u/Apprehensive_Tax_610

(Cross-post from a different sub, thought it would be useful here too!)

This is a bit of an encouragement post because this place has been drowned down by a lot of negativity as of late, which makes sense, this is the complaining site. I'm guilty of using reddit as a venting diary myself. However, I wanted to dispel one idea I see floating around self pub spaces from some people who have gotten discouraged by their lack of sales: no one reads self pub books because there are millions of classic books to read.

This is very untrue, and to prove it, I'm going to give examples of successful self pubbed books I've read within the last year. Note: some of these people later did get picked up by trad pubs or indie presses, and a lot of them started as serializations on places like Royal Road, which is still self publishing really. I'm also a big reader of Litrpg and progression fantasy which both are genres that live and die on the KU library; but regardless, they all started as self pubbed and got readers, through a combination of good story telling, a marketable niche, and sheer luck. So, drum roll babababbababa:

Dungeon Crawler Carl:

This should go without saying how bloody successful Matt Dinniman has become. It is to a point where people who've never heard of Litrpg know about it. It became a running joke in the community that DCC fans were a cult, when people found it they had to let others know how damn good it was. And Matt slowly build a brand over 6 years, publishing 6 chonky novels, and by 2025 he had sold over 4 million copies. After that, he got a physical book deal with Penguin Random House and it ballooned to 12 million, and he now has a show in the works with Seth Macfarland. Amazon is also big to tout it as one of their big successes, doing ads with Matt.

(Let's be honest, it would not have been as successful as it was without the talking cat).

The Perfect Run:

This was a trilogy originally published on royal road, and is actually still up for free, as VoidHerald wanted to keep a free version as a thanks to everyone who helped him make it.

He published all three through KDP for paperback and Kindle, and then outsourced the audio to Podium Audio Inc. With it not even being on KU, he has 1700 Amazon reviews, 6000 goodreads, almost all positive.

He Who Fights With Monsters:

I will say, this is not a series I personally enjoy. I found it overly long and annoying, and the fact we are on book 12 with each book 800 pages and we aren't even close to the end is absurd. Regardless, it has done well. The paperback now has a small indie press doing special art, but even prior, book 1 has 23k Amazon reviews and 40k goodread reviews.

Stray Cat Strut:

A series that, like PR, is still available to read for free but has a Amazon listening; I have had the privilege of talking with the writer of this work, he's a really chill guy. I also had the privilege of watching a journalist guest talk about how he wants to fuck that guy's mom lmao. Anyway, he's about 8 books deep and the first alone, selling for 2 bucks, has 900 Amazon reviews and 1.3k goodread reviews.

Closing thoughts:

Listen, with all that said, they people did get lucky: they were in the right moment at the right time with a genre that is primarily self pub that is marketable and the books were all good for the most part and something people want to read. Your first book will not be DCC. You may never get more than 5 sales a book, but it is never because nobody wants to take a chance of self published works. On the contrary, many people like self pub because the authors are not bound to the restrictions of trad publishers, and they can make stories like a man and his talking cat playing alien life sized D&D.

Just keep creating, keep expressing yourself, and if the stars align, people WILL read it :3.

This is a bit of an encouragement post because this place has been drowned down by a lot of negativity as of late, which makes sense, this is the complaining site. I'm guilty of using reddit as a venting diary myself. However, I wanted to dispel one idea I see floating around self pub spaces from some people who have gotten discouraged by their lack of sales: no one reads self pub books because there are millions of classic books to read.

This is very untrue, and to prove it, I'm going to give examples of successful self pubbed books I've read within the last year. Note: some of these people later did get picked up by trad pubs or indie presses, and a lot of them started as serializations on places like Royal Road, which is still self publishing really. I'm also a big reader of Litrpg and progression fantasy which both are genres that live and die on the KU library; but regardless, they all started as self pubbed and got readers, through a combination of good story telling, a marketable niche, and sheer luck. So, drum roll babababbababa:

Dungeon Crawler Carl:

This should go without saying how bloody successful Matt Dinniman has become. It is to a point where people who've never heard of Litrpg know about it. It became a running joke in the community that DCC fans were a cult, when people found it they had to let others know how damn good it was. And Matt slowly build a brand over 6 years, publishing 6 chonky novels, and by 2025 he had sold over 4 million copies. After that, he got a physical book deal with Penguin Random House and it ballooned to 12 million, and he now has a show in the works with Seth Macfarland. Amazon is also big to tout it as one of their big successes, doing ads with Matt.

(Let's be honest, it would not have been as successful as it was without the talking cat).

The Perfect Run:

This was a trilogy originally published on royal road, and is actually still up for free, as VoidHerald wanted to keep a free version as a thanks to everyone who helped him make it.

He published all three through KDP for paperback and Kindle, and then outsourced the audio to Podium Audio Inc. With it not even being on KU, he has 1700 Amazon reviews, 6000 goodreads, almost all positive.

He Who Fights With Monsters:

I will say, this is not a series I personally enjoy. I found it overly long and annoying, and the fact we are on book 12 with each book 800 pages and we aren't even close to the end is absurd. Regardless, it has done well. The paperback now has a small indie press doing special art, but even prior, book 1 has 23k Amazon reviews and 40k goodread reviews.

Stray Cat Strut:

A series that, like PR, is still available to read for free but has a Amazon listening; I have had the privilege of talking with the writer of this work, he's a really chill guy. I also had the privilege of watching a journalist guest talk about how he wants to fuck that guy's mom lmao. Anyway, he's about 8 books deep and the first alone, selling for 2 bucks, has 900 Amazon reviews and 1.3k goodread reviews.

Closing thoughts:

Listen, with all that said, they people did get lucky: they were in the right moment at the right time with a genre that is primarily self pub that is marketable and the books were all good for the most part and something people want to read. Your first book will not be DCC. You may never get more than 5 sales a book, but it is never because nobody wants to take a chance of self published works. On the contrary, many people like self pub because the authors are not bound to the restrictions of trad publishers, and they can make stories like a man and his talking cat playing alien life sized D&D.

Just keep creating, keep expressing yourself, and if the stars align, people WILL read it :3.

Dhaakir el-Aziz kept his pistol taut in his grip. Moaning; harsh footsteps; the shaytan were getting closer.

Bang!

He shot at one of them. The bullet lodged in its head, but it didn't go down. It continued to gallop towards him. The shaytan had sprung up across Persia suddenly, without a single utterance that could in any way be construed as a warning. They were humanoid, for they took over the cadavers of the once living, and despite the decay which these bodies had gone through, they had a leap in their step which rivaled even the fittest of the living.

Dhaakir el-Aziz continued to run, run, run, run from the shaytan, who inched ever closer to him, until--

Woop!

He fell down the side of a cliff, tumbling down until he landed on his side, his face wrapped with his keffiyeh.

He looked up.

The monsters were tumbling down with him like a swarm of bees. And so he continued to run… only now he felt a pang in his knee.

“Zibala,” he muttered. The shaytan were catching up; he tried firing his pistol one more time, but it was useless in this situation.

Then he saw it: a little boxy building, and a trapdoor that he assumed must have led to a cellar. It was his only choice.

Running as fast as he could through the pain, he opened the cellar door--

He fell onto his rump, and when he looked up, his eyes widened until they could not widen any more. His heart went bumpbumpbumpbumpbump in rapid succession. It felt as if he was experiencing Ru'yat Allah--seeing the holy face of the most merciful himself.

And the brilliant whitish light flickered and danced like the flame of a candle, until it was no longer beautiful, and a figure emerged: antediluvian in its clothing, like that of the First Kingdom period of Egypt, with the head of a great ebony dog and the body of a young athletic man.

The figure looked upon Dhaakir el-Aziz with its brilliantly beady yellow eyes.

“Are… are you a jinn?” Dhaakir el-Aziz asked, wearily reciting the Ayat al-Kursi in his head.

The figure cocked its head. Then it said in the booming and rugged voice stereotypically belonging to that of a day labourer: “Why have you awakened me from my slumber?”

Moans--louder moans! The entity looked up and saw the thronging animated cadavers fast approaching them. And when the dead had seen the figure, they stopped, their attention no longer on El-Aziz, but instead on the figure.

The figure nodded.

“It appears I have been slipping on my duties,” the figure said. “I will fix this for no charge.”

And so it went forward and put out its hand, saying: “I, Anubis, command you to stop!”

The dead kept coming, thronging harder against each other as they approached.

Anubis raised one finger.

“Stop!”

