Lorn and forlorn are words I can get behind. ____Forlorn is more common nowadays: to lose, _________________forlost to the point of completion; ________________________________lost or left behind.
I am solorn lovelorn hopelorn sadlorn greedlorn thricelorn sixpencelorn anxlorn neurolorn sublorn lostlorn hatelorn gherlorn deathlorn lifelorn alorn
A psychic messaged me on Twitter to say there were snakes posing as my friends that would like to see my downfall. How cool is that?
I don’t think so, though. Thanks to two years of Covid, I haven’t spent much time with peripheral friends. I’m at an age where loyalty is no basis for overlooking weird tensions or getting involved in pockets of social hierarchy. Many artists are looking to connect, but you can’t find simpatico vision if you’re maxing out your time/energy with the wrong people. You can tell the wrong people because they will ignore your work. If you work hard at writing, they’ll ignore it. If you sing, they’ll ignore it. If you make a video, they’ll ignore it. Whatever you accomplish, they’ll ignore it.
I had a couple of nut sandwiches barely try to conceal that I was on the menu as they were trying to show off for each other. I almost burned the gymnasium down with my mind but got out of there before my face dropped too far. Can you imagine winding up to be surly with someone the moment they appear? Being so scrambled into caricature that internal reflection is not something your icons would have done? Hawking the scene from within a bad novella? One bumbler actually told me I was not in my place: “Blah blah shiny blah, I was surprised you got that bone of recognition because we didn’t sanction it and also so and so is so much better at what you do, don’t you think?” All I could think about was how they were going to dress up such a lame story when they retold that yawner to their sycophants, while trying to insert themselves as a bold VIP in some weak game of broken thrones for The Great Hierarchy of Mediocrity. #hierarchyofmediocrity.
I had to get out of there fast as well, before my face fully morphed into the wolf-woman who feeds on outdated social roles. I had to get Hel, Baba Yaga, Kali, Keres, Eris, Nox, Scylla, Charybdis, all the Banshees, and some chimeras to talk me down. Why are these two so threatened by me? More accurately, why do so many women behave awfully toward other women?
No thanks! I’ve seen this kind of thing a hundred times and every single time it results in a loss of time. No one cool acts like that. Talent in your arena helps everyone grow to the size of the tank. It is crucial to being in an actual arena. Stand by your vision, keep on with your work, and spend thy limited free time with people who appreciate you authentically, and not because it furthers their brand. You don’t need a train of people as you work on growing and understanding your artistic talents. Artists can determine if something is subjectively good without being told it is or because it is gaining in popularity. Music-poetry-art circles, by the very nature of art, could imply an intimate or transcendent connection, not some self-aggrandizing starfuckery.
Between stars and celestial starfuckers, orbiting weak-on-weak gravity, debris attracts debris. Don’t be shackled to any false hierarchy. Honor yourself. See clearly.
The universe is merely using your organism to watch itself. Alan Watts
Organ-ism. Heh. Who got by with making up that word? Were they paid by the word or hourly? I’d like to make an NFT for the word organ, but rent the ism.
It’s been almost two years of Covid and everyone is losing their shit. Pandemic breakups are at an all-time high as the anxiety levels rise and rise. Hear that sound? It’s a friendship folding.
I already vented about my close friend of nine years sending me a breakup text on New Years Eve. There was not one mention of a problem is our relationship. It is hard to discuss resentments. We got together weekly for smiles, yoga, strength training, and hugs goodbye. Years of walks together and hangouts in what I considered a valued, healthy relationship. Well, I was very wrong, and some of the things she texted me are stuck in my brain and messing up my focus across the board. I decided to make a return sigil using some of the resonant words from her texts. Is that dramatic? Maybe, but let’s look at her words:
I never knew her to be this ugly. None of those things apply to me. I have a healer’s drive with perspective that has reached individuals in the over 2,000 yoga classes I’ve taught, and in talking with highly intelligent minds. This is my truth. I don’t like controversy or relational aggression, and prefer to be known for the quality of my work. That may sound overly positive or naive to someone who doesn’t have to bring in their own work, but my intention is to show respect. Anyway, the level of rage that crosses boundaries this hard might be better reserved for someone who stole your identity, peed on you, talked smack about your pets, or stabbed you. I suspect a bad reaction to medication.
