I really didn't mean it, promise I never even seen it  
done it accidentally on purpose instead
when its comes to purpose, I’m renowned for being earnest  
besides you secretly enjoy being completely misled

accidentally on purpose, accidentally on purpose
rules don’t have the same applicability
its only just a circus, when its accidentally on purpose
its a far lower threshold of culpability  

don't do me this disservice, it was accidentally on purpose,
please consider when apportioning blame
when its accidentally on purpose, almost doing you a service    
the blame is not even close to the same

There’s a thing called caveat emptor, its supposedly there to protect ya
sadly not against other’s intentionality  
when its accidentally on purpose, this rule’s completely out of service
tis writ in the annals of human morality    

accidentally on purpose, accidentally on purpose
usual rules they just don't apply,
accidentally on purpose, that’s why you cannot deter us
it permits me to self-indemnify  

Pete Granger DDA

i accidentally wore my heart on my sleeve,
i accidentally gave it over coffee,
i accidentally tried to seem better ,
i accidentally drank far too much,
i accidentally fell into that bed,
i accidentally cuddled too close;

i wish accidents never happened

He was coming out hurriedly
While she was about to come in
They met at the glass door he and she
Accidentally

And both froze momentarily
And she startled and both stared
Unattered a second and eventually he
Said I'm sorry

He was taken in by her beauty
And so he struggled for his wallet
Gave his business card she looked she
Said oh really?

And one night when she was lonely
Remembered him she took out his card
A cellphone number she dialled suddenly
Accidentally

Since then they met occasionally
Not at her home and not at his office
At the park at cafes for she said she's
Always busy

Too occupied in a huge company to see
Unawares she's in a different division
Those whom he knew acted anxiously
So strangely

One day he asked will you marry me
Two fine kids later by merit moved his
Office next to the boss next to her he
Wants to be
Accidentally

You're a one night stand
But we spent too many nights
I lost count of it.

You're that unexpected kiss
On a drunken wasted night
Of vomits and *****.

You're that awkward hi
Exchanged by strangers who
Thought they both knew each other
But were clearly mistaken for another.

You're the bruise that turns blue
When I accidentally bump my leg
On the corner of the bed.

You're the scar that I never
Knew I had.

You're the bittersweet taste in
My mouth every morning.

You're the last thought lingering
In my head before slumber takes me
And you're the vagueness that
Haunts me in my dreams.

You're the scalding hot shower
In a cold freezing morning.

You're the boiling tea that numbs
My tongue for the rest of the day.

You're the obsession
I will never learn to let go of.

You're that person I will
Never get to call mine.

You're the one that got away.

Up until last week
when we used to see each other
accidentally in the hallways
of this second home,
we'd nod, sometimes smile,
rarely did we say a "hello"
or any other word.

This week
we saw each other
accidentally -  
or so you think, my dear -
and we hugged,
on the staircase of the third
floor and I was a stair lower than you
and you kissed my head and I rested
for two seconds on your arm and
accidentally (or so it seems,
my dear) kissed it.

Today
I looked into your eyes
and prayed to whoever is there
or is not      that one day
it won't be odd of me to whisper
in your ear, a word or two;
my own synonyms to "I love you."

Today,
after looking into your eyes,
you walked away
but all I wanted to say
was how I now understand
the "falling in love" metaphor
of Hazel Grace.

i don't watch home movies
hate them
reason being because
when i was young
i was looking for a movie
my mother
had recorded for me
and accidentally
put one in the vcr
that i'm not sure
i was supposed to see
i know the obvious response
"uh oh, ****"
sorry to disappoint
they were only marked with dates
  1991
on live television
montel williams asks my father
"how can you just throw
your child away like a piece of trash?"
   1994
i spend so much time
in the emergency room
that my parents stop
penciling in growth marks
on the frame
of my bedroom door
i always thought
it was because they believed
i would never grow out
of this sickness
sometimes i believe
the reason that they
never bought me a dream catcher
was because they never thought
i'd live long enough
to see them come true
   1996
i am eliminated
from a spelling bee
because i didn't know
the 'dad' is silent in 'family'
   2013
before i got into poetry
i used to do standup
none of my jokes were funny
one of the other comics
tells me my skits are dry
sometimes sad
he says "why don't you joke
about something like your family?"
so i say
"i never wore any sunblock
because i didn't want anything
to keep me from my father"
i say "what do you call christmas
without lights or heat?"
before he has a chance
to answer
i say "1997. better yet
why don't you
make like a dad and
leave"
   2014
every time we drive
past the hospital
my mother reminds me
how much it cost to save my life
like she'd rather
have her money back
she doesn't have to say
that sometimes she wishes
it was me who had died
instead of my brother
i can hear it in the way
she says "love you"
sometimes i imagine
that if i were to die
that she
would pick out a casket for a child
because she never loved
the person i became
yesterday i told my father
how close i'd been
to suicide lately
and he said
"that's my boy,
livin on the edge.."
and i can't remember
if i laughed
or cried

ground zero
i become aware of boundaries
i am a dog chasing cars
i sing your voicemail to sleep
there are no surgeon general warnings
to tell me that
the objects in the mirror
are more depressed than they appear
so how do i tell you
that there are parts of my life
that move slower
without you in them?
or that i look for you every day
in emails & unanswered calls
in the sunrises
i didn't choose to be awake to watch
that i sometimes still stare at doorways hoping you would walk through them
   *stage 1 you tell your new lover you've got a splinter and they pull the sound of your body falling asleep on mine out of your fingertip
   stage 2 your new lover says something at dinner that makes you choke so they call 911 & the paramedics do the hymleich not knowing you would ***** our promises all over the the restaurant
   stage 3 your new lover surprises you by cleaning the house & washes the shirt you kept next to the bed, not knowing it was the last thing you had that smelled like me
after
people always ask
what was loving her like?
after a really long silence
i just say
"it must be nice"
but i never say
it's watching paint dry
i never say
it's a window seat in hell
i don't tell anyone
about the dreams
where i am reading you
bedtime stories
each one is a different way you die
& every time i can never save you
dreams where what i think
are angels in my bedroom
are just homeless versions
of myself you never loved
i have dreams
where i pay someone to shoot me
just to see if you would cry
just to see
if you would cradle my body
i don't tell people
that loving you is like
playing piano
for someone who can't hear
that it's hitting repeat
on my favorite song
& forgetting the words
every time it starts over
that it's finding out
there's no milk after you already
poured yourself a bowl of cereal
it's getting locked in the dark
& being told to
look on the bright side
that loving you is like
being reminded of what it felt like
the first time
you accidentally let go
of a balloon as a child
it's drowning without the water
it's the feeling you get
when you start to dance
& the song ends

There was a moment when he knew he had to make a decision.

He had left London that February evening on the ****** Velo Train to the South West. As the two hour journey got underway darkness had descended quickly; it was soon only his reflected face he could see in the window. He’d been rehearsing most of the afternoon so it was only now he could take out the manuscript book, its pages full of working notes on the piece he was to play the following afternoon. His I-Mind implant could have stored these but he chose to circumvent this thought-transcribing technology; there was still the physical trace on the cream-coloured paper with his mother’s propelling pencil that forever conjured up his journey from the teenage composer to the jazz musician he now was. This thought surrounded him with a certain warmth on this Friday evening train full of those returning to their country homes and distant families.

It was a difficulty he had sensed from the moment he perceived a distant gap in the flow of information streaming onto the mind page

At the outset the Mind Notation project had seemed harmless, playful in fact. He allowed himself to enter into the early experiments because he knew and trusted the research team. He got paid handsomely for his time, and later for his performance work.  It was a valuable complement to his ill-paid day-to-day work as a jazz pianist constantly touring the clubs, making occasional festival appearances with is quintet, hawking his recordings around small labels, and always ‘being available’. Mind Notation was something quite outside that traditional scene. In short periods it would have a relentless intensity about it, but it was hard to dismiss because he soon realised he had been hard-wired to different persona. Over a period of several years he was now dealing with four separate I-Mind folders, four distinct musical identities.

Tomorrow he would pull out the latest manifestation of a composer whose creative mind he had known for 10 years, playing the experimental edge of his music whilst still at college. There had been others since, but J was different, and so consistent. J never interfered; there were never decisive interventions, only an explicit confidence in his ability to interpret J’s music. There had been occasional discussion, but always loose; over coffee, a walk to a restaurant; never in the lab or at rehearsals.

In performance (and particularly when J was present) J’s own mind-thought was so rich, so wide-ranging it could have been drug-induced. Every musical inference was surrounded by such intensity and power he had had to learn to ride on it as he imagined a surfer would ride on a powerful wave. She was always there - embedded in everything J seemed to think about, everything J projected. He wondered how J could live with what seemed to him to be an obsession. Perhaps this was love, and so what he played was love like a wilderness river flowing endlessly across the mind-page.

J seemed careful when he was with her. J tried hard not to let his attentiveness, this gaze of love, allow others to enter the public folders of his I-Mind space (so full of images of her and the sounds of her light, entrancing voice). But he knew, he knew when he glanced at them together in darkened concert halls, her hand on J’s left arm stroking, gently stroking, that J’s most brilliant and affecting music flowed from this source.

He could feel the pattern of his breathing change, he shifted himself in his chair, the keyboard swam under his gaze, he was playing fast and light, playing arpeggios like falling water, a waterfall of notes, cascades of extended tonalities falling into the darkness beyond his left hand, but there it was, in twenty seconds he would have to*

It had begun quite accidentally with a lab experiment. J had for some years been researching the telematics of composing and performing by encapsulating the physical musical score onto a computer screen. The ‘moist media’ of telematics offered the performer different views of a composition, and not just the end result but the journey taken to obtain that result. From there to an interest in neuroscience had been a small step. J persuaded him to visit the lab to experience playing a duet with his own brain waves.

Wearing a sensor cap he had allowed his brainwaves to be transmitted through a BCMI to a synthesiser – as he played the piano. After a few hours he realised he could control the resultant sounds. In fact, he could control them very well. He had played with computer interaction before, but there was always a preparatory stage, hours of designing and programming, then the inevitable critical feedback of the recording or glitch in performance. He soon realised he had no patience for it and so relied on a programmer, a sonic artist as assistant, as collaborator when circumstances required it.

When J’s colleagues developed an ‘app’ for the I-Mind it meant he could receive J’s instant thoughts, but thoughts translated into virtual ‘active’ music notation, a notation that flowed across the screen of his inner eye. It was astonishing; more astonishing because J didn’t have to be physically there for it to happen: he could record I-Mind files of his thought compositions.

