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Glenn McCrary May 2014
Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response

It is quite mysterious the origin of such pleasure

Common is the multi-culturally adopted belief

That large fractions of massive populations

Label themselves as insomniacs

If anything this newfound viral sensation

May very well exist to cure insomnia


ASMR comes in a variety of different sounds

That help to release melatonin and aid the body in sleeping

Such sounds include inaudible whispering, gum chewing, table scratching, match lighting,

Ear to ear whispering, tapping, brushing, and crinkling.



These sounds are beautiful, inventive, ground breaking and a relevant discovery

Within the continuous cycle that is known to us as evolution

A vast majority of us have talking brains

Some of our brains talk more than others

Resulting in sleep deprivation on numerous occasions



We have been given a unique, sensational gift

That aids those in times of misfortune and grief

That aids those in emotional tribulation

Though it is through this global phenomenon

and it is through these talented individuals

that we are able to possibly if not entirely

conquer said debilitating times

A way to persuade peace amidst a callous world

That is what ASMR means to me
Akemi Apr 2017
Awhile ago, I had been at a party. I’d listened to someone talk about Kate Moss for ten minutes straight. I left the room, found my flatmate and asked why anyone was interested in anything at all. We’d come up with no answers.

All this started a month ago, and all that started long before. I will not bore you with trite aphorisms about how I survived, or how wondrous life has become since. At some point my mind broke. This is a collection of memories about my attempted suicide and the absurdity of the entire experience.

Wednesday, 26th of April, 2017, midnight.

Couldn’t sleep. Surfed the internet. Fell into ASMR sub-culture.[1] Meta-satire, transitioning to post-irony, before pseudo-spiritual out-of-body transcendence. I thought, *this is the most ****** experience I’ve had in half a decade
, while a woman spun spheres of blobby jelly around my head and whispered elephant mourning rituals into my ears.

Tuesday, 27th of April, 2017, afternoon.

Woke up mid-day. Looked at all the objects in my room, unable to understand why any of them mattered. Milled around the flat. Went online to order helium so I could make an exit bag.[2] Cheapest source was The Warehouse, though the helium came with thirty bright multi-coloured party balloons. I kept imagining one of my flatmates walking in later that day, seeing my crumpled body surrounded by these floppy bits of rubber and a note saying this life is absurd and I want out of it. There was no online purchasing option, however, and I couldn’t be bothered walking into town. I began reading suicide notes. One was from a kid who’d slowly taken pills as he watched TV, culminating in a coma. That sounds pleasant, I thought, whilst at the same time knowing that it takes up to three days to die from painkillers and that the process is anything but painless or final. I opened my drawer, found a bunch of paracetamol and began washing them down with water, whilst listening to the soundtrack of End of Evangelion.[3]

I’m not sure why, but I began crying violently. I knew I’d have to leave the flat before my flatmates came home. I hastily scrawled a note that said, donate my body, give my money to senpai, give my possessions to someone I don’t know, it smells like burning, it was good knowing you all, before walking out the door with Komm Süsser Tod playing in the background.[4, 5] I’d already written my personal and political reasons for suicide in the pieces méconnaissance[6] and **** Yourself,[7] so felt there was no reason for anything more substantial.

I wandered the back roads of my neighbourhood. My body shook. I felt somnolent, half-dazed. I wanted a quiet place to sit, sleep and writhe in agony while my organs slowly failed. My legs kept stumbling, however, and my head was beginning to feel funny. I found a dead-end street and sat on one of those artificially maintained rectangles of grass. There was a black cat lying in the middle of the road, just bobbing its head at me. I zoned out for a bit and when I came to a giant orange cat was to my left, gazing intently into my teary face. I tried to refocus on my crotch. I couldn’t help but notice a white cat across the road, pretending not to be seen. It had a dubious look on its face, a countenance of guilt. What the hell was going on? A delivery person looped round the street. People returned home from work. Garage doors opened, cars drove down driveways. Here I was, slowly dying, surrounded by spooky ******* cats and the bustle of ordinary existence.

“Uh, hey. You look, uh, like something isn’t . . . do you need, uh, help?” a woman asked, crossing the street with a pram to reach me. I groaned.

“It’s just that, you know, ordinarily, um, I mean normally, people don’t sit on the sidewalk,” she continued, glancing down with the half-confused look of a concerned citizen who is trying to enter a situation outside of their usual experience. I mumbled something indistinct and went back to staring at my crotch.

“You know, I can, er . . . I can . . . I can’t really help,” she ended, awkwardly. “I have a daughter to look after, but . . . if you’re still here when she’s asleep . . . I’m the red fence.” She darted off without another word.

Had she wanted me off the sidewalk because it was abnormal to sit there, or had she seen the abnormality as a sign of something deeper? Either way, she’d used abnormality as a signifier of negative change. Deviancy as something to be corrected, realigned with some norm that co-exists with happiness and citizenship. I was being a bad citizen.

I thought, I miss those cats. At least they had judged me in silence. Wait, what the hell am I thinking? This is clearly a case of deviancy associated with negative feelings. Well, negative feelings, but not necessarily negative change. Suicide is only negative if one views life as intrinsically worthwhile

I could hear pram lady in the distance. She was talking to someone who’d just come back from work. They thanked pram lady and began moving towards me. Arghggh, just let me die, I thought.

She introduced herself as a nurse. From her tone and approach, it was clear she’d handled many cases like me. I’ve never hated counselling techniques. They seemed to at least trouble neoliberal rhetoric. There is little mention of overcoming, or striving, or perfecting oneself into a being of pure success. Rather, counselling seemed to be about listening and piercing together the other’s perspective. Counsellors tended not to interject words of comfort. They’d tell you mental illness was lifelong and couldn’t be fixed. They’re the closest society has to positive pessimists. Of course, they’d still want you to get better. Better, as in, not attempting suicide.

I talked with nurse lady for an hour about how life is simply passing. Passing through oneself, passing through others, passing through spaces, thoughts and emotions. About how the majority of life seems to be lived in a beyond we’ll never reach. Potential futures, moments of relief, phantasies we create to escape the dull present. About how I’d been finding my media and politics degree really rewarding, but some part of my head broke and I lost all ability to focus and care. About how the more I learnt about the world, the less capable I felt of changing it, and that change was a narcissistic day dream, anyway.

She replied “We’re all cogs. But what’s wrong with being a cog? Even a cog can make changes,” and I thought, but never one’s own.

She gave me a ride to the emergency clinic because I was too apathetic and guilt-ridden to decline. Why are people so nice over things that don’t matter? Chicks are ground into chicken nuggets alive.[8] The meat-industry produces 50% of the world’s carbon emissions.[9] But someone sits on the side of the road in a bourgeois neighbourhood and suddenly you have cats and nurses worried sick over your ****** up head. I should have worn a hobo coat and sat in town.

Tuesday, 27th of April, 2017, evening.

I had forgotten how painful waiting rooms were. It was stupidly ironic. I’d entered this apathetic suicidal stupor because I’d wanted to escape the monotony of existence, yet here I was, sitting in a waiting room, counting the stains on the ceiling, while the reception TV streamed a hospital drama.

“Get his *** in there!”

“Time is the real killer.”

“It wasn’t the cancer that was terminal, it was you.”

Zoom in on doctor face man.

Everybody hugging.

Emergency waiting rooms are a lot like life. You don’t choose to be there. An accident simply occurs and then you’re stuck, watching a show about *** cancer and family bonding. Sometimes someone coughs and you become aware of your own body again. You remember that you exist outside of media, waiting in this sterile space on a painfully too small plastic chair. You deliberately avoid the glances of everyone else in the room because you don’t want to reduce their existence to an injury, a pulsing wound, a lack, nor let them reduce you the same. The accident that got you here left you with a blank spot in your head, but the nurses reassure you that you’ll be up soon, to whatever it is you’re here for. And so, with nothing else to do, you turn back to the TV and forget you exist.

I thought, I should have taken more pills and gone into the woods.

The ER was a Kafkaeque realm of piercing lights, sleepy interns and too narrow privacy curtains.[10] Every time a nurse would try to close one, they’d pull it too far to one side, opening the other side up. Like the self, no bed was fully enclosed. There were always gaps, spaces of viewing, windows into trauma, and like the objet petit a, there was always the potential of meeting another’s gaze, one just like yours, only, out of your control.

I lay amidst a drone of machinery, footsteps and chatter. I stared at ceiling stains. Every hour or so a different nurse would approach me, repeat the same ten questions as the one before, then end commenting awkwardly on my tattoos. I kept thinking, what is going on? Have I finally died and become integrated into some eternally recurring limbo hell where, in a state of complete apathy and deterioration, some devil approaches me every hour to ask, why did you take those pills?

Do I have to repeat my answer for the rest of my life?

I gazed at the stain to my right. That was back in ‘92 when the piping above burst on a particularly wintry day. I shifted my gaze. And that happened in ‘99 when an intern tripped holding a giant cup of coffee. Afterwards, everyone began calling her Trippy. She eventually became a surgeon and had four adorable bourgeois kids. Tippy Tip Tap Toop.

The nurses began covering my body with little pieces of paper and plastic, to which only one third were connected to an ECG monitor.[11] Every ten minutes or so the monitor would begin honking violently, to which (initially) no one would respond to. After an hour or so a nurse wandered over with a worried expression, poked the machine a little, then asked if I was experiencing any chest pains. Before I could answer, he was intercepted by another nurse and told not to worry. His expression never cleared up, but he went back to staring blankly into a computer terminal on the other end of the room.

There were two security guards awkwardly trying not to meet anyone’s gazes. They were out of place and they knew it. No matter what space they occupied, a nurse would have to move past them to reach some medical doodle or document. One nurse jokingly said, “It’s ER. If you’re not moving you’re in the way,” to which the guards chortled, shuffled a metre or so sideways, before returning to standing still.

I checked my phone.

“Got veges.”

“If you successfully **** yourself, you’ll officially be the biggest right-wing neoliberal piece of ****.”[12]

“Your Text Unlimited Combo renewed on 28 Apr at 10:41. Nice!”

I went back to staring at the ceiling.

Six hours later, one of the nurses came over and said “Huh, turns out there’s nothing in your blood. Nothing . . . at all.” Another pulled out my drip and disconnected me from the ECG monitor. “Well, you’re free to leave.”

Tuesday, 27th of April, 2017, midnight.

I wandered over to the Emergency Psychiatric Services. The doctor there was interested in setting up future supports for my ****** up mind. He mentioned anti-depressants and I told him that in the past they hadn’t really worked, that it seemed more related to my general political outlook, that this purposeless restlessness has been with me most of my life, and that no drug or counselling could cure the lack innate to existence which is exacerbated by our current political and cultural institutions.

He replied “Are you one of those anti-druggers? You know there’s been a lot of backlash against psychiatry, it’s really the cultural Zeitgeist of our times, but it’s all led by misinformation, scaremongering.”

I hesitated, before replying “I’m not anti-drugs, I just don’t think you can change my general hatred of existence.”

“Okay, okay, I’m not trying to argue with your outlook, but you’re simply stuck in this doom and gloom phase—”

Whoa, wait a ******* minute. You’re not trying to argue with my outlook, while completely discounting my outlook as simply a passing emotional state? This guy is a ******* *******, I thought, ragging on about anti-druggers while pretending not to undermine a political and social position I’d spent years researching and building up. I stopped paying attention to him. Yes, a lot of my problems are internal, but I’m more than a disembodied brain, biologically computing chemical data.

At the end of his rant, he said something like “You’re a good kid,” and I thought, ******* too.

Friday, 28th of April, 2017, morning.

