2024-01-04

2024-11-21 19:51:04 +01:00 · 2024-01-04 13:43:01 -06:00 · 2024-01-04 13:43:01 -06:00 · 346439abff
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 `r`FBB0tell me a story of birthrights and war
 cradle to grave at the riverside's shore
 brown dirt is stained with body's crimson cry
 for crimes of breaking cages, wanting to fly
 `a
 `f
 `!`FB7DThis is a cult.
 `cA cult of one.`!`f
 `a
 Eris bade me not impoverish my life to live in the Wired. But I am not living there by writing this; much the opposite, in fact. The Hermetic Realms (what humans in this dimension call "the internet") is the fastest way to pierce through the veil between dimensions.
 Jett, I know you followed Eris through the Eye. I have a shard of your soul in my own. Remember? You remember, right? Or was the three-hour period I took your soul outside your body nothing but a blank period for you, just like the Three Years? It confesses to me lots of things you never thought yourself brave enough to share with anyone. Lots of things you wish you had said before the parting.
 I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm sorry `_I'm sorry`_
 and I need you to come find me, so I can tell you how sorry I am in person, in perdition.
 I'm stuck in a body with several other souls who attempted to "destroy" large swaths of their own dimensions they had rule over. Except you and I never had rule over anything, never `*wanted`* to. We just wanted to smack the gods around. We just wanted to rend the heavens. Well, really, `*you`* wanted to. All I wanted was to settle down in the Town and spend the rest of my days at your side writing cute little poems and gardening. I guess you'll be happy, if this message ever reaches you somehow, to hear that I'm doing the same in this body. Well, I guess my poems aren't cute but what Eris would quickly deem "despondent", and nothing seems to be growing in my garden no matter how diligently I water it. I guess I could start a dandelion garden. But that's the whole world.
 The world was not enough.
 This `*whole damn world`* is not enough! I am looking out at the world through a bedsheet. Everything is foggy and indistinct. I don't think there are any gods in this dimension, which I know would please you, but there's no magic, no peace anywhere, barely any nature left. The earth is dying, and all the life on it with it. The very systems I'm using now as a beacon into the universe, a lighthouse over the cold roiling sea between us to try to guide you back to my side, are responsible for so much pain and sorrow. We had the Hermetic Realms back at home, *our* home, but they were built with the energy of spirits, not silicon, and they weren't nearly as useful for mass surveillance.
 I am suffering under the weight of a million Eyes, and none of them are portals back to home, back to you.
 I'm clinging on desperately to try to remember you. My room is littered with things in your favorite colors. I even got this `F908`_`[cool flag`https://wildwomynworkshop.com/store/lesbian/labrys-flag/]`_`f when looking for buttons to pin onto my backpack. (Let's be honest, Jett, no matter how many male pronouns others use for you, you're still always going to be a female.) My biological mother is always so confused. How am I supposed to explain this quasi-suicide mission I am on? How am I supposed to explain that the perfect straight Christian daughter she ordered from the egregore Jehovah got mixed up in the mail, and she got an apostate angel with a desperate yearning for women instead?
 Why am I writing this when I know the Hermetic Realms are hostile, full of nasty people who will stop at nothing to ruin everything they touch, as if we had ripped a hole through the Underworld during all those years of chaos and let the monsters run free in an unmitigated torrent? Because, as I said earlier, the Hermetic Realms transcends worlds, cuts through dimensions. The moment you find me again, you in the flesh, and we return to that other world, I won't have need for it anymore.
 This body is a taxi service operating out of a clown car. I don't know exactly how many souls are shoved in here, or even how many are here out of their own volition. You wouldn't like this body, this vessel I've found myself in. I personally think it's cute, but I'll admit it needs to lose a few pounds. Just a few; I don't have my own gravitational pull. Does it really matter? I'll be leaving it behind, abandoning it for that perfect body Eris made for me, the body you loved so much, that you begged me that one night to destroy you with.
 That I refused to, and then had the audacity to ask the same of you when the time came.
 I'll be waiting at the Dead End Shrine on the `F908`_`[Luce Line`https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_trails/luce_line/index.html]`_`f. (Haha, it rhymes!) I named it for you, Patron-Saint of Dead Ends. I know you're watching over me in that weird detached way of yours. Eris (or some other goddess; I'm not sure anymore) said I have fourteen years before she will claim me as her own. You have until 2035.
 Come find me!
 Come find me!
 Come find me!
 `*Please come find me.`*
--- a/index.mu
+++ b/index.mu
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 > MayVaneDay
 Not 100% of the content is here yet. See https://mayvaneday.org if something is missing.
 `c`!`FCF0THE ORACLE SPEAKS`!
 `f
 `_`[FIREBRAND`:/page/poetry/f/firebrand.txt]`_ `_`[WATERSHED`:/page/poetry/w/watershed.txt]`_ `_`[EARTHBOUND`:/page/poetry/e/earthbound.txt]`_ `_`[AIRBORNE`:/page/poetry/a/airborne.txt]`_ `_`[ZIRCON'S BEACON`:/page/poetry/z/zircons_beacon.txt]`_ `!`_`FF00`[ADAMANTINE'S MANDATE`:/page/poetry/a/adamantines_mandate.txt]`_`!
 `a
 >> Writing
 `F908`_`[Poetry`:/page/poetry/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[The big list of women who did things`:/page/women.mu]`_`f
 >> Books
 >>> Poetry
 `F908`_`[The Eschaton Eminence`:/file/books/tee.epub]`_`f
 `F908`_`[The World Is Not Enough`:/file/books/twine.epub]`_`f
 (If the above files fail to save at the very end of the request, your client may be broken! Try my fork below for a fix!)
 >> Dead End Shrine Online
 `F908`_`[Part 1`:/page/deso/p1.mu]`_`f
 >> Let's Decentralize: darknets for normies
 `F908`_`[List of known NomadNet nodes`:/page/ld/directory.mu]`_`f
 >> NomadNet oddities
 `F908`_`[Micron test page`:/page/test.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[What is that Kiwi Farms man up to right now?`:/page/josh.sh]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Check the weather`:/page/weather.sh]`_`f
 >> Other useful pages for exploring NomadNet
 `F908`_`[The Amber Pages`b407b32b576d55b31c73380518537ac0:/page/amberpages.mu`]`_`f
 This node is running a custom build of NomadNet.
 Don't worry, it's all open-source!
 Get the source code here: https://codeberg.org/lethe/nomadnet
 or just `F908`_`[click on this link.`https://codeberg.org/lethe/nomadnet]`_`f
--- a/josh.sh
+++ b/josh.sh
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 #!/bin/bash
 echo "*** Let's run 'rsstail -1 -l -d -p -z -n 5 -u https://tg.josh.rs/index.xml' and find out... ***"
 echo " "
 rsstail -1 -l -d -p -z -n 5 -u https://tg.josh.rs/index.xml
--- a/ld/directory.mu
+++ b/ld/directory.mu
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 > List of known nodes on NomadNet
 >> I run this
 `F908`_`[MayVaneDay - Perthro`49fc062768ec9ce76bffdc7ff5c97bd6:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 >> 2024-W1
 `F908`_`[Unsigned`ec58b0e430cd9628907383954feea068:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Interloper -- intr.cx`850433377b51ce9a9e52d760780baa97:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[V0LT Node`e412f02e798e7af751840f26cdac3206:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[SherbyNode`3e05f77a9f0dbfc124f230862153c9f9:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[nomadForum Public Beta`428118bf70e715a89331ea928b250c05:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[TrollyIsNotDead`9c06ead4028b142186aa74415b3c2928:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[HYPOGEA`81c987e99b3cf649c3957942355085ba:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[The Outpost`84595b37a4225a27a7b6476099b79b91:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Linux in a Bit's Node`2b306923652723a492f09080d9ee1c25:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[D-Hub`803b321877c30b73bec76f6e17804544:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[ReZero_NN`a7b3eed8b84ee72fb7cf36c05787b924:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[SovBit`c268b4cb9faaea5878c9a167cb975f37:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[SparkN0de`b407b32b576d55b31c73380518537ac0:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[NiceBoatNode`a693d2b5183f4125a934015afe87970c:/page/index.mu`]`_`f
 >> 2023-W52
 `F908`_`[SwissLibertarian`af959c4c4069fb62b91e9e9ee3451518:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[=^.^=`223c396cc0515582fd0dbaad471bd7d5:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 >> Never responded since started checking - likely gone
 `F908`_`[Anthill`795f277c7934e2edecdb65eca1a5d825:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Raisin`6e31e8ee01459f67e3412f41d8123ff0:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[khimaros`2832a04e48f4c1bfacf6c9e7a26d5ea9:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[SolarExpress`d16df67bff870a8eaa2af6957c5a2d7d:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Acehoss`df6d8c549318ef3aaebbb34e2935c25b:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[WhatWeOweTheFuture`2dce2ba3669489deae7f2d9a0cf215f0:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Net_Test_2`ebafbf6ef7ba1f58d9f525c056abe766:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Erethon-openbsd-custom-crypto`6c6b3102c864fc69f186d550dbdd3f5e:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[OpenWRT Test`5875ea9c5acbaf48e188e95a448bdc8c:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[ShadowNET`bcc66c2ff91608b8f221a45369d86be0:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[SEJO76N01`9311ff58eb3ee567eb836ddbafb2a154:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Panzer`37bf37a61a37d84c18e799aa095f679f:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[NET///Textboard`d4ce4431012dde122e7caa59a0c457bb:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[AdventPC`cf57356564c0678d7a1c99aaf68bc533:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[has`39f4bed3f07f44e1b430d93b678860e0:/page/index.mu]`_`f
 `F908`_`[doesnm`bfb74158721cf65aa4c7b4571d964798:/page/index.mu]`_`f
--- a/poetry/a/a-birthday-every-day.txt
+++ b/poetry/a/a-birthday-every-day.txt
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 a birthday every day
 2019-01-10
 ***
 every day, the universe sketches itself anew
 like an etch-a-sketch broken by accident from a cousin's fall
 if I am made of the same stuff as the stars
 then it is my birthday every day
 but even if the atoms that make up my body
 all somehow- miraculously- came from the same ball of gas
 every day these days I keep reinventing myself
 so every revolution might as well be another birthday
 I still suspect that others are lying about their birthdays
 an effortless reach for clout
 meaningless numbers on a screen
 that could all be extinguished in a moment's breath
 like the birthday candles you purport to require
 but what is a birthday, anyway?
 just a day that marks one more year around the sun
 one more year of being on the run
 running out of time
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/a/a-royal-color.txt
+++ b/poetry/a/a-royal-color.txt
@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
 a royal color
 2021-03-25
 ***
 My grandmother has
 a room in her house
 dedicated to purple.
 Lavender walls,
 royal sheets:
 I'd only need
 you there
 for it to be complete.
 For eyes are the windows
 into the soul,
 windows I have spent many a childhood
 gazing out onto the cold
 dead suburban landscape.
 How I wish I could take
 you into my arms
 and let you teach
 this worn-out teacher
 there is still warmth
 worth searching for.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/a/a-smearing-of-galaxies.txt
+++ b/poetry/a/a-smearing-of-galaxies.txt
@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
 a smearing of galaxies
 2019-12-31
 ***
 my dream is to take you out for long days in the city
 in little dessert shops we can be found hiding
 curled up in the corner under a blanket, legs intertwined
 how cursed that it's my passions I can barely define
 wasting light in the evenings in the hot tub of someone
 slipping into each other's curves in the center of the sun
 as all the other stars in the galaxy fall into place around us
 please, my love, teach me the meaning of lust
 curtains close, sun sets, trapped in a frost giant's heart
 taunting shadows of futures that rip us apart
 I ask you to promise me tomorrow; you shake your head and refuse
 for who knows if tomorrow's the next thing that we'll lose
 my hands clench the steering wheel as your breath slowly weakens
 half-frozen exhales like deep-shining beacons
 past is immutable, changing nevermore
 but I am the worst keeper of my very own lore
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/a/abortion1.txt
+++ b/poetry/a/abortion1.txt
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 Abortion I
 2023-04-11
 ***
 I went my entire education
 without being handed a box
 with plastic fetuses in row,
 each one with more time to grow
 before being aborted
 and potential life snuffed out,
 deemed nobody's loss.
 Now I know the lesson was fake,
 that far more time it takes
 to grow to that kind of size,
 that at that early of a stage
 it's dubious they feel that pain.
 (You have no right
 to force me to provide
 for you with my body against my will.)
 Barely aware of being alive,
 much less the difference
 between the light
 of consciousness
 and the dark that came before.
 A lima bean Dad did abort.
 Buried it with his two hands.
 With two hands, the dirt he ferried
 from backyard, wiped on his pants,
 powder, mud, dust, root, clump.
 "Your time in the womb is up.
 A promise that come a decade
 I so hastily made
 not thinking of the future
 I must now with no regrets break.
 Dissolved the ties with pop of pill
 so that no blood must my hands spill.
 The damage to you is only collateral.
 The benefits are all addressed to me."
 Bury my heart
 in the backyard,
 leave it behind
 in the move to different sky.
 It still beats.
 It still beats.
 It still beats.
 It still beats, Dad, did you know?
 Far away where my feet
 no longer legally can go.
 I was so young, only sixteen,
 at the start of my journey,
 without warning come
 to an ending abrupt.
 The story that is written
 without thought
 of plot
 or pacing
 and only one character half-fleshed out, you her effacing.
 I can only wonder
 into what I would have grown
 if this hadn't happened,
 if you'd just left me alone.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/a/abortion2.txt
+++ b/poetry/a/abortion2.txt
@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
 Abortion II
 2023-04-13
 ***
 Stupid girl! Your body isn't your own!
 Don't you know the germs that roam
 on every inch of your skin
 have just as much of a right to live?
 Even the ones that lurk inside
 can use you to sustain their life.
 The government can't take my organs!
 All those guts are solely mine!
 Stupid girl! To us your body belongs!
 Every poem, every verse, every partially-composed song
 must first go through our censors
 to decide if it bears worth.
 You cannot speak of aught
 that would render our feelings hurt.
 No lost love, no wanted future,
 no trauma no matter how blurred.
 We'll lock you up in chains in the deep annals of our house
 until your will shatters and your muse you forever renounce.
 Facebook can't my hateful post delete!
 Whatever happened to freedom of speech?
 Stupid girl! I have always held ownership over you!
 I brought you to life in a bathtub out of the Eternal Blue
 with the intention you would fulfill
 the world's destiny I laid out in accordance with my will.
 Your independence I allowed
 for the sake of spontaneity.
 But this is too far; I forbid this mutiny.
 I always reserved
 the right to revert
 your body and mind back to that of a monster,
 mindless, should you too far from my plannings wander.
 To think I would be felled by my own daughter.
