiful moment could go on for hours, days, even an eternity. But beautiful things never last. The two of you almost had a heart attack, when the arm of a blonde, long haired man grabbed your right wrist, ripping your dream in half.

"Madam/sir, your uncle craves a word with you." he almost managed to get you away from Giorno, when the Don grabbed your left wrist, and pulled you towards him, not letting the man, Tiziano to be precise, bring you away.

"What's their uncle?"

At that question, the almond eyed man smirked, as if he was ready to drop a heavy bomb on the snooty Don. "Marry, bachelor, their uncle is the lord of the house, and a good man, wise and virtuous. I nursed his niece/nephew, that you talk'd withal." as if Tiziano had read into Don Giovanna's mind, he added something else, just for the sake of making it even heavier. "I tell you, he that can lay hold of them, shall have the chinks."

Then the blonde haired Don followed the two of you around the hall, until he saw you get pulled upstairs by Tiziano, and connected his brains to what he saw. Diavolo, waiting for you upstairs, and Tiziano holding your arm so that you wouldn't have been able to run away. Four painful words formed on Giorno's whispering lips. "Are they an enemy...?" he asked to himself, looking at you up there, until Trish didn't appear as well behind you.

Trish wasn't happy to be there, she loved Guido Mista, but apparently Diavolo had called all his family back. And your presence there, only confirmed his fear. You were about to step back towards him and say something, but Tiziano caught your shoulder just in time, and pulled you close enough to whisper you the words you would have never wanted to hear. "His name is Giorno." he added more details. "Giorno Giovanna. The only appearance you should match to your great enemy."

You stood there. Empty. You and your forbidden lover had understood what was going on. And both your hearts clenched. And both your hearts suffered. How could love be so beautiful yet so evil, to make a man live and die on the same evening. How...

We all know how this story ends, we know about the pain, we know about the sorrow. But what if this time it made sense. One of the lovers is dirty with criminal blood, running through his veins, and you accept him, in the good and in the bad. Is this right...?

Or is death the punishment, for the sin that in reality your lips hadn't purged at all?

[post-itpenny]

❝ A tale befitting any opera. ❞

One Being Ruth.

Decided to do some DBD with our Survivor and Killer OCs. I apologize if this seemed like to ran too long. Irene likes to talk.

Ten trials.

That’s how many it took for Irene to come to her senses on just what had become of her.

She would later learn at the Killer’s Campfire that there were some that had taken much longer. Perhaps The Entity no longer saw the need to keep a ruse with her, or perhaps it never tried to begin with. Perhaps Irene had created the delusion that this was meerly a series of shows all on her own.

But she had to admit it was far easier to process the trials as merely a performance. None of the supporting cast really stayed dead and was not their director/ producer also their audience?

Before, the times between trials felt like a strange dreaming state. Sleepwalking through the theater as her mind tumbled through jumbled bits of memory and feeling. All of it was painful, she suspected that part was her new director’s doing. Her hurts and frustrations from a lifetime of being so close but never close enough, of never being good enough for too long.

And then there was her costume… it had to be Ruth didn’t it?

Irene found even after coming to her senses she did not care much for the Killer’s Campfire. Visiting when needed then going off to whatever performance she was slated for in one trial ground or another. There was no script, though like many an actor Irene appreciated the chance at improv. After she would spend her time in the theater. Acting out scenes from old scripts, reorganizing the prop room, or like today she was singing to the empty rafters. Anyone who heard her may or may not have been surprised to find the diva actually had a very lovely singing voice.

Irene was working her way through the aria of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly when the rushing sigh of her director’s presence filled the hall. It seemed, much to her delight, this trial would be coming to her.

There was a slight pull, the tiniest tug as someone else entered the theater. Ah, so her sound technician was here today? Well good, what's a performer without a decent set of stage hands? Though she supposed he was more of a fellow actor these days.

Irene smirked and skulked off to her dressing room where her rapier sat waiting and... perhaps something else a bit of a treat for today maybe? Around her the place shifted, generators, pallets, and hooks appearing.

