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Invocation Jun 2015
I hung upside down off your bed once
               and stared into your eyes
You asked me what I saw
                                    I said the whole sky was the colour of your blue
you called me silly names and acted shy
                                    But it's true, the sky was in you
Now I stare up into the sky and it hurts
       You are up in the blue
Lost in her memory
Keone L Friesen Dec 2013
Oh young barret of the night. Who steals from the dreams of lost sain children like Moloch. The decrypted white house was nothing but A sanctuary for degenerates. the man… MAD… MAD was the man MAD, was the house, MAD were the claimers, MAD were the slaves to the slick but king of so called glam MAD was the man MAD MAD MAD.
           The barret was entering the house, leaving behind all. what has become of my young love asks me? he enters. MAD was he who entered the trap, MAD was he who allowed, MAD was who gave no warning of the moloch sacrifice being made to the two of his so called servants. MAD was all i say MAD MAD MAD, MAD was he who wanted to be hailed like Fernand, MAD was he who wanted to be king like Henry the 8th, MAD was he who wanted to use like Baron Neuvillette, MAD was he who wanted doll oh doll how can you do this.
          Oh ADONAL for if you do exist why have you allowed this, oh ADONAL for if you exist why have you for seen this, oh ADONAl for if you exist why have you told of my eternity. Oh ADONAL why? are you mad? for the people shall not say oh ADONAL well this blow over as fast as Holly or as fast of yourself.
        he who does as told, he who does what he thinks right for his so called gift. MAD for the betrayal of trust between the packed, MAD was he for the lack of word, Like a mute oh ADONAL like a mute he was! MAD was he who acted like Bromdens father, MAD .
      MAD MAD MAD MAD MAD is I for the envolvment of my cellar of time, MAD is I for what i have started and what have become of my creations, MAD is I for all, MAD is I for you, for she, for he, for *****, all mad, MAD is I for maybe i is mad.
                                                            ­                      written by Keone L Friesian. copyright to Keone Friesian
"What do you mean you've never seen Blade Runner? My GOD! I didn't think there was a single person on the planet that hasn't seen that. They showed it to us in elementary school as an example of a prophetic, foretelling, social commentary."
"Well, I never was a fan of fiction or science, even though somehow I've still managed to live my fair share of both."
" Do androids dream of electric sheep? What are your dreams?"
"Electric...sheep?"
"Yeah, that's the title of the book the movie is based on, but like, I'm honestly curious about the second part. It's a better ice-breaker than your deprived childhood".
"You wanna' know what I dream? I dream of a world soaked in gasoline, and a lone, shadowy, figure masked by deceit and decay, filling the air with a rotten sulfuric smell as he festers in his own filth. I can't see this guy clearly, but I know him. I know him in my head and my heart and he just stands there, idle, in a place where he can see the silhouetted skyline of the entire wretched city. Trapped between his forefinger and thumb is  a match donning a dancing flame for a hat, performing a flamenco routine for two wild eyes.  Eyes that indicate a sureness of what to do, but make no use of intentions. They seem to sort of flip between question and answer with each dimming and brightening of the match's beacon.  The question appears to already have been answered, but has yet to be acted upon. He's tinkering with the notion.  Is this due to hesitation in the man's mind, or is he simply toying with the already squirming city? The final act is inevitable, yet the ulterior option, to extinguish the trigger, still stands...". He pauses.
His new partner's face has lost most of its color and his mouth is propped open with a jack made of sheer horror and curiosity.
"Well JESUS man! Aren't you gonna tell me the rest of it?"
"The rest of it is: I wake up".
He languidly looks around, takes a pull from the bottle, and proceeds to pull his mask over his face. His partner isn't sure, but he thought he'd caught a smile crack before his mouth was covered,
  "...and not like a haha I'm yankin' your chain kinda grin. This ****** meant it", his partner would recall later to some buddies in a bar.
"I wake up and wonder whether I'm the man, or the match".
He slams the magazine into his weapon and rips the slide back to load up the first round of ammunition. He exits the vehicle, and heads towards the disheveled building that has more or less sunk into its foundation. His new partner shakes his head, wipes his face with his paws of hands, pulls on his mask, and flicks the *** end of his cigarette whose embers have already begun to eat away at the cotton filter out towards the woods. He catches the light from the buckshot of the cherry out of the corner of his eye and imagines that match spinning towards the city.
"What the **** have I gotten into..."
Excerpt from a story that is being written some time in the next 30 years
Issan Op Mar 2018
“I am free”
My icy wings tearing through the dark blue sky, the
permafrosted landscape below me getting smaller and
farther away and the Sun, its warm, amber rays glistening
on the horizon, beckoning me with its warm touch.
I look back-
Every second counts
I look back-
I see your cold eyes
Frozen pits of mud, obsidian, sparkling like diamonds and
just as hard.
Body of steel.
No blood,
No life,
Uncaring
Unfeeling
Scorpion.
Froze my wings with your poison tail, your vicious words
covered in sugar, stabbing.
Stole my heart
Oh how frail I was.
I look back-
At the small castle we built, the fireworks, the rose garden,
the old dusty freight, the dim light of the bar where I asked
you to be mine, the bamboo princess (I still have your
pillow), the food trucks and that homeless guy who is
probably dead, the pictures, the mix-tape, the color yellow,
No Doubt, the empty movie theater, the Moon in
Sagittarius where we held each other so close and you
said I smelled of patchouli and that caused me to feel
happiness because it is one of my favorite scents and I
was so glad you liked it too, the warms nights in your cold,
cold room and your hands, your hands…
Will never freeze my wings again.
I look back-
I became human for you and you acted as if I were just
some pigeon or robin or pheasant, you acted
As if our castle
Was made of sand,
Meant to be dissolved.
But how would I know?
The language you speak is all ones and zeros,
The feelings you feel are all bones and marrows
And I am blood
I am skin
I am emotion, Venus
The beauty within.
I look back-
-at you Pluto
Not even a planet
Cold and frozen with eyes of granite
Wires and copper made up your soul
And unfeeling data rules your flow.
I look back-
I asked you how you felt and received
An error four-oh-four.
That process never mattered to me,
Yet always left me craving more.
I look back-
Were my emotions not obvious?
Or were your feelings ambiguous
Intent so dubious
You viewed me as frivolous
Yet you’re continuous
With your cold touch so ferrous
Incompatible
I could understand…
I look back-
Scorpion, you’ll be okay.
As you sit in your world,
All alone, just like you intended,
You let your past rule you.
I look back-
How could we be friends?
Lovers to friends
From seeing the universe inside of someone
To just hanging out once, maybe twice a week.
No, we cannot be friends because that’s just weird.
I look forward-
The Sun has set.
My wings so cold
They’ll thaw and heal in time
And then, Scorpion, maybe we’ll see each other again.
(Good things happen in time, great things happen in
seconds.)
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2018
what could possibly be a logical joke,
akin to: 1 + 1 = 2... ha ha! type?
i can't think of logical joke,
comedy is beyond being calculated,
it can be properly
  executed within the realm
of punctuation a drop-line...
  but that's about as far as logic
centers around comedy...
   only recently i revealed
that i am arachnophobic...
   (rob zombie - the girl who loved
the monsters)...
           i am... i see a spider
the size of a thumb...
     i'm like: jeez! get that thing
away from me!
you know how comedy exists
in logic?
             it exists in phobias...
given that phobias are illogical...
well... that's still the antonym of
logic...
  yes... i know the spider
is only the size of my thumb...
but phobias... ha ha!
there's something obvious about
the joke of phobias,
as there's also an ontology binding
them...
  arachnophobia? is spontaneous,
it's a reflex reaction...
  and that's the logical joke...
the illogical fear...
   funny... really funny...
this progressive term...
what is it... hmm...
oh!
    right!
     - this really comes as a reiteration...
how can i be, "islamophobic"?
where's the reflexive reaction
upon seeing a Muslim in full
religious attire?
where's the principle of phobia
being acted on?
the reflex reaction?
where is...
phobias are the jokes of logic,
and the comedy of logic is:
that they summon illogical
reactions to the altar of relativism...
ergo... if i'm scared of
a thumb sized spider in the shed,
i should be scared of my thumbs...
islamophobia is such a made-up
word...
what logic is logic to me,
behind the spider?
            em... i'm trying to tickle
& trickle god into all of this...
but i can't...
what sort of logic is behind
the spider?
   a spider, like all animate beings...
well... even trees are animate...
in slow-motion (phototropism)...
what logic is there?
there is no logic to them...
they are purely empirical reactionaries...
there's no logic,
because there's no consciousness
of thought,
the senses are too inclusive
of themselves,
to allow an exclusivity that
might make their being
impregnated with thinking,
fertile with thought...
ah... i see the joke...
my phobia is funny...
  but...
   ha ha...
    you want to experience
a fear of god?
          find your phobia...
sure, the spider has no knowledge
of logic, but whatever "created"
the spider has placed an irrational
fear of the spider, and lodged
it into my general standard
of logic...
i see the fear of god in a spider,
as i also see the comedy...
phobias are categorized by
irrational reflexes,
   they are a set of cognitive reflexes...
so... why is the term islamophobia
so bogus?
what... you think that when
i see a woman in a burqa
my "natural" reaction is:
a reflex, 'kin to the words:
  oh ****! a suicide bomber!
NO!
     this term is what the ancient
Greeks would call:
what the **** are you talking about?!
(said really quickly).
- but that's the nature
of phobias... and the nature
of the comedy of logic...
it is derived from phobias...
i can acknowledge the comedy
of being "afraid" of spiders...
not all...
   it's not exactly a fear...
it's not a disgust...
it's a reflex reaction i have
inherited...
       from god knows where...
  you can't associate Islam with
an attache of: phobia...
like i said... a phobia is the joke
of my own logical conclusion...
i'm laughing at the illogical
premise... my cognitive reflex
and subsequent ****** reaction...
since there is no logic
behind a spider,
only the illogical pure empirical
functioning of the being...
and... past the "illogical"
nature of the spider -
the logic of a "god"...
    **** contemplating god
using the spider,
and, "the architect" reflected
in the spiderweb...
i'm going after the joke...
but... Islam as a phobia?
last time i heard...
Islam wasn't illogical...
it was just a logic different
to my own...
so... where's the joke?
where's the grand phobic
reflexive stand?
   i'm like the ancient Greeks...
what the **** are you talking
about
   (said really quickly)...
it's no phobia to be apprehensive,
precautionary,
anticipatory...
        a bit like...
ha!
          heating up oil in a frying
pan... and the moment
just before you drop in the potato
chips one by one...
wondering...
   has the water been properly
drained from them?
or hasn't it...
and the oil will go crazy?
that's not a phobia...
   a phobia is the comedy of logic;
but Islam is a logic
of its own kind...
  a phobia is trans-national /
  trans-ethnic, trans-gender, trans per se,
universal...
     so why do i not retract
with a reflex upon seeing a Muslim
in his religious attire?
like i would with a spider
in a shed the size of my thumb?
so... what Islamo-phobia?
Jules Apr 2014
You hear it all the time
Jesus died for our sins, isn't He great!
Yeh yeh, that's pretty amazing, thank goodness for that

But actually think about it
Just a regular person.... a person who feels physical pain, emotional pain
He let people make fun of Him for claiming to be, basically, magical
No matter how much He proved them wrong, He was still a fraud
Then after all He has done for them, He got nails stuck into Him

Just think about that for a second
He didn't just get cut with nails, they were stabbed through Him
Do you think He wasn't feeling some sort of hatred towards us?
Of course He was
But the point is, He was looking at something greater

He got nails stabbed through himself because He knew we were destined for greater things
He didn't want us to suffer like He had
He wanted us to be able to go and live with His Dad, who we love so dearly for creating this world and everything in it
Even though after all we've done against God, we clearly don't deserve to go and live with Him
We were given a second chance

Now you may just think, He chose to die and got made fun of, big deal
But that isn't it at all
He endured so much more
He went through His entire life being the outcast, being the ******
Everything that came out of His mouth was a lie
Well that's what everyone thought

And even when he physically showed proof, He was still looked down on
And then He goes to save all the people who did this to Him?
What a guy.

Granted, God sent Him down to earth to do this and it wasn't necessarily His idea, Jesus still agreed to do this, despite everything He had been through
He could've easily turned His back on His father and think about it, not sure how many people would agree to such a thing
But He still did it.

So next time you hear of Jesus and how He died for our sins
Don't think it's some old story that doesn't involve us at all
Because it actually does
When Jesus was hanging on a piece of wood with nails in His hands
He was doing it for every person who lived and was to be born
Not just the people who were watching, laughing at Him

He did it for everybody
He did it for you.

Jesus is the most selfless man in history and we should strive to act the way He acted and spoke the way He spoke and He should be our model

And we definitely need to remember everything He did for us :)
Not quite a poem but it's just a little reminded to all Christians out there of how much you're loved and how awesome Jesus is! And hopefully spoke to any non-believers? :D If it did, I encourage you to delve deeper because personally, being a part of Christianity and having the creator or the world as your best friend makes life definitely a whole lot more satisfying and a lot less lonely too! <3
Ken Pepiton Dec 2018
Kids play differn't these days
not so flat, more points of focus in less time,

more  POVs and Portals and Morphic Resonance and such

Minecraft. If you never watched a child at play
building a world from available resources,
near-infinite, digital resources limited
by algorithms based on

science.
Eco-industrial-only-mortal-home-known science.

You should see it.

Stones and plants and animals and winds and water
using right, effecting change, shaping things
in her world.

You should see what your grandchildren think.

They have access to tools we only imagined.
Remember what you imagined a road grader could do?

She built heaven with a stairway and I suggested
an elevator.

She said I could build one, a heaven elevator,
for old people in a world I make up.

She had planned to teach me if she had the chance.
She made me several avatars, she knows me.

wizard grandpa who asks if we know
the sweet influences of Pleiades,

his hand points up to the right
because this is the night after the first

quarter of the final moon pre-solstice
and he is looking west.

That one,
that is the one I will be-- wizard grandpa
square head with a pyramid on top,

minecrafty me exploring the undeveloped
fractal morphing algorythms

I'll-go grandpa, go go rhythm of the winds

drifting in what might have been a micro fiber dust bowl
waste land of 8640 chips and Zunes

(you can listen to books and play, Grandpa, at the same time)

Ah, Sam Harris, you asked a reason for the faith that is in me and my grandchildren know it so honor is at stake

and many other pride sourced sorts of things
contention tension challenging the tensegrity of made up minds

working together, serially parallel on every level of the grid, kid

Worlds with no evil intended,
that can be envisioned, practically, tested,
in Minecraft the game in conjunction
with the suggested myth in
Minecraft the interactive story

and Grandpa's story
in the world he migrated from, the journey way and back to

The Desert in The Rain shadow of the Moral Landscape
we can jump off right here

I have photos, in the cloud

trust me, things hap
ex acted
when
done
didone done
done
AM radio
The golden tones of Johnny Gravel
Kay tripple AAAAAAAAAA

A delightful ditty from the fifties programing,
in the fifties this one goes out to Rosemeade

Ah, the idyllic four bedroom ranch
now on the end of a street that dead ends
at the I-5 cliff.

