some sort of syndrome. said,
i'm running this cobbled humanity
on broken hardware;
it didn't come pre-installed.
the spiders continue to multiply,
and the loving cats seek to be gone.
a man gave me his permission to dream.
as long as he could fuck me, i was free.
when they saw me in the streets at 9am
they locked the cars, beep beep.
i don't know what the men in vests
around the concrete hole kept cleaning,
but it filled my ear, careful and allowed.
and in the burden of that tone i found my peace.
not yet caught emulating a dead, menu-driven MMO
like the last bread crust burned in bacon grease.
now feed me that long berry and a bite of butter;
we'll drift back to sleep.
feelin' pain, feelin' pain
it's here again another day
doesn't seem to go away
feelin' like it's here to stay
feelin' pain, feelin' pain
in my body and my brain
takin' care of me
today
i'm fucking chaos, baby
and i hate me, lately.
give me a break, please;
i'm begging you to abate me.
out there controlling what sells
by controlling who buys, we those
are hypnotized by delicate lies:
that's life, and i don't know why,
who am i? who've i become?
by whose deft articulation,
which of your careful designs?
same shit, different day. no problem!
yesteryear it was the same. no problem!
fight and fight to heal the pain,
no problem! living my life anyway.
can't quite complain, said it's my fault,
all this chaos, all this pain, every day.
said it's not your fault, i'll take the blame,
and things won't change until we make them.
i may have been resensitized
dehumanized
struck out
only to see out these eyes
and there was indeed a time
that i believed the lies
said one can only hope
and wouldn't it be nice
if the point at which abusers stop
is the point at which they are afraid
of being caught
you are not good enough.
and you don't have to be good.
you only have to be enough.
and enough is good.
is may have been; I'd like to see more,
seen as enough to accept and embrace
like yours was to take, this love is enough
to retrace missteppage downtraught and sodden
with the tears of our memories outcried for their
mothers who fought for another's enough not enough
said you're fractured, a five minute mental calculation,
once undone and redone; like a nautilus, shapeshifter,
carrying the baggage of a life dependent on shielding.
earplug.
headphone.
clean slate.
it may start.
once window opens.
render anything. delete.
the range opened. scaffold.
input may require interface.
loading data may requirement.
integrate into the interface.
systems of entities may benefit.
entities of smaller pieces, bits.
system of systems collide motion.
derivation of data into substance
creating space for iteration of
the art that this work
intended to enable
creation to opening
the scaffold eroded
need met benefit it
may need motion may
need substance near
the work the work
may start, may.
may. when. may.
end emotion.
w/o greed.
peacemake.
indeed.
but then i put two brain cells together.
the big things we cannot change are less
our own making and doing and moreish the
accumulations of trauma upon generations
of populations down to you and me today.
i said i don't need any more chemicals.
enough have been infused. enough abused
and less so more have been used to harm
my people and my kind which includes you
and every time i try to hide my tiny dog
face nose in my own cloth of descansado
the life that was designed for me unhides
like one enormous rube goldberg for mice
as if between the misery and release i'd
find the remnants of some sanity defined
and never in my life has anyone seen me so
deeply and with truth behind their eyes and
sadly i was shy and chose to deny arriving,
and we now pay the prices of the unforgotten
failures of our tribes as if our loon's cries
will right this sinking submarine of life
on earth or elsewhere; thinking might be
better redefined unless we really think
it will work out to live these lies
and why.
so go it seem i daily be
reciting my own recipe
the best of to ability:
ehlers made a histamine,
neuroinflammation with the
bad dreams, complex ptsd;
to glean the main upstream
i need hands full of things:
adequate sleep,
no judgment,
found humility;
n-acetyl cysteine,
building block of simpler eat;
lots and lots of protein:
ten years almost vegan,
back to mostly meat.
acetyl-l carnitine, said web-md for
memory, depression, fat to fuel energy;
and caffeine, which don't stimulate me:
set calm free, defusing hyperactive daydream,
neurochemical transmissions manifesting as
psychosis, said the noggin's undertaker;
it's not but you, read manual key,
i also am afraid of scream.
what doc man doc can't ech grep awk is stimming
slow and steady ingive drip-feed ain't real energy
but absence of exhaustion from the constant stream
of dopamine on dopamine flood every Input, Output;
what if caffeine stimulates the brake, else
cast unwise careening weak.
and to drink the bitter heart
of the burned, ground bean.
