Kern Carter's Blog, page 41
May 18, 2022
Call for Submissions — When Was the Last Time You Cried?
Crying is such a unique action. We can cry while feeling sad, angry, scared, joyful, hopeful or frustrated. Not sure if you know this, but that’s the reason this magazine is called CRY. It’s the only action that is consistent with every emotion, and when we share stories, we want readers to connect emotionally, whatever emotion that may be.
For this week’s writing prompt, tell us the last time you cried. As we alluded to above, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a negative moment. If you cried tears of joy, tell us why. On the flip side, if you haven’t cried in a long time, tell us about that, too.
Same rules as always:You can submit to this or ANY of our past writing prompts. Just scroll through our previous newsletters. They’ll be marked “Call for Submissions.”If you’re already a writer for CRY, go ahead and submit.Be as creative as you want in your submissions. As long as you stick to the topic, we’ll consider it.Just because you submit doesn’t mean we’ll post. If you haven’t heard back from us in three days, consider that a pass.[image error]Call for Submissions — When Was the Last Time You Cried? was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Split Apart
She’s beautiful; my loving sweetheart
the canvas of God, a peerless piece of art
a lantern of joy; my light in the dark
my perfect puzzle piece; my only counterpart,
but, there’s a fork in the road, and we’re forced to split apart.
You ascend,
for you were made to fly,
I hit a dead-end,
for I was born to die,
I watch you rise as I slowly sink
in a life without magic
you were my greatest trick; the ace up my sleeve
“So please,” I plea, “don’t grieve as you leave
for we are who we are and life dealt you better cards,
I just want you to know,
you’re the only queen suited for my heart.”
By: Nathanael Mortensen[image error]Split Apart was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
May 17, 2022
My Family and Friends’ Idea of Supporting My Writing Is To Offer Encouragement Occasionally
But it’s my online friends and four real-life friends who offer real support for my writing by taking the time to read my work
May 16, 2022
May 12, 2022
Opening the Box of My Existence
My drawing of the Starship Monument from the street I was on in YonindaleIt’s not a midlife crisis, if I’m honest with myself. If it was, it would be an indicator that I’m only living until the age of 36 and that’s not the outlook I want on life. 36 is a nothing age. You’ve lived life, but not enough to truly say you’ve lived life. I don’t want to die at that strangely conflicting age.
Less than a month after I turned 18, all at once, all the time, I began to ponder and swaddle around the depths of my existence. As if a switch had turned on in my head. I started the Great Flood and was striking my trident into the ground. I would, at no whim of my own, think about my place in our beloved Terris. Our beloved planet that spins, everlongingly chasing after the grand sun in the sky as it runs towards neighbouring universes.
We are just a speck of dust on a beach. Life itself a near-miss miracle.
I’m thankful it didn’t miss. But turning 18 made me fearful. As if I had been hit with a sudden dart of anxiety that rippled my bones. Each little pimple and scar and fang and drama and isolation all felt so mundane. The entire existence of the pandemic felt so mundane. Like I was worrying about missing a bus that isn’t coming for the next hour.
Fleshy corpses, like those of humans or elves, usually turn to bone in 10 years. Solid corpses or plant-based life, like golems and faeries, usually turn to dust or to ‘seeds’ in 15 years. For undead life like me, it’s much, much quicker, at around 3 years. If I died tomorrow, in 3 years no one would know I had acne scars or rough hair, or maybe, just maybe, even a slanted spine. In 3 years, I would be just a soul, wandering Terris and completing my duty to the afterlife.
On a completely shifted tone, I went to the city of Yonindale, the nearest major city by me. The nearest downtown core. Ephemeral indeed.
The skyline reaches into the bluest depths of our atmosphere. Cars and buggies alike honk and blow sweet, thin steam. Light from the setting sun darts in between the buildings and streams through the cracks in the roads. Golems building up the side of an old parliament building. Cold pink streetcars hover across the sky and lower unto the designated stops. Old elves sitting in bus stops to catch their breath with charred wooden canes. The Starship Monument, visible from the centre of the street, overwatching the entire city. Its rings slowly turning around the epicentre like we rotate around the sun.
All this beauty. All this beauty, with a melody blasting in my ears.
My mind works in pictures and narration. I feel through film that I portray on the big screen of my brain. That is the picture of existence. There, in that moment, I am split. Humans might call it, Schrodinger’s cat. I feel as though I exist, but I also feel as though none of this is real. Like I am simply weightless. Like I am an energy floating through the air. Like I am in the human-promoted simulation. Everything becomes third person for just a fleeting second and then I realize my body is physical. I have hands! I have feet! I have arms and legs and a chest and a heart and —
I feel as though I have opened the box with Schrodinger’s cat in it. I too have suffered both halves of his paradox.
The downtown scene is such a disorienting place. But I would assume that much since I don’t travel there as often. I can imagine people coming to my little suburbs in Masadam-Yae with abandoned farm fields and highway overpasses feeling the same sense of etherealism.
No matter how much I crush myself with my own existence reminding me that life is as fluid as time and as fragile as a reed, going to Yonindale makes me remember how present life is. Life isn’t meant to be lived in the past worrying over soft regrets and poor memories. Life isn’t meant to be lived in the future, fussing over money and a guess-timated body clock.
I think this is why I’m a bad goal setter. Perhaps it’s why I’m more self-aware. I used to live life in the present, never thinking on the future beyond wild dreams and never on the past beyond a good meal. When I turned 18, I began to live life 3 000 000 years from now, when Terris is ash and the solar system is diminished to three planets and a little red dwarf. Coming down from the future back into the now is refreshing.
I still have things I think about, like my health, potential of kids, partners, and even writing, that I have to look a little into the future. But I feel as though dealing with the darkness that is my crippling sense of existence, is just a grounding away.
For anyone who’s read this far, I bid you do these things sometimes. Go outside. Physically touch some grass, or some concrete, or a tree, or a wall of thirteen-year-old graffiti. Take a whiff of the smell of freshly cut grass as they spew their chemicals of fear and warning to one another. Take a nice, long, slow breath in. Breath out. Smile, even if you don’t want to. Remember that you exist.
— Heleza
[image error]Opening the Box of My Existence was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
