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Shane Jones Dec 2012
Read more learn more change the globe
education is more powerful than any weaponary
prove wrong your minds strong
put down the **** put down the drink
open the young mind and think
C Apr 2011
I am young- small,
youthfully slight and skinny
with grasping fingers.
You turn your back to me
and begin trudging away.
All I can remember is
reaching to hang onto your apron laces-
wrapping my fingers in it
and being dragged along,
my feet leaving furrows in the soft ground of spring.
You don't look
or acknowledge me at your back-
only prompt quick steps as
we pass in peace to summer
with the sun high, hot on our skin.
I let loose of you and dance amid
green pastels smeared with grass glistening wet.
I stretch my legs now found strong
with lengthened stride
and I spin circles around you
never focusing on your face.
With the vanity of adolescence
I forget our journey and become
vociferous in play.
But soon the skies, they darken
and my grasping skinny hands, they find.
Clutching for comfort -- apron strings
your careful bow tie
and chasing the rabbit knot.
Under sheets of rain that knock the leaves from the trees, we walk.
Silent--
among the howling of nature.
I grow taller than you
and my body matures.
You look small and fragile now,
frail in the whipping wind
as fall freezes into winter.
We are cold and hold hands,
alongside each other in lurching momentum through the long hours.
I am a man now--
tall, lithe, and toned.
Full of imperial inflection
as if the vicissitudes of spring once again overtook me,
I fill the empty air with vibrations.
The chatter of blue jays join
still you stride forward,
though stumbling here and there.
And I can hear your knees pop,
the joints grind, the mouth grim.
Snow melt wets the tongue
and water drips from beard
as I still follow you.
Sometimes at a distance,
other times huddling close in your emotional shelter-
we walk
past my wedding
and others now journey with us.
We become a pack
a group-
yet,
you're always out in front.
Pressing on, one foot after the next.
Single minded and silent
as the sun once again dawns on yet another spring
I see your goal and shout
and scream
and cry
and run to catch
to hold
to stop
prevent
block
but you're walking faster now
I wrap my grasping fingers
in your apron strings
and I pull hard as my muscles can
As if metal caught in a magnetic force
I am dragged toward your grave
And in your maddening march
there is true intent
as you topple.
Eventually I know
that I will awake and it will be this day
For now I know, I cannot handle it.
Addeline Wagner Jul 2010
Rambling through dark alleyways
      Searching for destruction
Fire and pain engulf my soul
      As misery blinds my instruction
Whitewash walls covered with talent
      Rise up from every corner
Emptiness fills this path I take
     This shadow in which I border
Up ahead is no release
     As silence breaks but will not cease
Tears trapped inside that bestow my pain
     The whistle heard that remains the same
Wind and air bites all at will
     As this body quakes, such reason, so still
A limit be said on what I feel
     And yet all at once its not so real
A glare of what I used to be
     Fire and destruction, thats all I see
...1998?
Alice Burns May 2013
My encounter, although mistakingly enlightening
Leaves me more baffled than before.
Do my words inherit the glow, similar to my daydreaming movements?
As if they were prematurely made, a banner across my silhouette.
Attached before the words can escape my mouth.

I wonder tonight about the necessity of freedom of speech
Curious to understand the rate of which our minds have developed, or been manipulated.
Is it our human defect of guilt the thing that encourages us to open our mouths?
Merely to humor our lowly human selves.

But I fumble
As words escape my lips, and enter your mind,they cannot be translated.
You cannot read my genuine emotion, as the life and purpose is ****** out as they are inscribed across your palm
So I write, and I materialize these things before they are evaporated.

Yes, I am confusing, and I apologize if I am further misunderstood
But, , my friend, I do love you
Purely, true and eternally
Yet I cannot give you what you desire.

Newton was both right and wrong
Love cannot be created nor destroyed
This energy flows continuously, passed from friend to friend
youthfully and innocently as friendship is meant to be

But, what he did not consider was the love of truth and purity
Which in the end is no energy, as they would have us believe
This love is an essence, similar to that formed the blood flowing through our family
Yet has something more

This love I speak honestly of,
Is unselfish
Is no medal of achievement
It bestows upon you the drive to be the highest you
It is the essence for the creation  of the one thing that they can never offer
True love, and true love of yourself.
Àŧùl Aug 2014
Where's that girl,
Sweetheart of mine,
Young poetess of Amritsar,
The very same who trusts me,
Yes she loves me for lifelong,
She won't ever forget my love,
I won't forget that to her I belong,
She won't forget it either, or will she?
She won't ever forget, that I am hers,
I won't myself or let her let it slip,
She panics about future a lot,
Yes night-out will be rainy,
This night won't be alone,
Youthfully we will share it,
So close it seems I say,
Was it yesterday?

She will ask me when,
I'll tell her with a smile,
'Back at that time when you were doubtful,'
I'll just be hugging her,
She will blush purple.
My loving fantasy for you my love

My HP Poem #662
©Atul Kaushal

A  tender skin,
soft under my finger tips.
Blue eyes watch my touch,
It override with pleasure.
An elegant face,
within the frame of soft hairs
red painted lips thirsts again
responsive to my gentle kiss.
A half-**** body,
youthfully eager for bursting
every part confirms
to my loving touch.
*
BY
WILLIAMSJI MAVELI
eequivocal Apr 2014
I would like to formally apologize
for the size of my lungs
because they will never be
as expansive as my love
or as loud as my voice
longs to be as heard
or as tumultuous as my passion
rumbles in need of parallel composition

and I just want to say sorry
that I dream to donate
every cubic inch of air
that my tiny chest can or rather cannot hold and breathe it into you
in attempt to make you whole again instead of the ghostly thin form
you hold above my head nowadays
but today is Sunday
and my hands are dry and cracking
from the Friday on which
I finally admitted to myself
that my lack of air is exactly the reason why you don't search me out
for respiration even when you're
grasping and gasping
out of suffocating solitude

this apology is spelled out in sighs
those breaths you told me to hold in
youthfully long exhales
I promised you I would never pick up a cigarette once you started chain smoking
I'm choking in this secondhand smoke
let me fall through your fingers like ashes
the golden spark has died
put out my flame with your heel
stamp it into your coffin so the world doesnt catch fire
deprive it of oxygen
tell it youre sorry for not wrapping your hands around its neck before now

tell it you're sorry that sometimes I find myself becoming angry at the parchment crumpling between my palms because the FRAILTY OF MY HANDS WONT COMPLY WITH THE HUNGER FOR EXPLANATION AND EXPLOITATION OF MY BRAIN AND MAYBE ITS THAT IMMATURE NEED FOR OXYGEN AGAIN BUT I HEAR MYSELF CRYING OUT FOR RELEASE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT NOT BECAUSE YOURE HOLDING ME AT THIS PRECARIOUS EDGE BUT BECAUSE YOU CHOOSE TO NEVER TIP ME OVER.
(a sharp intake of breath)


(exhale)


I can't breathe.
I think I might be allergic to you.
I think you might be bad for my health.

there are three thousand miles between your sandy shores of ironically ****** air and my rainy lakes of needles. you'd think the contrary.

you lost your ashtray and replaced it with my inhaler.

