This is a fictional account of the abuse suffered by a young boy. Any resemblance to persons either living or dead is purely coincidental.
Chapter 1

Lady Macbeth remarked “Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil”. All children have their terrors. The bogeyman who lurks in dark corners patiently waiting to harm the unwary child. The ghost who haunts the attic where, even on a bright sunny day the child fears to go alone or some unspeakable terror, a horror with no name which lies just below the surface of every day life. In my case the ghoul who cast an all pervasive shadow over my childhood was Colin, a man small in stature but, to a child a monster of epic proportions.
I have, on occasions tried to comprehend why my abuser acted as he did. As a boy I had no desire to understand Colin. I hated him with an all consuming loathing. He was the devil incarnate who, if it had been in my power to do so I would have destroyed with as little compunction as a man would show when exterminating a rat. As an adult the hatred remains although now tempered with a desire to understand why Colin abused a small, defenceless child, physically and mentally over a prolonged period.
Was Colin abused by one (or both) of his parents? And, if so does this help to explain (but in no way excuse) why he took such great delight in inflicting pain on me? I met both of Colin’s parents and stayed with them on several occasions. At no time during those visits was I subjected to any kind of abuse. This does not of course prove that Colin’s mother and father where not abusers. It demonstrates that they did not abuse me, no more, no less. However, looking back at my visits to their home and, in particular the fact that neither of Colin’s parents abused me, I am inclined to believe that he was not ill treated by either of them. So what turned Colin into the monster who took delight in twisting my arm so hard behind my back that I thought it would break? The answer is, I have no idea. What turned apparently normal Germans into mass murderers in ******’s *****? The answer is the same, I don’t know. As with the concentration camp guards who committed mass ****** I can speculate that some where subjected to abuse as children and that this led to them becoming psychopathic killers. However not all of those abused in childhood go on to commit abuse, while many in the SS experienced apparently happy childhoods untroubled by abuse. Colin may have been abused by someone other than his parents but even if this is the case this does not explain or justify why he became an abuser.

Chapter 2

I was born on 7 February 1971 in the north of England. Soon after my birth it became apparent that all was not right with Donald Myers. I cried far more than any normal child ought to. In addition I banged my head against hard surfaces on a frequent basis which, obviously gave rise to concern. My mum, as any good mother would took me to the hospital only to be told that there was nothing amiss. However a mother’s instinct told her that something was terribly wrong with her son. She refused to leave the hospital and demanded a second opinion. This was provided by a Polish doctor who, having examined me diagnosed a blood clot on the brain. My distraught family was informed that I required an urgent operation and even if the blood clot was successfully removed I was likely to be severely mentaly disabled. Fortunately the blood clot was removed and I am not mentally deficient. The clot did, however leave me with very poor vision (I am registered blind and use a guide dog as a mobility aid although I possess useful vision which assists with orientation).

Chapter 3

As a young boy I spent a great deal of time with my grandfather. This was due to my sister, Janet being ill and my mum not being able to look after 2 young children simultaneously.
I have fond memories of playing in what I called “the patch”, a piece of the garden which my grandfather allowed me to do with as I chose. I recall making mud pies and coming into the house caked in mud literally from head to toe.
Being blind I relied on my grandfather to read to me. Most weekends found us in a book shop. Whenever I walk into W H Smiths the scent of books brings back happy memories of time spent with my grandfather, me sitting on his knee as he read to me.
My grandfather was a dear, kind gentle man. Had he known how Colin was abusing me he would, I am sure have gone straight to the nearest police station to report him. However he never knew and, being a small child I never confided in him.
I am amazed when I hear people ask “why didn’t so and so report the abuse?” As a small child I was terrified of Colin. Had I told anyone I was sure that he would deny everything and the abuse would intensify. I was not aware of the existence of the National Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Children (NSPCC) and even had I known of their existence I would, as a frightened little boy have lacked the courage to pick up the phone and call. Colin would, no doubt have accused me of lying and in the 1970’s and 1980’s children where rarely believed when making alegations of abuse.

Chapter 4

I used to dread leaving the safety of my grandfather’s home to spend time with Colin and my mother. My heart would sink when Colin or my mum came to collect me from my grandfather’s. On one occasion I deliberately dropped the car keys behind the kitchen worktop in the forlorn hope this would prevent my mum taking me to stay with her and Colin. Oh vain hope, the keys where discovered and I found myself in the lair of the abuser.
Colin took care never to abuse me in the presence of others. He was, however adept at tormenting me when my mum or other people where nearby but couldn’t see what he was doing. One incident is indelibly etched on my memory. I was sitting on the sofa, in the living room. The room opened straight out into the street and I was seated close to the front door. My mum called to me from outside asking whether I wanted to accompany her to the supermarket. I replied “yes” but before I could leave to join her Colin, who was sitting on the same sofa twisted my arm behind my back and whispered that I should tell my mum that I had changed my mind. I continued to attempt to leave but Colin increased the pressure saying that if I didn’t inform my mum that I had changed my mind he would break my arm. Naturally I called to my mum that I no longer wished to go with her and she left without me.
Being outside my mum did not see the abuse taking place a mere few feet from where she was standing.
On another occasion, while Colin and I where sitting in the living room, he forced a chipped mug into my lip which drew blood. Again my mum was present in the kitchen, which was located next to the living room but did not observe the abuse. On entering the living room and noticing the scar a few minutes later she enquired what had caused it. At this point in time I don’t recollect whether Colin put the lie into my mouth or whether I concocted the story in order to avoid further abuse. In any case I informed my mum that I had cut myself with a chipped mug, a version of events she accepted.  
At times I thought that I was going to die. No small boy likes washing but I used to dread bathing due to Colin’s own unique method of assisting me to wash. This consisted of holding my head under the water so that my nose and mouth filled and I felt as though I was going to die. I would emerge, terrified coughing and spluttering.
Colin obviously derived tremendous pleasure from half suffocating me. On numerous occasions he would place a cushion or pillow over my face and hold it there until I felt that I was about to die. Years later when I attended counselling with the mental health charity Mind, the counsellor asked me why I thought that Colin had not killed me? I replied that he probably derived more pleasure from having a living child to torment than he would have gained had he murdered me. Also, had he murdered me the prospect of detection and Colin spending a long period in prison would, I said have acted as a disincentive to  him taking my life. .  
Colin was a sadist. In adition to systematically abusing me he also abused my mum. I remember him hitting her on a regular basis and on at least one occasion pushing her down the stairs. He was (and is) a ******* of the first order.
Colin didn’t confine his cruelty to people. I recall him flinging the family cat at me. The poor animal stuck out it’s claws to gain purchase with the result that it scratched my face badly. Like all bullies Colin was, at bottom a coward. I never once saw him abuse the family dog. I am sure that this was not out of any affection for the animal, rather it stemmed from the fear that had he done so the dog would, quite naturally have bitten it’s tormentor in self defence. Oh how I wished that the dog had sunk his teeth into Colin.          

Chapter 5

We all have nightmares. As a young boy one of my recurring bad dreams concerned being chased by a hoover. To anyone unfamiliar with the abuse inflicted on me the relating of my dream will, no doubt result in mirth. However my nightmare was no laughing matter as to me the vacuum cleaner was a thing of terror. We owned an upright hoover which Colin would, periodically place on my head while the motor was running. I well recall the terror as the wheels of the machine ran across my head. Colin was nothing if not inventive as in addition to putting a working vacuum cleaner on my head he also made me hold the machine above my head. My arms would ache terribly but I dare not put the hoover down until ordered to do so by Colin. For many years following the ending of the abuse “the chasing hoover dream”, as I refered to it stubbornly refused to go away. While the nightmare no longer plagues my sleeping brain, whenever I use a vacuum cleaner the recollection of a terrified little child being tortured by a hoover comes back to me.
In another of my childhood nightmares I would enter the spare bedroom only to be grabbed by a clicking monster which wrapped it’s hands around my neck attempting to strangle me.
Colin choked me on numerous occasions. One incident remains vividly imprinted on my memory. It was evening and my mum, sister, Colin and I sat in the living room. All of the family accept for me where watching television. I was listening to a talking book about a footballer which contained many amusing stories. I laughed uproariously throughout much of the book. Later on that evening, following the departure of my mum and sister to bed Colin choked me telling me never to laugh like that again as I had “disturbed” people. As I recall Colin’s strangling of me the old terrors reassert themselves. At the time I felt that I had, perhaps done something wrong. However the logical part of my brain told me that I had done nothing whatever to justify Colin’s barbaric treatment of me. He ought to have gone to prison for that incident alone. He was (and remains) the personification of evil to me. To this day I can, on occasions feel self conscious about giving in to the natural desire to laugh at a great joke when in the company of friends. I can (and do) let myself go and laugh uproariously but Colin remains in the background, like Banquo’s ghost putting a dampener on the feast.