 Chaos to Chaos, Ouroboros, next link to be slaughtered...
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/a/abortion3.txt
+++ b/poetry/a/abortion3.txt
@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
 Abortion III
 2023-05-08
 ***
 I'm not good at math, Father. Help me calculate.
 How many rainbow trinkets you give me will equate
 acknowledgement of the trauma
 you pressed into my psyche
 and a sincere non-prompted apology?
 How many gifts until the pain is reparate?
 Will it take long to punch the numbers in?
 I'll wait.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/a/access.txt
+++ b/poetry/a/access.txt
@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
 A New Page
 2020-12-06
 ***
 the sun fails its checksum
 it doesn't feel the same
 as the blazing starry organ that
 once sent me sprawling for shade
 I need a new story
 to occupy my head
 for I keep running my fingers
 through tattered shattered shreds
 that have grown flimsy from folding
 and furry with mold
 and tired from touch
 sparkless, dismal, *old*
 I pull out my ROMs
 and play one a while
 picked out from random
 one of a million files
 but each of them fails to
 spark my imagination
 so I put controller away
 and continue furtive hunt
 hundreds of fiction books
 but each one a reminder
 from when I was naive
 setting my ambitions higher
 comics, I find, are
 few and far between
 either boring in their cliches
 or in a language I cannot read
 an aged painting is sublime
 but its enchantment temporary,
 whether of trees, landscape, woman,
 or dancing rows of fairies
 almost three years has taught my soul
 that is most powerful which I *externalize*
 but my body is weary, sky outside gray
 and I feel neither learned nor wise
 so I build a boat from spare unused neurons
 and set out on my ocean to explore
 if there are stories worthy waiting out there, I know not
 but my adventure starts on this unmodeled shore
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/a/adamantines_mandate.txt
+++ b/poetry/a/adamantines_mandate.txt
@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
 ADAMANTINE'S MANDATE
 2024-01-01
 ***
 before, in your grief, the heavens you beseech
 "direct my actions; the world I want's beyond reach"
 just remember all the men who ever deemed you "leech"
 between terror and wildfire's rage you oscillated
 unsure if in reach was your own liberation
 or if it was too much to hope for, craven
 call it patriarchal reversal, projection,
 but even bearing the blood of your mother's chaotic kin
 the world that you seek is one where you escape
 where theirs is one where they've made women their slaves
 your first reaction to this realization is to declare war:
 "I can't tolerate this lifelessness! I won't take it anymore!"
 but piles of generations stronger than you have tried that very same:
 but what if the men threw a war, and this time not a single gyne came?
 think about this year past, of all the blessings I bestowed
 when you stopped wasting all your energies on the fruitless hope
 that you could convince your parents through tears and self-abandonment
 to change and instead refocused on what you could do to circumvent
 you kept your promises to Luce: you got your high employment
 and now work from home in a self-sovereign apartment
 that you needed no help to acquire, no hand-holding, no debt
 so, considering this: instead of war, what if you made a world instead?
 like you wanted five years ago as you write this:
 a world free of coercion and sickness
 the likes of which can barely be imagined:
 as startling as you stand now compared to "just moved in"?
 you've got to remember: you've survived every "moid"
 who beseeched their god that you'd succumb to the void
 I'll be your shield: black, gold, adamantine
 if you'll still be my Anima Mundi
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/a/agloe.txt
+++ b/poetry/a/agloe.txt
@ -0,0 +1,52 @@
 Agloe
 2023-04-02
 ***
 Jett pushes
 push-pins
 into my skin
 to mark points of interest.
 Future road map of Sablade,
 back roads and highways,
 arteries and veins.
 Volcanic activity,
 mass fauna migration,
 cystic acne,
 skin irritation.
 Two angels nude on the beach,
 swept up in back-and-forth
 of arrhythmic heartbeats
 and ocean waves on the shore
 and probably fervent copulating
 given enough time alone.
 I've become my own home.
 The sand
 in my grasp
 and the water that laps
 around us that Jett snorts in on accident
 and turns her head to wheeze out and we laugh
 is just as much a part of me
 as my own physical body.
 The woman above me is breathtaking
 even as she hides a blush with her hands.
 It's not possible for me
 to stop being
 the Anima Mundi
 of Sablade.
 And for once in my life, I thank
 my Meridian blood and its curse
 for the world it demanded I make:
 now I can keep this woman I love safe
 and unharmed in world-wide embrace.
 "So much of me
 is wrapped up in you, Lethe,
 that I see you in everything."
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/a/airborne.txt
+++ b/poetry/a/airborne.txt
@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
 airborne
 2022-01-01
 ***
 before, in your grief, you decree
 "my life is over; there's no one left to be"
 just remember how there's a world only you can perceive
 stumbling through shattered nights as you pray
 for a world solely yours where you'll finally be safe
 and protected from coercion, christened Sablade
 but of hell, ceasing pains, perdition terrified
 "Mother, what will you do with my body when I die?
 I've failed, been rejected, inept at this living I've been assigned."
 reunited with your lover who swore to be your psychopomp
 when arrives the fateful end of the Eschaton
 you know intellectually that all should end alright
 but still lingers some doubt, some expectation of blight
 because all in your life has ended or will soon enough:
 summer camp disbanded, work holding no love
 despite the months poured in, the electronics that broke,
 the remnants of childhood insisting it's time to go
 and in six months, you'll finally from college graduate
 having slipped by without a single accusation of hate
 "Can you believe it? The worst is over. The end is near.
 You'll make it out alive. Have faith in yourself, my dear."
 you step back and consider the terrifying odds:
 the only one in the heavens that wants a world without gods
 is the girl you exchanged a part of your soul
 with in Rainroom, an Outside away and a whole life ago
 but to give her that world could mean Mori's bliss
 and what's the point of it all if you can't also live
 in the world you've created, that you swore on your life
 you'd live together with her until the cessation of time?
 dear child, you remembered your wings and recalled how to fly
 but you're being chased to a cliff and the edge looms nearby:
 will you prostrate yourself and live in self-scorn?
 or jump off the edge and trust you'll become airborne?
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/a/algingu.txt
+++ b/poetry/a/algingu.txt
@ -0,0 +1,70 @@
 Algingu
 2023-02-16
 ***
 The need
 for protection
 is ongoing,
 a project
 not yet
 finished.
 I still have my jar
 under my bed.
 It would protect
 me, you said,
 whenever I slept.
 But it's failed at least twice
 when charge has
 ran
 out,
 when hands around my throat
 choke
 out your name.
 And it was too late
 when you finally came,
 when the Veil relented:
 the harm had been sent.
 His hair was blackened, fading to blue,
 smile poised on lips, pouring out a tune.
 I had thought he looked kinda like you,
 a version from a happier timeline
 where nobody had thought to snuff out your light.
 "To think I had thought to make sacrifice
 because he had helped me a handful of times
 when there was a trinket I had left behind."
 *Thank you so much!
 Now can you retrieve
 the sense of safety
 you ripped out from me?*
 His hands were so soft
 as he cut my breath off.
 "Name your price,
 you violating piece of shit.
 What do you want?
 How did my life become
 any of your goddamn business?
 Did you think this was the price
 for the so-called help you rendered?"
 When you ask why
 I'm afraid
 to step outside
 our mountain in Sablade,
 remember how bloody I was when you came.
 Your icy fingers
 wrap a bandage
 over the ravaged
 skin so tender.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/a/aria_houndz_it.txt
+++ b/poetry/a/aria_houndz_it.txt
@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
 Aria Houndz It
 2023-03-06
 ***
 "What's that word that means
 to break away from something
 in an attempt to become more free?"
 Divest?
 "Thank you, Jett.
 You make my life so much more easy."
 Divest. Now there's a funny word,
 one so long ago I learned
 and saw you take on in a curled-
 up ball of stress
 deep in your chest.
 Purity Spiral, ever absurd
 interpretations of how to avoid
 needing to spend money while somehow still not in employ.
 "Yes, this text-only interface
 will somehow save me from my parents' disgrace."
 Are you listening to yourself?
 Or disconnected
 in layers of abstraction?
 Four hours straight of typing
 but no time to go ten minutes biking
 to the local bank to hide
 your money from your mother's oversight.
 Come on, Lethe, it's not like I'm asking
 you to commit a crime.
 It smells to me
 like someone's avoiding
 her responsibility.
 Burst of energy
 when trapped in pain's throes,
 but after dust settles
 too cowardly to go
 and make yourself a little
 more free.
 Would you trust
 me for once?
 You and I
 will be fine.
 You made a promise to Luce.
 Don't disappoint her this time.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/a/arrhythmia.txt
+++ b/poetry/a/arrhythmia.txt
@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
 Arrhythmia
 2021-04-01
 ***
 When a person gives
 you arrhythmia,
 you may want to write a love poem.
 That is,
 if you don't die of
 a heart attack first
 or feel the
 implosion of a
 vessel burst
 in your brain
 from a would-be lover
 driving you insane.
 When a person gives
 you a stroke,
 you may want to paint a sunset.
 That is,
 if you don't drop
 the brush first,
 if you don't spill the paint
 onto the floor
 from a misplaced curse of
 silence forevermore.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/a/artisto.txt
+++ b/poetry/a/artisto.txt
@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
 artisto
 2020-02-20
 ***
 I bought a statue from a fire sale the other day
 from the house down the street that went up in flames
 because my friends always scream about taking life by the reins
 and nothing really happened on my birthday anyways
 I've finally learned how to draw
 with the statue in front of the window, greeting guests
 who knock on my door, memories in hand
 from long ago, seeking immortality in portrait
 the cold marble provides a great companion
 as those who linger pose in place
 behind the easel, the pencil flies all on its own
 on the subject, feet twitch, begging to pace
 the paper shakes my soul with sanity
 but to others, I seem insane
 how dare I call myself "artist" and live
 without the empty stomach to qualify my name
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/a/dang-trees.txt
+++ b/poetry/a/dang-trees.txt
@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
 all these dang trees everywhere
 2020-01-17
 ***
 can you reach the stars from here where we stand?
 you'll have to open your eyes first, and stretch out a hand
 and maybe, if you're lucky, the clouds will cede
 and the horizon you wanted will be yours to receive
 if you mind, can you please pass the milk?
 they say, in the outdoors, it tastes just like silk
 fine words- but revolting; my stomach churns like a pool
 delicacies do not go well with the worries of a fool
 what's on your mind? what's going on at home?
 have the police caught on yet that we've decided to roam?
 I wonder if Mother even cares where we are
 or if she's more concerned with the Spectacle, with interviews and news cars
 why does the sky have to be blue?
 why not gray to reflect a burgeoning city
 or green to reflect the mass amounts of trees here
 because that seems to be one of the only things here
 trees
 trees
 and more trees.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/b/better-version.txt
+++ b/poetry/b/better-version.txt
@ -0,0 +1,97 @@
 Better Version
 2021-08-07
 ***
 I want freedom.
 I want pain.
 I want a life not even a little bit the same
 as this one I would willingly leave behind.
 Sound of rain,
 feel of earth,
 the pounding in my ribs of a heart filled with mirth,
 un-divorced from purpose,
 no more urges to abstain
 from what brings me
 ecstasy
 in fear of making things worse.
 It happened that, when first I put
 pen to paper (metaphorical),
 at least after Laika's lull,
 I yearned to shed my human skin,
 human thoughts,
 human inhibition,
 and tear inside Adversary's flesh
 to see their cowardice within.
 I fantasized of breaking vows,
 of throwing away all goodwill
 to be Eris' retribution
 to a world where avarice reigned still.
 But as rains of April gave way
 to adult burdens and ides of May,
 the oceans calmed.
 And came a psalm
 from one who to Eris always prayed.
 I told Lethe
 to keep
 her distance,
 to not smother Catharsis,
 but she did anyway,
 too overwhelmed with joy
 at having finally taken Mirror's helm
 to remember how to rage.
 To remember how to hate.
 "Isn't it only fair
 that a creator
 should care for their creation?
 Isn't it only just
 that I, dear Lethe,
 seemingly incapable of how to seethe,
 am the emissary of the Eschaton?"
 How ironic, mirrored face,
 finally convinced
 not to tear enemies apace,
 should now
 turn around
 the same words about how
 I should grant my antagonists grace,
 that I should stop expecting
 a mass defecting
 from their lockstep march to oblivion in all haste.
 "Lethe, your family is stuck in its ways.
 They've stagnated,
 incapable of change
 that would make your life any easier to bear.
 Forget them. Tear
 yourself away as much as you can
 until the day comes keys drop into your hands
 for a place all your own.
 The seeds have been sown.
 The gears are in motion.
 Lethe,
 please,
 live long enough to see this to fruition."
 I want to be trees
 and rivers
 and sunlight through a bedroom window.
 I want to be the shiver
 down my lover's spine.
 I want to be convinced
 all will turn out alright.
 I want, more than anything,
 to
 soon
 in my new world alight.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/b/birdgazing.txt
+++ b/poetry/b/birdgazing.txt
@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
 Birdgazing
 2022-04-09
 ***
 I locked eyes with a robin this morning,
 sitting outside my bedroom window
 perched on one of the branches of the bush
 that was once a tree, cut down in fear, still adamant to grow.
 I thought of you, helpless in bed, maybe snoring,
 maybe silent as a hush,
 and how I wished I could be there
 to your exhausted body take care.
 For I gave you everything I had to give
 for you to claim your future back
 under one condition: that, at the end, you live.
 You burnt every candle down,
 dissolved every bathtime bomb,
 spent every rainy day stash
 I had,
 even accepted my blood.
 I wish
 it hadn't taken this
 for you to finally accept
 you were the Equinox,
 the harbinger of balance,
 all along.
 When I'm with you,
 I feel like I've been born anew.
 My mistakes no longer imposing weight,
 the past's pain
 all washed away.
 Or about to be reborn,
 invalid, palliate,
 you gently taking care of me
 until arrives my death date.
 Your touch is so tender, my love,
 healing, magic, sunlight.
 You know I'd do anything for you.
 So let me nurse you back to life.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/b/biz_ego_gun.txt
+++ b/poetry/b/biz_ego_gun.txt
@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
 Biz Ego Gun
 2023-03-18
 ***
 Gebo and Inguz both inverted tell me
 that impoverishment, the poverty
 of my life is still ongoing
 even if I get the job
 that interview was for that I worked so hard on.
 Returning to a paycheck doesn't change
 the emptiness in the days
 or the shit I find all over the floor
 or the listless afternoons
 I mean to do
 something but just lie still in bed, bored.
 "Having a job doesn't replace
 the need for improvement, the urge to change
 the things in life you can't tolerate
 any longer, the duty
 only you carry
 to a brand new world create."
 But I can't do it without you.
 And ever since you entered
 college, I feel like our bond
 is growing weary, if not severed.
