Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
b e mccomb Jun 2019
i’ve always been on a
mission to reinvent myself

a mission expressed through
spreadsheets, guitars
powerpoints, paintbrushes
fabric, calculator buttons
bright colors of yarn
coffee and flowers
smiles at strangers
and always words

here and there
then and again
i’ve found myself satisfied
with who i found myself
to be at the end
of the week

i thought things were
on the upswing
thought that i had
almost made it
for two months this year
i was satisfied

with fifty six hour work weeks
and the bright blue blanket
forming under my fingers
the feeling of hope
brewing when i looked in
my bank account and thought
about him
about the home
that wasn’t ours yet but
would be soon

and then it began
to crumble
a brick or two at
a time until a whole
piece of the picture
tumbled out

and my weeks were reduced
to thirty five hours and
a crippling sense of
impending disaster
even though everything else
was still looking up

now that i have a
bit of extra time i find
myself low on motivation
and wondering
if it’s time to build
a new version of myself

but i’ve reinvented myself
so many times
i don’t have the energy
to do it again

i just want to
exist

just want to fall
asleep in bed at the
end of the day and
not wake up in the morning
wanting to sleep
for the rest of the day

to enjoy moving
my body
the way the
seasons change
and how the stars
look at night

i’ve always been good
at staying
you just keep doing
what you’ve been doing
let your routines pull
you along with them

but now i’m learning
the art of leaving
and i’m finding its not
as hard as i thought it was

in fact you might
even think
of it as almost
freeing

the leaving
behind of what’s
gotten too
familiar
the option to
reinvent

past leavings
have hurt
left me reeling
on cold floors
fighting to get air
into my lungs

but this time
the leaving is
quiet
barely noticeable
in the chilly
morning dew
as i let myself
slip away
under the gray sky
that hasn’t yet
realized it’s hanging
over a lost town

and i don’t feel pain
only the slightest
twinge of
bittersweet nostalgia

i’m not going
to reinvent myself
this time
i’m going to
exist
and somewhere
along the line
i think maybe
it’s myself
that i’ll find
copyright 6/4/19 by b. e. mccomb
Mark Sep 2019
Liking all the latest pics
From the keyboard of my device
Posting all the time
Push a button to make a dime
Gathering members from afar
I'm a star

Why did he have to reinvent the book
By typing right here, everything you need
He plugged us in, created social network for greed
The info guru of the whole **** world
That's why he had to reinvent the book

We feel your caution behind the firewall
Finding an app to help us all
It's paradise when your video goes viral
Accepting new friends you've never met
Want to make a bet?

Why did he have to reinvent the book
By typing right here, everything you need
He plugged us in, created social network for greed
The info guru of the whole **** world
That's why he had to reinvent the book

Making it feel more like a celebration
Spreading the likes and dislikes
To a whole new generation
More like New World Order of sanitisation

That's why he had to
That's why he had to
That's why he had to, reinvent the book.
The pains of reality justify the
Deep seated sorrow of man.

The vulture encircles me
Events surrounded by mystery
Enveloped in insanity
The human race is
Captivated by mystery
Doomed to repeat history

Collusion to bestow unmitigated
Sorrow upon my being

Simply put, I am
Damaged goods

Speak softly now
And choose your next thoughts
Carefully,
For the devil has called
My soul to dance

Reckless, unmitigated
Abandonment
Of mind, body, and soul
Fruitless searches
Forever numb
Longing to feel whole

Deep beneath the rolling waves
Lies serenity
Amongst sunken slaves
Deep inside my brain
The labyrinth of my mind
Memories that
I've left behind
Gone with the breeze
Above arid land
Somewhere lost in the desert
Where only shamans understand
Somewhere locked in the innocence
Of childhood frailty
Misplaced in the universe
Perpetuating reality
Walking alongside
All the gods of the ages
Bounding across time
In history's pages
Vacated with the morals
Of man
Lost in the seams of
Our lives
In the absence of the infinite
Shared hallucinogenic cries
Gone with the limbs of
The serpent
Ignored individuality dies
The reflection of man tainted,
For it is where the devil hides
Looming in the shadows
Of irresistible allure
No acquittal of our sins
A race ****** to remain
Impure
Violence surrounding our
Unequivocal, dastardly instincts
Perched in the forefront of our
Perceived selves
Selfish, devilish
Acts of kindness
The misfortune of the fortunate
Given all the amenities
Of a king's meal
Without the sensation of
Taste
Washed away with our
Dreams of betterment
Laying upon the chests
Of mythological beasts
Souls left rotting
Souring with ferment

Supreme consciousness
Arouses the senses
Invent my future with the
Myths of the past

You're stuck in a state of
Imaginary grace
Dream myself into
New bounds of transparency

Cryptic writings
Things left unsaid
Unsure of the real
Or the surreal
Life's slipping away
Once again
Paper in hand
Palms begin to sweat
Indulging into reality
Memories
I long to forget

It seems forever
Since I've been home
Trying to balance
This chemical imbalance
But always, I'm left here
Alone
Believing my dreams real
Realizing my world's surreal
Living with uncertainty
Imagining reality

Where do I go
To hide the pain?
Dual existence?
Acute psychosis?
Trapped inside my own
Brain
There's a place in my mind
I like to hide
Where all of my secrets
I do confide
There's a place I go
To bury the pain
A papered existence
Conducive synopsis,
Abstained

I begin to sweat
My heart screaming
From my chest
Let the feeling pass
Delve into the kingdom
Inability to
Repress
Take me away
To that far off place
Abscond into surreality
Amongst things I dare not
Confess

Drinking in divinity
Affixed on mortality
Will I die in this place?
Unable to resurface
Back in reality

Stuck running in circles
On a surface-less plane
Can't escape the shadows
Can't remove the pain
Simple design
Made up of
Over thought complexity
A universe separated
Removed from the modern mind
Inexorably

Amputation of
The mutation
That is the
Human race
Segregation of this
Charred realm
From other wordly
Space
We live
We die
And death begins it
Reinvent our minds
Ignite our passions

Drowning in a gene pool
Of degenerates
Souls thrashing
Wildly, forlorn
Plunged into unmitigated
Evil
Of a race that destroys
The unborn

Lachrymose gaze
Upon the living dead
A thin film of separation
Through which lies
Are fed
Understanding the weakness
Into which we are
******
For shed blood
Forces cries
Ripping from mother's eyes
Witnessing her own demise
As a piece of her
Slowly dies
For father's impenitent
Fantasies once dreamed
Torn away from aching
Fingers
Left ravaged,
Impotent

Gazing at you
Under the cloak of
Intrigue
Watching you struggle
In the tangled lies
You weave

Commanding the head
Of the serpent
Lilith forcing man's
Non-repent
Imposed upon our being
Righteous punishments
Such ramifications
Deemed astringent

Incomprehensible
Allure
Masochists of
Everything pure

Watch the world die
From afar
Irrevocable despair
Promising allegiance
To a life I cannot
Bear

Killing myself with
Indecision
On the perimeter
Of sanity
In the psychotropic prison
And psychotic affliction

Here it comes again
The voices, getting louder
It doesn't feel good anymore
How do I escape
Escaping?
Where do I go when my sanctum
Has been compromised?
Unable to quiet
The insurgents afoot
Incurable, incalculable
Indecision
Lost, finding my way home
Left in between existence
Alongside myself
Alone

The cold, inhuman ability
To sacrifice one's own mind
Hanging onto the coat tails
Of free thought
Journey we now,
Into the nightmare
Ignoring loss of
Comprehension
Vacated laws of
Apprehension
Arming latent illness
Plotting revenge
Beneath the surface

Here it comes again
I hear it getting louder
It doesn't feel good anymore
Who will save the lifeguard
When he's about to drown?

Can you see me?
Can you hear my cry out?
He looks to find
There's no one around

Searching indefinitely
For myself
Lost in another
Under the guise of
Someone else
Why does it matter?
Seemingly insignificant
In a moment of clarity
Just breathe for a moment
Shoved back in reality
"Am I dreaming," he asked
His reflection replied
The answer profound
Unknowingly died

I sold my soul to get here
On the periphery of realization
Stuck on the perimeter of reality
Reentry revoked
Forced to sit idly
As my life passes
Before my eyes

This is my letter
Unable to deliver
This is my life
Unable to decipher
This is my nightmare
That I've never dreamed before

Trapped in the prison
I've constructed on my own
Locked myself in four walls
Of uncertainty
Built in the center of being
Unnoticed by the proprietor
Frailty prevalent
Implosion of the mind
Leading to the ******* of
The insanity
I've come to find

Death looms at the end
Of the candlestick
Walk hand in hand
With me
Fellow traveler of
Uncharted paths
My fellow affliction
With the unknown
Unable to save myself
From the pain I know
Awaits me

Here it comes again
Inescapable, maniacal laughter
It doesn't feel good anymore
And all I ever wanted
Was your guiding hand
Complacent in lies
Forcing deafening cries,
For there will be
No reprise
As my soul flutters
And dies

Death for sale
Ten will take you away
Consumed by the thought of it
No more worry
No more being suppressed
This other kingdom
Unknowingly repressed
Delve deeper into the nightmare
We lie together
Naked
Unashamed
Open to the probing
Fingertips
Of the world
Unable to speak
Sleep paralysis,
Yet this is no dream
Wide eyed
Searching
Unable to scream

Incommunicable desires
No longer latent
Unsuppressed is the disease
Of your discontent
Insufferable, forcible pain
Towards the ones loved most
Catatonic, embryonic
Feeble mind
Please save me from myself

Forgive me, father
For I know not what I do
Forgive me, mother
For I do not blame you

Plastic state of being
Suspended in the viscous
Coagulant of stolen thought
And free will
Drowning in my
Own enjoyment
Of self suffering

How will you remember me?
A trembling voice
To read my eulogy?

