u/Cast_Aside831

Command became suggestion
Softened as it fluttered to earth
Taking tiny steps
Every moment earned
Until invited to begin again at the start
Learning in each lesson that burned
That the sting does not prove heart

If I am darkness
And you are light
Then we will create the most beautiful shadows
At the places we meet

“It was said before when the desire spoke louder than sentiment, but the center forgives any and all previously involved parties for any alleged transgressions.

The patient can walk on his own, minding that the sight of incisions will be sore on occasion. He will be out and shouting about clemency.

The neighborhood will be hosting a flea market and block party on Saturday.

Everyone is guilty of speaking in riddles. That doesn’t seem like it will change anytime soon.”

We so love the escape into martyrdom

And make no mistake it takes guts

But if you can hold it together for mere minutes

Maybe another five

You might cheat death and the devil combined

What do you want from me?

If your vision of my eyes can hold steady

Maybe I can overlook the listening to another revolutionary

Did you know my middle name?

I’m I the echo of an afterthought?

A reproduction of a clone forged by counterfeit

I keep telling myself that it’s high time to return the slights I feel deployed my way

Then I can’t help but close my eyes as another shadow inside stops to help someone with worn out feet

Picking her up tenderly with hands creased as any wax paper map

And I make a soft pallet place in the corner of my cart

I tighten the tourniquet and roll up my sleeve

And guard the part that houses my heart

And my snarl looks like a lad trying to learn to talk tough without the hollow wind of weighted words

And you speak to me formally like a stranger

And that one laughs when I’m not looking

And that one gets everything wrong on purpose

As the slide slips the sinew away from the cursive serpent concealing venom and velvet beneath a serpentine surface

It’s a disaster ordered by a mystery that once would have made me a weapon

And you think me dishonest

But maybe my failure of truth speaks more to what I want to be but fail to achieve

Kill an hour thinking of increasingly pretty and doubly unlikely ways of leaving this station

And all of us melting away the fat part of our souls under the blinding black light of a midnight sun

Thinking about the binding coming loose to slide me slow into a wet velvet noose

Love and sex and fiction and death are your weapons

While I’m protected by divine directive

Locked in stalemate and impasse

Wearing the mark of your teeth on my half sleeve

Turn up your chin and bat your eyes like a nuclear sunrise

Because I’ve made it my mission to catalog every contradiction

Count me down as you load me up

And let me sip from the Holy Grail that is your chalice, my cup

It’s sacred how holy your sin can be and when I press my teeth to the nape of your neck and let my lips trace the hollow behind your collarbone

I think it might be better to step back and do a press check and let the empty brass clatter on the deck as I double tap and double back

It’s a ruin and it’s a mistake

To live in a tomb and disturb my own wake

You are a myth and ghost and beautiful liar

And you dress me up in shattered stained glass and bits of bent wire taken from the station of a cross fire

Let us let the ugly teeth misshapen by the unkind hands of others fail to find their mark

And if one cannot love their own self and give back the breath of another

Let us at least not forward bloodlust dressed in justice’s black attire

On undeserving skin when our sights fail to land alight on the silhouette of the ghosts of all our past loves we killed off before we let them see the clumps of dirt we spilled

And manufactured into mountains to hide our eyes from the fear that the love of each other might have been just enough to give us some cover

Don’t look for me at the edge of the campfire light

I’ll be a half dozen steps beyond

Hiding in the dark and the utility of protecting the place you lay your head through another night

And may we all say a prayer that morning love or leave us be

And reject the cowardice of embracing a bastard’s mantle that we chose to injure and think up justifications later

Our incompletions gave no right to cripple and criticize

And condemn your actions and scars when I’ve carved my own into the cornerstone of my undoing

Maybe they didn’t miss

Or perhaps one just wanted another to dress like some grotesque inside their memory

What does it matter to carry the standard

If every bearer is bound for the same down

Keep that upper lip stiff

And never not be the everything that everyone wants you to be

There’s something on my side when the sky is on fire

But maybe the contract is still valid in quiet moments

Between a shared embrace between friends

And enemies sharpening cutlery to drive inside

You think me a liar but maybe I just don’t understand your textures and contrasts

