w o r d s    and    "phrases"        
they begin to         lose
              their [meaning:]                         and        and
if they are spoh-kun(n.)                  over       over       over     again.
    for  instance  the  "phrase"
hi, how are you    is only   s a i d      to      trIcK
   people  (into) thinking  that they are
actually
interested
       which the   probability of that is   l
                                                                    o                 t
w o r d s    are OVERUSED                      w.            n
            ||overused overused overused||            i
and -not-                                                                  o
     used with !!!caution!!!                         to the   p
         w    h    e    r    e
   they begin to   lose [meaning:]
all i ask? is to d'o'n't'    become the boy who
  //CRIED\     >WOLF<
but instead of a    ^^^^
                                           you used
w o r d s      and     "phrases"

Hotrod
Verse I

Wrenches clanging, knuckles banging
A drop of blood the young man spilt
A new part here, and old part… there
A hotrod had been built!
A patchwork, mechanical, quilt

Feeling good.  Head under a raised hood, hands occupied, the job nearing completion.  Sometimes the good feelings would dissipate though, as quickly as they came, as he cursed himself for stripping a bolt, or cursed someone else for selling him the wrong part, or the engineer whose design goals obviously did not consider “remove and replace”.
He cursed the “gorilla” that never heard of a torque-wrench, the glowing particle of **** that popped on to the top of his head as he welded, the metal chip he flushed from his eye, and even himself for the burn he received by impatiently touching something too soon after grinding. 
 He, and his type, cursed a lot, but mostly to their selves as they battled-on with things oily, hot, bolted, welded, and rusty – in cramped spaces. One day it was choice words for an “easy-out” that broke off next to a broken drill bit that had broken off in a broken bolt, that was being drilled for an easy-out. 
  Despite the swearing, the good and special feelings would always return, generally of a magnitude that exceeded the physical pain and mental frustration of the day, by a large margin.  
Certifiably obsessive, the young man continued to toil dutifully, soulfully, occasionally gleefully, sometimes even expertly, in his most loved and familiar place, his sanctuary, laboratory… the family garage.

And tomorrow would be the day.
With hard learned, hard earned expertise and confidence - in this special small place, a supremely happy and excited young man commanded his creation to life.

Threw a toggle, pressed a switch
Woke up the neighbors with that *******

The heart of his machine was a stroked Chevy engine that everyone had just grown sick hearing about.  Even the local machine shop to which the boy nervously entrusted his most prized possession had had enough.  “Sir, I don’t want to seem disrespectful, but from what I’ve read in Hot Rod Magazine, you might be suggesting a clearance too tight for forged pistons…” then it would be something else the next day.  
One must always speak politely to the machinist, and even though he always had, the usual allotment of contradictions and arguments afforded to each customer had long run out – and although the shop owner took a special liking to the boy because, as he liked to say, “he reminds me of me”, well, that man was done too.  But in the end, the mill was dead-on.  Of course from the start, the shop knew it would be; that’s almost always the case; it’s how they stay in business - simply doing good work.  Bad shops fall out quickly, but this place had the look of times gone by.  Good times. 
 Old porcelain signs, here and there were to be found, all original to the shop and revered by the older workers in honored nostalgia.  The younger workers get it too; they can tell from the co-workers they respect and learn from, there is something special about this past.  One sign advertises Carter Carburetors and the artwork depicts “three deuces”, model 97’s, sitting proudly atop a flathead engine, all speeding along in a red, open roadster.  Its occupants, a blond haired boy with slight freckles (driver), and a brunette girl passenger, bright white blouse, full and buttoned low. They are in the wind-blown cool, their excited expressions proclaim… "we have escaped and are free!" (and all you need is a Carter, or three).  How uniquely American.

The seasoned old engine block the boy entrusted to the shop cost him $120-even from the boneyard.  Not a bad deal for a good high-nickel content block that had never had its first 0.030”overbore.  In the shop, it was cleaned, checked for cracks by "magnafluxing", measured and re-measured, inspected and re-inspected.  It was shaped and cut in a special way that would allow the stroker crankshaft, that was to be the special part of this build, to have all the clearance it would need.  The engine block was fitted with temporary stress plates that mimic the presence of cylinder heads,  then the cylinders were bored to “first oversize”,  providing fresh metal for new piston rings to work against.  New bearings were installed everywhere bearings are required.  Parts were smoothed here and there.  Some surfaces were roughened just so, to allow new parts to “work-into each other” when things are finally brought together.  All of this was done with a level of precision and attention far, far greater than the old “4- bolt” had ever received at the factory on its way to a life of labor in the ¾ ton work van from which it came, and for which it had served so dutifully.  They called this painstaking dedication to precision measurement and fit, to hitting all specifications on the mark, “blueprinting”, and it would continue throughout the entire build of this engine.  The boy remained worried, but the shop had done it a million times.

After machining, the block was filled with new and strong parts that cost the young man everything he had.   Parts selected with the greatest of effort, decision, and debate.   You can compromise on paint and live with some rust,  he would say, wait for good tires, but never scrimp on the engine.  Right on.  Someone taught the boy right, regardless of whether or not he fully understood the importance of the words he parroted.  His accurate proclamation  also provided ample excuse for the rough, unfinished, underfunded look of the rest of his machine.  But it was just a look, his car was, in fact, “right”.   And its power plant?  Well the machine shop had talked their customer into letting them do the final engine assembly - even cut their price to do it.  To make that go down easy, they asked to have two of their shop decals affixed to the rod on race-days.  The young man thought that was a fair deal, but the shop was really just looking out for the boy, with their herring of sorts.  
The mill in its final form was the proper balance of performance and durability; and with its camshaft so carefully selected, the engine's “personality” was perfectly matched to the work at hand.   It would produce adequate torque in the low RPM range to get whole rig moving quickly, yet deliver enough horsepower near and at red-line to pile on the MPH, fast.  No longer a polite-natured workhorse, this engine, this engine is impatient now.  High compression, a rapid, choppy idle - it seems to be biting at the bit to be released.  On command, it gulps its mixture and screams angrily, and often those standing around have a reflexive jump - the louder, the better - the more angry, the better.  If it hurts your ears, that’s a good feeling.  If its bark startles, that’s a good startle.  A cacophony?  No, the “music” of controlled explosions, capable of thrusting everything and everyone attached, forward, impolitely, on a rapid run to the freedom so well depicted in the ad.  

This is the addictive sound and feel that has appealed to a certain type of person since engines replaced horses, and why?  A surrogate voice for those who are otherwise quiet?  A visceral celebration of accomplishment?    Who cares.  Shift once, then again - speed quickly makes its appearance.  It appears as a loud, rushing wind and a visually striking, unnatural view of the surrounding scenery.  At some point, in the sane, it triggers a natural response - better slow down.    

He uncorked the headers, bought gasoline, dropped her in gear, tore off to the scene
Camaros and Mustangs, an old ‘55
Obediently lined-up, to get skinned alive!

Verse II (1st person)

I drove past the banner that said “Welcome race fans” took a new route, behind the grandstands
And through my chipped window, I thought I could see
Some of the racers were laughing at me

I guess rust and primer are not to their taste
But I put my bucks mister in the right place

I chugged/popped past cars that dealers had sold
Swung into a spot, next to something old

Emerging with interest from under his hood
My neighbor said two words, he said, “sounds good”

The Nova I parked next to was “classic rodding” in its outward appearance.  The much overused “primer paint job”.  The hood and front fenders a fiberglass clamshell, pinned affair.  Dice hanging from the mirror paid homage to days its driver never knew, but wished he had.  He removed them before he drove, always.

If you know how to peel the onion, secrets are revealed.  Wilwood brake calipers can be a dead giveaway. Someone needs serious stopping power - maybe.  Generally, owners who have sprung the bucks for this type gear let the calipers show off in bright red, to make a statement, and sometimes, these days, it’s just a fashion statement.  Expensive calipers, as eye candy, seem to be all the rage.  What is true, however, is very few guys spend big money on brakes only to render them inglorious and seemingly common with a shot of silver paint from a rattle can - and the owner of this half fiberglass racer that poses as a street car had done just that.  I'll glean two things from this observation. One, he needs those heavy brakes because he’s fast, and two, hiding them fits his style.  
Really, the message to be found in the silver paint, so cleverly applied to make your eyes simply slide across on their way to more interesting things, was “sleeper”.   And sleeper really means, he’s one of those guys with a score to settle - with everyone perhaps.   The list of “real parts” grew, if you knew where to look.  Looking was something I had unofficial permission to do since my rod was undergoing a similar scrutiny.  
“Stroked?”, I asked.  That’s something you can’t see from the outside. “ No”, my racer friend replied.  
“Hundred shot?”  (If engines have their language, so do the people who love them).   Despite the owner’s great efforts to conceal braided fuel and nitrous lines, electrical solenoids and switches, I spied his system.  The chunks of aluminum posing as ordinary spacers under his two Holly's were anything but.   “No”, was his one-word reply to my 100- shot question.  I tried again; “Your nitrous system is cleanly installed, how much are you spraying?”  “Two hundred fifty” in two stages, he said.  That’s more like it, I thought, and I then figured, he too had budgeted well for the machine shop – if not, he was gambling in a game that if lost, would soon fly parts in all directions.   Based on the overall neat work on display, I believed his build was up to the punishment planned. 
  I knew exactly what this tight-lipped guy was about, seeing someone very familiar in him as it were, and that made the “sounds good” complement I received upon my arrival all the more valuable.  I liked my neighbor.  And I liked the fact of our scratch-built rods having found each other - and I looked forward to us both dusting off the factory jobs.  It was going to be a good day.

The voice on the loudspeaker tells us we’re up.

