Prompt #25

???

do i like emo aesthetic? do i like pastel aesthetic? do i like preppy stuff? am i plain?

do i like country? do i like punk? do i like pop? do i like whatever genre(s) twenty one pilots/my chemical romance/fall out boy/panic! at the disco even is?

am i intimidating? am i friendly? am i mean? am i nice?

do i word my sentences right? do i talk calmly enough when i’m in an argument? do my friends really want to be with me as much as i want to be with them? can i talk about my interests without censoring them?

should i talk about my sexuality or preferences? should i talk to my mom about my crush on a girl? should i correct my parents when they only talk about me getting a husband when i’m older? should i tell my extended family that i’m not straight?

can i be open at school? can i raise my hand more than once every five minutes? can i tell my friends about what i really think about? can i be uncloseted at school and not have my flag and explanation of bisexuality on my locker taken down and have it explained to me by the school counselor that it’s because the younger kids could see and ask their parents?

is it okay if i talk louder? is it okay if i don’t apologize all the time? is it okay if i say what i’m thinking? is it okay if i laugh loud and smile wide with my teeth and walk with a wide stride?

is it okay if i ask these questions?

Just in case newer followers would like to read this :)

as it should be

“Yellow is fake,” says Lilac to Oleander. “It is because I say so.”

Lilac tilts their head and keeps staring at the setting sun, squinting to see the colours. Oranges and yellows blended together and draped around the clouds like the most perfect curtains to ever exist, natural and ugly.

Fake.

“And all of the clouds must be paintings.” Oleander has never understood Lilac. Maybe they never would.

“What do you mean?” Lilac traces the sky with a gentle, steady hand, the clouds just barely shifting and twisting, gliding instead of pulling like a current in a river. Impossible, incomprehensible.

“Why are black and white not colors, but yellow is?” Lilac questions. Lilac has an awful lot of questions. They’ve always been curious. Not so much that they never look before they leap, but just enough to look over the edge and decide it isn’t that far of a drop.

That doesn’t mean that they would be right, however.

Oleander has always been the kind of person to never leap in the first place, let alone look. The varying perspectives is exciting the main diffference between the two.

Oleander responds, “Because black and white aren’t part of the rainbow.”

Lilac furrows their brow. “But we’re just humans. If we were mantis shrimp, and we had sixteen color receptors, then maybe black and white would be colors in the rainbow.”

Lilac gestures at all the fake colour. It dances around in streaks, brush strokes painting lines stolen right off the rainbow. “Why are we allowed to judge that if we can’t know for sure? Why can’t I declare that yellow is fake, like black and white?”

“Because we want labels.” Oleander is becoming annoyed. “We want labels, because we want to have purpose and meaning. We want to be defined. Purpose is having a place, a contribution to something. That gives us purpose, or whatever we think is purpose anyways.

“We all want purpose, because without it we don’t have meaning.”

“But why can’t we have no labels and still have meaning and purpose?” Lilac runs a hand through their hair, squeezing their eyes shut and staring at the yellows in the backs of their eyelids instead. Comforting fireworks of golden sparks, raining down in waves. An ocean of fiery yellow. It’s fake. “Labels don’t indicate worth. Labels aren’t a purpose. They’re a box. People can’t fit in boxes. I mean, I haven’t ever tried, but I don’t think the shapes would match up.”

Oleander may never understand Lilac, but they will always listen, in case one day, they find an answer in the horde of never-ending questions. In case one day, Oleander figures out why Lilac keeps them up all night when they’re not even there.

In case one day, Oleander won’t have to strike through their thoughts anymore.

“Because boxes are comforting. They’re a safe place. A shelter. And people aren’t always comfortable in their own selves, so sometimes they’ll put themselves in shelters. They’ll make a home in a label because they can’t find one in their own mind.” The words are spilling out of their mouth, clumps and pieces jumbling together. “They don’t feel comfortable with who they are, so they try to make themselves someone they like because they think that they’ll be comfortable with someone else. With a cliché.”

The words stop flowing. They drift off instead, and Oleander tries to catch them, tries to fit them in their fists. It barely works. They only snatch a single sentence. “But they never are.”

It’s a grey sentence, Oleander knows. Shiny silvery grey, colourless. It’s a truthful group of words, honest. Nothing is really black and white. Black and white sentences aren’t lies, really, but they’re always mistaken.

Grey is the only honest colour.

Oleander wonders what the least honest colour is. They think that maybe, just maybe, it might be yellow.

Lilac thinks that Oleander is right. Lilac also thinks that when they look up and open their eyes, all they can see looks like paint on the water, and their focus shifts once more.

“Crystal clear water,” they murmur. “And acrylic.”

Oleander is not following. “What?”

“The clouds,” Lilac explains. They’ve got a sleepy look on their face, and eyes like stars. “I’ve decided they’re paint on water. They can’t be real.”

