abandon, ability, able, about, above, absence, absolute, absolutely, abstract, abundance, academy, accent, accept, access, accident, accompany, accomplish, according, account, accurate, achieve, achievement, acid, acknowledge, acquire, across, action, active, activity, actor, actual, actually, adapt, addition, additional, address, adequate, adjust, administration, admire, admission, admit, adolescent, adopt, adult, advance, advantage, adventure, advertise, advice, advise, adviser, advocate, affair, affect, afford, afraid, after, afternoon, again, against, age, agency, agenda, agent, aggressive, ago, agree, agreement, agriculture, ahead, aid, aim, air, aircraft, airline, airport, alarm, album, alcohol, alive, all, alliance, allow, ally, almost, alone, along, already, also, alter, alternative, although, always, amateur, amazing, ambition, ambulance, among, amount, analysis, analyst, analyze, ancient, and, anger, angle, angry, animal, anniversary, announce, annual, another, answer, anticipate, anxiety, any, anybody, anymore, anyone, anything, anyway, anywhere, apart, apartment, apologize, apparent, apparently, appeal, appear, appearance, apple, application, apply, appoint, appointment, appreciate, approach, appropriate, approval, approve, approximately, architect, area, argue, argument, arise, arm, armed, army, around, arrange, arrangement, arrest, arrival, arrive, art, article, artist, artistic, as, ashamed, aside, ask, asleep, aspect, assault, assert, assess, assessment, asset, assign, assignment, assist, assistance, assistant, associate, association, assume, assumption, assure, at, athlete, athletic, atmosphere, attach, attack, attempt, attend, attention, attitude, attorney, attract, attraction, attractive, attribute, audience, author, authority, auto, available, average, avoid, award, aware, awareness, away, awful, baby, back, background, bad, badly, bag, balance, ball, ban, band, bank, bar, barely, barrel, barrier, base, baseball, basic, basically, basis, basket, basketball, bath, bathroom, battery, battle, be, beach, bear, beat, beautiful, beauty, because, become, bed, bedroom, bee, beef, beer, before, begin, beginning, behavior, behind, being, belief, believe, bell, belong, below, belt, bench, bend, beneath, benefit, beside, besides, best, bet, better, between, beyond, bicycle, big, bike, bill, billion, bind, biological, bird, birth, birthday, bit, bite, black, blade, blame, blanket, blind, block, blood, blow, blue, board, boat, body, bomb, bombing, bond, bone, book, boom, boot, border, boring, born, borrow, boss, both, bother, bottle, bottom, boundary, bowl, box, boy, boyfriend, brain, branch, brand, brave, bread, break, breakfast, breast, breath, breathe, brick, bridge, brief, briefly, bright, brilliant, bring, broad, broken, brother, brown, brush, buck, budget, build, building, bullet, bunch, burden, burn, bury, bus, business, busy, but, butter, button, buy, buyer, by, cabin, cabinet, cable, cake, calculate, call, camera, camp, 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division, divorce, DNA, do, doctor, document, dog, domestic, dominant, dominate, door, double, doubt, down, downtown, dozen, draft, drag, drama, dramatic, dramatically, draw, drawer, drawing, dream, dress, drink, drive, driver, drop, drug, dry, due, during, dust, duty, dwell, dying, dynamic, each, eager, ear, earlier, early, earn, earnings, earth, earthquake, ease, easily, east, eastern, easy, eat, economic, economy, edge, edit, edition, editor, educate, education, educational, educator, effect, effective, effectively, efficiency, efficient, effort, egg, eight, either, elderly, elect, election, electric, electrical, electricity, electronic, element, elementary, eliminate, elite, else, elsewhere, e-mail, embrace, emerge, emergency, emission, emotion, emotional, emphasis, emphasize, employ, employee, employer, employment, empty, enable, encounter, encourage, end, enemy, energy, enforcement, engage, engine, engineer, engineering, English, enhance, enjoy, enormous, enough, ensure, enter, enterprise, entertain, entertainment, entire, entirely, entrance, entry, environment, environmental, episode, equal, equally, equipment, equivalent, era, error, escape, especially, essay, essential, essentially, establish, establishment, estate, estimate, etc, ethics, ethnic, European, evaluate, evaluation, evening, event, eventually, ever, every, everybody, everyday, everyone, everything, everywhere, evidence, evolution, evolve, exact, exactly, exam, examination, examine, example, exceed, excellent, except, exception, exchange, exciting, executive, exercise, exhibit, exhibition, exist, existence, existing, expand, expansion, expect, expectation, expense, expensive, experience, experiment, expert, explain, explanation, explode, explore, explosion, expose, exposure, express, expression, extend, extension, extensive, extent, external, extra, extraordinary, extreme, extremely, eye, fabric, face, facility, fact, factor, factory, faculty, fade, fail, failure, fair, fairly, faith, fall, false, familiar, family, famous, fan, fantasy, far, farm, farmer, fashion, fast, fat, fate, father, fault, favor, favorite, fear, feature, federal, fee, feed, feel, feeling, fellow, female, fence, festival, few, fewer, fiber, fiction, field, fifteen, fifth, fifty, fight, fighter, fighting, figure, file, fill, film, final, finally, finance, financial, find, finding, fine, finger, finish, fire, firm, first, fish, fishing, fit, fitness, five, fix, flag, flame, flat, flavor, flee, flesh, flight, float, floor, flow, flower, fly, focus, folk, follow, following, food, foot, football, for, force, foreign, forest, forever, forget, form, formal, formation, former, formula, forth, fortune, forward, found, foundation, founder, four, fourth, frame, framework, free, freedom, freeze, French, frequency, frequent, frequently, fresh, friend, friendly, friendship, from, front, fruit, frustration, fuel, fulfill, full, fully, fun, function, fund, fundamental, funding, funeral, funny, furniture, furthermore, future, gain, galaxy, gallery, game, gang, gap, garage, garden, garlic, gas, gate, gather, gay, gaze, gear, gender, gene, general, generally, generate, generation, genetic, gentleman, gently, German, gesture, get, ghost, giant, gift, gifted, girl, girlfriend, give, given, glad, glance, glass, global, glove, go, goal, God, gold, golden, golf, good, govern, government, governor, grab, grace, grade, gradually, graduate, grain, grand, grandmother, grant, grass, grave, gray, great, green, grocery, ground, group, grow, growing, growth, guarantee, guard, guess, guest, guide, guideline, guilty, gun, guy, habit, habitat, hair, half, hall, hand, handful, handle, hang, happen, happy, harbor, hard, hardly, hat, hate, have, he, head, headline, headquarters, health, healthy, hear, hearing, heart, heat, heaven, heavily, heavy, heel, height, helicopter, hell, hello, help, helpful, hence, her, herb, here, heritage, hero, herself, hey, hi, hide, high, highlight, highly, highway, hill, him, himself, hip, hire, his, historic, historical, history, hit, hold, hole, holiday, holy, home, homeless, honest, honey, honor, hope, horizon, horror, horse, hospital, host, hot, hotel, hour, house, household, housing, how, however, huge, human, humor, hundred, hungry, hunter, hunting, hurt, husband, hypothesis, ice, idea, ideal, identification, identify, identity, ignore, ill, illegal, illness, illustrate, image, imagination, imagine, immediate, immediately, immigrant, immigration, impact, implement, implication, imply, importance, important, impose, impossible, impress, impression, impressive, improve, improvement, incentive, incident, include, including, income, incorporate, increase, increased, increasingly, incredible, indeed, independence, independent, index, indicate, indication, individual, industrial, industry, infant, infection, inflation, influence, inform, information, ingredient, initial, initially, initiative, injury, inner, innocent, inquiry, inside, insight, insist, inspire, install, instance, instead, institute, institution, institutional, instruction, instructor, instrument, insurance, intellectual, intelligence, intend, intense, intensity, intention, interaction, interest, interested, interesting, internal, international, Internet, interpret, interpretation, intervention, interview, introduce, introduction, invasion, invest, investigation, investigator, investment, investor, invite, involve, involved, involvement, Iraqi, Irish, iron, Islamic, island, Israeli, issue, it, Italian, item, its, itself, jacket, jail, Japanese, jet, Jew, Jewish, job, join, joint, joke, journal, journalist, journey, joy, judge, judgment, juice, jump, junior, jury, just, justice, justify, keep, key, kick, kid, kill, killer, killing, kind, king, kiss, kitchen, knee, knife, knock, know, knowledge, lab, label, labor, laboratory, lack, lady, lake, land, landscape, language, lap, large, largely, last, late, later, Latin, latter, laugh, launch, law, lawsuit, lawyer, lay, layer, lead, leader, leadership, leading, leaf, league, lean, learn, learning, least, leather, leave, left, leg, legacy, legal, legend, legislation, legislative, legislator, legitimate, lemon, length, less, lesson, let, letter, level, liberal, library, license, lie, life, lifestyle, lifetime, lift, light, like, likely, limit, limitation, limited, line, link, lip, list, listen, literary, literature, little, live, living, load, loan, local, locate, location, lock, long, long-term, look, loose, lose, loss, lost, lot, lots, loud, love, lovely, lover, low, lower, luck, lucky, lunch, luxury, machine, mad, magazine, mail, main, mainly, maintain, maintenance, major, majority, make, maker, makeup, male, mall, man, manage, management, manager, manner, manufacturer, manufacturing, many, map, margin, mark, market, marketing, marriage, married, marry, mask, mass, massive, master, match, material, math, matter, may, maybe, mayor, me, meal, mean, meaning, meanwhile, measure, measurement, meat, mechanism, media, medical, medication, medicine, medium, meet, meeting, member, membership, memory, mental, mention, menu, mere, merely, mess, message, metal, meter, method, Mexican, middle, might, military, milk, million, mind, mine, minister, minor, minority, minute, miracle, mirror, miss, missile, mission, mistake, mix, mixture, mm-hmm, mode, model, moderate, modern, modest, mom, moment, money, monitor, month, mood, moon, moral, more, moreover, morning, mortgage, most, mostly, mother, motion, motivation, motor, mountain, mouse, mouth, move, movement, movie, Mr, Mrs, Ms, much, multiple, murder, muscle, museum, music, musical, musician, Muslim, must, mutual, my, myself, mystery, myth, naked, name, narrative, narrow, nation, national, native, natural, naturally, nature, near, nearby, nearly, necessarily, necessary, neck, need, negative, negotiate, negotiation, neighbor, neighborhood, neither, nerve, nervous, net, network, never, nevertheless, new, newly, news, newspaper, next, nice, night, nine, no, nobody, nod, noise, nomination, nominee, none, nonetheless, nor, normal, normally, north, northern, nose, not, note, nothing, notice, notion, novel, now, nowhere, nuclear, number, numerous, nurse, nut, object, objective, obligation, observation, observe, observer, obtain, obvious, obviously, occasion, occasionally, occupation, occupy, occur, ocean, odd, odds, of, off, offense, offensive, offer, office, officer, official, often, oh, oil, okay, old, Olympic, on, once, one, ongoing, onion, online, only, onto, open, opening, operate, operating, operation, operator, opinion, opponent, opportunity, oppose, opposed, opposite, opposition, option, or, orange, order, ordinary, organic, organization, organize, orientation, origin, original, originally, other, others, otherwise, ought, our, ours, ourselves, out, outcome, outside, oven, over, overall, overcome, overlook, owe, own, owner, pace, pack, package, page, pain, painful, paint, painter, painting, pair, pale, Palestinian, palm, pan, panel, panic, pant, paper, paragraph, parent, park, parking, part, participant, participate, participation, particle, particular, particularly, partly, partner, partnership, party, pass, passage, passenger, passion, past, patch, path, patient, pattern, pause, pay, payment, PC, peace, peak, peer, pen, penalty, people, pepper, per, perceive, percentage, perception, perfect, perfectly, perform, performance, perhaps, period, permanent, permission, permit, person, personal, personality, personally, personnel, perspective, persuade, pet, phase, phenomenon, philosophy, phone, photo, photographer, phrase, physical, physically, physician, piano, pick, picture, pie, piece, pile, pilot, pine, pink, pipe, pitch, place, plan, plane, planet, planning, plant, plastic, plate, platform, play, player, please, pleasure, plenty, plot, plus, PM, pocket, poem, poet, poetry, point, police, policy, political, politically, politician, politics, poll, pollution, pool, poor, pop, popular, population, porch, port, portion, portrait, portray, pose, position, positive, possess, possession, possibility, possible, possibly, post, pot, potato, potential, potentially, pound, pour, poverty, powder, power, powerful, practical, practice, prayer, preach, precisely, predict, prediction, prefer, preference, pregnancy, pregnant, preparation, prepare, prescription, presence, present, presentation, preserve, president, presidential, press, pressure, pretend, pretty, prevent, previous, previously, price, pride, priest, primarily, primary, prime, principal, principle, print, prior, priority, prison, prisoner, privacy, private, probably, problem, procedure, proceed, process, processing, processor, proclaim, produce, producer, product, production, profession, professional, professor, profile, profit, program, progress, progressive, project, prominent, promise, promote, prompt, proof, proper, properly, property, proportion, proposal, propose, prosecutor, prospect, protect, protection, protein, protest, proud, prove, provide, provider, province, provision, psychological, psychology, public, publication, publicity, publish, publisher, pull, punishment, purchase, pure, purpose, pursue, push, put, qualify, quality, quarter, quarterback, quarterly, queen, quest, question, quick, quickly, quiet, quietly, quit, quite, quote, race, racial, radiation, radical, radio, rail, rain, raise, range, rank, rapid, rapidly, rare, rarely, rate, rather, rating, ratio, raw, reach, react, reaction, reader, reading, ready, real, reality, realize, really, reason, reasonable, recall, receive, recent, recently, reception, recipe, recipient, recognition, recognize, recommend, recommendation, record, recording, recover, recovery, recruit, red, reduce, reduction, refer, reference, reflect, reflection, reform, refugee, refuse, regard, regarding, regardless, regime, region, regional, register, regular, regularly, regulate, regulation, regulator, reinforce, reject, relate, relation, relationship, relative, relatively, relax, release, relevant, relief, religion, religious, rely, remain, remaining, remarkable, remember, remind, remote, remove, repeat, repeatedly, replace, replacement, reply, report, reporter, represent, representation, representative, Republican, reputation, request, require, requirement, research, researcher, resemble, reservation, resident, residential, resign, resist, resistance, resolution, resolve, resort, resource, respect, respond, response, responsibility, responsible, rest, restaurant, restore, restriction, result, retain, retire, retirement, return, reveal, revenue, review, revolution, rhythm, rice, rich, rid, ride, rifle, right, ring, rise, risk, river, road, rock, role, roll, romantic, roof, room, root, rope, rose, rough, roughly, round, route, routine, row, rub, rubber, rude, ruin, rule, run, running, rural, rush, Russian, sacred, sad, safe, safety, sake, salad, salary, sale, sales, salt, same, sample, sanction, sand, satellite, satisfaction, satisfied, satisfy, sauce, save, saving, say, scale, scandal, scare, scatter, scenario, scene, schedule, scheme, scholar, scholarship, school, science, scientific, scientist, scope, score, scream, screen, script, sea, search, season, seat, second, secondary, secret, secretary, section, sector, secure, security, see, seed, seek, seem, segment, seize, select, selection, self, sell, Senate, senator, send, senior, sense, sensitive, sentence, separate, sequence, series, serious, seriously, servant, serve, service, session, set, setting, settle, settlement, seven, several, severe, sex, sexual, shade, shadow, shake, shall, shallow, shape, share, sharp, she, sheet, shelf, shell, shelter, shift, shine, ship, shirt, shock, shoe, shoot, shooting, shop, shopping, short, shortly, shot, should, shoulder, shout, show, shower, shrug, shut, shy, sibling, sick, side, sigh, sight, sign, signal, significant, significantly, silence, silent, silver, similar, similarly, simple, simply, sin, since, sing, singer, single, sink, sir, sister, sit, site, situation, six, size, ski, skill, skin, skirt, sky, slave, sleep, slice, slide, slight, slightly, slip, slow, slowly, small, smart, smell, smile, smoke, smooth, snap, snow, so, so-called, soccer, social, society, soft, software, soil, solar, soldier, sole, solid, solution, solve, some, somebody, somehow, someone, something, sometimes, somewhat, somewhere, son, song, soon, sophisticated, sorry, sort, soul, sound, soup, source, south, southern, Soviet, space, Spanish, speak, speaker, special, specialist, species, specific, specifically, specify, speech, speed, spend, spending, spin, spirit, spiritual, split, spoil, sponsor, sport, spot, spray, spread, spring, square, squeeze, stability, stable, staff, stage, stain, stair, stake, stand, standard, standing, star, stare, start, state, statement, station, statistical, status, stay, steady, steal, steel, steep, stem, step, stick, still, stimulate, stimulus, stir, stock, stomach, stone, stop, storage, store, storm, story, straight, strange, stranger, strategic, strategy, stream, street, strength, strengthen, stress, stretch, strike, string, strip, stroke, strong, strongly, structural, structure, struggle, student, studio, study, stuff, stupid, style, subject, submit, subsequent, substance, substantial, substitute, succeed, success, successful, successfully, such, sudden, suddenly, sue, suffer, sufficient, sugar, suggest, suggestion, suicide, suit, summer, summit, sun, super, supply, support, supporter, suppose, supposed, Supreme, sure, surely, surface, surgery, surprise, surprised, surprising, surprisingly, surround, survey, survival, survive, survivor, suspect, sustain, swear, sweep, sweet, swim, swing, switch, symbol, symptom, system, table, tactic, tail, take, tale, talent, talk, tall, tank, tap, tape, target, task, taste, tax, taxi, tea, teach, teacher, teaching, team, tear, technical, technique, technology, teen, teenager, telephone, telescope, television, tell, temperature, temporary, ten, tend, tendency, tennis, tension, tent, term, terms, terrible, territory, terror, terrorist, test, testimony, testing, text, than, thank, thanks, that, the, theater, their, them, theme, themselves, then, theory, therapy, there, therefore, these, they, thick, thin, thing, think, thinking, third, thirty, this, those, though, thought, thousand, threat, threaten, three, throat, through, throughout, throw, thus, ticket, tie, tight, time, tiny, tip, tire, tissue, title, to, tobacco, today, toe, together, toilet, token, tolerate, tomato, tomorrow, tone, tongue, tonight, too, tool, tooth, top, topic, toss, total, totally, touch, tough, tour, tourist, tournament, toward, towards, tower, town, toy, trace, track, trade, tradition, traditional, traffic, tragedy, trail, train, training, transfer, transform, transformation, transition, translate, translation, transmission, transmit, transport, transportation, travel, treat, treatment, treaty, tree, tremendous, trend, trial, tribe, trick, trip, troop, trouble, truck, true, truly, trust, truth, try, tube, tunnel, turn, TV, twelve, twenty, twice, twin, two, type, typical, typically, ugly, ultimate, ultimately, unable, uncle, undergo, understand, understanding, unfortunately, uniform, union, unique, unit, United, universal, universe, university, unknown, unless, unlike, until, unusual, up, upon, upper, urban, urge, us, use, used, useful, user, usual, usually, utility, utilize, vacation, valley, valuable, value, variable, variation, variety, various, vary, vast, vegetable, vehicle, venture, version, versus, very, vessel, veteran, via, victim, victory, video, view, viewer, village, violate, violation, violence, violent, virtually, virtue, virus, visibility, visible, vision, visit, visitor, visual, vital, voice, volume, voluntary, volunteer, vote, voter, voting, wage, wait, wake, walk, wall, wander, want, war, warm, warn, warning, wash, waste, watch, water, wave, way, we, weak, weakness, wealth, wealthy, weapon, wear, weather, web, website, wedding, week, weekend, weekly, weigh, weight, welcome, welfare, well, west, western, wet, what, whatever, wheel, when, whenever, where, whereas, whether, which, while, whisper, white, who, whole, whom, whose, why, wide, widely, widespread, wife, wild, wildlife, will, willing, win, wind, window, wine, wing, winner, winter, wipe, wire, wisdom, wise, wish, with, withdraw, within, without, witness, woman, wonder, wonderful, wood, wooden, word, work, worker, working, workout, workplace, works, workshop, world, worried, worry, worth, would, wound, wrap, write, writer, writing, wrong, yard, yeah, year, yell, yellow, yes, yesterday, yet, yield, you, young, your, yours, yourself, youth, zone.

A bit tardy with this month's listing, but hey. Check some of these out if you were looking for things to spice up your social calendar.
We are Shadowbox Studio, a performance space/ photo studio in beautiful, scenic Durham NC. Come and see what's going on in May!
Find us at 2200-D Dominion St 27704, off E. Club Blvd in Ample Storage world. IYKYK
Thu May 9 – 7 pm doors / 7:30 pm movie
Backchannel Cinema: Body Horror Edition, curated by Chris Charles
Are you an adventurous moviegoer in an uneasy relationship with the corporeal? If HECK YES, come take a cinematic chance!
Shadowbox’s Backchannel Cinema series continues with a body horror selection from Durham photographer Chris Charles! We don’t reveal the title of the film ahead of time, but Chris provides these clues: Porn • Mule • Insect!
Feeling adventurous? Join us!
FREE admission & popcorn, donations appreciated. Doors 7 pm, show at 7:30 pm. BYO or sample what’s on hand.
Fri May 10 – 6:30 pm doors / 7 pm show
Shorts Night at Shadowbox
Four Durham-based photo and film creators present recent works!
Dress-Up By Joanna Welborn, with sounds by Matt Welborn A digital + analog slideshow of images and text exploring the roles we dream up in childhood and the alternate versions of ourselves we continue to inhabit.
Middle-Age Mom for the Win! (a puppet musical revue) By Naomi KrautFun Mom Band presents five of its latest puppet music videos about the self-loathing in middle-age + mothering.
The Voice in Isabel Fleiss’s Office Directed by Jim Haverkamp A woman with an unusual malady–cobweb buildup in the throat–receives an even more unusual treatment in this adaptation of a surreal poem by North Carolina writer Virgil Renfroe.
Curtsy Directed by Nicole Triche A small-town North Carolina dance studio plans to celebrate its 50th year in business. Unfortunately, that year is 2020. Curtsy follows a dance teacher in her seventies as she faces the challenges of a pandemic.
FREE admission and popcorn, donations appreciated. Doors 6:30 pm, show at 7 pm. BYO or sample what’s on hand.
Thu May 16 – 7 pm hot dogs & hangout / 8 pm movie
Movie Loft presents Stars and Bars + hot dogs!
The Harry Dean Stanton Appreciation Society looks askance at the South with Stars and Bars (1988)!Roger Ebert created the “Stanton-Walsh rule,” which states that any movie that features Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh, however briefly, cannot be all bad. We’ll put this rule to the test every month in 2024 with the Harry Dean Stanton Appreciation Society!The month of May brings us the little-seen comedy Stars and Bars (1988), from Irish director Pat O’Conner (Cal, The January Man). A British art expat (Daniel Day-Lewis) ventures from New York to the South on the trail of an elusive Renoir. Once in Georgia, our Englishman finds himself amidst a kooky bunch, including our beloved Harry Dean as one Loomis Gage, the head of an eccentric family. Also featuring such luminaries as Martha Plimpton, Rockets Redglare, Joan Cusack, Steven Wright, Spalding Gray, and the bared buns of Day-Lewis!
Never released on DVD, we’ll be taking in the humor while basking in the full glory of VHS!
And, by popular demand, wieners are returning for the warmer months! Grillmaster Rob will be back on the grates of steel, serving up the Sabretts nice and hot starting at 7 pm!
FREE, donations appreciated. Doors ’n dogs at 7 pm, movie commencing at 8 pm. BYO or sample what’s on hand!
Fri May 31 – 7:30 pm doors / 8 pm show
Charming Disaster + Curtis Eller
The triumphant return of two of the brightest lights of vaudeville!
Charming Disaster is a goth-folk musical duo based in Brooklyn, NY, comprised of Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris. Inspired by the macabre humor of Edward Gorey and Tim Burton, the murder ballads of the Americana tradition, and the dramatic flair of the cabaret, they write songs that tell stories about death, crime, myth, magic, folklore, science, and the occult.
Curtis Eller is a banjo player, songwriter, and rock & roll singer. This iconoclastic troubadour has spent thirty years relentlessly touring the burlesque houses, beer halls, underground theatres, and punk rock shitholes of North American, Europe, and Australia, where his legendary shows once earned him the title, “New York’s angriest yodeling banjo player”.
$10 admission, cash or Venmo at the door. Doors 7:30 pm, show at 8 pm. BYO or sample what’s on hand.