A deadly game of cat and mouse. Such drama, such suspense. A tale befitting any opera…

Irene adored it.

Accept of course a few members of her supporting cast-

“Hey you hag!”

Irene growled as she turned to spy a grin and mass of curly hair.

Mary shot Irene the middle finger “come and get it bitch!”

Irene sighed, it was so hard to find good talent these days.

This one enjoyed a good chase and much to Irene’s dismay, lead her around the map. The sharp clicks of her boots interrupted as a pallet came crashing down on her head. Irene let out a shriek as stars flashed before her eyes.

The impertinent girl let out a trill of laughter as she zoomed off. Irene had already learned that the girl would only grow faster if she could not follow, and it drove her mad. The others called this kind of survivor and Obsession. Another of their director’s tricks, you needed to kill this one, the thrill of the chase too powerful. Irene hated it.

Which was why she left the little imp alone.

The adrenaline of a trial felt akin to the one she would feel in auditions in her younger years. A desperate but thrilling pursuit. Her first role in New York had been one of the sisters in The Pirates of Penzance, a comedic opera. A somewhat smaller role in the production but she still had to fight tooth and nail for it. She remembered how lovely the leading lady Maryanne had been, but it was Ruth that fascinated her.

Ruth was a multifaceted role, comedic in being an older lady who was hard of hearing yet roped into a band of pirates. However, act two showed how calculating and manipulative she was. Arguably one of the actual main antagonists of the opera. A very young Irene had been fascinated with the duality and of course, an older woman dressed as a pirate. It reminded her of all the times she and her siblings played pirates as children. The middle of eight siblings normally left Irene with little chance as captain and almost always being sent to walk the plank for insubordination or mutiny. The sea being a particularly deep puddle outside her family's home after it rained.

A young Irene had mused that Ruth would be an enjoyable role to play one day, teaming up with the Pirate King and dressed in such a fun costume. Then, it was just two seasons ago that she was casted as Ruth and Irene could not help but think about how this meant she had the appearance to match a foolish old woman.

She was wearing the Ruth costume now, of course The Entity picked it.

Irene rubbed the back of her head as her feet left the ground and she floated down the hall opposite of where the girl had ran, but it seemed the little imp wasn’t ready to let Irene go just yet.

“Where ya going huh?” Mary teased as she ran past Irene and ducked behind the rubble of a row of theater seats. “Is it time for your afternoon nap?”

“It seems to me you just can’t keep away darling. Not that I blame you.” Irene sneered, a wicked glint in her eye as the fingers of her left hand twitched.

Foolish.

The girl popped up to dash off when Irene lashed out. The strings tied to her fingers tightening as they wrapped around the joints of Mary’s arms and legs. The survivor gave a yelp as all feeling left her body save for the burning sensation where the strings connected.

Irene chucked, “I’m not one for heavy lifting. How about instead we take a walk?”

Survivors had dubbed her The Muse since she had once been an actress, they also all agreed her “special” ability was terrible.

Mary stuck her tongue out at Irene as her arms reached up to haul her own body onto the hook.

“My now don’t you look just picture perfect right where you are.” Irene sneered, “but this is what separates someone like you from me. You’re only fitted to be a piece of the background, a small part of a trial in which I have the starring role. Why else would there be four of you? Why else so many chances to keep the show running but for my benefit? Why else-“

“Lady! Do you ever shut up?” Mary groaned as she wiggled on the hook. “If you’re gonna just stand there and drone one like that I’m going to let the damn spider god-thing to come and get me before I die of boredom.”

Irene rolled her eyes and stalked off, trying her hardest to keep her composure. She could be patient just a little longer.

She became aware not long after that someone had rescued her but Irene could only laugh, she had decided to treat herself today after all. Something special she had brought to the trial.

In the basement she had at last found Thomas fishing a rather fancy looking med kit from a chest.

