By: Cedric McClester

It’s a shame
And the disgrace is
A neon shirt
And pink shoelaces
Resulted in an act
So tasteless
That the victim wound up
With stitches in some places

A neon shirt and pink shoelaces
Or acting effeminate
If that’s what the case is
Physically attacking him
Was entirely baseless
And sooner or later
We all need to face this

Why you ask
Was he under attack
Homophobia
And as a matter of fact
Though it’s not a case
Of white or black
The bottom line is
It was a hateful act

A neon shirt and pink shoelaces
Or acting effeminate
If that’s what the case is
Physically attacking him
Was entirely baseless
And sooner or later
We all need to face this

What people do
In my point of view
Is a matter of personal choice
Not up for review
Unless it’s hurting others
Or causes their rights to
Be infringed upon
Then ya might wanna sue

A neon shirt and pink shoelaces
Or acting effeminate
If that’s what the case is
Physically attacking him
Was entirely baseless
And sooner or later
We all need to face this

And here’s the thing
That I don’t get
How is what he does
Considered a threat
To anybody else
Albeit
Even those who object
Shouldn’t become upset – cos

A neon shirt and pink shoelaces
Or acting effeminate
If that’s what the case is
Physically attacking him
Was entirely baseless
And sooner or later
We all need to face this


(c) Copyright 2015, Cedric McClester.  All rights reserved.

White shoelaces tied carefully,
clothes ironed straight,
not a strand of hair in his face,
private school and Christian home.
His momma packed him PB&J.;

She said, "Son, don't hang with the wrong kind of kids,
the ones sitting in the back of the classroom
who wear words on their necks and
black every Sunday."

And she puts a napkin in his lunchbox and reminds him
to wash his hands.
And she prays for him to find cleanliness,
and she checks the internet history every day
while he finishes homework and practices piano.

She tells him, "Son, don't let those celebrities
with their drugs and their ***** words
influence you."

And she emphasizes "man shall not lie with man"
and not "God loves all His children"
and tells him not to let any mud get on his new socks.

He sits on the couch and
he sits in the audience and
he's told what isn't okay.
He is raised following predjudices he doesn't agree to,
stereotypes engraved deep in his brain to the core.

He was never taught any different,
he was never educated on differences.
He knows a million shades of white but God forbid he touch a blade of glass.
He was taught to keep his window locked,
head down,
eyes shut,
mouth closed,
hands folded,
back straight,
shoelaces tied.

Momma says, "Son, better keep yourself clean,"
but she touches him with ***** hands
and ties a rope
he never wanted
around his neck.

shoelaces

My shoelaces need to be tied
But I’m stuck still in love
I’m trying to kiss my goodbyes
But darling it’s tough

My eyes don’t really see anymore
his eyes are stuck in my sight
No... I know I need to shut that door
For it keeps me awake at night

My shoelaces need to be tied
Maybe then I can move on
Maybe then I can move to a new sky
Instead of repeating the same ******* song

Falling out of love is a hard thing to do
So give me some clues
Now you know why I can’t tie my shoes

As I told you already that I was Graeme Thorne in the 1950s and apart from the fact I was him for just 8 years, I had a best friend named bobby Francis who was a very ***** fellow, well back then so was I
Bobby had a teenage crush on dody Stephens who sang pink shoe laces which was bobby's fave song and I, as Graeme Thorne thought yeah she is cute and bobby bought her album over to my house and you could hear his voice twanging with the words pink shoelaces and then in 1959 bobby bought pink shoelaces which caused a bit of shock for teachers at old scots college and Greame Thorne who was me said it looks weird that my mate is wearing pink shoe laces
But bobby couldn't give a flying **** about what people were saying about him
Just listen or try and get the memory of him singing
Tan shoes and pink shoelaces
A polka dot vest hey man oh man tan shoes with pink shoelaces and a big panamol
With a purple hat band and my friend bobby sang that with the same twang as dodi Stephens
Which could be the reason why
Bobby is having a tween crush on an older 13 year old singer
I as Graeme Thorne also had a crush on dodi and both me and bobby were dodi's dory but bobby's mum got really cranky with bobby for his voice because it could be a **** voice but bobby used bad language to tell his mum to get ****** and every time we went to the local shops in Bondi beach we bought our ice creams and sat on the beach singing the dodi Stephens hit
And then two gorgeous 12 year old girls sat near us and I said
How about a bit of sugar and bobby said for you maybe but I want dodi's pink shoelaces
And I told bobby to live in the realistic years and bobby said you can talk to these girls but I like dodi ok and bobby was ******* over dodi Stephens **** body while I as Graeme Thorne went over to the 12 year old girls and started to massage their backs and thighs saying to bobby these girls are a nice *** of sugar
For my spoon and as the girls left they kissed me as greame Thorne on the lips and left thinking my friend was a bit of a **** and when we got back to bobby's house bobby played pink shoe laces very loud as well as ******* thinking dodi is a 50s fox and I toild him that those girls on the beach were **** too and bobby said yeah I agree but I plan to finish school and marry dodi and then said he was Dooley and dodi is trying to keep me safe well in 1960 I was kidnapped and killed and bobby well I will never ever know if he got it together with dodi, probably not but in my current life at the age of 22 I heard bobby's twang singing pink shoe laces as I heard it on the radio and now I listen to pink shoe laces on YouTube
She is hot

