Who Am I?

I am a boy and a man.
I am a son, a brother, a cousin, a nephew, and a grand child.
I was a boyfriend, a fiancé, a husband, and an in-law.
I am a bachelor.
I am surrounded and abandoned.
I am a family man and a loner.

I am a homemaker and a handyman.
I wear the apron and the tool belt.
I am a neat freak and a slob.
I am an amateur contractor and a contracted amateur.
I am a dumpster diver, a recycler, and a decadent waste.
I am a glutton, a scavenger, and a scrapper.

I am a friend and an enemy.
I am fun and an annoyance.
I am a lover and a hater.
I am creepy, cruel, and harsh.
I am tender, loving, and inviting.
I have a foul mouth and tender lips,
Drenched in jagged, soft-serve words.

I am a painter, sculptor, draftsman, sketcher, character designer, photographer, graphic designer, fashion designer, kitbasher, customizer, and crafter.
I am a reader, a writer, and a poet.
I am the Jail Baby, Ryan & Lisa, The Phoenix, The AntiFather, and The HEYMAN!
I compose symphonies of visual and intangible imagery.
I bring form to thought.
I destroy,
I create.
I am an artist.

I am a geek, nerd, freak, and otaku.
I have been punk, goth, prep, white trash, and metrosexual.
I wear glasses,
But only as a sick joke.
I am beautiful and ugly,
Clean and *****.
I am unique.
I am predictable.
I have changed, but am still the same.

I am a techie,
An electronic ******.
I am cutting edge and old school.
Digitally signed and sealed.
I am analog and obsolete.

I am an adrenaline addict.
I can chill, maybe slow,
But never relax.

I am blue collar, tradesman, and service industry.
I am peon and ****** on.
Oh, but I have done the ******* too!
I have been hired and fired,
Bought and sold.
I have worn the uniform,
I have said, “**** the man!”
I am the proletariat,
I am in charge.

I am a student, dropout, and teacher.
I am class clown and teacher’s pet.
I have learned, forgotten, and taught,
But never learned my lesson.
I don’t listen to what I’m told,
But always do what I tell.

I am a genius,
I am an idiot.
I have intelligence, but often lack the intel.
I am naïve, but wise.
I am right and wrong.

I have philosophies and ideas,
But no religion.
I have desecrated and blasphemed,
Prayed and praised.
I have lusted, envied, and coveted.
I am guilty and innocent,
Pure and soiled,
Good and bad.

I am a driver and a passenger.
I am an explorer and a shut-in.
I am wild and free,
Caged and stifled.
I was warmly wrapped in my blanket,
But burned through it.

I have rode, climbed, and conquered.
I  stood still.
I jumped in.
I have fallen and been defeated.

I have been abroad,
I have been nowhere.
I have drifted.
I have settled.
I have led and been led.
I have been in and out,
Here and there,
Around and AWOL,
On the run and trapped.
But, not everywhere.

I have applied,
I have procrastinated.
I have worked my fingers to the bone,
I have slept it off.

I have fought and fled.
I have quit.
I have endured.
I am a winner and a loser,
A champ and a chump.

I am fake,
I am real.
I have lied, cheated, and stole.
I have been honest, fair, and generous.

I am selfish and selfless.
I am a gift giver, gift wrapper, and gift taker.
I am a thief and a philanthropist.

I am insecure and confident,
Confused and absolutely sure.
I am proud and ashamed.
I am complicated and convoluted,
But simple to please.

I have blind faith and guarded suspicion
I have secrets,
But lie rarely.
I accept everyone,
I trust nothing.

I have pointed the finger,
Only to turn it on myself.
I have held grudges and forgiven.
I have trusted and misguided.
I have been Judas and Jesus.

I am a maniac,
I am sane.
I have been strong and weak.
I can keep it together,
But prefer to break it apart.

I have bled.
I have healed.
I have been abused and neglected,
Coddled and protected.

I have been kissed and punched;
Hunted, wanted, and arrested,
Ignored, overlooked, and invisible.

I have loved and lost,
Lived and learned.
I am a soldier of misfortune and opportunity.

