When I was 5, it was the glitter gel pens. When I was 10, it was the felt tip pens.

When I was 13, it was the scented pens. Now, it's a single, brand name, black pen. You see, that pen bleeds as I do. The ink flows with a frightening urgency, letting out the pressure, that built up from years of being unused. She's just as much of a chameleon as I am, with ink made of blood, tears, and the gilded strings of my imagination.

I drew a picture of my mom at work with that pen. It now hangs in her cubicle, as if it was an achievement itself. We signed the adoption papers of my dog with that pen, adding a soul to our family. I wrote a love letter with that pen, to the person I thought was my soulmate. And once, I broke down and wrote a goodbye letter to the world with that pen.

Then 4 years later, I committed to a university, signed my 2nd degree black belt certification, wrote a log of my first solo travel, became a 3x world champion, and graduated high school with 2 degrees, with that pen.

It wrote a few chapters of my life, a prelude for everything about to come. That pen lived and breathed as I did. And when it finally emptied, drained of the ink that ave it sustenance, I was faced with a difficult choice. I could lay it to rest, smiling at the irony that I couldn't write its elegy which is the very thing it was made to do: write. Or, I could refill it, I could give it a new life.

So tell me, what would you do? in the never ending battle of life, death and the urgency of self-expression, what would you do? Because the tears and ink dry, the blood and pigment fades, but our souls and imagination never do, they are always in need of a release. If the past is on one side and the future is on the other, what would you do?

Seated at a banquet

Points made to fly

Forever on a blanket

Stars fill the sky

A star will sometimes stumble

A star will sometimes fall

And down the star will tumble

Till nothing is left at all

What do they do you may ask,

“What do they eat?”, you say

They never dream of doing a task

But dance the night away

In the ways you did when I was a kid, remember when you’d never want me to let go

when you wanted me to hug you longer, we called it the “love hug”?

But now all you want is to be alone; it’s killing me to know you prefer being lonely when I’m here, ready to take you in where the sun is beaming, but you keep me out. It is like you want to suffer in the silence, and now my heart is split; you have me feeling helpless.

My mother was an 80’s lady. She enjoyed cocaine and several other drugs including the Missouri favorite Meth. She says she was never the type to sleep around but she did have a few weeks that she was really down and it was questionable. She was in a rough relationship that involved both verbal and physical abuse. One night it came to blows and apparently they were equally matched and she decked him at some point and walked out. Over the next two weeks she says she slept with two other guys in a drug and alcohol induced fog. She wakes up one morning sick as a dog. She was horrified that she had gotten a bad batch of coke so she went to the dr. The dr. did the weirdest thing.

He looked at her and with a straight very serious face he said, “Let me see your boobs.”

She was very confused and didn’t immediately comply.

“Why?” she stammered out.

“Well, if you are pregnant like I suspect I will be able to see a change in your nipples. Show me your boobs.”

She pulled out her very large breast and showed the dr. He said: “Yep, you’re pregnant. I will set up a test to confirm.”

She left the office in a panic. She did not know what to do. She called her mother who encouraged her to abort the baby. She was worried about two things. The first thing she was worried about was the effects the drug use would have on the baby. The second thing she was worried about was that she was about to raise another child. (this went on throughout the pregnancy until it was too late). My mother was determined to prove her wrong but she was worried what would happen next. She had gotten back with her ex at this point and he was incapable of having children because of an accident that had damaged his testicles. He knew it wasn’t his, but he loved the baby(me) more than anything. He reigned in his temper and put up with her temper and other issues without laying a hand on her and she kept her hands to herself too. Throughout the pregnancy she attempted to stop smoking pot but said she was smoking ten times the amount of cigarettes. She decided it would be better to just continue with her pot smoking because it reduced the overall amount of smoking she was doing. Pot was all natural afterall. Finally the due date came, And then it went. Then time kept going. Almost a month had passed since the due date. Friends and family kept stopping by hoping to see the baby. They were amazed to see that a month after the due date she was still pregnant. It made her feel very self conscious. Mom, her friends, and Grandma all worried if it was because of the drugs and wondered if the baby was okay. No one ever verbalized this horrifying thought. The only person who seemed to actually grasp this unspoken fear was the dr. He never came out and said it but he made sure that my mother was not stressed or in fear about the health of her baby. He saw no point in causing access stress. “I want to make sure that you are aware that if I was worried about the baby or thought there might have been a problem I would have suggested you end the pregnancy” The dr assured her the baby would come when it was ready and that it was not a sign that anything was wrong. Two weeks later she goes to a turkey shoot a couple days after her last checkup where she was told she still had made no changes. While there her water breaks. It was a slow trickle and at first she thought she had just peed herself. She was 5 weeks past her due date and the thought never occurred to her that it could be her water breaking. About thirty minutes later the first contraction hits. After about an hour of the contractions becoming more frequent she decided to head to the hospital. She was greeted by nurses and family waiting for her.