Do I need this? I already struggle with feeling a part of this community due to the cool school headupass antics of 0.0000999999000001 of the community. That’s essentially 0 people, but they are heyday buddies who would rather mark their territory than give a decent welcoming. But this was a relationship I had put a lot of time into and nurtured. It hit me very hard and I can’t seem to shake the malaise. So I made a Return Sigil to release these toxic labels from my subconscious. I have a personalized system with sigil spelling, using swift focused energy and sealing with both logic and melody. Many use frenzied states of release, but I am already talking to the subconscious with a foot in the realm of the unconscious.
Next, I do the standard article and common word strikethrough:
Followed by the repeat letter reduction:
To come up with the remaining condensed sound symbols: narcistlgherfuyopdmg
Ironically, narcistlgherfuyopdmg, jumbles to “unhysterical god mfp” which shall be her new decretive nickname. Oh wait, maybe her shadow name? Hmm, I also see the words “supernormality,” “malnourished,” and “slaughter.” Slaughter gnomic?
The next step is to make a sigil out of those letters:
Separate that from the outer directional sigils. Separation is very important, because you are returning what has been sent. The cast is the return and not related to the contents of what has been sent. It is not some kind of mirror spell, there are no reflections; it is a re-turning of a continuous motion to the intender. Combining them suggests you are placing the sigil on them, but you are turning a container back to its creator. The outer directional sigils say “these words belong to _.”
Funny part is that “these words” becomes “the swords” when you strike the extra e. I went with the sword concept on the name sigil:
Final Result
Now the tantrum returns to its generating lobe and has no power over me. I emailed my sigil with her contained content through the material world. It has entered into muscle memory. If thoughts stray back to having any charge, I’ll do an emanation meditation using this image.
There you have it. Good luck with your relationships during this pandemic! It’s bringing out some new levels of deep aggression. Shadow work, where one examines their darkness, is an important practice for cognitive coherence–to let yourself honestly know–but shadow work can’t be done while blaming a persecutor. Blame-shifting has to be sorted so it doesn’t lead to a disorder. You can’t hide from either your inner monster or inner therapist.
Next sigil will focus on setting some new goals on track.
I’ve casually collected royalty cards for about 20 years. I like to study the differences in the faces. You know, take meditative mini breaks to gaze at images, as we do with art.
I recently posted a mention of the Suicide King’s head stab as being a lost-in-translation situation. I’ve met a handful of artists who associated with the haunting self-sabotage of this image. Just as I did and do. How funny to find out it is all a big misunderstanding stemming from generations of artists lightly tweaking what they see from worn copies (prior to the printing press). There’s something about the subtle decisions on facial expressions from deck to deck. The Queen is worried, determined, glum, drunk, manic, cherubic. There is one card where she has a teeny smile. Jack looks like a young boy who smelled something that turned him into a mustached man whose lip brow sits between himself and the kingdom, thereby proceeding him.
I know I’m streaming into my blog and therefore should explain that last bit, but it is already a lot that I’m forming sentences. No one really thinks in sentences except maybe TV characters like Carrie Bradshaw. Also, I explain references to the Book of Thomas and even Montessori in a video I shot last year using these cards. It’s a series of face morphs from card to card, shot to accompany an After-Death Plan song. We need to release that to the world…of course, ADP has been sitting on finished videos from just before the pandemic. I haven’t felt like sharing anything, except writing and that’s because I’ve been exposed to a supportive group of talented creators. One day we’ll all be okay again? Post-pandemic sages full of appreciation.
The power of the cards, to me, has to do with our developmental visual processing of high contrast colors, black and white with the flashing red. Yellow after we get out bearings on the first three. Then there’s the archetypal logic system, the four seasons divided into weeks totaling a year, a royal for each month, and a suit for each solstice. Basic highly metaphoric symbols that correspond to the four elements, then resound as one’s folds of vision and insight develop.
