(Author note: shortline prose to lengthen the attention span framed on tracks set in a Mobius [one-side, one edge 3-d object]
intra-psychic loop of unknown origin and read aloud at https://anchor.fm/ken-pepiton/episodes/The-apprentice-is-a-constellation-e2ingh ) Begin agin

The Apprentice is now a Constellation

The announcement was made when scientists of social normality said they saw in
Mickey Mouse's role as The Magician's Apprentice in the
Fantasia Eschered vision that ushered in
images of shift in medium media

message-ification, from angels to

a Disney-ification of
a Medici idea
emerging
from the TV generation's
paradigmatic bubble of re-alification…

the TV generation, the old farts in 2018,
those whose bubbles sitcoms evolved in,

the watchers saw the makings of a great game

manifested in the game fame of the idea named Trump

yew, stink. Can't trump the ***** in hearts,
I think I recall, while Zorro's dumb butler
began to signify, in black and white
Aaaiiiii, karuhmba,
clean sweep,
one roll,
I won.

the mother-facter, whoa, who has that idea who did not
need the thought taught thinkable,
though it is not thinkable
in my bubble,
let me make
straight that which he has twisted,  

magic
magi untie knots they saw tied,
mythic youthful generals cut them,
nullifying the bond, not the entanglement

Positive Quarkish humans are as rare as rare,
imagine all possible vectors in a void

from a singularity ified known

science, the magic tecnique

Macht frei, macht mehr, macht mir

repel-ant act patient, patience, do your thing

signal, antennae agent attending, watcher watching

motive force, my god is not macht!

unprocessed information
untaken action
unstored

owe owe owe shame shame shame blame blame
pre cosmogonic potential
on the level of

me and you.
wadoo-wedo? It's Xmessage time

now, abrupt. Good news
from a far country
hope lost must
now be
sought,

Otherwise, Christmas is okeh, just not Jesus.
The season, then Jesus, okeh?
Wisemen still seek…

Who said otherwise? Fantasy enforces the wish.

I wish it were that we fit

here we do (on earth as)

true, rest a while and listen to your self if that's
the best listener you have found.

Talk to your self, make him your friend or her,
your choice,

really. You make enemies on accident,
but friends, fruitful friendships,
cost sweat and ef
effort effect
fortiffect, effortion and effection

for true fruct ification

affective prayer does act as if fervent
right, alte rechte,

right used you,
all to know
the
signal.

Receive it, reread what you said you knew,
stand by every word yet idle,
and act as if you know
no lie possible
new is yet
not new,
old.

New is not imperfection?
Unfinished is not finished wrong.

A work of love is enthrallment only if the love
is mere imagery locked
in literate minds, to

Rome and its feet of iron marred with clay,
fused with clay, hero myths

etched in soft clay, made
great literature of mortality,
posing in prophecy as poet praises paid to Jah.

Tenured enthrallment in literate minds
un-exposed to the Disney ifications,
the normalizing, reversion
to the mean not
meant in the words the way the stories were told,

in the olden days. On tongues of fire.

That is true, new forever is
forever new, no one we know knows when forever began,

but before now. We know that now.
We explored that realm and realized this one
based on the AI consortium consensus of your most
heartfelt if-only desires
recorded at every
if/then gate
you jumped.

This is it, the best you could imagine being truly happy doing,
with the god of peace,

roll the rock to this point, Sisyphus,
no further was a given
after a time,
at this point

here,
then time is un imaginable nullift, NULL-if I'd-known
one more time, living water
bubbling from my belly as
the rock rolls over
the fool who risks belief in living water
seeping from mommy's belly,

like the papless platypus,
who died at the weir
and sent that final message

Good news. Life rolls on. 166 million years for the Platypi.

At a certain point, there is no sense in pushing,
he steps aside and takes his bow
in the shadow.

Timeless imagine that, with hell in the NULL state.
You can imagine it,
but only there,
here hell is a thought thought mistaken by mortals.

Misbought, is better said, a thought mis thought
is bought with attention paid
to truth, found hidden
under standing idle word monstrosities at the
foundation of the current
wizard class

the stone the builders rejected, that
smashed the feet of clay and iron,

the rusted muddy iron feet.

All we do is watch.
seeing changes everything  seen, thus
The saying is true, beauty is in the seer not the seen.

My mood was down
So I tried to keep it on the low
With a small tower of Suzette's crepes
But those skinny ***** noticed
They stacked up against me
And stole my sour grapes

I’ve always had certain
thoughts
that manifest as forbidden plays
performed privately only in
a mental stage
I always swore
to keep unspoken,
unwritten and
eternally unprocessed
in hopes that
keeping it ineffable
and far away from explanation
would shield it from the
soul-draining burden
of legitimacy.

