You can hear the voices of our peers being silenced, ignored, shunned and distorted.
Staggering out of their bedroom doorways to the street corner to score a dime bag.
Bright, insightful millennials freezing in search of warmth from something to believe in that will encourage them to look forward to see another day.
Where our economy has made financial prudence clear when talking about education, yet price tags of university tuition's skyrocket.
The refused, the ones with hope but no money or scholarships; tread the streets with the echoes of electro house pulsing in their skulls.
Those who strip themselves down and shred their own morals to scraps just to find themselves and to see their own limitations.
Searching for answers to the unknown, to ascertain what they are, who they are and why.
Timid in high school, pushed along with nothing and no one to put their creative vigor into.
The squeakiest wheels that were never even considered to be given a good greasing.
Faculties giving them lethargic hellos on the first day of school, bestowing celebrated goodbyes to them on graduation day, diplomas in hand.
Now are the ones slumped over in a lackadaisical position contemplating how they can afford an education.
They work eight to ten at seven twenty five an hour Monday to Friday; and weekends staying in as not to blow their earnings.
Those who commute to university and balance a job with it, I applaud you.
The bewilderment of adulthood, the overabundance of pressure and responsibility.
Awakened from nightmares of lost opportunities, missed trains and lost contacts.
To step out of bed and splash water onto a severely distressed face and staring into a mirror with a despairing look.
Then hoping a bus to Garfield to bring back weight for all the embryonic smokers not yet at the point of make or break, just save up enough to pave my own way.
Gazing at the town on a roof top, chugging down the tenth…no…twelfth beer of the night wondering how this all happened.
Wild sensations of kissing an attractive stranger, the rush of touching on things never felt, tasting pleasures only the lucky have known.
The passionate, yet dissolute yearning for that ever eluding ******* adrenaline. Pounding, Pounding, Pounding until the culmination of energy has come.
Flip sided to those dizzying, tear jerking thoughts of suicide, annihilation of ones being, the contradictions of their faith in themselves and the people around them.
Unexplainable waves of anxiety crashing onto the shore of a diminutive island of optimism
Striving to look past the panic, the gloominess and fury that may or may not be present. But to remain composed and press forward to what awaits them.
Coffee keeps them going. Cup after cup, late night cramming every bit they can; into their caffeine driven psyches until the indisputable crash and failure.
Packs and packs of menthol cigarettes to calm their rattling nerves but at the same time killing them slowly. Their lives will seem shorter than the time it took to finish one bogey when death is near.
Marijuana induced ventures to run down burger shacks, laughing hysterical in the car ride, eyes heavy with a most ridiculous elastic grin extending from ear to ear. While inside millions of thoughts and realizations of consciously simple speculations and troubles become clear and unproblematic. So the joy is mirrored outside in.
LSD trips in Petruska dancing and singing in the rain! Making music, making love; playing pretend and creating art. Becoming a family while kicking back under the warmth of an illuminated tree on a cool fall night.
MDMA streaming through the body, everything is as it should be
Beautiful, lovely to touch, wondrous to stroke, marvelous to move.
To contact and connect, converse and converge with the dwelling desire to share what you feel with everyone for it would be selfish and unpleasant to keep it in.
Mushrooms oh the emotional overflow I need not say more but ****.
Then there are over the counter candies, Oxycontin, ******, Adderall and Xanax, painkillers and antidepressants. Ups, downs, side ways and backwards.
Selling addiction and dependency legally to kids. Making heroine, ******* and speed easily obtainable to them. Changing the names and giving out prescriptions so the parents can feel like they're actually helping their children but are subconsciously making it easier on themselves because they cannot handle the way their offsprings actually are. Some parents a feel it is the only way, I wish it wasn't so. Becoming zombies, mindless addicts before they even start to mature into puberty. I've seen it, firsthand front row.
Oh, the monotonous, mundane rituals and agendas of our lives. School, work, sleep eat, the sluggish schedules and repetitions of yesterday's conversations and redundancy of itineraries we had plotted months prior.
Same people, the constant faces of boredom that groan in apathy and hold the fear of complacency.
We talk about how hum drum out lives have become and what we could to put some color in our world but don’t.
We speak of how unfair the system is but ultimately confuse ourselves and everyone else due to lack or organization and dedication so nothing is changed.
We speak of breath taking women we want to share ****** fantasies with but can’t even muster enough courage to send a trivial friend request.
Texting away for hours trying to court those who now occupy our minds and possess our hearts hoping they may allow us to acquire their attention and affection. Calling them only to receive futile dial tones and know we are being evaded.
Weeping on and on for seemingly endless time frames of a dilapidated relationship that was so strained that a miniscule breeze could cause it to collapse but still clinging to every memory as if they were vital hieroglyphics depicting your very essence.
Brilliant theories blurted out in a drunken stupor.
Ingenious hypothesis shrouded in marijuana smoked out room.
Remembrance of friends long gone.
The marines, the navy.
The casualties of drug addiction.
The conquerors or their afflictions.
The scholars.
The insane locked away on the flight deck never to be seen again.
Teenage mothers unsure of themselves, abandoned by their families for they believe that they brought fictional shame upon the family’s name. The fate of the child is unclear but the mother’s everlasting love shines through any obscurities in its way.
Dear mother of the new born winter’s moon may the aura of life protect you and your baby.
The father gone without a trace.
He will never know his daughter.
And it will haunt him forever.
Parents bringing up their kids with values and morals, The Holy Bible, mantras and meditation, the Holy Quran, The Bhagavad Gita, and Upanishads. Islamic anecdotes and Jewish parables.
The names all different
The message the same
The stories unlike
Goals equivalent
Faith
Kabala, Scientology and Wicca
Amish and Mormons
All separate paths that intertwine and runoff each other then pool into the plateau of eternal life.
But do we have faith in our country, our government?
They do not have faith in us. Cameras on every street corner, FBI agents stalking social media, recordings of our personal lives and police brutality. 4th amendment where have you gone?
We say farewell to Oresko the last veteran of the last great war. And revisit the Arab spring, Al-Assad’s soldiers opening fire on innocent protesters, one hundred fifteen thousand lay dead. Bin laden dead, Hussein hanged, Gaddafi receiving every ounce of his comeuppance. War, terrorism, the fear of being attacked or is it an excuse to secure our nation's investments across the sea? Throwing trillions of dollars to keep the ****** machine cranking away, taxes, pensions, credit scores, insurance and annuities all cogs in the convoluted contraptions plight.
My dear friend contemplates this every night laying in bed, fetal position; the anxiety if having to be a part of this.
Falling apart on the inside but on the outside, an Adonis, *******, Casanova wanna be. Who worshiped the almighty dollar, gripping it so tightly until it made change, drank until he had his fill falling face first into the snow. The guy who lead on legions of clueless girls wearing their hearts on their sleeves not knowing he had a girlfriend the entire time. Arranging secret meetings in hidden gardens, streaking into the early morning. Driving to Ewing in his yellow Mustang to woo a sado masochistic girl. The chains and whips do nothing to him he is already numbed by the thrill. Then he comes home, lays in bed until one, with no job and having people pay for his meals.
He knows what he does and who he is wrong. He recites and regurgitates excuses endlessly. He cries because he knows he is weak, he knows he must fix himself. I sit on the edge of myself with my fingers crossed hoping maybe, maybe he will set himself straight.
My chum who can talk his way out of any confrontation and into a woman’s *******. Multitudes of amorous affairs in backrooms, backseats, front rows of movies theaters. Selfish, boastful and ignorant, yet woman fling themselves at him like catapulted boulders over a medieval battle field just to say hello. These girls blind to see what going on, for their eyes were taken by low self esteem. A need to be accepted, to feel wanted even only for fifteen minutes. Poor self image, daddy issues, anorexic razor blade slicing sirens screaming on about counted calories and social status. Their uncontrollable mental breakdowns and emotional collapse. Their uncles who ***** them, their parents who split up and confusing their definition of love and loyalty for the rest of their lives. Broken homes, domestic abuse and raised voices, sending jolts of fright into the young girl’s fragile minds. I send my sorrows to you ladies, to see such beautiful creatures suffer then be used and thrown away with the ****** that was just ****** deep into their *****.
Then I see women and men of marvelous stature, romantic in the streets holding everyone and everything in high regards. Finding beauty in anything and anyone. Enjoying every second as if the rapture was over head eating exotic foods from unheard of countries and cultures. Bouncing to the sound of whimsical , reverb ricochets and sense stimulating music. Huffing inspiration to create something out of thin air. Dancing to retired jazz and swing albums as if no time had past since their conception. Wearing bold colors and patterns, thrifty leather shoes or suede.
Dawning pre-owned blazers because why spend hundreds of dollars on new clothes just to look good but feel uncomfortable with a hole in your pocket. Dressing up but dressing down, so class yet urban I love it, chinos, pea coats and flannels so simple but chic.
At night they go to underground dens, sweaty bodies, loud music and freedom. Expressive manifestations glowing fueled with MDMA and other substances to further their enjoyment of the dark glorious occasion. Kandi kids sporting colorful bracelets, not watches for time is of no concern to them, they have all eternity they know that.
Going to book stores, coffee shops just to have some peace of mind and a moment of silence to themselves so that can weave the tapestry of imaginative innovation. Writing their own versions of the same story, endless doors of perception, reading news papers and taking it with a grain of salt. Watching the news on TV with a hand full of salt. Searching for the real story so they can know if the world they all live in is actually safe.
She who made her own way breaking hearts, rolling blunts and making deals. The flower child of the modern age, left the rainy days in search of radiant sunshine, idealistic. Reality was subjective, purple dyed hair, multicolored sweater with sandals on her feet. A ten inch bowl with bud from California packed in tightly. Coming from Dumont to Bergenfeild then on to Philly to Mount Vernon. Off to Astoria and the Heights. Now to Sweden laying in the grassy plains below the mountains. Good for you my friend whom I have loved, may fortunes of unsullied joy come to you and all you meet.
Since you’ve left I have encountered drunken burly firemen just trying to have a good time. Pounding down Pabst Blue Ribbon as if it were water; as if it were good tasting beer. But heroes none the less.
EMT's, young eighteen years old high school graduates, saving lives reviving people who are a mere inch close to death.
Sport stars getting scholarships thanks to their superior skills and strength.
Striking beauty school students who are into making the people of this world a little bit more beautiful on the outside.
All these people, successful, doing things. Departing to their desired destinations. I see inside them, they carry baggage, loneliness and insecurities. I can feel their guilt slowing them down. All have their loads but it’s the way they carry them that shows who they really are. And to me their all gems.
Not far in Paterson I watch the junkies limping across busy winding street, perusing a severely needed fix. “Diesel!” they shout beneath flickering streetlights, asking for spare change and if bold enough a ride to some shady sketchy place. I give them a dollar and politely decline. They’ll die without it. Vomiting up bile and blood, twitches and shivers are all you feel when it’s not in you. They cannot stop, they need help. Why not help them instead of “assisting” those who are homosexual? Cleansing so they can be granted entry to the kingdom of God. Looking down on people who have found love and understanding and a deep attraction to others who just so happen to share alike genitals.
Narrow minded uproars about the spread of AIDS, nonsense! The puritanical onslaught of those who want nothing more than the rest of us, love. "Gay", "****", "******", "queer", how about "kind", "funny", "genuine human being"? The right to be married and divorced should be an option for everyone to enjoy. The strains and hardships of matrimony are yours if you want them. If you don’t agree don’t hate or harm just allow them to be peacefully. Same goes for anything for that matter, Jehovah's going door to door, Mormons from Burbank. New ideas are never a bad thing, they’re not a waste of time. On average you have about eighty years to mull over your options.
Some people don’t live long enough to do so, cancer is rampant, blood diseases, ****** diseases, natural disasters coming right out of left field and blindsiding the innocent bystanders of both hemispheres. Some go through life handicapped, autism is apparent these days. Schizophrenia, Asperburgers, ADD and ADHD. Some lose their golden memories of their many valuable years walking down Alzheimer's Lane, not being able to remember whatever transpired only a few moments ago but revisiting gold nuggets from from fifty-some-odd years ago with ease. Some go through life delusional or bipolar. Some can't even sleep at night but they still carry on. And if assistance is needed it is our job as a race to help our brothers and sisters, no one deserves to be excluded from the gala of life. Or be denied by society and pumped with brightly colored pills from doctors promising a cure but prescribing a crutch.
Finding solace in sincerity.
The serendipity of it all hasn’t been uncovered and that keeps me going.
“Radiate boundless love towards the entire world above, below and across. Unhindered without ill will without enmity.” Oh Buddha the truth as it ever was.
Who is he who keeps these thoughts from the conscious minds of the population?
Who is it that distracts us from the humbling beauty and overwhelming devastation of this place of existence we’re in?
It’s they who do under the table parlor trick behind our backs.
Those who broadcast mind numbing so called reality TV shows without an underlying value or meaning.
Those who produce music, proclaiming extravagance to be the end all be all gluttonous goal we all should aim to achieve.
And those who turn noble causes into money making scams and defile pure ideas.
And of course those who give false promises of easily obtained  bright futures, those who don’t care, those who steal, ****, curse, bad mouth and lie. But still manage to get elected into positions that more or less decide out fates. Monsters, demons, banshees howling inconsequential worries and leaving us deaf to hear the real issues.
The

