Revised: ‘Odes to My Triceratops’

I’m at the last stage of revising that novel I wrote in May, ‘My Own Desert Places’, so at work, instead of producing new stuff, I will focus for a while on arranging all my poems into distinct groups, with the notion that I’ll release a couple of poetry ebooks after I upload the novel. So far, all the poems I have written in English fall into three distinct ebooks, so that’s what I’m dealing with.

This process includes revising and particularly updating the punctuation. Although it feels like far more time has passed, I wrote my first ever poem back in June of this year, and I enjoy them so much that I would have released my novel far earlier if I hadn’t focused on coming up with new poems instead. In any case, I have revised and updated the opener for the first of the upcoming poetry ebooks: the three parts of ‘Odes to My Triceratops’.

I love this one. I wrote it back when I was blissfully unemployed and I could write until six in the morning. The whole thing swirled like a hypnagogic hallucination, and remains one of my favorite concept albums that I’ve ever produced.

Anyway, here are the links:

Odes to My Triceratops, Pt. 1
Odes to My Triceratops, Pt. 2
Odes to My Triceratops, Pt. 3

Post-mortem for “A Millennium of Shadows”


I failed to complete my previous novella, “Festerbump’s Fantasy Village”, and I didn’t even come close to completing it (I didn’t reach the turning point that I had planned). I don’t write for money, obviously, so I can only gather the strength to follow a story to its end if I find the process compelling/rewarding enough. If I’m lucky, the concept I consider for a new story will be so shitty that I won’t waste my time writing a single word of its draft. But sometimes the concept sounds good enough on paper that I pull off a few chapters until I realize that the whole thing is treading water. Abandoning a story is admitting defeat, and I hate doing so as much as most people, I guess. However, abandoning “Festerbump” wasn’t remotely as painful as giving up on “Thirty Euros”. I’m afraid that daydreams are intrinsically poor material to write fictional narratives about: not enough challenges/conflict.

By the way, if you plan to make a living writing fiction, you may as well plan your future upon the assumption that you’ll win the lottery. Even if you manage to get published by a traditional publisher (usually because you have the right connections and/or share specific opinions, mostly political ones, with the right gatekeeper), you are unlikely to earn enough money that you can avoid wasting away at a full-time job. Hell, I have a full-time job and I’d need a second person with a full-time job to start considering myself financially secure.

I’d like to go on about how the idea for this novella came to be, but this one was one of those cases in which it just happens. I snatch the spark, I daydream of an increasingly convoluted plot line and I just get to writing. But Glyca definitely came from a single inspiration; that name is just a lazy feminization of Glycon, an ancient snake god that apparently was worshipped briefly, by quite a few people, in the Roman empire during the second century. And I only learned about this minor god thanks to this great YouTube animation. I have found myself singing that song in my head randomly since I first heard it.

Of the other events in this novella, the only one I feel like elaborating on is that Duckson guy that our heroic protagonists ambush and murder. He’s based on a guy who did bad stuff to me for no good reason; the only excuse I heard was that I “denied that friendship is the most important thing in the world”. In reality, the prick was a malignant narcissist who couldn’t deal with someone who didn’t want to hang out with him anymore. He may had ended up becoming an important political figure in this country if he hadn’t crashed his car and died when he was twenty six or so. When I saw his obituary, I burst out laughing. All the problems he created, except for the damage already done, ceased immediately, which is another reminder that sometimes many of your problems would be solved if the person responsible died. Too bad about these modern thoughts about life being intrinsically valuable and all that crap. I’m old fashioned, I guess.

Anyway, I needed to write this story because I was depressed at the time, and somehow getting through this nightmare with Glyca dragged me out of it. It’s the only reason I bother to write at all. It’s not about anyone else enjoying it. And I especially don’t care about you in particular enjoying it.

Would getting fucked by Glyca’s tail feel good or great? We’ll never find out.

A Millennium of Shadows, Pt. 9 (Poetry)


We jumped from time zone to time zone.
We spent days in a freezing winter
Only to teleport to the warmest summer.
I ceased to care about how much time passed;
The calendar was put together by humans,
And our furniture was made out of their bones.

I grew to love my monstrous form.
I began to think of myself as beautiful.
My mind and body were now my own,
And I had a purpose and a reason for being.

Glyca had grown, in a word, gluttonous.
She always tried to have a corpse at hand,
And she interrupted our conversations to eat,
Tearing out large chunks of human flesh,
Then chewing and speaking at the same time.

At first, with each victim, Glyca gained strength,
But as her appetite grew, her body swelled.
We always slept in each other’s arms;
Her chest used to feel firm under my head,
As it contained muscles trained through hunting,
But now I rested my head on a cushion of fat.

Glyca’s mood swings worried me the most.
She would be so happy and excited one day,
Only to turn moody and taciturn the next.
Glyca knew how to read, which surprised me,
And had grown to enjoy my books and mangas,
But once I saw that she cried softly as she read,
Then she tore out pages and chewed on them.

I was terrified to bring up the changes.
I never believed I deserve to be loved
By anyone, let alone a goddess like Glyca.
Now that she was forced to share her space,
Had she gotten tired of my insufficient self?
Was she embarrassed of my baby dick?
I couldn’t deal if she fell out of love with me.

I struggled through waking nightmares
In which I faced a vision of my Glyca
That, yelling, told me that I wasn’t worth it;
I wasn’t strong nor fast enough,
I was a useless parasite,
A burden on her, who deserved far better.
She said that I was too stupid to survive,
And that I should just give up and die.
In my visions, I begged her to eat me;
At least I wished for my worthless flesh
To serve my beloved girl as nourishment.

Some weeks, Glyca’s mood swayed back
And she became so passionate and loving
That I could hardly keep her tail off my ass.
When she came, it was like an explosion;
Violent and painful, but also sweet.
Her seed would shoot out in a thick stream,
And I’d swallow it down eagerly, like a sponge.
But even then, I caught her glancing at me
As if a terminal illness would end my life.

For a routine hunt, Glyca teleported us
To a tiny town somewhere in the Middle East.
The dozens of villagers lived in houses
Made out of mud bricks and straw roofs.
The men’s faces were covered with stubble.
They wore colorful robes and sandals,
And they seemed to deal mostly in goats.

As we hid in the shadows, before the kill,
Glyca shot me a pained, hollow look
As if she had realized all was meaningless.
I was shocked, and trembled from head to toe.

Glyca teleported away from the shadows.
Seconds later, I heard isolated, terrified shrieks
That were cut short suddenly as the victim died.
When a thick silence fell upon the village,
I finally dared to venture out of my hiding place.

I located Glyca in the middle of the village;
The moonlight gleamed on her bloodied scales
As she sat on the dirt, surrounded by corpses
Of the men, women, and children of the village.
Glyca’s black eyes were glazed and vacant
As she chewed calmly on someone’s heart.

I couldn’t tell how many months had passed,
But Glyca had ballooned to an enormous size.
She always stank of rotting meat and sweat.
At home, she often lost pieces of half-eaten flesh
Only to find them caught between her folds.
But sleeping in her arms was like sinking softly
Into a huge pillow covered in soft sequins,
So every night I felt that her obesity was worth it.

Our best times, now past, made me cry;
Back then I woke up and she kissed me all over,
Then she caressed me with her sharp claws,
And sometimes she sang to me in a throaty voice.

Her gloominess got too heavy to carry,
But Glyca reached a turning point with herself
During one hunt, when she failed to kill someone
Because she had to stop and catch her breath.
Afterwards, it’s like she knew she was done,
As if life didn’t hold any interest anymore,
And for days she refused to leave our cave.
She lay on her side as she stared into space
And listened to the wind blow through the trees.

My heart hurts watching my Glyca like this,
Slumped in a corner like a deflating balloon.
A tear runs down my face, and I understand
That I’ll have to hear some painful truths.

I take a shiv and cut open my arm.
Blood oozes out onto some bones.
I watch as the red liquid flows freely.
It feels good, and it gives me courage.

I wring my hands as I approach my Glyca.
I step on a skull by mistake, and it cracks.
Glyca raises her face. Her eyes are teary.
I kneel next to her and I kiss her forehead.

“My love, I couldn’t help but notice
That you’ve gotten a little chunky.”
Glyca purses her lips, then bursts into tears.
She sobs like a child until I calm her down.

“If you are sick of me, that’s alright,”
I dare to say, although my voice trembles,
“I’ll just move out, get out of your way.”
Glyca shakes her head and hugs me tightly.
“Don’t say that! You are the love of my life!
I can’t bear the thought of losing you!”

I wipe the snot that’s running down my nose.
“You have grown so big, and so depressed,
But nothing I do seems to make you happy.
Your sadness courses through my bones.
I am dying inside. I don’t know how to help you.
Please tell me what’s wrong. Please let me fix it.”

Glyca’s eyes look like two dark holes.
“Oh, my boy! Please, forgive me!
I’m sorry for making you worry about me.
I’m not despairing because I don’t want you,
It’s just the opposite, and that’s the problem!”

I don’t understand, and Glyca continues,
But she can barely speak through the tears.
“I’ve lived for thousands of years, you know?
I was born in a cave in a frozen wasteland.
I remember how the winds blew fiercely
And the sky seemed filled with ice.
I grew up in a pitch black darkness.
For so long, I lived a life without light.

Nature forces cycles of hibernation upon me.
Whenever I woke up from those long slumbers,
I wondered what was the point of bothering.
Wouldn’t it be better to disappear in dreams
Until my bloated body consumed itself to bones?
For what purpose would I hunt and kill again
If I would have to endure this darkness by myself?

I’ve been alone for longer than empires have existed.
The last time I saw another of my own kind,
Humans still fought with swords and shields.
I had given up long ago, I knew I’d die alone.
No matter how many millennia I came to live,
Nobody would ever love someone like me.”

I hug Glyca tight, and I feel her body heat up.
We hold each other as she cries on my shoulder.
“You mean that you’ll need to hibernate soon,”
I say in a thin voice, which ends up breaking.
Glyca nods. She wipes her eyes.
“I’m sorry, my love. I should have told you,
But I was terrified of saying it out loud.”

“I want to tell you to just resist it,” I say,
“But I assume that wouldn’t be possible.”
Glyca tries to speak, but she chokes up.
A bit later, she manages to push words out.
“It’d be like you trying to stay awake forever.
After a few days, you’d just pass out,
Except that in my case, when I finally woke up,
You’d be long, long gone, my boy.”

My heart hurts like never before.
I’m so sad I can barely breathe.
I pull away to look at Glyca’s face,
Then I kiss her eyelids and cheeks.

“I wish you could also live forever,”
Glyca says as her shoulders tremble,
“Just the two of us, and be together,
So we would sleep, hunt, and kill,
And satisfy all of our hungers.
We’d hibernate together for centuries,
Then we’d finally wake up hungry again.
We’d get to hold and love each other
Until the day we watched the world die.”

I don’t know how much time we spend
Just holding each other tightly,
As if the other would merely vanish
The moment we loosened our embrace.

I try to force my mouth to move,
But my lips refuse to form any sound.
It feels like my brain has been replaced
With a large lump of molten lead.

Glyca takes a deep breath and pulls away.
When she stares at me from up close,
Her black eyes are filled with determination.
“Nature put in my kind a way to interrupt it,
Our centuries of hibernation, I mean,
So we could feel each other again soon,
Even if it would be… for a short while.”

Glyca looks down, and her eyes drop tears.
Afraid of what may come, I hold my breath,
But when my love looks up at me again,
She smiles like she found a good solution.

“For the longest time, I was totally sure
That having children would never be for me.
But you are the one, you are the only one
That I’d ever love and who’d love me back.”

I hadn’t imagined that anyone would want me
To the extent of wanting to procreate.
I am happy, and my heart beats faster.
I caress the scales of Glyca’s huge, bulging belly.

“Of course I’ll have children with you, my love.
Even if my tiny dick can’t penetrate deep enough,
I’m sure I’ll manage to shoot my cum inside,
And if I’m actually fertile, I’ll impregnate you.”

Glyca gifts me an understanding smile.
She shakes her head, kisses my lips,
Then places her hand on my chest.
“You’d be the one to bear our children.
I’ll penetrate you much deeper than before,
And I’ll keep pumping you full of my seed.”

I’m speechless and confused.
Glyca knows for sure that I lack a womb,
But she’s confident that this would work.
When I hold her gaze again, I catch
A wordless meaning to that pained stare.
Having children together requires a sacrifice.

My body isn’t built to gestate any babies;
The process will tear me apart from the inside.
But as I consider that prospect, my shoulders relax.
For Glyca, I would endure any amount of pain,
And if the gestation kills me, then so be it.

I never understood why I had to endure this life,
But this is a purpose that I can believe in;
If I can make Glyca’s kind prosper again,
Then I will have done my one good deed.

I smile softly, then I kiss Glyca’s lips.
“Of course I will carry your babies.
You are my whole world, Glyca.”
She nods as her eyes fill with tears,
Then she throws her arms around me.
For a while, Glyca weeps unrestrainedly.

We shared a final night under the myriad of stars,
Lying on the grass, peering through the canopy.
I said goodbye to my books and manga series,
I said goodbye to Glyca’s bone furniture.

Glyca clarified that we would move somewhere else.
The conception, gestation and childbirth
Was a troublesome process for her ancient species,
And it would require my full, constant cooperation.

“I’ll be helpless the whole way through, my boy,”
Glyca said as she caressed my naked chest.
“If you wanted, you could just bite off my tongues
Or struggle enough to wrench yourself free.”

Glyca senses that she may pass out soon,
So she finally teleports us away to her nest.
I find myself sinking in plump pillows.
I’m submerged in darkness so thick and black
As if the light had never touched this place.
The air is cool, and it smells like moist minerals.
The sounds of our breaths are echoed back.
We are inside a cramped space with thick walls.

I’m suddenly overwhelmed with claustrophobia,
But Glyca’s fat arms are embracing me tightly,
And her swollen belly presses against my skin.
I feel like I’m floating safely in warm gelatin.