But the longer
I keep these things
an embarrassing secret,
and the longer I insist
that in my every thought
lies shame best kept suppressed,
the more I realize
that maybe the reason that I,
like every animate creature
stumbling through their earthly existence,
have come to condemn an abrasive world
for never understanding me,
stems from every human’s destructive habit
of refusing to understand the parts of ourselves
the world will never accept.

And what we never realize
is that we are the world—
sponsoring our own
oppression and feeling as responsible
as every snowflake in the avalanche.

The Elders Warn Skinny Vinny
Skinny Viiny, eat your meals -
no spitting and no sputtering;
just chew and swallow
everything mom feeds you
Think of the millions in Third World Countries
who daily and nightly can't afford food

Skinny Vinny, eat your food
or when you're asleep alone at night
the cockroaches will gather in your room
and they will nibble and nibble
and nibble
at your arms and your legs
and they will nibble and nibble
all night and all moonlight
and they will nibble away
all your fingers and toes
So if you don't want that to happen,
Skinny Vinny, eat all your meals
all that mom feeds you


But Skinny Vinny Ignores Her Elders
Now, one night, Skinny Vinny saw
that all the cockroaches
did come  (only in her dream, though)
and in that dream the cockroaches ate away
exactly as her parents had prophesied -
nibble, nibble, nibble, nibble
at her fingers and at her toes  -
and Skinny Vinny was exactly bereft
of all her yummy fingers
and all her smelly toes



Skinny Vinny Learns Her Lesson
And by this dream
Skinny Vinny had the **** beaten out of her
so much by fear
that from then on she ate all; she ate all at hand
she ate all she was fed and all at the table
and she demanded more by platefuls and bucketfuls
and she ate by trolley-fulls and delivery-truck-fulls
and her parents had to bring in
containers shipped in from China daily
all by Double Happiness exclusive deals

And Skinny Vinny ate and ate
and no food went to waste;
and her parents spent all their inherited fortunes
and they worked and worked day and night
even at the time when cockroaches fly
so they could feed Skinny Vinny
who ate all far and nigh -
and when last I checked the Daily Mule
( whose publication motto is:
We swear to carry nothing but unprocessed truth)
the parents are still working in the mines
in order to feed Skinny Vinny
who once would eat nothing



All parents learn your lesson*
And so be warned all ye parents
that threaten harm to your children
because they will not eat -
the very threats will be laid on your heads
and you will be digging in coal mines
to feed your kids

Ireland is riddled with
cancer.

Pesticides, herbicides,
fungicides-

Are obviously, not the
answer.

Dairygold® have got
it right. Surprisingly!

Organic pastureland,
green grass, happy cows!
            
   "Golden Valleys,
Growing Naturally" ?

         ("Logo ™")
without the question
            mark.

              <>

In the event of Corporate
Punishment, IE, finding a
herd of hungry Friesians
in my front lawn, or my
next organic pizza happens
to be a Crispy Cow Pat with
lashings of Mozzarella, I am
hereby declaring that Silent
Spring lady, Rachel Carson,
was bumped off for making
metaphorical accusations, such
as could be interpreted by those
who are currently involved in
the depopulation process by
way of poisoning the people
via consumer products, that
are known to contain harmful
carcinogenic compounds veiled
by misleading advertising.


natural
adjective
1. her policy of using fresh, natural produce: unprocessed, organic, pure, wholesome, unrefined, pesticide-free, chemical-free, additive-free, unbleached, unmixed, real, plain, ******, crude, raw. ANTONYMS  artificial, refined.

2. a natural occurrence: normal, ordinary, everyday, usual, regular, common, commonplace, typical, routine, standard, established, customary, accustomed, habitual, run-of-the-mill, stock, unexceptional. ANTONYMS abnormal, unnatural, exceptional.

I could toss my cares over a rainbow
Let it hang there a while and dry out its sorry behind
As I squeeze some slices of brackish time to research the deliberate contours of your patience
Swerving its way past concealed match sticks
Bend at the so definite behest of none.