Pre-staged, staged, then given the green
The line becomes blurred between man and machine

Bones become linkage
Muscle, spring
Fear, excitement

Time distorts ….
Color disappears …
Vision narrows…
Noise ---  becomes music
Speed, satisfaction

End

“The Silicon Tower of Babel”
The over utilization of technology, its abuse, is unweaving humanity at the seams. Human health, sanity, and spirituality are under attack. The boom of accessibility over technology has increasingly subtracted from the frequency of face to face human interaction as well as human interaction with nature. The result is a declining emotional and psychological health and a ******* of spiritual values. Each individual who values holistic health should limit the time he or she spends using technology that isolates them to less than twenty-four hours in a week. They should make more purposeful efforts toward interacting with nature daily and for periods of at least an hour at a time. Lastly, these individuals should labor to replace reclusive technologies with modes of technology that encourage face to face and group social interaction such as movies, Skype, etc.
Self-limitation of the use of isolating technology will begin to correct the twisting of our spiritual values and the social and physiological damage that has been caused by the overuse and abuse of technology. In James T. Bradley’s review of Joel Garreau’s book discussion of radical evolution, called “Odysseans of the twenty first century”, Bradley quotes Garreau when he says that technology will result in human transcendence. In “Odysseans” it is said that “The nature of transcendence will depend upon the character of that which is being transcended—that is, human nature.”  James. T Bradley, scholar and author of this peer reviewed journal says that “When we’re talking about transhumanism, we’re talking about transcending human nature. . .  One notion of transcendence is that you touch the face of God. Another version of transcendence is that you become God.”  This is a very blatant ******* of the roles of God and man. When the created believes it can attain the greatness of its creator, and reach excellence and greatness on par with its God, it has completely reversed the essence of spirituality. This results in the ability to justify the “moral evolution of humankind” according to Odysseans. And this “moral evolution” often results in “holy wars”. In “Man in the age of technology” by Umberto Galimberti of Milan, Italy, written for the Journal of Analytical Psychology in 2009, technology is revealed to be “no longer merely a tool for man’s use but the environment in which man undergoes modifications.” Man is no longer using technology. Man is no longer affecting and manipulating technology to subdue our environments. Technology is using, affecting, and manipulating the populace; it is subduing humankind into an altered psychological and spiritual state.
Technology, in a sense, becomes the spirituality or the populace. It replaces nature and the pure, technologically undefiled creation as the medium by which the common man attempts to reach the creator. The common man begins to believe in himself as the effector of his Godliness. Here there is logical disconnect. People come to believe that what they create can connect them to the being that created nature. They put aside nature and forget that it is an extension of the artist that created it. Technology removes man from nature (which would otherwise force an undeniable belief in a creator) and becomes a spiritual bypass. “According to “The Only Way Out Is Through: The Peril of Spiritual Bypass” by Cashwell, Bentley, and Yarborough, in a January 2007 issue of Counseling and Values, a scholarly and peer reviewed psychology journal, “Spiritual bypass occurs when a person attempts to heal psychological wounds at the spiritual level only and avoids the important (albeit often difficult and painful) work at the other levels, including the cognitive, physical, emotional, and interpersonal. When this occurs, spiritual practice is not integrated into the practical realm of the psyche and, as a result, personal development is less sophisticated than the spiritual practice (Welwood, 2000). Although researchers have not yet determined the prevalence of spiritual bypass, it is considered to be a common problem among those pursuing a spiritual path (Cashwell, Myers, & Shurts, 2004; Welwood, 1983). Common problems emerging from spiritual bypass include compulsive goodness, repression of undesirable or painful emotions, spiritual narcissism, extreme external locus of control, spiritual obsession or addiction, blind faith in charismatic leaders, abdication of personal responsibility, and social isolation.”  Reverting back to frequent indulgence in nature can begin to remedy these detrimental spiritual, social, and physiological effects.  If people as individuals would choose to daily spend at least an hour alone in nature, they would be healthier individuals overall.
  Technology is often viewed as social because of its informative qualities, but this is not the case when technologies make the message itself, and not the person behind the message, the focus.  To be information oriented is to forsake or inhibit social interaction.  Overuse of technology is less of an issue to human health if it is being overused in its truly social forms. Truly social forms of technology such as Skype and movies viewed in public and group settings are beneficial to societal and personal health. According to a peer-reviewed study conducted by John B. Nezlek, the amount and quality of one’s social interactions has a direct relationship to how positively one feels about one’s self. Individual happiness is supported by social activity.
Abuse of technology is a problem because it results in spiritual *******.  It points humanity toward believing that it can, by its own power, become like God.  Abuse of technology inclines humanity to believe that human thoughts are just as high as the thoughts of God. It is the silicon equivalent of the Tower of Babel.  It builds humanity up unto itself to become idols. In extreme cases overuse of technology may lead to such megalomania that some of humanity may come to believe that humanity is God.  Technology is a spiritual bypass, a cop-out to dealing with human inability and depravity. The misuse of technology results in emotional and psychological damage. It desensitizes and untethers the mind from the self. It causes identity crises. Corruption of technology from its innately neutral state into something that negatively affects the human race results in hollow social interactions, reclusion, inappropriate social responses, and inability to understand social dynamics efficiently.
It may appear to some that technology cannot be the cause of a large-scale social interrupt because technology is largely social. However, the nature of technology as a whole is primarily two things: It is informational; it is for use of entertainment. Informational technology changes the focus of interaction from the messenger to the message. Entertainment technology is, as a majority, of a reclusive nature.
Readers may be inclined to believe that nature is not foundational to spirituality and has little effect on one’s spiritual journey, it is best to look through history. Religions since the beginning of time have either focused on nature or incorporated nature into their beliefs. Animists believe that everything in nature has a spirit. Native American Indians like the Cherokee believe that nature is to be used but respected. They believe that nature is a gift from the Great Spirit; that earth is the source of life and all life owes respect to the earth. Christians believe that it is the handiwork of God, and a gift, to be subdued and used to support the growth and multiplication, the prosperity and abundance of the human race.
In a society that has lost touch with its natural surroundings it is sure that some believe that nature has little effect on health, as plenty of people live lives surrounded by cities and skyscrapers, never to set foot in a forest or on red clay and claim perfect health. However, even in the states of the least contact possible with nature, nature has an effect on human health. The amount of sunlight one is exposed to is a direct factor in the production of vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency has been determined to be linked to an increased likelihood of contracting heart disease, and is a dominant factor in the onset of clinical depression. Nature has such a drastic effect on human health that the lack of changing season and sunlight can drive individuals to not only depression, but also suicide. This is demonstrated clearly when Alaska residents, who spend half a year at a time with little to no sunlight demonstrate a rate of suicide and clinical depression diagnoses remarkably higher than the national average.
Dependence on technology is engrained in our society, and to some the proposed solution may not seem feasible. They find the idea of so drastically limiting technology use imposing. They do not feel that they can occupy their time instead with a daily hour of indulgence in nature. For these individuals, try limiting isolating technology use to 72 hours a week, and indulging in nature only three times a week for thirty minutes. Feel free to choose reclusive technology over social technologies sometimes, but do not let technology dominate your life. Make conscious efforts to engage in regular social interactions for extended periods of time instead of playing Skyrim or Minecraft. Watch a movie with your family or Skype your friends. Use technology responsibly.
To remedy the effects of the abuse of technology and the isolations of humanity from nature, individuals should limit their reclusive technology use to 24 hours in a week’s time, indulge in nature for an hour daily, and choose to prefer truly social technologies over reclusive technologies as often as possible. In doing so, individuals will foster their own holistic health. They will build and strengthen face-to-face relationships. They will, untwist, reconstruct and rejuvenate their spirituality. They will be less likely to contract emotional or social disorders and will treat those they may already struggle with.  So seek your own health and wellbeing. Live long and prosper.

Tantalized by the fractious limerence of a vestigial habiliment of the old order, we conclude that hypertrophy leads to a limbo where random permutations alloyed by the rickety limits of concatenation subsume concepts that are equivocal but populate the imaginations of newfangled art forms that jostle the midwives of rumination to lead to unique pastures that are intuitively calibrated to correspond to definitive unitary events in conceptual space that sprawl unexpectedly towards the desultory but determinative conclusion of a meandering ludic sphere of rambunctious sentiments cobbled together to either rivet the captive audience or annoy the peevish criticaster when they dare to inseminate the canvassed and corrugated tract of intellectual territory created ad hoc to swelter the imagination with audacious ingenuity that is an inevitable byproduct of lexical hypertrophy. In this séance with the immaterial realm of concept rather than the predictable clockwork reductivism of a perceptual welter that is limited by the concretism circumscribed by spatiotemporal stricture we find that an extravagant twinge of even the smallest tocsin in the interstitial carousel of conscientious subroutines compounding recursively to pinprick the cossetted smolder of potentiality rather than extravagate into the vacancy of untenanted nullibiety can spawn a progeny of utilities and vehicles for dexterous abstraction that poach the exotic concepts we fathom by degrees of sapience malingering in lifeless bricolages of erratic abstraction in manners useful to transcend the repose of abeyance and heave awakening into the slumberous caverns of still-life to make them dynamically animated to capture ephemeral events that defy the demarcations of wistful indelicacy of the encumbered bulk of insufficient precision.

Today we embark on a quest to defile the anoegenetic recapitulation of canon that litters the dilapidated avenues of miserly contemplation that has a histeriological certainty and feeds the engines that enable novelty but ultimately remain rancid with the stench of the idiosyncratic shibboleths of synoptic alloyed impoverishment that leads to the vast wasteland of cremated entropy that is a stained foible of misappropriated context interpolated usefully as botched triage for daunting problems that require a nimble legerdemain of facile versatility that we easily adduce to conquer the present with the botched memorial of a defunct salience. Despite the travail of scholars to retreat from the frontier into the hypostatized hegemony of recycled credentialed information, we often are ensnared by the solemn attrition of decay as we traverse the conceptual underpinnings of all bedrock thought only to dangle precariously near the void of lapsed sentience because of transitory incontinence that is contiguous to the doldrums of crudity but nevertheless with mustered mettle we purport that the very self-serious awakening to our hobbling limitations is akin to a prosthetic enhancement of ratiocination capable of feats that stagger beneath the lowest level of subtext to elevate the highest superordinate categorization into heightened scrutiny that burgeons metacognitive limber. Marooned in the equipoise of specifiable enlightenment countermanded by the strictures of working memory we can orchestrate transverse pathways between the elemental quiddity of impetuous meaning and the dignified tropes of transitivity that bequeaths entire universes with feral progeny that modulate their ecosystems with both a taste of approximated symmetry and a cohesive enterprise for productivity that rests on the granular concordance of the highest plane to the indivisible parcels of atomic meaning that solder together to exist as intelligible if strained by the primordial frictions guaranteed by the brunt of motion incipient because of the metaphorical inertia created within insular universes to inform sprawling conurbations of mobilized thoughts designed to reckon with the breakneck pace of the corresponding reality to which they explicitly and precisely refer to.

