At age two,
The strangers flocked to my mother,
Cooing over the stroller.
They ask, "How long does it take to curl her hair?"
My ringlets fall in strawberry spirals,
Making even Shirley Temple jealous.
She tells them they are merely freshly washed.
Who in their right mind curls a two year old's hair anyway?
At age four,
I am no longer encased in my protective stroller,
And humanity has taken tacit permission
To run their fingers through my strands at any given moment.
After all, I am only 2% of the world's population.
Is that not consent enough to touch my child's body?
Their hands are abrasive and painful to my autistic skin,
But I smile and twirl for them like the polite little girl that I am.  
Long before I knew the name,
I was taught that the world fetishizes redheads.
I was taught that being rare is forfeiting your right to your own body.
I'm 5 now, and the teachers tell me I have angel's kisses on my face,
That freckles are the touch of tiny winged souls upon my skin.
Young me shudders at the thought of seemingly hundreds of dead spirits caressing my cheek bones.
I did not ask the teachers about my freckles or comment on their presence.
I already know it is not my place to discuss my body.
That right is reserved for others.
I'm 8 years old the first time I hear the phrase "Carrot Top"
And 10 before I hear "Volcano Head."
At least the latter indicates I'm not to be trifled with.
We're playing the elimination game in class,
And "Stand up if you have red hair" is the equivalent of calling my name.
I'm 12 when "Ginger's have no souls" is suddenly hurled at me.
I wonder when I exchange "kissed by angels" for becoming a vampire.
Perhaps it's part of the transition?
This is the age of growing self awareness,
The age where it's really beginning to stick that I am alien and different.
I am so tired of being asked if I am adopted because my hair is red
But my entire family's is brown.
I tell them I get it from my grandfather.
I do not tell them that he is the one who used to drag my grandmother
Through the house by her hair
Or how his drunken rages would force my mom and her siblings
To crawl under their front porch in search of safety.
I do not tell them that my mom saw him shoot himself when she was 19
Or that she hasn't opened a tin of biscuits since.
Mother reminds me almost daily that I am the spitting image of him,
Leaving me wondering what else I might've inherited.
I touch my face in the mirror, haunted by the sins of a man I've never met but whose reflection I apparently share.
I write letters to his ghost, asking him if he understands this affliction.
Why do they touch me?
Why do they buzz like bees, these strangers on the street
Around my hair?
Why do they think it is acceptable to drink from my reserves when I am dying of thirst for oxygen and personal space?
I am 16, still naive in my social perceptions, often misunderstanding the norms.
Autism has accelerated my intellect but delayed my emotions.
I am licking a minion themed popsicle with childlike enthusiasm when mother snaps a photo.
I post it to my newfound Facebook account,
Proudly sharing my joy.
Over the course of a week, I receive more and more friend requests from unknown internet men.
I am confused until mom tells me my gleeful ice cream moment could be interpreted as simulating a *** act.
"But I am too young," I tell her. She smiles humorlessly.
She knew what I would soon learn.
At 17 I'm informed that "redhead" is a category on PornHub,
That my beautiful affliction is as it has always been,
A searchable object for other's gratification.
18, baby faced and lonely, He finds me.
I still get mistaken for a 12 year old and this 42 year old man finds me ****.
I wish I could say I knew better.
I wish I could say I ran as fast as I could,
But oh how naive was I to believe that he meant what he said when he told me he meant me no harm, he wanted nothing from me.
I now know his behavior is called grooming.
He whispered his nickname for me as he ***** my bleary eyed body.
"Red," he called me.
Red like my hair, like the first sentence out of his mouth at every gathering
"She's a redhead."
Red like my volcano, how he said he never wanted to see me angry.
Red like my personality, how he liked "a woman in charge,"
Which was synonymous with do all the emotional and physical labor.
It took me a year to break free of his tangled, twisted, traps.
I was today years old when the man in the car followed me on my way to school.
Armed with nothing but mace and the attitude to back it up,
I gave him the look of "You can come get me, but I swear you'll regret trying."
My hair like a siren call to all wayward souls.
They dock in my port.
Red hair means they will fetishize me from 2 to 4 to 8, 10, 16, 20,
And 100 years from now the bones and dust of these keratin strands
Will cry out from the ground I am buried beneath
In support of the next child blessed or cursed with this beautiful affliction,
And all others whose rarity is seen as permission.
Hear me now when I tell you
My hair is a warning.
This redhead is fully loaded,
Is angry, enraged, head fully lit, and heart on fire,
Tongue fueled by two decades worth of injustice and the suffering before me.
Redhead means don't ******* touch me.

