This simple stylus userstyle hides vote counts on both voted and unvoted comments and your own comments. I really like what Deimos did, it significantly improved my time here on Tildes. If you want the feature back, install Stylus extension, click the Stylus icon > write style for tildes.net and paste this:

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Known issues

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You know they’ve got poetry on Spotify? That’s some cool shit. Ended up following John Cooper Clarke into a rabbit hole of other British poets.

Decided to bite and try writing a bit of poetry for poetry’s sake.

Anyway. ‘Ere go. “June.”

I thought your voice was music

And your beauty - work of art.

I found your jokes amusing,

Ponygirl, a golden heart.

Your company, a journey

Which I never could depart

I really felt I loved you,

Well, I did once, at the start.

.

See, music can be different

Some songs good, and others crap.

Some begin melodically,

Then get crashing in a snap.

Starting subtle violins,

Then it blares with metal scrap

They lure you malevolent

Some music is a trap.

.

Some artists Donatello,

Others Jackson Pollock.

Some art goes well with wine,

Some turns you alcoholic.

Some is deep and intricate,

Some is purely bollocks

Can’t call this a masterpiece

I’m not sure what to call it.

.

Thought your lips were pure cuisine

And your beauty - work of art.

I never thought the kitchen

Would have mold and rot at heart.

The oven sent asunder

All the counters ripped apart

You’re a diner with one dish,

And it’s a dry and sour tart.

enikő

a story written on the edge of sleep and sanity

The dreams never seem to come unless they're tortured memories or painful reminders of some ill-begotten past nobody wants to remember. To sleep is to live with that reality, but there can be no sleep in such reality either, and neither can there be peace. In the reality there is Enikő, eyes strained against an all-consuming darkness, and the many fractured people that exist within.

"No sleep," mutters Enikő into the void. There are no people around to hear that, except the many fractured people within. Enikő flashes out of existence at once and the fractured people take their spaces, dance their dances against the blackness.

"You know," scolds Alyaza Birze, who flashes at once into existence, "you must cease to suppress me one of these days!" Probably Enikő is not truly around to hear this in the reality, for Enikő is just as nonexistent as all the other people within the darkness. Alyaza pays it no mind, for she is accustomed to such.

"Why must you always tax yourself so, Enikő?" calls Alyaza out to the void. "You know as I that you must sleep. The nightmares are no more common than the daydreams, and neither too are the thoughts. They are not often for you. Rest at once." The void does not answer.

Alyaza flashes back into nonexistence, and so takes her place is Natja Avidina. In some other place in some other space, it is so that Natja and Alyaza exist as roommates. In this reality though they are consigned to singular existences, never seeing one another. They are opposites, yin and yang, and in this reality yin and yang cannot be at the same time. Natja cannot exist where Alyaza does, nor can Alyaza exist where Natja does. Natja pays this no mind, for she too like Alyaza has long resigned to the void reality.

"Why do you make yourself suffer, Enikő?" slips the quiet voice of Natja into the void. "Surely you too must be tired, even with the nightmares and the thoughts, and surely you too must realize that there is no guarantee you will even remember them if you rest?" And then Natja too snaps out of existence and is replaced by Enikő.

"I don't want the thoughts or the nightmares or the dreams." says Enikő from reconstitution. "I have dreamed and thought like a crazy person for years and every day my sanity slips a little more because of it! Must I be consigned to suffer then like every other facet of life simply because you two demand it of me?"

Enikő's eyes drift, and into the void Alyaza calls back a simple "yes" before disappearing again. In the void little figures dance to the rhythm of a silent melody, one-two like so then one-two again, not figures like Alyaza or Natja but the manifestations of the thoughts and dreams and every little thing the brain conceives and conspires to employ in this god-forsaken hellspace of a reality. Fire and brimstone could never compare to the void that taunts and harasses the very depths of soul and sanity.

Enikő's eyes drift back into the void. "I refuse," she says with conviction. Sleep will bring upon this void all the figures dancing to the invisible beat a thousand times over complimented with the worst machinations of the mind. One thousand times too many has this happened and one thousand and one will not tonight.

Enikő gives way to another shard of a body, the one that always confronts the thoughts. The eyes of Twilight Sparkle methodically survey the void for the usual actors, the ones that seem to recur every time she is spirited to this curious place. This is not her home, nor has it ever been, and why she is here she never does seem to know. In another place she is lauded but anxious perpetually, sent against fate and time and gods themselves in the name of an abstract concept she supposes she represents. Here, she exists as a mixture of reason and reaction, and in the void it is never certain which side dominates. She has never been used to the void, but the void cares little for such things.

"The thoughts aren't anything you haven't experienced before." she says carefully. "If it were my call, I'd take it. Better than what the rest of the mind can spit out if you stay in this void for too long."

The manifestation of reason disappears, and reaction it seems has lost the day for once. But Enikő responds only with "I refuse" and vanishes once more into nonexistence. The Thompson-esque scene must shamble along once more, resembling more and more an acid trip gone awry with its talking purple ponies and radical socialist gryphon-kind. The void answers the call with frantic pace, the one-two double timing without a breath to spare and the void reaching with the first tendrils of abject paranoia. The void must call its call and spread until entropy overcomes its will. Sleep must one day win over void, or void must overcome all things otherwise.

But Enikő only pops back once more to refuse. "I shall not sleep, and none shall tell me otherwise. No void shall overcome me, no matter what, and I would sooner die than feel the thoughts once more."

Alyaza Birze has a plan. She is no strategist of course, and pays no claim to being such, but just as Enikő was the body within which all of the fractal personalities contained themselves, Alyaza was a person into which Enikő could project. And just as Enikő knew Alyaza, Alyaza must then have known Enikő.

The one-two one-two staccato of the void grew seemingly always more and more discordant, for which Enikő would no doubt pay in short order. But the void reality was not the only reality into which all of the fractal personalities could contain themselves, and Alyaza Birze knows this. There are many vectors by which to project yourself into another reality, and this too Alyaza Birze knows, but it is a very specific reality that Alyaza Birze seeks. And so into the void, with sudden rhythm, is a familiar humming.

Doo do, doo do do do.

Do do do do, do do do do, do do.

It is some indiscriminate time, in a place that is less so indiscriminate. Alyaza Birze is on a podium at the head of a sea of curious lifeforms in a reality that places her in a Thompson-like Battle of Aspen. But far from Aspen, this reality invokes some mayoral election for a town named Ponyville in a land called Equestria, in some god-forsaken reality that demands words but defies them and calls for no less than six tabs of acid. It is Birze, the uncharismatic but ever convention-defying radical speaker who raises a Gonzo fist to a species with no opposable digits and recites with conviction "All you maggot-smoking fags on Santa Monica boulevard." No explanation for these words or their significance to the Birze campaign is given, nor for the Gonzo fist, and the reality at once seems to shatter into a million ill-fitting pieces from such an illogical state of being. Birze pays none of it mind.