Still, they did not; instead, they accelerated. Anubis’s authority was not a taut rope around them; rather, it was like loose thread on a garment: inconsequential and easy to remove.

Anubis looked down at its paws, then turned to Dhaakir el-Aziz and said, slowly, choppily, with tremulous hands:--

“I was asleep for a long while… how many believe in me?”

“I cannot say,” Dhaakir el-Aziz admitted.

And so Anubis looked down at himself, and his wolfish face contorted and writhed into one of sheer fright and shock and disgust, for his ribs were like those of a dying man, his golden ornaments had turned a hideous copper, and his voice was less thunderous than it had ever been.

And as Anubis looked back at the swarm, it fell to its knees, and the swarm began to ravish its body and chew and slurp it up, and as they did so, human hearts fell from its arm sockets and from its leg sockets and out the neck once it had been decapitated, and they chewed and slurped up the hearts, and as they ate the hearts, their bodies regenerated, flesh shifted, ugly shallowness gone, ugly verdant greens gone and becoming more life-like.

Dhaakir el-Aziz used this chance to run, run, run, fucking run as fast as he could till he was over the hills and had come to a safe city not yet affected by the demonic.

He had gone to a mosque, one of the great mosques of the area, where the Imam spoke to his faithful. He had received reports from various travellers, and roughly, he said this:

A shrine over in India had gone silent.

Something beneath the ruins of Babylon had disappeared.

The people of Greece had seen the demonic dragging something massive from the sea.

And graves all over were emptying, but it appeared they didn't attack humans, so long as they were not standing in the way of their prize.

And as Dhaakir el-Aziz left the mosque and walked along the street, he felt something beneath his coat.

Thump.

He looked down.

Thumpity thump.

Somewhere beyond the rolling desert hills came a moan, then another, and a thousand more.

They didn't attack humans, the Imam said… but Dhaakir el-Aziz was a malak.

Hello everyone!

Ben Jonathen here, esteemed writer of such literary classics that have been taught in classrooms throughout the world, such as An Ethereal Being Was Shoved Up My Ass, and a judge of the poetry contest.

I wanted to use my one post today to share with you guys some basic forms of poetry. Why? Well, formless poetry is fun—I’ve made quite a few on the sub—but traditional poetry can be a fun challenge. It makes you think like you’re solving a puzzle, and you’re contributing to hundreds to thousands of years of tradition!

I know many, many of you are new to the medium, and I find learning to write poetry is like learning to write all over again—so many new terms to learn. Not only that, but while modern short-story conventions are, what, a couple hundred years old, with literary magazines helping the form grow in popularity during the 19th century, poetry is older than writing itself, starting off as oral tales and songs passed down. Even today, you know many of these oral tales because they luckily survived into writing: The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, Genesis, and the Psalms.

I am, as many of you may or may not know, in university studying to become an English teacher, so I’ve been taught many of these things by professors who’ve been teaching creative writing for 60 years, but I am by no means an expert. I will also not go over every form that has ever existed, only some of the most popular in the Western tradition. So, with that said, let’s begin.

Note that these are the broad modern English conventions. If you study poetry long enough, you’ll find exceptions to almost every rule. You also do NOT need to follow these established forms to have a fixed form. If you know what you’re doing, you can make your own form!

Free Form vs. Fixed Form... What Is That Junk?

To put it simply, for most of history, poems had what is called a “form”: a very specific pattern, rhythm, meter, an exact number of syllables and refrains, etc. It can come in different forms, from Milton and Wordsworth’s epic blank verse to Dante’s terza rima.

But beginning in the 19th century, many artists felt constrained by traditional forms. People like Whitman challenged established poetic conventions, and so they began questioning what poetry even meant and decided they didn’t fuck with fixed forms.

Walt Whitman specifically went out of his way to write with irregular rhythms and long, unconventional lines. By the 20th century, Modernist poets like T. S. Eliot helped popularize further experimentation with poetic form, though many Modernists still used traditional forms and meters as well. Fundamentally, free verse challenges what “poetry even is.” It can still have form, rhythm, and structure; it just doesn’t follow a predetermined pattern of meter or rhyme.

But we are here to talk about traditional poetry. Horror poems have been written through traditional forms, such as Poe’s.

Shakespearean Sonnet

Originally, the sonnet was Italian, but the English, or Shakespearean sonnet, is different enough that it is considered its own form.

As the name suggests, Big S popularized the modern conventions for the English tradition of the sonnet that are still used to this day. He was not the first, but Shakespeare was certainly one of the most influential.

The sonnet is sometimes called the essay poem. Sonnets are typically written to explore an idea, argument, emotion, or statement of some kind.

To do a Shakespearean sonnet, you must have 14 lines, usually presented as one stanza. Each group of four lines is what’s called a quatrain. You will have three of them, and then you will rhyme every other line like so:

ABAB CDCD EFEF

Basically, line one rhymes with line three, line two rhymes with line four, and so on and so on.

Finally, you get to what is called the “volta,” or the turn in the poem’s argument or emotion. In a Shakespearean sonnet, the final two lines form what is called a rhyming couplet. This is often where you’ll make your final point, complicate what came before, or introduce a surprise twist. Both lines rhyme:

GG

The lines themselves are traditionally written in iambic pentameter, meaning each line usually has five feet and around ten syllables. Each foot is an iamb: one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable.

What does that mean? Don’t stress too much if you can’t get it right; it’s super advanced, and poets often use variations. The basic rhythm sounds like:

ba DUM ba DUM ba DUM ba DUM ba DUM

All together, we get something like Sonnet 29:

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,

Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

(Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Blank Verse

Why... this is just what we learned, but even easier!

So, what is blank verse? To put it simply, in the English tradition, it’s unrhymed iambic pentameter: lines that usually have ten syllables divided into five feet, like we just discussed, but with no rhyme at the end.

It can extend for as long as you would like, though poets may divide it into stanzas or verse paragraphs, with each section making a particular point, just like a paragraph. This is typically favoured by poets writing long, long poems, like Milton.

When we put this together, we get something like Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey by Wordsworth. Here is only the opening excerpt because this puppy is long:

Five years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur.—Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

That on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

The day is come when I again repose

Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,

Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,

Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

’Mid groves and copses. Once again I see

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines

Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

With some uncertain notice, as might seem

Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,

Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire

The Hermit sits alone.

The Villanelle

The villanelle is a fixed poetic form associated with French poetry. It developed from earlier Italian and French pastoral songs, though the strict 19-line form we recognize today became standardized much later.

It consists of five three-line stanzas, called tercets, followed by one four-line stanza, called a quatrain.

The poem only uses two rhyme sounds. The rhyme scheme looks like this:

A1 b A2

a b A1

a b A2

a b A1

a b A2

a b A1 A2

The first and third lines of the opening stanza become refrains, meaning they repeat throughout the poem. The first line returns at the end of the second and fourth tercets. The third line returns at the end of the third and fifth tercets. Both refrains then appear together at the end of the final quatrain.

You can also sometimes slightly alter a refrain as the poem progresses, though traditionally it repeats exactly.

Unlike a Shakespearean sonnet or blank verse, a villanelle does not technically have to be written in iambic pentameter. However, many famous English villanelles use it, because that's just kinda what they like for some reason.

It will look something like Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas:

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Haiku

Okay, I broke my rule with this one because this is technically Japanese.

It is one of the first forms you learn, but traditional Japanese haiku look something like this:

They contain 17 sound units, called on, divided into a pattern of 5, 7, and 5. These sound units are not exactly the same thing as English syllables, so the familiar English 5-7-5 rule is really an approximation.

In Japanese, a traditional haiku also typically uses a kigo, or seasonal word, and a kireji, or “cutting word,” but those don’t translate perfectly into English.

Here is one translation of “The Old Pond” by Matsuo Bashō:

Old pond...

a frog jumps in

water’s sound.

Rondeau

Another French one!

The rondeau is considered one of the three formes fixes, or traditional French fixed forms, alongside the ballade and virelai. These forms became especially important in medieval French poetry, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries.

This is similar to the other French one we just discussed. Basically, you need 15 lines split into three stanzas. It will only have TWO rhyming sounds and one short refrain.

The rhyme scheme looks something like this:

aabba aabR aabbaR

The capital R represents the refrain.

Generally, you will split your stanzas into one quintet, meaning five lines; one quatrain, meaning four lines; and one sestet, meaning six lines.

Part of the opening line, rather than necessarily the entire line, will serve as your refrain. This repeated phrase is sometimes called the rentrement. Each full line is generally around eight to ten syllables, though the refrain is shorter.

An example of this one is “In Flanders Fields”:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Wow, Sounds Like a Lot of Work

Indeed.

