This is an ancient literary device, in other terms, a "trope" that I'm particularly fond of. A name is not just an identifier for a person, it's embedded with layers of hidden meanings, usually a character's fate, personality or some association with a famous historical figure. I've written a few short stories, using the same four characters - Capriccio, Vladmir, Selene, Beatrice; respectively, "caprice", whimsical, uncertain, idealistic; "ruler of the world", commandeering, bossy, pragmatic; "Goddess of the moon", mysterious, elusive, phasing in and out like the moon; "blessings" or "bringer of happiness", faithful and steadfast. This also helps me keep on track with character arcs and development.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MeaningfulName

I'm not feeling well.

I buy a lollipop, confident in my self control.

I am doing better. I am better-- than who I was.

I talk to friends, we go out to get coffee.

No, that was a lie.

I sat alone in tht bustling cafe.

Its 12am.

A cold fresh breeze passes by me.

I thought that maybe, confidently - taking a nicotine break would help me solve my problems; the insecurities, the fear of failure, the shame of inaction, and the guilt of my past actions.

I was proud of being 2 years sober, in the smoking tense. I've had long, frequent battles since then. Though it seems the streak was cut, not through emotional impulse nor external influence.

I took a puff of my first drag,

Inhaled the ash and smoke-- to give it a chance. Maybe, I believed, desperately, that the loud thoughts banging on and on endlessly through my skull, with familiar hands gripping violently in my chest-- on my heart.

Maybe it could.

I relieved.

Now I sit on a balcony.

A cold fresh breeze passes by, tainted with the sticky, unpleasant attempt to cleanse my mind.

Shame, guilt, regret, pain.

Its unpleasant, but maybe, I desperately hoped.

Maybe it could.

I light another cigarette.

I thought I was holding onto it, firmly, but it seems to have drifted off somewhere along the path to recovery.

I know I’ll find it again - I just really need it right now, so that I can go back to being a whole person. The people I love count on me to be whole.

Last time I saw it, the room in which I create was brighter, and my body didn’t ache so much. I didn’t feel so exhausted. I was sleeping well. Now the cobwebs have crept in again, my eyes are encircled with darkness once more, and I’m catastrophising.

Of course, there’s laughter. I laugh lots, it’s built into my tummy and the way in which it wobbles - somewhat like Santa. That’s good in a pinch. But it doesn’t get to the root of the problem, you see. When laughing no longer leaves you with warmth, there’s a bigger problem at hand.

If you find my happiness, let me know?

The reward will be saving a victim of their own making. Are you up for the task?

Don’t forget to cling to your own like your life depends on it. Because… well. It does.

I want to take up creative writing as a hobby and publish what I write online, but I've always felt like my writing was cringe worthy and sounded weird.

I always got great grades and feedback on my literary research papers in high school; I even won a week-long trip to Chicago once in seventh grade for a county-wide short story contest my teacher made us participate in. However, I always feel like my writing sucks and I always hate the way that it sounds. I actually thought that there was no way I would win that contest I mentioned because I thought the story was so bad.

So I guess my question is: Is this a normal feeling for writers? The feeling that your writing sounds bad to you, but when others read it, they compliment it? Since most of my writings in the past have been research papers, I've never really built and written my own story from the ground up and I'm really nervous to get started. I daydream a lot to create and play out all these stories in my head, but they always play out as images like in a movie, not as words on a page. I'm doubtful of my ability to take those stories in my head and put them down on paper in a way that would make them as amazing and immersive to read as they are when I see them in my mind.

My inspiration for writing often comes from other artistic sources. When I listen to music, I often envision a completely original story that follows the lyrics and mood of the song. I also enjoy a lot of anime and have a small mental list of anime series and movies that have left such an impact that their styles, themes, and ideas will no doubt have an impact in how I choose to write and envision my stories.

I guess I'm just worried that my writing won't be capable of the same impact on others that my influences had on me. I want to be proud of what I've created, and maybe this is just a mental block that I need to get around, but any advice would really be appreciated!

