#fiction as a form of self expression indeed

[simptasia]

it occured to me that i have a lot of bi headcanons for lost where it’s like, the character hasn’t accepted it yet. part of this is because 2004 to 2007 was somehow still having issues grappling with this concept

so i’m making a list of bi headcanons in lost, but it’s the characters who haven’t accepted it and why they haven’t yet (or ever)

internalized biphobia ahoy!

jack

he’s attracted to women so rationally he’s not gay, right? yeah he’s using the it’s one or the other logic. jack knows there’s nothing wrong with being gay. he’s just not gay. that’s fine. it’s fine. [shakes images out of his head]

also i know in my heart that christian and margo are queerphobic. not in the full on getting the belt out way but in the passive aggressive way

claire

she just assumes all straight women feel this way about women and it takes a while for it to occur to her that she’s just in a bizarre form of denial

desmond

he regards his experiences with other men in the army to be “experimenting” and he chooses not to dwell on it

richard

it just took a reeeeally long time for him to find his closet key (miles). the bisexuality was always waiting inside him, it just didn’t unlock until he was like 179 ish. and yes, miles finds this fucking baffling in a “you’re this hot and you’ve been alive this long and you haven’t been getting both kinds of ass??” way

ben

he grew up aware that queer people exist (dharma being a hippie commune) but also instilled in him that it’s weird and gross (roger). but also i think ben has a weird view of sexuality, that sexual desire makes people... weaker? in the sense that he’s observed that people act foolish for sex and love and therefore such emotions are a weakness and he’s better than that

so it’s a weird thing where ben isn’t homophobic to other people (if tom, greta and bonnie are any indication) but he is to himself. but he’s also shaming himself for having sexual desire at all. i think cuz he’s convinced himself that he’s selfless and utterly devoted to jacob and the island. sometimes he almost believes his own lies. but yeah anyways touching himself makes him feel icky, whether it’s about men or women or both so... yeah

locke

okay, locke is bi to me but i’ve always been ? about his sexuality because wow, locke feels like such a nonsexual being to me. so like does locke know he’s bi? i think so? but i don’t think he’d ever call himself that

i think if you asked, locke would say “i don’t wanna label it” or something

besides anything else, he’s an older man who grew up in the foster care system, i have to assume he grew up hearing that being queer is a Bad Thing

locke doesn’t agree but he’d rather not commit to the concept. like, maybe locke thinks being Gay would require him to do things or act a certain way rather than just be. so he’s just like “i am what i am” and stares at a sunset

sawyer

okay now here’s a bitch who actually would be homophobic, biphobic, etc. and it’s directed at himself also. he’s got an idea in his head of what gay dudes are like and no way is he like that so he’s not gay. as for being bi, i think if somebody (eg. charlie) said they were bi, he’d roll his eyes because he thinks they’re saying it for attention. “oh yeah everybody’s bi nowadays, pfft”

also i think sawyer thinks bi people, if they exist, are just people who have threesomes all the time. all the while, he is bi and he’s just making himself not confront it. and hey, even if he was, ya know, queer - not that he is - he’s giving not taking so it’s less gay, obviously. yeah, his bisexuality got all tainted by toxic masculinity. i love sawyer but i ain’t gonna pretend he ain’t got some macho posturing shit going on. and he’s canonically bigoted

shannon

making out with girls is just something you do for fun, haha it’s just silly time, it doesn’t mean anything, it’s not like Real Love, haha, your lips are so soft...

....oh

boone

a combo of not wanting to be mocked and a bad case of “it doesn’t count if”. it’s just porn, it doesn’t count because it’s not real. as long as i don’t do stuff with a dude, it doesn’t count. okay so i did stuff with a dude, but it was a threesome and a girl was there so it doesn’t count. okay okay i did stuff with a dude and it wasn’t a threesome but he never put it inside me so it doesn’t count. okay this dude put it inside me but-

and so on

(and to make it weirder, i think boone would just be gay if shannon didn’t exist. like the Wants Girls part of his sexuality only exists because of her. yikes)

anyways

assume that other characters i consider bi had issues with it when they were younger but are pretty much over it by the time of adulthood (tho charlie does grapple with it. like he’s accepted being bi in a “well, there’s no hope for me anyways” kind of way, so it’s... back handed self acceptance?)

thank you for your time

[wordsvomit101]

I will hide this soon but I somewhat got my thoughts together on this chat

Notes: Credit is to @shyanimeboi and their friend, I only got these images from before everything got taken down. And the chat images are only small parts of the full things.

Warning: There will be spoilers for the main story

So Lucifer actually gives some info about how Gehenna is the country where devils are the loudest and laugh the most compared to other countries and how they have the least amount of insomniacs, yet ironically their own king suffers from insomnia the most.

Now, I really like Satan, but I never thought much of him besides that I think he is a hissing cat and a very cool motorcycle guy who likes to spank you and kick his followers and has a very interesting friendship with Mammon (that bromance alone deserve its own analysis). But with the context Lucifer gave us, I can see how self-sacrificial Satan is as a King and how his followers will do the same for him.

Devils in Gehenna can be destructive, as shown in the main story, Leraye's event with Sitri and Paimon, and Lucifer's Selfie Card prologue, but compared to devils in other countries, how they manage through war and their outlooks on it are very fascinating. They're cheerful and very assertive in battle, even running first to danger with enthusiasm:

(Yes Leraye did indeed moan out loud being stabbed through the arm trying to be the shield. Love him but the dude needs someone with a bit of common sense in his life to save his ass from dying for real)

And how easily excitable and easygoing they are with MC and being injured (even explain why with a big smile like dudes are talking about losing both of his legs as if he is commenting about the weather):

I didn't think much of it and took it at face value but now thinking about it further. How can most of them be like this? Being the country where devils are the rowdiest and destructive yet have a community so tight-knit that their violent tendencies never break the strict hierarchy (how they address the nobles and how they respect each other), maintain a very positive attitude despite being the country that is attacked by angels and suffers from angelification the most by far, and easily unified with a common goal. For me, it also took something else other than love to be able to maintain that attitude.

It has been too long since it made me forget why I liked Satan in the first place. In my personal opinion, as the king of wrath, Satan embodies a formidable and unyielding strength. His constant anger can be seen as a source of power, fueling his ability to protect and lead his people with an uncompromising approach. By personifying wrath, Satan takes on the collective anger of people and shoulders their emotions of anger, fear, and insecurity, like how he was when MC got angry, it fuels him further but it might also burden him like a drug. Yet, this allows his followers to weather through the stress of war, and as their leader channels and contains the destructive emotions that might otherwise disrupt their society being one of the reasons.

While Satan is perpetually angry, his followers only exhibit a controlled form of violent temper that is not taken seriously even by Sitri. This difference in emotional intensity is crucial. Satan’s role as the emotional absorber ensures that his citizens’ anger never reaches the destructive levels that could harm the community. Gehenna's devil's violent temper is a recipe for disaster but it is controlled, expressed through minor conflicts, brawls, and property damage, and serves as a controlled release of frustration. This behavior, although disruptive on the surface, is actually a stabilizing force, preventing deeper, more harmful conflicts by allowing for regular, minor (please don't be like them irl and seek professional help if you exhibit the same behaviors, these people are fictional demons so their standards are not the same in reality) venting of emotions.

The outcome of Satan's actions is a society where people are the least insomniac and laugh the most. This sadly contrasts with Satan's own issues, where he becomes the most insomniac devil who cannot close his eyes when asleep and is said by Lucifer to have long been a depressive guy, who is always hard on himself the most and he is the type to be glad that his restless wakefulness helps you have a restful night.

From what I think, Satan's insomnia can be seen as a metaphor for the relentless vigilance and constant anxiety that comes with his responsibility of being his country's leader amidst the biggest war Hell ever experienced and having his country be the one that gets attacked the most. This inner self-sacrifice is a testament to his commitment to his people’s happiness and stability, even at the cost of his own peace. Yet he always shows to be confident and strong, and because in a stressful situation, he always remains level-headed despite how he usually acts (ex: He is the one who stops Sitri and Leraye from attacking Lucifer in the Two-Star event). He is also the one person who is calm and gives out a clear order of what to do and can rally everyone's morale, as well as the immense power and authority to command respect from others and back up his claims.

But more than anything, what devils in Gehenna respect him for the most is how his love for his people speaks louder than words.

In the situation he is in, he can't be weak for any moment even when he secretly wants to. He can't break down because if he falls, what would become of his country, which probably is the question he might ask himself a lot. So he can't let himself be vulnerable even if others know how hurt he is inside.

To make this more relatable, I will be honest, I don't usually connect much with leader characters because I don't understand their struggles. But when I put father being the metaphor for a leader, it becomes a lot easier to see the picture a bit more. Satan is like a father (King) in this, being the pillar of the house (Gehenna), he puts his people's emotions and well-being before himself, he either protects them as best as he can or he will be the one to do the hardest thing and the dirty work that most would not willing to do. And that is another way he shows his love as well.

Personally, not only does he love them but he also respects them as well, he is rough and not gentle about it but he always acknowledges their efforts. (like a dad-)

But it is a mutual thing, as much as Satan loves them, his citizens also share the same feelings. They let Satan draw power from their blood, which indicates a deep level of devotion and willingness to sacrifice. Blood, often seen as a symbol of life and vitality, represents the most personal and significant offering one can give. It is also canon that Satan can only draw power from the blood of people who love him, the obvious being Sitri.

But if that doesn't convince you and you get angry at Satan for treating Sitri like an unwilling personal blood bag then let's look, buddy, this guy is a simp- He eats more food rich with iron so he doing fine.

Gehenna's devils also treat Satan's kicks as special treatment to be fought over suggesting a ritualistic or symbolic form of reverence. This is seen as a badge of honor or a sign of personal attention from their leader. It shows that even seemingly negative actions from Satan are perceived as valuable or desirable. They're masochists, even if harsh, it is still a form of validation or connection.

And whatever horror collection of plushies Satan rips in half that Leraye got going on with this:

With all of this, I can see why Gehenna is the most romantic country, they expressed their love very clearly due to the foundational elements of mutual sacrifice, emotional stability, cultural norms of validation, and a unified community with shared values. The intense emotional bonds and the willingness to endure hardships for the sake of others create an environment where romance can thrive. This setting can foster deep, meaningful relationships that are built on trust, sacrifice, and unwavering devotion, making Gehenna the most romantic in a unique way.

This is more of me yapping about Satan and Gehenna than anything so sorry if you expected it to be Lucifer, this is probably part 1 and part 2 would be the end of this short series.

[cannedpickledpeaches]

Insert Your Name (11)

Mafia!Jade Leech x Mafia!Reader

Link to series masterlist!

Notes and TW: Congratulations! You have successfully made it all about you (positive). This series will have mentions of blood, violence, crime (kidnapping, attempted assassination, extortion), and harassment, as one might expect from a mafia AU. Please enjoy!

Sorry that the tags haven't been working for the past couple of posts! I had to go in and edit the html for each individual one T-T please forgive me

Tags: @guava-enjoyer @itszzmoon @twstsandturns @myteacupisempty @rou-luxe @chikitasmol @night-shadowblood-writes2 @haveneulalie @owodi

A strange sense of satisfaction fills you as surprise fills the man’s face, but you don’t show it. You need to see this through. If you’re powerless in the face of his ability, you simply need to borrow his power. So what if he’s akin to a god? All you need to do is bring him to your side. Whoever that author is, whoever took over (Y/N)’s body—maybe they aren’t capable of using such an asset effectively. However, you’re confident you won’t let that advantage go to waste.

The man hums in thought. “I suppose it could be done without much fanfare. I would simply need to shift my attention to your experiences and abandon the current story. However, you would need to have your story recorded somewhere, in whatever form you may wish for it to take.”

You understand what he’s getting at. A story needs a medium, just like that manuscript. There are many options: on film, as a novel, as a collage of pictures. No strict rules exist for expression of self.

“I’ll keep a journal. Every day, I’ll write an entry, and I’ll also use it as a planner. This way, my ‘story’ will have the events that occurred in my life, how they affected my ‘character development,’ and also outline how I expect the story to ‘progress.’ Is that good enough?”

You still don’t think of yourself as a fictional character. You’re real, in every aspect, to yourself. But that doesn’t matter right now. Functionally, you’re a character to this man. You’ll use that assumption to put yourself in the most advantageous position.

“Yes, that would be a rather interesting way to tell your story. There are indeed many stories that were written in the form of diary entries, so this is not an issue at all. This would, in fact, make things easier for me. I would not have to go through the paperwork and expend energy to bring someone from another world since you already exist in Twisted Wonderland as an established character. There is just one thing you should know before you make this decision.”

“Tell me.” Of course there are strings attached. There always are. You prepare yourself. Self-sacrifice in small amounts is necessary, of course, but if there’s anything you can negotiate with . . . .

“I will have to take the previous author’s soul out of (Y/N)’s body. (Y/N)’s soul will regain control of her own body, since it was never removed, only dormant. Since the author’s original body cannot function without a soul, she cannot return to her world. It will disappear, never to be recovered, lost to the fabric of what forms this space. Are you still willing to proceed?”

“Is that it?” You expected something else. This has nothing to do with you giving up anything. In fact, it could even be considered a bonus. This woman whose story made your life and relationships exceedingly difficult will disappear down to the traces of her soul. It’s an easy decision. “Of course.”

“How cold-hearted you are.” He chuckles down at his teacup. It never seems to drain empty no matter how he sips it. “That is not an undesirable quality in protagonists, although they often do not have a happy ending in fairytales.”

“Is that supposed to deter me or something?” You stay resolute. “My future was always uncertain no matter if it’s a story or not. I’m in the mafia. I’ve come to terms that horrible things could happen at any moment because of the nature of my job a long, long time ago. It’s my responsibility to plan so that I reduce those chances as much as possible. And you’re going to help me.”

“Yes, I am.” He glances at the fireplace, which has burned down to glowing red embers. “Perhaps you should count yourself lucky that you are under my jurisdiction. I am partial to tragic endings, but I also do not mind if an amoral character triumphs in the end. Some of my peers would adamantly ensure it does not happen.”

You furrow your brows. This is not the first time he brought up something being under his “jurisdiction.” However, this is the first time he’s mentioned “peers” instead of “characters.”

“There are others like you?”

“Yes, of course. Twisted Wonderland is filled with too many stories for me to manage on my own. Since you are mainly involved with the Leech Mafia and stories of the Coral Sea, you fall under my jurisdiction.”

It makes sense. This man compared himself to a god, but he isn’t one. He isn’t omnipotent or omniscient.

“Who are they?”

He tilts his head. “You would not know us even if I told you.”

“I’m curious. Tell me anyway.”

“Such a curious character.” He glances at the embers again. “Alright, I see no harm in it. My peers overseeing Twisted Wonderland include Walt Disney, the Brothers Grimm, Hanna Diyab, Victor Hugo, and Lewis Carroll, among others.”

None of these names ring a bell. It is just a list of names, but having more information is never a bad thing.

“And your name? I should know how to address you.”

“Oh, I have not yet introduced myself to you? My apologies, I must be turning forgetful in my old age.” He laughs at himself in a good-natured manner. “My name is Hans Christian Anderson. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

You introduce yourself as well. He extends a hand to you. When your hands connect in a firm handshake, the new deal you’ve made feels solidified.

Anderson looks at the fireplace one more time. The light has died completely, the little room lit only by the moonlight pouring in the window. With a gentle but decisive clap of his hands, he stands from his armchair.

“That was a fruitful discussion, and I thank you for your patience and understanding. I fear time has run out, however, and so I will be sending you back shortly. I’ll place you right back where you came from: at the moment when I brought you here.”

“Hold on!” Too soon, too sudden. You still have so much to say. He holds up a hand, stopping your protests.

“If you’d like to communicate with me, simply write a request for it in your new journal. I wish you best of luck.”

And with that, the world goes white again.

This is the story of a girl whose name is no longer hers. A girl so common that she may as well be a faceless background character in another person’s story. A girl who wishes, more than anything, to be the protagonist of a love story that will sweep her off her feet and solve all her problems.

Her family is normal. Her friends, too. And so is she. It isn’t enough for her. The world inside that game she plays is so magical, so whimsical, so perfect. The characters are handsome, powerful, clever, funny, or rich, or some combination of those qualities. If she enters this world, surely all those wonderful characters would treat her as someone special. They’d love and revere her unconditionally. She pines for a man who would love her and her shortcomings in their entirety, no matter what she does.

The beauty about fictional characters is that because they are fictional, they can be whatever she wants them to be. She can wholeheartedly believe they’ll love her, and there is nothing wrong with that. But she isn’t satisfied with that alone. It needs to be real.

Desperately, she writes a story revolving around a faceless, flawless main character who she desperately wishes she could be. Everyday, the writing consumes her, dragging her into a fantasy of bliss. She begins to resent her reality. Nobody in real life will love her the correct way. Nobody can be as good as the characters she pours her love and headcanons on. She doesn’t consider how love can be gradual, nor does realize someone might have to get to know her before loving her. After all, in her fanfiction, the perfect mafioso loves her main character upon the first meeting and devotes himself with no questions asked. Isn’t that the ideal love?

One day, a miracle occurs. She meets a man who offers to make her story into her reality. Jumping on the chance to live her perfectly crafted life of happiness, she agrees. Finally. Finally, she will be loved the way she wants.

At first, everything went perfectly. Real life follows her fanfiction to the letter. Jade is charming, Floyd is endearing, and a string of coincidences leads her to meet Vil, another handsome bachelor. Love surrounds her at every turn. All she needs in this life are the handsome men who give her special treatment. After all, this body, this life—(Y/N)—was created by her, for her use. All of the previous relationships this body entertained no longer matter. They aren’t hers, anyway.

The polaroids that occupied her nightstand are probably in a landfill somewhere. The aesthetic was cute, befitting the tastes of a character she modelled after herself, but the person in them is irrelevant. Some side character she’s never going to see again. No matter; she’ll eventually replace those polaroids with cute photos of herself and her new love. (Y/N)—no, the placeholder—has served its purpose. It will not miss those useless decorations since it will never again have its own consciousness.

So where did it all go wrong? Perhaps it was wrong from the start. She should have cursed that old man for scamming her. Her happy ending was never a guarantee. How dare a throwaway side character upend her perfect, fairy tale ending? Is that even allowed? They’re all just characters anyway. How can they steal from a real person?

Until the very end, she couldn’t see anyone around her as anything other than characters in a story. Maybe if she did, she might have gotten the love she wanted. Now, she disappears, having never achieved the goal she so desperately grasped at. Like seafoam, her hopes and yearning for love bubbles and disappears.

Hans Christian Anderson places a book into an empty spot on one of his many shelves. He has always been fond of tragedies. As for this new story that’s unfolding . . . who’s to say how it will end? He’s a patient man. With a smile, he settles into an armchair and sips from a cup of tea. He’s looking forward to it. When it eventually ends, like all stories inevitably do, he’ll shelve it and find another story to bring to life.

The world suddenly flashes into focus. The sun’s dying embers flicker on the sea. Sand shifts between your toes. Fingers graze your neck. Before you can activate your Signature Spell, (Y/N) crashes into you and you both topple over into a bed of sand. Bloodlust raises the hairs on the back of your neck. But it isn’t coming from (Y/N). Instead, you instinctively wrap one arm around her and hold the other one out in front of you, shielding her from Jade.

“Wait, wait! Jade, it’s fine. I’m okay.”

He freezes. One of his hands stops a centimeter away from (Y/N)’s hair. She doesn’t react. Slowly, you lay back down, heaving a sigh. You shift her face to the side so that she doesn’t suffocate in your shoulder. Her eyelashes flutter against her cheekbones, complementing the slow rise and fall of her ribs.

“See? She’s asleep.”

Jade furrows his brows. “I fail to understand. Most importantly, are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah.” You chuckle, staring up at the stars that unveil themselves in the darkening sky. “I’m just a little tired.”

You explain everything to him. He seems skeptical, but eventually, he accepts it. He sits in the sand next to you, his hand covering yours. You pretend not to notice, but it offers a soothing calm to your exhausted mind.

“I’m sorry,” you say, glancing at his side profile. “Even if I write that Vil Schoenheit will cure your parents, it might not happen because of continuity issues. Maybe (Y/N) will still be able to convince him.”

“That’s alright.” He catches your gaze. “It would make the story progress more smoothly if we continue with our talks with Walrus.”

He accepted it so quickly. For that matter, so did you. You wonder briefly if there is something at play that makes you accept the reality of your situation as fact—if it’s because you’re a character after all—but that’s all speculation. Not worth your time and energy to figure out.

“Bottom line is, this is my story now. So I’ll make sure the curse on your parents is dispelled.”

“How reliable.” Jade gives you a gentle smile, one that causes an unfamiliar stirring in your chest. “Thank you. What would you like in recompense?”

You weren’t expecting him to offer anything at all. But since he offered, you aren’t one to refuse.

“Money.”

His quiet laughter blends in with the sound of rushing waves.

“No hesitation at all, I see. Of course, I will pay you adequately for your invaluable help.”

“I also want something else.” You fiddle with the strands of (Y/N)’s hair. “I’d like a vacation. Just a week or two after everything settles down so I can go back to my hometown with my mom.”

“Is that what the money is for?”

“Yeah.” Your heart feels a little lighter. “You should visit the Coral Sea after your parents wake up as well. I’m sure you’ll want to spend time with them.”

A pause. You scrutinize Jade’s expression in the low light, but his expression is wholly unfamiliar to you. He almost looks . . . nervous.

“Would you come with us?”

You blink. “Don’t you want to spend time with just your family?”

“Yes, but my parents would be delighted to have you over again. You have not been to our home under the sea in a long time, and I would be more than happy to show you around again.”

“It won’t be a bother?”

“Far from it.” His thumb rubs softly against the back of your hand. “I . . . We are very fond of you.”

You can’t help but think there’s an ulterior motive, but you accept. This wouldn’t be the first time you’ve travelled to their home under the sea, and this most likely won’t be the last.

Suddenly, (Y/N) shifts on your chest. A soft noise escapes her lips as though she’s finally awakened from a long nap. Her bleary eyes find yours. Kind, lovely, and gentle eyes. The eyes of the (Y/N) you know and love, the eyes of your friend.

“Huh? Are we on the beach? What happened?”

A relieved laugh bubbles out of your throat and you hug her tightly. Confused but sweet, she reciprocates with reassuring pats to your arm.

“Yeah, we’re on the beach. Let’s get you home.” You sit up and smile as she fusses over the sand in your hair. Normalcy is slowly but surely returning. “I’ll tell you everything on the way there.”