Forget the things I should have said
This demoness I've brought to bed
Speaking in riddles
Bewilderment of the senses
Deeper appreciation
For the subjugation of man

War criminals in suits
Pretentious, cowardly vestiges of man
Surrounded by an air of
Undeserved arrogance
Getting fat on young girls
Sending their children to war
Safeguarded by a desk
And the allure of change
Obscene, disgusting animals
Consuming their weight daily
In the profit of drugs and
Devised disease
Profiteers of death
Politicians work the corners

And I fall,
Too weak to carry on
Can't escape my own
Lonely, cold, loveless
Gaze
Black holes in my head
Leading into the depths of
My soul
Emptiness pervading
Madness running rampant
Destroying who I once was
Tearing to pieces
My uniqueness
Stripped of self
Thrown back to march
Within the masses
Towards impending demise

Staring into the eyes
Of the serpent
Turned to stone
Numb to emotion
Numb to pain
I cry out for substance
I miss the person
I used to be
The person you loved
Before you met me

Relieve me now of sin
Unto re-birthing, begin
Relieve me now of this burden
Knowledge and shame
Relieve me now of myself
And self inflicted pain

There it goes again
Making me feel dour
It doesn't feel good anymore
Purge me of this dependency
Ancient, carnal need
Necessity of loathing the infinitesimal

I've met the devil in my dreams
She looked a lot like you
Dreaming in wakefulness
Awakened desire in dreams
What is my intention?

Do I provide a function
Or functionally provide?
Are you living in a nightmare?
Have you gone to sleep and died?

Synesthesia upon awakening
My sensory perceptions
The permutation of the
Infinite

Children of the wilderness
Remove us from the
Impurities of societal disorder
Relieve us of the blandishment
Of media driven fallacies
As the masses are hoarded,
Spoon fed their own flesh,
And directed onward
By the pusillanimous grave robbers
Awarded with the title of
Government official
Given diplomatic immunity
And free reign over
The direction of our lives

There lies a serenity
Beneath the quiet surface
Of the ocean
The ocean floor is vast,
Uninhabited promise

I have developed an acute prescience
For what will come

Man unknowingly conspires
Against himself,
For the good of man
Cannot overcome
The evils of mankind
Conquering in the name of
Worthless ideals
And fruitless endeavors

Conforming to nonconformity
You're only fooling yourself

Wandering about in a dreamy state
With unexplained expectations
For some sort of happy outcome
Welcome to my nightmare
My inescapable kismet
Defend me from myself
I have become
My own worst enemy
Just a hyena looking for
A lions share
More animalistic than
A starving predator

Morally ambivalent
Acting upon
Inconclusive notions
There is no stability
In this loose earth
Sinking ever deeper
Into life unbeknownst
To me
Quicksand enveloping
Sanity and conscience
Leaving behind
Only memories of
What we ought to have
Become

Been suppressing emotion
For so long
Seems like forever
Since I've gone
Numb to the heartache
Blind to the happiness
Rediscovered childhood
At the end of my life

The words become a
Flowing river
My pen cannot dance
Quickly enough
To capture my
Escaping tongue

Discovering escape
Through self sufficiency

Sanity is nomadic
Traveling from
Person to person
Mind to mind
At any given moment
We are all insane
Began as a stream of consciousness and developed into a monster.
Ferrin McGinness Apr 2014
i must reinvent
so my friends will forget and
strangers will want to.
ryn Sep 2014
Mythical Bird, show me your secret
Hatch forth from your shell
Plumage of orange and scarlet
Emerge glorious from whence you dwell

Fiery Bird, you must reveal
Your astounding, magical ways
Where from these lives you steal
Forever reincarnating well into your days

Aflamed Bird, you must teach
How you reinvent yourself anew
With no help within reach
Without aid, effortlessly you flew

Majestic Bird, take me in
Blanket me with your wing
Listen and acknowledge my sins
With all your wisdom and heart could bring

Magical Bird, will you impart?
What knowledge you keep
Only then, I may start
To make my way out from the deep

Enchanted Bird, you have to help
I'm desperate to rise like you
**** your head and hear my yelps
Of all the things I'm trying to undo

Celestial Bird, if only you could know
Intricate workings of this unfounded fixation
Why I seem to always wallow
An eternal target of sorrow's attention

Imaginary Bird, will you demonstrate
Your amazing fantastical flight
Dipping, gliding, in the air you gyrate
Aggressive dance with gravity you fight

Mystical Bird, won't you display
For unworthy eyes, would you give?
Seemingly easy, aloft you stay
Even when you know you'd die before you'd live

Wondrous Bird, oh how perfect you are
I am in awe, I am swooning
How you become one with the stars
Making the best of the short time you're living

Secretive Bird, is it time?
Reducing yourself down to ashes
Ready to absolve your stint of crimes
Reborn perfect, free from previous gashes

Ensorcelled Bird, please don't retreat
Back into your familiar cocoon
I'm uncertain if again we'd meet
Just afraid I might be gone too soon
Kagey Sage Jan 2015
Back to the scrawling pad
a cheap red notebook
wide ruled, with the perforated pages in it
in case I wanna punch one out easily
Those moleskin daze were measly
Thinking I'm creative and potent
but spending two years
to fill those tiny pages
Please, help me
reinvent the feel and manifest it
to real, accomplishment
Songs, verse, or vice grip words
to change a nation with
- to start a new nation with
Bokonon Bhikkhu
hurling Pikachus down from Mt. Olympus
land on the concrete with lemming splat
Get the metaphor?
I don't. Make your own up
I just an absurdest
A poor boy humming Queen
and writing rap atrocities
Nah, the rap "apocalypse"
minus all the apostrophes
Write so much anything anyone says
from now until oblivion
was just quoting me!
helena ferpin Feb 2013
Sometimes,
Even when it's just for an instant,
I forget who I am.

I forget my name,
I forget when I was born,
I forget how I look,
I forget what year is this.

You see,
You get to a point in your life
Where none of this matter anymore.
That old song titled with your name
Doesn't seem so pretty as it did before
That old poem someone made to you
Doesn't make sense anymore.
You think "it's just not me,
but who am I?"

And you roll up in your bed,
And you try to mess with someone's head
Just to see if you still can.
And you spin your world upside down,
And you try to look everybody upside down.
Sometimes it's even better upside down.

Sometimes you find yourself in reverse.
And you reinvent yourself,
And you change your name,
And you change your birthdate,
And you change the color of your hair,
And you try to change who you are,
And not a bit is changed.
And then, again, you ask:
"Who am I?"

And you meet new people,
And you fall in love again,
And you think you know
Who you really are,
And then the world is
Upside down again.

And you give up,
And you try to live with yourself in reverse,
And you try to fall in love in reverse,
And you see how pointless it is,
And you're back to normal.
And then, what is normal?

And you give up on searching for the answers
And then you start to live.
And you meet someone,
Your life is changed.

It may be a shrink,
It may be a lover,
It may be a friend.
You just look at 'em
And you're home.
You find yourself
In desperation.
You find yourself
In happiness.
You find yourself
Anywhere, anytime.
It's just a surprising
Little scaring moment.

And you realize
There is so many interesting things in the universe
So many movies to watch,
So many music to listen,
Maybe some with your name in it,
So many dreams to live,
So many people to meet,
So many whatever to do.

And
all
that
search
was
pointless.

You don't have to be who your name tell you to be,
You don't have to be what your star sign is telling you to be,
So doesn't matter what is your name,
Doesn't matter when you were born,
Doesn't matter what year is this.
You don't have to be someone,
You don't even have to be yourself.

