By Nabs
Dear, My Past Self
I've always wanted to say a lot of things to you.
A lot of things that I would like you to change.
A lot of things I wished that you haven't done
(Like chanting hate to your self before you went to sleep).

But that is not the reason I am sending this letter.

We both know how the past cannot be changed, the same way we both know that girls will be girls and boys will be boys (which to say not at all, after all we are a firm believer that time travel and The Doctor exist).

I know that you are going through a lot of forked roads, right now.
Gnawing your lips and making it bleed, from worrying whether to choose right or left?
Afraid, not to take the wrong road but to take the road that you want, the third road that you've always thought off but haven't gathered enough courage to step to.
It's okay to be afraid of where will you get stranded in life. Being afraid doesn't make you weak.

But at the end we have to move forwards even if it will literally kills you to leave the breathtaking view behind.

At this point in your life, You will realize that the handful of people that you surround your self with are more of an aquantaince than friends. And you will lose some of the friends you have because of the directions you each choose to go. You will feel lonely and miserable.

A deceptive man called depression will lull you with the promise of kindred spirits and ask you to let him be your companion. You will accept this offer, not fully knowing the Concequences because Depression, in your neighborhood, is something that goes unacknowledged.

You will regret the decision of taking his hands
(He's a good friend of mine now, I know how to deal with his quirks and how to cope with him living in my home. He still ask me to join him in drowning, but I learned how to say no)

    There will also be a lot of people telling you that you are a freak. They will consider that being true to yourself is a sin and you will try to repent by torturing your self with soul leeching mask that will leave you identity in tattered remains (You will spent years trying to piece it back, taking new pieces and discarding old ones).

They will also paint names on your back, whispers lies and making a game on how much they can stab you in one day. (You always come home bleeding, but you covered it with 1000 watt smile and perfume to mask that fact that the wounds are rotting)

Do not try revenge, it will leave you with a guilt so heavy that the act it self would only taste like ashes and sour your heart. (I know how horrible that is, and I know you'll still do it because this letter isn't about changing the past)

Remember that you have an untapped core of titanium in your backbone.

I know you will spend some sleepless night thinking of ways to not wake up in the morning, how to keep dreaming, and letting the ghost take you away. I know how close you are to the temptation and how you almost bitten that forbidden fruit because you wonder if it taste like peace. I also know that you will deny yourself.

(Because that's the lesson that was taught to us since the beginning )

Society may tell you, to **** all the things that are different in you. The things that make you see a shade differently, the things that make your angle on the world askew, the thing that you were (and still is) proud of. You will ask why, and they will reply because you are not perfect.

Do not listen to them because a few months from now you'll learn that their reasons are poison and you had been fed spoiled milk all along.
(You'll get some stomach ache that will feel like butterfly wings, you will mistake it for infatuation. It's not. You'll learn that infatuations taste like sugar and the coffee that you'll grow to like)

At this point, You will also painstakingly build a shrine, made of ivory and desperation, for the one you mistaken as a saint (she's not but she's still one of the best things that happen to you). A shrine for a saint that you tried to be, a saint that was hailed from loneliness and envy.  

The shrine will be the invisible wall that you will simultaneously try to tear apart while build it everyday. You will always be the one who ask for forgiveness because you were a faithful believer who believe that you are a despicable sinner.

(You are as much as a sinner as she is a saint.)

The day that you look her in the eyes and burn the shrine, the wall will crumble and fall like the Berlin Wall. Both of you will become human ( Also you will find that she is easily bribed with pizza and you will find that you are different than her and that's ok).

You will also learn the taste of despair from the way the mother dove cannot understand that your screams are the way you say that you are breaking and you just want to quit breathing. Instead mother dove will translate it into screams of rebellion, and you were always the obedient daughter first, than you are a teenage girl.

(You will learn how to jab your scream into paper, and turn them into poems. You will truly make some bad ones at first. Don't worry I'll help you along the way)

One day, between where you are now and where I am now, the world will give you a present of awareness to the danger of smiling to strangers. You will cry in the hotel bathroom and try to scrub your skin until it bleeds, trying to feel clean but only managed to ***** the tub. The world and mother dove will tell you that its your fault and you were asking for it (You're not).

You will lose the ability to smile uncaringly.
(This is one of the things I wish we would have keep)

You will slowly watch the colors that you know fade from the world, leaving it a mottled grey. The same state that you are feeling now. You will paint lies and invent new colors to just make you believe that there is something worth living for. You will hate your self more and more for your new painting skills.

Don't hate your self, You are a survivor and you are still fighting (I know you wouldn't listen to this, that you would keep hating your self until you met some people who will be kind to you and help you hold up your forts from the monster inside your skin. Like I said this isn't that kind of letter).

I know that the day you smashed all your anger and hurt into the table that you sleep on, was the day where you first tried to draw red lines with sharp markers on yourself. It will be messy but you were addicted and soon all you can paint was release and the occasional victorian girl

(You will not draw boys because you despise the way that you cannot draw wide board shoulders, like the one you hate on your self but admire on your brothers because those shoulders look like they could carry the world unlike yours).

You will lock your emotions tight, and learn how to hide from the world (It wouldn't last long, you have the universe inside you that is screaming to be shared to people. You haven't learned how to say no yet, unlike me)

You will learn that you are also an idiot, that karma exist and it bites you in the *** as a payback for all those tyranny. You will laugh your self until you're sobbing and fallen asleep. The next day you will bring a book to educate yourself to your school.

You will be turned into a mess of paint, anger, bitterness, and dramatic flair. The only one that will be left without blemish will be the mask (not the face beneath). The woodcutters will saw your legs of from you, and you will be left without the means to stand on the ground

But you still will crawl your miserable 90 kilogram mass of body to the next crossroad, and the next, and the next, and the next, like the stubborn mule you (we) are.

And you will came out of the personal purgatory, that the world gave you, with a brand new legs, soul liberally littered with scars, and a tuft wings on your back (Albeit still very tiny. It's okay, It's still growing).

You will learn to walk again with your new legs, the one that isn't smooth like baby skin but full with callouses from all the road walking.

You will learn that being full of flaws is ok, that not being beautiful is fine.

You will also learn that you are allergic to cats (You will deny this fact when you find out until you almost passed out because you couldn't breathe. But we will still cuddle with them because cats are the best)

You will meet new people, wonderful new people. The ones that you care so very much and the one that cares for you back. The ones that's just wonky like you. (You will love this guy and girl that I am close with, they're very kind and sappy like you are)

You will get to fall in love, like in the romance manga that you secretly love, and you will broke your own heart (I wanted to say for you to savor it more, but like I said this isn't that kind of letter).