I would like to formally apologize
for the size of my lungs
because they will never be
as expansive as your love
or as loud as your voice
longs to be as heard
or as tumultuous as your passion
rumbles in need of parallel composition

we are both still learning to breathe
Marian Aug 2014
I float out to sea like driftwood
Other times I find myself windswept
Higher and higher
In autumn gusts of wind
In summertime my beautiful green skin
Is a youthfully verdant hue
I cling to this told old tree
And provide a canopy
Until one day I find myself delicate
And easy to crumble in your hands
For I have withered
When winter comes
I will become invisible
And insignificant underneath
A blanket of sparkling white snow
My life goes unnoticed and I long to be loved
But no one loves a trivial leaf like me
Yet this is my life and I am content
With being who I am
Even though I am forgotten and alone

**~Marian~
Written in first person as a leaf!! :) ~~~~<3
Thanks to Joe Cole for the inspiration...
As he has challenged many people to write
A poem about a leaf!!!!
Here's my poem, Joe....I hope you like it!! :)
Mitchell May 2011
Can these streets get any darker?
I see these
Men
In their
Cars
Mammoths which move at top speeds still screaming at
Me
The sight makes a person perceive purposely what it means to be alive
Nowadays
Whether walking in these woeful streets
Is worth it at all?
Have you ever told a complete stranger
That you hated them?
I never have
I've thought it
Sure
Why not think something awful every once and a while?
Whose it gonna'
Hurt?
Only yourself youthfully yolk dancing with the egg queen
Who says that one night
You pledged your love and you'd want to be Her
Wife
But in that strife
Altogether the silver spoon reminised and knew that He missed
One of the greatest nights of pleasantries and gifts
Selfish we are these men that ride around in
Multi-colored jackets trying to be like
Jesus
All these envelope licking sons' of *******
Sooner or later the post office is gonna' get stolen
And those ego's
Are on the fast track
To get
Swollen

Yes a'
Very funny thing
Yes a'
Very very funny thing
Nat Lipstadt Sep 29
~it feels good to keep a promise~
~for AV~

<>
my expertise is at the PhD. level
for mine own experiments have
been less than successful by the
feedback periodically provided
O & Co-vertly over forty years

but a poem triggers, go figure!

and making morn coffee,
a task that teaches well,
that doing the prep is essential,
no shortcuts
for which we spend/waste years
looking for, and
realize that’s a hint to settle in
with a hot beverage,
this feels like it’s a longy coming

we know so much,
most i m p o r t a n t l y,
even how little we actually
do comprehend, and that
is importabt beyond belief,
learning to
choose counsel
that should be allowed
to pass under the bridge that filters
the crapshoot crap that pretenses
as smart and sound,
that should be
burnt & buried in an open pit

so what do fathers know?

- that finest firsts are so youthfully
under loved, under appreciated,
misperceived as endless,
the flush the rush the the thrusting
piercing of your composite composure
practiced protective skin,
cherish them firsts cause
they don’t last
because axiomatic that come
lesser, fewer, with every wrinkled day,
and sorry, time doesn’t make you bolder

- luck is a lottery ticket, the odds preposterous against you, but we
buy a ticket weekly because you
thinking this time is your time, sorry,
this lady sleeps around, a lot, a  
borderline *****,
who never asks
honey what’s your nane, because
they are thinking ‘bout the next
customer,you want it? you work for it,
and that never ever ends,
the odds
against ya never improve

- invest in discipline early and big time:
later when it will be desperately needed,
and twice as hard to obtain (can’t be bot,
no matter how much moola
you will
inherit)
and it make it habitual;
and discipline
is the entry card to unlocking the
unknown, the exceptional adventure

- thinking ‘know everything’ is a giant
no-no; this body of knowledge
you think you’ve earned by being
learned, is not as
valuable as one might
think (or feel)

cause knowledge is like a breeze,
on its way to somewhere else,
the cooling skin it leaves in its wake,
cools too quickly
and when you whine
“I know”
think this
”I no NOthing”

- that fathers oft say little, wordily,
so keep an eye out
for a raised eyebrow l,
a crinkling around the eyes,
a wrinkling nose,
they be  clues
meaning
ask me
more, later, when we deux
can pas alone

-peace of mind is
like watching waves
coming in;
ithey are long in the forming
and faster in dissolving,
they arrive piecemeal
but they keep on coming
in different shapes,
from different places,
but they do keep a-coming
and their power,
(erosion)
is the result of thousands individual
moments,
additive,
so you get pieces,
thru the unconscious
habit of accumulation
/\
here I’ll pause
to preach
makes a father thirsty
a fresh cuppa
seems highly desirable

oh yeah,
warmth can be received from blankets,
expensive ski jackets, wooly socks,
but its best when freely created
from within,
worn as you own & owned creation,
a reward for being wide open
ready,willing & able

one more thing:
find the best addiction
that bests you,
that thing will live
within forever,
like
writing poetry?
😉

so what do fathers know?

a lot, too little, never enough,
sometimes too much,
mostly good,
some awful,
just ask
find out
wonder
who will be more surprised
when you
do
Xandra Aug 2012
Dance,
Peacefully
Open,
Tremendously
Stare,
Daringly
Discover,
Yo­uthfully
Talk,
Powerfully
Say,
Truthfully
Come
Alive,
Leave
Arrived
ogdiddynash Jul 2019
twenteesventh.
you write of dismembered leaves,
enhaloed lust(***)
pains too sweet because they’re youthfully incomplete,
using incontrovertible idiocies like
dry rain droplets shining like sunlight,
edible goodbye cheerios,
edible didactics, teaching “frosted flakys”
poetic methadone methodology,
poems hats with rhyming lyrics  
that taste like that burnt eyelids colored
a blood stained mustard yellow, (yum),
beyond burger veggie based satyrs,
the happy gladness of sadness,
reversible rivers flowing heavenwards,
***** *******, you want an
infernal cataclysm...

really?

dechambered hearts, ventricular mysteries,
brains wearing wooly sport jacket helmets
and other Olsonian beauties,
like I write with succinct passion,
me, who gets eaten alive by buggers saying
“too long,” “too long,” “needed a mid-poem napt”

non-lexical non-commonsensical ecumenical hysterical
chemical verbal reactionaries
and then you wonder why

PEOPLE ******* HATE POETRY?

jes kiddin’ a leetle
if you don’t follow https://hellopoetry.com/s-olson/
you’re an idiot, one of the best on this site says O.N.
sourced from: https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3224387/a-thousand-poems-stronger-130/
Justin Blaauw Mar 2010
He passes by,
Sigh,
Brown, yellowy hair,
Jigjag outlines like fallen leaves
Adorn his clothes,
In his eyes autumn blue skies shine,
Tussled hair brushes his face from the wind
And he makes me smile.

He passes by,
A smile on his face,
A ruby red stripe on purple bluish cheeks,
Ebony brown hair and pale blue eyes like the winter sun.
He holds his hands to his face,
Breathing the breathe of life into them,
And he makes me warm.

He passes by,
Thistle green eyes and bruising body,
Coiled like a spring day, come undone, sprung.
Like the fresh flowers along the lane
And adorn the hedges.
And he makes me love.

He passes by,
He smiles at me,
I sit there in the summer sun,
All these years I have loved him,
But Time passes on.

