i am a madwoman
so mad that i lay awake at night
and wonder whether youre mind
is racing as fast as mine
looking to win first place
and land in the depths of my happiness

i am a madwoman
so mad that i wander through the day
aimlessly strolling
from store to store
looking for the perfect distraction
while secretly hoping that i am yours

i am a madwoman
so mad that i pick up my phone
every now and then and call you
just to check if youre still there
because my mind can’t seem to forget you yet

i am a madwoman
so mad that i plunge myself into every minuscule task
working for a bone, like a dog
to avoid the gruesome possibilities
that i know are most likely true

i am a madwoman
because a madwoman can convince herself
of the impossible

and i have managed to convince myself
that you love me

I started as a madwoman deep in my heart,
The paint on my face,
The stick figure on paper.

I kept going like a madwoman,
The school pencils as my main utensils,
And the lined paper as my trusty canvas.

I gave up like a madwoman,
Blinded by society,
And believing that I'd never be content.

I broke through the barriers like a madwoman,
Scribbling left and right,
And embracing the drive for betterment.

If I can just continue on,
Unsettled and free hands running,
I'll always be happy to be a madwoman.

somewhere in between
the lost voices echoing
in my heart of hearts
and the burning in the
back of my eyes as you
told me your goodbyes,
i lost my sanity.
and i guess that it's my fault
for loving you so recklessly,
and it's my fault for carving
the image of you smiling
under the august sun
into the walls of my worn out heart.
because ever since you left
i spend hours in the shower trying to
scrub away your ghostly fingertips
from my skin
but at night i claw at the places
you touched most,
trying like a madwoman to feel
your presence once again.
i say your name like a mantra
that governs the very existence
of my consciousness
and some days i feel the bile
rise in my chest as I hear
your name on the street.
i am tired of empty eyes
and trembling bones.
i am tired of being a ghost
of the girl i once was
and if i'm being honest
-and i am-
you were my beginning
as well as my ending.
so how do you expect a person
to go on when all the air
has been pulled from their lungs?
these days in the spaces between my sheets
i still smell your musky cologne
and i spend hours heaving out
memories that i had etched into
the marrow of my bones.
i am a madwoman
that lost herself in a fire
of loveless eyes and passionate
nothings.
i am a madwoman.
i am just a madwoman.

I think I may have a small insight into that manic madman, madwoman,
you know the one; love potions and abortions all at the same time.
He, She, obviously reads poetry here and taking it all literally thinks we are all in need of a witchdoctor to cure us from love lost, love to gain, or purge us of any love child.

I am bound to her by blood,
this madwoman of a city
with eyes that see
a comatose heart, with no feeling.

One, two, three hundred,
a thousand —
we are all carbon copies
of her silicone *******, collagen cheeks
teeth bleached whiter
than the pearls we adorn ourselves with.

I was a child
when I left this madwoman,
mother of my younger years.
I left her drinking cuba libres,
stirring ice with her finger,
her nails crimson red.

I said, “Goodbye, I am leaving you.”
She turned her face back to the barrio
and said, “Adios, Muchacha.”

Years later, I look back on my youth.
I remember her as the mother I lost
the sister I never had
the woman I was afraid to become.

If only she knew
how easy she was to leave
how difficult she was to forget.

A Story of Scientology and the
Mental Health System Connection


MARILYN

"Her weapons were her crystal eyes... driving every man mad... (dark) as the dark night she was... had what no one else had..."
BANANARAMA "Venus"

Upon first meeting with Marilyn the first thing I was struck by were her eyes. If the eyes are the windows of the soul, hers were the stained glass of Winchester Cathedral. They were absolutely beautiful. Polished obsidion orbs that seemed to have an inner light for all their blackness. The second thing I noticed were her teeth. Strong. Perfectly even, and glistening white. Lastly her height and *figure. Again, I shall use the Winchester Cathedral metaphor... she was positively that... not just a brick house, she was marble! Cantilevered, with flying buttresses everywhere! WOW!

Now, I'm not a lesbian. But if I were, Marilyn would have been in trouble! I was to notice flaws in her looks as time went on. Her thick, shiny raven hair was poorly cut, and her face, while striking, was not all that beautiful. Her features were even and well proportioned, but she was not a classic beauty.  She was of arabic/caucasian liniage. If I were to be perfectly honest with myself, I noticed these imperfections because I was somewhat envious. She was a man-magnet. Ms Pac-Man! I'm not an ugly woman. But I couldn't hold a candle to Marilyn!

As fate would have it, I became her "twin". We were on the buddy system at the beginning of our Sea Org training, and I was paired up with Marilyn. As luck would have it, we hit it off. Even though I felt like a shadow next to her light, I also really liked her. And she liked ME. She never lorded her looks over me. Her brilliant smile could melt the stoniest heart. And we enjoyed the same things. Though she was no artist, she really appreciated art. I actually drew her portrait (which she kept and framed, she told me many years later). We would take long walks around the Hollywood area, and, when time allowed, went to the beach. Santa Monica Pier. She had a droll sense of humor which i could appreciate, and i made her laugh, too. We got along very well.

Our Mission, should we decide to accept it (or NOT), was to write letters to people who had, at one time, been interested in scientology, or the Sea Org (not necessarily in that order). We were told that we to up our "statistics" daily. All jobs were measured statistically. Now, even at THAT age, I knew the Samuel Clemmons quote, "There are lies. **** lies. And statistics." But i thought it prudent not to mention that to anyone.

So, we were to write letters. We worked out a system for staying "upstat". We figured if we wrote LONG letters, and took breaks at first, then wrote shorter letters as time went on we could "beat the system". So we did. We never competed with each other. I was slightly faster than she (I'm a writer, obviously) but she didn't care. I could write. But she could spell. I was never good at that (I HAVE autocorrect on my phone, lol!).

Our I/C (in charge) never really bothered us. We were "upstat". So we joked around and had fun with it. We were allowed to go out and have a little time off occasionally.
I remember going to see the first STAR WARS movie with Marilyn and another dude who was totally smitten with her. She didn't even feign interest, even if he WAS very funny, and good looking in a diminutive way. But he was around her in a holding patern! Like a hummingbird to a honeysuckle! Shaharizade had mesmerized him with her seven veils! But the poor man never got anywhere. So he started to evince interest in me! But got nowhere in that arena either! Poor dude! So, that's how it worked. Marilyn would draw masculine attention. And, eventually, I would be "second pick". Oh, well. I knew better than to "get involved". There was a strict rule about "fratenization". A polite term for ***". THAT was VERBOTEN! It was grounds for RPF, should the partners be unmarried. And since I had NO desire to marry any of them, those dudes were out o luck.

Time went on. FRU  (Flag Recruit Unit) didn't seem so bad! And then there was the lure of my final destination. Flag Land Base... Finally I was ready to take my

...*1,300 mile Greyhound bus!

A Story of Scientology and the
Mental Health System Connection


What you are about to read *will shock you. Some may find it extremely disturbing. I will tell you from the outset, also, that i am quite "insane". According to the psychiatrists "******-Affective". Manic-Depressive with Paranoid features.
I will freely admit that what you will read here will sound crazy. But please read on. It may be horrifying. It may be weird. It may seem extremely paranoid. But it still interests.