You just have to
be.
Just watching too many french movies, I guess. I hope it makes sense.
e Jan 2015
when someone leaves you, reinvent yourself.
redecorate your soul with reds and pinks this time, instead of blues and greens.
pull the tangled weeds he left in your crevices, and plant as many flowers as you can think of in their place.
hang beautiful lights and magnificent paintings in replacement of his stupid poster of his favorite band that you never even liked.
paint your mind with vibrant colors that make your heart beat quickly.
and remember to never, EVER let anyone take these things away from you.
sway - “how have you been ?”


me - but you sit and you think about things. you replay moments in your head . you think about the first signs of trouble you ignored. you think about the way you accommodated your needs for them , compromises , half smiles , nights in bed with them .. etc  you realize **** . you don’t really like the way they laugh, they’re actually pretty stupid , you were blinded etc ...  then you think to yourself was this love ? did i only like movies on sundays because it’s what they wanted ? or because i enjoyed it ? did i like chocolate chips cookies because it was their fav or it taste good ? & then you’re like NO . it wasn’t for me , that wasn’t me , i wasn’t myself . you probably thought this person was the “one” . then you look back , i mean really look back & then you’re like no . so you just delete all that **** . and you start over . you start to feel good , better than before . you feel relieved . what’s for YOU will always be for YOU . so you go through this whole process .  it’s not easy, but it’s worth it . somedays you wanna eat your heart out & you wanna cry to the sky . wondering why you have to go through this stupid ****. other days you lay back and smile at the sky while the sun shines down on you & you feel good . you start to realize all good things take time . you don’t rush it or half *** it . you go through it . and you’re gonna feel great . you’re gonna feel like one of Van Gogh’s pieces in a world that lacks color . but you made it . rome wasn’t built in day & neither were you .
my friend sway is going through a breakup and he asked me for advice that was my answer
Sarah Mann Mar 2019
The world around me is beautiful yet
I find it also exists as a force to be feared.
A plethora of the unknown and uncertain
Trace my every movement.
Where are you headed?
I gasp and grip for the nearest answer.
I’m unsure and I’m ripped to shreds.

Life itself is a mystery, an enigma never to be solved.
Surrounded by questions and hypotheticals,
Am I supposed to organize it alphabetical -ly
Breathe. Calm down - I hear in my periphery.
So I take a moment to finally let
It wash over me, to forget
Everything I ever knew -and to focus on the present.
Or the future I suppose, any moment other than now.
To find a place where contentment abounds somehow.

Light cannot exist without darkness.
So I accept the situation all around.
And fall desperately into unconsciousness.
To rejoice in the reprieve of thought.

Hope, ‘the thing with feathers’
I’m not so sure about that.
Hope feels misleading, or leading only into disappointment.
I feel frustrated, emotionally drained perhaps?
Maybe I’m cynical. That’s probably it.
It’s definitely a promising possibility.
I think hope acts as an anvil that crushes everyone
Praying for it to hang in the sky for a tad longer.

Hope is disillusioning.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t indulge every once in a while.
Hope is enlightening, addictive, whatever you want to call it.
But it’s undeniably beautiful, it ties you to the future.
It gives you aspirations. So here’s a list of hopes.

I hope I get to dance in the rain without a care of drenching my clothes.
Nature surrounding me with her soaking embrace, and thunderous applause.
With tiny drops of water slowly grazing my face, and
Maybe then I’ll finally know what harmony feels like.

I hope I get to reinvent my whole life and everything I know.
I hope I can fall into those nights where I barely remember my name but your arms are there to guide me home.
I hope I learn to face the light, and that it mends the brokenness of my soul.
I wish for nights where I discover a new version of myself by exploring foreign cities with people I’ve never met.
Where adrenaline is coursing through my veins,
And excitement greets me at every corner.
I hope I lose myself to find someone new.
To find the extraordinary within the mundane.
To appreciate the little things.
I want to live with purpose, to leave with meaning.
I hope I get to grow, that I get to change.
I hope I travel the world before it’s gone.
And to experience all that I can, through perspectives of empathy.
I want to impact others, to change the world,
But I suppose that can’t be done without changing myself first.

I hope I experience the feeling of being in love again.
The blinding euphoria of falling completely for what’s just a construct.
I want to find a place where I can be myself, without pretenses, without explanation.
I want to forgive, to laugh until I can’t breathe, to be brutally honest,
To be torn down to nothing and to have to begin again.

I hope I find peace of mind.
Because I know I’ve been searching for quite some time.
I hope I learn to let go.
I hope I learn to appreciate hope rather than ostracize it.
To open the curtains and to let the light come streaming in.
I hope I realize that it’s okay to not always know.
I hope I live my life before I go.
This poem relates to identity in the way that it deals with  he life that I live, and my aspirations and the recognition of reality. Written for my Senior Independent Project, February 12, 2019.
Classy J Sep 2016
Yeah this rap goes out to them groveling phony fraudulent rappers, who think they some hot ****, but really their rhymes should be flushed down the crapper. I won't pitter-patter over the rap games floorboards; I bust through it and slice them up with my sword. Rap today has decayed, laid to waste by auto tuned ****** fruity puffs that only care about getting paid. So despicable, yet so typical for this day and age, creativity is deadlocked away underground in a cage. Only the critically insane ******* ever try to resurrect the rap game, because most get into bed with the devil so they can achieve easy fame. Illuminati in the media, in the music, and in the congress, corrupting the youth as if they were pawns as if life was like a game of chess. Oh father if there is a father up in heaven, we need help, I tried dialing your number but there mustn't be any service up there in heaven. Are you hearing me, I tried to show the corruption, but it keeps getting covered up by this convoluted industry. Yeah I went there, what you going to do, you just some phonies with some really low IQ's. Yeah I said this was going to be a Diss track, that points out how all this worldly **** is super whack. Fake rappers, fake society, trying to look real and happy in their greedy nobility. While other starve to survive, literally, but I forgot that the majority don't give a **** about minorities. Forgive me for all the honesty; I know I should probably see a specialist in psychiatry. **** it if go off the handle every now and again, I'm not here to make friends with filthy pagans. I'm just here to establish my lyrical ministry; I'm here to challenge everything and everyone's dignity and humility. I'm not in for cheese; I'm only in it because I want to shake raps monochrome foundation to its knees. Tear it down then build it up, there needs to balance just like pendulum, no time for sell out broken down ***'s. Diss the flow, get to know who the hell you calling out, otherwise it might come back to knock you out. Diss just business, its time to throw in the towel if can't finish, diminish all of those who can't handle this new improved business. Be a role model that anyone could look up to, and if you're not down to that then *******. Diss is the time to reinvent yourself, its ok if you need a little help cleaning out your shelf. Everyone deserves a second chance to change, to rearrange themselves so they can begin a new stage. Diss is not what you expected, but I hope you hear these words so that you can heal instead of staying infected.
JAM Feb 2016
RECORD: INSOMNIAC OLYMPICS
FROGMAN: BLOCHEAD

Suzy's: Then it heard The Word:

You are not special.
You're not a beautiful and unique saltflake.
You're the same decaying mental laughter as everything else.
We're all part of the same info heap.

We're all singing,
all dancing
data of the word.
-- Tyler Durden, Tacky Frogman

I mean just try to

Imagine a Johnny waking up one moment and thinking,

"This is an interesting thought I find myself in —
an interesting wHole I find myself in —
guides me rather neatly, doesn't it?
In fact it guides me staggeringly well,
must have been made to have me in it!"

This is such a powerful throught that as the sun rises in the mind
and the clouds heat up
and as, gradually, the throught gets
smaller
and
smaller,

she's still frantically stinging on the notion that everything's going to be aulgburight,
because The Word was meant to have him in it,
was written to have her in it;
so the moment that reappears, caches them rather in reprise.

I think this may be something we need to be on the waytch-out for.
We all know that at some point in the future the throughts will come to an end
and at some other point,
considerably in advance from that but still not instinctually re-pleasing,
the Sun will rexploade.

We think there's plenty of throught to tarry on about that,
but on the other Read DeadHead
throught ’s a very anger-ous ink to lay.
-- Douglas Adams, Frogman

Johnny's: So,

We just ought To Be.
-- You and Me and Everyone We See

Suzy's: And it would be nice if

A Brad and Janet could change their mind,
plan a din-stinction,
butcher a clog,
conn-a-fusion,
design a dream,
write a union,
balance brains,
build a wall,
set a tone,
belay the lying,
make orders,
live orders,
cooperate,
act alone,
solve self equations,
analyze a new corruption,
throw info lure,
program a harmed-brain-puter,
hook a hasty mind,
fight self efficiently,
receive truth carefully.
But all-selfse destruction is their mode.
-- Robert A. Heinlein, Frogman

Johnny's: In other words,

Show me one Brad or one Janet alone and I'll show you a saint.
Give me two and they'll fall in love.
Give me three and they'll reinvent the char-ming thing we call 'Propriety'.

Give me four and they'll build a panic.
Give me five and they'll make one a Number.
Give me six and they'll reinvent Master's affair.
Give me nine and in nine moments they'll reinvent ludechrist.

