You know the cliff?

She smiled.

The cliff where all things go

where you fall

but never know

where you step before...

A sharp breath in

fingers fall off a palm

lingering...

into a free fall.

A whistling left her mouth in a steady whirl.

She smiled,

again.

But this time

she enjoyed it:

that look of terror on your face.

How hard is it to survive,

when the fight in you has died?

How hard is it to live,

when you have nothing left to give?

How hard is it to think of the best,

when the best is what you're told this is?

when liberty,

is trapping people behind a fence

When freedom,

is building a wall

and rights,

are putting kids behind bars

when a protest,

is seen as a challenge

when a raise is essential,

for your life to be salvaged

when medical bills,

are a luxury

when equality,

is cutting off bits of people

with which you don't agree

and they start selling food for more,

cause they know we can't get it for free

when a rabble roused,

is a rabble killed

when the media's denying

that what we see is real

If this is the best,

I don't want it anymore.

If this is the best,

I'd rather be dead on the floor,

If God is perfect and this is what God gave

then I should be thankful because I am saved

but If God went to die

when the world needed him most,

disappeared for three days

when I had a knife at my throat

If I was the devil

I would've faked his resurrection

Controlled the masses

so I wouldn't need protection

invite the black sheep,

protect them from the heard

don't let them go

cause then they'll get hurt

if I was God,

I wouldn't have said a word

if I was god,

I would have chosen his curse

I would have stopped Peter's sword

and whispered about the fight

I would have told him to love

so he'd be alright

I would have prayed to the angels

to save me somehow

I would have cried

when not a single answer came down

I would've chosen to die

when all that I built

was corrupted and broken

with hate and with filth

God said love your neighbor

and they took it as a threat

If I was God

I would tell you that there is something left.

I would say, "this is the best!"

so you don't slit your throat

But if this is the best,

then what could be worse?

If this is the best,

then I don't want it anymore

If this is the best,

then I give in

because I'd rather die,

then live in this world we're in.

If I was God I would have chosen to die

rather than watch all my people choose to lie

If I was God's child

and he said I had to be killed

that this was the best,

that it would save his world

I would've gone down to earth

I would've chosen to die

because a world someone like that controls

is not a world I want to survive

but there were people there

and they made me love

they weren't all broken

just scared and out of luck

they all had to fight

just to survive

So I told them to love

then I went to hide

The world my Dad made

was not made for men

It was made for him

and his entertainment

He loves you, yes

but only when he's in control

So I choose to die

and I told my people to put down the sword

A new world can be built

without all this horror

A palace belongs to the people

if no one controls the gates

I would've chosen to die

so the people could be saved

free to love

free to choose

free to do as they please

free to fight

free to sing

free to imagine a new world each and everyday

as long as I'm here

they'll think the work is done

as long as I'm here

they won't think they have to run

as long as I'm here

they'll think that this is the best

once I'm gone

they can pick up the ashes

and build the world again

They can build it with love

just as I said

They can stop the oppression

they can raise up their heads

And, Satan, my friend

if you're reading this too

help them along

when it's done

and I'm through

I know you're not a god

but once, you wanted to rule

I trust that you'll forgive them

even though they're cruel

You'll send down a madman

To show them their hate

You'll raise up the walls

so they value the gate

Make them fight you

Just like you did me

I am my Father

and he is me

If I die

that's where he'll be

So I give you my reigns

I give you my crown

I know you're not all powerful

but you'll figure it out

My brother in arms

Satan, my friend

Make them hate you,

make them comrades

by showing them how much worse it can get

Give them the knowledge of evil

so they'll know what is good

Tell them to love each other

just as I would

Then, one day, I can return

when humanity has won

When they don't need us anymore

I'll build a house made of sun

They'll build their own earth

and I'll watch all their fun

I look forward to the time

when they don't have to run

I look forward to when my children

have built their own home

when they don't need an enemy

to teach them what's wrong.

So, satan, my friend

teach them to live well

As I descend

into the fiery pits of hell

I didn't worry about the voices. They weren't real. I knew that and as long as I knew that, they couldn't hurt me. That is, until today.

I stared through my own eyes and felt my mouth move. I heard a voice that wasn't my own. It said things I would never say. And my friends, they acted like they knew this voice.

"Oh, hi!" they smiled and said a name I don't remember anymore. The voice responded. They talked and asked about things that someone who wasn't me wouldn't know. My friends recognized them and in that moment I knew something unimaginable. I didn't live alone. I woke up, and those breakfasts I didn't remember, that wasn't an accident, that was my roommate: the roommate in my head. I started wondering something else. Was I the voice? In this moment I couldn't move my body. I couldn't control what I was saying. I couldn't exist in any way that mattered. How could I live like this? Or, was this something that couldn't be called living?

I started to panic and my vision went black. I felt myself sit down. My friends asked if I was ok and the voice that wasn't mine responded again.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just nauseous."

