"identified" poems
I think sometimes, about what it means to be transgender. I probe and probe for answers, because as the possibility for a new age of enlightenment and safety increases, the others want to know. I’ve come up with many answers, but I can hold to none. I don’t deserve to paint the definition of a culture with the limited experiences I’ve had. I don’t see myself in the transgender identified people allowed on television. I don’t see myself in the transgender identified people making news feeds and giving high profile interviews. And as my nation’s exposure to our culture increases, likely will their curiosity. Am I transgender? Do I have the right? I’ve heard doctors, psychiatrists, may refuse transgender patients access to hormone therapy based on how dedicated or convincing their portrayal of their identified gender. If you want to be a man or woman, you’ll have to look like the women and men on TV. If you want to be transgender, you’ll have to look like the trans identified people on TV. Every single one of us who has an active role as either participant or observer in our society is prey to the crisis of validity. Am I pretty enough? Am I strong enough? Am I brave enough? Mom enough? Dad enough? Competitive enough? Successful enough? Rich enough? **** enough? Pious enough? It never ends. We’re, as a nation of people, being crushed and compartmentalized by this ever present lens, looming over us, exploiting our weaknesses and fears so it may grow wider, and support itself as it follows us, seemingly forever into the future. And one of the worst fears this camera of existential torment exploits, in most of us every day, is, “Do I have a reflection?” “What does it look like?” “Do I look like me?” What does it mean to be transgender? I can’t get away from that question. But I don’t have an answer. There are varying degrees of anguish, depression, panic, anxiety, and other wonderful emotional states that creep up on you and breathe down your neck nearly every waking day. Absolute contempt for the lie of a life you’ve lived till now, and contempt for the fragments still stuck to you, in memories, attached to your body and mind. Fear of those in your own community who would purposefully humiliate, invalidate, or attack you, choosing their own universal moral code over the innate urge and capacity to support the health and continued well being of another human. A ******* neighbor. A ******* pupil. A ******* employee. A ******* sister, brother, son, daughter, mother, father, cousin, ******* blood. What is being transgender like? By my experiences, it’s just like being anyone else in the country. But with a lot more fear, death, exclusion and medication.
Feb 5, 2015
Feb 5, 2015 at 5:07 AM UTC
blue,sports,boxers,
stereotypes
girls wear blue
I wear boxers and currently am identified as a female
girls play every sport and any sport they want
everyone is different
so **** stereotypes!
Aug 10, 2014
Aug 10, 2014 at 11:56 AM UTC
I know it's just been a week
But I'm already beginning to miss you
And I'm not the only one
You do make an impact
On anyone who has been lucky enough
To get to know you
Whether it be family or friends
Or maybe even total strangers!
Anyway, we've had some great times together
I shall never forget our trip to the UK
And the fun we had there
Especially the Wimbledon camping experience
Would you have believed me then
If I had told you
That you would end up returning there to study
In a matter of three years?
Mysterious indeed, are the ways
In which Fate works
Our trip to USA was equally memorable
Who will ever forget that iconic moment
When you identified a McDonald's cafe from the plane?
Nothing, absolutely nothing ever
Escapes those beady eyes of yours
This is one of the many things I love about you
We may not spend a lot of time talking to each other
But you understand me very well
Perhaps more than I understand myself
And I know that I can always count on you
Anyway, I am getting too sentimental
Have a good time out there
I'm sure you'll find new friends
In fact, as I write this
You seem to be making progress on that front already
Try to balance studies and housework as much as you can
And most importantly
Take care of yourself
Whatever problems you might face
Know that you're not alone
We have your back always, no matter what
It is your happiness
Rather than what course you do
Or what job you may find
That matters to us the most
So, on that note
Let me wish you all the very best
Take care and stay in touch
Miss you loads
Sep 25, 2022
Sep 25, 2022 at 12:32 PM UTC
Songs of Oregon: No. 1 “Gonna Make You Crazy, That Place”
nuts, crazy peeps
whomever wherever,
regardless of race creed color or gender (did I get ‘em all?)