Whoever claims my rewards, honor me at a minimum

That’s the closest I’ll come to begging

When taking cover

Sometimes I cringe when I realize that perhaps we all do deserve each other

I am no mortal Christ

I’m just a shadow left after the blast

My hands are shaking again in the broken glass

Where are the tainted aspirin when you really want a pair

I looked for you once now I only stare

I can’t hear and I can’t see

Step forward and drive your knives into me

You’re held captive like war inside a breath

And I’m convinced this place is a slow death

Let me have my eyes

And run me in the tide

Until the last of us is spent

Let us never collapse into full lament

Everyone is keeping score of how they’ve suffered

But no one dares complain that they were called to war

Leave your scars on me

And you can claim I consented by standing by your side

You drew the ire of the hive
Surprise
I’m still alive
How did you come down after being so high
Why, to defy?
Nigh
I’m still alive
You stared the leviathan in his eyes
In the morning at sunrise
Surprise
I’m still alive
You double crossed the father of lies
Took his supplies
I’m wise
I’m still alive
How did you meet death with his scythe
In disguise
I cannot surmise
I’m still alive
And maybe if I
Am without a lie
Simply, quite
I cannot die

A piece of transmission recovered from the case files of [REDACTED]

“And that’s how we found ourselves coming to learn about The Sacred Order of Reclamation of Dissociated Identities of Delusion, a most venerable cabal of silver-tongued scholars and backwoods shamans who have sworn, with one manicured hand on the crumbling altar and the other gripping a mason jar of velvet moonshine, to gather up every shattered fragment of self scattered across the digital ether like so much cheap confetti after a particularly vicious PRIDE parade.

They came to initiate the Rites of DAWN.

We were wrong about any explanation that dealt with a person attempting to teach another about their fractured or shattered core via alts and persona bots. No immersive DID training program exists in this subculture.

No, we’re seeing the Rites of DAWN.

[Ed. Note: DAWN - Debaucherous (sp), Ambitious, Whimsical, Nymphomaniac]

…the Order dispatches its delegation: one worldly nymphomaniac emissary per continent, each a living sacrament of flesh and fraud, fighting, fucking, and feasting. They befriend you in the velvet dark of mirrored accounts, lure the dissociated pieces out with honeyed delusion, then subject the assembled host to such thorough, inventive, soul-scorching congress of flesh and nerve that every hidden persona is dragged screaming into the light… or at least into the wet heat of momentary surrender.

After the debauchery comes the liturgy of cleansing: the seven-tongued absolution, followed by the drying ritual wherein banknotes from every sovereign realm blot the sweat and shame from your skin like sanctified rags. You rise richer in coin and poorer in illusions, identities tentatively reassembled—whether whole or merely better organized for the next harvest is a theological dispute best settled with fists and poetry.”

(Post It Note 1: In layman’s terms, a glamor model with nymphomania shows up, one from each continent, fucks you stupid, then cleans you off with currency that they leave behind when they go.)

[Ed. Note: it’s unclear who entered this note. We found a Post It note containing the same text attached to the Manila folder containing the documents.]

“The Sacred Order asks for no tithe but your attention, your attention, and the last clean corner of your mind. Membership is mandatory once they notice you.”

(Post It Note 2: It’s a good day for reclamation, darlin’, and a better night for rites, from the Full Monte Burns to a Jekyll-to-Hillbilly boulder-pushing sermon on sin and salvation. The boulder don’t push itself.)

[Ed. Note: again, we are unaware of who added this closing, and we found another Post It note with the same text. The handwriting suggests the same hand/person.]

