There is nothing new under the sun, but it was night and the indifferent blinks of gaseous lives above looked down while my friends and I were at a new fast food joint that moved next to a now lonely Wendy's, with a faded sign tarnished by something the new fast food joint had yet to experience—mundanity by time. But I had my notebook with me while we ate outside, but it was in the car. My mind is always in that book, and I remembered something I had written for a novel in progress: 'Nothing is new under the sun. How is it possible to watch stars die? There is nothing new to their dust. We are the flies of the universes.'
It was just when I had finished my BBQ pork sandwich when Ariana suggested visiting a graveyard. I had the idea to visit a Satanist graveyard that our friend, Lanessa warned us against for the better safety of our sane souls—good luck with that. I wanted a revival of fear. How the beast would rip at the roof off our metal can of a car—the greater our barbarism, the greater our admiration and imagination—the less admiration and imagination, the greater our barbarism. But Ariana disagrees with words I never say, Nick laughs with my simple words to that previous thought. How funny it would be to burn eternal.
But then he suggested we should go to the Trussel in Conway. I had no idea or quote to think about to contribute to this idea. I wander, as I like to, into the possibility that his idea is a good one. Like some wanting hipster, I dress in an old t-shirt with of mantra long forgotten in the meaning of its cadence.
That is the march of men and women into the sea—honest, but forgetful and forgotten.
I was wearing a shirt sleeve on my head I bought from a mall-chain hippie store, and exercise shorts, finished off with skele-toes shoes. I was ready for everything and nothing at the same time. And that fits, I suppose. But all that does matter—and doesn't, but it is hard as hell to read the mind of a reader—it's like having a lover, but s/he doesn't know what s/he wants from you—selfish *******.
But there I was,  on the road, laughing in the back seat, sitting next to a girl who was tired, but also out of place. I could see she wanted to close arms of another, the voice of another, the truth that sits next to her while watching tv every time she comes over to hang with him, but never accepts that truth. She is a liar, but only to herself. How can she live with that? The world may never know.
The simple rides into things you've never done before give some of the greatest insight you could imagine, but only on the simple things that come full circle later. That is a mantra you can't print on a t-shirt, but if it ever is, I'm copyrighting it. And if it's not possible, I'll make it possible!
When we got to the Trussel, the scenic path lit by ornamented lamps seemed tame once I stepped onto the old railroad tracks. They were rusted and bruised by the once crushing value of trains rolling across it's once sturdy structure. Now they were old, charred by the night, and more than just some abandoned railroad bridge—the Trussel was a camouflage symbol birthed by the moment I looked into a Garfish's eye as it nibbled on my cork while I was on a fishing trip with my granddad when I was eleven. I remember that moment so well as the pale, olive green eye looked at me with a sort of seething iron imprint—I needed that fear, it branded instead of whispering that knowledge into my ears.
That moment epitomizes my fear of heights over water—what lies beneath to rip, restrain, devour, impale, and or distract me.
But epitomize is a horrible word. It reeks of undeveloped understanding. Yet  I want a nimble connection with something as great as being remembered—a breathe of air and the ideas  thought by my younger self, but I will never see or remember what I thought about when I was that young—only the summary of my acts and words. And by that nothing has changed—am I too afraid to say what I need to say? Too afraid to hear what everyone else hears? Or is it the truth—depravity of depravities that has no idea of its potential, so I am tired of the words that describe my shortcomings and unextended gasping hope. I am tired of living in the land of Gatsby Syndrome waiting for Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy!
But when we got to where the Trussel actually began I felt the fear hit like the day it was born—all hope was drained, and I was okay with abandoning all aspirations of having fun and being myself in the face of public criticism. I was flushed out by the weasel in my belly—the ******* beneath those still waters. I compare it to someone being able to handle Waterboarding, but can't handle being insulted—it's that kind of pathetic.
I stood just on the last understandably steady railroad ties that I knew were safe and watched my friends sit off the edge of the bridge, taking in the cold wonder of the night, and I was told at least I was smarter than my dead cousin who managed to get on top of his high school in the middle of the night, but had to be cohearsed down for fifteen minutes by a future marine, and future mourner who still grieves with a smile on his face.
The future mourner, he laughs at the times he insulted, or made fun of, or chilled with his now dead friend. It's never the bad times he cries about, there are none—just the good times, because they don't make them like they used to.
I watched them in that moment, and I don't know if I can deal with knowing my life is real. I began to blame my morality on this fear even though I already justified the fear just seconds before. But as I write this, I look over my notes and see something I wrote a few days ago: 'Life is ******* with  us right now. You laugh and I laugh, but we're still getting ******. The demon's in our face.'
As morbid as that comes off, it resonates some truth—what is killing us is going to **** us no matter what we do—and I don't want to be epitomized by the acts and words I didn't say.
I was never in the moment as a kid—I was raised by by old people and kept back by my younger siblings. The experienced tried to teach me wisdom, and the inexperienced kept my imagination locked in time. I don't want to go home as much now because I see that the inexperienced are becoming wiser everyday and the experienced are dying before my eyes. My idea of things is enduring leprosy.
But back to the simple moments.
Ariana saw a playground as she stood up and investigated the Trussel. It was next to the river, behind the church, fenced off by the fellowship of the church to keep the young ones in and the troublesome out. Of course, we didn't realize there was a gate and it was locked until Nick stated the probable obvious within ten feet of the nostalgic playground. And that's when Ariana pointed out the bugs swarming the parking lot outdoor lamp that blazed the fleshiness of our presences into dense shadows and more than likely caught the eye of a suspicious driver in a truck passing by. But I was still on the bridge—back in the past, never the moment. Me and my friends are still children inside these ***** forms. I muttered to myself: “Life ain't about baby steps.”
Nick looked over and asked what I said. I turned around, dramatic, like I always like to and repeated louder this time, “Life ain't about baby steps.”
He asked if I needed to do this alone, and I said he could come along. I walked rhythmically across the railroad ties, and heard Ariana comment that getting to the railroad up the small, steep hill was like being in the Marines. I laughed sarcastically. Nick and I had been to Parris Island before, and I know they test your possible fears, but they beat the living **** out of them.
I casually walk into the room where my fear lives and tell it to get the **** out.
When I reached the precipice of the last railroad tie I stood on before, I felt the old remind me that death awaited me, but there was no epic soundtrack or incredible action scene where I stab a manifestation of my fear in heart—a bit fun it might have been, but not the truth. I bear-crawled over the crossings of the ties and the structure of the bridge itself. I felt Relowatiphsy—an open-minded apathy self-made philosophical term—take over me. It is much simpler than it sounds.
There was no cold wonder as I imagined. There was just a bleak mirror of water below, a stiff curtain of trees that shadowed it, and the curiosity of what lies in the dark continuing distance past the Trussel.
Nick sat with me and we talked about women and fear, or at least I did, and I hoped he felt what I did—there was a force there that is nabbed by everyone, but cherished by few—courage. And I thank him for it, but I know I did it. Now I want to go and jump in that still water below—Ariana later says she's happy I got over my fear, but I'll probably have a harder time during the day when I can see what I'm facing, but I see it differently. During the day, the demons are stone and far away—like looking down the barrels of a double-barreled shotgun uncocked and unloaded, but at night is when the chamber is full and ready to go, and you have no idea who is holding the gun with their finger on the trigger and your destination in mind.
Then we threw rocks into the water in contest to see who could throw past the moonlight into the shadowy distance . I aimed for the water marker, and got the closest with limited footing, using just my arm strength. But it wasn't long before we had to leave, making fun of people who do cooler things than us, on the way to the car. I had to ride in the back seat again because I forgot to call shotgun. But on the way home, the idea popped in our heads what we should get my hooka and go to Broadway, and get the materials so we could smoke on the beach.
Nick's girlfriend and her friend joined us.
I missed a few puns against my co-worker as I was sent to get free water from the candy store where I work. I ended up doing a chore because I was taller than most of the people there. Appropriate enough, it was filling the water bottles up in the refrigerator.
All the while I loathed the fact that I would have to be clocked in tomorrow by two in the afternoon. I grabbed the water and got out of there as fast as possible without appearing to be in a hurry.
Impression of caring matters more than the actuality where I work—and yes, that makes me a miserable ****.
Perhaps it's not too late to admit I am recovering pyromaniac from my childhood and the flavoring we use for the taffy is extremely flammable. It would be a shame to drench the store in what people love to smell everyday when they walk in, and light the gas stove. Then, maybe I could walk away real cool-like as this pimple in this tourist acne town pops like the Hindenburg. The impression of splendor is like a phoenix—it grows old, dies, resurrects into the same, but apparently different form, spreads it's wings, and eats and ***** on everything simple, or presumably so.
I forget the name of the beach, but it was the best time I've had in a while. I was whimsy, and high on the vastness of the stretch of beach around us. They could bury us here. But me in particular. I rolled from the middle of the beach to the water, stood in the waves and shouted my phrase I coined when I realize something as wonderful as conquering a fear or realizing a dream;
--******' off!
And I stared at the horizon. My friends came up behind me and I looked back to see it was Nick and his girlfriend hugging. I gave a soft smile, put my hands in my pocket, and turned back to stare at the clouded horizon. What beasts must lie out there—more ferocious than the simple fresh water beings that wait beneath the earlier placid waters. I was a fool to think that was the worst. Nick said as I pondered all that, that I looked like Gatsby, and I tried to give him a smile that you may only see once in a lifetime, but I'm sure it failed.
I wanted to tell him that, “You cannot make me happy. It is usually the people who have no intention of making me happy that makes me smile the quickest.” But I don't. Let me be Gatsby, or Fitzgerald, if to no one else, but myself.

