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The last of the autumn leaves skittered across the cracked pavement as Ethan checked his phone one more time.
Meet me at the old Hawthorne place. Midnight. Wear something you don’t mind ruining.
He’d matched with her three nights ago. Profile name: NightmareDate. Bio: I enjoy romantic walks through haunted houses.
He’d thought it was a joke. A cute goth girl with a dark sense of humor. The photos were soft-lit, mysterious, never quite showing her full face. Tonight was supposed to be their first real date.
The Hawthorne House had been abandoned since the fire in ’89. Everyone in town said it was condemned for a reason. Ethan didn’t care. He liked the thrill. And he liked her voice when she’d whispered over the phone, low and velvet-smooth: Come find me inside.
He pushed the warped front door open. The smell hit him first—old smoke, wet wood, and something metallic underneath. Chains hung from the ceiling like forgotten decorations. Jack-o’-lanterns with glowing eyes watched him from every corner, their grins carved too wide.
“Hello?” he called.
A soft laugh drifted down the hallway.
“You’re early,” she said.
She stepped out of the shadows at the far end of the corridor.
Long black hair spilled over one shoulder. Red-and-black striped sweater clung to her frame. Her lips were the color of fresh blood, and something dark was smeared at the corner of her mouth. One hand was bare. The other wore a glove of scarred metal and leather, ending in long, curved blades that caught the pumpkin light.
Her eyes glowed.
Not reflected. Glowed. Deep, hungry red.
Ethan’s smile faltered. “That’s… a really good costume.”
She tilted her head, studying him the way a cat studies something small and warm.
“It’s not a costume.”
He laughed, a little too loud. “Okay. Method acting. I can dig it.”
She walked toward him slowly. The blades on her glove scraped lightly against the wall as she passed, leaving thin white lines in the peeling paint. When she stopped in front of him, the smell of copper was stronger.
“I told you,” she murmured, lifting the clawed hand so the tips hovered near his cheek. “I enjoy romantic walks through haunted houses.”
Ethan swallowed. “Yeah. Cute line.”
Her smile widened, revealing teeth that were just a little too sharp.
“The romance part is optional.”
Something cold and wet dripped onto his collarbone. He looked down. A thin trail of blood was running from one of the blades.
His stomach turned. “Is that… real?”
She leaned in close, her breath warm against his ear.
“Everything in this house is real, Ethan. Including the part where the last twelve boys who answered my profile never left.”
The pumpkin lights flickered.
Somewhere above them, a chain rattled.
Ethan took a step back. Then another.
“This isn’t funny anymore.”
She didn’t chase him. She simply watched, eyes bright with quiet amusement, as he turned and ran for the front door.
It was no longer there.
Only a wall of old, scorched wood and hanging chains remained. The jack-o’-lanterns on either side of him grinned wider, their inner flames flaring higher.
Behind him, her voice floated down the hallway—soft, almost affectionate.
“Don’t run, sweetheart.
You’ll only make the walk longer.”
And somewhere in the dark, metal claws began to drag slowly across the floor.
You asked me to choose
as though love were a doorway
only one soul could walk through.
As though my heart
were a room with a single chair,
and your name should be carved upon it.
But you do not understand.
There is a man I have loved
since before love ever learned
to ask anything of me.
My little brother.
And sometimes the night finds him
differently than it finds the rest of us.
Sometimes shadows speak too loudly,
and the voice within him
forgets how to be kind.
So I sit beside him.
I remind him of morning
when he cannot see past midnight.
I hold a lantern
against whatever darkness
has mistaken his soul for a home.
This is not romance.
This is not competition.
This is not something
you were ever meant to defeat.
It is blood.
It is history.
It is the ancient promise
of I am here.
And somehow,
you took my devotion to him
and made it an accusation against you.
You wanted proof of love
measured by what I would abandon.
But that is not love.
Love does not stand at the edge
of someone else's darkness
and demand I turn away
to prove where my heart belongs.
You could have stood beside me.
