[x]

For Sarah, Forever AgoI worked the midnight shift last night. It was the sort of night where you body feels so heavy that your mind just starts floating away. I was exhausted, worn. Sleep reached for my heart like a vigilante reaching for a gun, and I couldn't stop thinking of you.

You filled my head with poetry.

I could write something beautiful, that it was a clear night and the stars were out, that the moon shone above me like a love song in the sky. But it wasn't. The clouds were low and heavy and the streetlights painted the sky orange.

It was the kind of night that makes you feel trapped. The kind when there's no one alive but you, no sound but

the opposite of a love letterSometimes, I think you forgot me.

To admit it, most days I've forgotten you, too. But sometimes a moment comes along that feels like you in my bones, and suddenly you're crashing through my veins, riding my pulse straight to my heart. And you sit in my chest, heavy and unwelcome, and it's hard to breathe because I cannot shut off the reel of memories playing in my head. So I close my eyes and count to ten, breathe evenly and steadily, tell myself that you are miles and years away. But I wake up the next morning with a dry taste in my mouth and a hollowness somewhere in the pit of my stomach and you're hanging onto me like a shadow even thoug

celtic knots on my finger topsthe sun is shining on my feet and i am thinking
about the curls of my hair and reflections and water.
the washing machine grumbles away,
and i hide from the fresh breaths of newborn season
behind these flimsy walls of bricks and duty.
how i long to steal some bread from the bread bin
and find a lake somewhere. to walk in the light, of my own vocation.

water ripples and dances and catches the light
to and fro, back and forth -
can you catch the light without sinking?
i can. my heart was born to beat in the summer,
with muddy feet and green stained joints
(grassburn is the coolest flame you can touch)
quenched with dew and the wi

Like an Unfinished Love PoemShe calls him a poet but in truth he's just a dreamer with too many words in his head. He doesn't believe that he's fallen in love so he pretends to be a lovestruck stranger and writes how it might feel.
When I touch her lips with mine,
I'm not smiling,
not feeling,
breathing,
—

I'm just living.When she said goodbye her heart pounded weakly against her heavy chest. With every pulse of blood through her veins she felt tension in her wrists; she was holding back, holding back. Her breastbone still feels like the wall of a jail cell – her heartbeat thumping wildly like a prisoner begging to be freed. She wants to rip off her jacket be

55 55-Word Stories1. It's that damn cow again, following me everywhere. She knows what's in store for her and she's trying to make me feel guilty about it. It's not going to work dammit!
I raised my axe threateningly. She looked at me with those big brown eyes. I had to let her go.

2. Once upon a time there was a duck. One day the duck found a balloon. It was red and pretty. All the other ducks were jealous of him. Then he lost the balloon. The other ducks helped him look for it. Instead of the red balloon, they found hundreds of blue balloons to share! Yay!

3. The air rushed past her, an endless streaming wind that ripped the breath

Willow It's freezing, sub-zero out here. I make my way through the park to the lake, where the trees open out and you can see the sky once more. It's beautiful, on a day like today. Not a cloud in the sky - just a pale whiteness, a hole in the fabric of the heavens. I take the mud track through the undergrowth and find a place where no one will see.
I grew up here, in this town, by this park. We used to come here all the time, to ride our bikes, feed the ducks in summer, and in winter, we'd take our skates and head for the lake, where we'd carve patterns into the ice. There's a photograph of me I remember, one of those old Polaroids that

Love Songs to the MoonHe's lonely, just another dreamer-boy with his head in the clouds.
For a boy who would never be loved, he had so much love in him.

She runs her tongue along her teeth. Are you afraid of dragons? she asks.
I imagine her with scales and wings, breathing fire. I tell her no, I'm a knight in shining armour.
Oh, she says with mock seriousness, you're fearless then.
I'm afraid, I say softly, I'm afraid of falling.
She leans in close. I feel her breath on my lips as she whispers, What about falling in love?
I forget how to breathe. The world starts to spin and I close my eyes.

