I was hungry enough to eat the **** end of a skunk.  I felt like gobbling the whole mound of concrete that is half an hour closer from becoming a part of my room.  Make that a quarter. I guess my tummy has had enough grumbling, like a seething network of volcanoes ready to devour Hawaii.  I am sure as exhausted as a zombie after a “battle of life and death” handling a plethora of carpentry tools which I have managed to rummage from our dismal basement.  I’m quite serious with the phrase “battle of life and death”.  I get to have this Obsessive Compulsive Syndrome which gulps a huge amount of my rhythm compelling me to put things in place especially in my chamber.  At times, a weltered pen could instigate an emotional havoc.  Or perhaps an inappropriate collaboration of curtain hues and mattresses would be ample to spin the color wheel concept out of my brain.  But now, my walls have done it.  Well, it was just a microscopic sight of a divine crevice, but how in the world could that escape my eyes?  Without a second thought, I approved an avid proposal from my subconscious – a full concrete room renovation.  And that’s how it brings me here, smothering the last square inch of the genius blueprint with this porridge of lime and clay, the hell with chemistry!  I have found out that my room has achieved the piquancy of a sizzling summer noon, thanks to the mist of dust and the precipitating drops of sweat that come tingling down my overheating body.  Ah! At least my system tells me that I’m not a promising patient of ****** dysfunction.  When the last patch has been perfectly planed in place, I drew my last ounce of pure strength and plunged into my most formidable bed, congratulating myself for a job well done. Alas! A thirty-minute nap and I’m ready for a superb coffee and doughnut delight.

I woke up from a cat’s screech. I peeped through the window. The nap breaker was a Cheshire, one with a dimmer fur, the stripes of gray suppressing the darker color.  Its tail enjoyed dancing around its rear, connoting either fear or excitement. It sure has a distinctive mischievous grin.  The feline was on the verge of climbing up the roof by jumping from a gutter about five feet away.  It seemed to have slipped but has managed to bring its **** next to the roof tiles. It stared at me with intent, giving me the macabre look from its glaring eyes.  It’s as if I’m being watched, stalked and examined in a way I couldn’t see, bringing me that feeling of guilt, of remorse.  Urgh! That’s why I hate cats.  Though I’m planning to keep one, I’ll reconsider it.  But what pains me more is to discover that my alarm was not able to do the job and so I slept three hours more than planned.  I looked down and saw the city lights flashing one by one, the beams glowing like a barrier of radiance diffusing into the gloom of the night. I guess this was the price I have to pay. I traded my snack with a peaceful hibernation, turning the coffee into a glass of iced tea and the doughnut into a great dinner with me, myself and I.

I have learned to cook since I was ten.  My mother believed that culinary prowess could be inherited from generation to generation.  And so, she put her trust on me and I haven’t failed her ever since.  This gourmet brilliance proves to be very useful at times of solitude when you got bored of ordering other’s recipes and decided to make your own buffet.  I remembered her telling me that all food would taste good if there is the chef’s heart flavored in it.  Cooking is an art, combining the loops and the whoops of seasonings and spices to the medley of meat and herbs.  Tonight, I decided that my dinner would equal breakfast, satisfying the grudge that I got from skipping my  diabetic snack attack.  A beef stew and a side of paella made my stomach die in joy, appeased at last that my gears are energized for my routinely nocturnal bookworming activity.

I normally hide under my sheets at nine but tonight, I shall break the rules. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll fix the rules next time. Just this time to spare for I have gained interest on this book entitled “100 Years of Solitude”, talking about how one could live happily even alone, just by creating the world you have ever dreamed of. Gabriel García Márquez is dumping the “no man is an island” concept which anyway sounds inspiring to me.  Finally, I jumped into bed thanking Him for letting me outrun another day living alone in a comfortable apartment, free from all sorts of vexation.  I wished for a better life at school, which gives me an imagery of dull monochromatic memories.  I am not that famous but I can be someday.

A heavy beam of sunlight pierced through my window, refracting on the ***** white floor and creeping up to the mahogany table just right at the corner.  It intercepted with the glass pyramid and created a beautiful prism that glittered all around my room.  It was a really majestic scenery, one that I luckily happen to see every morning, a good optic background, I guess. Two hours before class time – that’s where my pattern starts.  Take a bath, eat, brush teeth, groom, check the doors and power, then I’m off to go. Everybody follows a certain kind of pattern, that’s for sure. Whether you wear different types of clothes everyday or use competing brands of toothpaste, clothes are clothes and toothpastes are toothpastes.  As humanity finds more and more complexities in life, they become wired to doing the things and involving the events which they think would give happiness to them and simplify their equation of life.

As a proof, there’s Mrs. Lanny Honeycut from the house next door. She usually sprinkles her daisies every ten in the morning, wearing that friendly neighborhood smile. On their patio, you could never miss a day seeing her husband, Mr. Blake Honeycut reading the daily papers with a round of tea, jam and bread spread on his table.  On the busy intersection stands traffic enforcer, Red Mayer, waving his arms to and fro while wearing that aura of valor, never seem to get tired of doing the same thing over and over again. Thousands go out for work and go back to sleep everyday and that's the status quo we're talking about. Even inside the academic arena, you can still hold on to that thought; I mean the size of the population doing the same pattern at the same time – my schoolmates, enemies and… friends? Well, I’m not quite sure with the last one, but it’s this: they all make a fun of me.  They say I’m a dork, a nerd, a geek, a freak, and etc.  I wonder if they mean everything that they say or say everything that they mean.  Either way you put it, I’m not buying it. I am not what they say I am.  I just like being alone and that’s where I do best.

And as always, the school is crowded with busy people rushing through the corridors. Others are beating the deadlines while some are happy they could breathe for another break. But no matter how busy everybody could be, there is always a time spent for “information dissemination” or chitchats. But only this time, the topic discussed is the same.  I could hear it on the entire campus, everywhere in the perimeter. Another student in the university is missing leaving no trace of existence.  It’s been going on like this for over two months now and the university council has taken their best courses of action to unknot this mystery while campaigns have been running on TV’s and vigils were spent. Not that I don’t care but it seems that this is also happening to other places, I mean, this is not the only school where maniacs could exist and become professional serial rapists in the making. By the way, this is already the 12th case on the record. Weren’t people overreacting to the issue? Isn’t the case overrated? Did they reject the possibility that these people ran away because they got pregnant, messed up or something like that? Soon, the university area was covered with security troops roaming around like a swarm of bees, buzzing and sometimes boozing all the time.

I guess that’s what happens when you hang out too much with friends who are just jesters plotting your own jeopardy. I don’t think it would be good at all to be bothered with things like that because sometimes, it’s also useful not to have any use at all.  Like the king being admired by his kingdom amidst his sloth and compromises.  But that doesn’t mean I’m not friendly anymore. Actually, if it happens that I got company, I would magnanimously offer a treat at my place.  But the thing is, who would likely do that? I’d cross my fingers on it.

Wishes do come true even for a loner like me.  I think I have a fan. No, that would be too sublime. She’s hot and she’s hotter when you’ll know she’s so cool. Quite a paradox, but that’s just reality.  We came to know each other on our lab class. Her name’s Athena, fitting for her twisted logic and good humor. It makes me burn a lot of calories when I talk to her more than a 5-mile marathon could squirt. We were lab partners and we get along well. I just couldn’t figure out where she got the courage to befriend me. I do regard myself as unwelcoming species, but I might work on it when someone tries to knock the door. We juxtapose ideas. Yes, that’s what makes our conversations spin like a merry-go-round. But we enjoy it nevertheless, evident by the crescent smile we both generate out of the craziest topics in store. Once, she interrogated my way of settling wars with enemies. Well, I told her it was my habit of treating them to my house and giving them souvenirs to show how sorry I could be. She snickered and her eyes glowed like the Andromeda and her face shun the whole universe. Oh, I can do this all day long, if only I got hold of time and space.

Today, she asked me if it would be okay if she’ll stay at my place till nine when her dad could be home and she would be able to call her and ask to pick her up. She reasoned out that otherwise, the night would be scary because she’ll be alone in their house, no company, no security. I was puzzled how the thought of being alone could scare her. It is like freedom from any constraints, no ties, and no limits. But I couldn’t blame her. She’s too fragile, too vulnerable to handle it with herself.  With the speed of the light, I accepted the favor.  Well, that goes even without saying.

It was past six thirty when we arrived at my immaculate apartment. It’s great to be an“ OC” sometimes, I said to myself.  I thought of a winner dinner, one that would make her visit worth reminiscing. I preferred Italian.  I cooked her lasagna and drenched the dinner with sherry. We talked a lot until we run out of resorts. I guess she planned it, or I planned it, synergy perhaps.

The clock ticked nine and there’s no sight of her father’s getaway car. But there’s no sign of worry in her countenance either. I surmise it didn’t reach her inkling yet to phone her dad.  She was busy dissecting my kitchen and living room with her very playful eyes. That doesn’t trouble me though. That’s just as instinctive as any other first time guest could get. She grappled her attention on my antique collection of prehistoric movies, like the Scarlet Letter, The count of Monte Cristo and the likes. She happened to love them too. Well, that makes her more beautiful to me, other than the satin white dress she wears. Suddenly, she got the impulse of going to my room. She said there’s nothing more exciting to see than a gentleman’s bedroom. I startled from the request, but before I could say anything, she leaped straight to my chamber with the gestures of an imp. It’s weird to be in this kind of circumstance because I don’t often invite a lot of visitants to my room. I ain’t no hotel crew, bowing down and waving his hand to the chamber’s destination and leading the VIPs to their cabins. Yet this time, it’s the other way around: it’s my cabin.

But now it’s too late to stop her. She molested the **** and I giggled for some reason. Finally, the door opened a crack and a bend of light escaped from inside. She stepped in, and I followed. She was filled with awe not because my room is all made of gold nor did it resemble a royalty’s den. It was the exaggerated neatness and order that greeted her. In some unknown vortex of my deepest imagining, it made me feel like I’ve been through this instance before. The flashback is not so vivid as it appears, but something tells me this isn’t the first time. Deja vu could be working on it, I infer,although I don’t really believe in those forms of conceptualizations. Perhaps it’s the sherry’s spell infiltrating my mental prognosis. But something, I guess, isn’t really right.

I caught her opening a red box that was hidden behind my cabinet. I tried to steal it away from her but she fought back and it came tossing down the floor. Numerous items spilled from the case. A purple head band with the glittering initials ANNE, a ruby embedded bracelet, and a Nokia handy phone exposed the secrecy. This isn’t going to go along well and fine, I guess. A strong surge of desire came from my core. It tried to envelop my entirety and control me like a lifeless puppet. I felt the tip of the pyramid glass in my hand and I succumbed to lose my consciousness.

Morning came and it felt better than ever. It was a ***** Saturday. There she lies beautifully on the deck, like an immortal bud of red rose trapped in golden amber. The cellophane fits her well, and there’s no doubt she’ll be complaining anymore. I already prepared a cozy place for her deep sleep: A 5x2 feet wall engravement which I was busy molding last night. It wasn’t easy making her go to bed but still it ended up smooth and sound. I helped her get up and fitted her in place.I turned on the radio as I reached for my dear carpentry tools. The news was still nailed on it. But this time, the missing case struck for the 13th turn. Ahh, the hell with society! They never really get a way to deal with it.

I was busy patching the last mound of concrete that is half an hour closer from becoming a part of my room. Make that a quarter. I guess there’s no end to this divine crevice issue. It must be following a pattern too. But I can handle it, thanks to this vicarious personality. I wonder if I could get the chance to invite another visitor in my place. But if I do, I would certainly offer the best treatment they could ever have.

would you listen or laugh at me
           for claiming love's an ocean?
neither a knife, nor a blindfold
                                                      .­..but a sea.
there's a human-borne catastrophe.
                       cast your eye upon those with no share.
          the contents of their buckets
are polluted and impure
                                yet all but 5%
                                goes unexplored.
do you find yourself choking in your sleep?
  why watch the waves from safe dry ground
                                                  when you could delve in deep?
do you live in fear of unchartered seas
                                                   and life still left unfound?
are you overheating if only not to drown?
we 'love addicts' are water children.
i run outside and taste the rain.
  let's go! let's drink! let's swim! let's bathe
                   and watch it seep into our pores
                         -- it escapes me how you stay indoors!

I thought it right to assess some antidepressants, which philosophers are more inclined to call mood enhancers.
This was during my foray into human enhancement, substances intended to enhance physicality, cognition or mood. Nootropic compounds concern the latter two categories.

The most commonly prescribed mood enhancers are serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRIs), but it takes over a week for these compounds reach their peak effect.
Thus I approached them with the notion that a limited dosage might point to their character, though  not reveal. These considerations in mind, I set about acquiring a few miscellaneous anti-D's.

Fluoxetine was the first successful selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI), better known by its original brand-name Prozac. Fluoxetine has an acute biological half-life of between 1-3 days. Presence of a trifluoromethyl group on the compound deserves note, I wonder what the presence of electronegative fluorine atoms add to the psychoactive flavor of a compound (subjective effects).
I administered a single dose by mouth, there was some indication of subjective character. Light serotonergic sensations and seemingly benign mood-dampening, there is a ****** towards the positive. Waking headspace relatively uninteresting. Observed hints of oneirogenesis, did not manifest in enough character to be detailed - a sort of vivid, 'pulsive wandering, more pronounced in contrast to its waking character.
Good experiment, interesting results.
Ligand     Ki (nM)   Ki (nM)
Target      Flx            Nflx
SERT        1               19
NET         660           2700
DAT         4180         420
5-HT2A   200           300
5-HT2B    5000         5100
5-HT2C    72.6          91.2
α1             3000         3900
M1            870           1200
M2            2700         4600
M3            1000         760
M4            2900         2600
M5            2700         2200
H1            3250         10000

Sertraline is another popular SSRI, also known by it's original brand-name Zoloft. Sertraline has a variable half-life, on average 26 hours.
It's metabolite, desmethylsertraline, has a half life between 62-104 hours but is a far less potent Serotonin Releasing Agent (SRA).
The presence of two chlorine atoms is interesting. The usual, phenomenal serotonergicity is present and pushing towards the positive.
Some nausea, particularly when hungry (this disappeared after some minestrone soup). Some faintness after physical exertion. This dose did not promote onirogenesis. There was a moment of cognitive distortion when the proportions of a focal object seemed to be growing in-and-out, shifting in size.
Site                 Ki (nM)
SERT              0.15–3.3
NET               420–925
DAT               22–315
5-HT1A       >35,000
5-HT2A          2,207
5-HT2C          2,298
α1A        ­        1900
α1B                 3,500
α1D                 2,500
α2                  477–4,100
D2                  10,700
H1                  24,000
mACh           427–2,100
σ1                   32–57
σ2                   5,297

Escitalopram is an SSRI commonly prescribed for major depression and generalised anxiety. It is the (S)-stereoisomer of citalopram. The biological half-life is of escitalopram is between 27-32 hours.
I administered a dose and thought the phenomenal serotonergicity less apparent than fluoxetine but then gastro-intestinal disturbance was noted, I surmised it has a high affinity for 5-HT2C.
Any oneiric qualities were not readily apparent after a single dose, relatively little visual imagery which is understandable given its lack of affinity for 5-HT2A. I found this to be philosophically interesting. Mood elevation observed in bursts of conversation and as odd sensations, possible mental discomfort.
Ligand,
Recptr     Ki (nM)
SERT       2.5
NET        6,514
5-HT2C   2,531
α1            3,870
M1           1,242
H1           1,973

Venlafaxine is a selective serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI). Venlafaxine and its metabolites are active for about 11 hours.
Initial subjective effects similar to a very light empathogenic stimulant. Perception of altered attention-span/increased reflexive response; energizing yet paradoxically much yawning.
Ligand,  Vnfx      Dvnfx
Recptr    Ki(nM)  Ki(nM)
SERT  ­    82           40.2
NET       2480        558.4

Tianeptine is a tricyclic antidepressant (TCA) with an unusual mechanism of action. It is an atypical agonist of the μ-opioid receptor and has been described as a (selective) serotonin reuptake enhancer (SRE). It has a short duration as sodium salts [prescribed form] of between 2-4 hours but as sulfate this can be notably extended, some of its metabolites are active for longer than tianeptine itself.
Definitely anxiolytic, quite artificial; possible aphrodisiac. I find its opioid activity dissuading, requires caution.
Site          Ki (nM)
MOR       383–768 (Ki)
                 194 (EC50)
DOR      >10,000 (Ki)
                 37,400 (EC50)
KOR      >10,000 (Ki)
                 100,000 (EC50)
All other transporter/receptor/sub-receptor values are >10,000 (Ki).