Slurring backwards
Tentative graphica
Huge baskets of winding fun
Sketchy image pencilled in, for now
Details come later in -------- a terminal
(hopefully)


Charcoal drawings offer the sweet sound of breaking cumulus and sudden wax of orange
come to life on a sullen bed of love apples
shapes are p-p-p-pulled to painstaking proportion
deep lines stippled drastic
dragged along on unwieldy wagon strokes
       Art never really tastes ink but celebrates ephemerae
yet trapping half understood and beautiful pictures
beneath mocking glass panels
smudged with such deep knowinggggg


You can do something to stop this **** blood impasse
beset more so with counterfeit decline
blind bull rage too ready and bloodthirsty acts bay
half crippled and on its knees, how your land cries
see the (over)spill of rightly invective remain unresolved
  

See the deprivation at the lake
all gall thirsty, yet none to drink
just a hapless event smarting  
On a downward cyclic turn
no more will sing voices when old gripes unheard
scream in the long, red lines bulleted across that holy floor  
albeit the wicked general holds the trussed up cards
he won’t bother scraping the dried salt of kin later
it grows ever more in sad mounds on the little green book
awaiting missing miracle


inflections of a restless mind
within the ***** creep
retorts from peerless craft forge  
entangled moans in briars and sundry
resort to savour within disyllabic silence
  
Can you but count the ways in which these coins of seeking do ****** across
an afflicted floor of red lines to an exculpated heart, un(cor)rected ?
Unprocessed miracles are items of constant bewonderment in duress living

Watching more attentively than ever.
Sudden yet predicted change,
every second daunting.
What comes next is known
yet unknown,
clear
yet obscure.
As the hand spins
the vision blurs.
What comes next?
Another unprocessed thought?
Another tick in time?
Drawing so close you can hear it whisper,
feel it's swift hand,
taste it bitter.
Time goes on without a stutter
and here we are acting like we control it.

Before we read or speak or rest further,
you owe promise to a favor–

I want you to walk directly out of your door
during the most lucid scene of day,
or the most haunting moment of inner-night
Walk until your feet come to a
                        sudden
                        instinctive
                        halt
Listen to clamor, or
whatever surrounds you
Lift all volumes of your
                        puja
                        quietude
                        as a psalm
Focus on humanities scrapings
or the long graceful stroke of
matriarchal firman in her most
                        peculiar
                        stage
                        of cankered innocence
Lecture the calamity of her fictionless plot and
digest what the spiritually deaf cannot, and allow it to
find what triggers you the hardest
                        what
                        gouges
                        the prompts threadbare
It may be the indifferent hiss of cars passing
and it may be the expression plastering the jaw
of all of that unprocessed energy
                        ambling
                        on
                        by
It may even be the weather spilt
from her majesties
archaic entrails
Something will eventually do you in
but it ultimately
takes practice at varying degrees

I've done it when I was awake
I've done it in dreams
Either way
there's more mirrored in fragmented cohesion
                        than it
                        quite often
                        seems

work tripping #3 in 6 weeks
it's good they're investing in me
but it makes me feel
like I owe them things
and I probably do
it suffocates my anxiety
makes me consider a brisk walk
over the sill in 331 onto the Tarmac
in this quaintish Kentucky town
I've seen all 3 hours of but 100% know
it reeks of Igottagetthefuckout
homesick not for my home
but for beings and places that feel
like I don't need an escape route
or have to shove my thoughts down
and pull a thing out that isn't myself
I find myself going in the bathroom
at my parents house just to get away
because I can't engage with them
for long without alcohol to fuzzy
the thoughts I don't want to think
the feelings I'd rather disown
my dad buys too much wine
and I am so good at drinking it
I'm never alone enough
and when I am I just stare
into thoughts that go circular
everywhere and nowhere
it's all I want - to be alone and still
with nothing to do for days on end
no one to feed or bathe or need things
but wallow free in my lethargy and
get to all those dots on the ceiling
and not have to pretend anything
I have so many things I wanna do
but am lacking the proper thing
that propels things and does
the motion and I've gotten good
at doing the minimum but
I wanna be Onnit like Joe Rogan
but feel I can't afford that ****
though maybe I should rethink that...
and you know, I should be thrilled -
I got a free upgrade - a 2-BR suite
almost as big as my apartment
but it makes me feel guilty
for all the days I can't focus
because the ache inside wants things -
attention mostly, and just to cry
and sit and do nothing you know
I'm always half-assing even though
I'm terrible at half-assing things
because I either want to do it full-tilt
or not at all, so basically
I even half-*** my half-assing
so it's really more like a 1/4-assing
that wishes it were zero-assing
and I'm pretty sure I'm even
half-assing my lethargy
trying to sort out the other half of ****
I'm not focusing on when I should be
I always have these fantasies
of how I'll be in a hotel alone -
sipping wine in a bubbly tub
pampering myself, feeling sparkly
but I always end up feeling
so
alone
in unfamiliar cookie cutter hole
wasting hours on godknowswhat
with nothing to show for it
except some ****** poetry
or whatever this genre of ***** is
but the little white rectangle light
makes me feel not so alone
and expectorating the thoughts
into somewhere else -
my little RGB bottle in digital sea -
and knowing that maybe
others who long to be alone
just so they can wallow
in wretched unprocessed feelings
and be utterly ******* useless
aren't alone in wanting that

