Why Protests Are Not a Spectator Sport

it’s funny when bricks tend to

fly, fly, fly

the media pretends to ask

why, why, why

even though last week

they were there, they were there

they were right, right, there

all they report are

lies, lies, lies

showing white people as

they cry, cry, cry

over three broken windows

as if someone just

died, died, died

but surprise, surprise

the media deceives and lies

while today, thousands of

black babies will die

but no one asks why

no one even cries

but when bricks tend to

fly, fly, fly

the media is the first

to respond with white

lies, lies, lies

even though we explain

over and over

why, why, why

their wealth is why

needlessly –

babies still cry

needlessly –

people still die

needlessly –

the earth is destroyed

needlessly –

troops are deployed

as long as whitey still cries

over spilled perfume

and as long as whitey still looks

so damn confused

we will be there fighting

 for what we know is true

as long as whitey still

consumes and consumes

and as long as whitey still

cries over spilled perfume

we will be there fighting

for what we know is true

and what we know is true

true as this

truth is not bliss

… when you face the blistering heat

in sweatshops and on modern

plantations

like so many

Mexicans, Asians, and Haitians

or what about the millions more

raped of

resources

in third world nations?

billions of lives

living off of pennies a day

that’s what they’re facing

why is that still

what they’re facing?

millions are spent

on makeup each day

whitey is still wasting

why oh why is whitey still

wasting?

what about those second world

citizens

still living in poor health?

pain there is still the biggest

feeling

that is felt

… all while the first world is

complacent in

an amassment of grand wealth

wealth that in turns

turns down the cries

needlessly –

cries of help, help, help

needlessly –

turn to no more

than a barely heard yelp

needlessly –

is a word of hate

needlessly

is a word

we must work so damn hard to

erase

so as long as whitey still cries

over a glass of spilled milk

and as long as whitey still rest

their heads on sheets of silk

we will be there fighting

for what we know is true

so as long as whitey continues

to bilk bilk bilk

and as long as whitey still cries

over a glass of spilled milk

we will be there fighting

for what we know is true

black masks and bricks

and whatever other tricks

we can come up with

we will come with

whatever we can fit

in a backpack

we black bloc

up your block

because we can’t, we don’t

and we won’t stop

we will take the war on the poor

back to whitey’s

front door

get arrested

and come back

for more

with whatever we can fit

in a backpack

we black bloc

up your block

because we can’t, we won’t

and we don’t stop

and all the world we won’t stop

‘til Starbucks is on fire

and all the world we won’t stop

‘til workers get paid higher

and all the world we don’t stop

even if the media’s lying

and all the world we don’t stop

until those

who

are needy

stop

needlessly dying

that’s why

when

they ask us

we tell them

watch who or what

you consort with

because our protests

-->

are not a spectator sport

The Wind and The Wanderer

She's a wanderer

the type that has all other creatures frozen in moments fond of her

a beauty that has mockingbirds directing original compositions of never before heard songs inspired by her

a sweetness that has admirers admonishing the quietest enduring longing for her

...longer and longer the pain will beckon in absence of her

as shorter and shorter the days become without the presence of her

she runs away as if and with the seasons passing

never taking root but always leaving behind an unfathomable everlasting passion



She's a wanderer

sometimes leaving those enamored with her in a whirlwind of uncertainty

yet, unfailingly, every year the snails come out still looking for a sign of hers

because she dreams up the rain that keeps them from getting too damn thirsty

shes the waterfall converting the icy winter snow into an overflowing ever-bearing and over-descriptive greenery

ever expanding the resiliency of colors within the simplest and most complex of forest scenery

leaving most of whom she comes in contact with in a battle against a shortening of breath...

only to later, in absence, resuscitate and rejuvenate those with the lingering scent of lavender



She's the wanderer of wanderers,

so she flees with such celerity on top her calloused pawed feet

yet past her hardened bottoms is the gentlest creature radiant yet meek

her precious presence being the priceless present that she herself never quite gave an inquiring consideration into

because she's been too busy conflating the fearful feeling of not wanting the burden of loss with the feeling, the rush of an everlasting proliferation break through

still, she hides herself behind layers of cynical rocks and underneath a facade of numb ledges

