I’m Not Much I mean I’m jobless and a sloth Too smart for my own good, too dumb to know Fat, abrasive, and fragile That’s me and apparently, not what women want. I get so depressed when this happens, the leading around by a leash with good sweet comments and lies of a future all to end because of what? Are you scared to give a fuck? Does it just burn your soul to actually follow through? I’m disgusted and ashamed to even fuck with you people because it always ends up in a heap of my own self pity and confusion. I’m never expected my heart being bashed into shards by a gorgeous executioner. You’d think I would after years of this abuse but I’m just numbed to it these days. Like an Oxy junkie I just ignore the needles piercing my skin and ride the high as long as it lasts until I’m kicked off the ride like an abandoned child. Today, I’m detoxing. Today’s the end of me letting this bullshit ruin me again and again, you wanted a jaded piece of shit world? You have one.

Some Bloody Heart Shit I’m feeling pretty stupid and vulnerable today. It’s been a few days since we last touched and saw each other and while I felt that instance went well, you’ve acted strange. Just like you did when you quit talking to me for a week. Remember? And do you also remember me saying it nearly ruined us for good? It is truer than anything I’ve ever said to you. I’ve had too many scars given to me emotionally as a man, I can’t let more build up as I go. The worst of those scars are the ones from being left behind by lovers, the cuts that have went the deepest easily. I’ve always had problems with keeping people around, and I’m not naive anymore to think it is always just others either. I know I’m weird, fat, lacking of anything monetary at the moment, lacking in self-esteem as you can see, emotionally disturbed, and sexually confused and frustrated. I know those shouldn’t and aren’t excuses but for me they are reality. A grim reality that comes bubbling up to the surface every time you’re short and distant. Maybe I just cared way too fast. Maybe you look at me as a convenience that is good for only short spurts of effort and time. Maybe I’m just a dick, a soft, awkward one that needs love to work. Maybe I’m just too much of a disaster for you to relieve, who knows huh? That’s the biggest knock I can find about myself: I love too quickly and get burned each time. Yet with these facts concrete, I seem to fall into my self-made traps every single time. I’m exhausted from fighting out of these issues and trying to find a borderline. I just need someone real for once, someone that sees my broken self as what they’ve been searching for. I’m beginning to think that idea is a novelty and impossible, I’m beginning to think solitary confinement is my future. I am very quickly realizing that this could be all me rather than partly so, and that I’m simply too odd for a true connection that lasts. In the end, I’m not going to try to communicate with you for as long as you notice. I’m going to try and keep myself occupied with tasks, podcasts, and friends that like to converse until you notice I’m not around. When or if you notice and respond, I’ll just let you know that I feel unwanted these days. Those hours long conversations about our pasts, our goals, and our present tenses seem lightyears away from today now. I feel a coldness in our talks, and a shortness in your correspondance. I’ll finally take a hint for once, that hint shows me I’m not needed like I thought I was. Do I hurt? Badly. Unlike before though, I will survive whether I end up spotaneously combust or not.

A Silly Freewrite We live in times of grave fear and worry, days of which we aren’t certain will even have an eternity. It seems as though things have changed so drastically lately, little do we know this has been in the making. Hundreds and arguably thousands of years have led us here, into the cesspool that’s a despot’s wet dream. We’re consuming, hell that’s all we’ve been led to believe in anyways right? There’s no God except for the Gods of War and Commerce. Those two drunken fools are who we should kneel to, besides is there a human on earth to invest into? I’ve never met them and if I did I’d drop them, down to the ground and stomp them out. We can’t have change, change is only a mirage and a lousy, worded exchange filled with similes and attempts at meaning that ends with nothing and dreams unfulfilling. They end up sounding like manifestos, constitutions, or declarations of independence, those things of the past we rarely ever mention. Today it is all about drones and broken bones, we care less about privacy or keeping our own in homes. It is a nation, nay a world of the individuals with no time or need for principles. Without a collection we can focus on our own self interests, by god this is America’s Globe. My native land, my native home. Where you can go down the road and be tased for disagreeing with the status quo. OH MY, this is my home oh it IS my home. The same place I’ve always known, that road that never ends when it comes to the corruptions going on. My native home, that place you know. The one that our ancestors fought and died to keep afloat. That large land mass out in the middle of the ocean between the Asians and the Euros, oh my home is the Land of the Free to Collect and the Brave Enough to Silence the Rest. As long as you’re blind and your gall died long ago, you have a home in this nation of my own. No need for the dreamer, no need for the rouge because we’re a nation of the plenty and the plenty demand we keep on.