in the hall of harmless whims dancing in living words

Past experience is not an accurate term, as I
define its actu-
ality in my re-ality, I
see things as fine as can be, fine,
which is an idle phrase,
I often used to say,
was
not fine, to the query "how are you?".
It was a lump, tiny thing, bit of thought
coalescing scing scing sing
a bit part
in the grand drama,
like the dwarf
in the 1973
Belridger Orange Orchard Opera,

pick it up, maestro

HOW AM I? high baritone
- softly silly would it be of me
- to offer fine as a mindful reply

I often used to say, my side is winning.
Saying so sincerely, in its etymo-perfect sense,
believing, by my own leave - this

at those instances, the next word I said was leaven
intended to infect and spread, I consistently said
to how am I? "My side
is winning. "

-while deep beneath the surface of the shiny helm,
a mirror-neuronic will-ess nanomek sets ess-ential
key truth provokers to pierce the lies I belived…
In essence we sense
leaks
Bubbles of being novelize in old bottles, set upright,
too quick - cat
ch
Past experience,
knowledge gained sits idle
in past-tense, speaking
from those moments ago,
during the current experience,…

Sitting in the shade watching clouds
as the least noticed child in my life
was noticed by me, he, the middle child of five,
Sits down beside me, and says,
from "out of the blue",  I really want to be…

a marine biologist.

He just finished 3rd grade, and the real reason he is
near me now, is to ask when he can return
to X-box, for the Fortnite upgrade,
tic, it begins to emanate,
this
meta-modern
emergence in me
of the idea that experience
is what we carry, as a load,
not sin and shame and blame.

I know something of marine biology.
I watched My Octopus Teacher, twice.
I mention that, to Gabe.
I think in my heart,
Experiences don't get left behind,
they follow us
as strands of us, so fine as
to be disregarded as
memories,
until we feel the experience
of being eight and being listened to.

The fundamental mental basis of time,
to word is "same yesterday, today and so on"

Think, I know what it feels like to be a kid,
but not what it feels like to be a kid and listened to.

So, I had this experience with me,
as my grandson.
I ask him, does he think he can
"Put on the mind of an octopus"?
It is a knack all mortals have, augmented now
with knowing how to feed a wish to know,
we have the internet and our wits
about us, gathered, forming knowables,
extending curios  senses
into a common stateless mind realm
of all the gathered knowledge
in mankind's
experience
on earth
being a made-up mind, now
augmented with access
to the most complete
library and
searchable muse-repository, treasure horde
for experiences others offer
to goodness
in the future,
for our use in pursuit of peace, which
we form from days we experience and accept
as treasure offered to the gods of good sense.

Ever,
first imagine, ever,
ever when never was.
Image that, put it on the screen. See.
Ever after never ever can be,
- rabbi, where do you live?
around the next curve,
come and see, we filled never
with ever and left nothing
to be where never was, imagine that.
-------------
Today, I experienced learning how life functions
with no instruction, no post-**** praxeology,
octopi never spend a post **** moment in school,
save the dearest of them all, experience.
Octo-pi odes to octopuses
just be, a living thing,
as you may be am-using controls
to respond to any event in your experience,
in the hall of harmless whims dancing in living words
quickened, as an octopus
grows five hundred new fingers feeling
-- you, dear reader - certainly, it's about you…
the link is to your attention, we paid in advance.
----------- blip

you learn to em-perience ex-perience to peers,
seeking some thing, interesting,
nothing learned, life-wise
experienced,

oh my god, a dear school, indeed

but a fool learns in no other. So, I say,
Live to learn, learn to live. Use the bait you find.

Another 21st century bit
of Grandfatherly insight, had I gone any other route
to now,
I can't imagine the riches that are mine,
not won, given
for aiming early,
at a satisfied mind, like my grandpa seemed to have.

Ad astra

1
From the city I know you were from,
building up the perimeter in summer – it was plenty searing.
Must when I found the town already, triggered and almost accomplished,
searchable signs for searching parties involved like grass on the lawn,
scraps on an empty lot – when in summer it got very hot
and your salt smelt of the sea crushed in between my territories, start the word.
Flesh deems it so in frame, walking with us this very evening crafted
   by a waking remoteness.