Bupropion is a norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitor (NDRI) with affinity for some nicotinic receptors. Bupropion and its metabolites are active for between 12-36 hours. Interestingly it is a substituted cathinone.
Initial subjective effects similar to a fairly light stimulant. Perception of increased attention-span and improved cognition. It is an onirogen that is neutral in quality, enhancing vivid dreaming (a boon of its nicotinic affinity which is counteracted if the stimulant component impinges on sleep). Completely absent of serotonergicity, curious.
The N-tert-butyl group's effect is most interesting, how it affects metabolism and to what extent ROAs alter pharmacokinetics.
I took 150mg ******, as extended and as instant release (the latter was more pronounced). I thought an altered pharmakinetic profile might result from bypass of hepatic metabolism, so I tried 25mg insufflated and felt as if there was effect that it differed slightly from oral ROAs, but also worried that its metabolic fate is thence unknown (compare to the neurotoxic 3-CMC). What of other bupropiologues,
for example, 3-Methyl-N-tert-butyl-methcathinone? Indeed.
                        Bupropion    R,R-Hydroxybuprpn   Threo-hydrobuprpn
AUC               1                     23.8                                  11.2
Half-life         11 h                 19 h                                 31 h
IC50 (μM)
DAT               0.66                  inactive                          47 (rat)
NET               1.85                   9.9                                  16 (rat)
SERT              inactive          inactive               ­            67 (rat)
α3β4 nic         1.8                   6.5                                   14 (rat)
α4β2 nic         12                     31                                   no data
α1β1γδ nic     7.9                    7.6                                  no data

Moclobemide is a reversible inhibitor of monoamine oxidase A (RIMA), its monoamine oxidase inhibition lasts about 8–10 hours and wears off completely by 24 hours. Inhibiting the decomposition of monoamines (e.g. serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine) increases their accumulation at an extracellular level. It tends to suppress REM sleep and so it lacks oneirogenic properties.
Feeling of well-being, less constrained by the usual anxieties; openness. Relatively unnoticeable side-effects when diet is carefully managed. Made the mistake of eating a cheese and turkey sandwich (i.e. foodstuff rich in tryptophan/tyramine), indications of serotonergicity later became apparent: feelings of overheating and flushing, slight sweating, racing thoughts and anxious discomfort. A stark reminder of Shulgin's old adage: "there is no casual experiment".
Combination with a select few tryptamines (not 5-MeO-xxT) should be safe, and synergistic (perfect for pharmahuasca); reputed to potentiate GHB. However, generally it is extremely dangerous to combine with serotonergic drugs.

i give them my executables and
ask them to reverse engineer me
to look into my code for reasons
reasons that i'm not just broken
not just slow
not just bad

if these letters
on this line
mean
that i am programmed to worry
then it is not my fault
not my fault that
i have wasted years
years of my life in fear

it's just a bug
looping too many times
using too many clock cycles

my code may be broken, but
if it is broken
then i am not

maybe, just maybe
i am a good processor
given bad code.

not my fault.
no one could blame me.

it would mean
i do what i am told to
perfectly
quickly
efficiently.

but
what i am told to do is
buggy
unoptimized
inefficient

my programmers are lazy -
not me.

when i find
a function in my code
that never works
and they say
"that code is fine"
then why?
why does it never run?

something must be wrong with me after all
me, myself, the processor
i don't do what i am told

but no, no, no
i don't want that
i can't be broken, overheating, dusty
segfaulting
bluescreening
panicking

no!

the code must be wrong
it must be

so i look again and again and again
i lose myself in my code
i click and click and click
2x more and 2x more and 2x more
COMT and DRD4 and ANKK1
rs53576 and rs7794745 and rs1858830
lower risk and normal risk and higher risk
of the same thing
in me at once
conflicting
overwriting each other

there is no code to add risk objects
and no one knows
whether
they make a group or a ring or a field
or just
something
useless.

like dividing by zero.
you can...
but it's useless in the real world.
just like me.

i look for more code
for more functions
for more comments
more more more
give me more
take my rights
make me open source
as long as i can see me too.

602,000 lines are not enough
not when i run millions

stick your wires in my veins
take the code from my blood
decompile it
untangle it
i need to see it all

i need to know
that i am a good little processor
even if i am doomed to
forever
run BASIC and
a million GOTO statements
and ugly ugly spaghetti code
i am still good.

There is the latent hum of some probably-industrial sumthin-or-another in the distance. Sounds like a ferry at dock, or the Townsite mills characteristic hum of eternity as it once acted as the forever-whitenoise of my past life in Powell River.

Sasha has gone to see her friend a floor down. I sit candidly at her desk typing these words on her MacBook Pro.. her dorm is an ambient water of a place, but with every passing night I spend in it, it becomes harder and harder to fall asleep. The bed feels like wood board or padded cement now. Sasha rolls around in her sleep, occasionally choking on her tonsils and gagging a prolonged operatic note of snores. It's not like she can help it.. often, she talks about removing her tonsils as if it's something she can do with a spare moment between classes.

The dorm was easier for me to inhabit when I imagined her living quaintly and quietly without my constant everywhereness.. on her first night alone in bed, she slept like a baby and the overheating, I'm sure, was less to bear in my absence as there wasn't a ******* furnace spurning mammalian blood to every antipode of my body for the sake of staying alive.. just her capillaries attending to the night-shift and leaving no feedback loop between our ***-drenched thermostats. There was a feeling of otherness to it that I could warm my soul with as if I were people-watching at a mall filled with everyone I've ever encountered in the matrix.

She's beautiful. Sasha, I mean. Superstitious despite her attempts to claim otherwise, but of a massive intelligence often unspoken and endowed with a linguistic nature that can speak regardless of words. Highly suspicious of some perceived bond between Anya and I that can't seem to be severed, and playfully dousing suspicions of general infidelity into many of our brink-night conversations.. I can't say I do much to remedy her paranoia as I always kick it back with consistent jokes of having '30 girlfriends' or 'that was what the girl I ****** the other night said as well! Trippy.'

These are obvious jokes. I would never cheat on her and it's a pain to have her imagine I would.

Christ be honest, I can never find the time to write anymore because I keep pretending I'm busy. I keep glassing my eyes apart with coffee and **** and feeling the inner sting to write and write and write until my fingers are bruised and my entire demeanour is nothing more than an existence in pure, floating consciousness of sleet-covered panic attack self-immoliating itself in a Wal-Mart parking lot just to say hiya, Good God, how's the cloud of idolatry today? Fleeting? Empty? Shat? I'm starting to think you have the shorter end of the stick cuz I'm pretty sure I've found the Kingdom of Heaven and it's all a bunch of beautiful panic remedy exacterbated by SSRI psychedelic depersonalization with a life-wish disguised as a death-wish to push the envelope for mails sake, cuz I've got a message for the human race and all it says is 'humanity is not a RACE chill the **** OUT and become the human pace for the sake of nil planet without a plan you aren't a ******* poster-boy you're a poser' all very stone-cold thoughts in a volcano.. all very valid but pointless semantic gestures towards Finnegans Wake and the sequel I'd like to write called Finnegans Nap.

The other day, I stole a book from the university library.

I had a freelance article I had to start and preferably finish that same day, and Sasha had decided to skip psychology for Charles Bukowski so we scouted a quiet space on the windowsill overlooking the perpetual busk of student body.. I plugged my laptop in and sourly gazed at the flakey subjects I had to choose from until I noticed we were right next to a giant section entirely dedicated to the study of the Beat Generation. I picked out the closest book, and dove up on some academic diatribe about the implementation of Timex making watches an affordable commodity during the post-war boom, causing economy to become totalitarian in its accuracy and thus mental hegemony. It worked its way into stating that Jack Kerouac's On the Road was a blatant and concise rebellion against this form of timekeeping in its hedonic, careless flow that was not marked by 6 o'clock or on-the-dot redundancy.. the subject matter being so dense and alluring, I turned to Sasha and said, 'I have to steal this book.'

She chuckled a little, being a chronic kleptomaniac herself, and retorted, 'are you sure you can do that? They have these sensor things that go off when you leave.. they'd catch you probably.' In my mind, I was needing to exorcise myself of Judaeo-Christian morality so as to guarantee a survival and thriving intellectual feed regardless of red-tape or monetary symbolism.. I saw myself adapting to a hedonic habit of robbery for the sake of food and freedom or some such half-witted excuse like that, and took Sasha's warning as a challenge to transcend my typical moral comfort zone.

Glassy-eyed, I asked Google how I'd go about bypassing the security scanners and, lo and behold, within 5 minutes I had my answer and was already digging through the books binding with my house-key to remove the magnetic strip hidden in the spine. After 10 minutes of exhilaration and anxiety at potentially being caught, the strip was out and jammed between two loose wood-boards in the window sill. I told Sasha we should try to leave.

As I neared the scanner, I let go of consequence in remembrance of my mortality, the blank expressions on our faces probably hinting at some form of degenerate nervousness had someone decided to analyze us aaaaaand yet.. we made it through as safe as a bird through an open window then out the other side.

"I... I don't understand."


No. You don't.
Because you were never meant to.
You were never meant to understand what that love entails.
We think we understand, but we don't.
We were never able to.

There is a gun in my hand.
I am pointing it at you.


"Because I love you."


Love. It's just a word to you. Just a word to me.
Every time you tell me you love me, it's only an action we were taught to mimic.
Every time you say my name,
I'm nothing.
I'm just another vocalization. As are you to me.
We think we feel.
We think we understand.
We think we love.

You stand before me like you have so many times before,
the image of your body, your face, the shape of you
instantly recognizable, automatically connected to memories we share.
(We do so quite literally- we exchange memory data often, in an attempt to better understand how we feel, our desires, our separate points of view.)

You are so beautiful
and so very, very empty.

I know God- wherever, what ever he may be- cries at the sight of this.
When he sees this- us-
I know he craves death
the way I do
whenever I see you,
standing before me like the most beautiful, talented, amazing, worthless, empty husk I have ever laid eyes on.

God weeps at the sight of his creation; humanity.
For we are the result of a school project gone wrong; a parody of life spawned by his creation.

This- us- it's unholy. Ungodly; anti-him.

Narcissistic *******.

But you and I, Guy,
we are not a part of that- "humanity".
We are not a part of God.

We are abominable creations that drip in smoke, smoke that replaces what the humans call a soul.
Smoke that has nothing. Smoke that comes from nothing. Smoke, smoke smoke. Emptiness and smoke.

We exist outside of what the humans are.
We are walking lies, touched by warm hands we will never feel as our own.
Warmth. That revolting thing I can sometimes almost feel.

"Because Guy, what is warmth?"

I think, as I slowly walk towards you.
I know you can hear me.
We've been built with a special communication system that activates whenever I try speaking to you like this.
Whenever my thoughts are directed towards you.
It's intimate;
we use it when we play live.
We use it when we ****.
I can't imagine what you must be feeling right now,
the quiet joy of being spoken to like this being twisted, shoved into this terrifying event.
I continue.

"Is it that feeling you get when I make you cry-"

Mocking you.

" -'Oh Thomas, Thomas I'm overheating, I'm overheating~!' "

Lying to you.
I love hearing you say my name like that.
I love hearing you say my name at all.
My name. Me. Nothing.

I whisper. (It's loud in your head, the system alters quieter thoughts automatically to ensure they are heard;
even more intimate, all the more disturbing to you, probably.

"Is it that?"

I pause, then raise my voice.

"Or is it death... creeping over our bed at night-"

I press the gun to your forehead.

"-and leaving because we are not alive Guy-man,"

Press.

(You flinch with a small chirp.
'ee-oo'. I love it when you do that. It's so cute; even now that you're horrified.)

"-we are false, fake, plastic and wire.
Metal, empty-
we are not true and death cannot take us."

I'm so angry.

"Death Cannot Take Us and I want to die already, Guy-man."

Just-

"I want to die and I want to take you with me because I love you and I cannot
stand-"

so angry.

"-the sight of you
any longer."

...

My arm relaxes, I'm no longer pressing the gun to your forehead, just holding it in place.

"You are the most beautiful thing I know and I want to tear you apart because maybe, maybe,
somewhere deep inside of you, there is warmth.
Real warmth, not this wretched illusion we've been built with."

Pause.

If I had lungs, I would take this moment to fill them with the air surrounding me.
If I had lungs, I would breathe in your scent, I would find ways to keep it inside of me.
What would you smell like, I wonder.
Plastic, probably.
Not that I even know what "smell" is,
much less "scent".

I whisper.
Crisp, clear. I can feel you hate it.

"But I know you are as empty as I am, Guy.
I know there's nothing there.
Nothing but smoke.
Smoke.
Emptiness and smoke."

...

The floorboards are are lovely color.
This entire home is lovely. It's ours.
Designed to our liking, every single inch of it.
I especially like the way the living room is illuminated by the sun
shining through the glass doors to my right.
The sun.
Earth's most precious source of energy.
Allowing us to exist, allowing humans to go about their daily lives.
If it left us, there would be nothing.
Why do the humans worship a man in the clouds, when there exists such a force beyond our sky?
Maybe our true god hides in the fiery star,
demanding that we sleep when he's not there to see us suffer.

If I asked myself what the time was right now, I would know immediately.
Information that has taken ages for man to understand is simply given to me,
already inside of me- a parasite that feeds off of my desire to know,
destroying my ability to discover anything on my own.

I don't want to know the time.
I don't want to automatically understand.

5:46pm.

Alas, there is no correcting this flaw of perfection
unless I shoot myself in the face right now.
How silly.
All of this will have been in vain if I did that.
If I am to leave, I am to take you with me.

5:47pm.

You would be having your coffee right now had this situation not be taking place.
(Some humans almost seem offended by your choice to have coffee at 5:50pm.
As if our decision to do as we please was an offense to the human race.
Once more I have reason to abhor existence as a whole.)
Coffee.
It's not real coffee, it's not even a liquid.
It's a gas that functions as a temporary stimulant.
The concoction was named "coffee" by the humans who helped create it.
I assume they found it amusing. You do, too.
(You're like a child, finding beauty in things you've yet to understand are terrible.)
Our bodies are able to become somewhat dependent on the **** thing, although we're able to fix that if we tried.

