Spreading Love and Another Feature

Hey guys, it's me again. School's going well, nothing really new to report besides I'm averaging a perfect score in my Composition II class and the grades in all of my other classes are As as well. So you won't hear me complaining about that. Life has been okay, it could be better, could be worse, but I have my core that I know I can lean on. I really don't have much to report on myself anymore besides just being really tired and emotionally and mentally drained. But I shall love till I can't anymore and when I can't; I'll be crumpled in a field, my body wasting away as my soul walks somewhere...

As far as deviantART goes, I've gone through all of my messages that have piled up in the last month which explains the fave bombs the lot of you received, but I'm happy to have caught up on all of y'all's wonderful works. I've missed so many words and stories, but I'm glad to be back in the thick of reading. School takes a lot of my will to read but I just gotta be more diligent, that's all. I love you guys too much not to. It also seems like my poetry lately has been really thrown around. Stream-of-consciousness type deals. I think I like it that way, but I don't particularly like the things that inspire them, but it's no big deal. I'll get over those things.

However, I was complimented today and I'd love to know who sent that in so if you could maybe show yourself I'd be most grateful. Please? It's been a hard last couple o' days, at least me love you.

Onto my third set of love letters, this a list full of people whom I admire, appreciate, and love:

SozoNoTeki-N, Tess, now that I appreciate your art and support as you do mine. You are so skilled and I can't wait to see you improve more as time goes on. In the past few weeks, I can already see it happening and I can't wait for more from you. You're also very, very sweet and I love how much support you show people. I strive for that everyday myself and I love that you seem to as well. Tess, you are a darling and I love you, my friend.

CupofCharlie, Charlie, I admire your writings so much. Your art carries such weight and emotion through its relatability and simplicity that I wish I could duplicate. No one quite writes like you and that's what I love about your creations. They have a very subtle voice but still there as gradual as it may initially appear. And that's just your writing; as a person you are beautiful on the inside and out. I love you, Charlie. You've helped me grow so much as a writer and I thank you. I love you so much.

Tales-of-Tao, Erin, I know you've been hella busy but know that I'm glad we've connected in other places 'cause I've missed you so much, dude! You are such a fun person to talk to and I absolutely love how you write. You can switch between heavy and light-hearted in the blink of an eye and I admire your ability to turn that off and on. It's not a skill everyone has and I love that about you. Plus you're just a really wonderful person and I love you lots.

SeamlessMaiden, Jourdyn, in a short time you've shown that you're going to be a member worth remembering. With your fantastic literature as a whole, the support you show others and you're just seemingly infectious spirit, I look forward to watching you grow even more and I love you!

shep4life, you are like one of the unsung heroes of epicness, Jamey. Truly bro, every time I turn around, there you are commenting being supportive and awesome like you always seem to be. I don't know how you manage it but you do and you're great. Plus your poetry is so smooth and relatable to me, I can always pull something from it that I can deeply appreciate. It's fantastic to read and I love you for who you are and all that you do, man.

hypermagical, I know you're on a bit of a hiatus of sorts, Munira, but I just wanted to let you know you're on my mind, my lovely big lil' sis. I love you so much.

BlackBowfin, Scott, I gotta say I really look up to you and how you conduct yourself here on dA. Always bringing extremely high-quality literature to the table, always so genuine in your comments and replies and from all that I can tell, extremely strong. Keep doing what you're doing, keep your head up, and big bro, don't change. You the man and I love you.

SleentheBeast, bro, you make me think every time we talk. I see a bit of myself in you in some way but I can't exactly place my finger as to why. You challenge me and I appreciate all of it. Your support, your outside-of-the-box musings, all of it I can appreciate and love about you, brother.

A-Shadow-Rose, Ashley, you're on my mind, my friend and I hope that college is treating you well. You are wonderful and so easy to talk to and watching you grow as a writer has been fantastic. I miss you, I miss your words, and I love you.

saltwaterlungs, Hannah, my hella rad friend I thank you for being you. Being so fearless in what you post and being completely and utterly you without hesitation. I love your cool demeanor, your wickedly phenomenal poetry, and just you. I love you so much platonically.