After hours of intense labor and a pregnancy that lasted 5 weeks longer than it should have it was determined that she was unable to dilate. She was given a ton of morphine and put under general anesthesia. While she was out she birthed a 7 lb 8 oz baby girl with a full head of dark hair. The baby had an off color to her skin and the mother thought that she had jaundice. The dr.s assured her that the baby was safe to hold and did not need to be in the light. The baby instead had an infection from being in the womb for so long. She would need to stay in the hospital for a week to receive treatment. This was perfect as the emergency c-section had been a cut from the sternum to the pelvic bone (only usually done in emergencies as opposed to the horizontal much smaller incision they normally use) so she had to stay for a week as well to recover. When they brought out the baby for family and friends to see everyone was relieved to see a beautiful healthy baby girl. She had bright blue eyes and a tuft of thick dark hair. Her face was round and she was already alert. The date was tuesday October 20th, 1989.

Three days later there was no name for the baby. They were pressuring her to figure out a name so they could submit the birth certificate. She had placed her boyfriend’s name on the birth certificate even though they knew he had no possibility of being her father, he wanted it more than anything. Her first thought of a name was Juanita Valetta. I can honestly say I am so glad that the name didn’t stick and I thank the lord every time I think about what my name could have been for whoever it was that changed her mind. So the nurse comes in on the fourth day and says:”Okay, I am here until we come up with a name.”

“I don’t know. She’s pretty what is her name?” pointing at the tv, A soap Opera was on the screen. Back in those days the hospital didn’t pay for cable. You watched the local channels or nothing at all.

“You want to name your daughter after a Soap Opera? But not just any Soap Oprah you want it to be the Young and the Restless? Are you sure?”

“Yep. She’s pretty.”

“Give me a minute and let me go get the charge nurse. She watches this everyday on her lunch. I am sure she would know the name.” A few minutes later the nurse returns with a smile on her face. “Her name is Lauralee Bell.”

“I like it. That’s her name.” my mom said with a matter of fact slur.

“So you want to name her Lauralee Bell ?”

“No that would be stupid. I want to name her….after me, and my aunt. And my great aunt, and my great great grandma and my-”

“Okay. I got it. What is the name?”

“Lauralee Bell Rider. That’s it.”

The nurse smiles and says “That is a beautiful name. Congratulations.”

She walks out after filing out the paperwork and has a slight smile on his face. My mother would later tell me that I can’t blame her because she was on morphine. I am not sure whether that is reasonable or not but I think my name is pretty cool. I also think the name is fun. The next important life moment is something my mom won’t go into much detail on but she says that one day after months of peace in the house while she was breast feeding me he hit her. She said to me “I had you in one arm with my boob hanging out and he hit me. Now I may have said a few things I shouldn’t have but he shouldn’t have hit me. It was the straw when he hit me with you in my arms. I stood up turned around and set you down. I then reared back and let him have it. After I decked him I picked you up and walked out. I haven’t looked back since.

i.

peeling from my own

skin and aching at the

breeze pressing close

to newly-skinned bones

ii.

you cannot see me

anymore

than i can feel you

iii.

just

want

to feel

something

other than

APATHY

iv.

how can (Y)ou love me

if i am this

way?

v.

SUPPRESS

these things i feel

in favor of preserving your

_________

Who I am is who I want to be

an artist and a writer,

a kid at heart even when I’m sixty

and for the right reaons, both a lover and a fighter

I am a coffee drinker at night

and a soccer player during the day

I love kisses under the moonlight

and to my lord and savior, I pray

I love late night drives,

to nowhere or everywhere

and daydreaming of a fantasy life

but I have the most adoring family that no other can compare

I make others laugh, with my jokes or my stupidity?

