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SS  Jun 2013
it's not worth it
SS Jun 2013
Buddha (may or may noy have-its controversial) once said, “Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”  I am a strong believer in this statement.  For as long as I can remember, I have never been able to hold a grudge.  The longest timeframe that I have ever been upset with a person was twenty hours.  I counted back the hours because at the time, I realized that the anger was not worth it.  Being angered by people’s thoughts and actions is a frustrating thing, and in my opinion is not worth any of the stress. Anger is a poison to the body, and causes more stress and pain to yourself than to the person you are upset with.  As a relatively positive person, I have managed to stay as happy and grateful as I can no matter the circumstance. However, I was not always this way.
As a toddler I would get easily frustrated with the smallest things. When I would get upset I would begin having labored breaths, and my chest would tighten.  Sweat would begin beading down my face, and my little fists would contract and expand periodically.  The smallest things could set me off, such as not being able to listen to my own cassettes in the car on the way home from church, or rainy days when I would want to play outside.  Bed times and naps made me want to pull my hair out.  Controlled and healthy snack alternatives would make me zip my lips tight and had me throwing away the imaginary key to the lock that secured my lips against the unnaturally orange carrots.
On a different note, my grandfather on my mothers’ side was my babysitter/partner in crime/best friend as a child and he could bake the best sugar cookies on the planet.  I kid you not.  I always loved having them, and whenever I spent the day with my grandfather, we had to bake sugar cookies.  Days spent with him were always good days, and I loved listening to his stories he would make up about grand princesses and strong princes in far off lands.  My grandfather had been diagnosed with a severe form of diabetes and had several heart attacks and seizures as I was a child, and he was told to stay away from all unhealthy snacks and things with high sugary content.  My mother soon turned into a mother bear and would carefully watch over my grandfathers’ diet, because she was frightened she would lose her father.  As a child, I did not understand their conversations fully and never realized that my grandfather stopped baking and eating snacks because he was not allowed to eat these things.  I would throw the biggest tantrums for his cookies, and generally he would give into my constant bickering and give in to his cravings for sugar.  We would bake, and in the end my mother was always upset with my grandfather for eating sugar, and I was told that sugar was bad for Poppy (that was my nickname for him).  I did not understand how sugar could be bad at that age, because it tasted so good.  I constantly craved the way that the cookies practically melted in my mouth after being taken out of the oven.  I did not mind a temporarily scorched tongue if it meant getting my grubby hands onto those cookies as soon as I could.
One Sunday evening, Mommy and Daddy had a church meeting to attend to after the main service, so Poppy was in charge of me for the evening.  He took me home, and was asked to take care of me for the day.  I begged, screamed, twisted, and shouted for the heavenly cookies that I had not had in what seemed like ages to my childish mind, but Poppy did not budge.  “The answer was, is, and will forever remain to be no, pumpkin.” He calmly spoke to me. I could not wrap my mind around the fact that my Poppy had said no to the cookies.  I remember my chest beginning to feel tight, the labored breathing, and the light headedness that came afterwards as if it was yesterday.  Hot tears streamed down my chubby face, my bottom chin popped out, and my lower lip accentuated until I had a full on pout formed.  ‘No’ just was not in my vocabulary, at least not for that day.  I became so upset with my Poppy and my chest began to hurt so badly that I could not bear to see his face any longer.  I shouted at the top of my lungs, “I HATE YOU!”  I ran up my stairs and locked myself in my room for the remainder of the day and did not bother to come out until the next morning. That next morning my mom received a phone call at 7 AM.  My poppy had gotten a heart attack at about 6:20 that morning and was pronounced dead at the hospital at 6:54 AM.  Help was not reached in time to heal him.
The last thing I said to my poppy was that I hated him.  I will always remember that.  The fury I felt over something as trivial as cookies makes me so frustrated with myself, because in the end I only upset myself more.  Being angry with people does not hurt them nearly as much as it hurts you.  People are not always out looking for intentional ways to upset you, and in fact most humans nowadays only seek acceptance from others.  Whenever I am upset with someone, I always try and look through their eyes to see where they are coming from and what made them do such a thing to upset me.  The girl who called me a mean name? She had been abused at home and the only way she could uplift herself was by putting others down.  The boy who did not like me in the seventh grade?  His mother walked out on him as a child, and he has not trusted women since.  People constantly think that the only opinion that is right is their own, and if someone upsets them that person should disappear forever and feel incredibly horrible about upsetting you.  In reality, we should try to realize why they are thinking the way that they do.  Being upset with a person does you no good.  Forgiveness is always the answer, because you may not realize it at the time, but people generally get upset over the most trivial things that they will not remember anything about twenty years from now.  The anger you feel for a person is not nearly as strong as the anger they had for you when they did whatever it is they did to upset you.  
Anger poisons your body and never makes the other person feel any less sympathetic about what they did.  It only makes you worry more about the past things that you can do nothing about.   “Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”  It has been twelve years since my Poppy passed away, and no matter who actually said it, I am still a strong believer in that statement.
This isn't really a poem.  I just needed to let this out somewhere.  Thank you for reading, who ever you are.
Lyra Brown Mar 2013
Being an artist is hard. Especially when you write songs about love and love unrequited and addiction and death and wanting to die and wishing you were loved by the people who put their addictions before you and pain and self harm and hope and disappointment and everything that has made me insane.

The only thing I can do to make myself feel less insane is to write about it.

But as soon as you create something, it’s like “Well what the **** do I do now?”

Normal people would get a grant, make a record, go on tour.

Well guess what? I’m not a ******* normal person.

I have to deal with voices in my head 24/7 telling me I’m a failure, I’m a waste of space, that nobody cares about what I sing or do or make, that I would be doing myself a favour if I just ******* died already.

I have to deal with memories from my ****** up childhood that haunt me every day because my parents were too busy being addicted to alcohol and drugs to actually parent me.

Well guess what? I know that was unfair and sad etc, etc. I don’t want your pity. I know what my mind tells me are straight up lies. Depression is a mental illness and it doesn’t just go away because you’re intelligent enough to know that what your mind is telling you is not true.

But it’s the hardest thing anyone will ever have to live with and it makes it ten times more difficult to muster up enough confidence & self esteem to pursue being a musician, or writer or artist of any kind. Because being alone can be dangerous. I often feel so misunderstood and misheard by other people that I choose to be alone to do both them and myself a favour.

But that’s also *******. Because when you create something, no matter if it’s good or bad, you are giving something to the world that has never existed before.

Do you know how ******* beautiful that is?

What people don’t realize about artists is that the majority of them already are extremely  insecure and feel like failures and ****-ups.

The last thing I need from someone is for them to say:

“Oh, you have over 100 songs, how come you haven’t put out a record yet?”

“Here comes the girl who’s been saying the same thing for the past two years - that she’s ‘working on it.’”

Well you know what? I AM working on it. I don’t have to ******* defend myself to other people when they criticize me by saying things like this. You don’t have to sit hear and listen to me sing. No one is making you stay. They have no idea what I’ve been through, how I’ve changed, how I’m trying to heal, how healing does not come naturally to me. I was never taught how to heal. I was never taught how to live. And what I’m learning is that it is never too late to start trying.

I realize I’m getting older and time is passing but for someone to make some snide remark by commenting on how I seem like a failure is unacceptable, especially when I feel like one already.

My songs are a gift. I know that. I have given them away for free, to many people who, now that I think back on it, never even deserved to have them. Whether they’re jealous or mad or sad or whatever themselves, they don’t ******* need to put their insecurities on me when I clearly have enough of my own to begin with. We’re all human, how about we have some ******* compassion for each other?

There are a lot of things I’m not proud of. I have made many mistakes. I have wanted to die many times, and struggle with finding a reason to keep living daily. But music has always been the thing that has kept me alive. Music is what flows through my veins, and whether or not I “make a record” in the timeframe that people expect me to has nothing to do with what really matters.

