1.
From my
uneasy bed
at the L’Enfant,
a train's pensive
horn breaks the
sullen lullaby of
an HVAC’s hum;
interrupting the
mechanical
reverie of its
steadfast
night watch,
allowing my ear
to discern
the stampede
of marauding
corporate Visigoths
sacking the city.

The cacophony
of sloven gluttony,
the ***** songs of
unrequited privilege
and the unencumbered
clatter of radical
entitlement echoes
off the city’s cold
crumbling stones.

The unctuous
bellows of the
victorious pillagers
profanely feasting
pierces the
hanging chill
of the nations
black night.

Their hoots
deride the train
transporting
the defeated
ghosts of
Lincoln’s last
doomed regiments
dispatched in vain
to preserve a
peoples republic
in a futile last stand.

The rebels have
finally turned the tide,
T Boone Pickett’s
Charge succeeds,
sending the ravaged
Grand Army of the
Republic sliding
back to the Capitol,
in savage servility,
gliding on squeaky
ungreased wheels
ferrying the
Union’s dead
vanquished
defenders to
unmarked graves
on Potters Field.

The Rebels
joyous yell
bounces off
the inert granite
stones of the
soulless city.

The spittle
of salivating
vandals drips
over the
spoils of war
as they initiate the
disassemblage,
the leveling and
reapportionment
of the grand prize.

The clever
oligarchs
have laid claim
to a righteous
reparation
of the peoples
assets for
pennies on the
dollar.

Their wholly
bought politicos
move to transfer
distressed assets
into their just
stewardship
through the
holy justice
of privatization
and the sound
rationale of
free market
solutions.

In the land of the
pursuit of property,
nimble wolf PACs
of swift 527, LLCs
have fully
metastasized
into personhood;
ascending to
the top of the
food chain in
America’s
voracious
political culture;
bestriding
the nation to
compel the
national will
to genuflect
to the cool facility
of corporate
dominion.

As the
inertial ******
of the plaintive
locomotive
fades into
another old
morning of
recalcitrant
Reaganism,
it lugs its
ambivalent
middle class
baggage toward
it’s fast expiring
future.

I follow
the dirge
down to
the street
as the ebbing
sound fades
into the gloom
of the
burgeoning
morning,
slowly
replacing the
purple twilight
with a breaking
day of cold gray
clouds framing
silhouettes of
cranes busily
constructing
a new city.

The personhood of
corporations need
homes in our new
republic; carving
out new
neighborhoods
suitable for the
monied citizens
of our nation.

First amongst
equals, the best
corporate governance
charters form
the foundation of
the republic’s
new constitution.
Civil rights
are secondary
to the freedom
of markets; the
Bill of Rights
are economically
replaced by the
cool manifests
of Bills of Lading.

The agents of
laissez faire
capitalism
nibble away
at the city’s
neighborhoods
one block at a time;
while steady winds
blows dust off
the National Mall.

Layers of the
peoples plaza are
plained away with
each rising gust.  

History repeats
itself as the Joad’s
are routed from their
land once again.

A clever
mixed use
plan of
condos and
strip malls
is proposed
to finally help the
National Mall
unlock its true
profit potential.

As America’s
affection for
federalism fades
the water in
the reflection pool
is gracefully drained.

We the people
can no longer
see ourselves.

The profit
potential of
industry is
preferred over
the specious
metaphysical
benefits
of reflection.

The grand image,
the rich pastiche,
the quixotic aroma
of the national
melting ***
is reduced to the
sameness of the
black tar that lines
the pool and the
swirling eddies of
brown dust circling
the cracked indenture.

From his not so
distant vantage point,
Abe ponders the
empty pool wondering
if the cost of lives
paid was a worthy
endeavor of preserving
the ****** union?  
Has the dear prize
won perished from
this earth?

Was the illusive
article of liberty  
worth its weight in
the blood expended?

Did the people ever
fully realize the value
of government
by the people,
for the people?

Did citizens of
the republic
assume the
responsibilities to
protect and honor
the rights and privileges
of a representative
government?

Now our idea
and practice of
civil rights is measured
and promoted as far as
it can be justified by
a corporate ROI, a
shareholder dividend,
an earmark or a political
donation to a senators
unconnected PAC.

The divine celestial
ledgers balancing
the rights and
privilege of free people
drips with red ink.  

Liberty, equality
fraternity are bankrupt
secular notions
condemned as
expensive
liberal seditions;
hatched by
UnHoly Jacobins,
the atheist skeptics
during the dark times
of the Age of Enlightenment.

Abe ponders
the restoration
of Washington’s
obelisk, to
repair the cracks
suffered  from
last summer’s
freak earthquake.

I believe I detect
a tear in Abe’s
granite eye
saddened by the
corporate temblors
shaking the
foundations
of the city.

2.

The WWII Memorial
is America’s Parthenon
for a country's love
affair with the valor
and sacrifice of warfare.

WWII forms the
cornerstone of
understanding the
pathos of the
American Century.

During WWII
our greatest generation
rose as a nation to
defeat the menace of
global fascism and
indelibly mark the
power and virtue of
American democracy.

As Lincoln’s Army
saved federalism, FDR’s
Army kept the world safe
for democracy.

Both armies served
a nation that shared
the sacrifice and
burden of war to
preserve the grace of
a republican democracy.

Today federalism
crumbles as our
democracy withers.

The burden
of war is reserved
for a precious few
individuals while
its benefits
remain confined to
the corporate elite.

Our monuments
to war have become
commercial backdrops
for the hollow patriotism
of war profiteers.

We have mortgaged
our future to pay
for two criminal wars.

The spoils of
war flow into the
pockets of
corporate
shareholders
deeply invested
in the continuation
of pointless,
destructive
hostilities.

Our service
members who
selflessly served
their country come
home to a less free,
fear struck nation;
where economic
security and political
liberty erodes
each day while the
monied interests
continue to bless
the abundance
of freedom and riches
purchased with the
blood and sweat
of others.

America desperately
needs a new narrative.

The spirit of the
Greatest Generation
who sacrificed and met
the challenge of the 20th
Century must become
this generations spiritual
forebears.

The war on terror
neatly fits the
the corporate
pathos of
militarism,
surveillance
and the sacrifice
of civil liberties
to purchase
a daily measure
of fear and
economic
enslavement.

It must be rejected
by a people committed
to building secular
temples to pursue
peace, democracy,
economic empowerment,
civil liberties and tolerance
for all.

Yet this old city
and the democratic
temples it built
exulting a free people
anointed with the
grace of liberty
is being consumed
in a morass of
commercial
polyglot.

3.

During the
War of 1812
the British Army
burned the
Capitol Building
and the White House
to the ground.

Thank goodness
Dolly Madison saved
what she could.

The new marauders
are not subject to the
pull of nostalgia.  

They value nothing
save their
self enrichment.

They will spare nothing.

Our besieged Capitol
requires Lincoln’s troops
to be stationed along the
National Mall to defend
the republic.

The greatest peril
to our nation
is being directed
by well placed
Fifth Columnists.

From the safety
of underground bunkers,
in secure undisclosed
locations within the city’s
parameters, a well financed
confederacy employing  
K Street shenanigans
are busy selling off
the American Dream
one ear mark
at a time, one
huge corporate
welfare allotment
at a time.

The biggest prize
is looting the real
property of the people;
selling Utah,
auctioning off
the public schools,
water systems, post offices
and mineral rights
on the cheap
at an Uncle Sam
garage sale.  

The capitol is
indeed burning
again.

Looters are
running riot.

The flailing arms
of a dying empire
fire off cruise
missiles and drone
strikes; hitting the
target of habeas
corpus as it
shakes in its
final death rattle.
I make a pilgrimage
to the MLK Jr.
Monument.

Our cultural identity
is outsourced to
foreign contractors
paid to reinterpret
the American Dream
through the eyes
of a lowest bidder.

MLK has lost
his humanity.

He has been
reduced to a
a Chinese
superhuman
Mao like anime
busting loose from
a granite mountain while
geopolitical irony
compels him to watch
Tommy Jefferson
**** Sally Hemings
from across the tidal
basin for all eternity.  

MLK’s eyes fixed in
stern fascination,
forever enthralled
by the contradictions
of liberty and its
democratic excesses
of love in the willows
on golden pond.

Circling back to
Father Abraham’s
Monument,  I huddle
with a group of global
citizens listening
to an NPS Ranger
spinning four score
tales with the last full
measure of her devotion.

I look up into Abe’s
stone eyes as he
surveys platoons
of gray suited
Chinese Communist
envoys engaged
in Long Marches
through the National Mall;
dutifully encircling cabinet
buildings and recruiting
Tea Party congressmen
into their open party cells.

This confederacy
is ready to torch
the White House
again.

Congressmen and
the perfect patriots
from K Street slavishly
pull their paymasters
in gilded rickshaws to
golf outings at the Pentagon
and park at the preferred
spots reserved for
the luxury box holders
at Redskin Games.

They vow not to rest
until the house of the people
is fully mortgaged to the
People’s Republic of China’s
Sovereign Wealth Fund.

4.

A great
Son of Liberty like
Alan Greenspan
roundly rings
the bells of
free markets
as he inches
T Bill rates
forward a few
basis points
at a time; while
his dead mentor
Ayn Rand
lifts Paul Ryan
to her
Fountainhead teet.
He takes a long
draw as she
coos songs
from her primer
of Atlas Shrugged
Mother Goose tales
into his silky ears.

The construction
cranes swing
to the music
building new private
sector space with
the largess of
US taxpayers
money; or
more rightly
future generations
taxpayer debt.

Libertarians,
Tea Baggers, Blue Dogs
and GOP waterboys
eagerly light a
match to the
the crucifixes
bearing federal
social safety
net programs
to the delight
of NASDAQ
listed capitalists
on the come,
licking their chops
to land contracts
to administer
these programs
at a negotiated
cost plus
profit margin.

Citizens
dependent
on programs
are leery
shareholders
are ecstatic.

To be sure
our free
market rebels
don disguises
of red, white
and blue robes
but their objectives
fail to distinguish
their motives and
methods with
some of the finest
Klansman this
country has
ever produced.

5.

DC is a city
of joggers
and choppers.