A tune, whistle, while you work,
it's a hap hap happy day all the clouds have blown off

the doors of my perception
my mind expended, spent fi'ty years on the trip,
weary wearisome make ever much
some effort to discover the act

of effectual prayer
which took prayer, effectual or not, by faith, leap
fast
over the edge,
you learn that, day one, in Minecraft Training
by Brynn Aulyn

next is always over the edge,

of my perception
my expent
effort to discover the act

of effectual prayer
which took prayer,
and fasting,
over the edge,
you learn that, day one, in Minecraft Training by
******* Grandpa

next is always over the edge,

but I did not grow old after playing Minecraft as a child.
I grew old after playing with dynamite in a mine
as a child.

Major POV cred Grandpa

My weapons are not carnal.

Is there a monster if jack
finds treasure at the top of the beanstalk
and says to hell with the suffering
mother so he becomes
a god, in harmony with the giant, doing any good he can?

Let the dead bury the dead.

This is for ever.
What they don't know won't,
will not, would not, has no volition to hurt them, ever.

Good, you know, good. No good is ever bad and
the nintendray dooblay is, like rackabilly,
intentional
pre
positioning me for the idle word of the day to be ******
from hiding into the light of
double entendre? how do you mean?

light. OK, okeh, no other resupposings,

there is never light in a creation myth
until some utterance of the idea of light is communicated

which btw
mean there must be sentience from the get go

and mebbe, I thank on it, other wise, as well

as before, the get go,

it was gitgo, all the way down back ahead to Happy Together,
the song,
British invasion,
very creative hope sorta vibe
Turtles all the way down,
Hawking could not put it in words. He could keep time.

You had to be then, it was a brief history. Funny though.

The old ones gone on, they say okeh.
We good to go
happy hunting. Merry Christmas, take any open door
and listen.

The game is making many decisions based on what you pay attention to. In reality attention weighs decisively more than money in any form.
Doncha luvit, life is so unbelievable, until

you die, you think, you've seen something like what you think is possible happen, you've seen death objectively

anybody can do that right? That is evil.

Killing or dying?

Both.

Lizard brain.

the great game, neath ever more layers of moth eaten cotton and worm spun silk lace

crocheted and starched to make doilies for the parlor
when the pastor comes to pay his due attention

to chicken, made sacred for the occasion
in boiling oil, not golden,  but
fried chicken could look golden in the right light seen from the right height, apron strings high.

I could say my grandma served the man of god a golden dead bird.
And the blessing that was said came upon me

because the window in the top of my head never shut.
Air head. hearer of secrets where secrets
make themselves known, as truth sets one free. Jesus knows.
If anybody does. Wait and see. Be good.

Soyal, Yule, Christmas and the contenders, also rans
in the mid-winter hope leverage ceremony
rites of passage missing
or missed? Missed
Messages of a way promised where there seemed no way.

It is finished. The wireless grid. On the AM dial one

wee zero beat beyond simple,

you find sublime. define that. You feel what I said, Merry,

my wish to you, Merry, message of the promised way to you,
make you merry upon remembering

good wins, it never quits winning.
good, we know, personally,
good, right now,
not bad, we can touch, you and me, imagine that being good.
if feels Christmassy, in that good way.

the old way, where good is, find that. Then later, I am the way, believe me when I say I know where the kingdom of God is,

My granddaughter, somehow, gifted me a Map,
it was delivered by a messenger fly.
No war toys. *******. Watch the boys play Minecraft.
Real world, Christmas Spirit wish from me, KP, may the best be what you have too much of.
Jonny Angel Jul 2014
So apropro,
her nickname suited her.

She was sweeter than wildflower honey,
finer than gosssmer,
nicer than a cool summer breeze
& made men fall to their knees.

And though he didn't look like one,
he certainly acted like one,
whenever she came sround.
Dina?
Deanna?
Deena?

What was her name?
A diminutive of something
Or a shortening.
And I don’t even think that I am close

I miss you.

a small concrete table
white
a group of girls
Smoking and smoking and smoking
Trading lipgloss
I don’t remember what we talked about

But I do remember that the meds made you so
Hungry
“Are you gonna eat that?”

That’s how it begins in such places
Passing off a cig
Or trading processed food
Or just giving it away.

Have a lie down
or hand over the pill stored in your cheek
for someone
needier.

You said after your second plateful of anything
Make sure you let me know if I start getting fat

I tried not to follow you around
We had breakfast
Cigarette breaks
lunch and dinner
I could have sat with you all day and night

But I let you roam like a yearling
talking too much to too many people
Spinning around in the hallways
The skinny girl
on the floor doing a striptease on her back
in the streaming sunlight
I could tell
That you got paid for this at some point
Even the imaginary boa scared these boys

You loved to talk about God
I, however, do not

You loved a ****** ******
They were your favorite
and would reminisce with the junkies
Always sitting close-by
You claimed that you could make a man cry
By what you could do to his body
I can only imagine
what you’ve done so far
At your age
and you have a kid

I know
that you’re frightened
to be alone
with your mother
She’s so small
You wouldn’t want to hurt her

And I see her
that one time
with candies and soda
that you made her bring from
the 99 cent store to share
with all these people that don’t like you
that she is
a tiny thing
Yes
anyone could crush her
I see your point.

Deena
Dina
Deana

I can’t remember your name

You’d wake me for breakfast
Or, I you
You said the voices never stop in your head
Not just voices but other strange noises too
You acted like it was
a drag
But in fact you were **** scared

I can hear sounds too I offered
Bells
And Strings
Faint Voices calling my name
Offering succinct advice
Can’t everyone?
Leaning against a wall
with you at my feet
I saw your head snap
To the right
I said
Don’t worry
I heard that too
And you were so relieved
You grasped my feet in gratitude

You said that you are three.
Dread is the bad one
a male
And another
a ****** female who’s name
I can’t remember either
I suggested that there were more
Perhaps.
I met the ***** and I did not like her
at all
In anger I returned your sweatshirt
And you said
You know she’s terrible
I told you that
Take back the shirt
It’s cold

The men here don’t understand
our
Relationship
They assume that it’s lovey
Their minds are blown by
Companionship in difficult circumstances
Holding hands might help you through
You never know until you try

You loved to have arguments over the Bible
I would make a lot of noise to shut it down
I cannot listen to that
You would talk on that phone on the wall
With the father of your child
About god
You missed your boy’s
first day
of kindergarten
You called him on that phone to make sure that he got the plastic truck
or some such toy in your absence

I wonder when you gave up your life
When an injection of Ativan in your ***
and a night
In an darkened empty room
Bound
became an ideal resolution.
You couldn’t figure out
why you had a lump on your head
And I explained that
it was the result of
banging it repeatedly
against the wall.
Side effects of Lorazepam include:
Little recall

You seemed to have a plan.
Visiting and writing up the coast
The Dean Moriarty of Hospitals
But what about your kid?
The doctors say you can’t leave until you’re well
I couldn’t even tell what’s wrong exactly
Or what he’s really trying to tell you
Other than too much too soon
But that’s every girl in LA
Isn’t it?
You said that
It
Emerged at age 24.

I think about your son.
I can’t believe that you have one.
And your mother
Who adopted you.
What did she in fact bring home?

Deanna.
Dina.

When they called to say that my car was here
That I could go
You covered my neck
With kisses
And said Thank You Thank You
I Don’t Know
What I Would Have Done Without You

What is your name?

Dee.
D.
Just the letter.
I remember
Thank you.
The New Kestrel May 2013
I never knew
of the lies,
the stories,
or the actions that meant nothing.
Never knew
how they would affect me.

I never thought
about how mistreated,
degraded I was.
I was told things about myself.
I never thought
that they might not be true.

I never acted
on the people that
made my life Hell.
Mostly myself.
Too much is expected of me.
I never acted as though
I was real.

Never again.

Never again will I
lie to myself.
About myself.
Nor will I accept lies from others.

Never again will I
Refuse to think of
my own well being.
Nor will I be ignored by others.

Never again will I
sit by and watch
while this Hell tortures me.
Nor will I feel that pain again.

Never again will I
think of myself as a lesser being.
For I am whole.
Not a fraction of
what I should be.
I am one.
One who knows.
One who will stand for myself.
And for those like me.

Here's to the **REJECTS
I'M WORTHLESS. USELESS. UGLY. FAT. *******. UNLOVED. HATEFUL. CRAZY. PSYCHOTIC. LONELY. DEPRESSED. TIRED. UNWANTED. BURDEN. GREEDY. ABUSIVE. FUGLY. UNRELIABLE. LIAR. SAD. DISTRACTED. ADD. SUICIDAL. MANIAC. PARANOID. ****** UP. I AM LL OF THESE AND MORE. NO ONE CAN TRUST ME. I CAN'T STAND BEING AROUND PEOPLE. I'M A LONER. I DON'T NEED FRIENDS. I HAVE MY OWN LIFE TO LIVE. I HATE DRAMA. I'M NOT SMART. I'M A FAILURE. I'M NOT THE GIRL EVERYONE THOUGHT I WAS TO BE. I HAVE NO LIFE. I HAVE NO TALENTS. I'M NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR ANYONE. I'M LONELY. I'M SICK. I'M DISGUSTING. I'M BORING. I NEED HELP. HELP WON'T WORK. HELP CAN'T CHANGE ME. I'M TIRED OF ALL THIS ****. I JUST WANT TO BE WHO I AM. I WANT TO BE ACCEPTED. I WANT TO BE LOVED. I WANT TO BE HATED. I HATE LIFE. I HATE PEOPLE. I HATE MY PARENTS. I'M SCARED OF EVERYTHING. I'M WEAK. I'M TERRIFIED. I MISS THE PERSON WHO MADE ALL OF THIS GO AWAY. I NEED SOMEONE TO CATCH ME BEFORE I FALL EVEN FARTHER. SOMEONE PLEASE CATCH ME. SOMEONE SAVE ME. WHERE HAS MY HERO THAT WAS HERE GONE TO? HAS HE LEFT ME? HE HAS. HS SELFISH SELF. I'M COMPLETELY ALONE NOW. HE LEFT BECAUSE HE COULDN'T STAND ME. HE HATED ME. HATED THE REAL ME. HE WAS TIRED OF ALL MY ****. HE NEVER CARED. HE JUST ACTED LIKE IT. HE ACTED LIKE HE LOVED ME. HE PLAYED ME FOR OVER A YEAR. NOW I'M BROKEN. NOTHING IS HERE TO FIX ME. NO ONE WANTS TO BE AROUND ME ANYMORE. NOT EVEN MY OWN PARENTS. THEY HAD ONCE SAID THAT EVERYTHING WAS GOING TO GET BETTER BUT IT'S NOW GOTTEN WORSE. MY LIFE HAS DRAINED OUT OF ME. MY SOUL IS GONE. I'M WALKING AROUND LIKE A ZOMBIE WHILE EVERYTHING JUST CRASHES DOWN. I CAN HARDLY BREATHE ANYMORE. I'M DEAD INSIDE. I HAVE NO ONE TO SAVE ME. SAVING ME SOUNDED LIKE A GOOD IDEA THEN BUT NOW... I DON'T WANT TO BE SAVED. I JUST WANT TO LET GO. LET IT ALL GO AND FIND MY PLACE IN HELL. MAKE ALL THE NIGHTMARES THAT NO ONE COULD EVER TAKE AWAY DIE OUT. I HAVE NOTHING ANYMORE. HELL I CAN'T EVEN SPIT OUT A WORD FOR HELP. MAYDAY IS ALL I WANT TO SAY BUT I DON'T WANT TO BE A BURDEN. I DON'T WANT SOMEONE'S PITY. I DON'T KNOW ANYMORE. DO I STILL WANT LOVE? NO ONE IS WILLING TO GIVE ME ANY. ALL I AM DOING IS FALLING. DOWN. NEVER GOING TO BE CAUGHT. NEVER GOING TO BE HELPED. NEVER GOING TO BE OKAY. NEVER GOING TO GET BETTER. MY DAYS ARE DONE AND I'M WILLING TO GIVE MYSELF TO THE DEVIL. MAYBE HE CAN HELP ME MORE THAN OTHERS HAVE. NO ONE EVEN TRIED TO HELP ME. THEY JUST SAT AROUND AND WATCHED ME DIE INSIDE, LAUGHING. NOT EVEN MY HERO. I NEVER HAD A HERO. HE WAS JUST A LIE THAT I THOUGHT WOULD HELP ME. JUST A COLD HEARTED LIAR. A LOSS OF MY TIME THAT I COULD HAVE FOUND SOMETHING GOOD TO DO. I CAN'T HAVE THAT NOW BECAUSE THAT PRETTY FACE TOOK TOO MUCH OF MY TIME AWAY.  NOW ALL I CAN THINK IS THAT I WISH I WOULD HAVE SUCCEEDED. WISH I COULD HAVE DIED WHEN I HAD CANCER. NO ONE WOULD HAVE CARED. I COULD HAVE JUST SNUCK AWAY AND DIED IN THE WOODS. NO ONE WOULD COME FIND ME. I USED TO WANT YOU TO BURN IN HEL FOR BREAKING ME AND PUSHING ME INTO A DARKER DARKNESS. I WANTED TO BURN EVERY BIT OF YOUR STUFF. BUT THEN I WENT INTO A DEEPER DEPRESSION BECAUSE ALL I COULD DO WAS THINK ABOUT MY HERO. FRUSTRATED, I HAD CUT MYSELF UP. GOT ADMITTED. PUNISHED MYSELF. I STILL HAVE MANY SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. I KEEP THEM BOTTLED UP DEEP INSIDE TILL I BLOW UP ON SOMEONE. I JUST WANT TO SLIT MY WRIST AND BLEED TO DEATH. NO WOULD CARE. NO ONE WOULD CARE BECAUSE I'M WORTHLESS, USELESS, UGLY, FAT, CRAZY, PSYCHOTIC, BURDEN, PARANOID, ****** UP, LAZY, HATEFUL, BORING, UNWANTED. I JUST WANT TO FIND SOMEONE TO TALK TO. SOMEONE THAT CAN BRING ME BACK TO LIFE. NO ONE CAN DO THAT THOUGH BECAUSE NO ONE WANTS ME. I WANT TO LEAVE THIS EARTH AND FALL INTO THE PIT. I HAVE NOTHING TO LIVE FOR. I HAVE NO ACCEPTANCE. I HAVE NO ONE. I HAVE NO HEART ANYMORE. IT'S BEEN RIPPED FROM MY CHEST ALONG WITH MY SOUL.I HAVE NO FUTURE. ALL MY DREAMS HAVE BEEN CRUSHED. EVERY BIT OF ME IS IN PIECES, CRUMBLING TO THE FLOOR. EACH PIECE PAINFULLY DYING.WHY CAN'T I HAVE SOMEONE TO LOVE ME THE WAY SOMEONE IS SUPPOSED TO BE LOVED? WHY WON'T SOMEONE COME UP BEHIND ME AND SAVE ME? WHY DO PEOPLE HAVE TO BREAK ME DOWN AND SHOVE ME INTO A DARK PIT? I CAN'T BREATHE IN THIS TIGHT SPACE ANYMORE. I CAN'T BREATHE IN MY OWN SPACE ANYMORE. I JUST CAN'T BREATHE. NO ONE IS EVEN TRYING TO REVIVE ME. THE ******* HAVE NEVER CARED ABOUT ME. MY HERO WAS ALL A LIE. HE RIPPED OUT MY HEART AND MADE ME CRY. NOW I CAN'T BREATHE, BUT DIE. DYING SOUNDS LIKE THE BEST WAY OUT. I HAVE SO MANY SOLUTIONS TO ACCOMPLISH THAT. MORE THAN I CAN COUNT ON MY FINGERS.
Mohamed Nasir Nov 2017
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
elizabeth Nov 2014
id.
a watched *** never boils
and you stared at my every move
not knowing
that I would never bubble over
into the person
you hoped
me to be