current state of residence (geo-identified)
a poem - the very same recited,
as a disclaimer, a yellow finger wagging warning:
“Don’t go! If you go, you won’t come back”
now kids, I’m a veteran of foreign travel,
many continents, cold and hot, rivers and seas,
some living, some dead,
some so big they named it Endless,
been to the great cities, Swiss villages,
pyramids, climbed Masada,
danced on grapes (why can’t I recall where)
skied the Alps, trekked the Sinai Desert,
clubbed in Rio, and danced till morn,
on a certain Greek Isle that rhymes with Mickey’s Nose
even been to L.A and San Fran, left poorer
but in sync,
always came home
with my mind decently reshaped
me/ a product of gritty unpretty grime,
streets of normal humans
acting like normal escaped mad persons,
this brutal city island instilled a
layer of fat and smog neath my skin,
a kind of migrating duck-like survival kit,
came with a homing beacon included
the those of you who know me,
perhaps too well, ken we citified islanders
love our beaches (fire hydrants)
cherish our sun dappled blessings
upon on farms (window sill herb gardens)
and sunning settlements (rooftops)
they say our tap water is secretly bottled,
sold in places where the springs purportedly
run crystalline
though we don’t got no pinot, just sweet concord grape,
so sweet, the wine of children and street nodders,
needy for instant sugar highs
so as we new Yorkers proudly
say on our license plates,
prove it or stfup!
so a first hand investigation for which
the taxpayers won’t be charged even a lousy mill,
deemed necessary to put to rest this crazy claiming warning
“Don’t go! If you go, you won’t come back”
guessing must be something in the water and the wine
Jun 5, 2018
Jun 5, 2018 at 9:00 AM UTC
A ball player and a thief
Will likely be pregnant by age 16.
Lives in the ghetto and is poor,
Often identified as a *****
Runs fast and does drugs,
Hangs around with gangsters and thugs.
Has a gun or a friend with one.
Speaks in slang, must be part of a gang.
Mess with her, she'll pull a Sharkeisha on you.
If you were to picture a person of any race,
That fits the description that just took place.
A baller and **** hmm... what race matches that?
Yeah you're right, that person is probably black.
Is fast, does drugs, and speaks with slang?
Lemme guess, is he also in a gang?
A young mother who is also poor?
Bet she doesn't know who the dad is, what a *****
All these negative stereotypes associated with being black.
Its disheartening, sicking and its really sad.
And whats sadder is that if you are the opposite of all of that,
You are often told that you're not really black.
Does your skin colour change for going to Harvard?
Will it change for speaking like an English scholar?
Because I play hockey and not ball, does that make me white?
So what if I'm the type of person to run away from a fight?
You don't have to be irresponsible and rude to be considered black.
It's your ethnic background that determines that.
And to some people, all we are is the complexion of our face.
Light, dark, somewhere in the middle, to some, the bad of a few defines
our whole race.
Does running away from a cop, and being black give someone grounds to shoot?
Why is it that my skin color is what is most important to you?
Is asking a question when getting arrested for no visible reason really resisting arrest?
Does struggling to break free from restraints to catch my breath, give someone a reason to grab on tighter to strangle me to death?
The actions of a few don't define the actions of a whole group.
And this assumption that all black are thugs, thieves and liars has done clear damage to,
Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin and so many more.
They didn't know it, but just by being black, they put their lives at risk when they stepped out their door.
Don't you think it's gotten too far when we have to prove Black Lives Matter, or when we the saying of a movement is Hands Up, Don't Shoot.
Should people have to be reminded that blacks are real people and that our lives matter too?
We are athletes and musicians.
Lawyers and physicians.
The leader of a nation.
An anchorman of a news station.
We don't all fit into that mold that is preset for us.
You can and should expect great things of us.
Because we don't have to be a **** or a baller to be considered black.
We define what type of black person we are, we determine that.
Feb 11, 2014
Feb 11, 2014 at 2:04 PM UTC
I try to hard to perfect it... someone has to notice my effort.
I drown my sorrows in a book, cramming information into my "empty" mind according society.
I am on a high from caffeine , I have to be superwoman.. save the day, save the world and stuff...
I give my all , fight to the last second but my best is not good enough anymore. In my own highway of dreams I carry coffins of rejects.....
I am tired of writing my "wrongs" that society identified..
I am tired of being perfect and tired of being tired...