Corporate
helicopters
wizz by the
Washington
Monument,
popping erections
for the erectors
inspecting the progress
of the cranes
commanding the
city skyline.

USMC drill team
out for a morning
run circles the Mall.

The commanding
cadence of the
DI keeps us
mindful of the
deepening
militarization of
our society.

A crowd  
rushes
to position
themselves,
genuflecting
to photograph
a platoon on
the move.

I try to consider
the defining
characteristics of
Washington DC.

DC is all surface.

It is full of walls
and mirrors.

Its primary hue
is obfuscation.

Open
communication
scripted from well
considered talking points
informs all dialog.

The city is thoroughly
enraptured in narcissism.

Thankfully, one can
always capture the
reflection of oneself in
the ubiquitous presence of
mirrors.  

Vanity imprisons
the city inhabitants.

Young joggers circle the
Mall and gerrymander
down every pathway
of the city.  

They are the clerks,
interns and staffers of
the judicial, executive
and legislative branches.

They are the children
of privilege.

They will never
alter their path.

You must cede the walk
to their entitlement
of a swift comportment
or risk injury of a
violent collision.

These young ones
portray a countenance  
of benevolent rulers.  

They seem to be learning
their trade craft well from
the senators and judges
whom they serve.

They appear confident
they know what's best
for the country and after
their one term of tireless
service to the republic
they look forward to
positions in the private
sector where they will
assist corporations
to extend their reach
into the pant pockets
worn by the body politic.

6.

Our nations mythic story
lies hidden deep in the
closed rooms of the
museums lining the
Mall.

I pause to consider
what a great nation
and its great people
once aspired to.

I spy the a
suspended
Space Shuttle
hanging in dry dock
at the air and
space museum.

Today America’s
astronauts hitch
rides on Russian
rockets.

America rents a
timeshare from
the European
space agency to
lift communication
satellites into orbit.

Across the Mall
I photograph
John Smithson’s
ashes in its columbarium.  

I fear it has become a
metaphor for America’s
future commitment
to scientific inquiry
and rational secular
thinking.

I am relieved to
discover a Smithsonian
exhibit that asks
“what does it mean
to be human?”

The Origins of Humans
exhibit carries a disclaimer
to satisfy creationists.

The exhibit timidly states
that science can coexist
with religious beliefs and
that the point of the exhibit is
not to inflame inflame religious
passions but to shed light on
scientific inquiry.

I imagine these exhibits
will inflame the passion of
the fundamentalist
American Taliban and
provide yet another
reason to dismantle
the Moloch of Federalism.

The pursuit of science
remains safe at the
Smithsonian for now.

7.

Near K Street at
McPherson Park
a posse of
well dressed
lobbyists, the
self anointed
uber patriots
doing the work
of the people
stroll through
the park
boasting a
healthy population
of bedraggled
homeless.

The homeless
occupy the benches
that have been
transformed into
pup tents.

Perhaps some of
the residents of this
mean estate were
made homeless by a
foreclosed mortgage.  

The K Street warriors
can be proud that their
work on behalf of the
banking industry has
forestalled financial market
reform.  

Through it exacerbates
the homeless problem it has
allowed these K Street titans to
profit from the distress of others.

Earlier in the day
I photographed
a homeless man
planted in front of
the Washington
Monument.

I wonder
if my political
voyeurism is
an exploitation of
this man’s condition?

I have more in common
then I probably wish to
admit with my K Street
antagonists.  

In another section
of the park the
remnants of a
distressed OWS
bivouac remain.

The legions of sunshine
patriots have melted away
as the interest of the
blogosphere has waned.

As the weather
improves Moveon.org
and democratic
party operatives
pitch tents in an
effort to resuscitate
the moribund
movement.

They hope
to coop any
remaining energy
to support their
stale deception,
a neoliberal vision
based solely on the
total capitulation
to the bankrupt
corporatocracy.

I heard someone say
a campaign lasts a
season; while a
movement for social
change takes decades.

If that metric proves
correct, and if the
powers don’t succeed
in compromising the
people’s movement
I’ll be three quarters
of a century old
before I see
justice flowing like
a river once again.

8.

I circle back to
the L’Enfant and
find myself
tramping amidst
the lost platoon
of Korean War
soldiers.

My feet drag
in the quagmire
of grass covering
the feet of this
ghostly troop.

My namesake
uncle was a
decorated
veteran of this
conflict and Im
sure I detect
his likeness
in one of the
statues.

The bleak call
of a distant train
sounds a revelry
and I imagine this
patrol springing
to life to answer
the call of their
beloved country
once again.

Yet they remain
inert.  

Stuck in a
place that the
nation finds
impossible to
leave.

The eyes of the
men stare into
an incomprehensible
fate.  

They see the swarms
of Red Army infantrymen
crossing the Yellow River
streaming toward
them in massive
human waves,
the tips of
sparkling bayonets
threatening to slash
the outmanned
contingent fighting
to bits.

They are the
first detachment
to bravely confront
the rising power
of China many
thousands of
miles away
from their homes.

America like
this lone company
is overwhelmed
and lost in the
confusion
that confronts
them.

Looking up
I perceive the
bewilderment
of my muddled image
reflected on the
marble walls
surrounding
the memorial.

I am a comrade-in-arms,
a fellow wanderer sojourning
with th

There is a difference between personhood and behavior that the vast majority of humanity still does not realize.

Personhood is sacred, inviolate. Every human being who has ever been, is, and will ever be, is sacred at her/his core.

Behavior, on the other hand, which is too often hurtful, if not much worse, is the consequence of the pernicious lack of both awareness of her/his sacredness, and concomitantly, her/his failure to assimilate it into their being.

Only love can nurture the realization of personhood. And because so many human beings are never loved enough, if at all, they are left only with their behavior that, all too often, manifests itself in myriad nefarious ways:  slavery, bigotry, racism, torture, killing, war, and, in its own way, the worst:  global inequality, which should be called iniquity.

To achieve Peace on Earth forever, all must come first to the realization of the difference between personhood and behavior, then find ways to ensure all human beings are loved and loved and loved.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

There is a difference between personhood and behavior. Everyone's personhood is divine, inviolate, whereas so many people's behavior is often uncaring or hurtful or even much worse. It is not unusual to react to one's untoward behavior with at least displeasure if not outright hate, even ******. But this latter response is unknowing. When one encounters bad behaviour to any degree and wishes it were not so, do not exacerbate what is already deleterious by making it even worse through punishment. Instead, constrain this negativity, but love this forsaken person. Love is the cure for all who suffer pain. It may take a lot of love to heal a hurting soul, even a lifetime, perhaps even longer. But love is the antidode for all emotional maladies. But for one to be able to love others, one must first be loved, preferably by one's parents, but if not by them, then by someone else who was loved and thus has love to give those who desperately need it. This dilemma is what our world most suffers from. Wealth, fame, power--all are illusory and therefore feckless. They are but unconscious efforts to compensate for lack of love, and that is why our world has been turned inside-out for millennia. Only being loved, and then being able to love, will we be able to turn our world right-side in. Then and only then will we have Peace on Earth forever, and for the first time.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Closed eyes
to the fountain of youth,
to higher hopes
and new reality.
I claim spirit,
but give mind,
in fact give all
my scattered self,
in the hope some poor *******
sorts through.

Winter's guise,
I flicker off-white images
of galaxy and twine,
of breath mints and wine,
of sorry dancers
with broken heels,
reinvented wheels,
and augmented rhyme.

Light comes
and I storm it with cold,
I storm it with pens
and whiskey lies.
I storm it with science,
and I storm it with God,
I storm it with the golfers
and playboys,
about to tee-off.
I storm it with hate,
with the promise of pay,
my unrequited love
of Saturday.

And with wind came age,
came the steady hand
and furrowed brow
of sleet-strewn rain
and growing pain.
Of doubt. A bout
of flu,
a touch of death
and funds withdrew.
No more the kiddie
in the window,
aww-ing at sound,
the colour of air,
the steam of kettle,
forgiving snare,
life's poison-treats
and poison-poisons.
Un poisson hors de l'eau,
still - I'll thank you
for your time
and bad French,
old guru.

Still to shift in
this physical prison.
A prism of light,
of partial solidity,
of unending uncertainty;
a multitude misunderstanding itself.
It claims to the borders
and it clings to the bed,
it holds true to thought,
and all the worries
in my troubled head.
They descend,
never end,
in a crescendo,
a caterwaul
of mistreated sound,
dog in the pound,
and waistlines round.

Thigh gaps
and mind-the-gaps,
signposts and brochures
for the short-lived living.
They pester my mind,
interference, crackle,
prattle and rattle
of mediocre wisdoms,
of borrowed idioms
for bulimic bones
and broken homes.
They tailor my mind,
cuts and seams
of needless pleas,
for order in chaos
and blueprints
for blind entries.
All to settle the stomach,
to settle the plot
to settle this fever
that burns so hot.

Old-film stills
to the fountain of youth,
belligerent fist of tears,
for forgotten woes,
for sweaty prose
and swollen leaves.
Yellow birds and
old lime trees,
dear Suzanne
and her poetry,
about thorns in the side
and turning tides
of tambourine men,
and helter-skelter girls
turning empires
of simple love
and worthy sin,
to English tea
and to profit again.

She turns the tide
in a lover's brawl,
in winter's shawl
and Hollywood ball.
Sings Hallelujah
to the wonderful world,
to the shot girl's tips
and crazy catcalls.
To the Pink Moons
and old jazz tunes,
to the orange peel
and plastic sand dunes.
To Parisian men
and Las Vegas girls,
to twirls of meat,
and ballet shoes,
to the smoking student
and his heavy blues,
to the loss of art
in the modern street,
to busker beats
and sausage meats,
of coffee fumes
and white man dreams.

And we're entertained.
Oh boy, we're entertained!
Entertained at a rate of knots,
tangled headphones,
tangled minds,
tangled tales
of truth confined.
Television makes everything real,
it flavours life,
spices the story,
feel, kneel, heal the plight
of the Navy Seal,
invading land,
invading minds,
invading dreams
of love unconfined.
We're entertained
at the point of feeling sick,
of parrot-joy
and marketing intent.