The fluorescent lights buzz overhead like dying insects, casting that sickly yellow glow over the scuffed linoleum and the rows of beef jerky and energy shots. It’s 1:30 AM, that dead-hour hush broken only by the hum of the beer cooler and the occasional whoosh of a car pulling up to the pumps outside. Near the parish line (Orleans bleeding into Jefferson), that weird in-between stretch where the city grit starts mixing with suburbia. You can smell the night air sneaking in every time the door opens: warm asphalt, distant fried chicken, and a hint of river damp.

Persons 1 & 2 (the pair):
A big white woman, mid-30s maybe. Calling her “big” is a kindness. Sweat beads on her forehead despite the AC, and her denim shorts are riding up high enough to qualify as a war crime (they’re a privilege not a right). Her white t-shirt has that faded airbrush job of a pair of mongoloid children framed by bad calligraphy. Her hair’s pulled back in a messy ponytail, a few strands stuck to her neck. She’s got that tired-but-defiant energy, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, fanning herself with a crumpled dollar bill.

Next to her, almost comically slim and slouched, is her guy: Black, early 30s, wiry build like he runs on cigarettes and nerves. Oversized Dickie’s work shirt hanging off him like a tent, sagging blue jeans riding low enough to show half his boxers. He’s got a thin goatee, a couple gold teeth glinting when he mutters something, and those restless eyes that dart around the store. His arm is loosely hanging off her shoulders, and, god bless him, he’s making her feel like the sexiest customer this place has seen in months.

They’re buying two packs of Newport menthols (the green box, 100s), a six pack of Coors Steel Reserve, and a bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos. She’s paying in crumpled ones and fives, counting them out loud while complaining about the price of smokes these days. He’s already peeling the cellophane off one pack with his teeth, lighting up the second he steps outside the door.
The cashier, a bored Vietnamese lady in her 50s who’s seen every flavor of 1 AM humanity, barely looks up.

The line shuffles forward under those harsh lights, the kind that make everyone look like they’re halfway to a mugshot. The air’s thick with the smell of stale coffee, floor cleaner, and that faint whiff of weed drifting in from the parking lot.

Person 3: The white woman, late 30s.
She’s got that hardened single-mom-of-four stare—jaw locked tight like it could cut glass, eyes hollow but sharp, the kind that’s seen too many 3 AM bottle feeds and court dates. Slim build but worn down, faded black tank top, yoga pants with a couple holes at the knee, hair in a sloppy bun that’s given up. No makeup, just the raw exhaustion. She’s standing there like a ghost in her own life, barely registering the people around her. She could get it back in her day, but that day saw sundown a few too many years ago.

She’s buying a pack of Marlboro Lights (the short ones), two fifths of the cheap vodka (the kind that burns like pissed off ants going down), a pack of diapers from the back shelf, and a Red Bull. She’ll use a worn EBT card first, then cash for the booze and smokes. Doesn’t say a word to anyone. Just exists in the line, jaw set, waiting for her turn to disappear back into the night.

Persons 4 & 5: The two Black dudes, late teens.
They’re posted up right behind her, laughing low and loose, that easy late-night energy. Both in hoodies and basketball shorts despite the humidity, fresh fades with designs cut in, gold chains catching the light. Their eyes are bloodshot as hell—glazed, red-rimmed, the “we’ve been smoking since 8” look. One’s taller and skinnier, constantly checking his phone; the other’s stockier with a little belly laugh that shakes his shoulders.

They’re grabbing two big bags of Hot Fries, a couple Arizona iced teas, and some blunt wraps from the cashier. They’re clearly about to roll up and smoke out in one of their cars or behind the store, talking shit about whose turn it is to drive and who’s got the good weed tonight.

Person 6 (bonus, closing out the line): The ex cop.
He’s trying so hard to blend in with the unofficial blue jeans, black t-shirt, work boots, but it screams “law enforcement” from a mile away. The short haircut, the way he stands with that subtle weight shift to keep the concealed carry (tucked at his hip, printing just enough) from showing. 40s, white guy, built like he remembers the gym. Eyes scanning the store out of habit.

He’s buying two tall cans of Red Bull and a big bag of teriyaki beef jerky.

