Poetry Other – No Yesterday
there was never a yesterday
there was never a yesterday
when everything is so far away
there was never a yesterday
Some things are here and now
while others cannot be
it is real until it isn’t
no sense of continuity
the future is full of fear
and today is confused
there was never a yesterday
all my patterns are reused
the holes try to be patched
and the story’s different today
the feelings are still the same
there never was a yesterday
who am and what can I
when everything is locked away
in my heart of hearts I know I’m wrong
but there never was a yesterday
I try to keep my heart intact
I cannot prove and only pray
that you would believe one as I
who never has a yesterday.
Poetry Inspirational – Fractals of the Truth
we try to mend the wounds we did not inflict
and earn the trust from whom others betrayed
we try to be the break in a horrible pattern
to overcome the fear with unconditional aid
so tormented are we
blessed with our curse of clarity
we try to change the truth we see
we can only watch and never be
but the truth lies without thought
and victory requires no war
while our eyes only see dust
we keep sight on which we swore
while the truth cannot be owned
and there is no leash to hold
it cannot be purchased
neither traded nor sold
so we seek the truth that lies within
and the impossible is achieved
we seek ourselves, our heart of hearts
we die again to be perceived
yes, the war lies in us
it’s where we make our stand
and the truth appears before us
like footsteps in the sand
one day it will set you free
it is hardest at the start
we need only form the words
for the truth lies in our heart
please enjoy a moment of peace
and take solace from the storm
it may be nasty out there
but in here it is safe and warm
peace is not just found
but is created and earned
it is something we struggle with
due to our lessons learned
this storm will blow over
our joy we can admit
a worse storm would return
if we were to up and quit
link by link we build our chain of trust
walk beyond your walls with me
hand in hand we yield to wanderlust
and create our own serendipity
Essay Other – Reflections
What if behavior is learned, instead of instinctual? What if “Human Nature” is more reflective of our environment, and less our genetics? What are we reflecting?
We are intimidated by our imitation of the intimate infancy of infinity, so we pretend ourselves to be an authority on all things, unimpeachable but unaccountable. We demand our share of the bounty for success while maintaining plausible deniability for failure, and our bite-sized philosophical capacity has moved from bumper stickers through bullet points onto social posts. The more connected we are, the more disconnected we become. What are we reflecting?
We think ourselves to be an independent people, drawing from a deep reservoir of ideas from which to solve the problems we find. No, we are instead largely content to be an over-fed mass, easily entertained and willing to point a finger in blame before lifting one to help. Like a plague of self-righteous parasites, we descend from our egos to consume every inch of every aspect of every trend we were led to before moving on to do it again. Those of us old enough, occasionally lift our heads up above the grazing herd to realize some of these trends begin to look familiar. We throw about each other misappropriated quotes, taken out of context, as if they, in and of themselves, demonstrate some superiority; we then ride our own misplaced sense of inflation back up on high, like thermal drafts, from which we feel we have the authority to judge. We cannot fail, only succeed or be wronged. What are we reflecting?
We defend, with vigor, our abilities to be: propaganda shills, revisionist historians and selective listeners. We proudly raise our banners as zealous guardians of the status-quo, expelling those who do not neatly conform. We fight for causes that may not happen, as we operate in a system wherein obstruction is seen as noble and obfuscation is honorable; we demand capitulation as cooperation but deem compromise as defeat. We demand an expeditionary government: large enough to invade his state and small enough for her uterus. What are we reflecting?
Some of us, through all of this, remain embarrassed by the burden borne by our brothers for we teeter on the edge of death and long to take the plunge. However, we continue to fight for we have failed to forget those we would leave behind. We find ourselves, I find myself, in this double-edged vacuum, blinded by the glaring reflections on both sides, so I find solace here in the solitary where suicide is certainly a solution. What am I absorbing, in this vacuum?
The debate continues regarding whether I, we, find too much or too little courage in the absence of each other, but we have learned that proximity is by itself insufficient.
Essay Inspirational – Chains
Chains are measured by their weakest link. Should societies then, being a chain of generations, be measured by their least fortunate citizens? Why do we not measure ourselves by our least capable components in the same manner as we objectively analyze other systems? Do we truly believe that lip-service and pocket-change will feed our collective hunger, caused by our self-righteous and self-perpetuating moral famine? No. We will continue to float through our collective sub-cultures, cherry-picking our misinformation to maintain our bravado and disenlightenment; woe be upon they whom demonstrate the redeeming qualities left in our human experience, for they must surely be labeled with our current derogatory buzzwords.