Oh Son of Time,
You are so youthfully beautiful,
But how quickly yet gracefully,
You grow old.
Jo Fo Jul 2013
Flavourless

You say you want me
To be the flavour of the month
And lick my ice cream cone.
You say you are a cherry popsicle,
Youthfully frozen in time to please me.

I say, I don‘t need to be
A tasty treat,
Because I am already "I Believe You But My Tommy Gun Don't"
Mike Essig Apr 2015
If perception truly is everything, then to age in Amerika is a psychological disaster.

Amerika is a youth obsessed country;  a capitalistic consumer oriented country. All the power of capitalism goes into (via advertising, etc.) creating and maintaining this youth obsession.

Take women as an example. If you are female in Amerika, you must always look 25. You must be slim, long-haired, sexually alluring, preferably blond and dress youthfully. Even if you are 60.

This goes a long way toward answering the question why so many women who are 40+ are so fat, unhappy, depressed and ******. Simply put, there is no reasonable way for most of them to meet cultural expectations.

Either they let themselves go (fatties abound in the US) or they resort to grotesqueness to measure up (extreme diet and exercise, plastic surgery, etc.)

They can't win so depression and self-loathing abound.

Most mature women have known that horrible moment when a young, attractive man looks right through them. They have become culturally invisible: they are shocked and hurt.

Men suffer from all this too, but not as much. Younger women will sometimes actually see value in an older man. Rarely, but sometimes, so cultural invisibility comes later for men.

Mid-life money, Corvettes and condos only delay the inevitable. The same moment will arrive and so will the hurt and shock.

This is not as simple as all men are pigs or all women are *******.

If we know that the perception that we don't exist is created by the capitalist media and advertisers, why do we do we buy into it?

Every age has its beauty. Why not accept it and be how old you are? Be who you are. Forget those impossible perfections. Stop trying to be Barbie and Ken. Be real.

It is difficult but possible. I have seen it.

In France you see lovely older women dressed alluringly (but not like 20-year-olds) who are slim, can run in high heels over wet cobblestones and exude sexuality. You often see them with handsome younger men, who are clearly entranced. Why there and not here?

Maybe it's the champagne or maybe it's just sanity.

mce
More questions than I can answer, but go to Paris and you will see the women I mentioned, This is the anarchist in me speaking. I loathe authority and control.
Mitchell Apr 2011
Seven told me its name
And I laughed out loud
Oh how I was so proud
There was a million things I should've said
Yes and a million things I shouldn't have done
One day I'll see
There ain't ever a thing as won
Were just a floating boat
Across one big fiery sea
With captives which scream "Save me!"
And captains which are grieving
I scratch these keys upon my hands
And I know inside my head
I got no ******* plan
There was a pain in the wind today
Something out there I just couldn't say
There was something in that women's eye
The way she held that sigh inside
I met a master in grey yesterday
He swayed that a' way when he said this that a' way
In robes he left and in robes he was born
He whispered to me "I'm just a gettin' bored"
I took a letter I wrote a couple days ago
And I sent it away as fast I did wrote
It had ideas that splintered like the leaves of a Fall forgotten
And a winter
That had never had a swollen snow a' fallen
Magicians weep with what this age has sneaked
For we are blinded by the buzz of an electronics bed
There was something yesterday,
I wish I could've said
Maybe it was the way her hair fell that way
Or those eyes that say "Don't stay"
Love will soon be the mystery that the crazies
Riff about
A theory that seems blurry and quite burly
Roses which bloom in winter white
And thorns which *****
The mightiest stork
A rebellion within the heart of man that cannot recognize
The size of the prize within these human eyes
Wrong deeds touching guilts weight
Bears a torment that only a man and women
Can converse in torment
A breathe from a master of prose & lyric
Every letter said from the mouth of pin point
Made him believe there was so much beauty in the
Sneeze
Apologize to the man beside you and hope
That he'll reside in your heart
For the rest of all time
An apple tree bloomed
When your heart grew to where you are
Now you stand
Alone and in the sand
With your eyes squinting youthfully onwards
There's got to be something out there
Nastar Jun 2017
It is for her birthday
Drawing eyeliner
Like she is painting her most beautiful dreams
Ruby red on her lips
Vivid as blood that flow trough her veins
Rich as roses
Bold, brave and blooming

Black lace dress on her skin
Her heart is purest pearl
The everlasting jewelry
Deep as ocean that only few could perceive

But today she is clueless
Blowing candles
Counting numbers
Making wishes
Might the burdens be washed away
For the next years to come
She would really dress up and celebrate her self aging
Youthfully, happily, gracefully
Sharing her birthday cake with real laughter on June 6
Sergi Dutronc Jan 2015
We shared something more
Than a Christian name
You and your pretty white skin
You and youth and your twin

Last night an Angel
Came to play my game
And ruthlessly showed me
What our lives could have been

You and your pretty white skin
Meet me at the toilets!

What a life would have been
If that fustian sunny morning
I would have not listen the warning

I won't tell anyone
Meet me, meet me
And please me!

Last night, I dreamt about you
You were by my side at my bed
How I purely and eagerly wish
This would have been our grey debt

Lull me, Lull me to rest

Maybe outside this prison
We could have been more than -

The ashes of all the cigarettes I have smoked
Are burying me down straight to death
While I think of you and me
Eternally resting in bed

Oh how I remember the fustian morning
That we played truant again
And instinctively you begged
Come, come to the toilets

As your legs slightly shouted
I won't tell anybody
Meet me, meet me at the toilets
And don't be late!

But what could a clumsy,
Ugly and bashful young boy do
How the hell would I know it
Where the hell could I go

Meet me, meet me at the toilets
And please me!

Playing ***** games on my enshrined mind
I will never be a man
Playing tricks on my tidy mind
Sadly I will NEVER be thine

Find me, find me
And -

I do believe you always knew my secret
I do believe all men keep a secret,
Don't you?

I wish I could meet you
I wish I could take you

And please remember,
You were the first
You were the first
Youthfully yours
I'm escaping again to Green Island.
Here the landscape never changes,
The rocks never grow moss,
The mystic river is never stolen.
They are as they were eons ago.
I am the odd man there,
Worn out by time,
The bald patch on the green,
A barrenness on the fertile soil.
Yet here I'm forgiven
For seeking her face,
Youthfully there on the wallpaper.
Hayley Coleman Aug 2014
My heart was once a butterfly flying youthfully through the air.
It did not care, it had no scars, it had no burdens, it had no strain.
One day this butterfly became curious, and danced around a black flower.
This flower was tempting, it's name was Love.
Love was poisonous.
Love sickened my butterfly, and it almost perished.
Eventually, the butterfly woke up. It picked itself up, told itself it was fine, and ventured forth, only to be knocked down again.
And again.
And again.
Because this Love was everywhere, and the butterfly no longer knew how to ignore it.
So it built a fort as tall as the sky, and hid behind it for a long time.

One day the flower flew over the wall, and landed beside the butterfly.
The butterfly couldn't quite tell if it was Love or not, but it felt content.

That was the day I met you.
Mary Gay Kearns May 2019
By the time I got to see him
He was an old man grey hair
Thinly combed across his head
Still loquacious, bending over
Stewed apples gathered from
A wind swept garden of falls.