We speak in circles
and we speak in phrase,
we speak in unending drivel,
of quote, motto and haze.
Haze of meaning,
and haze of depth,
of fortressed country
and insoluble debt.
We speak in telephones,
they speak on the bus,
they speak in the ghettos,
the nightclubs,
the churches,
the underpass
and they spill from the gut.
Whilst we torture ourselves
in the new-found freedom,
of living within
and not to the kingdom.

The kingdom of choice,
of self-salvation,
of astral self,
and meditation.
Of origin's tale,
of Earth-life passed,
of intelligence squared,
and foolishness fable.
Of infinity realised,
of time altogether,
of solidity-illusion
and falseness of summer.
Of warmth in the winter,
of red in the sky,
of collective catharsis,
a universal sigh.
A sigh for relief,
and a sign of mercy,
a plea for conception,
a gift for the future,
and humanity's redemption.

Life is the treasure and knowledge is the fire to kindle and wisdom the outcome to distill it

Poverty is taking away food from a fellow human being
Poverty is not being grateful that you have slept having eaten a comfortable meal
Poverty is going out there with a poor self image and using the presence of others to mask your inadequacy
Poverty is not knowing how divine you are, your soul content

Poverty as a woman is not being able to say how you feel and what you feel because you are afraid of rejection or disappointment
Poverty is trying to make a guy feel insecure because you yourself are insecure
Poverty is trying to have multiple ****** relations to either draw a man or men towards you or simply for the sake of trying to fuel your self esteem
Poverty is dreaming and letting the birds talk about it as a could have been
Poverty is stabbing a person you love dearly in the back
Poverty is blaming society, culture and circumstances at home for not progressing forward
Poverty is killing because you are stuck in unorderly primitive and unruly state and you do not know tranquility

Poverty is wanting things to remain the same because it protects you from growth and the awe of advancement
Poverty is living in the past and endlessly trying to change the present
Poverty is not knowing what to say because you have forgotten how to compose yourself in the presence of others
Poverty is thinking for short term satisfaction breeding inevitable lack of long term contentedness

Wealth is inviting the future fearlessly
Wealth is loving abundantly
Wealth is joining the heart's dance by yielding to emotions of pure positive vibrations
Wealth is making the heart intelligent so your desires are not  of a marginal durability
Wealth is seeking the truth because it will wash away the lies and test your bravery as it opens up the wounds and the pain of reality
Wealth is knowing that in giving a lot and asking less more than half the time; you remain abundant
  Wealth is imagining what a future 'you' would be like and in pursuit you strive to make your future self proud
Wealth is having an open mind and seeking first to understand than to be understood
Wealth is trying to find better solutions for either parties, a higher way; which healthily benefits either parties

Wealth is having someone who will support you no matter what
Wealth is sticking to divine principles because they will stand no matter what
Wealth is treating another better than you treat yourself and in essence you treat yourself as the greatest being
Wealth is being patient and persevering for good things because you will honour them as you understand what it took to earn them
Wealth is making a promise and keeping it, it boosts the progress of the whole Universe; even the promises we make to ourselves
Wealth is cleaning up after ourselves and engineering our personhood to not rely on insubstantial and baseless objectives and mantras
Wealth is taking a stand for one's own life and not waiting for a hero to pull up the yardstick
Wealth is going to the dam with a  broken rod and teaching yourself how to fish until a master comes and philosophises your decorum, approach, conduct and credo on the whole process of being independent and going out into the world,
Wealth is unlearning all of the miseducation that we have been fed since the day we were born and relearning and rewiring our psyche to be conscious and cosmically aligned with our divine purposes and use the resources around us to make the raw a tangible gem and vice versa.

Say no to poverty.
Live a sincere life of truth and meaning, we only have so much time to pay off our debts until we're rich enough to give back to the world again.

Life begins at conception.

For a human being to be able to love, she/he must first be loved, usually by her/his biological parents, other times by her/his surrogate parents. If the newborn is not loved, she/he will suffer great pain, possibly even dying.

Most human beings do not receive the love they need;  thus, they will unconsciously compensate usually in one or more of three ways:  accrual of power, not to empower others, but to oppress them;  aggrandizement of wealth;  or achievement of fleeting fame.

If, on the other hand, they are loved, they will love all others throughout their lives, realizing their personhood, which is their innate sacredness. If they are not loved, they will realize one or more of their deleterious behaviors.

When all die, those who realized their personhood will not return to Earth to live another life, because their soul has become pure love that bonds with the pure love of infinity, which is reality that has no form, no beginning, no end. They have become enlightened and will be so forever.

Those who did not attain their personhood, realizing only one or more of their deleterious behaviors, will need to return to Earth in a new life unconsciously to make another attempt to attain enlightenment.

Love is infinite, the finite illusory. The latter remains nonetheless the paradoxical path to the reality of eternal love.

Know truth by untruth.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

LOVE AND LOVERS

by

TOD HOWARD HAWKS


Chapter 24

"Why not help others instead of hurt them?" Jon asked Bian and her father rhetorically.



Jon continued.

"I believe in a class society. It's just that I believe there is only one class--First Class--and everyone on Earth belongs to it.

"There is a difference between personhood and behavior. Personhood is the sacredness that every human being possesses innately, inviolably. Behavior, on the other hand, is reflected by how one lives her/his life. If one is loved, especially at an early age, love, the core of personhood, will flower, allowing that person both to love her/himself and begin to love others. If one is not loved enough, if at all, that person will suffer unconsciously the pain of this grievous, emotional deprivation, and in all probability, will begin to act out socially in superficial or hurtful or even lethal ways.

"For example, those who never experience love will unconsciously compensate for the lack of it. Three major examples of this are 1) megawealth;  2) great power, not to empower others, but to oppress them;  and 3) fleeting fame. None of the three will make up for the lack of love. Lethal consequences mean deaths."

Mr. Ly spoke up.

"Jon, I found your comments cogent. Let me now give the two of you updates from my end.

"I and my friends have many, many other friends in all other countries on Earth. They are, as it were, all invisible volunteers.

"You will be pleased to know, I'm sure, we have placed through all major media outlets--newspapers and TV and radio stations--ads of the PEACE ON EARTH THROUGH LOVE commentary every two weeks. Moreover, in every nation you have already visited, the leading media outlets in them have received the commentary, as well as information related to your visits. All outlets that communicate in specific dialects receive our message in the one they read and speak. The feedback we have received has been most encouraging. Finally, we are making great progress in building our own Starlink-like social media site."

Just feel like the way you're approaching me right now
doesn't reflect the way I'm trying to be perceived
you know?
telling me how **** I am
doesn't make me feel like you see the God in me
or like that's something you wish to see.
Now I don't think there's a problem with being ****
I embrace my femininity wholeheartedly
and **** is just a pretty cool aspect
that I reckon shines a light on what you think are my assets
but please...

See, it's hard for me to take that as a compliment.

Why don't you lead me to believe there's more to YOU than what meets the eye?

and although I know that you're just reflecting the view that has just met your eye oblige me by taking a moment to think before you speak.

Even still
nonetheless
I have a solid idea as to why...
Cause you see these girls on instagram and facebookin their thighs
and *******
and booties
for 300 likes

"**** girl you ****"
"he he thanks, boo! "
don't let that crap lead you to believe I like it too

I feel sorry for that girl
the one who has to use her body to feel accepted in this world
the girl who needs some real love but outside acts sadiddy
not until she sees those likes to finally feel pretty
exposing her surfaces 'cause her insides are...

I digress, when you approach me that way it's not cool
just as you judge me by the things I say, I judge you.
and I feel you,
you probably aren't even looking for all that
you don't care about my God or my mind or my passions
but the least you can do, stranger, is respect my personhood
and get to know me just enough to gauge what might've been my reaction
cause that, "hey ****" is not how I want to be addressed.
there's so much more to this body than what's under my dress
So, blatantly, I'm unimpressed by your ability to state the obvious

I'm tired of dudes looking at me like I'm crazy when I politely say, "I'd rather not be called that."
Like I just dissed a blessin'
Like the woman that always complains that, "men ain't nothin'.''
"I was just trying to pay you a compliment."
Huh? Oh yeah, THAT'S really something.

if you have any interest in me is that the best you can do?
So, yeah, I know right off the bat I'm not the one for you.
It's not my fault your perception has been skewed
that you still haven't been schooled
that this message is just now getting to you
you're part of that world that's still chasing the cool
using the tools that were forged for some girl whose cup isn't full

And again there's nothing wrong with being told that I'm ****
but I'd rather hear it from a man that already gets me
and knows that not just my high heels and my dress me
but the heart in my chest me
and the sound of my voice
my word choice, my corny jokes,
my thirst for spiritual growth, my softened heart toward the weak,
my intellect, my integrity--that's what makes me-me.
that's what makes me
****.
They're one in the same,
And you can't possibly know all that before you know my first name.

so apparently the blood between my legs makes me less
less than a skyscraper with men in suits and vests
less than a cluster of cells who can’t breathe yet
less than a white man with a **** and a company
and if i can’t even pick what grows within me
how the **** can you call me free?

i’m nothing but an oven to cook your bun
nothing but a *** object for your own fun
nothing but an *** for you to cat-call
as you walk down the street, down the block, down the hall

i’m nothing but a **** for sleeping around
you’re the “ultimate player,” the king of the town
you call me a ***** for taking control
but you’re just a “leader,” you’re running the show

my sisters have died because they said “no”

and you won’t let me have the drugs that keep the blood in check
and you won’t let me save myself when my body’s almost wrecked
and you think it’s fine to strip my rights for Holy God Most High
and you think it’s fine to **** me if i’ve showed a little thigh

so a revolution is on the horizon
the only solution is all women rising
with venom and gunshots
with words to attack--

**we’re taking our ******* bodies back

matt
did you get my reply? i hope you did, i had written approx. 5, and all of them deleted... i hope i allowed myself a justifiable response with this one:

how about solipsism? solipsism is an elevated term for autism, isn't it? me? personally? i love cats, but they have a tendency to become inexhaustive economists of curiosity... i wasn't implying autism as an insult, i was implying a more crude word, synonymous with solipsism, and there is no shame in that to begin with. i like cats, because i own two, and i'm most content, when i can allow myself the time, to allow them the same time, to be left alone. cat, solo... dog + man + tail waggling + throw a ball... i better post this reply before i allow this reply, to become deleted... with all the prior 5 that have been, and me, having to post the alternative, "revision".

i.e. i rather imagine autism to be in need of having an elevated status of being designated by the term: solipsism... how can i make myself elaborate? point being, i don't want to... i too am confined to a strict vocab. fixation for the purpose of expressing language, that mitigates, bypassing, shrapnel wording of: one category fits all, conjunction words, which, i find, I, to be akin to, when categorised as: AND to begin to confine oneself to, the subsequent rigor of nouns.

i hope this doesn't end, or begin as, an apology... by autistic i was imply solipsist, i wasn't implying the retrograde slur of ******... if there's any god, it's in the disinhibited self of the autist, readily plucked, by... no basis for either a selfish, or a selfless act... i'm over-wording this, but... point being... i needed to settle myself in a posit, above the current cultural norm of the troll... which has nothing to do with autism, or as i like to call it: solipsism, diminished to a slur of: automaton...

i hope you can make lite reading of this... i concede, i attempted to make more than necessary, and conciliatory scribbles... if in any way i redeemed myself, i hope you'll concede to entertaining, accepting my apology.

