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mûre Oct 2013
You were the greatest neuronal reorganization to ever happen,
of course I don't know who I am anymore.

What was plastic seems changed to stone in a gargoyle brain and beneath a microscope the shimmering glia spell out your name over and over in little green lights, fossilizing the neurons that say:

Him.

The earth has an edge. Nobody wants to fall off.

So call me Homer, because the gods themselves could not convince me my situation's a sphere there's far too much fear in this flattened plane that understands only primitive desires and just wants you near.

Everyone knows the romanced brain could be mistaken for a ******* addict's.

But perhaps if you look more closely into my eyes you will see my irises have turned stormy, that cyclones of energy are becoming patterns that scribble and scribble arcane suggestions for a new cartography. A new story. A new being.

Supplies needed:
One strong pencil.
Enough oxytocin to unlearn an addiction.

Enough optimism to overcome an affliction, my diction is code for the way you kissed me and it underlines every sentence like the way a voice rises when asking a question.

I have so many questions.

And even though the notion of who I will be when I am not you terrifies me, like Cathy and Heathcliff I will not be doomed to roam the moors, already I know there's endlessly more, and with or without you the best is yet to come. Just as they say. No, I don't know what's in store. But I think that's okay.

Turn golden, Grey Matter, light up 'til you burn.

Reboot.
Restart.
Rewire.

*Relearn.
A primitive attempt at beat poetry.
Samuel Fox Apr 2016
Trill of beak into birch. Dawn spooks
the graveyard into silence. A heart
hardens at God’s withered finger reaching
but not reached for. I trim the hedges
and the whir of ****-eater disturbs
a nest of yellow jackets into tornado,
dust devil, of translucent wings and sting.
I walk among the dead three times a week.
I am learning their language. They relearn
the mundanity of white noise above
and quietly forget, quietly forgive.
This hill is the crest on a wave of coffins,
each one a boat through the world below.
Submerged in a bloodshot morning
I listen to a woodpecker in its throes
of building a home out of the depths of bark.
In the chill, the soft fog rolling, it pecks
and it knocks. The doors to these lives
long closed, I hush. I do not believe God
will visit these grounds to reclaim his clay:
I plant flowers in it between the plots,
each name engraved of marble a blank stare.
The flash of red flushes from budding branches
and I return to work. No one answers.
I relearn the dead’s language, their silence,
relearn every day how to repair stillness.
For a friend of mine who works in a graveyard.
Allison Oct 2017
Follow the kick-drum of the heart
to the point where it’s heard loudest.
Spend ten thousand hours on the lungs:
Read the textbook on what fills us.
Dedicate a white board
to what makes us collapse.
Hold the bell lightly
to differentiate your own pulse from another’s.
Then drink, and dance, and pray,
to relearn that they’re the same.
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2018
.you want to relearn the schoolyard? are you sure you want to relearn the schoolyard?! sure... we can relearn the schoolyard...  i have a theory though, and it goes along the lines of... you know those *******(s)? i have a theory... they're not exactly into smoking, or drinking... like... their female counterpart... i actually think women are afraid of young boys... for what young boys are, per se... well, given Muhammad, hyper-inflated interest in literacy... that covers the whole: illiterate prior, married to an older woman, not drinking, not smoking?! so what's your outlet?! to be an object of what... "subjects"... or to be a "subject" of what... objectifies... case in point, the nuance is interchangeable in the metaphor quadratic of wording... and no... not really... i find it hardly necessary to concern myself with making the sort if accuracy to give a metric unit basis of a centi-, or otherwise, etc.

it's sheryl crow
for ****'s sake...
it's not
           katty perry...
that debut:

was... pristine..
seminal...

sure... my feet stink...

what? what's wrong
with Cheryl Crow?!
you better be *******
with me for serious,
otherwise
i switch to: unhinged...

a change?