Music has no timeframe.

Music has no jealousy or anger or resentment or insecurities.

Music is what saves lives, and I’ve been lucky enough to have the gift of making it and giving it to people in hopes that I can help them in some way. That’s what artists are made to do, help, make life more bearable, to transcend the pain of a ****** up life into a song that you can listen to and say: “****, this song sums it up, man!”

It’s a gift.

It doesn’t belong to you. It doesn’t even belong to me.

So just eat some humble pie and get over yourself for one ******* minute because your criticism doesn’t change the ******* facts and I will be going at my own pace whether you like it or not, thank you very much.
Mateuš Conrad May 2021
at what point wasn't it a way to bypass
the editorial scrutiny...
to directly engage with a reading
public...
why did i think this might be: any good?
i guess i only thought:
i need this out and i can't stash it
like a corpse...
into some damp cellar... like a morally
relativistic monstrosity of a sociopaths'
analogy of: "feels"...
   well, no **** Sherlock!
how i made the following reply...
is beyond me:

- believe me... i had more to write but i felt a sense of restraint... i'd like to see what a terse reply would make you focus on... so i'm scrapping the concept of handicap: heads up... now it all depends what you'll be choosey about... or not... because there's plenty in you reply i could quip about... well... then again: is being witty synonymous with being satirical? i'm not for intelligent / condescending humour on my part... personally i love the dryness of sarcasm... but then again: what's to like about the bluntness of nail-heads? just my take on... what exactly not to like about schadenfreude (what's not to like about schadenfreude)... i'd much prefer a humiliation of a leather gimp suit... so it seems: honesty is the best joke in play... there are too many stereotypes in England too... the best one i heard was by my Glaswegian english teacher in school... ahem... how was copper wire invented? two Scots arguing over a penny... like the stereotypical arsenal of deciphering the Jewry run wild in the realm of the gentiles... with the Scots... being our prized asset of: reverse stereotyping... i guess because knowledge of poor Hebrews is either a mystery or taboo... worse still... a mythology... and here i promised myself restraint... yet i'm experiencing something of a writing block and i... most probably found the most surprising alternative outlet... the eroteme lady - ms. query... so there must be nothing concrete about you... well... i too remember being a teenager prior to 2000 on those hotmail chatrooms where the acronym ASL could get you... all hot & bothered... don't take this the wrong way but i've heard that most writers, poet (i'm a chicken scratching doodler at best) reverted to the medium of correspodence... lucky you, "lucky" that i'm testing the waters on you... but don't worry... i've tested the medium with other people and wondered about their stamina... you are starting to gravitate toward psychiatrist status...  it's so strange though... not writing on abstract... blank... rather: inform sender... it's to them... all that *******, romantic or not... about writing for that one person... sure... **** it... write 'em a letter... don't mind about that trippy-*** poem of yours... you know? apologies if you come across as something of a punching bag for sounds... i hope no typos... well typos can be excused... ah these ****** articles about... wait wait... momentary lucidity... i was going to use some of this in my way of combating my writing block... the troubles in the english language... spelling... "approximation" drop the vowels realise: that's how the Hebrews wrote all along... treating their vowels like diacritical markers... the ****?! i feel like i'm being robbed in plain sight... because Copernicus didn't ******* realise jack-****... they pile it up with their Pope and the execution of ******* Galileo...  ugh... it takes some ******* nerve for these days to allow for this ****-centred kindergarten of events in man's... non-evolving history to continue like some: no ******* dodo exctinction ever took place... (agreed... the following are all faux pas... "invigorations") honey? babe? ms. anonymous gender fluid pronoun neutral... what's the informal, best? ms. avatar ms. harleyquinn the world's stupid? what are american stereotypes of europeans? come to think of it... that cookies is too big to take a bite from... you can't exactly base stereotypes having only seen tourists... since a tourist is a stereotype per se... i'd have to go to california... to get a californian stereotype... to georgia for the georgian stereotype...  wait a minute... Costa Rica... "hint hint"? Latino? that wasn't exactly... it was a fork in the road... the Sephardi... you're working from an avatar canvas... you're making allusions to... what i look like and it's like i'm a mesmerising doppelganger of al pacino... is there a chicago accent? i heard a lot of the ****** diaspora was lodged in that *******... i was terrible at accents... almost always a chamaleon... people still ask me where i'm from... so like this one-stand-up comedian in Edinburgh said... when he was quizzed about the geography of his accent... 'you might recognise my accent... it's... educated'... now that's that... isn't it? i could fake you an indian accent if i wanted to... perhaps a german accent too... but i could fake it... by the way... in these parts... biligualism can be treated as schizophrenia... just saying... somehow integration is not fully deserving the status that: not integrating decides... because... not integrating is... "safety first"... the dodo project alliance...  least of all... i've been dying to by a baseball cap with the Cleveland Indians old logo with chief wahoo... so stereotyping americans... it's beyond hard... it's like stereotyping Russian that are not in the vicinity of Moscow... some are probably Mongol remnants... their own idiosyncratic solipsists to their own... i'll take up my bicycle tomorrow and this drunken tirade will most probably fizzle out... i truly couldn't make up giving a toss about what's internalized americana stereotyping... not that i don't care... i just don't know... the currency of the nation sends me years and years of Ed Gein reinterpretations... what am i supposed to "say"? tomorrow i'll be up early and bothered about my bicycle as if it were a horse... but i'll still want to retain gravity with leaving you with this frankness of a reply... lobster-red probably implies if not simply implores: ginger and freckles... i like to think of suntans as serpents shedding skin... i suntan i'm a copperneck... i like the german sound on this... plus... it's readily available as compounded: kupfernacken... what's better? auburn-tease? kastanienbraunecken? i like the joy you feel with what you already prescribed me with.. that i know so little about you... that while i'm prodding you withhold giving me concreteness.... concreteness would allow me... disadvantage me to focus on "things" that are absolutely not necessary... so: i can focus on whether i'm not being pedantic enough and: misspelling...so... what's the stereotype surrounding Alaskan gurls?!

- thanks for being ascribed in getting my "mojo" back...for now...

- What do you mean? I'm surprised this is the shortest message you've sent. I was getting used to your drunk musings. [I say this with a smile but I know you don't like emojis or silly acronyms, and writing out "laugh out loud" sounds ridiculous... after all, you know how important sounds are to me].

