*** trafficking – the trafficking and debasement of souls; Drug trafficking – the trafficking of substances that debase the body.  Here compared you will find the prevalence, impact, and rehabilitation processes associated with *** and shrug trafficking.  Respective clientele, demographics, and locales that these types of trafficking touch will be revealed in order enlighten you to their world-wide prevalence. The physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological impact of lifestyles that result from these two types of trafficking will be detailed to etch vividly an image of just how far-reaching the impact of these two activities is. Light will be shed upon the rehab processes that lead to recovery from each.
                 According to UnoDC.org, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the use of illicit drugs has remained in a stable trend, with approximately the same number of people using illicit drugs each year. This trend has continued for a number of years. Upon examining the world drug report, written by UnoDC.org, production of several drugs exhibit particularly interesting trends. ***** production for example fell and spiked in a somewhat predictable patter from 1990 until 2010. When this data is graphed a reasonable medium appears for all the years, revealing that ***** production has stayed around an average production of roughly 200,000 hectares annually. Likewise, coca cultivation pictures an interesting trend. From 1990 to 2010 coca production appeared to be almost identical each year, and with little to no rise or fall in production, there is a similar trend in its being trafficked.  
Nefarious: Merchant of Souls is a documentary that was released in 2012 by Exodus Cry Its producers and researchers saw firsthand the atrocities of the *** trafficking industry. The film crew interviewed former pimps and prostitutes, spoke to traffickers, the families of the trafficked and to individuals still actively engaged in three sides of the *** trade referring to currently employed pimps and prostitutes as well as those who purchased ***. The researchers and producers interviewed eastern European gang members and took a trip to Amsterdam’s red-light district – home of legal prostitution. They journeyed to Los Angeles and saw the glamorized side of the dark issue of *** trade.
According to Nefarious, the number of humans trafficked for the purpose of providing ****** services is on a shockingly steep rise. In a matter of a few years, *** trafficking rose from the third largest criminal enterprise to the second. It is second only to drug trafficking and is vying for the position as top criminal enterprise in the world. It is encroaching upon that position far more speedily than any authority or decent human being would care to acknowledge.  A survey taken in 2010 by DART (the drug awareness resistance training program) revealed that 21.8 million people aged 12 and older had taken an illicit drug in the previous month. In 2010 it was estimated that between 153 and 300 million people had used an illicit drug at least once in the previous year. These statistics fail to take into account the impact that this usage has on the lives of the families of drug users. Neither do these statistics reveal the extent to which drug users lifestyles are impacted by drugs. However, nearly  every single human trafficked for ****** purposes is completely and utterly enveloped in the lifestyle of prostitution and the violent world of being prostituted. In Nefarious a shocking statistic is revealed. Approximately ten percent of the entire human population of earth has been trafficked. Both human and drug trafficking are prevalent across the globe. Human trafficking occurs in 161 of 192 countries. Illicit drugs are trafficked in every country that has laws that deem substances unlawful. There are little to no race, religion, ethnicity, or age restrictions on who can and is trafficked for use of ***, but drugs are far more limited by age and ethnicity in their use.
Drug trafficking, though similar to *** trafficking in many ways, is in no way as substantial a damaging force to the mind, soul, and spirit as the world of *** trafficking  is in terms of the critical and dangerous force it exhibits in the emotional, physical, psychological, and spiritual  impact it has on young girls. Both drugs and *** trafficking have some influence in all of these respective areas. The primary area in which people are affected by drug use is the physical. Drug users’ health declines, they become physically or psychologically dependent, and they may develop diseases from sharing of needles or lack of inhibitions that lead to *** with an infected individual. Drugs may, in some rare cases, lead to psychoses and