Caint Complain
                       By Phyllis T.  Halle  February 26, 2006
Growing up in a tiny coal mining town in the hills of Eastern Kentucky,
I frequently heard a response out of the lips of stooped, arthritic miners, toothless women, old before their time,
wretchedly poor widows with six children to feed.
It was just a common reply to the courteous, "How are you?" -
"Caint complain."
The high pitched voices of those descendents of English, Scottish, German, Irish pioneers still echo in my ears and I wonder always at the tenacity, strength and wisdom which resounded firmly in those two words,
                                          "Caint Complain."
Very few people had indoor plumbing, telephones, cars or two pair of shoes. Health insurance, retirement plans, paid sick days, furnaces, pizzas, air conditioners, jet planes, paid vacations, job security, career planning were all unheard of unknowns.
When someone became ill, the ‘‘kindly old general practitioner would come to the house and dispense his little pills and words of encouragement and instruction, knowing the limitations of his skill and ability to heal.
Mothers and fathers still buried their little children who died from diphtheria, pneumonia, whooping cough, measles, diarrhea, croup ( a disorder known in later years as asthma).
Husbands buried wives who died in childbirth, at an alarming rate. "Caint Complain," they'd say gently, with a soft 'almost' smile and deeply troubled eyes.
Sanitation was fought for, vigorously, by hard muscled women, who scrubbed and washed, and swept and mopped.
They'd boiled the family’s clothes which had been worn for a week, in pots in the back yard, "to get ‘em clean."  
Killing germs was not in their vocabulary, but that is what they'd were doing. Ask that little old gal who was out in the yard, stirring the clothes around in boiling water, over an open fire, "How are you doin’?"  
                            "Caint Complain, " she would invariably say.
WHY couldn't they'd complain? Where did their tenacity come from?
Where did that philosophy of not complaining come from?
Where did they find the resolve to place dire, critical deprivation, hard labor and malnourishment behind them and place a smile on their faces and say
                                Caint Complain?

I knew some of those people when they had grown very old and faced birthdays in their late nineties. Without exception, they had the sweetest dispositions, most grateful hearts, kindest words and calmest old ages of any among the many I have known who reached that age!
When the pressures of their life had faded and they had nothing remaining that had to be done except to live out the final part of their life, they did not have a habit of complaint.
Some recent phone calls I have received were what prompted me to think about this. One right after another, friends called and for the first ten minutes of each call, I listened to a long list of complaints about the trials and travails my dear friend was suffering.
Each friend has: no financial worries, a wonderful primary care doctor, prescriptions to keep their heart pumping, eyes seeing, brain focusing, stomach digesting and body sleeping, each night.
They are protected from financial ruin, by medicare and/or HMO, social security checks, pensions, savings and inherited wealth. They have loving, devoted sons, daughters, nieces and nephews who keep in touch and are there for them.
They each one have lovely heated and cooled homes, apartments or condos with every convenience known to Americans; cars or taxi/bus services to get them out and around. More than that, each has beautiful memories which they can call upon to bring a smile to their face at any moment of the day or night. But somehow we find plenty to complain about.
Why haven't we formed the habit of Caint Complain?
Maybe the philosophy of always seeking more comfort, more possessions, more money, more- more- more- of everything, has driven us to achieve, accumulate and accomplish but it required us to never know what the word contentment means.
Contentment doesn't mean having everything at one’s fingertips. It doesn't mean lacking nothing. It certainly doesn't mean every dream and desire fulfilled.

Yet there are many who have enough of everything except the common sense to know when they really "Caint Complain."
Happiness is a fleeting moment of joy. Contentment is finding peace in what you have, what you are and what you have accomplished.
Having the serenity to know which one brings lasting goodness into your life is wisdom.
A SMILE IS THE KNIFE GOD GAVE US TO CUT THE SIZE OF OUR TROUBLES DOWN TO A BEARABLE LOAD.    
Lots of love and hugs, Phyllis

I feel if I move from this place the sharpness of my knees will cut through the skin shrinking to be closer to my fragile bird bones or that upon lifting the body I am allowing to deteriorate the blood may rush too quickly behind my eyes leaving me unable to keep from tumbling and shattering in a beautiful spray of technicolor

I want to be a daily dragon soaring in the sky, but i'm just a night owl hiding in the trees.


