XPI Student Showcase

We were once without words, and still, as a means of expression they don't do nearly enough justice to the intensity of our emotions. However, whenever I find I can decently express anything via writing, that will suffice. Language is a cage and a work of art. Words are such a prevalent medium today: without them, surely we wouldn't know how to exist. Writing is an art-form that takes a little more time to appreciate, as opposed to something visual, or so I believe. I'm going nowhere without syllables and the ability to communicate. So, on an ending note, I hope you enjoy this, and if so, you can always find me here:

http://www.blogger.com/profile/16155806871585479146.

If you're going to take your time in reading this, it's all I can ask for.

9.

watch out or you'll be tumbling in all sorts of directions
juxtaposed humans kill you with kindness
blind you with hatred
supposedly free-willed though truly at the will of others
all in one, essentially speaking
decisions thrown at you disguised as meteors
hurling their wonder and luxurious ambiguity of tomorrow
beyond that,
well,
there is none
rather rapidly, curiosity finds its way
slipping through
crouching in all the sulkily hidden alleyways
rather profusely showing itself
never much less
quite a persistent action
curiosity made for two
seemingly fond of mischief
found to be fondling enlightenment
following much too closely but accepted as such
or perhaps, not so much
always held some courage
or seemed to muster it up from somewhere
maybe hand-made

Ambivalent

Speckles of sporadic golden yellow within the sky, like the ongoing, everlasting eyes of the deaf, old cat. Lap lounging, looking into wells of molten lava, side by side, fountains of fire bursting into endless evergreens with a chilly overcoat, seeking out my toes and fingers to freeze their every inch in hopes that they'll grow into other organisms stemming from my knuckles. So I carry with my twig-branched limbs my only source of light, a small lantern illuminated with my aura, lit by my soul - only the size of a golf ball - swaying in synchronization with my hips through the thickness of the fog, where the most miniscule shreds of glass pry between my toes in hopes of drawing blood of purity and cleanliness. The fog thins, but I become the prey, the goal, that strategic desire every man has in his search towards power. Bare flesh lies upon marble ground because carpet isn't anyplace to be found and useless to be sought.

An Inferior Account

a tremor of intent towards an endless pursuit
left to lie in the sun-drained streets
in the glow of the unflattering light the asphalt has to offer
scattered visibility
the fallacy of direction presented as a well-organized essay
with a harrowed sense of loss
and an under-appreciated, antiquated understanding of imperialism
to deem the world worthy of being rebuilt,
retied, communal, a transcendental concentration,
fascination with socialistic unity, sympathy
a crop of wrinkles effectively allocated
bartered by or with those who hold weakness high
emancipate oneself from an illusory home,
a controversial thought,
a continent full of filth,
the start, restart of collective recognition
conformity- or not- consensus- or not-
a ubiquitous feeling melting through our cochleas
straight to the blood stream
straight to the head
indigenous and predetermined by a gentle,
invisible hand served with ill-proof
the Prime Minister of the atmosphere
domesticated with free-flowing etiquette

and a long lasting empathy,
drained from me,
stained me, abandoned
in absolute authority
stood, regarding me as subservient,
an underlying cause for all things short of extraordinary
such a wide array of explanations,
shrugged off with skepticism, hesitation, mere observation

Wilde

Magnetism is not the force that draws me down, that holds me here with your dwelling bodies upon this whirlpool that is Earth. I cannot calm down, nor can I slow down for any one single person. Living and dying inside my own familiar, uncomfortable skin, sometimes bearable, others times not so much. I will walk alone upon this hurting Earth, no longer willing to go on, forfeiting the game I myself had initiated. And within this residential neighborhood, I had lost my sense of mind; I'd need make it fit for only one. Remembrance is one thing I thought I always did well, one shining aspect I could use against someone's will, but also an unforgiving curse. But I forgot you, and I forgot all of us, and all of them, as I walked out your lone doorway, that broad doorway, which deems reality as reality, leaves us what we need to survive, tells us our guidelines and our purpose, what's expected and needed from all of us at once, but never singularly; those rules dictate your dwellings, they rule your soul. So my existence waltzed out of that room, out of that neighborhood and built anew, away from all my synonymous neighbors. I called upon my grounded mind; we walk out as one, permanently intertwined, branches grown with one another into the swelling ground, the ground that yearns to break through with new material.