We must singe surgically the filigrees that amount to the perceptible realities that transmute temperaments into the liturgy of routine conflated with the rigmarole of neural dragnets of reiterative quips in an elegant game of raillery with our supernal contumacy against the rigid authority of aleatory vagaries mandated by a dually arbitrary universe in a probabilistic terpsichorean dance with the depth of our dredge for subliminal acuity or the shallow bellicosity of common modes of glib contemplation characteristic of the basic nobility of improvisation. This basic interface with the world can either be mercurial or tranquil based on the interactionism of the enfeebled trudge of surface senses or blunt intuitions and the smoldering impact of the vestigial cloaks that deal gingerly with the poignant subtext evoked in the cauldron of immediacy rather than pondered with the portentous weight of imperative singularities of uniqueness derived from the plunge into the arcane citadel of microscopic introspection so refined that the ineffable drives we seek to fathom become amenable to the traipse of transcendental time that rarefies itself by defying the brunt of compartmentalized bureaucracies administered by the fulcrum of stereotypical notions of acquired gravitas imputed to mundane pedestrian quidnunc concerns that defile humanity rather than embolden the subaudition of gritty punctilios that show the supernal powers of the axiomatic divinity of sharpened sentience to reign with supremacy over the baser ignoble components of bletcherous nescience that leads to knee-**** platitudes that provoke folksy peevish divisions. We should rather orchestrate our activity by heeding the admonishment about the primogeniture of poignant sabotage buffered by the remonstration of innate tranquility and finding a whipsawed compromise of rationalization with true visceral encounters with the fulgurant quips of brisk emotions that grind industriously into amorphous retinues of the trenchant human imagination to either equip or hobble the leapfrogged interrogation of veracity and more consequently our notions of truth and fact.

When we see the hackneyed results of default ecological dynamics, we find ourselves aloof from purported transcendence because the whimpered bleats and cavils of the importunate masses result in a deafening din of cacophony because we strive throbbing with sprightliness towards the galloped chase of tantalization without the luxury of a terminus for satiation. Obviously a growth mindset is the galvanic ****** that spawns the imaginative swank of the pliable modulations of our perceived reality that, when protean, showcase the limitless verve of our primordial cacoethes for epigenetic evolution rather than the stolid and staid foreclosure of impervious sloth that memorializes the gluttony of speculation about fixed entities rather than imperative jostling urbanity that dignifies the brackish dance with dearth and the exuberant savory taste of momentary excess because it engages the animated pursuit of limerence rather than the exhumed corpse of wistful regret. Nature is a cyclical clockwork system of predatory instinct met with the clemency of the prosperous providence enacted by the travailing ingenuity of successive cumulative generativities that compounded unevenly and unpredictably to predicate a fundamental zeitgeist calculated to engorge the fattened resources of the resourceful and temper the etiolated dreams of the fringed acquiescence of a hulking prejudiced population of dutiful servants that balk at the diminutive prospects of a lopsided distribution of talent and means but slumber in irenic resolve created by the merciful hands of defensive designs that configure consciousness to relish comparative touchstones rather than absolute outcomes that straggle beyond a point of enviable reference to shield the world of the barbarism of botched laments clamoring for an uncertain grave from the gravity of the orbiting satellites of apportioned wealth both sunblind and boorish but simultaneously inextricable from the acclimated fortune of heaped nepotism and herculean opportunism. The intransigence of the weighted destiny of inequity is a squalid enterprise of primeval abrasive and combative tendencies within the bailiwick of the indignant compass inherent to the system that fathoms its deficiencies with crabwise and gingerly pause but airs a sheepish grievance like a bleat of self-exculpation but simultaneously an arraignment of fundamental attribution erroneously indicted without the selfsame reflexiveness characteristic of a transcendent being with other recourses to clamber an avenue to Broadway without malingering in the slums of opprobrious ineffectual remonstration against the arrangement of a blinkered metropolis of uneven gentrification.

We flicker sometimes between the strategic drivel of appeasement and the candor of audacious imprecation of the culprits of indignity or considerate nutritive encomium of the beacons of ameliorated enlightenment because we often masquerade a half-witted glib consciousness lazily sketched by the welters of verve alloyed with the rancid distaste of squalor and slumber on the faculty of conscientious swivels of prudential expeditions with an avarice for bountiful considered thought and wily contortions of demeanor that issue the affirmative traction of adaptive endeavor to cheat a warped system for a reconciled peace and a refined self-mastery. We need to traduce the urchins that sting the system with pangs of opprobrious ballyhoo and the effluvia of foofaraw that contaminate with pettifoggery and small-minded blather the arenas better suited for the gladiatorial combat of cockalorums tinged with a dose of intellectual effrontery beyond the span of dogmatism rather than the hackneyed platitudes that infest the news cycle with folksy backwardation catered to the fascism of a checkered established press that urges insurrection while tranquilizing dissent against the furtive actions of consequence hidden behind the draped verdure of pretense whose byproduct is only a self-referential sophistry that swarms like an intractable itch to devolve the spectator into a pasquinaded spectacle of profound human obtuseness that pervades malignantly the system of debate until the reductionists outwit themselves with the empty prevarication of circular logic that deliberately misfires to miss the target of true importance because of the pandered black hole easily evaded by creatures of high sentience but inevitably ensnaring the special kind of dupe into a cycle of bellicose ferocity of internecine balkanization. The vainglory of the omphalos of entertainment is also another reckoning because it festers a cultural mythos of glorified crapulence parading a philandered promiscuity with half-baked antics that gravitate attention and the lecheries of gaudy tenses of recycled tinsel alloyed by debased aberrations of seedy grapholagnia that magnetize as they percolate because of the insidious catchphrases embedded in pedestrian syncopation that ignite retention and acclimate to mediocrity the sounds of generations discolored by faint pasty rainbows rather than ennobled by majestic landscapes of ignipotent mellifluous sound that stands a supernal amusement still for the resourceful trainspotter.

Despite the contumely aimed in the direction of contrarians for deviating from the lockstep clockwork hustle of stooped pandered manipulation that peddles the wares of an entirely counterfeit reality, I stand obstinately against the melliferous stupefaction of entire genres of myth and subcultures huddled around the sentimental tug of factitious sophistries regaled by thick amorphous apostates that cherish the vacuous sidetracked spotlight with fervor rather than pausing on the enigmatic querulous inquisition about the penumbras that lurk with strained effort beneath or above the categorical nescience of the shadowy unknown that often coruscates with elegance even in obscurity. I fight with labored words to spawn a psychological discipline that invokes the incisive subaudition of the pluckily pricked exorcism of true insight from the husk of buzzwords that constellate auxiliary tangential distractions from the art form of psychological discernment that predicates itself on the concept that the rarefaction of rumination by degrees of microscopic precision enables the introspective hindsight of conscious events that can be parsed without the acrimony of cluttered conflations of the granular prowess of triumphant ratiocination that earns a panoramic perch with the added luxury of perspicacious insight into the atomic structure of the rudiments of our phenomenological field and the abstractions that linger beyond perceptual categorization. When we analyze the gradients of anger, for example, we can either be ****** into a brooded twinge of wistful resentment or we can decipher that through heuristics designed to cloister the provenance of subconscious repose with ignorance there exists a regimented array of tangential accessories embedded deep within the cavernous repository of memory that designates a cumulative trace of compounded symmetries of concordant experience immediately perceptible because of the tangible provocateur of our gripes and the largely subliminal tusk that protrudes because of primal instinct that squirms with peevishness because of the momentary context preceded by the desultory churn of smoldering associations swimming with either complete intangible sputtered mobility through the tract of subconscious hyperspace or rigidly fixated by an arraignment of circumstances with propinquity to the deep unfathomed flicker of bygones receding or protruding because of the warped and largely unpredictable rigmarole of constellated spreading activation.  
When we examine the largesse of the swift recourse of convenience we forget by degrees the travail that once bridged the span of experience from patient abeyance in provident pursuit to now the importunate glare of inflated expectations for immediacy that stings the whole enterprise of societal dynamics because it vitiates us with a complacency for the filigrees of momentary tinsel of a virtualized reality divorced from the concretism that used to undergird interaction and now stands outmoded as a wisp beyond outstretched hands straggling beyond the black mirror of a newfangled narcissistic clannishness that shepherds the ostentation of conceit to a predominant position that swaddles us with fretful diversion that operates on a warped logic of lurid squalor and pasty trends becoming the mainstays of a hypercritical linguistic system of entrapment based on the apostasy of candor for the propitiation of fringed aberration because of the majoritarian uproar about touchy butthurt pedantic criticasters with a penchant for persnickety structuralism. With the infestation of entertainment with the ubiquitous political cavils engineered by the ruling class to have a common arena of waggish irreverence we forget that sometimes the impetuous ****** of propaganda is cloaked by the fashionable implements of a rootless time writhing in a purported identity crisis only to gawk at the ungainly reflection of modernity in the mirror and remain blissfully unaware about the transmogrified cultural psyche that feeds the lunacy of endless spectacle based on the premise that one singular whipping post can unite an entire generation of miscegenated misfits looking for commonality to team up against the aging generations that cling to the sanctity of cherished jingoism against the intentionality of a revamped system that malingers with empty promises using exigency and legerdemain to obscure the mooncalves among their ranks that march on with quixotic dreams that tolerate only the idea of absolute tolerance and moderate only when feasibly permitted by the anchored negotiation of the fulcrum of totemic governmental responsibility between factions that wage volleys of invective at each other to promote a binary choice of vitiated compromises of mendaciloquence that ultimately endanger the republic with either the perils of hidebound conventionalism and nativist fervor or the boondoggles of fiscally irresponsible insanity cloaked with rainbows and participation trophies. Reproach can be distributed to both sides of the aisle because ironically in a world where gender is non-binary the most important reproductive ***** in the free world is a binary-by-default despotism that polarizes extremely ludic fantasies on the left met with the acrimony of the traditionalisms on the right that staunchly resist the fatuous confusions of delegated order only to the sharp rebuke of the revamped political vogue that owes its sustenance to a manufactured diplomacy of saccharine lies and ubiquitous lampoons that are lopsided in the direction of a globalist neoliberal bricolage of moderately popular buzzwords and the trojan horse of insubordinate flippant feminism that seeks to subvert through backhanded manipulation the patriarchy so many resent using lowbrow tactics and poignant case studies rather than legislating the egalitarian system into law using the proper channels. I myself am a political independent who sides with fiscal conservatism but libertarianism in most other affairs because the pettifoggery of law-and-order politics is a diatribe overused by sheltered suburbanites and red meat is often just as fatuous as blue tinsel and sadly in a majoritarian society the ushers of conformity demand corporate divestiture in favor of an ecological system of predictability rather than an opinionated welter of legitimate challenges to a broken system of backwards partisanship and wangled consent. Ultimately, I remain mostly apolitical, but I am a fervent champion of the mobilization of education to a statelier standard that demands rigor and responsibility rather than the chafe of rigmarole that understates the common objectives of humanity and rewards conventional thinking and nominal participation to earn credentialed pedigree when the bulk of talent resides elsewhere.