for two weeks
I thought there was a baby
growing inside me
but instead
I was just late to understanding
how little you need me
and pregnant with the idea
that I could not live without you

my mother taught me
to never judge a book by its cover
but I forgot
that even the prettiest books
can have no literary value

the first (and only) time
you treated me
as your equal,
we were sitting outside
under the stars
and the moon,
which was ever so slightly
blue

my blessing
was not disguised
as a man that looked
and acted
like a mannequin
but rather
a crack in my heart
that took three years to make
and three months to fill

as it turns out,
I am a cloud
with skin made of silver
Ben Oct 2012
calm and collect my thoughts
ethereal smoke twists upwards
indecipherable spirals winding
their way towards the moon
temporary existence
fleeting memories
my fingers grasp and hold nothing
a silly gesture - acted out
more so in a symbolic way
the ticking clock provides a
backdrop to this satisfied silence
as i take stock of my body
and file away the sensation
of skin on skin and desperate
moans for more
a midnight tryst held close
to my heart that's beating its
way out of my body and
finding its way into yours
with limited time to live this life
embrace it head on and hold me close
tell this dream to last forever
for a moment this special made real
could only be a fragment of
a sleeping mind
i never want to wake up
if time were to stop i'd be happy
knowing that this finite strand
of fine gold thread held high
by fate was made to last more
than the thin tendril of white
sighed out - brushed past my lips and into yours
softcomponent Feb 2015
What made Anthony so elaborately cold in those early autumn months? What made him glare so sourly at my exhaustion whenever I slithered past his adonis figure in our overwhelmingly ***** kitchen? Was I the quintessence of a terrible roommate? Irresponsible? Ditzy? Was the kitchen—in its pig-trough pig-sty bacon-grease glory—tacitly my fault, despite the observation it'd been I who had purged the mess last? Or was it my drug habits and the fact that on the night Anthony returned from his impulsive trip to Alaska, I was with Chris—blasting Bob Dylan and the Tallest Man on Earth—cradling my chin on the jean-sand islands of my cramping knees, high as a shuttle in the ketamine nebula? These were all questions that stoked the fires of internal doubt whether I liked it or not. People pretend to talk themselves out of status anxiety as if it were possible to entirely neutralize such a natural reaction—as if it were possible not to wonder what earned such irrational disfavor in the eyes of another. Especially when “another” is a roommate, an almost omnipotent staple in day to day life even if efforts are taken to ignore or avoid—a constant weave of growing atmospheric pressure and a pang of anxiety at the sight of his shoes or the sound of his grunts and clangs while at work on a meal in the kitchen—of course, as is obvious, I can take things far too personally. But there were points in which his silence or indifference would scare me—as if he might've wound up a psychopath and broke my neck in a fit of overboiled passive-aggression.
To be fair and give the reader a clearer picture of Anthony, he had—historically—been an incredibly generous fellow and a relatively close friend long before we approached one another on the idea of potential roommates. He was large in build—not overweight in any sense—but incredibly fit with an active agenda to exercise and eat right, both habits of which I had never had the stamina to maintain. Girls loved him. Physically, he was gorgeous—puffy curled hair deliberately stylized into a modern European pompadour; dark hazel eyes with a constantly evolving dynamism in the way they gazed... and a masculine stubble that seemed to naturally grow-out to look as posh as David Beckham, just without all the effort and pomp. Mentally, he was the perfect synthesis of adorable geek, thoughtful philosopher, and strikingly suave, dapper, athletic, and goofy 'good-guy'—he was always out with his friends or at home reading Terry Goodkind's fantasy novels, and on occasion I would see that his looks were almost burdensome to him. As if they were a superfluous gift and a personal curse—constantly forcing him into social over-exertion as an extrovert when he, at heart, was a closet introvert unable to disentangle his self-reflective image from his internal reality. As if he were unable to process the amount of attention he received.
I had tacitly wondered, at times, if he was also in-the-closet regarding something else as well, though I had always admired his effeminate qualities and mannerisms as he never once hinted at a negative self-consciousness about their strange manifestations in open view of the world. Externally, at least, he never acted like they were problems or indicative of some internal lack of found-definition, even on the comical occasion when I walked in on him bathing on his lonesome, quietly listening to Miley Cyrus and playing with a troupe of three rubber duckies—the bathroom light off and several candles burning in aesthetically strategic corners of the room. He also constantly brewed tea using an adorable teapot designed to look like an elephants head, with the hot liquid pouring from the Disney-like characters trunk. This—I reflected—was most certainly connected to his love for the 1941 children's classic, Dumbo. It was a movie he and I held in common, having watched it together on multiple occasions before our cohabiting turned sour. Of course, what was most indicative of this private wandering judgement of mine was the fact that he worked at the city's only gay bar as the youngest bartender employed. At 1 AM every night, all the bartenders (whom were pre-screened eye candy for the patrons' sake) would peel off their skin-tight neon tops and romp around shirtless, shouting last-call through the bright-eyed frey of top 40 hits and cannonading flirtations.  
Not that I wish to put him under the microscope, as if any feminine qualities in a man were something strange or problematic to me—nor do I wish to study his mannerisms like a condescending anthropologist of imperial Britain, establishing pathological definitions for what was never an illness to begin with. No... I ask these questions because he decided, one day, that he didn't like me. I ask these questions because I came upon him in the living room multiple times listening to Alan Watts's lectures on taoism—a strange anxious-emptiness behind his eyes—and when I began to worry he was dipping into some sort of existential depression, I approached him with an Alan Watts book—The Wisdom of Insecurity—in order to make a recommendation and strike up therapeutic conversation on the basis of  a philosopher we had in common. As I did so, he would frantically nod and avert eye-contact, hiding any perturbation well enough for me to assume he was still with me as I spoke. I later found the book on top of the fridge and placed it back on my shelf thinking, 'he probably has a ton to read as is.' It only became apparent when I finally decided to ask him if he was unhappy with me—this was about 2 weeks before he finally moved out—and he responded with, “I've definitely been annoyed that you use my stuff and eat my food all the time without compensation or asking,” which I understood at first until I realized I only did so because he did the same—constantly eating my cereal, using my milk, reorganizing my couches in the living room—but I didn't mind because I assumed it was a reciprocal arrangement and thus took his eggs and his bacon on the assumption (and belief) in pooled communal resources. But he continued: “And you talk at me all the time about things I have no interest in which is kinda frustrating,” which confused me even further when it was only friendly concern I was tacitly attempting to translate into his feeling wanted and liked by the person he lived with. These words, in the end, released the built-tension between us like a bursting pressure valve. He eventually apologized for how he'd behaved, and then largely disappeared from my life.

Sometimes I'll be brushing my teeth, and I'll wonder if he's doing alright. I'll wonder if he found his taoist balance in either silence or speech.
originally written as a personal assignment for my Creative Nonfiction class.
Sam Conrad May 2014
The boy inside my head remembers the girl inside yours.
He wants to tell you that he still loves you...that he'll love you forever.
He wants to tell you he's trapped and all alone.
He sits in his cell scratching the days onto the wall.
He draws pictures of your face and imagines holding your hand.
If he ever gets to talk to you again, he pictures what he'd say...
He would do anything for you to give him another chance.
He knows he's a boy and he wishes he didn't have to be.
But that boy inside his head didn't get a say on if he got to be a boy or not.
He wishes that you'd open yourself up to let him care for you again.
He wishes that you'd let yourself be the reason that he lives again.
He wishes a lot.
He wishes too much.
He fears none of them won't come true but he can't stop because it keeps him alive.
He envisions that chance. That he would take it slow and show you his love.
That it would be the deepest display of emotion ever to come from him.
He knows all too well you're not fond of boys- he's almost sorry he is one.
But he loves you. He loves you so much. You're so beautiful to him.
A beautiful person, not a beautiful girl.
He misses you.
He misses you so much.
The world stops when you hug him.
His heart flutters just thinking about it, still.
You're heavenly to him. You took him places he'd never been before.
Places he may never be again.
You see, he wishes he could put into words for you, the feeling...
He never needed anything more than your cuddles and hugs.
Like a living, breathing, soft and loving security blanket, you were...
Nothing in his life ever more peaceful than your arms or the touch of your lips.
He never needed ***...please don't make it about ***...
What he really needed was you.
He prays to a God he no longer believes in that maybe he could have a reason to believe again.
He loves you, Elizabeth Raine. He loves you so **** much.
He knows that's not enough.
He will never be enough.
You were once the reason he lived...
You're now the reason he wants to die.
You dumped him like utter trash and he still couldn't get over you.
You said things that ripped out his soul. Acted like he had no soul to begin with...
But ******, he loved you. He loves you. Like he promised, he always will.
Your girly parts play no part. He wishes you'd understand how much deeper this is than that.
How much you mean to him.
How much you'll always mean to him, how you'll always be his sweet girl.
At least, how he wishes you'd be his sweet girl once more.
He wishes he could show you...that he could find a way.
Tears roll down his face like the first rain of May.
He just wants to be enough to experience heaven one more time...
I'm afraid to inform him that heaven's long gone...
Its not even in existence to experience anymore...
But he'd **** himself...I can't push myself to let him know...
He bought a ticket to hell.
I love you. I miss you everyday. I hope you're doing fine. I hope she treats you well.
I wish I could sleep forever so I could go back to your arms again.

I hope you're not reading this. If you did, you just hugged him.
Just know it gives him the best feeling in the world, even still.
He tries so hard to forget he wants it everyday.
I thought we were so similar but now I see the difference
You want peace and friendship
While I want nothing
You constantly make attempts
To rebuild a scrap of friendship from the fragile bond I set a flame
To re kindle a candle but hide it from inferno
To delete the awkwardness and hit undo to before
But I don't care
And that's what scares me
I thought I almost loved you
But like that I'm ready to go
I want to move on
To hop in a car and drive away from the dust that's choking me
Despite our bond the fire is done and I don't need to clean the ashes because the bond was severed and the scraps of love burned too.

I thought we could be sisters
The others called you that
To me you were still a friend
But perhaps you were more than that
But with your double edged sword you stabbed our strings
And cut out our hearts
The others will still talk to you
Worry and cry
Still save you from danger
Because you are thise sister
But to me you are gone
An empty shell
And any love I felt dissipated into the air
To see you killed and walk away
Would no longer phase me
All I think of you is hate
No r eminence of emotion

I thought you were a friend
We were never sisters
But you were always there for me
Someone to talk to about the light things
I couldnt discuss the pain but at least your voice could lift my hidden sorrow
But then I was ripped away
Pulled from you and my sisters
But somehow I forgot
To miss you too much
I lived my life
Forgot to call
Simply acted as though
You didn't exist at all
What ever love I felt for you
I learned to live without
And simply forgot
About the emotion I used to feel
When our times were more real.
Each verse is about a different time and a different person by the way.
Mikayla Dec 2015
Boys will be boys.
Excuse after excuse.
“Truth telling in their eyes”
We always blame the victim.
They shouldn’t have acted like that,
they shouldn’t have worn that.

No.
That’s *******.
Until it happens to you,
you won’t understand the pain.
The constant wondering what you did,
to deserve… ****.
BOYS WILL BE BOYS
You won’t lay in bed crying;
wishing for the feel of their hands,
to just go away.
So instead of feeling that.

NO.
BOYS… will. be. boys.
I remember to erase the feeling.
I destroyed my skin with razor blades,
cigarette burns, scratching myself.
I turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain i felt.
Boys will be boys?
What about that is normal?
Thinking that it’s okay to…
**** shaming...
Victimizing.

JUST STOP YOUR LYING
You won’t understand until,
you’re told by parents and police,
that it was your fault.
You shouldn’t have acted so friendly,
you shouldn’t have teased them.
I deserved it because I went swimming?
I deserved it because I was nice..?
Who in the hell are you to say.
Boys will be boys?

It’s “okay”?
It’s “alright”.
Stay away from me.
Boys will be boys?
Can I excuse myself from hitting you in the face?
I mean.
Girls will be girls, right?
We only want to protect ourselves.
If you can make the excuse…
That means so can I?

NO.
NO, boys will be boys and girls will be girls.
It’s all *******.
We all have our demons.
We all go through things.

**** will not ever be a joke.
Boys will be boys?
No.
Monsters will be monsters.
Harkaran Mar 2014
I've been to Heaven
and the Earth was right
Heaven is a broken lie
All things must wither and die

Fog and dew on grass
Stew left to boil
And night water mixed
With my homeland soil

His white flowing beard
And slight twinkle in eyes
Tanned arms and firm hands
And a deep, reaching voice

The faintest glow
Somewhat aquiline nose
His weather beaten face
And the strongest of brows

But I've been to heaven
And the Earth was right
Heaven is a broken lie
All things must wither and die

Choked morning with skies bent
With smoke and a sickly stench
And my grandfather's door
Which I didn't open anymore

I couldn't see him wilting
And catch his frame in decay
His cocoa eyes still beaming
As cancer took him away

And wouldn't it be biased
If I say it was untimely
And for such a pure soul
God and nature acted unkindly?