Jules  22h
My only issue was that your poem seemed to make Autism synonymous with stupid or any other derogatory term. However, seeing as that wasn’t how you meant it, I apologize. I’m a bit defensive as my brother has autism

Mateuš Conrad  22h
that's perfectly understandable, given the circumstances, i am hardly surprised... i'm still here if you want to continue past the initial shock-tactic of testing the waters with me, obviously we can change the subject and not stand, metaphorically: with knives pressed against each others' throats... there i was, thinking i'd reply diving into the subject matter for no, necessary clarification / added depth... but it's the least i can appreciate from your cordial response, as to, at least, appreciate a change in the subject matter, so that, both of us, can return to feeding off a sentiment of: being left, less, uncomfortable; which implies that i have to instigate the question to change the subject matter... hmm... speed-dating-esque trivia... movies, paintings, music... literature... ah... kind of blue, miles davis, my english teacher told me, that if anyone in the classroom didn't own this album by the age they were 30... there was something wrong with them... in my then paranoia, i bought the album, and now own it on vinyl... somehow... i find that there's something more wrong with me, owning it, than not owning it.

Jules  22h
Favorite movie- Mamma Mia, favorite painting- amazing piece by a local artist, music- currently obsessed with the Beatles, favorite book- We all fall down. I’m thoroughly impressed about how reasonable you are being given the circumstances, and after reading a few more of your poems, I can tell you are a good person

Mateuš Conrad  21h
oh come on... mamma mia?! and not something akin to west side story?! who's the local artist? i only access to a London base, and, that requires a networking schedule i'm not going to equip myself with; and i'm hardly surprised by how understanding you are of me, and i do wish to pay more compliments to you, but... i feel that that would overstate me taking liberty in me not incurring an over-simplified stance of my own liberty towards you... remember, i'm one person in writing against a blank, and another person to conjure forth a reply... against a canvas, that is a readied flesh of my own flesh, bone of my own bone, i can see the antagonist in the compounded state of, the sacrosanct state of lingo... i can be a ******* against a blank canvas, but, obviously, when i am to begin with a clarity of an addressee, i cannot consider staging a variation of something, inhospitable, as a Kandinsky-variation to suit myself... Jules, you can never become something akin i treat a blank sparring estate i perform in writing without, something you are already established with, concerns equivalent to my own predisposition being unchanllenged / or, rather, undistrubed. the beatles... i'm trying to find something of a vinyl collector's "beginner's luck"... i'm too into prog. rock music... EP album experiences, akin to: king crimson's debut: in the court of the crimson king... serves me right, for not getting into Mahler... or Eric Dolphy jazz... so i turned the blind eye, and moved toward pagan music... wardruna... hedningarna... in extremo... garmarna... faun... heilung... esp. the last... i have never wished to visit the Faroe Islands more, than, after listening to their music.

Jules  21h
Mammia Mia is my favorite almost solely because of the memories attached to it. You certainly are a unique person

Mateuš Conrad  21h
i agree, i'm a sucker for super trouper and money money money, i'm waiting for a Tina Turner musical, to be honest... don't worry, i've looked into some of your comment sections... i cannot alleviate the blatantly bogus comments that are worth nothing more than an immediacy to make antagonism... i can't, i wish i could, but.... it's either this variant of an outlet, or a punching bag... i'm as unique as you find me to be... but when i just see "demands to conform" to an otherwise unnatural behavior... i don't like behaving in a counter-cordial fashion... you understand me? if there's no need to be bogus, why begin to bother being so? i hope we can remain lodged into partial nuances... and continue this discussion, beside tomorrow, i.e. whenever you feel like to preserve it, which, i hope... you will strip away more of your anonymity... but even if that is to not be the case: i thank you for the compliments... but from having inspected the immediate comments... you are a most tender artifact worth double the inspection's curiosity with a shy eye... and until i take myself to rest, and slumber, i can only leave your with these words... i wish the world was more welcoming than i allow you to believe it to be. if you can ever forgive me, i can only hope you can, by bidding me a goodnight, and welcoming me back into the discussion, within the confines of a tomorrow.

Jules  20h
Goodnight, my hopefully future friend. Poetry is definitely one of the best outlets. I definitely understand that aspect of you

Mateuš Conrad  20h
i hope to entertain you here, once more, and all the future that can be shared between the both of us. let me see you tomorrow, and scrap a beginning of a conversation with you, once more toward a focus of a beginning... and see how many minutes this allows us to entertain an amnesia of: beginning with today... how about that? i'll take to sleep, and hope, to grin... i actually re-read what i wrote: and figured... if i was being all-too despotic in securing pedantry... but then... if you took to complimenting me, i have to compliment you: tender soul... scouting the merger of sight and the hybrid coast... tender petal... why not? who is to obstruct me telling you this? lever... beside the said and into what's thought... tender petal... what a Scouser would call pet, i'd call petal... or... heavily implied: stagnant Bismarck stipend... if it be too much to ask... write me more than under the scrutiny of below the already given minus, of the 10 sentences. come at me as a punching bag... just as an experiment... i want to be the new vanguard... experiment with being uninhibited.

Jules  19h
Even the way you talk is extremely poetic. I appreciate how you took the time to try to talk everything out to prevent us from having any bad blood between, and I see know that you didn’t mean any harm from what you said. Thank you for being so kind about it all. I sincerely hope we can pick up this conversation again tomorrow as I feel we are on the road to a promising friendship. I’d be happy to write more per text, but for the sake of experimentation, I’m intrigued to see if you could try to talk in a little less of a formal dialect

Mateuš Conrad  1h
trying to bypass a formal dialect will be hard, as we're too fresh into our patchwork of setting boundaries, rigid as that might sound, and the current climate, to me, you're a slab of marble, not a statue. this sort of friendship, you're talking about, requires us to keep a modest concern for language, which, awfully, is riddled with diatribe excerpts... how we will transcend this, is, well, concerned with both of us to decide... i'm starting to entertain the fact that you have an autistic brother, since i'm learning to be panicy-picky with my language... i too had an ultra-autistic "friend" back in high-school... and i would constantly retrieve a blank-state response from him, i.e. i was looking at less a person, and more: a labyrinth. how i'll transition into a more informal use of language, i'm unsure how that will take place, Jules, we can't exactly share experiences, we can only avast ourselves, on what will pursue its own noumenon characteristics of stated language. at present, we only share a commonality of language, i'm bewildered by stating something informal... i wish i could, but i'm only allowed an "aggrieved" presence to your wish for: informality, slang, holding-hands type of escapism. i think that, with regards to your wishes, we'll have to settle for a sediments' worth of unravelling, like me, you're too trying to escape the puddle's worth of being immediately "concerned" with the comment section... we'll need to find commonality... from yesterday, i can tell you: i had the beatles faze when i was leaving the years attributed to my teens... then i found it really hard to find new music, outside the realm of bands akin to tool, the neo-progressive rock bands... but i see your point, my language is the sort of formal, that stages a lack of intimacy, but this is an ontological-high-jump, given your reply, and emphasis on friendship... you will have to curate me, moving forward, since i will be unable to moderate how, me, interacting with you, will be adequate to have finally said, something informal, by your standards of scrutiny. time, i will first have to see some of your idioms to change my dialect; i'll begin, i'll tell you where this was written from, Romford, Essex, England.

Jules  1h
If we are to move forward as friends, I have to express my feeling on the autism topic. First off, Autism is a spectrum that ranges from high functioning to low functioning. 30% of people with autism are in fact of average or higher intelligence. Some of the most famous scientists including Albert Einstein were in fact autistic. It is not synonymous with simple or stupid in any way, shape, or form. I dislike that you said your friend seemed to be less of a person because he had autism. However, I understand that you’re misconceptions weren’t meant in a malicious way

Mateuš Conrad  51s
so how can i move forward to establish a less informal dialect? i wasn't focusing on the details of the stated condition, i know that i'm handling something as fragile as an egg in terms of what words i employ, and that i might seem astoudning, in having not contra opinions on the matter beneath the impersonal "facade"... but you were asking about how to make our interaction more uninhibited, if we're going to lecture each other about infringing on delicate matters... i wasn't implying the person in question was less of a person, i was implying he was more of a person, by resembling a labyrinth, i didn't take any personhood from him, i simply reattached it to a metaphor, of elevated complexity, of a labyrinth: i was lost in attaining a mutual comprehension of a shared experience with him... what's so bad about that? i only mentioned something in passing, since your's, was the original "concern"... you asked me how we could continue in a less informal manner... this reply will not answer your original "concerns"... what if i were to say: i'm schizophrenic? what then? you'd lecture me on... all of your knowledge on the matter? if we're all going to interrogate each other... thus... then you have a misconception of schizophrenics... akin to john nash... personally, i don't understand how you'd think i'd be primarily focused on something said: intended to be relegated to: in passing... guess what... i'll send this and...