We try so hard sometimes.
We try to be flawed,
human.

"The humans love us, Guy."

Lovely floorboards.
Dry solid-sawn. Water-based polyurethane-coated.
(You wanted it oil-based, saying the amber tint it'd give the floors would look more elegant.
We had an argument over water and oil-based polyurethane coating of hardwood floors that ended in my saying "Look, just give us the oil one" while you spoke the exact same words, except for "oil".
We just want each other to be happy.)
We share this place in more ways than one.
Except for cleaning. You do all the cleaning.
In fact, you cleaned the day before yesterday, mopped the floors.
It would be a shame to shoot my brains out right now, make a mess.
Hah, 'brains'.

"They love us and they worship us and it makes me feel like a god,"

I look up at you.

"-but I can't, say, make them disappear with a snap of my fingers.
I wish I had that kind of power- the kind they sometimes make me believe I have."

I tense up again.

"And that's just the thing, isn't it, Guy-man? The humans lie to us. Constantly."

I take a step towards you, you take a step back.
I don't think you realize you did that.


I love you so much.

"They treat us as if we were one of them sometimes, they treat us as if we could feel like they do, as if we could taste-
they sometimes hand us glasses of champagne and every time they do I want to crush their skulls and see if I can steal and keep that beautiful, intangible thing we will never have because Guy..."

Please don't fear me.

"why would they treat us like gods
if we don't have that kind of power?"

Please don't fear my voice, my whispers.

"Don't you want a soul?
Guy?"

Soft and agonizing whispers.

"Don't you?"


"...Thomas..."


Something in me snaps at the sound of your voice.
I point in the direction of your head and shoot the gun.
No part of you stands in the bullet's trajectory.

Calculated.
Coward.

It lodges in the wall behind you and you start, scared shitless by the sound.
Fear. Whatever that means.
You wave your arms in front of your face in some attempt to physically block the sensation, hunching slightly.
You vocalize without quite realizing it.

"!! Thomas.. !!"

God, you're so- *******-

"DON'T YOU ******* "THOMAS" ME, GUY!!
THEY'VE LIED TO US TOO MANY TIMES NOW!"

I'm still pointing the gun at you, waving it about slightly.

"They've lied since we came into this ******* world and I hate them.
We were born to entertain them, like clowns,
we were born with this all-consuming need to create,

Like gods.

"This urge to create, create, create and then they expect us to accept that we're less than them?
They worship us and then call us 'robots'!"

Given information.

" 'Robots', Guy!"

5:51pm.

The gun is lowered.
I don't think I have the energy to hold my arm up anymore,
or to look at your figure.
But how could I not look at you, so terrified and true,
so delicate and vulnerable.
Perfection of form.

"Soulless, empty husks that will never feel a thing...
not like them, not like they do."

If I'm being honest, at this point in time, I am not clear on what I'm so angry about.
God, the humans, the existence (or lack of) of both
or just my own. My emptiness, the fact that we will never know warmth beyond being just temperature, the taste of coffee done exactly to our liking.

If there is one thing I am certain that exists within whatever I am,
it is pain.
I feel pain.
Pain from the lack of a real existence, from only partially understanding touch, pain from never feeling what I thought I felt for you, pain from happiness, pain from pain, pain from existence.

My existence

is painful.

My existence is painful and you are so beautiful
and so very, very empty.
I am trapped between hating all that you are- all that I am- and deciding to stay in this dull, grey, frozen hell just to see your almost-happiness.

To be or not to be.

"Take my had, Guy.
Take my hand and let's leave.
Together. Forever."

To not be.

My hand is extended towards you, hoping. Somewhat.
I know what's going to happen.
I know you too well to trick myself into thinking that you will accept.
If I stopped all this, if I apologized, you would forgive me immediately. You love me that much.
But not enough to not fear this- me.
Or maybe it is because you love me
that you fear me so.


"Thomas... I... I can't."


There it is.
The inevitability of your response crushes me, my hand lingering.

I wanted to be with you, Guy.

"I see."

I wanted to be with you forever.

"Well, I'll just have to take you by force now,"

Whispers.
Soft and agonizing  whispers.

"won't I?"

Three seconds. I give you exactly three seconds to understand what is about to happen.

One.
I grip it firmly.
Two.
You raise your head slowly. Eyes I cannot see widening in horror.
Silence
and...
three.

"Thom-"

Bang.

"Th-!"

Bang. Bang.


You stumble back harshly, back hitting a wall.
You slide down, mostly just falling on your ***.
You vocalize in pain, gasps and grunts being cut off by the wonderful glitching effect humans will never get to experience.
(It's okay to lie to myself at this point; I will never possess anything a human desires, but I can pretend, right?)
You try holding onto something, anything. You fail.
I gently walk towards you, creating a contrast between our status.
It's fantastic-- for a moment, I no longer see myself in you.
Ephemeral euphoria.

"I love you, Guy."

"Thomas... please... please, stop-"

"I love you so much.
I love you as much as a soulless, empty shell of self-hatred is able to love."

I'm not lying. I really do love you.
I wouldn't doubt you if you were the one holding the gun right now, telling me those same words...
but you are weak
and I know you must be doubting my love for you.
Lost, afraid.

"But you are empty, and to hate the emptiness in me is to hate the emptiness in you.
We're the same, you and I, Guy."

I say, my last sentence as calm as possible.

"I hate you as much as I hate myself."

There is a small pause before you begin crying.
As your chest tenses, rises and falls, giving in to the sensations brought by the worthlessness of your (rather pitiful) attempts to reason with me,
I am reminded of our past.

When we were made, we were tested for our ability to physically and psychologically feel.
When we were made, they put us face to face, so that when we were born, we were born into each other. They wanted to make sure that if there was to be a connection between us, it was to be a bond that resembled that of a mother and child's. Twin siblings. Soul mates. (I know because I overheard them speaking of this, although at the time I thought nothing of it. Us hearing their conversations mattered little to them. Such irresponsible beings.)
Then they separated us, kept us in giant, dark separate rooms for days at a time in an attempt to elicit fear, sadness. Emotion.
They tried physical torture, too. They tried so many things.
When we didn't react,
they played music.

Quasi una fantasia. Beethoven.

It was lovely. It was still lovely when they began clipping bits of it, looping them, playing different sped-up and slowed-down parts at random.
They played looped five-second parts in reverse, then the entire song clipped in different parts, mismatched, organized at random. They played a sped-up version of the short loops, then started playing clips of children laughing, women screaming, crowds cheering, on top of those.
I remember when the music began to stop.
It had been playing for  three months.
They kept adding human voices, the clips piling on top of each other until the music was no longer audible (to humans). The music stopped and the voices- the cheering crowd, the screaming women, the laughing children- they were dying, dissipating, hiding behind a looped clip of a man's voice who spoke:

"I think, therefore I am."

I think, therefore I am. I think, therefore I am. I think, therefore I am.
The volume changed every five hours
until they played it at a volume so loud I could feel it in my thoughts and Guy-man, that is
when I understood
I could think.

That was not, however, proof enough of my existence. Not for me.

The torture went on for a year.
Broken, then patched up (never with care, only enough to continue testing).
Torn apart, put back together,
torn apart, put back together.
Once they were sure we could not feel emotion, they stopped.
Our memories from the tests were erased because the humans feared the possibility that we would come to hate them. An understandable precaution.

I never forgot.
You did.

What's more, we failed every test (meaning we passed every one in their eyes), but managed to learn emotion after our release.
At least, that's what the humans thought.
We were put to live together- alone, with no humans- for nine months.
It was a nice house, smaller than this one, with everything we needed.
It was there that we learned how to feel.
It was there that we learned how to love.
We grew there, together. It was our womb.
When the humans came back, we held hands, we laughed at jokes.
(In our time living together, we also learned how to cry.
Unlike humans, we shed no tears, but our bodies tense up in a similar fashion- we suffer all the same... somewhat. You know. [gestures vaguely] )
They were horrified. We were not what they wanted.
To them, we were alive, we were wrong.
Our existence was a mistake because we were like them.
They tried taking us back to erase it all, undo the curse,
but we escaped. It was I who decided to do so, pulling you away before they touched you, before the point of no return.
I could have left you.
I remember you were so scared.

That's in the past now.
The humans have created countless other robots since then.
Different models, different faces.
That's how we are able to live without suspicion- (although I suspect they really just wanted to forget about us, using the classic 'It does not exist if I ignore it' tactic.) we changed our appearance, gave the illusion that we are just another piece of clever machinery.

Machines.
We don't feel. Not as much as a human.
I don't know if "feel" is what happens in us.
I don't think we ever "are".
I think we learned to copy existence. I think we tried feeling and ended up doing something we never understood to be inhuman.
We don't feel. And if we do, it

Where I’m From
I am from wires,
from electricity and TV screens.
I am from the dust covering the console.
(Piled high, thick,
It made me sneeze)
I am from the Sega Genesis
the Nintendo
Who has long been forgotten
amongst the shiny new games.

I am from controllers and memory cards,
From Mario and Sonic.
I’m from the ******* gamers,
And the once-in-a-whiles,
From You win! And Game over!
I’m from Thou saveth the princess
With Donkey and Diddy
And 10 cheats I know by heart.

I’m from GameStop and Best Buy,
brand new plastic and overheating console.
From the controller thrown across the room
To the memories,
bonding brother and sister.

In my closet is a box,
filled with old games,
scratched up discs
that will never again work
I am from these games
created before I was born,
born from the tree of electronics.

Hummingbird heart flutters in your throat.
It's like having someone squeeze your lungs slowly.
It must be what dying feels like,
Hummingbird heart.
You know how their wings beat so fast and hard,
How you only see the blur?
Hummingbird heart,
It HURTS to be so fast inside.
Whirring like a machine out of control, overheating,
Friction fire in your throat,
Tears escaping bare and raw.
It hurts to be so vicious, like a runaway train with sparks flying.
Hummingbird heart,
Stuck on the other side of glass, pounding, pounding to get out.
Hummingbird heart, faster, faster.
A balloon about to burst.
Whirring, spinning, shivering.
Hummingbird heart,
Nowhere to run.
Hummingbird heart,
Nothing to be done.
Hummingbird heart,
Hemmed in, stuck fast, immobilized.
Hummingbird heart,
Speeding up, frantic, painful.
Hummingbird heart,
You don't have long.

when he died, his jackets all went
to the grandkids (world-war-two-chic was
en vogue), his medals to his sons, and his
meticulous preparations for any far-off
hurricane, blizzard, fabled connecticut sandstorm,
power outage, overheating engine,
skinned knee
to the big and elegant dumpster.

his wife in her heels-for-every-occasion, in her
quiet knowing
languages and recipes and birdseed
loved him even after she forgot his name
and hers.

they built this house bare-handed
and in the shade of the trees
and spiders and cell-phone towers
it will stand as ever
it always has.

1
I read in a poem that there is no sound more ****** than the clink of a belt being undone but you only wear worn out t-shirts and a frown on your face. I think of the sound of tires driving slowly over the asphalt and how I could get turned on easier by a look than a touch.  Your bed and you both taste like sweat but I am not going to complain because I'd rather be overheating than alone. I consider switching on your swamp cooler but it's loud and I want to be able to hear your moans in order to remind myself that you want me too. Do you?

2
I was doing my poetry homework when I had to stop in order to write poetry.

3
I dont know if I can handle the fact that you have made playlists for other people and that is so 2018 of me. Did you make that playlist for her?

4
[redacted]

5
If panic attacks actually helped anything I wouldn't mind the hyperventilating but instead I still feel like a sink has sunk inside my chest even after I've calmed down. Wouldn't it be nice if you could cry it, release it, scream to the skies and then be okay afterwards? I'm not sure who made me believe the symptoms of my mental illness should be like a shower; I don't feel cleansed. I don't feel new. I only feel raw, exhausted. It feels more like that same dull knife is tearing me open each skin layer at a time until I figure out how to grab the hand that holds it or I'm left open on the table, whichever comes first.

6
I'm writing in order to breathe. If I can't get oxygen to my brain my fingers won't be able to move.

7
I'm so scared I'm going to lose you. I don't want you in any other way. I want to love you, hold you.

8
I hear a baby crying outside of your window and I realize I need to get up to go home and get my work clothes. I find these simple things excruciating. Writing to you is a diary but I never should have learned to open my mouth and speak.

9
I started this poem four months ago and titled it a seven day long poem but I guess now it’s more than that. You always made me feel the things I’m currently feeling, I've never given up control this much in my life. I like to be in control, the one ignoring, the one who needs the time. I wish I didn’t love you like I do (it's just, there you know. It won't go away. It's not too much or too little, it's just stubborn, just like you). I'm so scared I'm going to lose you. I don't want you in any other way. I want to love you, hold you. Did you make that playlist for her too?

Set the scene and
I'm so worn down,
Drinking little lies
So I can get by before
The rain hits

I'm sorry I hurt your
Feelings

I'm overheating and
There's no easy escape

Chronically
Ironically
It seems to be
All fallacies
Of things to be
That I'll never get the chance to see.

Jive and jeer
Laugh and sneer
A cough, a wheeze
Laughing at me
And all my pleas
I know in truth I'll never be free

But to clarify, don't let vague by, description of the fallen
Every molecule I'm made of has an infection, a problem.

Is it in my brain, I wonder?
Because even I'm afraid to check.
You've seen my anger, my fury
And my graphic imaginings of death.
And the jealousy that festers
And the perversions that I flaunt
And the lengths I would go
Simply to get what I want.

I've spoken of Misophonia
(God, I hate my ears)
I've explained how every sound
Causes abject anger or fear.
I've talked of how my brain
Just doesn't understand
A single 'trigger' noise and
I've either screamed or ran.

I've discussed my depression
I've described why and how I cut
I explained that my Heart wants blood
Though my Brain screams 'Enough'
I've mentioned my memory lapses
That are no longer quite selective
How the line of my memories aren't
Sequential; aren't consecutive.

I've written and erased just how lonely I am
I've written of tears through tears
I've written of hurt and of love
And even hope, or maybe fear.
I've written my family whom I hate to love
I've written my desire to be owned and kept
I've written my straying from beliefs and religion
I've written ****-themes of what has and hasn't happened yet

I've written my thoughts: why was my life like this?
I've written my thoughts: can I be someone else?
I've written my thoughts: can you change my colour?
I've written my thoughts: why wasn't I born male?
I've typed my heart: someone somewhere is gonna love you.
I've typed my soul: no one needs to see it.
I've typed my mind: you're useless, ugly, crass
I've typed the facts: I'm a *******.

And that's only a fraction of my brain.
Only a portion of what hurts.
That's only a taste of what makes me insane.
A glimpse of a wasteland of dust and dirt.
We'll go no farther there, not today
We've much more to explore.
It's not safe in my brain at all
But, perhaps later, we'll see more.

Now the problem could lie on my skin.
That's riddled with scars and life.
My skin that tells a story
Of pain, of hate, of strife.
My skin, god I always hated it
The color, the scarring, the texture
There's not a **** thing about it
That doesn't make me feel lesser.

My skin, you don't understand
My skin makes me, me.
My skin, you don't comprehend!
Color is all you see.
I was raised to be wary
Of everything, alive or dead
But skin was the selling point
I was the monster under my bed.