The tired, old cliché –life is short—is probably more accurate than I would care to admit. With wry amusement, I have to admit that overused saying can be quite a joke to me, for I’ve heard it said way too many times, quite at the level of nauseam. Often times, I think the opposite, that life can be pretty **** long when you are not satisfied with it.

I am now at the age which I once thought was getting old, just having another unwanted birthday recently, turning forty-seven last month. As a girl, I thought anyone who had reached the age of forty was practically decrepit. Well, perhaps not, but it might as well have been that way. Forty wasn’t flirty. Forty wasn’t fun. It was far from a desirable age to be, but at least it seemed a million years off.

Surely now, life is far from over for me. Yet I must admit that I am feeling that my youth is slowly slipping away, like sand between my hands that is impossible to hold onto forever. Fifty is over the horizon for me, and I can sense its approach with a bit of unease and trepidation.

It is amazing. Many people still tell me that I am young, but even in my thirties I sensed that middle age was creeping up on me. And now I really am wondering when my middle age status will officially come to an end and old age will replace it—just exactly what number that is anyway. If I doubled up my age now, it would be ninety-four, so my age bracket cannot be as “middle” as it once was.

When we are children, we often cannot wait until we are old enough, old enough to drive when we turn sixteen, old enough to vote when we turn eighteen, as well as old enough to graduate from all those years of school drudgery, and old enough to drink when we turn twenty-one. I can certainly add the lesser milestones—when we are old enough to no longer require a babysitter, when we are old enough to date, when girls are old enough to wear make-up, or dye their hair. Those benefits of adulthood seem to validate our importance in life, nothing we can experience firsthand as a rightful privilege before then.

Many kids can’t wait to be doing all the grown-up things, as if time cannot go fast enough for them, as if that precious stage of life should simply race by like a comet, and life would somehow continue on as before, seemingly as invincible as it ever did in youth. Yet, for many people, after finally surpassing those important ages and stages, they often look back and are amazed at how the years seemed to have just flown by, rushed on in like a “thief in the night” and overtook their lives. And they then begin to realize that they are mortal and life is not invincible, after all.

I am one of them.

When I was a girl, I did not have an urgent sense of the clock, certainly not the need to hurry up to morph into an adult, quite content to remain in my snug, little cocoon of imaginary prepubescent bliss. It seemed like getting to the next phase in life would take forever, or so I wanted it to be that way. In my dread of wondering what I would do once I was grown. I really was in no hurry to face the future head on.  I pretty much feared those new expectations and leaving the security of a sheltered, childhood, a haven of a well-known comfort zone, for sure, even though a generally unhappy one.

Change was much too scary for me, even if it could have been change for the good.

At the age I am now, I surely enjoy the respects that come with the rites of passage into adulthood, a status that I, nor anybody, could truly have as a child. I can assert myself without looking like an impudent, snot-nosed kid—a pint sized know-it-all—one who couldn’t impress anybody with sophistication no matter how much I tried. Now, I can grow into an intelligent woman, ever growing with the passing of age, perhaps a late bloomer with my assertiveness and confidence. Hopefully, more and more each day, I am surrendering the fight in the battle of self-negativity, slowly obtaining a sense of satisfaction in my own skin.

I have often been mistaken as much younger than my actual age. The baby face that I once had seems to be loosing its softness, a very youthful softness that I once disliked but now wish to reclaim. I certainly have mixed feelings about being older, glad to be done with the fearful awkwardness of growing up, now that I look back to see it for what it was, but sometimes missing that girl that once existed, one who wanted to enjoy being more of what she truly had.

All in all, I’d much rather be where I am right this very moment, for it is all that I truly can stake as my claim. Yet I think of the middle age that I am in right now as a precarious age.

As the years go by, our society seems ever more youth obsessed, far more than I was a child. Plastic surgeries are so common place, and Botox is the new fountain of youth. Anti-aging creams, retinol, age defying make-up—many women, including myself, want to indulge in their promises for wrinkle-free skin. Whether it is home remedies or laboratory designed methods, whatever way we can find to make our appearance more pleasing, and certainly younger, is a tantalizing hope for those of us who are middle aged females.

Is fifty really the new thirty? I’d love to think so, but I just cannot get myself to believe that.

Just ask my aches and pains if you want to know my true opinion.

Middle age women are now supposed to be attractive to younger men, as if it is our day for a walk in the sun. Men have been in the older position—often much older position—since surely time began. But we ladies get the label of “cougar”, an somewhat unflattering name that speaks of stalking and pouncing, of being able to rip someone apart with claws like razors, conquer them and then devour them. There is Cougar Town on television that seems to celebrate this phenomenon as something fun and carefree, but I still think that it is generally looked at as something peculiar and wrong.

Hugh Hefner can have women young enough to be his granddaughters, and it might be offensive to many, but he can still get pats on the back and thumbs up for his lifestyle. Way to go, Hef! Yet when it comes to Demi Moore married to Ashton Kutcher, a man fifteen years younger than her, it is a different story. Many aren’t surprised that they are divorcing. Talking heads on television have pointed out, with the big age difference between them, that their relationship was doomed from the start. Other talking heads have pointed out the double standard and the unfairness placed on such judgment, realizing that it probably would not be this way if the man was fifteen years older.

Yes, right now I have middle age as my experience, and that is exactly where I feel in life—positioned in the middle between two major life stages. And they are two stages that I don’t think commands any respect—childhood and old age.      

I’ve been to my share of nursing homes. I helped to care for my father, as he lived and died in one. I had to endure my mother’s five month stay in a nursing home while she recovered from major surgery. I have volunteered my time in hospice, making my travels in some nursing home visitations. So I have seen, firsthand, the hardship of what it means to be elderly, of what it means to feel like a burden, of what it means to lose one’s abilities that one has always taken for granted.  I’ve often witnessed the despair and the languishing away from growing feeble in body and mind.
There is no easy cure for old age. No amount of Botox can alleviate the problems. No change seems available in sight for the ones who have lost their way, or have few people that can care for them, or are willing to care for them.  

I think time should just slow down again for me—as it seemed to be in my girlhood.

I am in no hurry to leave middle age.

"Where do I belong?", some man sings in his song
she can't seem to answer either
the question sinks deeper

Sick of all the tired quotes and overused anecdotes
They can't satiate her yearn
what is there left to learn of myself?

Her feet slide there and don't fit here
She's like a wolf with oversized ears
abandoned from the pack
left to follow dusted tracks

Sick of all the tired quotes and overused anecdotes
They can't satiate her yearn
what is there left to learn of myself?

A big bustling city with a little lost girl
Supposedly afraid of the world
Her bolting marine eyes search the sky
where do I belong

Sick of all the tired quotes and overused anecdotes
They can't satiate her yearn
what is there left to learn of myself?

Gentle and silent she makes her move
one click to capture their groove
forever impressioned on her film
the world has changed

Sick of all the tired quotes and overused anecdotes
They can't satiate her yearn
what is there left to learn of myself?

Her reflection, something new, confused
the man continues on with his song
They still don't know where they belong

Nothing can break the souls bond
between twin flames and no matter
how long you are apart or what
happens you are always connected
and sometimes two souls are even
created together and in love before
they're born.

Once a deep and powerful connection
between two people has been made
they become a vital part of each
others lives and there is no
separating them and no measure
of distance or duration of silence
can prevent the outbreak of smiles
and laughter or the strong desire
to leap into each other's arms when
they come together once more.

My soulmate lives her life like a
flame; A dance of purposeful chaos,
Her enchanting light can guide you
and quell your fears....She's hot;
warming those who respect her
and burning those who don't..She
is a flame with an unforgettable
glow...A weak man will try to dim
her luminance ... but her Soulmate
will have pleasure in fanning the
blaze as I try to do but "soulmate"
is an overused term, and a true
soul connection is very rare, but
very real and a soulmate will always
be someone who will make you the
most "you" that you can possibly
be as she does for me.

She is a mystery to me, yet so
familiar like a song I've never heard
before and a tune I've known my
entire life, knowing that we are
spiritual beings in human form
with a desire  to simply connect
with a soul who feels like home.

The moment our souls connected,
our hearts became one and now every
day that I communicate with her I
can feel our love continue to grow
stronger...stronger with loyalty,
respect and encouragement and
I am so happy to share my life with
her spirit and as we grow old
together,as we continue to change
with age, there is one thing that
will never change...I will always
keep falling in love with her.                          Jon York   2018

I am fat
like an overused ****.

If you need some crack
gimme some smack
and ill make you lick my *****
until my *** goes splat.

All over your face
please put away the mace
I only want to *** on your sister's face.

I **** at poems
I hate America
the next chance i get
ill give it back to the Cherroka.

This will not rhyme
I hate poetry.
its only for dumbfucks who want to drink coffee with hipsters and lick obamas *****.

I love black people and my ***** is gigantic.  Goodbye :D I still hate Titanic.

disclaimer: unedited rambling and overly long and frankly, Scarlet, don't give a **** anymore...

Thus spake and quested
another, younger poet to me,
a far better one than I,
but obligations thus provided,
are serious business,
to those who understand
poetic responsibilities, and
under his own Rules of Order,
an answer,
though long in coming, AR,
must be provided.

