another_proser’s 2016 Summary on Prose.
I began 2016 with a narrative post about a mini book of names I keep, to add names to as they come up and compel me to write them down. I had no idea that the year would be a reflective roller-coaster of conflict, creativity and motivation. I shared my knowledge on mental-remodels and was riding waves of possitivity into debuting #jumbletongue here on TheProse.com. My own, made up, form of poetry, playing with words, meaning, intent and understanding. At first, just posting my own jumbled poetry, but then branching out and challenging others to give it a try. It was fun, it inspired an array of posts and carried me through the next few months.
March, around the time of my birthday, things took a dip, as they usually do and the roller-coaster took some odd and sometimes sad turns. I joined in on an "Epic Poem" with 20+ other prosers here, trying to maintain my sense of writing-community. I struggled with it though, as the year went on, posts getting a fewer and further between one another. Darker reflections divulged themselves in life comparison to Fukushima, and a wayward correlation between American Society and Feudalism, in a mutated way.
As I ping-ponged mentally, I dared to write a snippet of erotica, though it too, had dark roots. I tried to summarize myself in an introduction when TheProse opened the Intro Portal, and even started a few books when the option became available-- though this would be the first one I've actually published and made available for all to read. In the absence of my own inspiration, I let Prose-Challenges, from other prosers too, provoke me into an array of confessional narratives and thought-provoking true-stories.
As the months went on... Gun Control. Depression. Blindness. Murder. Evolution and even the random musing over a paperclip. All tid-bits into the rattling madness in my mind through 2016. Sometimes thought-vomit just fingered out onto the screen as it came, and other times more methodical writing with intent and pointed inspiration.
As it turns out, the whole year was full of confession, even in the sharing of poetry that began, just for me. It seems appropriate, and a bit amusing to me now, that I ended the year with the same, but specific to losing my innocence. Or, more accurately, summarizing my behavioral evolution and beliefs which put me on the darkest path I've walked yet. I guess turning thirty years old also put me on a long rounded bend in my path, one full of many more reflective pit-stops to come.
If you enjoy reading this collection, from 2016, please rate and write a review to inspire me to do it again next year.
Many thanks for your time, feedback, comments, impulsive thoughts, critiques, and inspirations. I appreciate it in advance!
Remmy Ar'emen
|| another_proser ||
The Book of Names.
It's not the first list of names I've kept, but the first one in such a tiny book I keep on me almost all the time. I never know when I'll read or hear a new name I'll be compelled to write down. Or those moments when a name comes from the ether of my mind.
"LaVarjek, Evonka LaVarjek." Even my mind says it with a mixed accent... is it Eastern European or something else?
"Ar'emen" pronounced like the initials R-M-N, which is exactly where the name originates, not from any specific cultural region, but people always ask. Perhaps one of the many reasons I'm fascinated by names. Why I'm compelled to write certain ones down, "Thawnolan, Xuan Jen, Zoila, Kentario, Ayanna, and Beaumont/Bomont" to name a few. Some come from stories I read, watch or listen to; others are actually people I've spoken and interacted with.
Why these names?
I don't always know for sure, though often I think it has to do with how the name feels in my mouth. The impact of character it echoes through the muscles of my tongue. Take Thawnolan for example, a soft start like a sliding curl that clamps down, opens into a small roll to a plateau and clamps again. For such a yawning start, the end of the name feels like a recoil, making me want to say it again.
Somewhat contrasting to Thawnolan is Kentario, which starts out hard, short and to a point, only then does it roll out with a high note, concluding with an open invitation. I feel compelled to sing this name, to the tune of "Oh-we-oh, Kentario, Oh-we-oh, Kentario." I did sing it, for the guy I learned the name from, though he went by "Rio," because he admitted most people found his name hard to say.
I didn't and I'm continually inspired by names, so I'll keep writing them down, in the tiny composition book of names.
| another_proser |
Mental Remodel.
Did you know that every emotion you experience has a chemical compound that floods your brain? I didn't, not until I watched a documentary a year or two back, called "What the BLEEP Do We Know?" Not as much as I thought I did, and I loath to admit, it took a while to sink in.
We're creatures of habit. Habituality that extends into the emotional roller coaster of our lives. I know, because I've lived it too. There's a Native American proverb so to speak, about Good and Evil being inside all of us, and the side that prevails, is the one we feed. I believe this is a metaphysical explanation for a very real chemical reaction inside our bodies.
As creatures of habit, our own insides have a way of adapting to our emotional routines by creating more receptors for those emotional chemical compounds, and like any machine-- organic or otherwise, it needs fuel. So if we go through long periods of despair, our minds become retrofitted for all those emotions associated with despair. So even as we try to get out of our rut, we're fighting against mental remodel we unwittingly initiated.
