2 fingers of spiced ***
3 ice cubes
Top with Leftover pop

Give a hail and hearty “*******” to every mistake you’ve ever made
And don’t forget to tip a nod and a toast to your cats

I need to apologize to my son
Not just him
But everyone of his generation
I am sorry kid
We ****** up
We delivered you into the wrong hands

We did not prepare you for what was coming
You are going to have to suffer the consequences of our failures
and for that I am so sorry
We left you to hate
and incompetence
and people who don't care for anyone other than themselves
and what they consider their kind
They don’t know that they're kind is part of all the other kinds that came before

I am sorry that I did not live by the one single edict I told myself when I had a child
Just do a little better than your parents

I don't have to have spectacularly better plan than they did
They made choices
They made mistakes
Now that I'm a parent I can see why

But I can also see a way out
A better way
Just do a little better than them
Could you imagine how great our generation could be now?
If each parent just did a little bit better

Did your father skip out on you?
Don't
Did your mother abandon you?
Don't
Did your parents beat you?
Don't
Were they not there for you?
Did they neglect you?
Did they not feed you?
Not take care of you? Love You?
Let you know that you were the most important person?
Don't

I'm sorry what's coming *****
Our parents actively worked to make it this way
We knew it was coming
All we ever had to do was make this world better
and we failed

We did not fight hard enough
As parents our job is to protect you
Take care of you
Make it better

We did not
We have made it worse

I just hope you can do what we could not
Just do a little better

And then the quiet sneaks in again

I was not made for the quiet

I was not meant to sink slowly into the darkness of some corn field

I am to be seen and heard

Somebody notice me

At 3, I broke my leg
And again at 5.
This would cause my leg to be an inch shorter than the other the rest of my life.
7: My brother pushed me into a wall and cracked my skull
Somewhere near that same time, I shattered a pane a glass in my hands, requiring stitches
At 15, I thought it was smart to push a bag of broken beer bottles into a dumpster with my hand.

I set a car on fire hitting a deer at 70 mph, his antler coming inches from my lung
I fell asleep behind the wheel of my truck and totaled a mini van
I drove someone else’s truck off the road getting a new engine for the other
But it was better than the ice, the oncoming car, the gas main, or the fence post
I snapped the front axle of my rainbow Buick twice before I finally killed it
Each time, I walked away with just scratches

In 2006 I cracked 2 of my vertebrae taking a snow boarders jump with a sled
I sliced myself on metal tracks at one job
Even plastic containers have left their mark on me

I tore my ACL, trying to be stronger
(And because of that former leg injury)
And added a hernia appetizer

I earned carpal tunnel, trying to be brilliant
And just make more sense of all the broken

What hurt most were the 2 who wrecked my heart
Deeper and more scarred than any other pain

I am covered in little visible and invisible scars
The older I get, the more I collect,
The more stories I create

I did not slow with age
Just kept ramping up,
Making more as I give less ****
I am always littered with scratches, cuts, and bruises
Because I never stop long enough to worry about what damage I am causing

I’ve don’t bother with stitches anymore
I am held together with pure will and imagination
That old adage, “What happens when an unstoppable force meets and immovable object…”
I refuse to yield
Surrender is not the answer to that riddle

It’s to go around
I bypass
I imagine it doesn’t hurt
I find every other way

I’d rather keep going. I’d rather keep racking up battle damage
I go through my life with a sledgehammer
Knowing full well how many times it comes down on me

I am so very broken
I am always just barely holding it together
When all I want to do is fall apart
I keep putting the pieces back together
I am a maker
Filling in the holes with stories

Today, I walk with a lean, sometimes a limp
And ignore how often it hurts
My body is deformed and full of tally marks for every decision I have ever made

One day, my body will fail me for the last time
It will yield long before I do
All those cracks will finally show
And out of me will leak
All those stories
For everyone who helped me make them

Saudade (Portuguese)
Literally means longing
The missing of something that's always been absent.
A melancholic longing for an unknown (mistake) (nostalgia) that may have never existed

The Missing Moment
by Ryan P. Kinney

The Dress:
“I know she was wearing a dress, the dress. The one she never got to wear. Working 60-hour weeks on top of nursing school. I was trying to help her keep up her nightmarish zeal to be anything better than herself. I got a second job. I worked with her. I wasn’t enough. That night, she just wanted the dress and to drink and forget. But I was too tired helping her bend into the new shape she was desperately trying to be. I left. Fearing I’d be too tired to make it home, to get up in the morning for my other job. To be strong enough for her.
And I knew when I walked out, the mistake I had just made.
It was the night she broke. The night she broke me.”