Hell is the deterioration of all that matters, and as the five of us sat around the hooka, and inhaled the thick blueberry flavored smoke that hinted at the taste of the Blueberry flavoring I use to make Blueberry taffy, there was a satirical realization that the coal used to activate the tobacco and flavor in the bowl is sparking like a firework, and reminds us all of where we're going.
It's a love affair between that hopelessness and hope of some destination we've only read about, but never seen.
By this point Nick and I are covered in sand, because he joined me in fun of rolling down the beach. We want so bad to be Daoists—nonchalant to the oblivion as we sit in. Just on the rifts of the tide, he and I scooped handfuls of wet sand, and I lost my fear of making sense and let Relowatiphsy take over again.
“Look at the sand in your hands. It can be molded to the shapes your hands make. We scoop it out of the surf and it falls through our fingers. There are things we're afraid of out there, and we sit just out reach of them, but within the grasp of their impressions. The sand falls through our fingers, and it plops into the tide, sending back up drops of water to hit our hands—the molders of our lives.” I said all that in hope against the hopelessness of being forgotten.
Then he said, “What if this is life? Not just the metaphor, but the act of holding sand in our hands.
I relish in his idea of wiping away my fear of an unimportant life. And by this point, it's safe to assume I live to relish ideas.

The last bit of sand from the last handful of sand was washed from my hand and I looked back at the clouded horizon, pitch black with frightful clouds and said:
“Nick, if I don't become a writer. If I live a life where I just convince myself everything's fine, and that dream will come true after I finish all the practical prep I 'must' do. I will **** myself.
I looked at him, Relowatiphsy in my heart, and he said:
“As a friend, I'd be sad, but I'd understand. But that means you have to literally fight for your life now—regardlessly.”
And he left me with those words. Just the same as my granddad left me a serious heed before he wanted to talk about something more cheerful, when I asked about his glory days fishing the Great *** Dee River. He said: “I wish I'd been here before the white man polluted the river. It would've been something to fish this water then”, then he paused to catch his breath, “Guess there are some things that stay, and others than go.” Then joy returned, as it always does.

But the idea of what was happening to me didn't hit me until we were a few miles away from the beach, covered in sand, but the potential of the night after conquering my fear of heights over water had been shed in the ocean.
Around midnight, when the headache from the cheap hooka smoke wore off and the mystic veil of the clouds over the horizon has been closed in by the condensation on the windows of some Waffle House in Myrtle Beach. There was a wave of seriousness that broke over my imagination. Works calls for me tomorrow by two.
There's not much vacationing when you live in a vacation town.
And midnight—the witching hour—spooks away the posers too afraid to commit to rage against the fear.
But there are others—college students that walk in and complain about the temperature of the eating establishment, and the lack of ashtrays—how they must be thinking of dining and dashing—running from a box, but forever locked in it.

They make annoying music as I write this. That is how they deal.

