person-destructuring

[person-destructuring]

(The Patron Saint of...) Gilded Cages

She smiled She obeyed

She suffocated Behind walls

She built To survive

Her corpse Still smiles.

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The Goddess of Asceticism

"Not one, not two,

not three or four,

But through

eighty-four-hundred-thousand

wombs have I come.

I was a crow,

I was a deer,

I was a fish,

I was an ant,

I was a snake...

In sorrows and in tears,

I have lost count of

the lives I've lived."

[person-destructuring]

The Lord of Lives

"People - male and female,

blush when a cloth

covering their shame,

comes loose.

When the Lord of Lives,

lives drowned without

a face in the world,

how can you be modest?

When all the world is

the Eye of the Lord,

onlooking everywhere,

what can you cover

and conceal?"

[person-destructuring]

The Star-Crossed Lovers

I met a watcher of the starry sea, Who spoke of lights that burned eternity. Above the void, two hearts in fire wrote, A vow of love, their timeless, golden note.

"I ♥ You," glowed across the endless black, A phrase that time and ruin won’t take back. The stars will die, the skies will turn to stone, Yet still, their love will shine—forever known.

[person-destructuring]

[person-destructuring]

The Elephant on the Road

There was once a talking elephant, who grew up in a circus. At the circus, the younglings are tied to a post by a rope on their legs; they are too feeble to break out of it yet. Even when they grow up, the bigger elephants are still tied to the same puny ropes: they still can’t break out of the ropes because now, they’re mentally conditioned to think that they can’t.

This talking elephant was one such elephant, until one day a storm came and in the utter hubbub of the moment, it suddenly broke its rope. That was the very moment the talking elephant entered its second life, though it didn’t know it yet. It ran away from the circus and created a life for itself – learnt to skateboard, started singing and was very good at wind instruments, got its skin tattooed all blue. And it also learnt to curse from the humans and became very foul mouthed.

It was once travelling to its music session, whence in the road, it met a guy who was honking at it very profusely. The talking elephant got pissed and started verbally abusing the guy, not looking at the road ahead. The guy met him halfway, getting his head out of the car window and abusing the talking elephant. Both met with an accident, the elephant hit a tree, the car hit the elephant, the guy hit the steering wheel.

[person-destructuring]

The Cat killed by Thousand Hands

The Cat, with its forever shimmering stardust fur, was revered as the most sacred feline in the known universe.

Its legend spoke of unimaginable wishes, wondrous healing, and endless prosperity.

The cat resided in an ancient temple on a forgotten planet, which no one knew the address to.

The temple was guarded by a thousand hands – conscious beings who were said to be the only ones who could survive being near her.

The only purpose of their civilization, which was limited to this planet, was to serve the Divine Feline.

No known being had even seen The Hands or The Cat in reality, yet her power was known to all the beings in the galaxy.

Some conspiracy theorists believe that The Hands have taken over the planet and killed The Cat.

They rule the galaxy from under the shadows, but the curse from the murderous act lives on.

That is why our palms inexplicably start itching sometimes.

[person-destructuring]

Crest of the Homo-Phobe Amphibians

There is a race of beings who are super evolved amphibians, think frog dissections and experiments in labs gone so successful that they exceed their masters in mastery of the mind.

After grouping up and managing to stage an escape Earth to a haven planet - this group was quick to establish their own civilization and become a force to reckon with.

These were hardened beings: could reproduce with any living organism, could consume and create energy out of anything, survive and thrive in any living conditions. Their evolutionary learning curve has embraced more and more versatility and agility; and their culture has come to reflect this.

Strangely though, they had evolved in such a manner that their skin was would start drying and cracking around ‘homosexuals’ – an evolutionary misfire of some sort. They despised and looked down on all things ‘monomeric’ – monotheism, monogamy, mono-sexuality (hetero as well as homo), the whole lot. While their distaste ranged to a wide range of features, they only had a violent physiological allergic reaction to homosexual beings. Thus, the name.

[person-destructuring]

— Aldous Huxley, from “Brave New World.”

[person-destructuring]

I've seen this before, but it's been years and it just came across my Twitter in its dying days. The words are from a favorite author of mine, Maggie Stiefvater, and they are the words I most need to hear when it comes to dealing with chronic pain and illness. I didn't need this the first time I saw it, six years ago. I need it now. Maybe you do, too.

[person-destructuring]

— Franz Kafka, The Blue Octavo Notebooks

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{Juansen Dizon, I Am The Architect of My Own Destruction page 24/ Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 6: 1955-1966/ Alice Hoffman, The Red Garden/ Anaïs Nin, from The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 5: 1947-1955/ Haruki Murakami: Norwegian Wood, page 276/ Michael Ondaatje/ Catherynne M. Valente, The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden/ D.H. Lawrence, from The Complete Works; The Plumbed Serpent/ Jean-Paul Sartre, from No Exit/ Alice Notley, from In The Pines: Poems; "In The Pines,"}

[person-destructuring]

— Adrienne Rich, from “Integrity.”

[person-destructuring]

I fantasized about not having any fantasies, and in so doing drifted even further

— Mikko Harvey, from "Let the World Have You," Let the World Have You

[person-destructuring]

“Nothing, not one thing, hurts us more—or causes us to hurt others more—than our certainties. The stories we tell ourselves about the world and the foregone conclusions with which we cork the fount of possibility are the supreme downfall of our consciousness. They are also the inevitable cost of survival, of navigating a vast and complex reality most of which remains forever beyond our control and comprehension. And yet in our effort to parse the world, we sever ourselves from the full range of its beauty, tensing against the tenderness of life.”

— Maria Popova, from “How to Love the World More: George Saunders on the Courage of Uncertainty,” The Marginalian (9 April 2023)

[person-destructuring]

Person, Doubting

Sometimes when you look right, squint just the right amount, at the right angle – you should be able to see a drop of mist – perspiring from the person’s skin into the air. This pollution of the world, is the only accomplishment this person has, and their only proof of life.

[person-destructuring]

The Trojan Elephant

The Kingdom of the Ants and The Kingdom of the Wasps were natural enemies. Their ways had developed over the years to strictly respect each other’s boundaries. As to how - wars between the kingdoms had always yielded massive loss of life for both parties. This is the story of the Last Great War, which left the nations so bereft of life, they pledged never to fight. The Last Great King of Ants, as he is known, or The Great Mad King of Ants, was a particularly peculiar and ambitious king.

The King was an ant who had run away from a human pawn shop - he was most robust and majestic among all ants. In the pawn shop, he had developed a habit of watching movies, alongside the shop’s owner. After becoming king, he got his scientists to develop a technique to micro-size human movie cassettes and popularized the technique. He even had a unit of soldiers to steal movie cassettes from human settlements.

After seeing the idea work in a movie, he hatched his plan of world domination. The King of Wasps had a liking for elephants. He had a secret unit of soldiers; whose job was to steal miniature elephant figurines from human settlements. The King of Ants knew his weakness, he called for a friendly meeting. He gifted the King of Wasps the monumental Elephant, with wheels.

He said he named it Trojan, to symbolize friendship and prosperity between the nations. The wasps were individually bigger than the ants. The ants worked better as a group. The Wasps were taken by shock. Many were obliterated, the ones left, left to avenge this massacre. The bloodbath that ensued lasted 6 months in Wasp time, most of all died. At the end, 3 Wasps and 5 Ants were left alive. They never fought after that.