I Think We're Terrified Of Being Forgotten. I Think That As Soon As An Ounce Of Intelligence Entered

Perched. So gently.

(for a better resolution, click on the picture)

Boo.

To acknowledge the Monster is to say

It is here,

That it has been here all along;

It is to stand in the dark with a terrible thing

Hoping it does not devour you.

To be hopeful is to be terrified

Of anything otherwise;

It is to hold on

To withering threads of optimism

As the likelihood of the unfavourable

Gets the guillotine ready for your head.

To scream Monster is to say

Here stands a terrible thing

That scares me;

You cannot simply

Take the elephant out of the room

And throw it under the bus,

You know?

To be scared is to admit

You have something to be scared of

And something to be scared for.

To draw a monster and ask yourself

What makes one,

Is to ask yourself what you consider

Dreadful enough to be called inhuman.

To tell stories of your childhood

Is to say it is long gone;

It is to acknowledge

Childhood pushed you off the cliff

And ran away.

It is to say you have been

Free falling ever since,

Trying to grasp at things

That do not stay.

To have an inheritance

Is to say that

Everyone in the family is dead.

To scream Monster

Is to stand in the dark beside it

And say you know terrible well enough

To know what a Monster is.

To say you are here

Is to realize there was a time

When you were not,

That there will once again

Be a time

When you won't be here;

It is to say you don't know

What time is anymore.

To be alive

Is to be terrified

(All the time)

And hopeful,

Even if the guillotine

Is getting ready

For your very execution;

It is to turn the lights off

And sleep in the room

With the Monster

And pray like hell

It does not kill you.

- A.G.

mother of otherness, eat me.

(Sylvia Plath)

from one writer to another ive got to say congratulations you DEFINITELY have it my friend! got damn

Thank you for taking the time to read. I am still learning a lot about writing styles and even words themselves but I am glad to see how my writing develops and grows. I am so thankful for that vote of confidence, hope you keep reading! Xx

-A

They are having a tickle war like they always do; his small body curled into itself, trying to tuck it within its own bounds, to not have to bear this joyful torture.

They are not people anymore, they are two shrieks of laughter. They are an odd sight to look at: a tall girl, almost a woman, and a toddler of six; an unlikely friendship that looks bizarre but radiates so much joy you cannot help but feel warm.

The girl turns into things she isn't; just for this boy, she turns into a sunny disposition, a pleasant version of herself and she has the gentlest voice. She has hands that do not hurt, she has eyes that smile and she is bubbles of laughter come to life.

The boy comes back year after year to meet his sister; they aren't really siblings, they are distant cousins but there is a lot of love here. And where there is so much love, you feel obliged to put a label. So they were brother and sister, and the oddest duo of the lot. As the years pass by, she sees her brother transform into things she resents; no longer a sweet child, he throws tantrums and uses his hands and fists like the men do. But he isn't a man yet, he is just a little boy.

He is nine and he already thinks it is okay to do things you do not like others doing; he thinks that it is okay to destroy what isn't yours because you could not have it or to scream and cry until you hand him what he asked for. These are trivial things, he is just a child after all.

She walks in on the boy destroying something that isn't his and he throws things at her, makes her mad. He takes pleasure in irritating her; she can tell; he takes her things and claims them as his and she lets him. She feels something come over her; makes her way towards him and traps him in her hold. She tickles his neck and she scratches him.

The boy is screaming and crying and she is devastated. She sees herself transform into things she thought she would never become. She sees an image of her lineage in her. Is this what we inherit?

Suddenly, she is small again. She is not herself, she is the little boy. She is nine, she is seven, she is five years old. She knows she is small so she bites the hands of those who reach out because her fists are still a little girl's fist, even though the size of the fight in her is quite big.

She doesn't recognize herself anymore.

Is this what we inherit?

No.

It runs in the family but this is where it stops.

Bless the hands that fed us, and may there be scars on those who harmed us. May we never become the things that hurt us.

She is twenty-five years old now. And there is an odd friendship in her life that no one understands, but there is a lot of love there. There is a little brother waiting for her.

The first memory I have of this town

Is of wanting to leave-

To stand in a place and know you do not belong;

Scratch that.

I remember rain like I remember birth.

I remember puddle jumping in pristine clothes and

Trying to remember things I have long forgotten.

I forgot the light, I forgot existence.

But this? This I remember.

I remember the streets I walked all the way back home, aching;

I remember the loss of that day;

I remember feeling unbridled joy

Of the very next at the glorious win.

I remember screaming songs LOUD

With my best friend on our way to school,

Our own voices echoing in our heads

Like we were masters of a world

That did not exist just yet.

I remember the sneaking out of practice

To meet someone I hadn't seen in months;

I remember not being able to

Lift myself up from the bed

With a body so intact you'd think

I hadn't ever lived through a day.

I remember running miles

On a broken foot,

I remember swimming through all of this dread on broken toes.

I remember punching holes in walls and staring back at hands that were still hands.

Not god, not the powdered dust of my bones yet;

I remember broken knuckles but an intact heart.

I remember thinking I will never be able to get out

And I remember not wanting to leave.

I remember the solace in coming back,

Coming back after days, weeks or months.

I remember coming back.

I remember grocery store chains

And drunken new years';

I remember being 16 and staying up all night

To watch the sun rise; it rained that day.

I remember walking out of the train station,

Rubbing the drowsiness out of my eyes at age 6

And seeing the most gorgeous sky

Like it was yesterday.

I still wake up in hopes of a morning the sky looked that gorgeous.

No. I think I forgot.

I see the city change herself and she has parts I do not recognise sometimes.

I remember coming back to her like I remember birth. Not so much as a definite event

But as something that happened.

She will be here,

Smiling.

A.G.

Please don't let the government or anyone erase any more of history. It is on you. You have a responsibility.

EDUCATE YOURSELF.

Be neutral for long enough to realise that perhaps you are in the wrong.

Form educated opinions which are backed up by facts.

Try reliable sources and if reliable sources fail you, try to gain perspective from different ones.

If you don't know enough to have an opinion, SAY SO. Don't just sprout some bullshit to sound intelligent, you don't. You sound ignorant and hateful. When did it become wrong to just admit that you don't have enough information to form a well educated opinion?

When in doubt, always take the stance which doesn't undermine a person's life or belief or belittle them or discriminate against them.

Ghost Children

There are moments

Bad and hard to comprehend, mismatched;

I do not know how to 

String together an entire good life

Or a person

Out of so many broken things.

What I mean is 

The Cat gets pissed

And he yells

He’ll smash the Dog’s skull

And there is so much rage in his body.

I do not know

How to tell the men 

This fury is not something to be proud of,

To carry or pass on.

There are children who have shrunk themselves 

And swallowed their own being

To fit into houses filled with so much rage:

Children who are too loud or too dumb,

Children who will never be enough,

There is no time;

Children who would rather 

Sleep on the streets

Than be here.

Children who cut out parts of themselves,

Make themselves smaller, be appropriate,

To belong here.

Children who rebel,

Grow tired of waiting, grow weary;

Grow up

And then cry for their mothers,

Gulp their own tears.

Children sitting on floors

Of good houses

And full families

And have never been more alone,

More annoyed at themselves

For not seeing all the good,

For noticing the wreckage,

For not smiling through their own slaughter.

Children who move out 

And do things they weren’t sure 

They wanted in the first place.

The Cat screams and scratches everyone

Trying to help him,

The Hamster yells of how her life was ruined;

The Parrot bites me, claws at the Cat and 

Keeps breaking things, so many things,

Screams of his entrapment.

I am small:

A rat in a big world,

    I have never been alone.