He was blown>>>>
>>>> away_--- from
my lace-up
Is She his blue
Mood tie set any bet
to walk the talk

At your own pace
The lustful wake up she
got the face

The edge of his rim sneaker
So prim who is proper
On the brim of ecstasy
He puts sugar on my tongue

Rumors like the "Talking Heads"
All in the bedding sneaker
Jane of the jungle wild tongue
She races Tarzan swinging sneakers
You and I tripped over dreams the sneaker?
Lip to lip disaster

The "Cyberwar" stepped on melting
Gold *** of tar
The loud blaster she moves the
Starwars so far

He could eat her up
his checkered black and white flag
Like a lobster claw his last draw

The racer mouth sponsor

She was born 2-B that way
sneakers love 3 some run
It's not unusual to have fun
with anyone
Her hands were far gone but
solid as a rock
Rollicking flying his rocket
Racing by her own clock Ms. Hornet


His sneaker loud love feud one
the detail on her sneaker
the wild bird of a bud

He shook me all night long
don't do an
A-C-D-C  on me
The sneaker he got the
Crazy eights
 No prank calls
Her hot buns and
Speaker- Frank-flirters
take me out to the
ball game demonized

The Anti Christ be born again
My sneaker group what a tank full
The Antitank no thanks
You cant always get what you want
and if you try sometimes
Charge all plastic but
sneakers like rubber soul

Visa hot runner Lisa no control
The American Express abdominal press
Shop until she drop's gum-drops
Your head was like a
Rolling Stone Jagger
Bigfoot sneaker Friday 13 size
That girl sweet pea Lea surprise
In the Hell, kitchen she snapped
That purr nightcap like Cleopatra

He's the Mantra so passionate fruit loopier
She's the Mona Lisa unfriendly sneaker
Your happy socks are quick
On his bell-hop feet
The sneaker riddle beat


That long meeting so *******
For time baby blue eyes Frank
on the mic
Like the jitterbug tight-knit
as sneaker print rug
Citron sharp eyes 5 Karat
Spicy hot Chili pepper
poem sonnet

The singer swung
Jazzy sneaker band
Dr. Who wears sneakers drinking
Dr. Pepper

The "Red Apple McIntosh" computer
Such a loud mouth hacker Josh
Jeweled Judy cultured pearls sneaker smash

Or her Stairmaster her
sneaker hotties ruffles have ridges
The juicy burgers dill pickles

Desperately sneaking Susan
sneakers to her affair finish line 
What a Lady Madonna
baby sneakers
at her breast rebel of hearts
I wonder how she manages to
sneaker speed the rest

Her best to out twin any talk
bullseye power walk
Buying the triplex sneaker
The loud talker 4 for 4 fame Wendy
Run like a fugitive your alias
name
Go International quite run
for your money I suppose
His sneakers up on her recliner
It wasn't her better rose
She's the high boot lady ever finer

On E-Bay selling your favorite sneakers
Those Australian Huskies biting sneakers
Such a Paws up against doggone heartbreaker

The in-crowd Flynn or another runner Lynn
Everybody is not a star or wedding crasher
Or even the right sneaker lover

Lady that lives in her homeless shoes
Are we all inside a video game
all commercials

Needing bifocals video begins
 Wynn at Sneaker Con
Joy to the world of the joystick
The sneaker of the Torah prayers of
the Temple
All dots and specs out of sneakers
More zits and pimples
I just want one-half cream
The changing Moon 1/2 Wolf
My man (Mr. Drakar) Howling toenail