From your own creative standpoint, you might think a lot of these sound very restricting, like Whitman thought, and they can be if you let them.

But that’s the beauty of poetry: it’s not just about the form; it’s everything else. Think of fixed form like a colouring book. You have the outline; now it’s time to colour it in.

Those colours are poetic devices.

I’ll end this guide with two things.

One: these are only some of the many, many traditional forms out there. These are just the ones I’ve personally worked with for school. Feel free to find more and give them a shot.

Secondly, I will leave you with a list of the most common poetic terms and devices. These are what you’ll use to colour in your colouring book.

Happy writing, and if you made it this far, perhaps maybe give my horror anthology on Amazon a try?

Common Poetic Devices

• Simile – Compares two things using “like” or “as.”

Example: “Her smile was like the sun.”

• Metaphor – Says one thing is another to create a comparison.

Example: “Time is a thief.”

• Personification – Gives human qualities to non-human things.

Example: “The wind whispered through the trees.”

• Imagery – Descriptive language that appeals to the senses.

Example: “The warm cinnamon scent filled the kitchen.”

• Alliteration – Repeats the same beginning consonant sound.

Example: “Peter Piper picked peppers.”

• Assonance – Repeats vowel sounds.

Example: “The rain in Spain stays mainly...”

• Consonance – Repeats consonant sounds within or at the ends of words.

Example: “Stroke of luck.”

• Rhyme – Uses words with matching or closely similar ending sounds.

Example: “Light / night.”

• Rhythm – The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that creates the poem’s beat.

Example: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

• Repetition – Repeats words or phrases for emphasis.

Example: “Never, never, never give up.”

• Anaphora – Repeats the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive lines or sentences.

Example: “I have a dream... I have a dream...”

• Hyperbole – Deliberate exaggeration.

Example: “I’ve told you a million times.”

• Symbolism – Uses an object or idea to represent something deeper.

Example: “A dove symbolizes peace.”

• Irony – A contrast between expectation and reality.

Example: “A fire station burns down.”

• Oxymoron – Places two contradictory words together.

Example: “Deafening silence.”

• Onomatopoeia – Uses words that imitate sounds.

Example: “Buzz,” “crash,” and “hiss.”

• Enjambment – A sentence continues onto the next line without punctuation or a pause.

Example:

“The river flowed

into the sea.”

• End-stopped line – A line ends with punctuation, completing the thought.

Example: “The stars were bright.”

• Allusion – An indirect reference to a well-known person, event, or work.

Example: “He’s a real Romeo.”

&gt;!Just poking fun at the amount of these type of posts lately!<

Tommy McbigPP was walking down the street from his below minimum wage job working in a coal mine owned by the Disney corporation, and also his wife left him and girls hate him and whatever else I can think of to make sure you know this man is a fucking loser.

Then one day he slipped on a banana peel and fell right into his sister's gargantuan jugs (the author definitely does not have an incest fetish, but they've watched so much weird anime from the 2010s that they lowkey have unconsciously developed one) where he suffocated and suddenly found himself standing before God.

And God was like ayo sorry my dudes, I was watching Breaking Bad--amazing show btw, and my finger slipped and I accidentally cosmically killed you. So like I can give you a few options to say sorry: I can send you (option the MC is clearly not going to take we all read the blurb) or I can offer you to go to the awesome fantasy land where all the big titties and huge assed girls wanna sleep with you and your muscular and awesome and this makes you wonder if the author is writing with with one hand.

Tommy McbigPP says yeah sure, and he suddenly finds himself in a new world, and there's a system in front of him. I will now send the next 200 pages repeating stats you have no concept of so I can make more money per page when the auntie eventually stub this and put it on KU:

Spoon Accuracy, Fork Evasion, Knife Confidence, Plate Awareness, Bowl Resonance, Mug Loyalty, Napkin Folding, Crumb Detection, Pocket Crumb Capacity, Emergency Biscuit Storage, Sandwich Integrity, Soup Patience, Soup Aggression, Soup Cooling, Cheese Mistrust, Forbidden Cheese Knowledge, Toast Timing, Toast Regret, Butter Coverage, Jam Distribution, Noodle Coordination, Bean Diplomacy, Potato Empathy, Potato Concealment, Fry Prioritization, Onion Resistance, Garlic Aura, Cabbage Authority, Celery Disappointment, Pickle Tolerance, Egg Confidence, Egg Prophecy, Pancake Stacking, Waffle Navigation, Syrup Adhesion, Cereal Timing, Snack Initiative, Tactical Snacking, Cookie Detection, Cookie Deception, Biscuit Dunking, Cake Geometry, Muffin Distrust, Donut Philosophy, Pie Theft, Chocolate Hoarding, Gum Longevity, Ice Cream Foresight, Pantry Navigation, Cupboard Ambush, Dishwashing Avoidance, Sponge Trust, Towel Ownership, Sock Matching, Missing Sock Divination, Wet Sock Resistance, Shoelace Patience, Shoe Pebble Detection, Hat Stability, Hat Charisma, Cape Billowing, Cape Trip Resistance, Cloak Mysteriousness, Fashion Damage, Outfit Regret, Mirror Suspicion, Eyebrow Control, Tactical Blinking, Wink Accuracy, Yawn Contagion, Sneeze Recoil, Hiccup Intimidation, Burp Concealment, Stomach Growl Stealth, Fake Cough Quality, Whistling Annoyance, Humming Persistence, Lyric Incorrectness, Dramatic Pausing, Awkward Silence, Small Talk Endurance, Name Misremembering, Pun Damage, Dad Joke Capacity, Sarcasm Accuracy, Metaphor Handling, Comma Hoarding, Typo Loyalty, Autocorrect Resistance, Keyboard Rage, Tab Hoarding, Password Incorrectness, Loading Patience, Wi-Fi Betrayal, Battery Anxiety, Cable Untangling, USB Orientation, Printer Diplomacy, Screenshot Timing, Alarm Denial, Bed Exit Reluctance, Blanket Grip, Pillow Alignment, Cold Side Discovery, Snore Rhythm, Dream Confusion, Nap Miscalculation, Morning Resentment, Coffee Dependency, Tea Wisdom, Beverage Forgetfulness, Chair Squeak Stealth, Chair Spin Speed, Table Corner Detection, Desk Clutter Generation, Pen Clicking, Paper Cut Rage, Stapler Intimidation, Sticky Note Prophecy, Notebook Anxiety, Signature Flourish, Bubble Wrap Restraint, Tape-End Detection, Glitter Containment, Dust Bunny Diplomacy, Vacuum Navigation, Laundry Avoidance, Laundry Chair Capacity, Fitted Sheet Rage, Wrinkle Acceptance, Doorway Awareness, Stair Miscounting, Elevator Silence

It was on the third day of the third month in the Sol calendar when Alexander Personnage-Pincipal got out of his little rackety pod, took off his helmet, and breathed in the pungent air. The Red Sun shone brilliantly upon him. As far as the brass were aware, the entire planet had the consistent airiness of the Saharan Desert on a midsummer’s morn—from the tippy top to the very bottom.

Swiftly, he began to set up his ultra-carburetor™ and used his suit’s mining equipment to expunge metals from the sand dunes. He fed them through the machine, which beeped and hopped and plopped out perfect cubes of condensed mass, ready to be expanded once they were hauled back to Terra. There was a slight wind, which he found odd—hell, for whatever reason, his suit was registering scratching beneath the dunes; the damn thing must be acting up—but he thought nothing of it and continued his work. He grinned and mirthfully hummed a little tune:

“Oh, the money I will make, the money I will make!”

Indeed, Alexander Personnage-Pincipal had been promised nearly six years’ pay for three hours of work! And so, that was what he did, humming and working and muttering about how he was gonna steal Mrs. Intérêt Amoureux Générique from Mr. Abruti De Base once he was richer than fucking Rockefeller.

The sky darkened. It got cold; horribly cold. Alexander’s teeth went chitchitchitchitchitchit. Fucking hell, it was particularly hibernal! That was not supposed to happen.

Alexander Personnage-Pincipal looked up, extreme confusion writhing across his face. Clouds inexplicably formed and blotted out the Red Sun.

Then—

Boomboomboomboom!

Brilliant whitish lights appeared and disappeared, and blobs fell from the sky. When they struck the yellow sand below, they morphed and twisted into cattish and houndish beings. Mangy, void-like holes freckled their bodies, with golf-ball-sized maggots dangling from them.

