Hotrod
Verse I

Wrenches clanging, knuckles banging
A drop of blood the young man spilt
A new part here, and old part… there
A hotrod had been built!
A patchwork, mechanical, quilt

Feeling good.  Head under a raised hood, hands occupied, the job nearing completion.  Sometimes the good feelings would dissipate though, as quickly as they came, as he cursed himself for stripping a bolt, or cursed someone else for selling him the wrong part, or the engineer whose design goals obviously did not consider “remove and replace”.
He cursed the “gorilla” that never heard of a torque-wrench, the glowing particle of **** that popped on to the top of his head as he welded, the metal chip he flushed from his eye, and even himself for the burn he received by impatiently touching something too soon after grinding. 
 He, and his type, cursed a lot, but mostly to their selves as they battled-on with things oily, hot, bolted, welded, and rusty – in cramped spaces. One day it was choice words for an “easy-out” that broke off next to a broken drill bit that had broken off in a broken bolt, that was being drilled for an easy-out. 
  Despite the swearing, the good and special feelings would always return, generally of a magnitude that exceeded the physical pain and mental frustration of the day, by a large margin.  
Certifiably obsessive, the young man continued to toil dutifully, soulfully, occasionally gleefully, sometimes even expertly, in his most loved and familiar place, his sanctuary, laboratory… the family garage.

And tomorrow would be the day.
With hard learned, hard earned expertise and confidence - in this special small place, a supremely happy and excited young man commanded his creation to life.

Threw a toggle, pressed a switch
Woke up the neighbors with that *******

The heart of his machine was a stroked Chevy engine that everyone had just grown sick hearing about.  Even the local machine shop to which the boy nervously entrusted his most prized possession had had enough.  “Sir, I don’t want to seem disrespectful, but from what I’ve read in Hot Rod Magazine, you might be suggesting a clearance too tight for forged pistons…” then it would be something else the next day.  
One must always speak politely to the machinist, and even though he always had, the usual allotment of contradictions and arguments afforded to each customer had long run out – and although the shop owner took a special liking to the boy because, as he liked to say, “he reminds me of me”, well, that man was done too.  But in the end, the mill was dead-on.  Of course from the start, the shop knew it would be; that’s almost always the case; it’s how they stay in business - simply doing good work.  Bad shops fall out quickly, but this place had the look of times gone by.  Good times. 
 Old porcelain signs, here and there were to be found, all original to the shop and revered by the older workers in honored nostalgia.  The younger workers get it too; they can tell from the co-workers they respect and learn from, there is something special about this past.  One sign advertises Carter Carburetors and the artwork depicts “three deuces”, model 97’s, sitting proudly atop a flathead engine, all speeding along in a red, open roadster.  Its occupants, a blond haired boy with slight freckles (driver), and a brunette girl passenger, bright white blouse, full and buttoned low. They are in the wind-blown cool, their excited expressions proclaim… "we have escaped and are free!" (and all you need is a Carter, or three).  How uniquely American.

The seasoned old engine block the boy entrusted to the shop cost him $120-even from the boneyard.  Not a bad deal for a good high-nickel content block that had never had its first 0.030”overbore.  In the shop, it was cleaned, checked for cracks by "magnafluxing", measured and re-measured, inspected and re-inspected.  It was shaped and cut in a special way that would allow the stroker crankshaft, that was to be the special part of this build, to have all the clearance it would need.  The engine block was fitted with temporary stress plates that mimic the presence of cylinder heads,  then the cylinders were bored to “first oversize”,  providing fresh metal for new piston rings to work against.  New bearings were installed everywhere bearings are required.  Parts were smoothed here and there.  Some surfaces were roughened just so, to allow new parts to “work-into each other” when things are finally brought together.  All of this was done with a level of precision and attention far, far greater than the old “4- bolt” had ever received at the factory on its way to a life of labor in the ¾ ton work van from which it came, and for which it had served so dutifully.  They called this painstaking dedication to precision measurement and fit, to hitting all specifications on the mark, “blueprinting”, and it would continue throughout the entire build of this engine.  The boy remained worried, but the shop had done it a million times.

After machining, the block was filled with new and strong parts that cost the young man everything he had.   Parts selected with the greatest of effort, decision, and debate.   You can compromise on paint and live with some rust,  he would say, wait for good tires, but never scrimp on the engine.  Right on.  Someone taught the boy right, regardless of whether or not he fully understood the importance of the words he parroted.  His accurate proclamation  also provided ample excuse for the rough, unfinished, underfunded look of the rest of his machine.  But it was just a look, his car was, in fact, “right”.   And its power plant?  Well the machine shop had talked their customer into letting them do the final engine assembly - even cut their price to do it.  To make that go down easy, they asked to have two of their shop decals affixed to the rod on race-days.  The young man thought that was a fair deal, but the shop was really just looking out for the boy, with their herring of sorts.  
The mill in its final form was the proper balance of performance and durability; and with its camshaft so carefully selected, the engine's “personality” was perfectly matched to the work at hand.   It would produce adequate torque in the low RPM range to get whole rig moving quickly, yet deliver enough horsepower near and at red-line to pile on the MPH, fast.  No longer a polite-natured workhorse, this engine, this engine is impatient now.  High compression, a rapid, choppy idle - it seems to be biting at the bit to be released.  On command, it gulps its mixture and screams angrily, and often those standing around have a reflexive jump - the louder, the better - the more angry, the better.  If it hurts your ears, that’s a good feeling.  If its bark startles, that’s a good startle.  A cacophony?  No, the “music” of controlled explosions, capable of thrusting everything and everyone attached, forward, impolitely, on a rapid run to the freedom so well depicted in the ad.  

This is the addictive sound and feel that has appealed to a certain type of person since engines replaced horses, and why?  A surrogate voice for those who are otherwise quiet?  A visceral celebration of accomplishment?    Who cares.  Shift once, then again - speed quickly makes its appearance.  It appears as a loud, rushing wind and a visually striking, unnatural view of the surrounding scenery.  At some point, in the sane, it triggers a natural response - better slow down.    

He uncorked the headers, bought gasoline, dropped her in gear, tore off to the scene
Camaros and Mustangs, an old ‘55
Obediently lined-up, to get skinned alive!

Verse II (1st person)

I drove past the banner that said “Welcome race fans” took a new route, behind the grandstands
And through my chipped window, I thought I could see
Some of the racers were laughing at me

I guess rust and primer are not to their taste
But I put my bucks mister in the right place

I chugged/popped past cars that dealers had sold
Swung into a spot, next to something old

Emerging with interest from under his hood
My neighbor said two words, he said, “sounds good”

The Nova I parked next to was “classic rodding” in its outward appearance.  The much overused “primer paint job”.  The hood and front fenders a fiberglass clamshell, pinned affair.  Dice hanging from the mirror paid homage to days its driver never knew, but wished he had.  He removed them before he drove, always.