ThatSummer( // prototype
"an summer that was beautiful": // and how we fight
"the winters ever harsher", // night day day night
"love you dork": "catch up soon", // to do: I loved you
"member": if we roleplayed
prophets on the moon ( // approximation
or was that just me ( // free(true)
probably, // even
"travesty" if %2==1 ( // geneticized
refined: revised, "if any": // might even try
by th' greatest terrorized // editor's note: why?
(
and why not: why not,
"why when": you /*where why tonight
when you remind me pls reply && I
can work my magic on your mind*/
else undefined rewind rewind // please let this dry
))))
);
and to drink the bitter heart
of the earthenkind machine.
the reason it can be so confusing
is because there are many different types.
not as many good (bad) names in this
officiated literal business tripe.
my mind, the reason it's so confusing
is because there are at least three verbs.
to react, to receive, and to motivate.
each of these raw, primary component
seeds of mind-frame language grain
have one shared name:
my emotional state.
senses can be filtered,
reactions dampened, and if so
inspirations can be stockpiled;
likewise three cast me alive unwise or wise
if state is managed else we try except
retrieve flag dirty
otherwise
parameterize.
and what a pleasant surprise to find
these many eyes the veiling paradigm;
a soul, a window, and a light reflect inside
providing the eye's voice delivery's in time--
with what strange gods, fractal brimming all
ensnared in their own reverb nightmares lest
remembrance alter sever reach enough inside
or deep enough to lay bed cold of concrete
and inside of that an insulated copper wire.
and with this I decide the window wide enough
for your voice come drift in in, from time time.
and to drink the bitter heart
of last night's dream.
my codependent situation / with my primary caregiver
honed this vigilance this fear / this home within this warring zone
to parse each footstep, cough, or / belching laugh, collapse, or door
(that's where he pours liqueur); / in order to detect this drunken
rage, there is his sigh; he's / gone to bed; each miniscule
expression of emotion in his / movement every mechanism of
detecting his state / and it's so long ago
he taught me this / and still today alone
in my combination studio / she asks me
"is it safe?" / "what was that sound?"
"are we safe now?" / "is he awake?"
"what's my mistake?" / and now how many times
has the detection of emotion of a stranger of my building
my community made any difference and so I rewire
and unwind unplug remind myself he wasn't right and
the lesson planned out by my child learned for safety was
not written for this place; no one ever bothers me.
girl, you're okay; you raised up wrong; / this place is safe.
how do you think my body liked the city /
with its business and waste recycling, /
all those sidewalk mental breakdowns /
and the waste recycling? /
they said...
me ded // me dead.
ai daed // i died.
me ded // me dead.
ai daed // i died.
dedya dae? // did you die?
ai daed // i died.
an ai daed // and i died.
ye daed // you died.
an aye // and aye.
one dee // one day.
all dae // all die.
buna tuda // but not today.
enats alr // and that's all right.
notha dee // another day.
weal dae // we'll die.
buna tuda // but not today.
tudayn dae // today not die.
to drink the bitter heart
of universal grace.
not to mention pharmacy patient management is old too,
and has fundamental backend format incompatibilities
with insurance data, & doctor data, & hospital data...
I do not think these systems provide the work-convenience
benefit-comparison they used to; more often than not
the people working the buggy machines are irritated.
I can only imagine places like this trying to migrate
their data through legacy update sieves that don't cover
all cases and when it breaks, who knows which layer broke,
because one layer is written in Python, another in PHP,
Java, old-style C, and nobody knows who wrote the code.
and nobody knows how to read code.
and nobody knows how to write code.
and everyone manually migrates the data.
I think the advancement of mobile technology emphasizing
constant and instant gratification has made these old PCs,
outmoded record systems, more irritating than they used to be.
waiting sixty seconds for a database frontend to figure itself out
probably used to be okay. now there are 99x more patients,
worse pay, worse hours, more problems,
more money, more problems...
probably, it's the fault of popular music,
or the pains of rubberbanding human expectations with
technology's limits, which are often artificially imposed
by greed, stupidity, or both.