The Answer:
“There is another missing one. The night I made the mistake of asking another her if she even wanted to be with me. Again, I knew my mistake the moment it left my mouth. Voicing the question already predetermined the answer. I spoke reality to truth. And once again, the void of timelessness swallowed me.”

My Sins:
“I miss them both.”

The road to approval is paved with rejections.

Original sin wasn’t the apple. It was the woman. It was *** and the fear of the power of creation.

Just because I’m lonely doesn’t mean everyone else has to suffer. I’m not out to punish the rest of the world for my mistakes.

If you keep bending her into what you want her to be, eventually you’ll break her

What if;
Those little specks you see flying in the air
When light passes though dust
Are all alive

What if;
They are all angels,
Gods,
Souls of lost ones

Echoes of our own thoughts, memories, ideas
Feelings;
Here, there
Forgotten, Cherished;
Never fully formed

Just made of all the bits and pieces
Of all the Worlds’ minds
Waiting for us to put them together
And make them real


Inspired by
the second iteration of FRONT International, a multivenue exhibition that embraces art as an agent of transformation, a mode of healing and a therapeutic process. The title is an homage to the 1957 poem “Two Somewhat Different Epigrams” by Langston Hughes.

Excerpt from Two Somewhat Different Epigrams (1957):
Oh, God of dust and rainbows, help us see
That without dust the rainbow would not be.

This friend of mine,
Like me,
Grew up on Lake Erie
Albeit a different part
He wrote of the significance of the beach break wall
That he’d walk along as a child, teen, budding adult man-child
And how it was there when his life changed
As the turbulent, always shifting water would crash
He’d reflect how it was nice
To have someplace to catch all that strife
Where he could just sit and ruminate

Where I grew up
There were no break walls
Instead, we had long concrete piers
Although some of the waves would break upon them
Mostly they just showered the violent acquiescence all over you
You either stood there and took it
Or learned how to protect yourself

As an adult,
My friend went back to his break wall
After so many years of navigating his life
He found his comforting thinking spot
Was still there
Still blocking the shore from being dragged into the lake
He remarked how his journey had come so far
From that awkward, mumbling kid who sat upon it
And how much of himself was still there
Still him, but not the same

Our lake was always there
But never the same lake twice

I went back to my concrete piers too
But they were no longer there
The years of being battered had shattered them
Until the township had to give up
And broke them into pieces

It’s kinda funny
Or is it ironic?
What they built out of them
A break wall

Not as neat as my friend’s
Ragged chunks loosely stacked together
Built out of the broken pieces of everything I once stood upon
Fought against

As I stood, marveling at the sins of the past
My son took my hand
And asked what I was staring at
“Well, kid, this was once something much prettier,
Much different
But I think it’s better this way
It was worth it.”

So, I would ask my friend
What would happen if he went back to his break wall
And it was gone
Life and time change even the most stoic of institutions
The next generation will always see the same differently than we did
Will what comes next be worth the price?

Maybe there never was a break wall
It was just him
Standing there
Waiting for the future to take his hand

May the power protect you
Because I pity the foo’
Who doesn’t freak out
When they hear, “Transform and roll out.”
It’s your move creep
Just another body on the heap
The power is yours
To understand that this nerd is *******
What I call Beast Mode
Is a transformation access code
I’ll generate way more than 1.21 gigawatts
Till I make your mind rot
Now, don’t you slack
Cause you know, I’ll be back

Here comes this serial killer looking creep
Thinking he's here for just a little peep
He just a little whacked out manic
Energy spurts come in an inconsistent panic
But I promise I'm an all right dude
Even though I act a little rude, but crude
I'm the leader who takes apart machines
Been my own man since I was fourteen
He's the maniac creator
Makes all the world his theater
In his head lives every world
Swirling around in a surrealist twirl
He's a trash picking racoon
Looking like a tin foil hat loon
Now here I go making another promise
I'm a monstrosity Frankenstein colossus
I build dreams out of your waste
Assembling beauty with a fever pitch haste
Don't ever doubt what I say
Even if it sounds preposterous and risque
I make some of the weirdest things
Meant to illicit grins from my deepest sins