A proud collector of knowledge
Across boundaries and wisdom
Stretching age ‘youthfully ‘at gate,
City centre and poetry recitals  
With copies of books for selling.

Love Maryxxx

Old and naive me

Soon to be a memory

Rebel to relive

🌿🌿
Sensitive to words

Affected and writing more

Yet sensitively
🌿🌿

Unfashionable

Uninhibited words free

To themselves stand true

🌿🌿
Brimming joy in heart

Ageing youthfully living

Compassionately
🌿🌿
Tea Sep 2018
Fingertips buoyant and dancing
skim across shimmered skin
my breast turn to moving sea
you stand on my beach
youthfully observing
tossing rocks into a stilness
making waves into ripples
my body is full, beautiful, endless
you want to dip into me
want to know me
want to swim.
Someday you will realize
there is no way for you to hold all of me
not at once.
That I am not the body you want.
You will forget me
Turn other bodies into water
No not water but
Bouncing ripples of flesh,
Into waves
Dancing your fingers across their skin with thirst
Forgetting all the ways you have been quenched
Forgetting my body of water for a sea of skin
All that love and i'll turn to rain
I will remain the most beautiful, and endless body
But water wasn't what you were looking for
so sorry you cant hold all of me at once
too expansive to only be a body
to much meaning to just be the sea
yet still to little to go around
still just one
brandon nagley May 2015
When the puff adder bites will you cut off its tail? Will you be like all the rest nothing good left, surely you werent born to fail, capsules of medicine as the medicine man draws in, he helps your lovers, desires of others, hes the cure to all your kin, Babylonian carpets of rainbow colors reak, you naked you dumbfounded your bright dress surely wreaks, Tellers, bookmen, warfarers of false gods, you lie around plant your feet to the ground flying in alien pods...Quazors of disaster, beautiful moanings the morning after, have you taken your pill? You ready to be meadly your words silent to ****, I youthfully walk lonesomely to earth creatures, all murderers all have animal like features, morphine drips are rivers red, cinnamon musks to elephant tusks the ancients arent yet fed....(listen) by meself
wichitarick May 2016
The seduction of our Salivary  glands began with masses of often overlapping flavors
  Tingling  leap start ,wide eyed but also an abrupt whoa,terrible to terrific
Oblivious ,willing to try ,why not ,blending in the beginning  learning tastes as translators
Breathing in and licking the lips ,wiggling and giggling ,is it? is it? OH the dog.

   Sensory sensations occurring regardless of our inhibitions or wants or needs ,occurring around ,mild or profound
   Youthfully gullible , playing a new game ,scents & smells starting to form deeper wells
  Blush with a rush ,warming into oranges the pinks more profound when arising into the reds ,leaping circling around
Begging for release from the beginning ,but unknown excitement rising edges ,wider wedges ,calmer pastels

Flexing ,fluctuating far out feelings ,far flung excitement all gathered into one instant nervous burst
Staying back,trying to adjust ,mildness is objected to when the rest of the time is only described with bright adjectives
Then we laugh because we have it hidden ,but never quite knowing the blur still an unknown abyss,but always first
Open minded children begin the journey into finding nameless noises,shadowy flavors or tastes moving,directing like detectives


   Burning RED, drops of BLUE, Icy WHITE, now fixed in the mind ,time lost in odors ,blinking color palates poised
  Wanton wisps centered onto extreme extracts ,visualized often sensationalized into auditory overload
Simple as it has begun ,left with nowhere to run, taking it in stride it can never be put aside ,permanence never destroyed
Excreted excitement now being assessed is a far flung idea ,unless you live it, Raising and rising into an endless plateau .R.C.
Aditya Roy Jul 2019
Her fighting fear and rumbling rage youthfully flickers
She doesn't know, how the chess pieces lie parallel to the cars
Kindred heart, I do keep some appointed time with myself to learn
Passing the queen in numbers, prudently teaching me about vitriolic teaching

Loathing is strong on this avuncular admirer
A student of knowledge that should've recused her lying papers
Caressing herself in the most apologetic ways and climactic jealousy
I couldn't help forgive her for foraging a game without an aphrodisiac

The thought of mollycoddling makes my charm turn into an effeminate curriculum
You crashed class and charmed your way into our crash course in astronomy
Incendiary was the love at first sight, that story's burnt to putrid parchment now
Drapes, verdant, croquet in the halls of the star-crossed sensual words
"Push it in, slowly."~drew blanks
Sally A Bayan Feb 2022
~o~o~o~
Skin is the one that gets wrinkled,
it deals with the heat and the cold
of one's existence...not the mind,
the heart, or feelings...character
and determination mellow with the
passing years...brain is hidden,
but has always been gray...hair
gets visibly gray with age.
~o~o~o~
Seasons, and life's lessons
help broaden and wizen
narrow minds...a much awaited
solitude, that silent dialogue with
the soul, gives light and sense to
questions...it pays to be in touch.
~o~o~o~
Late summers have come...a face
that once youthfully beamed
with smiles...still smiles,
the grayed crown sparkles under
the sun...making it known that,
lightning still flashes in the mind,
thunder still roars through the veins.
~o~o~o~
Underneath wrinkled skin and gray,
thinning hair, there still breathes
within, a little girl or a boy...a once
young lady, or young man, now
aging men and women...more
introspective and ruminative...but,
it's still you, him, her, me...it's still US!
~o~o~o~
Not much changes, just numbers, gray
hair...lined skin, and plenty of wisdom.
~o~o~o~


sally b

© Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
  February 6, 2022
Andrew Philip Dec 2021
Tell me about how how you are a just a tourist everywhere you go.
Let me pick you up from the train station,
and drive you past
balance beam sidewalks
you once walked on
to get home after
you bulldozed the night
out of the sky.
Our lips tango
at every red light.
When they do,
I forget myself.
The light turns green,
I change the song.
I the mouse.
You the cat;
playing youthfully
with the terrified dinner you caught.
Lemid Lark Aug 2016
Heart Break

Love doth take the form of it’s creator;
For as man is complex, it is as well.
Undulating like a wave to a swell,
Receding to a small trickle later.
Oh! The heart! To misery it caters.
A fickle flaming; My personal hell.
To what purpose could this hope to avail?
If this be love, then call me love-hater.