WhoMans may have been made in the image of nature,
but Brads and Janets were made in the tincture of their opposite Number,
and they're always trying to get back to The Hearth.
-- Glen Bateman, Frogman

Suzy's: Picking up the Data Crumbs as they go, like High Speech. And yet

Brads and Janets do not seem certain of how they gained the ability to speak.
It is theorized that they began dinning objects with iniornticulacy,
until eventually the din became more organized—

still tumultuous clamour,
just a bit more meat in the current day.

If this is true,
it means that to attain bsproken thought the Brad and Janet brain created a specific system for language and a way to code it—working largely off the constantly developing faculty for memory. It is an idea revealed by bit com-partitian-alization of throught data threw the structure of language; re-veiled in the way that Brads and Janets peak or wrighte using their memorized vocabularies and concepts.

This mind fore Toe-ing mortgaged itself to the e-x-ternal word,
and Brads and Janets found power in pontification of life.

Then dawned Ninetbeen.

If the systems of Ninetbeen were enhanced then a more dominant Reality presentce resulted. The most refissiont equation became the most dominant, but
the most efficient equation is not the best.

There are many sacrifices made for effishinsea.

For the most dominant Brads and Janets it became an obsession
to control every aspect of the nature from which they Rose,
sacrificing natural progression

(Of course, it does seem like this is the natural progression,
Brad's and Janet's predetermined path—
a relief that is a symptom of the most engineered systems of code).

Unfortunately,
these systems are destroying Brads and Janets,
and raw rEffissionsea,
Pure confusions,
will not save them.
-- Thrusher Swainson, Bear M.B.

STOP: TURN THOUGHT
The Letter-Ing: word
tenth or last
in a series of poems made of quotes
one part to a whole
its sum has yet to be totaled
may be more than its parts
subject to change
Arke Sep 2018
red torii gates separate the sacred
engraved with kana names
I step on the stone tiles
reinvent myself by praying
to every god I have never believed in
donating all the coins I have to shrines
the omamori will protect me
with pretty ribbons, silk, and wood
their birds guide to understanding
converting lies into truths before me
their paper songs a tender kindness
and there is courage within me
even as my voice turns to melody
my words spill out a tune
the temple walls hum
a chorus of veracity, louder
I have come to realize the importance
of moral authenticity within me
your gracious decency, divine
delicate gentleness with my fragility
from shattered pieces I rebuild
recollect myself and rise stronger
the sakura blossoms melt
the tide rises up the torii
compelled by a cold moon
wooden birds take flight away
and I return solid and true
M Feb 2014
To tell you exactly, specifically, precisely why I love you
I'd have to reinvent an alphabet, create a language, learn to sign
The feeling that bubbles within when I look into your eyes cannot be captured or explained

I feel like the world stops moving
My breath struggles leaving my lungs
All my fears, worries, washed away

What is so powerful about loving you
is the way you love me in return
I feel confident, unstoppable, beautiful
You tell all the dark parts inside to quiet
whispering, no shouting to them:
I am worthy of love

To be worthy is all that I have ever wanted,
needed,
cried for in the middle of the night

Although there is still so much to learn about each other
Adventures to be had, moments to share
I am giddy with anticipation
your love gives me strength
Replenishes me
Fulfills me

I have yet to really write down how I feel about you until now
I've been afraid words would take our magic away
I'd wake up one morning and realize is was a mere dream

You steal my chapstick with your kisses
Put up with my sassy abrasive nature
You encourage me to work
The way you look at me sometimes gives me the courage to begin to look at myself the same way

With your arms tightly around me, our legs intertwined, I begin to imagine what heaven could actually be like

When I'm with you, I say I love you honestly
Eeach time is unique.
I realize how incredibly lucky I am to have you
to be loved by you
every syllable is as sincere as the last

You make it okay
All the bad, dark, sorrow filled places within me that sometimes consume my light.
You accept those places,
You make me forget they even exist
You make my light shine brighter

We joke about my ego
but since you have been in my life, I feel okay
Even when I'm not, I know I will be.
Granted, it's not solely what you do for me but what you let me do for you
You allow me to love you
Accepting my love
welcoming it like you would a long lost friend
you do not turn and hide
you embrace me with arms open wide

It's magical
It's what I've waited for my whole life

What I spent so much energy convincing myself I could never have

It's everything that I'd ever want and more
It's love
It's life
It's you
ayroba dutton Aug 2014
What is our identity? They say it is what or who a person or thing  is Well for many of us thats our names For others its the adjectives people us to describe us For additional others plus myself sometimes it was our accolades
To more people it is their looks I mean appearance Furthermore some of us dont have an identity of our own so instead we ususe material things as our identity in order to replace and create an identity, however it is a false one
However, there will come a time when we all will be alone "just us" alone No awards no trophies no house no car no fancy clothes jewelry or makeup.
Instead we would all be alone with ourselves thoughts and feelings wondering "Who am I?" Because they lost all the things they thought made up their "identity" which leads to how do I "reinvent" myself next If I have nothing left the answer is you cant invent anything else to reinvent yourself with so all you can do is reinvent I mean prioritize your mind and heart
ryn Sep 2014
If I get lost, promise you'd leave me be
Let me walk alone in my circles
I'll find my way back...almost instinctively
Through looping thoughts and scribbles

If I should trip, promise you'd let me fall
Scrape my knee and scream a voiceless scream
Weight of the universe may seem crushing to shoulders so small
I'll walk it off and regain newfound steam

If I show signs of buckling, promise you'd let me collapse into nothing
Let me fold into myself...into an unnoticeable speck
There is solace in this space when the walls are caving
Soon I would reinvent and renew from that wreck

If I suffer a cut, promise you'd just let me bleed
Let the black of my soul gush out
Within it I would find the seed
To which all of my rantings are about

If I should begin to write, promise you'd read my scrawls
Take them as they are and not to heart
Just thoughts versus words that mean much or nothing at all
They'd stitch me anew when I start to break apart

If I keep losing myself, promise that you'd let me be
The circles I tread are very much predictable
They'd always lead me around... Don't treat me differently
Just stay where you are... I'll come back round, fresh and able...
Amanda Kay Burke Oct 2023
Never be frightened
To reinvent character
One part at a time
Never be afraid to reinvent yourself
Katlego Tladi Jan 2015
Die every night.
Live every day.
Cease and become.
If you are truly living.
If you are living truly.
I wish death upon you.
Be you. A different one everyday.
Byron May 2013
There once was a man who said you could beat the world with your words. That you could conquer an army with the knowledge of a greater narrative and move the legions of many with the action of one verb. I want to believe who ever can recreate the frameworks our race. The foundational narrative of our moral ethic, the guidelines mankind has been leaning on for millenniums. I want to know a alternative story, with made up words and no respect for a-priori intuition or tradition but a legend of unabiding experience that is unlike any tangent or discourse known. I want to reinvent another codex.  

I saw god as the architect I consoled in the grand tree house, with the grand green house sitting in a curious English archway. The telescope room was laid with bricks and from it I could see all that made me content. I felt the time changing before my eyes. Whether I was in compromise or not was entirely up to the seasons of Zeus.

I am now never afraid of myself, I almost died and I remember it all. I have known fear and still revere the quenching of it's animosity. I am only a swerving flake of inner rind. I am all that is exhausted of my honest dive for humanity. I am me finally, a shell no more! Man is the helplessness of lost spatiality in his own timid surrealism. I have never been satisfied with the explanations no matter how exhaustive! Revisited by the techni-color outlook of the turning millennium craze. The alleviation of all hopes when they turned out a dead end inthemselves, a lost avenue of my childhood.

I guess we all wanted that age-old rampant abuse of youth in ways that were neither aesthetically pleasing or unifying towards our own, best. I was tired of the beautiful sprites I grew up with. I was tired of locking myself in closets at nights and rubbing my face into the it's knotted carpet floor. I'm tired of the songs that advocated joyful frolicking into the drapped daylight. The oddities grow old and the used up phrase are clique now. I lost my mind seeing the years of my language frightened by the sound of my own breath. Grow into yourself. I am done with you anyways. I am done seeing them engulf a titanic drift of colorful intentions; flirting around the grand bonfire of the uncreated experience. I am lost with them. I question more than just our own value and I resign my thoughts on themselves for their own wealth and safety. When you want it said so bad but the forces of those unforeseen, creative hives oscillate and never stop it's steps into the night-legend. Then the world ends and was never in out of tension. I electrify my time and run into the a.m. frantic like a monkey, waving around and jesting my arms. I'm tired of the old music, in with the artifacts who architect the reverberation of my heart.

