The power of Averages,
it means a lot
if you can
understand Means, a lot.

Assuming a Normal Distribution,

A Standard Deviation, or σ
defines where about 68% of the data falls;
roughly 34% above and below the Mean.

Two Standard Deviations
defines where a further 28% of data lies;
14% above and below 1σ and -1σ.

Positive 1-Sigma is one Standard Deviation above the Mean
Negative 1-Sigma is one below;
The range from -2σ to 2σ includes  96% of data.
The implications are astounding.

Within 3 Standard Deviations, one finds 99.7% of the data;
Within 4σ, 99.9%, 5σ, 99.999%,
the remainder are generally outliers and other improbable results.

To illustrate:

Suppose we had a group of 100 people,
and we wish to determine average height:
If our Mean height ends up being, say, 180 cm,
with a Standard Deviation of 20cm,
We can suppose that of 100 people, on average,
with a certain Margin of Error that is inversely proportionate to our Sample Size, or n
(for sake of argument, the Probable Error, or γ, is 13.49cm)

4 are taller than 220cm
14 are between 200cm and 220cm
68 are between 160cm and 200cm
14 are from 140cm to 160cm
4 are shorter than 140cm
--

Statistics is the parent of Probability;
Statistics is the Art and Science of Forecast,
Statistics paves the way for modern Science
Statistics is a powerful weapon in the fight against Ignorance
Statistics, however, are generally and intentionally misrepresented and thus misunderstood.

For increasingly accurate figures,
one must have a larger Sample Size
and a Sample group that is a representative subgroup
of the Whole

This is intentionally abused
by most of the News
you read or see each day on Paper and Screens alike.

If a "Statistical analysis" does not include at least
Margin of Error or Probable Error,
Mean (Average), Standard Deviation, and Sample Size
do not take it as accurate.

Depending on the source,
it could even be deliberately malicious.

Arm yourself with Knowledge.

I have been told that a love left untouched will never disappear; that because the corrosive oils from our fingertips have not dissolved its coloring, it will, theoretically, endure perpetually. This love, left in its shrink-wrap casing, looming over the heads of the meek and the caustic feels like a scarlet letter hidden behind the robe, a feeling so foul none are to know but, Oh, what if it begins to fester, there in the moist dark?

This worry had been sitting in my stomach, churning with the bile and swallowed blood, coming up acid in my throat; I could feel it radiating out. Thought: it must be nuclear, must be radioactive and glowing, eating through me one layer at a time, but love –this uranium longing– has a half-life.

When first the reaction began it boiled and popped like lye on skin, singed off my eyelids so I could not help but see it there. I found myself woozy from the fumes, a high I had never experienced before so I inhaled, let it torch my lungs and leave me gagging. My hair began to fall out. I was soggy from the chemotherapy, tried pumping this bitterness into my bloodstream to remove the evil that already existed there, unaware that they were the same entity. It could not survive on a diet of itself and obsession, and so it began waning.

An exponential decay, the intensity of this passion varying directly with the frequency of contact and inversely with time, yet it will never be gone, entirely. It will decrease incrementally every time I say good bye, every time I see scarred knuckles, every time I want and he does not. I have counted the days since the day I counted on him and he was accountable and the number is growing larger and getting more difficult to remember. I have scribbled it onto scraps of paper and it has only browned the edges, no longer burns all the way through, and this love –this radium affair– has been losing its toxicity.

Fun under duress

Chemical Warfare over those young precocious girls.

Assuming slabs of history for fanboy waste under my nose.

Cause he don't hide his sweat
Cause she don't hide her sweat

I don't want to write but I want to be a writer, regarded and treated with the reverence which is inversely portrayed by a liar.

Some practical purpose under the surface of this romantic veneer.

Rhymes for dimes

Race for impression

Don't identify your neurosis

Big scary life

Things for the sake of themselves (are my favorite?)

