When people ask if you're weird, or tell you,
or want to believe themselves strange,
eclectic, or odd.
It's vaguely disgusting to me,
cringeworthy in a mild degree.
We think we're so different,
but we are not.
The individualism of people
should be and is comparable
to the individualism of ants.
Who looks at the anthill and
sees something in particular,
something behaving specifically
"uniquely"
from every ant and every anthill?
Why do you believe in yourself?
I see this, as a conversation about
depression, and your partner
does not respect you
but instead wants to
tell you how they feel worse,
or have it worse, or "understand" more
about the affirmation or situation.
A person looking for individuality
through a lens of misery, anguish, and sadness,
is truly alone in their minds, and missing the
reality that these depressions exist without them.
The statement, "you are not alone" is an attack,
or an offense to these people, because it says
"you are not as unique as you think",
it strips them of their identity and individuality.
This is true of many ideologies and affirmations.
I quit individuality, this constricting sense
of holding everything of yourself in center,
to be a drop in the whole, something fluid.
If you split your affirmations from yourself,
you'd see we're all the same;
Affirmations are just currents in the ocean.
I look at myself; and people see a man,
a radical feminist, and sometimes a musician.
As labels, these each have their own presupposed notions,
[especially, "man" or "male" in the patriarchal gaze]
which hardly, if ever, are true,
but as affirmations, when I consent to using them,
these are no longer stereotypes that constrain me,
but similarities that I realize
I can embrace or shut out in others.
Affirmations do not make me more unique,
but similar to more people.
If I remove these affirmations to try and get to my "true" center,
my purest form of self, I see I am without meaning.
This is why I quit Individuality.

I like to call this counting crows.

A boy told me he liked me while I was high and crying listening to some indie *******.
My ex girlfriend smoked everyday, 3:11 pm, after school in her backyard, and I guess that is sort of cringeworthy.

Tell me you like me.

I like to call this counting crows.

And I wish I was pretty without make up, but I sold my soul and became demoralized. 

My ex boyfriend split his wrist one day and blamed me, and I guess that is sort of cringeworthy.

Tell me you’re okay.

I like to call this counting crows.

And you really can’t call me pretty because once, I loved someone and they called me pretty, but now he says I’m not the same-
He said I’m glass, but I always thought I was marrow.

I like to call this counting crows.

And I keep throwing up water and candy and syllables, but you won’t like me once you reach the smell,

And I’ve been empty for a long time,
but eating and eating and eating will only make you nauseated.

There is a pit in my stomach filled with sand.

I like to call this counting crows.

And I didn’t expect to meet you here, but there you are smiling at me with top and bottom marbles that I’d love to play with someday.

And here I am rubbing my knees trying to stand up without looking as feeble as I feel-

I remember little things.

Princess Diana died on my birthday.

It takes one man to change a light bulb and a woman to light it.

What the **** was the punchline?

I really want to sleep.

My best friend keeps making plans.

I want to kiss you shoulders.

Please lock the door”

Love hard, my friends. Love noticeably.


Love does not deserve to be shoved under the rug, to be disguised, or to be quieted. Love does not mean conforming to the idea that genuine affection is “sappy,” “cheesy,” or “cringeworthy”; instead-- love loudly.


The world wants to tell you that relationships are to be silenced. That posting multiple photographs of each other is tacky, uncomfortable, and something to make fun of. That devoting time with your favorite human being is disgusting, overbearing-- especially when you are young and the future does not exist in your hands.


Too bad, future. And how unfortunate, world. Because at the end of the day, the world does not own love. You do. It is yours to have, to keep, to share, and to do whatever it takes to hold onto it. It is mine.


When you find love, shout it from the rooftops and frame a million photographs. Post selfies of the two of you smiling wide and unwavering. Wear its colors on your face and shamelessly declare it to the whole universe and beyond: You are in love. You are alive.
And likewise, this is my philosophy: Love intentionally, fiercely, tirelessly.