- you just asked one of those questions that... is aligned with asking... 'what are you thinking'? the moral 'ought compass waved me a goodbye and if i haven't broken any laws to pursue the sort of freedom of though i currently enjoy... bypassing the need so stress a "freedom" of speech... writing is an extension of thought: not a prompt / invitation to speak... i'm surprised that you scrutinise the length of my replies... and were we to begin with? in the "easily offended" pile-up? well i'm still getting drunk... you're still an avatar mystery... but at least i'm waging a war on prosaic sobriety to boot... i guess i had to come clean at some point... i never write sober... i don't see the point of being: disengaged from the genuine (a longer version of a one word would have sufficed... but i'm lazy about the spelling... while at the same time... there's this critical theory approach done in some of the newspapers about english spelling... let's see if i get it right... dis-in-genius... for starters... disengenous.. horrid... aaah so terrible... dis-less-advantageous... disadvantageous... oh **** me... i wriggled into that one: all sound and proper...why ask me: what do i "mean"? - it's not that i don't like emojis (well, i don't) but... what the hell... there are better hieroglyphs to focus on than chiseled into pyramid stone: own... happy face... the Chinese were doing ******* x-ray gizmo **** at almost the same time... it's a focus loss... don't even get me started that *** = a Parisian hello with tendering the cheeks with... a labyrinth of smooches... my lips are my pouches blah blah blah... you seem to be enjoying my rants... i gather? i don't even know why to bother with an ask (question doesn't even do justice to how i'm framing this)...  you want to write as little as possible to properly excavate me... well no surprise... if light can't bend around corners... i'll have a look: none-the-less... emphasis on the hyphens... this poor down-trodden word could be helped with some "breathing space"; no? i "mean": 霜... shoo-aang... frost... i have dancing skeletons throwing toothpicks at chopsticks pilled up in an area of pine wood... look at this sort of *******... and here we are... cradling one of the old languages with "holes in letters"... to peer through... O now i see... B: otherwise: ha, ha ha ha... what's **** in Chinese? the Greek prized π... but what P & I look like for a farting, mandarin? hey presto: "@"... not even a western concern for "patriarchy" could have complicated: what's already too complicated... a billion people... a wall... that didn't keep out the Mongols from invading... yet a phonetic encoding system that... would topple each and every pyramid... from Giza to the cleaving of South America from Africa that can be staged at some Aztec "miracle"... i am writing (to) you like a bewildered person... because: why wouldn't i otherwise not be? so what do i mean? hmm... what's that holy trinity of statistical terms... mean... meridian... mode? i think i remember correctly... thank god i'm not going to apologise for being drunk... i've heard the stereotypes of drunkards with no future for thirst... the other thirst... the thirst for something beside their own handicap... i'd also duly convert to Islam too... i was cycling past a mosque and heard the most impossible sound of praise that will never escape me... but by the bottle i did: closer to the Jewry i am... contradictory how that is... don't want to stop drinking... uncircumcised... it's a really magical juggling act that's littered with self-deprecating humour interludes... aligned with norse mythologies... grr... **** me... now i'm attempting to "sell" you a makeshift tinder profile sketch... don't know... never will... never used: don't ask...  but i forgive you... for asking me: what does "it" all mean? it means we're for the thrill of it... it makes sense if we're still gagging for it... and we're not exposed to old-age closure cinematic scripts of solo cinema of memory... i like typing because i have itchy fingers... you'd probably like to hear me speak... no? it's exactly 20 minutes past midnight and i have a date with a bagel at 9am tomorrow morning... i still want another injection of truth in me before i do the  lady nox some justice and sleeping with her fiendish daughters... i mean... who does that... wake you up with a hard-on? never mind... i don't even know how to end this "convo": it can't be with a farewell... or an adieu... or a サヨナラ... oh wait... that's "goodbye, forever"... how does one end a half-way between a musing and a real person on the replying end of "things"... i guess like this: NARA... ナラ... short for narazie...  translated from my mutterzunge as: perhaps loosely... for the time being... for now... how else... to end my tirade?!

- So let me get this a bit straight (as straight as a stray arrow, that is): you only write when you're drunk (I'm the luckiest one to be at the listener - or reader in this case - end of your tirades as you call them... I call them musings); you have a fixation with words, even the ones that you don't know how to spell correctly (except maybe in a language I don't know so I can't really tell), you didn't answer why I'm ascribed to getting your mojo back (where did it go?), and you wake up with a hard-on. Got it!

- i've been lodged into a backlog: ******-town sort of: stalling... give me a few hours... although: ever wonder what: giggles sounds like... in the deafness of the night? i do... i want to reply you like so... like now... like this... maybe i will... maybe i will not... i'm gaging to buy one of those cleveland chiefs baseball caps...the grinning siouxsie chieftan....perhaps i want to relearn "how to": take the GRIN... a little bit more... seriously... no? **** it... i'm drinking as it is... i want to reply you in full throttle... straight arrows... and the welsh V of the longbow-men too to boot... chopsticks straighter... "straighter"... i tend to only write when i'm drunk... i abhor sober prosaic intimidation and... all the lies, subsequently...sober people don't get "drunk" on moral relativism of white lies? and i'm born yesterday, no? you openly venture into... a quest of question within the regards... of being... this only.... i almost wanted you to feel this sort of... an alienating increment... of... how i might pile on more detail... they are musings... i don't take them seriously... about as much relax as is a required: necessary.... i have a fixation with words... jurisprudence to me is merely a game of thesaurus ploy-tow... i spell i don't spell... i'm overtly pedantic... i also felt queasy when testing my eyes at an authentic testimony of the "law"  being "exaggerated"... "tested"... "proved"..i must have: lying eyes... no other eyes do see... no? i have a fixation with "things" beside the usage of ***** and strobe lighting...

you have my attention... don't you? you know... the last time i attempted having a conversation... i was too naive...too young... everything "everything" applied itself to being too predictable... i want to love again: but being in love is almost a weakness... i don't feel like being weak... i guess this is where the rekindling of my "mojo" ends... hello cul de sac...

new paragraph... ever hear(d) of the alpha and the omega "man"? i'm pretty sure you heardf of mr. beta... for all the worth of a totality of... man... i'm last... i'd forever be... last... i don't want to be first... i also don't want to be 2bd sniffing **** and crab-meat-... either...

give me the totality... i'll be satisfied with a "question" of
last... hence the expression: omega man...
didn't hey-zeus say?
i'm the alpha and the omega?

i don't write sober, i'n afraid i might lie...
you're not lucky,..
but you're also not... godzilla....

i "somehow" haven't ascribed you with the sort of details of: explanation that would allow you... to satiate yourself with answers... as to how... why... yllu managed to "mojo" probe me back to life? you.. the Faroe Islands to begin with? you know... they have this gimmick... on the Faroe Isles... it's not a gimmick... it's called// i don't know what's it called... skúvoy? but i'm happy to tease when the whales are slaughtered... the the blood comes a running: the lions also... apparently tease with a yawn... look at this word, though: grindadráp....

ever catch the giggle im der nacht? nein? too italian... no? ******* borrowed pollack: the self-depreciating... loan... not load... of bollocking...

don't believe yourself as being the sole recepient of a reply...

you're not lucky... you're just... available...

terribly botherome... isn't, it?

- i thought i'd make this a two tier reply... it would be a shame to reread what i wrote on one of my "escapades"... perhaps this... hanging-over... ha'h... more like hung, drawn & quartered some time to time... but believably sane, pleasantly morose - at evens with masochism... so reclining into a moral trip-up... i probably mentioned grindadráp - since i still have the window open on the phrase i'm familiar with... Sámal Joensen-Mikines... i most probably ended up giggling in the night... god... i'm just skim reading what i wrote... well good to know that i can only the best thing and sober up: simultaneously returning to a more rigid, conventional... formal use of language: that i might suppose i'm in a confessional booth... a welcome mirage for the time being... while i decide to wither away watching the old firm (a derby soccer match between celtic & rangers)... of note... i had this argument with the natives so time ago... the... Celts... but it's the Boston / Glasgow Çeltics... no? you're a girl that likes sounds... i've been following this current discussion that has reached the heights of printed newspapers... citation, sian griffths (gwif-if-if-ififs) education editor: new spelling ROOLS to make english more predictable for pupils... "we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the feelds..." see... i really admired Charlie Bukowski for a while... until he came out as a lazy slob who would require an editor to correct his spelling... there's dyslexia and there's just plain: hash-browns... for all my worth of idiosyncrasy that i wriggle in as i go along, most of which will not find common ground and a cosmopolitan outlet of users... for me, as someone who acquired this tong'u: i've grown fond of how aesthetically messy this toong can become and how readily available this messiness is... even London can become a ****-joke: Loon'dune... in my mutterzunge sounds are more distinct... apart from the graphemes sz, ch, cz, rz (ż) - i'd have to borrow from a Czech a caron to hide a letter or two: š (sz / the equivalent SHarp in english) and č (cz / CHatter respectively)... all these unique sounds... ą, ę, ć, ń, ó, ś, ź - Wombat ł... anyway... i just thought, sobering up... that you'd like to have a certain bulging volume of fudge to return to... before i take another dive into ms. amber and pass another night as w. h. auden wrote: only the hitlers of this world write at night... sure... herr auden... because the day is for watching football and / or cycling.