Every time I close my eyes I watch a 1000 tragedies pass before them
This is the curse of those with the unimaginable imagination
Every worry
Every doubt
Every fear for everyone I have ever loved
Becomes a full-length movie
I am forced to watch
Every time I try to rest or close my eyes or even think
Every time I am arguing and screaming and yelling against these imagined worlds
I have to repeat the mantra:

It's not real
This is not real

I have to force myself  into cognitive lucid day dreaming
Some new framework from someone else's fantasy
That's happy
Where people love me and care
Then I wake up
I sit alone at home every night hoping I don't wake up from this dream
That these worlds can be real
But I know
One day the ones I fear most
Will be real

Hold On!
Take a breathe

It's not real
It's not real
It's just a story
Aren't we all stories?

Are you ok?
No, I'm not
But its none on your concern
Leave me alone
I'm always alone
No matter who's here

I have been so scarred by those who claim to love me
That I do not believe anything they say
Only when I see them actually act.
But, if I have to tell them that
Then I am forcing them into showing they care
Then, do they really?
Or do they feel obligated?
I don't care for those I do,
because I have to,
because I'm required to
I do not expect something in return
But I want it SO badly

And the problem is
that if I tell them this
It becomes about me
And this is not about me
I'm a parent
My life stopped being mine when he was born
But what about ME?

You should just let sleeping bears lie
Because this one can't sleep alone at night anymore
With his head so crowded with worlds full of travesty

I am so ******* angry all the time
At myself for letting myself feel this way
For needing someone else

I can't
I just can't anymore.

But I still do
I'm tethered to a web of fake memories and sins I know are not real

It's not real
It's not real

It's a ghost story that haunts
but with no substance
no form
no unfinished business
no one ever conducts ANY actual business

I am alone in the light of day
At night the endless voices scream out in silence

It is better for me to ignore you
than to unleash what I keep trapped inside
I care too much
For you to have to face that monster
Staying away is protecting you
If I ever let out what's in there
It will destroy you

It's the mask I wear so I don't crack into a million pieces
And take all of my worlds with me

STOP
You can stop right there
Forward stop having meaning years ago
When you lied to me and said, "I love you"
You actually want to show you care
You're going to have to try harder
And if the effort isn't there
Then your actions will speak for you
What you say
No longer does

I scream, WHY!" in chorus with my radio
WHY?
I don't know if it makes me feel better or worse
Why do I feel this way?

It's not real
It's not real

What world am I in?
Is this one real?
Where do I exist?
Do I exist?

When my Dad goes there will be no great inheritance
No money, no cars, no great property
Just some old t-shirts and shoes
That both me and my brother will fit
He gave us everything he had while he was alive
Until that was the last thing he had to give
My kid already has his inheritance
As my father did,
When I am gone, what I have given him will only be worth what we have given it.

My babysitter used to the sell the leftover bad parts of her **** to her classmates at Lake Catholic
Paying for her stash by separating the junk
And selling it to spoiled rich girls who didn't know better
She was only part of this upper crust because of her Dad's insurance settlement
When a security guard high on drugs beat him

It is this irony that runs through my head, when she exclaimed, "I thought you were gay," when she found out I was married.
When I still was.

Where I grew up
Everyone spent their Saturday's in bars
And Sundays in church
I spent weekend working the latter
And thoroughly avoiding the former
I weaved through them
Never feeling part of anyone
Merely taking what I needed from them
Yearning to earn enough
To get away
Get better
Get on
There are days I miss
the invisibility of being part of something
You were never part of
I never found my place
I built my own
And no one ever wanted to come in
I work my bar alone
And worship only myself

Assembled anonymously at Ingenuity Neighbor Nights July 15, 2021, Cleveland, OH

I will force you to know me,
And force you harder to know yourself

Gathering together
Dancing
Laughing
Loving
Is what it means to be truly human

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

Hung over a toilet, the next day
Steve vows to change his ways

My feet ache.
My back aches.
My heart aches.
from this over time

The snow is over for the season, perhaps

Anger/stupidity
Cold numb void
Unthinking, emotionless machine
Rage builds up. . .EXPLODE
Want to break, destroy, ****

The look of horror on her face snaps me back to reality
Her shriek of terror, screaming
I’m worthless
How could I do this to her?