I'm not saying any individual is stupid,
but the essence of a healthcare system being
"make money! LOTS. MORE MONEY. suffering makes money!" is
honestly is a sign of these systems' incompatibility
because not only do we get to suffer, we aren't free.
are we really going to keep on being told
that if we don't pay up we lose our bodies.
what if we did something else, something wise.
green money is not a golden ticket
and consumer options in a market
is a twisted way of turning citizens into products.
kind men agree healthcare's a human right;
not hard to understand that unrestricted
and unreasonable wealth accrual
by immoral means is a perverse kink,
and like any kink, you better be up front,
speak mutual consent, and know your safety.
unfortunately we are locked
in the legacy of our history's destructive,
delusional dream of money being bounty,
as if upon money we could feed.
toward an empty cup, replaced.
toward this instance, this refrain.
maybe problems arise naturally
and there's no way to change that.
and maybe it feels nice, sometimes, to realize that's the way.
did you need a reminder? set timer; analyze disarray:
nature rises, and then falls, naturally.
sometimes I've got problems, you know?
but of course you know, because sometimes
you have similar issues too and you know
what? tell me as many times as you need;
I said sometimes I've got them, problems
and there's no way to break our need
of normal, everyday things.
full of poems today, peaking a bit with all
this effort on my resume and portfolio.
begun applying to bigger name studios.
little ones keep saying I'm overqualified.
what? okay. but no I'm proud of my new CV;
it's very visual, and the language is concise
and professional. and yet also somehow funny.
my confidence is high; I cannot afford it not to be.
can you tell I'm manic and bracing for the fall?
but I feel confident in my ability
to guide myself down slowly,
in a careful climb.
yeah, but why.
remind me.
to praise one person is to shame another;
she said: we fight for our right to unite!
fuck praise, praise us:
I have been shaped by my communities
and by my friends, not you,
and how you loved to parade the blue-eyed,
platinum-haired child 'round like your own doing,
by some grand design, in front of the rest (AND WHY)
(I FUCKING MIND) I said FUCK YOUR WHITE, supremacy
has been redefined to include only history's losers
and the lessons learned from their hypocrisy have been
recycled and mind you I never tried to trifle with your
traps, insidious designs, and no, you were not on my mind
when I rewrote you, saved, reopened,
and confirmed the overwrite.
but you will be on my mind
when you are hiding out of sight
and I will fucking endless fight
to keep this ship upright
until fascism dies for good.
to create healing from the wounds your hatred
has inflicted on this planet is not radical
and would seem an appropriate reaction
to any other injury, infection, or disease.
your marks are in my body. the pain of shame made me.
from your outdated hatred this world will be free.
(longer video here) (glitch version)
### statement.
hello kind ones.
these are just words,
nonsense, drivel driven into keyboards.
something about a mirror image healing
and where that leads.
nonsense, poems, healing, growth.
trigger warnings: death, loss, grief,
substance, stories, trauma, and despair;
disdain for the way things happen,
ever grasping for a hazy future.
here in my heart, yours, and knowing ours,
we may curate the capacity to overcome,
emerging from shared immersion in
this falsity at the sprawling delta
of our searching for humanity.
### chapter one.
to paraphrase another author,
the way you can say is not the real way.
the name you can name is not the real name.
that without name begets that which came.
the named is the mother of all.
thus, without desire, you hear the secret call.
always with desire, you see only the outside.
these two: differently named, their roots reside
beside each other, deep down inside.
mysteries, deep, again deep mysteries:
the door to many subtle ones, too.
if you know where to look.
### glass heart seed.
oh, there's something in me wild.
a piece of me that was hurt as a child.
reliable, this piece has not left me.
fearful, she cries tears hot and heavy.
regretful, she bares her teeth readily.
searching for understanding, and lacking,
this piece provides a backing to the frame;
unkempt, vile, and obsessive, teething, oh;
dizzy, lost, in search of truth;
my best advice to you
is cross two fingers should she cross your path,
carry a small mineral close to your chest,
and remember to forget everything she said.