“W-where are we, Glyca?” I ask.
She sniffles, then kisses my neck.
“Deep underground, in my nest,
Where I’ve returned to hibernate
Whenever I was forced to repeat it.
It’s a tiny cave inaccessible for people,
But the oxygen comes in through fissures
Barely big enough to let some insects pass.”

“Is the ground covered in pillows?”
“That’s right, my boy, very old ones
That I had collected to sleep comfortably,
And they’ll hold you lovingly too
Through the very long period of gestation.”

Glyca can’t help but burst into tears.
I kiss her deeply, and we make out
For a few minutes before we are done.
“Make me pregnant, Glyca,” I say,
“Before you simply pass out
And I’ll have to grow old and die alone.”

Glyca’s tears wet my cheeks.
“I love you so much, my boy.”
A wave of sadness washes over me.
“And I will always love you, Glyca.”

After she takes a deep breath,
She slides her two tongues into my mouth.
One of her hands grips my ass cheek
To expose my mostly loose asshole.
I shudder warmly, and my dick twitches.
The tip of her tail lubricates my hole,
And it only needs to push once to enter.

Her tail glides further inside me
While both of her tongues slide
Down my throat and then diverge;
Her feeding tongue goes into my esophagus,
And the tube-like one pushes into my trachea.

I risk gagging, but I take a deep breath.
My lungs expand with Glyca’s oxygen,
And I feel the pleasure of her nectar flowing
And coating my esophagus on its way down.
Soon, its sedative, hypnotic properties will kick in.
Cause and effect, and time, will become meaningless.
My mind will sink slowly in swirly daydreams.

My toes are curling, my breath becomes ragged
As Glyca’s tail slides deeper and deeper inside,
Way past my rectum, deep in my large intestine.
She’s ventured beyond where she usually came.
Once the tail reaches some sort of end,
I feel it maneuvering to enter another tract,
Likely the bunched folds of the small intestine.

My stomach is filling up with Glyca’s nectar,
Which is already making me delirious.
Glyca’s tight embrace, and her throbbing tail
Are causing tingles to course throughout me.
I can’t imagine a more perfect, wholesome life
Than one with her tail snaking in my insides.

I’m breathing heavily as my body gets hotter.
I can’t tell how much time has passed already.
Glyca’s tail pushes millimeter by millimeter,
As if she feared perforating my intestines.

My eyes roll back, and my head is spinning.
I feel like I’m floating on a cloud of nectar.
My thoughts are hazy and confused.
I can’t remember what I ever said or did,
I just know that I want to stay here forever.

I dream of Glyca’s round, soft breasts.
I fondle them, I rub my face against them.
I can feel her heart pounding
As I lick and suck on her round nipples.

The hypnagogic currents are carrying me,
But I feel the pressure of Glyca’s bulbous tip
As it pushes against some entrance located
A few centimeters lower than my chest.
The tip of her tail suddenly plops in,
And Glyca stirs and groans in her sleep.

She’s shivering and tensing up;
She must be ejaculating inside me.
I get an image of my stomach filling up
With her loads of white, snakey cum,
Which dilutes in the pool of nectar.

I feel how Glyca falls into a deeper sleep,
But thankfully leaves her tail sheathed.
Our offspring are beginning to develop,
And one day they’ll burst from inside me
So I can die a happy man.

I look down and see my tiny penis
As it winks in the light of the sun.
I feel the sunlight on my skin,
And I hear birds chirping all around me.

I don’t have to worry about anything,
Because I am with my love.
Glyca is naked, and her hair is long.
Her claws are painted pink.
Her pussy is shaved clean,
And it smells like strawberries.

“Look at your penis, Glyca,”
I say to my love. “It’s so huge!”
She strokes my head and laughs.
“You’re such a silly boy! Your tiny penis
Is perfectly normal, don’t worry.”
“And you have beautiful breasts, Glyca.
Your full, firm tits are really nice.”
“You’re such a sweetheart.”
“Can I touch them?”
“Of course, my boy. They’re yours.”
“They’re very big and heavy.
I can’t even fit them in my mouth!”
“That’s because I’ve got a fat belly,
That’s why my boobs are so big.
Come on, give them a squeeze.
You’ll see how much milk I produce.”

I feel her nipples harden under my palms.
I run my fingers over the ridges of her areolas.
“Mmm, yes, these are real beauties,” I say,
“I can feel how they swell up when I do that.
I’m a good little boy who loves mommy’s breasts.”
“I’m glad you like them, my sweet boy,
But you’re still too young to have kids.
You can’t get pregnant until your eggs are mature.”

I fondle her huge breasts, I squeeze them
As I swallow gallons of Glyca’s milk-cum.
I’m so proud of my monstrous offspring.
They keep growing happily inside me.
I feel them wriggling and squirming,
And how they kick with their tiny feet.

I’m so happy that I was able to give birth to them.
I’m so glad that they were born inside me.
I’m so proud that I had the strength to carry them.
I’m so lucky that I could care for them.

I find my father lying unconscious
On the living room couch, covered in vomit,
Surrounded by empty bottles of whisky.
His head lolls back and forth
As I hurry to call an ambulance.

The paramedics arrive at the scene.
When they lift my father’s shirt,
There’s a hideous scar over his heart.
They get busy applying CPR to revive him.

In between bouts of vomiting,
My old man mumbles incoherences.
“Your mom hates me.
They took everything from me.
Leave me alone.”

The paramedics continue pumping
Life support machines into his chest.
My father raises a trembling hand
As he smiles at a phantasm.
“Yes, I’d love to dance with you.”

My mother shakes her head slowly
As she glares down from her throne.
“What the fuck have you done now?
I can’t believe that you’re going to be a father.
You’ve always been such a weakling.
You’re nothing but a useless loser,
A hideous and insane monster.
Why can’t you just let go of your pathetic life?
I bet you wish you were never born.”

I’m alone in this world,
Alone with no one to turn to.
My only hope is that my unborn children
Will live and grow strong.

My esophagus burns. I need to vomit.
I’m palms are sinking into a huge pillow.
A solid, wriggling ball is pushing out,
Escaping my body through my throat.

I feel Glyca’s hand rubbing my back
As she holds me by the chest.
“That’s it, my boy, you’re doing great,”
She whispers through the copious tears.
“Just a few more contractions,
And then the little one will pop out.”

My mouth leaks warm saliva like a faucet.
I groan as my throat gets stretched.
It hurts so much, I fear I’m going to pass out.
Once the living ball brushes my uvula,
My spine shakes and I projectile vomit.
I cough and gag. I try to clear my throat,
But I feel another ball pushing out,
Desperate to escape from my stomach.

Glyca’s weight shifts around in the pillows.
She manages to whisper between sobs.
“Our first child, our beautiful daughter.
Keep pushing, my boy, there are more.”

My bowels are loosening,
My bladder is emptying itself.
Tears are jumping from my eyes
As the big ball of another daughter
Stretches out my esophagus slowly.

Maybe I passed out, but I’m back
As I lie in a puddle of my own vomit.
My Glyca is crying nearby, in the dark.
“Hello, my darling. I’m your mommy.”

Everything hurts, I can barely breathe,
But I can tell that the process is over.
As I wipe the sweat off my face,
I expect my numerous cysts to sting,
But my skin is now mostly flat,
Except for the pits of their scars.
My facial hair is also much thicker,
What I would consider a full beard,
And my hairline has receded significantly.

My hands tremble as I grope for Glyca.
I touch her smooth scales, and a tiny form
That has latched on to Glyca’s flesh.
I feel one of my daughters’ tiny fingers
As a lukewarm fluid pours on my hand.

Glyca is containing yelps of pain.
A hollow feeling spreads in my chest.
I examine one my daughters’ tiny body.
I touch her hair and feel her soft skin.
I find her sharp teeth sinking in
And tearing pieces out of Glyca’s flesh.

As I close my hand around my daughter,
Glyca grabs my wrist to make me stop.
“My boy,” she says in a thin, pained voice,
“Our daughters will devour my flesh
Until nothing but my bones are left of me.”

I shake my head. My eyes burn.
“They should eat me instead!
You need to live, Glyca!”
She cups the back of my head
With a weak, trembling hand,
And pulls me close to kiss me.

“Nature has made it so our offspring
Require the meat of one of our species
To survive their dangerous first days.
That’s part of why so few of us were around,
And until now I may have been the last.

My hot tears hit the back of my hands.
“There must be some alternative!
We will end up finding it together!”
Glyca’s voice breaks as she gets bitten.
“We are born with the instinct to teleport.
They’ll soon carry you out of here.
As their father, you’ll need to teach them
How to hunt and kill their only prey,
So they’ll be able to survive
In this ugly, hostile world of ours.”

My back is shaking, my throat is closed shut.
Glyca caresses the clear skin of my cheek,
Which used to be covered in inflamed cysts.
She speaks to me softly, with gratitude.

“You knew already that this world is cruel,
Mainly because nature is indifferent.
It’s unable to care about the pain
It causes to all the creatures it created.
Every living species is a slave
Urged to obey the only drive of life:
That of propagating itself
Mindlessly, purposelessly,
Just like a cancer.
And to deceive us into obeying,
It spawned convoluted strategies
Like the numerous gods that came to be,
Like what we call morality,
And even the feeling we know as love.
Back when I first felt it for you,
I knew my brain was deceiving me,
But I’m glad I came to believe,
Because without love,
The endless aeons
Are just unbearable.
This life is too painful,
And I’m glad I kept going.
Thank you, my love,
For being my mate.”

‘A Millennium of Shadows, Pt. 9’ by Jon Ureña

THE END

A Millennium of Shadows, Pt. 8 (Poetry)


I squint at the midday sun
While I wish it was dark outside.
I have been wandering aimlessly
Like I did to ditch school,
But now I’m in a pained daze
As walk through strange streets.
I don’t know where I’m going
Or what I’m going to do.

I was already hungry when I got home;
Now my stomach growls uncontrollably.
I’ve left my father’s place to never return,
But I’ve got no money to my name.
I took for granted how I relied on my father,
Who in turn relied on the government,
That in turn stole from the decent citizens.

I’m sitting in a park near a pond,
With a few empty cans of soda nearby.
A squirrel chases a bird away.
A lone swan floats on the water’s surface.
I wonder if anyone will ever notice me,
Or if I’ll just be forgotten by the world.

My brains churn with thoughts of meat,
Of tender, juicy ribs dripping fat juices,
Meat cooked slowly in a pot,
Steaming delicious steak.

The shadow of a plane passes overhead,
And I think to myself, “If I were a pilot
And had a big cock like a missile,
I’d drop bombs on a city full of people,
Then eat their charred flesh
Like a starving cannibal.
Finally, I’d dig up a big hole
And plant my penis in the ground,
To let it grow into a tree
And watch it sprout branches and leaves.”

How am I going to secure food?
Where am I going to sleep?
I feel naked and powerless.
My only relief in this broken life
Is that Glyca considers me irreplaceable.

If I had to rely solely on myself
To survive among these humans,
I’d either die in a matter of days
Or inevitably turn into a monster.
I’d spend all day looking for food
And I’d sleep on the cold, dirty ground.

I would drink my own piss
And eat other people’s feces.
I’d eventually go insane
And kill everyone I met.
I’d become a cannibalistic beast
Who would maim and feast.

I want the darkness to swallow me up,
Even if Glyca has no clue where I am.
I approach an abandoned building
That used to house a restaurant;
Now it’s a skeleton of bricks and mortar.
I needed to hide, to be alone in the dark.

Inside, a layer of dust filters the sunlight.
The floorboards are rotten and uneven.
The building is filled with cobwebs and mold,
And abandoned, decaying furniture.

The busted windows let the light pour in.
I grab a table and drag it over to a wall.
I crawl up into the shadows under the table,
Then I curl up into a ball and close my eyes.

I’m hungry and already dehydrated.
My body feels heavy and dull.
Once again, I wish I would disappear,
Just cease to exist as if I never had.
I’ve never been a proper human being,
Just an ugly, disgusting creature
Afraid of its own reflection.

I feel a presence lying behind me
Who breathes softly upon my neck.
I turn around to see Glyca’s black eyes.
Her vertical pupils glow with compassion.
She smiles, displaying her pointy teeth.

“You looked so lonely, my boy,” she whispers.
“That argument with your dad hurt you bad,
But we don’t need to sneak around anymore.
We can be ourselves in our own private space.
You know I can give you a comfortable shelter.
In exchange, you can provide me love and sex.”

I am relieved because Glyca has found me,
But I tremble and risk bursting into tears.
“Glyca, I may have fucked up bad.
I’d be fine living in a cave, just you and I,
But I can’t rely on human meat for nourishment.”

Glyca chuckles, then sticks out her tongue,
Which is oozing its thick, syrupy nectar.
My girlfriend moves her face over mine
So a big bead of her sweet nectar grows
Then falls from her tongue into my mouth.

For a second, Glyca’s smile falters.
“Nature is a rotten bitch, but thanks to her,
The nectar my tongue produces is enough
To supply you with all the necessary nutrients.
You’ll need to suck on my tongue every hour or two,
And sometimes more if you’re feeling weak.
As long as I keep filling my belly with humans,
You’ll never need to rely on anyone else.”

As Glyca wraps her arms around me tightly,
I seal my lips around hers and I take her in,
To suckle on her slimy tongue like a baby.
Her organ is wet, slippery and smooth,
And I can feel the muscular fibers inside.

I have closed my eyes, but I struggle to breathe;
I am so safe and comforted suckling on her,
With the tips of her claws pressing against my back
And her sweet nectar pouring down my throat,
That I don’t want to move for the rest of my life.

I feel Glyca’s second tongue sliding in
Past my own tongue and down my trachea.
I flinch at the intrusion as if I risked choking,
But lukewarm air flows out of the tube-like tongue,
Providing my lungs with all the oxygen they need.

My stomach is full of her thick saliva,
And I feel lightheaded and euphoric.
My brain is flooded with smells,
From the syrupy nectar to rotting food,
Fresh water and fresh vegetation,
Animal carcasses and human waste.