I’ll save it for the linear notes on the After-Death Plan video.
When I hunted for this picture, I found it in an email I’d sent to a writer friend last year. I’d gotten up early to write and was still stretching my brain waves out of a lucid dreaming state. Sometimes you can find a writer to correspond with who understands creative flow and you can say just about anything to them without it sounding weird. So I told him of the serpentine nature of my dream and what Jung said about the separation needed to birth new consciousness…and something about the order brought out of confusion in a process similar to the birth of the cosmos out of chaos. And of how several myths describe creation as separation.
I’d helped a friend move a lot of stuff after decades years of marriage and my lat muscles were spasming in my sleep, which probably translated to snakes in my back, which probably translated to the deeper processing about the destruction of a tribe member’s relationship and stability. I never did process the loss of my friend’s partner as tribe; I had to choose sides to help my person through the pain. Honestly, they’d nested in a way that had all on autopilot and something had needed to change for some time. As friend, all you can do is take notes for your own relationship, unless the person asks to hear what you think. Then hope they remember that they asked your opinion, so you aren’t used as a scapegoat once their anger/hurt recedes. Best of luck in those situations.
Anyway, the dream was a reframing; it broke a ouroboric cycle and from that came the divine creation of transcendence to greater meaning renewed from the rubble. Or something like that. I’m not currently in the thick of it. There were some million militia march madness dumpster fires everywhere then, as the shadows of a blaming world came online in their isolation, flooding the solitudinous with that brand of high school bestie posturing and not “overthinking” anything…in the least…except for perhaps ranting on how they’ve been wronged.
The worst shadow attributes of blamers were everywhere. Even a few people I’d liked enough to invest time on became negative peekers who lurked around policing people’s actions, rolling their eyes at their expression, and overestimating their importance when it came to the lives of others. Tragically, not as much good comes to people who do not celebrate fortune (unless their own). It’s basic law of attraction: fortune avoids those who avoid fortune, and their bitter pills. Envy is about low self-worth, which can be hard to dig into and heal. A lot of people turn to mantras or songs to generate a balance of wavelengths. It beats sitting around nodding about how narcissists and toxic people hurt them, when often they’re comfortable and didn’t want to read any further into looking at themselves or their projections. Too much effort! Overthinking! Or, someone scolded them as children for being too precocious or high-and-mighty. Told them that their forming opinions didn’t matter because they had not yet formed. Anger at this is a necessary stage, but forgive the souls behind such bad handling of stress, responsibility, and sometimes resentment of lost youth. Free them, free yourself.
I’m still trying to get the book FutureYou together, speaking of explosions and rubble. I need to bring in Cere’s ex sooner but can’t do flashbacks because it would further confuse the sequence. Think I’ll introduce him early via text.
[Cere is hanging out with Maena and Emma. ]
My phone buzzed. It was him.
“Everybody shut up.”
I’ll have to take you back several years for you to understand the psychic poverty I feel when I hear from him. Only thing worse is the constant feeling that I’ll never hear a thing from him again. None of these intense feelings of abandonment are even his fault. Most of them anyway and the rest is on me. I made a joke about it: Two anxious attachment styles walk into a bar and ignore each other. Rim shot: Ba dum tssh.
I looked at the text. There it was, short and sterile like a note to pick up milk on your way home—whatever hole or hearth you call home these days. I hate uncertainty. It’s like locking everything down in a waiting room. It’s like airport security when you’re late for your flight. It’s watching a train coming and not knowing if jumping in front of it would cause more or less pain. I’m so bunched up at this point that the preoccupation is all I have to move things forward past suppression–suppression that feels as if it is about to walk into detached repression and never look back. Rumi wouldn’t take that shit. You say what you want to say even if it’s crazed; no, before it gets crazed. Why am I so nonexistent? It’s probably that S&M pincushion he’s hung up on. I get that we feel nothing and hurt our bodies, but do you really want the mentality of a petulant and disconnected child for a lover? I realize I just described myself but my obnoxious discontent is wiser, seasoned…I daresay endearing? I mean, we keep the childlike state—keep the inner child’s freedom intact—but you have to curve the tantrums and the general qualities of an unexamined, immature human being.