If you know how to peel the onion, secrets are revealed.  Wilwood brake calipers can be a dead giveaway. Someone needs serious stopping power - maybe.  Generally, owners who have sprung the bucks for this type gear let the calipers show off in bright red, to make a statement, and sometimes, these days, it’s just a fashion statement.  Expensive calipers, as eye candy, seem to be all the rage.  What is true, however, is very few guys spend big money on brakes only to render them inglorious and seemingly common with a shot of silver paint from a rattle can - and the owner of this half fiberglass racer that poses as a street car had done just that.  I'll glean two things from this observation. One, he needs those heavy brakes because he’s fast, and two, hiding them fits his style.  
Really, the message to be found in the silver paint, so cleverly applied to make your eyes simply slide across on their way to more interesting things, was “sleeper”.   And sleeper really means, he’s one of those guys with a score to settle - with everyone perhaps.   The list of “real parts” grew, if you knew where to look.  Looking was something I had unofficial permission to do since my rod was undergoing a similar scrutiny.  
“Stroked?”, I asked.  That’s something you can’t see from the outside. “ No”, my racer friend replied.  
“Hundred shot?”  (If engines have their language, so do the people who love them).   Despite the owner’s great efforts to conceal braided fuel and nitrous lines, electrical solenoids and switches, I spied his system.  The chunks of aluminum posing as ordinary spacers under his two Holly's were anything but.   “No”, was his one-word reply to my 100- shot question.  I tried again; “Your nitrous system is cleanly installed, how much are you spraying?”  “Two hundred fifty” in two stages, he said.  That’s more like it, I thought, and I then figured, he too had budgeted well for the machine shop – if not, he was gambling in a game that if lost, would soon fly parts in all directions.   Based on the overall neat work on display, I believed his build was up to the punishment planned. 
  I knew exactly what this tight-lipped guy was about, seeing someone very familiar in him as it were, and that made the “sounds good” complement I received upon my arrival all the more valuable.  I liked my neighbor.  And I liked the fact of our scratch-built rods having found each other - and I looked forward to us both dusting off the factory jobs.  It was going to be a good day.

The voice on the loudspeaker tells us we’re up.

Pre-staged, staged, then given the green
The line becomes blurred between man and machine

Bones become linkage
Muscle, spring
Fear, excitement

Time distorts ….
Color disappears …
Vision narrows…
Noise ---  becomes music
Speed, satisfaction

End

A zero on its own may hold no value
But add a zero to 10 and behold you get a 100
And the value of zero seems to increase exponentially
Just think in terms of 100,000, add a zero and walla! it's 1,000,000

So, it gives rise to the question
What is really the value of zero
Does Zero mean nothing?
Or does it depend on how you place it?

What if a manager said, 'the production showed zero growth rate'
Would the management shout in glee or consider firing?
Is it silly to think zero is valueless when logically
adding zero at the end of any number only makes it more by tens?

Yes, I'm certifiably crazy but that is not the point!
The point is life is full of paradoxes
So why is that we adamantly stick to one theory of belief
When any number of theories could be true or not
like birth and death and yes of course 'God'!

Her smile.
It was the petrichor on days when
the sky just decided to cry.
Her smile.
It was the roots of a tree,
my tree,
keeping me planted in reality and letting me dream
of better things way up in the clouds.
Her smile.
Her smile was the sun ray warm glow;
bronzing my skin and heating within
that frozen fickle muscle I called a heart.
Her smile.
It drove me wild.
So certifiably insane the way I could rack my brain for hours
to come up with just the right joke,
so as to paint her smile upon celestial canvas face
the rest of the day,
not having to worry that its daily appearance
was stolen by some cheap movie line.
Her smile
was the only thing in life I was afraid of losing.

Wedding bells
The heart swells
A couple of people teary
Nobody here is leery
When it is two guys
Marrying after so many years.
Not an occasion for tears
They walk hand in hand
Toward a more grand
Joining together
Wedding each other
Now that some in society
See it is propriety;
Now that love is love
And over half the people
Know that couples
Are those who marry
And cease to carry
Their old angry baggage
Like stinking luggage
Into a loving occasion.

There is no reason.
Everyone here knows
That is how love goes.
It is between two hearts
No cart before the horse.
It’s a matter of course.
And, of course, family and friends
Not just kith, but kin
Are happy and celebrating
For the long awaited mating
Of two that fought the tides
And made it here where abides
That rosy day of knowing each other
Part of a couple officially;
Equally exciting and peacefully
Into a new morning of a new day.
What better way is there to say
I love you, a phrase not new
But this time said for two?
And certifiably, legally too.

In the clearing
where lambs graze
our daughters also
walk at their leisure
toward school
...
there are no fences here
the shepherds allegedly
keep watch in the darkest of hours
but when steps from
an intersecting path
lunge forth as
the unsuspecting wolf
a twisted creature
upon our precious girls
these herdsmen are
certifiably blind and mute
neglectful staffs
striking the air
...
listen closely now
to the gathering winds
their transformation is actually
echoes of our own children's
eternal cries

Body is sorry
Body came from Other Body
Body absorbed symbols
Body combined symbols to describe
What it might be like to be Body
Body saw pictures of its inside
And held an old brain
Body's pain is created there
In Nucleus hell center
A space to water the certifiably insane
Vortex of tubes that will rot into mush
Body released  pheromones once
Body couldn't help but blush

Now Body lays in the dark
Body purrs as memory whirs
About times that Body bruised
And lost its ability to talk about Body
To represent Body
All the times that Body walked on without itself

Every scar has a story
Every drop of ink has a purpose
I don't find them repulsive
They deserve pride

I earned every scar
I inflicted some
And others we're created

The hours under a needle
Worth every second
My tattoo all have meanings
They may not be apparent to you
But they are to me

I have a ***** in my armour
Maybe more than one
But
I never said I was perfect

If you ask me
I'm a basket case
Certifiably insane
But every scar has a story
And very ounce of ink
Was worth trying to tell
My story

Would you believe me if I told you I think I'm certifiably insane?
Probably, considering you've nothing to go by other than a name.
Do you even care?
Probably not, and considering I'm another person you've never met it's only fair.
But to those who do,
A piece of advice to you.
Whoever you think someone is,
That's who they really are.
But don't just take my word for this,
Because as I said before, I think my sanity it's pretty far...

i thought it was amazing
because it had a ton of pages
and made me think about what i would be in hogwarts
that’s just the children’s book wormhole
make it long to satisfy parents
and give the kids a chance to put themself
in a neat, organized house or category
so they can feel special.
now, that i’m less naive,
i can certifiably say
that that series was
trash on fire.
(plus, no one can be sorted
into a category that clean-cut.
we all have rough edges.)