I was not good enough for my mother, who chose to find acceptance in a bottle...I had a boy for a father and a judge as society..
As time stands still I engrave all the "rejects" in my gravestone ....
Here lived a soul not goo enough for society..
I stand bu the coast and shut my eyes .. the breeze hits against my face and for a moment I feel free....
I take these white pills and for a moment I am free,,, acceptable..
I swim in these intoxicating liquid and for a second I am free... acceptable to society,, Good enough....
Oct 7, 2014
Oct 7, 2014 at 2:17 AM UTC
father offers, no, we are bodies trapped in people.
he was known to be monstrous when inside a vandalized church.
if gay, he’d ask
does anyone ask
if you
were born?
yesterday, she was identified by her dentist.
she was recalled as a hunger pain.
man is a rumor
started by god.
Oct 29, 2013
Oct 29, 2013 at 1:34 PM UTC
While having a heart to heart one night,
My friend informs me that as a straight person, I will never understand what it's like to be closeted.
That there is a reason people understand the term "gay suicide" without context,
That love looked like moth wings that would flutter away or wither at touch,
That the secrets and shame are like locks on the door from the outside and you realize that there is no one out there with a key.
That same friend once asked me if I've ever thought about joining a nudist colony.
She said that the comfort I find in my own skin and my ability to separate naked bodies from beds was admirable.
I told her, there was a reason I never read her my poetry.
I told her, I don't wear make up at Wal-Mart.
That I turn off the lights but still let him love me.
I read to estranged ears.
That bareness was something I would never grow into.
"Darling!" I told her, "there are some things you just aren't meant to see."
I have been truth-or-dared to strip naked, and its not as easy as you might believe.
There is a little something that sits at the back of my mind I like to call "modesty."
Modesty can be defined as the quality or state of being unassuming or limited in the estimation of one's abilities.
"Darling," I wanted to tell her, "You have no idea what these hands are capable of."
There was a time I was proud of that.
They were small and feeble, but holding a blade firm they became strong.
They became what I needed.
My skin became less of a barrier and more of a costume. When I slipped it on, I became original.
I became identified, if only to myself.
The scabs were a serial number the First World girl who was a little too white,
a little too straight,
and a little too doubtful could call her own.
But I was a little too weak,
and a little too lonely
and had a little too much time on my hands to wrap around the knife.
They became my drug. I became a liar.
My skin became an apology for everything I thought you should blame me for.
There was a time I would have done anything to show you, but I have always been a performer.
No one ever asked to see the curtains close.
My friend told me that I would never understand what it's like to be closeted.
That secrets and shame are like locks on the door from the outside and you realize that there is no one out there with a key.
The tally of every moment I'm locked in is a timeline of my mistakes, visible on my own skin.
There are some things you just aren't meant to see.
Jun 28, 2013
Jun 28, 2013 at 1:28 PM UTC
I try to close my eyes
Because when they are open I tend to realize
things I hate to admit but that I despise
To me it is no surprise
to see the division on each side
Stereotypes are being idolized
Human beings are not being individualized
not being identified
Just stamp them with a number
222-33-4444
Send them to school to make them
Smarter
but dumber
to the reality
They take the unbalanced lead
of what stares at me
but moves passed me
I am followed by the past me
Inevitably,
we are
who we are destined to be
Because of what was taught to me
I have chains on my wrists
in this country
but they say I am free
while they distract me
subtract me
yes, me
but you too
Because we are one but we are two
Unity
You and me
me and you
Don't lose yourself
if you are lost, I am too
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 4:16 AM UTC
you can tell by the way she swings her hips
and pulls your hair
and licks her lips
and whispers in your ear
that she's easy.
you'll know her by the short skirt
and the tight top
and the high heels,
by the butterfly tattoo on her lower back
and the drink in her hand.
if she carries condoms
or takes birth control,
if she can't say no,
if she takes no convincing,
you'll know.
she's the girl at the party who drinks the most
and laughs the loudest.
she's the one you discarded the first night you met her,
when she gave you
the only part of herself that you deemed worthwhile.
you'll figure her out
from the tar trails of mascara,
the untouched meal,
the word "worthless" carved into her thigh like a brand,
marking her flesh as property
to which you are entitled.
pay close attention to her need for validation.
