briano alliano performs on venus party trap




you see welcome to the trap and i had a great night at the poetry slam

where i met this man who said m6y poem was great, well, he liked it

in fact when i didn’t win it, he wanted to heckle the organisers, well, it was

fun, but i like the organisers too, but this man realiy believed in me, ya know

especially when i told him i am putting art in an exhibition

here is my first song, the poem i read at the poetry slam ,here goes

jingle bells oh buddy jingle bells

it’s christmas in july

the party is on for young and old

and presents to make us happy

jingle bells oh buddy jingle bells

it’s christmas in july

party on till next week, man

yeah, celebrate christmas in july

dashing thru the cold canberra winters day

you see i think my reindeers are in hibernation today

because the air is very cold, and it’s a great day to say

merry christmas my good friends in the month of july

jingle bells oh buddy it’s jingle bells

it’s christmas in july

the party is on for young and old

bring out the warm eggnog

and put up the christmas tree, and have santa on a stick

then you get those lollypops, and give ‘em an almighty lick

and give ‘em an almighty lick, my mate

ya see last night at the poetry slam, this bloke said i really sang the last bit with a lot of guts

and determination, and now as i left last night i saw a fight taking place, and i knew if i don’t stare

everything will be alright, and now here is my next song

i am tired, but i can’t sleep, i need to have a siesta, yeah mate yeah

i need to relax and enjoy my life, and have a soft drink yeah mate yeah

carn the swans carn the raiders carn the packers, like that man last night spoke to me for

yeah mate yeah, and now time for, here is my next song, loving friends and loving family


You see when I was young and I always was trying to be cool
I had a family who tried to stop myself from being cool, and I was
So fristrated with that, I said, no I am cool, but I wssn't cool, I wanted
To laugh at everybody and I laughed so loud that my psrents were telling me
To quiten down and this made me angry, you see I got violent and I started to rant
And rave and it took me over a long time to understand that they were treating me
Like a cool kid, but I was young and stupid and it seems like they were teasing me
And giving me a hard time, and i also said that I wanted to be cool and always go out having a good time and getting ****** as a parrot, you see, my voices were putting those thoughts
Right in my head, giving me a lot of problems, making me very very sick of being in this crazy situation, and I am glad I have this amazing loving family and good friends, to help me through any kind of situation.
You see when I try and muck with my father like a mans kid, my brother would say, don't muck with him, he's not like us, don't much with him, no he is not a young dude. Be like us, and be a young dude and be a little shy boy, you try and be oool every day, and you try and give stay up all night while everybody else is going to bed, so you can go, hey to him, but the thing about it is, that it is the fact that he is living in the past.
So then my loving family and loving friends made me feel better about how much I wanted to
Move on and live life to the fullest, you see he will laugh like a man should and then say, heh heh heh heh , i am a cool boy, I am not a little shy boy, I sit up all night, I don't go to bed, you see I am superior, but my mates call me a complete loser.
Because this man is a total and absolute ******, and it makes me absolutely crazy, and this drives me crazy, you know very crazy, but I always call it a loving family and loving friends, I don't need these friends who only like me because I sit underneath them.



here is my next song, titled mashed potato finger nail at the skate park, here goes

You see Jacki Fred Harold Stone was a very cool young dude
You see instead of going to bed with all the other kids
He wanted to go to the skate park and ride the skateboards
With his best mates down there, and it was a very weird effect
You see his fingers smelt like mashed potato and all his mates went home
And they said he was a little shy boy, and Jacki Fred Harold Stone said
I am not a little shy boy, I am a cool boy, who loves to skate
And when I have a rest the mashed potato finger nails come again
To inspire me to keep being cool here at the skate park
You see I did some very awesome tricks, and I had so much fun
But I still smelt my mashed potato finger nails, it was driving me wild
I told all the people at the skate park and they said, your not shy
In fact your the coolest dude out of your family, and none of us want you to leave
I don't care if you used to get teased by everyone at your school
And I don't care if your family teaeed you as well
You see Jacki, I think your cool, and I will never tease you, not ever
I want to sell you drugs, but you don't have to take them
Because your the boy with the mashed potato finger nails
And we'll never ever tease you, we want to be your friend
And we want nothing more than that
So come on Jacki Fred Harold Stone, show us how to skate
You see my name is Jason Lee, and this is my mate Tristan
And we'll be your only friends you will never tease you
Cause at least you come here and ride your skateboard like a cool dude
And after your finished you stay with us and have a joke around
Despite of the times you tell us, your cool, we still have problems with this deal
You see, you are the kid who has mashed potato finger nails
And I don't care at all, your like us, Jacki, your cool, and your fingers smell like a good
Dose of mashed potato, which means your very cool
here is my next song, titled as much fun as it sounds, here at the trap

You see Jacki Fred Harold Stone was a very cool young dude
You see instead of going to bed with all the other kids
He wanted to go to the skate park and ride the skateboards
With his best mates down there, and it was a very weird effect
You see his fingers smelt like mashed potato and all his mates went home
And they said he was a little shy boy, and Jacki Fred Harold Stone said
I am not a little shy boy, I am a cool boy, who loves to skate
And when I have a rest the mashed potato finger nails come again
To inspire me to keep being cool here at the skate park
You see I did some very awesome tricks, and I had so much fun
But I still smelt my mashed potato finger nails, it was driving me wild
I told all the people at the skate park and they said, your not shy
In fact your the coolest dude out of your family, and none of us want you to leave
I don't care if you used to get teased by everyone at your school
And I don't care if your family teaeed you as well
You see Jacki, I think your cool, and I will never tease you, not ever
I want to sell you drugs, but you don't have to take them
Because your the boy with the mashed potato finger nails
And we'll never ever tease you, we want to be your friend
And we want nothing more than that
So come on Jacki Fred Harold Stone, show us how to skate
You see my name is Jason Lee, and this is my mate Tristan
And we'll be your only friends you will never tease you
Cause at least you come here and ride your skateboard like a cool dude
And after your finished you stay with us and have a joke around
Despite of the times you tell us, your cool, we still have problems with this deal
You see, you are the kid who has mashed potato finger nails
And I don't care at all, your like us, Jacki, your cool, and your fingers smell like a good
Dose of mashed potato, which means your very cool
as much fun as it sounds to heckle, i still remember the american dude, but this man last night was a cool dude, buddy, cool man sam


and have you ever been a cool kid to your dad, and had people laugh at you, i felt that last night when i didn’t join in the heckle, but that man

was nice to me, saying he admires me, but i am not gay, i am bradley simmons

Bradley lived in Cowra with his mum and dad and brother Kenneth, and Kenneth was a real mans kid who plays with his friends in the street and then he goes home to watch Disneyland with his dad, and he mainly liked to watch westerns, while Bradley was certain that there is something going on in the air, and went to church with his mum.
You see this wasn't really tbe best family unit, especially when families go out to fun family events, but Bradley and Kenneth's dad was a director at kids town, which is a Buddhist drop in centre, who looke after the daily needs of under fortunate kids, and Bradley and Kenneth were told to come into these centers, when their dad organised some games to brighten their spirits, one game was spin the Buddha, where you get a spinning buddha statue and the kids get a lolly pop if the Buddha spun towards them, and even though they thought it was lame, well you can see it in their faces, Bradley thought it was cool and then said to his dad how about I plan games for them to play, like soccer out in the paddock, or even cricket, or tennis, and one of the homeless Boyd sadism I am too poor to get into Auskick, so can we play Aussie rules, and if I whip your ***, I know I can play for Richmond, and Kenneth who tried to be the cool kid there said, well if you make Richmond, it won't mean you are good, it means you play for Richmond, and Bradley told Kenneth to be nice to him, he obviously likes Richmond, and Kenneth said to Brad, why don't you shut up you stupid old ******* ****, and Bradley said, I am cool, I can turn these kids away from you.
Then Bradley said ok it's time to play a board game and little Ryan said, well what does board games have to do with helping us get houses, and Bradley said, oh no I ain't that powerful, I am just a kid, I can't give you a home, no,,I am here to make you feel that people actually care for you, because I think it would be tough for you having no home to go to and the kids listened to Bradley like he was one of the adults and being a typical jealous little brother started to get very jealous especially when e tried to make a joke, and they told him to get lost, because your brother is boosting our self esteem.
At the end of the day, Kenneth said to Bradley, you are a stupid ******* old *******, playing board games doesn't make them really feel better, what makes them feel better is taking them for walks around, but you are too stupid for that aren't you Bradley, you are too fucken shy to be like those kids friends, you see they all like me better, they just tolerate you, so go back to your bedroom and go and do some underage *******, no you aren't one of us boys, *******.
Bradley was upset with what Kenneth said and went to his bedroom and cried for hours and since then he didn't have inspiration to go back to his dads work to help the kids there, but his dad said, your brother is just jealous, and you should do this if it makes you feel happy, and his dad said, and if you find that Kenneth is proved right, just ignore them, and you can start off by ignoring Kenneth, because really, I wish every kid could have the inspiration that you bring to kids town, don't let teasing stop you for reaching your full potential, Bradley, Bradley decided his dad was right, and he kept on going to kid's town to make a difference in these children's lives, playing games and talking to one another, this was so cool the kids thought, Bradley thought he was growing up, and Kenneth who decided to come in, because he thought kids need to be kids, yes, his dad was doing a good job, but really Kenneth had what the kids really wanted, like he bought his computer and showed him the virtual world, and Bradley said no kids playing board games are fun, and computer games can wreck your eyesight, but the kids decided that Kenneth needed to be heard too, after all he is the other son of the kid's town leader, so they listened to him for a while and instead of trying to play along, Bradley felt hurt and said, ******* all, and went to his room to cry, and all the tough boys said, 'what a cry baby' and then he said his brother isn't an monster, we still like him, but Kenneth wanted to make Bradley jitter, so he now decided to play around laughing very loudly, like he was like us, man or something and Brad was in his room, crying and their dad decided that Brad needed to share his friends and said that he prefers the way Kenneth did things, Brad got really angry and started to be totally mental, by punching Kenneth like a ******, as well as threatening to **** the father that gave him a perfect life as a kid, of course he didn't **** him, but he was an angry *******, you see he was the board games king, while his brother was a computer **** kid, and Kenneth tried to not hurt Brad's feelings, even though, being a kid, he found it hard to not teaee the ****** and Bradley was put in a special school where he made a few new friends, but they weren't into playing board games or anything else with him, they wanted to teaee him, with teachers joining in, because Bradley needed to learn about how to control is temper, and someone tried to bully him, and Bradley stood up to him, and another guy was determined to tease Bradley also, but as he tried to punch Bradley put his hands on his **** and squeezed his ***** real tight, and since then everyone liked Bradley, but not to his dads liking the little cool kid to his dad was suddenly Kenneth,,and Bradley felt he was trying to tease Kenneth the same way, and see how he likes it, but all his friends like Kenneth better, and Bradley punched Kenneth in the gut and his friends thought Bradley was a **** and left the house and another girl at school was making fun of Brads parents and Brad tried to stand up to her,but she said, they never helped me,**** kids town and ******* early to bed and early to rise baby, and Bradley got really upset and from that moment the only young ones who like him were the rougher ones, who hassled Bradley for money,and Bradey became to shy to say no. Which made him a little young dude with no friends, he had family trying to contact him, but he was determined to make their lives a misery.
Bradley was an idiot, with his drinking and teasing and punching people, yes dude, he needs anger management, and he needs it now, but you must want to go, but Bradley made a pact, that he won't get help till Kenneth found a girl and got married and has kids,,so his thought of being teased all through his adult years, wasn't going to happen, and Kenneth married Bridgett Kingsley and they had Toni and Ros, yes, Bradley's little nieces, and he loved them dearly, and the bonding of Bradley and Kenneth grew fondly, while their parents had the old Brad back, he ain't married but he's happy, and that's what Counts in life.


******* that look a lot of wind singing this to you at the venus party trap and when i got home i was told to sit there little shy boy and let your school mates play air guitar, i was happy too, because of sam

at the poetry slam, thinking i had guts tom read a poem and not win, who cares, it’s a fun night out dudes

You see, you are still a little shy boy, and we are still teasing you
So, now you are working, man, come, leave us
And let us muck around, we want to smoke our bongs
As well as drink our bourbons, and drink 100 beers
Yeah we all feel cool, and don't wake up little shy boy
We want the adults to not bother us, cause we are having so much
Fun, we don't want to be adults,and don't want you to worry about us either
You see, all the men, are sitting there, trying to muck with them
Saying tease him, if you want to tease, just teaee him
But at the end of the day, man, we aren't really teasing
We are sitting up all night, being bums and young bludgers
And it's because you are such a ******
We might be making it seemed you are getting teased
But, we really want to leave you alone,,if you leave us alone
Cause, we are drug addicts,,and we want you to respect the fact
That we don't want to work, as long as you think that you aren't a young bludger
Everything will be already, but young bludgers go to bed for work
So mate, just enjoy yourself, and smoke your bongs
And have a good time, doing it
You see, I want to enjoy ourselves doing this
You are now leaving us all on our lonesome
See ya dudes

see you soon, venus party trap, and t

Hi, my name is female.
I might not fold my hands the way she does
Or flip my hair the way that girl does.

Hi, my name is female.
The width and length I am shouldnt define if I'm qualified for Vogue.
The way I lick my lips may not be as attractive as the next female,
How my eyelashes flutter may not appeal to you.

Hi, my name is female and I like mashed potatoes and Thai coconut.
They say “eat less, its prettier. Where this, it shows more.”
Why?
I shouldn't have to balance myself on misleading scales that does nothing but swallow my pride up.

Hi my name is female.
Because one chicken breast is smaller than the other….it's not the same?
Because another person's peach is plumper than mine….its better?  
They're still the same and we should treat them the same.