Glyca has teleported us home,
To the anonymous cave deep in the woods,
Far away from humans and their mistakes.
No stranger is going to wander into this place
To mock us, insult us, and stop us from living.

I hear Glyca’s breathing, I feel her heartbeat.
I know she’s here for me and I’m not alone.
The more nectar flows down my throat,
The more frayed cause and effect becomes,
And it gets harder to count the passing seconds.
I’m drunk on Glyca’s saliva and can’t think straight.

A female shriek of panic echoes in my mind,
Which paints a picture of a terrified woman
Who is scrambling down a darkened corridor,
Fleeing from the monster that is pursuing her.

Something hits my legs and falls with a thud.
It jolts me awake, and after I blink a few times,
I realize I had been sleeping on a bed of moss,
And that I’m looking at a young Asian woman.

She’s mumbling in Chinese or Korean
While she trembles and blubbers.
She’s wearing leggings and a tank top,
And she’s hot enough to make me nervous.

As I wonder where the hell I truly am,
And why would I be facing this sporty lady,
Glyca crawls out of the darkness
And pounces on the woman, immobilizing her.

The woman squeals and writhes around fruitlessly.
Glyca opens her mouth close to the woman’s neck,
But I raise my hand and yell at my girlfriend to stop.
Glyca freezes, then shoots me a look of confusion.

“Glyca, who is this woman?” I demand to know.
“What do you mean…? She’s prey, just a human
That I found after I jumped into a new shadow.
This one was running along an isolated path,
Which made her an easy target for predators.
I love it when they are dripping in hot sweat.
I leapt out of the darkness and caught her.
I’ve brought her home to eat her calmly.”

My heart beats fast as the woman struggles
To break free from Glyca’s powerful grip.
“My love, aren’t I just a human too?” I ask.
She smiles, showing her sharp teeth,
But her eyes are shy and apologetic.
My girlfriend lets out a nervous laugh.

“You are not a human being like them,
You are so much more, you are my boy!
Are you worried that I’d want to eat you?
Before hurting you, I’d rather kill myself!”

The Asian woman is crying uncontrollably.
“Think about how you feel about me,” I say,
“Because someone may love her the same way.
How would you feel if someone kidnapped me,
And you never found out what happened?”

Glyca grimaces, then looks back at the woman
As if observing her face for the first time.
The woman finds herself staring at Glyca’s eyes,
Which causes her to turn white and pass out.

“This woman doesn’t deserve being devoured,”
I say carefully as Glyca loosens her grip.
“Do you understand what I mean, Glyca?
She’s not like those bastards who hurt me.
It doesn’t sit well with me that you kill normies.
Please, return this woman to China or Korea,
Or wherever the hell you kidnapped her from.”

Glyca lowers her head. Her gaze is unfocused.
Sheepishly, she nods and teleports away
Carrying with her the random Asian lady,
And leaving me alone in this darkened space.
It’s a cave, but larger than the one I knew,
And I can’t spot an entrance from here.

The only sources of light are some candles,
Which cast shadows over the rough walls.
Glyca must have lighted them for my sake.
She has decorated the walls with flowers,
And carcasses that hang from the vaulted ceiling.
Inside a natural niche in the rock wall,
Glyca has put a few human skulls on display.
Every breath of air smells like decaying flesh.

After I stand up and walk to stretch my legs,
I come across a large pile of human bones,
Some of which are broken and splintered.
A few of the skulls are small like a child’s.

Close by I spot a large ceramic bowl
That contains a bloody, severed head.
It’s upside down, its eyes are wide open,
And its tongue hangs out of its mouth.
There are no lips or nose, just gaping holes,
And the hair is matted with blood and gore.

Glyca pops out of nowhere, next to me.
She’s sitting and hugging her knees
As she buries her face in her forearms.
Her long tail is wrapped around her waist,
And her chest is heaving while she cries.

I can’t stand to see my love like this.
I kneel next to her and I hug her tightly.
“I’m sorry for chastising you, Glyca,” I say.
She lifts her head and stares with teary eyes.

“M-my boy, I imagined you being devoured,
And it broke my heart like nothing before.
Y-you think that some of these humans
Can love each other like you and I do?”

I rub my chin and think about it.
“I suppose that some might, I guess,
But I didn’t want you to eat that woman
Because it didn’t sit well with me.”

Glyca hides her face, and shakes her head.
“My species can’t digest other meats,
When we reach adulthood, at least.”
She shuts up as she takes a deep breath,
Then she sighs and snuggles against me.
“So I need to hunt and consume humans.
We are predators and they are our prey.”

I run my fingers through her coarse hair.
“You don’t need to become a vegetarian.
Just don’t eat hot women, or children.”
Glyca peeks out from behind her forearms.
“What humans are free reign for me to kill?”
“You can eat shady people, and criminals.”
“Don’t those have families sometimes,
And also romantic partners who love them?”
“I guess… But fuck them.”

Glyca nods, having regained her confidence.
“By the way, what cave are we in?” I ask.
“Ah, this is one of my main apartments,
Or at least that’s how you could call them.
It’s very isolated. I’ve used it for centuries.
We are going to live together in here, right?”

Glyca looks so vulnerable and cute.
Her scales glimmer in the candlelight.
Does she fear that I’m reconsidering our love?
I caress the smooth scales of her pretty face
And I slide my tongue into her wet mouth.
Glyca shudders and her tail lashes about.

“My boy, your kisses are so delicious,”
Glyca whispers as she bites my lower lip.
I stroke the length of her back slowly.
“Thank you for bringing me to your place,
And for letting me live with you from now on.
We can both be who we were meant to,
Now that we are draped in darkness.”

In a short while, we are lying on her mossy bed.
Glyca has reached between my spread legs
And is now massaging my balls gently.
Her slimy mouth kisses down my torso.
My thighs rest on her firm shoulders
As her tongue swirls inside my asshole.
She slips three fingers in, and starts pumping.

Turns out, earning loads of money was easy
Once I became devoted to my new job.
Glyca teleported me to random communities,
And I scouted around looking for shady places.
Barber shops where weird people hung out,
And who became anxious and dismissive
The moment I entered to ask for a haircut.
Ethnic restaurants filled only with thugs,
Who had fortified the shopfronts
With sturdy burglar bars and roller shutters.

Glyca stalked our targets from the shadows,
And usually ripped their throats open
Before they ever got the chance to scream.
Sometimes, she would watch them die
As she tore out and ate chunks of their flesh.
Many of those people carried wads of cash.
Most of the places we hit were gang hideouts,
So we returned home with a significant bounty.

Glyca has no use for money,
But I enjoy buying random crap.
Too bad about the lack of electricity.
I bought plenty of clothes and shoes,
Because they tended to get real dirty,
But I also bought books and manga series.
I love to get fucked by my girlfriend,
Then roll over to light up a candle
And resume reading some Japanese tale.

We ended up with a pile of money
Next to the bones of our many victims.
We were killing beyond Glyca’s appetite,
And I was concerned about wasting food,
But Glyca assured me that she had a solution,
One she had found many millennia ago:
She owned her own freezer cave in Siberia,
Where human carcasses of ancient humans
Hanged from hooks waiting for their turn,
Once Glyca lacked fresh corpses to feed from.

I can’t avoid stepping on random bones.
My feet are covered in blood and gore.
The ground is slick with fluids and excrement,
And there are flies buzzing around my head.
I feel like I’m walking through a graveyard
As the skulls stare at me with empty eye sockets.

To change up our habits a bit, for fun,
Glyca skins a corpse, then roasts it
On a giant spit over a fire pit, in the evening,
Near a river where the frogs keep croaking.
The smell of charred meat fills the air.
Glyca eats a cooked morsel slowly, like a delicacy,
And when I try one, I find it delicious.
I start to think that I’d been wrong;
Maybe humans aren’t all that bad.

Some parts we fry in oil and serve with spices,
Other parts we grill and eat with salt.
Some are stewed in broth and drenched in gravy.
Some parts we boil and serve with noodles.

I have taken off my dirty clothes,
And I stand up to approach the river.
Behind me, Glyca is eating a juicy rib,
But stops to speak with her mouth full.
“The smell of blood brings me such joy.
I love to taste the meat and drink the juices.
Nothing beats the flavour of the dead.”

After I drink, as cold water drips from my chin,
I straighten my back and stare at my reflection.
The melted monster emerged, its skin peeled off,
Leaving behind a grotesque creature
With gaping holes for nostrils and mouth.
Now I own a thick torso with four arms and legs,
Limbs stronger and thicker than the old ones were.
My head consists of a giant cock covered in spines,
Each of which is tipped with poison darts,
And my arms end in big bulbs resembling testicles
Which contain something viscous, like sperm,
That spurts out and hits the dirt wherever I walk.

‘A Millennium of Shadows, Pt. 8’ by Jon Ureña

A Millennium of Shadows, Pt. 7 (Poetry)


When I enter my father’s apartment,
I see him sitting on the living room sofa
As he smokes a cig in front of a full ashtray.
He is wearing a tattered grey sweater
And baggy jeans with holes in the knees.

I intended to ignore him and walk away,
But he wipes his eyes and intercepts me.
This old man always looked tired and worn;
Now he is paler than I have ever seen him,
With dark circles under his eyes,
Which are bloodshot and teary.
He’s also unshaven, and he smells awful.

“You just don’t care at all anymore,” he mutters,
“Coming back home in the middle of the morning.”
I’m disturbed because the old man had cried,
As evidenced by the dry trails of tears,
And I’m also embarrassed by his appearance.

“What’s the matter now?” I ask, annoyed.
“What’s the matter? You should be in school.”
I scratch my head. What day is it today?
“Yeah, well, I’m not going to school anymore.”

My father frowns, and takes a drag on his cig
With a hand that shivers as if he were freezing.
“I thought you would deny it.
I called, you know, and they told me
That you haven’t attended for weeks!
You even missed vital exams!”

I sigh. What a bother, dealing with this clown
For who the opening of a bakery is an event.
“There’s no such thing as a vital exam
For someone who won’t pursue an education.”

My father frowns, clenches his teeth,
Then throws his cig into the ashtray.
“So what now, are you just going to drop out?
Don’t you care at all about your future?”

“First of all, no, I don’t give a fuck
About whatever you would consider ‘a future’.
People abandon their kids in school
Because homeschooling is no longer a thing.
Most families require two salaries to survive,
So they need to park their kids somewhere,
And it’s convenient for the state, of course:
It wants to decide what goes into our heads.

As a result your vulnerable son ended up caged
Among wild beasts who mocked and insulted me,
Causing me mental issues that will never heal.
As students, we were mere recipients of nonsense
Meant to raise obedient, harmless slaves
That will vote for the government and shut up
Instead of taking arms and hanging them,
Which is what all of that rotten scum deserves.

If I bothered to suffer through my education,
The day I would start my life as a wage slave,
I would discover that beyond basic math,
Nothing else I had learned would ever help.
I would have just wasted many precious years
To receive some papers that certify me as a fool.”

Before I finished speaking,
My father grabbed his head
And walked to the sofa as he grunted.
He plops down and hunches over,
His elbows resting on his knees,
And then he stares at the floor.

“I can’t believe you’re so stupid.
Or maybe this is all my fault.
I raised you all by myself,
So this must have been my failure.”

Maybe I should get mad, but I don’t care.
Nothing about this rotten world concerns me.
In a short while, Glyca and I will be gone,
Maybe to Russia or Australia or the moon,
Where we’ll run around, eat people and fuck.

“Why would you be surprised about failing at this?
Haven’t you failed at everything else?
Besides, you can relax. I don’t need an education.
For the first time in my life, I’m truly happy.”

My father snorts derisively, and raises his voice.
“Happy? How could you possibly be happy?
Your face is full of the worst kind of acne,
Your mother abandoned us early on,
You are a loner who’s never had any friends,
You have thrown away your future,
And I’m sure you plan to never get a job.
You’ll end up dead in a ditch somewhere.
Do you think I want that to happen to you?”

“You are worrying for nothing, dad.
I’m doing great. I have a lovely girlfriend
Who loves me, and accepts me for who I am.”
My father buries his face in his hands.
“I guess this is psychosis,” he mutters bitterly,
“Or however they call it when someone loses it.
Yet, you disappear for hours who knows where,
Although several people have gone missing lately.”

“You don’t have to worry about me disappearing,
Because my girlfriend is the one eating people.”
My father rubs his eyes, then stands up wearily.
Although he turns towards me, he avoids my gaze.
“Are you doing drugs? Is that what’s going on?
You are mentally absent, and walk awkwardly…”

I chuckle at the irony of me doing drugs
When I’ve been involved in reducing
The number of drug-related people that live.
“I walk weird because my body is adapting
To me having stuff shoved deep into my ass.
But I’m only taking in my girlfriend’s tail!
I’m not going around getting fucked by men.”

My father facepalms, then groans.
“What are you talking about?
You aren’t making any damn sense!”
He sniffles and wipes his eyes.
“I’m taking you to see a doctor,
That one who once prescribed you pills.”

“You’re crazy, dad. I’m not sick in the head.
I have no reason to go see a shrink.
Besides, they prescribe shit carelessly;
It may make my dick shrink even smaller.”

My father paces back and forth,
Then he sniffs loudly, and says,
“Look at me. I’m bald, I’m a mess.
I could never keep a job long enough.
I’ve got nothing to do but sit around
And smoke one cigarette after another.

I’ve always hated my fucking life.
Ever since I was a child, back at home,
I’ve been dreaming of death;
In my mind, Death is a beautiful woman
Who wears black clothes, carries a scythe,
Has silver gray hair and blood red eyes.

Death smiles at me, and she doesn’t judge.
She asks if I would like to dance,
And I say, “Yes, I’d love to.”
Death takes my hand, and we begin to spin.
We dance as we sing, we twirl and turn.
She tells me how she’ll take me away
From my father and all his brothers.
But in the end, it was another lie,
Just another person who betrayed me.

You need an education, son, and to find a job,
Or else you’ll end up like me, in a world of misery,
A place where nobody cares about you,
And when you die, they’ll throw your body in a hole
Where it will rot and stink, and nobody will mourn.”