Chapter 6

Colin possessed considerable charm which is, perhaps how he came to entrap my mum into marrying him. I remember sitting around the dinner table with guests present and Colin holding forth on Charles Darwin amongst other topics. Although not university educated Colin was by no means unintelligent and could, if one was unfamiliar with his propensity to abuse, appear to be charm itself, a man whom it would be a pleasure to have over for dinner.      

Colin possessed the capacity to make people laugh which he used to devastating effect when making barbed comments at the expense of my mum. I hated him for his comments but laughed none the less which is proof of the idea that hostages frequently try to please their captors by forming some kind of relationship with them. I can not at this juncture in my life recall in detail how, precisely Colin undermined the confidence of my mum, I suspect that this inability on my part stems from the fact that I was, quite naturally concerned with my own suffering and the abuse perpetrated on my mum was of secondary concern. My own pain preoccupied me. I had little time for that of others.

Chapter 7

My counsellor and my dear friend, Barry have raised the issue as to whether my mum was aware of the abuse to which Colin was subjecting me. I have thought about this question long and hard and I still can not provide a categoric answer. I am sure that my mum never actually observed Colin in the act of abusing me. She was, as explained in the forgoing chapters, never in the same room when the abuse took place. The fact that her son showed a profound disinclination to be alone with Colin should though have caused alarm bells to start ringing. Colin was clever. The only time I can recollect when he caused me to bare a physical manifestation of abuse was the incident of the chipped cup related earlier. On all other occasions the marks where deep psychological wounds not visible to the casual observer.
I have tried discussing the abuse with my mum. Her reaction has osilated between stating that the abuse occurred a long time ago and that I ought to forgive and forget, to questioning whether it did, in fact take place. My gut feeling is that my mum does not doubt my veracity. The anger she manifested on discovering that I had informed my wife of the abuse perpetrated by Colin demonstrates that she does not doubt me.
Shortly prior to my wife and I separating we went to stay with my mum and sister. One morning my mum, my daughter and I went for a walk during the course of which my mum received a call from my sister. Janet said that my wife, Louise had told her that I had informed Louise of the abuse to which I had been subjected to by Colin. My mum rounded on me asking “why the hell I had told Louise about the abuse”. There ensued a blazing argument during which my mum hit me. On returning home the argument continued with Janet stating that I should talk to Colin about the situation. The fact that Janet did not defend Colin and state that he couldn’t, possibly have abused me indicates that she was, to some extent aware of the abuse.
I love my mum deeply and have no doubt that she loves me. Yet whenever we are together the elephant in the room (Colin) stands between us, seen by both but mentioned by neither. In my case I fear the eruption of a blazing argument. I have always shyed away from arguments which is, I suspect down to me having grown up in a family in which vilence and arguments where commonplace. As a small boy I developed strategies for minimising the likelyhood of being abused. My main strategy was to make myself as inconspicuous as possible. I became a master at sitting quietly, not speaking unless I was spoken to and doing everything in my power not to antagonise Colin. While I don’t fear being physically abused by my mum I shrink in terror at the prospect of a verbal tyraid eminating from her.
In my mum’s case she does, I believe feel guilty due to her not having protected her son from Colin. The fact that she refuses to discuss the abuse to which I was subjected shows her inability to acknowledge to me her own sense of culpability at her failure to prevent Colin’s behaviour. On at least one occasion my mum has told me that the abuse could not have taken place as, if it had she would have been aware of it. This is contradicted by her statement (refered to earlier) that it was a long time ago and I ought to “forgive and forget”. Both statements can not be correct and in her heart of hearts my mum knows that I am telling the truth, she lacks the courage to admit her own failings and apologise to me.      

Chapter 8

At this distance in time I can not pinpoint the precise point at which the physical abuse stopped. At some indeterminate point (I think during my early teens) I began to challenge Colin’s behaviour. I remember wishing to join a social club and Colin informing me that I could not do so. Full of fear and trepidation I said that I would join to

There she is
Hidden behind the veins

She got lost
Searching but she forgot

Who was she doing this for?
A blood clot

Clot of mistakes
Clot of dates
All because she thought this clot was fate

Boy was she wrong
She bled out and drowned

All except her heart
That one was stayed shut with a clot

You said the anger would come back
just as the love did.

I have a black look I do not
like. It is a mask I try on.
I migrate toward it and its frog
sits on my lips and defecates.
It is old. It is also a pauper.
I have tried to keep it on a diet.
I give it no unction.

There is a good look that I wear
like a blood clot. I have
sewn it over my left breast.
I have made a vocation of it.
Lust has taken plant in it
and I have placed you and your
child at its milk tip.

Oh the blackness is murderous
and the milk tip is brimming
and each machine is working
and I will kiss you when
I cut up one dozen new men
and you will die somewhat,
again and again.

The blood clot is
back. Up to old
tricks. A halloween mask.
A heart attack with a laugh,

One day. that old
**** is gonna kick,
Leave me with his water gun collection .
Body in the ocean

                                                          ­                Someone built a giant cave
                                                            ­  inside of me last night. When I was sleep-
                                                          ­            ing someone built a cave in side
                                                            ­     of me last night.when i was sleeping.
Someone built a giant cave inside of me last night someone. Built a giant cave inside of me last night .
                                                            
                                                                ­             Body in the ocean.
          
Now it's ocean everywhere it's
flowing  but nothing flows.
The ocean is still now
so still it is a salt lick.

Body in the ocean.
Chopped off his own scalp
sever'd Body after Body in
the ocean. Skinless. Battered. Beaten. Bested. Busted appendix. Internally bleeding. Externally bleeding. Bleeding from the mouth. Bleeding from the eyes, ears, and throats.    The devastating side effects of self-
anhila-
tion..
                                                                ­        
                                                                ­        Every one laughing at the bl
                                                              ­                                                                 ­  o
                                                                ­                                                                 odclot

Nature has divine qualities
Beyond national divides
So heart enfold immortal love
Where one sees mountain dance and move

In this do love has no color
Skin pigment shouldn't be honor
For all bears reddish clot
As we tread on earth path

So soil of time embraces our body
As the enlived soul transpired to the sky
All become one in a starky heaven
Where no divide and rule leaven

Only unending peace it brings
Shrinking hearts with joy and unending smiles
As they commune in glows of divine instinct
For the greatest commandment is love

As bird fly above
So cloud of hate gives love as chance
Embracing one with will of divine
So our earth become an undying paradise

written by
Martin Ijir

Shortly after 3pm on September 29, 31-year-old Olivier Rousteing strode through the shimmering, fleshy backstage area at Balmain's Spring 2017 Paris Fashion Week show. Along the marble hallway of a hôtel particulier in the 8th arrondissement, long-limbed clusters of supermodels were gamely tolerating final applications of leg-moisturiser, make-up touch-ups and minutely precise hair interventions from squads of specialists as fast and accurate as any Formula 1 pit-stop team. The crowd parted as Rousteing swept through.

Wearing a belted, black silk tuxedo and a focused expression that accentuated his razor-sharp cheekbones, Rousteing resembled a sensuous hit man. Target identified, he led us to the board upon which photographs of every outfit were tacked.

We asked him to tell us about the collection (for that's what fashion editors always ask). "There is no theme," said Rou­steing in his fast, French-accented lilt. "No inspiration from travel or time. The inspiration is what I feel, and what I feel now is peace, light and serenity. I feel like in my six years here before this, I have tried to fight so many battles. Because there is no point anymore in fighting about boundaries and limits in fashion. Balmain has its place in fashion."

And the clothes? "There is a lot of fluidity. A lot of knitwear, lightness, ponchos. No body-con dresses. But whatever I do, even if I cover up my girls, it is like people can say I am ******. So this is what it is. I think there is nothing ******. I think it is really chic. I think it is really French. It is how I see Paris. And I have had too many haters during the last three years to defend myself again. So, this is Balmain." And then the show began.

Star endorsements

Under Rousteing, Balmain has become the most controversial fashion house in Paris. Rousteing has attracted (but not bought, as other, far bigger houses do) patronage from contemporary culture's most significant influencers. Rihanna, all the Kardashians, Kanye West, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, Justin Bieber – a royal flush of modern celebrity aristocracy – all champion him.

Immediately after this show, in that backstage hubbub, Kim Kardashian told me: "I thought it was very powerful…I loved the sequins, and I loved all the big chain mail belts – that was probably my favourite."

Yet for every famous fan there is a member of the fashion establishment who will sniff over coffee in Le Castiglione that Rousteing's crowd is declassé and his aesthetic best described by that V-word. The New York Times' fashion critic Vanessa Friedman reckoned this collection appropriate for "dressing for the captain's dinners on a cruise ship to Fantasy Island". At least she did not use the V-word. When I once deployed it – as a compliment – in a 2015 Vogue menswear review that declared "Rousteing is confidently negotiating a fine line between extravagance and vulgarity", I was told that Rous­teing was aggrieved.

