It Was All an Adventure to You

 “He’s right this way, Princess. Watch your step. He’s been lying here all day, it seems.”

Princess Marle knew who that male pronoun was meant for, but she didn’t want to say it out loud. She didn’t want his name associated with the grape-scented wine wafting through the forest. She intentionally slowed down, not because she didn’t want to step on her royal white dress, but to prolong the answer. She could have moved at a snail’s pace despite the urgency of her squad of knights, but this part of her future was inevitable. As a former time traveler, she knew something about grim futures.

The knight captain raised a branch so that Marle could pass through. Some of the leaves got in her otherwise perfect blond hair, but hers wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the young boy lying against the trees in front of her. Defeated, drunk, disheveled, and demonized. Four D’s, one shell of a former human being. It was indeed Marle’s ex-husband Crono, his eyes glazed over, his clothes a stained mess, his spiky red hair even messier than usual. All life had left his once bright eyes, numbed by the genie lamp-like bottle dangling in his right hand.

With her knights firmly behind her, Marle tiptoed toward her ex and took a whiff of the offensive air that poisoned not just the forest, but an entire human body. “Did you bathe in Genie’s Delight, Crono?” No answer, just drool, tears, and snot. Marle yanked the bottle out of his hand and sarcastically took a sip. “Mmm! You have fine tastes…despite the fact that you’re not even old enough to drink alcohol. Still…you have very nice tastes.”

Marle threw the lamp-like bottle against a nearby stump, the shattering noise jostling Crono around a little bit, the only sign of life he was capable of showing. Not even his ex-wife’s scowling contempt was enough to wake him up from this depressive stupor. “Arrest him.”

“It was all an adventure to you…”

The knights couldn’t proceed any further as Marle held out her arms like a barricade, wanting to give her ex-husband a chance to speak his mind…or whatever was left of it. “Come again?”

Crono spit a wad of blood onto a nearby patch of grass, as if that would be more effective at deforesting this area than his alcoholic miasma. “Time travel is supposed to be fun, right? We were all having a good time going through all those worlds…all those dinosaurs…all those dragons…all those bony old men looking for something to eat in a fucking factory…” He spat again. “I’m glad you had a good time, Marle. I’m happy all those lighting bolts and fire bombs didn’t scar you in the least. I was worried being in constant battle would take its toll on all of us…” He hiccupped.

“Crono…let me make something perfectly clear. Those battles were not my idea of fun. Nobody was having fun. We fought all of those monsters because it was necessary. We saved the world. Isn’t that something to be proud of? Isn’t that something you want to be remembered for?”

Crono burped.

“Answer me!” Marle’s arms folded like she was ready to make her final judgment upon this poor bastard in front of her.

Crono burped again. “I’m sure it’d be nice to be remembered as a savior. But that’s not how I remember it. All I remember was being burned alive and slashed to pieces.” Tears welled up in his eyes, much to the dismay of his ex-wife. “I died, Marle! I literally died! And before that I almost had my head chopped off by your kingdom! They were going to give me the guillotine for a fake kidnapping charge! The guillotine! To a little boy! That’s all that capital punishment is, really: state-sanctioned murder.”

Marle calmed down somewhat. “I agree.”

“I don’t,” said the knight captain, who earned himself a slap on the arm from her highness.

“You were cleared of all charges, Crono.”

“Tell that to the townsfolk. You think I don’t hear them talking? They still think I kidnapped you. They don’t buy that time portal explanation. Nobody does.” He pointed at an empty field. “Even that guy won’t stop talking about it. He wants me dead, just like everyone else.”

“Crono, who are you pointing at? There’s nobody there.” The weight of what Marle just said caused her to suck in a deep breath. Almost holding her hand to her mouth, she whimpered, “Are you delusional? Are you…hearing voices?” Her only answer came in the form of a weak shrug. “Is that why you drink so much?” He nodded. “You ruined our marriage over a few bottles of wine for this? Crono, why didn’t you tell me?”

He laughed like the madman he was becoming. “How am I supposed to bring that up in conversation? Oh, honey, these mashed potatoes are delicious! By the way, I’m hearing things that aren’t there! Your knights would have given me the guillotine just for that. I guess there’s no better way to relieve head trauma, am I right?” He chuckled at his own form of gallows humor.