***** won a ******* grammy!
sure... she married
a glorious child of
the two pedals...
   who faked Paris having faked
a tourism ploy of France...

it's still Sheryl Crow though!
a trucker's daydream
of perfect head,
incubated by a mouth
of an 18 year old boy...

no... i like Alanis...
when... whatever that was that came
from a woman's mouth was...
deemed, fun...
now?

       n'ah... not really.
all i really want... that sort of **** was
fun...
now? i'm becoming more and more
bemused by the fragrance of my
socks, worn, second day to count
thoroughly...
              hand in my pocket...
right through you...

so... BIG daddy gonna come around
to save this teenage girl's cherry ***?
the kind of daddy that could never
have a beer with me?
like i'm feeling that:
while using my right hands when typing
feels like i'm using my left hand,
and vice versa?!

no! i'm not having it!
Cheryl Crow... &...
Chrissie Hynde!
            no... don't give me the *******
zig-zag argument suggesting
i'm about to see something
"better", via an X, cross-eyed...
blurry, like some reverse Freudian
fetish off Ariel, the mermaid,
blurry, under the water...

Disney princesses my ***.

head over feet...
         now... that's a song.
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2018
.like i insinuated prior, the English are a people not competent in philosophy, they're the antithesis of what a people, inclined to philosophy represent... schematic, rigidity, like the German... or the frequent cafe bullshitters of the French, the English can't consecrate themselves on the altar of Sophia, they just can't... they're a people that succumbed to too much practicality, egalitarianism... no one attempts to write in Utopia, while not seeking to find Atlantis.

so the whole Greece, Troy,
Rome shuffle is about over?
i'm feeling slightly peckish
and i don't have the time...
i'm about to light the house
up using... light-bulbs...
don't you think that a name
akin to: Paul, Digit,
sounds great?!

don't get me wrong,
the English are a people bound
to other, gifts...
they can sing,
although... Aud Lang Syne
is a Pict song...
and the river-dance is pure Ire...

great sophists,
but philosophers?
they're too practical,
i'm trying to read
Sartre's being & nothingness
in English...
i simply, can't...
      it doesn't make sense...
if you gave me a copy
of the same book
in ******-speak...
i'd butcher it...
   but in English?

metaphor moment:
like catching the testicles of
a mosquito, wearing boxing
gloves...

fiddly ******...

sure... each country has its
career ambition...
russian and the romanians
and the bulgarians have
their gymnastics...
the brazilians and the germans
have their footie...

the English have their singing
and their poetry...
but philosophy?
      nope... not even close...
Oasis' wonderwall
will be remembered,
and even sang along to on
the continent...

                   but thomas more's
utopia,
or thomas hobbe's leviathan...
ever tried to read more than
twenty pages
    of joseph conrad's
         heart of darkness... ?
ever find eating porridge
equivalent to parachuting
   in terms of the level of excitement?

chill... the English have their virtues...
but the English are also
prone to call philosophy
impractical, verbiage, word salad...
because philosophy already
is an impracticality,
an impasse...
          it's supposed to be,
           it's not exactly an Ikea schematic
reading to assemble a *******
table...
             it's Picasso, cubism,
       see if you can see a cube in
the mesh of contortions of other geometric
signatures...

              the English do not do philosophy...
sorry... they don't...
whatever argument arises citing
the "need" for: "reason" and, "logic"
will not cut it for me...
reason? since God doesn't intervene...
well... the unfathomable depth of
human will... reason: the same freedom
as posited prior to: the unfathomable depth...

logic? 1 + 1 = 2...
      a + n + d | s + o = and so...
the English are barons over other traditions
of expression...
music being 1, poetry being 2...

hey, Polacks are decent at volleyball...
i'm not complaining,
it's not exactly a popular sport...

but no... no chance in hell will i read
a philosophy book in this language...
i can't, the language is already too shrapnel
for me... i need to clarify a focus
on an idea...
        language, the English language,
can't entertain the current "transcendental"
logistics of undermining the individual /
plural use of pronouns,
while also keeping a straight face
in other areas of thinking...

     i could have conceded to the whole
globalist liberalism of ideas...
but... looking at the other flank?
attacking grammar... ****... sorry...
dogma?!
                as if... i will bow down
to un-existing before my wedding with death.

that being said,
i think the English are in a dire need to relearn
their black sense of humor,
their islander sense of isolationist humor,
their: bizarre unpredictability...
  since they lost it...
             to a certain degree...
i'd say: relearn to laugh at what is,
otherwise unforgiven in other cultures...
more crass Americanism...
and... well...
                can you ever learn to
cry when experiencing beauty?
musically, that is, esp. in the musical
dimension...
                    i always hated this:
"you're laughing, but actually crying...
you're crying, but actually laughing"
inversion...
        i never came around to fathom this
"misnomer"...
          straight down...
    i'll laugh at a funeral...
            teasing death...
   but i'll cry over a decent piece of music, to boot.
Joshua Vincens Sep 2012
I truly believe that one of the reasons that the US is despised and condemned world wide is because of such views on such characteristics as: honesty, integrity, independence(this includes not thinking in a collective mindset which we do as a culture, everything is apple or windows, pepsi or cola, republican or democrat, people need to think for themselves stop claiming and just be), persistence, determination, morale, empathy, tradition/heritage, learning, chivalry, discernment, and humility.