Ok here's what I've got today:

1. Dany is indeed the final "threat" of the story. That does not make her mad or evil.
2. The second dance is a global endgame conflict along lines or race, class, and religion.
3. The rise of R'hllor is about western anxieties around the rise of the Islamic empire and the perceived threat jihad posed to Christendom during the Middle Ages. Hence why the Faith of the Seven is a clear allegory for Catholicism and western monotheism, while R'hllor is a clear mashup of Zoroastrianism and eastern monotheism.

Even for me, this is going to be a pretty elaborate theory. But if you can get over the alternate timeline stuff I think I can provide an explanation of how the last three episodes of the show were D&D's attempt at depicting the second dance of the dragons.
The first dance of the dragons was a Targaryen war of succession fought with dragons on both sides, and George has said that a second dance will be a subject of a future book. The prevailing view in the fandom is that the Essos story will wrap up in Winds, and Dream will open with a quick dance between Dany and Aegon spanning the time it takes the Others to march from the Wall to the Trident.
My problem with that view is that Aegon doesn't have a dragon, the Essos story cannot resolve by the end of Winds, and you cannot fit a race war between Duskendale and King's Landing.

I. Some say the world will end in fire

The title of A Song of Ice and Fire is based on the Robert Frost poem 'Fire and Ice' which proposes the world can end in either fire or ice. In the poem ice is hatred and vengeance, and fire is love and desire. In the story, ice and fire manifest as the two threats looming over the Seven Kingdoms, being the Others to the north and Daenerys and her dragons to the east.
George is very upfront about this:

Well of course the two outlying ones, the things going on north at the wall, and Daenerys Targaryen on the other continent with her dragons, are of course the ice and fire of the title, a song of ice and fire. The central stuff, the stuff that's happening in the middle in King's Landing, is much more based on historical events, historical fiction, it's loosely drawn from the war of the roses and some of the other conflicts around the hundred years war, although of course with a fantasy twist.
One of the dynamics I started with there was the sense of people being so consumed by their petty struggles for power within King's Landing that they're blind to the much greater threats happening far away on the periphery of their kingdoms. And of course you can see that all through history...
~ GRRM

Yet the way the story has developed, the ice is coming before the fire. Once the Long Night comes, Dany can no longer be perceived as a threat because the Others pose a common enemy. This is why I believe the story will show us a split timeline.
Like the poem, one ends in ice and the other ends in fire.
In the first timeline the threat is the Long Night, where ice comes to end the world and fire wages a war for the dawn. In the second timeline the invasion from the north is prevented, so the threat is the from the east. It's Azor Ahai. It's the Stallion Who Mounts the World. With no ice apocalypse to fight, a holy war in the name of a fire god becomes a threat to the people of Westeros.

"People say I was influenced by Robert Ford’s poem, and of course I was, I mean... Fire is love, fire is passion, fire is sexual ardor and all of these things. Ice is betrayal, ice is revenge, ice is… you know, that kind of cold inhumanity and all that stuff is being played out in the books." ~ GRRM

Like in the poem, the threat of the Others is about hatred. The Others are the revenge of the Children of the Forest. Also like the poem, the threat of dragons will be about love and desire. Dragons are a manifestation of Dany's desire to liberate and conquer, but also her quest for love and belonging.

"Fire is a cruel way to die. Dalla died to give this child life, but you have nourished him, cherished him. You saved your own boy from the ice. Now save hers from the fire." ~ Jon II, ADWD

The kingdom is saved from ice and then it must be saved from fire. From love, desire, and dragons.

II. Under the banner of House Targaryen

I believe that in the second timeline Tyrion doesn't sabotage the Aegon cause out of spite, and so Aegon actually does go meet Dany in Essos. He is accepted by Rhaegal due to his Valyrian blood, so Dany accepts his legitimacy and the two are betrothed. Thus House Targaryen will proceed to conquer the world, with an empire stretching from Vaes Dothrak to Casterly Rock.
That may sound ambitious given the size of Dany's dragons, but consider the alliance forming under the banner of House Targaryen.

1. Dany has already established a foothold in Slaver's Bay.
2. Dany is headed for Vaes Dothrak where she will no doubt raise a Dothraki army.
3. Victarion has brought the Iron Fleet and is fighting Dany's enemies from Astapor and Yunkai.
4. The Red Temple is preaching Dany as the messiah and want her to lead a slave revolt in Volantis.
5. Red Priests are leading religious uprisings in Qohor.
6. Barristan has promised Pentos to the Tattered Prince.
7. Dorne already seeks to align themselves with House Targaryen.
8. Tyrion has promised the gold of Casterly Rock to the Second Sons.
9. The Golden Company originally broke their contract with Myr to join Dany.

Dany's dragons may be young, but people are flocking to her just as Quaithe said they would. Everyone wants a piece of the miracle, and that desire has inspired the messianic prophecies that now surround her. Dany's story is even more powerful than her dragons.

Tyrion considered saying something, then thought better. It seemed to him that the prophecy that drove the red priests had room for just one hero. A second Targaryen would only serve to confuse them. ~ Tyrion VIII, ADWD

People often speculate that Aegon will steal Dany's thunder in Westeros and drive her to jealousy and madness, but currently Aegon is the one who is insecure about being less accomplished. For people in Essos, Daenerys Targaryen is the messiah, but Aegon is just a boy.
^{Remember how the show framed Jon and Dany's first encounter. Jon show is also Aegon IV.}
In the west this dynamic will be inverted. The mummer's dragon was raised to adhere to the norms of Westeros, so Aegon VI will be perceived as the rightful king coming to restore peace and stability after a corrupt Lannister regime. Meanwhile Dany will be perceived as the queen of savages, bringing with her a foreign fire religion. This plays out on the show as well.

"No." The eunuch's voice seemed deeper. "He is here. Aegon has been shaped for rule since before he could walk. He has been trained in arms, as befits a knight to be, but that was not the end of his education. He reads and writes, he speaks several tongues, he has studied history and law and poetry. A septa has instructed him in the mysteries of the Faith since he was old enough to understand them. He has lived with fisherfolk, worked with his hands, swum in rivers and mended nets and learned to wash his own clothes at need. He can fish and cook and bind up a wound, he knows what it is like to be hungry, to be hunted, to be afraid. Tommen has been taught that kingship is his right. Aegon knows that kingship is his duty, that a king must put his people first, and live and rule for them." ~ Epilogue, ADWD

I know that the dynamic I'm putting forward here isn't new, but this doesn't work in the middle of the Long Night, nor does it make sense after. A dragonless Aegon Targaryen cannot prove his legitimacy, nor survive the Others, nor call himself protector of the realm.
Symbols matter. Wyman Manderly makes this clear.

To thwart him White Harbor must have Ned's son … and the direwolf. The wolf will prove the boy is who we say he is, should the Dreadfort attempt to deny him. ~ Davos IV, ADWD

But in another timeline where he brings a (green) dragon, Aegon will have the proof he needs to pull off a Targaryen restoration.
While Aegon has been raised to adhere to Westerosi norms so he can appeal to the church and aristocracy, Dany's following in Essos is being built through slave revolts and the rise of R'hllor. The only way to hold this global empire together would be a Dany and Aegon marriage. Yet Aegon is not Dany's type nor is Dany Aegon's. Rather, the two are setup to be mostly jealous and resentful of each other. And what happens when two married people resent each other?
They get divorced.

III. World War D

To explain how this ignites, I have to use everyone's least favorite scene from season 8.
Let's talk about Dany's speech:

You are liberators! You have freed the people of King's Landing from the grip of a tyrant. But the war is not over. We will not lay down our spears until we have liberated all the people of the world. From Winterfell to Dorne, from Lannisport to Qarth, from the Summer Isles to the Jade Sea! Men, women, and children have suffered too long beneath the wheel. Will you break the wheel with me?
~Shownerys Targaryen

I understand that D&D treat Dany's ending without much nuance, aiming to paint her in the most fascist light possible. And I understand that for many, this scene is simply a reflection of D&D's fear of women and brown people (I'm Palestinian, I get it). However, I think it's cope to argue D&D pulled this out of nowhere. A global jihad to liberate the world is very much setup in the books.

"Benerro has sent forth the word from Volantis. Her coming is the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. From smoke and salt was she born to make the world anew. She is Azor Ahai returned … and her triumph over darkness will bring a summer that will never end … death itself will bend its knee, and all those who die fighting in her cause shall be reborn …" ~ Tyrion VI, ADWD

The Red Temple are gearing up for a holy war across Essos. After Dany helps them topple slavery and take control of Volantis, the Red Priests will seek to take control of the neighboring Free Cities. Dany doesn't need to become a R'hllor fundamentalist to allow this (and she won't), she simply needs to accept it as part of the anti-slavery crusade. After all...
Most of the Free Cities still allow slavery.
So the uprisings won't end in Volantis. Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh, all practice slavery. The Red Priests are already instigating riots in Qohor, where slavery is illegal but still practiced by the wealthy. Next is Norvos, a theocracy where slavery is also practiced. After Norvos is Pentos, again where slavery is forbidden but still practiced by the rich. Most notably Illyrio Mopatis, a wealthy backer of the slave trade who has been the puppet master behind the Targaryen restoration plot from the beginning. Whether Daenerys makes good on Barristan's promise to the Tattered Prince, Pentos is where her story began and the story is pulling her back.

Tyrion pondered all he knew of Volantis, oldest and proudest of the Nine Free Cities. Something was awry here. Even with half a nose, he could smell it. "It's said there are five slaves for every free man in Volantis. Why would the triarchs assist a queen who smashed the slave trade?" He pointed at Illyrio. "For that matter, why would you? Slavery may be forbidden by the laws of Pentos, yet you have a finger in that trade as well, and maybe a whole hand. And yet you conspire for the dragon queen, and not against her. Why? What do you hope to gain from Queen Daenerys?" ~ Tyrion III, ADWD

While Aegon proceeds to conquer Westeros by appealing to the ruling class, Dany's forces will carry out an anti-slavery crusade across the Free Cities. This crusade will not only abolish slavery, but will topple the ruling class and spread R'hllor, threatening both the aristocracy and the church, who fear the same in Westeros. Aegon might demand that she stop, but he'd have no power in Essos, where people are loyal to the black dragon, not the green.
This sets up the core political basis for a second dance. It won't really be over the question of legitimacy (it never is), but rather conflicting approaches and interests. Just like in the first dance, the dispute is between a progressive monarchy (the blacks) and a traditionalist aristocracy (the greens). It's a dispute that threatens to spin out into a global conflict along lines of race, class, and religion.
Once again, Tyrion is the saboteur. Tyrion will fall for Dany and act upon his unrequited love by instigating the conflict. This could involve anything from planting the seed that Aegon might be a Blackfyre to insinuating that Aegon is having an affair and plans to have her set aside (perhaps over her alleged infertility). But Tyrion can't invent a conflict, he can only instigate what already exists.
My guess is that this all comes to a head when Dany goes against Aegon's wishes and burns Illyrio alive for treason. This will be true. He is after all guilty of funding the Triarchs against her. You may feel this is justified, but it will still invite comparisons to Aerys. Then Aegon will have Missandei taken into custody for spying on behalf of Daenerys. This will also be true. Finally, Aegon will seek to have Dany deposed, she will declare him a pretender, the Aegon loyalists will turn on the Dany loyalists, she will mount Drogon, he will mount Rhaegal, and the dragons will dance.
Black vs Green

Teora gave a tiny nod, chin trembling. "They were dancing. In my dream. And everywhere the dragons danced the people died." ~ Arianne I, TWOW

When the dance is done, Dany will be victorious. But the collateral damage will be catastrophic, with countless civilian casualties as well as the death of Rhaegal. The quest will have turned her into the villain of the story she was raised on. The tragedy of the mother of dragons is that she becomes the usurper and kills her own child.
This is pretty much where I see the end of the Dany story. If you disbelieve her death on the show, then Dany can fly away to Asshai never to return. Otherwise Dany will be assassinated by someone close to her (probably Jorah Mormont). In the new timeline she and Jon never meet.
The twist is that the Dothraki, Unsullied and Fiery Hand never invade.
The holy war never comes to Westeros.

IV. Dany's Landing

George has said the second dance doesn't have to mean Dany's invasion.

The second Dance of Dragons does not have to mean Dany's invasion. George stopped himself short and said he shouldn't say anymore. ~ SSM

I think he said that because it doesn't. Daenerys will come to Westeros, but we're not getting two consecutive Targaryen invasions, because why on earth would we need that?
I know that is controversial, but really look at the story. There isn't space for a full scale Daenerys invasion. People kind of see this already. When most fans describe what they expect a Dany invasion would be, it's typically just two battles between Duskendale and King's Landing.
But a true Dany invasion is practically a race war. It's a massive story that would bring tens of thousands of people who are ethnically, culturally, and religiously alien to the continent. Really ask yourself, who will lead the Dothraki after Daenerys? How do the Unsullied fit into Westerosi society? What will the Fiery Hand hand think about King Bran? These groups don't share the same customs or language, they can't establish new houses, and they don't even want to live in Westeros. Without Dany becoming queen to help them assimilate, the only options they have are to fight to the death or leave.
^{And no, George won't resolve the Essos story by having all the foreigners die in the Long Night.}
I believe that as the Essos plot expanded to be about ending slavery, George decided he'd rather not have the freed slaves show up to Westeros as a hoard that gets massacred and then leaves. Instead it seems that the Dany invasion from the original outline was scrapped in favor of a more fleshed out Essos campaign, and the Aegon invasion was created as a replacement in the west.
Even with this change, the overall Dany arc is as originally intended. It's queen, conqueror, messiah, then downfall.

The whispers became a swirling song. . . . three fires must you light . . . one for life and one for death and one to love ~ Daenerys IV, ACOK

The second fire is not King's Landing. It's in Volantis. The fire for death will be Dany burning the Old Blood behind their Black Walls. The show depicts this as the burning of the khals, which is followed by people worshiping her as the messiah (also adapted from Volantis). In addition to being proclaimed Azor Ahai in Volantis, Daenerys will also take up the mantle of the Stallion Who Mounts the World in Vaes Dothrak. This is a clear historical parallel to Genghis Khan, who's ambition to conquer the world was also justified as being the will of god. Just like the show, the books are building up to a situation where all of Dany's loyalists are from Essos, her destiny is perceived as being divinely ordained, and her downfall prevents a crusade to "remake the world."
Yet Daenerys still lands in Westeros in both timelines. In one she will reconstruct the messiah narrative, and in the other she will deconstruct it.

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper's rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened. ~ Daenerys III, ASOS

In the Long Night, the Daenerys story will be close to fantasy. She'll come to Westeros as a messiah, and characters will perceive her as a light in the darkness that gives humanity a fighting chance. She doesn't need to bring her army for this, she just needs to use her fire to empower the people of the Seven Kingdoms to fight for their own lives.
I don't expect her to have a literal war council with every major character, but she will likely face Euron and fight alongside Jon.

"When I went to the Hall of a Thousand Thrones to beg the Pureborn for your life, I said that you were no more than a child," Xaro went on, "but Egon Emeros the Exquisite rose and said, 'She is a foolish child, mad and heedless and too dangerous to live.' When your dragons were small they were a wonder. Grown, they are death and devastation, a flaming sword above the world." He wiped away the tears. "I should have slain you in Qarth." ~ Daenerys III, ADWD

In the second timeline, the Daenerys story will be political. She'll come to Westeros as a "messiah", and characters will perceive her as a destroyer of worlds. A tyrant queen bringing foreign savages to topple their way of life. For Dany the challenge will be political, not military. It will revolve around dealing with a nobility that refuse to bend to her will.
I don't expect her to have an irrational beef with the Stark girls, but she will likely seem antagonistic to the other protagonists.
Yet she is the same character in both timelines. What changes is the story.

"I am no maester to quote history at you, Your Grace. Swords have been my life, not books. But every child knows that the Targaryens have always danced too close to madness. Your father was not the first. King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land." (...)
"So I am a coin in the hands of some god, is that what you are saying, ser?" ~ Daenerys VI, ASOS

Whether Dany's landing is greatness or madness actually is in the hands of some god, and that god is the storyteller. Whether that storyteller is Bran or Sam or George, or even you the reader, the point is to reconcile the duality. Great figures like Daenerys Targaryen are heroes to some and villains to others, and ultimately they are defined by the story we choose to tell about them.

V. Summary

George has stated that the dual threats of ice and fire are from the north and the east, and that Dany is the threat from the east (essentially Genghis Khan with a dragon).
The second dance of the dragons does not refer to Dany's invasion. It refers to a global succession dispute between Daenerys and Aegon which takes place at the end of the story. Much like the Dany and Aegon of the show, the two will have irreconcilable differences that make marriage impossible and thus divide the Targaryen empire.
Once again it's blacks vs greens. While the female claimant rides the black dragon (Drogon), the male claimant will ride the green dragon (Rhaegal). While the people of Essos favor Daenerys, the people of Westeros will favor Aegon. While Dany builds her coalition through slave revolts that replace the ruling class, Aegon will build his coalition by winning the ruling class over to his side. While the Red Temple of R'hllor proclaims Dany to be their messiah, the Faith of the Seven will anoint Aegon VI as the one true king (religious uprisings are already underway in both continents). If Daenerys brings her army from Essos, it will be race war, class war, and holy war.
However neither Dany nor Aegon will be religious. As in history, the religions will mostly be used as competing stories to justify who should rule. Yet the stories used to consolidate support behind the black and green dragons will also push them to conflict. Thus the mother of dragons will be forced to kill not only her alleged nephew, but also her own child.
In the end the holy war will be averted, but that's another story.

With Mother's Day around the corner, I wanted to share something I've been working on that might just be the perfect gift for your mom. It's a book called "To the Best Mom Ever: Heartfelt Verses of Love and Thanks." It's packed with 41 poems, 8 inspiring quotes, and personal affirmations all dedicated to expressing love and gratitude to our moms.
I created this book because I believe that sometimes, the right words can make all the difference, especially when they articulate what's in our hearts. This collection aims to do just that, making it a wonderful keepsake that moms everywhere can cherish.
If you're looking for a meaningful gift that says "I love you" in more ways than one, this might be it. What do you guys think makes the perfect Mother's Day gift? I’d love to hear your ideas and if words could be part of it! Check it out https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D33V8W1S if you want to know more check my blog https://www.selfcraftedlife.com/2024/05/celebrate-mom-with-perfect-gift-to-best.html

So there's this poem, "Two-Headed Calf", by Laura Gilpin:
.
Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.
.
But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass. And
as he stares into the sky, there are
twice as many stars as usual.
.
which somehow gives me the same happy-cry feeling that I think we all like here. Then there's this song (that I can't find a free link to, but it's on spotify and yt music) Two-Headed Lamb by Willi Carlisle, which was inspired by and expands on the poem, and of course I had Two-Headed Boy in mind the whole time. I was at work and couldn't listen, but as soon as I put on the Willi Carlisle song the accordion made it very clear - at least, in my mind - that it was an homage to both the poem and the song.
edit, mobile formatting's a ho
edit two, dots are not part of the poem, mobile formatting is still a ho
edit three, the second edit was in line with the first one, couldn't deal

An art group of the Korean Art Association of the Disabled gave its performance "We Love Our Country" at the Pyongyang Municipal Youth Park Open-Air Theatre at the foot of Moran Hill from April 22 to April 28.
Through a poem recital "My Road", a song and dance "We Are the Happiest in the World" and other numbers, the performers extended thanks to the motherly Party and the socialist system which take warm care of them and inspire them with hope and happiness.
The audience admired performers with disabilities for singing songs with their rich and refined voices, playing various musical instruments and representing beautiful dance rhythms.
A performer with eyesight disorder, who won high accolade of the audience by singing "Song of Big Hauls in the Sea", said that singing at the gorgeous theatre is like a dream and that she wanted to express deep gratitude to the motherly Party which brought her hope into full bloom.
The disabled persons, who grew up to be writers, soloists, dancers and vocalists under the policy of the Workers' Party of Korea and the DPRK government for the protection of the disabled, recited poems, danced and sang while playing accordion and guitar like professional artistes to deeply impress the audience.