Marle’s breathing became more erratic and jittery as she fought back tears that she never wanted her loyal knights to see. “Crono, if you would have told me, I wouldn’t have judged you for it. I would have helped you through it. We all would have.”

“I wouldn’t have,” said the knight captain.

“SHUT UP!” yelled Marle, an order that was quickly obeyed. “Crono…we married each other…we shared moments…and you threw it all away with that disgusting wine! You could have told me what was going on!”

“Not even your healing magic would have done me any favors, Marle!” Crono snapped back. “You want to help me? Reach inside my head, pull the demons out one-by-one, and throw them away for good! Can you do that? Can anybody do that?!”

“…No…I can’t…” Marle’s tears were slowly eroding away her royal toughness.

“Look…if you’re going to arrest me, then do it already. I’m beyond help at this point. Those combat memories won’t go away on their own. Those chatty bastards won’t stop spreading rumors about me. And I’ll never get the taste of Genie’s Delight out of my mouth. Ah, who am I kidding? Everything tastes like blood nowadays. I’ve been stabbed so many times that I can taste it every day. I’ve been burned so many times that it tastes like crispy black scabs. Just arrest me or kill me, okay? I don’t care what you choose, just do something.”

Marle wiped her eyes on her arm glove before using her arm like a barricade once more to stop the knight captain from arresting Crono. “I’ll handle this. Take the rest of the day off, Captain. You’ve done enough.”

“But Princess, I…”

She lifted a finger to her lips. “Not. Another. Word. Let me handle this. Go.”

The knights hesitated for a while before marching back to the castle, leaving Marle to wrap Crono’s arm around her back and hoist him to his feet. His dizzy equilibrium made him harder to carry, but she was still willing to do it. He was so slippery that she just decided to carry him baby style in her arms. He seemed comfortable in that position from how easily he closed his puffy eyes. Marle didn’t even have to struggle that much to hold him, suggesting to her that he hadn’t had much food to go with his copious amounts of alcohol.

Marle carried the remains of her ex-husband through the dark forest, the one where they used to “level up”. The one where they escaped from the castle guards by traveling to the future, the future of broken down factories, skinny survivors, constant hunger, and dark skies. Maybe there was some validity to Crono’s trauma.

She carried him like the mother she originally wanted to be. She climbed many castle stairs, receiving dirty looks from the guards along the way. She didn’t care. She climbed more stairs. And more. And more. And then she introduced Crono to a room he thought he hadn’t seen before. “This doesn’t look like a drunk tank…”

“That’s because it isn’t. It’s our old bedroom. The bed is a lot softer here than in a drunk tank.”

A little bit of life returned to Crono’s eyes as he looked around the old bedroom he shared with his now ex-wife. Marle took it in as well. The stained glass windows, the bookcase full of knowledge and wisdom, the beautiful artwork that was a mirror image of the battles they fought together, and more importantly, the bed that felt like laying on a cloud of vanilla ice cream.

“I think you’d be more comfortable with your shirt off.” Sure enough, Marle stood him up and removed his wine-scented tunic, revealing visible ribs underneath. She elected to leave everything else on his body in order to keep it PG. She hobbled him over to the bed and laid him down on his stomach, face first into the silky eiderdown pillow. He was asleep almost instantly, snoring like a coffee grinder and snorting like a pig.

Marle gazed down upon her once beloved with watery eyes. She threatened him with arrest back in the forest, but she knew in her heart she could never carry out such an order. He was so irresponsible, but he was also hurting. She couldn’t leave someone like that alone in the forest at the mercy of conservative knights. He looked almost as pained as the starving twigs from the future. He looked like a corpse ready for his permanent dirt nap. He was drunk out of his mind, yet he clung to life all the same. She knew he wasn’t ready to surrender.

Knowing full well he was knocked out from the drunkenness, Marle climbed on Crono’s back and gave him a massage anyways. She didn’t want to squeeze too hard out of consideration for his visible bones, but she squeezed just enough to hopefully put some better memories in his traumatic nightmares. If the gentle touches weren’t enough, she leaned into his ear and whispered something she wanted to say, but couldn’t get through to him during their crumbling marriage: “Crono…I never stopped loving you!”