French onion soup say cheese
her sneaker what a
no-brainer lightheaded breeze
You come so far sneaker trainer
And a grave site plot famous
brand sneaker
name

A million odds to one name in the
cemetery
****** Mary she flies in her
sneaker like Mary Poppins
Going under the influence
Heres looking at you kid umbrella

Hot Hollywood Taurus Bulldog
runner
We really don't have a name

We are writers and ****
good fighters single to mingle sneaker
Not the homewrecker more like the homemakers
Even sneaker has a voice and walks like singers
Shoeiverse sneaker race
became her living curse
The grin of the Grinch green sneakers
On his sled ride the lucky shamrock

I'm the happy heel
The tigress furry feel skip to my Lou
he ordered the
kids happy meal

Getting a ticket for reckless walking
Lights on or eyes wide shut
Are sneakers running for their life?

More fuel- time we get no alone time
Let's go shopping for the
new sneaker called
(Valentine only) sold one
day the sale
Singing her sneaker song a chip
device to talk back hot male
The 'Calvin Klein" dockers her ball of the foot
tennis sneakers It's her loud Owl ******-hoot

The farm girl Ralph Lauren corral
To rope her in lasso-like with morals
racing horse of different color fashion
I cannot hear you I have a hell
of a tinnitus reaction

  She-Devil bickering.>>> No heart like a sneaker
I am a snake too short to run the mile

I was too busy looking
at her long legs
On the Jet** Plane
The most popular lady
in her sneakers 

Viper car and strings attachments
Ms. Love lace the shoelaces
with hearts
She is tied to his ankles
like condiments
Like Sweet cherries what a
bomb kicker sneaker
The Southern Belle runner
Be the stunner the trucker roadrunner

Hail to Mary the sneaker
Queen of Sheba
Turn on the radio Country singer Reba
What a sneaker rating ratio

When she bent down the crisscross
Watch out cross my heart trainer

Cross my heart and hope to die
To get slimmer
I am the happy sneaker
all the moods hot goods
(Hey Robin Hood)
stealing a rich man and poor women
which is the witch

One string said pull me the
other one said you feel like a
Chrome lead sleepy feet go to bed

Like Beer and pretzels
What an insane sneaker hazard
Hospital beepers sneaker virus
stepped on the most expensive
Venus, I beg you to run
lips we travel bullets and stars
We just want some fun

Marathon key just one clicker
That strawberry shortcake
Versus the "Cherry Bomb"
The Prince and the Pauper
what a toad kisser
That army tanker hurry up
lunch or brunch
What a Patriot Brady bunch

My shoelaces became like a
firecracker candy bar crunch

Who is the loser lover
or the winner
The long trip almost at the end
of the race
What a rivalry those shot glasses
at random
The sneaker fandom

Smile to me if you're not
wearing anything
but sneakers
My wings the wifi cute feet just
say Hi

No, I saw a man 600 pounds
of Reebok gold way too
much belly roll fat
The Dr. Seuss cat in the hat

Nike in the air Robin
bird skydivers
Dark matter gold diggers
Movie (It) Stephen King
skateboard

Penny feet relaxer
The Wise clown got her
The sneakers comedians
Seinfeld stand up sneaker
To be dead or wed Kleinfeld
Exotic sneakers and
cars he made a home run
Hot hell ring my bell
You made me happy
I got to first base

And you all sync into
one of a kind sneaker
Mom Robin the singer
No, I saw a man-eating
out of his sneaker
His head up in the Nike air
Oh! all hell breaks footloose
computer looking
up the sneaker sales

All I am doing is clicking
with a mouse
Where is my lover
sneaker twin, my spouse

I don’t want anyone to get hurt from my carelessness
Like having my shoelaces undone
And someone else tripping over them
It’s unfair, and it should have happened to me.

But I guess no matter how hard I try,
Or even how my shoelaces are tied
Sometimes the laces will come undone
And someone might come along
and fall.

I could spin the thought
And ask the question
Was it my carelessness which had them trip,
Or the carelessness of their very own?

I am conditioned to take the blame
Growing up with a father who ceases to never admit fault
Even when his hands are stained with the mistake.

I have a chance for that cycle change.

Practice allowing others to take responsibility
Instead of pointing fault at me.

Regardless if it was my their fault or mine,
I can’t go back in time,
And change the fact they fell.

