I don’t like Aristotle. Aristotle was wordy... he talked too much. One of my many ex-step-fathers’ lived by the credo that if he vomitted enough words, then the law of percentages said that eventually something intelligent sounding must come out of his mouth, so he never shut up. The same is true of Aristotle. It’s true! Look it up! Aristotle had something to say about every... damn... thang.

I will use as an example this quote a friend brought up of Aristotle’s: “No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.” Literally taken Aristotle is calling sex and procreation lunacy, but let’s move beyond that. The sentence seems like a simple truth at first glance, but as always with Aristotle, it is too wordy. To prove my point, let’s remove the word “great” from it? “No mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.” Doen’t it already make more sense? Is it only the “great” minds which contain a hint of madness, and not all of them? Of course not. A trip to any local Walmart, or a quick flip through Instagram, will easily prove otherwise. Show me the man without a hint of madness, and I’ll show you his corpse.

Aristotle, without mincing words, could have said the exact same thing using half the verbiage... how about: “Madness resides in every mind.” You see? Only 5 words! This is why I am a Socrates man. Aristotle was too wordy. And like Socrates I have questions about everything. For instance, do you think Aristotle threw the word “great” into that sentence because he worked for Alexander, and thought it a good way to call out the boss without getting canned?”

Hmmm... maybe Aristotle was smarter than I think? Or perhaps I’m crazy for thinking otherwise? Damn! If I am a touch madder, does that by extension make me great? Or at least greater?

Hey! You seem a bit crazy yourself! What say you?

Oh, nevermind. Maybe it would be a good question for Plato...

I fucking hate everything. Had my fill of it all. Please don’t take offense, it’s a “me” thing. I’m sure you’re just a peach. Entrenched in my microcosm...I barely even eat anymore. Still, do kindly back off of my biscuits. Who knew fasting brought out latent food aggression? The people who actually have nothing to eat. That’s who.

I inundate myself with words and plots and characters. Futile attempts to push back the tide. Count the grains of sand. Carefree cloud watching...in someone else’s imagination.

My story is not your story. You will never grasp the insanity that pervades and detains me. Possessed by the inexplicable urgency of another self promoting, attention whore cricket, chirping for validation. Cacophonous.

I do feel bad for boot-crunched crickets. Animals are never bad. Karen doesn’t need another foot scrub more than that rabbit needs its skin. Leave the fucking bunny alone. Stop killing pitbulls in shelters. It's an ignorant, abhorrent practice. I feel “breed profiled” my damn self. Let’s euthanize me and move on to the next. Maybe you would inject my body with poison, while checking your texts. My discorporation is unremarkable.

Just doing your job, I guess. Isn’t the path of inculpabilty? Did my presence while alive make you ill at ease?

You felt compelled to watch me die? Stiff meat and fixed bones elicit no emotion. Jaded is an understatement.

Asocial. I’d rather recognize myself in the bathroom mirror than drift a dead sea of unfamiliar features. I hate this rattle of chains in my head. If my skin was a window, I’d open it wide, and jump out as if facing spontaneous combustion.

I hate that I’m addicted to anything and everything, consider it faulty programming. My doctor says surely the pills make me better. My doctor talks over me in superlative tones. She has the questions and the answers. I’ll need to find a new doctor. Some things need to be heard. When they need to be heard. Vexing. The direness, subject to

blind eyes. Ears that hear keywords only. Clocking hours in the name of psychology and “healing”. Blasphemous. I fucking can’t.

I hate that I’m irretrievably distant when I’m needed close. This smacks my face red, as well as others. It’s not a choice. Cease then your efforts to eat from a fruitless tree. Wantonness skewed your perception. What survives here isn’t safe for consumption, as is. I am a different kind of hungry...panging for solace. We need to buy hay. I hate that dried grass requires a dedicated budget. I love my horses. They’re intractable assholes, but what of it? Better to spend my time with quaripedal assholes. I do not keep anyone’s company. Not for long.

I hate that credit scores exist. Another intangibility to lean on. I’ll use paper money. Credit my left tit.

I feel old. Unarguably older today than yesterday. One day closer to enlightenment. Missing pieces of a discordant puzzle.

Dubious. Rancorous. Arthritic. A mindfucked miser, 37 years in.

Not knowing my expiration date is paradoxically liberating oppression. Direction eludes and befuddles...I’m working in simultaneous realms. Detached from each concurrently. Conclusively. I do not despair. I don’t blame the truth. It is simply itself.

I’ll take that book please, you can go fuck your shelf.

I think I’ve only been sane

half of my life.

Pulling

daisies

out of my hair,

their roots, steadfast in my brain.

I am no longer rooted,

I can say this because

I unrooted myself knowingly.

Because I thought,

stupidly and rashly believed,

that you’re only as beautiful

as the daisies you p u l l from your hair.

Κανένα σπουδαίο μυαλό δεν υπήρξε ποτέ χωρίς μια νότα τρέλας

“No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.”

’Everyone in this forgotten town believed the way to achieve immortality was to have their names written down.

But not just by anyone.

Only the hand of a poet could determine your immortality.