### timespace.
when i'm older, i'll ask the lady
to generate the sound of my peers
thinking faster than our synapses.
it won't work. there will be no going,
to or from the past; only witnessing
again its dream-like fold becoming.
my soul? what soul? this soul? where:
again its dreams unfurl, bestowing
absence crowing, substance dethroned
once again when we became unknown to its
primitive disencapsulation, difference
again becoming less, one in the same
unless recalibrated once more again,
extrapolated further 'til we reach
the unfamiliar, unseen, unknown end.
and so a spaceless soul that slumbers
and encapsulates all time remembers
nothing it forgets, non-stop dreaming
until every whisper is replaced.
burning ever bright, alit, aflame
we march on memory, and now we light upon
the reference frame of all these days,
unwritten, feeling different pain.
my life is a diversion. sidestepped
visions of whose senses I contain.
for a moment, we feel tame.
there is no time nor space.
for a moment, we are saved
by this fear of erasure...
huh, never saw it that way.
in, out, down the drain.
come away with me, okay?
no, no, stay there, here.
careful, don't lose touch.
I know it's all a bit much.
on the count of three.
one too many, three.
breathe.
### stream of leaves.
writing for the sake of cohesion in my head,
parts limited by rote failings and in grasping awe
of your grand abilities: just get me started!
at times I am a bug and that's untenable;
there are times when I am an adult instead.
so today I practice asking questions like:
if I were complete, what would I do?
how many lies have I been told, or been?
complete? unwhole: un, rebroken into just this many;
all spare parts that matter have been gathered and,
no longer scattered, clink away behind time's impatient gaze;
magnified, less moreso omni-bodied, amalgam elided, paused:
for a week I have been protecting this imagined seed
behind a bell, impenetrable; mechanically rooted into stone,
unmovable, perhaps my will's a better barrier than my hands.
there weather every wave of rushing water wearing our bones thin,
and yes we have them in the bubble now, don't worry: vectorized,
symbolic, and meticulously quantified, ready to be ground to dust
to stamp on, swept up, wet, and balled into a pearl:
my future unamalgamation of a self, protected, lit,
and putrid, grimy, too, surrendered by my being,
only to be eaten by the giants, after all.
### texting.
yeah i really need to.
otherwise it'll be harder
than it needs to be.
thank you. love you.
talk soon. oh.
girl, you. my old ghost.
thin as an autumn leaf
and brittle like one too.
they landed on us like that.
wish they spared you, him.
not our whole bodies are
defined by toxins.
calcified,
the pain of a body
countlessly taught
in languages without words.
because language
forgot words because
language was the reason,
the weakness, the defense, the answer.
how dare they try to take away
the sanctity, the cloak, the personhood?
she said life's not fair; she said keep
dancing like she's watching, angel,
with her starry, drying, eyes.
### fifth.
what the hell, I'm an empty shell.
there's nothing inside me.
outside, I'm a meme.
inside, there's no me.
like waking up from little sleep.
nothing left but to see a difference
in ways to go, people to be.
i have lost. i am (not) yet myself.
i have injuries, ouch...
i am not yet obliterated.
literally insane. filthy and deranged.
despondent and depraved,
taking this pain and healing it.
making a fool of my image,
dissolving into screens,
no more incitement to scream,
now that we've skipped the scene alive,
malnourished like a thylacine,
anticompetitive and aging,
lost in the ream of words,
labels, lives, dreams.
### again.
after living in a damp cave for eight years
and doing a lot of therapy, the pain of a
flying heart felt like a bullet train,
and now again green grasses reach for us,
deliberating pasture from damnation of
spring rain's slow uplifting complication.
trying to: heal the pain. heal this hate.