The reference pre-score at the top of the mind page was gradually enlarging to a point where pitches were just visible and this gap, a gap with no stave, a gap of silence, a gap with no action, a gap with repeat signs was probably 30 seconds away

In the early days (was it really just 10 years ago?) the music was delivered to him embedded in a network of experiences, locations, spiritual and philosophical ideas. J had found ways to extend the idea of the notated score to allow the performer to explore the very thoughts and techniques that made each piece – usually complete hidden from the performer. He would assemble groups of miniatures lasting no more than a couple of minutes each, each miniature carrying, as J had once told him, ‘one thought and one thought only’.  But this description only referred to the musical material because each piece was loaded with a web of associations. From the outset the music employed scales and tonalities so far away from the conventions of jazz that when he played and then extended the pieces it seemed like he was visiting a different universe; though surprisingly he had little trouble working these new and different patterns of pitches into his fingers. It was uncanny the ‘fit’.

Along with the music there was always rich, often startling images she conjured up for J’s compositions. At the beginning of their association J initiated these. He had been long been seeking ways to integrate the visual image with musical discourse. After toying with the idea of devising his own images for music he conceived the notion of computer animation of textile layers. J had discovered and then encouraged the work and vision of a young woman on the brink of what was to become recognised as a major talent. When he could he supported her artistically, revelling in the keenness of her observation of the natural world and her ability to complement what J conceived. He became her lover and she his muse; he remodelled his life and his work around her, her life and her work.

When performing the most complex of music it always seemed to him that the relative time of music and the clock time of reality met in strange conjunctions of stasis. Quite suddenly clock time became suspended and musical time enveloped reality. He found he could be thinking something quite differently from what he was playing.

Further projects followed, and as they did he realised a change had begun to occur in J’s creative rationale. He seemed to adopt different personae. Outwardly he was J. Inside his musical thought he began to invent other composers, musical avatars, complete minds with different musical and personal histories that he imagined making new work.

J had manipulated him into working on a new project that had appeared to be by a composer completely unknown to him. L was Canadian, a composer who had conceived a score that adhered to the DOGME movie production manifesto, but translated into music. The composition, the visuals, the text, the technological environment and the performance had to be conceived in realtime and in one location. A live performance meant a live ‘making’, and this meant he became involved in all aspects of the production. It became a popular and celebrated festival event with each production captured in its entirety and presented in multi-dimensional strands on the web. The viewer / listener became an editor able to move between the simultaneous creative activity, weaving his or her own ‘cut’ like some art house computer game. L never appeared in person at these ‘remakings’, but via a computer link. It was only after half a dozen performances that the thought entered his mind that L was possibly not a 24-year-old woman from Toronto complete with a lively Facebook persona.

Then, with the I-Mind, he woke up to the fact that J had already prepared musical scenarios that could take immediate advantage of this technology. A BBC Promenade Concert commission for a work for piano and orchestra provided an opportunity. J somehow persuaded Tom Service the Proms supremo to programme this new work as a collaborative composition by a team created specially for the premiere. J hid inside this team and devised a fresh persona. He also hid his new I-Mind technology from public view. The orchestra was to be self-directed but featured section leaders who, as established colleagues of J’s had already experienced his work and, sworn to secrecy, agreed to the I-Mind implant.

After the premiere there were rumours about how the extraordinary synchronicities in the play of musical sections had been achieved and there was much critical debate. J immediately withdrew the score to the BBC’s consternation. A minion in the contracts department had a most uncomfortable meeting with Mr Service and the Controller of Radio 3.

With the end of this phrase he would hit the gap  . . . what was he to do? Simply lift his hands from the keyboard? Wait for some sign from the I-Mind system to intervene? His audience might applaud thinking the piece finished? Would the immersive visuals with its  18.1 Surround Sound continue on the five screens or simply disappear?

His hands left the keyboard. The screens went white except for the two repeats signs in red facing one another. Then in the blank bar letter-by-letter this short text appeared . . .


Here Silence gathers
thoughts of you

Letters shall never
spell your grace

No melody could
describe your face

No rhythm dance
the way you move

Only Silence can
express my love

ever yours ever
yours ever yours


He then realised what the date was . . . and slowly let his hands fall to his lap.

wants to be my friend, for I am poet-woman nineteen.

she is sweet but sad. super sad.

a good poet who wants to guide me.

but there/theirs is the odor, not faint, of wants wanting,
the pus of corruption behind the curtains,
the Wizard-ess of Oz's
special blackout curtains.

seen how easy, how her illusions,
my medium rare rejections,
morph into her delusions,

and her delusions devolve into
her conspiracy theories.

"SHE will be my mentor, poetess lover, teacher for no charge!"

my parents thinks it's great, she wants (to be) skin in my game.

my parents will find this poem accidentally, exactly,

how I do not want
to be skinned alive.

for I am poet-woman nineteen and still! now, long past
the point of being fooled, the point of no return.

and see no point,
have no intention,
of returning to either valley

no more con the my mind into letting my body
be-fused.^  

that ain't me babe.

My voice is a wall of glass
On the both side of the wall it's all the same

The roof is consisted of umbrella-shaped beams
The world is an embroidered web
I'm a spider that don't spew silk
cling on to intertwining iron bars
Accidentally chocked my fly to death
Buried it in the oblivion sky

Fed on chitchat
I'm now becoming a skinny,
wind up bird.

I met with a man today,
although
not so much a man as….
a boyish adult.

He told me he liked me,
or perhaps “loved” would be
a better description.
I was showered with things that most
people would love to hear constantly:

Compliments.

I…..am not one of those people.

Now, that’s just the oversimplified version.
A more detailed explanation would go like this:
I met with a man today,
although
not so much a man as…
a boyish adult.

We went out for lunch,
and left there around five hours later.
For the first three,
we were doing all right.

Managing to have pleasant conversation
we even discussed our views on religion.
The last two hours
however
I am not sure how I managed to endure.

He told me he had "fallen in love with me",
and that every word I spoke had him falling deeper.

I explained that I have absolutely zero interest in any such things
(love, romance, all that jazz other people crave,
you know how it is)
I however, am not capable of feeling those sorts of attractions.
(don't want to be either)

As I spoke, he would reply by saying he was falling harder...
that I was pretty, handsome, cute, beautiful….etc.
Not a word of what I said went into his head.
And I knew it from the expression on his face,
that I was only being viewed as something to conquer.
To…..”fix”.

That made the compliments even worse.

*I hate compliments to begin with,
at least ones in regards to my appearance.
For me, they are one of the worst triggers
on my extremely long list.
So is being treated like I’m broken.

Something is
simmering  *  
  ****      
His spice the stars*
His cologne heat up the
woods
Lips and taste boiling
The Green Irish Tweed
Epicurean love at
the Italian
Spice Epic Stadium

Here comes the
Sun the__?
Royal Mayfair
strikingly
My Fair Lady
The spice diction of words
Her name is Sage Lady Bird
You could feel her smile
shimmering

Carnal spice knowledge
Savory animalistic
Spice culture ******
Citrusy fancy dress
Not to panic
His Sunday gravy
Italian sauce garlicky  
She could win so pungent
Spicy lady Pagent

The poor stealing the
rich culture
Sage surrender like the Oz
Like Robin Hood

Spice of life this is our life
Top of the sea salt Spy
scouring
You better have a love
Like a deep pouring
Her Sage Genie bottle
on the stove
Her sheerness lascivious robe

The Meditteranean sea with
Four leaf clovers freeloaders
These cultures and eyes of
strength feature
There is no time to
break up for the love of a spice
Is this the human race
Fresh linens better company
What a primary
Oh! Hail Mary

Those ethnic spices
what a sensual smell
Sage pretty coffee cup show and tell
What a razzle top of her cake
The media takes over all
painted and swirled
Baked spicy finger she dialed

Through her locket heart sake
Recovered love reconciled
The Teddy Rosevelt or Chicago Bears
tight hugs of cultures

Hairy chest his smooth gestures
Culture rough and tough exterior

Like the smile beautiful mind
creature
Beyond to be seen
The Spices computer
world of devices
Strawberry fields forever
But what is forever more love
Crises

Do we always lose our stripes
Feeling layered with her cereal
Tony the tiger
Whats great about curses
Sage speechless can feel the
roar spicy mouth
Going South or North
Victorian corset sensual
Guity spice dark side of Goth
Hot desire from both
The pine needles
Christmas time
The mistletoe kissing pointing to the star
Wearing herself out with her
pointed pump shoe*
But losing her spirit what to
endeavor
*The Blue Horizon Spice Rub
The  pub the sky has no limits
to the Stars that twinkle
The Gods to their *****
Rip Van Winkle
Dry Vermouth or the Russian Roulette
French spice Crepe Suzette

"Adam I Apple Dante Jubilee
Eve was more like a neigh
Horse spicy slide Colonel Spicy mustard
Meeting General Lee Sage custard

Her handkerchief
with sage cut leaves
Hearing echoes what gives
Anyone's spice rack
of shoes engraves Sage leafs

Noone really knows for sure
She wore spice deep blue velvet
Jade Ring Brittish Colony
Stuck to her beliefs like a magnet

Eating vegetable and fish
Her best China ever find her dish

How the jade chandelier twisted
Became laughing like two musketeers
New York City love Serendipity
The Queen chair so domineer
'What Debutants"
Crazed like spices of mutants
The anger management getting
the evil out
The shoutbox strong clove spice
Sage was never outfoxed
Her **** jaded uniform
The firefighter Smoky the bear
  eyes of candlelight storm
didn't make it this year
Torn to tears like two
vultures of
the haunted night
He peddles fast
But the fear needs to disappear

Fresh lake smells fresh
as her breath
The culture and media
make tons of mistakes
She knows what she wants
Not a jungle of
poisonous snakes
He knows what he doesn't want
to tell her
Perhaps losing his
bark dog naps
The best part engage her on
Sage with a heart
The fruit her
flesh and blood
The blood on his finger
Her medicinal herbs
of China
The mason spice jar is empty
The full heart needs his half
Cream of the crop
Careless love accidentally
spice dropped
Sensual Chin like pine needles
The exception to the rule more leaders
Remember Every September
to leave your scent
We all have needs we want
Drinking all the flavors of Snapple
*Big waves of the ripple don't you
love her amazing dimples

The intermittent, distant rumbling in the skies was suggestive of chronic flatulence. The sun struggled in futility to shine – like a crying child who had been forced to smile. Lightning flashed in quick successions, momentarily throwing brilliant streaks of white light across the room. The angry growl of thunder that followed was enough to send a troop of Howler monkeys scampering for safety.

The lights flickered as though unable to make up their minds to stay or not to. But apparently, the wind had zero tolerance for such petty indecisiveness. And like an enraged, stimulated, demented animal, it gusted through the windows and doors, hauling loose papers, light bulbs in every direction, shattering the bulbs to smithereens, as if to punish them for being so fickle. The lights died.