[gottiewrites]

Amazon MGM Studios is developing the YA novel “The Loneliest Girl in the Universe” as a feature film.

Variety released the news today:

Amazon MGM Studios is developing the YA novel “The Loneliest Girl in the Universe” as a feature film.

Joe Roth and Jeffrey Kirschenbaum (“Anyone but You,” “Fast X,” the upcoming “Jackpot”) will produce the film alongside Katherine Langford, best known for starring in Netflix’s hit YA series “13 Reasons Why”; Seldy Gray will oversee development for Roth Kirschenbaum Films.

The project is in early development at the studio with Sarah Conradt-Kroehler writing the script, from a treatment by Gary Dauberman.

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe was first published in 2017. It was nominated for the 2019 Carnegie medal, named one of Barnes & Noble’s Top 15 YA Books of 2018, and shortlisted for the STEAM Children’s Book Prize 2019.

Romy Silvers is the only surviving crew-member of a spaceship travelling to a new planet, on a mission to establish a second home for humanity. Alone in space, she is the loneliest girl in the universe until she hears about a new ship which has launched from Earth with a single passenger on board. A boy called J.

Their only communication is via email and due to the distance between them, their messages take months to transmit. And yet Romy finds herself falling in love.

But what does Romy really know about J? And what do the mysterious messages which have started arriving from Earth really mean?

Sometimes, there’s something worse than being alone…

I’ve been holding onto this secret for four long years, so I’m beyond thrilled to finally be able to share it.

The production company, Roth/Kirschenbaum, made Damsel (Milly Bobby Brown/Netflix), Anyone but You (Sydney Sweeney/Glen Powell), The School for Good and Evil (Paul Feig/Netflix), Fast X (Vin Diesel) and The Gray Man (Ryan Gosling), so Romy is in very, very good hands indeed.

A movie deal is, obviously, a dream come true. It’s not something I ever thought would happen to me. I feel lucky enough to get to keep writing new books, let alone for someone to make an adaptation of something that came out of my brain.

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe is a very special story to me. I wrote it when I was 22, fresh out of a physics degree. On the surface, it was inspired by some of the physics I’d learnt about deep space travel at university, but mainly it was propelled by the complicated feelings I had about technically being an ‘adult’ while really just feeling like a naiive kid. It was about internet dating, and fandom as a form of self expression, and my complicated relationship with girlhood (as someone who no longer really identifies as a ‘girl’).

Romy is one of the most precious character I’ve ever created. I poured so much of myself into her personality; her insecurities; her flaws and strengths. So many readers respond to her vulnerability (and mine) with deep love. People have told me that they would die for Romy. That she’s their favourite fictional character of all time. That she’s helped them process so much of their own anxiety, trauma and imposter syndrome. That she’s a role model for girls who are deciding to study science at university. As a writer, it’s the biggest honour to have created someone who feels so real and important to so many people.

I can’t wait for Romy to reach a whole new audience on screen through Amazon MGM Studios. The team at R/K have a very clear vision for Romy’s story, and so much respect for her journey as a character. I’m very excited to see what they create.

I have some experience of the TV industry in UK through my work in the Heartstopper writer’s room as story consultant, but movies and Hollywood are obviously a whole new ballgame. I’m excited and nervous to learn more!

For everyone who’s been with me and Romy since 2017, I hope the The Loneliest Girl in the Universe movie lives up to all your expectations, when it launches (which might be a while off!). Thank you for sticking with me.

And for new readers, you can read the book now. It’s published in the UK, Australia, USA, and in translation in Indonesia, Brazil, Poland and Turkey.

Goodreads

Amazon UK

Waterstones

Foyles

Audible

Amazon US

“A strange, witty, compulsively unpredictable read which blows most of its new YA-suspense brethren out of the water.” – Entertainment Weekly

“Black Mirror-esque. A fantastic slow-build drama. Lauren James is a genius.” – SFX

“Gripping romantic sci-fi thriller.” – Wall Street Journal

“This slow-burning psychological thriller has a killer twist that will make you gasp.” – Bustle

And while you’re all here, a reminder that my next novel Last Seen Online is being published on August 1st. A scandal occurs within the cast of the TV show that Romy writes fanfiction about in The Loneliest Girl in the Universe.

Goodreads

Amazon UK

Waterstones

Audible

Foyles

Fill out this form to receive a signed postcard of character art for Last Seen Online - open to anyone in the UK who preorders the book before 1st August 2024.

A contemporary YA murder mystery set in sun-drenched LA, for fans of Malibu Rising, We Were Liars and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. When Delilah meets Sawyer Saffitz (son of Anya Saffitz, aka Hollywood royalty), she becomes hooked on a decade-old scandal. In her quest for the truth, Delilah uncovers blogposts written by the mysterious “gottiewrites” and is soon caught up in a world of greed, fandom conspiracy theories … and murder. And the deeper Delilah digs, the more dangerous it becomes – because someone is willing to kill to hide the truth.

- Wren x

[azura-tsukikage]

An altered perspective on appreciating witchcraft without involving magical, metaphysical or spiritual elements is entirely valid, and there are indeed ways to engage with witchcraft as a hobby or interest without those aspects. Here are some approaches you can consider:

Witchcraft as an Art Form: View witchcraft as an art form or a form of self-expression. Much like artists use various materials to create visual art, you can use witchcraft tools and symbolism to create aesthetically pleasing crafts and decorative items. You can focus on the artistic and creative aspects of crafting and decorating your space.

Witchcraft as Symbolism: Embrace witchcraft as a symbolic language or system. Many symbols and tools in witchcraft have rich historical and cultural meanings. You can study and appreciate these symbols for their historical significance and incorporate them into your artwork or crafts as a way to convey specific messages or themes.

Community and Social Connection: Engage with the witchcraft community as a social group. Many people who identify as witches enjoy the sense of community and camaraderie within the community. You can participate in discussions, share your projects, and connect with like-minded individuals who share your interests.

Historical and Cultural Exploration: Delve into the history and cultural aspects of witchcraft. Study how witchcraft has been portrayed in different cultures and time periods. You can create projects that reflect your understanding of these historical and cultural perspectives.

Personal Growth and Mindfulness: Use witchcraft tools and practices as a means of personal growth and mindfulness. Engage in mindfulness exercises with crystals, herbs, or candles. Create routines that promote self-reflection and self-improvement.

Craftsmanship and DIY: Approach witchcraft as a form of craftsmanship and DIY (do-it-yourself) projects. Focus on developing your skills in crafting, woodworking, sewing, or other hands-on activities to create beautiful and functional items.

Fandom and Roleplay: Imagine treating witchcraft like a fandom or roleplay activity. Enjoy it as a hobby that allows you to immerse yourself in a fictional or fantasy world. Create characters, costumes, and narratives inspired by witchcraft themes.

Symbolic Jars and Decor: You can follow my lead in making Harmony jars and other symbolic crafts. Appreciate them for their artistic and decorative value, as well as the symbolism they carry. You can use these creations to enhance your living space, jewelry, other accessories, and express your personal style.

Ultimately, the way you approach witchcraft is a matter of personal preference and what brings you joy and fulfillment. There's no one-size-fits-all approach, and it's entirely valid to engage with witchcraft in a way that aligns with your interests, values, and beliefs. The key is to find your own unique way of appreciating and enjoying this hobby without feeling pressured to conform to any specific metaphysical or spiritual framework.

[raz0rvampire]

OC LORE AND INFO DROP

I just dropped a major detail of my OC story that is indeed concerning so I feel like it’s best if I just make a massive info post about them!

I post a lot of these OCs specifically

This is Bunee ^^(15/16)(she/xe/them) This is Phobos ^^(13/14)(she/he)

And this is BRK vv(he/him) And this is (Past!)Phobos vv (12)(she/her)

These characters are from a story I made to cope with my trauma. You can see in the tags often I put “mmpiad” or “my magical pet is a demon.” And that is the title! This story focuses on the effects of grooming and takes place in a metaphorical sense of Bunee’s mind (or is it just her mind? The more I post their lore, I’ll let you figure it out, teehee.)

More here! vv (more info, not exactly lore, sorry…)

This story originally started out as vent OCs that I used to cope with my trauma, since it was one of the only ways it could use to express myself and my feelings in a way that wasn’t words. Words were extremely difficult to use since my emotions were so complex, I didn’t know how to talk about it yet. Using these characters, I used them sort of as stepping stones to who I wanted to become after coming to realization with my trauma and as a form of understanding myself in a different perspective. Bunee became a focus in which I wanted them to become something after the events of the story, even throughout of a lot of loss of self and more.

Now, me and my best friend are planning on actually working into possibly making this a show (12 episodes?) in the future. The thing I want to mention most is that the original use of this story has changed significantly. They’re not just vent OCs anymore, they’ve developed into an image and message. I found that there is barely any media that properly covers ped0s or gr00ming. In fact, there’s many media that covers it horribly and has greatly impacted society’s perception of these things horribly.

These characters mean dear to me, but I eventually figured that Bunee and Phobos are no longer just something for me, they’re something I want to give out to others. I want survivors and victims to know there is a world after the world they’ve endured.

It is a hard thing to plan and do. There’s many different experiences and outcomes from this sort of trauma, and I hope to at least manage to create something that most can look at and find a positive representation of this sort of trauma.

BRK is painted in the direct light as a bad person. For inside details, throughout the story he acts similarly to “the magical girl pet” trope, he helps them in bounties and hardships, but he still acts as a villainous force. He is obsessive over Bunee and creates mental turmoil in the setting of the mind, even in subtle/direct ways. Although he ‘fights’ beside them, he’s meant to act like a parasite. I do not like his character for obvious reasons, he was originally based on a very real person and since then, is still heavily influenced and related to that. Let me repeat, this character is based on a *very real person*. In the end, this is still a character so I treat him with a fictional attitude, but also the importance is that my audience is aware that BRK is not a made up entity. I knew who this person was, I was (unfortunately) involved with this person on a very deep level.

If you’re read all this way, thank you, take a hit brotha

[justforbooks]

Ama Ata Aidoo, who has died aged 81, was one of Africa’s most influential writers. Her plays, short stories, novels and essays explored the experiences of women in contemporary Africa, both rural and urban – women who are remarkable for their spirit, humour and resilience.

Aidoo’s play The Dilemma of a Ghost, first staged in 1964 at the Ghana Drama Studio when she was 22, was issued by Longman in 1965, making her the first published female African dramatist. This play contrasts a young African- American wife’s idealised concept of “Mother Africa” with the reality of her Ghanaian husband’s African mother’s traditions and expectations, often conflicting with the values embraced by a younger western-educated generation.

Like her second play, Anowa (1969), The Dilemma of a Ghost draws on both African and western performance traditions. In these plays and many of her short stories, Aidoo created an Africanised form of English for her characters, drawing on her native Akan idioms and sentence structures.

While her first play examines cultural conflicts in contemporary Ghana, during the optimism created by Kwame Nkrumah’s success in achieving independence, Anowa, written after the 1966 military coup that deposed Nkrumah amid accusations of corruption, reflects on Ghanaian history and the complicity of African chiefs with slavery. In the face of political dereliction, the play calls for a shift away from materialism and self-interest.

However, it is Aidoo’s fiction that has reached a worldwide audience. Her first volume of short stories, No Sweetness Here, was published in 1971. Many of the stories were written to be read on radio, with listeners as well as readers in mind, combining traditional oral storytelling, and communal participation, with European reader-oriented narrative techniques. They also showed how western technology can be put to the service of African culture rather than replacing or subduing it.

The use of oral traditions also allowed Aidoo to give a voice to women, in a context where female writers have been marginalised, while the concentration on dialogue, rather than exterior description, places the emphasis on women’s subjectivities, emotions and thoughts, rather than their appearance.

The title of Aidoo’s first novel, Our Sister Killjoy: Or Reflections from a Black-eyed Squint (1977), conveys the narrator’s wry self-deprecating humour, together with her awareness of differences in perception. Recounting the experience of a young Ghanaian woman who spends several months in Germany – “the heart of whiteness” – and with two male characters both called Adolf, the novel is in part a reversal of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Indeed there is a literal heart of darkness in the novel when a group of Africans debate the ethics of Christiaan Barnard’s transplant of the heart of an African man. Aidoo uses a variety of narrative techniques in the novel, contrasting “knowledge gained then” and “knowledge gained since”, interspersing prose with fragments of verse, while questioning the usefulness of the English language to express African experience:

A common heritage. A Dubious bargain that left us Plundered of Our gold Our tongue Our life – while our Dead fingers clutch English …

Together with Aidoo’s second novel, Changes: A Love Story, which won the Commonwealth Writers’ prize in 1992, Our Sister Killjoy appears frequently in university courses on postcolonial and women’s writing. Aidoo’s 1985 collection of poetry, Someone Talking to Sometime, was awarded the Nelson Mandela prize for poetry. A second volume of poetry, An Angry Letter in January, appeared in 1992. She also published two more volumes of short stories, The Girl Who Can and Other Stories (1997) and Diplomatic Pounds and Other Stories (2012), as well as books for children.

Christine Ama Ata Aidoo was born, with a twin brother, Kwame Ata, at Abeadzi Kyiakor, near Saltpond in central Ghana (at that time known as the Gold Coast), the daughter of Maame Abasema and Nana Yaw Fama. Her father was chief of Abeadzi Kyiakor, and she belonged to Fante royalty. He founded the first school in Saltpond, and ensured that both his children received a good education there. Aidoo later spoke of the importance of the village storyteller, around whom the villagers would gather in the evenings.

From 1957, the year that Ghana became the first independent African nation, she attended Wesley girls’ senior high school in the city of Cape Coast. There she became aware of Ghana’s connection with the history of slave trading, embodied in the Cape Coast “castle” where captured slaves were held before being shipped to Europe and the Americas.

In 1961 she enrolled at the University of Ghana to study English, and also began writing seriously. The following year she was selected by a panel including Chinua Achebe, Langston Hughes, and Wole Soyinka to attend a writing workshop in Ibadan, Nigeria. She forced her way into the Nigerian Broadcasting office in order to meet Achebe, who was then head of external broadcasting, breathlessly announcing to him that she had “indeed arrived at the shrine”.

After graduation, Aidoo taught at universities in Africa and the US. She was appointed Ghanaian minister for education in 1982 after Jerry Rawlings gained power in a military coup, but in 1983 resigned and moved to Zimbabwe, where she worked for the Zimbabwe Ministry for Education. When she returned to Ghana in 1999, she and her daughter Kinna Likamanni established the Mbaasem Foundation, which sought “to support the development and sustainability of African women writers and their artistic output”.

Throughout her life, Aidoo saw her writing and other activities as part of her endeavour to help Africans recover from the consequences of colonialism.

In an interview in 1987 she declared: “I wish of course that Africa would be free and strong and organised and constructive, etc ... That is basic to my commitment as a writer … I keep seeing different dimensions of it, different interpretations coming through my writing.”

She is survived by her daughter.

🔔 Ama Ata Aidoo, writer and educator, born 23 March 1942; died 31 May 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[ngoclnm]

[WEEK 3] Unveiling the Digital Feminist Playground: How Tumblr's Vibe Compares to Twitter and Facebook

Remember when MySpace was the OG place to blast embarrassing angsty music and upload blurry webcam pics? Ah, simpler times. Now, teens (both actual and honorary) are slaying the social media game across multiple platforms, each with its unique vibe and "rules of engagement." Today, let's dive into the fascinating world of Tumblr, a digital haven for all things creative, weird, and wonderfully niche. But how does it stack up against Twitter and Facebook? Buckle up, internet explorers, because it's time to unpack some platform vernacular!

First up, Twitter: Imagine a high-pressure debate club where everyone has 280 characters to drop their hottest takes (Keller 2019). That's Twitter, a platform for news, memes, and lightning-fast arguments. Want to spark a feminist hashtag movement? Twitter's your jam. Remember how the #MeToo movement gained widespread attention and support on Twitter with the hashtag being used more than 19 million times on an average of 55,319 uses per day, with survivors and activists using the platform to share their stories and advocate for change (Toor & Anderson 2018)? That’s how it works. Just keep in mind, that brevity is key, and don't get caught in the comment section crossfire.

Next, we have Facebook: the OG social network, now the chill family picnic where everyone from your grandma to your third cousin shares everything from baby announcements to political rants. It's a platform for staying connected with loved ones, sharing life updates, and joining groups with like-minded folks. However, Facebook is like an open house where your connections (or ‘friends’) are freely invited, including parents, siblings, other relatives, and school peers, who are people with whom you have social connections outside of the platform. Indeed, this is a key part of Facebook’s platform vernacular; anonymity is designed out of Facebook, and one is required to present an “authentic self” via a “real” first and last name when creating a Facebook profile (Bivens 2015). Thus, for the most part, teens were selective in what they chose to post on Facebook, carefully considering their “imagined audience” (Marwick & boyd 2011) and the types of reactions they’d receive from their “friends.”

So, where does Tumblr fit in? Imagine a vibrant marketplace where artists, writers, and meme lords showcase their passions, share fandoms, and build communities around shared interests. Think GIFs galore, long-form blog posts, and niche groups for everything from obscure historical fiction to cat cosplay. Tumblr's strength lies in its anonymity and freedom of expression (Collins 2022). It's a haven for anyone who wants to be weird, creative, and unapologetically themselves without the curated pressure of Insta or the algorithm-fueled firestorm of Twitter.

Here's a handy infographic to break it down:

But what about the feminist factor you ask? All platforms have their strengths and limitations. Twitter's speed and reach make it ideal for amplifying social justice movements. Facebook groups foster community and offer valuable resources for feminist activism. However, Tumblr's unique blend of anonymity, creative freedom, and long-form writing allows for deeper exploration of feminist issues, fostering discussion and building supportive communities around shared experiences.

Ultimately, the best platform for you depends on your personality and goals. Want to spark a discussion about gender equality? Hit Twitter. Want to share your art and connect with fellow feminists? Tumblr's your friend. Just remember, every platform has its quirks and challenges. Be mindful of the platform vernacular, navigate respectfully, and stay true to your voice. Don't be afraid to be a digital nomad, hopping between platforms to explore different communities and express yourself in diverse ways. After all, the internet is your oyster, and your feminist voice deserves to be heard loud and proud, no matter where you choose to share it!

Remember, the key is to be:

Savvy: Understand the strengths and limitations of each platform.

Strategic: Choose the platform that best suits your goals and needs.

Respectful: Navigate each community with a kind and inclusive mindset.

Confident: Don't be afraid to express your voice and engage with others.

References

Bivens, R 2015, ‘The gender binary will not be deprogrammed: Ten years of coding gender on Facebook’, New Media & Society, vol. 19, no. 6, pp. 880–898.

Collins, L 2022, ‘How Tumblr went from a $1 billion Yahoo payday to a $3 million fire sale’, CNBC, viewed <https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/15/how-tumblr-went-from-1-billion-yahoo-payday-to-3-million-fire-sale.html>.

Keller, J 2019, ‘“Oh, She’s a Tumblr Feminist”: Exploring the Platform Vernacular of Girls’ Social Media Feminisms’, Social Media + Society, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 1–11.

Marwick, AE & Boyd, D 2011, ‘I Tweet honestly, I Tweet passionately: Twitter users, Context collapse, and the Imagined Audience’, New Media & Society, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 114–133, viewed <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444810365313>.

Toor, S & Anderson, M 2018, ‘How Social Media Users Have Discussed Sexual Harassment since #MeToo Went Viral’, Pew Research Center, viewed <https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/10/11/how-social-media-users-have-discussed-sexual-harassment-since-metoo-went-viral/>.

[didierleclair]

LITERATURE AGAINST OPPRESSION

I always thought that the poem Liberté by Paul Eluard symbolized the role of literature. He wrote it in 1942, in the middle of World War II. The story goes that the Vichy censor did not read the entire poem, thinking that it was a love poem. Indeed, the previous title was Une seule pensée. Paul Eluard committed himself with words and risked his life. The poet Robert Desnos was less fortunate and died in a concentration camp.

Cahier d’un retour au pays natal by Aimé Césaire is also a dazzling work. This long text of around forty pages is a cry of rage against colonialism and racism. The book appeared for the first time in 1939. André Breton discovered this work by a surreal coincidence, in a haberdashery in Fort-de-France where he was looking for a ribbon for his daughter, in April 1941. After reading it, he described Césaire as “a great black poet.”

You see, literature has always been a weapon for resistance against tyranny and oppression. It is the most beautiful weapon that human beings have invented. All you need is ink and paper. The damage is never collateral, there are no stray bullets that kill an ally. To be honest, this weapon does not cause any deaths. On the other hand, literature reveals a growing truth. It begins as a sparkling star and ends with a thundering light.

The writer George Orwell left his mark on the public of his time and others long after his death. He described a society that bans discussion, debate and renders citizens incapable of thinking for themselves. Indeed, 1984 struck the minds of readers to the point where the expression “Big brother is watching you” entered contemporary vocabulary. In Orwell's novel we find historical denial, government surveillance and other phenomena decried by today's defenders of freedom.

Pick up a book by Maya Angelou, an African-American poet, I know why the caged bird sings and you will understand that there is unfailing resistance in literature against barbarism, rape, exclusion. The work addresses universal themes through compelling narrative techniques.

The bottom line is that a machine gun, grenade or bomb cannot match literature in the fight against oppression. When we resort to firearms, we admit a form of defeat of intelligence. The act of defending oneself may be legitimate. He who is forced to take up arms is not provocative. On the other hand, anyone who instigates a war is a coward. It is true that someone who defends himself can turn into an attacker. Opportunity makes the thief, that's why it's better never to go to war. It was Jean-Paul Sartre who said: “A victory told in detail; we no longer know what distinguishes it from a defeat”.

Weapons of destruction only cause sadness, desolation, trauma and disappearance. Whereas literature makes you think, cry, laugh without shedding blood. The book arouses astonishment, emotion and admiration. We can be hurt in our self-esteem, offended, even humiliated. That said, your heart still beats and your pride has the opportunity to heal.

Today, even social networks have not been able to defeat literature. Literature resists with e-books. When you go to a public library, you are never alone. The Internet has not killed the novel. It has an impact on the form of the book, but not on the act of telling a story.

The American writer Philip Roth declared the end of the novel. For him, writing stories in a book would become obsolete. In an interview on the website Big Think, the novelist Paul Auster expresses the contrary. He directly takes his colleague to task: “I vigorously oppose it. Human beings need stories, fiction. Humans would not be human beings without a narrative. The novel is such a flexible form. There is no constraint. As much as I admire Philip Roth, I think he's wrong about this."