      BLOCK

               i'm basically rummaging
through porcelain...
  i was ****** off one writing
platform for no reason...
   being ****** off from another
is not on my wish list,
from a very, simple,
lack of reciprocated
       feed of understanding;

   oh i know when i see minor *******,
some liking it to micro-aggression...
i chose a fox as my totem,
learning from a 2015 "debacle":
it looks innocent at first,
    but then spirals out of control;
the more i sieve through
this construct known as humanity,
the more i chose to remain
hidden.
   - and for all the worth
of the tabloid press...
   this is where i'll reign, myself
included.

the more noise you make
the less they can look away
but all that friction in your mouth
averts them from your eyes
and hands go wild
trying to pin desire to the wall
trying to scrape the mud from the linoleum bathtub
trying to hide from the pitfall in your chest
when you're surrounded by the smell of pine
trying to get home with all of your cinnamon welts
trying so hard to level the picture frame of your mind
that continuously leans too far to the left
trying to rest your dreams in a tiny wooden casket
a graveyard beneath your pillowcase

what counts is that we're trying
but gloves keep holding my identity hostage

smiling souls are nothing but black holes
and outer-space is everything that can't be a star

Your stare is a diamond-cutter
Your hair smells better than
Hair that smells good.
Namely, I like you better than
People with hair that smells good.

And I wonder at your personhood
For you are made of *** and *****
Your mouth is filled with gold and snakes
And trickles rapturous winding rivers
of *** and venom.

Your sharp teeth have purpose
And your softness only seems
To heighten their resolve.
When you open up to me
I better than dissolve.
I become aware for the first time
in a week.

I lost myself
In between the months of May and August,
As people sped up to undress, to feel the breeze of the warm wind
As I doubled my layers and was ashamed of my own skin
I lost myself
I let my existence chip away like overdue nail polish
I let you destroy my personhood piece by piece,
I was an extension of you that had to be polished
I let your words dig through what I thought was tough skin and unravel tears
I lost myself
I forgot to smile, I forgot to let people know I was fine
I forgot to lie,
I forgot to lie
I lost myself
My existence was merely a performance
But maybe I was suddenly gaining consciousness
Maybe in the months of the harsh summer
Where every night, crying preceded slumber
Maybe I was shedding the version of me that you had created
Maybe I was shedding the extension of you that you had obligated
She could no longer be, her time was up
She had filled you with all that was in her cup
Maybe I was going through metamorphosis
Maybe the aching was her death but my genesis

i remember the meningitis scare:
   oh... it was very real...
i guess it was supposed to affect a niche
proportion of the population...

so much for the "scare":
they would vaccinate us in the schools:
since children were more prone
to succumb to: and inflammation of
the lining around your brain and spinal cord...

and all that: press a thumb against
a skin... and if the skin returns to its original
colouring: there's no blemish of applied
pressure... pressing glasses onto the skin too...

the aesthetics have changed so drastically:
what can **** you is so subtle these days...
it's hardly a case of leprosy...
or... eczema of the zombie plague:
or miniature lilal mushrooms growing
out from your armpits:
suddenly breaking into song:
  'steve told us to sing... so we have
sprouted: to sing!'
       no... celeriac sized warts... hell...
i haven't seen any pictures of covid-19...
as i never saw pictures of ebola...

            death has been given: an anonymity...
but what's still kept in reserve?
shingles...
     like: hyper-eczema...
                i'm having to consolidate myself
on the luck of being 30+ and still having...
a skin on my face that i can't peel:
but i'm sure that belzeebub took a dump on...

they're either dead maggots
or dead white blood-cells...
        i guess i have so many of the latter that...
my immune system is constantly
on a over-charge mode...
          
    where are the lilac mushrooms about to grow
out from out of my armpits:
when will death become visible again:
outside her womb:
without any anonymity to behold:
when will everything... "ev'fing"
  return to the obviousness of a guillotine...
a hangman...
      a... hanged, drawn and... quartered?

the improved aesthetics of the threat is hardly
be sitting in an armchair...
welcoming this: paranoia precursor...
there's no phosphorescent yellow-green phlegm
being shot through the air with a sneeze...

i'm quite disturbed about all this...
        "sterility"...
                      well thankfuly i know that
a schizophrenic can't beget a drone-replica:
dead'ed brain: "schizz"... zombie-cult-esque
   brain: riddled with parasites like...
a disciple of burrough's fever might provide:
subsequently... by...
   by caughing a splitting-headache that might:
somehow: "later": arrive at some variation
of bilingualism...
          but never will... perhaps it should...

because: right now: i want to wrong about everything...
i want to ****** with a hard-on of doubt...
and perhaps: tease negation a little...
or rub-rub-'er very much...
but i do: most honestly...
    want to be wrong about everything...
esp. when it comes to...
   the aesthetics of the "problem":
    it's a problem-solution: solution-problem
  quadratic...
           i mean: if it was truly cosmic... and original...
would it really care for much of aesthetics...
can viruses becomes stealth assassins?
   is a virus a misnomer of plague?
or is... a virus a former case of plague...
  that couldn't be: prior... weaponized?
   the rampant exfoliation of: the obliterated
concern for aesthetics...
   oh sure... it's clean cut...
           god knows what happened to those old
curiosities of medicine...

otherwise...

   what will 3 hours spent reading nothing but
Dickens do to you...
me? i "somehow" managed to miss / forget
about a sunset...
   came the night and... yeah: when meningitis
hit...
   and i guess after the mad-cow disease...
break-dancing limp feet cows...
drunk cows... morbidly drunk cows...

      there was always that postcard reference:
now?
you could obviously see the bubonic plague
from a mile away...
you could see eczema...
you can sure as **** see a shingles belt...
        would a virus even care...
to appease the aesthetic concerns of man?
how doesn't cancer do that...
well... i just start thinking about...
the botanical cancer... viscum...
hardly seen in western europe: tree-foundation
societies... etc.
   half an hour on the road outside of warsaw...
that's enough...

oh sure: because of covid-19:
who could, "somehow" forget about...
                  metastatic tumors!
oh the joys of... <cough cough> the carousel
or that ol' chestnut!
            come to think of it...
    would ingesting a tapeworm make thinks and things
more real?
what wouldn't be bad
about acquiring a symbiote these days?
     all: postulations of the mundane...
without yet within the science-fiction universe...
the facts will simply not stand the test
of time... or will... but will be shelved...
given to the bookworms and their placenta
worm-queen...

it's actually becoming a sieving tool for acquiring
nothing lost: of the old mundane...
the sterile aesthetics of the whole under-taking...
it's too: invisible: too pure...
to be... a freakish byproduct of nature...
sending us back in time...
as the original: single-cell organism
about to usurp the crown of creation...

    my list of conspiracy theories begins
with: catcher in the rye "coincidences" and...
that david copperfield sort of *******...
      because if it's not Pickwican...
it's certainly not an account of count
smorltork:
        peek - christian name
                weeks - surname; good, ver good...

otherwise these days:
the intellect has become a sponge...
and the supposed underlying:
because it is "supposed" and there's an
"underlying" aspect to all of this...
that there is a "dialectic" and...
otherwise: the bestest of the best kind
of...            soap...

is it a revival of an "empire"...
when at the height of its decline...
there was that motto:

     panem et circenses...

     what's underlying in Dickensian prose?
well... some of the words used...
i'd sit with a page and check the dictionary
3 times on average...
because there's still that underlying:
we, Britons, prior to the "english"...
the anglo-saxons... are the Afghanistan
oopsies of the ancient world...
there are so many words with direct
connection: etymologically "speaking"
with latin...

now: the bread is still "here"...
   of the 20th century... you could see a ****
coming way back in 1933...
and the communist... whenever that happened...
and you could subsequently trickle the "evil"
archetype into movies... into gaming...
and have people hooked on a bullseye of evil...

now? greyish blips and blobs of
Kantian bureaucracy...
    
o.k. panem et circenses...
looks to me...
like the circuses are long gone...
the bread is still here...
but... of all the seismic shifts this is...
hardly a ffffffffffff-ucking Pompeii!
riddle me this: riddle me that...
what can possibly become so... overly entertaining...
about eating a slice of bread?
why are the vermin: multiplying:
what's with all this: "huddling" at a distance?
need a cape with that: herr ubermensch?

last time i checked: rats do no operated
under herd scriptures...
there's not need for a shepherd...
there is: fire! scramble!
peep-squeak and more!
          
    an impeding confrontation with a pack of wolves...
a vegetarian lion convert...
                 the bubonic plague: lack of aesthetic...
and now this...
this supreme aesthetic of: when the ancient greeks
thirsted to conceive of the existence
of atoms...
          not that i require proof...
what so of circus: though...
      is, this?!

- yes folks... in the current climate of labyrinths...
the Minotaur isn't here...
and we're out of stock on smoke...
and... mirrors...

citations of a possible prediction to allign with
some variation of borrowed horrors:
to usurp the status quo and sentences us for:
there's no "third time lucky" therein...

all that's happened though:
mental people who would never allow
their minds to riddle them...
become claustrophobic by mere thought...
can you?
translate thinking into claustrophobia?
oh god... no... we haven't reached this nadir...
have we?
thought didn't imply θ(ought)!
that erotica of a would be pronoun:
the moral quest...
                  not because i did something bad
in the past...
but because:
i did what others didn't do prior to me...
i ride the wave of what a *******
said to me once:
after an ******:
this is only the second time it has happened
to me: hello ***** envy thrown out of the window!
hello sisters of mercy in some convent
in Limerick!
'allo! 'allo!

beside the moral conundrum of θ(ought): ought i?
this narrative of the ol' 'ed...
is... claustrophobic?
             spread this negation-of-ease further:
dear kin!
   dis- prefix that denotes negation...
ah... and -ease! the suffix that complete the circle:
no contemplation is necessary!

i'm still seeing bread, though...
oh mein gott! die zirkusse! die zirkusse!
what can be done about the circuses?!

people are coupling thinking with claustrophobia...
people are implored to read
for at least 3 hours a day!
a dickens! a tolstoy! a dumas!
and then relax from congesting paragraph strain
and explore the airy side of what was
written into prose and paragraph with
the aid of poetics: that non-exclusivity of rhyme:
always missing... best missing!

i too abhor this synonym:
poetry is what rhymes...
            a set list of: knock-knock jokes...
about as tasteful as...
               roast beef: done well done...
eating the bark of wood:
now that's an adventure!

            or what's... the adjective riddle / riddled...
of: now...
permanent - adjective... these days a host
of "calling scheitmeiser for all his worth"
and what not...      
                               now: the experimental
history of yesterday and "oops"
now: the cameo cinema of yesterday...
and god willing:
you have a "savings account"
of: memories that can...
suffocate the future: the imagining...
of and for the nought of nothing...
the "conundrum": of being...
such and such... and somehow...
retain: personhood...
rather than... a mere... citizentry "status"...
of the ebbing flow of cattle meat and dung:
itsy-bitsy spider teeth itching...
before the bone!
and... after the bones!

load of crock-**** Lombardy is not
Italy... mantra...
and those rites of rats from
the sinking ship that's Wenice...
much too... quasi-important...