Diversity of motivation among self-harming individuals

An estimated one in twelve teenagers has committed self-harm. Of those many will continue self-injuring into young adult hood. Yet older adults are not immune to committing this act. In 2003-2004 adults age 25-44 were responsible for nearly fifty percent of reported/discovered self-harm cases.  There are many reasons that people self-harm. These reasons may include self-harming as a survival mechanism, self-harm as an outer expression of inner emotional turmoil, and self-harm as a means to exercise control over one’s environment.
Contrary to popular thought, only one in ten people who make the decision to self-harm are suicidal. The majority of people who cause injury to themselves willfully have a wish to avoid killing themselves. The act of self-harm is developed as a “technique” to cope and survive the afflictions of life. How can we know that this is the reasoning or thought behind the action of self-harm? “Cutters” typically reason out the least amount of damage that will “remedy” the stress intensive situation that they find themselves in, and exercise an enormous amount of restraint in inflicting only a measured amount of damage. Cutters’ common logic is that through this expression of injury, further damage to their selves may be headed off. --------, a former cutter, attests to the reality of this when he says, “Every time that I touched a blade to my skin, I would resist making a larger cut, a deeper wound. Every time that I hurt myself, I did so only in response to what drove me over the edge; Each time the amount of physical damage that I did was the very least that I could muster. I fought to do the least damage I could, no matter how intense the pain that I felt became.” He sums it up rather nicely.
Secondly, self-harm is used as an outward expression of deeper, more complex emotional and psychological phenomena. It is not a diagnosis; it is a symptom. It is a symptom of a struggle that is inherited by victims of abuse, those who lose a loved one, or experience other traumatic events during their childhood. These groups are far more likely to indulge in self-harm. One study conducted by Boudewyn and Liem found that of those college students that reported a history of self-harm, fifty two percent had been sexually abused as a child. Those that self-harm do not simply cut to cut, burn to burn, or mutilate to mutilate. There is a deeper motivation. This motivation is commonly emotional. These motivational emotions are often the results of tragic or traumatic life experiences. It is seldom that a cutter’s motivation is a want for attention.  In fact, most cutters are chameleons.
Self- harm is used as a tool to exercise control in a chaotic environment over which one would not otherwise have any means to control. Among chaos and turmoil such as the loss of a parent or close friend, relational betrayal, divorce of one’s parents, or consistent, one time, or sporadic physical, emotional, or ****** abuse an individual is radically more likely to engage in self-harm. Outside reasoning on this is only speculative. For this reason it is valuable to look at the action from the perspective of those who commit it. Cody, the same individual mentioned earlier says something else that lines up with this common scholarly opinion. He says “I remember the very first time I cut myself intentionally. I was in the ninth grade, in the school bathroom. I had just experienced what I saw as betrayal by my best friend of about ten years. I felt like I lost him. I felt like things were spinning out of control, and I couldn’t control the way I felt about it all. The only way I could feel that control was with something sharp in my hand.” This is characteristic not only of ----- but also of many other cutters.
Cutters are not (necessarily) crazy. On the surface it may appear that cutting goes against the ingrained survival and self-preservation instincts in human beings. This is actually the opposite of the truth. Many who cut feel that if they don’t inflict smaller harm to themselves that they may indeed fall to suicide. They feel that by letting out their pain in increments, and escaping in fragments, that they can slay the thoughts of suicide and urges to escape that they carry. When at the edges of rational, some instincts may take different forms. What may seem counter intuitive – an act of self-harm – becomes the definition of an instinct that it seems to defy. The desire to survive becomes so strong that it is necessary to inflict pain. This is not uncommon to survival situations. For example, the movie 127 Hours reenacts the experience of a man trapped under a boulder in a beautiful and secluded gorge. He cut off his own arm with a dull multi-tool in order to escape death. That act is the epitome of self-harm as a survival instinct.
Cutting could lead to a series of events that tailspin out of control. Loss of control could take the form of the spiral of therapies and prescriptions that would follow if it were discovered that one were cutting , or it could be the accidental slip of a blade gone too far. It could end in hospitalization. It could even end in death. However, those individuals who choose to cut, as long as sober, take precautions to avoid discovery or more injury than is intended. They are meticulous, careful even. They reason out how, where, and when they can cut “safely”. They are very much in control over the act, when they feel they cannot be in control of anything else.
It may rationally appear that pain is pain. That it would make no difference whether out or inward, because whatever its state, the pain is still owned by the individual. However, emotions are often harder to process than physical events. A burning rage, hate or guilt may well be harder to cope with than a burn to one’s arm, leg, or hand. An emotional cut to the bone may be less painful than a physical one. It may be said that the act does not transform the pain, but multiplies it. This in essence may be true, but one form of pain allows a man to ignore another. A pinch may allow a man to ignore the emotional pain of a nightmare. A small cut may allow ignorance of the bigger cut on one’s spirit or psyche.
There are widely varying and increasingly complex variations of motivation and cause of self-harm. They may include, but are absolutely and in no way limited to: self-harm as a coping or survival mechanism, self-harm as a tool to exercise control over one’s increasingly chaotic environment, and self-harm as an outer expression of inner emotional turmoil. To believe that cutting is simple is to nearly deny it altogether. Its essence is complicated. Stereotyping self-harm or self-harmers may well lead to opinions that will ostracize or further encourage the occurrence of self-harm.  Since the motivation and causes of self-harm are undeniably complex, to attempt to brush this under a rock would be to diminish its importance, and to deny healing to those who need to understand it.

"Envision yourself working in your own office."
"Envision yourself writing prescriptions for your patients."
"Envision yourself receiving a huge amount of money."
"Envision yours-"

She stopped mid-sentence and looked at me.

"I want you to dream high, my dear."

"Mom, I want to become a writer."
"No, being a doctor is better."
"But mom, I want to study literature, I want to publish b-"
"I said no."

Mom,
I know you wanted to become a doctor way back then  
but mom,
I have my own dreams too.

I can't imagine myself working inside hospitals
I can't imagine myself writing prescriptions
I can't imagine myself receiving a huge amount of money

but mom,

I can imagine myself working inside my own office,
I can imagine myself writing stories and not prescriptions
I can imagine myself starting with a small amount of money
but most of all,

I can imagine myself smiling despite these.

