She stood in a field of green
Ripping the heads off daises—
What subtle reinforcement for the fight.
I have tried—
With all of my might,
To look beyond what greets my eyes,
Yet find myself with no choice
But to turn the other cheek.

She stood with her feet in the sand
Building towers only to knock them down—
What subtle reinforcement for the fight.
I have tried—
With all of my might,
But cannot stand to bare witness
To the love of destruction and reconstruction
With no other purpose than amusement.

She stood with a heart in her hands
Squeezing tightly, dispersing the remains—
What subtle reinforcement
For the fight.
I have tried—
With all of my might,
But cannot rid myself of the pain of her disdain.

She stood with a stone cold stare
Eyes locked on the horizon—
Emotionless, regretless.
What subtle reinforcement
For the fight.
I have tried—
With all my might,
But at the end of the day
I have learned one cannot
Make another do or say
What they deem to be correct.

Reinforcement
Defined my Merriam Webster as
"the act of strengthening or encouraging something"
In psychology, there is negative reinforcement
And there is positive reinforcement
Each act committed is intended to produce a certain result
Give a dog a bone
If they sit when you say "sit"
It's simple
But here I have a problem
My positive acts are reinforced with negative results
Straight A's--> Mental Breakdown
Straight A's and kindness toward my sister--> unacknowledged
Straight A's and a sweet disposition and kindness
Was supposed to result
In me getting
What I have been working for
For over a year
But once again
Life has smacked me in the face
Reinforced my positive acts
With negative results
Further producing
A girl cry
Profusely
A sea of tears
Bricks on my back
Needles in my feet
Hell

In this chapter, the researcher reviewed the opinion of some past and recent writers on the subject and also added their own ideal under the following sub-headings:
- Conceptual frame work
- Theoretical frame work
- Empirical frame work
- Summary

2.1. CONCEPTUAL FRAME WORK
CONCEPT OF ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN

The concept zoological garden is a form of ex – situ conservation, which primarily involves keeping of animals alive outside their natural environment for aesthetic educational researches and recreational purpose (Varadharajan and Pythol 2000). Nigeria is blessed with abundant wildlife species which needs to be properly managed in a sustainable basis to prevent depletion (Opara et –al 2010). Hence the need to adapt strict management of resources, repopulation of endangered species and conservation of wildlife park and zoological garden and management strategies (Ajebede et – al 2010).
Throughout history, human have given value to other species of animals as means of entertainment, education and spirituality in addition to being source of food and clothing (front 2011, 69) collecting and exhibiting and exhibiting animals originated from Ancient Egypt where private collection were reserved for the higher class population as a symbol of wealth and power (wearing and jobberns 2011, 19 – 50). In the 1900’s, zoo’s based themselves as conservation movement, with focus on scientific study of endangered species. In the beginning of the 20th century, zoo became an attraction of mass audiences (Beardworth and Bryan 2001, 88). By the late 1900’s there was a shift in the natural of zoo with public attitude and interest changing nature and conservation, with concern for ecosystem and awareness as they protect endangered species (Wearing and Jobbern 2011, 50.

ROLES OF ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN
(Mason 2011, 189) reveal that the roles of zoo are:
a. Educating people about animals.
b. Conservation of endangered species
c. Safeguarding the welfare visitors
d. To generate revenue
e. Providing visitors facilities such as catering and merchandising
f. Re – introducing captive breeding into the wild and carrying out zoological and veterinary research to improve animal welfare in the wild and in captivity.
On the other hand, zoos served as scientific research, for example, zoologist learn more about animals habit and diseases by studying them in zoos studies of animals living kin zoo, together with examination of those that have died have provide zoologist with information about the structure and function of animal bodies (Usher M.B 2000). Keeping wildlife animals in captivity bring visitors from different parts of the world for different purposes such as to provide sources of recreation in the city, to provide biological specimen to constitutes, a learning resource for secondary school, colleges, and universities. It also provide employment and game reserve, provides sources of protein revenue, esthetics recreation, education and scientific values (Presley 2001). The captive animal propagation is one way of encouraging growth of depleted wildlife species population and so properly planned program of zoo establishment and development is considered as one of effective method for conservation of wildlife (Okpiri 2005). Educational environment study and conservation of the  environment have become a subject of major importance all over the world, not only from the point of view of preventing population, but also from the point of conserving water supplies by protecting water shed, conserving soil, vegetarian and Fauna. (Comphell 2007). Comphell also stated that conservation zoos can provide an important facility for research at both pure and applied levels in both the field and laboratory in colleges and universities. Bigot (2000) emphasized that the primary function of zoo curators is to make visit a leaving experience. The attention and effort given to wildlife conservation and tourism in both state and federal levels have been noted.

CONCEPT OF TOURISM
According to UNWTO 2020 defined as the study of man away from his usual habitat. Activities of a person traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes, tourism contributes to specie conservation, communities project in developing countries like: Nigeria, environmental education, awareness and economies development (Klutzy, 2000). Filton et al (2000) reported that 20 – 40 percent of international tourism is related to wildlife. In Nigeria, tourism contributed 3.3 percent of total GDP in 2011 with forecast of a 10.8 percent increase for 2012 (WTTC 2012). Smith et al (2012) recognized the role of wildlife tourism as building breeding species management and influencing visitor’s behavior for the benefit of wild animals. Fibs (2007) underscored the value of zoo visitors and their feedbacks for the planning and designing of zoo and more importantly to decision making in zoo management by showing on – going treads. He therefore stands to reason that visitors’ preferences should be seriously considered by policy makers and management of zoo and other similar institutions. An area in which visitors’ preference is highly important for a zoo in particular is choice of animals desired. Woods (2000) observed that humans have definite preference for different species of animals. Knowledge of visitors desires in terms of animals and the features that make the animals appealing will assist zoo management in animal acquisition and also in development of education and interpretation programs listening physical features, behavioral characteristics as factors influencing animals preference (Wood 2000, Wentworth 2012). Wild tourism can be described as tourism undertaken to view and or encounter non – domesticated animals in captive, semi – captive or in their natural environment (CRC 2001, Newsome et al 2005). According to Durbary (2004), it could be non consumptive such as viewing, photographing and fishing.

CONCEPT OF ZOO AND EDUCATION
In zoo and education, a study by Patricia et al 2007 states that conservation and education are key elements in the mission statement of zoos. A survey conducted by the Association of zoo and aquarium (AZA) reveals that the general public rate conservation and education as the most important role of zoo (Frasers and Stickler 2008). Zoo primarily deals with three aspects of conservation practice i.e practice, advocacy and research. Conservation practice entails captive breeding, species rein-introduction programs, species survival plans and the use of zoo revenue for conservation programs in wild. Conservation advocacy include: public engagement, promoting awareness, advocacy, stewarding and fund raising events and schemes, a good example of which is like “Adopt animal scheme at most modern zoos”. Moreover, conservation research is conducted on wildlife biology, population dynamics, animal behavior, health and welfare and there are also publications generated by zoos animals care captivity. The preservation of animals in zoos makes it easier for more people to see them.
As well, zoos have been used to preserve various endangered species. However, zoos have become powerful educational tool for many scholars, biologists and researchers (Falk and Dierking 2000).  Individual who visit a zoo get the rare opportunity to examine the relationship between man and animal (Wagoner and Jenson 2010). Students can learn a lot about certain animals that might not be locally available. Many specimen and animals (Wagner and Jensen 2010) argue that zoo makes it possible for researchers to conduct their studies, for instance, researchers can use caged animals to make various observation about wildlife or animals. The acquired knowledge can be used to support the survival of the wild animals in their natural habitats. It is therefore agreeable that zoos have an important educational role in every society. This because, learning is ever – changing process (Falk and Dierking 2000). In the 1970’s the primary educational target for most American zoo was elementary level children. The idea was that building understanding would lead to appreciation which would eventually produce a generation that was concerned about wildlife and the environment (Wheatly 2000). Wheatly emphasized that although children are still a primary audience, zoos are extending themselves to reach many others audience that can make difference in action today. This initiative includes the membership, governance and employee of zoo.

CONCEPT OF ZOO AND CONSERVATION
In zoo and conservation, according to Max – Planck Gesell Chaft (2011), Zoology garden breeds animal from threatened populations and and thus makes greater contributions towards biodiversity conservation. According to UN (2020) on global biodiversity warned that 1 million species are at risk of extinction with decades, putting the world’s natural life support system in jeopardy. Unfortunately, loss of plants and animals habitat leads to from species extinctions and loss of diversity from ecosystem. Fortunately, not all of the extinctions occur at once. Conservation action may still be able to save threatened species (John M et al 2016). At October 2010, meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya, Japan, delegates discussed a plan to reduce pressure in the planet’s biodiversity. Key targets include expanding coverage of protected areas, halving the rate of loss of natural habitats, and preventing extinction of threatened species. Species whose habitat is severely threatened, however, the outlook is so bleak that the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the US Endangered Species Act and the CBD (Article a) recognize that In-Situ conservation action (ie, in the species natural habitat) will need to be combined with Ex-Situ approaches, such as captive breeding in zoos, aquariums and so on (Conde et al 2011).

