achromatic

purpling knuckles and bloodied slivers; anatomic syllabus.

[dovelightningarchived-deactivat]

STARTER CALL : BEFORE DEATH ___ accepting            — — @chromata

When he shifts in bed, so do the sheets glued to his thighs via dried blood. The fabric tugs at skin, sending spidery spikes of pain. He feels it, but doesn’t react to it. It is what it is. Dull blue gray eyes drift over to the arm outstretched on the mattress.

“Fuck,” he says, because not even 1 out of the 21 cuts he made were anywhere close to being a fatal laceration. Hence one of the cons of going out of your mind during a nootropic comedown: you get really obsessive with one action, but you’re most likely to repeat the first action you make, so if the first cut isn’t right, then the following 20 won’t be either. “–well, whatever,” he adds on before rolling out of bed to go on with another 24 hours.

If you’re an Angeleno, you’re going to wake up one day, and realize that your entire life and your friends’ lives and your enemies’ lives and everyone else’s fuckin’ lives have already been written out by the love-hate child of Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk, all filmed with uncensored by Gregg Araki, but following a Quentin Tarantino script, so damn– good luck with any chance of making sense of any damned thing. But that’s okay. You learn real quick living in this city that going through life understanding what the Hell is going on is overrated. No one gives a damn about upholding one’s own integrity towards a quality way of living. 

Look at the shiny skyscrapers and silver screens that attract desperate moths– pure, beautiful souls flourishing with incredible creative talents, only to sign their souls away and be remanfuactured into another cleverly-guised carbon copy of the entertainment industry. Look at the empire of start-up companies that inevitably become a mass graveyard, because yoooooo, this is Los fuckin’ Angeles, not the fuckin’ Silicon Valley. Look at how DTLA abruptly goes from the highest end nightclubs and art galleries to despairing Skid Row. If you don’t want to look into Skid Row, then just look at every street corner in districts bordering LA. Look at how even the best of people deteriorate over time. For all the shit the Boomers give Millennials, it’d be nice if they’d cut the youngbloods some slack– no one should be burnt out, jaded, and cynical before 30.

He loves this city, but he also needs to escape. He can’t stay here. He’s suffocating.

So, just for the sake of breathing for a couple of minutes every Friday night, [ ______ ] fights. 

By day: 4.0 GPA student, rumors about being the next class valedictorian, student government candidate, most favorited teacher’s assistant, adored by any and all professors, perfect, perfect, perfect– 

By night: exposed, raw, honest– a mass of toned lean muscle wrapped in inked and scarred flesh. However, he always wears a black fabric strip wrapped around at his upper right arm. It’s the only tattoo he conceals. Because it’s the only tattoo that links him directly to other people that are still alive– the only family he’s ever known, the team that trained him to fight the way he does now. No one questions the various new injuries he shows up with before any fights even begin. It’s not as if he’s the only one taking blades or cigarettes or whatever-the-fuck-else to his body on a semi-regular basis. 

Underneath it all 24/7: an in-denial of self-destructive behavior + suicidal tendencies + addictive nature running on low fuel. Just a matter of time before the inevitable crash and burn.

They’ve been going at it for the past few minutes. He still doesn’t know the guy’s name. Doubts that the other fighter knows his name either. Names aren’t really a thing down here. [ ______ ]’s been struck down a few times by this guy. Seems like it was his turn to return the favor. 

“C’mon. Up. Up. Up.” He reaches a hand out to the dude on the ground. [ ______ ] turns his head to spit out a mix of blood and saliva onto the cement ground. “Just ‘cause this is a fight club doesn’t mean that we’re all dicks.”

[chromata]

the synergy of everything that creates the night weights like an anchor around his ankle. it’s like a congregation of susurrations, where each word is punctuated with too many whispers, as if the autumn wind itself whistles through the mottled synthesis. spilled in-between is the story of how he ended up here in the first place, told in too many commas, but he’s in no place to deny that it wrought pleasures in the constellations of his dna. it’s almost like a shrine for violence, with everything legalized in the hushed tone, and the pretty-lipped season only adds onto the heady atmosphere. he loves it, housing too many beasts in his marrows, with their howls beckoning for more.

and this, this is more.

barefoot, naked mind. all that there is in his thoughts is nothing more than theories of maiming. in this hour, usually the thoughts run rampant with too many strategies, and in this cubicle everything is stacked, taped on the walls invisibly for him to sort out. it’s as if the cracks on the decrepit walls spit too many words, and they’re all he has right now, until it’s time for him to step out.