I have blended in.
I have stood out.
I have stood up.
I have backed down.
I have been backed into a corner.
I have all the space in the world.

I have seen, interpreted, and perceived,
I have ignored, dismissed, and been blind.
I hunger, want, and need…
I am satiated and content,
But never at peace.

I have been misunderstood and underestimated.
I have been put down, put up, pushed away, and let in.
I have been known,
But never entirely.

I have raged, cried, smiled, trembled, and laughed.
I have been depressed.
I have been happy.
I have been suicidal. I have felt death.
I have been lost and found.
I have been broken, then fixed,
Stitched, yet glitched,
Scarred, but whole.
I am alive.


I took the chance,
I let the moment slip.
I walked the straight and narrow,
I ran down the road not taken.
I dream; some whole, some shattered.
I go with the flow, but don’t let the waves take me.

I am shards and reflections,
Machinations and reactions.
I am translucent pieces and parts,
Assembled and disheveled.
I am the big picture still focused on the details.

I am the sum total of heredity and experience.
I am not,
I am more.
I am everything and nothing.
I am a walking contradiction.
I am human.

I tried to be you,
But didn’t know what that meant.
I am me,
It’s all I know.

Who are you?

By Ryan P. Kinney and Dawn Richardson

Assembled from works by Ryan P. Kinney

This one’s for those who have let me down
Disappointed me, failed me
Failed to live to their potential
This one’s for EVERYONE

We will be naked and bare
Ugly and beautiful
Out from under the covers
Out of control
And into the light

There will be no more hiding
Not from the rhetoric
Not from the self-righteousness
Not from the lies we tell ourselves

This one’s for every woman who didn’t love me
And for every one that ever did
This one’s for every person who has ever doubted and underestimated me
For those who ever thought my life should be a mirror of their journey
‘Cause theirs worked out SO well for them

Not from the us that never was
Not from our definitions of family or love

This one’s for me
For not living up to my own potential

This one’s for those who patronize my intelligence
But yet are so easily fooled into acceptance
With a pair of plastic black frames
This one’s for IRONY

Not from the guilt
Not from the pain
Or from the shame
Not from the anger
Or the happiness

This one’s for who I AM


Created at the Winter Writing Workshop (Dec. 27, 2015),
HEYMAN! Productions

by Ryan P. Kinney

Assembled from works by J.M. Romig and Ryan P. Kinney

Once you log into The Network, you can't log off.
Once you're plugged in, you can't opt out.
That's the way things are.
Your life becomes your Channel.
Your world becomes your Show.
Have you seen the latest episode of Walking Dead or Breaking Bad?
Have you looked in the mirror?
Reality shows?
Who’s reality?

We live in the information age
Full disclosure is no longer optional
We are sharing information.
We are contributing to the death of the self.
Or are we finally mastering intelligence?
We know how to play the system
how to get followers,
when to drop a hashtag,
when to upsell a sponsor,
We are social creatures
And social control is how you keep the pigs in their pen
Until it’s time to offer us up as sacrifice at the altar of decadence
The Rich are locked up
in their floating wi-fi enabled panic rooms,
High above all of the pollution.
Living vicariously through the shows
broadcast by The Network.
Sell me another artificially derived addiction
Masquerading as sustenance
Tell me how much I need it
Need you
Preach it with the fear of the unorthodox on Fox News

Meanwhile on the ground,
people are caricatures of themselves -
the byproduct of generations
of narcissism as survival mechanism.
Nostalgia, and criticism
as a means to pay the bills.
Unless you choose to never log in.
Choose to ignore the cameras
following everyone everywhere
You can always get a real job -
If you can find one.
Most people don't.
It's the new economy.
In exchange for our data, and privacy,
we get ad-revenue and a chance at stardom.
We willingly give them our intelligence
Our spirit
For another video game
Another TV show
That promises a better reality
See it all in HD
While we dubstep to our doom
Up Jacob’s Ladder
Built out of the 15 minute prophets

We’ve traded a heartbeat for an electronic pulse.
Blips and bleeps in an imagined humanity.
Forgetting that living means leaving the house.
When the feed is quiet -
we take the occasional moment
to breathe – cough -
and look up to where all the stars used to be.