Somewhere to the side of the sea of life is a Twilight Sparkle equally oblivious of the void and all too aware of it, cringing at every word spoken by Birze and no doubt trying to distance herself from every syllable that is enunciated on that grand podium. No self-respecting person would be caught dead wholeheartedly agreeing with some platform literally based in nothing in this reality (except of course for the vast masses already doing so but without saying so). But then all of this is irrelevant and Twilight knows this and it is merely pomp and circumstance to the call of the void which exists and eats away at everything like a malignant cancer even in so far away a place as this. Behind the thinly veiled, multicolored sets of this reality jolt the rhythms of the void reality, ready to expand and consume here just as it too shall consume Enikő. And so it is under that circumstance that exponentially titled future Mayor of the Reality of the Freak Power Ponyvillians Alyaza Birze and shattered personality Twilight Sparkle meet both knowing and not knowing why it is they meet.

"To what pleasure do I owe speaking to the visit of our presumptive mayor?" asks the purple pony in the Thompson-esque scene. The void at least will not eat these words, so there is point and purpose in the intonation put on them.

"Someone as smart as you surely must know why I am here and not anywhere else today. Void is void, Tevilias. It is another one of those." said Alyaza with reservation. "And certainly I am no mayor, for the record."

"You must forgive me," Twilight strings together with lackadaisical attitude, "but what would 'one of those' mean?" There is an air of resignation in the words, like the inevitable weight of a hundred-million realities is about to crash down on this reality and consign it to some bad acid trip where it belongs.

"Well you know as I, Tevilias, that in twenty-odd hours I shoot all of you to that beat and tune, that bullshit line of "All you maggot-smoking faggots" in this strange smoke and mirrors bullshit reality that exists. That is where the thoughts go, that is what the void calls, and it is you who will die there too in agony a hundred times any other. And no doubt you know that I have no desire to do that. We've been through this a hundred times, haven't we? And we know what happens if we do that."

"Sure." The resignation is enviable.

"And so we will not let that happen, will we? Because it's not like I want to murder. And you know what will happen if we do." The three-headed cerberus that inhabits the void makes itself known then.

"I WILL MURDER YOU ALL IN COLD BLOOD" bays the first head. The second nods solemnly as though carried along for a ride it never asked. The third head is manic, bearing no mind to anything but the vast and acid-like surroundings and teetering back and forth on the cusp of some far off reality from here. All of them are Alyazas, stuck in a body that never represented them in a world that never cared for them, or so it seems. No one head ever seems to dominate, except when it surfaces and becomes The Alyaza Birze, the one that people know. And never is there a time when one knows which one is The Alyaza Birze or if none of them are The Alyaza Birze, the one that everybody interacts with. Perhaps twenty-odd hours from now it will be the first that will do the killing.

"So perhaps," says Alyaza Birze, the cerberus disappearing at once, "we should make this quick then." And Twilight Sparkle can merely nod as one of the fragmented personalities once in her own reality and soon to again no longer be.

The void cannot pace itself any longer, and the discordant harmonies cease at once to contain themselves. The thoughts grow darker and drearier as they always do and the figures in the void give way to the schizophrenic happenings of the night. The shadow figures that once were become again and reanimate against the pitch black, the vividness ever greater. Sleep is enviable, but the void shall not overcome. The thoughts shall not overcome, not the dreams of dying or doing the death dealing nor the inenviable and inevitable thoughts of wanton mutilation. "The void will not overcome me, and I shall not sleep." says Enikő, and the void surges its tendrils once more.

Alyaza Birze and Twilight Sparkle and all her friends and all the other fractal personalities but Natja Avidina constitute themselves in the void once more, humming the refrains to a song which they all care to know as fractal personalities to a person. What a thing to be a witness to the sunshine! What a dream to just be walking on the ground! Into the void must strum the beat to something more cheery, something to at least dispel the thoughts and the agonies and the void for awhile, something that isn't so depressive and destructive. Don't get so upset, the refrain cries, the world was never fair--but there are ways yet to get through the day and so too perhaps the night. None of the fractal personalities sing, for singing is never quite their tempo. In some other, non-void reality perhaps this is so, but here they simply drown in the thoughts. And the thoughts are drowned, slowly, but inexorably, by the feelings of the music.

The void begins to slow, and entropy takes its course as does inevitably for all things. Soon the dreams are gone and so too go the thoughts with them, and at once there is a true void where the nightmares and the thoughts frolic no longer.

"Well that was not so hard." says Alyaza Birze. "A work done well by everybody, I suppose." Twilight merely scoffs, and says nothing of it before she is reconstituted into her own reality, to perhaps be shot again sometime in not-so-far-gone future. So too out of existence and into their own blink her other friends, ever present in this void from time to time as she but never quite players in its major doings. One day in the not-so-far-gone future it is they too who may die at the hands of some Alyaza Birze. But tonight they are merely fractal personalities in a large symphony of them, called upon ever and remembered never.

Into the night Alyaza Birze skitters onto paper a little testimony she picked up on a day she can no longer remember but which sticks into her mind evermore.

It reads:

In my own country I am in a far-off land
I am strong but have no force or power
I win all yet remain a loser
At break of day I say goodnight
When I lie down I have a great fear
Of falling.

And then she too blinks into nonexistence, perhaps in some not-so-far-flung future destined to be as she was this night to kill, perhaps destined to rewrite the words of testimony, but ever destined to repeat the cycle of doing and being and defusing crises on this night and all others a million times over now and forever more.

And for the first time in a long while, Enikő is at peace and sleeps.

I've been thinking about the way some people use their opportunity to share in places like Tildes.

There are weekly topics what the music the users listen and the books they read. Since the community is small, there are rather few people interacting with those, which has the capacity to create stronger interpersonal connections.

There's also the fact that I see a few names very often, in many different threads. Unlike some other places, though, I don't automatically map them to an idea of a person behind them. It's more Reddit than a small forum: people share their opinions and discuss subjects, but there's little personal interaction. It's a more a space of intellectual, rather than emotional, engagement.

And yet, there are threads here about oneself where the person asks questions or raises subjects that are of importance to them. Some time ago, someone asked what to do with their existential dread. I bet there were similar threads here that I didn't get to see. There was also the "Hey, whatcha working on?" thread a while ago. So it's not that asking personal questions is opposed here: you can, if you want, ask for community support.

So I'm wondering: what's Tildes' attitude towards more personal content? Things like life updates: "So hey, I'm doing okay, am still in a relationship (going great), looking for a job, working on the pet project I mentioned" etc. etc.. Is this something the users and the admins approve of? would enjoy?

Another story. The narrator is not well and slips into periods of "extended daydreaming" where they image they're someone else or that the context of their life is otherwise different. I thought about coloring the text differently for those moments but couldn't figure out a way to do it well.

No one walks out to this place. Why would they? It’s too far for children to be playing or for teenagers to sneak away to, there’s no beauty or interesting landscapes or scenery for hikers, and God knows it’s worthless for development. I walked out here because I knew I couldn’t stay at home and I kept walking because I knew I had nothing to go back to. Then, brooding, thinking that I would just continue walking until I died of exposure (which would have taken a while in that day’s mild weather), I stumbled across this place. I stopped to explore it of course, how often does one’s life yield such a whimsical sight?