I feel nothing but disgust and resentment.
I don’t know why I’m here. I should have left.
“There’s no such thing as a future in this place
For someone like me who despises humanity.
I guess you expect me to be sympathetic,
But if you yourself had gone to a shrink,
You’d have learned enough about yourself
To avoid getting together with my mother,
Which would have spared me this life
And all the nightmares I’ve endured through.
Just quit bitching, dad, and accept reality:
Your son is a dropout, and that’s fine,
Because a better destiny is waiting for me.”

My father clenches his fists
As he glowers coldly.
He strides up to me
And slaps me hard across the face.
Half a dozen of my huge pimples sting;
I bet they daubed his palm with pus.

My father wipes his hand on his pants.
“I’ve been too soft with you.
I should have made you be responsible,
Learn the value of work and sacrifice.
You were always alone and quiet,
And I was always tired, and sad myself.
Now you don’t know how to be an adult.
You’ll start by going to a trade school.
I don’t care what kind of shit you learn there,
As long as you can earn money and pay rent.”

Instead of words, I hear white noise.
My vision is tinted crimson red
As I feel the blood surging to my ears.
I see myself pulling out my bone shiv
And flaying my old man’s stupid face.
I see Glyca devouring my father’s flesh,
Then fabricating a chair out of his bones.

When my rage subsides, my father is quiet.
He’s staring anxiously at my expression
As if he suddenly regrets having been born,
But my mouth breaks into a wide grin.
My father will receive the worst punishment:
He’ll be left to keep enduring his life.

I turn around to leave this place
Hopefully for the last time.
“Fuck you, dad,” I say,
“And fuck your genes.”

‘A Millennium of Shadows, Pt. 7’ by Jon Ureña

A Millennium of Shadows, Pt. 6 (Poetry)


Of Bear’s goons, I despise Duckson the most
(However that stupid nickname originated),
Although it’s hard to stay mad at the rest
When their remains have been digested.

The others would follow you in the street
To punch you, kick you, and steal your money,
But Duckson sets people against each other
So he can present himself as the negotiator
That everyone would need to rely on.

Recently, Duckson had been distancing himself
From his public ties with Bear’s gang;
He was making successful moves as a youth politician.
A local paper called him compassive and kindhearted.
His party members looked up to him,
And they prophesied that Duckson would go far,
Maybe become a minister, or the president.

Glyca and I would do a service for this country,
A patriotic deed, we could even say,
By reducing the number of its politicians
Through slaughtering this sack of shit.

I switch on the lamp next to Duckson’s bed,
And it lights up the goon as he sleeps naked.
I hadn’t expected this freckled shit’s dick
To be the first thing I’d see on this hunt.

Duckson is stockier than I thought,
I guess because he was in a canoeing club,
And his dick is much larger than mine,
But even most women’s are bigger.

“Hey, Duckson, you sack of putrid shit,”
I say in a firm, confident voice unlike me,
“It’s time to wake up and deal face to face.”
Duckson grunts in his sleep, but doesn’t awaken.
“Wake up, asshole! We’re gonna kill you!”
Duckson snorts, then turns over onto his side,
Trying to return to his peaceful slumber.

“Ooh! You’re not getting away with anything!
You nasty fucker, I’m coming for your ass!”
I grab his cell phone from the nightstand,
Then throw it hard at Duckson’s head.

Duckson groans in pain and opens one eye,
And the lamp’s light makes him squint.
“W-wha…? What the fuck is going on…?”
When he realizes I’m not a phantasm
But instead a real person in his bedroom,
Duckson jolts upright, and a shriek erupts.

“What the hell? What the fuck? Who the fuck…?!
Volcano Face?! What are you doing in my bedroom?!”
“Well, Duckson, it’s related to that gang of yours,
And the fact that the other members disappeared,
And by disappeared I mean were viciously murdered
By yours truly and my girlfriend, and then devoured.
And the other goons didn’t just die, they died screaming!
So picture what kind of end we’ll provide for you.”

I could have been a lunatic who snapped,
But Bear, Sunglasses and Flute did disappear.
Glyca and I had trouble tracking Duckson down;
Paranoid, he barely left his parents’ house.
Not that any of his efforts would matter
When you are being hunted down by the best.

I hear footsteps somewhere else in the house,
And the sound of a door being opened.
As soon as Duckson gets off the mattress,
Glyca’s grey hands come out from under the bed,
Grab Duckson’s ankles and yanks them.

The guy falls forward onto a wardrobe,
And the impact causes some objects to fall,
Including a framed photo of himself,
Which smashes against the edge of the bed frame.
The photo shows Duckson giving a speech,
Wearing glasses with likely fake lenses,
And grinning widely as he spreads his arms open.

As Duckson tries to stand up,
I grab him by the hair
And slam his head against the dresser.
A loud crack reverberates through the room.

Duckson groans, he tries to reach for my hands.
I’m about to smash his head again
When someone pounds on the door,
And I hear the alarmed voice of a woman.
“Hey, David, what’s going on?! Open the door!”

I am distracted, and Duckson pushes me off.
His eyes are bleary, his forehead is bleeding.
“Fucking bitch! Don’t touch me!
Get away from me, you fucking cunt!”

His mother keeps pounding on the door,
Demanding Duckson to open it.
The goon struggles to stand up.
“Help, someone help! Call the police!”

The glass shards of the broken photo frame
Glimmer dully beneath the lamplight.
I quickly grab a handful of them,
And I shove them into Duckson’s mouth.

When he complains, he swallows some shards.
As he chokes on the tiny fragments,
Duckson starts coughing violently.
Glyca’s hand reaches from under the bed.
“My boy, either we leave now,
Or we’ll have to deal with his entire family.”

While Duckson spits bloody shards,
I push him to the floor next to Glyca,
So she can touch the goon’s bare skin.
I’m holding Glyca’s other hand.

In a split second, we find ourselves in a forest,
The same one where Glyca and I had sex.
Duckson lets out inarticulate complaints
As he comes to realize that he’s somewhere else.

“What the fuck? How did I get here?”
I’m approaching the goon from behind.
“My beloved girlfriend brought us
Through her blessed powers of teleportation.
We are somewhere deep in Russia, my guess,
But it doesn’t matter: it’s just you and us,
And a bunch of wild animals who don’t care
About the nasty stuff we’ll do to you.”

Duckson snaps out of his confusion
Partly caused by me banging his head;
He realizes he’s naked in a dark forest
And the only people around want to kill him.

Maybe there’s also bears and wolves
(I’m not an expert in random forests),
But either way this is a dangerous place
For a man who has no clothes.

Duckson shivers, narrows his shoulders,
And covers his junk with both hands.
He starts retreating from me
While he looks around for an escape route.
“This can’t be happening,” he mumbles,
“I must be in some kind of weird dream.”

I grab a moderately large stone,
Then throw it at Duckson expecting to miss,
But it hits him in the back of the head.
The goon squirms and yelps in pain.

“You’re going to be a sorry fucker,” I say,
“Because my girl will rip your cock in two.
She’s a goddess of vengeance, coming for you,
With claws, fangs, and a snake for a tail.”

Duckson quavers and shakes,
His face is pale and sweaty.
He grits his teeth as he glares.
“Why are you doing this to me?!
I haven’t done anything bad to you!”

I burst out laughing, and shake my head.
“You ruin people’s lives as much as you can,
And then declare your innocence with confidence.
You would have gone far as a politician,
Which is another reason to get rid of you.”

Duckson spits blood and wipes his lips.
“You made it up in your head, crazy fucker.
So what if I hung out with those guys?
An outcast like you can’t understand,
You don’t need to approve of the stuff they do.
Besides, they are young guys having fun.
They mess with people because they’re bored.”

“Those times you restrained me
So the other goons could punch me,
Kick me, then steal my money
While you called me an ugly loser,
All were products of a diseased mind.
That’s what you are saying, right?

It was so simple for you to condemn my life,
Which I had to suffer totally alone,
Unloved, hated, persecuted, and cast aside.
I was a victim, and all I had to show
For years of suffering was this tiny dick of mine,
And I was too ashamed to reveal it to anyone.

I guess that I also imagined the other stuff,
That shortly after your gang made me a victim,
You started appearing in my high school,
Although you had graduated from a different one,
And I caught you chatting up the few people
Who didn’t treat me like a walking hive of cysts.

I have no clue how you learned such details,
But I guess everyone has their superpower.
A couple of the times you seeded sordid rumors
So those people would shun and avoid me,
You made a point of staring straight at me
As you poisoned my classmates with lies,
Believing I was powerless to defend myself.

Although I never found out what lies you spread,
Those who listened to them rejected me,
Caring nothing about whether the rumors were true;
Those gullible classmates of mine were worthless
If they were ready to drop me after listening to lies,
But it didn’t change that I became more isolated,
Vulnerable prey for your gang to abuse again.
That brings us here, where I’ll stand and watch you die.”

Duckson’s dong swings like a pendulum
As the goon keeps retreating from me slowly.
His eyes dart around maybe looking for an exit,
Or searching for whoever grabbed his ankles before.

I pull out my lovingly crafted bone shiv.
“Look at this, Duckson, isn’t it cool?
A murder weapon made of bone.
Not of any bones, mind you, but of Bear’s,
And crafted by none other than god herself.”

“I’m good at working with bone,”
Glyca says from somewhere in the shadows.
“You are good at so many things, my love,
And also the most wonderful creature alive,
But my point is, Duckson, you are fucked;
No one is going to save your sorry ass.
It’s just the three of us and these dark woods.

Your friends’ remains are buried and gone.
You will keep blaming everyone but yourself,
Although you always used people as tools
So you could achieve all the power you wanted.
Now you are an isolated, powerless loser
Who’ll get punished by getting murdered
By one of the people whom you used and abused.”

“Are you really going to stab me?”
Duckson asks trying hard to steady his voice.
“I’m a good guy, I’m on the side of people in need.
Even the papers say how I help the community.”
I sigh, then wipe the blade with my sleeve.
“Too bad they won’t report about tonight,
About how I will shove this shiv up your ass.”

Duckson’s eyes are wide, his limbs shake.
He trips and falls to the ground face up,
His ass in the air and legs pointing at the sky.
As I quicken my pace towards the goon,
He shrieks and scrambles to his feet,
Then starts running away through the woods.

What a bother. I’d rather not exert myself;
I’ve never been into aerobic sports,
Or anaerobic ones for that matter.
I shout at Duckson to clarify his predicament.

“There’s nowhere to run, Duckson,
Only the endless cycle of life and death,
Forever trapped in this dying world,
In a rotting house of pain.”

Duckson ventures foolishly into a shadow,
And Glyca must have smacked him hard;
The hit sends the goon sprawling
Facedown onto the muddy ground.

When he manages to stand up again,
Blood drips from his nose and mouth.
He’s staring, transfixed, at a heavenly figure
That’s slowly walking out of the shadows.

Duckson shrieks in terror, and steps back.
“What the fuck is that thing?! A monster!”
I approach the goon from behind.
“That’s my girlfriend. Have some respect.”

I leap on Duckson like a hungry wolf.
I grab his hair, and pull his head back
To expose his throat, then I bite down.
My teeth sink deep, ripping flesh and tissue.
Blood spurts from his carotid artery
Gushing and covering my face with gore.

A gurgling scream fills the air.
Duckson pants, struggling to breathe.
He sputters blood from his mouth.
He stumbles and falls onto a tree root.

Glyca and I stand next to the goon.
The sound of Duckson gasping for breath
Echoes off the surrounding trees.
The smell of fresh, hot blood
Permeates the area.

It takes one look at my girl’s face
For Duckson to cover his eyes,
Huddle in a fetal position,
And start sobbing like a child.

I put my hand on Glyca’s scaly shoulder.
“You aren’t ugly at all, my love.
These people can’t appreciate true beauty.”
Glyca smiles at me, and kisses my cheek.
“Oh, thank you, my sweet boy,
But don’t worry about such matters!
Humans have reacted like this to me
For longer than civilizations have existed.”

“Anyway, I should get this over with.”
In a movement, I fall to my knees
And with my hands I plunge the shiv
Deep into Duckson’s temple.

His body shakes as he lets out a scream,
But I twist the shiv with a loud squelch.
Wet, bloody pulp oozes out of the wound.
Duckson’s lifeless eyeballs roll around,
And drool dribbles from his gaping mouth.

I stand up and wipe the blood off my face.
Glyca hugs me from behind,
And makes me shiver by kissing my neck.
“How did your first kill feel, my boy?
Was it exhilarating or terrifying?”
“Euphoric, actually.”
“I’m so proud of you, you know?”

I turn around in her arms and kiss her,
Pressing together in a passionate embrace.
Glyca’s tongue slithers between my teeth.
Her sweet nectar spills out of my mouth.
It’s mouthwatering and delicious,
Like honey mixed with a tangy fruit juice.

When we pull away, Glyca flicks my nose.
“Let’s transport this dead guy to the cave.”
A bit later, we are in that sacred place,
A secret, dark, damp den,
Our love nest deep in the woods.

The cave floor is covered with fallen leaves,
And the small pond it contains
Is filled with clear water that smells fresh,
Without any trace of decay,
And the surface sparkles in the moonlight.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
I can smell the moist earth,
I can taste the coolness of the air.
We’re surrounded by the sounds
Of crickets chirping and frogs croaking.
This is where I belong, among nature’s wonders.

With a powerful swing of her muscular tail,
Glyca flips Duckson’s carcass so it lies face up.
“This is a new feeling,” Glyca says, touched,
“That someone who loves me
Goes through the trouble of providing my meal,
Just like a mother bird feeding me worms.”

I chuckle. “I would have used another simile,
But as long as you’re happy, I’m happy.”
“Oh, I’m so happy, and hungry!”
Glyca’s claws tear out chunks from Duckson’s chest.
“This is nice,” she says, “a meaty torso.”
It makes me a bit jealous, but I understand.