He Hates His Penis

He hates his penis and all that it stands for

He hates his tastes, wants to be a sad bore

If anybody knew what kind of shit he liked

He’d be locked in darkness without his rights

A broken lamp, but there’s no genie inside

No way to get rid of the parts he must hide

Take a razor blade and cut his dingus off

And the sack for which he turns and coughs

The thoughts don’t stop, he wants to drop

Before he gets his ass beat by the keystone cops

Throw the TV out of his window pane

Before a Huggies commercial drives him insane

No where to turn to, no one to talk to

Want to stab him to death? He won’t stop you

He never asked for his brain to be fucked up

Nobody would choose it, it’s just tough luck

Where does he go from his lowest point?

Does he just light up yet another joint?

Numbing his pain with drugs and food

He lived another day, stabilized his mood

He’s a monster without the claws and fangs

A warmonger without the guns and tanks

A devil without living in the hells below

That shit’s on earth, in case you didn’t know

Show Don't Tell

PRE-VERSE 1

Don’t tell me about the ghostly music

Show me sound waves liquefying his brain

Don’t tell me he’s about to lose it

Show me twitchy faces as he’s going insane

VERSE 1

Reading about scandals in the newspaper

Won’t give you the most intimate flavor

An old man’s gyroscopic wiener in motion

Leaves her trapped above the Atlantic Ocean

Few seconds of assault becomes a life of trauma

But they’ll brush it off as SJW drama

She’s a hero for telling a story that pains her

And showing the old fart he’s a walking failure

PRE-VERSE 2

Tell me you’re hurting without telling me so

The hangover turns your head into a bomb to blow

Tell me why you’re drunk without telling me why

Because it’s better than letting monsters see you cry

VERSE 2

A fictional world becomes real in a hurry

When the lines of fantasy become so blurry

Is the author a racist or just bad at his craft?

When the audience screamed, the Nazis laughed

Five hundred pages of knights and mages

And lovers so fine with questionable ages

He’s a villain for telling a story so awful

And showing why he’s still on the side of lawful

PRE-VERSE 3

These stories don’t connect in any meaningful way

They’re just random thoughts barfed onto the page

Get a nice editor to tell you that you’re full of it

Test your resolve, we’ll see if you’re full of quit

VERSE 3

In the end, we all have our stories to tell

But it’s all a matter of if they’re told well

We don’t mind a little bit of being disturbed

As long as there’s substance to go with big words

Everyone has potential to live beyond themselves

And see their very best efforts on library shelves

You’re a human for telling a story the world needs

And showing them all you despise corporate greed

No One Else Is Living This Way

Ghostly music swirled in Commander Bright’s brain, though the instrument of choice was whirring noises from his waking dizziness. He would have checked for a massive lump on his head if not for his hands being restrained behind his back. Any oxygen he managed to muster up came through his snotty nose as his mouth was obstructed. He wanted to wiggle around to break free from his new bondage, but the duct tape was too powerful, squeezing him down like a Gundam’s hand.

Bright’s darkened vision let just a little bit of light in at a time and eventually his salty eyes gave him the blurry, distorted shape of someone he used to know. Long gone was the innocent young man that he tried to push into becoming a true soldier. In his place was wide-eyed psychosis, a teenaged boy wearing not his uniform, but a wife-beater tank top, dirty brown pants, and a glazed over expression. Amuro Ray had gone off the deep end, but Bright had already known that the minute he could no longer move his body or express anger through his words.

Amuro’s superior wiggled around in his chair some more, but to no avail.  He was too weak from the dizziness and lack of oxygen. But he couldn’t find it within himself to accept defeat so easily. There had to be a method to Amuro’s madness. Something had to make him tick aside from the constant battle fatigue when he took his Gundam into any given war zone. Bright’s exhausted mind wouldn’t allow him to search so easily for answers.

“Guess what?” Amuro leaned his face closer to Bright’s. “I forgot to make my bed today.” The young man chuckled through his nose, a privilege not afforded to the bound and gagged Bright for fear of passing into darkness yet again. The joke wasn’t even that funny to begin with. Amuro wasn’t done there. 

“But of course…that’s hardly my only infraction.” He produced a file folder and thumbed through the pages like he was shuffling cards. “That’s a lot of pages for just one person. It’s almost like…you’re obsessed with me or something. I’m sure you have a lot to say about me.”