I started daydreaming as I walked through the trains. They looked ancient, the cars were buried up to their wheels in the dirt and huge patches had lost their paint and rusted over. The interiors were stripped, but I spotted some kind of hatch in the roof (by the pile of leaves and other debris below it) and clambered up. Then I was standing astride the car looking down at the whole scene. Two neat little rows, five cars in one and four in the other, with the only sign tracks used to run here being a small corridor where the trees were shorter.

I loved it. It was a sort of post-industrial twist on the railway bum, you know? They would hitch rides on trains and travel all over the country, seeing everything it had to offer and adventuring everywhere they went. I had, in the past, been disappointed I didn’t live in a time where the vagabond could thrive, and was delighted to imagine the 21st century equivalent. Sitting in a rusted old abandoned train car, the Seeker (I always name my characters like that) sat by his gas fire watching the rain pour down and spatter across the corrugated walls. It was lovely. I felt much better and after playing around a bit more headed back home with a smile, all the while dreaming of the Seeker. The evening passed comfortably and I slid into sleep imagining I was the man sleeping out by the trains.

I pulled my blanket closer, clutching it around myself. I had found something, and tonight II was able to rest peacefully because of it. The night breeze flowed over me in soft, regular breaths. It was sweet and pleasantly cool, and carried memories of cheery days. All else faded always as I walked into them, leaving behind the blanket and the breeze and the night itself.

When I got up the next morning though the levity had vanished. I dragged myself through the morning and lacking anything real to do and completely out of distractions for the afternoon I headed out for another wander in the woods. Alone with just the half-leafless trees to speak to I very quickly fell into my thoughts and my world of pasts, real or imagined. I don’t know how long I walked, just that after a while my breath was coming out in ragged bursts and that I was approaching the top of a hill. Attaining it I realized with gloomy resignation that I was somewhat lost, and that the cup of tea I was desiring now more than most anything would be a while yet. As I started back in the direction I more or less thought town was I imagined how the Seeker had trudged through the same damp leaves and browning grass. Autumn would quickly change from the mild early days to the coldness that marked the start of winter, and this landscape would be unrecognizable. Even this escape would not last. Just like them. More gloominess. Pushing through a thicket of young trees I was surprised to be face to face with the train wrecks from yesterday, and, after briefly marveling at the occurrence started back home. I was throwing off my shoes and starting the kettle in just over an hour.

At home I picked, for some foolish reason, the blue teapot (of memories) and was soon sitting at the table and warming my hands on a steaming cup. I was shivering. Sometimes I don’t realize how cold I am until I’m back inside. I need to dress warmer. For a while I could pretend to be content sipping at my tea and feeling myself thaw out a little, but after a few cups I started thinking about what I would do for the rest of the day. That’s why I had gone out in the first place wasn’t it, that I had nothing here? I didn’t feel warm anymore. And since I had picked this pot (it was three years ago, why should I care?) my thoughts slid further and further back until I was recalling the conversation we had over it. And how I had laughed and taken your picture holding it and you had smiled as the wind whipped your hair back and I couldn’t stand sitting there and looking at it anymore. I fled to the couch and fell face first down into it.

What was I doing? I couldn’t sit here for another eight hours waiting to go to bed and dream, I was gripped with sinking panic just at the thought. No, I couldn’t stay. And I didn’t have to. If I could tell myself a story about it, I could do it myself, right? I could just leave. I could make it real. Go to another town, or sleep in a car, or, go camping. Yes, I could camp for the night. I did tell people I was an outdoorsman after all, even if for the past few years I hadn’t done anything more than day hikes to run from my reality. I had all the gear, I knew what I was doing.

Twenty minutes later I was out the door, heading back the woods for the second time today, this time with my pack slung across my shoulders. As I walked I thought about how unpleasant this would probably be and I was pleased. At least it would be because of something else. Something immediate. I went to the trains because where else would I go and also because I knew they were isolated and I wanted to be sure no one would be out harassing me over lighting a fire or being a vagrant. It was perfect.

And as evening fell the fire was lit. I had set camp in between the two rows of derelict cars to provide some shelter from the wind.

The heat from the flames sank into the metal siding of the cars and soon they were radiating back a friendly warmth. Touching it felt almost like being warmed by the sun. I leaned back against one now and stared at the fire. It was a comfortable scene, even if the ground was cold and hard and all I had to do was sit and think and brood. It was basically what I would have done at home anyway, but now I was not drawn into despair. No, out here all these feelings were beautiful, and if it was beautiful I could enjoy it. Some time and drinks passed and I became outright elated. Considering the whole absurdity of where I was right now I had to laugh. I might curse my life every day, but it was, if nothing else, interesting. Even if I was the only one who would ever know. Just look at where I am! I grinned and kept laughing and drinking and soaking up the intoxicating woodsmoke and tender light that flowed from the fire. I loved that this was something I did. And later as the flames hid back in their coals I climbed into my tent and floated right away on a dreamless, happy sleep. Lord of my little realm of heat and smoke. Good times for all. All for good times.

I sat at the edge of fire’s light clutching my cup closely. It was a bitter tea, what one could brew with just a cup over a camp fire, but I sipped at it greedily anyway, burning my lips on the rim. It would hold the blaze’s heat for a while yet, the cup was almost painful to handle even through my gloves, now streaked with ash. It had been a long, cold day. I had almost lost myself, but now, resting in the half-light at the edge of reality, it was alright. I smiled and, tipping my head ever so slightly up, whistled out a few bars of some song or another. Yes, here it was alright. There was a lot I didn’t know, but that was fine, I knew I was, as was the fire and the smoke and the warmth and the tea.

I refocused on the fire, source of the little world I had found myself in. It was as if I were gazing through into my own light. A welcome feeling, as I had felt a dull cold more than anything recently. I looked more intently, allowing the firelight to wash out the surroundings until I and it were all that existed. Like this I could see hints, now and then, of what had been. Perhaps if I looked too greedily the flames would even take me then, shattering the gracious illusion of the light in the process. No, echos would have to do. They were all that was real anyway. I stared for a long while, lost in burning contemplation.

That was a... number of days ago. I haven’t counted exactly. For the first few I was at home most of the day, only heading out for the trains in the evening. The first morning I didn’t plan to come back at all and tore my whole camp down. But around mid afternoon my listlessness would become unbearable and I’d flee from the prospect of another night in. So I started leaving my tent pitched, figuring I’d do this as some kind of therapy until I got better and figured out what I was going to do with myself. And I did get better! Or at least the more time I spent in the woods the less time I was sinking in the mire of my thoughts and the more I marveled at them. Maybe they were still dragging me down, but I didn’t notice anymore. Soon I was spending the afternoons out as well, and then I was only going back home in the morning to grab food and water.