Of love, I have none but for myself only.
For thine self is what thy own, truthfully.
Mine soul being my very own vessel.
Illuminating to not be lonely,
While embracing this one life youthfully,
With self and ego I constantly wrestle.
I start
From mounts
High up
Innocent as a little one
I chatter and bicker along
I carry people and cultures
I am a brook
I flow youthfully
Through the vales
The sunshine plays in my
Glowing waters
From pines to banyans
I see everyone
I carry messages galore
I am a brook
Lover's delight
Touch me nots
Grow by me
They tell me the beauty
And innocence
Of the blossom
Of love
In peoples heart
I carry immense love
Oh I am a brook
I enter the planes
Having nourished
Many people
Along my journey
As a loving mother
A student and
A lover
A teacher
And businessman
And a farmer and a preacher
All rub shoulders
As they cross my
Vast expanse
In a steamer
Conversations of life
Irrigating lands
Bringing a smile
To people's faces
So much I do
After I enter into
The brimming river
Oh I was a brook
Men come and go
Some carve a place for themselves
But I go on forever
Getting lost into the
Mighty river
My glorious destiny
Every moment!
Melissa Clark May 2018
How long will I weep bitter tears at the side of empty caskets?
Until I fall in one of my own to bed in a sleepless sleep.
And on the day that you find my empty eyes crying no more,
Who is it then that will have to weep?
Because as I stand now, you do not see that I am dying.
As I stand now, to you , I may as well already be dead.
You see the hollow in my smiles and you ignore it.
I fear I will lie alone when I lie in my eternal bed.
So take my body and feed it to an unquenchable flame
To signify all of the times you wished I would burn in hell.
Spread my ashes over the deepest ocean trenches,
When I sink, I know you will find bliss in my farewell.
Oh, how I have loved you all of these years, so blindly.
The secrets I've shared, the vulnerabilities I've bared
I thought you were the one person who would never hurt me
Indeed, I was youthfully naive and violently scared.
In my last moments, please, pull your dagger from my back
restore, at least partially, any dignity I have that may remain
Even now that I die, I cannot hate you entirely.
Part of me wishes to blame this on your need to inflict pain.
The current day is May 1st, 2024. I believe I might have found Brianna. And she’s gone. . .

About eight years ago from this date, I would have my first encounter with this mysterious girl. With all of this having taken course over such a long amount of time, a lot of the details are blurry compared to how solidified they used to be to me. But, back to the first encounter, although encounter sounds more like a passive aggressive frightening experience, I’m not sure what other word I might use to describe it. Maybe it was a chance meeting or divine intervention, but encounter gets the meaning across a bit more fluently, as every time I would find this girl I would be in total shock, utter disarray, and my heart would beat so fast I’d feel as though a heart attack was right around the corner.

The first time I ever met her was through a dream. . .

I can’t remember what this particular dream was. I’m not exactly sure what happened in it, why I found it so profound, or how it even got me to begin thinking about this girl. All I know was that it got my attention and I began to pay attention to this idea, this one night miracle where I first met this mysterious woman.

The night I had that dream, I’m pretty sure I thought nothing of it. Who doesn’t have a dream every so often where they’ve met their true love, their other half, their once in a lifetime love of their life? I’ve always been a bit of a hopeless romantic and I’ve always known that this was one of my deeply ingrained character traits. From my first ever year in school in first grade, I had a very large crush on this girl, Ashley Amaya, and I remember wanting so badly to be her crush as well. I even remember a moment from school when I saw a spider crawling towards her and me while walking across a paved walkway to get to our next class, and I leapt towards it and crushed it, despite having a massive fear of the little demons at the time. But, I did it to impress her!

All that to say, the first dream wasn’t extraordinary, and instead it was just another more than usual somber morning when I woke up only to realize the beautiful woman I had just met was probably a mixture of something I ate and some tv show I’d probably seen the afternoon before. Time would go by, the memory of that first dream fading to the farthest recess of my mind with only a hint of any remote recognition still reminiscing in the deepest abyss of my head.

But, this is when what started out as a dream began to become a bit more substantial. This is when Brianna began to plague my mind.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I began to have recurring dreams of being in love with this mysterious woman. She began to become more familiar in a very inconvenient and unreliable way which was of course through the remembering of my dreams. In the beginning stages, I’d only ever catch glimpses of her face and the reset was usually a silhouette or a very rushed moment. The rushed moments were hard to describe but they were full of light, always this wonderful warm yellow light and though they were rushed, time also slowed down significantly in a perplexing way that I still can’t really understand to this day.

I’d see her dark brown hair flowing and filtering the light into these tiny and magnificent rays making a twinkling in what was usually a dark atmosphere. I’d catch the corner of her mouth turning ever so slightly into a warm beautiful smile as she looked away, something else in the vicinity stealing her attention for the moment. There were intense feelings of joy and tranquility and there was a warmth about the situation I could only hope to ever feel in the true cold and lightless world we all collectively call home. Something about her was so intensely special, and the fact that I even got to share a dream with her was the highest privilege I could’ve ever received.

As time would go on, I’d continue to have these dreams. She always stayed the same, with her long dark brownish red hair flowing ever so gracefully. It got to the point that when I would have these dreams, I would’ve preferred to not wake up, just so I could spend more time with her.

Over a year would go by. At this point in life I was still just in high school and still brand new to learning life in the real world compared to the sheltered view I used to have. I had just gotten a job at the local Home Depot as a cashier, literally a few weeks after I got my license since my parents were unwilling to pay for gas for me (as good parents should do!) I was still figuring out life with my friend groups and trying to balance the reality of starting to become more mature and take on more responsibilities while still trying to cling to my childhood of digging holes and bashing legos against the wall with my brothers! It was an odd time, which I guess many can easily familiarize themselves with the timeframe as we’ve all at one point been teenagers.

One of the biggest things in my life I remember being a bit troublesome though, was all my friends I had made and my groups of people I had become so entangled with. With going through these changes, I had some friends that were still absolute children at heart and some friends who were practically ready for college! I had loads of moments through those years where these friends I had grown up with would start to feel like strangers and I’d begin to not really feel as though I had a social place to call my own.

Work was a new outlet, and I actually used to love talking to people as a cashier, ringing up their items, and learning the social norm of small talk that would amount to nothing less than an afterthought. I made a lot of friends with people who were retired and with college kids who seemed to be the coolest bunch around, who knew how to live life and have fun doing it. It was such a variety of friends where I’d talk to Tina about her granddaughter or Jim about his retirement and stock options and then I’d go up to Isaiah and he’d tell me about all the dates he’d been on or all the party stories of him and his friends living life to the fullest. It was a pretty great time in my life though, because one thing especially it taught me was how to be social, though this process would still take years and years to fully develop until I was in my early 20’s to be fully confident in my ability to put it on and be charismatic if need be. The reason I mention so much about this job though, was there was still a deep  and unrecognized subconsciously aware desire in me to meet the one.

Home Depot of all places was the first time I saw her. In person. . .

I remember it was a day much like the rest of them. After having struck up some conversation with our customers and being a little groggy from waking up at the crack of dawn for the early shift, it was time for me to finally get some lunch. While taking my usually route from the front of the hardware store I stopped at my usual coworkers stations to say hi or make a passive joke as I strolled happily on my way.

I can’t exactly remember why, but I had the need to talk to one of my managers, and it was something I needed a response for by the end of the day, so I figured before I clocked out for lunch, I’d get that little task out of the way. But, on the way back to my manager’s office, which was this little 10 foot hallway with doors on either side, one leading to a bank of sorts, and the other side hosting two doorways to offices, I was stopped in my tracks. Right next to the old clock-in machine were two seats where you’d usually sit and wait if the manager’s doors were closed so you could catch them as they walked out. They were also the seats I had sat in when waiting to get an interview for this first job of mine, where I nervously and anxiously awaited the outcome so many years ago.

In one of those broken down, flat cushioned little seats was a girl so beautiful, I literally lost my breath at the sight of her. I knew immediately who she was. She was the girl from my dreams I had been having over the course of that past year or so. Recently through my dreams, I had learned a very crucial detail about her and that was that her name was Brianna, and there sitting right before me within a few steps walk was the girl.