still... overlooking a vulgar cliff

she tries to disconnect from this place that has birthed her

freeing herself from the gifts that her mother has graced her with



See, she's the wanderer who's become tired of wandering alone

still... sometimes she feels no more significant than a murky puddle

yet before the sun gets to settle the wind takes up a rebellious rebuttal

he wraps his welcome around her in replicating the warmest of bear embraces

exposed, her face bares a nakedness that's fragile but not quite broken

she closes her eyes and begins to feel the indulgence of a smile

all the while, the wind continues with his touch

moving feverishly about her goose-bumped turned skin

weaving refreshingly in and out her dirty copper toned curls

and in one whirl she turns on one foot to spin and spin and spin



She's always been a wanderer but now she'll never be alone

because almost as soon as the wind came he left again

but this time taking her with him

she's a wanderer, always has been, and now he's the wind that will forever accompany her

someone reworked rasberry crazy ants

I don't get on the computer much anymore, so I don't update this much but here is something worth reading.

A zine based on a zine I made... imagine that. It's like I'm famous, and yes it's so hard being this famous and good looking. But for reals, read it, shits good!

crazy rasberry ants

Dandelions and Diamonds

I am a dandelion,
resiliency birthed from within a beauty redefined,
I am the chaotic spits of yellow,
that ruin the trimmed green canvas of suburban yard design.

I bare within myself
A burning intent of revolutionary desire
with a flared windgust,
or from the wishes of a child's young breath, I conspire

So in time and in waves
throughout the weeks and months of days
like the regenerative wealth of a wildfire on a forest's well being and health

I stretch outwards,
simultaneously in two separate directions
down into the cold damp soil
and up into the warm skyline

But I'm not stretching for nothing
double negatives will always multiple to make a positive
so always remember that, there is no one way to grow
and so I grow

I grow radically rapid
from the roots of my rhizome; from the history of my home
from the seed that once played family
a genetic memory, a reason in this world for me to be.

but those who tower in power over me
only consider my growth to be:
terroristic to their hegemony
parasitic as their worst enemy, I'm labeled as:

as infliction upon man
and a disease upon the land

They label me an invasive species,
but they are the one's born from the bloodlines of colonizers, conquistadors, settlers and pioneers
they say I'm an illegal immigrant,
but if they were to follow their own logic and lies, that lie intertwined in law,
founded on the basis of property and ownership, they would soon see that
they are the one's on stolen land

They call me an undesirable,
and for once that might be considered a relatively good thing,
to not be directly sought after by Gilgamesh as he continues
his conquest to consume everything

They call me a weed,
and by that they simply mean, that unlike all my lost brothers and sisters
who, at one point, made the mistake, that I myself remain wild and refuse to domesticate

They label me an invasive, an illegal, an undesirable, a weed
but with cities outsretched, losing power, what do these things even mean?

She is a flawed and damaged diamond,
because she refuses to be shaved down and objectified,
hardened like so many other females from
the compounding pressures of carrying this world's weight

She has told me that, she has formed a self value that
cannot be, nor will it ever be,
anymore than her own bodily home
that's not to be confused with a homebody or a nobody
because no body except her's will own her body

her own body has been birthed from
the surrounding charcoal confines
it is within this blackness

she is able to find

resiliency
her own earthly sincerity
a one of a kind strength
that forms her one of a kind shape

flawed by only a curse of uniqueness
she defends her right to not be mined
refracting light with every bit her love and rage
she resists their attempts to make her intent to resign
to their bleak manufactured blood riddened design

She is an inseparable beauty, bonded and grounded into her ancient surroundings
she remains there, contained in the mines bought by her oppressors
battling to engrain in the mind's thoughts of her oppressors
that she refuses their attempts to:

extract her into ownership
abstract her into an object
they'll hit her, break her, shape her into
the desires of what a man wants

they'll evict her from her homeland
sell her affixed upon a wedding band
to be placed on the finger of another woman's hand
who might not yet quite understand
that she, too, is absolutely priceless
and doesn't need to do this

to be hit on
to be broke in
to be shaped thin
to be forced into
what a patriarchical fuck of a man wants her to do

Yeah... she may be a diamond in the rough
but it is this same roughness
that has made her the world's toughest
so under every axe blow they swing
she remains undauntedly
proclaiming utmost passionately

"YA BASTA! YA BASTA! Enough is enough,
I will not give in, I refuse to give up!"