And now we've got to settle with the fact that death isn't some glorious encore.

like I've already felt all my youth

Not so ego driven

And a grain of salt

There's still a tree limb hanging above with a dog whining at the road.

So your skin looks dead in that blouse honey but I can't blame you. Baldness under duress sends me swirling away from the action that you sow. I'm really sorry for what we've done and I think I've run out of ideas on how to let you know. It must be exhausting keeping your composition tied to the image of a doll, an oozing thing re-purposed to pose as crystalline overuse. It sits in the growing pool when I kiss your eyes from cold impulse to shut you up because I'm sick with culture.

For Some petty sense of animal wellness

Stuck in your addictions you forgo all that luscious thought. Losing sight of that purging of traditional fear you wont even miss it that shiver in silver water down your spine when she whispered in your ear, cornered in warm salt you fall face first and scream for your life but only the subtle bark on an unwanted friend can react.


A childhood full of hopes that stranger can want from you anything but what they can show.
False wood has a special smell in my head, since all of that basement love.
And its all just part of the warmth in snowy veils overhead when my desire for a life without need surges through my gut. A memory of subtle lavender and small words in big worlds. Sad a hearts acceleration move in different space.
But when I find the peak that's kept me going in the dark with my habits on my ankle the sky might turn away when misconceptions of a mind catch up inversely with a shrinking bough.

Cruder vowel can cut and I'll find myself running the mile backwards through thorns mockingly gathered. I covet this sense you seem to have says you So my solution says ******* but I'll never let the peel roll back from my eyes anywhere but behind your back.

Strangers live in a constant state of fear from one another, tense that the guy across from you might take everything if given a moment to react. So straighten up and flood yourself because there isn't any room for understanding or a kiss of mutuality.

Loneliness and horniness don't make a good mixture.

It's fine to think you might learn something from me as long as i ***** it before too long and we're back in equilibrium to the present.

Tongues and penises.

I may be miserable now but I have hope that life can be like a newborn opening his eyes in the forest for the first time.

Dusty attic scent from past crime or ascent is sordid now dictating response. Salty water knees from slowly branching trees are cut quickly from a mind past caring. Walking justice way can implode a simple desire defining conversational restriction thoughts.

You asked me what I want
But how do you mean?

Like a wish?
Because it's always been a dream of mine
to fly with my own wings
or to control time
so that maybe I'd get enough sleep
and I could draw out the memorable moments until I'm sick of them
and then
maybe
sometimes when I need a break I could just stop everything
and focus on the serene silence of a world frozen in place

But does this wish have to obey the rules of this reality?
because if that were the case
then I could wish for the attention of that one boy
the one with the electricity in his fingertips
and that might temporarily please me

Or I could wish myself convenience
I could wish that my hoodie strings never crept uneven
I could wish that my nails stayed short and neat
so I didn't have to cut them
I could even wish that I knew everything there was to know

Or I could wish for something to better the world
I could wish that natural disasters were a myth
I could wish that 'pretty' didn't mean anything more than the empty breath of air and intangible vibrations that it actually is
That it didn't have any more impact than 6 letters of graphite should

Or I could wish for something to better myself
I could wish for better handwriting
so maybe I can convince myself that my words are worth the paper they stain
Or I could wish for endurance
Or effortless conversation skills
Or pristine work ethic-
something I can use to my advantage in the future to ensure success.

Or I could just wish for success.
I could wish for the job of my dreams
endless money
the perfect family
but where's the fun in that?

I could even use my wish to help someone else
cure someone of their terminal cancer
Hell-
I could wish up a cure for cancer!

I could wish that mosquitoes didn't exist
or that I had a photographic memory
or that I lived somewhere I could wear flip flops in January
or that I would never age, never feel pain
I could wish for an A on my next science test
or that poverty inversely reflect humanity

But you know what I think?
I think it's human nature to feel discontent
and I think
that's vital
to the evolution of the human race

I think that we need it
to continue
to grow
and better ourselves

So what do I want?
What's my one wish?