A Story About A Lost Boy Waking up to the face of a nearly bawling mother is never a grand start to the day. Whilst you attempt to look among your lack luster, dirtied walls from yesteryear you wonder what it is the problem could be. A loud and pleasant gasp came outward from my mom, no lighting in the room but the deceased tears are obvious. “What happened?! I’ve tried waking you up for hours and thought you were dead?” she said in a gloom I’ve not heard in my life. My mind processed her question, my wits about me had no idea what they meant. I remained under the modest, light bed sheet trying to figure out why it’s not only 3:35 pm and I’m waking. Also, I notice a mental haze. “Corey can you speak?” my mother said again in an increasing crescendo. The sweet little dogs my mom owns have me surrounded, lurking around aimlessly to try and find either crumbs or realization. “I came home from work earlier because when I tried waking you up at lunch, you didn’t respond, when I called and texted you didn’t answer far after you should always be up so I got worried and went home to check on you. How many pills did you do?” How many DID I do? 5, 6, 8, 14? Anyone’s guess is as good as mine. The night prior was an odd one, filled with boredom and a complete loss of inhibition. I couldn’t tell you why real, maybe it stemmed from the 10 days house arrest I did not long ago. I say that’s a pussy move though, that’s an excuse that weak people use. At the very least WEAKER people than I. The pills didn’t seem like they’d do a lot because I hadn’t done any in a little bit. Come around midnight, I decided I wanted some good ol’ fashion fun- the only kind you can find in a dirty alleyway in Thailand or New York- so I began to pop pills. Opening volley was 7, which gave me a slight body high similar to some fairly decent herb. About an hour later, I thought it was smart to take 4 more. For a couple of hours I flew for a while, getting dangerously close to the Gentry Wilderness Safari. In fact, I reached down and pet a live lion whom actually gave me great advice: “Boy, you never unbuckle the safety belt until you’re slowing down.” If only the lion were more persuasive. After the loop around my neck of the woods (no literally, the woods infest the part of the world I inhabit) I made it back home merely 2 miles away. I even flew into my room and as I sprawled out in what I believed was cold another epiphany struck me. Perhaps, it is time to go old school. In my relaxed, stumbling haze I recalled all of the nights filled in nasty bathrooms of strange home owners snorting pills whom’s names and effects were inconsequential. Filling cars to the brim with thugs of all walks of life loading a bowl of weed just before someone brings out the great idea of sprinkling a mystery pharmaceutical dust before sharing a glass pipe among friends and some acquaintances. Ohhh those were the days. The nights in front of large bonfires, drinking cheap beer until there was none left which would always culminate in a drunk driving down somewhere to by more. Sometimes if it was too late, a possible robbery of a fridge may have taken place. But that was then, and this is now. Only a couple of days after being off of house arrest for probably the most pathetic car wreck in the history of humanity, I found myself either drinking or doing pills again. Unlike many years or times before I used to get incredibly nervous and adrenaline filled when I took from someone’s drug supply but until recently it just felt like normality for me. I would take at least 4 pills a night, hit them at once and coast before bed. However that then became 6, then 8, then 10, and last night it was close to 17. Did I want to die? Not at all. I ignorantly figured I was able to tolerate the man made elixir but I supposedly didn’t. My mother was going to work around 7. She asked if I wanted to go get some breakfast for myself and I told her I was kinda messed up but sure. We got to the store, I found what I was looking for and we went to the counter. As I walked, I would feel myself sway but I kept upright. As we paid for our things and left my mom said that I shouldn’t have gone because I embarrassed her. I went into a rage, claiming I’d told her that I was honest before we left and it was squashed. We hugged (yes I’m a sensitive boy) and she went home. I had my day, I talked to my dad and everything like normal. Then, my friend Chad showed up. Chad’s a childhood friend whom I’ve known since we were 8 years old. He’s been there for me for some of the most intense moments in my life: break ups, drug addictions, college woes, and the list goes on. So anytime he’s at the house, it’s a big deal. We sat on the wrap around sofa in my parents’ living room and shot the shit with dad for a bit, and everything seemed fine. Chad had to leave, so I went to walk him out and accidentally