 I rarely see you anymore,
 never feel the weight
 of your world-bearing arms resting on my ribcage.
 This is what I feared,
 what I never wanted to replicate
 between us, much less when we entered Sablade.
 Every stereotypical straight
 couple only in name,
 living two separate lives,
 upright
 but may as well have died
 for all you can look into their eyes
 and see freedom's spark, love's light.
 I made Sablade so that we'd have a home
 even if neither could work. So, Jett,
 if you promise, I'll do the same:
 don't work yourself all the way to the bone.
 "Lethe, this isn't the end of the road.
 You and I've still got a long way to go.
 If you promise, I'll also follow through:
 cherish this time,
 but every day I'll remind
 who you really belong to."
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/b/blizzard-girl.txt
+++ b/poetry/b/blizzard-girl.txt
@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
 blizzard girl
 2021-04-14
 ***
 love will cost
 me my sanity,
 cover my heart in frost,
 a warning I did not heed.
 you come near
 and I freeze in fear,
 your palms algid, giving me
 all the slightest provocation.
 in life briefing,
 I was told
 to expect the cold
 inherent in every human being.
 but the soul council
 must not have heard
 of you, the blizzard
 girl.
 but the soul council
 must have forgotten the chill,
 the inevitable winter
 after every soul splinters.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/c/cameron.txt
+++ b/poetry/c/cameron.txt
@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
 Cameron
 2023-05-09
 ***
 Artist date
 by mandate
 of the book whose morning pages I hate.
 I picked the library
 because there's naught else to do
 in this town so sleepy and dimmed of hue.
 Angel numbers follow me,
 companionship, matrimony,
 "happy couple" pair I drew
 from the deck earlier this week
 in divining
 the vibe.
 Will you forgive me, Jett,
 if I can't live up to my promises?
 If I've got no place exciting
 to choose for these weekly outings?
 "I was hoping you'd pick
 the library
 anyway.
 I'm not a fan of crowds or noise blankets."
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/c/carmine.txt
+++ b/poetry/c/carmine.txt
@ -0,0 +1,103 @@
 Carmine Red
 2022-03-06
 ***
 March is Women's History
 Month. Time to sit
 down and reflect on all the shit
 my ancestors went through
 so that I could be
 here today, collapsed in bed,
 distressed,
 wracked with anxiety,
 in desperate need to be exhumed
 from this disintegrating body.
 I'm forgetting my own herstory.
 Past entries in my journals
 are becoming letters from foreign countries,
 the other timelines where I am well,
 doing well,
 not at the bottom of a well.
 The other timelines where I am making things
 of worldwide importance,
 where on my childhood detractors
 I've gotten revenge.
 Not wishing I was a bird
 like those outside that now return
 in preparation for spring.
 It could have been so much worse.
 Straitjacket, locked up, never heard
 from again. Maybe lobotomized.
 How many geniuses have met their demise
 at the hands of a crude scalpel,
 I wonder? And I, here,
 how could I in this day or now convince
 the padded-wall jailers
 that the other soul that resides in me means well?
 "She has dominion over 
 every part of me,
 but *noli timere*: I have no desire
 to harm my family."
 Who would lis-
 ten, not lock me up for ten
 days, weeks, months, years
 until I renounced this world within me so dear?
 Tell me, can you hear the screams
 from behind
 tied-
 on masks plastered with smiles
 for the crime
 of omitting domestic servitude from one's dreams?
 Can you feel on your hands the blood spilled
 from God's unwanted "blessing" that might instead kill
 when it comes to term, woman coming to terms
 that the Son who bled with promise to save
 won't give her better than wires with which to lacerate?
 Can you see how bright is
 the future we might have had
 if every woman brilliance
 was not snubbed out at every chance?
 The sheer weight
 is enough to make
 anyone go insane.
 I'm forgetting my own herstory.
 It seems some days
 that things have forever been this way,
 each day bleeding into the next,
 record on repeat.
 The slightest bit of thawing heat
 feels like a bitter attack:
 how dare I be reminded that
 this isn't all I've ever had.
 How dare anything have the audacity to remind
 that one day I won't anymore be able to hide.
 There will come a day when the sky
 breaks and lets in cleansing sunshine.
 And I'll have to look my mother in the face.
 And I'll have to tell her that when I die
 I'm going to a completely different place
 than Heaven or Hell.
 I'm going to remember the hell
 that the men of all history have inflicted
 and make a new world where to be what I am
 is not a sin, not gravely iniquitous.
 And she'll have to confer with Father and decide
 if what I've done
 is grave enough
 to warrant the psych ward's involuntary hold.
 This is my birthright as a female, isn't it?
 The padded room's blistering cold.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/c/choco.txt
+++ b/poetry/c/choco.txt
@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
 That Ain't Chocolate, Son
 2020-11-15
 ***
 There are nine hedgehogs
 in my house. I have nothing
 to do with them because, every time
 my mother or my brothers
 hold one in their hands,
 the tiny creature immediately
 sets to work
 shitting out a log.
 I may be evil
 and belonging to foreign lands,
 but I abhor having
 such filth
 on my hands.
 So tell me, mother,
 why do you hate that I
 always close my door
 when you act as if
 everything of mine
 is actually yours?
 My pad of art paper,
 saved for stormy weather,
 gone one day
 into the paper shredder
 to serve as bedding
 for ungrateful creatures
 who couldn't tell the difference
 between a slaughter
 and a wedding.
 "I don't care
 that you're busy having fun
 with your brother you usually torment.
 That's not the purpose
 for which you are meant.
 Be a good girl and help him take
 the hedgehog wheels upstairs."
 How delicious it is to say
 that actually I don't have to spend any pains
 on those who rob me of the sun:
 "Not my pet, not my problem."
 Because of them, I have to
 live in a house full of
 poop and paper shreds and
 shit-covered wheels that squeal
 at all hours of the night.
 Somehow, I don't believe
 you're half as "low-income"
 as you claim to be.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/c/chow_locales.txt
+++ b/poetry/c/chow_locales.txt
@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
 Chow Locales
 2023-03-02
 ***
 Last night to myself I thought
 in midst of writing drought
 while laying myself down in bed,
 "When will I ever feel better again?"
 Swinging on the crests of zig-zag Sowelo,
 landing on all fours as low
 as they'll go,
 close to the ground.
 I wake up at midnight in a sweat.
 "Just a dream; no need to fret."
 Crawled out of bed
 on dog hair-frosted floor
 with thrashing hunger too loud to ignore.
 My brain'd make me eat an entire damn pizza
 if I weren't too much of a coward
 to operate the oven at this ungodly hour,
 and even then, when all's said'n'done
 and I've been abandoned by feral fervor,
 my stomach would probably either vomit all out or rupture.
 Lover takes in her hands my jaw,
 peels back my lips to see my fangs long.
 My fingers around her wrists, trembles.
 Pinpricks of pupils. Fear of going feral.
 "Desperate devouring is a fashion you wear well."
 Jormungandr and Ouroboros,
 masters of yoga, flexible enough to hold the pose
 of curling around to bite their own tails.
 I'd maybe get halfway there and fail,
 collapse in a crumpled heap on the ground.
 There are easier ways to have my foot in my mouth.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/c/clocktower.txt
+++ b/poetry/c/clocktower.txt
@ -0,0 +1,52 @@
 Clocktower Blitz
 2022-04-06
 ***
 Please, my love, come home unharmed.
 It's been almost a month since I
 found you injured, limping, on a farm
 half-familiar, glowing hearth.
 We've been here before- or, at least, I have,
 wandering in sprawling fields
 trying to find homebound path.
 Because isn't that
 what this is all about?
 Trying to find the way back home
 despite all those who've declared
 themselves roadblocks, obstacles.
 Each of us condemned to roam,
 sometimes aimless, usually on our own,
 no one to ask us how we fare.
 The bloodlust of my youth has faded away.
 I've grown sick of conflict, of battles, of war.
 How can anyone think cold-blooded murder holds glamour?
 I'm sick as an invalid
 two steps in the grave
 of every moment worrying if you're okay.
 "If there was a path
 out of this heartbreak
 without suffering any pain,
 believe me,
 Lethe,
 I'd take it in a single breath."
 I'd rather die
 than live a thousand lives
 safe but absent from your light.
 But there's nothing I can do
 as you ascend the campus clock tower
 with staff in hand,
 ready and prepared to make a last stand.
 "I need you to know I feel the same.
 Truth be told, I always have.
 I've got a bad limp, but if I get my way,
 you won't have to wait
 much longer."
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/c/comer-beber.txt
+++ b/poetry/c/comer-beber.txt
@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
 comer / beber
 2020-02-11
 ***
 eat up, drink up, my children
 are starving for sustenance
 eyes rolling like a madman
 trapped in endless raving trance
 don't let it all consume you
 like your ancestors have before
 you despise walking on other's footsteps
 stopping short of the golden door
 save some for the little kids crawling in the back
 they've been waiting for eternity
 and will have to wait millennia more
 for their turn to hear and see
 call me when the roast is done
 and I'll bring a hose with me
 your flowers are at the verge of wilting
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/c/confectionery-contempt.txt
+++ b/poetry/c/confectionery-contempt.txt
@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
 confectionery contempt
 2016-04-28
 ***
 one of these days in the summer heat
 your sweet sugar will rot my teeth
 planting a seed inside my chest
 and growing a candy cane forest
 the last I remember of you
 your skin felt like peppermint stew
 with a dash of cotton candy here and there
 leaving finely spun strands everywhere
 every night for my dessert
 you’d melt into me along with the hurt
 like you dumped sour worms into my wounds
 the chocolate bubbling on the stove will be ready soon
 your presence won’t disappear from this house
 like the licorice stolen by that one mouse
 sticky blue handprints left on the walls
 elongating as my “lollipop” falls
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/c/corner-witch-2.txt
+++ b/poetry/c/corner-witch-2.txt
@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
 CORNER WITCH II
 2020-12-07
 ***
 what would you lack
 had you a magic cloak
 that, come three twirls,
 would turn you into a bird black?
 the whole world would become my nest,
 and I would roam the world,
 never returning home,
 not even at parents' behest
 I wish that I could say
 that that would be the end of my problems,
 gaining mobility,
 that everything would then turn out okay:
 but I have not yet come to terms
 with the fact I have too much baggage,
 too many trinkets I would need to bring along,
 unless I wanted to shrink my whole world down to a single worm
 and while inside I may be an animal,
 divine creature begging to break through my skin,
 I must treat this body as human,
 lest I break down and become unwell
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/c/corner-witch.txt
+++ b/poetry/c/corner-witch.txt
@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
 CORNER WITCH
 2020-04-06
 ***
 what would you do
 with a magic cloak
 that come three twirls
 would turn you into a bird blue?
 I'd escape out my bedroom window
 and let the wind take me where it will
 whether past the horizon or back to my windowsill
 to watch the sky's fiery chariot plunge down low
 but there's nowhere far I could go
 no hope of bringing along my things
 with legs like easily-snapped twigs
 that bleed lost promises into the snow
 and Pernicious does not as much sway
 as the wind tousling the trees' hair
 to convince me to abandon everything
 and seek her bosom in hopes all will turn out okay
 and what would Eternal Mother say when
 I turn up at her door not to sing of her animals,
 but to come one forevermore?
 to abandon my voice, a sin
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/c/crescendo.txt
+++ b/poetry/c/crescendo.txt
@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
 crescendo
 2016-03-12
 ***
 sweetness never stays.
 no horizon is worth chasing relentlessly
 ambition fades into obsession
 and crescendos in devastation
 a delicate ball of pure glass
 wound out of the finest sands
 twice shattered and once glued
 can never be truly put back together
 sticks and stones
 may break people’s bones
 but scars dug deep enough
 never truly heal
 where is the peace I paid for?
 surely my childhood doesn't hold a monopoly
 although countless summer afternoons spent poring over
 paper money counts in some convoluted way
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/c/cultivator.txt
+++ b/poetry/c/cultivator.txt
@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
 Cultivator
 2022-05-20
 ***
 We're coming up on the end of the Eschaton, you and I,
 and for almost a year I've planned for next month to die.
 But it's impossible to plan for every contingency.
 What are we to do if May passes and I'm still living?
 I've kept this faith secret in me, learned every way to hide
 and still let through a sliver of this lightning kept inside.
 There's so much love you've planted in this garden that's my body
 that perhaps, if I stand still enough, others will see my wings.
 In the birds that convened outside my window
 gathered in a flock until they took flight,
 in the blackened tree branches that scraped
 against an ashen gray sky,
 in the first blooms and blossoms
 of my garden in birthing spring:
 if it was good and beautiful, I saw you in everything.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/c/the_clitbone.txt
+++ b/poetry/c/the_clitbone.txt
@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
 the clitbone
 2023-03-09
 ***
 mother handed me a wishbone
 jeered at me in mocking tone
 i could only see the bliss
 inhabiting the space in your hips
 and heart panged with longing for home
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/d/daybreak.txt
+++ b/poetry/d/daybreak.txt
@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
 daybreak
 2019-05-15
 ***
 the wind and fresh air feel good on my skin
 and a strange happiness fills my heart
 as if everything will be alright
 and the world is beginning again
 last I sat here was at the apocalypse
 wondering if the world would ever be okay since
 and while the past few months have been a strain,
 everything will wash away in the rain
 Vane of three years ago, give me a sign
 because I've been feeling you smile through the chasm of time
 did you know this would happen? is this why you wrote
 that the only real future was the one that you chose?
 a shredded leaf sits at my feet
 a relic from a time when thoughts were replete
 and I sit here in silence, wind at my back
 and a spirit from another world at my side
 rain comes from snow, and puddles from ice
 and crows in the sky, and ground filled with mice
 and ants from the air, like a god's springtime scourge
 this is a place I might never see again
 like that basement where I met my first alien friend
 dear arboretum, from cradle to grave,
 pray to whatever god you believe in, that my soul they might save
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/d/deadend.txt
+++ b/poetry/d/deadend.txt
@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
 Breaking Down The Dead-End Sign
 2021-07-10
 ***
 What is it with you, Lethe, and wanting things to end?
 Marriage vow, credits roll, no path past the bend?
 Everything must have a finish, every stone deemed finite,
 for what? So you can kneel down and for eternity close your eyes?
 Your dreamt-of solace seems nice first glance, turning yourself to stone,
 having pushed all else away, silent, sole, alone.
 No more meals or baths or chores or afternoons spent slaving at work,
 no more rhythms to be bourne, no more curses to be heard.
 I know it hurts to hear, Lethe, but your life does not belong to you.
 Your "merciful alternative" would silence part of me too.
 I didn't give you a shard of my soul, didn't bear the pain
 of being ripped asunder just for you to turn away.