I wish that I could believe in the magic of the stars peeking through tonight's sky

I bet you thought I didn't have anything left in the tank.  Bet you thought that I was done giving mind blowing advice on how to approach this crazy thing we call life.  Well...you were wrong.


1.  Often cases, how good a story you end up with is inversely proportional to how good a decision it was that led to it.  Don't be afraid to make some bad decisions every once in awhile, because those are the stories you're gonna be telling for years to come.  Even when you know it's a bad decision.  Sure, you might wake up naked in a ditch on the New Jersey turnpike with a some blurry memories, a hangover, a tattoo of some girl named Francesca on your chest, and an ounce of black-tar ****** shoved up your ***...but you know what?  You started this little adventure at a black-tie dinner party in Santa Monica, so I'm willing to bet some interesting **** happened between here and then.

2.  Don't be someone who never breaks the mold.  When you're lying on your death bed and someone asks you to tell them about your life, do you want to lean over and whisper to them that you always did exactly what people expected?  That you carefully listened for society's cues on how to represent yourself at every point in your life?  **** no.  You want to tell them you broke off the road and went searching for the oddities that this world has to offer. You want to tell them that you gave the ******* to society and did what you wanted because, you know what?  It's your ******' life and you only get one shot at it, so you might as well make it memorable.  Being normal is boring as hell.

3.  Talk to everyone.  Talk to them about uncomfortable things.  Talk to them about their hopes and dreams.  Talk to them about their fears.  Just ****** talk to them.  Real conversations always leave you with something you didn't had before.  Real conversations make you think about your positions.  Get passionate when you talk.  Challenge their views and allow yours to be challenged as well.  Do you think you know everything?  Yeah, I bet you do.  Why aren't you out solving everyone's problems then, you selfish *******.

4.  Whoever you are, be proud of that.  If you're not proud of who you are, chances are you arent happy with yourself.  If you're not happy with who you are, change something.  If you're still not happy, change something else.  Still not happy?  Guess what.  Change another ******' thing. Are you happy?  Good.  Now change something else anyway, because an interesting life isn't built on stagnation.

I hope you've all learned something today.

Also, I'd like to remind you to never take advice from strangers on the Internet.  That's just stupid.

A thick mist crawled inches above the basin,
Fluidly and slowly creeping
The breeze carried the eerie cries of crickets
Inharmoniously welcoming you to their lair
And as you breathe the humid air muffled by a pungent odor
Like onions rotting from the inside out

You’re shivering while the trees dance in unison
Swaying naked in the blue moonlight
In the center of the basin the water begins to ripple
Forming little circles, growing infinitely
It’s birthing now; the head crowning
From the water she is born, unusually beautiful

Plants tangled in her wicked black hair
Eyelids flutter above protruding cheekbones
Her lips; luscious and sinister
Then your heart stops, flesh piercing inversely  
And from her lips the words leak, dripping like sap
                            *I love you

I stopped being a story teller when I learned to read. I don’t think I ever learned to write. I think I was a story teller long ago, before the truth mattered. Before the truth became an obsession. Truth can get in the way when we want to tell a story. Truth has a way of narrowing the walls around us,  putting the pressure on us, and sometimes squeezing the blood from us.

When I look at what I write, the things others would call poetry, the truth is nearly always inversely related to whatever value the words have. You see, there will always be someone who has felt more intense pain or joy. There will always be someone who has behaved more heroically or shamefully than any person about whom I can write. There will always be some common man or woman who has transcended his or her circumstances far better than anybody I have ever met or observed.

If I feel compelled to write about things, acknowledging that whatever great stories I might have had inside were long ago flushed from me by the waters of truth, then I must create people and events. I must conjure them up like ghosts. These apparitions have no form to be washed away.