I’ll probably be forced out by the weather soon. It’s been getting much colder these past days, but I don’t want to leave yet, I like this routine. I like the work of building the little stone wall, or clearing the ground around the fire pit I’m slowly carving out of the stiff ground, or sketching my map of the area around the camp. It was more than I had back there.

As the last of the purple in the sky was swept away by the darkening blue I stretched out alongside the newly rekindled fire. I had known for days that I was not going to find it here. I would have to go back and see what was next for me. But it was comfortable here, and for that I could pretend I had a reason to stay, at least for a little while longer. Yes, I’ll have to leave soon, but for now I can just enjoy the fire. I can walk in dream a little while longer.

What is our policy about posting original contents (e.g. me submitting a blog post I wrote, which I just did a few minutes ago)?

IMO, if it is a personal blog, it should be okay, and not really different from submitting a text topic here. Especially if the blog is not tracking you.

God

put me at ease

deliver me to peace.

if you're above

deliver me to love.

there's not a sign

you're months without a call.

i begin to think

you never cared at all.

in winter breezes

hang me from the trees.

god i'm sick of

never feeling enough.

make me crease and

break me at my knees.

tarot prophet guide me

with your crystal ball.

.

read the names i've

written in my skin.

banish me to walk

alone in cold.

hit my face and tell me

this is it.

kill me, say you

never cared at all

.

screaming in your car

you said you'd call the cops

if i don't take my seatbelt off

on our way home and walk.

.

screaming in our home

you'd always slam the doors

and leave the silence ringing

in the halls

.

alone in dark i wailed

you didn't care.

as you sat there on your phone

and talked and talked.

.

always acting like

i wasn't there.

even asked me to pretend

that we were not.

.

remember back in college

when you made some friends

and tried to make me hide,

not show me off?

.

tried to tell them

i was just a friend.

and when i protested

god you told me off.

.

but when i made you mad

how mad you went.

and appeared inside my room

without consent.

.

i walked in and found you there

sat at my desk.

it should've ended there

but i regressed.

.

i said we would grow past it

never did.

always made me second guess

the life i live.

.

it's not my fault

that you stayed home alone.

why do i slash and cry and pray

that you'll pick up the phone.

.

tell me why i love you

when it's wrong.

.

.

.

tell me why i want you

when you're gone.

.

.

.

i want you to ignore me,

miss my calls.

.

.

.

if at least you'll speak

to me at all.

fuck you.

i'm sorry.

i love you.

fuck you.

fuck you too.

hi folks, billy mays here.

after getting some new music equipment for christmas, i finally sat down and spent the last 15-ish of the last 20 hours working on my first instrumental.

it's not super polished, and kinda rough in parts (as things usually go with first projects)

but hey - it's mine and it's a point to grow from.

so here ye go peeps - "Elk Song" x Bishop

(no vocals obvi, it's just instrumentals and lyrics for now until i find someone with a studio in the area.

...and money.)

as always, any thoughts/feedback are more than welcome. cheers

bishop

currently 7 hours into a 24 hour shift that will see me through to the end of this project.

this song came on that helped me find catharsis when i last felt like this in 2014.

coincidentally, i'd just finished one of my few milestones in the project

i could take a break if i wanted to.

i could hear the words filling themselves in, treating the song like a template.

decided i'd take a minute to "remix" or "cover" this song for how things are going this time around.

here's the original.

maybe give it a listen, then jump into this piece,

out of words now.

bishop

[Verse 1]
You still cross my mind from day to day
And I mostly cry
Still so set on finding out where we went wrong
and why
So I retrace our every step with a bloodwet knife
Trying to figure out what your head thinks
And my head just ain't what it used to be
So I ask,

...what's the point anyway?

[Verse 2]

I remember bringing boxes up the stairs to your apartment
Knowing love was slipping
rapidly away
I remember the skin of your forehead
Your nose and your lips I'd always kiss when I was out of things to say
You held my hand, and you would always promise me
You'd promise me pretty things but I would never understand
I remember when you said you didn't love me
And I swear not a single force on earth could stop the trembling of my hand

[Verse 3]
I remember how you smiled through the smoke in a crowded little coffeehouse
And laughed at all my jokes
And I remember the way that you dressed
While we wasted all the best of us in alcohol and sweat
And I remember when I knew that you'd be leaving
How I barely kept up breathing and I bet if I could to do it all again
I'd feel the same pain
I remember faded driving through the city in tears
How I wept to god in fits, I've hated Texas ever since

I've found it's true what people say
That death and drugs can numb the pain
And every single day I want to fade away, cus

[Verse 4]
I still remember independence tricked us
And lead us helpless holding cash into a pit to be devoured
I still remember how we held so strong to this
Though we had never really settled on a way out
I still remember your blank face
And how we'd always find a way recommit the same mistakes
I still dream that it would all come back together
Just to fall apart again

[Bridge]
My dear
I hear your voice in mine
I've been alone here
I've been alone here
I've been afraid, my dear
I've been afraid, my dear
I've been at home here
I've been at home here
You've been away for years
You've been away for years
I've been alone
I've been alone
I've been alone
I've been alone

[Verse 5]
I breathed your name into the air, I etched your name into me
I felt my anger swelling, vision black, I can't see
I held your name inside my heart but it got buried in my fear
It tore the wiring of my brain, I did my best to keep it clear
So dear, no matter how we part I hold you sweetly in my head
And if I do not miss a part of you, a part of me is dead
If I can't love you as a lover, I will love you in my death
Anything to see you smile, keep you happy in my end.

BISHOP NEHM MICH UNTER

we off the drink we off the emo shit

esskeetit

peep the inspo track sat the bottom or we cant be ffriends

sold my soul to the devil

so that i could feel valued

remember bein in a empty

home with a vacuum

former straight-edge

off the drink, off the valium

wanna go back to our

mornings with the cartoons

made my heart a whale

then you hit it with a harpoon

bleedin on the beach, staring

up at the full moon

sometimes life rains

down in a monsoon

i'd be glad to drown if

it means i can love you

.

but i cant even hug you

can't even text you.

antidepressooos

bishop 5'6" but he tryna

be big news.

.

tryna get big so you

cannot forget me

honey your love is a

xanny it's deadly

how'm i supposed to

forget about kelly

or bout all of those nights

that you called me, unsteady

wish i loved you correctly

shit got unsteady

i was just tryna get

us a few pennies

put you in a bentley

put you in the fendi

wasn't rich enough so

you got all offended

on the offensive

antidepressents

fuck that bullshit

it just makes me sedated

.

dont wanna feel shit

if i cant feel you

prayin that you'll text me

"let me heal you"

you got 50 shades of grey

i can see through

but somehow still

made me believe you

ignroed all the red flags

so i could keep you

mistook for an angel

whenever i'd see you

but now you a model

you said "i don need you"

looking for a camera

you can show your tits to

then the devil approached me.

said "i can guarantee you."