Well well well
all is not well,
the faucets offers choices....
chrome hot
chrome cold

there is no such thing as
lukewarm truth in
clear waters that
run run,
yet never
run stilled,
birthed at turned-on conception,
to drain death removal,
another daily poetic miracle,
unappreciated by most,
overly consumed by their
own passage on this Earth

peddler wayfarer,
passing through with truth
poem pots and rattling pans
(nowadays, mostly panned),
a historic factoid,
and not what Amazon delivers...
truth is a genetically modified
bitcoin currency, misunderstood,
prone to sometimes useful,
but never ever, to stick or stain,
for I got excuses and who gives a ****,
yesterday is forgotten instantly

The coldest truths,
the confirmation of same
by mirrored image text sent,
(immediacy a necessity,
for though poor, it is 'real')
the twitter that methodically
A-lists your major crimes
B-lists your petty,
hope-you-didn't miss my
exposé of latest misdemeanors

the hot truths,
only whispered,
merely mint hinted
in a hot cuppa,
the heat itself
a cover up,
for what you do not
wish me to plainly speak
or plainly sell,
is accursed truths,
won't sell, even if free

Can't write about moon and June,
alabaster is a fine word,
but white suits me fine,
don't know the diff
tween dragon flys and lullabies

The way I write is
just the way I think, believe,
from my eyes to paper
there is no misdirection,
just silent labor conception

Poor poor real truth
is out of favor these days,
because there is nothing
no one won't cease or hesitate
to expose himself,
flaunt the anguish,
copy other's jive,
but that is real,
but it is not truth

Had a bad day,
You need to know about it
Right away!

Though I meander and excuse,
there is one state of truth,
I need yet to annotate

Too oft when tapped turned on,
it is rusty water and rusted truths
expelled and this, my stuff, my days,
not in vogue, or a top seller

I love the color rust,
overused in my poems,
but compulsion is not a
conditional, but a must

This then is the form
they spill in these,
my final days here

You might think that rust implies
lack of use,
a non-caring
for his voice,
his well practiced instrument

Au contrarie, amigo!

My rust is from overuse,
my eyes don't see
what the popular want nor
could I provide it
even if
it was demanded,
which it is not....

Rusted but unvarnished,
undisguised by fancy words
or silent cries, what you read
is what you get
until I find
a more "authentic" voice,
one that satisfies the world
not just me...he sneers....

Feel for me in the summer breeze,
from whence my best stuff
has always been plucked
sent on its way, to you,
in self-same wind,
to kiss your cheeks,
slap you alert

I used to write
on both feet
upstanding,
then Hillel was asked for
the whole truth
while standing
on just one leg

His reply:
"Love they neighbor as you love thyself"

So I switched
and now compose,
in quiet ignorance,
a wrong footed poet,
left only with his what's left,
and to put his left foot truths
first, forward and foremost,
is what he got, and
what I got, you'll get....

But a cautionary note,
drinking riposte rustys,
bad for the body,
but kindly
for your mental
wealth,
if your have the
only other element
most needed,
in your pocket posses,

courage

sadly
it's the broken toys
who were played
to the
core
the broken toys
were overworked
overused
but the toys
did not
know
that they were overused
because they
were loved.

m.g.

Sun up till sun down
Trapped in a perpetual frown
Moon comes then she goes
Drops free fall from my nose

Waking hours in the daylight
Aimless motions; clumsy, puppet-like
Waking hours in the night
Uncomfortable in my own skin and psych

Sleeplessness be my companion
Restlessness be my actions
Despondence be my demon
Crest fallen be my reason

Frantically sifting through my head
Vertically upright or supine in bed
Compartmentalising might be key
To fend off self inflicted insanity

Desperation hangs overhead; ripe and bruised
Excuses upon excuses ridiculously overused
Furiously typing before my mind curds
Hopes of finding peace in these unspoken words

The world is my canvas,
I am the rainbow that illuminates it.
My colors fill the open spaces surrounding me.
I see beauty with my eyes closed,
I speak my wisest words without a strain in my vocal cords,
I lead an army with no weapons.
I speak when I am not spoken to.
I create Unity and destroy resentment.
A man I once bought dinner for
had a body filled with darkness ,
I met his lurking shadow before I was introduced to his warm soul.
"I can't make it another day"
"this is no longer a game that I can play"
"I want to break away from my fate"
"3 big macs and a bottle of ***** that will help me think straight"
"I have this hole in my heart but its feeling more like a never ending weight"
his overused cardboard sign hung off of the side of his garbage filled shopping cart.
his fingertips froze against my palm
we talked about his life
his brother and mom
their drug addictions
and how he has survived so long,
he was 32
with no home.
he understood life in only one tone.
i feed,
I listen,
I speak influential truth.
what I said to him,
through my guitar callused hands,
saved his delicate life.
Purple vibrated through his toxic chest.
Purple.
the color of
wealth
power
creativity,
independence
dignity and wisdom.
purple filled His veins.
My weaponless army will proceed to expand.
and my soul will always be available for helping hands,
my guidance will forever lurk in the dangerous shadows,
I will speak when I am not spoken to because
speaking out of turn
saves souls.
and one day, everyone's soul will drown in purple.

Have you felt being needed?
It’s great, it adds to your ego
But what if it’s too much
And nothing’s true anymore.

I’m there when you need me
But when I need you, you’re gone
Your selfish egotistical self
Never repaying your debt.

Now, I've decided
No longer would I be used
I’m not your dummy anymore
You’ll learn to live when I’m gone.

Let’s make vulgarity beautiful
for a couple seconds.
Dwell on the ******* gimmicks of language,
the shock value of mixing syllables together,
the stupidity of poetic “terms”.
I’ll tell you about my hate for
******* clichés,
****** overused poetic devices and word pairings
that ruin the fun for all of us.
I’ll lay down some ground work here:
too many minutes of my life spent
trying to count syllables ,
rhyme words,
analyze and alliterate annoying argumentative articulations.

You know what?
**** alliteration, assonance and consonance,
bastardisations of the brilliance of poetry.
Destroying all appreciation of something so fine
at such early age,
with red pens,
poor introductions,
and misconceptions falling out of every ******* mouth.
Reused and recycled clichés
trivializing the beauty of rain,
that stomach hiccup when you see someone you like
the actual emotions that fundamentally make us human.
The over-judgemental *****
who can’t write for ****,
think they’re high and mighty,
overusing these feelings with the vocabulary of an eight year old,
giving us poets a bad reputation.
**** those *******
with their dark souls
empty hearts and
broken dreams
**** them over cups of cold coffee
in vintage mugs
snapping in a low-lit jazz café.
Sonnets, haikus and ballads aren’t the only forms of poetry,
nothing has to rhyme,
I shouldn’t be graded on my ability to be a thesaurus.
******* teachers narrow-mindedly give us
“creative writing” homework
that's not creative,
like the colour green.
I don’t see how they can judge poetry,
perhaps how it flows and word choice,
but I have an extra syllable
and purple doesn’t rhyme with anything,
**** me right?
Because purple is the only word which
accurately portrays what I mean,
excuse me if I pronounce this differently
rendering my iambic pentameter to ****.
I didn’t deserve a B.
*****.
Poetry isn’t something you can confine to four walls,
it can’t be truly ugly,
it can be the sort of ugly where your mum doesn’t want to put it on the fridge
but she keeps it until you’re satisfied,
and then she trashes it,
but it’s not ugly.
Remember that poetry is supposed to be beautiful,
*******.
Forget about that *****-*****-***** who ******* you over,
that ******* who didn’t say thank you or
that ****-faced ***** who should go digest a bag of *****
and write something worth reading.
Something that will makes eyes wander back to revisit phrases,
admiring the careful craftsmanship
that translates into something universally beautiful.

The moral here is that
poetry is an art to be mastered and
no one has yet to master it.
Some have come close,
and not all of them have used alliteration,
similes about the heart,
metaphors for love,
binding syllable limits
or rhyme schemes.
Whoever told you otherwise is a raging *******
who doesn’t deserve even the lowest paid *******.
Don’t be afraid to use taboo words;
it's your writing and anyone who doesn’t like it can *******.
Despite the irony,
vulgarity can be beautiful.

I think it's time to do an update
Of The Seven Deadly Sins
Most people do not know them all
Sit down and let's begin
I'm not really religious
But, I think they're a bit stale
So, I think I'll spruce them up a bit
In this my sinly tale
Gluttony, a sin of course
I think it should be changed
With an asterick, obesity
There, that's one sin rearranged
With dinner plates much larger now
And fast food all around
I don't think God prepared the world
For the obese people we've found
Hyper-obese children
Fed from chemically laden food
I think that gluttony can be renamed
To Obesity....don't you?
Greed...there's not much to say
Unless you're not in the one per cent
You know, the ones who have the cash
While we're still making rent
Unless things are all equal
This will never go away
Someone always wants all that you've got
There's not much more for me to say
Envy....not a really bad one
To me, it should not be on the list
Although some might seem envious
Of that bracelet on your wrist
I mean, really, how is envy
Something that should condemn your soul to hell
I mean I like my friends TV
But, I know he likes mine as well
Condemning both our mortal souls
For being envious of our tellies
That just does not hold water
Exactly like my wellies
Lust...I know, a good one
It gets confused a lot with love
To me the only difference is
With lust, you wear a glove
Lust and envy...make them one
A piggyback sin, if you will
It's like combining two commandments
Thinking evil thoughts before you ****
I lust for things I can not have
And for some, that would do me in
But, I can't see how lusting for a big tv
Can be a mortal sin
I think that  additions should be made
now, while I'm here writing
I think that reality tv is one
To be a sin it is inviting
Hoarding, that should make the list
I mean, most of them are lazy
I think how one defines celebrity
Has gotten rather hazy
Now, sloth...can be removed I think,
Or at the least, re-defined
Today, they're abusers of the system
It's the avoidance of work they say
So, here's what's in my mind
One who's known as sloth like
Avoids spiritual work as well
I say, cut them off of welfare
It's not worth sending them to hell
They'd be getting a free trip there
Again, avoiding doing stuff
Just cut their payments off and then
They'll work and quit their guff
Anger, keep it on the list
Because, it's a good one, I admit
Of all the ones upon the list
I think Anger's a good fit
Finally, we get to Pride
And I'm confused
I think the sin is blurry
And the word is overused
Pride of Man, it is a sin
but, aren't you proud of your young child?
when they go and score a winning goal
This as a sin, I think is wild
I am proud of my home country
And I hope that you are too
But, pride itself, it's not a sin
Aren't you proud of what you do?
Gay people have their pride parade
They are proud of who they are
But, pride itself....come on now...let's
Draw the line, not go so far
Combine the list of deadly sins
With commandments, make an app
Change punishments around a bit
Instead of limbo, give a slap
I think that things are sinful
And I know you won't agree
But, this is how I look at things
It's just me being me

dear lover,

i miss you. even though i’ve never met you, i can still feel your energy from a thousand miles away.