So, it is not until civilization gives up the notion that
it is the fittest to survive
we, dandelions and diamonds, will vehemently fight back,
undeniably with the knowledge that
we are just but two aspects of a larger world fighting to decide

not if, but when and how
we are going to take them down

The Earth is still surviving, as she always has
beholden to her own great resiliency

and resiliance has become the downtrotters biggest weaponry
because resiliance will not even be found within the gifts of civilization's viral industry
for resiliance must be born from within one's own self identity,

like a diamond from within a bed of charcoal
or a dandelion from within its own seed
we are born from the resiliancy of the natural world, of a community, of a home, of a family

the sun has started to break through this cityscape of smog
giving me the warmth I need, to finally escape into growth.

fast track

I got locked up for some really bad shit I did...

yet, with the years passing I was beginning to adjust

life in prison with no parole is a hard pill to swallow

but I swallowed it

then, newly resigned to my fate

my celly told me to swallow it

but I refused

so he grabbed me by the throat

and slammed me up against the back of the cell

so I fought back

and I fought hard

I saw a demon that night possess a man I knew all to well

when your doing a life sentence

you can't be someones bitch

so I fought back

and I fought hard

I killed a demon that night and regret the man who went with

but now justice has to flex its weight

so it weighed in

and I was weighed out

I killed a demon in self defense and now they say I must die too

because self defense doesn't exist on this side of those gray prison walls

at least not for us condemned to life

but I was always sentenced to a death of sorts

just one that had a few more years left

yet, now I'm on the fast track

with even less time to say goodbye

with even less time to say

*note: if a prisoner is facing life for a murder charge and he kills another inmate in self defense he can receive the death penalty. even if he is defending himself against rape. burn all prisons, break all cages

Womyn

Womyn: an untold story                                   10-13-09

"Sometimes it's not the stories we tell that matter, but the ones that remain untold." - a quote from someone that I either mutilated and paraphrased, or simply just made up.

Womyn in my experience, seem to be the one's mainly responsible for making doing time survivable. I'm not talking about the Cosmo and Maxim photos of womyn completely objectified behind jail cell walls. When the male inmates are done masturbating to these superimposed images they trade them out saying "I done used that bitch allready." Of course, that is not the support I'm talking about.

The womyn i'm talking about have a strength, endurance, and beauty that probably surpasses any inmate in here. The wife who writes her husband everyday even if she doesn't have much to say. The grandma (abuelita) or aunt (tia) who unfailably puts $10 a week on their family member's commissary books, even though they themselves are on an incredibly fixed income. The mom's that come and visit every weekend, no matter what, even if they are missing out on the 12:00 pm Sunday bingo. The sister's who let their addict brother use their physical mailing address as a "residence," so that when they do get released they don't have to go to half-way house for yet another six months.

The 5 foot nothing, 160 pounds of real authentic southern black women who comes by everyday to see the towell wave from her 6 foot 3, red haired, 135 pound, swastika-tattooed boyfriend. She was the only one who cared long enough to teach him real love, one that is not predicated on institutionalize racist brotherhoods.

Or the 17 year old pregnant girl, who smuggles drugs into jail for her 18 year old baby's daddy, all because the voice on the phone says if she doesn't do it, her baby's daddy will be killed.

Or the ex-wife of the now recovering, good-hearted methhead, who continues to explain to their 4 year old son that his dad is sick and in the hospital, all so that he won't grow up ever thinking bad of him.

Or the girlfriend who adopts the son of the man she was prison penpals with all before the state put him down. A womyn who is now trying to raise his son to be a revolutionary, eventually giving him the knowledge and empowerment needed to fight against the murderous state and all of it's injustices.

But it goes past prison walls... to the multitude of womyn stories that will always remain untold. The one's who sacrifice going back to Him because she believed that it is what is best for the kids. The one's whom never go back to Him again, even though their biggest fear is never finding another partner again.

Then there is the mom who emails and phones her son's bestfriends so that they know updates on his case. The womyn who takes care of the kitten he unintentionally abandoned when the small town Reedsport cops kidnapped him. The mother that was forced to make an impossible decision, when both her son's had court on the same day and she made the decision to decide which one needed her the most. The womyn who was belittled and harrased by the district attorney, but never once gave into misrepresenting her son's character. Relentless love.

Then there's the womyn who are also currently locked up. The ones that receive three times higher sentencing for killing their abusive husbands, when compared to those abusive husbands that kill their wives. The womyn who face a much high chance of being violently raped while incarcerated. The womyn who will have to struggle more than men, once released form the pen. Because no one wants to higher a felon conivct, but especially a womyn felon convict, not to mention a person of color womyn felon convict.