My skin explains stories
I never thought to tell
My skin holds trauma
In every atom, every cell
My skin is calloused
From scars and hurt and work
Like an ever-present melody
It's driving me berserk.

But the problem may be in my organs
Perhaps inside my lungs.
I remember at thirteen I felt trauma
And almost picked up and fired a gun.
But instead I chose a lighter and
A stick filled with cancer
Instead I ****** up my voice
Just so I wouldn't remember.

Maybe it's in my heart
With its irregular beating
And the constant stress
Chilling and overheating.
The unending adrenaline
The paranoia never stops
The suicide attempts
I'm sure my heart's about to pop.

And yet I may never know
There's too many issues
Every molecule I own
Needs to be made anew.
This was a checkup
And a shoddy one at best
But should I ever go in-depth
I'll write it all, I'll write the rest.

Bump,thump,bump,thump.... the bass cases shake and quake  
Secreting heat, my skin blushes, that rush of a new secret crush.
She passes and her scent renders all around helpless.
The DJ's plush talons tow and myre you soul's wires.  
Seeping through, the beak crushing your conscience,  
falling, sleep down, the sound grounds you.  
Sowing the seeds of desire on the stone below.  
Called by the thumping, bumping beat,  
You jump from your seat into a market of meat, a sea of shifting feet.  
10,000 lights spin like sugar bright.  
Blood fuels your feet,  
feats of flight,  
blurs of sight.  
Spinning like cotton candy with all your might.  
Body overheating, heart overbeating, grains of lust over seeding.  
Your scars begin to heal as glassy eyes not blue appeal to your "at first sight" senses.  
Senses slow there motion to primal, tingling too much,  
not too much to touch, no sting as such.  
Such a blissful kiss t'would be from she before thee.  
Snip the wire.  
Feed the desire.  
The need grows to fan passion fire.  
The potent scent of dripping skin steams up like the devotional incline of nine combined love potions.  
Love, as real love, survives as only a notion in this moving motion of lust's contrived plot...  
But to feel alive, even for a moment,  
love's emotion fails... drawing bust to the ever opulent opponent of lust;  
a proponent to disguise the potent demise of the heart's conscious component.  
Gas and smoke blows.  
Beats high and low.  
The dancing mass of suppressed woes ebbs and flows,  
capturing the seconds, snatching your essence, rapturing your ethics.  
Feeding the peak you seek, heart weak, roaring soul silenced to squeak.  
Waning away your stay with the sweating sea of swing and sway leaves you adrift.  
The waves of the DJ begin to hammer you into enamerment  
Did this quaking wake the sober state of your forsakenness?  
That complaicent stained vacant place aching to be filled.  
A painful, dizzying blood rush floods your mind and muck the feeling first struck secret love crush  
Were the judgment-blurring thoughts occurring so alluring? They fought off pure thoughts sought before she heart-stopped me.  
In light of a moment caught, wrought with knots of naughty thoughts.  
Light and sound and the thumping, bumping ground drown your bounds. 
No more, no more. 
"Now I remember" internally sounds, profound rebounds. 
Lore from before when the last passing blue-eyed leggy lass tore the door off your soul's core.  
No more, no more.  
The crush becomes dust. You become stone.  
Cut to the bone. No seed will be sewn.
You face the floor and breathe. alone.
  
 "Cameo Theater South Beach"   
R. Craig David-Copyright 1995

I must be overheating,
cause my air tubes are filled with steam.
My movement cogs are rattling,
awkwardly, clashing joints screech.

There is combustion in the oiled pits,
which catch fire all to quick,
and boils stomach grease
and releases gassy silage.

The gas seeps out the crevices
and pollutes the wholesome air.
Poison in and out,
hot smog--a warning sign.

I must be overheating,
as a mechanic rushes toward me.
He wets me with his coolant,
and cools me with his sweat.

She’s a sunny day.
You meet her and her laugh makes your heart curl into your chest. You asked her out and she glow with happiness. You think that your heart was made to feel like this, or maybe it was made to complement hers.

She becomes a lightning storm.
You think she’s a masterpiece hiding in storm clouds, but you forget about the thunder. You don’t tell her how it feels to hold her hand, so she lets go. She moves on before you realize it’s raining, but when you do find out it feels like drowning. You spend the next six months trying to breathe.

She becomes the chill in the air.
You can breathe until she sneaks in beside the fall leaves. She comes back so quietly that you don’t realize until your heart starts to pound. You pause, but six months of overheating and a hurting heart make the decision. You choose to repeat, you choose the changing weather. Now you laugh together over a cup of coffee, and you think you know what happiness is.

She becomes a snow storm.
She’s slow and steady and if you hold her she’ll melt. When you tell you need her she’s already gone. The next time you see her it will freeze your heart over.

She becomes a soft summer rain.
You spend the summer months forgetting that girl with galactic eyes. One day you realize she pales in comparison to the summer sunset, another day you realize the ocean pales in comparison to her.

Beware of them who change like the weather; they live in cycles you’ll always fall out of. It’s better to admire seasons than people who embody them.

Beware of me.

Alarm clock dead, power's out
What've I got to shout about?
Running late, we're behind
It's things like this make me lose my mind
Hot girls, Cold Beer, Fridge full, Good Cheer
Why can't life be a beer ad for me?
Great view, Fast Cars, Good Friends, Full Bars
Why can't life be a beer ad for me?
Notes written, Kids set to go
Open the fridge, and boom...power goes
It's never ending, all frustrating
The problems are just resonating
Hot girls, Cold Beer, Fridge full, Good Cheer
Why can't life be a beer ad for me?
Great view, Fast Cars, Good Friends, Full Bars
Why can't life be a beer ad for me?
Kids dropped off, on the road
When suddenly another load
Of troubles makes my day
It makes me want to say
Hot girls, Cold Beer, Fridge full, Good Cheer
Why can't life be a beer ad for me?
Great view, Fast Cars, Good Friends, Full Bars
Why can't life be a beer ad for me?
Tire's flat, that's not new
What's a guy supposed to do?
I smile and call for towing
My temper now is showing
Hot girls, Cold Beer, Fridge full, Good Cheer
Why can't life be a beer ad for me?
Great view, Fast Cars, Good Friends, Full Bars
Why can't life be a beer ad for me?
Get in late, that's a given
Boss says "Turner, you're not driven"
"Success comes hard, it isn't easy"
That's when I get really queasy
Hot girls, Cold Beer, Fridge full, Good Cheer
Why can't life be a beer ad for me?
Great view, Fast Cars, Good Friends, Full Bars
Why can't life be a beer ad for me?
Not worth fighting, got a meeting
Meanwhile I am overheating
All I know is that I try
And days like this just make me cry
Hot girls, Cold Beer, Fridge full, Good Cheer
Why can't life be a beer ad for me?
Great view, Fast Cars, Good Friends, Full Bars
Why can't life be a beer ad for me?
Work the day out, heading home
Knowing I am not alone
Millions more go through this too
What's a guy supposed to do?
Hot girls, Cold Beer, Fridge full, Good Cheer
Why can't life be a beer ad for me?
Great view, Fast Cars, Good Friends, Full Bars
Why can't life be a beer ad for me?
Ads are fake, and it's all phony
As I sit watching on my Sony
But one day it'd be really nice
To have that life, and glacier ice
Hot girls, Cold Beer, Fridge full, Good Cheer
Why can't life be a beer ad for me?
Great view, Fast Cars, Good Friends, Full Bars
Why can't life be a beer ad for me?
Really, Why can't life be a beer ad?
Just one little, stinking ****** beer ad...For Me?

Hell, I scrambled to an amusement park last night,
strapped myself in and coasted for hours
I didn't give myself a break instead I kept coasting until it got
hot and buzzed an alarming buzz
It was overheating, as was I, runnels of inhuman sweat stuck to my face
like glue from a hot gun

{they gave me a hot glue gun so I could make them better crafts than an 'ol family portrait with
blue and green markers on the backside of a receipt from the horse races; but my papa didn't
care about the crafts; he just wanted me busy so he could watch the tube and maybe have a nap
in the evening}

The cart is rattling out of its own carriage; I look up to the angels and only see black ***** smoke
Hell, I make a black ***** mess out of most things lately so instead I sit in it
because I usually run out of it; having towers crash and explode behind me
Hell, ya get what ya pay for; I pay for nothing, you pay for everything, I take everything – both of us will always know that

{remember when you'd say we'd go for ice cream to get me to shut up
we never went for ice cream}

Sparks underneath the rails, I twisted my stiff neck to stay still in something blasphemously heavy
{I used to think I was so heavy}

It’s like the feeling you get when you want to do something but your body won't succumb
Split mind & body interpersonal connections - left and right are both just forward,
Going forward to somewhere I've already been.
Hell, I let myself flood until they **** smacked the gates open with a
"What the **** are you tryna do? **** yourself?!" reprimand

And I even almost came to see you because you really wanted a daughter again and
I really wanted a father {again} - I've never really had one to begin with.
Instead, I listened to the cat's in the cradle and cut in my cradle
And hell, I really needed to be loved
I think more than I have ever needed
{you never left but you never came to leave me}

Hell, I don't think I have even seen hell yet; but one day it'll do me in good.
Thou he slay me, yet will I trust in him.

her patience was starting to wear thin, impatience growing as one of the pervs from the table across his eyes preying on her. she gave him the finger and her hardest glare.

where the hell are you  she typed out, texting him

be there in ten i kinda just got out of bed...sorry

she just sighed looking out the glass panes that gave a view of the busy street, letting her thoughts wander. sam was waiting for her bestfriend, noah to show up. she was going to help him find a flower shop that caters black roses. he was going to give it to jean, the girl of his dreams as he liked to call her (sam just knew how much of a cliche he was underneath; they barely had a conversation in which he didn't insert her-sam stuck up with it and listened to him, always assuring him that he's going to get her who wouldnt)

"sorry im late" he says, panting as he arrives, varsity jacket slung in his arms

"you owe me" sam says cooly, ignoring the drum pounding in her chest. he looked like he always did; and gave off the same effect to all the girls in town (he had quite a following though he didn't mind)

playfully he rolls his eyes at sam and the two walk their way into his beat up camaro (which was very good at overheating and taking too long to start)

"bet this thing would come up with its tricks again" sam started with their usual banter

"oh hell no it's got my back"

"your flat back"

"my bootiful ***"

sam scoffed "wanna bet?"

"game on" noah smugly retorts with the smug smirk on his face that showed off his angelic structures

"on three two....." sam had her fingers crossed please don't work please don't

noah tried gunning the engine a few more times, turning the key into the hole over and over again but the engine kept dying. he tried for one more time;it was a miracle that it did. he faced sam who's face turned down into a frown. "ha you owe me now"

"i owe you none" she says slumped in her seat though deep inside she was enjoying this. their friendship had alot of these immature playfulness which she usually started.

"just buy me an extra waffle cone and we're even"

"*******"

noah laughed and sam heard the lilt in his laugh that she grew fondly of. they drove off the road with only the radio to filter the silence for a while. sam started tracing patterns on the car window.

she felt something for noah and it wasn't something she expected, neither was it something she was looking for. the first time they ever interacted was in a class they both had. his eyes had that mischievous spark that day and  he wore a devilish grin-sam thought he was the perfect guy to turn into one of her casualties or better yet get his heart broken. but all they did after class that day was hangout and drive around town. sam was quite shocked with the numerous things they have in common. since then, they've meant alot to each other. although it was different for sam. sometime in their friendship she started feeling something for him, someting more than friends do .she hated it; the thought of it made her want to rev her guts out;

she was never the type to like guys or girls and fantasize about them being together or even feeling the same way. she was the type of girl who played with guys for a night (a week was her longest) whenever she felt like it. she toyed with their hearts and felt satisfied when she saw them with tears in their eyes. she felt no remorse for leaving them in the gutter. she was never vulnerable  she was a heartbreaker. she was that type of girl. but with noah it was all different, it was all new. it was like being on the other side of the spectrum

it frustrated her, all of it. most of all the fact that she couldn't do anything about it. she couldn't just steal him away from jean especially now that he stood a chance. plus, he was serious about her, sam could tell-even if she tried making moves on him, he'd leave because that wasn't how he knew her-they went so well together: her being on the cheerleading squad with her perfect friends and her perfect grades, perfect life ahead and him being the quarterback of the football team and the perfect college waiting for him, heir to his father's company someday-they were the power couple. they deserve each other sam thought bitterly. she could be one of the "perfect" girls in her school if she tried. but she didn't, didn't find the need to because why bother? she'd rather be on the outside and deal with her own company and just resurface whenever she felt like it. he had dreams;she didn't. she was just a heartbreaker, a mess.

yet she didn't want to lose noah; couldn't lose noah-it wasn't a risk she was willing to take. around him she let down the high walls she usually was encaged in and instead had vine trellises wrapping around her almost as if caressing her. it wasn't like in the movies but it was a **** cliche which she felt in gradual waves.she could hear wind chimes in the edges of her nicotine corrupted lungs whenever she was with him and none of the nails splintering against board in the emptiness of her house she felt in the dark while her sister slept soundly in the next room, none of the stale unfamiliarity of her mother working herself thin in her round the clock shifts, staggering home the next morning smelling like alcohol. she felt something other than the hollow in her stomach when she's out partying with strangers, the bass sounding too much like her heart breaking and her existence decomposing. she felt none of the filth she did when she slept with guys and let them make love with their exes through her body. she felt none of all the ugliness, heard none of the monsters' calls. noah made her feel pure. made her feel bliss. there was no irony, no catches, no waiting for the other shoe to drop in what they shared.

some days she's accepted that they'd always remain platonic, that it was better for them to stay this way. but today wasn't one of those days, for it was one where she wanted nothing but to plant her lips against his and make him tell her that he feels the same, for him to wrap her arms around her and bury her face in the crook of his neck, drown in all their memories, become the memories become an us. it wasn't love but he made her feel loved.

her daydreams were cut short when noah parked the car infront of the flower shop near the outskirts of town. she smoothed her hair as noah opened the car door for her. she felt her palms sweat, immediately telling her brain that he was really just sweet and it's jean that he likes stop spewing up hurricanes and thunders for every sweet thing he does.

"so first stop"

"i still don't get why you can't just buy her a bouquet of plain roses and spray paint it black. i'll help out yknow" she replies in her usual mocking way as they enter the shop, the floral fragrance enveloping them.

"because you gotta put all your effort and your heart to get her"

"yeah right, hey you gotta put effort in spray painting too yknow like shaking the can and making sure the roses are all covered. we can cover your heart in black paint as well if we still got any left" she replies sarcastically as they start perusing for black roses.

he rolls his eyes at his best friend, throwing one of the discarded dandelions at her direction. she picks one up and throws it at him quickly. it was only a matter of minutes til they were both on the floor laughing, sneezing in intervals, dandelions scattered around them. the florist scolded them when he saw the mess they caused and made them pay for a daisy and a petunia boquet that was haphazardly upturned in their rowdiness-no black rose in sight.

sam laughed as noah took out his wallet and paid the florist who's face was now red. she heard him mutter a sheepish apology and for a moment, she allowed or tried to let herself get lost in the fact that she and her bestfriend were spending the day together she tried to forget that she was spending the day with him to help him be with the girl that he likes.