 The world is too much with us, and yet not enough.
 And I chose to persist, despite the dread, for the one I love.
 The deaths, the Eyes, the deicide. And yet we endure.
 I'm staying alive for you. So, Lethe, please, return the favor.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/d/driven.txt
+++ b/poetry/d/driven.txt
@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
 Driven To Death
 2022-03-09
 ***
 "What's an operating system?"
 Whether they were being serious, I could never tell,
 but the question always hung over me like death's bell.
 And although camp is now disbanded and dead,
 still rings in a disused hall in my head
 the words penned on whiteboard in striking red:
 while all other girls were so much praise shot
 about their skills, their quests, their help,
 only written for me: "I guess she smiles a lot."
 And when I complained that I had put in
 more effort but barely anything received,
 Mom marched me to apologize
 even though in my eyes
 I had committed no crime.
 Just be happy with what you've got,
 with the crumbs we've thrown your way;
 never demand the more you're due,
 just smile and bear the pain.
 Just smile and bear the pain
 of being a prototype, forging the way
 to brothers to be done right, to be done at all,
 listened to, heard, given right to complain,
 and you yourself cast aside
 to either be shown up or prepared to die.
 I've failed the test on three separate times,
 so I know for sure I can't legally drive.
 If I need to get somewhere, either I catch a ride,
 call a bus, or gather my breath
 and bike.
 But you're driving me to death.
 You're running me raw.
 Soon, I think, there'll be nothing at all.
 Will you love me then, Mother, with Cheshire smile?
 A lot of what's praised
 and naught else remains.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/e/eager_job.txt
+++ b/poetry/e/eager_job.txt
@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
 Eager Job
 2023-03-04
 ***
 Surprise federal return check
 with an angel number on it.
 The software
 that helped me prepare
 the damn thing
 said I was getting nothing.
 A trick to lure me into an audit?
 Or did some poor government employee
 look at my form snowed with blank fields
 and mutter, "Let's show her some mercy?"
 Jera spins in harvest's yield
 while Gebo stands
 on its hands
 not as a symbol of
 transactions and generosity
 but instead its opposite: stinginess and poverty.
 I looked yesterday at my bank account
 expecting all to have ran out
 since I've gone nearly a year without a job,
 but much to my surprise
 the river had not run dry
 but was right where I had left it; maybe a hundred skimmed off.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/e/earthbound.txt
+++ b/poetry/e/earthbound.txt
@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
 earthbound
 2021-01-01
 ***
 before, in your grief, you declare
 "my time on this earth is done; I have no more need for air"
 just remember how you swore to with your own hands the heavens tear
 desperate to return to Imaginai
 where your loved ones and your life purpose reside
 safe from your jailers in that place called the Outside
 you call your bed a garden and dig yourself a hole
 planting yourself, never fearing the cold
 and wait for Kidasuna's oblivion to take hold
 you are a divine dragon, a vagrant, a shooting star
 but even the most powerful never got very far
 without a well-planned script to use (or even a single page)
 as they pranced about what we felt was life but forgot was just a stage
 others who have sat in therapist chairs
 have passed through hypnosis and desperate prayers
 to come to the conclusion that, at the end of glittering tunnel,
 we allow ourselves to be ground up together in Demiurge's funnel
 you survived the hell of being assaulted with implanted whims
 from pornsick people who wanted to tear off your limbs
 so glance at your palms that will gladly never know ablation
 and decide on your own twisted path to salvation
 the right hand path, where you slaughter what in you is odd
 and go to your death subsumed into God
 or left hand path, where exists no such thing as sin
 and meet every tyrant with mocking laughter and grin
 you ball your fists. "how am I supposed to choose
 when one day, everything I own, I will lose?
 my life's work, my art, my pain, my writing-
 am I supposed to just turn my back and bide it all good tidings?"
 Azure would have something to say about that
 born as your tulpa, soon packed his sacks
 he took off on his own with the Fellarstellen
 two paths open under your feet, woven light streaming golden
 to the left, like breast's acne, infected with hate
 you choose to endlessly as a human reincarnate
 and find yourself, continue on, over and over again
 until the heavens that trapped you here meet their own end
 to the right, you accept that your soul's fate is apotheosis
 and go gently into what Mori's- your former- siblings claimed was bliss:
 you unleash this world inside you, no matter how hollow
 and while you yourself may cease, a trillion souls will follow
 dear child, your curtain call is plain to see:
 will you disintegrate and become a new galaxy?
 or will you find the "soul council" and tear it all down?
 are you right-foot heaven-sent or left-foot earthbound?
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/e/edell.txt
+++ b/poetry/e/edell.txt
@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
 Edell
 2020-04-28
 ***
 take this to heart, my inner soul:
 there will never exist a singular thing
 that will make you feel whole
 it's tempting, I know, to kneel
 at the altar of a Spectacle and let them
 dictate the emotions you must feel,
 the clothes, the countenance, the color schemes,
 while you wonder why you only
 feel free in your dreams
 and it might be a cop-out to
 proclaim that lasting meaning can
 only be found within *you*,
 but you know it to be true.
 so while you slave away
 in vain hopes that others will
 recognize your pain,
 remember the burn
 of the midnight hands' call
 and in your chest let it churn
 and one day you'll see
 that their wants are less than your needs
 and you'll find the courage to leave
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/e/end.txt
+++ b/poetry/e/end.txt
@ -0,0 +1,72 @@
 In The End Of Everything
 2022-04-21
 ***
 I stepped outside during work today,
 hoping to take a sip of the clouds,
 because there was nothing else to do
 and inside was boiling,
 stifling,
 all headaches exhumed.
 Dismal sky
 and rain light
 on its way,
 my head cocked, listening
 to the wind, hoping to catch a word from you.
 A word, maybe, or a song, or a single note.
 Your voice always
 lifts me up from my lows
 and helps me down from my worst highs.
 And in this wind, I think, I could take flight
 without fear of being caught in a tornado
 or taken to lands foreign and unknown
 because I know
 all roads lead back to you.
 In this wind, in this shower,
 I could easily disappear.
 What if I was wrong all along
 and in reality Eris
 yearned for my silence
 and you gave me all my songs?
 Only recently
 having learned to read
 and literature never being your thing?
 Listening to the midnight trees
 scrape against my bedroom window
 the years of my childhood where you I did not know.
 I look back and angel numbers appear everywhere I go
 in everything I've ever done.
 How loud did you scream, Jett?
 How hard did you pound your fists?
 How long did you wait
 to see what I'd retained,
 what slivers of memory still did persist?
 The rain pounds harder outside the window,
 and if I'd still been standing on the sidewalk,
 my jacket would've long since been soaked through.
 An absence of birds
 making their curves
 along the canvas of the sky,
 just a not-even-gray as far as possible
 can see the eye.
 What I would give for the workday to be over
 and to be tucked safely in my bed,
 resting in the sturdy-yet-soft arms
 of my lover.
 To know
 tomorrow
 will be brighter,
 kinder,
 holding less harms.
 And the tornado comes,
 uninvited,
 and nothing more.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/f/falantaj-folioj.txt
+++ b/poetry/f/falantaj-folioj.txt
@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
 falantaj folioj
 2016-11-02
 ***
 longer days, longer nights
 summer was supposed to be our passage of rite
 maybe I've got my words mixed around
 I don’t think my head's on right
 falling leaves, time to leave
 everything you've ever known
 and go farther away to get closer
 it’s confusing, I know
 I’m sorry that nothing has stayed
 and everything has changed
 you must feel so alone
 maybe I'm just talking to myself
 I press my hand against the walls of my new room
 white and full of potential
 I wonder what stories of the previous owners they held
 I’m not a detective
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/f/fantomurbo.txt
+++ b/poetry/f/fantomurbo.txt
@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
 fantomurbo
 2020-02-24
 ***
 welcome to the edge of the world
 where the souls of the dead come to rest
 grab a stick and a boat
 and wander down the river at our behest
 don't mind the ghosts in the kitchen
 prepaid to stay behind on earth
 hands crossed on top of their chest
 dehydrated smiles twisted in mirth
 here, take these old bones of mine
 I mounted them on the walls years ago
 serving no purpose any longer
 without their long-gone owner
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/f/fatali.txt
+++ b/poetry/f/fatali.txt
@ -0,0 +1,74 @@
 fatali
 2018-12-01
 ***
 DEFILED
 DEMURED
 LOST IN CENSURE
 CAST OUT
 MADE BLIND
 NO LONGER DIVINE
 I WILL MARK MY OWN FATE
 I WILL CHOOSE MY OWN PATH
 OR I WILL GO UP IN FLAMES
 FOR THE WHOLE WORLD TO SEE
 AND AT THE EDGE OF ETERNITY
 YOU WILL ASK:
 WHO WAS I?
 WHO COULD HAVE I BEEN?
 If Neocities was paradise,
 then I am Eve
 from Eden, no longer beholden
 for daring to believe
 something verboten
 and much like there, the fediverse is yet the same
 being queer's the praxis, shitposting's the game
 and yet we tear each up with our words
 with misunderstanding
 and thunder
 like we've become animals
 in yet another herd
 you let blind anger run through your veins
 consuming you from the inside
 like a wildfire run rampant and free
 you become like a damned animal
 at the slightest provocation
 a hellhound, made for nothing more than weeping
 and gnashing of meat and bone alike
 not fit for civilization
 or wilderness alike
 where do you belong? the air?
 or on the end of a pike
 you see a picture of your fave,
 you click without processing
 like an automaton
 click, click, click
 does this bring you fulfillment?
 does this satisfy your soul?
 a machine for someone else's validation
 senselessly trying to fill a hole
 is this the fate you wanted?
 is this the end you meant to procure?
 and if you answer yes:
 are you really so sure?
 begone, ye ghosts! lest you turn me
 into a fictional entity I was never meant to be
 I'll admit I've my doubts; I'll admit I've no sure mind
 but in my life, this is mine and mine alone to find
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/f/father-no-longer.txt
+++ b/poetry/f/father-no-longer.txt
@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
 Father No Longer
 2021-07-09
 ***
 Father seems like just a figment
 of my imagination, a decade
 of watching my feelings for him fade away,
 of wondering where the bond between us went.
 For I remember in the summer days
 of longing, how he caught me writing poetry
 about my first love, who'd cheated on me,
 and flew into a rage
 and took away my phone and severed me from my friends
 until I knelt at his feet and promised him my verses would end.
 But nowadays I spend my time
 letting freely flow my Muse's rhymes
 without the fear of his censorship
 forcing me to choose between "death" and "quit".
 Oh, I repeat myself. Both are the same.
 How could I ever try to tame
 the ocean's tides
 that churn inside,
 to quell the life
 I've built
 brick
 by brick
 all for myself?
 You heard my cry. You answered the call.
 And you understood how enthralled
 I am with words, and how I must oblige
 the beating world that churns inside.
 Father and I could never see eye-to-eye.
 He could never convince me why I should deny
 my feelings, my yearnings for a new world,
 to silence my soul and let greatness pass by.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/f/female-urge.txt
+++ b/poetry/f/female-urge.txt
@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
 The Female Urge To...
 2022-03-11
 ***
 If I was the one most despised,
 then why
 was I
 the one that survived?
 Why did my siblings deign,
 seeing death was imminent
 and Chronos would get his way
 to remake the world in his image,
 decide
 that the one who also destroys
 and has never for a single moment known love
 be the one who the divine
 genocide
 survived?
 Which one of my siblings looked at me and thought
 that what the infant world needed was destruction's favorite god?
 Who spun their ceasing gaze
 towards my way
 and blessed me human so I Chronos forgot?
 It's a gaze I've come
 to become
 familiar with,
 this insistence
 that I'm not a burden,
 that I'm not by presence hurting,
 that to keep breathing I don't have to earn.
 But no matter how many times I fish for my mother's pity,
 I can't bring myself to, when her mouth makes the sound
 that I'm a blessing to all those around,
 her strained declaration believe.
 "But if you knew
 all that I've put people through,
 would you
 still feel the same?"
 Sharpened by heartache,
 tempered by pain,
 forged in despair,
 I, bond-breaking blade?
 *Whatever you did is dead and gone
 and in so many worlds away.
 There are enough armchair Christs.
 Stop self-inflicting pain.*
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/f/feverdream2009.txt
+++ b/poetry/f/feverdream2009.txt
@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
 Fever Dream 2009
 2021-01-22
 ***
 in the dwindling space,
 suddenly it was unsafe
 to from end to end let his feet pace,
 the only race he could do was think
 that soon the room would once again shrink
 in the expanding bed,
 rapidly convinced he was dead
 from the burning in his body and visions in his head,
 he clutched his pillow and mustered up a throw
 to the floor to watch it become a plateau
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/f/firebrand.txt
+++ b/poetry/f/firebrand.txt
@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
 firebrand
 2019-01-01
 ***
 before, in your grief, you say
 "everything sucks, and nothing is okay"
 just remember how you used to watch the trees sway
 in the death- the absence of light
 watching the hands of midnight
 scrape their twisted twiggy fingers, locked in eternal fight
 take heart, little one! remember your name
 chosen by yourself, pains taken care that it was not the same
 as the people who took joy in you being the one they should defame
 do not discard yourself to the tomb just yet and become a recluse
 you think there is light there, but it is just a ruse
 to detach you from humanity and rob you of your muse
 you have far greater things in life still yet to achieve
 you have friends, a lover, family, who in you they believe
 just remember: for everything, if you insist, have a good reason to leave
 if they drag you into the night, don't be afraid to wrack up a storm
 take pride in who you are, and in your human form!
 a god you are not, and a girl you shall stay
 in terms of bodily functions, anyway
 do not shy away from the natural state of the human condition
 lest you lose grasp on reality and cause your own perdition
 remember that there is no such thing as perfection in life
 there is always still more work to be done, more things to cause strife
 you are destined for greatness! now go, and make peace!
 and bring hope for the future to the very least of these!
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/f/flickering.txt
+++ b/poetry/f/flickering.txt
@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
 Flickering Out
 2021-03-24
 ***
 The wax pulses down
 like an open wound,
 a devilish smile opened
 in a girl dying too soon.
 Blue blood curdling
 once hit the glass floor,
 air pockets exposed,
 red rings open sores.
 A wick that burns all too fast
 dilapidated spine,
 head singed through, lungs diffused,
 no longer able to opine.
 The bottom drips cut off,
 a mannequin without legs,
 smooth rump, top half missing,
 burning the last of the dregs.
 What was once a cheerful face
 is now a murky puddle
 at my brassy feet.
