Month: April 2018

51 August 30 BC

Nile River

We admired her beauty from afar. From under our veils we watched her, the great Cleopatra; greet her loving subjects on her own for the first time as their sole ruler. Her long black hair swayed in the wind and her skin shimmered against the sun. Everyone loved her dearly, much more than her father. I’d known Cleo all my life and knew that ruling over this land was not what she wanted, although she loved all the luxuries she would have rather been a common girl. My companion was Cleo’s first love, and he, he loved her still. As her carriage left my line of sight, my partner dragged me with him to Cleo’s palace.

“Come! Come! We must hurry to find an entrance,” Ahmes, my companion shouted. We crept around the palace slowly and with stealth, acting as if we were walking to the gardens. When we reached the far end of the wall we began to look for our old, secret entrance. It was the height of a large barrel and the width of a clothing trunk. Once we found it we climbed through and replaced the bricks when we got to the other side. We crawled through a series of interconnected tunnels and moved a hidden wall panel. Ahmes & I entered Cleo’s old room, and to our surprise it still looked the same, except Cleo wasn’t in her usual spot, on her floor with a scroll in her hand. In fact she wasn’t there at all. We sat on her bed, knowing she’d come. “Hey look, she still has our hieroglyphs painted on her wall; I thought she would’ve gotten that painted over.” I exclaimed. I was purely amazed at how long Cleo had kept those childlike paintings on her wall. We’d drawn them there 10 years ago, when were 10. “Oh, how great,” Ahmes’s words oozed sarcasm. He still loved Cleo with everything in him, but was extremely angry that he hadn’t married her.

“Don’t be such a sourpuss; I’m sure Cleo still has feelings for you. You know royals have to marry royals, her siblings means nothing to her.” I tried to cheer him up to the best of my ability. We stopped moving at once, listening for voices, and ran to Cleo’s secret closet. We sat for many hours, waiting and listening. “My legs hurt,” I whined. “Shut up Amuntu, you’ll get us caught.” More silence, an even longer wait. It was so boring that we fell asleep.

We awoke to the setting sun. What a beautiful view it was, blues, reds, oranges, and pinks emitted from the skies. Then there was a big dark sky, with the moon herself shining ever so brightly. We admired her, and the stars in all its beauty. After a few minutes of silence, Cleo’s old cat, Apu, waddled into the room. She was excited to see us, purring loudly and walking into the closet to sit with us. “No Apu, go away. Go, shoo.” “Apu, come.” She left us at the sound of Cleopatra’s voice. “What were you doing in there? I hope you weren’t scratching at my new dresses.” She walked toward the closet, pushed it from her path, bent down and simply smiled at us. She used her index finger to let us know to follow her. Neither of us could get our words together. She made us sit immediately. “Hello old friends, I’m glad to see you again. I knew you’d come,” she chirped. I spoke first, “Cleo! We missed you so much. It’s been so long, I thought you’d forgotten about us.” “

“Don’t speak for me,” Ahmes grumbled.

“Oh Ahmes, stop that, you know that wasn’t my choice, if it was, I would’ve married you.”

He simply walked over to the animal skin rug in the corner of the room and picked up a bundle of papyrus, beginning to read it.

“Don’t mind him Cle, he’s just upset.”

“That’s quite alright, I’d be angry too if the only person I’d ever loved left me for the throne I was born in to.” as she spoke her eyes twinkled and it sounded as if she were laughing lightly.

We sat in silence for a few moment before Cleopatra announced, “I will be meeting the great Julius Caesar tonight, I will be back in two days’ time, feel free to roam my home, it is yours for the taking.” She then vanished, while Ahmes & I prepared for dinner and then later bed.