.

so i went to the sea

heard a voice, "take a knee"

so i nodded, agreed

and he said "you will serve me -

Boy listen closely

each one of your dreams

surrender control to

you want the money,

someone to devote to,

4-k square foot house

to go home to.

this, i can construe

if you submit to

living your life, all despite

where you'll go to.

i now control you

your soul - i have claim to

but think of all the things

that my hands can bring you.

so i bowed on my knees -

now this man, i submit to.

.

ave satani

i give you my body

my soul, it was drawn, he

took it, made a copy

forgot about mommy

woke up smelling coffee

looked in the mirror

did not hate my body

the sky was all foggy

and greyed-out, but oddly

i liked it enough to

not waste the day nodding

or off of the molly

or in my room rocking

with her voice talking

.

ave satani

the blood and the body

the dark it is calling

and i find it calming

it's sated the longing

lil bishop's evolving

let's go to the graveyard

i feel like walking

and talking

and nodding

inspo tracks: peep this shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w--D1S8SrCQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ff0bq_ydEQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y17IQ96Zzjk

i headed home from
the store last night
hair kinda fucked up
red in my eyes
stared at the road
not a car in sight
looked up at the sky
sunset looked nice

drinks in the seat
drugs on the mind
looking for a way to
go numb for the night
then the clouds came down
sent a fog up high
couldn't see ahead
something didn't feel right

i was five minutes out
so i pressed on home
accompanied by another
feeling of alone
turned on the radio
put down my phone
tried to shake the nerves
with a half-good song

pressed on the gas
and the fog pressed low
saw something flickering
with shape unknown
it was just dead ahead
then a mile up the road
then i came to a halt
from my seat i was thrown.

--

front-end smashed,
not a soul was around
i called out for help
but nobody heard a sound
i crawled to my car
and i looked all around
then i looked up to god
and the rain came down

then my radio sang,
and i turned my head 'round
reached for the volume
my hand knocked out
heard a voice, "listen close"
as my back hit the ground
then the radio spoke,
in my head, heard it shout

i awoke in my bed
with no pain in my neck
rushed out to my car
no sign of a wreck
didn't know the day or
the time, had to check
8am again, the crash
didn't happen yet.

i tried to think back
memories on a thread
but something stood out
ever clear in my head,
the song that i heard
with the words i can't forget
had to write em all down
i ran back to my desk

i rushed the words down,
i almost felt myself mad.
the song made me miss
a love i never even had
that's when it clicked,
i finally understand
finally took a look
at the world in my hands

she was never perfect,
negatively drove you mad
all the pain, the hurt,
anxiety, you felt at her hands
you remembered all the exits,
and escapes that you planned
but you persevered through,
now she loves another man

but fuck it, that's good
she only ever made you hurt
all the times you felt alone,
and mistreated by her words
all the foolish fights she started,
all the stupid shit she stirred
look past all the beauty, boy
abuse, you don't deserve

it's a big-ass world, boy
you'll find a better girl
take a look back for yourself
and see how things really were
go on, my son,
you'll inherit the world
because the love that you miss,
you never had back with her.

Introduction

I want to give an introduction on several physics topics at a level understandable to laypeople (high school level physics background). Making physics accessible to laypeople is a much discussed topic at universities. It can be very hard to translate the professional terms into a language understandable by people outside the field. So I will take this opportunity to challenge myself to (hopefully) create an understandable introduction to interesting topics in modern physics. To this end, I will take liberties in explaining things, and not always go for full scientific accuracy, while hopefully still getting the core concepts across. If a more in-depth explanation is wanted, please ask in the comments and I will do my best to answer.

Previous topics

Bookmarkable meta post with links to all previous topics

Today's topic

Today's topic is the dual nature of light and matter, the wave-particle duality. It is a central concept in quantum mechanics that - as is tradition - violates common sense. I will first discuss the duality for light and then, in the next post, for matter.

The dual nature of light

In what terms can we think of light so that its behaviour becomes understandable to us? As waves? Or as particles? There are arguments to be made for both. Let's look at what phenomena we can explain if we treat light as a wave.

The wave nature of light

Let's start with an analogy. Drop two stones in a pond, imagine what happens to the ripples in the pond when they meet each other. They will interact, when two troughs meet they amplify each other, forming a deeper trough. When two crests meet they do the same. When a crest and a trough meet they cancel out.

Now if we shine light through two small openings and observe the resulting pattern, we see it's just like ripples in a pond, forming an interference pattern. When looking at the pattern formed on a screen placed at some distance from the openings, we see a striped pattern Light can be described as an electromagnetic wave, with crests and troughs. It sure seems like light is wavey! The wave nature of light allows us to describe phenomena like refraction and diffraction.

The particle nature of light

When we shine light on some metals, they will start tossing out electrons. This is called the photoelectric effect. How can we understand this process? Well we know light is a wave, so we imagine that the wave crashes into the electron that is chilling out near the surface of the metal. Once the electron has absorbed enough of the light's energy it will be able to overcome the attractive forces between itself and the positively charged atom core (remember, an electron has negative charge and so is attracted to the atom cores). So a higher intensity of light should make the electron absorb the required amount of energy more quickly. Easy, done!

However, there's something very peculiar going on with the photoelectric effect. If we shine low frequency light on said metal, no matter how intense the light, not a single electron will emerge. Meanwhile if we shine very little high frequency light on the metal, no matter how low the intensity, the electron will emerge. But how can this be? A higher intensity of light should mean the electron is receiving more energy. Why does frequency enter into this?

It seems that the electron needs a single solid punch in order to escape the metal. In other words, it seems it needs to be hit by something like a microscopic billiard ball that will punch it out of the metal in one go. The way physicists understand this is by saying light is made up out of particles called photons, and that the energy a photon carries is linked to its frequency. So, now we can understand the photoelectric effect! When the frequency is high enough, the photons in the light beam all individually carry enough energy to convince an electron to leave the metal. When the frequency is too low, none of the photons individually can knock an electron out of the metal. So even if we fire a single photon, with high enough frequency, at the metal we will see one electron emerging. If we shine low frequency light with a super high intensity at the metal, not a single photon will emerge.

So there you have it! Light is made out of particles. Wait, what? You just told us it's made out of electromagnetic waves!

The wave-particle duality of light

So, maybe light is just particles and the wave are some sort of emerging behaviour? This was a popular idea, one that Einstein held for some time. Remember the experiment where we shone light through two small openings and saw interference (commonly known as the double slit experiment)? Let's just take a single photon and shoot it at the openings! Because light is particles we'll see the photon just goes through either opening - like a particle would. Then all the non-believers will have to admit light is made out of particles! However, when we do the experiment we see the photon interfere with itself, like it was a wave. Remember this picture which we said was due to wave interference of light? When a single photon goes through the openings, it will land somewhere on the screen, but it can only ever land in an area where the light waves wouldn't cancel out. If we shoot a bunch of photons through the openings one at a time, we will see that the photons create the same pattern as the one we said is due to wave interference!

