Power always needs more power to feel safe from all those folk it hurt and maimed and killed each time it seized a bit more power.

I use considerably more conjunctions than most, and start sentences with them. But not too frequently! I float more commas, too; though I keep them to necessary minimums. And fragments! Lots of those. Especially the short and implied- or inherited-subject sort. Clarity, so they don't deceive.

We cannot say ‘steal’, we cannot say ‘kill’, we cannot say ‘suicide’, while they ***** what we make, **** us when we protest, and tell the world it was *******.

When they command what is and is not obscene, obscenity is then art and speech and protest against them.

A wonderful flight alimation by the incredibly talented Kemelvor. Thank you once again for this incredible piece <3

I did not want holes in my arms.  Snuggles did not want to go to the vet. Neither of us walked away happy. #vss #writer #amwriting #writingcommunity

Worship our flag, our leader, our law.  In this world of men, their power begs awe. Those who do not: apostates. Those who cannot: heathens. Those who will not: heretics. Fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers: flush them out, hunt them down—they are un-like us, and must be made gone. #vss #amwriting

Our boardrooms fill of liars; our prisons, of those who told truths. Which do you teach your children to be? #vss #writer

"Hydras can't keep secrets.  Terrible liars." That wasn't quite true.  They're excellent liars—maybe the best.  But, with that many heads, they never agree on 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 lie to tell, let alone 𝘩𝘰𝘸. #vss #writer #amwriting #writingcommunity

When I was young, I knew not who I was—so I became what others told me to be. When I came older, in bits I grasped what I was—I kept this to myself, for I knew not how to tell. Now I am what I am, a teller of tales—and by practice, in pieces, I can almost tell my own. #vss #writingcommunity

She took me in.  I owed her.  Spent years paying it back.  And then we’d a good thing going, so we kept on and on and on.  Don’t know who owes who, now, but it still feels like me.  And that’s fine.  I wanna pay her back again and again, and keep owing her as long as I live. #vss #writer #amwriting

What you've been taught is damnable lie. Know now the truth: cheesecake is pie. #vss #writer #amwriting #writingcommunity #poem #poetry

There's not one trick or even two But in my time I've found a few A dash of rhyme, of rhythm, of beat To move their lips, their minds, their feet By simple words, they sing the best And dance far fairer than the rest For with one short and pithy phrase Your passage rings their ears for days #poetry

They were traitors, to a new call of treason.  Their girl screams—by axe-stroke, orphaned.  Spared, yet not as mercy; each dusk she screams again at the end of the butcher’s revelry. This night, a careless skewer in reach.  His neck spills as prey.  Her first, not last. #vss #writer #amwriting

"Your world is ending," spoke the beast. It was no prophecy, but a telling of truth.  Such poison days could not go on. We prayed to gods—ours we knew and more we did not.  Some even prayed to that beast, monstrous as it was.  But it gave us no salvation, same as all the rest. #vss #amwriting

I scream into the void and no one hears me, and it is enough. I scream into the void and some souls hear me, and it is nearly enough. I scream into the void and countless hear me, and it is never enough. #vss #writer

They report less to the State, but more to the News.  They cry progress; they cry decay.  They beg—more guns, more bullets! And the morticians—more tongs to pry those bullets from the poor, the broken, the different.  A city on a hill that shines of blood. #vss #writer #amwriting #writingcommunity

This morning they found three more holes. Smashed headstones, same as. Also same, none remember what those read. Vicar held prayer midday. Rain. Dozen showed. Some left flowers. Will speak with him this evening, see what he’ll tell a worried soul. Darker clouds come. Rough winds. Love, A.

An unconfident story frets fervently over what audiences understand and remember, and wastes much space explaining every small bit. A confident story lays out such a feast of nuance that audiences grasping barely a quarter will walk away well-fed.

"We needn't kill it, friend. Just wound it and wound it, cut by cut, till enough of the other side'll nod solemn and agree the old boy'd be better off put down."

If you hate our neighbor who looks a little different, how do I trust you don't hate me who loves and lives a little different?

Prompt was "Tyrant's mirror." Five minutes planning, fifteen execution, and a few errors tweaked after reading it for the other workshoppers. Not quite flash fiction, not quite microfic, but I guess this's where I land at that time window.

Each day’s end, the bleeding leaves me drunk. I no more but labor, weep, sleep. One shift on, one shift off: rest-enough to recover what I’ve given to make the work happen. And in my dreams, I also dig. Up, down, it does not matter—so long as the fires stay fed.

As a boy, he was a Scout; as a Scout, he went to hike. His parents got him new shoes, but they didn’t fit quite right. Still, he made it almost all the way before he fell. They pulled his shoes off. His socks dripped blood. That was the first time his dad told him he was proud. And the last.

Those I have met are selfless—they rarely, if ever, obsess over 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘴, and least of all how others might judge. So, without pretense, they just 𝘥𝘰, and that is the simple, logical genius which most the rest of us struggle even to imagine.

Forward! Nothing left to go back to. Forward! Staying is death. Forward! Life and love, or those in the way? Forward! ‘Twas abhorrent to think, let alone do. But forward! But forward! But only ever forward!

Beast, maybe. Monster, likely. Possibly clever, not for the better.

There was a young girl statue over one of the graves in the cemetery across the street. People wandering at night would see her roaming the rows. But she was just a statue, and the grave held a young man.