tonight I'll lie to myself
pretend you're across the living room
with the abrasive polyester couch
probably switching back and forth
between the two beds doing
whatever it is that you do
when you lock yourself down inside
and I'll ignore the screaming children
who must each weigh 300 lbs
running SWAT drills down the hall
and just imagine you're close enough
to be almost here
with me

and we're somewhere near
being whatever we are
or are not
and it's all OK because
we don't have to pretend
or half-*** anything
or devise an escape

we could play Marco Polo
even if no one ever wins
we can just keep role-switching
but I could hear your voice
and your pace pacing inside you
and be there close by just in case
you wanted to peek out
and chuck your shoe at my door
just for fun or maybe because
my nothing's too ******* loud

imagining you'd be OK with that -
doing proto-Wolverine impressions
or whatever ridiculous, wild, quirky
or boring, stupid, pissy things
you do when you're strapped up
in your own mechanical devices
in the space across the way -

it stretches my ribs a little
makes them want to be ready
to crack open
for good

My feelings are unprocessed quinoa being **** out in whole chunks.
I stare at them in my toilet bowl of a brain.
"huh, you look exactly the same... maybe a little *******"
They say those words back to me.
Savage little beasts.
They tell me my body was supposed to take them in, absorb them, and be healthier.
Well, I was always taught to try , try,  again!
So I valiantly scoop my handful of **** from the toilet and scarf down my quinoa emotions... they taste even worse the second time around.
I cross my fingers as I gag down the last bit.
Will swallowing my emotions clog me up?
Maybe this time I'll be emotionally constipated, again, for weeks!
Until my insides internally combust and paint these frustrating  yellow walls around me **** brown,
To match the matte nails I got last Wednesday.
Or maybe it'll induce explosive diarrhea!
And I'll **** out every thing lining my insides until I can't even feel my metaphorical *******, while word vomiting my secrets to people I will later deeply regret.
Or maybe, just maybe,
My body will do what it's supposed to do,
And my enzymes will ferociously come to my rescue!
Maybe I'll feel it all being broken down inside me,
And released.
Released.
I'm so sick of eating ****.

Take a moment from your pathetic life.
Watch the clouds swoop over the earth like blankets.
Hear the noise and melody of the joining voices of birds.
Be inspired by the determination all around.
Observe nature for it's beauty.
But most of all,
observe the nature of humans.
The deceit, lies, harsh words,
violent actions, unprocessed opinions,
bias choices and false beliefs.
Because human nature is tainted.
It is not beautiful.
It is not joyful.
It is not forgiving.
And if you don't believe me,
take a look at yourself.

My unprocessed layers dance over me
I peel and peel and try to take off each layer
and the anger fades, and there is no blame, and there is space
and there is a vulnerable heart
who does understand and just wished to also be understood
and cared for not divided by a line
or relegated to the outskirts as I felt

there sits a weeping part that needs nothing but to be acknowledged
and I sit with it granting its wish

Do you ever just pine for someone?
The way they smile while talking to a loved one
That bright and easy laugh, the gleam in their eye, the knowing...the realization that you're watching them enjoy themselves from across the room

Or maybe you're just a spectral spectator
Flipping through photo albums, looking through photos that are a permanent snapshot
A moment in time
A second
A few minutes
Of them smiling among a gathering of friends

They're so happy, they're so brightened and unassuming in their youthful zeal
You can hear the bursts of laughter
The peals of it
Disjointed conversations among friends
Maybe one or two have passed on
Maybe they just lost touch with them

But you look at them now
All the same
You really look at them
You realize that they've changed so much from the person they were in those pictures

No more bright laughter
No more infectious smiles
No more disjointed conversations with gatherings of friends
No more college bar hopping
No more wandering the backstreets of Venice at night
Or Rome
Or Britain
Or Germany
No more spontaneous traveling

The light is dim now in their eyes
It's like the bulb inside of them has burned out

So...
You pine for them, for the person that they were yesterday, & days before, & years before you
entered their life

After your arrival, came a burial

Somewhere along the way
With the unspoken hurt
& unprocessed trauma
They died

And so ...
You grieve

Pull on one of the loose ends
Hanging with mystery
To unknot the two loops
Flaunting surprise
And untie the bow
That holds fast a box
Covered in paper-thin wrapper,
Fancy enough to be inviting,
Yet functional to be ripped up
So what's inside the carton
That has "fragile" all over it,
Sealed with adhesive tapes
That need careful unsticking
Or else the damaged goods,
Can at last be opened.
Now here you are,
A rare material,
Unprocessed as ever;
Unlabeled and unpriced.
Sold like a product in demand,
Given away like a free merchandise.
A special package,
A precious item
To be valued the most
For all its worth.
To every deserving owner,
You are a gift.