Words get thrown at us everyday and its expected of us to pick them up and change the way we are.
No.

Hi, my name is female and I shouldn't be talking this way just for a guy.
I shouldn't be crying for this guy,
I shouldn't be kissing up to this guy,
I shouldn't be changing for a guy,
I wasn't made for a guy.

Because I can't reach my toes like the next female, shouldn't mean a thing. Because my palms may ash more or my bones may creek more, shouldn't define how pretty I am.
Her hair may reach her elbows, her hair may touch her neck.
Her skin might love the sun, her skin might hate it.
Its still beautiful.

Hi, my name is female and I like mashed potatoes and Thai coconut.
Just because you may not like it, doesn't mean Its gross or Im repulsive..

One female can say, “I am” while the other girl across the street can say, “I is.”
“No I won't”
Or
“No I ain't”

I can still smile just like the next female,
I can hold a laugh,
Cough,
Sneeze,
Wink,
Eat like the next female.

We're all one conjoined masterpiece.
One cannot make me feel low of myself.
One will not tell me she's better than me.
One will not let me cry my eyes out.

Hi, my name is female and I have a name.
My name defines me.
I am beautiful just like the next girl who likes mashed potatoes and Thai coconut.

Embrace your beauty, honey. You're gonna have it forever.

I cut the middle fingernail of the middle
finger
right hand
real short
and I began rubbing along her ****
as she sat upright in bed
spreading lotion over her arms
face
and *******
after bathing.
then she lit a cigarette:
"don't let this put you off,"
an smoked and continued to rub
the lotion on.
I continued to rub the ****.
"You want an apple?" I asked.
"sure, she said, "you got one?"
but I got to her-
she began to twist
then she rolled on her side,
she was getting wet and open
like a flower in the rain.
then she rolled on her stomach
and her most beautiful ***
looked up at me
and I reached under and got the
**** again.
she reached around and got my
****, she rolled and twisted,
I mounted
my face falling into the mass
of red hair that overflowed
from her head
and my flattened **** entered
into the miracle.
later we joked about the lotion
and the cigarette and the apple.
then I went out and got some chicken
and shrimp and french fries and buns
and mashed potatoes and gravy and
cole slaw,and we ate.she told me
how good she felt and I told her
how good I felt and we
ate the chicken and the shrimp and the
french fries and the buns and the
mashed potatoes and the gravy and
the cole slaw too.

If you’ve only ever smelled fir trees covered with freshly fallen snow-
then you haven’t smelled it.
It’s an acquired smell, for sure.
It comes just in between the whiffs of
mashed potatoes
mashed carrots
mashed peas
mashed turkey
hell, mashed ginger-ale for all I know. . .
Somewhere amongst that microwaved menagerie, masked with the smell of eau de toilette,
it lives, and smells sweeter the longer brown sugar bubbles on top of caramelizing yams.  

If you can’t smell it, maybe you can find it.
Not many can, or do.
It hides in plain sight, though.
A lost and found box with accumulated cobwebs - everything still unclaimed.
A flyer for free puppies that no one ever took because they were “too much responsibility.”
Maybe there aren’t enough seekers in this game of empty rooms and blank guest books.
But keep looking, until bingo prize hand-me-downs after school plays look like Oscars.
You won’t see it until it makes you believe that plastic Mardis Gras beads are Tiffany-blue boxes.

It’s not so much in the nose, or the eyes as it is in the endurance.
Endure the voiceless Glenn Miller until his brass bellows become her voice -
whispering “I love you”  to the effortless rhythm of “Moonlight Serenade.”
And imagine her,
swapping her orthopedics for black heels,
elegantly taking Pop’s hand as he helps her up from her wheelchair,
to join him for just one more dance.
Watch as they become the sepia-colored couple in every anniversary photo.
That black dress.  Those fake pearls.  
The crescendo of the band.
It’s hard to miss when it’s screaming at you.

. give me enough *****, lime juice and pepsi, the right song, and i will show you a control-environment psychotic episode...

sometimes, it's not about what you
know, versus who you know -
notably? when you're aiming at knowing
yourself...

      and psychosis?
   the synthesis of a soul while within
the confines of a body?
       one such example is walking
under two street lamps,
and spotting two shadows,
   immediately investigating,
whether or not, someone is walking
behind you, with a stalking
proclivity...

  you turn around -
  nothing but a hallowing voice
on the slightest of breezes -
the kind that barely motivates
branches to bow...

       - everyone knows that
the italians are famous for their pasta,
just like the french are, for their buns...
some Pakistani makes a joke
about the western love for cabbage...
esp. pickled cabbage -
mashed up with wild mushroom
to make up the filling for slavic
dumplings...

       sure... how's the turmeric?
i've been dying for the turks
working in kebab shops
to elevate the lamb doner (kebab)
using pickled cabbage -
  like they might use pickled
chillies -
       oh look... both are muslims -
the Ottoman's might have
figured out the southern slavic
palette, having occupied
the Balkans...

          we do more with potatoes
than a mere boiling down
to, what could never become an Irish
famine...
   first?
     there's the *****...
    nothing quiet unlike the whiskey
perfumery of pict-land of Scotland...

     Silesian potato doughnuts -
usually served with a cabbage radish -
pickled -
          and a thick pseudo-Hungarian
sauce...
   the potatoes are boiled,
then mashed,
   then sliced into 4 portions,
1/4 is moved aside,
      potato flower is added in equal
volume, and one egg...
   then it becomes mashed bashed
and given the skin
     tenderness of a drunk's wife's skin...
cut and molded into little doughnut
shapes,
   the index finger is inserted
into each one,
          and then each "infantry" member
is boiled,
till ready, i.e. floating on top
of the salted water...
             and there you have...
        Silesian potato doughnuts -

and there is a variant - potato hooves...
same ergonomics -
but instead of potato flower,
plain flower -
               i can't remember the proportions...
also boiled...
         but best cooled,
and subsequently fried -
for a crispness -
         mingled with honey
and something the Hindus know
that the Slavs also make -
     not exactly quark cheese -
   but getting there - more flaky...

    mind you...
   the whole out of Africa story?
   given that so many Roma live and trade
in Poland?
            perhaps having incorporated
the Africans into your pre- and post-colonial
nations, the genesis story would
begin with: out of Africa...
  
        and they swam across the mediterranean...
funny...
    you's sooner see a white competitor
in the 100m sprint final,
   than in the 100m final of
     the breast stroke / butterfly / etc. final...

no...
      i place my origins in India...
moving across the platitude of Siberia...
i have more in common with
Raj origin story... than i have anything
to do with: Zulu and the pinnacle
of Giza...

     i place my origins there...
         and those potato hooves?
they have a name in Italian...
       they're called gnocchi...
served with parmigiano-reggiano
       & pesto...
    never fried,
          and subsequently hardened -
next time i hear the cabbage
joke from some copper-skin
about a group's palette...
       having, actually enjoyed
the other group's palette?
             skin is a base no one works
from to make obsolete
     and redundant bigotry...
    we don't have to share
the same physiognomy...
  but sure as **** we can share
a meal;
        like among the russian drinkers...
i honestly quiet enjoyed
their dried fish ***-bits
to nibble on...
    because, whoever said that...
beer was to be accompanied by
peanuts?

Fragile egg-shell mind on dawn’s highway bleeding the segue between times traversed only in momentary dreams or in enduring excursions

We drag our droll and quaint 60s baggage like the luggage of a safari made of concrete girding a cavernous expanse of unheralded ground

With our ears oriented to the floor, we leap out of body never to deplore….never to ignore….never to miss the blue bus of our drafted imaginations, so carefully culled from brash elitism

I trounce the intervening time between being friendless and an ironic end, and an irenic comrade becoming the dearest amazed but always aplomb friend

We simper in our glorious traversal, and though bedraggled through an ornamented cavern we linger just long enough to be celebrated

Then a blues riff emanates from a vapid bar, and finally someone heralds my exhumed memory still rusty with the pavement of encased concrete on an empty or full tomb

So I wander in my mind to that roughshod Paris glassy tincture a romanticized gild of proper sensibility crafted in the tongues of lizards emulating the tongues of serpentine Anglicans

As the power of love transcends the love of power, both are afforded serendipitously upon the stately occasion of a fitful revolt where heads literally rolled and deaths still unfurl from the slippage of a violent malevolent eternity, crafting a new creative way to expedite the smite of preventable scourge

So, I see your picaresque side and your wide-eyed love for a listless ship anointed of a crystal blip just detectable long enough on RADAR to become the statistic to crack the slim WHIP

No wigs are needed at this formality, no figs grow from trees forty-five years buried and almost a full month unsung

Pitiable cretins of an invented insanity, they scoff at my ravenous and portentous heart for its excess and for aligning with an upstart verging on only a specious insanity

Why in all humanity could a month be mustered with every defense of history and yet for it to be so widely flouted as a risible exercise in futility

The irony that the artistic glamor of a past vogue becoming a revival that is often toked only to one song but never to the memorial of great cavernous and commodious imaginations, staggers with dismay where otherwise the mayday would be a disaster but still a great day

Then I look at a triggered-fingered omen of a death so ominous yet so brazenly confronted as the ambassadors of time provide plaudits to a fearless martyrdom

Why such a sad spate, why such a stringent but malevolent fate a malediction on a family whose crest is not crestfallen like rolling waves but ornamented with gravity impounding its own weight

A fugacious tomb, an eternal flame, a swan song announcing an independent authority on a prescient demise mashed and deprived

A single shot rippling through the broadened space between clasped eternity and a histrionic disgrace as a psychological confederate pays lip service to a reiterative applause

A cousin hardly American in a defected record of incendiary plumes of a hoarse hatred of waxen discs and flying discs alike,  climbs out of a bonfire mounted purely out of vindictive spite

Then upon a great white buffalo a wrapped package of Californian love before California ever alighted like something beyond an avaricious dove, saw a rocky park and a hearth of illuminated darkness the singular spark

Captain Morgan knows the jackknife applause of a botched deal morphing into a disbelieved spiel. A shibboleth of enormous mystical weight crashing down from an ethereal abode and heaven heavily saddened cannot hardly appeal

Then a loving spoonful of crystal blue persuasion led me to Ethel’s regimented keepsake and for once in my life nobility and I became a grateful waif. But temerity laughed, splintered spacecraft, and the wooden paws of a bearish applause led to resurgent clarity

Blinking stars shattered by knighted and raw applause punctured the liberated might of a sentient hortatory savior grasped by the internecine wrench of a waxen time

An indie track slides by unnoticed in an aleatory time, and the threadbare whine of centuries of lament becomes a dastardly barn set ablaze with the fury of ancients and the scurry of faineant patents

Perfidy slides in recess, and in gentle forbearance the winged angel lingers like a halo on conifer and spring above a remedial ring

I dial frisky celerity tingling the dangling claws of a raven’s screed and in plunder of all history’s pilfer secrets I eagerly weave a tapestry Indiana Jones himself would be proud to watch

Not the riotous ruin of a mystery tour of verdure crippled by genocide but overcome by the revived life of raised rain razing the moments of indelible pain

But the culmination of a proffered time taken at its word for its every careened bird, for its every brazen gird. The manger of proctored stars calls us home tonight and home forever. Life in quaked timorous stumbles suddenly no longer so fitfully absurd.

The quixotic plundered of pirates and emperors in direct emulation of some crooned pastiche of whittled integrity, surges above any encased blurb and any vain testament to a pyramid rigid in destiny and ragged in desultory and sturdy sincerity

Multiplying the ineffable by the division of arable divorced from edible is too creative to be eaten as pabulum when sparks curdle flickered moonlight crimson and that become golden only to the last laugh of ennobled ragamuffins

Frankly the desert of melliferous gorillas abetting the lark of a heavily vetted camarilla engaged in the sinecure of a rigged wall on a main street to block the tall from the lame bleat. Stocks grazed, costs engaged on a littoral beach at the end of a Bossy promenade

This prayer is a cutthroat collapse of a merry spare, a ribbed ****** waiting to plunge into the antithesis of female despair, but sincere in its restraint that vixens courted in love aren’t courted in litigation of a wagered dare

Ambulances chase Deloreans through the desolate moon-stricken skies of a time agape with fleets of phantasmagoria on a Cliffside too wise to ever mince words or excise cries

Skulking the red-teared caverns of entombed films and lampooned tinctures on a passion vetted only for certain and utter deracinated disguise, I wallop with winged men in a single soul Armed to the Teeth with inveterate tithes to eternal internments of poached and endangered gazettes

As growth older in wizened skin bets on epithets rather than epitaphs for rinsed peace and triumphant clefts we leap above in orbit of only the bellowing nether of blown tolls and untold souls aggregating the esoteric grasp of Alexandrian tomes

The denumeration of certainty is a carousel of wonder, a splurge of time ripped asunder with majesties of paparazzi scuttled impacts a throttled iniquity of regalia’s indicted blunder frenchified but still clean with inestimable sheens

With twenty-five dollars, a dime an assist and a nickeled reiteration of currency already so personable it is divine and sublime in crazed desist I watch the embroiled natives clash in denatured violence with the warriors of a crossed repast hearkening to an old land much of ire but too much of grandstand to ultimately last

Itching for a holy field husk of peerless ties listed as rumpus and beer, a two-packed smoked by bludgeoned blokes careless in irascible sputters of a muffled doom, a Vegan becomes the author of too many sacrosanct homilies becoming defiled witchcraft brooms dead on arrival too many lionized tombs

In plaudits and the scause of an amplified “what if?” of an olfactory nightmare of petrified fog of effluvium bogged in Wade and in heat it is always clogged, sinewy libations of toasted preemptive revenge become a powerballed hog

A castle in the sky founded on Franklin but scourged of wineskins brimming with a distilled time, a swift repartee becomes the whispered ladder of saints blather becoming not rather other than a Dan Rather spatter