Love so hard it makes people dizzy. Take it as a compliment. In an exhausted world that spins with violence, hatred, and monstrosity-- praise its joys. Snap those pictures.Tell your friends. Scrapbook it, publish it, make art out of it. Laugh about it, display it, live it. Put an end to the grotesque concept that something so beautiful, perhaps life’s most magnificent, should be sheltered. Let it grow.


This is a declaration. I am boisterously in love. There is no quiet here.
One day, you will find someone or something that your heart will never be able to shut up about. And that’s okay. Let it scream.

I've spent so long trying
To forget each cringeworthy day
My mistakes & decisions
Took so long to go away

I've been a million different things
A million different times
I've done so many different things
Committed many crimes

I've changed my personality
And reinvented who I am
I don't recognise myself
I'm amazed that others can

I try not to talk about
The crazy times back then
The drama, the men, the music
The life of way back when

And now the people left behind
The good within the bad
In passing on the past
I lost out on what I had

This rolling stone has stopped at last
Ready to retrace her track
I think they've forgotten now...
Is it too late to go back?

I've had people say that I'm generally a good person
They tell me I'm sweet and thoughtful
And I know they mean it.

But I honestly don't see it.
Every time I look in the mirror
I just feel so utterly disgusted
I'm so cringeworthy
So awkward
So untalented
So average
So annoying
So.... Disappointing

I've never truly hated anyone
But **** I despise myself.

You cringeworthy, evil pismire;
Your father did surely miss-sire
This personification of flatulence,
The embodiment of self importance
Overflowing with abject peccancy
Devoid of any sign of respectability
Replete with gross odoriferousness
Horribly and infamously unscrupulous.

You have reveled in misrepresentation
And tried to elevate your calumniation
Disinformation and deception exists
As capitalistic dissembling persists.
You’ve collected an evil government
Built mostly of human excrement
And have such a lack of veracity
That you speak in constant mendacity.

Sycophantic eructations of dogmatic bile
Issue from your unsympathetic smile
And your inauthentic glad-handed gropes
As if we all of us are unbright gullible dopes
That buy your fabrications completely
While you pilfer and prevaricate indiscreetly.
You are a Vaudevillian villain miscast as star,
But most of us know exactly what you are.

Deceit, deception, dishonesty; a tragedy
But not for you, for us and our country.
Distortion, evasion and fabrication the rules;
You despair of any other kinds of tools.
Falsehoods, fictions and forgery are your tricks.
You demand we build with straw-less bricks
Your erections that are planned to be palaces
Filled with your giant golden carved phalluses.

Those monuments, inanotomically correct,
Established to celebrate and somehow protect
A mountebank on the way to an overseas bank
Claiming to eradicate the scoria he creates
That decades of privation will not quite alleviate.
But you, the Great Prevaricator, will always blame
Other players in your sick, unconstitutional game
Instead of admitting your complicity and guilt
About the disgusting, putrid swamp you built.

self love and affirmations
are so cringeworthy to me --
that's mean, i know.
the perfect depiction of
schaudenfraude.
but it's so needed.

sometimes this space feels too small
with no more balcony
you blow smoke directly in my face
stain our ceiling fan black
give me a contact high
while i try to multitask on five
things at once,
unsuccessfully,
ever more unsuccessfully.

i've lost all focus.

i just want a clean bed,
soft sheets,
a sink free from ***** dishes
and every manner of walking and
flying insect
-- this constant infestation.

i just want clean air,
to breathe,
bikes that don't break and
don't get stolen.
shoes that protect my feet
from the grime that slickly coats
the sidewalks of LA black.
shoes that are also pretty.

i don't have any of this.
money, money, money
i'm always crying over you.
i'm sick of your ****,
but i'm forever bound to you.
and you treat me cruelly
taunt me with everything i can't have.

"joke's on you my friend,
you better guess again,
cause everybody's gotta pay their way"

"death is easy, life is hard"

Childhood is awe
Youth is uncertainty
Adulthood is steady realisation
Middle age is bleak acceptance
Old age is beating or succumbing to all
It all depends on what you did,
What crazy suicidal tendencies you had
When you were uncertain about everything.