You could have understood
that the arms that reached for him
were not reaching away from you.
Instead,
you asked me to choose.
So understand this:
I did not choose him over you.
I chose not to become someone
who walks away from the people she loves
when the night becomes heavy.
And if loving me requires that,
then perhaps I am not the one
who made the choice.
Aw, c'mon. I didn't ask you to choose at all. I wished you and B well and stood back and got on with my own VR crap. I was happy doing that. Not once did I ask you to choose me over B. It didn't even cross my mind. I was actually happy you had each other. Can we please shake our heads now, chuck a little fresh water over ourselves and maybe tomorrow just get on without all this? If you don't stop, I'm going to start posting Twilight clips. I reckon B is your Edward -again no disrespect I'm just a bit tired of the doom and gloom.
Where are we heading with all this?
Are we going to spend the rest of our VR lives going round in circles?
That blog I wrote was my bottom line. I just wanna get on with enjoying VR. What's wrong with that?
I was expecting a bit of aggro or maybe cool - let's get back to posting some shit.
This is your story, not mine.
When you're ready to start chatting again, I'll be around.
here's to new beginnings 🍷
06:15 Oct 18 2026 Times Read: 486
What I Carry Forward
I have mourned things
that were already gone,
held fading echoes to my chest
and called their weight devotion.
I have watered roots
that never reached for me,
stood beneath bare branches
waiting for a season
that had no intention of returning.
And still,
I do not regret the rain.
Every sorrow taught me something
about the sacredness of my own soil.
Every ending revealed
where I had been pouring life
into places incapable of holding it.
So let the old doors close.
Let what has finished
finish completely.
I will not chase what retreats,
nor beg shallow waters
to become an ocean.
There is no bitterness here,
only understanding.
I know now
that not everything I love
is meant to accompany me.
Some souls are lessons.
Some are mirrors.
Some are beautiful storms
that teach us how desperately
we desire peace.
But from this moment forward,
I choose substance.
Give me conversations
that leave something glowing
long after the words have ended.
Give me hands
that do not disappear
when life becomes heavy.
Give me souls
who are not frightened
by depth.
I want relationships
rooted beneath appearances,
where honesty is tenderness,
where silence is safe,
where neither person must become smaller
for the other to remain.
I no longer seek
to be surrounded.
I seek to be aligned.
And if that means
my circle becomes smaller,
let it.
There is holiness
in making room.
There is strength
in an empty chair
once occupied
by something that diminished you.
I am learning
that loneliness and solitude
are not the same thing.
One aches for what is absent.
The other whispers,
Look at all this space
for what is meant for you.
So I release
what cannot grow with me.
Without hatred.
Without vengeance.
Without returning
to ask dead things
why they could not bloom.
I bless the lesson.
I bury the sorrow.
I keep the wisdom.
And I walk forward
with an open heart,
but a guarded gate.
Only truth may enter now.
Only reciprocity.
Only depth.
Only those whose presence
adds something living
to the life I am building.
I am no longer afraid
of endings.
Some endings
are simply the soul
making room
for everything
that finally has the courage
to stay.
Today, I need to clear the noise and put my thoughts down with absolute clarity. My mindset right now is heavy, but I refuse to let that obscure what actually matters.
The core of what I am feeling and experiencing comes down to a few basic truths:
Where I stand: I know what I want, what I need, and what I value. I am not interested in surface-level interactions or mixed signals
.
What needs to change: I am holding myself to a higher standard, and I expect the same clarity from the situations and people around me
.
My boundary: I do not need to react impulsively to prove a point. My stance is quiet, deliberate, and final.
Moving forward, I am focusing my energy only on what aligns with my purpose and brings real substance into my life. Everything else can fade away.
No. I've had a shit week – as you know – and every day since the 10th you've tried to pull me into an argument in pm or in your journal – I'm not made of iron, you know? I am feeling pretty raw, so whatever is in that song can stay there. I don't need another night ruined by you or whoever made that song. I've not had one peaceful night with my family thanks to your messages since the anniversary - you couldn't have done a better job at fucking my well-being up if you tried - see you on the boards if I'm still around. There's no ill will here from me - I'm just not doing this shit anymore.