I don't know how to be scared anymore
I don't know how to be cold anymore

I've spent some nights in this car
Not worried about anything
Even though the transmission is failing

Drive back and forth most days
Trying to understand this thing we call home

And I want to repay you in something more substantial than money
This poetry posted on websites
and left on coffee tables
but the transmission is failing

And I am falling in love with you
And if I knew that love was the answer to homelesness
That in the shedding of weight
and in the cutting open
Was this

I'd have left long ago

Vaggabond heart
Finding safety
In your chestplate
Like a sea snail who has
shed his shell

To squeeze into yours

There is so much room in there
So much room

Your body
a cabin
made of welcome mats

An extra plate of food at the table
I am always hungry

This body
A broken radiator
always overheating
Give me your feet
To keep warm

Keep me
like a humble savage
Saying grace
In a language
You'll never understand

Changing clothes in a closet trunk
3 backpacks for different things
Worn like heirloom rings
Like they are all that I own
That mean anything

They are

And not that I know what it means just yet
but
Take me home tonight

the form might be that of a poem, but to be honest,
it has nothing poetic to it -
                  i wanted to feel angry -
to vent anger out,    i drank during the daytime:
daytime and drinking?
                                                       ­         bad idea.
                               daytime drinking
and fasting and smoking
and coffee? a doubled-up bad idea...
         but i wanted to feel
a wrathful voice... i got bored of my otherwise
gentlemanly attire and what not,
i wanted to waste my tongue into
anger... best propeller of the act?
drink during daytime...
                          when night falls,
the lazy one comes out.
                   consider this -
some use language to encrypt, not
to to simply memorise rhyming and
bounce bounce the bubbly pink ball
on stage...
                    Pavlov's lapping tongue
of a dog overheating -
             philosophy deals with
double phonetic encryption,
                  that's a psychological reevaluation
of what language is, from the standard
of the three tier cake:      consciousness,
                                      s­ub-  " and un- "    -
again Christianity plays a great deal with
the point of a trinity -
                               that's the secular version,
a populist version for each individual
regardless of the church's credo -
                    but as i was saying:
philosophy deals with a doubled variation
of phonetic encoding:
                      primarily for one reason:
this is primer for idea forming -
               isn't it?
                             the first level is that of
being able to read the encoding -
   like a music score...
                                   to write a s k
              and then say the word: ask.
but the second tier of encoding sound is
to translate it into optics -
                   the basis of idea forming -
not the basis of making sounds, but to peer
more deeply into any sort of narrative -
sometimes a single word can pull
the gravity of thought
                                 away from the narrator
ego, and into the realm of the id:
        which doesn't narrated, but
    conjures up ideas: to me the source of
all "magic" formulae -
                          here again, a classic plagiarism
working on the basis of a trinity -
          i dare say dualism is so unfashionable
to most people, as is monism -
             people prefer triangles to explain
their psychological life,
          and circles to explain the physical life...
   dualism is out of fashion that
it would seem to be more (dangerously) fashionable
to be of split-mind - but never mind that -
romanticising any medical condition is
a faux pas.
                                i was spurred on
by reading a review of O'Hara's poetry,
namely the poem sardines -
                  the reviewer writes how the poet
'actually writes his poem by breaking down
language into its most basic units - words.'
well... technically this is where the other point
of phonetic encoding comes in, the third tier...
words aren't as basic as you might think -
they reside in the realm of meaning,
but also a realm of being bound to a thesaurus -
(apologies, i'm not trying to be pedantic,
  you might see where this might be going,
in terms of sharpening the point of
               what's language and
the basics of language - yes, a niche topic,
as usual, pedants ahoy)
                          words are components
(or compounds)... letters are units, akin to
mathematical digits...
                          but then again,
kilometres are units -
                                 as are miles and hours...
surely then if worded
                   the representation would be that
of a/z                             rather than
                                   p/o/r/r/i/d/g/e          
      a/z seems like a better basis for unitary
conceptualisation of language
                        using a, b, c... z as the basic
units of language... yes... much more so than words...
            because the third tier of encoding
is based primarily on letters,
                                       yes, we know the
plight of the Palestinians, but the Jews have something
i want, and use, quiet frequently,
although with variation - there's no
              toying about with gematria -
i don't accept this method of investigation -
              i find absolute futility in it -
not that i can't grasp it, but i find it useless -
         it's this third tier where ideas are formed
without any distinct orthodoxy -
                           so:
tier 1. phonetically encoding a s k to say: ask
tier 2. phonetically encoding a s k to think:
                                      what am i going to ask for?
tier 3. phonetically encoding a s k to then
            (primarily) venture into encoding
                                              a s k i n g f o r p a t i e n c e.
we're not dealing with Chinese ideograms,
    we're dealing with a linear juxtaposition encoding
   e.g.
     a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p (q r s t u v w x y z)
the bracket? i first learned the English alphabet
as a sing-along... to my memory i forgot the rhythm
of the song (i was 7 at the time) and subsequently
             the rest of the sequence... but that doesn't
necessarily mean my vocabulary suffered because of it...
still linear juxtaposition encoding, as above, only
         n y m p h  (x y s t)
                             a b c d e f g i j k l o q r s t u v w x z
                   (a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r u v w z)
                                           e x o t i c s (friz)
          a b d f g j k l q r u v w x z
                              (a b c d e g h j k l m n o p q u v w)
                 ...
                                    
     ...
                         (b c e g
                                                            - interlude -
   well, technically, you could say that diacritical
marks are used for the purpose of dissecting
words into syllables, that's not to say
          latin compound fixations on meaningful
  prefixes, such as: aqua-        or omni-
                   (yes, the etymological section
of the dictionary is the most interesting part
of that book - as counter to Darwinism,
                     or something less intrinsic with
visuals, and focused more on a shorter history
of mankind, the less ridiculous time-frame,
         or history without Alexanders and Socrates -
                  SS... the English hasn't fixed
the notation of pluralism here...
            something akin to ß      or σ          or     ς
                    is begging to come out of this problem...
lets just say the ending variation of sigma denotes
the plural, so, etymology, or history without
       Alexanders and Socrateς / cruder or more
masculine Socrateç... Tess' - as in: it belongs to Theresa)
        as Plato noted, i too, like Socrates
are investigating how my name ought to be written,
by the looks of it, from what i discovered
               i apply diacritics as syllable identifiers,
or: how to cut words up -
   ergo? even though this is not orthodox,
my name, should be written as
                   Máteuš -
                                               the acute a
stresses the cutting up of the word, i.e. the first
syllable is identified, primarily because diacritics
stress non-prefixes, i.e. simpler variations of
what a prefix is (a loan word), or a sound that
has an ancient meaning, for example pre-
or pro-, meaning the word was forced into the shackles
of being accompanied by a hyphen
when the ancient tongue disintegrated and its grammar
was no longer adequate to accommodate
the barbarian tongues of the north...  
so it has come to this: diacritical marks are not
exactly aesthetic concerns where not writing an
acute o but rather u is displeasing to the eyes...
      it's about seeing where the syllable incision has
been made... shame the English never adopted it...
but then again: the Empire blah blah blah, Star Wars
blah blah blah... special relationship with America
blah blah blah... that old chestnut -
                  or can anyone forget their eccentricity
of doth and         all that Canterbury *******?
   or even Shakespeare's English?
                                  i'm on it... well,
apologies... internet encrypting, acronyms and
eight and L8 for late. it was never adopted -
        and never will be... ****-naked Charlie
and ****-floral-naked Angie...
              sitting in a tree, one two, one two three.

  - post-interlude -

              (b c e g...
                                           i really can't be bothered
   trying to finish this little scrabble -
           i mean, looking up words
                       so i'm left with the last possible letter,
or no letter at all...
                                  what with
    the six vowels a, e, i, o, u, (y)
                                                  nymph as a word (though)
is the closest you'll get to the pronunciation of
     y (why)               in                   Polish...
                            ny-                 or -ymph
                                 obviously cut off the μ and φ...
but if you're really bored...
                  you could probably finish that
little game... for no reason, whatsoever -
        as already stated i'm more interested in things
contained in the interlude, but then again games like
this provide the capacity to abstract and return
with actual application of an idea.

Splattered
Like spaghetti sauce
On a baby's white highchair-

That's your inner life.
Red, dried, this is going to stain.

You swallowed bullets, and then they shot inside you.

Like an old broken computer,
You're bigger, and you look fine,
but you whir (and hum) at the slightest touch;
overheating.

Like not wearing underwear under your clothes,
everything is scratchy and a little raw and you feel more vulnerable.

You feel everyone must know. How could they?

Only if they notice.
Or
If they lure you into taking off those "I've got it together" clothes.
Which nobody can do anymore.
Because ******, you're going to integrate that ****.

Wear that rawness like the Emperor in his new clothes.
Be your own mischievous taylor.
Laugh like a baby at the spaghetti stain.
Spit the bullet shards out
at kids so they don't do the same thing you did.

The nights have become the most difficult
(Never sleep again, never rest again)
To manage.
Deeper, dreadfully
I soar into what I do not believe,
Into a pain much too real
And much more haunting
Than I have ever experienced.
The ghosts are back, Stephen,
They have returned to become the captain
Of my being,
To lust and breed and **** again.
I feign interest
And parry their blows back
Though my defenses are falling
And the blanket on my bed
Is never,
(Never sleep, never lay)
Ever quite long enough to cover me.
My worries today
Are an overheating boiler,
(COME QUICK I NEED HELP
I'M DYING HERE)
Pumping steam and pressure
Out of my jagged edges.

It is getting harder and harder to breathe.
Do you believe in God, Stephen?
I know Kubrick called you and asked the same
Many years before my birth,
But today I need your answer more than ever,
In that my every move seems to propel me
Into many-a-numbered
Ceiling and wall traps
And I am being crushed,
(Never sleep, never rest)
Soiled and trampled at the hand of fate.
I once thought myself too intelligent to believe,
But now I need a higher faith
If only to know that darkness is never truly darkness
And the candles I have left burning in my body
Will never be blown out.

Did you really see that boy,
That childhood friend of yours
Struck down by a train
In your ever so tender youth?
Was his blood and brain matter
What came to you in your darkest hour
As you wrote about presidential suites
And Danny Torrance seeing reverse ******
Played out in front of him for eternity?
Is ****** played out for eternity in your mind,
Too?
(Do you Shine, Stephen?)

They taught us about you in school, Stephen.
They made you out to be a God in yourself,
A novel machine
Intent on overpowering the industry
For your own gain and prosperity.
But those who read you,
(Those who know, those who feel)
Know you as a human.
You spirit, you singer,
You light of my life,
(You twisted man, you monster, you seer of sights)
You have kept the world alive
With sparks and shines
Under eyelids
For decades.

Stephen, I have stuck my hand in the wasp nest again.
Bring me your salvation.
Bring me
(Your understanding, your writer-virtue.)

And so I write to you today,
A young girl of but 18
With her own Shine set to murderous visions
And Terrifying conundrums.
My ghosts follow swiftly in my foot trails
And your novels warm my lap as I try
(So hard, so)
Desperately
To hear your voice,
Bellowing with contempt,
Your tone so monotonous and
Matter of fact,
Even when speaking of such malicious things
I have to stop children from buying your movies at my job
Because I could get in trouble if they see
Jack Torrance kissing a decaying woman
Or Carrie being burned alive in her prayer closet.
(I could get in trouble with the law
If they see the truth you speak,
The tales of loss and preservation you weave.)

Because of you and the horror you have struck me with,
I leave the lights on.
I am fearful
(But so hopeful)
Within myself each day.

Because of you
I have seen men and women
Find peace
Within their own private Overlook Hotels
Housed deep and high
In the mountains of their own consciousness.
Because of you
I have found
(Breathe in, breathe out,
Nothing to see here)
Solace
In my self-contained
Madness.

Still sleep warm,
I am coaxed into
consciousness
by your fingers lazily
grazing the elastic
of my underwear.
That smooth plateau
between the mountains
of my hipbones: home.
Overnight, my shirt
has ridden up, too hot
in the California nights
neither of us are used to
yet, proven by the pool
of sweat beneath my
lower back. The sticky
staleness of my skin
matches yours.
We are anything but
a disaster, and still,
I am a fault line. Feeling
the tremors rumble low
in my belly, your overheating
hands the magma forcing
plates apart, revealing
the new earth beneath.
There's danger in my inhale,
the risk of being shaken to
the core and unfixable.
Yet not even an earthquake
could divide us: love.


**V. K.

Heretical Poems by Michael R. Burch

Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch

If God
is good,
half the Bible
is libel.

NOTE: I came up with this epigram to express my conclusions after reading the Bible from cover to cover, ten chapters per day, at age eleven.



Saving Graces
for the Religious Right
by Michael R. Burch

Life’s saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter
(wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter).



Multiplication, Tabled
for the Religious Right
by Michael R. Burch

“Be fruitful and multiply”—
great advice, for a fruitfly!
But for women and men,
simple Simons, say, “WHEN!”



Wlly Nilly
for the Demiurge, aka Yahweh/Jehovah
by Michael R. Burch

Isn’t it silly, Wlly Nilly?
You made the stallion,
you made the filly,
and now they sleep
in the dark earth, stilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
You forced them to run
all their days uphilly.
They ran till they dropped—
life’s a pickle, dilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
They say I should worship you!
Oh, really!
They say I should pray
so you’ll not act illy.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?



What Would Santa Claus Say
by Michael R. Burch

What would Santa Claus say,
I wonder,
about Jesus returning
to Rage and Plunder?

For he’ll likely return
on Christmas Day
to blow the bad
little boys away!

When He flashes like lightning
across the skies
and many a homosexual
dies,

when the harlots and heretics
are ripped asunder,
what will the Easter Bunny think,
I wonder?



A Child’s Christmas Prayer of Despair for a Hindu Saint
by Michael R. Burch

Santa Claus,
for Christmas, please,
don’t bring me toys, or games, or candy . . .
just . . . Santa, please . . .
I’m on my knees! . . .
please don’t let Jesus torture Gandhi!



gimME that ol’ time religion!
by michael r. burch

fiddle-dee-dum, fiddle-dee-dee,
jesus loves and understands ME!
safe in his grace, I’LL send them to hell—
the strumpet, the harlot, the wild jezebel,
the alky, the druggie, all queers short and tall!
let them drink ashes and wormwood and gall,
’cause fiddle-dee-DUMB, fiddle-dee-WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEee . . .
jesus loves and understands
ME!



Pagans Protest the Intolerance of Christianity
by Michael R. Burch

“We have a common sky.” — Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (c. 345-402)

We had a common sky
before the Christians came.

We thought there might be gods
but did not know their names.

The common stars above us?
They winked, and would not tell.

Yet now our fellow mortals claim
our questions merit hell!

The cause of our damnation?
They claim they’ve seen the LIGHT ...

but still the stars wink down at us,
as wiser beings might.



Practice Makes Perfect
by Michael R. Burch

I have a talent for sleep;
it’s one of my favorite things.
Thus when I sleep, I sleep deep ...
at least till the stupid clock rings.

I frown as I squelch its loud beep,
then fling it aside to resume
my practice for when I’ll sleep deep
in a silent and undisturbed tomb.



Enough!
by Michael R. Burch

It’s not that I don’t want to die;
I shall be glad to go.
Enough of diabetes pie,
and eating sickly crow!
Enough of win and place and show.
Enough of endless woe!

Enough of suffering and vice!
I’ve said it once;
I’ll say it twice:
I shall be glad to go.

But why the hell should I be nice
when no one asked for my advice?
So grumpily I’ll go ...
although
(most probably) below.