Glyca’s scales gleam in the moonlight.
Her slim, graceful tail wags placidly
As drops of oily fluid ooze from its bulbous tip.
I stand there observing how Glyca eats.
She rips open Duckson’s belly
To scoop up chunks of meat, fat and innards.

Glyca’s so focused and passionate when eating
That most of my heat rushes to my crotch.
I reach down to unzip my fly.
I would have loved to say
That my big cock sprang free
So I could fuck my Glyca doggy style,
But I can’t even fuck her in missionary
Because my dick is too little to penetrate.

I lean forward and lick the slime
Off the bulbous end of Glyca’s tail.
As she shudders, and lets out a moan,
Which causes her to spit some meat,
I suck the tip into the cavern of my mouth.

My tongue licks at the slit, and inside is warm.
The taste is not unpleasant. It’s like a nutty flavor.
Glyca moans and spasms. Her tail thrashes around,
Spreading a thin, salty layer of lubricant on my skin.

“W-w-w-what are you doing?!”
Glyca asks flabbergasted and horny.
As she turns sharply, her eyes are glistening,
And her mouth is smeared with fresh blood.

My mind is spinning, and I shiver warmly.
“Sorry, my love, I couldn’t help myself.
Your tail is beautiful beyond compare.”
“I-I wasn’t complaining, mind you.
It felt so good, I was surprised…”
“Nevermind, I’ll let you eat in peace.
I’ll wait for you to finish your meal.”

I turn around and head to the pool
As I take off my sweaty clothes.
I hear how Glyca tears meat with her teeth.
Something large splats against the ground.

Although I have killed Duckson,
I am strangely calm and relaxed.
Maybe because Glyca is fucking sexy,
Or maybe it’s the relief of knowing
That we have obliterated my enemies
And that nobody knows our location.

When dive into the pond, I gasp.
I didn’t expect the water to be this cold.
But I’ll never worry about my dick shrivelling,
So I have that going for me.

I figure that I can endure the cold,
And I swim a few laps around the pond
Although I keep shivering like crazy.
When I return to the shore closest to Glyca,
The first thing my gaze falls upon is her pussy,
Which is open as if staring at me,
And its fluids are dribbling onto the leaves:
Droplets of sticky liquid,
Leaving a trail of pungent odor.

From Glyca’s chin, blood is dripping
As her tongue curls around the chewed remains
Of Duckson’s stupid freckled face.
My heart is beating hard, I’m biting my lip.
“Glyca, isn’t it my turn already? I’m hungry,”
I say hoarsely. “Come sit on the shore.”

Glyca looks quickly over her shoulder,
Then realizes what I’m waiting for.
She lets out a joyful sound.
Giddy, she slurps a piece of meat,
Skips up to me, sits on the shore,
And rests the back of her thighs on my shoulders
So she can slide her wet pussy onto my face.

A couple of hours later, my ass feels sore,
But I’m calm as I’ve never been
As Glyca and I lie in each other’s arms,
And we look at the stars through the trees.
I think how lucky I am to be with someone
Who’s willing and able to provide for me.

“So, who are we eating next?” Glyca asks.
I let out a deep sigh, and smile.
“No one.”
Glyca is confused, and props herself up.
“How come? Aren’t there many more?”
“No need to eat anybody else I know.”
“But so many people at school mocked you.”

I stare into her beautiful black and crimson eyes.
I have been stripped of hatred and spite.
“They insulted me, and made me feel terrible,
Because they’d rather stare at a cockroach
Than at my disgusting, cystic face,
But it’s fine. I’m ugly as hell, after all.
My classmates never beat me, nor robbed me.
They just turned their heads and went on their way.
They’ll grow old, find jobs, get married, have kids.”

Glyca lowers her gaze, and twists her mouth.
“Do you understand what I mean?” I ask.
“I think so, my boy. They don’t deserve it.”
“That’s right. Nobody else has to like me.”

I reach out to stroke Glyca’s scales.
“None of them matter anymore,
Nor anybody else but you and me.
We’re together, we love each other.
Nobody will ever hurt us again.”

I slept in her arms, and enjoyed a pleasant dream.
It was summertime. The sun shone brightly.
Birds chirped joyously, flowers bloomed.
Children played outside while their parents chatted,
And under the grass where they stood and ran around,
Lay dead bodies, some freshly killed, others decomposing.

A terrible scent wafted through the air.
Suddenly, everyone was frightened,
And they whispered among themselves,
Not daring to speak loud enough to be heard
By those who were lurking nearby.

‘A Millennium of Shadows, Pt. 6’ by Jon Ureña

A Millennium of Shadows, Pt. 4 (Poetry)


This broken-down hometown of mine
Was an increasingly confined cage;
I had to avoid many streets
Because any of Bear’s goons
Could ambush me to insult me,
Steal my money and beat me up,
But I’ve been visiting forbidden streets
So I could catch a glimpse of them,
Of the remaining three, that is:
Sunglasses, Flute, and Duckson.

We track two to a working-class high school,
Where they intend to entice sluts with weed.
Those two goons are Sunglasses and Flute.
They are smoking dope at the entrance,
And a kid is buying some from them.
The two goons are twitching like frogs,
As if their skin were too tight.
Their leader has been missing for days;
His family is even running a missing person ad.

One goon wears his orange, plasticky sunglasses,
Like always, even if it’s dark outside.
He also wears a faded T-shirt
With the words ‘Lone Wolf’,
Which features two large holes.
His pants sag below his waistline,
And his yellowed sneakers are too big.

This guy spends his weekends in club land,
Drinking, smoking, presumably dancing.
His neck often twitches and jiggles
As if he just snorted lines of coke.

The other goon, nicknamed Flute
Is rotund and baby-faced,
His voice annoyingly high-pitched.
He has long, crazy curly hair.

Flute wears baggy jeans
And an oversize shirt under a hoodie.
His mouth hangs open like a dead fish
While he holds his smoking joint.

Flute was the one who held me down
While his pals punched and kicked me;
This thug is the weakest minded,
Eager to submit to their leader’s authority.

I heard from a bunch of people,
Because they kept talking about it,
That Flute once tried to rape a girl,
And it took Bear threatening her
For the big guy to avoid the police.

Their gang roamed around the neighborhoods
Stalking people they thought were weak.
They beat up anyone who crossed their path
And didn’t know their place or couldn’t fight back.

I avoid the groups of fresh-faced teens
As I approach these two drug dealers.
The stench of pot smoke fills the air;
They stink worse than a dead skunk.

I’m close enough to hear their retard-talk:
This shit is good. Man. Fuck yeah.
Check this fuckin’ shit out, man.
Hey. You hear me? Dude.
Don’t you want to hit that ass, bro?
‘Cuz I think she’s ready. How about it, huh?
Yo, you ain’t gonna fuck with us.
Fuckin’ fags, yo. I’ll rip their nuts off.
Get out of here. Leave us alone, bitch.
We got our own problems, yo.

Flute is the first to react
When he hears my footsteps approaching.
He looks up at me with wide eyes
As if he couldn’t compute why I am here.

No sane victim would come to Sunglasses,
The shithead who usually stole from me,
And who once hit me with a bottle.
The guy stares as he takes a drag off his joint.

“Well, well. Lookit who it is!
Volcano Face, the creepy freak!”
Flute grimaces as he looks at my face.
“What are you doin’ out here?”

I see myself from these bastards’ eyes:
My face is covered with huge, red pimples,
Some of which are infected and smell awful,
And are constantly itching and stinging.
My body is scrawny, thin, with small genitals,
A long neck, large ears, and a flat chest.

I hate being looked at and don’t trust people
Who try to get closer to me with a smile.
I hide in dark corners and dream of killing.
I hate humans and everything they stand for,
Because they always mock and ridicule me.

My head is filled with worms
Which gnaw away at my brain.
The worms can never be free,
But they still try to crawl out.
They call me Volcano Face
Because that’s what I look like.

“So how’s your life been treating you lately?”
After I speak, Sunglasses chuckles in disbelief.
He knows I was afraid of him,
And he enjoys intimidating people.
“What’s wrong with you, freak?
Man, I can’t believe my own fucking eyes.
You look like a rotting zombie.”
Flute laughs and shakes his head.
He pulls out a tiny bag of weed from his pocket,
Which he hands to a young kid.
After the kid hands back some coins, Flute smirks.
“Yeah, what kind of mutation you came from?”

“Well, I think I am something special.
I’ve always been alone,
I don’t know how to talk to people,
And no one ever wanted me,
But now you’re going to love me
For my ugly face.”

Both goons are stunned and speechless.
They thought that I would run away in fear,
But I have boldly walked up to them
And I’m smiling like a friendly dog.

Sunglasses looks around nervously;
I’m sure they’d love to beat me up,
But we are surrounded by normies
And lots of girls they want to fuck.

“Don’t talk to me, dude,” Sunglasses says.
“I’m sick of freaks everywhere, yo.
Get lost. We got shit to do.”
Flute tries to push me aside
As he avoids my gaze, but I stand strong.

“Why don’t we take some drugs together, boys?
You must have lots of different types.
We can roll up a fat joint and watch movies,
Play video games, or listen to music.
Let’s get fucked up and laugh at ourselves!
That’s what life is supposed to be.”

Sunglasses grimaces, then looks at Flute.
They must have to come to a shared conclusion,
Because they both stare at me again.
Sunglasses smirks, revealing his crooked teeth.

“You’re really fucking strange, dude,
Your head is full of crap.
How did you end up like this?”
I shrug.
“Just one bad decision after another.”

“You must have run away from home!
Are you trying to befriend us, dude?
No offense meant, yo,
But this ain’t how we roll!
Ours is a kind of prestige crew,
So we don’t take new members easily.”

“Let’s just hang out for a bit,” I say,
“Because I know we’ll have a good time,
And whenever Bear returns,
You can tell him what a good boy I am.”

Flute looks impressed,
But Sunglasses is only annoyed
As he takes a hit off his joint.
He sneers at me and chuckles.
“Well, fuck. That’s pretty fuckin’ sick.
You’d better be ready to back it up.
When Bear finds out about this shit,
He’ll cut your balls off, for real.”

I grin.
“Alright, so let’s go somewhere, huh?”
Sunglasses looks at his pal, but Flute shrugs.
They start walking away from the high school
As their clouds of pot float into the air.
“We’ll find a spot and smoke dope,” Sunglasses says,
“And we can also listen to some techno.
Just walk a distance away from us, dude.
We can’t be seen with the likes of you.”

They lead me to a nearby park
Adjoined to a small conservatory,
And that is carpeted with dried leaves.
It’s deserted except for a few dog walkers.
Sunglasses guides us to an isolated bench.

Flute sits down, but Sunglasses aproaches me
Until he stands so close
That I could just snatch his stupid glasses.
“Forgot to tell ya that you gotta pay
For the privilege of hanging out with us,”
Sunglasses says, “but we’re cool guys,
So you can get your drugs for free.
C’mon, pull out your wallet like usual.”

These two losers are acting crazy
With their fake smiles, false bravado,
Fake respect and false politeness.
I thought I hated these guys before,
But now they seem almost sweet.
All of our lives are filled with lies, deception,
Dirty secrets, dark desires, and lustful greed.

“Of course! Here it is.”
I hand him my wallet eagerly,
Which unnerves him,
But after he opens my wallet,
He takes out a fifty euro note.

“Fifty!” he says. “Sweet, yo.
And because we’re cool guys,
I’ll let you keep that twenty,
So you can buy anti-acne cream.”

I chuckle, then shake my head.
“If only they worked, I wouldn’t be here!
But keep the twenty as well.
And wait a second, I got more!”
I pull out the rest from my back pocket.
“Here’s a hundred fifty euros.
My father gets it from the government
Because as a kid he got hit in the head so much
That instead of a father, he’s just there,
And my mother was so disgusted by our family
That she abandoned us and never spoke to me again.
My old man gives me this money to buy food,
But why don’t you just keep all of it?”

For a long moment, Sunglasses is paralyzed
As he holds my fifty euros note.
Flute shakes his head, and lowers it.
Sunglasses inhales deeply from his joint,
And while a cloud floats in front of his face,
He studies me with suspicion.

“You make my skin crawl, freak,”
He says in a nasty tone, spitting venom.
“Nobody would want to be your friend.
Who could stand to look at your face?
This world doesn’t need you. Go kill yourself.”

Sunglasses spits a big wad of saliva.
He pockets the fifty, he turns quickly,
And the both of them walk away.
I stand there as I stare at their backs
Until they leave the park and vanish.

The sun is sinking slowly,
And the breeze makes the trees shiver.
I follow the path those two goons took.
As I approach the main throughfare
While the streetlights start blinking on,
I spot the backs of Sunglasses and Flute;
They are walking on the opposite side of the road.

People pass me on their way home from work.
I’m a ghost that watches as they go.
Sunglasses must have felt my determined gaze;
Past a zebra crossing, he looks towards me,
Does a double take, then they stop on their tracks.

They are frozen and unnerved.
After they exchange a few words,
They continue on their way, faster,
But they keep looking back at me anxiously.

I follow them across roads,
Past parks where kids play,
Past a large square with lots of pigeons,
Past the parking lots of bars,
Through an alley that smells of piss.

The sun sinks below the horizon.
The sky is a deep purple
With a few thin clouds drifting across it.
We reach an area of workshops and factories,
Close to the train station and its many rails.
It’s a desolate industrial zone
That these guys would have never visited
If they didn’t intend to ambush me.

They walk faster until they disappear
Between abandoned, train-related buildings.
I walk past marooned locomotives
With rust-covered wheels.
I can tell where the two goons are hiding;
I stop and turn to face them.

Sunglasses glowers as he strides towards me,
Followed by Flute, who is wiping his sweat.
I can sense their fear, their quickened breaths,
The same I can smell the stench of weed.

I can’t blame them for being anxious;
Instead of a human being, I’m a beast, a monster.
I stand before them tall and broad-shouldered.
The muscles underneath my clothing
Ripple and flex with each breath I take.