(wrote this when i barely ate and was in bed all day.mood has changed since i ate and got out of bed for a little while.)


I like my eggs to have a scramble and this just may be another rambunctious ramble but I need to have a shout out to the big D, my deep repression, also known as Depression.
Strictly glued to my bed, lying here with the sheets perched upon my chest, head propped up against two flaccid pillows, full bladder, the pressure, need to release but can't bring myself in an upward position. Munching on my homemade granola&pretzel; trail-mix, having absolutely no desire, nor energy to feed my insides, to bring fresh water to touch my lips, to nourish my body, mind, and spirit.
Staring at my furry feline, his eyes closed, tummy up in full view for a rubbing, four legs extended in every direction, so-so innocent.
Life is just too **** awfully precious to be drowning in this dark, deep, and dull dirt hole, right? Do you agree? Don't agree because I drastically disagree and don't have the energy to beg to differ.
Life is too good, life is mtoo short, yada...yada...yada.. that is what 'they' all say. Well, most of 'them' say that. I say 'them' in half quotations because by 'them', I mean.... the ones that were instantly born with or found the Huge H.
Y'know, Happiness.
No motivation to do life's less complicated things,
No words to speak, mind blank and still.
Hardly any breath to let out, the brain fog-memory loss.
The hopelessness, the fatigue, the deep repression.
This is a tough state, you struggle and don't know why you're suddenly incapable of doing things you want to do, enjoying things you want to enjoy, you feel like you've lost yourself, you don't know what you want anymore, crisis.
Don't want anyone's help, don't want anyone's sympathy, don't want anything. N O T H I N G.
Feeling paralyzed, crippled, but you feel terrible and guilty even trying to compare yourself to the handicapped. How could you do such a thing? That is just simply how you feel that you feel.
Others will gawk at you and give you advice, which mostly makes matters much worse...
When inside, you're subconsciously and slightly consciously aware that you've been fighting this battle for years on end.... since you slipped out of your mothers womb and took your first breath of this polluted air.
You instantly found ways to cope, ways to protect yourself, smiles to hide away the tears, the pain, the numbness,
Hiding the painful pity, dissociation to hide the mind and all the other types of abuse. your learning disability, your inability to focus, to stay on task, to finish a task, to complete, to have drive, to succeed,
The lack of love, lack of attention, of family, of a mother, of a father, of teachers, your lack of support, guidance, your loneliness, your negative self image, your childhood abandonment, the scars, the lies, the promiscuity, the mood swings, the suicidal thoughts, the confusion, turmoil. So much more, so much baggage, so much past...
                    LEAVE THE PAST IN THE PAST.... it's just that simple!
Memories and flashbacks flooding your mind leaves you debilitated.
All of those awesome e-mails you receive, the people who want to be a part of your life who you push away and won't let in, the barrier - the wall.
The beauty you were born with, your 5 senses and health, these things do not matter in this deep repression. Nothing matters as nothing is what you confide it, it is your comfort, it is your company.



"This is what you have, you have it all, you're beautiful, you're this, you're that.." so 'they' say, but little do 'they' know.. 'they' will say they have been there before, they will say they understand, but do they really?


Medication will Mask the Mundane.


Oh, it's so unbelievable how much the outer appearance can really show.
The book's front cover.
The stories that lie inside each and every page are so much deeper that what you may perceive by observing the Title (Gina) and the design or picture, the nice face and the nice ****&***.;


Ingested so many supplements, vitamins, herbs, teas, water, exercising consistently and constantly, staying fit, so fresh and so clean, so well kept, being somewhat calm, cool, and collected...when underneath it all was a ball of blues, a mess of stress, a dungeon of self-destruction, a child reaching out, a pretty polite pessimist princess.


Oversleeping, malnourishment, Pre-Menstrual Symptoms, ADHD are the leading cause to my ranting today. Unable to fully explain and go into more depth about what all of the above means, I close my eyes and will try and muster up enough strength to organize and get back to this blog post when I awaken.


Getting a physical check-up along with blood work soon to see if there is an underlying cause to my fatigue lately....