It is my desperate hope that you will read. And believe me. For, my "diagnosis" notwithstanding, I am as sane as the next "normal" person. I AM NOT A LUNATIC! What you are about to read really happened. To ME. It has plot twisting tension that could be put to the credit of Alfred Hitchcock. And a psychological horror that Steven King could emulate. How could I compare my writing to the genius of those great & talented men? I don't. Because, dear readers, I did not conceive of it. It was done to me. I merely convey the technology and techniques used to make any "normal person" appear a ****** Toon of 50 mile high proportions! It exists. And it is excruciatingly painful to be the subject of it.

So why would a girl from a comparatively small city, with no seeming accomplishments to commend her, and is actually quite unimportant, be the subject of such hateful torment? What has she done? I will convey ALL of the reasons. I did play a part in it. I had a tri-fold lawsuit against a once-high-profile video dating club, who wanted to prevent litigation by thoroughly discrediting me. And I had a very virulent and hateful foe...

*The "Church" of SCIENTOLOGY.

A Story of Scientology and the Mental Health System Connection

SEEKER

Now I can hear you saying to yourselves,
"So. You said you were smart. Why did you get involved with a crazy cult like Scientology?"* Well. Two reasons. 1) I was raised an atheist (Humanist), but had a seeker's soul. I became very spiritual, like I said. I also had a desire to HELP people. Humanity. I still do. But because I had a godless upbringing I was left open to deception. And 2) I found a boyfriend. Or, I should say, he found me. One of Scientology's tried and true methods of recruitment.

I had another friend, a ***** Jewish scientologist (yes, there can be that sort of thing, as you can be "any faith" and still be a scientologist... hmph!). She introduced us. I was impressed by two things. He was an instructor at the "Mission". And he could tell you things that seemed psychic. One of the procedures for impressing people to sign up for classes and "processing" was this. Doug would position you in a certain part of the room. He'd have his back to you. Then he'd tell you to walk away from him... then stop abruptly.
He'd be able to tell you when you stopped! And he could do it every time! This really impressed me. Until I found out he looked into the reflective surface of a large glass covered poster that was on the wall! Lol! What a con artistic magician HE was! HA!

I was totally gone over by the registrar (salesperson). She stuck to me like glue until she FINALLY figured out, Yes! I had NO MONEY! So I didn't get any training or processing. Which was a BIG part of why I stuck around. I didn't even read "Dianetics" by L Ron Hubbard. Doug told me a little about it. But most of his energy was expended trying to get in my pants... a fruitless endeavor to say the least!

He was instrumental in getting me up to Phoenix for the fateful "Flag Orientation Tour". The recruitment campaign which would change my life forever...

*Where I signed my life over to Scientology's Sea Organization for the next BILLION YEARS.

A Story of Scientology and the
Mental Health System Connection

GILDED CAGE

Unlike the pampered, well heeled clients of my "faith", I didn't enter the Fort Harrison Hotel via the opulent main entrance. I made my appearance through the back. The garage entrance was less than hospitable. And, I noticed, there seemed to be people *living in the cold, drafty motor housing! When I asked about this strange berthing, Noah was much less than forthcoming. "RPF", he mumbled. Well. What's an RPF when it's at home? Then I saw a few of the denizens of said "RPF". I knew very little about it. Only that it was punishment. For people were "out-ethics". WOW. The RPF "sleeping quarters" had bunks three high, and was protected only marginally from the winds that swept through that garage.

There was an RPF person who was coming through the breezeway as I entered. He stepped aside very deferentialy, and said, "Excuse me, Sirs!" to Noah and I. WOW. I'd never had THAT kind of treatment in my life! I guess I was someone important! This bubble was burst immediately. I met the I/C of the FRU.

She was not in a good mood, as I recall. But, then, who ever really was in this Organization? She DID TRY to be nice. Greeted me clammily, and put on a spurious smile. She recognized I needed sleep, at least. Upon walking through the building, the rooms got more and more posh. I was to get to my berthing through the hotel lobby, apparently. It was grand! But in a sort of an outdated way. I really don't remember much else. Except for the conditions in my sleeping quarters. Only marginally better than the RPF! bunks three high! Junk everywhere (some of the new recruits had yet to figure out that they should cull their possessions to a minimum). Guess who was designated the top bunk? You got it. And moi was not a happy camper! As I climbed the rickety ladder to the top bunk I remember thinking, "How much lower can a person go?"

*I WAS, EVENTUALLY, TO FIND OUT.

Sitting in my room.
Wondering about God.
Watching the bomb tick away.
To something I don't know.

You are all stupid, you all are useless.
Seeking light, then ending in your mind's dull jam,
your septic-clean sty.
You all are closing yourself to the World
None of you I will befriend - Satan or God
I will hold his hand.
I will go on living till I die.
And only then, I will close my eyes.
My life - a testament to revise
if I have to say my last goodbye...

"I saved myself". I did, but I could have never done it, without It
And the time I spend thinking about it, the further I lie from It
My mind crafts this -
I need to befriend it, whoever it is
In the face of fear, we start worshipping odd things
Life is the supreme
Life does always win, if you let it trespass your door
and fill your heart
Death is a tragedy. To whom does it belong?
Satan or God - you are not what I was told

Make-believe beauty - for bad times
the madwoman is not the mad one
Is it creation - or is it just *****? Sacred ***** then

I am a madwoman and this room is my attic.
I couldn't come last night - so I am crying
I will hold his hand, and His too
or Hers, for the universe lies in me too.

I love spending nights on the lake.
Once the oven-like sun disappears,
things get suddenly quiet, except for
the occasional hoot of an owl, crickets, frogs
and the soft lapping of the lake on the boat.

When the moon rises above the pines
the sky lights up, like a fireworks bloom,
its reflection is brushed, in scatters on the lake,
giving insubstantial moonlight a sharp substance
not unlike a fractured, undulating, glittery lace.

This evening, there’s a rumble, stage left, off to the west,
and a thunderstorm’s growl, like a wolf on the prowl.
The wind was picking up, so we began battening down,
stowing things in the galley and taking in the flag. The wind,
had become almost solid with its insistent and restless energy.

The question, with these daily, southern, summer thunderstorms
is whether you’re going to catch the edge of it or get the full onslaught. The doppler radar, of my iPad weather app indicated the monster was headed right for us.

Just as our phones, watches and iPads began chirping
with National Weather Service, “Severe Weather Alerts,”
Charles asked, “You two still want to stay?” His voice fighting
against the stiff wind as he watched the tall pine-tree tops bob,
like boxers, afraid of the far off lightning flashes in the sky.

“Of course!” I chimed in, wearing a grin, I LOVE boat storms!
“Lisa, there’s a storm on the way but we’ll stay on the boat, ok?” I asked, trying to English the question with both a sense of adventure and nonchalance. Lisa, of course, followed my lead, saying, “Sure.”
“It’ll be ill,” I assured her.

Charles nodded and leapt to the dock, replacing the gunwale rope lines with longer dock rods to distance and secure the boat (lowering front and back anchors too).

“We’re staying,” Charles walkie-talkie’d Carol (his wife) below in the staterooms where she was probably making the beds. “10-4” she replied.
I love her, she’s so game for anything. While Charles worked, Lisa and I sealed the upper deck from cockpit (helm) to transom, putting up sturdy plexiglass windows and closing the transom doors.

Charles came aboard just as we turned up the air conditioning and thick raindrops started falling. Having finished our work, we looked up and the moon was gone, hidden by dark clouds that writhed like some angry, mythical, steel wool animal.

The rain went from a delicate pitter-patter to a generous applause and finally, a steady torrent. We felt it initially pass over us from port (left) to starboard (right). The wind whistled, like a giant’s breath, rocking the boat, alternately, in two directions. It was wonderful.