My wife and I flew from Las Vegas to Spokane Washington and then drove to Moscow Idaho to watch Fleet Foxes perform. It was for ‘Finals Fest’ in the ICCU arena at the University of Idaho. The opening act was Desolation Horse which was a local pop-punk band that sounded good. Because I don’t know of any other Fleet Foxes fans in my city, I wanted to come to reddit to share my thoughts on this amazing experience with others. I’m just going to do a brief song-by-song breakdown so hopefully it won’t be too long.
Sun it Rises- This was a surprising opener and the only hiccup was when the cable fell out of Robin’s guitar. Robin and the staff handled it very swiftly. If it’s true that they haven’t performed that song in like 12 years, then I’m amazed cause they sounded great.
Grown Ocean- My favorite version of this song is the one from the 2018 pitchfork fest that has like over a million views on youtube. The performance I witnessed of this was just as good. I’m so happy they performed it.
Ragged Wood- Great performance.
Your Protector- I was trying to see if I could guess which songs they were gonna play by watching them switch instruments and paying attention to the little warm ups they might do before they actually started playing. This was one of the ones I got right easily. This was also the first track they performed where I finally saw other people singing along. I sat in the second row of the bleachers and there didn’t seem to be any hardcore fans (I think they were standing by the stage) but when this song played, I looked around and saw some people singing it which was nice. Solid performance.
Can I Believe You- Another one where I knew right away what they were playing, I love this song. The lyrics hit hard on this one.
Third of May/Odaigahara- My favorite version of this song is the KEXP performance they did (before Crack-Up released I think) and I noticed they play it faster than the album version. I prefer it this way. If this song were a poem it’d be classified as an epic so it makes sense that they go faster and harder. I told myself that If I can just have 4 songs that they played it would be: Blue Ridge Mountains, Helplessness Blues, Third of May/Odaigahara, and Sunblind. Overall they performed this one excellently. I love the slightly jazzier outro they did here.
Phoenix- I really like this song and I enjoyed their performance of it. I really appreciate the lyrics of this every time I hear it.
He Doesn’t Know Why-This track has grown on me and they did another great performance. Seeing a trend here? These boys can play their asses off.
Featherweight-Beautiful track, beautiful performance.
White Winter Hymnal- I could tell that many of the people we were sitting with kind of knew of Fleet Foxes but didn’t really know their songs. However when this was played, you could see the caves of their memory unlock as they sang along. Everyone enjoyed this one.
Mykonos- This was the other song where everyone was probably thinking “oh this is THAT band”. Even though this is probably their most popular song along with the previous, for some reason it took me a minute to realize which one they were playing lol. Granted, this is a track that grew on me so I’m still memorizing its melodies.
Blue Ridge Mountains- Another one of the big 4 for me, they fucking nailed it. I was harmonizing pretty much all night with them, but this is the one I had to hold back on slightly because when I sing this alone, I hit some crazy ass riffs. Not ready to display that side of me yet.
If You Need to, Keep Time on Me- This one was only performed by Robin and the keyboardist. I could tell the crowd was really feeling Robin on his solo shit. So was I.
Montezuma- I started listening to Fleet Foxes sometime last year. I went to the library to try and find some CD’s to sample. I saw the cover of “Helplessness Blues” and I thought it looked funky and wild so I imagined that's what the record would be like (in some moments it is like that). But when I popped the CD into my car and heard that opening guitar line, I damn near cried. Very rarely I’ll have moments where I hear something so beautiful that it makes me wanna cry lol. From the live performances I’ve seen, Robin performs this alone as part of his solo section, but the band came right back after the previous performance and they all contributed in their own way. This was my favorite version they did. It still had the solo acoustic vibe, but Morgan on the bass and all the little details from everyone brought that shit to life. Great fucking job.
Cradling Mother, Cradling Woman- Another one that has grown on me, even though I like this song the performance was just alright. I think the people we were sitting with were starting to really get on my nerves. They were kind of childish and annoying the whole night. And I started getting sleepy so I was easily angered.
Maestranza- So I know that a live performance of a track may differ either slightly or greatly from the official recorded audio, but this one was an example of where I think it doesn't work out well. I don't know much about musical terminology and the science of it, but I think they performed this in a different key. This was probably the only song they did where I thought “that didn't sound good”. Still that's only 1 out of 21 songs they performed that I didn't like so that's still incredible by any means.
The Shrine/An Argument-Yes, they really did “An Argument”. I thought they wouldn’t do this part. You can tell the crowd was really into “The Shrine”. They sang an extra verse which I’ve heard before and skipped the “green apple” bridge or whatever while transitioning into “An Argument”. It was funny because when Morgan started playing the sax you could see the unacquainted looking around like “wtf is that guy doing?”. But I know what he was doing and he was fucking it up. I loved it so much.
Sunblind-Another one of the big 4, it was a really good performance. They walked off stage after this and while I initially thought they were likely to get back on, I started to doubt it because the venue wasn’t that packed and Robin had already done like 2 mostly solo performances so I thought “ guess no Helplessness Blues :(“. But they came back on. Shoutout to the pit who were begging for an encore. I’m glad a lot of people were enjoying the show because like I said before, the group I sat near were not having a great time.
Blue Spotted Tail-Robin did this alone and let me just say this about him: he can really fucking sing! Obviously I know he’s a professional musician and singesongwriter, but there were some moments in certain songs where I thought his vocal delivery might not be as good as a recorded performance would be, but he surpassed my expectations. He is a phenomenal singer. I always thought his greatest strengths were his composition skills but he might’ve changed my mind during this whole night.
Robin gave a shoutout to the front of house engineer at some point and the light woman they work with. He also introduced the members of the band after Blue Spotted Tail. Of course you had Morgan, Skylar, and Christian. Plus Christopher the drummer who I already knew about. They also had a trumpet player which I know they enjoy incorporating horns into the set, but then they had a different keyboardist who I didn’t know. When I first saw him I thought “Casey looks a lot different”. But then when I realized it wasn’t Casey I was shocked. I’m probably just out of the Fleet Foxes loop so I’m unsure if he just wasn't there that night or if he’s not with the band anymore. Either way, this keyboardist was really good, especially when he would do certain riffs like on Featherweight. Christopher is a great fucking drummer. Dude had me moving and sweating all night. Again, it was nice to hear Morgan on that Bass and his Flute skills are top-notch. Skye had some really nice moments when he would play lead and add certain motifs into the songs that sounded out of place but were perfect at the same time (a hint of Johnny Greenwood, a hint I say). I wasn’t sure how much I would like Christian’s falsetto but he was excellent all night. Not just his harmonizing with Robin, but when he had solo moments like on Going-To-the-Sun-Road and Phoenix. I know him and Robin weren’t the only ones singing, but they were the standouts. Also I’m glad the bass guitar was very noticeable in the mix.
Going-To-the-Sun-Road- A lot of the tracks on Shore grew on me overtime (mostly everything after “Young Man’s Game” which is a great song and I won’t debate it lol). This song is so romantic and while my favorite version is the Boston performance where Uwade and Robin performed a duet, the version I saw was still good.
Helplessness Blues- My favorite song from them, I’m grateful that I got to experience the band live and that they performed this. 10/10 performance and the extended outro they did was amazing. Everyone in the crowd was into it and it ended the night magnificently. I hope this post inspires other fans of theirs to see them live if they have the chance because they are a team of professionals that provided a great live experience. If you took the time to read this, thank you. If you think I’m a loser who needs to get some friends, I agree.

"Do not Follow where the path may lead.
Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail"
- Muriel Strobe
​
Who Is Muriel Strode? (quotegarden.com)
​
Who Is Muriel Strode?
The author I’m currently reading is Muriel Strode, an amazing woman — strong, gutsy, spiritual, creative, generous, intelligent, talented, and hard-working. Her writing is both down-to-earth and celestial, humble in spirit and yet fiercely, fearlessly ambitious. Her poems run the gamut from blushingly soul-sensual and nature-erotic to mystical and motivating, from poetic positive affirmations and self-discovery to some downright trippy verse.
There is very little information about Muriel on the Web, but I’ve pieced together this brief biography from a few dozen electronic and paper sources, and I’ve updated this article with further information from Muriel’s family for which I’m extremely grateful!
Early life & family. Born Muriel Strode on February 16th 1875 in Bernadotte Township, Illinois, her grandparents were pioneers and she spent her childhood on the farm where they originally settled. Her father William Smith Strode (1847–1934) was a naturalist, teacher, and physician. Her mother Amelia Steele Strode (1849–1888) died young, at age 39. A couple of years after she passed away, William married Julia Yarnell Brown (1866–1954), a periodicals writer. Muriel’s four siblings, all Illinois-born were:

• Winifred Strode Morrison (1872–1916), who had seven children, one of whom was named Muriel Marie
• Walter Lucien Strode (1877–1917), a grocery salesman
• John William Strode (1884–1957), who studied mining then moved to Arizona in 1907. After serving in the military, he served two governors as executive secretary, including Arizona’s first governor, George W. P. Hunt. Later, J. W. was editor of the Miami (Arizona) Silver Belt and president of the Arizona Democratic Association.
• Catherine Joane Brown Strode (1895–1969), half-sister, who graduated young, studied art in Chicago, and moved to California at age 19. She became an established artist using the pseudonym Joane Cromwell.

Venturing out on her own. Muriel left home at age 15 and attended a business school in Denver. At 16 she went to Long Beach, California to earn her living as a stenographer and typewritist. She began writing poetry in the midst of her business career. In 1906 she used her savings to purchase two lots in Signal Hill for $1,000 then moved to New York for a career as a writer.
📷Husband & daughter. In 1908 she married Samuel David Lieberman (1875–1952), the president of an iron and steel firm in Chicago where Muriel had worked. His love interest in her began when he read the inspirational sayings and poems in her first publication, My Little Book of Prayer. He and Muriel had one foster child, Elinore Anne Clifford Austin (1914–2006), born in Colorado and taken in at three years old. The family lived in New York City for several years before moving to California in 1923, when oil was discovered on Muriel’s land and she had suddenly become rich.
Riches & philanthropy. With part of her new riches, Muriel gathered seventeen young wives and mothers, one for each year she had owned the properties, and took them on a shopping spree for beautiful gowns, hats, earrings, undergarments, and other dainty, colorful things. “I was a distributor of wings, I released them into a realization of their beauty. We are all beautiful in our elemental state. We all want to be moon moths in the glowing. But like the flowers, we need petals to show off our beauty. I want to set people free into beauty. I want to take them out of their Cinderella ashes to function as princesses,” she told reporter Ruth Snyder. “It is a poem of pain to feel the urge toward the unfolding of the wings of beauty. It is a song of ecstasy to release it. All my life I have wanted to do something big and useful and beautiful — to help others.”
Shortly thereafter in another display of generosity, she purchased a run-down waterwheel mill in her girlhood Illinois township and with her father, oversaw the restoration of it and its dam as a historic landmark, its surrounding area converted to a public park and playground. At age 80, she wrote in a letter that “I left part of my heart back in Bernadotte years ago and I have never gotten over being homesick.”
Arizona & final years. The Strode–Lieberman family moved to Arizona in 1929 due to Sam’s tuberculosis. They homesteaded on 640 acres fourteen miles east of Tucson, and their home sat atop a ridge overlooking the entire Tucson valley. Muriel’s father, who was then divorced from Julia, had retired and moved in with the Liebermans. They had originally planned to build a solid rock home, every day making three-mile excursions into the desert to collect rocks. The passings of Muriel’s father and husband put a stop to the plan, however, and Muriel lived out the remainder of her days in the original wood-framed home.
In a 1955 letter Muriel wrote, “I have come a devious route to land eventually on these desert acres, as Mr. Lieberman’s business took him traveling and we lived in half the important cities in the United States.” But once in southern Arizona, that is where she stayed. She would sign her letters and books from “the Ranch of the Gorgeous Sunsets, Tucson, Arizona.” Muriel passed away on January 25th 1964 after twelve years’ struggle with a heart ailment.
📷Writing & publications. Her habit was to write her thoughts and ideas every morning, and she continued to work on her writings and manuscripts even into her final years. She had first published in periodicals, mostly The Open Court. The first publication I found her cited in was The Philistine: A Periodical of Protest, from 1901. Later she authored four books:

• My Little Book of Prayer, 1904, “a collection of thoughts on the spiritual side of nature, moral fortitude and other uplifting themes” (Judy Donovan)
• My Little Book of Life, 1912, “a personal philosophy of life that spells courage, cheer, and serenity” (The Open Court)
• A Soul’s Faring, 1921, “tumultuous imagery, mighty seething seas of words, of similes, of metaphors, of themes of love and life and death and the Beyond” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle)
• At the Roots of Grasses, 1923, “the very rhapsody of an American soul pouring itself forth in songs of the strong” (Charles Fleischer)

In her heyday Muriel was known as “the female Walt Whitman.” She was a member of the Poetry Society of America and The League of American Pen Women. She wrote her entire career under her birth name Muriel Strode, omitting the hyphenated Lieberman on post-marriage publications. One of the books I have is signed “Muriel Strode — Mrs. Sam D. Lieberman.”
Sometimes she received harsh critiques in the newspapers. Some reviewers who did not understand her writing thought it egotistical. In 1923 she explained to a reporter, “When I say ‘I,’ I mean the cosmic ‘I,’ speaking to the cosmic ‘you.’” On reading her books, it seems clear to me that she was not egotistical but mystical. She said in a 1962 interview, “I don’t mind adverse criticism. It doesn’t matter if I’m misinterpreted because not everyone will understand what I’m trying to say.”
Those who did understand her cosmic perspective handed out more favorable reviews. “Muriel Strode has a distinctive touch in free verse rhythms. She uses them to interpret optimistically and broadly the elemental forces of being, and she strikes a high note of endeavor and faith in life without glossing over its inevitable question” (The Kansas City Times, 1921).
“Few poets are as prolific in sheer beauty as Muriel Strode. Her work is marked with richness, the forms she chooses for expression are diverse and through all her work there is the rumbling of the seeker of truth. Miss Strode’s poems are a revelation in inspiration. There seems no end to her philosophic thoughts. There is a virility of beauty in this poet’s work” (Howard Willard Cook, 1923). She “sings of the things elemental in universal nature and in human nature” (Charles Fleischer). During her childhood in Fulton County, Illinois, she “breathed in the beauty and the intense love of nature and the elemental things of life that flame out in her poetry” (The Fulton Democrat).
Names. Other names she was known by include: Muriel Strode-Lieberman, Muriel Lieberman, Muriel S. Lieberman, Mrs. Samuel D. Lieberman, Mrs. S. D. Lieberman, and Mrs. Sam Lieberman. The 1880 census lists “Muray Strode,” but her surviving family is not aware of that nickname so it is possibly a typo or a childhood pet name that didn’t last. 📷
Famous quote & found treasures. There were quite a few newspaper articles about Muriel during her publishing days and when she first got rich from oil, but I can’t find personal references much past her death date. Sadly, she seems to have disappeared from history, excepting her famous 1903 words “I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail,” which around the 1990s had started being widely misattributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. I am exceptionally pleased to digitally revive this wonderful poetess — I’ve been posting selected quotations from her works to The Quote Garden. Here is a sample gem: “I will have a care lest my burden rest all too long where my wings might have grown.” —Muriel Strode, My Little Book of Life, 1912
Image Information. Photo of Muriel is unknown date, courtesy of Muriel’s family, modified by Terri Guillemets using imikimi app, 2017. Book cover is My Little Book of Life by Muriel Strode, 1912. Muriel’s signature is from the 1934 application for her father’s headstone.
Acknowledgement. I am eternally grateful to Muriel’s family for providing the information to expand this bio, as well as the beautiful photograph and retroactive permission to use her words on my website. Thank you so much!

