Greetings, Mortals! I've freakin' missed you all!!!

     Okay, so I've been gone for quite a while. I sincerely apologize, and regret to say that I can't promise it won't happen again. At the least, I'll be gone for most of this week...I've got a Marine Corps graduation to attend in South Carolina _{that'll be interesting} and have no idea what the schedule will be like. @_@ Anyways, this feature is going to be a bit different from most Tao's Tellings, because in penance for my extended absence, I'm gonna overwhelm you with my entire feature folder. Yes, all in one go. I'm emptying that sucker OUT. You guys are gonna find SO many new people, and they're all SO talented that I get excited just thinking about featuring them here! However, this also means that my journal will be a long one; I promise not to spend much time talking, but there is one news point I'd like to make:

                               

HugQueen and DreamingAutumn's "Bestest Friend" Contest!

     Lemme just break it down quickly. Do you have the bestest best friend to ever best the bestness? Do you love them to bits and pieces, so much that your face and stomach muscles get awesome workouts from all those bestie gales of giggling? COOL.
Bestest Friend ContestCONTEST IS NOW OPEN!
BESTEST FRIENDS ARE AWESOME.
Right? RIGHT.
 In celebration of my bestest friend DreamingAutumn coming to visit me, we've decided to host a contest! The premise of this contest will be simple, write something to your best friend! It could be anything! Maybe you want to write them a letter telling them how much you care, or a write piece dedicated to them. Maybe you want to write about your favorite memory, your silliest moment, or that time you both laughed so hard your sides hurt because one of you did the Six Little Ducks Dance from Barney. ANYthing!
Want to donate something? Feature, points, pm, a print, something you made? Note either HugQueen or DreamingAutumn. Or donate straight to RainbowMonkeh! If you donate a prize you're still eligible to enter and win <== Ta-da! It has begun today. GO FORTH AND SHOW YOUR LOVE. Now, on to the SUPER-HUGE-AND-MASSIVE feature.