Thick black blankets eerily stretched across the skies with gusto, menacingly extinguishing whatever was left of the sun’s brilliance. More rumbles and flashes followed in royal herald of the impending storm. And in no time, slick sheets of rain torrentially came pouring down, cascading the roofs to form puddles almost as soon as they hit the ground.

​I looked in horror, fervently praying that whoever God had appointed to build the ark in our time had not diverted the funds. I was trapped in the office, and I knew exactly what this meant…flood, scarcity of buses, hiked transport fares, heavy taffic and very likely, at least one month of blackout.
It would be another three hours of steady downpour before the rain eventually stopped, as gracefully as it had been ushered in.
I picked up my bag, rolled up my trousers in earnest anticipation of the inevitable flood, and made my way home.

​To my utter bewilderment, there were no floods! The lights from the street lamps cast a soft golden glow on the slick roads, seemingly creating mirages of pools of water from afar off. But they were mere illusions. The gurgling sound coming from the underground drainage was proof of where all the water had gone. It was a strange sight. Like some alien cyborg from space had been fiddling with a time machine that had accidentally propelled us twenty years into the future.

My new world was a three-fold utopian dream. So surreal!
I could see beautiful, high-rise, state of the art edifices with mind-blowing architectural designs that blatantly seemed to defy the laws of gravity. I could see world-class hospitals that admitted ailing dignitaries from around the world and top-notch schools that offered scholarships to deserving indigenous and international students.
Sure enough, this was Nigeria! The Nigeria we all dreamed of.

And there was light…electricity! - In myriad of colours that seemed to have been dispersed from several colossal disco ***** via *“wireless fidelity” technology. I strained to hear the noise from generators, but I was disappointed. I couldn’t even hear the all too familiar cacophony of horns blaring, conductors shouting, loud discordant music, rattling vehicle engines etc. It was like everyone and everything had taken a crash course on orderliness.

I saw a vibrant transportation system that included high speed railway lines, paved road networks that looked like a child’s doodles, first-class air strips and efficient sea transportation.
I saw a working government - one that had provided the critical infrastructure for her people.

I saw a nation with a large industrialized economy, where the dividends of democracy had been delivered to the people by their government. One consciously founded on equity and honesty of purpose, and courageously sustained by unfaltering faithfulness and unwavering patriotism.      
A nation whose economic boost did not come solely from crude oil exploration and production, but also from crude oil refining, agriculture, manufacturing, infrastructure, food, services, tourism, automobiles, transportation, education etc.
A nation that thronged with international investors from all walks of life, who were not in the least afraid to invest in her.

And then, I saw her people. A people proud of their citizenship.
A people proud to be called NIGERIANS.
A people who were not given to religious, political, or tribal bigotry.
A people who individually and collectively, gallantly bore the torch of the vision of their heroes past.
A people who earnestly and persistently worked to see only goods “Made in Nigeria” sold in their markets.

Where there was once despair, I saw hope. Where there was once fear, i saw security. Where there was once disgruntlement, I saw satisfaction. Where there was once poverty, I saw wealth opportunities and where there was unemployment, I saw jobs. Death had given way to life and life to hope.

I started, as I felt something cold and wet trickle down my forehead. It was droplets of rain from a leak in the roof just above my head. I was still in my office, I never left. The rain had lulled me to sleep. Even more sadly, I realized it had all been a dream.
Slowly and regretfully, I packed my things and left for home. It was pitch black outside as I carefully waded through the polluted waters, jauntily holding my bag, more because I was afraid to lose it in the flood than in a hopeless bid to dignify the situation.

Two hours later, I crawled into bed. I did not have to turn the lights off…the electric poles had gone for a swim. A very long one.


© ONUGHA EBELE VICTORIA

1995 saw the start of Generation Z,
the ‘iKids’ with a knack for this new-fangled technology,
Millennial 2.0,
caught in the limbo of the World Wide Web development and Rose Gold iPhones.
They say we’re adaptable,
but apparently we can’t make our own decisions about anything.
They say that we don’t care about anything
except for our tiny little screens,
but they forget who put them in our hands,
and they forget who they run to for help
when they forget how to troubleshoot.
They forget what kind of technology we need to keep sustaining life in the Information Age,
Caught in a crossfire because
Yeah, we’re 90s kids—but the 90s never really actually ended until 2006,
the only difference between two decades being
how much neon versus how much chrome,
and just how expensive accidentally opening the internet app on your mom’s blackberry phone was.
We’re nostalgic for all the things we can’t quite remember,
and half these high schoolers weren’t actually born until 2000 or 2001.
Most of us aren’t old enough to even remember 9/11, nothing outside of the news clips that our teachers show us in history class every single September.
I was born in the same year as the Columbine shootings.
The United States has not been at peace for a year of my life.
We are always fighting— fighting for everything.
Human equality,
posing arguments about micro aggressions and refugees, seeing the inhumanity in the past that we’re living.

None of us are older than 21,
under such hard scrutiny while Baby Boomers Wave 2 still run our country.
We inherited the Millenial’s exhaustion,
the generation before us spending our childhood fighting for all the things that we have never really believed in.
Fairytales.

Generation Z.
The ‘iKids’ who are going to one day be making leaps and bounds with technology,
the generation to nurse this dying planet back to health,
Millennials 2.0 who know how to learn from our forerunners’ mistakes,
who know how to adapt from Sidekicks to iPhone 6S Plus in less than a decade.
We’re the kids who have realized that fun is found in safe spaces rather than invading each other’s personal spaces.

They say we’re too sensitive,
but at the same time they claim that we’re desensitized.
And I thought we were the generation that couldn't make decisions.

We are critical.

We find flaws in
everything we see
because nobody
wants to write
about perfection,
even though sometimes
we wish we could just stay
staring into that
unblemished surface.

2. We are never satisfied.

We live our lives upon
mountains of
scrunched up
bits of refill and
ideas we gave up
trying to
express.

3. We never forget.

We write words about
eye contact made
three months ago
that we replay over
and over in our minds
even though it
stopped
being relevant.

4. We are fickle.**

Our emotions flash
from one
to the other
like strobe lighting that
disorientates us
until we feel as if
the world
will never be still.

5. We are exposed.

We don't know how
to keep our feelings
to ourselves so
we'll write them
down for
you to find
'accidentally'.

6. We are vulnerable.

We wear our
hearts on our sleeves
and won't lift a
muscle to fight back
if somebody tries
to break it
because we thrive
from the pain.

7. We will never stop.

We will never stop
feeling and
we will never stop
hurting,
we will never stop
breaking and
bleeding and
loving
even though the cycle
is endless
and we know what's
coming next.


We are addicted
to agony,
but we agonise
for the art.

I know what you are doing
After all you told me so..
accidentally
you told me without realizing

You advised my cousin to stay in her mess until she found her strength
You feel like this, us, is a mess, and well I guess I feel the same.

I thought that I needed you because ..
I just felt like I do.. did
but I don't need you
I mean
I did  ..I do

I love you,
But why does your love come with all this BS
Cheating, lying, fussing, fighting, crying..
You have no empathy for me
You hurt me and expect me to not complain

I know what you're doing

You are waiting on the right time
devising your plan to Leave
But the door is available for you now
You do not have to plot and scheme on a better way to hurt me,
You can leave in the morning
you can just leave in the morning. ..

do you ever wonder
about the difference between
looking at something
and the hallucination created
when looking past it?
if you look at your hand
it's all you can see
but if you look past your hand
there are now two of them
sometimes it's hard for me
to remember which is real
it gets me thinking
about how my father
used to wake me up
in the morning by rubbing
his stubble across my face
i spent my 11th birthday
under the assumption
that he might come back
if i drank his aftershave
like maybe if i could turn blue
if i could be his favorite color
on our bathroom floor
he would forget why he left
the paramedics were all sobing
as they pumped memories
out of my stomach
i coughed up the day the post-it note with your new address on it
burned a hole in our refrigerator
coughed up the day
the divorce papers came
and my mother
took a baseball bat to the mailbox
i've been choking on the splinters
for 17 years
it's been 17 years
since the last dinner plate
exploded on our dining room wall
17 years since my mother
started accidentally setting your place at the dinner table
17 years since italian night
at the restaurant on the corner
where the juke box
spat tired music
and like so many other things
it stopped working when you left
i guess it's no coincidence
since the juke box went quiet
that the cds in my car
only skip on "i miss you"
i've been hemorrhaging memories
for so long
and now that i'm looking back
i can no longer tell
the mirage from the truth
sometimes i swear
you showed up to my graduation
and last time
i was at your apartment
i can't remember
if the imprints of my hands
are in clay hanging on your wall
or if they were left in the mud
the day god had the audacity
to let it rain
or maybe it's like the time
i saw someone crying on a bridge
now that i think about it
i can't remember if it was me

The world here and there
Crowded crowded crowded…
Accidentally if we see
Still we may be separated
Accidentally if you’re aware
Will you find a way to me?

