Seriously, remember me? I was really morbid as a kid in ways people didn’t understand or even realize. I remember drawing demons and ghosts in kindergarten, screw Yoda and C3P0 or the Muppets! My favorite dreams involved my brother turning into a vampire and having to stake him, it was terrible! In the dream I was so sad and it was so scary, but damn what a rush when I woke up sweating through my ET t-shirt holding my breath until I looked down off my top bunk to see him safe in his mini-bed, breathing a sigh of cool release. Or the lovely time I befriended Freddy Kruger and he made a glove for me and gave me a hat and we invaded peoples dreams together. Oh such memories.
By the time I was 11 or 12 I was really interested in psychological horror. I loved films like the Exorcist and Silence of the Lambs. I walked to the library and walked home with books loaded with such nuggets as True Crime serial killer studies, I had them all Dhamer, Gacey, Bundy, The Hillside Strangler, Jack the Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe etc. Also along with the bundle the Satanic bible, the anarchists cook book, and books on witchcraft and demonology. No one was gonna tell me what I can put into my head. That’s the one freedom I always kept for myself.
The frickin’ horror movies…
It had to have been it. The frickin’ horror movies. Dad and I went to Video Galaxy and rented a new horror movie every Tuesday. I was a sharp kid with a precocious intellect in many ways, so I assured him that I never had nightmares and that I really liked scary movies so we didn’t have to tell mom. In hindsight, I can see how they were the very essence of what I bonded to my father with. I am non-expressive, and so is he. I don’t think I kissed or hugged him since before I was a preteen. So things like horror movies which we both really enjoyed and spent a lot of time together doing, really meant a lot to me, but did it effect who I became? I struggle to think, it must have had a big effect. For one thing, I truly love the macabre, by the time I was in high school I was a “tortured goth poet” I took it about as seriously as I did the wardrobe, my favorite T-shirt at the time being jet black with a grungy white word splattered across the darkness saying “Poseur” . It was just fun, it was Halloween every day, you know why? I loved Halloween more then any other holiday including Christmas, screw the gifts, I want to dress up like Freddy!
I just like and enjoy dark and scary stuff, its so much cooler then rainbows and ponies and GI Joe and all that crap, I mean I liked all that stuff too, having more then enough attention to turn to many things as a boy, but nothing struck my fancy like Critters, Faces of Death, Evil Dead 2, or Texas Chainsaw massacre.
I always had a nickname for what I was “Darkling”, I was suprised they had many more “Darklings” on the planet, I didn’t really know until I was majoring in Creative writing in college, post goth and raver days, I think I was trying to be collegiate at the time. I wore a green turtle neck, what an asshole. I was in a class with a young professor and many other “darklings” the pride and delight we came to class with when we handed in our stories, it was a fiction writers course. Story after story of vampires, demons, death, serial killers. I had found a true home for my sinister delights.
So is it weird that I and many other people like waking up hot and sticky, throat dry and gummy from dehydration eyes teary, brain shrink wrapped in terror and mystery, from a wicked nightmare? Its like starring in your own horror movie, and you confront your fears and learn so much about your subconscious by what it chooses to show you.
What about others though? How many other darklings are out there?
Popularity: 3% [?]
I have been noticing the last few years as I have gotten closer to being 30, that my preferences are either changing subconsciously or I am changing.
My feelings have been cooling for some time. Whereas they used to be constant, bright, and vivid, always feeling, always in pain or happy but something has slowly faded to just cold precision and analyzing of an abstract nature. Mostly searching for meaning, then connections to other things, then to ultimately the bare essential facts of the abstractions nature, whatever it is that I am picking apart.
I have noticed that I am spending much more time sitting and thinking things through rationally and logically, and though I am struggling with it now I feel it is growing and getting stronger, it actually makes me feel quite optimistic in a way because I know its probably just my Ti kicking in to shape and really trying to develop itself.
When INFJs or other NFs start getting older, do they master their emotions and then begin to apply new criteria as their brain matures?
If so, I say good, feelings never got me anywhere, in fact they were a fucking burden most of the time.
I still have feelings, but its like, they are getting more defined specifically, not that I know what they are, but what I am saying is that my mental skin must also be growing thicker because the buttons that set off my feelings are becoming more defined, not so much the feelings themselves.
I am trying to analyze my own mind and what I know about myself, but its like lately the last couple of years I have really been getting good at it and understanding myself and my nature and what I can do and cant do.