THE THEORETICAL FRAME WORK
The animal welfare and management (Dakin 2001) is a state of being that can be measured, recognized that its ranges from very poor to very good, introduces the concept of coping, allow measurement separate from moral consideration and refer to feeling as well as physical and psychological health. The definition of welfare that we use also emphasizes that it relates to an individual and thus welfare can differ between different members of the same species, even when exposed to the same condition (Horsey et al 2009). In the case of zoo animals, which have often come from very heterogeneous background, individuals may vary greatly in this previous life experiences and this can influence their ability to cope with certain challenges, by using each animal as its environment and thus an individual’s welfare can be measured.
There are also some species – specific characteristics that have evolved to enable animals cope with different, environment and thus we should also consider welfare at the species level; such species level adaptation could relate to dietary needs, hearing sensitivity, thermo-regulatory needs and so on. The theory of evolution by natural selection, first formulated in Darwin’s book “On the origin of species” in 1859, this theory states Organisms change over time as result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits. Changes that allow an organism to better adapt to its environment will help it to survive and have more offspring. The physical and behavioral changes that make natural selection possible happen at the level of DNA and gene, such changes are called Mutation. “Mutations are basically the raw materials on which evolution act. Pobiner said, mutation can be caused by random error in DNA replication or repair, or by chemical of radiation damage. According to Chinaka (2019) in the book concept of evolution, Charles Darwin proposed the concept of natural selection as the mechanism of evolution. The main postulates of Darwinism are:
1. Geometric increase: According to Darwinism, the populations tends to multiply geometrically and the reproductive powers of living organism (biotic potential) are much more than required to maintain their numbers.
2. Limited food and space
3. Struggle for existence
4. Variation etc
Both natural animal populations and those in captivity are subject to evolutionary forces. Evolutionary changes to captive populations may be an important, but poorly understood, factor that can affect the sustainability of these populations. The importance of maintaining the evolutionary integrity of zoo populations especially those that are used for conservation efforts including rein-introductions is critical for the conservation of biodiversity.
Greater appreciation for an evolutionary perspective may offer important insights that can enhance the reproductive success and health examples and associated strategies that highlight this approach, including minimizing domestication (ie genetic adaptation to captivity), integrating natural mating systems into captive breeding protocols, minimizing the effects of translocation on variation in photoperiods and understanding the interplay of parasites and pathogens and inflammation. Captive populations can adapt rapidly to captive environments through demonstration, in which human impose artificial selection in order to increase the prevalence of desired traits in the domesticated population.
For domestic animals, human breeders choose to breed only those individuals that thrive in the captive environments, leading to trans-generational changes that result in a population that is adapted to breed and survive in the conditions imposed by the breeders. Among captive population of animals, zoo populations are unique in that they are maintained to educate the public regarding wildlife and their habitat or to preserve critically endangered species through captive breeding and reinforcement program. Although assessment and preservation of genetic diversity is a top priority for most conservation breeding programs, fundamental to these goals is the maintenance of the genetic variation of these captive populations (Lacy 2009). Whether used to further educational or conservation goals, it is critically that these captive population are representative of the natural populations from which they are desired (Ashley et al 2003). However, maintaining captive population, such that they are reflective of the wild phenotype of the animals, can be challenging in zoos because of the mismatch the environments that the zoo population is originally from and the captive content in which they are been housed. Hendry et al 2015 carol et al 2014, for example, solitary animals with large territories that only encounter sexually mature counterparts during estrus may be housed in proximity of their mate year round, potentially leading to the behavioral issues, including ****** aggregation or ****** incompatibility. Other stressor can exist in captive environments for which animals are not adapted, including the acoustic environments, physical substrate and even availability of food (Morgan and Tromborg 2007). Minimizing the mismatch between the natural environment and the captive environment and they should limit the decline and poor performance of captive populations (Hendry et al 2011; Carrol et al 2014). Captive environments are very different from the wild and can impose different selection pressures that can lead to genetic adaptation in the captivity that affects behaviors (eg: temperaments; MC Douglas et al 2006), morphology (eg; size, skeletal morph metric O’ Regan and Kitchener 2005); and reproductive output (eg; age at ****** maturity, letter size). In particular populations of species with short generation times will adapt more rapidly to captivity than those with long generation time (Frankham 2008).
Social learning theory is the idea that children from observing. According to the learning theory, learning is based on social interaction with the environments (Nwamuo et al 2006). As children walk around the zoo, they are exposed to words and concepts. It also encourages dialogue between parents, siblings, friends and zoo guards (Jessica 2014)  visiting the zoo help the children and other visitors to understand the importance of taking care of the environments as it has a significant impact on lives and welfare of animals and importance of conservation and animal care which will never be forgotten. According to (Nwamuo et al 2006) social learning theory plays a big role in how people and especially learn. There are four elements to social learning theory including:
• Attention: Children can’t learn if they aren’t focused on the task. Students who see something unique or different are more likely to focus on it, helping to learn just as in zoo.
• Retention: people learn by internalizing information later when we can recall that information later when we respond to a situation in the same way which we saw.
• Reproduction: in the way we are able to reproduce our previously learn behavior or knowledge when it’s required. Practicing our response in our head or in action can improve the way we response.
• Motivation

Operant conditioning of behaviors theory of B.F Skinner, enclosure design and environmental enrichment strategies have all been suggested to improve the welfare of zoo animals by reducing stereotypical behavior and rein-introduction success of wildlife species. (WAZA 2015). Thus, the use of these strategies has important consequences for zoological collections. Despite the recognition and wild-scale implementation of such strategies, however, concerns around global zoo animal welfare remain and behavioral pathologies are common in many species. (Luhrs 2010) using operant conditioning, some of the barriers to delivering positive welfare experiences through holistic behavioral management strategies to zoo animals and make recommendations for institutional approaches towards improving zoo animal welfare using examples of Abnormal Repetitive Behaviors (ARBs) through targeted behavioral management.

EMPIRICAL FRAMEWORK
According to P.A Anadu (2000) on his study wildlife conservation in Nigeria: problems and strategy a case study of wildlife reserve of University of Benin, the major treats to nature conservation in Nigeria and he reviewed critically the measures adopted for the protection of wildlife. According the study, the major problem includes habitat degradation (through uncontrolled logging, agricultural projects, industrial plantations, highway and urban development’s and exploitation for fuel wood) over hunting and poaching.
He suggested that to protect wildlife include the creation of more game reserve, enactment of wildlife laws, signing of international treaties and manpower development. According to his research through interview with about 10 workers or staff of the wildlife reserve, the major treats to the area include poaching and hunting, indiscriminate feeling of forest trees, low funding, inadequate game laws and weak enforcement of the existing legal provisions.
It is suggested that the Federal Government should intervene more positively in favor of conservation by creating more national parks and assuming joint responsibility with the states for formulating wildlife laws. Furthermore, the role of nongovernmental organizations in influencing conservation policies and mobilizing public opinion will be cruial in different years ahead.
In the journal “A synopsis of wildlife conservation in Nigeria by Timothy A Afolaya  2009, this article emphasized the recent developments in the overall conservation program in Nigeria as it describes the important role which wildlife is playing in helping to feed the nation, in creating employment opportunities, in education in research, in recreation and in local medicine. Inadequately of Nigerian wildlife legislation and of the trained manpower to protect and manage the wildlife resources are among the crucial wildlife management problems identified. It is also stressed that the basic information for effective management is often lacking where Nigerian wildlife reserved are concerned. It also stressed that the main problems facing wildlife conservation in Nigeria include poaching, over exploitation, lack accurate data, bush burning that destroys wildlife habitat. There is adequate reliable database to facilitate forestry planning and development. Weak forest policy and implementation, forest policies lacks legal backing and hence its enforcement is difficult. The Nigeria forestry policy Act, 1937 is subsumed in the National Agricultural Policy of 1988. Forest tariffs are relatively low and are not revised frequently penalties under most laws are low and seldom enforced. It suggested that Nigeria forestry policy act should be reviewed or renew and encourage the government to implement the policies adequately and enforce penalties on the offenders.
Jonathan (2009) in his own study animal wildlife conservation under multiple land use system in Nigeria reveals that out of 6 selected zoological garden and game reserves in six geopolitical zones in Nigeria. The situation of wildlife in Nigeria is nevertheless different. Except in the Yankari, upper Ogun and Kwiabaha, Game Reserves and the Kainji lake National park, little efforts have been made to protect the Nigerian animal wildlife resources from human pressure and wide spread extinction. To many, what remains of the wildlife animals are best seen in the few state owned zoological gardens in Nigeria?
However, because most indigenous large animal species including Elephant, Buffalo, Chimpanzee, Gorilla, Rhinoceros, Leopard and Ostrich have not been able to reproduce in the various zoological garden so far, the hope to conserve this animals are brittle.
According to his work, animal wildlife is a declining resource in Nigeria because of unplanned land use practices. For example, land uses in game reserves are often conflicting and contradictory for land uses, timber extraction, hunting; food crop production and settlement are simultaneously going on in game reserves with little or no control measures and with no management plans. The excessive demands for land these conflicting uses have greatly disturbed the ecosystems involved, thus making the survival of the wild animals uncertain. Specially, the problems of wildlife conservation in Nigeria are:
a. Poaching
b. Indiscriminate burning of the vegetations
c. Uncontrolled grazing activities in the reserves
d. Intensive logging for domestic and industrial uses
e. Users rights on the reserves enjoyed by the traditional owners of the land before reservation
f. Lack of adequate fund to manage the reserve
g. Ineffective legislation
h. Lack of trained manpower
i. Urban sprawl
j. Infrastructural development of roads, electric and telegram lines and irrigation schemes.
k. Lack of modern enclosure or caging
l. Inability of animals to breed within the captive environment.

He then emphasized that the picture for Nigerian animal wildlife depends on the nation’s ability to conserve what is left either in their natural habitat or at least, in zoological gardens. The game reserve should be reduced to manageable numbers while state governments should win public sympathy through adequate conservation publicity and the provision of sufficient vehicles and personnel to manage the game reserves. The policy of land use in game reserves should be conducted on:
a. The number and species of animals hunted per year
b. The population of animals species in the game reserves and their habitat sustainability
c. The endangered and extinct animals species and specific reasons for the decline in their population
d. Human problems peculiar to each reserve and ways of minimizing them.
e. Establishment of rein-introduction programs.

SUMMARY
The establishment of zoos in a society is premised partly on the idea of bringing man close to wild animal’s species (Yager et al 2015). This establishment has various roles to play in the ecosystem and all endeavors of life. The role of zoological garden as well as wildlife conservation is as follows:
1. Education: zoos are established for the preservation of animal to make it easier for more people to see them and learn their characteristics and habitat. Zoo animals are used for specimens both for secondary schools students and tertiary institution as well as teaching the public the benefit of wildlife. A survey conducted by the Association of Zoos and Aquarium (AZA) reveals that, the general public rate conservation and education as the most important role of zoo (Fraser and Stickler 2008).
2. Conservation: of endangered species to avoid extinction of such animal.
3. Tourism:  it serves as a centre of tourism as people from different parts of the country visit to learn about nature at their leisure.
4. Generating revenue for the government as well as provides employment opportunities individuals etc
Most problems encountered in Nigerian zoos include:
• Poaching
• In availability of breeding species
• Lack of trained personnel’s
• Lack of fund by the Government
• Lack of infrastructure and conservation facilities.

What puts a smile on my face
is a smile on yours
When we sit and talk
and your problems you pour
I like you even more
when the same you do for me
When you say, "I understand,"
you're the friend of the century
I welcome your presence
because every moment counts
Time with you is like love
taken in large amounts
There's no such thing as too close
You never stray too far
What I really like about ya
is that you know who you are
You never spend your time
trying to convince others
that you are nice and kind
You just let them discover
We know where we stand
Outsiders need not apply
They see not what I do
when looking at your eyes
We connect on a level
different than most
You're my constant guest
I'm proud to be your host
You and me together
is so uncomparable;
what dreams are made of
or a love parable

Negative Reinforcement
is much easier to be inspired to administer
but isn't a shadow of a trace as effective as
Positive Reinforcement.