The far-off thunder had become intimate, bomb-like and personal, with its Crack-k-KA-BOOM! Every time such a concussion rocked the air, the boat and our teeth, I cackled, with joy, like Poe’s Madeline Usher, the madwoman in the attic.

“HOW DO YOU LIKE IT!?” I yelled to Lisa, but she made an ‘I can’t hear you,’ sign. Carol, who’d been working the galley, produced yummy tuna-fish sandwiches, potato chips and milk. We played a dominoes game called ‘Mexican Train’ until the rain stopped, then we watched ‘Jaws’ on the fold-down TV. Lisa had never seen it!

The boat had rocked, lightning had flashed, the cutting wind howled and the thunder boomed, but it was the clawing rain, like a tiger trying to break into the boat, that made it an unforgettable night on the lake.

A Story of Scientology and the
Mental Health System Connection

BACKGROUND

I was born Catherine Eugenia Jarvis,  and I was a *horrible child. The kinda kid that you'd LOOK for if she got lost... but NOT very hard. I was the sandwich child. The red headed one. The BAD girl. A terrible tease.

But inside I SO longed to be loved. There just wasn't alot of that to go 'round. Mom was working or sick. And dad worked LONG hours. My sister and I were ***** at age 4 & 3 respectively. She felt guilty she couldn't "protect" me, so she withdrew. Then my little brother was born. He was my sister's little doll. And it wounded me so that I lashed out. I targeted my poor little brother. I called him names, names that I knew went straight to his HEART. I'm weeping now. How I wish I could change the past! Dear reader, I have a samurai tongue. And I knew how to cut where it would hurt the MOST. A fact I'm not at all proud of! But, it happened. I was also mean to my pets. But inside i wept SO bitterly! I did not want to do what I did! But SOMETHING compelled me...

Then at the age of 13 I began to drink. I started using "white crosses". ***. By 14 I was using LSD. ***. Peyote. I was SO out of control!  My poor parents despaired...

Then... a MIRACLE! My parents put me in college when I was 16. I hated high school with a PASSION. I didn't fit in anywhere. Not even with the stoners. I was kicked out of my 10th year for ditching and possession of marijuana. My vice-principle told me I'd always be a LOSER. That I'd never accomplish anything in life. Nice. He put me in Juvie. My parents got a psychologist. He said I was bored in high school because I was too smart. So they put me in college. I THRIVED! I still ditched a bit, but I could take ART CLASSES! And WRITING! POETRY! And MUSIC! And the people were SO different! They LIKED ME! Well. Part of THAT was because I lost weight. About 50 lbs! I was actually pretty. For the first time in my life. And to say THAT was confusing wouldn't be nearly enough.

At any rate, I'd CHANGED. I became very spiritual. I read about Transcendental Meditation. I read the book "Siddhartha". I dabbled in the Self Realization Fellowship.
And, finally, I joined the

"Church" of Scientology.

THE WORST MISTAKE OF MY YOUNG LIFE

I was 19 years old.

A Story of Scientology and the
Mental Health System Connection

THE BILLION YEAR CONTRACT

So I had this boyfriend. I don't really know *why I stayed with him. Except that he was fairly intelligent. He left scientology not longer after I left, I discovered later. But, truth be told, he was NOT attractive to me. He had a lisp. THAT wouldn't have bothered me so much, but he couldn't dance either.... LOL! That was, for some reason, important to me in a man. Always has been. He also had a jaw like a steamshovel and eyes like poached eggs. Oh, well...

Anyway,  he was very excited about a do that was happening up in Phoenix!  There was a brand new ORG!  Scientologese for organization, especially a high echelon one. This Org was the TOP at that time! The Flag Land Base! Located in a once-glamorous resort town, Clearwater, Florida. A place of sugar sand beaches and tropical beauty! There was an Orientation going on, and he wanted me to go with him...

That was the most Fateful night of my life. This FOT (Flag Orientation Tour) was actually a recruitment drive. For the infamous Sea Organization!

When I arrived I was impressed. It was in a conference room at a nice hotel. All the materials they handed me were slickly printed. The only thing that bugged me were the uniforms. The folk not in suit jackets even wore lanyards! That warning sign in my stomach should have told me.... RUN!!! AS FAST AND FAR AS YOU CAN!!! But did I listen? NO! And that was a mistake that cost me 24 precious years of my life. Golden years. Years I could have been in school. College and university. Instead I worked as a peon slave for that CULT. Then 20 years stolen by virulent targeting. TRAGIC!

I stayed. And I was lulled into a false sense of security. The speeches by the various "big-wigs" of FLB didn't start till 9 PM. And lasted till 10:30! Their voices were stern yet sonorous. Hypnotic. They told of the importance and "nobility" of the Sea Org. And the very PINNACLE of importance was the Flag Land Base! in balmy and beautiful Clearwater! Where the BEST and most RESPECTED "auditors" and "trainers" took the adherents of Scientology to the most advanced stage of spiritual growth... OT VIII. SCIENTOLOGY WORKS! YES! YOU, TOO, CAN REACH NIRVANA!

What a bunch of HORSESH-T!!!

Anyway. These guys and gals began to look glamorous to me! With their uniforms and scrambled eggs on their hats...

Then the real kicker. "THEY WERE OUT TO CLEAR THE PLANET. And little miss Cathy Jarvis could be a PART of this Noble Cause. That was it. I bought it. Hook. Line. And SINKER.

Even the hard, pockmarked face of the recruitment officer, nor her beady black eyes, could deter me. I was sleepy by that time, and hardly noticed the Contract I signed was for A BILLION YEARS...

I could LEAVE the "Podunk" town I lived in. Go first to spectacular LOS ANGELES... then to...

*... A NEW LIFE in balmy CLEARWATER FLORIDA!!!

A tale of Scientology and the
Mental Health System

I'm going to tell a tragic tale
A writ of pain and woe.
I've been to places, reader,
Where folk seldom go.
I'm "insane", I will confess
The "doctors" told me so
But I have art
and HAVE a HEART
This I intend to *SHOW

I am *going to write this

BECAUSE FOLKS NEED TO KNOW!!!

A Story of Scientology and the
Mental Health System Connection

WONDERLAND: THE FLATTENED APPLE

Someone told me once Los Angeles was the Flattened Apple. You take New York City and squish it down like a pancake and you've got Los Angeles. Someone else told me that the Big Apple is full of worms. Well. If Los Angeles is any indication, that statement goes well beyond *truth.

There are parts of LA that are quite beautiful. The parts the wealthy live in. But that was sure not the part I was living in. My first station in the Sea Organization was on Hollywood Boulevard.

My first real memory of Hollywood was viewing the nightcrawlers. The tacky, ****** prostitutes of both sexes on the corners. The Street Preachers looking only a half step above the subjects of their ardent sermons. I had never had any real encounters with homeless people where I was from. Hollywood was a magnet for them it seemed. Their hair askew, and shopping carts with stuttering wheels de rigueur. The touristas. Japanese with their ubiquitous cameras. The Midwestern jons seeking the hookers (of both sexes). The stars on the Hollywood sidewalks seemed to have fallen from the smoggy sky, to lie tarnished amongst the refuse, inanimate and human. It was like a sledge to the chest... and broke my HEART.

I was given some worn, old-smelling sheets, and the address of the place I was to be sleeping for the next few weeks. It turned out to be a flop-house. At first I thought there had been a mistake. But I was not the only SO member to be entering. I went to my room... so small you had to go out into the hall to change your mind. The toilets were communal and up the hallway. My sleeping arrangement? A twin-style matress on the floor. No other "furniture" graced the room....