A door breeched by a broached inconvenience of amphigory beyond common reach, I clamber excess and whisk the lingered love into destiny beyond any word other than a beseeched preach of nothing tired but everything inspired of noble love with abundance often to teach

Fireworks of turned tides of fallow tithes to aliens beyond any conceivable bribe the bushwhacker writhes but survives Stayin' Alive without even a hint of garbled jive a 27th floor glass elevator is quite a resplendent ride

Wellsprings knowing radical rolled tides of errant dice also themselves guilty of confessional tithes to the monolith of avarice at the nooked cranny of an evaporated time we whine as the police sting the album rained with songs too lugubrious to sing but in their elegy every lonely heart has a propinquity phone of souled resonance ring

Iterative mastery of a mathematics of love, loss decay and the dross of a dental Occidental floss, the sweep of screened queues become questions of inestimable importance to foreign dues on A Horse With No Name but so consumed with fumes

A fright occultist Thriller prowls in a waylaying daylight, masquerading an innocent confection for a rescued triage of a dawn stabbed with knives in our last dying days of trembled plight

He resurrects only the wraiths of detest, squinted at by the putrefaction of summoned cardiac arrest and littered with bullets that somehow can penetrate even impregnable bullet proof vests the wrapped carcass of the mummified husk of ready despair offers itself a ghoulish and raspy prayer

Synchronized in a low roaring swathe of rollercoasters too immersive to ride, the terpsichorean obscurantism of deliberately shattered fragments becoming blurbs dismissed with hijacked deride the carnival of a summer sun becomes the ocean of limitless love becoming endless fun

We forget the drawl of the droll old tales that haunt like specters in the closet and beneath the bedridden valetudinarian of an effrontery of shackled fright, we sprawl the innumerable caverns of prophetic insight afforded by the pantheon of history enter stage left, depart stage right

And with their insight I write and write, I grasp the tusk of democracy and wage an insurrection against the doubt of plodding limitations in otherwise immaculate sight

*** and tyrannosaurus rex, of litigable offenses leading to pardonable arrests, the gated entryway of a poetic splurge leads to the demiurge of a demotic enlightenment and suddenly the frank becomes the frazzled retirement and that haunting hounding bunny transmogrified by a shattered eye averts the car crash that careens ponderous engines out of limitless twilight blue skies.

Diamond lightning in pristine skies escorts the telegraphic totems of riddled modems from distant forbearance to nescient ultimatum and suddenly all venerable personages converge on a teeming scene of a union unified by a universal dream. To become everything and yet nothing and out of light and darkness to become a beatific beam

198

An awful Tempest mashed the air—
The clouds were gaunt, and few—
A Black—as of a Spectre’s Cloak
Hid Heaven and Earth from view.

The creatures chuckled on the Roofs—
And whistled in the air—
And shook their fists—
And gnashed their teeth—
And swung their frenzied hair.

The morning lit—the Birds arose—
The Monster’s faded eyes
Turned slowly to his native coast—
And peace—was Paradise!

I walk to school all by myself,
My mind is free of clutter.
The mattress pad that's down the hall,
Smells like peanut butter.

Where did it come from,
this wretched thing?
How could something like this be?
Why would it happen?
Who put it there?
And most of all why me?

I pick the flowers
Wash my hands,
I've always had bad luck.

Cotton candy
Mashed potatoes
Whatever the ****.

What makes you feel the most beautiful?
  ->doing whatever the fu€k I want
edit 1: I usually thought this way, but now I would say when I’m worshipping or praying
edit 2: I would add it is when I am completely vulnerable. It is a different kind of beauty. One that is emotionally strong
(usually a person will say when they look a certain way which is sad to an extent because it reflects the way in which they associate beauty immediately with an external reflection; however, most people think this way)

2. Who do you love the most in your life?

3. Who has shown you and made you feel the most loved?
—> I had a 11 year old ask me this once

4. What would you do during the summers as a kid?
—> it can reflect the socioeconomic background one comes from

5. Do you think you’re an aesthetically  beautiful person?
—> this is quite interesting, bc if a good looking person says yes, then they’re proud and stuck up; if they say no, then they’re obnoxiously oblivious and seeking attention; if a not so good looking person says yes, then they are praised for their confidence; if they say no, then they are pitied and encouraged, the best answer is to give an answer back: do you believe that everyone should feel aesthetically beautiful?

6. Do you have any siblings? If so, how many brothers and sisters, and are you the oldest or youngest?
—> learning about birthing order can be huge! Oldest tend to be protective, responsible, mature at a very young age, selfless, and carry more of a silent burden and stress, introduction to adulthood is rather quick. Middle child is often overlooked and will seek a sense of family/community elsewhere with friend groups and such; they feel like their thoughts/existence goes unseen by the ones that are supposed to care the most youngest tend to seek the approval of others especially of those older than them, outgoing, irresponsible, and babied. They can have a harder time managing task without it being done for them by others.

7. When we fall asleep, where do you think we go?

8. What is a thought that has kept you up at night?

9. What was the most humbling moment you’ve had in your life?

10. What is a piece of advice that you still hold today that transcends time?

11. What’s a favorite quote of yours?
-> the unexamined life is a life not worth living; don’t take yourself too seriously; come back home to yourself and choose to show up authentically; growth is a dance not a light switch; Harriet Tubman- I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed  a thousand more of only they knew they were slaves.

12. Who has impacted your life the most? How and why?

13. What is an overlooked or under appreciated strength that you have?
—> honesty, forgiveness

14. How do you give love? How do you receive it?
—> 5 love languages: words of affirmations, physical touch, acts of service, quality time, gifts

15. How do you communicate when in repairs after a rupture has occurred?
—> discuss as soon as possible, take a five minute break, wait a few days, words, touch, gifts, silence, etc. so you never repair after a disagreement?

16. Do you enjoy the late hours of the night or the early hours of the morning?

17. What’s your favorite type of weather?

18. Do you prefer exploring and staying in the gray, or the black and white?

19. Of you could study anything what would it be?

20. What are ways that you work on your emotional intelligence and character?

21. What type of communicator are you?
—> words, touch, actions, silent, loud, stoic, expressive, curt, bombastic, blunt, passive, etc.

22. Would you say you have a better face or body?

23. What is a moment where you felt a supernatural appreciation for the earth due to the view you saw?

24. How do you handle seasons? The ends and beginnings of them?
-> journal, reflect, avoid, acknowledge, cry, run backwards, move forwards, etc.

25. What book had a huge effect on you? What was it about the book?
-> all the bright places, Fahrenheit 451, the curse of the good girl, it ends with us, great gatsby, the voice of archer, etc.

26. What is the worst thing you can take from another person?
-> their time

27. What’s the greatest act of love (that you can do for another) ?
-> to die for another since the greatest fear is death

28. What is something that brings you peace that not many people do or notice?

29. What is the worst form of loneliness?
-> when you are uncomfortable with yourself

30. When do you feel the most vulnerable?
-> sleeping, expressing emotions, sick, crying, etc.

31. How do you handle seasons? The end and beginning of them?

32. Liquid or bar soap?

33. Have you ever closed your eyes, plugged your ears, and listen to the noise that comes when you let the water from a shower head pour over your skull

34. What is the most beautiful sound you have ever heard?

35. Do you think your parents are soulmates, or do you question their love for each other?  

36. What are important qualities to have in any relationship (platonic, romantic, etc.)?
-> trust, love, loyalty, respect, empathy, compassion, boundaries, autonomy, differences, effective communication, etc.

37. What are qualities that you look for in a romantic partner?
-> thoughtfulness, observant, confidence, wisdom, romantic, humorous, self-driven, self-discipline, humility, grace, etc.

38. How do you know that your (insert name/ relationship) loves you?

39. Would you rather be hated or alone?
-> interesting philosophical question in regards to being hated would mean that there is a recognition of your existence as opposed to being alone

40. How did you learn to ride the bike? Ice Scate? Snowboard?

41. When was the last time you felt rejected? By who? For what?

42. When was the last time you cried?

43. What has a kid said to you that has made you stop and reflect?

44. Which is a worse fear: the fear of dying or the fear of not being worthy of love
-> Jordan Peterson claims that the greatest fear that humans have is not death because then how would we explain suicide...the fear of death is a subcategory for the greatest fear which he believes to be the complexity issue (people **** themselves not because they want to die but because their life has become too complex for them to handle emotionally and/or physically)

45. What is the most destructive thing a person can do to themselves?
-> to deny themselves; to place the responsibilities of loving and accepting themselves onto others such as lovers or family members; to believe they are not worthy to be loved

46. What is something you want to experience/feel in a relationship
-> unconditional love; lol I have a while poke dedicated to experiences

47. Tell me about a dream that you have had multiple times

48. What do you like most about yourself?
-> my mind/thinking process; understanding, and open to conversation

49. Would you be friends with yourself

50. What is the worst thing you have done or said to another person? How old were you?

51. Why do you choose to wake up and participate in society?

52. What makes a woman or man their gender? Their body/attitude/characteristics?

53. Would you let your child date someone that has the character of you?

54. What makes you special? Since the beliefs you hold and the personality traits that you have aren’t exclusive to you?
-> it’s the combination and ratio that makes us unique

55. when was the last time anyone ever told you how important you are?

56. what are things you do when you need to feel nurtures?
->hot bath, foot rub, curling up in a comfy chair with a comforter and a good book, or making a *** of soup or a nourishing hot drink

57. what are ways that you neglect your physical and emotional well-being?

58. where in your life are you not protecting what is precious in you?

59. what adjectives describe your relationship with your mother? do you like the closeness or is it uncomfortable in some ways and hard to fully accept?

60. What do you do when you cry? do you try to stop it, cover your eyes, in the dark, into a pillow, silent, loud, sooth your body?

61. What was something that someone said to you that made you feel seen for the first time in a long time? what is something that touched you heart?
-> you are do brave, you have a courageous heart, you are a natural teacher and psychologist, you lean towards healing, you do not realize how much you impact other people's lives

62. what is a go to song that you could listen to at any moment in your life?

63. What do you do when you feel lonely?

64. What is something that puts a smile on your face?

65. What smell brings you joy?

66. would you rather get caught or catch your parents?

67. what is one of the biggest lies you have told yourself?
-> you are unworthy of love

68. what is a memory that reminds you of the beauty in life?

69. what is your favorite word to pronounce?
-> tantalizing, satiate, revere

70. what stereotype do you think people put you in when they see you?
-> pretty, (not super smart) blonde

71. what are things about you would shock other people?
-> first generation. youngest of five, 4.0 student, write poetry, love to read, not active on social media, don't like taking pictures, never been kissed, played the violin and cello, struggled with insecurity

72. tell me the accomplishments that you might be hesitant to share bluntly in fear that it comes off as being a show off?
-4.0 since sixth grade to nursing school in college, won a poetry competition in senior year of high school, got a full ride to UW Seattle and declined, won best dressed in high school, squatted 225lbs, muscular body, sang in a few songs (good at singing)

73. how do you interact with others when they are invading your personal space?
-> don't do anything, interrupt and tell them to move, slowly do something on your own without saying anything to them

74. what do you do and how do you feel when someone cries next to you?
-> hug/touch them, talk to them, remain silent, get stiff and uncomfortable, try to get them to stop crying, walk away

75. how do you regulate your emotions when they are out of homeostasis?
-> don't know how to, take deep breaths, walk away from the situation so the stimulus/source is not in front of me, cry

76. name as many emotions as you can
-> reflects their ability to accurately label their emotional experiences and can possibly be a marker/indicator for their emotional intelligence/maturity

77. how do you feel about death, do you talk about death, do you see others shut down or open up when you express this topic?
-> isn't it ironic how death is an inevitable event yet so many humans are uncomfortable with talking about it. I believe that it interrupts the natural grieving process. I talk about death with my dad and he is more open with talking to me about when he passes; my mom gets uncomfortable and gets upset and tries to switch the topic.

78. would you rather eat any form of noodles or burgers for the rest of your life?

79. when was the last time you sat in silence and was comfortable with it (excluding before you fall asleep)?

80. when was the last time you had a conversation with yourself about something deep? what was it about?

81. what is a revelation in your life that made you cry?
->only God can provide me with unconditional love; no one else can

82. what do you think is the root of all fears? what do you think can remove them?
->ignorance; distraction/knowledge -> unconditional love

83. What is the most unique response you’ve received when you’ve asked someone how they are doing?
-> still breathing

84. Do you think humans are easy to love?
-> I don’t think they are easy; it is complex just like they are

85. When was the last time you read a book? What was the title called? what was it about? Why did you read it?
-> the emotionally absent mother by Jasmin Lee Cori

86. If you’re comfortable with sharing, talk to me about the life of someone that has passed away? What were they like? How did they make you feel? Who were they to you? How did you cope when you realized they passed away?

87. Who are addicts? What do you need to do to be one? Do you think everyone is an addict to some extent? Why do you think people become addicts?
-> whenever faced with such questions it is imperative that we must ask ourselves the question of why! Yes, I believe all of us are addicts to dopamine; our brain is wired that way. But when we think of addicts, we forgot to ask the question of why they are addicts. Life became too difficult to manage and the body found a way to stimulate the mind in such a manner that it either numbed the pain or provide sensation to a chronic state of numbness

88. Other than the lips, where do you like to be kissed the most?
-> forehead, cheek, behind the ear, neck, top of head, hand, nose, shoulder, chest, back, collarbone

89. What type of kiss do you enjoy the most?
-> slow, fast, French, peck, open mouthed, short, long, sloppy, hungry, passionate, affectionate, sweet, etc.