Instead of utilizing and perfecting these people of this nation and similar one's have become: prideful, dependent, drive-less, imprudent/unwise, insulting, ignorant(willfully so), objective, biased, crude, mediocre, and surface oriented.

In turn we have neglected the responsibilities we have of ourselves. This has resulted in physical, mental, and spiritual capacity regression on a mass scale. Most people have no idea what they are consuming in their daily dietary intake(I mean really know what all the ingredients are and what they do whether positive or negative). Most citizens have also become, literally and according to the United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization, mentally incapable and completely inane as compared to even 15yrs ago. We have forgotten how to have a community to the point that neighbors don't know each other anymore. We have exchanged the truly important things in life like knowledge and wisdom for wealth and appearance. We have completely forgotten how to survive without the aid of water treatment, electricity, and useless objects. One of the worst of all things we have stopped doing, is being involved with our government; instead, we have put our trust in them without oversight, and this is why we have been losing our liberties. I believe, just like Benjamin Franklin stated, that any individual who sacrifices even one liberty for safety/security... deserves to have all of their liberties eradicated.

In conclusion, it is time to return our societies to ourselves. We need to relearn the truly important things in life and start living with ourselves, each other, and nature as we must to thrive. It is on us as a people to repair what generations before us, and our generations are doing; lest, I am afraid, our children and grandchildren will inherit the same ideals and expand upon them until we regress to the point that insolence, ignorance, and imprudence is the common norm... we have already begun to accept these. Open your eyes to the truth, at first it will be painful and difficult, but than you will be set free. WE THE PEOPLE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR FUTURES AND CHILDREN'S FUTURES.
Rewind this memoir back to my first foster home.   I’m reclining on the couch in the living room watching Superman, a whatever's-on-tv-saturday-afternoon-movie.   "Give A Little Bit" played from the soundtrack.  The Supertramp song reached out from the screen and into my own complicated teen-aged life.  Oh the words of that song blindsided me, hit me hard in the chest with a sad yearning, an emotion I had ignored forever like that elephant in the room too big to push out the door.  Because life was so hard, too hard, and lonely on and on, and the world gives only just enough that you keep breathing, but you wonder why.  Yes, please  someone  give just a little....
But at the time I hadn't known anything else and I just stuffed that overwhelming sad lonely feeling.  Too much need wears out a welcome in someone else's home.  It seemed most everyone else had family, security, some money for perhaps things like a pair of cleats to run in school track if you have the desire. Its called belonging or opportunity and I was acutely aware I wouldn't have it.

Fast forward 25 years; business for my glass art studio is rewarding.  I live in Cleveland, or what I called Purgatory.  I like the city though; I think the motto should be "Its Not That Bad."  A tough steel town, unpretentious to a fault, tenacious, it inspired the Clean Water Act because the river was so polluted it   caught   on   fire.  People who live there just don't quit, except that the biggest export is young people. The streets are eerily empty, the quiet steel mills are epic sculptures of rust.  But its not that bad.  Now they make a tasty beer called Burning River.  Sometimes they gamble on unconventional ideas because they've reached the end of status-quo.  One can even surf there, when the wind blows a Nor'easter in the fall, just before the lake freezes. The wave break is nicknamed "Sewer Pipe"; one can imagine why.

I biked with a club there; cycling part of my life-blood.  Life was pretty good, blessed with measures of contentment and happiness and family, even through so many challenges.  Except I'm stuck pedaling a trainer in the basement most of the long winter.  It was during an endless, gray February that I was inspired by an idea: a Velodrome.  Its one of those banked tracks people in America only see during the Olympics.  Cover it, and people could have a bicycle park all year-round with palm trees in the winter, in Cleveland.  Its a blast of a sport with serious American heritage.  A velodrome is a place where all a kid has to do is show up and with enough heart he or she can make it to the Olympics.  They wouldn't need money, just 100% heart.  It would be the kind of opportunity I didn't have when I was a kid.