It wasn't until I realized that's what the documentary was getting to, that I knew all those self-helpers posting positive messages amounting to "Change your thinking, change your life" were fighting their own minds for emotional control. It's not good to fully reign your emotions, but learning ways to stop the mental renovations before they start is a good way to avoid prolonged periods of defunct moods.
Sadly, there's no cure-all, because everyone is different, despite our similarities. What worked for me, may not work for you, but the key is being willing and able to find out what your own emotional triggers are. What makes your mind happy? What snow-balls your mind into sadness, anxiety or despair? What amuses you? What gives your mind purpose? What gives your mind peace?
It takes time to change your mental habits, your ways of thinking, but you have to start somewhere.
If you ever find yourself wondering why you're thinking about something that promotes a negative reaction or emotion from you, then you've reached that pivotal moment where your mind is asking you if you'd like to proceed with the reconfiguration of your emotional receptors.
Do you?
| another_proser |
More than one.
I am an Introvert;
recharging best in solitude,
exhausting most when socializing,
yet I still prefer we over just me.
We can discuss things I didn't know.
We can carry two different ends of a long table.
We can feel-think-and-move independently of each other.
We is better than just me.
With just me and no you to make we,
I am a tree in the forest falling unheard,
nothing more than a proverbial sight unseen,
the very definition of a nobody.
With we there's us and infinite possibilities.
| another_proser |
The Way Out.
Until now I’d lost all hope... but I’ve learned how to cope, at high velocities, all across lethally slippery slopes. Declines so steep they were fast lanes to past pains descending on the Self-Loathing Highway without a Runaway Truck Ramp. Cramped in the wreckage, I’d wallow amid the acid filled hallow of my own bitter banter. Ranter-Renegade raging on rally-cries of half-truth lies based on judgment, usually repugnant, ignorant of answers to questions I never asked. Gassed in overdose with a cocktail of my making, taking poisonous, boisterous badness and madness with a sadness chaser. A taser of torments and laments drafted and crafted-- crap, I’d shafted myself and couldn’t bloody see it from where I was sitting.
Shitting on my own parade with a serenade of anger twanged, consciously fanged, fighting words. Turds of Testament to why hope was lost (the cost too high to pay) until the day I saw a way out. Doubt be damned, I slammed on the brake for sanity’s sake, anchoring stakes in the ground of the open-minded-but-logically-sound. Pound-for-pound tearing up asphalt of default thoughts, plots and ponderings responsible for my deadly wanderings, willing myself to veer nearer to the edge.
With a pledge of personal promise I let the torture-train derail so I could bail and watch it sail into the pit of insignificant. An indifferent depth dug down around the pedestals of persecution, retribution and emotional pollution. Mental destitution I didn’t need, just seeds to depression and more aggression gouging negative impressions into my faith. Wraith to intrinsic good that should matter more than it usually does.
Clinging to what was or could have been never help either, so I knew what I blew for far too long. Wrong only because it took forever, to get it together, to power forward toward future possibilities. Hostilities halted or dismissed as wastes of time, less I rewind and deescalate my evolution of resolutions compiled by more positive principals. Miracles in-of-themselves when facing a self-conscripted Seven Hells Tour made more for misery than mending; sending signals for repair instead of despair because I’m now prepared.
Not scared to face the unknown simply due to what history has shown, but to wage my own path in the aftermath of previous reservations. Foundations no longer stacked on the lack of consideration, rather some reiteration for reflections on old roads of evolution, to define my personal absolution. An inclusive contribution to the convolution of a dissolution in prior ways of thinking. No more winking wrongs and radical rights, not as long as I'm able to fight.
Bite the plight.
Bright in sight.
Day and night.
Be the light.
| another_proser |
Speechless.
I'm nobody in the big scheme of things. I never made it through High School. I dropped out and got my GED when I was seventeen. I'm not dumb, yet nor am I very formally educated. I write what I think and think about what I write. I also doubt just about everything I post, even when I'm in love with it and I feel like a special-kind-of-genius.. I still question if it will inspire, or remain in the ether of the internet like dust on the shelf of a condemned house.
I chastise myself in my head, "Here she goes again.." or "Wat's she rhyming on about?" as if everything that's typed out by my fingers is shit. It's not, not all of it anyway, though the Devil inside me likes to Damn.
"You're practically writing the same thing in different words! "
"Same subject, but not the same..." despite my efforts to reason, I catch myself refreshing TheProse page, hoping for a bookmark or comment for validation. "What do you need validation for?" Another question to confront my consciousness, (there's nothing submissive about my subconsciousness ) bitch-slapping my thought process and calling me an idiot without saying the word.
