Deadline

My space.

I spend every day blocking out your light,
You are gone; you are faded; you have gone away...

So I spend my nights alone, drinking from the same cup
A cigarette in my mouth, trying to organise my thoughts.

Love. I was told it was a mystery
That it was eternal, sacred
That with the right love, you could be fulfilled:

Why was it all a lie?
Why have you gone away...?

It's like this, night after night;
The same piano keys. The same song
A life in refrain;
I can't move on. I can't fight this shelter, my grave.

I ask you now, dark angel
Look at me with mercy
Remember my name...
The words I once spoke to you in hushed whispers, genuine, unhindered by the lack of love, unbothered by lust, sworn in trust:

I promised myself to you at first sight,
We were bound, now broken, left to rot.
But it needn't be this way:
Do you remember my voice? Resurrection...
Have I not already lifted you out of your grave?
Have I not filled you with my light and sheltered you from dismay?
You are my angel, black or white
I bleed for you // no matter the cause, each and every day
To me, it doesn't matter if you fail
It does not matter how many pieces chip and fade
You are the air that I breathe; and I don't mean to use the age-old cliché,
But to me you are light, and life, and fire
So caress my soul. Shelter me in your dark energy,
I will myself to you. I give myself to you. I slit my throat to beg a rest,
From the demon of not living without you
Your only mistake is denial, of not telling me it's over
Shackled, I can't get free. I beg a whisper from thee...

So tell me, Ashley...

How does it end?

My space.

I had five minutes to make an impression.

In five minutes, this song would be over, and she’d walk out.

So, I walked in. Met her eyes. And started walking towards her, all without looking away.

I passed by others, slipped around them as they looked at me from the corners of their eyes. Interested.

When some guy stepped in front of her, she stepped aside, so that our eye contact wouldn’t break.

She had her lips parted. Her eyes were busy trying to get hold of me.

The tempo caresses my senses; and hers.

I was almost there.
Closer, closer.
Then--

He had to be there.
That guy.

Him. In his dark suit and open collar, with his dark eyes and sharp, elegant smile.
Smooth, subtle, sexy. Standing up on the balcony, watching us.

Fuck him.
I wanted her so bad.

She was everything I’d been searching for.
Everything I needed.

Shaking her hips from side to side, rocking them in time with the beat.
Making me do things I shouldn’t. My hips in time with the beat.
Her notes, making me linger.
My voice high-strung as I called out to her, aware I could’ve been caught.
My eyes flicking upwards dangerously, wary of the balcony.

I sat on it. That scared, anxious feeling.
Then, I let it ride. And threw myself at her.

She caught me mid-step and gasped. Her eyes locked on mine as I turned her my way.
A nervous flutter escaped her, caused by my wickedness; and my stupidity.

‘’You can’t just--,’’ She said, rolling with the wave.

‘’Not here! He’ll-,’’ She threw a glance at the balcony.

‘’Wow…” Her body moving from side to side, saying its first hello.

She turned around and backed up against me. Then, she gave me a certain look over her shoulder.

I put my brow against hers, and she closed her eyes. The scent pulled me in, and the warmth of her skin had my mind doing somersaults.

My hands went for her hips--, and I meant to say something good, but--,

The song ended.

And the whole club opened up and the lights came on and everyone stood looking at us, backing away.

The guy on the balcony with the sharp smile and the dark suit was staring down at me, not smiling.

He pointed a single finger in my direction, then said in the clearest tone I’d heard since I’d told myself to ‘take my chances:’

‘’That guy. Bring me that guy.’’

I wasn’t surprised. She was his, after all.

I let her go, gave her one last look, did something I shouldn't, then hurried out of the venue, my cheek still stinging from the slap.

I thought I saw her staring at me as I went out the back door, her hand still touching her mouth where I’d landed the kiss.

I suppose I should've known I'd pay for that....

My space.

Today I had a rare experience, an understanding, sitting there under the shade. My fingers shaking from too much liquor. The pain in my right hand. The awkward twitch in my right bicep. ... I had this whisper. This inclination. Bass was playing. Guitar. A Christian voice, calling out to my soul. It was saying, "Pain is pleasure." That I make a myth of my own suffering. Like a hot knife along my own skin. Maybe I hadn't realised. The more I write, the more I fade. Cutting away the pieces of me. Literature that never gets read.

No Ashley. No Ashley.

God; I miss you. You were my love.

You were my love.

You were; and now you are gone, and I have never, ever moved on.

My space.

I've been driving
The woods ripping by
The faint screams of the arches
The mountain forks, all pointing at me

Red flashes. I'm hanging dry,
Liquor to my lips
Smoke-scarred lungs
The Devil's on the Speedometer
He's laughing at me

Crying over 90
Speed up around the bend
Go piling into the safety
Flip out into the night
Like a bat with wings, I'll soar
The bitterest taste;
My mother's eyes, reflected back at me
The scorn on her face. The disappointment

Let me die,
Let me die.

My space.

There is no endless killing field,
Blood weeps
A char-grinned slogan
To make out the smile on my face.

