Vocal Broke My Short Storytelling Skills

I've learned the craft from the very beginning,

reliving what's past.

Piercing the thin foil

of my fragile psyche.

I wandered through fields, down dirt roads, and along major streets.

Sometimes a background figure, sometimes the main character.

Each time, I gave it my all

but it often felt like my efforts were in vain.

Here are a few top stories.

Some might say, "That's enough."

While others, placing in every challenge,

have no room for badges on their author’s page.

Are they writing for algorithms?

Does the system make the same word choices?

I write from the heart.

There's no place for a system to intrude.

Words, so many lost words,

I pulled them all out

and set them down in my big fictions

emerged there on the page.

Nobody's got the full picture yet.

Scared

of all this judgment and jealousy.

There's nothing to envy, really.

I have nothing and no one.

Misunderstood by kin, with hardly a friend,

accused by lovers, sister, and mother.

They all dwell in a place of nothingness.

The very space where they'd confined me.

Now we appear to be on the same path.

"Whatever you did to one of my little brothers, you did to me." *

He declared, then died for them.

Now, the very people who revere him

say one thing but do another.

I'm sorry, Vocal, but you don't deserve my value

which flourishes hidden away from the masses

who all repeat the same tired lines

and there's no way to change the record fast enough.

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* Matthew 25:40

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Thank you for reading!