SpriteBlayde, you know how much you mean to me and if you don't, here's a reminder. You are my best friend, my oldest friend and oldest confidant, and a person I know has my back even when I'm being ridiculous and stubborn and just "Ricky." You've grown so much, accomplished so much, support so many people. I admire you and I thank you for putting up with me for so long. I love you so much, Kelsy.

Now that I'm finished with my love letters for this week I want to give a HUGE congratulations to ohellohara for being awarded her second Daily Deviation by the almighty wondrous being that is HugQueen. Thank you Stephany for featuring my friend, Lauren, who is so talented. She is absolutely phenomenal, y'all.

I also want to thank Lissomer for being an angel. We fight together always. Always. No matter what. And check out the deviation she wrote for me that made me weep like a little boy, 'words, wonder.'

And to the feature:
how to tell me my scars are beautiful.leave roses with thorns on my stairwell, the kind
that would entice me when i was fourteen but now
serve as silent irritation—when we eat steak, use
your thinnest, sharpest knife to cleave the meat
into tiny squares and let me watch you wash it
and put it away when you’re done—open your
packages with your trusty pocket knife, peter
pan boy scout, and when i move in, let me
borrow it; don’t question the t-shirts i order
in winter and the sweatshirts i order during the
sweltering heat of summer—when i lay beside you
at night and talk about the state of the universe
that day, nibble on my ear, scratch my arm, slap
my rump until i giggle and push you away, finally
ready to fall into the quiet abyss of dark and sleep<da:thumb id="477998598"/><da:thumb id="480862620"/><da:thumb id="482195876"/> a checkered worldunconventional pawns
cast long shadows,
for the moon quivers
at the arrival of the Queen.
blind knights on vigil,
helmets narrow as the
unnamed portraits resting
in mailboxes of rust.
Death and all his bishops
pray for false salvation. 
miracles are not limbs in paralysis,
but an inheritance of resurrections.<da:thumb id="474971270"/><da:thumb id="482192884"/> smotherher spine was dusk
 and unmade nests,
 but he tried to live there
 anyway;
he was neither nocturnal
 nor a dawn-believer,
 so he suffocated
 in the birdhouse of her ribs.<da:thumb id="482189449"/> reincarnation.i.
The first time, we were
young and quick-witted.
too far from your heart
to even matter.
even if I wanted it to,
so very badly.
ii.
The second time,
(or the first)
we were both very
different
and I was a lot older
but I watched you and thought,
'man I'd tap that.'
and I did.
But you left in the morning.
iii.
The third time,
I was 44 weeks, and my mother's friend said
that you had died
in your mother's womb.
and I cried for hours
and didn't know why.
iv.
The fourth time, I saw you had
posted something online.
I liked the post and
never spoke.
v.
The fifth time,
you were arguing with your girlfriend
I thought
'he's adorable. what a dick though.'
and I went home and felt
sorry.
vi.
The sixth time,
I was a Roman warrior,
and you were a Greek one,
and I noticed you had beautiful eyes
when the light
left them.
vii.
The seventh time,
you were a beautiful young woman
and I a young soldier.
when I left for the war
in Iraq, you smiled at me,
and I didn't come home.
viii.
The eighth time,
you d nicknames.Warm, warm, warm
the rain was warm
it burned against my skin
sweet oblivion;
my heart never beat
till now. write the thing you're terrified to writemy heart is glitching,
so you must pardon me -
I feel empty,
and in the next moment
I am bursting, slipping over the edge
with no time left to scream, and I am
overdosing on air
all I hear is my heartbeat
rushing through my veins
chasing the white rabbit,
never catching up
my heart is filled to the brim
with errors, whimsical and changeable
like the wikipedia page
defining love -
     love,
     what is love?
     my darling, I don't care
     for Eros, so tell me
     what do I feel?
                        Philia?
                        Agape?
                    Confession of a Magpie (Haiku Form)Like you, I have no
sense of self in this endless
starlight, save for glimmering songs. carpe diemwith a quicksilver silver of a smile,
she finally lets go
as the beat of the music
mirrors her pounding heart.
strobe lights and singing teenagers
mix with fog to overwhelm the senses
but she's never felt quite so clear.
she's been ditched by someone she calls a friend and
is hanging with girls who never remember her name,
but it's somehow okay because
it isn't like the night will last longer than