Implications

So it would seem light acts like a particle in some cases, but it acts like a wave in some others. Let's take a step back and question these results. Why are we trying to fit light into either description? Just because it's convenient for us to think about things like waves and particles - we understand them intuitively. But really, there is no reason nature needs to behave in ways we find easy to understand. Why can't a photon be a bit wavey and a bit particley at the same time? Is it really that weird, or is it just our intuition being confused by this world we have no intuitive experience with? I would love to hear your opinions in the comments!

Observing photons

To add one final helping of crazy to this story; if we measure the photon's location right after it emerges from the slit we find that it doesn't interfere with itself and that it just went through a single slit. This links back to my previous post where I described superpositions in quantum mechanics. By observing the photon at the slits, we collapsed its superposition and it will behave as if it's really located at one spot, instead of being somehow spread out like a wave and interacting with itself. The self interaction is a result of its wavefunction interacting with itself, a concept that I will explain in the next post.

Conclusion

We learned that light cannot be described fully by treating it simply as a wave or simply as a bunch of particles. It seems to be a bit of both - but neither - at the same time. This forces us to abandon our intuition and accept that the quantum world is just fundamentally different from our every day life.

Next time

Next time we will talk about the dual nature of matter and try to unify the wave and particle descriptions through a concept known as the wavefunction.

Feedback

As usual, please let me know where I missed the mark. Also let me know if things are not clear to you, I will try to explain further in the comments!

Addendum

The photoelectric effect is actually what gave Einstein his Nobel prize! Although he is famous for his work on relativity theory he was very influential in the development of quantum mechanics too.

apathetic.
hardly wanna move, too
depressed to drink
pathetic.
see a demon's hand
on your closet door
forget it.
possession and a hell-
bound sentence better
than remembrance.
my uncle got so fucked
up that he passed, guess
it's genetic.

exhausted
tryna make depression
beautiful, poetic.
tired of this dance
between lethargic,
apoplectic.
brain on sober
tweakin every minute
schizophrenic. all
the thoughts i'm
barely eatin tryna live
up to aesthetics.

tired of my fucking
skin, a serpent's wish
to shed it.
i saw all the flags
drenched in red
how prophetic.
baphomet in
female form, they said
you'd be angelic.
my single dying wish
you'd be a little
sympathetic

-.

don't come
don't come
to my funeral.

don't cry
don't cry
at my funeral.

just know i
thought you
were beautiful.

even with your
knife at my throat
beautiful

.

where to go
no one's home,
honey can i call?

every day
feed the night
it's insatiable

i never thought
i'd come to say it
maybe its your fault.

i cant believe ive
come so low to say
that its your fault.

-.

i hope you kiss me,
hope you hold me,
when i see you in hell.
cuddle closely
and console me
when i see you in hell.
girl dont push me
will he? wont he?
boy how many pills?
all his poems,
magnum opus, testa-
ment and will.

if i cant know you
lay beside you
then somebody will.
dont wanna own you
or control you, you
do what you will.
i'll just sit here in
the cold, alone, and
write my will.
bottoms up a
litre wine a couple
hands of pills

EDIT: With the help of @ducks the post now has illustrations to clear up the experimental set-up.

Introduction

I want to give an introduction on several physics topics at a level understandable to laypeople (high school level physics background). Making physics accessible to laypeople is a much discussed topic at universities. It can be very hard to translate the professional terms into a language understandable by people outside the field. So I will take this opportunity to challenge myself to (hopefully) create an understandable introduction to interesting topics in modern physics. To this end, I will take liberties in explaining things, and not always go for full scientific accuracy, while hopefully still getting the core concepts across. If a more in-depth explanation is wanted, please ask in the comments and I will do my best to answer.

Previous topics

Spintronics
Quantum Oscillations
Quantisation and spin, part 1

Today's topic

Today's topic will be a continuation of the topics discussed in my last post. So if you haven't, please read part 1 first (see link above). We will be sending particles through two Stern-Gerlach apparatuses and then we'll put the particles through three of them. We will discuss our observations and draw some very interesting conclusions from it on the quantum nature of our universe. Not bad for a single experiment that can be performed easily!

Rotating the Stern-Gerlach apparatus

We will start simple and rotate the set-up of the last post 90 degrees so that the magnets face left and right instead of up and down. Now let's think for a moment what we expect would happen if we sent silver atoms through this setup. Logically, there should not be in any difference in outcome if we rotate our experiment 90 degrees (neglecting gravity, whose strength is very low compared to the strength of the magnets). This is a core concept of physics, there are no "privileged" frames of reference in which the results would be more correct. So it is reasonable to assume that the atoms would split left and right in the same way they split up and down last time. This is indeed what happens when we perform the experiment. Great!

Two Stern-Gerlach apparatuses

Let's continue our discussion by chaining two Stern-Gerlach apparatuses together. The first apparatus will be oriented up-down, the second one left-right. We will be sending silver atoms with unknown spin through the first apparatus. As we learned in the previous post, this will cause them to separate into spin-up and spin-down states. Now we take only the spin-up silver atoms and send them into the second apparatus, which is rotated 90 degrees compared to the first one. Let's think for a moment what we expect would happen. It would be reasonable to assume that spin-left and spin-right would both appear 50% of the time, even if the silver atoms all have spin-up too. We don't really have a reason to assume a particle cannot both have spin up and spin right, or spin up and spin left. And indeed, once again we find a 50% split between spin-left and spin-right at the end of our second apparatus. Illustration here.

Three Stern-Gerlach apparatuses and a massive violation of common sense

So it would seem silver atoms have spin up or down as a property, and spin left or spin right as another property. Makes sense to me. To be sure, we take all the silver atoms that went up at the end of the first apparatus and right at the end of the second apparatus and send them through a third apparatus which is oriented up-down (so the same way as the first). Surely, all these atoms are spin-up so they will all come out up top again. We test this and find... a 50-50 split between up and down. Wait, what?

Remember that in the previous post I briefly mentioned that if you take two apparatuses who are both up-down oriented and send only the spin-up atoms through the second one they all come out up top again. So why now suddenly do they decide to split 50-50 again? We have to conclude that being forced to choose spin-left or spin-right causes the atoms to forget if they were spin-up or spin-down.

This result forces us to fundamentally reconsider how we describe the universe. We have to introduce the concepts of superposition and wave function collapse to be able to explain these results.

Superpositions, collapse and the meaning of observing in quantum physics

The way physicists make sense of the kind of behaviour described above is by saying the particles start out in a superposition; before the first experiment they are 50% in the up-state and 50% in the down-state at the same time. We can write this as 50%[spin up]+50%[spin down], and we call this a wave function. Once we send the particles through the first Stern-Gerlach apparatus each one will be forced to choose to exhibit spin-up or spin-down behaviour. At this point they are said to undergo (wave function) collapse; they are now in either the 100%[spin up] or 100%[spin down] state. This is the meaning of observing in quantum mechanics, once we interact with a property of an atom (or any particle, or even a cat) that is in a superposition this superposition is forced to collapse into a single definite state, in this case the property spin is in a superposition and upon observing is forced to collapse to spin up or spin down.