So I decided to take on the responsibility to build one... not to be afraid of the price tag, or how to do it, or let a label like "disabled veteran with a head injury" daunt me.  I figured my role was to get the project started and motivate others to do other parts.  I decided not to discuss my shortcomings, introduce myself with that label, or use it as a disclaimer.   As many times as I wished I had a chalkboard sign around my neck saying, Please excuse the mess, I had to tell myself it was not an excuse.
There would need to be many others; but the fact that I knew only a dozen people on the planet didn't stop me either.  Two people inspired me.  Kyle MacDonald had a dream to barter a paper clip for something better, trading that for something else, anything else, until he had a house.  I thought I could start with an old laptop, a couple thousand dollars, and my idea. I'd work to leverage each bit of progress, not knowing what they were yet.  Thats how anything gets done, right?  Erik Weihenmayer is a blind alpine mountain climber, conquering even Everest.  He didn’t let anyone convince him what he couldn’t do, and didn’t let impairments keep him from his goal.  He didn't let blindness, the fact that he couldn't see the top as well as others, make the goal any less enjoyable for himself.  Also, there’s no way he could have done it without help.

There are no business plans for a Velodrome or someone else would have built more of them already.  I'm good at figuring things out, what with having to relearn things all the time.  I don't quit because that has never seemed to be an option.  Resourcefulness is my middle name, having to put my life back together every year or so.  Certainly the project was eccentric but as an artist I've never really cared about what others thought.  I certainly didn't have a reputation for sanity to maintain.  Professionally, I’ve had experience with so many factors of development: from paperwork at the back end as a Project Assistant, to designing it as a Mechanical Drafter, to constructing it as a Steel Detailer.  I understood this project.

Every time I discovered something needed to be done, I'd figure out how to do it.  I took an online tutorial and put together a website, attended communication seminars for better speaking skills, learned how to recruit a Board of Directors, took classes for fundraising, won a few grants, and started a non-profit.  I had to buy a couple of suits for meetings.  I kept hoping someone who knew what they were doing would take over, but that never seemed to materialize.  What I thought would be a few months turned into several hard years of work, learning new things on the fly like politics, business etiquette, computer programs, how to understand and write financials and business plans for stadiums.

It felt like cramming for finals, taking exams for classes I never attended.  I didn’t just burn my candle on both ends, I was torching it in the middle too.  Every challenge I had ever gone through seemed like it was a preparation for this one.  Many times I wondered if it was all for nothing; so many dead ends and frustrations and years where the project was barely on life-support.  Mistakes and wrong turns making people mad, losing faith in me.  Would it ever really happen?  I kept imagining what my bike wheels would look like under my handlebars as if I was ridiing on the track, listening to the same particular songs on my ipod for motivation.

A small tangent here, a digression back to the fifth grade and my favorite teacher.  He was about as tall as his students.  Mr.A (our nickname for Mr. Anderson) was a barrel-chested little person but I didn't notice it till years later because he was so cool.  He was the first teacher, the first person actually, who encouraged me to be myself.  I was a little kid, a couple years advanced and bright enough to be skipped again.  Tthat would have been ridiculous since I was already too small.  I would get my work done early in class, and he would let me spend time doing whatever, encouraging my creativity.  I distinctly remember making little scale models of parks out of construction paper.  I would start by making a rectangular tray, and then fill it in with ponds, benches, and oval or figure-8 tracks for bicycles, elevated roller-coaster paths for walking.  It was my way of creating a whimsical place that felt good in my difficult life.  No lie, I was building bicycle tracks when I was 9.  That memory faded away until I was several years into the actual Velodrome project, trying create a light-hearted park on the edge of a ghetto.  This was my life's ultimate Art Project; made with wood, steel, and tenacity.  It made me wonder about a life's purpose... still just a what if... but cruel if there wasn't anything to it.

There is a necessary role for the dreamer.  Visionaries help to break status quo, introduce new solutions.  Sorting through the banal with unique perspective, the random is reassembled into intriguing newness.  What is creative nature?  Is it obsession to improve things, the need for approval, resourcefulness within limits, or perspective outside boundaries?   Is it tenacity to the point of obsession, focus to the point of selfishness?  

