SlamPoets

I am not…a slam poet.
I SLAM poets!

And every cookie cutter poet that is out there right now.
All of a sudden, every body thinks they’re Def Poets and Brave New Voices.
So let me Express Myself in a way that lets me describe what’s happening to this form of expression I used to love…Hell, I still do. But it’s like she’s cheating on me with every person that’s ever had a crush on somebody and was too scared to say so. Every person that’s ever suffered through heartbreak and just wants to get emotional. Every person that wants to stand up for their rights even when they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. Every wannabe motivational speaker who wants to try and be an inspiration to others. Every self-absorbed speaker who just wants to talk about themselves and find a way to make it seem deeper than it actually is. Every pseudo intellectual or political activist that thinks being a poet is all about writing about the problems of the world. News flash, it doesn’t mean a thing if you don’t believe in it beyond what is on the surface.

But let me straighten this out. You are not a poet, just because you can rhyme cat, with hat. Having a certain rhyme scheme or cadence doesn’t make you a good poet, it makes you a rapper. Using metaphors and similes doesn’t make you deep, it makes you an English student. Using rhetoric or comedy doesn’t make you a poet, just a person with an entertaining speech. So stop trying to point out the pros and cons, using your prose and poems. You are not the dopest because you get angry, loud, riled up or passionate when you deliver a piece. None of it matters without content, so don’t get gassed up if you’re just okay with the words.

I’m witnessing a death of the art form but there’s nothing I can do about it.

Because I am not…a beat poet.
I BEAT poets!
And every slam poet and illiterate writer who’s ever contributed to the downfall of poetry.

POW! Every single “poet” that’s ever written poems for pussy.
POW! Every single “poet” that’s just looking for attention.
POW! Every single “poet” that’s picked up a pen and a pad because it became cool.
POW! Every single “poet” that jumped on the spoken word bandwagon.

See, the first mistake is calling what you do poetry.
Because complaining about your problems vocally, does not give you the right to yell “HEY, NOTICE ME!”
Hiding under the veil of “I’m trying to create awareness and understanding in the community.”
So my point is this.

If you have no deeper understanding of what we do, beyond thinking that we just say stuff that makes you go “Oooooh”, “Ahhhhhh”, “Awwww” and more words you can snap your fingers to…then don’t’ try this at home.
Just go back to watching Def Poetry Jam in your spare time.
If you are not well-versed in this art from…then LEAVE POETRY ALONE!
If you are not well read. Not bothering to learn from what’s already been said.
Then don’t bother agreeing with me and saying the art form is dead…because in the end, we are keeping it alive.
Just treat it with the respect it deserves.

JustAnotherLovePoem

I’m not going to waste time with an introduction describing this piece because in the end, it’s just another love poem. Another page in the anthologies of love poems I’ve written through the years about females that have captivated me enough, to make me want to waste hours thinking about them and how great they are. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t mean this. So, if I ever tell you that this piece was about you…then it’s still as meaningful as the first one I ever wrote.
But to everyone else, this is just another love poem.

This is just another 3 minute piece about how I think this one girl is beyond comparison. A girl that could be the definition of average to you, because none of you are thinking “Oh, he’s talking about her…I’m 100% sure”. And I’m sure you’re not thinking that so stop pretending that you are.

Here’s another minute and a half of inane babbling of me describing how perfect she is. How every single one of her flaws just end up seeming cute to me and every sentence she’s ever said to me is my favourite sentence EVER. How I like her a whole bunch of a lot more than is necessary because she’s amazingly awesome and I’m wishing I could be a part of that. Maybe even how she’s so attractive that the word attractive isn’t enough to even describe her pinky toe and how her face has me forgetting the face of every other girl I’ve seen before her.

How metaphors don’t do justice to her essence, and nothing I can imagine is as beautiful as her…and believe me I’ve tried. How no man will ever deserve her…though I’m praying she would settle for me. Even though the chances of that happening are like me getting hit by a car…while getting struck by lightning…and getting bitten simultaneously by a radioactive bug and a really drunk homeless man…as tornadoes touch down and a tsunami hits Toronto in 2012.

But this is just another love poem where I say that the only thing I want from her is a hug when I’m feeling down. Maybe a smile, when I’m feeling like everything’s going wrong. Maybe a couple of minutes alone in a park when it feels like everything is beyond hectic. Maybe a couple more romantic instances in relation to problems that either one of us could be having, as a way to get away from it all. And this is the sentence where I talk about how much I wish I could just escape with her someplace, right between where the angels sleep and where earth and heaven meet.