Who could read you, as free word, if
Life is code, knowing that is done.
whitespace here is any time, not immediate
next
Hear a hissing, brake release, sigh.
- second thought
I think I asked what an ode was.
- an owed tip, on a common fear cure.
Bards can be charged to bring woe to cause

Use of science to think different, at many
platforms that appear as bully pulpit, AI and I,
assure you, where no ox was ever a friend,
something was missing in the teaching
of bulls who gave the *****, to become
a breeding black angus bull leading
a herd of never bred, chiania cows

In debt to the inventor
of the colonoscopic share app. No man ever
experiences his own empty gut, zoomfastflusht,
to hunt for overproductive killer ideas, with no focus
- net too wide
- no, make the holes emptier
o.
Geriatric anything is new to me.
Many levels of virginity these days.

And I have taken my medicine
I cleansed any urge to write off,
in bardic form, of ways we now
can see, where the sun don't shine,
we can see there, as social cyborgs.

The Prep, like mysterious, fast, clear
no food, clear liquid, sugar water tea

-- the ordeal, as when told to fret not,
use the social system, tell the tech all
about how you measure up, how many
corporate and business contracting entities

do I zee, the drip began, hours later.
I slepthroughallthoseads

At once in no time at that point,
the center, and the evening,
the spreading and inflating, even as
done there in mere nowityifitywerem
whirred snap
the gap humm comes here, in any whole telling,
time at one point was beyond the rule yard.
Rule 37, not 42, not sure 37, sure not 42.
Ai, we exist after ever before, after all

- of course we're the audience. That's all
- sweep that soft way, brushes
- that hush from long ago appears
In tune ii==one beat
dust at once, all atop rhyolite settle-ing
ligandary glacial flour paste,
social construction cement, gluons
that ontological unificatio-stufph
stories form
from, first bit that sticks, and does not pfft.
Ar-aghast, throughuckingimagined gees, at all?
At then?
And then?
The people all said amen.
-then
So, time was here before you or I. Right?
Force, useful for something, energy, under control,
right, ritual, habitual, wake and be, alive today,

different by a night, from ever before, clean mind,
clean body, prepped, purged, practically empty,
inside, outside,
I still have lash mites, and sinus
yeasts and animalcules but, ******* to pyloric
gut biome that was, is flushed, for which chore,
I am rewarded with a servant using an optic flexcon
fi-sharable use of science to show me my own gut,
and capture SONY uhd images, for scrutiny,
Da Vinci could never do that,
nor could the mystic bowel washers in Hindustan.
- you coul'd monetize your biome, branded cheese
- branded polimerization core code better
- plot twist, mark, record jots are soundless words.
We have opposing forces, one calling *****,
another calling speed, and the trainwreck in the middle
At my age no new passed through is old.
But I expected something nearly this exactly;
There is a certainty in knowing some mind states.
Faster fasting, future instant karma - dharma drama,
feels like life is a movie and we all know the business,
and we feel for the ships full of fools we launch on old
old and battle worn, lies,
about how Jesus never meant love the Church's Enemies.
Lord, no, you just read about those great crusades,
you just use the moral algebra learned then… it hit you
then
these are lines on the pages of my part, in the book of life.
That's the truth in the future. I can scroll back, as
I accepted cubic consensus, this is a historic
break all walls in my arteries, here comes
some fishoil to run through my liver, what
we see be what comes out, life been live, a while
you came with name for a name,
we all you paid the attention,
pulled the inclinations, with oohsshitwahtif;

As acknowledged you.
Dear Reader, and Kilroy at once.
14:21, about four rice grains of RSO,
in a too ripe peach and bananas
and out of date yoghurt smoothie..
Poured into me, con-sapientia
a blooming forest in my gut,
that, hours ago was visually inspected.
Void.
I am empty but
for the GoLitely, medico-tech, residue,

Pharmascopic Artificial head up my *…
- and so it goes, every one knows,
if you ever wondered, you get the chance,
what is the pov of those other people?
What's it look like,
glossy, slick, like cheeks inside.

So, I taught my AI some code, confidential,
this is after all the novel readers know,
our seed character came from a flatland
presentation by a short time old time religion
doctor who sat on church boards, funded missions,
- fancy meeting me, while you dysectarianize
- dismembering the mind to find a lie left
- unbelievably functioning on umph alone,
- old wishes went a wanting for lack of man
- who would try, Hello, back
snap again
Proper Look Intuit luminally init coded code
formerly known, by the guilds of knowers who

sorted words from sounds,
and made certain marks,
indentions, intentions leaving edge marks, with
to, within, without, let this say… whatever we agree.

I see you say U, I say me, you think me, we agree.

Thus we become a whole free being, in reality,
possible be-caused whole mind agreements bind,

oaths are old military mind chain commands.

Furnaces hot enough to make glass,
if there were but one kind of glass, waste
beneficiation, might be locally reducible, but

we have many kinds of glass, fused to duty,
each kind good for certain uses, prior to failure,
breakage is in the class nature of glass,
calling acrylic walls glass is defying class rules.
Not all windows are glass,
not all eye-glasses are glass, but all are seeable
through, and some reflect nextifity, listen,
zoom in… this was 13 hours ago
so, no catch tests,
half a measure of no time at all

while it is yet dark, after midsummer,
in the morning, next
young rooster feel the urge to crow,
a reaction to a biological-cosmological
language,
to all within the range
of a keykeerikee.

The sound, phonos, eh, phonics. Ah EE ei oh

Currahee, stands alone, a whole regiment,
named for a place named for a story,
Gobble'dgoop, scoop.
stickem in de group
Airborne, all the way, joke that medizin down
man, choke the GoLitely way, take it eazy zay
- were there logos, did I see them?
owow. they IV'd me and electroded me.

And man, what a while I -we, same planet…
same general intelligence
just survived, shear luck, the bridge buckle
two cars in front of mine, and the bot brakes
caught us in the veritable nick, pause, assess do.

For a million words or so, I have walked up these
old sand wash experiences evoking likely quite common
knowledge of geology in Southwest USA, everybody
knows Red Rocks red mud, was mud,
when Sedona's red rocks was mud,
every where the winds wind down slot canyons,
that mud, was mud,
but not when men who made art, left
scratches,
and soot, and those color holding acrylics
imagined to contain what was in the original.

We lit vast lakes on fire, we carried fire,
as only gods had been allowed, knowing how
to read, for fun, to lose your self and forget, let

go for and after additives. One flash.
Some you can see from space, signaling success,

telling near and far, we have befriended fire,
we met Puff.
- we think it was George and Patrick,
- serpentine wisdoms patient request,
- samsara sayonarwe aiming to live elsewhere
- imagine that, or die saying you know you did
- once
You can see all our lights, what we imagined
dragons did, some have done, made my grandchildren
seriously curios and marvelous fun of the finest sort,
none afraid of dark… as we think toward North Korea
but in peace toward all the North Strong Judges,
in spirit and in truth,
naked jungle, life goes on
We must turn off all previous grandpa *** roles,
and take this one, past that edge, you know it,
Salt River Canyon down from Jerome in a day,

she looked at me, gave me the Kool, saying ***,
and I smiled back and said, seems so.

That was so long ago, I had no ear augments.

