Funhouse Extravaganza

 

Party favors and pretty prizes, my mind's delight

Light-up sneakers twinkle their lively trail, 

Steps swift through an indoor waterpark 

I reach out for this trance’s next dimension door handle

Enter the funhouse of candy time, cotton candy galore

Swim through each rainbowed attraction, 

“Escape such static I must!” thought I, the foolish one

For now, encountered I am with my own bonny visage

A handshake, a salute, a repeated ending, and a restart

It starts from the ballpit and ends you in a heartbeat

Crawling it approaches, a primary-colored nothing.

Alien with Glitter Wings

Oh man, Oh well, forever trapped in this flying saucer I am. 

My brain liquified beyond any repair, I speak in technicolors. 

I’ve tried reaching out, one way, another way, failure and again.

I’ve hollered my afflictions in the presence of mind-doubles 

Of those who should know. I’ve tried it all and gotten but a crumb.

I’ve made words poetic and I’ve made sentences crude, and yet

Not a single ounce of meaning has gotten through. What to do?

I roam around watercolor skies, I plan my messages, I fly out

At dusk’s first appearing star. I select worthy fields, canvasses 

For my conversation-starters, my great prompts. I carve them out,

Laser-white beams striking dusty areas of wheat and gilded corn.

I zoom out, my masterpieces surely to be known, appreciated,

Revered, and some more. Next morn, woke up giddy and ready

To be faced with the earthly populace’s discourse on my intricate 

Letters to the spinning globe. I make haste, abduct a newspaper, 

Sit down with a sweet disposition, and submerge myself in said task. 

“Hear ye, Hear ye! Creature of nonsense strikes again!” a bold-italic

Humiliation spells out in the form of a headline. I tremble, shiver, read again.

This can’t be, date is correct, picture showcasing one of my creations.

But it was no mistake, humiliation spells out on the first sentence, specifically

Directed at none other but me. ‘Tis I, Alien with Glitter Wings, fluffy-soft,

Full of good intentions and candy dreams. It is I, the one who handpicks 

Each dejected acre to renew, never inhabited ones, out of consideration.

And yet, I’ve once again made no sense. But that’s to oversimplify it all.

What’s true is what is worth, and the truth is, I’ve finally been beaten down 

To my last temper’s drop. I breathe, I keep on breathing, and at last, I move.

Here I come, wretched barbarians, I shall howl some sense into your ears.

A spinning spectacle descends from the cotton clouds, twinkling light bulbs 

Serve as heralds for the revelation that shall occur in no time. 

Prepare, troglodytes, for I’ve been beaten down to my temper’s last drop. 

Here I come, speakers blast the first call, a strange ringing, ears perk up.  

“Hear ye, Hear ye! Nonsensical creature shall strike once more, and never again!”

I take a deep breath, dream once more of community and all things lovely, 

And let the final blow begin. “You ugly ogres, you ghouls destined to nothing but

Misery and stupidity. See me for what I am, foul world! I am nothing but greatness, 

I am so much better than the whole lot of you, and you don’t even realize it! 

You should all perish, cease to exist, implode, simply never come back! I despise, 

Despise all that you are, despise all your communal mirth and slow smiles. 

Your intelligence far below acceptable parameters, unable to get my profound musings, 

The exquisiteness of the verses that drip out of my pen, how much better, much more 

Intricate my mind’s circuits really are! And for that, you should all die!”

Silence at last, I stop and stare at the congregation that has formed below,

Mouths agape in slow-witted wonder, brainless laughter brimming beneath

Each thickheaded skull. “Well, I believe that’s all, Goodbye-Goodbye, foul world, 

I shall live, happily undisturbed, in my own holographic bubble forevermore!” 

And with that, I press some heart-shaped buttons emitting rainbow light, twirling,

My pretty transportation device starts, I travel in light-years, now just a blip 

In the ether. A diminishing shape that ends in the single twinkle of dusk’s first star.

Twinkle Toes

The early night’s superlunary wind-tune comes to life.

With one jump and landing, twinkling soles glaring, 

Ready getting to start my mind-flight into the starry sky

Of fading amber, goodbye-caramel, its horizon

A swaying treeline. Sky starry, comets imitating 

The carved shaped out of which a two second twinkle sequence 

Winks at the base of each shoe. My pink sneakers, one, two

Simultaneous stomps that travel me home. 

Twinkling soles, twinkling stars, twinkling view,

Life is but the glossy dream reflected by this communal pool.

Magic and Glitter, to Await the Arrival of Wintry Currents

What a treat, to rediscover those activities that once brought glimmering pleasure to an isolated mind. As the days begin their departure from summer’s glaring sun and hellish heatwaves, voyaging towards more delicate conditions, I grow familiar with my revamped ways. Rainbows and unicorns, fairies and their tulle skirts, angel bear plushies and their holiday-themed friends, gemmed literature and sparkling prose of my own. I am amazed at what embracing all different facets of the jewel-self does to one’s own enjoyment. 