... **WELCOME TO *"CHURCH".

A Story of Scientology and the
Mental Health System Connection

I WOKE UP IN HELL

I must've slept a good four hours before I was awoken by a peal of crazy laughter. The other girls had gotten up, and were not at ALL respectful of the fact that I'd arrived only hours ago, and needed a full nights sleep. There were nine of us in that room... the size of a small motel room. And one mirror. One sink. *ONE TOILET. IT WAS INSANE.

The cackle was emanating from a bleached blonde who's face was reminiscent of a Proboscis monkey. "How'm ah gonna bleach mah hayah?! She asked, querrilously. Her drawl was purposely drawn out and irritating. She pulled at the lifeless black & white reverse skunk fur on her head. Then announced that she needed to dye her ***** hair, too! except she put it with such vulgarity I blushed.

"SHUT UP!" Shouted a girl with eyes flared open so wide you could see the whites completely around the irises as black as olives. This female was to become my worst enemy. But right now I seconded her sentiment profoundly. And said so. Her eyes snapped my direction and narrowed. She didn't like me from the jump. Some women are like that. And there is no appeasing them. The other girls I got along with. But not her. NEVER her.

The blonde stormed from the tiny room, shooting me such a poisonous look that I felt the acid spray my face. Cheers went up from several of my roommates. But black-eyes just turned a shoulder as cold as liquid nitrogen.

"Serious. How do we bathe? I asked. The shower was, evidently, broken.

"There's showers by the pool area," replied a pretty, albeit rather pear shaped girl. She was stuffed into a blouse & skirt which appeared 2 sizes too small. "C'mon. I'll show you..."

We left the mildewed room, the lazer beams of black-eye boring into my back...

*I HAD JUST MADE A DANGEROUS ENEMY, WITHOUT KNOWING HOW OR WHY.

A Story of Scientology and the
Mental Health System Connection

PAPERS! PAPERS EVERYWHERE...
AND NOT A* THING TO READ!

The thing I remember most about being in the Sea Organization at the Hollywood Org were all the PAPERS! Directives as I was to find. That's what they called memos. We were in a branch of L Ron Hubbard's private little army don'tcha know. Everything, therefore, had a military bent. More specifically we were in the navy. There were personnel who were labeled "bosons". And there were people with the rank of "Supercargo". And Commanding Officers. Actually, LRH would have liked us to be thought of as MARINES. Navy Seals!
He was really THAT egotistical. HIS title was COMMODORE. Yep. His overweening pride took him THAT FAR.
ANYWAY. So there was a storm of paper. Directives EVERYWHERE! Piled on desks. In inbaskets. In boxes. On filing cabinets, which were woefully insufficient for the veritable blizzard of PAPERS! I was forced to read these. DULL AS DITCHWATER. But I was given my own little pile, and a dictionary. Any words I didn't understand could be found in there. I was to look them up. And an extensive memo about the meaning of the Scientogeese which I was to learn. There was an entire LEXICON of THAT, let me tell you! More on that later on. AND we we didn't have TIME to read anything ELSE! Our day was filled with CHORES.... or reading of said PAPERS.

Then I began to notice the other "personnel" around me. NONE of whom appeared to be HAPPY. They were a grayish sort. Looked like the sun very seldom glanced their skin. Glum, yet (for all appearances), VERY dedicated. Then there were folk who seemed to be separate from the other workers. They wore filthy dark blue or black clothing, appeared to run everywhere, and address everyone as "Sir". They were called the RPF. Rehabilitation Project Force. Remember that unit and its abbreviation. For they are to loom large later in my narrative.

But there WAS one person who brought sunshine into my otherwise dreary world...

MARILYN.

A Story of Scientology and the
Mental Health System Connection

THE CAUSEWAY

By the time I got to Tampa Florida I was so weary that I was stumbling off my feet. I hadn't had any proper sleep in 4 days. My bones felt as if they had eaten a cancer. I can't remember sitting and waiting for motor pool to pick me up from the bus station. I must have been sleeping on my bags. Not that there were that many of them. I had very little clothing or toiletries. In fact I believe all that I owned was in one tiny suitcase and a carry-on duffle.

I don't remember the name of the man who picked me up that day. We'll just call him Noah. And the white van that traversed the Courtney Campbell Causeway carrying State Road 60 from Tampa to Clearwater? We'll just call that The Ark. Because we were about to meet a *deluge...

The first part of the trip I was nervous. It was raining and extremely windy. I remember asking Noah if we could wait for the storm to pass. He told me that he was under orders to get me to the Fort Harrison within a certain time frame. He would meet those orders come hell or high water. He didn't actually say that but that is what he meant. And that, my friends, is what we got!

The first part of the causeway appeared to be wide. It had palm trees on either side and some greenery. But at a certain point all it was was some roadway perched upon pylons. The engineers had started construction of the causeway in 1927. It was a total of 52,165' long. And, brother, I was feeling EVERY INCH!!!

The wind was blowing so hard that the rain was almost at a horizontal slant. The waves worse. They were spilling over the roadway and frothing. There was no one on the road of course. Nobody else would have been crazy enough to go out in that storm over that Causeway. But Noah had his orders, by God. And he was going to carry them out. That's how brainwashed and insane some scientologists are. Especially in the Sea Organization. Failure to follow "Command Intention" could be seen as grounds for the RPF. More on that horror later.

Well. I remembered Elsie. How she said the Lord Jesus Christ answered prayer. She'd told me that if you confessed your sins with a pure & contrite heart and asked anything of him, he would grant them. That's just what I did. I recall closing my eyes and talking to a man. I didn't know Him. But I told him I was sorry. And if he'd just get us to our destination safely I promised I'd try to be a better person...

Noah was terrified. I can still see his face locked in a rictus of fear. But now I felt strangely calm. Even when we hydroplaned over the asphalt I wasn't afraid. Finally we arrived at the end of that terrifying strip of water and wind. I don't recall exactly. But I believe Noah stopped the van and wept. For the first time in my life I thanked God. I recognized the event for what it was... A PURE MIRACLE.

*AND I WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER IT AS SUCH.

she is like wildfire
contagious -- burning
everything in her path
to ashes

she is crazy
she fears no consequence
of her actions

she knows -- she won't get caught

do not try to contain this one
she will break free
of any walls you build around her

do not try to understand her -- she does not need your understanding

instead
embrace her
tag along

or get burned in the flame she leaves you in

A Story of Scientology and the
Mental Health System Connection

HIGHWAY TO HELL

It took several weeks for me to get my act together to go to LA. The first thing I had to do was find a ride. Fortunately (or, as some would say, *unfortunately) there was someone in the Mission in my hometown who had also been recruited. He was to be stationed in LA permanently. He offered to give me a ride with him. So I packed my bags, and off I went to see the Wizard. But it sure didn't turn out to be no yellow brick road...

First of all, this guy had a bad temper. He seemed to go off at the least little thing. I really didn't like him very much. He didn't mind me, really. He was just like that. A man with long sandy brown hair, a light beard on his gaunt face, which was permanently set in a sour expression. He didn't want to stop for food. So we brought our own vittles and sodas. He didn't even want to stop at the rest area so we could eat. He just wanted to go go go...