Created at the Winter Writing Workshop (Dec. 27, 2015),
HEYMAN! Productions

by Dawn Richardson and Tiffany Ann Boyd

Assembled from works by J.M. Romig, Sheena Zilla, and Ryan P. Kinney

My first memory is of dying.
I felt like I’d lived a full life
And now I was gladly fading away.
My first last words were
“Tell Elizabeth I love her”
I don’t remember knowing Elizabeth.
I love her though, or at least I did in that moment.

“These aren’t sad tears I’m crying, I’m just cutting onions my dear.”
It makes me want to rip off my flesh and run down the street as bare muscle and bone screaming ****** ******.
It will get better once I leave this purgatory waiting room of stress and self-loathing, but until then my outlook is a bit glum.

I am terrified
Before me is a discolored, screaming, clawing, misshapen alien creature
My son takes his first breathes of real air
We are all exhausted
His mother looks at me with a look that practically screams,
“We did it.”
I plead, “But we’re not done doing it yet…
Are we?”
His gurgles turn into cries
And I know…

For some reason, couldn’t tell you why, I thought about Frankenstein’s Monster.

Some parts are really fuzzy,
I hold it close to me- the fuzzy parts against my skin.
It’s a quilt blanket, stitched together of pieces and parts of found cloth.
My father made it for me.
My very last birthday gift.
I cocoon myself in it like a womb.

I hated him for what he’d done, but I hated myself more for missing him.
I have to fight everyday to be a better person in spite of what I was exposed to.

Created at the Winter Writing Workshop (Dec. 27, 2015),
HEYMAN! Productions

by Ryan P. Kinney and Dawn Richardson

Created from prompts by J.M. Romig, Dawn Richardson, and Ryan P. Kinney

She loves him like a fire,
Enveloping, holding, and caressing the wood,
While slowly consuming every part of him

Shaking off clothes like the leaves in autumn
Their bodies exposed,
Changing from a wan pallor
To a flushed crimson hue

Their bodies burn,
Breathe drifts like smoke into the skyline
The mountains **** their horizons

The dragon flies and dragonflies in the dusking night
The snow blanketed world deadens the sound of his beating heart
Her tide slowly recedes into him
The delicate wax of his heart melts under her fury
She swallows his cries

Babies sleep soundly


Created at the Winter Writing Workshop (Dec. 27, 2015),
HEYMAN! Productions

By Brittainy Kasunic
Assembled from works by Sheena Zilla and J.M. Romig

I left you
scrambled on the wall
naked for all to see

Even in this rare moment of content
He feels a wave of manic energy
On the horizon
Rushing toward him like a bullet train
And his muscles tense
In anticipation

“Good girl”
Shadow dropped the bone at my feet.
I picked it up and tossed it back into the endless grass
As it spun like boomerang in the air –

These relics, tokens of breath taken,
Remind me to keep in mind the person I will become.


Created at the Winter Writing Workshop (Dec. 27, 2015),
HEYMAN! Productions

by Ryan P. Kinney and J.M. Romig

The coy house thinks, “Should I let this man enter me?”
Although she pretends to resist at first
She soon relents,
The pressure giving way and her door granting passage

He pledges to give her hardwood floors
To put a swingset in her backyard
The finest dressings on her windows
Painting her face,
Decking her out
To show the world how much he loves her
Softly wooing, he promises her a family

She hopes this one will make good
As he begins his work,
She watches the swell in his young wife’s womb
And for a while, believes in life again

For the first time in years,
She breathes fresh air as they move in their boxes
The melding of their past and her future
An image so bright,
That she is almost blinded by the light
When one night,
The soon-to-be mother misses her first step

At the bottom of the stairs,
He finds his world in pieces
As the paramedics pack the body and cart it away
The door closes behind them
And the air grows stagnant

The only boxes he ever unpacks,
Contain spirits
To numb him from the haunting emptiness inside
The past becomes nothing, but a foot stool
Slowly crushed and deformed under his weight
Her rooms,
Built to house new memories, home cooked meals, and laughter
Now nothing, but
Stale beer, chips, and wasted life


Created from prompts at the Winter Writing Workshop (Dec. 27, 2015),
HEYMAN! Productions

By Aaron Kasunic

Assembled from works by Ryan P. Kinney, J.M. Romig, and Sheena Zilla

I am in her arms
Having been told, “No”
And resigned to rejection so many times
So many times I told myself that this would never happen
As my lips touch hers
I laugh inside my head
“Is this really happening?”
This is really happening.

