Life is the treasure and knowledge is the fire to kindle and wisdom the outcome to distill it

Poverty is taking away food from a fellow human being
Poverty is not being grateful that you have slept having eaten a comfortable meal
Poverty is going out there with a poor self image and using the presence of others to mask your inadequacy
Poverty is not knowing how divine you are, your soul content

Poverty as a woman is not being able to say how you feel and what you feel because you are afraid of rejection or disappointment
Poverty is trying to make a guy feel insecure because you yourself are insecure
Poverty is trying to have multiple ****** relations to either draw a man or men towards you or simply for the sake of trying to fuel your self esteem
Poverty is dreaming and letting the birds talk about it as a could have been
Poverty is stabbing a person you love dearly in the back
Poverty is blaming society, culture and circumstances at home for not progressing forward
Poverty is killing because you are stuck in unorderly primitive and unruly state and you do not know tranquility

Poverty is wanting things to remain the same because it protects you from growth and the awe of advancement
Poverty is living in the past and endlessly trying to change the present
Poverty is not knowing what to say because you have forgotten how to compose yourself in the presence of others
Poverty is thinking for short term satisfaction breeding inevitable lack of long term contentedness

Wealth is inviting the future fearlessly
Wealth is loving abundantly
Wealth is joining the heart's dance by yielding to emotions of pure positive vibrations
Wealth is making the heart intelligent so your desires are not  of a marginal durability
Wealth is seeking the truth because it will wash away the lies and test your bravery as it opens up the wounds and the pain of reality
Wealth is knowing that in giving a lot and asking less more than half the time; you remain abundant
  Wealth is imagining what a future 'you' would be like and in pursuit you strive to make your future self proud
Wealth is having an open mind and seeking first to understand than to be understood
Wealth is trying to find better solutions for either parties, a higher way; which healthily benefits either parties

Wealth is having someone who will support you no matter what
Wealth is sticking to divine principles because they will stand no matter what
Wealth is treating another better than you treat yourself and in essence you treat yourself as the greatest being
Wealth is being patient and persevering for good things because you will honour them as you understand what it took to earn them
Wealth is making a promise and keeping it, it boosts the progress of the whole Universe; even the promises we make to ourselves
Wealth is cleaning up after ourselves and engineering our personhood to not rely on insubstantial and baseless objectives and mantras
Wealth is taking a stand for one's own life and not waiting for a hero to pull up the yardstick
Wealth is going to the dam with a  broken rod and teaching yourself how to fish until a master comes and philosophises your decorum, approach, conduct and credo on the whole process of being independent and going out into the world,
Wealth is unlearning all of the miseducation that we have been fed since the day we were born and relearning and rewiring our psyche to be conscious and cosmically aligned with our divine purposes and use the resources around us to make the raw a tangible gem and vice versa.

Say no to poverty.
Live a sincere life of truth and meaning, we only have so much time to pay off our debts until we're rich enough to give back to the world again.

unlearning
to not be jealous
I wanna be happy for your success
I wanna have your back
I want you to have mine
unlearning
to not assume your attitude
unlearning
to not assume that you're assuming mine
unlearning
after learning cruelty all this time
I'm not competing
I'm daydreaming
I'm generally unphased
I go my own way
I’m happy for you, girl
go take on the world

Tossing and turning.
Unlearning abusive systems and relearning loving skills.
Becoming a dream keeper as a rebellious angel child anything is possible.
So I am very soulfully strong and heart-meltingly adorable.
I provide nightmares for my worst enemies.
And sweet dreams for my dearest friends.
Anyone in the middle is going to live with their political aspirations.

The blue song bird
mellifluous singer admired
for her songs that melt
even hearts of rock,
riding the crust
of the adoring wind,
swoop,
            down,
                    down,
                              down
wit­hout a thought
suddenly alights,
heroically tries to sit,
on a high tension power line;
yet another of her
impromptu acts like before,
she labors to convince everyone
in a shrill chirping sound
that dangerously she lives
taking life in her own hands.