I forgot you; I forgot me as a part of you, living in this residential place, this place where trespassers may never cross, where you'll always forget about the lone roses across the street, the roses who grew out of spite, the roses who are loathsome towards you for misleading them, for you'd never touch them, not for years to come, because your arms have yet to be touched by anything but metal and other human skin for a countless number of years. You've reached and striven for nothing that was ever your own, like Bradbury all over again, where you asked for your brother's soul, and you begged for your mother's hands, where you craved the senses of your equal, and you'd never realize you spent all your life fighting to earn the recognition of your pupils. You'd forget yourself, if you ever were a self.

Would you ever be a lone wanderer? The one who stalks the streets of his own city, the city where everyone knows him by name and by sight, where the wanderer, in return, knows everyone else all the same. And there he'd divulge his own secrets and self, where the stars would look upon him as they found him stranded, the only ant left behind to be killed. Then the whisper would call to him, only while the stars watched, only if the whisper knew that you'd listen, and then he'd speak up, if you were yearning and calling for it to come forth and gravitate toward your bare arms, and he'd ask to be branded, ingrained on your forehead to know you're a true believer, the whisper, which everyone urges to come out, but the whisper that never shows his vague and truthful face because his master is too afraid to come forth with his own ideas, and the whisper will never be branded externally; his master will never expose his deadliest sins nor his greatest achievements.

So, this young man, this woman, me, I'll graze my feet upon this sidewalk which I claim to be mine own, engulfed in barreling cars and interminable light trails, where I can say, "reality says life is here, reality deems it so." For magnetism is not the force that occupies me, it's those walks, those lonely walks, which I happily endure, the walks which no one allows solely because we're afraid of ourselves, and of coming-to-terms. But this is my walk where I'll literally forget the entire world around me and bathe in my secrecy, in my individuality, and I devour all the egotism that can fit inside this tiny body, search for all the self-favoritism I'm able to possess. Did you ever really know your most distinguished moments are those that you never share, which are repressed and confined within yourself?

Frailty

There is no horizon, there is no end.
And I don't know what's beyond the bend.
Tremendous sound
Shriveling my skin
Like feathers beneath the surface
Moved by butterflies
I can't see behind any purpose
Never nervous, rarely scared
Our ties and our bonds can't be repaired
Like your mother's bracelet from years ago
Ripping at the seams with growth
The product has been long destroyed
Now there's nothing left aside the void
Be you, be them, but no android.

Nonsensical

The words, which never caught me by surprise, were only exemplified, amplified by the faces of others. They made me realize reality, real life, whatever it may be, to them anyway, to everyone else. I was confused; the looks of disgust, of dismay or of disappointment. I never understood how or why anyone would think that of me. I have no real ties to anything but the reactions that lie within these facial distortions, within this cage that language bears, within this monstrous speech reverberating from my esophagus, beyond my lips, curling around any ears within audible distance. If I thought there was ever time, it was only a joke. Worry today, worry tomorrow. These ties to reality are socially bonding, economically bonding, aesthetically bonding, even. Without them, my sanity would be questioned, my stomach would be empty, my vocal chords perhaps of no use.

There was an understanding once, where humans were supposed to have these things called morals, know the so-called right from the so-called wrong. But the life I led seemed utterly devoid of morality, mostly socially, mostly economically, if economics ever had any real morals to begin with, that is. Every day was a simple stretch of time littered with incessant errors. Regretful decisions strewn about the lawn as you fled for work each morning, on the license plate of the car in front of you, in the morning cup of coffee; they were there to greet you at the dinner table or on your bed, if you were like me, sitting in the same goddamn spot for hours upon hours upon days, so many instances you can't even remember the last time you did something else real with your life. The mistakes only got worse as you aged, growing and spilling profusely all over your man-made time without missing a spot. Perhaps it was just the complete lack of confidence; I'll never know. The self-doubt, pity, loathing, the hatred, the misery, the empathy, it was all a communal effort.

I felt as if I could only feel what others felt. It would emanate from within them, would burst through their flesh and would grant me cascading waves of false emotion. The suddenness was always astonishing, an exaggerated, excessive weight that would pummel me, make a raging emotional monster out of me. The instigation would begin someplace deeper, but the foreign feelings would forcibly thrust themselves through my bloodstream, dousing everything in its path with remnants of itself. I use this excuse, empathy, to put a name to these nameless emotions, the ones so intense, yet so alienated, I could sense them, but I could never tell why or what they were, who they claimed to be; there was never any reasoning with them. They were the monarch, and I was the peasant.

