There is nothing new under the sun, but it was night and the indifferent blinks of gaseous lives above looked down while my friends and I were at a new fast food joint that moved next to a now lonely Wendy's, with a faded sign tarnished by something the new fast food joint had yet to experience—mundanity by time. But I had my notebook with me while we ate outside, but it was in the car. My mind is always in that book, and I remembered something I had written for a novel in progress: 'Nothing is new under the sun. How is it possible to watch stars die? There is nothing new to their dust. We are the flies of the universes.'
It was just when I had finished my BBQ pork sandwich when Ariana suggested visiting a graveyard. I had the idea to visit a Satanist graveyard that our friend, Lanessa warned us against for the better safety of our sane souls—good luck with that. I wanted a revival of fear. How the beast would rip at the roof off our metal can of a car—the greater our barbarism, the greater our admiration and imagination—the less admiration and imagination, the greater our barbarism. But Ariana disagrees with words I never say, Nick laughs with my simple words to that previous thought. How funny it would be to burn eternal.
But then he suggested we should go to the Trussel in Conway. I had no idea or quote to think about to contribute to this idea. I wander, as I like to, into the possibility that his idea is a good one. Like some wanting hipster, I dress in an old t-shirt with of mantra long forgotten in the meaning of its cadence.
That is the march of men and women into the sea—honest, but forgetful and forgotten.
I was wearing a shirt sleeve on my head I bought from a mall-chain hippie store, and exercise shorts, finished off with skele-toes shoes. I was ready for everything and nothing at the same time. And that fits, I suppose. But all that does matter—and doesn't, but it is hard as hell to read the mind of a reader—it's like having a lover, but s/he doesn't know what s/he wants from you—selfish *******.
But there I was,  on the road, laughing in the back seat, sitting next to a girl who was tired, but also out of place. I could see she wanted to close arms of another, the voice of another, the truth that sits next to her while watching tv every time she comes over to hang with him, but never accepts that truth. She is a liar, but only to herself. How can she live with that? The world may never know.
The simple rides into things you've never done before give some of the greatest insight you could imagine, but only on the simple things that come full circle later. That is a mantra you can't print on a t-shirt, but if it ever is, I'm copyrighting it. And if it's not possible, I'll make it possible!
When we got to the Trussel, the scenic path lit by ornamented lamps seemed tame once I stepped onto the old railroad tracks. They were rusted and bruised by the once crushing value of trains rolling across it's once sturdy structure. Now they were old, charred by the night, and more than just some abandoned railroad bridge—the Trussel was a camouflage symbol birthed by the moment I looked into a Garfish's eye as it nibbled on my cork while I was on a fishing trip with my granddad when I was eleven. I remember that moment so well as the pale, olive green eye looked at me with a sort of seething iron imprint—I needed that fear, it branded instead of whispering that knowledge into my ears.
That moment epitomizes my fear of heights over water—what lies beneath to rip, restrain, devour, impale, and or distract me.
But epitomize is a horrible word. It reeks of undeveloped understanding. Yet  I want a nimble connection with something as great as being remembered—a breathe of air and the ideas  thought by my younger self, but I will never see or remember what I thought about when I was that young—only the summary of my acts and words. And by that nothing has changed—am I too afraid to say what I need to say? Too afraid to hear what everyone else hears? Or is it the truth—depravity of depravities that has no idea of its potential, so I am tired of the words that describe my shortcomings and unextended gasping hope. I am tired of living in the land of Gatsby Syndrome waiting for Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy!
But when we got to where the Trussel actually began I felt the fear hit like the day it was born—all hope was drained, and I was okay with abandoning all aspirations of having fun and being myself in the face of public criticism. I was flushed out by the weasel in my belly—the ******* beneath those still waters. I compare it to someone being able to handle Waterboarding, but can't handle being insulted—it's that kind of pathetic.
I stood just on the last understandably steady railroad ties that I knew were safe and watched my friends sit off the edge of the bridge, taking in the cold wonder of the night, and I was told at least I was smarter than my dead cousin who managed to get on top of his high school in the middle of the night, but had to be cohearsed down for fifteen minutes by a future marine, and future mourner who still grieves with a smile on his face.
The future mourner, he laughs at the times he insulted, or made fun of, or chilled with his now dead friend. It's never the bad times he cries about, there are none—just the good times, because they don't make them like they used to.
I watched them in that moment, and I don't know if I can deal with knowing my life is real. I began to blame my morality on this fear even though I already justified the fear just seconds before. But as I write this, I look over my notes and see something I wrote a few days ago: 'Life is ******* with  us right now. You laugh and I laugh, but we're still getting ******. The demon's in our face.'
As morbid as that comes off, it resonates some truth—what is killing us is going to **** us no matter what we do—and I don't want to be epitomized by the acts and words I didn't say.
I was never in the moment as a kid—I was raised by by old people and kept back by my younger siblings. The experienced tried to teach me wisdom, and the inexperienced kept my imagination locked in time. I don't want to go home as much now because I see that the inexperienced are becoming wiser everyday and the experienced are dying before my eyes. My idea of things is enduring leprosy.
But back to the simple moments.
Ariana saw a playground as she stood up and investigated the Trussel. It was next to the river, behind the church, fenced off by the fellowship of the church to keep the young ones in and the troublesome out. Of course, we didn't realize there was a gate and it was locked until Nick stated the probable obvious within ten feet of the nostalgic playground. And that's when Ariana pointed out the bugs swarming the parking lot outdoor lamp that blazed the fleshiness of our presences into dense shadows and more than likely caught the eye of a suspicious driver in a truck passing by. But I was still on the bridge—back in the past, never the moment. Me and my friends are still children inside these ***** forms. I muttered to myself: “Life ain't about baby steps.”
Nick looked over and asked what I said. I turned around, dramatic, like I always like to and repeated louder this time, “Life ain't about baby steps.”
He asked if I needed to do this alone, and I said he could come along. I walked rhythmically across the railroad ties, and heard Ariana comment that getting to the railroad up the small, steep hill was like being in the Marines. I laughed sarcastically. Nick and I had been to Parris Island before, and I know they test your possible fears, but they beat the living **** out of them.
I casually walk into the room where my fear lives and tell it to get the **** out.
When I reached the precipice of the last railroad tie I stood on before, I felt the old remind me that death awaited me, but there was no epic soundtrack or incredible action scene where I stab a manifestation of my fear in heart—a bit fun it might have been, but not the truth. I bear-crawled over the crossings of the ties and the structure of the bridge itself. I felt Relowatiphsy—an open-minded apathy self-made philosophical term—take over me. It is much simpler than it sounds.
There was no cold wonder as I imagined. There was just a bleak mirror of water below, a stiff curtain of trees that shadowed it, and the curiosity of what lies in the dark continuing distance past the Trussel.
Nick sat with me and we talked about women and fear, or at least I did, and I hoped he felt what I did—there was a force there that is nabbed by everyone, but cherished by few—courage. And I thank him for it, but I know I did it. Now I want to go and jump in that still water below—Ariana later says she's happy I got over my fear, but I'll probably have a harder time during the day when I can see what I'm facing, but I see it differently. During the day, the demons are stone and far away—like looking down the barrels of a double-barreled shotgun uncocked and unloaded, but at night is when the chamber is full and ready to go, and you have no idea who is holding the gun with their finger on the trigger and your destination in mind.
Then we threw rocks into the water in contest to see who could throw past the moonlight into the shadowy distance . I aimed for the water marker, and got the closest with limited footing, using just my arm strength. But it wasn't long before we had to leave, making fun of people who do cooler things than us, on the way to the car. I had to ride in the back seat again because I forgot to call shotgun. But on the way home, the idea popped in our heads what we should get my hooka and go to Broadway, and get the materials so we could smoke on the beach.
Nick's girlfriend and her friend joined us.
I missed a few puns against my co-worker as I was sent to get free water from the candy store where I work. I ended up doing a chore because I was taller than most of the people there. Appropriate enough, it was filling the water bottles up in the refrigerator.
All the while I loathed the fact that I would have to be clocked in tomorrow by two in the afternoon. I grabbed the water and got out of there as fast as possible without appearing to be in a hurry.
Impression of caring matters more than the actuality where I work—and yes, that makes me a miserable ****.
Perhaps it's not too late to admit I am recovering pyromaniac from my childhood and the flavoring we use for the taffy is extremely flammable. It would be a shame to drench the store in what people love to smell everyday when they walk in, and light the gas stove. Then, maybe I could walk away real cool-like as this pimple in this tourist acne town pops like the Hindenburg. The impression of splendor is like a phoenix—it grows old, dies, resurrects into the same, but apparently different form, spreads it's wings, and eats and ***** on everything simple, or presumably so.
I forget the name of the beach, but it was the best time I've had in a while. I was whimsy, and high on the vastness of the stretch of beach around us. They could bury us here. But me in particular. I rolled from the middle of the beach to the water, stood in the waves and shouted my phrase I coined when I realize something as wonderful as conquering a fear or realizing a dream;
--******' off!
And I stared at the horizon. My friends came up behind me and I looked back to see it was Nick and his girlfriend hugging. I gave a soft smile, put my hands in my pocket, and turned back to stare at the clouded horizon. What beasts must lie out there—more ferocious than the simple fresh water beings that wait beneath the earlier placid waters. I was a fool to think that was the worst. Nick said as I pondered all that, that I looked like Gatsby, and I tried to give him a smile that you may only see once in a lifetime, but I'm sure it failed.
I wanted to tell him that, “You cannot make me happy. It is usually the people who have no intention of making me happy that makes me smile the quickest.” But I don't. Let me be Gatsby, or Fitzgerald, if to no one else, but myself.

