aln

She was my dearest friend. We would play, play together, play, play, until the hours had fled and left me no time to write. It was there, perhaps, that I began to love her more: where the little dollhouse kindled a brighter fire than ever burned within my pen. And though the pen itself should catch aflame, I would still rescue those fragile plastic toys. Unless, of course, the paper were burning— then I suppose I should burn with it.

You cannot turn the path on which you tread, Nor beg the past to fashion itself anew. You cannot wander whilst your limbs are bound, Nor learn to love where hatred has not bloomed. You cannot. And yet, dear heart, that is all you cannot do.

Oh, my darling... What a cruel little rose the heavens have fashioned of you, all velvet bloom and silver perfume, yet guarded by thorns so mercilessly sharp. And tell me, must a thing so beautiful be permitted to suffer beneath the very weapons that were given it for protection? Perhaps I ought to pluck them away. One by one. Ah, do not look upon me so. I should not call it cruelty when my hands are trembling with such tender devotion. You would be safe then, would you not? No thorn to offend the delicate hands of those who come to admire you. No savage little crown to frighten away the curious. They would adore you. They would call you lovely. They would gather about you with their perfumed praises and swear that you had never been so exquisite. And I... I should love you all the more for it. Is that not what you desire, my sweet rose? To be cherished without fear? To be admired without reservation? To be beautiful without the burden of defending your own beauty? Oh, what a romantic little petal... how prettily you tremble when I speak of keeping you safe. Perhaps this is mercy. Perhaps this is love. For what is a rose, after all, but a fragile thing condemned to bloom beautifully in a world that cannot resist reaching for it? So let me make you safe. Let me make you adored. Let me make you perfect. And if, in doing so, there is somewhat of you that must be surrendered... well. Surely that is a small price for being loved.

Opal, oh, my love, misty, iridescent stone of hope, tilting beneath the tender light, a singular sphere of radiance, where colours dwell as though heaven itself had whispered its secrets into you. Opal, oh, my dear, how different you are from all the rest. Beneath your gentle smile there lies a hidden light, and within those little lights I behold not merely one thing, but a thousand wonders without end. Opal, oh, my forever, you were made to resemble a rainbow veiled within the clouds, a fragment of colour that the heavens could not bear to keep. You were meant to stand apart, not because you are without likeness, but because you carry within you the colours of those who have inspired you, each hue a borrowed memory, each glimmer a cherished influence, yet none of them enough to make you anything but yourself. For that is the wonder of you, Opal: you may gather the colours of the world and still remain wholly, beautifully yourself. Opal, oh, my everything, do not dim your light in pursuit of another's shine. Be yourself. Be every colour you have gathered. Be every light that lives within you. And should the world ask which colour you are, let it wonder. For you were never meant to be only one.

I saw a ghost. He lingered beneath the surface, half-hidden in the darkness, beckoning me downward, inviting me into the depths of some dreadful rabbit hole. He was loud. God, how he was loud. His voice reverberated through the hollow chambers of my mind, echo upon echo upon echo, until it became an unbearable thing, a shriek against the senses, like iron drawn cruelly across the teeth of a dying machine. And so, at last, I yielded. I descended. Now I can hear him no longer. Nor can I hear anyone else. There is only silence. And yet, beneath that silence, I saw Heaven. Not a kingdom of angels, nor golden gates, nor some promised celestial light. No. It was information. It was imagination. It was abstraction, boundless and incomprehensible. A paradise without walls, where infinite ideas bloomed endlessly in the dark. And beneath it all, quiet and forgotten, lay a tombstone.