All of this commemorates, welcomes, a myriad of hate. Everything I say I am, or I do, is an act of self-destruction, an explosive action grasping every piece of humanity that surrounds it. It crushes it all, and it reveals nothing but the truth, the unyielding truth, bound to nothing but selfishness, which lags behind the so-called person of morale.

There was morning, and morning was time for my own evangelical speech, myself yelling throughout the condo I claimed was my own with strained vocal chords. Morning was when I'd brush past fifty-four mirrors from my bedroom to the bathroom, and once in the bathroom, I'd glare into each of the twenty-eight mirrors that adorned the walls of the nine foot by nine foot enclosure. After my purely aesthetic actions were over, I'd slowly make my way to the largest, center mirror, gazing so hard I'd eventually appear soulless, a desolate form wading in the universe for no known reason, for no apparent cause. My day would begin by splashing water against the reflection, though I was never sure where the water would really go. Some days I would feel the water souse my nose, mouth, eyes and on other days, I wouldn't. I would watch it bounce from the glass or gracefully run across it. "You are a cast shadow, a shadow who lives and breathes, feeds off firs-rate versions of yourself, yearns to be everything it never could be, never would be. Systematically, you aren't even there, you've nothing to contribute, nothing to show for, nothing to be. Never will you be anything but a reflection of an imposter of a fool behind a hideous mask. The space you've taken up with your existence is far from eminent; it's far from understood."

Rounded eyes dirty with hazel and burnt gold, so focused they appear to be trembling, so decadent they could be mistaken for something of much greater purpose; my heavy eyelashes quiver. There's nothing but me right now, so absorbed in myself in a trance-like state of perplexity, but I won't snap out of it, and I won't even try to bring myself back to any sort of so-called reality. I run my hand over the long brown hair that protrudes from my pale scalp; it's thick and stringy. I clasp locks of it in my hands and watch my reflection cautiously.

Yet I loathe all that I see. Everything from within me makes me glow with an overwhelming sense of debauchery, all of the sadism, all of the hideous thoughts and feelings, everything I fear, it all reflects back at me; it looks me in the eyes, questions me and drives me to do things I'd never do if it weren't for this oracle staring back at me, like I was some sort of vigilante. My forehead hits the mirror; the both of us become one, and single tears trickle celestially down my cheeks, bending around the corners of my mouth, tapping the sink and scattering themselves about. I'm illuminated by shame, by horror, by victimization. Turning away, following my steps backward, I strip off all my clothing as I slink down the hallway, hardly moving. "You deplorable coward," I repeat in my head. "Nothing of success will ever come from you. Nothing of this world will ever appease you; nothing of you will ever be appreciated. Become decrepit, wither within your repulsive self-pity, don't expect any sympathy, don't expect any care."

It's not even you anymore, it's some sort of divinity trying to tell you how to live, why you live, or rather, why you shouldn't any longer.

Intrinsicism

a valuable remedy worthwhile roams the streets with my ideas in his pockets
burglary, borrowing, an excessive attempt at hijacking thy mind
where all finds itself discrete and confidential
mediums disconnected, messages intervened
absolute uncertainty blankets the night, brings the stars nearer,
nothing like one would ever have feared
a variety of feet, a plethora of fingers possess a myriad of talent
coated with ignorance, arrogance or other eccentricities
carried by ears, by eyes, by lace on a woman's hip

a valuable remedy worthwhile roams the streets with my ideas in his pockets
burglary, borrowing, an excessive attempt at hijacking thy mind
where all finds itself discrete and confidential
a waning grimace, a defeated grin, figures of shadows from men
shown on the side of the house with thick arms and a rounded gut
a wounded, hairless face, his exterior representing, showing our internal inefficiencies
bound together, wound together, with only some minimal amount of thread or floss, whatever you'd find around the house
the sun rose around the roads, devouring the alleys, illuminating seas and plains and rivers

a valuable remedy worthwhile roams the streets with my ideas in his pockets
when the effects are dismal, and much to my dismay
you'll forget every word, forget what they say
surrender to pattern, yield arms to uniform
as the egocentric hero raises his head from the war
there is no remembering, there isn't much more