Funny how, in Life, the easiest ways out
are almost always the least rewarding.

Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed
In the beginning how the heavens and earth
Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God, I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th’ Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all temples th’ upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for thou know’st; thou from the first
Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread,
Dove-like sat’st brooding on the vast Abyss,
And mad’st it pregnant: what in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That, to the height of this great argument,
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.
  Say first—for Heaven hides nothing from thy view,
Nor the deep tract of Hell—say first what cause
Moved our grand parents, in that happy state,
Favoured of Heaven so highly, to fall off
From their Creator, and transgress his will
For one restraint, lords of the World besides.
Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?
  Th’ infernal Serpent; he it was whose guile,
Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother of mankind, what time his pride
Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host
Of rebel Angels, by whose aid, aspiring
To set himself in glory above his peers,
He trusted to have equalled the Most High,
If he opposed, and with ambitious aim
Against the throne and monarchy of God,
Raised impious war in Heaven and battle proud,
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power
Hurled headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy th’ Omnipotent to arms.
  Nine times the space that measures day and night
To mortal men, he, with his horrid crew,
Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf,
Confounded, though immortal. But his doom
Reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought
Both of lost happiness and lasting pain
Torments him: round he throws his baleful eyes,
That witnessed huge affliction and dismay,
Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate.
At once, as far as Angels ken, he views
The dismal situation waste and wild.
A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,
As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames
No light; but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all, but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed.
Such place Eternal Justice has prepared
For those rebellious; here their prison ordained
In utter darkness, and their portion set,
As far removed from God and light of Heaven
As from the centre thrice to th’ utmost pole.
Oh how unlike the place from whence they fell!
There the companions of his fall, o’erwhelmed
With floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire,
He soon discerns; and, weltering by his side,
One next himself in power, and next in crime,
Long after known in Palestine, and named
Beelzebub. To whom th’ Arch-Enemy,
And thence in Heaven called Satan, with bold words
Breaking the horrid silence, thus began:—
  “If thou beest he—but O how fallen! how changed
From him who, in the happy realms of light
Clothed with transcendent brightness, didst outshine
Myriads, though bright!—if he whom mutual league,
United thoughts and counsels, equal hope
And hazard in the glorious enterprise
Joined with me once, now misery hath joined
In equal ruin; into what pit thou seest
From what height fallen: so much the stronger proved
He with his thunder; and till then who knew
The force of those dire arms? Yet not for those,
Nor what the potent Victor in his rage
Can else inflict, do I repent, or change,
Though changed in outward lustre, that fixed mind,
And high disdain from sense of injured merit,
That with the Mightiest raised me to contend,
And to the fierce contentions brought along
Innumerable force of Spirits armed,
That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring,
His utmost power with adverse power opposed
In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven,
And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?
All is not lost—the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else not to be overcome?
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power
Who, from the terror of this arm, so late
Doubted his empire—that were low indeed;
That were an ignominy and shame beneath
This downfall; since, by fate, the strength of Gods,
And this empyreal sybstance, cannot fail;
Since, through experience of this great event,
In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced,
We may with more successful hope resolve
To wage by force or guile eternal war,
Irreconcilable to our grand Foe,
Who now triumphs, and in th’ excess of joy
Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heaven.”
  So spake th’ apostate Angel, though in pain,
Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair;
And him thus answered soon his bold compeer:—
  “O Prince, O Chief of many throned Powers
That led th’ embattled Seraphim to war
Under thy conduct, and, in dreadful deeds
Fearless, endangered Heaven’s perpetual King,
And put to proof his high supremacy,
Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate,
Too well I see and rue the dire event
That, with sad overthrow and foul defeat,
Hath lost us Heaven, and all this mighty host
In horrible destruction laid thus low,
As far as Gods and heavenly Essences
Can perish: for the mind and spirit remains
Invincible, and vigour soon returns,
Though all our glory extinct, and happy state
Here swallowed up in endless misery.
But what if he our Conqueror (whom I now
Of force believe almighty, since no less
Than such could have o’erpowered such force as ours)
Have left us this our spirit and strength entire,
Strongly to suffer and support our pains,
That we may so suffice his vengeful ire,
Or do him mightier service as his thralls
By right of war, whate’er his business be,
Here in the heart of Hell to work in fire,
Or do his errands in the gloomy Deep?
What can it the avail though yet we feel
Strength undiminished, or eternal being
To undergo eternal punishment?”
  Whereto with speedy words th’ Arch-Fiend replied:—
“Fallen Cherub, to be weak is miserable,
Doing or suffering: but of this be sure—
To do aught good never will be our task,
But ever to do ill our sole delight,
As being the contrary to his high will
Whom we resist. If then his providence
Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
Our labour must be to pervert that end,
And out of good still to find means of evil;
Which ofttimes may succeed so as perhaps
Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb
His inmost counsels from their destined aim.
But see! the angry Victor hath recalled
His ministers of vengeance and pursuit
Back to the gates of Heaven: the sulphurous hail,
Shot after us in storm, o’erblown hath laid
The fiery surge that from the precipice
Of Heaven received us falling; and the thunder,
Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage,
Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep.
Let us not slip th’ occasion, whether scorn
Or satiate fury yield it from our Foe.
Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,
The seat of desolation, void of light,
Save what the glimmering of these livid flames
Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
From off the tossing of these fiery waves;
There rest, if any rest can harbour there;
And, re-assembling our afflicted powers,
Consult how we may henceforth most offend
Our enemy, our own loss how repair,
How overcome this dire calamity,
What reinforcement we may gain from hope,
If not, what resolution from despair.”
  Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate,
With head uplift above the wave, and eyes
That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides
Prone on the flood, extended long and large,
Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge
As whom the fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian or Earth-born, that warred on Jove,
Briareos or Typhon, whom the den
By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim th’ ocean-stream.
Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff,
Deeming some island, oft, as ****** tell,
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,
Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wished morn delays.
So stretched out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay,
Chained on the burning lake; nor ever thence
Had risen, or heaved his head, but that the will
And high permission of all-ruling Heaven
Left him at large to his own dark designs,
That with reiterated crimes he might
Heap on himself damnation, while he sought
Evil to others, and enraged might see
How all his malice served but to bring forth
Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy, shewn
On Man by him seduced, but on himself
Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance poured.
  Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool
His mighty stature; on each hand the flames
Driven backward ***** their pointing spires, and,rolled
In billows, leave i’ th’ midst a horrid vale.
Then with expanded wings he steers his flight
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,
That felt unusual weight; till on dry land
He lights—if it were land that ever burned
With solid, as the lake with liquid fire,
And such appeared in hue as when the force
Of subterranean wind transprots a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side
Of thundering Etna, whose combustible
And fuelled entrails, thence conceiving fire,
Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singed bottom all involved
With stench and smoke. Such resting found the sole
Of unblest feet. Him followed his next mate;
Both glorying to have scaped the Stygian flood
As gods, and by their own recovered strength,
Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.
  “Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,”
Said then the lost Archangel, “this the seat
That we must change for Heaven?—this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since he
Who now is sovereign can dispose and bid
What shall be right: farthest from him is best
Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell,
Receive thy new possessor—one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th’ Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reigh secure; and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
Th’ associates and co-partners of our loss,
Lie thus astonished on th’ oblivious pool,
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy mansion, or once more
With rallied arms to try what may be yet
Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?”
  So Satan spake; and him Beelzebub
Thus answered:—”Leader of those armies bright
Which, but th’ Omnipotent, none could have foiled!
If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge
Of hope in fears and dangers—heard so oft
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
Of battle, when it raged, in all assaults
Their surest signal—they will soon resume
New courage and revive, though now they lie
Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
As we erewhile, astounded and amazed;
No wonder, fallen such a pernicious height!”
  He scare had ceased when the superior Fiend
Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield,
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast. The broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening, from the top of Fesole,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
His spear—to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand—
He walked with, to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marl, not like those steps
On Heaven’s azure; and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called
His legions—Angel Forms, who lay entranced
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where th’ Etrurian shades
High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed
Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o’erthrew
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,
While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcases
And broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown,
Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He called so loud that all the hollow deep
Of Hell resounded:—”Princes, Potentates,
Warriors, the Flower of Heaven—once yours; now lost,
If such astonishment as this can seize
Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place
After the toil of battle to repose
Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds
Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood
With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon
His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern
Th’ advantage, and, descending, tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?
Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!”
  They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung
Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch
On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread,
Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.
Nor did they not perceive the evil plight
In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel;
Yet to their General’s voice they soon obeyed
Innumerable. As when the potent rod
Of Amram’s son, in Egypt’s evil day,
Waved round the coast, up-called a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
That o’er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like Night, and darkened all the land of Nile;
So numberless were those bad Angels seen
Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell,
‘Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;
Till, as a signal given, th’ uplifted spear
Of their great Sultan waving to direct
Their course, in even balance down they light
On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain:
A multitude like which the populous North
Poured never from her frozen ***** to pass
Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons
Came like a deluge on the South, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.
Forthwith, form every squadron and each band,
The heads and leaders thither haste where stood
Their great Commander—godlike Shapes, and Forms
Excelling human; princely Dignities;
And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones,
Though on their names in Heavenly records now
Be no memorial, blotted out and rased
By their rebellion from the Books of Life.
Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve
Got them new names, till, wandering o’er the earth,
Through God’s high sufferance for the trial of man,
By falsities and lies the greatest part
Of mankind they corrupted to forsake
God their Creator, and th’ invisible
Glory of him that made them to transform
Oft to the image of a brute, adorned
With gay religions full of pomp and gold,
And devils to adore for deities:
Then were they known to men by various names,
And various idols through the heathen world.
  Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last,
Roused fr

Don't tell me you love me
I've heard it before
The words have no meaning
I need to have more
Don't tell me you need me
That might not be true
For words without substance
Mean less than they do

Actions speak louder than words
I know what you're saying
But, I haven't heard
You have to show more
In a physical way
You've got to show actions
If you want me to stay

If I hear "I'm sorry" again
I will show you the door dear
"I'm sorry" is empty, vacant, a veldt
It's not what I need, It's what you think I should hear
Show me some actions
Back up what you say
After all, words mean nothing
They're just the script for this play

Show me you love me
Don't just say "I do"
I want you to mean it
Show me something new
The words have no feeling
The emotion is gone
It's like you're reading the lyrics
To a music-less song

