1-The Magician

A man of craft; he studies the akashic records, knows the secrets to life and achieves what he wants from the tip of his wand.

He is in the sea of knowledge.

His wisdom floweth on out.

His magick like a thread at the tip of his fingers.

He manipulates and turns the tides.

He finds that time is on his side.

He makes time for everything and everyone.

He knows where he is going to be.

He knows the light and the way.

He knows that the path to enlightenment lies wrapped around his fingers.

He knows and he represents the craft but a true magician never tells his secrets.

His word of power is knowledge.

To know, to dare to will and to be silent.

The secrets of the Gods,

the esoteric deities,

the laws of good and evil,

The mysteries and ceremonies of blood, the elements and the alchemy of the earths.

The tree of knowledge that had once bore the forbidden fruit.

the akashic records and the mysteries of the worlds and the universe.

thee ability to make things happen and the ability to make an impact and an influence on life; good or bad.

0-The Fool

Unaware; a new beginning is a force that is out of control….

Looking up at the skies and unweary.

Never knowing; as he thinks he knows everything; he is but a ghost of the past.

Living only a boy’s adventure tale.

A beggar; a borrower; a thief.

He looks toward the sun, but listens to no signs.

The wind begs him to stay but he does not.

Always on the search for true meaning and adventures beyond his imagination; his heart is wild, free and contagious.

He contemplates nothing knowing that death is his new beginning;

his adventure to the end of the road and down a narrow path into something that brandishes his innocence ; his passions and his dreams then makes him the beginner;

Head in the clouds; the king of fools.

He says hello to death and winces at change; absolutely ignoring the change externally and internally.

Never knowing where he will and is bound to end up.

Head in the clouds, the king of fools.

He will not listen to the signs or to the wind,

and in no worry, his head is always soaring above the clouds like Icarus in his plight for his wings only to burn into the sun.

He looks up unaware and never resting.

His thoughts begin to spin throughout his mind as he wanders over dangerous and uncharted waters.

The foolish child cares for nothing and is stuck in his ways.

Never failing to notice that he follows a reckless path of what a fool believes.

Musical Notes

I can tell there is a strange magic in you.

Only when I hear your voice,

It surrounds me like music notes.

Like the little tunes I used to hum to when I was a young girl.

And that magic seems to come directly

from

your

beating heart

from the way your heart beats rapidly fast

as I fall under your spell in the gravity of your voice as I get totally thrown off….

and I could swear that I was much closer to heaven.

The Truth

There were times when I would wish to go back to December just like that song all the time.

Now I know I will find myself saying this on New Years.

Truth is,

You were made for me and I was made for you.

The Hope

Without hope I’d still

be wondering if you still

had feelings for me too and

I would be left cold.

Where You Cannot Find Me

I may not be where you think you can find me….

But I’ll know where to find you.

And that’s all that matters.

The Song of The Siren

A remembrance for what a fucked up world we live in. I wrote this for the girl who doesn’t have a voice. Neither a voice of her own. Because I see her at playgrounds. Silent.

I was a tortured soul thinking that I would become a bird who would fly.
Sometimes he hit me.
Sometimes he touched me.
I faked smiles not because I didn’t want to but because I didn’t want to.
I made no friends because no one would hear my voice out loud and sometimes he would hear my voice.
In water.
Sea witches cackling,
Mermaids’ songs being untold.
Long forgotten and never really remembered.
When a siren cries she cries pearls.
What will I cry, when I am pinned down and constantly….
FUCKED
All my life….
Is a siren’s song truly forgotten?
Those who are brave are strong enough to look round for help.
This is for those who are unwilling like I do not hear her but know she is there.
CRYING
ALONE
She sits in her room and sits sometimes looking up at a worn out ceiling and cries….

Star of The Night

I miss the tenderness of your skin…

The love that we made as I await posing in bondage for you.

I love caressing your skin down your back and I love the way you look at me….

So hungrily.

I begin to hope that my soft moans and breathless tender sighs intimidate you to rock my body harder.

To the point where you make me lovingly call to God;

only for you to save me.

The raw pulse of your stars that collide into mine making a blank space.

Call me your as you go deeper as I whimper for you to create a universe with your loving hands.

As I pull my head back, pull my hair back and pulse against me harder.

Love me right all through the night.

Mine

If a million stars glimmer in the night sky ;

Against the vast canvas that is the night,

You will be my only star.

My dearest friend,

My child,

My father,

my lover.

My heaven,

My hell,

My heart,

My demon,

My angel,

My world,

Although the distance like the stars that are dotted among the night’s canvas.

Sometimes stars fall to the ground and have to stay there….

Until they are found;

You are my lucky star.

Whether in a post office;

Whether in a church.

You are mine.

He Was….

He was the first person I had fallen in love with. He was a young man much younger than me.

His was a name I’d too soon forget and get lost in.

It wasn’t because I had too busy a life with everything and more….

It was because he was dearest to me like lemonade on a hot Summer’s day. Red hair the color of Fall leaves and eyes as green as freshly picked apples.

It was because he was dearest to me like the terseness of the sand; the warm breeze on a Spring day. Blonde hair the color of gold and eyes that burnt an auburn fire.

It was because he was dearest to me like the riches of the earth; the warmth of the sun. Brown curls and sapphires for eyes.

It was because he was dearest to me like the deep depths of the ocean; the cold density of the frost. Black hair the color of ravens and galaxies for eyes.

They say you fall in love three times and that there is different love but never the same love twice.

Things change.

Seasons come and go.

Time goes by fast like the second hands of a clock.

We die everyday and so do the moments.

We must make seconds count.

We must make the weeks seem longer.

The more they linger, the more cherished they should be and hold what is dear to us more frequently than once.

Silly Love Songs

Soon you were all the words inside poetry books.

And all I could do was think about you smiling at me and laughing with me face to face as you opened the door because we both knew that we were for about five seconds in that moment,

that we were meant to be together.

But that was just a memory

and you are only composed of silly love songs.

EN560-01 Discussion Forum and Response #1

My Initial Post: The Gothic trope that I found interesting in “The Anatomy of Desire,” was the idea of the archetypal “parasite” in John L’ Heureux’s short story because of the passage that quotes, “Hanley put on the skin of the saint. His genitals fitted nicely through the gap he had left and the skin at his neck matched hers exactly. He walked the corridors and for once left no bloody tracks  behind. He stood before mirrors and admired himself. He touched his breasts and his belly and his thighs and there was no blood on his hands.” In this quote we find out that Hanley was actually not the victim but the murderer in possession of the saint or the passive female victim called “the saint.”
Hanley is likened to a “parasite” because we recognize in J…’s presentation and the article from last week that Hanley himself is like Buffalo Bill in the film where he lives off of wearing peoples’ skin to feed his desires. The “parasite” is in this case, of American Gothicism, is a person or thing that feeds off of others and lives off of what is or was a living being in order to feed off of others to feed a desirous need to feel something other than the need to live. The parasite is a good Gothic archetype for L’ Heureux’s story because Hanley is feeding his desires by killing “the saint,” and by wearing her skin. He is therefore a parasite because he wants to be loved but finds out that wearing her skin is not enough to be loved and knows now that it was out of his desire that it was his passion to wear her skin by scalping it off of her through first an incision down her shoulders, arms, sides, legs, and feet. The parasite helps me to appreciate, or understand the story because by my understanding, Hanley is a parasite that feeds his desires through the pain of others by wearing the skin of human beings. The story itself helps me understand other issues like the fact that Hanley is a criminal and a madman because he desires to be loved or to be possessed by “the saint” and by possession, he means that he wants or desires her therefore becoming possessed unnaturally by utterly killing her and wearing her skin out of obsession with the desire to be loved. He desires to be loved so badly, that he murders “the saint” by cutting her alive and then wearing her skin.

Works Cited

L’ Heureux, John. “American Gothic Tales (William Abrahams).” The Anatomy of Desire, edited by Joyce Carol Oates, Edition Unstated, Plume, 1996, pp. 339–348.

My Response To a Colleague:

Hi V…! The Gothic motif of “projection” which is where the outside reflects the inside in Carver’s “Little Things” can be found in a number of the stories we have read, but can also be found in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” where she writes as the narrator, ““I’ve got out at last,” said I, “in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!”” Therefore, this quote amongst others fits the idea that the woman in the wallpaper had become her because the narrator in the story is revolted by the wallpaper so much that it becomes clear that she has to take it down on the outside to reveal her true self or her inner psyche. In other words, the outside of the wallpaper reflects what is inside the narrator’s mind because it bothers her so much to see apparitions in the yellow wallpaper that she tears it down and suddenly becomes the woman in the wallpaper which is what is inside of her head as we speak. Her inner psyche is then projected by the apparition of the woman trapped in the yellow wallpaper because the narrator herself is also trapped inside the confines of the yellow wallpaper that revolted her. Almost, it seems that the narrator also escalates the more the wallpaper stays there and so, her mentality cannot take it any more so, she tears the wallpaper down from the wall. John and the narrator can also be seen as selfish because the narrator and John also have a toxic or hostile environment in the home and a relationship where John is always in control of the situation and the narrator goes crazy over a wallpaper that is yellow which is also an example of individualistic materialism.