I magnify the media-wysiwig, ride
I imagined in real time since before
living words were classified non dirtyable
Free-sapeach, from rap sessions, gut
between new releases biome vincents

yeah, listen when your navel contemplate
shears at the mention of mere certainty

not being purely fair, if still means
what still always means, meandering
--- wire was commo wire, nobody rolled that up,
I bet there's rusted concertina we could
polarizer users from used, use Barry Rudd
he can get your records man, ever'body
got records on survivors of the womb,
since the prophets began to say you

watch, where the cadaver lies, the eagles gather/
whose code can unmake peace in the name of peace

and not face the simple truth, we all lie, and not one
of us is literaturely true…

Just a point. A thought never ceases being thinkable,
you out grow the clown suit, and the boots and hat,
and grow gray, a digital horder, embodi-ing the
ever-lovin'true vardic cattle call eodling us away;

When I was child H-R and Toys R, only one
was vackvvord for worst to remind me
of twining, not whining spinning yarn
with all grand-pas lady friends at the po'house
faux
Tripping across the concept, let, the verb

letter the premis, let this be that, for now.

Let's give it a go. If we agree, howsoever many
we bring into being an all we, whensoever any
may dain disdain the mere idea, in a word, any
word spoken or signaled, red hexgon, hand
palm out thumb, tight… stop, just there,

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

Science is using all the data on its pledges,
fledglings, nextlings, little devil details,
actual imaginary burrs, where no burrs ever were
- seeking idle word's, good answer
project the Inquisitor's wittiest new righteous use
of pine cones, and make every pre knower spit
pineal gland out without a doubt. Dufus.

A day such as today, they never en-dure, sorry,
one of them does, sooner or later, end at what.
one of them does,
next never gets out. Not so far as we believe.

--------------
Placer gold is where you find it,
said, myself to me, nigh fifty years ago

you can hear that bendingtwaygn agone
he come around,
this old town, one time too many now,
some body, I may be nobody, but, brutha

I can stretch a wire, where wire never was,
I can send signals to the stars, say hear I am
as I was saying, Heraclitus says some cool stuff.

- all rain falls in the ocean once. He did not.
- not that, if all is water, and flood survivors,
Paid,
and paid dearly to have our maxim, be third,
swing and a miss and holy baseball look what

never made it to the silver screen, until YouTube
became the critical place to appear magically, as
real, as any just as real, no better no worse,

no line between north and south, electro magneto
gut biome upgrade, 2023 7:22412,bzp.

Cold pizza and a dab

Well, yes it did take all day, to make it run.

Look around you old man-
if you cannot make believe
a single happy mind, you use

is used by others, in much the same manner, we use commas to breathe, interface compromise, first with promise,
But I you don't feel the shame,

and do the kingdom seeking
vbs virus I started just now,

where in you, does truth abide,
where in you opens as joy is
that strength life uses wisdom
to peaceably and joygnoshit deploy

redaining some aspects of military minds, suspicious- ah,

Never, just make one ever after function
under certifiably cursed ancestral karma load,
like each son got a proust load, to redeem
or find enough collective conscious use
of a we in gaseous we information used
bell ding ing, we imagined beginning

we can't really imagine ending;
HAL-ish laughter,
ever after

And for another thing,
we had druthers, I'druther be

any body who could find a mind
made happy by its mortal nature,

After the mantle of gee-old-ific
crushed and benifi-enciated
syllables fit olde stored, yes,
Paper burns, wax paper
greases slides and still burns, too

Many movies, swings in the dark,
in the winter, ice and cold offering

a summer dance, a winter chance,
wisdom called in eons ago, this

is what I hoped to be the judge of,
did this day firm previous viction
with pre-positings super posing true.

Holodeck rules on a ship of fools.

Sighing buys me nothing.

One more silver dollar
buy another time a chance,
it was a time, not a dream, and

now has been, after that ever since
wisdom swept over me, my reality,

yours, in the same time, our reality
on starship earth, where the ancient
spells have been found to loose oath bound,

if you read this far, I wrote this far, and loved
the company in a same yeast state, define
state in states where war is made possible,
by treaty, representational power,
aimed at the child in the old man
being given worst, worsted wool's my first
right twist to be available in culturally npc
blend, walk by, that guy 120 fps

You could always see first he was not there.

while surfing cyber seas today March 2nd, 2021.

Actually yours truly quite a literate codger
(ah shucks just missed being draft dodger)
no not for baseball team, but Vietnam War
circa November 1, 1955 – April 30, 1975.

Though non establishmentarian logophile,
battle weary shambling thru gauntlet aisle
where nasty, short and brutish bullies hurt
painfully shy socially withdrawn little boy
now scores of years later courtesy reverse
peristalsis generates yellow-green fluid

made by liver stored in gallbladder and
passes through common bile duct into
duodenum where it helps digest fat bile
law, said obnoxious nefarious miscreants
cannot leave a innocent victim (scathed
for life) receive just deserts after mature

individual summons courage and doth dial
representative strong arm of law to exile
forcing motley crew to march single file
into custody, where delinquent juvenile
obligated to under rehabilitation - ofttimes
impossible mission easier thread camel
thru eye of needle by kilometers or mile,

which lock em up philosophy (to redeem
any salvageable thread of humanity etched
within damaged punkish ****) might find
accused ring leader pointing in one direction
poor (young) fella suddenly exhibits scared
quivering (like loosed arrow) harried style.

Writing, (albeit hyperbolic and poetic) riffs
mine therapeutic and cathartic panacea to vent
emotional tears and ruptures patched courtesy
passion cobbling words literary figurative stent
linkedin bajillion fractured pieces of my psyche
to blunt and/or sublimate psychologically pent

up psychological travails, plus I attend therapy
iterated thru previous literary postings (Renee
Cardone - a Clinical Social Worker Specialist
Royersford, Pennsylvania), she graduated
with honors in 1982, her existence meant
as dogsend https://springfordcs.doxy.me/sfcsrc.

Other holistic strategies to cope with legacy
of emotional fallout (I don't necessarily blame
any cruel teasing nor genetic proclivity with
schizoid personality disorder) courtesy dame
Kuritsky (mother dearest), who passed away
almost sixteen Earth orbitz ago, her - a flame
figuratively caught eyes of Boyce Brandon
both young flirts played catch me if can game.

Retrospective ascertaining origin of why
and how I found life, liberty and pursuit of
happiness such an onerous struggle - thy
inherited genetic genealogical robust stock
(predominantly Ashkenazi) might qualify
me as certifiably Jewish, though atheism
constitutes schema of existence well nigh.

The current day is May 1st, 2024. I believe I might have found Brianna. And she’s gone. . .

About eight years ago from this date, I would have my first encounter with this mysterious girl. With all of this having taken course over such a long amount of time, a lot of the details are blurry compared to how solidified they used to be to me. But, back to the first encounter, although encounter sounds more like a passive aggressive frightening experience, I’m not sure what other word I might use to describe it. Maybe it was a chance meeting or divine intervention, but encounter gets the meaning across a bit more fluently, as every time I would find this girl I would be in total shock, utter disarray, and my heart would beat so fast I’d feel as though a heart attack was right around the corner.