Endless wishes, whines
I call to the times where I was happy
A smiling kid, rich in looks
Dead inside. I bleed out onto the cobbles
Lick-spit rent-up.

Now push me, shush me, run your hands across me
Pull up the corpse from the gravel
Taste my lips; taste the ashes?

I love the symphony,
The clarion's call
The gate that pulls me to heaven, then hell
I'll cry out my lungs, too bad they're already ashen.

I love the end; the irony, the sweet finality of Death
It waits for me. Thirty one years strong.
I bet before the final day, the Gods visit me one last time in my dreams
For I am bereft their touch, song, call, whisper, reassurance;
I am absent the fateful hope of a good lasting thought
They'll reach down and swaddle me up in their arms
Push back my ash-slicked hair, and whisper in thine ear:
"You had it all. You could've made it and been someone"
"But you threw it all away, away, away..."

The Thorn King

☩ ═══━━━━─── • 𖣂 • ───━━━━═══ ☩
† . . . An Endless Night . . . †
☩ ═══━━━━─── • 𖣂 • ───━━━━═══ ☩

A slow fire crackled in the wake of the woods, a hidden clearing, a parting of trees, bound in mystery, lacquered in the salt of a young man with horns on his head and a dark, forbidden desire; of lust, and longing, and the consequence of his fate.

To some, he was Lucifer. To others, he was a monster. He was the forlorn, forgotten Prince of a dying dynasty. His name lost to the annals of time. He could not be found by mortals, unless he needed to feed. And when his face appeared in their nightmares, they wished only to forget.

There is a saying in the Crossroads: "To wander into the woods is to sacrifice thine self to the will of the Gods." Some say he shelters lonely travellers. Other say he feasts upon everything that binds them. He is unknown; an anomaly. His marks, hidden all about the forest in the form of wooden statues resembling beautiful animals. Deers and doe, songbirds and the occasional barn owl. He leaves his song everywhere he goes. His poetry written in leaves. In truth: he rests in a den of fur and musk, coiled like a serpent, staring out through blackened eyes from sleepless nights dreaming of the lover he was fated to marry; a dowry given; the betrayal that happened; the killing of his mother, and the obscuring of his father. Love. Love is the key of his resurrection, yet he has lost all hope in fate.

I ask you now: will you bring alive his vicious story and stroke the lips of the monster? Will you look up into his eyes and see the horror and the vulnerability that threatens to wake? Will you tempt his passion, kiss his horns, and feel his claws upon you? Or will you die a sweet death to the thought of his peril...

🕈 .. 🕈 .. 🕈

My space.

It is this kiss that makes me weep,
Brings tears to my eyes, uncensored:
I can taste the satisfaction
Of the sadness
The awareness
The sweetness of writing words.

Can you pepper-on the beauty of a musical chord?
Can you speak to the soul and ask it questions?
Are your words latent? Are they magnetic? Are they hinting at the human condition?
Do they beg the question...?

I have met wonderful women,
and powerful men
and gorgeous uncles
and beautiful friends

The human race is an experience; a sincere sequence of events
Pressed upon thine lips and memorised in every kiss.

My space.

They say "you are not allowed to be happy,"
"You are not allowed to be proud."

That you must sit with this inky feeling in your stomach,
This red rock. This burning heat. This eternal damnation;
The artist's anchor, pulling you down, sunken-deep.

There are breathless oceans in your lungs
There is ice and fire and cut glass
There is the Devil in the seed
Doubt. Doubt. Doubt speaks to me

It is this sensation which drives me
For, and against

There is no love without struggle
No duty without responsibility
No recognition without faith
I ask you thus: will you have loyalty?
Or will you sink into something immaterial; into a faded cognition of what you could've seen
Of what I could've been?

So ask me questions...
There is beauty beneath the cloak.

My space.

Fill my marrow with yesterday's notes
For the memory of you has not yet faded
Love notes, love notes.

So sharp your tongue
So wise your words
"Listen to me...?"

I want danger
I want truth
I want your promises
I want you. I want you.

So, forbid me keepsakes
Lock me in your room.

RP Rules & Preferences - What do we look for nowadays?

When you say formatting flair, are you more referring to cells, scroll bars and intense coding like that - or just any and all BBcode a turn off for you? As someone who likes to make things pretty, I can agree that it can be a lot of unwanted, added pressure to make an aesthetic post every time, but I've always been curious where people draw the line on aesthetics.

@Sugar and Spite

Short and to the point: I love BBcode. I think it's rad. It makes threads look incredible. But sometimes I'll find an interesting group role-play, but there are numerous "hurdles" to overcome to participate. Character sheets, a good stream of locations needing inline images to support your character, and oodles of background information/rulesets needed.

e.g. "To post, you need to frame your replies in the style of the thread." ... It ends up becoming more of an exercise in aesthetics than writing. It intimidates me and puts me off. One reply shouldn't take 3 hours to format/proof. But maybe that's because I'm used to IMs/writing on online games (such as Gaia/WoW/DnD) where the replies are instantaneous!

tl:dr: Too much BBcode can be intimidating.