Now this is the part where I talk about how much she means to me. How I wish that she’s fallen asleep or even left while I’m saying this because I don’t have the courage to let her know any of this. But then again, this is just another love poem. Because all I’ve ever done is write love poems.

I’ve never acted on any of it because I have this fear of rejection that I just can’t get over. So I write, and I write.
In the end, this is probably just another love poem to add to the collection. But then again…maybe it’s not.

Monster

I think…I might be a monster.
I know it sounds insane, but hear me out.
I think I might be a monster. No fangs, no claws, no fur...just bad thoughts, bad experiences and bad actions with nice intentions.

I think this might have made me a monster.
Because if there's nothing to fear but fear itself, then I stare into the mirror and I fear myself. Because I know what lies beneath, so I hide behind words I've pieced trying to disguise the beast.

See, I know I'm a monster.
It's all about me, so I admit I'm selfish and conceited even though I don’t even like myself that much. I’m always asking questions for the sake of my own sanity like: What do other people think of me? Am I cool now or am I still a loser? Damn, I'm still a loser.
A loser standing up to get attention, never mind having an answer for anything or saying anything worth listening to. Grabbing the spotlight just so I can try to show people the better side of me. Showcasing positives because I'm too insecure to bear any flaws to the world.

See, for me image comes first and foremost so I have to be cool. I carefully choose what to wear hoping that even one girl will walk up to me and tell me that I look handsome today. I put on a show of bravado, faking confidence because I have to be a man. Show no fear, shed no tears and already that's something I can't do. I feel no guilt, no sadness. Blocking out the pain of lashes caused by pain and madness. But I will not let a tear drop, because boys don't cry…men do. But I refuse to take responsibility...

And that makes me a monster.
Every. Single. Day. I wish that people would see nothing but good things in me, never commenting with nothing less than a compliment. But...I can't do it myself. I'm judgmental by nature, rating girls passing by with score cards and stat bars. You can try telling me that it's normal for a teenager, but I think there's something wrong with me.

I think I might be a monster.
Shaken and ripped apart by heartbreak and haphazardly stitched back in parts as I try to pull myself together in a rush so I could try again and after the last time…I think I did it wrong or made a mistake or something. It’s almost like a case of exchanged limbs; try to move my leg but my shoulder twitches…now I can't do what I know I need to. And whenever this happens I turn more and more into a monster...and I can’t stop it.
I don’t bother trying to learn anything from experience, I take my thread and needle. Tearing open the stitches that cover my chest and back, I place my hand through empty space grasping for the heart I yearn to give someone.

But no one's willing to fall for a monster.
Flamethrowing propane in words, hoping I can light a fire in a listener. I'm living in the dark, the absence of light and God because I've already convinced myself I belong there; trying to hide in insecurity searching for a sense of security. Or I can spit venom, making people feel bad to make myself feel better about my own flaws, so I can gain something like a little bit of confidence.

And it’s almost like something’s broken inside of me…because I don't feel anything. Ain't no tears fallen yet, and there's none soon coming, though I'm trying everything to un-desensitize myself. I'm unfazed by death and glorify violence so I hate what I've become. Indifferent to poverty and suffering because all I'm worried about is living a good life and being happy. But what needs to be done is the opposite, just smile and be nice...but I'm content not to be a part of it, not thinking for a second about a single consequence.

So I think I’m a monster…just trying to belong. Looking for someplace I can be surrounded by monsters like me.
Then I realize that I'm already there. See, monsters are common; it's the angels that are hard to find. Earth's a breeding ground, nurtured by false ideas, bad advertisement, twisted morals, booze and boobs, and social evolution that's taking us the opposite way.

We're all the same but I'm transforming before my very eyes. I can't yell...I can't scream...I can't call for help and I can't cry. Because monsters are the reason people die. We all have monsters hidden on the inside, and that’s no lie. It’s not a big secret but I know why…because we know how to stop it, but we just don’t try.

ConcreteJungle

As I step from hardwood floors to concrete pavement, I enter a jungle that is just as wild as the Amazon and even more dangerous, if not for my body, then for my soul and my sanity. I’ve been captured and placed inside a vessel that keeps me chained to the physical. I keep trying to break free…
But I’m bound behind these bars…like cages. So I turn metal into words and turn these bars into bars to release me from this box I’m trapped in.