East wind, her companion tells
she is mistaken; he tries to push
her away from the lethal wire
on which death awaits with its dark hum

"young and wayward bird
you tell me you learn so quickly
from your mistakes, alright
from now and the moment next
lies an unknown chasm
in a jiffy if you decide to fathom it
no time is left for unlearning what it teaches
and reverse your journey
to the winter land  of darkness
from where no migratory bird has ever come back"
The bird so deaf to wind's words,
still hovers above the wire
the wind in warning hums a sad tune aloud.

I am a guy.
Just a guy.
Not an "ummm...technically."
or "biologically female."
Not: "used to be a girl",
"Thinks she's a guy",
"Doesn't dress like a boy",
"What she got between her legs?",
"Wears makeup",
"Doesn't pass"-

Gender norms literally **** people.

Every "I'm sorry" is just a peeling paint job
over an intercity wall,
no one really wants to look at,
or fix,
or admit to.

This is not a problem I brought on myself.
My gender is not a problem,
You are the problem.

I'm not running from what's inside me anymore,
I know what's inside me,
I've made peace with what's inside me
It's the same old, same old,
with a new set of words
you ******* can't wrap your tongues around.

I don't care if you slipped up,
Fix it.
I don't care if you didn't know I was a boy,
Fix it.
I don't care about your cis guilt, cis excuses, or cis ignorance
Fix it.

Because you don't know the age limit
not to be Emily anymore.
The hundreds of dollars it costs.
Every: "Hello Ladies",
every "Sorry Miss",
every "What can I do for you Ma'm",
every "You'll always be my niece-"
"My daughter",
"My girlfriend".

The cis questions,
cis answers,
cis stares,
cis disinterest in my ******* feelings.

I am not going to hold your hand
and politely explain to you that
I
AM
NOT
MY
GENITALS.
That's your job cis people.
Fix it.

Every misgendering is peeking through the veil
of how people really perceive you.
It's all just a game they play along
with in your presence.
Going along with a trance they think
you've put yourself in.

They don't really see you,
When all it takes is
changing a single word
in one ******* sentence.
That would be no inconvenience to them,
But makes or breaks the world to you.
Covering it up with a strained smile,
Lying that it's fine.

Is it even a question that over 70%
of trans people **** themselves,
as opposed to 1% of the general population.
It makes so much ******* sense to me.

Because trans means knowing
I will never be properly gendered by a stranger,
Unless I get a **** I don't ******* want.
Being trans is waking up everyday
with the guarantee you can not
use the bathrooms in public.

Can't be called a guy
Hearing: "Emmett? That's a weird girl's name."
Having people ignore you
When you're on the verge of tears
begging them not to see
your soft curves and small chest and skirt
as one big sign that says 'SHE'.

Then being told:
"It's not their fault,
people just don't know."
"You have to be more understanding,
more patient -
be nicer about it."

How 'bout applying that to yourself?
Don't tell me I have to be kinder
about being denied my identity everyday.
Don't tell me to shut up about a system
so ingrained in my brain
I still misgender myself.

It's gaslighting,
A society denying reality
And telling us we are the confused ones.
The crazy ones.
For veering outside these neat little boxes
ahem, cages
of made up rules
they've tried to lock us into.

The consequences are absolutely deadly.
Is it any question
That people bleed themselves dry
Get drunk, get high
just to escape it all?

Then get thrown into a 'health care system'
for attempted suicide,
get misgendered by the nurses and doctors
who ignore why they're there in the first place.
Then denied hormones for their
'mental instability'.

We are thrown into a world of glass ceilings
and imaginary borders
with all too real consequences.

Make no mistake,
We are not dangers to ourselves.
You absolutely put us here.

Blame it on whatever generation or
individual you want,
but we are all participating in cisnormativity
if you are not constantly unlearning.

If you equate genitals with gender,
Ask what the baby's going to be -
As if it ******* matters -
Don't think to ask pronouns and get it wrong,
See every character, every face on TV
that doesn't look like ours,
have everything catered
to the way you turned out to be,

That's privilege is our danger.
The gaps in judgement
and consideration for our situations
is where we live
and our destined to fall.

Because when someone hits you with a car
It doesn't matter of they didn't see  you,
didn't mean to,
have never done it before,
are the nicest person in the world -
They ****** up.
And it still hurts.