a **** will have the audacity to seek your approval
just because she's been told all her life
that she is nothing without your love.
she will measure her worth
in units of attractiveness
and desirability
because that is the only system she's ever been taught.
you'll know she's a **** when they find the defendant
not guilty,
and he arrives at the ten-year reunion in a limo.
you'll know she's a **** when she doesn't arrive
at all.
it's easy to spot a ****
in a society that teaches her that her lips are for kisses
and not battle cries,
that her hands are meant to be cradled in yours
and not ****** into the sky,
that her body is your wonderland
and not her home.
it's hard to miss a **** in a culture that paints women as ****** objects
while condemning any expression of female sexuality,
that glorifies the "good girl" who becomes whole
when the right man comes along
and stakes his claim.
the women you ****** in the lifetime before you met your wife
weren't marriage material;
you need a girl who's saved herself for you because
a girl who lets you **** her
crosses the threshold from ****** to ****
in a bizarre coming of age ritual in which your **** is *so ******* important*
that its temporary entrance to her body
renders her worthless.
you can tell she's a ****
because for her, there is no right answer.
you can find your **** at rallies
and in body-baring photographs,
alive in the anxious triumph
of finding something in herself that she can love,
of digging through a lifetime of rubble
and reclaiming small shards of forgiveness from the dirt.
her self-identified status
rips away your long-established privilege
of dictating who she can be
and defining her worth;
your resent her new autonomy.
you can march beside her,
or you can step aside.
she has stolen back her power.
she was made for revolution.
Jan 3, 2014
Jan 3, 2014 at 6:09 AM UTC
Rebuffed
by expressionless faces
you'll never meet.
An image
can't be identified
through a distorted lens.
Weary words
defrost
as egotistical dreams.
Points of view
compete with self-esteem
and dysfunctional genes.
Oct 1, 2014
Oct 1, 2014 at 3:49 AM UTC
it was the Cubist who created the space and color that
everywhere today assails our eyes
in uniform architecture and monotonous
design; the various branches of modern art
through tedious & exhaustive experiment
& research creating a massive cultural sinkhole
whose banal discoveries unveil for all the sameness
of form, line and color;
Quote from Gorky's 'Camouflage', 1942: I like the heat;
the tenderness; the edible; the lusciousness;
the song of a single person
in a bathtub full of water.
I like Ucello, Grunewald, Ingres,
the drawings and sketches for paintings
of Seurat and that man Pablo Picasso;
I measure all things by weight.
In text for MoMA, describing the 'Garden in Sochi' - series,
26 June 1942
I love Mougouch, Gorky's wife. What about papa Cézanne;
I like the wheat fields, the plow, the apricots,
those flirts of the sun. And bread above all.
My lever is the purple; About 194 feet away
from our house in Armenia on the road to the
spring my father had a little garden with
a few apple trees which had retired
from giving fruit;
this garden was identified as the _'Garden of Wish Fulfillment'_
often I had seen my mother and the other village women
exposing their naked bosoms, taking the soft,
dependable ******* in their hands &
rubbing them on the rocks; above all this
standing an enormous tree all bleached
under the sun, rain & cold, deprived of leaves.
This was the Holy Tree [quoted in 1942]
In text for MoMA, describing the 'Garden in Sochi' - series,
26 June 1942
I don't like that word 'finished'.
When something is finished,
that means it's dead, doesn't it?
I believe in everlastingness;
I never finish a painting – I just stop
working on it for a while.
I like painting because it's something
I can never come to the end of;
sometimes I paint a picture,
then I paint it all out. Sometimes
I'm working on fifteen or twenty
pictures at the same time; I do that
b/c I want to – b/c I change my
mind so often; The thing to do is
always to keep starting to paint;
never finishing the painting [quoted in 1948]
Aug 20, 2018
Aug 20, 2018 at 4:39 PM UTC
I am common.
seemingly feminine
but shoulders strong
as barbed-wire.
like a chicken I am
underdeveloped—my wings
weak and unable to
lift me into the air.
