The Hand You're Dealt: If I Looked Like What I've Been Through

Don't hate the hand you've been dealt. It is your gift, your plight, and it is up to you to use it to better yourself and the world around you. Greatness lies on the outskirts of suffering. Struggle is the guarantee that the direction you are going in is the right one. Nothing grand is achieved without effort. You are in control of your destiny; you can get out of this mire, this bog that imprisons you. The chains that bind you are figurative for a reason.

I have seen men claw their way back from the brink of self-destruction. No string of bad decisions is beyond repair. We all struggle - often through similar situations, experiences, and tragedies. Telling your story can empower others to tell theirs, to create a network of support, to provide an example of how you can save yourself and others from the demons that haunt each of us. Remember... there is always someone who will miss you in the end. No one is forgotten and evil is always conquered by good. Always.

After being diagnosed with a Pervasive Developmental Disorder, I grew up among a lot of kids with dubious futures. Many have gone on to lead beneficent, productive lives. We are survivors. You are a survivor. We each carry the battle scars of our own personal civil wars, but we don't always wear them with pride. Our medals, our purple hearts, hide just beneath the skin - the silent aggrandizements of our perseverance. Own your struggles. Use them to make you stronger. To make us stronger.

What would you look like if you looked like what you've been through?

I must stress that I do not condone self-harm. Please never hurt yourself. Seek help.

If I looked like what I've been through
I'd have the face of a woman
and a man
contorted into a kind of in-between
delicate and masculine
with eyes that pierce and lips that tempt
with a jaw of glass that slices like obsidian
and a brow that collects beads of sweat
where ideas fall to their deaths

If I looked like what I've been through

my face would be scarred with age 

ancient memories tucked under my tongue 

to escape is archaic speech 

wisdom exuding, 

bleeding through childlike curiosity 

a fascination 

that hints at an old soul

inside a young heart

If I looked like what I've been through
I'd have a heart where my brain is supposed to be
I'd have a brain where my heart is supposed to be
and they'd constantly be switching
thinking, feeling
fighting for what is right
neither able to decide who is winning 

If I looked like what I've been through
I'd be dressed in a three piece straitjacket
with cufflinks
dressed to the nines in a canvas tux
with the images that cloud my mind painted on
a metaphor for my artistic fervor
my former affliction replaced with a brilliance
no less insane

If I looked like what I've been through
I'd have cuts so deep in my wrists
my hands would bend back as if attached with hinges
I'd have bible pages rolled up and tucked inside the veins
unfinished poems
dollar bills
that I'd unroll from time to time
to remind me
to hold on

If I looked like what I've been through
my blood type would be ink
and you would see it coursing
in sentences and verses
just beneath my skin

If I looked like what I've been through
my skin wouldn't be able tell you what race I am
but you would still judge me
I'd have the misplaced morality of a Christian
the pantheon of a Hindu
the hope of an atheist
and the history of a Jew

If I looked like half as much as I've been through
I'd only be half a person
an incomplete masterwork
a magnum opus
loaded only with dummy bullets
I wouldn't have half the passion
that bleeds like beads of sweat from my gaping pores
in rivulets of syntax
that I dab with looseleaf paper
to preserve
what I've been through

If I looked like what I've been through...
you wouldn't even see me
you would only see the things that make me me 
but they are not me
I am so much more than what I have been through... 

I am infinitely stronger  

Fight For Your Passion: Omasum

Don't second guess yourself. 

If you feel it, if you taste it, if you can't escape it, embrace it. 

Everyone has a passion. Some of us are consumers, indulging in things or experiences. Some of us are producers, people who have a drive to create things. Some of us are both, but nearly all of us has a passion. All of us has something we are passionate about. 

Is there something you can't live without? Is there something that motivates you against your will? There are good addictions and there are bad addictions. Bad addictions destroy you. Good addictions sustain you. They can be hobbies, they can be interests, they are things that make you happy and help you reconnect with yourself. Often, it is when we are enraptured in our passions that we feel most alive.

In the hustle and bustle of contemporary reality, it is sometimes hard to find the energy and the time to feed those passions. We feel the drive, we feel the desires, but we convince ourselves there are more worth-while things to be done. That is you denying yourself. That is your heart telling you what you need. It's a hunger - feed it!

This life is a gift. That means it has been given to you and you own it, so you do whatever you wish with it. Would you rather pursue your passions and fail or never pursue them and never unlock your full potential? Don't be afraid to stop EVERYTHING and GO!!! 

Book signing for DBAM at Stony Brook University

Omasum

The iridescent taffeta that covers my stain glass bones

Builds a wickiup of plasma that smolders and corrodes

And this algid patina that covers my radiant face

Keeps from the world the smile that it scolds.

In the black and white albedo of a lunatic sphere

That bleeds a curious complexion, both brutal and queer,

Its prism projects molten opal upon the cardboard race,

Who communicate with buttoned lips and listen with biased ears.

While they fold in their lackadaisical limbs,

Taking off their hats, splitting their lips upon the brims,

I cast my crystal cobwebs across their noses in disgrace,

Listening as gravity crinkles my thorny heart like tin.

I can hear its asperous teeth dig into it like pi

As that morose masquerading marionette in the sky

Continues to encircle me, soldering my carcass in place,

As the golems peregrinate around the apocryphal sty.  

Listening to the masticating music as it unfolds,

Transcending the bitter warmth and sweltering cold

Until a dynamic paralysis trickles into the case

Of alligator skin that covets this once human mold.

And what I knew of longing seems to gangrene into fear.

That gentle glow has turned to tarp, through which I’m forced to peer

Upon a smithereen of what was once my cosmic base, 

Which I snatch up starvingly like a begrudged souvenir     

Until that nimbus vulture that emblazons my chagrin,

Hovering like a noxious conversation that’s been drawn too thin,

Bursts like an aneurism, cascading naked shards of space

That land upon my gasoline tongue, quite saccharine. 

And I taste the aureola, combusted before my elytroid eyes;

And I collapse onto a padded pedestal, whose pain is amplified; 

And as my heart gallops off, its bent-in bruises throttle its pace,

Until it too is smeared across the flippant canvas and dies. 

There I fall like argyle rain

In the foyer of consequential refrain,

Collecting like autumn leaves

In puddles of psychedelic disdain.

I cachinnate at all the almighty delusions I sought to free,

Yet I still pursue the jaundiced cud that trundles out of me.

Shout Out

I met a guy through the grapevine who has his own poetry blog and is trying to get people excited about his writing, especially his new book. His name is Plot 121 and his work spans a large swathe of themes. Check out his blog and support your local artists. Much love.