You told me to dream high,
and I'm sorry because
Mom, I failed.

I told myself not to dream high,
I told myself to dream deep.

I told myself to dream deep
and plant my dream in the deepest part of my heart
and make it grow -
that even my heart can attest that my dream was all I ever wanted.

My dream grew deeper
And the roots grew stronger

and I can tell,
Mom, I failed to dream high.

Everywhere I look, there's an emptiness
where you’re supposed to be.
I told the doctors how I see nothing in everything,
so they prescribed pills to help me see.

My room is always so cold
but your breath was so hot.
I told the doctors I still feel it on my neck
so they gave me more pills to make it stop.

I took the pills for years
but they haven’t helped at all
So I stopped the prescriptions
and started my downward fall.

The doctors will never fully understand
that I will always look for you everywhere I go.
Antidepressants and mood stabilizers are making my mind a
bomb, ready to blow.

Euphoric visions
Frantic envisions
Body collisions
Heavy prescriptions
Enlightened by a muse that I was happily given
Unwarranted treasures on the paper was written
Psychadelic notions
Underminded by twitches
Glares of green lights flashing
In the artists’ painted trenches

Heavy prescriptions
Doses of living
Binded by ink from a tie-dye fitting
Zones flowing in and out
Lying down for the feeling
Eyes looking up
At the neon-colored ceiling
Ah, is this living
A euphoric disposition?
Defying immortality by a psychedelic existence
Back under...



To the trenches



And the heavy prescriptions

The rusted belt is tight
in our hometown city.
Black smoke masks the lights
In one gaseous setting;
the permenant fitting
Of our hometown city

Trees exchange steel
In our hometown city.
You’ve never seen the wheels
churn and the deals burnt
In the factories that take pity
On the nitty-gritty of our
Own hometown city.

The last laughs with us
In our hometown city
We don’t’ ride the Cali bus,
But yea, I'd say we are witty,
cause al'the prettiest girls
Live in our hometown city.

The river’s been burnt
In our hometown city.
Yea we’ve learned a lot
From our own ad(e)missions;
And now, clinics fill prescriptions
in ourown hometown city

In my own hometown city
We’re slicker than you,
Even though our York’s isn’t new…
Why? Watch my city revive in
Front of your eyes- then ask me;
Why is this your hometown city?

Caint Complain
                       By Phyllis T.  Halle  February 26, 2006
Growing up in a tiny coal mining town in the hills of Eastern Kentucky,
I frequently heard a response out of the lips of stooped, arthritic miners, toothless women, old before their time,
wretchedly poor widows with six children to feed.
It was just a common reply to the courteous, "How are you?" -
"Caint complain."
The high pitched voices of those descendents of English, Scottish, German, Irish pioneers still echo in my ears and I wonder always at the tenacity, strength and wisdom which resounded firmly in those two words,
                                          "Caint Complain."
Very few people had indoor plumbing, telephones, cars or two pair of shoes. Health insurance, retirement plans, paid sick days, furnaces, pizzas, air conditioners, jet planes, paid vacations, job security, career planning were all unheard of unknowns.
When someone became ill, the ‘‘kindly old general practitioner would come to the house and dispense his little pills and words of encouragement and instruction, knowing the limitations of his skill and ability to heal.
Mothers and fathers still buried their little children who died from diphtheria, pneumonia, whooping cough, measles, diarrhea, croup ( a disorder known in later years as asthma).
Husbands buried wives who died in childbirth, at an alarming rate. "Caint Complain," they'd say gently, with a soft 'almost' smile and deeply troubled eyes.
Sanitation was fought for, vigorously, by hard muscled women, who scrubbed and washed, and swept and mopped.
They'd boiled the family’s clothes which had been worn for a week, in pots in the back yard, "to get ‘em clean."  
Killing germs was not in their vocabulary, but that is what they'd were doing. Ask that little old gal who was out in the yard, stirring the clothes around in boiling water, over an open fire, "How are you doin’?"  
                            "Caint Complain, " she would invariably say.
WHY couldn't they'd complain? Where did their tenacity come from?
Where did that philosophy of not complaining come from?
Where did they find the resolve to place dire, critical deprivation, hard labor and malnourishment behind them and place a smile on their faces and say
                                Caint Complain?

I knew some of those people when they had grown very old and faced birthdays in their late nineties. Without exception, they had the sweetest dispositions, most grateful hearts, kindest words and calmest old ages of any among the many I have known who reached that age!
When the pressures of their life had faded and they had nothing remaining that had to be done except to live out the final part of their life, they did not have a habit of complaint.
Some recent phone calls I have received were what prompted me to think about this. One right after another, friends called and for the first ten minutes of each call, I listened to a long list of complaints about the trials and travails my dear friend was suffering.
Each friend has: no financial worries, a wonderful primary care doctor, prescriptions to keep their heart pumping, eyes seeing, brain focusing, stomach digesting and body sleeping, each night.
They are protected from financial ruin, by medicare and/or HMO, social security checks, pensions, savings and inherited wealth. They have loving, devoted sons, daughters, nieces and nephews who keep in touch and are there for them.
They each one have lovely heated and cooled homes, apartments or condos with every convenience known to Americans; cars or taxi/bus services to get them out and around. More than that, each has beautiful memories which they can call upon to bring a smile to their face at any moment of the day or night. But somehow we find plenty to complain about.
Why haven't we formed the habit of Caint Complain?
Maybe the philosophy of always seeking more comfort, more possessions, more money, more- more- more- of everything, has driven us to achieve, accumulate and accomplish but it required us to never know what the word contentment means.
Contentment doesn't mean having everything at one’s fingertips. It doesn't mean lacking nothing. It certainly doesn't mean every dream and desire fulfilled.

Yet there are many who have enough of everything except the common sense to know when they really "Caint Complain."
Happiness is a fleeting moment of joy. Contentment is finding peace in what you have, what you are and what you have accomplished.
Having the serenity to know which one brings lasting goodness into your life is wisdom.
A SMILE IS THE KNIFE GOD GAVE US TO CUT THE SIZE OF OUR TROUBLES DOWN TO A BEARABLE LOAD.    
Lots of love and hugs, Phyllis

i don't know why i found redemption in the tetragrammaton, sure, my mother cared for two elderly jewish ladies, one escaped the Holocaust (surname Roßhandler) and the other of established English rooting (surname Rockman... thanks to her, upon completing my g.c.s.e. exams i got a complete collection of Bernard Shaw's plays) - but i find it there, ping-pong salvation every time, translating it akin to arithmetic: 1 + 1 = 2 is very much akin to Y              H            W          H, which i started calling the perfect chirality - chiral meaning non-superimposable:
                                       A                      &                  E, i too ventured to call the double H dualism a déjà vu - but i know see them as vantage points, more electrons and quantum physics than protons and neutrons - well, it ****** well fits the schematic: sine (M) and cosine (W) - sure, crude, but i'm not looking at the geometry of the mouth... language on the base of pure optics... and no, not necessarily adjective noun compounds for emphasis to argue a point, just easily an easily accessed point of reference...     so quantum physics calls it the non-independent ontology of electrons: a. particles (Y, centre 0 on the x, y, z graphs - apart from the heliocentric and the geocentric models, here's another one of similar causality)... and b. waves (W, the formerly stated trigonometry suggestion) - and hence the two vantage points bound to H... apart from Adam and Eve lodged in between... which suggests that the geocentric analogy of electrons is bound to electrons behaving like waves... while the heliocentric analogy of electrons is bound to electrons behaving like particles: microcosm Copernicus blah blah; well, more like pseudo-Aristarchus of Samos.