Hello, everyone! This is one of the weirdest sites: or your money back! We have ZIM, neopets, music, and much, much, more. E-mail us for questions, comments, complaints and information. Why not click on the Very Weird Stuff link to see more, or click on the music link? We have halloween and christmas pictures on the NeoPics link. Cheese is not a wild thing!!!!!!!!! Now I have decided to go for a world record. I will try to make the longest web page ever, made completely out of text! Won't that be fun? I will just type, and type, and never, ever use copy and paste. Wow...I really must be bored. Just goes to show what boredom can do to you. Any way, that's it for now. Wait, no it isn't, I still have to keep going, and going, and going. Because I do. THE REST OF THE STUFF I TYPE WILL BE COMPLETLY IN CAPS JUST BECAUSE I CAN. THAT IS ALL. SEEYA! Hi, I'm back. So far this is nowhere near the world record. I think. I don't exactly know where it is...oh, well. I'll just have to do the very best that I can. No one is really coming here, anyway. So it doesn't matter. By the way, TAB is a worthwhile, community-service organization. The form link is to a 100% fake TAB registration form that you can fill out just for laughs. I can't believe I'm bothering to do this. I have very low expectations of my site. None ever comes here, I could do this all day long and I still wouldn't have any more hits. This is just a pointless excursive in spelling errors and grammatical imprecision. May your day be shiney! The following is an extremely weird poem-thingy that I wrote when I was in a relatively weird mood:
never mind that noise my dear can anyone pass the cheese only if you say pretty please oh, boy do I have to sneeze. why must everyone always rhyme, why I’m a poet and don’t I know it? what I fear comes right after here not this life or the next will I ever be able to pass the test? we’re stuck in here, (alone my dear) and we’ll problem never get out so don’t start to shout. it’s dark and I want to go home is where the heart was where is it now? we’ll never know but oh crap it’s starting to snow and it’s time to show and tell about the well that you found last summer at camp when it was damp it was near the ramp oh god why must this be I liked that tree but now it’s gone, farewell so long I’ll miss you as long as you write but then I’m afraid to say good-night. my dear there’s nothing to fear that’s only a box that’s made of blocks next to the wagon that looks like a dragon why are you shaking it’s your fear that is making you shiver and act all a quiver. don’t you know that you only need be afraid of fear and never anything here and certainly not a post that acts like a ghost?
See, very weird. At least it fills up my word quota for the day. Not that I exactly have a word quota for the day. It just sounded very professional to say it. Anyway, I still don't think that anyone is actually coming here. You'd have to be an absolute loser (or really bored) to come here. I'd probley come here, but that isn't much of a surprise. After all, I've been to the Really Really Big Button That Doesn't Do Anything website over 50 times. Pathetic. But, whatever. As long as I'm happy, right. Humor the crazy person, okay? Oh, guess what? According to someone you problem don't know, this is the second most pointless website ever! Next to the Really Big Button, of course. I feel special. Come on everyone, group hug. Okay, now I'm starting to scare myself...I'm gonna quit for today. Seeya. Now I'm back. Is this getting confusing to you? Too bad. Now I want you to go to http://quiz.ravenblack.net/blood.pl?biter=eon" If you do this I'll get points in the game. Come on all you non-existing people! Help me! You know you want to! It's a worthy cause! Honestly, the more time I waste playing the game, the less time I'll work on this site and the less stuff you gotta read. Although why you'd be here if you didn't want to read is beyond me. Maybe you're lost. Okay, if you want to get out, click the little refresh button, okay? Good...what? You say it didn't let you out? Oh, well. You must be caught in a time warp. Keep pressing it. Maybe you'll break free. What's that. The little counter at the bottom keeps going up? Never mind. That's just how many times you have to click before you can leave. Good-bye.

Hey, I'm once again: back. I don't suppose you fell for that little thing about the refresh button. After all, you're a responsible, intelligent person who apparently has a lot of time on your hands. Well, you can't possibly have more time than I do. I mean, after all, I made this site. You're only browsing it. And most people don't even come here. Not even my friends...sniffle The just ignore this poor, pathetic little page. All they do is fill out the TAB form and leave. I think. Maybe they're here right now! HI! HOW ARE YOU DOING? I'M FINE! THANKS FOR COMING! YES, I'M YELLING! Who am I kidding. This page won't get a single hit, unless I bribe people...now that has possibilities. Okay, fill out the TAB form, so I have proof that you bothered to come here and...uh...I'll...uh...send you a sandwich? Please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery. I'm bored. I'm gonna go hug a moose. MOOSE! I love-d you moose! Hey, I'm back again! Yea...waits for applause okay! Now I want all you loyal fans...cricket chirps to go to the link to see what I'm like. I took a whole bunch of personality quizzes and posted them there. I'm an evil villain, kitty and a freakazoid so far. And I only took the quiz once, too. Spooky how accurate they are...anyway, I command you to go! I'm going. I'm back. I'm gonna start counting how many times I say back. Let's see: 1...2...3...4...5! Wow. I must really be desperate for something to do. I now officially have proof that someone has been here! It was one of my friends. Apparently this page really is getting long, because my friend said something to that effect. Maybe. Anyway, moving on! I'm just basically typing nothing. Just like all those reports people have to do. You know? With a specific number of words. They start out with half that number, and then just fill in words until they have the right amount. I salute those people. You're great tradition is being carried out here, on the second most pointless site ever! Well. Maybe eventually some weird, bored person will wander onto my site on accident and be mildly entertained be my site until they wander onto a live video feed of a coffee maker. Or maybe not. I only know that I'm entertaining me, which was my original goal. So. I've done what I've set out to accomplish. Yea, me! I'm so special. You see, most people, they don't like reading or writing. So if you're not most people, you've made it down this far without skipping, skimming or getting the spark notes version. (Which I think does not exist) My point is, if you've bothered to read this, then, (like me) you probley have also read the ketchup bottle so many times that you have it down verbatim. Look verbatim up. It's a word. But, you should know that, since you like reading. Or maybe you're just skimming. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with reading food labels. You might be asked a question about them on a quiz show. And now, for the million-dollar question: How many calories are there in a single serving of Mustard? I can just see it now...It could be called Know-Your-Food. Or You are What you Eat. It'd probley be as popular as those game shows that no one's ever heard of. Speaking of food, what's up with pie? There's strawberry pie, apple, pumpkin and so many others, but there is no grape pie! I know. I'm just as upset about this unfortunate lack of development in the pie division. Think about it. Grapes are used to make jelly, jam, juice and raisins. What makes them undesirable for pie? Would they dry into raisins? Couldn't you just stick some jelly in a piecrust and bake it? It just doesn't make any sense. Another thing that bothers me is ***** grinders. You know, the foreign guys with the bellhop hats and the little music thingy and the cute little monkey with the bellhop hat who collects the money? Okay. They're basically begging on the street. How did they ever afford an *****-thingy? Wouldn't it make more sense to get a kazoo, if you're broke? And if they're so poor, what possessed them to buy a monkey? I mean, I don't think I could afford a monkey, and I'm not exactly on the streets. Obviously I at least have a computer...so, back to the ***** grinders. I would have sold the monkey and the ***** and been able to eat for at least a year. Or, if I was weirder than I am, I could at least **** the monkey with the ***** and eat it. Why on earth did they keep the monkey? It must have cost a fortune to feed...not to mention the mess. That's just one of those many facts of life that are better left mysteries. Especially since no one but me would ask the question. I better go. I think I hear a monkey...Okay...now I'm back. That's the sixth time I've said back! I realize that this longest text ever must be very boring and not worth anyone's time. But I'd like to take this time to thank the 2 and 1/2 people in the entire universe who have bothered to read this entire thing. I'm not exactly sure who they are, but: thanks! Right now, my spacebar is malfunctioning...that's not good...I have to press it two or three times just to insert a freaking space. Maybe the evil little faeries with the sharp little teeth have put their evil faerie dust on my computer. Or maybe not. This is too frustrating. Goodbye for now...Now I'm back. And still frustrated. But for a different reason. Today I had the misfortune of playing a Treasure Planet game on neopets.com It was terrible. Apparently the point of the game was to get your character to shout "Whoo-Hoo!" as many times as possible before you splattered your brains on the rocks, all the while listening to a soundtrack that is similar to a dying ceiling fan. Of course, when I started out I accidentally hit the rocks approximately three million times. Halfway though I used my four remaining brain-cells to decide that the game was dumb. So my goal changed from surviving to laughing evilly while my character died. So the game naturally did everything it could to preserve my life. The stupid game is still going on and I refuse to quit because I want my points. My character is actually dodging the stupid rocks better now then when I controlled him. I hate irony. Seeya. Okay. Now I'm back again. Today I added an update page, which is basically a less chaotic, outlined version of this without all the ranting. It's more like techno talk about arrays and how much I **** and whether or not the Braves will win this year. Okay, the whole braves thing is made up. But everything else I've said so far is true. I think. Maybe I should start on a boring disclaimer...Eh-hem. All contents of this site were designed for entertainment purposes only. Any use thereof that is not stated in the above mentioned statement would make the author, hereby referred to as Patron Saint of Paper Clips, very angry. Should you violate the purpose of this site: i.e. become not entertained, the Patron Saint of Paper Clips will be forced to take drastic measures. This is specified in Code: 343 of the Flaming Chicken Handbook. Ooooo…that’s a great idea! I’m gonna start quoting from the Flaming Chicken Handbook! Code: 343 of the Flaming Chicken Handbook states that the Patron Saint of Paper Clips (that’s me) is allowed to cause vague, pain like sensations while the offending person (or alien life form, dog, etc.) isn’t paying attention. Now I have a purpose in life! To make up quotes from the non-existent Flaming Chicken Handbook, which I’m sure you have a copy of. No? Too bad. It’s in the mail, I promise! Now I must take my leave…and remember. Cheese is watching. Okay...I'm back...I think that eventually half of this thing will consist of the word back over and over again...that's just weird. Which fits the motif of the rest of the site. There's even a money back guarantee. Isn’t' that nice? See? Now no one can ever say that I don't take care of my viewers. Especially since I don't have viewers. I have readers. Wait...I really don't even know if anyone bothers to read this. Even if I put it in a less chaotic, more user-friendly format people would still ignore this because it involves: reading. Yes. Sad to admit, but the majority of people would rather read the summary at the back of a book rather than the whole book itself. What has the world come to? It's pathetic. Especially since I'm bothering to write all this. It's not fair! Why can't I have more readers?! All the other internet writers have nothing on me, except they're better at advertising, having a central theme/plot and basically more talented. Whereas I'm more into the whole ranting and raving stage right now. Plus, I am horrible at spelling. Which is bad. Thank the powers that be for spell-check. The single greatest invention of the computer gods. I'm getting bored, so I think I'm done for the day. May your day be shiney! I'm back again! And I feel weird! I found at that yet another one of my friends is reading this. Creepy. Just how much time do they have on their hands. Perhaps their just trying to be nice. I can just see it now...an organization devoted not to feeding the hungry, or peace, or love or whatever, but to giving recognition to all those poor, pathetic, unpopular websites. I wonder what it's name would be. Don't Ignore Sites? Would it be called DIS? Isn't that like a slang term for an insult? Would that be considered poetic justice, or just a nice coincidence? And why do I even care? I'll tell you why. Because I have nothing else to do right now. I could be playing neopets, but ever since my bad experience with Treasure Planet, I don't feel like it. Oh, by the way, I noticed that whenever I use spell-check, my stupid computer turns the word probley into to word problem. To prevent this, I did nothing. So, it is now up to you, the imaginary reader, to decide whether I mean probley or problem...it's almost like a game! But without the bad sound track. And I promise not to force you to live when you would rather die. Moving on, I have nothing else to say, but don't feel like quitting just yet. I'm like the little engine that could. Or maybe the Energizer Bunny. I just keep going, and going and going. Or I could be like that annoying guy on T.V. who keeps asking if you can hear him. If my site manages to last a decade, my readers snicker will probley wonder what I'm talking about. My answer is simple. It doesn't matter. I'm just rambling. Which means that it doesn't matter if you understand anything I say. Doesn't that make you feel better? I bet it does. Wow. Look how long this has gotten. I even impress myself. Who would have thought I have this much free time? And I congratulate any reader who has gotten this far. Ooooooo! You must check out the fortunes section of the random stuff page! I've just gotten an idea for some more, original, fortunes...I gotta go!(may the moose be with you) And now I am back. I swear. If iI fill out the fake tab form I'm gonna have to put back as my favorite word...I already have filled it out, though. Would it be cheating to fill it out again? Only if I had multiple personalities. Or would it be cheating if I didn't have multiple personalities? The world may never know. Just like how many licks it takes to get to the bottom of a tootsie pop. Would it vary? The number of licks, I mean. Someone could have super-disolving spit, or watery-spit. Or what if you took big ol' slobbery licks? Does the commercial take that into account? No. It doesn't. And let me tell you, it's an outrage. It deludes all of American's sweet, innocent, candy-loving children into thinking that a cartoon owl is smarter than they are! "Mr. Owl, can you tell us how many licks does it take to get to the bottom of a tootsie pop?" Or whatever. And "Mr. Owl" replies "One...Twoo...Three! Chomp" And he bites it. That teaches our youth that it's okay to agree to help someone, and then ruin their experiment. Well...it's not. I am going to start a protest group. Teens Against Cartoon Owls. We could call ourselves TACO! I love the little tacos, I love them good! That is a direct quote from GIR, co-star and comic-relief on INVADER ZIM