Which one is it? Whichever is fine

In my daily life I find complete serendipity

I hope to make other’s lives so much more divine

Because this is who I am and who I want to be

Sitting here late on a winter night

I’m wondering about fate and things

If a life can pass by unlived, in a blink

If there will ever be peace on earth.

I used to see the stars, my gaze unhindered

But that was before the coming of her

The nocturnal lover of obsidian smoke

Turning my senses numb and my focus dim.

My view isn’t so clear these nights

Obscured by sheets of murk and mist

There’s light up there, my eyes strain to see

While the road before me sinks ever deeper.

I think I’m walking on moondust, but

My feet just get sucked into sandy pits

I’m dreaming of grand Arabian nights

Only to lose myself among endless, dusty drifts.

Pools of crystalline waters I pass right and left

But no refreshment awaits my sagging soul

A lingering, skeletal, shadowy presence is

The only companion afforded to me.

Peeling tired lids, I study the shades of gray

A heavy ombre curtain poised to be drawn

Like an ominous foreshadowing, it hangs

A fractal fringe of delicate crystal ice.

In a tensely unaffected state, I wait

To spring at leaking slivers of starlight

To snatch them in my trembling hands

Before they dangle and drop away.

A door ajar here, over there a window

Every crevice and crack, a mental catalog

Each one analyzed, queried: is this the one

To end the suffering of an immortal vagabond?

The light I cling to, my final hope, the sole

Preserver of my fractured sanity, the barest

Wisps taunting and teasing until I long

To become a subtle defector of the night.

Faintly, my ears detect voices of celestial beings

The gentle melody of a realm unblemished

A star beams clear, a pure undiluted strain

Promising relief for this desiccated, fissured clay.

Whether peace lies there, I hardly care, I

Only know the life I lead is not for me, and so

I scrape at the muck, the haze in my eyes

My only thought to follow that star.

A song of hope descends, softly crooning

A fleet of luminaries, messengers from afar

I wend through columns of Elysian heights

Voyaging across seas of somniloquence.

The shadow grows weaker, black smoke thinner,

The nearer I draw to that burning flame

Soon, I hope the dusk flees to never return

As long as I hold claim to the beacon divine.

It’s strange to think, but I never realized

Just how dark the shadows are, until

I breathed in the crisp flow of moonlight and felt

As it infiltrated the depths of my wanderings.

*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzvI42cmypU

The original fax machine was invented nearly twenty years before the American Civil War, and six years before Edgar Allen Poe died.

The telephone was invented before Edison’s lightbulb and phonograph.

The phonograph was invented before Edison’s lightbulb.

Beethoven was born only five years before the onset of the American Revolution.

Ten years after Beethoven’s death, electrical communication (via the telegraph) would be invented.

The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) was the only successful slave revolt in all of human history.

The dinosaurs lasted over three times longer than humans live apart from them (dinosaurs evolved into existence about 240 million years ago. They went extinct only about 65 million years ago).

Christopher Columbus never actually landed on the present-day America mainland, he merely landed on islands far South of Florida.

The South American mainland was actually discovered on accident by Pedro Cabral in 1494.

The modern-day German region was one of the first nations to institute religious freedom (in 1648).

England created a government of the people about one hundred years before the American Revolution would seek to do so in North America.

Russia still technically had serfdom in 1917 (though Tsar Alexander II had attempted to abolish it in 1861…It was repealed by his son, Alexander III).

Some of the last surviving World War One veterans could have watched the first few recent “Iron Man” movies.

On that note, those who were children or young adults in the Victorian Era (when everyone wore top hats and the airplane was not even invented yet) would have been great grandparents during the 1950s and 60s (the age of classic rock and roll, classic automobiles, and nuclear weapons).

The first firearms were manufactured just under 150 years before the Medieval Ages would end.

(OPINION) Remember Joan of Arc, who led France to Victory during the Hundred Years’ War? Well, France was arguably the “bad” side in that conflict, and England was “good” (one main cause of the war was that France stated that the land promised to England could not pass through a female line, which is kind of sexist, in my opinion).

The wireless telegraph was invented 56 years before the first satellite was launched into outer space.

The lighter was invented three years before the match (the first modern lighter was invented in 1823, and the match was invented in 1826).