Hell is the deterioration of all that matters, and as the five of us sat around the hooka, and inhaled the thick blueberry flavored smoke that hinted at the taste of the Blueberry flavoring I use to make Blueberry taffy, there was a satirical realization that the coal used to activate the tobacco and flavor in the bowl is sparking like a firework, and reminds us all of where we're going.
It's a love affair between that hopelessness and hope of some destination we've only read about, but never seen.
By this point Nick and I are covered in sand, because he joined me in fun of rolling down the beach. We want so bad to be Daoists—nonchalant to the oblivion as we sit in. Just on the rifts of the tide, he and I scooped handfuls of wet sand, and I lost my fear of making sense and let Relowatiphsy take over again.
“Look at the sand in your hands. It can be molded to the shapes your hands make. We scoop it out of the surf and it falls through our fingers. There are things we're afraid of out there, and we sit just out reach of them, but within the grasp of their impressions. The sand falls through our fingers, and it plops into the tide, sending back up drops of water to hit our hands—the molders of our lives.” I said all that in hope against the hopelessness of being forgotten.
Then he said, “What if this is life? Not just the metaphor, but the act of holding sand in our hands.
I relish in his idea of wiping away my fear of an unimportant life. And by this point, it's safe to assume I live to relish ideas.

The last bit of sand from the last handful of sand was washed from my hand and I looked back at the clouded horizon, pitch black with frightful clouds and said:
“Nick, if I don't become a writer. If I live a life where I just convince myself everything's fine, and that dream will come true after I finish all the practical prep I 'must' do. I will **** myself.
I looked at him, Relowatiphsy in my heart, and he said:
“As a friend, I'd be sad, but I'd understand. But that means you have to literally fight for your life now—regardlessly.”
And he left me with those words. Just the same as my granddad left me a serious heed before he wanted to talk about something more cheerful, when I asked about his glory days fishing the Great *** Dee River. He said: “I wish I'd been here before the white man polluted the river. It would've been something to fish this water then”, then he paused to catch his breath, “Guess there are some things that stay, and others than go.” Then joy returned, as it always does.

But the idea of what was happening to me didn't hit me until we were a few miles away from the beach, covered in sand, but the potential of the night after conquering my fear of heights over water had been shed in the ocean.
Around midnight, when the headache from the cheap hooka smoke wore off and the mystic veil of the clouds over the horizon has been closed in by the condensation on the windows of some Waffle House in Myrtle Beach. There was a wave of seriousness that broke over my imagination. Works calls for me tomorrow by two.
There's not much vacationing when you live in a vacation town.
And midnight—the witching hour—spooks away the posers too afraid to commit to rage against the fear.
But there are others—college students that walk in and complain about the temperature of the eating establishment, and the lack of ashtrays—how they must be thinking of dining and dashing—running from a box, but forever locked in it.

They make annoying music as I write this. That is how they deal.

There is nothing new under the sun, but it was night and the indifferent blinks of gaseous lives above looked down while my friends and I were at a new fast food joint that moved next to a now lonely Wendy's, with a faded sign tarnished by something the new fast food joint had yet to experience—mundanity by time. But I had my notebook with me while we ate outside, but it was in the car. My mind is always in that book, and I remembered something I had written for a novel in progress: 'Nothing is new under the sun. How is it possible to watch stars die? There is nothing new to their dust. We are the flies of the universes.'
It was just when I had finished my BBQ pork sandwich when Ariana suggested visiting a graveyard. I had the idea to visit a Satanist graveyard that our friend, Lanessa warned us against for the better safety of our sane souls—good luck with that. I wanted a revival of fear. How the beast would rip at the roof off our metal can of a car—the greater our barbarism, the greater our admiration and imagination—the less admiration and imagination, the greater our barbarism. But Ariana disagrees with words I never say, Nick laughs with my simple words to that previous thought. How funny it would be to burn eternal.
But then he suggested we should go to the Trussel in Conway. I had no idea or quote to think about to contribute to this idea. I wander, as I like to, into the possibility that his idea is a good one. Like some wanting hipster, I dress in an old t-shirt with of mantra long forgotten in the meaning of its cadence.
That is the march of men and women into the sea—honest, but forgetful and forgotten.
I was wearing a shirt sleeve on my head I bought from a mall-chain hippie store, and exercise shorts, finished off with skele-toes shoes. I was ready for everything and nothing at the same time. And that fits, I suppose. But all that does matter—and doesn't, but it is hard as hell to read the mind of a reader—it's like having a lover, but s/he doesn't know what s/he wants from you—selfish *******.
But there I was,  on the road, laughing in the back seat, sitting next to a girl who was tired, but also out of place. I could see she wanted to close arms of another, the voice of another, the truth that sits next to her while watching tv every time she comes over to hang with him, but never accepts that truth. She is a liar, but only to herself. How can she live with that? The world may never know.
The simple rides into things you've never done before give some of the greatest insight you could imagine, but only on the simple things that come full circle later. That is a mantra you can't print on a t-shirt, but if it ever is, I'm copyrighting it. And if it's not possible, I'll make it possible!
When we got to the Trussel, the scenic path lit by ornamented lamps seemed tame once I stepped onto the old railroad tracks. They were rusted and bruised by the once crushing value of trains rolling across it's once sturdy structure. Now they were old, charred by the night, and more than just some abandoned railroad bridge—the Trussel was a camouflage symbol birthed by the moment I looked into a Garfish's eye as it nibbled on my cork while I was on a fishing trip with my granddad when I was eleven. I remember that moment so well as the pale, olive green eye looked at me with a sort of seething iron imprint—I needed that fear, it branded instead of whispering that knowledge into my ears.
That moment epitomizes my fear of heights over water—what lies beneath to rip, restrain, devour, impale, and or distract me.
But epitomize is a horrible word. It reeks of undeveloped understanding. Yet  I want a nimble connection with something as great as being remembered—a breathe of air and the ideas  thought by my younger self, but I will never see or remember what I thought about when I was that young—only the summary of my acts and words. And by that nothing has changed—am I too afraid to say what I need to say? Too afraid to hear what everyone else hears? Or is it the truth—depravity of depravities that has no idea of its potential, so I am tired of the words that describe my shortcomings and unextended gasping hope. I am tired of living in the land of Gatsby Syndrome waiting for Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy!
But when we got to where the Trussel actually began I felt the fear hit like the day it was born—all hope was drained, and I was okay with abandoning all aspirations of having fun and being myself in the face of public criticism. I was flushed out by the weasel in my belly—the ******* beneath those still waters. I compare it to someone being able to handle Waterboarding, but can't handle being insulted—it's that kind of pathetic.
I stood just on the last understandably steady railroad ties that I knew were safe and watched my friends sit off the edge of the bridge, taking in the cold wonder of the night, and I was told at least I was smarter than my dead cousin who managed to get on top of his high school in the middle of the night, but had to be cohearsed down for fifteen minutes by a future marine, and future mourner who still grieves with a smile on his face.
The future mourner, he laughs at the times he insulted, or made fun of, or chilled with his now dead friend. It's never the bad times he cries about, there are none—just the good times, because they don't make them like they used to.
I watched them in that moment, and I don't know if I can deal with knowing my life is real. I began to blame my morality on this fear even though I already justified the fear just seconds before. But as I write this, I look over my notes and see something I wrote a few days ago: 'Life is ******* with  us right now. You laugh and I laugh, but we're still getting ******. The demon's in our face.'
As morbid as that comes off, it resonates some truth—what is killing us is going to **** us no matter what we do—and I don't want to be epitomized by the acts and words I didn't say.
I was never in the moment as a kid—I was raised by by old people and kept back by my younger siblings. The experienced tried to teach me wisdom, and the inexperienced kept my imagination locked in time. I don't want to go home as much now because I see that the inexperienced are becoming wiser everyday and the experienced are dying before my eyes. My idea of things is enduring leprosy.
But back to the simple moments.
Ariana saw a playground as she stood up and investigated the Trussel. It was next to the river, behind the church, fenced off by the fellowship of the church to keep the young ones in and the troublesome out. Of course, we didn't realize there was a gate and it was locked until Nick stated the probable obvious within ten feet of the nostalgic playground. And that's when Ariana pointed out the bugs swarming the parking lot outdoor lamp that blazed the fleshiness of our presences into dense shadows and more than likely caught the eye of a suspicious driver in a truck passing by. But I was still on the bridge—back in the past, never the moment. Me and my friends are still children inside these ***** forms. I muttered to myself: “Life ain't about baby steps.”
Nick looked over and asked what I said. I turned around, dramatic, like I always like to and repeated louder this time, “Life ain't about baby steps.”
He asked if I needed to do this alone, and I said he could come along. I walked rhythmically across the railroad ties, and heard Ariana comment that getting to the railroad up the small, steep hill was like being in the Marines. I laughed sarcastically. Nick and I had been to Parris Island before, and I know they test your possible fears, but they beat the living **** out of them.
I casually walk into the room where my fear lives and tell it to get the **** out.
When I reached the precipice of the last railroad tie I stood on before, I felt the old remind me that death awaited me, but there was no epic soundtrack or incredible action scene where I stab a manifestation of my fear in heart—a bit fun it might have been, but not the truth. I bear-crawled over the crossings of the ties and the structure of the bridge itself. I felt Relowatiphsy—an open-minded apathy self-made philosophical term—take over me. It is much simpler than it sounds.
There was no cold wonder as I imagined. There was just a bleak mirror of water below, a stiff curtain of trees that shadowed it, and the curiosity of what lies in the dark continuing distance past the Trussel.
Nick sat with me and we talked about women and fear, or at least I did, and I hoped he felt what I did—there was a force there that is nabbed by everyone, but cherished by few—courage. And I thank him for it, but I know I did it. Now I want to go and jump in that still water below—Ariana later says she's happy I got over my fear, but I'll probably have a harder time during the day when I can see what I'm facing, but I see it differently. During the day, the demons are stone and far away—like looking down the barrels of a double-barreled shotgun uncocked and unloaded, but at night is when the chamber is full and ready to go, and you have no idea who is holding the gun with their finger on the trigger and your destination in mind.
Then we threw rocks into the water in contest to see who could throw past the moonlight into the shadowy distance . I aimed for the water marker, and got the closest with limited footing, using just my arm strength. But it wasn't long before we had to leave, making fun of people who do cooler things than us, on the way to the car. I had to ride in the back seat again because I forgot to call shotgun. But on the way home, the idea popped in our heads what we should get my hooka and go to Broadway, and get the materials so we could smoke on the beach.
Nick's girlfriend and her friend joined us.
I missed a few puns against my co-worker as I was sent to get free water from the candy store where I work. I ended up doing a chore because I was taller than most of the people there. Appropriate enough, it was filling the water bottles up in the refrigerator.
All the while I loathed the fact that I would have to be clocked in tomorrow by two in the afternoon. I grabbed the water and got out of there as fast as possible without appearing to be in a hurry.
Impression of caring matters more than the actuality where I work—and yes, that makes me a miserable ****.
Perhaps it's not too late to admit I am recovering pyromaniac from my childhood and the flavoring we use for the taffy is extremely flammable. It would be a shame to drench the store in what people love to smell everyday when they walk in, and light the gas stove. Then, maybe I could walk away real cool-like as this pimple in this tourist acne town pops like the Hindenburg. The impression of splendor is like a phoenix—it grows old, dies, resurrects into the same, but apparently different form, spreads it's wings, and eats and ***** on everything simple, or presumably so.
I forget the name of the beach, but it was the best time I've had in a while. I was whimsy, and high on the vastness of the stretch of beach around us. They could bury us here. But me in particular. I rolled from the middle of the beach to the water, stood in the waves and shouted my phrase I coined when I realize something as wonderful as conquering a fear or realizing a dream;
--******' off!
And I stared at the horizon. My friends came up behind me and I looked back to see it was Nick and his girlfriend hugging. I gave a soft smile, put my hands in my pocket, and turned back to stare at the clouded horizon. What beasts must lie out there—more ferocious than the simple fresh water beings that wait beneath the earlier placid waters. I was a fool to think that was the worst. Nick said as I pondered all that, that I looked like Gatsby, and I tried to give him a smile that you may only see once in a lifetime, but I'm sure it failed.
I wanted to tell him that, “You cannot make me happy. It is usually the people who have no intention of making me happy that makes me smile the quickest.” But I don't. Let me be Gatsby, or Fitzgerald, if to no one else, but myself.