The big publishing houses, those that dominate the world, know this. They try to impose their champions, their best representatives of world literature, with Nobel Prizes, Bookers and Pulitzers. Why bother promoting writers if literature was no longer worth it? The challenge for these publishers is to maintain control over the choice to read. They don't have talent as a priority. They have their favorites. Some are talented, some are not.

But literature is forging a path that does not always respect the rules established by the main publishers. It has its own compass.

Take Le vieil homme qui lisait des romans d’amour by Chilean novelist Luis Sepulveda. The novel was released in 1989 by a small publishing house in Chile. The editor who took over the book, Anne-Marie Métailié, said that the cover was ugly and the book falling into tatters. When she read it, she felt great joy. Enthusiastic, she wanted to publish this masterpiece with the agreement of the parent company, Le Seuil. But that didn't interest her bosses. “I wrote to 150 booksellers,” she said, to get them interested in the novel. Only 5 said they had read it. Word of mouth from booksellers will force major publishers to give Luis Sepulveda's novel a chance. The first article about this novel was published after selling 36,000 copies.

However, this book is a little gem. This novel denounces the illegal exploitation of gold in the Amazon forest, the barbarity of men towards animals, racism against First Nations. The author dedicated it to an environmental activist.

Why was it so difficult for Madame Métailié to make this masterpiece known? Because there is a publishing elite who dictate to the public what is worth reading.

Those who work in the publishing world can be the oppressors of literature. Indeed, for reasons of prejudice, economic gains, exacerbated nationalism, racism and selfishness, publishers often try to impose mediocre books in place of successful novels. Sometimes they achieve their goals, but these works are quickly forgotten because they are worthless.

We cannot put a gag order on quality literature. It always finds its way. The need for stories is as important as the air we breathe. Literature is linked to our reason for being.

The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges wrote a book called “The Book of Sand” and he tells us about a book whose pages are endless, like sand. No page is the first, none is the last.

Since we started writing stories, they never end. The novel is not an isolated entity. It is the axis of infinite relationships. This is why the oppressor, wherever he is, cannot put an end to literature. He tries to tame it and give it instructions but the pages of literature are immeasurable.

Literature does as it pleases. It is a flood of words that has no master except the truth. All literary narration, as fictional as possible, is linked to the fundamental reason for our existence. Even though our lives vary, they are always told from the point of view of the one who exists.

Didier Leclair, writer

[blyme01]

Unleash Your Imagination: Fancy Dress Costumes for Adults

In a world where adulthood often comes with responsibilities and routines, there's something enchanting about slipping into a different persona, if only for a night. Fancy dress costumes for adults offer the perfect opportunity to unleash creativity, express hidden desires, or simply indulge in some playful escapism. From themed parties to Halloween gatherings, costume events have become a cherished part of adult social life, allowing individuals to step outside their comfort zones and embrace a bit of whimsy. So, let's explore the captivating realm of fancy dress costumes for adults and discover how they can transform ordinary moments into extraordinary adventures.

Firstly, the beauty of fancy dress costumes lies in their sheer diversity. Whether you're a fan of history, pop culture, or fantasy realms, there's a costume to suit every taste and preference. Want to channel your inner superhero? Don a cape and mask, and you're ready to save the day. Craving a taste of the roaring '20s? Slip into a flapper dress and transport yourself back to the age of jazz and prohibition. The possibilities are endless, limited only by imagination.

Moreover, fancy dress costumes offer a unique form of self-expression. They allow individuals to embody characters they admire, explore different aspects of their personalities, or even make bold statements. For some, dressing up as their favorite fictional character is a form of homage, a way to pay tribute to beloved stories and iconic figures. For others, it's an opportunity to challenge societal norms, push boundaries, and embrace alternative identities without fear of judgment.

Additionally, the act of dressing up can have a profound impact on one's confidence and sense of self. Stepping into a costume often involves adopting a different posture, mannerisms, and mindset, effectively blurring the lines between reality and fantasy. In doing so, individuals may discover hidden reservoirs of courage, charisma, and charisma, enabling them to navigate social situations with newfound ease and poise. Indeed, there's something empowering about embodying a character who is larger-than-life, fearless, and unapologetically themselves.

Furthermore, fancy dress costumes have a knack for fostering connection and camaraderie among adults. Whether it's bonding over shared interests, admiring each other's creativity, or simply reveling in the collective silliness of it all, costume events have a way of bringing people together in ways that are both memorable and meaningful. In a world that often feels divided and disconnected, the simple act of dressing up can serve as a powerful reminder of our common humanity, our shared desires for joy, expression, and belonging.

Of course, it's important to remember that fancy dress costumes are meant to be fun, not offensive. While it's perfectly acceptable to push the boundaries of convention and explore provocative themes, it's crucial to do so with sensitivity and respect for others. Cultural appropriation, stereotypes, and offensive caricatures have no place in the world of fancy dress, and individuals should always strive to celebrate diversity and promote inclusivity in their costume choices.

For More Info:-

Hats for Halloween

Mens Fancy Dress Costumes UK

[dreamsandroots]

Fanning the Flames of Self

An exegesis on my piece ‘The Long Journey Home’ published in Antithesis Journal volume 26. ‘Liminal’.

i. The Long Journey

Inspired by a pantheon of literary talent both near and far, my thoughts regarding a topic for the final piece of my creative nonfiction writing course wore many faces, and took me on a winding—and often circular—path. Its composition became of paramount importance to me almost from the outset; although I’d completed many interesting subjects, gained important skills and created numerous works to be proud of throughout my MA, there was something different—and significant on a personal level—about the workshop I found myself sitting in this past April.

I could tell right away that this is where I‘d wanted to be all along. The materials we were asked to read, digest and analyse were exactly what I’d been searching for in my quest for an appropriate medium to express my own thoughts, ideas and opinions. A style of writing that borrowed from academia without being burdened by its reflexive normativity, that was built upon the truth-telling impetus of the journalistic form yet was also open to experimental narrative styles capable of rivalling that of any fictional piece. A form that was open to the ageless mysteries of mythology as much as the profound banality of the digital mindscape—and often in parallel within a single work.

Inspired largely by Linda Jaivin’s seminal essay Found in Translation: In Praise of a Plural World, I had originally aspired to create a similarly styled piece focusing on the underlying ideas surrounding my undergraduate studies in semantics and epistemology—something which for a long time I’d hoped to expand upon in a medium which appealed to a wider audience—and translating this into an exploration of how we autonomise and further mediate reality through the precipices of ‘truth’, ‘belief’, ‘desire’, and so on.

“Words have the power to change the way people think,” Linda writes, “they are part of the architecture of perception.” In a world where it seems we’re constantly compelled, seduced and often demanded to remediate ourselves, our messages, our very essence it is becoming more immediately important to explore these ideas. The fluidity of language and thought which Linda examines in her essay, I believe, lies at the heart of the ongoing quest for effective communication. This idea manifests itself as a metatextual ‘Pandora’s Box’ for writers, indeed for creators of any kind.

Borrowing further from the light-hearted appeal and exploratory energy of Adam Gopnik’s New Yorker piece Death of a Fish, I was hoping also to create something which contrasted the tender energies of mundane life with the more deeply perplexing mysteries that would necessarily enunciate such an exploration.

I had many initial lines of enquiry that I felt might have served as the ‘odd-object’ element of my investigation, to borrow Gopnik’s terminology. I considered expanding upon the ideological flourishings of a toothpaste commercial I’d seen which depicted the genocide of a race of cartoon germ-like creatures who fell victim to a flowing green energy beam which washed over their empire within a human mouth. I considered writing about the existential angst of social media, and our drive to create and maintain the fictive self. I thought about reflecting on a free-to-play mobile app I’d recently downloaded called Tomb of the Mask, a simple, yet perplexing—and surprisingly addictive—title which propels the player upwards into a never-ending maze collecting coins and ‘bits’ in an infinite quest to buy items that assist you to collect ‘bits’ and coins with greater efficiency. These topics, while still appealing to me—and most certainly on the drawing board rather than the recycle bin—all had a common theme which superseded their more immediate pop-cultural appeal. There was a circular nature to them all; an implied question regarding the nature of meaning and meaninglessness in the face of an ideologically dense—and often unbearably absurdist—postmodern life.

Furthermore, before I would feel comfortable exploring the extreme noumenal fringes and fragments of reality, I was driven to put something on paper which resonated with me personally, and would project to my intended audience aspects of my life which I hoped would also resonate on a universal scale. If I was to discover my passion to become a writer and revealer of the unconscious—as have so many of the artists and thinkers that I love—I felt it appropriate to explore a topic which had a more immediately humanistic appeal. Finally, I decided to take a direct route towards a discussion of meaning and focus on something which I felt lay at the core of much of our shared quest for self-identification and mediation: I was going to write on memory itself, its malleability, its resonance with truth, and the hazardous seductions of its misappropriation or overindulgence.

Of course, writings on ‘memory’ and the makings of the ‘self’ are hardly new topics of discourse. Mythology, theology and philosophy have expounded on the conundrums of self in anachronous fashion, and it has been the topic of textual discussion as diverse as Plato’s Republic which some 2,400 years ago posited the triadic nature of the human being, through Shakespeare’s Hamlet reflecting that ‘a dream itself is but a shadow’ to Charlie Brooker’s recent psychological technodrama Black Mirror that presents a minefield of potential pitfalls in our modern conception of the self in relation to our highly mediated worlds.

Paradoxes can be platitudes as much as progenitors of new thought, I had to be careful not to simply throw a landslide of contradictions into a huge pile and leave them there. There also needed to be something which held the piece together. I found this in the idea of contrasting memoir styled reflections with images, themes and motifs which I found somehow strangely relevant to my past self, despite my being unaware of them at the time.

All that was left was to find a way to adequately frame this investigation.

ii. Home

For many, the idea of running in circles is a terrifying concept. The thought of eternal recurrence has brought thinkers to the edge of their minds, probably since before the dawn of human consciousness. The projective ‘dei-genus‘ involved in the myth-making aspects of religion are a testament to this—the mind positing itself as a distinct element within a cycle, an ‘object’ in relation to something fundamentally different—yet strangely familiar—which preceded it, allowing us to mimic this aspect of genesis, the creation as creators in full circle.

There’s a playfulness involved in the taletelling of gods and goddesses that the heavily data-driven world of academia seems all-too eager to forget. Like Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, I felt compelled, as I often have throughout my life, to take the road less travelled by confronting the lingering melancholy inherent in the longing look to the past and attempting to show the obverse side of this: the periods of change and inherent growth that lay therein. This brought me to the form of the memoir for my piece. This had to be my own attempt at myth-making, and my own origin story. I wanted to explore the idea of ‘home’.

We all want to go home. We don’t necessarily want to live there forever (for life must have its adventures into the unknown), but we love to return to that place that was once ours, that was secure and full of possibility and overflowing with family.

There were some important decisions that had to be made early on. Central to my idea of home, and my self of course, is my family. But mine is a large family, and my 2,000 word limit would not permit me to talk about each of my five elder siblings, nor my parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles and so on with the full impetus they would each deserve were I to attempt to tell the story in full. Overcoming my concern of being received as ‘self-indulgent’, I decided that the piece would concern my own particular journey, and only make allusions to other members of my story apart from my mother who I felt was integral to this exploration. This was somewhat of a tough decision, and felt arbitrary in some ways. For instance, if it was my mother’s ambiguous statement (or my remembrance of it) that sparked my wonder to the possibilities of meaning, it was certainly my father’s eternally recurring Dad jokes that gave me a firm grounding in irony. Suffice it to say, each of my elder siblings represent their own wealth of knowledge which they taught me in their own way.

My point is that part of my quest in assembling this piece was choosing what to exclude from the story, almost as much as what to include, and this became a matter of framing more than of deciding on the quality of the material.

I decided to visit our family home in Camden and talk to my mother and father about our old house in Ashcroft. We discussed the details of the house, many of which I could barely remember. My dad told me it was built in the 60’s as part of a housing commission lot, and they’d moved in soon after. My mum told me a lot about the garden and the different species of plants that lived there. They also told me about how our back garage was converted into two bedrooms through the generosity of some very close family friends, who when I was born were named my godparents, but have since been out of contact. We also drew and compared pictures of the layout of the property and the different things we remembered most. It was lovely to get a feel of the place through the perspective of those very close to me, even though many of these details didn’t fit into the final piece as they weren’t relevant to what I was trying to say. It was there that my mother mentioned the name of the crawling weed I’d remembered so fondly: tradescantia fluminensis, also known as ‘Wandering Jew’, named for its habitually displaced nature, a plant that wanders, as if eternally searching for home. Something struck a nerve with me about this monicker, beyond the slight racial tension it implied.

A quick Wikipedia search led me to Gustave Dore’s Illustrations as well as Sabine Baring-Gould’s Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, and I spent a night in Fisher Library reading about the ghostly spectre who had wandered through the collective unconscious of Europe, almost as if he was compelled onwards by a lingering sense of guilt from the crucifixion, a shadow of the celebrated Jewish figure—importantly, both ones incorporated by the Christian faith—in Western mythology. This sense of unconscious guilt represented by the wanderer felt important to my investigation of the past. It reminded me not to get caught up in the sentimental melancholy of lost wonder, and that there can be beauty in weeds, beyond our compulsion to label them. The images of the Ouroboros and the Eden myth came much more naturally to me, as I’ve held a fascination for creation myths and alchemical symbols for most of my adult life. These both felt appropriate as symbols of an emergent mind balancing the banality of consciousness with an insatiable hunger to rediscover and re-emerge. Finally, The Master and His Emissary affected me deeply a few years ago when I read it, and revealed the importance of balancing the conscious, social, rational aspects of ourselves and our communities with the intuitive, reflective and meditative aspects of the unconscious.

Ultimately, my present ideas of home—and what my overall journey means to me now—were set alongside the reflective moments I chose to write about. In this way I hope I was able to adequately give voice to my appreciation for my experiences of home.

iii. Conclusion

In her first guest lecture to our class, Linda concluded by telling us “writing won’t get you the girl. If you want the girl, become a DJ.” There was something oddly humorous about this statement, beyond the fact that she was addressing a room that was very predominantly filled with young women. I suspect Linda knew that any committed writer much like the DJ, take as their medium phenomena as ancient as thought itself, their skill set is the balance of order and chaos within the frame, their game the very transience of knowledge. We are all translators of experience.

The Jungian quest for individuation is an eternal one, and much like a Heraclitian fire, it seeks to reveal the unique and distinctly irreplicable aspect of each moment of a life. And perhaps it is only in such a state that true learning is possible.

[valerielynnstephensauthor]

The Anatomy of Fear: A Mortal Mind Unabridged

The Anatomy of Fear: A Mortal Mind Unabridged by Valerie Lynn Stephens

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means (including electronic, photocopying, mechanical, manual or otherwise) without the prior express & written permission of the owner of the copyright of this book. All rights reserved. ISBN#: 978-1-387-32172-8 ©2013 Valerie Lynn Stephens. All rights reserved.

Preface

I began wanting this work to be a “non-fiction book” in the conventional autobiographical sense, but I suppose that it already knew what it was going to be. Whenever I would mention to people that I was writing a book and they asked what it was about, I was always at a loss for words for I truly did not know how to categorize it into any one genre. I suppose it is an amalgamation of various philosophical musings & meditations spoken in the voice of prose-poetry. It contains some of my previously penned individual works and some of my newer work. However, the bulk of these cathartic ponderances & rantings were composed when I was still in my early twenties.

The Anatomy of Fear: A Mortal Mind Unabridged is a tribute to those abysmal depths of the mortal human mind and to the more intense inner workings of the mortal human heart. It grants expression to those thoughts, feelings and conditions which we do not grant just or essential recognition dwelling in a world increasingly immersed in a crude-even savage kind of Rationalist Empiricism, Reductionism & blunted, myopic surface interpretation. This piece is a continuation of one of my favorite combinatorial themes: the philosophical and the psychological in relation to our human experience & condition. Yet most of all, it is a keenly piercing probe into a mortal human inhabitancy so vulnerable, variegating and complex, and the tragedy of how it is too often oversimplified by a world which loathes deeper Truth & Humanity with oftentimes forthright contempt. And although most of the insights contained herein do spring from a very abysmal and dark well, this aspect of perceiving is just as relevant and essential to humankind, as are the more often touted redeeming graces of Positivism & Rationalism. For the very essence of nature-and this includes that of human nature-is not only dual in scope but is poly-paradoxical as well. Furthermore, it is the contradictions within each individual that make us by far the most complex, beautiful and potentiated of all the species, and I believe that this would still be so, even if all species of earth-life forms were combined into one multi-behavioral creature. The human mind-or, a more apt term would be “psyche”, as it also denotes the soulful aspect of humankind-is what sets us apart from other creations and forces of nature, organic and inorganic.

And this superior faculty that we have can, as with all things, according to the dictates & free will of every individual employing them, work for us or against us as we struggle to unify the mind, body, soul and spirit.

In closing, through my own personal face to face with deep depressions and often disabling anxiety disorders, I fully understand that most illness or disorder begins within the mind and eventually, in its worst phase, cannot completely preserve our tender souls from the ravages of the disease-that true root of all evils known as self-hatred.

My honesty may indeed be found by some to be brutal, or otherwise hard-to-swallow, but it is vital for each and every one of us, no matter our personalities, to surrender ourselves daily before the shrine of crucial self-examination if we are to continue to potentiate in ways constructive rather than destructive to ourselves & those around us. We can handle the Truth better than we think we can. It is my sincerest & deepest abiding hope that you gain something for your own benefit out of these writings, as the reading and digesting of this piece can be used as a method towards transpersonal enlightenment through and by the form of a perhaps intangible, yet nevertheless purifying soul baptism of Truth, uncensored.

But mainly, the writings contained herein are my intimations of what it feels like to live in Hell here on earth, as I am sure we all, when honest with ourselves & others, can identify with. Yet most important to mention is, that although the voice of this work may often use first person singular pronouns, it is meant to denote a definite third person plural inclusivity & universality. For we have all struggled with such darkness of mind & soul at least at one point in our mortal lives.

To exit this Preface with one last thought: In the absence of light, the shadow is nowhere to be seen, but this is merely because it has just morphed into all-encompassing darkness. For light & its concomitant vapidity of light-ness can propagate itself in isolation, but if wise, it chooses Truth, it chooses integration with the Shadow as well, and thus, does it choose its own true Redemption & Salvation.

It was one day last December, when I kissed the devil on my shoulder, full on the lips. And as my mind slowly yet savagely split apart, I feared it would never come back together the same again. This shall remain unseen and pass, like a shadow in the dark. And it is never to be known, like the soul. It is a flash of perception too swift to sense, sensed but unseen, like the face reflected in the mirror here.

This is the quiet corruption of the estranged. And it all began at the first breath, this mercilessly labyrinthine fate. The sodomy began when I was in the embryonic stage, merely an ideal within an ideal within the faint premonition of an entity I now loathe with seething contempt. And although I writhe not in solitude, I also intuit that I am still, stultifyingly alone, as only the devil may care or feign to bear the blame, while I ravage myself in shame.

For the secret that lies beneath the guise of this soft, smooth skin and these bright eyes, is denied overt purgation time and again by a saint, in disguise. Oh such longings we toil within. But what the forked tongues of many of our kindred creatures tell us is often not what we hear. Our interpretation, we are told, is unintelligible, is in abominable dissent, is to be renounced. I am said by the books of numeral chronology to be so young, yet why then does youth’s effervescent brogue continually evade my soul’s tongue? For like the serpent was for forbidden fruit, the devil’s advocates we become, bearing countenances of lachrymose seduction, a sad, silent selling out.

Taking vows of supernal poverty, the devil’s advocates we become. And I am such a poor, poor dear, for there is more often than not, far too much adherence here.

And like the fall was for mortalkind, the Saviour’s cause I have shunned, bearing a soul of eternal pilgrimage.

Having accepted a barter of apostasy, the Saviour’s cause I have shunned. And I am such a blind, blind seeker. Ah! But what an eloquent speaker!

Yet even as my words flow like the fonts of the universal river, my heart, I fear, is caught in a dam, a lone piece of driftwood which once served its purpose quite well in the making of some nobleman’s last supper.

Yet I will not budge, for the very forces of nature it seems are against me. I suppose I just must wait for some other forlorn soul to come along and set me free with a good swift boot! But, must I wait and thus forfeit my fate to the inept hands of another, as it has been since my first fit and wail?

For what comparison is to be made between myself and those who covet and seize this feeling of empowerment that I, with toxic conviction, proclaim to be in lack of?

For like the hunter who is guided to his game and prey by its mortal sap tracks, so am I, continuing on a travail back to the same moot point as I foolishly seek the derision of the past’s scourges and wounds, some mere scars-and others, vicious welts all too apparent to this soul’s painfully shy naked eye.

Yet my heart remains fully clothed within the synthetic, ill-fitted, man-made materials of the mind as I am sold to the hungry merchants time and time again, each new bid recklessly meandering into the red.

Hence, in debt I shall remain to the merciless creditors of conscience and self-providence, until I have gained back all profit, lost at each rebirth to the still, barren womb of Apathy.

But, necessity is a jealous lover and so it goes: Here is my story.

I am not a purely fictional or anachronistic character, and perhaps the thoughts, ponderings and explorations contained herein will be embraced as their own by at least one lone soul out there. If this occurs then I have reached my goal.

Words always seem so lacking but I hope, despite their insufficiency and limitations, that my words reach you. This is a brief yet scenic sojourn through the mortal human Mind’s eye of gain and loss, of the giving and the taking, of solidarity and disunity, of harmony and discord, of joy and apathy. This is a poetic rendition of love and hate, the barbaric and the genteel, of yearning and evasion, of the sensual and the sexual, of loneliness, of fear and mistrust, of loneliness of loneliness, of loneliness of fear, of fear of fear.

This is the inner life of a mortal mind unabridged, unencumbered by façade and convention, in all of the human soul's glorified rancour and paradoxical absurdity. This particular internal life of which I speak began far before I came to be, yet is an actuality that I, and many countless others know well of nonetheless. A life lived in jest due to some unnamed abstract fear that simply cannot justifiably be summed up with the methods of mere surface calculation or semantic sophistry.

Is it a fear of losing my soul? Is it a fear of becoming beyond my means, thus beyond my control? Oh me of little faith, in others’ heedless hands I have placed-far too much. For those who have failed me with their lack of what I could not give to myself I ask of only one thing-Give me Truth. For she has taught me so many essential things, Truth, and has humbled my wretched soul to continual blind faith and blessed absolution.