There is nothing new under the sun, but it was night and the indifferent blinks of gaseous lives above looked down while my friends and I were at a new fast food joint that moved next to a now lonely Wendy's, with a faded sign tarnished by something the new fast food joint had yet to experience—mundanity by time. But I had my notebook with me while we ate outside, but it was in the car. My mind is always in that book, and I remembered something I had written for a novel in progress: 'Nothing is new under the sun. How is it possible to watch stars die? There is nothing new to their dust. We are the flies of the universes.'
It was just when I had finished my BBQ pork sandwich when Ariana suggested visiting a graveyard. I had the idea to visit a Satanist graveyard that our friend, Lanessa warned us against for the better safety of our sane souls—good luck with that. I wanted a revival of fear. How the beast would rip at the roof off our metal can of a car—the greater our barbarism, the greater our admiration and imagination—the less admiration and imagination, the greater our barbarism. But Ariana disagrees with words I never say, Nick laughs with my simple words to that previous thought. How funny it would be to burn eternal.
But then he suggested we should go to the Trussel in Conway. I had no idea or quote to think about to contribute to this idea. I wander, as I like to, into the possibility that his idea is a good one. Like some wanting hipster, I dress in an old t-shirt with of mantra long forgotten in the meaning of its cadence.
That is the march of men and women into the sea—honest, but forgetful and forgotten.
I was wearing a shirt sleeve on my head I bought from a mall-chain hippie store, and exercise shorts, finished off with skele-toes shoes. I was ready for everything and nothing at the same time. And that fits, I suppose. But all that does matter—and doesn't, but it is hard as hell to read the mind of a reader—it's like having a lover, but s/he doesn't know what s/he wants from you—selfish *******.
But there I was,  on the road, laughing in the back seat, sitting next to a girl who was tired, but also out of place. I could see she wanted to close arms of another, the voice of another, the truth that sits next to her while watching tv every time she comes over to hang with him, but never accepts that truth. She is a liar, but only to herself. How can she live with that? The world may never know.
The simple rides into things you've never done before give some of the greatest insight you could imagine, but only on the simple things that come full circle later. That is a mantra you can't print on a t-shirt, but if it ever is, I'm copyrighting it. And if it's not possible, I'll make it possible!
When we got to the Trussel, the scenic path lit by ornamented lamps seemed tame once I stepped onto the old railroad tracks. They were rusted and bruised by the once crushing value of trains rolling across it's once sturdy structure. Now they were old, charred by the night, and more than just some abandoned railroad bridge—the Trussel was a camouflage symbol birthed by the moment I looked into a Garfish's eye as it nibbled on my cork while I was on a fishing trip with my granddad when I was eleven. I remember that moment so well as the pale, olive green eye looked at me with a sort of seething iron imprint—I needed that fear, it branded instead of whispering that knowledge into my ears.
That moment epitomizes my fear of heights over water—what lies beneath to rip, restrain, devour, impale, and or distract me.
But epitomize is a horrible word. It reeks of undeveloped understanding. Yet  I want a nimble connection with something as great as being remembered—a breathe of air and the ideas  thought by my younger self, but I will never see or remember what I thought about when I was that young—only the summary of my acts and words. And by that nothing has changed—am I too afraid to say what I need to say? Too afraid to hear what everyone else hears? Or is it the truth—depravity of depravities that has no idea of its potential, so I am tired of the words that describe my shortcomings and unextended gasping hope. I am tired of living in the land of Gatsby Syndrome waiting for Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy!
But when we got to where the Trussel actually began I felt the fear hit like the day it was born—all hope was drained, and I was okay with abandoning all aspirations of having fun and being myself in the face of public criticism. I was flushed out by the weasel in my belly—the ******* beneath those still waters. I compare it to someone being able to handle Waterboarding, but can't handle being insulted—it's that kind of pathetic.
I stood just on the last understandably steady railroad ties that I knew were safe and watched my friends sit off the edge of the bridge, taking in the cold wonder of the night, and I was told at least I was smarter than my dead cousin who managed to get on top of his high school in the middle of the night, but had to be cohearsed down for fifteen minutes by a future marine, and future mourner who still grieves with a smile on his face.
The future mourner, he laughs at the times he insulted, or made fun of, or chilled with his now dead friend. It's never the bad times he cries about, there are none—just the good times, because they don't make them like they used to.
I watched them in that moment, and I don't know if I can deal with knowing my life is real. I began to blame my morality on this fear even though I already justified the fear just seconds before. But as I write this, I look over my notes and see something I wrote a few days ago: 'Life is ******* with  us right now. You laugh and I laugh, but we're still getting ******. The demon's in our face.'
As morbid as that comes off, it resonates some truth—what is killing us is going to **** us no matter what we do—and I don't want to be epitomized by the acts and words I didn't say.
I was never in the moment as a kid—I was raised by by old people and kept back by my younger siblings. The experienced tried to teach me wisdom, and the inexperienced kept my imagination locked in time. I don't want to go home as much now because I see that the inexperienced are becoming wiser everyday and the experienced are dying before my eyes. My idea of things is enduring leprosy.
But back to the simple moments.
Ariana saw a playground as she stood up and investigated the Trussel. It was next to the river, behind the church, fenced off by the fellowship of the church to keep the young ones in and the troublesome out. Of course, we didn't realize there was a gate and it was locked until Nick stated the probable obvious within ten feet of the nostalgic playground. And that's when Ariana pointed out the bugs swarming the parking lot outdoor lamp that blazed the fleshiness of our presences into dense shadows and more than likely caught the eye of a suspicious driver in a truck passing by. But I was still on the bridge—back in the past, never the moment. Me and my friends are still children inside these ***** forms. I muttered to myself: “Life ain't about baby steps.”
Nick looked over and asked what I said. I turned around, dramatic, like I always like to and repeated louder this time, “Life ain't about baby steps.”
He asked if I needed to do this alone, and I said he could come along. I walked rhythmically across the railroad ties, and heard Ariana comment that getting to the railroad up the small, steep hill was like being in the Marines. I laughed sarcastically. Nick and I had been to Parris Island before, and I know they test your possible fears, but they beat the living **** out of them.
I casually walk into the room where my fear lives and tell it to get the **** out.
When I reached the precipice of the last railroad tie I stood on before, I felt the old remind me that death awaited me, but there was no epic soundtrack or incredible action scene where I stab a manifestation of my fear in heart—a bit fun it might have been, but not the truth. I bear-crawled over the crossings of the ties and the structure of the bridge itself. I felt Relowatiphsy—an open-minded apathy self-made philosophical term—take over me. It is much simpler than it sounds.
There was no cold wonder as I imagined. There was just a bleak mirror of water below, a stiff curtain of trees that shadowed it, and the curiosity of what lies in the dark continuing distance past the Trussel.
Nick sat with me and we talked about women and fear, or at least I did, and I hoped he felt what I did—there was a force there that is nabbed by everyone, but cherished by few—courage. And I thank him for it, but I know I did it. Now I want to go and jump in that still water below—Ariana later says she's happy I got over my fear, but I'll probably have a harder time during the day when I can see what I'm facing, but I see it differently. During the day, the demons are stone and far away—like looking down the barrels of a double-barreled shotgun uncocked and unloaded, but at night is when the chamber is full and ready to go, and you have no idea who is holding the gun with their finger on the trigger and your destination in mind.
Then we threw rocks into the water in contest to see who could throw past the moonlight into the shadowy distance . I aimed for the water marker, and got the closest with limited footing, using just my arm strength. But it wasn't long before we had to leave, making fun of people who do cooler things than us, on the way to the car. I had to ride in the back seat again because I forgot to call shotgun. But on the way home, the idea popped in our heads what we should get my hooka and go to Broadway, and get the materials so we could smoke on the beach.
Nick's girlfriend and her friend joined us.
I missed a few puns against my co-worker as I was sent to get free water from the candy store where I work. I ended up doing a chore because I was taller than most of the people there. Appropriate enough, it was filling the water bottles up in the refrigerator.
All the while I loathed the fact that I would have to be clocked in tomorrow by two in the afternoon. I grabbed the water and got out of there as fast as possible without appearing to be in a hurry.
Impression of caring matters more than the actuality where I work—and yes, that makes me a miserable ****.
Perhaps it's not too late to admit I am recovering pyromaniac from my childhood and the flavoring we use for the taffy is extremely flammable. It would be a shame to drench the store in what people love to smell everyday when they walk in, and light the gas stove. Then, maybe I could walk away real cool-like as this pimple in this tourist acne town pops like the Hindenburg. The impression of splendor is like a phoenix—it grows old, dies, resurrects into the same, but apparently different form, spreads it's wings, and eats and ***** on everything simple, or presumably so.
I forget the name of the beach, but it was the best time I've had in a while. I was whimsy, and high on the vastness of the stretch of beach around us. They could bury us here. But me in particular. I rolled from the middle of the beach to the water, stood in the waves and shouted my phrase I coined when I realize something as wonderful as conquering a fear or realizing a dream;
--******' off!
And I stared at the horizon. My friends came up behind me and I looked back to see it was Nick and his girlfriend hugging. I gave a soft smile, put my hands in my pocket, and turned back to stare at the clouded horizon. What beasts must lie out there—more ferocious than the simple fresh water beings that wait beneath the earlier placid waters. I was a fool to think that was the worst. Nick said as I pondered all that, that I looked like Gatsby, and I tried to give him a smile that you may only see once in a lifetime, but I'm sure it failed.
I wanted to tell him that, “You cannot make me happy. It is usually the people who have no intention of making me happy that makes me smile the quickest.” But I don't. Let me be Gatsby, or Fitzgerald, if to no one else, but myself.

Hell is the deterioration of all that matters, and as the five of us sat around the hooka, and inhaled the thick blueberry flavored smoke that hinted at the taste of the Blueberry flavoring I use to make Blueberry taffy, there was a satirical realization that the coal used to activate the tobacco and flavor in the bowl is sparking like a firework, and reminds us all of where we're going.
It's a love affair between that hopelessness and hope of some destination we've only read about, but never seen.
By this point Nick and I are covered in sand, because he joined me in fun of rolling down the beach. We want so bad to be Daoists—nonchalant to the oblivion as we sit in. Just on the rifts of the tide, he and I scooped handfuls of wet sand, and I lost my fear of making sense and let Relowatiphsy take over again.
“Look at the sand in your hands. It can be molded to the shapes your hands make. We scoop it out of the surf and it falls through our fingers. There are things we're afraid of out there, and we sit just out reach of them, but within the grasp of their impressions. The sand falls through our fingers, and it plops into the tide, sending back up drops of water to hit our hands—the molders of our lives.” I said all that in hope against the hopelessness of being forgotten.
Then he said, “What if this is life? Not just the metaphor, but the act of holding sand in our hands.
I relish in his idea of wiping away my fear of an unimportant life. And by this point, it's safe to assume I live to relish ideas.

The last bit of sand from the last handful of sand was washed from my hand and I looked back at the clouded horizon, pitch black with frightful clouds and said:
“Nick, if I don't become a writer. If I live a life where I just convince myself everything's fine, and that dream will come true after I finish all the practical prep I 'must' do. I will **** myself.
I looked at him, Relowatiphsy in my heart, and he said:
“As a friend, I'd be sad, but I'd understand. But that means you have to literally fight for your life now—regardlessly.”
And he left me with those words. Just the same as my granddad left me a serious heed before he wanted to talk about something more cheerful, when I asked about his glory days fishing the Great *** Dee River. He said: “I wish I'd been here before the white man polluted the river. It would've been something to fish this water then”, then he paused to catch his breath, “Guess there are some things that stay, and others than go.” Then joy returned, as it always does.

But the idea of what was happening to me didn't hit me until we were a few miles away from the beach, covered in sand, but the potential of the night after conquering my fear of heights over water had been shed in the ocean.
Around midnight, when the headache from the cheap hooka smoke wore off and the mystic veil of the clouds over the horizon has been closed in by the condensation on the windows of some Waffle House in Myrtle Beach. There was a wave of seriousness that broke over my imagination. Works calls for me tomorrow by two.
There's not much vacationing when you live in a vacation town.
And midnight—the witching hour—spooks away the posers too afraid to commit to rage against the fear.
But there are others—college students that walk in and complain about the temperature of the eating establishment, and the lack of ashtrays—how they must be thinking of dining and dashing—running from a box, but forever locked in it.

They make annoying music as I write this. That is how they deal with the inevitable death of the night. They bruise the air I breathe with love and faith and trust with no meaning—without even meaning it. But what do they know what I didn’t feel when I sat on that bridge or cowered on the fringes of the ocean? Their hands aren’t ***** like mine—their confidence does not seem fractured by these words that will never reach them, or their kids, or grandkids.
As day begins to move, I know I work at two and will be home by midnight again. The witching hour—where some stay and others go.