Then she kisses me full on the mouth and my spine turns to feath

summertime.i've realized i miss you most in the summer. when we were together, we belonged to the cold; trees would lose their leaves, winter winds would blow, but the summer was ours. it was a time when we could leave essays and exams behind and start dreaming. a time for stargazing and raindancing and treeclimbing. for the wild. for us.

i feel so out of place. in the light of a bonfire or the wind of a highway, i find myself thinking: you would have loved this. and i get lost in memories of running through a subway station, reaching for lights across the dark ocean or swinging by a lake and dangling our feet in the stars.

this has always been a seas

Open your eyesi.
He promised me that he would teach me how to see.
"Open your eyes," he told me, "open your eyes and just... just look." I did as he said, exhaling and watching the cloud of my breath ghost through the glassy, frosted sunlight.
I saw the world as he must have in that one moment, that late-November afternoon, and I felt alive.
We could have stood there until the end of time, I had thought, could have stood there and nothing would have ever changed.
We were young then.

ii.
His eyes—his eyes were like matches against my skin. It burnt slowly—skin usually burns slowly—but it was a sweet burn, warm and gentle as the beatin

Brokenboy7.
He's on his way home from school, happily clutching a big blue birthday candle.
His mom looks at him lovingly, "Happy birthday."

The car spins out of control and he screams. His mom grits her teeth and slams her foot on the brake pedal. A truck speeds towards them, horn blaring, but it's too late; she reaches for him and cries, "I love —"

When he wakes up from the coma, she's already gone.

"— you," his dad whispers angrily, cheeks wet with tears.
The boy starts to tremble in his hospital bed. "Dad?"
"Why are you alive, when she's —" his dad's voice breaks, "she's —"
"I'm cold," his voice is barely above a whimp

wanderlust she was a s e v e n t e e n year old girl from nowhere [or was it everywhere?] with dark hair and long eyelashes and skin that was always pale white. when she was young she played in the poppy fields of greece and when she got older her tongue started yearning to speak italian and russian so that she could travel to other far off places.

she was born on a friday between two ice storms, and the first word she ever heard was b e a u t y. her mama told her that when she first opened her dark blue eyes, her pupil was surrounded by a ring of pure white. the blue stayed but the white turned to green [and from then

The Piano The voice you hear is not mine. It forms words, but it's not me. I can no more speak than I could fly; not if you begged me, if you tortured me.

Once, a lifetime time ago, I could sing, and I lived for my song. Once she sang with me, and oh, how beautiful we were.

I sing no more.

I don't know where she went; far away, I believe. Perhaps she replaced me with another who sang more beautifully than I ever could. Though she tried, I give her that, she tried to take me with her; brought me all the way down to the sea shore, onto the very sands, but that's as far as I could go; the end of our life together.

Do you think me foolish, allowing my

InvisibleWhat if I were invisible?

What a ridiculous question. I am invisible. Not in the way you're thinking of - yes, you can see me, I don't have superpowers, but do you actually see me? Or do you just see a normal girl? Even worse, do you see a lazy slob who lounges around the house all day, scrounging off the government, in the lap of luxury?

I may not be invisible, but a huge part of what makes me me is. Although I wholeheartedly agree with what has been said before me by countless others - I am not my illness - it still plays a huge role in making me me.
It impacts upon the way I look, not just needing glasses and wearing odd splints an

Sunday the Fourteenth, AugustAnd then he came up and looked me in the eye and he told me that yes the universe is fundamentally superimposed, yes indeed son and that there is reality and nothingness. Spoke to me from the sharp edged whippoorwill: and thus, you may see that reality is functionally and instantaneously seasonal. And then I'd heard it spoken by the streets that yes it seemed human culture was based on the transitionality of the seasons, our comedies and tragedies. And you whispered in your fiery tongue that oh yes this could be idealized: this is the Tao, this heavenirvana, this is the sacrifice of the vernal God, this is the broken artwork and the fools mor

Newspaper NotationThere was a newspaper sky that day, glued across the breakers. "REVOLUTION," said the sea. In a personal or global sense?

I'm a composer, he had said once to Leanne, when she teased him for sketching sonatas on coffee-shop napkins – I've been trained to hear music everywhere. She had laughed and asked him to write a piece for her, the syllables of her name bubbling like wind chimes. He couldn't explain how to change for to of. Music was never a choice – not his as a teenager, and not Leanne's when her laughter begged for translation.

He still had it, tucked away under the piano stool. It was more a dedication than a labour of love

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too young to give up| shy boy |
- regrets every moment;
- is scared of truth;
- buries his head in a pillow and cries,
        This isn't the way it was meant to be.

--

| broken boy |
- trembles because he doesn't like silence;
- tries to fit the pieces of his heart back together;
- bites his lip and whispers,
        I hate this part.