What I do have in my control
Is the hand I can extend
To help raise them up, and stand again.

i'm tripping over shoelaces
and falling over beating hearts
while you are watching
with amused, worried eyes.
my fingers turn to ice
and i manage to mumble
"i like your hair" before
the world ends and
my shoelaces are strangling me.

if you can find c. g. jung writing an answer to the biblical Hiob, i can be found writing this... or as the Lad Bible states: be your superficial you... so when she's not her superficial self... you can just play the awkward monotone speaking caveman that you weren't before she played you that superficial card of hers to tone down your interests.

you know why i'm fascinated with schizophrenics?
primarily because they are concerned with
an inorganic medical condition,
there are, absolutely, no reasons to suggests they
are organically prone to premature degeneracy,
they are what the Alzheimer old man calls an angel,
and what the "angel" experiences from time to time...
to cite a non-typical schizoid experience -
a splinter in the mind?
when i wrote my previous poem, i was listening
to the song *the parting glass throughout,
on and on and on... the rhythm took over...
and when the "poem" was finished i retracted myself
into my room and first played auld lang syne
(with lyrics and English translation)...
                           and then... the pure instrumental
of knee-deep-bagpie... bagpipes, sure, horrid,
screeching drowning-lungs of magpie
cackling cut short into a carbonated highland water...
     oh don't worry, what this comes down to
is personal experience, such negations of ease
are not like the black plague, or a.i.d.s.,
they don't come into contact with purely-riddle
human incompetence... it takes more than that...
certain conditions are not viral...
you can't interpreted them as political malevolence
akin to a political movement... primarily because
the numbers don't add up...
                    the complexity of thought is
the complexity of regarding the mind as an abstract
of the brain, given the brain has no accuracies
concerning abstraction when stated against being automated
to a pair of kidneys... i too wish for a La La Land sometimes...
but that's not the reason people allow ***** donations...
     but you know, it really gripped me,
i wrote that poem, listening to the parting glass,
and felt nothing, nothing... because i was so
formulated to write what i wrote...
  i wrote the last bit, walked into my room,
and played the second version of auld lang syne...
the royal scots dragoon guards pure instrumental...
   and you get to weep these cold tears
after an insomniac cold shivers getting warmer with whiskey...
              and whimper and bite your bottom lips...
because you're hardly a woman fainting
and the drama isn't in you...
               and it's actual tears...
people laugh and cry saharan tears, meaning: it never
rains over it...   i see Sahara as the ancient version
of the Himalayan mountain range, suddenly reduced
because god is fickle and well, aren't we all?
           if any of us are alive to read or speak such
encodings... there will be a desert made from
the Himalayas that will be called the Himalaya -
but that's really being optimistic.
       there used to be mountains, mountains in
north Africa, Gandalf! but they crumbled in deserts!
where once a mountain range, subsequently a desert...
where now a desert, once a mountain range.
can i please get a taxi to leave this current
history and Darwinistic revisionism of it as telling
us ape Adam had more psychology about him than
Charles XIV? i want to hear the geological version
of Darwinism! but am i hearing any of it? n'ah ah.
       so yes, upon hearing the scotch dragoon guards
pipe a full whiskey sodden breath into the
         bagpi - i heard the word counter to my scrambled
narrative... king... king?!
                   which is what's bewildering about
a medical term deemed premature dementia...
   it's an organic impossibility...
but given society is an inorganic organism
and all our socio-political mechanisms aren't exactly
organic, there might be some sense in this piquant
dabble in an auditory hallucinogenic experience -
which, evidently, people find frightening,
since they occupy defining their thinking with
hearing so much, and when seeing a homeless man
think so little...
                     logic? a particular arrangement of words
that does not provide kind rubrics for the testimony of
the many...
                    i can hallucinate this auditory "addition"
and competently go on my daily business,
or my nightly business finishing a bottle of scottish amber...
some people cannot...
                 what i see it western society predicating
their poor knowledge of Alzheimer's as if searching
for some genius to explain what happens to the abstract
functions of what the brain represents
                 in terms of how the brain and abstraction
can't be cleanly separated, i.e. to treat the degeneracy
of the brain as succumbed to, but not succumbing to
the elaborated foundations of the "brain"
within the trans-physical functions of the "brain"
within a framework of memory, vocabulary, memory.
people first attribute the brain with too much
           concern for abstraction when in fast the driving
force for abstraction is the now-vogue zeitgeist
"psyche does not exist" -
                            and when the brain degenerates like
a heart or a kidney can... people start to freak
out propping out a Frankenstein revival that brain
cannot in-act upon...
                                 they told us the brain is fat...
          then they tell us only 0%, or fat-free yoghurts are
good... isn't the case for the epidemic of dementia
due to the fact that we're censoring fat?
what feeds the brain? fat! what are we censoring from
our diets? fat! fat free ******* yoghurt!
                             where does the modern epidemic
stem from? censoring fat! you anorexic ******* morons!
  you know why i put extra fat in the way i cook
meals, you know what orthodox cooks tend to
like a sizzle of a lump of lard? brain food...
     and yes, some call it eating a lot of nuts...
well then... fry me a ribs-eye steak on a handful of
cashew nuts you crazy *******!
            this is what drives me crazy concerning
auditory hallucinogenic experiences...
there are no drugs that you could ever sell that people
would buy to experience an auditory hallucination...