He wasn’t one for taunting, instead locking eyes with Irene for a moment and dodging the slash of her rapier. Up the stairs and backstage they went. Irene grinning like mad as she chased him room to room. Irene reached out with her puppet strings only to snag the ankle of someone else.

Thomas looked over his shoulder to see Mary tangled up in the attack. He spun on his toes, grabbing her arm and in the process felt the sting of something fusing into his elbow.

Irene seemed to almost glitch for a moment, as if overwhelmed by having two people on her strings at the same time. She doubled over, hands clamped over her head as she cried out in pain. Thomas wasting no time in pulling Mary free and shoving the med kit he had found into her arms. She gave him a quick salute of thanks as they ran in opposite directions.

When Irene recovered she was seething with fury, tearing across the stage and through the halls, downing anyone she could find.

Soon a young man wearing broken glasses found himself on his last hook. Irene noted the sounds of only three generators completed. Such strange things, loud and reminding her just slightly of the engine in her father’s Model T.

Irene found a redhead sprinting across the mezzanine when again the imp was back and jumping in the way to take the slash of Irene’s rapier.

“Didn’t your mom teach you not to run with sharp objects?” Mary taunted as she dogged another attack and looped Irene around a row of seats.  

Mary leaped over the railing only to be caught again by the swipe of the thin sword. She gave a yelp before crashing down on the stage below. Irene wasting no time in following suit.

She stood over the girl with a mad grin, listening to the whispers of the entity who had been watching the performance so far. The Muse hummed in delight as Mary’s eyes wided for just a moment, they both knew what was coming.

But then she smirked, “eh… still worth it.”

The strings lashed out again. Suspending the survivor in the air. The Muse stood before her, so much fury built up over the trial, over a lot of things. She shrieked as she slashed at her victim over and over before driving the weapon through Mary’s chest. Her dead body collapsing to the floor in a heap as The Muse turned towards the empty audience seats and took a bow.

[mikhellyeah]