These stories, their stories, fill ghost anthologies larger in size than entire congressional encyclopedia sets. I don't want to pit womyn against men, I just want to recognize my own inequality in storytelling. Thanks to those womyn in my life, who have made doing time everything but soul-crushing. Especially, thanks to my mom. I know -but cant fully imagine- how hard this is on you

against the patriarchy
who holds the keys
responsible for imprisoning me

Jayson Tx

* maybe in an attempt to be honest, or maybe just top use my own experience as example: The womyn in my life have written, acted, payed, and given more for and to me while being locked up. More than any of the important males in my life. Exponentially more.

** it would also be fair to note that those male-bodied friends that identify as queer and/or gender neutral have done more than those who identify as otherwise.


Months later, I recognize now that there are more factors to play into what people are capable of doing for their loved ones locked up. Some of the males in my life were having more emotionally turmoil over my incarceration (in as much as that can even be quantified). Some also had jobs, families, and other time consuming life sustaining things. Ultimately, looking at each person as a unique individual friend is way more meaningful and productive than setting up groups to judge or qualify. I can't describe the importance of each and every one of my friendships. But I still think the relevance of my writing this given my circumstances still stands. Not to mention, most people incarcerated are not supported by a radical community. Instead, they are supported by communities with strict gender roles and I see no harm in celebrating the struggles, strengths, and love of the one gender that appears more frequent in their personal support systems. But if I'm wrong, please challenge me.

rasberry crazy ants... an update

Today I went and researched some more on my little crazy Rasberry ant friends. Of course, they are continuing to grow and reek havoc on more of industrial civilization. Its also official, they are now costing billions of dollars! anyways I turned the old story and new one into a zine. You can click on the link to find the complete Crazy Rasberry Ant Zine ... but if you don't have time to read the whole thing here's the newest part. enjoy and let me know what you think.

Update.

Swarms of rasberry crazy ants are still spreading through Texas and now Florida, raising alarms as they will soon rival fire ants which have ravaged the South, costing billions of dollars in damages each year.

Having ruined pumps at a sewage facility, computers, burglar alarm systems, and gas and electricity meters, the ants have accomplished their march to NASA’s Johnson Space Centre and Houston's William P. Hobby airport, putting federal officials in a frenzied panic.

According to an April, 2010 edition of the amazing and intriguing Pest Control Technologies magazine, “A major chemical company projects damages from this invasive pest to top $1 billion in its operations, and, had the Johnson Space Center not sought special consideration in its fight against the "crazies" in 2008, the critters could have feasibly brought NASA to its knees as well.”

But the battle at NASA and Houston area airports is still not over. Without daily vigilance and millions of dollars, the combination of summer heat and crazy ants could destroy both space shuttle communications and essential commercial aircraft electrical and computer components. This would endanger thousands of human lives and billions of dollars in machinery. Thank god Rush Limbaugh has disproved climate change, otherwise the war against the Rasberry ants in another record breaking summertime heat might be won by the ants.

As more is being learned of their organizational structure, we are starting to learn that they form federations, or supercolonies. A supercolony is made up of smaller collective colonies, in which the smaller individual colonies do not exhibit mutual aggressions toward each another. It is actually thought to be the opposite, that instead, the autonomous colonies work together in a sort of microscopic mutual aid. Each Autonomous colony is polyamorous, breaking from the myth of using a queen ant hierarchical organizational method. World renowned entomologists actually suspect the ants of polyamorous behavior, so in other words, nests upon nests of anarchic orgies.

Their presence has increased in suburbia, endangering the McMansions, lawns, and domesticated pets of the already struggling and depressed middle class. Their increased presence in industrial and corporate parks have some of the worlds largest multinational corporations investing collective billions against these little anti-capitalists. But not to worry, the Rasberrys are still waging an epic war on commercial bee farms.

More recent reports have shown that although the ants are known to have a sweet tooth, when robbing the bee hive's, these omnivorous ants prefer to eat the bee larvae before the honey. After killing or driving off all the bees, the ants then proceed to expropriate the hives for their own colonies. They may not be the only squatter ants in the world, but they have proven to be the most strategic and tactical.

Is anything lacking from the crazy Rasberry ant model for revolutionary change?

• Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Technology, Anti-Military industrial complex, Anti-Authoritarian
• Squatting and expropriation as main means of subsistence
• A willingness to use guerrilla warfare, sabotage, and violence when necessary.
• Resiliency to chemical warfare and inability to be pinned down by authorities
• A sweet tooth, and from the looks of it, little ants that know how to party

I guess if anything is lacking, we will just have to keep a close eye on our six legged allies as they rack up the billions of money spent in unsuccessful attempts to eradicate them.