The first time I ever met her was through a dream. . .

I can’t remember what this particular dream was. I’m not exactly sure what happened in it, why I found it so profound, or how it even got me to begin thinking about this girl. All I know was that it got my attention and I began to pay attention to this idea, this one night miracle where I first met this mysterious woman.

The night I had that dream, I’m pretty sure I thought nothing of it. Who doesn’t have a dream every so often where they’ve met their true love, their other half, their once in a lifetime love of their life? I’ve always been a bit of a hopeless romantic and I’ve always known that this was one of my deeply ingrained character traits. From my first ever year in school in first grade, I had a very large crush on this girl, Ashley Amaya, and I remember wanting so badly to be her crush as well. I even remember a moment from school when I saw a spider crawling towards her and me while walking across a paved walkway to get to our next class, and I leapt towards it and crushed it, despite having a massive fear of the little demons at the time. But, I did it to impress her!

All that to say, the first dream wasn’t extraordinary, and instead it was just another more than usual somber morning when I woke up only to realize the beautiful woman I had just met was probably a mixture of something I ate and some tv show I’d probably seen the afternoon before. Time would go by, the memory of that first dream fading to the farthest recess of my mind with only a hint of any remote recognition still reminiscing in the deepest abyss of my head.

But, this is when what started out as a dream began to become a bit more substantial. This is when Brianna began to plague my mind.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I began to have recurring dreams of being in love with this mysterious woman. She began to become more familiar in a very inconvenient and unreliable way which was of course through the remembering of my dreams. In the beginning stages, I’d only ever catch glimpses of her face and the reset was usually a silhouette or a very rushed moment. The rushed moments were hard to describe but they were full of light, always this wonderful warm yellow light and though they were rushed, time also slowed down significantly in a perplexing way that I still can’t really understand to this day.

I’d see her dark brown hair flowing and filtering the light into these tiny and magnificent rays making a twinkling in what was usually a dark atmosphere. I’d catch the corner of her mouth turning ever so slightly into a warm beautiful smile as she looked away, something else in the vicinity stealing her attention for the moment. There were intense feelings of joy and tranquility and there was a warmth about the situation I could only hope to ever feel in the true cold and lightless world we all collectively call home. Something about her was so intensely special, and the fact that I even got to share a dream with her was the highest privilege I could’ve ever received.

As time would go on, I’d continue to have these dreams. She always stayed the same, with her long dark brownish red hair flowing ever so gracefully. It got to the point that when I would have these dreams, I would’ve preferred to not wake up, just so I could spend more time with her.

Over a year would go by. At this point in life I was still just in high school and still brand new to learning life in the real world compared to the sheltered view I used to have. I had just gotten a job at the local Home Depot as a cashier, literally a few weeks after I got my license since my parents were unwilling to pay for gas for me (as good parents should do!) I was still figuring out life with my friend groups and trying to balance the reality of starting to become more mature and take on more responsibilities while still trying to cling to my childhood of digging holes and bashing legos against the wall with my brothers! It was an odd time, which I guess many can easily familiarize themselves with the timeframe as we’ve all at one point been teenagers.

One of the biggest things in my life I remember being a bit troublesome though, was all my friends I had made and my groups of people I had become so entangled with. With going through these changes, I had some friends that were still absolute children at heart and some friends who were practically ready for college! I had loads of moments through those years where these friends I had grown up with would start to feel like strangers and I’d begin to not really feel as though I had a social place to call my own.

Work was a new outlet, and I actually used to love talking to people as a cashier, ringing up their items, and learning the social norm of small talk that would amount to nothing less than an afterthought. I made a lot of friends with people who were retired and with college kids who seemed to be the coolest bunch around, who knew how to live life and have fun doing it. It was such a variety of friends where I’d talk to Tina about her granddaughter or Jim about his retirement and stock options and then I’d go up to Isaiah and he’d tell me about all the dates he’d been on or all the party stories of him and his friends living life to the fullest. It was a pretty great time in my life though, because one thing especially it taught me was how to be social, though this process would still take years and years to fully develop until I was in my early 20’s to be fully confident in my ability to put it on and be charismatic if need be. The reason I mention so much about this job though, was there was still a deep  and unrecognized subconsciously aware desire in me to meet the one.

Home Depot of all places was the first time I saw her. In person. . .

I remember it was a day much like the rest of them. After having struck up some conversation with our customers and being a little groggy from waking up at the crack of dawn for the early shift, it was time for me to finally get some lunch. While taking my usually route from the front of the hardware store I stopped at my usual coworkers stations to say hi or make a passive joke as I strolled happily on my way.

I can’t exactly remember why, but I had the need to talk to one of my managers, and it was something I needed a response for by the end of the day, so I figured before I clocked out for lunch, I’d get that little task out of the way. But, on the way back to my manager’s office, which was this little 10 foot hallway with doors on either side, one leading to a bank of sorts, and the other side hosting two doorways to offices, I was stopped in my tracks. Right next to the old clock-in machine were two seats where you’d usually sit and wait if the manager’s doors were closed so you could catch them as they walked out. They were also the seats I had sat in when waiting to get an interview for this first job of mine, where I nervously and anxiously awaited the outcome so many years ago.

In one of those broken down, flat cushioned little seats was a girl so beautiful, I literally lost my breath at the sight of her. I knew immediately who she was. She was the girl from my dreams I had been having over the course of that past year or so. Recently through my dreams, I had learned a very crucial detail about her and that was that her name was Brianna, and there sitting right before me within a few steps walk was the girl.

I froze. I made eye contact. And I immediately turned around and walked away. How I wish beyond wishing I would’ve said hi now. . .

Seeing that my manager was currently in the process of onboarding her as a new employee, I decided to take up my little question with my manager a bit later and I went to lunch. While walking into our break room, I ran into one of my new co-workers who I had become pretty good friends with. His name was Brad Brad.

At this point in time, I had more of an idea and more of a recognition of the fact that these recurring dreams of mine were something special, though I hardly let anyone know because of how embarrassing and odd it was. I mean, who would go around blindly telling people about some chick that they’d been dreaming of that they were totally in love with?? (Definitely not me eight years late. . . ) But with Brad Brad, I trusted him and had told him about the story a few days prior to running into her.

Not knowing her name and only having seen her face, I walked up to my friend and asked him about the new possible employee. He immediately knew who I was referring to her as he had seen her just a bit ago and apparently gotten to know her slightly! I asked him if her name was Brianna, being almost definitively sure that that was her name, and just wanting to check to see if I was either certifiably insane, or possibly blessed with this odder than life knowledge.

Brad immediately confirmed her name was Brianna and asked if I had spoken with her, and this immediately had me out of breath, terrified of how the girl from my dreams was truly true and realer than life. I don’t remember exactly how the rest of the conversation went down, though I can safely assume I was blabbering like a lunatic and telling him every single detail of every single dream I had had of her before. I walked out to get lunch knowing that I’d finally become acquainted with Brianna over time in the work atmosphere which was a relief to me, knowing how social I was at work while in comparison to how introverted and quiet I was at school. Life was looking to good to be true.