The next day I met a different doctor. I gave him a brief summary of my privileged life culminating in a ****** metaphor about three metaphysical pillars which lift me into the tempestuous winds of existential dread and nihilistic apathy. One, my social anxiety. Two, my absurd existence. Three, my political outlook. One, anxiety: I cannot relate to small talk. The gaze of the other is a gaze of expectations. Because I cannot know these expectations, I will never live up to them. Communication is by nature, lacking. Two, absurdity: Existence is a meaningless repetition of arbitrary structures we ourselves construct, then forget. Reflexivity is about uncovering this so that we may escape structures we do not like. We inevitably fall into new structures, prejudices and artifices. Nothing is authentic, nothing is innocent and nothing is your self. Three, politics: I am trapped in a neoliberal capitalist monstrosity that creates enough produce to feed the entire world, but does not do so due to the market’s instrumental need for profit. The system, in other words, rewards capitalists who are ruthless. Any capitalist trying to bring about change, will necessarily have to become ruthless to reach a position of power, and therefore will fail to bring about change.

The doctor nodded. He thought deeply, tried to piece it all together, then finally said “Yes, society is quite terrifying. This is something we cannot control. There are things out there that will harm you and the political situation of our time is troubling.”

I was astounded. This was one of the first doctors who’d actually taken what I’d said and given it consideration. Sure we hadn’t gotten into a length discussion of socialism, feminism or veganism, but they also hadn’t simply collapsed my political thoughts into my depressive state.

“But you know, there are still niches of meaning in this world. Though the greater structures are overbearing, people can still find purpose enacting smaller changes, connecting in ephemeral ways.”

What was I hearing? Was this a postmodern doctor?[13] Was science reconnecting with the humanities?

“We may even connect your third pillar, that of the political, with your second pillar and see that the political situation of our time is absurd. This is unfortunate, but as for your first pillar, this is definitely something we can help you with. In fact, it’s quite a simple process, helping one deal with social anxiety, and to me, it sounds like this anxiety has greatly affected your life for the past few years.”

The doctor then asked for my gender and sexuality, to which after I hesitated a little, he said, it didn’t really matter seeing as it was all constructed, anyway. For being unable to feel much at all, I was ecstatic. I thought, how could this doctor be working in the same building as the previous one I’d met? We went into anti-depressant plans. He told me that their effects were unpredictable. They may lift my mood, they may do nothing at all, they may even make me feel worse. Nobody really knew what molecular pathways serotonin activated, but it sometimes pulled people out of circular ways of thinking. And dopamine, well, taken in too high a dose, could make you psychotic.

Sign me the **** up, I thought, gazing at my new medical hero. These are the kinds of non-assurances that match my experience of life. Trust and expectations lead only to disappointment. Give me pure insurmountable doubt.

Friday, 28th of April, 2017, afternoon.

“The drugs won’t be too long,” the pharmacist said before disappearing into the back room. I milled around th
1. Autonomous sensory meridian response is a tingling sensation triggered by auditory cues, such as whispering, rustling, tapping, or crunching.
2. An exit bag is a DIY apparatus used to asphyxiate oneself with an inert gas. This circumvents the feeling of suffocation one experiences through hanging or drowning.
3. Neon Genesis Evangelion is a psychoanalytic deconstruction of the mecha genre, that ends with the entire human race undergoing ego death and returning to the womb.
4. Komm Süsser Tod is an (in)famous song from End of Evangelion that plays after the main character, who has become God, decides that the only way to end all the loneliness and suffering in the world is for everyone to die.
5. Senpai is a Japanese term for someone senior to you, whom you respect. It is also an anime trope.
6. https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1936097/meconnaissance/
7. https://thesleepofreason.com/2017/04/04/****-yourself/
8. See Earthlings.
9. See Cowspiracy.
10. Franz Kafka was an existentialist writer from the 20th century who wrote about alienation, anxiety and absurdity.
11. Electrocardiography monitors measure one’s heart rate through electrodes attached to the skin.
12. Neoliberalism is both an economic and cultural regime. Economically, it is about deregulating markets so that government services can be privatised, placed into the hands of transnational corporations, who, because of their global positioning, can more easily circumvent nation-state policies, and thereby place pressure on states that require their services through the threat of departure. Culturally, it is about reframing social issues into individual issues, so that individuals are held responsible for their failures, rather than the social circumstances surrounding them. As a victim-blaming discourse, it depicts all people equal and equally capable, regardless of socio-economic status. All responsibility lies on the individual, rather than the state, society or culture that cultivated their subjectivity.
13. Postmodernism is a movement that critiques modernism’s epistemological totalitarianism, colonial humanism and utopian visions of progress. It emphasises instead the fragmented, ephemeral and embodied human experience, incapable of capture in monolithic discourses that treat all humans as equal and capable of abstract authenticity. Because all objective knowledge is constructed out of subjective experience, the subject can never be effaced. Instead knowledge and power must be investigated as always coming from somewhere, someone and sometime.
asmr
is that kind of thing
that creeps down your spine
and invisibly molests you
whispers are all it takes
to break
your sweet innocence
Glenn McCrary Apr 2014
"Striking the match across my thumbnail, it's too slow of an action to me. The sparks stay in the air for too long and I haven't taken a breath in what feels like hours. Snow White couldn't have done it better, she paved the way. You sleep with the enemy, you sleep with the rich, you tear your way in with a calming, sweet smile and they let you in, they always do. The match falls on the heap of limbs. 'Here comes the sun.' ~ Jade Day


DR. NIGHTMARE: Hello? Mr. Nino?

[Dr. Nightmare whistles and snaps his fingers twice]

DR. NIGHTMARE: Are you ready for the procedure?

DO: It’s not like I have a choice now do I?

DR. NIGHTMARE: You always have a choice Mr. Nino. Your very future lies within the consciousness of every decision you may or may not make. With that being said which choice do you think will effectively see that you are better off?

DO: Well neither you or I can predict the future so we might as well continue playing and see what happens.

[Dr. Nightmare chuckles]

DR. NIGHTMARE: Not bad for a young man such as yourself, Mr Nino.

DO: I try. Let us carry on with the procedure now shall we sir?

DR. NIGHTMARE: Oh, yes right. Please fill out these papers to ensure that we have your full consent to conduct any and/or all events of this procedure.

DO: How can I possibly fill out these papers if I am still restrained by this straight jacket?

DR. NIGHTMARE: Oh, how foolish of me to have forgotten.

[Dr. Nightmare then begins unbuckling Do’s straight jacket. He then removes the jacket and passes Do a check pad and a pen with multiple documents. Do then begins to sign them. Dr. Nightmare closely reviews the papers as Do is signing them]

DO: Okay, I’m done.

DR. NIGHTMARE: Great now if you’ll just initial here, here and here we will be ready to go.

[Do finishes initialing his papers and passes them back to Dr. Nightmare.]

DR. NIGHTMARE: Thank you Mr. Nino. I’ll give you a couple of minutes to relax while I run and grab my list of questions. You may talk to AnaÏs while she performs a brief blood test on you.

NURSE YUCKI: Thank you, Dr. Nightmare.

[AnaÏs blushes with a slight smile as she twists both of her knees inward. She then walks over to sit in the chair directly across from Do. She pulls out her first aid kit and opens it. She takes out a lancet, some sanitary wipes and some gauze.]

NURSE YUCKI: Hello, Mr. Nino. How are you doing today?

[Anaïs opens a pack of sanitary wipes and begins wiping Do’s right ring finger. She then ****** his finger with the lancet drawing forth small droplets of blood. Do slightly winces in pain. Anaïs then places a small test tube to the test site in which his finger was pricked in order to draw blood.]

DO: Please just call me Do. I’m doing alright I suppose. How about yourself?

NURSE YUCKI: Thank you, Do. I am doing okay though I am quite tired. I have been here since five this morning and it is now a quarter to one.

DO: I can understand how that may be ******* you. Not everyone is a morning person.

NURSE YUCKI: Yeah, you’re right. The pay is great here though so I suppose it is worth dealing with.

DO: Yeah but is that ever really enough? Is that truly all that you want?

NURSE YUCKI: No, of course not. I have dreams just like everybody else. This job exists as just an in the moment thing for me. It is a means to get me by or as most people say “a leg up” in the industry.

DO: Those times are always the most trying.

NURSE YUCKI: You can say that again.

[Anaïs eventually finishes drawing blood from Do’s finger and places a couple of pieces of gauze to it and wrapped a band-aid around it. She then pours the blood sample into a slightly bigger and wider test tube and then places a top over it placing it along with the lancet back into her first aid kit.]

DO: Those times are always the most trying.

[Anaïs laughs. Do slightly smiles in return.]

NURSE YUCKI: I didn’t mean literally silly ha ha.

DO: Hey a little humor never hurt anyone ha ha.

NURSE YUCKI: If that were the case this place would cease to be a business.

[Anaïs and Do both laughed.]

NURSE YUCKI: I don’t mean to be a creep but I think you have really pretty eyes.

[Do was an African-American man with short, curly black hair. He also had dark brown eyes with his skin being the shade of chocolate chip cookie brown. He had a goatee as well.]

DO: Thank you, Anaïs. You’re honestly a lot funnier than I thought plus you are very beautiful.

[Anaïs was a white British woman with long, jet black hair and winter blue eyes. She had fairly tan skin along with a nice figure. She also wore black lipstick and had various tattoos.

NURSE YUCKI: Thank you, Do. So do you ha—

[The door to Do’s padded cell abruptly opens.]

DR. NIGHTMARE: Okay, I’m back. Thank you for keeping my patient company Anaïs.

NURSE YUCKI: Oh, you’re welcome, Archie.

[Anaïs stomped very loudly as she walked away.]

DR. NIGHTMARE: I told that ***** I don’t like when people call me Archie in public.

DO: Well, that is your birth name is it not? Besides Anaïs is a really nice woman.

DR. NIGHTMARE: That’s like saying a ****** is a teething ring.

DO: So are you saying you have been sexless for six months or are you asexual?

DR. NIGHTMARE: Hey, who is the doctor here?

DO: I’m just saying. You may be inserting your tongue incorrectly.

[Dr. Nightmare ignores Do’s comments blushing out of embarrassment.]

DR. NIGHTMARE: Well, if you are done fooling around we can begin.

DO: Let’s do it.

DR. NIGHTMARE: Okay, Mr Nino. Your first name is Do, correct?

DO: Yes, sir.

DR. NIGHTMARE: We already know your last name so on to the next question. What is your date of birth?

DO: August 2, 1990

DR. NIGHTMARE: Ah, so you’re twenty-three years old eh?? I thought you were like sixteen.

DO: Ha ha nope but I get that a lot so it’s nothing I’m not used to.

DR. NIGHTMARE: Where are you from?

DO: Springfield, Illinois

DR. NIGHTMARE: Where were you currently living before you came here?

DO: Cordova, Tennessee

DR. NIGHTMARE: Did you like it there?

DO: No, not really. I actually hate it there and am desperate to get away from there and move to a bigger city.

DR NIGHTMARE: Oh? What for may I ask?

DO: To take advantage of more career opportunities to achieve my dreams.

DR. NIGHTMARE: I really like where your head is at kid. Who were you currently living with before you came here?

DO: My mother along with three of my siblings, niece and nephew.

DR. NIGHTMARE: Do you get along with them at all?

DO: When I want to but even then it is just a feigned interest.

DR. NIGHTMARE: Where were you working before you came to this institution?

DO: I was working as a dishwasher and prep cook at my local pancake joint and bakery. The name of the restaurant is Love 'N’ Lust.

DR. NIGHTMARE: That title sounds intriguing. What kind of food do they make there? Do they pay you well for your services?

DO: We make all kinds of foods in the shape and/or imagery of sexually provocative thought patterns. Basically we make cakes in the shapes of genitals, *******, ***, etc… We do this for breakfast, lunch and dinner around the clock. They pay me $7.25 an hour.

DR. NIGHTMARE: I got to take my girlfriend some time soon. You get paid more to do that here. I believe the maximum is $15 an hour in translation from Euro dollars to American dollars.

DO: You won’t regret it sir. There are actually some of restaurants located throughout France.

DR. NIGHTMARE: Thank you, Mr. Nino. I’ll keep that in mind.

DO: You’re welcome, sir.

DR. NIGHTMARE: Do you have any passions, Mr. Nino?

DO: Yes, I do. As a matter of fact I have two passions. They are poetry and disc jockeying.

DR. NIGHTMARE: How long have you been writing poetry and disc jockeying?