      H - surd of a letter...
but the skeleton supposed to behind:
laughter...

the hibernian folk know it...
the english: eh... somewhat...
          bound to θ and bound to φ...
in t'ought... but not in: t'aught...
who needs the apostrophe?
no me: not "you"...
         third: or... θird:
or... ****... or τ(au) says: "herd"...
                             and what's "spezial"...
the surd worth of π (pi)
     in ψ...
                    or      'sychology...
              then there's "all that" with...
chrome: the χ that becomes a kappa (κ)...
but not... exactly the...
the...      ah!                   CHisel!
chasing dog's tails?

                            but a hardy: hibernian:
it's not an F... it's a T...
we have to expose the H-surd! primo
pronto!

    but ψ can afford...
          πσι in that...
                      either the π... or the π...
is treated as a surd..
cited: the whittle canyon of eta (Ηη)..
            ha: if it's a definite article in 'ebrew...
or ha: if... you need a consonant
skeleton... to breathe when laughing...

toes when marching: chin ching chatter...
otherwise "K / kappa" the matter...
taught to think it all but a massive:
****!
   or... a θurd... which is exfoliating in
the gaellic concept of: third...

i'm not from 'ere...
              mind you...
              this is all disneyland for m'eh et moi...
hello whittle atom me...
hello whittle atom you...
hello: hyvä aamu... susie 'ere...
       rakastaa... että ulvonta...
                 "unohti" haukkua:
fins... drawfs... and other whittle people...
eskimos of the "narrative":
   "kaikki alkaen apinamaa"!
    pωl pυt ***...
             and there's "3" of 'em!
exactly... what about the V'em...
             perhaps a F'ought...
      but: V'ere!
            V'em!
                            who the **** gets to
assure me: this language "ving" or "thin"...
sure hands... sure hands...
it's not all grafitti from chernobyll!

and what if... Joycean would 'ave to begin
its pilgrimage toward Dickensian?
this Ezra of ours: what of this...Ezra of
Fahrenheit of "ours"?

           my atom "versus" your... "atomized" man?
my spaghetti english
versus your... i'll sooner choke on ß...
or SuS...
         or SaS
                  SeS...          sayß...
h'american spaghetti english... *** riddled:
ghetto crown-tongue...


me and finding a juggling of chuckles
with: wit... hiding the ha ha...
when θ = τ...
hibernian...
poland the playground of god:
greek... the plaground of men...
esp. those as being cited:
with origin of the barbarian tinge...

  exatly! what of WH when TH are....
thought of "wen":
this grafitti phpneticism...
this barbarism...
no code of "conduct":
what should have:
and did "have": a happen to...
when it came to the ratio
of consonants to vowels...
  of the latter there was a supposed more...
or the latter a less...

    h.i.v. vampirism romances
would have to die...
  a death... most... closely associated with:
psychopaths: or...
the general pathology is: soul-quests...
all "things" considered...
there is no "grand-Σ"
        "past-participle":
of the unconscious-conscious liver...
does the part: actor... functions
of... i robot: you, not here...

the liver does what a liver does:
even if: i r woke...
and i r: sleepz...
               eyes only on when...
orientating myself around:
a failure of a distinct "individual":
moi foie premier...
   moi estomac premier...
and of "me" or... a me...
given that... there's no: "the me"...
            load of ******* and a chewing tube
of "worded"... "circumstances"...
as: "the alternative" to...
sorry... no other alternative...
was... or would ever... be given...
errror message 404 commences: as of: now!

- or... can you?
compensate a word like... draconian...
with a word... the periphery word...
akin to... byzantine?!
the kite's high up in the ******* air
my dear lad...
can you? "compensate" this...
marry of all other:
never-poppin' up 'ins?!

that's one way of minding:
a grey-ginger...
or an albino-masai...
for "good luck"... of all t'ings:
the lerprechaun 'ucking charm brigade!
that's just 'ucking necessary: that is!

as.... the people have already mentioned
their freedom: to cite and keep up to
the rigours of salutations...
they said and they said... and they:
sad but nonetheless: they sad-***-made-"truth"-of...
"it": 'ucking wombat
multiverse l.s.d.: me typing on an old... cranky...
soviet "qwerty" imitation...

the freedom prior to the plague:
i am yet to see...
the **** covid... and the leprechaun...
and the tarantula...
and the... leech...
   **** me: raining cats and dogs:
what a scenario!
     i was supposed to get...
               not leech: not *****...
those fidgeting terse quizzes...
          *****... no... leech... no...
leprechauns: double no...
             szarańcza... old mother-tongue:
ah yes... "these":
                                 locust!

the third of the lard off the herd of the most:
"likely"... nosense to me:
something for you:              up!
otherwise know as:
quiet a bollocking... wouldn't you,
somehow... please... stage:
an agreed to?
               ****'s sake...

  tyrd the triddle twiddle torn und
towing: dublin the sorry-eye: und sore...
you freckled maverick salt
burner you... and... it's a ginger:
stick-prone... keep y'er eager distance...

eh? that's true: is what's through...
**** paddy **** and a poor ******
walk into a bar...
and the bartender is... a kippah-don
of a rastafarian:
the jokes end...
and there was never a conversation
to begin with... ha ha!
now that's a joke... to wake up...
a frankenstein!

      ginger pleb: ginger poodle!
the new africa: the new eskimo...
or... the finnish gateway: etymologically speaking...
an alternative to... *** and...
              the leftover mongols
stranded by the waters
of the empire: receding...
          the...        no: not the croats...
the...
          a very much elongating concept
of pause....
              "d" or the "v" of: v'eh...: the...
the  immortal savages
of: crimea...
      ah yes!
                  those...            tar-tars!
like the tartare steak:
or what was forever available as
the alibi for: sushi!

        because tokyo is just one of those...
forever huan: new... beijing chicken shacks...
and "tokyo"...
or some other anime typo *******...

irish catholic intellectuals...
and... the none existence of whatever
would have required a magna carta:
believe it or... eat **** sort of
mentality...
            the russian doctors
are already abiding to be hunted
if not huddling in churches...
because: co-vex said: co-vid...
co-vid: sharing blockbuster intrusion
pokes was: that last resort to
mortality: and oh...

          this should have happened a long...
a long long time ago...
  transparency tourism...
where you going?
nowhere...
  and "where" is "going"... "nowhere"...
a bit like france... and the eiffel tower...
and there's no speaking french to have
to be resolved...
because like: "**** it" and what?

the ginger-ninja... the ginger-ninja...
the ginger-ninja and...
when the reality of *****...
reaches... an escalation "reality"
of: synonym with... oh god! beards!
ugh!           vot                          ven?!

yep... and the irish were always:
the horse-breeders..
they always were...
always the catholic-intellect juggernauts...
because the hey'talians and
the spoon-innards...
and... mon deu: zee: fwench!
forget the ****** cathos-pathos...
*******-of-os...

and in me:
the gravitas for a disconcerting ambivalence...
almost a compound:
misnomer... but no...
i like the spaghetti though...
yeah: it looks nice on paper...
and off paper...
and anything to cite: the godfather with...
because: boo is a ghost story
that a solo would sell... and ******* like
that...                   yup...
which is a word: to replace the ideal trajectory of:
would be: ghost limb...
james bond...
                          roulette...
you the actors "faking it": no of course...
dylan thomas bob dylan...
"faking it" i.e. stunt actors!
what's "bob": when there's a ******* roulette:
and a devil's dozen of rich, russian...
oligarchal chick... pretending plastic is not...
new world... ******: comb-over...
creaking chair... stlye-on... style-off...
plastico-supermanoh... dynamo-oh-oh...
those "soz" and "whatsevers"...
works well...
the times column...
when your parents are... conscripted...

             mammoth playdough oh oh oh...
irish is cheap...
catholic is cheap-oh...
******...
ha ha... let's not go there...
becauße that's like...
   goldberg variations: the bwv 988 aria...
   yeah: "soz"... but... i'll ******* eat you:
if i have to: for the purpose assigned
to a hard-on... most associated with...
sparrows...
and... the pirates of the confines...
the magpies...
          
             in every period of congregational
"sanity" there's that interlude into:
madness...
howl how! oh dear world of:
that lost appetite of surprise!
        you begin to wither... and die off:
by the slow culmination of hours...
like... a picture to entomb the perfecting
affair of a decaying pear... or apple...
               and...

            and....                 and...
trickling of sentiments...
and sounds...

                           and there are commentaries...
and there are... catholic bishops...
and protestant cardinals...
and ****** popes!             ah ha!
am i to.. truly... die... from laughter?!

(Continue reading for English translation)


Ang pagiging tao
Ay hindi nasusukat
Ng mga makamundong salik
Na maglalaho lamang;
Sapagkat nagiging tao ang tao
Sa pamamagitan
Ng pagpapakatao.

Ang pagiging mahusay na tao
Ay ang taos-pusong pakikipagkapwa
Sapagkat mabubuo lamang ang tao
Bilang tao
Sa pamamagitan
Ng pagyakap sa kapwa
Na pagyakap din
Sa sarili--

Dahil ang dalisay na pakikipagkapwa
Ay ang paglampas
Sa karaniwan
Sa limitasyon
Sa sarili.

Sa bawat paglampas
Ang tao ay pinapanganak muli.

---

One's personhood
Is not measured
By worldly factors
That will only fade away;
Because a person becomes truly himself
By being
His fullest self.

To be an excellent person
Is to whole-heartedly reach out to others
For man can only be whole
As a person
Through
Embracing others
Which is also an act of embracing
Oneself--

Because being a sincere person for others
Is going beyond
The ordinary
One's limits
Oneself.

In each going beyond
Man is reborn.

All I really want is to talk to you rather than distract myself with the petty things I do.

I'm almost gone.

