I never knew how to
write poetry correctly.
It's not like it comes with an
instruction manual
that reads in italicized letters

"dig so deep into your head that if a brain aneurism were to spontaneously combust, you'd be the first to know about it"

No one told me that my emotions
would corkscrew like falling
meteorites every time I picked
up a pen.

No one told me that the thoughts
would sometimes dry up
and leave me searching like
a dog who buried a bone and
then developed a rare type
of amnesia.

No one told me that sometimes
it would be hard to get the words
onto the page without tears
falling like a liquid avalanche.

There was no instruction manual
or italicized letters. There was only me,
and a lot of lessons to learn.

My first love was not a first love
because the first thing he was interested in
was being around me with his shirt off so
I could admire how toned he was for a
freshman.

He chose my best friend over me first
and I let him in anyway, he called me a
**** fiend and I took that as a compliment
even though i had no idea what I was doing.

He told me, Brooke, when people love each other
they have ***, and I knew that part of that was true
that I wanted to equate love with making love because
why else would it be called that? But he wasn't my first love
and the first thing he was interested in was eating me out.

Fifteen year olds are too dumb to make any rational decisions
when they have overbearing honey-tongued devils in their lives.
I was so scared but I did want to, so he planned it out and he had
me on bare mattress in his room in broad daylight, no sheets, no blankets
and my socks were still on, I wasn't even sweaty and my hair stayed perfect.
He wasn't my first love because the first thing he thought of was grabbing my
breast under the elementary school awning.

We had no ****, no privacy, no rules. And I gave it to him willingly even though
I was paralyzed right down to my toenails, a cold highway of veins in my jar of
jelly muscle, the mornings were hot and every time he laid on me I felt like a
shower was the only cure to feeling this *****, should I FEEL this d i r t y?

My morals were rupturing like aneurisms, and everyone thought it was
so ridiculous that I was breaking down under their sunlight, burning up
under their words? It shouldn't matter, this much, brooke. It SHOULD NOT
matter this much. His dad, drove me to the jiu jitsu tournament and told me
he didn't understand why my dad thought it was so necessary to keep me
safe why he shouldn't be buying his son condoms because this is
what
teenagers
do.

My incessant nagging drove him away and I have thought this to be my
fault. This was not my fault.  

My second love may have been my first love.
because the first thing he was interested in was waiting
till our friendship bloomed and then I could come over to his house.

He didn't write off his feelings for me when I said I needed time. And maybe
he did go back to his ex, but I needed time and he gave me time. I wasn't sure
if I loved him but I kissed him and the first time he touched me he told me
to ask him to, to make sure it was okay.

I remember what I was wearing, acid wash shorts and a tanktop
that apparently saved darfur.  His breath was warm and the evening was dim
but his desk-light shone over our legs and his worn skinny jeans.

He told me, Brooke, all I want to do is make you breakfast. And I read
that in his diary. And my second love was my first love because the first
thing he wanted to do was draw me while I slept. He did.

Seventeen year olds are swept away easily and refuse to work
on old feelings. They are damaged because of their first loves who
weren't first loves and are afraid to let go because there will never
be anyone better than this.  My second love was my first
love because he never held *** over my head like a trophy
and we rolled over each other in the sheets and my parents
were never worried.

We had no ****, we had privacy, we had rules. I was not scared
after I realized there were no threats. I thawed and was sweet like
a ripe strawberry. He said he loved me and I felt clean, sweaty but
there was no need for a shower, my hair was always frizzy and he
laughed about it.

my morals were tall mortar walls. And I told him there were rules
for wanting to be with me, and my walls loomed over him. He tried and promised
but we were both fools.  I made mistakes twice over and took advantage of his love.

my incessant nagging, indecision, and rudeness drove him away. This was my fault.
This was all of our faults.

What Is ‘Is’?


 -Travis-Philosopher Major
 -Arianna-Pre-Vet

Arianna asks Travis about his Thanksgiving but soon after they begin to talk about the ideals of Philosophy. The following is an account of the conversation that took place...