when it’s time, he vacates the two by two. pads through the crowd that cheers for him, towards the ring. his opponent has been waiting: a man twice his size, possibly slightly taller. heartbeats pound, he approximates the rate in which he can toy around for the audience’s entertainment until he has to take the man down – which depends entirely on how the man takes punches and kicks. he is agile by nature, force coming a close second. quite a deal, according to the betters, and he’s driven to prove that he’s more than that.

light footfalls, and he can feel the vibrations that come from the other end of the ring. he measures the weight, before making a move forward. not to attack, but to invite. his opponent seems to collect more dust of anger compared to his calmer demeanor. and when he takes the first punch, people cheer for his opponent. but this is just the beginning. he likes gauging the calculation – and there’s nothing like pride that comes from winning with battle wounds marring his skin.

the rest of the first round is just him moving around, baiting the man to waste his energy on trying to hit him. there’s also nothing like watching his foe squander their force on nothing.

nearing the end of the first round, he wastes no more time. jabs planted on his opponent’s sides, then the face – trickier to hit, but he manages eventually. the other’s energy is drained, after all, and it’s easy to place more kicks, punches. and with the sequential moves, he eventually gives the other a final kick, sending him to stay grounded until the count is over.

erupting applause hauls him away from his personal sphere, away from the fight. it’s over, and he only realizes once the surge of cacophonies slaps him awake. adrenaline is still fresh in veins, aggressively streaming. he heaves a sigh, arm lifted by the judge as the crowd grows more euphoric.

and then another. and then another.

this time, he lands jabs but the guy stands still. almost immobile in terms of the fluctuation. the crowd holds their breaths in anticipation – growing quieter with the minutes that roll down with their sweat. vice-induced rapture, schadenfreude abound. and when it takes a tailspin, all that he knows is that he’s down, tasting iron against the palate. he’s about to get back to his feet on his own when a hand is offered. looks up, thick with surprise.

“really, now,” he speaks, scoffing. but takes the hand anyway, and gets back up. a blood-tinted grin. takes a few light steps back, creating a gap wide enough for a new round. “thanks for that.”

[adaestra]

WHAT IS THIS PLACE? / Darling, here the gods died. Here the horsemen tremble. Here we bathe in gasoline. / Come, join us in our garden of dead bodies, we’re having fire for lunch.

Earth, 2016. Enjoy your stay. / b.s.h  (via 1995june)

[darshanasuresh]

no sound, no sound, all the deaths in my body happened quietly, happened softly, one moment here & the next not

darshana suresh // from my upcoming chapbook, “on the border” (via afterthelonely)

[chromata]

memory rush.

BOOK STARTER MEME: page 13 of after dark by murakami – “we met at a hotel swimming pool in shinagawa. two summers ago. remember?”

and @59apothecary​ is wrought into the achromatic state.

fluidity of time corrodes the memory the way the aggression of waves abrades the corals.

he thinks he knows this man, although it’s better put that the man is a ghost of what has been. remembrances always leave this bitter taste against his palate, more often than not trailing with a sense of rabid paranoia. if anything connects him to his past, it’s usually a tight connection to that of his parents – it is the first time that he detached himself from them, which explains the knots of the ties threaded between their fingers. for now, it’s a spider web that waits for the moment of unleashing. he has yet to find the right hour to sever it completely, standing on his own with his last name being another forgotten moniker behind his given one.

spends his seconds trying to recall where he saw this man.

cluster a: somewhere around seoul, in the crannies of this brand new city according to his eyes, but this feels older, rustier. cluster b: maybe in the fortitude of a childhood, where dollops of reminiscences blur along with his forced adaptations throughout the years – but if so, he wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint this man’s prior adulthood. cluster c: japan, where metropolitan lights blink in their skeletal distances, and this time the time frame seems to fit better. he’s starved out of options, and decides to rummage through his recollections of the days spent in his hometown glory.

                                 ( no, not kyoto. tastes more like tokyo. )

he diverts the location, shifting through the flitting pages of faces. this man is perhaps a mutual friend, or was. stored against the peripheral of his thoughts, not quite fitting for someone important, yet not quite fitting for a stranger either.

curiosity eventually wins him over, and he grabs his glass to move closer to the man. there’s an empty stool next to him, and atlas is quick to claim it. trying to see if the man recognizes him – but there’s nothing said between them. trickling in-between would be the waterfall of voices coming from the array of conversations going on around them. the bar is far from empty despite it being a weekday.