He pulled one of the pages out. “Amuro Ray. Sixteen years old. Gundam pilot. Received several infractions for behavioral issues, which include, but are not limited to insubordination, questioning authority (which is the same as insubordination, I don’t know why you’d put those two together), hijacking military property, desertion, aggravated assault, and aggravated mayhem. Has several psychological issues such as high-functioning autism, depression, post-traumatic stress…

“Do you really want me to keep reading this? We’d be here for hours if we went over everything. Wait a minute…” He looked around in mock disbelief. “There’s no file cabinet. How am I supposed to file this page with no cabinet? I’m sure it has to go somewhere.” He stared menacingly at Bright’s left thigh, causing his bound and gagged victim’s heart to thump loudly like a useless beacon to nobody coming to rescue him.

Amuro produced a staple gun from his back pocket and stapled the lone sheet of paper to Bright’s thigh. The Commander screamed so powerfully through his gag that his throat began to take more damage than his wound. His eyes watered and burned down his cheeks. 

“What? You don’t think that’s a good place for it?” More gagged screaming from Bright. “I agree. Let’s put it somewhere else.” Amuro ripped out the staple and this time the gagged screaming nearly caused Bright’s head to split open. The Commander cared little about the oxygen leaving his body in a gust of tears and snot. Amuro didn’t care either as he continued to taunt his former superior.

“Well, look at this! You got blood all over the page. How is anybody supposed to read about my horrible deeds when there’s blood everywhere? How is anybody supposed to judge me if they can’t see what’s there? This page needs to drip-dry. And I have just the place to hang it.” He stapled the non-bloody side of the page to Bright’s crotch and this time the screaming was high-pitched, like a female dragon wanting desperately to unleash her fireball. Speaking of fiery balls, Bright’s genitals bled more profusely than his thigh.

Amuro continued to taunt him. “Nah, that’s not going to dry it off. Let’s hang it somewhere else.” He ripped out the staple and Bright’s voice nearly blew like a bomb as he shrieked in pain. Seconds of torture turned to minutes. Minutes turned to hours. Hours turned to days, weeks, months, and years. In reality, it had only been a few seconds of agony, but it might as well have been eternal damnation.

The teasing wasn’t over, as Amuro pulled a bottle of liquor from the shadows of whatever room they were in. “Am I even old enough to drink this?” He popped off the top and did it anyway, teenaged years be damned. His innocence was gone long before he took his first sip. He held it out to the still screaming Bright. “Want some?” Amuro proceeded to splash the alcohol on Bright’s groin and leg wounds. The stinging pain was like a thousand scorpions digging into his body with their claymore tails. The bacteria was dead and Bright wished he was.

Amuro splashed the alcohol in Bright’s face, which would have spelt the end for his oxygen supply if the tape gag didn’t get saggy and fall off. “Stop! Stop! Stop!” Bright screamed. The growls of agony were replaced by raspy, rapid-fire breathing. The blood in his gums pooled up and gave him a nice taste of nickels and dimes.

“I’m sorry, what was that? You want me stop? You had enough?” Amuro slapped Bright and reddened his already strawberry cheeks. “Come on, Bright!” Amuro slapped him again and again. “You can’t grow up unless you get slapped! If you’re depressed, snap out of it! Isn’t that what you said to me?” Amuro suddenly calmed down, but not in a charitable way. “My own father wouldn’t even hit me.”

Bright shot a snot rocket on the floor and breathed heavily as he spoke. “You can slap me and staple me all you want, but your head voices aren’t going away!” Amuro grew sullen in his once arrogant facial expression. “You think you’re the only one who has war flashbacks?! You think the rest of us aren’t hurting just as much as you are?! This is war, Amuro! Everybody’s feeling it! You’re the only one who’d even think about torturing me over this! You’re the only one with the staple gun right now! No one else is living this way…”

Amuro backed up, stunned in silence.

Bright spit a wad of blood on the floor. “See? You’re backing up because you know it’s true! Torturing me isn’t a substitute for therapy! Never has been, never will be! You can kill me for all I care, but no matter where you go, you take the pain with you!” Bright smiled through red and pink teeth. “You know what the best part about all of this is? Your trauma will only get worse once you go to prison. All that time alone in your prison cell with nothing but your thoughts. Your loud…destructive…violent thoughts…They’re all yours. They’ll only get louder. And louder.”

Amuro clutched his brown head of hair and doubled over in pain. “Stop it! Just shut your mouth! I’ll staple your lips shut if I have to!”