Who am I?
Nothing, a monster
Bash my fist into a mirror
The twisted mangle web of glass mirrors my mind

Nothing, there’s no feeling left
The tears stream
The blood gushes from my ****

What did I do to her?
Can’t speak to her?
I deserve nothing
I die
No personality
Just cruelty

The mirror still hangs, shattered
A cold gruesome memory
I don’t deserve her
Skin still embedded in glass
I seen my twisted reflection
The monster I’ve become

Just die. . .

Soul Blind Pt. 2
by Ryan P. Kinney

"Dad, Why do you look like you're crying?"

"Oh, you know. Sad things."

"Don't be sad, be happy."

"Both of those are always about you."

"Why?"

"Because when you are not here, I'm sad."
"When you are, I'm happy."

The (Only) Story
(A Friend Pt. 2)
by Ryan P. Kinney

"So, this is it then?"
"THE END..."

"No, only yours"
"Well, only this part of your story."

"So, What happens now?"
"Where do I go?"

"That's up to you."
"Where do you think you'll go?"

"I guess I hadn't really thought of it."

"It's time to start now."
"We've got places to go."
"Whatever you think, is right somewhere, someplace."
"You write your own story."

"I was too busy living to think about it ending."

"That's the point of it, isn't it."

"So, who are you?

"Oh, you know..."

I DO.
I know her
I guess we all do.
We've known her all along
from
THE BEGINNING...

Startled, I jump.
I have awoken in a bed. Not mine. I think.
But one that might have been an amalgam of all of them. It smells vaguely of lost loves.

“Hello, Ryan,” I hear from the darkness, once again making me jump. Standing in the doorway is a slight young woman. I could have sworn she wasn’t there a minute ago.

I step towards her. Rather than getting closer she slowly illuminates more, like a dimmer switch and a camera coming into focus simultaneously.
Stark realization overwhelms me. I rush over and close the distance in a blink, wrapping my arms around her, tears trailing behind me. They remain suspended in the air as globules of liquid remembrance.

“Heather?” “I thought you were gone. That we lost you?”

“I am. And so are you.”
“At least for now.”

She pries me from her and pushes back into the darkness.
“Am I dead?”

“Not yet,” she says.

“Are you… You?”

“Sort of.”
“I am the me you remember.”
“Being dead is like this odd disconnected collection of everyone else’s recollection of you. I am what you think I was.”
“The rest of me is in someone else.”
“It’s kinda like God. He/She/It/They are whatever people think they are. Whatever they worship as the divine is. They think therefore are.”

“Is this heaven?”

“No. It’s just me.”

“Are you God?”

“We are all are, kinda.”

“Look, I need to tell you something. Something you’ve lived with your whole life. Without living your whole life.”
“WAKE UP”

They start slow and methodical
You wonder how a man of such overcharged energy can be this still
until you realize he's analyzing you
figuring out how far he can push it
to take you completely apart
then he unleashes that energy
you realize where it's been hiding
you wonder, “can this man completely consume me”
as his well-crafted hands begin to explore your body
figure out your every piece
you realize, “yes he can”
God I want him to

I just want your sugar high
Saccarine sticky love notes
Tender, with your honey milky scent
Just love me, like the sucker I am
And let me swallow you whole

Do not show your dog
On your dating profile pic
Not dating your dog

Sometimes, I think
I love coffee more than *****
It’s still there in the morning

Your love lights me up
Like a neon sign
But it seems, I’m just the moth

(by Douglas Aucoin and Ryan P. Kinney)
If I promise you the moon and the stars
Would you believe it?
I gave a woman this once.
She left me for her own universe.

What if I’m ****** up beyond repair
When the sky falls
And the world crumbles
And I wonder why I still get to wake up

You will just have to learn how to live broken
Make the flaws part of the story
And seal in the cracks with precious golden moments

Let me tell you the thing that keeps me up at night
I’m manic
So I have a constant stream of vivid thoughts running infinite channels through my head at all times
What I fear most
What I am forced to watch in my head daily
Is losing those I love
Of again being that scared, alone, desperate little boy
Of being exiled once again to that slow drip drip sound echoing off the empty room of my vast universal mental prison

Every single day
Automatically
I run scenarios of my son’s death through my head
Every parent worries about their child
Most are paranoid of such
I have it played before my eyes in realistic detail
I am forced to continually watch the most tragic moments of my life on a big screen in my head
None of which have ever happened

Everyday, a different death
Just once I wish it would be me
Why can’t I protect him?
From myself?
And once again I reaffirm
That his end, will be mine

I am so terrified that one day I am going to wake up and he won’t be there anymore.
That the only good thing about my life, will be gone.
And it will be my fault.