I'd like to say hello and welcome you good day that is my name
Come here and sit down I'm so glad you even really truly came
We can even go and take a walk or something like that or something like that
But first I need to introduce my what and introduce my when
​
Let us sing
​
Its name I like to call it likes to say it's nothing (it's nothing)
It lives and breathes and it insists that it insists that it is something (it's something)
It never liked to speak or run or walk or sleep or eat
It even thought that everybody tried to thought to take its seat
​
Looking through glass eyes
Give it a few tries
Nothing goes right in its time
Kill all its bad dreams
Wonder 'bout no things
Circles and spirals in mind
​
But we know that this song is not about a no or yes or why
What's really truly what I say is that about a little sigh
So come along I think I'm done I think we're done yes this is done
What's truly that I think about it and it thinks about a ton
​
Let us sing
​
Looking through glass eyes
Give it a few tries
Nothing goes right in its time
Kill all its bad dreams
Wonder 'bout no things
Circles and spirals in mind
​
I thought you knew I knew but
Why and by and
Why and by and by
I wanted you to know
I thought you knew but
Why and by and why
​
Let us sing, let us sing
Let us sing, let us sing
Let us sing, let us sing
Let us sing, let us sing
​
Birds and bees and television (let us sing, let us sing)
Cardboard houses, x-ray vision (let us sing, let us sing)
Many little silly rhymes (let us sing, let us sing)
Things forgotten lost their time (let us sing, let us sing)
Telephones and silly games (let us sing, let us sing)
Periods and lots of question marks (let us sing)
​
Here's that part again
Where everything's more than it should be and
Greener seems to fall beneath your feet
​
Seconds tick like boulders
Whenever you don't call
Does it seem like that where you are
Wherever it is you are
Does it seem like that where you are
​
Time for time together
And depending on the weather
We'll either argue in your
House or outside
​
How different I felt
Before I got this notch on my belt
'Cause in my plans you were all for me
Yeah but now it seems that you'd just rather leave
​
Wherever you go
Is breaking me slowly
Don't leave it alone
Don't leave it alone
You sound so much further on the phone
You fit just right
Right next to me
But there's always a reason why it can't be
​
Telephones make you seem miles away from home
All alone I get a little meaner
I leave a message at your tone
And miles away from home
You get a little cleaner of me
And I find a little greener shade of envy
​
Wherever you go
Is breaking me slowly
Don't leave it alone
Don't leave it alone
You sound so much further on the phone
You fit just right
Right next to me
But there's always a reason why it can't be
​
Wherever you are
Is breaking my heart
Don't leave it alone
Don't leave it alone
​
You fit just right
Right next to me
​
"Welcome to Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum
Known from coast to coast like butter and toast
From headlines to bedlines
From school rooms to pool rooms
No other place in the contiguous United States
Or other environments of the world
Welcome"
​
Can I get a T?
And if you hit me with the A-L-L-Y
Then you'd see why
The Hall is here for y'all
The mini mall is calling us all in
​
So kids
Pack up your mom's car
Back up the Windstar
Kick it in drive and arrive
At the mega mart
Slide the side hatch with pride 'cause your ties match
On booty duty like your name was Eddie Thatch
​
WWTHD?
We like to kick it at the university
But all work and no play makes us crazy
So we jump in the bumping SUV
​
Hit the street get the sweet tunes on
Do a donut on your mama's front lawn
And sooner than you know
You've found the rock 'n' roll show
At the Tizzy Hizzy we'll be gone
​
We're in the mini-mall
Working the carnival
We like to play it all
Welcome to Tally Hall
​
Who's to blame?
The automated players, I proclaim
​
Yellow tie the suave fellow writes
Heterophonic tunes of how love bites
Red the proud loud guy we adore
Is my amp too high?
No, turn it up more
So Grey in the back sipping 'gnac can hear
He's knocking down the shots like Bill Laimbeer
​
Send home the locksmith: Greens got the keys
To unlock the rock in the act, if you please
Now open the case
Give Blue the bass
And jiggle your boodiggle all over the place
​
We're in the mini-mall
Working the carnival
We like to play it all
Welcome to Tally Hall
​
We're in the mini-mall
Working the carnival
We like to play it all
Welcome to Tally Hall
​
Can I get a click?
Flick off of the switch
And we'll ignite the night in pitch
​
Singing songs you like to hear
And the world will disappear
Then we'll be glowing in the dark
Lighting up the park
​
Revealing that the Hall is the place that aims to please
With unpredictable games and antiquities
They're collectibles so delectable
The unreliable style's undetectable
​
Like I might rap like an English chap
Take you by the knickers and I'll bum your slap
You didn't think we had the gall
Well bloody welcome to Tally Hall
​
We're stereosonic
We're animatronic
We're rapping with the robo-electronic Ebonics
A quick distraction
A mechanic attraction
Got a penny in your pocket for the slot
Rock
​
Hey ho don't you know
It's a good old-fashioned puppet show
That's right, quite the set
We're the marionette quintet
​
We think were playing in a band
But we'd love to give you all a hand
​
We're in the mini-mall
Working the carnival
We like to play it all
Welcome to Tally Hall
​
We think were playing in a band
But we'd love to give you all a hand
​
Marvin walked into a helpless land and wondered lightly am I happy, is this happy
Following the footsteps left by man he stepped to reprimand the mystic, who's sadistic
Took a step into the elevator who said guess I'll see you later, don't you worry
Fifteen flights that lasted nights and days that spent without a cent for creatures, with their beat shirts
​
Listening to painted whispered light on top forgotten hill
​
Next the stranded senate of the white brick house with flowers asked some questions for their story
All feeling now he took his bow and left the stage of time with no answers to no questions
Lonely paperbacks that wanted just a taste of feeling to implode them before living
Tiptoed to that wooden sign that said now take your place in line for happy, this is lovely
​
Listening to painted whispered light on top forgotten hill
​
One secondary smile
To go that extra mile
To make me feel today
To make it go away
The chemistry is gone
Taken for a ride
Far away from you
No longer left inside
​
The actor with his world renowned was thinking 'bout his last real day of silence, was it over
Or is it just we all think that our answer isn't real its just a picture of a letter
Bumble mumble make the rounds no matter what you'll seem profound it's useless just to worry
Something normal happens somewhere far away in clouds so please stop thinking this is happy
​
Listening to painted whispered light on top forgotten hill
​
One secondary smile
To go that extra mile
To make me feel today
To make it go away
The chemistry is gone
Taken for a ride
Far away from you
No longer left inside
​
One secondary smile
To go that extra mile
To make me feel today
To make it go away
The chemistry is gone
Taken for a ride
Far away from you
No longer left inside
​
There're no secrets in the door
Just a moment doing chores
(Don't look so sad)
And there's something
And there's something
And there's something
And there's something next to nothing
And there's something
And there's something
But you're gone
​
I've been sleeping in a cardboard box
Spending every dollar at the liquor shop
And even though I know I haven't got a lot
I'll try to give you love until the day you drop
​
I've been training like a Pavlov dog
Let my independence out to take a hike
All you got to do is activate my bell
And I'll fetch you anything you like
​
Going once! Going twice!
Every man here has a price!
Over where? Over there!
Sold! To not a single lady in here
​
I've been in like a thousand times
Dated every woman in the atmosphere
I've been to every continent
Broken all the hearts in every hemisphere
And if I'm not the type of guy you like to circumvent
Just remember not to love me when I disappear
​
I graduated at the top
I like to take advantage of the bourgeoisie
So if you have a fantasy of being a queen
Maybe you should blow a couple bucks on me
​
Going once! Going twice!
Won't these gentlemen suffice?
Any here? Any there?
Any motions anywhere?
Going twice! Going thrice!
Guess this means we'll go four times a lady
​
I promise I'll be all you'll need, ever need
You'll never have to shop around (don't shop around)
And I'll give you all you'll ever need, ever need
Don't worry I will never let you down, let you down
Don't worry I will never let you down
​
So many ladies are wanting for mates
And the prospects are good but the date's never great
Over here! Over there! Over where? Anywhere!
They're too busy with winning the bidding to care
And he's
Sold
​
I suppose you're quite content in your swimming pool
All you pink-skinned babes are the same
And you can't stay forever young
So get out here and see the sun
You're only six inches away from becoming one
​
I was in your shoes before, or lack thereof
And things worked out for me
There's a dozen people here
And they're waiting for you
It's your party; you can cry if you want to
​
What if I told you I could show you something?
What if I told you I could make you live?
Follow my instruction, swim in the direction
Of my voice, hear my voice
Of my voice, hear my voice
​
(Alright)
You think that you've seen it all in your little ball
But man you're wrong and she's been waiting
Long and hard to kiss your head and hold your hands
And hold you while you fall asleep, and
​
What if I told you I could show you something?
What if I told you I could make you live?
Follow my instruction, swim in the direction
Of my voice, hear my voice
Of my voice, hear my voice
​
Bah Bah Da Bah, Bah Bah Da Bah, Baheyah, Bah Bah Da Bah, Bah Bah Da Bah, Baheyah
​
What if I told you I could show you something?
What if I told you I could make you live?
Follow my instruction, swim in the direction
Of my voice, hear my voice
Of my voice, hear my voice
​
Ladies and gentlemen, Colonel P.T. Chester Whitmore is proud to present
Bung Vulchungo and the Zimbabwe Songbirds!
​
Do you see banana man
Hopping over on de white hot sand
Here he come with some for me
Freshly taken from banana tree
​
Banana man me want a ton
Gimme double and a bonus one
Gimme more for all me friends
Dis banana flow will never end
​
Do you want a banana?
Peel it down and go
Mmm mmm mmm mmmm
Do you want a banana?
Dis banana for you
​
Tonight we dance around de flame
Then we get to play de spirit game
Spirit names we shout out loud
Shake de thunder from de spirit cloud
​
All de songbirds in de tree
Chant a tune to let de spirits free
Then we see them in de night
Spirits jumping by de fire light
​
Do you want a banana?
Peel it down and go
Mmm mmm mmm mmmm
Do you want a banana?
Dis banana for you
​
Look you
You too uptight, you know
You could laugh and kick it back and go (wheee)
But without a rhythm or a rhyme
You do not banana all de time
Fly away from city on de run
Try to make a little fun
​
Look you
Come to de bungalow
African't you tell me told you so
Don't you love de bumping of de drum
Make you shake until de bum go numb
Let de bongo play you 'til you drop
Dis banana never stop
​
Forget all your troubles and go with the flow
Forget about whatever you may never know
Like whether whatever you doing is whatever you should
And whether anything you do is ever anything good
And then forget about banana when it stick in your throat
And when it make you wanna bellow but you stuck in a choke
And then forget about de yellow from de beckoning man
Who make you take another one and make a mock of your plan
​
Bungalay
Bungalow
Make up your mind
And tell me no
​
Well it's nine o'clock
And it's getting dark
And the sun is falling from the sky
I've never left so early
And you may wonder why
​
Tomorrow morning on de plane
No banana make you go insane
Floating back to busy town
No banana make you want to frown
​
Do you want a banana?
Peel it down and go
Mmm mmm mmm mmmm
Do you want a banana?
Dis banana for you
​
I'm too much or not enough
Maybe everyone else is messed up
Well anyway I can't seem to stay
In just one state of mind
​
Waiting 'round for something better
I'm the one that wouldn't let her
Now I'm back and forth
I get bored when she's no perfect find
​
'Cause it's one thing or another
I don't even know why I bother
One thing just tears her down
'Cause it's one thing or another
I don't even know why I bother
Something I just can't get around
​
Consider the possibility
That you've been had but not by me
We're just kids
Don't worry about this
​
My course is run and I'm so tired
Until the next one comes inspired
I feel bad and I should
I made her sad and I knew it would
​
'Cause it's one thing or another
I don't even know why I bother
One thing just tears her down
'Cause it's one thing or another
I don't even know why I bother
Something I just can't get around
​
I need to learn
To wait in turn
'Cause now I just step blindly
And I'm only happy when
I can close my eyes and I just dive in
And forget about acting kindly
​
'Cause it's one thing or another
I don't even know why I bother (Always one thing or another)
One thing just tears her down
'Cause it's one thing or another (Always one thing or another)
I don't even know why I bother
Something I just can't get around
​
Still I know you won't let me down
​
One time I tried to sing
About spring and a storm
​
But you know
How it goes
​
Blah blah blah blah
Blah blah blah blah
Blah
All along
​
Won't you please stop complaining
I'm playing a song
​
But all the rain comes down the same
Falling to from where it came
On the ground then back around
Up into the sky
​
I wish you could've heard the music
When the clouds growled overhead
I finally felt enthusiastic
I finally felt alive
​
Blah blah blah blah
Blah blah blah blah
Blah
So you said
​
Would it please you to listen
To thunder instead
​
Man the rain came down that day
And it drained my soul away
And I wondered why I even
Bothered to try
​
Mr. Moon
Tell us about the sky
​
The sky is deep and dark and eternally high
Many people think that's where you go when you die
​
Do you?
​
Well I think you return to obscure
Or wherever you were
Before you were
But I won't let you lose yourself
In the rain
​
We have so much left to sing
There's a storm for every spring
All you see and you and me
Became from a star
​
(You're a star)
​
(Silent explosive and
Silent explosive and)
​
Create until nothing is left to create and
The universe bursts with an overworked sigh then
Pretend to pretend to re-crown the creation and
Sing the same thing 'til the clouds start to cry and then
Over and over and over again and then
Over and over and
Never again
​
I have this little thing
It's probably just a fling
Two girls I like a lot
I think they're really hot
But I'm not sure if they know
How my love began to grow
It took a lot of time
But right now it's solely mine
​
(Today) I drew a mural of
The things I'd like to love
And where my heart resides
Is with two girls with gray eyes
​
If they just gave me a chance
I'd show them what they want and teach 'em what they've got
I'd tickle each and every one of their fancies
And I'd take the key to my heart and open it and let the love shine through
​
Mary Kate and Ashley, I hope you understand
That I love you a lot and I wanna be your man
And I think that it'd be totally cool
If I hung around your apartments and enrolled in your school
​
(Mary Kate) I saw you on TV
You dressed up like a bee
Reminds me of the time
How it's gone and it's gone and it's gone
It's sadness every day that passes
Without you and I really want I really want
I really wanna hold you both tight
And tell you you're mine but instead I sing
​
Mary Kate and Ashley, I hope you understand
That I love you a lot and I wanna be your man
And I think that it'd be totally cool
If I hung around your apartments and enrolled in your school
​
Mary Kate and Ashley I hope you understand
That I love you a lot and I wanna be your man
And I think that it'd be totally cool
If I hung around your apartments and enrolled in your school
​
I know that life without you and you would be sad
And I know it'd be bad
​
Mary Kate and Ashley I hope you understand
That your loveliness blossomed
And I wanna hold your hands
And I think that it'd be totally cool
If I hung around your apartments and enrolled in your school
​
Mary Kate and Ashley I hope you understand
That I love you a lot and I wanna be your man
And I think that it'd be totally cool
If I hung around your apartments and enrolled in your school
​
Mary Kate and Ashley I hope you understand
That I love you a lot and I wanna be your man
And I think that it'd be totally cool
If I hung around your apartments and enrolled in your school
​
Once you learn to love me
Life will be all right
​
Once you learn to love me
Life will be all right
​
Once you learn to love me
Life will be all right
​
I have been trying
To write a haiku for you
Some things I just can't do
​
Maybe you're beyond
Ancient Asian poetry
Or maybe it's just me
​
I have been trying
To get this haiku just right
All night for you all right
​
I'm through!
​
Maybe this poem
Was lost in the sauce we spilled
That never got refilled
​
I've never thought much
Of formulaic verse anyway
And rhymes are not my fort-
​
I have been trying
To get this haiku just right
All night for you all right
​
I'm through!
​
I'm trying not to try too hard
But you're hard to write down right
So I pen these trite attempts
At haikus for you tonight
​
La da dee diddum
Lada da dum doo diddle
Dum doo la dee do
​
There that's sufficient
I wrote a haiku for you
​
Well I tried at least
And that's not so bad
I'm working here
Can that be said for you?
​
I'm trying not to try too hard
But you're hard to write down right
So I pen these trite attempts
At haikus for you tonight
​
Words don't work like Webster says
They trip me up all night
I'm just trying to write for you
But you're hard to write down right
​
There's lots of pretty people here
Sharing sotries and passing letters and
There's lots of questions answered and
Metaphysical astronomical songs
Words printed all on papers
That seemed too mystical
It's so magical
People that dance and compute that
No one's better than you
​
La la la...
​
There's kings in distant cities
Who rule their persons and
Make them happy and
We won't forget about all the
Servisory congratulatory
Even the animals know that something's brewing
And they're all cooing
Cause in the end I'd like to say
No one's better than you
​
I hope you're happy now
I've revealed the truth
I've even written this whole song about you
And not about me
And not about me
​
Please don't just laugh and clap right now
This is serious
I'm not delirious
I've waited very patiently
Just to let you know
Who should run the show
'Cause we all know these are the facts
Nothing to retract
Nothing too abstract
Concluding in the song
I'll say
No one's better than you
No one's better than you
No one's better than
You
​
Juno was mad
He knew he'd been had
So he shot at the sun with a gun
Shot at the sun with a gun
Shot at his wily one only friend
​
In the gallows or the ghetto
In the town or the meadow
In the billows even over the sun
Every end of the time is another begun
​
You understand
Mechanical hands
Are the ruler of everything (ah)
Ruler of everything (ah)
I'm the ruler of everything
In the end
​
Do you like how I dance?
I've got zirconium pants!
Consequential enough
To slip you into a trance
​
Do you like how I walk?
Do you like how I talk?
Do you like how my face
Disintegrates into chalk?
​
I have a wonderful wife
I have a powerful job
She criticizes me for being egocentric (ha ha ha)
​
You practice your mannerisms
Into the wall
If this mirror were clearer
I'd be standing so tall
​
I saw you slobber over clovers on the side of the hill
I was observing the birds
Circle in for the kill
​
I've been you
I know you
Your facade is a scam
​
You know you're making me cry
This is the way that I am
​
I've been living a lie
A metamorphical scheme
Detective undercover brotherhood
Objective: obscene
​
Oh no, no
Oh yeah
​
Do you hear the flibbity jibbity jibber jabber
With an oh my god I've got to get out of here or I'll have another
Word to sell
Another story to tell
Another time piece ringing the bell
Do you hear the clock stop when you reach the end
No
You know it must be never ending
Comprehend if you can
But when you try to pretend to understand
You resemble a fool
Although you're only a man
So give it up and
Smile
​
You understand
Mechanical hands
Are the ruler of everything (ah)
Ruler of everything (ah)
I'm the ruler of everything
In the end
​
Without looking down
Gliding around
Like a bumbling dragon I fly
Scraping my face on the sky
​
Oh no, no
Oh yeah
​
We were playing in the sand
And you found a little band
You told me you fell in love with it
Hadn't gone as I planned
​
When you had to bid adieu
Said you'd never love anew
I wondered if I could hold it
And fall in love with it too
​
You told me to buy a pony
But all I wanted was you
​
Woke up today with a lay of the land
Feather in cap and the sun in the sand
It was easy
It was easy to understand
Everything suddenly falls out of sight
Every attachment is made of the light
That you offered
You have offered to give me life
​
See the sky and all the land together again
See the way the earth can stay below
Who do we think we are?
Everything plays a part
There are some things we are never meant to know
​
Having enjoyed all the meat from the bone
Is perfectly equal to being alone
It was even
But you breathe and I turn to stone
Everything suddenly looks like a sign
Easy to see from the outermost clime
I believe in what I leave in the way behind
​
And all the parts combine to one
And all of us around the sun
Everything will fall away
To order from the disarray
​
See the sun the shadows cast
From all the times I floated past
See the ocean spinning out
With all the hope and all the doubt
​
See the sky and all the land together again
See the way the earth can stay below
Who do we think we are?
Everything plays a part
There are some things we don't understand
Reasons on the other hand
There are some things we are never meant to know
​
Love of the sun
​
Came back again to make it clear that
He never said it would meet demand
​
Shame on a martyr, claiming friends from
Either perspective of &
​
Weak & strong &
Wet & dry &
Right & wrong &
Live & die &
Sane & gone &
Love & not &
All the & that we forgot so
​
Sing while you hear it, don't deny it
Leave if you can't stand the thought of it
​
Come back again to make things stand with
No disrespect to the &
​
High & low &
New & old &
Stop & go &
Hot & cold &
John & Yoko
Dark & light
It's almost time to say goodnight to it
​
They took a lesson from their fathers
Told them that they were the same command
​
Wait for the minds to make complete
Their lies stuck beside every &
​
Words & numbers
Sound & silence
Stop the peace &
Keep the violence
No & yes &
We digress
It lives with sad & happiness
Oh, God!
​
Big bad Betty of the 'pocalypse
She opens her lips and it goes like this
When the golden rule and the jungle meet
There'll be nothing to love and there'll be no one to beat
​
Oh, the things we know, the things we don't
Oh, the things we think, we can, will and won't
We're loathed together and nothing's left
We're all together and we're all bereft
​
Capitalist, communist
You did the hokey pokey and it went like this
You hate each other and you love yourselves
It might be heaven and it might be hell
​
Oh, the things we do, the things we say
Oh, the things we wish we could wash away
​
Starting on the road
Carefully unload
​
Open-eyed and all the light is falling
Back and forth
And I can see it of course
Maybe I am in the way recalling
​
It's just you
​
Off again we go
Another seed to sow
Another part to keep in proper order
​
What have I begun?
Get away undone
I have seen the signs and I ignored them
​
Now it's you
And me
Divine
A circular design
(Do do-do do-do)
Time, and place, and mind
Points along the line
(Do do-do do-do)
​
Sitting in the park
Carefully remark
Everything is better when you're learning
​
You were in the dark
And I was in the dark
Everything is made to keep on turning
​
It's just you
And me
Divine
A circular design
(Do do-do do-do)
Time, and place, and mind
Points along the line
(Do do-do do-do)
​
You and me
Return to be
In orbit all the time
​
You turn away and around
I've been coming down
I've been coming down
​
You turn away and around
I've been coming down (you)
I've been coming down (and me divine)
(A circular design)
​
You turn away and around
I've been coming down (time)
I've been coming down (and place and mind)
(Points along the line)
​
You turn away and around
I've been coming down
I've been coming down
​
Looking for a cavern
A place where she can stay
Waiting for the darkness
When she leaves obsessed to make her way to me
Because it's getting to the time when she will need to feed and
​
I am the willing victim of a cannibal
She rips out my bones just like I'm an animal
And right when I'm feeling like my blood is drained
She calls it a game
But the wound that she leaves is unmistakable
​
I am not the only one that she has come to see
Dig up the skeletons of men who thought that they would be the
One like me
Like they could be the ones to make her believe
But for now
​
I am the willing victim of a cannibal
She rips out my bones just like I'm an animal
And right when I'm feeling like my blood is drained
She calls it a game
But the wound that she leaves is unmistakable
​
Hiding in corners disguised
She's a phantom, a glimmer inside
She keeps on feeding while I am conceding
So please won't you tear me open wide
​
I am the willing victim of a cannibal
She rips out my bones just like I'm an animal
And right when I'm feeling like my blood is drained
She calls it a game
But the wound that she leaves is unmistakable
​
You were the chosen appointment to be who you are
I have been sitting and waiting and hoping apart
You are insight in the air in the night in the airplane
I am a light in a city your flight overcame
​
How is it all of the people can know who you are?
Off in the distance emitting a glow in the dark
I see you
Not too far
​
Maybe there's something to being the one who you are
Holding the thoughts in as you pull away in your car
I get to thinking a little too often &
All that I want is a little aloft &
Maybe it's all too much thinking and not enough heart
​
How is it all of the people can know who you are?
Off in the distance emitting a glow in the dark
All of it subtle and all of it very bizarre
How is it all of the people can know who you are?
I see you
Not too far
​
Armed to the teeth
You will sit at the fireside
We are the ones who have chosen the other side
It was easy to see
You were ready to be
And it all falls down
​
You rose up and rode away underground
Alone us finding our way to found
​
We live in the service of the king
Almighty in control of everything
As the queen decides who lives and dies tonight
We will sing
Love was never more than going
​
Our mission is to slay the sacred beast
Who has come to claim our innocence at least
And though those who went before us won't return
For the feast
We'll be riding high in going
​
Worst of all it knows
Its only truth is made of lies
Wanting for aught and ever wise
So there will need to be a compromise
Easier to close our eyes
Seeing the other sides of our disguise
​
We thought we had found a separate piece
Thought all our pain had finally been released
But as long as it's alive we'll never rest
In one piece
Meanwhile may it join in going
​
You hang around for a living
Somewhere between all the land & the sky
Being by never forgiving
Nobody knows you and neither do I
​
Birds may believe at a distance
You wear a grin and keep perfectly still
Driven away with persistence
I wonder if they have wondered or will ever wonder
Ever wonder
​
Farmer Jim hums when he's all alone
He may imagine you heard and he knew
You wouldn't hear what he might have known
I wonder whether he wonders if you ever wonder
Ever wonder
​
Oh
Scarecrow
Maybe the wind knows
Whether you wonder
Who's calling your name
​
Scarecrow
Maybe the wind knows
Whether you wonder
If you are to blame
​
Mother Earth's love whispered to me (and it wasn't her fault)
Real is a feeling and feeling is real
All of you are flowing through me
But you wouldn't know how to fathom or feel
When the wind blows
The wind knows
The wind knows
​
Oh
Scarecrow
Maybe the wind knows
Whether you wonder
Who's calling your name
​
Shame how nobody knows you
Only who wonders if you are to blame
​
Saving the grain of your golden domain
Without even reasoning why
The crows seem to know where you need them to go
Igniting a spark in their minds so they circle and fly
Fly
​
You hang around for a living
Blown in the wind like a pinned butterfly
Monarch of ever forgiving
Some of us wonder if you want to die
​
Would you want to die?
​
How I wonder
Ever wonder
(The wind knows)
​
​
I know a lady
Good & Evil
Showed me that I was a gentleman
Wait for the girl to blossom into
Colors that grow where you can
​
Whispered leaves on swaying trees and mysteries define
Summer nights of endless light remind us of the line that's yours & mine
Thoughts of green and breezes mean I'm growing from a stem
Missing dirt on my t-shirt, you'll move a little closer but the moving isn't over if it's
​
Them & you & me
Stringing electricity
And the rest of it is waiting under
When it overflows
Taking us where no one knows
We remember when we fell into the trap
​
Midnight air is unprepared for thoughts we would condemn
Silence of the stars above in any other weather we would try to stay together but it's
​
Them & you & me
Stringing electricity
And the rest of it is waiting under
When it overflows
Taking us where no one knows
We remember when we fell into the trap
​
Mother & fathers without
Will doubt
Brother to brother another
Hold out
Imagine a world if the numbers would take some time out
Me without you & you without I want to break out of this abstracting pattern of layers but it's on...
​
Don't go in there
You'll become one
Freaky creatures
Monster party
Eyes of yellow
Scales and feathers
Tails in tethers
Turn the lights off
​
Bend the nightmare
You control it
Artful dodger
Easy does it
Shut the closet
Get under the covers
Snakes and lovers
Turn the lights off
​
Everybody likes to get taken for turns
To see how bright the fire inside of us burns
And everybody wants to get evil tonight
But all good devils masquerade under the light
​
Here's the pinky
There's the kinky
Everybody complicate it
Man and woman
Baby child
Calm and wild
Turn the lights off
​
Don't remember (day's gone)
What we look like (night's on)
Younger holding (day's gone)
One another (light's passed)
Paper colors (day's gone)
Dangle streaming (night's on)
Tangle screaming (light's gone)
Turn the lights off
​
Everybody likes to get taken for turns
To see how bright the fire inside of us burns
And everybody wants to get evil tonight
But all good devils masquerade under the light
​
Can't they take it
Should be stronger
Books abandoned
Breathe the water
Mind distracted (bad girls)
Sons and daughters (good boys)
Out for slaughter (bad guys)
Turn the lights off
​
Sparkles and shines on the water (bet you've got a bone to pick with me)
Seeps through the cumulus brume (bet you've got a bone to pick with me)
Tingles and tears while we're gazing (bet you've got a bone to pick with me)
Vanishes soon after bedtime for good (bet you've got a bone to pick with me)
​
Don't you like it (day's gone)
I know I do (night's on)
How about you? (day's gone)
What do we know (light's passed)
Tiny patterns (day's gone)
Hypnotizing (night's on)
Terrorizing (light's gone)
Turn the lights off
​
Everybody likes to get taken for turns
To see how bright the fire inside of us burns
And everybody wants to get evil tonight
But all good devils masquerade under the light
​
Chroma diamonds
Twinkle brightly
Dance in darkness
Blow the nights off
Sleepy child
Spark desire
Walk the fire
​
Misery fell on the town when they lost all their looks
Spent all those years with their jobs and their scholarly books
With no one to share all their thoughts and their worldly-to-bes, oh no
They got down and prayed a little more for a life that was free
​
Wanting a change they assessed how reform comes around
A wise man suggested they work in their smiles not their frowns
And all of a sudden it sounds like the town was to be
Oh yes
A happier place where they live out their personal dreams
​
La la la...
​
Why oh why this
Town without love too much faith in above
Can you feel the
Force that it brings not to worry 'bout things
Just the stars in the sky all enjoying their time
With a hope for peace
​
First thing they do is to substitute pleasure for pain
Helping themselves figure out there's so much they can gain
The bad guys surrender their chemistry books at the fair
Oh well
Then frolic and take in the love that persists everywhere
​
La la la...
​
Why oh why this
Town without love too much faith in above
Can you feel the
Force that it brings not to worry 'bout things
Just the stars in the sky all enjoying their time
With a hope for
​
Why oh why this
Town without love too much faith in above
Can you feel the
Force that it brings not to worry 'bout things
Just the stars in the sky all enjoying their time
All the people that kiss
All the children that wish
All the fresh living flowers
That spend all their hours
Outside in the rain
Just so happy you came
From so far for so long
With a welcoming song
Just to say
To say
​
Stone & glass
Everything balancing
Every saint has a sin
Won't it last?
Resident present
I don't even want to ask
​
All the light is low
Where the time will go
All I know is that I can see anything
Out in the twilight
​
All is past
Everything interesting
Is it new?
Is it me?
Stone & Glass
Give me a reason it
Ought to be easy to last
​
All the light is low
Where the time will go
All I know is that I can see anything
Out in the twilight
​
And in between
Eternally
An even fall is all that will
Appear to be
​
Our story's old
And either end untold
The in-between goes on
​
Collect yourself and move into the street (out in the twilight)
The rest of our entire life is free (out in the twilight)
​
It's never fair to say I never care about
Anything 'cause I always care about you
​
It doesn't seem like there's anything happening
Nothing ever seems happening without you
​
It never seems like I'm all alone when now
Everywhere that I search about is for you
​
There's always something that's worth believing in
Keep uncovering more at the thought it's for you
​
In the warm sun
Past the winter
Here and ever here forever
​
In the motion
Frozen quiet
Still it's spoken heart unbroken
​
Clouds before us
Unknown waters
Greater spaces hold no hiding
​
Far and near to
Change or constant
I'll still wait and do it all for
You
​
To leave from this tale follow closely ahead
Prepare to exist by the living & dead
Too slow or too kind or too wary of those too at ease
​
Past all the buried impressions of then
Sullen drawn eyes and expressions to mend
Continued through mirrors left broken to sing and be heard
Through when it seems all the senses are lost to absurd
​
So the part where we are
Trapped in active depart
In the fate of the stars
No not one who we are
No control pumping heart
Button pressed mind in art
Mind control
Mind restart
​
To leave from the present with no source of sound
They laugh because silence is never around
Ignored and forgotten the past may continue to breathe
​
Feared not a rest by this desolate friend
Whose patience revealed what intent comes to send
With a stare at a hole in the world comes a lust to be high
Above all the dark nested clouds that keep guard of the sky
​
So the part where we are
Trapped in active depart
In the fate of the stars
No not one who we are
No control pumping heart
Button pressed mind in art
Mind control
Mind restart
​
Step onto the Ferris wheel
Round for day & night
Lost in what's forever more
Complacent in its reasons for
Give & take &
Sleep & wake &
Pray for day & night to come
Again we see there's certainty in
What we feel and what we've heard
Again we see there's certainty in
Expectations all the same