She said as she stereotyped someone she’d only seen one picture of—fuck, this is some sophisticated posturing.
That’s enough of that. I’ll soon figure out a subscription button that doesn’t need a lot of extra steps. From there, I want to bring in some guest writers. Reach out if you want to get in on that action.
Thanks for the tango with the dark side. Lord Vader says hello and I lost a chunk of my brain. Good news is that fewer people can affect me to the point of losing my mind now. As long as I stay sober, there will be no bottles of pills to swallow or precipices to examine. I also have my boo who could never live with himself if he just snapped off a piece of my heart then salted the rest of it with a message that it’s because of what a terrible person I am; stood there shaking his head saying, “Sad. Really sad.” Jesus, Becky, you are a mean girl pill. I’m really sorry about all of the men that like me. Let’s just put this out there where it can get some air: She can’t keep her men.
There you go. Finally, someone said it. You knew they were all thinking it. I knew that you knew that I knew that you knew it, because of the criticisms you threw on your other friend you stayed passive-aggressively angry with for years. You know, the one you’ll try to reconnect with after giving me the boot. The one who, when that guy did to you what you just did to me, you ruminated over her not responding correctly and took it as an implication that she thinks you can’t keep men in your life. Maybe she did, probably not. It’s called a projection and it’s what you fear people are thinking. Projections can be wild within grief, especially when you’re trying to appear like everything is okay. Look social media, here’s a picture of my sandwich. Mmmm! See how normal I am? Ew, look at that frumpy sandwich hater over there. Do you know what I heard about them?
You’ll attempt to reconnect with that friend, empty your bladder on my privacy, and ruminate on her every fifth word until it becomes a black enchantment that mathematically equates a new language of dead code which opens a demon hole, summoning a groggy mucker who will feast on your soul the moment it realizes what a sloppy wizard you are with controlling the dark forces you summon. And you’ll be helpless to do anything about it because it is only banished by empathy. Ruin and denial are just dessert toppings to this thing. Mmmm!
Either way, nothing will change because it’s just a cathartic little pick-me-up when you casually slay someone who trusted you with her very life and did the work every time a paranoid thought came into her own head. I did trust you and love you and absolutely did not put you down. What you have is a self-esteem issue which is completely understandable because I’ve seen some people do some disappointing things to you. None of those people were me. Could have been twenty-five years ago, but hasn’t been with us. You do not get to break my brain. Humpty Dumpty has a difficult time in this brain. But did you know that I’ve actually helped people? I know that’s crazy and vain, but it’s actually not; that was the inner critic talking. You have to tell it to shush and maybe don’t emotionally rely on people who don’t understand that?
…
But we do have to emotionally rely on someone, don’t we? Vulnerability. We know that children of emotional neglect can’t really see their own needs but do become astute observers of other people’s needs; they think there’s something wrong with them, toggle anger and anxiety, battle self-esteem, and are highly capable; but it’s a real struggle to emotionally validate ourselves because we didn’t learn it while developing. Oh boy, what a know-it-all—shush!
I’ve had to cut people off who have a destabilizing effect on me in order to compose myself and grow. I don’t think I reached in to tear anyone into a companionable state of misery. Though I was rather cold to someone and hope to make it right. I was scared because THIS is me being upset. It sucks. I have so much work to do and am emotionally threadbare on the topic of insecure chimpanzees and bonobos swinging at me to try to reclaim some feeling of power. My morning writing is not for them and it’s not for you. Once I wrote a poem about you caring for the birds. That was nice. This is not.
I gotta go pick all the eggshells off my shoes. You may want to trace whoever told you everything’s about you when you were growing up. And also trace that arctic punisher. Set those children free.
My father’s birthday is in two days. I still can’t believe he’s gone and it has affected my motivation. Gatlinburg burned right after he passed. He took us there when we were kids and stayed there once a year when snowbirding to Titusville every winter in his retirement. That would have hurt him. Then Trump took office and the world burned a bit. It’s been civil chaos. Then this pandemic took isolation to a natural level. Right now I trying to understand when it’s safe for my family who caught Covid to return to their routines. Dad used to help me figure out logistics of things.