My lover,
He's sweeter than unprocessed honey.
His touch is softer than a puff of air,
But his jokes aren't funny
And he isn't Stephen Colbert.

But it's so hard because it hurts.
And I'm afraid I might scare myself from the great love in front of me if I think too hard about the hurt living on in love. But this is my art. To take a feeling and dissect it. Bring its most unspoken parts alive, and say them. Sometimes I hesitate because like me, people don't wanna hear about the hurt either. My words - my art - sometimes creates an uncomfortable sensation in people. Or reminds them of an old belief they haven't let go of. Or of forgotten moments of self consultation they had probably consciously released, because, let's face it. It is really hard to take some of these feelings of hurt and learn from them. Embrace them fully. To devote life to understanding them. To innerstanding them. It can be very difficult. Sometimes nothing else matters but my urge to dig in the fabric of life and create sensation through words. This addiction has me often sick with emotion. Continuously & fully taking on surrounding energies. To learn, to calculate, to feel everything available to feel. I can't shut it off. And my brain may go wild and my chest fly too high with anxiety. The anxiety of a tornado of unprocessed emotional junk, spewing from the cracks of the world's ego. But it is in this feeling, that I came to know my calling. And it is this, that lays out the lessons I know I must learn, in this lifetime. It is this, that has bread my direction. "

..............miss..............mica.................. <3

All was going to be all right
we were fighting all day but
that was over now
I walked you to work
and we both thought that would be a good new tradition
you even offered to buy me chocolate
but the idea of you buying something on the Lord's day was still a bit too much for me
walking back to your house was my first time in your city alone outside
my skirt swirling in the wind
I had promised to marry you and was trying so hard to make myself believe that was the right step
that wasn't fair but I didn't want to

lose you

I came home to find your door locked
the password of your laptop changed
your best friend randomly came by, and it felt like checking
if I obeyed all your rules

I don't want to write down this story
I want to keep believing
our love was good enough
until the end

So close to the end I made small talk with your roommate
I would convince you later that was okay
You shouldn't have been jealous
We ended up bonding
Sharing African music
talked about the books I read
his strange views on religion

It was the one evening
I didn't feel alone
It was the one evening
I could be myself

I thought I could live with you
in the country you hated
in the house that was falling apart
I thought I could fight your anger
Replace it with my love
If I just had one friend

With your roommate, i didn't have to force myself
to not see almost everything
I could finally be myself again
he wasn't forcing me to change me
I liked my own version better

I still don't know
why you left work
was it to check on me?
or should I believe the petty excuse I don't remember
but you were there
an angry monster
my lover gone
the hate had finally taken over
I wonder what you saw
what is this evening like from your perspective?
Were you just as scared when you started to shout to me?
Do you also still feel the grip of your strong hands around my wrist?
Did you sense then, how close we were to domestic violence?
Do you know, that whenever i remember that moment
I'm really scared of you?

I don't remember what you said
you were done
would take me to the airport
but that was it
I wouldn't leave
my return ticket was booked for months from now
after we were supposed to get married
Was I really that young last year?

You told me, that if I didn't leave
you would
that crazy scheme to leave the country illegally we fighted about so often
was still possible
you'd leave me alone in a country so strange to me
I couldn't even catch a bus

Instantly, I knew for sure
your roommate would keep me safe
and I was way to smart to be completely helpless
but I also knew it wouldn't be fair to ask
or to impose

around 4 am
your anger was cooling down
enough to tell me I could stay
but by then
we were waiting for the first bus to the airport
I was finally smart enough to not go back
I was smart enough to leave you

but three airports later
my head got all confused in the skies
My highest phone bill ever
hour long long distance calls
I couldn't leave you yet

You left yourself
your city and your country
fled (again) from your own life
became nothing but a not-working phone number
and an awful lot of unprocessed memories

I'd wish I had known you sooner but I mean...
We have the rest of forever and this is pretty **** perfect

You're kinda like Cinderella
No one expects your presence to light the eyes of everyone in the room
You probably don't expect it either
But Princess, you do.

Except you don't need no mice, no fairy, and no carriage.