I almost feel hyper aware of myself, not just the deep convoluted abstractions of my ever swirling miasma of ideas and thoughts in head but for my body, I can focus my mind and feel my pulse, feel my heart beating, feel the data travel from my brain to my finger tips as I tell them to move and type, feel the fibers in my lungs screaming in agony over the abuse I give them, feel the digestive enzymes, see through my skin and see the intricate harmony of bone, sinew, muscle, tendon, blood, electricity, atoms, data, and intelligence.
Working as a system all together, pumping life into this body so that I can fade into this reality via my sense and just think and taste reality and existing… I am the universe.
I’m not even tripping, the lsd, bud, all that shit never really had a strong effect on me, even under the influence of gargantuan amounts of shit I always was able to remain “there” even through a bad trip, knowing whats happening to me, feeling the anxiety shrink wrap my brain with adrenaline and cortisol, was still there, calm, collected, analyzing. Vomit, pain is over, I feel better, still there, analyzing.
I even went so far to obliterate myself that I took 4 tabs at a whack, and when it melted the brains of my friends and they curled up into a corner crying on half the dose, I’m analyzing.
I don’t know if I am too connected to the reality of this dimension, tbh, who knows this could be a dream, a terribly boring and mundane dream.
Anyway tangent over,
I think age is giving more precision in the form of a developing Thinking function, my feelings in contrast seem like they have to share the spotlight and as such are reducing and diminishing in intensity.
Has anyone else ever undergone something like this?
Popularity: 4% [?]
The Introverted Intuitive Type
The peculiar nature of introverted intuition, when given the priority, also produces a peculiar type of man, viz. the mystical dreamer and seer on the one hand, or the fantastical crank and artist on the other. The latter might be regarded as the normal case, since there is a general tendency of this type to confine himself to the perceptive character of intuition. As a rule, the intuitive stops at perception; perception is his principal problem, and — in the case of a productive artist-the shaping of perception. But the crank contents himself with the intuition by which he himself is shaped and determined. Intensification of intuition naturally often results in an extraordinary aloofness of the individual from tangible reality; he may even become a complete enigma to his own immediate circle. [p. 509]
If an artist, he reveals extraordinary, remote things in his art, which in iridescent profusion embrace both the significant and the banal, the lovely and the grotesque, the whimsical and the sublime. If not an artist, he is frequently an unappreciated genius, a great man ‘gone wrong’, a sort of wise simpleton, a figure for ‘psychological’ novels.
Although it is not altogether in the line of the introverted intuitive type to make of perception a moral problem, since a certain reinforcement of the rational functions is required for this, yet even a relatively slight differentiation of judgment would suffice to transfer intuitive perception from the purely æsthetic into the moral sphere. A variety of this type is thus produced which differs essentially from its æsthetic form, although none the less characteristic of the introverted intuitive. The moral problem comes into being when the intuitive tries to relate himself to his vision, when he is no longer satisfied with mere perception and its æsthetic shaping and estimation, but confronts the question: What does this mean for me and for the world? What emerges from this vision in the way of a duty or task, either for me or for the world? The pure intuitive who represses judgment or possesses it only under the spell of perception never meets this question fundamentally, since his only problem is the How of perception. He, therefore, finds the moral problem unintelligible, even absurd, and as far as possible forbids his thoughts to dwell upon the disconcerting vision. It is different with the morally orientated intuitive. He concerns himself with the meaning of his vision; he troubles less about its further æsthetic possibilities than about the possible moral effects which emerge from its intrinsic significance. His judgment allows him to discern, though often only darkly, that he, as a man and as a totality, is in some way inter-related with his vision, that [p. 510] it is something which cannot just be perceived but which also would fain become the life of the subject. Through this realization he feels bound to transform his vision into his own life. But, since he tends to rely exclusively upon his vision, his moral effort becomes one-sided; he makes himself and his life symbolic, adapted, it is true, to the inner and eternal meaning of events, but unadapted to the actual present-day reality. Therewith he also deprives himself of any influence upon it, because he remains unintelligible. His language is not that which is commonly spoken — it becomes too subjective. His argument lacks convincing reason. He can only confess or pronounce. His is the ‘voice of one crying in the wilderness’.
