#instay

[retroparis]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CN2Vdiyhbb8/?igshid=pst8kutqv954

[praggya1993]

Pull the threads

Of the laughter that you keep

Hidden deep within ,

Somewhere where you want

But you cannot reach in,

Pull it out and redecorate

The walls you've left barren

And stark for so long indeed,

Find your voice bouncing off

The corners of your silent screams,

See the shine it brings with it

Making you seem

A star studded reality,

Even when everything around

Tries to rebel against

Your supremacy.

[sparkandashes]

[artificialmonsters]

you’re walking me home when a cockroach skitters past my feet.

i flinch, then laugh and say, “yes, i live in this filth.“

you tell me you’ll step on every cockroach for me, that this city is our personal New York. 

i want to tell you that this place is something else entirely, that my heart broke somewhere on these streets two years ago and i wandered around clinging to the pieces. i spun around helplessly under dingy neon lights, let coffee and other people’s fingerprints stain my memories. 

here, i fell in love again. found quiet places and kissed under the trees, flowers falling through the air to land perfectly on my hair. i found art and beautiful words tucked away in corners, put them in my pockets to save them for a rainy day. i pulled out my boots when the rainy days did arrive, laughed and laughed when the wind pulled an umbrella out of my hands.

this is where i stood in the midst of a crowd and closed my eyes, swayed to the sound of a piano and a thousand different voices humming, feeling like i’d placed my fingers on the pulse of this city. where i finally felt like i’d found something to save from the wreck.

there’s something beautiful here, i promise. you just have to be brave enough to push aside the rubble.

[etching-bones-moved]

Wattpad // Fictionpress

Episode one: I

Not to brag, but Carthy was not your regular contract killer.

For starters, her apartment was a colossal mess. Far from the impeccable arrangement she'd sworn she was going to maintain (new year’s resolution, anyone?), her abode was a cluttered muddle of discarded blades, receipts, whiskey bottles and Polaroid photos. It was a heathen den of paraphernalia. She couldn't make a blind move without risking tetanus, though she swore to her friends it was all a ploy to practice her agility and perception.  

(Or she would, if she had friends. In this at least she thought herself fairly average.) 

Another thing that was far flung from professionalism, was the alcohol. Day, night... oh, her sweet stash of whiskey, she got drunk far too often. Kill a target, take a shot. Kill a contractor, take a shot. Decide not to kill at all, down the whole bleeding bottle.

It was a dangerous game but she played it well. 

Hooking her clients and profiling them, stalking them alongside their victim of choice. Whittling down their facades and leaning the intimate details of their lives. The victims, if she deemed them guilty enough, died the kinds of swift deaths contractors sung her praises for. Those were easy, because she wanted future clients to notice her skill. It was killing those who hired her that required some more elegant thinking.

Overweight mobster's heart finally gives out. Lonesome Russian perishes in tragic plane crash. Suspected trafficker slaughtered in uprising. They tripped off her tongue like newspaper headlines, and she adored every one.

Where was she going with this, again?

Carthy laughed, saluting the wall and giggling even more when amber liquid sloshed from her glass. Her hangover tomorrow morning was going to be tremendous. Should she play darts? That sounded an excellent idea, actually. Was the dartboard under the sink or behind her ammo box? Why'd she put it there anyway? 

Carthy laughed again, an endless shaking stream of hysteria. Fuck it, she'd just use the wall. She'd perforate it like a blood bag, riddle it with bullet holes like that man she'd killed not hours ago, some leery drug dealer who'd been encroaching on a rival's patch. In a fortnight she'd kill the contractor too, the week after that she'd find a new job and start the cycle again. A whole network of deceit wriggled and snaked around her, much like the walls that dizzied and swooped when she attempted and failed to stand. 

She gave up on the darts. A gun would do, right? Did she have her silencer on? And why in hell couldn't she lift her head?

[jmsapphire]

A star on the sleeping land

like the lights of the night sky

guiding the captain's hand

lighthouse let ships get by

land and find a way home-

its fate be safely known

vanward - through waves and foam.

Beacon

- e.j.l |"fate, lighthouse, star"

@duendeliterary thanks for the prompt

[discardedtwigs]

in the palm of her hand, you thrive — Linn D.  (commission for @chikahoshi)

[tearductanatomy]

Why I lit the candle

Recycled wax and a black wick

I lit it quick to burn the facts 

He can never know the wrong I did

So I hid the proof in a pile of ash 

-h.s.// sept. inkstay