An endless cycle of consequences born of Pandora’s box when humanity becomes masochistic in it’s predictability. Because life is nothing but a box and I’m tired of being boxed in, trying to think outside the box but all that happens is I get put inside a box six feet under for trying to break the cycle. I’ve spent countless hours in front of a box…TV, watching shows that taught me life lessons so I wouldn’t be square connected, to my Xbox 360, which lies beside a shoebox filled with memories of past relationships I call my ex-box. And I’ve spent hours watching a box on Youtube inside of another box I see as my monitor inside of a box I recognize as my bedroom, but these boxes are almost never the same when it gets twisted around like Rubik’s cubes. I step outside the box I call my house and walk down the street on a sidewalk composed of boxes made of concrete watching metal boxes whiz past me. As soon as I get to school I’m stuck doing work and listening to lectures in a box…classroom, in hopes that I can graduate to an institution of higher learning to learn in a bigger box known as lectures halls. All with the goal of getting a diploma that I can frame inside a glass windowed box, so I can work behind a desk in a way smaller box…office. But in the end, we all end up in the same box to decompose.

My hope of changing the direction my life is headed, is just like a game of checkers, because as I stand inside this 4 sided square staring at the finish line, I can never head straight for it. Instead I must hop over obstacles to travel faster taking advantage of others, in constant fear of losing everything as I become a stepping stone for the opposition.
I’m being pressed in from six directions and my bones are beginning to become brittle from the pressure of the earth on my shoulders. I’ve gone through life hoping to become a predator in this concrete jungle, but in the end I’ve become the prey, praying for better days as I struggle to be more than just another link in the food chain.

Caged inside my own helplessness, I fight for survival, dreading the act of standing still, so my pen…never leaves these lined pages. The ink is the spring I run to for nourishment, the pure waterfall that refreshes it – my own awareness of reality. Using poetry, I free myself of invisible bonds as I step outside of the invisible metal box I have mimed around my consciousness. And with the wings I have grown from my temples, I head towards infinite skies of possibility in a future that is free of sides, and no intersections to be cornered into. So I managed to escape…

ASlightlyEloquentPlea

There’s this girl I know…
I think she likes me…or that’s what I’m being led to believe.

Like when she yells at me, it’s like she’s saying she loves me!
When she says I suck, it’s like she’s telling me how much I mean to her!
And when she makes fun of me, it’s like she means the opposite and she’s actually giving me a compliment!
And when she hits me, it’s like she’s saying that she doesn’t want anything hurting me!
But then when I think about it…it doesn’t make any sense. And at the same time it does because that’s exactly what I’ve learned every time I try to understand girls.

They say that words can deceive but the eyes don’t lie.
But so far…none of her words are even in English and I have less than a basic understanding of body language or of love…so I can’t even begin to believe I’ve been swindled. And there’s no fixing the misconceptions that are stuck in my head because I really think all of it means she likes me.
Or at least it did when we were in kindergarten.
Though for some reason, it’s like we haven’t matured in a decade with the way this girl keeps beating around the bush. I can’t stand all the thinking about what this or that means…because no matter how hard I try I don’t understand any of it. Like when she says yes, but in the end it’s actually a no, because for some stupid reason she can’t go.
And you might think I’m being paranoid, but when it happens more than once for the exact same thing then it’s about time lights went off.

The thing is...I'm a guy!
I don't do subtle and I can't decipher all the little things you want me to see!
I just want you to walk up to me with a:
"Hi. I like you. Not just like you, but like like you, like a simile but more like a metaphor, because it's kind of hard to understand, but I really think we could have something...and I don't think any of that made sense, but I just wanted to get it out there."
Or maybe even a little note that says Do You Like Me? please check yes or no.
Anything straightforward, I'm cool with - because my brain isn't equipped to deal with this.
Is that so hard?

I mean, yes…I know I write all this complicated stuff I call spoken word, but that’s just so I can relieve some of it off of myself. Because you have to admit, if I walked up to a girl and just started saying all 4 minutes worth of a piece I wrote for her, then it would be pretty awkward. But I digress.

My point is…I’m asking all of you…please.
Stop making everything so unnecessarily complicated!
Just pretend I’m a caveman or something…Maybe even draw it out for me if you insist on being all girly and complex with it. But as far as I’m concerned, blunt it best. A giant banner would be even better.
I mean, we might say no…but at least you’re helping every guy out there understand what the hell you’re really talking about and what you want. Because if I’m like most guys, then we’re easily confuzzled…
So just say it straight. Thank you.

