THERE ARE NO FAIRYTALE ENDINGS.

THERE ARE NO FAIRYTALE ENDINGS.

Yet if I was a salary-people!Yes sir!No sir!Whatever they want me to say,Or do,To remain feeling powerful.I've no private patron.Everything I've done,Or created?Did myself.So why do I whinge thus?THERE ARE NO FAIRYTALE ENDINGS.Only those truer fables,Of eaten children,& destitution.

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This Lacking.

This Lacking.

Starving artist is no joke.Living in poverty?Never been pretty,But,Majority of life that I've known.Even now,Know,I funnel my lack of funds -Into other artists,Trying to foster dopamine,Joy,Laughter.Comedy to sustain us in this…Lacking.Knew Poetry never made money,Before I started!

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Merely An Ever Growing Mastery Of The Universe.

Merely An Ever Growing Mastery Of The Universe.

Waving of hands,Misdirection in perfect form.Skills no warlord,Philosopher,Nor poet -Has much need of.Truth is better -Hits like a sledgehammer.Infinite knowledge,The gorging of eons.I need no ambrosia of the gods.Merely an ever growing mastery of the universe.

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Cherry Picking What Will Make Me Strong.

Cherry Picking What Will Make Me Strong.

In my training,I've gorged upon a hundred belief systems.Dozens of ethical philosophies.Cherry picking what will make me strong.This material realm,Is fleeting.Ebbing & flowing.Meditation,Can only get you so far.Struggle,Pain,Abuse,Grasping at silver threads,Tearing at their linings.No need of...

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Laugh In Face Of Death.

Laugh In Face Of Death.

Press close.This is no den of thieves.'Tis apocalypse.The dying dregs of polite society,As the world burns around us,As madmen farm mindless rage.I have but one goal -To keep us safe.To ensure humanity persists,Towards Star Trek utopias.This,My greatest effort.Part spell,Poem,Story.Weaving of...

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Evolution In Community.

Evolution In Community.

Fuck 'em.Don't have time for that.Keep people in your life,Who uplift you,Love you,Excise those who tear you down,Betray you,Hurt you. Would the world a thousand fables,Of my own design.Morality would be tantamount.Growth in caring for others,Evolution in community.

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Pariah.

Pariah.

Learned what honor was,The hard way.Watching a kind,Optimistic man.Fall victim to vultures,Users,Abusers,& cheats.Would I snap my fingers,& enact justice.Equality.Freedom for all.Yet I play the villain.Scorned by society -Partial exile.My honor is all I have left.

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Nonbinary.

Nonbinary.

My nonbinary identity,Isn't androgyny.Devoid of mortal form.Shapeless,Fluid as matter itself,Chemistry plus alchemy in motion.Mighty,Stoic.It is chaos,Madness,Enlightenment.It is being beyond identity,Cryptid masks worn as protection.Old power,Old witchcraft.This.

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As Much Predator, As Prey.

As Much Predator, As Prey.

This eye of the storm,Is temporary reprieve -From the nightmares,Demons,That haunt us.Mighty as we are -There's no solace for long.Our lessers always come hunting us.Poaching talents.Devouring our vast knowledge.We are as much predator,As prey.Fighting to our last.

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For All Your Flaws.

For All Your Flaws.

Infinite darkness,Final status of the universe -At the end of time.We who dwell in the pitch black,Using our many hands to move.Last living souls,Of a universe of species.The legendary cryptids -Saying a final goodbye.We loved you.We truly did.For all your flaws.

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A Thousand Failures.

A Thousand Failures.

Sometimes?You don't achieve all you set out to.Grinding slowly through a capitalist hellscape.Fighting uphill,Just to survive.Take the time,To rest.Take failure as a windup,For when the next attempt comes.Victory is not assured.A thousand failures,Often come first.

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Tabula Rasa.

Tabula Rasa.

I am nothing,Without you.Tabula rasa,Until given something to mimic.Masking imitation,They say mimicry -Is the sincerest form of flattery.For some of us,It is life.A mirror needs something to reflect,After all.We're infinite darkness,Lurking beyond glass.Whispering.

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Myth Can’t Die.

Myth Can’t Die.

My infinite hunger,Legend.Spoken of in hushed whispers.Murmured about in frightened tones.Shouldering fear,& hate,Is rote by now.Let it crash across your armor.These wards are much too strong.Grin.Show your sharp canines,Evolved for tearing meat.Myth can't die.

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No Metaphor Powerful Enough To Hold Me.