Untamed

Establishing itself within my well-known fictional soul, burying itself and burrowing, amplifying itself from root to stem, from a seed to an abundance of budding flowers, seemingly showing themselves less reluctant daily; less fearful of themselves and of their surroundings. You're an infestation lacking reason. Pulsating through my awe-struck veins, torturing my mind as you crawl, spread yourself throughout my body, consuming the entirety of me, devouring all thought, redirecting my motivation, guarding my fear. Weakening my limbs as your plague penetrates the vulnerability of the one exposed, festering wound that lies within my chest. My soul becomes dependent upon your approval, your reassurance and acceptance, your need of my dependence. Where I once frequented a shrine that was dedicated to you, I now realize that dedication cascades through my body; nothing is stationed, sprawling and needy of cultivation, held everywhere within myself. It shines through my eyes, emanates through my pores, illuminating my behavior, making me glow; it obliges a smile from a nonexistent oasis, where you're the root, the sole cause. It drenches me with fear whilst immersing me in elation, gratification. A feeling produced which none other can replicate. If ever to be thrust out of my disposition, it would be unobtainable for all of time; forever condemned to remain in a state of nostalgia, as there would be no means of restoration or repair. Watch while I drown in my own insanity, my own sickness. Watch me, doused in my own effort to give you everything I ever could; a budding tree that grows until I stop. Until the time inscribed on my wrists begins running backwards, becomes something new. Eternally thriving, forever advancing itself beyond my control. An unstoppable force creating the most beautiful devastation any eyes could ever witness. It's relentless, a persistent mess that can never be satisfied or administered, though it always seems to come through to its full potential. So fulfilling, and so demanding, an itching palm lies empty. Gluttonous streams adorn my cheeks and chin, plummet into a puddle of utter repulsion; never was such a prosperous aching conceptualized. Yet I yearn and plead for more, more of the infection to diffuse, for it to flourish, for it to never die, never to stop prevailing, never to stop contending, if it were ever contending at all. Anticipation couldn't predict the amount of room you'd adopt beneath my crying, begging skin. The seeds planted, in bloom far before season would call for them, rising to the surface, inching through my pores with insurmountable amounts of pressure, completely dissimilar to any tangible human touch, flow from my fingertips with a sense of great belonging. They embark on an endeavor, take on a new existence full of more astonishment than anyone could realistically pursue. The stems would be encouragement, irrevocable care, a sense of truth bundled up into a pair of enchanting, asphyxiating eyes. Eyes that move with fascination, with wonder, perplexity, just as mine do, eyes that would exist through mine. Petals that would feel as I feel, roam as I roam, that would increase the intensity of living. Roots that would understand as I do, walk without knowing why or when or how, hear without harboring much flexibility. The disease couldn't be credited with establishing itself at any certain destination; it would float through me, unconquered. Once embedded never to be removed. Creeping through each vessel and each bone with much determination, unyielding to any cause, settling deep within every crevice, uncompromisingly extending itself beneath the surface. Climbing through my newly defenseless skin, as vines grow with a trellis, interwoven, intertwined, as if separation would only prove them fatal. And as you shrivel each of my intentions to live alone, abandoned from these tortures, these treasures, I seem to succumb, to embrace, to love. With every elapsing day, as every crescent moon descends, my ambling mind never ceases to dwell upon those flowers, the misery that has demolished my body due to this crippling disorder. And yet, today, my isolation seems undeserved.

Unsound

find me a cockroach bound to the highway, a vehicle bound to the floor rupturing thoughts hang as icicles from the trellis outside my window, people, things, and places excreting movement, treasures, monumental, concert motions, behaviors the actions inside consist of regression, repression, disaster where after there was nothing left in response to the alterations, motives, gestures... a desolate plain above my chest, within my chest, surrounds it

if i were to set sea tonight if i were to set sea at the height of my resistance i couldn't find a way shelve my intentions, storing them at bay

scald me with neglect find the one last chance nailed to your walls where a breathtaking encounter wasn't designated where the orchids won't bloom any longer the cathedral ceilings with syllables tacked to it the infrastructure made to collapse the inside of an ordinary anatomy no longer willing to bear the fight

if i were to set sea tonight the lights ordained with wizardry the masts disguised in prophecy port and starboard adorned with appraised, threadbare sides ready for the crests to take hold