- à propos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L5iefl2QtA

- If you share music can I? I'm sorry that I didn't reply sooner. It's been a **** last week and this week isn't any better yet. I like reading your messages, drunk and sober. When I write in my native language I use the accent over the vowels to emphasize the second-to-last vowel of a word. I love speaking, reading and writing in my native language, though I'm sure that I know much less than you would about languages. Shall we continue talking about sounds? How about sounds in my language? Of course, you have to guess if you haven't already.

- mind you: i had second thoughts about writing this reply... perhaps you can judge for yourself... i'm just not into having double-mystery encounters with an "avatar"... plus i made an emphasis on the point... what music were you not going to share?

sure... but first share your music... i have this thirst for Nick Hornby's high fidelity and being a teenager again... a teenager in love, again...i was probably the most happy-go-anywhere sort of person when i found a vinyl copy of Wardruna's kvitravn in my local HMV... which is: sunrise records and entertainment ltd trading as hmv & fopp.... given i already have the other chapters on cd - copied into mp3... (runaljod - yggdrasil & gap var ginnnunga)...  and given it's so rare to fnd a vinyl of this calibre... that some vinyls comes with an mp3 link... i thought: hell... i'll give this record the proper 3D aura treatment and not listen to it on headphones... or utilise it to "conquer" space... & just walking with it across a market sq. without a plastic bag to stash it in... i might as well have walked with a cat on my shoulder... because... who the hell still buys... well... invests in vinyl? now... coming to the language...second-to-last vowels of  word... you know... you can keep me interested without overplaying this "mystery" game... isn't the use of an avatar enough? i really can't comprehend a language that focuses on second to last vowels... without focusing on vowels: per se... just to reiterate... you didn't share a link to some music... you pitted yourself as American... i can continue being interest without having too many enigmas to sort... i have yet to find a language that only applies accents to, e.g. suppOsE... or maybe i'm just too ignorant to have come across a language that behaves in such a way: unless it's some idiosyncratic variation (of it)... you don't have to remain a complete mystery to me for me to keep engaging... there can be some sort of rooting in reality... otherwise i'll just return to my original purpose of writing: staging myself against a blank canvas and a barrage of sounds that i'll need to "un-spaghetti" into linear streaks.... i'm not going to guess: you'll either tell me or not... i'm currently listening to snake-pit poetry: einar selvik... any one can have a ****** week... for a while i was anticipating you testing whether or not i'd reply not getting a reply from you... and that, somehow, miraculously... i'd continue to creep-up to teasing you again... perhaps that's me dabbling in misnomers... no... you'll need to give me something concrete... i'm already starting to itch with a sensation that i better return to the canvas than keep this conversation... no offence... it's just draining me when something abstract could also be doing: likewise... but it wouldn't end up being a ****-tease... i could possibly create something out of it... not just so more: oh... oh? ** **: what's next?! i know when it becomes a brain-drain... a side project... it has to come with an excuse whereby you'll probably recoil with: but i had a ****** week... granted... but who hasn't...  you could have waited another week until participating in the timeframe of the passing of weeks started to feel good once more... if you only dropped a music suggestion... otherwise... thanks... but... no... this conversation is going nowhere... i think i'm just relocating my writing block elsewhere... all the best: in keeping an aura of mystery... within the realm of avatars and non-accountability... come to think of it... no... this is as fair as i could be.

this supposed "unique" specimen... not really...
i want to focus on what allows me to belong:
beside the unfathomable landmarks
of trees and mountains:
roaming stars that even my demented
grandfather corrected himself on...
satellites... no... roaming stars?!
well... i didn't conjure this **** out of my own
*** for pleasure, either...

back towards... falling asleep while listening
to the Hellraiser soundtrack:
hellbound...
because eerie is how:
i how how: "things"...
i'm so alone at times that it's beyond making
sense: it's about infringing on a god-stature...
status... this omniscient
contradiction that some Elijah bundled up
into... two crows croaked...
the tower of London can entertain 6:
so the king's ******* and the queen's
jewels are left intact...
for the successor to worry about...

we have these conversations but too bad
the girl is playing timid...
and i'm... gargantuan...
the length of a tongue that turns into an eel...
hands like octopus extension...
i could wrap her up in... bubblewrap
and start the puncture pinch-pinch ceremony
of not seeing the bubble float: up-up...

i have a sense of ego like...
a bad l.s.d. trip?!
****-guage-abuse? gauge? sort the ones
for the snoozing zero-toasts
and you have yourself
a new jersey smart: bite-off... not bit... though...

i could never have children:
not because i could never be a good father:
but i'd be a terrible husband...
how do i "know"?
i would never allow myself
to earn the amount:
she'd want to spend...
via solo: i'll spend on ms. cojack amber
and some ******* liquorice vinyl...
and a bicycle...
rubber-teasing: ****-teet-****....
when using the brakes...
when minding my ******* "luck"
on a roundabout with a massive twuck...

plus i'd love to **** more...
i'd love to **** as much more as
the thought-"taboos" discourage me
from doing... so it's a nice adventure: thinking
the next: moral antagonist, antithesis
of "could i"?
central theme? Lo-li-t'ah...
and i'm the second from third removed
uncle of the marquis de sade...
you want... you need... you have to orientate
yourself around the last taboo...
the one that's not associated with...
crispy clean antics of those *******
in their savvy leather gimp suits etc.

"power to the people": *******...
power to who owns what...
i'm starting to conjure up
profanities akin to:
but at least when they owned slaves...
they took care of their slaves...
they wouldn't want a slave to be rotten...
to be despondent...
trouble with freedom is...
my own, self-made... man...
if i were a slave...
i'd learn to bend the rules...
i'd entertain the fantasy of freedom...
while being constrained with...
all the benefactor securities...
i'd be owned but i'd also be:
obligated to a social contract of some sort...

so freely as to nothing be:
so averaging assumptions...
presumptions... so by nothing i unfree myself:
to... sort of quest to: "be"...
while the priestly class held back literacy...
within the timeframe of when
a new literacy emerged... of coding...
so double-up-on-surds... no?

herr gizmo l:)(}{
the realm of the three brackets... )}]...
one literacy replaced the old literacy
but in terms of retaining the old type...
the new type is... not exactly allowing
for movement of... hearts? is, it?
i still have to retain punctuation...
i still need need to perfect it...

but this is not conversational linguinie,
is it?
i stand firm in, stressing:
writing is an extension of thought...
writing is an extension of thought:
it's hardly an invitation to speak...
the past centuries haven't taught us
that literacy is a constraining beast of priests'
fancy?
let me... detail my limbs for you
in stressing this point further:
what good came from the project
of literacy en masse?
graffiti scribbling on brick walls?
out of what beside desperation?

such constraints were employed as
to: the person exercised in completely body:
usage... wouldn't feel like
a ******* hamster of a ******* ferris wheel
when push came to shove...
somehow everything physical became
lesser class: demeaning...
somehow we all turned into *******
fluorescent
      telepathic / telekinetic Chernobyll
monkey sorts...
and the fat "stigmata" is a what?
                  
  this world is gagging for something tragic...
this world is gagging for a world war III...
but... it probably will not...
"advise" itself to experience such a disatrous take
on prospect...
nuance in language can go **** itself...
application of misnomers for added fluidity can:
go **** itself...
you ever come across a choir...
and a great wind...
see a ******* shrink...

don't look at me for inspiration:
perhaps some jokes...
i've been more honest these past two minutes than
i ever was in the passing of a decade...

death the limbo of "sanity"...
esp. when someone memorable has taken off...
who am i left with? "perspectivelly accountable"?
grey-matter fiddle-through middle-man
*******... no?
i'm not sifting through that, murk?
perhaps i'm sieving... sifting... sieving...
sifting... sieving... get a dog! she says, mother, dear...
i tell her: it's legal in Belgium...
her father already cited his complaints...
i'm tired of the ******* optimism...
i'm tired of this "adventure" some cling to when
deciphering "life"...
an overrated statement of too many facts:
that's life...
it's not a ******* frank sinatra:
come as we are... would be: mea culpa...

troublesome sufferings of a tired brain...
too many pop ref. points worth of closure...
i bought a vinyl today...
i walked it down a market place
like it was a puppy...
in a rucksack...

that there's a hope... my mother is crying
this silent agony of truth...
i tell her: it's sensibly legal in the Benelux...
England is ****** by all accounts...
a dog will save me?
i'm becoming rigid... brick-esque...
tide-prone...
moon is the mother of my skies...
i might might what?
fall in love: to fall in love is to allow
oneself to be weak; to be... dependent on
someone: the concept of "other"... no?
recurrrency is pricing on how many times
that's... sensible to try out?
before it fails?

i fall asleep listening to horror movie music...
i'm best coupled to a ******* hyena than
i am to a woman...
to live under a false sense of hope
is a: welcome bypass to otherwisse living
under a truancy of truth...
as the life around me shrinks...
the abounding shadow of me grows...
and not as a patriarch...

oh ****... "i simply, somehow...
just so it happens... fowgot to... encapsulate this
offload whiff a wyme".