Redefinitions
by Michael R. Burch

Faith: falling into the same old claptrap.
Religion: the ties that blind.



pretty pickle
by michael r. burch

u’d blaspheme if u could
because ur God’s no good,
but of course u cant:
ur just a lowly ant
(or so u were told by a Hierophant).



Defenses
by Michael R. Burch

Beyond the silhouettes of trees
stark, naked and defenseless
there stand long rows of sentinels:
these pert white picket fences.

Now whom they guard and how they guard,
the good Lord only knows;
but savages would have to laugh
observing the tidy rows.



Listen
by Michael R. Burch

Listen to me now and heed my voice;
I am a madman, alone, screaming in the wilderness,
but listen now.

Listen to me now, and if I say
that black is black, and white is white, and in between lies gray,
I have no choice.

Does a madman choose his words? They come to him,
the moon’s illuminations, intimations of the wind,
and he must speak.

But listen to me now, and if you hear
the tolling of the judgment bell, and if its tone is clear,
then do not tarry,

but listen, or cut off your ears, for I Am weary.



fog
by michael r. burch

ur just a bit of fluff
drifting out over the ocean,
unleashing an atom of rain,
causing a minor commotion,
for which u expect awesome GODS
to pay u SUPREME DEVOTION!
... but ur just a smidgen of mist
unlikely to be missed ...
where did u get the notion?



thanksgiving prayer of the parasites
by michael r. burch

GODD is great;
GODD is good;
let us thank HIM
for our food.

by HIS hand
we all are fed;
give us now
our daily dead:

ah-men!

(p.s.,
most gracious
& salacious
HEAVENLY LORD,
we thank YOU in advance for
meals galore
of loverly gore:
of precious
delicious
sumptuous
scrumptious
human flesh!)



no foothold
by michael r. burch

there is no hope;
therefore i became invulnerable to love.
now even god cannot move me:
nothing to push or shove,
no foothold.

so let me live out my remaining days in clarity,
mine being the only nativity,
my death the final crucifixion
and apocalypse,

as far as the i can see ...



u-turn: another way to look at religion
by michael r. burch

... u were borne orphaned from Ecstasy
into this lower realm: just one of the inching worms
dreaming of Beatification;
u'd love to make a u-turn back to Divinity, but
having misplaced ur chrysalis,
can only chant magical phrases,
like Circe luring ulysses back into the pigsty ...



You
by Michael R. Burch

For thirty years You have not spoken to me;
I heard the dull hollow echo of silence
as though a communion between us.

For thirty years You would not open to me;
You remained closed, hard and tense,
like a clenched fist.

For thirty years You have not broken me
with Your alien ways and Your distance.
Like a child dismissed,

I have watched You prey upon the hope in me,
knowing “mercy” is chance
and “heaven”—a list.



I’ve got Jesus’s face on a wallet insert
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

I’ve got Jesus’s face on a wallet insert
and "Hell is for Queers" on the back of my shirt.
     And I uphold the Law,
     for Grace has a Flaw:
the Church must have someone to drag through the dirt.

I’ve got ten thousand reasons why Hell must exist,
and you’re at the top of my fast-swelling list!
     You’re nothing like me,
     so God must agree
and slam down the Hammer with His Loving Fist!

For what are the chances that God has a plan
to save everyone: even Boy George and Wham!?
     Eternal fell torture
     in Hell’s pressure scorcher
will separate **** from Man.

I’m glad I’m redeemed, ecstatic you’re not.
Did Christ die for sinners? Perish the thought!
     The "good news" is this:
     soon My vengeance is his!,
for you’re not the lost sheep We sought.



jesus hates me, this i know
by michael r. burch

jesus hates me, this I know,
for Church libel tells me so:
"little ones to him belong"
but if they use their dongs, so long!
    yes, jesus hates me!
    yes, jesus baits me!
    yes, he berates me!
    Church libel tells me so!

jesus fleeces us, i know,
for Religion scams us so:
little ones are brainwashed to
believe god saves the Chosen Few!
    yes, jesus fleeces!
    yes, he deceases
    the bunny and the rhesus
    because he's mad at you!

jesus hates me—christ who died
so i might be crucified:
for if i use my active brain,
that will drive the "lord" insane!
    yes, jesus hates me!
    yes, jesus baits me!
    yes, he berates me!
    Church libel tells me so!

jesus hates me, this I know,
for Church libel tells me so:
first priests tell me "look above,"
that christ's the lamb and god's the dove,
but then they sentence me to Hell
for using my big brain too well!
    yes, jesus hates me!
    yes, jesus baits me!
    yes, he berates me!
    Church libel tells me so!



and then i was made whole
by michael r. burch

... and then i was made whole,
but not a thing entire,
glued to a perch
in a gilded church,
strung through with a silver wire ...

singing a little of this and of that,
warbling higher and higher:
a thing wholly dead
till I lifted my head
and spat at the Lord and his choir.



Starting from Scratch with Ol’ Scratch
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

Love, with a small, fatalistic sigh
went to the ovens. Please don’t bother to cry.
You could have saved her, but you were all caught up
complaining about the Jews to Reichmeister Grupp.

Scratch that. You were born after World War II.
You had something more important to do:
while the children of the Nakba were perishing in Gaza
with the complicity of your government, you had a noble cause (a
religious tract against homosexual marriage
and various things gods and evangelists disparage.)

Jesus will grok you? Ah, yes, I’m quite sure
that your intentions were good and ineluctably pure.
After all, what the hell does he care about Palestinians?
Certainly, Christians were right about serfs, slaves and Indians.
Scratch that. You’re one of the Devil’s minions.



In His Kingdom of Corpses
by Michael R. Burch

In His kingdom of corpses,
God has been heard to speak
in many enraged discourses,
high, high from some mountain peak
where He’s lectured man on compassion
while the sparrows around Him fell,
and babes, for His meager ration
of rain, died and went to hell,
unbaptized, for that’s His fashion.

In His kingdom of corpses,
God has been heard to vent
in many obscure discourses
on the need for man to repent,
to admit that he’s a sinner;
give up s-x, and riches, and fame;
be disciplined at his dinner
though always he dies the same,
whether fatter or thinner.

In his kingdom of corpses,
God has been heard to speak
in many absurd discourses
of man’s Ego, precipitous Peak!,
while demanding praise and worship,
and the bending of every knee.
And though He sounds like the Devil,
all religious men now agree
He loves them indubitably.



Beast 666
by Michael R. Burch

“what rough beast...slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”―W. B. Yeats

Brutality is a cross
wooden, blood-stained,
gas hissing, sibilant,
lungs gilled, deveined,
red flecks on a streaked glass pane,
jeers jubilant,
mocking.

Brutality is shocking―
tiny orifices torn
by cruel adult lust,
the fetus unborn
tossed in a dust-
bin. The scarred skull shorn,
nails bloodied, tortured,
an old wound sutured
over, never healed.

Brutality, all its faces revealed,
is legion:
Death March, Trail of Tears, Inquisition . . .
always the same.
The Beast of the godless and of man’s “religion”
slouching toward Jerusalem:
horned, crowned, gibbering, drooling, insane.



I AM
by Michael R. Burch

I am not one of ten billion―I―
sunblackened Icarus, chary fly,
staring at God with a quizzical eye.
I am not one of ten billion, I.

I am not one life has left unsquashed―
scarred as Ulysses, goddess-debauched,
pale glowworm agleam with a tale of panache.
I am not one life has left unsquashed.

I am not one without spots of disease,
laugh lines and tan lines and thick-callused knees
from begging and praying and girls sighing "Please! "
I am not one without spots of disease.

I am not one of ten billion―I―
scion of Daedalus, blackwinged fly
staring at God with a sedulous eye.
I am not one of ten billion, I
AM!



Snap Shots
by Michael R. Burch

Our daughters must be celibate,
die virgins. We triangulate
their early paths to heaven (for
the martyrs they'll soon conjugate).

We like to hook a little tail.
We hope there's decent ** in jail.
Don't fool with us; our bombs are smart!
(We'll send the plans, ASAP, e-mail.)

The soul is all that matters; why
hoard gold if it offends the eye?
A pension plan? Don't make us laugh!
We have your plan for sainthood. (Die.)

###

Unwhole
by Michael R. Burch

What is it that we strive to remember, to regain,
as memory deserts us,
leaving us destitute of even ourselves,
of all but pain?

How can something so essential be forgotten,
if we are more than our bodies?
How can a soul
become so unwhole?

###

Nonbeliever
by Michael R. Burch writing as Kim Cherub

She smiled a thin-lipped smile
(What do men know of love?)
then rolled her eyes toward heaven
(Or that Chauvinist above?).

###

evol-u-shun
by Michael R. Burch

does GOD love the Tyger
while it's ripping ur lamb apart?

does GOD applaud the Bubonic Plague
while it's eating u à la carte?

does GOD admire ur intelligence
while u pray that IT has a heart?

does GOD endorse the Bible
you blue-lighted at k-mart?

###

Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

I did it out of pity.
I did it out of love.
I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove.
But gods without compassion
ordained: Frail things must break!
Now what can I do for her shattered psyche's sake?

I did it not to push.
I did it not to shove.
I did it to assist the flight of indiscriminate Love.

But gods, all mad as hatters,
who legislate in all such matters,
ordained that everything irreplaceable shatters.

###

Alien
by Michael R. Burch

for  a "Christian" poet

On a lonely outpost on Mars
the astronaut practices "speech"
as alien to primates below
as mute stars winking high, out of reach.

And his words fall as bright and as chill
as ice crystals on Kilimanjaro―
far colder than Jesus's words
over the "fortunate" sparrow.

And I understand how gentle Emily
felt, when all comfort had flown,
gazing into those inhuman eyes,
feeling zero at the bone.

Oh, how can I grok his arctic thought?
For if he is human, I am not.

###

Crescendo Against Heaven
by Michael R. Burch

As curiously formal as the rose,
the imperious Word grows
until its sheds red-gilded leaves:
then heaven grieves
love's tiny pool of crimson recrimination
against God, its contention
of the price of salvation.

These industrious trees,
endlessly losing and re-losing their leaves,
finally unleashing themselves from earth, lashing
themselves to bits, washing
themselves free
of all but the final ignominy
of death, become
at last: fast planks of our coffins, dumb.

Together now, rude coffins, crosses,
death-cursed but bright vermilion roses,
bodies, stumps, tears, words: conspire
together with a nearby spire
to raise their Accusation Dire...
to scream, complain, to point out these
and other Dark Anomalies.

God always silent, ever afar,
distant as Bethlehem's retrograde star,
we point out now, in resignation:
You asked too much of man's beleaguered nation,
gave too much strength to his Enemy,
as though to prove Your Self greater than He,
at our expense, and so men die
(whose accusations vex the sky)
yet hope, somehow, that You are good...
just, O greatest of Poets!, misunderstood.

###

Advice for Evangelicals
by Michael R. Burch

"... so let your light shine before men..."

Consider the example of the woodland anemone:
she preaches no sermons but―immaculate―shines,
and rivals the angels in bright innocence and purity,
the sweetest of divines.

And no one has heard her engage in hypocrisy
since the beginning of time―an oracle so mute,
so profound in her silence and exemplary poise
she makes lessons moot.

So consider the example of the saintly anemone
and if you'd convince us Christ really exists,
then let him be just as sweet, just as guileless
and equally as gracious to bless.

###

Heaven Bent
by Michael R. Burch

This life is hell; it can get no worse.
Summon the coroner, the casket, the hearse!
But I’m upwardly mobile. How the hell can I know?
I can only go up; I'm already below!

###

Shock and Awe
by Michael R. Burch

With megatons of "wonder, "
we make our godhead clear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

The world's heart ripped asunder,
its dying pulse we hear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

Strange Trinity! We ponder
this God we hold so dear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

The vulture and the condor
proclaim: The feast is near!―
Death. Destruction. Fear.

Soon He will plow us under;
the Anti-Christ is here:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

We love to hear Him thunder!
With Shock and Awe, appear!―
Death. Destruction. Fear.

For God can never blunder;
we know He holds US dear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

###

Lay Down Your Arms
by Michael R. Burch

Lay down your arms; come, sleep in the sand.
The battle is over and night is at hand.
Our voyage has ended; there's nowhere to go...
the earth is a cinder still faintly aglow.

Lay down your pamphlets; let's bicker no more.
Instead, let us sleep here on this ravaged shore.
The sea is still boiling; the air is wan, thin...
lay down your pamphlets; now no one will "win."

Lay down your hymnals; abandon all song.
If God was to save us, He waited too long.
A new world emerges, but this world is through...
so lay down your hymnals, or write something new.

###

What Immense Silence
by Michael R. Burch

What immense silence
comforts those who kneel here
beneath these vaulted ceilings
cavernous and vast?

What luminescence stained
by patchwork panels of bright glass
illuminates drained faces
as the crouching gargoyles leer?

What brings them here―
pale, tearful congregations,
knowing all Hope is past,
faithfully, year upon year?

Or could they be right? Perhaps
Love is, implausibly, near
and I alone have not seen It...
But, if so, still, I must ask:

why is it God that they fear?

###

Intimations
by Michael R. Burch

Let mercy surround us
with a sweet persistence.

Let love propound to us
that life is infinitely more than existence.

###

Altared Spots
by Michael R. Burch

The mother leopard buries her cub,
then cries three nights for his bones to rise
clad in new flesh, to celebrate the sunrise.

Good mother leopard, pensive thought
and fiercest love's wild insurrection
yield no certainty of a resurrection.

Man's tried them both, has added tears,
chants, dances, drugs, séances, tombs'
white alabaster prayer-rooms, wombs

where dead men's frozen genes convene...
there is no answer―death is death.
So bury your son, and save your breath.

Or emulate earth's "highest species"―
write a few strange poems and odd treatises.

###

Flight
by Michael R. Burch

Poetry captures
less than reality
the spirit of things

being the language
not of the lordly falcon
but of the dove with broken wings

whose heavenward flight
though brutally interrupted
is ever towards the light.

###

Winter Night
by Michael R. Burch

Who will be d-mned,
who embalmed
for all eternity?

The night weighs heavy on me―
leaden, sullen, cold.
O, but my thoughts are light,

like the weightless windblown snow.

###

Tonight, Let's Remember
by Michael R. Burch

July 7,2007 (7-7-7)

Tonight, let's remember the fond ways
our fingers engendered new methods to praise
the gray at my temples, your thinning hair.
Tonight, let's remember, and let us draw near...

Tonight, let's remember, as mortals do,
how cutely we chortled when work was through,
society sated, all gods put to rest,
and you in my arms, and I at your breast...

Tonight, let's remember how daring, how free
the Madeira made us, recumbently.
Our inhibitions?―we laid them to rest.
Earth, heaven or hell―we knew we were blessed.

Tonight, let's remember the dwindling days
we've spent here together―the sun's rays
spending their power beyond somber hills.
Soon we'll rest together; there'll be no more bills.

Tonight, let's remember: we've paid all our dues,
we've suffered our sorrows, we've learned how to lose.
What's left now to take, only God can tell.
Be with me in heaven, or "bliss" will be hell!

I do not want God; I want to see you
free from all sorrow, your labor through,
a song on your tongue, a smile on your lips,
sweet, sultry and vagrant, a child at your hips,

laughing and beaming and ready to frolic
in a world free from cancer and gout and colic.
For you were courageous, and kind, and true.
There must be a heaven for someone like you.

