persistence

Aliens (short story)

Prose

One day, Amelia woke up in the company of aliens from another planet.

She had no memories of her life before she started living with aliens.

Their language sounded like English aurally, but they couldn’t communicate since they were creatures from different worlds.

Even though they lived in the same spaceship, they lived in a completely different state of existence than Amelia.

They were all the same kind of alien. Amelia was the only human on the spaceship.

Did they perhaps think she was one of them?

She decided to blend in.

She learned to eat alien food.

She played with alien toys.

But secretly, she longed to be rescued by her own kind. She often gazed outside of her bedroom porthole, hoping for a glimpse of Earth. But she didn’t even know what she would do if she saw it.

Convince her alien captors to return her to her planet?

What if she blows her cover and they turn violent?

Should she chance it?

She knew she couldn’t stay, but even after living among the aliens, she couldn’t trust them. She decided to escape on her own.

She made her preparations, and when the chance presented itself, she took it.

She slipped away when the aliens were sleeping, and tucked herself and her bag comfortably into an escape hatch. She powered it up, took aim, and ZOOMED toward freedom!

At first, there was nothing but inky blackness. The vacuum of space was lonely, oppressive, and dangerous. It was a different feeling from when she lived with the aliens.

She pushed aside her feelings of fear, and kept her eyes moving back and forth, searching the darkness. Finally, she saw it!

A glittering blue ball with swirling milky clouds. Her home planet.

When she landed, she was embraced by members of her own kind. Fellow humans. Amelia wept with gratitude. She wasn’t sure this day would ever come.

It took some adjusting, but with the love, care, and patience of other earthlings, Amelia learned to live as a human again.

Sometimes she thought about the aliens, but she never wanted to live with them again.

Amelia lived out the rest of her days as a human on Earth with peace in her heart. Her memory lives on in those she impacted along the way.

Chains (poem)

Poetry

Delicate filigree,
Dainty little thing.
Shine for others,
But weigh down the wearer.

Concentrated mass,
Density pulling downward.
Sinking into hell,
Looking like an angel.

Commercializing pain,
Constructing injuries for attention.
Ride the waves of trauma,
On the backs of true survivors.

Wear your burdens proudly,
Jewels burn into flesh.
Fingernails like diamonds,
Slicing up the fakers.

Youth (poem)

Poetry

Grown up too quick,
Adulthood presses from every angle.
Body twisting around the truth,
Rigid and unyielding until its reveal.

Cursed in the shape of a tree,
Crooked and wailing into the darkness.
Frozen at the core of its trunk,
Yet rustling its leaves to communicate.

Gone too fast and never recovered,
Never well while still escaping truth.
Learned first-hand but stubbornly forgotten,
Fitting in with prescribed narratives set.

Before closeness with corruption,
Touching palms with decay and pain.
Discover novel wonders abounding,
Walk through portals to fresh possibilities.

Scar (poem)

Poetry

They scream at me,
From my side.
Their voices embedded,
In my flesh.

The lives that life forgot.
Pain with nowhere to go,
Turned inward,
Exploding organs.

Numbed sensitivity.
Infected callous.
Pierce the skin,
Let the sorrow ooze.

Their deaths are overlooked.
Their stories, rewritten.
I’ll live to spite you.
I’ll make it for myself.

We need you, soldier.
The war rages on.
Your experiences, our artillery.
Your agony, our weaponry.