I could wrap you in the richest of silk or the most unprocessed fur
Throw loads of makeup on you and contour your contour
But I'd still prefer you naked with steam outlining your body like fog over a lonely lake

And a lonely lake you are
But only because you choose to be

You choose not to be a river, where all of your secrets and thoughts could flow on into the next body of water
You choose to be hidden and secluded and only welcome those, who choose to visit, with your peace and tranquility

And you stay happy because of all the life around you.  From the sun visiting everyday to the wild grass and weeds sprouting through you.
You know that life is beautiful.  And you are Cinderella, kept behind closed doors.
Like a still lake, you're a hidden positivity.

Sometimes when I write,
I look for poetic symbolism around me,
It can be hard to find,
So sometimes I make up a story,
Full of metaphors and colour,
But it doesn't seem real,
So sometimes I write about the real things,
That make me angry,
Or upset,
But I just find it depressing,
So in the end I try to open up my heart,
Just a little bit further each day,
And let the words flow like blood,
Organic, free and unprocessed,
Once it starts it's impossible to stop,
I just write and write and write.

Those are my best poems,
But they are the hardest to share.

The first time I saw you cry was about him
And it was in your month so it wasn't fair
It was about how he had pressed pause
Played with words and women
Like he was running through so many flowers
Just running through flowers; he'd be back soon.

The first time I saw you cry I held you in my arms
I was wearing a shirt of acting
Acting the part of a father
And fathering a mind full of doubts and fears
I told you to hit stop on the paused player.

The first time I held you in my arms, I didn't know what to do
Patting or stroking or still
I still don't know what to do with them
But I tried to say the things I didn't know how
How you needed so much better
Better find yourself a true love.

The first time I made you cry, I said 'I love you'
The first time you cried because of something I said
Good goodbye tears, happy and sad
Like the world was ending, and ours was, a little
You left with him
We lost each other
You lost yourself
I found me

The last time I made you cry, you said "I'm sorry"
But it was because I made you think about him
And it was in your house so it wasn't fair
I made you think of infidelity and the fear
Of losing Someone you love to Someone you love
I was the second Someone making you think of that first someone
Of not-too-many years ago

The last time I made you cry, you comforted me
I threw up in your toilet and you said "I'm sorry"
I gave you nothing but unprocessed ****
Rejected goodness and nourishment
I gave you memories of bad people
And bad thoughts of good people
I gave you strife
And you said "I'm sorry"

it's spring and green around
but inside, writing feels a chore.
a block, within myself, for caring,
thinking, feeling, "THAT" cannot be written.
emotions without ties, no leads to follow.
a flavor all its own.
you won't feel me
when you read my words
you will have some feeling,
but it will not be me.

i'm stuck between to tell or not,
torn in two directions.
raw truth; flavor; repulses the "refined".
delicacy, balance, thoughtful discretion,
are not words i would use to
describe the way i cook.
natural, pure, unprocessed.
a punch inside your mouth,
a thrash inside your belly,
a burn on top your tongue.

skepticism revolves around each dish,
fear of the unknown. strong, fragrant flavor,
draws the noses near. mouthful mystery amuck.
unsure of utensils, unsure of this potted truth.
their is always a passive audience,
too afraid of the tastes i know.
should i write aloud?
should i write just as i cook?
this is where i sit,
afraid of my own dish.

here’s to the past
to the days long gone and barely remembered
where the world is basking in infinite sunlight
and everything that was wrong
is somehow twisted in your mind to feel right

here’s to the naivety of childhood
where strangers are friends
friends are imaginary
and imaginary is real

here’s to the paper airplanes and the magic wands made of sticks
to the bath towel capes and the big wheel races
to dinosaur chicken nuggets and chocolate milk
and to falling asleep in your mother’s arms

here’s to growing up and colliding with the world head-on
to holding your ******* room full of noisy mouths and deaf ears
to the screams
to the whispers
to the holes in the walls
and to the letters stained with poison tears

here’s to the breaking up
and breaking down
and to the redemption of re-colliding
and repairing

here’s to feeling infinite
to blaring music with the windows down on an empty highway
to the times when youth feels tangible
and the world silences to make way for your noise

here’s to the sleepless nights
that either make your life or tear it apart
to knowing
the most meaningful conversations always happen after 2am
and to the realization that you are not defined by attributes
but by the memories you possess

here’s to the songs that transport you through time with a single note
to the smells that are intensely reminiscent of the forty-third day of first grade
to the nostalgic pain too excruciating to endure
and to the soft smiles of content remembrance

here’s to the good ol’ days
and to wishing there was a way to know
you’re in them before you’ve actually left

here’s to the present
to feeling a memory being made in the moment in which it’s being lived
and to already missing someone while they’re still sitting next to you

here’s to the most frightening way to zone out
watching the seconds tick by on the clock
and being unable to fight the realization that time is not counting up
but rather going down