Hell is the deterioration of all that matters, and as the five of us sat around the hooka, and inhaled the thick blueberry flavored smoke that hinted at the taste of the Blueberry flavoring I use to make Blueberry taffy, there was a satirical realization that the coal used to activate the tobacco and flavor in the bowl is sparking like a firework, and reminds us all of where we're going.
It's a love affair between that hopelessness and hope of some destination we've only read about, but never seen.
By this point Nick and I are covered in sand, because he joined me in fun of rolling down the beach. We want so bad to be Daoists—nonchalant to the oblivion as we sit in. Just on the rifts of the tide, he and I scooped handfuls of wet sand, and I lost my fear of making sense and let Relowatiphsy take over again.
“Look at the sand in your hands. It can be molded to the shapes your hands make. We scoop it out of the surf and it falls through our fingers. There are things we're afraid of out there, and we sit just out reach of them, but within the grasp of their impressions. The sand falls through our fingers, and it plops into the tide, sending back up drops of water to hit our hands—the molders of our lives.” I said all that in hope against the hopelessness of being forgotten.
Then he said, “What if this is life? Not just the metaphor, but the act of holding sand in our hands.
I relish in his idea of wiping away my fear of an unimportant life. And by this point, it's safe to assume I live to relish ideas.

The last bit of sand from the last handful of sand was washed from my hand and I looked back at the clouded horizon, pitch black with frightful clouds and said:
“Nick, if I don't become a writer. If I live a life where I just convince myself everything's fine, and that dream will come true after I finish all the practical prep I 'must' do. I will **** myself.
I looked at him, Relowatiphsy in my heart, and he said:
“As a friend, I'd be sad, but I'd understand. But that means you have to literally fight for your life now—regardlessly.”
And he left me with those words. Just the same as my granddad left me a serious heed before he wanted to talk about something more cheerful, when I asked about his glory days fishing the Great *** Dee River. He said: “I wish I'd been here before the white man polluted the river. It would've been something to fish this water then”, then he paused to catch his breath, “Guess there are some things that stay, and others than go.” Then joy returned, as it always does.

But the idea of what was happening to me didn't hit me until we were a few miles away from the beach, covered in sand, but the potential of the night after conquering my fear of heights over water had been shed in the ocean.
Around midnight, when the headache from the cheap hooka smoke wore off and the mystic veil of the clouds over the horizon has been closed in by the condensation on the windows of some Waffle House in Myrtle Beach. There was a wave of seriousness that broke over my imagination. Works calls for me tomorrow by two.
There's not much vacationing when you live in a vacation town.
And midnight—the witching hour—spooks away the posers too afraid to commit to rage against the fear.
But there are others—college students that walk in and complain about the temperature of the eating establishment, and the lack of ashtrays—how they must be thinking of dining and dashing—running from a box, but forever locked in it.

They make annoying music as I write this. That is how they deal with the inevitable death of the night. They bruise the air I breathe with love and faith and trust with no meaning—without even meaning it. But what do they know what I didn’t feel when I sat on that bridge or cowered on the fringes of the ocean? Their hands aren’t ***** like mine—their confidence does not seem fractured by these words that will never reach them, or their kids, or grandkids.
As day begins to move, I know I work at two and will be home by midnight again. The witching hour—where some stay and others go.

“Big change, huh? Bet you could take some awesome shots here, Max.”

Max nodded, only hearing the last part of Warren’s sentence. Truth was, she was distracted by how beautiful this place was. If Max stood at the end of the street, she could get a killer depth-of-field perceptive image by aiming towards the long and skinny winding roads being enveloped by the building’s shadows. San Diego seemed to flourish with art and photography culture, and great opportune shots to shoot photographs.

“Earth to Max.” That seemed to knock her out of her thoughts. *****, focus. “Are you going to go swimming with me and Brooke?”

From the look on Brooke’s face, she was hoping to God that Max said no. Brooke is the relationship equivalent of a boa constrictor, and she wasn’t sure how this hasn’t dawned on Warren yet. “I’m not sure. Maybe. Let me unpack first.”

After Kate dropped out of going to San Diego Comic Con last second, Max was nearly going to join her when Warren practically begged her to come. Coming back to the present - equipped with her suitcase and messenger bag - Max lingered behind the couple by several feet. This was her way of trying to avoid the reminder that she was third-wheeling with a boy who used to have a very awkward crush on her and his salty girlfriend.

“I’m going to go down to the pool.” Warren said, sliding his key card into room #228, turning his head to face Max before opening the door. “Maximillian, are you sure you don’t want to join us?”

“Like I said, I’ll think about it.”

The moment the three of them walked in, Brooke and Warren beelined for the restroom with their bathing suits in hand. Once they came out, Warren had a blue and black plaid board short swimsuit on whereas Brooke came out with a highlighter-colored graffiti two piece.  “Alright, Mad Max. We’re out of this joint. Catch us at the pool if you need something or want to swim. If not, we’ll be back in an hour.”

Max waved them off, digging through her bag for that bathing suit. The crimson colored ruched one-piece vintage bathing suit sat abandoned at the bottom of her matching vermillion suitcase. Down below at the pool area, she could hear screaming and laughing and splashing of the pool water. Max got up from her suitcase, and opened the curtain enough to look out at the hotel pool. Several other people were down there, pushing the time limit very close to closing in an hour from now. Come on, Max, you’re really going to let your whole adventure be ruined by the usual high-strung Brooke?

**** it.

Max nabbed the swimsuit from the hidden corners of her suitcase, stripping herself down to pull the swimsuit onto her body. Once the swimsuit was on, she turned her waist feeling the soft fabric conform to her small but still vaguely prominent curves. Max can remember Mom always saying that she looked good in red, so she recommended a red one-piece since Max doesn't have the confidence to show her stomach to anyone.

Well, except her best friend Chloe. They used to take bubble baths together as toddlers so it used to be the most natural thing in the world to get dressed in the same room together. It must have been a better time, where there were no insecurities. Now Max has trouble calling her up without her finger freezing up as she attempts to type the very last digit of Chloe’s phone number into her phone.

As Max turned around in the mirror, she noticed how her lack of a rear end was a lot more distinguishable in red. Wowser, Max thought, this looks really good on me.

“Wowser.” Max said aloud to her reflection, and threw on a bathrobe.

It must have been ten minutes into Warren and Brooke swimming when Max opened up the pool gate, entering the vast perimeter of the pool area. There were significantly less people around the pool, where most of the people still inside the pool area were kids our age. “Max, you’re here!”  

This made two teenagers stop in their tracks as they were opening up the pool gate at the other end of the pool to leave. One of them whipped around so fast that it was a blur of blue hair.  “Wait…”

“Is that…Max Caulfield? It looks a lot like her.” Rachel asked to Chloe, who hung her jaw open in disbelief. No ******* way.

Furrowing her eyebrows, she watched Max drop the robe on a nearby chair. Like an awkward penguin, Chloe watched her best friend waddle up to the pool edge & cannonball into the waters below oblivious to the two girls standing at the gate watching her. “You’re going to wake up the neighbors and the owner of this hotel's parents forty miles away, Warren!”

“Do you want to go say hi to her?” Rachel asked Chloe.

As Chloe decided on actually going to surprise her, Max's friend said something that made Chloe change her mind in a split second.

“How would you know? Besides, you’ll eventually forgive me for that once you meet the entire cast of Star Trek tomorrow, Max.” Warren yelled at Max, and Chloe did a small grin as she turned away from her best friend, closing the gate on both of the girls.

“No. Guess the oblivious nerd is going to Comic Con too.“ Chloe took one last look at Max before going back inside the hotel with Rachel Amber at her tail. "Do you think she'll recognize me in cosplay?"

"Probably not. Unless I drop the bomb on you guys."

“Shhh. I don’t need you ruining my surprise party, *******.”