mental disorders. They may cause brain damage, which is both physically and mentally damaging. Drugs may even set one’s heart and soul in a place that they are more susceptible to lies or truth. They alter spiritual state for some individuals, but only mildly. However, *** trafficking victims are impacted majorly and in their entirety as a person. In all aspects of the physical, mental, and spiritual, *** trafficking victims are consumed by *** trafficking. In Nefarious it is revealed that In order to “break” *** trafficking victims they are profusely beaten, and are psychologically toyed with to create a twisted trust and dependence on their various handlers. They are repeatedly *****, and are examined like cattle by those who wish to buy women. They are imprisoned in dark rooms and not allowed to leave unless told to do so. They are bedridden and forced to ******* themselves. After being broken in ways described above and sold to a ****, girls are forced every day to meet certain quotas of customers and cash flow. If they do not meet these they are beaten even more. They lay in bed sometimes a week at a time to recover physically enough to usefully return to their “job”.  Through this hellish ordeal, their soul, self-worth and identity are being attacked by circumstances that devalue them. They become like animals.
*** trafficking victims become dependent on their environment for normalcy. This is so true for some individuals that even though they have been rescued from the lifestyle, they return.  This is not because the *** trafficking victims enjoys the lifestyle of prostitution, and it is not because they want to. Instead, it is because they think they can be nothing more than a *******. The *** trafficking victim, in this case, believes that they need to settle into the numb and thoughtless mind state that they develop when broken. Returning to prostitution does not evidence an addiction. In contrast, it is the cry of a soul that is desperately trying to cope. They do this in order to feel as if they can survive.  
The rehab processes for *** and drug trafficking differ greatly in commitment and length, but are similar in that they both require physical and psychological rehabilitation.  Drug rehabilitation programs typically consist of twelve-step programs or something similar. They last a number of months, or occasionally a few years. They allow individuals counsel and encouragement, and they attempt to, by abstinence, exorcise an addicted individual’s addiction. *** trafficking rehabilitation requires the re-creation of an individual. Self-worth must be reconstructed. The spirit must be healed in order to allow for psychological healing. Prostitutes are not addicted to prostitution, but prostitution produces dependence in that the prostituted crave normalcy. This dependence must be killed. Successfully rehabilitating women from this forced lifestyle requires lifelong commitment and endless resources. It requires passionate fanatics, people who will pour their life into changing the lives of others, because only the incurable fanatic can wreak havoc on the tragedy of human trafficking. Any short-term effort to rehabilitate a *** trafficking victim is doomed to failure. The degree to which the brokenness of *** trafficking victims becomes ingrained in them is so extreme that it takes a lifetime to reshape their lives.
While researching *** trafficking in order to accurately produce Nefarious, the researchers and producers of Nefarious became convicted by facts that they collected. The evidence they collected speaks to the fact that *** trafficking does not just attack the body; it attacks the entire being, and in far worse ways than drugs ever could. Varied races and ages are prostituted and / or consume drugs. The impact of both of *** and drug trafficking is severe, but much more so severe in the case of human trafficking. The rehab process for human trafficking is much more in depth and is testament to the horror and degree of psychological, mental, and emotional disfigurement, as well as acclimation to a horrible situation to the point that horror becomes normal – a new definition of addiction. Human trafficking is an atrocity that is far more horrendous and prevalent than imaginable. It is far more destructive than drug trafficking. Drug trafficking is one of the most destructive forces in this generation.  Surely consuming drugs is one of the most horrid things we can do to our bodies, but what about consuming souls? *** trafficking consumes souls, hearts, minds and bodies. It splits, fragments, debases, brutalizes, obliterates, murders, rapes, molests, destroys, and dehumanizes the prostituted.  Drug trafficking attacks the body the soul, and sometimes the mind, but in much milder ways.