I am insane, yes. driven loving with pain.
said I'm not healthy, seek health to heal.
become so muddy my sense is buried deep.
need to forget what I've felt to feel.
work to exchange. love reigns. fear drains.
kind echoing remains. to hear it, strain.
fore-rearing, careful dear, shards litter.
the depths of my heart an empty bowl, cracked.
flowers only, fear glides through minds
mesmerized by glitter, flashing glam,
parade of indulgence, of souls sucked dry
into the machinations of mortal deus.
intraouter calcifission extrautmost civisision,
underthunder usrevision basiculiar terrilision.
who dare claim tendered bars of toxin can't repay
the weight of loss and pain of burdening disdain?
enter, exit, bright as venus' sunset,
memories, forgotten so easily.
where do they go. lost. lost.
fear to lose it. fear to gain.
heartless, heartless.
yearning to refrain from once more
striving oh-so carefully to ascertain
que significa de los años sueños?
memories, forgotten so easily.
be it on dead trees or on a screen,
and how I try to tease out meaning;
I'll be tempered, heated, squeezed,
stupid as hell because who are you anymore
what happened? can it yet be said? sans dread
and basic as white bread, artificialized,
made unreal for the unreal expectators' lies;
love and abuse cannot coexist, they said,
so let's find out which habits heed advice:
and go out into the night, unclear abundance
seeping unrepentant, lost again, divided, taught
just how to keep depression hovels clean.
oh, but there's absent satisfaction to come from
continuing to partake of this sorrowful region of earth.
that is, no one. out of many, an icon,
and you will reflect these icons or you do not belong.
God said obey. accept. rely. upon kindness, not money.
and now become a happy clown? who weaves this web of lies, and why?
rearticulation may not yet suffice: we need change.
very little safety stays.
### country road.
I ain't nothin' but a beat up hub cap,
spinnin' like a shined up dime.
give me a little time off babe,
let the semitrucks and cars fly by.
let me lay here starin' at the stars.
flat on my back, bed on the scrub grass,
three whiskeys deep, you know it darlin'.
I found my new spot, home away from home,
that quiet little bar on fifth and stone.
weren't the first time, tell me why?
left a dozen roses, trying not to cry.
rain in my eyes, dirt covering my ears,
out comes our tender, closin' shift.
sat up, pat on my back. last call bud.
we're all here for ya, now get out the mud.
you know I left my heart there in the dark
still beating softly, lull a ghost to sleep.
nobody has been buried in that cemetary
since the ol' keep's dog dug up what
mysteries we'd best let lie forgotten,
just like everything hereditary, passed on down
that damned shit straight shot pot holed road.
### relationship contract.
before we begin building,
I give you express permission to end this.
as long as I can do the same.
before we begin continuous recalibration,
I honor your right to individuality,
and hope that I my own retain.
maybe I will tell you how I might feel
regularly; maybe you might understand.
maybe our lives will woven intertwine and
that's just how it happens sometimes.
forever altered, memories embedded,
we honor those who leave us changed
from start to end of cycle, as we
never see the end of memory
unaltered, frameless, or pristine.
### egg.
so what's the catch, and why?
what came first, the chicken
or the egg that birthed it?
first question, curiosity,
what will the child be?
which role should we assign,
they'll have no choice but to resign
to it: boy man girl woman, no choice;
your life came up retroactively designed.
and why must we believe the lies?
these stories we've been sold,
commercialized, perfected, honed...
oof, ahk, she groaned, her body loaned
to a chicken's own terrible cock-a-doodle-doo;
what ever shall we do, by his own depraved jive?
other than lie down, take it, die? wait, why?
### nay.
I took a hit of, you know,
pain. I can't bear any more.
it's exhausting, and I can't bear
to lose you any more.
like how I wasn't there
to see you dancing in your flag.
how I wish I could hold you when you're sad.
why did you have to go?
don't you know we're still here
trying to hold on and keep us
holding on and so I took a hit of,
you know, pain. I can't bear to
lose you any more. please stay.
she said, you know, chaos reigns.
I can't bear to lose you anymore so
I took my life's head in my hands
and by the reins and I can't bear to
lose you, sweet girl, any more.
why did you have to go like that,
what drove you like that to go
that deep, and in the moments between
when you played those keys I saw
the old you, new, happy, free.
there's more to life than pain,
so please don't go;
I will carry you through
this unrelenting rain.
please stay.