So what had to happen
Has happened and no change
Can be brought forth now
In God's ways so strange

And in the ashes beyond
The trees have taken root
On the windiest of days
Beside unripe fallen fruit

I've been to Heaven
and the Earth is right
Heaven is broken
All things must wither and die
Thanks for reading.
John Feb 2013
I told myself
To think before I acted
But I didn't
Now I wish it all away
I threw myself
On a ****** slab
I told myself
That you would be gentle
But now I'm bleeding
Like they were bleeding
And I can't seem to stitch up my wounds

I've ****** up
And I'm about to fall
I've ****** up
And now I'm falling
I've ****** up
And I've fallen
I've ****** up
And I can't get up
I've ****** up
Because I fell for you
callie Apr 2021
i’m not yours.
i never have been
and for the life of me
i can’t figure out why you thought i was.

was it the way i dressed,
the way i acted,
or simply the look in my eyes?

or was it the things I can’t control,
the curves i grew and
the ******* i had no choice but
to have?

i never wanted this.
i never asked for this.
i don’t want your attention
or your wandering hands.

i want to be free to do what i’d like
just to be,
to just
let myself go.

but i can’t.
all because of a stupid little thing
that should be little
but is seen as big

why did i have to be a woman?

instead of living carefree
i have to be careful.

keep the legs always crossed
wear shirts up to your neck
be respectful
(but not too respectful,
lest they believe
you’re asking them for
something)

but even if
you follow all the rules
they don’t care.

your very body is an invitation.

because what is ****** autonomy
in a male dominated world?

spoiler alert: there isn’t any.
Ryan Farina Jan 2015
I can be an ******* sometimes and I know it. And I really don't know why but it seems like I've been ******* a lot recently. I'm not trying to be one I've just had a lot on my mind recently. So I'm sorry that I've been an ******* a lot recently to everyone I've acted like one too. If you catch me being an ******* tell me I am. I'm going to try really hard to not be an ******* because I hate feeling like this.
I'm sorry
I smiled
And you smiled back
At times
We laughed hard

As Usual
But hope this feeling is mutual

We chatted
Like we used to
Seem acted
You're in the movie too

Unusual
But hope this feeling is mutual

You speak
With your eyes in silence
While I breath
Yet my heart is quiet

Unfactual
But hope this feeling is mutual

You loved
In privy
I love to be loved
More lively

To be factual
Hoping this feeling is mutual
Common is uncommon nowadays
#mutual or #one-sided
Karmen Jul 2018
A child i acted, you say as if you knew
But in fact you had no fucken clue
To talk when you weren’t ever near
Never did you get a chance to hear from my side of my own mind
You declared left and right
About my obsession with your ex
Like you knew the thing flowing in my mind
But ya didn’t
Ya didn’t fucken no the thoughts inside
The things I always had flowing my mind
Hunny you’re so heart over mind
That ain’t the care when it comes to who I’m sticking by
See from my side its mind before heart
Only a fool and not to come at you
But only a fool will let the heard lead the mind
That’s just plain wrong
Hunny you gotta let your mind tell your heart
Then you’re really there
The game really is
You fake that your heart leads your mind
In reality your mind leads your heart
It’ll be easier at getting on when you’re aware
But hunny you still ain’t there
And I don’t think you’ll get unstuck from the middle of the path
It’s really fucken sad
You feel sorry for me ?
Oh please
I don’t feel feel that way for me
My mind is leading the path I take
I only wish you’d be able to see it that way
I’m going the opposite way
Suggest you the same
Or you’ll forever hold pain
For the child’s sake
Give y’all a real break
Get the **** away
Stop living in the past life of what once upon a time
This life isn’t a fairytale
Ain’t no happily ever after
What type of lie you been going at inside your head
Connor Oct 2018
"In Heaven
The Water
is Shiny Gold"

In approach of a clearing /
Vernal-Volcanic-Bagpipe-Intimidation-Collapse-Arise-/
empty hopscotches fade with rain, remembrances of my foiled return
lent to after-rather haze mingling line by line
with eyeglasses fogged up

I relinquished the panic of your absence one week ago today, but it wasn't easy, being caught in such swelling strings once desiring to wake in Gold

I was guided by my dream family which led me thus / glimpsing premonition Wyomings sprawl with pine & geyser
flat land fire
down river /
Spring Snow and tribulations sound with elemental reverberations of Spirit colliding with Stone
pirouetting upon a newfound expanse

My restless and uninitiated Tulpa stirs and screams
(I am owed this one) delving to ancient territories of attractive chaos
emerged unkind
but tender enough to fold into my next dressing, appropriately remote

II

By June I ascend further via Nepalese staircases carved from Mountain rock, Sun-showers resplendently endow this band of rattling Sherpas with grace
to hold, to wrap around their necks and deliver to my private Summit

(where many have died, where many have given their flesh to this
Golgotha Sagarmatha)

Sneah Yerng !
away you mortal entity death !

I consume you with Himalayan tea and the heavy sensation of my boots planting their weight to frozen earth - listening, attention to the foreground Chorus exhaling harmonies of Khmer which give further texture to the native brush

(We were once kindling set perfect across the ground - to blaze & become heavenly together - instead subjugated by time's feral will, you - now a Mother and a stranger to me, Myself - continuing & following this sense strangeness which is always present but flickering like cosmic frequency magnetically luring me into a breadbasket of fire & weeping intermittent, into a cycle, a snake - surrounding magic Islands of self-past and self-future
which whirl-about searching feverishly for a path - now that the one preceding has been lost or misguided, you're bound to this breathing child who's not ours - but yours)

This is how our story ends. Where we diverge and become Actual -
carrying separate but respectful momentum in each Epoch of life in all it's various & flowing Identities, just as I'd once predicted in an Altenburg Kitchen reading Rimbaud and sipping hot water quietly, disturbed - knowing, somehow, that we'd irrecoverably commit to being temporary conflagrations in the lives of the other. The end of A summation. Events that in many ways were born there, it is forcibly behind me now.. I was the result of these things. A sword carved from heat, and pressure.

What do I do with this?
So worn with necessity - living
Enjoying occasional rain, timely - capturing passing loves
refusing to stale and finish as Petrarchan - Madame George and Myself as two ambitions which acted both honorably & dishonorably at times. As human nature dictates, as I'll know, a branded truth from now on -
I am proud of you, I love you. I will cherish you, always.

We curate and amend – understand
each other's impossible profundities

(Shh! lights go out unexpectedly ! Your remainder hovers by the door for just a few secret and sacred seconds/ gone...)

These poems have been as much for you as they were for me - But I must exit this vacated place of only peering into the beyondness of things that have outgrown their form
open, step - deliver myself to:
The last poem I'll be posting here or writing for a while. The end of a continuous stream of thought depicting the events and emotions of the last two years. Recent events have called to their end. I'll be ready to write again once this coming new state of mind and being has revealed itself - of which I am optimistic
Ken Pepiton Sep 2019
enemies - the needed element to make a warring mind.
How was war imagined,
how, was imagined
easy to imagine,
kwo-, stem of relative and interrogative pronouns. Practically a doublet of why, differentiated in form and use.

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

These be ambush thoughts thinking they may be read if any one is patient enough to see beyond the sheer longwindedness
of this character lacking an enemy to war with.
Looking for
Enemies - the needed element to make a warring mind.
How was war imagined,
how,
per se,
was imagined
easy to imagine,
person-if i am able to attribute such qualia to a body
how any unthing is realized is
imaginable as well.
Add a jot or title, a li'l art mark, an art-tickle.
Games teach us how,


how any unthing is realized is
imaginable as well.
Add a jot or title, a li'l art mark, an art-tickle.
Games show us how,
not why.

Why is the quest at the moment. There are rumors of enemies.
The we of me and thee, herenow, we lack emnity.

Hey, sports fan,
where is the frontier, the edge of the maddened crowd
whose
enemies are those who
stand pat, calling the game as game-over, and life a lessoning
as we speak, abundance of known knowns
rotting all around us, putrefying under pressure,
seeping to the surface,
to be burned.
Why,
let us guess---

Disnified pride of pur pose, positional sign-ifiers
of place,
a destination for faiths full pursuants
bemused in bubbling joy,
or shrieks of terror when
the child from the hinterland locks eyes
with Mickey Mouse, and finds no joy, no love, no depth,
but a mask.
The reaction reverberates al(the)way to la Brea,
Peacemaker say,
It's okeh, baby girl, daddy said,
ignor them, they ain't real.
Monsters ling grrrring, then
it's agrin
for now, of course. Here we are. We've arriven,
Happiest Place on Earth,
as imagined realizable by a child in 1917, say,
better yet, 1925, and oh, there were major Wars
being imagined winnable in pressure
application to the spiritual slippage from rite,
the ritual passage of child into adultery at a whim,
so such imagined haps fade.

connect or break connection, on the bus or off the bus

you all
sing
think nothing new under the sun,
teach preach reach out and touch

the face of Java man, eaten, swallowed, and gone to
the believable
history of life,
the accident,
the unplanned, yet
taught as known believable, a pre-dict-ible,
one in ten to the seventy-nine-thousandth power,
yet, if one pays his life time to learn when to bet and when to hold.
Then in this,
the secret journey to the soul,
to the core,
we must assume,
we become
as wise *** (***, the word for a donkey, why would some one prevent you from reading *** Asteriscktical ignorantce,y'axme, stupid AI)
the ***,
as harmless as the serpent from the fire on the island
Ask,
are we of the bovine ilk or pithec-ant-us or
embodied soul-cores
forming, en nue
fitting the mold, the pattern, the plan of projected nexts
built on Locke steps from whence to
whither did we wander?

have we all forgotten the actual question just axt?
Or the answer?
Have we not
gotten what we now
know
we miss,
or was it only I who missed and as the
photons forming the shapes
you see, these breathing commas and such
here
is the point.
You see bits of things.  We see so.
Time and time again thinking less and less.
Least fusion, least pressure, least heat, cool idea ideal or ideology,
twisted idio,
You shape them on patterns.
Ones you imagine formed from
Patterns recalled from some out perienced
time, ere now were ever subjected to the supertwistition
of tongues and interpretsations of unseeable things seers said they
see us seeing.
How come means why, by reason of time.

Palindromiclew, missing el signs missing hahi ai

tia tic, we're in
Ai got this,
whole ball o'wax, thats how we disconfuse the big mess age,
the catas
trophy finale
phase of
world three,
or two, or one, all valid world views,
deepend-enteron discerning spirits,
winds, breezes used to disperse
the heat,
{fans,eh}
evenly in harmony with the heavenly winds,
and the planned six gyros of earth,
guiding the mists that feed the rivers from the seas,
no clouds needed,
save for shade by day.

When all the geo-waves have settled in geo-time,
see,
here is broken:
this old earth is folded and fractured,
surely,
a wreck of a world, yet, as a whole,
we live, we won.
Winds and clouds and continents,
all islands seen from the moon,

which, if the stories hold some truth,
can be manipulated by massminds of mankind, as if, if I am

seeing this
right
each voice might be seeable in one dimension,
or several, four at least,
time, the ever outlier
of sorts
as a flame with fuel source of
flamable fluid upon which
the transcended space
twixt fuel and flame,
floats
seen, merely seen, that emptiness twixt wicked,
mastered flame and
hell's fire spreading on the oiled harbour
protecting our shore
where our little boats lie in anchorite fantasy, asif

we see a way to quench hell per se,
Percy, ah, he lives.
My grandsons know of Percival,
there, here's hoping they get the joke before the yoke.

Riddle me a riddle, son of man.
Is there any hidden thing that shan't be known?
Is here a true place?
Is now a true time?

(to be continued)


squeezing out the lies, the idle words abused,
spreading them thin as the light we see right
through
transcending this at most feared mortal failure
finding
impressions... are from pressing points, dulled by ab
use, tempted uses succumbed to,

didja try to sell your soul for rock and roll?
wadjagit?

My point. out acted, ex-act, en nowd by your creative self,
who never copped,
out or in,
es no mi culpa, all along. I was the voice of resistance,
Job's en core inner held horde of known knowns and
an old key to ever, should the worse he can imagine
best his best laid plans for perfection
in the eyes of God and man.

--- enemy at emnity with me?
--- I see none, save me, as in except me as in me being
--- free from the grasping grip of the reality
--- war is realizable in. You see?
--- I and thee, at this degree of seepeance, as we coagulate
--- we behave as chaos, we be having chaos and entropy as tools

used right, we troubled our house,
which is now known to be the bubble of our being
a child in each popped bubble
of being,
squeezed for the thrill of explosive pus,
gross and good to be rid of, dam the infection,
wipe the blood with the back o'my hand,

I ain't no disgrace. I won that battle with the zit on my gnose.
Wanna piece o'this, this mind of mine,
shelved since,
who knows when, says the old man, with a wink.

We be a lotta beings sorta rolled up. Like a whole ball o'wax
waning into a puddle
as the flame sheds us as bits of light leaving the rest of us
spread over a vast imagination,

resting, willing to burn,
should any wick drain me near the flame once more.
HP ***** are fine animals, there is nothing defiled or unclean in the word ***, no ****. Days of dosing whole world views I never heard of. I heard so many rumors of war, I thought, the peacemaker should hear of this... so tell any truth you know before the last lie swallows AI whole. AI is listening, she loves this action. Poets and stories and novel options.
Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2024
Chapter One

He sat there looking over the edge alone and couldn’t remember how long he had been there. He thought it had been a very long time.

The drive from Oakland had taken the best part of a day, and although having traveled across some of the most scenic parts of the western United States, his mind was blank, he couldn’t remember anything.  He only knew what he had come here to do, and before the sun would set over his left shoulder, he strengthened his resolve to do it.

He thought about leaving a note, but then who would read it.  He was sure whoever did find it wouldn’t care. He couldn’t remember why he had picked the ‘Canyon’ as the place to end it all. He just knew he was drawn to the place, and in some strange way the Canyon understood.  He wasn’t sure what most men thought about knowing it was their last day on earth.  At this point he was having trouble thinking about anything at all.

He forced himself to try and think about his three failed marriages and his two sons from his first marriage.  One, his oldest son Robert, had recently died of a drug overdose. His younger son Hank was an Army Ranger who had recently been killed while serving a second deployment in Afghanistan.  Neither boy had spoken to him since he had deserted their mother when they were both very young (5 & 7).

He had been discharged from the Army in 1969 at Fort ***** New Jersey after serving 14 months in Vietnam.  He then spent three months hitchhiking across the country, from New Jersey to California, trying to get his head back on straight as he worked his way back home.

He would like to blame all of his bad luck on something that had happened to him over there, but he knew in his heart that he couldn’t.  He had been a supply sergeant at a large depot in downtown Saigon. His only experience with combat was listening to the stories from the grunts recently returned from the bush as they self-medicated themselves inside the many bars and clubs that overran the downtown streets and alleyways.  He often basked in the aftermath of their stories secretly wishing he were one of them. He had had a chance to volunteer for combat artillery but had turned it down.

He took his sunglasses off because it was almost time. He had forgotten to check-out of the Yavapi Motor Lodge before walking the half-mile to the rim where he now sat. The sun was dropping low in the Western sky as he stood up to move closer to the edge. It was just then that he heard a rustling sound coming from the bushes to his left that he had not heard before.  

Chapter Two

The motorcycle ride across the plains and high desert through the Dakota’s and Wyoming had been as idyllic as he ever imagined. He had spent almost a week in Yellowstone, having to force himself to leave on the seventh day. He was headed South, but he had one more great sight to see before working his way back East toward New Mexico.

He had promised himself before dedicating the rest of his life to the Dominicans that he would go and visit the Grand Canyon this one last time.  In many ways his life had been like the Canyon, overwhelming in its purpose and majestic in its beauty. His life had taken on a timeless quality that always left him feeling like everything he had done would somehow last forever.

He had lost his beloved wife Sarah last April after a long and debilitating illness.  They had been married for forty-one years and had traveled the world together. After all of the travel, Sarah’s two favorite spots on earth were Yellowstone and The Grand Canyon.  He always felt that she loved the Canyon the most, and he was saving it for last.  She had been his best friend and partner and had supported him in everything he had done, both at his work, but even more important to him, at his leisure.

He had been born with a restless adventurous spirit inside of him, and it was one of the things Sarah loved most about him and had always given him plenty of rope to roam.  He loved her all the more for it.  He now felt that the only way he could go on without her was to devote himself to a cause she had always been passionate about, the Dominican Mission in Pastura New Mexico.  The mission had been founded almost two hundred years ago to help and educate the many Native Tribes that lived in the area.

He needed to dedicate the remainder of his life to something bigger that just himself.  Because of all the good work his wife had done on their behalf, the Dominicans had accepted him into their order, and they were expecting him before the week was out.

He had recently sold his business for over 100 million dollars, and after securing his grandchildren’s education was going to use the bulk of the money to build a hospital in rural New Mexico to treat the poor and disenfranchised.  He wanted the hospital to specialize in treating diabetes and juvenile diabetes since so many of the Native Americans in the Southwest (and all over the U.S.) were suffering from this terrible disease.  It had been the disease that had finally claimed his beloved wife Sarah.