IWasTryingToWriteAPoem

Now this poem ain’t complicated to any extent, because all I did was try to write a poem.
See, I was trying to write a poem that was better than anything I’ve ever written before…I tried to write something different. I wanted to give life to something more than just another love poem like every piece I’ve already performed.
I was trying to write a poem beyond all the lines you would probably expect from me by now like...
“Girl, you are so beautiful. You’re so attractive you make my jaw drop all the way to floor tiles and I end up mopping them with my drool…then my mouth snaps back shut just so I could bite my tongue, prolonging the feeling of my heart telling me I could never have you. At the same time my eyes pop out of eyelids and sockets reminiscent of Loony Toons while I’m singing the same loony tunes about the feeling of true love like it was the first time all over again.”
But then that’s just what I always do…so I decided to try something else.

Then, I was trying to write a poem about what I think about on a daily basis.
Until I realized how difficult that was because it would have been complete nonsense to all of you…and I mean all of you. Don’t believe me? Here’s what it might have been like…
“In a daydream of epic proportions, unconscious thoughts extend from hopes and dreams that I wish for while wishing for genies in lava lamps. It starts through slits in masks I sneak through hallways of intergalactic spaceships in search of polkadotted purple panda bears and little green men named Yoda. With the steady measured pace of awesome ninja skills and unnecessary uses of grappling hooks and shuriken, I run into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles asking if they can chill, and I say ‘sure you can’.”
Like I said…it’s a random assortment of random thoughts, so I thought it wasn’t such a good idea.

Soon enough I was trying to write a poem using my iTunes as a guide. But then that ended up as just me trying to relate random titles together to make a love story out of band names and wordplay, like…
“It’s a known fact that most Boys Like Girls. You and I, were like The Cool Kidz In The Hall in Kooley High sharing affection like blunts in search of an Epik High while we watched Japanese Cartoons. But I’ve reached an All-Time Low, as A Fire Inside our Matchbook Romance starts to Wayne…Lil by little because clearly we were never ‘N Sync. All of a sudden, to you I’m an OutKast labeled Public Enemy number one and this Fiasco begins to Usher a Brand New circus of Factz as I realize we had nothing in Common. Taking a ride in a Death Cab just for a Cutie listening to Musiq has left me slightly Disturbed and Dumbfoundead, trying to understand why I participated in the Ludacris act in the first place. My Chemical Romance has left me wishing on Planes I’ve Mistaken For Stars hoping this Dashboard Confessional is carried to Angels by Airwaves. Trying to escape bad memories I hop on Jets to Brazil to meet with my Cobra Starship, with A New Found Glory In search of a Wonder Girl. And on my journey I learned that Pretty Girls Make Graves, so the next time I see her, I bid her a ‘Hellogoodbye’.”
But I doubt any of that made actual sense…

So in the end, here I am. With a poem about writing poems…but in the end I came up with this short haiku right here and it goes a little something like…

“No more love pieces.

Because I’ve written too much.

I like bananas.”

MyFirstLove

Looking out the window at rainbows and raindrops, I find myself reminiscing about my first love. See…

She came into my life like lightning, but stayed way longer than light flings. She’s left a lasting impression, working my way towards years of progression in several sessions consisting of nothing but simple conversation. The sight of her has my palms sweating…
I’m tongue tied…staring dumbstruck at curves like question marks, trying to think of something clever to say past a “Hi” and a wave. But the farther I reach in fathoms of her soul, the higher the waves. I’m a cast away, but I cast away fears of rejection and embrace her like my life depended on it. But without words my voice is left muted, attempting to remember my favourite lines hoping she would believe the depth of this fatal attraction through quotes of famous poets like Shihan and John Donne. In due time, she grows to accept the fact, I’m infatuated. And through the years I’ve known her, I’ve counted how many times she passes through my mind at any time of the day and the number is eight. Just turn it sideways.
Now she has me up in sleepless nights, fists clenched tight on ballpoint pens on the surface of paper. Writing love letters addressed to her in hopes that I get closer to undressing her…personality. Trying to understand every aspect of her to get into her good graces so she would allow me a means to find my way into her…mind so I can take away her various layers of…mystery to uncover the annals of her history.