Meanwhile Cleopatra was being dressed in the finest silks and cloths possible, her hair and her make up looked so utterly beautiful against her skin. “Roll me in this here carpet and deliver it to Caesar’s home.” Her servants did as told and within an hour she was delivered to his door. When Caesar unrolled his newly found carpet, he was welcomed by the sight of a radiant Cleopatra staring at him with fierce eyes. He chuckled and pulled her from the floor. ‘A sight of ethereal beauty you are.” Cleo, previously kneeling before him, sauntered to a nearby stool. “Julius, how kind of you to welcome me in to your home,” she said with a smirk. “Always a pleasure to have such a lovely woman of your stature near.” Cleo and Caesar talked for several hours, of everything and nothing, until one topic in particular rubbed him the wrong way. “I believe it would be best if we joined forces, in marriage perhaps, to rule our two lands as one and build a stronger empire,” Cleo said as she glanced from her nails to Julius’s eyes. They showed a hint of hesitation, and so did his words. Which grew angrier by the second. He shouted and argued, although he’d have loved to rule two lands, sharing his power, let alone with a woman, was unthinkable. Cleo stormed off, all the while Julius began forming a plan to destroy what she loved most.

“Ahmes, we have to hurry!” we were being attacked by only Osiris knows who. We needed to make our way to Cleopatra’s room and get her into hiding immediately. When we finally arrived, Cleo was changing, and shouting orders at anyone within ear shot. We had to get her to safety. “Cleo, come with us, please.” Ahmes pleaded with her, Cleo had always been stubborn, so Ahmes took it upon himself to be her knight in shining armor. Before I knew it, he’d thrown her over his shoulder and we were on a small boat to our favorite hiding place. And then I knew, only time would tell what was to come and our lives would change forever.

Two days ago from now i did a thing, and it was a normal thing. A thing that if anyone were to ask would know that it happened but if not then wouldn’t. It was one of those things that cross your mind for a second and then fades through the day until it’s brought up again. Which  it hardly is. Things like that are left unsaid. Those things are sacred. A little secret between yourself and maybe one other person depending on the type of day. This thing was hard of course. I felt like I would burst into a million pieces as if my skin would burn off. This thing was intense. This thing made me wonder briefly why I did anything but cemented my role just the same. This thing brings me curiosity. So much curiosity that I pick it apart day by day until I’m left feeling alone. This thing is monstrous. This things pick me up by the hair and swings me around until I’m too dizzy to get back up again. This thing is so neutral that I couldn’t even blame it for the faults that it causes because those faults are only faults in certain lighting. Then again everything seems better in the dark. This thing seems to strive there. I And I don’t mean the darkness in you’re mind. No, this thing isn’t that deep. But it could be if applied right. Then again I don’t think I ever apply this thing correctly. This thing is a mystery. A mystery only solved by time and space and people. Words exchanging. Exchanging this thing with the person to animal to alien to anything that’s willing to exist in its presence. It’s a troubled thing. It finds what it needs most no means of its own but then again I don’t know. I can never tell what the purpose of this thing is but I believe that it isn’t trying to cause harm. It doesn’t want to end things it just wants to go and move through life like water to a stream. It wants to be free to do what it chooses. Then it chooses to live in a cage. This thing contradicts. This thing holds out secrets like gold and then it’s picked clean. This things wonders why people would do such a thing. But it knows why. It knows what it also doesn’t. that thing is best left unsaid, because i don’t think i could give it a name. Or at least not yet. 