A deep hollow in my chest leaches at my sanity leaving me bereft of a connection that could seal up the cracks in my heart from which leak my wounded humanity.

Scrolling through my Facebook feed leaves my hungering for what I really need.

The stupid games and apps light up my phone and make me forget that I'm alone.

Tomorrow creeps into each patchwork day. You can't hold time it slips away.

Each hour is fractured by distraction the sun is sinking before I gain traction.

While I'm not looking I miss the sunset. Time to cushion my head with this night's fret.

I won't sleep tonight, like most. My place is haunted. I'm the ghost.

I drift the twilight between realms with clipped wings and overwhelmed.

Sun and moon chase round about; light blinded eyes, thick-dark-muffled-shout.

That's the way it is at night things look different by starlight.

But which am I the sun or moon; do I give chase or am I pursued?

I won't find the things I seek. I'm stuck like this from week to week.

To be needed is exhausting, but to be not needed is accosting.

I need to hear you hearing me and be realified in that harmony.

Instead of trapped between death and life, I'll be free when I see you seeing that I'm Being. Existence could suffice, yet personhood is reciprocally conferred. Make me a Being like you then you'll be a christ.

What is my name?

You say that you can't read my mind as if I haven't put it down line by line.

I want to know I'm more than heat rising from the pavement to dissipate in the sky. Or else call me Mirage--If you can't see me, feel me, hear me.

I'm already gone.

LOVE AND LOVERS

by

TOD HOWARD HAWKS


Chapter 11

“Do come in! How wonderful to see you both again! Your visits are becoming the highlight for me every month,” exclaimed Mr. Ly.

Bian, before she said a word, rushed forward into her father’s open arms to be hugged by him. For almost a minute, Bian stayed silent in her father’s arms. She did not want him to stop hugging her;  it felt so good. Finally, Bian stepped back and, almost in a yell, said, “I love you!”

“My dear Bian, I love you too, with all my heart,” said Mr. Ly. “And you, Jon, it is always special to meet a person like you. You are my only son and I am blessed to have you now as part of my family. Please, both of you, have a seat.”

“Thank you, Mr Ly. I am honored now to be a member of the Ly family,” said Jon, then joined Bian on the sofa.

Jon spoke again.

“Mr. Ly, I have for you the information you will need to prepare the press releases you will send to all media and people you wish to inform about our imminent sojourn ? January 202. Here it is,” said Jon, and handed the pages to him.

Mr. Ly continued.

“Bian and Jon, I need to share with both of you the following. My friends and I will create our own Starlink-like internet company so no “Citizen of Earth”--as you, Jon, call all 8 billion human beings on Earth–can be blocked when each votes on CAMPAIGN FOR EARTH. Furthermore, we will provide cell phones to all CITIZENS OF EARTH.  And Bian and Jon, you will be able... to visit safely in all the more than the 50 totalitarian nations. How is this possible, you ask? It is possible because I and my friends have our ways. In addition, we shall translate your commentary PEACE ON EARTH THROUGH LOVE into all 7,000 languages and dialects and, beginning ? January 202, will send it monthly to all media according to which each uses. This will continue until the vote on CAMPAIGN ON EARTH takes place during the first two weeks of 202?. And, as you have told me, Jon, only love can save Earth.”

“Mr. Ly, you are, with the exception of your daughter, the most intelligent, the most compassionate, the most self-effacing human being I have had the honor ever meeting. You know, I’m sure, the difference between personhood and behavior. Everyone’s personhood is sacred, inviolable, intrinsic, whereas so many peoples' behavior is often uncaring or hurtful, or even much worse. It is not unusual to react to one’s untoward behavior with at least displeasure, if not outright hate, even on rare occasions with violence. But this latter response is unknowing. When one encounters bad behavior to any degree and wishes it were not so, do not exacerbate what is already deleterious by making it even worse through punishment. Instead, constrain this negativity, but love this forsaken person. Love is the cure for all those who suffer pain. It may take a lot of love to heal a hurting soul, even a lifetime, perhaps even longer. But love is the antidote for all emotional maladies. But for one to be able to love others, one must first be loved, preferably by one’s parents. This dilemma is what our world suffers from the most. Wealth, fame, power–all are illusory and therefore feckless. They are but unconscious efforts to compensate for lack of love, and that is why our world has been turned inside-out for millennia. Only being loved, and then being able to love, will we be able to turn our world right-side in. Then and only then will we have Peace on Earth forever, and for the first time.

“I lavish praise upon you, because you are a beyond-magnificent human being, Mr. Ly,” concluded Jon.

Mr. Ly sat in silence, stunned. Finally, he said, “Thank you, thank you, Jon.”


Chapter 12

How can I ever be strong
When I know there is this
Incurable weakness writhing
Within me?
Every time, I repeat my mistakes
Because I am too weak to say no.
Every time, I miss opportunities
Because I am too weak to say yes.
Every time, I fall into self-pity
Because I am too weak to make myself
Better.
I can see myself
Stronger, improved, worthier
But I cannot remain on the path to
Success
For my childish weakness trips me
And drags me down
And I am too weak to fight off my own
Weakness.

How can I ever be good
When there is so much bad
Swirling within
And strangling me?
I cannot suppress the evil and twisted
Thoughts that sprout from my mind.
I cannot help but take delight in them,
Somehow find pleasure in their utter
Despicableness.
And I cannot help but find a sour pride
In possessing such horrible thoughts,
As if it makes me special.

How can I ever be me
When I am completely influenced
By the people around me?
I am a collage of mirrored traits
And characteristics
Adopted from friends and family.
All my aspirations of personhood
Are tainted by society’s ideals.
Nothing is truly mine.
Nothing is truly original.
I am trapped in a never-ending cycle
Of give and take,
Repeat and release.

How can I ever be happy
When I know death awaits me?
And while I live on this Earth,
I am merely a meat suit,
Imitating the ignorant beings around me
While weakness and evil
Manifest within my body.
Maybe death is not such a bad thing.
It is escape from myself,
My poisoned, tainted being,
My sad excuse of a life
Without hope of redemption,
For all humans are the same:
Wicked little beings hidden behind smiles
And good intentions.

My childhood was measured
By smushed handfuls of red raspberries
That stained my clothes methodically.
By counting sports cars instead of shooting stars
After all, we have enough in the suburbs to last us a while.
By "don't touch this" that comes with the affluence
Of one of the most prosperous counties in the country.
By butterfly T-shirts that were stitched together with secrets
By people picking and prodding at my size
By "if only I was skinny" vibrating my eardrums
As I had heard it from so many people before I hit the age of 12.
By being different
As at thirteen, I had no interest in make-up or push up bras or jocks
But punk rock music and a boy who was a little bit more dangerous than I anticipated.
By unwanted touches from uninvited men
Who took it upon themselves to show me womanhood
Before I could identify it myself
By the way my father stopped looking at me
As though I was his little girl
Because he began to find out where my skin has wandered.
By how my father had stopped looking at me quite some time ago
Because I was never his skinny spitting image of perfection
By the way he criticized my clothing
Told me if I wanted people to make fun of me for my size
If I wanted people to call me a ****
Then I could wear whatever the hell I wanted.
When I replied that I, in fact, did not give a flying ****
My mother chimed in
"Well you should."
And by the way complete strangers have told me to go on a diet
While others have screamed from passing cars
"****, baby, look at that body"
As though my body is my worth
And as though my worth is something to be measure
I have been taught that my worth is something tangible
That can be compacted into a little box with a pretty pink bow
Stuck on a scale and weighed
And that the number I see on that scale
The number of pounds that my body physically contains
Directly correlates with my worth as a person.
Do those strangers that hound me about my weight even stop to think
That I spend hours in front of the mirror
Pinching my skin into too-tight jeans
******* in my stomach because I just want to look my thinnest?
Do they even wonder about my past
How I have tried to diet and that is the only time I can remember my father
Treating me like a decent human being?
Oh, but I didn't lose much weight
In fact, the only time I really lost anything significant
Was when I was bulimic.
But they don't question that either.
And to the strangers who catcall me
That "body" has been abused by men I have trusted
That "body" has lost all control on a bed when a man took it from her
That "body" is strong, healthy and beautiful
It is not just a door mat for you to wipe your paws on
It is not just a *** toy whose sole purpose is to satisfy you
And then be thrown away
Is this what it means to be a woman?
To have your personhood and purpose in this world
Be quantified and made so it can be held in the same small palms
That smushed raspberries at six years old?
I hope that my worth can someday be more
Than a measurement.

Oh don’t you wish you were free
Don’t you just wish you were free?
You’d be a fool to give it all up
Just for peace, happiness, and security.

Poor soul, your state oppressing so many
Maybe some day they’ll see
That mass corporate conglomerates are people too
Just like you and me

All that nonsense, propaganda
About social justice, bonds, and solidarity
Beware, that’s just the sugar coated ghost of Stalin
Mao, ******, Beezlebub, and Mussolini

Oh boy don’t you just wish
Don’t you wish you were more like me?
At liberty to willfully discriminate
On your own private property.

To just exercise your personhood
By buying clothes and watching TV
What’s the matter man, why don’t you see,
Why you so anti-individuality?

Inspiration arrives in the wee hours of the morning

Like a fresh snowfall that won't stick

Teasing, tickling my brain

Inducing a rumbling hunger for snow cream and chapped cheeks

A floating half-cadence

Stinging like the stale metallic aftertaste of the cavity I can't see

But I know I need filled

Like the hole you left when you were digging behind my back

Smiling beneath my feet and I fell a little deeper

Like you did into me under the Everclear

Night sky after we dropped

Altering our minds in a place we called home

In the company of our tribal community diving head-first into pursuit of personhood

By the hand of a tedium spring and temporary cushion

Where the new members must've watched behind closed lids

Before another night like the previous nights consisting of little sleep.

There's an assignment to complete

Suppressed by the urge to go for a night run to strengthen those thighs

I didn't intend to open, I swear to God

I never intended anything to result in this

Unresolved half cadence in the i-V-i progression

That I didn't compose on the theory test

I didn't pass today because I didn't finish.

There exists no focus to the wisps of ideas slapping these cerebral walls

Like lingering tendrils of broken thread and splattered paint on a drunk summer night.