You see, her words hit me similarly to punches from Pacquiao but the effect they have on me is beyond description. She makes me feel like…she makes me feel like...Okay, check this. She makes me feel like I can stand on top of Mount Everest and take one physical step towards enlightenment. She makes me feel like everything and every word in the world makes perfect sense when I am in contact with her, the clouds slow down; reaching towards us to envelop our souls in what I hope is marshmallowy flavoured goodness. She makes me feel like nothing can hurt me as I confide in her my deepest regrets and emotions regarding the life I live. She makes me feel like simple letters can’t combine into enough adjectives and superlative words in essays to describe how I actually feel about her.
But in the end she became my first love plus my closest friend. To you, this might seem like a fantasy, but I’m descriptive enough so that my make believe fans can see that she was there for me through everything. Through heartbreaks and pains, and she handed me the wisdom I’ve always wanted but never knew enough to find myself. She helped me find myself, to better comprehend why I do what I do, and after all that she and I have been through, I’m close enough to becoming bulletproof.

As a couple, she and I were like blue and sky, like green and grass, like tits and ass, like cookies and cream, like hide and seek as I began searching for the complicated facts that she hid from me. We were like Bonnie and Clyde, like Homer and Marge, like Batman and Robin, like Salt’nPepper but through the seasons, we both seasoned an adequate amount of words as they rolled off tongues to become melodies in the air. We were like Jack and Jill, like love and hate, like yes and no, like peace and quiet, like Bert and Ernie, like lock and key when she unlocked my heart as our deepest traits began fitting together like puzzle pieces, similar to chocolate and peanut butter in Reese’s Pieces now I hold part of her inside of me. We were like Adam and Eve and she was my Adam’s rib…God’s gift to me so I could refine my thoughts like fine wine in the hopes of standing before you and declaring myself poetically correct.

And if you don’t know, my first love is standing right next to me. And her name…is poetry.

70YearsOfAmnesia

WHY!?
I’m asking why. I’m asking who, what, where, when, why, how but…in the end, one word questions can’t begin to lead me along the path to the answers I need and questions that need to be asked like…

Why!?
Why would you have war? Why famine? Why terror? Why power?
When the good do bad to do good, and the bad do good in attempts at gaining power it’s a stupid cycle. I’m tired of self-indulgent rulers looking for opportunities to branch out and make paper, even if they need to sacrifice limbs to do it. The skin is torn apart and damaged and the bark becomes all bark, no bite as substance leaks like sap from wounds.

So I ask why!?
Why is World War II always accompanied by the Jewish holocaust and thoughts of Hitler when the Far East boasts its own version of genocidal history and no one is aware of it? So I’m wondering…
Why is there a reason for 300,000 civilians to die? Why is it necessary that 200,000 young girls from Korea, China, Japan and the Philippines become comfort women for Japanese soldiers? Why do 50,000 girls have to get raped in the streets of Nanking for a force of hundreds of thousands of armed soldiers to take control? Why did tens of thousands have to be tortured for the sake of weapons development in Unit 731?
Because it’s all in the plan. Kill all, loot all, burn all and leave no one behind. It’s a nightmare for the ages and the ages give testimony to blood, sweat and tears. All shed in gallons as POW’s, slaves and the dying all beg for an end to the suffering. Chinese and Korean civilians from babies to 70 year old seniors all subject to tests like inoculations of disease, flamethrower testing, limb amputation, chemical weapons tests, and being surgically opened up for study while they were still alive.

Why!?
Why would you have 8 year old girls on their knees begging their captors for sympathy for the freedom they had only seconds ago? Why would you have 13 year old girls praying to God, asking for a way out of the terror they are trapped in, but it didn’t do shit. Why would you give them reason to fear guns and bayonets, fearing forms of soldier silhouettes as shadows creep around the corner looking for victims and slaves? Why does a nation’s safety lie in the hands of foreigners and land known as the Nanking Safety Zone in their own country?

Why!?
Why would human beings lose compassion for different people just from being in a uniform? A uniform that is soon coated in the blood of innocent people slaughtered under the command of generals and politicians sitting on thrones built of greed. Why is compassion a commodity that is rarer than gold-coated diamonds on the battlefield…even when that battlefield is the capital of China with no enemy soldiers in sight?
Why is national duty enough to destroy a man’s soul!?
The victims are not my people, but it is not just THEM. It’s US. One nation is one country. One country is one race. And one race is all the same people. People like you, you and you no matter your cultural background…people that feel the same joys granted by carefree freedom…people that feel the same pain as we stare down into the depths of gun barrels and pricks at points of blades.
Because if you prick us we bleed. And at this moment…I’m bleeding words to describe the pain I feel in the eyes of speaking women. Eyes that are coated in a film of tears on the wrinkled faces of 80 year old women that survived thousands of cases of rape through 8 years of war and occupation because they were forced into the service of a country that wasn’t theirs…a country that was invading their homeland and killing hundreds by the hour.