The introverted intuitive’s chief repression falls upon the sensation of the object. His unconscious is characterized by this fact. For we find in his unconscious a compensatory extraverted sensation function of an archaic character. The unconscious personality may, therefore, best be described as an extraverted sensation-type of a rather low and primitive order. Impulsiveness and unrestraint are the characters of this sensation, combined with an extraordinary dependence upon the sense impression. This latter quality is a compensation to the thin upper air of the conscious attitude, giving it a certain weight, so that complete ‘sublimation’ is prevented. But if, through a forced exaggeration of the conscious attitude, a complete subordination to the inner perception should develop, the unconscious becomes an opposition, giving rise to compulsive sensations whose excessive dependence upon the object is in frank conflict with the conscious attitude. The form of neurosis is a compulsion-neurosis, exhibiting symptoms that are partly hypochondriacal manifestations, partly hypersensibility of the sense organs and partly compulsive ties to definite persons or other objects.
Popularity: 7% [?]
In the summer of 2005 I was fortunate enough to spend in China with my girlfriend of the time and her family. They took me under their wing and showed me all around Szechuan from Jin Li square in Chengdu to Le Shan mountains Buddhist retreat. It was an experience I have yet to surpass. The trip while mind expanding was also heart expanding. The purpose of this story isn’t to tell of my trip details and destinations, its to tell a simple lesson I learned partially in China, then through bits and pieces over the next few years as the message filtered its way through time and space.
One portion of China I saw was a Buddhist temple location in a very poor rural area known to the locals as the “Green Dragon”. The day was hot and overcast, Szechuan is always hot and overcast because of its mountainous boundaries. Our Lexus, scented with fine lily perfume made on the streets near the American Consulate rolled up into a street filled with young children and girls and old parents, open sewage bisected the road, and the people lived in what we in the U.S. would dare to call poverty. I wouldn’t call it poverty, more like desolation. We pulled up to a girl wearing a white mens tshirt, our driver, my girlfriends father asks in his harsh sounding chengdu-nese dialect, where is the Green Dragon Temple?
She replied by grunting something with a sly look as she squinted through the window at me, then pointed to the north. I could see a tuft of black armpit hair reaching out from her shirt, “we’re not in Maple Syrup Land anymore” I think to myself.
We drove off, and I saw her shrinking into the distance behind us in a yellow mustard cloud of red soil as we peeled away. We were nearly 5 minutes away Yang says, 5 minutes until my life took a twist.
We parked around the corner from a concrete building, very state looking construction, plane, lifeless and gray. Then I noticed a large set of pillars which formed a gate. The gate had ten foot high concrete walls extending from its sides that hugged the entire temple grounds. Inside of the walls it was the most zen, and peaceful experience one could imagine. I lit candles and incense and prayed for guidance and wisdom. Little did I know how prophetic those prayers would be.
When our visit was concluded we left, outside of the gates there were many many people, lepers, the sick and the starving. And they were begging for money from the rich tourists leaving the temple. A boy approached me with a small cup with some loose coin and a folded note, my instinct was to give, give them the money that I didn’t care about that sat idle in my pocket, more then enough to feed the whole lot. As I reached into my pocket my friends pulled me away and insisted it was just a scam, its only a scam, don’t give them anything. They’re scum.
I was given wisdom, I saw true suffering, I was given a test to guide me. And I listened to my friends and I shuffled passed them and I hopped into the car and we drove away. Each dip in the road made me feel nauseous, my chest was heavy and my heart ached with each beat, I felt warm liquid on my cheeks, I was crying, my body was aching for the wrong I had done. I turned my back on my fellow man that which I swore I would never do to myself. I broke my own heart.
During my trip through the temple I had purchased a few wooden bead bracelets that were supposedly blessed. I took them as a symbol or a memento so I could never forget. But I had a long road to travel yet, the message effected me through subconscious pain and guilt, I felt ashamed for being so closed off to the suffering of others, so I wore one of the bracelets to mark that shame to myself. The lesson manifest physically.
Some time later…
Fast forward a few years, the bracelet is mostly gone, Its lost somewhere in the 2 or 3 moves I did from apartment to apartment. If fate had wove this tale, then it has done so with a sense of irony, because during this time that the bracelet was lost, I was free falling, from breaking up out of an 8 year relationship to losing my home, to hating my job, to becoming angry and desperate. I made a stone of my heart and no lessons got through.