The fashion world's ambivalence towards Rousteing is a measure of its conflicted feelings towards much in contemporary culture. Last year Robin Givhan of the Washington Post wrote of Balmain: "The French fashion house is always ostentatious and sometimes ******. It feeds a voracious appetite for attention. It is anti-intellectual. Antagonistic. Emotional. It is shocking. It is perfect for this era of social media, which means it is powerfully, undeniably relevant."

Since joining Instagram four years ago Rousteing has posted 4000 images and won 4 million followers. The combined reach of his audience members and models at this Balmain show was greater than the population of Britain and France combined. Balmain was the first French fashion house to gain more than 1 million followers, and currently has 5.5 million of them.

Loving his haters

As digital technology disrupts fashion, Balmain's seemingly effortless mastery of the medium galls some. Last year, the designer posted an image of a comment from a ****** follower to his feed. It read: "Olivier Rousteing spends more times taking selfies for Instagram than designing clothes for Balmain." Underneath, in block capitals, he commented "i love my haters".

Rousteing can be funny and flip – doing a video interview after the show, I opened by asking, tritely, how he felt. He replied: "Now I feel like some Chicken McNuggets with barbecue sauce, and then some M&M;'s ice cream."

When at work, however, that flipness flips to entirely unflip. The previous evening, at a final fitting for the collection, Rousteing had paced his studio, his face a scowl of concentration, applying final edits to the outfits to be worn by models Doutzen Kroes and Alessandra Ambrosio. The 30-strong team of couturiers working in the adjoining atelier delivered a steady stream of altered dresses.

"We are ready," he said from behind a glass desk in a rare moment of downtime. "This a big show – 80 looks – and I want a collection that is full of both the commercial and couture. But it's smooth too. All of the girls are excited about the after-party and interested in the music. And eating pizza." In the corridor outside Gigi Hadid – this season's apex supermodel – was indeed eating pizza, with gusto.

The fitting went on until far beyond midnight; Rousteing, fiercely focused, demonstrated the work ethic for which he is famous. When he was studio manager for Christophe Decarnin, his predecessor at Balmain, the young then-unknown was always the first in and last out of the studio. Emmanuel Diemoz, who joined Balmain as finance controller in 2001 and became chief executive in 2011, says that his hard graft was one of the reasons he was chosen to succeed Decarnin.

"For sure it was quite a gamble," says Diemoz. "But we could see the talent of Olivier. Plus he understood the work of Christophe – who had helped the brand recover – so he represented continuity. He was a hard worker, clearly a leader, with a lot of creativity. Plus the size of the turnover at that time was not so huge. So we were able to take the risk."

Clear leader

Which is why, aged 24, Rousteing became the creative director of one of Paris's best known – but indubitably faded – fashion houses. In 2004 it had been close to bankruptcy. In 2012, Rousteing's first full year in charge, Balmain's sales were €30.4 million and its profit €3.1 million. In 2015, sales were €121.5 million and its profit €33 million. Vulgarity is subjective; numbers are not.

Rousteing, who is of mixed race, was adopted at five months by white parents and enjoyed an affluent and loving upbringing in Bordeaux. "My mum is an optician and my dad was running the port. They are both really scientific – not artistic. So I had that kind of life. Bordeaux is really bourgeois and really conservative, I have to say."

After an ill-starred three-month stint at law school – "I was doing international law. And I was like, 'oh my God, that is so boring'" – he did a fashion course that he managed to tolerate for five months.

"I found that really boring as well. I just don't like actually people who are trying to **** your dream. And I felt that is what my teachers were trying to do."

Obsessed with Gucci

Following a three-month internship in Rome – "also boring" – Rousteing became fascinated with Tom Ford's work at Gucci. "I was obsessed, obsessed, obsessed. Sometimes the press did not get it but I thought 'this is like genius, the new **** chic'. Obsessed, full stop."

He wanted to work there – "that was my dream" – but applied to every fashion house he could, and found an opportunity to intern at Roberto Cavalli. "They took me in from the beginning. I met Peter Dundas [then womenswear designer at the brand] and he said you are going to be my right hand – and start in four days."

Rousteing counts his five years in Italy as formative both creatively and commercially, but when the opportunity came to return to France in 2009 he leapt at it. "Christophe said he liked my work and that he needed someone to manage the studio. So two weeks later I was here. I loved Balmain at the time, when Christophe was in charge. It was all about rock 'n' roll chic, ****, Parisian. And he was appealing to a younger generation. You can see when brands become old but Balmain was touching this new audience. I always say Christophe's Balmain was Kate Moss but mine is Rihanna."

When Decarnin left and Rousteing replaced him, the response was a resounding "who?". His youth prompted some to anticipate failure.

"It was not easy at all. Every season I had the same questions." Furthermore, Rousteing (who has said he thinks of himself as neither black nor white) was the only non-white chief designer at a Parisian couture house. In a nation in which very few people of colour hold senior positions, his race may have contributed both to the establishment's suspicion of him and to his powerful sense of being an outsider.

'Beautiful spirit'

As he began to build a personal vernacular of close-fitted, heavily jewelled, gleefully grandiose menswear – fantastical uniform for a Rousteing-imagined gilded age – for both women and men, that V-word loomed.

"They asked, 'But is it luxury? Is it chic? Is it modern?' All those kinds of words. But you know there is no one definition [of fashion] even if people in Paris think there is. And, I'm sorry, but I think the crowd in fashion are those who understand the least what is avant-garde today."

In 2013 Rihanna visited the studio, met Rousteing, and reported all with multiple Instagram posts. "You are the most beautiful spirit, so down to earth and kind! @olivier_rousteing I think I'm in love!!! #Balmain." :')"

Rousteing met Kim Kardashian at a party in New York – they were drawn together, he recalls, because they were both shy – and was promptly invited to lunch with her family in Los Angeles.

An outsider in the firmament of old-guard Paris fashion, Rousteing was earning insider status within a new, and much more influential, supranational elite. He points out that Valentino, Saint Laurent and Pierre Balmain himself "were close to the jet set of their time. What I have on my front row is the people who inspire my generation".

From them, he learned a new way of doing business. "I think it was Rihanna and the music industry that first understood how Instagram can be part of the business world as well as the personal. But in fashion? When we started it was 'why do you post selfies? Why do we need to know your life, see you waking up, see you working? Why don't you keep it private'. And I was like 'you will see'."

Rousteing cheerfully declares his love for Facetune – "I don't have Botox but I do have digital Botox!" – an app that helps him airbrush his selfies and tweak those ski-***** cheekbones.

Reaching new population

From his office around the corner from Rousteing's, Diemoz adds: "When Olivier first proposed Balmain use social media, our investment in traditional media was costing a lot. Here was an alternative costing less but bringing huge visibility. It has been successful, quite rapidly…we decided to be less Parisian in a way but to speak to a new population. A brand has to be built around its heritage but we are proposing a new form of communication dedicated to a wider group of customers."

The impact of that strategy became apparent in 2015, when Rousteing and Balmain were invited to design a collection for the Swedish fast-fashion retailer H&M.; Within minutes of going on sale – and this is not hyperbole – the collection, available at vastly cheaper prices than Balmain-proper, had completely sold out. In London, customers fought on the pavement outside H&M;'s Regent Street branch. "Balmainia!" blared the headlines.

You have to move fast to get backstage after a Balmain show. I was out of my seat and trotting with purpose even before the string-heavy orchestra at the end of the catwalk had quite stopped playing Adele.

Rousteing had taken his bow merely seconds before. Still, too slow: I ended up in a clot of Rousteing well-wishers stuck in a corridor blocked by security guards. A Middle Eastern woman against whom I was indelicately jammed looked at me, laughed, shook her head, then said: "We pay millions for a fashion house – and then this happens!"

In June, Balmain was bought for a reported €485 million by Mayhoola, a Qatar-based wealth fund said to be controlled by the nation's ruling family. As so often with Rousteing-related revelations, some declared themselves nonplussed. "Why Would Mayhoola Pay Such a High Price for Balmain?", one headline asked. Yet Mayhoola, which acquired Valentino four years previously for $US858 million, might have scored a bargain.

Clothes key to revenue

Despite its huge, Instagram-enhanc­ed footprint, Balmain is a small, lean and relatively undeveloped business. Most luxury fashion houses today – Chanel, Burberry, Dior, et al – will emphasise their catwalk collections for marketing purposes but make most of their money from the sale of accessories, fragrances and small leather goods like handbags and shoes. One of the big fashion companies makes a mere 5 per cent from its catwalk clothes.

At Balmain, by contrast, clothes bring in almost all the revenues. If Balmain had the same clothes-to-accessories ratio as its competitors, its overall annual income could be more than €1 billion ($1.4 billion).

The company is moving in that direction. New accessory lines are in the pipeline. "Now we have to transform that desire into business activity," said Diemoz. "Sunglasses, belts, fragrances, the kind of products that can be more affordable."

The first bags should be available in January, as will a wider range of shoes, and then more, more, more.

Six days after his show, on the last day of Paris Fashion Week, I returned to the Balmain atelier. Apart from two assistants, Rousteing was the only person there – everybody else had gone on holiday to recover from the frenzy of preparing the show, or was busy selling the collection at the showroom around the corner.