All I can do is.... lay here, mindless, and...
w
a
i
t
.

how do you tell someone
you’re losing yourself again
how do you tell the people who love you
you can’t eat anymore
how do you tell them you feel like you’re going to faint every minute of everyday
and all you can do is lay in bed
and when you do get out of bed
the world goes black for a minute
how do you explain the constant headache
the constant pain in your head
not just from the malnourishment
but from the thoughts you can’t stop
the ones you can’t ever slow down
how do you explain that to them

how do you say you’re so completely ******* exhausted of this
that you don’t want any of this
that you resent yourself for thinking this way
but at the exact time
you can’t let go of it
with all the brittle strength inside of you
you can’t get rid of this
so you sit exhausted
during the happiest time of the year
just wishing that this time a year ago
you weren’t like this
life wasn’t this hard
every waking second

a year ago you could get out of bed
you didn’t feel like throwing up every second because you’re migraine is eating away the tiny thing you call your body
every inch of it
a year go you could bring yourself to brush your teeth and take a shower
it didn’t seem like an unbeatable task
it seemed like life
to be frank, you didn’t think twice of it
a year ago

how do you explain
every time you wake up
you miss life
you miss living
because it doesn’t feel like life right now
when you fight with yourself to eat
when nourishing your body seems like a tall feat
life isn’t quite the same
so your life now is dreaming of a life before all this
before every part of your life didn’t seem like a task and a burden
before you pushed everyone away
and locked yourself alone

how do you tell them all this
because i hear it when i say it
how crazy it sounds
i see it in their eyes
when i’m crying about having a sandwich
because the thought of bread and calories makes my whole world collapse
i understand how absurd i sound
i do
don’t worry

so what do i do?
go back to treatment
and have to weigh myself
and take my blood pressure
to see if insurance thinks i’m sick enough to pay to help me get better

do i talk to people about my feelings
because that makes me feel even more crazy

do i tell my therapist
because i haven’t seen her in months
because i was okay for a point of time

or do i call my doctor
so she can tell me that my nausea and migraines are just because i’m not eating enough
and how i’m destroying myself
how dangerous this is

what do i do
tell me
because all that’s keeping me together
the only thing that makes me hold on
is a year ago
when i wasn’t losing myself.

Everyone dies
Story’s always the same
I just wish I could tell it
Some new, different way
To revivify life
With a vivid description
Instead of this atmosphere’s
Toxic constriction
Malnourishment kitchen
An infant mortality
Failure to listen
To self-absorbed, carbon-based
Standard emission
Way passed overfishin’
For likes on the social de-human condition
Automaton autobahn
Trickle down neocon
For-profit prison bomb
Boomin’ like radical
Islamic martyrdom
Unemployed masses
Of back of the classes
The masking of innocent
Voices in ashes
An **** of power
And greed wretches *****
Mother Earth out to fuel
Their big engines of war
An insatiable thirst for more
Curdled blood screams
As I rot to the Corps
Of America’s Dreams

When we dress in phantom finery,
we can only expect disillusionment.
Choke ourself with all our fantastic desires.
Complete mental malnourishment,
from our heart deep self harassment.

Let small smiles slither away.
Gut with tender savagery,
aversions to avarice.
Self-servile self-worth denial,
wash small magic away.

Through the coffee steam your eyes were so clear they almost broke me in half.
I took a long selfish look as I told the side of your head about my mother.
You holding your gaze on my windshield
watching the wet lights blur one mile at a time.
Through the curls of your hair I heard you whisper that you didn’t want to leave.
Didn’t want to add your shoe size
to the prints leading away from the kid who’d see the inside of a coffin
long before he ever saw his family again.

I pulled over to force your hand through my sternum, pierced
each finger with a ragged heart tendril
built in the image of winter trees seeded far from the water line.
In this way, information is filtered.
Even with a cup tied to another cup by taut string,
you still don’t get a clear sound.

I shook my head, thinking of reasons to say your name. A taste like dusty paperbacks
flecked in cane sugar.
You got the boring name because your parents birthed you full of splendor,
knew you would never need the extra flourish of a conversation starting nametag.
The kind of person who deserves someone that will die of malnourishment if your plane ever goes down.

You’ve gotten soft old man,
You are no conqueror.
Will never drown out the roar in her 5 a.m.  mind,
can do nothing to comfort the black eyes
and longneck bottles left wandering her past,
with your piecemeal shards of charm and wit.

