Jake Vander-Ark

sometimes life isn__ worth the pain. i__ going for a swim. goodbye, my love.

it was unmatched life experience that bestowed in her eyes the sultry gleam that separates women from girls. although she viewed her __ife experience_ like bruises on a peach, men of all ages still found ways to see past the indications of damaged goods long enough to offer her a drink. hell, it was less than an hour ago that one such man called her __othic perfection_ and cried on her shoulder. her boyfriend agreed that a crazy life can __row a girl up quick_; it was only last november that she turned seventeen.

But in the end, black can never be white, one plus one must always equal two, and Mara Lynn was a normal little girl.

You know that moment when you hug somebody, when your heart feels warm and high in your chest and tingly? When you feel just for a second like a baby in a womb... that nothing matters? That's how I want you to feel. That's what a girlfriend should do, I think.

William looked up... through his tears... past the catwalk and lights... past the sky... through the dark and clouds and stars and into the void where he once knew God existed, then turned himself outside-in, alone, and asked, 'Why?

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think the same could be said for time.

Someday they would discover that the stars were not sacred, but made from the same material as their bodies. They would learn it was the stars that created their worlds, that worlds created their minds, that minds created tools, and tools could create stars. Growing, sprawling, thriving until they too became masters of their own understanding, chasing enlightenment with the fervor of having nothing to lose, launching from their homelands like fireworks with glorious yellow tails.

But Hannah's friend didn__ understand the volatile balancing act between art and sanity, that the act of creation was like walking a tightrope during an earthquake. She didn__ understand Hannah__ stupid need for validation, or that the size of the audience increased the stakes and multiplied the fear. She didn__ understand that creativity was dangerous, that, yes, there were some people who could stand before a canvas, paint a sunset that would bring the world to its knees, and return to their loved ones as a complete person who didn__ hurt, didn__ cry, didn__ spill blood to appease the host of fickle muses. But Hannah did. Hannah__ best ideas__ometimes her only ideas__ere buried beneath the skin.

When left unsatisfied, lust becomes violence.

Any earthly production would have been cancelled at the slightest suggestion of rain, but this was William__ Stage__t was William__ call__nd if the children danced and the congregation remained transfixed, the show would go on.

The Age of the Stars had come to an end. Once in a billion years, a feeble supernova illuminated the vestiges of its home; brown dwarfs, neutron stars, blackholes... lifeless echoes of their former majesty.

his stubble was cut smooth. he smelled of aftershave, dry deodorant and sex-tarnished bedsheets. those eyes--grey, strong, inlaid beneath a firm brow that displayed such hate and SUCH love--they seduced her every time... but not tonight.

When he did think__hen his brain began the slow chugging of rusty gears__he only thoughts that came were unspeakable things like, what__ the worst age a child can die? Worse yet was__fter hours spent staring at the ceiling until it became a real-life Escher print with fans on the floor, useless windowsills, and dresser drawers that spilled underwear when opened__orse yet was when his mind found answers to those questions. Two-years-old isn__ so bad, he mused. They barely had a life. Twenty? At least they got to experience life! But fourteen... fourteen was the worst.

The night seemed suddenly defiled by the absence of music, as if the silence itself was injecting a sickness that only another song could cure.

Judge that boy if you must; for debauchery, for objectifying innocence... but before you finalize your verdict, oh innocent reader, I beg you to scan again that last stanza. What you and I overlooked in our cloud of perversion and nasty objectification was the unrestrained joy of a little girl playing dress-up for the very first time.

Every time I think about that girl, my mind commits a sin.

What__ so beautiful about girls?_ I would implore.And the secret society of adults would reply with a smirk and wink as if I was merely a boy who couldn__ possibly have the mental maturity to comprehend such grown-up concepts as love and bleeding vaginas; __ou__l understand someday, James.

_girls were like poems: weird, incomprehensible and boring, but those __n the know_ assured me that they were beautiful.