Early in 2010 things began to change for me. I lost touch with the hard shell I was wearing as I noticed it was driving away my family and friends. This hurt so I undertook a massive level of introspection and came to some conclusions. I concluded that I could only ever be myself. I cannot be the cool and calculated person I tried to be, it wasn’t real to myself and I grew deeper and deeper into a depression. After I concluded that I could no longer live a lie, and that I was always going to just be that sensitive kid who wanted everyone to get along and to be happy. And that I had to take that form of myself and mature it into a viable lifestyle. Things turned around.
People from the past have come to me, opportunities have been given to me, when I opened my heart, all frequencies, the universe began to speak to me. Event after event, situation after situation, I see the connections between us all. Maybe we are all electrified impulses in a greater beings head, but we are all the same, all connected. And because of that connection and because I was open to know it and to hear the truth, the message came to me. Bring love wherever you go, love is the wellspring from which life flows, we must cultivate life and guard it. Days after this realization the bracelet reappears from nowhere. I literally found it in a drawer I swear I never put it in. I began to wear it and the significance of the lesson back in China remained.
1 week ago:
Alan and I decided it would be a good idea to get buzzed up and walk around Manhattan. The Belgian Bar BXL, Aramark office, all around we went. This day was strange, there was snowfall in the air but it wasn’t snowing really, but there was a metallic and electric flavor to the air. I wasn’t cold, but I felt cool and as though I was adrift in the winds as we walked. I knew that night was going to be special.
I had been wearing my bracelet for a month at this point. It had a deep significance as I now fully understood the message and why I wore it. As Alan and I walked around Manhattan at night late the city was very welcoming but also in great pain. I could feel it. One corner we turned and an old black man came to me. His eyes were yellow and his beard was gray and black, his coat was tattered and his voice was low and soft. “can you help me man?” Alan gave me a sideways glance and kept walking on, my instinct was to follow him… but my feet were rooted there on the ground and I turned to face him. I reached into my pocket and its when I made the connection. “my bracelet is missing”. It was gone, I had wore it all day and I last remembered seeing it on the train when we drove into Manhattan, but now, it was just gone. That absence made me think, bracelet… bracelet, China… It was the universe tapping me on the shoulder again. I then came to realize, this is the final exam, I failed my 1st test, and now here, years away on the other side of the planet, the same token I took from China my cheat sheet, reminded me of the lesson I had already learned.
“I cant make the same mistake again” I say to Alan, his eyes lock mine and he nods his head. I hand the old man a few dollars, he doesn’t smile, he doesn’t say “bless me” he stares right in my eyes and says “Thank you”. I passed, and a weight feels lifted from my back. I feel my eyes welling up and I feel like its ok that the bracelet is gone, it served its purpose and now it has faded into history to effect someone else life. I am free of my pain and I have concluded that my life has been half full for too long.
We must tap into our higher selves. Only through connecting to one and other and spreading real genuine love and caring can we balance the tides and win the fight for mankinds soul. Talent and gifts are abound in all of us, how many times have I used my intellect, my cunning, my physical strength, my beauty as a tool to enrich myself at the cost of someone else?
Gifts are meant to be shared, and I am done being the fat kid at the party. The universe takes care of its own, you get what you need, when you need it, and then we die when the lessons are learned. We cannot ever know the true nature of the cosmos, that’s not the point of life. We have been put here into the 3rd dimension to do 3rd dimensional things, that means we life and work in a world of material, and it is through this matter that we must prove our rights to exist through charity, understanding and self awareness.
Popularity: 5% [?]
January 6th, 2010 Remorse
I hurt a really good girl tonight. I benefited from her company and I let her start to love me and then I broke her heart and left threw her away because I am incapable of being human any longer. I don’t know what this means for me, but I will forever regret hurting such a good person and I can only pray that she will one day find the courage to forgive me and everything I have done for her. I thought that I would be driven to drinking heavily for this, but I have decided that I will bear the brunt of this current of guilt and pain, what little heart I had left she has taken with her, and even though it wasn’t enough to plant and grow a fertile love, it is enough for me to sit here in pain and take it and feel it and drown in it because what I did to her was not fair and I am garbage for doing what I did.
I don’t know what I have left inside, I don’t think anything.
K. Please forgive me. I never wanted to hurt you.
Popularity: 8% [?]
If I had a choice between playing a new Xbox360 game and playing an all time classic like Streets of Rage 2, I would of course pick the Xbox360. When I got bored with that I would bust out my emulator, sync up with my brother Rick and play the hell out of some SoR2. Oh hell yes we would!