primarily because people made thought
   an auditory experience...
                  that's the norm, i'm not talking Walt Disney
here... and people enjoy music because it feeds the heart
in a way averse to images that feed the libido
or dreaming...
    the point being, my "hallucinatory" experience lasted
for less than a second... some ***** on l.s.d. trips
for half a day because he finds modern movies boring
and finally gets to appreciate cubist contortion
mechanisations... i can do more damage with a second's
worth of "auditory" hallucination than that little
hippy can do away with 12 hours, and only end up
writing a haiku thinking he can suddenly conjure up
spirits of Shinto like some Gilgamesh *** Bruce Springsteen;
then he shaves his hair and travels to Mongolia
to learn the index against the lips motorboating
harmonica... and i end up saying: thank you;
cos it wouldn't be twangy without that kind of a tranquiliser
to stabilise excitement beyond encoding sounds.
          i can tell you how ******-up my internal
narrative has become, so i'm defeatist,
here's how it looks like when i get agitated...
               writing on a white flag...
      oh look: wavy! wavy! i'm waving it...
going boats full of nuts and bananas!
             you ever hear the story of a psychiatrist
jumping on a table and barking when a conscription
  cadet tried to fake being mad?
      she did what i just wrote and asked H. Clinton
to reiterate on the campaign trail.
                    inauguration 2017:
   i solemnly swear, that H. Clinton barked like a ruffian
poodle on the campaign trail.
  beside the point though, schizophrenia is an inorganic
manifestation of an actual organic degeneracy -
it's a negation-of-ease for dangerous people...
     people who probably have a music taste outside
the top 40 best selling albums (let alone singles)...
                   and they're quick to pick up on this grey area
concerning premature depression...
                it's trendy these days... people who are melancholic
are people who are like Homer, wrote the Odyssey
went blind from making too much heroism from
      the cannibalism at the gates of Troy and couldn't
handle telling a single lie after having written such an epic...
   or as Virgil convened: Paris didn't escape,
Aeneid did... no one knows what happened to Paris,
       probably choked on a raisin or something:
it's ancient history, if you're not going to talk about it
in a callous manner, then be prepared for careless mannerisms:
pout, **** *** cheek, shelfie!
               what i am seeing is this quote:
a butterfly on the Galapagos Islands... a Tornado in
Colorado... the poetics of quantum physics,
or misplaced potentials of counter-quantifiable
simultaneous counter-interpretations...
    the butterfly effect? under the umbrella corporate
otherwise known, from ancient times: a metaphor.
hey, we started reading into hydrocarbons,
there's no way to talk easy for us...
                           for all my love for one inspiration,
i lost my love for him when he said that not tying your
shoelaces (i.e. spelling) was because he thought it was
indoctrination... you know who i mean: Mr. Chow Chewski...
   spelling? that's like tying your shoelaces!
         question is... who would ingest a hallucinogenic
drug that didn't utilise the multi-coloured world to
an excessive amount to be prescribed, say, an U.V.
phosphorescent spectrum of seeing... when, given all
that... sound occupies this realm of b & w?
               who could create an auditory hallucinogenic?
can you imagine it?
                             most people with a weakened cognitive
membrane would go nuts... as the case has been proven
many a times...
        but given the fact that no such hallucinogenic exists,
or that "auditory" / cognitive hallucinations are
disregarded even though Descartes stressed this
   notion of a substance / thought, and an extension /
       sensual disparities with regards to cohesive uniformity,
i.e. regarding over-stressing a particular sense
      and never reaching a former cohesion...
           can only mean a circumstance later described
by Kant within the framework of the noumenon -
    i.e. perhaps you've seen too much, but heard too little...
perhaps you've tasted too much, but had barely a sniff of
                  more...
        the original thought when exposed to a cohesion
of uniformed senses, experiencing a discohesion of
             a presupposed sensual "uniformity",
returns back into a form of thought, i.e. an extension...
                only because the thing in question is a
presupposition, not a supposition that can be countered
with a proposition, i.e. since we all made mistakes
presupposing, we have become prone to propositions to
suppose otherwise... in terse terms: invent politics.
so what i termed "auditory" and "hallucination"
and conflated them in a prefix of cognitive-, in consolidation
i meant to say that: once all presuppositions (thoughts)
disappear by the miraculous ape that man either is
or wishes himself to still be... and we deem to say:
   reality...                 we only have suppositions (extensions)
               that appear...
                         by the miraculous ape that man never
was and wishes himself to nonetheless be:
  in that consolidatory ref. to the last trinity of Cartesian
thought: substance - in the former the formation
of will... in the latter the complete lack of it -
                              to the simpler scenarios,
we already have knowledge of prisons and asylums...
            because internalising such possible scenarios
never leaves the many to be grafting such possibilities
with enough calm as to persevere for the sole purpose
of understanding, as what point can a noumenon-unit
enter the argument if not from a reflex
                       as this continued narration explains...
none of this was reflected upon...
reflection in such circumstances usually means weaving
a machete at your neighbour...
                                  the noumenon-unit
the ping-pong factor in all of this is a reflex action...
         not a reflective action...
               i am no king no more than i am a pauper...
   now imagine if i tripped for 12 hours on l.s.d.,
having extracted so much, from an "auditory" "hallucination",
that, in the realm of the mind, is neither a minute,
nor a second, nor a nanosecond...
               it's unitary equivalent is simply that of: a word.