a few hours (and she's gonna be happy,
dammit, because the lights are low and
she can dance without worrying what they'll think.)
people describe eyelashes casting shadows
on cheekbones but really, her night isn't about
those quiet moments at two in the morning,
that she remembers in moments of vulnerability;
her night is about forgetting to be afraid
and learning how to just live. Entropic ForceI chose to unfurl and dance with doubt
And now I’m falling down the rabbit hole
Without wings, not unlike an angel,
I am free to explore the entropy.
The ideological battles of mind versus gut
Strip themselves to fundamentals
And remain undiscovered,
As I remove my eyelids from the deception
I confer with my strange parts
To discover that I am interconnected,
Even when I don’t believe,
With the oblique angle of empty globes.
I am interested in pathological tension,
The violent fantasies that accompany
Silent thought and feigned shame,
But I am not apocalyptic by nature.
The satisfaction of knowing without narrowing
Is necessary for rescue from the the cruel wish
Of the autocratic and their placid plague. XanaduYour smile is warm enough to energize chlorophyll,
the organelles swimming in ecstasy as plants grow strong,
and the sunlight hits through the leaves,
leaving patches on the ground like nature’s cellophane.
Don’t you realize the forest is more vibrant with you,
nursing it to health the same way you mended
the cracks in my heart with cytoplasm
and acted like a cell wall for my soft body.
But when you ripped away from me,
taking the soil under my roots,
the plants shriveled,
falling to the cold
ground. [10]i.
for three and a half years you had
a home in the crevices of my bloodiest organ,
but you didn't pay rent so consider yourself
evicted.
ii.
when people love each other they’re
willing to move mountains to simply see one another—
you won’t even pick up the damn phone.
iii.
you played me like a fiddle and then
broke the bow, but I'm still making sweet melodies
and going farther than you ever dreamed.
iv.
i was young and foolish,
mesmerized by your foreign taste;
you left me cold and curious but
i don't blame you.
v.
good girls are just bad girls
who don’t get caught
vi.
you turned a child into a ghost
left to linger amongst hollow graves,
and then you tried to revive her
with spare change and empty bullshit
but you were too late.
she was already dead.
vii.
how can i spread my wings and fly
when you’re the dead weight at my ankles?
viii.
the first day i saw you the word 'wow’
echoed in my head; you make me see
the world in technicolor hues.
i novago out there
in the early hours.
disturb the stars
in that waiting room sky.
I hope something
other than humanity
can remember these moments
once we are gone;
our white dwarf
existence
and our tiny writhings
that we bother to count
in seconds. you never hear the darkest partlate night quartet singing-strings;
river velvet quartz, marble
and nonchalance
through the fury of the radio
sipping kentucky,
measuring california in an easy sweat
against the unknown; against uphill and downtrodden
greengrass saints hissing blue numbers;
they never seem to know a good thing quiet hours.i unpacked the box of your stuff and laid it out on the bed carefully with a reason that i cant explain
and sat there for hours, and stared at all the keepsakes, letters, pictures, ticket stubs and realised that i
had made a memorial. of something that wasnt really dead, just that time had moved on from.
it was a little pocket of history, and i wished i could just stay here in this suspended moment for a little longer. Blood Regent: FaithfulThe rosary beads were cold on his fingertips. The old bricks of the church smelled of mold, corroded by the decades of winds breezing up from the Loch.
“Oh, my God, I am heartfully sorry for having offended Thee," he began reciting. He rolled the bead along the edge of his finger. The words spilled from his lips, memorized but still genuine. He lifted the stick until the votive candle finally breathed flame.
“- and I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishment, but most of all because I have offended Thee, my God…”
“Garrett,” a voice called from behind him.
“- Who is all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve…”
“Garrett, haven’t you asked enough?”
Garrett felt a hand brush his shoulder. His scar rubbed against the cloth and the feeling was unpleasant. Distant memories clouded his mind much like the skies the day he received the mark. He trembled as if lightning were coursing through him again.<da:thumb id="478377709"/> faintly, stronglywake with one hand tingling, numb