DO: I have been writing poetry since November of 2008. I am only just beginning within the disc jockeying field.

DR. NIGHTMARE: What were you like in school, Mr. Nino?

DO: I’ve been to many schools doctor. I require that you be more specific

DR. NIGHTMARE: What was life like for you in high school?

DO: Well, I never actively made the effort to socialize with anyone outside of school simply because I was disinterested. When people would take part in extracurricular activities I would just ignore them and go home. I never even went to my own prom.

DR. NIGHTMARE: And why didn’t you go to your prom?

DO: Because I never had a date nor did I have the courage to ask one of the girls out

DR. NIGHTMARE: Well, I would tell you that I understand but I have no idea what that is like. In my day I was a ****. Everybody knew me. All the girls wanted to talk to me.

DO: Yeah, you’re not helping.

DR. NIGHTMARE: Oh, I’m sorry Mr. Nino

DO: It’s alright, doctor.

DR. NIGHTMARE: Moving on, what was your life like as you were growing up?

DO: There was lots of domestic violence and unwanted sheriff visits because my mother would always feel the urge to call the police every time I voiced an opinion that she did not agree with. I have even been in physical fights with her, my father, brother, sister and grandmother. I even splashed orange juice in my grandmother's face one time because she was ******* me the *******. There was the occasional use and profiting of the most popular drug at the time by a parent because my father smoked and sold drugs. He hung out with the wrong people a lot of the times mostly people who desired to buy drugs from him. Day in and day out deep down I feel that there are still some grudges floating around. My family won’t let me move past them nor will they let me forget about them. They always like to bring them up every chance that they get. I was also expelled from middle school at the age of fourteen for tossing my gym shorts at the assistant principal when she told me to shut up while I was talking. I felt disrespected and it ****** me off. I didn’t know what else to do. I also took antidepressants at the age of sixteen for crying out loud and when I was twenty I was mugged only just one week shy of my twenty-first birthday. It was a late night and I was walking home.

DR. NIGHTMARE: Sounds like you have had a rather rough life

DO: Yeah, well my life is not as bad compared to others.

DR. NIGHTMARE: That doesn’t matter Mr. Nino. It still counts. What was the name of the antidepressant medication that you were taking for you depression?

DO: I honestly don’t remember. That was so long ago. I’m twenty-three now. I’ll be twenty-four in the summer so that was nearly eight years ago. I do remember my mother making me take medications such as Stratera and Adderall for Attention Deficit Hyper Disorder.

DR. NIGHTMARE: What is your relationship with your family like now?

DO: I only talk to them when I want or need something like most people, but other than that I steer clear of them to avoid confrontation and drama. Drama never falls short in the Nino family.

DR. NIGHTMARE: Why do you think that is, Mr. Nino?

DO: Well, it’s just that when me and my immediate family members are in the same room together I can feel a significant amount of tension, hatred and anger coursing throughout the room. It makes me feel very uncomfortable so I just leave.

DR. NIGHTMARE: What do you fear the most, Mr. Nino?

DO: Abandonment and death

DR. NIGHTMARE: All of which are very powerful and reasonable things to be in fear of. What is your attitude toward the opposite ***? What was it in childhood and later years?

DO: I always took notice of the hot girls and the unbearably **** girls. I just never made the effort to talk to them because most of them ignored me or were stuck up and thought they were higher and mightier than me. In later and considerably more recent years my patience for the opposite *** has lessened greatly with each passing day. It has gotten to the point where I hate romantic relationships leading me to believe that they are a complete waste of time. Marriages are pointless as well. I would operate just fine in a No Strings Attached, Friends With Benefits or a One Night Stand type of deal. At least with those types of relationships an emotional connection is not at all required. I like *****. End of story. I get enough emotional connection through bowel movements.

DR. NIGHTMARE: Are you ambitious, sensitive, inclined to outbursts of temper, domineering, shy, or impatient?

DO: Yes, sir. I am very ambitious. I’m a poet so there is no doubt that I am sensitive. Yes, I do tend to have short, mild outbursts concerning my temper. I get mad when people cut me off or talk over me when I am speaking. I hate when people ignore me and I hate when I try to join a conversation and everyone acts like I am not there. It’s like can’t they see that I am trying to be apart of the conversation. I mean even when I try to socialize and make friends they fail to realize it. It is all alright though. I have learned not to give a **** anymore. Honestly, it is the best way to avoid any drama in life.

DR. NIGHTMARE: What sort of people did you physically allow yourself to be around you prior to arriving at this institution? Were they impatient, bad-tempered, or affectionate?

DO: Affection was far from the equation, doctor. I was around a lot of impatient and bad-tempered people. When I speak of these people I speak mainly about my family, but also some of my co-workers as well. They drove me incredibly insane. I would often go home depressed and dreading the next work day.

DR. NIGHTMARE: How do you sleep?

DO: Most of the time I find it difficult to sleep. I frequently watch Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response or (ASMR) videos to aid in me that and so far it has worked exceedingly well.

DR. NIGHTMARE: What dreams do you have?

DO: I rarely have any happy dreams I’ll tell you that. Most of the dreams I have are of running down dark hallways, chasing shadows, jumping off of cliffs and being unexpectedly attacked by random strangers whether it be physically or verbally. I also tend to have a lot of dreams where I am screaming my head off at the people surrounding me in the dream. I even go so far as to push their heads back a little with the palm of my hand. I was really mad in those dreams. I have a lot of mildly terrifying as well as psychotically depressing dreams. I also tend to have dreams about abandonment.

DR. NIGHTMARE: What illnesses are there in your family background?

DO: Well both of my grandmas are diabetic however one of them has been deceased for six and a half years now. She was English plus she had struggled with breast cancer for years. One of my sisters has been diagnosed as bipolar. I believe I may be bipolar, but just undiagnosed. I am allergic to penicillin. Both of my little brothers have asthma. One of my brothers is allergic to peanut butter.That’s about it. My father has problems with digesting solid foods. I don’t really know all that much about the history of my family’s mental health. There was one time when my mom called the cops on me when I was sixteen. The cop although unlicensed said that he thinks I may be schizophrenic. I didn’t believe a word that he said back then, but eight years later I am now starting to realize the justness of what he said and even starting to believe it.

DR. NIGHTMARE: Have you ever had ***, Mr. Nino?

DO: No, sir. I have not. I do think about it very often though.

DR. NIGHTMARE: Do you watch any **** at all?

DO: Every night.

DR. NIGHTMARE: What kind of **** do you like to watch? Do you have any fetishes?

DO: I like to watch female bodybuilders workout in the ****, I also like to watch regular girls fool around in the **** as do most men. I also enjoy watching lesbian **** as well. My fetishes are women with muscle. I’m talking large muscle mass from the neck down. It just gets me so hot. Another fetish of mine and don’t tell anyone this, but I like to watch women take dumps in the toilet. I don’t however like actually seeing the feces. I only like to see them sitting on the toilet while doing it and hearing the sounds. I do not like seeing what is going on underneath. Other fetishes of mine include women with tattoos, tall women, and also slightly psychotic women though intelligent women.

DR. NIGHTMARE: What are you hoping to get out of these sessions and procedures?

DO: I just seek to be happy again. That is all I ask. That is all I want.

DR. NIGHTMARE: Well this concludes our interview, Mr. Nino. I will run to the lab and decipher you
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2020
call it culture... call it: kul-toor... something "cool"...
i've just drank a bottle of wine and
i'm far from... feeling an armchair moment
of enjoying: whatever it is i'm supposed to enjoy...

millenial woes...
        h3h3... the whole list... it's really your standard
packet of pork chops...
i would be much prouder if i were...
adamantly watching an english soap-opera...
at least that sort of "consumering" makes
it to a pub quiz status... the trivia the knowledge:
the machine gun and blank stares:
who's who?

      but i have comes across the concept
of ASMR...
                       insomnia dalmation barking
in swiss...
i was... once upon a time:
  told to listen to some Max Richter...
      i still much prefer christopher young's
hellraiser II: hellbound soundtrack...
i've been buthering that soundtrack for almost
forever... and the "problem of counting sheep":
i imagine myself making a chicken...
into a soup from the torso - intricate bones
of the spines...
   perhaps the wings... then leaving
the ******* for a roullade: or schnitzels...
and the quarters (thighs and legs)... well...
that's just another dinner... probably roasted...

counting sheep: can it be called:
shooting ducks?
              ASMR... cringe videos of whispering...
who pays...
when there's that full package available
with the bulgarian women... the dimmed lights...
once a year... perhaps once every two or three...
but of course... i check on myself daily:
whether all this drinking and all that smoking
is true: that it might lead one to a limb-****
bashing... day in day out like someone checking
their blood sugar or their blood pressure...
i check mine...
                        
        culture: ketchup...
           a clean and easy throne of thrones affair...
the no. 1, 2 and 3... and then a baptism in
the shower...
                most of the time i pretend:
having wiped my ***...
            if "culture" / ketchup is this bad...
the next best thing? ******:
                  becoming a **** flinging monkey!

busy as busy comes...
when was the last time it rained in england?
april was when i witnessed the spike of oddities...
it was sunny: so much so that you could
turn sunlight into a liquid and drink it:
like a schnapps...
     the bewildering concept of the english garden...
when... the garden is rarely used...
to b.b.q. like an australian:
   etc.
                 but the neighbour put up a fence
after 15 years of "politics" and now
i am working on putting apart the old shed
and putting up the new one...
          
ASMR... that kite is flying and i just want
to cut its umbilical chord...
and send a message in a bottle... thrown...
into something as static as a big chemical-puddle...
in a mini "bottle"... the message being written
in braille and itching on nail's head...
like a Gustav Dore etching...

                              something: spectacular...
        this that or the other... something spectacular...
like a phoneline... all calls from india
and from a call-centre...
                     thank god this canvas is "meine sprechen"...
spectacular" unwinding in how pedagogy
is a memory acid... someone comes along:
we, write - alt. "grammar"...
           no need - or need...
                      rules like gravity: never mind!
rules like: how to tie a tie: never mind!
      we make up as we go along...
***** spirit: yo'go!
               astounding my disbelief...
                 such rules when asked:
  could, extend... toward... the schizoid cipher?
        nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
bad grammar is one thing: speaking in metaphors
and crosswords: only the zodiac could:
with that splinter of ego and a hacking:
of brain as woo woo wood woody chen.

                to have went to school for the sole reason
that: one weren't born in the victorian
era and being a chimney-sweep!
   better have dumbed down and taught
to stack supermarket shelves:
while also being taught that...
   and... wanting to read in your spare time...

to see... a cohort of peacocks strutting like
geeese... tails folded.
                
    for lack of a better choice of words:
hit & miss... hit & run...
             if this was as easy as getting:
what walt whitman got...
             or didn't get...
                   bad grammar is good grammar:
a bit like arithmetic: 3 + 15 = 19!
or... the science of: guess...

                scratch of the head:
perhaps i'm an apostate catholic...
a proselyte veering toward... digging under
judaism is a pitiable reading of the qabbalah...
the good catholic boy'oh with his credo,
his litany of ave marias and unser vater...
     in conversation with hey'zeus: ihre vater...

                  noster pater: pater noster...
                    vester pater: pater vester...

to be so: "shielded"... a belief matching up
to prayer beads...
to actual prayer... and all that... cognitive free-space
to boot!
i'm a bad atheist: at inception...
or is that the "un" conversion?
to gravitate filling nothing with a self,
a mirror and smoking a cigarette infront of it...
it's not enough...
that i do not pray: doesn't excuse the fact
that... i'm squeezed by an octopus in a straitjacket...
to think of god: existent or non-,
            it's hardly concerning myself with:
objective reality objective truth or objective
morality...
               pass as a ghost in this life...
a tomb of body in the waiting: to admire sparrows
is to also pay very little due for
opera... the timing is crucial... or not...

   concern oneself with comparisons...
to truly appreciate a sparrow singing...
is to stand stark naked in a garden...
to truly appreciate an opera...
is to don the tux... and play the vanity game
and the game of voyeurism...
same old same old:
same book: different cover...

                     new atheism: no god...
yes... but still that funnel argument of: no god...
if a funnel is the hearing-aid of Pascal...
i bet it is...
                  bad grammar was one thing...
but the proof of solipsism?
farting in a crowded place...
and being the only person who wouldn't
mind the mild: overstated "nuance"
of exploring perfumes that...
better suit... the decomposition of
strawberries and apples...

cezanne... had he painted still life...
yes... at that moment of "death"...
recycling vector (0, 0, 0) when the fruits
in still life have reached the nadir...
but the form is still intact... etc.

                      to be a catholic or...
but to be an atheist: and have one's prayers
"stolen" and replaced with...
at best: the prefix omni- and a geometry...
to have one's prayers "liberated"
by the thought-glutton of existence or non-,

chowhound: chew-fiend...
best of all... no teeth, not tongue...
no tapeworm of oesophagus inverted:
umbilical chord "gizmo" replica...
no stomach no **** bishop "pomp & circumstance"
and the **** the crown...

so much for praying: praying could be recovered
from...
but to have one's thinking occupied so?
it's beside the psalm of the Pascal wager...
to think:
             ut cogito... the act, itself...
so much for: ego cogito...
                    