Part of your winter still clings to my dashboard and frosts my knuckles
each time my eyes close driving home, dreaming about painting red flags green.
Even after I watched the last drag curl out of your lungs,
you never tasted like smoke,
so I filled my lacerations with your nicotine
to hide inside your numbness,
while our bare skin rolled across sheets
looking for new cold
knowing this is not true sacrifice,
but perhaps my final squander.

It's late at night when you realize she's not the one you loved,
or anyone for that matter.
It's late at night when your mind,
a towering serpent of indecision and malnourishment,
a rushing stream of water from the broken end of a fire hydrant,
tearing through steel and ice cubes that litter a middle age class of numeral reunion,
discover the over-keyed lock where metal bends and screams.

Covered in flies and rice,
it retains its bondages, exchanging freedom for self-loathing,
*****-dying in single file,
a honey-gilded tune not thrice too soon.

I seek the corridor where my true love will wait for me,
breathing me in, yet the cane of a blindman.
A clopping corridor, sleek and cobblestone,
artificial and vast, astral.
My true embrace will be that cold one of death, knocking at my door,
pleading my friendship,
sapping from me ***** and calloused hands.

A wet kiss on the nose, a reddened tongue.

I don't know the latitude of my existence.
I can't feel the reality of my throat,
of the gushing and the breathing of winds,
blocking the eternal stream of air.
The currents broke, and from within blew a heavenly melody,
that pierced cold ears boundlessly.

Again, that same street.
Lit faintly from above and from the participants in its ritual.
They burn the wax together.
And they sink,
O paradox!
Together, with their victories of mental triumph,
they recede further into torment and inefficiency,
quantified and numerical,
arrange themselves by merit and consequence.

Again, they sink and plummet and fall,
deeper into wonder and beauty.
Until it abandons them and spills over the edges,
splattering the circumscription,
dabbing alligator skin and sunglasses.

Inspecting the damage done,
he lifts from within its belly a tattered and worn skull,
that of a Man, no less.
Rusting in the desert, alone and among his gods,
bone-dry plains and dunes of dust,
rumbling agelessly the shaken scared earth.

I’d like to hold my head beneath the water of youth
Drown myself as the chloranic waves washed over
Burning my throat
Tingling
Happiness, and the effervescent smell of sunscreen
Luscious, half forgotten years
Water of innocence
Water of peace
Cleansing me with its toxic malnourishment
Of hope, forgiveness
Love
Trifling and deliberate
Half forgotten, half begotten
Aimless
Timeless
Harlequin sunshine

I just watched a news report:
In southern Pakistan
a mother cries sitting on a hospital bed
watching over her malnourished daughter
who is laying in bed dying.
The mother sobs uncontrollably
as her 3 year old daughter
slumps after her last breath.
The child’s father
wraps his daughter’s limp body
in a blanket
and carries her out of the hospital room
in which scores of other malnourished children
lay dying.

I am left wondering:
Is there something we can do
to feed the malnourished children
in Pakistan
and around the world?

Not until you can see the pain in our eyes, the scars on our skin, the protruding ribs and distended stomachs of malnourishment, till you can gape at small black bodies disfigured by kwashiorkor and colonization, till you can gasp at people that don’t look like you being branded like cattle, like animals on their way to the slaughterhouse
(and thank goodness we’ve come so far, things used to be so bad)

Not until you can marvel at the mottled marks of a whip, the black and blue bruising only white hands can inflict, till you can shake your head at teens boldly drinking under a whites only sign, till you can cover your mouth and peek through fingers at the water hoses, the dogs, the guns, the blood— black blood on black bodies in black and white photographs
(and you inwardly sigh, relieved that it was so long ago and so far away)

Not until you can retweet teenagers face to face with riot gear and tear gas, till you can shake your head and show that you’re different because your black studies class told you so, till you can give a 40 character message about how sickening the violence is, but you keep watching the videos of him her him her him her him her him her
them
shot choked kicked punched beaten whipped slapped
killed
by government sanctioned executioners

Not until you can see everything but understand nothing

Always have to be ugly raw hurting bleeding suffering
Why can’t we be smiling laughing eating dancing breathing