Notes on "The Masque of The Red Death"

The trope that is presented is the “monster” who is Prince Prospero. A monster is a creature or a man that is destructive to other people or to mankind. Although there are some that may argue that there are different kinds of monsters, let us examine the monster through the different archetypes that are apparent in “The Masque of The Red Death” regarding Prince Prospero. “The first of these figures is what [we] will call the human monster. The frame of reference of the human monster is, of course, law. The notion of the monster is essentially a legal notion, in a broad sense, of course, since what defines the monster is the fact that its existence and form is not only a violation of the laws of society but also a violation of the laws of nature […] The monster combines the impossible and the forbidden.”

In this case, Prince Prospero was in control of the commoners outside the gate who suffered from the Red Death, whereas he was the law of the people who combined the impossible and the forbidden. What we are looking at or analyzing are his actions which combined the forbidden being the fact that he only invited the people that were to him as royalty. Meanwhile, the fact that it was impossible to help those people (the commoners) were a combination of monstrosity and political entertainment.

“[We are now analyzing] the history of this moral monster whose conditions of possibility [that we are trying] to indicate. To start with, [let us] present the first outline, the first face of this moral monster called forth by the economy of punitive power. Strangely, and in a way that seems to [us] quite typical, the first moral monster to appear is the political monster. That is to say, crime is pathologized, [as we] believe, on the basis of a new economy of power, and there is a kind of supplementary proof of this in the fact that the political criminal is the first or at least the most important and striking moral monster to appear at the end of the eighteenth century. Actually, in the new theory of criminal law […], the criminal is someone who breaks the pact to which he has subscribed and prefers his own interest to the laws governing the society to which he belongs,” which is Prince Prospero’s very own aristocracy that he is trying to save other than the people.

“The Masque of The Red Death” echoes what Donald Trump had done to migrants of the country of the U.S. For example, he builds a wall and excludes Mexicans from ever entering America in the first place. Trump then tries to exclude African Americans from their own rights as citizens. “The Masque of the Red death echoes the American tragedy that was Trump under the corrupt four years that eh was president thus making a monster seem political.

For example, “four years into the Trump presidency, immigration remains a major platform for the Republican Party. One of Donald Trump’s central promises during his presidential campaign in 2016 was the construction of a wall along the southern border of the United States, for which Mexico was going to pay. As of Election Day, only 371 miles (595.45 km) of the wall have been built or rebuilt, and Mexico has paid nothing for it. However, Trump’s administration has made a legal wall difficult for immigrants to overcome. More than 400 executive actions intending to reduce immigration and make it more selective have branded the four years of Trump’s presidency. Scandals, court challenges and controversy accompanied many of those actions,” which is why Donald Trump is equivalent to Prince Prospero who is the monster. In this case, for people who do not have access to the safe haven which is called America whereas in “The Masque of The Red Death,” these monsters keep the people of their land or safe-haven inaccessible to safety and do not even help them in any way whatsoever.

                                                            Works Cited

            Foucault, Michel. Abnormal: Lectures at the College de France 1974–1975. Verso New

Left Books, 1974–1975.

            zenger.news. “The Invisible Wall That Donald Trump Built to Stop Immigration – The

Wilmington Journal.” Http://Wilmingtonjournal.Com/the-Invisible-Wall-That-Donald-Trump-

Built-to-Stop-Immigration/, 2021, wilmingtonjournal.com/the-invisible-wall-that-donald-trump-

built-to-stop-immigration.

Notes On "The Maids of Tartarus"

            Melville uses the use of the concept of “hell” as the usage of metaphor, but the concept of “hell” in “The Tartarus of Maids” is a major concept in Melville’s story. But why is Tartarus such a major concept? Let us start first off by defining Tartarus. The definition of Tartarus is that “[…] Tartarus was found as far below earth as heaven was found above it; a distance in which a bronze anvil could fall in ten days. Later on, Tartarus was more closely associated with a region of the Underworld, a region where punishment was handed out to those who had angered the gods and those who were judged as sinners.”

In other words, Tartarus is a form of “hell” in the underworld ruled by the God, Hades. Hell is prevalent in “The Maids of Tartarus” because “[…] the country people […] called [this hollow,] the Devil’s Dungeon. Sounds of torrents fall on all sides upon the ear. These rapid waters unite at last in one turbid brick-colored stream, boiling through a flume among enormous boulders. They call this strange-colored torrent Blood River. Gaining a dark precipice it wheels suddenly to the west, and makes one maniac spring of sixty feet into the arms of a stunted wood of gray-haired pines, between which it thence eddies on its further way down to the invisible lowlands.” Melville also calls the entrance Dantean in the essence that it was a gateway into hell from Dante Alighieri’s Inferno.

What Eros has to do with Tartarus is that “Hesiod, in his epic poem the Theogony offers the earliest Greek version of genesis. CHAOS (“yawning void”) provides the beginning for creation. Out of Chaos the universe came into being. Later writers interpret Chaos as a mass of many elements (or only four: earth, air, fire, and water) from which the universe was created. [What the point is, is that], “from Hesiod’s Chaos came Ge, Tartarus, Eros, Erebus, and Night.” So, what this whole quote means is that Tartarus is Eros’s brother. So, in the paper mill which is the heart of Tartarus we have Eros who resides with his brother which could be interpreted as the dark man to be Tartarus as a deity and as the place himself.

The prisoners, or maids of Tartarus, are by interpretation, the danaids who were prisoners of Tartarus. “The Danaids were the 50 daughters of Danaus who killed their 50 husbands on their wedding night, and the Danaids were thus said to have been faced with the eternal punishment of filling up a leaking storage vessel, a task which could never be completed.” We can therefore infer that by this quote we have the maids as danaids and we can also infer that this phenomenon was caused by murderous women who killed their husbands and are no longer married. This is why the bachelors actually say in the story that they have never married in the story. What we can also infer is that the leaking storage vessel is the vessel inside the paper mill that produces paper.

But what exactly is metaphor? “A metaphor is a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things. As a literary device, metaphor creates implicit comparisons without the express use of “like” or “as.” Metaphor is a means of asserting that two things are identical in comparison rather than just similar. This is useful in literature for using specific images or concepts to state abstract truths.” Therefore, in Herman Melville’s “The Maids of Tartarus,” he is using metaphor to represent not only his story but his meaning on what mythos truly would be in the American Gothic.

                                                            Works Cited

            Admin. “Metaphor – Examples and Definition of Metonymy.” Literary Devices, 1 Sept.

2020, literarydevices.net/metaphor.

Morford, Mark P.O., et al. “Myth Summary.” Oxford University Press: Higher

Education Group, 1985, global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780195397703/student/materials/chapter3/summary.

Oates, Joyce Carol. American Gothic Tales (William Abrahams). Edition Unstated,

Plume, 1996.

           

“Prisoners of Tartarus in Greek Mythology.” Greek Legends and Myths, 2021,

http://www.greeklegendsandmyths.com/prisoners-of-tartarus.html.

Notes On "The Birthmark"

The “mad scientist” is the most commonly used trope in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark.” “As established, […] Aylmer [is] guilty of pursuing a Faustian, higher knowledge. Dr Faustus is granted knowledge by the devil, suggesting perhaps that to reach this level of knowledge, one must go beyond an earthly realm to either heaven or hell. In a letter to Sophia Peabody [who is Hawthorne’s wife,] Hawthorne asks: ‘What delusion can be more lamentable […] than to mistake the physical and material for the spiritual?’ The mistake of Hawthorne’s scientists is perhaps not in their actions, but in their motivational ‘delusion’ that dictates that they can ascend to a higher knowledge, and still remain in mortal form. […] Taylor Stoehr argues that Hawthorne’s characters are punished for remaining in their imaginations, and not the real world. Which is why Hawthorne’s scientist in “The Birthmark” is renowned for being mad because he goes beyond the real world to achieve his desires resulting in the death of his wife because of his desirous nature to erase his wife’s birthmark out of unknown methodologies and methods.

“They, [being Hawthorne’s mad scientists] are however, not completely punished for these delusions. Instead, they are punished for not translating these ‘delusions’ in to a more reasonable version in reality. Their imaginations stretch too far, and mistake a ‘physical’ reality as capable of realizing ‘spiritual’ delusions. In attempting to achieve their fantasies, the scientists reach to realms such as heaven and hell that cannot support physical human forms, and their experiments inevitably end in death. Hawthorne’s fiction explores alchemy and physical chemistry. These pursuits’ processes, results, and consequences all reside in the physical. However, the moral choices which his characters encounter are what subsequently affect the physical realm that he focuses on. The use of alchemy may be detrimental, but the root of evil he examines extends ‘monster-like, out of the caverns of [the] heart.”