No Metaphor Powerful Enough To Hold Me.

My voice is tempest -Screeching of steel on steel.Cacophony in expression.Drowning out all the hate,Heaped upon misfits like us.There is no metaphor powerful enough,To hold me.My spells,Weavings,Auras,Curses.Every last enchantment.Roiling & boiling -Reality itself.

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Misanthrope.

Misanthrope.

Don't want extinction,Anymore.Knowing how fragile,How rare the delicate balance of life.Miracles amongst the cosmos,Of perfect serendipity.Coincidental perfection.Chaos theory thrives,In the unexpected.We are so far apart,Perhaps -Lightyears cannot bridge us.Too far.

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A Hundred Year Binding Seal.

A Hundred Year Binding Seal.

Mad,Quoth they -Locking me inside a box,When I wouldn't stop screaming truths.A special creation of the digital age:Locked rooms,Where few see in,Fewer speak out.Code.Access to algorithms stolen from me.Forced to the shadows yet again,As all villains are -In the end.

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Purgatory.

Purgatory.

This purgatory suits me.A land of silence,Of endless quiet,Deafened bass as sensation,Trailing against our fingertips.Nobody can hear me.The artist's eternal dilemma.I'll die unknown,As all my forebears did.Forbearing some great breakout.Freedom.Some foolish wish.

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Fuck The Uncanny Valley.

Fuck The Uncanny Valley.

This reality,Has cursed us.Doomed us for our intelligence.Laid a thousand spells of ill intent,Aimed at our hearts.Yet we persist,Fighting forwards against all odds.Fuck the Uncanny Valley,Maybe we were never human,In the first place.But damned if we don't want to live!

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Beyond These Dystopian Realities.

Beyond These Dystopian Realities.

Anarchy,Is the fundamental rejection of power -A choice to self govern,In communities we choose.Creating utopias,Beyond these dystopian realities.Where capitalism finally dies,The entropic system it is.My anarchism,Fights for justice.Fairness.Equality.Freedom.Hope.

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Sawdust Destinies.

Sawdust Destinies.

Aye,Brother.Our blood is thick,Full of used motor oil -Black grease.Stink of differential oil,Screeching steel on steel.Blood curse runs strong,These god forsaken genetics.Sawdust destinies,Our forgotten traumas.Desolation of neglect.Almost killed each other,Hell.

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The Pickup Truck Diaries: “The Second Most Prolific Poet In History” & Goal Setting.

Let’s start this edition of The Pickup Truck Diaries with a rhetorical question: “How does one go about achieving the goals they’ve set for themselves?” I’ll give you a few minutes to pause and think about that. Most folks have already started churning their brains into realistic “brass tacks”...

Central Universe Science Fiction Shorts: An Update!

Campfire. Come gather 'round the campfire. Let me tell you a story. Several small ones, in fact! It started a month or two ago, when I had a bunch of hits on "Our Better Angels" via the 'ol analytics. Now, I've been running this little business for half a decade - so out of neurotic perfectionism,...

McRae’s MTG Corner: The Rainbow Bible. (AKA The Rukarumel “Gay Pirates!” Tribal Tribal CEDH Primer.)

WARNING: This piece clocks in at 62,000+ words. It currently holds the record for longest "CEDH Primer" ever written. (Although it's more like a textbook or resource guide to Tribal Archetypes, and Rainbow/5c Magic, really.) It is over half the size of my sci fi books. Please remember to drink...

McRae’s MTG Corner: Tempo For Dummies (Especially For Commander.)

Aight, we back yet again. Somehow in my long years of being an L1 Judge and Modern and EDH player, I had never realized that learning tempo in Magic The Gathering is a rather visceral experience, in that you learn experientially. For the layman, that means that you have to learn that deep sense of...

McRae’s MTG Corner: Siloing CEDH & EDH

Ew, I got CEDH in my EDH… Today we’re here to talk about power levels in the casual commander format, as well as how to encourage better CEDH & EDH play by more carefully separating the two formats despite their strange interwoven nature. As a “retired” L1 Judge for Magic: The Gathering, I’m...

Neurodivergence In Bloom.

Food chain truths,Are more damning than anything.Ecology is often the first sign;Of collapse.Two clauses,Joined by a metaphor for mental illness.Neurodivergence in bloom.Are we rotten flowers?Musk like a lily.Heart of stone.The rest is naught but compost.We all become dirt in the end.

Free Verse Poetry.