Why can’t we be smiling

Why

the sun oozed under my eyelids until I couldn’t keep them shut any longer

I laid there and heard the silence of my house in the morning

there were birds and they sung songs that made me feel heartsick

I didn’t have a hangover

Sam told me, in the most nonchalant way, that he spoke about me to someone I deeply admire and they like my music

first time I watched Tangled and I wanted to punch the mother in the face but I couldn’t because she is a cartoon

Lyra and I both had tender tummies and painted our nails like a rainbow

baths are beginning to feed into my sick games of numbing myself

blatant malnourishment

brash abandon of my self-worth  

my mind wobbled over to the fact that someone I deeply admire likes my music and that I must be more noticeable than I think I am

maybe that’s not true though

I swear my dog died about ten times today

I am a plant and this couch is my ***

Am I noticeable?

when I eat too much and feel bloated, I just pretend that I’m pregnant and sometimes even talk to my stomach as if there was a fetus inside of it

I don't think many people do those kinds of things when they're alone

a french accent is beginning to fit me better than an english one, like finding an old dress in a closet and surprising yourself in the mirror

I talked to myself all day because - loneliness

Lonely in a crowded room.
Happy in a depressed spirit.
Agile in a tense mind.
Tall in a timid personality.
Exhaustion.
Malnourishment.
Sadness.

The lonely one moves through the crowded streets. His feet pushing down and down, creating forward movement. The brisk air welcomes him. And a single tear begins to form in his left eye. One tear, which has a life of its own, leaves his eye freely. It runs down his cheek but stays with him as if to comfort him.

And the wind cries for the one who can not.

"The best revenge is living well."
               - Dorothy Parker

I'm so far from where I've been
Words are only words not
Set in stone
Tomorrow will be better than
Today
Amounts to lies within habits
Hard to shake
One mistake becomes oceans
Of regret
Throwing it all away for one
Moment of peace
Some holy redemption
An immediate release
Promises I told myself
That were never kept
Lye the stones of my tower
High in disappointment
And that look you get
From someone who
Doesn't understand why
You push away their helping
Hands
To grow is to embody that
Betterment from those
Destructive impulses you
Draw with your mind
In the grey cement
I've told myself a thousand times
"I'm not perfect" how
That weighty reality
Becomes evident over
And over
To any freebird who wishes to
Wonder and die young
See the plane crash of their life
For others to mourn
Means nothing to nature
Who by nature is stern and
To those ghosts who died of
Exposure, hunger and
Malnourishment-
Do their footprints in the
Snow live on to anyone?
Was their life just a comet
That burned once upon a time
But now is gone?
To purify my intentions in
This life when I'm sometimes
So jaded by my maladies
Reinforcing habits that
Enable my demise
I could barely cross the street
I was so sketched by those passing
Eyes I would stare down at my feet
I'll try to beat all those instincts
Of not knowing whom to trust
Of being abandoned in the
Crippling dust
Of sinking inside most of my
Faults of
Never conceiving that I would
Get back up
And changing my mind when
The inspiration rusts
And choose to be simply
Happy for once
Smiling and laughing at
Myself
Belief that one day I'll be
A success and not succumbing
To all that pressure and stress
Instead of realizing
"This Isn't me"
I'll paint the picture of who I want
To be
My life is worth more than that
And where the univers guides me
Are the first gleaming steps
To salvation from all
My secrets and unrest
Being reborn from my ashes
I'll be the Phoenix
I'll take all my shame and
Plant it in the earthly soil
Where it will grow into a
Tree-
A resilient weeping willow

The garden served little purpose
It sprawled across the bored ground, despondent beneath the yawning sun
My mother would wail her annual rage
At the snarling weeds that softly smothered the flowers
How I loved those flowers
Rejected footballs perplexed the lawn
Their obtuse hulks spoiling that ripple of green
I found a four leafed clover there once
He poked his obscure head above his brothers: a suicide mission to bring me luck
They are all dead now
I didn’t waste nearly enough time reclined on that jealous cushion
Watching the lethargic clouds wobble on