Streets of Rage 2 was by far the best and greatest, nay the pinnacle of the brawler “beat em up” style game. Double Dragon, the Ninja Turtles games, Bad Dudes – all the rancid dog-doodie on bottom of SoR2’s boots.
If you don’t believe me then it’s clear that you haven’t played this game. Yes it’s that good, so good that if you disagree then your opinion is literally wrong. Dealing with that kind of extremity is what playing this game is all about. Why only yesterday I was a mere lad and I stole this title from my friend, I somehow convinced him that he “lost it.” *snortle* Used to hook that bad boy up and play with my brother all through the night.
Now this is the best and most important part of the game. This is what makes the game most worthwhile, and why it’s a testament to Japanese perversion. Choose the character Blaze, the hot brunet with the great gravity defying rack. Make her do her cartwheel kick and pause just as her legs are at a 90 degree angle. UNDERWEAR!!!! Purty pink panties! Old Mary Jane Rotten-crotch! BOOYAH! Is what you would say if you were like 13, which I was at the time.
Now there is no reason for you to play this game. 
Provided you were able to make it past the 1st level and all the panty-peekabooing, you were in for a lush beautiful 2D rendered world of punks, hookers, fat guys with chains, motorcycles from Beyond Thunderdome and Mr. X. The game progresses from left to right standard 2D side scrolling action, with the occasional diagonal right-down and an elevator scene or two. The colors are gorgeous and the characters look really defined for a 16 bit game.
Story-wise you’re out you rescue Adam, the black dude from SoR1. He’s been kidnapped by that rascal Mr. X. You got a couple friends to come along for the ball-breakery, including Adams kid brother Skate, and a gigantic wrestler named Max. You go from scene to scene kicking ass and chewing bubble gum, even though you’re ALL OUT OF BUBBLEGUM BABY! This game packs so much punch that in order to keep up with demand for ass kickery, Sega had to import cheap colons from Mexico. Unfortunately the colons were of such a sub-par quality from all the chipotle blood stains, they soon had to switch to Indian suppliers… much better quality even if they smell like curried goat.
If they made a video game version for that song “Old Time Rock N Roll” then it would be this game. If you are a 16 bit Sega aficionado this is a title that belongs in your collection.
Popularity: 20% [?]
You know why the video games of yesteryear are better than the games today? Simplicity. I find myself taking frequent breaks from the overly polished games of today to play my old Sega Genesis or NES. After all, why watch hours of rendered cut scenes in Resident Evil 5 or Rise of the Argonauts when I can jump on turtle shells, fall into never ending pits of doom or kill vampires in luscious 2D side scroll-ers? Games made more sense back then. They were simple – shoot bubbles at enemies, pop them, eat the crystals or cakes they drop and keep going until you rescue your sexy dragon-woman girlfriend. SO SEXY! Easy, right? Who wants to play a game where you are the dream of a dead race that might have existed inside of someone’s imagination? Is that plot confusing? That’s how I felt when I played Final Fantasy VIII.
You may be wondering what I am getting at, let me be direct – the games of today suck compared to my biased nostalgia of games like Mario 3, the Adventure of Link, and Bubble Bobble. And it is with love for those old time classics that I am going to pay tribute to one of the best RPG games I ever played: Sword of Vermillion.
*FANFARE*
I can clearly remember when I was 7 or 8 busting my ass, and possibly some child labor laws cutting grass, raking leaves, and shoveling snow to come up with enough dough to buy a Turbo Graphics 16 game system. I reeeeallllly wanted Bonks Adventure because the commercial was so awesome. My Nintendo Entertainment System while great and having well over 200 titles on my basement floor, was no longer cutting it. and the next generation of video gaming had begun, 16 bits! Well there we were, pops took me to the local Toy Works and I had 160 dollars. He said “What do you want?” At the time I couldn’t remember the name Bonk so I was trying to explain “The game with the guy with the giant head!” No one understood… oh the life of an introverted child.
What I ended up leaving with, very accidentally, was Sega Genesis. And how!
The 1st game I bought for it was Sword of Vermillion, the guy told me it was like the Legend of Zelda. In retrospect he should be tortured for lying to such a sweet young boy as I was. Be that as it may, the selection was quite limited, the Sega Genesis was still pretty new – they were still running the “Genesis DOES! What Ninten-don’t” ad campaign on TV and on the kiosk in the store.