Let me climb the intellectual bandwagon of Chamara Sumanapala of the Sunday Nation in Sirilanka, to recognize a world literary fact that Taras Shevchenko was the grandfather of literature that paid wholesome tribute to Ukrainian nationalism. In this juncture it has to  be argued that it is ideological shrewdness that has taken Russia to Crimean province of Ukraine but nothing like justifiable law and constitutionalism. Let it also be my opportune time for paying tribute to Taras Shevchenko, as at the same time I pay my homage to Ukrainian literature which is also a cultural symbol of Ukrainian statehood. Just like most of the European gurus of literature and art of his time, Taras Shevchenko received little formal education. The same way Shakespeare and Pushkin as well as Alexander Sholenystisn happened to receive education that was clearly less than what is received by many children around the world today.
Like Lucanos the Greek writer who wrote the biblical gospel according to saint Luke, Taras Shevchenko was Born to parents who were serfs. Taras himself began his life being a slave. He was 24 years a serf. He spent only one fourth of his relatively short life of 47 years as a free man. The same way Miguel Cervantes and Victor Marie Hugo had substantial part of their lives in prison. Nevertheless, this largely self-educated former serf became the headmaster, the guru and fountain of Ukrainian cultural consciousness through his paradigmatic literature written basically in the indigenous Ukrainian language. He was a prototype in this capacity given that no any other writer had made neither intellectual nor even cultural stretch in this direction by that time.
And thus in current Ukraine of today, Taras Shevchenko is a national hero of literature and collective nationalism. But due to the prevailing political tension between Ukraine and Russia, his Bicentenary on March 9, 2014 was marred by hoi polloi of dishonesty ideology and sludge of degenerative politics. For many us who derive pleasure from literature and diverse literary civilizations we join the community of Ukrainians to remember Taras Shevchenko the exemplary of patriotism, Taras Shevchenko the poet as well cultural symbol of complete state of Ukraine.
There is always some common historical experience among the childhood conditions of great writers.  In the same childhood version as Wright, Fydor, Achebe, Nkrumah, Ousmane and many others, Shevchenko was born on March 9, 1814 in Moryntsi, a small village in Central Ukraine. His parents were serfs and therefore Taras was a serf by birth. At the age of eight, he received some lessons from the local Precentor or person who facilitated worshippers at the Church and was introduced to Ukrainian literature, the same way Malcolm X and Richard Wright learned to read and write while in prison. His childhood was miserable as the family was poor. Hard work and acute poverty ate up the lives of the family, and Tara’s mother died so soon when he was nine. His father remarried and the stepmother treated Taras very badly in a neurotic manner. Two years later, Taras’s father also passed away. Just in the same economic dint poverty ate up Karl Marx until the disease known us typhus killed her wife Jenny Westphelian Marx.
The 19th century Russian Empire was largely feudal, Saint Petersburg being the exception, just like the current Moscow. It was the door and the window to the West. Shevchenko’s timely and lucky break in life came when his erratic landlord left for Saint Petersburg, taking his treasured serf with him. Since, Taras had shown some merit and knack as a painter, his landlord sent him to informally learn painting with a master. It was fashionable and couth for a landlord to have a court painter in those days of Europe. However, sorrow had to build the bridges in that through his teacher, Shevchenko met other famous artists. Impressed by the artistic and literary merit of the young and honesty serf, they decided to raise money to buy his freedom out of serfdom. In 1838, Taras Shevchenko became a free man, a free Ukrainian and Free European.
As it goes the classical Marxist adage; freedom gives birth to creativity. It happened only two years later, Taras Shevchenko’s collection of poetry, Kobzar, was published, giving him instant fame like the Achebean bush fire in the harmattan wind. A kobzar is a Ukrainian string instrument and a bard who plays it is also known as a Kobzar. Taras Shevchenko also enjoyed some literary epiphany by coming to be known as Kobzar after the publication of his collection.
He was dutifully speaking of the plight of his people in his language, not only through music, but even poetry. However,  there were unfair and censuring restrictions in publishing books in Ukrainian. But lucky enough, the book had to be published outside Russia.

Shevchenko continued to write and paint without verve. Showing considerable merit in both. In 1845, he wrote ‘My Testament’ which is perhaps his oeuvre and best known work. In his poem, he begs the reader to bury him in his native Ukraine after he dies. Not in Russia. His immense love for the land of his birth is epitomized in these verses. Later, he wrote another memorable and compelling piece, ‘The Dream’, which expresses his dream of a day when all the serfs are free. When Ukraine will be free from Russia. Sadly, Taras Shevchenko came to his demise just a week before this dream was realized in 1861.
Chamara Sumanapala wrote in the Sirilanka Sunday Nation of 16 march 2014 that, Taras lived a free man until 1847 when he was arrested for being a member of a secret organization, Brotherhood of St Cyril and Methodius. He was imprisoned in Saint Petersburg and later banished as a private with the Russian military to Orenburg garrison. He was not to be allowed to read and paint, but his overseers hardly enforced this edict. After Czar Nicholas II died in 1855, he received a pardon in 1857, but was initially not allowed to return to Saint Petersburg. He was however, allowed to return to his native Ukraine. He returned to Saint Petersburg and died there on March 10, 1861, a day after his 47th birthday. Originally buried there, his remains were brought to Ukraine and buried in Kaniv, in a place now known as Taras Hill. The site became a symbol of Ukrainian nationalism. In 1978, an engineer named Oleksa Hirnyk burned himself in protest to what he called the suppression of Ukrainian history, language and culture by the Soviet authorities.

I like the way you destroy yourself. The way your corpse-like face, with its sunken in cheeks and hollowed out eyes, smiles a crooked yellow smile at the thought of being buried in the ground, rotting away. I thought it was beautiful the way you'd force your fingers down your throat with spindly fingers, "look a rainbow," you'd say, "it's so beautiful," you'd whisper, clutching a slow burning cigarette between the two yellow fingers of your other hand. You'd flush the toilet with such grace. The whole process would've been that of a maestro conducting Beethoven’s 7th symphony, and for all you knew, it was.

I loved that time we were lying in that figurative gutter of morality and you handed me a sharpie, "wanna play connect the dots?" you rolled up your sleeve.

I still remember that day you stole that wedding dress from the Salvation Army. it was out of style and it's still up for debate whether that stain was red wine or blood, but you waltzed right in there, a needle still sticking out of your ******* neck, took that dress in your own two, scab littered arms, and walked right out the front door like you owned the place. I could've kissed you.

In that dress you looked like a princess, with your stringy hair and frame so malnourished that it hung off of you like you were wearing a pair of drapes, you looked like a something out of a bonafide Disney movie.

With my hand in your right hand, and a bag of speed in your left, you pulled me around the corner into the seclusion of the alley.

"I look like a princess"

You looked beautiful

"And that makes you my prince"

A homeless man stirred from behind a dumpster, peeking over the top, his eyes - though showing clear signs of many years deep in any bottle he could find - showed realization. His hand disappeared in the downward direction, his eyes were wide.

“And you know what princes and princesses always get?"

My hand was around your fragile throat, your neck read like Braille, you smile, such a beautiful smile.

"They always get, a happy ending"

And from there, I can't be sure, but I think all three of us finished at the same time.

But of all the days we had together, of every self-destructive tendency you had, I will always remember the day, all of your endless hard work finally materialized into everything you wanted it to become.

“I am the **** of the ******* earth”

This was the day you destroyed yourself. You told me why.

“I turned to self destruction for solace, solace from everything I was expected to become being shoved down my throat, I wiped my *** with morality and dogmas, and I became the antithesis of what I was supposed to be, I ******* won.”

And with that you dropped to your knees in front of the coffee table, the transparency of its clear glass surface obstructed by five pristine white lines. Like perfect little white picket fences, surrounding perfect little yards that perfect little children would play their perfect little games while their perfect parents would do not so perfect things behind the doors of their perfect little houses.

And this is when I understood.

Your *****, messy, clumped-up hair offered a half veil for your face. A $1 bill hovered above the first line; your practiced anticipation was beautiful. God, I loved this part, because you loved this part. Just before that first hit, just before the euphoria expanded, washing over you, blanketing your lanky figure and troubled mind in bliss. Your last seconds on earth.

And this is when I understood.

Before long, all five lines were absent from the table, and making their way through your system, you were glowing. You raised yourself up and teetered on your 6-inch heels, your stick thin legs threatening to snap in half and cut you down. You wrapped your arms around me, you didn't say it, neither did I. Your eyelids fluttered and you batted your eyelashes. I don’t know if it was on purpose, but it was ****.

You walked to the balcony, I knew you wouldn't jump. You just stood there, impossibly high, in your impossibly high heels, at the impossibly great distance to the ground. Your tiny frame, illuminated perfectly by the glow of the electric bug zapper, it was the perfect analogy. Your spotlight was a killer, and your beauty was destruction.

The sun fell behind the horizon lines, and the crescent moon rose high in the sky.

“I’m going to lounge on that”

The stars were faintly visible though the light pollution.