This whole quote is the whole meaning of the mad scientist. The mad scientist does not love but extends his love to science, meaning that he does not care for beauty or the affections of the beloved but seeks to bring the natural world to its knees by means of alchemy and of science. It is critical of the mad scientist to remake and progress, but by no means have no respect for nature and that mankind’s evil comes from within his heart and by the product of the affliction itself. For instance, “in the seventeenth century, genuine scientific breakthroughs were ideals of the future. The reality was alchemy, an extremely basic science in which procedures were practically guesswork. It is this sense of the unknown that induces both fear and questions of morality in Hawthorne’s science fiction. The short stor[y] ‘The Birthmark’ […] include[s] [an] alchemist[…], bringing a Frankenstein-esque horror as to the possibilities and lengths the scientists will go to in order to achieve progress.”

“The [scientist], Aylmer, [is] bound […] in an almost religious, Promethean quest to reach a higher knowledge, a higher spiritual being than that of mere mortals. Through reaching for this spiritual ideal, concepts of morality are complicated further. It is here necessary to consider whether if one is dedicated to reaching a higher knowledge, he is therefore above mankind and exempt from mortal laws of morality. The practice of alchemy not only had no written definition, but its process and methodology were also unknown. The danger of exploring the unexplored is heightened by the use of people as subjects.”

The mad scientist does not have a curiosity for nature but rather, a sort of narcissistic operation of his methods and, that he knows everything by way of science. That to procure the scientific would be to promote their affirmations of the known on their victims.

Works Cited

Writer, Essay. “Ethicality of Alchemist Knowledge in ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter’ and ‘The Birthmark.’” Literature Essay Samples, 16 July 2021, literatureessaysamples.com/ethicality-of-alchemist-knowledge-in-rappaccinis-daughter-and-the-birthmark.

Notes on "Rappaccini's Daughter

The “double” and the “foil” are main themes when it comes to “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” mainly because it represents a double in literature. A double is known as in literature, when the events in the story or novel are repeated twice by the characters. Baglioni and Rappaccini are both obsessed with science and thwarts Giovanni’s love for Rappaccini’s daughter, Beatrice by simply poisoning her to prove that Rappaccini loved science more than his own daughter. For instance, they are both rivals in the field of science and are obsessed with Beatrice. Only, Beatrice’s father is obsessed with her as his delicate child-like flower and Baglioni is obsessed with Beatrice’s death.

Here is where Baglioni thwarts their love and plans to poison Rappaccini’s daughter “But, resumed the professor, “be of good cheer, son of my friend. It is not yet too late for the rescue. Possibly we may even succeed in bringing back this miserable child within the limits of ordinary nature, from which her father’s madness has estranged her. Behold this little silver vase! […] One little sip of this antidote would have rendered the most virulent poisons of the Borgias innocuous. Doubt not that it will be as efficacious against those of Rappaccini.” So therefore, his plot for revenge against his rival, Rappaccini is made known.

Baglioni continues, “Bestow the vase, and the precious liquid within it, on your Beatrice, and hopefully await the result.” Baglioni laid a small, exquisitely wrought silver vial on the table and withdrew, leaving what he had said to produce its effect upon the young man’s mind. “We will thwart Rappaccini yet,” thought he, chuckling to himself, as he descended the stairs; “but, let us confess the truth of him, he is a wonderful man–a wonderful man indeed; a vile empiric, however, in his practice, and therefore not to be tolerated by those who respect the good old rules of the medical profession.” With this quote, we see that Baglioni is so obsessed with the good rules of medicine that he manages to get Giovanni to poison her just because she grew up with poisons in her body. Another double is that Baglioni and Rappaccini are both mad scientists who unleash and wreak havoc upon their loved ones which represents the double or the doppelgänger.

First off, Rappaccini wreaked havoc among his daughter and Giovanni because he poisoned her and made her invincible to poison except for the antidote that Baglioni had given her. Secondly, Baglioni poisoned Giovanni’s love for her by feeding him nonsense and finally poisoning the love of his life. Third, Baglioni plays father to Giovanni and Rappaccini plays father to Beatrice. Thus, we have the double that we can depend on which are love versus hate, nature versus natural life and good and evil. Baglioni displays hate while Beatrice’s father shows love while Baglioni is for natural life. Meanwhile, Rappaccini raised his daughter as a young girl who was birthed by poison in natural life versus nature. We therefore, have binary opposites or foil and doubles within the story. These themes are gothic because a foil is in both literary gothic terms, a character in juxtaposition with another character’s qualities in contrast (Baglioni and Rappaccini) and is the character who is driving the plot through his or her actions (Baglioni).

“Rappaccini’s Daughter” strikes shock and mystery for the reader when they find out that Baglioni is also a mad scientist who rivals Rappaccini with his obsession to make him miserable which then drives Baglioni to kill his daughter. The double is gothic in literature because “the terms “double” and “doppelgänger” […] used interchangeably in gothic scholarship, [has] no formal definition for the gothic double; though it can be generally understood as a physical representation of the division of the self, with two figures representing opposing sides of a good-evil dichotomy” which is the definition of the double or the German word doppelgänger.

                                                Works Cited

“The Double in Gothic Fiction | COVE.”

Https://Editions.Covecollective.Org/Edition/Were-Wolf/Double-Gothic-Fiction, 2018,

editions.covecollective.org/edition/were-wolf/double-gothic-fiction.

The Literature Network. “Rappaccini’s Daughter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.”

Http://Www.Online-Literature.Com/Hawthorne/152/, 2021, www.online-

literature.com/hawthorne/152.

See You Again

Perhaps this isn’t love.

Maybe it is not even fate.

But I can still see you I the rain can’t I?

Maybe the clocks will stop ticking…..

Maybe birds will stop flying and disappear.

But what if I never see you again?

Pictures

When I die and lay

myself down to rest take all

my pictures off the walls

promise you’ll burn them.

Love

I love you. I love

your subtle sighs, and your tender

essence that brings me back home. To

you from afar: Love….

Rooms On Fire

Dedicated to probably my most precious and last crush and is inspired by Stevie Nicks which was the song I dedicated to him in the first place.

He makes me want to

go outside in the rain when

he sets the room magically

on fire in the night.

Rainy Days

He will tend to

make me laugh and smile for no

reason at all because he can

control the weather.

Love Me Again

Will he love me once

more or will he find love just

to break my heart and leave me

alone where he was?

The Calm Before The Storm

There was nothing so serene. The calm about this beach.
The warm sun caressing my shoulders….
The sound of ocean waves crashing against the sea.
The taste of bittersweet on my lips and on my palette….
Ocean water.
The low tide is nothing like the calm before the storm hits.
The rocks;
chiseled and jutted with their crevices brimming with sea life.
No current to be found.

Life Update #9

University of Guam Graduation Plan

FALL 2021 : EN501; EN560

SPRING 2022 : EN550; EN580

FALL 2022 : EN560; EN680

SPRING 2022 : EN691; EN675

FALL 2023: EN695

SPRING 2024 : EN695

So this is it guys! How I plan to graduate in three years!

In Pain.

And I loved you…
I had always loved you even past your convictions….

You….

my reason for change….

my reason to live life….

only to lose you to the world….

Truly, you must be my karma….

I lost you to a world where nobody loved me.

Until I saw him….

It was him through you….

and I’m in pain….

All of the time….

For You

I miss you like the sun misses the moon.

I miss you like the current misses the shoreline.

I miss you like a fish to water.

I miss you like a wolf that cries to the moon.

I miss you like the clouds miss you during those rainy days to encapsulate your body….

I miss you like the water misses you.

And to keep you near me, I understand that I can only see you through water and that is why I call your name somewhere near the ocean.

You’re known as the boy who taught me to love the water.

You’re like earth on fire.

And I would be the one to set the earth on fire.

For you.

The Pale Ghost

I imagine you are there,

in my heart and in my head.

You are with me.

A pale ghost alive within my head and in my heart.

Nearest you

Near where you used to live,

I feel your touch,

hear your breathing.

Feeling your breath on my hair,

Your fingers on my waist as I lean in and feel your warmth.

I love you,

I love you.

I do.

I Think of You

I think of you when times are unclear.

I think of you always in the nighttime.

When twilight fades and darkness covers the earth.

I think of you and were you might be.

Whether there is a heaven or hell;

Whether the night can stay young;

and especially when the stars go blue.

When the silence in the night is conquering;

when it ensnares my senses.

I think of your face.

and I think

of

you.

Where you used to be.

Prescribed Medication

           My short story addresses mental illness that is commonly put on the shelf in most families on island. I submit this because my grandmother and grandfather or manamko’ would always say that it is good to let the children go without medications because it is unhealthy for their bodies and could lead to bad things. I chose to make the story up in third person narrative because I felt that if someone could read this, they would think twice about the medicines from other countries and know that sometimes we have to let go of what we think is right or wrong to save a life. I implemented some CHamoru language in my story and I also implemented CHamoru myth into it.