I froze. I made eye contact. And I immediately turned around and walked away. How I wish beyond wishing I would’ve said hi now. . .

Seeing that my manager was currently in the process of onboarding her as a new employee, I decided to take up my little question with my manager a bit later and I went to lunch. While walking into our break room, I ran into one of my new co-workers who I had become pretty good friends with. His name was Brad Brad.

At this point in time, I had more of an idea and more of a recognition of the fact that these recurring dreams of mine were something special, though I hardly let anyone know because of how embarrassing and odd it was. I mean, who would go around blindly telling people about some chick that they’d been dreaming of that they were totally in love with?? (Definitely not me eight years late. . . ) But with Brad Brad, I trusted him and had told him about the story a few days prior to running into her.

Not knowing her name and only having seen her face, I walked up to my friend and asked him about the new possible employee. He immediately knew who I was referring to her as he had seen her just a bit ago and apparently gotten to know her slightly! I asked him if her name was Brianna, being almost definitively sure that that was her name, and just wanting to check to see if I was either certifiably insane, or possibly blessed with this odder than life knowledge.

Brad immediately confirmed her name was Brianna and asked if I had spoken with her, and this immediately had me out of breath, terrified of how the girl from my dreams was truly true and realer than life. I don’t remember exactly how the rest of the conversation went down, though I can safely assume I was blabbering like a lunatic and telling him every single detail of every single dream I had had of her before. I walked out to get lunch knowing that I’d finally become acquainted with Brianna over time in the work atmosphere which was a relief to me, knowing how social I was at work while in comparison to how introverted and quiet I was at school. Life was looking to good to be true.

Brianna, didn’t get the job.

A few days would go by and my excitement to go to work was through the roof. Never before had I had so eagerly gotten in my car, driven to work, and immediately clocked in in hopes of seeing this new girl around the work place. A week would go by and my thoughts of her were still as excited as ever, but I began to realize that there was still training, a full on hiring process, and that it would most likely take time for things to get in motion. A few weeks would go by and then a month and an unsettling worry began to haunt me as I started to wonder if she didn’t actually get the job.

I started going around asking all of my fellow co-workers if they knew her or if they had any ideas of if we were hiring anyone new. I became obsessed with what we called the, “war board,” which was a schedule of all cashiers’ schedules for the day, what departments they would work in and so forth so on. But, I never saw Brianna’s name pop up, and I began to realize that I might have missed my one and only chance of getting to talk to Brianna.

As time progressed I finally decided it was time to talk to Brad about this new girl since he had been the only one I had talked to about her, and this is when the strangest thing ever happened. Brad had absolutely no idea who I was talking about. He could tell I was obsessed with the idea though and he saw how persistent I was that I had had the conversation with him before, and he even sympathetically lied to me about knowing her just to appease my insanity by saying,

“Ohhhh yeahhhhhhhhh! I remember who you’re talking about!”

I was crushed that the only person who knew her didn’t remember her and at the time I’m unsure of why I didn’t ask my manager to see if they knew who I was talking about. Maybe it was embarrassment or the thought of not being able to see other potential employee’s information that scared me. Either way, I wish I had asked more and been more determined in finding information on what had happened to Brianna.

Months and months on end would go by and the fascination with work would disappear as I got older. I’d check the war board on a pretty consistent basis always hoping that by some miracle, Brianna would show up to work for the day! And even though we eventually would go on to hire an incredible Brianna that I’d become such dear friends with, she wasn’t the same one.

I remember how I used to day dream about Brianna walking into the store and how I would recognize her and how we’d instantly fall in love. Especially on those hot hot Summer days when I was stuck in the garden department with nothing but my thoughts and a dream. As life began to progress though, I realized I didn’t want to only dream about Brianna. . . but I wanted to find her! What good was all my wallowing around if I didn’t make any active attempts to find her!

Thus began, the searching for Brianna. What might just be an everlasting one. . .

I began to take a reality check on this recurring girl who haunted my every thought and when wondering on how I would find a girl from my literal dreams, I thought maybe the first best place to look would be there! Literally in my dreams. I took on an idea I had borrowed from the movie Inception where first thing in the morning, if you try to remember your dreams you’d have a better chance of seeing more details.

Doing more research into this line of thought, I read about dream journals and how some people keep entries of their nightly subconscious activities in order to become better at what’s called lucid dreaming, where basically, you have full and utter control of the dream and realize that you’re in it while still sleeping. My dream journal over time would start to slowly fill and fill with some pretty crazy stories and hilarious dreams. Actually, I wonder if I still have it. If I can find it, I’ll drought down one of my entries here for you to read. . . whoever “you” might be.

I won’t lie when I say I found it in about one minute. It was sitting on my desk right next to me. Oddly enough, my first journal entry is far further in this story than I thought as it was written on October 9th, 2022 (thank God I wrote down dates!) Here goes my first entry.

10-09-22 (#1)

My first dream, I remember being at Home Depot, working while pushing carts. I was very sick and delusional and the atmosphere was rainy and dark. All I could feel was gloom and sadness. There was no one to help me which added to the exhaustion. A customer managed to break 3 carts in half and I had to try and fix them, but I couldn’t. The feeling of wanting to go home was very strong.

10-09-22 (#2)

This time I was in a small class with two other men. It was our first day and our professor was already making us write books worth of homework. But, she soon assigned us Minecraft assignments and the rest of the class was devoted to playing Minecraft. A mixture of falling while playing the game repeatedly occurred and was frightening, yet exhilarating and fun.

Though my timeline of the dream journal and me beginning to write it might be skewed in this story I’ve been telling, as you can see from October 9th’s dreams of the year 2022, it was in fact something I started to do. There were quite a few pages from this journal missing and I can’t recall if they were pages of old homework from school and the notebook was one I self-recycled or not. But, I thought I had started writing these way earlier in my life. Maybe one day, I’ll write up all of these dreams into some sort of official funny document, but as of right now, they’ll all stay in that book. It might honestly be for the better!

Either way, it’s obviously apparent that I became obsessed with this idea of Brianna and I began to play my life events in my head over and over again, and this might have been harmful to me later on, but at the early stages of these occurrences, I was very much into reading. Being the introvert that I was in school, and having no access to a smart device, I used to read so so so many books all the time! My best friend in high school wasn’t any other student really but the faculty and staff, specifically our school librarian Mrs. Hogue.

Every time I’d walk into that library which was probably like twice a week, she’d see me and know it was time for me to become obsessed with a new story or spend the next however many months of my life engrossed in a series. I absolutely loved Mrs. Hogue and while she was very strict with all the other obnoxious kids, she loved me too. We used to talk about life and such and the day I graduated, she was one of the people I made sure of to talk to her and wish her a goodbye to.

Anyways, this obsession with writing and reading of mine was one that really flourished during high school due to these circumstances. It feels rather odd writing now when I haven’t gone about it aside from formal essays and school work since specifically 2018.

2018 was the year that I decided to run with a lot of these creative concepts my mind had created over Brianna and turn them into an actual book with full on character development, a family for Brianna, a place to live and friendships and occupations of all sorts! This is why I mentioned just earlier that this might’ve been more harmful to me, because, sometimes I can’t remember with Brianna what’s memories and what’s a figment of my imagination developed by a creative and passionate former younger writer of myself.