“I’m going to find the flattest stars and skip them through galaxies.”

You had a bottle of ****** in one hand, a bottle of ***** in the other.

“I’m going to visit every planet; I’m going to live in their gutters.”

The bottles were both open, you set the ***** down, shaking out pill after pill into your open palm, you smiled.

“I’m going to meet an alien; I’m going to dance with him.”

A mouth full of ****** and a bottle of ***** to wash it down.

“I’m going to meet God, if there is such a thing.”

Hours passing, felt like seconds. You’re starting to slip, you’re starting to float up, up to all those promises you made to the moon, and the stars, and the aliens.

For the longest time, I couldn't tell if your lifelessness was figurative – conjured up by my perspective of what you are – or literal. I may have sat there for a long time, admiring the beauty of everything you worked so hard for. You looked the same, and I think that was beautiful. It was beautiful the way you epitomized ruination. How you massacred every conventional idea of what it meant to be alive and well. How you taught me that a sense of loss is only relative. I think it was beautiful the way you destroyed yourself.

Awaken from the dreams
Nightmares all around
Caustic waves of infidelity
Sinking
Skulking
Sinning
What transpires at nightfall
Is epitomized into everyday life
Different being
Vampire
Carnivore
Folk-lore

Tessitura, psalms, and songs of praise, they branded atheism when singing Christian psalms in the streets making ineffable groans, where the exordios looked from the back with Delphic prose, where the dart that opens the curtains of the hallelujah tormented, with darts that rubbed weathered in the tentative to rise of the stores of Sanequerib. They are relatives of Incipit Psalm 69. " Saint John said as they continued to climb the Calvary of Profitis Ilias, but this time in the company of the Help of Isaiah, with a great spirit of being from the cavern of Elías in Haifa, at a flat point at the time of the Benedictus. Already the Assyrians were returning the same way they came, as Isaiah prophesied, in the morning with ejaculations that ended with the crass rottenness that could end the day without a step other than an anti-Jesuit one. Prayers go and implore the Omnia Vanitatis, the moment when the sun honors, taking you towards the close of the day with the perpetual antiphon. The vigil was reaching the lines of Isaiah does not rest, in Trinitarian doxology. Where is the darkness, where is the glory to see you...? If the stars collide with each other in Baptismal frowning, and in the mystery of Vernarth that lies a complex, tied to becoming that never begins, and what was Christic history of a morning introit.

Saint John the Apostle and Vernarth express in the Trinitarian doxology: “Through Christ, with him and in him, to you Almighty God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and all glory, forever and ever. Amen"

The triangular taxias of the Hetairoi made faunas that came cutting themselves with the wind of the "incipit" of Psalm 69: "My God, come to my aid;" Lord, hurry to help me ", by the Keras or wings of the site of Arbella; or Gaugamela rather said…, sonnetized by some Pazhetairoi, made up of 32 Syntagmas, as units of sixteen revived Falangists from Court V of the Helleniká Necropolis, bilocated on Patmos, a few feet from the Mandragoron project. Thus the triangular spellings of war were formed again, to the astonishment of all those present. Alexander the Great, already graceful, was over-trained in irrigation and supplications, he was consisting of 128 Syntagmas, with 62 Falangists covered by the Cinnabar that subdivided them into bones by sixteen of the Lochoi or guides. The Syntagma bipartite was enlarged by two Syntagamatarchos captaining two units, all with their semi-open belly, re-liquidating their viscera by the Ghosts of Shiraz, the Saltimbanqui Hydro comes from Roknabad (also known as Aub-e Rokní), from an underground channel which carried spring water to the city from a mountain located ten kilometers northeast of Shiraz. Here he has to mend the propellers and water ropes to do his acrobatics on the water, with greater songs in the poems of the Poet Hafiz. When he bites his tongue, they repair it with the verses of Hafiz's Koran, there are three hundred creeds, three hundred hectares to irrigate with his wheel the sadness of those who cannot have the gift of the rivalry of Montenegro and Monte Blanco, to overestimate the liveliness of the caravan that trembles with uncertain doubts here on Patmos "

Saltimbanqui of Bascule says: “We are Epi ghosts, green in reverie with tutelary ropes, to jump through the trapeze of the photometric units of the heavy Almeria of the highest Mirror of the Sea. Will take you back to Limassol. Curiously to the same ship as the Eurydice that sleeps in the swings of the sea, and in the arms of the petulance of Dionysus in a new awakening of lethargy of theorization of the superstrings of Anaximander, here is the intrinsic speculation of science, already that this is not just purely empirical research. "

In between them, they form even and odd rows. The horizontals were tinged with the Red Blood cells that became volatile and surrounded the Xyston lances, for thirty soldiers of the Diloquia, with their dismembered arms that began to take them back with their hands tightly girded by the song of the Theological Shemesh of San Juan, which subsequently rescinded last in the sum of two taxiarchies, constituting a Syntagma. The units rose with the sickle that cuts definitive death, to reconstitute it in five thousand that should tread through the hierarchies of formations, amid the frolics of the Phalanx, where Vernarth protested to all “Khaire, Kalos irthate apo tin kentriki, Welcome from Hell !"

Thus the Phalanx was constituted among the Syntagmas in metaphors of the Falangists. In this way this antiphon was revealed martial, denoting synergies of the Sybilla Herofila that conferred to the world of Trinitarian Doxology, among ashes that remained by a solid cobblestone witness of the reluctant troops that testified to the sense of interpreting the law of bringing to the world what to their lives it owes them. The prophecy shone from an intangible Isaiah before all in this concomitant episode, and to the degree of the reign of Judah, here together with the prophet Elijah, they faced the hardened fragrances of blessing as oracular teachers of so many goods, and of the benefactor that protects by inspirational mandate, making laws for the end times before closing his own eyes without having prophesied them.

The rows in “V" contrasted with the corridor friezes in the crowned troops of the Hetairoi, and in the syntagmas that became appressed from the triangle that opened the three-quarter proportions of Athenea's physiognomy in Pergamum, subjugating Alcineo, so that finally it was forged in constellations of equanimity in the fifth courtyard or "V" of the Necropolis of Helleniká in the allegory of Vernarth, stopping the plausible dogma of the initial that glosses the Law in Vernarth's "V". This in turn in double syntagm of the Syntagamatarchos guide, in the high sky of Patmos, and in the medrones growing on the antlers of the proclamation of Wonthelimar, which made them a twin "W" in the star that shines in the medrones of the Ibix, in the Cornacabra and in the Cornucopia, with certain docile movement, adhering to acrostic and prehensile preliminaries of the Isaiah saying.

The Phalanx Alexandrina Heterochromatic of Alexander the Great volatilized between the villi of his Falangists, climbs the Holm of Zeus and causes a "Gore" or horrifying reflection, allowing the rhizomes to become a hundredfold, which will make the nominal order of five thousand, for each member of the Syntagma, in an astonishing quantum that reproduced itself to materialize before Him. Then he tied each one of them as Prometheus chained to each of the oaks, from an Akane grocer, incontinenti withdraws a sharp dagger and opens each one's veins to free them from the isolation of so many years settled in their last heterochromia of the War Iridium that he conferred on them, to endure the visit of the spirited Grim Reaper. This causes liberation, in this way they re-install themselves in their bodies, with Iridium or iris that made them see before their optics in two biases of Hoplite alter egos, impacting half of their body. Alexander the Great, being the philanthropic heir and of Platonic legacy, made them superfluous in the melanin that fell from the Epíchisis or libation vessel, to taste the effluvia of Dionysus with the maenads, with wide ambivalence filling them with viticulture, so that they would flow through the veins of his soldiers, and to revive them with the Dionysian must of melanin to the left eye of the Hegemon King Alexander the Great, with Jasper in the left, and the right with ultramarine from the bottom of the Ionian, on the banks of the washed banks of Patmos, in high swells of Greek alcohol that was distilled from the Mosacism of the stones when unraveling the peripheral forces from the prefectures of the great native of Pelas. They ordered areas of all Greece under their heterochromia flow that gave life to the Perifereoaki, or periphery for Central and Western Macedonia that came with great vigor, with Epirius central, western Greece, Peloponnese, and Crete. East Macedonia and Thrace, Ionian Islands, North Aegean, and Thessaly, later they would go for the Aldehyde alcohol that summarized and epitomized Dionysus taking him with four eagles that distilled the unprisoned Syntagmas of the lines of 16, 32, 64, etc...., for purposes never to start on an omega all the way to the Ionian Islands from Corfu.