“shinagawa,” he eventually points out, reminded slowly. “we met in shinagawa. five years ago, perhaps.”

[untrustyou]

[chromata]

smelted sanctuary.

BOOK STARTER MEME: page 205 of after dark by murakami – “i guess you’re right. all i can do is try my best and see it through to the end.”

and @furtiouso is wrought into the achromatic state.

the day has been elongated like shadows: he’s sorry for the way his backbone bends in fatigue, as the nights have been knuckling against the base of his skull with their cascading thoughts. he’s a body of aftermath, and the people that come in and out of this shop has to face the dull expression plastered on his features. there’s little to none, but nobody forbids a shopkeeper of a small store like this to be stoic. he’s certain that it was the impression he left when he applied anyway – a surprise was when he was accepted, albeit the minimum salary that followed.

with the minimal efforts on his end, this has become nothing but a break of ennui amidst his afternoons. nobody minds, however, as long as he answers when they ask him questions, and he gives them the exact amount of their changes.

the spidery fingers of the day eventually extend to that of twilight, splintering into the darkness that dilutes its sky. and when his shift is over, the firmament has been splattered with what seems like an upcoming downpour. autumn is officially here with its nipping wind and chapped lips, mouthing his name with its light drizzles that begin as soon as he walks away from the sheltering roof. he draws his hood, pocketing his hands.

the clouds cover almost wholeheartedly until the sky seems naked with the dark shade of grey. in its company, his feet are aimless. home does not feel like home at this hour, baring its yellowing teeth with a sense of discomfort. he walks away from that direction, and instead finds his way into a game café when the rain grows impatient with its rhythm.

there is a man standing nearby the table, and he seems empty. atlas likes the impression.

he claims a seat and hums, distantly waiting for the explanations. it’s a way to spend his evening, until the clock hands strike the right hour for him to leave for either home or the ring. whichever it is, he’s by no means to question it now. mood shifts, lethargy stilled. he listens to the man, before nodding. “i’ll try my best,” he speaks at the end of the tutorial, accented korean spilling with a cordial tone.

[chromata]

verbatim melodies.

BOOK STARTER MEME: page 167 of after dark by murakami – “so ends another day.”

and @archaistes is wrought into the achromatic state.

he always has tender places for strangers to find temporary homes in: expanses and expanses of skin and flesh, wrapped in nothing but the atmosphere of the room, colored in the spectrum of nighttime anthems. time is this vestibular movement that craves for the antics left by languages spoken only in bodies.

23:04 is when they find more pieces to mold themselves against, folding limbs to fit each other with trained ease. both are lanky, both are searching. it’s as if they were on a quest to locate treasures hidden in every crook of the bodies, endlessly seeking. but that’s when it stops; the skin and flesh. nothing of the heart, nothing of the core.

23:06, he’s hoisted to the bed, warmth mingling among the exhaust of air conditioning system circulating within the room. their lips crash, collision made of nothing but the physical hunger that he always finds to be tedious, yet at the same time still requiring fulfillment. he savors the taste of sehun’s mouth and hums against the crevices.

23:11 is when the backbone dream begins to murmur the after dark melodies. there’s a rhythm, swaying slow as their symphonies demand for more. their verses still unsung, but the overture at the beginning has opened the gate for their places. and the instruments lay themselves in the crooks of the moment: the humming motor engines from the street below, the droning air conditioner filling the chamber, their sighs meeting the room’s palate. they create a partiture of bodily memories, carved out of each breath.

23:39 seeps in as they come down from the high, tangled underneath the wrap of the blanket. he lets out another exhale, nose pressed against sehun’s skin. the juncture of his neck and shoulder.

23:59 is when he gets out of bed to have some smoke. the day is coming to an end. he thinks in the plethora of the aftermath – gifted with nothing of the apprehension that usually haunts. the full-length windows face the city’s skyline, its horizon spun out of the specks of lights.

00:01 and sehun joins him, standing there. they are almost of the same height. maybe they are of the same height, atlas does not know. he waits for sehun to say something, anything, to splinter the weight of silence axed between them.

