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Paras Bajaj Feb 19
I see no love
in your eyes
or in your heart.
Togetherness is
what I crave for
but your actions
keep breaking my heart.

I see no warmth
in your words
or in your heart.
Forever is
what I crave for
but your actions
will break us apart.
P.B | POETRY
Anais Vionet Feb 13
Ever played rose, bud and thorn? It’s a game where you go around in a group of friends and share what’s happening in your life. A rose is something good, a bud is something hoped for, and a thorn is a problem. Yeah, we’re hopeless oversharers.

My rose today is the weather. I wrote a piece a week ago complaining about the lack of snow in New Haven. The next morning it was 2° with a wind chill of -30°. My roommates gave me the evil eye - like I somehow brought it on. “God doesn’t listen to me.” I ‘d said, defensively.

My thorn is, Anna’s parents are here for a few days and she’s very on edge. She spent yesterday with them but today they’re coming to our suite. I was surprised when I first saw them, they’re straight off the farm (if the farm was in the 1800s). They seemed to huddle together, defensively and consulted each other so quietly that they buzzed like a hive of bees.

Her father, a very tall man, was wearing a plaid flannel shirt under a long, thick, dark gray, Dickies coat (it says Dickies on the pocket) and jeans. He has a medium-long white beard and a black-felt, wideawake hat which he worked slowly in a circle by its brim (I think that would qualify as a comforting gesture).

Her mom, Abeba, the spokesperson for the pair, is a thin woman with mostly gray (used to be brown) hair. She was dressed simply in black high-top shoes, a plain, deep green, floor length dress under a sweater and long, thick, gansey shawl with matching barrette.

When I reached out to take her hand in greeting, she regarded me with a coolness I found unnerving. All the other parents I’ve ever met were friendly, even huggy, on introduction.
“They’re Quakers,” Anna said, (note the “they’re”) like that explained everything. When I looked confused, she reached out her hand, at arm's length, and touched me lightly on the upper arm with her index finger. After a moment she revealed, “That’s a Quaker hug.”

Anna had said they were quiet, “judgy” people - and here they were, in our common room, judging the books on our shelves (With titles like, “this book is gay,” “Good girl complex,” “The big **** *** book”) the clothes on the furniture, the laptops on the floor, the “art” on the walls and the disarray in the kitchen. They kept hat and purse in hand, as if they were expecting a fire drill. They’re a whole new category of houseguests.

At one point, Peter came out of my room, dressed in shorts and t-shirt but drying his hair. Sometimes he showers in my bathroom after working out. He smiled warmly at Anna’s parents and said, “Hi, Peter,” offering his hand to Anna’s father, Milhous (Peter can be very charming when he wants to be). Milhous stood up awkwardly and shook his hand, “Good day,” he said solemnly.  

Anna’s mom however, seeing Peter come out of my room, blushed from top to bottom and gave me a look that was worse than any spoken disapproval. The top of my head seemed to grow warm, but a glance at Anna revealed that she was embarrassed to her core, and my blooming irritation faded.

Imagine living under these passionless despots your whole life? I gave her a smile and moved on emotionally. Her parent's disapproval was so banal it was almost laughable.

Anna’s so happy, hilarious, bold and brilliant - the fact that these dour, sour, saturnine, in-the-margin sodbusters produced her - seems random - one of the wonders of the universe.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Despots:  cruel rulers who have total power.

In-the-margin = unimaginative rule slaves
You thought, this life's a game of chess
And you're the queen of this play
And everyone else is nothing more than a pawn
Who's only there to die for your victory...
But you never cared for those little hearts inside those walking pawns
Which always craved to get embraced
But fell for your tricks of use and throw...

You're the grandmaster of this game
So you caught another pawn out of me
Played with my emotions, manipulated my empathy
And you hid behind my back to escape that battlefield
But I understood your tricks the moment you made potions out of my riddled heart..!

And now that I've realized your true intentions
I won't be that pawn for you anymore
Your manipulation won't work on me
And the armor that safeguarded you won't protect you any longer...
But I'm not saying, you'll stay unarmed in this game
After all, you're the queen of chess
And I'm pretty sure, you'll catch another pawn out of someone/somewhere..!
Anais Vionet Jan 26
Place your bets, you’re just in time
for the game, the fix is in.

What a thrill. Is it a crime to cash in?
The winners do, and that could be you.

You’ll be a witness, as wise guys smoothly step in
- it’s basic greed - and never a sin, as long as they win.