Sunglasses grabs my arm tightly.
His fingers are trembling.
“The fuck you think you’re doing, freak?”
I sigh, then shake my head.
“First off, when you talk to people,
You have to take your sunglasses off.
Why do you wear them all the time, anyway?
Do you think they make you look tough?
I bet your parents used to say
That you’d grow up to be nothing,
A nobody, some bum, some loser,
And a complete fucking idiot, too.
Stop wearing those shitty glasses,
Because you look like an imbecile.”

Sunglasses freezes with his mouth open.
Flute’s hands shake as he taps the butt of his blunt.
“What the hell did you just say?” Sunglasses asks.
“Just that you guys are trash,” I answer,
“The kind that harass young girls
And pick fights with middle school kids.
Nobody would stoop low enough
To become friends with scum like you.”

Flute is sweating profusely;
As he keeps wiping his forehead,
He flicks drops onto the overgrown grass.
Sunglasses scowls, and pulls me by the collar
To shower my face in spittle.
“Fuckin’ retard! Disgusting freak!
Who do you think you’re messin’ with?!
We’ll beat you up and bury you in a shallow grave!”

I burst out laughing, and that pisses him off.
His fist slams against my nose, which cracks.
It blocks my vision. I stagger backwards.
Blood pours down my lips and chin.

I hear Flute’s high-pitched, nervous voice:
“Dude, he’s snapped. Let’s get out of here.”
“You shut the fuck up!” Sunglasses says,
Then focuses on shouting at me.
“When Bear comes back, he’ll know.
He’s going to break you with a bat,
And shove the handle up your ass!”

I smile at Sunglasses with a nasty grin.
“That rotten garbage won’t return, dudes.
My girlfriend picked Bear’s bones clean,
And we fed his organs to some pigs.”

Sunglasses’ lips tremble, his hand shakes.
Flute walks up to him, taps him on the shoulder.
“Let’s go. His eyes are dead. He’s crazy.”
Sunglasses is gritting his teeth,
But his menacing glare meant to intimidate me
Hides behind the lenses of his shitty sunglasses.

“We’ll teach you a lesson like Bear would,
Show you how you deserve to live.
I’m gonna hurt you so bad
That you’ll wish you had died.”

He pushes me towards an alleyway
Where two derelict buildings loom overhead.
I can’t even see silhouettes
In the thick darkness behind the thugs.

Sunglasses and Flute stand in front of me.
I feel their fear, how their hearts beat fast,
How they try hard not to breathe loudly.
Sunglasses raises his fist to punch me
When a fleshy whip lashes from the shadows
And tightens around both of their necks,
Bonking Sunglasses’ and Flute’s heads together.

Both goons grasp at the tail that strangles them,
But Glyca yanks them backwards into the darkness,
And a sneaker and the orange sunglasses fly off.

I stand there as I listen to their shrieks,
Which end quickly in wet gurgles and crunches.
From the shadows rolls out someone’s head,
But Glyca’s greyish hand is quick to grab it.

A bit later, her hand beckons me to come closer,
So I step forward and hold her three fingers.
As the darkness closes in around me,
Glyca rests her hands on my shoulders,
And plants a soft, electric kiss on my lips.
“Good job, my handsome boy,” she whispers.

She holds my fingers as she teleports me back
Into the dark basement of the abandoned house,
Which stinks of dust, mold, and dried urine.
I smell hot blood, and guts ripped open;
Glyca must have brought the corpses with us.

“Excuse me for a while, but I’m hungry!”
Glyca says, and I hear her chewing eagerly.
I sigh, then lower myself to the dirty floor.
Now those will serve as food for my worm larvae,
Or perhaps we’ll feed them to a pack of rats.
Yes, we can use them both as fertilizer:
We’ll plant vegetables, and we’ll eat them raw.

‘A Millennium of Shadows, Pt. 4’ by Jon Ureña

A Millennium of Shadows, Pt. 3 (Poetry)


When I woke up this morning,
I felt like a new person;
Glyca, a creature so magical
Had accepted me as her mate,
So I could be strong enough
To tolerate my classmates’ whispers,
And all the mockery thrown my way.

Everyone avoids holding my gaze.
Even the teachers seem disgusted by me.
They keep moving their heads like rabbits;
They look at the floor, at the walls,
Anywhere but at me.

I’ve skipped way too many classes,
And I can’t concentrate among people,
So I mainly draw in my notebook
While I fantasize about seeing Glyca again.

I daydream that she’s my classmate,
And she sits at the desk next to me.
She’s wearing a top and a skirt
That barely covers her thighs.
Her tail is wagging slowly.
She looks at me, and smiles.
“Hello, I’m Glyca.”
I smile back, and say,
“Nice to meet you, Glyca.
You’re very pretty.”
She blushes a rosy pink.
Her eyes widen, and her pupils dilate.
“Thank you, I hope we can fuck
And I can push my tail into your ass,
But I need your permission to enter.”
She looks down at my cock,
The tip of which glistens with pre-cum.

Some day I’ll make a painting of Glyca,
One that shows the shape of her body,
With every single curve and crevice revealed.
Something artistic, with lots of detail.
Some Van Gogh shit.
A portrait of the most beautiful creature.

During recess, I’m walking down the hallway
When I hear someone call me a freak.
It’s a girl, who turns around and walks away.
It would have hurt, but now I don’t care.
I have someone that I can trust,
Whose heart beats like mine.

Besides, would I want to look at me
If I lived in their carefree brains?
I’d see the scars in my face,
The large, red, pus-filled cysts,
The dried mucus covering my nose,
The horns growing out of my skull.
My skin is scaly, like a snake.
I have sharp teeth, like a wolf.
I have a long tail, like a scorpion.
I’m a beast trapped in a zoo.

I can feel Glyca’s heartbeat in my chest.
I can smell her, and taste her on my tongue.
I’ve never felt this way before,
And I want her to know.

As I was heading down to a bathroom
Through a dimly lit, deserted hallway,
My gaze falls on a curtain of shadow
Past a corner and leaning on a pillar:
A greyish hand is waving at me.

I gasp, and my mouth opens in a smile.
I hurry towards the curtain of shadow.
Glyca draws her hand back,
But it appears further down the hallway,
Coming out of another curtain of shadows.
Glyca is gesturing for me to follow her.

She’s hiding in the dark,
Like a cat seeking a mouse,
Because the sun won’t reach her
In that realm of darkness.

As I focus on spotting her hand in the shadows,
I scamper past mostly empty classrooms
Where groups of friends spend the recess period,
Past the bathrooms and rows of lockers,
Until a door opens slowly into a storage room.

I run inside, but I can’t see in the dark.
Suddenly the door snaps shut behind me,
Then Glyca presses herself against my back
And wraps her arms around me.
As I let out a noise of surprise and joy,
Glyca’s slimy tongue licks my neck.

The air around me is filled with light,
Although my eyes can only see darkness.
“I can’t believe I get to be with you this soon!”
Glyca sucks on my earlobe lovingly
As her tail slithers around my back.
I hear her breathe, I feel her heartbeat.
I turn in her arms so I can hug her,
And before I know it, I’m fondling her ass.
She moans, then bites my ear gently,
But some of her sharp teeth break through.
The pain shoots through me in a warm shudder.

“You make me feel so good, boy,” Glyca whispers,
“That I was eager to surprise you with a gift.
I would have given you this gift anyway,
But it works even better as a reward.”

Her hands are busy stroking my chest.
My heart races, my penis twitches.
What kind of gift is she going to give me?
It must be related to sex in some way.
Maybe she’s going to lick my body,
Or fuck me in the ass with her tail.
I’m ready to accept anything,
As long as it makes me feel special.

When Glyca speaks, she sounds giddy.
“I won’t tell you, but you’ll see today.
At about six, sneak out of your dad’s place
And go straight to that abandoned house
In the woods, where you used to hide.”

I stare at the darkness
Where her face is supposed to be.
“Glyca, what the hell?
I haven’t been there in months!”
She lets out a raspy laugh
That soothes my nerves.
“Yes, I know that, of course.
I’ve had my eye on you for a long time.”

Glyca’s hand glides down my chest,
And she pushes her tongue into my mouth.
I feel her soft, slimy tongue on mine.
She tastes like peach nectar.
I can feel her heartbeat against my lips.
As our tongues dance, my penis twitches.

I guess I should be shocked at the news,
But instead I feel flattered,
And she’s caressing my back with her tail
As lovingly as if we were lying in bed.

“Alright, Glyca, I’ll go there this afternoon.”
She lets out a noise of anticipation,
Then she squeezes me tightly.
Her slimy tongue licks my ear.
“My boy, I can’t wait to have you there.
But recess is almost over. I’ll leave you be.”

She shoves her tongue in my mouth,
And despite her words, we make out
Until the bell rings to mark the end of recess.
Glyca says goodbye, and vanishes in my arms.

I reach the abandoned house at five and a half.
It’s been a while since I last came here.
Back when I started skipping school,
This place seemed like a proper hiding place,
But I wondered what freaks might wander in;
Beyond vagrants, maybe satanic pricks.
So I chose to hide in random apartment buildings,
Where the strangers would be annoyed neighbors.

I had forgotten how creepy the old house was.
I open the door, and the hinges creak loudly.
Inside, the walls are covered in peeling paint,
And the floor is dirty and grimy.
There’s a few broken chairs, cardboard boxes,
Old papers, and piles of assorted trash.
It reeks of urine and stale cigarettes,
Over the musty smell of mold and mildew.

I look around to locate Glyca,
But of course I won’t find her
In a ground floor bathed in the sunlight
That pours through the broken windows.

A dark hallway leads into the basement.
As I approach the stairs, I hear Glyca’s voice:
“Down here, my boy. Come, come!”
I sneak down the cement steps
As I breathe the air thick with dust
And my heart beats faster and louder.
“Sorry, I came a bit earlier,” I say.
“That’s fine, I thought you would.
Please, get down here. I can’t wait!”

Once I reach the pitch black basement,
I’m gripped by the pungent smell
Of fresh blood and feces.
I freeze with a finger under my nose.

Suddenly, Glyca’s three-fingered hand
Holds my right one gently,
And places two objects on my palm.
“That’s a candle and a lighter,” she says,
“But let me walk away far enough
So the candlelight doesn’t hurt me.”

I wait until Glyca gives me the go ahead.
The wick flares up, and as I lift the candle
I see my own face reflected on the yellow surface,
Which reminds me of how hideous I am.

My gaze falls upon a pile of viscera
As if someone had gutted a gigantic fish.
I recognize lungs and coiled intestines.
It stinks of death and filth and rotting food.

I stand stock still, terrified and confused.
“I-is this the gift, Glyca?” I say in a thin voice.
“What? No, no. I had to leave those somewhere!
Your gift is up ahead, my boy,
So please come closer to see it.”

I take two steps towards Glyca,
Then I stop to admire her;
Her smooth, grayish scales glisten
In the flickering candlelight,
Reflecting the dull colors around us.
They shine like polished stone.
The contour of her naked body
Is perfectly sculpted;
She has a slim waist that curves
Into a flat stomach,
And her hips sway gracefully.

In each hand, small claws protrude
From her three long fingers.
The tips look razor-sharp;
They may not just tear off pieces of flesh,
But gouge out entire chunks.

My dick twitches and grows a bit
As I stare at her pinkish slit.
It glistens like a fresh wound,
And I imagine that her pussy widens
And two large, slimy tongues extend out
To lick my naked body all over.
“If you look at me like that, boy,”
My beautiful girlfriend coos,
“I’m just going to eat you up.”

I look up, embarrassed,
But Glyca smiles sweetly,
And I glimpse her sharp teeth.
Her crimson red pupils,
Which glow with inner fire,
Stare deep into mine.

Glyca bites her lower lip.
“You know, I’m always worried
That you might be scared by my body.”
“Don’t be silly, Glyca.
Your beauty transcends everything else.”

Her long tail swishes behind her,
Splashing liquid like an oil slick.
“Oh, I can hardly wait to touch you,
For you to share that warmth with me,
So hurry up, boy, to see your gift!
Just trust me, and enjoy the view.”

I obey her, but as I step forward,
Glyca retreats away from the flame.
The candlelight spreads onto the ground.
The dusty stone walls are decorated
With crude drawings of human genitalia.

Further ahead, the light illuminates a table
And on it an easel made of bones
That holds a stretched hide
Which I assume belongs to an animal,
But I recognize the features of a face
With white skin and even black eyebrows,
And holes where the eyeballs should show up.
It also has a large mouth that hangs open
Without a tongue inside.

“Look closely,” Glyca says excitedly,
“Can’t you tell who it is?”
I gulp as my legs shake,
And tears rush to my eyes.
“I do… It’s Bear.”

“Yes,” Glyca says. “That brute
Who dared to humiliate my boy.
I tortured him, I gutted him,
I ate his flesh, and used his bones
To display his worthless face.”

My shaking hand drops the candle,
And the flame is extinguished,
Which plunges me in darkness.
I fall to my knees
While the tears run down my cheeks.

“Do you accept my gift?”
Glyca asks anxiously.
I manage to speak between sobs.
“Oh, Glyca, thank you!
It’s the most beautiful thing
Anyone has ever done for me.”

Before, all I could do was wait
Until the next time I would be attacked.
I constantly wondered when it would come.
I hoped for a better tomorrow,
Although I knew it would never exist.
But we can hurt others
Before they come for me.

I turn towards Glyca in the dark.
“My love… Bear was one of four.”
“M-my love..? My sweet boy,
We can do something about the rest.”

I grope in the dark for Glyca,
Guided by the scent of her sex,
Until I touch the smooth scales
Of her firm, thick thighs.
I feel her whole body shiver.

“Glyca, I’m going to devour you.”
She lets out a squeal of delight.
“I’ve been thinking about your tongue
Ever since you took care of me.”

As I stroke Glyca’s thighs,
I open my mouth in the dark,
I pull out my tongue,
And my girl’s warm juices
Splash my taste buds.

‘A Millennium of Shadows, Pt. 3’ by Jon Ureña

A Millennium of Shadows, Pt. 2 (Poetry)


I dry my eyes with my sleeves
Before I enter my father’s apartment,
And I hide the pain of my injuries
(My wrist they stepped on,
My ribs they kicked)
Behind my practiced stony face.

