I'm afraid

I’m afraid of oncoming trains and that feeling
right before a train approaches and the wind is all around you,
when you have no choice but to submit to the surge.

I’m afraid of death, but not like normal death.
I died in a dream and floated above myself
as an amorphous gas. It was strange and terrifying.

I’m afraid of heights, when you are forced
to see just how big everything is around you
and how little it all has to do with you.

I’m afraid that I can only give love to people
I know will hurt me. If the right kind of love
came into my life, I wonder if I’d be able to accept it.

I’m afraid that if I told someone that I love them,
they would think it was stupid — like the Valentines’ card
that just gets thrown away. I don’t want to be thrown away.

I’m afraid I wasn’t good enough for him, and that’s why
he didn’t love me anymore. Years of him telling me
that wasn’t the case haven’t put to rest this nagging idea.

I’m afraid of owning things, other than clothes.
The things you let into your life break or break you.
I’m still learning how to live with the things that are broken.

I’m afraid I attach too much self-worth to what other people
think of me. I hate that I always expect him not to call
and am surprised when he does.

I’m afraid I only see the worst in people
or that I expect too much out of them.
This is a metaphor for expecting too much of myself.

I’m afraid that my father and I will never get to a point
where being around him doesn’t make me want to cry
both for no reason and for every reason.

I’m afraid I can’t stop secretly wanting his approval,
no matter how much he hurts me.
I’m afraid this is a cliché.

I’m afraid that everything inside of me is unoriginal,
not worthy of saying out loud. Sometimes I don’t open my mouth
because I’m worried about what will come out if I do.

I’m afraid that I spend so much time trying to do
something that I’ll feel proud of when I’m older
that I forget to be happy right now, in the moment.

I’m afraid that my worry’s not worthy of sharing,
so when people ask me how I am, I say “fine”.
I wouldn’t be able to tell them what’s wrong.

I’m afraid that when people read this they’ll think
I’m another whiny, spoiled, self-conscious twenty-something
that just needs to lighten up and relax.

I worry that I haven’t even earned the right to be anxious,
because what do I even know about suffering?
This makes me want to cry, but I don’t remember how.

I’m afraid you didn’t read this or finish it,
or that it got lost in the shuffle of the billions of things
and that I gave away a part of myself for nothing.

I’m also afraid that you’ll know exactly how I feel, too,
because you feel these same things every day.
I’m afraid that I’m not alone.



From 25 things I'm afraid of by Nico Lang, Thought Catalog, 4 December 2012. Submitted by Angi Holden.

Step two

although the thought that we wasted
money, misplaced our trust and threw away
our time sickens us to no end, we must

accept these logic-defying feats of idiocy
as learning experiences; otherwise, we will walk
no further on the NAA no-path. We must

say it again and again,
we’ve been toe fooled, we’ve been toe fooled, we’ve been
toe fooled.

are we home yet, Shanti? This must become our
anti-mantra, a non-affirmation
affirmation capable of penetrating our ether-filled minds,

helping us to admit that Jesus.com has nothing to
do with Nostradamus. Now is the time when we must
learn to question every Tom, Dick and Guru who shops

in a health food store, see that the only implants in
need of removal were inserted by the most dangerous E.T.
of all: Earth’s very own Extortion Terrestrials.

this is a difficult task indeed, for only those who’ve put their
inner children to bed know the difference between retail
spirituality and spiritual retaliation.



Excerpt from 12 Steps For The Recovering New Ager, New Age Anonymous. Submitted by Ana Prundaru.

Louboutin pas cher

Sometimes weak
with your face about powerful creatures
their assailants, louboutin pas cher

Numerous times
for more information on forg louboutin
et the fear, forget escape

People call
this condition called scared no point
Qin Feng today, everywhere

In the such and all, in one state



Some Wordpress spam. Submitted by Ffion Lindsay.

12 Reasons You are my Ex

1. Exacerbate: to make worse
2. Exact: to call for and obtain (“exact revenge”)
3. Exaggerate: to overemphasize or overstate
4. Exalt: to glorify or intensify
5. Examine: to inspect, investigate, or scrutinize
6. Exasperate: to aggravate or enrage
7. Excavate: to remove or expose by digging or as if by digging
8. Exceed: to be greater than or to go beyond a limit or normal boundary
9. Except: to keep out or to object
10. Excerpt: to take out or select, especially writing, for other use
11. Exchange: to trade
12. Excise: to remove by cutting or as if by cutting




From 90 Verbs Starting with "Ex-", Daily Writing Tips. Submitted by Sean Wai Keung.

A hundred identical hooks

Believe the unbelievable
Love hurts

The end begins
Every second counts

Get carried away
Justice is coming

No guts, no glory
Assume the position

Evil rises
Looks can kill

Once upon a time
Unlock the secret

Revenge is coming
Love is a force of nature

Journey beyond your imagination
No body is safe

Fear thy neighbor
Break the silence

There is no substitute
Hold your breath

If looks could kill
Believe

A hero will rise
A love story

Love stings
Be careful what you wish for

Blood is thicker than water
The con is on

There is no escape
Lead us into temptation

Every family has a secret
Are you in or out?