I'm Only Lonely When I Miss You

Honesty is black and white for me. Either I’m all in and you know it without me saying a word or I tell you that I’m not going to be 100% . And with that honesty I will tell you I am not lonely. I enjoy being alone over very long periods of time and I can sit in a solitude built only by silence and my single existence for hours and hours or even days on end. Though I can’t say this too proudly just yet because I’m still young and dependent on my parents to take care of me, I know for a fact that I am not lonely. When I am lonely is when I miss you. I’m only lonely when I see your face but then not your face in the flood of faces around me. I’m lonely when I laugh at something only you and you alone would find humorous but here I am with you not at my side and here you are, not, to tell me that you enjoyed it. I’m lonely when I wrap warm blankets around me and it’s a movie night with my closest but I’m not wrapped up in your lap and you’re not watching it with me and silently commenting, almost to a whisper, on how curly you like my hair. And boy, I’ve told you before, it spirals out of control, but you told me that even though this tangle of chaos can be violent, violence is beautiful in a way that it doesn’t mask itself else it’d be masking it’s own artistic streak. You told me before that you liked my oh so violently natural auburn chaos. Now I straighten my hair and the though humidity tries to inspire the spirals back into a renaissance era, only Van Gogh can paint a Van Gogh painting and only your taste in art can rebuke the lonely control-freak now left at the helm and resurrect the Picasso back to her prime for a proper mutiny… But we both know that won’t be the case and I don’t need a hairdresser. And we both know that I don’t need someone at my beckoning call and I’m not lonely. I’m only lonely when the two measly minutes become the two miserable hours I have to wait for the check to arrive at my table after a king’s feast, and I can’t help but notice that one of the plates hasn’t been covered in the same meal you’d always pick out of the thousands of specials for that day and you haven’t made the waitress come back excessively just so she get another look at your handsome face and take up the last plate of your inequitable charm to take home for herself so when nostalgia of those brief seconds at our table come knocking at her door, she knows exactly how to open it. I’m lonely when I look back at the ghost of my footsteps in the earthy grass when I’m walking back to my too-small-of-a-house that could easily fit a family of 8 or 9 but mundanely occupy only 2 to 3 at most, and you’re not walking in my company to be a part of that 8 that you so often were and yet so suddenly not anymore. I’m lonely when I hear your name passed between conversations like the town’s latest gossip and not a single syllable was spared on the delicacy that is and always will be your name and I’m supposed to candidly act the part in this god-awful play where my ignorant doppelgänger is not supposed to give a damn about you but heaven knows my stomach churns as a family of birds swallow the butterflies whole and swarm around my intestines like it were a reserved national park when I see the hint of your smile and the only time they rest is when they settle into their nests to lay eggs of scenarios of when I might see you again, progressively multiplying by the thousands the longer you are away. I’m lonely when I’m writing down all of these reasons why I call loneliness my friend because few know what the hell I’m talking about and even fewer know who. But God knows. He knows it all. He knows why, He knows when, where, how, what, He knows it all. He knows why I pause in the middle of a walkway because I thought I saw you passing through a crowd of perceived nobody’s, who could potentially be hidden future somebody’s, but I look over them because despite knowing the impossibility of you actually being in the sea of the same faces I see every day, it would be the greatest mistake in my thought process I haven’t made yet due to the fact that..well..let’s face it. I’m a smart girl and I won’t be wrong. And you don’t care and you won’t prove me otherwise. He knows how I like to stay up just a few more hours so my mind can leisurely run back and forth between the ripening hope that maybe you just need to go through hell and back to know that I’m here and will always be here or maybe it just takes time or maybe if I were prettier or maybe if I do this, maybe if I say that, or maybe just-… and the bitter truth that I can only do and be so much. Nothing I am or could be will ever make you mine. I’m just another busted up trophy for the shelf. I’m just a rebound. I’m just a stupid, ignorant, pathetic, whimpering little pup crying in the rain waiting for that one special owner long-gone, who needs to grow a pair, get over myself, and move the hell on because you will never be that handsome knight on a white steed racing in to take thee away your princess from the dragon that is my self-doubt, and self-loathing, and basically just my own fucking mind. You’re not that knight. And I’m left with my mind. And the only rotting hopeful ‘maybe’ that remains is maybe I could live my actual God-given life if I could just get your stupid, contagious smile and your heart-warming laugh and the memories of you and me that plague my every thought- if I could just get every damn piece of you out my head. Only then could I be and only then am I me. He knows what I meant to say when I chewed on my tongue like gum and looked the other way hoping no one caught the few seconds that my face flushed, turning me into the first ripe cherry of spring, or when my eyes dilated to the size of a black hole as I was just about to say your name when they asked me to describe home but I couldn’t tell them and they couldn’t understand how a pair of arms felt more like home than some log cabin in the snowy mountains, that I’ve been dreaming of ever since I could think, or a beach house on the warmest coast- no! Because they have never felt the warmth that your embrace so radiates into a soul like a hymn or like morphine into my aching body. He knows where I keep my phone in the same pocket every second of every minute of everyday because despite the odds standing firm and tall and staring down at me, disheveled and small, I still think that you might say something stupid to me first just to converse with me in a vintage kind of way because ‘it’s been way too long’ or you don’t get to say ‘hey kiddo’ to anyone else in the long list of people you’d rather talk to. He knows when I break at four or five o'clock on the dot, in the morning when normal adults, that I could be like one day, are asleep, dreaming about what shirt to wear to work tomorrow or what pants better show off more features for their interview in a couple of days or what shoes go better with the outfit they’re going walk in with to close that deal with the real estate agent for the new apartment sitting just a handful of miles away from the college that can give them the fishing rod instead of the fish in just a matter of a few years, but HERE I AM! And God knows. He knows that I am here and He knows now that I am lonely. Not because I am alone that I’m lonely but because I’m only lonely when I miss you. And He knows I am always lonely even when I'm only lonely when I miss you.