Actions speak louder than words
I can hear what you're saying
But, with no meaning it hurts
I need reinforcement, it's simple you see
Because Actions speak louder than words
So show me you love me
Don't tell me again
Your words have a hollow, dead sound
So show me with actions, that I am the one
If you want to keep me around

My mirror is covered in cracks and flaws, and some parts that make you look fatter, like a funhouse mirror, and it clings to dust and dirt and fingerprint smudges of oil.
But I don't replace it.
Because sometimes it's easier to spot the flaws in the mirror than to fixate on my flaw riddled body,
Flaws that aren't just skin deep,
The night is beautiful but deadly.
When you can't see, you have to find new flaws to detest,
It's addictive to beat yourself,
I'm in an abusive relationship where I don't mean to hurt me and I can't leave myself-
And there's some macabre satisfaction in the dependable breaking,
Like I know every night I will go to sleep hating the fact that I am still breathing,
There are memories haunting me from as young as ten,
Things that shouldn't still be repeating,
I can't work out how it just keeps accumulating,
Words spoken
And thoughts
And I don't know if anyone else feels sentences as deeply as I do,
And I'm running out of personality to stick pins into,
Trying to fix myself with voodoo
They say negative reinforcement is the quickest way to correct behaviour but I make the same mistakes
it's not okay that I constantly feel like I'm failing,
But life is more than a high-stakes game
And everyone's saying that all teenagers feel this way
But it's not reassuring to know that my generation is one of lost souls and hate.
And we're all really angry,
Whether it's because we'll be working till we're 90 or conflict left undated
Racism still exists and the Chancellor of Germany is getting called a ****
While anyone Asian is labelled Indian or ****
And eating disorders run rampant through the territory where anorexic girls get priority while the boy who binge eats is just called fatty.
And this is where I insert a statistic to convince you that we're unhappy but I refuse to be quantified just so I can mean something.
And it doesn't let up,
Compliments are uncomfortable and seeing good in yourself is arrogance, criticisms self pity
And you never know if they want to help you or just ensure that you understand the importance of conformity
It doesn't take much to convince someone you're okay.
There's not much you need to say
And if you can laugh then you're fine and we know no one checks the closets for skeletons because they're filled with people too afraid to come out of them
People accept 'fine' because they just need to know that they asked the question,
And besides, deeper questions get stuck beneath my skin.
And even when someone else compliments me I don't believe them,
Pushing away others cause I need distance,
Sometimes I feel sick from the level of enforced interaction but people only see the side they want to see.
When I told my friends about the time I struggled with suicidal thoughts they expressed their sympathies and it hasn't come up since.
Romanticising illnesses leaves me unsure if I am suffering or if I just want to be,
And part of me has to agree that diagnosis and its certainty would be better than the admission that life is just like this
You can't get better if it's something you can't fix
I don't think I'm broken but maybe I was made to the wrong specifications cause it feels like I am missing something but at the same time there is too much of me and not just physically
I am choking on the sheer volume of my past, present and impeding future
Trying to get it together
Told that it's okay if I don't know where I want to go
But in year 9 we picked our gcses which determined our a levels which determined our university courses which determine our career, if we even get there.
I keep finding new problems
I am still haunted by the old ones.
But I'll be okay,
Cause today
Someone told me to love myself.

My mother has always been a source of pain and disappointment in my life.  Sometimes it is from the affect she has on my world and sometimes it’s because I let her thoughts go through to me and I ruin everything myself-  she haunts me.  Years of abuse from  her,  being property of child protective services and  then coming back home to a changed woman--  one who was no longer decayed –  killed me.  I will always be left without that sparkling youth that made me cry in joy and smile over pain because she left me thinking I deserved it all.  She has made me want to be better.  I need to be better, and from that she may not have given me a lifeline but an anchor that I may just spend my whole life groveling to, trying to climb.  She makes me try.

            Tammara is a woman of strength;  It is a strength I can never touch because she has been on her own her entire life.  She clings to people to make things easier for her but it is only out of selfishness.  I see her trying to change that sometimes;  With my return in her life followed by a move away from the only town (and the only state)  she has been in long enough to call it home and my stepfather’s cancer  I have watched her grow.  It has helped me too.  She is stubborn and empty,  barren from her six children,  none of whom have been enough for her because she has never been enough for herself.  She is full of extraordinary talent. The woman is beautiful and not in appearance or even in actions but in ideas.  She has always been capable but does not have the faith or confidence or care to push herself…  everyone else though,  she thrusts.  Tammy is a hypocrite and a liar.  Most my life she was been a morbidly obese,  pasty red-head with long stiff nails that dig in your skin and plain eyes with nothing in them-  light would not touch them to reflect hope or happiness.  Now she has had surgery and all the fat that hid her is melting.  I have turned just as cold skinned as her,  I hate the outdoors.  She is fifty since December and her hair has faded in color to a more flattering solid brown while her nails have gone brittle and she wears them trimmed.  Sometimes I look into her eyes and I see my best friend.  My only friend.

            My mom had me learn through my mistakes and never my accomplishments.  There is always a failure and I had a fiasco on my hands since birth.  She believed firmly,  when I was young,  in punishment over positive reinforcement.  I do not think she knew at the time that you can lead by example,  and if she did she certainly did not use the technique.  When you did something bad you deserved bad done to you,  and if you did nothing wrong the reward was to go on without paying the price.  There was no way to know what that price was going to be.  I always paid in some way.

As hard as life with her was I learned to take a deep breath and live.  It is something that recently I have been forgetting.  Until things escalate it’s hard for me to remember now,  to pick myself up,  push everything down bellow me with the ground and then start to walk again.  When things with her were at their worse I use to run.  Once,  she had a fit.  My mom kept leaving the house screaming and crying hysterically at me about how I should die,  I ruined everything, she didn’t need me,  I was over-reacting and she wanted to go.  I was about five,  it was pitch dark out and my brother,  Alex,  sat on the edge of my bed and held me as she continually left the house from the front door out into the cold and then coming back in because I had the weakness and indecency to cry.  My room at the time,  in that small apartment I spent the beginning of my life in,  was claustrophobic sized and had me look into the kitchen when the door was open.  I had to watch her and I hated that room.  I hated the house.  I hated her.  But I am proud of myself that I don’t anymore,  because she trained me to be strong.  Whenever I can look at myself in pride it is because of what she did not give to me.  I earned the things I got and I am not sure I ever earned her love,  which came out of guilt much later from abandonment,  but I earned the right to cry.  I worked for my strength.

            Today,  I talk to her like we are cronies and it s not hard to throw out a fake grin-  overtime those things become real.  Most days she is pleasant and she apologized about how I felt about what happened when I was younger.  She does not take responsibility but I am not punished.  I’m never bruised or hurt and that means everything.  To be honest, without the scars and bruises I do not feel tough.  She does not either.  Still, we have both moved on.  She has never been a parent and I was never a daughter or child.  Tammara is her own woman and I stand for my own faults.  I will never forget any of the vile things she said or the grief I have felt by her hand.  There were times where I can truly say I did not love her.  She had made me bleed too many times to feel.  Now we beam at one another and I do love her.  How could I not?  She is my mother, my best teacher.

therapy and resistance

how is it that therapy becomes the excess of class war or the oppression thereof?

When the struggle of the individual is made to seem self induced when it is easily and clearly directly a result of the failures and complacence afforded by the majority of the group.

When in a therapeutic environment it is important to distinguish the opportunities of resistance from the experience of trauma.

there has always been individuals who establish groups that are in a realm of desperation.

Understanding how this process has unfolded institutionally is just as valid as treating the individual.

This gives the individual the choice and resources needed to heal.

The healing could look like resistance rather than assuming aspects of class war or oppressive culture to be normal.

Otherwise therapy is nothing but the means to normalize the process of oppression.

The traumatic state needs to be able to decipher its organic existence from that of organized oppression and its institutional cooperation.

the neglect of deciphering or distinguishing these differences causes individuals to make a competition out of trauma. This minimizes certain trauma of individuals and causes the group to have less of an opportunity to resist organized oppression of the institution.

Those that are in the realm of desperation or traumatic state are given no choice but to repress in order to continue being social or a member of the group.

in excess the hierarchies of gender, race and class are reinforced to an almost superhuman level.

To the desperate or traumatic state…

what needs reinforcement is that there are humans just like us who have resisted oppression and caused the normalcy of the group to be more inclusive and aware of the processes associated with organized oppression.

On hindsight, I realize the true meaning of love comes from my siblings. Nineteen years old, when I came out of the closet and realized me and my siblings were “flawed”, or human. Seventeen year old sister—***. Twenty-one year old brother—rehab.

“Do you think it’s ironic that we’re doing this on a playground?” called a voice from the assorted group of friends sitting on the sea of pebbles under the monkey bars. Another voice replied, after a quick cough and croaked, “No, I’m pretty sure everybody does this.”

“I bet the teachers do it too,” agreed the voice of an eighteen year-old boy.

“I’m going to be a teacher one day,” spoke the philosopher girl, who drifted from the conversation into the fog of her thoughts. As a junior in college and an ambitious girl, she lived her life in paranoia and curiosity from the outside world.

As the college students rose from the pebbled area of jungle-gyms, swings and slides, they approached a basketball court in passing to return to the neighborhood.

“Look!” yelled the philosopher girl. “There’s a ball over there, we should play.”

Their evening plans were determined when one boy concluded “We can’t play. The ball is flat.”

Rather than attempting to relive the innocence of childhood, the students under the influence of marijuana watched the possibility of recapturing pure childhood memories diminish through their loss of interest in what was once a childhood gratification of positive reinforcement. Recess was very important to any child in elementary school. My earliest memory of recess consisted of the earliest bonding time with my sister. It was my fifth birthday, and back before my parents divorced my mother was very involved with the community at our schools. My mom set up a birthday party for me in first grade, and my two year-old sister was brought along. My sister, the adorable baby that she was, received all of the attention. On my fifth birthday I wanted everyone to pay attention to me, but my sister was stealing my thunder. I resented her very much for always being the more beautiful of us two, and she always had the most grace. I’ve always felt awkward, quirky, and possibly weird, but it never seemed to distance my sister from loving me.

On that day at recess, while everyone was cooing over how adorable my sister was, I was off sulking on the swing set. I was always the one ignored of my siblings; my brother was the oldest of us three and the only male, and my sister was the youngest and most beautiful baby girl. I was always awkward, alone and blending in with the background. This being said, I made myself solitary from those neglecting my absence and looked up at the clouds. Five years-old and alone on a swing, I watched the cloud pass in the sky and morph from what looked like a snail, to a tomato. Before my very eyes approached a wide-eyes toddler with brand-new teeth and smiling eyes.