Your myth has lived into the century and I can see your ideas into the lives of all maniacs and the honest young, the deranged youth. We are amidst a heavy tension, i cry again. I want my mother's words three times a day and more on my weak hours. I am content in the alien maze of my music and want only the childhood campers to love me like a king. They gathered around at night, around the campfire. They initiated the song and dance with gaiety rhythm; that was the nights stars collided into bedtime. The same night I was torn by the dreams of an old horrid man who gave me no name and no rest from tear and horror. What evil is an anonymous the Will that censors awareness and knowledge. If it kills

So what then of the tribal pack psyche we all inherit. In days where beauty was up to chance. Our proximity to a woman was determined by breeding patterns and the realm of funds available for travel and food. What now in these days of the internet? When the whole world is at the tops of our finger tips and even more far away is the understanding we gain of our inability to have the cream of the world. We are in a great exaggeration of ourselves, of our will, and of our determined out-come. We have little but the pessimisme of our predecessors to guide our philosophies application. The translation of dream-world is perfectly out of reach for us and always for our posterity. From here on out we are a new age. A new age whose gates are christened by the ungenuine thugs and malevolent brand names of our civilization. We are faking it till the end. I am scared and drilled by horror and filled more with black premonitions. I wish I had eyes to see myself with a more generous charity but I don't and neither do you. What you see is an age of outward anticipation for the soring ribbons of undone realities.

The artist is the one who has seen the broad fleeting wisp of an out-of-world innuendo. It is the ethereal encounter with a cognitive defect that mimic as a supernatural sensation, this is seen by the artist as true humanity and rightfully so as it brings him to tears.

I always forget that we are always on the cusp. That we are simply a few bruised years away from reveling in the stained, sealed golden sunlight of the age that has came. What we do now is entirely crucial to our ability to be in unending sorrow and remorse. We see our people in a clearer way, for what they where struggling with, for what their reverie finally came to look like, ugly or gleefully self created, their vision of the world will always be our continual source of inspiration.
grumpy thumb Mar 2021
Wandered eye over weary scenes of contempt.
Lost to white noise of familiar content Everydays' freshness has long since been spent
Eyes search for pastures new and to reinvent.
Give me some other world to sip at,
this one is diluting.

This is how we dance
A row of tombstones; economics?
Market of waste, reinvent me.

Aligned, invisible, gothic
Encased in amber necklaces
Suspended animation
I will wait for years. Frozen
for renewal.

At every chance, the prospect of lightning
calms the heart.
Racheal McKnight Mar 2016
There are always ways to improve,
Who you really are.
You don't have to always be the same,
To shine just like a star.

You can reinvent yourself,
In more ways than one.
But the changes you are making,
Will never be done.

Your personally changes,
Each day that you grow older.
As long as you try your best,
You can destroy your problems like a bolder.

So try and reinvent yourself,
And change yourself for the better.
It will help you find yourself along the way.
And you can be your own trendsetter.
judy smith Jul 2016
Valentino has its red, Versace its Medusa logo, Chanel the tweed that lines dresses and jackets and handbags each season. In the fashion world, these nuances of texture and color, in conjunction with shape, are what help define a brand's identity, what ultimately makes them feel familiar to consumers; they are fashion's version of DNA. Designers carving out their place within the industry will often land on their own set of signatures that are built upon with each new collection—but Patric DiCaprio, the 26-year-old designer of Vaquera, isn't interested in "buy-ability" or recognizable traits. "We are obsessed with keeping people guessing" he says. "We want that to be our thing."

In the three seasons since launching the New York-based brand, DiCaprio has infused Fashion Week with the sort of Dionysian energy once felt at early John Galliano shows. For his Summer/Spring 2016 show, staged at the Church of the Ascension in Greenwich Village, models walked the aisle to the Smashing Pumpkins in baptismal baby-doll dresses and ruffled bloomers, with DiCaprio's boyfriend closing the show in a wedding gown. In February, with new partners David Moses and Bryn Taubensee on board, a debaucherous cast of models dressed in Victorian-meets-club looks danced, lifted their skirts and put their cigarettes out in audience member's drinks at the China Chalet venue in the Financial District.

"Vaquera is about constant reinvention," DiCaprio says of his no-guts-no-glory ethos. "It's about the future; the future of style and clothes, but not in the cliche of futuristic spandex and metallics."

Much like his collections, the designer's path in fashion has been far from linear. Born and raised in Alabama, DiCaprio attended a private Christian school before studying photography at a public university in the South. An internship with DIS Magazine offered him a crash course in art direction and styling, and the opportunity to draw creative fuel from New York—a city that has very much proven to be his creative elixir.

"I felt like I had been underwhelmed for my whole life," says DiCaprio, who moved to the city five years ago and taught himself to sew through YouTube tutorials. "When I first came to New York it felt like I had finally gotten my head above the water and had oxygen for the first time. This place was overwhelming in the best way." DiCaprio spoke with PAPER about his creative approach, his unconventional path to fashion and his idolization of David Bowie.

What sparked your interest in fashion?

I think it's always been about clothes for me. When I was in middle school and high school I was always in bands. I was obsessed with Screamo and David Bowie—the groups that had such strong visual aspects to their work. But I think part of me always felt like I was doing that so I could assume the look. Screamo bands would let me wear the size zero, ultra-stretch white jean. With David Bowie, I wanted to wear the gold eyeshadow; it was always about the look.

How did studying photography lead you to fashion design?

My school was very focused on the craft—the dark room and perfect exposure—but I think I was on the opposite end, I was interested in what was happening in the photo. I left college to do an internship with DIS Magazine and because they're involved in so many creative avenues like photography and styling and art and video, I was able to get a realistic vision of things. The experience [with DIS] made me realize I was less interested in photography and more interested in creating these characters.

When school ended, I moved to New York and and worked with DIS again and then with VFiles in [the archives department]. I'd go through old issues of ID and Paper and Dazed and it taught me a lot about fashion history. I had been removed from all of that when I was growing up, there was no Chanel store in Alabama, there was no Dazed And Confused at the Barnes and Noble in Alabama. Coming to New York I was able to get my hands on the clothes and study these old magazines.

How did you get that initial internship though?

I'm obsessed with Tumblr. I got on it more than eight years ago, and it was a huge part of helping me reach out to people. People that I'm still friends with now—Hari Nef and Juliana Huxtable—I met through Tumblr; they moved to New York before me and motivated me to do the same. So I emailed the team at DIS, and asked if I could show them my photography portfolio—which sounds so funny to say now—and they offered to show me the ropes. They hooked me up with Avena Gallagher, who is an inspiration and has taught me everything I know about styling.

About two years ago I started working for her and became obsessed with styling. I styled Charli XCX for a year—and it was exciting, definitely closer to what I wanted to do but it wasn't exactly it. I wanted to pull specific things—1980's Issey Miyake, but there was no way a no-name stylist like me would be able to get my hands on it. So I bought a sewing machine and started sewing the things I wanted for photo shoots. Vaquera started as an art project that wasn't about wearing the clothes or making something for Opening Ceremony—it was about making clothes that I could then shoot. The final product was the look book.

What made you decide on the name Vaquera?

A few different reasons. I was reading a book by Tom Robbins called Even Cowgirls Get The Blues and it was really informative for me at the time. I was also working in a kitchen as an expediter with a bunch of Mexican line cooks and they had a lot of pet names for me, like "el pato" which is gay slang for f—got, and "little baby doll." They knew I was from the South so they'd call me "La Vaquera" because that's Spanish for cowgirl—even though cowgirls aren't Alabama, it's more of a Texas thing. So I just called the project Vaquera. It seems so arbitrary now, I'm stuck with it for better or worse.

What's been one of the challenges of keeping things future-focused?

I've had criticism from people that it's such a bad business model to reinvent yourself each season, that no one's going to know what to expect from you. Buyers are going to be confused, you're never going to make any money. And I've just been like, "Well, I think we don't have any interest in that." We are obsessed with keeping people guessing—we want that to be our thing. I try my best to keep it a secret until the day of the show and then just let loose.

So we're going to assume you won't be giving any clues about next season's show.

Oh my god, i don't want to give it away! I think people want to see billowy-sleeves but that's out the door. We're doing something completely different. Romantic but a whole different definition of romance.

How has working with David and Bryne changed things for you and the brand?

Last season it was like a whole new brand. We came together through Avena and it feels like we're progressing, which is exciting. I got sick of doing everything alone. For the Spring show I sewed everything, produced it myself, got the location, cast it myself.

And did you collapse after the show ended?

It was a serious problem, it became impossible. I realized I was either going to have to plateau so I could get my life together or I was going to have to find a way to expand the vision. I trust Bryne and David with my life and they understand my vision but have their own ideas. It was a necessary change.

So many designers have expressed concern about the relentless pace of the industry recently.

All these different seasons—pre-fall, couture, designers showing things that are going to be available for purchase the day after the show. That's so scary for people like us who are on our hands and knees in the living room cutting the clothes and can barely get them made in time for the show.

Do you want to stay independent? What are the benefits and detriments, in your opinion?