You will be ok with it, and you'll gain the skills of cutting people from your life

You will learn that the world isn't kind to your gender, and you'll ask for equality ( the same way you're asking for a new set of paint, which is to say with a lot of care and thinking). You will learn that the world will always be a ******* but there will always be change.

(The world needs its balance)
You will learn that patience isn't really your virtue. But you will learn to grit your teeth and wait.

You will learn to love your self. Even at some point the hate still managed to rear its ugly head. You will learn to be proud of your self and yet still be kind.

And you will continue to write your own story, you will make mistakes and learn from them, you will make unexpected plot twist and pull your favorite cliche. You will learn that not all people like your story and that it's okay.

That is so very okay.

This letter isn't about telling you to change yourself.

It's my way of saying thank you.

Because darling, ****** well done (pun intended)
                                    Love, Your Future Self

P.S :
(This isn't the end, how about we meet up for tea later?)

1611: Emilia Lanier became the first Englishwoman to publish and collect patronage from her original poetry with the publication of fifteen poems, all about or dedicated to particular women, in her “booke,” titled in Latin, Hail, God, King of the Jews.  She was the fourth woman in England to publish her poetry, but the first to demand payment in return for it.  The first to see herself as equal to the paid male authors of the era.

This was the same year that the King James Bible was first printed.  This was eight years after the death of Queen Elizabeth I.  This was 180 years after nineteen-year-old Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.

                                                               ­      +

The Querelle des Femmes is “the woman question.”
Frenchmen of the early fifteenth century created a literary debate: what is the role and the nature of women?  Is it stemmed within a “classical” model of  human behavior; gnarled and rooted with misogynistic platonic tradition?  Should women actually be allowed into politics, economics, and religion?  There are scholars that say this debate radiated across several European countries for three centuries before finally fizzling out.  

                                                         ­                   But it is still there; has crossed
continents, has crossed oceans, is sizzling, sparking up fires, flaring out
into the night, leeching onto the trees, onto buildings, onto people, onto
anything flammable.  It is burning down monarchs and their thrones.  It is
raking back the blazing coals.  
                                                   Exposing the charred corpses.  
                 Proving their death.  
                                                   Burning and burning and burning them
                                              twice more to prevent the collection of relics.
                 It is chucking the ashes into the Seine River.

Lilith: who was made at the same time, at the same place, from the same earth, from the same soil as Adam, got herself written out of the Bible because she thought herself to be Man’s equal. Because she got bored of the *******.  Because she wanted to be on top during ***.  Lilith was replaced in the book of Genesis with a more-or-less subservient woman that was made from the rib of man instead of the same dirt and dust.  She was replaced with a woman that Adam named “Eve.”  She was replaced with a woman who served as nothing more than the scapegoat for Man’s downfall.
                                       The original Querelle des Femmes.

                                                                     +

1558-1603: Queen Elizabeth I ruled England in what is considered to be a masculine position. Although a woman can take the throne, can wear the crown, can wield the scepter, can run the country, the actual divine task that goes along with being a part of the monarchy, being a god on Earth, is thought to be the duty of a man.

Nicknamed The ****** Queen, Elizabeth never married,
                                                     never found a proper suitor,
                                             never produced a direct Tudor heir,
                                   (but this is not to prove that she was a ******).  
Chastity, especially of women, is a virtue.  ((To assume that she never had ***
simply because she never married
                                                                ­ is another Querelle des Femmes.))

For nearly forty-five years, Queen Elizabeth I did not need a man by her side while she lead England to both relative stability and prosperity; did not need a man by her side while she became the greatest monarch in English history.  
                                                She held the rainbow, the bridge to God, in her
                                                                ­                     own small hands just fine.

                                                          ­           +

Saturday, February 24, 1431: Joan of Arc was interrogated for the third time in her fifteen-part trial in front of Bishop Cauchon and 62 Assessors.  During her six interrogation sessions, she was questioned over charges ranging from heresy to witchcraft to cross-dressing.

At age twelve Joan of Arc began seeing heavenly visions
                                                                ­               of angels and saints and martyrs;
age thirteen she began hearing the Voice of God—was told to
purify France of the English,                          to make Charles the rightful king—
age sixteen she took a vow of chastity as a part of her divine mission.  

When the court asked about the face and eyes
that belonged to the Voice, she responded:
                                                      ­                      There is a saying among children, that
                                                         “Sometimes one is hanged for speaking the truth.”

Joan of Arc was declared guilty and was killed by the orders of a Bishop during a time when men were beginning to question the role and nature of women in society.  They thought women to be deceitful and immoral.  Innately thought Joan of Arc to be deceitful and immoral.  (Perhaps she was one of the catalysts for the Querelle in the first place.)

((The church blamed Eve for the
fall of mankind.  Identified women as
                                                                     temptation:
                                                               the root of all sins.))

Twenty-five years later she was declared innocent and raised to the level of martyrdom.
The Catholic Church stood back,
saw the blood,
                          the ashes,
                                            the thick smoke and stench of burned body that
                                                                ­               covered their hands, their clothes,
                                                                ­                    their neurons, their synapses;
        a filth that couldn’t be washed off by Holy water—
can’t be washed off by Holy water.

Four hundred and seventy-eight years later Joan of Arc was blessed and gained entrance to Heaven.  Four hundred and eighty-nine years later she was canonized as a saint.

                                                         ­            +

Lines 777-780, “Eve’s Apology in Defense of Women,” Emilia Lanier, 1611:
                         But surely Adam can not be excused,
                         Her fault though great, yet he was most to blame;
                         What Weakness offered, Strength might have refused,
                         Being Lord of all, the greater was his shame…

Adam, distraught and angered that his first wife, Lilith, had flew off into the air after he had refused to lay beneath her, begged God to bring her back.  God, taking pity on his beloved, manly, creation, sent down three angels who threatened Lilith that if she did not return to Adam, one hundred of her sons would die each day.  

                              (This is where the mother of all Jewish demons
                                         merges with the first wife of Man.)  

She refused, said that this was her purpose: she was
created specifically to harm newborn children.  This legend,
dated back to 3,500 BC Babylonia, describes Lilith as a
                                                                       winged feminine demon that
                                                     kills infants and endangers women in childbirth.

In the Christian Middle Ages, Lilith changed form once more:
she became the personification of licentiousness and lust,
she became more than a demon, she became a sin in herself.  Lilith
and her offspring were seen as succubae, were to blame for the
wet dreams of men.  Taking it a step further, Christian leaders then
                                                                ­                           wed Lilith to Satan;
                                                                ­                              charged her with
                                                                ­               populating the world with evil,
                                                   claimed she gave birth to
one hundred demonic children per day.