he came to the door one night wet thin beaten and
terrorized
a white cross-eyed tailless cat
I took him in and fed him and he stayed
grew to trust me until a friend drove up the driveway
and ran him over
I took what was left to a vet who said,"not much
chance...give him these pills...his backbone
is crushed, but it was crushed before and somehow
mended, if he lives he'll never walk, look at
these x-rays, he's been shot, look here, the pellets
are still there...also, he once had a tail, somebody
cut it off..."

I took the cat back, it was a hot summer, one of the
hottest in decades, I put him on the bathroom
floor, gave him water and pills, he wouldn't eat, he
wouldn't touch the water, I dipped my finger into it
and wet his mouth and I talked to him, I didn't go any-
where, I put in a lot of bathroom time and talked to
him and gently touched him and he looked back at
me with those pale blue crossed eyes and as the days went
by he made his first move
dragging himself forward by his front legs
(the rear ones wouldn't work)
he made it to the litter box
crawled over and in,
it was like the trumpet of possible victory
blowing in that bathroom and into the city, I
related to that cat-I'd had it bad, not that
bad but bad enough

one morning he got up, stood up, fell back down and
just looked at me.

"you can make it," I said to him.

he kept trying, getting up falling down, finally
he walked a few steps, he was like a drunk, the
rear legs just didn't want to do it and he fell again, rested,
then got up.

you know the rest: now he's better than ever, cross-eyed
almost toothless, but the grace is back, and that look in
his eyes never left...

and now sometimes I'm interviewed, they want to hear about
life and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed,
shot, runover de-tailed cat and I say,"look, look
at this!"

but they don't understand, they say something like,"you
say you've been influenced by Celine?"

"no," I hold the cat up,"by what happens, by
things like this, by this, by this!"

I shake the cat, hold him up in
the smoky and drunken light, he's relaxed he knows...

it's then that the interviews end
although I am proud sometimes when I see the pictures
later and there I am and there is the cat and we are photo-
graphed together.

he too knows it's ******* but that somehow it all helps.

multimedia macramé
sloshing propaganda sewage
on the unsuspecting public
***** lice infest ****** hill folk
west Virginia outbreak threatening the world
as we know it
flesh altering nonsense explicitly graphed
charting movement of microbes
on air, land, and/ or sea
global currents the new deliverer of death –
infected immigrants sit smiling
internment camps providing nutrition
never before experienced
as non-natives negotiate freedom
by submitting to vaccinations baths
and the standard delousing powder –
paranoid hand-sanitizer users
glued to the **** tube
spray their shoes with disinfectant
praying to an absent GOD for health
while shoveling GMO corn chips into ever widening
mouth holes
pharmaceutical companies lick lifeless lips
as Congress recognizes their humanity
while rejecting the concerns of the poor
…..no money in it –
outlandish claims of outbreaking Ebola
flood the mainstream outlets
fear: version – infinity
one more plague plan to stimulate new legislation
more law
no touching
even looking at the infirm can be cause for isolation
radiation treatments
courtesy of Fukushima, reactors 1-4 –
new found focus on fracturing the shale
releasing new oil reserves
and old bacteria
dinosaur killers
free-radicals
radically changing the genetic code
humanity altered
once again –

Scooped some loops of troops with their heads offed, scoffed, at the loss with the cost from my own losses, in lawless, flawlessness accosted by pentecostal brothels hugging it out with the clout of the lord.

Oh lord! what am i talking about, as I am doubting the amount i can pile on my brow, and not break a sweat, playing my stakes to their best, and jettin, while i'm still a veteran in the scrambled lettering of my iris, spreading viruses, inside us, uniting us, to Set...

The scores straight with annihilation on my mind, and an island for them to find, my station at the shrine, to launch codes in kind, to your denied existence of the lines in time, cruxing the fluxing path of inevitability, crossing out the math of probability, clearly seeing everything that once be, bettered. Be. Been, about to be, grinning again.

Because it tickles when i'm stoopid, but im snoopin steadily through your blueprints, moving amongst your movements, and proving that you will lose this, in clueless, fluid, drizzling down the drain with your social stains, still straining the veins to my brain, trying to maintain one sane morsel of a reason not to **** you, i love you, but booooom.

Making room for my assumed solitude, in astute rudeness to the rudimentary business of idiots, stand back i got this, and when im into it, there are no limits to what my digits do, in true blinding hoops of halos bent, in unrelenting wrenching of a stint, of greed, but having everything needed, and settling for sanity.

If humanity had a hand, it may demand a stance in return for a burn that's graphed away, in firm concerns made in forgotten stays of my patience, ghost writing in payments, to my slavers, giving blood to my saviors, saving us from the lesson.

I merely choose to burn in the learning curve, that curbs my satisfaction with distractions, with past tense presentations, intending to mend in venting of the clues to the other news askew ..

In smoking away the blues to hues of happy, haphazardly, chappy in the final hour of sappy nights, of goodnightless fights in righteous might, of my mandatory story telling, of the felling of the fireworks in finale fires that burned, until the uncle died, and smirked from the casket of a bizerk card shark, barking from the starkly stripped semblance of a resistance to tyranny

Its tearing me up to think, that i care, laying bare, to the bruises, these intrusive abusers use to move this rock from its plot, and stop, a catastrophe..

But i'm mastering.

Disguise.