20th century literature is, quiet literally
something akin to the cave paintings at
Lascaux - big brother isn't watching -
nor is the publishing old guard -
i just find it unreal that so much rests upon
the internet these days, the people have no
idea what power has been granted them,
they petty the use of the internet with
their earthly squabbles of a marketplace,
while, running parallel: the lost infatuation
with democracy as necessary organisation -
turns out it's unnecessary organisation:
because we ain't go anything better -
hence political disillusionment - rampant in
what western society deems the pinnacle
and the Libra of a fine balancing act -
religiously? that famous: "mystery of lawlessness"?
that's the internet - imagine a time when you
could bypass some publisher, some adherent
to a state doctrine, when you could turn poetry
into physics, not the waffle of metaphysical Keats
waiting for a kettle to turn into a volcano
or a whistling horse, but to turn the dial to
point at the reality of things:
quantum physics (derived from quanta,
a variation of datum: particularity of input
energy) gave poets breathing space,
metaphysics became shadowy, Hades like
learning, obscure and all the more necessary
to build-up its strength while puritan physicists
lost their sway of power with the fears of
the atom bomb and all things quantum -
so while the physicists became dazzled with
all things quantum, the metaphysics took off...
entombed in an apathetic (without pathos)
subjectivity: a calm heart, much more than an
embracing heart - yes, i am aware that i have my
wacko moments of feeling, but this ticker is
made of stone - and that usually means a chaotic
thinking process, spontaneity being the key
in involving yourself with real-life narratives
then never suppose a character study: what you see,
is what you get: my sanity plateau?
talk about music rather than make poetry musical,
it's a pale shade of red or blue when you
have guitars and orchestras and the poet,
a voice in the wilderness - nothing but pins dropping
to exemplify the talk... i don't understand
the need for poetry being a kindred of musicology,
i don't understand rhyme, i don't understand
being conscious of poetic prescriptions of technique
very much akin to language's artefact minded
grammar: noun
                                v. poetry's pun
grammar's verb
                                       poetry's metaphor... etc.
my deviation? being an adherent toward music,
and returning poetry back to its true purpose:
puritan narrations - not conscious of what's
expected, or what defines the art,
very much the beginning of cubism and later
innovations in art, i just can't stand rhyming poetry -
it's too conscious of itself by what it's defined by,
we have learned of a new subjectivity:
the unconscious - we might as well exploit it
while objectivity gets crushed into bewilderment
by quantum physics -
thus said: i feel like i'm a dervish spinning
counter-clockwise in a chaos of tornadoes spinning
clockwise while listening to two songs:
tool's *right in two - and muse's stockholm syndrome:
i can't be bothered translating the feelings
entombed in these two songs with a rhyme...
poetry should be less stuffy than it already is...
it should be a statement of the supreme effort: freedom.
all of this? spurred on by rereading passages from
Jung's gegenwart und zukunft (1957), alter:
          the undiscovered self (1958) -
it's seemingly odd (but not too odd) that books
written by psychiatrists are more popular than
philosophy books in the anglophile culture -
as already stated, i can't read philosophy in english -
maybe this is why psychiatric literature is so easily
accessible in this tongue, what with the self-help
movement, it the grandest prescription that no pill
(unless it's a sleeping pill) can be prescribed -
i'd say, if you want to read philosophy in english,
i'd start off by reading a book from psychiatry -
Jung is by far more adaptable than Freud
(Freud's for the rich people who have ***
written on their foreheads in permanent ink -
        and: daddy didn't care, mama was
                                     struggling feminist who
     forgot to breastfeed me) -
       but of course the 1960s Scottish superstar
(who drank, rightly so) from Glasgow: Laing.
well, sure, the Hungarian Szasz (shash, not sas,
or zaz... shish kebab... it ain't the difficult) -
impromptu deviation: what's funny about Heidegger?
he says: you need to study Aristotle for 15 years
to get him... and that's very much true for him also...
two years... TWO YEARS it took me to read his book.
that's what's interesting about this book,
a literary anorexic, in at 79 grams (pages) -
the interesting point? in physics, there are things
that are not independent of observation -
i like that conundrum, the mere idea of it is titillating -
running joke for the past two years: ***** ***** tat for tat
months later -
                          well... i'm not the one trying to
dress you up in a straitjacket with a label: this is poetry...
can't see **** for miles with how i write.
so there's a purpose, some things are depending on
being observed - which is a good thing, which means
that this world could not be independently sustainable -
its dependency on existing lies akin to our
desire to be independent of it - so all the religious
blah blah means something - even after 3 years
of rigorous studies in chemistry i come back into
humanism with a furore of agitating religious paraphernalia -
mind you, i do have a scientific approach toward
language - grammar and algebra combined -
meaning? certain words have become post-grammatical,
i.e. algebraic - not categorised as nouns or otherwise,
but as algebraic signatures: primarily because no one
really knows what to do with them, apart from
church yoga, standardised: e.g. x = god,
            i = y                  and the                  world = z,
predictably transcending the casual use of language
when shopping for cheese in a Parisian grocery store...
err... je ma'pel gorgon, avoir vous fromage?
nope, took to English too much - i was learning French
in primary school, but i had an existential crisis
aged 9 or 10... my brain refused to learn another language
after having just learned one from scratch -
                               the mute in class soon turned into
an avaricious reader... so parallel to my life, i now hear
stories about children being diagnosed with depression...
try being thrown into the deep-end of the pool
with your former development using a language
automatically, into having to learn the language without
no major influence of a teaching authority...
                                  no wonder the accent game
   sort of imploded and i started speaking sometimes tosh,
sometimes posh, and sometimes east London oh'rite?
                             ale casem tes jak rolnik -
                            owszem, czasem jak mieszczanin też.

Addicted to diction,
With conflicting
Prescriptions
From competing
Physicians,
I'm dying from sickness
In the wealthcare system.
Our nutrition
Is based on
Corn-laced fiction,
Advertisement
Superstitions,
And a pill for every
Devised affliction.
We're born into life
Under welfare
Conscription,
And destined to die
From dereliction.
Make sure to vote
For the best
Infection in the
Next election,
As they raise
A toast
To their own
Reflections.

If you're a celebrity
For medications come to me
I have them all, come see, come see
I'm the devil in disguise

I sign prescriptions by the score
If you run out, I'll give you more
I'll bring your pills right to your door
I'm the devil in disguise

Dr. Robert, Feelgood too
Names I'm sure are known to you
If you're in need call you know who
I'm the devil in disguise

Uppers, Downers, oxy's....well
Imagine what is down in hell
I'll keep your secret, I won't tell
I'm the devil in disguise

Elvis called, and MJ too
They both liked pills in shades of blue
No one else does what I do
I'm the devil in disguise

It's up to you, which choice you make
I fulfill, and you....you take
I'm here all night, don't need a break
I'm the devil in disguise

If you're in need, well...I'll be there
You pay for service, and I care
I've got lots, and lots to share
I'm the devil in disguise

If you're mute, and lost your voice
You know I'm your only choice
I'll be right round in my Rolls Royce
I'm the devil in disguise

You'll end up dead, but I'll keep kicking
With pills and needles, stars keep sticking
I'm the doctor all the stars are picking
I'm the devil in disguise

I am the devil, that is true
I am around, that's not new
I'm known to them, but not to you
I'm their doctor...till they die.

Freedom flings
Tyrant kings
Into their rightful place
A head on a plate
Democracy inflates
The morale of the people
Oligarchy deflates
The idea that we're equal

Spiteful dictators make their way through the system
And dominate the world while nobody listens
Distracting people with things that glisten
Disseminating hatred as their vision
Engendering fear is their mission
To buy or sell weapons
For more money or more power
Dropping bombs from their ivory tower
From extreme explosions we cower
Explosions of hatred then violence
Explosions hastened by silence
Explosions of fire we ferment
To burn the faces off our enemy
To avoid exercising our empathy
Creating a world filled by entropy
People say ******* like freedom isn't free
When the currency we pay for freedom
Is restriction
We dampen our fiery feelings
With prescriptions

Freedom is free
It's inherent
It can only be taken or given away
It is not a proper excuse to slay
Those that rightly disagree
With what you're imposing

Freedom is fleeing far far away
When people are molded by clay
Of those with the power to shape civilians
Of those with the power to bring billions
Of people to their knees
When freedom is our fee
To live in timid apathy

sounds less threatening that *** and drugs, doesn't it?

but they're the same thing, oh long drag, oh long sigh, oh long winding wheezy world moving by, possess me with your marvelous fun little hauntings, sounds threatening but it is really just a little roller coaster ride, tied to the tops of mountains, bungee jumping, something as ridiculous as that can make a lifetime, and we, just sitting here, seem to be doing, just that

prescriptions are for the educated, for the ones who want to get high at the right times, like the water droplets, again, not cold showers all the time, but at the right times, the precise, times

I know it's out there somewhere
the elusive balm of sleep.
I've tried an evening toddy
and I'm running out of sheep.

Prescriptions drugs and sedatives
placebos, they must be.
Because my eyelids won't stay shut
there's far to much to see.

The REM my body craves
is like a hidden itch.
I know I need to scratch it
but can't FIND that *******!

And so I lie in darkness
and stare up at the fan.
I try to count rotations
while making up a plan.

The Sandman's on vacation.
I guess i'll read a book.
I listen to some sound effects
a breeze and babbling brook.

I may just have the answer.  
A hammer is the cure.
But such a headache I would get!
That has no real allure.

Desperation beckons.  
I'm teetering on the brink.
I'd give a lot for just a bit
( ten dollars for a wink?)

My eyes are red and swollen.  
My jaw is sore and raw.
The yawns are coming faster now
there oughta be a law.

I'll see you in the morning.  
Sweet dreams if sleep you can.
For me...I'll just go meditate
and watch that ceiling fan.

In the dark of night, in the middle of a storm
A dish falls, shatters
A shriek tears the relative silence
Pale pink blood blossoms in the water
While rich red blood wells up in the hand
Tears falling like a blinding waterfall
Stabs and throbs of aching stinging searing pain
Blood and pain and tears fill the mind
A flash of white tissue beneath the torrents of red
Panting sobs and hyperventilation
Panicking as victim is rushed to the ER
Mother tries to comfort daughter with story of healed,
Previously lacerated toes
Two words blurted between gasps of pain: NOT HELPING
Arrive to an empty lobby, excepting a nurse and receptionist
Focus on nothing, only the hand
The possible tendon torn, the skin shredded, the blood spilt
Dishtowel now soaking red irony fluid instead of clear soapy
The story repeated 6, 7, 8 times
A nurse asks if I smoke or drink
A radiologist asks if there is any chance for pregnancy
And for a moment I am shocked out of my pain into pondering
The corruption of the modern generations,
Such that I am asked these questions
Any friend of mine would quickly tell that
No, I'm not that kind of teenager... but how many are?
Then I am whisked from the x-ray room
Off for stitches, they say my tendon is cut
That I need stitches
The fingers no longer gush, but that triviality is soon remedied
A doctor probes the wound for shards
Nurse flushes it clean with chlorohexadine
Both renew the flow
Doctor returns, stitches both fingers and chats away
Grand tally of five stitches, a splint, blankets of guaze,
And a roll of medical tape
Prescriptions for pain meds and antibiotics, both given
A scoffing glance, but instructions are followed
Forbidden from any activity with the right hand by my mother
I struggle even to write, simple chores soon a nuisance
First time the splint and stitches are gone,
Doctor number two declares my hand usable
First time the little finger bends, the half healed skin splits
So all for a plate, a hand was rendered more useless

I used to be unique.
Kool-Aid hair dye and all.
Boys wrote my name on bathrooms stalls.
I swore at teachers.
I drank ***** behind the bleachers.
I puked at football games on cheerleaders.
I had black eyes and cigarette burns and soccer thighs.
I used to wear my shirt undone.
I used to have fun.

