Word Association

Just a cool breeze
with an artificial coconut scent.
Body Glitter.
Shitty apartment,
Next to a corn field.
Hawiaan-themed bedroom,
Darkened.
Caved in eyes and
Crooked Teeth.
I can tell you are unsafe, so
How’d I end up here?

Body Glitter.
Lip Gloss.
Jean MF Watkins and
All that Bacardi.
Car crash.
Glass sparkling.
Crying,
Glitter tears.
Screaming at the sky.
Glitter stars.
Looking for God
No one answers.


Staring at the ceiling.
I mean nothing.
Grandpa’s house.
Ice Cream, silent ‘r’
Strawberries from the garden.
The hot sun,
Whiskey and ice cubes rattle.
The dead snakes,
The ones still alive, slithering in blood.
That hot rotten death smell.
His watch,
Ticking with his heartbeat.
His funeral.
That light you saw,
It was real.
You’ve seen it once before
And one time after.

Only once you saw it before,
At that open casket
He didn’t look like himself
That can’t be him.
His dad held his body and cried.
Screamed with a reddened face.
“My boy. Not my boy.”

What is this? Who are we?
I thought we all went to heaven once, but that wasn’t true,
I thought nothing happened then, but that ‘s not true either.
If the truth is only what we make it, how do I know it’s true?
That doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?
I don’t know who I am.

One gramma fat and a
Tweety bird balloon.
How long can skeletons survive?
That gross look of sympathy.
Humiliation.
Self deprecating jokes, body shame and
Cancer eating monsters.
I really thought I could save you.
I wanted so bad to save her.
I prayed more than anyone had ever prayed.
I begged.
Pleaded.
That smiling little girl.

“There is no God,” she said.
But we already knew.

The process I used here was to first get into a meditative state.

Once I felt grounded, I took note of my surroundings.

Then moved on to how I felt in my body. How it felt to be in my body.

Once I finally reach a state of, well, I’m not sure what its official name is, but I describe it as a place where it is absolutely silent. My inner stillness, if you will.

Here I sit. and once I pick up on something, like a word, or phrase, I allow my mind to take off without limitation. Whatever comes up, goes down on paper.

Pink Robot

Obviously inspired by the Flaming Lips’ cover art for their album “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots”
I read that the song “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots pt. 1” was written about fighting cancer, the robots being a metaphor for cancer. It’s a rather interestingly written song, I thought, but I had always imagined it being about how our world was being taken over by technology, and soon will replace humanity as we know it.
It really doesn’t matter what your take on the song is, I think they like to keep it open to interpretation.
Anyway. The point! Ah, yes. My work life has changed dramatically with the widespread acceptance of AI, and I’m not happy about it. It’s a daily upset, honestly. It feels like I’m in a bad 80s horror movie about robots taking over. I have questioned whether if I’m suited for my career field because of this. Maybe it’s time to surrender to the bots.
Furthermore, my coworker is currently battling cancer, and it’s been a rough going. Originally, she and I didn’t get along, but I think as I’ve began to heal my family wounds, and as she has become more understanding, things are just fine. Being highly sensitive, when people don’t like me, it haunts me. I’m an extreme people pleaser, and it’s so hard for me when people aren’t pleased with me. But I realized, I don’t mind if she doesn’t like me, I don’t either! And I know she’s going through some kind of hell, so I let her be, and only try to make her life easier.
So this song randomly came up and I found it quite amusing how some songs can mean one thing to you at a certain time and change completely as you journey on through life. Fascinating, isn’t it?

Those evil-natured robots
They’re programmed to destroy us
She’s gotta be strong to fight them
So she’s takin’ lots of vitamins

‘Cause she knows that
It’d be tragic
If those evil robots win
I know she can beat them

Yoshimi, they don’t believe me
But you won’t let those robots defeat me
Yoshimi, they don’t believe me
But you won’t let those robots eat me, Yoshimi
– the Flaming Lips

Oil pastels/05/26