Thankfully, a few devoted people did take over after a few years and worked hard to raise the serious money.  In 2012, Phase 1 of the Cleveland Velodrome opened to the public.  Presently they are raising funds for Phase 2 to cover it.   By chance I was there the day the track was finished and got a chance to ride it.  All I wanted to do was one thing: listen to those songs on my ipod and see my wheels under the handlebars on the track... in reality.  I didn't want to race or be recognized at some celebration.  I just wanted to ride a few laps, happy just to have a role in building it.  In less than a year there are already training programs, youth cycling classes, and teams competing.  Through community grants and volunteers, its all free to anyone under 18.  

Not to be forgotten, some thanks should go to one supportive teacher who helped a scrappy kid dream.    Schools measure math and science so valuable, for good reason.  But this favors one brain’s side of thinking.  Initiating and working for the construction of an urban renewal project and improving a neighborhood is traceable to the exact same idea assembled with clumsy school scissors, white glue, and construction paper, during 5th grade free time.

I can't wait to hear the news of some tough kid from East Cleveland getting to the Olympics.
Osiris Jul 2013
In the heavens was written the mandate for the oldest child of the Sun and the Sea.

She the princess, oh nobly born, the oldest of three, was the model for the universe for elegance and wisdom of compassion as the philosopher child.

As she suckled on her mother, the volition of the sea, the philosopher child embraced the light of her father's wisdom as a vessel of beauty that all across all lands and in heaven adored to see.

As a gift of divine creation, the philosopher child, as written, taking form, a sage for humanity, was intended for she. The princess of innocence also loved her little sister and brother with the tenderness that is so special as she.

Upon reaching the age of wonder, her father fashioned a chariot for her to ride, so that where ever she were to travel, she could stand on ethics and scruples and not false pride. Her mother gave her horses the spirit of her volition so to pull their child across many unknown tides where on the chariot their child would be safe from contempt, dismay, envy and lost lives.

The philosopher child crossed the lands of question, where deep in its valley of many masks, politicians made laws of convenience, allowing one to wear many as one could, impromptu, they could choose to decide. She saw, that there, things could be fashioned for popularity where the vital balance of nature, being ignored, was foolishly thought not to reside.

But where ever she traveled, her father as the Sun, her mother the sea, felt safe that their daughter the sage as the philosopher child would learn the cost for compassion, and as wisdom would fill her heart so to eventually bless humanity with its redemption, with her kindness that was deep inside.

One day the princess arrived at the dark forest where the midst was thick and deep.  Creatures started to show from everywhere and reached out to hail her arrival. They said - please step down off your chariot, so to join us, as up there you are so far way and hard for us all to see as we are so low to the ground where the earth barely allows us to be.

In the kindness of her heart of compassion, trusting when she did, they then replied, that you are no better than me. The foxes chuckled in grin as making her feel as if she had to apologize for being the philosopher child. They stole her chariot and wasted her horses who cried out in fear in their terror; but yet not to be heard over all the panacea and glamour afforded in the foxes swift tide. The foxes insisted that their familiarity with her was not a contemptible form of their false pride.

In making her way across treacherous lands, she wondered deep in the dark forest wishing to make peace with all. But each who she met could only offer her the blindness of their limitations and deceit where calling it truth and where she, if to wish acceptance, was not given a choice to decide.

This tore into her father’s heart, as being the Sun he could barley shine as years of this went by. His beautiful philosopher child had suffered the evils of pedestrian false pride. The child’s mother, being the sea, wept as wanting once again to offer to suckle her with the vital elixir of life the way it use to be.

But the creatures of the dark forest, as ruthless as they were crafted to be,  had already poisoned her with the devils blood, as it hardened her veins unless she continue to drink just to have a peaceful blur of the memories in her mind’s eye. This is while many after taking what they wished from her would then cast easily her aside.

As a great dragon her father took form to swoop down from the heavens, when she could find no longer any quarter, so as to lead her to the great tree.

Here he said is the tree of life, where the archetypes as the branches and leaves you can relearn to see. Care for the matriarch as she has always loved you; respect this sacred ground and as a place of refuge, you can always return to, to rest, protected and safe from the world that still must be redeemed as you learn to rebalance the flow of your chi.