Rousteing sat behind his desk in the empty room, wearing slingback leopard-print slippers, sweatpants and shades. "I am not even tired! I am excited. Because there are so many things happening – and I can't wait."Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses | http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-adelaide

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn ******, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

There is a blood clot in the center of Imagination Street,
I can feel it.
It blocks the path that follows through Creative Avenue
where cars horn, roar and protest, curse and smother with
a simple look of “Move the **** on!”
And yet no paramedic can remove the jumper that
lays from austere insipid life.
It's a victim of routine they say, jumped from the nearest skyscraper
hoping to touch the sky but fell miserably on to the streets.
There is an aberration stretched over the streets, I can feel it
because it's me.

And after that I am still a hollow where the
fairies hide from darkness and poisons. I
am still growing flowers out of my womb
and that is why they stink like *******.

And after that your disbelief kills all my
sparky pixies and after that I cannot be
anything more than a hollow hollow. But
yeah I am still growing flowers out of my
wound and that is why I scream and cry
when you touch them.

And after that the stillness of the air inside
me and the remnant echo of morning songs
attract the darkness to come. And after that
I think she may feel lonely so I invite
poisons to also come along.

And after that I am still growing flowers
out of the wound on my womb. They still
stink like ******* and after that
vomitting feels like womanhood thing. And
after that my flowers are still immortal and
that is why sometimes you see blood clot
floating around the moon.

The Phoenix
(To Love and Lose Part 2)
by Ryan Kinney

It started with a broken heart. Through the crack seeped liquid fire. It engulfed me, burning away all that I was. The flames shall purify me. Boil me down to my base components, and then rebuild me. From the ashes will rise a new entity.

Who am I?

Following my divorce I began an identity quest dubbed The Phoenix. It is my own personal trial by fire. Fire is the essence of life itself. As it destroys it also creates. I will create a new life from the remnants of my former, a persona not defined by another.

Chapter 1-The Quest

Depression and Suicide
“…my life before you was very chaotic and unstable. You were the stability I needed and the foundation on which I built my life.  I never doubted that you would always be there for me. You were my rock. Of all the people that had disappointed me you never let me down. Yet you did, You pulled the rug out from under me without warning and the foundation upon which I built my entire life crumbled…” –email correspondence to Lisa; Nov. 21, 2008

It took four months to undo ten years of my life. A debilitating depression overwhelmed me. I never saw anything in my life, but Lisa. What did I have left without her? What would I do? Darkness clouded my heart.

A rusty blade in my hand. A message in blood written on the broken mirror.
I lay in the tub, leaking crimson life. In my haze I barely make out the words.
What does my final message to the world say? I cannot remember why it hurt so much.
In a few minutes it won’t matter anymore. What the hell did I write?
I can only think of one thing that torments me enough to drive me to this darkness.
Trailing down in letters, clotting on the wall…
“I loved you.”

This revolving drama played on a loop in my mind. I was lost, a walking corpse. All I felt was cold hollowness.
“All that is left is emptiness, an empty house, an empty soul.”-journal excerpt; Oct. 6, 2008
I so badly just wanted the hurt to stop. In my tunnel vision existence I was oblivious to those whose hearts bled for mine. All my substance and passion was gone. Lisa took my heart with her and left nothing inside. Without her my existence seemed meaningless. The cloaked figure smiled, offering me the almost irresistible temptation of sweet release.
“Do I give in to the darkness? Let it consume me”-journal excerpt
Ultimately, though, there came a day when I awoke from the fog. I was living outside myself watching this unknown drone on a worthless trek. One phrase finally broke through the shell.
“What a waste!”
The Phoenix was born in that moment. The match was struck to light the way on the difficult road to recovery.
“The pieces of my soul are on the floor for everyone to trample on.”-journal excerpt; Oct. 6, 2008
I was in over my head. I needed help. A therapist helped at first, but the relationship quickly cheapened because I was essentially paying for a friendship. Antidepressants proved to work too well. I have a manic level of natural intensity. Lexapro ignited fireworks inside my brain. Both, however, gave me the nudge I needed to help myself. Eventually, I grew beyond the need for crutches. A previously unrecognized army of supporters each lent their kindling to the fires. One day at a time I battled my inner demons until I was ready to accept happiness again.
“You will be amazed on how much of the original Ryan is back. Why? Because I'm over my depression about change because something I feared more came to fruition.  I lost you.  I'm doing my best to survive from that, but my past fears now seems trivial and meaningless in comparison.”-email correspondence to Lisa; Sept. 8, 2009

Denial and Desperation
“Run, Run away Ryan. Open another book, turn on the TV, surf the Net. Delve into your fantasies and escape reality. It’s how you survived your childhood…”-journal excerpt; Oct. 2, 2008
The cracks in my facade were beginning to show. I shielded myself in delusions. I lied to myself to soften the full scope of Lisa’s betrayal. I more than lied. I was absolutely sure. I trusted her with my life. I trusted a lie. I was living a lie. I betrayed myself more than she ever did. The realizations came in shards, each piece punching holes in my heart.
I wallowed in self-pity and desolation.
I yearned so badly to feel some warmth, anybody’s warmth.

The New Girls
Upon Lisa’s departure I sought to quench my loneliness in the convenient woman around me. For a moment’s time, they took pity on me.
Rebound-I immediately sought solace in the arms of a good friend. She’s always shown me nothing but love and idolization. I was ashamed for disrespecting her and our friendship. I knew full well that our brief encounters were all that would ever be between us.
Crazy Chick-She was a brute of a woman, yet conversely, very maternal and comforting. She had a unique talent for forcefully ripping out my raw emotions, breaking through the masks. As she said, though, “I’m not Lisa.” Pathetically, that’s exactly what I wanted.
One Night Stand-ups-Several brief encounters fed my addiction for attention. Like a ****** with a needle, my appetite grew. Desperation was becoming my scarlet letter.
“…but it did seem that the thing we are most proud of and the thing we are most ashamed of are but the front and the back of the same coin. They torture and thrill all at once.”-Grotesque; Natsuo Kirino
I felt guilty and *****, yet loved for but an instant. These experiences were very cathartic. I had completely lost the ability to cry, feel pain, rage, or joy. They were the prefect drug, just so that I may feel again. Without these women to reopen the wounds, the numbness would have consumed me.
“Every angel has a little devil inside them.”-Manda; 2009
What attracted me to these women was mock chivalry. Each had their own “hard luck” story. So ingrained in me is the comic book ideal of heroism that I constantly seek to rescue the damsel in distress. Women will always be my kryptonite. However, as Crazy Chick put it, “ When is it time for you to be rescued?” The divine irony is, it was they who saved me.
It too, was not to last. A long period of isolation followed, as the women grew tired of babysitting me. Another lie to myself, a band-aid on a wound desperately needing stitches.

The Crush
Hers was the first light I allowed to pierce the darkness. She did more to heal me than any who said, “Yes.” Her secret, she said, “No.”
It has always been my curse to be eternally misunderstood and underestimated. I could see her scars bled the same as mine, although hers had begun to clot long ago. I am attracted to those who have a depth chiseled by adversity.
I identified with her. Her intelligence far exceeded my own, an Einstein in a circus. My eyes saw straight to her soul, seeing only the gorgeous woman she was on the inside. My friends would point out my eyes would sparkle whenever I spoke of her.
Yes, I loved her, but only in transition. We came from different worlds, but met as wounded soldiers on the battlefield. She was the catalyst to open my eyes. A sweet smile for my shredded soul.
“A worn beaten heart trapped in by bars.” From “Painless” by Tracy Reed
She held the key to my self-imposed imprisonment. My growing frustration with her opened the door for my transformation. For all her grace, all her amazing potential, she was wasting away in the same feeding trough as me.
“You can do better.”
Then it hit me…
“I can do better!”
I began to rebuild my empire. My never-queen rejected me…
I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

The Emotional Spectrum
“Stuck in a prison of abstract ideas and overpowering emotions.”-Zach; mypsace blog
Shock
1) ‘I don’t love you anymore.”
2) Letter…”I can’t wait until my divorce is over!”
3) Ryan-“So I guess this means we’re getting a divorce.”
Lisa-“Well, yeah. You knew that.”
4) “Ryan, they’re together, and have been.”
5) “I’m moving out.”
6) “By the State of Ohio, I hereby grant this dissolution.”-Judge; Dec. 30, 2008

Six bullets to my heart, six separate, devastating phrases that brought about Armageddon. I gave her a decade of my meager existence, nearly half my life. She threw me away like garbage, and couldn’t have been happier.

