Two villages coexisted peacefully, no interactions
maybe some discussion on boundaries, treaties for peace and trade.
An extraneous rumor appeared in one of these villages.
No one was sure where it had started.
Someone mentioned they had seen beastly faces emerge in the night horizon.
The whispers made its way through
soon the town was mortified.

The others, they were observing us.
What could they want that they could not communicate overtly?
The villagers made a decision to protect themselves,
their lives,
their happiness –their status quo
that had been so well kept; now jeopardized by fear.  

Traders continued their interactions,
sharing goods and language.
The ignorant village heard the small-talk,
the covert operations the coinciding people had been ruminating about.

The newly-informed town magnified and mutated
the gossip;
the folk were riddled with anxiety.
If their neighbors were under threat,
what was stopping them from being the next target?  
This xenophobia was to destroy them.

The two ostracized each other;
initial misperception grew
to a common hallucination amongst the people,
they prepared for the worst scenario.

As humanity goes,
somewhere a zero-sum game emerged.

A council was held,
all that they had known was their own home
and the adjacent peoples.
There was nothing else in the known world,
it must be the others.
They are planning on something villainous,
why else the secrecy?

Cut trade, be vigilant, ostracize.
The other village noticed something amiss
Calamity must be in path.
Taking up arms, arranging a force to handle any offenses, and establishing a wall;
they would not fall.

Feud was conceived.
This is the drive of a mind
who incessantly wonders why and how
a devouring morality.

I digress from the story: the villages, armed and defense ready,
see the village that they once knew as peaceful neutrals
once tranquilly existed transformed to potential threats
for they could overthrow the opposing village.
I should be unconquerable
but I know the kisses stealing my breath come with every
inhale,
exhale; my kryptonite is facing life.

I choose to face that fiend
which wouldn’t let me actually give up when there is so much unknown out there.
It’ll haunt me with the damages that I dealt to the allure yet provocation preserves me.

The two villages are within me.
One is the soul depleting, ego-hunting energy ****,
the other is the false hope that I
can change things-
that things are within my control-
that I’ll fake a smile and a real one will appear.

Two hemispheres connected in a skull,
failing to synchronize
a miscalculating rational with a quixotic imaginative vision.

These two villages smoulder;
the clashes zigzag my intentions.
I just wish I knew
what that fictitious, fruit of the grapevine generated monster even was.
It’s been ages since this conflict ignited,
I don’t think any villager knows why they fight each other perpetually,
other than survival.

There are few times in your life,
That you can say you're close to something massive.
In which you've almost achieved something truly remarkable.
For some, the final moment of college,
The baby countdown, but for me...
Today marks the the beginning of the countdown to the end

This day, 11 months ago I happened to stumble upon someone I never knew would become such an important and big part of my life. Never did I expect the shy girl I'd met online in late December, would make such a tremendous impact on my life.
First came the awkward "hello"
Followed by a sincere introduction
(In which I'd be guilty of miscalculating gender... oh will I ever live that one down hides in shame)
It's one of the most beautiful things to fall in love
Even more so to feel the butterflies in your stomach grow everytime you see them come online.
Talking to you, became the only thing I wanted to do!
I'd rush home from school to jump on and game with you, talk with you and laugh with you whilst getting to know you all the more better.
We would spend hours on school nights, living in the happiness of eachothers company.
It is truly something, when you can look at a name on the screen as they  type, and realize you are
Completely
Utterly
and mind numbingly in love with someone based solely off who they really are
No looks, no sounds. Just personality and who the person is for them
You see I fell head over heels for you my love, you were perfection
It wasnt until a few months later that I caught a glimpse of what you looked like and honey, it was like seeing an angel in the flesh and boy did I fall hard for you. Call me obsessive, call me addicted. You were the only thing on my mind.

March 9th 2015,
"I know I say this alot but thank you. Thank you for always being there for me when I'm down in the dumps, to be quite honest, your the person I've grown close to most in my entire life. Thank you for l-liking me, y-you don't know how much it means to me...I-I'm really s-shy I know and t-this may make you feel a-awkward... b-but...I-I like you too h-hehe and I d-don't say the actual L w-word because it's embarrassing... I just wanted to let you know you mean the world to me..." - Sweet words that changed my life and I'll never forget them

Today marks just, one month from our one year anniversary.
Something I never thought I'd get to experience with anything,
Let alone someone like you.
I love you so freaking much,
You, my other half, complete me and I cannot thank you enough for everything and anything.
I'm sorry that it had to be celebrated,
With you at school
and 4hours of driving between us
But that makes it no less special because wherever you go
You'll always have me in your heart **
                                                              ­                                                *~ Ryan

These cold months leave me haggard
Breathless, as I struggle to regain my grip
Slipping through plains of uncertainty
Seeking that evasive simplicity

Scoffing at past words of comfort
That so gallantly wrapped the falsehood
Of time and its fabled curative powers
How I have been eagerly deceived

Jaded breath travels forward
Seeking concord in old and battered retentions
To only be limited by brooding reality
Where lays my pool of forgetting?

Utterances wisp past insistently
Avowing it to be just beyond
While others toy and slowly slither
Hissing of its non-existence

By miscalculating step I fumble
Mind drained of all, but shelled rummage
As it seeps into my frame
Ever hunting that eradicating amnesia

“They say everything can be replaced,
Yet every distance is not near”

”I shall be released” Bob Dylan

                            ~~~~~~~

this fragrant lyric,
burro-stubborn, hot burr burrows,
into an old man’s deteriorating brain,
one who spends nowadays, mending,
stretching short hours to feel lengthy,
by reviewing the distances he has travelled,
means/meanings to/for unalterable endings

when time hurries
to shrink distances
tween them points,
of incidents logged,
forking roads, always
wrongly chosen,
safety over bravery,
easy pain over hard love,
miscalculating time
and memory,
prioritizing avoidance
of the unknowns ******* up
the risk of the best laid guesses,
those things that come to be
the chiefest fete of contradictory
ironies, the travelogue nearly done,
what never happened
cannot be replaced.

he sings dirges
for the remains of the day
and other things vaguely recalled.

2/2/2022 ~  7/17/2022