I think we want to stay independent. I want to make money but I don't want to feel pressure to do certain things. I'm already so sick of that show we just did—already on to the next one. It's like with Demna Gvasalia getting the Balenciaga job: I was so disappointed to see him doing the same thing he did at Vetements at Balenciaga, but then I realized, with all the money that's involved and when you're working with these huge offers, there's contracts. Money complicates things in a way that I think can hurt people's creativity. Maybe you'll make a lot of money for a few years, but you might forget how to make exciting things because you're stuck with the designs that worked well one time. I want to make money, but we want to find different ways of doing it.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-melbourne | www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-adelaide
Mattrick Patrick Mar 2015
Its not a matter of your body or your age
the truth doesn't carry weight, but sets the stage
for the flow of knowledge: wisdomage.

To abandon nothing, but reinvent everything
including the wheel of your mind;
a complete surrender, absent knowing;

Inheriting nothing, reinventing nothing
including the dreams that you are;
a complete surrender to the way thus far.

We cherish the day, met humbly
without a care, in side and out a tribe in harmony
creating together, sans competition:
pacific planets orbiting the Sun.
Enlightenment
Freds not dead Mar 2011
With my hands on the back of your neck
I see the crackling raising erecting
Of your swan skin
My thoughts are gasping for breath
       Going upwards in the
            Filling shame
War and city battles, apartment bullets
Motel room fiascos, jigsaw pounding passion

With my body cutting you down the center like a diamond
I’m breaking you into formlessness
Jagged like clean glass
I’ll pray to your white scars
              I’ll reinvent myself
Come out of the still lake
             Cleanse myself in black oil
Lips like razor blades, teeth like wet wings
       Innards on the pillow case, on the
Boring walls, on the idols

With your hands around my neck, your fingers in my mouth
Cheating life out of life
Taking it out on one another
                    Bruised peaches bleeding on the ****** scene
Dead red balloons left over, molding cake
Boot marks on the white rug
I want you puritanical, *****
We’re finished
We’re glowing
Lifted up waiting
for the floor.
Mateuš Conrad May 2020
perhaps a hannibal lecter interlude...

  after all... pronouns... are they really: all that important...

the first the second the third wave
of secularism...
fine... fine... make religious artifacts
dunce...
               make iconoclasm...
make it sacrilege...

   islamic stessors on: no images...
         you'd think: high praises for grammar,
orthography and all that...
"orthography": without diacritical markers:
a technical term for something pretty
pedestrian: a spelling mistake...

pronouns... i much prefer prepositions
and conjunctions: the sharpnel of the whole affair of:
a sentence structure...

the liberal, atheist, secular cuddly toys
can have everything... except for the grammar...
since... i **** on {[( and }]) and whatever
bracket >            and < is invoked
to "reinvent a piece of paper"...

pronouns... pronouns...
      i am for: remembering that an aardvark is...
not... and is...
i like to bank a lot of nouns...
i truly do...

             if it can't be settled with the already
in place: crown pronouns...
e.g.: one should think so...
                as in i...
veer into: are we being... addressed?
  the royal we.... the crown of one...
hell... even schizophrenics have better
days than dealing with a pluralism...
the horde does: and the host...

trans-     meta-           cis-       ortho-
               para-                hell... is this a chemistry
lesson? with this prefixes?

the royal use of the pronoun...
because of the... visible entourage...
hence: is one to think so...
are we... being addressed?
   a very, a very very different mind-spatiality
to the inconvenient cork
or nail of the common, labouring:
plumber...

                i's dot and no dots further:
nonetheless does so...

trans-gender lessons in grammar...
i know an older lesson...
trans-******... buffalo bill lessons in pronouns...

it rubs the lotion on its skin...
   it rubs the lotion on its skin...
   or else it gets the hose again...
it rubs the lotion on its skin...
   yes precious: it gets the hose...
    it rubs the lotion on its skin
or else it gets the hose...
  it puts the lotion in the basket...
and it does
...
                         (greenskeepers... lotion)

                  we are living in very curious times...
which leaves alluded to...
supposed or otherwise suspect "schizoid-bilinguals"
looking for the chance of playing
poker and someone looking over our shoulder...

have all the religous trampling you can
muster... but grammar is the new religious
dogma... it's the new orthodoxy...

                        it's the old orthodoxy...
a totally wonky pancake of a buffalo bill trans-sexuality
becomes easier to understand than
all the trans-gender-                 -ism...
another -ism another -ology...
              
          **** in the church take a **** on the altar...
tell a ******* like marquis de sade did:
to desecrate a crucifix by reinventing it into
a *****... whatever...

but grammar? can't anything be sacred these...
days? royal pronouns: one should hope so...
are: we being addressed?
    
a grevious faux pas -
      looks something like this: hey presto!
why?
         the colon is a prefix to italics...
     i.e. looks something this: hey presto...
but given the bad choice of e.g. -
i.e. it's also a punctuation mark...

             point being: not like this...
              yes: like this...
              and yes... thus...
                       but....         :        and its
hardly a double emphasis...

    O the low hanging fruit... since:
there's nothing controversial to be said...
this is just the pretty much crass...

     i was sure there must have been a writing
to "compete" with the runes...
that st. cyril had to work with something...
before the romans... well... when the romans
never came...
but the southern slavs
moved into the territory of former jugol...

ⰏⰀⰃⰉⰀ / ⰏⰀⰃⰡ
what once was...
and became:
                        магия...

           well... so much for: "out of africa"....
concerned with the complexity of scribbles
                       and doodles...
so much for those chinese tattoos...
the base is above: the word
is the same...

मघ / मग     and that's just the consonants MG...
it's not magic: it's... magia...
or: "or" magja...

          seems like the greek Π is the roof...
     out of india: perhaps out of africa...
but when did people start writing?

     now for the vowels...
                                   मआघइअ:
म   (m)                
आ   (aa)                      अ
घ    (g)        alt.
इ     (i)
अ     (a)...

                   the H is a surd: a shared
detail of both english and sanskrit...
but i think... मघ / मग... the latter is better suited....
e.g. 'atch: well... there's also
that surd of a G and a K: knived a gnome heart
out... laughed: ah ha ha...
and...                     journalistic insomnia
couldn't care for better days...
or UV paranoia: "paranoia"...

ergo...

                                   मअगइअ:
म   (m)                
आ   (aa)                      अ
ग    (g)        alt.
इ     (i)
अ     (a)...                      

this is still not magic... linear! thank "god"...
    well... this pepper... this perpetuated
thrist... which doesn't leave one satiated...
never completed... just more and more...
disastrous... keep the ship afloat...
while i start to nibble on the anchor!
and take ol' 'aptain down with me like:
a mermaid!
Dorothy A Sep 2011
I know why Vincent Van Gogh Cut off his own ear

We are a mad bunch, you see
Poets and painters and playwrights
On the prowl for something to
jump start our perpetual yearnings,
our keen senses and cravings,
on the quest for so much more
than the status quo,
of merely checking off just another day
from our calendars

We are those kinds of people
Who wish to reinvent the world
Often cursing at our failings and insecurites
While obsessively working to shape and sculpt
our view of this planet
To fit our own brand of imagination
To satisfy our starving hopes
and desperate dreams
To foster vivid visions
from the views that are vague  
And to wipe away
The nightmares of old
that cry out in us

We believe in make-believe
We who are misfits to "normalcy"
We rarely seem to fit into
The "real world"
Yet we know that this world is
Pure insanity
Stark madness
Sheer perplexion
Yet we are the ones
suffering for the sake
of our art
Often misunderstood
Many times branded as "weirdos"

I can understand the pain
Of not getting my art right
Of not seeing its worth
Because someone sniffed at it
Or scoffed at it
Or blindly passed it by
Many times, we want to break through
And join the world of our works of art
But we can't
We're stuck in the middle of its beauty
And nothingness

Yes
I know why Vincent Van Gogh cut off his own ear
alex furlin Jul 2012
Insomnia is not the, uh
End of the line or some transcendent sign
That tells you that happiness and comfort are reserved for other people only

Take a deep breath to ensure the cheap death of the sleep theft
That robs you of your right to not dim the lights and go unconscious tonight
Stay awake and aware
Put foot to the brake and delay your despair

Mourn the loss of a fate that did not graduate
Into all that you’d hoped for and tried to create
Life is never translated perfectly from your grandiose dreams
To what actually seems to be the case
That the world is confusing and unforgiving place
Don’t cry over a book shedding some words making the leap from page to silver screen
Rejoice that you even have source material

For me, it was getting caught up in the fantasy of a girl
Who, for a little while anyways, redefined my entire world
My life's atlas is still undergoing edits, so she gets some due credit
And like an inquisitive child testing out his hypothesis on a lightswitch
She’d disappear without a sound and wait around to just be found
Awesome, awful, top of the world, bottom of the barrel, there, and not

And... not.

...

I was foolish enough to be a rollercoaster seat who genuinely believed that
The person who chose me wasn’t merely in it for the ride
But for something inside
Some kind of feeling
Only I could have supplied

But at the end of the 60-second 60-mile per hour loops and swoops
The bars come up and the passengers leave
And the seat is left there wondering
“Didn’t they like having fun with me?”