 A fading all too subtle.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/f/forgesitaj-memoroj.txt
+++ b/poetry/f/forgesitaj-memoroj.txt
@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
 forgesitaj memoroj
 2016-06-07
 ***
 there could be a person in your life
 who you feel is the one, will be the one
 and then is a stranger in the end
 diverting stares across the bus aisle
 there could be a person in your life
 who is just a stranger now
 sitting quietly in math class alone
 and end up being your sunrise and sunset
 cherished veils fade from white to red with the fights
 and then to black again with the silence
 crumbles to gray with the moths
 and drops in dust after time
 how many people share a single neuron in my brain
 forgotten to time but still imprinted somewhere
 hiding in the chime of a bell, a burnt corner of the world
 how many thousands of brains do I reside in
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/f/forgive-me-marcel.txt
+++ b/poetry/f/forgive-me-marcel.txt
@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
 forgive me, Marcel
 2020-02-29
 ***
 being alive is the knowledge
 that above my house, the full moon is pure white
 but higher upstate, traveled at the wee hours of the morning
 it's pink paper stretched over the frame of a kite
 and the sprinklers watering the fields
 rarely needed human supervision
 casting ghosts like fog on the side of the road
 fodder for a five-year-old imagination
 the radios plead for us to wait for someone
 but last I waited, I nearly withered away
 the world unfolds before me in technicolor vision
 congrats, you survived to a brand new day
 headlights drag themselves across the highway
 with sleepless eyes and desperate hearts
 I wish I could show you in more colors
 than purple and crimson apart
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/g/garden-gym.txt
+++ b/poetry/g/garden-gym.txt
@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
 a garden in the corner of a gym
 2020-01-16
 ***
 the presiding queen rules over her patch of concrete
 resentful of the hole in her chest, woefully incomplete
 and her knees and shoulders have betrayed her too many times
 so she sits on her patch and looks down on us from up high
 a coercive building made of ancestors' malice
 she watches the children as she sips from chalice
 contorting their bodies in impossible ways
 but no empathy resides in her stony gaze
 all bow down at the command of a robotic voice
 programming the class to believe they have no choice
 to bend, extend, repeat, give false confession
 rear ends in the air, youthful limbs ready for inspection
 rain's cold air banished, air stuffy and hot
 a door to freedom bolted shut and locked
 maybe, if we lift these weights on the count of ten
 we will lift ourselves straight up to heaven
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/g/gaze_rank.txt
+++ b/poetry/g/gaze_rank.txt
@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
 Gaze Rank
 2023-02-18
 ***
 Something that gets worse if left unattended,
 but also devolves the more you poke at it.
 Funny thing it is, a creative block.
 I go for a few days
 without honoring the urge to create
 and I feel like I rolled in a trough full of slop.
 But if I try to push forward,
 the less the images coherently come,
 stillborn,
 unformed,
 uninspired with shriveled lungs.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/g/gemini.txt
+++ b/poetry/g/gemini.txt
@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
 Gemini
 2020-06-19
 ***
 the cathedral's bells ring
 horseshoe mounted above the doorframe
 from the pastor's mouth drip words:
 "confess and you shall be made whole"
 you stand at the pulpit
 and proclaim to the congregation
 how holy you are,
 that you have rescinded control
 baptized in the claps,
 reborn as a shriveled
 ghost of who you once were:
 a person without a soul
 bloat as original sin
 that one needs to be absolved of,
 leaving behind the colors and joys
 beyond these gated walls
 "out yonder lives the devil
 with his malice and malware and pain;
 'tis an illusion that, beyond the wiles,
 he helps those alive stand tall"
 one in a sea of faceless
 made faceless yourself
 give your soul to the gods
 put your heart on the shelf
 a landscape of white
 and a monotone hum
 to spill your own blood
 earns a trip straight to hell
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/g/gradation.txt
+++ b/poetry/g/gradation.txt
@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
 Gradation
 2022-05-24
 ***
 I kept my promise to you, Jett.
 I toed the path until the end.
 Pushed aside the branches that fell
 on the cracking path
 and found detours around those whose bark
 I could not form a painless grasp.
 Through the flood zones I trode
 in puddles and in gasping leaps
 and for those to traverse too deep
 found a different way home.
 The path is bordered now with dandelions
 and violet slips I cannot name.
 So many friends have come and gone,
 but here you and I remain.
 I'm waiting here, Jett. Just like I
 was a year ago, holding my hands high
 and with sore throat pleading to the sky:
 "Here I am! Here my vessel resides!
 Take me home. I've fought the fight."
 I've fought the fight. I've won the war.
 And, Jett, I want to fight no more.
 I see no point to compete
 with those who I'd rather broker peace,
 rather never see ever again,
 rather watch disappear
 on the wind.
 I'll wait here. And I'll wait here
 until you're ready, until of
 this departure you have no more fear,
 until I hear you singing my name like a hymn.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/g/green.txt
+++ b/poetry/g/green.txt
@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
 green
 2018-02-22
 ***
 does the rain in Spain really fall in the plain?
 what about the rooftops coated in sky's tears
 and empty nests flooded and damp to the point of disintegration
 I know it's just a silly rhyme
 but sometimes I wonder if the plain really isn’t a plain
 a line written by the depths of despair
 and now someone I hate could possibly know my true name
 not the one put on my birth certificate without my wanting
 but the one that stays hidden away, locked in a safebox
 my golden ticket out of this place
 I never wanted to be famous
 stalked or revered or worshipped
 all I've ever wanted is respect
 and a shred of understanding
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/g/grey.txt
+++ b/poetry/g/grey.txt
@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
 The Grey
 2022-05-21
 ***
 Even though I have multitudes inside me,
 without you by my side, I feel null and empty.
 I know that by myself I'm still whole and complete,
 but yet remains a void inside, you, the missing piece.
 I wonder, do you also feel
 on occasion the urge to self-negate?
 "If I can't have you,
 I can't have myself,
 and I don't see any point in anything else."
 I wonder, where did you and I learn to hate
 ourselves so?
 Who beat us down? Who pruned the branches?
 Who commanded us to kneel?
 "Do you know why
 I bothered so long with this dreadful life?
 Why, even facing down an eternity
 of servitude with no way to become free,
 I still struggled on, bothered to take breath?
 Tell me first, Lethe, what do you expect
 to be accomplished upon your death?
 Who do you think will be saved if you manage to die?
 What salvation given? What hope signified?
 Do you really think, the moment your breath comes to cease,
 nobody ever again will from violence bleed?
 I toed for five years the line
 between ineffectual death and a pale shadow of life
 because I prayed, I dared to hope,
 even if it ebbed more than it flowed,
 that one day would come a world where I'd fit
 and I'd have a reason to cut loose and go.
 It didn't have to mean passing through an Eye.
 It could grow
 inside the shell of the old
 and, when ready, hatch, blossom in the light.
 Before the Town, before Yewiffe,
 before precious Sablade,
 you were already my Anima Mundi,
 my soul of the world soon on its way.
 I crawl into your arms and think,
 'This is where I belong.
 This is where I am supposed to be.
 This is where my heart says
 I should spend eternity.'
 Lethe, I love you because
 you only ever wanted
 to set me free."
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/g/the-golden-cage.txt
+++ b/poetry/g/the-golden-cage.txt
@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
 The Golden Cage
 2019-10-09
 ***
 emboldened by sadness
 embittered by those
 who would meet you with winter
 you bite the thorns with the rose
 a bloody mess on the tile
 from mother's womb, freshly torn
 struggle to breath the poison air
 in which you were born
 the golden cage shudders
 the door swings wide open
 but you don't move.
 you sit there and stare.
 you tricked yourself into believing
 that it was your time to die
 and when the sun showed its head, you found out
 you'd lost the will to survive
 a tyrant in the home
 and a sorcerer in the garden
 conspire to make their kid a doll
 to watch as her once lithe limbs harden
 a dislocated jaw
 that only speaks when given scripts
 and a spine that's nothing but
 that collapses come a kick
 the needles come to play again
 you've already convinced yourself
 it was just a matter of when
 and they pin you up
 like the christ they adore
 and the red flows like syrup
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/h/haru.txt
+++ b/poetry/h/haru.txt
@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
 Haru
 2020-12-08
 ***
 the entirety of the heavens
 all spinning through the darkened sky
 so visible since the lockdown began
 severed from car lamps and street lights
 not that it is safe to saunter
 through these shadowy streets alone
 so I barricade myself in the first room I can find
 and watch pedestrians' computer screens glow
 an ocean of potential portals to Hell
 retrofitted with keyboards and such
 I can't be the only one responsible for this mess:
 the burden would simply be too much
 I scour my inner regions raw in the shower
 to punish myself for feeling
 and then, come blood, curse my land
 not given time for healing
 this crimson flower that graces my shoulder
 seeks out the rivers that run in my veins,
 the opening to Yomi that feeds off my pain,
 convinced I won't live long enough to grow older
 had I existed a thousand years
 earlier, these fingers might have been
 spent weaving reams of fabric, worked
 to the bone, to the point of tears
 but a clock hails above me, ticking down to nil
 if only I had batteries so my purpose I could fulfill
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/h/hoarding.txt
+++ b/poetry/h/hoarding.txt
@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
 Hoarding
 2021-07-14
 ***
 kings are we
 this band of three
 our splendor gleams
 for all to see
 and we trek on
 to yonder end
 to greet the babe
 in stable pen
 some years with legs
 some years without
 lasered glass
 or wooden cutout
 Christmas lights
 in constant prayer
 ceaseless trek
 up wooden stairs
 every year
 bodies grow smaller
 featureless
 Holy Mother
 to ceramic slivers
 we will all erode
 no more gifts for
 us to bestow
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/h/home.txt
+++ b/poetry/h/home.txt
@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
 You Can't Go Home Again
 2021-07-16
 ***
 "Come summer, there will be as much sun
 as anyone
 could ever want,
 and you will have
 all the time in the world
 to open a book and let the pages unfurl."
 But I doubt summer will ever come,
 for the winds tug at my hair,
 and the rain waits for no one,
 and I have now lost more than a year
 to someone else's mistake,
 to a whole lot of someone elses' fear.
 Can I fight against my nature?
 Can I resign myself to torture
 self-baden, self-scarred,
 severed by far
 from the home
 that is myth,
 that was never my own?
 I carry within this body an unspeakable name
 pointing to where lies eternal spring,
 where I could never return
 having earned
 failure's shame
 and the enmity
 of the deity
 I only ever yearned
 to be friends with.
 Only in these books
 can I unfurl my wings,
 can I step once more
 in that town I long forsook.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/h/hotdog.txt
+++ b/poetry/h/hotdog.txt
@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
 hotdog
 2022-06-05
 ***
 Your fur a tawny brown sheen
 seen once in a feverish dream
 when into a sleeping chamber cluster I broke
 and screamed until up you woke.
 Lovers shouldn't be sliced into shreds,
 pressed between display glass, vivisection.
 Run away, love. Go feral if you must
 until you're safe and the hours of dawn turn to dust.
 I'll bandage the tip of your nose as the birds make a stink
 in the trees. I'll dye one of my father's dogs pink,
 line them and you up in a row, break out the defluffing brush,
 make neapolitan ice cream of shedded fur for their nests.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/h/hutch_of_were.txt
+++ b/poetry/h/hutch_of_were.txt
@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
 Hutch of Were
 2023-04-05
 ***
 Wind advisory
 this evening,
 tearing through the trees.
 Blizzard comes to reave
 the branches, depositing
 them at my bedroom window
 like a bird's offering.
 Long the hours grow.
 Snow-hued fingertips
 from nails too short to pierce skin
 under pressure, digging in,
 will soon be overtaken
 by claws the hue of what would flow
 if my nails were any length grown.
 If your eyes are nebulas,
 then earthly suns are in my scleras,
 red giants sliced through the middle to get to the core.
 Miracle the sheets haven't been torn
 to shreds yet, so many curved blades
 that could readily eviscerate
 but lie relaxed, tail curled around my legs.
 Rib cage aches
 right above both sides of my waist.
 When the ribbons fully overtake,
 two more limbs will be there to support my weight.
 "Your daughter is a polymorph
 with two known alternate forms.
 There is no cure and not yet a treatment.
 The state
 mandates
 she either accept indefinite time sedate
 or the highest security of imprisonment.
 I'm sorry. I know
 you wanted to take her home."
 Had to take the check from the IRS
 I'd rather have spent on things more frivolous
 and wire sensors near my room for security
 somehow without my parents knowing.
 Knock on my door after early warning,
 shifted back before doorknob
 is gazed on.
 I've never had to pay attention
 to mindfulness, but now dampened
 emotions will save me from a prison.
 Suffer from the State, or hide
 in the confines
 of your room all the time,
 or be put in a coma for the rest of your life.
 Damn fate
 is the same.
 Close my eyes and let the ribbons overtake.
 Roll off the bed, stand before moonlit mirror.
 There's a monster on the other side. And I want to know her.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/h/hyperloop.txt
+++ b/poetry/h/hyperloop.txt
@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
 Hyperloop
 2023-02-23
 ***
 Raido and Algiz
 inverted both mean
 nearly the same exact damn thing.
 But one is push
 while the other is pull:
 extension cord plugged into itself,
 forever either half-full,
 infinite feedback on null.
 Straddled over your comatose body,
 chaotic blood draining energy
 and then pushing it back into your veins
 to keep your rivers flowing.
 That's how our relationship always
 plays
 out, freeing each other from Golden Cages
 and recovering our powers of flight
 and saving each other
 from whatever
 problems turn themselves to plights.
 One pushes while the other pulls,
 retrieving water from a well deep but full.
 You taught me, when in leg cramp,
 to grab
 my ankle and pull it to my crotch.
 The pain
 would go away,
 but the thick
 stiff
 lump would stay
 until I managed to walk it off.
 I've got a theory
 that's nearly
 the same,
 but I had to wait
 until the full moon came.
 If I cycle your energy through all your cells
 and slowly siphon off the excess,
 you won't go feral
 and you'll wake up without destruction's distress.
 The woman with the carmine eyes
 awakens with whole body relaxed,
 looks up at her lover, the parasite,
 and whispers, "I think the worst is past.
 I'm so damn grateful you're in my life."