She has also taught me many things that I long to go back to not knowing. For I fear, most of all, God being eternally exiled from the dysphoric halls of this devil mind as I am left to flounder, a ghost of a shell, nameless but not blameless.

What can cause such madness and disintegration in one mortal soul? As I now speak, to this question I know of only one definitive answer: Fear. A fear many know of but few dare reveal. A fear that grits its teeth at me in the mirror every morning, threatening to consume body, mind, spirit and soul in one gluttonous swallow.

Some fear taunts. Some fear hides beneath the guise of all things physically affecting that we try with an enthusiasm unsurpassed to make into some spurious raison d’etre.

My fear warns and it warns of a reason for being, not being enough. For my fear is becoming greater than my love. And my Hate is lesser than, albeit oftentimes the product of my fear. And of my joy? My joy is becoming an altogether incalculable integer.

One day I just stopped breathing and couldn’t resist the consequent feeling of an intense laissez faire which freed me in a way that I had never been freed before. And I no longer had to balance that looming dread of being pulled under from passivity or being pulled under from assertion, because the truth was that I feared redemption the most.

But is it solely human fallacy or some unholy providence which guides us each to our potential demise? Sometimes the Answer to this is definitely harder to grasp than that of the original Question.

Yet Perhaps survival is overrated, and living is just as easy & natural as breathing. Yet I suppose the journey towards true & abiding earthly liberation will continue to run itself in circles. For the beginning, is the end, and the end is just yet another beginning. For what most fail to realize is that redemption & salvation are obtained not through perfection but through depravity & infirmity. Perhaps I will just surrender my disheveled mass to the tidying gaze of God, for in not allowing life to dissect me, I might run the risk of never being put together just right.

Yet the nature of the beast is to run for cover, as self-preservation again assumes its primary & most noble goal & undertaking. And yet I also often ponder if things are really as complex as they seem? And also, I wonder if simplicity is merely reserved for the faint of heart? Caught between the will to survive and the will to perish. Where does one go from here? Where will I go from here?

How can I adequately speak of the panic which rises up to meet the sullen earth of my cursed birth, an exited womb yet still hemorrhaging with the portent of slow self-slaying? Yet is this bent towards self-defeat truly a mask presented to confound the outside world of that invincible internal dictator amour-propre which is our true guide & Master? So they cannot see thee, so they cannot taketh away.

Am I the means to your end Mr. Death Wish, or the end of your means? Do you speak with eloquence or in spite of it? You know, I have an offer to propose just to get you off my back: How about a much-coveted heart of gold to pawn when you’re hard up for cash. And the Grande Bribe? The brains of your most coveted enemy jarred in formaldehyde.

We all have something of bribing value to offer others, seemingly nothing for ourselves.

You’re not the only one, Mr. Death Wish, who seeks Salvation at the pricey cost of true transcendence as you carelessly barter it for the animal comforts of an “us vs. them” elitism.

Oh let us count the ways, in which we fill our days with antagonism so that we may know one to take one for merely another scapegoat of torture, yet a torture which really goes on first, within ourselves, so as not to feel alone in our unjustified sadomasochist pursuits.

Do you really see your own reflection in me, Mr. Death Wish? Or is this just some kind of post-pseudo-adolescent puppy love? Or is it even more twisted? If it is either, then perhaps there has been some kind of misunderstanding, because I’m not into that kind of enmeshment. Or perhaps I am the one who sees right through you, as I continue to perplex your one-track mind?

How much difference does it make whether I give or whether I take? For either way I will fulfill the joy of “me vs. you”, everyone’s thrill and everyone’s will. What is it worth if I stay or if I go? What is it worth if I know what I know? What more is there to prove if there’s nothing left to lose or gain, as I perilously perch myself upon the plateau of potentia? And finally, to lend my candor to your riddle Mr. Death Wish: How many times can others destroy me? Innumerable. How many times can I destroy myself? Definitive.

The Spirit throbs in the pit of the navel, beneath which some long ago forgotten fruit spoils and toils, for want of a better place to rest its head save upon the irascible bosom of Fear.

Yet the only fists which exist to pound through the thin, transparent membrane of the Soul, thereby granting rebirth to this rotten fruit, suffer some sort of unparalleled paralysis. Yet once again, this too shall pass, and the personage shall soon bear again, a body anew, ripe with harvests beyond any eloquent elucidation, & elation which this foolish, lachrymose-prone tongue has never tasted of before.

For it will be a joy that it has for too long awaited, if it be the truth it has found upon this here eve, that the only truly noble goal worth working towards is freedom not from the self but freedom of the self. This sweet Saviour, a form of Democracy few speak of yet even less dare set down upon the stone fortress of their essence to be Law.

Thus, Fear must be tamed by Courage & Integrity, for this land has yet to be fully tilled & fertilized, as we so easily neglect it for the sake of a mere word of praise, a nod of approval, a sense of that false security which very quickly becomes a crutch which merely cripples.

For if & when this compromise is made, we lie ravaged and sodomized, doomed to seek rehabilitation from the very idiocies of Mediocrity which have most weakened, wounded & sickened us. For the doctrine of Self-Denial, when too adhered to only breeds that which it proclaims to halt in its wake-hatred and Contempt for self and other. Neglect the self and thine entity will rot beneath the bones, trembling tendons and apathetic, inertia-prone heart. Verily, I say unto Thee: Requiescat en pace-but long before death.

We must cultivate our fruits now, as the reaping is good, doling them out sparingly and with the utmost Discretion, lest the wrong word of mouth decree, and what was once so fruitful, barren will be. If one must choose their battles-if I should fight any fight worth fighting it will be to no longer listen to any voice not my own, thus to that voice of universal urgency.

It has been raining in my head for the last fifteen years, and my back is up against a metal pole. I believe the storm is still many miles away for there is no lightning, only thunder rumbling at various intervals. The thunder is in mine and the hearts of those who seek the storm to only then just as soon seek shelter within the dilapidated, shabby barracks of Indifference.

Oh, how to live in a world which only seeks to destroy us? In a world that seeks to destroy us, how can we not live? I scream on the constant from the inside yet still seemingly have no voice. It seems that a compromise must be made. Clinging steadfast to cowardly delusions of persistent alienation, the breach of Reason is made. In our dreams, we are creatures in small ways akin to one another, yet in inexpressible ways rare, distinctive and uncommon.

Yet what others deem conceit we often must coddle as necessity, although they, too are guilty of the very same indiscretions of being which they accuse us of with such persistently condescending acuity. For Hypocrisy is always the first sin to be revealed within the ecumenical church of the Human Dialectic.

Yet despite this, oh how the petty games of the socio-political arena do run on a cruel continuum, as we still choose to see only what our feeble minds will allow. Yet this, I believe with an almost toxic conviction, is often the deftest weaponry which we can bear in the face of all self-preservatory maneuvers, both defensive & offensive.

For this is where the more primitive leanings of our animus attempt to assiduously assert their dominance over that neoteric thirst & hunger, which fights for Evolution over Preservation vs. Survival over Thrivance. As for myself, for now it will just have to be all about survival. Survival of the misfittest. Oftentimes as of late, I wonder, as Sigmund Freud once theorized, if literally everything humankind does stem from Fear. Perhaps we love because we fear not being loved. And perhaps we hate because we fear the love that we prophesy would become our slow but sure demise. Perhaps we give because we fear the taking. Nihilo sanctum estne?

There used to be no struggle, and my Virtue flowed so naturally-was artless. I was able to disengage myself from any evil that could annihilate me. Now? I feel impotent against the seeds of Hypocrisy & Dubiety which fester within the bowels of my Soul, as they systematically bloom into overgrown Mind-flowers of Oleander.

But, is it an illness merely of Mind? It feels more like a slow, chronic sickening that begins at the base of the amygdala, creeping & crawling its wicked way to soon insidiously invade the whole system. Will I surrender to the irresistible nothingness of this black hole abyss of Despair? It has oft been said and it indeed is the darkest before the light, yet why should night spill over into and consume all of my days?

I have never felt so on the verge of utter Chaos & Depravity, though my rigid command of all socio-political finesse betrays this sentiment. Evil is a monstrosity of many an alias, but only one face and one name.

Yet still, when you are in the shade, everyone else seems to gravitate in subtle yet nevertheless, cunning, cutting deliberation towards the sun. Yet their own fear, demonstrated with lucid precision through the bodily medium of their evasion, merely seeks to further solidify the walls of the Byzantium fortress of all inhabiting that isle of Solipsis.

Yet the true tragedy is how often we must douse all of the fire within the Spirit, to seize control of those flames which seek only our own annihilation.

Yet perhaps this all or nothing approach is a going about it the wrong way. Perhaps I should just surrender myself completely to the light. I can no longer dance so passionately with contradiction. My gown is in tatters, my shoes worn thin and my limbs, no longer nubile enough to give just expression to its moody notation. This seems to be the only alternative for a being of such extremes. I am only one person and henceforth can choose only one path. One cannot serve two Masters, indeed.

The longer a mortal Soul dwells upon this earth & within the World, its Fear will eventually supersede its Passion. Yet the fear of Passion and its ultimate consequence & cost which we know the world will painstakingly exact from us, far exceeds our fear of fear. Perhaps forgiveness is the blade that can sever these encumbering ties.

But when there is so much to be forgiven and so little final absolution, the only faith left to prevail in a world of such fickle illusion is faith in uncertainty. For if the providence of the Divine is indeed in reign over this life, then the twin sisters of Faith & Hope have grown even more estranged from one another than we had previously pondered.

In essence, existence becomes an entity in dissension with its very self. And more and more, the need for the search, no matter how earnest, for transcendence to be sufficient in & of itself in taming this homeostatic restlessness & ennui is proving futile.

For Caution may be a cataract in the eye of self-appeasement but should it suffice to presume that the only remedy for this malady be, by proxy, the psychical extraction of the whole damn eye? Though this would indeed bring new definition to “blind faith”.

And perhaps ignorance is bliss at least until your own folly is brought to reminiscence. And once this has occurred, you are changed forever. So we tug upon the threadbare, tattered sleeves of our idols, ever pleading a return to Inscience. For we long to go back to a time where there were no answers, only questions sugar-coated with the flagrant, casual abstractions of Youth.

For it seems we begin to truly falter, when we forget how to let the Questions of this gloriously confounding human experience rest content within their mystery and riddle. And the mind grows systematically far less akin to pardon than the heart, and soon, there truly is no such thing as Dreaming, let alone oblivion.

Yet still, we must go on. We must find faith in something even if it be faith in our own faithlessness. Consciousness is indeed the ground of all being, but it is also the Queen Mother of all eventual Despair and Anguish.

Yet any age brings with it, its own angst. And even if, in our omniscience lacking eyes, it all amounts to nothing, we must learn to treat Truth with the regard that she deserves for caring after us with such diligence. For hopes and dreams might indeed be virtues, but they are also lies of omission.

If anything, I can have faith in both the vagaries and the pleasures of this fleshly mind-bound, yet vagabond inhabitancy, but most of all, I choose to have faith in the one who will stop at nothing to prevail. Thus perhaps, I am already, quite well & quite sound.

There is a fear not of being lost to the self but a fear of being lost to others. For what we are to others is rarely who or what we must be or are to ourselves. The self is not easily forgotten. It is intractable, and knowing who we are from who we are not breeds a deep-seated feeling of alienation in a world which merely wishes to conform us to its desires & standards.

Yet, the necessity of Individuation persists despite its perils, and beyond many smooth, rolling plains lies the volcano, inactive. A vulture circles, shrieking and the fists of my feet pound the solemn earth. I feel it shift. Beyond many smooth, rolling plains lies the volcano, active, spewing forth a molten stream of hot lava to carry me back to the beginning point-a point where I am always at my end. Meanwhile, the wind gives thrust to the vulture, its shadow perches itself upon the jagged edges & remains of my mind, and I am free, once again.

The self is being asserted and fulfilled especially during the doing of a supposed selfless deed or act. Therein lies another Grande Paradox. Selflessness, in, by and of itself is not a completely obtainable goal. For the self, by its very nature & inclination can be concerned only with its own preservation & propagation. The absence of the self feeling that of its own presence may be attainable during altered perceptual states, but the self is still and always, there. Out of mind, out of sight indeed, but never out of being.

If a Self falls in the middle of the jungle of this world, will anyone be around to catch it? The lines of fragmented ardour pierce as crazy rays this way and that, and I am left bereft of much to say but anything that will bring this geometrically inept mind to incalculate understanding, and this Hell-bent heart to septimal Pythagorean obeisance.

Yet it all keeps coming to 360 degrees, a full circle quite moot in its points, configurations and solutions. For the variables may alternate but the proof is always the same, one which never ceases to elude your logical figuring as to how you got there.

So you go to the back of the book-any old book-and still all they give you is the damn answer on yet another ‘why’ axis. Such elusive coordinates are this life and the living of it…

The thing inside festers and grows, threatening to consume all rationale and prudence. Sometimes I look it in the eye and demand that it speak its name, that it show me its true face. It responds with retreat, often obeisant, more often mocking. I lie in bed one evening dreaming of just this entity, and when it finally came close enough to speak, still, it said nothing, merely sneering at me with its piercing, evil eyes and bearing its fangs. Yet suddenly, it all became very clear to me. I jolted up in intense, near theophanic revelation, facing it dead-on and said, “You are ME.” It quickly retreated.

The trembling inside is not doubt, it is anger, an anger so disowned it has become Rage, a Rage so disowned, it is Fear. And thus how quickly it comes to pass, that Fear becomes the end without end: Fear of rejection, fear of pain of mind, fear of pain of body, fear of self thus, fear of others, fear of damnation, thus fear of salvation, fear of being consumed, thus a fear of becoming all-too consuming to oneself, Fear of being dominated, yet an equal fear of dominating-thus fear of life, thus fear of death, fear of love, fear of hate, yet most of all fear of fear.

Fear quarantines the soul, though fear itself is the disease. Yet perhaps my greatest fear is of a Fear of exposure, for my dirty secret is Truth-all Truth held in contempt and mocked by the external world. Most only wade in the shallow waters, but I guarantee all ye, that the shark lurks not only in the depths. When hungry enough, it, too, will swim downtide.

This blood lust billows about my skin like a black, velveteen cloak and I feel whole again, in my thicker skin. And as my shadow merges into me like sweet liquid night, I breathe in the dense air of primal release like an orphan deprived of feed by the negligent Mother of Civility and the insolent Father of Shame. And now, I surrender myself to Hate’s asphyxiating yet intoxicating embrace, for Mother and Father have now forsaken me-thus may I walk alone, unhindered, unencumbered.

Yes, from henceforth, there shall no more rage left to merely simmer in rolling boil until its empty evaporation. Instead, I shall gluttonously indulge this dark appetance, as I feast upon the delicate, succulent mystery meat of true mortal catharsis, discarding the rancid, meatless broth of tempered vindication. For so long I have thrashed within this relentless knowing. I unleash myself in full upon the hellish hounds of impulsive inclination, for I have been granted reign and mastery over them and their vapid, four-legged fallacies. For they gnash their fangs at anything that commands their attention & apperception.

I gnash mine at the beck & call of an instinct a bit more discriminatory in its expression. I rage for what is right and true. Yet most of all, I rage for what is right, true and denied.

And so the Heart has changed its tune again before the Mind can compose its deafening score. And these melodies of sentiment speak of the preservation of those things which keep me from loving and being loved.

Yet for now, the other fine art lesson shall go on & I shall only expect, in this intermediary interlude to continue to make one slight brushstroke forward and five vigorous gashes backwards from the center of the canvas. One must master this, if nothing else.

If only you would cry for me. If only you would scream, kick and moan, this would make my day. My Primordial Essence aches & burns from the lack of that Compassion I have offered in plenitude to others, yet have not received in return. I need the manna of your fear. Nothing would please me more you see, than to have you confess your sins to me. Let me inside! Open wide! Or just leave it to me, a little interpersonal B&E. I have all the tools and a titanium will born of love lost dementia and desperation.

I am ready. Let me into your most private nation. My wickedness will not rest until you show yourself for all that you are, feel, think, & see. The reason you should trust me is because I am your enemy. We can rest upon the sweet assurance of cohabitant contempt and unfettered self-expression. We can find Transcendence, becoming One within the engulfment of total mutual exposé. Conjoin with my soul. Lurk deep within the bowels of an acute lack of reticence.

I love hating you-this will not be easy, much like the continuity of peace of mind. There is fire and destruction within us all. But it is at its utmost peak of blaze and glory where there is danger in numbers & safety in nothing. So come to me & let me teach thee of the fine art of Sublimation. There is no pleasure in transience anymore, only a Contempt born of that Trepidation born of an unshakeable Ennui.

I now seek solace instead within the toasty hearth of incendiary Cynicism. I drink no more from Naivete’s cup, once overfloweth, now a mere no quarter-full or empty-however I choose to drink it.

Yet now I see how perhaps the innocence & artlessness that I grieve the loss of, gets you into far more trouble.

Ah-But now I’ve really done it. The glass is empty, for I just knocked it over and I can’t recall if it was intentional. Oh well, why cry over spilt Nescience? Oh, where to begin?

The heart is cold and tired yet by far not terminally malaised. It still beats strong and steady to its own hell-bent rhythms. It remains ever young, in many ways unsung, though it is well schooled in the contra-dictatorial curriculum of this human multilemma. And due to the very essence of mortal life, which is both fickle and vain, there will be no graduation with honours from this arduous education, although we will still be strictly held to the same standard of advancement.

Yet ultimately, it is Fear with whom we must sever all ties, for it will only lead us into the dueling temptations and provocations of disillusionment and self-estrangement. And we should take care not to mistake Fear for Integrity or for Righteous Lamentation. And we should also keep in mind during this life, that Sorrow is as legit as Optimism and perhaps more so, for sanguine nonchalance so often misses the main point in the long-winded lectures of psychospiritual refinery.

Melancholia is also a rather practical state of mind in a world where Justice tirelessly seeks ministration. To everything there is a time, place and calling. To everything turn, turn, turn-towards, not away.

Everywhere I turn there is destruction or the threat thereof. I cannot escape this deranged frenzy of my own co-creation. If I should thoroughly follow through with the externalization of this inner gnashing, slashing, annihilative need, Hell will be forever lost to mere paranoiac postulate.

Even alone I am tormented, as the asphyxiating weight of oppressive mnemonics permeates my every nerve and cell. My eyes take in nothing but the subtleties of the covert attempts of others to destroy me from the inside out. My ears hear all but that which I so desperately need to hear. My olfactory senses are consumed with the acrid, rotting stench of the slow depreciation of all that used to belong to me but is now useless and worth less than even nothing or is merely too Tantalusian of a feat to gain back.

My Soul's tongue used to sip of only those things untainted, fully satiating & invigorating. Now I taste only corruption and death. And though everything is numb to the touch-still, I flinch. Yet is this all perhaps just a given, and therefore just yet another futile & foolish lament? Ah! But soon we will all taste, feel, see, smell, and hear of nothing and so will have reached the bliss of a heaven perhaps second-rate, a Heaven nevertheless. For when we’ve been in Hell long enough, any bliss will do.

Apathy is my drug of choice. Yet the communal voice is the one thing that still rings loud and uncensored, and it sings of the body’s betrayal.

Slipping into madness again, or is it the womb of God? It is a lazy, languid descent. There is fear here, a blocked dam of potential. Dear God, will I flood out as I am strangulated by the elements of this humane extreme, as the mundane senses taunt and mock my cowardly compliance with the supposed “definitives”-of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, over-recited soliloquies and overrated conceptions?

Oh deviant, imbecilic tongue, how you taste of that sweet nectar, yet eject the seeded core with such haste at the slight feel of a texture astray from what you have been lashed to paralysis and disarray to savor.

Oh tone-deaf, self-serving ear, how your brother Arm slams that window shut with such irascible scorn to quiet the nagging drone of a wind which you fail to hear is the redemptive, whispering murmur of a praying child across the hall.

Oh myopic, shape-seeking eye, how you wish that what you have seen could but only have preceded what you have watched only from a vicariously safe distance, and seen parched lips fatuously foretell and deride with such toxic conviction to your malleable leanings.

Oh haphazard heart, if only you knew that what you believe is true.

Oh hedonistic nose and skin, if only the deep, rich fragrance of a lilac could but be found repulsively pungent and a shotgun blast to the knee, levitate and not ground thee so harshly, could you begin again, senses anew, unmitigated by convention.

For then at last would you know where true madness multiplies, over populating the Society of the Soul with its overbearing antics of pseudo-nurture and rhetorical inquisition.

It is all too common in this day and age, to smell only extinction & damnation while acutely & painstakingly hungering and searching for redemption.

It is all too common in this day and age, to seek comfort within what ultimately becomes a Dystopic Mindscape of those whims which merely seek to cultivate Perplexity and Malcontent.

Yes, it is all too common in this day and age, for the flesh to be ravaged or enraptured as the true feeling is lost grasp of at a mere one degree, skin deep.

Oh yes, do not get me wrong, of so much wonderment I do sing of this mortal human incarnation & phenomenon of ontology, but of the Mind & Body's omnipresent betrayal and the Spirit's scarcity? I sing in full coloratura.

I have lived sporadically & briefly without fear and thus have I tasted of true freedom. But in the throes of Love Organic I was met only with a spurious kind of unencumbrance, for many new fears came to abide in the place of the ones evicted by the punitive leer of a Loneliness now assuaged.

Yet matched with the Love Divine, the only fear left to reconcile was the fear of Fear’s return, lest that Love Divine be crushed by the Herculean hand of the ambivalent heart and the ruminative mind, perhaps never to be found again.

Love is by nature healing and formative and not wont for destruction, even in the lowest lofts of its residing. However, by nature we are more easily bewitched by and enamored of Longing rather than Contentment and especially its evil twin, Complacency.

Hence do we more so than necessary keepeth away from our own definitive possession and indeed, even taketh away before anything can be pillaged from us, Self-Subversion’s covert yet immanently insidious creed.

I must become what I am for then I will be mocked no more from within, henceforth sparing myself from the snares set for me by all external saboteurs, real and illusory. And the ones who do seek to destroy me, I will be able to face with a skin of impenetrable elasticity.

The monstrosity inside seeking to come to full metamorphosis must not be opposed for it thrives upon my very evasion of it and I thrive, in due part, upon its sadistic persistence. For it is an entity of such benign yet pernicious presence that it can be tamed and sated only by and through confrontation and integration. For what we are as human incarnations is many layers and components. Hence, the nagging question remains: Must we choose but one face to represent ourselves in all of these variant possibilities of ontological projection?