Max, Brooke, and Warren weren’t in the pool for long, since Warren bumped his head into the side of the pool while doing laps with Brooke. They had to get out, and put an ice pack on Warren’s sore bump on his head. “Now how am I going to cosplay the 11th Doctor? I need to gel my hair back, but I have this gargantuan bump on my head.”

“We’ll figure it out, sweetie.” Brooke said, and Max nearly gagged.

Max went back to the hotel room first, since being around Brooke made her want to strangle her.  This whole third-wheeling thing was annoying, and Max was regretting coming alone without Kate as her faithful chauffeur. Nonetheless, she wasn’t going to let that ruin her trip. She was here to have fun. And to take a bunch of photographs, of course.

The next morning around 4:00 am, Max was rudely awoken by Brooke who shoved her in her shoulder. “Get up, Max. We’re leaving in thirty minutes from now.”

Was that necessary? Max thought, crawling out of bed. From the bathroom, she could hear Warren fretting over the mammoth-sized bump on his head as both of them got dressed in their cosplay outfits. “Okay. That hurt a lot. Ow, ow, ow.”

“Oh, is there anything I can do to help?”

“Shut up, guys.”

Feeling slightly irritable from the loud ruckus Brooke and Warren were making in the other room Max rolled out of bed. She rustled through her suitcase for a pair of skinny jeans and a white t-shirt with the print of a doe on the front. Once she had her clothes, she stood up to walk into the restroom to change when she noticed the ending result of both of her companions.

Brooke’s multicolored dark hair was pulled down in waves framing the scarlet dress with a black belt fastened around her waist. As for Warren, his usually shaggy brown hair was gelled back for his cosplay. She had to admit, he looked handsome in his mahogany jacket, red bow-tie and matching suspenders, and the cotton collared button-up he wore underneath. For a cosplay of The Eleventh Doctor and Clara Oswald, it was quite impressive how close they looked like the actual characters of the TV show Doctor Who.

“Take a picture of us, Max!” Warren said in a chirpy voice.

“On it.”

Max pulled out her camera, and pointed it at the couple who held up peace signs together. Once the picture rolled out, the couple split apart to put on the finishing touches of their cosplay.  As for Max, all she had to do was throw on her clothes. There wasn’t a lot of work in dressing up like normal people. Besides, she’s never really been a fan of cosplay.

If you want to count dressing up as pirates with her best friend Chloe on Halloween five years ago cosplay, then yeah, Max has cosplayed several times before.

“Max, hurry your *** up. It looks like the amphitheater is getting crowded from here.” Warren yelled from outside the bathroom door towards Max, who sloppily tied her shoes.

As they exited out of the large double doors of the four star hotel, Warren and Brooke took the crosswalk, pointing out people cosplaying as characters from TV shows or video games. They were smiling and laughing, leaving Max to third-wheel again. Instead of lingering on it, Max put in her headphones and turned on Crosses by José González tuning them out.

“Where is the line?” Max asked Warren as they approached the crowded complex filled with restaurants on one side and the amphitheater on the other side. Tents were set up here, even.

“This is what I call natural selection. If you come prepared with prior knowledge on how this works, you can conquer this haphazard looking line.” Warren spread his arms out, motioning towards the crowd that was rapidly growing in size.

“Let’s go, Warren.”

“Wait!”

Like an octopus, Brooke latched onto Warren dragging him into the depths of the growing sea of people. After three painful hours of waiting, Max felt the crowd start to lighten up around her as excited but deafening chatter filled the air of the surrounding herd of people. Everyone was clamoring loudly, quickly rushing into the open doors with their San Diego Comic Con day pass thrown around their neck.

As soon as Max received hers, she eagerly threw her day pass around her neck. After buying a small breakfast sandwich from a booth, Max decided to start people watching. Some of the cosplays made her laugh like the Darth Vader cosplayer leading a conga line of faithful storm troopers, taking long confident strides.

Max took several photographs of several different cosplayers, ranging from Doctor Who, Scott Pilgrim vs The World, The X-Files, Breaking Bad, Undertale, Magic: The Gathering, and Family Guy. When it started getting crowded, she got up from her chair and entered the large archway into the convention center filled with colorful tents and cosplay galore.

Wielding her camera bag close to her waist, Max carefully maneuvered her way through the sea of people as she took a look at the booths. Suddenly, the throng of people became too much for Max. An elbow into Max's side pushed her into the left side of her waist, throwing her into a booth.

“Hey, are you alright?”

Max’s eyes glanced up towards a blue-haired girl cosplaying as Pris from Blade Runner, who had grabbed her waist. Something about her was actually kind of familiar, however, Max couldn’t tell. “You hit that table pretty hard.”

Max felt the warmth from her waist leave slowly. “This crowd is suffocating. I need a place to breathe around here. It’s too claustrophobic for my liking.”

“Are you alone or something? Because I could always use company in my tent. It gets hella boring inside this tent sometimes.”

“Do you say that to all of your customers?” Max asked, chuckling nervously at the blue-haired cosplayer’s comment.

“No.” She mumbled something under her breath that Max didn’t quite catch. “I mean – unless you’re uncomfortable with it. I’ve seen people faint multiple times from claustrophobia here.”

Since her head was bent down over a sketch she was doing in a journal, the only way Max could tell that the girl was blushing was by how red her ears had gotten. The realization that the girl became a nervous wreck all of a sudden after that comment had made Max’s day already.

“Maybe you’re right. I should just sit down. There’s no places to sit around here, though.”

The blue-haired girl patted the armrest of the empty fold-out chair behind the table. “This is Rachel’s chair, but Rachel is helping out with the convention rave for later. She’s on the committee or some ****.”

“Coworker?”

“And an annoyance at times.” Max went around the table, taking a seat in the chair the girl patted. It was itching at her brain that there is something about this girl that is so nostalgic.

Suddenly, a long brunette-haired girl billowed through the back curtains of the booth, where Max saw a tattoo chair in the back along with an extended table with clutter everywhere. “Chloe, do you have my phone? I really need it right now.”

Wait a second. “Chloe?”

“Great. Thanks a lot, Rachel. You ruined the element of surprise.”

"No ******* way!"

After Chloe handed the phone to Rachel, Max followed with her first impulse, throwing her arms around Chloe. Immediately, Chloe laughed as Max nuzzled her head into Chloe's shoulder blade. Max could feel the initial excitement pounding in her chest as Chloe tightened her grip on her as well. “Get a room, Chloe.”

“I will shove this combat boot so far up your *** –”

“Okay, I’m leaving. I need to call Frank and see when he was going to get here.” Rachel stated matter-of-factly, then added as she was leaving, “Hope you have a fun reunion.”

Once Chloe let go of Max, she held onto her arms staring into her face. “Wowser. This is crazy. You’re dressed as Pris from Blade Runner. That is definitely my ****.”

“I hope so. Someone asked me if I’m cosplaying Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Now I will accept that misunderstanding because Ramona Flowers is my woman crush.” Chloe glanced over at Max, changing the mood merely by narrowing her eyes at the brunette. “Alright, are you going to explain why you didn’t call or text me for five years?”

It was so sudden that Max suddenly felt inferior to Chloe. "I'm sorry. My parent's decision to suddenly move to Seattle wasn't my choice."

"That's not a good enough reason." Chloe attempted to change the tone of the mood lighter, since this wasn't exactly the place to discuss that. "So what's up with you? Living it up here in San Diego or something?"

"I - uh - moved back to Arcadia Bay. Two months ago."

"Without a phone call, telling me that you moved back." Chloe pressed her lips together, annoyed. "Nice one, Caulfield. That's just ******* peachy."

Max started to get a little irritated herself. "Look, I'm sorry. Can we just drop it?"

"I’m sorry, Max. I don’t want to be the ******* to ruin your day. In fact, this was the complete opposite impression I was going for. If you want to punch me for being such an annoying rat, go right on ahead.” Chloe pointed at the bicep of her left arm.

I shook my head – chuckling as Chloe kicked back her chair – propping her feet onto the table cluttered with various types of artwork. There was a dozen pieces of art here, but I noticed Chloe was really into abstract watercolor paintings. Mostly Chloe did sketches of characters from TV shows and video games and painted it in watercolor. One of the paintings in particular caught my eye.

Of course – like all of Chloe’s paintings – it was strikingly beautiful: In front of an obsidian background was a butterfly with eye-popping azure wings. One of the wings seemed to be slightly blurred to give more definition to the closest wing. “Wow, you’re a real artist.”

“I’m also a tattoo artist. If you want to get a tattoo, just hit your girl up. It’s on the house for you.” Chloe said, holding out her arm to show me. “Rachel helped me with both designs.”

Chloe had a beautiful sleeve on her arm and a tattoo on the top of her hand of a red chrysanthemum. Max traced the red ribbon detail on her arm tattoo with one finger, making Chloe shiver. “Dude, you can look, but you can’t touch the tats.”

“Sorry, it’s beautiful.”

“Hopefully it will still look beautiful when I look like the human equivalent of a raisin when I’m 80.” Chloe joked, holding out her arm in front of her face. “How about it, Max? Wanna get tatted up by your best friend Chloe? It might be a great experience for you, hippie. No gang related tattoos, though.”

“Yeah, because I’m totally a part of a gang.”

The smile that lit up Chloe’s face sent Max into a comatose state of delirium. Her eyes focused in on Chloe like a lens, taking shots in her head so she didn’t forget this moment with her best friend. For once, Max was having fun. “You’re still a ******* geek. That’s good news.”

“Always.”

Chloe shook her head before getting up. “Alright, so do you want a tattoo or not? This is your final offer, Max. Don’t let it go to waste.”

“I don’t know. You know I’m scared of needles.”

“Still?” Chloe grabbed Max’s shoulders. “Come o

Noticeable nonchalance
Nefarious negotiations
Nervous neighborhood
Naïve natives nonplussed
Nihilistic network nabbed

In a wayward adventure in curiosity —
lured away from savvy of cooler judgment,  
he oversteps the bounds of reality 
into a state of altered awareness.

