I Am Santo

Fiction, poetry, music and mindscape pictures by creative artist Jason Santo

Mirror mirror, asked on that wall. For you are the fairest of them all. Can you not see? This fairy tale holds no place for others. This happily ever after is yours and no one else’s. Princes may come and go, but your beauty and this divine reflection will stay forever, assuring you of the truth: there cannot be another as lovely in this world, or in any other, real or imagined. Set your teeth upon the apple and taste wicked futures where dreams of lust crowd like crippled forests at night, like the notions of forgiveness swimming in the fright of others who cannot claim as you do the throne of unapproachable affection. For you are the dream. You are the fruit. You are the pure descendant of Eden, at home in children’s stories; alive only in fictions where snakes speak sweetly of temptation and crones with knobby knuckles eliminate their competition. And who are you? Siren or klaxon? Savior or warning? The shrill cry of beauty is a hung note in the gallows of melodic reflection. Try, try, try, sweet girl, and look forward to that day when the looking glass cannot tell you anything you don’t already know: that it’s there already, in the heart, that truth. That undeniable return from the sea of cast off jealousies that ran fathoms deep, but surfaced like whale breath, like a stolen rib, like a queen’s ire when someone else dared alabaster’s sheen to a contest. Oh you always win. The perfect always get what they want. Too bad greed disallows desire, a book starved of revelation; a tale without an antidote kiss.

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The truest of writing prompts, the enigmatic @alice.artc blessed me with this shot and a “mirror mirror” reference which resulted in the edit you see and the words you may have had the patience to read. Thank you, dear Alice, as always, for being such a tremendous muse.

#poem #poetry #poetic #igwriters #instawriter #writersofig #poetsofig #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #creativewriting #fiction #flashfiction #writing #writer #story #shortstory #microfiction #poetrycommunity #igwriters #iamwriting #collaboration #muse #lovely #beauty #doeyes #beautifulwoman #portrait #mirror #reflection (at Mirror Mirror)

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Maybe it was the roundness of her eyes or the deep warm brown of her irises that hinted at a universe of thoughts she had swirling like galaxies in her mind. Inviting the curious. It was as if the firmament went out. She wondered if her eyes now just held cold dead space that no one was brave enough to stare into; a hungry abyss that was the color of her loneliness. Men and women. They seemed unable to look at her any longer, despite assurances of her ravishing beauty. She stepped into solitude, a maiden draped in knowledge and robust heart instead of silk finery and reticence; her mind as limitless as night sky and to be spoken! Perhaps they found such forthrightness unbecoming. Let them. She had bigger plans than to appease, and if she was as lovely as each said with their candle wax pronouncements dripping from their wary lips, she would trim their wicks with a quick sideways glance, hinting that those fires still burned within her; those faraway suns possessed even more mystery than ever. It was then she smiled again, confident in stride. Relegated to nothing and no one.  Aware that her definitions defied and her value needn’t any assessment. 

./.

Sometimes a story resides in a simple glance. Thank you to @theeglantine, as always, for allowing me to steal a tale from her always expressive beauty. She could have written it better, but I’m still glad to have had the shot. Her photo, my edit and words.

#poem #poetry #poetic #igwriters #instawriter #writersofig #poetsofig #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #creativewriting #fiction #flashfiction #writing #writer #story #shortstory #microfiction #poetrycommunity #igwriters #iamwriting #collaboration #muse #lovely #beauty #doeyes #beautifulwoman #portrait (at On Approach)

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Vestige yearning,
piecemeal fulfillment,
Seeking a heart that interlocks
The way snowflakes blanket
And stars collide
Far from here, but happening
Like these dreams of complete
Blanketing
Overlapping
Depths of understanding
Like the churning
Of an ocean
Tumult sweeping day aside
Ushering in stifling night
Like stones cast
Fleeing light
Drawn by the gravity of imperfect bliss
That dark heart of reality
The antithesis of together
In light
In Union
Whole.

***

After eons, @jesmegs and I have finally managed to get a collaboration happening and it’s been a ton of fun. A fantastic writer and lovely inside and out, this is a huge honor. Her image. My edit and words. She posted a companion piece. Look for more coming soon.