Either way, at this point in my life you could tell I was so devoted to the idea of Brianna being a real person, and this one specific idea plagued me like no other.

The idea was that Brianna was also dreaming of me and that we could only communicate through our collective dreams.

This idea for a young hopeless romantic was intensely alluring and from this idea became the now published and only book of mine, “The Fracture of Reality.” In this book, there’s two main characters named Ian and Brianna. Ian oddly enough matches almost identically all my physical and intellectual traits, some of the only differences being him having a place of his own, a pretty successful job and a bit more muscle, almost as though he were a version of myself I hope to one day be.

Brianna, well, she was and is the Brianna that I know.

The premise of this book was, well how should I put it? Better yet, I’ll just plug in the summary from the back of the book I wrote many years ago!

“Dreams and reality are relatively similar terms. Dreams describe and amplify events that occur in reality whereas reality can capture what little glimpses of the dreams remain. But, it never occurred to me that the two could blur together. Only when it was too late did I start to realize that reality was fracturing…”

Although this summary doesn’t really expound on what the book was about, only now do I find it so profound that I established this saying, this line of thought while I was still younger. I’ll write to you now that the basic premise of the story was a bit of a thriller! Ian begins to have these dreams where he meets and speaks to this mysterious tranquil and beautiful girl. He starts to fall in love with her as he slowly begins to realize that she is in fact real and having dreams of him also. But, with his dreams comes the slow beginning of his down fall where his dreams start to predict horrific events that will occur relatively soon. Along with the dreams comes the mental breaking down of his sanity with a deadly progression exponentially on it’s way to happen far too soon. Through the connecting of his dreams, he needs to find Brianna who he hopes when finding her, will stop the terrifying decline of his conscious nature.

In the end, and [insert spoiler warning here hehe], Ian finally meets up with Brianna only to have one of his dreams predict a horrible event of him and her being hunted by some men that Brianna had gotten in bad with during her youthfully naïve years. The story ends with Brianna and Ian in a cottage after Ian in real life has been shot. The story ends with Ian being unsure as to whether or not his dream reality is real life, or if his reality with the pain of the bullet in him is the truth. Brianna tells him that it doesn’t matter, and tries to convince him that the current peaceful reality that they’re currently in? That that moment and that present feeling is real, and that’s what really truly matters.

Look at me, doing a synopsis of my own books six years later! Writing this book and creating my dream journal and doing research was really the first phase of my obsession with Brianna. The older I’d get though, the more it’d become real to me. I’m unsure as to whether the past eight years of my life has made this idea so authentically real to me, but now I see this all as fact rather than speculation and a possible decline in my sanity that I used to be subconsciously aware of.

More years would progress in my life and would lead to the graduation of my high school and the starting up of college at my community college. There, I’d me one of my best friends which will most likely be my best friend for life KJ, but it was also a time of maturing and shying away from the ideas of Brianna as much. Rather than focusing on the idea of her, instead I got so busy with work at Home Depot, balancing friendships at community college, and still trying to socialize with my family that I hardly thought of her.

But, circumstances would change and even though I went a while without thinking about her, she was always there. When I began my first semester at Columbia State and accidentally sat next to this absolutely beautiful girl named, you guessed it, “Brianna,” I thought that she was her! Only to find out like literally two days into the semesters that she was married, whoops! But I still became friends with her and weird stuff like that would occur every so often, but at this point in time, life was changing so rapidly and my mind was always so distracted that Brianna began to fade.

I’d still have my occasional dreams and when those hit, it’d be more difficult than it used to be. The feeling of wanting to stay in those dreams was so strong and so hard to swallow when I woke up and realized it’d only been in my head.

With school starting though, my priorities changed a lot in life! My job was the least of my concerns at Home Depot and I’d more often than not skip all of my shifts as it always drained me of all my energy having to socialize with a bunch of people I didn’t care for or care about. All the small talk became irritating and whenever I was there, I guess I had come to associate that little hardware store with the idea of loss and gloom. I mean, if my dream journal didn’t speak enough for itself, I think it’s because I missed out on my one and only chance to actually talk to Brianna.

My new priorities were to make as many friends as possible and to turn this new page in life and that’s exactly what I did! I was incredibly social and went out of my way to introduce myself to total strangers just to try and escape the old Mike and pursue a new version of him.

It wouldn’t take long for Brianna to come back to me though.

Nobody that tells you how quickly life goes by can truly explain the depths of what that means and you sort of need to experience it yourself, and with the pandemic of Covid-19 happening around 2020, those two years at community school and the two years at MTSU would go by like a wisp of air. Like a breath, **** the time went by. Sure there was quite a bit of stuff that happened throughout that time, like me beginning to fall in love with creating content through YouTube about Minecraft, getting internships and freelance work for my degree as a Graphic Designer where I won competitions and published my art in many places and had the opportunities to be in a crazy high end internship.

But the amount of time, was just literally gone. I was too busy. Brianna became an afterthought.

That is, until fairly recently. To drop some dates for you, I created my first official youtube channel on September 18th, 2019 and published my first video four years ago a day after I made the channel. At first, my channel of Minecraft specific content was created both to prove to my brothers that I could create content as incredible as the youtubers we watched, but it was also just in hopes of turning it into an actual career since it was something I genuinely was okay at. Having had architecture for for years in high school Minecraft felt like a more creative and liberating way to express those abilities and live them out in an actual environment I had created. But also, Minecraft was an excuse for me to turn off my mind.

Covid and the pandemic was sort of the greatest thing to ever happen to me, because it gave me so much time to think and play this wonderful game. I know I mentioned above how I didn’t think about Brianna that much, and that part is true, but when I had those dry moments of playing Minecraft and grinding out some simple tasks of literally just breaking and placing blocks, my mind would wander to her. I used to choose the most essentially mind numbing tasks of mining for hours upon hours which only consisted of holding down a button and occasionally moving your character around to mine some more. But though the task was completely and utterly boring, my mind was active as ever thinking and wondering about Brianna.

Finding these quiet moments in life were far and few between, but I began to cherish them. All the moments from day dreaming while mowing the lawn and sweating to death in the 100 degree sun, to sitting in my car after a long first four hours at Home Depot while staring at a semi-vacant parking lot, to even just the long walks across my enormous campus at MTSU or the long walk from parking spots I chose purposefully to be super far away from my campus at Columbia State. These moments while rare, gave me a chance to keep Brianna at least in the back light of all the real life moments I was constantly distracted and thrown around with.

But, going back to Minecraft when I got into youtube, this changed everything.

I went from having at least some spare moments to having literally no moments at all. The only time I would rest was when I had experienced such bad burn out from trying to do everything everywhere all at once, and between that and the occasional sleep I would get, my mind had no time to think. I still can easily get into that workaholic mind set sometimes and it’s a dangerous one to be in, but I’ve gotten better as I’ve figured out why I believe I fell into that mindset in the first place.

The reason was to escape Brianna’s grasp.

As I went through school hanging out with friends and making new one’s internationally through the development of an ever expanding youtube channel, I had just about no time for anything. The only time I had to stop and think was my 10 minute drive to get food and even in those moments, I had no time to think, because I was too busy driving trying not to get killed by crazy drivers.