But most otiose of all in that seldom wandered paradise was the Wall
That Wall was never high enough
I see it from my back door
Squat, depressed, sighing, each dusty clot of red brick seems so lifeless
Doomed to live out the rest of its days as a failure
All flung ***** that compress their rubbery bodies against it will soon vault over
It crudely bookends the busily neat hedge
Simply because that is where the drunken soil runs out
It fails too at its chief instruction:
Be the purgatory bridge between Our heaven and Their hell
But the Wall was never high enough

I remember the other side of the Wall
How I crouched in filth
Needless to be afraid of a cut from a single blade of grass
Impoverished chickens clucked in the squalor
How they survived such malnourishment awed me
The friends I thought I had there cheated me
And I ran from that disastrous place
Where chaos twisted the agonised branches of the hedge we shared
But it followed me like an age old Gypsy curse
Even today, a writhing, mewing splodge of night will sit on the Wall
Looking too fat for its own fur coat
It will viciously attack the thin air for a while
Perhaps accept a stroke but, seeing no morsel, wander home
But I am not spared
For I can see its wasteland kingdom from my window

It is not an evil place
But the Wall was never high enough

Words and actions, actions and words
What came first the egg or the bird?
We’re confined to believing that change only comes from a dollar bill
For a bill of 6.75 but what is the price of freedom?
Freedom ain’t free and I may not agree with what you say
But I will defend with my life your right to say it
But before I can save you, I need to save myself from self destruction
So its up to me to break the chains but
I feel like I’m trapped by a straight jacket with my arms around my waist
Shackles on my ankles and a muzzle on my face.
I’m bound to the ground by belts fastened tight
And I have a blindfold on so I have no sight
I try to yell to scream, but my voice has been silenced
We’re all a victim of organized crime it’s called: the government
The heat waves gave way to my ribcage because
I’m starving but it might as well be my temples carving spaces
of malnourishment of the mind, body and soul
when the body hurts as a whole,
there’s a space void in the mind
and I’m being confined as my spirit is ripped limb from limb.
I’m bound by the standards of society
What they tell me is what I need to be, but
Who is they, anyway? I’m trapped by a system that has me running in circles.
My intellect is tested by standardized tests the determine my fate like a crystal ball
They are not a caricature of my character by any means
Education is the key to achieving your dreams but
Not before you  pay the state government that tells us we can’t get a job
To pay for our schooling so we can’t do the school thing that supposedly is a birthright.
Can we start to get it right?

Allow me to speak love to you.
To speak lovingly of how you are water to a parched world.
If only dried lands and spirits contorted by malnourishment could partake of you.
They would feast like world powers with coffers over flowing
with enough surplus to satisfy greedy hearts and hungry bodies.

I would speak of your loving healing.
How the disorienting effects of lost loves subside with each endearing word from you.
I am coherent and in my rightful place as a recipient of your love
and with your love I share your nurturing spirit with others.
I am a blessing with your love.

Let me speak of you in the elements of nature.
You are the Mother’s Help Mate and you swaddle me in the rays of your sun.
The vacillating heat of submerged springs cause me to rise as your love beckons me.
My thoughts babble like new born brooks when they roll toward your *****.
Your love draws me to what I would call home.

I would speak of your loving tenderness
and how it inspires an innocent and caring love for you.
Of birds and breezes on tender blades and flowers releasing their covering as we display no shame.
No ritual or suggestions for keeping fires burning in some oasis of romance.
Touch me and you will see me blush under your expanding warmth.
I am supple in your presence.

I speak love to my realization of you;
your flesh encasing a triune soul.
peace, joy and patience.
An acknowledgement of being
And with my words, now, I honor the love of you.

Death of the Ego and Id

Space vacant. So alone. Deep blue sky; floating clouds.
Dark black sky; wandering stars.

The men who lay dying wont see this.  

Hear my thoughts. If anything, I can offer these to you.

One forgotten. In just this case. She spent her life alone. Once had dreams of sharing her existence and leaving something for the world to recognize. Eventually she took her life to create space for others.

He was a simple lonely child and on his final day; his father drown him in a rain barrel before jumping off a bridge with his mother and sister.

Time disappears in the pitch black of a musty basement. Malnourishment, fatigue, and resource deprivation have drained a broken body of salty tears.

Is the pain worse when the end is in sight?
Time to experience the sharp knife.

How many lives have vanished throughout history?
Who will remember us in 100 years?

