Climb a tree to Heaven’s heights
Feast your eyes on Holy sights.
Climb a mountain; touch the sky.
Near the edge, the forest fries.
Burning trees to till the earth,
Little seeds will get there first.
Quiet night of deepest black,
Ancient trees against your back.
Jungle gyms are made of stone.
Survival skills here you will hone.
Walk back out of forest edge,
Back to home and clippered hedge
Come on back here when you need
A week or two which to be freed.
06/09/12

Dear Devon,
Sometimes I just start typing, random thoughts, feelings, whatever is in my head. Just to try and get things out a bit. I don’t try to make it make sense to anyone but myself, and sometimes it doesn’t even make sense to me, which is ok too. But the words just flow out of my fingers and I strike the keys as if in a trance. I’m hoping that this works out that way.
To ask me how you make me feel is like asking someone to describe a color to a person who was born blind. During our earlier conversations on pof, something sparked in my mind, and in my chest. It wasn’t the finale of a fourth of July fireworks display, but rather a tiny flame, like a votive candle. It was casual but effective. Reading your words impressed me a great deal. Your flow, your banter, I felt comfortable, even after you told me about what you had done. I grew so curious.
The curiosity turned into confusion. How is it that I can physically miss someone I’ve never met? Why do I lay in bed imagining this man’s hands roaming my body, touching my face, looking in my eyes, kissing me with a gentleness that almost hurts? What the Hell have I gotten myself into? But that votive candle grew to a raging inferno. A fire of passion and desire I have heard more than a few people tell me that I’m hot or sexy, or beautiful or whatever. Some of them may have even meant it. But it didn’t touch me inside. Probably because they weren’t trying to look inside. It’s very easy to feel sexy when you’re wearing slutty underwear and being groped. It’s easy to pretend. But it’s shallow and unfulfilling and brings my loneliness to an even deeper level. Emotionally, mentally unstimulated. But not entirely hopeless. I mean my God there are so many people on this Earth, there has to be someone out there who can bring my own thoughts right out of my head like they’re reading a book. Right?! Somebody who makes me thing, “Finally!” Somebody who says words that stop me in my tracks. Somebody who makes me feel beautiful without trying.
I have a feeling that when I read this through it’s going to be horrid. Fuck it. I’m on a roll now. When you spoke about simplicity, and not needing makeup, when you brushed my hair off my forehead, and commented on my nose ring, you have absolutely no idea whatsoever how nice that was. Refreshing. Yup there’s that word again. Refreshing like ice cold water after crossing a desert. When you commented on my nail polish, and spoke about finding art in everything, I found that incomprehensible. The simplest smallest seemingly insignificant things. Those are the things that take my breath away. Those are the things that make me feel bashful and silly and feminine and act shy like a love struck school girl.
The way you look at me, it stuns me. Your eyes are so deep and magical and gorgeous and I want to jump into them like a lake and just bathe in everything they’ve seen.
You asked me, in Wendy’s, if I would be prepared for the inevitable fallout that will come with my loved ones discovery of your past. I thought about that today. I came to a conclusion. If I am truly happy and in love with someone, that should be enough. People who love me, if they can’t handle or understand it or give me an “us or him” choice, I would have to say goodbye. If anyone were to put me in that unfair position, well, to me that isn’t love. I can see not wanting your daughter/sister/whatever to be with someone who beats her or cheats or something like that. (I wouldn’t stay with that person anyways) But to say “you can’t be with him because of his past,” is bullshit. Anyone who would want to leave my life because of that, I wouldn’t stop them.
You also asked me if I could with you anywhere, and when, what would I choose. I believe there was more to the questions but I can’t recall. Anyways, I would be with you at a big freshwater lake, but on a small piece of beach. Just us and the birds. The weather would be nice, hot but not stiff-ling and not humid. There would be a gentle cool breeze. We would have just come back from a canoe ride around the lake, taking photos. We’d swim and splash and relax and feel free. When the sun began to set we would take off our bathing suits and hold each other in the water, and make love on the beach As far as when, well, this summer would be great.
I hope this letter served to shed some light on things. In my eyes, you are not a monster, and you are more than worthy of my awe and admiration. I feel as though this is but a start to something beautiful. Beautiful, and flawed, just like us.

Yours truly,
Alison Anne Cornell

A Sound of Thunder



A sound of thunder.
That’s all she heard.
She saw my pain and my stories
Written across the walls.
My final tapestry of eternal vernacular.
The pain dries and the soul imprints.

I do not believe in love.
My name is forsook from the book.
I am the silent walker.
Eyes of green have darkened to pools of bog.
A joyful soul turns to battlefields and fog.
A loving touch now becomes the eternal
Hand of death.

"Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality."
-Edgar Allan Poe

          Before I was 13, words were of no more importance to me than was the desire to be responsible and to find a way to be anything other than what I was at that very moment.  I was as ignorant to the power of words as mere children are to the ideas of adulthood, such as sex and the value of a dollar or even basic responsibility and consequence.

This being said, I could have easily chosen a different path in my life.  I could have chosen to not write and instead do something completely different all-together.  My name, Devon, when translated into Old English means "Poet".  My mother told me I was named this because she felt it sounded like the name of a writer.  Perhaps she was thinking of the name "Steven King".  Who can say?
          She, after telling me the meaning of my naming, told me to go and write, perhaps to see what came of it.  It was a decision that would change my life significantly but only once I reached adulthood and began to grow however-much more stable and responsible.  Initially, I was terrible at it.  I could read like few others, sprinting through books like they were nothing and memorizing the images in my head as if I'd seen a film on television or in the theater.  But writing was a different story all-together.
          It was something that I found to be excessively difficult.  I, for starters, did not know what to write.  Words escaped me.  What I found out as an adult was that with certain moods and emotions, and when I was assisted by music, I found myself able to write words that flowed and touched you like a lover would touch your face on a cool Spring day.  They would leave you in silence and wonder.  They would speak to you with gentleness rivaling that of a mute dove sitting on your door.  Words could also express other emotions: Anger, Violence, Hate, and Fear.  They could be used to stir people into action and enable us to commit the most horrible attrocities imaginable including Murder, Rape and War.
          The simple fact is that the ability to speak is a gift.  A gift from God, if you believe in Him, or perhaps just a mere gift.  Many take it for granted, as if it were something that "comes with the territory".  Our senses, all five of them, are gifts.  Taste, Touch, Sight, Hearing and Smell. But I believe Speech is also a sense.  We can communicate with others.  We can tell them we love them.  Words between two lovers on a dark night somewhere intimate and quiet broken by a small laugh only a rabbit's hiccup above a whisper.
          Words are also used for evil.  Words like "I hate you" and "worthless" and "scum" and "kill yourself".  Words used by countless bullies and evil people in countless venues across countless eons.  Victims who endure them are countless as all the stars in the sky and all the grains of sand on every world in every system in the universe.  We grow stronger or we break.  For those who grow strong, strength comes in the form of kindness with a fire-spine!  We treat others as we wished to be treated and thus break the cycle of hate and violence.
          Now, I write seldom though I wish this were not so.  Through life's experiences, I have dried up like a lake bed under curse from God; My inspiration a reminiscence, something I lost and wonder if it returns.  Inspiration now comes in small breezes instead of wind storms from music or emotion.
          Words are something that I do not believe will ever stop being used for violence.  It is the way of humanity to twist and warp what is good so that it is put to use for what is evil.  We are capable of such goodness and yet we are also capable of great wrong.  When will we decide enough is enough?  When good men rule and  bad men who crave power and control are prevented from having it; When the good men and women of the world are wise enough to tell the difference in advance.  On that day, we will have peace; And not before.



“There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. And then you accept it. Or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking in mirrors.”
-Tennessee Williams

 

Suicide is defined as killing oneself, by any means, intentionally.

I have a friend whose name shall remain omitted except for the initials "A.C.L".  I'll call him AC.  AC has been ill mentally for as long as he can remember and I suppose this fact has gotten me to thinking more than once.  Suicide and mental illness, not just depression or bipolar disorder, has been a curse in this country for countless millions.  Even in other countries since the beginning of time, it has been a cross to bear.  It seems like it's something that, in my opinion, has no easy fix.  Medication causes problems just as it allegedly fixes them.  I say allegedly because some say their meds work.  Others disagree. The half-life of a great deal of medications is just lousy.

Growing up, I was a significant amount of medications and I can tell you that I could fill an old-timey mason jar (the brown and tan ones that moonshine used to be in) with ONE pill each of all the pills ive taken to deal with everything from adhd, to Tourette syndrome to obsessive compulsive disorder.  Anxiety.  Things of that nature.  I was lucky enough to outgrow most of it and now I can live a halfway decent life.  My friend AC was and is not so lucky.

The medical and mental health care in this country is abysmal.  Nurses and doctors (but more commonly nurses) are over-worked, under-paid and under-appreciated.  My twin-sister, younger sister, aunt and mother are all nurses.  I have heard stories.  I have also met my fair share of "well, if i must..." nurses.  I have had experiences with medical staff where had it been just a smidgen more serious, i would have died while the staff only accused me of "faking it".  The mental health in this country charges exorbitant rates because they are set by insurance companies.  According to billadvocates.com, "Medical bills push more people into bankruptcy than all other financial hardships combined."