            This is a story about a boy called Pulan and his younger sister Somnak. Pulan was a young boy who was premature for his age and was like the moon he was named after and Somnak, some say was like the sun because he would watch her wearily under the nearest coconut tree as she played outside. Pulan always read to her and talked about the meaning of each myth in the evenings about her favorite stories which were “Puntan and Fu’una,” or how Guam was created and “Sirena,” which was about how a young girl turned into a fish. But the one she was most interested in was “Puntan and Fu’una.” After the story about Sirena, Somnak looked questioningly at Pulan.

“Pulan?” Somnak asked, “Why didn’t her mother care for her enough not to turn her into a fish?”

Pulan paused for a bit.

“Somnak, you know Sirena’s mother regretted it.”

“But Pulan, is she like our mother?”

“Somnak, don’t say that about mom. Mom is sick.”

“But Pulan. Our mother would never do that no matter how angry she would get.”

With that, she turned on her side and slept dreaming about the creation of mankind and whether there were curses that she knew could turn one into half a fish and half human.

                                                                        ***

As Somnak and Pulan got older, it was a year that they would never forget. They were both in middle school when they found out that something was wrong with Somnak who was like the sun. Somnak was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder which is commonly known as ADHD. She was having trouble at her new school and could not come over to play with the other children because she was so hyper. Their mother Tasi knew this and cried because she had suffered from schizophrenia. She was highly functioning but could never understand why it had to be her only daughter, Somnak who was like the sun.

Tasi held Pulan’s head to her chest and said “Be strong for Somnak, Pulan. Be strong. Medicine will only make Somnak sicker.” Their father Juan was a hard worker. One day Tasi and Juan had a fight. Pulan looked into the kitchen to see their mother throwing dishes. Glass after glass broke. She was sobbing.

“But Tasi! We have to get medication for our daughter! She is struggling and it’s the only way!”

“The only way for what Juan?! To make our daughter sicker?!”

She took what was left in the cupboard and it all fell in a sickening crash. Juan grabbed her arms to keep her from cutting herself. Pulan ran into the living room and pulled on a pair of tennis shoes and helped his father carry his mother as she was wailing.

Some nights she would be in a hysterical fit crying and saying “Save my neni-girl…. Save my neni-girl….”

Pulan knew she was quietly going insane and sometimes woke up to the sound of constant crying.

Tasi was then given medical treatment. Tasi knew well what the medication was for and how strong it was. Somnak was at their nina and nino’s house. She too was being medicated. One day, Pulan found his mother after school lying on the floor with a pale face and blue lips. Pulan quickly found his father’s number on the refrigerator and dialed as fast as he could 9-1-1 then his father’s number. The ambulance came to find his mother had overdosed on her new medication and Juan got down to his knees and cried.

It had been years since that had happened and Pulan would never forget what his mother said. It kept replaying in his mind. “Be strong for Somnak, Pulan. Be strong. Medicine will only make Somnak sicker.”

“Dad?” Juan looked at him for a long time.

“Yes son.”

“Will Somnak become just like mommy if we tell her?”

Juan frowned, put his head in his hands and cried.

                                                                        ***

Somnak was a tiny-tot who loved running around. She couldn’t concentrate on having her schoolwork done and was easily distracted. There was only one probability. Skip classes and play happily outside.

Sometimes the teachers would call her “Sunny,” but she preferred her CHamoru name to her usual nickname.

Sometimes she would pretend she was walking to class, but the reality was that she was running home and leaving her school bag in her chair. Her classmates would giggle and call her pikaroti in CHamoru for trickster.

“Why are you always like this? Is your mother like this?” One boy asked while he was walking with her to her old school.

“No!” She shrilly screamed at the top of her lungs. “My mother’s name is Tasi and she’s as calm as the ocean and as mean as a tidal wave!”

“Whatever.” The boy had sighed.

He looked around.

“We’re late!” As he started to run he grabbed Somnak by the arms and dragged her to the classroom.

“Where’s your bag?! We’re gonna be late!”

“I can’t go.”

“Aww why not Sunny? Ya scared?”

And with that she ran back to her Nina’s arms.

“Somnak, come on, we’re going to talk with your father.”

And with that, her nina closed her door.

                                                            ***

It was already nighttime. Pulan unpacked his things and found the old book he used to read to Somnak.

“Pulan? Is mama gonna be with Puntan and Fu’una?”

“Yes Somnak.”

“But when we die, we will be watching over her like the sun and moon right?”

Pulan looked at her and squeezed her tightly and dreamt of the old maga’ haga and maga’ lahi. As they held each other in their sleep, Pulan and Somnak would look down upon Tasi and their reflections would be cast upon her waters in their dreams.

CHamoru Glossary

Manam’ko – Elders

Pulan – Moon

Somnak – Sun

Puntan – Male God of Creation

Fu’una – Female God of Creation

Maga’ haga – Female Chief

Maga’lahi – Male Chief

Tasi – Water

Juan – The Spanish version of “John”

CHamoru – The indigenous people of Guahan/Guam

Fire and Water

I was never more aware of the touch of his hands upon my waist.

His fingers holding me tightly….

His breath on my hair.

He was the water that quenched my fires.

The one that took me down.

The one who taught me to love the waters and look danger in the eyes.

The one I wanted to drown in…..

Life Update #8

Sooooo…. I’ve changed my topic from psychoanalysis to feminism and I think it’s really fascinating how the science of this will all work out in the end. I am currently taking two classes every semester so I’m sort of a part time/full time student still at the University of Guam only getting an MA degree and this will probably take me another four to five years or so. Buuuut…. Here is my thesis proposal and I may be taking the classes that can probably be applied to my thesis and my theory. So, here goes! Reminder for you all to hear: We may not be the A+ students we wish to be but as long as we’re going, we’ll get there…. ; ) (Winks)

EN501_Certeza, Megan_Thesis ProposalDownload

Mind you…. My MA thesis proposal will reflect on the actual thesis in this class so I’m going to go with my guts and see where this goes. My proposal is not finished yet but I need two pages of chapter descriptions. Ciao!

The Coward, or The Man Who Knew Alone

To Dr. G.D.L…; And I am astonished. That you’ve come so far inasmuch to be my undergraduate prof. Be well.

The damned thing was living in a bubbly little world where he can be a boy again. He lived in alone in his mind drowning in what couldn’t be defeat; he was living alone with the transgressions that befell him in the position and positivity of the god-head of his nature and the beauty of what surrounded him.

He had a sound mind but he couldn’t grasp the concept of otherness. He saw that things were the same in his candy-coated world; within his bread and butter he couldn’t see the difference between the colors of the weird; the extravagant the uncanny. He was fretful when people were more or less concerned over his demeanor. The tragedy that befell him during the war; the strategic planning that killed his friends made him a very crude, cruel man.

He never got what he wanted and all he needed was to go home. Tortured by his past he was a broken man who made things better by teaching for generations to promote progress in academia and growth.

A man who never gave up.

He was afraid of failing others due to his own failures. He would be known as the man who knew alone. The art of being lonely knocked on his door and he called this transgression the devil.

The war changed a fragile heart into a man who killed his comrades. The coward! The man who lived in a bubble and lived and knew only….

Alone.

A man who listens to the wind who was wounded by his afflicted past. With the dictatorship of his patriotic parenting. A man who loved the sound of slow water near the creek nearest his home.

A man who wasn’t home in his own comfort zone and learned to love again.

I don’t know what to call him. A coward or a war–monger who tried to heal others with his good natured–ness.

I Know Alone

Dear C. S,

I was in the time of my life. I thought I could conquer and control it.

The loneliness. This is partly a dark chapter in my life. And probably the saddest.

When my birthday came when I was only the pubescent age of ten years. I knew where I had to be. It was a dark side in a time in my life where I had to be alone to get to where I belonged and where I wanted to be.

I was haunted by the cold looks my friends gave me when I told them to stay away from me. That I never wanted to see them again.

They were never my friends.

It was a dark time in my life. Studying relentlessly and being busy. Trying to be the number I hated, loathed inside my bitter soul, number one at the top.

I felt nothing.

My alienation turned into my haunt in my house and I lived alone.

I knew alone.

I know alone.

I had to get better.

I had to be better.

For myself because I prove nothing for no one but myself.

Even now I am uncanny.

I sought and still seek thee unknown.

Alone

Dedicated To Dr. Schreiner. A mentor who once told me that the devil’s in the details…. I have finally been accepted into grad school…. Bless your soul Doc….

My strength and my weak

points define me and the way

I see the world I

grew up in and now I know

that I am alone. Writing.

Darkness

Darkness is in everyone and it is inevitably so that sometimes in everyone’s lives we truly experience something dark. Just like everyone has light in them, the darkness only illuminates that light. So why hide the darkness? Is it some gloomy nightmare that nobody wants to look at? When you’re forced to look at yourself it is a matter of being yourself. It is not a phase. It’s just that you cannot ever become dark or be consumed it’s just there.

In return it is the fact that everyone has a demon in them meaning just like everyone is a little crazy all the best people are crazy just like all the most pious people are dark.