90. it is easy to agree with the statement that dehumanization is not okay, but is it more gray than we think? is there a degree of dehumanization that is okay or needed? if so, what is that degree? also, do you think we commit acts of dehumanization regularly? if so, when and what are these instances?
-> i believe that as humans we have a tendency of wanting to see our light and ignore the aspects of ourselves that are casted in that shadow. to have a light is to also have a shadow; i believe that we dehumanize almost every time we meet someone by limiting their mystery to small snipits of who they really are; also, sometimes it is very difficult to handle and hold such emotional space that our minds need to shut off and dehumanize for our own sake of well-being

91. are soul mates meant to be with each other?
-> A soulmate is a person with whom one has a feeling of deep or natural affinity. This may involve similarity, love, romance, platonic relationships, comfort, intimacy, sexuality, ****** activity, spirituality, compatibility and trust

92. what are ways that you can take a break from reality?
-> sleep, reading, gaming, showering

93. do you have people in your life where their presence is enough? no conversation is necessary, just each other's presence is comforting enough.
->celesa, kristina, michelle, marta,

94. what is a memory you like to relive time to time?
->dancing with celesa at the bistro to adore you; trinity; late night phone calls with close friends

95. how would you describe your relationship using 5 adjectives or phrases with your best friend, sibling (if you have one), and care giver?
-> "If you love yourself, you love others. If you hate yourself, you hate others. Because in relationship with others … the other is nothing but a mirror." - Anonymous

96. how would you describe yourself using 10 adjectives?
-“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best." I like this quote because it acknowledges the negatives of who we all are. we aren't all only happy, funny, bubbly, hard-working, etc. we are also grumpy, boring, rude, and lazy. we are a combination of every adjective out there; it just depends on how aware we are of our expressions of these adjectives. So, notice the kind of adjective the person uses when they respond and also note the context and circumstance of your relation to them.

97. do you prefer a hot drink on a cold day or a cold drink on a hot day?

98. if you could be famous would you? famous for writing, acting, food, music, sport, YouTube etc.
-> for me personally it depends on the exposure i get. if i get a lot of focus on myself then no (music, acting, etc.) but if my work gets more focus than i do and i can still live a "normal" life then yes (writing, food, etc).

99. which musicians or artists do you think deserve more recognition?
-> emotional oranges, Justice Der, cigarettes after ***, the 1975, pink sweat$, A. Chal

100. what is one of the most thought-provoking questions or statements you have ever heard?
-> "not all of us can afford to be romantic" - Pride and Prejudice;
"when will it be enough; how much more do you need to finally be happy"- My dad; "do you believe that everyone deserves to look and find themselves to be aesthetically beautiful" -My brother

101. Favorite piece of clothing?
-> yuriy’s wedding: the dress I had, red socks, fuzzy sweater

102. What’s your full name?

103. What’s the weirdest saying an old person has said?
-> don’t go spending your money in a wooden nickel

104. What age would you consider a person to be old?

105. Do you believe that life requires s purpose?

106. What is your purpose?

107. What is one of your biggest fears that you believed in (as a child, adult, etc)?
-> that I was unlovable at some point in my life

108. When you are in an emotional emergency, do you have someone you can call? If so, who is it and why?
-> I don’t really...I try to stick through it...weird since I have had people tell me that I could call them but I still don’t feel comfortable to talk to them...

109. Do you have relationships where you felt valued, a sense of belonging, calm, accepted?

110. What is your earliest memory of feeling left out?
-> the social pain overlap theory (SPOT) describes the overlap between the pain of being physically hurt and the pain of being left out. In our bodies, there is literally no distinction between the two.

111. If you could only have one for the rest of your life, would you choose to keep limes or lemons?

112. Have you ever experienced the relational paradox? If so, with whom?
->  when you’re convinced that your friends won’t tolerate who you really are so you decided the best way to be excepted is to leave a part of yourself out of those relationships; By hiding yourself you may preserve the friendship but at the cost of feeling that you don’t legitimately belong but if your friends can see who you truly are they would cut you loose

113. Have you ever done a relational mindfulness exercise?
-> set a timer for 10 minutes, and then stare into each other’s eyes silently. It should sync your cardiac systems as well as your respiratory systems. Hold each other’s pulses to identify; I find it weird how we get stared at lovingly when we are babies and then that goes away as well get older...

114. What is a secret that you have kept from your partner, family, or closest friends that you believe if they found out they would reject you?

115. Do you have a person in your life that can be categorized as “the one that got away”? Someone you either dated or never dated?

116. Is there someone in your life that you don’t see anymore that you would like to have a conversation with? Dead and/or alive.

117. Sunset or sunrise?

118. Do you want children? What is your opinion on men who don’t want children; what is your opinion on women who don’t want children?

119. Have you ever felt forced to do something that you didn’t want to do or say? Like give a handshake, hug, take a picture, have a conversation, give a number, compliment someone, disclose personal information, go on a date, say I love you?
-> there’s a difference between not wanting to do something and feeling forced to do something, and I find it interesting that we all do things that we feel are forced upon us when no one is directly stating that we have to do it; it’s like an invisible force

120. what is something that another person did that made you uncomfortable but you never addressed it?
-> sing terribly while they are genuinely trying, get physically close to me, compliment me in a creepy way, talk in a movie theater

121. What is a pet peeve of yours?
-> leaving garbage on a table after you eat (not cleaning up after yourself), having poor etiquette with servers or cashiers, saying “mom” instead of “my mom” if I don’t share the same mother as them (missing the possessive pronoun before a parent).

122. Who is someone that you find attractive that is the same *** as you?
-> Arbby, Irina, Jessica, Sara, Valentina

123. What is the most sweet/****** compliment you have given to someone?

124. What is the biggest plot twist you have ever seen in a movie or book?

125. When did you  feel the most loved (in your entire life, this week, by me)?

126. what is something I have said that you have always remembered?

127. Blue or red Gatorade?

128. Star gazing or sunset picnic?

129. What is something that is underrated?
-> our bodies (specifically our our hands, eyes), stars, cologne/perfume

130. have you ever tried to impress the other? If so, for what reason and when?

131. Which do you prefer: breakfast, lunch, or dinner for the rest of your life?

132. Are you missing someone right now? Do you think they miss you?

133. What was the happiest meme out you have had this year?
-> dancing with Celesa at trinity, at the apartment, after hours at the bistro, French dip at lost like with Celesa, holding Lorenzo, seeing a birth and colostrum, making my first song and listening to it for the first time, board game with Hayden, D.E.A. Hat guy, Fourth of July with kristina -> ride back with questions, eagles falls, yuriy’s wedding and gelato boy, euphoria makeup with Bella, painting with Michelle at green lake, reading books

134. where were you born?

135. how many states/countries have you visited?

136. what color would you use to describe your life

137. would you say it is better or worse to listen to sad music when you are sad?

138. what is the #1 factor that predestines people for failed relationships?
-> no examples of healthy relationships

139. what is the weirdest ice cream flavor you have ever tried?
->black licorice, peppercorn/caramel/goat cheese

140. What’s the most exciting dream you have ever had?

141. What’s the most peaceful dream you have ever had?

142. What’s the most terrifying dream you have ever had?

143. Who is the most misunderstood person you know?
-> Mark; he wasn’t well liked, but I remember thinking that the was just misunderstood...

144. Who in your life are you misunderstood by?
-> my mom

145. Do you prefer handshakes or hugs?

146. Do you prefer movie nights or dinner dates?

147. When was the last time you read a paper book for pleasure?

148. What is a comment that someone said to you that you were honestly shocked by? Like, you couldn’t believe it came from their mouth?
-> when I was in sixth grade and my friend’s mom said, “aren’t you jealous of [her daughter/my best friend’s name] ****”?; “do you even know what wings are”?

149. As a kid in elementary school, where did you play during recess? Tetherball, four-square, hopscotch, jump rope, soccer, basketball, slide, monkey bars, swings, sandpit, etc?

150. What otter pop flavor was your favorite?
-> the pink one

151. When you brush your teeth, are you messy or clean? Meaning, does the toothpaste get outside of your mouth at all?

152. What do you remember about elementary school in terms of field trips, punishments, recess, fun run, day of activities, lunch food, movie nights, fundraisers, assemblies, and reading points?

153. what do you remember about middle school in terms of the change from elementary school with no recess, classes, $ex ed, lockers, assemblies, P.E., lunch food?

154. what do you remember about high school in terms of the change from middle school, classes, assemblies, P.E., sports, lunch food, standard tests, dances, friends from your first year to your last year?

155. what do you think is a poet's aphrodisiac in the form of a person?
->intelligence, originality, mystery, intriguing personality

156. what is a bad habit that you know you should quit ( can be a substance, activity, or person)?

157. How often would you say you reflect on your life? with the mundane activities and the more impacting activities?

158. what's a song that you are replaying right now?
-> redbone x childish gambino by Jospeh Solomon

159. what is the most random food combo that you really enjoy?
->mashed potatoes/gravy with corn; hot dog with jelly

160. who is a person in your life that was the most mysterious to you?

161. would you say that you were shown healthy relationships throughout your childhood? in particular, your parents' relationship?

162. would you say that your family made you feel seen, heard, and understood? if not, would you say that you subconsciously expect this in your adult relationships? what have you done to unlearn this mentality?

163. would you say that you are always the one doing the caretaking in your relationships?

164. do you have a hard time listening to others?

165. do you act differently with men than with women?

166. do you get hurt easily and withdraw when there is conflict; what are you like during conflict?

167. what are you like when you don't get your way (aggressive, sad, quiet, loud, irritated, calm, unbothered, indifferent, annoyed, happy, frustrated)?

168. what are the molds for your ideas about how relationships are supposed to work?

169. what do you believe you're entitled to within a relationship (any/ friend/ romantic/ family)?

170. what was your closest experience with death?

171. do you prefer cauliflower or broccoli?

172.  what's the weirdest thing you have ever eaten?

173. what are your favorite tv shows or movies?
-> bridgerton, pride and prejudice, law abiding citizen,

174. what is the most controversial thing you have ever done?

175. what is the most controversial thing another person has done?

176. what is your superpower?
->there is no one on this planet that is quite like me

177. what do you believe is the purpose of a romantic relationship? Marriage?

178. do you think love is needed to marry someone? would you find yourself ever in a situation where you would marry someone that you did not love?

179. what is your weirdest talent? hobby? experience?

180. do you bring your phone with you when you go to the bathroom? if so, when was the last time that you went without your phone?

181. what is something that most people have done but will not admit to?
->eat a ******, smelling their **** out of curiosity, ma$turbate, blame a **** on someone else, etc.

182. do you believe that there should be aspects of yourself that no one else on this earth except yourself should ever know?

183. what's the weirdest conversation you've ever had with someone?

184. How old were you when you had your first kiss? Describe the situation? Who made the first move?

185. What is the spiciest thing you have ever eaten?

186. what is the most bitter thing you have ever eaten?
-> unripe pear!!

187. what is the most spontaneous thing you've ever done and/or said?
->eagles falls with kristina, lorenzo's birthday with selesa

188. how would you want a girl/boy to shoot their shot at you?

189. if you could be someone else for a day (someone you have met and know) who would it be?

190. if someone wasn't interested in you, how would you want them to rejected?

191. do you prefer buttered popcorn or the sweet kettle popcorn?

192. what is the rudest thing you've wanted to say but stopped yourself from saying?

193. what is the most genuine, heart-felt compliment you have received from someone?
-> you are courageous/brave; you are a natural psychologist and healer; you're my best friend, I can tell you anything

194. what is an experience you look forward to in life?
-> walking down the aisle and maintaining eye contact with my man the entire time until I have to hug my dad goodbye; my wedding night; going on vacations with just my husband; going to Jamaica; holding my baby in my arms for the first time; watching my husband play with our children on a beach as I sit under the shade; trying fruity cocktails on my 21st; going on my first date; my first kiss; moving into my house

195. what is a moment that you tend to relive in your mind?

196. what is something that you have learned to accept in life as you have gotten older?

197. who was your first crush? how old were you? what about them made you like them?
->ruslan at church; I was maybe four; he was really sweet to me and I thought he was cute; at yuriy's wedding, I saw him and told him about it which made him get really excited

198. what is something that you hate to eat? you've tried it and you know that you will try to avoid it at all costs.
->parsley, celery, beets, ginger

199. at what age would you say you lost your child-like innocence?

200. your turn. create a question!

201. how old were you when you found out that santa wasn't real? how did you handle it?

202. what is something that people hate, but still choose to participate in?
->beauty standards

203. what super power would you wish to have?
->time control

204. if you had the chance to have the superpower of mind control, would you accept it?

205. how would you decorate your ideal house?
-> different vibes for different rooms; monochromatic black room with lava lamps, white room with dark brown wood accents and lots of plants, pastel light pink with neon glass decorations

206. who is a person that had made you cry?

207. what is one of the most scariest thoughts you have had run through your mind?

208. what is one of the most sad thoughts you have had run through your mind?

209. do you believe you should have to pay to live on a planet you were born on?

210. what is a candy that you hate?

211. what is a song that you try to avoid because it is too personal?
-> apple bottom jeans

212. would you say that you are alive or merely living?

213. what is something that someone said to you that you have never forgotten?
-> you have a lot of knowledge, but you lack experience

214. what is an example of a person that you thought was good but turned out to be a genuinely bitter, horrible person?

215. When was the last time you felt truly understood by somebody? Who was it? What did they understand?

216. Can you think of someone in your life who understands you better than anyone else?

217. Is your relationship with yourself healthy or unhealthy?

218. Growing up, the relationships I primarily saw were healthy or unhealthy?

219. Do you attach guilt with growth?

220. Have you spent too much time today comparing yourself?

221. When did you feel the most trapped?

222.who do you feel most yourself around? Why?

223. what parts of yourself do you need to break up with?

224. what is your favorite conspiracy that you believe in right now?