And as I watched this former “comfort woman” give testimony, I begin to think. And out of these thoughts my own eyes begin to tear and I say FUCK THE EUPHEMISM! These military sexual slaves have to live with the pain of those years for the rest of eternity and we’re trying to make the offense sound less offensive and more acceptable so the people can swallow the blue pill. But why lie?
Why mislead people into thinking that nothing went wrong and that the only genocide that mattered in the Second World War happened to the Jews in Germany!? But that misconception is hurting me. So I have to ask why.

Why does this seem like ancient history? Why is it that they got away with all of it? Why is God standing idly by while millions suffer? God, why are you testing my faith in my own people? Why do you let us hurt each other over and over and over again? Why would you let something like this be hidden behind 70 years of amnesia?

And most importantly, why would you let us forget?
WHY?

HowDoYouBreakAMan?

How do you break a man?

You take away his eyes…
No, that wouldn’t work. Then he would have no choice but to listen. Without the benefit of sight, he would begin to pay attention to each little thing you say. And not only understand more, but he would actually care. He would begin to sense past what seeing alone prevents him from actually “seeing”. A person’s beauty is only skin deep, and with the increased perception he gains from losing that sense of sight, he can begin to dig deeper into the diamond vault that is her inner beauty, A vault that has been kept behind lock and key in the form of pain and tears from past relationships. When you build up the walls around your heart in an attempt to hide inside yourself, he will be the one to feel his way around it, looking for the weakness that will allow him to be close to you. He would become the blind man that found the light in the truth hidden underneath the physical. He will see no evil, and his view of the world would remain untainted.
But he will not break; he will go on…

You take away his ears…
No, that wouldn’t hinder him. Without his hearing, he would be able to see the world in a better light. He would learn to decipher meanings behind actions that would usually be ignored in favour of a nod and a “Uh-huh” just to show that he heard you…but that doesn’t mean he was listening. Then the tenors of his mind begin to attune to the patterns of pitter patters on the rooftops of his soul. The observations he makes will become the basis of the music he hears in the depths of his chest. The sound that his heart makes when she strings together melodies in the form of actions that pluck on his heartstrings like the chords in songs, because words do little to describe affection when words are only movements of lips beyond his understanding. He will be free from the confines of sound and he will understand through his own physical experiences, regardless of what beat the world decides to play on the surface of his eardrums. He will hear no evil, and his own judgment will be the final word.
But he will not break; he will go on…

You take away his strength…
No, that would not stop him. He would just grow stronger in more ways than brute force. Without the facility of strength, he would gain the mental capacity to comprehend more than he ever has. The shackles that bind him would break and he would be able to fly through clouds of wisdom and skies of endless possibility. There is no cage for the human mind, and he would grow to reach unfathomable heights as he accepts his own weakness. Trading one aspect of power for another, he broadens the scope of his strength beyond what he learns and develops it to reach the unthinkable. The heavens become just another level to reach past, when the human body has failed to become an anchor. Instead of using his fists, his tongue becomes sharp as blades, with the skill of Blade hunting vampires. His verbal assault will go far beyond what jabs and hooks are capable of, his intellect acting as the ammunition. And with the increased eloquence he gains, he becomes capable of expressing his feelings to the greatest extent of his ability.
But he will not break; he will go on…

You take away his mind…
No, for he would simply live a life in ignorance. He would be unaware of suffering and the understanding of pain would be unknown to him. This idiocy would be his shelter from all the hurt the world can distribute and he will be invincible. The shell of naivety will be his armor and this crusader would be invulnerable from the evil of society. Nothing but the most basic and simple desires would present themselves to him, and so simple things like love and war would reflect off of the little bubble he resides in and fly off into oblivion. Without the input of others, he will hold on tightly to his own morality, with no second thought about his own mortality…he becomes selfless.
But he will not break; he will go on…

So how do you break a man?

You break his heart.
The heart that allows him the freedom to accept the ideas and impressions that reality has placed so willingly into his mind. The heart that allows him to see and hear what it yearns for most in combination with the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. The heart that gives him the strength to place his heart on his sleeve and risk it all on a leap of faith into a jungle composed of cactuses known as “heartbreak”.