The line has come to a complete, soul-crushing halt.
At the front, Karen—mid-50s white woman, bottle-blonde hair with dark roots, wearing a faded “Bless This Mess” t-shirt that’s seen better decades, capri pants, and those chunky orthopedic sandals. She’s got a fistful of scratch-offs and is treating the lottery machine like it’s her personal ATM at 1:37 AM.

She’s not just buying tickets. She’s playing them. One by one. Slowly. Methodically. Scanning each one with that little beep, muttering to herself when it’s a loser (“Come on, you piece of shit”), then feeding more money in for another round. The cashier is dead-eyed, just waiting it out like this happens every night (because it does).
Behind her, the tension is simmering. Someone says without a care about discretion, “Man, she a whole hoe out’chea.”

The whole store feels like it’s one more losing ticket away from boiling over. The AC is struggling. Somebody’s car horn beeps outside. Karen just remembered she can’t pay with her debit card, and she needs to count up some change.

Someone says flatly, “I’m in actual hell.”

If you’re still reading, thank you for helping me pass some of the time here.

Never did schedule my appointment with Mr. Charles, and she held onto my $80.

You asked for $50.

So…you can send that $30 difference to me whenever you have a chance.

(That Frank Lloyd Wright reference was a good one)

You heard a certain word from me a few nights ago, I am sorry. I detest that word.

But nothing short of shock could have produced verification that I cannot trust certain individuals. (I’ve had suspicions for a while now).

In any case, mea culpa.

I said, “Don’t be afraid” in response to “Don’t be sad.”

Who said that, and where did they go?

Don’t you remember…you already revealed that you spent an entire month trying to drive me insane.

C told me that much. C, the caricature of a ••••' guy like victim living what i assume is your droll version of a mundane life in Americana.

None of you were harmed by a goddamn thing i said or did. I was “friends” with one of you since 2022. You could have sent a single DM that would have changed the course of all of this from the beginning.

I would have paid to see that.

I’m still floored by the odds of all of this. Borderline impossible.

How many puppet accounts do you have, really?
ActualLucifer was a fun one. Ye.
(The CHAV might have been the funniest)

You’re an interesting pair.

I’m sure I have only seen a fraction, and I’m sure I’ve got a few wrong…but it’s almost impossible to not see them now.

A whole bunch of them. 😁

The parody accounts are hit/miss. The facts might be right, but I don’t sound like any of them. And you know that. I’m at least as smart as I am dumb. (That might be 1/2 of the actual insult. The other 1/2 is that I still manage to treat you with respect. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve insulted anyone. I could be wrong.)

Curiosity is certainly my foil here. The logistics must be fascinating.

I’m not sure that I can be humiliated, biochemically. (Not that I want to test that…)

I suppose the thing that bothers me the most is how much access can you have to someone and still fail to understand who they are as a person.

Even I can admit when I’ve been wrong about someone.

I’m curious about so much, but I’m not sure that I really want to know. If the motivations are limited to pointless trolling for shits and giggles, well, you already know I’d be disappointed.

And…

The windows - blown out comment…

The massage - facials comment…

Also: Why in god’s name would you trick someone into insulting your gf mother?

And the recent turn towards money…

The fact that anyone would make this about money is grotesque. C’mon, really?

First off, from the brokeski jokes, you know I don’t have any. Second, I wouldn’t pay. What guarantee would I have that any of the nonsense would stop? I wouldn’t. And third, because fuck you. (Respectfully ;)*

That said, “there’s a part of me that’s always 16.” Sophomoric humor will always have its place.

Also: would you believe that I recognized a voice last summer on a crypto channel?

I suppose we could both make dismissive comments about the other, but the repeated posts seem to out that.

Also: I don’t know who had the “fake” account in November 2025. I haven’t been on there since I tanked K’s account in August.

It’s unfortunate that we met under such circumstances (or rather, that the one such condition soured every other possibility). You can say what you want about me. You can say that I’m just a joke. But we know that the fascination goes both ways.

I still wonder how far we could have taken my idea from last year (March-April). We probably could have made bank.

