And we existed freely

Creative Forums Creative Writing
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The old man stares from behind the rims, a pale moniker. Clutched almost painful to the dim remembrance of a day, decades past that no one else knows.

It builds in a dream, higher pitch. A light flashes in the dark, zoom, buzz, a red reminder. Glint on the helmet.

Four years felt at a distance, but why? Youth is not a reason, only a condition. The season of it.

Youth, he told himself, has a dignity that’s unearned, and un-bought. Smile.

No water escaped his eyes. Only dust, which floated in like moats of truth separating like from like. Meanwhile, a wolf dreamed.

They told me not to live this way. Or at least they said it with their eyes.

I read the signs. Fuck them. I still felt

the breeze in a kind of haze or halo, the perfect picture. Glass, floating on the horizon falling as images. Trees of lives felled silent.

We walked in those times. Into strangers minds and they into ours. The bar, a coffee house, jazz club after midnight. What did we do back then? But experienced one another.

The world is gone now.

The haters won.

Imploded into oblivion.

Tasks and promises.

Clean lines and fine dining.

Netflix and wet dicks.

What did we do, back then? What did you do, someone would ask. Politely at first, if you ignored the way their eyes slid.

We walked. No. But we saw, we observed, we were. We lived. And we existed freely.

To exist easy and not to be chosen.

Caught in the unasked and un-given, a nice circle. Flash of smile.

Her hair glinted by the comb in the so early morning, repeated it.

I’ll be a hollywood star, he whispered.

She clutched her robes, stifling a sad expression. Corrected his gaze.

A cigarette felt right against the dry lips, and he knew it. She,

soft kiss of tomorrow. He though,

last glance down a long hallway

buried in yesterday, unearthing nothing

the lost sluts of tomorrow,

sighed forever for their freeing souls

in dust, a costly

collection of necessities

and sacrifice

marked unearned

and discarded.

He paused,

taking in the

reverie.
A light, a candle, a thin whisp.

Thicker now.

Breathe in.

You got this. You exist. Time is forever and we know it.

Slowly he put on his coat. The door with its regular creaking.

The street, with its habitual hum and verbs. The sky,

clustered and crisp, an apple appearing as dawn

pressing flesh, leaked onto pavement.

We walked, and we

existed

freely.

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2

It’s morose, but I don’t hate it. Optimistically morose in some way.

Anyway I slid right in as into a pond.

It’s good.

Not often these days one runs into real literature.

3

AI?

4

No, I’ve known this dude 15 years. It’s for real.

He used to be more fiery.

This is somehow much better.

5

I guess that makes it real then :laughing:

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Well, I mean, if you can’t distinguish between the (and, in this case, particularly distinct) style of a person you’ve been reading for 15 years and a chatbot, then maybe kill yourself.

7

I take the chatbot remark as a compliment, though, in his name.

8

Go fuck yourself. You can just ask it to write something ‘in the style of’ and it will do it. I’ve seen what he writes on here. None of it resembles this in any way whatsoever. I don’t believe anything I see online any more. I’ll stick to books, thanks. No bot infestation worries there.

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ps. You turn nasty really fast. And all because someone doesn’t just blindly accept something. I guess that explains why you are a religious nut and I am not :rofl:

10

I just have a violent demeanor, I’m not really like that. I come from a different place than you.

As for this guy’s writings, it is admitedly spread out through many usernames, forums and other media. But I’ve read it.

Some things can be chatbotmitated, some can’t.

11

Any writing style can be chatbot imitated.

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I didn’t say styles, I said things.

There are things it can’t imitate.

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It can be personalised.

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When twilight wept upon the barren lea,
And winter gnawed the blossom from the vine,
I walked alone beside the grieving sea,
And cursed the stars that stole thy hand from mine.

Thy voice once rang more sweet than matin lark,
Whose hymn awakes the rose with gentle fire;
Now silence keeps dominion in the dark,
And ash lies cold upon love’s spent desire.

Yet still thy shadow walks within my breast,
A ghostly moon that tides my soul with pain;
No earthly balm can grant my spirit rest,
Nor spring restore what death hath reft in vain.

15

The bar smelled like old raincoats
and broken teeth.

A woman with tired eyes
fed quarters into the jukebox
like prayers nobody wanted.

I drank whiskey because
beer was too honest.

The bartender wiped the same glass
for twenty minutes straight,
watching the television glow
like a cheap heaven.

Outside, the city kept coughing up sirens
and lonely men
walking nowhere.

I got drunk slowly,
the way buildings rot—
one crack at a time.

By midnight
everybody in the room
looked like somebody who had once

been beautiful.

That’s the thing about alcohol:
it doesn’t solve anything.
it just makes the darkness
sit down beside you
like an old friend
who knows your first name.

16

No need to worry about his feelings either. He can’t see what I wrote :smiley:

17

Call it thoughts.

18

When you read your chatbot poem, what images come up? What does reflection bring? Some half drunk’s half thoughts. How much depth is there? Can you peer behind the behinds?

Some things cnnot be autogenerated. Or they can, but it takes millions of years of derybonucleic acid reacting with sunlight.

Also, if you are a connoiseur of poetic structure at all, the chatbot is a two dimensional bag of five cent tricks. What prof X wrote shows dozens of design decisions that interwine, like a chess game. Meter.

An autogenerated system has a… But I 've said too much. I’m sorry my riddleyness annoys you, because I think you’re really cool. But philosophy is a rain forest, and a shaman has responsibilities.

I kno I know, how full of myself, yadda yadda. What’s your favourite movie?

19

Its quite something to see “youth” and “dignity” in the same sentence.

Rather than anything objective, this story seems to be from the perspective of someone full of regret and bitterness. Especially the ending. You have always been free. All the little walls, borders and barriers have always been self constructed. Everyone chooses them to be either real or to be optional and ethereal.

20

What a fucking horrible thing to say.

Look after yourself Vic.

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