J.D. Stroube

“The melodious song mesmerized me and cloaked my soul in a most liberating embrace I had never known. The emotion enveloped me, and smothered the emptiness.”

“Mmmm… stay.” Her voice was barely audible, as she grazed her lips against mine and her head fell back against the pillow into a deep sleep.”

“No one has free will until they are an adult, and by then the choices that were made for them, have already set them on a course that gives limited freedom in the choices to be made.”

“Life is filled with unanswered questions, but it is the courage to seek those answers that continues to give meaning to life. You can spend your life wallowing in despair, wondering why you were the one who was led towards the road strewn with pain, or you can be grateful that you are strong enough to survive it.”

“As I turned to leave, I looked down. Beside my foot, a sprout of greenery was clawing its way through the pristine nothingness to begin anew. It was later that I realized my haven had sent me a message, and it had shown me that nothing is ever completely lost, unless you cease searching.”

“My power grew angry that it was confined to my petite frame and pulled against my taut skin. Growing bolder, it tore through my skin to lay flat against my outer edge. The glowing energy began to solidify against my flesh; it lengthened to mold itself to my frame and contained me in a transparent cocoon. I flexed my fingers against the waxy surface and began to panic. I was cut off from my coven now and could not feel their thoughts. I could see the panic on their faces as I fell onto my side to convulse.”

“In that smooth fortress of glass, I caught a glimpse of my corruption gripping steel, which before I had thought of as my salvation, but now represented my obliteration.”

“There are people in the world, who are just wrong, and then there are the masses of population that are right, or at the very least they lie in the veil of between. I on the other hand, do not belong to any group. I don’t exist. It’s not that I don’t have substance; I have a body like everyone else. I can feel the fire when it burns against my skin, the rain when it caresses my face and the breeze as it fingers my hair. I have all the senses that other people do. I am just empty, inside.”

“The walls that caged me were not of this world, but were within my mind.”

“If the town were a black hole, I was the helpless star being sucked into oblivion. It was an oblivion I craved.”

“Death is deceitful, pretending that peace is on the horizon. The truth is that chaos is left in its wake, claiming the souls of those stranded in life. Death is the enemy of love in its purest form. It's the one thing that can tear our souls out and rip our hearts to pieces. The miraculous part of this process is that all it needs to do is extinguish a single, solitary breath. That's all it takes to steal the future of someone; someone who deserves to live more than all the others. If only I could capture that breath before it was taken to replace it with my own.”

“Why is it that people talk about death, as if it is a part of life, when it is entirely separate? Someone passes on into the never ending void, where the living aren't allowed. We can't see, hear, touch or feel those who have succumbed to the eternal sleep, but we comfort ourselves with thoughts of a grander plan. We tell ourselves that they are in a better place, but what could be greater than breathing the same air, as those loved ones? Their pain may be gone, but pleasure can only be when it is stark against the hurt that life brings?”

“Even knowing that my presence brought a shadow over the lives of my loved ones, I can't regret the experiences I've had with them. They gave me life, becoming an integral part of my soul. They healed me when I was broken and somehow they recovered those parts of me, I thought lost forever.”

“A victim has the potential to transform into a survivor, but if that is forgotten, a true victim is what they become. A survivor must endure strife and persevere against those thoughts that would convince them otherwise. Holding fast to ones will will allow them to know their strength has not evaporated; They will never be without hope.”

“These were people who hunted for a way to erase the haunted, malnourished gaze from their souls and replace it with their faith in freedom and safety.”

“It wasn’t that she necessarily wanted to “socialize” at the bonfire, but she wanted to broadcast to the general population that her antisocial behavior was a personal choice not a sentence to social leprosy.”

“Life is supposedly filled with paths that enable unlimited choices, but that is a blatant lie. No one has free will until they are an adult, and by then the choices made for them have already set them on a passage that limits the choices they have yet to make.”

“Over the years, I learned to smile or laugh when I was supposed to. I kept my true self hidden; I did not need to unleash my pain on the world around me. Instead, I taught myself to ignore it. I did not realize that the pain was eating away at my soul.”

“Once I embraced the dreams that once inspired. Now I've found that there is too much I didn't recognize as a gift. I may be too late to see, cherish, and endure. I may never change, but be forever stuck in the past without realizing until my eyes open to the sun and I have forgotten the moon.”

“A complete stranger has the capacity to alter the life of another irrevocably. This domino effect has the capacity to change the course of an entire world. That is what life is; a chain reaction of individuals colliding with others and influencing their lives without realizing it. A decision that seems miniscule to you, may be monumental to the fate of the world.”