the night i met a map maker
who'd never seen the world
i found out that this living life
slowly comes unfurled

with every sought experience
and everything undone,
granted we are shoelaces
tied and gone **-gung

so much so that we don't know
the order of our things,
like when we meet a pretty girl
we take her off some rings

and when the rings come ringing by
the anchor on your ship
i answer the phone and to him say
i'll never take your ****

to my house
because i don't have indoor plumbing.

Some of my friends and family do not understand anxiety
“It can’t be that bad”
“You don’t have anything to be afraid of”
“Just calm down”

“It can be that bad” I tell them
Anxiety strings barbed wire across doorways and coats people in broken glass
You can’t go anywhere
Anxiety is like a room in an adventure movie where water is steadily pumping onto the floor until it’s up to your chest
Except there’s no magic lever or button for anxiety
It just keeps going until you’ve drowned
Anxiety is a boulder strapped to your back
It keeps pressing and pressing
Even when you’re tired and you just want to sleep, it keeps pressing
Even when you fall, it keeps pressing
Even when you stop struggling to move, to survive, it keeps pressing

“There’s plenty to be afraid of” I say
Anxiety is a monster with giant bulging eyes and thousands of teeth and claws
And the worst part is that no one else can see it following you down the hallways at school
Stalking you in the bathrooms at concerts
Hiding under your own bed
Anxiety is like an uninvited party guest
You never know when Anxiety is going to join the party
It just shows up
And you never have enough snacks or blankets for Anxiety
It always wants more
And it doesn’t leave until 4am when you’re shaking from exhaustion
Anxiety doesn’t even say Thank you
For taking up everything you had in you
It just leaves
And you know Anxiety will be back
Eventually
What’s scary about Anxiety is that it keeps you from doing something you really wanna do
Like spending the night at your friends
You really wanna go but you just don’t
Because you don’t want to have to explain why your body has begun to unravel itself, time traveling back to when anxiety kept humans alive and why apparently your body thinks your friend’s sweet little French bulldog is the equivalent of a modern day saber tooth tiger  
Another scary thing about anxiety is the fact it’s something your brain makes up and your body BELIEVES it of all things
“I’m dying” your brain says
And so your body believes it
Because why would a piece of your body lie to itself?
Why would you lie to yourself?