Alexander the Great, went near the pre-urbanization of the Mandragoron towards Vernarth, somewhat dizzy, and before attending to him he presented himself first to the Zefian; who looked at his iris like a foreman who re-divided his visuals, by prevailing in eagerness to restore his soldiers, to help in the construction of adventures of life, and to assist in building the Megaron, which still rested in the myopia of mythological vision of the Gods tied in animosity with the Titans. Overwhelmingly, he highlighted the clouding or turbidity that was seen beyond the radius or visual field of two realities, found in visual refraction and interference with refractive statisms of the periphery that led him to the other world in Babylon when death imprisoned him...? Here the root revived, it became parallel in a unique world with divergent lights, which entered his Akera or right-wing of his soldiers, bringing visual acuity that brought the perchlorate volatilizations that hovered in the boots of his soldiers, when they marched in awareness of the retina and of the mean light, that for the first time was clarified in true holistic and political from a Parthenon with the musk of mortals and immortals of neo Hegemonic ophthalmology, which he was already re-leading by his command, where he was going to invest his greatest and most spiritual elemental Commander Vernarth, with his Himation.

The rays of his eyes seemed distant, but they were diffuse and alternate, they wandered through the lens of his clouding, which blinds a partial of the left Akera, or flank of the Hypaspists that dazzled Parmenion. Here the optics of Alexander the Great, remained in the diatribe of the small eye next to another that was enlarged, being hyperopic of a mysterious confine in the severity of Dionisio when confronted with him, in light effects of the high liquid vineyard, refracting meridians in his troops next to the Hexagonal Primogeniture who observed them behind the magenta image, which was the one that flashed from the Clouded holm oak and eclipsed by calm heat movements, and rising air masses that were in the opportune station of good sense. When being aided by the Maenads and the Herophile, they were teaching from a parent, who now sponsored the entire political and spiritual will of the Hoplite side, made up of the King of the World Vernarth, together with Alexander the Great, after receiving the photocoagulated lightning bolts. of the officers, under redeeming and reduced of the metabolic, and of the oxygenated preeminences of new lungs for each devout consecrated body, towards Saint John, the Apostle, pigmented and mechanized with aggravating heterochromia, and extensive in the bodies raised in new parallels that have to confront an anonymous or semi-god by turning for his own.

It's stories above where the butterflies rustled,
Whirring between the lights in aeolian bustle.
I'm smiling spritely at a neon halo,
While my organs writhe in jacqueminot El Niño.
Wading the nightscape  with a glitched simper,
I could not change nor attempt to tinker,
Just breaching the moments passing to linger.
Fingers, then palms, then lips, then black,
Then for a few seconds the world collapsed.
A breath, a sip, some wit, I'm back.
Shed the murky vision of captive cataracts.
And now,
The sylph saunters in epitomized elegance,
And I've buckled on the inside to the resonant reverence.
I follow the fragrance in her wake as paralyzed sedatives,
And anything I might say could only lack eloquence.
Then magnanimous mantras attract exact,
It seems way down the rabbit hole I've finally met my match.
There's a mesh of flesh, a smooth caress,
Then I wake and realize these were not visions yonder death.
Particles of my brain erupt,
I can't explain away the unfading elation of touch.
Every pose palatial down to the pixels,
I'd gaze deep in the sheen of her mind gleaming as crystals.
Her eyes open like daybreak in flashes,
Sunstreaks glint over the horizon of her lashes.
There's morning songbirds behind the taste of coffee,
I think she's figured I'm just a well decorated softy.
Unveiling my most human of contentions stripped to the eclipse of logic,
My former self laughs in tones pitched sardonic.
Euphorically strumming at gossamer heartstrings,
Etched in the fabric as sakura carvings.

This was written three years ago for a school project*

In the glass lies a familiar stranger. I can see in her eyes I understand her, but on the outside she is someone I barely recognize. I’m not sure if I like her, with all her sharp angles and endless shades of color refracted. We stare at each other, she smirks at me, and I scowl at her, uncertain how to continue, afraid of what to do. We are strangers strung together by a common understanding, one we cannot ignore. Yet we don’t know how to approach one another. Polite courtesy, companionship, hatred? I don’t know with her. Within the reflection, I see every side of her, every flawed, shattered inch, the past that she pretends doesn’t exist, everything she's desperate to hide. Her reflected figure shows her as an invincible diamond, but inside she's just breakable glass.  

In a moment, the lights shift, the glass changing to force me to remember her. Her past unfolds before my eyes, and I am transfixed in memoriam.

She is only four years old, bright eyed, heartbroken, and forever changed, having to grow up too fast and having to pretend too often that she was ok. On her face lingers an angelic, adorable smile, yet my heart knows its not real. It doesn’t take long for a broken child to realize if she smiled it made everyone else feel better. Her arms cling to a velvet, violet teddy bear, thin from being hugged too tight, a photograph in her hand, crumpled from being hidden all too often. the image of a boy lies in it, only an infant, an image innocent but yet so obviously not. His lips are stained with red, his skin stained with white, and her cheeks stained with tears. The pain wells within my own heart, feeling her pain as she giggles, red-eyed, becoming joy epitomized to make her family smile again. She got so good at playing pretend.

Then the image changes, and she is now seven, hair cropped in a humiliating bowl shape, ready to go to school, ready to be someone, ready to live by that smile. Her feet turn in and the butterfly pins in her hair are happily quirky, distraction from what lies within her eyes; within my heart. A pile of photos reside in her pocket, only peeking out slightly to show the truth. The young boy, an elderly man, a sickly woman, the faces peer up at her, refusing to let her forget. And the bags under her eyes tell a tale all their own. With all the pain came the long nights, nights of nightmares that scared her awake, crying. No one seems to notice that though; the hall surrounding her is covered in photos of a young, chubby cheeked boy, so little and so young. In every shot they idolized him,  treated him like a miracle. I may know the difference between favoritism and the zealous gush over a baby, yet she doesn’t. She’s only a girl. At seven, the pain and nightmares weren’t what she minded most, what left a downcurve on the side of her grin. That came from wanting to be a miracle too.

Time seems to race by in seconds, and that tiny little girl is now ten. So much has changed. Her hair has grown and so has her smile; yet distinguishing its validity is impossible. Her legs are crossed, calmly,  contrast to her storming eyes. Around her are students, staring at a teacher as she reads a student’s fantastic work. The girl beams, but refuses to look down at her own rejected paper in her hands. An A+ is marked on the top. Yet everyone is transfixed as the other student’s writing is written aload. There are calluses covering her fingers and pencil marks staining the long, left sleeve of her shirt. I see inside this kills her. Every so often she gives an encouraging smile to the jovial girl next to her, with no paper in her hand.My eyes widen. This friend of hers is the one whose story is being read aloud. Her taller friend is better, and it kills her inside, being close yet still not being good enough.

The picture doesn’t stay, it soon shifts. A lot changed once she is thirteen. The familial grin covers her face, yet she doesn’t seem to be smiling at herself, merely at the other person in the glass. A blonde girl is next to her, her arm around her, the two speaking without words. Yet both girls are looking at each other, and not at themselves, as if ashamed. Not long after the other girl waves goodbye and the young girl is left all alone. For once her smile truly falters, staring at what’s left; her. An insecure hand crosses over her chubby stomach, acknowledging her shapeless sides. Her arms cross self-consciously over her and she shakes her head, as if to tell herself to stop all the hate. Eyes closed, she’s smiling again, but by now I know she’s lying. I almost want to clutch her close, to hold her tight, to tell her that she’s going to be ok. That she’s not disgusting as she thinks her reflection shows. Yet, stuck outside the glass, I can do nothing. That poor young girl, she only knows how to feel pretty when she can’t see her own face in the mirror.

Darkness hits as the glass reveals the girl at fifteen. She is sitting on the floor, skinnier than before, prettier than before, but with tears falling down her face. No smile hides the pain inside. She is alone, surrounded by bleak darkness and subtle cracks throughout. The only thing alive in this godforsaken reflection is her. The photos once more are peeking out of her pocket, the past ones still there while new ones have joined their ranks; the kind face of a diminutive woman, an elderly woman paired with the previous man, a young girl with strawberry blonde hair, and the insecure girl once holding the girl up with a friendly smile. The picture is torn clean in half, with rage and anger burned into its colors. She looks at it often, sobbing more with each guilty glance. My eyes scan her, terrified and pain stricken. Eyesight, fickle and slow, finally homes in on the crook of her right elbow, with small, almost invisible cuts covering it, cuts almost hidden by her sweatshirt. My head hurts, my hands begin to bang on the glass. She hold her hands to her head, rocking ever so slightly back and forth, as if a monster is consuming her mind. I pound harder, desperate to try to help her, she’s so lost. She feels guilty, so guilty. For nothing, everything, its all her fault. Why is she such poison? No one stays. Her eyes fall on her photos and her eyes grow dark. No, no one ever stays. In the end she is always alone. The tears fall faster as her knuckles grow white, trying to use force to drive the poison out. She poisons everyone who cares; she murders them. Shadows move around her in a taunting dance. In her eyes insanity screams. the shadows dance faster and faster, spinning out of control. She's not poison, she's not a monster, she's just a girl. but like this, she can’t hear me. she never will. Now, she feels utterly hopeless, helpless, alone. I fall to my knees, tears pouring from my eyes and anger seeping from my pores. Exasperated and in more pain than bearable, the girl rips the photos out of her pocket and scatters them through the blackness, screaming for it to go away, all of it, but it helps nothing. Why does she destroy everything? She collapses into incohesive tears, curled up on the floor, taunted by her shadows, maddeningly alone.