The people who follow my words like tracks of an animal--predator or prey--should know I feel closest to being one who says something of value when the words are the greatest distance from the texture and grit of events. If I were to tell the truth, it would hurt. It would hurt me to write the truth, and it would hurt the reader who reads it. That reader has often rested complacently with the belief that the words are true, that history is really history rather than one of an infinite number of versions of the truth in this thing one might be inclined to call the book of life.

When  you read my words, please don’t forget I don’t like the truth. I avoid it even in my stories that I believe are based on "real" occurrences. I avoid the truth. Yes, I may have seen the eyes of bloodied Vietnamese children when I was twenty, and yes, I may have sat in a bunker and listened to someone tell me they saw innocents slaughtered on the Mekong,  or what the young warm blood felt like on their hands, and yes, I may have heard someone’s last words before hospice sleep, but all these things are only shadows cast by some light whose source I cannot see or comprehend.

Truth hurts. If you have read my words before, and felt something, there is no way to rob you of the feeling. Please, however, know that I was doing my utmost to hide the truth, because trying to reveal it would have been even more futile.

The Compact


Some of us are given to,
upon our person to secret
instrumentation to adjust
the patina of our ****** tones,
lest the glare of man made light
lend a shine undesired and worse,
uncovered windowed pores allow
revelations undesirable into our souls.

In other words, a compact and its constituents:
puff, powder and mirror.

Observed a compact in use
between Act I and Act II,
the deft use of the mirror,
angled, moved back and forth
to provide perspective,
close-up and/or total.

The Gods of Metaphor,
Deities of Derision
force my unwilling reveal
thru the holy confessional screen:
I too have a compact.

My compact, a deal, a treaty accord
between the white rigors of life daily,
and spasms of black lies
to make appearances tolerable.
My compact is what I cover up
with powder and puffery.

Aged sixty two years, life nonsensical,
perversely inversely, the dependence upon
these cracked hands grows,
dying cells dividing like newborns,
worrisome weariness make the lies
come faster and more frequent,
which is why my compact has a mirror.

No matter what perspective enamored,
In the mirror, my reality check,
No powder upon my eyes,
the brutality and the joy,
of life is undisguised.

Nonetheless, I have more,
Morethanless, the balance
is favorable, the outlook positive.
My compact with you is to
remind us all, through
music, dance, words and love,
This is the only compact
with the power of human law.

Why is it that
your happiness
seems inversely proportional
to mine?

Why is it that
your happiness
seems, perversely, disproportional
to mine?

But when we were together,
your lack of happiness
consumed all of mine.

karl marx wrote in 1844 once i have money i am no longer bound by my individuality i am ugly but i can buy for myself the most beautiful women therefore i am not ugly for effect of ugliness its deterrent power is nullified by money did you hear what he said? i am ugly but i can buy the most beautiful woman written over 150 years ago but it’s still true women are commodities slaves provider has too much money used to getting his way wants control yet intended outcome is reversed recipient grows sick of accommodating provider’s demands eventually no *** nobody wins how many gorgeous women are lonely untouched longing? truth is provider is too insecure to allow possibilities experiment ok you be the man ok let’s both be the man woman whatever we live in primitive time karl again if money is bond binding me to human life binding society to me binding me nature man is not money bond of all bonds? can it not dissolve and bind all ties? is it not therefore universal agent of divorce? women get to point where they just expect cheating betrayal beatings i don’t understand how does a person believe that’s how life is explain inversely if you really want a guy treat him like **** this **** has been drilled into us hard-wired ingrained deep down in our psyches even long after you were gone i was still doing stuff trying to please you

I know it’s true
because I know
it’s true
for me and so
I know it’s true for you.

We want what we can’t have,
inversely:
we don’t want what we can.
So, I will ignore you
(and myself)
for tonight;

I will make new friends.

Ah, what a refreshing ****
I am! Nice, lying is sick
but lying to myself
is good and for my health.

There is always pain in her. 
Between her bones and skin;
separate from her blood. 