“I can’t just calm down” I say to them
The whole thing with Anxiety is not just the fact that the guy next to you could be a suicide bomber or that the girl across the isle could have a knife in her pocket or  the fact you’ve got a test to pass or that your shoelaces aren’t symmetrical
It’s that anxiety gives you anxiety
What a beautiful self-destructive cycle
And if I could calm down don’t you think I would?
Do you think I would scratch myself raw trying to force the anxiety out of my skin?
Do you think I would spend my friend’s birthday party having a panic attack in the bathroom?
God why is it always bathrooms?
Do you think I would spend my every waking hour anxiously figuring out how I can avoid all the things that give me anxiety?
The thing about anxiety is that nothing can “get rid of it”
There is no cure
A million billion poems and hugs and dark closets and angry songs and therapists could not get rid of anxiety
Anxiety has embedded itself into me and I don’t have enough strength to dig the scalpel into my own skin and carve it out
I don’t think anyone has that kind of strength

“Anxiety is a part of me” I tell them
And the thing I ask now even gives me anxiety
Isn’t that ironic?
But I still ask it
I always ask it
“Will you still accept me?

while september cicadas
were singing my neighbors to sleep
i was up walking holes in my shoes
over love once lost
so many poems ago
that the only thing i remember
about the house at 38th & bluestone
is that it reeked of alcohol and is
as i'm sure of it
still saturated in perfume
and abandoned laughter
but that's not the point
give me a minute
what i'm trying to say
is i always thought god
enjoyed watching things leave me
it makes me wonder
what was on his mind
that night in september
when i stooped to cough
or tie my shoelaces
i no longer remember why
but i recall their trajectory
the way gravity cradled my hands
and brought them crashing back to earth like a 747
they landed inches away
from a scrap of crumpled loose leaf
folded in half like the smiles
of my relatives on a holiday truce
you see, lately i've been looking for scars in the newspaper
i find myself checking the obituary
for my former selves since the day i found your suicide letter
maybe that's why i can never explain my obsession with history
maybe archeology is just a funeral
in reverse
maybe hell is just rewinding home movies
or watching confetti
turn back into photographs
i never told anyone
the reason the doors to the gun cabinet in my family's house are locked not because they are afraid
i will take my life
but because sometimes
i sing them birthday songs
on the day you died
it makes me think
of how rooms only echo
when they are empty

*you know
i never echoed until you died

Oh yes! I had plans to woo you
with roses and chocolates
and other mushy make-up
that might just rev up your fireworks
Yet I knew deep inside
it wouldn't work so well.

So jugular it was
condoms and plastic roses
knotted in shoelaces
painted and welded on a metal frame
worded: I will take you
to take me: Now!

But you laughed
and blew the condoms into balloons
and spray painted the roses in silver
and I used the shoelaces
to hang my head in creative shame!

Yet when we met on the deck of union
for the first time
the sparks lit up the nightsky
and we slept curled up around each other
like question marks

Thats how we bought tickets
to forever
Crazy?
I waited-you came!

Author Notes
Most enjoyable poem today.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago

it would seem,
   a maine **** cat, male, is best appeased
by a shoelace...
     hardly a comparison
aligned to the master mikhail bulgakov...
this cat doesn't drink *****,
or play chess...
nor does it drink wine...
      it prefers sushi shrimps and
       sushi trout eyes...
and... shoelaces... for a game...
as i too might, imagining being infested
by a tapeworm...
shoelaces: but no shoes
   do women really keep cats for
replacement company therapy sessions?
i just keep cats as the last
resort format of a curiosity
learning curvature... they're just weird,
or rather, of all the petted animal,
so subtly idiosyncratic...
  i have too many nicknames for them...
the male? quarus? osama bind laden:
the terrorist... the aria king...
   bodzio when he's wanting
to cling to head-butting you as a greeting...
   pavarotti...
          he meows to the point of howling
come 4am...
   the female? veroniya?
       ss-obersturmbannführer,
witch,
            tyson fury when she's trying
to hide her "oopsie" of a ****'s worth...
jaws... since her tail is always upright...
like a shark's fin when she's strutting...
oh but animals have their character...
   less visible in dogs...
    give it enough time:
you're bound to spot it among / in cats...
even a cow was a character dynamic
proding suss... however subtle...
most people don't encompass a capacity
to encompass this sort of
                    gift.  