Fear
As the gun smoke drifted, I clutched my breast. I was frozen in horror that I’d lose myself along with her. Fear, you see, was the beginning of the end for our marriage.
I never dealt well with change. When we bought our house, the combat that ensued left me crippled. I ultimately built myself into a comfort zone again. “I don’t know what I want to do” was always an excuse for me. I lay stagnant and complacent with no true purpose or direction.
It was Lisa that first took action. She sought to elevate us from the ranks of lower middle class into which we were born. I fought her, determined to lay docked in the doldrums. “Leave me alone in my bubble.” I made attempts, but with each failure became depressed. She became frustrated and took matters into her own hands. It is obvious she loved me then. She worked effortlessly to give us a better life.
I was blind to the truth and in time Lisa lost sight of her motives. She plodded on, mechanically, no longer sure of why. She drove herself to extreme exhaustion, afraid, that if she stopped, for even a moment, she’d realize it was all for naught. She lost faith in our combined, bright vision.
So, she did the only thing she knew how. She ran away, straight to another as miserable as her. She kept running, further and further, taking greater risks. All just to not have to feel her own hollowness.
She left and my phobia ended there. What followed was a newfound fear. “I don’t know what I want to do” became “What the hell do I do?” I was afraid I was doomed to be alone the rest of my life.

Sadness
“Are you ok?”
“We’re worried about you.”
“How are you, Ryan?”…

“MISERABLE!”-Ryan

I always speak the truth. I’ve never felt so surrounded and alone in all my life.

Anger
“Like koi in a ***** pond, you can see your rage barely hiding below the surface.”-Erin Kompik
The most intense rage fueled The Phoenix. I lashed out at everything. Everyone was burned. I was ******* and the world would pay. The spectacle burned so bright it threatened to eradicate all that I was.
“I can feel bitterness and anger coming. I am fighting for control over the anger”-journal excerpt; Oct. 1, 2008
“The seams in my heart leak nothing, but hostility.”-journal excerpt; Oct. 6, 2008
“I’ve become a monster. I once loved someone so hard I would die for her. Now all I can feel is scorn and hate. My heart is twisted and black. I fear I will become the bitter man my father is. I hate myself for being so.”-journal excerpt; Sept. 30, 2008
Who was I so angry with? For all the hurt I felt from Lisa, I was most angry at myself. How could I let this happen? How could I have been so blind? My blood boiled as I berated myself. The loss I suffered left my heart festering with hatred, as nothing but fire and volatility overtook it.
“The red light of rage is violent action without consideration of consequence. It is uncontrollable. So I will unleash it.”-Final Crisis, Rage of the Red Lanterns
Then, the root of another anger broke through the fury.
“I know that you may not see it now, but time really will heal these wounds.”-Michelle Kinney
She was right. I had absolved myself of my original rage. I had forgiven her. I could forgive myself. I couldn’t be held responsible for another’s irresponsibility. The anger dissipated into the smoke. It left behind a few flickers, but I’ll not extinguish them yet. I still have a use for that rage.
“Do not be afraid to expose the darkness. Only by bringing it to the light can it ever truly be resolved.”-audio journal excerpt; Aug. 16, 2009

Love and Happiness
During my marriage, hers was the only love I let myself feel. Then, she took it with her when she left. I felt scorned and unwanted, a refuse of human waste.
I was wrong. I am a man that seeks love as an end all for my existence. Lisa unlocked my caged heart. Over the next decade I cultivated relationships with countless individuals. There was more love in my life than I ever realized. They were there when she wasn’t. My parents sacrificed everything to give me a life and family they never had. Lisa’s family had become my permanent family. She divorced me. I did not divorce them. All my friends gave all they could. Even my harsh enemies stepped off the battlefield, for they understood the casualties of this war. All of them, a shining sea of compassion, poured their hearts into mine. Their light overcame the darkness. When I finally crawled out of the pit, they got me to my feet.
“For them, I must continue.”-Naoko Takeuchi
I had to be strong. I owed it to them to survive. They gave me their love to fill in my missing pieces. For all I had been given, I could never give up or give in.
“I am meant for greatness. I am meant for happiness, for joy, for me.”-Zach; myspace blog

Chapter 2-Evolution

Picking up the Pieces
“I need to be out there.
Living.
Looking for my own life…
I need to open my mouth.
I need to be heard.
I need to live.
You’re gone…
I’m not.”
-Goth Girl Rising; Barry Lyga.
It was time to rebuild that which had been broken. My life was fragmented chaos. I needed an order to the chaos, or more to my tastes, organized chaos; anarchy with purpose. I learned to become a master strategist. The civil war I waged on myself demanded a general.
STEP 1-Stabalize finances.
My pact with the devil to keep my beloved home required emptying the coffers completely. How delicious the irony that I wound up working the same long weeks as Lisa.  Hard work and sacrifice were absolute necessities if I was ever to afford to live again. It was Lisa that taught me that. The only difference, I must never lose sight of why. Money is not the reason for existence. I simply needed enough to achieve my goals.
“Money is nothing.  It is an imaginary concept.  Its only value is what we put into it.  While often a necessary evil to survive, it is not important.  The only possession of true value is time.”- The Most Valuable Possession; 2009
STEP 2-Tear down the Mausoleum.
My home had become a testament to a dead marriage. Lisa’s five day moving notice threw a grenade into my living space. It was disheveled and disorganized. It was no longer Ryan and Lisa’s. I had to reclaim it as my own. Out of respect for our past, I kept a few pieces of Lisa as a constant reminder. I will never forget where I’ve been.
“Your spirit helped build this place and it still flows through its walls.”-email correspondence to Lisa; Nov. 21, 2008
Physically putting my environment in order likewise put my mind into an order. As I rebuilt my home, it became the new foundation for my life. The Phoenix had a place to perch.
STEP 3-Know Happiness again.
“I seem to find that my great periods of change, evolution, and growth precede an ultimate betrayal from someone I’ve let close to my heart. Is survival mode the only way I can fuel my passion? Where do I find the love that ignites my will, yet does not drive me to complacency?”-audio journal; Aug 13, 2009
The answer, I needed to love myself again. I could not rely on someone else to complete me. I had to become independent, to be ok with being alone. I deserved to be happy, to be loved, above all, by myself.
This was going to be hard.

Breaking Codependency
Not having another physical body in the house left a void. Without another heartbeat close to mine, I stopped sleeping at night. My appetite was lost and I started shedding pounds. With my depression receding, I awoke to find I was living in a desolate wasteland. What would I do in this solitary confinement?
Utilizing survival skills my mother taught me, I used it. Ever the artist, I took the pieces and created an existence. Then I improved it, again and again. Loneliness is a disease that attacks only if you let it. I had to learn to accept myself, before I could expect anyone else to. I used the loneliness to redefine and rediscover myself. I would not rely on anyone to do for me. My honor and respect for my loved ones demanded I do for myself. The stifling quiet, the sleepless nights taught independence. The silence used to frustrate and anger me. Now, I use it for peaceful reflection and meditation. Th

I

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
                              But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
                        Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,
Round the corner. Through the first gate,
Into our first world, shall we follow
The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.
There they were, dignified, invisible,
Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves,
In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,
And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

II

Garlic and sapphires in the mud
Clot the bedded axle-tree.
The trilling wire in the blood
Sings below inveterate scars
Appeasing long forgotten wars.
The dance along the artery
The circulation of the lymph
Are figured in the drift of stars
Ascend to summer in the tree
We move above the moving tree
In light upon the figured leaf
And hear upon the sodden floor
Below, the boarhound and the boar
Pursue their pattern as before
But reconciled among the stars.

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from the inner
And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
Erhebung without motion, concentration
Without elimination, both a new world
And the old made explicit, understood
In the completion of its partial ecstasy,
The resolution of its partial horror.
Yet the enchainment of past and future
Woven in the weakness of the changing body,
Protects mankind from heaven and damnation
Which flesh cannot endure.
                                          Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time time is conquered.

III

Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
With slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.
Neither plenitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
Eructation of unhealthy souls
Into the faded air, the torpid
Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney,
Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate. Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.

Descend lower, descend only
Into the world of perpetual solitude,
World not world, but that which is not world,
Internal darkness, deprivation
And destitution of all property,
Desiccation of the world of sense,
Evacuation of the world of fancy,
Inoperancy of the world of spirit;
This is the one way, and the other
Is the same, not in movement
But abstention from movement; while the world moves
In appetency, on its metalled ways
Of time past and time future.

IV

Time and the bell have buried the day,
The black cloud carries the sun away.
Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?
Chill
Fingers of yew be curled
Down on us? After the kingfisher’s wing
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.

V

Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them. The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.