There is a paradox of space for the individual in this sea of voices
An amorphous body of metaphorical sound that we avoid and ignore with our sense of selfishness and superiority
And yet we burn our civility to ashes for the sake of making sure that stranger knows we don't ******* agree with them
Here in this valley of poets, what is trending and popular, what is held dear is similar explorations of pain and adversity
Experiences of love, life, loss
And as I try and to distinguish myself by expressing my own uniqueness
I am a self indulgent hypocrit, who wants the same things as the idiots and disagreeables I try and hold myself superior to

At least here, on this little page away from the flow of superfluous information I can speak to a void of similar voices, where more come to speak than to hear, forgive me for saying

I am here to speak too
I'm no better
My voice may be different or distinct, I try to play with vocabulary and the conceptual
But you probably do the same
And art comes from pain so...
In the end, I'm still a weak ***** who holds onto to old images of love
Wishing the naked ****** friendships that took so long to build in the past will fall out of my phone when I wipe my thumb across it
And hoping the efforts to create something basic and tangible, and the efforts to create an identity worthy of societal admiration
Will deem me worthy to experience love again, part of me feels

But I'm not deluded by that. I've given up looking for something that comes when you aren't looking
The lost keys that turn up when you've looked everywhere and finally give up
Instead I am driven by the craft that I want to define me
And the satisfaction that the work gives me
It makes me happy amongst this mess of information overload and malnourishment I experience socially
By my own fault
Probably

As I let go of the catharsis of self expression now, petering out to a conclusion that has hopefully, a decent punch line
I know that I probably won't be heard, will be skipped over for stories of bitter broken hearts or tangible stories of adversity defeated
Skipped over in greater terms for the latest bag of shallow consumable ***** in the unhealthy social media world that I know you reader, hate as much as I do
The greater ocean of self expression that washes into a noisy murmur, the internet echoing the street

Who knows
You've read this haven't you
Maybe I'll get over my narcissism long enough to hear you too

the roots from which
i'd like to grow
now known for sure
no longer reliant on stunted malnourishment
or the flick of a tongue that spits lie after lie
consumption as a vice will **** you

I once lived in a paper jungle
conquered by post-it notes
and formulas for living
that didn't make sense.

Soon the paper tigers
came out of hiding
with memos and memorandums
growling fiercely at my recalcitrant
behaviour, until I quit and carried
my dreams into the wide open spaces
where predators were few and far between
with less incisors to cut you
into shreds of broken being.

I look back sadly
at those who did not take the escape routes
but stayed instead
locked in these cages of comfort
of malnourishment
living lives of quiet defeat.

The jungle is overgrown now.

Author Notes

Recalling some old memories.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 11 days ago

It's not something I'm very proud of
but I feel less guilty
when I know I'm not the only one

There are others
but I don't know their names,
I don't know where they stay,
and certainly remain ignorant of
their personal pleasures and intimate pains

We're all in this together
but on our own
in constant motion;
petrified from the tip of the iceberg
down to the floor of the unknown

Is shame real?

Or did we built this atrocity together?

Our ancestors had the best intentions

After survival, what comes next?

The rational decision making,
the fragile economy, bastardized standards
and capsizing traditions; and it's as though
we keep asking,

no,

pleading for more of it

Almighty silent search bar
answer all of my questions,
direct me through this
neon wilderness, guide me
with your fluorescent light;
north, south, and every which
way between...

I am guilty of nothing

I left living in your hands
and it's become a complicated design;
mistaken for a binary fairytale;
an illusion of flawless bells and whistles

Sign me up, an elegant scribble
like a mouth dribble, along the
dotted line

Modernity
is malnourishment
pristine

It was never something I was proud of
never something I asked for, but questioned
constantly is this right, is this wrong, is this normal
is this healthy?

Look up, look up, look up,
Define me

We're all in this together,

But on our own, as though

doors never open

and windows stay shut.

the roots from which
I'd like to grow
no longer reliant on stunted malnourishment
nor the flick
of a tongue that spits
lie after lie
consumption as a vice
will **** you
self sabotage
is not welcome
in the space you crave
to call home

Three is a crowd
Alone is a punishment
Two is partnership
until it’s criminally unbearable
Endure...