.and some would claim that there exists, a contradictory-"******" related to the psyche of suicides... it would appear the mere thought of suicide is a "disgruntled" variation of arousal, nay, the mere thought is more potent than a ****** arousal... it's less the ultimate taboo, but the ultimate fetish... why blame those, who have managed to satisfy this urge? my father never complained about suicides, he had a story, where his friend committed suicide, becausde his father was ******* his girlfriend, and he, simply, reached the threshold of what was acceptable, for his psyche to manifest a will inclined to entertain life, rather than that omniscient lover, death... i've come to realise that death, is... as ****** as whatever harlequin / de sade ******* allows, nay, more... how mere thinking can create an arousal, of goosebump testicles, imitating a ***** dynamic, without really achieving a hard-on, rather, a protruding tongue, silenced, which gives the hands momentum, to doodle, something, akin to this; suicide is forever going to be, the exacted limit of passing a free will judgement, however wrong... if the argument goes: humans are without free will, a suicide will always provide the antithesis; i've had a fwend (" ") once, who wanted to shame michael hutchence for his suicide... one brave ******* in all honesty... to experience that sort of a metaphysical ******, well... don't know what it would feel like... any science is contrary to the details, given that... all your "proof" is ascribed to the dead... but at least a philosophical mind-set provides, some groundwork, for imagining a counter-argument, and... the justification for the most "abhorrent" expression of free will... it feels good, to be left without the shackles of the free will argument, that excludes the act of suicide; that's the 1st step: if someone can't commit themselves to suicide, then... man has no free will... there's nothing quiet like engaging with a conscious choice, freed from conscience, whatever post mortem arguments come after, don't even matter... flimsy ******* sparrows, scheming and fluttering of wings! fly! fly! be free! be free!

                           tim pool:
being gay is not a choice,
being religious is,

except the whole
bureucratic fiasco
of the catholic church

the whole pro-life
and pro-baptism...

   i made it blatantly clear
that i didn't want
to be baptißed,
when i dissented from
having to be
confirmed...

mind you:
one great aspect of a catholic
school?
   uniforms...

yeah... i guess you don't
get to create a group
dynamic borrowed
from clothing,
there's no high-school "culture"
that later translates itself
into a resentment culture
that lends the high-school
years as blueprint,
for "extracurricular" activities
of: the motivational life
(aspect)...

i can't remember being
asked whether
i wanted to be baptißed
or not...
i do remember being
asked to be confirmed...
i declined...

so... i am an apostate,
but for that to have any
clingy-meaning,
you'd need catholic
bureucracy to imply
"something"...
nothing protestant:
*****-nilly on the side...

   an uncircumcised man
succumbs to the allure
of hebrew mysticism
and (g)nosticism...
   namely the qabbalah...

oh sure, sure,
i was going to side with
the younger devil
(islam) on matters
of my, "christianity"...
i was going straight
to the jews to find
reasonable answers...

      oh ****...
    i should have done that
protestant "thing"
of borrowing from
either buddhist or hindu...
****...
must have slipped my
'ed.

i still don't understand how h'american
adult life translates itself from
a resentment of the h'american high-school,
if it does not lend itself to
the critique associated with faith schools,
and uniforms...
                 at least in english,
catholic high-schools...
everyone was made uniform,
akin to joining the army...
an army of jesuits...
         h'american public schools,
and their non-uniform policies...
bad idea...
       we had about 3 non-uniform days
in school, we were allowed to not wear uniforms,
as long as we gave money to a charity cause...

i hate the notion of the genesis
of culture, being excavated from h'american
public schools, where uniforms were deemed:
non-complicit...

i liked the uniform,
it's the closest i ever came to my father's
stint in the ****** army...
           being the most handsome,
recruited for the "royal guard" equivalent...
i.e. the republican guard...
pretending soldier status...
shooting blanks, at state funerals in
a "bargain" of the salvo...

thank god i never attended a public
school, i liked my catholic school uniform...
i never dressed to impress...
i never made a cultural backdrop out
of it... there was never a piggy-bank's
worth of a twilight saga to bank on...
     thank god not all of h'america
left the shores of america...
  thank god some of it: stayed in its place;

what?!
  
      i live in england...
  why wouldn't i whistle the le marseillaise
alongside the british grenadiers' fife and drum,
rather than... oh god... god save the queen / king?
the most ****** national anthem in
world history...

  sorry, i can't...
                it's a ****** anthem...
              at least the russians and the scots have
the grounds for an anthem covered...
****... beside vaughan williams...
    elgar?! that's it?! no wonder.