It was a little insane but who
Am I to judge?
You See ....my friend had a theory
how our world came to where it was

So as he told it to me, is how ill tell it
it to you, but not caring if ur believing
But simply I am just repeating
As I found it oddly intriguing

So, it all starts where a society of
of real gods all live
And their kids are subject to
Learning about their power& gifts

And as an assignment school kids
Were told they had to create reality
On a fictitious planet where it'll
inhabit a species with mortality

Using the knowledge you were taught
In science Eco system building
Using philosophy, math. Art anything
You've learned can help your vision

Now the rules of such a creation
We're to calculate things right
Cause once it's created it's living
And we don't extinguish life

So the teacher explained that if
You create and it goes off course
You can only watch it destruct for
example if u Forget a food source

If you forget to make the
physical bodies of the beings
To be properly resilient enough
to match the environmental skeems

You are forced to watch in horror
As the death u caused slowly comes
And only then will you know
What it takes to be a god, and no one

Will have similar projects so no ones
right or wrong that's why you create
It's imaginative and limitless
As long as u properly calculate

So only a week later long before
the deadline when projects are due
one student who made a planet called earth,
that reflected green and blue

And he asked his teacher if he
Could induce the process of creation
Knowing well, that inducing creation comes
after due date&presentation;

So the teacher replied that
Normally he would say no
But ill be honest im curious to see
if u finished only starting 7 days ago

But before you do. I hope you know
The ethical obligation
That comes with creation, don't
U wanna re work calculations?

Cause they need a way to breath
And have a way that their body
Can self remove or evacuate
And the student said like a hobby

I loved I recalculated made
Adjustment after adjustment
So if I'm missing something I won't
Find it cuz I can't see nothing.

So the teacher said go ahead
And the student left that night
To induce the roots that
Wi grow the fruit of life

So time passes and it's time
To present to the classes
This student presented last&when;
he showed earth all of them laughed

And since there is no wrong or right
The student was puzzlesd
As his classmates started asking
Questions so flaws shoe but subtle

"Why would free will have a need"
When u only need to program
The nucleus to force morality
Now it's on you when your plans

Are wrong, but the student
Explained that he could not plan
Like most others did cuz there are
Copious variables when they can

Make their own decisions and
Be there own gods
So I only gave them
the power and respect that we all got

Cause most of your planets are built
By plans, predetermined by control
Where as mine gives them the tools
Without manipulating them wit goals

Only the fear of survival and a
Heightened consciousness so
well aware before acting on wrong
as instinct warns, so they know

What they should do, and would you
Want a program instead of intuition
Robbed of the right to make decision
cuz in my Opinion that is no vision

of someone creating something livin
So overlooked my pessimism
So existence wit decision prevents
planet prison, think of a mechanism

Something designed to mimic
Life mearly living a planned cycle
So most of your plants are more
Mechanisms then life cause vital

Is the presence of survival so
It can serve as a reminder
That recklessness has consequence
To show control of what transpires

Is there's and with this I moved
On well aware it could end
Badly but sadly the same free will
I gave as a gift could curse them

And that's when his teacher said
Class congratulate earth
As I've never once had a student
Factor in free will which births

Authenticity of life otherwise
Your planet is a replication
This projects meaning is
built around the fact that your creation

Wouldn't really be a creation as
A school would never allow
A class of students to cause
creation with no knowledge of how

Uncontrollable true creation is
And that no creations perfected
And bearing the pain of knowing
Something exists in pain directed

By your creation so be patient
Don't spawn life just to see the odd
So the lesson,its dangerous
playing god so it's important u be a god

That's when the teacher dismissed
The class but asked his student
That created earth to stay after
Class so we can decide who is

Gonna break it to my bosses that
You created life
And when they were alone
teacher said plz fill me in and shed light

On how you got everything cohesive
I had to write a new thesis
Many times and felt so blind even
After schooling to breed this

Planet the way you did, how do
They breath explain
So he said out of the choices I had
For elements the easiest to maintain

So it's constant and remains
Is to have what's needed to breath
Surrounding them and that way the
wind acts to spread what they need

So all I had to do was create
an Eco system that's supported by
The same thing but used in a cycle
Opposite to another, so .....in my

case, earth is filled with What the
dominant and sub-dominant life needs
Just like a fish needs to be in water
Earth uses oxygen as its need

So upon designing plant life a tree
And other plants breath
Out the oxygen the eco system needs
so I hope the environment we

Left to them is taken care of,
So the teacher nods and says
One more question which makes
Me wonder if ur advanced or lead

By luck but what was your
thought process when programming how
A basic nucleus functions you
Added so much detail so now

I'm asking why greed, anger and
Other emotional gauges got
So complicated when these emotions
Develop in evolution with thought

So the student replied, ill be honest
I created earth to reflect me
So now I'm more bonded to my
Creation and empathy from me