Sure, if they meant to
it would be worse,
But I'm through with this rhetoric
about intent.

Don't think this is too drastic a comparison,
Gender norms literally kills people.
Every mark of 'self-harm' on our arms
Is a scar society put there.
Every trans suicide is a ******.

The question isn't why
we are killing ourselves.
It's how the ****
are we still alive.

A cactus he loved, all he saw was beauty in her,
the fascinating patterns,were engagingly intriguing,
she sought his thorns, to naturally reciprocate,
to love him, the way she always had known that art.

            Never could she find, even one, however she tried,
           thorns weren't his attraction, was she disappointed?
           she had to learn  love transactions, eliminating thorns,
           then, everything in place had fallen one by one.

Every morning I try to unlearn the universe.
It is like a yoga exercise to escape the irons of knowledge.
In 63 years your head fills with so much *******.
There must be a method for purging the excess.
So far I have not been able to discover it.
I will keep trying because I want to see things fresh.
I want to hear babies cry and Mozart exhalt for the first time.
I want to enter a woman anew like a baffled 15-year-old
discovering a pleasure from which he will never want to escape.
I want to forget my over-remembered  life.
I want to rediscover the salty taste of women.
I have been everywhere and am out of destinations.
I ache for the pain of a question lacking an answer.
I want to go to war again and relearn a sense of terror.
I want to experience the baffled euphoria of first love.
I want to reclaim my sense of wonder from jaded life.
Imagine the utter joy of hearing again birds for the first time.
Unlearning is so much harder than learning.
I fear not enough years remain to unknow this burden.
But I must keep at it with a vigor no longer possessed.
It is morning again in the heart of Mike Essig.
And every morning I try to unlearn the universe
simply so I might know the bliss of learning it again.

There’s nothing worse than a girl desperate for love:

A girl that pities herself enough to think she is so intrinsically broken
she couldn’t even connect with someone biologically destined to love her;
A girl stupid enough to learn that love is a reward that she must earn,
yet frantic enough to always work too hard for it;
A girl that overcompensates. Begs. Forces.
A girl that claims she ‘Doesn’t know what to do with love’
when it comes along, so that, naturally, she can smother it;
A girl who’s biggest fear is abandonment, yet is an expert on expecting too much;
A girl that’s waiting to be saved, but would tell you she doesn’t deserve it;
A girl that still obsesses over ways she has been bruised
when surrounded by people that have helped her heal;
A girl who’s self involved, with no sense of self;
A girl that cries. And cries. And cries.

There’s nothing worse than a girl desperate for love.

forward forward forward
going somewhere moving forward
whether progressing or regressing
growing or unlearning
coming or going
living, dying
everyone believes they are moving towards something
and as everything happens all at once
each perceptive reality is entirely different than any other
and each consciousness travels, and does, and is.
each consciousness believes it has a purpose or a path.
the purpose is not to see into nor plan the future.

from the civilian to the hero tv shows and movies
have consistently glorified the ability to see visions of the future
generally this is followed by someone trying to prevent
the happenings in said vision from becoming reality
and distinctly failing because they "saw into" the future
that their own energy influenced

but the true super power is to be able to look into the past.
to prevent the omitting of details and data
to avoid a rewrite of our conscious interaction with this planet
not to white out the chapters that bear the truth in the textbooks
to recall history so it does not repeat itself

my question is then
do people disguise the wrongdoings of those hidden by the passing of time?
because they are ashamed of the mistakes of their ancestors pasts?
because they are ashamed of their participation in past consciousness's?
because they are ashamed of the atrocities humans have inflicted upon each other and themselves as well as their home planet since the beginning of recorded time here?

or do those who have the power to omit and hide history
purposely rewrite it?
do they mask the pains of the past so the rest of us will forget?
so that even they can forget?
so their next consciousness can unknowingly, while predestined,
have hand in crimes against the world all the same as committed in the lost past?

how many times has someone written these words
or a similar combination
only to delete the post?
burn the pages?
backspace the message?
stop themselves from speaking them aloud?
cover the symbols?
pass out of conscious living mid sentence?
lose them to a past lifetime?

how many times has this cycled through the same way?
how many times have I been me?
how many times have you been me?
how many times have I been anyone?
how many times have I been?

is there a rhythm or is it all as scattered and random
as the thoughts that bring you
to this kind of an understanding of the habit of misunderstanding?
the kind of thoughts that bring you back to the birds nest because you were too early for even the worm?

they will all catch up eventually
after all they all think theyre moving forward
and they don't even know where they've been.
they don't even know that they've been.