--

| determined boy |
- dreams of hot summer breezes;
- kisses uncertainty goodbye;
- looks her in the eye and says,
        I'm all that you ever wanted.

--

he grits his teeth and murmurs,
&

Sleepless NightsMy bloodshot eyes are stained with black, circled by dark rings of sleepless nights and smudged ink. I have a permanent headache, my mind singing bloody hymns with battered rhythm and broken voice; my failing vision clouded by smoke and cracked glass.

Words leak out of my skull, seeping like black tar; they burn my skin like the sting of elusive flames. I have broken promises tattooed on my chest.
And this is how it feels to have your imagination chained to your heart.

I lower my ink-stained hand to ravaged paper, and words trickle out of my veins.

The man looks up through shadow-filled lash

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King of Hearts

by =jonathoncomfortreed, Sep 9, 2011, 11:20:35 AM
Literature / Prose / Fiction / Children and Teen / Short Stories

_{And that's when I see him for the first time. The boy. The magician. The thief. The king.

He's facing away from me, on the sidewalk with a small crowd around him. Shirtless, with dirty ripped jeans and bare feet. Crudely painted swirls of ink cover his torso and ripple over his small shoulder blades. His white blonde hair is laced with gel and spiked haphazardly. There's a small chain around his neck.

Despite his bizarre appearance I can't help wonder how old the boy is.
He's just a kid.

The crowd around him applauds lightly. They toss him a few coins and walk away.
He turns around. Right away I notice his eyes, a startlingly light blue. They twinkle mischievously, darting from stranger to stranger as he walks back along the street. "J'ai besoin d'une volontaire!" he calls, unconsciously twirling a deck of cards. "J'ai'n truc magique qui v'étonner n'importe qui!" His bright eyes meet mine and he grins roguishly and steps in front of me. "Toi, mon ami. Prends un carte."
I instinctively step back. "J'ai pas d'argent," I protest.
Our eyes lock. He doesn't blink. "Vas y."
So I take a card. It's a six of clubs.

He splits the deck, takes my card, shuffles. "You speak English, don't you," he says. I nod. He flips the top card; it's a jack of diamonds. "Hold this." I take it. He splits the deck again, puts half in each pocket. Holds out his hand for the jack. He takes it, snaps his fingers and flips it to face me, smiling. Six of clubs.

I laugh. "Très bien," I say.
He's a magician.

I didn't know he was a thief.
And maybe he wasn't a king. Not yet.

I dream about him that night. Shirtless, alone on the street. Black ink flowing across his chest and spiralling around his wrists. Glowing blue eyes.
He thrusts the worn deck of cards at me. "Choissisez une." His voice is high and clear. Powerful.
It's the king of hearts. I say nothing, place it back in the deck. He shuffles, then looks up, spreads the cards. Holds them up near his collarbone, takes a deep breath and throws all of them at me. In my dream they shine like shooting stars, fireworks erupting around me. They flutter like butterflies, like autumn leaves. The world is a blur of red and white.
I feel trapped. Paralyzed. I feel good. I can't breathe. I'm confused. I hate him and I want him. I want him.
I catch one in front of me. The air clears as the cards gradually land haphazardly on the ground. He's smiling at me, eyes flickering. I look down.
King of hearts.

I find him the next morning, sitting on the steps of a cathedral eating an apple. He recognizes me, smiles. "Bon matin," he calls, reaching out a hand.
I grasp his hand and he wraps his left arm around me into an unexpected embrace. I feel paint on his skin. I feel ribs pressed tight against my body. After his hand leaves my shoulder I step back, quickly enough to knock his hand as he pulls it quickly out of the back pocket of my jeans.

I should have known. I'm angry that I didn't realize his intentions. Angry that he would betray me so easily.
A look of panic flashes across his face. He knows I caught him. Knows I'm angry.
He thinks I'm going to hurt him.

I look at him in silence.
"Plus de magie?" I say, finally.
He flinches, then smiles. "Jamais à toi, mon cher," he replies, then runs lightly across the street.

I watch him play the crowd. Charming the women and befriending the children. Bantering with other street urchins and singing cheerfully to the shopkeepers.
I watch him fake his magic, stack the deck. Lie to strangers and steal from the passerby.