tripped on the coffee table and suddenly my dad went off. “Prahbleh shudn’ta dun all dem pells boi, luuk at yuh wahddlin’ around lyke sum drunk foo.” with a red face I’d not seen in some time.” His face was beat red, his teeth were clinched and I knew, just as I did all the way back in 2003 at 14 years old that there would be a day we fought. Regardless of that, I tried diffusing the situation. “Dad what are you even talking about? I’m not pilled up, I took a pain pill earlier what’s the problem?” As this was said he sat up further, spewing forth more absurdities until finally he stood to his feet. I’ve always been a pretty calm guy when it comes to confrontation, or at the very least I avoid it with all that I can. The issue though, is my father has never “bowed up” to me and so I decided I’d like in kind. We got face to face, his teeth gritting and my eyes rolling in tears out of anger before my mom and Chad broke us up. I left the house and thankfully, my great friend Katelyn answered a desperate phone call and drove me around the vast metropolis known as Gentry to try and cool me down. A podcast came of it thankfully and it truly was the best therapy I could have had in that moment. So what is the point in this diatribe? More than anything it is a personal journal entry for me. Writing and podcasting are my therapists and without them, I’m be some suicidal bum in a railway station begging for scraps and quarters. Never give up, even when your will’s being twisted in a chokehold.

2013’s Broken Legacy 2013 will be a year that will be hard to compare to any ever before. Within one year, we’ve seen militaristic, political, and societal tragedies and revelations which have further polarized and alienated the world. The Syrian people continue to kill each other in both the name of progress and also, the name of “the norm". We’ve had further reports of Middle Eastern dissension that’s leading to what will surely be indefinite American occupation, which has proven to be moot in Iraq and Afghanistan where continual sabotage occurs. The biggest danger to America, is America itself. In the wake of a circus known as the George Zimmerman trial, we’ve been shown with the brightest possible spotlight what our country values over all else: attention. The constant battle against race has been a staple of the American consciousness and in 2013, things are no different. Often in the my region I hear the screams of “If only niggers would do such and such" in regards to how to end the issues, funny since the slur used to describe them as a ethnicity ruins any chance of compromise. Whites aren’t the only ones that scream absurdities however, it seems that regardless of what culture or ethnicity an American is bred in there is an underlying prejudice among us. We’ve been programmed to be color recognizing bots, therefore anything that screams “we’re all the same, man" is scoffed at and parodied. Politically, America’s collective eyes have been sewn open and the images of a corrupt and hateful leviathan are shove into the brain stems of us all. Not only the NDAA debacle that has made arresting innocent civilians legal, but both the Bradley Manning detention and the new Eric Snowden NSA scandal have proven that our government isn’t interested in real truth or justice: no no, we’re a nation of dirty diggers. The suits in the District want us to ignore them as they tap our buttocks’ lightly and sneakily before jamming the hard rod of constant surveillance into our virgin assholes. It has become such a problem in fact that the Supreme Court has decided an investigation is necessary, something rarely done in the Age of Cooperation among the branches of government. I would love to believe that they’ll see the injustice that’s gone on for over a decade now, but reality and history tell a story of constant lies and manipulation of the system that’s gotten us to this ashy fallout period we live in in the US. Things are no longer so simply able to be swept under the rug. The days of JFK’s cock exploits, or LBJ’s fugazi war in Vietnam are long gone. The digital age of constant information has disallowed such things. Despite Obama’s constant attempts to go back to those horrid days with his NSA backing and loose prosecutions of those considered “enemies of the state" the will of social evolution doesn’t favor him and his cronies. Indeed 2013 could very well be the year that we all look back on and say “That was the year the shit started to hit the fan, and we won the Battle Against Secrecy once and for all". Then again, we may also look back and howl at the ways in which the status quo changed the books on us and herded us into whatever they want us in. Big brother is watching, as Orwell so eloquently described years ago but now we know. Also, now we don’t care or listen. Hi NSA, I hate what you are doing with a passion.