    The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always—
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.

and all i ever wanted, was to work in a music shop, to compensate my fancy moving away from Stendhal's scarlet & noir, and into the domain of Nick Hornby's high fidelity... well... that died a very Belgian death, very much akin to euthanasia.

at least i don't
bleach people to mere
pronoun usage.

and yes,
i treat the tetragrammaton
as a superlative,
esp. given
i am akin of Atilla -
and the Visigoths...
such that i am:
of the invading "horde",
because of he
the so-called culture
i see no civilisation on the horizon...
i see no Baroque...
            i hear no Bach,
and will never hear a stance
such that the music be composed...

because what is happening
in no circus of nouns...
people are being bleached,
they are being leash bound
to walk into a pet barbers to get their
hair "done"....
         i am not the one
regarding them as sole
pronoun exhibitors...
   there they are: merely pronoun bound...
and should i call them black,
or care to call them copper skinned
akin to the Indus peninsula...
                       i have forgotten
the agitating "they"...
            
i don't have a cartesian dualism
to mind...
i simply have my own dichotomy
to attend to...
   as Voltaire said: each to his own
garden; and a pair of shoes.
    
once again...
  geometry will never scope beyond the orb...
there is no geometric study to
suggest a shape for the universe...
now we know: there's no thinking
outside the box,
  even if that might ease your "claustrophobia".

  and i rather call a person by their
self-identifying characterisation
that reduce myself to a liberal
censor clot of only managing other people
in the pronoun category, auto-suggestive
of a *we vs. them...

       i don't see how that makes us
liberal, that having forsaken descriptive
approaches, we incorporated
the additive approach carte blanche
as a guide to treating everyone akin
to being dubbed albino.

   i like talking about ******* a brown-skinned
girl...
    i like talking about ******* a Thai girl...
i like putting cardamom in my curry,
or my cinnamon...
  or my everclear - heartspark dollarsign -
and thus about the time i
gave to flying the kite of full, manly,
****-refraining autonomy...
to the wind itself.

  just when we were about congested,
and lated constipated...
        i wrote this, like a clerk
might, in the bureucracy of the failing
Roman Empire, akin
to the reminiscent W. H. Auden...
      on pink'oh paper that turned boredom
into the origami of paper-aeroplanes...
  neat, folded, against the envelope
requirements... thrown right into
the lap of don quixote,
       recycled, shredded by a windmill...

as if about just apparent...
        at least this dream, this utopia
didn't originate with me...
    oh sure, i believed it...
that we could house the entire ethnically-diverse
populace under one roof...
   i believed it, the world told me to believe it...
i'd love to believe it thrice over...
   i mean, i'd love to have
    duo-ethnic children,
        who spoke four languages...
in the least three...
    but **** how that gets swept under
the rug and forgotten along
with Aladdin...
   it just gets boring, all that masochism
of being an anti-racist social warrior
but at the same time calling oneself
a white-trash stereotype transcendent.

that's me about to puke,
and write my name in diarrhea ink,
followed up by doing the same in
gonorrhea ink.

what happened at the end of the 20th century
was a very well believed
in dream, even though it was a butterfly...
and lasted no more than a few years...
it was worth it... it's when i had my childhood...
and i could have even been a roofer until now
should there be someone who said
they were overworked in a supermarket...

it was very nice for a bit,
great to believe in... how suddenly 2000 years
of history could be forgotten and
let us live in a togetherness...
    but like today, Syria and a civil war...
civil wars are unique...
  a Syrian barber tells a Syrian butcher
to *******...
     and would it be necessary for
     an English politician to get involved?

unless they're selling both
  Israeli uzis (the country where the ***
originated, yep, Israel)...
          i'm not a Syrian civilian...
so what the **** are all these tourists
talking about?! i don't care if they come
from Westminster, what are these tourists
talking about?!
                  i'd like to be a Syrian civilian
first, before i give my opinion...
        i'm not giving a single opinion
as a tourist that was ever in Syria,
or a one: waiting to visit it in the "near" future.
******* tourists...
     you have to use a blunt knife carving
this piece of history...
not point using a well sharpened knife
cutting with eloquence and absolutely
no profanity... given the excesses of ****...
   i say: oaths! oaths!

You tie my gut in knots
Never expected this in my plot
Twisting my lochs with
Nervous fingers locking
Hands with you is magickal.

You tie my mind in knots
Its like a roller coaster lost
In space the comet's frost
Ignites a shower of colors
Cascading across your eyes...

You tie my heart in knots
I pray it doesn't clot my
Thoughts about our
Dreams about our
Kids about our
Means of getting by...
And I love having this in common with you.

Kepp working, stay on my grind. God, school and moneys only on my mind. Lovely women happen to come by and that's fine. Touch my paper and I will decline.

Stress build, heavy weight on my mind. Trying to walk with god and take life one day at a time. People take what they want and ask for more. I don't hustle because I am poor (I'm not), its in my blood (a clot).

Had my hustle ever reached my core, it would attack me and stop my beat. Soul song silenced for eternity for desiring to achieve greatness. Such a paradoxacal oximoron drifts throughout my body keeping me alive unbeknownced to my concienceness.

My kryptonite is infact what makes me a super solider. For ever I will fight waging a mental spiritual war. I pull the trigger at whatever stands in my way and eliminate the prey for I am the predator. In future roles will switch and I will hear the heavenly bell ring, such a divine pitch.

So for no I fight and fight I will. Untill the kryptonite reached my heart and it attacks me. My internal double edge sword. Hustle.

she sat in the center of her home
becoming the heart of the halls
the blood drifting in and out of
the corridors,
the clot that stood still in the living room
unable to move to the next destination
stuck staring at the dusty painting
that haunted her tendency
to fix that which does not
need fixing,

humming the delicate tune
which ascended into the aorta
of her kitchen,
all the way
to the apex of her attic
and finally folding into itself
like the towels in her
chamber of cabinets,
before unraveling out
through the long vein
of her chimney,

the housewife who
makes a living
with sharpened bread knives
and turning scones into
christmas trees,
who croons ancient love songs
in her infinite spare time,

and i wonder as i
stare at her
from underneath my book
of russian poetry,
how she holds up
when the front door bursts opens
and nature sings
a solo to her heart.

oh good, the frenzy has subsided
and you've evaporated from my arteries
           (you haven't)    
i think the platelets gathered too quickly and their collective volume
overwhelmed the highways
So Now I Can't Feel a Thing
          but do you remember
the park on the hill and the
shimmering fluorescence of forbidden waters?
                                             because it was 2am i think
(neither of us understood what was happening)
but we flew to each other on wings of a craving
beating against the jurisdiction of two
opposing currents

Some loves  never die, i think --
they seek refuge in the dusty caverns where
external tempests cannot harden them.
Other loves are preserved in the amber of summertime,
because it is better to die beautiful and intact, i think,
than to disintegrate into unmarked soil.

The stars are watching us
for no reason, vibrating mystery
or nothing at all. What will
we do, in regards to this passage
of leftover life? Our heart in heat,
either flowing or clotting.

Drag your teeth from my heart
I uttered.
Stemming the flow of gold you were
Please stop forcing such a clot
I will give you all the empty spaces
They are for you
Simply leave alone the flesh of the heart, it cannot be a dog's toy again.

first,
a raccoon wrapped within its own intestine.
the asphalt is its grave; i swerve to miss it.
we shared the same air, maybe even a
common ancestor.
someone moved too fast to care.
its the ones with
fast cars and slow minds
pretty faces and ugly intent
artificial kindness but genuine hate
i'm not your friend
just a similar sense of self
it is
fat priests playing golf
lottery ticket paradises
restaurants
embellished mechanized slaughter
fake laughter and even faker love
shopping mall environmentalists
lexus-driving christians
paychecks, TV, lawn mowing sundays
drink yourself to death
please.
the least among us in control
deprived of the mind
the stench of their egos
and their hypocrisy
the gasoline, the cash, and the forced smiles
as i write people die
children die
i'm like many
the fool who knows
but does nothing
the one who doesn't know
that's the good person
the moral person.

second,
a rant, a ******* rage
the days are stale, self-actualize, the Earth remains the same
dry and motionless
middle-class frustration, planetary confusion,
the ***** of the Earth,
capsized like dying branches
in a wal-mart state of mind,
stupid slobs, rodent minded social egoists
over-organized, clean freak object fetishists
the evolutionary dollar sign
they bay at the moon, it's made of cheesecake
phase transitioning,
you blood clot, Earthly blood clot,
you don't know art
now there's ancient blood on my hands
smokeless, plantless, Earthless blood
detached from Gaian consciousness
stain on the mind
confused, clogged pathways,
clogged with
self-righteous mind flood
piles of ***** tissue,
waning and waxing
force feed me your ******* please
because i have no idea how to answer
in this cultural blood bath
it is the
end of time
the end of mind.

:aaphi

This is all a big joke
You and I are just passing time
Until extinction

I have teeth of pig iron
And my back is a mountain
When I stretch in the sunrise
Oak trees snap and echo strangely
In the valley of my spine

A she bear walked upon my knees
Scraping her claws against my thigh
Birds soar about my forehead
Great whales swim in my mouth
Wolves hunt in the kingdom of my belly
And howl as I kiss the full face of my moon

Foxes learn the twists and curves of my palm
Rabbits burrow in my chest
Deer graze upon my feet
And the green bulbs of my eyelash
Bloom white blossoms

I reached up
With calloused hands
I felt the delicate slumber of stars
I cast them to the earth
And crushed them beneath my great bare feet

I ate the earth
Much like a green apple
And put the nickel core In my pocket
I put Sol in my mouth
And the universe was dark for a while

I grow tired of sleep
And I dream madly of  the road again
Women wear long silk gowns
They whisper words and grab my arms
They open my mouth and pour in tankards
Of dark drink
Burning
Burning down in my belly

They slept in the crook of my arm
And the long black hair tickled my face
They were silent when they awoke
And my slumber was deep
They cut my throat ear to ear
Laughing as my blood poured into the cauldron of the sea
Laughing as they snip my hair with scissors
Laughing as they remove my left eye
*We are fate your body is beautiful
Oh King, give us your turqoise eye
We have a knife/a good sharp knife!
We can feast forever on a sliver of your skin
And will build the earth again with your sinew

(I Could Not Knot a Knot.)