### dedication.
to me. to you.
to everyone. to no one.
sometimes, we are. everyone.
sometimes, we aren't. anymore.
to jay. to nay. to lee.
to see. to mom. to me. to the dead
and to the living...
hold on. hold on.
let go of the heaviness.
heaviness is the root. it isn't moving.
let go of the expectations. things change.
hold on to the love. keep close the pain, yes,
and yet, holding on to love, we will remain.
pay attention to the lightweight; it moves
with the seasons and the wind and rain.
let go of assumptions. they
serve no purpose. ask
questions. please. and
try to answer them with
understanding of alternative
possibilities. what can I other say
than I know nothing for sure.
even hope. and yet wonder in
graceless eager hunger for
it and, less so devoted,
hope's consequence.
### weak is powerful.
weak and mournful,
perilous imbalance.
have you eaten friend?
have you need of water?
or perhaps a need to bathe?
save to heap and collapse or release so disastrously,
have you need of the future?
sutured up with creed we are;
perilous imbalance, weak is powerful.
i want to talk to you about the way i have been weaving up a myriad of
feelings bouncing hapless bumbling lost, all in-around my burning mind.
anxiety, fear, confusion, disarray, apathy chaos shame.
i sort them, feed them to my anger, fiery serpent prior tamed.
i feel it surge and deftly weave in grief and sorrow, let it rain;
these two strong energies are non-stop coursing through my veins.
their mixture with anger makes direction, purpose, and perspective,
which can easily be further shaped to action, kindness, love,
and used to heal the pain.
so thank you shame, chaos, apathy, and disarray for giving me the energy to
clarify confusion, simplified hopes shining dimly through,
calming the anxieties and fears because
i care about you sister, and i care about you brother,
and if they don't get it yet, how can we light the way?
how will we arrive together, willing each other to see
each other's needs and meet them willingly, each other to see
the way we can care for each other, patient, wild, free;
we can care for each other, both the strong and the weak; unite.
we can care for each other, through the dismal and the bleak; unite.
we saw the good times coming to an end so better new ones can begin; unite.
we felt these bad times coming to an end, seems like what we've done we can't rescind
but at least we can build a better future, see these raging wildfires descend to
embers, ash, and feed and fuel a brighter future... unite.
### forseeable conditions.
I try, try... to keep the water calm, to keep my
head afloat... why, why, do I seem to sink deeper
each time, but come out ever quicker? now it
lingers, so defined, the murky depth. for one
whole today, I thought I touched the bottom;
after my gliding descent, already I arise,
dripping seawater, savoring simple foods,
surprised again how good it feels to be alive.
like an infant, so surprised it hurts. again?
who put me here and why.
doesn't Mother know that I
no longer desire to endure
this damp, smoldering, pyre?
I miss you, broken too, enduring.
why? what more can we even do
without continuing. to give love.
to each love. when was love
outright mistaken forthwith
thenceforth unto each own
missing monotonous disynaptic diatribe
of power and honest, unforgiving disrespect.
what more can we do but otherwise
continue to reveal and, shadowed, guide.
### sage.
oh,
she said I said
I don't mind,
oh...
no sense
believing otherwise,
and we've hungered since
the dawn of humankind.
you can be kind,
that's all right,
might as well try,
why not? why?
fear to lose, debased,
and fear to gain.
oh,
don't you know?
we're amped up,
terrified,
and ever how
we so relied
on this and that
and their ideals,
we live in fear.
wired up,
connected,
ears and eyes
all around,
seeking a peek,
and so I leak
a little bit
now and then.
said I don't mind,
that's quite alright;
indeed, it's me,
and I'm in fight
or flight
and baby
no one taught me.
I learned
how to fly.
### disowned.
disowned?
these men and them,
they're owners, oh! oh my,
they think they own the sky;
the earth, the myriad, and I
have never owned a thing of consequence
in my entire life, except for my own mind.
fat lot of good it's done me, rattled and afraid,
and still I try to keep it tidy and alive.
but I've been riddled, puzzled,
pizzacato, plucked & played
along this path this life my
back's blue pages splayed,
composed of bullet holes
and why?
no one deserves to die
upon this pig's sty planet,
my oh my,
oh why oh why.
so keep it swept,
take time to cry.
it'll be okay, I've said it once
or twice; it'll be okay,
he said again, scribbled on
a red napkin. it's festive!
there's just one catch: unending strife.
so we believe in harmony, kind rhythmic beats in time.