2
When it rains, build this city from here on – relieve it of its terrors.
The memory of an old cathedral being burned down to the last cross,
the volume of prayer genuflected within pews, or anything that was hieratic. Rain in the
afternoon was what your entire ocean meant to me, crossing its span of promise,
   sure of its weather. Rasp the skin tight like gears fine-tuned. Borrow its heat when
   it drizzles. Do you remember my face when you pass by familiar pavements, stalls,
   hospitals drenched in prognosis? The even flutter of a bird? What does this question seek
     but your truth – like an elastic map stretched to infinite directions.

3
Here is where you were named darling. Taut your name had it belonged to someone else.
Sharp were your features. Your definitions smooth. Your textures visible with difficulty.
                       When you wore denims rising from the cuff of your knees you showed
  me a blotch and other fraternizations. Moles as variables. Your body as graph. My senselessness,
     somewhat a trying delineation. Thousand fingers mesh altogether to formulate rescue,
   mind a garden of salvage enough for two. Or underneath the sphere of a body,
         neither rain nor sun could stop to flourish me completely. Yourself full of
  symmetries – the universe cut inside and out, trimmed to lasting – ubiquity, inhabiting the temporary.
         I transact with this darkness yourself containing light, like a window to your home
when you’ve moved on to a different continent, I myself staring right into as if the whole space,
    in search for a singular glint I could make up for a cluster
                            to make an elusive thing such as you walk backwards, from the entry, just before the guardhouse, to meet me.

An experiment in thought at my own speed,
attested as being variable based on vocabulary of my AI,
so
pretty quick.

Establishing the point in value, the idea,
of attending to wealth while wool gathering, late
in the summer of 2020,
thinking at leisure beyond measure of any man in my class
a short time ago.
This now, a moment in a given day during
the September, final summer moon,
seventh moon on a world with a
time measured finite
seemingly, ostensibly, suppposedly -- in clumps of the three
as if all things may come in threes at one
stage in being realized
to matter --- but of the three ways to say
supppose, sup?
The answer presupposes the quest
to find it, any story told
poses the problem, the thing that catches our
attention, that thing
holds attractive value, see,

made you look, and peek-a-boo are one game.
Hide and seek is as well.

Two sides to every story, three if we see the story
has us in it. We are nothing if we share no
knowns finished and finite, as this is formed from those
early knowns we intuited everybody knew, and
these acculturation inoculations bring about socially
proper manners
in spaces with others
cultured, leavened, spiced and fashioned
thoughts we were taught,
these
we learn today
and those others everyone knows, or
maybe not,
may be otherwise… slow dawning aspect

some people never think experimentally

- experiments are guesses, rolls of the die
- I imagine we agree, but, as yet, your guess is as good as any


maybe not, may be otherwise… slow dawning aspect
as the world turns, while our attention is locked
on a star nailed
to the roof of heaven,
--- apsidal vault of stars as seen in church-like structures (1)

as imagined and portrayed prior to Tycho losing
his nose for nuance by lack of focus,
a moment of inattention,
all a magi-tech needs
- look to the quarry you come from
see, before,
back when no lens had yet been ground round
on one side,
flat on the other,
our un augmented eye could chance a glance,
a camera obscura occurrence
once each year as Sirius
rises in line with the story being told, to prove,

we know, and now, you know,
but
you don’t know how and you may only guess why.

Your mortal dilemma, you cannot imagine knowing
everything, ever, but
we
can't wish to go over the edge to learn much faster
if that means dying as
all that ever matters does,
based on experience as recorded in all Wikepedia,
if this tekhne ever fails, these thoughts
remain to be thought,
gains again are terms of worth-ship man seems the
measurer of,

I'd love to make sense of all the info in the cloud,
sort it into searchable stacks, and as I wished,
AI took that care from me
but, finding some worth in being still
demands attention for which we must pay,
and
the daily effort keeps your bowels moving in time.
Minds of our kind imagined all this stuff we can't make up.

(1)
apse (n.)"semicircular extension at the end of a church," 1846,
from Latin apsis "an arch, a vault,"
from Greek hapsis (Ionic apsis) "loop, arch,"
originally "a fastening, felloe of a wheel,"
from haptein "fasten together,"  {boing, pro-tein haptein}
which is of unknown origin.