                         to think: no therefore...
is... to...             what?               be?
how many times i have found thinking to be
a **** manual... thinking at times frees...
but most of the time: reality-checks...
contrains... and obliterates prospects...
then again: that wouldn't be concise enough
to be given either noun or verb status concerning:
the...                zone rouge...

to think: is and isn't:
     otherwise... a statement... of exasperation...
that has no compensation
in a translation of: thought = being...
i think is hardly a cornerstone...
it's a stone... a stone among rubble...
a good... revisionist: again!
   this... "i" and this "think"...
                      
and overstated fact guarded by:
a pronoun invocation...
          but: to think...    what's that?
to think is... what?
           to conjure up a soul...
and all the hallucinations to boot?
to think is to... what?
in the future: the lost participle of present...
and the past tense being:
nothing more than a mongrel
of journalism... history and... perhaps...
poo'etry?

             no... there's absolute no need to make
of h'americans for their secular shortcomings...
but there's just the Salem...
and those stickers... parental... guidance...
necessary...
                        oath words like: i... **** i swear...
the church the tele-evangelical:
spit *** sooner pit of...
                    if i had my way with
the mid-west... sooner i: deer-hunter...

so much for the catholic boy: prayer, duty...
and so much for the atheisst "i":
who eats all my thought: the θ(ought)
conundrum... perhaps it's a moral question
too... perhaps...

   to think: thought: ought i?
lucky for me...
my body is a shadow and my shadow is thought...
and i forget what's a crowd-pleaser and
what will allow me to sentence to grief: less and less...
and less...
ah! to think: ought i? ergo:
qua: non-qua
                             vel: non-qua: qua...

i waited for rain... i waited for rain...
i finally found joy in rain...
i also found a lisp of scotland...
many a mile before edinburgh was reached...

up and along the swing...
to swing so high... but to also sulk so low...
at least the catholics and those other
pseudo-italians are just: god-****! predictable!
backwards... introspective:
that the orc started to trend on twitter...
where is Mordor? east...
i usually conjure up the russians and
the slavs: well... given that russia is mostly
conjured up into breath by
mongol mongrels - anything of russian
envy east of moscow?

kazakhstan?!

         i'm no freer from "god" as either
atheist or catholic...
sure... i don't have to pay duty for and excuses
mumling credo under my
"knowledge" of soul: the breath...
but something is still eating my thought:
it doesn't exactly care whether it exists
or whether it doesn't...
the best argument i'll have to borrow...

si dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer...
if god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him;
i too wish it would be done: the easiest -
to simply not think of him...

a cul de sac of arguments for my liking:
it's a plughole...
a bathtub full of water...
and the waterline is diminishing...
that will still not make me more
"believable" should i succumb to pray...
the worst aspect of h'america is
not the gluttony...
it's the evengelical zeal... then again:
i'm also wondering how this
is to escape me...
dilute itself into the readily available air...
fizzle out...
like a bottle of caronated water...
left open... till the carbon mingling within
a ******* of oxygen twins...
goes-bye-bye:

  when the first h'americans took to tourism
via pulp fiction: about le bib mac...
and fries served up with a dollop of mayo -
alt. - to home run: score...
zoid ist tod! zoid ist tod!

                 the prayer manual worth of god...
gone... dusted... the moths are settling...
and the spiders too...
              but the thinking loose skin...
"   " and what was missed bound to
a "malapropism" -
             hyper-inflated dyslexia...
       because learning grammar sentences you:
to that ode for the dickensian
chimney-sweeper!
  
                the misnomer... and the malapropism...
a debate: no... it's not a pun...
the peacock is loitering...
bad gwammar doth not:
fizzle out to faze him...
            
                yep... one of those internet ketchup
        moments...
to be "commited": pride and dignity...
performing a karaoke of harakiri...
                high-brow ambitions...
that: pride... and dignity... revenge... say what?!

salt is salty: no... salt is salt...
sugar is sweet: true... because:
you can't exactly....
              sugar is: sweet...
but sugary? unlike salt: there's no salty...
    sugar... sugary...
           salt: salty...
                    sugar is sweet...
but: sweety? an endearment?
sugary: taste the difference?
granuled... powder... syrop prone?
salt is salty: no... salt is salt...
sugar is sugary: no... sugar is sugar...

                                             blah blah...
and thank god no one has the time
and... concern for a capacity of minding...
such details... of obscurity...
better equipped:
a plumber with a blockage of a pipe...
than me... teasing at etymology...

life is: the bore of the precursor of time:
eternal time...
           forever is hardly a wait...
no amount of solipsism could ever solve...
the stage the sycophancy:
i ask: the solipsist and the sycophant
the same question:
what's the answer... when no question
is being aksed?
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2022
502 bad gateway bypass...
title: shattering of stone
body:
in the rubble: a mountain could
be found;
as might be suggested...
given enough time and there's plenty
of it, as there is of space...
the now known deserts of the world...
were once great mountain ranges...
the ancient Egyptians even tried
to replicate this truth by erecting pyramids...
as if implying: look! look!
there were once mountains here!
now! there's nothing but sand!
how the gods, grunted at the idea of mountains
in what is not Sahara... fickle creatures
like the creatures they created are...
who knows... perhaps there will one day
be the desert of Himalaya...


i felt it coming at me like a freight train...
i was going in for work sharp...
woke up at 6am, had a coffee and ate the prepared
bun with pickles and liver pate...
but couldn't finish it... drank a coffee and smoked
a cigarette... had a shower, pampered myself
with about 7 different pampering products...
usually i'm obviously to how i smell like...
but on the bus i could quiz myself:
who here smells like soap and who here smells
like either stale bread or a curry / eggs?
that's the 86 route for you...
it's the immigrant bus... and... funnily enough...
i'm an immigrant myself... although...
it's different when you come to foreign shores
aged 8... and thrown into the education system
rather than bypass all that jazz & enter the work
force... by immigrant status i'm a veteran of sorts...
by 7am the pains and spasms in my abdomen were
becoming excruciating... i could feel
a plug-hole of a **** building up...
      like a bear before retiring to hibernation...
i wouldn't be able to just simply, **** this plug-hole
of a **** out before or on the job...
why? because there would be more to come...
dizzying effects of focus...

i was nervous... she said she would be coming to
do a shift today... who? Jeminah...
she sent me a text telling me how anxious she was...
i figured... the best... blatant: covert question
would be... you worried the trains are not working?
oh... you can get the 86 bus... the tube might be open...
pulling a long long stick...
a lever even... something Archimedes would
use to lift a mountain off the ground...
she felt anxious... oh... because of those two storms?
Eunice - the worst for 30 years...
red weather alerts? you worried about that?
i was seriously stroking a massive bear silly...
she felt anxious for all the reasons i wanted her
to feel anxious about...
n'ah... the way to get to the venue wasn't on her mind...
neither was the weather...
she was found out... she didn't want to be in
the company of the other girls...
and because i put my foot down:
this is getting silly... i'm not going to get blamed
for your son's and her son's friendship fallout...
telling the truth...
    what a recurrent theme with me these days...
well... at least its not a soap opera style of
a multiverse of competing dramas...
there's only one... and i'm fortifying myself with
all the right answers... i need to play this out
like an opera... petty **** that can grow and grow like
that must be explored from many angles...
down the line...

she didn't show up... the other two girls involved
acted slightly funny... she must have passed on
my Pontius Pilate messages: i'm washing my hands clean
of the matter... you girls created this issue...
you sort it... those two boys are not falling out
over something their mums did...

handshakes all round... two clingers...
one ****** with a nervous tick but one guy with
cerebral palsy... well... oddly enough...
having been a recluse for almost a decade...
i have managed to surprise myself by fitting the role
of a people person... i don't know where i was storing
this confidence... self-assurance... stoic silence...
i don't feel the need to talk unless talked to...
sure... i might say an anecdote or two:
how Millwall fans at Fulham told me a joke
about a West Ham player who's fond of kicking
cats... cat lives matter...

the shift itself... West Ham are back to their usual
antics of not respecting lesser opponents...
Newcastle are on a campaign trail to survive
in the Premier League... two of their best players weren't
playing: yet they still managed to draw 1 - 1...

who do you think are going to fall?
i says: Burnley had it coming for the past two years...
yeah... Watford is a boomerang team...
one season on the Premier level...
the next on the Championship level...

seems i can have much fun with people,
whether coworkers or the actual public...
the freaks among the coworkers follow me like
dogs, while the public?

an old lady wanted me to use her camera to take
photographs with the West Ham mascots:
some bear mascot was first, then Harry the Hammer...
i had to tap Harry's shoulder when a father asked me
to call him back while he moved along the stand
so he could go back and have a photograph taken
with his kid: so heavily padded he almost didn't feel
my touch...
but he went back...
then that retired police officer that took my side
when some busy-body ***** of a: not my supervisor
kept on demanding i put on a face mask...
that infernal: secular niqqab...
the retired police officer noted: he's distraught...
**** the club: if they can think they can get away
imposing their own rules: all staff must wear ******
coverings... this busy-body even said:
i don't you not covering your nose...
so, what then? my chin is capable of breathing?!
scale of escalation... the from me to the supervisor
to the busy-body third part...
the ex-police officer used the hypothetical
argument: but i have a deaf person, friend,
sitting next to me: he needs to lip read...
how is he going to read my instructions if he can't
see my mouth...
and then... well... i wasn't bothered...
wearing these nappies always brings back
memories of my grandfather's funeral...
he was a big deal in a small-town where i was
born... a foreman in the metallurgy industry...
he knew a lot of people...
but how many showed up to his funeral?
not even the half that i'd have expected...

we kept chatting... my supervisor later came up
and asker me... so...   ?!
oh... you know, we just talked about life...
his father was a widower... living in Cornwall...
he used to get free grub from the local (pub),
but when the pandemic hit...
he lost all WILL to live...
and me says: you know how people say that
you can die from a broken heart,
i guess you can also die from being denied
WILL... we agreed... we shook hands about x3...
like a post-scriptum he asked me for my name
and i asked for his... Mark...
now living in East Sussex... but originally from
Dartford...