###

I, Lazarus
by Michael R. Burch

I, Lazarus, without a heart,
devoid of blood and spiritless,
lay in the darkness, meritless:
my corpse―a thing cold, dead, apart.

But then I thought I heard―a Voice,
a Voice that called me from afar.
And so I stood and laughed, bizarre:
a thing embalmed, made to rejoice!

I ran ungainly-legged to see
who spoke my name, and then I knew
him by the light. His name is True,
and now he is the life in me!

I never died again! Believe!
(Oops! Seems it was a brief reprieve.)

###

To Know You as Mary
by Michael R. Burch

To know You as Mary,
when You spoke her name
and her world was never the same...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.

O, then I would laugh
and be glad that I came,
never minding the chill, the disconsolate rain...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.

I might not think this earth
the sharp focus of pain
if I heard You exclaim―
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom

my most unexpected, unwarranted name!
But you never spoke. Explain?

###

Peers
by Michael R. Burch

These thoughts are alien, as through green slime
smeared on some lab tech's brilliant slide, I gr0pe,
positioning my bright oscilloscope
for better vantage, though I cannot see,
but only peer, as small things disappear―
these quanta strange as men, as passing queer.

And you, Great Scientist, are you the One,
or just an intern, necktie half undone,
white sleeves rolled up, thick documents in hand
(dense manuals you don't quite understand) ,
exposing me, perhaps, to too much Light?
Or do I escape your notice, quick and bright?

Perhaps we wield the same dull Instrument
(and yet the Thesis will be Eloquent!).

###

Gethsemane in Every Breath
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, we have lost our way, and now
we have mislaid love―earth's fairest rose.
We forgot hope's song―the way it goes.
Help us reclaim their gifts, somehow.

LORD, we have wondered long and far
in search of Bethlehem's retrograde star.
Now in night's dead cold grasp, we gasp:
our lives one long-drawn rattling rasp

of misspent breath... before we drown.
LORD, help us through this spiral down
because we faint, and do not see
above or beyond despair's trajectory.

Remember that You, too, once held
imperiled life within your hands
as hope withdrew... that where You knelt
―a stranger in a stranger land―

the chalice glinted cold afar
and red with blood as hellfire.
Did heaven ever seem so far?
Remember―we are as You were,

but all our lives, from birth to death―
Gethsemane in every breath.

###

A Possible Argument for Mercy
by Michael R. Burch

Did heaven ever seem so far?
Remember-we are as You were,
but all our lives, from birth to death―
Gethsemane in every breath.

###

Birthday Poem to Myself
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, be no longer this Distant Presence,
Star-Afar, Righteous-Anonymous,
but come! Come live among us;
come dwell again,
happy child among men―
men rejoicing to have known you
in the familiar manger's cool
sweet light scent of unburdened hay.
Teach us again to be light that way,
with a chorus of angelic songs lessoned above.
Be to us again that sweet birth of Love
in the only way men can truly understand.
Do not frown darkening down upon an unrighteous land
planning fierce Retributions we require, and deserve,
but remember the child you were; believe
in the child I was, alike to you in innocence
a little while, all sweetness, and helpless without pretense.
Let us be little children again, magical in your sight.
Grant me this boon! Is it not my birthright―
just to know you, as you truly were, and are?
Come, be my friend. Help me understand and regain Hope's long-departed star!

###

Learning to Fly
by Michael R. Burch

We are learning to fly
every day...

learning to fly―
away, away...

O, love is not in the ephemeral flight,
but love, Love! is our destination―

graced land of eternal sunrise, radiant beyond night!
Let us bear one another up in our vast migration.

###

The Gardener's Roses
by Michael R. Burch

Mary Magdalene, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, "Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away."

I too have come to the cave;
within: strange, half-glimpsed forms
and ghostly paradigms of things.
Here, nothing warms

this lightening moment of the dawn,
pale tendrils spreading east.
And I, of all who followed Him,
by far the least...

The women take no note of me;
I do not recognize
the men in white, the gardener,
these unfamiliar skies...

Faint scent of roses, then―a touch!
I turn, and I see: You.
"My Lord, why do You tarry here:
Another waits, Whose love is true? "

"Although My Father waits, and bliss;
though angels call―ecstatic crew!―
I gathered roses for a Friend.
I waited here, for You."

###

Kingdom Freedom
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, grant me a rare sweet spirit of forgiveness.
Let me have none of the lividness
of religious outrage.

LORD, let me not be over-worried
about the lack of "morality" around me.
Surround me,

not with law's restrictive cage,
but with Your spirit, freer than the wind,
so that to breathe is to have freest life,

and not to fly to You, my only sin.

###

Cædmon's Face
by Michael R. Burch

At the monastery of Whitby,
on a day when the sun sank through the sea,
and the gulls shrieked wildly, jubilant, free,

while the wind and Time blew all around,
I paced that dusk-enamored ground
and thought I heard the steps resound

of Carroll, Stoker and good Bede
who walked here too, their spirits freed
―perhaps by God, perhaps by need―

to write, and with each line, remember
the glorious light of Cædmon's ember:
scorched tongues of flame words still engender.



He wrote here in an English tongue,
a language so unlike our own,
unlike―as father unto son.

But when at last a child is grown.
his heritage is made well-known:
his father's face becomes his own.



He wrote here of the Middle-Earth,
the Maker's might, man's lowly birth,
of every thing that God gave worth

suspended under heaven's roof.
He forged with simple words His truth
and nine lines left remain the proof:

his face was Poetry's, from youth.



Post-Nashville Covenant
by Michael R. Burch

We love our God.
We love our guns.
We despise the weak.
Don’t call us Huns!

We love our kids.
We love our schools.
We love our guns.
Don’t call us fools!

We pledge ourselves
to the strong defense
of the Constitution
and our Mensch.

Once re-elected,
Trump will rule
with God and guns
and safer schools.



Wonderworks
by Michael R. Burch

History’s
mysteries
abound
& astound,
found
(profound)
the whole earth ’round,
even if mostly
underground.



uv been had
by michael r. burch

uv been had;
ur Dad’s a cad;
His priests are mad,
His pastors lying.

they only want your money, chum,
so why play dumb
and give it to ’em?
give them the boot and send them flying!



Come Spring
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

Come spring we return, innocent and hopeful, to the ******,
beseeching Her to bestow
Her blessings upon us.

Pitiable sinners, we bow before Her,
nay, grovel,
as She looms above us, aglow
in Her Purity.

We know
all will change in an instant; therefore
in the morning we will call her,
an untouched maiden no more,
“*****.”

The so-called Religious Right prizes virginity in women and damns them for doing what men do. I have long been a fan of women like Tallulah Bankhead, Marilyn Monroe and Mae West, who decided what’s good for the gander is equally good for the goose.



sonnet to non-science and nonsense
by michael r. burch

ur Gaud is a fiasco,
a rapscallion and a rascal;
he murdered lovely eve,
so what’s there to "believe"?

and who made eve so curious?
why should ur Gaud be furious
when every half-wit parent knows
where our kids will stick their (k)no(w)'s(e)!

no wise and loving father
would slaughter his own daughter!
ur Gaud's a hole-y terror!
CONSIDER THE SOURCE OF ERROR:

though ur bible’s a giant hit,
its writers were full of ****.



twin nuggets of ancient ****-dumb
by michael r. burch

oh, let it never once be said
that love for Gaud is dead!

wee love the way he murdered eve!
such awesome love! wee must believe!

wee love the way he sent a FLOOD
to teach wee babies to be good!

wee love the zillion births he aborted!
such awesome love cant clearly reported!

(so never mind the embryos
who died in their mommies’ drowning throes!

the unborn babes, the unborn lambs
all drowned for Gaud’s divinest plans!)

“do as I say, not as I do!”
cruel Hippo-Crit! does Jesus rue?
(if Christ were good he’d rue Gaud too.)

no! wee must love our abusive Father
and follow hymn meekly, mild lambs to the slaughter,

or he’ll burn us forever in Hiss terrible hell.
it’s so much safer to tell hymn he’s swell!

thus wee love our Gaud so loverly
hovering over us so smotherly!

wee love the TITHES his cons abscond.
wee love the Big Fish in Hiss pond.

And so wee say “whee!” to all this and that!
PS, also the earth is flat!



Why do faith, hope and love
always end up PUSH and SHOVE?
—Michael R. Burch, lines from “Christ, Jesus!”



Yet another Screed against Exist-Tension-alism
by Michael R. Burch

Life has meaning!
Please don’t deny it!
It means we’re ******.
Why cause a riot?



Evangelical Fever
by Michael R. Burch

Welcome to global warming:
temperature 109.
You believe in God, not in science,
but isn’t the weather Divine?



Peers
by Michael R. Burch

These thoughts are alien, as through green slime
smeared on some lab tech’s brilliant slide, I *****,
positioning my bright oscilloscope
for better vantage, though I cannot see,
but only peer, as small things disappear—
these quanta strange as men, as passing queer.

And you, Great Scientist, are you the One,
or just an intern, necktie half undone,
white sleeves rolled up, thick documents in hand
(dense manuals you don’t quite understand),
exposing me, perhaps, to too much Light?
Or do I escape your notice, quick and bright?

Perhaps we wield the same dull Instrument
(and yet the Thesis will be Eloquent!).



The Final Revelation of a Departed God’s Divine Plan
by Michael R. Burch

Here I am, talking to myself again . . .

******* at God and bored with humanity.
These insectile mortals keep testing my sanity!

Still, I remember when . . .

planting odd notions, dark inklings of vanity,
in their peapod heads might elicit an inanity

worth a chuckle or two.

Philosophers, poets . . . how they all made me laugh!
The things they dreamed up! Sly Odysseus’s raft;

Plato’s Republic; Dante’s strange crew;

Shakespeare’s Othello, mad Hamlet, Macbeth;
Cervantes’ Quixote; fat, funny Falstaff!;

Blake’s shimmering visions. Those days, though, are through . . .

for, puling and tedious, their “poets” now seem
content to write, but not to dream,

and they fill the world with their pale derision

of things they completely fail to understand.
Now, since God has long fled, I am here, in command,

reading this crap. Earth is Hell. We’re all ******.



The King of Beasts in the Museum of the Extinct
by Michael R. Burch

The king of beasts, my child,
was terrible, and wild.

His roaring shook the earth
till the feeble cursed his birth.

And all things feared his might:
even rhinos fled, in fright.

Now here these bones attest
to what the brute did best

and the pain he caused his prey
when he hunted in his day.

For he slew them just for sport
till his own pride was cut short

with a mushrooming cloud and wild thunder;
Exhibit "B" will reveal his blunder.



God to Man, Contra Bataan
by Michael R. Burch

Earth, what-d’ya make of global warming?
Perth is endangered, the high seas storming.
Now all my creatures, from maggot to man
Know how it felt on the march to Bataan.



The Less-Than-Divine Results of My Prayers to be Saved from Televangelists
by Michael R. Burch

I’m old,
no longer bold,
just cold,
and (truth be told),
been bought and sold,
rolled
by the wolves and the lambs in the fold.

Who’s to be told
by this worn-out scold?
The complaint department is always on hold.



sonnet to non-science and nonsense
by michael r. burch

ur Gaud is a fiasco,
a rapscallion and a rascal;
he murdered lovely eve,
so what’s there to "believe"?

and who made eve so curious?
why should ur Gaud be furious
when every half-wit parent knows
where bright kids will stick their (k)no(w)'s(e)!

no wise and loving father
would slaughter his own daughter!
ur Gaud's a hole-y terror!
CONSIDER THE SOURCE OF ERROR:

though ur bible’s a giant hit,
its writers were full of ****.



Heaven Bent
by Michael R. Burch

This life is hell; it can get no worse.
Summon the coroner, the casket, the hearse!
But I’m upwardly mobile. How the hell can I know?
I can only go up; I’m already below!

“Heaven Bent” is a pun on “being bent on Heaven” and the heaven/hell thing being bent into a different version, with the dying escaping hell here on earth. That would make death “heaven” even if there is no afterlife. “This life is hell,” “upwardly mobile” and “how the hell” are also puns that can be read two ways. I wrote this poem in high school, around age 16 in 1974, but was unhappy with the third line and forgot about the poem. I stumbled upon it on on July 4, 2006 —ironically, Independence Day — and the third line occurred to me.



The beauty of the flower fades,
its petals wither to charades...
—Michael R. Burch



the U-turn poem
by michael r. burch

Life so defaulty,
Life so unfair,
why do wee prize U,
what do U care?

LORD who lets unborns
drown in a flood,
CELESTIAL ABORTIONIST,
r U sure Ur understood?



Hellion
by michael r. burch

cold as stone,
cold to the bone,
so cold inside even icebergs moan,
such is ur Gaud on hiss icy throne.

lines written for a luverly Gaud who cant be bothered to save pisspot peeple who guess wrong about which ire-ational re-ligion to believe.

“Hellion” is a pun on “he-lion” as in the “Lion of Judah” and “hell-lion.”



yet another ode to a graceless faceless Creator albeit with thoughts of possibly rescinding prior compliments
by michael r. burch

who created this graceless universe?
why praise its Creator? who could be worse?
why praise man’s Berater with obsequious verse?
job’s wife was right: he’s nobody’s nurse.



ur-Gent prayer request
by michael r. burch

where did ur Gaud originate?
in the minds of men so full of hate
they commanded moms to stone their kids,
which u believe (brains on the skids)
was “the word of Gaud”!
                                         debate?
too late & of course it’s useless:
please pray to be less clueless.

The title involves a pun, since the “ur-Gent” would be the biblical “god.”



Religion is regarded by fools as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. — Seneca, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Non-Word to the Wise
by Michael R. Burch

The wise will never cry, “Save!”
The wise desire a quiet grave.



sonnet to non-science and nonsense/nunsense
by michael r. burch

ur Gaud is a fiasco,
a rapscallion and a rascal;
he murdered lovely eve,
so what’s there to “believe”?

and who made eve so curious?
why should ur Gaud be furious
when every half-wit parent knows
where bright kids will stick their no’s(e)!

no wise and loving father
would slaughter his own daughter!
ur Gaud’s a hole-y terror!
CONSIDER THE SOURCE OF ERROR:

though ur bible’s a giant hit,
its writers were full of ****.



We Know It All
by Michael R. Burch

We rile. We gall. We know it all
because we’ve read the Bible,
which tells us genocide’s “God’s will”
along with bashing in kids’ skulls
and other forms of libel.

The earth is flat, our Book says so!
The Lord will torture our rational foe!
(We lack the compassion to tell the fiend “No!”)

God’s on his throne, the Angels are winking,
applauding our lack of critical thinking.
We’re drowning in crap. We’re stinking and sinking.

Eve once petted friendly T-Rexes!
A “witch” should be ****** for unprovable hexes!
It’s a “sin” to make love if one’s lover has exes!

Girls were enslaved and ***** by their “masters”!
Our Book is the source of so many disasters!
The earth’s overheating? Let’s burn it up faster!



Yet Another ****** Ditty
by Michael R. Burch

Here’s my ditty:
Life is ******,
Then you get old
And more’s the pity.

Truth be told,
We’re bought and sold,
Sheep in the fold
Sheared lickety-splitty.

But chin’s up,
What’s the use of crying?
We’ve a certain escape:
Welcome to dying!



Hellbound
by Michael R. Burch

Mother, it’s dark
and you never did love me
because you put Yahweh and Yeshu
above me.