Oleander wishes they could be Lilac, and see the world as simple as they do.

Just for a second.

A single, sweet second of understanding.

Oleander think about the comparisons of the both of them frequently. It’s glaringly obvious that they contrast each other greatly. One might even say that they complimented each other well.

Lilac smiles slow, small, and sweet, and Oleander doesn’t smile much at all anymore. Lilac is fantastical and creative. Oleander doesn’t even like anything other than non-fiction. Lilac always has an idea. Oleander can’t remember the last time they thought of something new, original.

Oleander wants to contribute to something. Maybe Oleander needs meaning as well.

“Maybe oil pastels on acrylic,” Oleander offers.

Lilac stretches their arms out on the grass below them, digging their fingers in the warm dirt and getting it under their nails. Wet earth stains their hands, but they don’t care. “On a canvas,” they add quietly.

Lilac feels like they could just melt into the ground, close their eyes again without looking once at the explosions of fake colours, and just fall.

Fall intangible through the core of the world, and through the other side.

Maybe even fall through China instead of digging their way there.

Fall into the sky.

Fall asleep.

And they do.

Oleander goes on to stare at the moon. And the clouds go on to being oil pastels on acrylic, and yellow goes on being fake.

Everything is wrong.

As it should be.

Prompt #17

(Character A) is a colourblind painter who loves flowers (they became a painter of modern art on accident, after they were scouted in art class for their ‘interesting colours’, despite their attempts to avoid their family’s business/tradition).

(Character B) is a florist with allergies who loves art (they became a florist because it was the family’s business and tradition) and is a new friend to (Character A).

One day, they decide to switch jobs by taking each other’s places and they find themselves loving it. As they grow closer by asking questions about their professions, they realize both that their families hate each other from a feud in the 1800’s and that they can’t keep the ploy up forever.

And, as it gets more complicated, they start to fall in love.

Prompt #9

(Character A) and (Character B) are supposed to be rivals.

The story itself isn’t angsty at all.

said softly means you are speaking, but sweetly, and heartfelt. said quietly means it is less sweet, but still not loud or inaudible. whispered means you aren’t speaking at all, and it can have a negative or positive connotation, but more negative than softly. mumbled means it’s nearly inaudible, and has a more negative connotation.

try me, connotations are everything in writing; especially when conveying emotions.

I know adverbs are Controversial, but “said softly” means something different than “whispered” and this is the hill I will die on.

Prompt #20

The world is run by the intelligent, and the dumb are considered as lesser humans.

(Character A) is one of the most elite, knowledgeable people, and holds a high ranking. Contrastingly, (Character B) isn’t smart, and is looked at as scum.

However, both of them find each other through the internet, and as they talk more and more, they realize that the system may be rigged.

the oasis vs the ocean

it’s freezing in the quiet empty.

cold is comforting in its honesty;

the heat may envelope me but it only burns my skin,

its lies are all-encompassing.

yet the cold is here now,

and it is blunt, but it never hugs - it loves without a single touch.

the heat tries to love,

but it sears and scratches my bones, marking and tearing at my skin.

it smears its ash over my broken body, tears turning to steam and my gasping sobs turning into a cacophony of silence.

‘would you rather die of heat or cold?’

someone once said to me that the world will either end in fire or ice.

i know what i would prefer.

i know what i would rather feel.

numbness, hot, blazing frostbite causing slow inane hallucinations, a sick parody of the little match girl.

scathing, writhing flames licking the walls and leaning in, reeking of its victims and leering at its future prey.

i know myself well.

i hate that sometimes.

did you know that cold is not a feasible term?

cold is not its own self.

cold is simply the absence of heat.

a room filled to the brim with snow is not full,

not in the way a room full of fire is.

a room full of fire is suffocation in its most simple form,

smoke rising and smothering.

the snow is breathable, almost nonexistent,

and some animals even hide in the snow for protection in the winter.

did you know that?

the heat is a hitch in your breath, it’s a splatter of ink from a shaking hand.

it is stifling and deadly, not an embrace but a chokehold.

the heat will kill fierce, passionate, ares in his most pure form.

the cold is a ghost of a touch, a never ending inhale, a whisp of an idea.

it is a weathered blanket, holed and tattered and a false shelter in the storm.

the cold will kill gentle, quiet.

there is no glory, no fight in dying of cold.

resignation is cold, so it makes sense that cold will kill with resignation.

too little or too much?

i have always been safe in my choices.

too much will never make me empty,

too much will never leave me in the dark, blind and unknowing,

too much will never let me stay alone in blue air and white breaths and blurry vision from the saltwater streaming down my crimson cheeks and lips like shattered glass,

too much will never crack me with nothing, a void in my eyes and a thousand yard stare,

too much will never keep me deathly still in anticipation until everything seeps out of me in a realization that I only anticipate anticipation.

but even so…

too little will never send a fire through my nerves and cauterize my heart,

too little will never shatter me in a haze of red and dusty charcoal,

too little will never trace delicate fingers of ember across me and scar me in the ashes,

too little will never kill me with a glance, break me with uncertainty.

drowning is inevitable either way.

i will drown in either the oasis or the ocean,

nothing or all.

too little will never satisfy me,

but too much will only hurt me.

adventure has never been my friend,

and courage is swapped for anxiety.

my mind is not my brain,

and its thoughts aren’t my choices,

so i take the safe road,

as i always do.