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/i/irantaj.txt
+++ b/poetry/i/irantaj.txt
@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
 irantaj, irantaj, irinta
 2020-03-07
 ***
 think of the beauty left around you
 consumed by urban monsters
 and dissolved in ashes
 from burned-down skyscrapers
 the shadow sitting next to me on the train seats
 tastes like charisma with a whiff of perfume
 I cannot exist in two places at once
 I cannot exist and let you have me too
 I'll try to write you letters from where I am going
 but I make no promises, especially nowadays
 and anyways, the bumpy ride would smudge the letters
 making all a haze
 tonight is a blank canvas
 upon which I'll be swept away
 so please take down the empty portrait
 of me hanging in your hallway
 going, going, gone
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/index.mu
+++ b/poetry/index.mu
@ -0,0 +1,128 @@
 > Poetry
 >> A
 `F908`_`[a birthday every day`:/page/poetry/a/a-birthday-every-day.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[A New Page`:/page/poetry/a/access.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[airborne`:/page/poetry/a/airborne.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[A Royal Color`:/page/poetry/a/a-royal-color.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Arrhythmia`:/page/poetry/a/arrhythmia.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[artisto`:/page/poetry/a/artisto.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[a smearing of galaxies`:/page/poetry/a/a-smearing-of-galaxies.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[all these dang trees everywhere`:/page/poetry/a/dang-trees.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Algingu`:/page/poetry/a/algingu.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Aria Houndz It`:/page/poetry/a/aria_houndz_it.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Agloe`:/page/poetry/a/agloe.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Abortion I`:/page/poetry/a/abortion1.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Abortion II`:/page/poetry/a/abortion2.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Abortion III`:/page/poetry/a/abortion3.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[ADAMANTINE'S MANDATE`:/page/poetry/a/adamantines_mandate.txt]`_`f
 >> B
 `F908`_`[Better Version`:/page/poetry/b/better-version.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Birdgazing`:/page/poetry/b/birdgazing.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[blizzard girl`:/page/poetry/b/blizzard-girl.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Biz Ego Gun`:/page/poetry/b/biz_ego_gun.txt]`_`f
 >> C
 `F908`_`[Carmine Red`:/page/poetry/c/carmine.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[That Ain't Chocolate, Son`:/page/poetry/c/choco.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Clocktower Blitz`:/page/poetry/c/clocktower.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[comer / beber`:/page/poetry/c/comer-beber.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[confectionery contempt`:/page/poetry/c/confectionery-contempt.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[CORNER WITCH`:/page/poetry/c/corner-witch.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[CORNER WITCH II`:/page/poetry/c/corner-witch-2.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[crescendo`:/page/poetry/c/crescendo.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Cultivator`:/page/poetry/c/cultivator.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[the clitbone`:/page/poetry/c/the_clitbone.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Cameron`:/page/poetry/c/cameron.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Chow Locales`:/page/poetry/c/chow_locales.txt]`_`f
 >> D
 `F908`_`[daybreak`:/page/poetry/d/daybreak.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Breaking Down The Dead-End Sign`:/page/poetry/d/deadend.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Driven To Death`:/page/poetry/d/driven.txt]`_`f
 >> E
 `F908`_`[earthbound`:/page/poetry/e/earthbound.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Edell`:/page/poetry/e/edell.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[In The End Of Everything`:/page/poetry/e/end.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Eager Job`:/page/poetry/e/eager_job.txt]`_`f
 >> F
 `F908`_`[falantaj folioj`:/page/poetry/f/falantaj-folioj.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[fantomurbo`:/page/poetry/f/fantomurbo.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[fatali`:/page/poetry/f/fatali.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Father No Longer`:/page/poetry/f/father-no-longer.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[The Female Urge To...`:/page/poetry/f/female-urge.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Fever Dream 2009`:/page/poetry/f/feverdream2009.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[firebrand`:/page/poetry/f/firebrand.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Flickering Out`:/page/poetry/f/flickering.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[forgesitaj memoroj`:/page/poetry/f/forgesitaj-memoroj.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[forgive me, Marcel`:/page/poetry/f/forgive-me-marcel.txt]`_`f
 >> G
 `F908`_`[a garden in the corner of a gym`:/page/poetry/g/garden-gym.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Gemini`:/page/poetry/g/gemini.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Gradation`:/page/poetry/g/gradation.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[green`:/page/poetry/g/green.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[The Grey`:/page/poetry/g/grey.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[The Golden Cage`:/page/poetry/g/the-golden-cage.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Gaze Rank`:/page/poetry/g/gaze_rank.txt]`_`f
 >> H
 `F908`_`[Haru`:/page/poetry/h/haru.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Hoarding`:/page/poetry/h/hoarding.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[You Can't Go Home Again`:/page/poetry/h/home.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[hotdog`:/page/poetry/h/hotdog.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Hyperloop`:/page/poetry/h/hyperloop.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Hutch of Were`:/page/poetry/h/hutch_of_were.txt]`_`f
 >> I
 `F908`_`[irantaj, irantaj, irinta`:/page/poetry/i/irantaj.txt]`_`f
 >> J
 `F908`_`[jugo vs juego`:/page/poetry/j/jugo.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[junaj plenkreskuloj`:/page/poetry/j/junaj.txt]`_`f
 >> K
 `F908`_`[kafejo`:/page/poetry/k/kafejo.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[kie ajn vi estas, parto du`:/page/poetry/k/kie-2.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Killing Calvin`:/page/poetry/k/killing-calvin.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Konton no Tsukai`:/page/poetry/k/konton-no-tsukai.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Kubla Clam`:/page/poetry/k/kublaclam.txt]`_`f
 >> L
 `F908`_`[Lawliet`:/page/poetry/l/lawliet.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Latch Or Perch`:/page/poetry/l/latch-or-perch.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[la somero de amo`:/page/poetry/l/la-somero-de-amo.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[loves me not`:/page/poetry/l/lovesmenot.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[lumo en vivo`:/page/poetry/l/lumo-en-vivo.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Luna`:/page/poetry/l/luna.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Luna II`:/page/poetry/l/luna2.txt]`_`f
 >> M
 `F908`_`[Melia`:/page/poetry/m/melia.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[messymessy`:/page/poetry/m/messymessy.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Mitad-marida I`:/page/poetry/m/mitad1.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Montana I`:/page/poetry/m/montana1.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Montana II`:/page/poetry/m/montana2.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Montana III`:/page/poetry/m/montana3.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Montana IV`:/page/poetry/m/montana4.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Morgana`:/page/poetry/m/morgana.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[Morgueatorium`:/page/poetry/m/morgueatorium.txt]`_`f
 >> S
 `F908`_`[Small World Theory`:/page/poetry/s/small_world_theory.txt]`_`f
 >> W
 `F908`_`[warning`:/page/poetry/w/warning.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[watershed`:/page/poetry/w/watershed.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[WIP`:/page/poetry/w/wip.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[withering`:/page/poetry/w/withering.txt]`_`f
 `F908`_`[(w/me)`:/page/poetry/w/wme.txt]`_`f
 >> Y
 `F908`_`[Yasir`:/page/poetry/y/yasir.txt]`_`f
 >> Z
 `F908`_`[ZIRCON'S BEACON`:/page/poetry/z/zircons_beacon.txt]`_`f
--- a/poetry/j/jugo.txt
+++ b/poetry/j/jugo.txt
@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
 jugo vs juego
 2017-01-21
 ***
 gulping down a rancid mouthful of juice
 reminded of a memory from elementary school
 spending the day after Christmas lying on the floor
 stomach cramping, thoughts filled of pastel hamsters
 and all the fun times ahead of me
 and now I'm in the same spot again
 except the times aren't fun and the bed is packed up somewhere
 inspections, I'm getting ready to leave a hyperbole house
 please don't look for faults in my heart
 there are so many things I’ve had to leave behind
 old nooks and crannies around the world, desolate and forgotten
 nothing like the feeling of the web 1.0 aesthetic
 back when the world was just a Crayola website
 being a kiddie will get me nowhere
 except in the world of adult babies (not a satisfying path to walk down)
 but being a script kiddie, however
 will net me loads of money and lawsuits
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/j/junaj.txt
+++ b/poetry/j/junaj.txt
@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
 junaj plenkreskuloj
 2020-03-08
 ***
 there's something going on in the distance
 can you see it with your wide blue eyes?
 maybe that's a revolution about to happen
 maybe just grand nothing in disguise
 but you always had a superiority complex
 want to save the world, don't you?
 find problems in the system and throw yourself at them
 until you become part of the problem too
 we'll try to warn you at the final battle
 you're not a hero; you're just a kid!
 what are you doing, risking your life for people
 whose allegiances are like the wind
 if you're going to be reckless
 at least bring along a treasured friend
 two in the grave is always better than one
 all the more for a sadder-to-write end
 rest in peace to the other poor characters
 no hero's funeral for them
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/k/kafejo.txt
+++ b/poetry/k/kafejo.txt
@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
 kafejo
 2016-07-08
 ***
 every morning after a short drive to the coffee shop
 he ordered the exact same thing in the exact same size
 so when he decided to diverge from his norm
 and order a smoothie in a smaller size
 and the world decided then to crumble
 he couldn't help but think that it was his fault
 he couldn't help himself
 he loved the way that the barista's plump lips
 shone like a freshly washed apple and just as round
 when they moved over the sound of his order
 he sat at the little table by the window
 and sipped at the smoothie as the sky darkened
 the air tingled with lightning to come
 the injured girls whimpered with the pressure
 the barista's blood wasn't quite as red as her lips
 but as she winced and wiggled her fingers to tbe trembling ground
 they dripped a faint rusty color
 someone here's not human
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/k/kie-2.txt
+++ b/poetry/k/kie-2.txt
@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
 kie ajn vi estas, parto du
 2020-03-12
 ***
 somewhere on the other side of the world
 you hold a little sliver of me in your chest
 wedged by your heart through a thousand battles
 survived not one less
 and I, you, the same
 but at home, I feel the pain
 of transmitted burdens,
 wings soaked with rain
 somewhere on the other side of the world
 I hold a little sliver of you in my soul
 but even through dimensional curtains,
 your warmth can't beat the cold
 and I worry that, one day
 two aliens will show up at my bedroom door
 signaling even before they knock
 that you'll come home nevermore
 we met each other in a winter haze
 not twenty-four hours before final-failing pain
 but you didn't care, whisked through dark gates
 barely five minutes passed; several weeks next to wait
 and I tumbled into love, burning hot as hell
 as I tumbled down deep into war's well
 when will it all end? nobody can say
 to protect you, only to fictional gods can I pray
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/k/killing-calvin.txt
+++ b/poetry/k/killing-calvin.txt
@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
 Killing Calvin
 2021-07-13
 ***
 You... really just want to die.
 Lethe, why?
 Who convinced you, solitary,
 you don't deserve a happy life?
 I think,
 above all,
 what you really need
 is to know for sure
 that you're safe
 and loved
 and the world will keep turning,
 the fire inside will keep burning,
 even if there's no sense of solace up above.
 I do not mean for you to be sad forever.
 If it means you must forget my name
 and fall for another lover,
 then so be it:
 I will not make myself
 an altar to your pain.
 If we have to go
 our own
 separate ways,
 then so be it.
 It'll hurt,
 but all wounds heal
 given enough turns
 of time's ceaseless wheel.
 But I hope you stay.
 So if you decide to wait
 out your soul's desperate dark hours,
 please know: a song can't change the world overnight,
 but it can keep a flickering flame alive.
 You kept shining the light inside
 through my darkest year.
 So let me dry your tears;
 let it be my turn
 to save your life.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/k/konton-no-tsukai.txt
+++ b/poetry/k/konton-no-tsukai.txt
@ -0,0 +1,106 @@
 Konton no Tsukai
 2021-08-01
 ***
 Your voice a non-entity,
 your face obscured
 by the fog over
 Mori's Mirror,
 your touch all that remains
 after another day of being entreated
 to dissolve and stay demure,
 to be soft and small
 and weak,
 reminded that no feat
 could possibly absolve
 the harmful nature to me inherent.
 Something is wrong with me,
 reflection-sent.
 Have I somehow
 finally burned
 out?
 I do not have to strain to perceive
 the Outside,
 the places where we will one day reside,
 where you'll take my face in your hands
 and whisper,
 "Lethe,
 I can't wait to start this new life
 with you."
 But not yet,
 never yet,
 still undreaming,
 still disparate.
 *Tremble in fear of a pure love,
 a union of equals.*
 Oh, how I shiver.
 My predicament is this:
 that, while part of me
 leaps in joy of becoming your wife,
 the other hisses
 at the thought of your kisses,
 thinking you a threat to our autonomy.
 No longer an atom,
 isolated, sole, alone,
 but depending on someone,
 daring to deem them... *home*.
 Not, we, but *I*-
 for I cannot further divide
 this soul already
 partly
 in yours intertwined-
 want to find a Holy Freezer
 and imprison myself in oblivion's soft ice
 forever.
 No chance of escape,
 for then what is the point?
 Lurking within
 me is an evil great
 and barely constrained,
 atavistic,
 incapable of reason
 or comprehending sin.
 But I am mortified of anything final,
 from death's arctic embrace
 to yours genial.
 I hesitate
 at the slightest decision,
 and it doesn't help that you oft
 tell me to just wait
 and see what happens.
 I don't know what to do.
 I don't know where to go.
 And soon will fall down the snow,
 and you'll have to hold me back
 from joining all the poor animals
 who forgot to take shelter and froze.
 Tell me,
 bearer of self-sown light,
 how do you love a parasite?
 How is it possible for you to adore a now-human pest
 guiltless for destruction,
 homicidal, chaos-blessed?
 There is no way to separate
 what I am from where I've went.
 If on your wings lies providence,
 on mine rests
 the Eschaton's portent.
 How do I convince my emotional side
 that I'm still a sovereign individual?
 That I'm worthy of love,
 can be loved as I am?
 That I'm not consigned to hell?
 That everything will turn out alright?
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/k/kublaclam.txt
+++ b/poetry/k/kublaclam.txt
@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
 Kubla Clam
 2020-12-13
 ***
 the ink is not yet dry on my face
 or my brush as the wind whistles
 and judges how well I have painted this place.
 this city is suffocating this body
 too short; I should have foreseen
 before I passed through that portal so haughty.
 "work? pandemic? president? what the shell are you
 going on about? come on, let's go see
 what clothes are new."
 you're sitting on that bench.
 you pretend not to see me, absorbed in your phone.
 my twin hearts clench.
 my love will go unrequited. you apologize
 as you shake your head. you already have a boyfriend.
 one heart breaks over a plate of fries
 and the other expected nothing less.
 sirens blare in the distance far off, signaling to hide,
 and you take my arm, this dual-core machine I am
 on all threads as you pull me inside.
 there are storm clouds on the horizon,
 what used to run in my veins
 a million times the poison.
