Seek not to be the best
because thy technique is kept secret.
Rather, seek to be the best
by applying it howsoever is seen fit.

Seek but thy own technique.
It shall be the best for thee.

Yes,
that means
being self-aware and creative.
Yes,
that means
teaching thyself
at each and every opportunity.
Yes,
temporary failure is inevitable,
but welcome such opportunities:
they are only what are made of them.

For:
with perseverance,
what abundance may be found
forewent by others.

One who finds One's self
transcends much inner struggle,
and is free to be.

Learn, copy, study,
do whatsoever it takes;
just, please, say ye will
walk away from everything
with anything,
rather than
as something.

Read between the lines.

Seek to do so all the time,
because I think that One shall find
elusory, seductive peace of mind
awaits us all so patiently there.

Fear not
to dream on:
be thyself,
wheresoever it may take thee.

All else be naught shy of Cowardice, I daresay!

help me i am
 
                  d
                  e
                  k
       h        o
            o

from the way
you laugh to
the movement
of your hands
when you tell
a story. i do
not want to be
with anyone
else.

Pretend that you are a snake

Pretend that the ground you slither on is live coals,
the lilacs are in bloom,
and there is an old woman after you with a shovel

Pretend the coals burn you, belly down,
and the old woman's rusted shovel finds the back of your neck
like a blade

Pretend the lilacs are the last thing you see
as your head is severed
Pretend the coals cremate you more or less instantly

You can be reborn a bird
if you burn all the heaviness
out of you and you can fly away

You can be reborn with legs and feet to skip across the coals
and you can dance quickly so you never even feel their heat

And when the lilacs bloom
in May on Helen and Constantine's feast day
you can wear them as a crown

As if you've never been burned and never felt the sting of change

In the fall there were two of them. Wild animals, I mean. New driver's licenses of shiny, longways plastic and long limbs that hadn't filled out yet. She was filling out her Freeburg High School T-shirt pretty well he thought. He was taking it off her innocent body in the parking lot. After the lights at the football field shut off and she kept drawing monstrous hearts on the fogged up windows in the back seat of a car it was almost as if she could let it all go. Hardly thinking about him at all as his hand slid under her waistband and she woke up as he was fumbling with a ****** wrapper. How awkward, she thought, to be a teenage boy with a ***** how tragic, not knowing how to handle a latex balloon when you have it. Like the Hindenburg, she thought we're both going to die some day so it might as well be an explosion and I might as well put on a show for it. She could feel his heart beat in his ***** the way that nobody talks about it and she laughed a little at their nakedness and it was tinny in the climate of their hot breath. I love you, she said.

As if it would change anything anyway.