   PSA: Poetic Service Announcement - written 05/01/2017
                                              
   Please feel free to share with established and future
   authors on FB.
********************­***
.
One of the toughest decisions, an author has to make, is the selection of a reliable publisher. With more than six months of personal experience, I have painfully learned that PBP (Published By Parables, headed by John Jeffries) is NOT one of them. For decades, I’ve listened to ministers tell me that “Mediocrity is not a hallmark of Christianity; it’s halfway between success and failure.”; and yet, the shoddy workmanship of transforming my manuscript into a usable PDF (that would produce the book) failed to even reach the level of mediocrity. I extend an apology to those, to whom a premature recommendation of PBP was given by me. Don’t repeat my mistake! Please. You’ll be grateful and thankful for heeding my warning.
.
This company engages in deceptive practices and doesn’t operate with complete transparency. For example, it advertises that it will publish your book for free. While this is technically true, you will have to make an initial payment of $185; $35.00 for the copyright and the $150.00 for the ISBN-Barcode. In addition, John will subtlety lecture you, regarding why he won’t cover this expense and why you should.
.
Before I began writing poetry seriously, I acquired 30 years of IT experience and 20 years of desktop publishing experience; so I understand conceptual ideas, the need for high standards and the importance of having a solid, but flexible framework. In addition, I was taught the criticality of working with a mindset of excellence- a topic taught by most ministers. One example is Titus 2:7-9, which states: In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.
.
Computer templates, used in today’s bookmaking operations, are not meant to be static; rather they set an initial foundation from which work can begin. Given the style of my writing, PBP had agreed to modify the template being used, as to minimize the impact of my having to change my writing to accommodate the shortcomings of said template. I understood that this would possibly extend the timeframe to get my book constructed. I was okay with this and never rushed PBP in its efforts.
.
With each iteration of manuscript changes, new random and unexpected problems began to appear; so I was blamed my project’s lack of progress, since the errors arose from PBP’s ongoing modification of my manuscript’s template. It’s unimportant to realize that ALL modifications to the template were made solely by PBP. PBP never reviewed an updated PDF before sending it to me; therefore, it became my responsibility to identify issues that resulted from the technical incompetence of PBP. So what if titles lost their boldface attribute, while the text of poems were inadvertently made boldface. So what if poems were displayed to the left of the left-hand margin, pages numbers were lost, or randomly displayed in boldface, or that page headers would be missing or cut in half- it was my fault for desiring a template customized to meet my personal need. So what if the page numbers were corrupted within my index of poems, from PBP inserting new pages into the beginning of my manuscript. So what if I was concerned that the index’s format was changed from the way I desired. Stuff happens and I need not concern myself over such details. Apparently I was delusional in thinking that I was responsible for the vision of my new book.
.
And if that wasn’t enough fun, PBP would ignore some of my changes, such as inserting the occasional blank line, as well as making unauthorized modifications that included adding, replacing and deleting PBP graphics. One graphic I was fond of, PBP removed because its intended purpose is meant for “internal company use only”. Guess I’m just an unruly rebel for wanting to use it. Since he originally inserted it into my PDF, using it must have been initially okay. This incident is one of many that shows John’s lack of attention to detail.
.
In addition, I was unreasonable for wanting my legal name displayed properly (so I can differentiate myself from the other “Joe Breunigs”; no offense guys!) That correction alone took John SIX MONTHS to address; my book’s title also created angst for PBP, since it contained an ellipsis. Twice I e-mailed instructions on how to insert one because he misplaced/lost the first correspondence. And so I was unreasonable once more, since his option of using three consecutive periods was deemed unacceptable by me. An ellipsis is my favorite punctuation mark; if he couldn’t handle my previous instructions, he could have COPIED IT DIRECTLY FROM MY MANUSCRIPT.
.
John constantly complained about updating the template and the slow iterative process of making my book. At one point, John made the remark of how he had published two other titles during the timeframe my book was being worked on. As Christians, we get in trouble when we compare ourselves to others, since everyone’s journey is unique. So it’s clear that PBP’s intent was to manipulate me into feeling bad, regarding PBP’s lack of progress. Supposedly I was out of line for suggesting that he remember James 1:2-3, which teaches us: My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. In discussions with PBP, I indicated that I have 15 complete and unpublished manuscripts of poetry. In addition, I stated that we would have the most hiccups during the creation of my first PBP, since we had no experience working together. Nor did PBP understand that this process of creating a personalized template for my work would save time during the construction of future titles- both for me and other poets. Should I apologize for forward thinking?
.
Given the problems I was forced to face, doubt became evident in my selection of PBP; so I decided to ask more questions, to step up due diligence on my end; NONE of my follow-up questions were ANSWERED. I had the audacity to ask for a contract, how much I could expect to earn per copy sold, why PBP didn’t request my SSN and other questions of concern. I wanted to understand how to stop PBP from making unwanted changes or ignoring the ones I desired. One would like to think that a publisher would be appreciative of a proactive author, seeing that I have one title already. At one point, I had the false hope that my book could be completed by December 2016, but not in time for Christmas. Now we’re into May 2017.
.
Nor was I ever allowed to see the prepared book cover- FOR MY BOOK! I was informed that I couldn’t be allowed to see it because the image MAY need to be re-sized. IMO, this is a ridiculous excuse. Since I never saw the cover, I was unable to either review it (for mistakes) or critique it. Supposedly the cover was made three months earlier; since I’ve not seen it, I must assume that PBP is not lying to me. And it was crazy of me to imagine using the graphic (OF MY BOOK) as a marketing tool to create excitement and interest in my latest title or possibly generate pre-order sales. When a publisher intentional decides to play games like this, does anyone else see this issue as a “Red Flag”?
.
Caught between his impatience, unrepentant attitude and ability to be easily offended, John refused to apologize for his technical ineptitude and unwillingness to press forward; instead he chose to hide behind his spiritual authority (which I do not fall under); he essentially demanded that only I had the onus of forgiving him. After a weak and failed attempt to bully me into accepting substandard work, he later announced that he was quitting my project. In a phony letter of apology, John even implied that I needed to accept responsibility for the failure to get this book made, since I HAD CONTACTED PBP. In addition, he reiterated that PBP is a ministry; if that’s true, then why didn’t he demonstrate patience, perseverance and humility towards me or ensure quality of effort… as unto The Lord? Should PBP want to dispute my account, John should be reminded that I’ve retained a copy of various PDF iterations of my unmade book with the aforementioned issues.
.
I took no pleasure in composing this PSA, but felt that it was my duty, to share my poor experience in dealing with a difficult publisher, to my writing communities. This notification could have been prevented, if John had repented, swallowed his pride and pushed forward to get my books made. Instead he chose to become an irrelevant part of my journey as an author, which is sad, since he acknowledged that I have a gift for writing poetry. IMHO, we the writing community, must be willing to stand up to publishers, since the responsibility (of the vision for our books) lies with us. We should be able to freely ask questions and have templates modified to suit the individuality of our books. Let your voice and concerns be heard. Please share this message with the writers you personally know. We should not be forced to accept shoddy work! John can be reached on FB at https://www.facebook.com/john.jeffries.33; the PBP website can be found by searching its full name. Please feel free to share this PSA on John’s page, so he understand the ramifications of his actions.
.
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2016
allowing for a two part volume
of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu...
is unforgiving... it's asking a meat-head
to read such a body like exploring a woman's...
a gay-man's psyche is pretty much a woman...
or what a woman thinks in secret,
gay men merely vocalise what a woman does
not say... and yes, that a with a diacritical
mark... that grave above the a? the à?
it works like a comma... à! a surprise kindred
an eureka that's not really original,
an: ah! and then you say the rest of the title...
iconic pause: in search of lost time...
          it took me about five minutes to figure
that one out... lost time, but occupied a space...
  and so much political vanity is consecrated
upon the reverse.. ineffective space:
thus gained time... for all that protests are worth.