#poem #poetry #poetic #igwriters #instawriter #writersofig #poetsofig #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #creativewriting #fiction #flashfiction #writing #writer #story #shortstory #microfiction #poetrycommunity #igwriters #portrait #beauty #collaboration #brokenheartslament #pieces #longtimelistenerfirsttimecaller #lovely
(at Pieces)

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The weight of her words wasn’t vocabulary, it was the feeling they carried, as if each beat of her heart produced them. She and he had driven, walked, eaten, drank, smoked, slept and sat together, and her ease was still suspect, as if she were a lion tamer and he was a new beast. Her whip-crack wit and subtle, self-effacing smile disarmed, and he’d shown his belly, perhaps too fast. She wanted to place herself in his mouth, let his passions send shivers through her body, but heart danger lurked in the shadows of his silences, the muted smiles and vagueries offered were reason enough to believe he might kill as he’d done before; murdering love. Yet it appeared real, those kisses, hugs and airport tears, and when he’d gone she knew only that things were suddenly empty. Yes, the fear had left her, but so had whatever it was she was trying to protect. “Come back,” she typed; two simple syllables overburdened by heartbreak and yearning. Come back. And she realized then she’d already placed herself in harm’s way and jaws had closed around her. She was thankful for it, proud she too had surrendered. Because it wasn’t him that was the beast; it was love. And she wanted to be devoured.

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#poem #poetry #poetic #igwriters #writersofig #poetrycommunity #literature #creativewriting #fiction #writing #writer #story #shortstory #writersofinstagram #poetsofinstagram #flashfiction #microfiction #storiesofinstagram #lovely #beautifulgirl #lionheart #doeeyes #longassmetaphors (at Come Back)

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Had they made thousands of these? Yes. Thousands of unique, captured dreams mailed to the homes of the rich, the lonely, the sick. And he’d never touched her although he so often dreamt of what that warm, smooth skin would feel like beneath his hands, of what her breathing would feel like under the crush of his weight. She stood before him, prone and naked, then bent back over the recliner to greet the light and he moved closer, over her, the lens spying and adoring her perfection.
She then stopped and did something she’d never done before. Standing, Roxanne stared directly at the camera; fixing her gorgeous doe eyes on Clifford whose sure hand shook under her gaze. She knew he was keeping her. She knew this was his reel. A grin teased at her full lips then and a moment later the camera stopped rolling. Just like that, it was over. Just like that she had become the latent image of his desire, his mind filling in the gaps of their last dance together in a way their bodies never would.
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Part three and the end of the third and final planned collaboration with the alluring @___luciferaisback___. Her photos, my edit and words inspired by the shots. It was a huge honor, Linda. Thank you for being so amenable to collaborating!

#poem #poetry #writing #writer #poetic #creativewriting #igwriters #poetry_addicts #literary_imagery1 #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #beautiful #sensual #seductive #lovely #creativewriting #microfiction #story #beauty #alluring #provocative #shortstory #stunning #woman #sensual_women #grainy #monochrome #sultry (at Action: Part 3)

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She’d been modeling for him over the past sixteen years, and while technology moved on, their dances didn’t change. Clifford hated the flat boredom of video. It lacked the latent image, the romance of a movie camera. And he had no patience for editing. He captured only what was raw and real, a single reel. The seduction. The long lines and curves of revelation. And no one moved with him the way Roxanne did, her head falling back and her hair sliding across her face as if under her complete control and not that of gravity. She was a greater force than Nature could summon. If this was to be their last dance, he couldn’t bear to part with it. Not after so long. Not after having let go of her time and again to the highest bidder, selling off the love and lust she coaxed from him.
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Part two of the third and final planned collaboration with the alluring @___luciferaisback___. Her photos, my edit and words inspired by the shots. It was a huge honor, Linda. Thank you for being so amenable to collaborating!

#poem #poetry #writing #writer #poetic #creativewriting #igwriters #poetry_addicts #literary_imagery1 #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #beautiful #sensual #seductive #lovely #creativewriting #microfiction #story #beauty #alluring #provocative #shortstory #stunning #woman #sensual_women #grainy #monochrome #sultry (at Action: Part 2)

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The camera churned, a kind of rough chewing made by it’s teeth as they pulled 16mm film by its sprockets, delicately capturing her on celluloid for the last time. She looked this way and that, trained to ignore Clifford and his lens, instead appearing as if the moment were candid; as if this motion picture were pulled from someone’s grainy monochrome memory. She was coy. Always so coy, but the layers slipped off surely, expertly. Clifford held the camera’s trigger and moved slowly about her as the sun played all around them and her skin beckoned. A single ten minute take of Roxanne earned her $200 now, with him earning $500 or $600 total for the shoot.
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Part one of the third and final planned collaboration with the alluring @___luciferaisback___. Her photos, my edit and words inspired by the shots. It was a huge honor, Linda. Thank you for being so amenable to collaborating!