She has only known 
how to cast everything out
from the dinners she's barely keeping down
to the "are you alright"s and "are you eating properly"s

She is so used to 
never keeping anything for herself 
never holding onto to something she can call her own,
long enough for her to know

how to cherish, how to treasure, how to love. 

She is smothered and mothered and suffocated
by the numbers that rise and fall, push and pull
engulfing overwhelming drowning
all that she is. 

less is more/ less is more/ less is more

The girl's self worth is 
inversely proportional to 
how much of her 
there is in this world. 

That is why she must
refuse refute reject 
until she becomes so much closer to nothing 
until there is none of her left. 

Until she fades out of existence. 
Slowly, quietly but surely-
a decrescendo to her swan song

"The world will end with not a bang, but a whimper"

Instant gratification
for an instance of a girl.

At the end of a tunnel, you are spent, dried and weary,
Waiting for the wave, the aubade to come wash you away;
You are finalized and resolute in realization,
In somnolence, you epiphanize, you tabula rasa, you blanken
your slate to transcendence!
But  
At the end of a tunnel, you revert to the beginning.
You become inversely existential, and
you rush to drive again, passing foot to gear, go!
Meter ramming, miles against minutes or so...
Cruise,
Slow, Insistent, salacious, caressing the wheel, just you,
And the road, not wide open, just
Close, or, variable, toying, experimenting , with
The road, just it, and you; In the darkness, swerve,
Quick! Stop...gauge...go! Learning tread marks, Scorching,
This is
My road, my car, no cold-stone truckers,
Just me, and the dragon, Self consuming.
Solipsistic ideals become obsolete.
Consciousness  becomes archaic and Freudian
Reins,
Its Id superbly egotistical, an ephemeral presence
Of an amorphous reality, erected with pillars.
At the end of a tunnel,
You become resurrection.  
You become tautological.

"That one body may act upon another at a distance
through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else,
is to me so great an absurdity that,
I believe,

Every massive particle in the universe
attracts every other massive particle.
Force directly proportional to the product of their masses,
inversely proportional to the square of the
distance
between them.

Spherically-symmetrical masses attract and
are attracted as if all
their mass were concentrated
at their centers

There is no immediate prospect of identifying the mediator of gravity.
Attempts by physicists to identify the relationship between
gravitational force
and other known fundamental forces are not yet resolved.
Many attempts were made to understand the phenomena,
but there was nothing more that scientists could do at the time.

no man who has in philosophic matters
a competent faculty of thinking
could ever fall into it."

I'm not in love
with your words

I'm in love with
the way you think

not just
delighted,
entertained,
endlessly curious,
sufficiently bewildered
and longing to climb inside
the gears tick-tocking your mind

but that your brain takes me
into a state of utter awe
blissing me still

it's looking into
this distorted hologram
mirror where I'm seeing
more of me, but from
different perspectives
than the usual 2D
similar to me, yet,
inversely intriguing

it's live and undulate
reflective truth serum
rooting me in now

that's why I slid
right down your throat -
I speak your language
and apparently intuitively
know how to crack you
allkindsa open

(even if it takes a
white-hot light year
and unprecedented doses)

it's like with you
I'm the me-est me
I can be
it's so

magically delicious
I don't try to escape
inside me anywhere

you make me want to
be more here
with you

on the outside

share all the parts
I learned it best to hide
on the in

though I know
it's a wee bit ******,
if these treatises become
merely the sheer prologue
to The Most Unbelievable Tale
of Mystical Love Perhaps Ever Spun

the fact that
seeing you is
seeing me
means

loving you is
loving me too

this could be
- so -
healthy

like shots of
marine phytoplankton
chased with green smoothie

and my ponderings
keep meandering
around this one thing:

what happens when
it gets to the point where
your pictures painted of me
completely override
my false stories

- forevermore -

when I eat
so much of the mirror
I become - fully -
the me I see
through your
Windexed eyes