A little time past as all seemed to be relieved that the princess was now safe from treacherous beings,. But then on a clouded day a toad then did come by. Costumed as a monk with the guise of truth, sincerity and purity, he said - you are very pretty and do you remember me? We had met some time ago, but I have been away up till now  where some others must go. But explanations of my absence need not be.

He made her laugh. He made her feel light hearted as saying, lean on me. Forget all else, as all you need to see is just me. Whatever you wish to say, need not worry as I will fill in the words for you; and if you need to lie to get by, just remember that you can rationalize it as why should you really care why. In this way you can be as care free as me he did say, and I will teach you cunning facades, as there is really no upside in truth, and especially when you do not want to pay when you only want just to get by. Praise Buddha as I say to fools, as then they let me just slip by.

I will show you how in my own way in how I adore you. I will put pictures of you everywhere for all to see. I will hail how great you are and that you actually belong to, and then make sure to associate you for the legitimacy of me.  

We will have a future you and me, the way I had with others before, but as I have hollowed their souls, and with no longer their money, they have become to bore me.

But rest assured, you are different, and you are special in being brand new. For this we can have a future, but you will need to pay for it now, as currently I am a pulpier in practicing as being my own form of monk. But once I was rich as I can easily claim that again someday I could be. Perhaps Iwill pay you back then, but let’s see.

But you need not question anything I say, but just drink the devils elixir regardless if it blackens your veins. Then magically I will appear as that special prince for your eyes in their blur will to see.  Do not question me, as in handing your fate so cheaply to over, I am the only one to now approve of thee.

That tree of life, he said, must be really nice.  I hear the matriarch is a brittle as can be. Perhaps she will crack before too long where then you will give it all to me. I have stayed here and there, and now as your prince should you not offer me this place to now reside.  After all it is yours isn’t it, and you should express your rights. Do not worry as pettiness is acceptable way of life, and I want to carve that tree in the vain image of me.  Sacred what, family who, roots of you?  All this means nothing to suit the convenience of me. You should not regard these things as being as important to you as me.

Cast everything that had meant something to you before aside. It is now time for you to make all the room for me. I will give you everything you need, so don't worry. As I promised before to others, as long as you seem novel and new you will be able to laugh every day. This is the happiness which you can count on from me.  

The philosopher child’s mother did weep in seeing this toad to claim to be a prince.  Her tears as the sea awoke the child’s  father once again.   As the winged dragon he then swooped down once more from the heavens. With fury in his eyes he said, they who trespass these sacred grounds, the fire of my breath will incinerate. No mediocrity will pass unto these sacred grounds. This you can be assured, that in awakening my fury, your life then will mean little to me.  

Deep down inside, although wishing to ignore a pulsing tone, the princess being the philosopher child could in her dreams hear as she slept her soul speak - what has happened to thee?  Oh nobly born have you forsaken everything in life that heaven has written for you to be. Be fooled not by the toad of warts, as he can only be a prince of fools and not worthy of thee. Have the courage and strength to come back to the divine and shimmering form that you use to be.

Have faith as you can be the great sage, the elegant thinker where your beauty is assured. True princes will then kneel one after another to offer their hand in marriage to thee.

Make no excuse, as all can wait except for the matriarch for thee,  and be 49 days in solitude with your loving father and mother as the transformation of thee.  

Be removed from the trash that has subjected thee. Eight of these days are first required to free you from the devils blood. This is so your heart once again can start pumping again the true spirit of volition that your mother had meant for thee. Use the remaining of the days for your rest, repose, solace and contemplation where in the land of no demands no pressure is put on thee. You can face your mirrors so once again to recognize the cherished roots that compose thee.

Oh nobly born fear not and come into the light of wisdom of your loving father who in his tender love has untangled your matted snarls of your life before.  

Allow the volition of spirit of your mother to once again suckle thee. In this time, in self reflection then you can become reborn again, and transformed, the philosopher child, as divine in being, to bless humanity in the scripture you write that the heavens will then publish for thee.  