They growled and hissed. As more and more fell, they sniffed the air and barrelled towards him. Alexander Personnage-Pincipal ran. He ran as fast as he could, activating his suit’s agility settings so he could continue to sprint. More and more creatures fell from the sky until there were waves upon waves of them, slowly encircling him.

Beep, beep, booooooooop…

Shit.

The power in his suit had drained, and he was forced to abandon it. One of the beings scurried up his pod, chomped down, and, in the blink of an eye, the pod was gone. There was nowhere left to run. All he could do was sit, meditate, and patiently wait as they approached.

Pain. Oh, pure pain!

They scurried over him, tearing through his skin, flesh, bones, and organs until there was nothing left. Then his remains churned inside them until they were shat out as maggots.

The planet was covered in cattish and houndish beings. Then the clouds miraculously ceased, and the Red Sun returned. The creatures howled and caterwauled as they boiled into goop and evaporated, leaving the planet an arid wasteland once more.

High above the planet, an automated Terran beacon continued to transmit to the brass:

ATMOSPHERE STABLE. FLORA: NONE. FAUNA: NONE. CLEARANCE APPROVED.

CONTINUE OPERATIONS.

Hark! Hark!

Gather, travellers of the asphalt,

For I wish to tell you a tale:

I was a driver of a lorry,

Best at my craft,

Had done so for thirty years,

And I had been given a task,

A big task—

A very, very big task,

One to be delivered

To a man of the nouveau riche.

And I loaded the MacGuffin,

Trapped inside a nailed box,

Into the back,

And, humming the poetic words

Of Sir Mix-A-Lot mirthfully,

I got into my beast of steel

And rode along the asphalt.

Chugachugachugachuga—

Behold!

Amidst the arid landscape,

A brilliant circle,

Violet,

Ruddy,

Wavy like a wave

And opaque,

Appeared before me.

Slam!

Slam!

I tried,

Oh, I desperately tried,

To slam my brakes,

And yet it was fruitless,

For my metallic carriage

Turned to and fro,

This way and that—

SCREEEEEEECH!

And it was sucked

Through the circle.

Blind!

I had gone blind!

And when my vision reappeared,

I saw through my window

That I was no longer in Kansas:

Bumpbumpbumpbumpbumpbump

Behold!

My truck was no longer

Upon the asphalt;

I rode upon a landscape

Of human cadavers,

With a dim crimson sky

Above me;

Some were as ancient

As the Greeks;

Some were antediluvian;

Some were freshly fresh,

With their eyes still wet,

Their mouths slightly agape

As my wheels drove over them,

Little murmurings,

Those not of the living,

Crying out…

Drive, I thought;

DRIVE, DRIVE, FUCKING DRIVE!

And with a lack

Of reason and logic

That would make Kurt Gödel

Shake his head,

I kept speeding up

My vehicle—

Faster,

Faster,

Bumpier,

Bumpier…

I heard low grumblings.

Around me,

Crawling from the cadavers,

Were creatures

Of no bone,

No muscle,

No eyes—

Just pure skin,

Dried yet moist,

Decayed yet

Vibrantly healthy,

And they skittered

Towards me,

Howling,

Gnawing at my paint

And my door

And my window—

And—oh God,

Oh no,

Oh God.

They were gnawing

At my tires!

Jiggle, jiggle, jiggle—

And from the nailed box,

There came

A tremulous knock.

Knock-a

Knock-a

Knock.

It was not

The patient knock

Of a salesman

With the outward appearance

Of being kind-hearted,

Yet whose fire of empathy

Was nothing more

Than low, ashy embers,

Nor was it

The frantic knocking

Of a prisoner;

It was bestial;

It was intentional;

It knew

What it was doing.

And so

I seized my radio:

“Dispatch!”

I cried.

Then I,

To the limits

Of my knowledge—

What little

The far reaches

Of epistemology allowed—

Faintly soliloquized:

“Oh, Lord

In the heavens above…

Fuck it.

I call upon

The great beast down below,

And Human Resources,

And whoever may hear my voice,

I ask thee:

Do you hear me?”

Static.

Then a voice,

Masculine and gruff,

Garbled,

Sly and wry,

Faintly said:

“We can hear you.

We all can.”

One,

With no visage,

Yet with sallow skin

That writhed into expressions,

Climbed upon my bonnet

And pressed itself

Against my window,

Sharp teeth visible,

Its slimy tongue

Slathering the glass.

And it pointed at me,

Menacingly,

And said to me:

“Give us the box, please.”

BAM!

My back tire exploded.

The creatures flew back

Magnificently,

Folding

And crunching

Horrendously,

And repaired themselves

And came forward

More hastily,

And more wrathfully,

Charging.

Behold!

Before me,

My saviour:

Another circle!

And my truck skittered

And went through the circle,

Where I was once again

In arid land.

The creatures went limp.

They were nothing

But dead skin now.

Hark! Hark!

A nice man,

An angel of the road,

If you will,

Replaced my tire,

And when I reached

The mansion

Of the man

Of the nouveau riche,

He inspected the cargo,

Gazed upon my beaten truck,

Looked at the MacGuffin,

Then closed the box,

Gave me

That hideous, creepy smile

The rich tend to give,

And said:

“Ah!

I see you took

The shorter road.

Excellent, sir.”

And so,

Fellow travellers,

I wish for you

To be careful

When travelling

These asphalts;

I have heard

Through the wondrous source

Of the grapevine

That this

Is a common occurrence

Amongst those

In our esteemed industry,

Such as that

Which happened

To old Willie of Tucson,

Old Billie Crane,

Or Mr Webb…

Also,

Why the fuck

Did my bloody tire

Cost $120 to fix?!

CW: >!explicit sexual content, sexualized violence, body horror, death, infidelity, pregnancy/abandonment, and religious themes, possible sexual coercion/assault implications!<

>Genesis 19:26

Mr. Scrupulosity was never a man of lechery.
No, sir, he was not!

He was always a man of great piety:
temperance that would make a Catholic writhe in disgust;
a straitlacedness that rivalled the son of a Baptist minister—
shoes laced neatly and his red tie tied.

A married man, he was, and yet,
as he told his wife,
and his congregation,
and himself,
that, like Kellogg,
he remained pure,
without so much as one unchaste finger
laid upon forbidden flesh.

Alas!

It had happened.

At 1:01, the righteous come undone.

’Twas when his alarm struck 1:01
that she appeared upon the windowsill,
a slight, shadowy figure crouched against
the brilliant gibbous moon.

He sat upright.

He gripped the sheets as if they were his sacred scripture,
and yet, heretically, he let go and leaned forward
and gazed upon his intruder.

Her skin held a deep violet sheen,
like a plum beneath the midsummer sun.

Orange hair spilled over one bare shoulder,
cascading down her back and concealing something—
and yet not concealing enough.

His gaze descended.

She allowed it.

He peered at her ample bosom,
the narrowness of her waist,
the generous curves beneath it,
and her—

At 1:01, the righteous come undone.

She watched him watch her.

He felt heat rush to his cheeks.
He felt his heart rattle-rattle-rattle.
He felt his blood answer her against his will.

Then, coquettishly smiling,
she placed one hand upon the sill and entered slowly.

With a low, cattish growl,
she crawled forth towards his bed
on her hands and knees, just as cattishly.

Moonlight caught first upon one violet thigh,
and she climbed onto his bed—

slowly,
mercilessly.

The mattress sighed beneath her knee.

Her breath, hearth-warm, moved across his visage.

“Pious man,” she murmured.

At 1:01, the righteous come undone.

One sharp talon hovered above his chest.

“Do you wish for me to leave?” she said sultrily.

He did not.

Rather,
of his own will, his hands rose
and closed around her waist—

feeling the curves,
feeling the tautness of her belly—

and she bent over him,
whispering a dark benediction.

She drew one talon beneath the knot
of his immaculate tie,
ripped it, tore it to shreds with little heed,
then opened his shirt, belt, and every last defence
with the same lecherous talon.

“My name is Poeniteo,” she softly proclaimed.

The bed gave one low creak.

He whispered her name like Ave Marias—

slowly,
methodically.

Violet skin against white linen.
Orange hair across his mouth.
The moon, in disgust, turning its pale face away.

And as she sped,
as it grew more intense,
he clung to her—

tighter...

tighter.................

At 1:01, the righteous come undone.

He felt strange.

Unusual.

Like his body turning inside out.

She leaned down and kissed him vigorously.

She tasted brine on the inside of his mouth,
and she smiled.

It was time.

Beneath her grasp, his fingers whitened,
their warmth dissipating knuckle by knuckle.