Literature

Fire FireMy chest was an empty chamber
until you filled it with gasoline;
You had always said I was brightest
when I burned.<da:thumb id="477417986"/> Stormy DayStormy Day
Underneath an empty sky, the land and hills are grey;
Murky, misty, moving clouds have locked the light away.
The sea shows no repentance.
The shore makes no resistance.
Whirling whips of water bruise the battered, broken bay.
Stricken breaths of stormwind wail a last and laboured cry;
Strain at sprays of seagrass as they listlessly slip by.
The blades no longer fear them.
The storm no longer hears them.
Slashed to shreds, abandoned, they will softly, slowly die.
Who will cry for me?
Who will feel my pain?
Who will share my sorrow,
And comfort me again?
Yestermorn, at daylight’s dawn, my darling danced the sand;
She played ‘catch-me-can-you’ at the seawolf’s salty hand.
The vicious, violent water,
It crushed her once it caught her.
Why she faced its cruelty I cannot understand.
Rents of ragged, ruthless lightning lacerate the rain.
Shattered shards and broken thunder crumple from the strain.
My soul is spent in grieving,
Her death, still not be Aurora CorporealisOn those days, you leapt from planes
unafraid to fall because you were already flying.
On those days, you did not speak
because the words slipped between your vocal cords
and could not make a sound.
On those days, I could see you through vast skies
over open oceans and beyond slow-falling snow
because you stood so tall in a crowd of billions.
On those days, you were the northern lights
and the whole world became the southern hemisphere.
On those days, I watched your horizon turn on itself.
Frost crept over your limbs and hail fell into the firmament.
I was not afraid because I did not understand.
On this day, I erode under warm water,
crumble into clay against the wall,
hyperventilate as steam fills my lungs
and I write my worry into words.
I am afraid because I understand. Growing (T)oldSpare me the pine. 
I'm dyed. 
the world  disoriented 
(under the lamp-light)
the world  deconstructed
(over stomachs bombed).
Spare me the child. 
dead  in the dirt
(fertile Chernobyl storms) 
dead  in the dorm
(the answers curdle). 
arms on the womb. 
arms on the wound. 
Spare me mine. 
mine  the sale item. 
mine  the 13th shelved soul. 
Spare me the hoax. 
I've already feasted
on their bones.
Spare me the fault. 
of those eyes  iodized. 
those jawlines  table salt.  .Rusted corners
Of milky white
Paper clips
Hold on
To sharp cuts
Of jagged edges
Of loose leaf.
Blue lines of silk
Command me to
Show the world.
But my
Pen is contorted
And stains ink
All over the
Smooth surface
The desk
overlooking a window,
Overlooking a
Fire truck
whizzing by into
It's station.
I sit here
And remember when
I used to
Play with toy
Fire trucks
Just like
When I used
To think I
Would become a
Freedom writer or
A cartoonist or
Dentist or an
Astronaut or
State governor or
A Jedi or
A jaguar or
Everything.
But I
Sit here and
Wonder why I
Stain trees with
My pen. BirdwatchingThe rain floated down in curtains, swept on the breeze like sheets of spider web. Tiny drops of water tapped softly on the leaves, collecting in rivulets and trickling down the trees of Finwold Edge. Overhead, dark clouds could be seen getting darker through the gaps between the branches. Neil didn't mind the weather.
He didn't sniff as the rain dripped from the end of his nose.
He didn't shiver as the cold water soaked him to the bone.
Neil was a swamp monster, and he was bird watching.
His foliage rustled in the wind, but the rest of him remained still, wooden. A tiny wren hopped happily up to him, completely unafraid. Neil wasn't dangerous; he wasn't human. Neil was vegetation. He was the soil and the leaves. He was Finwold Edge itself.
Slowly, carefully, and very deliberately, Neil cupped his mossy hands beneath the wren and scooped it up, holding it up to his face. It pecked him affectionately.
The swamp monster knew every creature in the Edge, from the largest boar to the smalles SunriseYou say my name like a poem you will never write. You look at me like a sunrise you'll never witness because if you stayed to watch, I would be real, instead of being just the promise of something beautiful beneath the horizon. You touch me like a question I can never answer, like words I scratched into your back that you can't quite read, like the only phrase in your vocabulary is "what if." I don't know how to fix this. I don't know how to use tools or how to follow directions. All I have are my two hands and the sheer determination to do something right for once in my life.
I'll duct tape phone lines and life lines and fault lines back together. I'll peel off my nail polish and rub my skin raw, so you can see I'm not a sunrise, I'm just me, don't worry. I'm not. I'll pretend I can hear your heartbeat in your smile and I'll let you think I can handle myself just fine.
You pinned the butterflies in my stomach against the cage of my ribs and tied the corners of my mouth to transcontine Bridge the GapI like to write and draw and cook and ache between your hands. I’m proud of the way I can make you moan in my ear. Your hands bridging the gap over the span of my hips makes me feel like infrastructure finally complete. With your rose petal lips fit between my own and your guitarist’s fingers strumming the chords of my spine, I am nothing more perfect. I don’t need to be, not with these hands touching me like I’m precious metal. If we were a color, it would be lavender.
But there are demons clawing inside me, scratching at my toenails and cackling in my belly. Worry bends me over backwards, gnaws at my bones and snacks on the marrow. I can’t sleep most nights, the smell of you and my bleeding heart hanging thick in the air.
What if I’m not enough?
What if the whole of me isn’t, in fact, whole?
I see so many girls here, beautiful girls who burn so bright. They’d be better for you, more talented, complex, intelligent, worthy. I’m just the fallthe fall
Mundane
moments
of majestic
grace.
Birth and death,
reverent  reflections.
The kindness of
a smile.
Everything
made hollow
by a lack of
faith. ThunderstormSkies clapped and cheered. Humans trembled. the Amateur WriterShe lives off of sweetmeats
glittering with flossy sugar and cotton riches
Dark bars dense with skies.
but dips them in acid foul,
She pops them into her mouth
one by one
Candy, starbursting bitterly into inkwell tumours
but never does she spit them out
no matter how much they burn her throat
Then, eyes glazed with flossy colours
and tongue stuffed with cotton rich,
a sky bursting in her chest,
she tries to spin her own
A paradise just all to her
(but she quietly wishes to share)
It's all peppermint and saccharine
to cover up the cyanide that
she swallows down with helping pills.
it never turns out right. It Comes With AgeYour bones
might as well
be of papier-mâché,
at the
tragic rate
they're decaying
a
w
 a
  y. Untitled (2)I would never fall in love
with another poet
All that fragility
arrogance
destruction
Binary stars
supernova
Knife fights
with pieces of glass

Art

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Mature Content

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       Guys. The lack of symmetry is figuratively killing me. FIND ME MOAR LITERARY ARTISTS. OR I WILL FIND YOU AND FORCE FEED YOU MUSHROOMS OF QUESTIONABLE ORIGIN.

     Anyway, that's all! Enjoy the features! Share the love! Stuff!