I am preoccupied
in self-identified war
with the 875 square foot
apartment and the pasta
that refuses to boil.
on my knees, I
crawl
reconciling rhyme
and reason for
suffering.
the world has gone awry,
I say to myself on an
afternoon bike ride
through wooded
pain, my face
a perfect plane for
scathing branches.
quick and easy blood
am I.
wretched and astonishing
is the rhetoric I
find in the hollow of
my rib.
I am common
but not so when
written by hand.
Aug 4, 2017
Aug 4, 2017 at 4:14 PM UTC
If I close my eyes and think of you
I can smell your scent
From a mere two days ago
The flutter in my heart follows
If I close my eyes and think of my father
I can smell the joints
That I identified aged 10
I try not to *****
If I close my eyes and think of my best friend
I can smell her perfume and washing powder
It makes me smile
And want a hug
If I close my eyes and think of my father
I can smell the stale beer
A middle of the night smell
It meant 'don't leave your room'
If I close my eyes and think of my mum
I smell safety and comfort
Strength and gravity
The balance keeps me strong
If I close my eyes and think of my father
I can smell the stale sweat
The cruel words of abuse
The hatred inside myself
If I close my eyes and think of my sister
I smell vanilla and style
Fashion and creativity
Sullen kindness
If I close my eyes and think of my father
I can smell the cold of the room
With its broken window in the arctic temperatures
The fire unlit because the marijuana needed somewhere to grow
If I close my eyes and think of school
I smell the comforting sawdust
The corridors familiar
The classrooms like home
If I close my eyes and think of my father
Not having friends round to tea- because.
16 not 6- you can't buy my trust
16 not 46- don't want prayer flags for my birthday
If I close my eyes and think of home
I smell the damp washing hanging up
Every squeaky floorboard
Every drip, clank, comforting noise
If I close my eyes and think of my father
I smell the power he loved to have
How I haven't seen him in three years
The fear that still remains
If I close my eyes and think of myself
I smell nothing
Hear and see nothing
At that is what scares me the most.
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 6:48 PM UTC
Tomorrow morning they are going to take them,
what am I going to do?
He says it doesn’t matter to him, because I have a pretty face.
In all the years we've been married, he’s never told me I had a pretty face.
I don’t think he’s going to be able to handle this.
Hell, I don’t think I'm going to be able to handle this.
God ****** I am going to loose my hair,
I am gonna loose my beautiful ******* hair, then everyone will know.
People will put sanitizer on their hands after they shake mine.
All my friends and family will treat me differently.
They’ll feel sorry for me, they won’t know what to say.
And then there’ll be those who will say too much, or the wrong thing.
"I’ll pray for you", some will say,
But I know what they are thinking, they think....
"that is what she gets for drinking her martinis and smoking her ***
Some will even say it is God’s will.
**** God!
He is stealing my beauty,
my wonderfully gorgeous **** my hair.
They are a part of me.
I don’t give a **** what a man thinks about my *******
that they are **** or voluptuous,
they are a part of me.
And now, like a side of beef,
they are going to section me up and take them from me.
What will they do with them?
I mean after they biopsy.
Can I have them to bury?
Sorry, I know that wasn't necessary, but I am mad.
I am mad and afraid, I am so afraid.
I know my husband, he will never be the same.
He doesn’t **** me with his eyes closed, my **** turn him on.
But then any woman’s **** turn him on.
When he reaches to touch them, there’ll be nothing there.
I’ll look like a little boy, nothing.
Maybe I have identified with them too much,
I have made them a big part of my personality.
I've fed my children with them, my boyfriends fought over them,
they have got me into and out of trouble more than once.
**** I am going to have to get a whole new wardrobe.
And now, in the morning
they are going to cut them off of me
and put them in a stainless steel operating room bowl.
Like chicken fat.
Why do I feel like this,
I didn’t cry when the dentist pulled my wisdom teeth?
What if he told me I had to or else I would die, I’d pulled them myself?
I trim my nails, and get my hair cut and dyed.
I exfoliate my skin.
I lost 10lbs last year and I didn’t shed one tear,
my ******* will weigh more than that.
But I am loosing something else,
I am loosing normal.
I'll have to find a new normal.
I am loosing myself
and replacing it with a different person.
I’ll be one of them,
I’ll be a survivor,
a hero.
I'll hold hands with other survivors and walk 10 miles
and wear a **** load of pink.