Everyone was following her, but she was following me. When she was the one of us preferred, she never failed to love me and remind me she was there.

When recognized as attractive for the first time, I was eager to be wanted so I threw away my virginity.

My sister, always so beautiful and classy didn’t need to put out to be well-liked, desired or noticed. Classy like my mother, my sister determined my fate as the black sheep in my adolescent ****** rebellion.

When my sister and I smoked with work friends, playing on the swing-set together like we had fourteen years earlier, I found out that she was a ******. The illusion of the pristine, classy and virginal sister shattered, but welded back together with love. My sister was not perfect, and my insecurity to being the un-unique, unnoticed and boring middle-child had ended. My older brother always considered the most-intelligent and most-successful was sent to rehab after 4 months of turning twenty one. The self mutilation was concerned as a big issue, and a mental illness could have him removed from the military.

Flawed sibling relationships brings closer bonding and relatable experiences, so exploring life together builds a unique and covalent bond between siblings witnessing life together, having difficulties and disappointments with family. While fulfilling the all-time question of mankind for “the meaning of life”, life interrupts with irony.

On a Tuesday afternoon
we are all in one place so
an outing is long over-due.
Let’s go out for drinks, I suggest
and we agree—as long as we can wear whatever.

On a Tuesday night
I pick the girls up, avidly
avoiding the gaze of your window
in a building forced to live above you.

In Geronimo’s on a Tuesday night
I order ‘Red Sun’, she orders ‘Spicy Blood Orange’
& the other orders wine.
Mine is pink—it’s too strong, no more please.
Well you said ‘for drinks’! they complain
as if I’ve betrayed a pact.

She orders another, ‘Appaloosa Sangria’
and she’s so tiny when the waitress looks at my full glass
—Embarrassing.
I hate the sliding bathroom door where I am
alone with my thoughts for 2.7 minutes but
I’m antsy—time to go

In my Audi on a Tuesday night
I want dessert; I want a donut.
Dunkin it is.

In Dunkin Donuts on a Tuesday night
Tiny tells me she wants to cuddle
sometimes. She’s drunk.
I order a chocolate glazed donut to a poor man with Hispanic features
who is working alone
The homeless lady won’t stop talking and we wont stop laughing
in the Dunkin bathroom.
I heard everything, she says as we leave and giggle in terror.

In my Audi on a late Tuesday night
I don’t want to go back to school yet—I have an idea.
Post Road is empty; I’m hyper-aware
of the black Dodge pick-up driving past.
I don’t question if it’s you.
Did you see me?
Of course you saw me, my car is
unavoidable; it’s **** & white.

In The Grape on a late Tuesday night
there is no one I know so I trail
Wine and Tiny trails me.
I know friends of friends, say Hi, hi, hi
You look cute, so do you! Yay! hug Okay bye, bye, bye
Tiny drinks another with Wine and I’m still
sober where I want to be,
making memories without you, ha.
But it’s time to go back to hellhole and these people kinda ****.

In my Audi for the last time on a late Tuesday night
Mahan lot full, duh.
Quick Center lot full, duh.
Bellarmine lot full, ****!
Regis lot—Where’s your car? It’s got to be here . . .
black Dodge pick-up backed in nicely, I wish I could park beside.
What did you do on a Tuesday night?
Regis lot full, are you kidding?
Tiny has motion sickness, she’s quite a drag
I wonder if my friend nearby, with the golf cart, can drive us back
But **** it, we can walk ten minutes in the cold ‘cuz
I’ve got my jacket and gloves.

In McInnes on a late Tuesday night
Wine goes to bed, Tiny calls for a reinforcement
who is waiting at our door.
Questions with an upward inflection fill my bedroom as if she can’t
take care of herself—her support can barely support himself.
I write a long note to you on my computer on my bed because you ****.
I get a Do you mind if Support sleeps over just this once to make sure I’m okay? text
Which means I won’t get sleep due to overweight heavy breathing
Fine, I’m backed into a corner.
& I know that after my third attempt of slumber, I will end up crying
on the couch in the living room. I should have stayed home.

On an early Wednesday morning
I stuff a bag of clothes, my retainer case, and Berner & Holes and
I power-walk to my car in Jogues—7 minutes, probably or less
& drive the 5 minutes home before the tears fall.
There’s a cop parked beside Pine Creek Deli,
I wonder if he wonders why an Audi is up so late.

In [address] on an early Wednesday morning
my dad is in his boxers in the middle of the stairs.
What are you doing? he asks and I snap back because
Isn’t it obvious what someone would be doing at 2:43 am?
My bed is quiet and my mind is loud wondering—
Did you have fun tonight? for the both of us.

You faint and fawn over pretty faces
A person who can buy you nice things
A sociopath with sic six pack abs
Who places passion over common sense
A perfect prince charming to make you swoon
Who will sweep you off your feet
Fly you to the moon and all those other
Outdated overrated simplistic *******
Fairytale dreams
And you wonder why the world *****

Why it’s getting worse
Because your desire is tied to your Gucci purse
Because if sociopaths are what you want
Then every other guy will strive to fit that bill
Will hollow himself out to live up to that deal
Cause you are the best reinforcement for bad behavior

objectification is very much a cul de sac,
it's a one way street...
      to objectify is to
       allow an animate object a
confirmation of an all-pervasive control...
objectification =
the inability of an object to become
a self-serving subject -
                  no hammer ever managed
to self-serve itself into a role of a screwdriver...
to be objectified is to have no
self-serving subject, i.e. a self;
         how can a woman ever be "objectified"
when she subjects herself to both
the object (that's her body) and  
              the subject (that's her mind) -
or, objects to the object stated -
  whereby by "objectification" there's
a reinforcement of being subject to the object...
her body, which reinforces her
                  subjectivity -
      when man is prone to objectification,
as pronouncing his extended members,
a woman is prone to subjection -
                           irony on the ob- prefix,
wasn't it ever reverse infatuation?
                  sure, not all the subplots appear
in being "objectified" -
                but at least being "objectified"
does not equate to being subject to a man's
will...
                 if you can't deal with
the "extremes": is being "objectified" as bad
as being subject to a niqab?!
                      besides the point,
i can't believe that one animate thing can
make another animate thing objectified -
            in the purest sense of:
    deeming an animate thing
            inanimate to be: a thing observed
without a self-serving self-aware ******.

unanimous
perfect
agreement

hands down
no argument

Countermelody
without the selfish back talk
point reinforcement

the Visionary
failing
falling

lost to
Deaf ears
not for
lack of
Volume

but out
of generic
disinterest

the Artist
flailing
calling

blind to
Deafinition
not for
lack of
Hunger

contrary
starving for
consummation

Hand in hand

The multitude
   A sacred harp

The gemeni
   One point by perspective

Souls  Synchronized

Without the souls of Trouvere, will he aspire to spheres from where he can replicate himself in the ductile state of the ceremonious Energeia...? The naive action is univocal as the first practice modulated in inclinations and lexical motricities, where they die within their fears, failing to hope and convalesce their desecrated wounds congruent in concepts of Energeia, as an arbitrary neologism to move what in itself is not self- scrollable. Vernarth after witnessing Stratonice's intermission decides to run barefoot for those who banish needs on the parental scale of his range. Succeeded by the need of Energeia towards the impudent sense of being enraptured in possibilities, and supernatural substantialities that transported him in the Epistle even to his desiring hands, but in natural causes, and kinetic emotionality in the destiny of the principles of a movement that dialogues by a spinning spin; alembicated in particles of displacement time eccentricity, towards itself in the synonymous statics, providing intrinsic angles to be associated with the rotation of time and Epistolary demands so that the quantum light can relate the energetic spiritual emotionality, with the own dissociated relationship in the spaces of appearance; where it is to be believed that there is a moment of bias provided in the emotional-movement rooted in linear memories of the temporality of the Hellenic mental axis. Everything is proper in the coordinates of the speculating, which is adduced and duplicated in Poielípsis or unveiled generation of relativistic emotions. For this reason, Vernarth naughty importunates this metaphysical precognition, alluding to particles that generate dissimilar inclinations in lapses until reaching the threshold from when Stratonice partially divided its material and spiritual origin into stationary diversity, in meditated phases that will not take place nuclear, but in the polymathy of its exteriorized threshold, and of the emotional mass of its free and passionate matter that concerns its strident and impalpable Macedonian origin.

From this moment on, the intuition corresponds to the angular reinforcement of "Poielípsis", in this way the coordinate of the Souls of Trouvere becomes present, as pseudo images of the Diadochi, involving magnetized radial movements that will lie in the spheres of physical value., in the garb of the Gerakis and Petrobus, who strived in the sense of the energeia of the Epsilon neologism, not to restrict themselves as Aristotle affirms, investigating the being towards a mono-sense in this causal, of such alpha that it says the paradoxical, demonstrating the diversity of optics. Faced with this diatribe Vernarth from the naturalness decides to empower Souls that are part of both topics according to Vernarth, it is to alleviate the potentialities of the acts that apprehend the light of genius that coexists with both. What the entity justified us in unfolding will be delivered by divine intelligence, so as not to reduce the free power of the Epsilon that was extracted in the welcoming presence of Stratonice still withdrawn in the atmosphere of the Voielípsis (substitute scale of relativistic emotions of Vernarth). There are few seconds that can be extended more from a selective argument of trends in the specifications, which could be attributed to dimensions of the Trouvere period of souls, lacking stillness in simulated biological environments, as if they deliberate the naturalness of an expression of who It does not philosophize if something has to detach itself or grab hold of creation to privilege the natural, re-arguing affection when professing, if there is time to express it, so it is intuited what the virtue of muttering simultaneously in the laborious, and in what does not progress. The dynamics of this Poielípsis is to dress the Voielípsis, as an analogous addition of quantum causality and of temporal and timeless Christianity, since it supports a conjugate mix deified by Saint Thomas Aquinas, heading towards the prop in the mega absorption of Christian Aristotelian ideals. The souls of Trouvere will be residents of the indeterminate spiritual mechanics, to deposit effects of the incredulous versatility in themselves, in the sub-aquatic depths that coexist with the geological structure of the cavern of San Juan Apóstol, but in subterranean concomitance, under the same axial coordinate that is sustained sub-geological. Namely; They will coexist as long as the Mandragoron of the Duoverso and its Voielípsis are established, but three hundred and eight meters from its antipode in the underwater base of the Profitis Ilias.