The water heater (invented in 1889) was invented about seventeen years before the water cooler was (invented in 1906).

The first successful airplane flight took place three years before the invention of the water cooler.

The first film (“Garden Scene”) was shot in 1888.

The first vapor-compression refrigerator was invented in 1834, literally seven years after Beethoven died.

Oxford and Cambridge Universities are older than the Aztec Empire. Oxford shall also turn 1,000 years old within the current century.

The automobile was invented when Ulysses S. Grant was still the American President and also before the telephone, Edison lightbulb, Edison phonograph, video film, and the airplane (the early combustion engine was first patented around 1872).

Although modern blood transfusions were not possible until just over one hundred years ago, when the first blood bank was established on a battlefield in Belgium during the Great War, the earliest recorded successful blood transfusion took place about two hundred years ago, in 1795.

The University of Harvard and the College of William and Mary were founded nearly 150 years before the American Revolution would even take place.

King George III actually did not care as much about keeping the colonies as did his chosen prime minister, William Pit the Younger, who was mentally insane and was boldly intent on keeping the colonies under control.

The Tea Tax that led to the Boston Tea Party actually lowered the price of tea (the thinking was, however, that after the East India company had run other markets out of business, they could ramp up the prices again, forming a monopoly).

The first airplane was invented only 66 years before Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon.

The first subway station (as in, underground train) opened in England in 1843. The purely-electric metro train quickly spread into major use shortly after its debut in 1897. By World War One, most major developed cities would have had at least one subway system.

When Mark Twain died, the telephone, lightbulb, water heater and cooler, wireless telegraph, automobile, refrigerator, electric heating and air conditioning, the metro system, and the airplane would have all been around for some time (the least of which had been present for seven years).

The first solar panel was invented in France in the early 1870s; that’s roughly seventy years before the invention of nuclear power.

Although many artists throughout the 1700s are associated with the Italian Renaissance, the Renaissance actually officially ended over one hundred and fifty years before then, in 1527.

The British Empire was arguably the largest empire that ever existed (though not the longest lasting). It is possibly rivaled by that created by Alexander the Great.

(Note: I like to consider myself well-versed in history, but I am still susceptable to mistakes. If you see anything that you feel is incorrect, please let me know in the comments, and I will look into it. Thanks!).

#nonfiction

#history

*after drinking more than enough whiskey*

“Ah, yesh. Lesh sit back an enjoy the resht of this whiskey wis a shtory. Thonight, we, yesh, you and I, my dear writer’s shide, thonight, we are going to write a short shtory of pure awesomeness! Get se pen and paper, get se computer, get se whisk-...where’s the whiskey?

Ah, there it ish!”

*takes a swig*

“Ah...now let’sh go, pardner!” *hiccups* “Excuse moi! How am I supposhe to help a bottle of whiskey reacts sho negatively with me?”

It so happene one da that there was a mman of ill reput who made a living if questionale...reptue? *gulps down another mouthful, fingers returning to slowly crawl across the keys*

Tis ma maid a livon of...hundeng alians ad heee *hiccups*

H fite te gut figt wit, wit *blinking vigorously* lazers of Dart Fade ’s Jedy. He fit wih. 4. He fight aongsite 4 an Trixie annt olll thos oter *gulps down the last glass of whiskey*

safd le gl ih thyn tooooo spppppppppppparjakglhdaguhouaefajif;agiodahgadgdagjnnnnnvk

*snores*

*The following morning*

“What the hell is this?!! This is junk! Rubbish! Vanessa!!! VANESSA!!!”

“What is it, dear?” She asks with a sigh.

“Did you allow the cat in my study again?”

“No...But you allowed the whiskey in again...Maybe you should question the bottle first?”

“Are you being sarcastic now?”

“I would never.” *leaving the room again* “How about you just try and edit all of that?”

“It will never work! This is rubbish! I need to start over!”

“Again...” She sighs to herself.

I want to be able to buy you all the precious things in the world.

From pure gold to rare diamonds, name them and they're yours.

All the precious things in the world did not make you who you are.

From time to time they may possess the right number of sparks.

But, I'll rather give what they can't provide.

Only you knows the answer to that...

Search deep within your heart.

Deep, deep the hidden parts.

Tell me what you find,

that gem is the one I'll buy.