Asterisk*

Riddles and Racoons*

*In the reasoning of masters in disguise

A 1-2-3,

Tip toeing through the forest of masses,

Brought in within rocks of illness,

Blankets, no comfort offered.

I miss,

And welcome,

The idea of suffrage.

So I am a spy, a spy on my own,

Disguised inside my own disguise.

Marcus

The easiest thing I've ever had to do was hate myself. It's my own mind, free from all other people and all other thoughts. No one's in it but me. It was so easy to convince my gullible self to fall for the thoughts I made up in my head. It was a breeding place of harm, crazy wrapped up in things that don't make any type of materialistic sense other than the possibility that I convinced myself they do. It shouldn't be that easy, but it is. Every time I get back up, I'm knocked back down with only my own mind to blame, my well being an afterthought to the media circus running around in my head. Picking myself up and putting myself down; a never ending pattern I have now seemed to adapt like a life force. I've learned it like I was depending on it and couldn't let go. I was back where I was years ago, walking around empty hallways in my mind.

Ghosts implied a thing of the past. I was still there, waiting for myself to turn into a see through ghost in the walls of the missing. It seemed like I was stuck in a maze of my own making, never ending graceless nights spent searching for the way out. I think I found a back door though. I think I'll be able to kick it open, metaphorically providing some kind of closure to the standard my brain required.

But a maze provides one thing, one thing you can't get anywhere else; an insane amount of camouflage in the world behind me. Like everyone else, taking my scars and moving on, ignoring the substance of the threat I was proving myself to be. Away from any eyes but my own, in its own right, was insane enough.

I wasn't going to start a movement or anything, shooting some kind of arrow in places I couldn't even try to reach. Instead, I was starting a kind of marching band in my head, marching everyone out onto the road, clearing my mind for once and all. It doesn't really make that much sense, but it's my kind of solution to a problem only I could create and solve.

"Hey, do you want anything to eat or whatever?" Apollo asked, tapping my shoulder as I was scrolling through my phone.

"No, I'm good," I answered, smiling up at him.

We didn't find much I didn't know on the internet. On one hand, that comforted me, knowing that I hadn't completely forgotten about who he is, but on the other hand, nothing we found would really help us find him in the grand scheme of things. But we did find stupid things that made me smile and cry at the same time. He ran an Instagram meme account, dedicated to using the same meme just as ridiculously as John Washington Carver used the peanut. It was kind of smart though. His sister posted more pictures of him than she did of herself. His mom posted one baby picture of him on her Facebook and abandoned the account months later after complaining about her microwave not working. Tiny things that don't seem to have any type of actual substance, but seem so big when you have nothing.

Apollo munched on chips beside me as I contemplated what I wanted to say to Aiden. I was going back home today and I wanted to come see him, but I didn't know how to ask. I wasn't going to make that same mistake twice. It's crazy, really, when you think about it. It takes only a second to get on bad terms with someone, but what seems like forever to get on good terms with them again.