Redlight running faster than the words I left unsaid
and in the tides of sirens I lay broken with nothing left
Looking through those shattered windows, pained eyes
Watch the hands that healed now bloodstained leave their sight
My sight

Choking on the ashes of the house we built
The world stood silent and the oceans filled
With sweat and tears paired with heartache that no one else could feel
and memories scared with sorrow of which these wounds may never heal
Let them heal
just let me heal

Gasping for the surface giving all I have
Escape the grave of suffering with my last breath
So convinced by bitterness that I may never love again
But I'll stand strong against the gods because thats just who I am

But its not for you
It never could be
and its so hard with every step we're unlearning
this house of cards is burning
burning
Down

What do the gods know
of humanity
to be unlovable
Thanks for convincing me
That I will die alone
Hurt the ones that mean the most and no one in this world was
Meant
For
Me

And its not for you
It never will be
and its so hard with every step I'm unlearning
But my hearts caught fire
and its burning, burning now.

In youth
It came as a flood
Almost senseless with
the rush of expression
Pouring from my hand;
It could not keep pace with
the ceaseless deluge from my mind
Half-formed coherency
No thought paid to the rules of
Grammar, Spelling, Paragraphs
Just a wrenching of the soul
that demanded ink.

Years later, studies of
Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Tennyson
A mind full of words that
are not my own, I am
Senseless with the inability
to break this learned dam. Now
nothing comes out right.
My mind, it burns
and burns and burns
But nothing ever takes aflame.

you make so much sense
amidst the tangled vines of
learning and unlearning
please don’t go before i get better

once upon a time
you were the moon to my stars
which is to say, you didn't know
how to shine without dimming me in the process

and yes, you sat me in your lap to feed me off your fork
but then, you always had a way of presenting scraps as
a reward

and presentation is everything, right?
no, you never truly left me bleeding
instead, my heart and mind were carefully extrapolated
blended together until they looked like the color of your eyes,
and gently poured back in place

how do you know which pieces go where?
how can I know without you?

I’m curious about your experience of time. Do you feel like life is moving really quickly? Is your music one way to sort of turn it over and reflect on it?

WILLOW SMITH: I mean, time for me, I can make it go slow or fast, however I please, and that’s how I know it doesn’t exist.

JADEN SMITH: It’s proven that how time moves for you depends on where you are in the universe. It’s relative to beings and other places. But on the level of being here on earth, if you are aware in a moment, one second can last a year. And if you are unaware, your whole childhood, your whole life can pass by in six seconds. But it’s also such a thing that you can get lost in.

How have you gotten better?

WILLOW SMITH: Caring less what everybody else thinks, but also caring less and less about what your own mind thinks, because what your own mind thinks, sometimes, is the thing that makes you sad.

JADEN SMITH: Exactly. Because your mind has a duality to it. So when one thought goes into your mind, it’s not just one thought, it has to bounce off both hemispheres of the brain. When you’re thinking about something happy, you’re thinking about something sad. When you think about an apple, you also think about the opposite of an apple. It’s a tool for understanding mathematics and things with two separate realities. But for creativity: That comes from a place of oneness. That’s not a duality consciousness. And you can’t listen to your mind in those times — it’ll tell you what you think and also what other people think.

WILLOW SMITH: And then you think about what you think, which is very dangerous.

Do you think of your new music as a continuation of your past work?

JADEN SMITH: That’s another thing: What’s your job, what’s your career? Nah, I am. I’m going to imprint myself on everything in this world.

What are the things worth having?

WILLOW SMITH: A canvas. Paint. A microphone.

JADEN SMITH: Anything that you can shock somebody with. The only way to change something is to shock it. If you want your muscles to grow, you have to shock them. If you want society to change, you have to shock them.