Harvard says, “In July 2021, the CDC recommended that anyone who is fully vaccinated and comes into contact with someone who has, or is suspected of having, COVID-19 should get tested three to five days after exposure. In addition, you should wear a mask in public indoor settings for 14 days or until you receive a negative test result. If you are vaccinated, you do not need to quarantine, but you should isolate if you develop symptoms or receive a positive test result. Previously, the CDC had said that someone who was fully vaccinated only needed to get tested after exposure if they were experiencing symptoms. The change follows new evidence regarding the Delta variant, which shows that people who are vaccinated and then get infected (breakthrough infections) can spread the virus to others, perhaps to the same extent as those who are unvaccinated. If you are not fully vaccinated, a 14-day quarantine remains the best way to avoid spreading the virus to others after you’ve been exposed to someone with COVID-19. According to CDC guidelines, you may discontinue quarantine after a minimum of 10 days if you do not have any symptoms, or after a minimum of seven days if you have a negative COVID test within 48 hours of when you plan to end quarantine.”
So, Dad, if my brother, nephew, brother-in-law, mother-in-law, and stepson got Covid and got sick, then when can we see them? We were all together ten days ago. One got sick the next day, one got sick three days later, and one got sick four days later. I’m vaccinated, boosted, and have had no symptoms of anything (except a slight pain in my ass). I tested negative before contact, three days after contact and seven days after contact. I went to two places just yesterday and wore a mask. Your son-in-law has also been testing negative, but he did drop off an oxygen sensor to—
You know what, I figured it out. I just needed to take a breath and talk to someone rational. I’m going to write you a poem for your birthday this year. I still have Whitman, Sandburg, and all the books you gave me. And I even read the wild ones you warned me against, because what else would I do with her madness? It is in me. I’ve pointed the tips on her leash outward at least.
Dad, you would not believe this: scientists corrected a gene mutation in a live animal. My head is spinning, but no one I know really finds this kind of thing interesting, except my husband who marvels with me but you know how fast the marvels go. I can’t commandeer his mind with my associations. I read a cool piece on biocentrism and it reminded me of a song I wrote not long after you died called Hurricane Irene. I do wish I’d studied math to the extent that you did, but the logic equivalents of words has always suited me better. I’m sorry about my silence. I’ve been working on a formula. I need to keep Mom in the room, too. Early mom. Really wish you two had found a way to smile about your time together. I understand now why you didn’t smile more at us when things fell apart. We’re all human.
I’m going to read some things out loud to you just in case you can hear me. Of course you can’t, but then again, what do we know? It can’t hurt. And talking to you makes me feel safe, loved, and valued. I love you.
You’re bringin’ on the heartache Takin’ all the best of me, oh can’t you see? – Def Leppard
Happy New Year! One of my uber-important best friends gave me the pink slip last night out of nowhere. I’d see her once or twice a week to practice yoga and we’d talk, smile, and hug goodbye. Her stupid Christmas gift is sitting on my desk. I’d gotten one-word answers to inviting her for dinner or checking in over the last few weeks. I could not tell if my friend was being distant because she needed space or if she needed company. She had a hard year, major unfairness, and a broken heart. I texted her: “Hey, I get a sense I shouldn’t text? You don’t respond. Please let me know if I upset you somehow. Not my intention.” She responded with this doozy of a text:
Anything that starts out with “First of all” and is this long can’t be good. Turned out she didn’t want to be my friend anymore, so decided she’d level with me in an arctic, nuclear text ending our friendship, offering no conflict resolution, and using her anger to hurt me as her latest target. I don’t knock her when we get together. My husband will tell you that I put the kabosh on anything negative being said about her and it’s only fucking praises that came out of my mouth. I was committed to keeping our friendship for the long haul. The best part of this text is where she tells not to respond out of respect. Respect! Blame and run—emotionally detach, shut me out, dump years of commitment, and justify it. This same thing was just done to her by a guy and it broke her heart. So she did it to me!