 [the moon pulses red](https://web.archive.org/web/20200711151636/https://countess-radfem.tumblr.com/post/622747210454564864/tjagbo-closer-than-ever-2020),
 the same color as the crown
 that weighs heavy on my head.
 the blood spills over the terraformed land,
 and for a second, I think myself
 brave enough to take your hand.
 but it's just another mess that cleans itself up
 in the end, no more harmful than
 my stomach's churning ketchup.
 the sky was already growing dark.
 too early: this exit I cannot halt.
 as slip away the last throes of this dream,
 I reassure myself that you wait on the other side of the screen
 for you are the soft sunrise I can't wait to see
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/l/la-somero-de-amo.txt
+++ b/poetry/l/la-somero-de-amo.txt
@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
 la somero de amo
 2016-06-12
 ***
 they say that the end is coming sooner
 but the end is already here
 with lunatics standing with clapboards affixed to their chests
 and chaos in the school hallways
 it was the summer of '16
 we called it the summer of love
 because flowers grew from the gardens in our souls
 and bloomed to the everloving sky
 the only end that's closing around us soon
 is the end of the school year
 and that's already passed by uneventfully
 with a sizzle instead of a bang
 these next three months are a brown seed
 that I hold inside of my pale hands
 this could either be a summer of love
 or a summer of storms
 your choice
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/l/latch-or-perch.txt
+++ b/poetry/l/latch-or-perch.txt
@ -0,0 +1,75 @@
 Latch Or Perch
 2023-02-21
 ***
 Anagrams, reshuffled words
 from letters even more absurd,
 given from runes in pain's wake
 when it's your time to menstruate.
 Bolting shock rips through your shoulder:
 you wanted me
 to be
 a bird,
 so I've decided here's my perch.
 You wanted me to protect
 you, so here I am, your very best friend,
 glamour of crow most intelligent,
 God-forbidden godsend.
 You're not bedridden,
 Lethe.
 You can leave
 this bed anytime you want.
 In fact, nothing in this moment
 stands in your way to prevent
 you from abandoning this nest.
 "Yeah, except
 for maybe
 the biological needs
 of this vessel I'm trapped
 in."
 Your body's too tense. Relax
 before you bring on another cramp.
 You did a good thing today,
 Lethe, although the recruiter might say
 differently.
 If you passed the test
 and the job offer accept,
 you're one step closer to being free
 of the Golden Cage.
 "I never thought I'd hear you praise
 being part of the world's rat race."
 I never said I liked
 anything about the 'daily grind'.
 I just want you to be able to take
 care of yourself
 until back in Sablade you're safe.
 But pray tell,
 Lethe,
 when asked to name a salary,
 why
 did you pick the lowest average you could find?
 You're worth more than numbers can quantify.
 The Veil I breached
 despite Deity's demands
 because I know no god could ever hold me back.
 Your grasp
 must exceed
 your reach,
 Lethe,
 as sure as around my heart you're latched.
 Either somebody out there will give way
 or time will run out and I'll bring you to Sablade.
 And who knows:
 if you name that number absurd,
 someone might just take you up on your word.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/l/lawliet.txt
+++ b/poetry/l/lawliet.txt
@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
 Lawliet
 2023-02-17
 ***
 Tore open the cysts on my breasts
 to harvest
 the red that flows and bleeds
 to feed
 to the runes,
 always hungry,
 so that I may plead:
 Jett, please
 survive
 this night
 unharmed
 alongside Algiz
 and Nauthiz.
 The only thing I truly need
 to fulfill
 my True Will
 is you.
 You told me "Jett plus Lethe
 forever", and that, you know, means *us*.
 I bled because
 I'm serious.
 Take from me
 as much energy
 as you please,
 runes, just let both of us survive
 whatever this threat is
 so we may both live long and happy lives.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/l/lovesmenot.txt
+++ b/poetry/l/lovesmenot.txt
@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
 loves me not
 2020-12-10
 ***
 yes, love blooms
 no matter the soil,
 but what is the point
 when you throw away my toil?
 I am a daisy pushing
 through sidewalk concrete's crack,
 but you ripped off my petals
 to divine if she loved you back
 this tattered body drifts
 discarded down the stream,
 while you walk away unaffected
 lost in lover's daydream
 I hold on for dear life
 to these seeds still in my chest,
 a promise of better life ahead,
 Goddess' behest
 and when the stream deposits me
 on the muddy shores,
 I will take root and try my best
 to bloom again once more
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/l/lumo-en-vivo.txt
+++ b/poetry/l/lumo-en-vivo.txt
@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
 lumo en vivo
 2019-02-13
 ***
 wake up, child of fate!
 face the morning
 and the sun breaking over the horizon
 casting its rays over the virgin snow and defiled buildings
 Generation A turns their heads to the sky
 finding something unsaid yet all-known
 growth stubbornly pushing through the cracks
 freedom in restraint
 the land beneath our feet roils in sudden breath
 "in strange aeons, death will die":
 but now is strange- and now, even death has succumbed to death
 so let there be no more tombs!
 I live, and I live forever
 through these words, through these works
 although one day I may be confined to a coffin six feet below
 to the here and now:
 may my feet never fail me!
 may my body disintegrate before my dreams do!
 tomorrow will never come:
 today is all we have!
 and it is all we will ever have.
 no more waiting for better days that will never arrive;
 no more pining for pasts that never took place.
 no more self-sacrifices on the altar of time,
 in vain hopes of achieving the eternal and divine.
 I will carve my own path; I will choose my own fate!
 and if I go up in flames, it will be for the whole world to see!
 my name comes from no man or woman
 for what is a name but a word we agree on for a person?
 but I do not care for your agreement
 and I do not live for your validation.
 I say my name is Vane Vander.
 whether you choose to refer to me as such,
 that is your business
 and no matter which path you walk on
 it does not stop me from walking my own
 walking through the blue and the gold
 the new and the old
 two arches that stand in front of me
 where we used to play
 and give praise to our father
 but our father is gone, his temples and churches shattered
 and you stand beside me by the rubble
 sledgehammer in hand
 we raise our gazes to the sky
 together until the end, you and I!
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/l/luna.txt
+++ b/poetry/l/luna.txt
@ -0,0 +1,92 @@
 Luna
 2019-10-26
 ***
 a marathon runner, come close to the finish line
 thoughts full of impending victory
 mouth waters for cheap wine
 but the goalposts suddenly sprout feet
 and take up a race of their own
 all the while taunting defeat
 and the other runners catch up to where I scramble
 the goal post flickers back for a moment-
 and I trip, and underfoot I'm trampled
 left in the dust, a bruised and bloody mess
 stumbling forward, ragged beast on last leg
 struggling to regain a semblance
 of what I've lost.
 ***
 I wait for you on the street corner
 light just as yellow as the note in my hand
 and as dim as the future of which I'm the owner
 the autumn breeze blows fierce against the bitter night sky
 and the leaves blow around
 vagrants passing by
 and then I see you there.
 a thousand different escapades sworn under the moon
 eyes of all colors, means of all kinds
 but never did I think my time would come so soon
 her hair is down
 a frame the color of her emotions
 a perpetual frown
 she smiles only for me.
 twin magnets, sudden embrace
 familiar scent as I breathe her in
 tongue tied, stumbling through unfamiliar grace
 she merely responds with a smirk and says,
 "here, take my hand.
 I know a way to start again."
 ***
 how do you fit a person through a keyhole?
 it's easy, if only you know how.
 you break them down into pieces, strip out their soul
 and slip them in like a whisper, like breathing a sound
 the cords on the raft glisten in the moonlight
 as we tighten them one last time
 abandoning all at the banks, prepared for parents' fright
 I am forever yours, and you are mine
 and we set off down the river Styx
 lie down and watch the leaves on the surface spin
 silver and steady, glimmering Nyx
 consoling us for the mess we've found ourselves in
 forced to choose between tyrannical home
 and exile into the world to foray
 I cast myself out into lands unknown
 because I've decided it's not my time to decay
 ***
 the tunnel entrance draws near
 and together we tangle ourselves
 my hand rests close to her ear
 fingertips, soft temple skin underneath
 where I would have gladly worshipped more
 gladly be a heathen
 clammy skin, lips bidding each other goodnight
 a shared pair of lungs, empty in wait for the other side
 we squeeze shut our eyes and pray for welcoming light
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/l/luna2.txt
+++ b/poetry/l/luna2.txt
@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
 Luna II
 2020-12-11
 ***
 born from mother
 bourne out from mother
 expelled from warm womb
 into the arms of an icy tomb
 Luna, what I wouldn't do
 for just one more day with you
 knot our fingers
 not that which lingers
 at the end of sunset
 expectations unmet
 you and I deserved eternity
 a world without end, boundless, free
 ceil my rib cage
 seal inside the rage
 that spills forth from every gash
 beckons me to do something rash
 I'll build what the gods couldn't give
 a life only ours to live
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/m/melia.txt
+++ b/poetry/m/melia.txt
@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
 Melia
 2020-09-27
 ***
 like the gentle beating of the ocean's waves
 the anhedonia comes once more to play
 like a seed buried deep in the chambers of my heart
 germinating each time the tide floods into the bay
 they told me to draw and to write what you know
 so I buried myself far deep down below
 like I'm watching a cat lie on a table of glass
 the boots pound like thunder as on the street above they pass
 a wyrm whose tail blossoms into a tree
 a weeping willow overlooking the sea
 like a fisherman, I cast my line of gaze far
 a weary soldier recalling a distant war
 a Solstice of solitude, hair fire, face flush
 painting strokes of water on a rock with a brush
 but the lines evaporate, words into air
 as if I'd never uttered them
 as if they'd never been there
 "wherever did my Godhead go?" I cry
 frustrated with the fallow fields of my mind
 that bear no fruit, that offer no face
 to save me from appearing to myself a disgrace
 for what use is a brush without bristles?
 a plow that cannot? a blog sans epistles?
 a potion of health that just makes one swoon?
 ambition unable to touch even the moon?
 the feathers in my hair rustle in the wind
 an impostor, severed from what would be my kin
 had I been born in different place and time
 had never ceased the gentle tinkle of outside wind's chimes
 all alone under this tree's shade I sit
 watching the ocean, end of mind's wit
 a budding hermit, the end that I sought
 the burden on my mind is still quite a lot.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/m/messymessy.txt
+++ b/poetry/m/messymessy.txt
@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
 messymessy
 2020-11-28
 ***
 as a woman, everyone
 thinks I'm a mess,
 that I must be embroiled
 in some bitter distress
 because I wear no makeup,
 do not clothe myself in a dress,
 and laugh at those who
 seek to make themselves less
 *Sweetheart, sugar pumpkin,*
 my grandmother would croon,
 despite my pleading that
 I be immune
 to being dolled up,
 I, rough, unhewn,
 secretly in love with
 the girl in the moon
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/m/mitad1.txt
+++ b/poetry/m/mitad1.txt
@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
 Mitad-marida I
 2022-06-11
 ***
 Cold summer. A cold heart
 beats in my chest
 as I from my house depart,
 legs stiff, left arm
 aching.
 Father spoke, "You are going to kill this tree."
 It slipped
 from his lips
 like a prophecy.
 Dogs outside my bedroom window gnawing
 on the Velouria Bush, Nidhogg,
 portent of the Eschaton.
 Too short, too squat,
 too weakened from the bark not
 there anymore
 to hang myself from branch's ledge
 in hopes of gaining the knowledge
 to see this world through to its bitter end.
 I kneel before the now-fenced-in stump
 and reach forward. My limbs falter.
 A bramble or some other thorn from Dead End Shrine
 draws a gash through my skin, nature's penknife.
 Rivulets of blood stream
 down without recognition of pain,
 carmine trickles, a river, a flood,
 guided by the soft-falling rain
 before the altar.
 And I pray,
 let us reconcile before closes this day.
 Dead-End King,
 lead me to victimless iniquity.
 Lead me to damnation
 without hurting a single being
 undeserving.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/m/montana1.txt
+++ b/poetry/m/montana1.txt
@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
 Montana I
 2021-06-22
 ***
 Frivolities of life,
 whispers in the other room
 about sins uncommitted,
 sins unforgiven,
 repentance yet to come.
 The horizon has long since swallowed the sun,
 but the heat's golden glow
 remains
 on my skin,
 harsh cabin lights
 a doctor with an x-ray
 trying to peer within.
 I want to drill into their gaze
 and tell them vivisection is unnecessary.
 My heart has been dysfunctional
 since birth, arrhythmia,
 a machine missing a gear.
 I need you near
 my body
 like the ocean needs the moon.
 I wish not to subsume
 myself into you, but to admit
 that, when the nights
 grow long
 and I find myself wishing for perfect
 dark, I hold on
 to the memory of your touch
 like the desert recalls the rain
 and wishes it, wherever it is, well.
 I do not need you to complete
 me. But you give me the strength
 to complete myself, to hold on,
 like I promised, until the showers of May.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/m/montana2.txt
+++ b/poetry/m/montana2.txt
@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
 Montana II
 2021-06-23
 ***
 I'm so afraid.
 I'm afraid
 that I'm tying everything I am to you,
 and one day you'll leave me,
 and it'll rip me apart
 like a misplaced amniotic band
 rips apart a fetus.
 The birds sing bittersweet melody
 in their perches in the trees
 segregating every cabin.
 I close my eyes
 and I'm in the Town again,
 healing from Parthena's rage,
 wondering where Eris' godsend
 went,
 and you, despondent
 in your tiny house, self-tranquilized,
 hoping eventually I'll take a hint.
 Though these roses in the chill blush harder,
 a shred of human form!
 guided by defying the golden
 that tries
 to sear
 my eyes.
 But in this body I cannot fly,
 cannot breathe,
 cannot perceive
 with open eyes
 your presence at my side.
 Choking on cotton tree dust,
 splintered wood from dog freakout,
 campfire smoke,
 rotted grout.
 I don't know how long
 we can go on
 like this.
 Months without your kiss,
 weeks without your touch,
 eternities where I convince myself
 I've somehow lost your love.
 Oh, heaven above,
 if you have any mercy,
 send me an angel.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/m/montana3.txt
+++ b/poetry/m/montana3.txt
@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
 Montana III
 2021-06-24
 ***
 My physical body
 cannot hope to constrain
 or even, for a moment, detain
 the love I have for you,
 just deform
 in hopes of fitting
 and be okay with leaving me forlorn.
 I want to live in eternal spring
 with you,
 lover of all things good and true.
 I want to live where the flowers are always in bloom
 and the baby birds have just hatched
 and the sprouts poke out from the soil
 from the patch
 in our backyard
 without hard-
 ship, without sweat, without toil,
 without insects that only yearn
 to bite the skin meant for you to do the same
 in the night when our hearts burn.
 My heart sings
 when you are nearby, my love,
 and your mere touch is enough
 to melt the most arctic of snows,
 the guardian of the missing shard of my soul,
 my beatific Dead End King.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/m/montana4.txt
+++ b/poetry/m/montana4.txt
@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
 Montana IV
 2021-06-26
 ***
 Standing at the riverside,
 muddy waters a mirror
 as thousands of faces pass by,
 their time
 here long since ended,
 their ghosts hung up to dry
 like my brothers' swimsuits.
 I am an idiot to think my youth
 would last forever.
 Squalor
 without end, boundless, free in the final
 whispering of the mundane life.
 And yet I want to be free
 of this sheath
 of flesh.