WILLOW SMITH: That’s what art is, shocking people. Sometimes shocking yourself.

So is the hardest education the unlearning of things?*

WILLOW SMITH: Yes, basically, but the crazy thing is it doesn’t have to be like that.

JADEN SMITH: Here’s the deal: School is not authentic because it ends. It’s not true, it’s not real. Our learning will never end. The school that we go to every single morning, we will continue to go to.

WILLOW SMITH: Forever, ‘til the day that we’re in our bed.

JADEN SMITH: Kids who go to normal school are so teenagery, so angsty.

WILLOW SMITH: They never want to do anything, they’re so tired.

WILLOW SMITH: I went to school for one year. It was the best experience but the worst experience. The best experience because I was, like, “Oh, now I know why kids are so depressed.” But it was the worst experience because I was depressed.

for the longest time
i thought i needed to
return to the child
i was.

i spent half my life
unlearning trauma,
only to lose sight
on the woman
i wanted to become.

Along the shoreline
cigarettes and red wine my only company,
dry seaweed as stranded as me,
and yet.
I am surrounded by the sounds of the ocean and its waves and the crashing of the shingle,my spine begins to tingle and excitement builds inside me as I rush to write some poetry,
my only company.
Tide turning,stomach churning,bridge burning,more yearning and unlearning the past as the waters recede,
and like the ocean I need that respite from the constant.
I pour one more glass knowing that this time like all time will pass and await the return.

Why
When we were children,
Were we given
A pile of wooden blocks,
To help us count
Add up, take away,
Spell our name and scream it out,
To build and balance
As tall as possible a tower.
And when it fell over,
Rebuild and rebalance.
But so many of us just
Threw the blocks at each other
And cried when one hit us
In the eye

So-
When we were given the oceans and sky,
It wasn't long before we had
Ruined more than we had learned-
A continent of gnarled, congealed plastic
Floating in our graying heaven's reflection.
And given the forests,
We build either twelve-room-summer homes or else
So many billion disposable chopsticks.
We grew up unlearning and grow old crying while
Our children ask us
Why? Why? Why?
Were you so selfish for so long?
Because
Children, blocks,
don't come with instructions.

it's a short  dance
between the night and, say  
the morning
dreamy hope  
moon trance  
missing heartbeats
scary haunting prowls
distant shards of darkness
and a soft release
with a hint of silence.

My drugged fantasy
follows the rhyme masters:  
trans-Atlantic dwellers  
icy treasure keepers
sights of sacred mountains    
and powerful embracing
(never self-effacing)
of half-life, half-death.

My pen poised and struggles:  
such a crazy evening  
such seductive welcome  
sights perfectly imagined  
and accomplished howls  
of the gospel sayings.  

I'm a northern demon
painting ashen skies
as I watch vampires of dark past returning.
  
Such a hard unlearning:
memories
are future souls burning
that whisper to us  
through the ancient dust
of painless forgetting
freedom fragments chasing  
precious bonds of wisdom,
perfect dreamy angels.

The crucifix inked on my neck burns me
A reminder of the ***** that stunted me.
Free will denied when imposed too young
The deception felt a lot like grief.

If I put a gun to His head
Maybe new meaning can be brought,
To a stain no amount of unlearning can excuse.

- don’t worry
Jesus isn’t dead, he’s ridin’ a unicorn to Narnia

20.04.14
Cuba

does long-sought summer simmer
more with yearning?
should not a reckless desire unbound
plead for unlearning?
does not a whisper of a breeze upon a scorched blacktop race
through the stillness of youth,
fickly departing without a trace?

these things shall pass, only while they're good
as the expanse of outside
accelerates beyond youth's neighborhood
and a last enduring moment clings
for dear life as it darts between
time and space upon nostalgia's wings.

it is only after the last drop of lunar luster
upon the chilled earth dissipates
that rich amber rays sprawl from a horizon
such that the night falls and dawn breaks

and so should not the end of one story
plead for another to awaken from slumber?
as one smile fades should there not be
another to turn back the first day of summer?

Now I've grown,
Yes, summer was that smile.