you got a fast car
i want a ticket to anywhere
maybe we can make a deal
maybe together
we can get somewhere
anyplace is better
starting from zero
got nothing to lose
maybe we'll make somethin
me myself i got nothin to prove

i've been wondering
when it stops
people say it stops
when you want it to
but how do i tell that
to my dreams
when all i can think about
is running up to kiss you
in the parking lot of anywhere
it makes me wanna drink
and say everything
like sometimes i think about
what it would've been like
if i had let you go
when i
was still strong enough to do it
like i never knew hell
had such a pretty voice
like i tried to make it all day
without saying
"wish you were here"
like lately i've been going back
to all the places we've been
to see what it's like without you
it is the worst game
of hide & seek
every time i close my eyes
to count
you just go home
i seem to only wear my seat belt
on days you call
on days you're all *never been better
and i just wanna tell you
how much I hate window shopping
and daylight goodbyes
you just sit there
when you could say anything
you could tell me
you noticed i started drinking again
you could even make it up
you could say you miss me, too
you could say
you missed me so much
that the other day
you accidentally bought
two coffees instead of one
you could tell me
how you've been
without me
that you sleep so much better
these days
without having to worry
you can say what you have
to just don't say leaving
was like shooting fish in a barrel
cause i swear i'm nostalgic
for things i pretended were real
and i swear
i don't want a seance
until there's something
worth bringing back
take me back
to all the places i tried to love you
back to a time
where i knew my name  
without you having to say it

*you got a fast car
is it fast enough
so we can fly away
you gotta make a decision
leave tonight
or live & this way

There used to be a bottle on the wall.
It was very green.
I'm sure it was the loneliest green bottle
that I had ever seen
It used to sit on the wall
all day and all night
And every day, when I looked out of the window,
it was always in my line of sight
Then one day, a cat came along.
Something was going to happen; I could tell
The cat then accidentally nudged it
and off the wall, it fell
When it had fallen off the wall
it had dropped with a very loud sound.
There were all these little pieces of the green bottle
all over the ground
Then the cat yelped
and I knew it had gotten hurt
I could quite obviously see its paws were caked in
blood and dirt
The bottle wasn't harmful in the beginning
it did not look the slightest bit treacherous
but after a nudge in the wrong direction
it became very dangerous
Now I look back at you smiling
next to me on the big armchair
Your fingers running through your soft locks of hair.
You remind me a lot
of that green bottle.
In the beginning, you were harmless
you were all sorts of fun.
Now you hurt me.
Could you tell me why
as I don't quite know what I've done

For the fifth year in a row, Kering and Parsons School of Fashion rolled out the ‘Empowering Imagination’ design initiative. The competition engaged twelve 2016 graduates of the Parsons BFA Fashion Design program, who "were selected for their excellence in vision, acute awareness in design identity, and mastery of technical competencies." The winners, Ya Jun Lin and Tiffany Huang, will be awarded a 2-week trip to Kering facilities in Italy in June 2016 and will have their thesis collections featured in Saks Fifth Avenue New York’s windows.

The Kering and Parsons competition, which is currently in its fifth year, is one of a growing number of design competitions, including but not limited to the LVMH Prize, the ANDAM Awards, the Council of Fashion Designers of America/Vogue Fashion Fund, and its British counterpart, the Woolmark Prize, the Ecco Domani fashion award, and the Hyères Festival. among others.

In the generations prior, designers were certainly nominated for awards, but it seems that there was not nearly as intense of a focus on design competitions as a means for designers to get their footing, for design houses to scout talent, or for these competitions to select the best of the best in a especially large pool of young talent. Fern Mallis, the former executive director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America and an industry consultant, told the New York Times: “Take the Calvin [Kleins] and the Donna [Karans] and the Ralph [Laurens] of the world. Some of these people had money from a friend or a partner who worked with them, but they weren’t out spending their time doing competitions and winning awards to get their business going.” She sheds light on an essential element: The relatively drastic difference between the state of fashion then and fashion now. Fashion then was slower, less global, and (a lot) less dominated by the internet, and so, it made for quite different circumstances for the building of a fashion brand.

Nowadays, young designers are more or less going full speed ahead right off the bat. They show comprehensive collections, many of which consist of garments and an array of accessories. They are expected to be active on social media. They are expected to establish a strong industry presence (think: Go to events and parties). They are expected to cope with the fashion business that has become large-scale and international. They are expected to collaborate to expand their reach, and while it does, at times, feel excessive, this is the reality because the industry is moving at such a quick pace, one that some argue is unsustainably rapid. The result is designers and design houses consistently building their brands and very rarely starting small. Case in point: Young brands showing pre-collections within a few years of setting up shop (for a total of four collections per year, not counting any collaboration or capsule collections), and established brands showing roughly four womenswear collections, four menswear collections, two couture collections, and quite often, a few diffusion collections each year.

The current climate of 'more is more' (more collections, more collaborations, more social media, more international know-how, etc.) in fashion is what sets currently emerging brands apart from older brands, many of which started small. This reality also sheds light on the increasing frequency with which designers rely on competitions as a means of gaining funds, as well as a means of establishing their names and not uncommonly, gaining outside funding.

The Ralphs, Tommys, Calvins and Perrys started off a bit differently. Ralph Lauren, for instance, started a niche business. The empire builder, now 74, got his start working at a department store then worked for a private label tie manufacturer (which made ties for Brooks Brothers and Paul Stuart). He eventually convinced them to let him make ties under the Polo label and work out of a drawer in their showroom. After gaining credibility thanks to the impeccable quality of his ties, he expanded into other things. Tommy Hilfiger similarly started with one key garment: Jeans. After making a name for himself by buying jeans, altering them into bellbottoms and reselling them at Brown’s in Manhattan, he opened a store catering to those that wanted a “rock star” aesthetic when he was 18-years old with $150. While the store went bankrupt by the time he was 25, it allowed him to get his foot in the door. He was offered design positions at Calvin Klein (who also got his start by focusing on a single garment: Coats. With $2,000 of his own money and $10,000 lent to him by a friend, he set up shop; in 1973, he got his big break when a major department store buyer accidentally walked into his showroom and placed an order for $50,000). Hilfiger was also offered a design position with Perry Ellis but turned them down to start his eponymous with help from the Murjani Group. Speaking of Perry Ellis, the NYU grad went to work at an upscale retail store in Virginia, where he was promoted to a buying/merchandising position in NYC, where he was eventually offered a chance to start his own label, a small operation. After several years of success, he spun it off as its own entity. Marc Jacobs, who falls into a bit of a younger generation, started out focusing on sweaters.

These few individuals, some of the biggest names in American fashion, obviously share a common technique. They intentionally started very small. They built slowly from there, and they had the luxury of being able to do so. Others, such as Hubert de Givenchy, Alexander McQueen and his successor Sarah Burton, Nicolas Ghesquière, Julien Macdonald, John Galliano and his successor Bill Gaytten, and others, spent time as apprentices, working up to design directors or creative directors, and maybe maintaining a small eponymous label on the side. As I mentioned, attempting to compare these great brand builders or notable creative directors to the young designers of today is a bit like comparing apples and oranges, as the nature of the market now is vastly different from what it looked like 20 years ago, let alone 30 or 40 years ago.

With this in mind, fashion competitions have begun to play an important role in helping designers to cope with the increasing need to establish a brand early on. It seems to me that winning (or nearly winning) a prestigious fashion competition results in several key rewards.

Primarily, it puts a designer's name and brand on the map. This is likely the least noteworthy of the rewards, as chances are, if you are selected to participate in a design competition, your name and brand are already out there to some extent as one of the most promising young designers of the moment.

Second are the actual prizes, which commonly include mentoring from industry insiders and monetary grants. We know that participation in competitions, such as the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, the Woolmark Prize, the Swarovski, Ecco Domani, the LVMH Prize, etc., gives emerging designers face time with and mentoring from some of the most successful names in the industry. Chris Peters, half of the label Creatures of the Wind (pictured above), whose brand has been nominated for half of the aforementioned awards says of such participation: “It feels like we’ve talked to possibly everyone in fashion that we can possibly talk to." The grants, which range anywhere from $25,o00 to $400,000 and beyond, are obviously important, as many emerging designers take this money and stage a runway show or launch pre-collections, which often affect the business' bottom line in a major and positive way.

The third benefit is, in my opinion, the most significant. It seems that competitions also provide brands with some reputability in terms of finding funding. At the moment, the sea of young brands which is terribly vast. Like law school graduates, there are a lot of design school graduates. With this in mind, these competitions are, for the most part, serving as a selection mechanism. Sure, the inevitable industry politics and alternate agendas exist (without which the finalists lists may look a bit different), but great talent is being scouted, nonetheless. Not only is it important to showcase the most promising young talent and provide them with mentoring and grant money, as a way of maintaining an industry, but these competitions also do a monumental service to young brands in terms of securing additional funding. One of the most challenging aspects of the business for young/emerging brands is producing and growing absent outside investors' funds, and often, the only way for brands' to have access to such funds is by showing a proven sales track record, something that is difficult to establish when you've already put all of your money into your business and it is just not enough. This is a frustrating cycle for young designers.