Mr slick ricky, you’ve got to be bold to win gold -
winners never just fold - betting never gets old.

The winners will add your few spare bucks to their *** -
let’s admit, all that you’ve got - isn’t a lot - it won’t fuel a yacht.

Place your bets, you’re in the front row all the time,
don’t be lame, be part of the game, the greasy bigtime.
I LOVE NFL football, but now every commercial is for some sports book like “Draft Kings.” How can the NFL, increasingly in league with gambling books, not end up mobbed-up and fixed?
It’s ruining NFL football - the illusion that it’s a real sporting competition. I’ll tell you, Once they start calling the NFL “entertainment” and not sports - it’s over - the game I once loved will be just like pro wrestling.
nvinn fonia Jan 20
video games paradise
video games paradise
Kushal Dec 2022
Press Play
It's about time that I got into the action,
A little bit of flawless and now we got traction.

Player one and I'm feeling like a MC,
Onto the next arc with new opportunities.
RGB, I'm gonna light up the industry,
Fresh new world, yeah that **** was built into me.

Yeah, I'm not one to come and act all cynical,
I got a crew behind me,
Repping art so lyrical.
So, this wasn't a miracle,
We put in the work,
Now we headed past the pinnacle.

And this is just the prologue,
Just the beginning.
Even though we been at it,
We gon' keep on winning.

Look out for name on the web,
And here's where I said.
So, when they picturize my story
They'll know I meant it.
I've been on a winning streak lately. I finished my degree, won some contests, and have started my own Game studio! Pineapple on Pizza Studios (PTY) LTD, has received funding for 2023 and we'll begin working on interactive stories and art pieces through games.
Follow my journey by checking out   https://linktr.ee/popstudiossa  for all my socials and more in the coming year.
Anais Vionet Nov 2022
Last night, Lisa, Peter, Leeza and I were in her father’s 50th floor study watching New York City. It’s a corner room with glass walls from floor to ceiling. He likes to watch the city himself and has a small, 5 seat sectional couch facing the view.

The left wall window looks across Hell’s Kitchen to exactly where Sully Sullenberger crash landed flight 1549 in the Hudson river (it was 3:31 pm and no one was home). The right window overlooks Central Park and Upper Manhattan. Lincoln Center, almost dead center of the corner, looks like part of a toy train-set.

The view is a wheeling, ever changing and mesmerizing panorama. Well lit ships, barges and boats move glacially against the ink black Hudson. Jets in expressway-like holding patterns (Newark Liberty, and Teterboro airports left window - LaGuardia, right window) blink, like waving angels, helicopters buzz below like insects and the traffic, far, far below, forms a living chain of red and white lights which can erupt with nugatory hues of police blue at any moment.

While we watch, we’re playing a game of “Would you rather.” It’s a game of situational trade-offs, like “Would you rather listen to the same 10 songs forever or have to watch the same 5 movies forever? Of course, most people say the movies - because they last longer and there would be fewer repeats.

We take turns asking these critical questions - pausing, occasionally, to point out things below.  
“Would you rather be in a crowded elevator with a bunch of noisy high school students or pinned in with a bunch of judgemental, middle aged men? The girls chose the students, even though high schoolers can be mean. Peter chose to be with the men.
“Would you rather find your true love or a suitcase with 5 million dollars?” We all chose love.
“Would you rather hike or camp?” Both were unpopular if they involved going to the bathroom outside - which creeps the girls out.
“Would you rather give up your computers or your pets (forever)?” THAT was a stressful one.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Nugatory: “of little or no consequence”

My movies: Clueless, Rushmore, Moonstruck, Shakespeare in love, Dr. Zhivago
Oskar Erikson Aug 2022
the last piece of you
is the way you left
the controller settings on the
switch.

the triggers, the bumpers,
A, X, Y, and B
still talk to me.

how silly and heart-wrenching a thing.
a ghost of
the preference
of how you wanted to fight
or how you wanted to co-operate.

im walking through life with
motion controls.
too slow to match
the speed at which you  
faded out my storyline.
like a NPC completing his quest.

it was set up
to never reach endgame.

asking the forums

“how long before I let
other hands
relieve mine?
i keep punching when i want to jump
and the special moves always miss.
how do i change my inputs
when everything leads back to this?”


headcanon:
soon there’ll be
another boy
i’ll let write his name,
onto this LCD’d heart.
reaching around my
whitened knuckles,
still trying their hardest to play
through your absence.
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