And he tried—
oh, he tried so desperately—
to bring her forward,
to draw her closer,

but his hands had forgotten how to bend.

Where her fingers passed,
the flesh glittered in the moonlight
with a crystalline gleam.

His heart knocked within him,
but not flesh against flesh—

stone against stone.

She saw crystals flowering along his ribs.

She smiled
and let out a low moan.

The whiteness climbed his body—

slowly—

up his thigh,
up his hip,
up his belly,

while his eyes remained tremulous,
pleading.

“W-why?” he croaked.

She looked down at him,
a devilish glint in her eyes.

She said, breathlessly:

“Do you not remember Sarah?

“The way you touched her?
The way you loved it?

“And yet,
when the sun poked over the waters,
you fled.

“You abandoned her.
You left her pregnant.

“And you went back to your wife,
whom you were unfaithful to.

“And you lied to yourself—”

Salt flung as her rump moved up and down.

“You lied!”

Salt flung into the carpets.

“You lied!”

Salt flung into her visage.

“You lied!”

And he had no rebuttal.

At 1:01, the righteous come undone.

The shreds of his red tie remained unchanged,
the last glimmer of vividness against the whitening ruins
that were once the corporeal vessel
of Mr. Scrupulosity.

Her body tightened above him.

She sped up.

Faster—

faster—

faster—

until speed ceased to be movement
and became a singular, violent shudder.

She quivered.

Her torso contracted and went taut,
and she caterwauled,
her cry echoing through the room.

At the highest note,
his visage became salt.

One tear slipped from his eye.

It, too, turned to salt.

Her body rose above him,
and she stretched sensually with a pleased grin,
wiping salt from her rear.

She stepped lightly towards the window.

Wings sprouted.

She flew into the gibbous moon.

By morning,
nothing remained upon the bed
but enough salt to make the sea jealous.

At 1:01, the righteous come undone.

At 1:20, there was no man left to damn.

Authors note: originally posted on the wrong account 😭

Date: October 10th, 1994

My dearest Emily,

I hope all is well with you back in New York and that the bustlingness and vastness of the city of the Empire State do not perturb you too much. I know you do not take too kindly to large arrays of piercing sounds, owing to the condition with which you were born.

Truly, it is that condition that makes me love you all the more: the way you are so eccentric in your art and your speech, loving and affectionate yet not overly fond of touch. A one-of-a-kind soul, you are, and come next year, when our matrimonial ceremony takes place, I shall forever be the happiest man on Earth.

I write to you now because I must tell you something:

I believe we should sell this property. It is not particularly well suited for raising our future children.

When I inherited this house, which lies deep within the forests of Washington, from a relative, I initially had high hopes for it. It is lakeside—and unpolluted at that! The glistening, blue-hued water looks marvelous beneath a gibbous moon.

The house itself is made of sturdy, ancient logs. It has all the modern amenities one could hope for and a large field across which little children might scurry.

So why do I say this is not a good place to raise our young?

Well, my darling, you know that I have never been a man of religiosity in the way you are. I may have been raised by a Baptist minister—and one trained under Martin Luther King Jr. at that!—but I have never partaken in the faith seriously or devoutly. I am rather undutiful to God in that regard.

But I have seen things that have made me reconsider that.

I arrived here a month ago to make repairs and fix up the property, and almost immediately, I began to experience strange phenomena.

At first, I assumed they were the result of a lack of slumber.

As I worked in the yard, I kept hearing rustling in the thickets. I thought it might be small animals, but every time I looked upon the rustling shrubbery, it would stop and go as still as a statue. Every time I looked away, it would begin once more. When I walked away, the rustling of leaves turned into footsteps. When I chopped wood, I would hear the chopping of wood in answer.

This went on for quite some time—I do not know how long—and, to break from the polite New England formality in which we were raised, it began to fuck with my head quite considerably.

Then, one night, I sat against an old tree overlooking the waving body of water, listening to the gentle sounds of waves slurping at the sand and breaking, foaming, against the rocks. I had my Walkman near me, with a copy of Nevermind inside it. Since there was not a single soul for miles upon miles, I decided to play it aloud—quietly, but aloud nonetheless.

As “In Bloom” began and Kurt Cobain’s brilliantly muffled voice sang of the amorous desire that falls upon animals at the height of spring, the air felt heavy. Queerly heavy, in the old-guard sense of the word. The moon, full in appearance, somehow felt hollower, and it shone less brightly, as though it were a light bulb slowly going out.

The wind blowing through the trees grew harsher and heavier. There was something almost malicious in how violently it pushed those ancient branches.

Then, from the water, appeared a—a thing!

It was hominid in shape but walked as though it were quadrupedal. Its skin was slimy and whitish, and its eyes—oh, good God, its eyes—were hollow, like little black tar pits.

It growled and crawled hastily toward me.

I leaped to my feet, tripped, and then ran—ran as fast as I could through the thickets as it followed, always a blur behind me—until I reached the house and locked the door.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

I tried to hold the door shut from the other side.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

The door flew open, and I fell upon my rump. It slowly crept toward me, hungrily, its saliva-laden tongue lolling from its mouth. It stood over me, saliva dripping onto my body.

I closed my eyes.

Nothing happened.

When I opened them, I saw that it had gone toward my Walkman, which was now playing “Lithium.” It sniffed the Walkman once, then twice, and said in a gruff, broken cadence:

“Who… name?”

I could not speak.

“Who… name… speaker?”

“Uh, Curt Kobane?” I said.

It nodded, put the Walkman in its mouth, and scurried off.

I prepared to leave that very night. I packed only what was essential or sentimental, got into my car, and sped down the dirt road.

Chug, chug, chug… chug… chug… blurp.

As my luck would have it, my car’s engine had given up the ghost.

And so I got out and began to run, run, run, run!

Around me, I heard a soft cadence—a familiar one.

A silhouette loomed on the road ahead. As I drew closer, it became clearer: it was a youngish male with flowing hair and a stubbly beard. It carried a log shaped like a guitar. Its face was an open, gaping wound, divided into little chunks like pieces of sliced chicken, and thick crimson blood dripped down its nude, sallow body.

It was a mockery—an imitation—one that did not understand the inappropriateness of what it had made. But that was not what concerned me at that moment.

I stood frozen, my heart rattling like a baby’s toy, as the figure came closer. The chunks of meat that made up its face opened and closed like a mouth as it sang familiar lyrics to me—the words to “Lithium.”

There was deep pain in its voice.

Its limbs quivered.

Part of me—I do not know why—felt sorry for it. I lifted one hand, wanting to reach out and help it.

Then I came to my senses.

I ran and ran and ran through the shrubbery, scraping myself against the trees of the copses, until I came across a small log house belonging to an elderly man. He smelled of cedar and bore a scar along his balding scalp. He held me tightly, asked what was wrong, and invited me inside for tea.

I explained what had happened. He simply nodded and said:

“One must be careful. Those who fall too deeply into despair will spend the entirety of their lives digging themselves out.”

I had not the slightest clue what that meant, but the old man—God bless his soul—guided me back to civilization.

That is where I write this now. I am sitting in an old family restaurant that, by some miracle, survived the Great Depression. I feel as though I can still hear faint murmurings in Cobain’s cadence, and I do not like it.

I will mail this letter as soon as I can, and when I get back to Pierce County, I will see about catching a plane to New York to visit you.

This is why I believe we should not raise our children at this location.

I hope to see you soon!

With all my love,

Moses

“All conditioned things are suffering.”

— The Dhammapada, Verse 278

As I found myself dying,

Smiling,

On a midnight dreary,

And in the words of Poe:

“Weak and weary,”

Weary of life,

Tired of life,

Ready, like Christ,

To forgo my spirit and

Give it up on high—

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Be… b… beeeeeeeeee—

Silence. Bliss. Peace at last.

Then I found my soul slipping from the decaying cadaver.

Somewhere beyond the dark,

An eight-bit chime began to chirp;

It was, unmistakably,

Nintendo-esque in its rythmic:

Dut, dut, dut, da do da dut--

I found myself,

My soul,

My immaterial form,

Nearly formless, like the poetics

Of Robert Frost,

Moulding,

Shaping,

Forming,

Forming into the semblance

Of a juvenile boy,

Brightness radiating from my visage,

As if I were once again in my salad days.

And as I fleshly materialized, I felt as though I were once again in my salad days:

A hop in my step.

Crackless movements in my joints.

Oh, how lovely that felt!

Then I felt a presence.

A menacing presence.