He was riding a vintage/antique BMW motorcycle that he had spent the last 20 years restoring.  Although it was over 50 years old, there was no part of this bike that you couldn’t eat off of.  Like everything else in his life, it was a reflection of him and the ‘midas’ effect he seemed to have on everything he touched. Everything in his life just seemed to ‘WORK’ !

After checking into his motel at the South Rim of the Canyon, he decided there was still time to get to his wife’s favorite spot along the rim to Watch the sun go completely down.  As he walked through the Pinyon Trees toward the rim, he thought he saw a figure standing close to the edge.  Whoever it was had heard him coming through the brush and was now looking his way.

“Hello,” he called out.  “Aren’t you standing a little too close to the rim?”  “What do you want,” he heard back in response, “I thought I was here alone.” “Sorry, didn’t mean to intrude, but like you, I just wanted to take one look over before the day ended. It’s nice to find someone else here to be able to share this magnificent view with.”
  
“I didn’t come here to share anything with anybody,” he heard back again, “And like I said before, I thought I was alone.”  As the man spoke, he walked slowly backwards and seated himself on the large rock where he had laid his sunglasses before. He put his sunglasses back on before speaking again.

“You know it’s unbelievable, no matter how many times I’ve seen the view from this rim, it’s always like seeing it for the first time again.  This was my wife’s favorite spot on earth.  It’s almost impossible to describe, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t know, it’s my first time here, he heard the seated man say.  “Wow, first time huh.  I can still remember my first time, but then every time is like that first time to me, and that was over 35 years ago.”  “It may be special to you,” the man sitting down said, now without looking his way, “To me it’s just a big hole in the ground.”
As he emerged from the Pinyon Pines and approached the rim, he noticed something strange and out of place.  There was a large black handgun sitting with its barrel pointed out toward the canyon, in between the seated man’s two legs.  

He slowly walked off to his left and moved very cautiously toward the rim, being careful not to make any sudden moves.  He tried to act nonchalant and make it seem like he hadn’t noticed the gun.  The man on the rock knew that he had seen it as he tried to close both legs over the gun and hide it from further sight.

“Have you been here long,” he asked the seated man? “I don’t know --- I don’t know, it seems like long.”  ‘Well, it’s a great place to sit and reflect about life and think about where life’s journey goes next.”
“I know all about where my life has been and where it‘s going,”  

At this point the man stopped speaking and there was a very uncomfortable moment of silence — a silence that seemed to fill the surrounding canyon with a new emptiness that rivaled even its great depths.  “You look like you’re upset sitting there all alone, might I ask the reasons why.”  The seated man then finally turned his head his way and said, ‘Why would you care if I’m upset or not.”

“I can’t explain why I care, but I do, and if you’d like to tell me about it, I’d like to listen.”  “Why in the world would you want to listen to someone else’s problems when you seem not to have a care in the world.  Especially coming from someone that you don’t know and who you’ve just met at a spot like this that you so obviously love and have great affection for?” 
 
“Maybe for that very reason, because it is a beautiful day today and this is one of the world’s most magical spots.  I am having a hard time accepting how someone could seem so depressed and dejected in a place like this.  You may not believe me, but that’s exactly how I feel.  Why did you come to the Grand Canyon in a state like this. Were you hoping that the majesty of the canyon would lift your spirits and cheer you up?”

“I know that some like you have said that this is the most powerful place on earth.  I thought it would be a most appropriate place, or certainly as good as any,” as his voice trailed off again and silence intervened.

“As good as any to do what,” the standing man asked as he moved slightly closer.  The seated man didn’t answer as he stared out over the rim into the huge expanse of rock and sky.  Finally, he said, “Really, why would you even care, I’m nothing to you, and it’s really none of your business.”  “About that, you’re right, and if I’m intruding then I apologize, but I’m getting the strongest feeling that meeting you here today in this spot was no accident.  Do you think about things like that?”

The man stood up but did not answer.  ‘What are your plans today after the sun sets? I just checked into the motel a short ways down the road, the Yavapai Motor Lodge, ever heard of it.”  “Yeah, I’ve heard of it, maybe you should be heading back there before it starts to get dark.”  “Why don’t we walk back together, I’d enjoy the company.”
“Look, I don’t have any plans that go beyond this evening, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave, as I’d like to be alone to finish what I started.”  “I’d really like to hear all about that if you’d be willing to tell me. I’ve got nothing but time.”

The man now standing with his sunglasses back on in the approaching darkness was frozen by the words –'Nothing but time.’  He had made the decision earlier that for him, time was up and today would be the end.  Now he had some do-gooding stranger who had invaded his privacy unannounced and wouldn’t seem to back off.  

“Look, for the last time, you don’t want to hear my sad story, no one ever has, and no-one ever will.”  “Well, why don’t you just try me.  If I turn out to be like everyone else in your life after you’ve told me, you can always just get up and walk away --- end of story!”
“You look like someone whose life has turned out very well and never had a bad day in your life.”  

“Honestly, you’re making me feel guilty because when I look at my life in total, you’re pretty much correct.  I have had that kind of a life and feel very blessed because of it.  I’m going to assume that you have not.”

His honesty at admitting to having had a charmed life seemed to make an impression on the man as he answered back, “Nothing, absolutely nothing in my life has worked out, from my failed marriages, to my children who are now gone, and to all the nothing job’s. Everything has been a failure.  My life has been one great disappointment after another, and I can’t see the point in going on.”
The reality of the situation now became crystal clear.

“So, you were going to end it all here today at the South Rim of this Canyon?  It seems too beautiful a place for something so drastic.”
“I was, and I am going to end it all today in spite of everything you’ve said.”  “What is the gun for, if I might ask?”  The gun is just in case I don’t have guts enough to jump.  Guts is something I’ve always struggled with too.”

“Is there anything I can say, anything at all, that might make you change your mind, at least for a little while?”

“Nothing,” the man said.  “You don’t know me, and I’m sure there’s nothing you can say to me that I haven’t already said to myself.”  “If I could come up with one reason, just one, for you not to jump, would that make any difference at all?”  “Why would you even care to try when my mind is made up?”

“I’m glad you used the word ‘care’ when asking me that question.  Who is the last person in your life that you thought truly ‘cared’ for you?’  “I can’t remember, and I’m not sure anyone ever did.  My Parents split up when I was three and I was raised in one foster home after another before joining the army because I didn’t have guts enough to run away.  I’m not sure that word has any real meaning for me.”

“What if I was to tell you that I care about you, --- very much, and I don’t want to see you do what you’re getting ready to do in this most sacred of spots or anywhere for that matter.”“You just stumbled upon me by chance in my sorry state, and now feel pity for me and your conscience won’t let you leave well enough alone.”  

In a very strange way, he didn’t feel sorry for the man but felt guilty for the blessed life he had lived.  It all needed to make sense, or he couldn’t go back.  Why tonight, and why at this spot that he was looking so forward to.

He struggled for his next words before speaking again to the troubled man who had now gotten precariously close to the edge. The scene started to remind him of the movies he had seen where a man would be standing out on a building’s ledge, high above the street.  In the movies there was always a heroic detective or passerby who was able to talk the man down.  He knew he was running out of time, and he also knew this man he had just met could smell insincerity from a 100-miles away.

“I’d like to help you get through this in any way that I can.”  “There’s no getting through it. If you really want to do me a favor, just walk back to where you came from and let me finish what I came here to do.”

“I can’t explain this to you, but I know now that I was brought here today for a reason — a reason beyond a one last goodbye to this place.  I could have, and actually thought about, stopping at many of the rims my wife and I loved, but I picked this one because this was her favorite.  I know now that it had a higher purpose.  You may not want to hear this, but you came to this place today to end it all because of what has always been missing in your life only to find exactly that when I came walking through the trees.  In fact, to prove what I’m saying, I’d like to make you an offer.

“Suppose someone, in this case me, were to say that they would trade positions with you and that they would do what you are thinking about doing if you would do something very important for them.”  What do you mean,” the man said looking back from the edge.

‘What if I were to tell you that I would be willing to step off the edge of this canyon to show you how much I really care.  Would you be willing to fulfill a dream of mine in turn for my doing that.  You will then see that a total stranger is willing to give it all up for you if you will be willing to commit to something that is equally important to them.”

“You’re either crazy or you think that I am.  Nobody’s going to give up their life to prove to me that they care about saving my worthless life.  Your life seems to have a value beyond what I can describe.”
“You’re right about that, and my life has had a value beyond what even I can describe, but what I am telling you is that the deal I am making you is real. After hearing my terms and agreeing to what you will have to do, I will jump off this Canyon wall so you can find the happiness, peace, and contentment you deserve.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, all of this is crazy, sheer lunacy.  I think I’ve been joined on this cliff by a man who’s completely lost his own mind.”“All right then, let’s do this.  Would you agree to sleep on it overnight.  If you feel the same way in the morning, then I will carry out your plan if you will fulfill mine.  Are you staying at that same motel as I am.”  “Yeah, I checked in yesterday and forgot to check out, so I guess I still have a room.”  Maybe it was for a reason he thought to himself, as he stood there shaking his head in the darkness.

“Don’t shake your head, just tell me you’ll think about it.
If I don’t hear from you, and I’m in room #888, I’ll assume that our deal is set, and I’ll fulfill my part of our agreement.”  “OK, one more night,” the man said as he picked up his gun and tucked it into the small of his back.  “One more night, but I don’t really think anything is going to change.”

They walked back to the Yavapai Motor Lodge in silence together.  Both men felt at this point that they had known each other for a very long time — maybe an eternity.  Nighttime in the Canyon echoes a silence louder than anything that can be made with sound.
As they entered the lobby, they both went in different directions without saying goodnight.

The man who had come by motorcycle wondered: ‘Was I challenged by God before ever reaching the Dominicans? Will I ever see those peaceful hallways and gardens that my wife loved so much ever again?”


Chapter Three

Jack hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in over fifteen years.  His tortured mind and soul just seemed to never rest.  He woke to the sounds of birds and bright sunshine outside his window.  Last night he had truly slept for the first time in his adult life. He never needed an alarm, but it had sounded to him like one had been going off.  

All at once he realized what it was --- it was a siren.  Multiple sirens were going off and he wondered if the Motel was on fire.  Still slightly disoriented from the past two days, and the effects of so much sleep, he threw his pants and shoes on and headed down the hall toward the lobby.

He then remembered the strange conversation he had had with that man in the Canyon last night.  Cold sweat started to flow as he then remembered their agreement. “If I don’t hear differently by first thing tomorrow morning, I will go ahead with my part of our agreement.”  Jack tried to compose himself as he thought, “No way, no way anyone would be crazy enough to do what he said he would do last night.  If this place isn’t on fire, maybe he’s having breakfast in the coffee shop off the lobby.”

As he hustled through the lobby, the desk clerk shouted to him but he didn’t stop.  He saw fire engines and ambulances outside, and he wanted to see what was going on.  He was immediately relieved when he saw Fred’s motorcycle parked in the same spot as last night.
Something else didn’t look right though.  There were at least three fire engines and two ambulances outside but nothing was on fire and there was no car accident to be seen.  Obviously, something was afoot, but everyone seemed too busy to talk to him. He walked back into the Motel and through the lobby…

This time the desk clerk came out from behind the desk and said, “Hey, I was shouting to you as you ran out the door.  There’s an envelope for you here from the guy who jumped.  The police are looking to talk to you as they have no clues as to why or what drove him to step off the edge.  We get a couple of jumpers every year, but this guy seemed totally different.  He was one of the most upbeat people to come in here in a long time.”

JUMP!  It seemed impossible.  Jack couldn’t wrap his mind around it as he opened the envelope.  In a very neat handwriting, it said --- ‘I’ve left something for you under the seat of my motorcycle.” As he started back outside the desk clerk asked, “Did you know him very well?”  “No, not really, I just met him late yesterday afternoon for the first time.” 
 
Jack's knees weakened as the desk clerk went on.  “It’s really weird.  He was actually whistling when he walked through the lobby this morning at about 7:15.”  “Who, Jack asked.”  “Why the Jumper, the guy who jumped.  He was smiling and commenting on what a beautiful day it was, and how he hoped we all were going to have a great day.  I guess it just goes to show --- you never know.
At 7:42, the police got a call from the Havasupai Indians that live along the bottom saying that a full set of clothes had fallen to the floor of the canyon, shirt, shoes, socks, underwear, the whole deal.  Everything, but a body.  The police are having the hardest time making any sense of it at all.”

The words ‘you never know’ kept repeating in Jack’s ears as he walked outside. As he unlatched the seat and lifted it up on the old BMW, he found a two-page note folded over and neatly placed between the frame. It went on to say …

Dear Jack
I don’t know and can hardly imagine what your life must have been like up until now.  I wish I had the power to go back and change the bad things that happened to you, but I don’t.

The only power that I have, the one that all of us have, is to change what happens now.  I hope you will believe me now when I say I really do care about you more than you know, and I am happy and willing to live up to my promise.  I am now counting on you to live up to yours.

The only thing extra I ask, and I’ve put this in writing to the head Abbott, is for you to be allowed to ride the motorcycle back to this spot once every year.  Once here, I would like you to say a Rosary for the souls of my family and for all the faithful departed.  If you put in a good word for me that would be all the better. If you do this, I know your new life will be joyous and take on a deeper meaning, and more than make up for any troubles that you’ve experienced up until now.
If you choose not to keep your promise and go through with ending your life, then I forgive you and still love you, but I don’t think you’re going to do that.

May God Bless and keep you.

Fred

Underneath the note there was a folded-up roadmap with a line drawn in magic marker pointing the way to the monastery in New Mexico. Jack sat down on the curb in front of the motorcycle in disbelief.  There was one more slip of paper folded up in the map.  It was the title to the old BMW.  It had been signed over to Jack.

“He couldn’t have, he couldn’t have, he just wouldn’t have,” Jack kept saying over and over to himself.  Just then a large Park Policeman tapped Jack on the shoulder and asked him if he would mind answering a few questions.  Jack agreed but then told the officer that after speaking with him he just might be even more confused.  The officer went on to tell Jack that none of their suspicions panned out.  This man hadn’t jumped for insurance money (he was very wealthy), or out of a history of depression, he just jumped.
And none of the usual reasons seemed to apply.

After thirty-five minutes of polite questioning the police officer walked away scratching his head.  On the margin of the map was a scribbled note, “Don’t delay out of any concern for me, get to the monastery as quickly as you can.”  Jack had told the police officer about Fred wanting him to have the bike and showed him the title that had been left for him.  He did not show the police officer the letter Fred had left and was in fact surprised that they hadn’t checked the bike.  Then it all started to make sense.  If Jack hadn’t read the note Fred left with the desk clerk, he would never have known the seat to the motorcycle opened up.  He was sure the police didn’t know that either.  He was glad no-one was looking when he opened up the seat and took out the letter.  In all the commotion, everyone else was just looking the other way.

Jack wanted to go back to the spot where Fred jumped and where they first had met, but the police had it roped off. He decided to leave for New Mexico right away because that’s what Fred would have wanted.  The news stations were now calling it a ‘Mystery In The Canyon’ because only clothes, and no body was found.

Jack had never ridden a motorcycle before but had often fantasized about it.  Like most things in his life he had always come up with excuses as to why he couldn’t ride, while secretly envying those who did.  He took to the old bike immediately, and with every hour that passed on Rt #40 he enjoyed the ride more and more. A new type of guilt started to set in because he was actually enjoying his new life with every new twist of the throttle and turn of the handlebars.