My father walks through
A thick cloud of cigarette smoke.
He smells vaguely of urine.
“Did you buy all the stuff for the week?”
As I look down, I only nod
And lift slightly the two grocery bags.
“Alright, take them to the kitchen,”
My father says as he puffs on his cig,
“And today make bacon and eggs.”

I stand there like a dead tree
While burning pain radiates from my ribs.
“What’s wrong with you?” my father asks.
“Nothing,” I mutter. “I’m just tired.”
I feel my father’s eyes boring into me.
“You’re not eating enough.
You can’t stay this skinny.
I’ll feed you, but you have to cook.
If you don’t learn how to use your hands,
You’ll never be able to work.”

I stare at my father,
Who is smoking his cigarette.
He looks at me with his empty eyes.
His mind has long since gone numb.
The smoke from his cigarette
Is the only thing that moves.
We are both trapped
Inside the shell of our minds.

Minutes later, after I vomit in the bathroom,
I hide in my bedroom and lock the door.
I lower the blinds and sit on my bed.
The room is dark. I stare at the wall.

I don’t know why I’m here.
I don’t understand anything.
I don’t even care.
I just want to be left alone.

I want so badly to meet Glyca again.
It doesn’t matter if she’s real or imaginary;
She makes me feel less lonely.
I try to remember what her voice sounds like,
How it felt to touch that dry, scaly skin.
But all of these details seem far away,
Like they happened to someone else.

As I lie on the bed and listen to music,
My thoughts keep circling around
The questions with which I always struggle:
Is my life worth living? Will it ever get easier?
Will I be happy one day, even just for a moment?

I hear my father shuffling about.
He’s a silent, vacant shell.
A hollow vessel, an empty husk,
And I’m trapped inside of him.

Shadows fill every corner of my bedroom,
Creeping along the walls, under my window,
On top of my wardrobe, between the shelves.
They move with a purpose in a silent dance.

The world outside my little box is too big,
Too full of dangers and mysteries.
I much prefer this tiny space.
Everything here is known,
There are no secrets nor lies.
Everything stays put
And remains in its proper place.
The door is closed and locked.
Inside this room, everyone is safe.

Although I’d rather go to sleep now,
I have to cook the bacon and eggs
Or else my father will bother me again,
But by nine, I’ve cleaned the dishes,
I’ve emptied my bladder and bowels,
And I can finally lock myself in my room
To spend about ten hours in the dark.

I’ve just locked the door behind me
When I spot a greyish, delicate hand
Holding the closet door from inside.
As if the creature sensed I had spotted it,
The hand retreats into the shadows.

My heart beats rapidly as I hold my breath.
I can’t tell if I just imagined that hand.
“Hello?” I whisper. “Is that you, Glyca?”
After a few seconds of hesitation,
The closet door slowly swings open.
“It is, yes. Aren’t you afraid of me?”

Whether I made Glyca up or not,
My insides couldn’t care less.
“I wasn’t afraid then, and much less now.
I had hoped to meet you again.”
The closet door opens wider.
“Please, come out, Glyca,” I ask,
“I want to touch you like you said you need.”

“The room is too bright,” Glyca whispers,
And her trembling voice makes my heart race.
I hurry up to lower the blinds
Until I can barely make out the shapes.
“It’s okay,” I tell the shadows,
“You don’t have to hide anymore.”

I sit down on the edge of my bed,
Facing the half open closet door.
Slowly, a silhouette peeks out.
First a head and long hair,
Then a sylphlike, naked torso,
And as she stands straight,
I admire her supple, graceful limbs.
She has three long fingers per hand,
And her toes curl upward, revealing claws.
A meter-long tail moves sinuously
While a liquid drips from its bulbous tip.

Glyca inhales and exhales deeply,
Then she starts approaching me.
“There’s something about you, boy,
Something that makes me ache.”

When she crouches in front of me,
Her eyes stun me even in the dark:
They are black pools of midnight water,
And her vertical slits gleam a crimson red.

Glyca reaches with her hands
And I’m quick to hold her six fingers.
“Why did you leave that first time?”
I ask in a weak, pained voice.
She lowers her head, then shakes it.
“I feared that you were stunned,
But that soon you would wake up,
And consider me a hideous monster.”

I let out a noise of disbelief,
Then I caress her coarse hair.
“That couldn’t be further from the truth!
That first time we met, I felt in my heart
That somehow you and I were kin,
And I had never felt so comfortable
With any of the apes that exist out there.
Besides, I’m the monstrous one,
With this plague of cystic acne.
I’m the one whom the world hates and fears.
You’re not hideous, you’re beautiful, Glyca.
You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Glyca’s breath comes out ragged.
A trail of thick saliva glistens on her chin.
Her eyes glimmer crimson red
As her pupils dilate horizontally.
Her tail curls around her lower body,
Coiling itself in a spiral fashion.
“Let me touch you,” Glyca whispers,
“I want to feel your warmth.”

Glyca climbs onto my lap.
She settles around me as she hugs me tightly.
I open my arms and wrap them around her torso.
I hold her tight, I caress her neck.
I press my face into her hair and breathe deeply.

The feel of her smooth scales
Sends chills down my spine.
I run my fingertips over them,
Feel them beneath my palm.

She slides her cheek along my pimples
Then her cold lips touch mine.
Her breaths wash over my lips and nose.
It smells like flowers and honey.

Our mouths meet, and as I explore hers,
I find two tongues instead of one.
The first of the tongues tastes of sweet nectar
As it secretes a thick syrup that coats my palate,
And makes my stomach growl for food.
The second tongue is a fleshy, molluscan tube
That exhales fresh air into my mouth,
But doesn’t suck anything in.
As I inhale its scent,
My lungs are filled with oxygen.

Our tongues tangle and intertwine,
And our kisses become wilder.
Her thick, slimy spit flows onto my face
As a rush of arousal surges through my veins
And my pulse races wildly in my ears.
Glyca grabs my shoulders, pulls me close.
Our bodies press tightly together,
Filling each other’s spaces.

I slide my hand over her cool cheek
And I lick delicately the underside of her ear.
As Glyca moans, my hands move by themselves.
They descend to the small of her back,
Then my palms run sensually across her ass.

One of my hands reaches under her tail.
It’s fleshy, covered in silky scales.
Thick as a thumb, veiny and muscular.
As I rub it lovingly, I can feel its pulsing rhythm.
Glyca shudders and lets out a long moan.
The black pools of her eyes glisten with pleasure.

A wave of heat has spread throughout my body.
It washes over me and fills me completely,
Making everything seem beautiful and new,
Soothing the anguish within my soul.

I pull away slightly so I can fondle her breasts,
But her chest is flat, lacking even the nipples.
I can’t find the contour of her ribcage,
As if her organs were only protected by flesh.

She pulls off my shirt, exposing my naked torso.
As her slippery tail snakes around my neck,
Glyca strokes my chest with her cool palms.
She traces circles around my nipples,
Which sends shivers through my spine.
“You’re so handsome, boy,” she whispers.

Glyca’s long, slender fingers
Glide along my chest, belly, and back.
She runs them over every bump and blemish.
She must have noticed my injury in the dark,
And she traces the bruise from the kick.

“Are you going to die from this?” Glyca asks.
“No way,” I say. I won’t be that lucky, I think,
But I feel a twinge of fear,
Because if I die I can’t be with Glyca anymore.
“This group of bastards assaulted me,” I say.
“Yes, I know what happened.”

As I was about to ask how come she knew,
Glyca cups the back of my head,
Then fills my mouth with her sweet tongue.
I pull away enough to talk.
“Please, Glyca, lie down on your back.
I want to make you feel real good.”

Glyca grins, then rolls off me.
As she moves on her hands and knees,
Her long tail wags wildly.
Once the back of her head sinks in my pillow,
I kneel near the end of the bed to admire her.

I scoot closer, then I reach with my hands
To move them down her chest
So I can stroke the surface of her flat stomach.
I bend over and kiss her cool, silky scales.

My hand slips down between Glyca’s thighs,
Where her scales are slightly bumpy, and rough,
Like the surface of a large seashell.
Glyca keeps moaning softly and breathing deeply.
I can smell the salty fluids seeping from her pussy.
“I’ve never done this, but I want to eat you out,
Which I think will make you feel so good.”

Glyca lets out a noise of delight.
“That’s what I want, to be eaten out.”
She spreads her thighs wide apart
As I position myself to pleasure her.

I start licking her juices right away,
And soon her pussy throbs and gushes.
I tongue her clit gently, and the head pops out.
It has no hood, but it feels hard and round.

Glyca grabs the comforter and groans loudly.
She cries out in pleasure, bucking underneath me.
She pushes her ass upwards,
Forcing my face deeper into her vagina.
My tongue makes contact with a sensitive spot
Which causes her entire body to shudder violently.
Her soft thighs clamp around my head.
I can feel the scales rubbing against my scalp.

Glyca grips my hair tightly as her back arches,
Then turns as if to release something from under her.
While I lick and suck on her throbbing clit,
I feel something slippery sliding down my back,
Leaving a slimy trail like a slug.
I feel the bulbous head of her snake-like tail
As it slides up the crack of my ass,
And it brushes lightly against my asshole,
Which causes it to twitch and spasm.

The tip of her tail rubs my hole,
Lubricating it with its thick, slimy liquid.
I can hardly think, busy eating her out,
But my penis has grown as hard as it can.

“Mmm,” Glyca moans. “Your butt is warm.”
As I feel her tail trying to push its way into my ass,
I wonder what would happen if I didn’t fight it.
Suddenly, her bulbous tip slides off my crack;
An orgasm is overwhelming Glyca’s body
Like a tidal wave that floods her entire being.
She holds my head tightly,
As if she feared that I would stop licking.

I press my face into her pussy
And devour her clit relentlessly.
I can feel her muscles contracting.
Glyca arches her back and screams loudly.

She twitches and shakes as she comes.
My mouth is full of her slimy juices,
Which also pour down my face and neck.
Seconds later, Glyca lets her head sink back.
She moans softly and lets out little gasps.

As I was kissing her inner thigh,
Glyca grabs my shoulders and pulls me up.
She shoves her tongue in my mouth
And her claws dig into my back.
As I gasp for air, I inhale the fresh oxygen
That Glyca’s second tongue feeds me.
It’s long and as thin as a noodle.
I can feel it sliding down my throat.

I realize that I wasn’t imagining it:
Someone is banging insistently on my door,
And I hear the handle as my father tries to get in.
“Hey, lower the volume of that porno movie!”

Glyca has jumped from the bed like a startled animal,
And is crouching in the shadows close to the closet.
Her breathing is ragged, her pussy is dripping.
“I will go now. But we’ll see each other soon.”

I climb off the bed as the handle of the door turns.
My father thought I was jerking off,
But the motherfucker still tries to burst in.
Fucking brain-dead piece of shit.

“He won’t come in,” I whisper, “the door is locked.
Please, don’t leave, Glyca. Spend the night with me.”
Glyca smiles, and her sharp teeth glint.
“We need to be careful. But I’ll see you very soon.
Thank you for everything. It felt amazing.”
She turns sharply and slithers into the closet.
I stop hearing her breathing as if she teleported away.

My father bangs on the door again.
I want to open it and smash his brains in.
“It’s already off!” I shout. “Leave me the fuck alone!”
For a few seconds I only hear my hearbeats.
My father grunts and mutters something,
Then I hear his footsteps going away.

I pull the comforter over my body
And bury my head under it.
I can’t believe what just happened,
That I got to eat out Glyca’s pussy.
My cock twitches inside my pants.
What should I do? Should I jerk off or not?
No, I need some rest, and to heal.
I focus on relaxing and falling asleep.

I dream about Bear and his goons
As they kick me down stairs,
Beat me with sticks,
Throw rocks at me,
And piss on my face.

I beg for mercy, I try to stop them,
But my limbs won’t move right.
Suddenly, I awake
Sweating and gasping for breath.
My chest hurts and burns.
My bruises throb with pain.
For a second I hear Glyca whispering;
The most beautiful sound in the world.

It’s four in the morning,
And tomorrow I’ll need to decide
Whether I’ll dare to go to school
Or hide from everyone’s gazes.

As I pee in the dark, I daydream:
Glyca is lying on my bed.
She’s wearing a black corset and stockings.
Her breasts are soft and round,
And she’s dripping with sweat.
I’m standing at the foot of the bed,
And my big dick is swollen,
Leaking loads of sperm.

When I go to sleep again,
My thoughts are scattered, disjointed,
And fantasies of sexual desire intertwine
Into one big web.

‘A Millennium of Shadows, Pt. 2’ by Jon Ureña

A Millennium of Shadows, Pt. 1 (Poetry)


I wish I could burst every light bulb
And sew every pair of eyes shut
So the mirrors would stop showing my face
And I wouldn’t be looked at ever again.

Every time I go to take a shit
Or to wash my lanky, misshapen body,
I fear facing the mirror’s reflection;
It shows me how I really am: a monster
Who remains sickly pale and scrawny,
And whose face is covered in cystic acne.

I see a freakish abomination
That no one will touch.
That no one wants to talk to.
That no one will ever love.

Such a grotesque freak shouldn’t exist,
As my classmates insist on reminding me.
When I dare return to my classes,
Where the sunlight shines through the windows,
My classmates’ gazes burn my bumpy, itchy skin,
While they snicker at me with their twisted mouths.

What did I do to deserve being myself?
Everyone else is so disgustingly happy
Like they don’t know what misery is.
But when I try to tell some about my pain,
They just stare with blank expressions
And make me feel like a monster
For wanting to die.

No one will care about me once I’m gone.
They’ll forget about me within days.
Even my mother forgot after she left,
And my father prefers ignoring me.

I can’t say I blame my mother for leaving;
I would also do it if I had the strength.
When I return home, my father is sleeping;
He spends most of the day passed out
While the TV speaks out its propaganda
In a room that reeks of cigarette smoke.