I turned,

Swift as sound,

And behind—before me—

Stood a humanoid: androgynous,

Bosomly breasted,

Jaw chiseled, sinewy, lanky,

Skin sallow,

An arch in their spine…

“Behold!” they said.

“I have rejuvenated you, for it is time for you to be judged. This shall determine whether you are damned to life once more, or may pass into bliss!”

I stood and nodded, simply, methodically.

“No retries,” they whispered sultrily.

“Only a true gamer deserves death.”

And before me,

Behold!

There lay an antediluvian haze,

Staticky, muffled.

An SNES lay before my very eyes,

And the person sat,

Criss-crossed, apple sauce,

A sly grin strewn across their visage.

I dutifully sat,

Just as instructed,

And we played.

My fate was sealed the second I chose Toad:

The patron saint of

The foolishly hopeful,

But he was my saint of

The foolishly hopeful.

The humanoid laughed,

Gruffly, femininely, masculinely.

We raced down Rainbow Road, going this way and that, zigzagging left and right, to and fro, up and down—

Watch out!

A blue shell hit me,

Sent me tumbling back,

Sent me behind the humanoid,

Who oh-so-smugly played Donkey Kong.

And we continued and continued,

Sweat encapsulating me,

Until…

It was over.

And I had lost.

The humanoid looked down at me,

Viciously caressed my face,

And blew.

Pain! Pain!

Oh, what pain!

I felt my bones become jelly,

My skin burn,

And inside my stomach there were suddenly insect eggs—

The eggs of venomous spiders.

They hatched,

The babies growing sizable in an instant,

Nibbling at my stomach lining,

Going up and down my throat like a slide,

Down into my colon,

Into my bloodstream.

And they chomped

And ate away at me

Until I had ceased—

Then it went silent.

And I felt myself form,

Form into a humanoid that was not a humanoid.

A fetus.

I nonconsensually grew

And grew

And grew

And grew

Until I was spat out through the vulva.

And now, twenty years later,

I lay in misery,

Working away,

beneath the fluorescent lights,

Waiting to die once more.

Every morning,

My alarm goes:

Be… b… beeeeeeeeee—

And I begrudgingly

rise again.

Balmy, his hands were; clammy, his thighs were; dank, his neck was.

And he trudged, trudged, trudged

up upon the supple and malleable

back of the alien:

A sedentary creature, born of a great egg buried beneath the sand. It hatched first as a tadpole.

Grow,

grow,

grow,

until it surpassed even the red menace Clifford.

And it stood sedentary,

drinking from itself—

its sweat upon

its clammy skin;

feeding upon itself,

the dirt that popped

out of its sun-beaten

blisters, consuming it

greedily.

And he climbed like a youthful and rejuvenated Reingold Messer:

Slow,

methodical,

his gear ripping into its flesh with ease…

With too much ease…

He would slip.

He would tear too much.

The beast would wake and roar.

And still, he continued.

For there was a great city built upon the fur-forested head of the creature, filled with towering towers more towering than the towering towers of Beijing—a city where, once reached, all his troubles would cease.

Hunger ceased. Age unwound. No man ever sweated.

A real-life Tower of Babel that stood secluded on this planet, far, far from Terra.

But as he reached a fold within the skin,

the brilliant rays of the morning sun shone down upon him.

And the skin around him became ruddy.

Very ruddy.

And soon, his skin became ruddy.

Heat ensnared him

and caressed him

and harassed him

lecherously.

Soon, he began to wallow.

Woe to him!

And he could feel his skin become gelatinous and droop into goo. He could feel his muscles boiling and ripping and turning into stringy gobs, and his bones cracking—

crack,

crack,

crack—

and his dying skeleton, still sentient, wiggled and was consumed by the skin like quicksand, shrinking and developing into a pimple that burst and cascaded down into the mouth of the creature.

And little did he know:

The city never lay atop it, For that was the creature to the next right!

---

If you enjoyed this, consider checking out my other works as well as my novel in my links!

For that was the next creature on the right!

Content warning: >!sexual body horror, grotesque imagery !<

Truly,

I wish to

Write to you in verse,

But not

In Shakespearean sonnet,

Nor in the blank iambics

Of Milton

Or Wordsworth, nor the

Terza rima of Dante—

No, I shall conceive the beast

Within the formlessness of

T. S. Eliot, for, like my verse,

The creature was formless

By its very nature:

Not deserving of the mechanical structure of prose!

I was ’bout twenty,

Comely,

Junoesque,

An Adonis,

The masculinity of Zeus and Christ,

The femininity of Aphrodite and Mary,

A handsomely beautiful enby,

And I partook of

A hot summer’s day,

Lying upon the shores

Of the Pacific Northwest,

And the water called to me.

It was tremulous; turbulent;

And it spoke sweet nothings

To me. It said:—

“Jordon, come to me.

I call you to me!”

And I assumed it was my

Mind requesting that my

Body be cooled from the

Intense heat.

So I went over. I went up to

A man upon a boat,

And said jocularly:

“O Captain! My Captain!”

As Walt Whitman crossed my mind.

And I took off my shirt,

Egotistically, for just a moment,

Basked in my handsomely feminine, muscular leanness,

And hopped in for a swim.

I briskly swam around,

The cedar smoke drifting seaward,

And sunlight shattering itself

Across the bluish hue;

And I was the

Happiest I could be;

Mirthful;

Full of jocundity;

Of spirit;

Of beauty;

Of divinity;

And then I saw it:

The creature—

At first, a light: brilliant, whitish light, whiter than a Mormon church, yet more ebony than a Southern Baptist convention.

And it was perceivably inconceivable:

True light from true light,

Pure, elegant mathematics

In pure form.

But then it moulded,

Shifted,

Changed,

Became a Leviathan

That wasn’t a Leviathan;

A Leviathan the size

Of a forearm.

And it was green,

A brilliant hue of green,

Green as snot,

But brown as sludge,

With little mouths upon it,

And fangs that spewed

Human ejaculate.

And they slithered around my body,

Kissing me,

Licking me,

Pouring cum upon me...

Then they slithered near my genitalia,

Only brushing it, luckily,

But soon found my back door...

And I screamed.

I screamed.

I screamed.

Oh,

Sweet baby Jesus,

I screamed...

It wiggled its way up,

Went through my colon,

Still ejaculating,

Still kissing,

Still licking,

Until it came out my mouth

And kissed my forehead.

“O Captain! My Captain!”

I tried to yell,

But I was being suffocated,

Yet could still breathe...

I swam

And I swam

And I swam,

And soon the creature put

One of its mouths against me,

And it said:

“Why do you run from me?

Why do you not want

To be with me?

I was nice to you!

Do you not remember?

I only wished to know you

From the inside...”

I did not listen to it.

And eventually, I was free,

Feeling it fall out my ass,

And soon

I was back on shore.

I lay coughing brine,

Sand pasted to my brown skin,

Afraid to peer behind me.

But from that point,

I had no desire for beauty,

No desire to be comely,

And I let myself age,

Let myself become bigger,

And the water

Has not called me since.

Sometimes,

When I pass a mirror,

I thank the creature—

In a weird,

Twisted way.

>!If you enjoy this, you can find more of my stuff on my profile plus my novel in my links!<

TW: >!Gross and realistic conversation involving a person who is underage, predation, sexual conversation involving person who is underage. Nothing like Tommy Taffy or what have you and more like Pen Pal but be warned.!<

***

Private Discord PMs, July 9th, 2026:

Hoi4playerbigD:

Are you almost here?

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Yep, can't wait to finally meet you :3

Hoi4playerbigD:

Me too! 😊 

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

I'm gonna num that big pp of yours 😛

Hoi4playerbigD:

Hehe, we will see if it can fit 😉

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Prob not O_o

Hoi4playerbigD:

Alright, almost there, just getting off the bus.

11pm is an odd time to choose.

Would your parents even let you out this late?

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Yep!

Hoi4playerbigD:

Aight.

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Can’t believe we’ve been talking for almost a year :3

Hoi4playerbigD:

A year?

How long have we been together for now?

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Um… I think about a few months now O_o

Hoi4playerbigD:

Right, yeah.

A few months.

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Me neither, it feels like it was just yesterday!

Hoi4playerbigD:

Do you remember what was the first game we played together?

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

The war one :)

Hoi4playerbigD:

Yes, but which war one?

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Ummm… O_o

Hoi4playerbigD:

It's in my username.

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Ooooooohhhh right, Hoi4!

Hoi4playerbigD:

You were so bad at it.

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Yeah, for sure 😊 (edit)

Hoi4playerbigD:

What did you edit?