Look at her ; she’s  in love with life
Look away ; it’s simply just embarrassing

Encouragement
Angst
Malnourishment
It’s a merry go roundabout of battery

Look at him ; he has it together
Point and laugh ; those sleeves aren’t in fashion

Picture this ;
A World Unreined Of Thirst
A lost and found resolved
But then there’s a twist ;
We beg back the worst
We pup at Murders ***** teats
We’ve retreated
Shy from salvation
Summoned back on the coaxing cluft
Of our basic breeders feelings
A soul dehydrating salivation

I saw the red and blue sparkle of crime.
I felt my lungs overflow.

Spilling,
words,
blood of too-much,
thoughts of too full.  
Tears constructed of *****.

Bleeding
cold,
freely,
dragging out the strength to emerge from admittance -
to find comfort
in a home built for destruction.

As the blood boiled over, spilling from my mouth,
spattering murmurs of naive hope before drowning out the cities’ cries,
I clawed through a sea of red,
light falling through fingers -
I let go.

Years of blue striped tablets
comfort in the church parking lot
bites you for getting to close.

Idolizing a sadness of sick children,
crusading on acid
Nicotine, aspiration,
the tongues of others -
who find a place in a world of unrequited love for existence.

This blur is the final fracture of bones worn thin from chosen malnutrition,
malnourishment of the skin.
Pigment.

So the reaper knocks on the back of your skull,
not to punish you
Not for
subjection to chemical poison,
but to remind you:
dreaming of her body on yours is cyanide.

I knew this woman once, and I got her alone.

She asked me who the real Leo was, so I told her I was a poet. She said something like, "Aw. That's cute."

I looked into her eyes.
I looked into her eyes and saw that her poetry was the vain pursuit of a lost americana. Her poetry lived where could-be cartographers coddled their craft in closed-minded communes.

So I took it upon myself.
I took it upon myself to explain.

I said, "My poetry is when you find the dreams that your television set sold you -- while you're chained to a hospital bed on life support."

I said, "My poetry is when you're starving on the side of the road and a stranger gives you a sandwich -- only to die of malnourishment later because the sandwich was hardly enough to feed your tapeworms."

I said, "My poetry is when you find Jesus Christ -- while you're lying face down in a ditch in your hometown because you just couldn't make it out of that place alive."

She said something like, "I need to go. I forgot I had a thing."

I know that I haven't seen you since, but I want you to know that sometimes I pray, and when I pray I petition your god too keep you from finding my poems.

The blood on the blade
The bullet, the bomb
The bank and the ballot
The book of Islam
Is my common man struggle
My herbicide’s noose
My ******’s masses
Producing like Zeus
The poor, huddled refuse
Of consumerist culture’s
Impoverished and hungry
Insatiable vulture’s
Malnourishment wage
In your minimum cage
Cold World War snow blanket’s
Free love hippy plague

Ragin’ back from the Dead
To bring Down the whole System
With stock market fallout zone’s
Mushroom cloud prism
The re-meducation
Ghost-mortem disorders
The doomsday rock addict
The crack in your borders
The anti-establishment
Savior to none
I am merely the plug
You should pull when you’re done
Lest I overload brainwaves
With overlord plans
Till your empires fall
Into my beggar’s hands

You can't manage it,
it's unimaginable what it can do,
neither can you endure it,
not even patience can stand it.
It's like a car without fuel,
or one with a flat tire,
it won't go anywhere until
it is filled and changed.
Hunger can beat up and
****** a child in front of
the mother or family and
they won't do anything.
It makes and drives one crazy.
It can cause you to think
and do the impossible.
Unwittingly we must cross
the line of the rat race to
become dynamic individuals
to beat the hunger that erode
and corrodes our society.
A normal person can turn
into a monster or a mobster,
just to feed the family.
It drives one to the edge,
to become either a saint
or a criminal.
Most crimes are caused
by hunger and impoverisheness.
Where the kids are involved,
anything can be done,
risks taken just to feed them.
It's catastrophic havoc can
be frightening,
can be definitely dreadfully depressing,
It's continuous visit causes
malnourishment and kwashiorkor,
a menace to be feared.
Pray it does not come knocking
on your door.
It's visitation is one you can't easily forget.
©2018,Emeka Mokeme. All Rights Reserved.