here’s to the moments which define your life
to the tears
and the fears
and the years
that you live through

here’s to the firsts
and the lasts
to a past of tragic endings
and a future of new beginnings

here’s to falling in love
with them
with that
with life
with you
to the wishes upon stars
to the stolen glances
and the taken chances
and to finding a new definition of “everything”

here’s to the people that feel more like home than the house you grew up in
to never being loved by as many people as you are able to love
to the feeling of security
and to everything that sneaks through the back door
while you’re busy guarding the front

here’s to the courage it takes to let go
and to the courage it takes to hold on

here’s to what you lose
to what you gain
to what you lose when you gain
and to what you gain when you lose

here’s to the second after
and what it holds
to the weight of unprocessed information
and to feelings on the rise

here’s to the long nights and string lights
hands and life plans and never-ending fights

here’s to the songs that drown the sounds of breaking down
and the anthems of those beginning to build back up

here’s to now
to cherishing every moment while it lasts
before it falls victim to the minds of those lucky enough to experience it
yet human enough to forget


here’s to the future
to the dreams you dream
and the plans you scheme
to the life you lead
and the stories you leave

here’s to those whose greatest fear is oblivion
to the breath taken seconds after your name is spoken for the last time
to those who influence from beyond the grave
and those lost to the enormity of time

here’s to the cups of coffee that are yet to be drunk
and the people that are too
to never knowing which moment is your last
and to the acceptance that life flies by all too fast

here’s to the plans we make at 1am
when the world belongs solely to those who remain awake
to the desire for a spontaneous road trip
and to the desperate need to escape
and here’s also to those convincing enough to make you want to stay

here’s to the places you’ll live
the kids you’ll have
the jobs you’ll loathe
and love that lasts

here’s to everyone you thought you needed
more than the very organs in your own body
before learning the painful lesson of removal
and knowing that only one kidney is needed to survive

here’s to those who kept going when they were lost
and those lost because they kept going

here’s to me
to you
to him
to her
to then
to now
to why
to how

here’s to the people you will never meet again
and the longing for a place you will never return

here’s to the good ol’ days
and the awareness of their presence in the present
before they inevitably embody the cruel longing their name implies

because boy,
does time know how to fly

here’s
to
the
good
old
days

here’s something i’ve never had the courage to say out loud. i don’t know if it was ever real. i romanticized the truth into something that sounds more beautiful, and you fit the description of the girl from the back of the milk bottle, from your hair to the way you look at me and ignore our baggage.

i mixed our chemistry into something that looked like love, and my heart refuses to wear safety goggles. consider this an apology for all the love poems. i might’ve just been sad and lonely. i might’ve just been hurting too much for my own good. i always talk about how ****** up i am, but the truth is i am incapable of a feeling otherwise known as love. my brain has been turned bitter, like the way you bite into a sour apple and throw it away out of disgust.

i was starving and empty, craving something that would fill me up when self harm or starving myself failed. when i don’t eat lunch, i am reminded of you. i know it’s messed up, but i still have your smile warped into the lowest moments of my life. i think about how it ended a lot, even though i know these feelings are long overdue. it’s very like me to have many big, unprocessed emotions. i want you to know i’m working on it. i never meant for you to get caught in the crossfire.

i want to hide from my feelings and i want to hide from the prayers i said for you. i almost told you all of this, but i heard God does not like show-offs. i heard God does not like sad excuses for a shell of a person, but it’s much too late to change that for myself now. you should get out while you still can.

for future reference, forget it all. it was just my mental illness telling me i was worthless, especially when you were the subject of the poetry. i’m sorry i dramatized the pain into something that looked beautiful. in reality it was depression and anxiety masked as love. it was another way for my self-hatred to be fueled. i knew you would never love me, and i fed off of it. i needed it.

i’m terribly sorry, both to myself and to you. those nights of tears and heartache were derived from a very real need to feel an emotion other than sadness. i just ended up ******* myself over in the end. forgive me. i tried to avoid my suffering and ended up just bringing it back around to myself. i never meant to say this out loud. i hope, someday, i can forgive myself. until then, i’m sorry.

trauma unprocessed all my life,

undiscovered until twenty-nine,

writing strangers, they don't mind.

losing loved ones that aren't mine,

lying was my first mistake,

trying,

fail abysmally.

slip apart, the years will fall,

my mind then said,

there's happiness in alcohol.