Arianna
But what ‘is to think....’ I feel like if I just question EVERYTHING then I’ll be set.
I feel like philosophy is a circle of never ending questions.
Travis
It is! It is an attempt to understand the truth! It is a love for wisdom!
Arianna
Through questions?
Travis
While yes, how else would you meet your 'ends'?
Arianna
Hahaha, so it can be thought of as a series of questions?
Travis
Perhaps. Descartes was able to narrow everything he thought and knew about the world into one phrase, 'I think therefore I am'.
Arianna
Is that saying that everything you think ‘you are’?
Travis
You are because you think.
Arianna
I am what?
Travis
You are ‘you’, however, you are not I.
Arianna
Ahh...Hahaha...What if two people think exactly the same thought though? That I mean by, Person 1 is still Person 1, and Person 2 is still Person 2, and yet they are different but are able to think the same thought?
Travis
You got something going there Arianna, however, I would argue that no two people have exactly the same thought. They may think about the same exact thing, but each thought exists 'for itself' as well as 'for the subject'. Hence, two subjects, one must assume two separate 'thoughts'. As for your second dilemma, I agree. Each are the same, 'One', as well as an 'also', the 'other'. Each existing 'for itself' as well as 'for an other'.
Arianna
hahaha hmm... hahaha... whaaat. How can a thought exist for a subject?
Travis
For whom then would the thought exist for?
Arianna
For the person who thought up the thought.
Travis
You just answered your own question.
Arianna
To execute into an action?
Travis
Say more.
Arianna
Well then, why does a thought exist ‘for itself’, Travis?
Travis
Because the ‘thought’ must retain its own 'essence'; its own 'being'. Whatever this thought may be, be it a 'Cupcake', then this newly thought up 'Cupcake thought' must retain its own 'Cupcakeness'.
Arianna
hahaha...but if a thought only exists so it can be turned into an action, why else would we think a thought, that is, if we didn’t want this thought to develop into an action?
Travis
Well, let me explain. We desire our 'objects of desire'. I desire cupcakes. I get this image of a cupcake in my head and its 'deliciousness'. I now take this desire and transcend it, take my thought and convert it into a mechanical form, the action. I would say the action is merely a consequence of our 'thoughts' and 'desires'.
Arianna
hmm I think I agree.
Travis
It is funny too, if you think about Ari, if you think about the Catholic churches and their rituals
Arianna
What do you mean by?
Travis
Well, they eat bread and they drink wine.
Arianna
That is right. The body and blood of christ
Travis
They desire to be a part of Jesus' spirit, so to fulfill their desire they eat his ‘body’ and drink his ‘blood’; they destroy it and make it a part of themselves. Hegel says that this is the relationship between people. This 'Struggle to the Death' for the sole purpose to 'be for yourself'.
You still wanna take a philosophy class?
Arianna
Wait...haha. No I don’t. I wouldn’t MIND it, but it would probably cause brain aneurisms. Explain this ‘struggle to the death’ more.
Travis
While yes, when two self-consciousness’ come into contact with one another, a duel erupts and both struggle to abolish the other for the purpose of realizing its own ‘truth’ and to exist ‘for itself’; both work to **** the other off just for their owns satisfaction and selfish desires to see themselves as independent.
Arianna
hahaha what No! I don’t try to **** off you or Jaclyn!
Travis
But you do, self-consciously at least.
Arianna
No way, no!
Travis
According to Hegel’s ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’ you do.
Arianna
I respect your thoughts because they are so different, but I just continue my way of thinking, that is all.
Travis
I interpret it as an active process. It is not necessarily 'killing' per se. To '****' off a ‘self-consciousness', your not really killing the person off, per se.
Arianna
What are we killing? The other persons thought process? Their ideas?
Travis
It gets confusing. The way that I interpret it is that we **** of their existence by being totally independent and for ourselves. So in a relationship between a master and slave, or a lord and bondsman, this is the struggle that takes place. This is the ‘Struggle to the Death!”

And when I take in this air
The wind mirrors
The currents underneath me.
We're made of the same
Un-cut-able energy.

These under-waves that breathe
In Blooming aneurisms,
Like a great heart
Caught in the rhythm of the moon
And it's steady eyelid.

We are but capsules of this movement
On loan from the ocean.
Void-mother, salt nirvana
Breathing alongside us
And through our many faces.

Deep, hungry, all consuming black,
As the only affront to the abyss.
Her maelstrom-stomach
Now spitting wood and bottles
At the shore.

Before the inversion of her,
Loosening her keen grip on life
She settled to exist in scars
Pounding rhythm into the shore
And singing in many voices.

That masculine sun
Holding her flat, rejecting advancements,
Falls in their dance
And cannot cover her turning.
He flees the storms.

She swallows electric
Giving light to the deeper life
The great glowing thuds returned
She’s waking hearts to contain a fury,
She's making music into movement into us.

And from the movements,
Bubbles take the warmth up
Past the gaze of colossal ones
Living their lives as silhouettes.

Past caryatids in the black,
With curious eyes,
Holding up sponge-lined trenches
Threaded with eels.

Past the sand bed stretches
Thick with silt-eating things
Relishing the mud
That rises on the corners of rocks.

Past a plaice's eye
Which Crawls across his face,
In his short puberty,
Looking for dangerous shadows.

Delicate bubbles turn
Their pressured skins
Up through water currents,
To come burst at my feet,

And in the millionth morning
That comes into its opening
I am rocked like a child
In the movement I’m made of.
So I can just look forward
At the sun-blink.

An echo
seems like
your best
friend until she
betrays you.

That's because
she's different
from everything
else around you...

She is always
listening. Sending
what you say
back to you...

But, she sits in
judgment &
will do the
same for just
about anyone.

Take copper to restore hair color as gray, white & silver hair are indicative of copper deficiency. Physical copper metal  (& brass to a lesser extent) kills M.R.S.A. on contact.

Take copper to restore hair color as gray, white & silver hair are indicative of copper deficiency. Physical copper metal  (& brass to a lesser extent) kills M.R.S.A. on contact.

Starving noses guide
revellers to toilets
**** bleached Armitage Shanks
stare back at them
with a veiny marbling effect
akin to an ancient tree's rings..
Or some obscure breed of stilton

Once outside
icy air stings the navels
of their ******* cleffs
a knowing nod to their kind
a silent jesture to their fellow man
dolphins blow holes they both possess...

Picking at the carcass
of conversations
the mechanically recovered meat
of dialogue
over eager fat alligators clapping
for their suppor
basking in their stupor...

A dull evening
akin to a poorly written novel..
fifty shades of beige...
aneurisms, nose bleeds
and wasted finite heart beats
litter the centre of this stage