Eventually the street is empty and he notices me. "Ça va mon ami?" he says, winking.
I wonder if he's playing me too. If I'm the next victim of his well-honed charm. "You're a liar," I tell him.
He looks away. Starts counting his money. "All magicians are liars."
The ink curls around his lips; I can't tell if he's smiling or not.
"The thing is," he continues, "Not all liars are magicians."
I look at him closely. "And you?"
"Me?" He sounds amused. I'm sure it's a smile now. He twirls a coin around his thumb and flips it into the air. "I'm the best there ever was."

A few days go by before I see him again. Sunday. The sun hasn't yet risen. I'm in the market, watching the shopkeepers prepare for the day.
Then I see his white blonde hair. I watch him from across the courtyard. He's talking animatedly with the keeper of a fruit stand. He points down the street, laughs. As the merchant's gaze follows his hand, he grabs a bag of cherries. They exchange a few more words, then he saunters away, the cherries kept carefully hidden from sight.

I follow him.

As I walk, I become more and more angry. When he stops and I finally catch up, I find myself on an abandoned bridge, overlooking the waking city. And he's different. I realize he's wearing a faded grey shirt, his hair is soft and loose. The ink has been washed off.
He looks so vulnerable.

He ignores me, at first. He eats some cherries, drinks in the sunrise and we sit in silence.
I can hear his heartbeat. It's fast.

"Why'd you steal those cherries?" I ask.
He looks at me, unflinching. Maybe he was waiting for me to say something. I notice his eyes are the same pale blue as the night before.
"Why did you steal my nine of spades?" he counters.
"I never—" I start to say, but he reaches into my pocket, flips his hand and the card is tight between his index and middle finger. He looks at me, raises an eyebrow, a mocking smile playing on his lips. Seems to wait for me to protest, then looks back across the city.
I feel angry. I want him to be imperfect. To admit something, I don't know what.
I switch to French. "Pourquoi n'es-tu pas à la rue aujourd'hui?"
He doesn't seem to notice the change in language. "Je n'travaille pas pendant l'jour du sabbat."
I'm surprised, didn't expect that. "Crois-tu en Dieu?" I ask, genuinely curious.
He puts another cherry in his mouth. "Je crois en moi-même, et ça suffit."

Silence again. He offers me a cherry and I wonder if I'm imagining his hand lingering against mine.
"I'm glad you're here," he says.

The sun starts to rise.

"Me too," I say in a low voice.

He looks lonely, the hollow king of Paris perched on a windswept bridge. The hue of the rising sun turns his skin golden. Translucent. He could be a ghost.
"Are you alive?" I whisper.
He turns his head; his sunlit eyes flicker across my face.
"I'm alive," he replies softly, "are you?"
I want to say yes – maybe no – but he's leaning in towards me and I can't speak. I'm paralyzed. I want to push him away and I want to drink him in. I imagine reaching through his chest, dissolving his body like a mirage; a ghost boy drifting away in the wind.
He's close, too close. I can see faded curves of ink lining his skin, a faint scar on his left cheek. I close my eyes, feel his breath on my skin. I feel myself falling off the bridge and somehow in free fall his lips find mine.

The next day, I can't stop thinking about it. The warmth of his lips and the sweet hint of cherry.
I'm bewildered, though. Boys don't kiss other boys.

I find him on a crowded street near Champs-Elysées. He doesn't stop walking. Doesn't look at me.

"Why did you kiss me?"
"I'm the king of hearts."
I stare at him. "What does that mean?"
He stops walking, looks at me. Small shrug. "I don't know," he says, "it was your dream."
Before I have time to wonder how he knows about that, he reaches for my hand and presses something into my palm. I instinctively glance down; it's a black leather wallet. He gently puts his hand against my face, along my jawbone, and I think fleetingly that he's going to kiss me again. I can see his chest rising and falling rapidly. "Thief." he says roughly, then turns and disappears into the crowd.
I stare after him, stunned. I hear faint cries of, "Voleur! Voleur!" A couple seconds later a hand grabs me by the shoulder and spins me around. I feel like I'm in slow motion; I look down and perceive the black leather clutched in between my fingers but all I can see are his blue changeling eyes. Laughing. Kissing. Tearing me apart.
"Il y avait un autre garçon," I protest, "il me l'a donné." But it's pathetic. The hollow king of Paris is long gone and I'm alone with a hand full of stolen money and a heart that doesn't know whom to trust.}

King of Heartsby =jonathoncomfortreed

Literature / Prose / Fiction / Children and Teen / Short Stories

Inspiration
I wrote this for #theWrittenRevolution's Summer Haze contest. It's been a while since I've written anything of significance, so I'm really grateful for the contest for providing a sort of foundation for me to use to build up the story line. The contest style was to create a sort of journal or something that followed through a story during your summer. I didn't really manage to do that, but I tried to use the layout. This is pretty much completely fiction, though. I didn't go to Paris, didn't fall in love with a street waif. Although that would've been pretty cool.