Can't Stop, Won't Stop!

Jayson Tx

dog soldier

revolutionaries used to carry guns

now it seems they resemble something more close to bums

it use to be the in thing to know worldly affairs

now we all must be too consumed with our own internal despair

capitalism has won and it reigns over us

we no longer know what it means to say enough

so instead we enter our mid-twenties and just give up

give up, give in, give out that meager pocket chain solidarity

grow up, cave in, throw out everything we used to be about

anarchy means doing what whatever the fuck I want

so I'll eat my taco bell

autonomy means I have every right to kill myself

so pass me another two beers

I despise authority and abolish all morality

smoke them up with just one more pack

I'm not trying to say my addiction to poorly planned notepad poetry is any better

and just so you know... my self-righteous judgments don't help me sleep at night either

still higher spirits and desires is what I miss and I must admit

I have no fucking clue how to get them back

yet even now, with all of this

my friendships are one thing I will never lack

but I still cant help to see it's getting harder and harder

to hop scotch down this broken and shattered path just to get back

so stay close to my side my dear dear friend

as a canyon creating line draw its way across the dirt

stay so close to my insides that sometimes it hurts

because I've got a lot of questions to the answers we've been spouting

touting, shouting, pouting – or whatever it takes, I'll ask, I'll state

what are we going to do with our everything at stake

let me restate, my friendships are my everything

with dog rope and picket-pin, here I lay down my stake

-Jayson Tx

"Attached to each dog rope was a picket-pin [used to tether horses]. The pin was driven into the ground as a mark of resolve in combat. When a Dog Soldier was staked to the ground in order to cover the retreat of his companions, he was required to remain there even if death was the consequence. The Dog Man could pull the pin from the ground only if his companions reached safety or another Dog Soldier released him from his duty."

Dope Boy...

Dope Boy just received a seven year bit on an aggravated assault charge. Short in stature with a hooked nose, he can easily be mistaken for a Jim Hansen puppet extra or an aging Coho salmon. To live up to his ballah status -to which the playboy bunny on his neck certifies him as such- he has his mom, a school cafeteria wage laborer, put obscene amounts of money on his books, so he is always ordering big and hard on commissary days.

In Big Boy style, sometimes he will go pick up his lunch or dinner tray -prepared by under-paid hard workers just like his own mother- and instead of sharing it with other hungry inmates, he simply dumps the whole thing in the garbage, all while exclaiming such filth as: "I don't need that food, I gots my own store" or "Man! Players don't eat that shit." When he's not making his mom pay $7 a pop to three way call his girlfriend, just to let her know how big of a ho, slut, or whore she is, he runs around looking for anyone that will give him the littlest bit of attention.

But if you observe this prick long enough -lets say, three weeks- you will find that he has a very big secret. If you pay attention after every breakfast and lunch, when the noise level from clean-up is still very high, dope boy makes his way to the toilet. At night, after eating a large $10 -$15 spread of ramen noodles, chips, tuna, nacho cheese, and mayonnaise, Dope Boy once again finds his way to the toilet behind his cell door. Its after that, that in staying up late you will hear someone throwing up a minimum of three times throughout the nights duration.

Dope Boy -self-described player, ballah, convict, drug dealer- suffers from Bulimia Nervosa, an eating disorder that effects millions of others. So why nothing can, nor should, justify his abusive and ludicrous behavior towards others, especially those he supposedly loves like his own mother and girlfriend, I cant help but to feel saddened when like clockwork, with the other inmates well asleep, he forces his two fingers down his throat to purge himself of much needed food, all furthering his self-hatred and self-destruction.

I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it will be if he ever decides to allow out his mouth the one thing he needs more than anything, not food, but a plea. An "I'm tired of hurting, can someone please help me."

Jayson

I think I was so intrigued with Dope Boy and his eating disorder because it made me realize that even the people who act the hardest sometimes have the largest cracks in them. It also isn't unusual for people to beg and plead their family and friends for commissary money to fund bad drug habits, but Dope Boy just very well might be the first one to, instead, fund an eating disorder. I also couldn't help but to me moved by the fact that this seemingly and outwardly aggressive and mean person actually hated himself as much or more than others... but of course doesn't this culture force eating disorders on all of us. For the third world it's the not having anything to eat disorder, while for the first it's consuming and wasting an uncountable amount of food. An as individuals we all suffer from our eating disorders, and by that I mean to draw from the much larger dysfunctions this culture forces on us. 