Sword of Vermillion, how I love thee. How clever I thought I was naming my Character “Billya.” My name, in case you didn’t get it, is Billy… but when you’re 8 adding the “A” on there was a clever way of pretending my name could sound like it came from fantasy antiquity.
SoV was an awesome game and tough as shit for someone my age, not so much today. It’s an RPG of sorts that used a weird overhead mini-map system when moving around and had plenty of randomly spawning monsters. In battle it was kind of like the legend of Zelda in that it was real action, of course the similarities ended there. In the boss fights (masters as we called them a hold over from our days watching “Captain N and the Game Masters”) it was side scrolling real time action. There was no real strategy per say, but tell that to a kid who is struggling with his multiplication tables.
Father? NOOOOOOOOO!!!111oneone
The plot is this: Our adventurer Billya is called to his dying father (or so he thought) Blade. Blade tells you that your real father was King Erik of Excalibra. He and his long time friend and ally Tsarkon the King of Carpathia were collecting the 16
rings of the gods. 8 good and 8 evil. Of course, like the dumbshits they were, they started with the rings of evil first and wouldn’t you know it Tsarkon turned into a total douche, he killed Erik, crushed Excalibra and decided to go after the rest of the rings. To anyone paying attention you might be wondering if the rings of good would have made him become neutral. Well… they don’t. Anyway, Blade escapes with you apparently as a baby along with the Ring of Wisdom. (which is a ring of good). Blade tells you to go and get it from a cave and begin your quest of ruining Tsarkon’s shit.
Did I? Hell yeah I did. I busted some skeleton ass in that cave, got my ring and traveled on. You pretty much travel the mini map to different locations, each harder than the last. You go to a kingdom, meet a king and he either tries to kill you, send you on an errand or both. Eventually you get a ring of good from him. One king was a total cock though: The King of Swiftham, a dirty, greedy, bastard. If he represented a real life person I bet he would run a Cumberland Farms convenience store with 10 dollar potatoes and 2 dollar 8 oz sodas and be the only one open late the night before Thanksgiving. Well he makes you go to 3 separate caves to get 3 gems for him. 3! Eventually he gives up the ring not out of kindness though. I think a size 11 boot print on his ass did the job. In another town a little girl meets you on the road and you help her out. It turns out she is a giant 2 headed fire tossing demon. You own her ass like a total pimp and she gives you a spell book of healing. BONUS!
In time you make your way to Excalibra and meet an old dude who tells you more of the game’s back story, then fueled by the rage of some unknown guy killing the father you never met you go to Carpathia. There’s a hot princess who totally wants your package there so in my head I imagined getting it on with her before heading off to take on Tsarkon. He is in a cave, (Obviously) however his area is locked, and in order to get to him you have to fight EVERY boss you fought previously all over again to get their keys to gain access. *Facepalm*
In the final battle, like all evil weenies, he offers you his hand in partnership despite the fact that it’s crammed with 8 evil rings and he’s the guy who killed your daddy. You say “NO! NO YOU BEAST I WILL DESTROY YOU!” At least that’s what I was yelling at the TV. And take him on in mortal combat. 2 men enter, 1 man leaves! Guess who? ME. That’s right bitch! Then I traveled back to Carpathia for some sweet sweet loving in the tender hands of the princess. YES! The end! You are my hero!
Anyway, I still sneak off from World of Warcraft, Halo or whichever of today’s games to find solace of reliving the fantasy in the world of Sword of Vermillion. The game is easy by today’s standards, but goddamn what a sweet escape.
Popularity: 14% [?]
Brought forth from the pound, so full of virility and vigor.
Leaping, bounding and made to love the pack.
Loved and petted, fed and bathed.
Introduced to the new pups, love them, guard them, teach them.
Life had a purpose then, to show the way, to guard the pack.
To live with meaning.
I loved my home, my masters, my brothers.
Loyal to the end, fiercely protective, guardian.
Time passed and we lost touch with our meaning,
time passed and the pups grew.
The old loyal hound no longer required.
Ended his days alone, watching diligently from afar.
The pups breed pups, the old dog watched in pleasure.
Scorned for being who he was, when no longer required.
Tail between his legs, no family left to defend.
Where does he go?
No longer required, he let his sorrow grow.
Popularity: 12% [?]
“Where are you going?” Ma asks.
“I want to go check my snake traps” I say.