i know i go on about this a lot, surprise surprise,
i'm actually engaging in systematisation...
once you enjoy writing as much as walking
you get to reach a systematisation,
     it's a painful process, i'd never do the editing process
of a Hemingway... write something: shoot some
camels and reindeer and go back and revise a piece
of writing: drink a *death in the afternoon
-
a shot of absinthe inside a champagne glug
or the modern: shot of Jägermeister inside a glass
of red bull... (yay-gay-mr.) -
                       or how do you make snakebite?
half a láger half a çíder - and a head of blackcurrant
squash... scoot meine good look.
  but diacritical marks are what punctuation marks
are... it's only that they've become elevated,
and unlike punctuation marks governing paragraphs
and sentences... they govern the words,
         they are syllable incision indicators...
  i mean: i don't revise something i've already written,
unless it's a spelling mistake... i just write
something new... it's sadistic in my mind's eye to
revise and revise a single effort of writing...
                i'd rather centralise a theme of the paradox
of re-, in the year 2018 i will still experience
the tetratempus - containing four seasons -
         and i will never return toward making a piece
of writing become a morbidly corrected statue...
     what's done is done, let us move toward another
circumstance of being able to acquire a new kind
of observation... i can't be a sadist in terms of also
being a perfectionist... i break a leg, i break a leg...
if i write a ****** poem, i'll write a ****** poem...
but i won't be bothered like human history has been
by preoccupying itself in forwarding the drama
on Golgotha Street...
    the newest addition to the vogue scene is a corset
paired with a waistcoat...
   the snooker championships are taking place,
and i says to my father: 'a bit like chess, ain't it?'
   'sure is', he replies, 'you have to think 3 moves ahead.'
and it is... a smart sport, actually the most intelligent
sport there is... ****** boring obviously,
unless you fake the boredom and think about angles
and triangles and Newton...
   and cover the game with such congestions of
pretending to hallucinate it all...
                or take to thinking about rebellious
Saturn spinning out of orbit and doing a Mike Tyson
to Jupiter...
          but it's very much like chess...
                   it's sporty chess... snooker is chess...
  and it definitely ain't pool...
         you could actually have a ******* on a snooker table...
while either doggy or missionary positioning on
the snooker table... so what are the odds?!
         but i'll tell you one thing... snooker beats golf...
i don't know why... but once colour televisions came into
existence: it made much more sense for both
spectator and commentator... and how dare you
not cling to the 20th century if you were born in it
to translate to the 21st androids how we experienced
an evolution of technology, that made much more sense
after what i just heard...
      so there's this woman in the U.S., and this is before
president-elect and whatnot...
  and she's 22, and it's all over vice news,
and she's scared, and she's a mother of a 1 year old...
    and then this picture emerges
(don't worry, it's not anything like playing the Sims
   and moving your Sim to play computer games
and seeing a wormhole, or the infinity mirror effect)...
and there's a scene when she's talking Donald Duck
to the child... there are no meaningful words being
said... merely sounds... onomatopoeias...
and yes... this makes perfectly good sense when
stressed as a cut-off capsule...
because Darwinism doesn't really provide much
history... Darwinism is a historical erasure:
the past 2000 years could have happened,
but not really...
  but it just fascinated me...
         when did we learn or who did we learn it from
given we were placed at so many different
plots of the globe and became convergent -
anyway - the woman is teaching the child
words via the onomatopoeia of a hoarse quacking
of a duck! i probably will not find an answer
(primarily because i'm not supposed to,
if i am to perpetuate what Aristotle taught, i.e.:
be wrong and continually circumstance being in awe,
given the mundanity that nonetheless
everything keeps repeating itself over and over again,
for sustenance, and you are not sustenance bound
as corrected by your language deficiency to
ever merge into an unconsciously organised module
that might also argue an ego) -
    but i wonder how difficult it must have been
to extract something beyond the minimalism of animals
that identifies a duck with a quack, a cow with a moo,
an serpent with a sss... a cat with a meow, a dog with a bark...
    i cannot conceive how difficult this explanation
will be... but given the timeframe, i'm more awe-stricken
by this than merely being awe-bound by the time-scale...
which becomes the least affordable option of being
struck by awe, because one becomes merely awe-bound
by it, and therefore apathetic towards such a time-scale.
       how did we suddenly extract an understanding
of an onomatopoeia to distinguish our own ontological
basis for making a sound by infusing a sound that
doesn't resemble us? when did the first ape bark like
a dog? but then again, looking at the canvas already
apparent to us... what was the point of such an adventure?
hippy culture says: monkey accidently ate a mushroom,
monkey suddenly was blown away and reasoned of
a higher purpose other than a tree and a coconut...
     mudvayne quotes the guy on l.d. 50...
what's the guys name... uggh! not Timothy Leary...
ah ****! Terence McKenna! that's it!
        am i high? nope... my respectability of argument
comes from the mystical properties of... whiskey.
hmm...      that rarely happens to people.
                   it's what's called being earthbound, or gravity
prone... sink like a skipping pebble across the lake...
          and like a tonne of lard.
             tomorrow i'll wake once more and still
think about how we encouraged the discovery of
onomatopoeia to teach our children the multiplicity of
sounds, and later deconstruct such a multiplicity to
create meaningful words that go beyond knock knock! jokes
and grunts and barking...
                     but i will never know the man who
created the fermentation process from potatoes to make
*****...
                or the guy who brewed the first pint...
or the guy that smoked the first marijuana bush ensemble
while clearing the land for a place to harvest wheat...
   all the fame that exists is simply scholastic...
  schoolboy fame... which is why so much attention
goes into becoming famous in school...
                        but still that woman teaching her child how
to speak by going down into the blobby-gurgling
  tongue of the toddler, stiffening it,
      and tightening the **** and bladder too...
  by talking Donald Duck to it...
                        i probably could have had a family myself...
but can you imagine someone writing this load of
******* and having a family? there wouldn't be any time!
           still (god, what a need to repeat!)
         how did we progress from saying ape-****?
surely if we started to imitate other animals they'd join us
in our need to usurp those ******* lions!
  lo and behold... we managed to pet dogs (so they were
in on it all along)... and cats (who came from Japan,
if **** sapiens came from Africa... cats came from Japan...
bonsai frocked and all) -
                            but you have to admit...
from what is written history, to what is history and
a gap in history going back to a similitude of form -
      you can write as much historical fiction as you want...
    and you'll never have to write a bestseller about
some centurion in the Roman Empire...
   or a quo vadis by Sienkiewicz (nobel prize winner)
for the depiction of emperor Nero...
                               ******* Sesame St. giggles...
still, the question beckons... if animals can behave in
an ultra-intuitive way as if fashioned by a telepathy...
then telepathy can only exist upon a very simple,
atomic, terse vocalisation of an identity...
   a dog barks... a man can bark too...
                                but we have completely lost our
intuitive talent (if it can be called that)...
          to have sacrificed intuition is to have created
cults or counter-intuitive hierarchies...
  so a 1000 blah blahs later i still prefer to write what
i like... than write what people "might" understand
and talk to a girl about...
                                     a bit like a woman discovering
you faked writing a poem 20 years into a marriage...
                  obviously the setbacks to boot...
                            dyslexia is an optical dimension...
no one dyslexic says a word they don't understand
a meaning of... dyslexia seemingly came from
finally having enshrined the "secret" to the monopoly
of writing sounds...
                          nonetheless... at the end of the day...
it's just too much history... there's too much of it...
            there was never going to be a world
where carpe diem ruled it...
                               it was a question how we clung to
certain things, within a framework of
                                             salmon dye omni:
sure sure... piglet pink and innocent for the rest
of our lives... once Darwinism pointed at the ape,
and once physicists dropped the bomb and the bang...
no day has had any significance at all...
   + the 24h news channels...           snuggle up to a hog
             and say: fog over Heathrow... all flights are grounded.
POSSIBLE  May 2022
~Quicq Hooqs~
POSSIBLE May 2022
Court of owls
New ink, new shoes
Clocks on, I'm about to run it