Hey, but I don't look too bad in pink.
later this week a friend is going to have a double mastectomy. These are just a few of the words I have collected from other breast cancer survivors. I had to do something for her. My hope is that we become more aware of the fear and pain that breast cancer victims go through.
Jun 2, 2013
Jun 2, 2013 at 4:12 PM UTC
so you say you’re a bad ***** huh
so you prefer to be identified by bad ***** instead of ur real name huh
so you prefer to be valued by money instead of your worth
so you are a bad bitch,i ain’t tryna judge you,this ain’t no court
the term “bad ***** can’t end you up as a wife
those instagram pictures wont work,you can’t put a filter on life
you were born original,now you chose to live as a copy
look colourful on the outside but your life is sloppy
the beauty of having beauty is a lot more than being beautiful
the path to life you follow isnt geting any where meaningful
so you say”love sucks,i chase paper”cus to you love is just a verb
no cure for your attitude so you take drugs and herbs(weed)
anything that has a monetary value is worthless
you used to value more but the tag”bad bitch”made you less
you are now defined by pictures of you kissing the air,
exposing you ***** and *** looking for the next prey on facebook or instgram
we follow our dreams but a responsible man wont follow a”bad ***** on twitter
so you can say,you are not any responsible man’s dream
be a bad ***** all your youth and when old a baby sitter?
you raise the stakes for yourself and still cant cross the beam
life is not rosy and even if it is,roses have thorns
those things you do will hunt you,they’ll come with horns
lipsticks,eyelashes,short gowns,expensive wrist watches and purses
money first and then back on the ground,now thats a curse
bad ******* exist amongst us,they are our friends on facebook
"prostitute"sounds bizzare so she says shez a "bad *****
the person you are still searches for the person you should be
and i hope youre eyes dont remain shut for you to see
and the younger girs see you and want to be like you
they want to dress all thight and paint their faces like you
no one wants to be like margareth thatcher
they all wanna be nickky minaj
these days there are more bad ******* than wives
and to responsible men it’s like stabs from 100 knives
because a bad ***** will follow men
but a lady will cling to a man
and if you say youre a bad ***** and you need no man
tell that to yourself when you turn 40
a lady isnt defined by how bad or ****** she is but how elegant and classy she is
a bad ***** is pretty but the beauty of a lady is defining
so choose today to be a lady and start the change for our generation!#thepoet
.
May 9, 2014
May 9, 2014 at 7:53 PM UTC
If you want to make a profit
(and the morality is grey)
Dehumanize the victim
and you'll be well on your way.
In a country that's divided,
and declining by the hour.
Your sins will be forgiven
by the Autocrats in power.
As, once upon a time,
in our then divided land
Slavery was acceptable
because a black was not a man.
Then black people were possessions
and very few were free.
They knew the lash, they knew the rod,
They knew not dignity.
Now fetuses are parasites-
not considered human beings
Abortion is big business
the cash cow of their dreams
Fifty million have been murdered
with no end on the horizon.
****** it appears, is acceptable
as long as it's not you dying.)
Someday you'll be old and gray-
and have an awful cough
Please don't be surprised or shocked
if they opt to write you off.
The weak and the disabled,
those feeble minded or not spry
can blame our liberality
when it comes their turn to die.
Eighty years its been since
Adolf ****** rose to power
Little children sang his praises too-
and darkness had it's hour.
Note:Nazi eugenics were **** Germany's racially based social policies that placed the improvement of the Aryan race through eugenics at the center of Nazis ideology. Those humans were targeted who were identified as "life unworthy of life" (German: Lebensunwertes Leben), including but not limited to the criminal, degenerate, dissident, feeble-minded, homosexual, idle, insane, and the weak, for elimination from the chain of heredity. More than 400,000 people were sterilized against their will, while 70,000 were killed under Action T4, a "euthanasia" program.[1][2]
(They will call it choice until the choice is there's alone)
Funny but many will call me a reactionary racist for my position against abortion but there have been millions of black Americans aborted, just as planned parenthood's founder intended.I would not make all abortions illegal as I believe that I shouldn't legislate morality. I think they should be rare, legal and safe.
Jul 1, 2013
Jul 1, 2013 at 9:02 PM UTC
If you are having sleepless nights, blame it on calcium deficiency as a key calcium channel has been identified as responsible for deep sleep, says new study.