The Torn Sap It’s that end of the school year haze I’m in Reminiscing about things when The world seemed less crumbled and jumbled, confused and abused, just as I’ve felt for over a year now. I’ve lately been haunted by you, Your visage so pristine but the message so macabre I can only awake in sobs Releasing the strange energy you convey Even when you’re so far away I worry about myself these days When the weather’s so perfect But inside me it is turbulent. My hobby of passion keeps me going, everything else isn’t worth it it seems, especially at night when I dream, which always consists of being so close to you, I even get a scent of your aura, something I never even got to experience. Then it goes away, sometimes because of another. Taking you sexually in the same ways I always wanted Or your own accord, like I did to you over a year ago. I’m not telling you I want you again, I’m not ignorant enough to think it’ll happen, I just want you to know you never died in my heart, and you never, ever will. I’ll be buried with the memory of our correspondence. One few will ever experience, A love that knew no boundaries of geopolitics or ethnicities Pure, real love. Goodbye again, I’m alone once again. For I always was however.

Loathing Words of the Weekend I dream often of waking next to her, her hair all disheveled and her eyes weary with sleep. Her hands upwards, stretching out all of the excess sleepy energy while I embrace her with a simple kiss and cuddle. Her eyes gaze into mine and my heart wallops to the beat of a great bass drum in a long parade band. Those are the dreams I cherish and the reality I yearn for, the one that I pissed away. Perhaps not, perhaps life pissed it away. I’ve lost it, I’ve gone away from where I used to be when she was around. No longer am I so aggressively negative, no now I just embrace my isolation. I’ve come to accept that I’m hard to deal with, how is it simple for a woman to deal with such a passionate, honest person. Someone so deeply entrenched in the world of the defensive that a simple joke can send them into a tiff. I’m broken, I’m aware now. This isn’t to say I can’t be mended but as of now I’m more focused on fully finding all the shards that are scattered among my mental multiverse, so many various ways in which they can be super glued into collectivity. Shall I be a bitter, negative being that disregards their talents for sorrow? Or will I become that overly driven success story, complete with a lack of soul and remorse for the collective human experience? I’ve found myself finding my worth in women’s opinions of me, how they address me and look at me. I feel like a Norse god only when a woman tells me I’m attractive and interesting, and feel like a common thief when otherwise. I’ve been told by many that this is a problem and surely it is, but in a way I like it this way. I like it until the walls crash down, then I’m a refugee of my own life. When I flee myself, I’m lost but tranquil. The common stresses and agendas that I’ve put on myself are stripped and despite having no home country, my mental status flourishes in a world without lines. It allows me to be the person I struggle with becoming daily, it strips the depression and anxiety away and I can finally be free. Sadly, it also leads to further isolation and down the road, further depression and heartache. I toggle with myself daily and it sucks. Saturday I had a nightmare about her. She was so beautiful and tranquil, yet she was servicing another man with her pretty mouth. My reaction was like any other’s of pure disdain and self-hate, and once I awoke the depression hit heavy. I no longer wanted to bother and especially didn’t want to be haunted so often by what was and will never be. Thankfully I found fellow sufferers later in that night and for the time being, I care enough to continue. For it may become, or it may not but the agenda is always the same: comfort, distraction, and maintenance.