All across the earth will gather then to be blessed by the warmth of the shimmering light of thee.  Great princes that are destined to be great kings, who, in having searched before everywhere, they  will know then where to find thee.
Mikaila  Jun 2013
Heartbreak Girl
Mikaila Jun 2013
They tell you it gets better.
I will tell you the truth.
I am good at telling truth
And bad at being heard.
I hear your sorrow.
I see that your blood
Trickles like tears
Like mine.
I'm telling you what they're afraid to say
Because they don't want you quitting.
Selfish little children,
Tell you your pain isn't valid,
That it will flee if you wait.
Darling, I saw it in your eyes.
I heard you break.
And I'll tell you, I wish you'd seen me.
Back when I was being told what you are.
"It'll get better, time heals all wounds."
I wish you'd seen me raw as a skinned ****,
Fresh and ready for chopping.
I wish you'd seen my eyes when my guard toppled and I was truth.
I'm telling you now,
My truth,
And I think it's yours too,
Heartbreak Girl.
They're lying to you.

Don't be discouraged, don't be sad,
You've gotten through
You're getting through
The worst.
But they like to say-
Them, they, the people who care but don't know-
They like to say it goes away like a cut scars.
We both know about that, don't we,
Heartbreak Girl?

They're lying to you.
What happens is this.
Healing happens, yes, healing
After a fashion.
But not in the way you want it to.
Healing from love is not healing from injury.
It's not a broken arm which can be set and cast and grown back
Like new
With only a little crack along the edge
Fixed with a pin or a *****,
A stitch or two,
And a pale shiny line along the place where your skin
Parted ways with the rest of you.
No, love like this,
Broken love,
Heartbreak Girl,
It doesn't heal quite right.
It's like the old man down the street
Who was shot in the war,
And they had to cut his fingers off.
Little stubs left behind,
That feel like they're whole but they don't grab like they used to.
He loses things.
Not big things, not always. Not everything. Not life.
But it's never the same after.
That is what losing a love is like.
A heartbreak isn't a break,
It's a hole.
A whole hole that means you'll never be...
Whole.

It's something you find that time doesn't treat the way they all say.
Time Heals All Wounds.
It's a true statement, in essence,
But not literally. Not in actuality.
What time lends is distance.
Takes a lot longer than you'd think-
Just ask that old man-
To learn to live without your hand.
I'm giving it to you straight,
Heartbreak Girl,
You'll live again. You'll walk again.
But you'll always have a limp.
See?

It will feel like they all lied, all that time.
A long ******* time.
Longer than you can respect yourself for taking
Over some stupid boy
Who broke your heart.
A long ******* time,
And you'll be ashamed,
But you'll just keep on
Keeping on.
And if you do that,
Heartbreak Girl,
One day you'll find you have learned
To live around your loss.
Because it's not him you miss,
I promise you that.
You think it is, but it isn't.
You miss the you that you became by loving him.
And that's a very personal loss
Deep.
Tender.
Right down to the marrow,
And it takes TIME
To even wrap your head around the damage you can do to yourself
Over somebody else.

It's like that man in the commercial
The one about quitting smoking.
Ever seen it?
He sits down trying to have his morning coffee without his cigarette
Day after day
And he can't figure it out.
Pours his cream on his pants
Dumps the sugarbowl instead of spooning it in.
Tries to drink the stuff without using the handle on the cup.
He's a mess,
Heartbreak Girl.
He's you.
He's me too.
Trying to relearn everything we used to do
With that love of ours burning in our fingers.
Love makes you an addict
Loss, a *******.
But you learn.
At the end of the commercial,
He takes a sip,
And he smiles, and I always smile too,
Because that means that if you keep going,
Inch by inch you'll take your life back from this loss.
It's dumb, but that commercial always meant a lot to me.
It was on,
Heartbreak Girl,
The days when I couldn't eat for missing her.
When every moment was made of fear
That I would see something that would tear me open and make me miss her
Make me re-realize that she was over
(And so was I.)
(The me I loved, whose ghost I still look at in the mirror behind me.)
(The me I never got to say goodbye to before she died.)

I'm giving you the facts, Heartbreak Girl.
Time isn't medicine.
It's not nepenthe.
It's just time.
Time for you to learn and grow and become stronger,
Stand up again and say,
"Okay. I lost him. I lost me.
But I will create a new life."
I won't be one of them
The people who care so much
That they lie to you that you'll be
Good as new.
You're already new,
New and old.
Damaged, wearier, a little worn around the edges of your soul.
You're mourning,
Heartbreak Girl.
Mourning the loss of an innocence you didn't know to treasure
Until you lost it.
That you are
angryscaredhurtbetrayedamazed
You will never have the chance to relinquish of your own will.