225. do you prefer to work with people are are the same or opposite gender as you?

226. what was the most intense experience of $exual tension that you have had?

227. what activity do you do that makes you feel most at home/ yourself?

228. what was the most painful truth you have ever been told?

229. who is someone you will never forget even though you have only had one encounter with them?

230. when was the last time you felt adrenaline pumping through your veins due to excitement?

231. what about you feels easiest to love (physical and character)?

232. what about you feels hardest to love (physical and character)?

233. What kind of love feels more familiar to you -> peaceful or chaotic love?

234. to what extent to you feel your appearance is the most important aspect of who you are?

235. do you think being attractive is a privilege? are you nicer or meaner to people you find attractive?

236. what was the hardest thing that you forgave someone for?

237. how would you define forgiveness?

238. who have you farted the loudest or most often?

239. what is an embarrassing story of when you really needed to **** in class but struggled to hold it in?

240. what is something that made you blush really hard?

241. if you had the opportunity to be famous, would you choose to be?

242. what is the longest you have not dated someone (or was flirting or thinking with someone)? In other words, what is the longest you have been alone?

243. what separates us from God?
-> ignorance (spiritual) and death (physical) - Jordan Peterson

244. what is a message that everyone deserves to hear in life?
-> "you deserve someone who's going to work hard to find ways to care for you." You are worthy of unconditional love.

245. what is a difficulty in your life right now?

246. what is something you've always wanted to try but haven't yet?
->fall in love, go on a trip by myself, go to Europe with Itzhel, drink a mimosa at brunch in a sunny place

247. what are qualities that you really admire in people?
-> attentiveness, observant, thoughtful, thought-provoking, mysterious, charming, honest transparency, vulnerability, calm curiosity, humble confidence

248. what is one of the most important connections you can have in life?
->your relationship with yourself

249. what memory comes to mind when you think about the ocean/beach?

250. what memory comes to mind when you think about carnivals?

251. what memory comes to mind when you think about water balloon fights or snowball fights?

252. Do you think your parents have thought about killing themselves?

253. Do you think your best friend has thought about killing themselves?

254. How often do you think people have thought about harming or killing themselves.

255. Do you believe in the concept of marriage?

256. what is the worst advice you have ever received?

257. was there ever a time where you were vulnerable and regretted it? if you are comfortable with it, what was the situation?

258. if you could go to any concert, who would you go see?
-> chase atlantic, post malone, cigarettes after ***, ariana grande, the 1975

259. why do you think people protect their pain? what does that look like - to protect one's own pain?

260. what is an acoustic version of a song that sounds better than the studio version?
-> like a rockstar & what u call that & cassie - chase atlantic

261. what is an experience that you wish to never experience again?

262. how do you feel about silence? is its presence comforting?

263. have you taken any drugs? if so and you feel comfortable sharing, what are they?

264. what is advice you would give to your 15yo self and your 40yo self? (a much younger and older version of yourself?)
-> younger self: you are worthy to love; you are worth getting to know and understand; you will one day believe that you are enough and choose healing with a life filled with authenticity that will get challenged; you'll be more unconventional; your way of thinking will not be like most that are around you - this is okay and expected
older self: I hope you are happy and live a life that you chose and not one that you compromised on for the sake of other's happiness and comfortability; I hope you live authentically and continued the process of living actualized as Maslow would saw; I hope you married your best friend that is your match in his own unique way; i hope your communication is better and that your relationships are healthy and boundary enforced

265. if you knew you were going to interview God for thirty minutes and could ask him only one question, what would it be?
-> who am I?

266. what would you do if knew you could not fail?

267. how are you, really?

268. how would you behave if you were the best at what you do in the world?

269. are you finding your dream job or are you creating it?

270. if there was a solution to your anxiety, what would it look like?

271. why are you worth knowing?
-> well, you're sitting in this seat listening to me

272. when was the last time you did something for the first time?

273. how do you treat people who can do nothing for you?

274. do you stack the plates and clean up your table when at a restaurant?
->analyze SES and their behavior to working class

275. what or who lights you up?

276. what would your perfect day look like?

277. what is an underappreciated fruit and vegetable?

278. what is something that guys/girls are insecure of that guys/girls do not really care about?

279. tell me about a time where you threw up in public?

280. tell me something illegal that your family did?

281. what is a word that would always make you laugh whenever you heard or said it when you were a kid?

282. what is the first cuss word you started using often in your vocabulary?

283. if you could be one animal, what would it be?

284. what insect were you the most fascinated by as a kid?
->ladybugs, dragonflies

285. if you could blow one thing, what would it be?
->paint, slaughterhouse, firework stand

286. what emotions would you associate to every color in the rainbow including pink, brown, black, and white? If that is too much, if you could choose one color, what emotion would you assign to it?

287. what is the saddest thing that a person has ever said to you about themselves or their life?

288. if you could be any pair of shoes, what would it be?
->professional rock climber, work boot

289. would you consider yourself to be an addict?
-> I think we are all on a continuum and are all wired to be addicted to dopamine and love we just go about it different ways.

290. if you could have any dog in the world, what would it be and why?

291. if you had to describe love and what it feels like to a young person, what would you say? OR
if a kid asked you what love feels like, how would you answer them?
-> able to feel no judgment and feel free to be who you are without the fear of rejection

292. how would you define healing?

293. how would you know that you are healing or healed?

294. where in your life have you compromised and lived for someone else?

295. what is a thought or idea that scares you?

296. why do you think people protect their pain?

297. how would you like to be cared for when you are experiencing an emotional crisis?

298. what is something that you were told when you were a kid that you have never forgotten because it provoked you so much?

299. who is a friend in your life that you know you should stop the friendship with but you struggle to?

300. what is a motto that you would tell your kids that you have lived by?
->be the man/woman that you would want your daughter/son to marry one day

301. when was the last time anyone ever told you how important you are?

302. Who have you spoken the most genuine I love you to?

303. What social situation are you the most anxious of?

304. What is something that people would never think or associate with you that you’ve thought or done?
-> I love to binge on romance novels, I played the violin and cello, I’ve never been kissed/had a bf, I have a song on all platforms, I’ve had a 4.0 most of my life, I tend to write ****** poems, I was in a drill team for five years, I wasn’t born in America, I love country music

305. What is something you’d like to say to someone who has already passed away?
-> Robertson: I hope you’re proud of me in the way that I am; thank you for supporting me in more ways than one

306. What is something you’d like to say to someone who hurt you badly?
-> i deserved better than your projected insecurities, but I was too naïve to understand any better

307. If you were forced to only listen to three songs on replay during the deed for the rest of your life, what would it be?

308. Like all of us, we are replete with contradictions -> we are walking contradictions. What are yours?
-> a desire for intimacy and a fear of touch/commitment; a desire to be known and a fear of vulnerability

309. Do you think you ever turned a teacher on?

310. What is the greatest lesson that the other person has taught you?

311. if people could not take pictures, do you think they would still drive to the tulip festivals?

312. why do you think we met?

313. which is the hardest for you to say
(1) I love you
(2) I was wrong; I'm sorry
(3) Worcestershire sauce
(4) I need help
(5) I appreciate you

314. what is one of your favorite lines in a song?
-> hoodie on low cuz I stay focused yeah, hard to stay low when everybody notice
-> heart on your sleeve like you've never been loved; I don't feed her fears I feed her habits; type to make you f*ck 'till you finish
->said you needed this heart then you got it turns out that it wasn't what you wanted

315. Are you struggling with your mental health right now?

316. Are you afraid to admit the things that go on in your head?

317. Have you ever met a person that made you so nervous that you avoided them at all costs due to the way that they look?

318. Who is the most selfish person you know?

319. Who is the most selfless person you know?

320. How many Costco hotdogs could you eat in 45 minutes for a hotdog eating competition?

321. What do you put on your Costco hotdog?

322. What’s your favorite cereal brand?

323. Stargazing or sunset?

324. What is an underrated aspect of life that is mundane to most?
-> breathing, eyesight, touch

325. If you could only keep two out of the five senses, which ones would you choose? What if you could only keep one?
-> taste, touch, smell, eyesight, hearing

326. Would you consider yourself to be more black and white or gray in terms of your thinking?

327. What was your favorite kind of candy cane: the peppermint, chocolate, or fruity ones?

328. What’s an American tradition that you do not follow?
-> I'm not a huge fan of chocolate chip cookies, PB cups, peppermint candy canes

329. what do you love most about your family?

330. what is something you would like to change about your family?

331. what is a fashion trend that you think is overrated?

332. what is an aspect about people that you have only encountered a few times in your life?
->humble/ confident authenticity, thoughtfulness

333. what do you think is the ugliest trait one can have?

334. which is worse to be super insecure or to have an inflated ego?

335. would you call yourself a good person? how do you define good?

336. what is something that fascinates you that you think about time to time?
-> reality doesn't really exist; it's our perception of the stimuli in our life that we come to understand as our own reality which is only one side of the narrative. Also, people have conversations that are quite incompatible in the sense that their definitions of words and their life experiences impact how each person enters the conversation. It is like there are two conversations that are being shared and understood in the same space.

337. what is a job that you think is much more difficult to do/live with?
-> acting: how do you separate and keep hold of your authentic self and the characters you play if you can play them really well. Does life become your stage?

338. what is a movie or song that is about to release that you look forward to seeing/listening?

339. how do you feel about your inevitable mortality?

340. what do you think about graves? how do you think society has shaped or challenged your opinion of them?

341. what is a reason for why you cried?

342. when was the last time you laughed so hard you couldn't breath?
-> talking to Bella's family and Devin jumping into the conversation with his friend that his lactose intolerant when we were talking about birth control

343. what is the best vacation that you have had? what made it so special?

345. what is the greatest lesson a friend has taught you?

346. what is the greatest lesson a parent or adult has taught you?

347. what is the weirdest thing you have done with someone in public?

348. have you ever looked at someone while they're doing something like driving, laughing or eating and just smile because they mean so much to you? If so, who?

349. what do you think is the most influential relationship that you have that impacts all other ones that you have?
-> yourself or with your parent(s)/caregiver(s)
-> "never forget that the relationship you have with yourself sets the tone for the relationship you have with everyone else. If you want to work on your relationships, start working on yourself"

350. what was a phase of your life that you would go back to if you have the chance. why?

351. what is a warning that you wish you got before knowing me?

352. what is a question that you have wanted to ask someone but got too nervous to announce?

353. talk about a time where you needed toilet paper but it wasn't there. what did you do? were you in public or at home?

354. what is an instrument that you think is harder than it actually is?
-> the drums!! that is multiple rhythms to keep up with...

355. describe a time where you thought you were going to cry but tried really hard to keep your composure?

356. when you would cry as a kid, what would your parent(s) say? other adults? if they shamed or shut you down immediately, do you still do this to yourself today?

357. what is the craziest drug you have ever taken?

358. what is something you would miss if your home burned down?

359. if you could move anywhere, where would it be? would it be in the city or country?

360. what is knowledge that you wished you knew when you were younger?

361. what is the most expensive item you have bought that you regretted?

362. if you could hug anyone in the world, dead or alive, who would it be?

363. what is the most messed up thing you have seen another person do to another?

364. what do you tend to think about during the time where you are laying in bed and trying to fall asleep? where does your mind tend to go to?

365. what is an event in the future that you are looking forward to?

366. Is a hotdog a sandwich?

367. If you were diagnosed with Alzheimer's and you could remember only one memory, what would it be?

368. What aspect/version of yourself are you the most ashamed of?

369. What aspect/version of yourself are you the most proud of?

370. Is there someone in your life that you hide aspects of yourself from? Do you believe that if they knew all of you unfiltered that they wouldn’t accept you? is this true love?

371. Do you know how to swim? If so, how and where did you learn to?

372. What is a song that makes you cry/emotional? W

373. What song reminds you of another other person?

374. What is the name of a song you will not listen to again because it is too painful?

375. Who has emotionally hurt you the most in your life?

376. When was the last time someone told you that they loved you? How did it make you feel?

377. What did you dream of last night? If you do not remember any dream, then what was your most recent dream?

378. If you had to either eat and **** out of your mouth or *** which one would it be?

379. What's something a stranger said to you that you remember to this day?
-> I think that your body is perfect

380. What is a lesson that the earth has taught you?

381. What is a lesson that your body has taught you?

No sprouted wheat and soya shoots
And Brussels in a cake,
Carrot straw and spinach raw,
(Today, I need a steak).

Not thick brown rice and rice pilaw
Or mushrooms creamed on toast,
Turnips mashed and parsnips hashed,
(I'm dreaming of a roast).

Health-food folks around the world
Are thinned by anxious zeal,
They look for help in seafood kelp
(I count on breaded veal).

No smoking signs, raw mustard greens,
Zucchini by the ton,
Uncooked kale and bodies frail
Are sure to make me run

to

***** of pork and chicken thighs
And standing rib, so prime,
Pork chops brown and fresh ground round
(I crave them all the time).

Irish stews and boiled corned beef
and hot dogs by the scores,
or any place that saves a space
For smoking carnivores.

Destruction of every blunt fate
Dwindling
I’m my washing my plate

I have devised a simple way

To dig the fork
Into this white
Without the knife

Beyond my course
The pieces of the round
Are stripped and strangling forth

I know there are many ways to lift you
To shape you
To cook you

Garlic and gravy
To make you

Mashed potatoes in my mind
What does this mean?
Simple representation of the time

I wonder if I should deal.
Observing the ***** ice
Shaking the cup
Will this suffice?