I called you art,
poetry,
even…honesty.

I hold my breathe
I can see him through the window
As I have seen him through the electronic window of my TV for years
As I get closer this feel less and less real
This is my hero
My God

She broke my heart.
I was a business tycoon,
A man of great wealth
I could have anyone I wanted,
but not her.
She didn’t know what she wanted. She needed guidance.
So I found her, and we both got what we really wanted.
I always get what I want…
…I don’t like this memory.

I won’t say the word regret,
because I don’t
I won’t say the word sorry
because I’m not.

I will say that with age comes perspective
and with perspective
comes introspection and –

The well of my youth is no longer a place I can drink from.

The destruction of the self is intolerable,
Everyone tells me
To destroy myself is acceptable,
Little round pills


Created at the Winter Writing Workshop (Dec. 27, 2015),
HEYMAN! Productions

by Dawn Richardson and Tiffany Ann Boyd

Assembled from works by J.M. Romig, Sheena Zilla, and Ryan P. Kinney

My first memory is of dying.
I felt like I’d lived a full life
And now I was gladly fading away.
My first last words were
“Tell Elizabeth I love her”
I don’t remember knowing Elizabeth.
I love her though, or at least I did in that moment.

“These aren’t sad tears I’m crying, I’m just cutting onions my dear.”
It makes me want to rip off my flesh and run down the street as bare muscle and bone screaming ****** ******.
It will get better once I leave this purgatory waiting room of stress and self-loathing, but until then my outlook is a bit glum.

I am terrified
Before me is a discolored, screaming, clawing, misshapen alien creature
My son takes his first breathes of real air
We are all exhausted
His mother looks at me with a look that practically screams,
“We did it.”
I plead, “But we’re not done doing it yet…
Are we?”
His gurgles turn into cries
And I know…

For some reason, couldn’t tell you why, I thought about Frankenstein’s Monster.

Some parts are really fuzzy,
I hold it close to me- the fuzzy parts against my skin.
It’s a quilt blanket, stitched together of pieces and parts of found cloth.
My father made it for me.
My very last birthday gift.
I cocoon myself in it like a womb.

I hated him for what he’d done, but I hated myself more for missing him.
I have to fight everyday to be a better person in spite of what I was exposed to.

Created at the Winter Writing Workshop (Dec. 27, 2015),
HEYMAN! Productions

by Ryan P. Kinney and J.M. Romig

The coy house thinks, “Should I let this man enter me?”
Although she pretends to resist at first
She soon relents,
The pressure giving way and her door granting passage

He pledges to give her hardwood floors
To put a swingset in her backyard
The finest dressings on her windows
Painting her face,
Decking her out
To show the world how much he loves her
Softly wooing, he promises her a family

She hopes this one will make good
As he begins his work,
She watches the swell in his young wife’s womb
And for a while, believes in life again

For the first time in years,
She breathes fresh air as they move in their boxes
The melding of their past and her future
An image so bright,
That she is almost blinded by the light
When one night,
The soon-to-be mother misses her first step

At the bottom of the stairs,
He finds his world in pieces
As the paramedics pack the body and cart it away
The door closes behind them
And the air grows stagnant

The only boxes he ever unpacks,
Contain spirits
To numb him from the haunting emptiness inside
The past becomes nothing, but a foot stool
Slowly crushed and deformed under his weight
Her rooms,
Built to house new memories, home cooked meals, and laughter
Now nothing, but
Stale beer, chips, and wasted life


Created from prompts at the Winter Writing Workshop (Dec. 27, 2015),
HEYMAN! Productions