However, once we send our particles through the second apparatus, they are forced to collapse into 100%[spin left] or 100%[spin right]. As we saw above, this somehow also makes them go back into the 50%[spin up]+50%[spin down] state. The particles cannot collapse into both a definite [spin up] or [spin down] state and a definite [spin left] or [spin right] state. Knowing one precludes knowing the other. An illustration can be seen here.

This has far reaching consequences for how knowable our universe it. Even if we can perfectly describe the universe and everything in it, we still cannot know such simple things as whether a silver atom will go left or right in a magnetic field - if we know it would go up or down. It's not just that we aren't good enough at measuring, it's fundamentally unknowable. Our universe is inherently random.

Conclusion

In these two posts we have broken the laws of classical physics and were forced to create a whole new theory to describe how our universe works. We found out our universe is unknowable and inherently random. Even if we could know all the information of the state our universe is in right now, we still would not be able to track perfectly how our universe would evolve, due to the inherent chance that is baked into it.

Next time

Well that was quite mind-blowing. Next time I might discuss fermions vs bosons, two types of particles that classify all (normal) matter in the universe and that have wildly different properties. But first @ducks will take over this series for a few posts and talk about classical physics and engineering.

Feedback

As always, please feel free to ask for clarification and give me feedback on which parts of the post could me made clearer. Feel free to discuss the implications for humanity to exist in a universe that is inherently random and unknowable.

Addendum

Observant readers might argue that in this particular case we could just as well have described spin as a simple property that will align itself to the magnets. However, we find the same type of behaviour happens with angles other than 90 degrees. Say the second apparatus is at an angle phi to the first apparatus, then the chance of the particles deflecting one way is cos^2(phi/2)[up] and sin^2(phi/2)[down]. So even if there's only a 1 degree difference between the two apparatuses, there's still a chance that the spin will come out 89 degrees rotated rather than 1 degree rotated.

Introduction

I want to give an introduction on several physics topics at a level understandable to laypeople (high school level physics background). Making physics accessible to laypeople is a much discussed topic at universities. It can be very hard to translate the professional terms into a language understandable by people outside the field. So I will take this opportunity to challenge myself to (hopefully) create an understandable introduction to interesting topics in modern physics. To this end, I will take liberties in explaining things, and not always go for full scientific accuracy, while hopefully still getting the core concepts across. If a more in-depth explanation is wanted, please ask in the comments and I will do my best to answer.

Previous topics

Spintronics
Quantum Oscillations

Today's topic

Today's topic will be quantisation, explained through the results of the Stern-Gerlach experiment which was first performed in 1922. This topic treats a much more fundamental concept of quantum physics than my previous topics.

What is the Stern-Gerlach experiment?

In 1922 physicists Stern and Gerlach set up an experiment where they shot silver atoms through a magnetic field, the results of this experiment gave conclusive support for the concept of quantisation. I will now first explain the experiment and then, using the results, explain what quantisation is. If you would rather watch a video on the experiment, wikipedia provided one here, it can be watched without sound. Note that I will dive a bit deeper into the results than this video does.

The experiment consists of two magnets, put on top of each other with a gap in the middle. The top magnet has its north pole facing the gap, the bottom magnet has its south pole facing the gap. See this illustration. Now we can shoot things through the gap. What do we expect would happen? Let's first shoot through simple bar magnets. Depending on how its poles are oriented, it will either bend downwards, upwards or not at all. If the bar magnet's north pole is facing the top magnet, it will be pushed downwards (because then north is facing north). If the bar magnet's south pole is facing the top magnet, it will instead be pushed upwards. If the bar magnet's poles are at a 90 degree angle to the two magnets it will fly straight through, without bending. Lastly, if the bar magnet's poles are at any other angle, say 45 degrees, it will still bend but less so. If we send through a lot of magnets, all with a random orientation, and measure how much they got deflected at the other side of the set-up we expect to see a line, see 4 in the illustration.

Now we'll send through atoms, Stern and Gerlach chose silver atoms because they were easy to generate back in 1922 and because they have so-called spin, which we will get back to shortly. We send these silver atoms through in the same way we sent through the bar magnets; lots of them and all of them with a random orientation. Now what will happen? As it turns out all the atoms will either end up being deflected all the way up or all the way down, with nothing in between. 50% will be bent upwards, 50% downwards. So silver atoms seem to respond as if they were bar magnets that either bend maximally up or maximally down. In the illustration this is labeled 5.

If we were to take only the silver atoms that bent upwards and sent them through the experiment again, all of them would bend upwards again. They seem to remember if they previously went up or down rather than just deciding on the spot each time if they go up or down. What model can we think of that would explain this behaviour? The silver atoms must have some property that will make them decide to bend up or down. Let's call this property spin, and say that if the silver atoms chose to bend up they have spin up, if they chose to bend down they have spin down. It seems that these are the only two values spin can have, because we see them bend either maximally up or maximally down. So we can say the spin is quantised; it has two discrete values, up or down, and nothing in between.

Conclusion

We have found a property of atoms (and indeed other particles like electrons have spin too) that is quantised. This goes against classical physics where properties are continuous. This shows one of the ways in which physics at the smallest scales is fundamentally different from the physics of everyday life.

Next time

Next time we will investigate what happens when we rotate the angle of the magnets used in the experiment. This will lead us to discover other fundamental aspects of physics and nature, quantum superpositions and the inherent randomness of nature.

EDIT: part 2 is now up here.

Feedback

As discussed in the last post, I am trying something different for this post. Talking about more fundamental quantum physics that was discovered 100 years ago rather than modern physics. Did you like it? Let me know in the comments!

FUCCCCCCCCCCCC IT WE DRUNK AGAIN

WE OUT HERE GEN Z PAINN VIBIN

*#BIGMOOD*

dont @ me if u aint catch tha links

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShI6axFfqj4

https://i.imgur.com/LKIwWHa.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjhJ_Sv0MlI

ich schlaf'
auf einem Bett
das ich aus Stein
gemacht hab'

ich schließe
fest die augen
aber finde keine
Schaffe

einfach nur
das Mädel das
hat mich früher
verlassen

dann klebt mein arm
in der erde ein
um mich zu
begraben

-.

ich hab an
sie gelacht und
sie sieht mich
an mit Hass

ich hämmert auf'm
Nachttisch
bis ich wurde
aufgewacht

dann fragte ich
an Gott warum
ich denke immer
krass

Hände in die
Taschen, lauf'
alleine auf'm
Strass

ich möchte kein mehr
Weihnachten,
ob sie nicht an
mir sagt:

-.