Life Update #7

The Journal of Popular Culture – Marion Nowak — “How to be a Woman”- Theories of Female Education in the 1950sDownload

The Languages of Three Generations of Chamorro Women Chapter Thesis by Dr. Sharleen Santos-BambaDownload

Soooo, I am doing an article analysis of the above articles by Marion Nowak and another article of the 1950’s woman in her twenties compared to a Pacific Islander in her twenties in the 1950’s which is part of a chapter thesis by Dr. Sharleen Santos-Bamba from the University of Guam. So here are the articles and my PowerPoint presentation below which is actually my thesis project for my MA degree but it’s an idea that might get rejected. So bear with me. I seem to have more resources than these which will go into the final product of my MA thesis paper if my idea does not get a rejection and if the people involved in my chair actually want to go down this road with me. Wish me the best of luck! (**Winks)

A Probable Thesis Topic I’ve Been Researching On EN501 Presentation_How To Be A WomanDownload

Life Update #6

Soooo, I am enjoying two classes this semester of Fall and I plan to take two classes every semester before I meet the criteria to graduate from grad school. This is my first presentation and a little taste of what we’re doing in Graduate school. I had to pick an MA thesis for my sample presentation and here it is! I read ten to twenty pages a day and now I am working on reading three books at a time for only two classes along with article and MA thesis projects for another. I am pretty busy but that’s the thing I LOVE being busy. I have an analysis paper due in two weeks which gives me time to finish up Edgar Huntly, or Memoirs of A Sleepwalker for American Gothic Literature class and I have about five to four chapters left. For another class I have to read Lois Tyson’s Critical Theory and Linda Smith’s Decolonizing Methodologies. Although it doesn’t sound fun, I am getting a lot out of these classes. So! Here is my presentation on an MA sample thesis of Stephen Frosh’s chapter three of Hauntings which I will post below including the whole thesis since I am only analyzing Chapter 3.

Stephen Frosh -Hauntings: Psychoanalysis and Ghostly Transmissions 2013-palgrave-macmillanDownload

MA Thesis Review Presentation_ Hauntings Psychoanalysis and Ghostly Transmissions_Chapter 3 Ghostly Analysis_Stephen FroshDownload

Hauntings By Stephen Frosh Chapter 3 Download

A Portrayal of Michael

His eyes looked sad but didn’t portray fear. The fear that he was going to rot and burn in hell; as Michael the leader of thee archangels thrust his spear into the rebellion’s gut. It was the curse of Lucifer and all who had loved him who had to sell their souls willingly because of their stupidity, their sorrows, their woes and doubts suffered in hell within him. Until the traitorous Michael fell down himself.

Death and Dying

And I can smell the sweet pine that lifted my lover’s spirit to the Gods as he held me softly in his arms one last time, savoring his last breath.

And as I reflect on the waters of that deep blue sea, it is you I will miss for all time.

I swear to God that you fill my head with one million possibilities. But our possibility was us. And we were infinite.

As I drew my last breath, I saw you at the end, and there we were. 

Poison In Your Lips

You are dangerous and you have poison in your lips.

If I had a choice I would be kissing you all the time day and night.

You constantly swim in my thoughts.

But I am a dreamer and that is only what I think unless proven wrong.

Sugar Kisses

Your lips taste like jasmine tea with sugar.

And I swear to God that sometimes you taste like water.

I love your sugar kisses and I don’t know how to describe you or what to make of you.

Your kisses are bewitching and magical.

I’ve always wanted you.

And here we are.

Together.

With you kissing me with your sugar kisses.

And I will see you every Tuesday.

Moving On

You remind me of places I’ve never explored,

Cities I’ve never been to.

You remind me of the taste of jasmine tea with a hint of sugar.

Monday mornings with a cup of coffee in my hand.

You remind me of moving on.

You remind me of a future I have yet to find;

a puzzle I wish to solve.

And yet there we were.

Our futures like stars collided making a universe of something reminiscent that belonged only to us.

The Lion and The Lamb

You are the lion

and I was your only lamb

and we were in love.

Fire and Water

I’m like fire behaving as water

You are like water behaving as fire to quench me.

Thinking Of You

I think of you all the time.

When seconds turn to minutes and when the long hours stretch on.

I think of you for days on end and counting….

You may say I’m obsessed as your shoes are unlaced and taken off with care.

I wait for you to come home.

Because your heart is where my home is.

Scars

If I could trace every scar on you emotionally; physically I would trace them by every silhouette on your skin and plant my kisses on them. 

One by one.

If scars could heal themselves what would you think?

You’d think I was crazy, but you’d kiss me anyway.

Teardrops

I catch your teardrops and I wish you were here with me.

Your tears flow into the crevices of my heart.

And yet sometimes I can still feel you breathe.

How Do You Get To Wonderland?

You were a wondrous thing. You were like the eighth to seventh wonder in the world.

“Write the good parts about me in a story.”
She said. He then replied.
“But I love both the good and the bad.”

You were part of the story I wanted to write in. 

Although I couldn’t taste you.

Although I couldn’t touch you.

Although you couldn’t be felt.

You were not mine. You were never mine.

And your soul’s desire kept us apart. The way you wanted her and not me.

You were my wonderland. But how do you get to wonderland?

We were lovers in our own story.

In our own wonderland.

I’ve always wanted to be in your wonderland. To be a part of you.

You were all I ever wanted.

And you blinked at me and told me that yes, you loved all good parts and bad parts of our love story….

I’ve always wanted it to be you. I knew it was you.
And there we were.

Reminders

Summer sunsets and summer kisses with you on a beach beneath the peach skies

Stardust and drops of moon beams in your hair

Speaking of stardust, I see them in your eyes.

The way your eyes for almonds compliment your face.

The smell of coffee….

The taste of jasmine tea….

These foolish things remind me of you……

Colors

Your eyes are the color of moonlit skies with a twinkle of stardust

There are many things I cannot count that are infinite in the universe and you are one of them.

I can count the butterflies that I dream surround you and pretend that this is our story that we are the best love story ever written.

And you would ask me if I have ever seen something so pure yet so intense that like in a flash of lightning, you would be gone.

But the universe is infinite you see.

And I will be at your side holding your hand because I say I believe that the universe had been fighting for our souls to be together.

Because I dream of you in neon colors that do not exist.

Like the color of stardust,

The meaning of moon beams that mean to light your way throughout the night.

And then I ask you quite blatantly as I whisper love poems in your ear.

What color is love?

The Womanizer

You are like sugar sweet coffee in the morning time.

Your lips taste like jasmine tea with sugar and yet you sell your soul to nobody.

You love me like a lie and you try to make a story out of me in the afternoons.

You look at me like I am made of stardust and everyday it seems like we’re about to kiss.

You are like an angel in the evening with your scourged and broken wings.

You will and would wait for me to come back.

and you would say that you’re just another picture to burn because you’re a womanizer.

Shooting Stars

Out of all the shooting stars, I’d wish for you.

I was like the wind but you were the Goddamn hurricane.

You blew away a dull and weary world with just your smile and the way you looked will always be within my heart because I know deep down that when fate was teasing coincidence, coincidence whispered pleading to fate that we were meant to be.

I still sometimes wonder if I come across your mind.

What it was that made the universe smile when it saw us.

What it meant to coincidentally meet.

I’d say that you were born of the stars and that your soul was made of stardust and your eyes were as bright as moon beams.

You make the world seem livable and savory.

And if shooting stars were meant to fall crashing down I would still keep believing I was yours.

And all along it was you.

‘Cause I’m Kissing You

I like the way you smile,

But I like the way your lips taste on mine or the way you caress my tongue with yours.

And if I had my way,

I would be kissing only you most of all.

The King of Intimidation

Run naked with the devils.

Make love to them in the wilderness.

Kill your darlings dear or be killed yourself.

Choose your own path;

The path of least resistance.

Let love in.

Let life in.

Be yourself.

Love the demons inside you. 

Love your darkness.

Take control of the past and realize rebirth.

Be reborn in God’s eyes and defy him.

Let the devil in you take over.

Let them win.

Release your inner self.

Praise others.

When you tell the truth let them call you a liar.

Leave your fears as an enigmatic lover who is passionate about being a wholesome whore.

Let your innermost secrets become a lie.

Breathe with my breath the breath of life

Go and see with your new eyes.

My dear do you fuck the devil by praising your Gods?

In Love

I had been looking for someone who looked at me with eyes that twinkled magically like stardust.

With colors that made up lightning streaks in the air.

Colors that didn’t even exist.

I was in love with the thought of you and I thought that I could feel you as I saw you for almost everyday of my life.

These precious moments were few. I loved you and told you how I knew you were the one. You smiled at me.

What I thought was love had rippled through the air. Infatuation cleansed this broken heart. Love finally won for us.

In love? Well we were both.

His Everything

She was his sun and his moon.

Though they were miles apart they dreamt of each other many times under the midnight skies.

Their magic was made up of stardust and the thought that stars could fall into sync out of collision and turn into shooting stars.

She was the universe and he was the earth.

She wanted him to read her the language of the stars.

But you could already tell that she was his everything.