However, this is where design competitions are a saving grace. If we look to recent Council of Fashion Designers of America/Vogue Fashion Fund winners and runners-up, for instance, it is not uncommon to see funding (distinct from the grants associated with winning) come on the heels of successful participation. Chrome Hearts, the cult L.A.-based accessories label, acquired a minority stake in The Elder Statesman, the brand established by Greg Chait, the 2012 winner, this past March. A minority stake in 2011 winner Joseph Altuzarra's eponymous label was purchased by luxury conglomerate Kering in September 2013. Creatures of the Wind, the NYC-based brand founded by Shane Gabier and Chris Peters, which took home a runner-up prize in the 2011 competition, welcomed an investment from The Dock Group, a Los Angeles-based fashion investment firm, last year, as well.

Across the pond, the British Fashion Council/Vogue Fashion Fund has awarded prizes to a handful of designers who have gone on to land noteworthy investments. In January 2013, Christopher Kane (pictured below), the 2011 winner, sold a majority stake in his brand to Kering. Footwear designer Nicholas Kirkwood was named the winner 2013 in May and by September, a majority stake in his company had been acquired by LVMH.

Thus, while the exposure that fashion design competition participants gain, and the mentoring and monetary grants that the winners enjoy, are certainly not to be discounted, the takeaway is much larger than that. These competitions are becoming the new way for investors and luxury conglomerates to source new talent, and for young brands to land the outside investments that they so desperately need to produce their collections, expand their studio space, build upon their existing collections, and even open brick and mortar stores.

While no one has scooped up inaugural LVMH winner Thomas Tait’s brand yet or fellow winner, Marques'Almeida, it is likely just be a matter of time.Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses | http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-sydney

I cut my hair,
the tips that you liked curlying around your fingers while you sang are now gone.
I painted it with sunshine rays,
To surround me with all the light I've been needing since the last time I got blinded by yours.
And that flock of hair that was shorter from that time I accidentally burned it trying to light you a cigarrette, the one that made me smile with its stubborness to stay still, the one that reminded me of our first night, it has growned.

You looked me in the eye
With the same smile you gave me
A long time ago.
You let me order your coffee for you
I knew which one
It's still the same
From a long time ago.

I laughed about the jokes you told me
You laughed at how unfunny
Mine were
And you playfully hit me
I frowned, you laughed,
I laughed, you laughed again
And said sorry
Just like you did
A long time ago.

The worst of it all
Was that when your hand
Accidentally brushed mine
I shivered
Just like I did
A long long time ago.