The antithetical line is the verifiable germinability of those vertical events of the plinth settled by the Souls of Trouvere, containing the germinable starch of the growth of the ergonometric stirrup of the Zefian Bolt, which from zero elevation to 308 meters above the Aegean level will form a mega extra parapsychological bilocation, which will be gestated in its uniform vertical chronological numbering, with the pre-Christian Pythagorean and post-Christian representation in the coronation of Carlo Magno, mentioned in royal visions by the Apostle Santiago, in the versant apology of Pythagoras as an entity supra divine, envisioning the scenographic depository, and fragmentability of these three components of this start of the Hellenic Magna in the hydrographic, sub-terrestrial geological and residential basin of the Souls of Trouvere.
The upholstery of the Pythia of Herófila attacks the subtended of the flying buttress that supported the volcanic cavities of the Sub-Patmos, indicating its agreement with the Souls of Trouvere by its disoriented cognitive dissonance, generating paradigms that traced stones that formulated Aquarian sounds, in a dominant tonality by the minuscule machine of light, more distant from the incommensurability that escaped eclipsed in the resplendent major note that becomes monarchical by the hypotenuse of a rectangle in three subdominant angles. This brings about the thaumaturgy of Pythiais, the mother of Pythagoras who, together with Vernarth's Poielípsis, forge retentive songs given the scarce natural light that was only born from some of Trouvere's souls called Poielípsis, in stories of the oracular Delphians. The Poielípsis remains encapsulated from the thaumaturgy of the banal anti-desires that would make it mortal, for a hypotenuse that makes the gift of poetic prayer tangible, prompting the Bio axiom, by fertilizing scaled suspicions of repeated mortality in the banner of risk. Stratonice well points it out:

“The signal field has been prophesied today for the Apollo tripod. Having to reencause itself in three parts of the support of the oracles, and in clairvoyance in the pre and post Christian insemination of the gift of the word that redeems man from sin, sub-tenant of the flying buttress, from the interface of the supra trinity of sin as a blood element, and difficult to evade or avoid. Here the Hegemonic energy of Alexander the Great has been condensed in the arch of ideas, pointing out that the diseased body of Antiochus; my father…, is supplanted by that of the to happen all the trances and difficulties that are assumed after the hazardous departure in Babylon. Therefore he has to bring all the corollary prophesied in the death of my grandfather Seleucus in the hands of Ptolemy Ceraunos. Wanting to dress up the irrevocable interference that occurred in Judah by his Diadocos gangs, opting for the effect of his offspring, therefore on his spiritual stretch of energetic residual and static mass, ad libitum that will end when unleashed in his son. All will already be consumed in the pathogenic body of Antiochus, and of the love for my mother where she was abducted, and possessed she sees by retaliation from Alexander the Great for proven insubordinate ethical demands. "

Stratonice walks with the sendal that should be translucent by Santiago of Compostela. As an intra-everlasting geometric raconto, subduing fears that slide through the sendal of the dogma of the architrave, where no philosophy can look higher if it is not allowed, typical of vegetarianism or freedoms that turn green in fears that do not illuminate life. eternal, perhaps from the same Matematikoi who doubts a basis for Adfinitas, to understand limitless limits, taking Pythagoras to the soil of Crotona. Always, someone who is ignored of the linguistic power, he plans to rewind spheres that still weave crossed angles, placing himself in scores to consider as an irreplaceable past. The soul of Poielípsis adopted a Pythagorean conception, in the halters of the livid legions of Orpheus, as if it were his consecrated hypogeum where the high position was, to stir to the embankment where it will merge with the Zefian arrow. This liquefaction should purify all storage of cognitive and circumscribes of those ancestral, becoming reincarnable pre-Christians, who transmigrate in the need of osmosis of universal unity. Atonal music will transmigrate molecules to great sidereal distances, being the same replica of the other eurythmic, in multi-trigonometric periods, vivifying the fractional number residues as souls of the same numeral that finally perish of Pythagorean digits, perhaps at the angles of the Phalanxes of Vernarth or in the oblique crucial moment that slumbers in an elegy, flourishing in those beings that do not Live...! Already under-treated, they will only be souls tired of keeping themselves alive and deprived of their morbidity, in a dissociated cause of immortality that will distance itself from the forbidden abstinences, in liberating exercises of any count that ponders in the coming etymology of the Vita Pythagorae, on the divan of the joys of serving his doctrine, which saves himself, and which will save the Messiah, for those who in the soul have no sacrifice of a lamb that grazes..., nor on the pedestal that goes ahead in the centuries..., pasturing what nobody was capable of ?. The second triad of the oracle of Apollo of the Souls of Trouvere reveal Charles the Great, favored by the Apostle Santiago for the protectorate of Compostela and its spiritual regency, invited Charlemagne from Aachen, in 33 consecutive years of dispute with swords, stating that the Saxons never complied with the treaties and signed surrenders. Charlemagne placed himself at the head of his army on several occasions to fight with his sword against the Saxon danger, also entrusting the troops to the counts when other matters required his presence.

In the second segment of the concave wasteland of the straight ascendant of Trouvere, he crowned Charlemagne emperor of Rome and the Franks, predicted by the Apostle James, in defensive papal struggles and in defense of Christianity. In this paradigm it appears how they are transmitted from the dead ungraspable world, they unite here in the axon of Poielípsis for the sake of the times that occur due to the anonymity of a silence that augured to link, and to know within what the endless intrinsically organic movement is, as well as the biological cosmos in the discovery of the Jacobean route. In what better region than the Dodecanese, he will be fused by twelve apostles, and now the brother of the son of Zebedee; Santiago brother of Saint John the Apostle. Dating back to 778 AD, spreading to Hispania. In the ****** and constant fight against the Saxons, Carlo Magno, entered Hispania crossing the Pyrenees, as a preview of the aforementioned Jacobean Route, everything raged witnessing their overwhelmed squares in the fueros of the Trouveres, who were Pythagorean elite soldiers, who had been bilocated in this post was Christian, preceded by the perfidious Basque in the forests, subsisting separated right here from the progenitors of the Trouvers, who claimed to be the strongest to continue them to Pamplona with Charlemagne. All escaped from Islam, and not a few Christians resented this affront, the dynamics will be reflected in the Songs of the French Gesta, to enter the Jacobean Route on the way to Santiago de Compostela, when the Calixtino Codex, in its book IV o Historia Turpini, the apparition of the Apostle Santiago to Charlemagne is told in dreams, pointing to the Milky Way as a way to find his tomb, which must free them from the Saracens to be able to venerate their relics with the enamels and medallions that they issued in the Apostle's crypt in Compostela. The souls of Trouvere, are beings that enjoyed a short life in the Pyrenees, they enjoyed the fortune of originating a liberator of post-Christian inheritances, mechanized by the exquisite citation of Pythagorean antiquity, behind indigo faded in red blood cells, to dress the sendal of the figure of Faith, freed behind those who should have dressed her as a Codex Calixtinus.

Five sections rose along the straight line of the Trouvere pyramidal axon, the base of the liturgical appendix that honors the multidimensional space, with antiphons for the cult of Carlo Magno on the underlying Patmos. Santiago was lacerated in the Holy Land far from his Brother Apostle Saint John, but he came to meet with the Trouveres who came from the rugged Pyrenees. Santiago passed the Strait of Gibraltar and reached Padrón, which is about 20 kilometers west of Santiago de Compostela; there some angels took him to the place where he actively rests. In a boat he arrived..., and always by the Mediterranean he will now reach Patmos, still acquiring the iconography that attempts to find Charlemagne, and a codex that would unite pre-Christians like Pythagoras and Aristotle united in the relic of the taxpayers transformed into three maritime rivers, concerned with a predicted belligerent episode, to say that all roads lead to Patmos, like Locus Sanctus, of all the shepherds who heal their sheep in which they are not of others that are populated with souls white, for the good of others. Thus the souls of Trouvere from the Pyrenees revealed themselves as predecessors of the raiding of the shells 308 meters below the Profitis Ilias, in agreement with Stratonice who would be arriving in Macedonia, where the passing of the centuries would tell him about the Jacobean Route instructed in confronts, and concordances with the airones of the Trouvere, protected by a rectangle in three subdominant Pythagorean angles in the dissipated darkness of the golden indigo of Theoskepasti, in the meridian of Kímolos.

Saying "thank you" and showing respect
are the easiest and most fundamental forms
of positive reinforcement.

it is cold, and you're walking, and you can't see your feet
you're numb
not just your face and hands
but everything
detached
unable to distinguish from emotions now
and emotions then

you're walking down the road
and the stars are shining
headlights flying past, rocking your body
threatening to pull you under and break you,
crush you and your mind
and everything else

you're walking down the road, and the moon is low and dark and the sky is otherwise empty
lets say that your eyes are closed
but the drivers eyes are also closed
in the car behind you
and you, perched precariously
toe the white line between death and a dirt road

everyone, it seems, is waiting
for something unknowable
a feeling
a thought
a pat on the back, signalling that everything's okay
everything's allright
it's just fine
go back to sleep
ignore the questioning looks and just
relax

the man in the tan trenchcoat is looking for you
his brothers, his family
disapprove, but
why not
you're not a  bad person
after all
you've done bad things, yeah
made bad decisions, yeah
but overall
what's so bad about sleeping in hotels when the back of your car
is not as comfortable as it looks
so you're desperate
and he's desperate
and you keep missing each other
the looks and idle touches
while comforting
scare you
you are not a  person who feels
so you cannot feel the stubble whispering over your skin
and you did not swallow openly
and stare across the tables as his blue eyes watch you
he doesn't judge you
and for that
you love him
wait.
no.
you don't love him
because that would be wrong, and decades of reinforcement are telling you this
but honestly
if he just loved you back...
there's that word again
the lights over the Arby's are hovering 100 feet above the ground
and you're freezing and alive
and maybe you wish you were dead
but you're not
and that's what really matters
probably
you hope.