You cover the heart behind his eyes in the emulation of an eclipse, desaturating each color into nothingness. Without his sight, he loses track of what he was looking for. Tears flow from behind his eyelids as he loses the treasure he has spent a lifetime in search of.
And you break his heart…

You leave him isolated with nothing but the mirages conjured from the depths of his loneliness for company, and his heart will grow deaf. The slow beating will dawdle to a deafened thud as the repeated whispers of despair in his head torment him. He covers his ears in hopes that it would protect him from his own demons…but it doesn’t.
And you break his heart…

You take away the strength of his heart to beat for “the one”, and he withers away. Without the passion that courses through his veins, his mind becomes numb and paralysis runs its course. He becomes doubtful of his strength to go on and his weakness overcomes him, rendering him a pathetic shadow of himself. A shadow in search of a way out of the abyss he has fallen into on his race to the one he had fallen for.
And you break his heart…

You allow his own thoughts to torture him into submission. With no way to escape, he attempts to hide inside the bubble he had built, thought it only serves to keep him imprisoned in his own misery. In his own mind, his past circles him in shifts of regrets and “should-haves” and “would-haves” and “could-haves”. Memories upon memories begin to stack on top of each other in a macabre image of pain as he relives each moment he despised, as they continually flash through his mind. Without somebody to hold him in an embrace meant to comfort, he remains solitary within a sea of his own tears located inside of himself.
And you break his heart…

You break the heart that keeps him attached to the world. The heart that grounds him in reality. The heart that acts as his tether to the universe. Without it, he becomes a broken vessel incapable of reciprocation. The act of falling in love becomes the accidental injury dealt to his soul. As he himself falls in love, his heart plummets though the air at the same pace he has raced towards her. And when it makes contact with the rejection she issues, it shatters into fragments that are strewn across the landscape of his psyche. Constantly, the throbbing pain in his chest serves as a reminder of her…and he is left broken.

How do you break a man?
You break...his heart.

Based on "How to Break a Man" by Vince Ticsay

IDon'tPlayGames

I don’t spit game because I’m not in it for the scrimmaging. I’m in it to make a dynasty. I’m not looking for something like the Golden State Warriors that just make a quick run. I’m trying to build a long term team that’s a lot like MJ and Pippen for the Bulls in the 90’s, Magic and Kareem for the Lakers in the 80’s, Bill Russell and Bob Cousy for the Celtics and the Green Bay Packers in the 60’s. The New York Yankees in…forever. Lance Armstrong and his last testicle. I’m in search of the girl that would have us next in line like the New England Patriots.

I don’t play games, not the type to post up the big man and just drive into the hole…I’m not LeBron James. I can’t just send my ball into that dark hole everybody’s aiming for…I’m pretty damn far from a Tiger Woods. I can't hit a home run with her whenever I want to...I'm not Barry Bonds on steroids. I’m a Manning or a Favre waiting for the perfect moment to make that one play that means the most. I move the chains down the field for what I consider a touchdown, but really, it’s just something tiny like getting her name. Something that could probably win one game, but is downplayed because it’s a combination of a lot of little things that add up to a dynasty like her and I. A constant duet in mental contact while everything else around us goes at lightning speed. Sharing thoughts at the speed of Mario Andretti and Michael Schumacher and understanding every movement the other makes when she sends me messages like passes, she's my John Stockton and I'm Karl Malone. And if you mess with my partner I'll have you end up like Isaiah Thomas. Or watch me turn Super Saiyan like Michael Phelps.

They say good communication on the field can do wonders…but lately we’ve been playing on opposite teams too many times and off on the sides, I am constantly offsides because all I want to do is be closer to her. Though, all I want to do with her is just lay back and kick it...like Lionel Messi. But the blueprints to my plans always end up messy and deranged when I forget to take her reactions into account. I can't make plays, because I lack the necessary awareness of her feelings, going for a cross check to check if she feels the same way I do, but I end up blindsiding myself on the collision her "No" makes with my ego. Then fate gives me the yellow card, I guess I should have paid attention to that fair warning.

But I was too slow to react like...I was Shaq, being led by the misconception that he could actually do things outside of basketball. But instead he released 4 albums, 3 movies and a video game..all of which were crap. So I'm wishing I was Usain Bolt quick to realize the errors I was making before the final stretch. But I digress.