[chromata]

hc + worry

HEADCANON MEME. STATUS: ACCEPTING.

sometimes, in the clause of clovering nighttime thoughts, he’s a body of trepidations. calm is a phrase that his body has learned to fake, knitting sentences made of forged bravery. but when the late hours creep into the shushed silence, his mind is invested with the maladies of afterthoughts, causing insomnia to inhabit the neurons with ease. and tonight is no exception: he’s a weary mind shrouded with the cloaking what-ifs, injected into the pores of his skin and seeping into the flesh. he is, after all, smelted from faux front that his father has also learned to don since his youth – this is inherent, this is nurtured. genetic and environmental. but when the shield breaks and the façade withers, he’s left with nothing but the deciphered mold, convex and concave of the braille sutured along his bare walls. in his waking hours, where sleep is elusive, he’s worried about too many things, the first and foremost being the fact that this reality that he’s been living in might be a lie; that one day, his father would show up in front of his door, and rips him away from this room that he’s come to know like the back of his hand. revoked endeavors and privileges. tainted freedom and lifestyle. back to where he was back then: with the bang, bang, bang of the passed down pistols, with him being the last heir of the family.

[musesgonnamuse]

Send “📚” and I will flip to a random page in a book and use the first line of dialogue I see as a starter.

[earvicket-deactivated20170712]

/ (•ㅅ•)＼❝ up above the world you fly, like a tea tray in the sky ! @chromata

The city of Seoul appeared different under the cover of night. It is the Moon who dispels the urban illusion with her silver glow, revealing a world forged from the unheard prayers of the faithless and the dark dreams of the dreamers. Oh yes, Woohyun visited this place many times; this Otherworld where realities exist beyond the gleam of street lights, in between the place where light and darkness meet and meld together as one. His feet, ever the clumsy things, have brought him to narrow alleys connecting to unknown dimensions where the Sun never reaches its throne in the sky. The night is a realm of possibilities where the unseen becomes visible. It is not a time for sleepers or dreamers, oh no! Certainly not! The night belonged to the wanderers.

Where, oh where, have his feet brought him now? Pesky things – they have a mind of their own, surely! Woohyun has long pushed away thoughts of resistance when it came to these kinds of things. The mind does not follow the body, and the body refuses to follow the mind because it is like the blind leading the blind. He does not know where he is, nor does he recognize the path his feet have chosen to follow on this sweltering evening. Where, where do these winding paths lead? –

There is a faint smell of blood hanging in the air. The Hare stops immediately, pupils dilating as cold, unpleasant shivers travel down his spine. It is instinct that tells him to run. Run away, far away and quickly. Run, run, run, run run run – but he continues forward, albeit cautiously. He moves like a wary animal until he spots the silhouette of a gentleman leaning against the wall. There are bloodied bandages wrapped around bruised knuckles but he remains immobile…and eerily silence.

”Run, run, run”

Woohyun plucks a plastic garbage lid from the trash and uses it as a shield before approaching the stranger in the alley. The smell of blood grows stronger the closer he gets. Ever so close. It is an assault on his senses. But he finally makes it, and reaches out to gently prod the gentleman’s shoulder:

”What sort of nocturnal creature are you, good sir? ‘Tis no place to be dawddling! There are other things in this alley, you know!” he sputtered behind his garbage lid, keeping it so that it partially covered his face and neck.

[chromata]

there’s something twisted about the night – something about it’s suffocating tranquility, moths flying too close to street lamps and engines thrumming too far from where he’s standing. the silence is quietly inviting. and invited he is, after the gazillions of endless cacophonies that smothered. personal claustrophobia clings to his skin in its lack of forgiveness, fisting every inch of it with its merciless talons. its sense has wilted in the attic of his mind: after all, it has resided within for too long, too often. still, it still feels brand new every time – the continuous cheering, the dysphoric exposures. the long-lost anthem of frenzy, suppressed by the days of normal jaunts. they always let loose on weekends, watching as the cattle turned themselves into gladiators in the colosseum. and he’s one of them; a source of entertainment, a fistful of victories.

( in the midst of it all, the laughter that erupts when he climbed onto the stage. too thin, too bony. he’s learned to shove their tongues back into their mouths with his knuckles and knees. his father taught him to spit bullets, but he’s not made of such a brand of violence. )

he plucked the petals of their applause before disappearing for the night, pockets full of cash.

he makes a stop after his feet grow weary from all the walk. the night accompanies him with its lit skyline, humming the symphonies of tragedies housed in its metropolitan stomach. its jaw is full with the periwinkle of forgotten dusks, tucked between the crevices of teeth. it’s passed, again, and he counts the hours that has gone from that point of time. five, six hours. it’s past midnight and the air brings nothing but the certainty of carried on summer, even when autumn has taken over.

he leans against the decrepit wall, brick by boring brick. exhales. inhales. the spidery spread of dried blood splattered across his bandaged arms: a reminder of triumphs. he does not take them off until he can wash his body off the euphoric weight, donning it as a second layer of skin.

he heaves tendrils of cigarette smoke, then, and that’s when he realizes he’s not alone. someone is drawing close, asking him questions in what sounds like oddly phrased korean. almost tinted, almost archaic. he does not catch some of the words, and with the man covering his face with a plastic lid, it certainly does not help thaw his confusion. “other things,” he echoes. “who? what?” he fixes his gaze at the peculiar stranger, eyebrows furrowed.