#poem #poetry #writing #writer #poetic #creativewriting #igwriters #poetry_addicts #literary_imagery1 #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #beautiful #sensual #seductive #lovely #creativewriting #microfiction #story #beauty #alluring #provocative #shortstory #stunning #woman #sensual_women #grainy #monochrome #sultry (at Action: Part 1)

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Callie believed in dreams. She would watch clouds pass overhead and the way the sun faded and strengthened behind gray cotton, and she’d make a wish whenever she could see it without squinting; an orb of unimaginable power staring from Heaven like the eye of God. Then she’d think of Damon, his sea blue eyes and the way he threw his head back when he laughed, the mop of his hair shaggily revealing his face as if a curtain being opened. Callie would ask the sun to change direction, to set in the East and rise in the West so time would spin back to before the funeral, before the accident, before their argument, returning her to the day when they had the beach to themselves and he kissed her from her mouth, to her jaw, down her neck, and over her breasts. Her own sun ignited within her then, ablaze as he worked his way down to the center of her yearning. He boldly removed her bathing suit and moved his mouth there, tasting her until she clutched at the hot sand and shuddered as if the air were robbed of oxygen. That’s when Callie would go back to; that exact moment. She would feel the rise of her body meet his jaw, her solar center turned supernova inside her, and then she’d not open her eyes. Not see the wreckage of a tree washed upon the beach long ago. Callie would arrest the thoughts of how it looked like a wrecked car compressed at ajunk yard; crushed, but with jagged edges and metal tangles. Because that’s when she set things in motion. That’s why she would never smile at, embrace, laugh with or taste Damon again. Because at her heights, the sun heard a nightmare of a daydream and robbed her of goodbye. If only it would listen again.

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My collaboration fever continues, this time with the help of the captivating @alwayschiroptera who provided me with this stunning self portrait to write to. As usual, I did the edit (using Mextures this time) and the story grew from that. Here’s hoping we can do more together!

#creativewriting #fiction #flashfiction #writing #writer #story #shortstory #streamofconsciousness #model #beautiful #stunning #colorful #lovely #sensual #sensual_women #gorgeous #portrait (at Taste)

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Why bother drawing another breath? It’s only going to disappoint. These smooth pronouncements, oh how they make the legs quiver. Oh how they make the lust wet. And yet, stop. Keep the momentum in a downshift and bless the birthed dissatisfaction of hungry days. Because what’s right is right. Because the truth is a spit soliloquy echoing in the tinny foyer of this private Hell, convulsively alight in an unending, flickering blaze of soft dreams swallowed by an inferno of circumstance. Stare straight into the burn. Don’t flinch. Don’t fucking blink. Watch the wither, the curl into black after hopes ignited, illuminating briefly a path to bliss, then expiring unapologetically like the closes door after a lover says goodbye. Eyes straight. Forward always. The sear won’t hurt forever, because even suns lose their heat, their chaotic passions now only an echo in the still of black; light years of longing reduced to a pinpoint. To be that grand. But all that’s left are little words to carry this starshine need through bustling corridors of indifference. They float like dust motes caught in an afternoon’s amber afterthought, an attention paid like the drop of a penny after being handed change. “Keep breathing,” demands the body. But in the face of lust, the mind lets common cents skitter away underfoot, devalued by the periphery like a star unnoticed at night.
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A couple weeks ago, I put out a random call for photo prompts and a bunch of people DM’d shots. Among them was this one by my friend Stephanie, also known as @ichbineincheeseburger. One of my very few real world friends that support what I do here, I was super thankful for her contribution which I edited a bit and then wrote to. Thank you Stephanie for sending this to me.

#poem #poetry #writing #writer #poetic #creativewriting #igwriters #poetry_addicts #literary_imagery1 #igpoets #igstories #mobileartistry #lovely #creativewriting #microfiction #sun #flare #sky #dusk #evening #bright #road #driving #windshield (at Ruin)

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Trapped by the flood of circumstance and the ardor of impossibly attained lust, the net cast, the zeros and ones of outrageous fortune that cling to hearts literate in the great languages of binding, abiding, yearning, desiring. Rocky shores threaten shipwrecked delight and moonlight reveals skeletons awash in the salt of uncommon release, cracked ribcages once housing fierce throbbing cores that dared to stand against calamitous tides and Hellspun winds. Coaxed and nuzzled in gentler times, licked from end to end by tongues wet with an appetite for the original sin; the apple was devoured and rich runoff drizzled the chins of this maiden’s suitors who rose, strong-kneed from the sea, stumbled at the sandy grace of her tremble, spent seed with her name on their lips, and then disappeared again into the static of urgent life, drowning despite the binary tether holding them to their mythical lover. The ocean is too big to allow Heaven, so it gives and takes away with its lunar God laughter.

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Original photo by @zeusnursemaiden with whom I adore collaborating. Thank you for sending me this shot and for allowing me to once again explore your beauty with words.

#poem #poetry #writing #writer #poetic #poetry_addicts #literary_imagery1 #creativewriting #beauty #sea #ocean #woman #lovely #doubleexposure #waves #curves #nature #sensual #sensual_women

(at Sea Maiden)

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