Fast as my pain's Timeframe, bout to gun it

I hope you feel something better my man,

I'm feeling something
I'm feeling something better than planned


Tuck in the winter, dam i fall into action
springing past Morty and summer
While I'm watching TV slumber
shaking off chains of reactions

is it a new start
call it innov8ing
or maybe to our past
Definistrating

memories,  atoms alternating
like the world sputters aspirating

Spit split straight portals compensating
I'm drunk on Dark matter ever oscillating

the wind turned to me
just so it could turn on me

Judgment for eternity
Experience is the same

it howled with certainty
MY Experience denied 3x

so now you hear me?
from this judgment

I'm always ripping free
I don't generate art

so you can whip at me
I might penetrate stars

The universe is an artist
so Why does it  ****** us

Aint the universe ever even heard of us?

I'm the passenger and still woozy the sickness
feeling the pressure but I gotta be a witness

compassionate, no judgment
we all have our reasons

~Got a spot that I  keep w33d in
Hidden with the green stem bleedin

we may have different heavens
but we come from the same soil
When others decide our emotions
Got so many reasons for defense,
reach out and tipped it for the deflect
emotions reflect the deficit of me breathe
I just shake my head
so heavy, I need rest

Court of owls
Port of vowels
I am Born of miles

So I adult when you consult the Occult

knowings the lotion but still decomposin
all this is music I just need to recompose it
Saved another life Now the reaper owes it

I think I've got amnesia,
Waking up to
Sir you had a seizure
Eyes always look like
Man...I wouldn't wanna be ya

Empathy
is another form of slavery we sign up for

We live and we learn
Boomerang on the mic
I go and return

But its not just about living well
its about knowing the root of life

its Taking the threads in your hands
to rack the rains and crack the chains

Caught in the dream, my ego forgets
Sleep is such a shy death

*Court of owls
Port of vowels
I am Born of miles
in the Korn of howls
John C. Lily-> what was he about?
Lyra Brown Jul 2013
-People need you more than you think they do, especially during times of intense personal change. It’s important to watch the people that you love grow and change and move away and make mistakes, and to be there for them 100%. Don’t make it about yourself. Looking past your own selfish wants will do you a lot of good and you will be doing yourself a favour in the end.

-React: cry, scream, throw things, write things you don’t mean, say things you don’t mean and reach out when you need help. Give yourself a limited amount of time to feel pain and suffering. Say to yourself “I am ANGRY about this RIGHT NOW. I am going to give myself an hour, five hours, a whole day to feel this pain." Then let go of it. You can’t be happy again until you feel that pain, and let go of it wholeheartedly. You can’t appreciate happiness without contrast. Life is all about contrast. The day you let that pain define you is the day you are actively choosing not to grow.

-Don’t judge or label yourself for “overreacting." Iain Thomas once said: "The sun doesn’t apologize for being the sun. The rain doesn’t say sorry for falling. Feelings just are.” The sooner you accept this, the sooner you can accept yourself and your feelings just as they are. No strings attached.

-It’s important to abandon the idea that you have of your parents. They are not wiser, more intelligent, more experienced than you just because they created you. They are not heroes, they are humans. They are going to hurt you just as much as you can hurt yourself. Forgive them. Love them. This is what being a family is about.

-Stop expecting people to treat you the way you treat them. Just because you believe in being a good friend to someone doesn’t mean they are going to treat you the same way. Don’t stop being a good friend just because of this fact. Don’t shut off the “come in, we’re open!" sign of your heart just because you’ve been disappointed or hurt one too many times. Your goodness is rare. Just because your heart is too big doesn’t mean it is a flaw. It is unique and special. Cherish that.

-Your siblings need you to be there for them more than you think they do. Make sure you tell them you love them as much as you can, don’t just tell them, but SHOW them. Actions speak louder than words, and trust me, if you actually show them you love them, they will never ever forget the way you made them feel.

-Try not to worry about money too much. I know it’s hard when there are a lot of things you want to accomplish and experience in order to feel like you are living a full life, but money doesn’t have to be one of those things. Just because it is a necessity does not mean it should take away from your potential to be truly happy. Whatever you’re doing to make ends meet is enough. Try to find solace in that.

-A wise friend once told me to live every moment of my life as if I had chosen it. Working a long and tiring shift? You chose this. Be happy you chose it. Having a long and annoying conversation with a stranger? You chose this. Find joy in it. Counting down the days until your next vacation? You chose this timeframe. Find joy in each day before you go away to find joy somewhere else. Have you lost or feel like you are losing someone who is very important to you? Don’t worry. You chose this. Love is not lost just because the person you love is changing. Love is all around. You still have time.

-Give people a lot of chances. People don’t often realize that your presence is actually a huge gift in their lives. There is only one of you, and people will take advantage of you, use you, walk all over you, and be careless with your heart because they don’t realize how precious you are. Just because you're fragile doesn’t mean other people know it too. Forgive them for this. Everyone is doing their best with what they have and it really has nothing to do with you.

-Laugh as much as you can, especially on your worst days. The best feeling in the world is knowing you have not lost your ability to laugh on the days where you want nothing more than to not exist.

-Sometimes it’s important to give more to people than they give to you. You may feel cheap and used at the time, but when you look back on how much you gave to someone, whether it be love or time or conversation, you will realize that they needed it more than you thought they did. This will be a gift that you are unintentionally giving to yourself.

-Be brave. People are going to shut you down and contradict you when you open up to them. This has nothing to do with you. People unknowingly project their pain and jealousy onto others without even realizing it. Misery loves company. The day you stop keeping miserable people company is the day they will try to keep defining you as the meek and miserable person they want you to be, and they will resent you for it. This doesn’t mean you are a bad person. Sometimes it just means that you have to let those people go, even the ones you thought you wouldn't have to. Anyone who doesn’t want to see you happy is automatically someone not worth having in your life.

-Pain is not something to be feared. It’s hard to realize this when you’ve spent a long time trying to numb yourself, but as soon as you stop running away from whatever it is you were trying to numb out, you will see that it’s actually not as scary as you thought it was. Avoiding pain is often scarier than confronting it.

-Have a support system that is not family-based. This is especially hard if you come from an extremely sick/co-dependent family and are used to being unhealthily dependent on family members and are not able to distinguish their feelings from your own. You don’t need to share everything with your family just because they are your family. And often times, you will be doing more harm to them than you realize. Get a therapist. Tell them everything. Make the choice to be more careful with your words and actions around your family. You don’t need a thousand friends to feel supported. Even a twelve-step support group you go to once a week can help. Do anything but stay in the same never-ending cycle of codependent family interactions.