Magic Stardust

I was a young girl who didn’t know love, and you were the type of boy who loved poetry.

I was a young girl who fell in love with the idea that I could break any heart and you were the type of boy who could have anyone with that baby face.

I was the young girl who fell in love with you at the cusp of adulthood and you were the boy who loved music and asked me to marry you.

I have waited for these butterfly wings to fly and your kisses tasted like lollipops and strawberry jam.

and we’ve been made of magic stardust all along.

True Colors

He seeks truth in life and I want to love him.

He is the tarot card I want to see in most of my readings.

He is the horoscope that I wish to predict.

And he is like a butterfly and you could swear that his wings were multicolored in colors that don’t exist.

A View From The Post Office

I was a dreamer with wishy washy smokey pipe dreams and I knew. I knew you were like a puzzle kept hidden from the world.

You make my moon glow and my sun rise. You make flowers in my garden full of mazes where you found the key to my gate grow.

and you knew how to make those wishy washy smokey pipe dreams come true.

Because you were just a wanderer who worked at the post office and loved me for what I think was a second with every parcel you took tender care of.

And I knew you were standing outside my rose garden with a handful of sunflowers.

But these were dreams from a dreamer, and you always look like you want to kiss me. I swear it.

The Devil’s Arms

You are a season within another season.

You are Fall in Summer, Summer in Fall,

Spring in Winter, Winter in Spring.

and I swear you could’ve been anything but the devil.

and I swore that if I couldn’t have your arms around me, that I’d die in them just to be with you.

I even swore that the warmth of your touch could deify us together in your angelic embrace.

Sugar Kisses

He was a handsomely beautiful mess of bad boy with lips like sugar and a book full of adventures that I have always wished to write my own story in.

I wish to taste his sugar lips and caress his tongue with mine.

I could feel his hands around my throat but I’m sure that they were just mine.

He is sweet with a butterfly heart, with the mind of a book and the soul of a hurricane with sugar kisses; for only he can turn my tide.

He was a hurricane strong enough to cause a tsunami.

But I was the one who was drowning in him; in his soul.

The Artist

His heart was the story in a book that my pen stabbed on and my pen knew no mercy.

Hell was worn on his heart like a fountain pen waiting to stab my body like a tattoo artist.

The secret?

I wasn’t ready for its contents that spelled the letters “forever and always, you will be mine.”

Goin' Postal

You work at the post office.

You sleep in weird places.

You are slow-paced and hard-working and you look up at me from the postal counter.

I believe in you.

You make me feel beautiful.

I’d say this to you.

You’d say I was dumb.

I’d just smile and say you’re fine but by saying that I’d say you’d look crazy.

Chemicals

Here we are wrapped up into each other like chemicals that make the two of us whole.

And yet we are divided into two parts.

You are water and yet you look at me like you wanted a taste of wine.

And I don’t know what’s purer,

The taste of water over wine or the way you make me feel on a fine Summer’s day.

In Another Life

In another life I am checking my mail in the post office and you come up to me looking for an answer.

You whisper softly in my ear and you just breathe.

I didn’t know how brightly the sun was shining on you or how the breeze made your hair smell like Spring and the way your body moved with mine as you sigh tenderly and make me feel precious; innocent.

My answer is yes;

I do think of you.

I think about you always.

I love you.

I love you.

Yes. I do.

Your Name

On some occasions I think that you are sleepy as usual.

On rainy days sometimes you tend to sleep.

I begin to think that on some rainy days I am dreaming of you while you get sleepy,

and on those rainy days here I am watching you in my dreams.

You stand there looking at me sleep.

And sometimes I swear I think they’ll hear me calling out your name.

Moments

He/you wanted to cradle me like a child….
The moment; the day that I met you I started dreaming.

And when you looked at me….

It looked like you saw an angel and that we for one second were almost about to kiss.

Then you looked sad as the moment with you nearly faded.

And that’s when I knew….

He/you wanted to kiss me in places where I wanted to be kissed.

And I just stood there; loving him/you.

Your Everything

You’d tell me I was a hurricane and that I bring up your sun.

Then you’d tell me I was like your moon.

You’d say be free for once from this life.

I’d laugh and say you’re crazy.

I love you.

I love you.

And you’d tell me I was your everything and more.

Only Time

I’d say that this was a love story; our story.

I’d tell you to tell me you love me.

You’d laugh and say only time.

Then you’d turn around and ask me to marry you.

I’d say only time.

The Perfect Storm

Some say that you’re like a hurricane on stormy shores.

But I was the wind that brought you.

And we both created the perfect storm.

Magic Realism

The sunlight hits your eyes.

And somewhere I am at the beach on a starry night swimming while you build castles in the sky and here I am connecting stars.

And if we should meet.

I’d say it was always you.

Shooting Stars

There’s not a day that I do not wish not to be with you.

I wish on shooting stars so that I may one day see you.

You are always forever in my dreams.

And though we are apart,

I still wish for you.

And it’s you I see.

Picking Poison

And it was out of your petty purity I couldn’t love you. Poison was picked at your merciless glances and glimpses and then I laughing saw your purity was gone and diminished.

And if it was pure, I think purity would

Purely

Be

Insulted.

Because darling;

You and I were the sweetest ones….

and you couldn’t tell if you picked me and I couldn’t tell if I was already poisoned by your spell.

Happy

I think of you and I know how happy I am.

But I could be happier and happily married.

To him.

An Ode For The Bride and The Broken Heart

You can carry your bride into the sea.

Thanks to you I can finally breathe.

I know I was the only one in love now because deep in your heart it wasn’t me.

Your heart was never mine to be.

So at my angry heart you smothered me so my anger to seethe.

For your bride and you to be, go drown and drop again from hell and no longer be concerned with me.

The Blind Kiss

And in my mind it was pure, but blind bliss….

How can I be so Goddamned blind?
I wasn’t the face that you’d ever really miss.

I felt like a virgin most pure when you hit me with a kiss….

Thanks for the only holy thing that felt like this.

I am okay I’ve just never felt like your kiss could ever be a never ending abyss.

The ending you gave me felt more like a hiss.

And I felt a blind love that wasn’t and my life fell apart when you danced with her in never ending bliss.

You’re only welcome when I’m in a crowded room of an abyss.

I can never be your stardust angel like this.

They were pray tell a lover’s kiss.

But you never told me that I’d been the one you’d diss.

You’re always the one I’d love like this.

I always thought you were the first and last thing my innocence would kiss.

Into your eyes I fade into a never ending abyss.

My Fallen Angel Boy

He was born beautiful and in between us stood initially iniquities of his own past.

Whether it was holding him he felt nothing.

Whether it was loving him; he felt he had to give.

Loving him through his chains; his boundaries; his flaws.

He could never get over his past.

Believing all women to be sexually explicit and indispensable; he let himself love me.

And I couldn’t find the chance to tell him how much I loved him.

I loved him so much but he….

He was broken but beautiful.

He was trashed in his past. Disposed of by his own family name but so strong and carelessly, lovingly beautiful.

He had an angel face and the masculine body of a real man.

He was stripped of his pride and the promises of new life lay broken.

His heart a never-ending mess.

I wanted to hold his inner-child.

To cradle his innocence unknown to everyone else who had broken him.

To fight for his honor.

To love him.

Although; I knew he could never love me back.

 

Fade Into you

It was time for dinner. The girl with the doll face and the mousy unkept hair was getting ready. She felt timid and her heart was very light. She was very happy. But somewhere in the midst of being happy was the unknowable; the uncertainty. Inside another room Kristoffer was making a phone call. The girl who looked like a doll did not have much of anything to get by and tonight, Kristoffer’s father, Dr. Craven Schroeder would never let her forget how nothingness came. How little she was and how poor she had been. I think it was a Fall semester of how nothingness came to be when Mary remembered how life came to her and nothing good happened it was like the opposite of magic realism, where giving never occurred to her. Nobody gave her anything and Kristoffer rescued her from that life. Tonight, it was time to give. She had no money and she was n a green skirt with a white blouse. Kristoffer kissed her forehead and said he loved her in her new clothes and soon, it was a night only she would remember.

“Don’t worry, he does this every time.” He patted her head reassuringly and before she took on the clothes he had given her, she’d be the one to ask.

“Is this the last time I’ll clean for you? Will I ever see you again after tonight?

Kristoffer did not sit down beside her this time. He did not lean over to kiss her forehead and sing to her in Latin.

“No sweetie.” He said by the door. “Hurry and get dressed.”

Kristoffer sat right next to his father. Dr. Craven Schroeder leaned over to look at her as Mary looked down on her feet. Tonight, they ordered steak and kidney beans.

Snow started falling outside of the restaurant and Dr. Schroeder asked in Latin in his finest suit, “Well, son. Aren’t you going to address her?”

He smiled delightfully at Mary. Mary shakily got the fork and started unwrapping it from the napkin that was folded neatly on the table and put the napkin in her shirt halfway onto her breast. Dr. Schroeder then glanced at her and started speaking in Italian and when she understood a little bit of it, Kristoffer chided her to speak.