Now I own a 6-room house,
a 4-door car,
a water-dispensing fridge,
bell jars.
Also, religion,
caffeine addiction,
magazine subscriptions,
diazepam prescriptions,
goldfish,
900 pairs of shoes,
PVA glue,
a self-inflicted curfew,
sexually transmitted virtue,
and many, many cats.

All this between walls painted in 6 muted shades of deja-vu
from whence I commence my pin-cushion voodoo.

I sleep in pajamas.
I set an alarm clock and my snooze allowance never exceeds 4 minutes.
I spend my mornings yawning
through thick oatmeal,
******* in the dark.

I work in a bank
in an office
on a phone,
making friends with dead ends.

I come home to wash, rinse, and repeat,
undress in the dark,
and brush away the question marks
of hair in the bathtub.

My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as mad men’s are,
At random from the truth vainly expressed.
    For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
    Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

July 18th, 2010.

Those sacred songs suffocated,
when our books were set on fire.
We wasted time.
Worrying about something that wasn't going to happen
for a while.
Anxiety is just the common cold of 2010.
We've spent all of our $
And still there is no cure.
I have a high tolerance.
And you have a hefty load of prescriptions.
So tell me,
which one of us is going to die first?
Predestination does not care.

But the Grim Reaper does.

Lost in a spiritual tragedy
I watch the epidemic spread
and suddenly I am surrounded
by what they meant by "Wonderland"
As I kept silent and observed
The terror grew

My pace quickened as I passed
glossy eyes and desperate breaths
People clawing
crying out
a disease
a plague
someone eles let down

To the doctor its a signature
a job
a check
Experimentation
I see them all playing god
messing with human nature
Its a script indeed
The downfall of a generation

I sold smack on a playground today

    biding time to scrounge the rent--

Two months ago I had never even seen the stuff.
    I'd never procured it for personal use,
    let alone sold it.

Now I'm a full-time pusher of prescriptions
for problems that can't be cured,
a modern-day snake-oil salesmen
schlepping panaceas for every conceivable ill.

Trying to cope with depression?
    This'll give you a shot in the arm!
Your boyfriend just broke your heart
mere weeks after breaking your *****?
    Here's a ***** that you can depend on...

I thought I was better than this,

but who can afford scruples
                      with bills to pay?

Internally
I struggle to compete
with people who would never deign to take note of me.
My revenge is in undermining their immaculate lives,
a pill-peddling Socrates
keeping creditors at bay.

I'd always envisioned being someone's hero--
at least being remembered for an act of creation.

Instead I'm an enzyme for eradication.
A cancer cell at best--
    A ****** wrecking ball.

                 One day I woke up a sidekick
to a heroine that's never saved anyone...

I bet you didn't know that the 7 dwarfs
Used to work for Santa Claus
Yep, they all got fired from the north pole
Cause they kept breaking too many laws

See, Doc was the north pole physician
He tended to those who were afflicted
But he was writing too many prescriptions
And three hundred elves got addicted

Then we have the dwarf called Sneezy
Sneezy became a problem too
Everywhere he goes he's blowing his nose
And they all came down with the flu

Next we have the dwarf named Sleepy
Now this one should speak for itself
He was always found somewhere laying down
Curled up in a corner on a shelf

Then there's the dwarf called Bashful
This one was just way too shy
And when they finally gave him his pink slip
He was too embarrassed to say goodbye

That brings us to the dwarf named Happy
Now he was just a bundle of joy
But they just couldn't get him to do any work
Cause he was always playing with a toy

And of course we can't forget about *****
This one always did what they said
But he was a little slow, if you know what I mean
And they think he was dropped on his head

And last but not least we have Grumpy
He would stay out drinking all night
Now he was the the north pole's problem child
Cause he was always starting a fight

Well that's the end of my story
And I really hope you're not annoyed
Did I tell you Snow White fired them too?
Yep, all seven dwarfs are unemployed



© All Rights Reserved

How dare I say I loved you
How could I?
I was broken, bent, weighed down
By my mere existence.

You picked me up
And I held on.

I was too busy being lifted
To see your breaking shoulders
You became my hope
And you began to lose your own

I never learned your dreams
Not in depth anyway
I was too busy with my sadness
That you tried to take away

I wish I would've asked to see
The talents in your grasp
The music you made
The world's you created

But I was a flooded river
And you were the shore
It's hard to say
Who swept up who

I wore you thin
How long can a man carry
A dead weight
And expect to be strong?

You began to pull away
And you began to slip up
You found solace in a familiar dance

Unprescribed yet medicated
Dosed with doubt
And lack of love

And me?
I still needed you
I still expected you.

And I blamed you
For not carrying me
When you were broken

We were twisted around each other
In substance and lack thereof
We crumbled trying to hold each other up

How could we?

How could I?

How could you?

None of this was supposed to happen.

I'm sorry.

I bet you didn't know that the 7 dwarfs
Used to work for Santa Claus
Yep, they all got fired from the north pole
Cause they kept breaking too many laws

See, Doc was the north pole physician
He tended to those who were afflicted
But he was writing too many prescriptions
And three hundred elves got addicted

Then we have the dwarf called Sneezy
Sneezy became a problem too
Everywhere he goes he's blowing his nose
And they all came down with the flu

Next we have the dwarf named Sleepy
Now this one should speak for itself
He was always found somewhere laying down
Curled up in a corner on a shelf

Then there's the dwarf called Bashful
This one was just way too shy
And when they finally gave him his pink slip
He was too embarressed to say goodbye

That brings us to the dwarf named Happy
Now he was just a bundle of joy
But they just couldn't get him to do any work
Cause he was always playing with the toys

And of course we can't forget about *****
This one always did what they said
But he was a little slow, if you know what I mean
And they think he was dropped on his head

And last but not least we have Grumpy
He would stay out drinking all night
Now he was the the north pole's problem child
Cause he was always starting all the fights

Well that's the end of my story
And I really hope you're not annoyed
Did I tell you Snow White fired them too?
Yep, all seven dwarfs are unemployed

The symptoms on the flimsy blue pamphlet
read more like my own biography.
And the sable gems of your eyes
were spilling over
with an emotion
all but unknown to me.
I felt
dim.

I guess it's my turn
to take a dive into
the little orange bottles.
Maybe this time
I wont resurface.

Gruesome blister on a denatured mind
Chimes rumble the anchored soul foggy with Elysian wine
Flippant ruse ignites a battered fuse rusty with malevolent impotence
Blustery portents beyond expired extent throngs the chapels and pickets along the electrified fence
That separates the grave from the gravity of a physics enslaved
A physics where disillusioned mathematics and decay are as sure as taxes and the last earthen day
Nescient of giant leaps our stepwise ascension is helical and cheap
It snails along with unctuous repetition of pendulous rhythm and sails biologically with evolved and animated meat
The advent of acid and bass is a keepsake for the epicurean chase
Of a fulgurant galvanization of phases that remain unfazed
Trends punctuate vain diversions and lionized conversions both raise and raze
The velocity of money ensures a melliferous alchemy of a well-oiled plutocracy buffered by praise and pay
Ivory-tower elegance is immune to demotic ignorance
When the shot-callers devise the rules to the game with impenetrable clandestine eloquence
Hebetude and lassitude sink abundant platitude and offer trite prescriptions for useless attitudes
But the vogue of disembogued vanity entraps individualism and trains martial raillery
Trends tantalized by preening epigamic tens makes the roosters become owls that neglect nest egg hens
Fatuous ambush of the Kardashian putsch is as clockwork as Big Ben
Murky lies appear in flimsy disguise suitable for mice “say cheese” demise
Privacy cries and answers only lurk accessibly when spurred by wise “why’s” never asked when garish time flies
Tweets and beats make us obese with threadbare wheat cultivated by nescient bleats
Beatific ambition obscured by the wail of sheepish sheep
Outnumbered by obtuse angels and a cute horde of meretricious dissolution that ever wrangles
The shelter turns to rubble and the cloister turns to bustle: useful convolution thus entangles
Agorophilia defiles a voiceless lechery on speed dial
Disembodied violence sprints a green mile bankrolled by the peaceful throngs slowed through the paid but dilatory turnstile
Thus we loiter in queue as the slew of vibrant militarized celerity taxes our pews
Pews which enthuse jingoism eager to apportion sentient deaths through religious abuse
We can surf beams of light chasing verisimilitudes of diversion bright
Of unwagered immersion gambling a pittance for vicarious thrills and riskless fright
To discover the vestige of war, a useless artifact of sore egos we now deplore
An enormity of unmoored evil percolating apace of the paradoxical rush hour from shore to shore
But more decisively than an implacable brush fire on pristine ground abetted by sleek star-crossed winds that soar
Irenic ignorance placates, because a vagrant vacant mind is more a felicity than a bellicose grimy crease
Because excess corrodes squinty detests, and partial enslavement is both a rest and arrest to earth’s untenanted lease

I'd been trying to write a poem
Just one ******* poem
But he said
Just **** around
Swallow down a bowl full of squares
Let’s play games with each other’s minds
Spend a night lost in a house of cards
Where the joker cackles despite your begging
A reminder of what I could do without
Shouting at the world from the white pavilion
You suckers!
With your skirts hitched up and tongues hanging out
Gagging on a lover’s loneliness
All I see is your undergarments crying for attention
With a liquor solace barely down your throat

Eighteen silver blades
Smile at me with their perfect teeth
One to mark each year that past
A nineteenth will not be necessary
Ready to drag
Like the man trailing his head on a string
Across the surgeon’s winking knife
Tapping their toes on the bathroom counter
Anxious to mingle with my flesh
I’ve already scrubbed in
The survival rate looks dismal
The cotton reel loosens and my halo slips
Down - the noose around my neck