-- Eleanor

1-Establish Lux as a farmer with his brother, father, mother. Show dissatisfaction at a lot in life, yearning for more, however Lux feels compelled to stay with family and help them. Establish a close relationship between the brothers, a good mother/son relationship, though a testy relationship with his father. Strange symbol branded on Lux’s chest, been there since he was a baby, no one is sure what it means- or no one is telling him. This is Lux’s L.S. beginning. Establish also is the world Lux is in, the facts of the ministry and the church, the knights and wars of before.
2-Introduce a festival in town with knights from “The Brotherhood” being present, establish them as knights capable of magic and swordplay, “The Brotherhood” knights are taking new recruits at the festival. Wanting to join, Lux goes through the trials and passes, though after a harsh reaction from his father, Lux does not leave with the knights. With Lux out of scene, a conversation between the mother and father should reveal the man is not in actuality Lux’s father, but his uncle, and his brother had been married to Lux’s mother (now his wife) though died fighting in a war between “The Brotherhood” as a member of their ranks, against a rival faction known as “The Order”  peak lux’s curiosity and focus on the desire to leave as established in the previous chapter. This and the next chapter are Lux’s “Go The Distance”
3-The end of the week long festival nears, and Lux is on a hunting trip with his younger brother, returns and is questioned by his father why he wants to leave so much. The truth of Lux’s true father is revealed, and though Lux’s uncle expected this to convince Lux to stay and not go into danger, Lux is angered rather, and leaves in a hurry to catch “The Brotherhood” knights before they leave. Lux is put under the tutelage of a man who claims to have known Lux’s father, though it is revealed Lux’s little brother followed him, and is taken into the recruit pool as well, despite never going through the testing. Note- perhaps have Lux refuse to go with the knights if his brother is not also offered a spot? Hero’s journey, he needs a moment of hesitation and refusal to go. This should be reflected like Lukes refusal to join ben, or Bilbos refusal of gandalf, but quickly change their minds.
4-Training begins the moment they arrive at a camp. Lux and his brother are immediately outfitted with leather armor, dark and gritty in contrast of the shining metal of the rest of the knights. Lux is doing well in training, sword play coming natural, shakey with a bow, and ofcourse a natural talent at magic, (though make a point that in fire spells Lux only manages to start small flames that he can throw, and struggles with healing magic) though his brother is struggling in all aspects and is beat by his trainer. Lux’s trainer urges Lux to ignore it,though Lux finally snaps and challenges the man. The two enter a circle made in the dirt with training swords, and though Lux appears to have the advantage at first, he is quickly beaten and left gasping and ****** on the floor. The trainer leaves Lux there, and soon a hand reaches down to Lux. A female trainee named Ciara picks up Lux and, joined by his brother, the three wander off for more training for the instructors. Introduce Peter, a man deeply infatuated by Ciara, rather than a knight Peter is a Father to the holy church, unable to fall in love and forbidden to marry. Subtle on Peter’s infatuation with Ciara, should really build Peter as a good friend to Ciara,
5. Lux, his trainer, CIara, and her trainer are all out in the forest doing patrol after reports that remnants of “The Order” have picked up their pace in activity in the surrounding areas, raiding small towns and taking young men and women as recruits. Lux and Ciara are separated for a time and grow closer through talk and laughter when they see two knights in armor that is shining silver on almost the entire body though the right arm and pec are a scarlet red, drinking water from a stream. Confirming with each other that is the description of “The Order” Ciara says they should find their trainers though Lux charges. Ciara is close behind, catching the two off guard. Both are quickly overpowered through the use of advanced magic from “The Order” but Ciara’s trainer jumps in, kills one, but is killed by the second. As he turns, Lux throws his dagger and hits the man in the eye, killing him. Lux and Ciara carry her trainers body back to camp. Ciara refuses to speak and when greeted at the gate by Peter, she embraces him and cries into his shoulder. Have both Lux and Ciara attempt healing magic to no avail. Have Lux grow frustrated at feeling the ABILITY to heal, but unable to do so.
6. Lux is punished for charging, while his trainer is taken to a secret meeting where they discuss what to do with Lux, but out of respect for his father, they keep him in “The Brotherhood”. Lux has not seen Ciara since the incident, though he can see her in the crowd when he is being taken to be whipped, and receives 10 lashes, to Peter’s dismay who recommends either banishment or death. After the punishment, he is cut loose from the posts holding him up and Lux’s brother charges the ground, picking his brother up and taking him to his bed. As they pass Lux manages an apology, but is unsure if she accepts it. Lux is informed she will be trained alongside him. Make Peter do some ******* **** idk. Resenting “The Brotherhood” Lux should vent to his brother about his growing distrust of the situation, asking if his brother has felt the growing gap between what they feel they can do, and what they can do.
7. Show training between Lux, Ciara, and brother, distinguish a growing connection between Lux and Ciara, much to Ciara’s surprise and reluctance. Show Lux go into his trainers room while he is absent, and sees a sword on the wall, bearing a strange symbol. Lux trainer will explain that the sword should belong to Lux as it was his fathers, and when it is time he will inherit the blade but for now he must leave the blade alone. Lux asks about the situation behind his father's death. Explain the following: The Brotherhood were not always the knights guarding the royal family, before his birth the royal family was guarded by The Order, who are the reason The Brotherhood practice both swordplay and magic, as the Order are master swordsman and powerful wizards, prolific in blood magic and necromancy. When one member of The Order desired the throne for himself, he split The Order in 2. The Brotherhood worship the Gods, but in his desire and lust for power, the man struck a deal with the old gods, evil barbaric entities who require blood and death as sacrifices for their eternal power. This is Nero, a man that Lux’s father took in and treated as a brother, both being trained as knights for The Order. During the civil war, Nero attacked the Royal Palace and though he was badly defeated, he did **** Lux’s father in the battle. End chapter on this story. This chapter should be shows as Lux is uncertain of The Brotherhood and his trainer, but with the story of his father, he is conflicted. If it is true, then they are just. If it is wrong, how many more lies has he been told?
8. Show Lux becoming prolific with a blade and very intimidating magically. When he, Ciara, and his brother are sent on a mission with no trainers for the first time, Lux naturally takes charge. They track knights of The Order down to a cave, where they are tested both physically and magically. Ciara and Lux both protect brother as much as they can, though brother is able to hold his own. They manage to corner one who instead of being taken prisoner, stabbed himself in the stomach after giving an ominous warning. As Lux approaches the body, he sees on the cave wall a crude drawing of a man with the same symbol on his chest as Lux’s, holding a sword with the same symbol as Lux’s fathers, a figure resembling a large black and red dragon behind the man. Dismissing it, Lux tells Ciara and brother to not bother approaching, and the last of the knights are dead. The report back to base, and Lux informs trainer of what happened, leaving out the symbol.
9. Word carries out on base that more and more caves are being found with members of The Order, all with strange paintings on the walls. Peter speaks with the knights, explaining he has been praying and granted visions of a large scale battle. Have Ciara grab Lux’s arm at the sound of war, which Peter will notice (important for later) and in a hesitation to prepare for a battle that may or may not come, the commander of the camp demands the trainees be knighted, their proper gear be made, and to meet with the main force.
Cut from Lux to Peter alone in a church, praying to the Holy Mother begging for guidance away from the desires of his heart, and in his prayers Peter slowly realizes that he will not give up his desire for Ciara and decides to betray the Brotherhood in hopes Lux may die and he may be able to gain Ciara’s affection. Peter is seen leaving by Lux, though when questioned says he is going for more Fathers to pray and meditate on the matter.
10. Peter tracks down members of The Order, informing them that he wishes to give them valuable information, surrendering to them. Peter is taken to the leader of the knights operating in the area, and in exchange for one thing, is willing to tell The Order where The Brotherhood is, where they are going, their numbers, and anything else that will be of use. All he wants is them to make Ciara fall in love with him./ While Peter is doing this, Lux is kneeling in front of his trainer who knights him with fathers sword. (maybe do a crusader knight knighting, this is oath/this is how you remember it) When Lux is handed his father's sword, the cold metal instantly feels warm and the grip adjusts to his fingers and though it looks heavy, appears just the right weight to Lux. Lux is given armor, though when he takes his shirt off he sees the symbol on his chest glowing, same as the symbol on the sword. Trainer only says “magic is a strange thing, boy” and Lux is put into armor and finally leaves the shed a knight after only 2 months of training./back to Peter who is given a potion, told to have Ciara drink it and leave with her before they make their move. As Peter leaves, the leader barks orders to men who address him as Nero. Perhaps instead of Peter getting the potion straight from Nero, have him get it on a witch in the woods who is secretly affiliated with Nero, have to work out how she gets the information from Peter, but she could use magic to contact Nero after. Perhaps part of the agreement is Peter must turn his back on his abandoned faith and be her student and as a test of loyalty he must tell her everything he knows.
11. As The Order masses its numbers, knights of the Brotherhood are entering the giant city dedicated to The Brotherhood(Remulus? Romulus?) and Lux is in awe as he sees the a giant palace, and near it a graveyard with tombs. The tombs are the resting place of knights of The Order who gave their lives in service to the royal family, and now knights of The Brotherhood join their numbers. A newly marked grave is standing as a monument to Ciara’s trainer. The day is given to them to explore the city, and Lux/Ciara are alone together. Share a kiss. Witnessing the kiss, Peter comes from the shadows and informs them that curfew is near, and they should be heading back to the castle/as Peter watches the two make way to the castle laughing/holding hands, he heads to a monastery. He kneels before a picture of his god, praying asking to be told what to do. He knows he is a man of faith, so why are lust and desire even capable of entering his heart? He begs for pardon from sin as he sets his heart on giving Ciara the potion.
12. Now that the trainees have been knighted and the generals have been informed of Peter’s vision, prepare for war. The inhabitants of the city and many villages around are all pulled into the Castle’s walls, able bodied men and boys are given swords, women and girls find refuge in the newly emptied dungeons (all criminals hung/drafted?) Lux is witness to a battle plan, and overhears that during the last battle at the capitol city, The Order had used dragons to its aid, and though there were no confirmed sightings of dragons now, The Brotherhood should still set up catapults and bastilles on the off chance. Lux finds his brother and Ciara and informs them of what he has heard, though Peter comes and informs them that Lux must just be tired from nerves, and no one has seen a dragon in a generation. End with Ciara stopping a near brawl between the two, and Lux heading to his bed alone, and Peter now with Ciara, when a sound fills the halls. Scouts are reporting a massive army on the outskirts of the city.
13. Rain. Silence. Lux, Ciara, and his brother are among the numbers at the front gate. Rain hitting the ground. Hitting armor. Men are vomiting. Peter along with other priests are swinging burning incense between the rows of men, chanting prayers and songs of their god. Pounding. Pounding so hard that when it hits the front gate, the rain flies off the door and hits Lux’s face. Lux looks to his brother. The two nod. Lux looks into Ciara’s eyes. The two kiss. Confess love. The gate is broken open and the war begins with a thunderous roar in the sky, a dragon spewing fire on archers perched on castle walls as troops charge. Lux and the other knights hold their positions with a great clash the two armies finally meet. In screaming and fighting, Lux loses his brother, and The Brotherhood are pushed back, further and further. Lux manages to grab Ciara’s arm and the two run to a set of stairs going down to one of the dungeon entrances to warn the others that they are losing, when the dragon knocks over a giant pillar, stones hitting the two. Lux stays conscious from the first hit, and sees Peter approaching an unconscious Ciara with the potion in hand. Stuck beneath rubble, Lux watches as Peter pours it in her mouth and wakes her with a kiss. Begging Ciara for help frantically, she walks away with Peter, and as Lux cries out for his brother, more stones hit, causing him to go unconscious.
14. Lux awakens in an unfamiliar setting, on his knees. His hands shackled to the wall, his armor and sword feet in front of him, a man standing behind them. The man asks if Lux knows who he is. Looking up, Lux can see from the torches a tired face. Shaking his head, the man informs Lux, “I am Nero, commander of The Order, Captain of the Conquered Reaches, and rightful heir to the throne. And you are Lux. My nephew,” Nero smiles, touching Lux’s face. Accusing Nero of killing his father, Nero softens his eyes at Lux and stops moving. A look of sadness. “Your father's mistake is the single most regrettable accident in my life,” tells Lux more and more about his father. Informs Lux why the symbol is on his chest. Its magically bonded to the blade. It makes blood magic more powerful. Nero then informs Lux that his father had found a dragon egg just like Nero did, as Nero pulls the egg from his robes, shiney and black with streaks of scarlet. Nero offers Lux out of this cell, and he will gladly show him the ways of blood magic and make sure that Peter pays for his betrayal of the other knights. “I do not find The Brotherhoods newest members traitors, how can they betray a cause they never were offered? But how do you think we knew you were going to be there when we did? All of this has been for you, Lux.” with a wave of his hand, the shackles fall off Lux’s wrists and he falls forward. Reaching to the egg, Lux hesitates slightly, looking down and seeing his reflection in the water. With a wave of his hand, Nero projects the image of Peter kissing Ciara deeply. “That passion she gives him should be yours. I cannot create love. Only transfer it with a potion. When peter described the man who took his beloved, I should have realized. But together, I can rid the potions course and Peter will pay, Lux,” and as Lux watch Ciara enter Peter’s bed, he firmly grabs the egg, which begins to shake and crack in his hand, emerging a tiny dragon. Nero’s past: Nero will portray his story as such: He discovered that Lux’s mother is the illegitimate daughter of the queen. When Nero went to tell Lux’s father, he was stopped by the queen who attempted to have him killed, for if it was discovered that her late husband had an offspring, she would have a claim to the throne. In the ongoing fight, Nero claims he accidentally killed the queen and was discovered by Lux’s father. The fight was a misunderstanding and he was never able to tell him the truth of his soon to be (pregnant) wife. The split of The Order were those who believed Nero and those horrified at the death of the queen. Nero claims the royals betrayed him and those who followed the truth. Show a refusal to believe at first, though as his imprisonment lasts, and he goes over it again and again in his head, for weeks as Peter gets further away with Ciara, left with visions of Peter and Ciara making love, his Nero pleading with Lux’s father, and the conflict. Ambiguous if this is actually true or just indoctrination.
15. Lux’s training begins immediately. He is placed in the middle of a circle, men attacking from all directions and must fight them off with his blade and newly learned blood magic. Slicing his palm before gripping his blade, the warm metal now burns hot in Lux’s hands, and he drops the blade. Scolded with beatings and lashings, Lux learns how to embrace the pain. Magic flows through him stronger than ever as he adapts. Fire flows from his tips when before he could only manage an ember. He heals fatal wounds when before he could hardly manage a small cuts and broken bones. Lux is routinely beaten and whipped, his dragon growing and watching all the while. Weeks go by. Lux concentrates only on killing Peter and revenge. Pain, anger, and of course blood fuel blood magic to its extremes.
16. Lux’s brother is brought into a small room with other generals who managed to escape the battle of the capitol. He is questioned if he has heard from Lux, Peter, or Ciara as their bodies were never found. All the remaining forces are falling back to the capital, where a final stand will once again be made. Lux’s brother is told he may visit home one last time and must report to the capital in no more than 5 days, and his trainer will accompanying him/Lux is kneeling once again before Nero, though he feels the sword tap either shoulder as he is knighted into the brotherhood. He is given shiney armor and as he puts it on, is instructed to place his sliced palm on the opposite shoulder and watches as his blood flows into the metal, turning that arm and shoulder scarlet red. He is officially in The Order. Lux is tasked with one task to prove his loyalty. **** his stepfather and attempt to convince his mother to come swear loyalty to nero if she refuses, **** her too. If he does that, when he returns his dragon will feed on the personal sacrifice and be ready for battle, and in return Nero will make sure both Peter and Ciara are waiting for him. “It will be done, Lord Nero.” show conflict in Lux if he is truly willing to do all of this, and conflict on loyalty to Nero. The Dragons growth and power is connected to Lux’s ability in blood magic. The more anger, hate, and pain he puts into his abilities, the stronger the dragon will become.
17. Chapter starts with Lux standing outside his old house in the early hours of the morning, the sun peeking out of the mountains but being quickly covered by storm clouds. As darkness settles over the brief light illuminating the house. Lux enters the house. His stepfather enters the room hearing the door open but is grabbed by the throat.during the fighting, Lux manages to strangle his step father and throws his body to the door as his mother is running into the room. As she surveys the situation, there is a cry from the door, and Lux’s brother and trainer are standing in the door, sword in hand. Lux begins to unsheathe his sword but his mother moves between them, talking to the brothers. Lux demands to know from his trainer if what Nero said is true and that his mother is the rightful heir. Confirming Nero’s story partially, though claims that Nero attempted to blackmail the queen with the knowledge of the heir to gain more power. Lux tries to persuade his mother to join him and come be with Nero, that his father would have wanted this. When she refuses, he explains that she would not understand what he HAS to do to end this war, and when he is done the conflict will be resolved and order restored. Argument between lux and brother over oaths broken. Mother approaches Lux, touching his face tenderly speaking softly watching as her son is breaking. She offers him to leave the conflict entirely and to just live home with her, though as she turns to face Lux’s brother, Lux stabs her. Gasping she looks back to Lux, touching his face once more, “You look so much like your father in that armor” Lux , trainer and brother fight, Lux leaves his brother unconscious in the house quickly, though he kills his trainer outside, taking the bodies with him back to Nero.
18.Lux returns to the agreed upon spot to meet Nero, but is instead met by Ciara, who in his confusion and hesitation desperately tries to convince her to leave with him when out steps Peter with a staff in hand, who has now learned the magic of the old gods. When Lux raises his hand, his dragon lands behind him with a mighty roar. With a smirk, peter does the same, and a white and blue dragon lands behind him, a roar just as mighty. The dragons take to the air, circling and roaring, spitting blue and black flames at one another as Lux and Peter fight to the death. Just as Lux manages to defeat Peter after taunting and back and forth, there is a loud crash as Lux’s dragon lands on the other teeth in its neck, ripping its head off entirely. Ciara comes to her senses immediately, seeing Lux in armor of The Order standing over a wounded and ****** Peter, the blood spraying on them. Stepping toward Ciara, Lux is surprised when she steps back in fear. Allowing her to leave, Lux watches as she sprints away. The conversation between Lux and Ciara should be that of both trying to convert the other. When no understanding is made between the two, it is Lux’s love for Ciara that allows her to leave, she sprints to the horses and makes her way back to The Brotherhood. Turning back to a wounded Peter, Lux raises his sword when his eye catches sight of a faint glow on Peter’s chest. Kneeling to rip the man's shirt out of the way, Lux finds the same symbol that is on his sword and own chest. Peter is Lux’s lost twin.

Sometimes, looking at you in the light of the kitchen  I want
to run a finger
Down the length of your nose but
I know you'd wrinkle it, and shake your head citing a tickle, but kiss behind my shoulder as soon
As I turn away

When my feet make ice pools in the bed
Toes accidentally brushing your ankle and you **** abruptly, but upon hearing
My sigh, trap them back with your ankles til, martyr that you are, I'm engulfed in
Warmth at your
Expense.