Brianna, didn’t get the job.

A few days would go by and my excitement to go to work was through the roof. Never before had I had so eagerly gotten in my car, driven to work, and immediately clocked in in hopes of seeing this new girl around the work place. A week would go by and my thoughts of her were still as excited as ever, but I began to realize that there was still training, a full on hiring process, and that it would most likely take time for things to get in motion. A few weeks would go by and then a month and an unsettling worry began to haunt me as I started to wonder if she didn’t actually get the job.

I started going around asking all of my fellow co-workers if they knew her or if they had any ideas of if we were hiring anyone new. I became obsessed with what we called the, “war board,” which was a schedule of all cashiers’ schedules for the day, what departments they would work in and so forth so on. But, I never saw Brianna’s name pop up, and I began to realize that I might have missed my one and only chance of getting to talk to Brianna.

As time progressed I finally decided it was time to talk to Brad about this new girl since he had been the only one I had talked to about her, and this is when the strangest thing ever happened. Brad had absolutely no idea who I was talking about. He could tell I was obsessed with the idea though and he saw how persistent I was that I had had the conversation with him before, and he even sympathetically lied to me about knowing her just to appease my insanity by saying,

“Ohhhh yeahhhhhhhhh! I remember who you’re talking about!”

I was crushed that the only person who knew her didn’t remember her and at the time I’m unsure of why I didn’t ask my manager to see if they knew who I was talking about. Maybe it was embarrassment or the thought of not being able to see other potential employee’s information that scared me. Either way, I wish I had asked more and been more determined in finding information on what had happened to Brianna.

Months and months on end would go by and the fascination with work would disappear as I got older. I’d check the war board on a pretty consistent basis always hoping that by some miracle, Brianna would show up to work for the day! And even though we eventually would go on to hire an incredible Brianna that I’d become such dear friends with, she wasn’t the same one.

I remember how I used to day dream about Brianna walking into the store and how I would recognize her and how we’d instantly fall in love. Especially on those hot hot Summer days when I was stuck in the garden department with nothing but my thoughts and a dream. As life began to progress though, I realized I didn’t want to only dream about Brianna. . . but I wanted to find her! What good was all my wallowing around if I didn’t make any active attempts to find her!

Thus began, the searching for Brianna. What might just be an everlasting one. . .

I began to take a reality check on this recurring girl who haunted my every thought and when wondering on how I would find a girl from my literal dreams, I thought maybe the first best place to look would be there! Literally in my dreams. I took on an idea I had borrowed from the movie Inception where first thing in the morning, if you try to remember your dreams you’d have a better chance of seeing more details.

Doing more research into this line of thought, I read about dream journals and how some people keep entries of their nightly subconscious activities in order to become better at what’s called lucid dreaming, where basically, you have full and utter control of the dream and realize that you’re in it while still sleeping. My dream journal over time would start to slowly fill and fill with some pretty crazy stories and hilarious dreams. Actually, I wonder if I still have it. If I can find it, I’ll drought down one of my entries here for you to read. . . whoever “you” might be.

I won’t lie when I say I found it in about one minute. It was sitting on my desk right next to me. Oddly enough, my first journal entry is far further in this story than I thought as it was written on October 9th, 2022 (thank God I wrote down dates!) Here goes my first entry.

10-09-22 (#1)

My first dream, I remember being at Home Depot, working while pushing carts. I was very sick and delusional and the atmosphere was rainy and dark. All I could feel was gloom and sadness. There was no one to help me which added to the exhaustion. A customer managed to break 3 carts in half and I had to try and fix them, but I couldn’t. The feeling of wanting to go home was very strong.

10-09-22 (#2)

This time I was in a small class with two other men. It was our first day and our professor was already making us write books worth of homework. But, she soon assigned us Minecraft assignments and the rest of the class was devoted to playing Minecraft. A mixture of falling while playing the game repeatedly occurred and was frightening, yet exhilarating and fun.

Though my timeline of the dream journal and me beginning to write it might be skewed in this story I’ve been telling, as you can see from October 9th’s dreams of the year 2022, it was in fact something I started to do. There were quite a few pages from this journal missing and I can’t recall if they were pages of old homework from school and the notebook was one I self-recycled or not. But, I thought I had started writing these way earlier in my life. Maybe one day, I’ll write up all of these dreams into some sort of official funny document, but as of right now, they’ll all stay in that book. It might honestly be for the better!

Either way, it’s obviously apparent that I became obsessed with this idea of Brianna and I began to play my life events in my head over and over again, and this might have been harmful to me later on, but at the early stages of these occurrences, I was very much into reading. Being the introvert that I was in school, and having no access to a smart device, I used to read so so so many books all the time! My best friend in high school wasn’t any other student really but the faculty and staff, specifically our school librarian Mrs. Hogue.

Every time I’d walk into that library which was probably like twice a week, she’d see me and know it was time for me to become obsessed with a new story or spend the next however many months of my life engrossed in a series. I absolutely loved Mrs. Hogue and while she was very strict with all the other obnoxious kids, she loved me too. We used to talk about life and such and the day I graduated, she was one of the people I made sure of to talk to her and wish her a goodbye to.

Anyways, this obsession with writing and reading of mine was one that really flourished during high school due to these circumstances. It feels rather odd writing now when I haven’t gone about it aside from formal essays and school work since specifically 2018.

2018 was the year that I decided to run with a lot of these creative concepts my mind had created over Brianna and turn them into an actual book with full on character development, a family for Brianna, a place to live and friendships and occupations of all sorts! This is why I mentioned just earlier that this might’ve been more harmful to me, because, sometimes I can’t remember with Brianna what’s memories and what’s a figment of my imagination developed by a creative and passionate former younger writer of myself.

Either way, at this point in my life you could tell I was so devoted to the idea of Brianna being a real person, and this one specific idea plagued me like no other.

The idea was that Brianna was also dreaming of me and that we could only communicate through our collective dreams.

This idea for a young hopeless romantic was intensely alluring and from this idea became the now published and only book of mine, “The Fracture of Reality.” In this book, there’s two main characters named Ian and Brianna. Ian oddly enough matches almost identically all my physical and intellectual traits, some of the only differences being him having a place of his own, a pretty successful job and a bit more muscle, almost as though he were a version of myself I hope to one day be.

Brianna, well, she was and is the Brianna that I know.

The premise of this book was, well how should I put it? Better yet, I’ll just plug in the summary from the back of the book I wrote many years ago!