When I was a kid my family used to put together letters for funeral parlors to earn some extra money. We’d fold the letters a certain way, put them in the correct envelop, and seal them. I always got a lot of paper cuts from doing this. The letters were then sent out to families who had an old family member. I remember seeing a letter for a family who had the same last name as mine once. Could you imagine getting a letter that tells you that you should probably start financially planning for your loved ones death? Or being old and getting one? A reminder of your mortality in the form of mail from your local funeral parlor. My uncle used to work at a funeral parlor. He was a mortician. He sells kitchenware now and is the type of guy to tell pet store employees that their fish are dead. I’ve had a lot of fish in my life. And cats. And dogs. And lizards. And rodents. Just a lot of animals in general. Having a lot of pets also means having a lot of pet deaths. My mom thinks a big part of having pets is to prepare us for the deaths of people. I’ve been to two funerals these past five years. Both of them were during the summer. The worst time of the year to have a funeral. I hope I don’t die in the summer. I didn’t  know either person very well, but their deaths affected my life greatly. Death has a funny way of bringing out the truth. The first person to die was my Great-Grandfather. He was the grandma on my mom’s side dad. I only ever saw him alive twice. The first time was at a wedding, I didn’t like him the moment I laid eyes on him. I didn’t have a specific reason to not like him, but something just felt off. The second time I saw him was when he was in the retirement home. He had Alzheimers then and pretended to know who we were when we introduced ourselves. He played it off pretty well, the only reason I know he was faking it is because my mom told me after we left that if he really remembered us he would have talked our ears off. When he died, I found out a lot about my mom’s side of the family that I didn’t want to know. I remember texting my cousins about everything , trying to piece it all together while I was at a friends house. I wasn’t happy with what we found. I didn’t want to go back home after that. I remember whispering something cruel to his casket. My grandma would have slapped me if she had found out. She believes we should never talk bad about the dead. Even if they were bad people. I used to think everyone deserved a fueneral before I heard about my not-so-great-grandfather. The second person to die was my Great-Aunt. I never saw her while she was alive. We were friends on facebook, though. My mom asked me to draw a  portrait of her to give to her kids. Drawing a dead person for five hours straight is kind of weird. Makes you think. Her funeral really made me rethink a lot of who I was. All I knew about her was what people were saying about her in their eulogies. They said that she loved God and talking, but how could I be sure if that was true? They could be lying. Or maybe they just only knew what she showed them? Maybe that was just a facade. What if she had a secret side of her that her family didn’t know about? People like me would never know.  I had a thought, “If I died right here, right now, would any of my family know who I really am?” Your family is an essential part of how you are remembered when you die. I don’t want people saying that I love God at my funeral. I don’t want them to read bible verses. That funeral is what made me decide I wanted to stop being distant. Up until then I was terrified of letting my family get to know me, because all my life I was  told that  they could never love me for being a heathen queer. But at that point, I’d rather die and be remembered as a heathen queer than die and be remembered as someone that I wasn’t. So, I came out to them. It went pretty well. I can be more myself around them now and I’ve never felt more free. Some of them didn’t accept me, but I was prepared to live with that. Death is a weird thing. It made me distant from my family and closer. It can destroy and build up. Like a volcano.

I think love is ridiculously over-rated, but I can’t seem to find my way out of the pit I’ve let myself fall into. It sounds dumb (and it is, mind you) but what can a person do?

I think of myself as someone with reliable decision-making skills, and given the problems this predicament is causing, I would think I could make the appropriate decision to let this person go.

It should be easy.  Factors out of my control enter the equation and butt their way into my life. There should be little to consider about the situation, and that is what I have been telling myself for almost a year- and a year is a long time to pathetically pine after someone who doesn’t care about your existence. Take my word for it, and just trust me.

In fact, I had called myself getting over this person, but the moment I lay my eyes on them, I knew I was screwed in a sticky place (possibly forever).

What do you do when you see them smile at someone else the same way they used to smile at you?

Or what about how their hands find the other one’s waist on a slow song?

Heaven forbid you watch them disappear from the after-party to be alone together.

What do you do then? (Don’t ask me)

(I don’t have it all figured out)

Get angry is my usual response to things that would make a functioning human begin cry, or whatever.

Smoking  a pack of cigarettes is easier than crying, lung cancer and all.  Anything is better than crying in front of them.

What about when the cigarettes are gone?  I don’t know- find another pack.  Jump off the back porch, it’ll work for a few minutes. Or, until  you realize the porch is only about three feet off the ground and the only thing that hurts is your wrist from trying to catch yourself on the fall down.

Perhaps, try non self-detrimental exercises to cure your heart of its  harrowing illness. Eat two salads a day. Drown yourself in hydration. Run three miles in the morning and three more at night. Go out on ‘adventures’. Meet and use new people. Try to feel anything but the them-sized lump stuck on your heart.

If, by some terrible happening those things don’t work, resort back to cigarettes.