Now, I told this guy that I couldn't drive. From the very beginning of the trip he knew this. I was 19 years old and I had only driven once before in my life. And it had been a really horrendous experience. I had been out in the boonies learning to drive with my boyfriend. In a rainstorm. And the roads had gotten flooded... Along with the car. We were stalled for about an hour, with wet brakes, and water everywhere. Well, this guy was  inexperienced, too. And after we were able to start up again, HE PUT ME BEHIND THE WHEEL ONCE MORE! It seemed like it would be okay. I drove for a few miles and everything was hunky-dory. But then I approached a T intersection... there were two cars approaching my vehicle! Not only that but there was a stop sign. I applied the brake. NOTHING! That Pinto WOULD NOT STOP! I had NO TIME TO PUMP THE BRAKES EITHER! So I put on the accelerator full blast! If I had not done that I would have been T-***** by both those cars! So I was going about 35 miles per hour across the road through a barb wire fence! And into the weeds! I then fishtailed the car until it stopped. There were two Cowpoke's standing outside of the grocery store that was at the T intersection. Doubled over with hilarity! They saw me fishtailing and shouted out, "YEEE HAAAW!" Not a stellar experience. Therefore I was a nervous driver...

So halfway through this road trip to LA this dude got tired. He wanted me to drive. I told him I couldn't drive, and that I had told them from the very outset that I could not. He got furious! "I'm not stopping at a rest stop and sleeping!" He insisted that I drive. "It's a straightforward highway! No rocket science!" So, much to my chagrin, I got behind the wheel.

I already knew the basics. But there were a lot of things I didn't know, as I was to discover. It was actually fun! I played the radio real low so he could sleep. Lynyrd Skynyrd. The Eagles. Santana. The miles rolled on. Then I looked at the gas gauge...

we were nearly on EMPTY!

Well, I tried to wake this guy up. He seemed to be like a dead man. Except that he snored like a steam shovel! He would not respond to any of my shouts and prodding. Then... A miracle! A gas station, by God! And on my side of the road, TOO!

I went to pull off. After all, how hard could that be? I slow the car down to take it down the off-ramp. But the car, of course, accelerated on its own due to gravity...
Nervous as I could be, I hit the accelerator instead of the brake... we went through that gas station doing 40 miles an hour!!! Nearly hitting a gas pump and a PAPER BOY on his BICYCLE!!! I've never heard such navy blue language coming from a youngster in my life!

THAT woke the dude up. He put his foot on mine and slammed on the brakes... bringing all our LUGGAGE in the BACK SEAT UP to HIT US BOTH UPSIDE THE HEAD!!

I've never seen a man as enraged as that guy was. He was puce with trembling FURY!! needless to say, I didn't drive again. And he was a LEADFOOT Bigfoot, yelling at me at every opportunity, for the rest of the trip to Los Angeles.

Spanish

   Yo hacía una divina labor, sobre la roca
Creciente del Orgullo. De la vida lejana,
Algún pétalo vívido me voló en la mañana,
Algún beso en la noche. Tenaz como una loca,
Sequía mi divina labor sobre la roca.

   Cuando tu voz que funde como sacra campana
En la nota celeste la vibración humana,
Tendió su lazo do oro al borde de tu boca;

  —Maravilloso nido del vértigo, tu boca!
Dos pétalos de rosa abrochando un abismo…—

Labor, labor de gloria, dolorosa y liviana;
¡Tela donde mi espíritu su fue tramando él mismo!
Tú quedas en la testa soberbia de la roca,

Y yo caigo, sin fin, en el sangriento abismo!


              English

I was at my divine labor, upon the rock
Swelling with Pride. From a distance,
At dawn, some bright petal came to me,
Some kiss in the night. Upon the rock,
Tenacious a madwoman, I clung to my work.

When your voice, like a sacred bell,
A celestial note with a human tremor,
Stretched its golden lasso from the edge of your mouth;

—Marvelous nest of vertigo, your mouth!
Two rose petals fastened to an abyss…—

Labor, labor of glory, painful and frivolous;
Fabric where my spirit went weaving herself!
You come to the arrogant head of the rock,

And I fall, without end, into the ****** abyss!

"i ain't got no fat bootay.
i am just a little husky."
she said to me.
that big fat bus with the big fat yellow bootay.

"i'm a thinkin'
i'm gittin' REAL tired
of all your verse."
said she.

"you should live the life i do.
yes you should.
just for one day.
grubby little kids kicking the back of my seats,
hanging out the windows
screaming so loud.

"crying and punching
throwing each other's gear.
boxing an ear.

"picking and fightin'
and bullying every year.
wet boots and sand
poking me in the tummy
with their little stupid umbrellas.
wiping snot on my clean seats.

those high schoolers
smoking in back,
tobacco and joints
and drinking & stuff
thinking i don't know it.

well the he-ing and she-ing,
on trips, to games and more,
i won't go into here.
what do they think i am?
a rolling motel
hotel
super 6?

it's enough to drive me right
out of my mind here.

"i used to be shiny and bright and new,
and i was so happy
to finally get out on the town.
then i realized for what i was made
year after year,
driving around,
the very same trip
all over town.
more than enough
to drive anyone insane.

"if i had wrists,
i assure you i'd slit em',
for you can never imagine,
what is it like,
to be me."
says that big fat bus with the big fat yellow bootay.

okay so now... i'm starting to feel
just a little bad,
all the mad verse
i hurled
at her
all of those days.

so i say,
to that big fat bus,
with the big fat yellow bootay,
"why wait around?
set yourself free,
before you end up in the big fat bus
cemetery!

now in some other time,
in some other life,
i start to see,
i could see ,
the possibility,
of what good friends
we could have been.

i would have waxed her
well, brightened her up
shined up the grill
made those white walls sparkle.

i coulda detailed her
inside and out.
checked her oil
and tweaked those points
making sure those
spark plugs would light.

rotated her tires and
lubed all her joints.
windexed her glass
front, side and back.

so now
still feeling a little bad
i say,
to that big little-husky bus
with the big little-husky yellow bootay,
"go single,
go solo,
but GO NOW!"

taking my advice to heart,
that big fat bus,
with her big fat yellow bootay,

she discharged that last child,
and driver so worn,
and bided her time,
till well after dark.

she took a quick,
furtive look around,
stealthily rolled  
out of the yard.

once a safe distance away,
set her engine in gear,
and got right the hell
out of here.
right away.

flying down the open roads,
careening around every
sharp curve,
every bend.
tipped on her side,
tires right up off the ground.

shrieking like a madwoman

"it's a good day to die!
i'm finally free!"

"It's a good day to die! mother f-ers" she cried
as she sped down the road.

until,

HEY?
HEEEEYYY?
What's THAT in my way?

OH NO!
it's a BIG FAT BUS !
with a BIG FAT YELLOW BOOTAY!
and it's in MY WAY!