“Dreams and reality are relatively similar terms. Dreams describe and amplify events that occur in reality whereas reality can capture what little glimpses of the dreams remain. But, it never occurred to me that the two could blur together. Only when it was too late did I start to realize that reality was fracturing…”

Although this summary doesn’t really expound on what the book was about, only now do I find it so profound that I established this saying, this line of thought while I was still younger. I’ll write to you now that the basic premise of the story was a bit of a thriller! Ian begins to have these dreams where he meets and speaks to this mysterious tranquil and beautiful girl. He starts to fall in love with her as he slowly begins to realize that she is in fact real and having dreams of him also. But, with his dreams comes the slow beginning of his down fall where his dreams start to predict horrific events that will occur relatively soon. Along with the dreams comes the mental breaking down of his sanity with a deadly progression exponentially on it’s way to happen far too soon. Through the connecting of his dreams, he needs to find Brianna who he hopes when finding her, will stop the terrifying decline of his conscious nature.

In the end, and [insert spoiler warning here hehe], Ian finally meets up with Brianna only to have one of his dreams predict a horrible event of him and her being hunted by some men that Brianna had gotten in bad with during her youthfully naïve years. The story ends with Brianna and Ian in a cottage after Ian in real life has been shot. The story ends with Ian being unsure as to whether or not his dream reality is real life, or if his reality with the pain of the bullet in him is the truth. Brianna tells him that it doesn’t matter, and tries to convince him that the current peaceful reality that they’re currently in? That that moment and that present feeling is real, and that’s what really truly matters.

Look at me, doing a synopsis of my own books six years later! Writing this book and creating my dream journal and doing research was really the first phase of my obsession with Brianna. The older I’d get though, the more it’d become real to me. I’m unsure as to whether the past eight years of my life has made this idea so authentically real to me, but now I see this all as fact rather than speculation and a possible decline in my sanity that I used to be subconsciously aware of.

More years would progress in my life and would lead to the graduation of my high school and the starting up of college at my community college. There, I’d me one of my best friends which will most likely be my best friend for life KJ, but it was also a time of maturing and shying away from the ideas of Brianna as much. Rather than focusing on the idea of her, instead I got so busy with work at Home Depot, balancing friendships at community college, and still trying to socialize with my family that I hardly thought of her.

But, circumstances would change and even though I went a while without thinking about her, she was always there. When I began my first semester at Columbia State and accidentally sat next to this absolutely beautiful girl named, you guessed it, “Brianna,” I thought that she was her! Only to find out like literally two days into the semesters that she was married, whoops! But I still became friends with her and weird stuff like that would occur every so often, but at this point in time, life was changing so rapidly and my mind was always so distracted that Brianna began to fade.

I’d still have my occasional dreams and when those hit, it’d be more difficult than it used to be. The feeling of wanting to stay in those dreams was so strong and so hard to swallow when I woke up and realized it’d only been in my head.

With school starting though, my priorities changed a lot in life! My job was the least of my concerns at Home Depot and I’d more often than not skip all of my shifts as it always drained me of all my energy having to socialize with a bunch of people I didn’t care for or care about. All the small talk became irritating and whenever I was there, I guess I had come to associate that little hardware store with the idea of loss and gloom. I mean, if my dream journal didn’t speak enough for itself, I think it’s because I missed out on my one and only chance to actually talk to Brianna.

My new priorities were to make as many friends as possible and to turn this new page in life and that’s exactly what I did! I was incredibly social and went out of my way to introduce myself to total strangers just to try and escape the old Mike and pursue a new version of him.

It wouldn’t take long for Brianna to come back to me though.

Nobody that tells you how quickly life goes by can truly explain the depths of what that means and you sort of need to experience it yourself, and with the pandemic of Covid-19 happening around 2020, those two years at community school and the two years at MTSU would go by like a wisp of air. Like a breath, **** the time went by. Sure there was quite a bit of stuff that happened throughout that time, like me beginning to fall in love with creating content through YouTube about Minecraft, getting internships and freelance work for my degree as a Graphic Designer where I won competitions and published my art in many places and had the opportunities to be in a crazy high end internship.

But the amount of time, was just literally gone. I was too busy. Brianna became an afterthought.

That is, until fairly recently. To drop some dates for you, I created my first official youtube channel on September 18th, 2019 and published my first video four years ago a day after I made the channel. At first, my channel of Minecraft specific content was created both to prove to my brothers that I could create content as incredible as the youtubers we watched, but it was also just in hopes of turning it into an actual career since it was something I genuinely was okay at. Having had architecture for for years in high school Minecraft felt like a more creative and liberating way to express those abilities and live them out in an actual environment I had created. But also, Minecraft was an excuse for me to turn off my mind.

Covid and the pandemic was sort of the greatest thing to ever happen to me, because it gave me so much time to think and play this wonderful game. I know I mentioned above how I didn’t think about Brianna that much, and that part is true, but when I had those dry moments of playing Minecraft and grinding out some simple tasks of literally just breaking and placing blocks, my mind would wander to her. I used to choose the most essentially mind numbing tasks of mining for hours upon hours which only consisted of holding down a button and occasionally moving your character around to mine some more. But though the task was completely and utterly boring, my mind was active as ever thinking and wondering about Brianna.

Finding these quiet moments in life were far and few between, but I began to cherish them. All the moments from day dreaming while mowing the lawn and sweating to death in the 100 degree sun, to sitting in my car after a long first four hours at Home Depot while staring at a semi-vacant parking lot, to even just the long walks across my enormous campus at MTSU or the long walk from parking spots I chose purposefully to be super far away from my campus at Columbia State. These moments while rare, gave me a chance to keep Brianna at least in the back light of all the real life moments I was constantly distracted and thrown around with.

But, going back to Minecraft when I got into youtube, this changed everything.

I went from having at least some spare moments to having literally no moments at all. The only time I would rest was when I had experienced such bad burn out from trying to do everything everywhere all at once, and between that and the occasional sleep I would get, my mind had no time to think. I still can easily get into that workaholic mind set sometimes and it’s a dangerous one to be in, but I’ve gotten better as I’ve figured out why I believe I fell into that mindset in the first place.

The reason was to escape Brianna’s grasp.

As I went through school hanging out with friends and making new one’s internationally through the development of an ever expanding youtube channel, I had just about no time for anything. The only time I had to stop and think was my 10 minute drive to get food and even in those moments, I had no time to think, because I was too busy driving trying not to get killed by crazy drivers.

Three years of school went by before I finally said that enough was enough. With school being as difficult as it was, I decided to “retire” from my newfound love of youtube because in all honesty, it was driving me mad. My retirement video from Minecraft came out on December 5th, 2022. I stepped away from the never ending grind and set out to enjoy life and the little moments that life offered.

The only problem with this was that my mind began to ponder Brianna once again.

At this time in my life, after retiring I was actually working for a famous youtuber named PrestonPlayz. It was a random freelance job and for the past year or so I had been jumping from freelance to freelance work with little regards to cost and payments real life had always waiting around the corner for me.

This would make me end up ultimately getting a job back at Home Depot for a few months to pay off debts I had incurred from being financially stupid and buying stuff I didn’t really need. But, between all the financial problems and weird life situations I had so much more time to think about Brianna. The dreams of her still occurred every so often but the frequency at which they had started to occur was less and less. Maybe this was all due to me reaching a new level of maturity, but I’m still not entirely sure what caused it. Maybe it was the distraction of a busy workaholic life or the hopes to find someone, really anyone that was a girl that would love me that I could love back.