a face that can make men go to war for you. your smile makes time move slow, everything in the world makes sense. i find comfort in your love and warmth in your presence.

lover. i fell in love with your words, everything you uttered was. beauty personified in words. that deep energetic vibe from your soul makes me want to dance in your. elegance.

i fell in love with your mind, and i fell deep within your subconscious. a trance i was in. you’re my intellectual crush. you had me on my knees, you had me intellectually lovin’ you.

i had a dream we were both dancing to Eros’ beautiful rhythm. nothing makes me stronger than your fragile heart, baby don’t think im out to hurt you. not my intention.

i fell in love with you and i never knew. falling in love with you was never my plan. but i guess it was God’s plan. we’ll never know.

even though we’ve never met. i can still remember the sound of your heartbeat, your voice so sweet like the heavens. and your movement so graceful. graceful. you’re like a Raven – innocent, beautiful, sweet.

my heart just skipped a beat.

beautiful soul. speak to me. i saw the beauty of life through you, beautiful soul. and even though we’ve never met, lover. i miss you.

you got a lotta soul, lady. that’s beautiful.

all i wanna do is admire your beauty from a distance because im afraid if i touch you. my flesh will be tempted to do all that is regarded. earthly.

i’ll prolly luh you fo’eva. let me escape through you in thought. beautiful lover. beautiful soul.

“touch me with your mind. hands are overrated & ‘soul’ is overused.”

the closest stranger i’ve never met. i became more with you. your lips i will kiss, your hips i will hold, and your love i will embrace. you have my heart. you have the key to my heart.

and the more i think of you, i miss you. even though we’ve never met, beautiful lover.

our hearts are interlocked in deep conversation. thoughts & feelings in graceful motion, love never known.

i saw us dancing under the moonlight. you wore a silk white dress with Queen Elizabeth’s crown upon your head. and me, just a man wearing a white suit with a purple rose in his chest pocket.
imagine.

and we danced in the cosmos, the stars were watching us — the sun and the moon were playing music only heard in the heavens.

dear lover. beautiful lover. beautiful soul. i love you. i miss you. even though we’ve never met.

1) We might have met with a hello, and I might have brushed it off by saying "later", but you were patient and waited for me. That's how I came to know of and learned to love you.
2) You keep telling me I was a carat in your diamond, that when I'm with you, you shine brighter and become stronger. Up to this day, you still make me feel so appreciated, needed and worthy, that I have learned to value what it means to live.
3) You adored me so much, that even with dried lips, you never failed to make my day with you smiling so wide at me, telling me over and over again that I'm the one you love, despite me telling you to stop because it was getting a little too cheesy.
4) And when you raised your hands up in the air, cheering me on, I  felt so much support, energy and positivity to get me through the hell days of life. "Long live us," you said. And I cling on to those special three words for the hope of future.
5) To win a race in life, you pushed me on, endlessly shouting "Ah yeah!" with every accomplishment and dream I fulfilled.
6) Being a risk-taker, you beckoned me to venture out with you to experience new things, moments, feelings and places. I never knew I could jam into myself so much in one day, but I did because you were there to help carry it all.
7) Even from our teens, into and past the twenties, I know we'll be here for each other. We've waited for each other for so long; finally we have a chance to be the mornings and nights we dreamed of.
8) When we grow up all the more, we'll understand each other more, and the both of us will change. But wouldn't it be true love already if our love for our changed selves still stay the same?
9) When you danced and took my hand in yours, I swear that was the time when you entered my heart with admiration bursting out of me, feeding my five senses alive.
10) And you were both a bliss and pain of mine. Whatever bad or good you've been through, I felt it all because we belong to each other.
11) Sometimes you fool around, but I love how you can be such a gentleman. Telling me to cover my knees, wear buttoned shirts all the way to my neck to prevent my collarbones from peeking out. But you don't know sometimes I like to see your collarbones, or neck veins. You're only human and I just stare in awe at your jawline, with my jaws dropping so in an unladylike fashion.
12) Who could forget February 14th? The first day you called me yours. I love how smart it was of you to do that; every Valentine's will be our anniversary. You were far away on that day, but you sent me flowers. Polaroids of you holding flowers, to be exact. I love how you were funny like that.
13) And chocolate. I love chocolate. You sang me songs about chocolate. Sweet, rich and just the right texture-- both your voice and chocolate.
14) The time you've spent staying up all night for me and my happiness; honestly was sometimes making me sad to see you weren't getting enough sleep or rest. You sacrificed so much for me, but all I can do is just love you more and more each day. Tell me, how can I make up for it? Appreciating every talent you have and every single thing and detail you created, was not enough. Even this writing is not enough.
15) There are countless times where you danced for me. Til now, you have never failed to sweep me off of my feet. Literally. But that's okay, if I fall. I know you'll be there to catch me.
16) And here is a new era. In the past, no matter how many times you complimented how good I look, I never really took you seriously or believed such words. Who knew a song about calling me pretty changed my viewpoint? At times, I don't get myself too for changing my thinking so quickly, but you still accept and love me anyways.
17) I may have been here since day one or not, I may have been here since the fourteenth or not, but rest assured, I promise you: I will be here until the end. And as cliche as it sounds, or as overused as it is, I'll always say the most raw and barest line of affection: I love you.

My body is the training ground for
All of the reject demons
My inner demons failed to qualify as the right sort of fight
To match with any worthwhile struggles so

My inner demons are over dramatic children
     They do not wage wars
     They throw tantrums
     They stand inside my temples and pound the walls
     When they do not get what they want
     And shriek ringing into my ears until they turn blue
     Then fall asleep when they get tired
     Forgetting that they were supposed to be upset
My inner demons are pretentious
     They call themselves demons
     When they are more like imps
     They tickle at anxiety with the nerve to call it an attack
     And separate velcro and seams with the audacity to say that
     They broke something
     Then press on my heart
     Daring to call it an ache
My inner demons are clumsy
     They walk with their toes curling around my eyelashes
     And slip and spill their handfuls of tears
     At inopportune moments
     As I tremble due to the ones
     That have tripped and tangled themselves
     In my heartstrings and vocal cords
     Causing me to grasp my rib cage in desperate attempts to reach them
     And tear apart the inconveniences
My inner demons are shy
     They sway in my veins to the rhythmic pulse
     With clawed hands outstretched to the blue walled sky
     Cautious to never leave a scratch through my skin
     They dance on nerve endings and muscle tissue
     With footwork just gentle enough to not summon bruises
     And hold themselves still against my capillaries
     As if their presence might distract my blood from
     Its daily circulation
My inner demons are hoarders
     They over-stuff the filing cabinets in my brain
     With reports and analysis of too many situations
     And pick up old emotions and hide them in the recesses
     Of each ventricle and aorta
     Creating pseudo-space for newer, stranger, replicas
     Then pack extra breaths into my lungs
     Storing "just in case" inhalations and overused sighs
     They insulate their homes with extra calories and extra clothes
     Hiding until they can forget themselves
My inner demons are moody
     They like to stitch up new wounds with the thorns of roses
     And pry open old ones with feathers
     They tie my tongue with pages of foreign textbooks
     They tie my tongue in gauze and cotton
     They tie my tongue with other tongues
     And pins and needles and teeth and drawstrings
     They are self depreciating and they know that they
     Are not worthy of their title

My inner demons are pathetic
     I suppose they're right where they belong

Thus spake and quested
another, younger poet to me,
a far better one than I,
but obligations thus provided,
are serious business,
to those who understand
poetic responsibilities, and
under his own Rules of Order,
an answer,
though long in coming, AR,
must be provided.*

Well well well
all is not well,
the faucets offers choices....
chrome hot
chrome cold

there is no such thing as
lukewarm truth in
clear waters that
run run,
yet never
run stilled,
birthed at turned-on conception,
to drain death removal,
another daily poetic miracle,
unappreciated by most,
overly consumed by their
own passage on this Earth

peddler wayfarer,
passing through with truth
poem pots and rattling pans
(nowadays, mostly panned),
a historic factoid,
and not what Amazon delivers...
truth is a genetically modified
bitcoin currency, misunderstood,
prone to sometimes useful,
but never ever, to stick or stain,
for I got excuses and who gives a ****,
yesterday is forgotten instantly

The coldest truths,
the confirmation of same
by mirrored image text sent,
(immediacy a necessity,
for though poor, it is 'real')
the twitter that methodically
A-lists your major crimes
B-lists your petty,
hope-you-didn't miss my
exposé of latest misdemeanors

the hot truths,
only whispered,
merely mint hinted
in a hot cuppa,
the heat itself
a cover up,
for what you do not
wish me to plainly speak
or plainly sell,
is accursed truths,
won't sell, even if free

Can't write about moon and June,
alabaster is a fine word,
but white suits me fine,
don't know the diff
tween dragon flys and lullabies

The way I write is
just the way I think, believe,
from my eyes to paper
there is no misdirection,
just silent labor conception

Poor poor real truth
is out of favor these days,
because there is nothing
no one won't cease or hesitate
to expose himself,
flaunt the anguish,
copy other's jive,
but that is real,
but it is not truth

Had a bad day,
You need to know about it
Right away!

Though I meander and excuse,
there is one state of truth,
I need yet to annotate

Too oft when tapped turned on,
it is rusty water and rusted truths
expelled and this, my stuff, my days,
not in vogue, or a top seller

I love the color rust,
overused in my poems,
but compulsion is not a
conditional, but a must

This then is the form
they spill in these,
my final days here

You might think that rust implies
lack of use,
a non-caring
for his voice,
his well practiced instrument

Au contrarie, amigo!