...brakes stomped through the floor with all her might,
smoking tires and squealing rubber, and skidding down the highway,
way out of control...

more to come ...Chronicles of a Big Fat Yellow Bootay

If Emily Dickinson was writing a suicide letter:

Dear Soft Reality,
Your presence brings me grief and your absence leaves me emptily blissful. You leave my heart to suffer under your cold dagger of truth. I see no purpose to further seek you, only to face my murderer in the bitter realms of my heart that have been so tortured by your harsh precision. To go on would be madness, but perhaps that is what I have become. A madwoman, trapped by lies of true love and wishful thinking. My heart was so filled with the falsity that has become love, and compassion. To completely give yourself to somebody, to find out that their heart already belongs to another fortunate soul, has by far been the down  fall of my sanity. I cannot cry any more, what good would it do. I cannot deny the truth that my love has been poured into an bottomless pitcher…but oh how beautiful that pitcher was. It promised me everything I could dream of, so pristine and clean, signifying all that is good. It was decorated with ornate blossoms that told of new beginnings and hope and it’s spout was graced with delicate greenery that promised fortitude and protection from all that could bring harm. Now all I see is despair. As I took a closer look at its intricate detail, I began to nice the rotting leaves that lay beneath the blossoms, and the tiny thorns that lay prominently on the vinery across the spout. It has been a trap from the beginning, and I am in love with it.
            However, I have poured my soul into that pitcher, and I have nothing left. My heart is parched and crackling, and my love has dried up on the shores of desperation. All that I have loved is gone, and my hope of release lies in a steel barrel of pain that lies in my left hand. It is beautifully real. I can wrap all of my loathing fingers around its cold trigger; it shows me the only truth that has been made clear to me. Death.  I have been yet a tall drink, chilled on ice, numbed to reality, sipped on by the devil himself. Well the devil has had his share and is drunk on my love, leaving me an empty glass, with melted ice. I can feel every pang of you. There is nothing more for me here.
I shall introduce this truth to my mouth, and it will be sweet, like the first time I met his lips, so gentle and unassuming. Only this time, when death is promised, it will not be masked with love and tenderness. My tongue will make love to its silver bullet, as my mind slips into peace and silence from the wolves of my torment.

My suitemate Sunny is from Nebraska. She’s 5’9,” and has cinnamon brown hair that’s half messy-bob, just long enough that she can twist it up with a pearl-studded comb, and half mohawk. She has the long, slanky elegance of someone who’s spent most of her 18 years outdoors.

She’s a cowgirl. There’s a well-worn sage-nova cowgirl hat hanging on her dorm wall and she has her own horse - a red-roan quarter-horse named Valentine - at home, of course. Her best friend growing up was a Sioux girl named Wachiwi who shared her love of barrel racing and lived on a nearby reservation.

Wachiwi was the first person Sunny came out to, at 10. Sunny was 13 when she came out to her family. “I like girls,” Sunny declared defiantly, out of the blue, one night after dinner, “not boys.” Her younger brother had snickered, her older brother rolled his head and said, “Oh, lord.” Her two little sisters seemed unconcerned. Her dad, after a moment’s thought, responded by asking her if she had taken the kitchen scraps out to the chickens yet.

Sunny grew up on a ranch and there was a rigid structure to her days. She would get up early and do ranch chores (muck out horse stalls, feed the chickens, gather eggs and set out hay) then study - but her first love was World of Warcraft.

Sunny was homeschooled and her stories of how that was accomplished are epic. For instance, they had three satellite internet services which she would have to switch between, throughout the day, like a gambler hoping to get lucky and every other Saturday they drove three hours to exchange books at the library. Whatever they did though, it worked. She’s unholy smart - like someone made a deal with the devil smart.

Sunny describes Nebraska as “basic, cliche and poor.”
“Wow,” Leong says, “you really paint a picture.”
“We all inhabited different worlds,” Sunny says, shruggingly, “Lisa’s from skyscraper clouds, Anais a palace, Leong a dystopian communist hellscape..”
“I wouldn’t say a palace,” I demur. “WHAT,” Leong screeches, throwing popcorn at Sunny.
“Stop!” Sunny says, raising both hands to ward-off further snack assaults.
“I just mean, if you were to go live in Nebraska - you’d have to go in on those terms - expecting something basic, unimaginative and poor, periodt.
“I couldn’t wait to excape.” she says, definitively, “I was thirsty.”

Everything about Sunny is deliberate, she looks you in the eye. Like a madwoman let out of the attic, she takes perverse joy in being fiercely blunt, raw and outspoken. She has a drive that can’t be mollified - she’s making her life over and you better not get in her way. The girl cracks me up - I could stand to be more like her.

Sunny’s joining my world this June for most of summer vacation. “Maybe you could show me Nebraska one day.” I say. “Maybe.. someday..” she says trailing off with a far off look, “but I wouldn’t do that to you, you’d go CrAzY in three days.”

“I’ll own that,” I say, wiping away fake tears.
.

I work with knots,
loosen ends from ends,
careful not to snag
or break fragile cords,
intricate tangles of silken affairs.
But the ends unravel
as I release tension,
and I find myself knotting the ends again.
Over and over, I bind and unbind,
until the cycle lashes out
like a madwoman in desperate straits.
I want to write the wrongs, right them,
straighten them into one long, lengthy rope,
then try my luck again.
Find strands that won't untwine;
create the perfect notaffair.

The universe is screaming at me
into my ears, brain, and heart
the whiteness
the brightness
tears in my eyes
it has attacked me like the plague
that has no cure
bringing me higher and higher
into the enlightenment
that is my reward
You are part of the glory
the karma, the foreverness of my
soul
beside me, behind me,
in fron of me,
within me,
are me
crying and laughing
like a madwoman some would say
but
I know, you know, and the universe knows
that I have heard the screams
and know what they mean
as we turn to light
and embrace
what was meant to be
in the name of
eternity

The elegant madwoman with a golden valor.
Louder than the falling trees
stumbling everywhere around her feet!
The spiritual mother, everyone's empress,
a concrete rose blooming over every obstacle
as if she were a one-woman, 21st century dynasty
with no malfunctions in its empire.

But, there's something writhing its way out
from the cellar reserved for her scathing history.
Past the cobwebs and futile pretensions of valiance
lies this warrior queen's greatest desire:
shrouded in shame, the need for love still haunts.
But it won't some accessory amid the ninth cloud!

Hard work and minimum wage flow much more smoothly.
She's known this since she discovered the world,
since she entered a home full of broken furniture
and reeking of alcoholic breath and stagnant, bitter tensions
that were released when father's fist met daughter's face,
and her bruise-soaked body became the symbol of her innocence.

That must be why she spends so much time
in the darkest Brooklyn alleys, selling her self-respect
to any man feeling particularly kind that night,
and letting any detrimental cycle resurface
for just one rush of vulnerability.

This contemporary queen dons a crown bejeweled with more grit
than the streets of three New York boroughs,
yet all she requires of the world that she holds in her hand
like a ruler deciding the fate of her people
is someone to transform adoration from myth to reality.
Will she ever find light from the alley?

dearest stranger,

i am too abstract now for my own good. i feel and hold myself, in place, in my hands and i slip right through like sunlight, like tiny moth scales, like the delusions of a sauntering ghost, like all things unreal and untouchable, like a madwoman, laughing away in her free fall to an unsteady ground.

and all the flowers are cheering in their surreal, psychedelic scarlets, and all the rocks are breaking, and all the words are failing to capture what i truly feel.

am i still despairingly corporeal, like paper napkins and panes of glass? am i still in actual flesh, now that god doesn't exist? am i still as tangible as this last, frantic breath of a letter?

am i still actually here?

bidding my farewell now,
ginia

Rain patters on the window
hurricane winds whistle round about
my mind.
I hear the rain, amazed that the sun's rays
still fall to earth, warming and nurturing

Cocooned in a throw, I look at the room
I've lain in for three days in a pain of my making.
I've become a cliche, the madwoman in the attic
lamenting lost love, lost life.
Cruelty knows no bounds, yet it binds.

Rhythmically the rain batters at the panes.
I don't want praise, I like my malaise
I feel real when I feel pain
I lie slain on the floor, amidst the wreckage
of a marriage.

I've died over and over these last three days
I want to get up and comfort you
To tell you that your life will go on
Mine had to end. I'm sorry you found me
on the floor, tablets strewn everywhere.