“What kind of nightmares do you have, anyways? Bombs going off? Getting shot at with lasers? Nearly dying every single time you’re out on the battlefield? Oh, I bet you hate those explosions, Amuro. I bet you absolutely HATE combat!” Bright started making bomb noises with whatever was left of his throat and mouth.

“I said stop! No more! SHUT UP!” Amuro broke the liquor bottle against the wall, fashioning it into a knife. He slowly crept towards his hostage with wildness in his eyes and spittle foaming on his lips. “You were the one who made me this way! You wanted me to be a soldier! You wouldn’t let me rest when I needed to! You’re the one who fucked with my mind!”

“Yeah…I am…And you know what? I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. Except this time, when I slap the hell out of you…I’m going for a knockout!”

“STOP IT! SHUT UP!”

“Or what?! What are you going to do, Amuro?! You’re going to keep wrestling with your mind until it gives you want you want?! Good luck with that! Face it, Amuro…you can kill me…you can kill my whole crew if you want to…but your mind…will always be a shitty place to be!”

Amuro couldn’t deny his head voices any longer. He turned the broken bottle on himself and sliced his own throat open. Bright’s voice may have been raw from death growling into a tape gag, but at least he couldn’t compare his throat pain to Amuro’s. The once brilliant Gundam pilot now laid on the ground in a pool of his own biological sludge, finally free from the prison of his own mind.

Bright’s breathing slowed down and his neck stopped radiating with pain like a nuclear rod. Every breath he took was one of relief. The pain in his crotch and thigh was completely forgotten about during his moments of bravery, but not when he tried to undo his tape. Squirming went from being a mere chore to a marathon in hell as pain shot throughout his entire body. But free himself from the tape he did. And then he collapsed on the floor with nothing to entertain his senses but the boots of his rescuers, who almost came too late.

He lost track of how much time had passed since he’d been asleep in the hospital. He thought for sure he had slipped past heaven’s gates. But the only part of heaven he could experience at that moment was the softness of his bed cushioning his aching body. Everything else felt like being engulfed in flames, whether it was the wrappings on his wounds, the tubes coming out of his skin, or his pounding headache.

The nurses turned around to check his progress…and every last one of them had Amuro’s face. They even had Amuro’s voice. Everywhere Bright looked, he saw his torturer, who once took on the role of the one being tortured. It had to be an illusion, right? It had to be his mind playing tricks on him. That was the only explanation for this. 

In which case…everything Bright said about Amuro’s traumatic hallucinations came to fruition…for him as well. He gave away his own prophecy. The physical torture was over. The psychological hell was just beginning. Maybe taking Gundams onto the battlefield wasn’t a great idea after all. Bright wanted to shout his newfound insanity from the rooftops, but shouting required a little more vocal power than he was afforded. He was a prisoner of his own mind…and it would be like that for the rest of his life. The broken bottle sounded better with every passing day in the hospital.

inspirational Porn Star

VERSE 1

I was born with one finger, no other body parts

My cancer cell count was off the fucking charts

I got run over by a Karen and her shopping cart

Left to bleed and break on the floor of Wal-Mart

But I kept pushing on, as cliché as that sounds

I can now bench press a thousand fucking pounds

A got a hot wife, hot life, and a new sports car

You call me lucky; I’m an inspirational porn star

VERSE 2

I was born with a negative bank account balance

A million dollar debt to a loan shark in Dallas

The streets were the place where I slept and shit

Not in that order, but the timeline still fits

I kept soldiering on, got a college education

Got a bunch of D-pluses at my graduation

It’s clearly your fault if you don’t go far

Not mine; I’m an inspirational porn star

VERSE 3

I never once took a check from the welfare office

Never once begged the forces of evil to stop it

I’m so tough I floss my teeth with barbed wire

Wipe my ass with sandpaper ‘til it burns like fire

Shave my face with a chainsaw until I’m raw

Clip my nails with a shark’s disembodied jaw

If I can do it, you have no reason not to start

Your lifelong journey, be an inspirational porn star

VERSE 4

Of course you all know that I’m full of shit

Only a bunch of sheep believe my rhetoric

Everything has nuance, even life itself

Not as easy as a bible on a library shelf

Not as easy as watching a You Tube video

Not as easy as imagining a new scenario

I want more for me, so I move the goal post

Inspirational porn stars are just hollow boasts

Limerence

“…”