Insanity is a gift
Few relish like you
So if you are unsure of your footing
Don't wobble, dance
If you are unsure of what you will find
Don't stretch your hand out, charge forth!
****** noses, cringeworthy memories and broken relationships may spew forth, but
Nothing
Hurts
Like
Regret
In
An
Unnused
Insanity.

It was said that anything could change in a blink of an eye
That life could evolve, why not give it a try?
An average human being blinks twenty-three thousand and forty times a day.
That could result to twenty-three thousand and forty revolutions by the way.

So I started to stare at the mirror, to wonder and think.
Why not observe and see what’d happen if I blinked.
Would my life revolve to the way I wanted it to be?
Would I become like the celebrities and the people I conceived?

I tried blinking once. Not a single thing has changed.
I’m still looking at the person that I’ve always despised.
Whose life can never, and I mean ever be arranged.
The kid who always ends up crying and mortified.

I tried blinking again. For the second time.
I realise how ugly I am. How cringeworthy my face is.
If there’s a scale, I would be zero for attractive basis.
No offense(If I’d offend myself), I look like I’d commit a crime.

For the third time, I blinked again.
Veins started to grow, giving in to the pain of my complains.
Fogs started to cover my ugly reflection.
The thorns injected me with doses that affected my complexion.

I started to feel weak. I started to hold on to the wall.
I wished that this could stop in a blink.
The mirror started to be covered with ink.
I’ve always learned to hold back for the fear that I’d fall.

For the fourth time, I blinked.
The mirror started to have cracks. I tried to stop it.
My blood dripped from it like an ink.
It made a shape that looks like a target.

I blinked again. Fifth, sixth, seventh to the twenty-three thousand and thirty-fifth time.
I blinked again. It’s all the same, each time it happens it just gets worse.
I blinked again. Losing all the words in my head. Losing the letters to build a rhyme.
I blinked again. I started to feel numb, realising that nothing really mattered.

I stared at the broken mirror. Realising each edges.
I’ve never really looked “human" in a broken mirror.
I remembered Him who payed for my wages.
At that moment, despite of the broken mirror, I started to see clearer.

I closed my eyes. Longer than what a blink should be.
I felt His touch. His healing, running through my veins.
I felt him. And his name is Love, who broke all my chains.
For the first time, with closed eyes, I could see.

For the last time, for the twenty-three thousand and fortieth time.
I blinked, staring at the mirror. The cracks started to disappear.
I smirked and felt the change. The change that I’m now whole with the Great I Am.
Nothing more, nothing less. It’s the love of Love I’d only fear.

to see you hurt left me a terrible unease.
cringeworthy..
wrists breaking,
eyes poked,
or
bruised knees.

eughh..
Right to my core.
please be careful
out there Sprout.

and that's the deal of abandoning shame & pride, and moving back home, and listening to the crises of the middle aged... guess what: often more than you bargained for, living the life with another women, and then only going back for a funeral of the forgotten fogged over skeletal lassoing of a cow with arthritic "humour"; **** takes a punch... and ****: so much history goes into an argument, you almost end up forgetting the 1998 world cup! or world war II! but then again: sometimes... that's all that ever happens, and how much you hate to construct a "perfect" life faςade.

usually after a father son arguments ends:
the sun makes his father
lunch, garlic & balsamic vinegar infused
mayo sandwiches, enough pork,
and enough veg... that's called:
an argument settled, which ended:
not one of these families, around us
can claim to be perfect.