-Try to be as honest as you can, especially with yourself. Even when it hurts.

-Keep a journal. Wake up and write everything you wish you could say out loud down in there. No one has to read it. It doesn’t have to be good. Just get it out. You will feel a huge weight lift from your shoulders, I promise.

-Cherish the people who have stuck around when you were at your worst. Cherish the people who never stopped believing in you when you had stopped believing in yourself. Thank them for not giving up on you. Thank them for teaching you how to not give up on yourself.

-Try not to worry so much. Treat every person and situation in your life the same way you would treat a newborn baby. You will not get from 0-100 in a single day. It is literally one day at a time, especially for those who are trying to get better from extreme trauma, addictions, or mental illness. Be patient with yourself. You are doing the best you can and I am proud of you for that.

-Wherever you are at right now is where you’re meant to be.
Matt Jursin  Nov 2010
I get lost.
Matt Jursin Nov 2010
I get lost in...
Hidden ideas and deeper meanings to what I'm feeling.
Looking for something real to believe in.
Over-thinking usto...start me drinking...
But I kicked that ***** to the curb and built myself a bandwagon.

That **** was poison, see...
I had to let myself help me.

Now when I close my eyes...
All I can hear is the...
Rattle-rattle-click, rattle-rattle-click...
The sound of round rotations, rolling over bricks.
Measured like a metronome...
Water droplets echo as they drip.

But if freedom is defined by the thoughts in my own my mind, then I'm frozen in the timeframe of tomorrow, never-yesteryear.
And I'm still a revolutionary, I expect the best in Here(point to heart).
And by that, I mean exempt from holding contempt for another mass of energy.
Another open ear.
Another open mind.
Another heavenly body.
Another mystical meteor shower.
Another alien species placed on this planet by a "higher power".

But who am I to point fingers?
To point out flaws.
To point out fraudulence.
To pinpoint the factors that built your facade.
To pick through your red brick fictons of how you think I should be perceiving god.

See...I get lost.
In a magic land...
With a tragic hand.
A tear in time and space...
A human definition of race...
One we so often judge with a 2 sided face.
This piece is more about self control and placing judgment on others than drinking or religion.
Lyra Brown  Nov 2012
glitch
Lyra Brown Nov 2012
i think there is a glitch in my mind, perhaps it's a common glitch
in other humans minds too
but this glitch somehow seems to erase
every lesson I've ever learned about how to let go of someone
i should have let go of a long time ago, the one that teaches you how
to drop all
attachments and expectations
how to be content in living without always
needing.

i learn this lesson repeatedly, i love you, i'm there for you,
i get hurt by you because you do not respect or value
me at all
because you are selfish and do not know the power
of your words and actions or
lack thereof.

so i let go of you and feel weightless and free
not needing to make sure you still love me.

but then time passes and somewhere in this timeframe,
a few days, sometimes weeks
give or take
my brain resets itself, perhaps sometime in the middle
of a nightmare
and it's like waking up
with a head full of glue
that's when i start to miss you

and miss you and miss you and want you and need you
and silently cry at random times like at work or
on the bus
and i get so weak and needy and i seem to come to the conclusion that
i cannot stand on my own two feet if you aren't there to hold
me up
and it's all a lie, but it's a repetition and it doesn't seem to get old
and it's frustrating because i cave in every time, i go
running back to you
until you hurt me again and then
the lesson is re-learned

only to be forgotten again,
repeat.

all my life you have had such power over me,
and it isn't fair,
it is no way to live
it's suffering in its purest form
and i end up punishing myself for it

note to self:
you are not the air i breathe,
even if you gave me life
even if i gave you stretch marks.

what is wrong with me?
why can't i just learn from getting hurt and not repeat
the same mistake?
why can't i just live without you
for goodness sakes?

i want to be strong, i want to wake up and not always be
craving something, someone
i want to look in the mirror and not cringe at
what i see
i want to look at the sky and not have to wonder
if you still love me
i want to rise from the ash and not be ashamed
of how other people might despise me for it.
i want to live without the need for constant validation.

i want to love myself,
i want to be whole again.
Simon Apr 2021
Once a bridge was nothing more than an abstract tool for reasoning. But one day, this very abstract tool for reasoning became the literal direct opposing opposite to this very operation.
(The operation that was meant to be disposed of from the very get-go!)
But something stopped that from becoming a seamless reality...
After all, seamless is nothing more than predictable tension in the right places that don't normally fit into the very crowd of normalities itself.
But the universe is connected by such truths that don't normally (either), point its own self in the right direction full of directionless odds that don't poke and **** your very potential progression forward...if it wasn't truly for the very bridge that again, (as an abstract took for reasoning), points these very directionless odds into a newer meaning than ever before. Hence, an abstract tool (obviously) when dealing with such tension involving the universal boundaries and conditions and features and traits and meanings and properties that surround itself among many other things in its general surroundings that bear itself too much for an actual correct dose of conquest to deal with all at one single time.
Basically, because if that was the actual case (all at one single time...) Then it'd be a non-localized protocol that would pave the way for ALL such manufacturing projects in one single action!
(And non-localized making such advances in the very field of study, for the very meaning that happens all at once, not within the same boundaries from one another, length and size wise.)
Seeing as how big the universe really is, with still too this very date is filled with such EXTREME (unknown sizes and expectations of it, regardless of its own such limits regulated by the very anticipated push for discovery itself). There wouldn't even be a certain timeframe for things to have its own say (in for how ever long they want to take). Instead, you have something happening all at one time, where everything is truly about one thing, and one thing, ONLY...
Nothing is about progression (or even the very process of actually getting it done) when it's all about the bridge that reasons out the very different areas and points of many likelihoods that don't limit its own variety to its own protocols...when their own hunger is trying to go about achieving one's own aim, or goal of precipitation...
When it's entirely longer than the standing idea...that nothing is without flawless results, if and ONLY if...you make it or break its very abstract tool for reasoning itself!
If and only if you do, then you’re looking at yourself as nothing more than the very truthful meaning for "treason."
Once you commit treason... You’re also breaking the connection with the bridge who's meant to connect everything in one single action for conquest. (And not the misguided mindset for simply achieving a consequence full of such disorder.)
If that were the actual case, then everything isn't as connected as one would previously think.
Especially when your very abstract tool for reasoning is the very reasoning for shame in the face of such irrational thinking.
Hence, when different mixtures of fate and probability confront the very limitations (upon their own such instances full to brim of primal instances and events...)
That's when the bridge that is meant to connect an entire universe together.
Becomes the greatest story ever told about a bridge who also...became the abstract tool for reasoning.
A bridge is a tool for building the different gaps in both space and time. However, that doesn't take the very such elongated gaps into account, when dealing with the rough exteriors of just how long they really are...until you limit yourself to the very surroundings of how a real universal bridge connects an entire universe together before your very eyes could limit itself too such incomprehensible facts.
Ana Leejay Sep 2013
age extending by the severity of my mistakes
i am nothing but the hours I stay awake
everyone seems to know who they are
cutting jagged outlines of their personality with
cardboard boxes
friends afraid of waking up, diplomas in hand, graduating
but I am worried of staying up, stuck in this timeframe
watching lovers and childhood friends growing into
unrecognizable bodies
days becoming strange hellos and
short conversations

I imagine trees swaying
as if they are dancing to the sound of cars passing by
and I imagine looking at stars is a two way street
wishes being made from both sides of the cosmos
I imagine hope to be universal
and I imagine stray cats holding as much freedom
as the uncaged birds they gaze upon
both, hoping to be found

will I ever know the struggles of a man?
the loneliness of a stray?
the burden of a clock?
will I ever find my place in the Red Sea?
I sit unable to ask anyone this question,
no one understands.
--
it is 4:43 am
I am waiting to grow into an age I can look back at my life
and explain everything by saying
"I was a child"

and everyone will nod.
Michael Ambrosio Aug 2024
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. . .

— The End —