These are the pieces that leave me breathless, that I return to over and over again.
lifeboats never float by EternalSunday, literature
Literature
lifeboats never float
listen to me little castaway,
the lionheart sewn into your chest still beats
but the threads are loosening,
forced bravery
will always crack in the end.
your sleep is dreamless but you always wake up
vulnerable.
(survival cost more than you could spare, so you replaced yourself
with a huntress. she roars in the night,
and claws her way
through the days like a rabid animal,
always hungry and never afraid.)
it is time to step away from your gods
they listen to your footsteps in the grass, the rustling
of leaves and hurried breaths,
but they cannot see you.
(do not abandon them.)
it is time to isolate yourself from the fear
m
Funny thing is, maybe I'm as bad as her when it comes to just knowing things, sometimes. At least, knowing how she operates. Shauna Mull and I hadn't been face-to-face in over two years, and I still knew exactly how to break into her apartment.
Chicago was moving behind me as I clambered up the stairs, half-stumbling a bit from the exhaustion of it all. Travel-sick and sleep-deprived. Maybe heartsore. The dark wood of the steps was slightly damp and smelled of mildew, and the dull thumping of my boots as I climbed was too loud in the weird and half-suspended dawn before rush hour. There was the soft sound of traffic, down below, and papers
Desperately, I Grab Hold Of Something That (LT) by fadingreverie, literature
Literature
Desperately, I Grab Hold Of Something That (LT)
On the day I tried to read Ulysses
my feelings grew and shrank
in tempo with my horrid thoughts
(I couldn't decide what I truly want
in all the banality , in the all the mediocre ways
we hurt others).
You bought this book because I asked you to.
Now I can't read a page without seeing your face...
Lestrade was rapidly coming to the boil. But then, he was a kettle.
“Look, Sherlock,” he said to the tall teapot, “any information about the missing spoon, you have to tell me. It’s part of a very expensive set!”
Sherlock hesitated but then he saw the steam coming out of Lestrade’s spout.
“It was the cat and fiddle figurine that inadvertently gave the game away,” Sherlock began. “He and the cow creamer have shifted slightly to the left, away from the Spode dish. To allow access to a hiding place perhaps.”
He looked directly at Lestrade. “And there was the curious incident
What Need Have I of a Husband? by SkysongMA, literature
Literature
What Need Have I of a Husband?
The first son of the king was born when the king's three daughters were twelve, eighteen, and twenty, after a long string of miscarriages, childhood illnesses, and general bad luck. He was healthy and smiling, and no one doubted that the king finally had his heir.
The king's first daughter, Penelope, was already married to a leader of an island nation. The king's third daughter, Sibylla, was too young to marry. The middle daughter, Chloe, was just old enough for men to come calling, and call they had, but after a year of her brother's life, she came to her parents with a request.
"Don't make me marry," she said to her father and her mother
They Also Serve Who Only Stand and Wait by orphicfiddler, literature
Literature
They Also Serve Who Only Stand and Wait
I don't know when we first went underground. I don't even know if it was one mass exodus, a swarm of mankind trickling through the earth's crust so vehement we carved our own caverns by the force of trampling feet, or whether it was a gradual process, perhaps even a repetitive one, a family here, a neighborhood there. For all I know, the echo of the damp subterranean machine has always reverberated off the cave walls, created long past by the Angels, who think of our well-being even while they shake their heads helplessly at our flaws.
They say that those who remained on the surface were raptured away in a great flash of light, like a millio
It was a time of love, a time of hate, the era of justice and immorality, the season of both insanity and clarity of mind. Sound familiar, don't it? Me wife used to love Dickens. Read him to me all the time, she did. That Jane what's-her-face woman, too: it is a truth universally acknowledged that a criminal who committed a crime is in want of a good hanging. Ring a bell?
Yes, I like me literary allusions. I do, you know. Remind me of sweet Elaine. She was a messy death, but worth it. Oh boy, was she worth it. Crying and begging right up to the end. She had it coming to her, bet your arse she did, mate.
Why am I here anyway? I've already co
It starts with a flash-bang and a Majulah by TheGreatSpyExperim, literature
Literature
It starts with a flash-bang and a Majulah
i.
June's hauled her here again and
she's tapping at my classroom window,
A gazillion tiny fingers rapping in succession
(When she said "invitation" I didn't realise she meant
soaking half the country, the spike in umbrella prices has
nothing to do with me)
What's worse than an impatient child
is one with the whole atmosphere as her battering ram
when she tries to say something the urgency brims over
and one million exclamation marks
is beginning to sound like static frazzling
out on the pavements
ii.
She is without choice: when Cloud mother tips her out
she must go, and go she will
caught in an obtuse cycle, fought over