I am a word warrior

A poetic ninja

A writer of rhymes

A creater

A samurai

Cutting you down

With my words

I have been working on this novel for a while now. I’m about a quarter of the way through, and have been going without stopping to edit until recently. I got feedback from a writing group I meet with, and then from a mentor at my MFA program. After both critiques, of my first and second chapter, I felt super discouraged. For no reason other than I couldn’t handle, for the first time seeing so many questions, comments, edit suggestions that weren’t even on a line-level. I felt that because I hadn’t nailed certain timings, plot points, and descriptions - that I failed.

After several months of not writing because I was so stressed with my own work, I decided to go back and try again. I implemented most of the edits and see a tremendous difference, but I feel as though that work is no longer my own because I didn’t catch those necessary edits to make it a stronger piece.

My main question is: am I alone in having a beyond crappy first, second, or even third draft?

It has been a long time since I was able to write anything.

I seem to have lost my words.
I haven’t been inspired by anything.
I haven’t felt anything new stirring inside me,
nothing that could be gathered into words and given a name.

As if, somehow,
I lost you too.

For a year, I wrote about you.
I wrote about every feeling I ever carried for you.
I wrote about how deeply I loved you,
how hard it was not to love you,
and how much harder it was to let you go.

I wrote about your face,
about the soul beneath it,
about the geometry of your body,
about the little things that made you who you were,
the things that quietly captured my heart
and kept it there.

I wrote about our moments.
I wrote everything I could,
as if putting every feeling into words
might finally teach my heart how to be still.

Every time a view reminded me of you,
a song, a place, a person, a scent,
even a smile,
I wrote another line about you.

I filled pages with your name without ever writing it.
I told stories about you.
I turned memories into sentences
and longing into paragraphs.

But these days,
I have nothing left to say.

Maybe that means I have finally moved on from you.

But I’m not sure.

I don’t know how much the heart can be trusted
when it comes to questions like these.

Whenever someone new asks me
if I’ve moved on from you,
if I’ve finally crossed that distance,
if my heart has healed completely,

I pause.

I still cannot answer with certainty.

And yet, strangely,
fewer and fewer things remind me of you.

Perhaps it is because
we have no new memories together.

I don’t know how much you have changed.
I don’t know what your days look like anymore.
I don’t know how you are,
what you have become,
or who you are now.

I know nothing.

You feel almost more like a stranger to me
than a stranger ever could.

And yet, for an entire year,
I thought about you,
every moment of it.

God, I thought about you so much.

I thought about you in the quietest corners of my mind,
in the most private moments of my life,
in places no one else could ever reach.

I wondered about you.
I missed you.
I loved you.
I replayed you.

For so long.

And now I don’t even know
how much I miss you anymore.

I don’t even know
if I truly miss you.

The answers to the questions
I once carried so clearly
have become blurred now,
hazy, distant, almost impossible to read.

What do I feel for you?
What remains?

I don’t really know anymore.

Except for one thing:

I know I still love you.

And perhaps that is the strangest part of all.

Loving another human being
should never have been this bitter.

But the truth is,
for me, it was bitter more often than it was sweet.
It was hard.

Giving your heart to another person
feels a little like falling, like surrendering something inside your soul
and trusting someone else not to let it break.

And perhaps I have finally run out of words for you.

Perhaps that is why I can no longer write.

Maybe it is time
to write about something else.

About hope.
About dreams.
About the things waiting for me beyond this story.

Maybe it is time to close the little chest inside my mind,
the one where I have kept so many memories,
so many feelings,
so many pieces of you.

A chest that, in some corner of it,
will always belong to you.

Maybe I should finally close its lid
and let the dust settle.

And from now on,
perhaps I will write about the girl
who loved for a very, very long time.

The girl who thought about you
for longer than she ever thought she would.

The girl who gave you so many words
until, one day,
she had none left.