Mark said he had thick skin... and i told him...
your eyes are watering... i don't believe it...
looking at them feels like watching a very bountiful
aquarium... you're not going to fool me mate...
life... plus, it's not against the law to not wear
the *****... as i later said:
now you get to see who the people with OCD
and the hypochondriacs are...
yeah: it feels weird... i'm walking around without
the "*****" while my wife is still paying
servitude to outlaw rules...
but if they want to... why deny them the right...
sure sure...

but i had to use a member of the public
to infiltrate the hierarchy on the job...
he used the proper arguments... i was just thinking:
perhaps people just want to see my face...
recognise it... see ****** expressions...
after all: we've been playing a game of pretending
to be Muslim women for two years...
how about we start playing hide & seek once more?

what happened later... the curiosity of the children...
i looked at them, smiled, they smiled back...
they felt so comforted... they felt like:
well... thank god this cubist-esque freak-show is
running and hiding... little girls, little boys...

like i told Mark: but the young 'ung suffered... too...
you need to see people faces,
i might have slouched with the expression
of "****** recognition"... but expressions matter...
you sometimes have to out the tongue to the face...
you want to see someone laugh,
at ease... nowhere near the culture & the people
of Afghanistan... this might have to be the building
block of the supposed "great" restart...
seeing people's faces...
esp. when it comes to children...
they want to see faces they can trust...

but it's outright blatant...
i'm not going to make a comparison between
The Beatles "vs." The Rolling Stones...
for me it always been
Bruce Springsteen "vs." Chris Rea...
no... can't choose...
who the **** do i couple Bob Dylan with?
i'm currently sipping some whiskey while
in the company of ol' Bruce...
ah... Bob Dylan vs. Tom Waits...
        Tommy 'ol boyo...
                    live circus... going out west (live)...
Tom Petty though...

there was one expulsion... a ginger she-male...
all the fans were laughing: don't give her out...
the SIA guys were playing gorillas while
i was on my break... putting my hand on the shoulder
of the hurt party... calm... calm... you ginger ostrich...
stop pandering to the parade of:
already lost teenage hormones...
it sort of worked... i giggled... and no one
became involved... i chewed on my gum like i
like might have been found chewing on a broomstick
or a horses' mane...
i chewed so hard until my jaw hurt...

Tom Waits - going out west (live)...
now we're talking...
prior to Prince dying: you had not access to
songs like Party-man... Trust... all copyrighted
material... yeah.... but i own the best of CD...
why can't i stream it?!
oh, right... he's dead... free-for-all...
free meat for the crows...

why oh why would someone walk up to me
and ask to take a selfie with me?
yeah... this American accented dude...
i watched him through the second half...
off his nuts...
but at half time he walks up to me and asks...
can i take a selfie with you?
sure... weird...
am i famous?! or am i just ****** approachable...
all the other stewards are like bricks in
a mountain: but mountains don't have bricks...
or they're over-anxious busy bodies...
it's like people never learned their NVQ training...

safety, security, service....
the service part is the building part...
you pass off being attired in safety / security tactics...
but... service comes first...
you talk, you interact... you learn to be human...
one year of this, before i ask for being given references...
that's when i'll work toward looking toward a more
permanent employment as a chemistry
teacher... even though... scribbling this sort of *******:
i'd love to become an English teacher...
ha ha... an English teacher... even though i'm not
English...

i need the references... working with my father in
roofing... no, can, do...
they don't want familial ties in references...
one year... i'd still do these gigs on the weekend...
but one year...
you get a chance to deal with a football crowd...
you got a belt... when it might come to dealing
with a classroom of rowdy children...
like Louis XIV stated... it's the trick of the eye...
look the authoritative type...
there's nothing more to it...

then these three supporters at the front...
when they first started singing the song for the cat-lives-matter
footballer who was more into... kicking
cats than a football... how did the lyrics go?
almost Dr. Seuss...
he kicks with his right foot... he kicks with his
left foot... i pursed my lips... i tried to cover my
face with my hand... all the while trying to as
instructed: not taking sides... not showing emotions...

but their remarks came fast... i must have looked
interesting...
so where are you from?
Russia? guess again... Ukraine? nope...
Czech Republic? nope... ******! yep...
but i've been living here since the age of 8...
and i'm 35...
have a nice life: she said... one of them was
ginger... presuppositions of Irish... the beard was
pulled... oh my god, the girl looked proper, proper,
drunk...
i went on a break... i came back:
oh! he's back! you know you're the only one
without a hood on! all the other stewards...
the guy who's usually here is somewhat asleep
while prying open his phone...
where's your pancho against the rain?
oh... i gave it to a spectator... blah blah...

point being... i was actually waiting for her...
Jeminah... all the time... she didn't show up...
i've just received a text from her...
what is... drotaverini hydrochloridum?
i had to take it today...
a rubric of buzzwords...
it sells alongside suggestions akin to the morning-after
pill...

well, it will be a rubric of buzzwords...
i had to take some pills for the cramps in my stomach...
it just felt like one of those Sprintsteen,
Chris Rea, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty sort of nights:
when you feel nervous about thinking bout
a girl while simultaneously feeling nervous
about taking a ****... so you feel like taking a ****
at 7am but delay it to until 5pm... 6pm...
because the girl's easting away at your mind...
you're getting cramps in your abdomen
like you you're about to do a clown trick
with balloons turning them into theoretical poodles...
because you just love the girl:
you just love the girl...
she might be a single mother, she might think
she's a woman... but she's just a girl to you...
even though you're not her father...

oh right... the buzz... words... as someone who studied
chemistry i should know what drotaverini hydrochloridum
is... it's for the abdomen cramps...
for: i ought to have taken a ****...
but here's me stalling...
will she, will you come?
DROVATERINE....
an antispasmodic drug...
   used to enhance cervical dilation during child-birth...
i'm giving birth: to a feeling...
i think i'm in love... she's all anxious...
Bruce's: Maria's Bed... yeah... i'm on that same page
in this story...
esp. noted use in Asia and Central Europe...
i'll be lazy: i'll cite it verbatim:
it's structurally related to papaverine,
is a selective inhibitor of phosphodiesterase 4
and has no anticholinergic effects...

the way i see it... i'm giving birth to love....
i want her fat **** to sit on my face...
sorry... what?!
i'm being absolutely serious...
just looks up the article on Anticholinergics...
i don't have a womb...
but i have a heart that seems to have
sunken into the levels of the intestines...
while i get all spaghetti tangles
for brains...
i'm in love... i can't help it...
she a cougar red head... a deep red...
a mahogany red...
i can't stop thinking about her...
it's exactly impossible to live:
without having to think about her...
anxious cluck by cluck...
if she's not going to abide by failures in life
then... no... life's not worth living without her:
when she's at her pinnacle of failure...
let me pick her up...
let's pretend there's an old world
worth looking at... that there might be a world war
in the theatre... none of these proxies in
the H'American department of... up-keeping
hard-ons and kaleidoscope coyotes...
now for the text messages... why weren't you around?!

i wrote this yesterday, i went downstairs for sone grub
because i couldn't fall asleep...
my mother came down... saw me in my TOMBSTONE
mode... drunk... what? you want me to punch
myself in the face? lucky for her, lucky for me
i remained silent, because the night was silent...
she ****** off i ****** off... today i made mein vater
und mein mutter some ******
chicken broth with vermicelli...
all the usual suspects were used...
the leek, the parsley root, the carrot,
the garlic (skin on), the celery... chicken... d'uh...
although i didn't use the chicken *******...
that's going to be used for a curry...
  
and what are my other options? living alone?
paying rent to a landlord from hell?!
shame... sure... but the attic is full of clutter
and there is no basement...
plus i have a private library the deservedly might
need a proper: HEAVE! HEAVE!
50 oars...

i'm in love and not for all the right reasons...
if my youth took the route of an atypical man...
starting from 20 working my way up...
yeah... but i went mad at the age of 21...
******* invisible choir, great wind dispersing it...
psychiatry that tried to attempt its regression
tactics of implanting me with false memories...
giving me anti-psychotic drugs that fattened me up
until a nurse said:
you either loose weight... or you'll be put
on high-blood pressure tablets...
so... i bought a bicycle... lost 20kg... cycled off
into the sunset...
now... 35... years old... oh... look...
they're looking... they're actually interested...
the young girls have: "woken up"...
yeah... by now? i'm not interested...
i don't and i didn't pay much attention
to the game of genes... it's a fractional impossibility...
unless you're cloning yourself...
by the time you're a grandfather...
only a quarter of you remains...
  why bother with the argument?
        it's silly...Darwinistic unrealism has always been
a thorn in my side...
eh?                            my genes have my consciousness?
i'm... translatable to future generations?
sure... but they can't be my own...
why would i be interested in young girls...
if things worked out for me like they might have
worked out for other men...
a walking *****... and spare parts of monetary dough...
i never wanted to make money...
i took the principle left around for others to see...
between the aesthetic and the ascetic...
well... St. Francis of Assisi...
other men in my position: who have hungered and
been left out in their 20s... now in their 30s can have
their comeback...
their revenge... me? i'm trying to court
a woman 4 years older than me... with a boy
that's 11 years old...
i said: bully them into teaching your German...
you know, it's the mother tongue of English...
grammatically the two languages are very much
aligned... Fredrick... "bully" them into making
you learn Deutsche... i said BULLY i implied:
persuade... do i need to use sign language...
finally... though... a third head on the Hydra...
if i had a little Frankenstein in my possession...
i could be learning Deutsche proper with him....
a youngling like that... sponge for brains...
maybe i could teach him some of my ****** zunge...
wow... no no... that's the whole point of turning
toward art... by 35 i could have been earning
100+ £... yawn... no, truly...
playing this to-and-fro with younger girls
because i now might have status...
not much fun... to be exacting...
single mum... problems at school...
you should learn German rather than French...
he understood it splendidly...

             just you wait... i'll get him into modern German
folk music... did i buy her off with my homemade wine
and him with my own made banana loaf with hazelnuts?!
here's to me!
salute!

              - on these isles for most of my life...
35 - 8 = 27... twenty-seven ******* years!
and no chance at a pluck at the Rose...
up north she was giving it up to grooming gangs
from Pakistan... down south...
shy ******* nunnery: "all of a sudden"!
but now... ah... this... hybrid of Scotch and English
stock... i'm shuddering... i'm still getting these
cramps in my abdomen that says:
you have a womb... what?! i'm transgender?!
what the ****?!

that's why i didn't want to earn money...
well... it's not that i didn't want to...
you see what happens when you go mad aged
21... and how you figure things out...
at least now i'm not a target...
i don't have anything to offer expect for...
knowledge...
it's a blessing...
since... it's hardly what any woman wants...
women tend to want only their own advice...
they conjure this advice like witches conjure up...
perhaps the rosemary herb
goes well with lamb... but like the Turkish
broads suggested... but if you add it to beef...
oh! mein! gott! the Turkish lavash!
with that red onion & parsley roughage of
a side salad... mouth-watering stuff...
i don't really need to see the competitive hard-on
of whatever Sultan to counter the Hagia Sophia...
just that beef lavash...
and yes, you'd be wrong... English cheddar
works just as well...

but... i'm no Frank O'Hara... there's no qualm in
me about not being a painter...
why i'm not a painter translates to me as:
why am i not a painter?
i abhor colours... well... i like some more than
others... the amber and the auburn...
the greens... whiskey... autumn...
but when it comes to movies?
i prefer them to be black & white... less strain
on the eyes...
if images are moving? black & white...
sure... no one is expected to paint in black & white...
like no one is expected to write in
rainbow hieroglyphics... i can stand for an hour
beside a colour painting...
it doesn't move, i don't move...
time, the world: moves...
fair enough...
but colour-riddled movies?
a strain on the eyes...
    why am i not a painter?
                     why am i not a narrator?!
i'm clearly neither... what's the middle ground?
priest? psychiatrist? *******... poet?!
oh you have to be choking me to make me joke...
let alone laugh... but i'm not rhyming...
but there was a time and a place
when people identified this art with
a need for mathematics... measure... ticture...
rhyme... music...
like **** that's happening now: proper...

- perhaps it's not painting, i think it;s painting,
perhaps lacking in colour, perhaps lacking in contorts..
in shapes, in disguises...
what? no traffic light: goes green?
no traffic light remains red?
no middle ground for the amber?
no cyclist prepped to be the shepherd of traffic?
to leech onto a truck where he might be
visible... to orientate the roundabout congestion?
no one, ever, minded, this?!
before moi!
           oh... what shame... what utter shame...
we were supposed to help each other out...
not be these... petty demigods...
silly ******* idiots...

             i might have to reiterate my stance...
she's giving me the love-ups making me feel like a woman...
i'm getting cramps in my abdomen...
sure... i ought to have taken a **** 7 hour prior...
but i keep it in... like a bear about to hibernate:
a plug-hole ****...