Very long rant, sorry! I just wanted to get this off my chest!
So recently, I've been inspired to gather all the poetry I've written over the last 18 years into one place (a spreadsheet, to make it simpler).
Being the chronic over-organiser I am, I trawled through what poems I had saved on random pages and word docs and I tried hard to date and categorise them so I could sort them into some kind of order. For some I can only be certain of the general year it was written in based on where I was living when I remember writing it.
The oldest are a few written at the age of 9. All of the poems from that age are about wanting to die and suicidal ideation. One from age 10 I literally titled "Depression".
9 years old was a big deal for little me. A lot happened that, at the time, I didn't truly understand. From the perspective of 8-9yr old me: a man I considered my "daddy" had suddenly left in the night without a word and abandoned us, the way I'd been told my bio father had abandoned us. My mother was seemingly heartbroken and devastated by his departure and I held and rocked her while she sobbed on her bed. In the month or so that followed I was suddenly being left with teenage babysitters that terrorised me because my mother was going out at night. She had met someone new and within the month we were introduced to this new man and moved into a different house with him. He had sons of his own so now I had additional "brothers" to contend with in our new home.
(I would only learn the truth in adulthood: my mother had an affair with another married man, gaslit her then-husband - my daddy - into leaving in silence by promising she'd explain to us kids - whom he loved dearly - when we woke up, and moving us in with her affair partner after his wife inevitably kicked him out for cheating. It happened in a month because our house was owned by my daddy's uncle, so the separation meant we were being evicted.)
To say I was confused and scared was an understatement. I missed my daddy and I felt betrayed. I didn't like my new brother and the attention he stole and my mother started being angrier than before.
I had discovered poetry at that time so I began to write to help ease the tension inside me. My first poem was originally called "A Cry For Death" and essentially was about wanting to go to sleep and simply not wake up again.
I showed my mother what I had been writing and she was pleased by my apparent talent at poetry. To her credit, she did sit with me privately and asked if I felt that way for real and assured me I could always talk to her.
At that time, though, all I could think about was how sad she had been before and how much I hated seeing her crying like that, and that I didn't want her to cry again. I was so deeply in tune with regulating her emotions for her, her pain was indistinguishable from mine. So I lied. Of course I lied. I was afraid she'd be upset. I was afraid she'd be angry with me for wanting to die when I had a good life: a roof over my head, my own room for once, a loving family...
So I shook my head and said that I just felt like writing about it, but of course I didn't really want to die. "You know you can tell me anything?" A smile, a nod "Yeah, I know." A silent vow to never say a word.
Now, over the years this moment has replayed a lot, even before I saw her for what she was. Any time I felt like she hadn't tried to help me with my depression until a school counsellor diagnosed me at 13. This moment popped back up like "well how could she know if you didn't tell her? If you said you were fine?"
Well. Looking back now, she absolutely could and should have done more. I doubt any loving parent would merely take their 9 year old at their word when they continue to write morbid poetry about death and hopelessness. She could have arranged a therapist if she suspected I wasn't telling her everything. But it seems like either she welcomed the excuse to sweep away the hassle and not have to deal with a depressed child, or she had convinced herself that we were close enough that I would genuinely tell her everything.
I'm not a parent myself so I can't say with certainty how I would have handled it. But, when my husband's 12 year old brother called him to tell him that he was afraid of his own dad after his dad had half-strangled him in a rage, and that he didn't want to be at home anymore, my first thought was "I don't care that it's late at night, I will get in the car now and drive 3 hours to pick him up."
When things escalated violently after we asked my mother in law if she was okay with him staying with us for a bit, I insisted we call the police to check on them. Even when my brother-in-law backtracked the next day, insisting that he overreacted and blew it out of proportion, I knew he had been gaslit and manipulated (thankfully, my mother in law has finally woken up to her soon to be ex husband's abuse and kicked him out).
So yeah. It's not hard to take a child's pain and fear seriously even if they later insist nothing's wrong.
After I categorised all of my poems between age 9 to now (over 100), I found that a good 18 of them were about/referencing depression or suicidal thoughts. Those were all written between 9 to around 17, living with my mother.
She saw all of them. Many of them she praised and gloated about to her friends about my talent. She pushed me to enter poetry competitions to get my work published (I hated trying to write on cue). After that singular conversation when I was 9, she merely waved off the depressive poetry as me being a morbid teen that was going through a goth phase.
By 13 I started visiting the school counsellor more often on her open hours and I was the one that asked if I might be depressed and requested an evaluation. The counsellor performed one and agreed that I showed mild to moderate signs of depression. She made a request for me to start seeing her weekly by appointment (I'd have a note to excuse me from class). My next school a year later had a different counsellor and I didn't go as often anymore. I'm not sure why, I think I just didn't trust this one as much, she felt dismissive.
When my mother was contacted about my depression at 13, she sat me down again. She asked how long I felt like this and I reminded her of my first poem. She proceeded to tell me that it was likely hereditary, and told me how as a teen she was also depressed and even tried to overdose once - the tone she used felt... patronising. Like she was subtly telling me that my depression wasn't too serious because I wasn't actively suicidal. Like her case was worse. I told myself that she was trying to relate to me (looking back I can see the pattern of minimisation and competitive misery). I agreed that my suicidal thoughts were mostly passive and I had never planned anything. She noted that I seemed happy in summertime when I'd stay in Canada with my grandparents, and told me that my depression was likely seasonal due to less sunlight in England. She bought a UV light box for me to use (it didn't help much).
By 15 I was burning out from maintaining the high grades expected of me, while fending off bullies and falling deeper into my suicidal - often intrusive - thoughts. I refer to the thoughts as "passively suicidal" because I never wanted to actively kill myself. I just wished for accidents to happen to me or to not wake up one morning.
In an effort to prevent myself from crying in class while being bullied, I found that pain could somehow hold off my tears. So I started to hurt myself if I "got too emotional". At school and at home I would use a safety pin to scratch my inner wrist or hips. They resembled cat scratches - not deep enough to be "serious", but still painful in the moment. It happened more often at home, at night, trying to go to sleep without crying after another explosive argument.
By 16 I had mostly stopped with the help of my boyfriend (later my husband) but the marks remained and my mother found out finally while we were washing dishes and I told her after she invited me to go swimming with her (side note: swimming for exercise... to lose weight... she was needling at me to lose fucking weight as a teen with a normal weight).
I'm not sure what I was expecting from her after confessing to my secret. Sadness? Guilt that she didn't notice sooner? A hug?
What I got was a very calm "are you still doing it?", to which I said no (honestly), a request to see the marks and a snide remark that she thinks I was doing it simply for attention/clout because many of my friends at the time were emo and goth kids at school. When I said quietly that I had stopped now she said something that effectively seemed like she was calling it embarrassing. I got the distinct impression that she was more worried about what other people would think. I don't remember her exact words here because I was kind of disassociating/spiralling internally.
My boyfriend helped to ease me back from the brink of burnout gradually, insisting my grades were not all that important (he was not at all liked by my mother, who called him a distraction). Just before I turned 17 he had to move away and we continued long-distance (until we moved in together at 20). The number of depression-based poetry takes a sharp upturn (along with the number of love poems) between 16 and 18 as his absence meant I was largely back to dealing with things alone.
I rarely discussed my depression with my mother ever again. At least once the conversation was shut down when she remarked that I must be better as I wasn't using the light box she had bought for me (a tone reserved for "you are being so ungrateful"). As time, and my relationship, went on, my passive, quiet demeanour transformed into self loathing and eventually, outward rage. Fights became more frequent and all were blamed on my boyfriend's influence.
Until I moved out almost as soon as I turned 20. You know what? There hasn't been a single poem categorised as "depression" past my teen years.
It's almost as though my depression wasn't seasonal at all. More like proximity-based. It wasn't summertime that made me happy. It was spending an entire summer halfway around the world from my mother.
I had some minor depressive episodes between 20 and 22, because I was either working with or frequently visiting my mother until cutting contact at 22. I'm 27 now and in the last 5 years I have not had a single fucking day that I feel depressed.

Our precious family cat, Delilah, was 16 and an inoperable tumor had begun growing in her nose that was making it difficult for her to breathe. After a lot of convincing, my dad finally agreed that the humane decision would be to put her down. I found a mobile vet to come do that for us on Wednesday.
Delilah was very attached to my dad and would always choose his lap to sit on. I think he resisted putting her down for a while because he loves her so much and didn’t want to accept reality. He’s never been an emotional man and I had never seen him cry until the day we put her down.
He was stoic throughout the whole process until I handed her body to him to put in her grave. I was so moved to see my dad begin to uncontrollably sob. I’ll never forget how it seemed as if he was burying one of his own children as he put the dirt over her body and cried.
I wish Delilah could have seen it and known how important she was to him.
I’m not a writer or poet but I felt so inspired by how much my dad cared that I did a therapeutic exercise and wrote a poem describing that day:
“A Father’s Tears”
A father’s tears are very rare
Few will see them in a lifetime
Most fathers will not let their emotions lay bare
Your’s certainly never made it his pastime
Your father dug a hole in the yard today
It will be your new home right next to the old
He remained stoic as he shoveled the deep, red clay
The clock chimed two, and it was time, he was told
He held it together as you drew your last breath
He looked on as your frail body let out its beautiful soul
Just a few days ago he wanted to believe you’d conquer death
But today he had to dig a hole
Your sister carried you tenderly to your grave
Her tears were masked by the gentle rain
You were wrapped in a towel that your mother had saved
We all looked down at the hole where your body would remain
Your mom and sisters were touched when they handed you to your father
For they had never seen him in such a state
Uncontrollable sobs escaped his lungs to his bother
As he buried your body under the clay’s great weight
Some may wonder what creature could inspire emotions so strong?
They’d know if they had you all these years
For you were so special to him all along
Your life inspired a father’s tears.

​
https://www.straitstimes.com/life/speak-dialect-campaign-gen-z-and-millennials-on-quest-to-reclaim-grandmother-tongues [For subscribers]
SINGAPORE – Walk down the classroom corridors of Raffles Institution (RI) and you may be surprised to hear strains of Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese.
Gareth Quek, 18, can converse in all three of these Chinese dialects. The RI student also spends his free time designing learning resources to teach them to his peers as part of Raffles Dialects – not your typical student-led interest group – which he co-founded in 2021.
His lofty ambition? To create free and high-quality dialect resources for interested learners. Whatever few dialect classes are available – such as those offered by home-grown dialect education initiative Learndialect.sg, at $199 for an introductory workshop – are often beyond his modest student budget.
One advantage of speaking dialects in his school canteen, he says with a laugh, is that it often charms the aunties and uncles into giving him free food. But this is not the reason he continues to spend three hours a week working on what he calls the “true ancestral tongues of Chinese Singaporeans”.
“I feel we may be the last generation who will have heard dialects in the household,” laments Gareth, who grew up in a family where Hokkien and Teochew are spoken. “In 20 years, almost nobody will have the privilege to hear dialects spoken any more, as these would have been replaced by Mandarin and mostly English.”
Together with his peers, he has organised dialect classes in school and even ran introductory courses at Bishan Public Library in August 2023. When asked about tips on how to learn dialects effectively, his answer is community: “You have to find a bunch of people who are interested.”
His group has grown from five students three years ago to 12 today.
Another Raffles Dialects member, student Donald Lee, 18, joined the group in 2023. The Hong Kong-born permanent resident struck up a friendship with Gareth over their common love for languages and discussing cultural differences.
Donald finds speaking Cantonese to his peers an interesting cultural exchange as accents and vocabulary vary. He discovered, for example, that the word for money in Hong Kong is “cin”, but Cantonese speakers in Singapore and Malaysia also use the word “loei”, thought to have evolved from the Malay word “duit”.
For these students, dialects are serious business. They press on with their efforts, meeting weekly for two hours on average, believing that their presence in school will keep other students curious. They plan to hand over the club’s reins to the next cohort after they graduate, even though they have met resistance from disgruntled parents, who think children should not spend so much time on “impractical” dialects.
With more young people coming together in creative ways to keep their dialects alive, might this augur the start of an informal Speak Dialect Campaign?
Gen Z and millennials – born between 1981 and 2012 – grew up after the Government’s Speak Mandarin Campaign started in 1979, in a Singapore where dialects were restricted on television, film and radio. Mandarin, on the other hand, was heavily promoted as the common language of Chinese Singaporeans.
They inherited a starkly different world from their parents’ generation. In 1980, 76 per cent of Singapore’s population lived in predominantly Chinese dialect-speaking households. That figure plummeted to 8.7 per cent in 2020.
The gap becomes more glaring when compared with their grandparents. A 1957 census counted only 1,275 speakers who listed Mandarin as their home language – a mere 0.1 per cent of the population. Hokkien, by contrast, had 433,718 speakers (30 per cent), and even the minor dialect Hokchia, 6,443 speakers (0.4 per cent).
Raised under the bilingual policy, Chinese Singaporeans born after 1979 have come to accept Mandarin as their mother tongue. But many have complex emotions about the gradual loss of Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hainanese and Hakka, which many consider languages rather than the more pejorative dialects.
Some have even affectionately termed these their “grandmother tongue”.
Playwright Thomas Lim, 33, who spent two years living with his grandmother after returning to Singapore from his studies in Britain, found himself having to relearn a lot of the Teochew he spoke as a kid.
This became the inspiration for his hit debut play Grandmother Tongue, a moving portrait of the fraught relationship between a Teochew-speaking grandmother and her grandson, who struggles with the dialect. The play – which sold out about 9,000 tickets over its three runs in 2016, 2017 and 2021 – will be published in a book by Wild Rice in July.
“For me, Mandarin is a language of commerce, economy and utility,” says Lim. On the other hand, Teochew evokes a “visceral feeling” and is “a reminder of who you are and the family that you come from”.
The theatremaker recalls fondly his grandmother taking him to see the Teochew opera troupe perform near their Housing Board block in Boon Keng.
A recurring story Lim hears from young theatregoers who watched Grandmother Tongue – which features extensive dialogue in Teochew, a rarity for home-grown theatre – is how they often stopped speaking dialects following the death of their grandparents.
Now that all four of Lim’s grandparents have passed, he is learning to let go of the dialect he once felt so attached to.
He says: “There’s also an emotional part of losing the dialect – which is losing the people you love as well as the need to speak in the dialect.”
When he moved into a Hougang HDB flat in 2020, he fortuitously rekindled his relationship with the dialect he thought he would never hear as often. He found comfort in hearing residents of the predominantly Teochew area, which is still often referred to by its old Teochew name of Au Kang, speak it in void decks and coffee shops.
“I haven’t plucked up the courage to speak to them yet,” he says. “Right now, when I walk past them, I walk a bit slower – just to listen a bit more.
“My main reason to hold on to Teochew is to hold on to that sense of myself formed in the very early parts of my life. The dialect still exists within me, and if there is any sort of revival movement, I am very happy to participate in it.”
Home-grown artists Suhui Hee, 33, and Salty Xi Jie Ng, 36, believe that for a dialect to be considered living, it has to exist in popular and accessible forms of entertainment such as television or music. They are still far from a revival movement, but have put into action their belief as part of an art research residency titled Ancestral Tongues.
In March and April, the duo hosted public events such as a dialect karaoke party and formed a citizen choir at German cultural centre Goethe-Institut, where participants sing in a mixture of dialects, attracting young adults and seniors alike.
Multidisciplinary and music artist Hee, who has Shanghainese, Hokkien and Teochew heritage, says: “Part of the reason choirs are so interesting is the sense of repetition and imitation. We learn dialects by imitating our parents and grandparents and their version of what the dialect is.”
In the performance, eight choir members across generations contributed phrases from their dialects – one chose a phrase from a popular Hokkien song, another picked a Hakka saying – in a series of exercises encouraging participants to explore their “ancestral vocal memory”.
Reaching beyond familial ties to ancestral memories, the performance culminated in Ng’s recital of Hokkien lines from an epic 760-line migration folk song from Anxi in Fujian province – a poem written in the late 19th century or early 20th century about their sorrows.
Ng, who describes the seeking of her Hokkien roots and dialect as no less than a quest, says: “I don’t want our dialects to become a relic that gets labelled as Unesco heritage. To keep it alive, it needs to live in our everyday spaces.”
The ongoing project, while also about loss, has given Ng a sense of optimism.
She says: “It’s quite heartening to know that there are people half my age who are so interested in dialects because, previously, I just kept imagining that once the older generation died, there would be fewer people to speak with.”
Not all is lost with the intergenerational transmission of dialects. Many observe that younger parents today have fewer qualms exposing their children to heritage at an early age to foster their interest and sense of identity.
Singaporean Lim Mingyi, 29, is already exposing her one-year-old daughter to Hokkien culture and dialect, perhaps because her mother did the same when she was 10, signing her up with the Siong Leng Musical Association.
At Siong Leng, Lim – who is now principal artist with her husband Seow Ming Fong, 28 – developed a lifelong love for nanyin, or “music of the south”, an ancient musical form which flourished in Fujian’s Quanzhou city and spread abroad to places like Singapore. She now sings nanyin tunes to soothe her daughter to sleep.
The vocalist recalls being able to speak only “very simple” Hokkien before she started singing with Siong Leng. She is now conversationally fluent in the dialect, in part because she has to sing in the Quanzhou Minnan dialect, which is similar to the Hokkien spoken in Singapore.
Lim finds a sense of purpose in transmitting the art form of nanyin, which she has dedicated close to two decades of her life to.
Since 2020, she has started teaching younger vocalists and now has six students aged between 12 and 27. Some of her students – like 16-year-old Nadya Tasha Lim – knew no dialect before joining Siong Leng, but now perform with the group.
Lim also encourages her mother to speak Hokkien to her one-year-old. When asked if she believes doing so will interfere with her daughter’s acquisition of English or Mandarin – one of the official reasons given for the Speak Mandarin Campaign – she says: “When that becomes a problem, I’ll get to it.”
She adds: “I feel like someday, dialects will be able to make a comeback.” Not for her generation perhaps, she thinks, but maybe for her child’s generation.
If the wave of interest in dialects has not quite arrived yet, at least the tide is rising.
Some passionate Gen Z and millennials who are now raising Gen Alpha – those born after the early 2010s – are finding ways to make up for lost time.
Unwilling to give in to obsolescence without a fight, they are choosing to tell stories of hope for the uncertain future of dialects.
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Raffles Dialects’ Gareth recently acted in his first Hokkien-speaking role for a Lasalle College of the Arts thesis film titled Trilingual Education Programme – which imagines an alternate Singapore in 2035 where dialect learning is introduced to the syllabus.
Headed by six Gen Z and millennial students, the film was inspired by the legacy of the bilingual policy and the Speak Mandarin Campaign. It will screen at The Lasalle Show at the school’s McNally Campus from May 17 to 29.
Gareth says: “I am comforted that, in a way, film is a mini time capsule or record of language. Because dialects are seen as part of our intangible culture, incorporating dialects into film immortalises them.”
The budding film-maker has scripted stories for his first short film, Ah Pa, which he started to shoot on a recent trip to Mandai Columbarium with his paternal grandmother. Nearly half of the dialogue is in Teochew.
On the weekend of the recent Qing Ming Festival, which is devoted to remembering the dead, Gareth was finally able to assuage one of his greatest regrets, he says. For the first time, he was able to have a conversation with his late maternal grandmother, at least at her niche at Man Fatt Lam Temple in Bedok, in her tongue.
“Ah Ma, it’s been a very long time since I came to visit. I am very happy that I can finally speak to you and you can understand what I am saying. I still remember when I was younger and did not understand whatever it is you were saying,” he recalls saying in Hokkien.
For the ardent dialect advocate, who declares it the burden of young people “to ensure that all this history and legacy does not die out within the next 30 years”, this marks the beginning of a new relationship with his grandmother.

Let me say right away that I love Mick, he is probably my favorite member of the band.
Mick's biggest character flaw imho is his poor relationship with women. This exerpt found here is a pretty good overview of some of his early relationships:

The Edith Grove hellhole having at last been abandoned during the summer of 1963, Mick and Keith relocated to a Kilburn flatshare with Andrew Oldham. Brian moved in with yet another new girlfriend’s family in Windsor. Charlie was desperate to marry his fiancée Shirley, but Mick and Andrew denied him permission. Who did they think they were?! They must have taken their lead from Brian Epstein, who forced John Lennon to conceal both his marriage to pregnant girlfriend Cynthia Powell and the birth of their baby Julian, because news of both would ‘damage the reputation’ of the Beatles. Likewise, a married Stone was an oxymoron, and something that could only be disastrous for their image. There wasn’t much that they could do about Bill, already a husband when he came on board. But he was only an auxiliary member, so blind eyes were turned.
Keith seemed to be take-it-or-leave-it about women most of the time, except when they were on the road with irresistible females such as Phil Spector’s Ronettes. Mick, on the other hand, was shameless, having his cake and eating it wherever he could. While projecting as footloose and fancy-free to the band’s hoards of hopeful, hysterical fans, and getting his end away with as many of them as possible, he had for some time been embroiled in a semi-covert, tempestuous affair with his first love. She may only have been a trainee secretary, but his pretty wannabe model and actress Chrissie came with an impressive pedigree. Her sister was Jean Shrimpton, ‘the Shrimp’, famous model and partner of celebrity photographer David Bailey. Mick had met his posh-totty builder’s daughter at John Mansfield’s Windsor Ricky Tick club, on 11 January 1963.
‘Chrissie had been a fan of Mick’s for several months, having seen them play at Ealing,’ said John. ‘Not happy to be at the back (the venue being packed by the time she made it there, through arctic conditions), she climbed on to a table and clambered into the fish nets dangling from the ceiling. Over the heads of the fans, she proceeded to crawl towards the band, helped onwards by those underneath paddling her towards the stage with their hands. This was “crowd surfing” before it had been invented. As she reached her goal, the net finally gave way and Brian had to catch her. She had literally fallen for Mick!’
The couple moved in together. But home life was not harmonious, thanks to Mick’s relentless womanising. She’d find out about the latest, he’d weep and wail at her feet, she would take him back and he would do it again. He wrote ‘Under My Thumb’ about her. What drove him to be unfaithful? We know what: biology, novelty, ego, immaturity, commitment phobia, curiosity, opportunity, you name it. Because he was who he was, and therefore could.1 If girls just wanna have fun, dirty dogs just wanna have sex, willy-nilly, with as many partners as possible. Because fame and fortune are nothing if not aphrodisiacs. Because what kind of man could Mick call himself if he didn’t rise to the occasion and take advantage of all who were dropping in his lap and falling at his feet? Don’t go there. Poor Chrissie, who only wanted happily-ever-after. With a rock star. I mean. But she was young, innocent and starry-eyed. She couldn’t have known better. They got engaged, Mick’s proposal undoubtedly prompted by yet another humiliating infidelity.
Chrissie got a job at the Stones’ label Decca, going on to work for Andrew in the band’s own management office. So that she could keep an eye on her wayward fiancé? As their popularity increased, and as female fans continued to invade their privacy and even their apartment, the relationship started to crumble. It would be destroyed, ultimately, by a girl Mick had first set eyes on at a party, when she was still a Reading convent schoolgirl on the verge of sitting her A levels. Brian, Keith and Andrew Oldham were all at the same party. Andrew waded in, visions of self-reinvention as the new Phil Spector with his own impressive stable of artists dancing in his head, and declared that he was going to make a star of the innocent seventeen-year-old. ‘I saw an angel with big tits,’ he famously said, ‘and signed her.’
Marianne Faithfull was taken at the time, by Cambridge undergraduate John Dunbar. She had a post-exam plan to follow Dunbar to university, to read English Literature, Philosophy and Comparative Religion, and then to pursue a career in the theatre. Floored by her fragile beauty, her eye-popping architecture, her raspy voice and insouciant elegance, daringly eye-shadowed Oldham proffered his calling card, which bore the words ‘Andrew Loog Oldham, darling’. He enquired, ‘Can she sing?’, didn’t bother to wait for an answer and offered her a recording contract.
Marianne’s debut was one of Mick’s and Keith’s first toddles into songwriting, the Elizabethan-flavoured ballad ‘As Tears Go By’. It was inspired by ‘As Time Goes By’, the famous song from the 1942 Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman picture Casablanca. Andrew changed ‘time’ to ‘tears’, of course he did. The twelve-string acoustic guitar on her rendition was played by future Led Zeppelin star Jimmy Page. Recorded at Olympic Studios under the watchful eyes of Mick and Keith, and released on 24 August 1964, it shot to No. 9 and proved several of Oldham’s points. Marianne would later claim that Mick and Keith wrote the song for her. She would eventually admit that they probably didn’t. The Stones recorded it themselves a year later. Marianne re-recorded it when she was forty, twenty-three years after her first attempt: ‘ … and at that moment I was exactly the right age and in the right frame of mind to sing it,’ she wrote in her memoir Faithfull. ‘It was then that I truly experienced the lyrical melancholy of the song for the first time.’ The newly minted pop singer quit school, deserted her mother, and abandoned herself to relentless, gruelling, sexually abusive pop tours masquerading as stardom.
Two things about Marianne, apart from the obvious, made her irresistible to Mick. One, she had exotic and aristocratic roots, which impressed him, as he was already hobnobbing with gentry and royalty, and hoicking himself up in the world. Two, she was somebody else’s, therefore a prize to be pilfered and won.
She was descended on her mother’s side from Leopold Baron von Sacher-Masoch, author of Venus in Furs who lent his name to the syndrome masochism.2 Her mother Eva, whose name matched that of Mick’s mother, was Austro-Hungarian Baroness Erisso. Eva had danced in Berlin during the 1920s Weimar Republic era, returned to Vienna during Adolf Hitler’s climb to power, was active during the resistance, and like her Jewish mother had been raped by occupying Russian Red Army troops. She met and married British army major Glynn Faithfull, a closet eccentric of Welsh descent, and returned with him to live in England, where they welcomed their only child. But Marian Evelyn’s mismatched parents separated when she was six. Her father joined a commune, leaving mother and child to fend for themselves. A bitter divorce and greatly reduced circumstances led to her mother, who maintained delusions of grandeur, becoming a boarding school dance teacher, and subsequently scraping a living as a shoe shop assistant, a bus conductress and a café waitress.
Her first face-to-face with Mick occurred at a Ready Steady Go! party, when the inebriated rocker approached her and emptied his champagne flute down her low-cut dress. If that was all he could think of to gain her attention, he failed to impress. Marianne was on the road with Roy Orbison when Dunbar travelled to see her, and proposed to her ‘on Wigan Pier’.4 Weighed down with guilt as a result of tour affairs with Gene Pitney, Allan Clarke of the Hollies and others, Marianne seized the opportunity to redeem herself. She was desperate to draw a line under her promiscuous lifestyle. ‘The sixties and the to-hell-with-what-they-think attitude hadn’t happened yet,’ she reflected. ‘Feminism wouldn’t affect me for another fifteen years. There was John who I loved and wanted to marry … He knew me very well, and he knew that if he asked me to marry him I would just say yes … I had a child with the right man, and it was the best thing I ever did.’ Does she still think that now?
Having aborted Gene Pitney’s child, at a time when abortion was still illegal, Marianne was desperate for a baby to cleanse herself of both the sin and the crime.5 Her wish was granted in April 1965, when she discovered that she was pregnant again. But while Dunbar was back at Cambridge sitting his finals, Bob Dylan landed in London. ‘I wasn’t simply a fan,’ she admitted. ‘I worshipped him … I was quite aware that the tribute traditionally laid at the feet of pop stars by their female fans was sex. I was incredibly ambivalent. I was pregnant, I was about to be married … and what [John] didn’t know might not hurt him …’ The fantasy lingered for a bit. Bob was writing a poem about her, he told her. That old chestnut. She informed him she was with child and immediately regretted it. He threw her out, perhaps fearful that she might be planning to pin the deed on him. She married John in Cambridge the following month. His best man was Peter Asher. They honeymooned, predictably, in Paris. Just before the bride’s nineteenth birthday, she gave birth to their baby Nicholas. How fucked up was all this, how drugged, how detached, how dismally sixties?
And, wait, this is where it gets complicated. Brian Jones is by now with Anita Pallenberg, a consuming, exotic, alien creature who lures Marianne under her wing. Marianne, bored and trapped by young motherhood, who is still recording and performing though her heart is hardly in it, who resents having to be the family breadwinner, who is fed up with tripping over the bodies of John’s junkie pals all over the floors of their flat, spends less and less time at home with her husband and baby, and more and more time with Brian and Anita at their place. Keith Richards comes too. Anita is away one time, they are doing a ton of drugs, and Brian finds his way into Marianne. He is so high on Mandrax that he cannot perform. Marianne crushes on ‘beautiful, gorgeous’ Keith, with whom she is falling in love, if she’s not there already. Poor baby Nicholas is forgotten at home with his nanny, surrounded by drug addicts. Then Mick, who is still co-habiting with Chrissie, starts finding his way round to Brian’s.
‘There were lots of things I could have done at the age of nineteen that would have been more healthy than becoming Mick Jagger’s inamorata,’ wrote Marianne. ‘In the end it doesn’t matter that hearts got broken and that we sweated blood. Maybe the most you can expect from a relationship that goes bad is to come out of it with a few good songs.’
The last two standing in Mick’s hotel room in Bristol one night after a Stones gig and an impromptu after-show, they wondered about getting it together and went for a walk to decide. Inevitably, they made love. She returned to London, then took off with Nicholas and nanny to a rented villa in Positano, Italy. She arrived to find a pile of messages from Jagger. When she decided to wend her way home, motherhood was clearly not her priority. She left the nanny to drive Nicholas back. That’s a long drive for a young girl, from Positano to London. More than a thousand miles. With a baby in the back. In an unreliable car, which broke down, no one could get parts, there were no mobile phones, they didn’t speak English, the child’s wellbeing was endangered and all. But, hey.
On 15 December, when Chrissie and Mick were due to depart on holiday, she discovered that her boyfriend had disappeared. Chrissie phoned the Stones office, only to be told that their flights had been cancelled. Not even then did she twig that he must be with Marianne. But all alone in their palatial Harley House, Regent’s Park apartment with her menagerie of pets – half a dozen cats, a dog and a cageful of birds – the devastated twenty-one year-old knew that he had deserted her. She gulped back a bottle of sleeping pills, not as a cry for help, she would later protest. Without Mick, her life was over, she said. She really wanted to die. This was the first attempt at suicide that would dog Mick’s footsteps. It was by no means the last. When Mick wrote ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’, was he oblivious?
Chrissie would never get to the bottom of what happened next. Maybe it was Mick who found her, and saved her life by getting her to St George’s Hospital. She came to, only to find nursing sisters addressing her by a pseudonym. Whoever got her to hospital had taken the precaution of furnishing her with an alias, to throw the press off the scent. Perhaps the realisation that Mick’s public image was more prized than her life was Chrissie’s first step on the road to recovery.
She had little say in the way things unravelled. Wheelchaired into a truck, she was conveyed to a private clinic in North London, drugged to the false eyelashes and subjected to sleep therapy. She eventually managed to contact her parents, who came to the rescue and carried her home. Only then did she read in the papers about Marianne Faithfull. When she composed herself sufficiently to return to Harley House to collect her things, she found that the locks had been changed.
But what was the old slut Mick on? Nothing more potent or more disastrous than testosterone. It controlled him, that much is obvious. Behind Marianne’s back, he tracked Chrissie down to her new address and started turning up at all hours, demanding sex. Perhaps convincing herself that he loved her after all, and not recognising that she was being used – women crave romance, men just want breasts – she put up no fight. But whenever their paths crossed at parties, he simply ignored her. Drained of pride and confidence, she said nothing. When he stopped coming round after a year or so, the blessing was mixed.
Did Chrissie find her happily-ever-after? Kinda sorta. After falling for another rocker, Steve Marriott of the Small Faces – once bitten, forever smitten, if only by the lifestyle – she withdrew from the swinging London scene that was growing a bit threadbare and boring anyway. She married a normal guy, and had a couple of normal kids. She studied sociology, perhaps in an attempt to make sense of the everywhere and nowhere years. Did she follow Mick’s phenomenal career down the decades, watch the fantasy unravel and lament to herself, ‘All that and more could have been mine’? Or did she thank her lucky stars that she’d had a lucky escape? I want to say the latter.
Marianne, too, would be discarded. Not just yet. When someone told her that Mick had actually wanted to get with the actress Julie Christie, and set his cap at Miss Faithfull only when he found out he couldn’t have Julie, she was neither surprised nor miffed. She put it down to his ‘Dolly Fixation’. It suggests the strong possibility, more or less proven since, that ordinary-mortal females would never satisfy him. Only the most exaggerated specimens of beauty and femininity were good enough for Jagger. It speaks volumes about his personal insecurity. He would thenceforth wear his women the way a woman flaunts a designer handbag: rare, gorgeous, impossibly stylish, outrageously expensive, the best that money can buy. Only a real man loves a woman for qualities other than her reflection. Only a confident, carefree woman settles for (and admits to) the thirty-quid fake.
Life with Mick had its compensations. He was a ‘genuine haven’, Marianne said. He was ‘affectionate, interesting, funny and very attentive. He called me constantly. He wasn’t fucked up like Brian, and he didn’t do drugs (those came later). You could actually lead a life with Mick.’ She acknowledged that his money helped: she no longer had to work, not for the dosh, anyway. She dared to reconsider her theatrical aspirations. In quiet, contemplative moments, she had her misgivings. Certain things she had found disturbing about Andrew, she was beginning to recognise in Mick.
‘[They] were birds of a feather. [Mick] was camp and he wore make-up, at a time when this was still very unusual. I had an inkling that there was a sexual undercurrent between them. I think I knew in some part of my mind that Mick was bisexual … but what I somehow thought that meant was that he would be nicer to me. “Real men” scared me, but Andrew didn’t, and Mick felt safe and easy to be around.’
You see where she was going with this. She actually wanted a ‘real man’. The one that she wanted was Keith. She turned to the Stones’ new business manager Allen Klein for advice, inexplicably, and confessed that her heart lay elsewhere. Rottweiler Klein warned her that Mick would be destroyed by such betrayal. Klein was unlikely to have been prioritising Mick’s personal wellbeing as he articulated those words. If she dumped Mick for his boyhood pal, bandmate and crucially his songwriting partner, she would kill the Rolling Stones. Persuading Marianne to stick with Mick and leave Keith well alone was in Klein’s best interests, not hers.
Marianne, oblivious of financial implications, heeded Klein’s words. Still, one for the road, baby, shall we? Why not? She wound up at Brian and Anita’s. The cat was away. She dropped acid with Brian, Keith and Tara Browne, their friend the Guinness heir, fully aware that they all wanted to have sex with her. She fumbled with Brian, but something made her get the hell out. She found her way back to the marital abode. And then the phone rang. It was Keith. He picked her up in a cab, and they went back to the May Fair Hotel, where Marianne had been staying prior to the acid trip.
And that, she said, ‘was the night I ended up with Keith. It was a wonderful night of sex. As a matter of fact, that night with Keith was the best night I’ve ever had in my life … It was sublime. I was in heaven. I had always been in love with Keith, but very shyly. Now I was totally bowled over.’
But the over-endowed cherub’s ecstasy was short-lived. As he was dressing to leave the next morning, the guitarist uttered unforgettably crushing words: ‘You know who really has it bad for you, don’t you? … Go on, love, give him a jingle, he’ll fall off his chair. He’s not that bad when you get to know him, you know.’
And she simply accepted it. Passed like a box of Turkish Delight from Brian to Mick to Keith, then back to Mick, Marianne became the first unofficial Stones broad. Had she been a little older, a lot wiser, she would have told Keith in no uncertain terms that she loved him. Perhaps she was wiser than she knew. Something stopped her. She must have known already that Keith was in love with Brian’s girlfriend Anita. He would screw whoever he liked, but he had eyes only for her.
Marianne and Mick moved from Harley House into a place on Chester Square, and eventually into an impressive mansion on Cheyne Walk, beside the River Thames. She furnished it lavishly, on money her parsimonious partner was loath to spend. They did a lot of drugs – she worked her way from cannabis to cocaine before she got to heroin – had a lot of sex, and did a lot of talking – though not so much about meaningful, personal things; and only when Mick was not otherwise engaged with his endless stream of sycophantic visitors. She told him almost everything. Her lesbian affairs she mostly kept to herself. Mick’s homoerotic fantasies about Keith, he shared with her openly, to her astonishment. It disturbed her because she was still in love with the guitarist. In 1968, when Mick decided to become a movie star and got involved with directors Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg on the notorious film Performance, Marianne’s gut told her that she needed to distance herself from the ‘seething cauldron’ that the production rapidly became. She relocated to Ireland with her mother and three-year-old Nicholas. Now pregnant with Mick’s baby, a daughter they named Corrina, she was determined that the child would have the best start possible, away from the madness that was consuming her partner in London. But she failed to carry the baby to term, and miscarried at seven months. Both she and Mick were devastated.
Any miscarriage is a terrible experience. But to lose a baby at such a late stage is a trauma from which it can be impossible to recover. Marianne would have been approximately twenty-eight weeks along, if she had calculated her dates correctly. Given that a full-term pregnancy lasts around forty weeks, and that a loss can only be termed a miscarriage up to twenty-four completed weeks of pregnancy, she technically suffered a stillbirth. When a baby dies before she is born, it is usual today for an obstetrician or midwife to induce labour. Marianne did not say whether she gave birth to Corrina naturally. Nor did she describe what happened afterwards. Was Mick with her? Did they get to see, even hold, their dead baby? Did they take photographs, keep the blanket that she was wrapped in, register her birth and give her a funeral (all of which are recognised aids to recovery)? Did her parents receive bereavement support? It seems unlikely. Marianne has indicated that she and Mick never discussed it. His way of dealing with it was to immerse himself in work, and in his affair with American actress Marsha Hunt. To add insult to injury, it was Marsha who would bear Mick his first child, in November 1970, their daughter Karis.
Mick and Marianne stayed together for four years. She knew that it was only a matter of time before her life, emotions and habits would become fodder for Stones’ songs, just as Chrissie’s had. Not only for songs, but for newspaper column inches and full-scale media speculation. Where Chrissie had seemed to lap up the attention, Marianne hated it. But she acknowledged that Mick’s affairs inspired some classic hits.
They were the most beautiful couple of the 1960s. Marianne was Mick’s muse. She beefed up his basic knowledge of dance, classical music and literature. She sophisticated him, and raised his game. It was she who gifted him a copy of Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita: a controversial work of philosophy that dissects the concepts of good and evil and their impact on human life, concluding that the two are inter-dependent. It inspired the song that many regard as the Stones’ finest and most defining hour, ‘Sympathy for the Devil’. She stood by Mick throughout his 1967 drugs trial and brief imprisonment. But she was deeply disturbed by a double betrayal, by both her partner and her best friend Anita Pallenberg … who had left Brian and was by then Keith’s girlfriend. What happened? Anita, Mick’s co-star in Performance, had slept with Mick for real (as opposed to ‘just acting’). With three Stones notched on her bedpost, she had by default superseded Marianne as the band’s unofficial broad. More of which, coming.
Marianne’s depression was compounded by the mental frailty of Brian Jones, who never got over the betrayal by his bandmate. Brian’s death by drowning in July 1969 seemed to tip Marianne over the edge. Like Anita and Keith, she and Mick stayed away from his funeral. Guilt? Fear? Couldn’t be bothered? All three? The Jaggers set off for Sydney, Australia, where Mick was about to begin filming the doomed biopic Ned Kelly.6 A hallucination of Brian drove Marianne to attempt suicide. She would have hurled herself from the window of their fourteenth-floor suite, but couldn’t get it open because the wooden frame was sealed with paint. So she swallowed 150 Tuinal barbiturates, a highly addictive depressant, washed down with hot chocolate. Mick found her just in time, and rushed her to hospital. He had been here before, hadn’t he. Marianne’s mother flew down to assist. The last rites were administered at Marianne’s bedside by a Roman Catholic priest. Mick wasn’t there for that bit. He was back on set, going on with the show. He was also writing passionate letters to Marsha Hunt, while his suicidal girlfriend was recuperating.
Back in London, against steep odds, Marianne won the role of Ophelia in a Roundhouse production of Hamlet, opposite Anthony Hopkins as Claudius. Her understudy was Anjelica Huston. The leading lady took smack before she went on. She couldn’t stand that Mick was still seeing Marsha, and was tormented by the gossip about him and Anita. So she started an affair of her own, with Italian artist Mario Schifano. Jagger was incensed. He turned up at the Berkshire cottage he had purchased for Marianne’s mother Eva to find the lovers ensconced. A scrap ensued, which Jagger won. It was Mick who slept in the bed with Maid Marianne that night. Mario left at dawn. Era finito.
She left Mick in 1970. Helplessly addicted to heroin, she lost custody of Nicholas. She slept rough for two years in St Anne’s Court, Soho, in those days the location of one of the world’s most famous recording studios.7 The Chinese restaurant in that cut-through, which we journalists used to frequent, served lethal cocktails in plastic washing-up bowls with a straw for each person. They kindly allowed her to wash her clothes on their premises. A stallholder nearby used to bring her cups of tea. She was on an NHS drugs programme at the time, and had to present in person daily at a local chemist’s to get her twenty-five jacks of heroin. According to Catherine James, the American model whom Mick moved into Cheyne Walk soon after Marianne moved out, she tried desperately to get Mick to take her back. What baffles me is his callousness and meanness. How was he able to wash his hands of her and walk away?
Whatever. Their love affair was over. The woman who had inspired ‘Wild Horses’, ‘Dear Doctor’ and ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ was left penniless.
Marianne married punk rocker Ben Brierly in 1979, but they divorced seven years later. She submitted to treatment for her drug addiction in 1985, at Minnesota’s Hazelden Clinic, where Eric Clapton had been a patient, and fell into a relationship with fellow inmate Howard Tose. When she told him it was over, he jumped to his death from the window of their Boston apartment. Her three-year third marriage, to American writer Giorgio Della Terza, also ended in divorce. In 2009, she separated from her lover of fifteen years, French record and film producer François Ravard, who had helped nurse her through her 2005 bout of breast cancer. He continued to act as her manager. She would recall a night when she lay recovering from cancer surgery in a Paris hospital room, when the phone rang at around two in the morning. ‘This voice came on,’ she said. ‘ “Hello, Marian, how are you?” I’d know that voice anywhere, he’s the only one who ever called me “Marian”. We had a chat. It was lovely.’ It was the first time in thirty-five years that Jagger had called her.

To Read The Full Article Click Here Stuti Saxena Singh recently received "Naari-fied" Samman from INKZOID FOUNDATION and she also made a world record for writing the longest poem on Mother in English - foreligium of 25 poems on Mother from her book "Anjana Unfathomable Ocean Of Love" and Stuti was born and brought up in Brass City Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh got married in City of Faith, Land of ShreeRam, Ayodhya depicts both artistry and spirituality in her personality.She is the daughter of L/O Mrs Anjana Saxena and Mr D.K Saxena , brings here traits of Kayastha fraternity ,by birth and influential chirography in heredity.Married to Mr Shivendra Pratap Singh, credits her personality with traits Kshatriya fraternity, she portraying her thoughts more courageously & valiantly. Her 4.5 year old son Shivansh Pratap Singh holds charismatic persona thus galvanizing motivational thoughts of writer to jot beatifically over paper,the same is witnessed by various publication houses and Shivansh School itsef- Sai Sanskaar Public School ,Haridwar, Uttrakhand, where writer portrayed Shivansh 1 year Nursery Journey in form of beatific poem.
Stuti Saxena Singh is an internationally Published Author,Writer by Profession Mother by Heart and Spritual by Soul.She the phenomenal lethal consolidation of commitment, concern and consecration.Her outset as a writer to Internationally published Author is persuasive in itself.To one's surprise and belief, she started inking up her feelings, after abrupt demise of her beloved mother (Mrs Anjana Saxena) , in May,2019 and her complete absence from life,made her frame melancholy, immortal bereaved feelings as florilegium of poetic frame,stringed with emotions.
Stuti Saxena Singh's writing journey started on 5th May, 2020,she came up with her life's first Solo Authored Book "माँ -एक काव्य संग्रह" -pulchritudinous garner of poignant affectivity & rhapsodic sentiments , framed in poetic format. This book carry rosary of exquisite moments,expressed in words,needled as prized lavalliere. This book paves tribute to the priceless heritage of our lives " माँ "।।
And from there she started her journey in the field of literature.So far have added one more Book, by solo Authorship -- "Anjana Unfathomable Ocean Of Love".
Author Stuti Saxena Singh associated with following organization's
•Recently started working as UNICEF Member for poverty stricken population and is associated with WFP by UN.
•Associated with Bharat Girl UP NGO, associated with UN and IAWA Member
•Associated with SSIF, NGO, registered under Niti Aayog working for betterment of humanity.
•Magazine Feature of Author Stuti Saxena Singh
•Her outstanding work got outlined as Coverpage Feature of Hello India Magazine, 1st Edition, by SPC Media.
•Literary Journey featured in 1st Issue, Alcanzar International Magazine.
•Author Interview by Editorial Board of Tridesta Magazine, Flairs and Glairs Publication.
•Literary Work featured in Wall of Fame and Author Interview by Merged Array Magazine.
•Author Interview by Editorial Team of Elysian Magazine, The Unheard Stories.
•Literary Journey got featured in Second Edition of International Art and Literature Magazine- PHOSPHENES.
•Her literary journey to be Featured by editorial board of NewYork Express, Washington Times Now in March 2023.
•Featured as Top 15 Finest Personalities of the Globe, by Elysian Pens.
•Featured in Femmetimes Magazine as India's Inspiration Women of the Year, 2023.
•Internationally Published Author & World Record Holder
•Her poems got platformed on various International podiums, including Too Well Away Literary Journal, USA, Issue1,2 & 3,Wild Sound Feedback Films & Writing Festival, Toronto, Canada.
•Year 2023 started with nomination of her first solo book "माँ- एक काव्य संग्रह Book of World Records London for year 2023.
•Her Book "माँ- एक काव्य संग्रह , to receive token of appreciation in literature field by Governer of West Bengal, accompained by Cabinet Ministry of Rajasthan in 2023.
•Nominated for Women The Inspirer Award, 2023.
•Will be receiving National Women's Excellence Award, 2023, & Rashtriya Mahila Shakti Puruskaar, 2023 for her appreciable work in literature field and as a social activist in occasion of International Women's Day 2023.
•Will be receiving Kalpna Chawla Memorial Award, 2023,by Vishv Hindi Rachnakaar Manch for her outstanding work as Aspiring Author.
•Awarded with Pride of India Award, 2023,by Social Foundation,NGO, Registered under Niti Aayog.
•Got awarded by the INKZOID Book Of Records
•Awarded with Nation's Pride Award 2023,by Forever Star Book of World Records
•Awarded with Global Professional Awards 2023 as Aspiring Author of the Year , by Indian Professional Awards, event organised by GOREA.
•She is the Author of - "माँ- एक काव्य संग्रेह"( Among Top 7 Amazing books by Indian Authors by Foxinterviewer, IndiaEthics, DailyHunt)
•One of her Co Authored Book "प्राचीन भरतीय इति हास की विसंगतिया "- By D.K Saxena and Stuti Saxena Singh, Selected by Directorate of Legal Affairs,Central Board of Excise and Customs,New Delhi,Govt Of India.
STUTI SAXENA SINGH'S ACHIEVEMENTS
Stuti Saxena Singh's achievements can be portrayed by a glimpse of her short literary journey in which she is a published Co Author in nearly 100+ Anthologies( including International,National,World Record, MSME projects),her Poems, Articles and Stories have been published in various National and International Journals and Magazines,she has added various golden feathers in her cap during her short literary journey and most importantly has credited prestigious World Records on her name including IBR(2), OMG(3), Bravo International Book of World Records, Vajra Book Of Records, INKZOID Book Of Records & Kalam Book of World Records.
Recent Year, 2022,marks the applause for her hard work, paved in form of Appreciations, Rewards, Felicitation, and Appraisals which are as follows :-
•Honoured with Ambassador Of Patriotism by IBR, on 26th Jan, 2022.
•Awarded with Saraswati DadaSaheb Phalke, International Iconic Women Award, 2022,for outstanding contribution in field of Literature, as Author.
•Received International Women's Laureate Award, 2022.
•Received National Record Holder Pride Award, 2022,by Navbharat Rashtriya Gyanpeeth.
•Received National Women Pride Award,2022, by Navbhrat Rashtriya Gyanpeeth Received The Real Super Woman Award, 2022,( Author, UNICEF & IAWA Member) by FSIA, Season 3.
Previously Year 2021,her literature journey is awarded with various Awards,including Kalpna Chawla Memorial Award, Her Ka Hunar Award, National Level Pratibha Samman Golden Peacock Award,for excellent & appreciable work in field of Literature, Lambda Literary Award( Category- Author)by Forever Star World Records.
√Best Writer Attainer Award, 2021 for ,"माँ"- एक काव्य संग्रह" by JEC Publications.
•Best Poetry Book,"माँ"- एक काव्य संग्रह", 2021,by Felecia Words Publication House, Best Poet Award, by Spectrum Awards, Fantixx Publication, 2021. Uttrakhand Mahila Ratn Samman, 2021by Vishv Hindi Rachnakaar Manch. Recognized as Literary Icon by NE8X for Literary Excellence in Writing and Published Book Outreach.
•Received Scroll Of Honour 2021,by NE8X on eve of National Authors Day.
•Speaker Honour, 2021,for esteem contribution across speaker sessions and inspiring the Next Generation Writers .
•Rabindra Nath Tagore international Prize of Art and Literature 2021,for significant contribution and excellence in literature.
•In Year,2020,She was awarded with WORDSMITH AWARD by Asian Literary Society, Editorial Choice Award at Nazmehayat.
•Rising Star (Writer) by Face Of India, Tarangini, Mumbai.
•Real Super Woman,2020(Writer, Author) by FSIA. Nari Gaurav Samman 2020.
•Rising Author of the year, 2020,by Indian Professional Awards, event organised by GOREA.