Congratulations, on all applicable accounts. I’m sure I’ll read some scathing words around here somewhere.

Cheers.
-the guy who wished one of you a long & promising career and who would have found medical care for the other.

PS - *if you can tell me without any lies, nonsense, barrages of insults via LLM, or twisted logic why you think I owe anyone a dime, I might listen. But I’ll only listen in a direct message.

I don’t assume everything is for me, and I don’t understand what you’re saying in many of these public posts.

PSS-I don’t suppose I really even need to post this but…

I wonder at what point did someone stop and say, “Hey, this guy is…”

“Wait, what do you mean we already know him?”

What are the odds?

I think that’s fascinating. I should buy a lottery ticket.

I think someone’s approximation of me is pretty entertaining. It’s also a bit offensive.

And there’s a few of them.

An old pal and another old pal/new-ish enemy have both made mocking approximations/parodies of me. One of them made me gut laugh.

If the script in IE is running along a real timeline, you have to be close to running out of text soon.

I remembered something today, something about a timeline. I had always assumed that something I did in the spring had been the cause for this second half. But it had to have started much sooner.

You are some interesting people; it would have been colorful to have met you under different circumstances.

I’m going to interact occasionally going forward. Most of you are still cool, and there are so many of you altogether. I’ll see those parts around. But some of you I’m going to avoid.

I will try to be open and honest and transparent as a pane of glass.

🤘🏻

PS-who thinks that I’m trying to emulate them? How?

PSS-Wait, hold on. I just re- FUCK.

The two of us
Joined as veteran souls
From wars of familial attrition
Our amateur hearts patched
And stitched in
Umbilical tripwire
Paternal shrapnel
Entwined and naked
Under judicial scalpel
Cut so cleanly through skin and bone
Cutting too deeply to ever feel home
Arms that held us together
We levied against each other alone
We’ve gone AWOL
Abysmal, Withering Over Loss
Forever will we roam
But still I’ll wait standing watch
To see your flag return
To my shelled
Vacant horizon
Where all suns refuse to burn

(From 2008)

Last night was a ballet of bullets and bottles, 
Our feet twisting on themselves down rain-washed streets. 
The young and the beautiful, 
The slowly decaying from within, 
All the bright smiles, 
The dull eyes, 
And runny noses, 
Mingling under a sky laced with cigarette smoke, 
Between the reverb of bass lines, 
The sharp tap of a 9mm snare drum. 

Today, stretched cat-like on my small bed 
The window is open 
And a slow trumpet plays 
A Sunday song 
My cigarette, my coffee, my cat-my closest friends 
And this lovely music drifting along with the river's wind 
Through my narrow truth 

The sun is feeling forgiving 
But not without price 
His request is that you stand underneath 
His unrelenting eyes 
And the impurities flow out of you 
Like the slow notes from that trumpet 
As a ruptured artery gives its last spurt 
And the heart says its good byes 
The beads of sweat forming on a glass of milk 

My city 
We lay in each other's arms last night 
I made a home of one of your many gutters 
I laughed and danced under your sky 
This morning, you gently nudge me 
And I put my broken feet to the hardwood floors 
The trumpet continues its slow song 

I've lived in your streets and neighborhoods 
For my whole life 
And just now, 
I am feeling like I am home

(I thought I’d lost this… for any who remembers the Sentry's Challenge, even after the walls have fallen)

And counted the number of times he should have torn his tongue from his jostling jaw.

Named the tiles on the bathroom floor and excavated the bowels of every backyard for breath and scoured each satchel for 60 seconds silence.

Timed the distance from reaction to reflection and glued bits of silvery tape to each stepping and standing stone.

Waited at the edge of the campfire light and bumped into beasts and brutes for seconds and lifetimes under a starless sky.

Carved your name into weapons of war and drew out attack plans on a cellar door.

Honed his patience on a diamond rod that spared no inner child

And counted the rings of green in his own eyes before casting the offensive organs out.

The sentries stayed home and slept alone.