It's based off of a real person, actually. I met a boy a couple of weeks ago. He's fourteen. He has light blonde hair, he's thin, and he wants to be a magician when he's older. He's already really talented at card tricks. Like, seriously.

But yeah, the rest is fictional.

To be honest, I can't really figure out where this story came from. It's just kind of developed into a pretty thorough narrative. I'm not sure where it's going to end up.

Technique
Like I said, I've been having trouble writing anything of significance lately. It's my busy life, coming at me non-stop, I guess. I think another factor is that I'm not experiencing intense feelings for anyone, and I'm a pathetic enough writer that I can't just come up with stuff, I need emotional inspiration to get me going.

Anyways, I've found that in the past a really good way to get a piece started is to just write the scenes that I've imagined in my head, and then sort of connect them. I came up with a lot of this while I was doing a rugged 45 km hike in Newfoundland, Canada, then wrote it down as soon as I got the chance. At the time, my family and I were reading a book by John Grisham. I believe that I copied his style a bit in this prose – the sentence fragments and relatively empty text isn't what I usually do. I noticed about halfway through, then figured I should just keep going with it.

I took the line, "I'm the best there ever was." from Peter Pan. And the kiss description was inspired by the kiss in Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli (which I re-read this summer and I still love it to death).

This isn't finished. I don't have an introduction or conclusion at the moment, and I haven't decided where I want the story to go. I have a feeling it might become a tragedy, but I haven't got the ending figured out quite yet. If you want to suggest stuff, feel free.

Speaking of which, I'm not so proud of this. I've put a lot of work into but I really just can't tell whether it's even worth keeping or not. Like, I don't know if it's any good, is what I'm saying. I'd like to hear your opinion – please don't hesitate to tell me if it's terrible, but I would appreciate you also telling me how to make it not-terrible, so I can fix it.

Ugh.

Groups
For #theWrittenRevolution members: Does the plot make sense – and is the setting described enough? How have I done with my characterization of the boy? I would love any tips on how you think I could improve this.

This was featured by =DailyLitDeviations in the September 11^th news article.

© 2011 Jonathon Reed
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love 4 4

~~joy 0 0~~

wow 1 1

~~mad 0 0~~

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~~neutral 0 0~~

~TARDIS-blue Oct 26, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

You're so talented! This was absolutely fantastic.

~pepleen Oct 8, 2012

that was brilliant

~oriya21 Nov 3, 2011

I can never find the right words to tell you how talented you are Jon!
amazing story just like the others

=jonathoncomfortreed Nov 20, 2011 Student Photographer

Thank you.

=GrauWeiss Sep 14, 2011

I enjoyed the flow of the story and the description of the places. The descriptions aren't too detailed but are just enough to let your imagination flow.

I look forward to your next deviations!

=jonathoncomfortreed Sep 22, 2011 Student Photographer

Wow, I'm thrilled that you liked it so much.
Thanks!

=GrauWeiss Sep 22, 2011

you're welcome

~HiddenShadowLove Sep 13, 2011 Student Writer

It has been a while since something has moved me and pushed me upon the edge of adoration and despair in one swoop. This prose seems to have a mystical tone and flow to it. I can not wait to read the ending of the story. I have a feeling it may break my heart, but I have a tender spot for tragic stories.

=jonathoncomfortreed Sep 22, 2011 Student Photographer

I really didn't think it was that good. Thanks so much for your support. I'm still working on the ending but it will come soon. :]

~ProvenParadox Sep 13, 2011 Student Writer

I like it. Everything breathes rhythmically and all the bits fit together: the french, the magic, the thievery, the falling in love, the dreams. All of them have a vague mystique and an unorthodox, underground feel. Overdone, it would feel forced, but this plays everything out in just the right way. It's a well woven tale and I'm quite impressed.

The best part is the king. That is an immeasurably good bit of story telling. At first I thought it was only a nascent bit of his description, but the king of hearts and the dream is genius. Its a tie, a parsimonious one, but brilliant.

Good times.

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