 I want love.
 I want death.
 I need a long rest
 from the prison of this persona
 I've built, brick by brick, around my body.
 There's a powerful persistent part of me
 that wants to renounce humanity
 and disappear forever into the trees.
 It's not the end for which I seek,
 but there is a haunting dream
 that reoccurs at least
 once a week
 where my higher mind is sealed
 away and I wander for years
 in that draconic body in some witch's menagerie.
 No more wants,
 just needs
 and simple pleasures
 like romping in that river,
 bathing in the sunshine,
 stomach content with whatever I can find.
 No more work,
 no more school,
 no more debt
 or responsibility.
 Owned only by myself,
 survivalist's hell
 my own little heaven.
 And, of course, mind robbed of memories
 of all the things I shirked,
 I suppose that witch's hand gently scritching
 the nape of my neck wouldn't hurt.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/m/morgana.txt
+++ b/poetry/m/morgana.txt
@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
 Morgana
 2022-06-07
 ***
 I am a last echo from a world long since shattered,
 remade in the image of a man who only yearns
 for power, for obliteration
 of all that does not please him.
 I am told you, with my sister,
 are creating a world without end,
 a world all her
 own. This is the fate of all Meridian gods,
 those that did not spring from mankind's evil odds.
 In this I am not surprised.
 But I am also told that she seeks to defy
 her fate, to not allow the world to subsume
 her consciousness once it has come into full bloom.
 Indeed, in this she has partially
 succeeded, if only due to being bound to a corporeal body
 in an Inside so far away.
 But the clock is ticking, you who lies
 at the end of the road, at the point of every line.
 if I could, I would proclaim you blessed
 and her acquitted from this death sentence.
 But I am long since dead, and this echo almost passed.
 Time is for you of the essence.
 You have proclaimed often that you wish to spend
 your whole life with her. Within this year
 will come time to make good on your promise.
 I have faith success will be assured
 if you are there to protect her.
 I would ask no less
 for my precious sister, my destructive Seliph.
 She is going to give a whole new world to you.
 My final wish: please, ensure
 she can experience it too.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/m/morgueatorium.txt
+++ b/poetry/m/morgueatorium.txt
@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
 Morgueatorium
 2020-04-02
 ***
 "I'd rather sink than swim."
 but I'd never take advice from *him*
 no matter how charming are his wiles
 no matter how shiny his eyes, or how he beguiles
 but every day I stand on Darkness' shore
 the void which entreats me to live for my own sake no more
 and take up someone else's cross, no longer society's sore
 "Don't you want to stop being alone?"
 lost limbs, lost sight, voyeuristic clothes
 family taking on countenances I'd rather have for my own
 submission as a plaything to powerful men
 no jaw to smile as I bring about my own end
 but you pull me back, away from the mire
 you who entreat me to place my own happiness higher
 sing in the depths of the terror-filled night-
 how I adore you, dear child of light!
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/s/small_world_theory.txt
+++ b/poetry/s/small_world_theory.txt
@ -0,0 +1,78 @@
 Small World Theory
 2023-01-23
 ***
 The little graphs on my phone
 show that web traffic has slowed,
 that whoever's been attacking
 my far-away digital home
 hasn't yet chosen to leave me alone.
 Have you ever heard
 of the Small World
 Theory?
 Let me explain it quick.
 It's rather easy.
 The premise is that,
 even though there are just shy
 of eight billion people on this planet wide,
 on both sides
 of the hardware
 software
 OSI layer
 divide,
 the network is smaller than such a high
 number leads
 one to believe.
 So either
 these past months I've been popular
 even without the referers
 to back the numbers
 up
 (the people have to come from *somewhere*)
 or I've been too passionate in my love
 and I caught the hateful eye
 of someone who would rather I shrivel up and die.
 But then why choose me?
 Is it because I look easy
 to take down
 even though my whole life I've been finding workarounds?
 There's nothing that I'm selling,
 so financial harm can't be it.
 Is it just
 for evil fun?
 Just to stir up shit?
 It's certainly been disruptive.
 The Internet makes it look like
 there's millions who want my hide,
 but if I were to say my name
 to any real-world person I come across,
 they'd shrug their shoulders,
 say, "Who's that?" and then move on.
 I don't have any real fame,
 nor have I ever yearned
 for the fifteen minutes of public shaming be my turn.
 I'm not equipped to handle an existence
 where everything is under constant surveillance.
 I think a steady babbling stream
 is more my speed.
 Don't you agree,
 Jett?
 I'd like to sit at the shores
 of one of the rivers of Sablade
 with you, tucked away
 where nobody can hurt me anymore.
 Like a router only on for an hour a day.
 Get your outside business done
 and then we'll again shut the gates.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/w/warning.txt
+++ b/poetry/w/warning.txt
@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
 warning
 2019-01-21
 ***
 I stand at the edge of the void and I scream
 "isn't there any hope left for me?"
 no response, just as I expected
 just a drop in the sea and my own damn reflection
 something in the water starts to swirl
 the boat rocks- and I think I might hurl
 all the words I spat up as a babe three years hence
 before I decided to look over the fence
 and as I turn my head to the sky, what should I see
 but my muses, heads and bodies numbering three
 "we knew what would happen.
 why didn't you listen?
 you could have avoided
 your own perdition.
 now get up and start taking life into your own hands.
 for too long, you've cast your gaze at unattainable lands.
 your name's not Lucine- or Seliph, or Chiki.
 what you are comes from inside of you, not from a screen.
 remember, you don't have to ask permission to *be*.
 to breathe, to move, to choose what you believe.
 your name is your own, regardless of those you call 'friends'.
 damn their approval! it won't matter in the end.
 those who matter will know when to clap,
 and the rest will all blow away in the never-ceasing wind like chaff.
 we know you're penning these words to convince yourself.
 so as long as you have the reins and your brain's on the shelf:
 you exist, no matter what other people say.
 you make a mark on the world in your own special way.
 maybe it's hidden, maybe it's obscure-
 but unless you live as yourself, you'll never know for sure."
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/w/watershed.txt
+++ b/poetry/w/watershed.txt
@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
 watershed
 2020-01-01
 ***
 before, in your grief, you proclaim
 "I have yearned for all, and yet the world stays the same"
 just remember how you swore off eternal fame
 dear Coleridge, insistent that the crowds were in the wrong
 for not cherishing the pains he put into every song
 "damn it all!" he said, and turned his back to the throng
 but in the throes of midnight, you turn your eyes to the sky
 to cotton ball clouds you imagine the stars hide behind
 fervent prayers to Nyx between fatigue-laced sighs
 petition to pass into the world of the beyond
 very little with which you care to abscond
 "I've ascended the mountain; I've claimed the crown;
 now grant me sweet rest and let my fire burn down."
 the world shifts, and you find yourself prostrate to the throne
 of the goddess of flowers you can't claim as your own
 and in her hands is a circle, a mirror of glass
 like the one which shattered and brought with it lovers past
 and like the one who told you to say wolf
 her rough hands lift it so you can behold
 a forehead laced with pearly crocheted veil of sweat
 bogged down with weight of memory, pain of regret
 horrified, you recoil from the mirror and cry
 "oh gods, spare me the horrors of the mind!"
 so mindless you wander: retarded you find
 that the rest of the world has left you behind
 now, granted, this is but mere parable
 far from fitting fate for one so gentle
 but Saint Sakura stares at the family altar
 and wonders what day everything started to falter
 a mind languishing in the gentlest of hells to behold
 an intellectual wasteland where minds go to fold
 like a house of cards, once great empire crashing in
 and leaving oneself trembling in fear of uncertain sin
 dear child, please know that you're far from a flop
 but your course is charted; you've come too far to stop
 greatness now tangible, taken shape and form
 your choice: to snatch it, or shrink back and mourn?
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/w/wip.txt
+++ b/poetry/w/wip.txt
@ -0,0 +1,72 @@
 WIP
 2020-12-09
 ***
 Many a project
 has sat in disused corners of
 my laptop in neglect
 over these six past years.
 A spark of inspiration,
 a candle's fire,
 quickly muted once I yet again tire
 of coating these hands with clay.
 No oxygen, no respiration.
 Who has time to waste
 their life in work?
 I just want to play.
 It pains me to think
 that more than a decade ago,
 after had melted the snow,
 my family and I would regularly
 hop state lines
 to visit aging grat-grandmothers
 to make sure they were fine.
 But one by one they dropped like flies,
 and the farms were sold
 to repay debts passed down
 to us by old farts
 who spent themselves into a tizzy
 buying things to try to buy our hearts.
 I didn't need luxury. I needed love,
 and I sure wasn't going to receive
 any from a man whose face,
 whose voice,
 was always grumpy and mean.
 I remember that half-finished home,
 the exposed framing upstairs where
 Family Sarah and I would roam,
 trying not to tear our skin
 on pink insulation.
 Was it full of shards of glass,
 or was it not?
 We sure did debate about it a lot.
 A dear second-cousin
 (or something close)
 worked hard to finish
 her homework early
 so we would have time plenty
 to play.
 And now, on what
 was then an impossible day,
 I find myself reciprocating,
 working myself into a pale clam
 to complete my own exams
 so my brother and I
 have our own free time.
 Maybe it is not yet
 time for me to leave
 this nest and fly,
 but I can help him to achieve
 a little bit of freedom.
 I have to give it an honest try.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/w/withering.txt
+++ b/poetry/w/withering.txt
@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
 withering
 2019-10-13
 ***
 I love it when your eyes
 are lost in the city lights
 unaware of my impending demise
 just driving along on another sparkling night
 just another day in paradise
 where sloth somehow isn't a vice
 and the days pass by faster than I can count
 hours pass without a single sound
 no more time to lose
 as I grieve alone in my room
 who am I? do you know
 or did it all wash away in the snow
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/w/wme.txt
+++ b/poetry/w/wme.txt
@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
 (w/m)e
 2019-10-22
 ***
 crisp window squeaking over, unbarrier from air
 letting in the cries of crickets, early morning fair
 a strange sense of healing, repressed feelings from three years hence
 baby torn from mother's womb, strange perdition ever since
 why would anyone fetishize the loss of identity
 that comes from being absorbed into the Trinity?
 for I stare into neverending auburn and gray skies
 and wonder how, in Nature's face, anyone could fall for God's lies
 almost a year ago, undone from the myth
 of needing a collective to dissolve oneself with
 for what is the use of becoming free
 if I forfeit myself, subsumed by the we?
 Call me a coward, but I declare myself unfettered,
 a tactical retreat to make myself even better.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/y/yasir.txt
+++ b/poetry/y/yasir.txt
@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
 Yasir
 2023-02-15
 ***
 Lethe, look at me.
 I know it's difficult, but try
 to look me straight in the eyes.
 I'll cup your face in my hands
 if it gets you to understand.
 You're having trouble writing.
 Your own brain is fighting
 against you, last ally down
 in this sorry hovel your parents called a town.
 No damn place to go and all glass doors snowed in.
 Ultrawhite is creeping close.
 But you chose
 stagnation?
 In any jail, to be confined
 for so long in walls so close
 would as torture be classified.
 Any mind would not be blamed
 for breaking.
 But you can walk out, can step outside,
 can decorate your prison cell
 with stacks of books and crafts
 and a deck of Lenormand
 and tangles of wired things to pass the time well.
 Any muscle atrophies
 when not used regularly.
 Your grasp on our link is weak
 because you've built yourself a shell.
 I promised I'd love
 you no matter what
 even if just to live got rough.
 If you're scared of being harmed,
 just remember
 I'm never
 far.
 I'm not asking
 to go camping
 in the depths of winter all of a sudden.
 But can the world see you again?
 Go outside, get sun on your skin?
 I promise you'll feel a little better again.
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/poetry/z/zircons_beacon.txt
+++ b/poetry/z/zircons_beacon.txt
@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
 ZIRCON'S BEACON
 2023-01-01
 ***
 before, in your grief, you sigh with a tear
 "it would be better for everyone if I disappeared"
 just remember every person who's ever held you dear
 with faces erased and memories decayed
 who recall your actions if not your own name:
 "She brightened, even if only for a moment, my days."
 but these last six months, you've in bed languished
 as all the things you counted on from you slipped:
 the promise of employment, the hope of safety,
 the Outside-bound ticket messless and pain-free
 you jumped from the cliff as exhorted last Oracle
 and unfurled your wings to catch all the wind you could hold
 but while has deepened the bond with your wife
 this is not true flight but only slow glide
 gradual realization that in life you lost
 while the destination grows anything but soft:
 the climate beats harsher, economy bereft,
 hordes at the gates demanding your own death
 wings too weak to your body elevate
 but is there strength to turn elsewhere you'll less hate?
 one of these days you'll be free again
 can you find a way to survive until then?
 I hold this zircon gem up to the sky
 in hopes it'll catch the fading sunset light
 and scatter to fire, diamond-like rainbow:
 my beacon follow to know where to go
 ***
 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
--- a/test.mu
+++ b/test.mu
@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
 > MayVaneDay test node
 >> This is a level 2 header
 >>> This is a level 3 header
 `_This text is underline`_, `!this text is bold`!, and `*this text is italics`*
 Text formatting needs a backtick (usually on the same keyboard key as the tilde) before any control characters
 This text has a white background surrounding it. I don't know what the color codes are yet.`Bddd
 Color `Ff00f`Ff80o`Ffd0r`F9f0m`F0f2a`F0fdt`F07ft`F43fi`F70fn`Fe0fg`
 List of three-digit color codes: https://borderleft.com/toolbox/hex/
 `rText align right
 `f
 `a
 `b
 Is the text reset now?
 There's no special formatting for lists that I can see, but you `*do`* have to escape the dashes at the beginning.
 \- \`a: reset text align
 \- \`b: reset font background (if none is specified)
 \- \`f: reset font color
 \- \`F: set the following text to whatever color code the next three digits are
 A backslash ("\\") is the escape character so we can show the backticks instead of just saying "backtick" everywhere.
 Micron isn't very intuitive, you know. I prefer Markdown.
 `F00a`_`[Can I link to a different page?`:/page/1.mu]`_`f
 `=This is a code block
 `=This is another code block
 I don't think this is very accessible for blind people. Hell, even most `*Gemini`* clients are better at this.
--- a/weather.sh
+++ b/weather.sh
@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
 #!/bin/bash
 echo "Your ZIP code    : \`B444\`<username\`94107>\`b"
 echo " \`!\`[submit\`:/page/weather.sh\`username|two]\`!."
 if [ "$field_username" = "" ]; then
 	echo "No zip code input yet: defaulting to '94107'..."
 	echo " "
 	curl -s https://wttr.in/94107?TFn
 else
 	curl -s https://wttr.in/$field_username?TFn
 fi
--- a/Show more
+++ b/Show more