I first learned that adults lie at the age of five.

My parents had promised me that I’d be safe and loved and fed and clothed. They were wrong. Instead I woke up day after day with new bruises filling my body and an ache deep in my core. My father had been a man quickly obsessed with gambling and alcohol. Taking his earnings to the nearest casino he hadn’t gotten kicked out of yet and loosing it ...

The gown was white.

And the blood?

Purple.

I look to my to-be wife, Lilly, her eyes distraught as an arrow sticks from her chest. I see them change shades as she clutches her chest in pain. Tears beginning to roll down her cheeks.

What the fuck was she?

“Baby?” I hear her silky voice say.

I look up from her wound to see one of her hands raised out to me.

“Baby.” She says again. “It’s not what yo...

It starts in my chest.

Wrapping around my heart like vines on an old building,

Tightening,

Tightening,

Until it hurts so bad I can help but clutch my chest

I feel them grow and grow,

Spreading to my lungs, making my breathing quicker and quicker

I can’t even speak.

Not even from the lack of air,

But because the vines won’t quit spreading

Working up to my throat and around my neck

Letting the pani...