My son is my redemption.
Without him, I’m afraid I’d have to admit I’m just a terrible person.

I have to close my eyes
And repeat this mantra
“It’s not real.”
“It never happened.”
Am I real?
What is the dream?
What is reality?

What I fear the most?
That one day I won’t wake up

My Dad used to say to me, “One day, kid, you’ll understand.”
He was wrong.
I never did.

God, I wish she was real.

Nightwish
by Ryan P. Kinney

I wish my covers would cover me
And hide all the pain
And blame and guilt and shame and blood
And tears and filth

I wish I could still pretend to be a good person,
A worthy one
This unfathomable loneliness
Peering into the void
And finding nothing within myself

I wish this bed was not empty
Like me
I wish the darkness would just finish with me
And take its crimson penance

I wish I got what I deserve
All dogs go to heaven
But this hounds hellbound
I am meant to suffer and break

I wish this song had rhythm and beat
So someone could dance on my grave

I wish I didn’t hate everyone
Almost as much as myself
I wish someone would touch me without recoiling
Without fear and dread

I wish someone some would say,
I love you
And were not lying
I wish I believed them
In anything
In myself

I wish there was a reason for all of this
But, I wish, more than anything
That I had the courage to make this poem better

by Ryan P. Kinney, Aaron Shinkle, and Ohayocon Jigsaw Workshop attendee

The fall of man

It was the end of monsters
The end of mothers
The end of haters
Of lovers
Of pain and suffering
Of bliss and ecstasy

Nothing to hide under the bed
No terror floating in your head
Just the buzzing and swarming of the insects

There was just the animalistic need to survive
And Gaia had decided
It was best for her survival
If we did not

How did we let this happen?
A new era begins
For the worse
I will not be silent

The seventh gateway opens
All the trumpets sound
Clamoring in the hallway.
Truth is subjective.

Truth be told
We did it to ourselves

One never sees the monster
Hiding in the open
No one ever suspects that we are hiding something
When they are staring it in the face

Everything from nothing.
And to nothing we return.
To the whole of the way,
We hastened our downfall through an illusion of control.
Only through letting this run its course
And stepping to the center could the master hope for survival.

Elements
by StuGLyfe, Evan Spooner, Callan, Lauren, Michelle Galimarini, Fiaura the Tank Girl, Amy C. Smith, and Anonymous attendees

The sun
Sets and rises
For them
And nothing more

Bang. In both my ears.
Drip-Drop, Sweat in both my eyes.
Burns, against my face.

It builds inside, deep in my gut
Rapturous, *******, delightful.
Roasting me alive, torturous.
Everything burns away

People are like Molecules.
Pinging against each other.
With Every Action we take,
Ripples form around us
A smile here,
Encouragement there,
And the world becomes ever brighter

It wasn’t the wave of water that got him
It was the twenty small baby crocodiles
Carried in the wave.

With the wind blowing harshly,
I will sleep like a glutton sloth
Nothing can get past me, but the breeze
Even time will halt at the flick of my wrist.
Nothing, but cool air, I know this
Will penetrate through my concrete spirit.

I run you through my hands
You were once solid
Then you were mine
Broken down to bits and pieces
And reassembled
Into something new

Hello mother
breathing under
me
I see
you all around
comfortable, beautiful, magical, round
The cycle of life
it must be nice
for you
but for me
I must go now

The light of the moon is so bright
It blinds me.
Sometimes the day rushes past me
And before I realize it, it’s night

We recharge everything
Our cars, our phones, our gaming consoles
When the battery is low
But we won’t recharge ourselves
When our energy is drained
And nothing is left in our hearts and souls

by Evan Spooner

There was nothing
you could do
there was no way you could
stop it

Memories come flooding back
Nothing, but ***** water
Something to filter out
Recover from
Start anew

That doesn’t stop my feet
Sloshing through the muck
The sickening suction sounds
As I try to pull away
Moving, but staying in one spot

Surveying the damage
What all is there to save?
Funny how one flood
Sick inches of remember when
Can destroy so much

I’m still plodding on
One foot in front of the other
One step at a time
Each moment takes an eternity to feel

Additional content assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy

Can You See?