Finally the picture fades into the image it began as, the girl giving the sarcastic smirk that I was scowling at. I still know not what to say. She may be utterly flawed, but those flaws were what made her. Every smile, every nightmare, every second of envy, every bitter heartbreak, every semblence of insanity, those terrors created her. They are her past, her future, her present. Some days she’s four, some days she’s ten, some days she’s fifteen again even though I know she’d never admit it. In that smirk I watch her pride and strength rise above her vulnerability. That smirk, that perceived confidence, shows everyone the oddly shaped diamond. Yet it's those eyes of hers, blue-green movie screens, that flicker how stupidly human she really is. In her messy hair lies a pencil, in her hand a notebook. If concentrating hard, I could see on its inside cover all the thrown photos glued haphazardly to it. They were painful to remember, but even more painful to forget. She has grown so much, through each pivotal moment, and my contradicting feelings of annoyance and admiration don’t know how to compromise. This familiar stranger could be less hyperactive, less obnoxious, less secretive sometimes. Yet as my fingers splay across the glass, I don’t know what she would be without her bravery, her pain, her beautiful imagination. her fingers twitch with the murmurs of insanity, but I know she’s handled worse. This is just another challenge to overcome. Our eyes meet defiantly and we both laugh in synchronization. She will always be challenging me in the glass, reminding me of who she is so I never am able to forget it. I glance down and my spare hand runs across my notebook, and with each painful photograph I smile. They are her world; my world. Without them, without this pain, we’d be nothing. My fingers freeze on a final photo; the cracked, crushed picture of fifteen year old me. Giving her one last, thoughtful glance, I turn from the mirror and move on with our life, reminding myself to wonder what she would do, how I would react, and make sure to live every day remembering who we are; we are beautifully broken glass.

Anthropogenic artefacts
Heart attacks
hearts attacked
Dead calm gyre
Tide line debris
You and me
and I
Beach combing
the detritus
of us
and them
and they
Invasive spaces
hidden faces
aroma of decay
Kicking over seaweed mounds
Lost and founds
Seeking out sun sparkled jewels
the aroma of decay
the plastic looks like ruby
the netting gossamer light
life moves amongst the mass
massing moving living
and dying
I save one shell
to liberate the memory
To fix it
in the opalescent bisque
pocketed
treasured
that tide line
left behind remains
from us
all of us
Everyone tries
amongst the stinking tangle
of uselessness
of spoil
to see the value
to seek and love the life
appreciating
interpreting
beauty in our tideline
Personal life left overs
the things we leave behind
left behind
beached beyond doubt
dried beyond quenching
Those hours
objects
people and places
those cruel elements
took away
Stripped from us
only to dispose of them
because they could
because we could not stop them
Tide line
physical
metaphorical
epitomized by those eyes
that shell
the reason
why walking on beaches
makes us feel better

Turn conscious grey hues into feuds,
Spin white and black into monsters of
Ambiguity and undeveloped negatives,
Mix colors of depressed clouds,
Brush the bound stolen hairs drenched
In blues against the mind’s reflection.
Distort reality, manipulate memory,
Exploit experience, maximize emotion.
Look at the soul of the masterpiece-
Magnificence personified,
Beauty and surprise epitomized.
Never have my eyes been blinded,
Reminded by thoughts’ image mirrored.

In his hand he holds a heart
A heart that was once her own
It has no wings to fly away
To where the PrttyBrd has flown

Since it could not follow
It awaited the return
To dwell in the empty cavern
Of a love that will ever burn

Ne'er to be filled with purpose
As the cavern is sewn in steel
The fire will char the surface
Where there is nothing left to feel

She could not bear the weight
Upon her wings so frail
A heart so full of love
Returned to no avail

For it had beaten just for her
Though she never realized
She had thought she set him free
But epitomized his demise

it’s inky water
flowing behind me
trying to nip at my heels.

it’s dulled now,
by the intoxicating liquid
burning down my throat.

it’s molasses
heated

i step in its sticky puddle,
and it’s carried up my leg.
disgusted, i reach down to wipe it off.

it only clings to my fingers
and oozes up my arm
and leaves my hand covered
in the thick
brown
sauce.

i am frightened now

i freeze.

dread fills my features
i know it will not stop
and on and on it goes

i am immaculately sticky
shining and
shaking.

it’s panic epitomized.

it surges up my neck.
i hold my head high
although i know it won’t help;
it’s just instinct.

i scream.

it flows down my throat.
into my stomach, into my lungs
into my core, into my being.
my eyes are flashing
it’s all over

i drown

in more ways than one

and the inky substance
exudes from my body
and seeps into the ground
and is gone
leaving the residue
of me.

Cheers to us I'll say,
Even towards the obvious end.

Fashionably spelled with
Acrylic resin across my skin
As a daily reminder,
As if I would forget
Beauty's creator.

Your power of alchemy
First revealed to me
As a warped hole inside
A 6th grade English
Composition book.

The absence of friendship
Invoked your name.
You've epitomized
Loyalty ever since,
My work testifies to it.
I couldn't be any
More grateful.


(c) 2015 Brandon Antonio Smith

I am in love

with Michael Douglas

and I’m not going to complain

About the wrinkles, the wife, the age,

Watch Wall Street and tell me how it makes you feel

to watch such brilliant divine acting portrayed with the most cavalier feel

to hear that bravado and smooth hypnotizing talk,

to watch that strong confidence epitomized in that hand-in-pocket walk

to experience that indescribable flair a man must be born with

I know I’m just a kid

But understand if you can,

That Michael Douglas is the man.

Don’t do that.

Give me that look of epitomized stupidity.

You must be kidding me.

Just stop before I lose control

Of everything and all I know.

Every time I open up I find myself getting hurt.

You don’t want to hear about my pain?

Why? *** is causes you discomfort.

So then its all about you?

Your life on that silver platter.

Read between the black and white, the grey matter.

Open up your eyes

Shed the hollow life, your living lies.

I’d test you, maybe bring out the best in you.

Try these on for size; my shoes

Take a journey of what I’ve been through.

I’ll like to see how you do.

So what if I have stumbled, I didn’t crash.

If it was you, do you think you woulda last?

No I didn’t burn, Went straight arrow

Never took the wrong turn.

Its been a never-ending battle.

Me against all

Everyone watching to see if I would fall.

But I won’t back down

I’ll crack down

Stay focused on what I have

May not be what I wanted but man it was the hand I was dealt

Sometimes I think love was an emotion I've never felt.

Even if I have to walk this life alone

I’ll be sure that one day

I could say,

Yea, that I made it on my own.

dear inamorato,
lightning strikes in my heart for you. our love is electric; a love so powerful that it could be the end of everything. because of this, we must be apart. the spark between us would have eventually led to fires and floods. we were nothing but destruction epitomized, the manifestation of pain. our love cannot be. although my heart is cool embers without you near, our love could only end in inevitable detriment. pay attention closely, our last storm is approaching. look to the sky, this is my good-bye. our love was cumulonimbus clouds and lightning strikes, i cannot forget and neither can you. i hope the sun shines, and you wish for the days when it was nothing but rain. i hope that you can remember this electricity. good-bye, my inamorato. good-bye to everything. can't you see, like a flash of lightning, i had to leave. so promise me that you won't wait around for the next lightning strike, for i am not coming back. our final storm has begun. look to the sky, look to the fading sun.
                                                            ­                                                          love,
 ­                                                                 ­                                 your inamorata

Freedom is not just emancipated ideas
eloquently expressed in a verbal or written fashion

Freedom is not just uninhibited emotions
flauntingly displayed as a graphic or immature ruse

Freedom is not just unrestricted movements
randomly performed with a chance or designed purpose

Freedom is not just autonomous symbols
deeply epitomized by a banner or even a notion

Freedom exists in the minds of the open
to comprehend the essence behind the symbols

Freedom exists in the actions of the forces
to blaze new pathways and synergize movements

Freedom exists in the resolve of the free
to exercise empathy with those lost in emotions

Freedom exists in the love of the word
to elevate one’s born right beyond hollow ideas.