Off the snap, I read the defense around her heart…trying to find a way to bypass what was left behind by each guy that was there before me…going for the Hail Mary pass past the cockblocks and strong-armed defencemen she calls her friends and family I…leap the line of scrimmage like Priest Holmes in the hopes that I will be able to get seven points on the board. Seven digits out of the millions of numbers in the world that would lead me to a conversation with her beyond the confines of the field we are both playing on. But unlike her, I am an undrafted lower classman coming to prove myself to an entire league of players that are out of my league. Because I’m a nice guy…too much like a rookie Andrea Bargnani and the opposite of an Ocho Cinco-type cocky bastard that just garners attention.

In due time, I tell myself to take a break. I've been thinking of nothing but her non-stop and I can't even see when the offseason is supposed to start. Calling a timeout, I take some time out to clear my mind of every doubt I have ever felt about how we would end up. With a pep talk from my friends, I get my head back in the game and my ears back to listening intently to every word that comes from her mouth, hoping that something would spark a second wind. This is all-star break and the stars break apart in the night sky into comets and falling stars that I wish I could see with her by my side, wishing for more time in which I could convince her to spend more time by my side. Then I realize that I've been bending over backwards for her. You could basically describe my efforts as a guy in a gorilla suit jumping on trampolines and doing backflips to dunk a ball to appeal to the crowd. I'm the halftime show during my own halftime break, so it turns out that I can't get a reprieve from this girl that just keeps tugging on my heartstrings. The break I need is replaced with more work on my part, when I sorely need it. I mean, give me a break!

Constantly, I try my hardest like I’m the star in a montage of sports clips…but all I’m doing is sitting on the bench. Because nobody goes for the nice guy…There ain’t never been a clip of good sportsmanship shown on SportsCenter or ESPN…but I’ve seen Pedro Martinez throwing Yankees manager Don Zimmer on the ground. And there never been a highlight of a bunch of people hugging it out…but I’ve seen BJ Penn turn Joe Stevenson into a bloody mess. I’ve never seen two people sharing a win during a big event…but I’ve seen Mike Tyson bite off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear.

Now I know I haven’t been in a fight in years…but this one specific girl’s got me feeling so battered and bruised from the inside out, I’m internally bleeding out emotions in place of pain and I’m spitting out these words instead of blood. It’s heartache with a fracture hidden beneath the muscles that pump blood through my frame, reacting when she pump fakes a reciprocation of affection. Repeatedly, I've grown to resemble Perdita Felicien as I've failed to hurdle the obstructions in my path as I've attempted to race to her.
She has me feeling that I am only a pawn in this constant cycle of support…only there because I’m able to lift the weight of the world off of her shoulders on a daily basis because I LIVESTRONG like a bodybuilder in the form of a Tour de France champion. I took the place of her strong safety…calling audibles to provide her relief in the later innings on an evening through the audio in a phone call. But with the threat of overtime looming, I’m overcome with fatigue as the minutes I have logged in have piled on to render me useless…which isn’t really saying much.

And I don’t play mind games.
Even before we played off of each other’s emotions in these playoffs, I’m already in the right state of mind fit for an empire…that I’ve built like the Jefferson Starship, but instead of rock and roll I have built this city on a sea of tears and toil collected through the years I’ve spent looking for her. Then the years it’s taken her to notice me…then the infinity it’s going to take us to get together. All in the hopes that she will sit beside me as the Queen of Hearts...my heart. Then I can be the King like the Sacramento team when they had Webber and Stojakovic.

She’s a lockdown defender, able to negate every attempt I’ve ever made to catch her eye or ask her out to dinner and a movie. Don’t ask me how she did it…but she’s got my heart locked and cuffed to her wrist. Now that’s what you call a cardiac arrest. With no more timeouts left, I have no choice but to accept the penalty..unable to challenge the decision she has made with the aid of her coaching staff, a.k.a. her friends. Neither can I plan an offensive and change her opinion, because her parents have created that for her.

The whistle’s blown, now the flag’s on the ground and the official’s made it official, that me and her will never be official. So the game is done, the dynasty will never happen and I’m about to retire without ever setting foot on the court…fielding postgame questions during the interview they ask why I chose to give up. And I state the sad facts…
In 35 attempts I’ve come close to a completion only twice and those two were free throws willingly placed in my lap but taken away by the smug hand of fate because I chose to ignore what was right in front of me the whole time. Too late in the game did I choose to get serious and with all the fouls I committed in those crucial months, I have clearly fouled out in trying to sign my MVP onto my future dynasty. And that’s why…I don’t play games.