I’ve been brainwashed
to this strange spot
of abstained thoughts
there’s been days when I praise God
But today’s not
I gotta claim faith debt and hit rock bottom
And do to my demons what the so-called faithful don’t
Talk about ‘em

So for now I’m gonna let her light go dark
Because I’ve been blinded to the fact
That when I’m attacked
I can still create my own spark

I can climb outta the hole and
Get back in control and
shrug em all off and
the only thing she deserves is a scoff and
a few verses dispersed with perverse curse words

...*****.

I’m diagnosing myself with fictitious symptom syndrome
This apparent disease squeezes by my dilating eyes and disconnects my
god ****** diaphragm and derails my dialect

But as long as my skeleton stands up straight
And I have stories to create
Then yeah, I think I’m okay with putting off sleep for the night
In exchange for believing that everything is all right
Because tomorrow morning, I’m waking up at 100%
With the intent to reinvent myself and represent myself
As a glasses free Clark Kent
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2016
yes, i know he said he was a vegetarian, delicate counter-priesthood prince - a manner of vegetarianism that expressed an abhorrence of the practice of Eucharist, i too think the Eucharist as a metaphor is a bit porridge: i.e. yucky.  but as Wagner said to him: up north, either you eat meat or you lose the plot (loose - ß - again, not scharfes S - but die scharfes'zart - sharp-tender - already prerequisite of what sharpening omega meant for the w); mind you: salt & pepper to taste according to your own palette - if you're not a sugar ****** you won't over-salt the sauce... and you certainly will not overcook the pasta, halfway between dreadlocks and poodle hair: desirably experience bound al dente, and here comes Socrates with his knowledge of al dente: me no muffin! true that... like all these excess sugar breakfast cereals - ******* the outside, soft inside... or like the idea of ants having an exoskeleton... that's pure culinary theory - al dente exoskeleton; did i already mention salt and pepper to taste? yeah, the beef stock cube is salty, but not salty enough, given the already unsalted meat and vegetables: i cook, i take care of a toddler - Nietzsche keeps bragging: cooked by a cyclops.

who would have thought that a personal
revision of mama Italia's classic
could end up being so tasty;
Nietzsche is the foremost diner in my humble
abode: i just like the way he says:
who let woman into the kitchen?!
that's right, i deviated from the standard recipe
of mama Italia's cooking for papa don
Giovanni - honestly? in lonely times at
university when everyone was into ******
ad drunk debaucheries, and ****** fancy dress
parties? Aria Giovanni saved the day...
just look at the classic beauty, plump as a plumb
in between two cream bergs - such
exfoliation... where's that daddy long-legs
on the catwalk... come on! shove a malteser up
her *** like a suppository escutcheon - i'm sure
the salad leaves will keep her starving even more,
or walk her in Gucci with a drip-pole -
intravenous therapy while on the job -
but can you believe what only a quarter of a teaspoon
does to the Bolognese sauce recipe?
wonders... you don't add the carrot, or the celery,
among the vegetables you add button mushrooms,
and the three colours of peppers -
onions and garlic (a lot of it) as standard -
oregano, rosemary and thyme too,
some Italian five-spice - but the fennel seeds!
the fennel seeds! after i learned to cook i see
ready meals are diabetics in disguise,
and restaurant foods as defunct -
what? we're all expressing our capacity to
make choice, apologies if you made the sort of
choices you now hate... hardly a reason to
complain about my exercise in freedom,
i don't blame you, i'd have chosen differently
if i were you too... but there we go...
i'm cooking Bolognese from scratch because i like
to tickle my sense of smell and the buds of
the palette garden, i look at the sauce and
write fiction: the plot thickens...
                                                     and that's the great
3 minute microwave sequence on the other
side of the spectrum... because we're all so *busy
-
busy bees and that's merely the generation Y
dads getting hormonal treatment from tending to
babies - choices choices choices -
                                                          oddly­ enough
the mediocre work that goes on in those glass
shards - by comparison, the default argument is
pretty obvious: i too would have not invested
in caring for art, or as i once said:
you can't get good art and raise a family -
you can create good art that will support the family,
you'd end up being a great technician,
an artistic engineer - the standard model of bridges /
already in your head - is refining yourself
via plagiarism - you end up plagiarising yourself -
but come one! a quarter of a teaspoon of fennel seeds?
well, i'm not talking cumin seeds...
or maybe it was the turmeric powder that
coloured the onions yellow while frying?
2 tablespoons of garlic - for sure, enough garlic
and we're already talking Dracula -
~5 strips of bacon too -
                                          no, not necessarily involving
carrots and celery - why be boring?
this is me in my furore days in an organic
chemistry class at university - back to the esters
and perfumes, but this is raw, it's analytical
chemistry, it's nothing synthetic -
birds and the bees and some hippy buckles over
a giant butternut squash - which is why i find
people who ably memorise and recite poetry
are the same people who probably write polemics,
and do the peacock verbal dance for a woman
in a restaurant - rather than give her raw grub
of your own calibre - 1 cube of beef stock
dissolved in water - simmering for about 40 minutes,
tomatoes chopped - obviously tomato puree -
500 grams of mince beef -
                                                ever think that poetry
could reinvent journalism and also the way of
writing recipes? FENNEL SEEDS! that's what goes
in first, you roast them in chilli infused olive oil -
let them sizzle for a bit - and yes,
you pour some oil into salted water where
you'll be boiling the spaghetti - the oil means the
spaghetti won't stick together, plus pouring
oil into a saucepan of boiling water is the other
famous pastime of chemists... the former?
watch paint dry. i'm pretty ****** sure i missed something,
like mama Italia missed something to keep
the recipe a secret - well... there's Parmesan cheese
to garnish and fresh basil -
                                                and if i were raising a family,
i wouldn't be listening to the dead skeleton's album
dead magick... oh sure, the reward would be:
i'd have a little crowd at my funeral, some gibberish
about how many people knew me so well... but really
didn't... the whole street profession...
                i never got the idea of solitude and how it
might be sad from the Beatles' Eleanor Rigby song -
don't know never became an impressionable counter -
oh yeah, Darwinism helped! it helped a lot
in creating a world view, a world view that said:
don't touch this ****... leave them to it:
these people are more influenced by opinion columns
of newspapers than philosophy books -
in England, where, i dare say, the daily telegraph
is actually respectable, as is the guardian -
and the central of the two opposites? tickling
tabloid, i call the times posh tabloid, because it is
a posh tabloid: i like the way fame
desired for sales becomes toilet paper
the next day... or the newspaper on the street
that gets the footprint on the plastic surgery escapades...
love it! mm, yes darling! lovin' it!
Shaded Lamp Sep 2014
Black
A thumping heartbeat
Distant vocal sounds
Then light and love
Dependency
Curiosity
Communication
Joy
Creativity
Education
­Awe
Respect
Disrespect
Comradery
Individualism
Tribalism
Recklessness
Lust
Love
Heartbreak
Hopelessness
Soul searching
Understanding
Trust
Empathy
Maturity
Desire
Love
Babies­
Selflessness
Responsibility
Nurture
Wonder
Teaching, endless teaching
Let go
Let go
Let go
Review
Regret
Reinvent
Rediscover
Relive through grand kids
Leave your mark
Not a stain
Your life ends it's final wane
Then humbly...
back to
Black
There was more than I expected
AnonymouslyHere Jul 2014
Music can build you up, tear you down, reinvent your future and make you feel so wholeheartedly desperate that you just want to rip your heart out
- now, every one interprets music differently-
So...after you ripped it from your chest...
What did you do, give it away?
Or, burn it, so the temptation is gone?
Sarah Anuar Sep 2018
You didn't break me in half. You just left without words. You just burnt without settings things on fire. No. What you did was worst, you robbed me; in broad daylight.

But see, I didn't fall into a pit expecting to be saved, I have my own safety equipment, it functioned perfectly well, I climbed out of a hole I dug out myself. I didn't forget my body, I just forgot my mind. I just needed time, because my body wants a different mind, a kind that wouldn't look for you in the first place.