My tale is one of tortuous frustration,
when two ropes caused me aggravation,
and my every effort resulted in a situation
that left me in a state of angry indignation!

Oh, what a knotty problem I had got,
when I found I could not knot a needed knot!
Though needing help on how to knot a knot,
no one I knew, knew how to knot my needed knot!

I had two short ropes - which I’d a need to knot,
and which I’d knot together with a special knot,
but it never worked, for the knot did not knot,
and my knot came undone!  I felt such a clot!

Firstly, I took the ropes, which I twisted tight
together, but still the end result, was not right,
for when I tugged, the knot, not only fell apart,
but showed no sign of a knot!  Making a fresh start,

I took one rope, and placed it firmly under
the other.  This was so easy, I did wonder
if my actions should have been reversed,
for it too fell apart!  Oh, how I cursed!

Seems tying knots is not for faint hearts,
for any knot, that’s not knotted, soon parts
when it’s put to the test!  That I’m not a knot
expert, you can tell.  Truly, my forte is not

that of being very good at tying knots,
for I do not understand what knots
need, to keep them from falling apart!
Tying a knot right, right from the start,

is important, and that’s why my knot
was  not reliable, but why I did not
understand.  Yes, I’ve tied many knots.
but they’re knots known as Granny Knots.

Other knots are what folks call a Slip Knot.
Then there’s the Turk’s Head - a special knot,
as is the Cat’s Paw, Clove Hitch,and Bowline.
Truth to tell, - none of these resembles mine!

Then there’s a Timber Hitch, which is a knot
that truly puzzles me, and not an easy knot to knot!
There’s many other knots, that need the greatest skill,
such as the Hangman’s Knot - a knot that’s made to ****!

Whilst the sheepshank?  That’s a tricky one to see!
So many knots, but they’re not knots for me.
Methinks of all the knots, the one true knot for me,
is the “Lover’s Knot”, which I have tied successfully!

Rhymer. April 24th, 2018

it's not that i'm writing this: because i didn't have an analogy looking at me... it's not that i'm writing when it's too late... it's that the simplest answers always come too available over a period of time, and with that come too many vulnerable circumstances: because so much was invested in the supposed "truth" affair... maybe i needed a Heidegger or a Kant to complicate me enough, to write out the analogy? and that's putting it mildly: to avoid the Einstein bubble and a return to Newton... yes, big names, but am i to be apprehensive about using them, am i asking them to be my mules? it's when you hear too much that you begin to filter the well-wishers... and want to hear the bare minimum... i wrote what i wrote away from the umbrella of subjectivity, as a non-patriot... if you want objectivity, this is how it sounds... when everyone's damning subjectivity i can see nothing but patriotic demands... and when no one is asking for objectivity, i see lacklustre in teaching a carnation's worth of being a citizen... because i also think your dog ******* on my lawn is gagging for a shotgun's tongue should you not clean it up. that's the basics, my friend. it's not too late that i should i have said these words... it's that you didn't do anything prior to that, that shouldn't have delaid me saying such things as i have said, in the skeleton of analogy... i say them now, because all emotions have been numbed... from someone without any thought for a patriotism... i can express in the simplest way... because after the fact: i didn't see anything worth a noble maintenance to be made a standard for 21st living... disagreeing with me is a futile as telling me that a stone thrown will not sink, over a body of water when upon it it's thrown. you can write as much spaghetti as you want within the framework of quantum physics... but when simple physics comes your way... i'm bemused why you're startled at a punch, and the pouch-clot of blood smitten into your cheek to denotate a bruise... it's almost as if you were expecting deviation from being prone to gravity, endowed with wings... no wonder the event was sober... try repeating the bohemian liberation of the 1950s and 60s... impossible! i didn't do anything too late... the analogy comes when it so chooses... because too many ignoble demands were met and satiated... that this one noble simplification... is so painstakingly unsatisfying!

when i listen to the music of my
youth... dunno... just get stiff-*******...
winter air helps make this
phenomenon acute...
i mean music from the year 1997
through to 2001 -
   the years preceding American
undermining and the narrative
of paranoia...
call it what you like, i call it a
feeling of stiff-******* when i hear it
down the years...
it's not even a nostalgia...
    it's a sort of embarrassing clue...
i am actually embarrassed
at having such tastes...
    it's not the kind of music you'd
be happy about, nostalgic about
the 1980s...
              the embarrassment?
probably because i now realise i was
an incubator for so much delayed
teenage-angst in the artists who
reigned this period...
       the clue is in: mostly rock orientated.
i remember that chubby kid
donning his baggy jeans and black
t-shirts with bands' prints on them...
but i find unquestionable is
the indentation of representing
that call for vogue...
                i remember wearing
a t-shirt with the slogan: *******
is not a crime
          on non-uniform days in
a catholic school...
           and not being touched or told to
take it off...
             it's like i've become father:
or simply memory - to the person i
am today...
           because i can't imagine anything
beyond this day-to-day...
       but whenever i put on the mind
that was influenced by those bribes back then,
i remember the Ilford shopping centre,
and the colours of Gants Hill's park
with those bird cages...
           getting the bus to Ilford,
then a one-stop trip to Seven Kings
wearing the guilty-as-seen uniform...
   i can't see any nostalgia behind,
given my music taste: i get stiff-*******,
a feeling of cold shivers and
embarrassment...
      but it happened before the invulnerable
essence of america died...
      once upon a time people dreamed
of wanting to move to america...
   these days the narrative is a bit like:
and succumb to that paranoia narrative?
i think i'll pass...
       i can get the escapism of
conspiracy theorists... i too thought about
the later mentions of why those buildings
fell down as if someone ticked-off
a domino effect implosion...
    it really did slightly unnatural -
   those twins really did seem like a domino
effect...
       so you hear those stories of very sloppy
murderers...
who forget to shave off their fingerprints with
razors, and shave off their crop of hair
and eye-brows...
                           by writing this i can't
make the situation worse...
                      it just seems like even though
the plain did hit the buildings,
the actual downfall of the buildings seemed
too staccato... i mean that: a stacked tower...
but if you play a game of *jenga,
doesn't the jenga tower fall to the side?
                           it doesn't fall-onto-itself, does it?
i'm sure the same physics principles has
to apply to that fateful event of 2001...
     you'd expect the upper half of the twins
to break-away and fall off...
rather than the whole building literally
cascading and imploding on itself...
folding...
                               you attack a jenga tower
in the middle, and the top bit falls off...
the tower doesn't implode vertically...
      a bit like chopping a tree in the middle
of the trunk... you'll still get a stump,
even if you chop at the root of the stump...
               satan in zeitgeist...
only then dawkin's the god delusion was
published years later, did i read that, apparently,
satan's face donned one of the burning towers...
   me thinks: spot satan and read the *******...
the easiest thing is to now claim that we
are insane... but it's still about the jenga tower
magnified... a jenga tower unravels and the top
bit falls to the side... a jenga tower doesn't fall apart
from top to bottom...
                it falls apart like a lumberjack hacked tree:
to the side...
              i really could write about some
other nieche topic... but it's hard not to write
about the abomination of physics...
     the fact that there was an implosion -
  and that the towers folded vertically,
means that even if a horizontal agitation occured,
the towers couldn't have behaved as they did:
(vertically) folding...
                                 but since the agitation came
from a horizontal perspective, and the fact
that the towers folded vertically,
      the agitation came on a horizontal perspective,
a jenga tower would fall off to the side...
                        yet the towers folded vertically...
   i don't know if that's really only about
writing a + b = c, given b + c = d,
  or whether it already is 1 + 1 = 2...
             **** me, if this isn't the opening bewilderment
we all feel about the 21st century,
no war in iraq or afghanistan can help us...
    attack a jenga tower in the middle:
it doesn't fold vertically! a jenga tower attacked
   horizontally will only ask for you to shout:
timber! who need the bewilderment of quantum
physics, when you have the physics of 2001
to look-up your *** at and muse.

Vessel of blood, pumping life,
thrumming quickly to the world's pace.
Vessel of warmth, pumper of love,
squeezing every drop of red out.
Vessel of ice, pumping pain,
cold and lifeless while stabbing itself.
Vessel of stone, pumper of strength,
protecting against emotion's varied arrows.
Clumps of cholesterol, good or bad,
deflecting the flow of normality,
throwing off with simplicity,
so easy to fix but unnoticed,
seemingly not a problem at all,
until it seeps into your heart,
strangling it with its own agenda,
blocking and changing the beat,
the pulse,
until everything;
Stops.