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Huh? Oh, typo! :3

Hoi4playerbigD:

I don't think I saw a typo

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Well yeah, I edited it quite fast, you dorkatron.

Hoi4playerbigD:

Alright, I'm almost there. You said near the old train station right?

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Yep! 😊

Hoi4playerbigD:

There’s a sign saying not to cross.

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Old sign. Ignore it :3

Hoi4playerbigD:

Why did you choose this place? It gives me the creeps.

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Thought it would be romantic, I'm your manic pixie dream girl after all :3.

Hoi4playerbigD:

Haha. But no, seriously, I think I told you how I did a university research project on this right?

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Ummmmmm….. I think so O_o.

Hoi4playerbigD:

Alright, I … think, I see you?

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Yep, that's me, come say hi! Just pass the train tracks!

Hoi4playerbigD:

Ella, what did you always call my stupid tank divisions?

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Your stupid tank divisions :3.

Hoi4playerbigD:

So so you remember when we played Minecraft?

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Of course, that was so fun 😊

Hoi4playerbigD:

We never played Minecraft

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Oh, yeah you're right.

(User unsent message)

Hoi4playerbigD:

What phone are you using?

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Uh… iPhone I think?

Hoi4playerbigD:

You aren't holding any phone.

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

Yes I am! 🤣

Hoi4playerbigD:

I'm going to go…

I think I know what you are.

Nice try.

Ellathegirlfailure5233:

You already crossed when I told you to, Robert.

You knew she was thirteen.

And you still went and did it; such lecherous depravity.

Also, 4.7 inches is not big.

Don't run.

I've decided what your going to be.

Private Discord PMs, January 7th, 2026:

Buttplugenyhusiast5:

Dude, you wanna hop on Valerant?

Hoi4playerbigD: 

Dude this essay is kicking my ass.

Buttplugenyhusiast5:

What's it about?

Hoi4playerbigD:

You know how I'm Canadian right?

Buttplugenyhusiast5:

Of course, you fucking commie healthcare ass cunuck

Hoi4playerbigD:

So I'm doing a local history class, and I guess in local lore, there's these things called transformers

Buttplugenyhusiast5:

https:// youtu.be/Ae-Pl-Q34ng?si=srce6rcEgJPfcywb

(Transformers G1 Season 1 Intro and Outro (1984)[HQ])

(Embed Image)

Hoi4playerbigD:

Oh shut the fuck up.

Anyway, I guess there were like these three brothers given power by the Creator.

And they would punish people by changing them into whatever suited them.

Hoi4playerbigD:

Yeah, I think it's like a morality story.

Buttplugenyhusiast5:

That sounds cool as hell, like an anime.

Hoi4playerbigD:

Oh, did I show you my new discord kitten?

Buttplugenyhusiast5:

No, she's not a fatty is she?

Hoi4playerbigD:

Oh no, she's real hot. Double D breasts and a little (redacted)

Buttplugenyhusiast5:

Oh? You got like… a pic?

Hoi4playerbigD:

Of course ;)

(Image)

Buttplugenyhusiast5:

Damn! She looks a little young tho.

Hoi4playerbigD:

That's the best part

Buttplugenyhusiast5:

Niiiiiiiiiccceeeee.

Hoi4playerbigD:

Anyway, I'm getting back to my paper.

Buttplugenyhusiast5:

Good luck trying to bang bro!

Private Discord PMs, October 18th, 2026:

RailwayRat1934:

hey dude wanna play hoi4

bro where have you been?

Blessed art thou, O child of God, who hears

My tale of yielding to unhallowed powers;

May the blest Mother guide our curious steps.

Something had changed; and in my bosom then

I felt my pulses labour, beat by beat;

Each faltered, and each slow reluctant throb

Dragged heavier than that which came before.

I tell thee: through barren waste I passed,

Where Appalachian winter cloaked the earth,

And every pine stood silent 'neath its load,

As though creation, wrothful of the sun,

Had clothed itself in death's cold livery.

No clear path appeared, save where my massive feet

Impressed brief wounds upon the white snow,

Soon healed by Heaven's indifferent fall of white.

The crystalline winds pricked my withered skin,

And drank the blood that lingered yet beneath.

Yet still I marched, and still my steps compelled

Their cross through snow, while round the pines the drift

Curled serpentine; my hands grew darkly blue,

So deep a blue I cried, "O Lord, how deep!"

Then, spent at last, upon the ice I fell,

Beside a narrow rivulet, whose voice

Beckoned with comfort.

Then came o'er me, sudden as the morn,

A warmth acute, so tender that of course

I thought the very love of God had stooped

From throne of Heaven to bathe me in His peace.

The icy winds grew soft as breeze in July;

Within my mind one English verse returned:

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

Thus wandered thought, no longer sense's lord;

My prayers dissolved like fog, their feverousness

Melted together with my failing will.

And lo! before me stood a woman fair,

With loose ringlets falling to her waist,

Her breasts bare, yet clothed gracefully;

Such beauty would ensnare the greatest saints.

She spake my name: "John, John!" in French accent,

Sweeter upon the ears than Ave Maria.

I yielded to her call, as sailor once

Did yield upon the shore, by Sirens drawn

Who sang forbidden songs upon the shore.

I sank within her warm and yielding arms,

And laid my weary visage on her breast;

Then ice departed from my flesh, and all

My aching sinew seemed at once restored.

Reason slumbered within my failing limbs,

And all my very soul desired none

Other than rest, and sleep, and end of pain.

Yet from within, a voice more pure than hers,

More tender than the first light of the morn,

Brake through the frost that gathered o'er my sense.

I knew that voice: Our Lady called to me:

"Awake, my child; thou hast purchased death

And likened it to celestial peace!"

I groaned, for my tempter's gentle touch

Had wrapped my mind in blissful forgetfulness;

I longed for deep sleep, to awake from pain.

Yet cried I, "Ave Maria! Hear my plea!"

And from my breast I drew the holy Cross.

Then all her beauty fell away at once;

Her comely visage darkened into wrath;

Her eyes, once bright as the morn star, burned

Like pyres beneath the shadow of her brow;

Her mouth, that whispered sweet things, gaped with fangs,

And devilry looked jocund in her face.

I fled. Behind me came a dreadful cry;

Her talons slashed a furrow through my back,

Yet fear gave strength where flesh had failed before.

I ran, nor ceased, ere an aged Cherokee,

Whose wisdom shone within his quiet face,

Took in my frame and sheltered me from death.

Thus I was saved by grace, and, being returned

To Los Angeles, once more became

A devout venerator of Our Lady.

Author's note: This is a stage play.
Characters:

• THE DETECTIVE, mid-forties, wears round spectacles, a gruff voice, dresses rather stereotypically of his occupation, stern with very little jocularity in his demeanour, and has the raspy cadence of someone who chronically smokes.
• THE OFFICER, a younger man, deadpanned tone, a bit skittish, incredibly animated when he speaks, wears a loose-fitting blue police uniform.
• THE DETAINEE, calm in his cadence and demeanour, soft-spoken, higher-pitched, overpronounces his vowels, draws out his diphthongs, trusting, confused as to where he is, but has the trust that authorities will make things right, wears a nice-fitting tweed suit.

Time:  The late 1930s

Place: Unspecified police station

At Rise: the lights are dimmed so that the stage is just barely visible to the audience. THE DETAINEE is sitting on a little cheap table; his hat is held earnestly in one hand.

Enter THE OFFICER and THE DETECTIVE.

THE OFFICER: (Whispered Cadence) This is him, sir.

THE DETECTIVE: He seems quite ordinary looking: suit tailored sharply, hair slicked, and his face shaved. Are you sure that he is this madman you accuse him of being?

THE OFFICER: Very much, sir.

THE DETECTIVE: Has he shown any hardship or unwillingness to cooperate?

THE OFFICER: No, sir.

THE DETECTIVE: Then what, may I so earnestly ask, makes this fellow a madman?

THE OFFICER: I…, please, talk with him, sir; but I do warn you, he is a spinner of tales that he could rival Homer himself.

THE DETECTIVE: Very well, you can take your leave, and I will holler if I am in trouble.

THE OFFICER scurries off. THE DETECTIVE walks towards THE DETAINEE at a sluggish pace, holding a folder in hand, before sitting down adjacent to him. The spotlight turns on, focusing on the two men.

THE DETECTIVE: Good evening, I am Detective Monroe.

THE DETAINEE: Ah, wonderful! Good evening, detective. I am terribly sorry to have disrupted your valuable time. You see, there has been a misunderstanding, and I don’t know how to resolve it. Could you please help me?