Do you hear that? That is the sound of absolutely nobody being shocked by the news that I experience limerence on a daily basis. It is a condition defined as obsessively imagining romance with someone I have a crush on. Cigarettes taste like shit. Alcohol tastes like an entire outhouse. Heroin and cocaine are even worse for the brain than those two things put together. Limerence is my drug of choice because it costs nothing and it helps me cope with the stresses of life, whether it’s the pandemic blues or schizophrenia eating me alive long before that. Instead of traumatic memories, limerence gives me lovey-dovey scenarios to think about. One of these things is not like the other. A night of laying my head in a woman’s lap while she strokes my hair is very much preferable over reliving every insult that’s ever been said to me.

Who am I currently experiencing limerence for? A lot of women, not just one or two. I feel much more comfortable saying the names of super-famous celebrities than I do of You Tubers and people I know online. Celebrities don’t have time to read my social media posts whereas a You Tuber will know exactly who I am and will hit that block button with cat-like reflexes. To be fair to the You Tubers, how would you feel if you learned that a three hundred pound man who lives with his parents and is currently unemployed thought of you in an obsessively romantic way? While beauty is always in the eye of the beholder, I have a feeling it would be creepy no matter who I was. I could have flowing blond locks and abs that would make a great bulletproof vest. I could be a billionaire who cheats on my taxes, but never on my limerent object. It would still be creepy as fuck.

But what about the celebrities who have no time for me? What about the fictional characters who will never be offended by my romantic thoughts because they’re not even real? Well, that depends on what time period you’re talking about. In the late 90’s, it was Cammy White from Super Street Fighter II. In the mid 2000’s, it was Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. For the rest of the 2000’s, it was Tarja Turunen, the ex-lead singer from Nightwish. In 2018, it was Sarah-Jane Redmond, the actress who played Lucy Butler from Millennium. In the present day, it’s a bunch of lovely You Tubers whose names will go unchecked due to the fact that they might be reading this.

I’m sure none of you want to Google the names I did mentioned. After all, I’m supposed to be showing instead of telling when I write these nonfiction pieces. But there are many common threads among the women I’ve named and haven’t named. They’re beautiful, of course, but not just physically. They have something about them that keeps my limerent mind coming back for more. It could be the intelligence of political discourse, giving safe spaces and love in equal measures. It could be the wisdom of passionate fairytale storytelling, the paladin conquering the ogre and the dragons protecting the elven kingdoms. It could be the talent of singing like an angel from heaven itself, turning the phone book into sensual lyrics. It could be the strength of a warrior who will protect and mother any man she falls in love with. It could be the uncanny knack of seducing men just by being themselves, declaring love and giving kisses to calm the most nervous of men.

Anybody can be physically attractive. Anybody can have ruby red lips that taste like cherry pie, skin that’s soft and arousing to the touch, and hair that when stroked would leave both of your scalps tingling with pleasure. But if someone is physically attractive whilst being a shallow jerk, then that’s a huge turn-off. Nicole Arbour is physically attractive, but because of her fat-shaming rhetoric (“sweating Crisco” and “being unhealthy”), abusive behavior towards past boyfriends (punching faces and isolation from friends and family), and right-wing ignorance (white victimhood and minority bashing), she angers instead of seduces.

Another common thread among my limerent women is that none of my romantic fantasies about them have ever turned sexual. I would never want to taint them in that way. So instead, I imagine them squeezing my shoulders in a relaxing massage, sending tingles throughout my body. I imagine laying my head in their lap while they play with my hair, sending even more tingles throughout my body. I would do the same for them occasionally and earn a few swooning moans. I imagine giving them foot massages that make them close their eyes and drift off into dreamland, probably dreaming about being fed strawberries and cream like a goddess. I imagine laying in bed next to them, not for sex, but for the warmth of cuddling and the peacefulness of sleep. We could even have “A Pillow of Winds” by Pink Floyd playing in the background to accentuate this moment of love. 

These fantasies are especially important to me during moments of sadness and schizophrenic torment. Who wouldn’t want Chun Li from Street Fighter II squeezing their shoulders and lifting them up from a pit of despair? Mild, inoffensive touching at its finest. We could even hold hands together while walking through the desolate streets of either Port Orchard or Seattle. The warmth of her hand and the softness of her fingers would definitely feel good to me when I’m nervous at night. Of course, I would still be nervous about this beautiful lady wanting anything to do with me, but it’s not the same as feeling the danger of Seattle’s cyberpunk atmosphere.