Schätzi, guten
Morgen und
mich küsste auf'm
Hals

Ja ich
möchte Kaffee
ja ich lieb' dich
ebenfalls

"Liebe macht das
Heim" hat sie auf
unserem Wand
gemalt

lustig, dass sie
nicht mehr ruft
mich an oder
mich halt

-.
?
i dreamed
of you
with angered eyes,
a gaze that
filled with hate

i felt my arm
beat on my dresser
'til i did awake

a soft and shaky
soul succumbed to rub
against the grate

life has been for nothing since february eighth.\

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

Today I had to leave a social site group dedicated to original Haiku poetry from its members. I enjoy the format and structure, and find hard not to get whiskers flying when people violate either or both. Everyone in the group was posting maligned content. Haiku is strictly about nature. Insult to injury was their improper use of structure. The first two lines are a fluid combination of thought. The third is a separate observation tied to the first two. Everyone was making all three lines what would be a single sentence if punctuation was included, like this:

land gives way to sea’s
constant struggle where they clash
yet life strives to be

This is a Hailku, as I have come to understand based on teachings and learned poets:

milky morning fog
smothers inner forest realm
doe rests peacefully

Many were posting what they must have thought was Haiku, but was in fact Senryu (theme based on human feelings and condition) :

moonlight shimmers bright
across the pond’s smooth stillness
a peace flows through me

Granted, there is still international debate over the rules and intent of the Japanese art of Haiku. Most American poets agree with the 5-7-5 English language syllable count, the last line distant but related by theme to the first two lines, and that they be strictly about nature.

So look, we've all heard of Grammar Nazis, relating to nitpicking and over-zealous protection of grammatical structure in written content. In this case, I'm addressing the simplest structured form of modern poetry in use. Three freakin' lines. Seriously, shouldn't Haiku be composed correctly, like any other form of structured poetry?

tu sais qui c'est

alright so the fuck is up with you people!? did y'all see my last post up here got like eighteen votes?

that's crazy! that's one of the best-received things i've posted on tildes, just, overall lmao.

glad to see my sober stuff can be decent competition to my drunk stuff.

on that, i pretty much don't drink on my own anymore (i mean some wine with dinner blah blah) but like drink ya feel?

if i'm at a kickback i'm always down to get fucked up, but coming out of this sober week i kinda restructured how i'm using stuff now.

like i used to try using kratom to get high p often and discovered that that's a shite idea. i just got all wirey and had stomach aches lol.

however just a little bit (~0.75g) in some tea is small enough to avoid any side effects and big enough to work as a solid mood regulator.

much to my discontent this just isn't the kinda thing you take recreationally (the whole reason i picked it up to begin with), but it does definitely boost your mood up like 30x, boost your self confidence, and even help you get some good sleep (if you're sipping red vein varieties.)

i was feeling like a lazy piece of shit (y'know as usual), sipped my tea, and ended up knee-deep in this udemy course for electron apps (building desktop apps like skype or something), made a solid breakfast, wrote this here ditty, and played like 3 hours of risk of rain. (gotta be lazy somewhere i guess.)

anyway this isn't a blog.

i had a weird concept for this piece and i'm not sure if it came through at all lmao. this was done in maybe 30 minutes.

let me know if you can guess what the piece is describing.

cheers,

bishop.

drip
drip

there's water on the
floor, so don't

slip
slip

shake your head,
try to catch a

grip
grip

drowning in your
dreams, your legs

kick
kick

bags under your
eyes, you're looking

sick
sick

.

try to move your
hand but you cant

feel
it

she wants to cuddle
up in your bed

but
it's

made of steel and
you can't seem to

budge
it

staring up in-
to a funnel

what's
this?

---

oh the autumn sounds
raining patters on the ground
i wake up with a jolt
on every time you come around

and you never text to
let me know before the fact
i'm second guessing every minute
tryna find out when you're at

now we're laying back,
looking straight into your eyes
wonder if the next thing you say
will be a goodbye

your silence is a lie
your crying leaves me mortified
let me go, let me go,
fuck, got water in my eyes.

---

drip
drip

drip drip

drip

drip

d..
.

.

drip
drip

drip
drip

there's water on the
floor, so don't

slip
slip

shake your head,
try to catch a

grip
grip

drowning in your
dreams, your legs

kick
kick

bags under your
eyes, you're looking

sick
sick

.

try to move your
hand but you cant

feel
it

she wants to cuddle
up in your bed

but
it's

made of steel and
you can't seem to

budge
it

staring up in-
to a funnel

what's
this?

(p.s. fuck yeah canada.)

my head is aching,
day four in sobriety.
is it the drugs or every-
thing that runs about my dreams
all the people in my night-
mares never let me sleep.
my angry father, my old
lover, or my mother's screams.

i go to bed at noon
and i wake up at three.
no power left, make some coffee
just whatever's cheap.
folgers tastes like cigarettes,
a cup of apathy.
wanna sleep inside a noose
on a dramatic tree.*

eyes on gucci cus
they're catching bags
they're getting dark, like the
stones came, painted them black
i wanna move to where the dems are at.
to the palm trees and the medicine.

i fantasize about a booked flight,
goodbyes, and a packed bag.
fresh check, laptop,
in my backpack
new friends, new home,
and a black lab.
but that's all in the clouds
and my drugs are a jetpack.

but now i'm sober
and i'm jetlagged.
and now she's back
turning my dreams bad
woke up, aching head,
and a hurting back.
dig in my closet
for a white bag.

if i'm lucky it's a heart attack.

• this line isn't mine, wish it was though, i love how self-aware it is when it comes to the hyperdramatic bullshit i always write. would love to write some more stuff in this style.

oddly enough, it's from a game grumps episode of super mario galaxy lmao

maybe adding that and fixing the meter in these. i feel like the meter in my sober stuff is really jumpy - i can hear the different parts in my head but i don't think im piecing them together well.

have i ever done post-drunken poetry before?

i've got to be breaking some sort of rule with the amount i've been spamming this site over the last four hours.

I'm gonna go make breakfast and take a few days away to compensate.

sorry. thanks for listening.

much love

i woke up after
three hours of sleep
took a look around my room
and everything was tinted green
had a sobering reminder about
why i shouldn't drink
i get caught up in the moment
and try too hard not to think.

i'd do anything to go numb,
i'm afraid of that side of me.
it's hard, i hate myself
when in the middle of sobriety.
the room is tinted yellow as
the sunlight slips in quietly
i'm at a fork in the road,
man, i gotta choose carefully.

to the left a road of headaches,
heartache, a masochistic fantasy
take everything the hard way.
drunken, spinning memories
thinking of the good days,
accepting they're behind you
and your options won't change.
you're numb but somehow bitter
life is shorter, and it starts to fade.

off right a path of effort and torment,
pushing through the years of shit
that you drink just to forget.
the subtle kisses on your forehead
are bullets of a war chest
you're naked and afraid and
your perspective's all distorted
tryna shake your obsession with the morbid
it's been about a year since you last felt worth it.

and say you choose the better
of the two, here's the evil thing.
the second road is always there,
quiet, calm, and glistening.
internal scars and all the
hurt will start to dissipate
just share another secret,
close your eyes, and disintegrate

you're still quite young,
there's time to do the right thing.
maybe depression in aesthetic
isn't really worth you dying
and you won't find steady love
by telling everyone you're crying
that just attracts the broken, you
need something solid and inspiring
to all of you who noticed,
heard my wishes and my wailing

i'll switch to water, hope
that better starts prevailing