Would lack if in fact I failed
To know how it felt
To be lonely. Scared or angry
And despite how there all felt

They make us constantly aware
Of ourselves leading to improvement
On a scale more significant so
They would have to be stupid

To not notice with how complicated
They are by instinct and emotion
That if the environment gets bad
Or poverty is had there's a notion

That nags inside them knowing
Something's Wrong and they'll fix it
But ill let u know as time passes
What happens no I'm sorry it isn't

Allowed to go with you. There's
Many issues, and unwritten law
All creations must be stored with
The proper personnel who log

A the findings as some bindings
Have taught us In the past
That evolution after creation has an
Outcome that is worth to track

Each creation and note the
Changes and evolutions as they
May hold the answer To a question
We won't ask til later so I say

You deserve a pat on the back
But we may very well be introuble
As its my job to make sure u don't
Stumble upon it but befuddled

Am I at how you factored In key
elements we purposely leave out
So when your creations crash it's
No harm some as the lessons passed

Cause reproductive systems are
Graphed and added to the math
When your much older in university
Although they teach in class

To give the female of a species
The means to self conceive
With only eggs and the fathers
DNA but still you achieved

A sustainable process, and
If as a novice u can do this
There's no telling what your future
Creations will teach us, but with

All of this comes responsibility
So lets go call the authorities
And let them know we are in
Possession of an unlicensed piece

Of science and be proud. That
U didn't just play god
You weighed the responsibility
And took well measured steps not

Even taught to you, and even
If earth is not with u
It still reflects how complex you as a
God think,so lets hope earth will too

Cuz any misanthropy is misplaced
As imperfections reflexion
is why conception of perfection
Leaves a contradicting impression

Cuz the same section that's stressin
Abnormalities exist
Is the same formality that makes it
normal so this paradox insists

That something is what it isn't
And it isn't what it is
Like love and hate, a perfect life
needs a nature where antonyms sit

And in essence this is why your
world leaves me impressed
But most ppl dont understand this
Theory and will judge it a mess.....

What is "it"?
is "it" a noun, verb, adjective
an unstoppable force, an immovable object
is it tangible can i hold it in my hand against my cheek?
Can i sip it through a red and white straw in a smudged glass?
does it hurt when it misses your mitt but doesn't miss your chest
does it crawl into bed after you've said your prayers?
is it **** is it fun can you still smile after you see it
or is it frown city
does more of it make you smile
or only cry less
Is it a concept that you pay to have explained graphed, charted, read?

little by little it tuns to
that.

How was I supposed to try to save you?
As our souls were seemingly hanging
from the same silver cord
and we found freedom in letting our feet dangle.
Mundane marionettes clumsily controlled by their astral bodies
orbiting too closely and with excess vigor
their silver strands became tangled too tightly
to distinguish one from the next.
My eyes were too focused in their gaze to have noticed
until you, ever so gently, nudged my head
and asked that I explain the knots that bound us.
In that moment I desired to love you
whatever smaller amount
that would let me tell you anything but the truth.
No love miser could have resisted
a request whispered out of such necessity
that it tore the breath from the room.
With shaking hands I traced the path
from the bottom of a dangling soul
to the apex of the celestial cross bar
and noted every intersection our silver cords made.
What is it that you thought would happen?
It was not until I reached the top
and every notation was written in fresh red
that I saw you already possessed the graphed coordinates.
How many revisions can be requested
of a map that consumes you when you make it
for a scene that never changes?
Please nod yes when I ask
if you momentarily forgot when making the request
that you and I only write in blood.

I am suffering.

ardor diminished

look out the window
see the same glass, half-empty
eyes wander along rolling landscapes
seeking out rapidly recovering raw plates of land

rather enjoying
indulging the habit
seeing with memory
the neural network patterns
of pre-enlightenment

what the eyes see, what the ears hear, what the skin feels

patterns and relationships
isolated phenomena
numeralized
graphed diachronic

It’s a skill so deeply satisfying

the eye is drawn to these raw scars
human activities
natural processes
fluid transfer

yet core patterns don’t change much
from year to year
soil washes off slopes
into the river of hundreds if not thousands of years; rebuilding

taking generations

these patterns

satisfying and useful

cognizant

knowledge tempers hands tendency
to want to fix
read, and
tamper with

—everything in sight.

