family.

i don't know if thats what i could call the people in my house

other wise,

i'd be calling my house a home

it is a warzone

and i am on my own

against my sister,

who is the sniper

shooting stinging, and simmering

comments

supporting my mom, the leuitanent

everything she says goes,

no questions

no conversations

let go of yourself if you don't like it

my brother is more normal

a soldier in the storm

hes not targeted, nor is he aiming

but hes still offected by the war

then there is my dad,

hes the nurse picking people up in stretchers

covering skeletons with a white sheet

underrated;

underappreciated

by most but surely not me

and then there is i

where do i stand in this mess?

im the prisoner they picked up

captured in the middle of night

a cloth gags me

suffocating my words

throwing out my freedom

our relationships are sometimes faulty

but everything works in the end

a deconstructed household

can be put together to make a family

probably

It's a little shop. It sits down a shadowed, winding side street and people don't really notice it when they pass. The lights are almost always off.

You enter it on the way home from work one day and as soon as you step over the threshold a feeling you can't quite describe washes over you, like walking through the door is a trap. You shake your head, almost laughing at yourself. The air is icy and stale and damp. The products are old and... indescribable: trinkets and small wooden carvings, notebooks, keys, mirrors; they would all be considered antiques anywhere else, but here they rot and they whither.

You do not notice the man at the till, if man is the right word at all. It's trying so hard to be human, it copies the gestures but they appear clunky and delayed. Eventually, when you are about to leave he speaks in a voice that isn't, see anything you like?

You turn around, jumping slightly at the noise. Unsure if he was always there or if he simply appeared from the shadows.

You shake your head, mouth dry and fear beginning to grow in your stomach. He smiles like he expected nothing else, and gestures for you to come closer. You approach, wondering why every cell in your body is screaming at you to run.

Slowly, from under the till he pulls out a doll and places it gently on the counter, how about this? The doll is perfect, small and beautiful, nothing like the other items left to decay. You swear its eyes are almost... alive.

Shadows begin, slowly, to reach out from the walls, from the corners of shelves, out from under the tables. They have thin, sharp fingers that move in jolts stopping and starting, always coming closer, closer.

You don't notice. Your eyes are still on the little doll. A small step forwards, you’re almost touching the fabric of its dress. The shopkeeper smiles his not-quite-smile and waits, patiently, for you to speak.

“I want to--” you don't know what stops you from finishing the sentence. The air is tight around your throat and the longer you stand there the more you feel like... like prey. But the doll is so beautiful, you want it. You need it. The man’s smile widens, yes?

And then you realise.

His mouth doesn't open when he speaks.

You stumble back, breath coming in sharp, painful gasps, “I’m sorry… I - I have to go”

His smile barely falters.

It's all you can do to stop yourself from running as you leave. You hear as the door swings shut behind you,

Come back soon.

My older brother was, quite literally, Yogi Bear.

When I was five, my brother worked for a company that did promotions for Hanna Barbera productions, the makers of Yogi Bear. My brother was Yogi and he worked alongside his best friend, who dressed as Boo Boo.

For grand openings the company would rent a helicopter. And thus Yogi and Boo Boo would arrive via helicopter at a strip mall or car dealer grand opening.

My brother told me that he got to hang from a rope ladder, just like in the cartoon, but years later he told me that wasn't true.

Mostly Yogi and Boo Boo would drive a rusty Dodge Van loaded with puppet gear. This dynamic duo blazed a trail across North America, spreading the gospel of Yogi and Boo Boo. My brother met his future wife in Canada while dressed as Yogi Bear, but I digress.

One fine summer day, these two smarter than average bears stopped at home. My brother gave me a special treat: I got to wear the Yogi Bear mascot head. It weighed more than I did and smelled a bit strange. And I couldn't see out of the oversized mesh eye openings, I was too small. Somehow I managed to hold it up long enough for my mother to snap a photo.

And so that was the day when I got to be Yogi Bear.

Hey Hey Boo Boo.

Working as a marketing consultant called on me to often do both graphic arts and content writing often using raw photography that I would also have to retouch to professional levels. Having done this for many years, I was surprised when clients started mentioning that my retouching was a bit heavy handed and requested changes in saturation and color contrast. I started at my work, I really did, and compared it to the raw photos and saw I only did what was necessary to bring out the subject matter. I was completely puzzled.

Then I had a schedule eye test. A tiny cataract that had been detected only a year back had developed into a size full blown to the point surgery was required.

So, there were several weeks after that I had one eye completely clear of all the tinting and cloudiness I never knew I had. I could close one eye and see things as I had, then close the other and see a near blinding brilliance that had always been there while just my sight had changes my perception of it. I looked at my work and now could clearly see how my own lack of vision had caused me to overcompensate. The dullness and underexposure I had blamed on badly executed photos did not exist. They were fine, my vision of them was flawed. Soon after, both eyes had newly restored vision that immeasurably restored my perception of everything around me.