This place is so dead
The time has come

The ultimate battle begins
Everything will change

Fight fire with fire
Escape is the only solution

Life happens when you least expect it
No one gets out alive

There’s one in all of us
Nothing is as simple as black and white

A comedy for the romantically challenged
The end is near

Take a stand
No soul is safe

Love thy neighbor
Join the party

Fear nothing, risk everything
How far would you go for a friend?

There’s one in every family
The boys are back in town

The journey begins
The hunt begins

They are coming
Legends never die

The real ghost story
Heaven help us

There’s only one way out
Get in the game

Heroes aren’t born, they’re made
Revenge is a dish best served cold

Let the mind games begin
Fight or die

Get some
Time is running out

Everything you’ve heard is true
Catch her if you can

Enter at your own risk
Get in, get out

Everybody has a secret
It’s time to take a stand

It’s her world, we’re just living in it
Careful what you wish for

A comedy to arouse your appetite
Everything comes full circle

Some secrets are better left buried
This might hurt a little

A legend never dies
You are what you eat

Feel the love
Are you game?

We’ve all been there
There are no clean getaways

There goes the neighborhood
Something wicked this way comes

The legend comes to life
Everything is connected

You can’t choose your family
Trust no one

There are two/three sides to every (love) story




A list of identical taglines for pairs of different movies in a blog post by Christophe Courtois. Submitted by Mark Dzula.

Why We Can't See What's Right in Front of Us

People tend to fixate on the common
use of an object. For example, the people on the Titanic

overlooked the possibility that the iceberg
could have been their lifeboat.

Newspapers from the time estimated the size of the iceberg
to be between 50-100 feet high and 200-400 feet long.

The Titanic was navigable for awhile
and could have pulled aside the iceberg.

Many people could have climbed aboard it to find
flat places to stay out of the water

for the four hours before help arrived.
Fixated on the fact that icebergs sink ships,

people overlooked the size and shape of the iceberg
(plus the fact that it would not sink).



From Why We Can't See What's Right in Front of Us, Tony McCaffrey, Harvard Business Review, 10 May 2012. Submitted by Emma Rae Lierley.

Stroke

In case you don’t know me, Hi. Im Diana.
I’m a 30 year old lady.
Itallerthan your average girl,
thinner tha your average girl,
and and active than your average girl.

Yeah I run an ice crea business for a living,
but like to thing
I’m healthier than your average girl too.
No priorn medical history. Nothing.

my first ever ride in an ambulance
was uneventful – the hops;ital
is a 5 minute drive from my folks’ house.

By now I had somehow regained some ability to sspeak
and answered the EMT’s incessant questionsining.
still stuumbling over my words,
even laughin at my mstakes.



From Bad Year for Boars, an account by Diana Hardeman about suffering a stroke, written 30 December 2013, a week after the event. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

Of the farm

The shrubbery
in the terrace gardens
has so many
great contrasting colors.
The yellow barberry
has turned a russet shade,
the boxwood is browning a bit,
and the teucrium remains dusty green.
Most trees have dropped their leaves,
but there are still some holding on.
The orange trees in the distance are gum,
whose leaves stay on quite late.
All of the boxwood will soon be
covered over
with burlap
for the winter
to protect them
from damaging winds
and heavy snow.



Photo captions from the blog post More Stunning Shots Of The Farm by Martha Stewart. Submitted by Kelly Jones.

Educating Yorkshire Three

It is said that most men live lives of quiet desperation.
The same could be said of most schools too;
by far the majority of your day,
like an atom,
is space.
Not free time, but routine;
a metronome of the anodyne and the commonplace, punctuated by the tattoo of the lesson bell.



From Educating Yorkshire 3: bad boys, bad boys- what ya gonna do? by Tom Bennett, TES Connect, 20 September 2013. Submitted by Rachel.

Deep Blue

To my shame, I prefer playing chess
against a computer than a human opponent.
It’s less risky. There is no shame
in defeat. Cheating is not unethical.
Attention to it can be sporadic.
You can simply suspend
a game or start over if
you think you are going to lose.
Even when I am beaten soundly by
a computer opponent, I don’t feel
outwitted; instead I take away a
feeling that my thinking has not become
sufficiently machine-like to compete,
which is more reassuring than anything else.
I get the gratifying feeling
that being lousy at chess is
a mark of my indelible humanity.
This despite the fact that I
am playing computer chess because
I can’t bear the pressure of human interaction.



Taken from En Passant, a blog post published by The New Enquiry, 27th July 2013. Submitted by Marika.

What Goes Wrong With Poems

Tom once told me
a poem had to capture
his attention
in the first four lines.

Or perhaps it wasn’t four.
Perhaps it was within
the first twenty words.
Or perhaps I can’t remember
precisely what he said
and am wilfully recreating
the memory.