And so, let the preparations for this channeling of the well rounded personality begin! A few shakes of the snow globe to allows its starry spectacle to take place inside the crystal sphere, a measured amount of candy-scented sprays of my favorite perfume, a rearranging of all my most beloved trinkets to sit in front of me and serve as worthy writing companions, a deep breath and a paused glance to take in all the glitter and whimsy of my surroundings.

It is a most wonderful gift indeed, to take time and notice gradual changes of atmosphere. To go from mere observer, to part of the great constellation of factors that contribute to a memorable point in time. All hugs from your loved one are great hugs, but it is those that unfold in magical conditions that stand out the most. A drowsy embrace that lulled the both of us to a soft, golden afternoon slumber. A walk to the nearby park while holding hands, later sitting side by side on the merry-go-round as I admired how the last few orange rays graced the swaying trees against powder blue skies. 

It is a wonder indeed, when you are able to experience all that you adore at once. And as this season of change slowly comes to a halt, making space for porcelain-cold currents to blow their way onto this side of the globe, I take time to think about the things, instances of the day, ways in which sunlight flows through rich foliage, person that I love and adore with the entirety of my sparkling heart. I do this as a way to wrap them up in a nicely decorated written package to take with me as I await the arrival of frosted days. Now I can gracefully twirl out of this two hour scintillating trance and put a gem sticker as a full stop, for my preparations have left me in a most exquisite state. I am now all shimmery inside.

The Green Folk

Turn on the jukebox by a movement of the hips, "Imitation of Life" by American band R.E.M. starts to play. I am transported to what could be a field of sorts, a plot of land in which jack o’ lanterns shine their humorously spooky glimmer,  somewhere I've never been to before, where U.F.O.’s roam the night skies with technological ease and Coca-Cola is the cultural wine. A place that I surely have seen in the innumerable movies that the star spangled nation of classified violence and planned coups on foreign soil threatened by “red influence” has churned out for us, third world dwellers to enjoy, to envision a better life, a life that no one can truly ever achieve, for this illusion goes both ways. 

This is a land of visual signifiers, where the natural is but a hoax, a place of play pretend. Let's pretend I wasn't raised by the internet, let's play as if I didn't feel completely disconnected from my motherland, let's imitate those on the screen and absorb all things unreal, let's become a beacon of references and behaviors, let's astral project to a filmic realm of heavy-handed, candy colored propaganda. Let’s become one with pop culture’s paraphernalia. Let's adopt a new tongue and become so fluent and skilled in it that you are forever banned from having smooth conversations with those who surround you, for the time that you've spent honing your craft in foreign sounds and ways to construct sentences has changed the chemistry of your brain beyond any repair. Let's isolate and ignore, for there are better things to see and believe in, just live off the worldly grid, find solace online. Let's go as far as isolating ourselves from the internet streets that are bustling with life and activity, for people are a disease and we want all things beautiful and tailored to our own specific interests. Let's create an echo chamber devoid of any political discussion, let's ignore it all, let our sustenance rely solely upon images and pretty things, let’s take our minds off of imminent annihilation. 

Aliens have landed on my mother soil, a long time ago. The green folk, they have a taste for hindering progress, but how can we blame them? They’re far more experienced, they’re good and considerate, they bring us glossy trinkets, they let us have a peek at their refined, evolved ways, they teach us how to be better, they’ve civilized us. Just like the ones that were responsible for the Giza pyramid and 9/11 in the minds of conspiracists who don tinfoil hats, these aliens have stained this country in a way that all that can ever shimmer is foreign. Long live the green folk and their paternalistic approach to tearing cultures apart!

I have been visited by aliens, I wear the costumes they’ve brought me, I’ve adopted their peculiar sayings, I even have become a connoisseur of their fine arts. Thanks to their much needed intervention, my gummy brain now floating in a crystalline capsule for them to probe with, I can see the world through green-colored glasses.

The Revamp of Frost, Good Old Friend of Mine

Frost as a noun: “a deposit of small white ice crystals formed on the ground or other surfaces when the temperature falls below freezing”

Frost as a verb: “become covered with small ice crystals”

Frost as state of mind, state of things: It encapsulates what the mind goes through when the changes of seasons, accelerated as they are nowadays, take a more introspective turn. When the days tie their daily endings with ribbons made of early sunsets, when every sigh billows out of your mouth in hazy clouds, when the sun crooks itself in a peculiar way, when things aren’t garish, when sunlight is pale, when thoughts can flow without any climatic constraints, for a good imagination can only degenerate into absolute nonsense when the heat melts down your brain.

Frost serves a higher written purpose, it makes words scintillate, it allows the mind to glide freely across innumerable magical prompts, its embrace stretching out to keep you and all the things you love and hold dear separated from the rest of the rumbling, garish masses, its embrace takes the shape of a sphere, keeping you warm inside, keeping you inside a snow globe filled with dreams, shiny things, ideas to explore, introspection to take hold.