I want to reinvent myself.
Natalie Jane Jul 2013
A LETTER FOR YOU (AND, OF COURSE, FOR ME, TOO):
It smells like my grandmother's house in here.
Like lazy Saturdays, of dripping sweat, of climbing trees, of building Lincoln Log houses for ants or Deathstars of Legos but I spread my legs and that smell of--regret is not the word, nor is shame--I feel neither--but of came, of stale, cold air and stiff comforters on top a bed at the Best Western--A living proof of how you've changed. After you finish and inhale and burst your exhausted, satisfied breath, I sweetly kiss you--your neck, your jawline, your cheeks, your forehead, your eyelids. You hold us in and sleep as if a few drinks are enough to forgive. I tell you to slow down because you owe me about 5 years to make up for lost time. You slip your tongue down as if I had not broken your heart. But a man learns, and that's our biggest difference--man and woman, you and I--you've grown cold and moved on to content loneliness and betterness than to give a girl who's hurt you a second chance.
Me--I've grown to let the warmth run over you, like a hot glass of water from a motel room sink after an ******. Past content, loneliness and betterness than to obsess about a boy grown sour from a girl too hurt to not want to take back the past.
We check in for the night to "make up for lost time."
We check out.
What's a girl to do?
Other than watch you sleep so still like you used to next to me, even with still blankets, it's cold. Hold me?
We walk out to our cars on a hot, departing Fourth of July.
I coax you into closing your lips over mine before you leave, but the key is already turned in. We already ate our free breakfast, ******, scratched, bruised.
You've already checked out, so
what's a girl to do now?
What's a girl to do?
AND
I cannot forget Whitman's words: "We were together, I forget the rest."
AND
Vonnegut's epitaph: "Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt."
AND
"Every time I kiss you
After a long separation
I feel
I am putting a hurried love letter
In a red mailbox"

AND
I feel like a one night stanza written by you who is more beautiful and unforgiving than words on a page
AND*
I am not drinking quickly enough--or enough, despite the speed
AND
Bukowski's poem:
year-worn
weary to the bone,
dancing in the dark with the
dark,
the Suicide Kid gone
gray.
Ah! the swift summers
over and gone
forever!
Is that death
stalking me
now?
No, it's only my cat,
this
time
AND I DIGRESS BECAUSE
my dear sweet Ambien Walrus has abandoned me in reality among the living. So blissful breaks, only a stomach churning in the minutes passing of a long night.
No worries, Mr. Walrus. I'd abandon me too. Only drinking, imagined aliens, crying and words here--words to document your blessed coming and mournful going into the wee hours of the unforgiving days. There is no glory in the mornings. I watch for you as I watch the hours pass. No bliss in the minutes stretched over the midnight break. Only words, no blessing, no grace, to pass the heavy nagging of the night. Will I see you again?
"We were together, I forget the rest."
What's a girl to do?
AND
oh yeah, drink more. Fingers crossed.
What more can a girl do, really?
OH
take another drink before the liquor runs out.
AND DRAW UPON MISTAKES PAST
I know this letter is getting out of hand
BUT
hear me out for all the words you never had to hear. I promise I'll throw in a joke somewhere.
AND
I sneak outside for a cigarette and watch an armadillo rummage closer to me while I search for another poem to make me feel better, another poem for this letter to you I will never send but maybe, if the situation's right, to read to you on some drunken night. I promised you a joke, but now, I giggle at my own feelings. Maybe you will too. I hope you laugh too--At my hands so aching, at my torn apart ******, at my silly feelings and words to help me forget a reminiscing night of you pushing my hair from my face so you can see my eyes when I purse my lips down below.
SO
here's your joke, I suppose.
This one's on me.
IN CONCLUSION
"At 23, the best of my life is over and its bitters double...I am sick at heart...I have outlived all my appetites and most of my vanities."
Byron knew the futility of joy in little things. In my quest to overcome a trivial ache, I have re-imagined a familiar road to uncertainty, instability, and insanity.
How great thou art!
Give me sleep and less slipping into this place of comfortable communion with the illnesses of my mind.
Of the body of Christ.
Amen.
Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the words and I shall be* sane.
Like Lazarus from the grave:
"This is not what I meant, at all."
"That is not it, at all."

God bless the blue.
What else is a girl to do?
BECAUSE
From the wards, I smell the mourned words of a place that I called home--this imaginary place that we must reinvent ourselves. Maybe mine is on Corporate Woods Drive, and all this--this is just a yellow brick road with little munchkins sweetly singing, follow it back home. I'll skip in a pretty dress with my friends and my babies to smell the grey walls and be asked of safety. I get lost every once in awhile but the Cheshire Cat asks, "where do you want to go?"
"I want to go home," I answer.
"Then," says the cat, "it doesn't matter."
IN OTHER WORDS
"I'm afraid I can't explain myself, sir. Because I am not myself, you see?"
"I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, 'Who in the world am I?' Ah! that's the great puzzle!"
SINCERELY YOURS (AND MINE, TOO)
Natalie
Miss Grim Jan 2016
It's not the memories that hurt.
I seldom find myself lost amongst those painful reveries.
No, it's much deeper than that.

It's not logical or tangible.
It's an inexplicable feeling,
Or lack there of.
A void.
Deeper than conscious thought.

It's molecular.
As if the atoms that create my existence mourn your presence.
Perhaps they grew fond of the way our forms were intertwined.
Vibrating in unison to an unheard melody.
They moved together in harmony.
They united for a time only to be torn apart by shallow egos and petty differences.

That's where the perpetual longing originates from.
They grieve your absence with an incessant hum that whispers your name throughout my body. Pleading with me to fix this.

Sigh.
Sounds better than admitting I actually miss the *******.
It's not me, I swear, it's my ******* atoms! Do I look like a physicist to you!? I don't know how to reinvent the atom!!
Makes sense to me.
Though it's not quite poetry.

(Well atleast that rhymed)
Noah Jan 2016
lean boys with bruised skin line the walls—
he turns; last five dollars already to the funhouse manager
(thank you, ma'am)
he reminds himself not to inhale, for fear that he will remember the emptiness of the carpet beneath his feet and in his throat and in his eyes
indulging worst nightmares seemed like a better idea on the fields of the fairground,
where he couldn't escape shifting eyes and spun pink silk and the bloating in the photos that the medical examiner took when his body washed up onshore
he is surrounded when his eyes are closed,
with the water by the beach, inhaling like he'll never breathe again and he breathes you in, you in every state of matter
melted eyes and cheap cologne; and he is drenched in the molasses voice he knew in another life,
before
before
when he was young and glittering
when he was untouchable
immortal
the mirrors reflect luxury in the form of decent highs and indecent clothes and
movement in the night as they never stop;
heaven to africa, and not back again
i promise this is. not who it sounds like its about. i mean maybe it is but listen i can explain i swear im not that much of a loser
vircapio gale Sep 2013
(history)

Quell the bard was silken-clad and ever young.
her flute connected earth and sky,
tamed lightning in the higher notes..
her ancient horse would winnie to her song
of endless breath she blew her story even into stone.
having borne the stigmas of a *****
her martial prowess struck,
trampled disrespect to cacophonic dust
while over hills and vales he carried her--
a love-sick equine heart at peace at last upon the road
between her thighs, commanded loyalty of beasts and men.
none claimed her for their own,
though some risked instant death to try

..stirge beaks tap on bones and rock
to seek corrupted blood of elven kings,
who having reigned and fallen
to a royal troglodyte of dragon times,
paint each eon with ambivalence...
i conjure what my heritage beholds
--reclusive double-tongue to hoard all words,
reinvent religions for a lark

what legend am i privy to the making of
that hasn't had its underwires stripped,
hung about a square in lewd display of Fact
to purge a sense of mystery awry?

i am alone within my fantasy.
its symbols still mythologize my i.
i will not bare it here, or anywhere--
concealment is its freedom, and its boon--
in which a frame of tenuous material appears

where antidote addictions cycle musically,
the timeline's summoning
a game of recompense, compensating wanderlust
won by whim and licorice for thought;
it finds familiarity untamed--
adolescent anchorage aweigh--
adventures into wildernesses lost




.
*stirge: a bird, bat or mosquito-like monster with a long proboscis which ***** blood from its prey
Nika Cavat Jul 2012
My child said today,
“You’d be rich if it wasn’t for me”
and she then smiled that goofy smile
adding, “Why did you have me then? I’m so expensive. ”

And when she later shimmied like a long lean cat
on a thin fence, I replied, “This is why I had you.”

And when she then made up her own word, bestfuzzer, to
describe a friend, I said, “This is why I had you.”

And as she curled into my belly on the bed
nuzzled my neck, and blew holes in my hair,
I whispered, “This is why I had you.”

She has forced me to reinvent myself
to plumb the deep waters of my reserve
my sanity, my will to live even
and bring up one more shining fish
one more favor, one more drive across town
one more strange meal at 2 am

And in cleaning away the thick of leaves, dirt, and grass
from my grandparents’ headstones
I become them, their bones my bones
Their struggle my struggle

How much we could have saved in not having children
would nevertheless have impoverished us in other ways.
We are driven by dumb unseen forces
as ancient as soil to create our children –
accident, intent, it doesn’t matter

so I pay homage to my grandparents - tired, frightened immigrants
barely out of childhood, with the stench of their parents
on fire singing their nostrils

Why did they persist?
What drove my grandmother to marry a man she’d never even met?
to bear his children, to suffer his beatings?

This is why I had you
Because I was lonely
Because I was *****
Because through you I sewed myself back together
Because you are my destiny

And when my child asks why I had her
I breathe milk and honey into her mouth
jostle the stars until they ****** like wind chimes
pulling the continents back together again.
And when she asks me,
I can only offer up the scoop of my palms and
the ticking of blood in my wrists as reasons.

— The End —