For my current incision
For my journey
My current decision

1
Backwater nymph,
queen of serpentine black tresses
flaunting its coconut oil gleam;
envy of  leggy girls from the Western ghat mountains,
and lissome  maidens from the plains,
who can never eat as much fish, even if they wish.
Wearing hibiscus flowers,
on coiffure like hood of a king cobra,
your coral lips  silently speak
of hot peppery kisses,
waiting for me at shaded corners.
Your sultry body in me arouses desires,
that could only be whispered in your ears.
2
On a coconut lagoon when we met,
for the first time and spoke,
non stop, as if we knew each other life long,
I heard music in your words.
Oh! in the tongue you spoke,
I heard the cadence of a nightingale
ecstatic, on its wings above the clouds,
love had prompted us to fly above the storms.
Your  gleaming coal black eyes,
like silver hooks, tug at my heart strings,
that makes music, only I can hear,
you are a free flying lark,
above Kerala's lush coconut coast,
that extends from sea shore to the mountains.
3
*When we relished steaming brown rice,
mixed with clarified butter,
with spicy tuna curry, tasting so dainty,
cooked in bubbling sweet coconut milk,
my eyes like two crazy butterflies
circled your face, a blossomed Champak.

Mashed cassava and roasted squid,
melted on our tongues,
in a perfect culinary language
any one would understand without effort.
4
Your lips had cinnamon scent,
spice land's boons,
when we kissed we touched heaven
of scents and spicy tastes.
When our eyes fell on each other,
near the ancient synagogue,
the hay days of which is over,
a long jasmine garland coiling your hair,
    marked you different,
from the  the ladies of your neighborhood,
                                          surroundi­ng you.
How well you did pretend
that you have never seen my face before!

You have mastered love's cunning,
and all the wily tricks to cheat
the enemies of our fiery love
my Freudian mind perfectly understood.
Just imagine the brouhaha we would invite,
when we elope, in the last boat,
to *Alappuzha, stealthily at midnight.

Potatoes, potatoes! They grow in the ground,

When you dig them up they're muddy, brown and round,

Potatoes, potatoes! Delicious mashed,

But they don't taste so good if they've been bashed,

Potatoes, potatoes! Steamy in their jacket,

Potatoes, potatoes! Fresh in their packet,

Potatoes, potatoes! Can be made into chips,

Potatoes, potatoes! Are best when they're crisps!

I.

and I galumphed
to the rock salt
shore and
collapsed
waiting for
you
to run over
the dune’s
*****

II.

it had only been
a few minutes
but I could see
the rhino cloud
coming
full
steam
and spitting
fire
if only I had
the strength
but you stole that
from me
too

III.

the steam was
fresh against
my cracked
skin
I could feel the
salt melt off
into the
sand
crane swinging
jaws engulfing
my twisted
body

IV.

I did not find you
inside
only an
unbreakable bottle
with an
unreachable
note and a skeleton
with rings
on its
fingers

V.

my last dreams
were ones
of us
on a mountain
hot air balloon
shadow
specked against
the sunset
everything was so
big
the wind blew
your hair
everywhere
as I drank
in the
storm
this was the last
time I remembered
smiling

VI.

black expanse
with a little
white dot
popping from
corner to
corner
life always played games
with me
death was no
different

VII.

this creature
feared you
this creature
was a long visit
with fire burning
and love notes
this creature was
spit out by
your mouth
this creature
was loud by
your breath
this creature
spackled and
magnetized
never reborn
boat stench and
teeth
mashed
and mashed
again
raining on
your body as
the desert breaks from
its last
drought

VIII.

we will meet
again
I’m sure of
it.

I remember the jelly bean jar
perched next to the owlish librarian
in my school when I was younger.  
One lucky soul would win a prize
for pulling the right number of jelly beans
out of an air still filled with fancy.
I can’t remember who won the prize,
and I can’t remember what the prize was.

But I guess as selfish minds are wont to do,
I remember the act of guessing.  
It was a childhood of guessing,
and I wonder if any of those guesses were truly wrong?  
When the engine of innocence toils away,
any solution, however fanciful,
can’t be false in a world that finds falsity
in far more veritable places.

I digress back to that jelly bean jar,
packed full of sugar,
and to a young mind,
full of promise.  
To a mind such as mine,
a mind akin to my classmates
who shared my sugary desire for that jar,
any guess was as good as the other,
as long as any guess was your own.  

We clutched ordinary pencils
scribbled on ordinary paper
with our own extraordinary numbers.  
In the basket went these figures most accurate.  

Days during the week passed
with those store brand jelly beans
mashed against each other,
childhood memories turned ordinary pages
wrote with ordinary pencils
until that singular, self-sure number
mashed against pages turned against it.  

However strong that memory of numerology
in a room full of words is etched in my mind; no trace
of the end of the jellybean contest remains in my ledger.
No trace of the disappointment of losing out
on such a treasure trove of tooth decay.  

But I guess this is the way of the mind,
it tends to trace out the positives
while it remains filled with youthful levity,
no weight is imbued in innocent minds,
and so tragedy, loss, and disappointment
float away past untroubled eyes.  

But time rolls on and much like the crushed growth
under an ever-rolling stone,
our lives start to fall harder on softened memories.  
Our lives harden with our heads,
and those days of living out short-lived fantasies
fade with jelly bean guesses.  
So as we mature and feign to seek the truth,
a small part of me keeps a singular page earmarked
for a time when the truth no longer weighs
                                                                              down the air with half-true deceit, and a mind long
abandoned
will return to grasp fanciful ideas
out of an air that’s still light enough
to evade our youthful fingertips.

I say unto you with a sniveling snarl,

Will you go on and be friends with an owl?

Why, YES! I said boldly with a pompety grin

My new owl friend will be lucky and win!

He will hoot and toot a most beautiful song

He will win a singing contest and sing all day long

We will take all his winnings and spend it on mead

We'll sing, drink and be merry, indeed!

we'll capture a horse and dress it in tweed

then ride to the sunset on our horse named, "Sardine!"

Sardine might get hungry so we'll feed him some hemp

We'll lay down to rest on a bed that's unkempt

We'll wake in the morning to see Sardine's fate

Sardine has died from starvation this date

The sorrow we feel is so hard to beat

So opon his flesh we started to eat

w'ell pair it with taters all mashed in a pan

we'll eat up our dinner as fast as we can

but hold on a second, how silly are we!

We tripped on some mushrooms we found on a tree!

our minds started swirling and twirling; so dizzy!

my owl friend shrieked and then started to tizzy

he gouged out my eyes and laughed at my pain

I fell to the ground and made peace with my name

for I never did say from whence I came

cause stories like this are not easy to tame

I lay here in misery, my friend's not to blame

It's all in my head, this silly word game

sayaw, Eriko

isayaw mo lahat ng
sinabi niyang “mahal kita”
na pakiramdam mo’y totoo
nung mga panahong
umaalis kayo ng
isang araw kada-linggo
kasi dinadayo ka pa niya
sa Maynila

sayaw, Eriko

iindak mo at
isigaw mo sa mikropono
ang pabulong niya pa
noong unang sinabi,
“ako na lang,
iingatan naman kita”
sa maulan na gabi na ‘yun
noong iniiyakan mo
pa ang mga pangyayari
na kinagigitnaan mo

isayaw mo, Eriko

itawa mo lang ang sinayaw
niya sa sala mo
noong gabi na ‘yun
mashed-potato lang kuno
‘di ba?

halakhak, napamahal
ka sa mukha niyang
parang pinigang tuwalya noon
hindi naman siya guwapo
gaya ng lagi niyang sinasabi

umaray ka, Eriko

nasipa ka ng katabi mo,
pero naalala mo lamang
ang mga oras na nagsisipa
ka ng bato sa Makati
habang naglalakad kayo,
at kinukwento niya
ang pamumuhay niya noon
sa malayong lugar,
pawis na pawis kayo
pero ngiti niyo’y abot langit

talon, Eriko
palakpak

ilang buwan na rin ang lumipas
noong huli kayo nagkausap
binati mo siya ng
maligayang kaarawan,
kahit ang araw mo nun ay
malayong-malayo sa maligaya,
kapos sa saya,
kapayapaa’y nahahanap
mo lamang pag nandiyan ang
barkada

kalma,
inom ng tubig,
Eriko, kawayan ang bote ng alak,
pero huwag kang lalaklak

hinga,

ipanalangin mo na lang na siya’y
maging masaya,
dahil alam mo naman na
iyon ang tama.

Danny O'Dare, the dancin' bear,
Ran away from the County Fair,
Ran right up to my back stair
And thought he'd do some dancin' there.
He started jumpin' and skippin' and kickin',
He did a dance called the Funky Chicken,
He did the Polka, he did the Twist,
He bent himself into a pretzel like this.
He did the Dog and the Jitterbug,
He did the **** and the Bunny Hug.
He did the Waltz and the Boogaloo,
He did the Hokey-Pokey too.
He did the Bop and the Mashed Potata,
He did the Split and the See Ya Later.
And now he's down upon one knee,
Bowin' oh so charmingly,
And winkin' and smilin'--it's easy to see
Danny O'Dare wants to dance with me.

A baloney sandwich.
Baloney is hardly meat.
A hardly meat and cheese sandwich.
A hardly meat and American cheese sandwich.
American cheese is hardly cheese.
A hardly meat and hardly cheese sandwich.
A hardly meat and hardly cheese sandwich on white bread.
White bread is hardly bread.
A hardly meat and hardly cheese on hardly bread sandwich.
I wanted meatloaf.
I wanted meatloaf with gravy.
I wanted meatloaf with gravy and a side of potatoes.
Mashed potatoes.
I wanted meatloaf with gravy and a side of mashed potatoes.
Hardly meat and hardly cheese on hardly bread is hardly a meal.
Hardly meat and hardly cheese on hardly bread is hardly a last meal.

A leather chair
It's comfy
And the headrest actually fits!
The woman
A nurse of some sort
Explains **** near everything
"This does blaahhh
And that does bluhhhhh
And this other thing does
Blegghhhhh"
Thanks.
Let's just get it over with
Then in comes the dentist
Well
He's an oral surgeon
He tells me his name
And hooks up an IV
And in goes the anesthesia

                    BLACKNESS

A comfy chair
I must be coming to
But in the office?
Then I hear the cat
Ohhhhhh
I'm home
Ok
Cool.
What do you mean?
All I can eat is ice cream?
And mashed potatoes?
Ughh... I wish I was back asleep.

I hated Dawkins a little less when his words came from your mouth.

Your unabashed sincerity endeared me to you from the moment you showed me your vintage Atari. I don't recall if that was before or after you bragged about your Star Trek DVDs. Not that it matters, but I hope you've found a place to store all of those wires protruding out of your gadgets like Medusa's head of snakes.

My family liked you, especially my mother. It was probably your staunch advocacy of 4th amendment rights.

Remember those nights we sat in bed and traded secrets on small scraps of paper? We were lovers  for... five weeks by then? It struck me by the third slip that it didn't matter what it would say--I knew I'd still love you anyway. But I knew that from the moment you removed my knee-high boots and kissed my feet when I rode up on my Harley. You unstrapped my helmet and poured me wine. Though we promised to never tell anyone, I just wanted to say: I still smile when I think of your 15-year-old self trying to pick up a ******* on a desolate dusty road. Do you still have those hastily-written pieces of paper? They're yours to keep; I hope they're safe.

Nothing of my new world reminds me of you. There's no Jeopardy to watch, no NPR to hear in your white Saturn, and no desert mountains to hike. Not in India. Maybe it's because nothing is similar that my memories of us stay so firmly imprinted in my mind. Similarities would only erode my recollections. Maybe that's why I almost forgot about the chai tea I'd serve you in bed, coupled with almonds and apricots on the saucer.

But you, you're a walking encyclopedia of my home town. You knew every cactus-lined freeway, the name of the state attorney general, and the best place to grab a Four Peaks beer. Because of this, I could never extricate my love of home and my love for you. To me, you'll always be home.

For better or for worse, I remember it all. Including the soft piano rift of the chess game we'd play on your XBox. I'm guessing you'd beat me, should we play again today. I still have the wooden chess set I got you for your birthday... but we both know I can't give it to you. I'm sorry.

I never believed in saving people before I met you. Before, damaged was a weakness; now I think you just needed a polish. I never told you, but I read your psych evaluation--I found it when I was cleaning your room (with your permission, I add). The therapist was right: you're not aloof, just too smart for the room. I thank God that you never bought that container of nitric oxide.

I know we said we'd marry if I ever came back home. A no-frills city hall marriage suited us just fine. I have no doubt we would have had a simple, sweet life. You would've relented to letting me get a dog to keep your arrogant cat company. Our biggest fight would be over which castle door the RPG character should open, and you would've helped me improve my golf swing on the inexpensive dilapidated course near my old junior high school.

But likewise... our biggest adventure would've been only a roadtrip to the neighboring county. And I wanted to explore. I needed to explore. You, who never wanted to stray outside of a 100-mile radius could never satiate that curiosity. But I know we could have made it work. I know we would've been happy.

Sometimes I wish we could be the best of friends. I know we can't; not when I started dating my now-husband so close after we ended things in tear-stained emails when I went overseas. He swore off her; I swore off you. That's the way things go, I guess, when you get older.

I know it might seem like I've moved on and forgotten you.

Moved on, yes. Forgotten? Never.

It probably wouldn't be the same if we met again. I have too much love for you that could never be conveyed. My love for you has changed; it's not romantic. But it's still this throbbing appreciation for everything you are. I couldn't bear guarded chit chat. Not with you.

And I hope you are happy. Have you realized your worth yet, or are you still wasting your time with broken high school grads who listen to Ke$ha? I can't tell you who to love... but I hope she's an astrophysicist, someone who loves Carl Sagan even half as much as you. I want her to read Noam Chomsky to you late at night, and wake you in the mornings with a glass of milk and cookies. She'll prefer simple mashed potatoes to dim sum, and have a weakness for microbreweries. She'd be gorgeous in that bookish sort of way. Yes. That's the girl for you.

....I'm sorry it's not me, my dear atheist.

