Character: Naomi Ryan from "Ghostories" (A piece I started writing for NaNoWriMo 2014; Have not finished, to date) >> Related to "Ghostories: Journal" (hint, hint, nudge, nudge)

I smell like cigarette smoke, residue ashes,

it soaks into my skin like bruises, except

they're not black and blue, but silver,

more of a grey-ish shade; like the ashes

of the cremated, cast upon the waves

of dark blue seas, white foam floating

in clusters of disgusting yellow, barf yellow;

I've never really been to the sea, textbooks

back in the days when I sat at a desk,

drowning in words and numbers, showed

these images, pollution, grey watery death,

not cloaked in the robes of darkness

but in hands of acid and trash, mindless

and shameless humans tossing whatever

they wished into the sea, fucking idiots;

My hand is trembling as I write this;

I should really turn on the heater, but

I can't move, arms tired, legs sore,

the bubbling of the fish tank echoing like

chattering of the Residents in their watery

world, lost in their own thoughts; I can almost

hear them, their thoughts, their murmurs;

I really need to sleep, wash away the shit

that has accumulated over the course

of the day, layering onto me like

sediment over millions of years,

the life of the entire planet weighing

down on my shoulders; last time

I checked, I was not Atlas, or gravity.