i envision a unity
of information
a seamless integration
of human creativity
and technology

imagine the whirls
and hums
of data being processed
transferred
syncing, streaming, downloading
packet up all this information
and crash it around the world
throw it around
for the sake of
human knowledge
free and open

just to be clear,
i will not give up on you.
i will not fail you.

i will not be the one
   to fail you.
i will not.

stand stoically behind a shield
if you must,
call a retreat
turn your back.

i don't care.

i will still be here
no revenge in my heart
no desire to cut you down

i will not be the one to give up on you.
of all the people to fail you,
i will not be counted among them.

i don't know how to be anything
other than true and fierce,
and for you i will do what i must.
for you i can do what is best,
because you are you.

and there will never be a day
that light breaks upon this earth
that i don't love you.

trying to
google things
...without telling
google.

i am an educator.
more importantly,
i am a student.

and i am telling you,
learning doesn't end
because you "graduate high school".
or get 3 phd's. or a 2 year degree.
sure, you can become an expert, but
there is no end.

there is no finish line.

those are made-up things.
there is not a measurable amount to learn
that we, as a society,
have measured out into 10 months
per year 5 days/week
        8 hours per day
and is complete at the age
of 17 or 18.
you are closer then to the
beginning,
   than to the end.

question your teacher.
question the system.
question authority.
question your parents.
question the author.
question your religion.
question yourself.

because there is nothing
worse than a society
full of drones.

back up and try to see
from another perspective,
because not one of us
is the center.

history, my friends,
is in the eye of the beholder.

there is no one history,
and learning a new
aspect of history
is not a threat
to YOU.

it is an opportunity
to examine the world
closer. to see the complexity.
to allow for error.
maybe gain some humility.
it might be upsetting.
unravel your beliefs.
you might get angry.
maybe it won't change anything at all.

but, if you find yourself constantly upset about
the "names of things" suddenly being changed
i.e. teams, products, roads, statues, schools, monuments
i challenge you to ask, what is the common denominator
     of all the those things?

are you upset because you might be wrong?
   could you be hurting people without realizing it?
        you've already taken a stance, maybe you will seem weak if you change your mind.
or maybe someone taught you wrong?
    maybe you were even manipulated into a
   belief system
          so thoroughly ingrained
        that you actually believe
those beliefs are YOU.
maybe you really believe
that your way is
   the only way.

you can test yourself against
your own ideas.
if you insist to yourself that
keeping monuments and names
to slave owners is "just history"
ask yourself how you would
feel about the following:

Pol *** Park and Nature Reserve
The Charles Manson Memorial Highway
Mussolini Children's Hospital
The Timothy McVeigh School for Performing Arts
Monument to the Roman who Crucified Jesus

if all this sounds reasonable to you,
then at least you are being consistent.

if it doesn't,
you need to ask yourself why.

loosen your grip
on what you think you know.

maybe don't spread information
    you don't actually know to be true?
maybe spend 10 minutes
reading about
that person or that statue
or that name
or that law.

names matter.

challenge yourself
to temper that initial
defensive reaction
you may even be feeling
right this very moment.

because you are not
under attack.

you either make a decision
     to believe you already know everything
or you decide differently.

decide to be open.
decide to be thorough.
decide to be curious.
decide to be fair.
decide to learn.
decide to grow.

if you won't do it yourself,
how can you expect
anyone else to?

i suffer from
delusions.

hope is the
  destroyer of
the last ravaged bits
  of sanity.

hope is the
  ******
targeting
  my heart.

peacock spider
     i mean,
HOT ****!
SHIIIIIIIIIT, SON!
dance for your life, man
work that **** out

If I could get an instant
A view
A triangle of thought
Of every individual person’s
Version of me
Would the view extend far enough?
Could I finally see
Who I am?

i feel like
it is my default state
to genuinely like
every person
i meet.
and be in
a general harmony
with them.