fallen asleep during sleep
pinioning a bottle of ice water
gives mildest of histamine reactions on the forearm
horizontovertical hatching
Red, Green, Blue
return of jelly donut
introduction of sherbet
introduction of instant cold pack
a feeling like endless overnight camp
<da:thumb id="480311380"/> Tundra and the Tideif i am reckless, you are
mad, dancing like brushfire at the flames,
howling pride and praise in the same breath:
see, i am greatness,
but i know my daedric and my norse;
know my ability and my favored soul
this is all i know of you:
we are the same
only in our stripes and spots
boys who cannot look in their reflection and say,
they hate me for my skin
are cowards
boys who think stars guide them
are mad
well, i believe in nothing but the coin in my pocket,
so sing your praises to your empty gods,
i'll be looking at the phosphenes from behind my eyelids
and sing a hymn to the flesh and blood that built them
ain't nowhere to hide from heritage,
ain't no river wide enough to baptize yourself from a bloodline
we head north,
nothingness land of ice and ivory
it coats the tongue of every hunter,
it lines the pockets of every man with a spear and a debt
i fell witness to a sapphire mist,
i saw a silver shore pull us together
something in me says,
"this is what their petty red st As Madness Bears Down Upon MeRoar of ocean to the west
Screech of tinnitus to the east
Dark rumblings to the north
Faint scratchy old songs to the south
Somewhere children sing
At point zero, nothing at all
Save the noise of the city streets
Landlocked in nothingness
With no way to turn for relief
Caught in my own web
Where are the ancient gods?
Who will guide me from this inertia?
If I stare into the sun long enough
The spirit will move me
I will be sanctified<da:thumb id="474720494"/> NorthfieldMy hair is on fire
with a hundred lightning bugs
And there is a verbal hymnal buzz
Audible from the old ghetto blaster
<da:thumb id="474584657"/> Growing (T)oldSpare me the pine. 
I'm dyed. 
the world  disoriented 
(under the lamp-light)
the world  deconstructed
(over stomachs bombed).
Spare me the child. 
dead  in the dirt
(fertile Chernobyl storms) 
dead  in the dorm
(the answers curdle). 
arms on the womb. 
arms on the wound. 
Spare me mine. 
mine  the sale item. 
mine  the 13th shelved soul. 
Spare me the hoax. 
I've already feasted
on their bones.
Spare me the fault. 
of those eyes  iodized. 
those jawlines  table salt.  UntitledCrying rivers of tears
only ever created an ocean
to drown in....
until the dove...
and the sprig of green
named hope-
clutched in her beak. The Devil Has Landed / A Difficult Stock MarketModes which feel themselves, feel others, ultimately cancels itself out in the end,
Has to be prepared to do so at any time.
The conclusion being,
A pure simplification which turns. The same poison with a different colour.
Making a ghost of the girl next to the guy who is labelling,
It is a difficult contrariness, a difficult contrast in contrast to the confused confusion,
A false season.
Of reducing expression, condensing fierce time,
Slapped for the hope, a door’s design flashes on the brick wall,
Frozen by fire, dreaming a new reality, an old redundancy,
Stupidly stupid stupe, a loudly loud low-down, the last poem to think of,
When all those who came before have been washed to the main.
Of a crass base, a loose wonder, of strong, single headaches, thinking of the dirty space.
Similarly complex, blunt, and fiercely razor-fluffy,
Done for different reasons, making use of the refuge of language,
Of the fierily mad rate of change to smoothen to a rough constant, you would do me th fractionalyou live in half-formed thoughts that hunker in my mind
and half-formed words that run for cover
every time i almost find the will to speak.
one half of me believes that i could never
march across this battleground;
the other half is sure that if i did
not even an entire love could heal
the fraction bar that cleaves me at the core.
i've always been improper, i suppose,
so there’s a third half that i cage distrustfully
and only let out late at night
(when its soft growling sounds
suspiciously like purrs).
you see, i can’t allow myself to stroke this beast
that whispers of your warmth
and how your hands must smell of
cinnamon and soap
because i cannot let myself believe
that you and i could ever add up to a whole…
but right now these top-heavy thoughts
can’t put to sleep the hope
that someday you might sum yourself
to all of me. 

And remember y'all, you are all beautiful, amazing, and incredible. Yes, YOU.

_{Now to go get through these feedback messages.}