When I wrote this, I also had no idea that at the same exact time i was criticizing Dope Boy's eating habits, i myself was forming an eating disorder that would put my body, brain, and feelings through all sorts of turmoil not just while i was locked up, but even once I got out. It's sometimes so hard to see your dysfunctions and disorders all while their trying their best to kill you, but the goal is to not let them. Don't let this fucked culture get the best of you. Don't let it kill you.

necrotic concrete veins

dreams! I have never really chronicled my dreams. Well, by dreams, I mean nightmares, because those are the ones that most frequent me at night. But even now with each second I spend writing this I lose one more scene. And so I'm going to try and write with somewhat in detail and also in somewhat of speed. It's actually a repeat nightmare, though, most of my nightmares are. Not repeat to were every detail is the same, but the general overview and the dis-empowering, degrading, and frightening feeling they leave me with is. so here goes...

This one I've had before. Years before, months before, and even days before. It involves me as a fugitive (hah, imagine that), running on an underground railroad to flee further prosecution. Sometimes the dreams are more cartoon like, and others have a twinge of hilarity, but mostly they are filled with frightening, surreal, and intimidating circumstances.

It starts of with maybe my worst fear, even worst than going back to jail One of my friends gets caught shoplifting and finds themselves in jail. We decide to act quickly to defend those that we love and we start taking action to bail-out our friend. I'm already wanted, but we have to boost to get bond money. It seems like there's a tension between my close friends about this, but we also know of no other way.

So next, we all quite hesitantly make our paired and coupled ways into the commercial gateways of hell incarnate. We take to our teams of two very well dressed thieves, and enter the mall from all sides. For the most part its like stealing the icing off from a cake with a machete, and by that I somehow mean; easy for us camouflaged as Misses and Misters Unsuspectings to get what we need with an end result that becomes significantly disastrous for those corporations unlucky enough to have our crew frequent their shops.

But there's a problem. Duh! There's always a problem. Back when we were drawing-up verbal straws to see who gets what stores, I talked my way into tackling the two hardest ones. This of course goes against any sort of reasonable risk management, but again I find myself falling back into the martyr friendship role. It's a role that I know is unhealthy and even undesired, yet I still continue into the pattern of thinking that I can handle more threats or that I even deserve more risk.

I imagine any of my close friends reading this can think back to at least one time in real life in which I tried to act on this flawed and selfish form of logic.

But on the very last store, by some force unseen (as if there's really any other in this type of dangerous anti-work), another dear friend of mine, and my current crime partner gets slammed down at a store surprisingly standing tall in resemblance of every real world yuppies favorite recreational, sports, and outdoor store. They've been hit by us before. It seems like for decades actually. And almost instantaneously it seems like they began hunting for me. Somehow, in just seeing my friend there collapsed under the weight of many knees and fists on the floor, they knew I was there.

In a very short time -but one that feels like light-speed in overdrive to the tune of some multiple magnitude in the billions (ie. faster than the race between creationism and evolution and then some)- I began my futile seeming leap for safety. Talk about a relative term, who would of ever thought that some of the hiding places we thieves instantaneously devise while being chased is the epitome of safe. But for someone in flight, it's exactly that under the church, teeming with black widows, crawlspace, that becomes heaven. Dumpsters, rooftops, ditches, alleys, sewers, and even backyards with really large dogs become our safe heaven in times like those. Unfortunately for me, it was currently in the middle of a seemingly century long drought of creative and enduring hiding spots. So I continued to run and run and run.

Their forces definitely began to compound. The police were on the hunt, accompanied by -but not limited to- corporate loss prevention, private for-profit military type forces, almost mechanical like hounds, and the never ending, all-encompassing, ominous chain of dime-dropping, god-fearing, good Samaritans, to just name a few. It's a scary place to be, when SWAT Teams and nosey self-righteous Grandma's have as much control over one's ability to flee a crime scene. Of course, no one ever reflects on the scariest place of them all; this world in which we all must, at one point or a thousand other traumatizing points, make again and again the decision to not flee the scene of a crime or to continue on living. This culture has found almost every way to outlaw, ban, and criminalize, not only and true form of substance, but also any and all forms of meaningful sustenance.

As a kid, and confessedly even now, I don't know if I see the difference between the two, sustenance and substance, as both are required for living, and so sometimes I actually will find myself saying, typing, writing, or even just thinking of a word I made up called substanance. I think even in my last year of high school, I somehow was able to pass my English class with a final test in which I answered the cliché question of “What is the biggest goal you want to accomplish in life?” with none other than “a pursuit of substanance” essay.