He sat across the room in plaid
Remarked upon the crosshatch of red
That drew the crooked red grin on the white of my thigh
Like loops of raspberry liquorice
Seeping out sticky tears
He misses handling the vegetables
Who ordered cocktails in lurid colours
Well, I’ve a mélange of my own
A collection of prescriptions from the doctor’s office
Stored in a heart shaped box
To swallow down like jelly beans
I’m waiting for that deadly sugar rush

Death’s been dancing on my doorstep
Absent minded as I sit at the dinner table
Head in hand, foot in grave
There’ll be no morning migraine
Perhaps a little mourning in the peripheral vision
Swept up from beneath the climbing frame
Under a soil blanket with a tomb stone mattress
Coughing up the sand in my throat
That I emptied from the egg-timer
Those darling quadrilateral crystals
Blissful in their ignorance  
Disturbing my quiet complacency
Drowned in a glass of tomato juice
That I poured from my skull
Death holds my hand in the dark
And I whisper to pass on the message
Bury me with pyjama’s and a pillow

Mumok Museum [24]

What am I doing in Vienna,
staring at cold sterile pop art as the whole entire world we're on burns,
in a city I never wanted to go to,
doing things that never really seemed that inspiring,

& it's not that I have an antipathetic attitude towards these pathetic fools,
in fact it's actually just the opposite of that because I'm an actual optimist,
which is why I don't feel inspired by bored cyborgs their wires or their tools,
& precisely why I'd rather gather flowers than be an actor for their power,

see I find more inspiration in a single leaf on a single tree by a river bank,
than from all the colors & lines contained within the walls of this museum,
which is why when I'm asked all the time what kind of poetry I read,
I reply I don't even read poetry see I don't find it in books I find it in seasons,

It's the same reason I don't need to go to church to pray,
because I don't need my messages from God to be translated by a human,

anyways where am I at & what am I doing?

Oh yeah Im at a museum in Vienna wondering where the inspirations gone,
& why everything seems so excruciatingly tiring,
see it seems we’re on the verge of a collective mental breakdown,
at the same time like we're on the precipice of a collective enlightening,

either way the system’s short circuiting & could do with some rewiring.

Why does every rags to riches story I know of those that've made it,
end in an overpriced designer outfit at home bored all alone & jaded?

Why is Consumerism followed like a religion,
I mean we're all made of the same DNA strands regardless of name brands,
I mean everything is just carbon hydrogen & oxygen anyways,
which may explain why materialism is immanent in every independent man,

while an apocalypse seems undeniably immanent &,
we dwell in the highest heights ever built still we don't totally understand,

we don’t worship Jesus we worship Visa,
putting good credit ahead of good morals,
don’t praise Muhammed in a daze we say our grace in front of TV Dramas,
no Buddha dreams just computers screens no real friends just PayPals,

& maybe that’s why it's easier to be blind than to see,
maybe that’s why we hide in museums behind Valentino sunglasses,
because we'd rather have expense tastes than be free,
but when you’re behind any type of four walls you’re trapped in,
whether on a Penthouse terrace with Paris in Paris,
or doing hard-time for white collar crimes with Madoff in a Federal pen,
either way we’re victims of our own additions trying to buy more time,
but running out of credit as banks are collapsing & the recession is relapsing,

so why even buy things when we know not so secretly,
that only Love will set us free from these retro restrictions & their trappings,

see,

the best things in life still are still free,
& yeah liberation is expensive & self renovations are extensive,
but freedom is priceless so live a life that's righteous,
seems that the Love Pyramid is the only pyramid that’s not a Ponzi scheme,

because we are all equal even if we’re not all treated equally,
that’s why some have no clothes while others wear designer denim jeans,
but these Diesels're 2 tight on my thighs this macabre carnival has no prize,
& I can do anything I want with my life but all I really want to do is breathe,

breathe,

breathe because this lifestyle is expensive,
but freedom is priceless,
even though they'll try to capitalize off of anything,
so they market it & try to price it,

I just,
want to find a place to relax & release,
& be free of all of this,
find true love & say “Fck off to the politicians & all their politics!”,

fck their programs fck their projects,
fck their ugly agendas dressed in artificially splendid splendor,
fck their quotas & their motives for treating human beings as objects,
fck their pre-programed consumerist culture of conmen capitalists,

fck there putting machines over human beings,
just to increase the place where their profit sits,
& I say all of this regardless of who it offends because I'm not an Apologist,
I'm more of a Lyrical Pharmacist,
who serves indiscriminate prescriptions in the form of transcriptions,
in order to assist in the additions that come from positive developments,
which will occur for sure once we switch the position we currently sit in,
& restore Divine Order once more in the name of Humankind's betterment,

in the game of life I play,
they know I'm so official that I don't even need a Letterman,

I just,
don’t know what else to say,
I don’t know why I’m at this museum in Vienna,
hiding away on the top floor writing this to you on a Sunday,

on the 5th floor got it all but I just want to give more,
I just want to gift these words then make my escape,
don't you get it I don't want to get more ****t,
if anything I just want to find a way to give more of what I have away,

just want to be alone,
but also want these words to be known so the truth can be shown,
but where do you go when you’re tired totally over it all,
& all you want to do is rest & write these poems,
but even with all you have you still don't know where to go,
because even with all these things you still don't have a home...

Hello,
could you please pick up the phone,
I’m calling because I still love you,
& I want to come back to you even though I know I’m already gone,

currently on the top floor of the Mumok museum in Vienna,
the floor is the 5th to be exact,
& yeah it’s true that I don’t know where I’m going,
but what I do know is I don’t think I’m ever coming back,

online & off track,
writing more words with more rhymes,
than any other living writer in contemporary times,
& no I'm not lying 'cause I'd never lie to you & yes those are both actual facts,

& yeah that’s a fact & yeah you can Google that,
but I’m going to follow that fact with a question,
before I forget to mention,
let me just ask you what I'm doing here in Vienna?



What am I doing in Vienna,
staring at cold sterile pop art as the whole entire world we're on burns,
in a city I never wanted to go to,
doing things that never really seemed that inspiring,

& it's not that I have an antipathetic attitude towards these pathetic fools,
in fact it's actually just the opposite of that because I'm an actual optimist,
which is why I don't feel inspired by bored cyborgs their wires or their tools,
& precisely why I'd rather gather flowers than be an actor for their power,

see I find more inspiration in a single leaf on a single tree by a river bank,
than from all the colors & lines contained within the walls of this museum,
which is why when I'm asked all the time what kind of poetry I read,
I reply I don't even read poetry see I don't find it in books I find it in seasons,

It's the same reason I don't need to go to church to pray,
because I don't need my messages from God to be translated by a human,

anyways where am I at & what am I doing?

∆ Aaron LaLux ∆

from The Holy Trilogy Vol. 2: Mandalas
available worldwide 08/08/18

I chase these ideals...
These versions of my life that don't exist,
They just become tormenting fantasies,
Sometimes, destroying everything I love in the process...
I begin to analyze the concept of what's "deserved,"
Deserved by whom?
Who's the authority?
The sky's the limit?
Not when you're shackled to the ground, shackled by the wake of your past,
You can't escape your shadows,
Lost in mistake after mistake,
Like a stone of scar tissue,
There's nothing left to wound,
Which exit did I miss?
Maybe I should have gotten off this road a long time ago,
What went wrong?
What went right?
Love, family, life, dreams...
This game full of tricks, fools, dogs, and thieves,
Blessed or cursed,
It's all this relative facade,
Romanticizations and fairytales,
You've got yours and I've got mine,
A nonsensical masquerade,
Wrapped in oblivion,
By dawn, the masks come off,
No one's dancing,  
And we're left standing naked with our truths, our choices, and our pain,
Daily reminders all around,
Everything is dulled,
A shimmering lackluster,
Sensations numbed,
Spare me sensationalization,
Please don't offer me prescriptions,
Don't offer me subscriptions,
They don't disguise the lies,
They don't smooth out the wrinkles of the sweet, euphemistically, sugarcoated descriptions of what is and what will never be...

Clandestine connections,
Undeniable, as we spiral through this network of intimate caves...
Slipped into a hole years ago,
Never seemed to crawl out..

The voices inside my head are taking over.
These u-u-uncontrollable quirks I have.
My eyes twitch as many times as a heart beats after doing a triathlon.
In my head of runs a marathon of thoughts that don't belong,
things I can't do because they're wrong.
Within my blood stream flows 1.26 grams of dopamine given to me by doctors who don't know how to fix my situation,
only mix prescriptions to intensify vexation. Pharmacists eyeball me fearingly because I appear to be nothing but someone with chemicals wandering around into the little bit of a brain I have left.
Serotonin to regulate my mood, appetite, and sleep but I still only wish for all of this to be nothing but a dream.
All of this making my intestines mutilate, slowly dying inside as if I had Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Otherwise known as I.B.S. but I know for a fact that this is all just a bunch of B.S.
My enterochromaffin cells may just burst, I am often told.
If only I could tell what was real from what was fake.
For I also have A.D.H. - whoa! What's that?!
Sorry, where was I?
Oh. Tourettes Syndrome.
I guess I just twitch it off.
Maybe these are all figures of my imagination from the hallucinogens.
Who knows?
After all, I am a schizophrenic.

I wake in the middle of the night
In another body.
A mirror image---
Dulled eyes,
Lopsided mouth,
Red-blotched skin;
All the same,
But not of me.
I am awake
In a dream.
Nothing moves.
Nothing makes a sound
(Except for the persistent drip
Of the broken faucet,
Skipping broken records,
And all the broken hearts
The king's men couldn't
Put back together).