The Demon Drug…or Are We Full of Shit? We are living in a tipping point era as I type this little rant/manifesto/opinion piece or whatever the fuck this will be seen as. In an age where security and surveillance is at an all time high, the majority are slowly awakening to the misleading natures of governments. From the rejection of tyranny during the Arab Spring in 2011 to the Spanish revolts of the turning year into 2013, the civilians of the world are making stands against the wrongs they see and live under thanks to corrupt, ignorant officials. America is not exempt from this phenomena. The States’ revolts are much different however; our’s are civil and legal revolutions. From the Occupy Wall Street peaceful assemblies to various other protests that have gone on over the last few years addressing various issues from abortion, gun rights, violence against children and women, and on through the spectrum of hot button topics of the day. The largest revolution however has been taking place state by state through slow but history changing legislation. No, it isn’t addressing the very real poverty epidemic in America, nor is it addressing the unjust wars in the Middle East. It involves one substance, a substance that is perhaps as controversial as any torture case from the Bush days, or even the abortion debate that has raged for decades now. What is this issue you may ask your doe-eyed selves? Marijuana. I don’t think it is a secret to anyone that pays attention to my twitter (@Writtenconsent, cheap plug) that I’m pro-legalization however I’m not just some dreamer pot head with no ambition. I happen to be a Junior in college for political science and journalism. I happen to strive to better my knowledge on things and especially keep up with the research and going-ons involved with marijuana science. I know that marijuana doesn’t kill brain cells at an accelerated rate like so many bureaucrats and overall dimwits want you to believe. In fact, you can lose more brain cells bumping your head mildly on something than you can smoking a joint. This isn’t my opinion, this is scientific evidence. “Wur’s dis evehdance den boayh?” you may be asking? Here’s a piece done back in 2009 by Vanderbilt University, a college that for those whom are international is considered one of the most prestigious colleges in the country, in fact many claim it is the best college in the whole Southern region of the country. An excerpt regarding brain cell damage claims: According to Morgan and Zimmer(The researchers), in order to achieve these damaging results, doses of up to 200 times the psychoactive dose in humans would have to be given. Even studies in which subjects were given 100 times the human dose failed to cause any structural impairment of the brain. Additionally, in a more recent study of rhesus monkeys by Slikker et. al (1992), in which the monkeys were exposed to the equivalent of 4-5 joints per day through face-mask inhalation for an entire year, seven months later there was no observed change in hippocampal structure, cell size, cell number, or synaptic configuration. As a result of these studies, Morgan and Zimmer concluded that the claim that marijuana causes physiological damage to brain cells is incorrect. You can find this piece over at: http://healthpsych.psy.vanderbilt.edu/2009/MarijuanaBrain.htm So here’s my point: don’t make claims about things you have no knowledge of. The largest deterrent of marijuana legalization is our own government that puts out consistent propaganda against the drug. To me, this looks like the last-ditch efforts of a collective that has been built on, at least in terms of drugs, completely ignorance and diversions from the truth. Reefer madness, D.A.R.E. and various other programs for decades have perpetuated this myth that marijuana is a gateway drug, that if you smoke it you’ll become some unmotivated, uninteresting zombie. That is simply untrue and unproven by so much scientific research. Not research done by liberals, hippies, drug dealers, skateboard manufacturers, fast food joints, or any other industry usually associated with the stoner culture: it is done by real, unbiased scientists. I think the biggest problem comes from people who “had a friend” who died from weed, or went into a coma from one hit, or the various other stories you hear from so many people who want to fight to the death against weed. The facts are that no one has ever been recorded as ODing on the drug EVER IN HISTORY. That should tell you something, but of course for those blinded by completely falsehoods it is an impossibility. Another thing to realize from these tales is, everyone’s brain chemistry is different. It is not different than those who can’t drink or they’ll go into a completely violent psychosis. Those people are not examples of why alcohol is a demon elixir, they are merely an exception to the rule of most people being able to drink and not kill someone. The same can be said for marijuana. Are there people that get severely damaged by weed? Sure. However, it isn’t because the substance is an all-encompassing devil to society, it just means that person’s brain chemistry isn’t wired to handle the effects of the substance plain and simple. In the end, you’ll believe what you want. I understand this and I’m far from naive enough to think that reading some blog post from some random fuck online is going to change your whole outlook on this issue however, if you simply stay out of the way of those that DO find benefit in it you’ll see that marijuana isn’t such a bad thing after all. In fact, I think you’ll find that once marijuana is legal and you happen to get a stoner neighbor, we’re quite kind and polite. We may even get bored and help you eat leftovers.