RYO THIS IS THE COOLEST THING WE'VE SEEN FROM YOU. IT'S SO COOL WE ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!

@manyface thank you so much, glad to hear y'all enjoyed it!

this week's prompt though !! look for patterns in chaotic & ‘random’ events, experiences, behaviors, etc. these could be in nature, in our own emotions & actions (or inactions), in the structure of a city, in a computer, in a body. do these patterns uncover an underlying order or meaning? are they coincidental?

this is an awesome prompt and one of my favourite subjects :D !!!!! very excited to write on this topic. your prompts are always so wonderful! - j

you're so sweet thank you !! i'm really glad, and i hope the prompt takes you somewhere you really like !! can't wait to read it :]

this must not have been easy to share, thank you for letting us in. I absolutely love the sentence about encounters evaporating, it feels like the calm after the storm that destroyed your shelter - it's bitter but quiet still. if it's of any help it is quite normal to have dreams that our conscious self finds disturbing or inappropriate, I hope you are healing and are doing well!

@ryo thank you for reading and understanding! im actually okay right now, sometimes i just write extremely heavy stuff to exorcise it from my mind. i actually am healing so much and doing better than ever, writing stuff like this is part of the process! - j

He sounds like he was a wonderful man. I feel like I got a little of your love towards him through your writing- he might be gone, but it's okay to still care.

this was extremely beautiful and heartfelt!! it makes me think of my own grandparents, my maternal grandfather died when i was 7 too... all your emotions are okay and valid and please take as long as you need to grieve! - j

thank you so much for sharing this with us - it's such a bittersweet piece. I remember feeling that same misplaced anger you speak of - I don't think we ever fully stop grieving but I believe it means they left an impact on you and that piece of them will be with you for as long as you live.

Love the use of repetition and spacing! Adds to that feeling of glancing at someone hoping they'll accidentally meet your eyes.

seconding owlroost! the use of space here is wonderful! you did a very good job of conveying that emotion of brief serendipity! - j

I absolutely love your vocabulary and the imagery you paint through it, very evocative!

wow, this was so cool and visceral and interesting to read... your word choices are sublime!!! - j

That was a lovely story, thank you for sharing it :)

this is such a well-written yet raw piece - I definitely recognise the long-gone pattern of intrusive thoughts. I also really appreciate the advice at the beginning and at the end, it's all so very thoughtful. thank you so much for sharing!

this is a really good piece, and i am really happy that you had gabriel in your life for that brief encounter. we've struggled with suicidality too, your piece really captures that thought pattern well. my sister's bf is called gabriel, maybe good people are just called that... - j

ok this made me cry (tho ive fortunately not had to deal w such thoughts, but simply seem to be slipping into some rough patch these past couple days that im tryin to handle ok enough)

I love your writing. You have such a way with words.

thank you!!!

such an evocative poem, loved the story! really interesting rhyme scheme too, kind of like a double triplet variation of terza rima

thank you!! it's based off the frog princess fairytale, the slavic version of it! and the rhyme scheme is genuinely my favourite rhyme scheme to use... i think we first encountered it in "the destroyer" by robert graves, and then decided that it was just the best rhyme scheme and ours now. - j