Overwhelmed by a rapid beginning
of a buzzing sensation — The Rush;
emanating from deep inside him, 
surging along the veins streaming 

euphoria through cells of his entire body:  
inside the body, with warm pleasure waves
flushing over the by now tingling skin
soughing off all unpleasant feelings.

Mouth numbed, limbs heavy, and eyeballs 
rolling back from hitherto an unimaginable
state of bliss, he savours the calm explosions
of the pulsating bubbles in his head.

A magical moment of sheer ******* 
rapture—that ends in a lasting sedation—
during which he's dazed with wonderment
while covered by a cozy blanket of content.

He falls in love with the insidious drug.
And he begins to relish its sweet fruition
in a seemly pattern of use that is put
in the shade to protect his best interests.

A stake in normalcy that seeks to confine
his usage of the opioid to a social occasion.
But soon enough he drifts towards a regular
recreational use; indulging on weekends,

floating, flying, and soaring in wonderful
ripples of pure delight, feeling very mellow
and satisfied, in an illusionary paradise of
forgetfulness where nothing hurts any more.

Bit by bit as time goes by his body builds up
a tolerance for the sedative, prompting his
intake of higher and more frequent doses
to feel as well as to sustain the desired effect.

This occurs because his body attempts to
adapt to the presence of the drug by quickly
breaking it up and purging it out of the system,
thus making it less potent as it was before.

At this stage of his drug abuse he's still able to
control whether to use the stuff or not, where
and when to use it, without stress. He could
also abstain from the opioid fairly responsibly.

But at the limits of his body's flexible response
to the dangerous substance, he begins to suffer
from its unpleasant side-effects that show up
a short period of time following his last use.

The pleasurable, but short-term, therapeutic
effects of the hard drug are now being
overshadowed by several of its undesirable
withdrawal symptoms that manifest as:

fatigue, irritability, cold chills/sweat, itchy skin,
muscle spasms and tremors, body ache, and
stomach cramps among others, with an
increase in his body's cravings for the opioid.

The onset of these torturous side-effects of
the stimulant marks the beginning of his body's
physical dependence on it, as he now relies
on the drug to fend off the terrible affliction.

He has bitten at the bait of pleasure oblivious
of the hook beneath it. The once casual user,
who had thought he could quit the habit at will
without stress, has advanced to problematic use.

The drug has become an integral part of a daily
routine that is gradually heading towards chaos.
Regardless, he's still able to go to work and
take care of his day to day responsibilities.

In time, a new sickness begins to fester inside
him: the opioid is tightening its grip on him,
as his body's physical dependence on it
is now generating his addiction to the drug.

This psychological dependence on the drug
has set in with anxiety disorder accompanied
by emotional and behavioural problems:
the duo classic signs of a progressive disorder.

The drug has become something he needs
to sleep or to fully wake up. His sleeping
pattern has also been altered; up at night
and intermittently dozing off during the day.

As dosage of the narcotic rises, so does
the torture of the painful lows and other
symptoms of addiction, making his cravings
for the sedative increasely more intense.

As it is, he's needs several hits of the drug to
make it through the day. All at once he wants
to use! He begins to look forward to using.
He would ingest the drug in risky situations

such as, while at the wheels of his car or
working at his job; always desperate to avoid
withdrawal symptoms as well as to revel in
the bliss of the drug's comforting warmth.

At times he'd skip work 'chasing the dragon':
pursuing the out-of-reach elation levels of
his initial euphoric high, swinging between
feelings of mediocrity and that of ecstasy.

Always, his body would afterwards crash
below baseline, barely able to cater for his
daily needs. The habit has long ceased
to be the fun that it was intended to be.

Like a vicious cycle the relief from the opioid,
which is not justified by external reality,
is being obtained at the cost of the
worsening addiction and a spike in distress

whenever his body is low on the drug.
The more he indulges on the sedative
to calm his racing mind, the more
its comfort zone seems to be desired.

Disoriented in the rigours of his vice,
he strays in the abyss of drug addiction:
a dark, weary place where priority disorder 
is dictated by events outside of his control.

It is this corrupted impulse control that
causes his sick obsession with the narcotic,
rendering him unfit to articulate rational
thoughts: a chronic brain disorder.

In this harmful shift away from reality,  
utmost in his mind is the insidious drug:
over and above his job, his goals, family,
love, friends, hobbies and personal hygiene.

Oddly enough the foremost essentials of life
like water, food, and sleep are also not spared.
He could be ill and he won't care.
No other thoughts can cohabit in his world.

Emotionally invested in his fantasy world,
the toxic substance has kindled in him
an inner turmoil — setting off an overriding
feeling of emptiness that aches in his heart.

The habit much harder to lose than it was
to find: an ongoing effort to wean himself off
the drug is being crushed by a dysphoric mood
and a sickly feeling that intensify in severity.

These horrifying withdrawal symptoms
are a result of the sedative's induced
alterations in the biochemistry of his
brain's system of reward and punishment.

Instead of a mild, blissful flow of the brain's
happy hormones, as is experienced while
one is indulging in a tasty food, on receiving
a great news, or while engaged in any other

kinds of novelty that fill us with a delicious
pleasure, the opioid whose chemical structure
is similar to that of the natural chemical
messengers of the brain, Happy Hormones,

by mimicking these primary drivers of the
brain's reward system the psychoactive 
drug sends a false signal of euphoria to
the complex *****, triggering an instant

and fast secretion of an abnormally large
amount of the 'feel-good hormones', that
begin to surge along its pleasure pathways
overwhelming the reward centre of the brain.

It is this huge outpouring of happy hormones
in the region that elicites in him a sudden
burst of energy, a pleasant state of mild
drowsiness, mental alertness, relaxation, ...

This already intense, euphoric effect of the
opioid is further amplified by the drug's
blocking of the pain partways of the reward
system, thus dulling his emotions and worries

by eliminating any feeling of sorrow, regret,
guilt, fear, or loneliness. Upon intake of the
mood-altering drug, he would feel warm when
cold, calm when angry, bright when grumpy,

filled when hungry and happy when irritable,
with almost a total refrain from the tendency
to view anything in bad light. This dramatic
result makes every normal thing look better

and brings forth a deep sense of satisfaction
as though all his needs have been met.
However, this almost perfectly desirable 
body and mind experience is an artificial

feeling that only lasts a few hours at most.
When the drug's effects wear off, because
the brain, which has come to rely on the steady
supply of happy hormones, cannot adjust

all at once, it gets stuck in overdrive which
results in the withdrawal symptoms. It is so
because his brain, whose system of reward
and punishment has been tampered with,

seeks to counteract and accomodate for
the sweet thrills of the drug's euphoric high,
by secreting much less happy hormones while
the foodgate of pain hormones is thrown open.

Just like a huge surge of happy hormones
elicits unnatural levels of euphorical pleasure,
a spike in flow of pain hormones produce
in him the torturous withdrawal symptoms.

These unwanted side-effects whose rise and
fall are subject to drug levels in the system,
is the debt he has to pay for the supreme
bliss that is relished during his opioid highs.

It is all about his brain seeking to maintain
Homeostasis: a normal, healthy body function.
Once he's able to amerce with penance due,
he'll feel good again with no need for the drug.

Another flip side of the illicit habit is that over
time, the regular surge in happy hormones
disrupts the resilience of the reward region
of the brain, causing physical changes that

have drastically reduced his brain's ability
to produce the 'pleasure juices', or respond
to any stimulus other than the one being
triggered by the psychoactive substance.

This is clearly seen in his lost of interest in
activities that he once enjoyed, since his brain
suffers from lack of happy hormones which
influence one's capacity to be in a good mood.

Because the narcotic has also disrupted
activities in the control region of the brain,
his whole thought pattern, perspective and
behaviour, all radically change along with it.

It is this reprogramming of his brain that has
altered the interior reality of his mind, in ways
that result in him going into 'survival mode'
in the absence of the drug during a withdrawal.

While in this irritable, aggressive and erratic
state, he would forego anything and everything
to obtain the narcotic because he's thinking
of his drug use the same way an individual 

who is parched with thirst thinks of water.
This desperation in seeking out the drug as
a vital lifeline is due to his compromised brain
'thinking' it needs it as a matter of survival.

A habit he had maintained at the outset
because it made him feel extremely good
has tuned against him, quite often, coercing
him to use for the avoidance of pain.

The sedative as dear and painful to him
as an imbecilic child is to its mother,  
he continues on the foreboding route 
for which he has no power of deviation.

Despairing in the clutches of addiction,
the drugs traumatize him, they infuse
toxins into his spine, and he wouldn't
know whether he's coming or going.

He's kept on saying to himself, 'I'm going
to quit for good after using one last time.'
But that remains to be seen as the drug
goes on dulling his inner light day by day.

In a downward spiral that stuns those 
acquainted with him, he loses his job,
his car is repoed, and he's evicted from
a nice home that had been stripped bare.

Drowning in unpaid bills and desperately
in debt having blown an entire life-savings
on the drug, the loss of everything and a few
remaining friends leaves him fatally devastated.

The dangerous drug has evoked a negative
ripple that is felt throughout all that he's
part of. An awful realization that settles in
with cold clarity, eliciting a lurch of dismay

over his dire ignorance about the drug
which has led to the ugly entrapment.
In deep, sorrowful thoughts consumed
with self-loathing he puts a curse upon

the day he first laid eyes on the hard drug.
With the best resolve he's able to muster,
driven by exasperation to kick the habit,
he strives to make his will like stone —

a facade that is soon razed by his urgent need
for the ****** to stave off withdrawal. With a
burden of guilt and shame that can't be faced
he retreats into the haze of his own misery.

With more problems and stresses than ever
he plunges from troubled life to no life,
completely losing touch with reality as the
disorder assumes a more dangerous form.

His fixation on the ****** has taken a turn for
the worst. Besides his strong cravings for it
to ward off withdrawal as well as to experience
its euphoric high again, it has become more

crucial than ever for him to keep his emotions
constantly desensitised to life, by numbing
the agony of living to ease the passage of
day with purchased relief from the sedative.