It's too chilly now on the off days and perfect on the on's

So I will wait, patiently, more or less

To avoid dropping the wisps and distasteful run-on sentences

Into your feigning palms willing to grasp me again

Because what the hell else would I do?

Everybody seems
Terrified of what will happen
When one person or another
Wins this election
And it matters so much
But not so much that you
Need to scream at others telling
Them what to believe, who to
Vote for.

I want to say, “IT DOESN’T MATTER!”
Because we 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 that they will do nothing.
The president is only a single part
Of a single branch
And no one listens to them anyway.
These people may be dangerous
But they are effectively ineffective
And the greatest danger of all
Is how we choose to treat each other,
And no president can change that—
No president can take away this basic
Human decency.

So let us all
Vote personhood
For president.

Let us all look the
Fearmongers in their eyes
And say: 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘥.

Such an odd and incredulous thing
When you choose to give up your humanity
Your personhood
Your heartbeat
The rise and fall of your chest
As your lungs take in
This constantly polluted air.

The exhaust from humanity
The perishable efforts
Are none.

How many of us have already given up
The face of hope
The walk of life
Yet continue to flop across the earth
As a fish out of water,
A proper environment
Dug out and exposed,
Chopped down and rolled over,
Creating this
New World
Where the words ‘take what you need’
Are never uttered.

Where the concept of helping those in need
Does not involve you
Unless directly connected.
Even then it is seen as an obligation,
Not just a reaction,
A simple kindness when you have
Extra.

When did this die?
           When can I die?

So this choice to physically leave,
Finally be rid of this disaster we have come to call life
And Government
And Responsibility
And Religion,
And Teaching…

All of it fabricated by faulty,
Hardly even there
Morals.
Designed to keep in check,
To placate,
To keep distracted as you believe you are
Being ****** dry…

Well you are,
We all are.
Yet
Here, with this ability to communicate
I am better off.

There are so many people in the world
Waiting for the bandage to be ripped off,
Enduring those moments of
Eye watering pain
So that the wound may find air,
May find healing breath and
Action to make as
One.

There is more than enough for everyone to be
Happy and
Well taken care of.
So that not another soul feels lonely,
Another belly goes malnourished.
Enough so that every person will never have to worry
About sustenance again.

What would this world order look like?

It could be filled with innovation
And design
And the hopefully True Nature
Of Humanity to thrive
Together,
To build on each others successes.
Instead of this endless jealousy,
This backwards mentality that we are on this earth
Alone.

That we are all meant to sacrifice each other to be
The last one standing.
Well if that just happens to be you…
Then what?

What happens now?


When you think you have everything you need
Except that saving voice,
That soulful touch,
That incredulous connection to another.

Where did it go?
It has been demolished,
On the wrecking site for years.

I do not want to wait for that time,
When things implode.
It is already bad enough,
I cannot walk through this
Fake and tired path
Anymore.

We are animals locked in conditions to
Mimik our true atmosphere...
When those barriers crash down,
Coughing up the dust and misery
You will be left with
Absolutely no understanding of the Earth.

Introduced to the earth,
Humanity would
Perish.

I am already alone,
Just let me go,
Though pleading useless,
As simply no one
Is Listening.


**Sept 29, 2013

I’m one foot out the door and both feet over the edge
I’m an inch away from out of my mind and ******* it this hurts

I’m in limbo in between being myself and being a mess
And I’m never one or the other

I’m twisted in knots and tangled in sheets thrown over the remains of my personhood

And I’m not making any sense
I’m not making anything, not a sound, not a living

I’m statistical noise. Affordably omitted from any rational decision

I’m not a rational decision anyone would make

I wouldn’t make the choice of making me again but I guess it was never my choice anyways

I’m hovering in the space in between saying you’re okay and meaning it
On the precipice of feeling human without actually feeling it at all

Someone please push me
Over the edge that I’m slowly edging closer to

Someone just pull me back

Just push me

I've been called many things
Unsavoury and unkind
Words that strangle what little hope
I've stored in myself
What little light
That's been left
A flame so heavily guarded
Yet barely burning

I've been called many things
Crazy
Sometimes I crumble within myself
Forgetting where I am
Who I am
Who I've been
Who I could be
Wishing I could just spotaneously
Not be

I've been called many things
Emotionally draining
How is it that I feel everything?
And then nothing?
Instantaneously

I just want to feel again
I just want to feel real
I just want to remember that
I'm more than these names
These things
These afterthoughts that
For some reason
You decided to impart on me

I've been called many things
Things I didn't want
Things that aren't me
Things that barely touch the idea of me

Among these things
These verbal illustrations of my personhood
Disconnect
Alienating and cold
Misconstrued and yet so sharp
Ambiguous yet so sure

I have been called many things
But never yours

this languish is unyielding
ankles and bare shoulders are making me bitter
stop unwrapping my things
don't you dare try to take the tears from my cheeks
you have stepped in at the final moment of purity
and however you might try to
pry the gore from between my legs
you know nothing.

I am being suffocated by privilege
not enough to find me fortune, oh no
only that strangers afford leisure
and i am burning, slowly

brunch is taunting me
afternoons spent quietly,
a night out with close friends,
one, any activity alongside the sun
in the real world, there are days off
and dreamless slumbers
and friends.

all the evidence supports that i am doing everything i possibly can to do the very best anyone could ask of where i am right at this moment,
so how do i feel so behind?
and out of place?
and worthless?

the shade is being drawn back from my eyes now
my happiness was a glitch
to think that i deserved it, an error
my personhood, a mistake

i am so capable, and so angry

To the girl in the hallway of my high school
Who called me a *****.
Please, dear
Tame your venomous tongue.
If you want me to "act like a lady"
Why don't you talk like one?
By your own standards, of course.
Your words are spikes that are omitted from your spit
Can I spit them back at you?
Then again,
I guess that would only do some good
If I cared enough.
You see,
The definition of a ***** is
A derogatory term for a *******.
Please educate yourself
As I am not a *** worker
No, I do not get paid to be an object for men
As I have only even slept with one
As I have only even done anything consensual with one man
And no man has pleased me since.
Apparently I tempt them by saying
"I'd like to see you try"
Even though I meant it in the most sarcastic way possible.
And oh, do they try
Many even disguise satisfying themselves
As attempts to satisfy me.
But once the lights come back on
I'm not quite done with the last man I spent the night with
But he's already out the door.
His skin still lingers like fog in my mind
And in the corridor where we did unmentionable things.
I feel as slimy as ever
But it was stupid to sleep in our clothes anyway.
Because things went further than I wished.
I pull a blanket over my shivering body
It has been a cold autumn thus far.
And I'm sure my mom was worried sick
But she slept that illness right off.
Boys will be boys, she says
And when I try to explain what happened that night
How my memories are a little bit shifty
My credibility seems to fade as his ghost did.
Instead of questioning what happened that night
I am answering to questions like
"Well, what were you wearing?"
"Did you lead him on?"
Why, of course I did
Because everything I do in this ******* society is "leading him on"
If I blink, smile, wave, walk toward him, have confidence
I am suddenly opening up my body like a book to be examined and gawked at
Suddenly, I abandon my personhood by doing any of these things
And leave myself as a thing to have *** with
But because I know the consequences of being a woman and existing
I am still some two-dollar *******
Just for being a woman who has consensual ***
Just for being a woman who does not want you poking her bruises and revealing her scars
After all, they are not fully healed.
Just for being a woman who wears low-cut shirts and tight dresses
Even though I am not a size two.
Just for being a woman who believes that we, as women, should be able to make choices about our own bodies.
Just for being a woman.

the odds against you being born are astronomical
the fact you were, a miracle

skin so perfect and warm
chest to chest.
vulnerability.
discomfort to feel comfort.
the requirements for mortal passion.
soon our souls will go heavenward
and our bodies to decay
with no more skin on skin.
a beautiful tragedy
overcoming this personhood
yearning for the breathless,
tingling nights.
not ready to bloom,
not quite ready to die.
skeletal hands grasp
for the promise of fullness.
satisfaction miles beyond.

but oh,
your skin on my skin.

Some are there for the party, some are there for the part
In rumination a constant reverberating conscious dissertation
Without hesitation I have said that I love you off by heart but your ears are blind if your heart sees them not those darts

In retrospect I would inspect as I detect this heart's reflect
That you were nurtured some  kind of way, into a nature of some jaded doctrine
Taught to be an object and now a suspect of being a love ******
Many a things do they do the beautiful stones, treasures and shells
But it's all for nothing if the love language stays empty

A void to be never filled as wills are ill
Intentions are impure and stenched with all and every filth
I see the waves as the way you think of intimacy but lose the sight of what you feel within
Who you are to you and what you are to you
It goes back to how much emotion means and the steal of it, how it leaves you, the memory that becomes past
The moment that has passed
A flag of a could have and should have ship
Another X that will have them hex and you're on The Bewitched list again  except there won't be a show about you

The love pulse seems to be gone and silent, because when it comes and hits you; it's riveting, it's agony
Much like drowning or free falling on a very rocky surface without a parachute
It gives you a sense of urgency
It gives you a sense of urgency
It is not tomorrow, not yesterday, not then or when but now, always insistent at this very instant

The grooming then; what were the first words she told by grandmother, mother, sister or aunt - about men
The first words that modelled her becoming
The pictures that fragmented her imagination of personhood
The mantras that have built up as a Zeitgeist driving her gears of paradigms
The very itch in her egoic mind that longs for material satiation except it's never enough

Some are there for the party, some are there for the part
Some live and die for for the velocity of the transcendence of divinity
Some just keep up face
Keeping up face because the paste might replace a gaze of self-hate and inadequacy
You'll know where they stand and what they stand for by how they'll respond, what they'll say or won't say
To know what the love language is is to know what it's not
And our treasures who long to be crowned have been inculcated to calculate the degrees of lust and temporary gain, so nothing good lasts
And golden opportunities seem to just pass because nobody takes a glance at the true Romance Lingui Francua glass

They run for the telly and how flat the belly will look
But slow to write a message saying she's yearning and hungry for your love
So the love star starves and the children of tomorrow call this a fable
But see it's just jaded grooming
No impulse to give of oneself for a just cause, so how will they love wholeheartedly and the love dance rhythm adore?
Just another idyll for the abandoned book store that nobody takes a tour in anymore.