Lilith is considered evil in the eyes of the church because she was insubordinate to Adam.  Both she and Eve are considered disobedient; are too willful, too independent in the way that Lilith wanted to be on top and Eve wanted to share a knowledge that Adam could have refused.  They are perceived as a threat to the divinely ordered happenings that men see to be true.

Men wrote the history books because only their interpretation was right.  
Emilia Lanier writes:
                                       Yet Men will boast of Knowledge, which he took
                                           From Eve's fair hand, as from a learned Book (807-808).

The Querelle des Femmes is not just a literary debate in the fifteenth century.  It is a way of life.  It is the divine portion of Queen Elizabeth I’s job being fit for men, and men alone.  It is Joan of Arc being a woman and hearing the Voice of God; it is Joan of Arc being burned three times by the same Catholics that revered in Jesus, a man who, too, heard the Voice of God.  It is Lilith being deemed a demon for not wanting to have *** in the *******.  It is Eve having to apologize in the first place for sharing the apple, for sharing knowledge with her partner.  It is women holding positions of power and yet still feeling powerless to men.  

The Querelle des Femmes is wanting to use gender
to keep one group of people above another.  The Querelle des Femmes
is continually thinking that the ***** is greater than, but
never equal to, the ******. The Querelle des Femmes is
                                                       not understanding the difference between
                                                                ­       ***          and          gender
                                                                ­              in the first place.  
The Querelle des Femmes is me,
burning your dinner and telling you to eat it anyway.

i
you say i am honestly not the same person
i say one day i woke up honest
and i do not know how to undo experience
my own eyes and ears and nose and mouth
cannot be undone at the moment
how do you do it?
push that pressure to the back of your mind
like that
how do you all manage to laugh with a straight face
at things that you know aren't really funny
i can't fathom it. where you go
when you are stomping and ripping
and ****** and jeering
and laughing and running
it's exhausting to watch you

ii
i apologize if it doesn't make sense
that i can't play along
but playing along
doesn't make sense
i could never win a grammy
with this tight lipped smile
laughing at the expense of others
makes me feel more like a paparazzi
placating insecurities for currency
leeching off the vulnerability
you may not think i'm smart but
i am smart enough to know this is not 'normal'
and there is nothing wrong with staring at you in the rearview
and saying "i wish that was really sarcasm"
i'll tell you the truth
and you don't have to like it
and you don't have to like me
and i don't have to like you
because if there's one thing i know about myself
it's that i don't dislike anybody
until they show off their callousness
hoping it's the right party trick
to gain respect

iii
we watch comedy tv, and you are worried
by the way my spine cracks
when i let out a uncontrollable laugh
dragging on, beginning to spill, and as i try to quell it
my whole body shakes with the pressure
of it bubbling inside of me
you feel all of this beside of me
a small volcano with a bent back
quaking absorbed by pillows and flowers and cushions
not quite right for you
wondering why i couldn't laugh like this earlier
when we were not alone
everyone is looking for something more porous
more willing to let in effortlessly
and absorb tirelessly
that can simply laugh like a stream bubbles
and let go of the undercurrent
yet we are sharp and uneven and course like logs
and the weight of our actions carries much further
being shunted downstream by tides of gravity
every intention runs it's course
every intention speaks volumes
if you feel that in your core
every day you will uncontrollably think of how
every intention defines the quality of the laughter
stuck in someone else's head
and you will save it for things that are funny

The leeching color from my eyes
My parched mouth puckered
My joints are stiff, stubborn and brittle
Creaking like exhausted floorboards
Wringing my fists, white ands shriveled
Twisting my hands, skinned and raw
I'm ill with desperate thriving
Too weak to carry on, don't have the choice
Veins laden with liqueur, thinning hopes and regret
Pulsing pulsing pulsing
Bones fluttering with birds of bad omen
Scalp rid of hair to make place for the thorny crown of vanquishment
Blood diluted with bitter disappointment,
Sloshing, smearing through my mucked-up system
Aching from the deadly drone of existence
From small victories, large defeats
I'm the mortar, they're the pestle
Clobbering into my hollowed life.

The hammer of that thing
Routine so dull and tedious
Pounding and pounding and pounding
When you can't even scream or weep
Thud thud thud
My temples scream with dank submission
My brain is reeling, hurling from the vertigo of it all.

Morning, noon & night
The dead avenues, the empty buzzing
Beats hammers in my brain
Throb throb throb
I'm quivering with numbness.

I'm mature now, I'm ripe
So ripened and rotten
Adult things, adult preoccupations pulsing around me
It seems like person really only has two choices
Get in on the aimless hustle or be forsaken
I've taken it all up
Rent, coffee, wine, cigarettes and newspaper
Forgotten pills
Unpaid bills
Thump thump thump
Anguish, pain, woe and misery
Turbulence and stress, the banging hammer.

I'm a drunkard, a wanderer
With a beaten, battered suitcase
Days like these, weeks like these, when all the weapons are pointed at me
I'm a ***, an outcast
A pigeon in the pummeling rain
Dribble dribble splash
The ache is a relentless thing.

My job, my rent, my house
My walls limp with memories stuck with rotting glue
Wallpaper torn, curling at the edges
The cold hard floor radiates and screams
The couch, cold & hollow
Incrusted with bits of filthy grime
The dead radiator hisses like an angry snake
The shades down, no sunlight
No life seeping through the venetian blinds
And my clothing sits in the chairs
Like the dead emptied out
The blankets are thin, frayed and tattered
As hope is
The moths, on the other hand, are alive and well
They weave webs of moribund rot
Interlacing me into their strands of decay.

Surrounded by the coldhearted, they snarl
And their laughs abash, dishearten the pure
Bruising me relentlessly
They are so tired, mutilated
either by love or no love
All their bleak and sunken eyes
All their weak and drunken souls
All their meek and shrunken hearts
Vultures with neckties
Weasels in frocks
Collared beasts, that's all they are.

The mournful poet with the shrapnel wound
Was so wrong
I guess he wanted to be lyrical, but his words led astray
Time is not water
It does not flow easy, smooth and transparent
It drags you into dark alleys and batters the hell out of you
Punches you in the ribs, rips your skin,
Jerks you by your hair, stabs you, disfigures you
Leaves you crippled and broken, gasping for air.