I'll find a place so filled with mem'ries, Where the waters kiss the shores, When your ma an' pa ain't watchin', You'll hold my paw in yours. Then we'll have a good ole picnic, With such nice things to eat, While the babes all go a-paddlin-, Let's dance to the ole drum's beat.

I am what I forget: a first friend—a first love? Faces I knew not at all, now long parted and sagged and buried. One dream of sunset above the clouds, ten nightmares twisting old comforts, a hundred humiliations of youth and age. My roots rot these corpses that were once me. #vss #writer #story

Rot grows. Rot spreads. Rot teems. Rot lives. Some run from it. Others fight. Some even hide theirs. It is no use: rot is ever-here. And who shelters in the thickest mask only shows they have the most to hide.

Take me back Take me home Take me round and round again To wispy clouds and crispy winds To amber glow of bookstore row And blue-lit fountains ‘tween their trees No plastic benches Backlit glass Or roaring SUVs

"Gods lie. Prophets lie." "And monsters!" "Aye. Yet what carrion find you at my feet? How much, at your divine altars?” I’d seen the mounds. Felt sin to say. “No gods, no prophets,” its lips pulled wide, full of fangs, “only demons of charisma." #vss #writer #amwriting #writingcommunity

I knew I wasn’t wanted well before the day they told I knew I’d ruined everything long before they sat and said They told me it wasn’t my fault that I’d done nothing wrong but be born but be born They still loved me They still loved me! They still loved the idea of me #vss #writer #poetry #microfic

Uma’s moon cast her gaze full and pale-bright, yet so few sorry souls below could look upon her light.

Exercises, exercises. This was from a workshop with the prompt 'at the gates'. Five minutes planning, thirty-five execution; then a tweak or five to phrasing I wasn't happy-enough with. #vss #writer #amwriting #flashfiction #writingpractice

Surprise is not enough.  The unexpected is infinite, and empty of meaning.  What changes minds, what sinks in hearts, comes not from what wasn’t imagined, but what was: the logical, the inevitable, the truth dismissed from possibility by taught, trained, practiced prejudice. #vss #writingcommunity

A crowd. A man in their middle. He’s tied to a post. Bruised. Bloody. They turn to you. “You a fag, too?” A second rope waits. You step up. You swing. You hit him. Again. You hit. Again! Hit. Harder. Hit! Harder! His face rips. Your knuckles drip. Your life depends on it. #vss

"Matter, in great amount, bends gravity.  Gravity, in great amount, bends matter."   Yet great men call themselves victims of what they brought to be. A fool craftsman blames his tools.  Or, he who thinks his customers bigger fools. #vss #writer #amwriting #writingcommunity

We wish to understand our world. The hows. The whys! What leads us to each little thing. But also we call ourselves unbeholden: masters who overturn all else on a whim. Are we predictable? Are we erratic? Fundamentally, we cannot be both. #vss #writer #amwriting #writingcommunity

"What even 𝘢𝘳𝘦 you?" "What would you have me be?" "Don't avoid the question." "Do not avoid the answer.  I am as you perceive, presume, expect." “Ah.  So a spouter of gibberish.” “If that is all you see, no truth of mine will change your mind.” #vss #writer #amwriting #writingcommunity

“We’re almost there, we’re almost there!” Our fields withered. Our cities flooded. “Just a little more!” Mountains crumbled. Rivers boiled. “So close, so close!” Billions fought and burned and starved and rotted. “Damn, I thought we'd get it.” #vss #writer #amwriting #microfiction

It wasn't the way he looked at me, it wasn't the way he looked at her.  It was the way he looked at the air between us, like the “we” of us stood 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦.  “Tell me about yourself.” I looked to her.  She met me, stepped to me—then turned to his gaze and told of us. #vss #amwriting #writingcommunity

Into my prayers, God spoke. “It is mine. He took it. You will take it back.” So I sought my teachers, their elders, the One on High. They each told the same: it is what God says. I still pray and God still speaks—ever, ever, ever the same. Is this all we have left? #vss #writer #microfiction

They’re an odd folk.  First glances peg them outwardly modern, but closer attention finds a lack of enlightened disregard for life, whether their own or others’.  Still, they try to balance weight-of-culture against such trivial concerns; it’s a marvel they are not yet crushed. #vss #amwriting

A moment of silence. A minute. An hour. A day, a week. A month, a year, a decade. Just shut up. #vss #writer

“We’re peaceful.  Ask any one of us.  We’re not dangerous.  Don’t fear us.  We had nothing to do with him.  We’re not responsible for what he did.  He wasn’t even one of us.  Just a crazy.  A fake.  But still do what we say.  Or more like him will do it again.” #vss #amwriting #writingcommunity

‘Twas tradition to bury a grim, to guard the rest of our dead. We didn’t have any big dogs, but Chippy was black enough. None dared disturb that hallowed earth; yet, it was disturbed. Every night, on the wind: “Yip, yip, yap!” Our souls did not sleep. #vss #writer #amwriting #microfiction

"Dress it up with suits and robes, scales and swords, but life is no less cutthroat.  We are predators: those who do not prey will be prey.  Those weak feed the strong, and the masses are consumed, as they ever have been.  It is not fair, but it is the 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 fair." #vss #writer #writingcommunity