Whose soul your steady breath does reward
For but only existing on this heavenly plane
I wish you would open up to me!
See all I can as well?
but you don’t see it this way.
as most probably not.

If so Maybe I can convince you,
Maybe I can show you,
how true I could possibly be.

Unfortunately, you will not hear me out,
it seems I’ll have to forever shout.
but please,
believe in me

Additional content assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy

by C

When you’re buried
You see the face
a mask
i spit blood
when things were trying to hurt us.
All I know how to do is Here
It is my job to be God
Live like you might as well be dead

assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy

by C

Down to the soft earth
for no greater inner rapture
as the sight of you sleeping

Together, we can face anything
Life throws our way

then that joy is not one known by me
forcefully ripping out my raw emotions,

i spit blood

assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy

The Traveler
by C

I like to play on the relationship between color and perception.
I find that it brings
a subtle emotion out from within.
Like a woman looking to hitch a ride.
“Might I please step inside?”
The woman asks as she stands in the night
“You may have a place here, if you so inquire, but you may find it a clearer journey if you cross some other way. I have nothing, but hate inside this place here.”
“Do not worry about my being,” she says solemnly as she slowly walks through my door.
What is she after?
No one could possibly find it here.
She’ll probably come across it.
Long after she leaves this place.

Additional content assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy

by Evan Spooner

I am talking with my friend
Saying over & over
to join me

but my mind told me
at the end. there was only space

for thoughts.

assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy


 
by Evan Spooner

approach
ask
without a word
 
by Evan Spooner

These people call this Faith,
bring them to my table
the next bit of gospel
I wrote on a napkin.

assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy
 
by Evan Spooner

I’m dying the other five
Quite possibly
It may hide all
it’s a mask My head
modified,

assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy

 
by Evan Spooner

Sometimes
I never really expect anything
In return


Nothing
Left

I can’t handle all these choices.
like wishes of dandelions
“Please pay attention to me.”
“These can’t be saved.”
Here and there,
Nowhere.

If there’s a reason
It’s lost on me
Let this run its course

When I found the one dark road
a knowing glance

You’ve reached the deepest part
The splendor of the stats.

Moonlight floods my window,
I shouldn’t be so tired

assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy and in The Lakelander, Lakeland Community College, Kirtland OH

I will love the idea of what I will be
“I used to believe that I could find the light in anyone;
In me I lost the ability to see the light.”

I love and hate me

BUT

There is a time to let go.
Humans are also stardust.
Wrangling all the stars into our own constellations

assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy and in The Lakelander, Lakeland Community College, Kirtland OH

by Arthur  B.L. FOP

Looks as though the heavens have finally released the weight of the stars to the ground
As I marvel at this, a twinge of fear arises. In this modern age I warn humanity to not let the computer think for you.
being murdered by a knife is more painful than any other weapon
tools to assist in our quest for knowledge, but in a culture of instant gratification they can be easily abused
Essentially if people do not sufficiently exercise their own mental capacities mangling nuance out-of-order

assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy and from the second Jigsaw Workshop

Chapter 3
Positive Reinforcement
by Johnny Utah

bio of human development with a theory vocabulary
Timeless COGNITIVE LEARNING of God and without pretense,

Long live Capitalist
A rusty blade to the King
& don’t save the Queen
need more pennies

Observation #2

I was wrong. I’ve become a monster.
They live in the battlefield.
Hiding behind real American faces,

I spend most of my week
In the back of a factory
Where I sell my free time
Now all I can feel is scorn and hate.
We are a world of truth benders
Rule breakers

Remember this the next time you try to make an angel into something it isn’t. They, and you, are the imperfect remnants of an arbitrary undertaking.

assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy and in The Lakelander, Lakeland Community College, Kirtland OH

How did we let this happen?
A new era begins
For the worse
I will not be silent

The seventh gateway opens
All the trumpets sound
Clamoring in the hallway.
Truth is subjective.