Sometimes the last trickle of milk is mine, for the coffee,
Silent with your eyes smiling fondly, you look on as I sip, resolutely stirring powdered
Dead baby souls into mug as substitute.

Even damp smelly socks
Greasy hair
Neurotic tears and
Intellectual rambling epiphanies

Even childish blunders, fudging the
Budget or burning the toast

You still call me fond Things.

And love Me.
The most.

Last night I
had a dream that
you died.
Everyone we knew
came, said their I’m-so-sorry’s,
and
left, filtering out the front door
slowly
like sand through a sideways sifter,
leaving behind pieces,
words and memories
and casseroles I
could not taste.

And the whole time
everyone was here,
you were here, too.
I could hear
you, smell
you, feel
you.
I could feel you
surrounding me like the ghost of the baby blanket
I once had and could never leave at home.
I loved you here and here you would stay, with me,
and now you would never leave.
I could keep you.
You were bound to me.

But the ties that bind are tight and you did not like me leaving.
You could not go with me and
you
accidentally
and without words
by holding, enveloping,
suffocating
you told me
that you did not want me to ever leave again.
So I stopped.
I stopped leaving.
And the calls stopped, too.
The invites. The lunches. The impromptu trips to town.
All unnecessary noise.
The people left. And then it was just you and me.

Until one day I saw what you had done.
Tripping
I glanced in the mirror and saw.
You had etched yourself into my face.
Dug with your nails
terrifying ravines
escaping the corners
of my eyes. Pulled down
my mouth and every
shallow natural valley turned to
deep empty bowl, hungry and wanting.
My eyes no longer held light.
I saw this, all evidence against you,
and I still loved you.
You had hurt me in ways you never had
while you were here – here – and I knew.
And I still loved you.

Slinking up the stairs
I called you to me. I felt you surround
faster than before and
closer, tighter, colder.
Suffocating, stifling and
so destructive in how you loved me.

Slowly but faster
I grew to know
I would not become you and
you would not become me.
We were stuck on other sides of the mirror.
I was so angry
at what you had allowed me
made me
begged me to become.
Realizing
I gasped and put
hand to heart
it hurt so.
I stood upright
how long have I been bent
took in one long deep breath of stuffy air
how long since I opened the windows
and called you to me
when have I last heard a voice not my own
called you to listen.

I felt the loss of everything else
friends
family
adventure
excitement.
Nothing was left of that here
and I was so angry
and I am so sorry
and I yelled
      I screamed
      I roared
why are you still here
why are you making me like you
why did you come here and
hold me
and keep me here with you
I am not the one who is dead
and I said
and I regret
and I am so sorry
I can’t have you here
go away
and
leave me alone

and you did.
You left me
all alone.

Why would you leave me?

Being a girl in my day and age,
you get used to all the horn honks,
the wolf whistles,
and the "hey baby's",
and the guys saying "you're too pretty not to smile",
as though not having a smile on my face at all times is a sin.
But why should I smile when harassment becomes normal,
when a girl can't report it because even the police thinks she should be flattered,
but why should I be flattered that a guy wants to see up my dress so much that he 'accidentally' pushes it up,
why should I be flattered when a guy can't even use words so he whistles at me like I'm a dog.
But I am not a *****,
I cannot be won over by a whistle and sweet words,
no scratch behind my ears in the form of some misogynistic pick up line,
will give you a chance.
And if I laugh at your poor attempt,
it is not consent,
just because my lips curl into a smile,
does not mean you can come curl up with me.
My self worth does not exist on how fuckable I am in your perverted eyes,
it is not existent on if you want to 'hit that',
if you were to hit anything it should be your mindset that that is okay,
right out of your head.
Because I am not an object for your pleasure,
and I object to you treating me like I am.
I AM!
I AM!
I AM!
A WOMAN!
Built from all the things a man could never be.
And don't you ever ******* forget it.

You know what I realized? How fantastic a thing realization is. Like, nothing particular or anything. Just, that moment when you kinda stop in your tracks for a second and go, "Huh. You know what?" Even the simple things are revelatory and what a great way to accidentally give yourself an unexpected better day. Wow, you know what? Today, I was keen enough and let my busy mind relax just enough to touch the universe again, and in that moment touch myself from the outside so that I remembered something I'd forgotten or before had never known. What is that, like the human singularity? Feels like it. QUICK, GRAB ON COMMANDER AND ALL YOU SPACE CASES. **** IT, GRAB ONTO THE WORLD BY THE ANT HAIRS! DIG YOUR FINGERS INTO THE GRASS! Let go and fall because you know it's better for your eventual grip on the state of matters in the laundry list you ordered with tasks representing your life. Am I better if I have one, I usually ask at the grocery store, to myself as I bag and then I get distracted by the sign for $3.99 pizza.

Last week I was taught that
no matter how complex an expression may seem
if you multiply it by its conjugate pair
you will always end up with a non-negative real solution.
That is a metaphor for how we have learned to love.

I used to like mathematics, as strange as it may sound,
because memorising the value of pi was
somehow easier than forgetting the notion of you
and I thought maybe comprehending the mechanics of the universe
would lead me one step closer to cracking the combination.

In a world that spins at the rate of 27,900m per minute, a constant can prove tricky to find.
Hence, there is solace to be felt in knowing that even when it is all said and done –
when the final bullet has slipped from our tongues and we are left trembling
upon nothing but the rubble of our own destruction,
two plus three will still be equal to five.

In an attempt to clarify a theory to the class, my teacher analogised
that mathematics is like one big giant jigsaw puzzle:
everything always fits together perfectly in the end
Since then I have learned it is the method without the madness,
the passion for the predictable; it is everything - that love is not.

Not even the greatest mathematician in the world
has been able to measure how much a heart can hold.
There is no algorithm for how to make you come back;
I cannot draw a line graph on the speed at which love left
and even if I could, our gradients would never be the same.

I may have both halves of the bed,
but there is never enough space to fill it with.
If a task takes four hours for ten people to complete
and the same job takes five people twice that time,
how long will it take for a human to feel whole again?

Sometimes I think we are nothing more
than two parallel lines that accidentally crossed paths.

Wonder were in the days of King David,
He wondered a man with a maiden,
A ship in the fleet,
And the eagle in the sky,
But another wonder persists,
Beyond king David to my time,
This is a man on libido,
With ***** ***** at joint thighs,
What’s wrong with a man?
When his ***** is *****,
Whether an engineer or a duffer,
A genius or a stooge,
When ***** is is at noon
Where are the brains?
Why always the brawn,

When you ***** that short ****,
Walking out of your normal way,
Disappearing into the back street,
To some nondescript corridors,
Your hunger for misfortune gets saluted,
By the street patrons in weird corridors,
A gifted *******, brown in complexion,
Her back glorified with man-made buttocks,
Erasing from your eyes her age,
Your mothers age minus white hair,
Then you slavishly bargain not to win,
Now a dizzied creature of fetish of ***,
Your ***** wildly ***** like pagoda apex
No, herself very calm on melancholy of ***,
Shrewdly she accepts to give you a wonderful ****,
At a minuscule fee to your senses; two hundred shillings

You coffle up to the ****** tether,
In senseless dance to the turbulent tune
A tintinnabulation in your ears
Impeachable tyranny of the *****,
You go into a room with her,
A workshop of ******* and *******,
You can call it a brothel,
But I and Marx we call it bagno,
God prevails and she throws a ****** at you
Pulling away her leopard stripped *******,
Letting you see eagle tattoo of on white thighs,
Confused electricity drips in your head,
Then you become a beggar of the year,
Effusively begging for live *** with
Without ****** use lest you zest not,
Lest you don’t harvest maximally,
With your dinosaur’s testicles,
She cunningly accepts your request,
In her full knowledge of your kamikaze,
Villains commit when dying for no course,
She gives it an OK, but at a small fee
You go on to pay as if possessed,
By the devil of paying for nonsense,
And then you **** her ******* live,
Before gracing your joy with live ****,
She feels nothing in entire of her body,
For her vaginal purse is spacious,
Like the side pockets of your trouser,
You achieve early ****** to *******,
She moans lightly like a teased Carmel,
She pushes you away with a sober vim,
You collapse aside in   a dull thud
Like a dead bird from ruffian roof,
Your ***** now flappy
Not reflecting a shuttle in crypt,
In volcanacity of the past minute,
Then you look at her with bent eyes,
You see her sporadic white hairs,
On forehead and between her thighs,
She is looking stupid but not foolish,
She breaks into fits of wild coughing,
Accidentally dropping *** palliative drugs,
The horrendous ARV’s
You now hang around there agape
Niggardly chewing full size of misfortune,
In your voracious mandibles,

I wake up and eat some eggs, a yogurt, and a few slices of melon
in an attempt to change my life
after all it is that or death
I won't hold my breath

It's a beautiful day to head to the mall
with a friend
I really know where this is going

Hmm
I like that shirt
Oops, this store doesn't offer plus size
On to the next..
I really like these jeans..
Forty five dollars for sizes sixteen and up
What a mess!

Since I refuse to let Lane Bryant **** my wallet in the ***
I decide to head to Barnes and Noble instead
I accidentally bumped into a lady and her baby stroller as I walked past and she mumbled
"Fat *****" under her breath
Yes that's what she said
I didn't even turn my head
Because that's what the lady said
and that's what society says
and instead of trying to explain it's just
easier to walk away
it's the self hatred after I dread

So I buy a whole pizza and eat the entire ******* thing
and it is beyond delicious
though the guilt I feel afterwards wasn't worth it
and vomitting that **** up was viscous

Even when I was a little girl I dreamed of being thin
I dreamed of being a model
I dreamed of having a flat tummy
Just to fit in
I didn't like the belly I had
or the fat in my cheeks
I was the only kid in gym that could never climb the rope
and that began a string of anxiety attacks
that would last for weeks

The doctor calls it insulin resistance
which leaves me with the inability to lose weight
but I shouldn't have to explain to anyone my condition
I just shouldn't have to explain
not to mention the ovarian disease that cripples me to my knees
which so happens to be genetic
and mimics the blood of a diabetic
leaving me incurable
a medical mystery
not to mention infertility
so for me
children are just a dream

Although I tell myself
that I am beautiful
and that I am intelligent
and that I am funny
and that I am a hard worker
and that I am successful
and that I am caring
and that I am loving
and that I am daring
and that I am the best **** friend a person could ever have
To a stranger I'm just a "fat *****"
and you know what?
That makes me really ******* sad