“What does your cousin call you?” he asked in Latin.

“She calls me the ugliest one of the bunch.” she replied back.

He looked around as if anyone was looking.

“Where does your father work?” He asked in an American accent.

She smiled.

“My father is a kind of like a cop and I’m very proud of him. He might get promoted too.”

She grinned. She was very happy and suddenly her bowl of soup drenched all over the blouse that Kristoffer gave her.

He had poured it on her. Poor Mary was unable to compete. Kristoffer looked on but she could not speak. Her mouth was dry before she could even touch her soup. Another woman had come to the table in dark blue rompers. She looked highly sophisticated and her hair was down with curls. She had a very nice but warningly calm face as though she were about ready to snap at anybody. She had the look of an American.

“You.” He sighed. “Where is your money?” He demanded.

Mary gaped and he quickly closed her mouth with his own hands.

He grinned. Kristoffer then started flirting with the girl next to Mary.

They had a one-hour conversation before Mary could even leave.

Dr. Craven Schroeder then let Mary out and left her outside to call her father who had almost beat her to death.

It wasn’t then until they had reached the gas station that Mary’s mouth was covered in blood and soup because of her father who kept punching her. Nobody at the gas station would help except for another man who was half-drunk who I suppose was celebrating their son’s liberation into the army.

And so Mary left her father’s homestead and joined the army to become a skilled killer and never looked back.

“Come on Mary! Get your things!” her father said as he kept pushing her to the side in his grey pickup truck.

Kristoffer was at the front door were she knocked and suddenly he said, “Don’t ever come back. I don’t ever wanna see you coming here again. Only to tend the garden if you’re in love with me so much.”

She never really did. Years passed and the garden she tended to. She grew up there exploring the poisons he grew from his hand.

They never talked.

Again.

She grew stronger and saved his family throughout the years. But that mental trauma, the beatings, the angst. still there. While Mary’s mind wandered and she never wanted the feeling again. Only the times where Kristoffer was holding her. Only the times when she felt limp in his arms like a doll. Only the times when her heart leapt up when she was able to see him. Only the times when she ever felt too heavy in his arms. Only the times when he cuddled her. Only the times when he apologized to her and taught her to love the water.

He had been murdered b his maid and it was all Mary could think about.

Only the time when she truly felt wanted.

When all she wanted to do was drown in him.

Forever.

Mary would never forget.

Because she knew that Kristoffer wanted to fade away with her too.

She Wanted

She wanted his innocence.

She wanted his grief.

She wanted to know his thoughts.

She wanted to know everything.

He was all she was looking for.

And she couldn’t find him.

Burning

It seems like I’ve seen your face before for a thousand times.

It seems like you’ve kissed my lips a thousand times more and that sometimes you’d tell me about the moon and why it stood so high in the sky.

I’d burn a thousand times more just to feel the touch of your lips on mine.

It seems like we’ve met more than once.

That I’ve touched you more than once.

I dream I’m making love to you and touching your face and caressing your hair.

I’m now left missing you.

Missing every inch of your face.

I’m missing every single day now that I’m here with or without you.

And I am still burning.

For you.

As I always say, and I’ll be saying it to you every time,

I feel like I’ve known you some place.

But I don’t know where…..

Blue Moon

There are those blue moons and sometimes there aren’t.

An empty corridor where footsteps once ran.

A broken bottle someone from somewhere had drunk from.

And then there are those nights; those starry nights with you.

Chances are you’ll see me in your dreams where you’re in mine.

Somewhere; on a blue moon.

As The World Falls Down

I look at you like a storm’s about to hit because in the end, I’ll be the one clinging to you.

I look at you like a tsunami’s going to hit because I know I’d rather drown with and within you.

I look at you as though the world is ending because I know that I would’ve ended it with you.

In other words, I look at you like I’m always dying inside slowly because you’re the only thing I wanna see at the end.

I look at you because I never knew I was slowly falling in love.

The Broken Heart

She was conflicted in her past;

Now tangled up in memory….

Her heart broken; left to die.

The Soulmate

Your soul attracts me

in ways that others cannot.

I love your goofy

smile and I do. Love always.

Because you say you love me.

Sex

I imagine you holding me this way forever in your arms….

Inside my head I am quietly screaming….

Eat me.
Devour the forbidden poison of flowers through my warm mouth.
Feel me.
I want your sword thrust all over my
soft, wet, warm garden of lush flowers.
Go slow with me as you thrust the sword in harder.
Delve deeper and outpouring your sweetness allowing to thrust you sword inside me; thrust harder.

I honestly try not to think of these things when I am with you….

But I seriously cannot help it.

Inside my body is screaming as you pull me closer;

Numb me raw and senseless
As I push my fingernails into your earth.

Moan at me..
Thrust into me..
Pluck and pull me. .
Fondle the breasts of my petal’s core
Love me harder..
Smile and grab my flowers
And whisper unto my soul into my ears.
So I can hear that you love exploring me..
Enjoy me..
Thrust into me harder.

Let me love you in my thoughts for I know some things cannot last long for forever.

Moments With You

For once I want a moment that belongs to us.

I’ve been saving myself for you because without you I would be nothing.

I wait for you under the full moon at night and ignore all the parasites because I knew you were the one who would come back to me.

You make me feel like I’m in some kind of fairytale because right now,

only you can save me.

To: D

Life Update #5

Dear Diary,

I have just completed life as an undergraduate at the University of Guam as of May 23rd, 2021 and now I feel I’ve accomplished a lot. I have yet to go into the Graduate program to get my M.A. degree, that is my master’s degree in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. It was as it feels, a long walk amongst a rocky road. To be honest, I never would have thought that I would be able to make it this far. Wish me luck for Grad school on this new chapter in my life. It’s been a long time coming.

In Hussein

I will be giving an examination to the interpretation of Saddam Hussein’s speech. In this paper I will also identify fallacious statements used by Saddam Hussein from Chapter 11 on fallacies in Understanding Rhetoric. On September 3, 1996, the United States raided Iraq with a missile attack which triggered Saddam Hussein to give his speech in retaliation to the Americans who bombed Iraq with an air raid strike. Hussein calls upon fanatical believers of Islam, the religion which lies in the center of the Iraqi people, which is defined as dogmatism; a common fallacy found in Chapter 11 of Understanding Rhetoric, which he uses in his speech, along with the use of code, calling forth future attacks on the United States. In this paper, we are going to go through what marked the war of a decade starting with Hussein’s speech to the Iraqi people in rhetoric, which is a persuasive way of speaking.  The method of analysis that I shall be using is ethos, pathos and logos, fallacy and interpretation in Hussein’s speech to the Iraqi people.

Saddam Hussein’s Speech To Iraqis

In the name of God, the most gracious, the Most Merciful; oh, great people; oh, honorable members of our armed forces; oh, sons of our glorious Arab nation; oh, honorable people of the world: Once again, the hopeless cowardly Americans were back to repeat their cowardly act hiding behind a technological advance that God, most gracious, wanted it to be their curse and cause for shame. The aggressors came back launching their failed cowardly raids to commit a damned third attack which has very significant implications. The courageous resistance and great steadfastness of the noble Iraqi people gave the aggressors what they deserved. They will be taught a lesson and their wanton attack will be resisted. The missile attack on Iraq took place around 9 o’clock this morning, 3rd of September 1996, corresponding to 20th Rabi’ Athani 1417 Hijri. This is going to be a glorious day. The Iraqi people will, in the name of God, add to their honorable record. It will be a day when the cowardly aggressors will be condemned by both history and the whole world, having been condemned by God Almighty. Oh, Iraqi people and members of the brave Iraqi armed forces, the apple of our eye, this is another day you can call your own. So, resist them as you have done. God Almighty wishes you to take your pride of place under the sun and on the heights of your good land. We have come to expect you — and your people and the Arab nation are calling upon you — to resist them and teach them a new lesson full of meanings their weak and empty souls do not know. Oh, men of our air defenses and our air hawks, from now on consider as non-existent their damned imaginary no-fly zones above 36 parallel and below 32 parallel. Strike with efficiency and competence, in the name of God, any of the aggressors\\\’ planes which violate the air space of your great country and everywhere in Iraq, now and in the future. The free peoples of the world and the sons of our glorious Arab nation can rest assured that proud, glorious and defiant Iraq is safe. Iraq is as powerful as high mountains. It will not be shaken by the winds of evil; neither will it be frightened, God willing, by the hiss of vipers. The sons of the Land of Two Rivers were more than a match to the enemy; they downed a large number of its missiles. God foiled the aggression and the aggressors and, thanks be to God, we only suffered light losses in the failed attack. May God bless the souls of our honorable martyrs. God is greater, God is greater. May the cowards be defeated.