[chromata]

carcinogen mouth.

and @satvrnide is wrought into the achromatic state.

sleeplessness is a ghost that sleeps in his marrow, investing and ingesting until he’s left with nothing but the pages of decay written within. the nights grow teeth of rundown sentences without punctuations, sinking his thoughts in an ocean too deep. the parentheses eventually cover this series in coastal skin, bracing the weight of the submersion by dragging his entire body outside. after all, the muscles are nothing without the propping bones, and the propping bones are nothing without the pillars of the mind.

in summation, the thoughts move the wheels of his cogs, and he finds himself under the autumn drizzles. wind nips at skin through the tessellated threads that can no longer protect from the chill. at the bus stop, waiting for a vehicle to nowhere.

          hinted against the sutures of his seams: the absence of direction is the destination.

back to the water body, there are nothing but sylph songs. trains of syntax drown skyward, blurring into the soft hums of the weightless season. he tries to stop thinking to no avail.

he climbs into the bus. it smells like stale cigarettes and wafted sillages. almost empty, he claims a seat horizontally across the only stranger aboard.

there’s silence stomached by the gentle thrum of the engine. he cloaks himself in it and looks outside, counting each house passed. this is the art of forgetting – first, leave your place behind with the guilt that capsized; second, shed your skin and stitch a coat out of it; and third, memorize the hands of strangers throughout a car ride away from home.

he doesn’t drive anymore.

the only stranger is looking at him. he does not look back.

last stop: they both get down. it is somewhere at the suburb, and he can see nothing but the flickering street lamps standing at a measured interval. above them are the fluorescent lights that attract a moth, two. nobody else but the two of them, and the stranger begins to walk away.

he’s about to walk towards the opposite when he realizes that he left his lighter home. instead, he paces himself, following the stranger’s rhythmical steps. “excuse me,” he starts, hoping for the stranger to come to a stop. between his own lips, a cigarette is wedged. the end is half-chewed. “do you, by any chance, have any lighter?”

[moonwhispers]

I am all light and all shadow: a chiaroscuro of the body. The light grazes my skin like burning, like a field of poppies blooming. Dizzying, fluorescent red melts my stained glass heart. I have an appetite for coy shadow, sweet like overripe plums. Dark and unholy, filling the crevices between dream-heavy bones.

Zoë Lianne, “Desecrate Me” (via hyunani)

[chromata]

tagged by @xii-i ( thanks bae ! )

rules: using only the song titles from one artist, cleverly answer these questions.

1. artist: korn. 2. what is your gender?: narcissistic cannibal. 3. describe yourself: freak on a leash. 4. how do you feel?: paranoid and aroused. 5. if you could go anywhere, where would it be?: trapped underneath the stairs. 6. favorite mode of transportation: twisted transistor. 7. your best friend: love and meth. 8. favorite time of day: mass hysteria. 9. if your life was a TV show, what would it be called?: lullaby for a sadist. 10. what is life to you?: evolution. 11. your fear: victimized.

tagging the brojob squad ( @itaidoshvn ; @illota ; @zanshvn ; @lithified ; @k-sung ; @xnoctuary ; @goldmythos ), @archaistes, @fvbricated, @viicis, @yokviboy, @madeintokyo.

[chromata]

hc + rain

HEADCANON MEME. STATUS: ACCEPTING.

he was born amidst the static sheets of a thunderstorm, with lightnings flash across the kyoto sky ten times too many. the scarcity of peace outside accompanied that of the inside, where his mother screamed and screamed, followed by the escalating cry of a newborn. then stillness, before another cry followed. twins, with him coming first. shinichi for the firstborn, and the second did not make it before he grew too quiet and too pale within their mother’s arm. mouth agape, she was about to announce the name; the room sank in the silence and the outside noise followed, declining at a rapid pace. they rushed to aid the unnamed baby to no avail, and here laid an unspoken secret that the family never told anyone – not even him. there was never a casket, just ashes in a box stored in a bank alongside a letter, written as inheritance for no one.