- anticholinergic agent are substances that block the action of the neurotransmitter called acetylcholine (ACh) at synapses in the central and peripheral nervous system...

-  anticholinergics are divided into two categories in accordance with their specific targets in the central and peripheral nervous system and at the neuromuscular junction: antimuscarinic agents, and antinicotinic agents (ganglionic blockers, neuromuscular blockers...

she says she's anxious... i'm nervous too!
i'm getting cramps in my stomach...
i'm giving birth to love...
i want access to her son... i want to learn Deutsche
with him... is that too much to ask?
i don't have the sort of money
to access younger, fertile, girls...
i'm left with single mothers... MUFFAS...
oh... she's rounded... like the earth ought to be...

i'm still shy on one reply...

Apologies for the lateness of this message, came home and "had to", i.e. wanted to make some Silesian gnocchi with beef in a dill and a horseradish sauce... cooking for three, it takes time, then I fought up on some footie... was soaked at West Ham, but it was a good shift.... so what happened to you? Weren't you supposed to come? I found out late that the tube was working, managed to use it on the way back... so what happened? What were you anxious about? The bad weather the day before? I took a walk for a newspaper when the storms hit... it was almost fun-windy... at one point I stood rooted in one place for about 3sec being unable to move... the winds almost roared, i even stopped listening to music on my headphones as I listened to the wind whizz by and ruffle the trees... sort of like ASMR but with a loud speaker... I imagined the wind ruffling the trees like someone brushing their hair on an ASMR video... you feeling better though, yes? You doing Fulham this week?

but we're talking about a psychotic girl...
one layer of narrative against another...
she might as well conjure up
a missing 13 year old cousin
to just test you...
thar's how it works...
this reality, this ugly "thing"...
and the deviances of how much
i want to sleep with her...
there... i said it... beautiful view.
Onoma May 2019
her asmr

serpentine

writhe passes

thru

my listening

with no ears.

her

every and no

move.

registers.
Reece Oct 2013
Oh such lonesome lives in the west
When the sunshine stings bleary eyes
and telephones receive no calls
How does one survive in the city
When the angular buildings suppress creativity
and free-thought is despicable

See the man, laying in bed for days at a time
With ASMR videos playing on a smartphone propped against a pillow
and his arm draped over that pillow, imagining a body
Bob Ross love affair, the television drones
Each night spent alone, praying for passion, or acceptance, or anything
and joyous noise when paintbrushes glide evenly

A collective of poets, posing as one man
Fraudulent minds, each with distinctive style
and all with crooked broken teeth
Trumpets in the jukebox, cat-calls in the world
Outside the window children are playing
and he cries, for the years are growing weary

She peels skin from her fingernails, mindless on morning commutes
He stares from bus stops, train stations and runways
and never blinking, never blinking, never blinking
The intrinsic value of repetition falling short of artistry
Given that metal machines are perpetual
and when the crow lands on fences in the morning dew,
there is no more life in Ironville, not for me, not for you
You're the Apple of my eye, the laces of my shoes, the breath of calm after an anxiety attack or heavy cry. You're the hand on my leg telling me I'm safe, the magnet which magnetised the needle in my homemade compass. You're the net of a dreamcatcher, the final **** after a long and exhausting hunt. You're the sensation of being warm and naked after a cold and wet day out in the snow, you're the report card with straight A's. You're there toe beans of a cute cat and the contagious laughter of a newborn too naive to realize that everyone in the room is only laughing because they keep laughing harder, the positive feedback loop exhausted by cheeks too tired to smile and a diaphragm too used to move.

The sensation of being tucked in, but not too tight. The phenomenon of waking up in your bed because you passed out on the couch and your dad carried you in.

You're the dream where you fall in love and everything is perfect and great, but when you wake up you carry over that charm into your day to day life and everything starts to go your way. You're the fortune cookie with a fortune of the numbers 3,4,8,17,20,26,38,48,70 and the phrase saying "your long held-onto grievances will vanish soon, you will find your peace."

You are the learning, growing pupil of the Master of the Way. You are the concept of fairness and rightfulness, of non-ownership and laissez-faire government and home. You are the beacon, cooking a warm meal at the stove, so tuned into her world. You are the day dream, where the ordinary melts and the extraordinary takes over our surroundings and enchants our creativity while boosting and fanning that little flame in our hearts that keeps us going.

You are the first kiss of morning, with morning breath so stagnant from an unexpected ****** release at 4 am and an explosion of positive neurotransmitters, the development of trust in each other's arms. You are the attempt to synchronize heartbeats in a very tight spooning position. You paint the image of our energies moving in complex shapes before entering the other, circling inside and maturing, then entering back into the other. The ouroboros of emotion and trust and love.

You're what I see when I close my eyes, and you're what I want to see when I open them. You're the concept of someone I can truly let be. The independent, growing college girl with her whole life adventure ahead of her.

You're the angel on my shoulder which speaks to me words of reason and progress and helps me ignore this rotten goblin on the other shoulder. You're the voice I hear say "I really like them, honestly," when I see tracers in my vision.

You're a lighthouse in my mind. One safe thought, one place I can escape to for safety. But that's not really you, it's just my concept of you and my memories. But sometimes just that thought is enough to fuel it, because I'll be thinking of you more than I actually see you and I need to find the best way to deal with both.

I don't want to put you on some unreasonable pedestal and I don't think I have. I only truly mean like a third of what I said about the poetic "you are"s, because it would be unreasonably romantic to truly believe most of that. But I believe it in spirit and that's what matters.

You're the voice whispering me to sleep, and the reason I don't always have to wear ear plugs any more. You're the person I imagine running their fingers up my arms and into my hair when I watch ASMR vidoes. You trigger my ASMR and almost no one before you has been so successful in doing so. My body responds to you naturally in burst and quivers of euphoria and satisfaction, the curiousity of how you can pleasure and tingle me and how I can please you.

Rubbing your back and shoulders, popping your back ever so slightly, exploring the surface of your skin in every area. I want to learn and map your topography and dimensions and watch those change gradually over time as you mature into this yogi goddess with such a brain it's astounding.

You inspire me. You're such a hard worker and you're so much further than your circumstances could have put you. You're so strong Zo. Even if you feel like you're breaking sometimes, you're handling the pressure better than I ever could.

I'm grateful for my time with you, but I'm even more grateful for the peace you've helped bring to my tumultuous mind.

I hope you're getting just the most wonderful sleep. Dreaming of forgotten kindoms, songs never heard, places and euphorias never felt or synchronized with. You're a good person.
Thanks for putting up with my *******.
You make me feel like I'm in some fantasy sometimes. A story book with fairies and some perfect ending or no ending.
Collaborate on a spotify playlist that will play on shuffle in my casket after I go.
I want you to add songs you want me to feel the radio signals of.
We know we feel music with a fifth sense,
A full body ASMR tingle
Whispers of russian woman fixing our robot parts.
Well I can't hear you, speak, move or eat
But bones vibrate to soundwaves just the same.
Give my casket the best **** bass you can find.
Bass that will wake the dead.
Rattle me like an instrument the way you plucked strigs while we were alive
You have control over what i hear after I go
So you may play me music beautiful as we played in the space between our fingertips

Play spotify in my casket
Only you and those i trust have access to adding songs.

But don't add garbage music.
Because I swear, I will haunt you.
Qynn Sep 2017
I listen to the voices of other men.

They tell me that I am a goddess,
worthy of all the love and lust in the world.

I listen to the music of their voices on repeat
artificial, prerecorded sweetness and affection.
Adoration and attention.
Sometimes dusted with lust.

Words that no longer come
from my own lover's lips.
kenzo Jul 2014
Cigarette to her cherry chap stick coated lips again.
She keeps on smoking them saying she doesn't care if she dies, yet she's discreetly afraid of death.
She knows she should probably get off her *** and get a job, but she'd rather listen to the same song over and over and day dream about ******
scenarios.

She'd rather stay up late at night writing and wake up at 3, majority of her day already wasted. Downing coffee and telling herself that she'd wake up
early one day to greet the sun and admire it's beauty but reality devoured her, and she's under her sheets sleeping with her breast pressed against
her cream colored silk sheets.
She fell asleep watching asmr videos, too much of a baby to try astral projection and her window is wide open, bugs with wings flying in her room but yet she doesn't care, she likes the feeling of the cold wind on her legs.
Oh, how she wishes she were in a field somewhere, holding hands with another male or a female that loves her back as much as she loves them. She wishes that whoever loves her would lift up her skirt and lick their fingers after they venture down her legs and inside the blooming flower so many individuals have been trying to deflower.

Rolling naked in the grass, smiling, laughing.
She wants to look deep into someones eyes, not uttering a word, just in silence smiling. She wants to tuck their hair behind their ear, she wants to feel the heat of another person up against her, or the simple pads of anothers fingers cupping her breast. She longs for someone to touch her, yet she's
afraid of being touched. She's afraid of men, she's afraid of many things.

Her picky self thinks she see's the good in people yet they expose their true
colors she were too blind to see. She's so naive. Letting her thoughts unravel her like a Christmas ribbon, placing acid tabs under her tongue, smoking more ****, and drinking too much.
Anything to numb the fact that the ones she desire don't desire her, and the ones that want her she acknowledges, but simply picks up with the pile of clothes on her floor and shoves them in her drawers she keeps telling herself that she'd sort out.
An unorganized, mess.
Her room, her life. Everything.
Anais Vionet Sep 2022
It was Friday afternoon and we’re discussing weekend plans. “You know,” Anna said, introspectively, “we were different people last year. We (Sunny and Anna) went out both nights, Friday and Saturday - for weeks. We got a taste for it, we were absolutely feral.
“True,“ Sunny admitted, “but we were high school nerds, we had to go a little crazy.”
“I can’t imagine going to the frats this year.” Anna said, with a quiver of revulsion. “Not that we’re living the nun-life, exactly.”
“Not exactly,” Sunny confirmed with a chuckle.

In fact, it’s been very quiet in our dorm suite recently. We’ve been ASMR-ing 24x7 and I have to say I like it - there really is something pinequal about it. We’ll be on campus somewhere together talking very softly with our heads pressed together - we get looks - but we’re not the only ones - it’s a trend.

Another trending is “That’s why I’m the way I am” where you have to tell an off-beat story about your pre-college self - ending with “That’s why I’m the way I am.” All in whispers, of course.
We’re all sitting on floor pillows around a large, low rectangular coffee table where we usually study.

Leong, whispers, barely audibly, as we all lean-in and strain to hear. “One time, when I was playing softball in high school (this was in Macau, China), I got benched and I started planking on the bench in protest and somehow, the other girls thought it was hilarious and it started a trend at my school, of planking if you got benched or something and the school administration thought that attitude seditious and threatened to stop the playing of softball altogether if players didn’t behave. That’s why I’m the way I am”

I take up the game with “I had this evil French teacher in high school, Mrs. Chew. She hated me because she knew I didn’t have to try very hard in her class to get an “A”.
One morning, Mrs. Chew was being a real *****, and she asked whether I was dyslexic.”
“Well,” I answered, innocently, “I got into Yale.” (With an implied air of - “f*ck off”)
“That’ll be a lunch detention,” she said, one-upping me, it was unfortunate and tragic. That’s why I’m the way I am”

“I started this whole kerfuffle yesterday,” Sophy said, out of the blue, “by saying “THE” Ukraine.” “GOI,” I snapped, “THE United States!!” And I think I crushed THEM.
“Have you been spending time at the med school?” Lisa asked, “Did they give you something?”
“If so, share,” Anna laughed.