tw: gun violence, abuse, cheating, emotional manipulation, neglect, suicide ideation/mention. please use discretion when reading.
i want to preface this by saying, i don’t hate my best friend, i still love him and want more than anything to patch up our friendship, but i just can’t keep defending the hurt he causes, and his decisions are really making it hard for me to ignore the alarm bells ringing in my head. i have to tell someone about this, because letting it stagnate in silence is slowly tearing me apart.
i (23M) met my best friend (21M) back in November of last year. for the sake of this explanation, i’m going to call him Dave. dave and i are both pansexual and met through a discord server with one of our special interests, and we really clicked. i was especially excited about this friendship because he was the first neurodivergent friend i had managed to make, and talking to him felt natural, it was easy to open up to him about anything and everything.
it only took us like maybe 3 weeks before dave and i started texting every minute of the day and talking until late at night, like 2 or 3 am at times. we’d talk about everything from our fave foods and shows to our spiritual beliefs and deep philosophical things like our place in the world. we shared about our trauma, i told him about the abuse and covert incest i grew up having to deal with and he told me about having survived a close call with a school shooter. i made it very clear how hard it was to trust people, and the ways in which the abuse impacts and hurts me the most, and how i have been working on trying to heal from the damage left behind by people who were supposed to be my family.
my mother abused me and neglected my needs as an autistic child due to the fact that i was lgbt. my stepfather molested my sister and groomed me, and when i developed an eating disorder to try and make myself unappealing to him, he restricted my access to food and made the family home into a cage, controlling when and if i was allowed outside, and where i was allowed to go, who i was allowed to contact. the trauma it left in me lingers in unexpected ways and has a deep influence on my mental health and abysmal self esteem, and due to their influence being based on their religious views, it has made it hard for me to be around religious spaces and people without it triggering my CPTSD.
dave was incredibly empathetic to all of this when he first heard of the things i had experienced. he accepted me with open arms and the amount of attention and care he showed me bordered on alarming at times, but since he and i are both autistic i chalked it up to irrational fears based on my own trauma and ignored the red flags bc i was so excited to make a neurodivergent friend that genuinely clicked with me, someone i can finally feel seen and understood by. dave has never experienced abuse before, and has a healthy and supportive relationship with his family, but he made me feel seen, and he showed love and affection in ways i’d never experienced before. not even previous partners had shown me this level of attention and affection.
at some point in between us talking and spending time together, playing games together and calling until the early mornings, dave’s affectionate displays started getting increasingly romantic and flirtatious, and he began referring to me by cute little nicknames based on our favorite ships. it made me feel really wanted and like he was romantically interested in me, so i started crushing on him and awkwardly tried (but mostly failed) to hide it from him in order to preserve the friendship we had already.
dave started noticing that i was catching feelings and started sending a ton of mixed signals, like flirting but saying that he meant it platonically and that it’s “just how he is” and he eventually introduced me to two of his friends, a trans woman and a lesbian. i’ll give the trans gal the name Jade, and the lesbian gal the name Rose. the way that dave interacted with them vs with me was like night and day, he was way less flirty with them than he’d get with me and rose was often picking fights and then going to me to vent about dave without really considering my feelings about only being relevant when she needed to vent. jade on the other hand was very kind and considerate, albeit busy due to working a 9 to 5.
rose apparently couldn’t come to terms with the fact that she identified as a lesbian but was crushing on dave, and she hinted at being jealous of me because he “gave me special attention” which really made me realize just how differently he acted around me vs around her and jade, but while jade didn’t think anything of it, rose was upset over it, and took out her frustrations on me when i asked dave about it. when i talked with dave about it i told him about what rose had told me about him, and it became a huge deal where dave wanted to confront rose and rose was accusing me of stealing him from her and sabotaging their relationship— and during the chaos i found out that dave had a boyfriend the entire time. let’s call him john.
so then rose and dave were both fighting, rose was treating me and john like garbage behind the scenes, and dave decided he’d had enough and cut ties with rose, and i blocked her to preserve my mental health, but it doesn’t end there. it gets more chaotic.
after rose left the picture, dave’s mixed signals started getting way more intense. one minute he’d talk about wanting to spend his life with me and use the most poetic and romantic ways of describing me, and then the next he’d be insisting that he loves john and that no one could ever compare to him. he’d talk about wanting to meet me in every timeline and universe and then say that all his flirting was meant to be platonic. dave would insist that i’m attractive to him sexually, that he has intimate fantasies about me and that he wanted to pop my cherry, and then he would later say that he’s like that with all his friends.
it was really confusing, because i could never tell if dave liked me back or if this was just his way of joking around as queerplatonic friends, and the more romantic things he’d hint at and the more he flirted, the deeper my feelings for him got. it became way harder to hide it from him because of how big my emotions tend to get, especially where romance and love are involved. i have a hard time with my emotions and when i bottle them up for long enough, they tend to come out in a huge burst, and i’m still learning to process my emotions in a healthier, less intense way. having him as the primary source of affection in such a large and deep capacity, i let my guard way down and found myself looking forward to and trying to extend our time spent together each time. he truly made my day a little brighter when he was around.
dave would say things like “everyone else drains me, but you’re like my battery, i always feel better when i’m around you” and it’d make me feel so special. he would even go out of his way to try and make me shy or flustered when we were on calls together, so it made me think that he was genuinely into me when he’d act that way. i loved it so much, i adored him and thought highly of him, and i went the extra mile every time to make sure he always felt accommodated and validated. it’s not a lie to say that i was very devoted to him, i strived to make him happy every day and to support him through thick and thin, because that’s how i knew how to express my love for him, through acts of service and spending lots of quality time with him so that he’d know that i cherished him deeply. i even felt a little proud of myself, for being as supportive i could be, even when it contradicted with my own needs or my life outside of him. i gave him the love i hoped to have in return, the love i never received from my family.
this is where things take a turn.
dave started getting burned out and his mental health started to decline, and as a result he announced to me and all his friends that he was no longer going to be emotionally available to anyone. he started withdrawing completely, and started venting about his current relationship with john being strained, and feeling neglected by john. being so close to him, i couldn’t help worrying about him and sympathizing with him since i knew the pain of being neglected all too well, so i did everything i could to support him.
i’d write little songs and silly poems to cheer dave up, i’d play online games with him and call and i’d talk about his special interests with him to make him feel better, and i’d always drop what i’m doing to make myself available to him when he needed someone to talk to. i was dave’s shoulder to cry on, and helping him made me feel really important to him, like i was as much his best friend as he was mine. more and more he’d vent about john not meeting his needs emotionally, and making him feel selfish for wanting affection, and so i tried to give him my affection in hopes it’d help him feel better.
dave was happy to accept all the affection i gave him, while insisting that it didn’t mean that he was breaking up with john. it felt like he was letting me crush hard on him but wasn’t ever going to consider me as anything beyond his best friend, and the rejection part of it always hurt, but i just let it be because i rationalized that being there for him mattered more than my feelings for him. instead, i put all my love into supporting him and his endeavors. i’d give him praise and feedback on his art, his writing, his doll redesigns, his singing, and his voice acting auditions. i’d pray for him to make it into his auditions and i’d listen to the recordings to give him feedback before he sends them out, and this resulted in him getting a role in a visual novel that we both loved to death and was keeping track of the development of.
im still so incredibly proud of him for making the role, and i still look for more VA opportunities for him so he can build up his portfolio, since dave is a theater major. i’m an animation major myself, and i often find myself inspired by my favorite voice actors in different shows, musicals and films so it felt natural for me to support him as upcoming talent.
but then once he started working with the dev team for the visual novel, dave started crushing on one of the other VAs, and as a result he started treating me differently. he went from talking to me every day even when he was burned out to being silent for days, and then occasionally remembering to say hi. he stopped calling me altogether, stopped flirting, stopped hanging out, stopped talking sweet and poetic like he’d been doing for months, it was jarring just how suddenly he made a 180. dave started gushing about his crush and insisting on not disclosing the identity of his crush, which was alarming for me because he’d never felt a need to hide anything from me before now, and this made me feel as though he didn’t trust me, despite me still continuing to show him support and care.
i’d try to ask dave about it and offer him support on navigating these feelings he’s having, and he’d insist that he promised his crush not to tell anyone, but then he’d drop hints about the crush to jade and other friends in our circle, like saying his crush had curly hair and was sweet and reminded him a lot of his comfort character from the visual novel, and saying he wanted to move to another state to be closer to his crush. he’d also talk about how his crush was giving him so much affection and attention, more than anything he’s ever had, which hurt to hear when i had been giving him my love and attention since the very start. it often felt like dave was comparing his crush to me and saying that his crush did everything i did but better, which really impacted my self esteem because i valued his opinion greatly.
but using dave’s hints and the timeframe of when he started mentioning having a crush, i was able to piece together that his crush was one of the VAs in the dev team, but i didn’t do anything with the info, i just kept quiet about it. the way i saw it at the time was that he was likely going to stay loyal to his john and get over the crush he has on his fellow coworker on the dev team.
around this time, i was in the middle of my second semester of college and my gallbladder failed on me in the middle of class. i was in so much pain that the dean himself drove me to the ER, and i stayed overnight. i was so scared, i had no friends at my college and dave was in another college further away in our state, so i was in the hospital all alone, in a ton of pain, and i wanted nothing more than to have friends there to support me. i regarded dave as not just a friend, not just a crush, but my best friend above all, so i hoped he’d be there for me.
and for a small portion of it he was, but my time with him was limited when i was hospitalized. he was always around long enough to vent about arguments with john and to gush about how he wants his crush to romance him, but not long enough to reassure me or be my shoulder to cry on when i needed his support more than ever, and i felt immense guilt for needing to lean on him during such a scary time, but while he had a support network that included me, jade could only offer sympathy and dave couldn’t offer even a few minutes of hearing what i’m going through. it really hurt, and still i tried to see things from his perspective. he was burned out still after all, and the stress of his relationship having issues must have been draining him of all his energy, that was what i used to rationalize his lack of support and care.
i had my first surgery the following morning, just in time to avoid me going into critical condition according to my doctor, and i was completely alone going into it, not knowing if i’d make it out the other side of the surgery, and when i was in recovery dave expressed some relief that i was recovering, but his attention was mostly focused on his relationship issues and his crush. i couldn’t understand why he wasn’t as concerned with the fact that i had a medical emergency, and i was still hurt, but i reasoned that it was better to not say anything about it because he’s having a hard time too, and when its all resolved we’d go back to our friendship again.
but then things got even worse. i was bedridden for 3 weeks during my recovery, completely incapable of moving to feed myself, bathe, or use the bathroom, and that time was counted as unexcused absences at my college. i was dropped as a student, my on campus ob fired me as a result, and i lost housing because i was living in the dorms and had no family to support me or car to sleep in, so i ended up losing my job, my school and my housing all at once. i became homeless.
i was absolutely devastated, my whole life was falling apart because of a surgery that saved my life, and more than ever i needed dave to be there for me, but he withdrew completely. his relationship with john was blowing up because he’d been caught cheating on john with his crush, had seen all the texts on his phone and discord messages and broke up with him, and so dave was too caught up in the emotions of that breakup to be there for me.
even still, i tried to be there for him and support him. i still reassured him every time he cried to me, but when i’d cry i was always alone, and he’d just apologize and say he doesn’t have the energy to handle me and my big emotions, that it was overwhelming being around me. where he used to insist on wanting me to cling to him, he now wanted space from me and told me i was being too clingy.
even more confusing was that he felt guilty about the cheating for all of a week before he started gushing about his crush again and spoke of how he anticipated dating said crush, even having a countdown to when he’d ask his crush to make things official, all while still living with his newly ex boyfriend john. around this point was when i started wanting to figure out who that crush was, because if they were enough to make him tear his own 2 year relationship apart, surely they must be someone special, right? i never saw dave as the cheating type, so it was the only explanation i could think of, and so i started doing some searching based on the hints, and i paid close attention to when he’d gush about his crush to me, despite how conflicted it made me feel.
during one of his gushing sessions he’d admitted that i knew the crush and had interacted with them before, and that they were on the visual novel development server dave and i were active in, and when i asked him if it was someone on the dev team all he said was “please don’t bother them”, so my gut told me i was on the right track. when i looked at all the little hints he’d dropped, i was able to piece together that it was one of two VAs that he worked very closely with, and so far i’m not able to pinpoint which of the two is the crush in question without directly asking dave or the VAs. i’ll refer to one of them as karkat and the other as sollux.
dave’s openly mentioned having spent a ton of time with karkat in calls and playing crazy 8’s, he’s mentioned his mysterious crush being into dnd and even being a dm, and has said that he wanted to cosplay with his crush and do couples cosplays with his crush based on the characters in the visual novel.
so with all of those details in mind it really solidified that it can only be one of the two VAs he works closest with, and all i need to confirm which one is one small detail: how much do either of them know about dave’s relationship recently ending. if i can find that out without needing to bother either of the two VAs i’d basically have confirmation on which one of them is dave’s crush that he cheated on john with, but even then, would there even be a point in having that info? a few weeks after dave’s breakup his crush told him that he’s moved on and doesn’t want to be a rebound, so now dave’s prior relationship was ruined for nothing and he’s still hung up on the crush’s rejection far more than his 2 year relationship ending. i can’t wrap my head around it.
all the while dave has been ignoring me having my whole life fall apart due to an uncontrollable medical emergency, which is really what hurts the most in all of this. my life fell apart for no reason and he continues to say that his breakup is the reason he can’t show any compassion or empathy for me as his best friend, when he’s shown that he doesn’t even care about the relationship ending, he just wants his crush to take him on a date.
for awhile i was really upset with dave over it, and i tried multiple times to communicate how his neglect of our friendship is hurting me, but he’d always turn it around and insist that i was being insensitive and hurting him, and that it was unfair of me to lean on him because what he’s going through is just as bad as having to sleep in a shelter and lacking any support. he even told me during one of the times i opened up to him that i was being unbelievably offensive for having expressed that the neglect has made me feel less valued as a person and has had a huge impact on my self worth, that his actions made me feel really unloved and like i never really mattered to him.
here’s where things reach their worst.
the worst of it came when my mental health reached an all time low. i was in a really bad headspace where it was hard to push away thoughts of self harm and unaliving myself due to my life falling apart. i felt completely alone, and being neglected by my best friend on top of having lost everything else that made life stable made me feel like giving up was the only way out of the nightmare i was living. i started getting into dangerous territory with suicidal ideation, even having an exit plan, and as a last cry for help i opened up to him about how i was contemplating quitting life. i trusted him with knowing because in my mind i had thought he cared about me enough to offer me the comfort i needed most in that moment to alleviate these feelings and pull me out of that headspace, but instead he got angry and freaked out, and then sent the cops over. the police visit was all my college needed to have me kicked out of the dorms faster.
i’ve had really bad experiences with cops being called on me by my abusers when i was younger, and i’d told dave this plenty of times before, so him having brought the police to my location sent me into a panic attack, and then when i was in the middle of that panic attack dave got overwhelmed by my panic attack and left me to handle the police alone in order to preserve his energy, and i told him directly after i had dealt with the police and calmed down that what he did severely hurt my trust in him, but that i forgave him because i could understand that he was trying to help me even if it was in the ways i’d told him would hurt me.
the weeks following this incident dave grew really distant with me, even more than before, and i was put in the shelter i’m currently stuck in to this day. i wasn’t allowed to bring my emotional support animal with me, so the separation anxiety was making me lose sleep, and still dave wasn’t answering any of my texts or messages. it made me question if he really regarded me as his best friend the way i regarded him as mine, and it made me feel really worthless. maintaining a conversation with dave only got harder and harder, because he’d either leave mid conversation or take days, sometimes even weeks to answer, and then he’d get mad at me when i ask to spend time with him, or say that he doesn’t have the energy to spend time with me and then i’d find out that he immediately left to call karkat and sollux for hours on end. even jade has noticed the difference in the way dave interacts with me now.
having been effectively isolated here at this shelter, i’ve been pushing myself to work harder than i’ve ever worked to get back into a job. one of the reasons being that dave’s birthday was around the same time i lost everything, so i wasnt able to follow through on getting him a $150 doll i promised him, so every day i applied to anywhere between 25-80 jobs on a library computer so i can speedrun getting hired and send him his late birthday gift. the other reason is more obvious, to get back on my feet and have a home i can feel safe in and sleep in. but i was so dedicated to him that i’ve kept the savings for his gift completely untouched— the $50 i had initially saved up for his gift i’ve refused to use for anything else so that i can use my first paycheck to send him the doll with the remaining money needed, and at times i’ve had to borrow money from my sister just to feed myself without touching the doll money.
when i really look back at it, i can’t help but feel that i’ve been extremely loyal to dave and as supportive as i can possibly be as his friend, despite all the different ways he made me feel hurt and strung along, and i really wish he’d just go back to treating me like close friends again. i don’t care if he never dates me, i just want to be able to hang out with him again and talk to him openly like i used to be able to, i miss him and the closeness we used to have and sometimes his actions and words make me feel like he’s ready to cut me loose for his new friends and crush within the dev team.
i feel lost, because when we were close i felt like dave really knew me and loved me for who i am and i thought i knew him, but now there’s days where he takes a complete 180 and becomes someone i hardly recognize, and my autistic brain struggles to wrap my head around it. where before i could just say what was on my mind and he’d listen and understand it being straightforward, now every time i talk to him he tries to find some hidden meaning related to my old crush on him, even though now i’ve lost those romantic feelings towards him and just want our friendship back.
dave’s attempts at trying to find double meaning in my straightforward and earnest attempts to work this friendship out makes so many miscommunications happen between us that turn into arguments, and he says really hurtful things when they happen, like calling me manipulative for expressing my sadness over losing the things that made our friendship so wonderful.
dave would accuse me of guilt tripping him when i tell him about my struggles with my mental health as a result of my circumstances and how i’ve been working hard to get better on my own, and then when i try to explain myself to him to clear up the miscommunications he’d insist that his autism is the cause of the misunderstanding when he’s never had trouble understanding me before he was aware of my former crush on him. it’s only now that he’s reading into my words for hidden meanings that aren’t there.
i’m not sure if dave really understands just how much his words hurt me, or the gravity of the damage it causes when he says those things to me. i started therapy to try and unlearn all of the harmful things i’d grown up with due to the abuse, and it’s a struggle for me to unlearn all the harmful ways in which i’d blame myself for the abuse i went through when dave, whose opinion i value deeply, says that i’m being manipulative in the heat of an argument that started because of miscommunication. he always apologizes and i’m always going to love and forgive him for it, but the cracks it leaves behind in me don’t go away, they stick and my trauma latches onto it as a reason to believe i deserved that abuse i grew up with. i’m still trying to push back against that belief that i deserved to be hurt.
there’s some things that no matter how much i forgive and understand dave for doing and saying, still leave damage behind that i can’t patch up. i still love him beyond all rationality, i see him as a really important part of my life and i’ll always be grateful for the fact that he hasn’t given up on our friendship yet, but i’m left in a situation where our friendship is strained and stagnant, and no matter how much i research ways to mend it or i try to connect with him, i just can’t seem to get past this wall he’s put between us and i can’t help but feel like it’s my fault, like i shouldn’t have caught feelings or opened up to him about my mental health, and i especially regret having put him in a situation where he was traumatized by me feeling suicidal.
i don’t think i can forgive myself for it, but i still want to mend this and make it up to him. dave admitted to me that the night i was suicidal was traumatic for him, and has given him nightmares, and i can’t forgive myself for the fact that my cry for help ended up scarring him as much as it did. if i had known it’d be traumatic for him to experience that, i would’ve never told him and i don’t know who i would’ve turned to or what would’ve happened if i couldn’t find anyone i can turn to, but i would’ve made sure he never knew.
since all of this, the most we’ve gotten to really interact as friends lately has been us being players in a recently formed dnd group, i’m loose friends with the dm and both dave and jade are players, and we have sessions maybe once or twice a month. i’ve ruled out the dm being karkat or sollux, for those curious— this dm isn’t in the dev team and is female, and has been married for 5 years.
since the dnd sessions are the most dave talks to me as of late, i’ve gone as far as walking from one end of town to the other just to find free wifi to attend each session and i plan to do it again for tomorrow’s dnd session. all i really want is to go back to the way our friendship was before all this drama started, but i’m struggling to make any headway with reconnecting with dave.
is there a better way to work through this? i’ve given him space, i’ve tried several different ways to communicate with him, and i’ve been understanding and supportive of him through the hardest parts of this journey. i don’t think my efforts are enough, and i miss him dearly.