Or perhaps we should anticipate many moments of time, place and circumstance in which to let them all be equally displayed-in which to grant them all free reign to play? All I do know is that I feel whole only when I remember how to play the game-on my own turf, that is. Rage resides in Fear in Fear’s purest form, as does deep Lamentation. Rage becomes potentially annihilative only through Fear’s refusal to be acknowledged and to be owned, as is.

All things must be recognized for what they are as well as for what they are not. Yet what lies beneath does not always assert itself with true cathartic assertion. Joy is often a mere premonition of the degree the next Sorrow will reach. Internal chaos can be masked contempt for tranquility and its less exultant experience. And just as a numbing-down of feelings could be an attempt to prevent a total dumbing-down of all sentience, Passion is often spuriously spawned from a dread of Stagnation, or may even be employed for the purpose of granting oneself a crafty head start in the death-sure race of Time.

Loneliness, though shunned by most as a desirable state, is often sought out preferentially to fill those empty spaces left by the pervasively dictatorial, cruel-and-usual ways of Ennui. Envy, though oft seen to be the Motherload of all Social Dissension and Discord, if properly sublimated can lead one to being the most envied, although both are precarious positions to be in and should be averted at all costs.

But of all the mortal phases of mind and flesh, Fear is the most heedless and the most needless. It is more essential to cultivate the Art Of Integration in all things, even doing this where Fear has righteous cause, not because we need to be fearless so that we may live, but because we must truly & fully live so that we may become less & less fearsome to ourselves and henceforth, to & for others. For this is where we will have achieved that Ultimate triumph over all dark forces which seek to tear us asunder.

Can we perhaps only truly and fully exist where we are not welcome? I have existed where I was not wanted but have I thrived? Perhaps I have, but deep within the crevice of some dark, dank rock of sad, solipsistic solidarity. The struggle of this life is not in becoming but in being that which we already are without deviation or paralytic doubt. Yet I must ask myself: Which is more valuable to me? Is it that reverence born out of respect for my so-called humility, simple virtue and humanistic nobility? Or is it that regard born of the awe of my impenetrability or seeming super-heroism? Which “respect” is most desired? Which type is most transforming? Can I covet both and still maintain my purity?

I am trapped within myself and I thrash relentlessly against the steel dictates and cruel existential militarism of this human experience and condition. And yet bowing to the shallow, petty dictates of conformity procures even deeper-cutting and potentially gangrenous afflictions. Thus, there is seemingly, no way out. Yet all anyone truly desires is a way into a world where their innards can be most safely and freely expressed and fulfilled. And when we fight fiercely for ourselves, others fail to see how this is the only method towards an authentic sense of altruism. If I compromise the me, myself and the I, then I most likely will not be able to accommodate the you, and I cannot bear the multiple repercussions which will be wrought from a lifetime of such self-neglect.

Truly, in the end, if we fully embrace our own freedom and responsibility, we are freer to share of the spiritual gifts of this life with others. And even though I have pondered whether the human heart is truly capable of spiritual transcendence and forgiveness when the Mind so continually forgets only such things redemptive to the Good Cause. And to be lost within the labyrinth of our own doubt is the most treacherous state to coddle beyond a certain point.

But at least when we are lost, we have no confusion about our own faithful prodigality before the feet of the abusive, negligent Father of Self-Defeat-and thus, in a masochistic sense, are we found. Therefore does the one reliable thing in this crazy life prove itself to be discontinuity itself. But do not get me wrong, Self-Knowledge is power, and those who seek their sustenance and strength by feeding only upon the abundant yet ultimately malnourishing sweetbread of Denial will cease of the most pernicious perishing in the end.

For although the bastard child, Denial, will for a short duration, allow these to escape from the forging claw of crucial self-examination, only a deep and abiding ontological insecurity and Anguish can ultimately and parthenogenically be born from this barren womb. For true Courage is the only rightful, miracle progeny born of the immaculate union between Introspective Veracity and Amour-Propre. For only the most eminent answers truly, need a question.

When the light goes out, the shadow only appears to be gone. Seduced by the devil. Once again mistaking freedom for liberation. Yet deliverance is coy by its very nature, though not in the least bit sly. It is guaranteed but not necessarily loyal. It is fickle and not unlike Fate, if we neglect it, both light and shadow will soon be lost to the sight, thus allowing the darkness to better deceive us. Shadow and light must coexist not only because they compliment one another but because they will, in due time, cancel each other out completely. And then, all that will be left is the Choice, an eager new void, hopeful and throbbing.

It is not the rebuke or the chronic rejection I cannot live with. It is your total silence and absence, lazy, loathsome and meandering, always choosing to nestle itself most cozily within the chambers of my void-ridden yet still overcrowded soul.

And you think this will bring me relief and so you turn away out of your fear to speak or say anything, for I think you know that it will be at that very moment that you will reveal your full comprehension of my intense need & thus, your part in fulfilling it.

But silence works wonders only in those places where silence is mutually sought. I suppose my craziness must frighten one such as you, but any inanity aches for the becalming salve of understanding. Do not write me off just yet. Many of your ways are foreign to me.

And although I may not fully empathize, I know the necessity of random pseudo-consolation. But know this: I hold no grudges against your mute, deaf and dumbed-down concern, for through your insouciant evasion is mirrored your own reflection so indistinguishable from my own.

Fear in any form, especially hidden always reveals us. There is nothing left to lose, only my plentiful intensity and servitude to gain. For as long as I remain in this state I cannot give without first partaking. You are by far not my solution, but you are an essential part of the formula for the undoing of my undoing. My need for you is not vital, but it is visceral.

My heart has a hollow reverberation when faced with the absence of your relation. My blood runs chilled with the rush of toxic yearning in your eminent absence. My laughter comes from the lungs, wheezy, strained and empty-not from the gut, brazen and keen. My bones are silent and stiff as they struggle to move both towards and away from your solemn withdrawal. My sweat tastes of impending neurosis-and my tears? They cannot flow when my eyes are deprived of something concrete to devote their cause to. And what of my mind? My mind wishes that it could merge with yours.

But the mind is a diffident cell. It lets in many invaders but will be brought to deep anguish from the reverse mitosis of another mind which so neglectfully refuses Truth. And what of my Soul? It is unfazed but not in the least immune. There simply is no-one else like you. You can be let go but you cannot be replaced.

Yet you also do not fill a void, for my heart is already quite overrun by the menacing presence of such disorderly cognitive conduct. But you do add a totally new element. And I am always filled with utter abandon. My door is always open. No amount of Truth can shut me in or shut you out. Come, let us strip ourselves down to only the barest of essentials. Come, and dive into me.

What is this skin? It thins with age as I surrender all joie de vivre & savoir faire to the shabby cemeteries of cognitive sophistication. This is the nagging question:Where do I belong? Because even in this skin I feel a misfit. Nothing fits but my own seething, gnawing disgust and hostile ambivalence. I cringe as I bear my teeth upon the titanium bars of this self-constructed prison which has far too often lured me into its planetary field of Saturnine salutations and seductions.

At least I am better at disguise now. Or am I? This mortal human skin is just too damn thin for the fires of the hell that we stoke with our incessant ignorance and insolence. For what is right, is wrong. What is wrong, is right. So, whose opinion matters more? Is there no fight left in me? Or perhaps the proper enquiry is: Can I keep up this fight and for how long? Or is this merely a state of self-induced systematic falling away which is contrarily most expedient and essential to my own preservation & continued evolution?

Yes, to just fall away. There has always been something there to catch me thus far, no matter how illusory it might have been revealed to be in hindsight. For there truly is comfort to be gleaned from any catastrophe. For the more we are hated and condemned by the world, the more we can be rest assured that we are doing something right, the more we feel we may have found our true place.

Yet I will, akin to my nature occasionally stop to ask: What am I? As I know all too well of the utter demoralization & dehumanization which this world will eventually attempt to inflict upon me. And then the torment might begin again anew: Have I no heart? No soul? No spirit? What have I become? As the Soul's eye comes to see both too much and too little. Yet from here on out I will focus on this one hope: the everlasting mercy in abundance of the Divine One. But I often wonder if can I take any more than I already have, only to squander it all once more upon self-doubt & compulsive self-reproach? I cannot take more than I can give. I just don’t have the stomach for this kind of insouciance. I have already bitten off more than I can chew. I have so much to offer yet seemingly no-one to take the offering for what it’s truly worth. I am just not myself anymore. Will I ever return? I hope. I pray. Am I worthy? I have become overly Westernized, lobotomized, stigmatized, pathologized and demonized.

We are resented for our phoenix-like displays of effervescence & transcendence and yet condemned equally if not more so when we are lost and estranged. But middle of the road will never truly be acceptable for anyone. And now I’m beginning to wonder if there is such a thing as too much self-examination, as there is a fine line between that excess leading to enlightenment and that excess leading to digression and eventual demise.

So then perhaps honesty is the best policy, but in rationed measures. And anyhow, everything has already been seen, heard and proclaimed. I have always felt most at home within the deep end. Perhaps my passions will become less urgent as I age. And yet I will never accept their total surrender & abdication. For I have already in my youth, had to compromise far too much of my most fundamental, noble and cherished self just to hold my sanity intact.

Yet I am beginning to see through the lies. Because maybe its not so much that I don't fit into this world inasmuch as it refuses to accommodate me. Thus must we hold on to let go, and let go to hold on. I don’t know what to believe in save my own gradual deterioration. All that was once lucid and real has been proven mere illusion. Have I relied too much upon my own eyes of selective perception? Or does my madness lie in a seeming oblivion to my actual soundness of Mind and Soul?

Nevertheless, the devil tarries on, plying his trade at every opportunity which presents itself if but even for a nanosecond of human doubt or fear. And soon I fear, yet oddly enough at the same time, eagerly anticipate the moment that I will know with all finality that I am, irretrievably mad.

Yet it is only within madness that we can feel whole, most authentic, and blissfully unified. For true Insanity wears the false masque of Rancour, Discord & Crude Dichotomy. And when at last we have departed from all of the true madness of this world, perhaps only then will we be declared the heroes & saints we were all along.

Yet for now, perhaps I shall indulge in the exigencies of Indifference, for no separation can occur within its wake, for all is free to just be. And yet must I also tread with Caution, lest I assign myself to this role for the duration of my earthly incarnation. The question is not what will become of me should I acquiesce to this role, but what will become of me if I do not, at least for the time being. Desperate measures for the preservation of the most precious treasures, after all. For Surrender no longer softly coaxes, it warns. It is the only Internal Dictator that I can from henceforth regard with such Blind Obedience. For perhaps Madness is all we have ever known, and hence must glean our esteem & health from it. Silent but deadly are my notions. Inert yet exponentially gaining in Mass/Energy toils my deepest abiding Cause & Purpose in their fascistically censored expressivity & actualization.

Inscrutable is my maxim. Dogmatic yet persuasive is my doctrine. All too common yet cryptic is my creed. Staid yet raging are my mores. Been but not being, am I. I am silent, therefore I am and am not. But my kind of knowing is not honored around these parts. It is seemingly mine alone. I have a voice, though only I seem to hear it, to truly heed and honour its call, therefore declaring it Null & Void.

Fear not what you don’t understand lest it decipher you first. My own seclusive and all-inclusive comprehension has cut me on the bias, yet how the habit is of such a fine cloth, wrapping itself around my ill-fitted mind like a second skin, stretch velvet and satin-lined.

And oh how I carry myself with such reluctant reign and command. Yet my ease shies away not because it resents its calls to duty, but because it fears its call and merit to be witnessed. Yes, the patient suffers from feelings of unworthiness, but at least not worthlessness.

The patient possesses all anyone could ever desire but feels powerless to accept it and to actualize it within the external world. What is the diagnosis? What is the prognosis? What is the treatment plan? Patient agrees to continue in merciless self-examination and take a large dose of toxic disinterest before bedtime.

But patient will most of all, continue working to change her delusions of inferiority & persecution to a more socially acceptable & “adaptive” Narcissistic Complex.

I resent them most for their Joy, the ease of their bodies, the quicksilver gaiety of their laughter, the seeming clarity of their minds. But most of all, I resent them for their adept ability at disguise. Misery, born from the parthenogenic egg of Illusion.

The question is not what is fact or what is fiction. The question is can we separate fact from fiction when the innards so exactingly mold the outtards? Will you separate what is essential and most expedient from what is not?

Yet, again, the age old enquiry of: What is real? Is it a quantity over quality thing, or a quality over quantity thing? Or are we here dealing with something so profoundly complex & intangible that such classifications are not only inadequate for its analytical cogency, but deign not even worthy of it? Yet more often than not, the lure of delusion is much more enticing. It is an irresistible surrender, giving yourself to self-contained and self-maintained delirium.

The seduction is at first subtle and gradual, yet once you succumb, drags you under, drawing you into its filthy, fuzzy flesh to rape you repeatedly from within until you begin to like it and what was once an assault & sodomization uninvited becomes a vehement lust for enmeshment. For it is a flame that will always burn. It is a flame no new passion can easily replace for Fear is the first, middle and last name of this slithery suitor juggling the alternate masks of 'Have' and 'Have-Not', with a lean, mean mass conditioned only for the surest kill. When Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection, the sun grieved. It still weeps today.

There’s so much that we all want. But Fear is often weightier than Desire. My flame still burns but I have suffused it to a mere dwindling kindle. When I open my mouth I carry a flaming torch but my body never ceases to betray me. My mind is a Chinese box. The key? There is none, just the whims of my own will to accept that the only way to open it is by not trying at all.

Greatness must be left to edify itself. It knows no other way. It is natural. Let it flow. Let it ooze. Let it go. Better yet, let it spew forth from every pore. Spontaneity brings forth far more gain even in its most reckless forms-ask anyone. Protocol breeds only Shame & Insolence. I got the role and guess what? I didn’t even have to audition. And I play it just as well as anyone else, perhaps better. But both my weakness and my strength has always been to never do anything unless I feel it has meaning. Yet what I have discovered to have meaning doesn’t necessarily “make sense” at least to the ecumenical authorities of Exigency & Expediency, and what “makes sense” seems to have little to no ultimate meaning.

Hence, the old Cartesian torture chamber continues to exhibit its wares. Yet even understanding the metaphysical mechanics behind how the Heart will always be at odds with the Intellect, or the Spirit will always battle the so-called Flesh still places us at odds-perhaps even more so.

All I can declare in this moment is that I reject everything from now on that does not advocate these things: freedom of Expression & Truth In Being. This is the only Salvation of those of our kind. This is our Joy at ease. We must become fully who we are to avoid becoming that which we dread. Let it flow. Let it go. Let it ooze. Let it spew. Let yourself seethe.

One day you peer into the mirror and you see the shocking image, uncensored and stripped, of your own unmitigated Hypocrisy. And so your eyes rove again with nervous agitation up and down your flesh as they try to no avail and, in the gloriously paradoxical end, mercifully so, find all guises in their place again, as they once were, standing guard with militant cowardice at the base of the bridge where nose meets lips, and lips house the tongue which has so oft succeeded more than anything else at cunning disguise as it has crafted more lies and contradictions than it can sell to the meandering masses of first and last impression management.

For they are lips that speak of Love and Peace while resenting their seeming ineloquence of expression of how they see just as much eloquence in Hatred & Chaos. For the mind usually boldly thinks the opposite of what the voice can safely project. But in the end, will we all find ourselves blessedly broken, as how we have set ourselves apart becomes the means to the beginning of our serendipitous end, for only then will we finally see just how beautiful we are, standing there naked before our God.

What does one do when the cure for the disease is potentially more lethal than the disease itself? Only I will carry this knowledge within myself. What knowledge? A knowledge that even the most pseudo-spiritual palaver on how we are all One will not quell. Why then must it be upsetting? Because we cannot put it into words, the wrenching loneliness that we feel despite the universal existential constants that we are known to share with others.

And so we think that maybe we're just being too “me” centered, and go forth trying to forget the self. But the self will not be forgotten that easily, and indeed, cannot be at all. And so we remain often split between two worlds-that of Self vs. Others. But perhaps only when we are mad are we at last in full possession of the knowledge that only we, ourselves, can be all things unto ourselves. And thus do all those questions of identity which torment the mortal human mind seem never-ending, yet hopefully temporal all at once.

And we think that if we could just answer ourselves “Who am I?” that all will be well. Yet we only erroneously assume that this will grant us sacrosanct entitlement to everything we have ever dreamt without suffering the slings & arrows of shame or doubt ever again. Someone once said that staying true to oneself is the hardest battle we each will have to fight. For if the answer to the question of who are trying to appease is anyone but ourselves and our God, then we are lying with even more Machiavellian skill than ever before. But at least the one thing we can be sure of is that only when lost, are we truly, found.

A mind questioning things it doesn’t fully understand. A heart searching for things once felt. A soul atrophic from inhibition. A spirit estranged. A body writhing. A voice outspoken yet unheard. A name held in contempt. An instinct weakened. A dream closing. A will crippled. A light glaring and mocking. A peace unearthed. An honesty, brutal and seething. A truth forgotten. A love, a mind, a heart, a soul, a spirit, a body, a voice, a name, an instinct, a dream, a will, a light, a peace, a Truth, corrupt. A conciliation, dire.

With walls both tediously constructed-which way, compromise? I must have something in return. For whatever leeway is granted by this miserly world, a modest expanse of space is but a mere black hole singularity. Nothing is ever good enough for this world. For it dwells within the same shabby house of asbestos-infected shallow mentality year after year, month after month, day after day. I resent it for its fascism, cowardice & plundering perfidy.

How can I lie down and take it?! they admonish me. My insanity and my inferiority according to “them”, is the seeming inability to defend myself-to fight!!!! I can respect something that I don’t love. But can I truly love someone I don’t respect, especially myself? If there is one thing that a healthy human Conscience can never forgive this world for is how it has taught us things which we would have been better off not knowing. It is both a forced education and a mis-education. But would I have been better off? Although I realized which image was me in the mirror a long time ago, the only thing I have ever wanted was for someone to mirror it back with just a little more regularity.

Perhaps I will always carry this feeling of grief & great loss within myself. I suppose it is part & parcel of my human inhabitancy. But someday, when I look in the mirror while thinking of all of the serendipitous gems which have been mined from all of this soul-excavation, and can see nothing else but my unconditional, ever-imminent Salvation, will I be free. But until then, forgiveness remains a sloth on the Z train. It never quite fully gets home and stays put, although it indeed has taken me a long way.

My lover has left me and I have become what I have for so long feared. I want Reason back but he has left without so much as a goodbye. So I am back with Insanity and Shame and what a loathsome threesome we doth make indeed.

What is this mortal mind? At first, it wraps you within a warm, satin, luxurious-yet spurious sanguinity with its faint echo of the faint echo of the faintest echo of a whisper. Then, without warning it soon becomes a shattering, fragmenting soprano scream.

I am the human mind, ever present and ever clear in my danger. In my first phase, I house the conscience, amour-propre, and my fruit comes from the majestic tree of all that is good and wholesome. At my second phase, I am the conscience vagabond, pondering the possibility of its prodigality and thus still copious with Hope. This phase is most common, but unless the crimes it has witnessed are brought to the light of admonition, it may breach the third and final phase: the conscience lost.

And once Inscience has been fully embraced, the Soul is hard to deprogram. Only I will carry this knowledge within myself. I have never felt so alone. Have others estranged themselves from me or have I from them? I attune my ear for the answer and hear a collective sigh respired from the fertile womb of the world’s lament and feel both oversimplified and over-complicated by pride.

A world once inviting and filled with flattery for the all too eager ear of the pseudo-soul has grown neither hostile nor dreary, but into what it was all along, as the Soul's eye, so in need of the masochistic redemption of Longing, opens with quivering austerity, unsure that if what it sees is not the homely beauty of Hope, it will ever open unto anything again. But Hope might only torture it all the more so, for it is then that the suffering is granted nobility & meaning and thus must remain ever persistent in its cruel continuum.

What is this beast that has reign over me? Could I possibly loathe myself more? Perhaps this self-induced delirium is just a classic case of displacement? But perhaps the persons and things that I really hate deserve no more flagellation in light of the burden of guilt they already must bear.

For, they tell me, hatred of this intensity must bear justification no matter how pure it feels to me. And yet tragically, the self usually receives all of the credit and especially the blame. I must find a viable, nonviolent or destructive means of externalization before this monster on the inside bears its fangs at the wrong place at the wrong person at the wrong time. God have mercy on my soul.

Little by little I have let you in. Will you ever see me? Or only what your shell-shocked mind will allow? I feel your shame of me. If only I was better at disguise. I try to tell you how I feel but it all seems to fall on deaf ears. Will you ever hear me? Or will you remain vacuum-packed within your own selective perceptions? An inedible package of fermented proportions.

I come from your loins but have never felt so estranged from another human being on the face of this planet. I suppose that we just live in two totally separate worlds, and yet worlds so similar at the same time-you just won't acknowledge. You reject me as you reject yourself.

Yet what I have been trying to tell you is this: You may need to convince me that we are like water & blood, but they are both as essential to life support. I need you. You taught me that it is the absence that truly parallels the void left. It is not so much what you said, but what you didn’t say.

It is not so much who you truly are deep down, but the person that you deny to yourself, to me, to the world in your monomaniacal self-loathing. I hate to hate you yet hate even more needing to need you.

But all you have left me with is grief and the harsh but redemptive lessons they have brought. And yet as I grieve for you now, I also know that I will, forevermore.

Nothing’s coming, but everything’s going. Hell, I should be used to this kind of trade by now. Will I run out? Can I just let myself go? I can’t let it all go, so, can’t I just let myself go?

I ache constantly. It hurts to breathe. My mind has become an inhospitable house, infested with endless self-reproaches. Where is my muse? Does she lurk deep within the dust-laden pleats of the squeezebox of some washed out New Orleans street performer? Does she lurk in the murky shadows of some back alleyway? In the gondolas waiting to be boarded by far beyond jaded people like myself on the tired docks of Italy? Is our earthly worth perhaps based not only upon whether or not the world inspires us but whether it is inspired by us to live up to its name?

Where is my fervor? Has it been robbed by the masked drones of cloned clones of everyday? Or is it merely being borrowed by some Holy Rollin’ Baptist revival preacher who has never read of Prometheus and how he stole fire, too, but only that it might be shared with all? But here we have a mythical figure, you might say. He’s not even real! Which brings me again to the pondering of that which is real and that which is whim and how they are defined and how the clueless archivists of priority should rank them.