I love nature, there is nothing better than nature. I like to capture snakes, frogs, toads, turtles, stray cats, wounded birds, moles, anything really. Animals are the only thing worth trusting. I take care of them for a few days then I let them go somewhere safe with food. I love them they are my friends.
“Well don’t go too far.” She says it so nonchalantly as though an after thought.
I don’t reply, I am already walking down the street to my “Snake traps.” My snake trap was just a piece of plywood I left in a grassy field, after a week snakes would take up residence under it and I would lift it and catch them.
Halfway down the road, a tall blond man who looked to me like a circus clown because of the dark rings under his eyes and his flowing long blond hair calls me over to his home. I’ve never known anyone to be bad, so I go to him. He insists that he knows where there is a good spot to catch snakes and frogs. My eyes light up with amusement, Where?! He asks me to follow him and I obey.
“Come with me, you’re going to be so happy to see this place” He says smiling.
“OK but I have to go home soon.” I am starting to have a bad feeling.
“Oh its very close, right over there” He points to a grove of trees cropping out from the small forest behind the housing units we live in. I look back towards home, but how do I say no? I follow him into the grove of trees.
“Look over there” he instructs me in those bushes.
I begin to walk there and I feel him approach me from behind, I look inside the bushes and I feel his hand on my shoulder.
“keep looking” his breath is slow, I am suddenly becoming terrified.
My body begins to shake and quiver, I want to leave, I want to run now I want to RUN but his hand is on my shoulder squeezing. He asks me to turn around, I say nothing but I don’t turn. I feel him working his free hand through his pants undoing his belt. He is moaning, I begin to sob, tears roll down my small cheeks. Oh please someone help me… I’m crying, please someone help me. He pulls my shoulder back and I can feel his penis brush up against the nape of my neck, I feel him masturbating and rubbing his penis on the back of my head and neck.
I pull forward and say that I have to go, my mom wants me to come home for dinner. I feel guilty for some reason for lying, I know there is no dinner tonight. But I must go. He buttons his pants up and lets go of my shoulder I begin to walk away, wiping my burning eyes. He stands there watching me leave, he says nothing, then he says “I’m sorry”.
I get through the tree line and begin running as hard as I can home. When I get home mom is laying on the couch watching Soap operas sleeping, I go upstairs and climb into my bed, I decide I can never tell anyone about this, I feel so ashamed. I can never tell anyone about this.
I was nearly 6 years old.
Popularity: 8% [?]
Empty trees, hibernating in the winter season, bare and grim like a skeletons ribs. We once played in verdant lush summers, as a family BBQ, Mesquite, fires, s’mores, baseballs, bocci and laughter. All things draw to an end, including youthful daisy chains and the joy we once felt. But as I walked through the lawn, icy snow crunching under my boots I remembered a thousand memories of my loved ones living the life we were given and the steps we had taken. Gone to oblivion now, never to return until the next generation replaces us, but what have we lost? Is it so wrong to shed a tear for what will never again be? Tasseled hair, and fragrant lilac blooms gliding on a cool spring breeze, fathers garden, earthy and rich, the dirt flipped and prepared for the summers growing, peppers, tomatoes and basil. My brothers, my little brothers playing horseshoes and growing like grape vines, every day stronger, and larger. Once fitting in my hands like a baguette of fleshy tendrils and limbs. My heart deceives me and relieves me of fanciful logic, and the tears roll effortlessly for the loss I am mourning, of our youth and our family crumbling like yesterdays Halloween pumpkins, only to birth a patch of green herbs in its place. I’ve lost them all to time, and now home in my bed, fanciful and remorseful for being a weaker man, I cannot make end meet properly and tie up all the loose ends. This side of exile, meager and wanting, but prideful and painful. Self imposed and liberty prone, I cannot tie up all the loose ends. And so portion of my heart shed, I bury it here in my fathers garden, childish things I put to bed. Walking the colorless streets, the clouds swirl and blow angry stinging cold winds at my face, tears like dew dry and freeze to my skin, all is gone that I loved and now I am alone and looking for meaning. If not in the bottle or joint or writing or vagina then nowhere, life has not meaning, never had a meaning, childish things must be put to bed. Everyday I am learning, all my life I have only been pretending, living for what I was told and not appreciating what was in my hands. Taking these lessons in stride, offends me, it wounds my pride, and I turn towards bitterness but the feelings, the long standing feelings wash ashore in seas of lamentation.
Popularity: 13% [?]