Sweating in a rocker
Lanky skeleton hands clasped, praying- for what?
I'm not living, or dying
I'm simply crawling backward
Or no, I'm not crawling, I'm being dragged,
Through nights of lonely perfidy, breathing the beaten dusty air
The dark wind wailing, ebbing through the frail curtains
Laying in bed, too wretched to move
When memories, of heaven and hell,
Droop like broken shades
Across the window of my mind
And ****, I can feel my soul slowly dropping down through the mattress
My stomach is heaving, my teeth clenched and gritted
But not with fear, no, it's too late for dread
And it *****, because we realize we were all so caught up in a life in which we can find no meaning...we end up wrong and graceless and sick
We're born shriveled and alone, we die shriveled and alone
No matter what.

In a midwinter night’s dream
  i found myself lost again,   
  or was it even this year ?
  It may even go back farther
  than yesterdays out of reach,  
  older than an ancient pyramid stone
 
Before the rebirth of past life deposits,
  unborn orphaned motherless sediment,
  flotsam of the ages adrift,
  unknown for more than a thousand years

... waiting for so long to see beyond the bounds

High atop a slippery edge-cliff
  i clung  ―            
Searching for a deeper understanding
  of who i am;

Roosting like a starving bird of prey
  with a broken wing
  born alone ... holding on
  With a fear in his eyes
that only i could comprehend
  
  Staring way down deep in the pith,       
into an internal pitch black abyss,
  just begging to see beyond ―
  Mindful it's so hard looking
  into the eye of a storm

Intimately parsing the recurrent source
  of reigning pain
Where the perpetual fog of isolation dwells;
an inversion,     preventing dispersion
  of the nimbus  cold  and  dark

In the darkness, there bides a suffocating
  emptiness,  
  A swelling silence what loudly knells,
  leeching through a perennial ache

An abating voice within hollers unheard,
  invisible as a bitter cold wind howling
  relentlessly through the hollow pang;
  Echoing the subsiding say
(squeezed out) ... of an orphaned soul
  deep beneath the light

Awakening to realize  ―  once i was alive
  and
i could feel me holding on to you



//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

and in my "hiatus" period of absence, circa 15th of April and 15th of December (minutes from a yesterday)... i've come to regret the Russians not having any... no... rather the bare minimum of orthography... surprise surprise! there's plenty to choose from! i had to return to a time when i was drilling greek into my head... naturally: a time for cyrillic was on the horizon... but... i couldn't do it with english alone... i need my mother tongue, a tongue that employs diacritical markers... again and again: english can do away with its j... it goes missing when raised to stand from a sitting position ȷ(J)... and it can cut the head off its I(standing)... ı(sitting)... to make an emphasis... i have been busy... drinking aside, have a look where i have been for the past... april, may, june, july, august, september, october, november, december:

ź = зь and ż = зъ

i'm drinking - and i am my most content - the world burns and goes about its usual wordly theatre... i'm huddling with a cameo role in the background... i am drinking content... my 3rd or 4th rejection letter! this time from : austin macauley publishers (london, cambridge, new york - sharjah - where the **** is sharjah?!) - i remember sending them a "manuscript" and a book already printed, bound... they said it would take them 6 weeks to reply... i didn't enclose an email address... i had to wait for the snailmail... my my... what lovely handwritting of my name and address... in the letter i did state: it's e(sch)lert... she omitted the (sch)... a rebecca crib admin assistant, of the editorial... 6 weeks though... hmm... i posted the letter and manuscript and the book way back prior to visiting my grandparents... circa 8th of september... it's a rejection letter... that much is true... but i'm drinking in celebration! i was making dinner in the afternoon and was asked: why are you so angry? i wasn't... i tried to figure out what i'd feel when enough of ms. amber was in me... i replied: i'm being apathetic... but now it's clear: i'm jovial! there's even a signature! an authentic signature... in all honesty... a rejection letter means something... if it is physically mailed... of course i'm celebrating! i exist! i exist outside the realm of getting spam snail-mail! of course i will reply... i'll tell them: destroy and recycle the manuscript - it really wasn't a manuscript to begin with... i pour my "efforts" on the manuscript canvas that's the html... but the already printed book? can you please not burn in... rather... keep it? i'd appreciate no 1933 Säuberung... and you know (kind reader) - i'll send this introspection to the same publisher... like it is... pop / pulp or whatever mongerel of style this has had to be... but a reply! i want to see how one might escape formal language, formal affairs, social affairs, esp. in letters - a dear ms. X / to whomever it might concern Y... kind regards / yours faithfuly Mr. Z... this has to be celebrated... given what's on the horizon... the norwegian novel viking a'comin'! the buldozer autobiography... the demand for a "death" of fiction... otherwise i'm still "here"... a "here" that truly is so distant that its distance allows my petty leeching and the world's grand fiasco theater of fire and smoke and mirrors! - after all... i'm not mad enough to be welcome to a cage if i'm a sparrow... a cage of rhyme, form and all those shackle devices / identifiers of "poetry"... the future is narrative... and the current narrative says? if you asked me to dress proper, for an opera... to don the shirt the tux and the bow (tie)... the well ironed trousers... perhaps... beside the point: air's in the head and i just wish i could heat it up... for a baloon of quasi-egoism effect... otherwise what is there... a former journalist becomes an isolationist essay-scribbler? all the best journalists retire from the profession and become essayists... polemicists... whatever... this "poet" says: no poet ever writes a novel... the real life is too fictive already... and most certain this "poet" adds: begone! lyricism and rhyme! i'll sing like the humming drone cleric of the hive of ambient refrigerator sounds at 2am when everything is sleeping...