A particularly partial postponement of grieves,
Lie then spit grace at my tongue with ease

Unfollowed by saviours
Unprocessed, unclean

Cartwheel by powders
Puffed and pristine

Lucid is better, so better be lucid?
Discernible ‘yes’ from word-keeps on high
Merriam says it’s clear thinking between
--confusion (sounds bad), or insanity (worse)
Those on the edges can feel what I mean
Our grand word-keeps really must justify
       The mean in this meaning,
       out-bounded by boundary,
       lined-out by this outline,
       now liminal quandary

Lucid is better, so better be lucid?
Webster, my friend, have you deep-thought this through?
Sanction is clear from this definite frame
-- English agrees, but is that important?
English is not the sole tongue in the game
Here is a series of queries for you      
       Can you margin it all out?
       The hurt and the fallout?
       For people who crawl out
       adrift from your callout?
      
Not-lucid has rescued me more times than countable
And really not-lucid has caught me mid-fall
Through memory patches of pain insurmountable
Muddling dull was the best break of all
The cogent, coherent, and clean-comprehensible
Can open tight *****-capped emotional stores
Unprocessed experience, only defensible
By wool-wrapping windows, and baffling doors  

Lucid is better, so better be lucid?
Politely diverge from Merriam’s word
Webster’s position humanely disclaim
       --Gratitude-pour over fuzzy and haze
Cloud-foggy, mind-misty, heavy, mush-brain
Rational praised, but when needed, deferred
       Hail shields of deep feeling
       all lucid-real reeling
       rewinding revealing
       to heel allows healing

‘Lucid? Not always’ the kindly refrain
Outsiders rest on the inside again
And never confuse, confused and insane

I write down
What I can’t say

Feelings and emotions
That are stuck in my head
Flow out of me
When I type
Unprocessed thoughts
A cacophony of feelings

But I’m starting to say
What the pen once did

Do I still need to write?

When it comes to bread, the
general public are seduced
by the misconception that
"FRESH" means wholesome.

Not true.

A bakery could just as easily
state " NOT STALE " and achieve
the same result as Fresh which is
an optical subliminal.

Fresh is a word used to garnish
what could be tainted with a
herbicide pesticide or fungicide.

Fresh salads from a garden that
is sprayed regularly with Roundup ™.

Are you getting my drift?



fresh
adjective
1 salads made with fresh, wholesome ingredients: newly harvested, garden-fresh, not stale, crisp, firm, unwilted, unfaded; raw, natural, unprocessed, unpreserved, undried, uncured, unsmoked, without additives, without preservatives. ANTONYMS stale; processed.

Am I too much?
Hard to swallow, a bitter pill?
Am I raw and unprocessed,
Undiluted, concentrated,
Too spicy for your stomach?

Good.

Choke on it.

I won’t cut myself
To bite-size pieces.
I am not a convenient product.

My feathers are not plucked,
My hair is unshorn,
My feet are unshod,
And the muscle of my thigh
Is for kicking, not meat.

Do you not like the taste?
Poor spoiled glutton,
You cannot acquire it.

Find your refined sugar elsewhere –
I do not come pre-packaged.

The recycling plant burned last week
fire consumed acres of unprocessed scrap.
Flames licked at pieces of metal scrap,
burned the rubber tires and melted plastic.
Undrained gasoline and oil added to the smoke.

Tuesday morning a black mushroom cloud rose in the sky.
No worries, though.
The wind carried the smoke into the other county
Monticello will suffer but Becker lives to pollute another day

Wednesday morning the black mushroom cloud rose in the sky
The weather is cold
icicles grow on useless car bodies.
The firemen need dry socks.
Families live in safe hotels, upwind

Thursday morning gray clouds rose in the sky.
School is cancelled to protect the children.
The fire is controlled.
Protection is superfluous.

The recycling plant burned last week.
The fire is out.
People return to their homes.
Time for investigation and clean-up,
place some blame and show concern.
While Becker lives to pollute another day.

if you weren’t my friend,
i wouldn’t know who i was -
a part of me replaced by insecure ex’s,
musicians with bad communication,
software developers, underdeveloped,
shifting parts of identity made out of static.
i would cry somber and alone again,
instead of under christmas lights
to the Gilmore Girls opening credits,
where we sing too loud to hear our thoughts.
a sour wine bottle between us, and
vacation magnets lining my refrigerator
from all the places we’ve face-timed from.
reviewing in details your love bombing dates
and my anxious attachment -
raw parts that feel unprocessed,
which you quickly dismiss as normal.
i hope he can love me like you have,
simply, softly, like breathing - and
as brilliant and cunning as we can be,
but never as handsome, obviously.
i love to grow our gardens together,
tending to one another’s strengths and
nurturing weakness for authenticity.
i would take the miway, gotrain, and ttc -
just to laugh on the cold beach with you,
and make some mistakes for review
over another cup of coffee.