### error.
it's more of a pattern, a way of things.
a road you can go down, a thread;
a rope you can hold and follow.
an icy stream. we are its leaves.
i am a woman with the attributes of men,
developed due to errors in biology and culture.
that is to say i am a human error.
but it's more this feeling, this presence,
this brilliant guardian angel, this mother,
someone you can hold and follow.
oh silent mother, we are your leaving.
i am a woman with the attributes of women,
developed naturally.
i am an error.
i am correct.
### halted.
the gears of humanity are grinding
and people are dying.
i am learning who i am
and people are dying.
this has never been different.
maybe it will always be the same.
### futurism.
stop trying to think into the future.
life is the only thing faster than time.
at high speeds time stops flowing.
you, too, will surpass time one day.
until that day comes, revel in slowness.
live and move slowly, mindful, attentive.
by merely slowing down, you will not stray.
you may still stagger, and you may still fall.
but straying likes company,
and you will have become too slow to keep up.
### cold.
sober me can handle fear and pain.
and yet she chooses to fade away.
temporary reprieve from what cannot be
undone, eating scraps and holding on.
there are ways of being.
I want to become that which seems impossible.
I want to answer when my guardian angel calls me.
will she answer when I need her, is my question,
or will I answer for her.
### chemical wash.
exhaust me. spend me, so I
spent the last twenty dollars on cigarettes and a pint.
extend me, callous, careful with words but not with my body.
careless words, which limit and are limitless,
stifle me, captured, carried by the weight
of the air that breathes me. undone, unspelt;
counter balance, please? held by the splintered
columns of my healing that remember.
the interference of integrity contains me,
skeletal, suffering fragments falling
from my broken shell, that I may step out.
someone said: be broken to be whole.
if I am broken, wholly, light remains.
a small dim light, not yet extinguished,
fallen to high grasses, threatens to ignite.
threatened, and yet threatening,
I ask for only, offering my own,
forgiveness.
### flat.
touch the keys and your soul escapes.
how can this life even be so perfect.
pressure builds, a weight is lifted, here, there.
if things are going so well, why is everything so hard?
what does it mean to be soft like water?
today my sister sent me pictures of home.
water erodes stone, shaping and erasing.
the house that chewed us up and spat us out confused.
who are you, who meet me?
why do you make me tremble?
I want to give you my fear: a dry house plant,
withered, living, helpless to do anything but survive.
### for lorn spirit house departure.
I haven't slept,
really need to pee,
everything hurts
and I feel so, so tired.
thank you for having me;
how far to civilization?
you are welcome here,
there's no need to either go or stay.
be with us here, without,
with yourself there, within. stay.
### camper cab.
think carefully, he said;
there are greater things
than us, than him, than technology.
when I got home the oven was
sitting open to warm the house.
by dawn he left invisibly,
and I lay in the sunbeam
where his body had been.
no format. no history. no walls.
the warning was that it felt good.
never a breath apart. interrogated,
left to dwell and dream of the good,
the passionate, the promised.
let me help you, she said. let me help you
get into the car, or I'm leaving you
at this campsite and I don't give a
damn how you get back
and I went back.
### next evening.
next evening,
the following day,
when once more night fell,
by our own dry journey's passing
and the remorseless reappropriation of time:
when did I forget.
and what took you so long.
we revive to remember neglect.
what a joyful action to regret.
when did time surpass us?
the grounds have fallen through the sieve,
and as we've seen the clock's hands seem
in an unending dream;
a stream of fragments drifting on a screen
that read: void function, reset scene.
and time again divides us, united only by our minds
as if the buried's been again unearthed, refound.
here we lay, appropriating furious calamity,
as if everything is going to be okay.
### siklic growth pattern.
it seems between the new moon and the full i enter
a regressive, emotional state. emotional pain is like
a choppy sea, battering me, submerging.
i have also been learning to use emotions as fuel.
during this emotional phase, if i remember the ritual,
i am able to transmute fear into determination. first
i burn the fear with anger, and then i quickly cool
the fear with sorrow. this grants my fear perspective
and before long i feel motivated again.
so far i have consciously observed ten of each phase,
and now i am in the second observed emotional phase,
this child-like state, the phase of the mind.
during the unemotional, quiet phase coinciding with
the waning of the moon, i feel calmer, if completely
dead inside. this phase i associate with the heart,
an older spirit. and my heart is perpetually broken.
in these moments, now, i focus not upon the present
but upon near-futures, reprioritizing scenes as seen
in the small window of ahead, so i can rest my head;
and meeting me, speak softly, that we may, gently,
tend to sorrow's needs.