Hussein says, “in the name of God, the most gracious, the Most Merciful; oh, great people; oh, honorable members of our armed forces; oh, sons of our glorious Arab nation; oh, honorable people of the world,” in his piece to persuade the people of Iraq to listen to him and invest in his war. Hussein assumes that the entire Iraqi nation, all its citizens, desires a war against the United States. Under his military regime, many civilian Iraqis suffered. His regime tightly controlled the economic and political structures. Those who opposed him, were imprisoned and tortured. Hussein then transitions with “once again, the hopeless cowardly Americans were back to repeat their cowardly act hiding behind a technological advance that God, most gracious, wanted it to be their curse and cause for shame.”

Why does he do this? He does this to call upon the Iraqi people’s pride, giving them a false sense of authority and again, plays upon their religious logos in which he states that the Americans are cowardly. Hussein plays on the Iraqi people’s faith in their religion, using the bandwagon fallacy which claims that every Iraqi citizen must agree with him, even those whom he imprisoned and tortured.

With the transition mentioned above, Hussein then uses another fallacious statement called a false dichotomy in which his whole speech oversimplifies the issue. Notice how he uses dogmatism as the first fallacy in the first paragraph quoted above.

He uses authority of religious spectacles and authoritative figures. Hussein then makes a statement that he believes is irrefutable, that Americans are the aggressors and that they are cowardly because he personally attacks Americans in general saying that “the aggressors came back launching their failed cowardly raids to commit a damned third attack which has very significant implications. He then praises the Iraqi’s, stating that they are courageous, and their resistance and great steadfastness are noble, and that the fight against the Americans is what they deserved because they caused the war against the Iraqi people. “They will be taught a lesson and their wanton attack will be resisted.”

He then plays on pathos, ethos and logos which is, coming from pathos, the loss of parts of their country on the American raid in 1996 where he wishes to invoke violent feelings. Using ethos and logos, he states throughout his speech feelings of courage against the Americans and their condemnation and invokes it because of the missile attack of 1996 on the Iraqis. He states the fact that, “the missile attack on Iraq took place around 9 o’clock this morning, 3rd of September 1996, corresponding to 20th Rabi’ Athani 1417 Hijri. This is going to be a glorious day. The Iraqi people will, in the name of God, add to their honorable record. It will be a day when the cowardly aggressors will be condemned by both history and the whole world, having been condemned by God Almighty.”

But why does he depend on God to amend the strikes of the Americans or to reassure his people that the American people will be condemned by God the almighty because of the attack in 1996? He says that because Saudi Arabia is the center of religion. According to World Atlas, “the constitution of Saudi Arabia, which is based on the Quran and the Sunna, establishes the country as an Arab Islamic State. It recognizes the Sunni Islam as the official religion and Sharia law as the legislature. The state does not legally recognize the freedom religion and neither the state government nor the society recognizes the separation of religion and the state. The county is opposed to the Muslim reforms of the 21st Century that seek to reinterpret the Islamic Law to recognize the social and economic developments, personal autonomy, gender relations, and democracy. The law recognizes the children born to Saudi fathers as Muslims and must be integrated into Islamic culture. In other words, as the center of religion, they are considered amongst themselves, a holy people because they are in America, like an institute where their laws are strictly their religion.

Hussein then says, “oh, Iraqi people and members of the brave Iraqi armed forces, the apple of our eye, this is another day you can call your own. So, resist them as you have done. God Almighty wishes you to take your pride of place under the sun and on the heights of your good land. We have come to expect you — and your people and the Arab nation are calling upon you — to resist them and teach them a new lesson full of meanings their weak and empty souls do not know.” The rhetoric or the persuasiveness suddenly peaks. Hussein speaks rhetorically to persuade his people to fight with him for the war against America. Hussein arrogance demonstrates his lack of understanding of the personal suffering of the Iraqi people. He believes that he is well loved, but he isn’t. Note also that he speaks with the fallacies of dogmatism and false dichotomies. How do we know if the soul of America is empty? It isn’t. The heart of the American military, as we are told, is to spread Democracy for all oppressed citizens around the world. This is one of the tenets that defines the United States in the world.

Again, Hussein calls on authority and says “we have come to expect you — and your people and the Arab nation are calling upon you — to resist them and teach them a new lesson full of meanings their weak and empty souls do not know. Oh, men of our air defenses and our air hawks, from now on consider as non-existent their damned imaginary no-fly zones above 36 parallel and below 32 parallel. Strike with efficiency and competence, in the name of God, and of the aggressors’ planes which violate the air space of your great country and everywhere in Iraq, now and in the future. The free peoples of the world and the sons of our glorious Arab nation can rest assured that proud, glorious and defiant Iraq is safe. Iraq is as powerful as high mountains. It will not be shaken by the winds of evil; neither will it be frightened, God willing, by the hiss of vipers.” Hussein calls for the Iraqi people to take up their weapons and fight for their existence; calling on the Iraqi people to fight by any means necessary, to show no mercy, and then portrays the bandwagon fallacy that all of Iraq is going to help him, including the good Christians, by his definition, and non-terrorists being the citizens of Iraq, who are not part of his military regime, and citizens of the Middle East.

The Code

He states that “The sons of the Land of Two Rivers were more than a match to the enemy; they downed a large number of its missiles. God foiled the aggression and the aggressors and, thanks be to God, we only suffered light losses in the failed attack.” This quote from Hussein must have been a code to call the Iraqi people to attack through the two rivers, being the holy land of the Euphrates and the Tigris, attacks of the Al-Qaeda in future generations of American soldiers to fight against. It could be a code for just that the land of two rivers were made for the geographic location of attack. “Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is a Sunni insurgent faction referred to in Arabic as Tanzim al-Qaeda fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers or Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia). Originally founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as Jamia’at Tawhid wal Jihad, or the Monotheism and Jihad Organization, the group began referring to itself as Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers in the Fall of 2004, when al-Zarqawi pledged his loyalty to Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Unlike other nationalist or nationalist-jihadi factions of the Sunni insurgency, AQI has adopted a radical religious program aimed to imposing an interpretation of Islamic law known as Wahabbism, based on the teaching of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahab.”

From what we know about Al-Qaeda, is that they are a large group of terrorists that assisted in bombing the World Trade Center or the Twin Towers on September 11^th who may have attacked from there. Hussein appears to harness his eloquence in speaking, by hoping to instill a sense of urgent nationalism to rally the Iraqis against the Americans. The death of Hussein in December, 2006, has not deterred religious military organizations, and they continue to have a stronghold in the region. “Although one of the smallest factions in the Sunni insurgency, it has been perhaps the [deadliest,] claiming responsibility for some of the highest profile attacks against Shi’a targets, including the bombing of the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra in February 2006 and the massive car bombings in Sadr City in November of that year. Although the group is principally Iraqi, there is some foreign presence at the leadership and operational levels. Currently led by Abu Ayyub al-Masri (Abu Ayyub the Egyptian), AQI has been under tremendous pressure from coalition operations in Ninewa and Diyala province which began in early 2009. While many popular accounts of the sectarian violence between Sunni and Shi’a organizations in Iraq date the explosion of violence to the bombing of the al-Askari Mosque in February 2006, organized violence between religious communities began much earlier.  Whether Al-Qaeda in Iraq was responsible for starting this cycle of violence with spectacular attacks against Shi’a targets in order to embed itself in Sunni communities, or whether these attacks were actually responses to earlier Shi’a militia activities, Al-Qaeda in Iraq had become the major Sunni participant in the war between sectarian militias in and around Baghdad by summer 2005.  It developed safe havens throughout West Baghdad and in Anbar province. In addition to attacks against Shi’a targets, Al-Qaeda began laying the basis for the future turn by the tribes. In areas of Baghdad, they began actively targeting other Sunni insurgent factions in order to establish control over neighborhoods, and their behavior in Anbar, in Diyala, and [the Northern region of Iraq] began to alienate their partners in the Sunni insurgency.”

In his closing remarks, Hussein calls on God again who is a religious and authoritative figure. “May God bless the souls of our honorable martyrs. God is greater, God is greater. May the cowards be defeated,” which is a fallacious statement because religious dogmatism in which Hussein preached, is premised on absolute truth, where blind obedience is expected, and in which, the religion declares a Holy War. These are fallacies that lead to a nation’s pain and suffering.

The code mentioned, and as believed, will, by any means, uphold the fallacy of dogmatism in rhetoric which proves that no matter what the odds are, one voice among the people shall be heard among the masses and cause destruction to a great and powerful nation and her vulnerable and powerless citizens, no matter how evil it was. Hussein and his military regime preyed on the fear of the Iraqi citizens, using religion and its holy places and its historical monuments as the vehicle, no matter how contradictory it was to the holy teachings. That is a terrorist’s logical allegory after all.

                                                            Works Cited

CNN. Transcript of Saddam Hussein’s Speech to Iraqis.

edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9609/03/saddam.transcript/.

 

          “Northern Iraq.” Institute for the Study of War,

http://www.understandingwar.org/region/northern-iraq. Accessed 4 May 2021.

WorldAtlas. “Religion in Saudi Arabia.” WorldAtlas, 29 Nov. 2016,

http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/religious-beliefs-and-freedoms-in-saudi-arabia.html.