But
Heartbreak Girl
Like that man down the street with no fingers
Who learned to play his guitar a new way
Like the one in the commercial
Who took his first sip of coffee and realized he hadn't lost his mornings after all
Like me
When I held a funeral for myself in my back yard
Trying to let go of loving her
When I finally, a year and a half later,
Woke up with a smile on my face and allowed it to stick around for a while.
Like us,
You will have your day
You will make new music
You will take that sip
You will accept your loss
And find a smile
Because there is,
Heartbreak Girl,
So much to smile about
When you have lost so much.
JL Smith  Aug 2018
To Relearn
JL Smith Aug 2018
Tonight, my tires traced the highway
I pulled over after missing my exit
Sidelined, I sat there
As the breeze through my window
Raised the hairs along my skin
And at once, it hit me
In that moment
Fear overcame bravery
Maybe you broke me
And there's no self-help book
To relearn how to let someone love me

© JL Smith
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2016
<>

Every summer, I relearn a new language.
Every winter, it departs for warmer climes,
Its charms and naked arms,
Its own alphabet,
Clean forget.

Multi-lingual in the summer's peculiar
One language, one aleph bet,
With a mega-millions of dialects,
Know them all, cold,
know them all, hot.

I speak Woman.

Summer is soft, shapely, sweet,
Clean, bare, lush in a sparse way,
And Woman is spoken thusly.

There are no harsh sounds,
Guttural exclamations, nein!

I speak Woman.

There is no ugly in the summer.
Ugly being an ugly word.  
It cannot exist in an atmosphere of
Sun, greenery, sand, carefree days,
vacations, no school, no ways
Is there ugliness in any woman of the summer?

You could take this writ many places.
Most of them wrong,
So sputtering sexist or other labeling words,
Makes you ugly and wrong.

Could not give a good *******,
In the summer of 2013,
There should be no ugly, no prejudice.

In any summer,,
There should be no ugly, no prejudice at all.

Long past my primal,
I still speak Woman
With almost perfect fluency,
Au naturel,
Naturellement, à la française.

Gym clothes, denim short shorts, yoga pants gone mad,
A-line skirts swishing in the breeze,
High, god, so high the heels,
Flats clip clopping, flips flip flopping,
Stilettos making love craters,
All over my heart, like a surgeon doing good work.

It is the bare arms and the fluorescent, mint stripe hints of
Summer Cleavage, the short skirts,
Body hugging one piece fabrics,
stretching from here to down there
That do not hint.

The shoulder strap of the underthings,
Asking, commanding me to
Wonder where these paths lead...

Even the light shoulder wrap,
Casual over bare shoulders slung,
A late night elegance that mocks me,
Like gift wrapping over a
Smile demure, a teasing blindfold...

All these say:

Write us poetry in our very own tongue of
Woman.

Will oblige.

I curve with curve of the *****,
Invert geometry of the S arc of the waist,
Mystifying, how it is the designed place
For my hands to grasp, never failing...never letting me fall

The crayola musical colors of flesh variations,
Boggle the senses...
How can
Tan and pale,
Dark and Light
Have so many
Symphonic variations?

Adagio, slow and leisurely, a pas de deux
For two eyes, following ******* by eyes sparkling,
Timpani crashing heart and thunderous pulse quickening,
Violin heart crying out, joyous wailing need and desire sparking.

Just as Byron wrote:

"Music arose with its voluptuous swell,"

Yeah, just swell,
a voluptuous sea swell.

Well,
Enough.

My eloquence is a poor instrument to portray my
Fluency.

Early May man glorious loves life,
Late July, sadder man,
Knowing  the summer foliage colors will soon, fall-fade,
Come August, my vocabulary, already diminishing.

But
Never forget
how to say in the language of Woman, this:

Without you,
I am nothing,
With you,
I am more than everything.


Tho I can no longer say it well,
It is is still true and
Beyond belief.

My one true language of love
In a world gone mad.


August 2013 ~ July 2016 - May 2017
First posted here on August 22, 2013
Edited July, 2016, May 2017
themotionless May 2014
Can we start over?
Can we be strangers again?
Let me introduce myself
We can laugh and talk
And relearn what we already know
And come up with new inside jokes
And create new memories
And give each other
A second chance.

— The End —