Breaking down the barriers of exaltation after passion due to the fragmentations of the pointed Sarissas that rose from the dome of the monastery in an unknown vertical direction on the, as advocacy of propositional logic, to surpass the truth values on the crawling positions of the annelids and the alabaster elementals reformulating when detaching themselves from the monastery of Tsambika, as they engender contracted truth from the false truth that had been anticipated. Making from the tautological truth, going back all the memory and physics actions of the Hexagonal Progeny, deriving to atomic spaces, which are known to lock in the absolute truth of combinations of accessibility of exit and entered Patmos, as resulting from Omeganimias or links of spiritual polynomials that were dissipating to complement the departure to Patmos from Mandraki up to Skala, and on the other hand simultaneous Etréstles from Dekas; Kimolos for the remission of the Duoverse communion in the width of the celestial space. The tassels of the Vexillum of Vernarth and Saint John the Apostle, Eurydice, flamed, forming the triangle of the shape of Tsambika, with the triangle of the hexagonal that parliamentary of the stays, before heading to the navigation towards Patmos.
The Vexillum, carried by the wind itself Anemoi, was only carried by these golden gusts of earthworks towards the border of Rhodes, which until now was ancient Greece with its landmarks that the loyal spirits of Alexander the Great resisted accepting his death. Dazzling himself with this noble personification of the Anemoi, he re-establishes himself as part of Vernarth's prophetic and company to the island of the Apocalypse, which after the journey of Saint John the Apostle in Judah, the Cyclades, and the Dodecanese, would begin to relive the apocalypse. written under the mandate of the trinity, as a theological Tautology, running through the same originality and devotion of the heavenly mandate, but reencausing with the Hexagonal Progeny, as if it were rewriting it for the second Time, but from the Omega Point the completion of the Omega Temple on Patmos, to the areas of settlement of democracy and establishment of the Cycle of the Duoverse, as a transition to the rank of Hegemon of Patmos, to lead the spiritual military forces that raged, from the last vestiges from Pentecontecia in the Second Medical War in Plataea in 480 a. C., until the beginning of the Peloponnesian War in 433 a. C. towards the Athenian polis as a thread of their leadership of the nation, retracted by the reinforcement of their military supremacy, by the dominion of Spiritual Judaic, coming from the Hellenic existential inspiration, which spread with total expansion with the confederation of Alexander the Great, Vernarth and San Juan Apostle, as exclusivities that would increase the conclusive campaign of Tautological Omeganymy, shadow after shadow of the naval journey that awaited them with the Tracontero Eurydice, emerging from losses of democratic pacification, conventionally finite with the division and absolutist denial of Alexander the Great, reinstating itself in the Hexagonal Progeny, in accordance with the physiognomic materiality of the restructured Map of Cinnabar bound for Patmos.

The classicism of this operation will rise to the re-establishment of its Commander Hetairoi as the bearer of the Vexillum, under the acronym of IAV, meaning the Trinitarian Hellenistic-Vernarthian existentialism, for all Macedonian Christian children, servants of Jesus Christ, like the Mashiach. The reigns will rise to the last step and then they will fall into the crisis of entropic existentialism, with launching new languages beyond all known vocabulary, with speculative and adaptive pearls of wisdom of Hellenism that is reborn on Patmos, in the elaboration of the Temple of Omeganimia and the academicism of San Juan Apostle. Alexander the Great carries with him the upstart lines of the peripatetic school, walking through Phrygana, almost stepping on the low thicket and soft leaves and that, to the rhythm of the invaders' footsteps, reverberate them towards the dreaded ears of Vernarth, imaginary plant community in the Mediterranean forests, forests and shrubs that exist, but are lacking on Patmos, are only part of the creative imaginary, which are successful in limestone soils around the Mediterranean Basin, generally near the coast, where the climate is improved, but where the conditions annual drought in summer, suggestive of the resinous flavors of a scrub becoming a dressing for transplanted trees before they arrive to meet the Katapausis, the emblem of the Parables of Procorus.

Parables of Procorus

Petrobus the Pelican in one of his wanderings was distracted by some colonial migratory birds from Rhodes, while the Cinnabar was energized. He flew exceedingly, reaching the shores of Patmos, saving himself from returning to the ship with the others of the Birthright. Here he himself met Procorus, where after brushing against the Phrygana with his wings, he was inspired in praise of the Skalá sightings. Procorus in the understanding that he was inspired by this magical bird, I narrate to him from his cranial zone, the parables of his company as a servant bird of Raeder, together now with Procorus, to welcome the ship Eurydice that was already sailing to Patmos. This assertion by Petrobus was of the Hellenic existential time, therefore before they occurred it would reach real-time synchronization, after three hundred and sixty-nine oscillations of the Anemoi under its golden wings.

Parable of Phrygana: (says Procorus by vox from Petrobus)

On the banks of, lived some seeds that were admired by the lights of the cell of San Juan, feeling that it can only be a seed if it is not recognized by another that is the same. Knowing that it is not from the Phrygana genome, they will know that they will never be able to choose a larger size. For this reason, if a Kashmar could be a branch Daughter of Zeus and the titanic Metis: Athena (the Olive Tree) (Minerva). Aspiring to greater trees, greater than the skies of comparable to the wings of Petrobus brushing against the allegories of winter when Procorus becomes a seed that flows from the envelope of the thicket, turning from its own shadow into a monumental tree by day, but at night like Phrygana goblin.

Parable of the Alnus:

The consequence of the Alnus took them out of the oratory persistence towards the heights of a tree that begged its minorities. The raceme's inflorescence, with its leaf blades on a leaf blade, invited them to follow reactivation paths due to the axils of its largest branches. When a lost sheep was lost in the Alnus Glutinous, the smallest plants that decrease or expire would approach, ready for the twigs that are carried by the legs of the lost sheep. But not when winter arrived, still very green with the olive tree that is found again in the mountains of other glutinous that co-merge like lights that dazzle the lesser leagues of Alnus, losing itself in its habitat Alder, in mixed forests with green and black sheep, among Phrygana in God's soil with tame sheep and soil with poor nutrients, but full of green shadows.

Before these two parables, Prócoro says: “It must be maintained that each one speaks with its own language, and they never take long to amaze us, first of all, the color change from green to more green, if its shape, color, and corpulence as a species with the same shadow, regardless of the hue of the size of its species”

A self-arranged route.
Ambitions led me forward.
Every step was to gain my adolescent aspirations.
I was confident.

When life was array,
The goals became my crutch,
My vitality,
The only reason to move, progress.

Idealistic and naive.
Blind and hopeful.
I meandered swiftly,
I gallivanted unsuspecting.

If I was to truly exist, I had to control my haste.
Oblivious to true adversity,
I needed to digest the lesson,
I needed to understand the complications.

Unexpectedly, the caveat stared at me.
I fought and clashed,
To only raise the white flag of surrender.
The battle was lost.

Who I was eluded.
I struggled through a sea of self-impediments.
I allowed myself to drown in the agony.
I did not have the armor to save me.

Through the fog, I heard songs that healed.
I held on to the words as they began to stitch me together.
I started to crawl,
I knew I would never be the same again.

I knew I had to start a crusade,
An onslaught against myself,
An onslaught against the organization.
I knew I would never be the same again.

As I raised armaments,
With the reinforcement in my ears,
I began to evolve.
The person I was became more substantial.

I had further tribulations ahead,
But I was more prepared, more capable.
I was humbled, yet proud.
The person I was became more unobstructed.

Through the misfortune,
My identity became solidified,
I reattained my dreams,
And I made efforts to get a steady hold.

I told myself I will not founder.
I told myself I could not relinquish.
For this was the war that would define me,
And I knew I must persevere.

I have ways
To hold myself
I have ways
To keep my mind in eternal check
But sometimes
The wall breaks
Not water but thoughts
No, emotion
Emotion floods my actions
Then the dam is repaired
I am back in check
I hold myself
Cradling myself
Keeping myself safe
But not from you
The floods take me over
These dams
Protect me
From me
Only one thing
Can reinforce that wall
Her
Seeing her
Hearing her voice
****
Even reading a text from her
Just thinking about me and her
I grow calm
I just stop
The waters lower
And the process starts over
But
She has removed that
She took the reinforcement
She took my happiness
It’s not her fault though
I guess
BF
Stands for
Best friend
And nothing else

i made me some writer friends,
mistook the mistake,
tore the gate,
ate a ghost,
******* a ******,
slaughtered a village to gain your attention,
when you wouldn't look,
i painted myself black,
when you wouldn't look,
i told you i was a shepherd, you were sheep,
and you were going to get
eaten
by some gelatinous being
with very fine teeth.

all my writer friends,
they're all at my throat.
all my writer friends,
they sink claws, scream in my ears,
shove, shove,
tell me i need to love god above.

i made me some writer friends,
tricked the truth,
bent my back with compliments,
strung my neck with friendly kisses,
wrote all my writer friends a eulogy,
wrote a ****-all note to my mom and dad,
but i didn't buy the right stamp,
smoked a bowl,
baked a cake,
called the goat an *******,
poured a shot for a 15-year-old girl,
tickled the ivories until they stopped laughing at me,
discovered that all red-headed girls bite lips,
thanked danny elfman for scoring my bedroom scene,
continued working on an epic poem that rips ginsberg off.

all my writer friends,
tell me to stop distorting reality,
stop drinking,
stop dominoes of summer girls,
all my writer friends,
they are handing me bibles and pistols,
and i give them a nod,
a blanket,
a cup of coffee,
positive reinforcement,
and set myself on fire every night
to hear myself howl.

Sunday newspapers continue to gather fragile New England snow on the curbside,
a stomping ground for purgatory, the home for these roller-coaster thoughts.

i'm not much for small talk.
my clothes are always inside out and i'm raging losing battles with my steel-toed tear ducts-

steel, as
grunting is a masculine expression,
and so i'll lift weights,
but gain no strength, just aches of all of the intimacy that I've never allowed myself to emit or absorb.

a soggy sponge,
a rotten oak stump,
fallen leaves-
a childhood meal coming back up over the fists and the heaves.

counter-intuition,
the alcohol binds the seams;
tear ducts are dams
and everyone needs a method of additional reinforcement.

numbness and empty-mindedness aside, I'm
still a make-shift dumpster lover,
hardwired, disassociated hinge-sucker.

too sensitive to open the window blinds or morning newspaper,
there is still no muscle definition, only
liver damage.