the point being, by writing you'll never
make any money,
and you never will,
  and it's twice as hard to "pretend"
you're writing, under a roof of
a respectable manual labourer -
as i say to him:
    you know what i'd give to perfect
your skill? my right arm...
he works his *** off, while i sit on
my *** all day, saying:
how can i compete with works that
were written with a quill?
       point being: i can't!
             i can usher in a thousand
****-abouts in quick-hand via
a keyboard, but, as history usually cites:
i'll never reach the zenith of
a "classical" output...
so much for that balsamic vinegar /
garlic infused mayo...
  and so much for the sandwich...
         last time i checked i was the first
person in the family to go to uni,
and the second to visit a *******...
while also the first to perfect rolling
a cigarette from crude basics of rollie,
filter tip, & tobacco...
       we went through my life's mistakes,
and we didn't really encounter his,
but then i said:
  i admire what you do,
it's manual labour, sure, it is,
it's demeaning,
but you perfected it,
  you hardly think about it,
but you still do it like an artist -
and he says: a man my age ought to
be behind a desk, with a computer screen
in front of him,
   and i say to him:
listen, even i don't own the complete computer
parameters,
   i can't do spreadsheets!
           last night i was checking
the acronyms c.c. and b.c.c. in an email...
   sure as **** i don't need spectacles to type,
but i'm hardly savvy in these areas...
no one's perfect all walks of life,
  and no one can be an einstein aged 8...
so i repeat:
      i'm not the perfection you'd find in
a mailing catalogue...
  so i say: i know that writing gets me nowhere,
and buy me nothing,
  but i want to allow writing a chance,
to perfect it into an automaton medium...
   i want to write automatic,
without a single though allowed to
"perfect" it...
    i want to become the solid aiming
          carpenter of written-unsaid...
           which is how it always was...
pave to poverty, and from poverty to no
saintly stature of st. assisi...
                    becoming an artist under
the curtain of a labouring father in
the guise of carpenter, roofer, blacksmith,
you are bound to pinnacle on the guilt...
   but as i said to him:
besides the vanity, maybe my words
are needed,
   so that some middle-aged ******* can
spell-check a few decades later,
   and find out that his theory was not:
all that...
                   people always seem to complain
about my drinking...
little do they realise, how often i complain
about their sobriety,
  and how insidiously boring it oft becomes;
i.e. most people are as cringeworthy
sober, writing about drunk,
as a simon & garfunkel song;
can i have some walnuts,
            and a nutcracker, please?

I Hate Modern Poetry

I feel like true poetry has been ruined by teens who write *******
Modern day poetry writers are like a fandom now
Who write things about their emotions and how they feel about themselves

Two words:
****. You.
That's right. ******* for ruining poetry.
I honestly don't give a **** about your emotions or if you're a ******* "demon queen or king" of high school
I remember the real poets.
Maya Angelou.
Walt Whitman.
William Shakespeare.
Langston Hughes.
Edgar Allan Poe.

'But now who are the "real poets"?
Jasmine?
Alexa?
Haunter?
Brianna?
Just to name a few.
**** No!
Like the great Kanye West once said
"Does anybody make real **** anymore?!"

You are not "rotten".
You are not "a demon".
But you are not a poet either.
Sure, there are some truly beautiful modern poems.
But until more of those great authors make real poems and the emotional ******* ends
Poetry will be a stupid.
Worthless cringeworthy crap.

I don't think this a correctly made poem.
I don't believe  that it's a poem at all.
There are no rhymes.
No rhetorical devices.
But what is a poem anymore?

Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis
Are leading the lemmings into the fire.
The two governors are throwing more
Wood onto the funeral pyre.

Each is hoping that voters will give him
Praise for his cringeworthy COVID response,
Which was never very aggressive
And always displayed more nonchalance.

Partners in carnage, they hope to score
Political points while people get sick.
And people are dying. Can't these two
Numbskulls do their arithmetic?

COVID numbers are rising again.
The delta variant is spreading fast.
And yet the two behave as though
COVID is a thing of the past.

Banning mandates for masks in schools
When numbers of cases are rising? What?
Their irresponsible, heartless, and thoughtless
Behavior is a punch in the gut.

It's all about choice, DeSantis says,
Which shows his reasoning's not so keen.
Kids don't have a choice in the matter,
For kids under twelve can't get the vaccine!

The two Republican ideologues
Do not want government "intrusion."
They are entrenched in hypocrisy
And have abandoned truth for illusion.

Patients are filling the hospitals
In both of their states--an indication
That they have a serious health crisis.
What a frightening situation!

Younger people are losing their lives
In greater numbers than before.
It makes no sense to abandon reason
And common sense as numbers soar.

DeSantis and Abbott have blood on their hands.
But, obviously, they don't care.
I'm glad they’re not my governor.
Floridians and Texans beware.

-by Bob B (8-11-21)