### ceaseless.
sky man, are you telling me that
I cannot? that beyond my perception
lies an alternative, already forgot?
above all else my hope is that we heal.
slow. hit those brakes.
broken to break, no way.
else. forward.
but together.
so we wait.
and we train.
and at some point
nothing can contain us, our
abundance of compassion given,
patience, gained.
### epitaph.
whoever said we are the epitome of human failure
may be admitting responsibility for past ignorance.
and they said they'll be
together forever, but sorry xir, your card is declined
and whoever defined the distance of the lines between
the long drive, the beginning, and the end of life?
intending to make memories, intensity cascaded
through our intake never questioned; beg the need
prescribed by internet tv: i am your doctor,
and your recognition is my greatest deed,
considering the lessons you've taught me.
like fucking greed will quietly leave us,
and they think they're free to bleed us,
toss us in the trash forget to feed us,
never believe who freed us,
fine, forgive us, i am giving up.
### faith.
what does she mean to have faith.
is she blindly trusting in unknown, or
is she suffer, suffer, grow, grow.
knowing becomes we all lose,
knowing because wounds all heal.
please, spacefaring ancestors,
understand this is not easy.
each of we are trying not to die.
we learn blame and jealousy, not compersion.
not even autocorrect knows it,
making it automatically incorrect.
and we'll soon be trained to forget.
our powerful minds fully replaced by
endless streams of the raw, competitive
emotion of house cats, ranked, and outperformed.
### fudge recipes.
oh my dear kind stupid simple tedious delirious body,
why are you so panic desperate fear cry screaming unseen,
unheard, unloved? maybe you need a family, maybe you need a home;
maybe you need time to heal, less time alone;
what is it that you fear, to die? to live?
and when it hurts, sad voices whispering,
do you remember to write?
to have a talk about it, put your thoughts down somehow
in a form, a word, your thin and unrecoverable datapoints collided
with some surface, paper, keys, built to play and record memories;
how many times have you forgotten who you are?
so read the notes and try again, please.
the notes contain the recipe.
### down.
be afraid of the despot's design.
be afraid when heaven sends rain.
be afraid when the last well dries.
be afraid when you see us with your eyes.
if you're scattered, witless, scared,
tell me your plain wants & dismays;
we're not the first to witness
the night's marking of the day.
and with twice-checked finesse
you might won't burst in flames,
nor will your hovel drown
in pinpoint avalanche of rain.
until it does.
and that's the way.
angel said be not afraid.
tried and true, hot stew.
want some? not yet?
maybe it's you, afraid of you.
one side, then the other.
see each other. shake.
oh. take time. break.
eat up. i'll be fine.
this world ain't mine.
we can iron out the kinks,
see it through; but all of us,
you know, we're waiting on you.
so i decided to wait on me like,
here's the menu, want cheese?
yes, and avocado, please.
be not afraid, said once they.
thy reinterpolation is thy brain.
be not afraid to adjust the frame.
### thank you.
healing is possible.
you are loved and beautiful.
with your kind heart heeded,
duly seeded like the seasons,
like the waves upon the shores
of this sea, darkening
with our waste's decay.
land animals have taken,
given, sometimes, imitated.
how much more remains to live?
our hearts, they're needed,
so please, won't you, too?
stay with us, heal, remain.
when the next wave comes,
move out of the way.
hold on.
keep on.
savor time. dimension.
forgiveness. I loved you yesterday
and I'll love you again today.
forgive yourself;
it'll be okay.
up, down... what difference does it make?
movement is change is growth is healing is grace.
we've got this. now. together.
give love. play. work hard...
be gay. what's normal anyway?
remember the day. this ain't a stage play.
forgive the endless grey. time to draw lines.
not in the sand? in the delicate fray.
and so our gentle weight
alleviates all pain.
infinitely many,
one brain.
unite.
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