Leong gasped, “Did you guys hear that car last night, cruising back and forth by the dorm dubbing? The fricking stereo was bassquake - I was ready to **** by the time they drove away.” “Yeah,” we all groaned.
“Let's hope THAT doesn’t trend,” Leong added.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Kerfuffle :a fuss caused by a dispute
.
slang:
ASMR - (autonomous sensory meridian response) involves barely audible, whispered conversations, and other placid sounds like hair brushing, breathing or other soft sounds.
pinequal = oddly satisfying
GOI = get over it
dubbing = playing DUBs: B-sides of reggae songs, where they add effects or go instrumental.
bassquake = bass sound, from a car, so loud that it shakes the ground
Grace Jordan May 2017
Freedom feels like sore thighs and *** dreams, where the epicenter of forever lies in forgetting everything but now.
It makes you wonder sometimes if its just a sharper spike of ASMR or the tickling truths of your soul pricking you on the back of the neck, electrically, as you do all the things in the dark you only heard whispers of as a child.
But there's a real something about how a pair of tongues collide and a summer's day turns into a summer's night, where a young girl goes out to play but returns a grown woman back from partying with one hell of a bite.
How can't you feel like you're flying when just a little to the left and you're seeing starlight in broad day and all the lies you were told to protect your innocence, or womanhood, or whatever to protect the ego of elders and mortality hung over your education like a plague?
For me, I can't help but do the cliche bitten lip and think about all the words that jumble in my head to burn me up before bed.
Yet that fire, as I got older, became more wild and curious and burned without asking just starving for the answer to what was the surprise between my legs that was some sort of angelic kingdom to hide from the boys like they were pillagers and not people.
Funnily, I dragged some ****** boy into the fires and felt some expressive liberty I had never experienced, no one giving a **** about the **** in my head or the **** who I was, just ******* me.
My ****** renaissance led to a swift beheading of the boy, who to my knowledge has yet to grow into a man, yet that feeling of validating importance yet complete erasure of all of my fears and pains has made freedom one hell of a hot, three letter word.  
If I hold on tighter my fingertips feel grafted onto his skin, and without words or letters my whole universe has found some landing just from pleasure and a pinch.
If I kiss his lips and he smiles beneath, there's a roaring power of how letting him touch me brings my body the earth while also tossing it up like a kite, ready to fly the winds, for once careless.  
If my hair gets pulled a little harder I can nearly feel the Declaration of my ****** Independence on my lips and old society lady Great Britain scowling from its high castle, putting its hand together in judgmental prayer thinking it'll never last; I'll come back (I won't).
Freedom feels like forgetting to try to do anything right and ******* everything up, in the best and worst ways, only to come out strong and laughing and better than before.
Freedom is like *** because no one has the right to do anything to my body; not the educators who think I'm forever too young, not the boys who think my **** are rocking but don't know my name, not the parents who lock me up with a key only to find I was born to fit through the bars, not the girls who spell S-L-U-T like its their accusatory safe word against being alone in an unjust world, not anyone.
No one except the syllables between my lips and the brain behind the way I swing my hips, and they say: Hell Yes.
Onoma Jun 2023
the moon rolls around the

blood of her  children...

with the gleam & clawed beak

of a white owl's sudden

appearance.

far too ominous for even her

own rondure--she dispels

cackles of ambience.

a lesbian **** of Hecate-s licking

each other's menstrual blood.

wasting nothing on her forest

ground--always right there where

death faints.

never  paling before her own ritual--

she watches away with an eyeless

socket (the ASMR sounds of a snail).

the illusory gatekeeper of a colorless

black.

warming herself with the sense of

what is shed beneath her.
Ken Pepiton Apr 2023
Part 1.
Two stories warn sojourners away.

One claims it is a lie,
the other says that's true.

Loyal opposing view,
legally bound by noblesse oblige
and the ever with us, poor, survivors;

we carry on, wayward, in truth, living.

Outlaw and outcast, indentured
deportee, pioneer, settler
war-bred ordinary offspring,
reared rough
to be ready,
armed and ready,

"Big Iron on his hip" gunslinger ready.
Will to **** bred in, warrior stock ready.

The imaginary last days prophecy,
presented to me, sincerely,
sorry, hate to say it, but
you know you do not know these are
my grandchildren's last days, so
do not lie to them, if you cannot lie
to me and walk away thinking I believe
you.
- and ****** if the fool did not begin
- to preach, claim'that his call to us all.

Part 2.
So, quickly does the day arrive, blink.
You are old, and unfinished, incomplete.

Yet, your use of faith by reason is questioned.
Yet, your use of reason by faith is not.
aha
Aitia, we go back aways.
So, scatter-brained and indecisive
as to whether any remedy is worth the umph
to aim and follow through, the old man sighs.

So, squint-eye, slow-breathe, squeeze…

Richard Corey quiet desperation,
Freddie Nietzsche poor luck with the ladies,
Peace, be still.
Let loose, let go,  
confess to believing inspirations arrive on time.
Live now, pay later?
NO no no, now,
and ever
after, the power needed
to fill a cistern
to overflowing, let it rain,
is in the understanding wisdom brings,
for your use in getting the joke.
Right use, mind full, swept away asgone.
This is water. Fluid reality, specifically yours.
Zeus, Epimenides said, and Paul quoted,
in his Unknown God message, totally
in agreement, the entity
we describe as God, the way and life,
is this truth in which we live and breathe,
and have our being.

Part 3.
Information asymmetry

Stacked deck, loaded dice
- let this mind be in you -
Living stories told to hold us safe,
anchored on sound reason, solid

ever present memory, reminding us,
we, the raw material for future victory.

Fitting this military mind, reminding each
of others lost in past wars to end war,
and wars to secure trade
and wars to reset status quo, for a minute.

Then the spirit inspired to take and claim
beholder rights,
peace given to be taken as granted,
let it come upon this mindtimespace.
Beauty or the beast, attention paid
hook, look
beholds a prophet, professing ancient wit,
"hey, spirit in aspiration and inspiration,
prepare to meet thy maker, conspiring,
to settle the hot and cold front clashing
thunderous
grunts and groans,… Activa hits the gut.

Part 4.
Old,
old man,
old patterns matching

lining up to be one line atop
another
ever along the edge of both sides
-cave wall reality
flat
flat as Texas when the dust rises
reminding old wombed men of
flattering floral print flour sacks sewn

into everyday dresses nobody wore
to church.

Ever fills never with knowledge,
used to stretch the whole known
bubble of we, this observable realm
of ever changing never
remaining unchanging
while ever expands, changing
being the honest true umph
to now being after before,
morph into this moment,
in my future, you smile.

Commas cause breezes.
I rub my eyes, ideally virally dry

Part 5.
Jah,jah, joke's on me… I know, it's light.
Old man me, says he ain't poor,
he is dependent, and thus
depends,
swings as pendulum do, to and fro.

Test my best reaction time,
draw! Hour after hour, gain the fame,
- expertise
fastest cut, softest touch, listen, is it true?
Old knowns, trusted sources, bow before
the internetwork
of faithful textual search engines.
Fact checking. Pre-defining heresy, as
one such as I say the voice of truth, I hear

as may all actual others thinking thus old
yet, never ever dying ideas that ease,

Fret not. Perfected praise, from the child
in my son, speaking out, from my realm
of perfectly good reason to think we share
mindtimespace and often think together,
unwittingly, i.e. un with knowing how ness.

Lying saints, deceived disciples, cry heresy, blaming
God for all discrepancy
in the ever ready sponsoring
of the innocent and despondent.

Enter brown Franciscans, little grey Dominics,
flying nuns, and holy terror inquisitive tradition,
grace is not free, i.e., Jesus failed.

That's right, so, we had to fix the fools who said
truth known makes free, non free, oath bound minds, every child must pledge actual child
faith wise under God, as in, so, help me,
God is real in any American model child faith.
It don't matter
if every uttered word,
ever swept into a storm
of stories living long, longing
to be told
there's that temptation,
to be led away from,
rise on your own version
of the same truth told,
as all men do, we lie
say we deny the flesh and
feed not the pet lie, oath bound, we do.
We must, when we agree our bubble
becomes all the truth we feel kin'ly so's
to imagine Jesus did not finish destroying
the useless boogie men and witchery wombed men, evil manifested as war's own reason,
first child of pride, father's anointing oil, son.

Cast away your anxious mind, take a line, hold on.

Chreia, as you may know, say things intended to teach.

The man with a grasp on the simple why, why, why
did god make man?

To survive the last days. Ok. To reach ever,
after what? Now,
right. So, immediately…ever after

Feelin' right ghine, noghucking way, but win
just once

Part 6.
Value first.
Worth next, time to attend to price.
What's a unit of human bemusing worth?
Whole thought thread assistance
isisting is isting being in and out at once.
Insisting a will to stand, corrected.
existing yet-i
The authorial reality POV, me
first person to the second I involved

ready reader reading inky slow, each
sigil sign if-if-fine lining the tray,

a dust about a carbon atom thick, taking
form as the other shoe drops, you know.

Tryumphant self insured, we got spares.
ekdotos "published,"
from ek- "out" (see ex-) + didonai "to give"

EEKING OUT A LIVING! that's it.

The first hit. Nothing ever changes,
and where we remain, goes on, that's all


-- Part 7.
Rules for ryhmes crimes and times
evolve along a central point,
once made,

clearly to be seen right through

you imagine, there are more of me,
more of my kind, lacking proof,
have will, may travel, no guns
or other forms of self defense work

in the realm of words, authorized
tele-real, to feel tomorrow from today,

if it all works out this way, one day you
read this line and think,

what it is ain't what a reader thinks,
and the first reader readily agrees, so, what?

Slide passed past outsider angst,
slip into the answer to my accepted
prayer, to be led away from needless leaps,
and delivered from useless endeavors,

given peace that functions as fire does,
a little

-- Part 8.

Provocation --
Authority to prophesy,
it is true,
      there is a lying spirit,
learn-ed prophets study under
-- here there afterrrr
learning to rationalize, y'heah
to call the Bible, any version,
or any locked down revelation
backed by kings and priests,
hear ye
holy secrets only saints learn,
routes out of any hell
aha
our kind stand before kings,
we never once grovel to stand
we must, we exist in this as like
National governing entities,
under girded by ontology myths,

ordained by the triumphant one god.

Opposed by the Manichean Heresy,
made use of after all, as fearsome
spiritual weapon,
with which to defend the story churches are.

I sneeze a *** of gnosisnot, it's viral, just
a cold
hard fact, as the old point finder found,
chreia aitia and I and little-i- as inspirations

wisht you a merry life after christ mas was
announced

Peace, on this
Eretz, right ritzy here, the ancientssss life pod,
we developed from, if creative evolution
is not a local solution yet, just wait, let us
as we say in this realm of free association,
breathe, and let patience have her perfecting
function.

Ai, on the battle field, calling all three medics,
Christ, it is as if

Easter, is a season, some times, some places
always perfect outside being in weather,
where I would go, if this were heaven,

and from here, I laugh, when you learn
I learned, yesterday, to invest mystery

Part 9.

Wiseassenine Netflix Dylan grin,

"But there is nothing, really,
nothing to turn-off."

Really, I say, I shared my dreams,
made all my portals open,

tell me more, mister wizard,
when was war your best work?
when you came to bring this sword?
-- imaginations exalting themselves,
-- as corporate monstors are wont to do.

There were a few,
inbetweeners, unstable
in all their ways, accepted
as right by virtue of being self
evidently
standing upright after all's been
said and done,
judgement begun
in the area where Jesus,
has been known to reside,
with his father, since ever,
you imagined it true as it is.

Uniquely your house of God,
find all the words you ever condemned with
and redeem the roughest ghucking foul spells
full of filthy wordcontainers of filthy thoughts,

as are hidden in the deepest recesses under
the vates, come, listen, to the story
'bout a man named Joe Bob,
who's yer uncle, back aways.

Part of what makes you, soul wise

unique to the same degree,
and often more unique
due to fewer shared
chins and noses and the like,
family spirit and image, like,
like, like, like, like, we all
think like
each other thinks,
in the internet common place
attention based economy,
your time paid as attention
to me,
extremely indirectly,
so subtle when I say a million thanks,
you feel the briefest imaginable ASMR.

Kinda, subtle clinch,
nah, nothing, eh.
Also at https://kenpepiton.com/?p=1433 asking for reviews
The past on repeat, calm me.
Either "my head is a jungle" or my life's a maze.

Told myself I should get to America by 27.
I hear some euphoric vocal.