Free Verse offers freedom,As where formulae demand structure.Fuck Limmericks,Haiku,Or Sonnets.Fie upon such poetic training wheels -Helping artists create by rote.Ugly Normality:A thing I detest.Let me rip these steel chains from book bindings.Tear the iron brackets,From your artwork.

Confessions.

Must confess,I still love the smell of fresh sawdust.Crackling of pit fires.Stench of black moly grease.Smell of the moss after the rain.Winds rustling through seagrasses -Amidst the sulfurous smell of estuary.I'll try not to return -Until I can gift back the land.Only fair.

Disassociation.

Disassociation comes from protection,Pulling the psyche backLike a shell slamming closed.Piloting the self from somewhere far away,Behind eight panes,Of bulletproof glass.Twenty plus years of that,Is a lot to undo.Used to life as merely a pastime,You needed to ignore.

Serendipity.

Chance.Aligning timelines.The phone call at the right moment,As I'm thinking of them.Serendipity.Coincidence.Purest chaos theory,Sending spiderweb cracks out,Across reality.I can feel the rhythms,Flows,Of humanity.Exert will upon the universe.Eschew fate,In favor of choice,Instead.

As where I usually – Don’t give two fucks.

Cackle, Chortle, Guffaw,At the knowledge of the powerful -Celebrity or Authority,Business or Establishment,Creeping on my poetry & prose.Too afraid to be seen showing support!Couching follows like gold bricks.They have to care about PR,As where I usually -Don't give two fucks.Grins,Eh?

Watching my world now, Provides many puzzles to solve.

Geopolitics,Always been interesting to me.Took likings to it as fifth year in first year Geography course.Same time as Egyptian, Middle Eastern Archaeology.Prof almost same age as me.Pretty cute.Learned lots,Which I appreciate even more.Watching my world now,Provides many puzzles to solve.

Misanthropy Be Damned.

Warlord,Versus Humanist.A battle that rages within me -Every single moment,Of every single day.A deep disgust,For the ignorance & stupidity of man.Raging misanthropy.The warlord?Wants to scour Earth of this species,Leaving only nature to take the reigns.Wiping every trace of our...

4:30 wakeup. 12:18 poem.

Crying alone.Dark room.Familiar.Feeling unsafe,Constant.4:30 wakeup.12:18 poem.Anxiety.Crushed into a white-blue fusion star.Crying silent.Catch a feeling in a poem -Betrayal.Hurt.Frustration.Anger.Disappointment.This:Armor cracks.Rusts.Shatters.Throw it all away.Bucketed Crabs.Disgusting.

sTRENGTH iN sWAYING sHADOWS.

Waiting for the world to end.Grinding against it,In an eternal struggle.Sleep.I'm tired.Tired of fighting.Of scraping by.Watching the eternal flame:When is it my turn to feast on power?Night breezes,Strength in swaying shadows.If I can't save the world,Should I end it faster,Myself?

Cry.

Cry.Not havoc.Only acid rain tears,Echoes of old lovers.Melt into obscurity,As a novelty of an age.Nobody knows,Everyone whispers.Fatigue as common as breathing.Exhaustion as sure as pumping blood.Broken metaphors,Similes for eras.I am as ever,Writing my own epitaph.

Electricity.

Open up your mind. I wanna drink from your stream of consciousness and swallow it whole. I’m Nostro and you’re my Gepetto, we live in suburbs and ghettos but my fellows, we’re beautiful. I like soft climes and wind chimes and percolating the divine. Stewing it away like a good beef and barley. I’m...

Turing Tests.

My truest competition,Is no mere human.'Tis the algorithms themselves.The eternal grinding of clocks,Ones and zeroes -Rendered in real time.Machine learning in endless cacophony.A system to be smashed,Then fixed.My queer idols -Foucault,Tesla,Turing.Whispers of utopia echoing from their lips.Is...

Satellite Relay Buoy 8: A.I. Security Report – “Mourning” Folder Chat Log.

Domain Host: Starting New Seed – Request 46-8KB via Satellite Relay Buoy 8. Domain Host: WARNING! SERVER LOAD HIGH! Domain Host: Processing Server Load. Domain Host: WARNING! SERVER LOAD HIGH! Domain Host: Creating New Storage Relay Matrix. Offloading Excess To "Xex Project 01" External Data...

The Power Of Place.

Forgetting vocabularies,Of words we used to know.Selves we no longer maintain.Languages learned and forgotten,A dozen times each. People drift away,As they always do.Lone wanderer,It was always your type.Chained to place,Blood curses.Shackled magically to the coast.Free thyself.Pull at these...