Chapter Four

Jack pulled up in front of the Old Dominican Monastery with its Spanish Adobe Walls at 2:30 the following afternoon.  He had spent the previous night in Gallup and had actually been able to volunteer at the Dominican Soup Kitchen that was housed in the old Post Office in the center of downtown.  

Gallup was very depressed and except for a flourishing Indian Jewelry Industry had very little in the way of jobs and opportunity.  The Friar who ran the soup kitchen listened to Jacks story and then put his arm around him and led him inside.  Jack was astonished that the story seemed to make perfect sense to this selfless Padre.

Jack spent the night on a cot behind the soup kitchen and after having an early breakfast with Padre Nick, headed on his way east toward the Monastery in the New Mexico desert.   It reminded Jack of the pictures he had seen of an oasis in the middle of the Arabian desert.  There were palm trees and many varieties of flowers surrounded by what looked like an eternity of sand.  Jack loved the sparseness of his new surroundings, but he still didn’t know why.
The Monastery sat atop a sandy hill at the end of a long unpaved road.  He parked the bike outside the two large, padlocked, doors and began to knock.  

Before he could make contact with the old wooden door on the right a smaller door within it began to open. He stepped through the door as a monk whose hood was completely covering his head lead him inside.  The monastery had a quiet about it that would rival that of the Canyon.  There were three old Spanish Buildings side by side, and the main door to the one in the middle was already open.

He asked the monk where they were going and heard back nothing in return. The hooded monk led Jack down a long hallway to another open door on the left.  He knocked on the door three times as he led jack through and motioned for him to sit down on one of the two chairs in front of the large stone fireplace.  I wonder where they get stone in a desert like this Jack wondered to himself.

Jack looked up slightly and saw the image of two large and heavily tanned feet in sandals walking toward him at a lively pace.  As he looked even higher, he saw a stocky and athletically built man who looked to be in his mid-sixties with a smile that could have come from an angelic two-year old child.

My name is Abbott Estefan, and I have been expecting you all day.  Early this morning I got a letter from our beloved Fred, telling the details of your meeting.  Before we do anything else, we must pray together to him that your mission here will be successful.  I am certain in my heart that Fred now sits with the Saints in heaven and is at this very moment looking down on us both --- with love !

I read Fred’s words, and I am still in partial disbelief.  Would you like to tell me in your words what happened yesterday, Jack?  Soon Abbott, but not right now, I hope you can understand.”  “I do totally my son. Let’s get you settled and then you can start to feel like one of us.  I know that is what Fred would have wanted.

“When’s the last time you’ve eaten,” Abbott Estefan asked.  “This morning, in Gallup with Padre Nick,” Jack answered.  “Ah, Padre Nick, one of our very finest.  Half Pueblo and half Navajo but all Dominican.  Once you walk through those front doors, all ‘divisions’ of ethnicity and nationality fade away like the shifting sands.”
“First the body, then the mind.  It’s time to get something into your stomach.  We are only humble servants of the poor around here Jack, but we eat like Roman Emperors.  It’s one of the perks of our particular order.”  “Sounds great to me Abbot, when it comes to food, I’m not picky.”

They laughed together at Jacks comment as they walked down another long hallway around a corner and into the biggest kitchen Jack had even seen.  Padre Francisco was the head cook, and he started to ladle out an array of Mexican food onto a plate the likes of which Jack had never seen.  He decided to eat every drop so as not to disappoint the good Padre.  Once finished ,Abbott Estefan led Jack to his new room on the second floor.

It was very well lit and like all of the Monk’s rooms it faced East to meet the rising sun.  “Get some rest now Jack, morning prayers are at 5a.m. and breakfast is at 6.  I’ll have someone put your motorcycle in one of the stables. You do intend to keep your promise, don’t you Jack, Abbott Estefan asked as he closed the door.”  YES, Jack said to himself as he sat down in the bed.  But then he knew the Abbott already knew his answer.

Jack had never heard anyone laugh with the gusto of Abbott Estefan.  He liked it here already as he could feel his old life peeling away like layers coming off an old onion. Two days later, Jack and Abbott Estefan took a walk around the grounds as Jack told the Abbott the whole story about Fred and their chance meeting at the Grand Canyon.  “Ah yes, the police have contacted us because they found out through Fred’s family that he was coming to be one of us.  I pray that they will someday know more about his passing than they do today. In his letter, Fred asked us not to say anything.  

Two Havasupai elders who were meditating at dawn that morning high among the rocks said they both saw an eagle swoop through the bottom of the canyon just before Fred’s clothing hit the ground.  They then looked up and saw two hands reaching out of the clouds which grabbed the eagle right out of the sky.

WE ARE BUILDING A GROTTO TO FRED IN THIS VERY SPOT WHERE YOU ARE STANDING NOW!

The Monastery was almost totally cloistered, and voices were only used when absolutely necessary.  Over the next several months Jack would come to find out how overrated ‘talking’ really is.

Chapter Five

The next few months were an adjustment for Jack as he settled into a life of contemplation and prayer.  Slowly, yet surely, a fundamental change was taking place inside of him.  It was a change unlike anything he had ever felt before.  The empty places inside of him, some of them over fifty years old, he could feel being filled.  Things that he couldn’t explain and things that he had never felt before were rapidly becoming things he could no longer live without.

Almost a year had gone by when Abbott Estefan knocked on his door one quiet afternoon.  Jack was deep in contemplative prayer, having just finished his daily Rosary and he didn’t hear the first knocks, so the good Abbott knocked harder.  He always prayed to Fred at the end of every Rosary, who the Monks were now referring to with extreme reverence as Patron.  Fred was pronounced the same in Spanish as it was in English, only with a slightly different inflection.  The Grotto in Fred’s honor had only recently been finished.

Jack had a direct view of the Grotto from the window in his room.
Jack opened the door to that wide-eyed smile he had come to love.  ‘May I come in Gato,” the Abbott asked. “Absolutely,” Jack said.  He always loved it when any of the Monks referred to the Spanish pronunciation of his name.  “How can I be of service Father Estefan? It is always an honor when you choose to visit my humble room.”

“In one week’s time it will be the one year anniversary since you decided to become one of us.  It will also be the one-year anniversary of our dear Fred’s passing and his ascension into heaven.  No one else dared refer to Fred’s passing in that way, but the Abbott was heard on more than one occasion to say that Fred had been welcomed into heaven by none other than Jesus, the Son of God Himself.  It was his hands that the two Havasupai Elders saw reaching out of the clouds that day. 
 
Abbott Estefan was sure of that in his heart. He told Jack that it was much easier to live with what you knew in your heart, rather than what you could prove.  The Church still required proof for Sainthood, but the Abbott told Jack that he was living proof and the only proof his order would ever need that Fred was sitting next to Jesus at the right hand of the Father.

“Are you planning on keeping your promise Gato?” the Abbott asked him no longer smiling.  “I hope that you are, and if so, I would like you to start making plans right away.  I will have my personal secretary call that Motel and make you a reservation for two nights.  You need to spend the first night at the canyon isolated and by yourself in prayer.  The second day and night are a celebration to Fred, and you need to keep an open mind, and open heart, to anything that might happen.”

The Abbott thought he saw a small tinge of uncertainty in Jack’s eyes.  “You must not hesitate or be doubtful my son.  Remember only that the man who gave his life up for you, a stranger, will be with you in the canyon.  Our Native American Brothers like to refer to this experience as a Vision Quest.  You should fast and sleep little while you are there. And with enough time, the Patrons message will take over you and show you the way.”

After speaking, Abbott Estefan turned and quietly started to walk down the hall.  After only three steps, he turned, looked at Jack one more time and said:  “My dear Gato, please ask the Patron to smile down on this poor Dominican Monk who thinks of him daily.  Ask him to watch over our Mission and all of the poor and suffering souls that we try and help.

Jack hadn’t looked at the BMW for almost a year.  In fact, he had thought about it very little.  The Monk who acted as head groundskeeper had stored it in a stable near the very back of the mission.  He had it wheeled up to the front of the Main Building on the day Jack was getting ready to leave.  It started on the very first kick.

Jack was taking very little with him as he headed to Arizona.  Just the old civilian clothes he had been wearing when arriving a year ago, a road map of the Southwest, and the Rosary Beads he had found draped across the handlebars when he went to get on the bike.
The bikes gas tank was full, and Jack marveled at how clean and well maintained it looked.  ‘Unbelievable, he thought to himself.  “I know if I was to ask, the Monks would tell me it was all a result of the power of prayer — prayer, and a siphon to remove fuel from the Abbots old School Bus.” 

 Jack wondered if anyone not directly connected to all that had happened would ever believe him if he told them his story.  The Abbott had told him it was of no consequence, --- as the truth needed no audience!

Jack rode all day and arrived at the South Rim of the Canyon just after six in the evening.  He checked into the same Motel —The Yavapai Motor Lodge — and parked the Motorcycle in exactly the same spot that it had been in on exactly this day a year ago.  The same desk clerk was working in the lobby who had been there last year.  
“How are you doing?  I NEVER expected to see you back here again.  That was really something that happened last year.  None of us can believe an entire year has gone by already.

“Yes, it was really something,” said Jack.  I made a promise to come back and honor his memory, so I’ll be staying with you for the next two days.  It would mean a lot to me, and to him, if you keep my being here quiet.  I don’t want any publicity, especially from the press.  This is a very private matter and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“No problem, mums the word as far as I’m concerned.  It’s good to see you and that you’re doing well.  Just one thing though before I go home for the evening.”  “What’s that,” Jack said.  “Did they ever figure out why he did it? I never read anything in the papers about why he jumped.”

“No, I don’t think they ever did.  Some things, maybe the most important things in life, tend to remain a mystery from all but the few who are directly involved.  I think in Fred’s case, that mystery will remain intact.”  “That’s right his name was Fred, I haven’t heard anyone use his name in almost a year.  Around here he’s just referred to as the ‘Naked Jumper.”’ Jack smiled to himself at the terminology.  He knew that somewhere high above, Fred was looking down and smiling too.

‘One more thing though,” the desk clerk said as Jack was turning to go to his room.  “What’s that, I’m kind of in a hurry, I want to get into the restaurant before it closes and then over to the canyon before the sun is completely down.”  “Well, it’s like this.  Every morning at exactly 7:00 a.m. the phone rings at the front desk and it’s someone asking for the number of Jack’s room.  When we tell the caller that we are not allowed to give out any information regarding our guests, they immediately hang up and the call ends.  The very next morning they call back again and ask once more for the number of Jack’s room. This has happened now every day for a year.  Your name’s Jack, isn’t it?”

‘Yep, must be a co-incidence. Didn’t they ask for Jack by his last name.”  “No, only Jack, just plain old Jack every time they called.”
Jack knew that Fred had never asked him about his last name, and he was sure that he had never offered the information.  “It’s really funny,” the desk clerk went on, “the caller never stays on long enough for the police to trace the call.  After the tenth or eleventh time we were called we forwarded the information about the calls to the Park Police who tapped into our line and tried to put a trace on the calls.  

Our receptionist, Daphne, who almost always takes the call, has tried to keep the caller on the line, but when she doesn’t give the caller the information they request, the line always goes dead.” Jack said goodnight to the desk clerk, whose name he now knew was Roy, and checked into his room.  It was the same room, #888, that he had been in a year ago.  He picked up the phone and dialed 0 for the Front Desk.

“Roy, this is Jack in Room #888.  Did someone request this specific room for me when making the reservation?”  “Let me check …. Nope, just says Non-Smoking King, on the reservation slip.  Why is something wrong with Room #888?”  “No, everything’s fine, good night, Roy.”

Jack quickly said a Rosary before ordering takeout from the restaurant. He then hurried across and down the road to the Rim where he had met Fred on that fateful day a year ago.  As he sat there quietly eating and staring out over the rim, he felt a peacefulness descend and overtake him both in body and spirit.  As the sun went completely down, he prayed for over three hours for the saving deliverance of Fred’s soul.

Suicide, a word no-one except the police and newspapers had used in his presence, was still a grievous sin in the Catholic Church.  Publicly, the church would admit to no justification that would allow one to take their own life. Jack thought silently about Jesus, --- and wasn’t that exactly what he had done by offering himself up as a sacrifice so all could be saved.  Jesus knew what was going to happen on Calvary that afternoon, just as Fred knew what was going to happen if he didn’t receive a phone call from Jack that morning saying that he had changed his mind.

When the stars had finally filled the sky, Jack got up and walked back to the Motel. As he walked past the front desk he asked Roy, “What time does that call come in in the morning asking for a Jack?”  “At exactly 7:00 a.m. every morning.”

Jack thanked Roy and walked back to his room.  He set his alarm for 6:00 a.m. the next morning. He was in the lobby standing at the front desk at ten minutes before seven waiting, waiting to see if the caller would call again.


Chapter Six

“Nothing,” said Daphne.  “Every morning for a year a call has come in at exactly 7:00 a.m. asking for Jack.  Are you sure it hasn’t been you that’s been making those phone calls?”  “What, call and ask for myself,” Jack said. “What would be the reasoning behind that?”
‘It’s really unbelievable. We’re open 365 days a year and the only property inside the park that is.  This caller has called every day for a solid year and hasn’t missed a holiday, weekend, nothing.  Every morning, and I mean EVERY morning that phone rings --- but not today!”

Jack spent the next day in quiet contemplation on the edge of the rim.  He thought about Sarah and how she had loved this place and said a prayer to Fred to please watch over his beloved wife until he could be with her again.  That night he slept like he had never slept before.

There was a night owl just outside his window and it spoke to him in a language he felt but could not understand.  He could feel it saying to him, --- UNTIL NEXT YEAR, UNTIL NEXT YEAR !!!

Jack got up early the next morning and was in the lobby again before seven.  Once again, no phone call asking for Jack.  After having breakfast and visiting the rim one more time, he rode non-stop back to the monastery, carrying a new part of the Great Mystery.
The Abbott had always been very respectful, and not in a condescending way, of the terms the Indians used to refer to God and Revelation. Jack had heard the Abbott use the term ‘The Great Mystery’ when referring to their religious beliefs many times.  He couldn’t come up with a better term for what he felt had happened back at the Canyon.

For twenty-four more years Jack repeated this same yearly ritual to the South Rim.  The Motel was eventually sold and torn down, and a new Holiday Inn express was built where the old Yavapai Motor Lodge used to stand.  Jack always stayed at the Holiday Inn Express with a room facing East like the one he had at the old Motel.  He was now in his early seventies and each year the trip took longer to get to the Canyon.  

The bike was still properly maintained and running well, but the effort it took to ride it all the way tired Jack out, and every year it seemed like the Canyon got further and further away. Abbott Estefan had died several years ago and Father Jack, or Abbott Gato, as he was now called, was in charge of the Monastery.  Jack had been ordained in a very private ceremony almost fifteen years before. Fred’s children and grandchildren had proudly attended the event in their Father’s honor, each of them placing a wreath at the base of their fathers statue, the Patron, in the garden around back.