They  were  three,
Playing  with her hair  in a  spree,
Clasping a  handsome  tuft in her hand
She  left  off  her hair-band,
Suddenly  she  broke  one’s  solitude
And let him  into her  glossy  hood.
There  was  none,
to inhibit there  union
for  they  epitomized joy
On  a  face  that seemed so coy.
The  gazing eyelids  cherished
As  she  let her  left-outs  loose,
She  was  cruel  to  not  let a  few
Merge with them on a truce.
Again and again, her  locks  fell,
their  failure  to entangle  the  fallen
striking them  insane.
They  only  drest her  braid,
Pained to  see,  her  dangling locks
Kiss  her  forehead.
For on a  lyrical  note,
They  redefined beauty
Letting not  her flawless  exuberance
Being curtailed to brevity.
A rhythm  so ambrosial  
was  ne’er to  be  found,
for  it  was  divine  symphony
simply all around !!!



--- Shubham Roy

Alexandra Road is found in the sea-side town of St. Ives, England. Russell Albright was found sitting on a bench on sunny Alexandra Road reading a 'Sunday Express' dated Sunday, 8th, July, 1962. Russell was a well-known Teddy Boy around the town, a cut-above all the others for miles around, always having the tallest creepers, the most flamboyant pompadour and the slickest suit. Role model Russell was epitomized by the young mollycoddle Teddy Boys and Girls and even the one his own age of 18.

Russel Albright sat alone smoking a Marlboro Red while reading about the 1962 French Grand Prix that was held at Rouen-Les-Essarts, but before finishing he was interrupted by the voice of Miles Welch, a boy two and a half years Russell's junior. 'Hey Russ, were you at the record shop lately?' asked Miles in a small, high voice. Miles looked somewhat in awe as Russell slowly lowered the newspaper as if it was a shield. 'Not since Tuesday' Russell replied coolly. 'Oh, well they just got in that new Bobby Vinton record' Miles said quickly, then saw the intensity in Russell's eyes. 'Not that *****, Welch' sighed Russell in near disgust. Miles' eyes opened wide and he stuttered out; 'They also have the new Francoise Hardy record, Russ'. Russell let out a faint glimmer of what could be called a smile. 'That's more like it, Welch, my son' he said, as if to repair the boy's feelings. Then Russell rummaged through his breast pocket and produced a Marlboro packet. 'Wanna a cigg?' he inquired. 'Yeah, sure, thanks Russ' answered a lit up Miles, popping the little white stick between his teeth, and sat down as Russell cupped his match-holding hands to light up the end. In a mushroom-cloud of smoke, Russell stood up, tall and skinny, and cocked his head in the direction of the record down the road, 'Shall we?' he asked Miles, in a false posh manner that made Miles smile. They walked to the shop.

The record shop was owned by Marshall Chapman, and it was always never empty, there was forever a bustle of teenagers in and out, buying the latest things that were in the charts. Marshall was in his mid-forties and somewhat of a gentle giant, he never really got into any rumbles, but this was most likely because of his great stature. He was always happy to see Russell in the shop, not just because kids would see him buying a certain things, and they'd fallow-suit, but the two were good mates. 'Alright, Russy boy? bellowed Marshall, upon seeing Russell enter the shop. 'Just dynamite, Marshall, and a little birdie told me about the new Francoise Hardy that you may have', Russell said Francoise Hardy in a French accent. Marshall put his massive hands into a drawer under the desk and fished out the record for Russell,'Oh, nothing but the finest for you'. Russell looked around the shop and was stunned in the headlights of a women standing at the other end, he tried to keep his legendary cool. 'I am a miracle worker expecting a miracle right now' Russell said to Marshall, looking at the cute blonde girl, and he walked over to her. She was tall, even without the heels. Marshall watched from a distanced as Russell stood over her, whispering sometime in her ear. The two then walked towards Marshall, who handed Russell the key to the backroom.

Poetry
  is an
enigmatic,
  waste of space.
               Or
perhaps an
  absolute,
epitomized
               truth.

He followed me everywhere I went.
My gaze could always avert to him.
From the corner of my eyes.
He was fate awaiting my return to afterlife.

I could hear the time ticking in my head.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Until the clock struck 12.

He came closer and closer to me.
I could see not his eyes but only his smile.
A smile that epitomized his await for my soul.
He was my reaper.

He took parts of me that I could no longer find.
And suddenly I was nothing.
Nothing but Empty.
Until finally, the last light I saw was
Darkness.

Hie did/do cha did cap cha a clue
you want me....... yes sigh dew
and will hew
a path in tandem with the help of uncle loo
on guard on mind our peas and queue
in an effort to earn my stripes for u
and even join tribe of village people per view
wing a Flintstone lifestyle where…whew
mebbe, many a close call chased by a giant beast,
   and saved
   by the released arrow whack,
   sans bulls eye thwack (no lion) respite of a Zulu.

---------- while ----------

Awaiting my modified sentence  -
A fictional injustice landing me in the slammer for fone he ears - with no penitence.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
No way to dodge fiat decreeing death sentence twill span
the rest o' me life, cuz such incarceration haint part o ma plan
for this abetting dodging, hedging rambling man
voicing objection - that thee trump petting don iz no fan
of mine, and who felt unready to kick the can
on account of violating what...freedom of speech ban
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Against abominable illegal mandate
with no way to commute death sentence this late
for simple act of voicing opinion against
   existence of heavenly gate
nor hellish underworld despite religious ******
decreeing penance as one articulate prelate
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Spurious pedagogical poetic rant,
ache kin to melting wax growing a candlewick
not the ravings of some half mad lunatic who doth tick
tock carefully plotting recitation that springs quick
from combined teachings of kant did *****
the mind of this jolly old Saint Nick
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Charges ******* up per this average don
purportedly blaspheming judeo-christian paradigm
as an atheist many beliefs outdated and fore gone
upending blind faith equated with hill of beans upon
which dogma erected epitomized by
complex edifices via grime
+ ****** tears and trifle pay for toiling for a bombastic scion
sweat shed by Polish slave labor
usurpation of freedom stripped analogous
to yearning Palestine yearning their own Zion
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Until outspoken persons risked life and limb
to invalidate existence of supreme deity
many still accredit with creating life proper and prim
whether for extra credit or perhaps on a whim
Adam from whose rib cage without anesthesia
but razor sharp knife sprung Eve
with a physique quite pleasing and trim
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
But rather than get lost in the Garden of Eden myth
final seconds countdown of existence tick away
while this keying nonchalant hammering word smith
doth not capitulate, aye deem heart of religion flimsy as pith
without intent to recant statements
   solely acceptable to b’ni brith
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Prompting last words of mine as oye vay
thing in the wind or house of cards vulnerable to blow away!

A swaying synthetic tub
waltzes in summer’s breeze
fingers interlocked, one step two,
full of rotted leaves wilted petals,
afterthoughts of Spring’s bloom.

An underdeveloped songbird
basks in the Louisville sunlight,
infrequent chirps of language
misunderstood perceived as
barbaric melodies too primal
for basic understanding. The
song of the bird an audible
reflection of the natural world,
an epitomized version of swaying
bluegrass and beckoning bushes,
of turbulent winds and undulating
clouds, of violet skies lost in the
haze of a brackish day, of a setting
sun glancing one last time at
the eyes refusing to gaze back.

White-specked eggs soon to burst
with new life and freshly glazed
eyes; novel music awaits its
composition, written for the ears
no longer around to hear them sung.

Times are changing…
when reckless emotions inundate worldwide devices
with unfiltered sentiments to taint minds thru vices
nibbling on compassion and wisdom like rabid mice
allowing the beastly nature to dominate and entice
one's humanity to heed selfish or superficial advice

Times are changing…
when tolerance and forgiveness are fading dreadfully fast
with echoes warning us not to repeat an unforgettable past
where deathly anguish and heartless souls were the cast
of catastrophic drama epitomized by flags flying at half-mast
and prayers from the charitable, the humble, the meek were vast

Time are changing…
when the caretakers of the globe care less about harmony
seemingly beguiled with the hunger of power and want to be
rulers of wealth, consuming limited resources lacking empathy
until this earth becomes nakedly barren and can no longer be
home to descendants who cannot claim their manifest destiny.