Our pillowed lips
Mashed together
Movements without thought
Tingle our spines

*Eyes closed.
Deep breathes.
Love bites;
Another inch deeper.

Tongue twisted.
Lost for words .
Our lips moist.
Breathes short.

Bites.
Licks.
Kiss.

Where do I start and where should I end,
Its about the wife and her in-between bits,
If she knows this is wrote it will be my end.

She was tight down their is what I could
Say, like ******* a ****** each time, but
No blood unless its that time of the month
If you know what I'm saying.

Then came the kids one, two, three, four,
And what was once tight is now sorely lacking
Even echoes as I sneezed up their before.
I'm not small, seven inches of love meat
If know what I'm saying (WINK).

But when I  go to finger her bits, my hand
to my wrist sinks in, she moans with pleasure
Saying put more fingers in, doesn't she know
That my fist up to my wrist is in.

Then its time she is as wet as could be, she
sits on my lap and I feel water dripping off
My **** hair, she's like a tap dripping on me.

I moan, and she like's it, but I'm moaning
because I don't know if its in. I *** I am
Released, but what once stayed up, now
Doesn't even hit the walls, gravity takes
Over and it falls back on to me, no longer
Warm lands on my ***** and on me freezing
Soggy and cold.

What was once was pretty now looks like
Mashed meat. I love her but how can I tell
Her she now has a bucket, and I feel like a
Pebble in the grand canyon I love her but I
Will soon have to use my foot to **** it
Cutting my nails will she even feel it within....

life is our poetic reality,
you are the best ever
metaphor,
the one poets
keep stealing from
each other,
at the intersection
of our eyes crossing

your disruptive crying poetry,
bring to me in NYC,
and I'll take you to
poetry slams,
tango parties, a real Chinatown,
blow smoke up your nose,
Waltz step on your toes,
drink with you
in Central Park at five am,
visit half a dozen museums,
take you to the ballet,
and then you can maybe,
cross a few to-do's
off of our mutual
intersections

care taken,
if you want hide deep,
but to late for thee and our world,
your name on the roster
of poets by night,
tinkers, soldiers,
and some who tailor
poems bespoke
for the ones who
dare not reveal their true (s)elves
in the words they write.

1431
poems in ye old inbox,
genteel knocking,
whispering thru stolid front door
love me a little lot,
little lot, love me?

these are the holy-of-the-holies
attention-me-crystal-cries,
prayers, wry observations, nature collations,
me and thee adorations,
heart rendering
screams of need,
these are the moments in your life
raw-roughened gifted
or threaded smooth cursed,
but tendered unto my caring

am old man.
my poetic voice is just
memories that are
repetitive lies and lines.

speak in simple sentences declarative.
this is nature's way.

darkness approaching is indeed my
au courant poem, mon actuellement.

I have seen betterdays

ain't young enough to be afraid no more
write what pleases me.

this day leases me
what pleases me
and this is as close as I can come
to being human
and writing my flawless poem.

Anything I can do to keep you,
happy and poetry-free
from midnight
till the **** crows
and slumber trumps
the restless words
that will wait
till mo(u)rning born,
and the kingdom of poetry,
awoken,
comes alive

These four senses all recombinant,
On the cheek, on the tongue,
Wafting, tickling, blasting, visioning
Merging into a single touch
That my pointer finger,
by force majeure,
Declares, here,  poem aborning,
Contract with this moment,
now satisfied.

Al,  what you did not ask was this:
With each passing poem,
I am lessened within, expurgated,
In a sense part of me, expunged,
Part of me, passing too,
Every poems birth diminishes me

long have I searched for my
flawless poem,
knowing it my be
my next one,
each a doorway to the next

this one, and the
one before,
never good enough,
keep the essay going
in fourth gear

I taste skin,
like a good poem,
the cheek, the shoulder bare,
the in between spaces,
the minty hint of décolleté,
the ankle chain,
turning my breath heated,
tips of red noses,
I take and
I keep
and no,
no refunds, no returns

nowadays,
grandpa's tools
outdated, shelved,
in their final
resting place,
blades dulled,
the technology
of his verbiage,
rusted by old age

the reads diminishing,
his touch, antiquated,
his best days, resting on top of
the ocean internet waves
his summertime buddies,
sand sun grass and
sea air perfumes,
singing,
"awe, we got ya,
cosy and comforted,
awaiting you in your chair,
overlooking our truest
sheltered applause"

so I write for me,
write for her,
for with her,
in love's sight,
life is
easy like Sunday morning,
and
that's why I'm easy,
like Sunday morning

wake up unscrubbed,
sleep still in the eyes,
dream crusted,
probably unaware, child,
that you are a poem
sleeping

when a little girl,
reverting, designing
real from dreams,
processing, reforming,
the dreams lusting
to be poems
to go awandering

don't
let the sin memories
of ancient words,
black gold bubble up
with the first striking of the blade

Delve
(excavate your soul deep)
Not

I did not come this poem to write
I did not come to repeat
Solomon's poem,
nothing new under the sun

don't,
daunting
wish to delve into my delusions,
my original sin
the deceit
the conceit
I am unique
I am original

*Experience anew,
Each time,
Say:
This is my first time,
This is my first work

I do not need your validation.
I validate myself
and in doing so,
who else
comes along
for the ride
on our tide?

create with no shame
create with no measuring stick
only this:
everything that is done well
                           is good art

Be Fertile and Radiate

Glades and Creeks.

One day in a journey far far away,  the forest was speaking to a lone wanderer.
"I am quite the clean forest, am I not?." The forest whispered soothingly.
"Mmhm." Spoke the wanderer, passive by such an interjection.
"Of course. Thousands of forests have wilted and died under the hand of man. I remain lush and brimming to the birch with life."
"Where is my way out of here?" The wanderer asked, becoming quite needy at the thought of having to spend the night in that dung-infested greenhouse.

The forests name was Evergreen. Allot of forests were named Evergreen. This forest had just been sold cheaply to a large logging firm who would come and tear the ugly trees down. The proprietors of that sale was a tribe of Indians. The specific agent who devised and contracted the sale was named Nahiko. An Indian tribesmen who, like his ancestors could speak to the forest.

Indians were what Europeans called people from India and natives of America. Allot of Indians in America were killed for being Indian. When an Indian boy came of age, they would be thrown into a jungle and starve until they saw an animal spirit. This was probably prelude to eating said spirit animal while thanking it for helping him live on.

"I, Evergreen implore you to stay within my womb of plant and fauna."
"Hm." replied the wanderer. Not wanting to argue.
The wanderer took a seat beside a flowing creek on a rock. The creek lead up to waterfall, which in turn lead through a river that spanned for miles. The river did not speak as it was an extension of the forest, Evergreen. Down the creek was the old homes of the Indian tribe.
"Have you ever saved someone else?" The wanderer asked.
"My yes, of course. Everyone who is to enter without water or food is rescued by my charming animals! And luxurious streams. I am quite hospitable you see. There was a tribe who lived within me, they were by name called the Perchil tribe. But they had to leave for more. Hmph. As if anything up in that ****** town is worth more then me."

Further up the river, away from the forest was a town named "Milan". It was named after a kingdom of the same name in Italy. People in Milan spoke German. This was odd given Milan lay in south America, but not unusual given its history of being a port to German slave traders who came from a German colony called "Tanganyika" in Africa. The town was named Milan because the Germans wanted to appear more Italian. This desire was apparent in their most famous dishes "schnitzel Pizza" and "Pasta Salsiccia". Pasta Salsiccia was pasta in a sausage casing often served with tomato sauce and mashed potatoes.

Perchil was also a member of that Indian tribe. He was Nahiko's brother and had a family of his own. Perchil was born in Evergreen and educated in Milan. He had been fighting with Nahiko over the terms of sale of the forest. Nahiko had wanted to preserve the land of old tribe. Perchil was already drawing up plans to sell it to an oil foundry. Their land happened to be on top of a great oil reserve. That means allot of animals lived and died on that land millions or thousands of years ago. There body would dissolve into a black gooey liquid used to fuel heavy machinery. This machinery is used by logging firms to cut down not exclusively, forests named Evergreen.

The wanderer, feeling awkward asked. "So, you'd rather not want to be destroyed?"
"Oh, I am a forest and I do maintain a will of my own and wants. But I cannot rather things should be anything other than what they are. The world is a destructive place. It is disrespectful of its former home and ancestry. I know this. I have tried however, to ward off the workmen by scaring them with my animals. In the end I shall become a town or a shopping mall."
In 3 years time, the deed to "Evergreen plains, Milan" would be sold and used to build a shopping mall named aptly "Evergreen Mall". And the forests voice would be spoke out of loudspeakers, but in the form of either a pre-recorded message or announcement about a lost child. Nahiko and Perchil would be married in Evergreen Mall. Nahiko three times.

"Oh woe is me, I lament my lost brothers and sister forests who are no longer beaming and prideful of their enormous trees and crested riverbanks."
"Maybe they should have defended themselves better." The wanderer spoke, trying unsuccessfully to show concern.
"Well, I for one will never give up fighting the man!"
"Good for you." The wanderer then ate his lunch.

Three days from now, the forest would stop speaking to anyone who arrived within its borders and see the lone wanderer again. But this time, he would be protected by four glass windows inside a piece of machinery powered by black gooey liquid called a "harvester" which lifted up wood and cut it into easily transportable pieces.

"Do you, believe in god wanderer?" The forest asked, to strike up some conversation.
"I do believe in god. He's the reason I get up in the morning and assists me in supporting my family."
"I don't. I don't think I believe in god, wanderer. If he exists, how could he let something so beautiful as I and my brother and sister forests be turned into shopping malls and townships like Milan."
The evergreen forest had seen the name "Milan" as a city nearby on a poster which flew into the twig of its tree. The poster was now lying on smooth ground weighted down by a root, as so the forest can read it over and over again. The poster advertised Pasta Salsiccia at a local restaurant in Milan. It had appetizing pictures of Pizza with crumbed steak on it and Pasta filled Sausages.
"God once flooded the earth, destroying all forests and people for their misgivings. Maybe you misgave and people are your divine punishment."
The forest grew silent and whispered soft hymns of wind against the leaves and overgrown shrubbery.

The edge of the creek, where the wanderer sat on a rock had a hard sand that stretched out a few meters disappeared into the dirt. It was unusual to see a small bed of sand without any other visible placements of sand. The wanderer had been dumping it there, with permission from the forest so he could form a base to store his harvester. The forest did not know of the sands purpose, she thought it looked pretty.
"If I were god, the world would be nothing but forests!" Evergreen stated. The gentle words turning a harsher coarse crackling of branches.
"The world seems to be nothing but people right now. Maybe gods a man."
"Unlikely! If god was a man, he would certainly love forests enough to never cut them down."
"Hm." The wanderer was dissatisfied with this explanation, but didn't want to argue.

"Would you **** anyone who came into your forest, just to prove a point?" The wanderer asked, waiting pensively.
"Oh no, as I said. I cannot change what already is and certainly would not bloom the effort to try. Besides. I also know about those people and their weapons. When it comes to human beings, no matter how hard I fight they will always win. How they ever came to develop boom guns and ratatatat chainsaws I have no idea. If they came from my forest, people would certainly have never developed tools so cruel and menacing. But, I suppose Eden had her way for you. Even if it was, at the cost of all our kind."
"Yeah. No matter forest or person, people always win. I'll always be below some rich powerful man too." The wanderer felt melancholy for feeling unimportant. The forest felt the same melancholy for her life and the world.

Suddenly and finally, a noise came from the wanderers pants. He then picked out his phone, clicked it and took it to his ear. After two hours, the wanderer walked east and out of Evergreen forest. He visited her three days later in his noisy harvester. made to cut wood. He parked on his sand bed. The wanderer left his harvester and locked the door without a word. Evergreen forest was properly harvested of its trees in 3 years time. Never uttering a word or complaint. The painted marking on the harvester she saw everyday however, was her last thought as she disappeared. The word painted onto the door of the harvester, its operator. "Perchil."

The origin of spiritual sustenance is defined differently by each person. Most attribute it to a divine power or some God incarnate that helps us, limited corporeal beings that we are, relate to a deity or to the infinite. Like billions of other sentient souls, this is a way of "seeing" or believing that I have embraced on some level. However, when I ask myself what sustains me beyond this, I am taken down another path.

That path leads me to the crumbling adobe dwellings or sometimes to the freshly painted stucco buildings scattered across the great southwest. That path leads me to something more tangible or palpable than I can glean from traditional halls of worship. I am led instead to a simple yet profound vision--the sight of a hot plate of Mexican food.

Here is where a slight or perhaps dramatic shift in the way one thinks about the spirit is required. This is not necessarily a new concept but merely my take on it. You have all heard of "Soul Food" as it applies to the cuisine of the African American community or more generically in recent years, "comfort food". Also, some of you may recall me saying at one time or another, truly good junk food bypasses all vital organs and goes straight to the spirit. Let me clarify that last line--it is not that I believe the physical laws of the universe are suspended when one eats certain kinds of food—calories will still be consumed, the food digested and metabolized, etc. Instead, I believe, like so many things spiritual, eating Mexican Food transcends the natural laws of the universe as we know them.

This begs the question, why Mexican food as opposed to some other fare like Chinese or good old fried catfish, a southern favorite? The answer is simple. Some people, because of where they were, who they were, and when they were, are Christians, some are Hindus, some are Muslims and some are witches. I am a worshipper of Mexican food.

My sustenance, therefore, comes not from those in polished marble and stone palaces, clad in clerical garb and carrying holy texts. Instead, it comes from humble servants scurrying about hot kitchens doing what they do perhaps simply to feed their families—from my point of view, a noble endeavor in and of itself.