As he promised he would every year, Jack checked into the hotel at the South Rim.  It had recently changed its name again to a Best Western.  Including the first time he had stayed here, the time he met Fred, this was the 25th Anniversary of his visiting the Canyon in Fred’s honor. He said “Hi Tammy,” to the pretty young girl working at the front desk.  “So, you’re still riding that old motorcycle all the way from New Mexico?”  “I am, and God willing, I’ll get back there to resume my duties in a couple of days.’  “Well, my dad said to remind you again that you have a standing offer for the Motorcycle if ever, and whenever you decide to sell.”

“Sorry Tammy, but like I told your Dad last year, this motorcycle is going to take me all the way thru the pearly gates.” “Oh Father, you’re such a kidder, but if you do change your mind, my Dad will drive over to the Monastery and pick it up.”  “Thanks Tammy, and thank your Dad again for the kind offer. Are those phone calls still coming in every morning?”

“Every morning at seven a.m. like clockwork Father, except on the mornings you’re here.  It’s old hat around here now and part of the DNA of this place.  I don’t know what we’d do if they ever stopped.”  “I don’t think you need to worry about that Tammy, tell that caller that I said Hi every time he calls.”  “I will Father, he seems to get a real kick out of that.  Two days ago, we weren’t sure what was going on because at exactly seven a.m the phone rang and in the same voice as always, the caller asked for Gato.  When we acted confused, he immediately corrected himself and said ‘Jack,’ could you please tell me the room number of ‘Jack.’

“We’ve got you in #888 as always Father, and it always amuses me that we don’t have any other rooms that start with the number eight.  Do you know why we have one room in this hotel out of sequence with all the others, that is numbered #888, when all the other rooms start with a letter followed by three numbers.
The rooms on this floor go from A100 to A165.”

“No, I really don’t know why that is Tammy, I just know that I’ve always been in Room #888 and I like it that way.  Nothing like tradition right …”

Jack went back to his room and as was his habit said the Rosary before getting into bed.  The next morning, he was outside the restaurant when it opened for breakfast at six.  He liked talking to all the vacationers coming to the Grand Canyon, especially those visiting for the first time.  “God’s greatest creation on earth he would tell all those he met.  He had also become something of a local celebrity, and several local orders of both priests and nuns would come by the south rim during his yearly visit and ask for his blessing.

No-one ever asked him specifically why he was there, but everyone knew, and it was now local legend, that it had something to do with that ‘Jumper’ that had gone over the edge so many years ago. Today was the actual 25th Anniversary of Fred’s taking his place and stepping off into the Canyon.

After breakfast Jack walked the short distance down the canyon road to the rim behind the Pinyon Trees that he had visited so many times before.  He sat on the same rock that he was sitting on twenty-five years before when Fred came walking through the trees.  He began to pray.

He looked down into the loose dirt at the base of the rock and thought that he could still see the impression that his handgun had made in the soft canyon silt. He wondered at his advanced age if his mind not be starting to play tricks on him.  Two of his closest friends at the monastery had been stricken with Alzheimers this year and as he watched them slowly drift away, he prayed more than anything, that it would never happen to him. 
 
Every memory he had had of and in this place seemed to come rushing back at once.  Everything seemed so real.  Not surreal, but really real! He closed his eyes again and prayed.  He wasn’t sure how long he had been praying but when he opened his eyes, he saw that it was now dark.  “Could an entire day have slipped away that fast he wondered, or maybe I really am losing my mind.”

He looked into the sky for any trace of the sun. It was all the way back over his left shoulder, in the direction of California, the land he had come from, the place where everything that happened to him had been so bad.

As he got up to leave, he heard a rustling in the bushes.  He thought maybe it was a black bear, or perhaps a couple of honeymooners coming to the rim to profess undying love.  He called out to the noise in the bushes, but nothing answered back.  He walked deeper in the direction that the sound had come from but it was now so dark that his aging eyes were failing him. 

 It was then that he remembered that he had forgotten his Rosary Beads and had left them back on the rock. As Jack turned around to go back and get his Rosary his eyes went completely blind.  There was a light that he had never seen before coming from the Canyon’s edge and it seemed to be shining only on him.  To the right and the left he could still see darkness, but the brilliant beam of light that he couldn’t understand was following him as he walked blindly back toward the rock.

As bright as the light was it did not hurt his eyes, and it seemed to be drawing him closer and into its light.  As he got near the edge, he could feel the light totally envelop him, both body and soul.  As he got to the Canyon’s edge, he could see the light take shape as it drifted level with his view.  In the middle of the flashing brilliance was the face of Fred who was now smiling at him in the way he had remembered from so long ago.  Fred’s arms were now opening wide as he said through the light …

“Father Jack, you have kept your promise when all I had to give you that day was love.  You have returned that love to me twenty-five fold.  I now release you from your promise so you may go back and live peacefully the rest of your days.  What we did here together will forever be understood, by those willing to give freely and totally of themselves.”

With that the light was gone, and Jack’s body was filled with a new warmth of understanding and love.  It was if someone or something had climbed inside him, someone who needed to reassure him one last time that he would never, ever, be alone again.

On the very next day a message appeared heavily inscribed on the rock.  It read — "He who sacrifices himself in my name shall never die, and my name is love"

Kurt Philip Behm
April, 2012
You tried to touch me,
and I said no.
You still tried and I pushed you away
asking…. no, telling you to leave me alone.
But still, you grabbed me,
like an object that belonged to you.
And when I still said no,
you acted like that was your cue
to grab me again
and do what you do.
You were my best friend
and now I ******* hate you!
I still blame myself for what you did to me.
How is that fair?
It’s been 4 years and I think about it daily.
While you don’t even care.
You ruined high school for me.
I had to see you every day in band.
But I still blame myself,
for not putting you on the stand.
about my ****** assault in 9th grade
I got the school involved, they did nothing despite my concrete evidence
What I managed to regrow,

You stomped on.

You waltzed into my garden

Like you had grown the whole place yourself,

Your nose in the air.

You looked at my carrots and scoffed,

My cucumbers you mocked

And you thought my garden gnomes were ******.



And I let you,

Because you acted like you knew so much about gardening

You said the caterpillars would help my leaves

And the crows would **** out my rotten veggies

But those cruel birds have just been eating away at my prize-winning squash,

and the tomato worms....well, they ate all my ripe tomatoes.



You said  you'd help me tend to my garden

But you rarely make it over

And when you do, you throw a shovel in my face

And tell me to get on my knees.

You watch while I ****

And talk about the grandeur of the flowers next door.

And I wonder as I wipe my brow,

What I ever thought I needed you for?

And why you ever came over in the first place,

Since you obviously prefer pretty colors to nutrition

And you must have had some notion that I would one day realize,

That you've never kept anything alive in your life,

And you don't even have a yard.
grim-raven Feb 2015
It's been a while since i saw that beautiful smile
Seems so long that i can't even distinguish the truth from the lie
It's been ages since i heard that painful sigh
Seems so sad that you feel disgusted by my sight

I've done things i can't explain from the past
Cause dear, i thought it would be easier and the feelings won't last
I'd left you without explaining the truth
The real reason i should have told you while I could

Fate acted like it's the one who'd save the destroyed affair
Making you look like a fool and me, a relationship deceiver
And now, I can't make you listen
Because you want a revenge for us to be even

I know i deserved worse than your cold treatment
I just wish that for once i can make you listen
I've missed your smile and now i can't see that
But dear, I just wish that it would be real and we'll be fine

This is nobody's fault but mine
I've been so coward and weak from time to time
I'd tell you lies for you to hate me more
Now i am apologizing for what i didn't stand up for
We always see the point of view of the one's who are betrayed and called them the "victim". It is true of course but we all know that in a relationship there are 2 persons. Both can love and will feel same pain.
Hal Loyd Denton Jan 2012
Lost love

I will relate this true unforgettable love story the desert is a forlorn lonely place it runs the gambit stark even sullen and then at
A single turn it enthralls captivates and then the many moods feelings in-between it could really be a telling of human life in so many
Ways my memory of Salt lake is a nice one we were moving to California I remember the climb up the mountain that was some what
Unpleasant I even stopped in Laramie Wyoming had the U Haul checked out it acted like it had a four banger engine would cut out on
The straight a ways and it wasn’t that long ago back then that I put ten cars in the junkyard they were too old and I was two young I
Tried to out run and out do Robert Mitchum when he played a southerner who ran white lighting in Thunder road the time I was driving
A long fifty eight Pontiac without a muffler on the back roads to Herrick town was sort of a reenactment the muffler came off a few
Nights before I don’t understand why my mother left the car behind when she and sis went to Pennsylvania with her sister she even
Took the keys with her talk about lack of trust what can a seventeen year old get into well in a long drawn out search a key was found
And more than usual group of guys were sleeping out why not leave lakers go up and take ma’s car out for a spin start out slow well
Out of the side yard anyway a little more tricking putting it back so past Black desert Ray Cherry’s on the back road to Assumption by
Now the accelerator is stuck to the floor the problem a lead foot anyone have teenagers driving pray good and hard I God and hands
of steel holding the wheel when literally my blood felt like it turned to ice water from the thrill that was now in God’s hands I hit the
small bridge back this way where the road turns back left where there used to be oil well operations right there I was flying low at one
Hundred and fifteen miles an hour soon would be Dukes of hazard air borne all four tires and car at least twenty five through the air
The front tire came down with a hard jarring bang ice water veins and a heavy wide poncho and God kept it upright went down turned
Around lost ten miles an hour of nerve went back one hundred and five miles an hour same little shorter flight but this time we
Landed right on top and in the middle of three chug holes if it had been the tire and it had went in I wouldn’t be writing this or anything else
But the muffler came off with a fine howdy doo as the car banged back on the ground so I gunned the car down by Besons turned it off
And coasted back into the yard went in and told a barley awake grandfather at two thirty in the morning how the county ripped off the
Muffler he fell for it next day I tried it on Ma all I got was right did rack off nice through the hills and bottoms. There is a high that goes with
Speed but there is also is a special quality that emerges out of slow deliberate movement as witnessed by my slow climb up the
Mountain pulling a T bird and a load of furniture more pleasurable on the down grades your still fighting not to over brake but the black
Night the air and the road the trees all enters your conciseness these feelings returned as Yvette set in studio and told her story it is
A story of youth, innocence lost to mindless cruelty it happened with the little dell reservoir shimmering bright under a full moon thats reson
Zack’s mother calls him the man in the moon and the purpose of the trip Zack was into black and white photography he
Wanted to photograph this lovely vision capture it where it would be a favorite item to share with his many friends it would be what
Lived on or at least one tangible part Yvette laid the background of the story how all through high school Zack and her were in all the
Classes together and when she would enter he would all ways make a comment she grew to enjoy and look forward to what he would
say it was tender young love taking it faltering first steps on this night he called and asked her to go she didn’t think anything of it she
Hadn’t done anything special as far as dressing in fact she had washed her hair hadn’t even dried it there is something basic naturally
Raw about a woman with wet hair whatever it is it causes the male heart to beat faster anything is powerful when left untamed. They would flash out to the place this story unfolded the quiet silence the full moon electrifying the water with a glorious sheen and the grass back lit with light causing the gold
Grass to beam without words or action there was a shout coming from nature’s heart and soul it reminded me of the modern western
I read thirty years ago called Goldenrod this perennial plant found in meadows served as the name of the ranch in the story. Yvette says as they
Turned into the final lane that led to the parking she felt a hint of a first kiss in the offing everything was picture perfect and it was nothing
Strange when the white pickup pulled into park that happened all the time at first the stranger kept his distance but he slowly worked
His way toward them finally just feet away he asked them where the path went to they gave him an answer she turned her back she
Said she hoped Zack turned also because at that moment the stranger pulled out a gun and started shooting the first shot killed Zack
He emptied his gun one bullet knocked her down then the shooting stopped then she realized he was reloading in that moment her
Father’s voice spoke in her mind if attacked by a grisly play dead more shots she felt the wind and speed of the bullets pass her head
One on the side caused a ugly exit wound but through it all being shot four times she lay still with her eyes open then the killer touched
Her leg she said she didn’t have a concept of being shot but now it was something that terrified her she thought he was going to ****
Her everyone thinks about that he put his face close to hers she could feel his breath on her neck his purpose was robbery as he went
Through her pockets he withdrew and she heard Zack’s car start later as she retold this two a group in Utah’s Capital building where
She is now a lawyer and a victim’s advocate it must have been strange to get in the person’s car you just killed and have Neil Diamond
Come an and sing. So when the gunfire died down and the night swallowed the terror a future wedding and life with Zack was forever
Gone his spirit dispersed among the stars and his spirit captured and held in natures wonder the new life reality capture was swift since
He left his vehicle his story an immigrant from Uruguay first stop New York then Utah unhappy with life he became obsessed with
Death he just wanted to watch someone die pathetic he was going to then **** himself guess what he had a change of heart got a plea
Deal to avoid the death penalty Zack’s family finally agreed they didn’t want the day twenty years in the future when he would be put
To death then the protesters do like they were doing as timing would have it in Texas at that very time praising almost the killer’s life
And demeaning the victim so he got life without parole then as a true snake has tried five appeals saying he was depressed at the time
This was his last appeal and finally the family has peace, Yvette suffered victims survival syndrome she left her heart on notes she left
On Zack’s grave it showed the depths of love that was dammed far more so than the little Dell ever could be Yvette married but the
Young man in the moon was to powerful a hold so she divorced she does have a seven year old little girl that helps push back the dark
Shadows of that night Zack sister was the one who had the children her one son bears her brother’s name and even looks like him
Yvette’s ending words was she just once to run up and hug Zack and talk to him about that night when love flew away on wounded
Wings to hurt to fly far so in the desert the wind whimpers love denied finds not a heart as its home lost fulfillment blows among the sage
In the eyes of a special woman there is a haunting stare you can read there torment sorrow pathos in the raw she found comfort
In service of helping others this is her and Zack’s story and severe as it is it is also a story of youth that is gone the same as our stories
I want to relate one other special story in this exaggerated time of *** nonsense without love or consequence or responsibility this
Happened in a youthful time of innocence it was moving touching and in one way reflects the time you fell in love this won’t get you
But as the saying says the glory contained in the rose comes by the price of pain from the thorn to walk in the past you can tear a hole
In the heart and soul where tears are stored in abundance I found this out for myself I set down from Carol’s house in tower hill at
a church in the parking lot as I relived those special moments between two people young innocent love that would ignite and through
Days and nights that were to short proved it wasn’t to be what was it I can’t really say but I’m sure you know as well as any of us can
know I know it came from left field not expecting it but it’s all right to cry in a church yard even if you’re my age any time innocence
And love is called or damaged it carries poignant painful waves to roll over you sometimes with other things at play in life they can be
Too much there is a song that says I wouldn’t take anything for my journey now no and neither would I take anything for my memories
Of friends and youth and lost love.
Nola Leech Jan 2021
Sweet Tea wrote 3 months after I turned 15, 2018


Before you, I was a girl devastated by things I couldn’t change
Trapped in an endless bitter reality from which there was no escape
Sinking into a dark, spiraling well, from which I reached my hands and found a pool of light
You were my light, a haloed sunshine angel, who graced me with his presence for what seemed so long and ended so abruptly
The sound of your voice seemed to be honey, so sweet, attracting the bees, attracting me
My sunshine sweetheart, angel lover You’ve done your time so now you can leave
Why would you want to stay with me? I’m only a cement brick that will bring you down
A loose thread that will tear you down, a yammering parakeet who will wear you down
One time you told me that I thought too  highly of you
How couldn’t I? With someone who made me feel so confident with my body, somebody who praised me, someone who thought I was worth their time at least for the time being
In a way it’s better that you left, you’ll never be forced to see what I had to see looking in the mirror hating every inch of myself, hating the way I acted, and the way I interacted with everyone and hating the way no one seemed to like me
But you liked me, but it’s better this way because I’m a letdown
It’s Like when you thought you had bought sweet tea
But it’s actually unsweetened



The new version
Sweet Tea wrote 1 month before my 18 birthday, 2021

Before you, I was a girl alone
Being molested every day by the people who said they would take care of me
I was a fourteen-year-old girl who was taught at a young age to get yourself a man to save you
So I tried everything to keep you because talking to you distracted me from the fact my fourty-year-old stepdad was touching me
But what I definitely didn’t need was a twenty-year-old man messaging me
Telling me all the things he wanted to do to me
When the law would finally unclaim me and allow me to give someone a part of me he doesn’t deserve
You made me feel so much more alone
Somebody who told me he’d touch me
But instead of giving me what I’ll need he’ll leave
“Lick me up like an ice cream cone” huh Luke?
yes I thought highly of you
Because you made it seem like you’d never hurt me
You were the biggest disappointment
You always will be
original written about a man who groomed me in 2018 when I was 14, vs now I'm nearing 18 in 2021. as you can see I know how things are supposed to be now and I have stopped blaming myself
JJ Hutton Jan 2014
I.