Locked in this highly destructive pattern
of drug use, he would stop at nothing
to feed the habit: he would cheat, steal,
lie or betray no matter who to get his 'fix'.

Like the spreading of cancer in the body,  
his affliction has metastasized way 
beyond him, chipping away at the sense
of wellbeing of everyone around him.

As frequent and ready targets for theft
his family have to always watch out for him,
in a resentful relations in which they never
could feel at easy with him around their home.

Wallets, jewellery, gadgets, or any other
easy to carry household valuables, that are
not safely locked away, will go missing.
For days at a time he, too, will vanish.

He'd eventually return like the 'prodigal son'.
Always, he's found the door open after
prolonged periods of avoiding home, even
on occasions when he'd been kicked out.

In the many months gone since losing his
source of livelihood, he's been pushed
into a number of rehabilitation facilities,
but as yet has failed to clean up his act.

He's also been in and out of rehab thrice
following hospital discharges for drug
overdose. On the last occasion, he was
found passed out in the family's bathtub.

Timely arrival of the paramedics had saved
his life. Notwithstanding, a nagging urge
to 'use' continues to feed and reinforce
the habit after each discharge from rehab.

It's been most upsetting to the parents
who have had to watch him visibly change
before their eyes: from a good, healthy
son, who had always had his act together,

to as it is, a thin, patchy-skinned loner with
a baffled demeanour — who buries his head
in low self-esteem to conceal the frequent
dilated and glassy pupils from mutual gaze.

Nothing points more to the helplessness 
of the family's plight than having to finally
admit to their little, or no influence, over
the ravages of the stigmatized disorder.

A harrowing experience for a household
whose life-savings, along with compassion
for him, have completely been exhausted
with no more tears remaining to shed.

The hurting family at the end of its tether
confronts him with an ultimatum:
to get his life in order or face the music.
Coldly, they all watch him leave home.

His descent into the final stages of rock-
bottom has been swift. He starts by crashing
on fellow addicts' couches and floors,
but soon his welcome quickly wears out.

Now among the ranks of the homeless the
hobo would wake up feeling sick, and his day
would consist of shoplifting, petty thefts,
begging, and struggling to find others ways

to obtain money in order to feed the habit.
At nights, even on stormy ones, the rough
sleeper would crash wherever there's shelter,
never worrying about waking up the next day.

A hellish existence on the street that has
provoked a string of run-ins with the law. 
Nabbed stealing on ill-fated occasions,
he's manhandled in a most indecent way.

Tired, hungry and sick, the erstwhile ray of
hope, who once had a strong sense of self,
is currently a nervous wreck who envisages
life through the lens of opioid stupor.

Much beyond his ability to ask for help, 
his hurting family proceed to rescue him.
Under the humbling load of drug addiction
he staggers into another rehab facility.

But the often slippery climb to recovery
is never easy. It's yet another chance for him
to submit to a slow and delicate therapy on
his brain, whose structure and functions are

badly impacted by years-long use of the drug.
The healing process is a labour of discipline
and commitment, coupled with patience
in order to allow the brain to adapt back

toward normalcy by gradually regenerating
and rebalancing itself. In a gruelling task he's
expected to learn to care for a body that
now must struggle to work in a different way.

Desiring to put their lives back together many
druggies have been able to crawl their way out
of the murky shadow — a big chunk of them
through the guiding light of structured help.

Amongst them were 'walking corpses' whom
possessed by their 'enough is enough', were
enabled to find the inner fire vitally needed
to rekindle the cold embers of self-image.

There's the fella cast adrift feeling wholly
disconnected from self and the world.
He's mourning the loss of a vital lifeline
that has always helped him cope with life.

He had been through it many times before,
the fatigue, stomach cramps, aches, itchy skin, ...
But, he's in the early stages of withdrawal when
cravings for the narcotic are at their worst.

This initial withdrawal agony is the biggest
hurdle any addict has to overcome in the often
stop-start journey to recovery. If he could
somehow find the courage to suffer through it,

the fierce and ceaseless cravings for the drug
would be considerably reduced, making
them easier for him to deal with. Eventually,
they will dissipate the longer he stays sober.

He's being offered a way out of his captivity,
but he's unable to embrace the opportunity
with open arms because the addiction,
which convinces him the only option available

is to indulge on the drug, is blocking him from
seeing the available escape route. It has shut
off his ability to get up on the inside to face
the seeming overwhelming barriers to sobriety.

Like one in the grip of Stockholm Syndrome,
he has developed a type of trauma bonding
with the treacherous drug: the more it hurts
him, the more his irrational affection for it.

With his consciousness constantly revolving
around the insidious substance, he just
can't imagine a chronic user like him
being sober and happy again without it.

That being the case, he fails to see any point
in struggling to remain sober when in such
times he's beset by an awful illness attended
by a serious depression that is no help.

Regardless of the wreckage of his past,
everything that is dear to him plus the very
essence of life on the line, he's left convinced
that giving up the destructive habit would

mean endless suffering and feeling deprived
for the rest of his already sad existence.
More than any other reasons, he just
won't quit because he's powerless to resist.

In default of any dreams of ever recouping
losses that are manifestly out of reach,
the drug with a firm grip on him serves 
as a buffer to keep his ugly reality at bay.

All that he wants is to return to the 'loving
arms' of the opioid, very much aware that
the feeling of the drug's high now that he's
in pain can be one of the best things ever.

But even so, as tempting as the desire to jump
the healing process may be, he's bitterly
mindful of the horrors of street life that
loom upon him with such frightening aspect.

Savagely trapped with no good choices he
slips into a real fear of relapse. In anguish
withdrawal and cravings plague him daily,
and they won't allow him a moment's peace.

Utterly incapable of rising from the ashes 
to hold it all together—no hope—
nothing to hope for—everything out 
of focus—mind spiraling out of control.

In a fit of extreme anxiety the now rampaging
urge to 'use' prods him, closer and closer,
to the brink of a nervous breakdown. Suddenly,
his need for a 'hit' becomes most vital as.

Sweating profusely and trembling all over
with fear clutching a pilfered smartphone,
forgetful of future suffering the rehab
jumper hurries along the forbidden path.

All alone with the merciless companion: 
nowhere to go and no one to turn to. 
Wretchedly wretched in additive agony
the ****** fades away into nothingness.








AUTHOR'S NOTE


The Abyss Of Drug Addiction is written in 112 non-rhyming quatrains.

The rendition is a poignant story depicting the sad existence of many drug users. The verse uncovers and illuminates, step by step, the different stages of drug addiction and the mental processes of the unable to function drug users.

The paramount aim of the work is to shed some light on the sinister shadow of drug addiction: to unveil to all and sundry, especially teenagers and the youths, the hazards of drug abuse and the vicious downward spiral that can be caused by it. 

Just as the euphoric experience of all kinds of hard drugs differ significantly, so are their withdrawal symptoms. Despite their seeming surface unrelatedness, whichever hard drug it may be, the creation of an illegal and dangerous dependency in users is a common denominator.

[The Rush is described as a feeling very much like a heightened and prolonged ****** ******. A great relieve of tension. It is mostly felt when ****** or any of it's derivatives opioids/opiates is administered intravenously].

In quite a disturbing hyperbole a ****** addict described the drug's EUPHORIC RUSH as follows:
"Take the best (******) ****** you've ever had, multipy it a billion and you're still no where near it... "

"Well Mr Holmes, this is a nasty business!
The victim, Ivor Biggun, has been stabbed!
There was of course no one around to witness
Although a few good suspects have been nabbed!

Miss Sally Forth was reading ancient history
Mike Hindle claims he too was all alone
Miss Daisy Chain was reading a new mystery
And Mr. Terry Bull was on the phone!"

"My dear Lestrade, your blindness is your failing!
Must I point out that awful ****** mess?
The victim clearly crawled, his blood was trailing
And then it seems he played a game of chess!

Look closely at the moves, see what I mean?
The strangest game of chess I've ever seen!"

                    H5-D5
                    C8-C2
    ­                E3-E4
                    F8-C1
                 ­   D8-D1   MATE!


*Who killed Ivor Biggun?

