forrest

i drove by your house at the tally green saw the garage door open the sandalwood between saw the stolen mileage sign pressed against the brick and i knew it was you

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We are living within the bowels of a veritable ouroboros of commodification—a corporate dragon of the highest order, itself filled with thousands upon thousands of little corporate dragons. And with this essay, I aspire to harness the power of punk rock to inspire both you—the reader—and me to slay these beasts.

“Yesterday's faded. Nothing can change it. Life's what you make it”

I was 15 years old when I first heard The Colour of Spring. I even remember where I was and what I was doing the very moment the first track—“Happiness Is Easy”—started playing after I inserted the CD into the disc drive (remember those?) of my Dell something-or-other with one of those fat, black-chassis monitors displaying some sort of low-resolution Final Fantasy wallpaper, no doubt. The year was 2006, and I was at my mom’s house playing Okami for the PlayStation 2, which had been released that same year. Weird association, I know, especially considering the album’s 1986 release date, as you were probably expecting something more along the lines of “I had just finished watching ABC’s afternoon Benson-MacGyver block before I slipped the cassette purchased direct from the local Sam Goody into my stereo system’s tape player.”

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

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    At the core of all things—planets and stars, moons and meteorites, supernovae and comet tails, pulsars and nebulae, flesh and stone, decayed wood and rusted metal, and those once-things long turned to dust; even in always and neverwas, in awareness and sleep, in rainbows and rainclouds too—there is magic; the 183rd element: hecatinium.

Chapter I: I Will Avenge My Predecessor!

Our story begins, like so many stories, in a tavern; there, a bard sits; he recites a poem to the patrons, a poem of suffering and succession; a poem about the legendary Seven Heroes, who once banished a great evil, only to return decades later consumed by the very same evil they once banished; a poem about kingdoms crumbling to dust, then rising once more only to crumble again; of kings and queens falling at the feet of demons, only for their children to take up arms to avenge their gruesome deaths. This is a poem beset by suffering on all sides.

The poem is titled Life—er, Romancing SaGa 2.