THE DETECTIVE: That is what I am here for.

THE DETAINEE: Oh, lovely, how lovely!

THE DETECTIVE: Uh, yeah, I suppose. The quicker we get this resolved, the quicker I can go back home to my wife, so it is in both our best interests to resolve this matter with relative swiftness.

THE DETAINEE: What is your wife’s name?

THE DETECTIVE: Nancy.

THE DETAINEE: Oh, what a lovely name! I haven’t met a Nancy in a long time; it feels like they have all gone the way of the Dodo.

THE DETECTIVE: Uh, yeah, sure.

(Pause.)

THE DETECTIVE: A… Rotit Nhoj?

THE DETAINEE: Y-Yes.

THE DETECTIVE: Not to be offensive, as I assume you are a migrant of some sort, but how do you pronounce this?

THE DETAINEE: Ah, I apologize, I forgot you guys in North America haven’t adopted the common tongue yet. It is basically all in the back of the throat—

THE DETECTIVE: Never mind, that’s not important.

(Pause.)

(THE DETECTIVE scans over the file.)

I see—you apparently were detained while getting off a boat. When asked to see your papers, you had shown them “obvious forgeries.” Do you wish to tell your side of the story?

THE DETAINEE: I can, if you want me to.

THE DETECTIVE: You have the floor.

THE DETAINEE: Ah, well, where to begin then? Well, you see, I have always found North America to be quite a lovely place, but I could never afford to go. Still, recently, I had a relative, a far-off cousin of a widow of a widow of a brother of a sister of my aunt, and I was somehow included in the will, and I got a hefty sum of money. And so, I used that to get on the nearest boat, you know, I always wanted to try sailing across the sea instead of flying—

THE DETECTIVE: Did you say flying?

THE DETAINEE: Ah, yes, though I have never particularly loved flying. It always feels so stuffy and crowded, but it is quite cheap compared to luxury travel like boats.

THE DETECTIVE: I am terribly sorry; I do not know if I am fully following your story. You said you were not very wealthy until recently, correct?

THE DETAINEE: Yes.

THE DETECTIVE: But you travel by air for cents on the dollar.

THE DETAINEE: Yes.

THE DETECTIVE: Ok, continue, please.

THE DETAINEE: Thank you, sir. I had gotten on the boat, and I was having a marvellous time, oh, just absolutely marvellous, I tell you, when the world itself seemed to shake; there was a massive storm traversing our way, quite massive, I tell you, just ginormous, all sparking and devilish in its demeanour, the way it seemed to look at me oh so angrily.

And as it got closer and closer to us ever so inchmeal, the people… they were thronging, this way and that, oh, the older ladies were hollering and teary-eyed like the Madonna upon seeing her son strewn on the cross. Children were biffing on things and … oh, lord, I tell you, it was terrible. But then, things got calm. Things got quiet. And everyone was fine. It was as if nothing had ever happened, and everyone just went about their day as normal. I thought nothing of it until we had reached the port, where I had oh-so cheerily gotten off and hopped my way gayly over to the portman, who then accused my documents of being forgeries. Can you believe it!

Oh, how mad I had gotten at him. Why, I was practically making a scene, telling him what an idiot he was for not recognizing my country, one of the most powerful countries in the world, and yet you cannot remember it existing on a map? What foolishness!

THE DETECTIVE: And so, this all comes down to the country from which your passport originates being obscure?

THE DETAINEE: No, no, we are not obscure, everyone knows what our country is, why, we are as powerful as the United States used to be!

THE DETECTIVE: Used to?

THE DETAINEE: (chuckling) Well, yeah, it is kinda hard to exercise authority when you are three feet under.

THE DETECTIVE: What do you mean by that?

THE DETAINEE: Detective, with all due respect, surely you are not also this ignorant of—

THE DETECTIVE: Mister… (Pause.) Ugh, Mister, what country do you hail from?

THE DETAINEE: Why, Taured!

THE DETECTIVE: Sir, I assure you I am not a man of humour in the slightest. Where are you from?

THE DETAINEE: Why, I told you, I am from Taured.

THE DETECTIVE: No, you are not.

THE DETAINEE: Is it not obvious from my accent?

THE DETAINEE: No, it is not, because Taured is not a real place.

THE DETAINEE: Yes it is!

THE DETECTIVE: No, it is not.

THE DETAINEE: I can prove it to you. Give me a map.

THE DETECTIVE: (exacerbated) Very well.

THE DETAINEE: Thank you, sir.

THE DETECTIVE: Police!

(THE OFFICER rushes back into the room)

THE OFFICER: Y-yes, sir.

THE DETECTIVE: Get me a globe, please.

THE OFFICER: Yes sir.

THE DETECTIVE: Thank you.

(THE OFFICER skitters off, and a moment later, he arrives back with a globe in hand, and gently sets it on the table)

THE OFFICER: Will that be all, sir?

THE DETECTIVE: Yes, that will be all. You may take your leave.

THE OFFICER: Very well, sir.

(THE OFFICER swiftly rushes off)

THE DETECTIVE: Alright, point to me where on this map is this… Taured.

THE DETAINEE: Why, it is right…

(Pause.)

THE DETECTIVE: That is England.

THE DETAINEE: No, no, that can’t be right, England hasn’t existed for a long, long time, you must have brought out an old globe. Why, by the looks of it, this must be nearly 400 years old, the United States is still here.

THE DETECTIVE: You are in the United States.

THE DETAINEE: No… no, no, no… no no no—

THE DETECTIVE: Yes, you are.

THE DETAINEE: That is just impossible, Detective.

(THE DETECTIVE gets up from his seat and leans against the table.)

THE DETECTIVE: Listen up, good reprobate, you are in the United States of America. You clearly got off a ship from England that landed in our port; you claim that you travel through the air constantly, and yet are not wealthy; you claim that you are from Taured, but you are from England; you claim to have a gibberish name; you claim to have the United States cannot exist still, and I was hoping you could tell me why, tell it to me straight, tell it to me in a way that makes sense, or with one phone call, I will have you deported to England and sent to the Looney Bin, mark my words.

THE DETAINEE: Why, I do not know what to tell you, detective, it’s the truth. The United States fell nearly four hundred years ago when the Japanese had gotten the atomic bomb and laid waste to New York. The whole damn continent has been under their control for as long as anyone has been alive. And Taured was founded in the aftermath of that war, when the English monarchy fell. This is basic history.

THE DETECTIVE: It is utter fictitious nonsense.

THE DETAINEE: I do not lie, sir, I never lie, I am an honest man of the church!

THE DETECTIVE: Clearly, you are a Judas.

THE DETAINEE: I will not sit here and be insulted like this!

THE DETECTIVE: Well, how about my intelligence being insulted with all your buffoonery!

THE DETAINEE: Whether you believe me or not, it is the truth!

THE DETECTIVE: And whether you believe me or not, what I say is the truth.

THE DETAINEE: I guess that means we are at an impasse, detective, like a ship stuck in the Suez Canal.

THE DETECTIVE: I suppose so. THE OFFICER!

(THE OFFICER runs into the room)

THE OFFICER: Yes, sir?

THE DETECTIVE: I have made up my judgment.

THE OFFICER: And what would that be, sir?

THE DETECTIVE: He is clearly a man who dwells amongst the unwell. Please, take him to get evaluated, and if he is well enough, I suggest advising the courts to deport him back to England.

THE OFFICER: Very well, sir. Mister…

(THE OFFICER looks over the file again to remind himself of THE DETAINEE’s name)

Oh, okay, I am certainly not saying that. Mister, please turn around.

THE DETAINEE: Of course, THE OFFICER, I trust that you are making the right judgment.

(THE OFFICER puts THE DETAINEE in handcuffs)

THE DETAINEE: May I say one last thing to the DETECTIVE before you haul me off?

THE OFFICER:—make it quick.

THE DETAINEE: Very well, detective, what is your full name?

THE DETECTIVE: Guy Monroe.

THE DETAINEE: I see… and is your mother an exotic dancer, perhaps?

THE DETECTIVE: I will not entertain that question.

THE DETAINEE: Sarah Monroe, right?

(Pause.)

THE DETAINEE: Ah, well, if you are that Guy Monroe, this whole gig you got going with the police? It’s only a small part of your life. That PI company you start grows beyond your wildest dreams, and even beyond death, it continues to grow; it practically owns the whole planet! You are worshipped as a saint in the Church. That’s all.

(THE OFFICER straddles him a bit, then walks off stage, and the lights turn off.)