(This post, in no way, endorses smoking cigarettes- this is all metaphorical)

people are going crazy, god’s back and he won’t stop humming.
he’s trying to show mary he still remembers her favorite songs.
humming, humming, humming all day and every night,
knocking on doors and asking for mary. no, i say.
this is the fourth time you’ve been here, you’re going in circles.

everyone is stumbling, it’s a scary time to be alive.
the rocks are screaming tchaikovsky and puking,
the trees are bumping their roots to the tune of war
and blocking out the sun. the oceans have been crying all their life,
they stopped today. no one can tell whether or not it’s a good thing.

the fish stopped sleeping without the sound of sobbing,
they’ve got red-stained eyebags and everyone’s telling them wow,
you look like crap. those fish are growing teeth and spitting ‘em right at them,
saying wow, thanks for telling me that. how nice of you.
i hear they’re looking at fisherman straight in the eye these days.

the snakes are eating themselves. everyone’s asking them why,
but the snakes know it’s impolite to talk with your mouth full.
frogs are growing into tadpoles and the tadpoles are too scared to grow up,
octopi are climbing mountains. it’s a scary site for hikers,
but it was on their bucketlist, so why not? the world is ending, after all.

every cow turns into a bull. it’s that kind of world now.
the birds stopped chirping. they only scream now,
watching their babies cook in their own eggs. everyone is comforting them,
wow. that must suck. the birds laugh, only if you have bad seasoning.
snails are killing each other for shells. everyone is just looking for a home.

there’s a leech who claims to have fed on every god,
he’s big as can be and old as the heavens, laughing
like the screaming of a thousand gods. he glows at the edges.
we ask, what do we do, all mighty leech? run, he says.
run before it kills you. the milky way is curdling.

everyone’s scrambling for the spaceships, let’s leave
and never come back. elton john, you’re in front, steer the ship
and we’ll pray to the devil, gather all the rocks you can
to cover up a bit of the humming. it’s no use. it’s in the brain.
god shakes us like a bottle rocket, is mary here? no mary here.

he comes into my room again that night.
is mary here?
yeah, i say.
how’d you know.

so we all wrote about the songs we can’t live without back in like august, right? and i did that list about my top ten all-time Favorite Songs, right?

well, i changed my mind.

my music taste changes a lot, what can you do?

but these songs make me feel the same as i did the moment i first heard them. they also make me cry sometimes, so maybe there’s some strange correlation between my favorite songs and whether or not i’ve cried while listening to them. anyway, here’s a Revised conclusive list of my top five, end-all-be-all favorite songs in the known and unknown universe (plus some neat lil explanations if that’s something you’re into).

secret for the mad / dodie (music video link) – this song is simple, but it is truly one of the most beautiful things i’ve ever heard in my life. this song is one that i turn to when my days are more down than up, and i just need to remember that the up is coming soon. favorite lyrics: 

sprawl II (mountains beyond mountains) / arcade fire – see this is where the new stuff comes in because when i first made my favorite songs list, i’d never heard this song before. everything about this song is stunning (and the music video is mesmerizing), but i think the best part is how much of myself i can hear and see and feel in this song. favorite lyrics: 

hey jude / the beatles – i’ve grown up listening to the beatles, so it only seems fair that i have a beatles song somewhere on this list, and while there are plenty of other beatles songs that i love dearly, this one always sticks around. i still have a video of this song on my laptop from when i saw paul mccartney in concert in 2013, and i have a lot of other nice memories tied to this song, so maybe that’s my soft spot. favorite lyrics: 

starlight / muse (live version that makes me Cry) – i’ve adored this song for as long as i’ve listened to muse, but my love for it didn’t quite cement until i was listening to a live concert performance and casually started crying in the middle of a target. i spent a really long time thinking i’d never hear this song live, and trust me, when i finally did, i sobbed the entire time. favorite lyrics:

i wanna get better / bleachers  (music video but watch the other one first)– this song, without a doubt or hesitation, is my favorite song of all time. from the moment a first heard the words “i wanna get better” in july 2015, i knew this song (and this band) would change my life in ways i could never have even fathomed before, and it continues to change my life every day since. all i want is to hear this song live, and who knows? that day could be sooner than i think. favorite lyrics:

with the way i listen to music, favorite songs are always subject to change. everything shifts around with every new song i discover, and even with every old song i rediscover. but these five, these are sticking around for a long time.