Earlier I took naproxen, esomeprazole, paracetamol
to alleviate the strain caused by excessive screen-time.
I'm such an addict. Was it a lie, that I managed to forget?
Me, a dopamine ******.
Autonomous sensory meridian response.
David Bojay Jan 2019
staggering memory

catch a thought to avoid the misery

asmr videos to sleep in tranquility

losing my sense of self

(not all that bad)

inflicted abilities

to see beyond the people that leave

accepting for the ease

aware of the problems and successes that I must seize
Let's make an ASMR video together
I'll play with your hair
Stroke your back
Rub you all over in lotion
How's that sound, for start
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2017
i rarely encounter these,
                                            but then i do,
   i do so with the same
ooh!
                                            this could work...

it just so happens that i found
                                                something that
could very much work,

                                            e.g.

http://tinyurl.com/p67g2k2
                                 (the klinik - nautilus)
                                   +
        (  " )://tinyurl.com/y9xrggtu (
     ASMR Poetry -binaural- soft whisper,
   by NeonIndieGirl)

    i don't know how, well i do know how...
it's all the whispering that she's doing
reciting poetry...

   and given that there are no vocals
on klinik's nautilus song...
  
    by the way... she has to be at full
volume... and the track has to be
             a third of her whole audio level...

it's like peaches and cream...
        or essex strawberries and a fridge...
yum jam thank you m'am;

    she's 90, and still the classy *****
she was aged 20...
         the best dressed woman
in the world...    liz!     you're the biz!
  i'm just about starting to figure out
how charles iii will look, speaking,
opening the parliament...
will we go informal  in a tux?
     or all ****** ceremonial formal,
in army uniform?

         hmm...          anyone in england
contemplating suicide should put it off...
         for the simple such as this:
   oh, and fiddling with a tenner
with ol' charlie's face on it...
                     **** me, my fingers are
twitching... to just see the transition...
        it's going to be more than a change of
hands between popes...
   given that the transition will not be
               voted on by a host of cardinals...

not that i want this classy dame to pass off
that quickly...
              but to hear: god save the king
rather than god save the queen at an
                            international football match...
that has to be something to live for...
   and esp. how stamps will have a different
face... and how money will look different...

      i swear i'm excessively salivating,
  and i'm not even chewing gum,
               there's only the mere thought.
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2022
listen... i started writing to you personally... but then... i conjured up a lightning flash of ideas... i'm going to make it public... i can't help myself... you're still intact as a private entity... but i just itch when i hit a lightning storm of ideas... esp. associate with phonetic puzzles... and the Hebrew deity... i'm also too prone to being aggrevated by Easter...

well: i am truly grateful that you can share with me your innermost details: your modus operandi... i have two thoughts about water... rain... hmm... rain is my crux... the sound of a flowing river... that's tier two... but... living in London... hmm... the Thames is a strange river... you can't actually hear it flow... because it doesn't... one of... all the rivers i've come across that has a high tide and a low tide... looking at it... it sort of: sits there... like a lake... a ***** ******* lake: but a lake nonetheless... it's a lazy river... it doesn't have any tenacity about it... it seems to have not vitality of a metaphor used by Heraclitus... it has a sea similarity: it is governed by a tide... it's beautiful when the tide comes in and the river bulges to the brink of the Embankment... it's such an eerie river... but unlike most rivers... it's silent... the water ripples... but there seems to be hardly any current... how can there be... if there's a high tide and a low tide? sea... i try my best... to appreciate it... my mother is hugely appreciative of the sea... me? i prefer the vast unknown of a forest... i'm more appreciative of wind (air) than water... esp. if i enter a forest at night on a windy night... i like the music of dried branches... i like the howling of the wind being almost directionless... peering through cracks in the foliage... roughing it up like... if you can an imagine what people get into with ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response)... where you to concentrate water, having a sleepless night... with the tap dripping... funny that... i'd feel a "disgust" toward the audio... or rather: merely an itch... when the expression of water is man-made... i recoil... i can't delve into it giving me any comfort... air... on the other hand... give me the wind in the forest... sudden gusts of force... air... and then give me singing... i'm recently a convert to the Hans Zimmer Dune soundtrack... but don't get me wrong... Brian Eno's original take... esp. the prophecy theme is still dear to my heart... the reinvention is just darker... and if we were to throw fire into this whole affair... the sound of crackling branches in a fire... that's almost comforting... i'm thinking: what if i could only replace the television set with a fireplace... or if not a fireplace... an aquarium... but... ugh... sometimes you just have to be up to speed with other people's creative output... to live in a said time... but the alternative is more than tempting: it's calling me...you lived in San Francisco? that must have been fun: back when San Francisco wasn't that independent commentators describe it as: a hell hole... or most of California... i wish i could live as simply as what you described... on some tropical island like Samoa in the Pacific... i suspect life can be coupled with a sort of nonchalance when approaching certain realities that otherwise force us to... perform ulterior motives... when in the cold... you need to huddle... blah blah... but to reiterate... i'm more of an air person than a water person... esp. during the English storm-month... when the islands get battered to the point that even Essex feels the magnitudes... the woodland pigeons fly so fast you'd think the winds would be able to break their wings apart...  the trees don't have any leaves... so... they... clank... clank... like a pirate with a wooden leg walking on a deck of a wooden ship... and if you time it just right... the aura of the night can also take over... see... i never understood that in English you shorten people's names... in ******... there's actual diminutive tools in place... KACZKA: duck... can become: KACZUSZKA (small duck): it's an endearing fabric of the language... but... certain "things" remain intact... names of people... in English you will have a Peter... and the "diminutive" of Peter is: Pete... Michael becomes Mike... Matthew becomes Matt... Samantha becomes Sam... it's... lazy... it's ugly... but it's the fabric of the language... do not becomes don't... how my mother tongue works when it comes to the names of people? just using my example... from the "elaborate" Mateusz: my name becomes translated into either Finnish or Italian to not stress the SH (SZ, same ****, different cover) at the end... so either Matti or Mateo... why would i refer to you aas Edie? that's almost: Edward... since... short for Edward in short-hand English is: Eddy... and if you were to break that down to the raw phonetics: E-die... you have a name... it's elevated for the purpose of referring to you by: the... theta... if i were to write it in Greek... εδιη (maybe i'm not getting my eta contra epsilon bearings right, we'll see)... εδθ... see... i could simply write... what the Roman text allows me... but... you're missing a letter... in my mother tongue that's an: IGREK... Y... which is upsilon... but no... i can't just write an iota in between the delta and the theta... but i also can't write the upsilon... since... it's not an IGREK... i need graffiti-phonetics... E-DEEF... not deaf... exactly: like dear isn't deer... E-DEEF... like DEAD is not DEED... i know what i need... a diphthong (φθ): but these didn't exist in Greek... εδθ: the letter that's missing is a hollowed out U... it's a parabola with a leg to stand on... it's not even close to: E-D... oh such... Edyph... **** me... sorted... i had to replace the theta for the phi... and... like a magic pinball machine... the "why" or Y... approved... strange letter... don't you think? it could never be trusted as a vowel... not in my language... not in the English language, even though...

a   e                 o  u
   Y                     H              
   i                    ą   ę

        which is the right arm... now coming to the left arm...

ś  ł  ź
   W                      i'm going to ignore the acute O
ć    ż
                      it's just a ploy for an orthographic aesthetic...
to distinguish spelling mantras from an upsilon...
the second H in the tetragrammaton is...
either a laughter generator or a sigh capturer...
all diphthong manner of dealings...
the Latin æ, i.e.:
                                         æ   e
                                            H
                                          a   æ....

like i already mentioned... we're not going to
be going into the orthographic aesthetic of
the acute omicron...
the left of the tetragrammaton:
is a vowel catcher... one that either instigates
laugher... or catches sighs...

magically the iota and the upsilon merged:
into a "gamma"... of Y...
the splinter tongue of the serpent...
      i call to witness...
           the merger of the Hebrew though
from: the Latin...
   that this deity might testify... its phonetic
credentials... i: for one: will not serve
no "Allah"...
         day upon day... year upon year:
i have become entrenched in...
fulfilling the motives of the one, true...
deity...
                      
the English language has no concept of orthography!
it's... prone to... metaphysics...
to... para-reality...
to... trans-"prefixations" of the glories
of some, supposed, democracy...
but... without... diacritical stressors...
it lacks... orthography... that's its downfall:
toward... disrepair...

εδȗθ...
                      suppose i used a comma...
addition... on the upsilon...
to give it a more Roman accent?!

exactly... i can't exactly get rid or either iota
or epsilon / eta... when trying to wriggle
a quasi-upsilon-omega: dip!

that's the battle... ie and uo...
      certain examples have to be ushered in...
you don't say: die-ꟻ-F-ONG...
you say... dyphthong... because the iota
morphes... you dip... into... hollowing out
an upsilon: which is already hollowed
out to make the trinity of

                       υ  ω
                         Y
                         o

even if the supposed son: only son?! died upon the cross...
illiterate little ******...
here's me... picking up the literacy pieces...
making... associations...
oh sure: sure... this could fit... here... there...
i was never going to like being asked being
someone else's *******: choir, boy!

there are certain things in life... more important
than the territorial foregoings
of all that's ever supposedly to be mortal...
ask any man: what he might wish to envision...
a celestial... takeover... a lineage born
not more genes... but... the fury of ideas...
men ought to pride themselves not
on mere acquisition of wealth...
but... inexhaustible expenditure...
                        
                  i ought to be allowed to govern with
as much little... as: too much doesn't allow me to
govern...
because: i simply don't want as much...
i want the bare minimum...
               the little as possible leaves
me with the contention...
i want the least harm to grieved by
the greatest of many...
          to live: via dying trying...
                what an adventure....
                 one life... one hope...
                tomorrow's just another cope...
       hello Mars.
tonylongo Apr 2020
after several consecutive insomniac nights
I was rummaging you tube when I came upon a site
inviting me to try something called asmr for sleep problems.
when I clicked there the screen went blank and a
woman with a husky voice said, “listen closely.”

that was in july, I think.
since then several interesting things have happened, or are in progress.

my cable has been replaced by dish.

my long-time therapist sent a message announcing his retirement.
However, I am attempting to evaluate whether, in fact,
he or an otherwise-named corporate entity are returning
to my bank account,
once a month, incrementally,
the consultation fees I paid him over the last 17.75 years,
in transactions tagged as “voluntary reparations (unofficial).”

Some things - Emily Dickinson, Finnegan’s Wake - are starting to make a lot more sense,
especially late at night,
but not in relation to any of the topics you would ever anticipate.
On the other hand, I can no longer unravel the plot line of
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

There are indications that I have become a hugely successful web presence,
but only in Japan;
I remain at a loss to decipher the resulting communications but
my new avatar may or may not translate as “Fool for Fugu.”

I find that feeding the squirrels in Prospect Park is very satisfying.
I devote more and more of my waking hours to this pursuit,
though they are becoming increasingly demanding and picky eaters,
rejecting nuts and random carbs while displaying an unusual
preference for radioactive isotopes of the lanthanide series.

Most important, mommy comes to tuck me in every night and help me
to sleep;
she is rather large, so only her right index finger can make it
through my bedroom window, but the way she
gently scratches the nape of my neck is very effective.
Her latest polish is tangerine crush coral.
hope i didn't post this before
Dan Hess Feb 2021
I am rattling, as is my proclivity

muscles tense and then collapse
limb by limb, releasing a skeletal clatter

would i hover if the gravity, of dizzying,
that makes my head swim, lightly,
floating in the ocean of stuporous emotion
thunderstruck connectivity, latched onto me
crown o’ my skull, pull my spirit from its vessel

would eye
blink shut
a rut in the road
a node
bowing, wherethrough flowing in the breeze; it bends - again - against the everything so rushing
by and i
consider it a blessing to believe in nothing
knowing only what approaches me
and seeing things so clearly
how spirit lives in me

have you ever felt the chills?
ASMR, perhaps, electric, rising
running fingertips over goosebumps

have you felt the way Earth communicates with plants?
can you bleed into the natural expanse?
you’ve been dead before, do you remember?

— The End —