Was I the voice? Cause, I made that same excuse whenever the screams started. I could feel something biting my lip. I rolled my eyes. I'd worked so hard to break that habit. But, it wasn't my eyes that were rolling. It was like when you're annoyed at your parents but instead of saying something, you say it in your head. It was like that, except it wasn't a choice. It had never been a choice. I started to fight. Staying like this couldn't be possible. I had to live. I had to exist. Why was this happening? My life was mine and I couldn't let that get taken away.

It was to no avail.

That night I stared in the mirror. Something felt wrong. The person who stared back... wasn't me. I looked down, I felt the body I was in. It wasn't mine either. I looked in the mirror hoping, praying that something would change. It didn't. I looked down. I'd never seen these clothes before. It was a set of black overalls and a denim jacket. This wasn't mine. I tried to remember what happened today. Why did I put these clothes on? Why was I wearing something I didn't own? I didn't know. All I knew is that I'd lost control that morning. Someone had bit my lip and it wasn't me. My friends had spoken to a voice that wasn't mine. They had known that voice. It wasn't new. I looked in the mirror again. There was a note. It read like this:

"Hello, I'm sorry. I know you don't like it when I take control. It wasn't my fault this time, I promise. I know you don't remember what happened and why you came to be this way, but we'll take care of you. I may not be your friend, but I am not your enemy. If it hurts to read this, throw it away and forget it all again. You just have to decide it was a dream. It all seems impossible anyway, right? If you don't want to forget, if you want to know why, leave a note on the mirror and check back tomorrow. Good night and sweet dreams-- Jennifer."

I stared at the note. My hand started to tremble. Thoughts raced in a flash of color. A cacophony of voices filled the insides if my brain until my own thoughts were drowned out of existence. I waited, and my mind went dark. After a time, I was alive again. My thoughts started turning everything around. I hadn't forgotten and I wanted to know more. I couldn't stay like this anymore. The voices couldn't be ignored.

A pen had been set next to the sink. A note card lay next to it. I picked them up, jotted down a sentence and signed off.

"P.S. don't go. I need you and I want to know more.--Jackson"

Then, I turned off the lights and went to bed. I shut my eyes and let the blackness take me once more, but this time I wasn't scared, I was terrified.

I cry out at the injustice of the world. I watch my friends die. Flames envelope the buildings I called home. My country is in ruins, the planet: a roiling mess. All I know to do is shout at the sky, hoping there's a god somewhere who'll hear me scream.They start as a prayer, my cries for help, and they form into a tempest. I watch me friends die like butterflies caught in a net, killed for the beauty of destruction, for the benefit of someone so wealthy and far away that I do not recognize the world they're in. I do not recognize them as human. They are a monster, a vengeful god who was given the left overs of an experiment long doomed to fail. We are the left overs. I am what's left over. And I wish I could say that that made me better somehow, that it was somehow worth it in the end, that I'm a better person, that I've gained some knowledge that'll sustain me through the ages, but none of that is true. I'm not better, and no matter how much knowledge I gain, it could never be worth this much agony. It could never be worth the lives of my friends. It could never be worth feeling of my own soul suffocating under the weight of tragedy. It could never be worth dying, touching peace... then being ripped back to the present, into a world so full of sorrow that nothing else is left. Even now, I feel bombs shaking the floor above my head. I'm underground, in a place where the war is a distant echo that reverberates through every nook and crany, starving our children, depriving us of the sun and the chance to feel safe, both things I learned to value as soon as they went away. I break my back trying to end this, end days that never come to an end, each moment unleashing a cataclysm of such destruction that a child's worst nightmare pales in comparison. The only thing my work changes is how much it hurts to fight. I don't want to keep living like this. I don't want to keep living at all. I need a god. I need a god who will save us from the horrors of war. Even as I write those words, I know a god will not come. The gods have forgotten us and its time I forget them to. I look around. There's a baby crying, a father injured with a spear and there's blood on the apple a mother is holding. She takes a bite. She doesn't even notice the blood. I look into her eyes, they're numb. She doesn't shake when the room trembles. She just sort of sways. I can't handle this. I can't watch the husk of a being endure. For then... then I will become a husk too. I'm breaking, just like this broken world. I'm breaking, I might be cracked open to find a reflective jewel, but there is nothing to reflect. The light is all gone. Instead of shining, I absorb. My insides fill with the cries of an eternity, my mind with the screams of mothers and fathers and parents, my soul with the silent agony of those who are dead. It doesn't go anywhere. I just sit. With desperation, I pick up my pen for one last sentence. This is the end, for there is no way I could express anything close... A few ink splots hover over the page, a tear from my pen that my eyes will never shed. I am numb. There is too much, for even reality to comprehend. I am numb, a husk. My pen, more alive than I am and my sword more broken than I shall ever be. I am numb. The war is over, because I have given up.