But back to the nightmare...

It felt a lot like Guy Montag in Fahrenheit 451. But even Ray Bradbury's over the top dystopia portrayal can't began to explain the mockery to which this megamachine has made from life. Perhaps to lighten the nightmarish blow of mockery, my mind came up with one mockery to sugarcoat all the rest we are constantly so forced to dream of. Because next thing I know, against my wildest dreams, but still very much within the dream I'm so shakily describing, I find myself obtaining refuge from within a Catholic Church. It's not quite clear, but they seem to all know about my history and I cant help but to notice the revere it.

Of course, I don't know what to make of this. Maybe just humor, or maybe it goes back to falling into the martyr friendship role mistake. A mistake I have so frequently made in real life. But regardless, I found my momentary safe space. In vivid and engrossing detail, an almost completely passed-out drunk, sprawling over a pew, puking out putrid spew priest explains to me a route to get to the outskirts of the city.

Before I know it, I'm in the suburbs of the city which in my dream have turned into the metropolis' worst hood (Now, don't tell me you didn't see that one happening. After all, what do you think gentrification is about?). So of course, my very incredibly white skin sticks out in this very dark neighborhood, increasing the difficulty in trying to remain safe. Not to mention I began the mental battle against racist insecurities, indirectly instilled in me from a youth of admiring the hardships of everything poor, urban, and black at a comfortable white lower middle class distance. It would be intellectually dishonest, colloquially speaking, to not admit to ourselves that imagery painted by the rap industry, the urban clothing monolith, and black film have not become our generations unequivocal equivalent to the once great “noble savage.”

The nightmare gets really bad. People everywhere are out to fuck me, and game theories like tit-for-tat have no relevance in dreams this crazy, nor even in schizo societies that inspire such dreams. I soon start fucking over everyone I can, even those ones out who I truly believe are helping me. Finally, I get out of the city. Finally.

But it doesn't end. Of course not. Not this nightmare. Just like in reality when you leave one city outward among one of the many stretching necrotic concrete veins that feed them, only to find yourself in yet another disgusting city, this nightmare doesn't deviate from the norm. Roads never lead to paradise. So, the nightmare starts over again. A nightmare inside of the existing nightmare. Everything intensifies. The cities become harder, the obstacles taller, and the air ever so thicker to breath.

It goes on like this for three or four cities. The same nightmare. The same bad guys. They are everywhere. And just like the perfect formula for a psychological thriller, the tone settles down. The sky turns from impossible dark, to slightly illuminated in the near distant. It feels like I'm getting away. It's the same exact feeling produced in the realist of real times that I have actually gotten away. It's comforting. Then finally as I'm exiting the dream triumphantly, I feel myself. I feel myself getting pulled back down. It's over and everything I'm feeling turns to dread.

I wake up. I wake up with tears burning through my eyes. I wake up at the highest pitch of a cry. It's myself crying, but it doesn't last much longer after I wake up. Then, the day comes or so it goes.

old stuff round 1

here is the first bit of some stuff that never got posted while I was locked up... I think for the most part I'm going to keep this as true to the original content as when I first wrote them. In this one I originally included some footnotes, so yeah...

A failure of the Texas public defender system Oct. 17^th, 2009

Moments before court, Chris Iles, dim-wit attorney at law, was explaining to his client in an unreasonable, abstract, and undeniably foolish analogy to what his client was actually up against. 1 His infelicitous words, if anything, only delayed an unequivocal dereliction of not only the legal oath that supposedly bonds him to duty, but also any sensible intelligence one might have inappropriately assumed to find in him. The dialogue went as follows:

Chris: See, what you are asking for is like, well... it's like asking for a large pepperoni pizza when we are at a Whataburger drive-thru. 2

Client: What are you trying to say?

Chris: That you really only have three options. You could choose the Whataburger meal which would be 15 months at SAFP, 3 or the chicken strip meal which would mean 18 months, day for day, in State Jail, or you could get the Whatachick'n meal.

Client: And whats the Whatachick'n meal?

Chris: You go in front of the judge and swing yer own deal.

But then, From the ashes of a never once great public defender system, a phoenix takes flight...

Client: But what if I want the triple meat with cheese?

Chris: What does that mean?

Client: It means YOUR FIRED FOOL!

After firing Chris Iles, his client received a new attorney and eventually got a better much deal, 9 months in State Jail.