The original sense in Greek
seems to have been the joining of the arcs
to form a circle,
especially in making a wheel.
The architectural term is earlier
attested in English
in the Latin form (1706). Related: Apsidal.

From <https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=apsidal>

Maybe soon
your name won't be
searchable
in my brain.

A forgotten word.

As if the two syllables
aloud
were unheard.

But,
let's say,
my eyes meet yours
on the platform,
one day.

It would be no easy feat,
to maintain a
calm, steady
heartbeat.

In my time, I learned of wasted prosperity,
wasted production,
time spent destroying unsold goods.

All we were saying, we say as well once more,
give peace a chance, we all were dissuaded,
we all were led to this, we followed… we all did,
none among the numbers related to my mito mom,
knew how far mortals can see using knowledge,
the stuff in the Platonic form of science,
the tree, and all the fruit of the tree
which is in itself, ipsa sapientia

from former time,
I learn of earning daily bread
I learn of waking ready as known
I learn of patterns proving order
I learn of the flickt wrist whip act

Crack the whip. eh, knack is not knowing
how  it happens, knack is knowing
how to make it happen, knowing the effect
-- shh specter of spinoza- snap
pay attention, this is amusement, not folly,
affectionally called the crack of the whip,
or finger and thumb,
hear it, not feel it, know it means, quiet
listen
-crack of the bat

snaps the ear of any near enough to hear it,
and know that is not the sound
of a cat correcting a sailor's needless will,
breaking the boy, oh, yeah,
we seen it done, on TV,
we seen the boss punish the shirker,
we seen the pioneers take son's
to the woodshed,

rod for back of the fool,
whip to call attention to the snap, look up,
stand straight, and tall, upright,

faulter, find mine, whip me into shipshape,
saint's and land's sakes alive
all ye truth teller alliegiance pledgers,
be ready to face all the reasons war holds.

The commit-ed-tee, apart from any we, I'm in.
Mittere, carry the signal, be gone,
as we say, so be it,
amen,
launching prayers for fulfillment of our
godgiven heart's desires, yessirree

the history of our current we, the people
of earth, cognosticators of the cloud of all books,
articles, poems, songs, blogs, and posted memes;
-all searchable to original con-text captured expression.
So, that all being true,
it seems, we are the aftermath of all before now,
today, while it is called Hueta, or whatever, this time
between sunsets,
whiling away - amusing my minds imaginary board
of advisors, it is permissible to say, videlicet, viz.

the rule of law, is fulfilled
in that which truth
makes free, as free can be,
on the only one choice planet,
when it comes to living like a mankind creature.
- all who read these words can, that is special
Common gnosis, letters form words we all read.

Let letters serve as sounds, silently singing to you,
I am a ware, a functioning self-forming will to be,
a thought, or a wish, or a prayer,
come be, being seen
as that which lets until it be taken
out of the way.

Posited points. {the box of all gods thoughts}
Laws of the Medes and Persians, oaths to truth.

Mighy men of valour and reknown, completely
known, first error of the mother, secured by a god.

Then there were the promises, all the desires
in the heart of our kind, available in story form,
since ever ago, in the beginning,

we made words, letters let us know, with music,
whistles and cracks, and snaps, and claps, and stomps.

LOUD likka lightning sound, some three claps ago,

Boom come a roaring down the canyon,
echoing off my walled in self, hermit me,
ever learning, never coming to the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth,
so help me God,
' assume you are in my taxonomy, then
assume we have relegated the affects of tehkne
in extending our vision in to the imagined realms

we have seen the insides of our bodies, our own,
heart's pulse, our own colon's polyps, stripped
of flora and fauna, for the procedure.

We know oh so, oso, a bear totem load, more
than any super position non universal intelligence,
among the elohim, the plurality of spirit beings,
mentioned in the beginning
of the part of this story with this story in it.