…..

….

…

..

.

..

…

….

…..

the oasis is an empty salvation.

the ocean is an empty home.

water is simply an empty.

in the end, i will die, and it will be silent.

it is on nights like these that i think i will live in the nothing until nothing is my everything.

until i know the nothing as my home.

...

i will never know fulfillment the way i know the empty.

Prompt #21

AU where when two people fall in love with each other, they are stuck together forever and can’t fall in love with anyone else after.

(Character A) fell in love with (Character C) a long time ago, but (Character C) was only pretending to love them. Unaware of this, (Character A) ends up breaking up with them after finding (Character C) cheating.

Heartbroken and lonely, (Character A) runs to their best friend, (Character B), who, unbeknownst to (Character A), is in love with them.

As (Character A) recovers, they begin to fall for (Character B), but is in denial, as they believe they already had their love. (Character B) is in denial for the same reason, but soon start to suspect something is up after (Character C) claims to have found their TRUE love.

He doesn’t know what to make of it.

It’s ugly and it’s not, it’s beautiful and it’s not, it’s simultaneously everything he could have wanted and everything he dreaded.

She was leaving him.

She was leaving him, and wasn’t that fantastic? Wasn’t that horrible? Wasn’t that everything he could think of, alone but together with himself and a bottle that he could’ve sworn had fused to the callouses on his fingertips, had been superglued there and never ever left.

She was leaving him.

He still had his wedding ring, stuck to his finger in a different way than when you try on a ring and have to take it off with soap and water and time. It was stuck by the adhesive of his own mind. Trapped. He couldn’t take it off, couldn’t bare to pry it away.

She had taken hers off long ago, so why was his still stuck, like the bottle to his callouses and to his lips and permanent streams of saltwater that clung to his cheeks for days and days and days? Why?

All of his breaths were shudders and all of his thoughts were endless strings that never had a conclusion, an essay with an infinite word-count. He could still see the amber spilt on the floor through watery eyes, and still found it ironic that he was back to crying over spilt milk and spilt Jack Daniels and spilt tears and he was crying over everything and nothing and whatever was in between, so why did it matter anyways?

He clenched the bottle even tighter in his hand, and he wasn’t sure how much of it was alcohol and how much of it was his own tears at this point, and he knew he had to stop.

He had always known he needed to stop. He knew he needed to stop the first time he took a secret sip from beer in the fridge and the first time he had a serious hangover and the first time and the first time he met her and the first time she left him and the first time she came back and the first time she left a second time.

So many firsts. To him, the milestones didn’t matter a single bit. To him, all that mattered was that he didn’t have to care about what really did matter. And he was incredibly proficient at that in particular.

So he was good at knowing when to quit, but he was never quite as good at quitting. He was still stuck on that one time she smiled at him and she had looked so genuine, so real, and how she had looked just as real and tired when she said that she wanted a divorce and that she had had another.

She had another, didn’t she? Of course she did, she was always good at back-up plans and back-up-back-up plans. He knew it when she had a beer spilt on her shirt that neither of them liked (like the Jack Daniels on the floor and the milk knocked over to the ground and his heart to hell fires). He knew it when she came home with her lipstick smeared and with her eyes wild, he knew it when she stopped looking him in the eye and started looking at the wall behind him.

(The last time she looked him in the eye she told him straight to his face that she had another.)

(The last time he looked her in the eye he didn’t say a word.)

He stood up and slipped on the whiskey and prayed to whoever was out there that he wouldn’t be able to get up. It didn’t work.

It never worked, did it? Whoever was out there doesn’t care much for people like him anyway, and he could hear in the back of his head the whisper screams of ‘alcoholic’ and ‘acute mania’ his own screams weren’t loud enough. The shards of the bottles scattering everywhere when he smashed them to drown them out hid under his couch and beneath the coffee table to escape him and he understood why, because he was running from himself too, like her.

He didn’t know if there was a God anywhere.

Prompt #10

Soulmate AU where when you touch your soulmate for the first time, you see colours.

(Character A) doesn’t touch anybody, because of their fear of being stuck with someone forever.

One day, (Character A) accidentally touches their long-time best friend, (Character B) and sees colours. Since (Character B) doesn’t react, they assume (Character B) doesn’t see colours too, and is their soulmate, but (Character A) isn’t theirs.

(Character B) does see colours, but thinks that (Character A) doesn’t, and pretends they don’t see them.

Mutual pining and angst ensues.