capital: oh... so that's what it was... back circa 1990 - when inflation of currency was rife all over Poland? that's when foreign capital was flowing in: foreign money... the economy was flooded with pounds and dollars... and given the exchange rate: i remember a time when you could get circa 7zł for every 1 £ sterling... so why would a nation start to print its own money? well... because more foreign money is coming in - at the given exchange rate: apologies: i was born yesterday - i need to explain certain things, from scratch... as was once stated - there's only a finite amount of money in circulation... physical money... "apparently"... and no... if you were to materialise all the wealth in this world into either fiat or gold: there wouldn't be enough of it... but how else would inflation happen in a country like Poland circa 1992? foreign investement: the wild west of eastern europe when the soviet barricade fell... i do remember being asked a question as a child: which is more... these copper coins... or this piece of paper? on the piece of paper was written 5, 000, 000zł - i said the copper coins... i wasn't either right or wrong - the person asking the question laughed... i don't think it was a question of: there are more copper coins in the hand... than a single piece of paper... after all... perhaps i acted all trans-****-sapiens and became chimp and saw less zeros on the copper coins than on the piece of paper? how else does does a currency inflate - when foreign currency is poured into it... it's the opposite of foreign aid... you put £1 into an economy - with an exchange rate: currently you'd get circa 4, 50zł out of... so where is all this "excess" money to come from? the moment when foreign money is invested... is the moment you have to start printing your own money... imagine... if the word BLACK was worth more than CZERŃ (чернь): oh, we'd readily translate BLACK = CZERŃ... but we also need a sentence for that "to make sense"... and there i was... thinking that russian doesn't apply diacritical markers... oh... right... they're not as discrete with accents like some of us... notably? нь = ń... and so and likewise... wait wait... źródło (source)... in russian it would look, look: oh so ugly... зьрoьд-ł-ł-o... (wh)en (wh(en) but now i know this (w)oe: the soft sign (acute)... and the hard sign for... e.g. życzenia (wishes)... зъыченя (perhaps зъычениa) - point being: ź = зь and ż = зъ... now does language come to me...it never left me... but now ai appreciate the minor details... i see the english and their language and how they speak it... how they churn out metaphysics and how they call forthe help of **** similis to give history the rusty coating of: nothing between a today and tomorrow: there's only the hanging off a tree from a a tail that the chimpanze doesn't thave... everything is so very metaphysical: it's never orthographic! тe два: tak - тe: оба (there's a wikipedia mistake... U+0411 / U+0431... not o'bah... oo'b'ah...): щекaць: szczekać! to bark... eh... greek became too rigid... i could remember all the letters... always buckling on ζ (zETA) and ξ (11), upsilon (υ) and nu-nu-nu (ν)... and this is, practically nonsense to anyone with a base literacy knowledge... to exagerrate... who does mind such pedantic pleasures... when they could be somewhere else: skiing! but it's worthwhile to know how a nation's currency can be inflated... foreign money flows into the country - and whatever the exchange rate is... there is no such thing as a "grafitti compensation": then again, there is... perhaps literacy has been inflated... inflated for a second literacy of coding to be assured? otherwise? bypassing the orthodox print... bypassing orthodox editorial scrutiny... was... "nice"... until the moment when the mediator sought to see fit that the reader had more authority over the written word: having re(a)d it - over the person who had / has: written it! we do part our ways with the russians on the "debate" concerning the "cedilla" involving A(ą) and E(ę)... cedilla: yes yes... akin to garçon - waiter! waiter! please - that greek sigma at the end of a word: and all its ασπεκτς... aσpectς - that really is an orthographic statement... only Ssssssss'igma is a letter with "three dimensions" suited for it... a handwritten element... otherwise in the news this week? the apostrophe society is no more... like when you don't put a possessive article if the thing in "question" ends with an S, in english? e.g.? the colours' (sez sirs - alt. colours's sez sirs... ses-esses) imbued harmony... and that is a possesive article, isn't it? with an apostrophe: 's? it's not a plural identification - there would be no need for the apostrophe to begin with! pounds' worth: no... not a pound's worth - the worth of a pound... pounds' worth: the worth of pounds! - what's that german word... glücke! nein nein... etymological root: glück 'luck' (etymology is the new history... it bypasses journalism and serves some journalistic cousin that's powdered in dust of cremated bookworms) - and yes, a hypen can come to the fore: after a full-stop and the opening of a new sentence with a conjugation: - with disbelief / - and!

i'm not buying how the media narrative will turn Cymru into a "K-affair"... sim sim: similie or else... but these have been my greek buckles: ξ (oh... that's why i wrote 11... XI - ksi...) - it's rare to see ξ sometimes: esp. in philosophy books... rubric!

- ζ
- ν
- υ (i can be forgiven, these two letters
are not suited for print... unless working
with a microscope) - unlike a roman Vv...
- ξ

but this is just the greek... if you ever read some modern... you'd think: and i just don't know, where they get their ideas from - with all those diacritical excesses that heidegger notes...

but now... for my cyrillic mini-adventure:

from Miньsk (Mazowieцki): with love

it might be said, that if i just the bare minimum -
if i even do not write anything at all -
but i have too many petty griefs during the day
to much else than the odd, occasional chore;
at the same time i do not want to sound
amused, bewildered, bored or un-used...
it's just that i find writing and drinking before
falling to my 343rd death -
my 343rd labour for mask and then exfoliated
in a dream: that might come...
or might not come...
unless a known audience... a wake sized nieche
privy... i find either unconscious or subconscious
struggles to warm up to an anonymous crowrd...
unless it was me being propped up on stage...
flooded by light... and the audience in the din:
with barely a shadow to scratch...
perhaps: then and only then...
but i've found that: it would be best that i sentence
the 2hs spare i have for merely drinking
and loitering from one video to another:
perchance something new in music is to emerge...
"coquettish" with a "something" that will never
have any realism-focus for me to undertake
a second's day carnality of the banal...
perhaps all this: "going out of my own way"
has been too much - or just enough...
to make me drink more and take more pharma
knock-out enzymes...
a naproxen and an amitriptyline...
perhaps the focus was elsewhere...
to stand frozen in awe...
when someone might "add": from one big void:
ex nihil a priori to... nihil a posteriori...
and all this cameo theatre in between!
mein gott... i can also convene to praise those
brutal breeders of sorts...
enough time to occupy two decades...
perhaps even three...
and then the grim reality of: should my child
die... or... some other worse:
the mortal should not be inflicted by...
"not reading into the genetic clues": properly:
"all at once"...
oh i would be so much happier to take this mind to sleep:
to not make some idle focus -
to entertain some eyes while i turn aside all things
hyper-inflated in purpose...
to die of a heart-attack in one's sleep...
but otherwise to simply focus on a welcome tomorrow...
that would be...
a gracious beginning to posit the day's slouching
zenith... or... i'm not sure whether this be a coming
zenith or a nadir...
but there's still that clear-cutting focus
regarding russian orthography...
cutting it with two tongues... slit at the tip...
with english the "placebo": no diacritical markers evident...
well: a TILDE over a ȷ is no more necessary...
than a "tittle" (not thai-tle... ty'ttle) over an ı...
to borrow the greek phrase: cut one head of hydra -
two emerge... cut the two heads...
i come toward the russian mish-mash of diacritical
application...
it's not be-au-ti-ful... it's messy... it's what it is...
but already i can see what this: cutting off the heads
of the english j-i hydra looks like...
it's not enough to simply enlarge them to state: CAP(I)TAL-(J)...
the knitty-gritty... why then the tilde atop of 'em?
prior "corrections": łen and when...
is not akin to... wrak or wreck... although these two words
have the same meaning...
unless: "partisan" V comes in...
very - weary... Cracow or Krakov?
a W = a Ł = a W = a V ≠ a Ł...
Ęwa and Ądam (e nosinė) are not covered by
Russian orthography...
the list is as follows:
ż (зъ) and... ć (ць), ń (нь), ó (oь), ś (сь), ź (зь)...
the graphemes? i'll call them graphemes for simplicity...
even though: they're not the smallests units...
as are vowels... or the syllables of consonants
in the latin choir of B'ee, C'ee... e'M... etc.
ж alternatively RZ (Ż) or Ž... otherwise the fwench:
je (suis)... this is nothing more than...
an encyclopedic evaluation...
a trainwreck proposal of: should i ever be stuck in
in russia... and i would have to: read... (ee'd - r'ah)...
chop off a TILDE off the torso of the english:  ȷ...
a crescent moon lying back emerges in the russian... й...
but it's not the english: jeep! it's an english: yeep!
or a  ȷeep! alternatively: yawn could be:  ȷawn...
but not if: it's jaws... coming into play: to chatter from
the siberian cold... how else to explain?
if not by... example?
then there's the "exploration" of the greek F...
as much as in english...
фoughts on θilosoφy...
good to know the russians only "borrowed"
one of the greek Fs... "culturally appropriated" or...
wasn't St. Cyrill born a greek?!
and away from greek we move...
since χ (chi): yep: perpleX... a Ks to a Ts
(note, revision found below)...
otherwise hidden... in non-vowel binding consonants...
like... ч- and -х (although... that's not quiet a Ch-ur-hC -
but sure... some altar for siц and... no... no siPS)...
cholera! which is not: SHow me the CHow mein...
for that we need CARONs...
that's when ч becomes CZ (in polish) or otherwise:
Č... long have i wanted the polish to adopt this version...
to hide the SZ and the CZ (es'zed, х'zed) respectively...
how else to write: szczekam?
a russian would write... щекaм...
out of a "simple" ш out pops out a щ (this letter...
is probably the only "etymological" route to bind russian
to the oddities of Ęva and Ądam (e nosinė)...
ш (š) becomes щ (šč) -
whoever was to undermine the old rules
of engagement when the ruling parties gave up
a monolopy of literacy? you can literally hide an entire
letter / meaning by using a hachek...
hook...
as i begin to wonder:
how much did the slavic tribes "appropriate" greek...
and how much did the two greek saints...
try to make sense of the slavic glagolitic script?
em... Ⱋ looks pretty intact if you cut off the body... E:
reclining...
but i do come from the western lands of the eastern
lands... hence? hardly any cyrilic influence...
but i too: with my own oddities... already mentioned...
come to think of it? the bulgars joined
the "party"?
beside that? what other, russian"oddities"?
orthographic - i.e. aesthetic dictations / rubrics...
ю really is a я... the russians have this english tendency
to stress their pronouns...
i this... i that! i walked up a street! and kicked a black
cat 13 times down the street to ease my luck!
you can talk in polish for days... and never stress the I / я
pronoun... really...
and ю is just a variation of я...
throw in the remaining vowels and you'd probably
come up with some "new" russian letters...
like ye... good point... i did make a "mistake"...
щэкaм! i'm barking!
unless... that's only an orthographic question...
notably? if you're going to: zerkać...
peer in / at "on and off"... casually...
зэркaць... em... it must be an orthographic question...
ergo? i wasn't exactly "wrong"...
just bad taste... зeркaць...
i've already shown the difference between (ъ) and (ь)
in a latin script: that uses more diacritical markers
than english "supposedly" escapes with focusing
on the rather pointless TILDE over the J and I...
this "oddity": ы... ɨ  clearly it's not exactly a ł...
minor details... like a mona lisa smiling...
best example of close proximity?
take a... no... that's a hollowed out "why"...
i know how it sounds... and there are no diacritical marks
needed for it... since there's a clear distinction
that i know of, between: I J Y...
tY... this little sucker is born from the fact that...
western slavs have a name for this letter...
iGREK... funny... the russians borrow more greek lettes...
and have to have...
ё (yo), e (ye), у (which they treat like a greek would U -
never mind the greeks themselves
making the following ref. Υγ / Γυ) -
and of course the я (ya)... so no wonder i see this
"letter" (ы) as an absolutely oddity...
i could stomach: ż (зъ) and ź (зь) differences...
well that's as far as i would come in learning russian...
spot the odd ones out... proper...
й (j) and ё... which is some german loan vowel with
that ******* umlaut... otherwise...
this poo'em was born from trying to **** the english
hydra of "orthography", with its mighty bounty
of the ȷ-ı TILDE! my my... what a ride!
come to think of it... now i think i can sleep.
- it hasn't been such a waste of an hour... drilling this in:
into my head...
after all... what did the professional clarinet player
say then asked about playing professionally
in a travelling orchestra? after 30 ******* years of
blowing hard into this thing...
guess what i still end up doing?
it's not so much learning... i'm still practising!

because this will not end like some sort of "summary"...
i will remember each letter if i weave it into
this latin letter by letter...

the refleξive (x)
in that one might have χeated (ch) -
again!
what it is about an ξ-ray that is also an
"χ"-ray? the "ex" k'ss k'ss cuss...
is this what james joyce's finnegans wake
should have looked like?
again!
the cruξ of the matter...
whenever a question was to be raised about:
any χoice to be had...

i have come to grips with russian orthography...
i'll repeat... the crescent moon over и ("e")
to state: this must be elongated: й ("y") stands outs...

best examples are given by sports commentators,
notably in ski jumping...
suffiξes of surnames...
akin to -cki endings...
yes... you're seeing what i'm seeing...
we'll need some russians to work this one
out... how a C is not an S...
and how it's not KK either...
-цки... hello wet drum-kit snare!

of course not: you're not seeing N:И...
let alone: нaйт (night...
evidently -igh- is a bit complicated...
with ref. to the surd in knight - kappa and
the gamma and the ha ha ha ha tetragrammaton
left arm... vowel catcher i'd be most inclined
to borrow from the hebrews...
whenever they're not busy actually using it...
and not being a bunch of 'ebrews -
electronic brewing of tea?)
сo дaрк (so dark)...

which is the equivalent of writting english
grafitti "backward"... how it sounds...
and not for: what's the formality?
i figured: take the small steps, the trickle...
burn the eyes out with incremental poppy-seed
acts of progress... like the grand Pilgrim Emeryk
from the Świętokrzyski region of Poland
(holy cross)...
each year the pilgrim shuffles to the top of
the mountain with a speed of:
a poppy-seed's worth of distance each year...
by the time he reaches the top of the mountain:
the end of the world will arrive...