There is a universal lesson here. We all have cataracts...of various kinds clouding our vision.

Before overcorrecting others, to a fault, perhaps...just perhaps it is not them but some flaw not of our own making, in how we see them.

I have to admit I have no tact, but I have mastered the art of "if you have nothing nice to say, then stay silent.”

Which is why people think I'm shy. I don't WANT to hurt people's feelings, and growing up, I truly believed people didn't want to hurt mine.

Until i met Jasmine.

She was pretty and ALWAYS said the right thing at the right time. Everyone liked her, but there was something about her that made me uncomfortable.

In short I really didn't like her.

I was quiet around her, I smiled, was as polite as I could possibly be…but…I guess she saw through me.

Soon every slip-up I made was broadcasted across the school! If I was even a LITTLE blunt Jasmine would start to cry FOR the other person! Even if I said ‘please’, it didn’t even matter any more…everything I said was now ‘mean’.

I was now a ‘bully’.

One day, during lunch, the teacher made us sit outside in a circle, and I was next to Jasmine. She prattled about how I needed to be more aware of my words and how violent I was. How SHE, a VEGAN, was the EPITOME of PEACE. All I needed to do was follow her example!

As i was lectured, i contemplated how mean she was being by assuming that I was being mean. She didn't know me. As far as i was aware, we'd never had a proper conversation.

I guess that's the day I snapped...

“You know, you are so right,” I said dramatically with a small laugh, “I think I’m beginning to see the error of my ways.”

I plucked a piece of grass and set it on her knee.

“To be a vegan…”

I plucked another as though the grass blades were flower petals and I was asking if someone loved me.

“To eat the vegan…”

Pluck.

“To be a vegan…”

Pluck.

“To eat the vegan…”

I relished her look of silent horror as I continued. I just kept going plucking one blade at a time, placing them with the others.

At least she was finally silent.

I'd like to think I'm the hero of my story, but I can't lie to myself no matter how hard I try.

I'm the villain, plain and simple. Everything I do goes against what I want to be, I'm supposed to be this perfect person, get straight A's. I say no, I couldn't give less of a crap about my grades, or what people think of me. I enjoy watching those that have wronged me suffer. You get what you deserve, I always say. I self sabatoge, and procrastinate untill an hour before a big test, or a project is due. I push away friends that just try to help me, though I couldn't tell you why. I just don't like myself in general. I'm the perfect antagonist to myself, It's kind of funny, and sad. I'm tired all the time, and I wish I could be an upbeat, always cheerful person that everyone likes. People don't tend to like me very much, and I hate it, I'm always so bitter and resentful toward life. I want to become a hero, but I'm afraid I'm too far gone. I guess I really am the villain of my story.

- Freyja

I chose villianhood

so the sanctimonious could wallow

in shallow happy endings.

I am the wicked witch of the west who created Dorothy.

I am George Bailey’s Mr. Potter.

I am Luke Skywalker’s father.

I am Judas.

I am the shark hovering below your splashing skies waiting to tear open your torso.

I am Lucy who will always jerk away the football.

I am Nurse Ratchet pushing you toward that necessary lobotomy.

You need me to make you look better than you are.

You need a dark and never fully formed monster to be lurking murky and evil

chained in shadows to scare the impressionable into thinking

you are their savior.

Without me

you’d be a story not worth reading

a collection of self congratulatory words without a plot

a participation award given out to everyone

signifying nothing.

You think you created me

when

in fact

I created you

and you would not exist

without me.

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

When have I ever been the hero? Was it when I put a knife against my arm. Or when I starved myself to become smaller? No, I am the villain. At least, if I consider my mind, me. Although, no one can truly be their own villain. Otherwise I would be dead. My only visitors the flowers next to my grave. So I must give myself some credit, though it is hard when I have spent my life doing nothing more than fighting myself. Trying to figure out who was the savior and who was the devil. What if the one with the knife really was the hero. Just trying to save the others in my life. The one fighting to stay alive the devil, trying to tear down the epople aroune me. I thought that I would have a one-sided answer. But how should someone be one-sided when wars are being fought. For no war is ever the result of an agreement. Even this has been a fight with myself. The ramble of trying to write who I am when I am nothing more than something. Villain or Hero? I have no solid answer, all I that I can say is that I do not think that any person could be just one.

Had an ex whom that he was the STAR of the show

Entitled he was like we all should've worshiped his BIRTH

A legend in his own mind, to this world he was the PRESENT

Although, if you ask me he was nothing more than a bad tasting FRUITCAKE

As far as I'm concerned, he can make like a TREE and leaf!! lol