Three years of school went by before I finally said that enough was enough. With school being as difficult as it was, I decided to “retire” from my newfound love of youtube because in all honesty, it was driving me mad. My retirement video from Minecraft came out on December 5th, 2022. I stepped away from the never ending grind and set out to enjoy life and the little moments that life offered.

The only problem with this was that my mind began to ponder Brianna once again.

At this time in my life, after retiring I was actually working for a famous youtuber named PrestonPlayz. It was a random freelance job and for the past year or so I had been jumping from freelance to freelance work with little regards to cost and payments real life had always waiting around the corner for me.

This would make me end up ultimately getting a job back at Home Depot for a few months to pay off debts I had incurred from being financially stupid and buying stuff I didn’t really need. But, between all the financial problems and weird life situations I had so much more time to think about Brianna. The dreams of her still occurred every so often but the frequency at which they had started to occur was less and less. Maybe this was all due to me reaching a new level of maturity, but I’m still not entirely sure what caused it. Maybe it was the distraction of a busy workaholic life or the hopes to find someone, really anyone that was a girl that would love me that I could love back.

But, like I said my mind began to think about her more and more. I began to see her in my thoughts like I had years ago previously and it almost felt like I was back sliding into some weird territory I had just grown oblivious to with the amount of time that had passed. Either way, that was my life. A jumbled mess of thoughts and ideas all scattered in a brain far too busy to stop and breathe coming to the new age of silence and habit.

With my mind able to breathe, I thought of her again. . . and then I saw her again. . .

I can’t remember the exact day or time of year, but on one of these days of my “retirement” I was driving home after having just gotten some taco bell. (I was obsessed with the place back then) Driving up my street, I saw a girl with long dark curly hair and bright pink clothes, what might have even been pajama pants on her, walking up my street! I didn’t think much of it until I looked into my sider mirror and saw her face and saw that it was the one and only, Brianna.

Brianna was walking up my street right next to my house. In person. Alive and breathing.

I panicked and jumped out of my car with my taco bell nearly crashing to the ground as I roared into park in my driveway with my car. With bare feet, since I used to drive with no shoes when I went to fast food place, I dove onto an aggregate driveway and started running down it, knowing that there was no way on earth I was missing my chance to finally talk to her. I had nothing but time that day, and I was overly excited to finally introduce myself in person

But when I turned around, Brianna was gone. She’d simply vanished into thin air? I still don’t know how or why, but she was gone. . . possibly gone forever. . .

This experience drove my efforts to find her to another level of passion as I began to research through many google forums and sites and social media platforms praying to God that I’d be able to find her. It didn’t matter if I had to cross the entire ocean to get to her, I was going to find Brianna, no matter what.

I started to revisit old ground and went to the Home Depot I had worked at, asking the new manager there if he could search records and being able to find her that way. I found old coworkers I used to work with and asked around trying to find any trail or any lead and couldn’t find a single thing. I even managed to find Brad Brad’s Instagram and messaged him only for him to have literally no idea what I was talking about, go figure.

With nothing working and having literally no idea on what else I could do, I began to passionately work on a project called, “The Bri of My Dreams.” What this basically was was an ARG or alternate reality game which was a puzzle game I setup for my prior youtube community to solve and have fun with. But, it was more than that. It was the telling of the story of Brianna in a way that I could hopefully publicize and gain some popularity on so that maybe instead of me finding Brianna, she’d be able to rather find me! So, I started working on it behind the scenes unbeknownst to anyone in my community that I was going to use this new found passion project to hopefully find her, but also to bring me back to youtube content creation.

To this day, I’m still not sure why I wanted to go back to youtube. Well I know some underlying reasons, that being tied loosely to Brianna, but now many months later still being at it, I’m unsure as to the real reason why I still create stuff on there.

Either way, after creating an entire animated short film with a script and what I consider to be one of my greatest projects of all time, “The Bri of My Dreams” project was finalized and ready to publish. I put it out there hoping that it was only a matter of time before I finally heard from her.

Hardly anyone noticed I’d returned to youtube, let alone my project failing horribly as only close friends I knew even attempted the puzzles.

My final efforts produced literally no results, and well, this brings me to about right now, this moment that I’m actually writing this all down on May 1st 2024 at 4:21 p.m CDT. For the past few hours I’ve written down all of this while listening to The Caretaker album on youtube, a depressing soundtrack meant to represent the stages of alzheimer's.

This morning while sitting around doing nothing really, I looked up Brianna one last time, despite me telling myself I would be done with her after my ARG project. I found a girl, about the same age as me that matched the name and the description. Her father’s name was funnily enough the same as my own, Michael.

What I found about her and her father were obituary statements.

I’m unsure if it’s okay or morally right to even think that might’ve been her, but something I noticed when doing research about Brianna in my earlier days. . . For some odd reason there’s a lot of young beautiful Briannas who unfortunately die in their early 20’s. It’s an odd and horrifying fact I’ve come to know over the past few years through my odder than odd research.

But, this case I found today? Well the exact date this Brianna died on correlated almost exactly when my dreams stopped of her.

I don’t dream of Brianna anymore. I haven’t for years. . .

I think the reason I’m writing this, is my own way of finally saying goodbye. Wherever she is, I hope she’s okay. I hope she’s well. But as for me, life continues to go on and it’s finally time after these past eight years to finally say. . .

Goodbye Brianna. I’ll miss you. . .
Attorney General William
Barr black marker in hand
kept promise to censor vital
details of Mueller Report
swift as Usain Bolt candidly,
grandly, lustrously, roundly

youthfully blocked out more
rapid than an elegant eland
vibrantly, regally, magically,
and gracefully skirts borderland
which favored topography
constitutes grassland or woodland,

far more pleasing to observe,
than reading adulterated brand
of aforementioned compilation,
distillation, edification, fortification
zeroing questionable activity
upon head of trumpeting brigand,

whose arrivistic, bombastic, caustic,
demonic, electric broadband
outsize ego still convinces
me, thee commander in chief
delegated one or more chargehand
perhaps while delighting as

gourmand savoring chateaubriand,
where his best buddies imagined
themselves in seventh heaven cloudland
every so often taking siesta sans repast
or golfing with grisly handicapped clubhand
non verbally communicating,

in viz sub bully taking a peas zing
cues from presidential high command,
which coterie (i.e. den of thieves)
manipulated social media with nefarious,
insidious, deleterious, et cetera
analogous to "FAKE" contraband,

maybe even milking innocent cowhand
unwittingly planting GMO electronic
bugs amidst future bovine fodder cropland
to allow, enable, and jackknife demand
that moost every eligible voter tricked

induced by virtual reality dreamland
with sinister motive for thee "Apprentice"
rule his kingdom, and expand,
realm asper Medieval days
declaring himself chieftain of fatherland
and/ or North American motherland

where naysayers guillotined
by uncontested firebrand,
who without provocation
very likely bomb into Stone Age
formerly edenic, lush, verdant
geography into flatland

rendered hostile, poisonous and uninhabitable
nonetheless radiating for miles with gangland
forced labor tilling barren, desolate, fissured
landscape erecting unsightly grand
standing room only (cause he know Shylock)

terrain (reign) vast highland
manor as poobah, and husband
to his only heiress, the former
a kooky monster from foggy bottom marshland.

— The End —