am i the next Delmore Schwatrz?
no... i don't have a Lou Reed to contend with...
am i obsessed with Finnegans Wake?
well i didn't spot any "additions" to the letters...
i didn't see any diacritical markers...
a book that shouldn't be translated since...
it ignores... a worthwhile mention
of the concept of orthography -
which is my escape from any western vogue
of metaphysics... i hide behind the omniscient
niqab of orthography... my face can be forever
hidden... but my eyes need to be on... fire!
fire! i want you to burn!

so i went to see the russians having
left the greeks... about any "nuance" bound
to the... ****-naked english language
with its magic act of the disappearing heads
off of J and I...
as you do... you "forget them" and also have to:
somehow "remember" them to be used...

do i still enjoy drinking and listening to
teutonic chants in german?
god almighty! when wouldn't i not listen to german
medieval music... when drinking?!
is that such a terrible sin?

also? i finished the trilogy of H. Sienkiewicz...
and i read some Boris Pasternak...
there was Nietzsche in polish - paul's leash said:
he's more bearable in this language,
than in english...
and how could i forget! there was...
Knausgård... Karl, Ove... volumes 1 and 2
of mein kampf...

now a "summary": hmm... ż (зъ) and... ć (ць)...
could... now... hard sign (ъ) is not exactly worth
ascription if... or rarther: because...
you don't treat a caron over an S or a C...
to "hide the english H" or the Aesti Z when coupled...
there's no need to write чъ... since?
that's pretty much in-itself given č of the nature
of чeap...
ć / ць is different in that... you'd have to hear
it first...
however... the one exception of this "rule" is already
self-enclosed in ж... which is зъ... somehow...
but not зь... examples?

жart / зъart... żart (joke)...
зьrebi... well there's no 'ę' in russian
to name: źrebię - mustang colt...
is there?
so... i was "wrong"...
in that ź = зь and ż = зъ is true...
but? ź = зь and ż = зъ = ж...
so from a "quiet unique" perspective...
and: mein gott! who's to see, travel,
and subsequently marvel at the pyramids of giza...
i'm a different version of what's
considered to be "tourism"...

give me this sole equation:
ź = зь and ż = зъ = ж
and i'll be happy for a month.
as i have been...

oh i'm back... and things have taken
SPEC-TAC-U-LAR turns and twists!
****-naked english over 'ere is gonna make
a chariots of fire runner...
i bet it will... when it comes against a juggernaut
like me.

The sun forever guiding,
Their hoods forever rising.
The times are never changing,
Our cave forever breaking.

A cause so lost in the dust of the Earth.
A pause so long, the ancients heard.
A man so strong, the river yearned
To cloak his self and the life he earned.

Under the waterfall,
I am shunned by nature's screeching cries,
And drowned in hooded leeching lies!
A great machine that changed the time!

Twisting in a brilliant path,
Above the cave, the water's last
Falls upon the empty man
Willful to be drowned in red.

I stick to you like a parasite
Leeching into your soul; a stronghold
My spiders web has you ensnared
When you leave I pull you back
You may find it an irritance or endearing
When I say I'll never let you go
Because aside from pretty words
You know I truly mean it
Oh no I'm not a stalker!
But if you leave me darling
*I swear I'm never going to let you go

Would a blue ballpen without ink just lie
To die, like the children of our past needs,
The mouths of their thinning souls leeching
Our piety, our profanity, our tendency to build society
Off faces and masks,
                              Individual fragments of ourselves.

Would one give a thousand pesos to he who smears
Windshields with soap to take a few coins hostage
Or to she who exhibits a gaunt infant, an offspring
Of want, not wanted, the wear and tear of a rough
World manifest on emaciating juvenile skin. Would one
Give a thousand?
                              Would one commit a kiss?

When mere change can buy a pen with its full blood,
What then is the worth of the bleeding, the bearded
Blind on the somber sidewalks of forgetfulness where
Without ink, it ceases to be blue, and unable to write,
            He has no need for a pen.
The world is writing his story,
            He is only there to punctuate with his blood.

1.

A star-shaped
patch of snow,
achingly white,
rests against the base
of the little white
pine, wrapped
in glittering
golds and reds, gifts
for the Christ Child.

No claw or paw
or beak or wing
has touched the snow.
Only a hidden pitch
of grass pushes
it skyward.

It shirks
its shrinkage
north
of the pine.
It will not
winnow until
the bright star burns.

I pass the snow
and think of nothing.

2.

Lightning split
the hide
of the 80-year-old
oak that shaded
our little tan house
each summer.

Its bark ripped
apart like
wallpaper,
life leeching out
of its crooked limbs
in sap-soaked
streams of sorrow,
making room
for the little white pine
to thrive
in the dead of winter.

Nature is not
our friend.

3.

The pine prays to preserve
some piece of the oak
I used to love. Its needles,
like shark’s teeth,
fend off friend and foe
alike, granting it
the right to grow
wherever it likes,
even here,
at the foot of giants.

Dead, the pin oak loans
its beauty to no one,
boasts only of its hard,
straight wood,
an abiding abode
for birds and squirrels
and barking boys.

I climb to its top
each Christmas,
straining toward
the Epiphany star.

The tree sways, and
I think of nothing.

 4.

The burgeoning pine
pines for such power.
You cannot cut it
without exposing
its darkened knots,
like aging spots
on my hands
and face.

It rises bright with
anemone-like cones
dappled on its coat
of single color:
      evergreen,
      ever young.
      Ever gone,
my pilgrim oak.

I stretch toward the star
of Bethlehem,
dreaming my way
to Heaven, saying No
to the punishing
star of snow below.
Hanging high
above the Earth,
I sense the Christ Child
in my branches.

Wet, wild grasses
brush His cradle,
push me skyward,
His star my home.

I

A Genesis! The Exodus, the Exodus!
A departure from all terrestiality
Always immoral and depraved, bathed in filth, in self-loathing
Abattoir of our souls, it entrenches us

Also, we too must be of the same make
And bear with our corpses the same proceedings, the same caliber
Allowed to their subversive candor,
All that broke the Carthaginians upon their own passage
Across the peninsular pathways

S'il in our conquest we find, however, that the pachyderms have run aground,
Vous must aggregate our conscious thought
Plaitcate the ravenousness within the heart of victory.

II

Bring victory, the winged harbinger of the conquest,
Beg for tyrannical proclamations: the end of man, the end of men,
By now, the greater of the concepts is lost to its own devices, devices,
Belching out smoke, that bend the corpses upon their backs.
By wrenching from their life a sense of purpose,
Byproductively, they feed heroic romanticisms of combat.