[chromata]

hc + fear

HEADCANON MEME. STATUS: ACCEPTING.

boyhood is a waxwork of father’s architecture, melted and molded according to his designs; blueprints scattered all across the board with the grids concocted of a child’s sinews and muscles. he’s a body of shaped fears, housing too many postcards of monosyllabic words spilled by gun barrels. once, he used to fear the dark ( like his peers, he was afraid of the entities lurking within the pitch black of the chamber ) and his father beat the fear out of him by infusing more darkness into his veins. he became one with his fear – and the same happened on the consecutive phobias. swimming and father drowned him in a lake, fighting and father locked him in a cage. scarred him with knives, deafened him with pistols. more, more, more – palpitation of heartbeats were made of hardened phobias, always a synergy of his father’s intents. and these days, he’s too numb to feel the fears but the fears always haunt. stubborn, they are. and the tiptoes of their claws sound like these: i. there is always something that lurks within the infused darkness, and it’s always within him – meaning, he cannot avoid it until he drops dead. ii. the proportions of his nightmares live within the confines of being buried alive, knock knock knocking on a coffin’s door with nobody listening to his hoarse pleas. iii. there is always something that paints the insides of his head with murmurs of what ifs, and he is afraid of losing loved ones – afraid of opening his mouth and spitting bullets that slice through mother’s chest or father’s head.

[justanotherrpmeme]

send me  ‘ hc ‘  + a word and i’ll write a headcanon about it regarding my character.

[chromata]

vices’ voices.

[itaidoshvn]

Among the few things that followed him from Japan, he hadn’t expected a lover.

Years, they’ve been together. Not anything special, just acquaintances that share some extracurricular activities. He’s never been especially interested in this sort of thing, never really craved it, but he’s not averse to it, either. As they gasp for air and his fingers grip familiar skin, digging in until there are marks, he gives himself over to his baser instincts. Autopilot.

He feels nothing.

Sometimes he wonders if the other party gains anything other than physical satisfaction out of their arrangement. Atlas doesn’t seem to expect anything more out of him, has never asked for anything he’s not capable of giving; there’s no commitment. 

It’s all just part of a business deal.

Kazuya knows that their families are both part of the same organization. There is a tangible link between them that’s made it relatively easy to make his moves.

In this structure, Kazuhiro sits higher than Sano. And that is something that he has known for a long time.

He sits up, head against the backboard, and listens to the faint hum of the air conditioning. This place has silk sheets and he feels a little more in his element. The wine helps. As it’s pressed into his hand, dark eyes follow the other man until he’s too close. Warmth engulfs his side and he finds himself slipping down just far enough to feel soft hair on his neck.

His limbs are tired, but he takes a drag when the cigarette is passed his way. And he considers.

“Nothing too interesting recently.” He exhales and watches his toxic cloud dissipate. “School is dull, work is boring.”

He hums.

“He probably already texted you, but Takashi fractured his ankle. Mom’s not a lot of help.” It’s easier for him to open up a little now. He’s come to accept that a certain amount of information needs to be traded for what he wants. “How about you? Getting along with your parents?”

[chromata]

this is the trident for the night, with forked intents and a divider in the middle. one would be the body, another the mind. between them, the hunger, haunting and sleeping in their marrows. in moments, it spikes, accelerating with the heartbeats that thrum in their lonely chests. it’s sore and it wants to be carried and caressed. aching, like the tremble for the beloved, but not quite. there’s no attachment when it comes to this – and love stands too high on the pedestal of that concept.

( he only knows how to love with his fists. )

it is adrift in their peripheries, tiptoeing alongside the shoreline. leaving nothing but gentle footprints that fade away with the breeze. he catches them disappearing before his eyes and thinks nothing of it. off to the nearest wasteland they go.

all that’s left of their lungs would be the smokes that linger. the air is polluted, more and more, as well as their organs. and lodged between those would be their voices, staining the atmosphere with inane talks. it never goes that in-depth with kaz, despite the connection that binds them since they were too young to comprehend that the globe rotated on an axis.

trivial, just how they would leave it. and atlas likes it that way.

                                       ( in-depth doesn’t go hand in hand with the dogma                                          living between the ridges of his reconstructed spine. )

“you know my parents,” takes another inhale of the joint. “they know i still exist in here. a phone call every now and then with okāasan, nothing else.” he shrugs. “yeah? no, he hasn’t talked to me yet. i was about to ask you about him… why… fractured his ankle?” it’s odd. the language tastes odd on his tongue now that it’s with kaz, a fellow foreigner. left behind: their native language, like cigarette ashes on the concrete.