I dispelled arduous watches tick on laborious appareled macrocosms scatter spitting patter, teeming paved labyrinths searching for something to own orbiting the bench I sit on, envisaging celestial bodies slinging transonic ripples. Ether colliding into clouds masking infinite galaxies from a suffering and crawling universe destined for a hole in the wall, where the rats live; nibble, scratch, deconstruct, and reconstruct, cannibalize, ****, and die.
         Does silence exist amongst the deucedly hot and dense state that incrementally dilutes vociferous dissonance illuming dynamic hurricanes, merciful gases, and asteroidal moats guarding engraved anthropomorphic landscapes?
Probably not; fauna whisper, tear down, and settle, birth exigent infants and zealous appraisals, ***** towers and castles; consciousness capitulates, inundates prisons, cemeteries, and landfills. Silence, in precipitous day dreaming, auspiciously reverberating webs espying arpeggios tomb the suburbs as one navigates in and out of trepidation to avoid being caught like a gnat, a quiet ******* bug with no cigarettes to burn.
The impact flung me from the bench in the commons toward dusk disguising 16 acres with streetlights and homeless asking for squares on the roads to spurs and oaks, scattered acorns crepitating under my soles. Each  compressing sound pulling like gravity, transporting down roads with bouncing winds, subtle aglow, guides from defiant contours of Gods in the clouds, dandelions erupting side walks like tectonic plates seismically tear apart earth, the fog’s mist like ships floating into suns swimming like tadpoles; air undulates as I wave my hands against the wind, molding the space as clay.
This city is mine, I tumultuously grow with it, and I mercurially oscillate with it as a memory inevitably plays. The past as a dream, is mine. The abstract present is mine, and the infinite future is not, yet they are given away for possession.
Inept graffiti cartographically stain bricks providing a simpler search for portals made perfect for laying like a crescent moon near their opening edge, watching dawn lift dust and my eyelids, glaring off windows building and kissing the satellite towers on roofs, waking the mountains in the horizon, painting the sky, one could give a **** about the past, present, and future, the beginning is just as imminent as venturing any further.
Embryonic sun rays mixing fluids and this coffee I nabbed to wake the day, having it enlighten the conversations one has with oneself; consisting of bellicose thoughts filtered, taboos accompanying bleating people, ubiquitous t-shirts, satirical newspapers, and indecorous magazines perpetually feeding me preliminarily eldritch reconnaissance as they dress into strangers.
It could be time for another cup of coffee and cigarette? Or am I just floating off into enigma over the road becoming a sea?
Gypsies contort into seagulls, shingles moving like tsunamis smashing down on metropolitan brick cities, Atlantis generation XYZ resting in an underwater valley, mountains sew gardens on the ocean’s bottom, signs buried, and I’m simply lifting back off into space.
Complaints will suffocate; I’ll be out of town, however, I will miss those whom drowned.
Good riddance.
“Hello,” a soft resonation shaking the atmosphere.
Resuscitation; back to reality…
“Hello”, the voice repeated, “Are you going to be alright?”
“Pardon, what happened?” I slurred.
“You just fell several stories and your head is missing. This is astonishing how you can hear me, how I can hear you, are you in any pain?”
“Um, I apologize, but I’m not really certain of what you are saying. My head is missing?”
“Yup, it detached from your atlas, when you hit the asphalt, what is the last thing you remember?”
“Having my head…well sort of, I remember staring at people on a bench in the commons it was kind of turning my stomach, making my head feel heavy, so I got up and walked. Explains the headaches and visuals, Where am I?”
“You’re in my basement. I could hear your voice when I found you, even with your head, well, skull missing.”
“Why didn’t you call an ambulance?”
“I would have called an ambulance, but you told me not too, you wanted me to hear you, you kept insisting I hear your stories, so, I listened to your stories as I basically dragged you here. You would go in and out, talking then silent the next, and now you seem like you’re in at this moment; without a skull, your heads there.”
“Well…I can’t see you… or the basement… and I am not in any pain… How long has this been going on, why did you listen to my stories, and what did I say?”
“You know what you said.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m the only one who listened.”

Fiending for a reason I've seen,
Shrouded by a pharmaceutical haze,
I pick up the phone,
hear the message,
what did you say I forget,
nabbed and cuffed,
thrown in their net.

My mother thinks I'm a doctor
I just don't have the guts
To tell her I spent all my college doe
On beer, wine, women and such

So after I faked my graduation
Said I was moving to the South
To help the less fortunate among us
Another lie I let slip out

I'm now in the south of Florida
Where some may call me a ***
Living in a citrus grove along the coast
Not answering to anyone

It's really not such a bad life
This do nothing life I've made
I hear Moms proud of me at afternoon tea
Telling the girls of all the lives I save

I do my share of dumpster diving
That's where I got the idea
Behind a real doctors office one day
With some of their stationary I nabbed

I did a little doctoring
After all I do play one in Moms mind
Doesn't look too lame where I inserted my name
Then wrote my Mom about the kids and the wife

I've created such an elaborate charade
It's now gotten all out of hand
As I panhandle my way up and down
The Sunshine states surf and sand

Mom now says she wants to visit
Can't wait to meet the wife and kids
Don't know how I let it get this crazy
And how it all lead up to this

Now I'm scrambling to find a vacant house and a woman
With a couple of kids that look just like me
That can go along with a ruse for a week in mid-June
Since I told her that's when  I'd be free

I'm thinking I should of studied in college
Instead of being this mind numbing huckster
Telling lie after deepening lie
Just so my Mother would think I'm a doctor

My mother thinks I'm a doctor
I just don't have the guts
To tell her I spent all my college doe
On beer, wine, women and such

So after I faked my graduation
Said I was moving to the South
To help the less fortunate among us
Another lie I let slip out

I'm now in the south of Florida
Where some may call me a ***
Living in a citrus grove along the coast
Not answering to anyone

It's really not such a bad life
This do nothing life I've made
I hear my Moms proud of me at afternoon tea
Telling the girls of all the lives I save

I do my share of dumpster diving
That's where I got the idea
Behind a real doctors office one day
With some of their stationary I nabbed

I did a little doctoring
After all I do play one in Moms mind
Doesn't look to lame where I inserted my name
Then wrote my Mom about the kids and the wife

I've created such an elaborate charade
It's now gotten all out of hand
As I panhandle my way up and down
The Sunshine states surf and sand

Mom now says she wants to visit
Can't wait to meet the wife and kids
Don't know how I let it get this crazy
And how it all lead up to this

Now I'm scrambling to find a vacant house and a woman
With a couple of kids that look just like me
That can go along with a ruse for a week in mid-June
Since I told her that's when  I'd be free

I'm thinking I should of studied in college
Instead of being this mind numbing huckster
Telling lie after deepening lie
Just so my Mother would think I'm a doctor

But it's all crazy, all this neo-fascist **** lately.
I guess populism's got a catchy rhythm,
if your lazy,
then it's so much harder to love me or debate me
than hate me.
Now, let's dispose of this safely: you're racist

because either your daddy was too
or you're manipulated by falsehoods masquerading as news
but it's true, now even I'm getting confused,
but ask, who the **** wins? because you AND the immigrant lose.

This ****'s got polemic, pulled by extremist views,
taking the meanest cues,
we contravene abuse, on the daily.
It's all so ****** up lately.
I guess it's so much harder to love me than hate me.

Then, the wicked beat breaks & it all flies apart
leaving my rhyming heart to aim and find it's mark -
it's my one sight of light in the deepest dark
'n' if ya hold to me now, we just need a spark.


The day will come, I'll be called crazy, man,
feeling like I'm William Blake's Grain of Sand,
Eternity in an hour, in the palm of my hand,
I see the white ******* walls in the back of the van.

We'll be nabbed from the streets, it's the master's plan,
'til all that's left is sheep, the rest bottled and canned,
then, they'll sit inside their keep, every gun-post manned,
their delight, so sweet, never to understand:

Heaven in a wildflower or the Endless Night,
a reason to die or a reason to fight.
In their sweet delight they won't see the light,
But in the Endless Night, you & me just might

because each glimmer shines out in the darkest depth,
as Blake writes revenge from the realms of Death,
those protected on high, Nations that sell & buy,
can all be blown out by a baby's breath.

Forget them food stamps Jim-Bob
We nabbed ourselves a deer!

She had a burn in the crinkle of her right eye
Someone threw a cigarette out the window when she walked by
So she wore glasses with thick frames to hide her scar
She spends every night in a glass in the corner of a bar
To fix her would take only a needle and thread
But no one can see the end so they just leave her for dead
One morning she lay crucified on the sidewalk by the school
No one saw her or stepped over her, she is such a little fool
So they nabbed her in church and slipped her out the back
And stepped on every crack
Until she opened her mouth  in agony and pain
When they shot her by the river they knew the bullet was in vain
She was already slain

So...I asked this girl out on a date
No money had I made of late
With no job prospects for quite a while

Had her drop me off at the grocery
Proceeded to stuff sardines down my jeans
We were going to picnic it up in style

The whole time I had security
Keeping a watchful eye on me
Nabbed me as I stepped out of the door

Even grabbed the girl who was my date
She might have made a grave mistake
They say she was driving the get away car

We went before the hanging judge
Who wasn't much into showing love
Gave us each thirty days in county

I convinced them she was the master mind
I was a fool in love, didn't deserve the time
So they locked her up and set me free

Though it was our first date
And didn't seem to go the way
That it was I had it planed

I think that when she gets out of jail
And if she doesn't look like hell
I just might ask her out again...

A bust of Benjamin Franklin,
Too valuable to even be dusted,
She stole from her former employer,
Thus proving she’s not to be trusted.
Authorities now have her trussed
She was nabbed with the bust-
She had busted.
She was busted with a bust
In her bag
For fingerprints
The bust will be dusted.
Busted with a busted bust on a bus?
Some people can never be trusted!

Live blog: Romney and Stanton vie for Iowa win.
Dead heat in the dead of winter
What do the Iowa results really mean?
That Romney's less of a robot than he seems?

Oh, by the way: replacing a bulb, can save you 50 dollars or more!
But it'll cost you ten times as much, at your hardware store.
Starbuck's hikes prices despite the lull,
People stupidly betting on Powerball,
Selma Hayek's trending, y'all!
(We don't know why).

But what's all that compared to shootings?
Soldiers flying and not being sniffed,
Suspects nabbed in Utah killings,
And GOP runners had another tiff.

Personally, I'm more fascinated,
In the Aussie hybrid sharks!
This might mean global warming's overrated,
Or that animals are way smart.

Mideast peace-talks stalled, I read.
Have I not read this before?
Oh, yeah, back in 1972.
When psychos killed athletic Jews,
Who might win
And Olympic village was off view,
While the Israelis dragged people in.

That year, Nixon was re-elected
And we thought we'd never see worse,
Yet now the nation is infected
With a yellow-haired, inhuman curse.
Blog goes to sleep...

Begun long ago and finished in 2018

Work History

I lucked into my first job
building four-letter radio station
call signs from tangled bins
of consonants and vowels.  

In those days it was
all done by hand.

Sharp corners on the F’s kept you
on your toes, O’s easy to bobble
when you got careless, “slot four,
out the door!”, a newbie mnemonic

forever lodged in my brain.  
I bided my time on the K line

until a spot opened on the W,
the graveyard shift.  It paid
a little more, the hours going
toward my Creative License.

It was the seventies. We chewed
betel to stay awake during long

classical station runs then punched
out woozy, blind in morning sun,
fingers bleeding, teeth stained red.  
Top forty, we popped ‘em out

like biscuits and squirrelled
away X’s to slip onto the ends

of freeform formats, small acts
of defiance.  I quit to avoid prosecution,
nabbed sneaking parts out
in my pants, one letter at a time,

building words, paragraphs, whole
stories in my basement.