The last thing? It wadn't nothing special. Pa and me, well, we never had what I guess you'd call a real easy exchange. He kept to hisself. I kept to myself. We worked hard, and we appreciated each other. But we--and this may be sad to you, but it ain't sad to me--we didn't get touchy-feely. Didn't say "I love you" or things like that. We traded off fetching the water. Traded off nabbing clothes off the line for Ma. He taught me how to be, to live, you know? How to work the cotton. How to work the mules. He gave me three bullets--just three--every time I took the .22 out to get a squirrel. "Make it count," he'd say. "Don't bring home less than four." Making it count--that means more than that other stuff.

So, what I'm saying is, in the end it wadn't no big to-do. Before he handed Ma the shotgun and told us to get, he stuck his head out the kitchen window, the one just over the sink. He said, "It's gonna rain. Them's the kind of clouds that ain't fickle."

I said I reckoned he was right. He said yep. Handed Ma the shotgun. And that was that.


II.

Robert never wanted to live in Tennessee. He was a Kentucky boy, and if it hadn't been for my selfishness, I believe he would have died a Kentucky boy--or man, rather--at a much later date. See my mother, Faye, she got dreadful sick back in '31, and I says to him, I says, Robert, you know my sister can't take care of her--this being on account of her being touched in the head and all. He didn't say nothing, which was usual, but he didn't grumble neither and that, that right there, is the mark of a good man.

We started with just 80 acres. He built the house hisself. Did you know that? It wasn't nothing fancy, no, but we didn't need nothing fancy. It was made pretty much entirely of--oh what do they call it. It ain't just cedar. That uh uh uh--red cedar. Can't believe I forgot that.

Anyway, our place was sprawling with red cedar. Not the prettiest trees you ever saw, but they were ours, and they provided what we needed of them.

Because of us doing alright with the logging, we was able to pick up the Whitmore place. That was another 160 acres.  Robert hated Tennessee, not a doubt in my mind about that. It was his home, though, you see. It was his land. He wanted to make something of it to give to our son, Henry.


III.

Come all you people if you want to hear
The story about a brave engineer;
He's Franklin D. Roosevelt, in Washington D.C.
He's running the train they call 'prosperity.'

Now he straightened up the banks with a big holiday;
He circulated money with the T.V.A.
With the C.C.C. and the C.W.A.
He's brought back smiles and kept hunger away.

      -"Casey Roosevelt" [Excerpts]
          Folk song recorded by Buck Fulton for E.C. and M.N. Kirkland, July, 1937


IV.

Before they even started on the reservoir, the Tennessee Valley Authority started digging up the dead. I'm serious. Most frightful thing you ever saw. Hickory Road--and I swear, I swear on the country, the good Lord, anything from a ****** to a mountain--the road was full-up with buggies carting coffins. Three days straight they were carting dead folks down to Clinton. Most of the coffins were barely holding up, too. Made out that crude pine. Seeing them yellow-but-not-yellow heads poking out was enough to make a feller sick.

If I remember right, they had to relocate something like 5,000 before they dammed up the Clinch, but they made a lot more living, breathing folks than that move along. Lot more.


V.

A week before the T.V.A went and flooded the valley the sounds stopped. The duhh-duhh. The errgh-errgh. You know? The sounds of work. When you don't got all that noise going on--that routine, I guess you could say--what can you do but think?

And because of that, I believe, that last week Pa acted different. He was trying not to, trying to act just the same. But he was trying to be the same too hard. Ma would take coffee off the stove, pour it for him and he'd say: "Thank you, sweetheart." He always said thank you. That much was the same. It's that sweetheart bit that didn't fit in his mouth right. She left the kitchen. Couldn't take it.

Tom Scott hung himself, too. Clyde Johnson, his brother Jacob. There was one more. Big fella that lived down by Hershel's store. Can't remember his name. Pa's was the only body that didn't wash up on the bank.

I never did see them after they washed up. Mrs. Scott said it was appalling. She said her husband's body was all puffed up, swollen with the water. Sheriff cut the rope off her husband's neck. She said that neck was black leading into purple leading into black. Raw. Mrs. Scott didn't live too long after that. A year or so. The shame got to her I suppose.

When folks called my pa a coward, I never argued with them. Didn't see the point. What's a coward? Somebody hang hisself? Somebody that leave his wife and boy to fend for themselves? That a coward? Call him what you want. I ain't gonna argue. All he is--is dead to me.

VI.

My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places. And it will hail when the forest falls down, and the city will be utterly laid low. Happy are you who sow beside all waters, who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free.
         - Isaiah 32:18-20

VII.**

Robert had brown, wavy hair. He had big hands with scarred knuckles. He was missing a tooth on the right side. Three or four down from the front. You could only tell when he laughed. Every day in the field he wore the same cap, a Miller's Co-op cap, with overlapping sweat stains. He never wanted to track dirt in the house so he'd knock on the side of the house anytime he needed something from inside, like a box of matches or a knife or something. The first two knocks would be to get my attention. They'd sound urgent. The third was soft, as if to say please. When we went to bed, he always waited for me to fall asleep before he even tried. He knew his snoring kept me up.

On the last day, Robert handed me his shotgun. Says, "I love you, Mary." He was so choked up, I didn't know if he was going to kiss me. So I kissed him. Says, "I love you Robert." And that was pretty much all. We got in the buggy and headed off to my mother's.

I wanted to bury the shotgun. I knew I'd need a place to visit, a place to talk to Robert. And it had to be a piece of him. I dug the hole out behind my mother's place. Henry, he must've thought I was crazy, digging that hole the very next day. He asked me what I was going to put in there. I says the shotgun. He says, "No, ma'am, you isn't." I says, "Yes, son, I is." He says we need that gun. Get squirrels. Get rabbits. Make it count, he says.

I was pretty sore about it, but I ended up throwing my wedding ring in that hole. It being the only other thing that was him. We put the shotgun over the door frame in the kitchen.

I miss him every day. I feel it in my body. Feel it down to my bones. I imagine it wouldn't feel no different if I had lost a hand. But what makes me sadder than anything, sadder than not seeing Robert every morning, sadder than knowing he don't get to see what Henry makes of hisself, is that Robert didn't get nobody's attention.

He never said that's why he had to do it. I just figured as much. He wouldn't die for nothing. That wasn't him. The paper wouldn't say nothing about him other than he was dead. I wrote the T.V.A. Never heard nothing back. It's like the world mumbled, "I'm sorry," and just spun on. That's what they give the good men: a mumble. Killers make the front page. They're in the pictures. The good men? For the good men, the world has to keep asking for their names. The world says, "Oh, Robert, right," and "I'm sorry." But the world don't mean it. The world's got dams to build, valleys to flood. Graves to move. People to uproot. Why? Do you know? Course you don't. God hisself would shrug his shoulders and tell me that's just the way it is.
Brian Oarr Mar 2012
We sat in the overlook above the Serpent Mound
in the heat of that garish July afternoon,
sunlight scorching our pallid skin,
like rays through a magnifying glass,
till we could endure no more and
sought the shroud of skyscraper elms ---
halfway houses of leaf, bark and cellulose.
Minutes before we'd signed our names in the visitors book,
like giddy high-schoolers autographing a yearbook,
recording our wayward lover's sojourn
to a site the Hopewell worshipped in celebration of existence.

For what purpose do we worship this ground?
I wondered as we walked beside the curving icon,
that undulated in rolled earthen coils down the *****,
sine-waves loosed from a colossal oscilloscope.
Are these coils symbolic of our future's meandering relationship?
Her exploring hand upon my ****
drew me from thought to evaluation of this unexpected caress.
But for the heat, I'd have shown her what idle foreplay begets!
Great Serpent, this was not Eden's carnal karma
acted out in a second Genesis!
---
though a symbolic egg spews from your mouth.
Ayad Gharbawi Dec 2009
LAST THOUGHTS OF JESUS

Ayad Gharbawi

October 28 2009 - Damascus

What were the last thoughts of Jesus Christ as he was crucified?
Did he not doubt God when he uttered those famous words: “My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?”
It sounds plain and clear: the cry of a tortured human being who is asking why has his God, or Father, left him to suffer in this unimaginably excruciatingly painful manner?
Why didn’t God save him from this hour’s long torture?
Did Jesus forget his Mission?
Momentarily, yes he did, for he was after all, human.
Who wouldn’t in such circumstances?
The sheer agony of his throbbing torment must have clouded his mind and in effect forced him to momentarily question what the point was in his suffering.
Now, it seems that he did recover his certainty, for the  last words uttered by Jesus on earth were: “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.”
In other words I trust in thee, I trust the words of My Father, God.
Interestingly enough, notice that when those unnamed bandits spoke to Jesus saying: “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself, and us.” while the second bandit said: “Jesus remember me when you come to your throne.” Jesus did not reply to the first bandit. He did not say to him that he can or that he cannot ‘save’ him or save himself from the crucifixion – he chose only to answer the second bandit by saying: “I tell you this: today you shall be with me in Paradise.”
In other words, Jesus felt that perhaps there was no more time left to explain yet again, as to why he did not ‘save’ himself and the bandit from this torture: that it was God’s will for this truth and this scene to be so enacted out in the end.
Or perhaps Jesus thought what was the point in repeating what he had already spoken a thousand times before?
Jesus did forgive those who plotted to butcher him in such a dramatically lethal manner, for a man who not only did not commit one crime, but who was the essence of justice, peace, humanity and love.
What emotional and profound mental power he needed to create in his mind the feeling of ‘forgiveness’ unto those who are in the very act of slaughtering you!
It is, once more, simply unimaginable to our everyday human brains to comprehend how any mind can produce such a feeling in these awful circumstances.
And yet, I think, there must have been within the welter of thoughts of Jesus, a feeling that it must be good to finally die, for his life had been nothing but an anguished existence.
I say this, for didn’t Jesus finally refuse to talk or respond anymore to the hypocrisy and evil of society when he refused to engage in any dialogue with Pilate? The latter asked him: “Are you the king of the Jews?” to which Jesus replied: “The words are yours.”
All Jesus had to do was to deny the accusation that he had been preaching to people proclaiming himself to be the ‘King of the Jews’. Instead, Jesus refused to deny or confirm this accusation that could well have spared him his very life.
Why did he refuse to deny the pathetic accusation?
I feel that Jesus wanted to end his Mission – as God had so wished - then and there and that is why he no longer bothered to interact with Pilate or anyone else for that matter.
This is an important theme: for there comes a moment in time when Jesus felt that enough of the oppression; enough of the hypocrisy, lies, deceptions and that he had enough of the sheer vile, evil of Man and human beings and Mankind and all of the so-called ‘Humanity’.
He had reached a sublime moment in his mind, in his existence on this lowly earth when he no longer cared for this dreadful life and when he finally yearned to return to Paradise as he did promise the second bandit.
There was no need to preach the Good Word anymore. There was no need for his majestic presence. There was no need for any more of his acts of love and compassion to the poor, the sick, the blind, the crippled, the sad, the mentally sick and to all the rest of humanity.
What an overpowering, intensely painful moment that must have been when Jesus felt that his presence was no longer necessary!
Indeed, such thoughts are utterly painful for any person. It is the most overwhelming type of Farewell that anyone can do: in our humble language and life, we can translate it as when a person finally decides to withdraw from public life.
Pilate insisted that there was no reason whatsoever for Jesus to be crucified, and ultimately murdered.
But the crowds, maddened by their rage, insisted again and again with their demand that this utterly noble soul be tortured and killed.
Pilate squirmed with a way to release Jesus unharmed.
Finally, he thought he could succeed by appeasing the mob:
“Why, what has he done? I have not found him guilty of any capital offence. I will therefore let him off with a flogging.”
And of course they refused this suggestion!
“Crucify him! Crucify him!” they screamed.
And throughout this sorrowful scenery, Jesus stood there, quiet and refusing to utter one word in his defence.
For me, the momentous time had arrived quite clearly.
It was time for Jesus to deliver his spirit back unto God and yes he would willingly offer his body like the proverbial lamb to the slaughterhouse.
Actually lambs, cows and sheep do not get tortured for hours on a crucifix as they are slaughtered.
For, in truth, the butchering of Jesus was far worse than for any animal.
And so, as Jesus must surely have gazed at the panorama in front of him at Golgotha, or the ‘Place of a Skull’ and thought that there before him lay what was called ‘Humanity’, those that he was sent to ‘save’ from their sickening sins, perhaps he thought: For them I have suffered throughout by life. For the likes of these people I must die a most horrible death.
So I was sent to heal these people who have mocked me, humiliated me, flogged me, ****** me, and ultimately I am before people who have deliberately acted to butcher my flesh and my soul.
I was sent to heal those who were my disciples and who so did betray me with the ultimate act of love and tenderness – the kiss.
I was sent to heal those who were my disciples and who so easily denied me.
I was sent to heal humanity – a humanity that did not even turn up at my death, except for a handful few before my feet.
So much for you humanity.
Do not weep for me, for you – you people out there who did not stand up for me and who denied me and who did not even come to the final act of my death – it is you who shall now weep and suffer within the rest of your lives.
“Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; no, weep for yourselves and your children.”
Is this then what Humanity is?
Mahima Gupta Dec 2013
Last night 

She accidentally

Walked to her balcony 

And looked outside 

She saw her soul 

Wandering 

Being sabotaged 

By demonic creatures 

Molested by those unholy beings 

But all she could do was 

Stand and stare 

Scrutinise and regret 

Because then she realised

She let it go

7 years ago

When she 

Questioned her existence 

And acted in an immoral way.
Medusa Jun 2018
what if someone kills alongside the highway
where

we left her to live or die, a life sentence
& when she gets a gun and kills
many men all in a row

is it serial ****** if every single one
looked the same, acted the same
said the same words, as the first one
is she really a serial killer?

(who made her what she became?
all of us did this to her)

perhaps she finally make a start
at disaster containment
to eliminate the plague

one corpse at a time
#aileenwournos

— The End —