My rust is from overuse,
my eyes don't see
what the popular want nor
could I provide it
even if
it was demanded,
which it is not....

Rusted but unvarnished,
undisguised by fancy words
or silent cries, what you read
is what you get
until I find
a more "authentic" voice,
one that satisfies the world
not just me...he sneers....

Feel for me in the summer breeze,
from whence my best stuff
has always been plucked
sent on its way, to you,
in self-same wind,
to kiss your cheeks,
slap you alert

I used to write
on both feet
upstanding,
then Hillel was asked for
the whole truth
while standing
on just one leg

His reply:
"Love they neighbor as you love thyself"*

So I switched
and now compose,
in quiet ignorance,
a wrong footed poet,
left only with his what's left,
and to put his left foot truths
first, forward and foremost,
is what he got, and
what I got, you'll get....

But a cautionary note,
drinking riposte rustys,
bad for the body,
but kindly
for your mental
wealth,
if your have the
only other element
most needed,
in your pocket posses,

courage

I’m just so tired of every day. I’m so tired of the gray and the way my body begs me and begs me for just a few more hours of darkness. And I never know if it’s asking that because it feels tired, or because it’s afraid that my thoughts and monsters might drag it out passed its’ limits like it normally does. It’s such an odd thing. I’m terrified of darkness, and sometimes it’s all I crave.

One half of me begs for summer days filled with shooting clouds and soft blankets that are hard to lay on because I’m sweating. The other half wants nights filled with angry music and dark clothing. Piercings and dyed hair, shoving my mouth against a stranger with tingling finger tips from what ever my ‘friend’ had given me only minutes before. One wants a calm surreal happiness. The other wants to get revenge on the world. Exhaust her body until it is filed down to skin and bones. Big heavy bags underneath my eyes that hold nothing but the reminder that I will always be tired. Splotchy cheeks, oh that’s right, I was crying last night. It doesn’t make sense. I feel so much more strongly on one side even though the other is so much better. For me. For me for me for me. But is it what I deserve? Is it what I see myself really wanting?

Who knows. I don’t want to care about me. I want to throw myself away, and in the meantime, hold someone else. Of course I wouldn’t drag them down with me… Or maybe I would.

Maybe I don’t deserve people.

Or at least I should avoid them.

But I can’t be alone, because a lonely life is a pointless one. And if I am pointless, then I am wasted space, and I should not wave my arms around in the air anymore. My lungs should not do their regular function, and maybe, just maybe, my heart could be given to someone who would put it to much better use.

My skin feels overused and overdone.

There’s sand in the cracks of my hands and I swear I will never feel satisfied in anything that I ever do. I am not soft to the touch. I am rough. No one wants to put their hand in mine, and wear me like I am the sea. No one wishes they could spin me around and push me off, so that I would beg and plead for the right direction towards them. No one wants me to love them like I so badly want someone to love me. And I won’t have it. I will never have it. I am not meant for anyone, because I am not meant for myself.

That is the problem. It’s right there. It’s right in my own face.

I am not meant for myself.

overused, ive been overused

and reused.

to your personal benefit.


you run me dry of my happiness.


you had me to benefit your own well being.


and now im broken, too reused to be used again.


i need someone to fix me,

not so i can be overused again,

not so i can be reused again,


i need someone to fix me,

so i can

be me.

For Katharine R. Cole

If gormless is as gormless does unite
That past of him and present me, I’ll turn
His other cheek against his waning sight;
I’ll **** his Hamlet soul to cringe and burn.

But dripping cannot thick or think in depth.
Blobs like blackened bulbous beads of eyes
Persist on shrinking into transits swept,
And down through dullard pools of choking fire.
Yet treacle binds my bole wood vocal chords
In rapture from such silence to withdraw
From sand that quickens, thickens, and distorts.
Can earth and water’s union mask my flaws?
The answer dares to dream but I refrain.
My name is Mud. Dear God, that is my name.

The foot: an endlessly dull point
Breathing technique, perfected by Roman Bill,
And a tall, sinewy, fine china ***** heel,
Cheap to most and worthless when submerged, submerges.
The tough Elephant hide surface
Of a swamp-like state and state.

Q. How does one become embroiled in such a located province of mind?
A. Alcohol’s venomous beauty and cheap living costs.
     The South.
    
An Elephant on a scooter stares blindly
At its own reflection circling the limb,
Shrugging dew drop eyes at what man had forgotten.
Not once, but twice.
    
The foot becomes a divulging calf of information
Sputtering in this bubbling torment of beige,
And pulsating around like an African tunnel
Waiting to be filled – fulfilled – ******.

    
The knee complies,
                      Sinking,
                                 Slowly,
                                          Not painlessly,
                                                             Not quick.

     The mercy of a lethal injection’s lie becomes
Absurd when one’s limb is the needle;
One’s brain the plunger of acceptance.
His gasp, a roar of silent fruit ripening in a
Mode too fast, cutting life and laundering
Expectancy whilst hanged from a
Whined whimper of Penance.
Purgatory’s whistle blows for time.  

II

A small red car clenched tightly
In the hands of a tightly tiny black boy,
His eyes huge and deep, but white; untouched by
Time’s clock or the weight of granite black that
He leans upon. Plastic tires screech horizontally along the
Structure of a Library’s historic insight.
Below, the ground is dry.
Beneath him, the ground is solid.
    
        Meanwhile, molten muck pulsates around
Our swirling antipathy of soul crushing
Nullness, with a lack of guilt unimaginable.
It bubbles, it bubbles: it toils in boiling rubbles
Of the past’s present and All I Could Have Been.
And I have never, could never
Sink lower in reality;
Blow harder against punishment’s wind;
Cry for this other as a **** filled wound weeps down her face.
    
The swirl of liquefied dirt and sand bags me,
Drags me, as if some *** lover of Hades is not done
With what is left of me. Disease to spread: just a little, just
A little more, like the detrimental bottle that
Knew me.
    

      As the hip is engulfed, an angle of almost perfect
Ninety creates  itself against the horizontal extremity
And puny ballsacksquash entails. Useless yet overused;
Timeless yet impressionable, pensionable. Gone.
Nothing knows me but this thickness’ quickness.
          That wants too much
From nothing               but existence
And the scab that fastens with time.

III

Turn the bottle back and find strength to
Outpour the clock and grant eternity.
Non compliant strength paid a fiver
For a soul worth two at the most.
A penny for the worthless: For the sickened lame.
Empty time feeds rays of golden from the sun fuelled
Encrusted *******, mudfast on heat.
This somehow seems like action.
Firm firmness but cracked with ease and
Non-returnable once inflated;
Non-negotiable on the bloodorgans of salt.
Weakness and powerlessness: *****.
*** for tat, for ***, ***, ***. For tat.
    
     The Elephant rises.
You brought this upon yourself, this rain of mud;
This treacle that will dry when you are dirt.
You would not let it ******* lie.
All of your ******* life: this strife, that wife.
     Your second leg (the grasper) tries,
     At length, to shield your heart:
     The only thing that cries.
     That does not want to die.
     Cartoonish bubbles of brown pop to the tune
     Of Loonies; of your shoebox brain that screams in vain.
What is your name? What is your want?
There is no blame you ******* maniac.
Everyone knows. Sink awake. Sink.
     Rest: do not sleep. Freezetimeframe.
     There is one more timeless point to make.


The sun and moon meet brief: the seconds count,
But die shy of one minute. Clear the road.
‘Tis dusk, I fear they named it. Raise the mount
And sacrifice another drowned sot load.
The moment thence: Anonymous descent.
The digger meets the dead in buried time.
The wish is washed in mud, the liver spent.
The blood-stained hands of Glasgow dodge the crime.
Make speed my sick sad Miller, grind the grain
Of Galloway, Gibb, Neave, Dunlop and Cole.
Your ghost will haunt your tag if not your brain.
Your heart should part this city river’s soul.
The sunjoke frozen, captured, stumped, and framed.
My name is Mud. Dear God, that is my name.

you, my love, are the light of my life, and you - are ruining my writing. lately, when i sit down and try to write, all i can seem to come up with are grossly overused analogies and tired metaphors that have been recycled a thousand different times. all that flows from the end of my pen are flowers and stars and the creases that form in your forehead when you smile and how much i'd like to lose myself in the galaxies of your irises - and it's disgusting. this twilight-esque prose, this juvenile symbolism and puppy-love poetry that pours from me - is not me. i'm no Poe, no Plath, no Kerouac, but i like to think that i'm okay. however, recently the caliber of my writing has been reduced to nothing more than rainy-day romance and child's play. and god, everything rhymes. i feel like i'm sixteen again in the best way. it's because you've stayed, that you are changing everything i thought i knew about love. i catch myself absentmindedly drifting to visions of a shoebox apartment in a city somewhere and furniture shopping and even the B word (babies). that's so unlike me, that is so - amazing because nobody has ever been so serious about me and i think that maybe, baby,  someday i'd like to be 80 with you - oh god. you - you are too many poems that all sound the same, but each time i read through them i somehow manage to find something i haven't read before. you are open doors and patient arms with a voice like a lullaby that resonates in the darkest corners of my mind. you are saving grace without condition and a love so deep i could go for a swim in it - and maybe that's why i'm drowning, because all i ever really learned how to do is doggy-paddle. but you are so patient. anyone else would have quit on me by now. the idea of forever has always terrified me, but the promises you make sound so real that i'm beginning to think maybe they are. baby, you, are eyes like soil and words made of rain drops, and every day we grow a little more. i adore you. i am so sorry that my meager words can't do you justice. my ineptitude is criminal, but i'm trying. and i think that i would rather be vomiting these clichés than return to the world of gray i lived in before i met you. i love you. i love you. i love you to the moon and back and every planet in between. you are the sweet to my tea and the leaves to my tree. and every song i've yet to hear but somehow i manage to follow along with. i wanna scream it from the top of a mountain or the middle of a grocery store, about this love that leaves me with butterflies in my belly and fireworks in my heart. baby, i've never been so happy to embrace mediocrity. my prose may be suffering, but my heart is soaring. writer's block has never been more welcome than when it bears your name. so wipe your feet at the door, take off your coat, and please, make yourself at home.