I daresay
that’s levitating off
the porch of full potential
outside our diamond-cut pyramid
with the gold-engraved signage
hanging in front of our
intergalactic portal

where one
might have
once

looked for a door

that now seems
completely archaic
and unnecessary

A gliding entity between ecstasy, my eyes grew from seeds
to inversely unbounded trees, oxidizing, breathing into the collective
a collection eclectic; the ripening ages convene the gods' pallette
so mortal and clean.  From the vantage of mauve mountains,
beholders pressed through the ravine.  "The bewildered be wild"
She crooned on to me.  


Deepening the night, scintillant ancestors dug
with Light, unearthing cherished retinal prints.
The vulpine maw imposed no sin, indigo glow
and a patina sheen, feral bliss had greased
the chain.  Lineages span millennia as scions cast
the sacred Heron, spear of the World beyond
the eros plane.

So She crooned on to me
Her sybilline Dream.

the words don't work
unless you put them
under your tongue,
let them dissolve
and become
your new
truth.

you can't just
lick them casually,
heart on lockdown,
guarded by mind,
******* detector
set on high.

the power is in belief.

when you put down skeptical,
suddenly, you make room
for the mystical.

don't tell me
you don't remember
precisely how that goes...

that was the miracle:
it wasn't just what I said to you.
I'm sure you'd heard such things
prior to that luminous transference.

it was how you - trusted - exactly then
to eat the words I put gently
in the palm of your blooming hand.

and just then,
they became true
for me and you
like ****!

and there We were,
making magic, my dear,
with these exquisitely parallel
inversely proportional tongues,
with direct connect to hearts
starting to beat as one.

we shall create as we speak -

but only what
we also believe.

The cobwebs in the kitchen
buys realisation
nothings perfect.
At times it feels I am
looking  down from this cupboard
and the marbled floor,
feels  like a  colliding world
The spoons are spectres of ghosts present,
as the moon inversely reflects
with wings  to fly
another tempest cup of sorrow

You
Click your tongue
Purse your lips
Smile my way

I purse my lips
Look away
And smile at the wall

It's an awkward mating ritual
Inversely proportional to how it's supposed to go

But no matter
It's a ritual nevertheless
That's solely ours

We're too interesting for normalcy anyways

This weirdness suits us well

Every time I see you
I feel flames in my eyes burning
to blurry my sight
to see you not again
in my way of life

I never realised I hate you this much
you make me feel feeble

when I see you
I melt in fear
like a snowman in the sunshine
my anger boils
like Batrachotoxin
I wish you nothing but decease
you hurt my soul like an evil disease

I hate you

You and I
both supposed to bring light in life
like the sun and the moon
Inversely
the darkness looms upon
whenever we face each other
flames of anger scald in my eyes
I want to **** you

but the poison in my heart
is killing my soul

Is hatred another way of committing suicide?

In our attempt to create a normal society
We imprison the dreamers, the believers,
And those who see things inversely;
We pretend to listen, yet we’ve voluntarily
Become deaf to originality.

In our attempt to build a functional society
We close the door on diversity;
We repeat historic mistakes and faulty,
But somehow, we have the audacity to question, “What is wrong?”
And somehow we obtain some authority to answer, “Well, it can’t be me!”
When in reality, it is the power of superiority that engulfs our minds,
Subconsciously, we yield.
Giving into a power, that paints a veil over our already skewed sight.

