Life Is A Game Of Chess, And Your Opponent Is Time. 

Who’s next?

If you're reading this...

go write three sentences on your current writing project.

I call it a “pen drop”

does anyone else write a sentence so good you have to lean back in your chair and just vibe with the sheer power of it? like yeah, i, ME, did that.

Duplex Dream

I grew up in duplexes and trailer homes

A trailer home for two with no fence for the yard

No fence for the yard is no pets, just us two: me and you

Us two, mother and daughter; it takes a village to raise a child

Our village was small. Small but good, dysfunctional but strong

Raised in dysfunction, but strength brought me up; helped me grow despite the odds

The odds that I wouldn’t make it this far; my own doubt that I'd ever see eighteen

Eighteen years don’t seem so long, but I always thought something would cut them short

Cut short but not by my own hands; it was just so hard to look for life ahead

But now, ahead of me a future lies, one I did not expect

My expectations far surpassed what I might have ever imagined

The imagination and dreams of that little girl who struggled to grow

But grew nonetheless from the love I found

Found but never lost in duplexes and trailer homes

- A. Yenzer

“Burn.”

The power of a spell is inversely proportional to the amount of words in its name. You, hated and exiled, invented the first single word spell:

Precipice

The sharp click of the switch

reverberates through the air

as you turn off the light in the laundry room

and step into the kitchen.

Your steps stutter to a stop

on the cool laminate sticking to your soles

when your mind catches on

the sliding glass door

in your peripheral. There is a man,

standing on the precipice

of where the porch light’s glow

is swallowed by the dark.

Balaclava and clothes carved from obsidian

tempt the night to draw him in. The dying

bulb above the door is just strong enough

to drag his silhouette into its illumination.

Your gaze latches on

where his should be, instead

two brimming pools of black abyss

stare back, looking through you.

Your head is screaming,

“Don’t look too closely!

He might be real

this time.”

Wind wails against the walls outside,

the house creaks and groans in protest

and leaves scrape bark branches

as their trees bend with the gust.

The sudden sounds steal

air from your chest in

a sharp gasp. Muscles tense

and your eyes slam shut.

Dissipating

in the darkness,

the vision is gone

when they snap open again.

Your recurring apparition

leaves less fear

lingering in your blood now.

So,

Push your shoulders back

and wrench the weight

of anxious paranoia

off your chest.

You'll finish getting

ready for bed but

even though you know

there’s nothing there,

the shadows still seem

to whisper your name

and cling to you

in the night.

- A. Yenzer

How many tears had the Doctor shed,

Before his sorrow was thoroughly fed?

How many times has the Doctor wept,

Comfortless, until he slept?

Each day, after the close,

It was enough to water a Rose.

When he realized she could never come home,

And that he was left to hopelessly roam.

After the angel made them blink,

And she said goodbye with a final wink;

Nourishing an almost bond,

Flowed enough to fill two Ponds.

Finally, a River,

And, alone, he was left to shiver;

When after the final breath,

Greeted like an old friend, was Death.

- A. Yenzer

Me! It’s for me! Thank you very much!

you ever start describing a character and accidentally give them an entire anthropology backstory? like, why does this random baker suddenly have a tragic past involving forbidden love, a war, and a cursed necklace? who is this for?

The Duties of The Older Brother Of A Magical Girl:

1. Do not get in her way while she’s fighting monsters.

2. Do get in the way when humans don’t know boundaries

3. Do kill the men who put hands on her without permission

Magical girls kill monsters all the time, but they're not allowed to kill humans. But you're not a magical girl; you're her older brother.

He’s been chasing me for centuries for stealing that bottle. I’m not about to let him catch me now.

You drank a snake oil salesman’s drink only for it to make you actually immortal in the old west now 300 years later you see that same salesman

Home Is Where The Heart Was

My chest was a home

Filled with warmth and light and love

My sternum the front door

That had welcomed many a friend and family

My ribs were once brightly painted siding,

A soft gray exterior that protected the treasures inside

My heart pumped hot water through my arteries

Providing warmth for nightly baths and mugs of hot cocoa

My lungs were the sturdy walls that kept the roof above our heads

My diaphragm the soft carpeting and cool wood

That had known running and cuddles from feet and paws alike

My spinal cord and nerves kept the lights on and the temperature just right

My vertebrae were a strong foundation

Solid and secure, keeping everything upright

My chest is an old, abandoned house

My sternum is the slamming storm door

The broken latch leaving it to swing wide in the wind

My ribs, the battered siding

Years of abandonment leaving them caked in dirt and grime

Termites and rot have eaten through the panels, leaving gaping wounds

My heart is the failing water heater

My arteries are the corroded copper pipes

My lungs are the creaking walls

Shifting and sinking, slowly collapsing

The wood floors of my diaphragm have sunken in, and the carpet is threadbare

Torrents of tears have seeped in through the leaky roof,

Now darkness grows from rotted wounds and mold scars stale strands

My spinal cord is the busted breaker box; My nerves: fraying electrical wires

My vertebrae are the crumbling foundation

My chest will be condemned someday

Caved in like a house of cards, not wood and stone

The love it once housed has moved on

And its protection is no longer needed

There will be no one there to witness it’s fall

And no one to grieve for the memories lost

- A. Yenzer