1. Texas does not have a true public defenders system, instead it pays attorneys -most of whom cannot find their own clientele- a meager fee ranging $300-$1500 to represent a defendant through any and all court proceedings.

2. Whataburger is a Texas based fast food chain. It was founded in the 1950's, in Corpus Christi, and comes second to none in Corpus' claim to fame, only to be beaten by Selena, who was born, raised, and murdered here, finally putting the dirty city by the sea on the map.

3. SAFP (pronounced Safe-P) is an utterly disgusting excuse for a peer-based rehabilitation facility. I and other inmates refer to it as Snitch-P because that seems to be the only life skill the inmates suckered into going there ever learn.

Can't Stop, Won't Stop, Stab-A-Cop

- Jayson Tx-

14 years and then some...

a milk crate of memories
a milk crate of letters
a milk crate has surely become my most valuable possession
an unquantifiable love can be found scribbled in the margins
on the lines and in the headers of the pages stacked so chaotically in that little black milk crate
multiple voices some more frequent then others
some filled with more clarity
but all seeping with relentless and resilient love

essentially a little black milk crate that reminds me
a crate of words outweighing its weight in gold
outmeasuring itself in any possible or reasonable manner
a little meaningless crate that carried me through those horrible days in my life

but im scared to travel back down memory lane
scared to reflect on the tortures I faced
evermore scared of remembering the even more vicious tortures i was unwillingly playing witness to
i was witness to
i was witness to much
too much
i still witness too much in weekly recollections
nightmares while other people dream of kittens or things not so fluffy
but it's this crate of letters that carried me through
this crate that is now somewhere between an eyesore and artifact
this crate is somewhere between nuclear fallout and standing on the right side of rapture

this crate that ill never let go of

sometimes i had to wait over a week to receive a letter
to receive word from anything sensible
to receive any form of love or affection
i think even once my inmate correspondence drought lasted in upwards of two weeks
but even then
my absences of loving words cant compare to that in what i bared witnessed to

i bared witness to the remaining shell of a man
a man so fragile in his hardness
a skin fortified by fourteen years of not one letter or single visit from any living soul
five thousand one hundred and ten days
five thousand one hundred and ten days without an ounce of affection or love
how does one survive that ...

anyone out there

well... even if there's not. im going to use this blog again and more frequently to consolidate thoughts and post shit i write..
welcome back to myself

Today is the day Jayson got released from prison. True story.

Against All Odds

So this was written Oct 22nd, and I'm finally typing it up. Sorry for the delay! Edited for spelling/grammar.
-Ruthie

Curtis Townsend, recovering meth-head, and survivor of the police brutality lottery: His grand earnings after medical expenses and attorney fees weighed in at just under $54,000. Although less than the amount a typical American family will take home annually, for Curtis, this amount was enough to change his world.

Despite the facial scars, old age, and near eye crows feet, when Curtis smiles he more closely resembles a 20 year old virgin than a 40 year old father of two. The night he was apprehended he was tazed three times while handcuffed lying face down on the ground. After his arrest, it took an hour and a half to arrive at the hospital--but when he did finally arrive, carrying the artifacts of his beating, the emergency room medical staff were nauseated by the sight of his swelling, bruising and bleeding. Still, Curtis deems the facial scarring minimal, considering that when he arrived at the E.R. his face was smashed in so god damn far, that cranial fractures on his right side made it impossible to continue to hold on to his eyeball.

Locked up, the first thing Curtis did with his negligible prize winnings was to pay off the $20 grand still owed on the trailer his mom and kids live in. He then dropped another two thousand dollars on a down payment for his mom's fly new ride, and another grand on two brand new bicycles for his two kids to ride. With only four months remaining of his reduced 9 month sentence, he now tries to supply all of his friends on the inside with enough jail comforts to make their mutual time fly right by. Ramen noodles, honey-less honey buns, pre-stamped envelopes, and a pair of tube socks will do a number of wonders to a person's self-esteem while being forced to remain behind bars.

He will, without a doubt, spend well over half the amount that was awarded to him on his family and friends, and all before he leaves the pen. Down to his last dollar, he will still shine his surprisingly white-toothed smile, because as he sees it, with meth out of his life, he can finally be a father to his kids and avoid the horrendous and unneeded custody battles with his ex-wife. After all, it's never about the financial gain when someone actually survives the insurmountable odds within the state funded lottery of unjustifiable police brutality.


Can't Stop, Won't Stop
-Jayson