The study also gives us a clue to understanding both normal and abnormal waking brain functions.
"It is the same brain, same neurons and similar requirements for oxygen and so on. So what is the difference between these two states?" asked Rodolfo Llinas, a professor of neuroscience at New York University School of Medicine and a Whitman Center Investigator at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole.
To tackle the broad question of sleep, Llinas and his colleagues focused on one crucial part of the puzzle in mice, Marine Biological Laboratory.
Calcium channels, selective gates in neuron walls, are integral in neuron firing, ensuring that all parts of the brain keep talking to one other. But during sleep, calcium channel activity is increased, keeping a slow rhythm that is different from patterns found during wakefulness.
Based on this clue, the scientists removed one type of calcium channel, Cav3.1, and looked at how the absence of that channel's activity affected mouse brain function.
This calcium channel turns out to be a key player in normal sleep. The mice without working Cav3.1 calcium channels took longer to fall asleep than normal mice, and stayed asleep for much shorter periods.
Their brain activity was also abnormal, more like normal wakefulness than sleep. Most importantly, these mice never reached deep, slow-wave sleep.
"This means that we have discovered that Cav3.1 is the channel that ultimately supports deep sleep," Llinas said.
Because these mice completely lack the ability to sleep deeply, they eventually express a syndrome similar to psychiatric disorders in humans.Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/green-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/yellow-formal-dresses
Jul 1, 2015
Jul 1, 2015 at 12:46 AM UTC
Evidently it was meant to be.
Long before I was born my DNA
sat on a shelf in God's laboratory,
a sticky note attached,
name, date of birth, perhaps
a tiny alarm to notify the lab
of inception.
God doesn't lose things
and God doesn’t forget.
It must be for a reason and
it must be meant to be.
A critical piece of who I am.
I should show a little pride because
as they say God don't make no ******
But I’m a little late to the party..
*The party that celebrates those who choose to be identified
by a gender other than the one they were born with,
but shames anyone who struggles with substance abuse.*
I'm having trouble understanding the difference.
If I were to gather my drug addled friends
and march down the street with banners and signs
demanding the right to openly inject mind altering
substances into my veins I would be seen as
a criminal and a derelict even though my constant struggle
came right off the shelf of God’s laboratory where
my sticky noted DNA sat right next to yours.
I guess I shouldn't care what people think..
I know my rights, and I demand to be accepted,
NO, praised for coming out so bravely,
carrying a new flag, flaunting in the streets,
paving the way for future generations of addicts.
I will take my God given DNA out of the dark
and go out into light,
light so bright you'll be forced to accept it.
accept my sickness!
embrace it!
this is in my DNA,
God made me this way
so it must be ok.
I feel better now.
I no longer feel guilty,
or depressed,
or weak,
or wrong,
or immoral,
No longer do I need to contain it.
no longer do I need to be shamed.
I am an addict and I am beautiful.
Just like you.
Oct 19, 2018
Oct 19, 2018 at 12:34 PM UTC
All defined, labeled, identified.
like quiet children who stand aside,
Silent as a dusty book,
Captivated by their own shoes,
must be pardoned, must be excused.
Those who mumble and avoid your eyes,
them do not mind, they’re just shy.
Imagine if everything still and reserved
Were undermined by such a word.
What would we say of those calm characters
mountains, towers, poetry, flowers?
If perchance one afternoon we met the horizon or the moon,
Are we to say that because often they stand away,
Afar in photos, landscapes, scenery,
off center, silent, beyond the sea,
That these defining features of the sky
Should be cast off and labeled shy?
Those amongst us, who silently
Live largely in their reverie,
Hiding behind their books and journals,
Heard not, but for the scratch of their pencils,
Will name you someday;
They'll have something undeniably brilliant to say.
Should you disagree, consider and think,
Violent, boisterous thunder is the voice of silent-seeming lightning.
Aug 3, 2011
Aug 3, 2011 at 11:15 PM UTC
I have observed brightly lit stores...
window displays welcome
with wide open arms.
Kaleidoscope of colours,
dancing to catchy music...
adding on to the allure and charm.
Droves of shoppers have identified this
as their slice of heaven.