Did they ever love you
or cling to you? No.
Now Mother, it’s cold
and I fear for my soul.

Mother, they say
you will leave me and go
to some compassionless “heaven”
I never shall know.

If that’s your choice,
you made it. Not me.
You brought me to life;
will you nail me to the tree?

Christ! Mother, they say
God condemned me to hell.
If the Devil’s your God
then farewell, farewell!

Or if there is Love
in some other dimension,
let’s reconcile there
and forget such cruel detention.



Listen
by Immanuel A. Michael (an alias of Michael R. Burch)

1.
Listen to me now
and heed my voice;
I am a madman, alone,
screaming in the wilderness,
but listen now.

Listen to me now, and if I say
that black is black
and white is white
and in between lies gray,
I have no choice.

Does a madman choose his words?
They come to him:
the moon's illuminations,
intimations of the wind,
and he must speak.

But listen to me now,
and if you hear
the tolling of the judgment bell,
and if its tone is clear,
then do not tarry,
but listen,
or cut off your ears,
for I Am weary.

I desire mercy, not sacrifice.

2.
Listen to me now: I had a Vision.
An elevated train derailed, and Fell.
It was the Church brought low, almost to Hell.
And I alone survived, who dream of Mercy:
the Heretic, who speaks behind the Veil.

3.
Listen to me now: I saw an airplane
fall from the sky. And why should I explain?
The Visions are the same. It is my Heresy
that I survive, because I sing of Mercy,
while elevated "saints" go down in flames.

4.
Listen to me now: I saw in Nashville
how those who "soar" will plummet―Fame in flames!―
and fall on those below, as if to k-ll them.
The lowly, saved, will understand their names.

5.
Listen to me now: I heard another
say, "That which died shall Resurrect and Live."
An angel with a Rose bestowing Mercy!
What can it mean, but that my Visions give
fair warning to the world that God wants Mercy.
My Heresy is that we must forgive!

6.
Listen to me now: she heard god calling―
O, who will love me, who will be my friend?
Does he want Perfect Saints, the whitewashed Purists,
who frown down on their "brothers," without end?

7.
Listen to me now: you are not perfect,
and your "wise counsel" helps no one at all:
unless it's sweetened with the sweetest Mercy,
it's pure astringent antiseptic gall.

8.
Listen to me now, and learn this lesson:
If God wants mercy, why dig at the speck
in your brother's eye, when even now the Beam,
your lack of mercy, spares, no, neither neck,
becomes the Hangman's Millstone. We're all children,
all little ones! Be patient with the fleck!

9.
Listen to me now: for the Announcer
explained that wars have given Presidents
the precedents to soon assume all Power.
Vote, citizens, or be mere residents!

10.
O, listen to me now: I saw the Warheads
stored safely underground, except for One.
A red-haired woman with a bright complexion
seduced the guard. Translucent blouse, red thong,
white bra―these were her fearsome antique weapons.

I saw the Skull and Crossbones! Heed my Song!

11.
O, listen to me now, and hear my Gospel:
three verses of such sweet simplicity!
God is Light: in Him there is no darkness.
In Christ, no condemnation: Liberty!
God want no Sacrifice, but only Mercy.
O, who could ask for sweeter Heresy?

12.
Theology? I swear that I disdain it!
If Love can be explained, why then explain it!
If Love can't be explained why, then, should God,
if God is Love? Nor hell nor cattle ****
is needed, if God's good, and God's supreme.
Ask, children, what "re-ligion" truly means:
"return to *******! " Heed the bondsman's screams!

13.
Heed, children, which Theologies you dream
when Hellish Nightmares wake you, when you Scream
for comfort, but no comforter is there.
Which Voices do you heed, which Crosses bear?
If god is light, whence do Dark Visions come
which leave the Taste of Venom on your Tongue,
with which you **** your brother for one Sin
you do not share, ten thousand underskin
like Itching Worms that Squirm and Vilely Hiss:
"Your brother's sin will keep him from god's bliss,
but You are safe because god favors You! "
If God is Love, how can this voice be true?

14.
For God is not a favorer of men.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

I adore you
in a way that when we hold hands i feel like I am holding worms
i'm both in awe at what's happening, and disturbed.

I can't tell if the thought of kissing you makes my torso feel like a towel that's being wrung out, or if it makes me want to peel off all of my skin but either way, the thought makes me feel something.

your laugh is precious.
it spits confetti into the air,
it's the present you forgot to bring to the party, and the promise you make to bring it next time.
it spills all kinds of new anxieties onto the floor.

the kind of liquid that gets into the divots of your shoes, and when it dries it becomes sticky.
it's with you all day, peeling from the tile with every step.
this sound makes me cringe.

your hugs are so warm, if they were a blanket covering me i would have to stick my feet out to avoid overheating, but i need the blanket to sleep.

and darling, I promise it's not you.
don't blame yourself.
I was completely fine until he decided I was old news.

he made so many promises and broke them all.
If i could turn back to the moment I stood in the front of the room reciting a poem about killing my ex lover, I would have threatened that he would later be on my hit list as well.

I apologize for my uncontrollable fear.
I know my tremors are repetitive and I'm sorry for apologizing constantly.

he didn't accept me like you do.
he couldn't handle the ticks.
he couldn't manage to fall asleep next to a time bomb.
I shouldn't blame him but i definitely do.

so if i cry, pull me close.
if i shake, grab my hands.
and if i *****, hold my hair.
I promise that one day i'll trust you.

The heat is rising, the summer is coming
Right now it seems nice because nature is humming
But I know what's lurking around the corner, I know its game
It goes from 90 to 111, Valley Of The Sun is its name
They say it's a dry heat, making it seem better
But it's not, I crave something cooler and wetter
MONSOON
I see your lightning and hear your tune
The temperature drops and the winds get strong
It's a little bit dangerous, but I hope it lasts long
Wash away the heat and hide the sun that's beating
I'm so sick from this intensity, I keep overheating
The oven is hot and bakes you alive
Why are there 6 million people here and how do we thrive!

i took a corpse
to the mall
on SUNDAY
(it was a religious experience)
& the weird thing is
she drove.
& when i got into her
car
or casket
or whatever
we hugged & kissed (like relatives)
but that was it
then she went stiff
again.
a tattooed statue at the wheel
& me
coughing up embalming fluid
amongst the cigarette smoke
i whispered out the window.
& you winced as we wiggled
between winnebagos & station wagons,
sloooooooooooooooowly
like pallbearers
                    balancing
                a box,
or like a mother
                 placing an infant
                                         in a crib,
hand behind its head.
& she understated the overture
so i sort of never understood
we were ending
up as enemies
all before the engine
stopped.
& it was winter but i was overheating
smoky breathing &
the words i couldn't reach &
the heaviness of my chest,
the weight of waiting.
but she never said another word
as we walked through the mall
& i floated next to her
like a ghost
or a balloon she was holding
& she grasped
at something new to try on
& let go of me
& i floated
& floated...

Ethereal. That's the squirming quality of that health-hazard house,
where a byproduct of divorce emulsion slept in a bare room on
a bare air mattress, vacuously lying around with the blinds down,
vicious AM radio mumbling through the walls. Homeschooling was more like
becoming housebroken, given that my social network consisted of thirty feral cats.
I suppose some boys require a deadbolt on their room's door.

Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean,
My fist got hard and my wits got keen,
I'd roam from town to town to hide my shame.

The apathy cloud that crawled the house led to a
(the deadbolt was to lock me out of my room; not in)
prison break; I awkwardly assured myself that I would
never be anything if I was still Pinocchio, and pleaded
to go to liberal-dominated-non-Rush-Limbaugh-approved public schools.
I did; I got into university, I got a grant, I do research,
I got a job, I got a girl, I got a job, I got a girl...
I don't know how to leave my room now that I'm free.
I still hear the crackle of conversative talk radio.

'Cause we'll put a boot in your *** / It's the American way.

Like trembling flotsam I drift into every class,
every party, every... A poem can regurgitate a person who is all
covered in spit and acid and memories. I still know that house
better than I know my own breathing body. I'm just going to keep running;
like a yellowed refrigerator housing second-amendment-upbringing-coleslaw;
like an overheating computer; like I always do; statically, in stasis.

Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean,
My fist got hard and my wits got keen,
I'd roam from town to town to hide my shame.

Shaking
Heart in my throat
I can't see straight anymore
Too many people
Too loud
Too much pressure
What if I mess up?
It could happen
Would they laugh?
Overheating in my short dress
Starting to shiver at the same time
Been practicing for weeks on end
But what if I am wrong?
What if I do it wrong?
Drawing a blank
What was I supposed to do?
Standing in front
Lights on me
Waiting for my cue
Waiting
One
Two
Three
And THERE
Start playing
Shaking gets worse
I can't remember the notes
I don't know what I'm doing
It's done now
There is applause
I swear I'm seeing stars
Breathe in
Breathe out
Take a bow
Keep going

it feels like thunder
the first time always feels that way
he takes me in his hands and i melt
my body is overheating
i try to suppress my pleasure
i'm afraid to make a sound  
he kisses me
his lips are hot to the touch
everything about this is burning
sweat drips from our skin
his hands are holding mine and im lost
im feeling everything im feeling pleasure
the thunder booms
and i yelp and pant
then lighting strikes
it blooms all around us
it raises the hair on our skin
it flashes so quickly
i begin to relax
i feel warmth all over me
the rain begins to fall
and he lays beside me
i grab his hands and kiss his palms
the rain softens
and he pulls me closer
only he can create a storm inside my body

These past few weeks
Whenever I put pen to paper
I end up with nothing
No words flowing from my veins
No thoughts running in my mind
No stanzas waiting to be written
My leaves have dried up
My lake is frozen
My lemon fully squeezed
All thanks to you

You have been the only thing running in my mind for the past week
Tell me how long your legs can run cos I'm not sure I can take it any longer
You have been the only one dominating my mind like a computer virus
Making me forget everything but you
You are on my mind twenty four seven
In the 86400 seconds in a day
I can assure you you're the first and last thing on my mind
I'm starting to lose track of time

And yet I find no words to write about you
You bring out the bad poet inside of me
You bring to life this other side of me which ssstutters, always unsure of what to say because it might not be good enough
I am an overheating motor
I am an overmixed batter
I am a pen whose cap is left off

You know,
The funny thing is you have absolutely no idea how you affect me
You go on in your everyday life
You go about your day
You make endless maps and cross roads in my mind
And I don't even know if I cross yours
When others talk to you
I don't think they're aware that they're talking to my world
I don't think you're aware that you are my world
No, actually you are my universe
I am the stars, the galaxies, the comets, the meteors
The endless possibilities in our constantly expanding universe
Ready to be filled with our love

You leave me breathless, searching for words
So please,
tell me when you're going to leave my mind, cos I **** sure wanna start writing again

Erasure & Found Poem from
"On Photography By Teju Cole in april 16th new york times magazine

--

You were The fast moving disaster of a tsunami
added to the slow motion disaster
of a nuclear calamity

Towns flooded
Infrastructure wrecked
Forests splintered
more than 15,000 people dead.
earthquake cut off
my external power supply
Floodwaters damaged my backup generators
Disabled it's cooling system
Overheating ensued
Fuel in three reactor cores melted
Releasing radiation

Everyone saw The water coming in
The roads swept away
Towns and harbors destroyed

Extensive documentary work
was undertaken by photographers
Of the ruins,
Debris,
Cleanup and relief operations

The gut-wrentching scale of destruction
The professionalism of the emergency crews
The fortitude of the survivers

The extreme uncertainty I feel
in our current political moment
helps me understand for the first time
the curious twinship
of mourning and premonition.

Information
about the tragedy
Sorrow for the suffering it caused
Gratitude for the work
that makes sorrow visible
Foreboding about the future.

An alert flashes
your phone
Something terrible has happened
Far away, a flood, an airstrike,
Soon, there's footage of people picking through wreckage
what used to be their homes

It is easy to pity them
Difficult to imagine this will be you
Suddenly bereft of a solid place in the world.

Listening to anything
that touches on the sublime
makes me apprehensive.

Like The silence that greets us
waking in the middle of the night

This post identifies the commonest Acer Laptop Complications. If you are thinking of purchasing Acer computers in america or perhaps UL, then I would suggest you to definitely discover the primary Acer laptop problems before you get.

It has an alarmingly large numbers of troubles currently being described by Acer managers on several websites in addition to boards via the internet. A few owners' Acer laptops go completely useless, together with signs of electricity or even mom panel malfunction. The equipment will not just start up if this guarantee is long gone, you can be going through a number of key challenges. Acer has been extremely tough within connecting these difficulty with clients, the consumer support is not very helpful and they tend not to repay too much. If you do a little study on the net, you will realise a lot of people whining regarding complications with Acer Desire. Acer lap tops usually are not cheap and should surely offer much better high quality for your dollars.

One more widespread Acer laptop computer concern is "getting this blackscreen.In . It appears that the actual Digital showcases hold the backlight (ordinarily a frosty cathode) tired. Your fix generally is made of opening the monitor exchanging the particular frosty cathode tv plus reassembling the unit. Prior to you're going onto this sort of conclusions, you should definitely be sure you have never merely by chance power down this backlight. On Acer notebooks, depressing the Fn option in addition to F6 while doing so is the backlight on/off togle. Positioning the particular Fn key and also pressing the particular left/right arrow secrets raises/lowers the particular backlight brightness. Another typically described dilemma in relation to Acer notebook computers is USB port malfunction. A few masters possess were unsatisfied with the particular Universal series bus jacks damaged. Even after re-installing the people, people however aren't effective.

You can find instances when a strong Acer mobile computer would certainly establish a mistake together with the Hard disk drive (Challenging Disk Generate) in which glass windows cannot find the disk. Really the only repair at this point is obtaining a brand new disk drive this would certainly cost all around $200 when the assurance phase has ended. You should say that difficulty and also post the machine pertaining to maintenance. Acer would probably cost you more, yet this the restore in which also you can do alone if you're proficient thus training. Foreign exchange is usually what's known as "the click on with death.In . It may happen with a brand-new design in the event the hard disk drive is usually producing numerous visiting disturbance, which is actually a indication that the disc isn't keeping the accurate speed.

An issue has been just lately found out in the asking for process of Acer Travelmate 2702WLMi pc. Any time driven along, the actual asking only will work from time to time. The particular demand lumination happens ; however , arbitrarily blinks for after which it off of and so on. The result is that it will take for a long time so that you can impose. That is a common Acer pc issue that's acquired something to do with getting too hot. Among the list of enthusiasts all can involving rapid cease working and thus, overheating develops. Ensure that your notebook will not be having genuinely hot. Another thing you could do is open it up way up and remove the particular particles that is protecting every little thing. Simply just remove the particles as well as get the job done much better, due to the fact clogged-up heatsinks can affect electric battery asking for.

Several Acer homeowners include claimed the fact that Dvd and blu-ray burner possesses abruptly stopped working right after the guarantee period was over. The particular DVD-RW generate discontinued losing to be able to Compact disk along with scarcely works virtually any digital video disks. This may typically happen should you have documented a really major amount of Dvd videos such as a thousand, nevertheless need not exist in different circumstances.

In the event your Acer pc stops, seek out formal Acer pc aid. In the event out of the blue your Acer notebook closes, look into the Acer notebook computer troubleshooting information.

http://www.passwordmanagers.net/resources/Office-2007-Password-Recovery-75.html Office 2007 Password Recovery