Even now I ponder deleting what I've written, "Why are you writing this? Someone might relate." Isn't that why we're here? Not just to share our work, but to find more of what we like to read, and those who like to read what we have to write. That's why I'm here, just another proser, trying to improve my relationship with words.
"It's garbage, can-it!"
"One man's trash is another man's treasure..."
"Sure, more crap to fill a dump of literary dunces pretending to be dalliances..."
"I won't know for sure until I post it."
"You wont know for sure until someone 'validates' you."
"Shit. You're right, my grammatical and spelling sense sucks."
"All things (Amen)"
So there it is. I do want to know if I misspelled something, used a word in the wrong context, or should have included a bloody comma. I'm imperfect. My writing isn't for everyone, just as everyone's writing isn't for me-- but that doesn't mean I should be offended or sadden when something I wrote isn't so well received. It may simply mean it hasn't reached the right audience, or the readers are left speechless!
Yeah, let's go with that. Speechless. :-p
|| another_proser ||
Jumble Tongue #6
nose up
smell the day
breathe toxic security
in a noose self-hung
with fist-faced glory
expose the whites
(of your eyes)
and absorb the vantage
of polished grunge-scapes
dripping pseudo-need
in obese luxury
|| another_proser ||
(Take a crack at it! Translate, and/or write one of your own. If you write your own kind of #jumbletongue please tag me @another_proser in a comment so I can be sure to read it! It’s fun and ends up a language all it’s own. )
Emotional Tide.
I haven't written in five days-
I take that back.
I've deleted everything I've written over the last five days.
I hate it, my writing, like I hate myself when in a rut such as I am.
So far down on myself the microbes at the bottom of the sea have envy for the depths of darkness I can sink-- but I'm trying to change the way I think (Mental Remodel anyone?)
Though, it's hardest when this vacuum of my emotions takes hold. Sucking all the good things out of focus so all I see, hear, and feel is the bad. Things some might consider trivial or insignificant, yet I want to gut myself and watch the blood pool, but I don't.
I sigh, rutfaced, trying feebly to rub the grimace from my mask before someone sees it; from my mind before it roots too deep.
I can't.
Not completely.
It forever remains to resurface in my consciousness, willing me to expose the degradation I feel by marring my face with scars to mirror the damnation this part of me wants to embrace. To make my visage as ugly as my insides.
"You have a scar on your face" I remind myself, to no avail, my own mind countering without hesitation-- pointing out the almost perfect symmetry of the scar down the center of my chin and how it's rarely even noticed, for over a decade now.
While I'm arguing with myself about how to turn my skin inside-out, I realize I'm just trying to substitute my pain and turn it into something I know how to deal with.
Scars I can see.
Wounds I can treat.
Damage I have a choice in... because the unfortunate truth is, I don't yet know what to do with the shit, or how to handle it.
So, I relent to contemplate if I ever will, in relative silence, knowing the violent loathing will pass with the next emotional tide.
|| another_proser ||
The Thinking Curse Has A Cure
There's a dry spell on the cure for this curse of mine, leaving me to wallow and squirm amid the mash of mental barb-wire strung like razor sharp silk fibers of hyperactive spiders spinning webs so complex and thick I can't tell beginning from end. Every string is a thought, every contemplation a knot, tying up my capacity for compassion and cutting into the bandwidth of my brain to the brink of overload.
An overload that never happens.
It's just another tipping point over the crest of considerations adding weight to the momentum of electrical impulses igniting the grey matter of my mind like a lightning storm charged by aqueducts of consciousness which always flow. Pouring out waves to ride and tsunami's to drown in.
Rivers of reflection that grip me like an undertow with infinite currents of every depth in all directions, ripping the circuits of my cranium asunder; a p a r t but together like a flock of geese flying south for the winter, only there's no escape from the snowflakes that make up the blizzard frosting my neural network. This cold is like inertial dampeners but for my emotions, numbing them enough to keep the synapses firing without overheating on the elements of my heart.
This is the thinking curse that invades like an infection invasive enough to pierce my soul and stun my moral compass-- but there is a cure.
A cure that works for me in ways I struggle to explain.
It calms my brain, slows the spiders spinning the fibers that make up my thoughts, so there aren't so many. With fewer knots of contemplation, the chaos unravels into more open space to ventilate, to feel. It turns the blizzard to rain and makes me feel sane again; capable and able to embrace my emotions as much as my mind.
The cure for this thinking curse of mine is illegal in my Country with the exception of a few of its States, yet not the one with which I live. So, to procure it (or grow it) would make me criminal.
Damned if I do and damned if I don't.
The thinking curse has a cure.
|| another_proser ||