Brought yet upon these fields, there lies no stranger enemy
But that of the tide
Being self-effacing, masochistic,
Belittling, She breaks herself upon the shore, ravaging the bodies of
Both, Playing as ******* and as subservient

III

Come! Wave upon Wave upon Frothing
Crest, to shores of golden enfrenzied ******
Calmed by the liquid of our ***** *****
Charging forth as we
Charge forth armies upon the field of slaughter
Callously, for you, our gilded monarch
Can you see? They cannot see, and we hope to elucidate your presence, they
Cannot comprehend or fathom what they
Cannot see.

IV

Ceaseless now the charges
Come further upon the front
Crashing 'gainst the openings of each
Clangor and madness
Coalesce to form death

Dripping anew with sanguine libations
Drawn fresh from naked lambs, freshly cut for their country
Dionysian warriors return,
Desire forming their mental undulations

Effortlessly they overtake their feminine fortunes
Effacing their identities, removing from them with their clothing, the
Entirety of their selves.

V

From carnal conquest they rejoice,
Flaunting the destruction they wrought
Flinging husks of women about the room,
Foisting these shells on other patriarchs

Given no choice, they return to fields of battle
Godspeed, gods' will, and god-granted
Gaian soil is retreaded by their sodden flesh.

VI

Hellish, infernal is their presence
Having lost no measure to revelry or rest, neither
Halting nor slowed, the march quickens in time with their lustful bellows
Hastened to madness by infinity
Harkened back to prisons of mental anguish by their creators
How proud they are, the Old Gods,
Hacking away the pounds of flesh to reveal the
Haphazard construction to their instruments of torture.

VII

Into the bloodshed, into the fiery cavernous opening of the crusade
Ignited by righteous scraps of cloth and metal
Ignobly formed into crudely significant, textured shapes
Iconoclasts to their own ideals
Idyllic in their self-mockery.

Jabbering like hellbeasts, the warriors drive into the flesh of the conflict
Jettisoning armaments in the process, their
Joie de vivre having been lessened by mechanical limits.
Jocular slaughter synthesized with demonic cries.

Kapellmeisters to the symphony of death,
Keeping in the rhythm of mutilation, counterpoints of steel clashing against breastplates, giving shape to a
Kleptocracy of life.

VIII

Languishing now in the refuse of the struggle,
Laden with corpses, the warriors remain restrained by fatigue
Lurching through the mud, calling out feebly with voices
Long since bellowed to pulpy masses of throat tissue.

Masses of flesh crawling across the fields of strife,
Macerated ground, weak and shifting, struggles to support the
Multitude of half-corpses now in eternal respite upon the bloodied pasture.

IX

Now broken with regret and shame they collapse
Nestled into the marrow of the fallow earth,
Needing only rest in the cooling tendrils of dirt and blood that trickle across them.
Né de nouveau, their trek leads them towards the grave
Necrosis having taken hold in their limbs,
Nascent corpses, they subside with grave finality into a dead collective.

X

Opaque irises await those who uncover the un-burial mound
Oafish sockets containing them like marbles
Open to the elements, decaying with their corporeal encasement, shaded by
Oaken leaves that remain unfallen, while
Obsequious maggots go about their task of cleansing the remains

Paralyzed in the final moments of their mortal coil, the bodies lay stagnant,
Pacified only by the removal of sentience.
Pagan rituals surround such corpses, and the intrepid discovers
Patiently await the arrival of some necromantic spirit.

Quasi-instinctively, the pioneers of the superterranean mausoleum
Quell their fears and remove the bodies from their conclusive locale,
Quantifying their deaths by the armaments and metal carapaces upon them.

XI

Reeling across the path, weighted by the bodies,
Returning, the archaeological presence brings a pall over society, which
Remained reticent despite the presence of such suffocating solemnity
Repressed by its own intent

Solitude is given no quarter, and the bodies
Strung up like scattered marionettes
Silently serenade the town with a deafening cacophony.

XII

To Hell their souls desperately charge, frothing about the shackles of undeath
Torn from corporeal existence, yet unable to
Transgress the mortal plane
Torturous paradox!
Torment the fallen of Carthage's vestigal might no more
Traducer of the human condition
Tragedy is loosed at thy whim
Try not the patience of demi-gods of wrath and bloodshed.

XIII

Undulating by the beckoning of the wind,
Un-beautiful, un-ironed, the shrouds of the coffins
Under grey sky hang softly like leaden sheets
Unaware of the gravity beneath the few inches of oak
Un-aesthetically masking the dead warriors' forms

Visceral is the movement of the procession,
Vermicular, they wind a course to the peak of the foothill
Vehemently the priest urges them onwards, although he is
Visibly ill on this occasion of the anti-hero.

Warlike, the battle up the ***** claims the lives of those already claimed
Wastrels left to rot in the carcass of a long-dead conflict,
Wanting nothing more than solace eternal.

XIV

Xenophobes of the Inferno fear the inevitable presence of these
Xoana, false representations of humanity.
Xanthic is their fear, for inside the malebolges themselves
Xanadu is sought for those of the fallen soldiery.

Yet funerary proceedings dictate descent for these souls, and the coffins
Yaw slightly in the wind, disturbed by the
Yanks of the ****** rabble who bear their weight.

XV

Zeus himself presides over the ferrying of these souls,
Zion awaits them, their final collective fate at hand,

Yet slowly it turns its back upon them,
Xenophanes mocks from his post,
Wailing, they fall
Velocity increasing infinitely,
Until they see no more the lustrous light
Trapped eternally in dark
Stabbed with betrayal and fear, their souls
Run amok, fleeing from the source of their anguish
Questioning existence.
Periodically in the abyss, the helpless aggregate conscious is
Overwhelmed with memory of Paradise
Now to them denied for eternity.
Mephisto remains, their only companion,
Leeching from them the final vestiges of hope now left within, once
Kept hidden to protect the warriors, now
Jabbed and pummeled to death.
In this state of perpetual umbra
Heaven so distant, now only faded, as if on parchment,
Gained by the souls is a sense of locality, once
Forgotten but now reattained, and
En masse, the group instantly
Derives that they have returned from beyond the mortal plane, the terra once again
Collates beneath their soles, and the collective decides they must return
Before the open sun, to bear themselves
Against the gods, against sanctity itself, and thus they cry:

My employer is leeching all it can from me
and I’m leeching all I can from it

it’s a competition
a gentleman’s game

where the stake for me is my life
and the stake for it is like 37 dollars.