But, like I said my mind began to think about her more and more. I began to see her in my thoughts like I had years ago previously and it almost felt like I was back sliding into some weird territory I had just grown oblivious to with the amount of time that had passed. Either way, that was my life. A jumbled mess of thoughts and ideas all scattered in a brain far too busy to stop and breathe coming to the new age of silence and habit.

With my mind able to breathe, I thought of her again. . . and then I saw her again. . .

I can’t remember the exact day or time of year, but on one of these days of my “retirement” I was driving home after having just gotten some taco bell. (I was obsessed with the place back then) Driving up my street, I saw a girl with long dark curly hair and bright pink clothes, what might have even been pajama pants on her, walking up my street! I didn’t think much of it until I looked into my sider mirror and saw her face and saw that it was the one and only, Brianna.

Brianna was walking up my street right next to my house. In person. Alive and breathing.

I panicked and jumped out of my car with my taco bell nearly crashing to the ground as I roared into park in my driveway with my car. With bare feet, since I used to drive with no shoes when I went to fast food place, I dove onto an aggregate driveway and started running down it, knowing that there was no way on earth I was missing my chance to finally talk to her. I had nothing but time that day, and I was overly excited to finally introduce myself in person

But when I turned around, Brianna was gone. She’d simply vanished into thin air? I still don’t know how or why, but she was gone. . . possibly gone forever. . .

This experience drove my efforts to find her to another level of passion as I began to research through many google forums and sites and social media platforms praying to God that I’d be able to find her. It didn’t matter if I had to cross the entire ocean to get to her, I was going to find Brianna, no matter what.

I started to revisit old ground and went to the Home Depot I had worked at, asking the new manager there if he could search records and being able to find her that way. I found old coworkers I used to work with and asked around trying to find any trail or any lead and couldn’t find a single thing. I even managed to find Brad Brad’s Instagram and messaged him only for him to have literally no idea what I was talking about, go figure.

With nothing working and having literally no idea on what else I could do, I began to passionately work on a project called, “The Bri of My Dreams.” What this basically was was an ARG or alternate reality game which was a puzzle game I setup for my prior youtube community to solve and have fun with. But, it was more than that. It was the telling of the story of Brianna in a way that I could hopefully publicize and gain some popularity on so that maybe instead of me finding Brianna, she’d be able to rather find me! So, I started working on it behind the scenes unbeknownst to anyone in my community that I was going to use this new found passion project to hopefully find her, but also to bring me back to youtube content creation.

To this day, I’m still not sure why I wanted to go back to youtube. Well I know some underlying reasons, that being tied loosely to Brianna, but now many months later still being at it, I’m unsure as to the real reason why I still create stuff on there.

Either way, after creating an entire animated short film with a script and what I consider to be one of my greatest projects of all time, “The Bri of My Dreams” project was finalized and ready to publish. I put it out there hoping that it was only a matter of time before I finally heard from her.

Hardly anyone noticed I’d returned to youtube, let alone my project failing horribly as only close friends I knew even attempted the puzzles.

My final efforts produced literally no results, and well, this brings me to about right now, this moment that I’m actually writing this all down on May 1st 2024 at 4:21 p.m CDT. For the past few hours I’ve written down all of this while listening to The Caretaker album on youtube, a depressing soundtrack meant to represent the stages of alzheimer's.

This morning while sitting around doing nothing really, I looked up Brianna one last time, despite me telling myself I would be done with her after my ARG project. I found a girl, about the same age as me that matched the name and the description. Her father’s name was funnily enough the same as my own, Michael.

What I found about her and her father were obituary statements.

I’m unsure if it’s okay or morally right to even think that might’ve been her, but something I noticed when doing research about Brianna in my earlier days. . . For some odd reason there’s a lot of young beautiful Briannas who unfortunately die in their early 20’s. It’s an odd and horrifying fact I’ve come to know over the past few years through my odder than odd research.

But, this case I found today? Well the exact date this Brianna died on correlated almost exactly when my dreams stopped of her.

I don’t dream of Brianna anymore. I haven’t for years. . .

I think the reason I’m writing this, is my own way of finally saying goodbye. Wherever she is, I hope she’s okay. I hope she’s well. But as for me, life continues to go on and it’s finally time after these past eight years to finally say. . .

Goodbye Brianna. I’ll miss you. . .

he rubbed his eyes
and said you just think that way
so you always have an answer ready
which may well constitute
a state of pure distraction
in a dog lick dog kind of world
at Cathode Ray's tanning salon
scene of criminal degradations
with multiple jaw grinding *******
from a terrestrial point of view
I'm not sure high above the clouds
is the place to find anything
certainly not a mirror to be had
much less a cinema projector
with scenes of domestication
Reginald sneezed his false teeth
into his dinner plate as an augury
probed prodded palpated
looking for the intelligentsia
in the oracle's personnel roster
their attempts to overthrow evolution
led to a cornucopia of calamity
at the crossroads of conundrum
traded their opposable thumbs
for a certifiably reliable statistic
the atmospherics garbling
the ivory tower transmissions
and made anyone look like a prophet
and bearers of unintended consequences
left my friends hanging from lamp posts
adulterers heretics and infidels
cataleptics ablaze with legend
trained by undulating biblical harlots
tending their hornet infested gardens
avoiding the irredeemably antique
remaining inexact to a criminal degree
in the war between belief and certainty
my script supervisor just pulled the plug
he's not from Sesame Street
he's from Bastille Boulevard
the artist is bait and accident prone
opaque as an 8 ball at high velocity
caroming through every nave and vestibule
bladder control found again
in the midst of bourgeoisie panic
a meditation of involvement
I'm going where

From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
the disorder of discovery is tolerated

not because I learned from them. I’m still
just as confused as I ever was. I loved them
because they were so much fun. Some of the
biggest thrills in my life, the moments I felt

truly alive is when I was doing something
utterly wrong, something totally disgraceful,
and where I shouldn’t have gone. But even though
I got hurt, and so did many others I couldn’t say

for one moment that I wasn’t truly
in my element, that I didn’t experience passion
through the fire, that I didn’t feel the ecstasy through
each cut and bleed and ***** deed that had me

spinning as a top on the edge of the table
ready to fall off at the next turn. Not knowing where
I was going but having a ******* fantastic ride
going there with my eyes closed and my hair whipping

in the wind, feeling immortal and being young
again, that kind of young when you think you’re
invincible. You can escape it all, like a James Bond
movie. I was the leading lady,  certifiably crazy!

America
Becomes
Certifiably
Dangerous

Existence
Fragile.
Growing­
Hostile

Intelligent
Justice
Kills
Logic

Mainly
Now
Oscillating­
People

Quite
Ridiculous.
Surreal,
Tempestuous

Unjust
Victories
Will
Xpose
Your
Zealots