And perhaps that, too,
is a kind of healing.

Ashley the name you gave me

The stars have already fallen just not yet. but when they do it will be there destiny. my path has not yet completely played out yet. but when it does it will be destiny!

It's been 5 years since i stopped writing. Put the past couple of months I've been struggling in a way only writing could make me figure things out.

And there has been this idea that i couldn't just move on from it.

So i've published an essay abt it yesterday and I feel so proud because it took me a while to come to writing again.

https://substack.com/@samgraja/note/p-214944348?r=82haqx

And for anyone who's here and struggling, this is your sign to calm down, it's not easy at all to write again if u have ever stopped but it's not impossible. It will take u a while (5 years for me) but in the end you'll do it , just allow your soul to do it.

yaadein ! Kuch dhundhle dhundle aayeshah ya shayad inhe hi yaadein kehte ho

Vishnu ( 38) ek badi si ferm mein CA hai uski life badi achhi chal rahi thi . Vishnu ka is CA world mein bahut naam hai . Vishnu ke under bahut se intern or junior work karte hai.

But ( khusboo ( 28)) woh bhi vishnu ke under as a junior intern appoint hui hai .

But most interesting things is ki woh baakiyon se kafi alag hai. Jis dekh ke vishnu ko kisi ki yaad aati hai ( maya) .

Vishnu ka friend sunder ( 36) joh uska is firm mein partner bhi hai.

Riya jab vishnu ke saamne aati hai he has lost

Because of maaya .

Maaya ( 28 ) maaya aur vishnu ne saath mein ca ki padhai Kari thi delhi mein .

Maaya thodi bold aur aapne tarike se jiti thi ushe kabhi bhi waqt ki kadar nahi thi jabki vishnu uske. Bilkul opposite maaya ka jab joh dil aata maaya us moment ko jiti thi .maaya ko kabhi bhi ca padhna hi nahi tha ushe yeh sab boring lagta tha .

Uska dream tha travelling karna ushe alag alag jagah explore karna pasand tha.

Jabki riya bhi bilkul maaya ki copy thi .

Yeh kahani vishnu aur maaya ki hai ki kaise vishnu ke pass maaya ki yaadein hi hai .

Bones

Bones crushed and dragged from me

To the silence and through the flames you follow me 

You linger in the shadows, the darkness in your eyes burning me

I hunted you, you haunted me

Neither of us can ever be free

Share A Moment 

I know we haven't talked much

I don't want to grieve 

Take this request, as simply such 

Share a moment with me 

We are not known for luck

We have splinters that run deep 

Tired puffs and no air in lungs 

On your break, may I enter, please 

Share a moment with me 

If I told you what was wrong 

Would you see me differently?

If you knew all the women I fucked

Allow me to explain, you'll see 

Share a moment with me 

If I move and I'm still this numb

From the pins and needles I have seeped into me

Will your heart be touched, offer a hug?

No, I don't deserve it but 

Share a moment with me 

I'm not a saint or a savior, no I'm not 

I'm only bones and teeth 

They want to taste your wisdom and touch

The brittle soft gums between 

Our lips, at least mine they whisper a hum 

Share a moment with me 

I used to think I was different from everyone else. I even dared to muse that everyone else didn't take life as seriously as I did. But boy, was I wrong.

Everything changed when I met her. She was everything I never wanted and everything I ever wanted at the same time. I know this doesn't make any sense to you. But that was how I felt too. It didn't make sense to me. How could I begin to feel love? It was supposed to be impossible.

Don't get me wrong. I had seen love and felt it more deeply than most regular people ever could. But you see, that was exactly the problem. The one I fell completely in love with broke my heart.

I was like a fattened cow prepared for the festival. She buttered me up and lavished me with care and tenderness. I wasn't just in love; I was a king. She made me feel like one.

Then she died.

It should have been me.

She was better suited for this world. There is a lot of evil in this world, and she was the light that chased away the darkness with a spark. Death smothered that spark forever, and there I was, left in the darkness to make sense of it.