Across the grey edge of the sea,
where the gulls cry into the evening mist
and the old waves whisper your name to the shore.
The moon hangs low above the western hills,
a silver lantern over empty roads.
I watch its light spill over the heather,
wondering if it falls upon your face tonight.
The hearth grows quiet after sunset.
The fire settles into glowing embers,
yet I leave one candle burning in the window,
a small star against the darkness,
lest you should lose your way.
The wind wanders the valleys,
crossing stone walls and sleeping fields.
It rattles the rowan branches at my door
and speaks in a tongue older than memory.
I lean close to hear it,
hoping it carries a word from you.
A longing rests upon me for you.
Beyond the mountains, beyond the rain,
beyond every mile that lies between us,
my thoughts travel like a solitary bird
searching the coastline at dawn.
And if the ocean keeps you,
I will speak to the tides.
If the hills hide you,
I will ask the moon where you have gone.
For love is not the chain that binds,
but the lantern left shining.
My heart still follows after you,
through wind and wave,
through silence and starlight,
until the day your footsteps return
and the empty hearth is empty no more.
May the moon find you when the road is dark, and may the wind carry only kind words to your door.
May the sea return what the tide has taken, and may the hearth never lose its warmth.
And should someone dear be wandering far away, may they remember the light that waits for them.
Slán go fóill, mo chara.
"Farewell for now, my friend."
"Ní bhíonn an scéal críochnaithe go deo."
"The story is never truly finished."
🍀🌙
This one is for someone very special to me . Inspired by the song written by my brother .. this is my poem to you.
I Miss You, I Need You
Some songs are written with ink.
This one was torn from the quiet hours
when the world finally stops talking
and the only voice left is the one
that still says your name.
You live in the first thought of morning,
in the middle of ordinary nothing,
in the spaces between breaths
when the day pretends to be normal
and fails.
I carry the conversations we had
like unsent letters in my chest.
I carry the moments that never arrived
like shadows that refuse to leave the room.
I carry the hope that somewhere
this weight still means something to you too.
Missing you is not the miles between us.
It is the way my mind keeps walking back
to the same closed door,
the same unfinished sentence,
the same soft place where you used to stand.
Needing you is not a demand.
It is the simple, stubborn truth
that something in me still turns toward you
the way a flower turns toward the last light,
even when the night has already won.
Four words.
Nothing more.
Yet behind them lives every quiet hour
I have spent learning how to speak
without speaking.
I miss you.
I need you.
And the music is the only place
brave enough to say it out loud.
The full moon hung like a silver coin in the dark velvet of the sky, casting its cool light through the tangled branches of the ancient forest. Beneath it, Elara sat in her weathered wooden chair, the steam from her tea curling upward to join the thicker vapors rising from the cauldron. The green brew bubbled softly, stirred by the long wooden spoon she had left resting against its rim. A single black cat—Morrigan—curled at her feet, eyes half-lidded but watchful. Candles flickered on either side of the clearing, their flames dancing with the quiet crackle of the fire beneath the pot.
Elara’s gaze was distant, fixed somewhere beyond the trees. Her fingers curled loosely around the warm cup, but she did not drink. The night was still, yet she felt them—those familiar, unseen shapes that always came when the moon was full and her thoughts turned inward.
They moved around her like soft currents of air. A brush of cold against her cheek that was not the wind. The faint scent of cedar and old parchment that had once belonged to a man who laughed too easily. The ghost of a hand that had once rested on the small of her back while they danced beneath this very same moon, years ago, before the world had taken him. Another presence lingered farther back—sharper, more restless—the memory of a woman whose promises had dissolved like mist at dawn. And still others, quieter, older: the first love who had never spoken her name aloud, the one who had left without a word, the ones who had simply never arrived.