And let’s talk about the man who did that to her. My husband and I were never invited to hang out with him, though I found out much later that they hung with her other friends all the time! Weird. She didn’t like telling me about things that bothered her about him because I’d perceive his character based on how he treated her. She’d say things like he never introduced her to his friends then watched my face to later decide I’m judging her–a real setup. Last people she’d dated did some horrible psychotic things to her and I was there for her in the aftermath. But instead of exercising the self-respect that would keep one from shirking their friends with the next potential partner, I was left out of the fold for my unnerving clarity. Oh, and it was suggested I’d been blamed for her past alcohol use which started well before we met. He didn’t want us going out because she drinks with me? But I didn’t actually go out much and get up early, and I was the one who introduced her to exercise which is mostly how we spent time, so she really just sacrificed me to align with his sobriety. Her own personal scapegoat! I saw it clearly, shrugged, and forgave her. I forgave her each time she postured that her anger was in check by projecting on me about my anger. Her soundbite lately has been to say that my anger is scary—poor thing! Anything to avoid doing her own shadow work.
She desperately needs shadow work. There’s always something irking her. She’d eventually get mad at this uber-hyphen. Psychic wars at work, perceived slights left and right, cutting family members out of her life, policing her neighbors, becoming super cranky with passive-aggressive blaming and constructing conclusions based on anxiety and past damages; ruminating on whoever is left standing beside her instead of meditating to fight the inner critic who just wants to fight. This is her pattern. It was only a matter of time for me. No doubt she’s connecting with that old friend she crapped on in spades, now that her complaints in said text sound a lot like what she cranked on about her old friend. She has to be targeting someone to get out of facing herself and the rubs on her mirror. This text was such an awful projection that I couldn’t be sad. My response sucked:
And it got worse. The whole thing sent me into a tailspin, probably the intended effect. Why else blindside and discard me like a bad habit on New Year’s Eve? I know she started seeing a therapist because we always talked at length and I’d encouraged therapy and therapeutic writing. It was such a load of bullshit and I’ve already been through this since Covid started. She’s not the first person to lash out at me over their own insecurity. And she threw that loss of friendship in my face to hurt me. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have told her about it.
Do my female friends know that I don’t have any female friends? Anyone know why someone would accuse a girl of having no female friends? Is she saying that I need male attention or that she’s mad that she doesn’t have male attention? Very confusing. I also think she should be straight with her new therapist instead of putting her stuff on me and not the guy who cut her off and publicly said terrible things. She invited me to Thanksgiving last month, but I had an in-law gathering that ran late. I did consider us family, but I don’t need the kind of family that casually betrays you with a note to return her keys. The “woes” about me she mentions was about my family getting stranded out-of-town after a fire-related engine failure. I had to stay home to help figure out what to do as they were hours away in a town that had no open rental or mechanic shops. With a cracked engine block, we haven’t had a car in about a month. There was no offer for a ride. Just a scolding about my whining over telling her my woes for apologizing that I couldn’t make a gathering. I directly communicated that we’ve been overwhelmed with holidays and heaps of stuff and half the family getting Covid. Did she give a honk about any of this? No. Built a case against me. Why couldn’t I read her pain…I worked on healing her muscle issues for years. I started our exercise habits and got her into history walks, nature hikes and this whole time she thought I wanted her to feel bad about herself? I am not amused. This projector is like a Hammer horror film stretched to the wrong ratio. Hyphen hyphen hyphen. I wish I had a farm I could dance around while putting on airs; suck on a hayseed and ignore anything that isn’t practical or godly. She’s leaving anyway, so this was all probably just a convenient excuse to burn it all down with a bonus drama and victim sympathy. I actually understand burning it all down. Wait–was that condescending to say I understand? Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry. Sorry sorry.