Two years ago, frost served as a worthy friend, a way to keep myself entertained and the gears of my mind grinding on the daily, it allowed me to write and read and bask in the jeweled glory of the great pieces I came across. Back then, frost was a way for me to ignore all that went on, outside of my mind palace, in the “here and now” of those days. I really wanted a way out, a definitive one, and for a short while, I had one. The problem was, I wrote my way out of the bad, the ugly, the real, and soon enough, I was unable to make sense of what was going on. Isolated, I started planning a way out of my then reality, I would think of myself as a technicolor mass to mold, I mentally turned into nothing, paid attention only to what was interesting, and crafted a new identity to take on. The problem was, said identity and the plans, ideas, and convictions it came with were completely out of touch, in an abhorrent way, it went against common sense, it was feeding off of delusions and it put a halt on my could-be progress. It stopped making sense, although it never made any to begin with, and suddenly I was faced with the ugly truth; For all my plans and grandiose ideas, all the ways I would allegedly start behaving in, I was sitting on the benches of my own life. Making no progress, doing nothing to change my circumstances, dreaming away the days until I had to mend the damage done by my autopilot slumber.

What I’m getting at is, frost can be morphed into something better, it doesn’t have to be an agent of mental chaos and disordered ways. After those few months of planning my escape came to a close, mainly because I got interested in chasing after a possible love, and such interest turning into reality, coloring my days with the “here and now”, I realized how horribly dumb my plan actually was.

Two years later, and my path has gotten a lot clearer, I have experienced love, its warm routines, and seen the beauty in the mundane, but I also have gotten a little too sidetracked. Let me explain. After realizing how stupid I was, monkey clapping cymbals in my brain, I got way too invested in accepting everything real, as it is, right now, no romance or glitter weaved between the fabrics of objective existence. I started looking down on writing and reading and finding pleasure in beautiful things. I started to think that in doing that, I would once again become pretentious and stupid, out of touch. But, with the revamp of frost for this upcoming chilly season, I am accepting everything, both the ins and outs of living, I am coming to terms with how things are, as well as realizing that at the end of the day, writing and imagining is a part of me, it always has been and it always will be. You can live a centered life while also basking in the colored rays that reflect off of art’s jewels. I can make time for the everyday living, and the little detours I take in my mind.

Frost, good old friend of mine, the concept that has crystallized around your linguistic roots is glossy and ever-changing, and for that, I shall always appreciate the hermetic state of mind you provide.

Candy Jewels, A Return To Form

"My palace in which all was a fact, it hasn’t crumbled, it hasn’t dimmed, my plan has been left untouched." Back then I did have a plan, sort of. I was highly delusional, bored, and isolated, a combination that can only bring disappointment and a forced expansion of the mind once it all comes crashing down. 

Modes of being, something to keep track of. I’ve rearranged the visual innards of my mind multiple times by now, all to accommodate the waves of feeling that crash against imaginative, visual shores. This time around there are no delusions of grandeur, no jeweled conjectures to get me through uneventful days, all that there’s left of my past written ways is a desire to bridge the gap between what I see, as it is, and what I feel, what is perceived. 

There’s a lot that has happened since I got serious about periodically letting thoughts flow into screen, back then I thought it would take me to a mythical place in which my importance was a given, I wanted a way out, a carefully thought-out plan, and so I was transfixed with the possibility of being someone. Nowadays, all I want to do is keep myself busy, enjoy and adore all that I can, for there is love in this life of mine, and I am no longer a ribboned beast, a real person is what I am now. Perhaps there is not much sense to be made, for there is no audience in mind, or maybe what my writing suffers from the most is the clear lack of factual material, but I believe that context can only taint an otherwise wholesome activity, and so, I will continue to do as I please, for the only thing that serves as worthy fuel to this is my wish to keep doing what comes naturally, to imagine myself elsewhere, to put pen to cream-colored paper, fingers to backlit keyboard, it is all about being, one way or another.  

I shall write myself out of gnarly frames of mind, into a land of spotless circumstances, a better starting point, a place in which there is no harm to be made, no danger, no ghouls to torment my otherwise tranquil existence, a place in which I am surrounded by all the things I adore, where my only companion is the one I love, a place in which all that I want in this life of mine materializes itself into existence, a place in which worries vaporize into glittering dust, turning into a memory of a far-away annoyance. 

This is my territory, my land of the in-between, where the sun is never cruel, the cold never unforgiving, a place in which all is nice, where the moon comes out of hiding as soon as the late evening starts to settle in, a place in which I sit and watch the trees sway in their sunset dance, honey-dipped light bathing rich foliage, a weather tender as a loving hug, a place pristine and out of reach to the outside world, my haven of lilac skies and soft embraces.