These small pieces of prose are inspired by pictures I use for my daily wallpapers and collages I have made in the past.

(Angelic provision of Jesus Christ, O Lord, be with thee!)

My blood’s got it’s own pair of eyes now, Christ. The only blood I’ve got left.

To Death, my personal angel:

To the one who got rid of the babies and the broken bottles. I’m listening to trash indie on a speaker in the shower, shaving horizontal with the bloodstreams and the veins and watching green vines overflow on my hips like milk in the pitcher. And yeah, I’m angry.

 

 

 

I’m pissed, this sloppy red mess is all I’ve got left and the bottle hit me on the jaw and threw me in the kitchen at three am, in a puddle of my own spit. They tell me I’m a daughter of a man with stains on his hands and I believe them. They tell me my rigor mortise is setting in a few decades early and I sit back to watch the dog tags slip between my broken left tooth.

In Luke 22:43, we find Jesus in the garden again, but this time,strangling the roe bushes. The angels it on Calvary’s tree, letting apples fall from the stem to rot.

Lazarus was escorted to the snack machine when the commercials rolled, he passed while eating a corn chip. I hear the understudy is taking the job quite nicely.

Some songwriter is going to put it like this:

When there’s nothing in your face screaming

hell is the enemy,

who’s to judge when you leave this town?

The gate is open and burning, but so too

are you, and again,

the circumstantial crucified by prophecies and the

provisional holy one.

 

 

 

 

Minecraft is an okay game that I played years ago.  I still find nothing wrong with the game.  It’s a simple and fun.  It’s fun to build in and track your progress as you go from a little hut made only to escape the night to a mansion.  I want to make it entirely clear that I have no problem with the game.

I don’t even have a problem with the community, to be honest.  It’s mostly just kids that have fun playing the game.  Yeah, they can be cringy, but every kid does some cringy things that they’ll do their best to forget as they get older.  They might as well spend their time playing a game like Minecraft which is harmless enough.

Where my problem lies is with the YouTubers that blatantly lie to profit off of the ignorance of these children who want to watch videos about their favorite video game.  This was brought to my attention when I typed “how to make a spongebob po” into Google, hoping to find out how to make a Spongebob popsicle.  As I typed, I found that something very different was suggested to me, “how to make spongebob portal in minecraft.”  Needless to say, I was intrigued and had to find out what terrible garbage this was.

As it turns out, it was just what I thought, absolute garbage made to fool children into clicking videos full of lies.  I found videos that claimed to inform people how to create a portal in Minecraft that would take them to an alleged Spongebob dimension.

Of course, this makes absolutely no sense.  Spongebob is owned by Nickelodeon which is owned by Viacom.  Minecraft is owned by Mojang which is owned by Microsoft.  Unless there was some sort of licensing deal in place, there would be no way for Spongebob or anything related to Spongebob to exist within Minecraft.  A child doesn’t think about such things however and is simply excited because they believe that their favorite cartoon is now in their favorite video game.

These lies do not stop at Spongebob however.  There have also been videos made describing how to make a portal in the game that will transport the character to a Mario dimension.  This claim holds slightly more water because a version of Minecraft was released on Nintendo’s Wii U which included skins based on the Mario world.  There still is no “Mario Dimension” within the game and no portal that can be built to access one.

Additionally there are videos claiming to show how to bring characters like Pennywise the Clown, the Hulk, Robin from Teen Titans Go!, and Freddy Fazbear.  I personally do not play Minecraft, but the way that these YouTubers are deceiving children for their personal, financial gain really bothers me.  While I still wouldn’t watch them, I feel like it would be much more respectable if these creators instead made entertainment based on these properties that children like as opposed to deceiving them.