Usually, the fridge is empty,
Until my father gives me some money
Of whatever his disability checks provide
So I can buy food for him and myself,
Although he rarely eats when I’m here;
He just sleeps the whole day away.

My father barely talks to me,
He hardly seems to notice I exist,
Which tends to suit me just fine.
Besides, I hate hearing his voice,
How he struggles through sentences
Due to his damaged brain.
I hate how he looks at me
With pity, but not sympathy.
I hate seeing the odd way he blinks,
The bloodshot eyes,
The drool that drips down his chin.
I despise his bald head
And his hairy, scruffy beard,
And the smell of his rotten breath.
I hate his stupid, vacant stare.
He’s a freak who cursed me to exist.
I wish I could destroy this world
To put an end to all of his misery.

The few times he said nice things,
He usually compared me to grandpa,
And told me how alike we are.
When the old man still lived,
He was a bald, creepy loser
With crooked teeth, scraggly hair,
And dark circles under his eyes.
His skin was pale and wrinkled,
And his arms were covered with veins,
Like those of a corpse,
While his legs looked like a bulldog’s,
All overgrown with hair.
I remember how he smelled
Like he’d been dead for weeks.

I was only ten years old,
But I knew what a monster he was.
Every girl at my primary school
Used to tell me about my grandfather;
He waited for the girls after school
So he could touch their perfect skin,
Call them his little princesses,
And repeat how beautiful they were.

At least at my father’s apartment,
I can hide inside my assigned room,
Where nobody can bother me.
It’s my refuge from the world;
There I am safe and free.

In the darkness of my room,
I create worlds that only I know about.
I don’t need to face the ugly outside
To imagine more beautiful sights.

I try to hide my feelings
Behind a wall of apathy.
I need to pretend everything is fine.
Besides, if it ever gets too hard
I can jump off a bridge or slit my wrists.
There’s nothing they can say or do
To save me from myself.

The next morning, the sun rises,
Lighting up the sky red.
At night, the sky will darken
And then become pitch black,
Only for the next morning
For the sky to change back.
The whole cycle repeats itself
Like ocean waves
Crashing upon the shore.

“Look away!” my mind screams
As I stand in front of the mirror.
How many times I repeat this scene?
Every morning I watch my ugly face
Hoping that the acne disappeared.
Every morning after waking up,
Every afternoon when I return home,
Every night before I go to bed,
I look at myself with horror,
Hoping that today I’ll die in my sleep
So I never have to wake up again.

My father told me once, “Smile,
People are supposed to smile.
If you keep smiling at others,
Then at least they’ll pity you.”

This morning, my strength fails me,
Like it has so many other days.
I can’t face so many hours of stares,
Of snickering and mockery;
Besides, I can’t concentrate anymore
On the worthless lessons
Meant to turn me into a wage slave.

I buy a train ticket and exit wherever,
Whether it’s another city, another province,
Another continent, or even an alien planet.
I roam to walk the pain away,
But a few of the strange passersby,
Often children, turn to look at me.
Some laugh and point
As they let out noises of disgust.

I hate them too.
I wish I could destroy this world,
And all the people within it.
I wish I could tear down the walls,
And rip apart the buildings
And the bridges and roads.
Everything would be destroyed,
And the world would be a better place
Without all of its ugliness.

If I spot someone exiting an apartment building,
I hurry up before the door closes,
And stare at the floor as I sneak in.
If I’m lucky, the faceless stranger will leave,
And I will be left alone in that empty space,
So I can hide between pitch black floors,
Where no one will look at me.

I sit for hours on the stairs
While I stare at the darkness
And listen to the echoed sounds
As they travel along the stairwell.

When I hear voices or footsteps,
I pretend I’m going up or down the stairs.
If someone passes me by
And I dare raise my head,
They avoid looking back at me,
Which serves me just fine.
The only thing I want to do is hide.

I can always hold my shit in;
I don’t eat that much anyway.
But when I need to pee,
I can irrigate a potted plant.

I’ve found a home in these empty spaces,
In the deepest depths of my mind,
The darkest corners of my heart,
Where no one can laugh at me anymore,
And no one cares about my deformities.

I conjure beautiful portraits in the dark.
A young woman with long blonde hair.
She wears a black lace dress
Which hugs her curvy figure.
Her lips are plump and pouty,
Her blue eyes twinkle mischievously.

She smiles at me, touches my skin,
And tells me how wonderful I am.
She’s always kind and gentle.
I will never have to face her disgust,
Nor feel the coldness of her rejection.

She whispers sweetly in my ear,
And caresses my pimply forehead
With her soft white hands.
“You’re beautiful,” she says.
“Your eyes sparkle like diamonds in the night.
There’s not a person in this world
Who doesn’t love you,
And who could ever say
That they didn’t want to fuck you.”

I reach out towards her image.
My fingers trace her shape in the canvas.
Other days, my hand only touched air,
But today my fingertips press against skin.

I hold my breath, I shake my head.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I tell myself.
But I’m touching something solid,
And I feel the cold radiating from flesh.

I move my hand up
Until my fingers touch a cheek
And coarse hairs on a forehead.
Suddenly, cold hands take mine,
And stroke it gently.
Strange fingers brush my palm.

“W-who are you?” I dare to ask.
A pair of cold fingers approach my mouth.
I part my lips, and I taste the skin.
It reminds me of grass and dirt.

“You can call me Glyca,” a whisper says.
I gasp. I wonder if I’m dreaming,
Or if I have finally lost my mind.
Should I run up the stairs
And switch on the light to look at her?
She’s a shadow that just appeared.

As I probe her frame further,
I feel her scaly skin,
Like the texture of a reptile’s hide.
She feels familiar, like kin,
And her coldness soothes me.

I caress the smooth contours of her cheeks.
I trace my fingers over her lips.
“Where did you come from, Glyca?” I ask.
“I’m always here, in the shadows,”
She answers with a raspy voice,
While her mouth turns upwards
Making her lips curve into a perfect bow.

Glyca opens her mouth,
And I feel her thick, syrupy saliva
As her tongue glides along my finger.
My heart jumps, my dick twitches.
A warm spreads through my body.

I feel the tips of her long, sharp teeth.
They are as pointed and jagged
As the thorns of rose bushes.
“Do I frighten you, boy?” Glyca whispers.
I shake my head slowly.
“Nothing feels scary in the dark.”

I feel her holding her breath.
Suddenly, her fingers brush my face.
Her scaly skin grazes my infected acne.
I’m disgusted and ashamed,
And I want to apologize for my ugliness.

“You are lucky we are in darkness,”
I say in a thin, weak voice,
“Because that spares you the sight
Of my rotting, hideous face.”
“Your words make me smile,
Which you also can’t see.
You can tell I’m not human,
And I’ve been searching the world
For a very long time.”

I wait for her to explain herself,
But in the end I have to ask.
“What are you looking for?”
“I need a mate,” Glyca answers
Without any shame or hesitation.
“The kind who can love me.
I am cold, I am alone.
But there is someone out there
Who will touch me, hold me.
Someone I can share myself with,
Who will give his body in return.”

I sit in silence for a few seconds,
Then I reach with my hand
To caress the cold skin of her face.
Her tongue slides along my palm.
I feel the soft, thick wetness of her saliva.

“Your body gives off an intense heat,”
Glyca says in a quavering voice.
“My body aches, it burns.
It’s like I’m on fire.”

My heart beats hard
As her cool, dry fingers
Glide across my scalp.
I feel her face inching closer.
Her breath caresses my skin,
And reminds me of flowers,
And rain, and fresh air.

She brushes the pimples on my jaw
With her cool, moist lips.
Her warm, slimy tongue
Runs down my neck.

We are both shivering warmly.
We both want the same thing.
I lean in to taste her mouth,
But Glyca pulls away.
“No,” she whispers, “not yet.”

I was touching her face
When her form disappears
Like a phantom,
Leaving only shadows behind.

Maybe half an hour later,
I still haven’t moved an inch.
I sit on the lukewarm stair
As I stare into the darkness.
I’m listening to the echoes
In case I distinguish Glyca breathing,
But she’s gone
As if I just imagined her.

Although I’ve always felt insane,
I could always tell apart reality
From my wildest daydreams.
But now I know I must have gone psycho:
No one like Glyca could ever exist.
The darkness must be swallowing me.

I close my eyes,
And I can still feel her.
The dark is filled with her body.
Her skin slides against mine.
Her hands run through my hair.
Her lips touch me, and then they part
Allowing my tongue to glide inside.
Maybe it’s a good thing
To go insane.

Back home, at night, I barely sleep.
My mind has snapped, and I feel it
As a constant gaze upon me.
I dream about shadows
And cold, scaly skin.

I force myself to attend my classes.
My classmates pretend I’m not here,
And I barely am; I can’t retain the lessons,
Because my mind wants to hide.
I fall into daydreams without realizing,
And I feel Glyca at every moment.
Real or not, she wants to be loved,
And so do I.
But what does love even look like?

I used to spend my afternoons holed up
In my room filled with junk and trash,
A perfect hiding spot for a boy.
But these days I’m roaming the streets.
I wander down the city blocks
And look up at people who walk past
While I feel a void in my chest.

If I made her up, she’s not coming back.
If she was real, she’s nowhere.
I don’t know where I’m going.
All I can think about is Glyca.
I want to give her all my love
So she doesn’t need to hide.

At school I failed to find what I sought,
So I start skipping classes again.
I go straight to the apartment building
Where Glyca had appeared.

I wait for hours,
But the old woman who opens the door
Closes it swiftly behind her.
“I don’t know you,” the woman says,
“And there’s something wrong with you.
If you belong in this building,
Open the door with your own key.”

I stand in front of the locked door,
As I stare the old lady down.
“The shadow girl said I could find her inside.”
“You’re crazy,” she says. “Get out of here.”

I sneak into another apartment building
To pass the time between floors.
I sit quietly in the darkness
Waiting for a sign from a phantom.
The shadows are empty.
I feel alone, and lonely.
I want to feel the touch
Of someone else.

I imagine Glyca’s scaly skin.
I can see her teeth like thorns.
I can smell her thick, syrupy saliva.
I want to be inside her mouth
Where I would feel safe and loved.
I would share my soul with her.
I would become one with her.
I want her to take me away.

My dick twitches, and I fondle it.
I unzip my pants in the darkness.
Nature could have given me a win,
But even my dick is humiliating:
The shaft often hides inside my body,
And I need to grow it a bit
Before I can wrap my hand around it.
I was cursed with an overgrown clit.

I imagine Glyca’s soft lips
Sliding along my worthless tip.
Her tongue flicks out
To lick every inch of my dick.
I hear her moaning
With the rhythm of her tongue.
As she sucks on the head
I feel her thorny teeth,
That pierce through the skin.

Glyca’s so cold and wet.
She’s not human,
But she feels like home.
I want to bury myself deep inside her,
And let her devour me.

My balls tighten,
And I feel a rush of release.
I spurt my seed into the darkness
While I call out Glyca’s name.

“I don’t want to go back,”
I say in the dark.
“I’ll never find her again.”
My mind screams in agony.
The familiar feeling of being alone
Is now a black hole in my chest.

As my shoulders tremble
And my tears fall on my lap,
I feel a soft touch on my shoulders
As if someone was kneeling behind me.
I turn around sharply and reach for her,
But my fingers only grasp air.

Days later I’m returning from the supermarket
While I hold two bags with the week’s groceries.
It must be some local holiday,
Because the kids are enjoying a foam party
That spills from a square onto the pavement.

The children’s joyful exclamations
Are like nails scratching my brain.
I’m in a daze, the streets feel strange.
Everything is blurry, and my skin crawls.
The entire world feels wrong
And my mind is full of shadows.

Something hits my ankle and I stumble.
I thought someone stepped on me by mistake,
But when I turn around, it’s Bear,
Accompanied by his posse of evil shits.
I never learned his real name, nor care.
He must be twenty or so,
And his body is bulky, thick,
Strong enough to assert his dominance.
Three druggies and dropouts follow him,
To laugh at Bear’s jokes and hold people down.

“Yo, Volcano Face,” Bear says to me,
“Why are you showing that mug in my streets?”
I remain quiet, I walk faster,
But two goons trip me and I fall on my knees.
When I reach for the bags of groceries,
Someone kicks them down the street.
Bear and his friends are laughing hard.

I try to stand up, but Bear pushes me down.
I dare to stare at them, to glare.
“You’re such an ugly loser,” one of the guys says.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t beat you up,” Bear says.
“Just leave me alone,” I mumble weakly.

They’ve got me surrounded.
I would never be able to fight them off.
In my mind, I hang them from hooks,
And tear their skin with a rusty knife.
I want to castrate them slowly
And force them to eat each other’s dicks.
I want to become a shadow monster
With cold, scaly skin.

I manage to mutter, “Get away from me.”
Bear first laughs, then kicks my ribs.
While the kids all hoot and scream,
Two of his goons grab my arms
So they can sink my face into the foam.

My eyes burn with soap and tears,
And I inhale foam with my ragged breath.
A few women scream at us,
“Stop! You are hurting him!”
Bear laughs, and steps hard on my wrist,
Then lifts me forcefully by the neck.

I can hardly see with my irritated eyes.
A group of blurry women have approached us.
“We don’t like this guy,” Bear says harshly,
“He’s just an ugly weakling,
And we need to teach him a lesson,
Show him how he deserves to live.
You be careful where you stick your noses,
Because we aren’t fucking babies.”

They push me one last time,
And I hear their footsteps leaving
As I hide my face in my hands.
I’m trying to breathe through the tears
And the agony of being alive.

Someone’s warm hand grabs my arm.
“Let me help you,” she says softly.
“It’s okay, let me look at you,” she says.
I refuse.

My stomach twists around itself.
Every muscle in my body constantly aches
From stress, anxiety, depression,
Anger, sadness, loneliness.
I can’t escape, I’m collapsing inwards.

I want to curl up in a ball and disappear,
But I’m not strong enough to kill myself,
So I keep pushing on and on
While I wish desperately for the darkness
To swallow me whole.

‘A Millennium of Shadows, Pt. 1’ by Jon Ureña