Baby steps now my love
you knew I was broken,
there's only so many matryoshka dolls in the original
I'm still here my love, it's just better that
you don't see me, but I can watch over you.

Your heart is broken, filling with rain and tears
my heart and soul was broken when the ink was dry
on the paper declaring us over.
When I get up from the floor, I want you to listen to the rain and
know it's me, my ghost knocking at your door.

I don't want a simple girl.
I want a madwoman.
A ***** who can stimulate my mind,
my very own Poison Ivy.
A catalyst for inner growth,
an extension of my Self.
I crave a woman unlike any other,
as complex as they come;
Whose beauty is the wisdom
of the Universe when sung--
in its native tongue. --[Love];)
I yearn for a woman..
just as intricate as I.
A Creator, a mountain mover,
a mindful singularity.
The woman who inspires me to be,
to write, to become great.
The only one I must impress.
She, who notices the subtleties
that go unspoken,
and the intricacies
that elude all other muses.
I seek the Love that enables.
The Love, that is Life, thriving.
I refuse to accept-- just any
ordinary household love.
I long for the synergy of mind,
of two souls entwined--
In a neurological nexus.
I pray..
for a symphony of Love,
with God as the composer,
where she and I,
comprise the notes,
to the Magnum Opus
of Divinity.

                                      -Elswer
                                      (Raziel Flores)

.you could possibly rewrite the sudoku puzzle, using letters, i.e., to replace 4, 6, 8, 9... with D, b, B and P... alternatively the lowercase b with Q.


.                          i really have to stop borrowing
               from the Zen concept
of ensō - with what the "circle"
represents -
   namely? heihō, i.e. the "square" -
namely, what comes after
absolute enlightenment,
strength, elegance, the universe,
     and mu (the void) -
i.e., alternatively: the nu, or?
  the filling...
            heihō is an elevated noun
denoting a sudoku puzzle...
  
   it begins with the key and lock
analogy, borrowed from greek:
Φ (insert the key)
       θ (turn it, open the door,
   and subsequently enter) -

all sudoku puzzles begin like so...

    □ that becomes Φ, θ
   that becomes #
    that subsequently becomes ■ -
   after many instances of
   —, |, / and \ considerations...

this idea only came to mind,
bothered by an obstruction
on the 10,050 puzzle...

0    0    0
0    4    2
1    3    9
2    7    5
4    6­    8
8    9    4
3    2    0            } these three blanks
0    0    7                    i was concerned with...

                          1   0   0
                          0   0   5
                          0   6   0
                      __
                          x  ­ y   z
                      __
                    (    6   ­ 5   1  )
                    (    5    1   6  )
                    (                1 )   ****... no alternatives...

and given there's a fractional choice,
conundrum, i.e. there are only
two viable choices?
      well? neither.

the solution? i had to be patient with it,
after all, it's akin to Zen "circle"
concept, namely?
  you can't make a mistake -
given you're using such, "primitive"
tools as a pen on paper...

5     8     6     4     3     9     2     1     7
7     4     2     1     6     8     3     9     5
9     1     3     5     7     2     8     6     4
1     3     9     7     2     4     5     ζ     6
2     7     5     3     8     6     9     γ     1
4     6     8     9     5     1     7     3     2
8     9     4     2     1     5     χ     7     3
3     2     1     6     9     7     4     5     8
6     5     7     8     4     3     1     2     9

yet this wasn't the pinnacle of
the evening...
   some "madwoman", singing,
in the night... the most beautiful songs...
it was hard not to listen,
given she went on for about 3 hours...
kept singing and singing...
sometimes giving
   a frivolous explanation to someone
trying to interrupt her...
    a woman in love...
    just kept singing and singing...
     defiantly english -
i can't recall the last time
i heard a woman sing so beautifully -
not armed, standing behind
a microphone, on a stage -
   with a band behind her...
this girl's voice had but one stage:
the night -
   and her backing band?
         simply the moon;
and an appreciative audience of one...
moi.

I spend a lot of time worrying about what other people dream, what they want from life, and making it happen. I always try to play roles, like the good student, or the sweet daughter, or the funny niece, or the counseling friend, or the reliable sister. But what do I want? What do I dream?

For a long while it was three simple things. Kids, animals, writing, and I never questioned or developed any of it. I mean, I had a relative idea of dates or amounts of kids, and relative writing ideas, and relative animal ideas, but nothing solid.

But today, though it may be f little interest to anyone else, I'm going to flesh out my dreams. I owe it to myself.

I want to publish a novel. Particularly a social commentary. Particularly something important to me, like mental health, the environment, relationships, family, etc. And particularly something that people may like one day. I'd love to have a novel that people know. It would be really special.

I want to have kids. At least one, preferably two, livable three, pray to god no more. And you know what, I'll love any kids I have, but I really want a girl. I want a little ball of crazy who can be a pirate or a princess and follow me around and call me mommy and cuddle on my lap and let me read her stories and be my baby girl. Maybe I'm crazy superficial, but the cake topper for me would be the ability to name her Alice. My little hero of Wonderland. I mean, the white picket fence dream is to have one boy, one girl, but I guess we'll see. If I get no girls, I'll name something else Alice. If I get two girls, I better pick one super meaningful name for her, because only one is not fair.

I want to see Africa. The animals there have always been my favorites, and I feel they're just so wild and crazy and different. There are deserts, forests, savannas, lions, zebras, okapis, all of it! Its always just seemed so wonderful to me and I've always wanted to see it in person.

I want to take my kids to Disney World. I want them to feel the wonder I felt as a kid, and fall in love with the magic I loved as a kid and even now. Maybe like I fell in love with Wonderland and various other worlds Disney created, maybe they can find their own worlds that resonate with them and make them feel safe.

I want to find or build a house for my family and decorate with love. I have art skills, I can decorate everywhere. Disney rooms, book rooms, video game rooms, all of it. I just want our hearts to be strewn across the walls and be a place of comfort for them.

I want to get married to a man I am madly in love with. Obviously, I think right now I'm with a man I could easily love the rest of my life. I wish with every fiber of my being that the home I dream of, the kids I want, the books all over, can all be things I have with him. But I won't make promises to myself that I don't know what will happen. God knows that in this second I want no one else, but I cannot force myself on the person I will be in the next twenty years. I can only dream all of this will be with him.

I want to create art. Not atypical art, with paint or pencil, but with crafts and words. They are beautiful pictures that I'm good at making, and I'd like to not only make them for family and loved ones, but maybe one day sell them and do more than just be that ever-writing author stuck in their study. Maybe I'm crazy, whatever, but I want it all.

I want to graduate college. Not only because I'm already in it, and I will enjoy the time I have, but I do want it over with as well. I know everyone's going to yell at me and say shut up they are the best days of your lives, but people said that about high school too. I enjoyed my time, but I look forward to today and tomorrow much more than I enjoy looking back. I want to graduate and have a lovely time at college, but I also don't want to spend forever here. I want to learn what I can, make friends for life, make connections, and then start the rest of my life. Start being a professional writer.

I want to start keeping an open dialogue with my audience, not just here, but on other social medias, so there is a connection even before I publish my first book or the ones to follow. I want to be an approachable author. I want to seem human, not like some unattainable, far away thing for young authors to look at. I want to be real.

I want to publish a poetry book. Obviously I'll wait another year or two, and compile the best ones, but i think it could be fun. See me write novels? Well see me write short things too. I know most authors/writers pick a niche, but after years of trying to find mine, I don't think I want one. I just want what I want.