You know, I never thought I'd be sitting in a sex ed lecture feeling jealous of how innocent the teacher is. The teacher asked us why teens aren't concerned about STDs. My first thought was, because I don't plan to have sex. The only way I'm gonna get an STD is if I'm raped. You should be trying to stop that instead of lecturing at us knowing we won't listen. My teacher started talking about how kids don't think about death because they're so young and healthy that death feels like it's just a story. Bitch, I've tried to kill myself. Shut up and do something useful. The first thing you said in this class is that you know what you're saying is going to go right over our heads. If you know that, why are you saying it? And btw, I may be young but I'm not healthy. I couldn't walk last night because my ankles are too weak to support my body on any surface that isn't flat. I think about death constantly. I know that my uncle would kill me himself if he knew I was trans. I'm fuckin seventeen. I have a job. I'm raising a kid. I've never had sex. This wasn't my choice. And this lecture is not helping.

"They were born like this."

"No, I wasn't." I think, looking at the screen and watching a stranger talk about my psychology. They have no idea what happened and they never will. I smile to myself. It is a smile of pain. It's the smile of suppression. A smile just for me, from one cruel bitch to another. They'll never know what I went through, they'll never know what I do to myself and that makes me laugh: one long cruel laugh, a laugh that never stops because... If it did, I don't know what would happen next.

So, I laugh. I laugh and I hope it never stops. I hope this cold, dead face never stops because if hell is worse than this then there is a type of fear I can never comprehend.

I laugh. I laugh so hard my ribs begin to burst. Pain, I feel pain. I hold on to that pain. I cling on to that pain for dear life. It's a life line. Still, I laugh. Hysterically, I laugh. I laugh because of the absurdity I live in. I laugh because they still think there's reason behind this horrible world. I laugh because they try to grasp at the strands of the insane. Don't they know I already tried that? When I started spiral... felt my mind slip... into the abyss. Don't they think I tried as hard as a could to find some reason behind it all? I laughed, because there is nothing I can do but laugh.

I laugh,

at the absurdity of this world.

I laugh,

because there's no where left to turn.

I laugh,

because they're still trying to find reason when its long since left.

I laugh,

because even I don't know what I'll do next.

K, so this post got me thinking. I'm not planning to attempt this challenge. I'll just throw out ideas in a stream of consciousness, so here goes random ideas for hiding codes and illusions in writing.

First, ambigrams (the words that say something different when looked at upside down) would be a good example of this. Sadly, that would be hard to do on prose but they should be incorperated into books more. They could be used on the covers, spines or for chapter titles.

Secondly, you could make papers that when laid on top of each other, and held up to the light, fill in each other's blanks and create entirely new sentences. That or a code embedded in a story through the chapter headings explaining the end. Or, if writing with an unreliable narrator, the first letter of each chapter, put next to each other in order, could spell out "this book is a lie," or something along those lines. Also, I have always loved that thing some books do where the first letter of each chapter looks like something from in the book. We should bring that back. Or, you could punch holes in a book mark and use it like a black out poem. The bottom of the bookmark could have the book title, edition and page number written on it. When you put the book mark over the right page it would spell out a message. Only thing with that is that it would have to be the size of the page or have a way to indicate how it should be lined up.

The other way I see to interpret this prompt is to think about it as a challenge to describe kinetic art, to give the reader the feeling they they are staring at something both still and moving at the same time.

Yet, I think you could also move the subject of your writing to a unconventional extent and full fill the prompt just as well. For example, contradicting yourself, making your reader second guess every turn in plot. having an unreliable narrator, making the reader feel as if they have to go back to the page where the room was first described so that they can double check that it started out as fantasy and not sci-fi. Be so subtle in your writing, as to have your reader believe that the explanation of the murder is accurate when there is something in the first chapter that makes your conclusion fall apart. The detective is the murderer, but he could never admit it, so the reader has to solve it for him. The less auspiscious readers might just feel a bit confused and discontented, but those who truly invest in the story will have a tale they remember for years to come.

This last idea is my favorite. Anyhow, tag me if any of y'all try any of these out. I'd love to see what happens.

Ya know, I was hanging out with normal people again today. It makes me realize how hard my life has been. They just... fix things when they come along. They aren't scared of asking for help. They don't analyze their every move in fear of retaliation. I can barely imagine living... at all. I was gonna say living like that but I barely feel alive at the moment, I don't feel real. They live... and I don't. I switch five times every night just so I can touch water to wash my hands and brush my teeth without getting triggered and its so strange to see someone living as if they don't have to fight for their time on this planet, as if the war is already over when, for me, it's just begun. It's so strange to see people acting normal, when I barely realize that's a concept. It's so strange to see people living, walking, driving, going about their day, when I feel stuck inna cage of my own making, never escaping and certainly never living, for real. It all feels fake, like I'm a character on television. Next thing I know, I step into the real world. People have jobs. The camera doesn't cut to the details anymore, you just have to guess at what's important. And let me tell you what, none of it seems important at all. So, why was it so weird to see people living, truly living? Why did it make me sad?