Men traveled over the land, in search of a poet;

So they could boast of their fame, and good deeds.

But the poet’s paper stayed empty,

The poet spoke slow and clear, for his words were for all to hear;

“These stories do not tempt me.”

Fergus put his pen down, he looked down at the small excerpt he had written for a story. Pondering momentarily with his worn and calloused hands stroking the snowy white beard; his eyes crinkled slightly as he built a whole new world in his head. A few moments passed and he slowly picked up his pen, and dipped it in the ink, and continued on just as he was before. He wrote on and on as he drifted farther and farther from reality, from this world. Fergus was no longer a being of earth, but one of a different dimension.

A different world, one that he had created.

In this world the church bells never stop ringing,

A world where if you listen closely you can hear the dead singing,

'Is it to late to ask for forgiveness,

The man upstairs is our only witness and he doesn't sympathize'

Fergus recognized this world as his own creation.

His creation where everybody falls apart when it gets dark.

Where the buisness men step over bodies,

and the children are playing with ashes instead of poppies.

All of the characters were here in the land that he created with a pen and some paper.

All but one.

The poet.

Fergus had taken his role,

Determing who lives forever and who is forgotten.

Red roses filled the streets, as Fergus looked around at the chaos that ensued.

Ashes fell from the sky on this dreadful day,

While bodies all around were starting to decay.

And in the middle of it all a woman layed; on the soot colored streets, her hands tied with stems from roses, the thorns cutting into her pale flesh.

The womans body was bloodied and torn,

And in place of her eyes were roses, wildflowers and thorns.

Fergus’s father had always told him,

“A little bit of madness goes a long way, but just enough can make something beautiful.”

Fergus never made it back to reality.

He was found with stems tying his hands together and thorns in his hands.

And he had beautiful roses and wildflowers for eyes.

His pen was shoved down his throat along with a note.

'All of the greatest writers fall apart when it gets dark,

Their minds running uncontrollably.

In their work piece by piece you will discover dishonesty.

We are just puppest on strings

Fueled on the lack of creativity

Here, I find myself in this world I have created telling another poets story, all the while the roses thorns bind my hands and punturce my lungs.

But I regret nothing,

In fact I embrace it.

Here with me the greatest man who has achieve immortality, who has been trapped in a story forever in a time, he has told me “That no great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.”'

The jags of your thoughts

Jigger mine

And we quirky together

Create

Genius is never

Tonality in the truth of it

Dischordant neural nets

Not computed but torn

From the fabric of

Town and country

And patched into

Performance matrices

Until it breaks free

Leaks out steaming acid holes

In the structures meant to

Contain and capitalize it

And runs to find itself

In the drain pits of the interwebbed

Intertwined cosmos maybe

Electronic maybe psychic or

Social genius will confront the black

Mirror of its own

He wasn't always this way, but they ripped what he loved most away from him locked him in a dark room and told him to work. So he did, he picked up that needle and thread and sewed until the bones of his nimble fingers were exposed. And when his wedding ring finally had no finger to hold onto it fell on the cold concrete, as the cling of the metal hit the ground a wide smile spread over his features. He had finished his greatest masterpiece and faded away as he watched someone else present it to the world as theirs. His madness brought brilliance and left a mark on this world but that very world will never know the creators name.

It takes a little crazy

to imagine what has never existed before

to make new those things growing stale under the sun

to be unafraid of criticism and ridicule

to stand stubbornly alone.

It takes a little crazy

but without those willing

or perhaps unaware

always uncaring

of the risk

because of the little crazy

the masses reap the reward

and eventually praise

those minds

touched

blessedly

with a little crazy.

typing

so fast

that i

forget

to make

my letters

capital.

making

certain

that my

lines are

the same

length

like a

straight

wooden

ruler.

thoughts

coming

out of my

head in

waves

and i just

keep on

trying to

straighten

myself out.

thinking

about

violence.

incessant

thoughts

that i don't

know how

to avoid.

write it

all out

and

ignore

the rest.

does my

madness

make me

great?

or does it

just make

me crazy?

I'm fine... Am I fine? I think I'm fine. when people ask "how are you?" I always, Always, reply "I'm fine," and I don't lie, I WOULDN'T lie. I guess I should take my word for it.

I'm fine.

I'm fine.

I'm fine.

Breathe in, breathe out. It's all ok.

Look out the window and feel the cold night air on my face. It smells of rain and ice. How late is it? Even the street lights have turned off. There are silhouettes on the pavement below. Is that a person? No... No, it's not.

Breathe.

I have to remember to breathe.

Did I lock my front door? Yes. No? Get up. Check. The door was locked. Crawl back into bed and continue to look down at the street below. There's a touch of moonlight illuminating the road, and I can see the light on in one of the houses on the other side. I wonder what they're doing. I wonder if they're more or less fine than I am.

I shift a little and pages full of dark, spidery writing fall to the ground. I swear under my breath but I don't move to clear it- my floor is already covered in paper- a couple more pages will hardly make a difference.

I lie back and close my eyes. My bed is not comfortable and my mind spirals further and further and further and further and- was that a noise?... No.. I hope not. Maybe it was the wind.

I'm fine.