Go the distance

Lord you know we lost one of our own today a young mother with four babies under seven reminiscent of robin out home had five
Jesus this is what everyone living faces I need to speak I don’t neglect them I never look at them with shallow looks my interest are
Their eternal souls this is occurrence calls for self examination taking spiritual inventory but lord my soul is dry only dust lies where rich
Waters should be standing then though I clean out the debris it comes blown in daily by the world that is fallen its power its influence
Fanned by our enemy the devil welcomed by our fallen nature I stood in the shower and wept bitter tears standing against a natural
Wall but it makes me know I am at the wall of my soul I was going to consult metaphysical books to address soulful areas I have
Lincoln and Jefferson books here they lived lives of great difficulty from this uttered words of reason that still burn and scorch time
And places where mundane edifices needed clearing and replaced with structures that held magnificence as there enduring building
Material please let me see and hear the spiritual waters flowing into my soul that it fills then over flows out to the needy the hopeless
And the helpless they have to go the distance all else is fearful and treacherous ground live a lifetime and then to late discover it only
Led to ruin take off the blinders put on spiritual glasses read the word realize the showers of blessings that are promised we have to go
Back to childhood no adult would think about standing in the rain but what trills and fun we used to know the banging thunder we used
To say angels dropped a vegetable in heaven off of a wagon then wet freezing run up on the porch warm up physically but also on the
Inside talking to one another how wonderful we go to church feel your spirit know and feel such sweetness outwardly all the way
Down in our souls no experience on earth compares whats the problem all of our loved ones from school and life are at home
Watching some drivel being spoon fed some harmful leads they create desires that will finally place you in insurmountable
Circumstances the no way out death trap while our blessing is sweet all consuming instructive peaceful like dreams of high lovely
Nature yes we get attacked in quick order but those blessings were fortifying it put armor about your life and concerns are quickly
Dissolved in holy prayer and meditations someone setting on the couch or worse a bar stool misses these protective modes that
Create survival and success only problem he still has to go the distance provide and guide his family but with inferior ineffective
Means of support he is soon over whelmed and leads to more drinking and instability and eventually dire straits and then complete
Collapse we need reinforcement in a true sense spread the word of God before you walk then your steps will be sure and it will be a
Lamp unto your feet we are in a darkened troubled world caution steadied hands held by divine messengers will win the day and then
The next day at the end it adds up to a life your proud of an the exit unto eternity won’t be terrifying it will be like for Tamara
Electrifying walk from love coming at intervals to the flood your swimming in it and the peace I had this experience my sister died back
Here we spent Christmas at Disneyland was going to stay longer then decided to go on home but just stop in Paso to break up the trip
I believe she died when I was out in the San Sequin valley a storm came up while driving on interstate five all kinds of debris flew up in
Front of the car I had a very eerie feeling I felt something sinister as I went back over the time and it difference to Illinois time it was
When she died we checked in to the the Adelaide inn the room filled with a peace other worldly it was so strong I was actually trying to
See the heavenly visitor who had to be responsible it was so great we stayed extra days we couldn’t leave the song comes to mind
He looked beyond my fault and saw my need I didn’t know but God knew he took care of me without me understanding why that’s’
What I want for all of you that are out of the arc of safety hell was made for the devil but man made it part of his reality by the fall
Jesus is calling no one ever spoke your name like he does please cry to him its eternal rewards hanging in the balance.

The floor was strewn all over
With children’s toys and books
With ***** clothes and rotting food
And sticky disgusting Popsicle wrappers
With shoes and socks and dishes
And garbage
With cat hair and dog ****
And dead plants that never had a chance
Splats of ketchup and mustard adorned the counter tops
And smears of chocolate and grease covered the refrigerator door  
Inside the sink the roaches crawled freely over the never washed dishes
The air was filled with the toxic ammonia of cat **** and spoiled left overs
A layer of dust covered every book and nick knack never touched on the shelves
Every place to sit was sticky and hairy
And your shoes became trapped to an increasingly vile floor
The garbage can filled to over flowing
With more bags of garbage sitting waiting to be taken elsewhere and two grown adults never bothering to take them
And quite seriously the mother of this outfit dares scold the little boys and bellows at them to clean their rooms
Seriously!  What the hell!
The air so filled with dust and hair and cigarette smoke is a nightmare even for those not suffering of asthma or allergies
I think I now know what is meant by “We were all yellow”
And the bathroom
Oh my god the bathroom
It might have surpassed the filth of the worst road trip gas station bathroom
A gross grey film covering every inch of every surface rings of repulsive ghastly filth covered over in endless dust and grime and drips and drops and hair and *** and blood
And still more garbage stinking putrid garbage
Never removed
And all household members sitting staring blankly at the filthy television screen or mindlessly surfing the net at the half broken computer
Except the children who got no attention
No love
And had no hope of positive reinforcement
One lighting the tacky and ratty cotton curtains on fire
the other standing on a chair in the middle of the room and peeing on the floor
as the baby sister sat fat and screaming in her own filth
hair matted by chocolate fudge pop
she was too young to have been given
all the children’s clothing was soiled and covered in food
Presumably from days of wearing the same clothing
Because no one cared for them
Or for themselves
What was the point of giving these children life?
Or toys or pets to play with
If only to ruin all they had
Which was meager to begin with
What is the point of setting up house
If only to fail to keep it clean
And to yell and fight constantly  
Relying only on the past experiences of your own childhood and never to even try
To rise above it
Living life in your imagined trauma
And creating for your family very real and lasting trauma
But you’ll never give a ****,
You’ll never grow up,
You’ll never see the consequences of your actions just barley scraping by the law
Someone called me worthless once
And many people think I am barley adequate
But I would rather be adequate
Then be genuinely worthless and horrid
I would rather be caring and honest
Then a pig headed ***** constantly screaming at my children but doing absolutely nothing myself
Living my life with no empathy and no emotions but my own thinking only of myself and what I want
Thinking about ways to make others do for me giving nothing in return
So I will forget about you wasted people and your unfortunate children
I will tend to my house, my family, and my work
And I will not let my past become my future
I will improve myself and my life
Being grateful for the things I have
And learn not to covet what others have
I will be stronger then the pigs I suffered through living with
And I will be happy to be adequate
Happy to be free of swinish people
And be the me that I have become

Sometimes, I blame the stars
I ponder the possibility of their alignment being so twisted on the day I was born
Searching for an explanation

Sometimes, I blame my parents
Perhaps the concept of never being good enough, of which they poisoned my brain with, was not just a concept but in fact the truth all along

Sometimes, I blame my teachers
I consider the reinforcement of said concept being pushed down my throat during my years in education
Never good enough to succeed
Never good enough to be loved

Sometimes, I blame God
No, I’m not religious, but the desperation to know the unknown consumes my entire being until I am pushed towards yet another unknown

Sometimes, I blame society
For worshipping such unattainable standards of beauty that one forgets the true meaning of the word
What does it mean to be beautiful?
What does it mean to be loved?

I never blame myself.
Because I know that is where the answer lies and it terrifies me.

so guys,dudes,dudets,peeps I've been through a lot in my life and i wanted to give some help/advice to people who are finding themselves either cutting or wanting to cut because honestly its sad to to see, i mean I've been there many times in my life and all i remember feeling was depressed but more than that i had lost faith. once you cut you realize that you want to find some kind of logic to cutting whether its loneliness or abuse but the whole time i was running away from my feelings. in life we all go through bad things that will make us sad, things that will mark and scar us emotionally but why add to that physically? i understand its create something or replace the mental pain but you know as a person i only look to see the best in people.happy or smiling, like when i eat cookies. seriously though people don't want to see those bad things that are happening to you because those things belong to you as a person, things that make you who you are. i remember the best thing for cutting is just having someone to talk to whether family or friends just having someone there as positive reinforcement. now I've met a lot of people who have said they cant stop and find it addictive but just think to yourself 'how long have i gone without cutting?' because whether its an hour,a day , a week it shows me you are strong enough to stop. i mean obviously not all at once but gradually day by day you'll stop. i'm not saying it will erase sadness completely i mean emotional scars will stay with us but to stop cutting allows happiness and positivity to come easier to you. if the pains in one place its easier to forget. just always remember the most important person in your life is you and its illogical to hurt yourself. i used to blame myself because i felt that i wasn't wanted by my own family or people but i realized "who cares? i'm me. like me or hate me. so i've hoped this helps if not oh well sorry, aha. if anyone needs support just message me, oh and tell me in the comments below if this helps and how long you've gone clean , and yeah peace

He swooshes down the mountain
Carving a series of humongous S letters,
Gracefully, brilliantly,
Gliding down the pure white *****.
Admittedly, the snow is hallucinogenic, an
Alphabet soup & smorgasbord;
A diabolic concoction I find irresistible.
He snaps to a dead halt before me, with
Flair & flourish like an Argentine tango dancer.
He is wearing a bright red Mad Bomber Hat . . .
(Mad Bomber Hat...$39.95  ‎Adwww.llbeanbusiness.com/‎1-855-371- 2754. Outerwear & Fleece-Top Gifts & Incentives - 20% Off Volume Discounts)
Forgive the poet, a simple refusnik, refusing to die in the gutter. Forgive me for making poetry pay, for once. $Ka-ching! $Ka-ching!
One had to have a shitload of
Self-confidence to wear a hat like that, my
Va-jay-jay getting creamy,
His smile fluttering my clitoral funny bone.
Confidence & humor: for me always a
Lethal combination.
Back in Providence they call me a
Rhode Island Pizza Queen; a
Certified cat litter-box for cads & scoundrels.
The Mad Bomber squats:
He is 50% Rhett Butler, 30% Joey Gallo,
& the other 40%, Cosmo Kramer, (duh?)
Adding up to a deadly duo that gets me every time:
Confidence & Humor snags my guinea ***.
First it’s coffee & Sambuca at the Lodge.
Two hours later I blow him in the shower
At The Green Mountain Inn.
The next morning, we say goodbye in the parking lot.
He promises to call me from Boston, but
Of course, I never hear from him again.
That sums up my MO with men,
Explains how I **** up when picking men.
Every time, again & again, like a
Third generation imbecile, deranged & demented,
Doing the same thing over & over, yet
Expecting a different outcome.
Woe is ******* me!
Another neurotic, myopic, ganglia misfire;
A behaviorist might point out there must be some kind of
Reinforcement going on, seeing I keep
Coming back, going back for more,
Like a lab rat still pushing the lever
Long after the food pellets are gone.
Oh yes! Call me Angie the
Out of control downhill racer.
It’s bipolar moguls & roller coasters,
Another Six Flags ski weekend,
A Stowe, Vermont Coney Island of the Mind for
Angelina Delvecchio, shimmy,
Shimmy Cocoa Pops.

Being stupidly tired but being scared stupid to fall asleep.
Its so much more than falling.
Its tripping on the drugs that my sobriety has taken away from me.
Watching too many scary movies that give me the edge I think I need.

When I know the edge of the bed is more than enough for me.
My mattress is lost at sea and I'm the dammed captain.

Just let me ******* sleep.

When I went mental my mom called for reinforcement, her brother.
I called uncle but it didn't stop him.

I understand he wanted to help,
I understand he felt connected because both of our father's abandoned ship.

Just because you have four golden children doesn't mean you get to pick me to be your black sheep.
I won't let you fix me.
I'm not on board to sail the 7 seas with you and your perfect family.
You see, I am a ship wreck.

I'm good at not asking for help,

And my mattress is starting to sink.