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Maria Mitea Aug 2020
~
One sunny afternoon                                        
I set my tent in the jungle,
and broke every rule walking alone to find a sip of fresh water.     
~
I studied everything I could about big creatures that live in the jungle. I was convinced that there are no lions and hyenas, ...
when all of a sadden I could not step on the ground.      
~                              
Paralyzing pain was numbing my right leg.
~
I was bitten by a venomous creature.
~
I immediately knew that I’ll die
suffocating.
~
The fear helped me deepen my breath, with no hope for survival ...
~
Big creatures have been given power, while minuscule one have been gifted with venom and poison to protect themselves.

Never underestimate a minuscule creature, ...
Life teachings come to us in many ways.

There is more and more knowledge, but never more learning.

Learning comes through direct experience.

In the jungle, I learned a big deal about the so-called small creatures ... My experience taught me that there are no small creatures...
With scrunched and bushy furrowed brow
   I ponder precise circumstances  
   when consciousness got born
Tracing back lineage of self,
   an arbitrary individual unpredictable as the Dow
   Reckoning series of events
   sustained life similar to sowing seed of corn

Ruminating fragile nascent organisms
   at mercy of fate flourished, and how
   Taxing me mind asper each score
   composed bards to toot their own horn
Aware just slightest off beat fluke

   determined from millennia ago or now
   That particular organism,
   whether one celled entity
   or beings that can mourn,
The loss of kindred members –

   food for thought since pledging marital vow
   this poet, whose presence
   a fluke of circumstances possibly torn
At any point in distant past
   rendering me absent unable to utter wow

At what crapshoot of circumstances
   wrought Matthew Scott Harris to be
   Cognizant of genealogy
   wove World Wide Web
   following threads back in time

Albeit not more than a couple generations –
   whereby emigrants did flee
   From supposed eastern European swath
   in general finding reason to rhyme

For no reason, just as other creatures
   great or small occupy themselves with glee
   Or just groveling along at
   bare ***** knuckle existence without a dime

Less apt to own luxury how **** sapiens
   purportedly evolved from mon-key
   Whereby harsh ill fate tempts them
   into life of crime
When perhaps riches with kingly figures
   loomed large in family tree

Branching back in the day
   Glorious personalities
   populated genealogy to boot
Twisting tortured destiny somewhere
   in one direction along the killer highway

   Setting stage for rags,
   when august ancestry buried in loot
Yet tis quite frivolous
   bemoaning present woes or even pray

   To win lottery turning attention
   how our ancestral gingko or newt
Dwelt in rich primordial egg drop soup
   wantonly in massive bay

   Inexorably transformed
   (by dint of dice throw) per flora to take root
As well fauna to mutate into species
   and genus on land to assay

Giving rise to variety to an assortment
   of animals and plants
And this one speck of flotsam
   in particular owns a passion for contra dance

Whereby others –
   from massive beasts to self taught amazing ants
Scurry hither and yon to and fro perhaps  
   contemplating genetic grants
To be alive for mere blink of an eye
   all due (in my view) to chance.
(alternately titled random axe of violence)

I calculated an average
of ~10.16.... deaths per year
of mass school shootings since Columbine,
a morbid benchmark where,

iGen / Gen Z 1995 - 2012 bore significant hit,
now students require armed guards to learn - veer
really within purportedly "safe places",
which statistics tracks a unilinear

trend, and justifiably causing
absolute zero reassurance
countering alarmist state of mind dust tear
ability to accept rationale

dismissing greater probability
prevails lightening will strike loved ones,
nonetheless share
ring understandable expressing

rightful salient concerns with school board
quotidian possibility son(s) and/or daughter(s) rare
lee remain mum at every opportunity,
how second amendment does not square

with democratic e pluribus unum firmament,
lieutenant management,
quintessential reverent tenets
pointing trigger finger of accountability

at lax gun purchasing rare
lee does emotional uproar demanding
immediate controls, limitations, restrictions,
et cetera on firearms scare

the bejesus from stalwart National Rifle Association,
whence spokesperson doth prepare
convincing rebuttal (lock, stock at barrel) overbear
ring lee outgun legitimate

parental concerns, now near
daily occurrence hardly cause a flinch glossed
inducing similar reactions as
sports home team defeated, sans mere

slightly raised eyebrows while headline news
when another tragedy gets tacked
unto the 122 students killed since Columbine
took  innocent lives 19 plus years ago

which ** hum sacrifice of youth or teachers bare
lee induce ripple despite an increasing number
of spent bullets fallout inflicting
more than 208,000 vulnerable
impressionable psyches sorrows need a lifetime to air!
Justin S Wampler Dec 2014
"My future ex-wife,
are you still alive?"*

The thought hit me as I was out of cigarettes one Monday morning, when I remembered that the previous night I was only able to smoke half of my last one. I had put the shorted cigarette underneath of a spring doorstop, still in plastic and uninstalled, that lay resting on the brick pillars erected on the front porch of the house. For as long as I've lived there, that doorstop had been lying on those painted bricks just waiting for a half of a cigarette to protect from the wind and snow.
The filter, on that common Monday morning, was ice on my lips, and your frostbitten love was inside of my lungs.
As it smoldered and spewed twirling blue swirls,
I sat and recollected upon you.
~You were the first one to ever peak my curiosity. You had mood swings like day and night, you pulled at the threads in my flesh trying to search for what you could find underneath. We never got close enough that I could call you my girlfriend but I could feel what it was like. You were always talking about this boy, I had my first taste of jealousy because he would never love you like I could. I got tired of the cycle. Waiting for my turn. So I took from you what I could get and left you wishing you had loved what you had.

~You were so beautiful the way you had the ability to spot me in a crowded room. No matter the temperature your skin was always cold. You were always so cold. You spoke of how the stars here could never compare to the ones in Ohio. I didn't hesitate when you asked to be mine or when you asked if you could explore my every curve. You told me if I reached a certain weight you'd leave me so my fingers got to know the back of my throat in a disgustingly familiar way. I cried for three nights after you left, I was pathetically in lust with you. Months later you came to appreciate the way my hips rocked against yours and begged for my return. You are trash.

~You kissed me at the bottom of the stairs briefly. I could tell you didn't kiss often but I said yes anyway.  I remember being startled when I woke up at a friends house, my hair a filthy mess and you were sitting there watching me. I could barely have a conversation with you so I always kissed you to cover the involuntary silence. You were the nicest boy I'd ever met but I never loved you.

~We we're practically married the way we fought and ****** for three years. I gave you everything I had in summer on a blanket spread over the lush grass. I wrote novels in your pretty little heart and poured out my every struggle. I loved you from the hairs that stood on the back of my neck to the way I curled my toes..but then you changed. You said you were growing up and learning responsibility. But really you sat blankly in your room counting birds of death and you watched me struggle for breath, for life. I tried to get my love back but you'd buried him deep somewhere. I imagine he's laying beautifully in a bed of flowers and butterflies land on his lips trying to give him breath, although they are to minuscule to succeed. You've become a disgusting person. I do not love you.

~During a time that I sat waiting for death I found myself in August during September. You were the most beautiful boy I'd ever laid eyes on, I never imagined lips like yours touching mine. I've come to realize that you are the flowers, you are the butterflies and the sunshine. You are all of the bright magnificent things that you think you're not and you are mine. I fell for you involuntarily, but I would never turn back if I could. I've never had a best friend and a lover amalgamated.  I've never been so certain that love can exist in the darkest of beings. I've never tasted forever in someones kiss. Dear present love do not deceive me.

— The End —