From the time I see a Mexican eatery through a bug-splattered windshield, I notice its energy or aura. When I open the door and see the gaudy but somehow authentic colors on sombrero covered walls, and hear playful Mariachi, and smell the frying tortillas, I know I have entered one of the houses of the holy. Truly, the colors, the sounds, the sights and the smell all take me to a higher place.

This sounds strange to most readers I am sure, but if I were speaking of a nature walk in dew covered grass among the scent of lofty pines, listening to the sound of songbirds, all could relate to its transcendent quality. We somehow place pristine nature above nature sculpted in a way for human benefit. I do this myself, except when it comes to Mexican food or perhaps a beautifully restored VW van, but that is another story.

To return to my original premise, the spiritual value of Mexican food—when the hot oblong platter is placed in front of me, I first notice its colorful array on the plate. Imagine a platter with red and blue corn chips, gray/brown frijoles covered with white cheese, orange rice, chili verde (green), a golden cheese covered enchilada, olive green guacamole, red ripe tomatoes with rich green cilantro and snow white onions, and last of all deep green jalapenos, forming a colorful tapestry and visual feast. (Contrast this with a hunk of brown steak, pale green peas, and a white glob of mashed potatoes.)

The scent of this feast immediately attacks my olfactory bulb and like so many smells, has the power to evoke startlingly clear memories. For me, I am taken to a place where the door opens to a moonless starry sky. I am in the desert, perhaps for the first time. I am in the desert, being courted by the dark desert lady who still haunts my soul in the night. I go back there so many nights, when all is quiet and my long day’s journey into night is finished. This vast, dark and inhospitable land that has called holy men to it through the ages calls me, a man as common as the cook whose labors unwittingly took me there. I huddle among the cacti, creatures who ask the earth for so little. I feel the endless winds that carry the remnants of a thousand ancient souls across the black Sonoran sky and rattle the door from where I came, as if still asking for entrance to a place where they can no longer dwell. Long ago, they returned to the desert for a final time, and now, a thousand nights and a thousand miles away, they mix with the holy night air as only desert dust can, and for a moment tempt the living, but then return to the black night. I do not yet join them—the door still opens to me. I can still see the colors, hear the sounds and place earthly but heavenly morsels in my mouth, and ask for more salsa.

Outside, in the dark desert, the night waits for me, but I have a few more bites to take, and a few more words to write, and to borrow a line from another, a few more miles to go before I sleep—thus, the spiritual value of Mexican food.

"and you don't know what I look like,
when I'm not in love with you."

how true is that for me,
there are days I remember so clearly,
no dry eyes, wise guy,
but you and me i see what we were,
what I thought we'd become to be,
and other days I gaze out not understanding what it was that brought me there,
not understanding the who and was when I was with you,
how did i feel so complete when you were completely lacking,
im not talking about the things you warned me you were packing,
but what it was that ate at you,
dry bones,
and whiskey,
i don't know how you could have left me,
i supported the world you ran,
and i am just another atlas carrying around the boulder of a lost lover,
roll over.
turn over.
start over.
over and over,
these are the things that play strings on my heart beat,
and my hearts beating,
no thanks to you.
I'm left with mashed potato memories,
lines across my lips, of lies you left there for me.

Condoms, oil burners, shattered glass

The homeless homies homemade shizz

Now Chris can't sit still in class

Pounding the pavement with kisses to heaven

All hustlers sell

Dippin Dots

Wrapped in latex

Liquid to vapor overkills

The loss of will

From after parties after hours

Romancing the ******

On the corners

Quag **** hits schism

Asphalt littered with

Shattered flowers

Them chicks on the streets

Ladies of the night

Its matter of fact

Mr. Hightower / boulevard's class

For the hard ***

**** poor "G" learning how

To trample through his ghetto

As she masters each one

******* hand / jive and mashed

Chris and his gang

Up for sale (hot-**** **** jello *****)

For white hyperions and

Black mellow

Cached

Out / yellow bellied / thin

Such barefooted souls

Marrow

Easiest to break

When already hollow...

(Guilt and shame is a gun

To the temple

And heart

Chambers

Such souls all hollow)

Those Outs Within...

There
is.... a knarnley creature
resting, waiting, seeking
the pounce.
A lifetime of gold awaits thy
asleeps but under her blanket
restful slumber
Hark!
Oh the bells
the bells as they are ringing
in the steeple in the courtyard
She awakens
The knarley creature
aint feelin dat 10 a.m
fridgeworthy
solid
solidness
blender
of feelings
being mashed
mixer of emotions
like a mixed drink
at uptown
maybe a gin and tonic
idk...

I remember Sunday dinner
that granny used to make
enough to feed an army
piled on each and every plate

three kinds of potatoes
boiled, mashed and roast
Chicken, pork & roast beef
and a glass of wine to toast

and veggies from her garden
that grew right there herself
no canned corn from Guatemala
would you find upon her shelf

there'd be carrots, peas and parnips
brocolli & cabbage too
and anything that wasn't ate
ended up in her famous stew

but desserts, they were the best bit
there was custard, pies and tarts
an the only bad thing 'bout it all
was knowing where to start

She yelled from the bottom of the stairs

"What the **** are you DOING!?"

My neighbor, Mr. Monroe with the mustache, ring on every finger and a parrot that talked, pressed his face to the glass to look down at her.

"What the **** are YOU looking at?"

Mr. Monroe quickly went back to his day time soap operas and corn flakes. He never left the house because he believed their was going to be a grand earthquake where everyone that was outside getting food, shopping or at the beach, would die. He told me he believed that his house was a fortress and that God or mother nature or what have you could never touch him if he just stayed holed up in his room with his corn flakes and bath robes and old Sunday newspapers.

"HEY GUY, LET'S GO!"

I gingerly stepped out of my place. I stared up at the sky which was blue spattered with white clouds that were inching slowly toward the ocean. It was a beautiful day.

"******* FINALLY. What were you DOING?"

"Just getting myself a little more ready then usual."

"WHY?"

"I'm nervous or something."

We were headed to a dinner with my parents. I was going to introduce them to Alice and wanted to make sure all my pampering was in order, my mother could always tell if I forgot to comb my hair or use deodorant, my father didn't care. I walked cooly and lightly down the stairs.

"Well you smell like a laundry mat people have been drinking and ******* in."

"Thank you baby."

I kissed her on the cheek, waved up to Mr. Monroe who had gently re-placed his face upon his living room window, and headed to my car.

---

"So what you are you gonna' say to them about me?"

"I'll tell them we have a lot of *** and like movies."

"Really?"

"I don't know. Why not?"

"Seems strange."

"Were strange."

"What if we get married and they say that at our wedding and its awkward and my parents get mad."

"I'm not thinking that far off."

"Well you ******* SHOULD!"

Alice opened the window and stared out at the ocean which passed by with blinking blue reflective lights, beach combers and sand dune cops. There were many surfers wading in the light blue water waiting for the NEXT BIG ONE. I thought it was funny how they could sit out there for so long, not doing anything, and call it some kind of religion. I liked the idea of doing nothing and it saving you, I wanted to join but I was afraid of sharks.

"Do you want to get married to me?"

"No."

"I wouldn't either."

We drove down the highway but hit a big block of heavy traffic. We were gonna be late.

---

By an instinct I acquired either by fate, magic or the hand of the GOOD LORD, I ordered a hamburger with curly fries. The waiter was a young kid fresh out of college with a messy head of hair and a slight limp stuck on his right leg, he said it came from a biking accident but the kid looked like a scrapper.

My mother was alone on the other side of the table while Alice intensely examined the menu. There were clouds in her eye not of insecurity but of determination for my mother to accept her and pull no punches, when she wanted something she got it, like me.

"To start I am so sorry about your father not being here. He didn't come home last night and I haven't heard from him all morning so I suspect he forgot and slept at the office to get an early start on this Friday morning."

"It's fine Mrs. Kindle. I just feel so BAD for you."

"No worries. It is sweet of you to say though."

"Very sweet Alice. Yeah, I'm sorry Mom. Dad's an *** like that sometimes."

"Yes he is."

The water was warm when the waiter brought it. I hadn't looked at the menu but everyone was ready to order. I was thinking about my father all holed up in his on-site construction office, sweating over blue print over blue print, re-examining every last comma, every last note until it was "perfect". He had tried to get me into the business but I always hated a path that had already been trampled and organized upon, I didn't see the point.

"So how did you guys meet?"

"We actually met at one of Joe and Abe's parties."

We actually had met at a hot bar with loud music and cheap drinks with the wind ripping men and women to pieces outside and the bar man said we looked like we would make a good couple but we had never even looked or talked to each other but because this one little bartender in this one little hot tiny bar gave us the idea that maybe, just maybe, we would be good for each other I bought Alice a drink and then, thinking it would be funny and how she hates cliches, she bought me a drink and we got very drunk within the dark heated bar with the people swinging back and forth with the loud quick hipster electronica madness that spun all around us invisible in the smoke and the liquor and the cigarette smoke and there, in that dark steamy bar, we talked and talked and talked until I got a little drunker then her and she took me home, which we laughed about in the morning after we had drank a couple glasses of wine and tried to have *** but were both to drunk to talk or have *** or even kiss for that matter, we fell asleep on top of each other's faces and both of our necks were twisted and hurting in the morning.

"We call it "Our Spontaneous Romance".

"Very funny."

"Alice, do you know what you want yet?"

Alice, keeping her eyes down on the menu not looking up for a second.

"Not quite."

My mother shifted in her seat, she was getting anxious because she wanted to eat and she was worried about my dad. He'd been "busy" with many "things" that he "didn't like to talk about" or was "too tired to talk about" and it made my mom shift and silently sigh after every conversation either about the subject or related too.

"I'm going to have the soup and the sandwich"

"Turkey sandwich and salad for me."

"Healthy."

"Have to be."

"One sec..."

"OK."

"No rush."

"Mashed potatoes and gravy and ribs, that's what I want."

"Very nice..."

"Very nice."

"Thank you."

Alice was nervous. She ate mass amounts of food when she was either nervous or in tight confined places where she needed to converse but had absolutely nothing to say, the large order was her scapegoat and she would later blame it on *******, anxiety and depression, half of which was probably my fault. Alice didn't want to meet the parents, she thought it pointless, a waste of time and pushing towards something that may not even actually happen. She believed being invisible in a phenomenal world was the only way to go through life and in some respects, I agreed with her but also, I knew deep down, she was a little crazy, as was I.

---

"Thank you for meeting Alice and I for lunch Mom."

"Not a worry at all, I'm sorry about your father."

"I'll talk to him later."

"It was very very nice meeting you, very nice."

Alice and my mother shook hands cooly and suspiciously underneath the 3 o'clock sun. They hadn't talked much at lunch and I honestly didn't know how it went at all, they spoke about their food and that was it. Perhaps they neither hated or liked each other, maybe they were simply indifferent towards each other's presence and what they meant to me at all. They smiled, Alice waved as did I as my mom drove away down the hot black top. Alice, still waving said.

"Horrible, that was just horrible."

"I thought it went right as it went, neither here nor there."

"We didn't talk about anything but the food."

"Maybe that's all there was to talk about, some people meet and have absolutely nothing to say to each other, happens more then you think."

"Sounds right must be right."

"Let's go."

We both walked to my car which was boiling hot inside, the kind of hot when you enter when one wishes they couldn't breathe. We quickly opened the window turning on the radio listening to an old blues station for a second. I but the gears in reverse and slowly backed out of the restaurant parking lot as Alice neatly put on her dark sunglasses and rubbed sun tan lotion on her face, leaving a small patch on the tip of her nose. I paused the car before entering onto the main road.

"Let's get married Alice."

"I was about to say the same thing."

I pulled onto the main road home, nearly getting in an accident with a road biker who shook their fist violently toward my gleaming fender. I lightly smiled, embarrassingly laughed to myself, merging on. We were off.

what stefan zweig mentioned -
of the 19th century’s inability of being
fond of its youth including robespierre responsively
in the revision invoking the polar dialectics of reconsideration -
i too can claim of similar recount
from the 21st century a fated twinning -
even though i lived in the last years of the twentieth
i allow myself very crude comparisons
to ease ageing.
sure stefan knew a thing or two about hölderlin
in the descriptive localisation, given that hölderlin:
being of those disfavoured remnants of engagement with eugenics
revived very little hope of a bored aristocracy, so that
nietzsche came along and militarised the priesthood
leaving the pope on a pulpit of celebrity power
in a pyramid scheme of posing queues kissing the foreheads of babies
with duran duran in the background shooting the video: toddlers on film.
but that’s how it all appears,
that the 21st century lost the care for the cares of the young
and gave them unto the gnashing teeth of the psychiatric
machine, diagnosing them too early with too much so that
when the poetic version of don mc’lean’s american pie
came with the opening: a long long time ago,
how that music used to make me smile,
and i knew that if i had my chance... but something
touched me deep inside the day the poetry died - it
was simply vowels in refrigerators and consonants in d.j. uplifts
for the aura of a monetary capitalistic saturday
of neons contorting mascara into afterglow of the oomph oomph
sick ‘em slick ‘em drumkit snare galoshes in puddles in electronic repeat on the dancefloor, added with
boom boom baby celluloid - flowers in hula hoops of disco sound  
and aversions with b & w western depictions of lassoed bulls convened
to remember corrida de toros (no one lassos an animal one milks) -
by then it really just turned into very apathetic mandarin on the count of two billion and the six billion english accents with the martians included in the 3 : 1 fraction, as if it was supposed to be
the final stance of the crucified & crucifying iconoclasts resolved
like with the neanderthals.
what we need... what we need... is a little bit of horror!
imagine me, doing the cricket dance in cobwebs as: bone daddy -
although fatter and therefore funnier, like it was worth picking the boogies
as if counting bones before kissing a hopeless idealism entombed in your heart.