I wake in the middle of the night
In a different room.
You're still snoring loudly
Beside me like a
Bear in winter, but
I don't feel your scratchy fur
Or the scrape of your claws.
Beige walls around the room:
Beige beige beige beige beige
"I hate beige,"
And suddenly they drop away.
I'm freezing in August,
Sweating in January.
The clocks on the wall
All watch me.

I wake in the middle of the night
In another lifetime.
Everything the same,
But my skin is tarnished silver,
My hands feel only cold.
Eleanor Scissorhands,
I ruin what I touch,
So you learn to stay away.
There's no comfort in
Tensile steel
And my life is made of it
When I wake in the middle of the night.

i could tell you how certain stations on the London underground
smell, but i can't capture you this smell...
a bit like in that film Perfume: scents are lost over time,
with regards to places -
                            unlike the eternal pine forest...
or the zest of lemon...
                                         those are universal scents...
one could and humanity has: created a synthetic answer
and copied these scents... made synthetic tastes
a whole chemistry of a posteriori scents and tastes...
Kant and chemistry are a perfect combination...
given the classical schematic:

analytical                         analytical
a priori                             a posteriori
apples grow on               tomatoes:
trees and                          categorised as fruits          
carrots grow                    yet used as vegetables
in the earth                      the analysis being
since apples                     even though they grow
are a fruit                         on something: trees,
while carrots                    bushes, vines...
are a root vegetable,       analysis has found that
ergo?                                 they are better treated
all vegetables                   as vegetables rather than
grow in the earth            fruits, since one rarely cooks
while all fruits                 savoury meals with fruit
grow on trees                  yet the tomato is used
or shrubs                         plentifully in savoury cooking


synthetic                          synthetic
a priori                           a posteriori
■, ▲                                   in light of the given examples
(geometry)                        in the realm of the analytical
and the propositions       a priori: that fruits grow on
that come with                 trees or bushes
them:                                  there's the pineapple
e.g. c² = a² + b²                   anomaly:
or physics:                         pineapples grow on the ground
e = mc²                                (in the ground) like cabbage-heads
                                            grow in much the same fashion...

i always struggle with the a posteriori conceptualization...
in the original i wrote as can be seen above...
are tomatoes the byproduct of
analytical a posteriori knowledge?
i.e. they are fruits that are used as vegetables (used,
hell, even treated as such)... because you will not find
a tomato desert as such...
the classification of a tomato as a fruit:
given how it grows... would also invoke the cucumber
to be treated as a vegetable:
vegetables are not as juicy as fruits...
the flesh of the fruit is usually softer and certainly
more juicy... while the flesh of the vegetable
is more bulky and requires cooking and salt
to extract the juices oh a higher carbohydrate
concentrate of the fibrous nature...

pineapples... a fruit that grows like a vegetable
in the earth...
i like this "confusion" in my head...
i'm not going to clarify it...
            i leave this curiosity in my writing on purpose...
analytical a posteriori facts:
well... first having categorised the tomato as a fruit:
upon analysis... true: the tomato behaves like
a fruit... but upon analysis: after the fact:
it is better used as a vegetable...

         and the synthetic a posteriori truth about
the pineapple? then again: i know where i might be going wrong...
isn't synthetic a posteriori knowledge possible?
it's not as simple as the pineapple example
based on: fruits grow on trees while vegetables grow in
the earth... i can only find questions
on the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge...
ergo? of course synthetic a posteriori knowledge
is possible...
    it's ingrained in chemistry...
what does synthetic a posteriori knowledge look like?

a chemist tastes a lemon... and he tries to replicate
the taste of lemon using chemicals...
he breaks down the chemistry of the lemon...
and? with due course... replicates the taste of lemon
without actually using a lemon!
he breaks the lemon to the basic components
of citric acids and whatever else is needed to replicate
the taste of lemon and grind it into a powder:
chemistry is synthetic a posteriori knowledge...
isn't it?

the examples i cited with the pineapples:
it doesn't matter that the pineapple behaves like
a vegetable when it grows...
apart from that sick idea of a Hawaiian pizza toppings...
pineapple? ham?! you what?!
that's not synthetic a posteriori knowledge:
that's just a ******* whim of bad-taste...
there's no actual synthesis of the pineapple growing
as a vegetable and the "ingenuity" of treating
it like a bad idea for a pizza topping...
the tomato: however... is a pristine example
of analytical a posteriori knowledge:
sure... it's categorised as a vegetable...
because of the way it grows... compared to actual vegetables:
but? you wouldn't allow the tomato
to be bitten into like an apple... you wouldn't bake
a tomato cake as you might bake a banana cake...
the analysis concludes: our knowledge of fruits is this...
and we have this vegetable: the tomato
that's a fruit... but it would be better suited
in being used like a vegetable...

synthetic a posteriori does exist... it just doesn't apply
to pineapples for the simply reason that they
grow like vegetables... they're still going to be fruits...
synthetic a posteriori knowledge is chemistry...
it has to exist because a pineapple is
not a synthetic a priori "idea" of TASTE let alone
virtue or however Kant framed it...

ugh... my first day back at Craven Cottage...
little ****** steward: i hate these hierarchies...
it's a petty army of high-viz. jackets...
   i wasn't the supervisor but i had some colts under
my "supervision"... i tried to smooth things over:
i did... in the end i wanted to see Fulham play
Liverpool... i spread the word around:
this is *******... they should have put us inside
the stadium...
   but... the weather was the loveliest and the Thames
was tide-out... two seagulls arguing...
in the shade: this part of London is truly mesmerising...
i love the smell of the Thames with the tide out...
in the shade under these mammoth-esque splendours
of foliage...
hell... i even managed to spot my first KONIK
(little horse)... that's slang for... those ******* that buy
tickets at the regular price... then hang around the stadium
and try to push the tickets at a hyper-inflated price...
the ****** was selling the tickets for £250 for two!
and this was after the first half finished!
i told one of the guys with a radio:
call this in...
                          i had to repeat myself about 3 times
before the management agreed to my concern...
they sent two spare police officers to the person in question...
he almost sold those ******* tickets...
one minute i see him pretend to tie his shoelaces
(he wasn't pretending) - his black cap
disappearing under the bushes... next minute:
wh'ah where?! ****** did a runner...
so he wasn't tying his shoelaces "on a whim":
he was about to do a runner...

                  that's ******* exploitation...
that's like: stealing... capitalism at its worst...
the ingenuity of crime: oh... but it's innocent crime...
it's i buy something for £30 but...
i'll sell it for you for £250...
                             now... it's not antiques! it's not a *******
van Gogh painting that has been lying around
for quite some time... gaining a repertoire and a reputation
as something good, worthwhile:
it's a ******* football match ticket!
hyper-inflation like under the Weimar Republic...
money good as "gold": "gold" as in winter fuel,
timber the new platinum!

after all: there was no real synthetic a priori knowledge:
chemistry is hardly a question of appearance,
water is clear, but so is hydrochloric acid...
what else is clear? sodium hydroxide...
                 chemistry was born from synthetic a posteriori
knowledge...
how many chemical experiments came as a surprise
a sort of anti-Eureka of synthetic a priori knowledge?
champagne springs to mind... lysergic acid comes
to mind: no one was actually trying to find these things...
e.g. they did not come about through analytical
a posteriori knowledge: they arose from
a dimension of the synthetic a posteriori knowledge:
by chance: by accident...

sure... i might be doing a ******-low-skill job right
now: and it is... i'll admit...
it's super **** sometimes:
most of the time my coworkers are either
over-bearing ego-maniacs fixated on hierarchy,
or they're lazy Somali youths...
or just plain-sighted Nimrods...
i sometimes leave my mind to wander...
that when i get the jerks in the feet like
i'm about to fall over... like for bearskin hatted
soldiers on parade...
but i leave my mind to wander:
it's not an insult if it's true...
                  no: when i was a roofer and fiddling
with inanimate things there was more focus
on the work to be done... dealing with people
is a crass differentiation from perfecting how an inanimate
ought to behave under your hands...
to turn a roll of felt into a water-insulated roof
with a roll of fleece and enough tar...
people are different: i'm sort of studying people...
gearing myself to hover in on children in schools...

if Leibniz preferred the profession of librarian
and a private intellectual life of par excellence...
i wouldn't think twice about becoming a primary school
teacher than being a secondary school
teacher of chemistry...
**** me: if drag queen hour is about to be imported
from America: i best (better) step in...
i just imagine: well... unlike a barren woman...
who has no children...
who goes into a profession akin to primary school
teaching... but then i'd arrive...
i know the obvious stereotype to battle:
PEDOHPILE! ha ha...
           Ava Lauren: just my type... plump...
full-bodied... probably the age of my mum by now...
that's my type...
i need something rounded of:
a 5.9 = a 6... just an example...
                
             but i let my mind wander... when roofing
you couldn't leave your mind to wonder...
i could... tell you of the specific scents in certain
underground stations... Baker Street? is that the one
with the Victorian arches, a station under the bridge?
i don't remember...
Putney Bridge is a beautiful station...
but today i took the route:
Romford via train... got off at Stratford... waited for a minute
for the central line...
(i love meditating on the topic of tubes maps...
there are only two important lines
in London... why? based on how many times
they intersect... the Central Line and the Piccadilly
Line... they only intersect at Holborn)...
travelled to Holborn... not sitting...
at each carriage there are these half-seats...
you're leaning back... standing-sitting...
i felt so relaxed... i gave way to the momentum
of the tube...
i was moving backwards and forwards...
head nodding... shoulders doing the mr. plastic-fantastic...
i almost tried to remember the remaining
tension in my body... the grip i had on a bottle
of water and a packet of tortilla wraps...
the rest of me was: freed...