but sometimes
i sabotage myself
by developing
a suspicion that
maybe someone
doesn’t like me.
from small cues.

then my
default state
gets hijacked
and suddenly
the harmony
is gone.

there are times
i know
i could never hate anyone more
than i hate myself
and whatever it is
you want from me,
I DECLINE
I DECLINE
I DECLINE
to give you
a ******* thing.

i'm pretty sure
this is one of
the wisest pieces
of advice
i've seen

well meaning, anyway.

i walk alone
and it's a strange thing

every single time
i begin walking
i have an intense urge
to bust a move
and dance to the
music in my ears

but that would be
like feeding the animals

so i don't do it.

i am suspicious
when i walk alone
so i am constantly glancing
behind me
preparing to fight

in my mind
i am a fantastic fighter
my body moves
in deadly arcs
i can turn
anything
into a weapon
and i will
d r o p
any fool that
comes near me

i am an animal.
i shouldn't be fed
with crazy daydreams
but i keep. getting. fed.
and once i've been fed
i just want to eat more

the desire is overwhelming.

every few days
i consider taking up
a new hobby
like smoking,
or a destructive
non-committal attitude

but i always decide
not to feed
this animal
anything

but words.

my dove promise said:
express yourself
so
i imagined your face
on the wall
and hurled the crumpled
foil at it.

it’s a good thing
i don’t need you anymore

because you wouldn’t be here
anyway.

there was
  a time in my life
when i didn't know
that
gin
existed.

at some point
   someone put a
gin and tonic
  in my hand,
and i said with delight,
"this is so refreshing!"

i bought the
cheapest gin
i could find
until i heard
snoop rapping
about tanqueray
and i thought to myself,
"what the hell is tanqueray?"

come to find out,
it is a delicious
gin, in a classy green
bottle with a red stamp.

how lovely!
things were just getting better!
i love limes, and
in no time,
a lime version of tanqueray,
"rangpur" arrived,
and i discovered
DIET LIME TONIC

life seriously couldn't get any better.
let's look at the mathematical equation, shall we?

gin=refreshing=limes=tanqueray=snoop=all around good times

marvelous. let's fast forward a decade.

gin=tanqueray=tears.

i honestly wish
life was not this
way and i
could go back
to the way
gin used to be.

and here is the
point i'm
trying to get to -

i'm so blah ...
   so u n i n t e r e s t e d
so unfocused
     that the thought
of going into a store
  to get tonic was
too much for me to bear.
seriously.

so.
i'm drinking gin. with ice. and a little straw.
i have limes in my fridge,
and lime juice.
i looked at both of these items,
and could not summon
the strength
to move either
from the fridge to
the counter,
let alone my drink.

the next step on the road
to the river styx
is gin with no ice and a straw.
then just gin in a glass.
then just gin straight out of the ******* bottle.
then i would just eat the beautiful tanqueray glass bottle.
that seems to be the jist of things around
this place (by "this place" i mean earth) in general.
it's entropy. pick one of the definitions -
i'm pretty sure that poetically any of them apply.
personally, i think
heat death
sounds the best.

i sit in the
dark and the smoke
the fan humming
and i think of my lover
the best lover

it’s almost as if
there is mass hysteria
and whole generations
   completely let fly
  the idea
      of objective morality
         and it is quite a sad
               thing to witness.

i have never felt so alone
abandoned
fever take me
fever
fever
burn
what i was
i can never be
and everything circles
this black hole
******* in my light
pulling me in
stretching me
in space and time
confused
alone
lightless
slow motion weighs me down
casting my view
of this ledge
in perfect clarity
nowhere to go

lies i tell myself
when the truth
is shaped of sorrow
i will be fine
i will be fine
i will be fine.

see i'm good at
      backing off
falling right off
quiet
quiet
quiet

dreaming of the
pale
   blue
      dot
when cast among the stars
look inward
for the enemy
look outward
for your love