But I am sure he spoke
about our shared expectation
that poetry (Poetry),
that finest form of writing,

should do something
dynamic early on.



Taken from a blog post on the Happenstance Press website, 14th July 2013. Submitted by Angi Holden.

A Pet Rock

You can look at the rock

and call it a pet,
even though it does nothing.
God does not have to live up to prayers.

He does not have to
solve world hunger, war, poverty.
He just has to sit there

and you are content.



Taken from "God, The Pet Rock", a blogpost on RationalHub.com. Submitted by Tanya J. Reed.

I was playing D&D when I Came Out

and I don't know if
I would have
been able to

had it not been
for the positive influence

that the game had
on me.

Why?

Because
it taught me
to be self-reliant.
It taught me to not

stand around

waiting

for some man to rescue me.

It taught me to always,
always,

check the ceiling
before entering a room.



From the LiveJournal blog of wyrmwwd. Submitted by Veronica.

N wen u get ur kids took away

N wen u get ur kids took away from u
u have no mates no bloke family hate u n
keep u from urban kids so u take drugs I
rant allowed my toddlers till I've had two yrs of
therapy c.b.t. no point comin off drugs yet
is there n now social services problem
my mamy two and my dad have even stopped
contact I've seen them twice in six week
once was Xmas day the other
was for a photo shoot I got done with the
picture for my Xmas present so I had to
c them for the photo I'm not allowed normally
all I ever wanted was to be a mamy ex fucked it
n now I'm just in too Much pain everyday
I c the photo I cry I'm a mess everyone
hates me anyway the public would
Deffo be glad meby ten people would
go to my funeral the rest of the town
would be glad coz I have done
lots of bad stuff but I'm 29 now
Give me a chance for god's sake



Comment from an online suicide blog. Submitted by Grace Andreacchi.

Ontology

And
painters don't
know they are.

Not
Ed Ruscha.
Not Robert Indiana.

They
just don't
know. But they

are.
It's good
they don't know.

They'd
be impoverished
by their art

if
they knew.



Taken from a blogpost on the blog dbqp, 12th November 2012. "They'd" has been contracted from "They would". Submitted by Andrew Bailey.

Redemption

Then I got up to leave
and said Stand up.
He stood. I said: Look at me.

I'm a middle aged man
with a limp and a wheeze
and a son and a wife that I love.

I'm not just a little avatar.
You're better than this.
You have a name of your own.

Be proud of it.
Don't hide it again
and I won't ruin it.

Now shake hands.
‘I'm sorry.’ he said,
and looked like he meant it.

Then we shook on it.



From the blog post Meeting A Troll. Submitted by Angi Holden.

A night at the opera

Big ideological statements
Giant snakes
One expects to get one or the other
One is rarely deprived of both.

The means are the simplest
As the audience files in
a small army of white-dressed people
are placidly picnicking.
As the music starts
they strip off their clothes
and paint each other blue.
Yes, it sounds weird
but the Ring is weird.

Sometimes they are slaves
Sometimes they are even inanimate.
The gods all sport matching platinum hair.

They don’t try to fool us
and yet something about them
is perfect anyway.



Picked out of a review of Wagner’s opera Das Rheingold on the blog Likely Impossibilities. The word 'are' replaces 'seem to be' in line 8. Submitted by Grace Andreacchi.

Drunkorexia

“Eatin’s Cheatin’” echoes around the office on a Friday afternoon.
Women pick over their naked salads and extra extra light low fat
Philly on Ryvita. The preparations for ‘Rosé o’clock’ are well
under way.
They’ll grumble through the afternoon and suppress the urge
to be
‘naughty’ whenever anyone offers a biscuit, sweet or chocolate.
Fun.



From Drunkorexia: A stupid name, but a serious problem on the Independent blogs. Omitted words: 'as' (line 1) and 'their way' (4). Submitted by Rishi Dastidar.

Like ghosts

cats
tend to exist in
your peripheral
vision

and after a while
you move around the house
in a manner that
accommodates
the expectation of their
presence,

waiting
to trip you up
on the stairs
or suddenly
emerge
from nowhere
and start slow-walking
in front of you
as you try
to get
from room to
room.



From My Life as a Cat Undertaker on the blog Blood & Treasure. Submitted by Ailsa Holland.

All the tattoos I want

I’ve decided that I want a japanese tattoo sleeve
starting at the shoulder
and ending at the wrist.
It will include at least a koi fish,

some kanji, a samurai sword, some nice blue
waves, a pokemon (not sure which yet, but hell maybe I’ll get two),

probably a torii, probably something small
in dedication to yu yu hakusho (not sure what). I don’t have all

the ideas yet but it will at least
be very colorful and with basically no skin color showing. And my back piece

will be dedicated to egyptian mythology;
specifically Horus and Anubis facing each other
and some nice looking egyptian-like images in the background
to bring it all together.

And honestly that’s all the tattoos I want.



A post on the White Morgan Freeman Tumblr, 20 May 2012. Submitted by Ezra.