Truth be told
We did it to ourselves

Additional content assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy

by Michelle Galmarini

I fear cold
but the wicked journey on foot is nice
strive
drive
Hiking a detour in life
The world and its polar opposite wrapped up in dumb splendor

by Michelle Galmarini

You will be seen

Even your side that’s mean
the one that screams
the one that’s hiding behind the scene

the one that’s quiet
the one that’s cringey
the dumb-witted one
that’s sloth-like and bingey

but you have a team
the rest of the world
that’s been

Be proud, Be seen…

Additional content assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy

Conflict

Grow up
It is something people tell you to do all your life
Grow up and act your age
Even when you are supposed to still be a child
Grow up

But I don’t know how
When everything I love belongs to youth
And the youth says I’m old
And my peers say I’m childish

I am a maniac,
I am sane.
I have been strong and weak.
I can keep it together,

But I need help
I need a guide book

A quick read-through of the rules:
- roll the dice
- score more victories
- draft your hand

If only I knew
What victory looks like

I am scared and lonely
I am going to succeed
I am not lost
I am here

Additional content assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy and in The Lakelander, Lakeland Community College, Kirtland OH

I usually think about my life
And how much of a loser I was
Living under my brother’s perfect family home
Like a troll under a bridge
Distracting myself with Call of Duty

I keep playing pokemon, as well
Pikachu is my favorite
He is so small and cute
But he loves me

There is no such thing
As having too big of a heart

Additional content assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy and in The Lakelander, Lakeland Community College, Kirtland OH

by Iven Idaho

Autonomy: Let’s be honest, I can’t wait for self-driving automobiles; You **** as driver
So don’t be late, Learn to be a self-driving automobile
PLEASE RSVP BY MAY 1, 2091.

Additional content assembled from works in The Lakelander, Lakeland Community College, Kirtland OH

by Cam

I often welcome sleepwalking through most of the week
But today I will not let you be a zombie
But You’ll never be rid of this poison

Additional content assembled from works by Ryan P. Kinney

by Fiaura

Six bullets to the heart, six separate, devastating phrases that brought about Armageddon. I gave her a decade of my meager existence, nearly half my life. She threw me away like garbage, and I couldn’t have been happier.

For I am like shattered jasper.
In briefest moment of rapture
An insight to the soul one cannot rapture
The ending moment so fleeting
The clarity when the heart stops beating
A rush of air, expands my mind back to this planet

I have been broken, then fixed,
Stitched, yet glitched,
Whole yet scarred
I am alive.

Additional content assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy

Finish
by StuGLyfe

I destruction of the self is intolerable,
Everyone tells me
To destroy myself is acceptable,

I have enough to finish it all now
But myself and my self will be finished

I see a weak and pathetic child
Terrified of the ever changing world around them

Additional content assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy

Under Steer
by StuGLyfe

I don’t usually mind the winter; I try to imagine who is the boss,
Sick satisfaction knowing that I am the most macho
“You press that button kid, you die today.”
The car slides and spins around
Crunch
“Everyone feels that way sometimes.”
The car is stuck.
lamenting the pain as my mind expands
Looked like the thunder god had an ******, then set the lake on fire
“DIVORCE!”, the boss exclaimed.
as I dreamt of my relationship with my father.

assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy

by Fiaura

My ex-husband, his name is Gary
I still have his last name; never say it publicly
I’m publicized in the furry community yearly
Now working side by side with talented murk suited dancers
Because I’m honestly addicted to their hip huggers

Their suit-stuffs stays
The people leave them as strays
I’ve been given too much to even array!

Gary lived in the same house I had to leave
One day, I followed a dancer to the place my heart grieves
The outside the same, the inside a total change
The question is do I stay and heal or do I leave and deal.

by Amy C. Smith

A calm,
Comfortable spirit
Blew around him.
Her hands,
Strong at his back.
Whilst Amber feathers glowed from hers.

The Angel:
Strong,
Pure,
And True.

With just a hint
Of the impending Autumn.

Additional content assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy

Ripples
by Amy C. Smith

With every Action we take
Ripples form around us.

A smile here.
Encouragement there,
Even something as innocuous as love,
for a show or game or film,
makes the world even brighter.

Gathering together
Dancing
Laughing
Loving
Is what it means to be truly human.

assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy and in The Lakelander, Lakeland Community College, Kirtland OH