Bug Eyes

"Bug Eyes" is what she calls me.
Every time she says it, my heart
Ascends through my throat and
Up into my brain; the way she smiles
Turns my stomach to bubbles, my knees to
Yoghurt - I know I'm strong, but how weak she makes me.

That laugh... how it sounds like a symphony.
How indeed - you call it obnoxious,
Yet you are wrong, not even Mozart or Beethoven compares.

Never have I met a woman like her.
An angel, a goddess, a gold-plated
Muse that inspires art that would draw even the
Envy of Rembrant; Rubens; Michelangelo.

I must have a lucky charm or a
Shooting star - how else could I have nabbed her?

Knees turn to jelly when I kiss her,
Eyes turn to hearts (no matter how much they bug),
Luck isn't what led me to her, what
Led me to her is much rarer than that.
You are a wish upon a star; quite the miracle.

It all began with a simple search for a cure.
But tomorrow is filled with fear for sure
Crocodiles and snakes will now need to lure--
Who will go to jail next to keep the nation “secure”?

The Filipino ferocity is finely defined.
We will always fight until the end of the line.
For the justice, we’ll charge then add a finel
Everything that has started, finds an end in design.

What would the past “terrorist” Jose Rizal say
If he knew the elected far from duty astray?
Would he join the gagging nation in this age and day
For rights and freedoms nabbed like thieves all the way?

Politicians aren’t gods to be expected of mercy.
So we’ll do all the work and then make them see.
Do they witness and laugh, lay back, take it easy?
Are their souls still present or just absentee?

Do they not hear all the people who sing
In the Kawit-like pride at independence’s first ring?
Where now is the candidate who won by promising
That he’ll be fine in hell if we were paradise-living?

Everyone who was chained will meet freedom too.
Just so if peace was the goal, real and true.
Won’t stand anymore for a sky in dark hue.
There’s a change coming in the way the wind blew.

Don’t walk away, and keep your eyes open.
Listen to what was spoken, read up on what is written.
History will remember all our actions taken,
If to God, people, or nation, your loyalty was given.

"Blacks Colored & Others"




  Hello, my Tehuti. I just have something I have been needing to release! Can I?      



    "Blacks Colored & Others Awaken"



They say Being black is being

knocked, shot, stabbed and

nabbed, in the back of a cab,

by them boys you just dabbed.

Now ain't that a crab?

Nah nah

you see, that's not how it is and

this is not how's it's suppose to be.

Because MLK had a dream

but it wasn't enough cause

Malcolm X was tough and he could see the lies,

threw his black & brown white covered eyes.

Too no surprise it was a disguise!

We all know the story, it goes on and on and each genocide writes the same song!

Corrupted threw the hate, manifested from the lies!

Dec 21st 2012
Now this is just a brief of that none sense  you still tend to consume.
Nothing new under the

A chirpy young wolf
filled with pride and
uncanniness.
Never part of
any pack

Decepted with self-pride
and felt
everything around him
is not right

They say
wolves can only survive in packs
He says
'I am always right,
everyone should stand by my side'

He surrounded
a cobweb of cynicism
so deep, that he never
trusts
listens or
connects
with others

One fine day
he was abandoned by all
and a sense of
realization could be
read from his eyes

Until he was
nabbed by a mighty tiger
and everything was
left blank

10 words grab attention
by the back of the fat furry neck.

Hooray.

Someone nabbed a B-.

Is this it?
What we struggled for with all might.
Something that we didn't cease and desist.  
Cos of it, we couldn't shine so bright.
With the view that after attainment, we'll be bright like light.
To everyone, we're like a god. A new pride we couldn't resist.
Even though the strike caused a lot of doubt.
Months after friends were in, we were told to chill out.
We were finally in, we laughed last.
With shoulders so high, you would think we were louts.
At any attempt, they didn't fail to bluff. "We're the best."
Overcrowded classes: one of the challenges, we thought.
Challenges turned suffering. We couldn't bleat.
We were made to believe that to be successful, you gotta wilt.
Writing exams without water and light, schooling or imprisoning?
We struggled to come to higher institutons.
Just to get suspended for thinking.
Get arrained for fighting against oppression.
Get nabbed for freedom of speech.
Is this what we waited and struggled to get?
We read extensively but get grades according to mood.
You will get out and still not get job even if you're good.
Buddies, everything was a crook.
This is scamming at its best.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                          A Fugitive in His Haunted Night

A police car parked in front of the house
They say there’s a fugitive in the woods
Bailed out of his truck on a county road
Abandoning his girlfriend to be nabbed

Well, poor man, he’s lost his truck and his girl
And gained mosquitoes, snakes, coyotes, heat
A fading MePhone signal, rain, rot, mud
And another three years in a white cotton suit

Why?

Perhaps, like many another poor soul
He lost his way while searching for elusive Truth

Now scores of years
after botched minor theft penchant
courtesy security guard
analogous to inquisitorial trenchant
unforgettable verbal lashing
(suppressing me ululation to vent)
unwittingly arresting snitch behavior
plus potential life of crime.

Not a peep passed thru
pursed lip o' mine -
aye vaguely attest
what age ten? eleven? twelve?
of following anecdote at best
educated guess, but no
doubt yours truly
with figurative heart in chest
scared sh__less puny meek boy
tight lipped silently confessed

to foiled attempt, sans trying
unsuccessfully to steal a yoyo,
during Saturday's short break
between gymnastic class
inviting tummy prepubescent
diminutive self unbuttoning
outer garment to stash loot,
revealing substantially sprawling
holy skype size bare breast,
after officer verbally rifled me

said mean security detail
demanding I undress
impossible mission to escape
upon being nabbed,
held me arms tight,
cuz yours truly
ain't no Artful Dodger  
thus aye didst detest
foolish kid ploy, and
(prematurely nipping

in the bud) messed
up potential life of crime
with first and only
shoplifting heist jest
for getting caught no a pest
key yoyo, mama would
(IF ever mama or papa FOUND OUT)
they would axe me no quest
chin, but whack me itty bitty
teensy weensy derriere lest

quickly putting to rest
any Robin Hood
fantasy life of riding crest
to get rich quick scheme
high stakes crime pressed,
and squeezed out the noggin
with apropos punishment addressed
thankfully, neither parent
got wind, nor ever guessed
their beautiful darling

little boy did flunk
electric kool aid acid test
petty theft, never
matured nor ever again did zest
proliferate to ****** unpaid for goods
into a profitable "yoyo
string Ponzi like
scheme," thus ballsiest
dare devilish and bitterest,
and laughably noblest

act yours truly ever attempted
immediately ceased to shelve bravest
sleight of hand find
delve during broadest
daylight, I immediately
didst abandon, when clumsiest
initial foray into
the world wide web
tubby come cleverest
lad, this side of

Lansdale, Pennsylvania
many damnedest
yesterdays ago, never
took another earnest
tempting gamble since security
detail nearly wrest
head possible zapped feeblest Ames?
to pilfer from other
Department stores if pressed
for money no matter,
I might miss an enforced
hated ballet class,
with abs salute zest
worse fate than juvenile detention!

heebie jeebies couple months before March 15th, 2020

More'n three hundred and sixty six days ago,
a pandemic did devastatingly blow
across the webbed wide world
dark shadows spelled glow
bull horror seeds of hell show
did terrify **** sapiens  
with unimaginable woe.

I revisited the following poem crafted last year
so little known about the when, why and where
concerning then Doomsday scenario unleashed
accept my humble apology if message unclear
giving reasonable rhyme details just threadbare

bard lacks scientific penchant I honestly swear
appalling attempt at writing trademark metered
poetic endeavor doth not lessen how ye revere
yours truly who would be amenable to answer
personal response, thus email me questionnaire.

Aye reckon eyes aforementioned microscopic organism
doth strain credulity threatening **** sapiens left agog
stupefied, whereby mortality of species existential crisis
pitted against unseen rapacious (non public) enemy glow

bull diabolic scourge plaguing world wide web humbling
**** sapiens arrogance, bombast, ecocentrism... fueling
outrageous mortal kombat concerning toilet tissue to stave
virulent pathogen wreak havoc across webbed wide world
immune systems entire bajillion complex edifices, (albeit -

biochemical, deoxyribonucleic, fantastical, helical, Judaic/
Christian, liturgical, neurophysiological, pathological, ollie
ollie oxen free radical, typical, virological, xylographical -
zoogeographical aerodynamical, critical, elliptical, genii
logical, ad nauseum) metaphorical house of straw knocked

(knick knack paddy whack...) upside the head obliterating
(one fell swoop) - fast as greased lightning defenceless ill
prepared immune systems rendering bipedal hominids law
n gevity (courtesy hiphop wordsmith Kanye West) basically
electric kool-aid acid test corroborating, galvanizing, plus

liberating riotous yawping, capitalistic, horrific, narcissistic...
aforementioned poetically licensed entitled germ cells, yours
truly suspects Mike rowed the boat ashore compromising rug
harding infecting taster's choice mortal human flesh, a fancy
feast inferred courtesy Sikh's six sense (mine), where spreads

trumpeting, kickstarting, and hooting virulent bugaboos flu -
went within ways and means of contaminating, infecting, and
orchestrating pandemic veritable microcosmic beastie boys foo
fighting (linkedin) twittering... figuratively and literally bring
***** simians to their knees (knobby in my case) maneuvering

offensive (salient parry and ******) undermining physical health
among village people (think - human league) field day nabbed
(dagnabit) vulnerability, susceptibility, and quintessentially awk
wiring advantageous edge, whereby wreaking havoc across avast
global swath temporarily forcing twenty first civilization braking

(fast) bringing living social muckraking and mudslinging species
(envision) bajillion people suddenly deprived of cherished helter
skelter hubbub devoid (car own nah fiat issued without warning)
mandating swarming multitudes against buzzfeeding capital one
good n plenti frenzied madcap lifestyles necessitating, quickening
uber vicissitudes (zero sum game) witnessed by level playing field.