I can’t feel guilty over perceived slights after putting years of consistent time and energy into caring about my core relationships. Truth is, this resentment and relational aggression has been holding me back. I asked my friends not to reach out to make sense of it because an attempt there will probably be made to put tension on our relationships. I’ve seen this before. I’m strong, hard-working and unafraid to be proud of myself or my friends. It’s clear a number was done on her head as a child over thinking too highly of herself and doing anything expressive. She likes to call artists interested in many things narcissists! Perhaps she was kept small and maybe that’s why she’d go silent when I discussed things that mattered to me like my music or writing or engineering. How pretentious! I used to cover up the best parts about myself, so she’d feel comfortable. I finally started writing in prompt groups which she ignored. She’s not the first and I’ve moved on to supportive artists—not going to stop. I work hard on my stuff and have outgrown people who are uncomfortable with my growth or frame my rich inner world as selfish, just because theirs is detached with emotions unexpressed, jumbled, and un-communicated. And now, evaded for a grip on control! Poor victim not gonna take no shit!
Never feeling good enough had nothing to do with me, but she put her suspicions on a safe person who would have been loyal to her forever. Too bad, she absolutely deserves love as much as I do. But I’ll never give my power to her again. This heart is closed for business.
The guy eats vulnerability like a military mission. You had to hand it to him. But with one of those “As Seen On TV” reachy sticks with a gripper you squeeze enough times to get your fist strength back. Sh, don’t tell em it’s a workout. Hand it to em like a nuclear hot potato. Good evening, ye self-absorbed, clenched megalomaniac. Got talent? Sure, sure you do, but it sucks all of the energy mustered out of the room, charges a toll, and wields a lazy privilege based on popularity—I never agreed to it. A delusional mod blink. Someone should stick it to Warhol and counter but anything fabber would be, what, a theme park animatron restaurant. 3D projection on a plate of ads and entertaining stories. Wait, tell me now how myths relate to greater human interest over 300 channels of protagonists yelling drama drama drama makes the world turn. Tell me your story next and make it good. And hey, bonerfide poet, how’s this for en jamb ment On my shopping list of prose, I noted to note the function of imagery in a poem, which is to produce imagery from a poem. That’ll be $50. ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> Next we’ll learn what art is by studying society, superheroes, net worth, pedigreed, the golden bough of breakdown, negative capability, and negative urgency. Movements don’t get old, apparently. That or postmodernism was the last great lazy law of least energy. Dark matter masters conclusion, and don’t forget to touch on rhyme & movement. ><> — ><>– ><> — ><> — ><>– ><> –><> There’s a difference between hitting the same buttons every day and daily learning new buttons. ><> — ><>– ><> — ><> — ><>– ><> –><> –><> Are we still investigating answers of contrastedly/ dark secrets smiled through Eisenhower era depression. Probably/ no big deal nowadays. My bank teller has blue hair and a tattoo of a symbol that means there must be something more to all of this/ Will counterculture deal with consumerism at last? Does it know what to counter/ or not to repeat ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><>– ><> — ><> — ><> Rude people throw around the word “honesty” way too much. We can handle social media IF we don’t go online enough to rewire our brains for scrolling. Can you handle that, brain? Brain? Are you there? ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> Hashtag hashbrown ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> If someone is not helping you grow as an artist, you might want to rethink that lame relationship. .><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> Do you ever feel like you’re still that one sperm fighting with all its heart to get to your egg? ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><>– ><> The dogs got into the studio. The one place they’re not to be. Bluebeards. I’m talking about dogs now so we can all relax. Motion detection on one of the security cameras reveals the most interesting dog in the world wistfully watching the front door. ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><>– ><> — ><> Some think After-Death Plan is the name of a metal band which is totally unfair because the fatalistic romantics had the good names before metal ever even came along with its louder tantrum. ><> — ><>– ><> — ><> — ><>– ><> — ><> — ><>– ><> Closest I’ve read of people reaching the source without spirits or psychedelics is with lucid dreaming. Harlow’s monkey, attachment styles, transference: forget about it. I’m the victim here. ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> Holds a mirror up to society. Society: checks hair, takes a selfie. ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> What you think is weight loss is just elasticity leaving your clothing. To stop time, hold your body in a plank position. ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> — ><> I never bought anything unless I had the cash but my credit score did not acknowledge that wisdom, not until I went into debt with a mortgage. Stupid system. Please laugh at how crazy you are being. Do break predictive text. I am completely unaffected by circumstance. ><> — ><> — ><> That last part isn’t true I am affected.