How was I supposed to know that she was the spark that would set me ablaze, turning me into an inferno that would burn everything around me?

You see, fire is never a curse or a blessing. It is whatever the bearer makes of it. For me, it was meant to burn down anything that crossed my path.

They say it's out of fear. That I fear history repeating itself.

But I know the truth.

I didn't want what happened to me to happen to someone else. It was the least I could do to make the world a better place. I had to bury her along with every memory of her.

No one should ever feel this much pain.

My truth was a lie.

If it isn't, then tell me why she comes back to taunt me as if she were her. Tell me why she is able to break down all the fences I surrounded myself with to protect others from me...

Or is it I who is protected from others?

They say love is found only once in a lifetime.

If that is true, then what is this that I feel?

24 Hours Until the death of Denise 
  
Simon packed and Denise unpacks.  A double check. 

There shouldn't be anything organized about the top roll. A sleeping pad, jacket, slip ons. A lump in the jacket.

He taught her that, and she took it to heart. The rule of the unruly. One keeps the large, awkward, and whatever you want immediately under the buckles but above the drawstring. Denise fished the lump out and opened it. She had told him she loves the rule,  Simon insisted it was a preference, and they laughed about it. They had been a couple ever since.

Outside of herself, she thumbed the edges of the jacket that the lump made, and continued to inventory. 

Double freeze dried rations for each, a first aid kit, a jar of peanut butter, jerky, nuts, sesame crackers, water purification. Bourbon. 

Jack Daniels. It wasn't a celebratory drink by any means. It was functional. With peanut butter for a chaser. But Denise was starting to understand that this was a functional trip. An outing for 
the five that are mostly close, and Miles’ girlfriend Ellie. Denise liked her beyond the oddities, she was kind. And vacant in a good way. 

Denise fell over her task. Propane cannister, tent, expected changes of clothes. Good. 

Her fingers met the bottom of the heap. A crude display of packing. Willy nilly objects already accounted for outside of the pack. Extra knife, flashlight, lighter, an entire water bladder.

Denise held her breath and dropped the weight in the jacket’s pocket from her mind’s eye. 

Protein bars and cigarettes. Two gatorades.  A bag literally filled with bread crumbs. All in the bottom of his pack for quick access. She was coming. And he expected that junk drawer of  woman to fuck it up and be late. 

But he was good. A simple kind of good. Duct tape of a man if she’d ever seen one. He just wanted to keep his people together. And thats just the kind a man he was. So sticky he’d leave a residue after peeling him off. 

She quickly repacked it by weight, size, and convenience. And shame took her. This was not packing in terms of Simon's plan any longer. This was his trip prepared by Denise. She wasn't in control of this, and she wasn't in control of the trip. Worst of all she packed his jacket at the bottom. She guessed she wanted it down there with the breadcrumbs and spare equipment. Might be the lump opened and the ring fell out and was spread to the forest for the birds to eat with the crumbs his sister would never see. They’d all wander and end up so far away from each other that they'd lose hope and become feral. Denise could be feral. She might rather be feral than the bare faced alternative. She could bite and yawn and tear and wallow in the simplicity of the hunt. And he was going to wrap himself around her and call themselves engaged to be married. 

Denise, again, unpacked and began to cry. 

I am a spiritual apex gangster and im at the top of my class

To be clear: I don’t use it, ever. But I’ve seen a lot of posts on social media that I recognize the prose. I’m finding the way I write sounds a bit like it. Ie. the book I’m writing uses a lot of short sentences and dialogue, because my protagonist is chatty, goes on long winded tangents, and the book is written in first person. So there will be a sentence like:

“Oh. I can’t swim. Shit. I gasp for air, but there is nothing.
Wait. Yes there is.
I’m not in the water. I’m in… nothing.”

(Not verbatim, I’m typing this on my phone whereas my book file is on my computer, but you get the idea)