Flagging retail therapy
and finding their
pocket of Eden.
I have observed some laying down.
Relaxing...
unwinding...
On patches of grass.
They stare at the sky
with much adoration,
as wispy clouds float on by.
These skygazers have chosen this
to be their little slice of heaven.
With the ground on their backs,
grass between their toes
and azure as their witness...
this is their pocket of Eden.
I have observed a couple of lovebirds,
seated at a café...
immersed deeply in conversation.
In their own private universe,
their own little bubble.
Employing hugs and frequent pecks as punctuation.
There's nowhere else they'd rather be.
From their eyes I know,
they've found their unique slice of heaven.
In each other
they've found their pocket of Eden.
I have observed myself...
I thought myself to be lost
for the longest time.
Seeking a place
for the voice in my head
that only spoke in rhyme.
All is not lost when
I finally found that place.
My little slice of heaven.
For almost a year ago today
I decided on Hello Poetry
as my pocket of Eden.
Jun 8, 2015
Jun 8, 2015 at 1:20 PM UTC
From where I stand, there is a kaleidoscopic view of the world.
My cousin always had something negative to say about my upbringings, my excessive scruples.
Life is an hourglass.
The scent of your tongue is a foul one and I cry because it reminds me of my brother.
The blood runs down my fingers, scared I run to the nearest lake.
Has anyone identified Victoria's secret?
The reindeer reign over me, because of this I know Santa is near.
The wind tells me stories of my father who lived in China until age 8 and I ponder if my love for sushi is hereditary.
The kitten meows until I give her milk. Little *****
My red moccasins are the reason I could not attend the wedding but I have no regrets.
Yet again, you enter my thoughts, and I throw you out like yesterdays trash.
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 10:09 AM UTC
Matrilineality is the tracing of descent
through the female line corresponding
to a societal system in which each person
is identified with their matriline;
– their _mother's_ image –
and which can involve the inheritance
of property and/or titles. A matriline is
a line of descent from
a common female ancestor
to a descendant of either ***
in which the individuals in all intervening
generations are mothers –
in other words, a "mother line".
In matrilineal descent,
individuals belong to the same
group as their mother.
The matriline of historical nobility
was also called the _enatic_ or _Uterine_ ancestry;
From Middle English wombe, wambe,
from Old English womb, wamb
(“belly, stomach; bowels; heart; womb; hollow”),
from Proto-Germanic *wambō
(“belly, stomach, abdomen”),
from Proto-Indo-European *wamp- (“membrane (of bowels),
intestines, womb”). Cognate with Scots wam, wame (“womb”),
Dutch wam (“dewlap of beef; belly of a fish”),
German Wamme, Wampe (“paunch, belly”),
Danish vom (“belly, paunch, rumen”),
Swedish våmb (“belly, stomach, rumen”),
Norwegian vomb (“belly”), Icelandic vömb
(“belly, abdomen, stomach”), Old Welsh gumbelauc (“womb”),
Breton gwamm (“woman, wife”),
Sanskrit वपा (vapā́, “the skin or membrane
lining the intestines or parts of the viscera,
the caul or omentum”).
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 10:37 PM UTC
The legend said that there was a boy in the mid 800 who begged everyday to the Sun God That his black eyes could be blue as sapphire. In Africa every person of the region had dark eyes, but he felt he wanted to have light blue eyes so someday he could go with the sky Gods and be their helper and trainee. The only requisite was to have blue or gray eyes; for them these two colors meant purity and identified the only ones who could meet them. Shmuel wanted it, but that meant he was going to go away from his house and live his family forever, because once you go and see a God you can’t return to Earth nor have contact with humans again. After years of begging to the sun, he accepted it, and turned his eyes blue as sapphire. The day he had to go was sad; all his community was in his house saying goodbye to him. Everyone since then called him “the child with the sapphires eyes”. He knew that earth and his family were history already. Before being introduced to the Gods Space he turned back his head once again and saluted with a smile all his community. Since then his mind was erased and a new Shmuel was created. Now he served these Gods, and as an apprentice he would turn to be like them in the future.
Elena Ramos
Short Fictional Story
Apr 13, 2015
Apr 13, 2015 at 10:45 PM UTC