I want to write a memoir. Though I use a pseudonym, one day I want to grow the confidence and strength to write as me, and tell people not just the stories that go on in my head, but the stories that are going on in my life. Hell, maybe I'll call it something cheesy like "The Girl Behind Grace" or something super cheesy like that haha

I want to start a bipolar group wherever I raise my kids. I mean, I'm sure with the way I am and how the person I'm with is, we'll have quite a few years of adventure. A lot of years. But I will put my foot down and say for the sake of kids we need to settle, at least for a good twenty years. I want to be a leader and help others like me where I live, i want to help people feel better. This life isn't easy, and we deserve help and a group and a community just as much as any book club.

I want to work on my baking/cooking chops. I want to be so awesome at baking and cooking that all the kids want to come to my house for dinner and I can make my kids their own badass birthday cakes. Maybe even make cakes for friends and neighbors for a bit of money. It will be awesome.

I want to visit my family at least once a year. I know that may not work out, but I don't want to lose them in all my crazy life that I plan. They may be out there and need help but I do love them, and I want my kids to have a good sense that they have a huge family that loves them so much.

I want pets. Crazy pets. Turtles and dogs and pigs. Those are the ones I really want. Dream world says one turtle, one pig, two dogs. It'll be absolutely crazy cool. What kid gets to go to school and say they have a pet pig? my kids.

I want a garden. I'll work on fleshing out that idea. I just want to be outside more. I love outside.

I want to fall in love with my life more and more every day. I want to have fun with my family. I want to play video games, a write like a madwoman, and be a good mom, and take care of myself, and make my home and life beautiful. I want everything to be worth it at the end of the day, even when not all things are ok.

I want a lot, I know, but a girl can dream, right?

it's quiet hard to find a welcoming book, i can cite two read in one sitting, thus spoke Zarathusrta (the original intent) and the soft machine by burroughs... all others came with many composed sittings... but none of the repeated encounters can be spoken of so favourably as Bertrand Russell's history of western philosophy, with that book came the kindest summer - in that i find historians the prefects of philosophy, the Republic guardians, leave the poets to do their sing-along, and furthered abstracts of symbols (should they wish, and ought), give presence to historians like Russell and Tatarkiewicz (surname derived as descended from Tartar auxiliary at the battle of Tannenberg with two naked swords dipped into ****** soil awaiting blood by a Lithuanian king married to a Polish gal).

sometimes poems can be more memorable than entire
books, there memorableness technique used in
epics gets lost most of the time,
writers' custard narrative awaiting a memorable
spontaneity is always missing, a memorable quote
needs to be bookmarked, it's hardly remembered,
all that talk of etiquette, esp. 19th century is always
the fog in novel, Mr. Darcy and his twin
Mr. Rochester, both haunted -
the former by social structures (prejudice;
his wife to be by lower caste governed by pride)
while the latter by a madwoman in the attic -
there's nothing memorable about these novels
in mono assertions, unless you have a book-club or
a cinematic script and a movie... poems are more
memorable, naturally, even if you're unable to recite
them because you rather recite the list of ingredients
for a bonkers curry, someone else will recite you a
poem, no problem. i guess that's because memorising
poetry is afforded by rhymes, the crude musicology
if given an instrument, would be to pluck
two same notes, ugly with a guitar, beautiful with
the tongue.
no, novels are not memorable, ask blind Samson about
the pillars he absorbed with his strength and pulled
down... ask him...
or... or i can tell you a little secret, it's a secret concerning
Sylvia Plath's *bell jar... page 119 in my edition (Faber & Faber),
slight digression: a page later she's complaining in
a "fictive" personality about the ineffectiveness of sleeping
pills... she has been apparently given max'      imum
strength pills... dear Sylvia,
                                        against your doctor's orders,
          against all pharmaceutical orthodoxy,
sleeping pills are best effective with alcohol,
even though the tagline is to avoid mixing the two...
i can't specify the quantity of alcohol in milligrams
akin to the dosage of the pills, dear Sylvia, they're only
effective with the liquid sedative, and perhaps a painkiller
like paracetamol...
nonetheless on page 119 she's citing a book you will
probably not read, and neither did she (explanation
a bit later)... she cites the first page of J. Joyce's
Finnegans Wake...
                 riverrun past Eve and Adam's...
and that ONE-HUNDRED LETTERED word:

  ba'ba'ba'dal'gharagh'takamminanarronk'onn'bronntonner'r­onn'tuonn'thunn'trovarr'houna'wnska'wntooh'oohoo'rdenen'thurnuk!­

i tried the syllable scalpel to my best ability for breath,
this grand anti-onomatopoeia, cut for brief pause...
but she didn't read any further like Delmore Schwartz
trying to sell this **** Grææ tongue...
she didn't read on, because there's another century in this
book:

(i left a bookmark on the page (no. 23) - a painting by
Diego Velázquez, the toilet of Venus 122.5 by 177 centimetres)

with loss of breath and entry of the centipede as follows

perkodhuskurunbarggruauyagokgorlayorgromgremmitghundhur­thrumathunnaradidillifaititillibumullunukkunun!

but i must i don't have the ratio, since i didn't bother counting
either words, but Sylvia did, and if she counted the first word
as a century, this second word must also be a century -
yet on suspicion should i believe she read further, or didn't?
they claimed the book to be a Babylonian Tower
readying for dispersions of the people, yet with historical
events it's a joke, given that there are no diacritical marks
in the book to provide stresses of accents:
e.g. fumatul poate să ucidă (romanian for: do not smoke
cigarettes, yes, there's a black market for cigarettes,
THANK GOD!) - and with saying that, it is not a book
with a Babylonian Tower attached to it, it's a tower for sure,
but a Globalisation Tower, how english became the
Lingua Levant once more, when the Franks had their
puppet king of Jerusalem at the time of Saladin.

When the sirens echoed through the streets

When they handcuffed me so that I wouldn’t hurt anybody

I pleaded for help but deaf ears heard my screams

“You are a monster” chanted the voices briefly.

All I could see was red.

When I noticed the knife I must have held,

A ****** canvas spilt on the floor, hands bled,

I saw her once again that moment,

Sitting right in front of me murmuring to herself.


Sad young girl, long blonde hair,

Pale white skin and stench of death,

Baring her jagged teeth

Scars on her body etched in flame,

Chipping away my insecurities bit by bit,

Playing with a sharp little blade,

“Just in Case” she said.

All I could see was red.

When they took me to prison,

Changed my clothes to white and red,

Triggering colors to my psyche,

I saw that clown yet again.

The one with a wide smile, masking nice.

I knew the nefarious intentions he hid,

Petrified, I bowed my head and cried.

All I could see was red.

Out of the corner of my eyes I could see it there,

Across the chamber,

On the wall up high

Working a trap with its leathery grisly little legs

When I stared at it,

Feeling the dread rise in my chest

It stared right back at me as if

Suddenly conscious of my presence,

It crawled its way over to me, daunting slowly,

The closer those creaking feet came to me,

Sinister voices of children giggling engulfed me.

I screamed for help once again and

This time a few voices of reality came back at me.

When I explained to them the monsters in my cell,

The crazy echoes I heard in my head,

“Madwoman” some called out but

Some reached out to help.

My life isn’t much different than yours.

We dream the same dreams,

Feel the same feelings.

The only difference being,

My nightmares blend with reality.

My life is a waking nightmare.

Through the battles I fought with my mind,

Ones I still fight each day,

I’m growing to embrace the clowns and spiders I see,

The same ones right here today.

Sometimes alone and sometimes with help,

All I see is red.

All I feel is red.