i drum my steering wheel to the beat
of the ambiguous radio tune
imagine, far away that it could harmonize
alongside your heart beat on my chest
go over the possibilities of how you'd
mix my morning coffee
passing it to me slowly in sure hands
hands that clench my wasting heart,
blackened by an afternoon cigarette
squeeze from me my every miscalculated mistake
swirling through my stomach thick, heavy, smoke,
dampened by my past and future,
weighed in my hot regrets
to shelter you, i must swallow my smoke
push it down into my core
one look- halted by your unfamiliar eyes-
stomps my efforts out with a smudge left behind
graphed and charted before you,
i unwillingly place my autobiography
left in your sure hands
post-its and neon arrows outline where i went awry
as beacons on a clear purple night, you can't ignore
no reason left to pry my scribbled pages from your
loose grip i sit calmly before you,
awaiting your response as you skim
through my life's malfunctions
not much left to give you, but sparing what i've salvaged
your taste keeps me waiting longer than usual,
lingering ,perhaps with the hopes that
maybe you could comfort a sad girl if i stayed
my darkest of demons seem ordinarily
evanescent in your curious eyes

I realized when the fish wriggled above me
and eddying currents of pyrite glinted like stars inches before my eyes
and wispy tentacles of my hair trailed my descent
that perhaps
just maybe
you deserved better.

You asked me permission to take a photograph
but this was in August
and what I remembered when your fingers fondled the shutter
was that once I was trying to take a test
but your shoulders were wide and clothed
and I studied the way your muscles worked
while you worked out formulas and graphed
and now you were in front of me
with your eyes squinted in concentration
twisting the lens toward my neck
and I felt as exposed
as exposed as the medical sketches in father's copy on Grey's Anatomy
skin flayed
veins pulsing
colored for ease of comprehension.

there is a way to part from
                   what separates us | converse issued
  by this curious distance |  toying with the
           proposition at sundown |  where to go
    when  you are home |  look at me across
          the eye and  see  copies

              true  breaking  in mirrors between
    shards  graphed  and  measured   go
           through me  you say  where   are  we  now
     that  we  have  gone?

        i  am  all  your   textures   shuffled  by
        hand    all  your  susurrus  folded   slid
        underneath    my   tongue   --  messages
        through a fusuma of teeth  piercing  air:
        breath mine to your  own mine  still  past
       clouds   in   dizzy   formations   head   northwest
        where  you belong, i sleuth  but  not demand
        an  opposite  of   presence, much palaver
       when it is thrown out in the  open  bare as
        a  shaved  beast
 
       how  does  a memory   walk   in  stilts
              past  cities   dreaming  impish
        with   a    proposal

      let      us      flee --

I guess and figure through my mind but you've heard about it so you herd and proud of it throwing a fit over here but you choose to be distracted just another game piece gotta have it crumble down we go don't you know that we can't have **** when the economy you support is graphed as pyramids brother don't you learn from the burn you try to hide out under costumes and postoring girl aren't you ******* tired of the disrespect taught as happen stance while they rub up just trying to dance will we not take for us stand up and smash flatten their dichotomy folks can't you hear or see those stiffed by voices rehearsed to seed self suvitude so dumb even the children are crying out loud to parents  drown them out with life subscriptions of fade~out work watch the ***** fallow step for the cheapest fad bought off bright surveillance malls stocked while cocked guns bleed out any chance of revolutions schmes so deeply entrenched in me brothers and sisters minds that those that see are ostracized as being blind as brightest light when the vial of darkness finally comes into sight triangles ripped into seems squares circled burst through gains made in hamonic occilations agianst the grians truth ends to all beginnings celebrate mathematical promises of failure by those who compete by cheat lies and deceit hermetic law will take the elites fall and drive it home once 144,000 Warriors rise in the wake of chaos sounding om