The sad part is that what I hear from AC is that doctors (namely, psychiatrists) will "listen", offer no constructive help, push pills on you and reschedule you for another meeting in the future.  The  money is compelling but not the healing of the patient.  Why should they be healed or helped?  If they continue to suffer, they will continue to come back and continue to spend money (insurance money or not) which is like saying, concerning dating a woman, "why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"  A similar analogy applies to the patient. Why heal. what you can continue to milk?  It's like selling a cow instead of just milking her and selling the milk.

It's a sad fact that money runs this country and people merely go into the streets and die.  They kill themselves because they feel like the country, their doctors and nearly everyone else has failed them.  It's better to die and end the pain than to continue.

The following is a re-print from www.thekimfoundation.org :

Mood Disorders
Mood disorders include major depressive disorder, dysthymic disorder, and bipolar disorder.
Approximately 20.9 million American adults, or about 9.5 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year, have a mood disorder.
The median age of onset for mood disorders is 30 years.
Depressive disorders often co-occur with anxiety disorders and substance abuse.
Suicide
In 2004, 32,439 (approximately 11 per 100,000) people died by suicide in the U.S.7
More than 90 percent of people who kill themselves have a diagnosable mental disorder, most commonly a depressive disorder or a substance abuse disorder.
The highest suicide rates in the U.S. are found in white men over age 85.
Four times as many men as women die by suicide; however, women attempt suicide two to three times as often as men.
Schizophrenia
Approximately 2.4 million American adults, or about 1.1 percent of the population age 18 and older in a given year, have schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia affects men and women with equal frequency.
Schizophrenia often first appears in men in their late teens or early twenties. In contrast, women are generally affected in their twenties or early thirties.
Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety disorders include panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and phobias (social phobia, agoraphobia, and specific phobia).
Approximately 40 million American adults ages 18 and older, or about 18.1 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have an anxiety disorder.
Anxiety disorders frequently co-occur with depressive disorders or substance abuse.
Most people with one anxiety disorder also have another anxiety disorder. Nearly three-quarters of those with an anxiety disorder will have their first episode by age 21.5.
Panic Disorder
Approximately 6 million American adults ages 18 and older, or about 2.7 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have panic disorder.
Panic disorder typically develops in early adulthood (median age of onset is 24), but the age of onset extends throughout adulthood.
About one in three people with panic disorder develops agoraphobia, a condition in which the individual becomes afraid of being in any place or situation where escape might be difficult or help unavailable in the event of a panic attack.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Approximately 2.2 million American adults age 18 and older, or about 1.0 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have OCD.
The first symptoms of OCD often begin during childhood or adolescence, however, the median age of onset is 19.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Approximately 7.7 million American adults age 18 and older, or about 3.5 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have PTSD.
PTSD can develop at any age, including childhood, but research shows that the median age of onset is 23 years.
About 19 percent of Vietnam veterans experienced PTSD at some point after the war. The disorder also frequently occurs after violent personal assaults such as rape, mugging, or domestic violence; terrorism; natural or human-caused disasters; and accidents.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Approximately 6.8 million American adults, or about 3.1 percent of people age 18 and over, have GAD in a given year.
GAD can begin across the life cycle, though the median age of onset is 31 years old.
Social Phobia
Approximately 15 million American adults age 18 and over, or about 6.8 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have social phobia.
Social phobia begins in childhood or adolescence, typically around 13 years of age.
Eating Disorders
The three main types of eating disorders are anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder.
Females are much more likely than males to develop an eating disorder. Only an estimated 5 to 15 percent of people with anorexia or bulimia and an estimated 35 percent of those with binge-eating disorder are male.
In their lifetime, an estimated 0.5 percent to 3.7 percent of females suffer from anorexia, and an estimated 1.1 percent to 4.2 percent suffer from bulimia.
Community surveys have estimated that between 2 percent and 5 percent of Americans experience binge-eating disorder in a 6-month period.
The mortality rate among people with anorexia has been estimated at 0.56 percent per year, or approximately 5.6 percent per decade, which is about 12 times higher than the annual death rate due to all causes of death among females ages 15-24 in the general population.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
ADHD, one of the most common mental disorders in children and adolescents, also affects an estimated 4.1 percent of adults, ages 18-44, in a given year.
ADHD usually becomes evident in preschool or early elementary years. The median age of onset of ADHD is seven years, although the disorder can persist into adolescence and occasionally into adulthood.
Autism
Autism is part of a group of disorders called autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), also known as pervasive developmental disorders. ASDs range in severity, with autism being the most debilitating form while other disorders, such as Asperger syndrome, produce milder symptoms.
Estimating the prevalence of autism is difficult and controversial due to differences in the ways that cases are identified and defined, differences in study methods, and changes in diagnostic criteria. A recent study reported the prevalence of autism in 3-10 year-olds to be about 3.4 cases per 1000 children.
Autism and other ASDs develop in childhood and generally are diagnosed by age three.
Autism is about four times more common in boys than girls. Girls with the disorder, however, tend to have more severe symptoms and greater cognitive impairment.
Alzheimer's Disease
AD affects an estimated 4.5 million Americans. The number of Americans with AD has more than doubled since 1980.
AD is the most common cause of dementia among people age 65 and older.
Increasing age is the greatest risk factor for Alzheimer’s. In most people with AD, symptoms first appear after age 65. One in 10 individuals over 65 and nearly half of those over 85 are affected. Rare, inherited forms of Alzheimer’s disease can strike individuals as early as their 30s and 40s.
From the time of diagnosis, people with AD survive about half as long as those of similar age without dementia.
_________________________________________________________________