I was told I have a sharp and unforgiving memory on 2/1/21 at 2:36pm. How do you respond to that? Must have been there were things that needed forgiven, but I lacked information. I loved them; we visited maybe monthly and exchanged meaningful birthday gifts for years. I sent messages every few weeks to brighten the day, pop in as if to say, our friendship means a lot to me.
I stopped reaching out after asking why was met with a parent-child type of scolding that had nothing to do with me or what a bad tiddler I must be. Once I stopped instigating contact, contact stopped; that’d become my tenure and I decided to…take a hint? Uncertainty can lead to compulsion and the answer of not thinking about it is just a jab at weak intellect, usually by someone who definitely has not solved how to keep unresolved intelligence from the subconscious.
Du Champ called eye candy art that didn’t engage the mind “retinal.” I dig it. That relationship became pretty retinal. It took the time to reveal me then junked me for emergent popularity. Feeling disrespected by someone you think you’re close to is upsetting. I felt like that dog that gets tricked into chasing an imaginary throw, except the ball was stupidity and the problem was that I didn’t chase it. I felt abnormal, like I could not conceal my analysis to the point where it wouldn’t be suspect. Suffering for existence in the wrong crowd needed identified and rectified. But I learned from the loss that I belong where I can let my mind flow without leaking concern into making others comfortable by staying quiet on the playground. And by honing this practice, unhampered, I decide the connotation of the word incisive. My tone might even soften in this freedom into choosing the word insightful.
Where can the spectrally skybound go if the artists, musicians, and poets need the plainspoken; if they need a prescribed normalcy blanketing the arena. It feels like an exclusion that comes from slippery dreams; dreams not lost but slipping, wherein former dreamers frame the optimist as naive. While the non-optimistic spectrally skybound quickly go nose down when other artists engage in lazy bonding with herders of feelgood art that keeps all at an average level of consciousness. Feelgood goes for the pain and chaos seekers as well—it is not enough to act out primal frustrations for a different emotional bump. Both stylistic choices contain what in the species allows for an average. And here are the extra words to clarify what lazy bonding means: when people use negativity, disguised even as concern, to show others how another is to be treated in a postured hierarchy. It is blackball showmanship without connection and a counterfeit bond of happiness. It takes no responsibility for the energy it creates and the distance of the subject exploring the situation when their entrance is illumined by gaslight.
Don’t overthink it.
The answer to not overthink it, takes a similar amount of responsibility for figuring out nothing. And certainly not figuring out the causes of depression, nature’s gift for resolve that comes in forms of rumination—rumination that does not lay waste in blame or scapegoating. Nor does resolution lie in any kind of fight song, no matter how good that makes one feel for a moment before drowning solution.
I say to you, artists: If they’re dumbed down, you’re dumbed down; bring your brain cells inside this winter for a nice book.
I say to you, thinkers: If you’re dumbing it down for people then you’re selling yourself, not being yourself.
I say to you, lovers: Children of emotional neglect usually have insecure attachment styles and do well in relationships with secure attachment styles. Also, they have to be careful not to lean on others in regards to their trauma as they are more susceptible to transference because of their unmet needs.
I say to you, visionaries: Chase the ecstatic; just don’t do it through influencers.
I say to you, divinity: Lordy lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot get jiggy with.
Human relationships are not navels. Gaze at these navels.
You do you and there will be applause; not thunderous live-in-front-of-a-studio-audience applause, but claps like sporadic thunder as mistle gives way to torrents of rain. If you want the droves to sleep or leave you be, talk about the government auctioning off white space and whittling away our spectrum. They’ll hear those words and think it’s perhaps conspiracy and run from the burden of thinking. Bank on it. Obtain a line of credit from said bank that lets you pay back $3.00 a day for whatever will make you good enough at 24% interest–maybe just a little tuck so some walking unibrow can grace ye with an inappropriate comment on physical worth, check the teeth for probabilities. Status elevated by what it owns and offers. Enjoy those possessions, death is still coming, until thinkers solve the body.