In various paces,
We become individuals who attempt to create a controlled, domestic clan;
Hoping to one day lead a world-wide sorority –
A sorority of people who walk in line;
Who are being shaped by the guidelines of another man’s agenda;
Who are living a life planned out by someone else
Like me,
A leader.

by: W. A. Marshall

as the acorn holds
a matchless scheme
for an unspoiled oak
my soul has a unique
plan for me -
from a silent space  
my being thrived
inversely the seed
was not voguish
it yearned for nothing
but sunlit sap and water
no conditioning or
distressed peers
absorbing fermented
tonics to burn wizards
it merely wanted
to be -
we appear scrambled
and blind to our
internal essence
about what we are
so we refuse
to stay inert
like a bomb
worried records
tell me so -
genomic bands that
once swirled in darkness
where essence surfaced
in search of poise
down in there
I closed my eyes  
and Aquinas’ played
amid authority to act  
in smoky darkness -  
It is I that shines a light  
so my soul can sit
calmly beside me.

No hope found in the heartless boat,
Thinks it can't handle a little load

Waiting for a sign to make realise,
That it can slaughter that little goat

Some witness the potential in this toad,
Which couldn't see the big weapon float

Get thyself a little kickstart smoke,
Inversely which gets to heal the throat

Hath been long since been used,
Time to get that gun a reload

Just switched itself in that lazy mode,
Gotta get hasty on this $hitty road

©  Faisal Amin

It's in these small moments
When you least expect it.
A burst of gratitude
For all that you haven't.
And inversely,
All that you do -
So have my thanks
For being you.
My friends
Are there
When I'm
Not here.

The frog-spotted leaves fading from the trees picked by sticky, little hands
Remind me of all the seconds that have passed
And inversely, the infinity that lines every moment;
The infinite me’s that have been slaughtered and reborn—
Eyes peeking through the ash, stretching my neck
Out to the world that will warm my fleshy, new skin.

But my body’s made a home of the doldrums,
Clipped feathers and heavy air, breathing strangulation—
How hard it is for me to see you in color;
You were black and white—
A noir film in high contrast, a classic tragedy:
Touched fingertips before wilting into static.
Our great debut, and now we are left,
Our bones growing brittle,
To grasp for loneliness with someone else.

And I could not stand, vacant
As an empty room, so I filled myself with
Wrath like warm exhaust fumes,
Overturning memories like a systemized holocaust
Just to liken you to a shadow puppet.

But the curation of spite lights the crook of your mind that shelters the
Remnants and splinters of separate, past lives you
Shed like a sleeve of skin.
Slivers of frozen time like artifacts at attention,
Preserved and obscured beneath a smudged pane of glass
That grows thicker and filthier—
Here lies validation for all the fruitless pain; blind happiness; lost time.

With dust collecting upon breath,
I find you who was once the blush that quilts the earth in cotton before the settling sun
And remember your comfort: a sweet cherry lozenge
Melting and staining the inner corners of lips;
Burgundy of heavy habit, of restless nights and dry, shut mouths;
Of stale disappointment through knotted fists,
Yet the warmth of a matted childhood blanket,
We had in a glance.

The few quivering embers that lay
In the back of our throats suffocate:
We are ash
And crushed violets of dark circles and the beauty in failure.
But while memories fade into ghosts and people into fog,
You will always be
Two blue diamonds, in a wash of golden light
Yawning through the veil of smoke and seconds,
Withholding your spectrum.

In the midst of a hopeful new year,
stubborn ignorance longs for a refreshing beginning,
even if time is just a arbitrary social construct
devised to add order and pretended control to an essentially
chaotic reality, filled with otherwise random
summations of events that seem to only add
pain and misery to this exhausting existence.
Whether or not any of this is worth the effort
is another debate entirely,
as the "new year, new you" cliché
fails to grasp the inability some people have
to escape the darkness.
The past, entrenched in suffering, despair
growing in the shadows, eat away
at the edge's of one's psyche,
slowly,
continuously,
until the deterioration reaches the peak.
Inversely, sanity becoming nothing less
than a distant memory.
So distant, that its even a question if that
was a memory, or a diluted dream
born from a fantasy.
Ambition long gone as well,
fading things that used to be fun to the background,
like a picture without any saturation
dulling even what seemed to be the brightest flowers
to a completely boring gray.
After ambition and sanity,
I only fear what I'll lose next.