- m.f.

I am a dramatized china doll,
but I never rouge my knees.
The MC introduces me as Scarlett.
Lulu embraces me as we saunter
off the platform.  Whistles follow my footsteps
digging into my brain, fermenting,
to strong wine.

Gentlemen enter the club to leer
at cabaret girls dancing in lace.
Some are drawn to the boys of the club,
the ones in the dark corners with kohl-rimmed
eyes and eager kisses.
From their seats in the dimness, the audience
fails to notice rips in my blouse, cigarette
butts smudged out in the wings.  No one
sees the ***** face powder spread out
among the lighted mirrors, overused,
my own makeup dried out.
Their giggles and applause keep
the club alive, filled with dead
grins from dinner to dawn.
Drum roll—my turn.  
We rid them of their troubles.

It’s something about the
way you say pathetic,
the words sting and burn

like the shots of a diabetic.
Overused and undervalued
by a simply judged fanatic.
The looks you cast,

as I slink past,
are all but few and
far between,
let alone sporadic.

Kids these days make me sick. Too much time spent on IT. What’s IT you say? Well IT is the only thing that is not. IT is in but really IT is out, like a drunk left in his ***** passed out on the couch. The ultimate cool the epitome of breathtaking, and your left taking this out of proportion. What is so important? I mean really I don’t understand the importance. A synonym for the learned: imperative or even essence. That is the idea of something but your left holding nothing. Not even a burnt out flame like the lack of heat from the passion in your heart. Does it need to start…once more? A muscle unused is abused and left to consume itself. You incite cannibalism! Munching on ourselves to feed our soul lost in this dangerous world. You’re too tough to ask for directions, too stupid to read a map, or too naïve to think you are alone in this? What is THIS? THIS is just IT after THAT. THAT is simply free thought. Yet the brain sits and rots in your cranium. That’s a fancy word for skull. The helmet, not to keep thoughts in, but to let them become mature and flow down into a puddle between my feet. You see this and harmful words escape your mouth and say I ****** myself. I think not; if my head is leaking that means my thoughts cannot be contained. In pain I see the young adults of our time reading line after line of the same crap we are feed everyday of our lives. A lie, a lie I scream from an empty room, a classroom. There are entities inhabiting the same plane, yet in the same they are not here. So far away lost in this digital age. I agree you cyborgs need entertainment all the same; however, the smile I receive from seeing the moon in the middle of the day is the found on your face when someone likes your page. A paper trail untraveled by so many and misplaced in cyberspace. I walk at night to see the darkness, and you see only the lit up text message from your lazy boy recliner chair. I am convinced you’re not all there, but that’s not your fault. I blame it on the generations. I do blame you because you succumb to IT. There is that funny word again that carries no weight, but wait it can mean so much. IT is the idea of reality and your losing touch. Thus, there’s a word I don’t think gets used enough. Thus, reality is known only by how well it is defined on Wikipedia or an online dictionary equipped with spellcheck of course because without that how would we know the right way to spell. Well, well in my lap a newborn child fell. Not crying, not smiling, I’m not sure if it was even breathing. This baby, helpless and fragile, is society. We as an assembly need a babysitter for our whole lives. Why? Why live without experiencing life? Why be content with any answer that was given, not found. You have to search to find and in time life’s chorus line will start and so will the tears. The so perfectly phrased line will place fear in all who understand. How can we understand when all left standing is man? Man a fragile thing like a mansion on the beach. Sand ******* up the existence of all the living. I want to introduce a new word: WHEN. WHEN will we not take the so-called facts as face value and attempt to discredit them with logical thinking. WHEN will we move the rudder instead of waiting for the tides to change? WHEN will we place IT on it’s own head and explain something we know to someone else. Learning is gained not by blindly memorizing facts, like my mac, but by forming an attack on the disbeliefs. Hopefully to hone an opinion and be ready to defend IT, and I mean in every sense of the word. IT is the idea of reality and your catching on. Leave the bottle of forward thinking, and begin to chew on the backwards and sideward food your not use to.  Open the mind and heart to be restarted by learning. Thought is the jumper cables to this world’s battery dead from leaving it’s lights on all night, and now late to work for it wouldn’t start. Roughly 6 billion, 775 million, 235 thousand, and 741 people on this earth and we still don’t feel part of IT. Have we lost IT, have we tossed IT overboard? The only savior to the sickness and now it is sinking to the bottom of the sea to be discovered like a lost treasure. A gold doubloon used to measure the currency of our time. The state of our States is left to us to state whether we hate or don’t care about the shape we’re in, a sphere, a bubble, a circle with no beginning or end. Nowhere to start just have to keep moving in the same general direction or be swept away by the undercurrent. Drop your anchor and disturb the flow, stop the overused pattern. Turn the cycle of a circle into the turning of a wheel and use that to drive. Finally to take a destination of you’re own and truly think of the cosmos. To place you’re cognitive mind into motion and here the notion that there is more to THIS then IT.

Are you carrying a silent burden? A memory you wish to forget? I have a few. Some were acts of stupidity that resulted in personal embarrassment. Back in college there was this girl that I liked. She had a new stereo bought for her by her Dad and she asked me if I could help her hook it up. My roommate asked if I needed help and I said no because I was afraid she would like him better than me if he put the stereo together. Look at how my shallowness was imputed onto her. Anyway, I put it together and I spliced the speaker wires together in a way that eventually shorted out both speakers. It was a humiliating experience. And because I was broke all I could do was apologize and slink away in shame.

Once though, I almost died. Climbing a small mountain in Palo Duro Canyon I found myself on a ledge, looked down and froze. I panicked. I had no confidence in the next step. Somehow, I lifted my foot and slowly made my way back to safety. The distance I needed to travel was less than six feet but it felt like a mile. This happened almost 27 years ago and to this day I can break into a cold sweat just thinking about that moment.

These aren’t memories that I wish to deny, but they are memories that cause mental discomfort. I have no one to blame except myself because I put myself into these situations. It's all over now and I've managed to become more prudent yet I still carry the memories (especially the little mountain climb) as if they happened yesterday.

Today, I suffer no loss of pride or ego. Why is that? Somehow I'm able to ignore self-inflicted wounds yet others carry around the pain of trauma inflicted by others.

Trauma can burn a hole into your mind. The hole can be covered up with experiences to the point that it's not noticeable to others, but you know where it is. And you avoid that hole. You build your life around it. It's as if you build a house on top of unstable soil. Instead of building on a solid foundation, you pretend the hole does not exist and move ahead without dealing with the hole. And you know what you have done is defer your problem to the future or you let it affect your life in such a way that you possibly deny yourself pleasure or invite stress because you cannot look into the hole and determine how to fill it permanently.

But what if the hole in your mind was dug by someone else? What if they dug the hole when you were unable to stop them? Maybe they dug the hole and you didn't even know that a hole didn't belong there. Maybe you felt that having a hole in your mind was normal because someone you felt had your best interests at heart was doing the digging.

There is a sign next to this particular hole with one word on it: Abuse. The word on this sign tends to be overused but there are those who need other words to describe their pain because the words hole and abuse cannot begin to describe their trauma. The problem is that society tends to be unforgiving about mental issues because to the naked eye, there is no evidence of a true problem. The human mind is so complex yet we simpletons tend to believe it can be managed very easily. Just do it they say. Just think your way through the problem and its all better.

To me the problem is that the mind does not heal itself like the rest of our body. A cut heals itself. But a severe injury such as a broken bone requires the help of a doctor. We all know this to be true and would consider someone foolish if they did not seek medical attention. Yet when the mind is injured we make fun of people who seek the help of counselors or psychiatrists.

Why is that?

Maybe it’s because we all know we could use help. Yet competency and having your act together is seen as the most important thing in life at times and our ability to day in and day out function under stress is the expectation. It’s been so commoditized that we are tough on ourselves and on others. We struggle through the day with high blood pressure or possibly drinking problems and soldier on instead of calling a mental doctor and just having a chat. This third party can help because they can let you know that you are not alone in your irrational feelings of fear that occasionally creep into your mind.

But, what about that hole in your mind that someone else dug? Why is it a problem? Maybe it was dug long ago and the shovel has been put away. Do you pick up the shovel and keep digging? Why do you refuse to fill it up? Do you feel unworthy? Do you think you somehow are tainted? Do you feel you need to be forgiven? You don’t need to be forgiven because you have done nothing wrong. You were abused. You were taken advantage of. But you retain the right to be happy. The right to a good life. The right to dream and to achieve. But are you not allowing yourself what everyone else seems to take for themselves? They are no better than you.

Yes, it happened to you. Yes, it was terrible and that person deserves bad things for what they did to you. But, this isn’t a conversation about forgiving them because I don't have the right or the insight to tell you to forgive them. That is up to you. But, it is a conversation about healing yourself and looking into the mirror and saying “I’m a human being and whatever someone did to me long ago doesn’t matter.”

Maybe you carry this with you because your abuser made you feel as if you deserved it. You didn’t. You were a child. They were an adult. All children cry, scream, act selfish and make mistakes. You were no different than any other child, but your abuser was different than normal adults. They had an illness or an inferiority complex so profound that they could only make themselves feel better by abusing someone who was helpless. You were helpless. But, it wasn’t your fault and today you should stand up and say “I deserve happiness because I did nothing wrong.”

You have to demand this of yourself. The hole must be filled up with the knowledge of your helplessness in the face of the abuser and with the true belief in your worthiness as a human being to exist in a happy state as others appear to be. You can do this because there is no reason to not believe in yourself. If the one who should have loved you the most didn’t love you then accept this fact and understand that you are lovable. It was their sickness that infected your mind. THEIR SICKNESS; NOT YOURS.

Don’t expect rejection from others because of what happened to you. Not everyone is an abuser. But if you carry this with you then everyone will be an abuser in your mind and you will fulfill a destiny that you have created. Stop looking for the approval of others. They are not God. They are merely human beings just like you and even though they may appear to have their act together, they don’t. Everyone is flawed. So don’t let yourself be intimidated by people; especially because of what happened to you. That is not you. That is only what happened to you.

DON’T LET IT BECOME YOU. And don't make others believe your hole is normal. It's not their burden. Don't dig a hole in their mind. Ask them to help fill yours up.