We reinforce our absence of real values in all areas of society: churches segregate and condemn, economic classes lay the foundation for corruption and learned behavioral problems, and political parties marginalize and invalidate. We as individuals consume it all with open wallets and mouths, but with closed minds. We lack an economic incentive to do the right thing, and thus we will not. We demand the continued socio-economic stratification of not only our populace, but all who would interact with us. We have no qualms bombing you, if it means we can then rebuild you for a profit. You will be slowly killed by our monetary-market dichotomy, or quickly killed by your resistance to it: your choice.
Is peace merely a placeholder in our lexicon? War proves to be more profitable and we have consistently shown a resistance to defining the word ‘value’ without attaching a monetary connotation. Is our value only the sum of our assets? In the context of contents, why is your wallet more important than our environment, our lives? Where is the frustration from our factions? Our fighting for fractions of former worth while we who watch are flustered at the fractal patterns of faces fluttering about, apathetic to our phenomenal faults, surely such a fierce tolerance to our failings is truly tragic.
If we could re-think what it means to be valuable, perhaps then we could alter the cultural and environmental contributing factors that produce people like me to begin with. If our focus was lifting the floor off of the dirt as opposed to pushing the ceiling out of reach, then perhaps many of these issues we so ingloriously ignore would begin to resolve themselves due to cessation of cause. However, where is the profit in healthy people? Where is the profit in peace? Where is the profit in equality?
Chains are measured by their weakest link. What is ours? Perhaps our elevation of money, and the pursuit of it, to its current status: being worth killing and dying for? There is more to life than any one of its parts, but certainly there is more to life than the man-made construct of money and all its detrimental effects in our modern, wasteful, world. Many of us find ourselves in a double-edged vacuum, caught between the few with much and the many with little, and powerless to do hardly anything individually. Fortunately, we are a chain capable of forging better more sustainable links to replace the ones to have broken off and need to be added back on – stronger.
Monologue – Invalidation: Memory
You remember, therefore you are. What happens if I don’t remember? You can compile a collage of concepts from chronicles of information. I cannot, therefore what am I? Am I little more than a poor mix of who I wish to be, at this moment in time, and a reflection of my ever-changing environment? Your memory grants you stability, and comfort; a sense of peace in your truths. My idea of identity is a variable, fraught with internal and external errors of myriad sources. Your wounds gradually scar over and become less painful in time; I relive my wounds again, but as if for the first time, and am hurt accordingly.
Memory is more than identity, and I who have lost mine began to understand how many areas of my life became impacted. You will gradually improve over time, through your development of skill. I repeat the same basic tasks, grasping at fragments. You progress and move on to new and exciting challenges, I try to assemble myself with what I think I might know. You speak with authority on technicalities, I speak with vague recognition of familiar concepts. You close your eyes and enjoy your visions of dreams or loved ones, I close mine and see the back of my eyelids. You happily sing your favorite song, I jumble the wrong words in an effort to harmoniously pretend, half a beat too slowly. You recreate your successes to ensure quality, while I reinvent my processes and hope for the best. Every day I re-learn how much I get left behind.
Trust. Part of all this renders down to trust. You can trust yourself. You can believe in what you say, and what you are capable of. You have your memories, and thus your humanity, to back you up. When you had your long hair and chopped it off, you went to play with it anyway because you remembered doing so, it was comfortable for you to do so. You giggled at yourself for it not being there. ‘Oh yeah.’ I, however, never went looking for the hair that isn’t there anymore. I didn’t have that muscle memory, I have no real sense of continuity. I woke up the next morning and tried to fashion a semblance of normalcy, like I do every day. Each day is a new life, born that day, and all this ‘newness’ is often scary.
You remember, therefore you trust. Or not. You can make rational decisions on whether to trust yourself, your environment, and the things life throws at you. What about me? Who do I trust? My own: detached, fragmented and argumentative internal voices? The vitriolic, anonymous, pervasive internet citizen? Those from whom I get the most input, simply due to exposure? I remember little, but I know I have been wrong and wronged. I wish to trust and be trusted, but I don’t remember what that’s like.
It would be nice to remember.
It would be nice to be.
Digital Art – Alone 296 And Domestic
Graphic Design – Double-Edged Vacuum
*Note: This was submitted under “Special Recognition: Mental Health”