tw: gun violence, abuse, cheating, emotional manipulation, neglect, suicide ideation/mention. please use discretion when reading.
i want to preface this by saying, i don’t hate my best friend, i still love him and want more than anything to patch up our friendship, but i just can’t keep defending the hurt he causes, and his decisions are really making it hard for me to ignore the alarm bells ringing in my head. i have to tell someone about this, because letting it stagnate in silence is slowly tearing me apart.
i (23M) met my best friend (21M) back in November of last year. for the sake of this explanation, i’m going to call him Dave. dave and i are both pansexual and met through a discord server with one of our special interests, and we really clicked. i was especially excited about this friendship because he was the first neurodivergent friend i had managed to make, and talking to him felt natural, it was easy to open up to him about anything and everything.
it only took us like maybe 3 weeks before dave and i started texting every minute of the day and talking until late at night, like 2 or 3 am at times. we’d talk about everything from our fave foods and shows to our spiritual beliefs and deep philosophical things like our place in the world. we shared about our trauma, i told him about the abuse and covert incest i grew up having to deal with and he told me about having survived a close call with a school shooter. i made it very clear how hard it was to trust people, and the ways in which the abuse impacts and hurts me the most, and how i have been working on trying to heal from the damage left behind by people who were supposed to be my family.
my mother abused me and neglected my needs as an autistic child due to the fact that i was lgbt. my stepfather molested my sister and groomed me, and when i developed an eating disorder to try and make myself unappealing to him, he restricted my access to food and made the family home into a cage, controlling when and if i was allowed outside, and where i was allowed to go, who i was allowed to contact. the trauma it left in me lingers in unexpected ways and has a deep influence on my mental health and abysmal self esteem, and due to their influence being based on their religious views, it has made it hard for me to be around religious spaces and people without it triggering my CPTSD.
dave was incredibly empathetic to all of this when he first heard of the things i had experienced. he accepted me with open arms and the amount of attention and care he showed me bordered on alarming at times, but since he and i are both autistic i chalked it up to irrational fears based on my own trauma and ignored the red flags bc i was so excited to make a neurodivergent friend that genuinely clicked with me, someone i can finally feel seen and understood by. dave has never experienced abuse before, and has a healthy and supportive relationship with his family, but he made me feel seen, and he showed love and affection in ways i’d never experienced before. not even previous partners had shown me this level of attention and affection.
at some point in between us talking and spending time together, playing games together and calling until the early mornings, dave’s affectionate displays started getting increasingly romantic and flirtatious, and he began referring to me by cute little nicknames based on our favorite ships. it made me feel really wanted and like he was romantically interested in me, so i started crushing on him and awkwardly tried (but mostly failed) to hide it from him in order to preserve the friendship we had already.
dave started noticing that i was catching feelings and started sending a ton of mixed signals, like flirting but saying that he meant it platonically and that it’s “just how he is” and he eventually introduced me to two of his friends, a trans woman and a lesbian. i’ll give the trans gal the name Jade, and the lesbian gal the name Rose. the way that dave interacted with them vs with me was like night and day, he was way less flirty with them than he’d get with me and rose was often picking fights and then going to me to vent about dave without really considering my feelings about only being relevant when she needed to vent. jade on the other hand was very kind and considerate, albeit busy due to working a 9 to 5.
rose apparently couldn’t come to terms with the fact that she identified as a lesbian but was crushing on dave, and she hinted at being jealous of me because he “gave me special attention” which really made me realize just how differently he acted around me vs around her and jade, but while jade didn’t think anything of it, rose was upset over it, and took out her frustrations on me when i asked dave about it. when i talked with dave about it i told him about what rose had told me about him, and it became a huge deal where dave wanted to confront rose and rose was accusing me of stealing him from her and sabotaging their relationship— and during the chaos i found out that dave had a boyfriend the entire time. let’s call him john.
so then rose and dave were both fighting, rose was treating me and john like garbage behind the scenes, and dave decided he’d had enough and cut ties with rose, and i blocked her to preserve my mental health, but it doesn’t end there. it gets more chaotic.
after rose left the picture, dave’s mixed signals started getting way more intense. one minute he’d talk about wanting to spend his life with me and use the most poetic and romantic ways of describing me, and then the next he’d be insisting that he loves john and that no one could ever compare to him. he’d talk about wanting to meet me in every timeline and universe and then say that all his flirting was meant to be platonic. dave would insist that i’m attractive to him sexually, that he has intimate fantasies about me and that he wanted to pop my cherry, and then he would later say that he’s like that with all his friends.
it was really confusing, because i could never tell if dave liked me back or if this was just his way of joking around as queerplatonic friends, and the more romantic things he’d hint at and the more he flirted, the deeper my feelings for him got. it became way harder to hide it from him because of how big my emotions tend to get, especially where romance and love are involved. i have a hard time with my emotions and when i bottle them up for long enough, they tend to come out in a huge burst, and i’m still learning to process my emotions in a healthier, less intense way. having him as the primary source of affection in such a large and deep capacity, i let my guard way down and found myself looking forward to and trying to extend our time spent together each time. he truly made my day a little brighter when he was around.
dave would say things like “everyone else drains me, but you’re like my battery, i always feel better when i’m around you” and it’d make me feel so special. he would even go out of his way to try and make me shy or flustered when we were on calls together, so it made me think that he was genuinely into me when he’d act that way. i loved it so much, i adored him and thought highly of him, and i went the extra mile every time to make sure he always felt accommodated and validated. it’s not a lie to say that i was very devoted to him, i strived to make him happy every day and to support him through thick and thin, because that’s how i knew how to express my love for him, through acts of service and spending lots of quality time with him so that he’d know that i cherished him deeply. i even felt a little proud of myself, for being as supportive i could be, even when it contradicted with my own needs or my life outside of him. i gave him the love i hoped to have in return, the love i never received from my family.
this is where things take a turn.
dave started getting burned out and his mental health started to decline, and as a result he announced to me and all his friends that he was no longer going to be emotionally available to anyone. he started withdrawing completely, and started venting about his current relationship with john being strained, and feeling neglected by john. being so close to him, i couldn’t help worrying about him and sympathizing with him since i knew the pain of being neglected all too well, so i did everything i could to support him.
i’d write little songs and silly poems to cheer dave up, i’d play online games with him and call and i’d talk about his special interests with him to make him feel better, and i’d always drop what i’m doing to make myself available to him when he needed someone to talk to. i was dave’s shoulder to cry on, and helping him made me feel really important to him, like i was as much his best friend as he was mine. more and more he’d vent about john not meeting his needs emotionally, and making him feel selfish for wanting affection, and so i tried to give him my affection in hopes it’d help him feel better.
dave was happy to accept all the affection i gave him, while insisting that it didn’t mean that he was breaking up with john. it felt like he was letting me crush hard on him but wasn’t ever going to consider me as anything beyond his best friend, and the rejection part of it always hurt, but i just let it be because i rationalized that being there for him mattered more than my feelings for him. instead, i put all my love into supporting him and his endeavors. i’d give him praise and feedback on his art, his writing, his doll redesigns, his singing, and his voice acting auditions. i’d pray for him to make it into his auditions and i’d listen to the recordings to give him feedback before he sends them out, and this resulted in him getting a role in a visual novel that we both loved to death and was keeping track of the development of.
im still so incredibly proud of him for making the role, and i still look for more VA opportunities for him so he can build up his portfolio, since dave is a theater major. i’m an animation major myself, and i often find myself inspired by my favorite voice actors in different shows, musicals and films so it felt natural for me to support him as upcoming talent.
but then once he started working with the dev team for the visual novel, dave started crushing on one of the other VAs, and as a result he started treating me differently. he went from talking to me every day even when he was burned out to being silent for days, and then occasionally remembering to say hi. he stopped calling me altogether, stopped flirting, stopped hanging out, stopped talking sweet and poetic like he’d been doing for months, it was jarring just how suddenly he made a 180. dave started gushing about his crush and insisting on not disclosing the identity of his crush, which was alarming for me because he’d never felt a need to hide anything from me before now, and this made me feel as though he didn’t trust me, despite me still continuing to show him support and care.
i’d try to ask dave about it and offer him support on navigating these feelings he’s having, and he’d insist that he promised his crush not to tell anyone, but then he’d drop hints about the crush to jade and other friends in our circle, like saying his crush had curly hair and was sweet and reminded him a lot of his comfort character from the visual novel, and saying he wanted to move to another state to be closer to his crush. he’d also talk about how his crush was giving him so much affection and attention, more than anything he’s ever had, which hurt to hear when i had been giving him my love and attention since the very start. it often felt like dave was comparing his crush to me and saying that his crush did everything i did but better, which really impacted my self esteem because i valued his opinion greatly.
but using dave’s hints and the timeframe of when he started mentioning having a crush, i was able to piece together that his crush was one of the VAs in the dev team, but i didn’t do anything with the info, i just kept quiet about it. the way i saw it at the time was that he was likely going to stay loyal to his john and get over the crush he has on his fellow coworker on the dev team.
around this time, i was in the middle of my second semester of college and my gallbladder failed on me in the middle of class. i was in so much pain that the dean himself drove me to the ER, and i stayed overnight. i was so scared, i had no friends at my college and dave was in another college further away in our state, so i was in the hospital all alone, in a ton of pain, and i wanted nothing more than to have friends there to support me. i regarded dave as not just a friend, not just a crush, but my best friend above all, so i hoped he’d be there for me.
and for a small portion of it he was, but my time with him was limited when i was hospitalized. he was always around long enough to vent about arguments with john and to gush about how he wants his crush to romance him, but not long enough to reassure me or be my shoulder to cry on when i needed his support more than ever, and i felt immense guilt for needing to lean on him during such a scary time, but while he had a support network that included me, jade could only offer sympathy and dave couldn’t offer even a few minutes of hearing what i’m going through. it really hurt, and still i tried to see things from his perspective. he was burned out still after all, and the stress of his relationship having issues must have been draining him of all his energy, that was what i used to rationalize his lack of support and care.
i had my first surgery the following morning, just in time to avoid me going into critical condition according to my doctor, and i was completely alone going into it, not knowing if i’d make it out the other side of the surgery, and when i was in recovery dave expressed some relief that i was recovering, but his attention was mostly focused on his relationship issues and his crush. i couldn’t understand why he wasn’t as concerned with the fact that i had a medical emergency, and i was still hurt, but i reasoned that it was better to not say anything about it because he’s having a hard time too, and when its all resolved we’d go back to our friendship again.
but then things got even worse. i was bedridden for 3 weeks during my recovery, completely incapable of moving to feed myself, bathe, or use the bathroom, and that time was counted as unexcused absences at my college. i was dropped as a student, my on campus ob fired me as a result, and i lost housing because i was living in the dorms and had no family to support me or car to sleep in, so i ended up losing my job, my school and my housing all at once. i became homeless.
i was absolutely devastated, my whole life was falling apart because of a surgery that saved my life, and more than ever i needed dave to be there for me, but he withdrew completely. his relationship with john was blowing up because he’d been caught cheating on john with his crush, had seen all the texts on his phone and discord messages and broke up with him, and so dave was too caught up in the emotions of that breakup to be there for me.
even still, i tried to be there for him and support him. i still reassured him every time he cried to me, but when i’d cry i was always alone, and he’d just apologize and say he doesn’t have the energy to handle me and my big emotions, that it was overwhelming being around me. where he used to insist on wanting me to cling to him, he now wanted space from me and told me i was being too clingy.
even more confusing was that he felt guilty about the cheating for all of a week before he started gushing about his crush again and spoke of how he anticipated dating said crush, even having a countdown to when he’d ask his crush to make things official, all while still living with his newly ex boyfriend john. around this point was when i started wanting to figure out who that crush was, because if they were enough to make him tear his own 2 year relationship apart, surely they must be someone special, right? i never saw dave as the cheating type, so it was the only explanation i could think of, and so i started doing some searching based on the hints, and i paid close attention to when he’d gush about his crush to me, despite how conflicted it made me feel.
during one of his gushing sessions he’d admitted that i knew the crush and had interacted with them before, and that they were on the visual novel development server dave and i were active in, and when i asked him if it was someone on the dev team all he said was “please don’t bother them”, so my gut told me i was on the right track. when i looked at all the little hints he’d dropped, i was able to piece together that it was one of two VAs that he worked very closely with, and so far i’m not able to pinpoint which of the two is the crush in question without directly asking dave or the VAs. i’ll refer to one of them as karkat and the other as sollux.
dave’s openly mentioned having spent a ton of time with karkat in calls and playing crazy 8’s, he’s mentioned his mysterious crush being into dnd and even being a dm, and has said that he wanted to cosplay with his crush and do couples cosplays with his crush based on the characters in the visual novel.
so with all of those details in mind it really solidified that it can only be one of the two VAs he works closest with, and all i need to confirm which one is one small detail: how much do either of them know about dave’s relationship recently ending. if i can find that out without needing to bother either of the two VAs i’d basically have confirmation on which one of them is dave’s crush that he cheated on john with, but even then, would there even be a point in having that info? a few weeks after dave’s breakup his crush told him that he’s moved on and doesn’t want to be a rebound, so now dave’s prior relationship was ruined for nothing and he’s still hung up on the crush’s rejection far more than his 2 year relationship ending. i can’t wrap my head around it.
all the while dave has been ignoring me having my whole life fall apart due to an uncontrollable medical emergency, which is really what hurts the most in all of this. my life fell apart for no reason and he continues to say that his breakup is the reason he can’t show any compassion or empathy for me as his best friend, when he’s shown that he doesn’t even care about the relationship ending, he just wants his crush to take him on a date.
for awhile i was really upset with dave over it, and i tried multiple times to communicate how his neglect of our friendship is hurting me, but he’d always turn it around and insist that i was being insensitive and hurting him, and that it was unfair of me to lean on him because what he’s going through is just as bad as having to sleep in a shelter and lacking any support. he even told me during one of the times i opened up to him that i was being unbelievably offensive for having expressed that the neglect has made me feel less valued as a person and has had a huge impact on my self worth, that his actions made me feel really unloved and like i never really mattered to him.
here’s where things reach their worst.
the worst of it came when my mental health reached an all time low. i was in a really bad headspace where it was hard to push away thoughts of self harm and unaliving myself due to my life falling apart. i felt completely alone, and being neglected by my best friend on top of having lost everything else that made life stable made me feel like giving up was the only way out of the nightmare i was living. i started getting into dangerous territory with suicidal ideation, even having an exit plan, and as a last cry for help i opened up to him about how i was contemplating quitting life. i trusted him with knowing because in my mind i had thought he cared about me enough to offer me the comfort i needed most in that moment to alleviate these feelings and pull me out of that headspace, but instead he got angry and freaked out, and then sent the cops over. the police visit was all my college needed to have me kicked out of the dorms faster.
i’ve had really bad experiences with cops being called on me by my abusers when i was younger, and i’d told dave this plenty of times before, so him having brought the police to my location sent me into a panic attack, and then when i was in the middle of that panic attack dave got overwhelmed by my panic attack and left me to handle the police alone in order to preserve his energy, and i told him directly after i had dealt with the police and calmed down that what he did severely hurt my trust in him, but that i forgave him because i could understand that he was trying to help me even if it was in the ways i’d told him would hurt me.
the weeks following this incident dave grew really distant with me, even more than before, and i was put in the shelter i’m currently stuck in to this day. i wasn’t allowed to bring my emotional support animal with me, so the separation anxiety was making me lose sleep, and still dave wasn’t answering any of my texts or messages. it made me question if he really regarded me as his best friend the way i regarded him as mine, and it made me feel really worthless. maintaining a conversation with dave only got harder and harder, because he’d either leave mid conversation or take days, sometimes even weeks to answer, and then he’d get mad at me when i ask to spend time with him, or say that he doesn’t have the energy to spend time with me and then i’d find out that he immediately left to call karkat and sollux for hours on end. even jade has noticed the difference in the way dave interacts with me now.
having been effectively isolated here at this shelter, i’ve been pushing myself to work harder than i’ve ever worked to get back into a job. one of the reasons being that dave’s birthday was around the same time i lost everything, so i wasnt able to follow through on getting him a $150 doll i promised him, so every day i applied to anywhere between 25-80 jobs on a library computer so i can speedrun getting hired and send him his late birthday gift. the other reason is more obvious, to get back on my feet and have a home i can feel safe in and sleep in. but i was so dedicated to him that i’ve kept the savings for his gift completely untouched— the $50 i had initially saved up for his gift i’ve refused to use for anything else so that i can use my first paycheck to send him the doll with the remaining money needed, and at times i’ve had to borrow money from my sister just to feed myself without touching the doll money.
when i really look back at it, i can’t help but feel that i’ve been extremely loyal to dave and as supportive as i can possibly be as his friend, despite all the different ways he made me feel hurt and strung along, and i really wish he’d just go back to treating me like close friends again. i don’t care if he never dates me, i just want to be able to hang out with him again and talk to him openly like i used to be able to, i miss him and the closeness we used to have and sometimes his actions and words make me feel like he’s ready to cut me loose for his new friends and crush within the dev team.
i feel lost, because when we were close i felt like dave really knew me and loved me for who i am and i thought i knew him, but now there’s days where he takes a complete 180 and becomes someone i hardly recognize, and my autistic brain struggles to wrap my head around it. where before i could just say what was on my mind and he’d listen and understand it being straightforward, now every time i talk to him he tries to find some hidden meaning related to my old crush on him, even though now i’ve lost those romantic feelings towards him and just want our friendship back.
dave’s attempts at trying to find double meaning in my straightforward and earnest attempts to work this friendship out makes so many miscommunications happen between us that turn into arguments, and he says really hurtful things when they happen, like calling me manipulative for expressing my sadness over losing the things that made our friendship so wonderful.
dave would accuse me of guilt tripping him when i tell him about my struggles with my mental health as a result of my circumstances and how i’ve been working hard to get better on my own, and then when i try to explain myself to him to clear up the miscommunications he’d insist that his autism is the cause of the misunderstanding when he’s never had trouble understanding me before he was aware of my former crush on him. it’s only now that he’s reading into my words for hidden meanings that aren’t there.
i’m not sure if dave really understands just how much his words hurt me, or the gravity of the damage it causes when he says those things to me. i started therapy to try and unlearn all of the harmful things i’d grown up with due to the abuse, and it’s a struggle for me to unlearn all the harmful ways in which i’d blame myself for the abuse i went through when dave, whose opinion i value deeply, says that i’m being manipulative in the heat of an argument that started because of miscommunication. he always apologizes and i’m always going to love and forgive him for it, but the cracks it leaves behind in me don’t go away, they stick and my trauma latches onto it as a reason to believe i deserved that abuse i grew up with. i’m still trying to push back against that belief that i deserved to be hurt.
there’s some things that no matter how much i forgive and understand dave for doing and saying, still leave damage behind that i can’t patch up. i still love him beyond all rationality, i see him as a really important part of my life and i’ll always be grateful for the fact that he hasn’t given up on our friendship yet, but i’m left in a situation where our friendship is strained and stagnant, and no matter how much i research ways to mend it or i try to connect with him, i just can’t seem to get past this wall he’s put between us and i can’t help but feel like it’s my fault, like i shouldn’t have caught feelings or opened up to him about my mental health, and i especially regret having put him in a situation where he was traumatized by me feeling suicidal.
i don’t think i can forgive myself for it, but i still want to mend this and make it up to him. dave admitted to me that the night i was suicidal was traumatic for him, and has given him nightmares, and i can’t forgive myself for the fact that my cry for help ended up scarring him as much as it did. if i had known it’d be traumatic for him to experience that, i would’ve never told him and i don’t know who i would’ve turned to or what would’ve happened if i couldn’t find anyone i can turn to, but i would’ve made sure he never knew.
since all of this, the most we’ve gotten to really interact as friends lately has been us being players in a recently formed dnd group, i’m loose friends with the dm and both dave and jade are players, and we have sessions maybe once or twice a month. i’ve ruled out the dm being karkat or sollux, for those curious— this dm isn’t in the dev team and is female, and has been married for 5 years.
since the dnd sessions are the most dave talks to me as of late, i’ve gone as far as walking from one end of town to the other just to find free wifi to attend each session and i plan to do it again for tomorrow’s dnd session. all i really want is to go back to the way our friendship was before all this drama started, but i’m struggling to make any headway with reconnecting with dave.
is there a better way to work through this? i’ve given him space, i’ve tried several different ways to communicate with him, and i’ve been understanding and supportive of him through the hardest parts of this journey. i don’t think my efforts are enough, and i miss him dearly.

Today (April 1, 2024) marks the start of our reading of the Oedipus Trilogy of plays by Sophocles. These plays are also known as ‘The Theban Plays’ so I will be referring to them using both titles in this post. Despite the date, this reading is real.
This week we will be reading Antigone lines 1 to 700. The discussion post will go up at some point over the weekend.
Oedipus is one of the most famous names in mythology. His story has inspired a lot of other stories by later writers, even Tolkien. His name is still part of a regular phrase in the modern world, the Oedipus Complex, due to Sigmund Freud’s theory on sons and mothers. Oedipus has been mentioned in all types of media, from poems to books to even tv shows like HBO’s Succession. I think it is fair to say that most of us have probably heard of Oedipus and the general outline of his story. However, I feel like there is a lot about Oedipus that is perhaps misunderstood in the modern era. Reading through Sophocles’ version of the myth may help us to understand the story better. If you are wondering which translation to read, please check out my translation guide post.
The plays we are about to read were not written as a trilogy. Instead, they were written over the course of Sophocles lifetime, sometimes with decades between them. We are reading them in the order that Sophocles wrote them – Antigone, Oedipus the King and then Oedipus at Colonus. There are a few different orders that these plays can be read in but this is the one we are going with. This means that there will be spoilers mentioned for the later plays in Antigone. Due to how well-known some of the spoilers are for Oedipus’ story, I don’t think that it will be too big of a problem.
I also want to add a trigger warning for all the plays: there are some very disturbing moments in each of them. Think grimdark/Game of Thrones levels here. For those of you who may be worried about this, I'm going to put the bigger TW in the spoiler text: suicide, incest (between a mother and son), rape (not on page but mentioned), murdeexecution, self-harming, violence and trauma.
If any of the above triggers upsets you, we understand. If you are part of our regular group of readers and want to skip this reading, that's totally okay. We hope you will join us for our next read, Ovid's Metamorphoses, when the time comes for that reading to begin.
Reading/Discussion Post Schedule:
Antigone:
Start Date: 01/04/24
Week One: Lines 1 to 700 - 06/04/24
Week Two: Lines 700 to End - 13/04/24
Oedipus the King:
Start Date: 14/04/24
Week One: Lines 1 to 800 - 20/04/24
Week Two: Lines 800 to End - 27/04/24
Oedipus at Colonus:
Start Date: 28/04/24
Week One: Lines 1 to 1000 - 04/04/24
Week Two: Lines 1000 to End - 11/05/24
Following the end of Oedipus at Colonus we will be taking a week long break, before we begin our next read; Ovid's Metamorphoses
Cultural Context:
As mentioned, for this read along we will be reading Sophocles’ version of the myth. Sophocles was a very well-known playwright/soldiepolitician in Athens in the fifth century BCE. He was born in 496 BCE and lived through most of the century, until 406 BCE. The fifth century BCE in Athens is what we would now class as the Greek golden age – the period that we usually refer to, consciously or subconsciously, when we talk about the ‘Ancient Greeks’. His writings provide us with a wonderful insight into the culture from that time.
There are a few things to note before we read the plays. Firstly, Sophocles plays are not the only version of Oedipus’ story from this period. Oedipus was a myth long before Sophocles was born and was the subject of several different plays throughout this period. Many other famous Greek playwrights wrote about him, but Sophocles’ version is the one that has come down to us intact.
Sophocles was an acclaimed writer during his lifetime. Which brings me to my second point: Sophocles plays were originally written to be performed as part of a big religious festival called the Great Dionysia. This festival was held every spring. It inspired a lot of what became known as theatre but originally it was very much a religious ceremony. Many writers took part every year and the plays were performed to celebrate the god Dionysus. The amphitheater would have been built around a temple to Dionysus. The religion of the time was a core part to these writings. This is one of the reasons why so many plays that we have from this era are based on mythology, because the writers wanted to celebrate their gods. Lastly, it is also of note that Oedipus’ story is set in Thebes – which was an enemy state to Athens, and later a reluctant ally, during Sophocles lifetime.
Antigone:
This play is set after Oedipus and Jocasta’s biological relationship has been revealed. In the fallout of this, their four children are left to rule Thebes. The two sons, Polyneices and Eteocles (alongside Jocasta’s brother Creon) go to war over the Theban throne. Once a victor has been established, Antigone defies their wishes and tries to bury one of her brothers. It does not end well for her.
Oedipus the King:
This is probably the best known of the plays and is probably the version of the story we think of when we think about Oedipus. Most of the trigger warnings above cover most of the story, so I won’t go into too much detail here.
Oedipus at Colonus:
This play was the last play Sophocles wrote. It was published posthumously, by his grandson. This play tells the story of the years following the events of the other plays. This play mainly follows Oedipus in his final days.
Main Characters:

• Oedipus (King of Thebes)
• Jocasta (Queen of Thebes)
• Laius (Jocasta's first husband and the former King of Thebes [his bloodline rules])
• Creon (Jocasta's brother)
• Antigone (daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta)
• Ismene (daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta)
• Polynices (son of Oedipus and Jocasta)
• Eteocles (son of Oedipus and Jocasta)
• Tiresias (a prophet)
• Haemon (Creon's son, betrothed to Antigone)