I held off on talking about this topic as long as I could. I’ve already mentioned not wanting to gross anybody out with my lovey-dovey thoughts. But more importantly than that, I didn’t want to be written off as a whiny incel. For all intents and purposes, someone like me would fit in nicely with that clique. I’m overweight, a shy virgin, unemployed, and a lifelong tenant with my parents. I check all the boxes except for one: I’m not a misogynist who believes I’m entitled to free sex. Women owe me absolutely nothing. If they like me, fine. If not, then there’s nothing I can do about it. I certainly would never go on a shooting spree at a lingerie store or yoga studio. I wouldn’t run over random pedestrians with a van over my inability to be attractive. That’s just a LITTLE extreme, in my opinion.

Sometimes limerence is only a fantasy that will never come true. Sometimes we have to accept that we’re not right for everyone. Not everybody deserves a lifetime of cuddling and hot sex with Wonder Woman. Not everybody deserves a shoulder massage and passionate kisses from Tifa Lockhart. And you know what? That’s okay. If we got whatever we wanted all day every day, life would be boring as hell. There’d be no excitement or realism. If everybody is sexy, nobody is sexy. If everything is romantic, nothing is romantic. All the good things in life will come in moderation, which seems cliché to say until you do take it to the extreme and completely fuck up your life because of it. You hear that, Jake Davison? Of course you don’t, because you’re dead.

So why do I have limerent fantasies about people I don’t stand a chance with? Wouldn’t it be easier just for me to go out and meet somebody, pandemic aside? Well, that’s where the shyness and lack of confidence comes in. I don’t enjoy being creepy and I can see if me flirting with a woman would be perceived that way, no matter how mild or harmless it may seem. Being rejected by someone who thinks I’m creepy sounds like the worst kind of pain there is. It’s actually been scientifically proven that romantic rejection activates the same receptors of the brain as physical pain. It’s not as easy as moving onto the next one. It hurts. It can hurt for weeks, months, even years, especially if you’re like me and you’re neurodivergent. Autistic people generally feel pain at a higher capacity than neurotypicals. Criticism and rejection are both necessary parts of life, but goddamn, do they hurt worse than getting kicked in the testicles.

So what do I do about this? Stay in the shadows and partake in the drug known as limerence, of course. What else would I do? Why bother with someone who’s guaranteed to hate me when I’ve got Anette Olzon scratching her nails down my back and setting off my ASMR triggers? Why put myself through unnecessary pain when I’ve got Amy Lee slow-dancing with me at the prom, whispering sweetness in my ear and kissing my cheeks while doing so? Not a tough decision, as you can see. While loneliness may suck and limerence will always be fake, it beats the emotional trauma of rejection any day of the week. This makes me sound like an incel, I’m sure, but mark my words: I despise that ideology and want nothing to do with people who conform to that label. Maybe I’m not that creepy after all? Nah! Of course I am! Lzzy Hale, here I come! What flavor of ice cream sandwich do you want: vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, or all three at once?

Oath Breaker

VERSE 1

I know this comes off as some shocking news

But a paladin’s powers can be abused

When he sends the orcs to the undertaker

He embraces the role of a fallen oath breaker

No more healing powers to wield

No more cutting undead with zeal

Just another tin can with a sword and shield

The consequences are always real

VERSE 2

A lesser man would sit behind bars

With his date of release so distant and far

But an oath breaker has a redemption arc

Another chance to leave a positive mark

Does he deserve it? Only time will tell

Everybody seems to think he belongs in hell

He’s more nuclear than a plutonium rod

Giving cancer to even the mightiest gods

VERSE 3

To burn an evil empire into smoldering dust

Is the only way to regain the common man’s trust

To derail the elven sex trafficking train

Is the only way to break the slavery chains

To slay the giants who destroy the town

Is the only way to regain the holy crown

Save the world just like you did before

Even if it means you have to win your own war

VERSE 4

The final judgment shall be cast upon you

But the verdict is something you already knew

Couldn’t erase the past from traumatized minds

A cell in the underworld is all you’ll find

Let he who’s without sin cast the first stone

Guaranteed broken bones even though you atoned

You can dig up dirty laundry from behind the grave

To the sins of the past, everybody is a slave