To Plato, the weight of something in the heart makes it substantial. To Aristotle, the actuality is superior to the ideal-never mind how everything takes root-in the secularist soul of the mind. but we’re not about roots around these parts. We’re all about the end dividend and the product.

You see, Creationism has more than one connotation and has been taken out of the schools in all of its forms which is why some children and grandchildren will probably know more about Ted Bundy than why that homeless man that we often pass on our way home from anywhere is actually a billionaire though he looks so smug and content slumped over in mocked despair and resignation in his abandoned storefront corner begging for pennies just for the hell of it.

All the purpose and meaning I once felt down to the marrow in my bones and the pep in my step has given way to the dumb glum and numb of status quo. So, where do I go from this all too commonplace of common place? I have never wanted to be neither “down-to-earth” nor a part of the “everyday people” aesthetic. We’re all truly snobs anyway. All we have ever wanted is to be accepted as our truest selves, which is a socio-political aesthetic definitely above average or even perhaps on the level of genius in a world where it is so easy to succumb to an us vs. them, superficial reason for being.

I learned a long time ago that you accomplish so much more when you think in terms of me vs. them instead. You’ve gotta make it happen! Perhaps my fear is that there truly is nothing new under the moon or sun, for what then will be my muse when I feel museless already, having seen both too much and too little? I throb and seethe to be relieved from this loathsome sensibility! Maybe the simple-minded are the only ones who are truly happy and can have any fun.

I want my words and my passion for what is harsh but true to be like manna for others. I wanna rock. I wanna roll. I want to titillate, scintillate and advocate the practicality and absolute necessity of living completely on a whim-no prayer. I want to live!!! Not just exist, dawdling along, never making more than a brief mnemonic impression on people. C'mon, we all do-even the socially condemned Introverts of the bunch.

Where is my muse? Why, she lives already within me. But she is ill, she has no will. I am a raging tiger in my own Rorschach blot.

I am fragmented and thus am I whole, for the question with many answers is the chance untaken, the maybe unaffirmed, the hope, unearthed. There is a whole larger than myself and yet I’m not so sure that it even knows my name. I know, this theme of conflicting doubt and surety has already been explored but the more trodden the landscape all the more that everyone can claim it rightfully as their own.

We have all been down this road many times before but some of us bear more scars to prove it. Some have trudged along smugly at a half-assed leisurely pace, yet some like myself were hog-tied to the back of an F-150 buck-naked and dragged through the streets. But this time, the direction will be a little clearer, though I still hope I have no clue where I’m going ‘cause a one-track mind simply can’t find anything worth looking for.

Tunnel vision has been known to cause much internal hemorrhaging and mental colic in its sufferers. I know what I need. I know what I want. I even know how to get it. But God damn the child that’s not his own, that’s not his own.

And Fear becomes her. How deep can I go? How deep can I go before digging my way back to myself? I have dropped my shovel. It falls into the abyss-the bubbling, toiling cauldron of all self-witchery. Now I claw my way in to get out. The only way out is no way in. The way in? No way out.

My Soul’s fingers are raw, my fingernails worn to the quick. Why must I so nonchalantly embrace my inborn Passions? For the only thing to truly be so desperate about is reconciliation and compromise, or so it seems. If I don't feel like I can surrender for the time being, I must learn to merge with whatever seeks to dominate me, a different sort of letting go-a more subversive, reverse methodology of self vs. other Mastery.

But I feel trapped behind this wall of defense for my defenses no longer defend but expose. They expose me to the critical and staggering eye of Pain and Perplexity. I am my worst enemy, but on the positive side I am also my best worst enemy. My mind, once prone to providing for my soul a home of respite and relief has cast my perceptions unto the wild dogs of dementia and I can only see, hear, feel, taste and sense with cutting intuition, the feeling that I am no longer welcome to reside within the reassuring knowledge that I can safely create my own world.

It is all about context, but the scenery behind me changes without my authorization and I remain piteously adrift in existential peril and high anxiety. I no longer trust my own eyes or any of my senses for that matter. The only sense that remains intact is Primal Instinct, Vigilance & Suspicion. What do I suspect? That it is all a matter of mind but also that fear has a place of nobility reserved for it in a world that conforms only to what the mind projects.

The consciousness of self, once swaying like a palm tree in a gentle, warm Tropical breeze now shrieking like Hell-bound pigs in slaughter. Preferring to be seen as rude and untouchable within one’s own extravagant glass world than be known as what egoism seeks to conceal, being cast away as such being far more acutely ravaging. They think, therefore we become. How I truly see myself is rarely calculated in the formal contract of Absolution.

And one is tempted to fall again into the black hole of Identity and its billion star mass of Perplexity to be cast into the eternal purgatory of the Ultimate of the Ultimate Questions, raw, naked, skinned, gutted and answered. I have bade the devil to enter and he will not leave. Yet for what love is lost has Terror been returned in macabre measure to this iniquitous frail ghost, down to its crusty crux, leaving a residue, compliantly fixed.

And what the mind fails to understand, the soul sweetly demystifies through the slow but sure abreaction of implosive transgression and I fall into the stunning, truistic trance of unruly oblivion and receptively inert intuition. The Shadow always follows wherever we go. Yet this dark entity needs no light to grant it substantiality and form. How can one live a lie? How can one not live a lie? Can I dance with Hypocrisy for longer than I have been able to bear dancing with Paradox? Or are they one and the same, set apart only by name?

I feel on the verge of psychotic immersion and frenzy as the complex architecture of self-hatred and pseudo-narcissism begins to construct itself, housing the time-space causation of an endless void, echoing remnants of humanity lost. I float about, rising and falling and rising and falling with languid stupidity within the cold, damp air of its confines, finding Truth again when I realize it all to be a mere lucid dream from which I must learn to fall asleep, for only then will I truly be able to awaken from the impending nightmare that is my own mind life.

Sometimes I try to recognize the madness in others’ eyes yet can scarcely distinguish between the logical configurations of the socio-political anima and the relativistic weight and absolutes of the subjectively projectile soul. Yet we all still seek a world congruent to the one existing within ourselves. This is the only way we can rectify the threat of existential annihilation which seeps and creeps into our every cell in moments such as these. Nothing is known, yet therefore all is known. Freedom is negation. Freedom is negation.

The empty spaces affect us the most. The empty spaces. The empty spaces. My stomach rumbles. I’m hungry. Father. The cupboards are nearing bare. I am nearing barren. I really need to go to the grocery store. The cupboards, the fridge, the drawers, the compartments, the compartmentalizations need more, are bare, are barren, are more than one can bear. Mother. The empty spaces-No, that’s Father. We’re on Mother.

The filled to overflowing cases of unprecedented angst. Aunt, grandma, brother, sister, lover, friend, acquaintance, walking, talking, breathing ATM machine, business partner, friend of a friend, enemy of a friend, friend of an enemy, friend of enemies. Something is preventing you from feeling the love of God. The empty spaces filled to overflowing. The empty spaces, filled to overflowing. Maintaining my jeopardy. To enjoy hating as much as loving to love and be loved in return. The human heart will never be pure in the shadows of such contradiction.

The only mercy on me is the spurious redemption to be found in the visceral, possessive nature of Apathy. Here, it is bearable almost to the point where mind, body and soul become whole, feel at home at last. This is the main concern: The darkness frees. We see not. We are not seen. The light binds & exposes with questions all too answer ready-What should we be? Where we have been? Or where we are? For here, we are inescapably seen.

The road less traveled is not even a road, but a rail, with much less margin for error-but certainly not injury. But the path often followed is both our mediocre triumph and our terror. Life is so much harder when you believe in heaven and hell. Or is it easier? Depends upon where you stand relative to true Faith.

I did not ask to be born the only creature given a choice who still will not go unscathed by rebuke and disowning at the hands of my Creator. Have you ever watched, a beautiful thing, dying? Poetic justice for all, not just the ugly and the neglected. Nature does not discriminate unless it must choose-and it always must choose.

Daddy beat her senseless from within and without because he so “loved” her and wanted to bestow upon her, the upright way to limp. Mommy expects nothing less than the best from him, for she has a need to redeem herself from the shackles and chains of her own private shame. We are not our parents’ or our elders’ pride, we are their scapegoats, even when no disgrace or dishonour on our part is evident.

I just must say, that I hope God judges me differently, for if not then it will really hit home just how much better I could have been without cause for dissent, and perhaps would have known just how futile and meaningless, these struggles.

Maintaining my jeopardy, to salvage the last scraps of dignity from the garbage can. The way in, is no way out. The way out? No way in. Believe me, there is no such thing as mortal transcendence, such big words for such little potential for ever possessing anything more than benign denotation. But the sooner ye confesseth these words with your mind and your mouth, the more ye are saved. Freedom is negation.

You don’t know me. You never have and perhaps never will, for your weakness has always been to choose what you want to see, hear, feel and be. This is why I have had to make a compromise, to keep my inner treasures locked away until someone comes along who will appreciate them and give them the consideration that they are worthy of.

Do not just love me, but worship me. I am your cult. It can be no other way. Let me slowly but systematically deprogram your sweet soul with my fire and ice, reprogramming it with wisdom unfounded. Do this or perish there within the realm of the mere mirage of my love. I so need this, for I am one of those who has not looked for love in all of the wrong places inasmuch as love has sought me in all of the places where love rightly goes wrong.

For I will always push while you pull-this is my religion, my one damning yet saving grace. It is the cult of dejection, rejection and fear of attachment. We are programmed to do and be that which we have experienced and therefore that which can only come so naturally to us. This is my own twisted, self-abnegating logic. For somehow, beneath the softness surrounding, the fight is forgotten and I seemingly cannot regain my mastery, like pearls to swine, the constant trampling underfoot of the inmost personage, causing collapse-the centre cannot hold.

And thus is Virtue erected, a makeshift foundation to house the fragile adornments of diffidence and the renovating siding of surrender, so that I might learn a whole new yet primeval way of relating to “the Other”. For as you sit in your glass house, unleashing your cold, brittle stones, the devil goading you on to play, a subservient child to blind obedience, within my private residence of vulnerability I dwell, a funhouse for your weary souls.

Yet I will only welcome you if the stones you throw are the ones I have already shattered myself with, for hear this: The one in greatest need of repair, will be the one bequeathed with the utmost care. Like pearls to swine, like diamonds to wild dogs I have thrown myself to you. But I suppose I just haven’t learned yet, the beauty in the far surpassing utility of self-preservation.

Ravage me as you will, but once you are in, the doors will lock from outside in and I will make you stay, until you go insane with the impending suffocation of my depth and candor as I then hurl one of your cold, brittle stones at my soul’s eye, where you will then be sucked into the Vortex of what you always wanted to see, in the first place.

I have not been immunized or desensitized to every phenomenon just yet. There is a God after all. Come to my door ready to shoot and I will gladly be open for negotiation. But it will not kill me still. For I lurk deep within the bowels of everyone’s Fear & Primal Intuition. I am the battle which has been fought for centuries, a battle which does not cease.

So try your petty insults, condescension, silver bullets, stakes through the heart, but you will merely grant alibi and method to my madness-to this lethal liturgy. You shall succeed only in releasing me to haunt you into Eternity, a sadistic, macabre martyr, where I will forevermore bear a smug, Machiavellian sneer of Comeuppance and Contempt.

And then will you finally learn of true Vengeance, and of how it seeks reconnaissance and reign through Righteousness, not aimless Rancour. So come. Come to me. Come with blood and vindication dripping from your breath. Murder me by proxy of your modus operandi of preference. But again, be not deceived, for it will be in this very moment when I shall feign and dare to breach the point of no return-the delusion that I have instead been freed, that I have been redeemed. And what I believe I shall become.

So, if this is not the end result you want, then let me tell you of my Kryptonite, as you take me into your loving arms, reminding me of who I really am. For the only way you can kill me, is to love me. Yes, this sweet, slow, swaying slaying, I cannot transcend.

Sucked of all sweetness, my arm extends to hook at a 90°angle around the curve of your neck. But the feeling is dry, stiff and withered, like the flowers you sent just yesterday morning and they’re already lifeless- though I’ve watered them and given them their proper abundance of light. Yet they are still there within that Machiavellian foresight nerve that senses all too well who is being tricked and who is doing the tricking.

But Time has a mind of her own, regardless of any intuitive initiative or extra-sensory ambitions we might coddle. We walk now to the ivy-laden gazebo which the wind and the sanguine summer sun seem to appreciate more than we ever did or could as your car idles nearby, humming an all-too-familiar tune of 'Goodbye'. We bob our heads in unison-at least we agree here-as the quiet seduction of monotony lulls us to indifference, even diffidence-but our gall is to the wall-for we cannot say “Goodbye” and we cannot even really say “Hello.”

And isn’t it funny how we play with words far more so than even the mere rhetoric of Surrender? But perhaps if the wall was demolished, the gall would at least have some say in all of the felonious crimes of the first degree which we commit against Nature and her many creeds, needs, take heeds and doctrines. But only a very select few have absolutely no hang ups about playing the role of antagonist. And we alone seem to share this much-coveted distinction out of an infinite number of protagonists. Is there nothing left for us here?

They say that living is something that, no matter how hard you try, cannot be denied and must be learned like loving-There is no Cupid! The organism is conditioned by doing, the heart, by being. But our hearts have been. Been there, done that, been beaten down, been torn, been filled to overflowing, been plundered & pillaged-been completely emptied of all good-have been and gone. Been. Doesn’t this word sound all too strangely familiar as it rests with maladroit stance upon the tip of Eye and Tongue? But I suppose that’s how the past tense is meant to seem-it projects one both into past & future tense, as the Eternal Now evanesces. But there is as much bondage to be found in freedom, as there is freedom to be found in bondage.

So, in essence here we have again, a positive and a negative canceling each other out, leaving only the choice, the blessed Great Void, hopeful and teeming.

But to be merely on the receiving end of Love & Life is a stitch without a wound, bones without the flesh. And if it is said that God’s love is the most sovereign of all the elements, then perhaps just as soon as we come to define God’s love for ourselves, will we come to see everything so clearly and will we reach the point of no return, as we can be gratified no more by Love’s mere quest & conquest, but will find ourselves becoming Love itself.

For in the end, love may be just a mere word with its all of its accompanying semantic baggage, but the truth is, that when love becomes of us, it will no longer need be defined, only we will. Venus aligns in inept exactitude with the earth, as we revolve around each other, a small infinity passing. Your alien eyes now open, probing me with covetous intensity, the two mean mystical stars they are.

And when I am pulled in by their glorious gravity, how I wonder what I am, a lost lion cub traipsing the star-guided lamb. Down beneath my world so low, are thy kinetic laws of east, west, north, south elliptical glow.

Thy meteor showers reign over my Big Sky thrice in a pink-red moon as the sun dances a slow, sensuous lambada over my meandering orb-a strange illusive eclipse of depraved doom, girlish gloom.

You say the next one may not come for another seventy days as you close your eyes, a blessing in disguise. Our come hither go thither atoms of mortal lust-bound cosmic matter split and separate, spinning and whirling, boying and girling, this ever-alchemic maze always fooling us into believing that we have mastered its maddening complexities and eternally exited its boundless bounds.

Yet how quickly it comes to pass again that we implode and explode, shatter flatter and flatter into the weathered walls of our bond and need, rocketed by Lovelust’s rapturous yet cruel creed, its wily sharp turns and intricate patterns forgetting us.

Yet we still keep thinking that we are found, only to come full revolution time and again and again and again, losing our way, universally.

To lust is to live. The flesh deceives only in the face of Self-denial.

This body, this mind, has known more pain than the Spirit has claimed & kept Exultation & true Pleasure. To win the battle one must know one’s competitors inside and out, weighing the gain with the loss, all being embraced with equanimity. Absolution through extremes.

Love is fully redeeming only after Hate has been housed hospitably within the roomy house of the soul. Sexual ecstasy is equally commensurate only with the multiple orgasmics of the Spirit having been attained.

When one cries out to their God in the throes of physical pleasure does one commit unintentional heresy, or prayer? Where can we find the place where piety of character and spontaneity of flesh collide with Divine synthesis? Must we feign Inscience to the biological meanderings and imperatives of the Body-Mind to obtain a Prescience of the curriculum of Metaphysics?

Some claim to have found God only by and through their fleshly exploits. But the devil assumes many forms and the mortal human Mind is his most malleable clay. For it was God who created us and yet the devil who pokes, prods and goads us on to make the most of what we have been granted.

But the philosophy of a Soul that has been in the presence of true fulfillment via the narrow conduit of a life lived in humility and ecumenical submission is far more sophisticated and logical in the end. Sex and all other creature comforts are fickle, facile & fleeting, and even Mind over Matter comes second-hand to Spirit over All in the end.

To only get past the shame of the many sins that we commit daily. I am wretched and shameful standing here clothed within the sheer gauze of my chronic Insolence & Arrogance. But I am always naked before my God, and therefore am I always, saved.

With each breath I come closer to God. Youth is both a blessing and a curse when wisdom has been granted far beyond its due measure of years. Experience is not the only path towards knowledge. All of the life is slowly being squeezed from my soul. I suffocate in my own paranormal paranoia as the immortal ghosts of Disillusionment and Demoralization begin their branding upon my spirit, the mark of shameful demise-by-stagnation.

All of the anger and self-loathing must be exorcised from my cognizance or I will be possessed by the most immortal and powerful demons of all-those which the Self creates for its own ravaging edification. For this is seemingly the only human creation crafted with as much mastery as we can employ. To create to destroy or to destroy to create? Both methods of madness in their means to an end, bringing equal measures of emancipation and countervailance.

Destruction for its own sake is purity at its peak, for that which lays the foundation for nature’s aesthetic architecture of Evolution & Catharsis is that which also reveals Truth & Freedom in their true anti-Manichaean multiplex manifestions.

And yet many forget that Creation for its own sake is also Destruction at its most subversive acuity in a world where the birth of death is ever ordained, ever omniscient, ever immanent. Yet the absurd tragi-comedy of this mortal human existence is rarely unmasked for what it truly is-the same cog in the same wheel of every human entity's mental machinery, an impetus fueled by the desire to transcend that irony-bricked barrier, housing on each side that which is most natural and thereby necessary to survive, and that which is most unnatural & yet, essential to thrivance here below & also, above.

Must we learn how to love? Must we learn how to hate? Or is love merely Hatred properly sublimated, therefore making love and hate truly complimentary in their cohabitation of Mind and Soul? Does one therefore perhaps need the existential, empiricist reference of hate in order that one may love? And if so, must one experience Love first to be complete in their knowledge of hatred, and in their knowledge of love?

Is Hate merely an internalized frustration or righteous rage exemplified especially in those who have never seen, heard, felt or had higher love? Is Hate merely another extension of the quest for love? Is the ability to love inherent or must it be socially engineered within the Psyche of Man? If it is said that human beings need Love-both to be loved and to love, then is Hate perhaps instead the only way a spiritually fruitful understanding of Good and Evil can be actualized? And thus the Edenic scene allegorically assembles itself into view once more.

Love, the missing link? Or Hate? It is duly noted that God Himself employs righteous indignation & wrath upon those who commit flagrant Evil. Yet the antinomy arises within this: if God Himself cannot be incarnate of any Evil, then how does one reconcile God’s Holiness & Eminence with His role as Creator or Master Designer & point of origin of all which exists ?

Do therefore perhaps Good & Evil coexist blamelessly? It is said that God is Love. And can humankind ever fully know a transcendental & wholly sovereign being if we ourselves are so subaltern from the conception of our birthing and re-birthing? Perhaps the questions have become too manifold and the answers, too limited. Perhaps all of the grey matter in between the inquiry into the nature of Good vs. Evil which densifies this complex brain of human existential anatomy is nonexistent. And if there are absolutes, do the precise diagnostics of both what is Good and what is Evil then serve as the dura mater which operates instead not as protective membrane, but as the central nervous system of it all? It is said that we cannot be God Himself but that we can become like Him. And thus we must come to truly know not only of Him him but somehow transcend our myopia if we are to become like Him. In imago divinus we were created, yet divinus alone we can never breach. Therefore must we continually strive to recreate ourselves, so that perhaps some fine day, we may come Home to our immaculation of numinal Essence. Until then, in Divinus we roam & pray.

A quieted mind of inert reception. A heart filled to overflowing with relatively righteous wrath, the weaponry of Truth’s loaded gun, cocked to implosive suicide, American roulette. Atlas is on strike but has no idea how lucky indeed he is. Everyone feels the insurmountable weight of their own private worlds but at least his fate was destined, preordained and therefore recognized by his fellows, however fictional he is.

Everyone but the self feels that anyone’s pain but their own is unjustified, even borderline heretic. But truly the only heresy ever committed by man is when he fails to recognize that there is no absolute truth, only a reality within himself worlds apart from any other intangibility he can fully comprehend or know. And so the mortal life is spent trying our best to deceive, to turn Truth into mystery, reality into illusion, illusion into reality and what we wish most to not be seen is revealed anyway and thus have we forgotten what we came here for in the first place, not to lie, but merely, to live.

Lies have a will and force all their own. The lie will flourish and propagate to the end and the ones who were seduced into its lurid oblivion will be forever deceived themselves, will be forever lost. The problem posed is not in distinguishing between fact and fiction but in extinguishing that fire inside that fuels us towards embracing the lies and rejecting the truths.

Lies are just as relative as any deep personal revelation yet the difference between the lie and the truth is that Truth by its very nature speaks for itself and needs not be twisted or crafted so dexterously around the axis of justice. Truth is mainly concerned with what is ultimately good, though it often dons the charade of antagonist. The Lie may pose as protagonist in the first couple of acts but will be shown to be the worst villain of both self and other by curtain call.

Even when one chooses to accept a lie advocating the ultimate best interest of those being deceived, Truth will still not go denied and is as essential to the mortal entity as the very air we breathe. Truth may bind the soul within its pervading enthrallment but it is only through those things which we feel the most encumbered by that we can find the most priceless freedom of all, the prerogative to not only think, feel, believe and understand but the absolution to know, beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Why do we push when they pull, yet then pull with Atlas amiable strength when they push? Perhaps out of fear that they won’t or will love us for all that we are. For then we will be left with no choice but to become all that we can become and will begin living? I am breakable. But I know how to put myself back together very well-been doing it for years. I’m a Purple Heart-awarded veteran of existentialist hard knocks.