As you can see from the above article, mental health is a serious thing!  Gun violence in this country by the mentally ill will not be stopped by taking guns away.  They will merely find alternative weapons to use against the "innocent".

Ultimately, unless we reform the mental health establishment and also the medical establishment, we will not stop killing ourselves and others.

To put it into perspective, the the Washington Post says that mental health is not responsible for gun violence.  The killers are "ruthless sociopaths".  However if anyone is at all versed or experienced in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, they would know how effective it is in "re-wiring" the brain to make people less violent and to better enable them to make adult and responsible decisions.  How then is sociopathy not a mental disorder?  Are they born that way? Is it genetic as their hair color? No? Then its mental health.  Just like habitually destructive behavior is learned or acquired, so too is sociopathy and can be "cured" by proper therapy.  It's just a thought.

 

I'm not sure how to fix this entirely but we need to start looking at better ways than hiding under the covers and saying the sky isn't falling and we'll be fine. We wont. The roman empire went down because they thought everything was fine.  Now they're barely spoken of except in entertainment purposes.  Should America be next?

On march 30, 2011, my father was hit and killed when a texting driver dropped his cell phone and reached for it.  The driver was Brian Patrick Bunting of CMT's Gainesville.  My father was hit and killed instantly.  The driver paid a $1,000 fine, received no jail time and walked away.  A subsequent lawsuit netted around $75,000 after attorney's fees.  Split three ways, i received approximately $15,000 (for my loss).  Blood money I did not wish for in replacement of my deceased father.

Simply put, distracted driving, specifically texting while driving, is one of the most lethal contributors to death while on America's roadways.  Isn't it time to put an end to needless death?  Isn't it time to stop the slaughter?

According to Nationwide Insurance's blog, "As many as 1 in 4 accidents are caused by some type of driver distraction" and "Each day, distracted driving causes about 9 fatalities and 1,153 injuries."  I don't know about you, but I've had enough!  I've had enough of people being hit and killed by distracted drivers.  I've had enough of people taking meaningless and unnecessary risks while driving.

According to  The New York Times, the average weight of a vehicle now "tips the scales at 4,000 pounds".  If an average man weighs 200 pounds, that four-thousand pound vehicle weighs twenty times his weight.  A larger vehicle like a box truck can double or triple it.  Simply put, if you are driving and texting, driving and eating, driving and drinking anything at all, you are operating a machine that weighs two tons and is a moving machine of death.  And by doing the things you are doing instead of putting all of your attention on the road as you should be, you are telling everyone around you and anyone potentially about to be around you that you don't care.  You don't care about their safety, your safety or their children's safety.  That is absolutely unacceptable.

This video by AT&T about texting drivers should hit you hard.

Taking your eyes off the road for 5 seconds traveling 55 miles per hour will bring you the distance of a football field in those five seconds.  Virtually blind.

Enough is enough.  No one else should die from this!

If you must text, us a Windshield Adhearance Device so that your eyes have less than a quarter inch of space between your phone and the road.  I use this and use it primarily for GPS.  However, there is also the option of turning notifications off, turning it into silent mode, and putting it on airplane mode while driving.  Nothing is worth killing someone.  Sadly, not enough states have vehicular manslaughter laws.  Unfortunately, this author cannot locate enough research to give exact numbers as to which states have which laws.

The laws need to change.  Now.  Not tomorrow, not next week.  More will have to die before something changes.  Let us hope it is not too many.