---------- I always wished to be a writer,
but, I knew, I wasn't, really, I knew,
and then I became what I was at my core,
you know, a life unlived, is not worth the exam fee.
So, it stood to reason with me, that truth,
known makes free the use of that known,

no lie makes truth, it finds truth and twists it,
much as men find flax and form from that linen,
and from linen spin near everlong thread,
from distaff to spindle, a line,
on another, each
make a reason to wonder, shine it in the sunlit
spider kite, gleaming reason to wonder, how
anybody ever learned to make priests garments,
on contract, I mean,
somebody makes the uniforms to signal symbios-us,
we who let letters be taken out of the way
and we listen to the thinking thought way

to go
slow
jell-o air, breathe and find template con fi
density commonly sensed as we

like on TV, those people, on all the channels,
even YouTubers, et al, okeh, we
are who we imagine we are
as seen on TV, but mmm some of us read,

and we cheat,
we let go the letters on the page,
bookshelves stuffed backdrop
to signify power and authority to make right use
of all the potential
attained with a little will to access the actual science
in our collective unconscience, yes, happy

state real, as el camino real, amigo, we be
of one mind,
most of the time.

The big dare:

Define reward to an organic automaton.

Make a point that rewards. Reward me for leading you on.
or, what´d´yḱnow?
Eh,
pop my bubble, but it appears

Dan Hooper,

knowledgist conimpeered reviews, knows,
scienticical as anything you can imagine, he
knows he believes knowable things,
which
I
don't know knowable, much less,
do I know them known knowns.

I do know I don´t know how a mortal can know

for sure, but it was likely something
was going to happen any way.
Words work, they make ways, truth be known.

It was, before time, impossible to know right? rrrr
ight is a tough concept to even, even, level, equaliated samesave
valuewise
smooth, no creases, no bumps
but
heavy, who knew? One door or many, you and I in the realm where
mortals claim to know, among other secret things,

What Happened At The Beginning Of Time?
- with Dan Hooper (Royal Institute Youtube)

But, I agree, a good rule for life is:
Imagine the speaker knows the exact same meaning for each

word he breathes,
that you may define with your connection to all known word definitions,
so you know what he means
the ex-act, out-active, meaning

intent to cover the chaos empowering the ever expanding universe,
and make it plain, so they may function
knowingly,
like a smooth running system creating slight
ripples
in the gospel truth reality in
which I find my treasure of once idle words, now accounted for.

ah, periods,
breathing commas, are such a wise invention.
The engines of our warfare are not carnal, meaty, muscled to push or pull,
**** and tear,
rubbed and scraped to
sharpen, push
gentle awl,
of any hard thing, pointed
through a poking
meme
to make a point. A once.
In time, a been.
A place to hook a silken thread,
as
I swing by on a whim, to hear

Point. Truscore.
****, proof.
We won

On with the show.
Upon such pointed slivers from actual out perience,
we agree, we join our extra ef-fort to ward
the newborn babe, effectually, fervently demanding

input, input, input, expel, expel, what! THHISMUSBEEHELL!

Burp. Not all gaseous beings belong in you.

Pat yśelf on the back, be kind to yo logos, yo logos be kind t'me.
Then, in the book of life, now on,
we
did that.

Set a landmark, what they called a breadcrumb,
for navigating stateless spaces,
in the early days of hyper text,

did I not hear a voice say outside?
color
outside the vector of time

oh, yeah. I know the tie in.

Re
ligate this to those old guitar god souldsoul
crossroad stories forming
a somewhat searchable
substructure to science, sci, with known uses,

conscience. Things we think we can do and do,
by virtue of knowing we did.


as far as this ever expanding state,

this bubble of being, we live and breathe in,

here, your role was dear, reader. Next is yours, to make of it all you will,

unless Sam Harris is right, and yoou have no will of your own.

I am bound to wander off into the confusion,

in search of lost boys, wombed and un, trapped under one of those spinner

things that seems too orderly to be random. Your reward,
activate this word:

rescue (v.)
c. 1300, from stem of Old French rescorre "protect, keep safe; free, deliver" (Modern French recourre), from re-, intensive prefix (see re-), + escourre "to cast off, discharge," from Latin excutere "to shake off, drive away," from ex "out" (see ex-) + -cutere, combining form of quatere "to shake" (see quash). Related: Rescued; rescuing

Foot steps upon the height of a hill
a mole down a lane in just a mile
as I escape in the dense of the night
with each step traced close to yours

If the midline was a graced venture
would the sparkle fade and frown?
would the lonely rainy day awash?
would the wonder grow in thunder?

As the shadow get displaced in hues
supposedly trapped inside neat seams each a fixture of unknown secrets
set in unfounded, yet searchable folds

If such a time comes, my dearest
My embrace will be coat you wear
all the words of this love will live
and carry us home to our bed