I will drag my knife along your skin,
sharp blade down into your fragile, shaking canvas,
incising an increasing beat of whimpers and whines.
Please hold still. I promise this will hurt.

I will expose your clattering bones,
rip out your chattering teeth,
erase every impugned utterance
you muttered against me.
I will carve my letters slowly
on your unzipped frame,
sliding the burgundy blood across to
blot
       clot
              dot.    

This is only preparation for what is about to follow.

I will puncture your throbbing organs,
slash your stretched cartilage
with an unwritten script.
Before I press further,
I’ll assure you, you are still alive.

I will twist each phrase,
haunt you to believe it is your fault,
force you to beg the slightest escape.
I will permanently etch my name
deep in the frozen chambers
of your quivering heart.

I will open up the blueprint as a demolition expert,
remove whole fractions of your fractured soul,
leave you a horrid wreck in the abyss
of a mess you just made.

You will not get rid of me,
though no trace of evidence is left behind.

My hands have been clean from the start.

I gave my heart to a woman--
I gave it her, branch and root.
She bruised, she wrung, she tortured,
She cast it under foot.

Under her feet she cast it,
She trampled it where it fell,
She broke it all to pieces,
And each was a clot of hell.

There in the rain and the sunshine
They lay and smouldered long;
And each, when again she viewed them,
Had turned to a living song.

Did you ever imagine your life to be ,  like a fish swimming around a fish bowl wanting to be free
One minute you are surrounded by family and friends, to swimming around a bowl that never ends.
The question haunts you every single day , why did my family just throw me away,
I always thought blood was thicker than water, now I don't believe.
Now I see blood can clot and family will deceive.
Like a fish swimming around a bowl with no end
I'm learning more each day nobody but you will always be there not family or a friend
No matter how many times a fish swims around his bowl it never finds it way
No matter how much you love and trust someone in your time of need they always go away
©kimmied1105

I.

something within me,
maybe its my amigdala,
misses the oven-turned-gentrified clot,
that great collection of want,
of transient soles-souls.

I miss how we’re piled three stories high,
so close to each others’ mouths that we must
burrow in criss crossed, colliding tunnels
to our point b’s, our job sites,
our lovers’ houses.

maybe it is indeed part of our un-nature to do this,
to cling to one another even
as our unforgiving sungod bakes us whole,
cornish game hens on the el train,
hurdling 40 mph, to and from
our personal hovels, heavens
and bedsheets,
tethered to this place, possibly indentured,
definitely flawed,
where we revel under roofs to prove incredibleness
an virility.

II.

our eyes are not closed today.
they may not blink in unison
as mannequin lids do,
so effortlessly, plastic and mechanical,
but those, we are thankfully not.
for we are flesh,
and air, and miles of gastrointestinal turnpike, if unpinned,
would stretch from here to panama.

we are each of us
a viscous mound called
Sally, Bertram and Queen Mary.

We are the collision of milk flowing, divine,
a whirling dervish
in scalding darjeeling.
we are air,
gliding over enamel into the collective breath
to be devoured so sweetly by others,
as saintly man-scripted gelato,
dribbling down our chins in piazzas.
la dolce ******* vita.

III.

that’s the funny thing about living
in this size 2 world,
the ability to appear anywhere upon its face at a moment’s notice,
to be in front of any face when desired,
to live sans toll booth or customs desk,
to simply dust off our ability to fly
and tumble icarus-adolescent into the collision
between the two blue planes called sea and sky

skin
a sheen of sweat
cries ring out
sheets
all tangled agony
***** foetid air
contract
cryout
subside
a birthing
no pink and downy babe is this
a mucus clot
a jellied mass
a river of blood and tears
a termination
of what wasn't quite
a tractor passes feeding out
calves for the slaughter
the sun shines
birds sing
all oblivious of anything
a death and life goes on

today, bob delahunty, was asked along to that HDU, to try and here the stories

of these many people who have been arguing about who is god, you see, there

is always, debates on who is more powerful that jesus, and who is jesus, and

when bob arrived, all the HDU, are arguing religious topics at each other till

their ears bleed, and bob didn’t know which way to turn, so, what bob did

is take them aside, first was ben teckerdid, who says his god, and bob said what makes

you god, buddy, ben said, well, i help people after i get drunk with them, my gift of the mandrunk

is to overdo helping people, and i end up here all the time, to reform everyone here, to

get this fucken place, closed down, then bob said, why that does make you GOD, ben

no, your just a crazy person, who likes to help, but you are not medicated right, in doing your deeds,

well, it passes the god test, but ben you are not the almighty one, and ben told bob to SHUT UP, singing

i know god is the devil, but the devil is bob

god is the devil and the devil is bob

god is the devil and the devil is bob

ben the devil and bobby poo

bob told ben to sit down and brought richard smith in, who believes he is the real jesus, and bob

was intrigued, why are you the real jesus, and richard said, because i can feel everyones pain

if you hit anyone, i feel it, and if i worked in a homeless shelter, i will get everyone inspired

cause, i am the real jesus, bob sat there laughing hitting himself with a rubber band, and richard

said, it doesn’t work like that, you see bob, i turned water into wine, i told moses to walk on water

i enjoy drinking wine, but i am a filthy little ****, i am jesus, cause, on inspection days in my flat

i can clean all day, to past the test, ooooh, i must be jesus, and bob said, ok, you have my vote

and richard said no bob, i am jesus christ, and not just to get out of here, either, I AM JESUS

and richard left saying, did you understand, as he left singing

god is the devil, and the devil is bob

god is the devil and the devil is bob

god is the devil and the devil is bob

GOD, THE DEVIL, AND ****** BOB

the next patient also thought he was jesus, he was also the devil and god, because to him

he was religion, he lived for 323 years, and all his stories were written in his tent, but bob

thought straight away, WHAT A NUTJOB, he isn’t religion, he’s a clot, and his name was barney

and he lived near fred, and a woman named betty as his wife, and they worked on a dinosaur

and bob said, this guy has flipped his ****** marbles, that was a television show in thew 1970s

and barney said in his defense, no, it actually was the truth, barney helped fred, i helped fred

i am barney, and bob said, you are a shitzophrenic patient in the HDU, i don’t want to upset you

but the flintstones, never was real, in the way you explained it, ben and richard had better views

that you, buddy, and barney told bob to *******, and went away singing

god is the devil and the devil is bob, and barney is religion

god is the devil and the devil is bob and barney is religion

god is the devil and the devil is bob and barney, oh barney oh barney is religion

flintstones existed bobby delahunty

bob saw his last patient who said he was jesus christ and the devil, he saves people

but he also condemns people, ya know, puts people right all the time, bob thought

i don’t mess with you, mr, and he said he was jack flynn, i am 23, and i live and work

in a ****** neighbourhood, i never get any help from doctors and psych crews

and my only solace are my beliefs and writing them down on my computer

and i can save a lot of people, with the stories i wrote, buddy, ya know

bob asked, i understand that, but both jesus and the devil, and jack said

ummmmm, i am jesus, and there is no devil, good things happen bad things happen

the devil doesn’t control, and yeah, I, JESUS, MUST FORFILL MY DUTY TO PROTECT THE WORLD FROM VIOLENCE

IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM, bob said, interesting, ok, and bob went away making sure

that each of these dellusionists take their medications cause even if they are, their crimes were wrong, ok

but, remember, they have a right to their beliefs, and bob went away singing

god is the devil, and the devil is bob

god is the devil and the devil is bob

god is the devil and the devil is bob

GOD THE DEVIL AND BOB

bob went off thinking

god is the devil and the devil is bob

god is the devil and the devil is bob

god is the devil and the devil is bob

GOD THE DEVIL AND BOB

How meadows
   cannot green or divide hills
How lakes
   cannot ripple or remain flat
How tears
   cannot dry in time for another
How wounds
   cannot heal or blood clot
How truth
   buries its lies in unmarked graves
How revenge
   fears justice will turn its back
How reckoning
   fails to pay its debts
How love
   becomes hate by war
How children
   are born old by poverty
How dignity
   cannot calm itself
How eyes
   see knowing their crime
How memories
   only crack mirrors
How confessions
   ask only for mercy
How shame
   walks pretended of grace
How forgiveness
   needed to tell the truth first
How black men
   turn the other cheek

The carvings on the stones
Read like scars
In this city that has bled for centuries
And I’m no clot to slow the flow

The veins of this country have been pricked
And punctured

And the skin ripples in the wind
Like a half flown flag

I have come here to bury my past
In the tombs of my fathers
And build a bridge
That will still be standing by morning

For now
I tread seconds in this liquid night
And press my palms
Against the scarred stones
As if maybe they might whisper me their secrets
And clot my bleeding history