when it comes to scents... that's one thing:
everyone knows it's a stupid idea to change tube
lines at Bank... why? well... Bank it connected
to Monument...
it's a city within a city: a London 2.0... oh oh:
yes it ******* is... never change at Bank...
anyway... as i was relaxing having closed my eyes...
i can tell you where the best sounds of
machinery exist in London?
between Liverpool St. - Bank - and Chancery Lane...
mind you... i cycle the route from time to time...
what's above? is not, what's above...
compared to cycling... this route is like:
watching the original Dune movie...
i'm strapped to a ******* earthworm...
or: being digested by one while listening to
the clag glug and clamour iron biting iron...
i sometimes do the "twirl" of the tube above
ground... just after Aldgate...
i head towards Brick Lane... toward Liverpool St.
prior to reaching Bank St.:

all the Piccadilly Stations between Holborn and
Earl's Court have this sickly sweet stench
about them... it's sickly sweet... it's: sickly sweet...

i remember back in St. Augustine's we had one
female primary school teacher...
some ****** proverb speaks the words:
woe unto you for having to care for the children
of others...
while i'm thinking: that would be a worthwhile challenge...
i don't want any of my own:
the fear of ******* them up more than
i was ****** up wears me down...
at least with the genes of strangers
i can send in an auxiliary covert party of my psyche...
who would i send in? the usual suspects...
Kant, Heidegger, Newton, Ezra Pound...
oh... the list is pretty long...

most probably Rumi hanging around with
Zhuangzi... Ovid and Horace...
ooh... terrible idea to start drinking whiskey
after binge-eating a watermelon...
the burps i'm getting back:
******* postcards from Uan Muhuggiag (Libya)...
i'm seeing camels double the number of their humps!
not good... absolutely no good

burp... ooh... this watermelon will not go down
so good... while i worry about *******
myself come tomorrow morning...
unlike the Red Hot Chilly Peppers singing
the fames of California:
what do i have? i have the countryside of Essex
and the incursions in the concrete staccato
of London... i can mediate this...

              burp: well... at least it's whiskey mingling
with the juices of a watermelon...
i much prefer that to the half-digested acidic
meat of any sort...
                 that's healthy burping and healthy farting
for your...
hmm... investing in children... that's an idea...
i once remarked to a boy in a supermarket:
you know... how a while i thought animals
were incapable of seeing 3D objects
in a 2D canvas: i.e. why wouldn't animals
watch television with men?
today i had a "Fred" pester me for a bite
of my tortilla roll...
i would have given it to him freely:
i wasn't that hungry...
   so i asked his owner: so... what's his diet like?
oh... Fred has had pretty stomach upsets...
he spent the past three days eating mulberries
from a tree...
ooh! i love mulberries: who couldn't be more upset?
the dog or the mulberries?
ugh: these kind of people:
that have their dogs on a ******* vegan diet...
hey! Fred! bite into this tortilla wrap!
i have learned that the food man eats
if also eaten by a dog tastes better:
after it was eaten by man!

o.k., fair enough Fred... you have an owner that
deserves having you: but no children...
i'd put you in the same category as a child...
children, dogs, cats...
things that might stir in man the unusual:
certainly not Darwinistic / genetic investment
that might reduce a man's hormonal balance...
mate... you look at me that dumb-***** eyed way
one more time... let me pat you on the head
like i have... you're coming with me to the land
of eternal tortillas wrapping around chicken
and bacon: there's no "yes" as there's no "no"...

but that's London for you...
            and that's also Essex for you...
i spent an entire day in London?
where did i find those cheap-*** beauties of womanhood?
i didn't find them in London:
i had to travel back to Romford to find...
i sat down to eat a snack bucket in a chicken shop:
three spicy wings, some chips...
mayonnaise and some chilly sauce...
a 7up... £3.50... i enjoyed the meal
and thought about: nothing...
nothing is usually hard to "think" about...
you get into geometry: to prolong your time at pretending
to look "cool"... when eating alone...

i hopped on the bus... watched two hunchbacks
of an elderly couple "manage" their way own:
what cruel fate... the extension of mortality
via science... may i never see myself
that old... reduced to being the child of Atlas...
no... i don't care for the sensibility of secularism
and science...
old age transcends both of these:
it's the reality of old age...
prolonged old age is best renowned
and celebrated by lizards: turtles most in fact...
mammals look weird...
mammals look weird when their life is prolonged:
unnaturally: via the basis of science!

start giving out re-prescriptions to people
with a a faith in science but no hope in hope...
start selling them hopes of eternity...
this materialistic "eternal life": is drawing us closer
to no closure...
there comes a life: there coms a death of said life...
it's not fair to pretend that the inevitiable
is "not" going to happen: it will...
the tyranny of old age...
                  by the standards of the Benelux:
i'm more than willing to bow out...

who knows! i am not willing to simply live
for the awkward presence of strangers
on a basis of anomalies and non-intrusions
of some freaked-up formalities...
to hell with that: i have no evolutionary-existential
plight of  "conscience" that might make me suppose:
on racial grounds: that the human "effort"
will disappear: outright: completely:
sure... chances are... humanity will be governed
by more people willing to ***** cities of death via
the pyramid... people engage in the magic carpet
flights of Islam and pseudo-Islam from regions
akin to Somalia and Bangladesh:
my problem? i can't live forever! can i?

et scriptum est...
i like being toyed around as being the idiot...
it helps me grow...
and it was so written...
                ergo? ut necesse sit!
(and so it must be)
  ha ha! ah ha ha h ha ha!
vulnus ferrum:
                  sanguis respiratio
scratch of iron:
breathing blood!
            
mortuus est mori: the dead must die!
vivos debet mori /
vivos non sunt exceptio!

i work among people that make my intellect:
CLOWN!
   i entertain them... i must...
but their intellect is about as much:
grappling as... i don't know what!
i'm out of metaphors and aphorisms...

                        intelligence is discouraged when it comes
to a working environment...
           i'm like Leibniz... i'm unlike Newton...
my ambitions a "cowering" in a personal enterprise...
i like the individualism of m own enterprise:
i don't hope to solve or save the problems of
a common man... nope!
                
last time i heard? the train has arrived:
i also heard: the train is leaving...
well... i'm i geared up:
what do i care for the famines in Ethiopia?!
i don't care for claiming responsibilities for
people who don't take responsibilities for
themselves!
starve?! **** it... why not?"
oh right... one of the Somali types?!
pretend it's work by hiding behind the bushes?!
ergo? behind the bushes i pretend to shower you
with free bread and pork? don't like pork?
eat dirt instead!

i'm done: free-loaders: i'm done with them...
i'm so ******* with these Somalis that you can't even begin to comprehend!

You shall not find solace
in the marble laws of Man.
Self-help programs
and sermons
will not dispel the emptiness.
***, drugs, madness, alcohol
will not prevail.
The constructs of religion
will only constrict your dreams.
God is a disinterested third party
waiting to be approached,
not caring if he is or isn't.
Submit to the vacuum
of your heart at four a.m.
Surrender to the void
that only love can fill.
Drink deeply; hold tight.
Dawn must come.
  - mce

Today, I am sick.
My mental illness is shaped like a prison
and I am in the waiting room
wanting to ask
"What are you in here for"
like
what kind of crime has your head committed
that you are trying to lock it up
with prescriptions
and weekly meetings filled
with uncomfortable confessions
and numb palms from sitting on your hands for too long.
They say it's like playing in traffic,
a red-light-green-light game
where we beg for help
but don't know how to move
when we're asked to explain how we got here.
Do you even remember
what you're running from anymore?
Tell us about the days
where you can't tell if waking up
is a trench or a hill.
What has your head told you to do
and have you done it?
How did it feel when it was over?
Did your head congratulate you
when you were done?
Did you get a prize
like new scars?
Or three more handles of liquor?
The last time you prayed
did you have trouble unlocking your fingers?
Did the weight of God
keep your hands closed tight
in hopes that you wouldn't forget him
like the last time you saw Him
in the bottom of the pill bottle
and you smiled back?
Everyone here says the word Friday
like it hurts
because we know that the weekend is here
but we just can't seem to feel it.

Today we are sick
and nobody notices because our noses aren't running
we aren't openly bleeding in front of the one's we love
we do it in secret
just in case they ever catch us.
Today, we wanted them to catch us.
Stick out their hands
like a safety net
but it doesn't matter what height we fall from
because bones hitting bones
like a head on car collision
will never feel like warm sheets
blanketing our bodies
but we can't help but wonder
if the sheet they will cover us with
after they find us
will be warm too.

Today we are tired of being sick
tired of waking up looking like police chalk lines
tired of walking into the therapy rooms
like they are our parish
but we're too afraid God might smite us on the way in.
We shouldn't have to flinch
when certain words are said
that pull us back loading gun
but are too weak to pull the trigger.

Today WE are the triggered,
the empty promise of tomorrow being filled
with another prescription
another drink
another list of second hand hope
coming from someone who is probably
still trying to remember what it says.
We would rather tiptoe between eggshells
and take our time
than let you know we are struggling.
We are STRUGGLING.
And it makes us so very tired.

So today I am tired
and I will tell you that
instead of reminding you
that every day I am sick.

So pure so innocent
Yet you kept him behind closed doors
Authorities don't know he existed
He cried and your head hurt
Maybe you're mad
You were meant to protect him
Like any mother with a newborn
Its like he wasn't yours
But when she cried
Your heart hurt
Ran your hand across his cheeks
Pressed your palm on his lips
Conceived in hate
Made him feel less than
And today he should have been
4 years old
Not a rotting corpse
I wish I could take his pain
And dissolve it
What if somebody noticed?
The cuts on your arms
Constant tugging down
Long sleeved tops
And the prescriptions
That you weren't fit
Mental illness
What if the health officials
Did their job properly
Visited your house
And gave him safety
Policies and practices
Intervention and prevention
Something should have been done
Somewhere
Something
Someone
Went wrong