“This is not the same body as it used to be.”
I breathe.
It shouldn’t be.
This is the body I prayed would get injured. The same body who laid anesthetic as they graphed the burns. The same body whose skin regenerated itself day after painful day. This is the same body that sat 4 days and 4 nights and saw the sky bleed into her; red cardinals like stars shining against the pink morning. This is the body that kept going through days of food withheld, that processed and digested the binging. This is the body that has carried hundreds of stones into the lodge’s womb. This is the same body that breathed into the sun rising over the Ganga river. That has sat up countless nights praying and singing to the holy fire. This is the body that was told if only there was no sign of womanhood across my belly, I could twist a little deeper - maybe ring out the demons who have feasted there for years. This is that body. The body who has spent countless hours in the face of God, pulling carrots out of the soil. This body has been baptized by oceans and rivers coast to coast because she said “if you want to get to know a place, get into its waters.” This is the body that dreamt of you in a cathedral reading holy scripture & woke to a red river parting my legs. This is the body who then let you go, my Sun, and buried you in earth and in heart. This body should not feel like yesterdays body, or two years ago’s body. When a dear friend was teaching me to weave a basket they said, “a basket is just a memory of pressure.”
So what is this body a memory of?
It is a memory of all the times I’ve made love.
It is a memory of all the meals cooked together
and fires knelt by.
It is a memory of every grain of dirt collected under my fingernails,
Every bead of sweat.
It is the memory of weeping on your floor as I smelled the shirts in your closet the day that you died.
It is every sun salutation and every night up too late.
It has been shaped and pressed and manipulated and loved so tenderly.
It has been looked up and down and turned inside out.
This body
I’ve forgotten
To praise
To love
To honor
To nurture
This body
I’ve remembered
To let rest
And be held
And fed
And let float weightless in the creek
This body
Is not
The same body
As yesterday
And I don’t want it to be
The same body tomorrow
I want it to be molded
By moments
Of wonder
When I get home late from the bar
Saturday night
2am
Stars
Exploding in the sky
So bright
It makes me stop
And breath in the cold
And the ecstasy
It is to be in
This body.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     ­ No Straight Lines in Nature

That commonplace of art instruction is true:
From the rainbow to the tomato worm
And in the rhythms of our chambered hearts
Creation curves itself around our lives

A straight line is of the imagination
Repudiated even by that famous crow
Who flies as he will and not according
To the abstracts of mathematicians

Nothing in nature chooses graphed confines -
Of course the man-made coffin – that features straight lines

Structures in, blocks out;
a paradigm of constructional doubt,
lead and stone, rock and bone;
fragments of matter engraved in stone,
inorganic the linear path;
of buildings stretching from singular depth,
requiem of solid ground, blueprints regression and doubt;
symmetry combines the horizontal substance,
of eloquence and the working man’s cadence;
deranged and  abused, obtuse he lit the fuse,
when the seasonal drift destroyed his ruse;
decadent he stood and laughed,
with a pencil the scheme he graphed;
ticking the time, melting the clocks,
hourly sway where entropy sealed the lock.

I am from swimming pools as chlorine stings your eyes
But just trust in your lungs and to the bottom you’ll dive
I am from Converse and Levi’s with the knees worn right through
Sneakers laced tight and jeans patched up too
The staircases and tile paint a portrait of home
Dark wood, ancient trees, a foundation of bone
Wood violets and dropping willow hold my sighs in their leaves
Beware of the hemlock for needles hold a poison if consumed then is deadly
Crushed chrysanthemums for my eyes and a daisy chain as a crown
I am from the far rolling hills and the thrill of tumbling down
Here is where my family has planted their roots
We bring blood from across the oceans but west coast salt coats our boots

Oí! we exclaim but myself most of all
Jump and I’ll catch you, we don’t let each other fall
I am from quotes written about strength and notes scrawled on margins
Shooting star wishes and law enforcement jargon
A streak of blue in my veins to represent those they’ve protected
From canines and motorcycles so different yet connected
Though my future looks different, I was taught to take charge
Be a leader, not a sheep, stand up tall and go far

I am from butterflies and book spines and words scattered like dust
For within there’s a snake charmer but not a snake there is just
A pen filled with ink to spill letters like wine
But few know the melodies these hands craft in the hopes of creating the sublime
Don’t be fooled though so quickly for just as pen triumphs over sword
Slanted penmanship does not mean I lack ability to pluck out a fine chord
Ivory keys beneath fingertips and metallic strings pressed down taunt
Let out rich, vibrant crescendos just as I was taught
As the crescendo increases so to does my voice
Speak up, do what’s right, make Mum and Dad proud with your choice

I am from leaps of faith though I believe in no god up above
A bird is just a bird not an angel sent dove
Scientific hypothesis hold their positions in mind
X cubed, coefficients, and a cotangent graphed line
Rationality and facts, think with your head not your heart
Sarcasm, however, with every sentence I’ll start

You’ve asked where I’ve come from and I’ve done what’s my best
To show to you what I’m from is not simple but quite a large mess
From the sun in my hair to the flowers on the ground
I am from everlasting yet shifting, from silence with sound