But pity me not, for then it will be revealed that you also pity yourself. We are of the same kind, both fragile and resilient, both human. I’m dying and I’m glad, for I have not yet done anything unforgivably bad.

To wrestle with fear is to admit to preliminary defeat in a mind whose main adversaries are Fear vs. Fear. And where there is danger in numbers and safety in nothing, obtaining nothing becomes everything.

Can I rise above this mediocrity and come to covet excellence no matter what the cost? For the comfort zone has become quite the contrary, for not moving forward is just as much a deadly sin, as is Sloth.

So, where the answer is already known, the path should be easily chosen. But the main task is in keeping a strict adherence to this path. To go where no-one has gone before, astronomically speaking, has already been and still can be done. But to go where one has not gone for oneself is the second most difficult destination to arrive at. To continue on past each frontier by far comes in first.

Where I have been is of lesser significance as to where I’m going. Both of the aforementioned are of least importance as to where I am. Each moment begins in the mind as being both of the past and of the future, yet this is the most common human fallacy, for each moment is unlike that of any other. But in a mind trembling with fear each moment is an eternity of longing to forget that which has passed and that which is to come with synchronous ease. Oh, how a free mind, can so bind. Meandering, ravaging, blinding delusions. A mind that persistently insists upon what exists-all that is there but not quite confirmed.

Things are not as they seem for people are not as they dream. A heart that fears more than it trusts is a mind poised for stalemate. The hands of God navigate the pieces but the errs of man project the strategies. But this will not do, for the mortal mind knows it is not worthy of winning any game not fought out like the battle of the left leg vs. the left leg. To get a leg up on the competition-Yes! What matters over mind.

Is it the stormiest before the calm or am I just too lobotomized, stigmatized, Westernized, secularized and compromised? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s all been said before and I’m probably no crazier than the rest. But the point of the matter is just to get this shit out of my system! Perhaps I should have typed it with the ink of my own blood or turned on the tube to watch some Jerry Springer just to feel all the more justified and stupefied in my self-deprecating pride. Hang on for the ride, they say. Take it all in stride, they nay. But I am not like you! I proclaim in anxious release. Although I like anyone else can sometimes play the role of protagonist or niece. But I’m of course more complex! You see, this is what happens with seven years of no sex!

And so I have become all that I have feared and dreaded for so long-an artist with no artlessness, contemplating the bong. Besides, hating other people gets you nowhere for the nice one finishes first, always, with insouciant flair, for living takes a certain air and surviving, less wear and tear. Though I still pray that the grey is ever so near, for perhaps then I will finally look how old I really am. What I am trying to do is to find my twin, for then I could fake my own death and start all over again!

I have taken up hospice again and the energy of the city is being fed to me through a thin, plastic tube in my left arm.

Most people refuse Truth with burn reflex acuity. They choose illusion at the pricey cost of a legitimate and actualized unity and sense of security. They rarely have the nerve or respect for their humanity to dive below past the shallow depth of pseudo-self-assurance and breach crucial self-examination. And so, pitifully benign they will remain-save, of course a very tangible and present sense of fragmentation.

Yet the tumor of ravaging denial will grow, day by day, more cancerous until self-deception has become self-denial, to live. But it is also important to point out, that those who can best lie to themselves and deceive others, are also those who will inherit the earth of Western society. But envy not others for their Machiavellian prowess, for like the spider to the arachnophobe they fear themselves more than they fear and bite at you, the honest, raw and uncensored image of humanity.

Rage with your beauty my friend, for just as much as the world loathes you with conceitful contempt, so it seeks and needs you with the same urgency. The more we try to hide, the more we are revealed. When we are at our most consecrated is when we are stumbling around the dark, narrow halls of our mind and a light switches on without warning, starkly illuminating the dark, festering crevices of our duality-bound entity, revealing instead our inherent perfection, by default.

The heart bleeds while the modern day mind knows not. But the heart determines all and thus must the mind condition itself to surrender to the intuitive reasoning of the heart. All things do take root in the meditation, but the mind merely grants articulation to that which only the heart can know and say. But the heart really needs not say and therefore, aside from social convention and necessity, the mouth of the mind and the mind of the mouth must be silenced. It all begins in the mind, soon creeping its way insidiously, to invade the whole system. Guard your mind for it is the be all end all of all. The heart, too, is precious but just as easily led to inaccurate catharsis and confusion. Nothing can be trusted as far and as long as the eye can see, the ear can hear, the tongue can taste, the skin can sense or the mind can perceive. Ignorance is bliss only because it so cunningly deceives. There is safety in danger, danger in safety. Quid pro quo.

The Love is great for Time is short and there is no number that does not get repeated endlessly. But variant wrath remains unsurpassed as the stone, given with effervescent joy to the lake will become at least once, the rock hurled given to malice and so will malice be returned in another dream, shattered.

The apple, given honor upon the teacher’s table, taken as well for devil’s advocate.

The bed sheet, once the loyal, passive enthusiast to human sexual expression, is now the noose with which one fragile lover chooses death over enduring the loss of a love no longer reciprocated. The tree, now standing in majestic repose and fruitful bloom for its endurance many storms ago in bleeding sap for the black man’s woes.

A chair broken into bits-one of its arms becoming the blunt knife to pierce another heart in a deadly barroom brawl, still seeking absolve, another of its typecast kin, at execution hour upon which another murderous man sits, zips and splits in electrifying blitz.

Love is great for the time is short. Love. Become eternal. Love. The word falls so sweetly, dripping like heavy, Vermont molasses from the tongue but echoing ever so hollow and reverberating as if we only know what Love is. And if Love must be learned then for once I feel seriously and ashamedly miseducated.

Love is a noun, sometimes posing as adverb, at times masquerading as superlative, often an adjective, mostly a verb as in actions-speak-louder-than- words. Actions screaming harsher than Love, for what I have been shown has spoken more in favor of the need for suspicion, distrust, fear and loathing, all the supposed antitheses of Love. But at least I know this much and therefore can go from there, right?

But you see, the question still remains, flapping in the face of intuition and all of the things that have already been answered if one could but just accept them as is. One needs love to survive, yet if this is so, then why does my heart still beat?

Yet perhaps I am merely waiting to die and not living at all for anything, really.

To die and to live, both of equal dramatic affect and measure of desperation.

I live for love as much as I am dying for Love.

Though some have also perished from dying to learn and know with adept intuition, how to die of love. Most are dying to love and be able to live dying to only love. Though some have also died from love. Whatta way to go.

Day by day, Hope fades like a pair of favorite black denim jeans.

Say by say, Reason hides like a suburban virgin.

Way by way, direction meanders like sun-drunken salamanders.

Play by play, the score is tallied and a stalemate is almost snared by a King undeclared.

Nay by nay, ad hominem synthesizes with the subjective like a barren Mother to firstborn miracle child. Slay by slay, the demons are held at bay.

Holiday by holiday, the lonesome slither up barstools like beguiled, charmed serpents as the world continues to dizzy itself into vertiginous oblivion.

Stay after stay, lovers unite beneath threadbare sheets with lustful contempt-fringed Melancholy.

Pay by pay, self and other respect is earned at the cost of suicide becoming no longer abomination but expectation.

Tray by tray, the rich eat up their money and privilege growing more bulimic in soul and anorexic in mind.

Bay by bay, the ships of love roll in, two of each kind housed therein.

Lay by lay, the orgy-ravaged closet atheists breach the lofty peaks of a heaven second-rate and find their God in the face of physical ecstasy, the devil’s oldest trick.

Clay by clay, the Phantasy becomes an allegiant alumnus of the clean-shaven bards of corrosively cynical Realism.

Gay by gay, sadness slinks away and the ecclesiastical eye of Solomon brims with tears of Joy.

Grey by grey, black and white become both often right and often wrong as the philanthropy-philandering philosophers of neurotic relativism feign once more, blind obedience to the thought for food chain, consuming and expurgating the endless entrails of their predecessors, all the while still remaining merely venial in their mindly sins of sectarian bias.

Hey! By Hey! One feels farther and farther astray from the eroding shores of pseudo-suicide.

Okay by okay, one learns that being okay bears no relevance or right to reverence before the shrine of just being.

May by May, the bears graze while the striking beauty and forms of once stripped trees, become all too human, donning their foliage, flora and fauna like the whore makes scandal of her true fresh-faced dignity beneath layers of rouge, mascara, lace and ostentatious displays of provocation. Sway by sway, the waves of the ocean tug at my limbs like some moon-struck beau, as I fulfill that intangible longing and need to be possessed by a force more powerful than I.

Weigh by weigh, Anubis still awaits, jackal-headed as ever, for but one heart not of fool’s gold.

McVeigh by McVeigh, the face of truth loses its naivete in Evil’s unwavering, roving eye and unanimity eloquently argues the case of the presence of God.

X-ray by X-ray, many still lack an essential survival skill-to see right through themselves. Yay by Yay, the mercury-winged gift of children’s uninhibited laughter and unfettered raison d’etre hits the mark, as we fall to our knees before the light of shame’s salvation-slain in the spirit.

Ray by ray, we curse the clouds as the sun burns holes right through us.

Pray by pray, speak for themselves more than any eloquence or simple say could waylay.

I walk with reluctant command through the icy night air. The atmosphere is thick with loneliness and loss. The loss of things that cannot be regained or reclaimed. Now is now, a moment unlike any other. Things have changed. The self has changed yet still remains the same with the persistence of mnemonics weighing heavy upon the soul.

One can’t remember to forget the insignificant and the trivial pursuit of a balm to soothe the pain no longer being inflicted independent of the mind’s redundant recycling of it. And so the future remains definite yet trapped within the titanium boundaries of the past. With each step forward, five steps backward follow and every move seems futile. Patience is the most coveted trait in the wake of this unruly former self-child.

The fight is not in being but in becoming and most significantly in maintaining. Happiness becomes shrouded in mystery and the adventures of a mind compulsive with skepticism become mundane, even wrought with incendiary contempt. I used to be kind. I used to be at peace. I yearn to be fit for consumption-not ill with it.

Where have I gone? I have gone astray from my first love, Reason. Or am I too sly to admit that Reason has indeed left me? Though perhaps we are just better off as friends. I just want to escape this dread of nihilism. I just want my life to mean something. People need to be needed, even if only by the midwives of their own rebirth.

I exist for myself. You exist in your own subjective, private ward as well. Perhaps we are irretrievably confined by and to the perpetual experience of ourselves. So, the only thing real to us is our self. And it is important to note that empathy does not make your being in and for yourself any more real to me than my being in and for myself and even being for others. I can see your physical form, even hear your voice and be aware of other various aspects of you, but the only person I am always fully within is myself. For even if I am experiencing you, I am still experiencing you inside of myself. Therefore, I still exist to be the only real entity during wake, and especially during sleep and in the dream state.

Something that is real is something which holds most of your knowledge and attention. During the course of pretend social play you are not “being real” and therefore since you are seemingly “real” you defy the definition of “real” and therefore are not real. But even if you were, it would not bear any relevance regarding the blueprints of one's Soulsmithery. If I appear to you to be real, then I am not real by its definition either.

So, in essence we live in a world where solipsism becomes not only a daily reality for us but also an unforeseen byproduct of the daily masquerades of social discourse and convention. But ultimately, being real to and for yourself is the only way that others, over time may become more real to you.

My love. My lust. I am lost within the provocation of your search. A passion and ferociousness unsurpassed I cannot find. Complacency. Borne from a wisdom disingenuous, a cynicism cool yet incendiary. What is there left to fight for in a place where everything has already been given to you or taken in its exceedingly insidious gross? The product of a tragically lucid mind and a heart absent without leave.

The politics of the spirit, a bi-partisan matter where the politician of pain is concerned. For both the soul and the spirit want your vote, at the pricey cost of an anima that even while knowing there is a world outside of its immediate, visceral reign, just cannot ever seem to say no to the way out being the way into itself. It needs something new! Something fresh! Or at least the ability to convince oneself that there is such a thing.

But one day you will discover that Solomon was right and that there is nothing new under the sun or the moon. Everything has already been done, seen, heard, tasted, felt. But then you will come upon the enlightenment of realizing that not everything has been seen, heard, felt, tasted or experienced in general by yourself. Yet at the same time, you will also be reminded that time is too short for any one human being to do and/or experience everything.

Once again, masking the vicious with the saturnine, a grinding, dwindling cog in the wheel of unreconciled restraint, the anatomy of Fear growing ever Herculean with vigor and dominance.

I do not trust my own mind. It deceives me with every breath. And the greatest of these is Fear of losing cognizance of the mind. The dead have neither memory nor knowledge. And so many learn to fear death when the life imparted daily to them remains to be seen, their foremost trepidation. Yet out of chaos comes forth the most beautiful, sacred things. Whatsoever is perverse seeks appeal through the justice it stirs into motion. That which only but forms more tenacious clusters of new matters at hand. Nothing is ever lost, my child, nothing.

Forgiveness is the greatest feat one can conquer.

Love is the seed from which all seeds of virtue blossom yet only gives way, with the aid of temperance, for the fruits to reap great harvest.

Love is all, but does not concern itself with the prerequisites of mundane pragmatism.

Forgiveness must struggle against all odds and thus is its hopeful and final victory more meritorious.

Guilt in the face of no wrongdoing becomes in itself, a slew of sin upon sin. The scapegoat is most operantly conditioned in its role.

Guilty until proven innocent is the maxim it most abhors yet at the same time, blindly fumbles to justify.

Even Atlas eventually gave way to the weight of the world-but this is not in the 'books.'

For all heroes, fictional or otherwise, cannot exceed the epistemological & ontological limits of their creators.

Beyond despair, I reach the point of no return. I feel nothing. They tell me it is a necessary defense, but we are at our most defenseless when we are defensive.

I am not human. I have lost my will to live and have no will to die. I am trapped with no hope for escape. I sense the relentless and subtle condemnation of my peers. I am loathed by myself and thus am I loathed by society. I am an outsider, the odd one out. I have surpassed the bounds of hell and have entered eternal purgatory.

But I am the only soul on board this ship of self-exile. Encumbered by the loner’s Fate, to never enter Heaven’s gate. Being alone is a dread for most, but it is necessity for me. When alone, I am most “with myself.” In the company of others, the two worlds easily become divorced from one another. A long, futile trial ensues as they both argue their cases for full custody of the soul.

Where is the sincerity? Is anything worth its weight anymore? Everything has already been done, seen, heard, felt and known. World-weariness creeps beneath my bones, rendering me again, a living dead. I am the wet, dirty dishrag draped droopy and burdened over the sterling spine of the faucet that I used to clean the toilet last night. Well, at least the toilet’s clean, others tell me, completely missing the metaphor.

What am I? I mean nothing to this world, even my words. For words are the most easily forgotten. I am the invisible woman, smug and complacent within my chronic absenteeism. I must become known to myself, known to others once again, or else perish to all like an oak table in the mind of Hume, substantial only when being gawked at or sat upon.

I am an idea within the mind of God, held with steadfast conviction but rarely expressed. God made us in His image, yet we foolishly fashion Him in ours. Yet even in the midst of this heresy, I still remain estranged from my own ideal image of myself. If we are extensions of the thoughts of God, then perhaps we do think too much.

Am I worth my own weight in the eyes of my fellow humans? Perception to us is all. Belief, to God is all of all and then some. God is not dead, just asleep and dreaming upon the roomy seats of our souls.

And at the place where belief and testament conjoin, our dreams become God’s dreams and God’s dreams become, our ambition.

Lost within your eyes, self-revulsion is an unpardonable sin. For within your eyes I am seen in my all and still, I am beautiful. For all those who have wished me harm, all I can say is, I relate and am so sorry that we must feel pain. But then again, without the pain there is no sweet relief.

I am what I am. You are what you are. Together we are what we are. All anybody wants is to find peace of mind. Breach depth of understanding. Everything has as much meaning as we give to it. All we really want, all we really need is to feel loved, to love, to be, Love.

Full repentance calls us to it with every passing temporal season of the heart. Is anybody out there? Or am I all alone? Are we all truly condemned to die in worlds apart? Again-the so-called problem of others’ minds.

Negative emotion is a toxic potion which I have brewed. Yet no-one cares to drink of this cup with me. Will I ever be absolved?

Minding creation, I feel elation. Minding destruction, has bred corruption. Guard your mind for it is the wellspring of life.

Will I ever be the same again? Is this place of dwelling really of my choosing? If so, then why in Hell?

If we seek pleasure before pain then which err is more, pleasure for pleasure, or pain for pleasure and pleasure only bringing pain? It is always the paradox that stings, not the whip itself.

Is the light for these eyes simply too bright and mocking? I feel nothing but self-pity, anger and shame, though I’m not the only one to blame. The world is a very conditional place and I’ve simply reserved for it, no more space. The vacancies are to be held for only those things and people of the utmost refinery and discretion.

An old soul in a new world faces the most seraph task-to be but not to be. I am always in question.

Trust, the emerald of life. A rare gem indeed for a being taught to suspect and doubt for the relentless cause of survival itself. When your ability to trust is negated, life is as well.

Faith in God is nothing if there is no faith in the self. The cross taken upon oneself to find salvation is trust in and of yourself.

In other words, I must first trust that I trust. But perhaps this is where the major flaw in humankind lies. We think that we must think in order to be, to live. I am, therefore I am. Thinking only betrays this given. To stop and to think is in truth the most unnatural state of man.

A far from wise man once did, everything commanded by his id. And a far from wise woman once said, I only know with my heart and think with my head.

Truth is the one thing we have not marketed or tried to profit from. Truth, raw and uncensored. And so the futile marathon of man goes on and on, in full pace. Running from the only thing that can both destroy & yet save us, Truth, raw and uncensored.

Paranoia. Truly the anxiety of being forgotten. Will you remember me or will you miss me? We can know what most things mean but we will never truly know if we mean. And if I do mean then how, where, when, why and in what way?

Do relationships have to be reduced to a series of more pros and cons, checks and balances, reduced to yet another “science?” Inhabiting an anatomy and biology of supposed superior faculty more often than not is what makes us in many ways the most fallible & vapid of all creatures. For we are the only creatures who self-destruct. We are the only creatures who both love and hate without seeing that their coexistence is perhaps natural but erroneous.

Sometimes I love you, sometimes I hate you. I really do. Am I a hateful being or a loving being? I am both and all of the above and below, alternately.

But love and hate must always cancel each other out, for they are so dichotomized, so dissimilar in motive.

Yet this is the inevitable dilemma of the human condition. Finding the things that will not negate our existence but validate it. Some choose violence to do so, others choose love and creation.

Must we choose one over the other or can we house both in the same mind and heart? Perhaps we can. Perhaps however hard we struggle against the current, we will always be swept away by whatever notion or emotion we harbor. In the end, the mystery most worth appreciating is the science of being able to love and being loved in return. The most intriguing of them all, even to this day.

The worst purgatory on earth for man is having no religion. In a world of temporal constancy, Faith stands out, the sweet and salt of the earth, conspicuous and inviting. Take a bite out of faith.

Did you know that having no sense of paranoia is actually a sign of pathology? There is always someone out for you. He is known by many an alias, but only one face and a multitude of crimes ignorantly pardoned by the mass jury of humankind.

Day by day, we clothe ourselves in lies to barely escape the wrath of Truth, which cleverly masquerades herself as public enemy #1. In reality, the only thing best equipped to ward off the various plagues of insanity that have already consumed us is that one thing that we spend most of our time, resources and energy trying to defy, Truth. A sheep in wolf’s clothing.

So we covet the position of status quo as we writhe in the muck and mire of Mediocrity and her twin, Mundanity. The biggest trick the devil ever pulled was not in convincing the world he didn’t exist but in selling illusion and delusion buy now, pay later, 0 interest until the day of judgment, a costly gimmick.

Truth is always sold as is, COD, no exchanges or refunds, yet teaching the true value of deferred gratification. And thus Truth is coveted behind its blindingly transparent display, but rarely shopper’s choice. But as long as the lies are bought, and invested in, human self-depreciation will be a booming business and the price of Truth will remain priceless by the recession of the mortal’s weak will and ignorance, the only monopoly ethically and morally accounted for.

My dreams speak in the only language I can truly understand. I trust in their raw and uncensored reality. But I am not sane for I only see the Truth. Maybe Machiavelli was right, that you must always lie to win.

Where has my faith in righteousness gone? I am lost, but I am found. Things are different now. I am irrevocably changed. There is a point breached where the only thing left is to be. This is the beauty in growing older not in body but in mind. Old obsessions fade, replaced with an eager new reckoning and confidence to bring to fruition all ambitions that the old obsessions sought to compensate for.

There is only one way to go. Forward. I can walk backwards, but am not naturally inclined to do so. Nature will work for us. All we have to do is trust in it. And all books of philosophy, psychology, theology and social science in general overestimate questions of life’s meaning or the cure for the human condition.

For the answer is quite simple. There is as little mystery in life as there is in death. The nature of the mortal human being is not to someday die but to someday realize what he is here for in the first place, quite simply, to survive & to thrive.

Nothing is ever lost. Nothing. I am whole. At last I am mad, at last I am free.

If that’s the best you could do, I’d hate to see your worst. Your blood is my own though my body and my mind reject it every day. Rage is the name you have chosen for me, Father. A spurious exchange, cause for art. An endless roving of the heart for the places we have not together lived, called home. I hate hating you but I loathe loving you even more. Your carelessness, so cruel in its casualty. This, I remember most, a question for God always on the tip of the tongue, tiny particles.

Waiting to exhale while contemplating how near you will come this time, and if you will stay in the face of this thought for food turning each breath foul.

I am what I do. I am what I say. You are what you eat. But am I what you have done? What you have said? What you have fed to me? The only mouth to mouth that leaves us hungrier than before, malnourished from the constant coaxing of the gluttony of the other.

Ambivalence wears the bones brittle, whittling away at resolve. I wish you were my enemy. I will send you down to rise above.

Meet me halfway and the cup remains runneth over, full on empty.

I will send you down, to rise above. I will send you down to rise above. You may see through me but it is only because I let you. My power lies in my vulnerability. When I see through you, you remain totally unawares. Hence, the servant again is unmasked, the Master. Vulnerability is empowering & liberating in this way.

I will bleed at your feet, gathering like liquid love. Though you will walk right through it as predictable as rain, keeping your distance from my honest intensity as you come closer and closer to your own slow but sure, unraveling.

I am filled with sadness today. I wait for the cleansing. The tears do not come. I am filled with madness today. I wait for release but clarity of mind, of soul, of expression does not come, heeded by desperation, the futility of necessary neutrality. Absence of action again betraying sentiment. Mind vs. matter. Mind vs. what matters. “So, how do you feel today?” That’s rhetorical, right? Knowing what you feel with more conviction and confidence than knowing what you know or don’t know.