She felt them all. They did not speak. They did not need to. Their silence pressed against her ribs like a second heartbeat.
Elara closed her eyes. The tea cooled in her hands. The cauldron continued its low, patient simmer. Morrigan shifted and rested her chin on one of Elara’s boots.
“I know you’re here,” she whispered to the empty air. “I know what you want me to remember.”
The ghosts did not answer. They only circled, patient and invisible, while the witch sat alone beneath the moon and wondered, not for the first time, whether solitude was a spell she had cast herself—or one that had been cast upon her long ago, and never quite broken.
Blood oaths and promises are no longer of value it seems ..
Being deeply in love is like having a toy and when your tired of it it gets left in the dust under the bed forgotten...
Sad heart breakingly sad but such is the world .
South Loop bartenders swear she appears only after 2 AM, drifting between Wabash and Balbo. Her lips gleam like polished metal, reflecting neon in warped shapes.
People say she asks for a light. If you offer one, she leans close and whispers a single sentence in a voice like cold static: “You shouldn’t be here.”
Every person who’s heard it reports the same thing: the next morning, they wake with a metallic taste in their mouth and a vivid memory of standing in a place they’ve never been—an abandoned train platform deep underground, lit only by a single silver lantern.
🎃🕷️🕸️👻🎃🕷️🕸️👻🎃🕷️🕸️
🌑 The Hollow Choir Under the Red Line
Commuters riding alone between Fullerton and North/Clybourn sometimes hear faint singing beneath the tracks. Not music more like breathy, wordless harmony.
CTA maintenance workers claim there’s a sealed service tunnel down there, bricked up in the 1970s after a collapse.
The legend says the voices belong to the workers who died, still singing to keep themselves calm in the dark.
If you hear the choir clearly, the train lights flicker. When they come back, someone else’s reflection appears beside you in the window—never moving, never blinking.
🎃🕷️🕸️👻🎃🕷️🕸️👻🎃🕷️🕸️
🌘 The Night‑Root That Grows Behind Old Churches
In older neighborhoods Pilsen, Bridgeport, Ravenswood
there are stories of a black, barkless root system that appears overnight behind century‑old churches.
It looks like veins, not wood. People who touch it say it feels warm, pulsing.
The root only grows where someone has died suddenly on the property.
If you follow the roots, they lead to a single knot in the earth. Locals say if you press your ear to it, you’ll hear someone whispering your name from beneath the soil.
We were two mirrors
facing each other in the dark,
trading the same quiet weather
until the air between us
held a single pulse.
Your ache was my ache.
My joy arrived in your chest
before I even named it.
We moved like one long breath
stretched across two bodies.
Then the cord went slack
without warning,
without sound.
One moment the light was shared,
the next it was only mine
and it felt too bright,
too sharp,
too alone.
I reach for the old frequency
and find only static.
My own feelings arrive late,
confused,
wearing your absence like a second skin.
The room tilts.
North is missing.
I walk in circles inside my own chest
looking for the place
where your presence used to steady me.
Still, some residual glow remains
a faint afterimage of the bond
that once made the world
make sense.
I hold that thin light close
while I learn, again,
how to stand
on ground that no longer
echoes.
The grey outside mirrors the silence within,
Where forgotten hours begin to wear thin.
Rain taps a slow rhythm upon the cold glass,
Opening doors to the ghosts of the past.
A sudden draft creeps through the seam of the wall,
As unbidden shadows stretch long in the hall.
I pull up the sweater, I reach for the tea,
Seeking a comfort that won't stay with me
For warmth is a whisper, and loss is a chill
That settles in deep when the world hushes still.
Thoughts creep like water through cracks in the stone,
Reminding the heart of what once was its own.
A laughter long buried, a touch turned to air,
Drowning the room in a quiet despair.
The tides of "used to be" rise to the brim,
And memory floods till the present grows dim.
It rains on the window, it rains on the soul,
Taking the fractured and seeking the whole,
Caught in the current of all that has fled,
Living with voices no longer out loud, but unsaid.
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