And so the right mind again becomes lost amongst the loud, ostentatious clutter of the heart in its endless campaign for totalitarian rule. I am not sane for I feel with intensity. Yet I am not sane in the absence of feeling. But for once, confusion calls before visiting. I, in the wake of surrender am finally, dead awake.

Yesterday, my rage simmered in rolling boil in the vast cauldron of my soul. Today it evaporated, and the world reached feasting upon the succulent mystery meat of tempered vindication.

You’ve no idea how much I worship the ground that you worship me upon. If you’re emeralds then I must be fool’s gold. I am part woman, part child, so full of games of hide ‘n’ seek that I’m all too eager to play. The words I use to seduce when all I’m ever saying-all anyone is ever saying lies so therein between the lines. Can’t you see that my honesty is my defense? Remnants of poetic mumblings, a lazy dance of mere words when all I wish for is to only see things the way most others see them. When all I want is to be all those things I cannot say for myself.

Perhaps my need must be freed. I wish I could be you loving me, for I just can’t seem to find the right empathy for what this must be like. I am a hard, hard woman.

There is such madness. The madness. Such madness in your eyes, you say as your head nods with awe laden pity swung so low from side to side. Sometimes I doubt whether I’m loving you or loving you loving me. Such questions will always go unanswered when the devil is always seeking open vacancy. No rest for the wicked.

But it is you who tosses and turns, churns and burns while I lie so smug, fast asleep, dreaming the dreams of a mind and soul peripatetic and unaffected yet so unartless in matters of the heartless. I wish I were more schooled in simplicity so I could be the one to work with devout diligence for that which I only may someday come to keep.

Gratitude cannot be born from the womb of an entitled heart. If only I could give way to but one common impulse, conveniently forsaking the dichotomy of want vs. need, for then perhaps I could join you in this legal insanity known as love’s rapture.

But I am all too competent for self-representation in this case. If I could I would. If I would I could. Love is both our absolution and our demise. Quod nutrit, me destruit. I try. I really do. I try to love you the way you love me. But like murder sanctified in the name of war, I let you into my world, into my arms, taking it all in with avaricious aim-still, falling so short of perfection.

For anyone loves a lover. Anyone makes room at the inn for someone like you, a mere mortal man adorned in the heavy artillery and armor of martyrdom, always looking for a save. Save me from myself and neither live nor die for me. I can lead you only to eternal damnation. Save yourself. Save us all, love. Die to me.

We came to each other in the night. There was no hesitancy in our bodies as our weary bones and thundering hearts seeped and clung like sap from a pine, limb to limb with melancholic yearning and forbidden religion, turning sweat to blood, the slow easy grieving of the flesh, tears forming a yoke of silent confession for the subliminal priest of this one sin, neither venial, cardinal or menial, but beautiful in its necessity of expression, its majestic poise in the consciousness of the collective mind’s eye.

And so there was, a stirring of loins. In the beginning, a command-Be fruitful and multiply-for creation minds no destruction though destruction is the brother of creation. Tear it down to build it again.

Which Love brings eternal demise? Lust for love or love for lust? What is this anyway? The love of God becoming harder and harder to bear with such questions left answered with such forthcoming candor and credibility of rhetoric.

To lust is better to have never loved at all. Though to love is better than to lust. But they both lie in the same bed, surrendering, supine and lazy, dewy-eyed with inevitability.

Heavenly Father, must we be denied? Earthly Father, must you conquer and divide in order to love me? In order to teach me in miseducation of this deadly evasion?

Truly, is love so estranged to us and hate all that innate?

Heavenly Father, I ask you this, of the well-intentioned bliss between a man and a woman. And if sin is that which comes so naturally and virtue and righteousness that which we must learn, that which we must earn then, what is the nature of nature? Where does it end and You begin? Oh Father Creator, I am destroyed by Your cruel logic. I just want to be me for he and me for Thee, Thee for me. There is enough lust to go around for everyone, but what of blameless love? They do indeed coexist but can they coexist and yet maintain their purity of purpose, like murder sanctified in the name of war?

I come to him in the night, merging every time, with soft, supple surrender into the endless abyss of the freedom that binds. Two makes three, four, far more than one could ever count as we join other lovers just like us in the dance, an erotic, sensual pas de deux. I get over on him, falling under the spell like light rain into a parched well, reading the lightning like the thunder reads the storm.

En sus ojos, tan demencia. The thunder in his motion, simultaneous, the storm is zero miles away. It is home. I have met my match.

I hide like a child, always revealed, a woman, cloaked in the silent fury of what I have been denied, of the webs I have woven with my casual lies. What lies of omission this body has woven, writhing in ecstatic fervor, naked and languid beneath the sheets of Apathy. For he has come to know me well and so has my faith been forfeited in the name of Fear’s searing lust.

I take back my joy. I take back my gall. I take it all back in the name of Nature’s laws. Why buy the now, when you can get the past for free? I dwell in today, always contemplating the history of my world, always planning for tomorrow. I am young and in so many ways unsung. I must go on. There is so much to see, so much to be. We will not be defeated. We will stand up. We will retreat. We will thrive. We will die. We will fear. We will turn towards, not away.

We will rage. We will love. We will offend. We will defend. We will dance with the devil. We will kiss God full on the lips and dance with Him. We will cry. We will laugh. We will hate. We will redeem. We will envy. We will be ever grateful. We will be filled to overflowing with emptiness. We will be filled to overflowing with a wholesome discipline of quiet faith and understanding. We will be in want. We will be in need. We will be in need of want. We will be in want of need. We will try. We will will. We will destroy. We will create. We will destroy to create. We will create to destroy. We will love to hate. We will hate to hate. We will love to love. We will be cruel. We will be kind. We will be weak. We will be strong. We will be strong in weakness. We will be weak in strength. We will be foolish. We will be clever. We will tolerate. We will unconditionally accept. We will go unheard. We will be understood. We will gain. We will lose. We will sin. We will repent. We will writhe in mediocrity. We will embrace greatness. We will be for others. We will be for ourselves. We will be negligent. We will be responsible. We will wax. We will wane. We will shout. We will whisper. We will compromise and we will be loyal. We will yearn. We will be still. We will seek chaos. We will choose peace.

We will be inhumane in our humanity & humane in our inhumanity. We will be virtuous in our Vice & sinfully transgressive in our religiosity. We will be philanthropic in our divinity. We will condition the anatomy of Fear into the titanium armor of Courage. And we will fall on our knees to stand steady, firm and tall. And through our most egregious sins, shall we at last, be redeemed.

In the beginning of the end, the bureaucratic jungle was declared null and void. Final judgment was upon the face of the earth and man still made God. And the more we hid, the more we were revealed. Total darkness descended and we were at our most enlightened, flailing and floundering about in our own separate chaos and peace.

A light switched on without warning, starkly illuminating the damp, dark, festering crevices of our duality-bound entity. Love was great for the Time was short and variant wrath remained unsurpassed. And in order that we could love & live, we had to die, being thus resurrected, stillborn to life.

And it was only then that we finally knew who and what we were, what we had been, all along. And it was revealed that it was what we had not been which was the cause for thunder, the way to both Damnation & Salvation-whichever path we had chosen.

“Thus ends, in unavoidable inadequacy, an attempt to utter the unutterable things.” -G.K. Chesterton

[hydrojean]

Creative Writing Reflection #2

What I have learned this past week in our subject, Creative Writing is all about the different Literary Devices, Mood, Tone, Style and Classification of Fiction. When we’re talking about Literary Devices, it talks about Foreshadowing, Symbolism and Motif. Foreshadowing is giving the audiences hint or subtle keys on what would happen in the story that they are reading or watching. Symbolism is using an object, action, event, place or spoken word to signify new ideas and qualities by giving them added meaning. Or in easy words, these are the objects that are seen or read throughout the story that will later have a significance once the story ended. Once it finishes, the audience will soon realize that it wasn’t just an object, that it was indeed a symbolism of the event on the story. Motif is the recurring element usually sound, image, or other figure that suggestive or symbolic significance that advances the message of your story or its theme. In other words, it’s the story having its own theme that needs to be followed. Next I’ve learned about Tone and Mood, to be honest with you I really did have quite a difficult time to strip down information about this two because you really can get confused about it. Mood is the element used to evoke certain feelings or vibe your readers. It is what the author is trying to make the reader feel, rather it is the intention of the author. Mood has 3 types, first is Formal Diction or High Diction, this type of Mood uses advanced vocabulary it avoids slangs, idioms, colloquialisms, contractions etc. It needs to meet the highest grammar standard possible. Second is the Neutral Diction, this uses the standard language it doesn’t contain words that other readers may find difficult to comprehend. Lastly, Informal or Nonformal Diction, this is a cool, chill, relax conversation in this type of diction you can use slangs, idioms, colloquialisms, contractions, etc. It is the opposite of High Diction because it doesn’t follow any grammatical rules. Now, let’s move on to Tone, if Mood is the author’s intention then Tone is the reader’s response to the story. It is the way the reader understood the story. Now let’s move on to the last lesson that we’ve tackled this week, it’s all about Fiction. Fiction has two classification which is the Literary Fiction and Popular Fiction. But first, what is Fiction? Fiction is defined as literature in the form of prose and describes as imaginary or made up events. Literary Fiction, on the other hand is literatures that are more concerned with the writer or author’s personal style and self expression. Lastly, Popular Fiction, focuses more on the readers, on how the author will relate to the story the author has made.

[auctionpolh]

Veridical perception definition

#VERIDICAL PERCEPTION DEFINITION REGISTRATION#

Illusions metaphysics objectivity philosophy of perception reality truth veridicality. Within such a worldview the notion of objective reality is valid, it comes in part within the range of our senses, and thus a definition of illusions as kinds of deviations from veridical perception becomes possible again. This ascribes real existence to many levels of dynamic systems of information, emerging progressively from the subatomic to the biological, psychological, social, and ecological. Sworn testimony in a courtroom is expected to be. In contrast, I point to a more recent and commonly used alternative, non-reductive metaphysics. Using the adjective veridical is a formal way to describe things that are accurate or based in reality. And they put forward an alternative interface theory, on which perception is an adaptively useful but truth-obscuring veil between perceiver and. Second, anti-realists assume their opponents hold a fully reductionist metaphysics, in which fundamental physics describes the only ground truth, thereby placing it beyond direct human sensory observation. Hoffman, Singh, and Prakash (henceforth, HSP) argue that perception was not selected for veridical representation, hence that, contrary to a very widespread consensus, there’s much less of the latter than you might expect in perception. Here, I first demonstrate how novelist George Orwell warned that such denials of objective reality are dangerous mistakes, in that they can lead to the suppression and even the atrophy of independent thought and critical evaluation. To pick up the thread of the argument, we can define a ‘properly functioning human perceptual system’ quasinormatively as a system that has. However, it has been claimed recently that this definition lacks validity, for example, on the grounds that external reality cannot possibly be represented truly by our sensory systems, and indeed may even be a fiction. According to Buddhist prama tenets, there are only two valid and authoritative means of veridical cognition. Viele wahrheitsgemässe Anteile der Menschheitsgeschichte existieren noch, wurden jedoch wegen dieser Endzeit verborgen und für die endgültige Freigabe geschützt.Illusions are commonly defined as departures of our percepts from the veridical representation of objective, common-sense reality. Veridical Perception in NDEs Jan Holden, EdD, LPC-S, LMFT, NCC: One of the most fascinating aspects of NDEs is 'veridical perception,' in which the near-death experiencer reports seeing or hearing events during their NDEs that, given the condition and/or position of their physical bodies, should have been impossible to perceive but are nevertheless corroborated as accurate. Many veridical accounts of human history still exist but have been hidden away and protected for final release during this end-time. Über die Funktionalität einer leichten Selbstüberschätzung. On the functionality of a veridical self-concept.

#VERIDICAL PERCEPTION DEFINITION REGISTRATION#

The information submitted through the registration form need to be complete and veridical.ĭie Angaben im Anmeldeformular müssen vollständig und wahrheitsgemäß erfolgen. Im Unterschied zu realistischen Gemälden sind Photographien nicht nur Symbole oder Äußerungen einer Beziehung zwischen den KünstlerInnen und ihren Gegenständen, sondern gelten vielmehr als wahrheitsgetreue Evidenz. In contrast to the realist painting, photographs are not just symbols or expressions of the relation between the artist and his subject, but are considered as veridical evidence. This is the first step in determining whether consciousness can survive bodily death. At this point in near-death studies, researchers are particularly interested in studying those NDEs that may provide an answer to the question of whether the mind can function outside the physical body. Große wahrheitsgetreue Wahrnehmung (Teil der außerkörperlichen Erfahrung)! Veridical Perception in Near-Death Experiences. From Latin vridicus : vrus, true see wr-o- in Indo-European roots + dcere, to say see deik- in Indo-European roots. Great veridical perception (out of body portion)! Coinciding with future events or apparently unknowable present realities: a veridical hallucination. Empirical data have been collected to ensure a veridical recommendation.įür eine wahrheitsgetreue Empfehlung wurden empirische Daten erhoben.

[very-grownup]

Conventions of Fantasy Monarchs, Queens, and the Subversion Thereof

I think a lot about Megan Whalen Turner’s use of monarchy in her novels and how that compares to royalty as presented in children’s fantasy fiction (as well as adult fantasy fiction, although I think there has been a strong turn away from rulers as absolute moral arbiters in the past twenty-five years, maybe, in favour of portrayals that are not necessarily more nuanced or realistic but are certainly more corrupt and far from divine) and Turner as a feminist writer and how these two aspects of her writing are interlinked. The nature of her approach to her Queen’s Thief series, however, requires a finer focus to begin from the wide view. While other authors world build with brick and mortar, Turner’s books create their world through origami. Each book is a separate piece and is folded into the next.

In "The Thief", Turner starts by establishing the three kingdoms of the Little Peninsula: Sounis, Eddis, Attolia. King, Queen, Queen. Although “The Thief” is wholly Gen’s story, the King of Sounis appearing briefly at the beginning, the Queens of Attolia and Eddis appearing at the end, they are established as the powers that be, the decision makers, the three figures trying to maintain their country and their identity in balance with the martial and economic pressures from all out sides. We know little about any of the monarchs, beyond that Sounis is older and Eddis and Attolia are both young. That the young women are queens, not princesses, is immediately a quiet triumph, an eyeshiver of subverting the unquestioned status quo (you think now, as an adult, of all the uninterrogated eternal princesses in your media, the young women without fathers or with fathers specifically deceased, and the refusal to permit their ascension to an adult title).

Indeed, in “The Thief” it is impossible to envision them as princesses for they are not given names. This is not an oversight on Turner’s part, not a diminishment of their personhood or, at least, not a diminishment of personhood that is not considered part of the parcel of governance. The three monarchs are frequently referred to simply by the name of their country, even dispensing with King/Queen of [Country]. Of course this implies a degree of the individual as their country, their country as the embodiment of the individual, the placing of country before self which, in and of itself, calls on the typical mythos found coupled with a hereditary monarchy. But it also shapes the reader’s understanding of the dynamic between the three monarchs as equal. Queens instead of princesses is adult and the further step of country in lieu of title degenders them, allowing the reader to move beyond their expectations for these titles, these roles, based on previously consumed media or even an awareness of those monarchies which continue today.

It is easy to overlook these socially conditioned expectations; the woman who is a doctor but regularly addresses as “Ms.” without second thought versus the rudeness of anyone forgetting to address a man by his professional credentials. Turner lifts the reader away from expectations they may have for such archetypes as ‘king’ and ‘queen’ without any fanfare given for what she is doing.

Moving beyond the scope of the three monarchs, into the matter of Eddis and Attolia, the only female characters in "The Thief". When the women appear, Turner sets up a familiar feminine binary between the two queens. Eddis is ugly but kind. Attolia is beautiful but cruel. Subsequent books prevent this from being a reductive portrayal of women without invalidating the initial descriptors. Eddis is never described as particularly attractive, but in certain eyes she is beautiful, without it ever seeming like a case of a perceptive/quality man perceiving a non-traditional beauty. Her kindness is tempered, prevented from being a weakness as she makes hard, sometimes ruthless decisions in “The Queen of Attolia” and those decisions are not motivated by possessing greater kindness than Attolia. Instead, she is equal to Attolia in her fierce love and protection of her country and its people. Attolia, the supremely beautiful woman who is cruel, is not the beautiful but evil queen not because she is not truly cruel, but because her cruelness is an expression of her ruthlessness. It is not petty, this is not a governmental expression of a Madonna-Whore dichotomy. It is two women who are physically very different operating in very similar roles with identical goals.

The physical difference is not significant; it is fact.

The important difference, the real dichotomy, is not a question of which of these women is good and which is evil, which woman is ugly and which is beautiful, which woman is pure and which is corrupt. It is, in fact, not a reflection of the women at all, but a reflection of the society and men around them.

More than the other books, the complete understanding of how Turner has taken superficial expectations of kings and queens and the portrayal of two women who, by existing in the same text will always in some way be positioned against each other, is achieved in “The King of Attolia”. Not, as might initially be thought in “The Queen of Attolia” in which the Wicked Queen is given the history and explanation that Explains her; for once we understand why she is wicked, will her actions not seem more understandable and forgivable? Turner in fact says no, Attolia’s cruel acts remain cruel; the nightmare consequences of one particular action continue throughout the series in the form of literal nightmares. “The Queen of Attolia” also gives Attolia a stand-in for someone who appears to be filling the role the evil advisor who leads a good woman astray for his own power and gain in the form of Nahuseresh.

“The King of Attolia” has a protagonist who is not of the nobility and from his perspective the reader gains a deeper understanding for how Attolia the country has been affected by Attolia the queen, the disruption of tradition rippling out to a disruption in the land and its greater politics. Initially, Attolia is a queen governing without a king, contrary to tradition. As a result, Attolia is surrounded by men wishing to control the country through her, their own schemes kept at bay by Attolia making ruthless example of a few individuals and setting the survivors against each other, focusing their attentions on the immediate threat of their peers rather than the abstract threat of not having direct control of Attolia yet. There is a sense given that the history of Attolia’s reign has been a steady escalation of ruthlessness as the scheming and the impatience of her barons persists and under the distraction of infighting, spies, beheading, and torture she secures alternate sources of power which strengthens the tie of loyalty binding the lower classes to her by instituting policies of a non-traditional nature like: meritocracy in the military, terms of indentured servitude having finite limits, and financial compensation for people working for the crown.

Attolia’s political actions, once the reader comes to understand them, are actions which elevate the powerless in her country and in doing so it enables to cement her own power: the power of one who, traditionally, would also be powerless. That we only become aware of this, truly appreciating the impact of Attolia as queen, instead of just the difficulties and hardships personally suffered, from the point of view of an insignificant young soldier and guard, who both fears and is loyal to the queen, imbues this interpretation of Attolia as one of greater truth than what is shown in the previous books. The narrator of “The King of Attolia”, Costis has a simpler view of the matter, a man on the ground view. He has no experience of living under the rule of anyone but this queen. He is not affected by the wider inter-country politics, his position is one formed by experiencing Attolia’s rule. It does not read as propaganda or apologia for the actions of this woman which are influenced by our ancient history and the politics therein.

Turner’s series has now come to an end and the number of main female characters never expanded beyond Eddis and Attolia but, in a genre that frequently fails women, even now, Eddis and Attolia are nuanced characters, powerful characters stretching the expectations of their archetypes and growing beyond them. The way Turner constructs her novels builds slowly and subtly into works that are feminist, despite the predominance of male characters, and strong with class solidarity and an anti-monarchial bent, despite the majority of the protagonists and point of view characters being members of the nobility. The genre and demographic do not need to steer the politics and ideas of a narrative and, in turn, those aspects cannot be accurately represented by simple numbers and Megan Whalen Turner demonstrates this often overlooked truth with each of her books.

[dylanlila]

Three things you should know about this post before you read it:

1. I’m new to the Gilmore Girls fandom (still in the process of exploring the show for the first time),

2. I love spoilers unless they come in visual form (they make me feel safe, basically I’m a control freak and I love knowing what happens next, both in life and in fiction though those two worlds constantly overlap in my case),

3. the post can be read even if you are not a Gilmore Girls fan.

Anyhow, I happen to like Rory Gilmore (who reminds me of me to the point of literal crying in relatable) and I like Jess Mariano (who I find annoying based on the sole reason of him being very much like my past self or even more accurately: who I could have been if I hadn't met some very important people at the most crucial period of my life so yeah, he "hits too close to home", as they say). I've seen some arguments thrown in the face of Jess x Rory shippers which mostly consist of "you like them because they read together". And Jess x Rory shippers never fail to offer a brilliant response that contradicts the statement (this is what I love about fandoms, I love that we enjoy different things about the same artwork, I love our intellectual debates, I love it). But I wanted to say that reading the same books (not only referring to Rory x Jess right now) is indeed a big and meaningful thing, especially if you have never had the opportunity to really disscus that kind of passion with someone your own age before. And I don't mean "hi, I like this book", I mean really talk about it, share your opinions and feelings concerning the subject. Speaking from experience, it's a big deal. If nothing else, it pulls you out of your bubble, makes you realize that there are a lot of people like you out there (helps overcome that toxic "I'm not like all of the others" attitude phase that a lot of us go through at some point and hopefully grow out of during the other) and the best of all, offers you an opportunity to express yourself. Finding people who liked the same things I did saved my life back in the day and I'm not exaggerating. Not even a little bit. Whether you ship Rory x Jess or not (I don't even know if I wholeheartedly ship them because I'm still trying to figure out romance as a real and existing concept), I just wanted to point out the importance of that kind of understanding. And talking about books is never only "talking about books". It's so much more than that. All of us approach and live through art in a different way (exactly what I referred to as beautiful about the whole fandom experience) and exchanging those personal little bubbles of uniqueness (that are only ours when kept, barely having the chance to evolve at all) with others can be incredibly beneficial, beautiful and wholesome. It helps us create our own paintings and mix them with somebody else's colours therefore inevitably enriching the creation that existed prior. Not to mention how it completely works against that whole "weird" accusation society has going on (please, we are all weird, the reason the word exists in the first place is because people give it too much thought, like most things people invent do for that matter, I have a lot to say about that particular subject because it has many possible angles that can all be discussed in detail but I'm saving that for another time, I don't intend to bore anyone).

I hope this wasn't completely idiotic, I only wanted to share some thoughts.